Tonight we were going to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. For probably the hundreth time. Blarg. I think the only Christmas movie I've only seen once is "Christmas in Conneticut", and as much as I liked that, I'm not sure I'll be leaping in front of the tv to see it again this year.
However, by snatching the remote and scanning the channels I found something called (and I'm not kidding)....
"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"
It was just as good/bad as the title promised. I think I need a copy for next year, and maybe throw a party for watching it.
Basically, it's 1964 SciFi about how the Martian children are watching our Earth TVs and having learned of Santa Claus and toys, they've become despondent and lifeless, and their leader Kimar (who has two despondent Martian kids) goes to earth to kidnap Santa and bring joy and toys and carols to Mars. There's this bad Martian who thinks toys are evil and will ruin Mars forever, and somehow Kimar lets him go along on the Earth trip with his crew and Voldar nearly puts Santa and some kids out an airlock at one point...
I'm so glad I taped it. It was funny. The dialog was too serious in some points; they'd almost say something like, "It's later than you think." or "It was a dark and stormy night." only they're Martians kidnapping Santa and two earth kids keep thwarting everything on their spaceship, so you can't help laughing along with it.
And now, to make all my wishes come true about having a copy, guess what I just found? Aparently Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is public domain. Hooray! Make your own copy here! And a merry go-conquer-Mars-and-bring-Christmas-to-all!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Doctor Who Fic: Not for all the moons made of mistletoe
I wrote this for a story exchange a little while ago, and of course it belongs to the BBC and Russell T. Davies. Just a little holiday cheer, hope everyone likes it. In case you can't tell, it's the Ninth Doctor.
Rose forgot what day it was.
Time seemed to lose meaning in the TARDIS- one day here, a century or two later there, and then the year five billion. If she stopped to think of it, which she didn't, because of all the adventures and fun and capers, it would remind her of her days at Henrik's when holidays were something important to other people, people who actually had them off.
Saving the universe doesn't have a day off, and if it wasn't for Shireen's text message of Christmas Cheer she'd have forgotten the date. She rolled over in bed, back onto her back after lunging for the superphone on her nightstand, and read the screen again. Wondered if her Mum wanted her home for the holidays, but she hadn't said and they'd only just been there last week. But it had been... She bit her lip, thinking, and raked a hand through her blond locks. It had been November, hadn't it, and Jackie hadn't said a thing about Christmas.
Still feeling numb about the holiday news she stumbled into the console room on her way to the kitchen. The Doctor raised a brow at her long t-shirt and short shorts, and she shrugged, not all that awake in response and handed him her cell phone.
“Christmas, is it?”
“Shireen says so.”
He handed the phone back, and looked down once more, quickly, at her bared legs. “Jack is going to think it's Christmas too.” And he looked like he wanted to bite his tongue at that.
Rose snorted. “I could loan you a pair.”
“Oi!”
But she was already at the door, and yawning again. He shook his head and poked at the controls.
“Think she needs to head home?”
The TARDIS hummed at him, and he shook his head.
“Yeah. Me too.” Another hum, and he snorted, petting the flat surface, fingers delicate and careful. “She'll like it, just don't kill us with tinsel.”
~~
Jack glanced up from his cup of coffee and nearly dropped the mug.
“Don't tell me the Doctor's in a pants stealing mood?”
Rose snorted. “As if.” She glanced at him, color lighting her cheeks. “You'd be starkers then.”
“Glad you noticed.” He preened, setting the coffee down next to his wrist comm and the newspaper he'd got somewhere. Of course, he'd put pajama bottoms on just for them. “What's with the frown?”
“Didn't realize it was Christmas.” She leaned up on the counter, pulling cereal boxes from a cabinet. Jack pretended not to watch, then went back to his newspaper with a grin on his face when she turned around, munching quietly. Rose wasn't much of a lady until she'd woken up, which was several cups of tea away at least. Jack liked it like this in the morning, the ease of it. Of course, it'd taken a few life or death, hoof it to the TARDIS at the last second adventures to get them all to this point, but getting shot at was worth it for this.
“Is it?” He asked, glancing to his wrist comm.
“Shireen says so.”
“Jackie want you home?”
Rose frowned. “She didn't say.” She munched for a bit. “They still do Christmas in the 51st?”
Jack shrugged, keeping his back to her. “Well. In some places. Buddha is still really popular, and you wouldn't believe some of the FSM-mas Festivals I've been to.” Rose's crunching came to a halt, and Jack lifted his coffee to his mouth to keep from laughing.
“You're having me on, right?”
Jack shrugged, still not turning to look and ruin the joke. “There's always the Mistletoe Harvest on the moons of the Boeshane.” This time he did turn and look. He winked. “Always mistletoe overhead there. Maybe we should go and visit?”
Rose was still staring at him like she couldn't sort the fact from fiction when the Doctor appeared in the doorway.
“Go and visit what?”
“Jack says there's a moon made of mistletoe.”
The Doctor looked at him, and Jack got busy looking at his wrist comm. “Sure you don't want to visit Jackie?”
“I think she's got plans. Or something.” Rose shrugged, and looked to the floor. “I haven't heard, actually.”
“What about us? We can't have plans?” He gestured to the walls of the ship. “The TARDIS is doing an 'As you wish' number on the main room, by the way. Thanks to Shireen.” Rose blinked at the sarcasm.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“...Are there presents?” Jack asked, and both of them turned to look at him. He shrugged defensively. “What? Everyone loves presents. I love presents.”
They wind up in front of the console, which has somehow taken on the aspect of a fir tree, with all the console lights mixing in with the fairy lights of the tree, and there's garland and tinsel wrapped through everything, dangling from the holes in the struts and winding under the floor grates. The Doctor huffs and pretends the smile on Rose's face isn't worth all the mess and the tinsel he's still going to be finding ten years from now.
“I don't see any presents.” Jack points out, like a child. Rose and the Doctor stare at him.
“Isn't it enough we're all here?” The Doctor demands, and pretends he's not putting his arms around their shoulders, and that they're both not snuggling against him. Rose is bad enough, but they're both warm and soft and there for him and it's hard to keep his game face on because he likes this so much.
“Yeah, Jack. All three of us.”
One of Jack's hands makes it to her back, petting through the thin cotton. “Well. Yeah. But presents-”
Her cell goes off, and Rose pulls away to read the screen. The boys watch her light up.
“Mum wants us home for Christmas dinner at six.” She tells them.
“I'll drop you off then.” And the Time Lord goes to set the controls, missing the look on her face.
“I said 'us'.”
The Doctor blinks. “Er. Us?”
“All of us. Family dinner, you know.”
Now he has to pretend he's not all warm on the inside too.
Rose forgot what day it was.
Time seemed to lose meaning in the TARDIS- one day here, a century or two later there, and then the year five billion. If she stopped to think of it, which she didn't, because of all the adventures and fun and capers, it would remind her of her days at Henrik's when holidays were something important to other people, people who actually had them off.
Saving the universe doesn't have a day off, and if it wasn't for Shireen's text message of Christmas Cheer she'd have forgotten the date. She rolled over in bed, back onto her back after lunging for the superphone on her nightstand, and read the screen again. Wondered if her Mum wanted her home for the holidays, but she hadn't said and they'd only just been there last week. But it had been... She bit her lip, thinking, and raked a hand through her blond locks. It had been November, hadn't it, and Jackie hadn't said a thing about Christmas.
Still feeling numb about the holiday news she stumbled into the console room on her way to the kitchen. The Doctor raised a brow at her long t-shirt and short shorts, and she shrugged, not all that awake in response and handed him her cell phone.
“Christmas, is it?”
“Shireen says so.”
He handed the phone back, and looked down once more, quickly, at her bared legs. “Jack is going to think it's Christmas too.” And he looked like he wanted to bite his tongue at that.
Rose snorted. “I could loan you a pair.”
“Oi!”
But she was already at the door, and yawning again. He shook his head and poked at the controls.
“Think she needs to head home?”
The TARDIS hummed at him, and he shook his head.
“Yeah. Me too.” Another hum, and he snorted, petting the flat surface, fingers delicate and careful. “She'll like it, just don't kill us with tinsel.”
~~
Jack glanced up from his cup of coffee and nearly dropped the mug.
“Don't tell me the Doctor's in a pants stealing mood?”
Rose snorted. “As if.” She glanced at him, color lighting her cheeks. “You'd be starkers then.”
“Glad you noticed.” He preened, setting the coffee down next to his wrist comm and the newspaper he'd got somewhere. Of course, he'd put pajama bottoms on just for them. “What's with the frown?”
“Didn't realize it was Christmas.” She leaned up on the counter, pulling cereal boxes from a cabinet. Jack pretended not to watch, then went back to his newspaper with a grin on his face when she turned around, munching quietly. Rose wasn't much of a lady until she'd woken up, which was several cups of tea away at least. Jack liked it like this in the morning, the ease of it. Of course, it'd taken a few life or death, hoof it to the TARDIS at the last second adventures to get them all to this point, but getting shot at was worth it for this.
“Is it?” He asked, glancing to his wrist comm.
“Shireen says so.”
“Jackie want you home?”
Rose frowned. “She didn't say.” She munched for a bit. “They still do Christmas in the 51st?”
Jack shrugged, keeping his back to her. “Well. In some places. Buddha is still really popular, and you wouldn't believe some of the FSM-mas Festivals I've been to.” Rose's crunching came to a halt, and Jack lifted his coffee to his mouth to keep from laughing.
“You're having me on, right?”
Jack shrugged, still not turning to look and ruin the joke. “There's always the Mistletoe Harvest on the moons of the Boeshane.” This time he did turn and look. He winked. “Always mistletoe overhead there. Maybe we should go and visit?”
Rose was still staring at him like she couldn't sort the fact from fiction when the Doctor appeared in the doorway.
“Go and visit what?”
“Jack says there's a moon made of mistletoe.”
The Doctor looked at him, and Jack got busy looking at his wrist comm. “Sure you don't want to visit Jackie?”
“I think she's got plans. Or something.” Rose shrugged, and looked to the floor. “I haven't heard, actually.”
“What about us? We can't have plans?” He gestured to the walls of the ship. “The TARDIS is doing an 'As you wish' number on the main room, by the way. Thanks to Shireen.” Rose blinked at the sarcasm.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“...Are there presents?” Jack asked, and both of them turned to look at him. He shrugged defensively. “What? Everyone loves presents. I love presents.”
They wind up in front of the console, which has somehow taken on the aspect of a fir tree, with all the console lights mixing in with the fairy lights of the tree, and there's garland and tinsel wrapped through everything, dangling from the holes in the struts and winding under the floor grates. The Doctor huffs and pretends the smile on Rose's face isn't worth all the mess and the tinsel he's still going to be finding ten years from now.
“I don't see any presents.” Jack points out, like a child. Rose and the Doctor stare at him.
“Isn't it enough we're all here?” The Doctor demands, and pretends he's not putting his arms around their shoulders, and that they're both not snuggling against him. Rose is bad enough, but they're both warm and soft and there for him and it's hard to keep his game face on because he likes this so much.
“Yeah, Jack. All three of us.”
One of Jack's hands makes it to her back, petting through the thin cotton. “Well. Yeah. But presents-”
Her cell goes off, and Rose pulls away to read the screen. The boys watch her light up.
“Mum wants us home for Christmas dinner at six.” She tells them.
“I'll drop you off then.” And the Time Lord goes to set the controls, missing the look on her face.
“I said 'us'.”
The Doctor blinks. “Er. Us?”
“All of us. Family dinner, you know.”
Now he has to pretend he's not all warm on the inside too.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Ideas
It's funny, for a long time in my teens I thought, with some desperation, my writing days were over. I was on Ritalin for a while, and when I quit taking it nothing would come to me. It was like that for a year, where I'd stare at a white piece of paper and nothing would come to me. I'd read books and want to write something, only there weren't any ideas. Nothing. It was like that quote about how there's a thousand ideas for writing something around all of us everyday, and the lucky writers are the ones that see five of six of them.
And I guess the non-writers see nothing. It was like that. Nothing creative, for a year. Eventually I got better and it came back to me, but there were times where I'd come up with a new idea every twenty pages of what I was writing, and I finished nothing in my haste to get to the next idea. I'd go through a pack or two of lined paper a week, because I wrote everything long hand then. Back then I'd never have believed the idea of me working on one novel for more than a year. I'd either be done with it, or moved on to something else, and Rome still commands my attention and will for a while considering my college enforced pace.
I was mucking about on Wikipedia the other night trying to pin down exactly what kind of SciFi I'd been thinking about the last few weeks, and under steampunk there were five or six other genres that came out of it or went into it, and it was funny because I hadn't really seen genre charted on Wiki before. I mean, there's everything, so it's not really a surprise. So, steampunk, retro-futurism, raygun gothic.
(seriously, don't we all want to write something we can call "raygun gothic"? that's got to be one of the best genre names ever)
And of course I got a new idea for a story, and it just makes me so happy to do that that I just wanted to blog about it. It's always the random stuff that gives you the ideas. Anyway, I have to finish writing a Doctor Who story for a contest before I can really start doing steampunk lit, but just the idea of it. Rayguns and Victorian corsetry yay!
And I guess the non-writers see nothing. It was like that. Nothing creative, for a year. Eventually I got better and it came back to me, but there were times where I'd come up with a new idea every twenty pages of what I was writing, and I finished nothing in my haste to get to the next idea. I'd go through a pack or two of lined paper a week, because I wrote everything long hand then. Back then I'd never have believed the idea of me working on one novel for more than a year. I'd either be done with it, or moved on to something else, and Rome still commands my attention and will for a while considering my college enforced pace.
I was mucking about on Wikipedia the other night trying to pin down exactly what kind of SciFi I'd been thinking about the last few weeks, and under steampunk there were five or six other genres that came out of it or went into it, and it was funny because I hadn't really seen genre charted on Wiki before. I mean, there's everything, so it's not really a surprise. So, steampunk, retro-futurism, raygun gothic.
(seriously, don't we all want to write something we can call "raygun gothic"? that's got to be one of the best genre names ever)
And of course I got a new idea for a story, and it just makes me so happy to do that that I just wanted to blog about it. It's always the random stuff that gives you the ideas. Anyway, I have to finish writing a Doctor Who story for a contest before I can really start doing steampunk lit, but just the idea of it. Rayguns and Victorian corsetry yay!
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
This Week's Cole Porter
A few weeks ago if I had to pick a favorite Cole Porter song and singer I'd have gone with John Barrowman doing "It's alright with me".
This week I'm gonna go with Ella Fitzgerald singing "Let's do it (let's fall in love)" from the second cd of her Cole Porter songbook. It's a bit more than eight minutes long and she really does something clever with the pacing.
This week I'm gonna go with Ella Fitzgerald singing "Let's do it (let's fall in love)" from the second cd of her Cole Porter songbook. It's a bit more than eight minutes long and she really does something clever with the pacing.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Rec-ing Ball: Torchwood "Slow Decay" Novel
I've had a fair amount of fandoms over the years, starting with Forever Knight and those long summers in Florida where I discovered mailing lists and fansites. It's funny when you didn't think there was anything out there like that; people who wanted to exchange thirty emails about why someone in some show did something. Mailing lists are kind of dying out for fandom, replaced by forums and livejournal comms, so far as I can tell; I still remember when I'd check my old Juno account and have the box full with altered song lyrics and sub requests for fanzines. Hell, I still remember the cost of fanzines.
Torchwood and Doctor Who novels aren't quite as expensive as fanzines, but they're up there, and the ones I keep reading are good, which puts them in the category of Kinder Chocolate. Guilty pleasures, and addictive ones. Thank god for Borders sending me coupons every week.
I'm still in deep fandom love with the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack, so the first Doctor Who novel I picked up had all three of them in it. Jack's a hoot in it, and so is the caveman, and while it's not classic literature it's one of the better tie-in novels I've ever read. In fact, all the tie-in novels I've read/perused for Doctor Who and Torchwood have been pretty awesome. You can read the whole thing in one sitting, which I guess makes it less like the aforementioned German chocolate and more like a carton of chocolate ice cream. You get to the end and you're wondering where the whole book went. I read all of Only Human on the flight back from Vegas, with all the other passengers around me asleep, so I spent some time trying not to giggle too loudly.
Read Monsters Inside all in one sitting too, and then when I was watching the "Boom Town" episode of season one of Doctor Who I was amused to hear it mentioned in passing. It's less giddy than "Only Human", but still good. Maybe not carton of ice cream good, or maybe not chocolate flavor. And no Jack, despite where I'm guessing it goes in continuity.
There's a gap between "The Doctor Dances" and "Boom Town". At the end of the first one they've just rescued Jack and the Doctor doesn't trust him, and by the time the next episode starts Jack is one of the team. He's allowed to tinker with the TARDIS, left on his own in there with no fear of him hieing off with the time machine, and the Doctor and Rose are amused enough with his flirting that he flirts with both of them, without any censure, but in the previous episode the Doctor didn't appear to trust him any farther than he could throw him. It made me wonder how many adventures were in between one episode and the next... Unless it's a reality tv show, I don't really think any show has a lot of one episode ending and the next starting immediately, except maybe in the case of 24. I figure the episode ratio is something like, that one really exciting day of the week for the characters, or that one day a month where it all really just goes to hell. What shows on the tv is the highlights, and leaves out all the other stuff. In any case, "Boom Town" references the adventure Rose and the Doctor go on in the "Monsters Inside" novel, sans Jack. Made me wonder where he was at during the novel.
Anyway, back to Torchwood and "Slow Decay". Even if you don't like Torchwood, or know anything about it, you might like it. You might just like the writing. Which is really, really good. It's so good, against all the tie-ins I've ever read, it almost needs to not be a tie-in novel. And I wish the author would just write something else fictional, because he's got skills. God given skills. Raining fire skills. Jack's dialog is just inane enough to make you question why the whole show isn't just him talking about things, the whole forty-five minutes of the show. And the aliens in the book are just icky enough for you to really understand why there really needs to be a Torchwood. It's all fun and games when it's Weevils and alien empathy machines, until something comes along that's the proverbial poking the eyeball out.
Andy Lane, if you can hear me, write something else. I don't care if it's Torchwood, though that'd be nice, or if it's something with the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack in it from that convenient gap in the episodes. Hell. Re-write the phone book. I'll read it.
This is just a part where Jack and Gwen were having a chat on the roof top at the beginning of the book:
"Where can I get a coat like that?" She asked.
"You have to earn it." Captain Jack Harkness said without turning around. "It's a badge of office. Like bowler hats in the Civil Service."
"They don't still wear bowler hats in the Civil Service." She replied scornfully. "That went out back in the 1950s along with tea trolleys and waistcoats. And I speak as someone who worked alongside loads of Civil Servants when I was in the police force." She caught herself. "I mean, when I was *really* in the police force, not just *telling* people I'm in the police force to avoid having to tell them that I hunt down alien technology for a living."
"I bet they still wear them." Jack said. The wind ruffled his hair like a playful hand. "I bet when all the Civil Servants arrive in their offices in the morning they lock the doors, unlock their desks and take out their ceremonial bowler hats to wear where nobody else can see them. Like a kind of administrative Klu Klux Klan."
"Have you got some kind of downer on the Civil Service?"
He still didn't turn around. "In an infinite universe," He said. "there are undoubtedly planets out there where the entire population has grey skin, wears grey clothes and thinks grey thoughts. I guess the universe needs planets like that, but I sure as hell don't want to have to visit them. I prefer the thought that there's a planet of Civil Servants then there's also a planet where everyone has an organic TV set built into their back, and you can just follow people down the street watching daytime tv to your heart's content."
And that's just from the first two pages! And he uses "whilst" several times in the book too. Of course, Jack wears a waistcoat in one of the later episodes, so that shows what Gwen knows about awesome men's clothing going out of style.
Read it. Read. It.
Torchwood and Doctor Who novels aren't quite as expensive as fanzines, but they're up there, and the ones I keep reading are good, which puts them in the category of Kinder Chocolate. Guilty pleasures, and addictive ones. Thank god for Borders sending me coupons every week.
I'm still in deep fandom love with the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack, so the first Doctor Who novel I picked up had all three of them in it. Jack's a hoot in it, and so is the caveman, and while it's not classic literature it's one of the better tie-in novels I've ever read. In fact, all the tie-in novels I've read/perused for Doctor Who and Torchwood have been pretty awesome. You can read the whole thing in one sitting, which I guess makes it less like the aforementioned German chocolate and more like a carton of chocolate ice cream. You get to the end and you're wondering where the whole book went. I read all of Only Human on the flight back from Vegas, with all the other passengers around me asleep, so I spent some time trying not to giggle too loudly.
Read Monsters Inside all in one sitting too, and then when I was watching the "Boom Town" episode of season one of Doctor Who I was amused to hear it mentioned in passing. It's less giddy than "Only Human", but still good. Maybe not carton of ice cream good, or maybe not chocolate flavor. And no Jack, despite where I'm guessing it goes in continuity.
There's a gap between "The Doctor Dances" and "Boom Town". At the end of the first one they've just rescued Jack and the Doctor doesn't trust him, and by the time the next episode starts Jack is one of the team. He's allowed to tinker with the TARDIS, left on his own in there with no fear of him hieing off with the time machine, and the Doctor and Rose are amused enough with his flirting that he flirts with both of them, without any censure, but in the previous episode the Doctor didn't appear to trust him any farther than he could throw him. It made me wonder how many adventures were in between one episode and the next... Unless it's a reality tv show, I don't really think any show has a lot of one episode ending and the next starting immediately, except maybe in the case of 24. I figure the episode ratio is something like, that one really exciting day of the week for the characters, or that one day a month where it all really just goes to hell. What shows on the tv is the highlights, and leaves out all the other stuff. In any case, "Boom Town" references the adventure Rose and the Doctor go on in the "Monsters Inside" novel, sans Jack. Made me wonder where he was at during the novel.
Anyway, back to Torchwood and "Slow Decay". Even if you don't like Torchwood, or know anything about it, you might like it. You might just like the writing. Which is really, really good. It's so good, against all the tie-ins I've ever read, it almost needs to not be a tie-in novel. And I wish the author would just write something else fictional, because he's got skills. God given skills. Raining fire skills. Jack's dialog is just inane enough to make you question why the whole show isn't just him talking about things, the whole forty-five minutes of the show. And the aliens in the book are just icky enough for you to really understand why there really needs to be a Torchwood. It's all fun and games when it's Weevils and alien empathy machines, until something comes along that's the proverbial poking the eyeball out.
Andy Lane, if you can hear me, write something else. I don't care if it's Torchwood, though that'd be nice, or if it's something with the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack in it from that convenient gap in the episodes. Hell. Re-write the phone book. I'll read it.
This is just a part where Jack and Gwen were having a chat on the roof top at the beginning of the book:
"Where can I get a coat like that?" She asked.
"You have to earn it." Captain Jack Harkness said without turning around. "It's a badge of office. Like bowler hats in the Civil Service."
"They don't still wear bowler hats in the Civil Service." She replied scornfully. "That went out back in the 1950s along with tea trolleys and waistcoats. And I speak as someone who worked alongside loads of Civil Servants when I was in the police force." She caught herself. "I mean, when I was *really* in the police force, not just *telling* people I'm in the police force to avoid having to tell them that I hunt down alien technology for a living."
"I bet they still wear them." Jack said. The wind ruffled his hair like a playful hand. "I bet when all the Civil Servants arrive in their offices in the morning they lock the doors, unlock their desks and take out their ceremonial bowler hats to wear where nobody else can see them. Like a kind of administrative Klu Klux Klan."
"Have you got some kind of downer on the Civil Service?"
He still didn't turn around. "In an infinite universe," He said. "there are undoubtedly planets out there where the entire population has grey skin, wears grey clothes and thinks grey thoughts. I guess the universe needs planets like that, but I sure as hell don't want to have to visit them. I prefer the thought that there's a planet of Civil Servants then there's also a planet where everyone has an organic TV set built into their back, and you can just follow people down the street watching daytime tv to your heart's content."
And that's just from the first two pages! And he uses "whilst" several times in the book too. Of course, Jack wears a waistcoat in one of the later episodes, so that shows what Gwen knows about awesome men's clothing going out of style.
Read it. Read. It.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
I'm Thankful For...
Apple pie, coffee, Charles, Cliff, Tanith Lee, Louise Cooper, Batman, Brita Filters, cell phones, pocket knives, Legos, dark chocolate, fishnets, Death Valley, Mom and Dad, Kitten, Doctor Who, John Barrowman, sliced deli turkey, salt flats, La Femme Nikita, Allison, NaNoWriMo, fanfiction, Star Wars, string cheese, oatmeal, Irish Cream, Joss Whedon, french fries, college ruled paper, my iPod, White Wolf, capes, pea coats, fuzzy slippers, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Ray Bradbury Theater, Have Gun Will Travel, Australian meat pies, perogies, ravioli, Greek Mythology, Pyramids, Mac and Cheese, constellations, Old Time Radio, Cole Porter, Oreos, Bailey, Wikipedia, The BBC, Law and Order, CSI, blogs, Kevin, stamps, Irish accents, English accents, the Roman Empire, Shakespeare, books, pound cake, fudge, fuji apples, honeycrisp apples, Aerosmith, Flogging Molly, inflatable beds, tents, fire, electric blankets, butter, Ryan Reynolds, Billie Piper, very rare steak, Highlander, Balthasar Gracian, vitamins, hot chocolate with marshmallows, grilled onions, Hard Lemonade, Jello, Henley shirts, sneakers, high heels, rain coats, flip flops, fish tank filters, water heaters, swimming pools, chocolate malt shakes, cream of mushroom soup, french onion soup, pancakes, DVDs, octopus clips, plaid skirts, boots, peanut butter, granola, hash browns, Nigel Bennett, swords, Peter Wingfield, Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack Harkness, Methos, Wolverine, candy canes, Pocky, Roast Beef Ramen, Creamy Chicken Ramen, Frosties, cappuchino, H. P. Lovecraft, David Boreanaz, Reece's Cups, dogs, car wax, and zip drives.
For all the other things and people I'm thankful for that I couldn't immediately think of, thank you too. Life wouldn't be the same without you.
For all the other things and people I'm thankful for that I couldn't immediately think of, thank you too. Life wouldn't be the same without you.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
John Barrowman's Another Side
John's new CD premiered about a week ago in the UK. You can get it on Amazon, but be prepared to pay for it. Possibly with severed limbs and kidneys.
That said, the CD is good. Really good. Especially if you like to sing along. John sings really well and I'm not sure if he was going for a theme here, or what, but I swear it's almost every song we've all ever sung in the car or shower. And in the case of "All By Myself" sung badly.
If it was titled "John Barrowman's Ultimate Sing Along" it wouldn't be inaccurate.
First, we have "All out of Love", which he manages to sound very sweet in. Then "You're so Vain" which I saw on the youtube clip when he was on the National Lottery. I like it a lot better on the CD, because the video dancers in the background were way out of sync and the studio recording sounds so much better. I have nothing to say about "She's Always a Woman to Me" and "Your Song". "Time After Time" sounds completely different from every other cover of the song I've ever heard, which I have to give him major kudos for. "Everything She Does is Magic" is preposterously good. I've almost started singing along in public in time with my iPod, and I'm going to pretend I didn't do some goofy footwork dance move on the stairs. Thankfully no one was watching. But John can dance too! He sang the song on Strictly Come Dancing the other night, which I think is sort of like Dancing with the Stars. "If You Leave Me Now" is cute, and very seventies sounding. And "Heaven" (which it took me a moment to recognize, since it sounds similar to his cover of "Time After Time") startled me. It was one of those club anthems a few years ago, when it seemed a new remix of it was playing on the radio at least once a week. Part of me wants a techno remix of his version, honestly.
However, prize of the whole album is his cover of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good". I had to listen to Nina sing it this morning and Michael Buble too, to catch everything about it. "Feeling Good" is one of those songs I don't think I've ever heard covered well enough that I thought it stood up in awesomeness next to the original. I've never watched Six Feet Under but I love their commercial featuring the song. Makes me wish I could skate. Nina is a hard one to top, simply because I think she's so incredibly sultry at it, and it's a sultry song. Even the background music sounds sultry. It's perfect. And that makes all the covers automatically fail somehow. Michael Buble sounds like too much of a good boy to really carry it off, even if the instruments seem to get it more than he does in some places. Up until the first "And I'm Feeling Good" he sounds like he has no business singing it, and then all the sudden the trumpets start up and he suddenly sounds like the cat that got the canary. Unfortunately by the time he's almost about to sing that line again, he's back to good. The trumpets carry the rest of the song, really, and I know I'm nitpicking about his tone; he does a good job with it regardless, especially at the end when he gets passionate sounding and his voice frays.
John starts the song off sounding lovelorn, which is brilliant. And by the time he's gotten to the first "good" he's worked himself into a raspy tone. He doesn't sound as sultry as Nina, but I've pretty much given up on anyone ever matching her in that category. He sounds really, really good, and I don't know much about acoustics but it sounds like where-ever he's singing is big and empty because there's a slight echo of his voice. Somehow that really works. He ends it well too; he carries "feeling" only slightly longer than I can, and spends the last minute of the song rasping the lines in a very sultry way. What I was disappointed by was the band the put him with. There's not one trumpet. A lot of strings, which do this clever shivery thing, and some cellos, and a piano. No trumpets.
Now, if someone out there had clever music software and could put John's voice with Michael's background music, then we might have a real challenger to the awesomeness of Nina.
On a non-musical note, his cover picture is to die for.
That said, the CD is good. Really good. Especially if you like to sing along. John sings really well and I'm not sure if he was going for a theme here, or what, but I swear it's almost every song we've all ever sung in the car or shower. And in the case of "All By Myself" sung badly.
If it was titled "John Barrowman's Ultimate Sing Along" it wouldn't be inaccurate.
First, we have "All out of Love", which he manages to sound very sweet in. Then "You're so Vain" which I saw on the youtube clip when he was on the National Lottery. I like it a lot better on the CD, because the video dancers in the background were way out of sync and the studio recording sounds so much better. I have nothing to say about "She's Always a Woman to Me" and "Your Song". "Time After Time" sounds completely different from every other cover of the song I've ever heard, which I have to give him major kudos for. "Everything She Does is Magic" is preposterously good. I've almost started singing along in public in time with my iPod, and I'm going to pretend I didn't do some goofy footwork dance move on the stairs. Thankfully no one was watching. But John can dance too! He sang the song on Strictly Come Dancing the other night, which I think is sort of like Dancing with the Stars. "If You Leave Me Now" is cute, and very seventies sounding. And "Heaven" (which it took me a moment to recognize, since it sounds similar to his cover of "Time After Time") startled me. It was one of those club anthems a few years ago, when it seemed a new remix of it was playing on the radio at least once a week. Part of me wants a techno remix of his version, honestly.
However, prize of the whole album is his cover of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good". I had to listen to Nina sing it this morning and Michael Buble too, to catch everything about it. "Feeling Good" is one of those songs I don't think I've ever heard covered well enough that I thought it stood up in awesomeness next to the original. I've never watched Six Feet Under but I love their commercial featuring the song. Makes me wish I could skate. Nina is a hard one to top, simply because I think she's so incredibly sultry at it, and it's a sultry song. Even the background music sounds sultry. It's perfect. And that makes all the covers automatically fail somehow. Michael Buble sounds like too much of a good boy to really carry it off, even if the instruments seem to get it more than he does in some places. Up until the first "And I'm Feeling Good" he sounds like he has no business singing it, and then all the sudden the trumpets start up and he suddenly sounds like the cat that got the canary. Unfortunately by the time he's almost about to sing that line again, he's back to good. The trumpets carry the rest of the song, really, and I know I'm nitpicking about his tone; he does a good job with it regardless, especially at the end when he gets passionate sounding and his voice frays.
John starts the song off sounding lovelorn, which is brilliant. And by the time he's gotten to the first "good" he's worked himself into a raspy tone. He doesn't sound as sultry as Nina, but I've pretty much given up on anyone ever matching her in that category. He sounds really, really good, and I don't know much about acoustics but it sounds like where-ever he's singing is big and empty because there's a slight echo of his voice. Somehow that really works. He ends it well too; he carries "feeling" only slightly longer than I can, and spends the last minute of the song rasping the lines in a very sultry way. What I was disappointed by was the band the put him with. There's not one trumpet. A lot of strings, which do this clever shivery thing, and some cellos, and a piano. No trumpets.
Now, if someone out there had clever music software and could put John's voice with Michael's background music, then we might have a real challenger to the awesomeness of Nina.
On a non-musical note, his cover picture is to die for.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Nanowrimo
Also, I added a link to the right so you can see my nanowrimo account. There's an excerpt there, and you can see what my wordcount is with all sorts of clever graphics and charts and stuff.
Bed Hog
It's a huge picture. You should click on it to see how panoramic it really is.
I woke up this morning not because the alarm went off, or it was time to wake up, but because my leg was cramping up from being folded too long. The dog had gotten into bed with me at some point and decided to remind me it's really her bed, and she just lets me sleep in it. It's hard to tell in the picture since I cropped it so close, but the far right is where I was sleeping, which amounted to about a foot of space (the bunched covers on that side make it look like there's more room, but there isn't), and just above her head is where my other knee was at, since my leg was jack-knifed to make room for her.
Look at her. She can't even really bother to wake up enough to look at the camera.
Isn't she cute?
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Not So Whispered Words
It's hard not to eavesdrop on the cafeteria porch when the person at the table next to you is loudly spilling all their intimate secrets to crowd of interested buddies. Sometimes it feels like it's even harder not to join in and say something. I grabbed a corn dog from the Krystal while I was going over the last three acts of King John, and listened to a tale of... well, not romantic woe, I guess, but I'm not sure what else to say it was.
Apparently, this guy took his girlfriend to a party, and he wound up sleeping with another girl at the party, and his girlfriend walked in on them. She's "acting like a total bitch about the whole thing" and won't give him a definite yes or no answer if they're still going to a concert next week.
His guy friends chimed in with sympathy as to how women are completely insane, irrational, and take offense at *nothing*.
Apparently, this guy took his girlfriend to a party, and he wound up sleeping with another girl at the party, and his girlfriend walked in on them. She's "acting like a total bitch about the whole thing" and won't give him a definite yes or no answer if they're still going to a concert next week.
His guy friends chimed in with sympathy as to how women are completely insane, irrational, and take offense at *nothing*.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Interaction
I had a run in with one of my classmates today, tied in to a run in we had a week or two ago. He sits across from me in America to 1890, reasonably good looking, nice smile. Not much upstairs but that only becomes apparent durring group excersizes where we'll divy up tasks and five mintues from the end of class he'll decide he wants to do something else and hamstring us all.
Previously I ran into him in the parking garage as I was putting my iPod headphones on and he gave me a lecture about how are people supposed to talk to me with that thing on, and by the way was I scared about the drought. He made the word "drought" sound the way winter weathermen here say "blizzard" when there are flurries. I told him I didn't think much about wearing my iPod all the time, since I liked it, and that I wasn't scared of the drought because the government will probably arrange to buy water from somewhere else, or we could build a desalination plant on the coast and pipe fresh water in. He seemed startled there were solutions, and stalked off.
Today I didn't have my iPod on when I came to class because I'd been on the phone with a friend at the newspaper, and he smiled and waved like he usualy does because we sit across from eachother at the same table. I waved back, and got on with class. After class he lurked at the table, waiting for me to pack my bag, then closely followed me out into the hall.
"So, you said you lost your iPod?" He asked.
I said no, a little startled.
"But you're not listening to it."
I left my headphones in the car, I replied with a smirk. He laughed.
And then he grabbed my arm, just above the elbow, forcing me to stop in the middle of the hall, people rushing past and bashing into us.
"Well, at least you're not dissregarding everything around you for once."
And then he took off in the opposite direction.
I have to think that it's a good thing I cut my hair a few months ago, otherwise one of my pigtails might wind up in his ink well.
Previously I ran into him in the parking garage as I was putting my iPod headphones on and he gave me a lecture about how are people supposed to talk to me with that thing on, and by the way was I scared about the drought. He made the word "drought" sound the way winter weathermen here say "blizzard" when there are flurries. I told him I didn't think much about wearing my iPod all the time, since I liked it, and that I wasn't scared of the drought because the government will probably arrange to buy water from somewhere else, or we could build a desalination plant on the coast and pipe fresh water in. He seemed startled there were solutions, and stalked off.
Today I didn't have my iPod on when I came to class because I'd been on the phone with a friend at the newspaper, and he smiled and waved like he usualy does because we sit across from eachother at the same table. I waved back, and got on with class. After class he lurked at the table, waiting for me to pack my bag, then closely followed me out into the hall.
"So, you said you lost your iPod?" He asked.
I said no, a little startled.
"But you're not listening to it."
I left my headphones in the car, I replied with a smirk. He laughed.
And then he grabbed my arm, just above the elbow, forcing me to stop in the middle of the hall, people rushing past and bashing into us.
"Well, at least you're not dissregarding everything around you for once."
And then he took off in the opposite direction.
I have to think that it's a good thing I cut my hair a few months ago, otherwise one of my pigtails might wind up in his ink well.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
ETA 8 Days
Gah. Nanowrimo is right around the corner, and I'm wondering exactly how I'm going to pull it off this year.
College is slaughtering my time, not with homework, but with reading assignments. One of my classes generally requires about six chapters of reading a week, and I'm determined that school isn't going to be affected by my writing... Hrr. Time management, I guess, and I've got a huge project due in December.
We had a meetup last Friday at the Varsity and it was awesome. I got to meet a new WriMo, and see an old one, and Allison was a ball and a half even though she was sick. She's such a good sport about everything. Looks like we'll be hitting the Art Station and possibly the Woodstock Coffeehouse this year for Write-Ins again.
One of the fun things about the Nanowrimo forums, besides letting all of us chat about writerly and non-writerly things, is the astounding things people will put in their signatures. Blog links, offten, sometimes art for their novel, mostly quotes. There's one from a few years ago I can't seem to find or recall well enough for google to help me find it, something about writing sometimes being like raining fire... Hrr. But I happened across a couple of good quotes today, thought I'd share.
"Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else."
~Tennessee Williams
“Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds”
~Douglas Adams
"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard."
~Neil Gaiman
College is slaughtering my time, not with homework, but with reading assignments. One of my classes generally requires about six chapters of reading a week, and I'm determined that school isn't going to be affected by my writing... Hrr. Time management, I guess, and I've got a huge project due in December.
We had a meetup last Friday at the Varsity and it was awesome. I got to meet a new WriMo, and see an old one, and Allison was a ball and a half even though she was sick. She's such a good sport about everything. Looks like we'll be hitting the Art Station and possibly the Woodstock Coffeehouse this year for Write-Ins again.
One of the fun things about the Nanowrimo forums, besides letting all of us chat about writerly and non-writerly things, is the astounding things people will put in their signatures. Blog links, offten, sometimes art for their novel, mostly quotes. There's one from a few years ago I can't seem to find or recall well enough for google to help me find it, something about writing sometimes being like raining fire... Hrr. But I happened across a couple of good quotes today, thought I'd share.
"Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else."
~Tennessee Williams
“Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds”
~Douglas Adams
"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard."
~Neil Gaiman
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Night and Day, Day and Night
I've been on a Cole Porter kick for about two weeks now. It turns out John Barrowman, Tochwood's Captain Jack Harkness (squeeee), has a singing voice. Boy, oh boy, does he have a singing voice, and a penchant for the classics. One thing led to another and suddenly all those classic songs that I hadn't realized were by the same writer were, and I wanted to listen to all of them.
While I was doing my math homework this evening Mom was watching the Poirot film "Evil Under the Sun", and I found myself humming along with the end credits, only belatedly realizing they were "Night and Day". Some version I hadn't heard before.
I thought I had more versions of it on my iPod, but I don't. One is a repeat, just labeled differently.
There's a chipper sounding instrumental version by Bireli Lagrene, Fred Astair who sounds really tinny and high pitched, and John Barrowman singing with Kevin Kline from the De-Lovely soundtrack. I was sure Dinah Shore had covered it, too...
Funny how so many people can sing it, and make it sound so different.
While I was doing my math homework this evening Mom was watching the Poirot film "Evil Under the Sun", and I found myself humming along with the end credits, only belatedly realizing they were "Night and Day". Some version I hadn't heard before.
I thought I had more versions of it on my iPod, but I don't. One is a repeat, just labeled differently.
There's a chipper sounding instrumental version by Bireli Lagrene, Fred Astair who sounds really tinny and high pitched, and John Barrowman singing with Kevin Kline from the De-Lovely soundtrack. I was sure Dinah Shore had covered it, too...
Funny how so many people can sing it, and make it sound so different.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Back to Rome
Having gotten past the slowness of typing already written pages, I found myself with so much school work that writing fiction seemed like a fiction itself.
After a quick lunch with Kevin today I finally found some more time to type away, and I got past 150 pages.
New wordcount: 88,384.
Edit: 5:41PM Wordcount: 89,511.
Edit: 7:01PM Wordcount: 90,319.
After a quick lunch with Kevin today I finally found some more time to type away, and I got past 150 pages.
New wordcount: 88,384.
Edit: 5:41PM Wordcount: 89,511.
Edit: 7:01PM Wordcount: 90,319.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Bad News
Dad just called to tell me he has diabetes.
I started crying as soon as we hung up, after about an hour of conversation; none of which involved me crying. He didn't want to tell me about it because he knew I'd be upset, but wanted to tell me before I see him in Vegas. I just. I didn't want to have him hear me upset, so I held on.
I guess everyone has those relatives they never know. The ones that die right before you're born, or right after. My Mother's brother Carl had diabetes, and I never knew him. He lived by himself, and this was back in the day when they didn't have meters or testing supplies I think, and he got sick one day and no one found him.
I had this sobbing conversation with Mom, where she couldn't tell half the things I was saying, and I just kept telling her 'Dad lives alone'.
Some days I feel like such an ass about Dad. I love him, and I've never really lived with him except these few months here and there for summer break when I was a kid, and alternating holidays in the winter. And I get so angry sometimes because out in Vegas there's this girl he used to date, who has a kid, and he spends time with the kid. I like him, he's sweet, and he's reasonably well behaved, and I call him my little brother because there was this point where it seemed like they might get married. But they didn't and Dad still sometimes winds up taking care of the kid, and one day it just hit me that no matter how much time I spend with Dad from here on out, even if I moved in with him, I'd never have spent that much time as Joey has gotten. I call sometimes, and he's taking Joey to McDonalds or a movie because school let out early, and I think I'd have given my eye teeth for that. I'd have cut off my own hand if Dad hadn't always lived at least one state away and I got to see him for more than snatches at a time.
And now he's sick, and all I can think about is this Uncle I've never known, and feel bitterly jealous again about this kid who has no claim on him at all has had more of his time than I ever will.
Edit: 6:18. An hour after writing that I feel despicably petty.
I started crying as soon as we hung up, after about an hour of conversation; none of which involved me crying. He didn't want to tell me about it because he knew I'd be upset, but wanted to tell me before I see him in Vegas. I just. I didn't want to have him hear me upset, so I held on.
I guess everyone has those relatives they never know. The ones that die right before you're born, or right after. My Mother's brother Carl had diabetes, and I never knew him. He lived by himself, and this was back in the day when they didn't have meters or testing supplies I think, and he got sick one day and no one found him.
I had this sobbing conversation with Mom, where she couldn't tell half the things I was saying, and I just kept telling her 'Dad lives alone'.
Some days I feel like such an ass about Dad. I love him, and I've never really lived with him except these few months here and there for summer break when I was a kid, and alternating holidays in the winter. And I get so angry sometimes because out in Vegas there's this girl he used to date, who has a kid, and he spends time with the kid. I like him, he's sweet, and he's reasonably well behaved, and I call him my little brother because there was this point where it seemed like they might get married. But they didn't and Dad still sometimes winds up taking care of the kid, and one day it just hit me that no matter how much time I spend with Dad from here on out, even if I moved in with him, I'd never have spent that much time as Joey has gotten. I call sometimes, and he's taking Joey to McDonalds or a movie because school let out early, and I think I'd have given my eye teeth for that. I'd have cut off my own hand if Dad hadn't always lived at least one state away and I got to see him for more than snatches at a time.
And now he's sick, and all I can think about is this Uncle I've never known, and feel bitterly jealous again about this kid who has no claim on him at all has had more of his time than I ever will.
Edit: 6:18. An hour after writing that I feel despicably petty.
Without a Trace Season 6, Episode 1
James Marsters is guest starring, and he doesn't look nearly as good as he deserves to.
Maybe I've just known him too long as Spike, but the brown hair really doesn't suit (at least not the shade it is) and it makes him look really old. Which, I know he's older than he looks already, but this just makes him look like...An accountant or something.
He's even wearing one of the worst suits I've ever seen and does this bizare thing with his forehead the entire first scene he's in. It's sort of a scrunched up, thinking forehead- like he's Sherlock about to solve a case. Except it goes on too long.
Another odd moment, at least for me. There's a lot of jobs out there that involve running, shooting, and doing general chase and action hero things. And I know heels look good on women. But women wearing heels and doing action hero stuff just seems goofy to me. I mean, I can walk in heels competently but I wouldn't run in them, or jump a fence, or get in a fight. At the end of the ep when Viv is going through a run down house possibly used for human trafficing, you see her step across this floor mattress in heels. Big, classy, business suit heels. I don't know how she does it.
Maybe I've just known him too long as Spike, but the brown hair really doesn't suit (at least not the shade it is) and it makes him look really old. Which, I know he's older than he looks already, but this just makes him look like...An accountant or something.
He's even wearing one of the worst suits I've ever seen and does this bizare thing with his forehead the entire first scene he's in. It's sort of a scrunched up, thinking forehead- like he's Sherlock about to solve a case. Except it goes on too long.
Another odd moment, at least for me. There's a lot of jobs out there that involve running, shooting, and doing general chase and action hero things. And I know heels look good on women. But women wearing heels and doing action hero stuff just seems goofy to me. I mean, I can walk in heels competently but I wouldn't run in them, or jump a fence, or get in a fight. At the end of the ep when Viv is going through a run down house possibly used for human trafficing, you see her step across this floor mattress in heels. Big, classy, business suit heels. I don't know how she does it.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Dresden Codak gets the love.
Back in the day I used to be a huge webcomic fan. I had all of Bite Me saved on my Zip Discs, as well as Demonology 101. Fallen was another favorite. There was another one about the fair folk but I've forgotten the name... Oh, Sinfest was another long time fav. After a few of them sort of trailed off into nothingness, or the author/artist quit I sort of quit reading them. I still hit Sinfest every few months, but...
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how I wandered across this wonderful little webcomic called Dresden Codak a few months ago, but I did. And it's brilliant. I love the art, and the ideas. You should check it out.
Especially Summer Dream Job. That comic is one of my absolute favorite pages of comic art, in the whole world.
Another brilliant page of Dresden Codak is Naked and Riding a Dinosaur. So far no one has come to my door trying to sell me anticipation and conjecture in a box, but oh well...
This one has brilliant college humor.
Somehow this reminds me of a lot of interactions I've had with others. Which is probably bad. However, it is part of a serial story line so you should probably just read all of them. ^_^
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how I wandered across this wonderful little webcomic called Dresden Codak a few months ago, but I did. And it's brilliant. I love the art, and the ideas. You should check it out.
Especially Summer Dream Job. That comic is one of my absolute favorite pages of comic art, in the whole world.
Another brilliant page of Dresden Codak is Naked and Riding a Dinosaur. So far no one has come to my door trying to sell me anticipation and conjecture in a box, but oh well...
This one has brilliant college humor.
Somehow this reminds me of a lot of interactions I've had with others. Which is probably bad. However, it is part of a serial story line so you should probably just read all of them. ^_^
Monday, September 24, 2007
Rome Rome Rome your boat
I'm down to the last three pages of hand-written-needs-to-be-typed stuff. Go me.
New Wordcount: 85,364
I'm hungry. I'm gonna go eat and come back and pound out those three written pages and hopefully get to the next part, and the next new character, who I really, really wish I could fine a picture of. Hrrrr.
Done. New wordcount: 86,132. Have to go to class.
Heh. I tried out the AutoSummary from Word of my novel. It's pretty dang funny.
New Wordcount: 85,364
I'm hungry. I'm gonna go eat and come back and pound out those three written pages and hopefully get to the next part, and the next new character, who I really, really wish I could fine a picture of. Hrrrr.
Done. New wordcount: 86,132. Have to go to class.
Heh. I tried out the AutoSummary from Word of my novel. It's pretty dang funny.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Modern Times
There are times I really, really loath living in the here and now. Sure we have antibiotics and sliced bread, but as far as I can tell some days we live in a cultureless black hole, peopled by idiots and ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Had a bad moment a few months ago when I referred to Shakespeare as "The Bard". Blank faces abounded. "Who's that?". I thought maybe they were kidding, but there really are people out there that claim they've never heard of him called that.
Bad moment today when I was trying to explain why one of my classmates is cutely intellectual and yet still a punk: he has an Atlas Shrugged tattoo on his arm. "A what?". You know, the book by Ayn Rand? "Who?". The books are massive, the covers are striking, and I was under the impression they were iconic. Not, you know, Romeo and Juliet type iconic, but we all know the "Marriage of Figaro" thanks to Looney Toons. And before you think I've read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, I haven't. I've only read Anthem.
The whole Captain America/Joe Quesada/Myspace fiasco. It's just preposterous, and maybe I'm too much a student of history, but I think it's an insult to the past to kill a character that has been beloved for as long as Captain America has. He's not outdated, he's the embodiment of an era's ideals, ideals that don't age. For god's sake, he's a million people's favorite character, and even if you want to only look at it in a business way, you don't just cut off your profits because he "doesn't watch American Idol" or "have a myspace". I don't watch American Idol, and I don't really like myspace because it seems like it's full of hookers who want to be friends with me; does that mean I deserve to die? Maybe Captain America isn't now, but that's his charm. He's not hard like the rest of us, and he gives us something to believe in.
And then, tonight, just when I needed that little ray of light of reason and intelligence, I find this. It's not a question. IT'S NOT A QUESTION. DON'T EVEN ACT LIKE IT'S A QUESTION, OR THAT YOU BLANKED ON THE ANSWER. THE EARTH IS ONLY FLAT IF YOU'RE A WEIRDO WHO THINKS SATELLITE PHOTOS ARE CLEVER TRICKERY. WHYYYYYYYY??????!!!!!!!
Had a bad moment a few months ago when I referred to Shakespeare as "The Bard". Blank faces abounded. "Who's that?". I thought maybe they were kidding, but there really are people out there that claim they've never heard of him called that.
Bad moment today when I was trying to explain why one of my classmates is cutely intellectual and yet still a punk: he has an Atlas Shrugged tattoo on his arm. "A what?". You know, the book by Ayn Rand? "Who?". The books are massive, the covers are striking, and I was under the impression they were iconic. Not, you know, Romeo and Juliet type iconic, but we all know the "Marriage of Figaro" thanks to Looney Toons. And before you think I've read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, I haven't. I've only read Anthem.
The whole Captain America/Joe Quesada/Myspace fiasco. It's just preposterous, and maybe I'm too much a student of history, but I think it's an insult to the past to kill a character that has been beloved for as long as Captain America has. He's not outdated, he's the embodiment of an era's ideals, ideals that don't age. For god's sake, he's a million people's favorite character, and even if you want to only look at it in a business way, you don't just cut off your profits because he "doesn't watch American Idol" or "have a myspace". I don't watch American Idol, and I don't really like myspace because it seems like it's full of hookers who want to be friends with me; does that mean I deserve to die? Maybe Captain America isn't now, but that's his charm. He's not hard like the rest of us, and he gives us something to believe in.
And then, tonight, just when I needed that little ray of light of reason and intelligence, I find this. It's not a question. IT'S NOT A QUESTION. DON'T EVEN ACT LIKE IT'S A QUESTION, OR THAT YOU BLANKED ON THE ANSWER. THE EARTH IS ONLY FLAT IF YOU'RE A WEIRDO WHO THINKS SATELLITE PHOTOS ARE CLEVER TRICKERY. WHYYYYYYYY??????!!!!!!!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Keystrokes Closer
Only got to spend about 20-25 minutes in the Lab today, but I had a good pace. New wordcount is 82,766.
Another hour in the lab after I finished my America to 1890 essay, and we have 83,980 words. Yay!
Another hour in the lab after I finished my America to 1890 essay, and we have 83,980 words. Yay!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
My Formal Appology to the Hope Diamond
Dear Hope Diamond,
I'm very sorry for the things I said about you putting a curse on the Postal Service. My Torchwood novel finally arrived, after a whole month, whose delay was what made me suspect you in the first place for foul play. The bad blood between you and I was caused by an email I got from the company that sold me the book in August, telling me when the book shipped and when I could expect it. As this day came and went I grew more and more certain you had a hand in holding up my package, especially when I emailed the company about my book. They promised me another date, which came and went, and then a third upon which it arrive. Twenty-five days after shipping, I tell you.
Or rather, I was told.
The truth of the matter was revealed to me by the package the book arrived in.
Alas, it was shipped four days ago.
So, I hope you can understand and forgive my harsh words, and let bygones be bygones. I hear Washington is a very nice place. I hope you enjoy it there.
Lots of love,
Whitney
I'm very sorry for the things I said about you putting a curse on the Postal Service. My Torchwood novel finally arrived, after a whole month, whose delay was what made me suspect you in the first place for foul play. The bad blood between you and I was caused by an email I got from the company that sold me the book in August, telling me when the book shipped and when I could expect it. As this day came and went I grew more and more certain you had a hand in holding up my package, especially when I emailed the company about my book. They promised me another date, which came and went, and then a third upon which it arrive. Twenty-five days after shipping, I tell you.
Or rather, I was told.
The truth of the matter was revealed to me by the package the book arrived in.
Alas, it was shipped four days ago.
So, I hope you can understand and forgive my harsh words, and let bygones be bygones. I hear Washington is a very nice place. I hope you enjoy it there.
Lots of love,
Whitney
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Rec-ing Ball: Day One
Copypasta'd from 9/8/07:
Hey Guys,
The idea for this came last weekend, when I was chatting with one of the customers who regularly shops in the comics store I work at, Dr. No's. He comes in pretty much every week and we have a very similar taste in movies; maybe it's more like we both think the same ones are great. We chat every weekend, almost, about what movie we saw recently, how good it was, what was great about it, what's another great movie...
And for once we got on the subject of books. The "Dark is Rising" movie is coming out soon, and it was one of my favorite book series as a kid, next to Narnia, and I keep telling the guy I'll bring him my copy of the book to read, at which point I wound up telling him a few more great books, and he tells me he's off to the Library for them.
Not ten minutes later he's back in the store asking me where I come up with this stuff to recommend (or rec, since I'm such a fandom geek online).
Mostly I just pick it up along the way, like for The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (which I told him he has to read, if he wants to know what real horror writing is). I worked at the library the book came out and we had about thirty copies (or more) between 17 libraries, and the holds on the book were in the hundreds on each copy. That's like waving a flag for either controversy or greatness, and they had a sale on the book at Sam's Club so I picked it up.
The book scares me so bad I can't finish it. And it's so Hitchcock about it, where nothing happens to the characters but you're about to start screaming if something makes a noise in the room because the tension is amped up so high. Plus it's got vampires, a favorite of mine, and it's sort of secret society-ish, with a lot of history.
My advice: Don't read it late at night.
Or anther book that seemed to fall into my lap: The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst. It has a brilliant title, and originally one of the worst covers I've ever seen. I mean, ugly and nondescript. The cover you see now, if you follow that link is pretty, and awesome, and moody; just like the book deserves. It's even poignant, and if you read the book damned if it doesn't wrench at your heart every time you see it. It came across the counter at the library often enough that I recalled it, and kept wondering what it was about.
Finally I checked it out, and it's one of those read-it-in-one-sitting books. I don't usually read stuff that's not about magic and vampires and guns, ect, and this book is so slice of life... Basically, the main character comes home to find his wife is dead and the only witness is the family dog, and it turns out the husband is a linguistics professor at a college. Every other chapter is about how he met his wife and how they fell in love, and the other chapters are about him coping with his grief over her loss and trying to teach the family dog to tell him what happened.
It sounds goofy every time I say that, but it's not. He's not expecting the dog to speak, so much as maybe point at cards, or type a simple keyboard, like some animals have been taught to do (wasn't there a horse that did that? and a dog that had a barking code? I seem to recall it from Ripley's or a show on animal oddities), and it's so sad and sweet, and you can tell how much he's struggling with loosing his wife...
Anyway, read it, you'll cry. I did.
So, I rec'ed him those two, just like I'm recing them to you. Which is where I got the idea for this blog.
Hey Guys,
The idea for this came last weekend, when I was chatting with one of the customers who regularly shops in the comics store I work at, Dr. No's. He comes in pretty much every week and we have a very similar taste in movies; maybe it's more like we both think the same ones are great. We chat every weekend, almost, about what movie we saw recently, how good it was, what was great about it, what's another great movie...
And for once we got on the subject of books. The "Dark is Rising" movie is coming out soon, and it was one of my favorite book series as a kid, next to Narnia, and I keep telling the guy I'll bring him my copy of the book to read, at which point I wound up telling him a few more great books, and he tells me he's off to the Library for them.
Not ten minutes later he's back in the store asking me where I come up with this stuff to recommend (or rec, since I'm such a fandom geek online).
Mostly I just pick it up along the way, like for The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (which I told him he has to read, if he wants to know what real horror writing is). I worked at the library the book came out and we had about thirty copies (or more) between 17 libraries, and the holds on the book were in the hundreds on each copy. That's like waving a flag for either controversy or greatness, and they had a sale on the book at Sam's Club so I picked it up.
The book scares me so bad I can't finish it. And it's so Hitchcock about it, where nothing happens to the characters but you're about to start screaming if something makes a noise in the room because the tension is amped up so high. Plus it's got vampires, a favorite of mine, and it's sort of secret society-ish, with a lot of history.
My advice: Don't read it late at night.
Or anther book that seemed to fall into my lap: The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst. It has a brilliant title, and originally one of the worst covers I've ever seen. I mean, ugly and nondescript. The cover you see now, if you follow that link is pretty, and awesome, and moody; just like the book deserves. It's even poignant, and if you read the book damned if it doesn't wrench at your heart every time you see it. It came across the counter at the library often enough that I recalled it, and kept wondering what it was about.
Finally I checked it out, and it's one of those read-it-in-one-sitting books. I don't usually read stuff that's not about magic and vampires and guns, ect, and this book is so slice of life... Basically, the main character comes home to find his wife is dead and the only witness is the family dog, and it turns out the husband is a linguistics professor at a college. Every other chapter is about how he met his wife and how they fell in love, and the other chapters are about him coping with his grief over her loss and trying to teach the family dog to tell him what happened.
It sounds goofy every time I say that, but it's not. He's not expecting the dog to speak, so much as maybe point at cards, or type a simple keyboard, like some animals have been taught to do (wasn't there a horse that did that? and a dog that had a barking code? I seem to recall it from Ripley's or a show on animal oddities), and it's so sad and sweet, and you can tell how much he's struggling with loosing his wife...
Anyway, read it, you'll cry. I did.
So, I rec'ed him those two, just like I'm recing them to you. Which is where I got the idea for this blog.
Rec-ing Ball: Dark Angel
Copypasta'd from 9/8/07:
I just finished watching the first episode of Dark Angel, and while it's not the best show I've ever seen it's certainly not the worst. Of course, I'm only one Ep in, so that opinion might change. I'll probably come up with a rating system eventually...
Hrm, so, pros...
She's a chick who can (apparently) kick ass. I like that in a show. I used to watch Buffy, I love La Femme Nikita (in any incarnation). I like the post-apocalyptic thing going on, but time will tell on how believable it is and how much they really invest into the world they've created. Also, there's action, and guns; things I like very much. And there was even a part with spy-speak and black-ops suits. Jessica Alba is pretty, and Michael Weatherly is eye candy. And she's got a mouth on her. I love mouthy characters and the insults and mouthy-ness are pretty good so far. Her friend at work is snort-worthy funny, and I like the odd array of superpowers she's wound up with.
Cons:
Like I said before, I like the "universe" this is set in, but I'm not sure how much they believe in it. They better believe in it, or this is going to be goofy and unlikeable. Imagine if Buffy hadn't been as "believed" in as it was. I want it to come across as real to the characters, basically. We'll see how this is in a few more eps. And while Jessica Alba is pretty, she's got a seriously pouty face. (I'm not watching Buffy at the moment but every time I looked at her she reminded me of Angel in season 1 or 2 with his "woe is me, I'm a vampire" face). She looks like she could sulk for her country, if that was an Olympic sport. There were a few parts where I cringed at her makeup, which looked downright whore-ish (but she was playing a whore right then, so...) and during the same scene she wore what I'm going to forever think of as the Worst Dress In The Whole Entire World. I know I've seen worse, but oh my god was this bad.
But really, it was a good hour or two, and I had a good cup of coffee watching it, and it only cost me five dollars for the season, so I'm not complaining. And from what I saw on the Internet (namely imdb's reviews) I was sure the show was going to be nightmareishly bad. It's not. And the reviewer on there was right; a lot of the show seems to be coped from somewhere else, but that's fine if it's done well.
As for ep 1, I'll rec it.
I just finished watching the first episode of Dark Angel, and while it's not the best show I've ever seen it's certainly not the worst. Of course, I'm only one Ep in, so that opinion might change. I'll probably come up with a rating system eventually...
Hrm, so, pros...
She's a chick who can (apparently) kick ass. I like that in a show. I used to watch Buffy, I love La Femme Nikita (in any incarnation). I like the post-apocalyptic thing going on, but time will tell on how believable it is and how much they really invest into the world they've created. Also, there's action, and guns; things I like very much. And there was even a part with spy-speak and black-ops suits. Jessica Alba is pretty, and Michael Weatherly is eye candy. And she's got a mouth on her. I love mouthy characters and the insults and mouthy-ness are pretty good so far. Her friend at work is snort-worthy funny, and I like the odd array of superpowers she's wound up with.
Cons:
Like I said before, I like the "universe" this is set in, but I'm not sure how much they believe in it. They better believe in it, or this is going to be goofy and unlikeable. Imagine if Buffy hadn't been as "believed" in as it was. I want it to come across as real to the characters, basically. We'll see how this is in a few more eps. And while Jessica Alba is pretty, she's got a seriously pouty face. (I'm not watching Buffy at the moment but every time I looked at her she reminded me of Angel in season 1 or 2 with his "woe is me, I'm a vampire" face). She looks like she could sulk for her country, if that was an Olympic sport. There were a few parts where I cringed at her makeup, which looked downright whore-ish (but she was playing a whore right then, so...) and during the same scene she wore what I'm going to forever think of as the Worst Dress In The Whole Entire World. I know I've seen worse, but oh my god was this bad.
But really, it was a good hour or two, and I had a good cup of coffee watching it, and it only cost me five dollars for the season, so I'm not complaining. And from what I saw on the Internet (namely imdb's reviews) I was sure the show was going to be nightmareishly bad. It's not. And the reviewer on there was right; a lot of the show seems to be coped from somewhere else, but that's fine if it's done well.
As for ep 1, I'll rec it.
Rec-ing Ball: Acursedly Delicious Coffee
Copypasta'd from 9/8/07:
It was so good now I can't sleep. And when I say good I mean strong Irish Cream flavor.
I know a lot of people don't like coffee, that it tastes like dirt, that it's an "acquired taste" and generally that means things taste bad.
To me, it's like the Holy Grail of drinks. It's hot, it keeps your hands warm, it makes you completely unable to sleep, and when you add just the right amount of sugar and milk (or whipping cream) it becomes an unholy food source that can jack you up high enough to bounce off walls. Thankfully I don't add that much sugar any more...
Tonight's sleeplessness is deliciously brought to you by Millstone Coffee Company. The flavors are always great, and by great I mean slightly hedonistic. I'm a big fan of chicory coffee which is by another brand, but when it's a red letter night (I'm a freak, I love coffee at night) or I want some seriously special coffee I get the Irish Cream flavor or maybe the Chocolate Velvet. French Vanilla isn't bad either.
And I think almost all the flavors come in Decaf and Regular, so you can choose if you want to stay up til almost four in the morning blogging or go to bed at a regular time.
It was so good now I can't sleep. And when I say good I mean strong Irish Cream flavor.
I know a lot of people don't like coffee, that it tastes like dirt, that it's an "acquired taste" and generally that means things taste bad.
To me, it's like the Holy Grail of drinks. It's hot, it keeps your hands warm, it makes you completely unable to sleep, and when you add just the right amount of sugar and milk (or whipping cream) it becomes an unholy food source that can jack you up high enough to bounce off walls. Thankfully I don't add that much sugar any more...
Tonight's sleeplessness is deliciously brought to you by Millstone Coffee Company. The flavors are always great, and by great I mean slightly hedonistic. I'm a big fan of chicory coffee which is by another brand, but when it's a red letter night (I'm a freak, I love coffee at night) or I want some seriously special coffee I get the Irish Cream flavor or maybe the Chocolate Velvet. French Vanilla isn't bad either.
And I think almost all the flavors come in Decaf and Regular, so you can choose if you want to stay up til almost four in the morning blogging or go to bed at a regular time.
The Hope Diamond's Revenge
Apparently the Hope Diamond can read my blog from inside the Smithsonian. Still no package. And it's only shipping from New Jersey, not Mars!
And then I went on Amazon and saw this. It made me cry a little.
And then I went on Amazon and saw this. It made me cry a little.
All Hallows Email
hehehehehhehehe.
I love Halloween. Probably it's the going about in public in a costume, or the getting free candy, or the whole the harvest is done so now we can safely huddle in our houses as the sun shows up less and less...
I know we read about it, but that after the harvest time must have been so...Life threatening to ancient people. They've really only got their own stores to depend upon against the possibly endless night that's coming up, during which all number of Fair Folk and goblins could just show up at their farm... For them, there might have been a good chance the Winter Solstice would never happen and they'd be stuck that way forever, no crops next year.
Really, Halloween must have been invented by the candy companies. It's too lighthearted and not as do or die as the old days.
Anyway, last night I had this spur of the moment costume idea. I have no idea what I'll do with the costume when it's done, other that wear it, since I haven't really got any Halloween plans other than with whatever Trish is doing. But the pursuit of the costume is going well... Lots of little parts to find and all that.
Oh, and I wanted to post this before we all forget, and say thanks! Clockwise it's Chris Appel with the Dinosaur, Cliff Biggers with the Peering Monster, Me with the Chicken (Quail), and Charles Rutledge with Conan. I did the dialog. ^_^
I love Halloween. Probably it's the going about in public in a costume, or the getting free candy, or the whole the harvest is done so now we can safely huddle in our houses as the sun shows up less and less...
I know we read about it, but that after the harvest time must have been so...Life threatening to ancient people. They've really only got their own stores to depend upon against the possibly endless night that's coming up, during which all number of Fair Folk and goblins could just show up at their farm... For them, there might have been a good chance the Winter Solstice would never happen and they'd be stuck that way forever, no crops next year.
Really, Halloween must have been invented by the candy companies. It's too lighthearted and not as do or die as the old days.
Anyway, last night I had this spur of the moment costume idea. I have no idea what I'll do with the costume when it's done, other that wear it, since I haven't really got any Halloween plans other than with whatever Trish is doing. But the pursuit of the costume is going well... Lots of little parts to find and all that.
Oh, and I wanted to post this before we all forget, and say thanks! Clockwise it's Chris Appel with the Dinosaur, Cliff Biggers with the Peering Monster, Me with the Chicken (Quail), and Charles Rutledge with Conan. I did the dialog. ^_^
Monday, September 10, 2007
Rome-ing
1:28pm: Wordcount 79,525
Wrote another five or ten pages longhand to add to the stack I'm still typing. This has been one of those semesters of college that eats up so much time it becomes college or write, pick one. I hate it. At the moment Nano is looking undoable. *cries*
Ever since yesterday I've been fighting off an introspective mood; last night I had homework to help drown it out, but this morning's mathclass and a low grade headache brought it back. It felt like my brain was operating at a slower speed than usual, picking up all the dumb things in class to think about, making me feel sluggish and stupid. I mean, whoever thought to call it "Standard Deviation"? It's an oxymoron. If it's standard, why does it deviate? A whole hour and fifteen minutes of that and I escaped class; four flights of stairs later I recalled I left my water bottle under my chair. I didn't go back for it.
2:23pm: Wordcount 80,468
I swear, there were days last November where I'd do five and six thousand words in one sitting. Right now that feels like a far away, fantastical dream.
3:14pm: Wordcount 81,172
Got to the fight inside the house with the bow and arrow that I asked Charles about before. I'm writing a little more than whats on the paper, but it's for the best. Rounding some edges, I suppose. Have to head to class, perhaps more before work though.
Wrote another five or ten pages longhand to add to the stack I'm still typing. This has been one of those semesters of college that eats up so much time it becomes college or write, pick one. I hate it. At the moment Nano is looking undoable. *cries*
Ever since yesterday I've been fighting off an introspective mood; last night I had homework to help drown it out, but this morning's mathclass and a low grade headache brought it back. It felt like my brain was operating at a slower speed than usual, picking up all the dumb things in class to think about, making me feel sluggish and stupid. I mean, whoever thought to call it "Standard Deviation"? It's an oxymoron. If it's standard, why does it deviate? A whole hour and fifteen minutes of that and I escaped class; four flights of stairs later I recalled I left my water bottle under my chair. I didn't go back for it.
2:23pm: Wordcount 80,468
I swear, there were days last November where I'd do five and six thousand words in one sitting. Right now that feels like a far away, fantastical dream.
3:14pm: Wordcount 81,172
Got to the fight inside the house with the bow and arrow that I asked Charles about before. I'm writing a little more than whats on the paper, but it's for the best. Rounding some edges, I suppose. Have to head to class, perhaps more before work though.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Seeing double
I opened a second blog called Rec-ing Ball. Just to review things and have a running commentary on how good or bad some things are. Check it out if you like.
Edit 9/11/07: Nix that.
Edit 9/11/07: Nix that.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Woes
Finally got the PS/2 cable for my Alphasmart to transfer the text to my computer, only when I got home nothing happened. So I called their tech support to find that yes, the PS/2 cable will work for the Pro, but only if I'm running Windows 98.
Apparently if I want to run it on a XP then I need to either partition one of my drives and run 98 on it, then run the Pro through that, and somehow transfer the text to the XP partition, or I need to get a USB to ADB connector cable thing. (the Alphasmart rep offered to sell me such a cable for about $70 which is twice what the internet is quoting me for something similar)
*sigh*
At the moment I'm not sure which one is the simpler choice; partition or purchase.
Apparently if I want to run it on a XP then I need to either partition one of my drives and run 98 on it, then run the Pro through that, and somehow transfer the text to the XP partition, or I need to get a USB to ADB connector cable thing. (the Alphasmart rep offered to sell me such a cable for about $70 which is twice what the internet is quoting me for something similar)
*sigh*
At the moment I'm not sure which one is the simpler choice; partition or purchase.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Londinium Calling.
Wrote another fifteen or twenty pages longhand and realized I needed to get back to typing. Somehow it's easier to get all of it done at a computer, whereas I go back through what I've handwritten and see that something needs to happen in between the chapter breaks... Hrm. Of course, once I get that cord thingie for the Alphasmart I can type anywhere, but as for now I don't want to put a bunch of pages on there until I'm sure I can get them off. At least my hand is getting used to all the writing; back in middle school I could write long hand all day with nary a pain. Added four songs to the soundtrack I'm using for writing the book;
Rob Zombies' More Human than Human (for a fight) (hey charles, bows and arrows are kind of useless in houses right? i don't want that part of the fight to be weird),
Mandalay's Please (because several of the characters are either hopelessly in unrequited (or assumed unrequited) love or are going to be at some point),
Passion Orchestra Version (from Kingdom Hearts Two because it makes me think of how Londinium would look with all that Roman architecture),
and the Closing Credits Bolero from Moulin Rouge (because it makes me think of Sophie and how her life goes; very weak and almost lost in the beginning and growing stronger over time)
Hrm. (looks at iPod) Guess I'll post somg of the rest of the soundtrack, since I did so well above.
Expressions of Loneliness by Moonsocket (sourced from LFN, again with the unrequited love thing)
Gorecki by Lamb (sort of the penultimate love song).
Juliet's Aria (Sono Andati) sung by Kate Winslet from Heavenly Creatures. (It's the song I'm planning on using when I write the Temple of War scene)
Otherwise by Morcheeba. (From LFN as well. It's for later, when Sophie is older and can't quite get Lucas to see her that way.)
There are about fifteen other songs but they're mostly repeats of the unrequited love theme, heavily picked from LFN (surprise surprise) so I picked the best of the best. There will probably be more 'fight song' kind of stuff added as it goes along, right now there really isn't all that much action going on... And the past 130+ pages have had a lot of sad stuff happen, hence the not-so-upbeat tunes.
Anyway, 1:27 and I'm at 78,646 with a lot of pages to type up.
2:08 I'm too hungry to write any more. 79,522 words. Woot.
Rob Zombies' More Human than Human (for a fight) (hey charles, bows and arrows are kind of useless in houses right? i don't want that part of the fight to be weird),
Mandalay's Please (because several of the characters are either hopelessly in unrequited (or assumed unrequited) love or are going to be at some point),
Passion Orchestra Version (from Kingdom Hearts Two because it makes me think of how Londinium would look with all that Roman architecture),
and the Closing Credits Bolero from Moulin Rouge (because it makes me think of Sophie and how her life goes; very weak and almost lost in the beginning and growing stronger over time)
Hrm. (looks at iPod) Guess I'll post somg of the rest of the soundtrack, since I did so well above.
Expressions of Loneliness by Moonsocket (sourced from LFN, again with the unrequited love thing)
Gorecki by Lamb (sort of the penultimate love song).
Juliet's Aria (Sono Andati) sung by Kate Winslet from Heavenly Creatures. (It's the song I'm planning on using when I write the Temple of War scene)
Otherwise by Morcheeba. (From LFN as well. It's for later, when Sophie is older and can't quite get Lucas to see her that way.)
There are about fifteen other songs but they're mostly repeats of the unrequited love theme, heavily picked from LFN (surprise surprise) so I picked the best of the best. There will probably be more 'fight song' kind of stuff added as it goes along, right now there really isn't all that much action going on... And the past 130+ pages have had a lot of sad stuff happen, hence the not-so-upbeat tunes.
Anyway, 1:27 and I'm at 78,646 with a lot of pages to type up.
2:08 I'm too hungry to write any more. 79,522 words. Woot.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Fianancial Aid Fiasco (again)
Well. Not like I actually expected them to do anything, but, when I went up there last Tuesday the 21st to see if my SAP Appeal had gone through or not (since I hadn't been notified either way) I got to talk to a really nice lady who seemed to be able to do a lot to help me in that office. Her name is Torri.
Torri checked the FA computers for me and told me I had indeed won my Appeal and could have my financial aid back, which is really good because the day that they tell you the status of your appeal (the 21st) is one day before the FINAL DEADLINE to pay for fall without fees (the 22nd). If your appeal doesn't go through you've got very little time to come up with the cash; it didn't apply to me (since my appeal passed) but distressed me none the less, especially when I was waiting for someone to get to my case and didn't know the results yet.
I had to go on the KSU Owl Express site and accept my financial aid in a drop down form. I did as soon as I left, with the promise this would help my paperwork be filed faster. Friday I should have gotten a refund on part of the tuition money, money I planned to save and use for the next two semester's books.
Friday came and went; no money.
I didn't expect anything to happen over the weekend but I still checked my account enough that I memorized the numerical passcode to the KSU Debit site.
Monday came and went. Got a funny form email telling me generically to check my KSU Debit account to see the a) total, b) transactions, c) fill out forms if necessary. Went to the site, nothing there, was redirected to the KSU Owl Express site.
Which informed me that I should probably pay out of pocket for fall since they've received no money from my loan.
Tuesday I went up to the office, waited in line, spoke to someone who wasn't Torri.
Apparently the aid money doesn't just go from the loan company to the school, it goes to some holding location which is probably a bank or something, and the school has to access the bank to get the money. And the get-the-money system is down right now. And I'm accruing late fines for not having paid yet. Apparently they have a manual system for getting the money from the bank (or whatever) and they're working really hard on getting all the money pulled in, but it takes time (and I should learn to respect that, her tone said).
The server thing I could understand, and I asked how long it had been down, and how much longer they expected it to be down.
Well, apparently it's down for SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE as of today. Like, they took it down this morning or something, and knew it was coming, which makes me wonder why they couldn't have gotten my tuition in say, THE LAST WEEK. Or YESTERDAY.
*sigh*
As for the late fees I huffed about them and the lady assured me that "If" I'd followed all the steps correctly, and done all my paperwork on time I should be able to have taken off.
I liked how she phrased it. "If" I'd done all my homework, filled out all my forms, ect.
It makes me wish there was a system of late fines for them not doing their work. Like
"If" they'd gotten my money from the bank last Tuesday there wouldn't be any fees.
When I continued to get upset, she pretty much told me that there's nothing more they can do today and to come back tomorrow and maybe they'll have my money then.
However, she assured me that if they can't get this settled by the Seventh of September (OMG) I can start applying for an emergency loan.
Believe me, if that happens, those people in the Financial Aid office are going to learn the full meaning of the word "Emergency".
Torri checked the FA computers for me and told me I had indeed won my Appeal and could have my financial aid back, which is really good because the day that they tell you the status of your appeal (the 21st) is one day before the FINAL DEADLINE to pay for fall without fees (the 22nd). If your appeal doesn't go through you've got very little time to come up with the cash; it didn't apply to me (since my appeal passed) but distressed me none the less, especially when I was waiting for someone to get to my case and didn't know the results yet.
I had to go on the KSU Owl Express site and accept my financial aid in a drop down form. I did as soon as I left, with the promise this would help my paperwork be filed faster. Friday I should have gotten a refund on part of the tuition money, money I planned to save and use for the next two semester's books.
Friday came and went; no money.
I didn't expect anything to happen over the weekend but I still checked my account enough that I memorized the numerical passcode to the KSU Debit site.
Monday came and went. Got a funny form email telling me generically to check my KSU Debit account to see the a) total, b) transactions, c) fill out forms if necessary. Went to the site, nothing there, was redirected to the KSU Owl Express site.
Which informed me that I should probably pay out of pocket for fall since they've received no money from my loan.
Tuesday I went up to the office, waited in line, spoke to someone who wasn't Torri.
Apparently the aid money doesn't just go from the loan company to the school, it goes to some holding location which is probably a bank or something, and the school has to access the bank to get the money. And the get-the-money system is down right now. And I'm accruing late fines for not having paid yet. Apparently they have a manual system for getting the money from the bank (or whatever) and they're working really hard on getting all the money pulled in, but it takes time (and I should learn to respect that, her tone said).
The server thing I could understand, and I asked how long it had been down, and how much longer they expected it to be down.
Well, apparently it's down for SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE as of today. Like, they took it down this morning or something, and knew it was coming, which makes me wonder why they couldn't have gotten my tuition in say, THE LAST WEEK. Or YESTERDAY.
*sigh*
As for the late fees I huffed about them and the lady assured me that "If" I'd followed all the steps correctly, and done all my paperwork on time I should be able to have taken off.
I liked how she phrased it. "If" I'd done all my homework, filled out all my forms, ect.
It makes me wish there was a system of late fines for them not doing their work. Like
"If" they'd gotten my money from the bank last Tuesday there wouldn't be any fees.
When I continued to get upset, she pretty much told me that there's nothing more they can do today and to come back tomorrow and maybe they'll have my money then.
However, she assured me that if they can't get this settled by the Seventh of September (OMG) I can start applying for an emergency loan.
Believe me, if that happens, those people in the Financial Aid office are going to learn the full meaning of the word "Emergency".
Monday, August 27, 2007
I had a dream.
And it was good. One of those nice, long, there's-a-plot-and-character-development types.
It was sort of modern fantasy. Basically, I was a Mage who worked at the morgue because there was something wrong with all my magic, and all my healing spells would only work on the dead, so my job was to "fix" people. I couldn't bring them back to life but I could repair skin and bone, making people look like they'd never been in car accidents and the like.
It was really a pretty good job choice for me, considering. And my older sister was the High Mage in our city (no name), and all the other people in the family were very powerful, so I wasn't quite a black sheep, but they couldn't understand why I couldn't just do my magic right and get a cushy job like them.
So, I'm just going about my life, doing my job and one night I go to a K-Mart, and out in the parking lot I notice this man running, and he's running towards me, but all the way from the other side of the huge parking lot, so I don't feel in danger yet so I head towards the store. I glance back, just for safety and he's really closing the distance, and I get a little wary feeling and move faster. And he's still moving a hell of a lot faster than me. I get into the store and he slows down to normal speeds, but he's still following me, and I walk back to the bathrooms, thinking to hide there.
(Some part of me not in the dream didn't applaud that idea when it happened. Great, you're probably going to be alone in the bathrooms with no way out, but I wasn't really thinking like that in the dream, so I went in)
And of course he followed me in, and my useless-for-anything-but-fixing-the-dead-magic told me this guy wasn't alive. A vampire.
There was a moment of cowering and then he grabbed me by the throat and gently drew his finger down my cheek, cutting it with one nail as he leaned in to feed, and this other guy came into the bathroom, and the vampire froze.
At first the second guy (looked sort of like a cross between Methos (Highlander) and Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)) acted like he'd come in on accident, and that he didn't understand what was going on, which made the vampire let me go, in hopes of subduing the guy as well.
At which point the guy moped the bathroom with the vampire. Which was pretty dang sweet from my perspective, cowering on the floor by the sinks. The only problem is that vampires are really hard to kill, and in the end the vampire was broken on the floor but he wasn't really going to die (it takes more than stakes to kill them), and he was just lying there watching to two of us.
The guy came over to see if I was ok, and I said I was and he noticed the vampire watching us, and he couldn't keep his eyes from the cut on my cheek. At which point I realized he was a vampire too. He traced the cut with his fingers and it stopped bleeding, with hardly a trace of magic (only really, really powerful vampires can do magic) and then he made sure the other vampire was watching as he bit me.
Which didn't hurt. It was like one of those romance novel cover vampire bites.
Then he got me out of the K-Mart and back to my car, telling me to get out of there. Odds are the vampire in the bathroom wouldn't think to keep looking for me because they'd assume the older vampire had taken me away for the kill.
I got in the car and drove home.
And...Er, I can't really remember what led to the next part. Somehow there was a vampire near my apartment or work, and I panicked. I had to find the vampire who'd protected me before, and there was something he'd said either at the car or in the bathroom about 'cleaning up his new neighborhood' that gave me a clue as to where he lived. So I went looking, you know, at night, walking the streets, all kinds of unsafe and he found me first.
He told me that since I was such a powerful mage I should be able to defend myself from the dead, and I explained to him how my magic worked (the whole conversation took place in a empty, moon-lit park, on the swings (we were just sitting on them) but how's that for atmosphere?) and that I couldn't actually do any normal magic. He got intrigued and ran his hand down the rusted edge of the swing set, getting the sharp rust to scratch his palm, and asked me if I could heal it. (Mages aren't supposed to be able to heal the dead, or the undead for that matter. Go me.) I healed it, he was suitably impressed and made a joking comment about needing to have someone like that in his court (which gave me a clue as to how old he was- vampires hadn't had courts in a very long time. Or rather, they did, it was just a large city-wide thing, for all vampires, not just one created by a really powerful vampire).
He offered me a deal in the end. He'd only just come to the city and was planning on staying a while despite the riff-raff that ran loose. He'd be cleaning them up, as it were, like at the K-Mart, but he needed to also do away with the Court in the area and all the powerful vampires in it, since they simply allowed this sort of behaviour and they were obviously unfit to rule. Odds are he wouldn't win all the fights and he'd need someone for during the day and to have someone to heal him would be a great benefit, and having a human working willingly under him would be an example of his power and help earn trust, for getting into those hard to get into Court buildings. In return he'd protect me from the other vampires, and make sure they stayed away from my work and apartment and me.
I accepted the deal, and time kind of lept forward a few weeks or months. We were bluffing our way into a Court sponsored Ball, and some of my High Mage family were in there hobnobbing, which I hadn't known about. My sister came over with her date (oh god, the Vampire leader of the city) and made a few snide comments about my being dateless and how did I get in anyway. At which point Jasper (the vampire finally got a name in this part) showed up, and my sister boggled. The Vampire Leader didn't think anything of Jasper, since he was using some kind of vampire magic to pretend to be mortal, and the party continued as usual, except during the dancing my sister kept staring over her date's shoulder at Jasper. As the night wore on more and more of the humans went home, including my family, while Jasper and I stayed (dangerous for mortals, because once the humans get few enough in the room a bloodbath might occur). Once it got to the dangerous part and we were the only humans left the vampires lowered the lights, closing in on us.
Jasper stopped his magic, at which they all recoiled, and a few bolted for the door, but didn't make it. Jasper had his bloodbath, which took out about half of the powerful vampires in the city and just at the last second one of them pulled out a weapon and shot me.
It was pretty bad. Blood everywhere. Jasper tore the last vampire apart, which I didn't see, and then came over to where I was slumped on the floor, pressing my hand to the wound. He picked me up, and I was already starting to get tunnel vision- I didn't remember how we got back to his house, which on the inside looked like a Mesopotamian Temple (that's where Jasper was from, apparently) at which point Jasper did some really powerful vampire magic and saved my life, but left himself very weak (thus the need to retreat to his house where he'd be safe, before doing it). I took care of him for a few days until he was better, and by then the whole city was in an outrage about the slaughter at the ball and even my family was up in arms because they thought I'd been killed.
I went to tell them I was ok, at which point the remaining powerful vampires stormed in and "escorted" me back to their last stronghold, determined to have the information out of me as to what happened. Jasper showed up, there was another bloodbath, and I kept healing him, and just as the battle was over we both looked up at each other and our eyes met and-
My alarm went off. There was some story about the Midwest and the flooding and some guy trying to clean his house with a mop and bleach.
It was sort of modern fantasy. Basically, I was a Mage who worked at the morgue because there was something wrong with all my magic, and all my healing spells would only work on the dead, so my job was to "fix" people. I couldn't bring them back to life but I could repair skin and bone, making people look like they'd never been in car accidents and the like.
It was really a pretty good job choice for me, considering. And my older sister was the High Mage in our city (no name), and all the other people in the family were very powerful, so I wasn't quite a black sheep, but they couldn't understand why I couldn't just do my magic right and get a cushy job like them.
So, I'm just going about my life, doing my job and one night I go to a K-Mart, and out in the parking lot I notice this man running, and he's running towards me, but all the way from the other side of the huge parking lot, so I don't feel in danger yet so I head towards the store. I glance back, just for safety and he's really closing the distance, and I get a little wary feeling and move faster. And he's still moving a hell of a lot faster than me. I get into the store and he slows down to normal speeds, but he's still following me, and I walk back to the bathrooms, thinking to hide there.
(Some part of me not in the dream didn't applaud that idea when it happened. Great, you're probably going to be alone in the bathrooms with no way out, but I wasn't really thinking like that in the dream, so I went in)
And of course he followed me in, and my useless-for-anything-but-fixing-the-dead-magic told me this guy wasn't alive. A vampire.
There was a moment of cowering and then he grabbed me by the throat and gently drew his finger down my cheek, cutting it with one nail as he leaned in to feed, and this other guy came into the bathroom, and the vampire froze.
At first the second guy (looked sort of like a cross between Methos (Highlander) and Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)) acted like he'd come in on accident, and that he didn't understand what was going on, which made the vampire let me go, in hopes of subduing the guy as well.
At which point the guy moped the bathroom with the vampire. Which was pretty dang sweet from my perspective, cowering on the floor by the sinks. The only problem is that vampires are really hard to kill, and in the end the vampire was broken on the floor but he wasn't really going to die (it takes more than stakes to kill them), and he was just lying there watching to two of us.
The guy came over to see if I was ok, and I said I was and he noticed the vampire watching us, and he couldn't keep his eyes from the cut on my cheek. At which point I realized he was a vampire too. He traced the cut with his fingers and it stopped bleeding, with hardly a trace of magic (only really, really powerful vampires can do magic) and then he made sure the other vampire was watching as he bit me.
Which didn't hurt. It was like one of those romance novel cover vampire bites.
Then he got me out of the K-Mart and back to my car, telling me to get out of there. Odds are the vampire in the bathroom wouldn't think to keep looking for me because they'd assume the older vampire had taken me away for the kill.
I got in the car and drove home.
And...Er, I can't really remember what led to the next part. Somehow there was a vampire near my apartment or work, and I panicked. I had to find the vampire who'd protected me before, and there was something he'd said either at the car or in the bathroom about 'cleaning up his new neighborhood' that gave me a clue as to where he lived. So I went looking, you know, at night, walking the streets, all kinds of unsafe and he found me first.
He told me that since I was such a powerful mage I should be able to defend myself from the dead, and I explained to him how my magic worked (the whole conversation took place in a empty, moon-lit park, on the swings (we were just sitting on them) but how's that for atmosphere?) and that I couldn't actually do any normal magic. He got intrigued and ran his hand down the rusted edge of the swing set, getting the sharp rust to scratch his palm, and asked me if I could heal it. (Mages aren't supposed to be able to heal the dead, or the undead for that matter. Go me.) I healed it, he was suitably impressed and made a joking comment about needing to have someone like that in his court (which gave me a clue as to how old he was- vampires hadn't had courts in a very long time. Or rather, they did, it was just a large city-wide thing, for all vampires, not just one created by a really powerful vampire).
He offered me a deal in the end. He'd only just come to the city and was planning on staying a while despite the riff-raff that ran loose. He'd be cleaning them up, as it were, like at the K-Mart, but he needed to also do away with the Court in the area and all the powerful vampires in it, since they simply allowed this sort of behaviour and they were obviously unfit to rule. Odds are he wouldn't win all the fights and he'd need someone for during the day and to have someone to heal him would be a great benefit, and having a human working willingly under him would be an example of his power and help earn trust, for getting into those hard to get into Court buildings. In return he'd protect me from the other vampires, and make sure they stayed away from my work and apartment and me.
I accepted the deal, and time kind of lept forward a few weeks or months. We were bluffing our way into a Court sponsored Ball, and some of my High Mage family were in there hobnobbing, which I hadn't known about. My sister came over with her date (oh god, the Vampire leader of the city) and made a few snide comments about my being dateless and how did I get in anyway. At which point Jasper (the vampire finally got a name in this part) showed up, and my sister boggled. The Vampire Leader didn't think anything of Jasper, since he was using some kind of vampire magic to pretend to be mortal, and the party continued as usual, except during the dancing my sister kept staring over her date's shoulder at Jasper. As the night wore on more and more of the humans went home, including my family, while Jasper and I stayed (dangerous for mortals, because once the humans get few enough in the room a bloodbath might occur). Once it got to the dangerous part and we were the only humans left the vampires lowered the lights, closing in on us.
Jasper stopped his magic, at which they all recoiled, and a few bolted for the door, but didn't make it. Jasper had his bloodbath, which took out about half of the powerful vampires in the city and just at the last second one of them pulled out a weapon and shot me.
It was pretty bad. Blood everywhere. Jasper tore the last vampire apart, which I didn't see, and then came over to where I was slumped on the floor, pressing my hand to the wound. He picked me up, and I was already starting to get tunnel vision- I didn't remember how we got back to his house, which on the inside looked like a Mesopotamian Temple (that's where Jasper was from, apparently) at which point Jasper did some really powerful vampire magic and saved my life, but left himself very weak (thus the need to retreat to his house where he'd be safe, before doing it). I took care of him for a few days until he was better, and by then the whole city was in an outrage about the slaughter at the ball and even my family was up in arms because they thought I'd been killed.
I went to tell them I was ok, at which point the remaining powerful vampires stormed in and "escorted" me back to their last stronghold, determined to have the information out of me as to what happened. Jasper showed up, there was another bloodbath, and I kept healing him, and just as the battle was over we both looked up at each other and our eyes met and-
My alarm went off. There was some story about the Midwest and the flooding and some guy trying to clean his house with a mop and bleach.
The Hope Diamond...
...Was donated to the Smithsonian Museum by being mailed through the Postal Service. Supposidly the Hope's Curse fell to the Post Office, delaying and slowing all mail since then.
Having ordered an Alphasmart, three textbooks, and a Torchwood Novel, as well as Dad shipping me a new cell phone, I've never seen more proof of the curse. Not a single thing is here yet. Hope they come tomorrow. I really, really need the school books...
Having ordered an Alphasmart, three textbooks, and a Torchwood Novel, as well as Dad shipping me a new cell phone, I've never seen more proof of the curse. Not a single thing is here yet. Hope they come tomorrow. I really, really need the school books...
Monday, August 20, 2007
Typing for Rome
Just sat down to start typing up all those pages I wrote on vacation and since then, I'll update this when I get done, just as a progress thing.
Currently 130 pages, 77,025 words. 12:40PM.
UPDATE: 12:53. It's seriously freezing in the Burruss Lab. I'm going to relocate to another one after lunch in hope of less absolute zero temperatures. Page 131, word count now 77,782.
UPDATE: 2PM. Had lunch, answered a survey for the Health Center (which won me a new water bottle and lanyard), checked on my math text book at the store (still expensive), ate free piece of pizza. Now I'm in the Writing Center, which, while not muggy is a hell of a lot more temperate than the Burruss Lab.
UPDATE: 3:13PM. Word Count 78,386. Page 132. Have to go to class now.
In other news, I just bought a Alphasmart. Yay.
Currently 130 pages, 77,025 words. 12:40PM.
UPDATE: 12:53. It's seriously freezing in the Burruss Lab. I'm going to relocate to another one after lunch in hope of less absolute zero temperatures. Page 131, word count now 77,782.
UPDATE: 2PM. Had lunch, answered a survey for the Health Center (which won me a new water bottle and lanyard), checked on my math text book at the store (still expensive), ate free piece of pizza. Now I'm in the Writing Center, which, while not muggy is a hell of a lot more temperate than the Burruss Lab.
UPDATE: 3:13PM. Word Count 78,386. Page 132. Have to go to class now.
In other news, I just bought a Alphasmart. Yay.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Books, books, books, books.
Ran my fall booklist for classes past Abebooks today. It was awesome.
Shakespeare By Stages should be (according to the College bookstore) a $28.95 book. Abe sold it to me for $10.00.
Out of Many Volume Two is a $62.50 dollar book sold to me for... $1.40.
And, the Out of Many Documents Volume is a $29.25 dollar book, sold to me for $1.00.
Shipping and handling brought the whole thing up to $23. Which is pretty darn good for $120 worth of books.
But that's not all that's coming in the mail. The first Torchwood Novel is on it's way.
Squeeeee.
Shakespeare By Stages should be (according to the College bookstore) a $28.95 book. Abe sold it to me for $10.00.
Out of Many Volume Two is a $62.50 dollar book sold to me for... $1.40.
And, the Out of Many Documents Volume is a $29.25 dollar book, sold to me for $1.00.
Shipping and handling brought the whole thing up to $23. Which is pretty darn good for $120 worth of books.
But that's not all that's coming in the mail. The first Torchwood Novel is on it's way.
Squeeeee.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
First Day of Fall Classes
(and already trouble on the horizon) (he he he)
First, the college decided to do something to the Burruss parking lot, which is a pretty busy and packed parking lot, which due to the rent-a-fence surrounding most of it no one can park in. Now the limited campus parking is even more limited. I had to park in the dorm garage this morning and hike across campus to class, in the heat. Blarg. Good exercise though. And good thing I had my water bottle.
Second, my Math Teacher is hot. He wore this white dress shirt that was just a little unbuttoned, a black suit jacket, and a black tie which was kinda loose (i thought guys only pulled the collar and tie loose when they were... i don't know. lounging by the pool while jet setting. not teaching statistics, anyway). Khaki slacks seemed out of place with all the black and white, but supposedly men can wear them with dressy stuff. Go figure.
Third, the Literary Geek in me got a huge thrill when I saw there was an almost $90 dollar Shakespeare text on the fall book list.(hooray! i have a whole class on The Bard!) I went to look at it and it appears to be nothing more than a very over sized Complete Works, which I already have a copy of. With my own notes and underlining in. I flipped through most of it, and there doesn't seem to be any special notes or annotations (more than my own, or most copies). Granted, mine is falling apart due to use, and this new copy isn't, but the new copy is a lot of money and it's not even leather bound.
First, the college decided to do something to the Burruss parking lot, which is a pretty busy and packed parking lot, which due to the rent-a-fence surrounding most of it no one can park in. Now the limited campus parking is even more limited. I had to park in the dorm garage this morning and hike across campus to class, in the heat. Blarg. Good exercise though. And good thing I had my water bottle.
Second, my Math Teacher is hot. He wore this white dress shirt that was just a little unbuttoned, a black suit jacket, and a black tie which was kinda loose (i thought guys only pulled the collar and tie loose when they were... i don't know. lounging by the pool while jet setting. not teaching statistics, anyway). Khaki slacks seemed out of place with all the black and white, but supposedly men can wear them with dressy stuff. Go figure.
Third, the Literary Geek in me got a huge thrill when I saw there was an almost $90 dollar Shakespeare text on the fall book list.(hooray! i have a whole class on The Bard!) I went to look at it and it appears to be nothing more than a very over sized Complete Works, which I already have a copy of. With my own notes and underlining in. I flipped through most of it, and there doesn't seem to be any special notes or annotations (more than my own, or most copies). Granted, mine is falling apart due to use, and this new copy isn't, but the new copy is a lot of money and it's not even leather bound.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Vacation Recap
Vacation was good. It was family vacation, which meant by the end of it there was drama, but the beach was nice and hot and the water was just great. It was sort of an emerald green, but there wasn't much to see under it except for Remoras and these lemon sized silver fish with yellow fins that I've forgotten the name of. And Jelly Fish. Which I've already had to unfun of experiencing close up and personal.
I managed to sun burn my right forearm the first day, which put a hamper on my beach time, but it wasn't like I was planning on being there between the hours of ten and two anyway.
Read the whole of Eclipse on the day it came out. It made me feel terribly girly, because the entire time I was cheering Edward and Bella to get married. I mean, I read romance novels and feel less girly. I donno. They're so cute together.
Watched some good Mythbusters episodes too, when Fred wasn't constantly changing the channel to CNN or Fox News then proceding to rant about how America keeps failing it's citizens about EVERYTHING. I got tired of the news really fast. And anytime we were in the car he'd set his XM Radio to the news, so there wasn't an escape from the news/rants.
Well, thats not entirely true. There was an escape. Not being around Fred. *chuckle*
Uncle Gary came on vacation with us, with his golden Saddie, who is one of the shyest sweetest dogs ever. Bailey of course displayed a complete lack of manners, stalked her around the house the entire time, barked at her, and finally pissed Saddie off to the point that Saddie bit her. Fred immediatly freaked and wanted to take her to the Emergency Room. At the People Hospital. And put her on Antibiotics.
Fred also took Bailey on at least eight walks a day and got chased from the beach four times by the local Sherrif because vacationers can't get permits for dogs on the beach, and Fred really didn't care because he was taking Bailey to the beach by god.
Because really, really this was Bailey's vacation with Fred, and we just happened to go along because we're her entourage.
But I did try to point out to him that his complaining about the lack of law enforcement in relation to CNN and Fox News was kind of silly when he wanted the law not enforced on the beach for him and the dog. He didn't get it. Started ranting again.
I retreated into my books around then.
Uncle Gary and I had a spat, which he started, when he got angry that I didn't like him elbowing me in the car. Quoted a lot of Dr. Phil at me (which is kinda scary). I'm just not used to people elbowing me when they want to talk to me. I'm still not sure what he was so upset about. He acted like me asking him not to do it was like me telling him I never wanted to speak to him again.
Um. But vacation was great. We had this little beach house, with a pool, and the food was good, read three books while I was there, and then on Friday night I suddenly knew how this conversation between Lucas and Terry went (from last year's Nano) and I had to have a notebook RIGHT THEN, which meant we had to drive to the local Publix. I got my notebook and a new pen, and sat down. I wrote twenty pages right there, in one sitting. And on the way back in the car I wrote about seven more. Got past their conversation, which was holding me up, and got through the battle that followed, but I know thats going to need a rewrite since I wrote it in the car, cramped in the backseat with the dog and Fred hollering every half hour when the news cycled back around to the story that pissed him off.
And now I'm off to my first Freecycle pickup. Hooray! Free recycled stuff!
And later, work! Hooray!
Oh, and by the way, Stardust is pretty good. Much better than I expected, since I didn't much care for the book. It has a real sense of grandure in all the shots, sort of like some of the big vista type scenes in Lord of the Rings. And the ending is different, which is a real plus for me. Bourne Ultimatium was great, even though Jason did not kick anyone hard enough for their head to fly off. But there were guns and explosions and action stuff and so much spy speak that my little fangirl heart was going. Even Almighty was funny, I'll give it that.
I managed to sun burn my right forearm the first day, which put a hamper on my beach time, but it wasn't like I was planning on being there between the hours of ten and two anyway.
Read the whole of Eclipse on the day it came out. It made me feel terribly girly, because the entire time I was cheering Edward and Bella to get married. I mean, I read romance novels and feel less girly. I donno. They're so cute together.
Watched some good Mythbusters episodes too, when Fred wasn't constantly changing the channel to CNN or Fox News then proceding to rant about how America keeps failing it's citizens about EVERYTHING. I got tired of the news really fast. And anytime we were in the car he'd set his XM Radio to the news, so there wasn't an escape from the news/rants.
Well, thats not entirely true. There was an escape. Not being around Fred. *chuckle*
Uncle Gary came on vacation with us, with his golden Saddie, who is one of the shyest sweetest dogs ever. Bailey of course displayed a complete lack of manners, stalked her around the house the entire time, barked at her, and finally pissed Saddie off to the point that Saddie bit her. Fred immediatly freaked and wanted to take her to the Emergency Room. At the People Hospital. And put her on Antibiotics.
Fred also took Bailey on at least eight walks a day and got chased from the beach four times by the local Sherrif because vacationers can't get permits for dogs on the beach, and Fred really didn't care because he was taking Bailey to the beach by god.
Because really, really this was Bailey's vacation with Fred, and we just happened to go along because we're her entourage.
But I did try to point out to him that his complaining about the lack of law enforcement in relation to CNN and Fox News was kind of silly when he wanted the law not enforced on the beach for him and the dog. He didn't get it. Started ranting again.
I retreated into my books around then.
Uncle Gary and I had a spat, which he started, when he got angry that I didn't like him elbowing me in the car. Quoted a lot of Dr. Phil at me (which is kinda scary). I'm just not used to people elbowing me when they want to talk to me. I'm still not sure what he was so upset about. He acted like me asking him not to do it was like me telling him I never wanted to speak to him again.
Um. But vacation was great. We had this little beach house, with a pool, and the food was good, read three books while I was there, and then on Friday night I suddenly knew how this conversation between Lucas and Terry went (from last year's Nano) and I had to have a notebook RIGHT THEN, which meant we had to drive to the local Publix. I got my notebook and a new pen, and sat down. I wrote twenty pages right there, in one sitting. And on the way back in the car I wrote about seven more. Got past their conversation, which was holding me up, and got through the battle that followed, but I know thats going to need a rewrite since I wrote it in the car, cramped in the backseat with the dog and Fred hollering every half hour when the news cycled back around to the story that pissed him off.
And now I'm off to my first Freecycle pickup. Hooray! Free recycled stuff!
And later, work! Hooray!
Oh, and by the way, Stardust is pretty good. Much better than I expected, since I didn't much care for the book. It has a real sense of grandure in all the shots, sort of like some of the big vista type scenes in Lord of the Rings. And the ending is different, which is a real plus for me. Bourne Ultimatium was great, even though Jason did not kick anyone hard enough for their head to fly off. But there were guns and explosions and action stuff and so much spy speak that my little fangirl heart was going. Even Almighty was funny, I'll give it that.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Less Wise
Hi everyone,
This is about as clear as anyone can hear me right now, because the gauze in my mouth makes speech sound like the piping from beyond the darkness. I guess my wisdom teeth came out ok, I can't see, but it was a really quick procedure....About twenty five minutes long, and then I got to sleep on a cot for an hour or so.
Thanks for all the well wishes, and I'll try to get better as fast as I can!
(also, I kept the teeth!)
And the wonderful Miss Frink came by today out of the blue to give me a Frosty! Hooray Frosty!
This is about as clear as anyone can hear me right now, because the gauze in my mouth makes speech sound like the piping from beyond the darkness. I guess my wisdom teeth came out ok, I can't see, but it was a really quick procedure....About twenty five minutes long, and then I got to sleep on a cot for an hour or so.
Thanks for all the well wishes, and I'll try to get better as fast as I can!
(also, I kept the teeth!)
And the wonderful Miss Frink came by today out of the blue to give me a Frosty! Hooray Frosty!
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday Night
I could have completed my goal with the Harry Potter books if it wasn't for real life, I'm sure of it. Between the college losing my SAP Appeals paperwork (and the essay about why I need to be at KSU and why they really need to give back my student loan) and the college having no idea what happened to my FAFSA, I spent a good portion of Tuesday and Wednesday either in the Financial aid office or redoing paperwork for the office. And then there was what turned into a five page Film assignment...
So, I'm on Goblet of Fire and a lot of people are coaching me to just skip ahead to Half Blood Prince so MAYBE I can be done with that by tomorrow night when book seven comes out. I think I'm just going to keep reading the series as is, and pick up Deathly Hallows tomorrow and read it when I get to it, which might even be on vacation. ^_^
And now is a good time to start avoiding the Internet and radio too. Just in case. 99x told the spoiler the next morning, last year, for book six. And all the image boards I hit have been trying to spoil the surprise for about a week now. So don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for a few days...
Oh, and did anyone else notice that Google Analytics suddenly got wonky? Now I can't see where everyone is. Or I can, it's just much more complicated. *sad*
So, I'm on Goblet of Fire and a lot of people are coaching me to just skip ahead to Half Blood Prince so MAYBE I can be done with that by tomorrow night when book seven comes out. I think I'm just going to keep reading the series as is, and pick up Deathly Hallows tomorrow and read it when I get to it, which might even be on vacation. ^_^
And now is a good time to start avoiding the Internet and radio too. Just in case. 99x told the spoiler the next morning, last year, for book six. And all the image boards I hit have been trying to spoil the surprise for about a week now. So don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for a few days...
Oh, and did anyone else notice that Google Analytics suddenly got wonky? Now I can't see where everyone is. Or I can, it's just much more complicated. *sad*
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Seventeenth
I got started on Azkaban either last night, or early this morning. I'm kind of running behind, and yet picking up speed.
I was at page fifty-something when I got to work early, and wound up around page seventy-five when I clocked in. It's about 1:30 now and I'm around page 250. Or 300. I forgot. Might finish tonight, might tomorrow morning.
I'm surprised how many people are cheering me on; it's really something having people stop me and ask where I'm at with the books. Maybe I'll blog more about what I'm reading in the future...
As for speculation... Um, it's becoming more and more apparent to me that something is wrong with Percy Weasley. First, he gave Scabbers the Rat (spoiler: Wormtail) to Ron. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't. Second, the Sneak-o-scope is always going off around him, implying he can't be trusted, or that he's snooping (how the characters keep assuming it's anyone else boggles my mind). Third, he refuses to believe in the return of Voldemort, and supports Fudge (a sure sign of evil). According to a few friends Percy is nothing more than a suckup, but I have to wonder just how deep someone will go to get that cushy job. (or more than a cushy job)
Where I'm at in Azkaban leaves me around, ah, 900 or so pages into the 3,411. Eeek.
I was at page fifty-something when I got to work early, and wound up around page seventy-five when I clocked in. It's about 1:30 now and I'm around page 250. Or 300. I forgot. Might finish tonight, might tomorrow morning.
I'm surprised how many people are cheering me on; it's really something having people stop me and ask where I'm at with the books. Maybe I'll blog more about what I'm reading in the future...
As for speculation... Um, it's becoming more and more apparent to me that something is wrong with Percy Weasley. First, he gave Scabbers the Rat (spoiler: Wormtail) to Ron. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't. Second, the Sneak-o-scope is always going off around him, implying he can't be trusted, or that he's snooping (how the characters keep assuming it's anyone else boggles my mind). Third, he refuses to believe in the return of Voldemort, and supports Fudge (a sure sign of evil). According to a few friends Percy is nothing more than a suckup, but I have to wonder just how deep someone will go to get that cushy job. (or more than a cushy job)
Where I'm at in Azkaban leaves me around, ah, 900 or so pages into the 3,411. Eeek.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The Fourteenth
Something less than a hundred pages of Chamber of Secrets left. It'll be done tonight, I'm sure, and then onto Prisoner of Azkaban... Which I brought upstairs with me, just to be sure I'd get into it.
Funny things I've been noticing in the reread, stuff that didn't pop out so much last time; there are more hints that Harry is evil than I would have thought. I've had this idea that perhaps, after defeating Voldemort that maybe Harry becomes the next Dark Lord; maybe all his friends are killed, or Voldemort offers him a future with his parents through some dark spell only Voldemort can cast, or (this idea I really liked) the Wizard world has always seen Harry as a tool to the end of Voldemort, and he's learned a lot of spells for that particular facet of life (to be good as Dark Arts Defense you have to have a very solid grounding in Dark Arts). Perhaps after Voldemort is dead, the Wizarding world sees Harry as a new threat, a new Dark Lord on the horizon. To protect himself, perhaps that's the only path...
I donno. ^_^ Hrm. See, the characters do a lot of assuming, more than I recalled; in hindsight it's fairly obvious that the hex on Harry's broom failed when Hermione shoved Quirrel, not when she set Snape on fire, but the kids always believe it's Snape who's up to evil. The same in the second book, with the Heir of Slytherin- it *has* to be a Slytherin who opens the Chamber of Secrets, not a certain someone else who acts suspicious all book.
Maybe we're all assuming he's good. Or better than he is.
For instance, Slytherin House is mostly Legacy members (Slytherin students usually come from Slytherin Parents), and the sorting hat wanted to put Harry in Slytherin. Harry is a Parselmouth (read: can talk to snakes), a trait shared with Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin (founder of the house, a thousand years ago). Harry has green eyes. His mother's house is unknown, but his father was Gryffindor, and his mother defended Severus Snape when he was a student with them from Harry's father; something a non-slyetherin is not likely to do.
Most people refute all of that by saying, oh, well, he got all those slytherin things when Voldermort attacked him as a baby and couldn't kill him. Bah. Assuming!
The other thing that's sticking in my brain is the Prophecy that foretells Harry's slaying of the Dark Lord (and I haven't gotten to that part in my reread, so I might recall this wrong) doesn't say what happens next. Maybe, it's like the whole "bring balance to the force" thing. Voldermort wants Harry out of the way so he won't rise up and slay him, like the Titans.
Funny things I've been noticing in the reread, stuff that didn't pop out so much last time; there are more hints that Harry is evil than I would have thought. I've had this idea that perhaps, after defeating Voldemort that maybe Harry becomes the next Dark Lord; maybe all his friends are killed, or Voldemort offers him a future with his parents through some dark spell only Voldemort can cast, or (this idea I really liked) the Wizard world has always seen Harry as a tool to the end of Voldemort, and he's learned a lot of spells for that particular facet of life (to be good as Dark Arts Defense you have to have a very solid grounding in Dark Arts). Perhaps after Voldemort is dead, the Wizarding world sees Harry as a new threat, a new Dark Lord on the horizon. To protect himself, perhaps that's the only path...
I donno. ^_^ Hrm. See, the characters do a lot of assuming, more than I recalled; in hindsight it's fairly obvious that the hex on Harry's broom failed when Hermione shoved Quirrel, not when she set Snape on fire, but the kids always believe it's Snape who's up to evil. The same in the second book, with the Heir of Slytherin- it *has* to be a Slytherin who opens the Chamber of Secrets, not a certain someone else who acts suspicious all book.
Maybe we're all assuming he's good. Or better than he is.
For instance, Slytherin House is mostly Legacy members (Slytherin students usually come from Slytherin Parents), and the sorting hat wanted to put Harry in Slytherin. Harry is a Parselmouth (read: can talk to snakes), a trait shared with Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin (founder of the house, a thousand years ago). Harry has green eyes. His mother's house is unknown, but his father was Gryffindor, and his mother defended Severus Snape when he was a student with them from Harry's father; something a non-slyetherin is not likely to do.
Most people refute all of that by saying, oh, well, he got all those slytherin things when Voldermort attacked him as a baby and couldn't kill him. Bah. Assuming!
The other thing that's sticking in my brain is the Prophecy that foretells Harry's slaying of the Dark Lord (and I haven't gotten to that part in my reread, so I might recall this wrong) doesn't say what happens next. Maybe, it's like the whole "bring balance to the force" thing. Voldermort wants Harry out of the way so he won't rise up and slay him, like the Titans.
Marathon Read Update
Finished Sorcerer's Stone last night, around 2AM.
Read half of Chamber of Secrets this morning over breakfast. (I'll probably finish it tonight)
Which puts me about... 494/3,411. (that's without the rest of Chamber added in)
There's been more interruptions since I started this quest than I had anticipated.
Read half of Chamber of Secrets this morning over breakfast. (I'll probably finish it tonight)
Which puts me about... 494/3,411. (that's without the rest of Chamber added in)
There's been more interruptions since I started this quest than I had anticipated.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ten Days
Just having got out of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I feel that my love of the Harry Potter fandom has been revamped. So revamped, that I'm taking a foolhardy literary vow.
I have ten days until Book Seven comes out. Between now and then, I'm going to reread all six of the previous books.
Wish me luck.
(It's only..ah... 3,411 pages)
I have ten days until Book Seven comes out. Between now and then, I'm going to reread all six of the previous books.
Wish me luck.
(It's only..ah... 3,411 pages)
Monday, July 9, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The UnHappy Fourth
The fireworks were nice. They were.
As they went off I looked around in the dark at all the upturned faces that looked so happy and reverent and I wondered why mine was so...Unhappy.
I think holidays get harder every year that passes. I remember being little, and watching the fireworks with this sense of awe, waving a little flag with this brightly burning patriotism that must have shown through my skin. I watched my Mom, turning different firework colors in the dark, looking subtly amused. I watched Fred, who kept riling up the dog and then claiming she was riled up because of the fireworks. I watched the other people in the culdesac...
None of them looked sad.
I asked later what Mom and Fred were thinking about, watching the fireworks. Fred said the dog, surprise surprise. Mom said the colors, and the shapes they made, and how people must have struggled so hard back in 1776 to make this a country. How hard it must have been for them. What they fought for.
That's what I think all the other people ever watching fireworks must thinking about. I'm assuming, I know. I think people think great thoughts about everything, and sometimes I think I must be lagging around in the dust, compared to them.
I thought... I guess about the fireworks. The shapes, and the colors; how the happy face ones that Roswell likes to buy never get shot off right and the smiley face ends up upside down, or sideways. I thought about what my film teacher said Tuesday about the German filmmakers who fled the Nazi regime to come to Hollywood, bringing with them fresh skills and expressionism (which led to film noir), and how when my teacher was almost done speaking about the immigrants he bitterly slipped in a quip about how these people believed in the American Dream, and how America doesn't want to share that with anyone anymore. I thought about over fishing in Alaska and if there's going to be anything left of the environment in fifty years. The price of oil at the end of summer and the water powered cars they have in Greenland (or is it Iceland?). I thought about how there doesn't ever seem to be peace in the Middle East, and how I don't think our current tactics there are working, but that I can't seem to come up with a better plan myself. I thought about what the Founders would think of the country today, and what that reenactor at the Pickett's Mill site would think of the Fourth himself, since he proclaims himself a Son of the South, and how his beloved Confederate States (that we all still live in, to hear him talk) were invaded by a foreign power a hundred and fifty years ago.
I looked at all the other happy faces, and I wanted to feel happy myself. I wanted to be just as happy, to burn brightly, like the colors of the fireworks. Instead I feel like I'm trying to solve a lot of complicated, simple problems, and not coming up with any good answers.
But I did enjoy the colors, especially the silver ones that explode with the sound of rice crispies and hang in the air like so much twinkling silver confetti.
Happy Fourth, and a Good Night.
As they went off I looked around in the dark at all the upturned faces that looked so happy and reverent and I wondered why mine was so...Unhappy.
I think holidays get harder every year that passes. I remember being little, and watching the fireworks with this sense of awe, waving a little flag with this brightly burning patriotism that must have shown through my skin. I watched my Mom, turning different firework colors in the dark, looking subtly amused. I watched Fred, who kept riling up the dog and then claiming she was riled up because of the fireworks. I watched the other people in the culdesac...
None of them looked sad.
I asked later what Mom and Fred were thinking about, watching the fireworks. Fred said the dog, surprise surprise. Mom said the colors, and the shapes they made, and how people must have struggled so hard back in 1776 to make this a country. How hard it must have been for them. What they fought for.
That's what I think all the other people ever watching fireworks must thinking about. I'm assuming, I know. I think people think great thoughts about everything, and sometimes I think I must be lagging around in the dust, compared to them.
I thought... I guess about the fireworks. The shapes, and the colors; how the happy face ones that Roswell likes to buy never get shot off right and the smiley face ends up upside down, or sideways. I thought about what my film teacher said Tuesday about the German filmmakers who fled the Nazi regime to come to Hollywood, bringing with them fresh skills and expressionism (which led to film noir), and how when my teacher was almost done speaking about the immigrants he bitterly slipped in a quip about how these people believed in the American Dream, and how America doesn't want to share that with anyone anymore. I thought about over fishing in Alaska and if there's going to be anything left of the environment in fifty years. The price of oil at the end of summer and the water powered cars they have in Greenland (or is it Iceland?). I thought about how there doesn't ever seem to be peace in the Middle East, and how I don't think our current tactics there are working, but that I can't seem to come up with a better plan myself. I thought about what the Founders would think of the country today, and what that reenactor at the Pickett's Mill site would think of the Fourth himself, since he proclaims himself a Son of the South, and how his beloved Confederate States (that we all still live in, to hear him talk) were invaded by a foreign power a hundred and fifty years ago.
I looked at all the other happy faces, and I wanted to feel happy myself. I wanted to be just as happy, to burn brightly, like the colors of the fireworks. Instead I feel like I'm trying to solve a lot of complicated, simple problems, and not coming up with any good answers.
But I did enjoy the colors, especially the silver ones that explode with the sound of rice crispies and hang in the air like so much twinkling silver confetti.
Happy Fourth, and a Good Night.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Harry Potter Blood Pops
They don't taste like blood.
And they kind of don't taste much like strawberry either.
They're red lollipops, covered in dark red dust, which is pretty much tasteless and turned out to be red dye. Once you get past the tasteless red dye you're presented with an oddly flavored lollipop. It's not really... Strawberry. Or blood. It's just kinda odd.
They must be a hell of a lot better in Harry Potter's world. Or I'm not a vampire (who they're marketed to in Harry Potter's world).
So. I have nine more. Nine more not blood, not strawberry pops.
*sigh*
It kinda makes me wish they were blood flavored. That would at least be something. I mean, if lollipops with bugs inside can get sold, why don't we have blood flavored pops?
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The winding, convoluted, confusing path of the Internet
After Cliff and Kevin both told me about AT&T's Ten Dollar DSL, I finally signed up for it.
The process took at least three days. ^_^
Three days of surfing unaffiliated pages telling me about the offer and then tearing through nearly a dozen pages at the official website trying to find it. Arg! The FCC might be forcing their hand with this deal, but AT&T is doing everything they can not to admit such a thing exists.
Supposidly my new modem will arrive Friday, and Randy is going to come help me set it up, if I can't figure it out (not usually the problem. it's the getting them to talk part, for me) and then I can acctually go on YouTube at home. And do... Other things, which require faster internet...
Heh.
The process took at least three days. ^_^
Three days of surfing unaffiliated pages telling me about the offer and then tearing through nearly a dozen pages at the official website trying to find it. Arg! The FCC might be forcing their hand with this deal, but AT&T is doing everything they can not to admit such a thing exists.
Supposidly my new modem will arrive Friday, and Randy is going to come help me set it up, if I can't figure it out (not usually the problem. it's the getting them to talk part, for me) and then I can acctually go on YouTube at home. And do... Other things, which require faster internet...
Heh.
Friday, June 22, 2007
School is Not Out for Summer
Thank god.
For those of you in the know (and have probably heard me bitching about this at least *once* a semester) KSU has again tried to end my college career.
Usually it's a typo somewhere, or some mailing list I've accidentally gotten on (thanks Admissions Office!), or the School claims it's not their job to inform me of anything and therefore I should have known to look on some obscure part of their website to see that they didn't tell me about a fee that they charged me for and then didn't tell me about the late fees they tacked onto that since I never paid the fee since I didn't know about it and now I have two days to pay the exorbidant bill or I'll have all my classes cancled.
The thing is, I love college. I love the classes, the books (not the prices), making my own schedule, having teachers talk to you like you're a real person. Pretty much everything. Especially the Halo Effect of being a College Student.
*begin rant*
What I hate is KSU. There's this guy that works in the Bursars office who's probably won the Most Callous Jerk of the year award for several years running. And of the people I've had to deal with in the Finantial Aid office this semester alone, there has been the Director who listened to ESPN Radio on his computer while I tried to explain my situation, and the guy who gets belligerent with me every time I go in there ("But I don't understand how I can be in Academic Failure when I had a B average last semester." "Well, I don't understand any other way I can explain it to you.")
I can't wait until I graduate so the Alumni Association can call me to ask for a donation and I can tell them where they can put it.
*end rant*
So, what happened after being mislead on my paperwork to solve the Problem-of-the-Semester is that had I been told correctly what was going on THREE WEEKS AGO I probably could have gone to the SAP Committee then and pled my case, rather than filling out paperwork for them, which was only going to be filed in the fall (thanks Finantial Aid!), and after three weeks there was nothing to be done about the situation the school created and that I had to pay for my tuition out of pocket. Not something you like to hear with less than a week to come up with said tuition.
Dad came up with it yesterday, right before the 5pm deadline. So I'm a college student for at least the rest of this semester, and I'm supposed to wait and see what the Committee says about Fall. Fat chance. I'm going to the Dean as soon as possible, and the Student Success Dean, and pretty much anyone else I can get to listen to me at school.
On other topics, I saw over on Charles' blog that he was writing about "Comfort Reading". Hrm. I'm not sure that I do that. But I have travel reading. I always take Clive Barker's The Thief of Always with me when I go on a trip. I was very happy when it came out in comics a few years ago, and I thought the art did a great job of capturing all the characters. Nearly as good a job as Barker's own sketches did. Jive was always a favorite of mine with his shark's grin, and Carna always made me feel pity...
And as for Brett... I still remember the time I was in a coffee shop for a Nanowrimo 2006 event and someone said "Rofl" right in the middle of a conversation. I think it was the first time I'd ever actually heard someone say an internet word. Since then it's been everywhere.
For those of you in the know (and have probably heard me bitching about this at least *once* a semester) KSU has again tried to end my college career.
Usually it's a typo somewhere, or some mailing list I've accidentally gotten on (thanks Admissions Office!), or the School claims it's not their job to inform me of anything and therefore I should have known to look on some obscure part of their website to see that they didn't tell me about a fee that they charged me for and then didn't tell me about the late fees they tacked onto that since I never paid the fee since I didn't know about it and now I have two days to pay the exorbidant bill or I'll have all my classes cancled.
The thing is, I love college. I love the classes, the books (not the prices), making my own schedule, having teachers talk to you like you're a real person. Pretty much everything. Especially the Halo Effect of being a College Student.
*begin rant*
What I hate is KSU. There's this guy that works in the Bursars office who's probably won the Most Callous Jerk of the year award for several years running. And of the people I've had to deal with in the Finantial Aid office this semester alone, there has been the Director who listened to ESPN Radio on his computer while I tried to explain my situation, and the guy who gets belligerent with me every time I go in there ("But I don't understand how I can be in Academic Failure when I had a B average last semester." "Well, I don't understand any other way I can explain it to you.")
I can't wait until I graduate so the Alumni Association can call me to ask for a donation and I can tell them where they can put it.
*end rant*
So, what happened after being mislead on my paperwork to solve the Problem-of-the-Semester is that had I been told correctly what was going on THREE WEEKS AGO I probably could have gone to the SAP Committee then and pled my case, rather than filling out paperwork for them, which was only going to be filed in the fall (thanks Finantial Aid!), and after three weeks there was nothing to be done about the situation the school created and that I had to pay for my tuition out of pocket. Not something you like to hear with less than a week to come up with said tuition.
Dad came up with it yesterday, right before the 5pm deadline. So I'm a college student for at least the rest of this semester, and I'm supposed to wait and see what the Committee says about Fall. Fat chance. I'm going to the Dean as soon as possible, and the Student Success Dean, and pretty much anyone else I can get to listen to me at school.
On other topics, I saw over on Charles' blog that he was writing about "Comfort Reading". Hrm. I'm not sure that I do that. But I have travel reading. I always take Clive Barker's The Thief of Always with me when I go on a trip. I was very happy when it came out in comics a few years ago, and I thought the art did a great job of capturing all the characters. Nearly as good a job as Barker's own sketches did. Jive was always a favorite of mine with his shark's grin, and Carna always made me feel pity...
And as for Brett... I still remember the time I was in a coffee shop for a Nanowrimo 2006 event and someone said "Rofl" right in the middle of a conversation. I think it was the first time I'd ever actually heard someone say an internet word. Since then it's been everywhere.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
How to Script.
Heh. I don't know. I really don't. I could maybe tell you how to script a comic, considering I did that once, and I didn't finish the project... (Though with the advent of the Multiple Earths again in DC, suddenly my idea becomes more and more viable, in some ways. In others, the deaths of a few DC characters have changed certain things...)
I've been writing since... The third or fourth grade. Probably before that, because there's a copy of something my Mom transcripted that I made up about two dinosaurs going on a road trip together. It's accompanied by a drawing, in crayon, of the dinosaurs, their car, and their top hats.
But the fourth grade is the closest I can come to dating this momentous event. Being the kid who got the notes home about reading books under the desk in math class, and missing the bus a few times because I went to the school library *really quick* after class let out meant that there was a time where I was pretty sure I'd read all the fiction in my elementary's library. And my teacher assigned what was probably a Christopher Pike novel.
It was bad.
I think most of his books are bad, and I think I've only read one of his "Fear Street" novels. Tripe, I guess.
This book was so bad, I put it down, and with all the gravitas a elementary school child can muster I said, "Even I can write something better than that."
It was total hubris that put me on this path. ^_^ You have to love that.
One of the first things I wrote was this almost exact copy of a fantasy book I loved called "The Dragon's Egg". The next thing I wrote was some garbage about my best friend being a werewolf.
But in the fourth grade, there was a writing contest, and I know I entered that. I didn't win. Meh.
So, years, and years later, with a huge Rubbermaid crate in the garage of handwritten fiction later, here I am writing a script. Which wasn't originally what I planned on doing this June, but sometimes things happen.
I was sure me and this script thing weren't going to jive. The comic one hadn't panned out, and I remember being confounded by it. And when I was chatting with Erin, who runs all the MLs for NaNoWriMo, I sort of accidentally agreed to ML (and write a script) for Script Frenzy.
Cheerfully press ganged I set about learning how to write a script. It looks very complicated. It's probably that complicated. I don't know. I'm kind of ignoring half the rules. They have an "Intro to Screenwriting" explanation on the Script Frenzy site but when it gets to all this "INT. SARAH'S BEDROOM - DAY" that's about where I get the confounded feeling. Why not just write "Interior"? And all this tabbing? What?
What I really wanted to say in this post, somewhere, is that I'm really happy and thankful to all the people that are commenting on my post, and telling me how it is, and what it needs to do. In script writing I have no idea how much I'm allowed to describe things, or what camera angles are, or where I'm supposed to put things.
This loops back to what I was saying earlier about writing in the fourth grade. Because, you see, I didn't stop there. I just kept writing. I wrote a novel between the fifth and sixth grades. It's badly awesome, hand written, all one paragraph, and the characters all have preposterous rock star names like "Wind" or "Tornado" or "Lighting". I spell "vampire" five different ways on the FIRST page. It's about... 450+ pages.
I wrote another novel in High School at some point, and this one tops out around four hundred or five hundred hand written pages. It was so good that my friends all passed it around, in this huge three ring binder. Imagine getting High Schoolers to willingly read- I mean, for some that's not so hard, but others, it's like herding cats. Most of High School I wrote fanfic, sparsely populated with original work. Randy tells me that we learned how to plot novels in High School English class, but I don't remember that. Or if I do, that might have been the first time we actually used all the writing terminologies that confuse me to this day.
And, then, I got out of High School and went to college, and wrote more fanfic.
And then, there was NaNoWriMo. I wrote my first Novel for that in 2004. I even bought the writing book Chris Baty wrote.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the first writing book I ever read. The first "How to" of any kind, on the craft.
Pretty much, it was the last too, because other than that book I find writing guides really confusing. What is this "story arc" that they speak of, what are all these "acts"? I have no idea. I mean, I get it, that these things exist and you can diagram a novel into sections and pieces, and label them all like a map of how to get there. But I never think like that.
This happens, so that happens, and then the characters go here.
Except with names and places thrown in. That makes sense to me, and it follows whatever a story is supposed to follow. It's like calling the thigh bone a femur (except I know what that is, so the metaphor doesn't work quite right).
I guess this is what happens when you read enough; you know how the tale works, without any need for the mechanics therein.
[22:19] Randy: its the diffrnce between a wizard and a sorcerer
[22:19] Bento: one learns, one figures it out?
[22:19] Randy: something like that
[22:20] Randy: sorcerers have natural magical abilty they just tap into
[22:20] Randy: wizards must study for years for the simplest spells
[22:22] Bento: i'm gonna quote you in my blog
[22:23] Randy: yay! i feel special!
What I wanted to make a point of, is that all my fiction writing has been me, by myself, figuring it out. I read a lot, so that's really been my only teacher of how to do things, and I think for the longest time that I didn't know there were writing guides. I just picked up a pencil one day, and said, "I'm going to write a story." and all it had to do was be better than the book I'd read. And then I kept going, until now. Which is thirteen years, and only three years ago did I pick up a writing manual. What people read of mine, is all homemade, and self crafted. I put those words in order, not just in the literal sense of pen on paper or keyboard onto screen, but in the sense that I invented this by myself. (well, I suppose that's goofy to say I invented writing, but I mean that I invented my own writing) I didn't know other writers personally, in real life, until I was well into High School and we never talked shop. The first time I actually talked shop with other writers was, *surprise* Work Dinner. Which is why half the time I sit around with this happy face and glazed eyes, just insanely pleased to hear Cliff and Charles talk about writing something, or how they came up with it, or an idea.
I hope I'm not coming off like a pretentious ass, who thinks they can write anything without looking at books about it, or asking for help. I don't want to sound like that. I want help. Because I have no idea what I'm doing with script format. ^_^
But I am very flattered that everyone took the time to read it, and tell me what they think. And I'm glad they sound like they're really talking. ^_^ I'm pretty sure that's the goal. I'm gonna go poke at the script with Cliff's words in mind, and see what difference it makes. I might post a revision...
I've been writing since... The third or fourth grade. Probably before that, because there's a copy of something my Mom transcripted that I made up about two dinosaurs going on a road trip together. It's accompanied by a drawing, in crayon, of the dinosaurs, their car, and their top hats.
But the fourth grade is the closest I can come to dating this momentous event. Being the kid who got the notes home about reading books under the desk in math class, and missing the bus a few times because I went to the school library *really quick* after class let out meant that there was a time where I was pretty sure I'd read all the fiction in my elementary's library. And my teacher assigned what was probably a Christopher Pike novel.
It was bad.
I think most of his books are bad, and I think I've only read one of his "Fear Street" novels. Tripe, I guess.
This book was so bad, I put it down, and with all the gravitas a elementary school child can muster I said, "Even I can write something better than that."
It was total hubris that put me on this path. ^_^ You have to love that.
One of the first things I wrote was this almost exact copy of a fantasy book I loved called "The Dragon's Egg". The next thing I wrote was some garbage about my best friend being a werewolf.
But in the fourth grade, there was a writing contest, and I know I entered that. I didn't win. Meh.
So, years, and years later, with a huge Rubbermaid crate in the garage of handwritten fiction later, here I am writing a script. Which wasn't originally what I planned on doing this June, but sometimes things happen.
I was sure me and this script thing weren't going to jive. The comic one hadn't panned out, and I remember being confounded by it. And when I was chatting with Erin, who runs all the MLs for NaNoWriMo, I sort of accidentally agreed to ML (and write a script) for Script Frenzy.
Cheerfully press ganged I set about learning how to write a script. It looks very complicated. It's probably that complicated. I don't know. I'm kind of ignoring half the rules. They have an "Intro to Screenwriting" explanation on the Script Frenzy site but when it gets to all this "INT. SARAH'S BEDROOM - DAY" that's about where I get the confounded feeling. Why not just write "Interior"? And all this tabbing? What?
What I really wanted to say in this post, somewhere, is that I'm really happy and thankful to all the people that are commenting on my post, and telling me how it is, and what it needs to do. In script writing I have no idea how much I'm allowed to describe things, or what camera angles are, or where I'm supposed to put things.
This loops back to what I was saying earlier about writing in the fourth grade. Because, you see, I didn't stop there. I just kept writing. I wrote a novel between the fifth and sixth grades. It's badly awesome, hand written, all one paragraph, and the characters all have preposterous rock star names like "Wind" or "Tornado" or "Lighting". I spell "vampire" five different ways on the FIRST page. It's about... 450+ pages.
I wrote another novel in High School at some point, and this one tops out around four hundred or five hundred hand written pages. It was so good that my friends all passed it around, in this huge three ring binder. Imagine getting High Schoolers to willingly read- I mean, for some that's not so hard, but others, it's like herding cats. Most of High School I wrote fanfic, sparsely populated with original work. Randy tells me that we learned how to plot novels in High School English class, but I don't remember that. Or if I do, that might have been the first time we actually used all the writing terminologies that confuse me to this day.
And, then, I got out of High School and went to college, and wrote more fanfic.
And then, there was NaNoWriMo. I wrote my first Novel for that in 2004. I even bought the writing book Chris Baty wrote.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the first writing book I ever read. The first "How to" of any kind, on the craft.
Pretty much, it was the last too, because other than that book I find writing guides really confusing. What is this "story arc" that they speak of, what are all these "acts"? I have no idea. I mean, I get it, that these things exist and you can diagram a novel into sections and pieces, and label them all like a map of how to get there. But I never think like that.
This happens, so that happens, and then the characters go here.
Except with names and places thrown in. That makes sense to me, and it follows whatever a story is supposed to follow. It's like calling the thigh bone a femur (except I know what that is, so the metaphor doesn't work quite right).
I guess this is what happens when you read enough; you know how the tale works, without any need for the mechanics therein.
[22:19] Randy: its the diffrnce between a wizard and a sorcerer
[22:19] Bento: one learns, one figures it out?
[22:19] Randy: something like that
[22:20] Randy: sorcerers have natural magical abilty they just tap into
[22:20] Randy: wizards must study for years for the simplest spells
[22:22] Bento: i'm gonna quote you in my blog
[22:23] Randy: yay! i feel special!
What I wanted to make a point of, is that all my fiction writing has been me, by myself, figuring it out. I read a lot, so that's really been my only teacher of how to do things, and I think for the longest time that I didn't know there were writing guides. I just picked up a pencil one day, and said, "I'm going to write a story." and all it had to do was be better than the book I'd read. And then I kept going, until now. Which is thirteen years, and only three years ago did I pick up a writing manual. What people read of mine, is all homemade, and self crafted. I put those words in order, not just in the literal sense of pen on paper or keyboard onto screen, but in the sense that I invented this by myself. (well, I suppose that's goofy to say I invented writing, but I mean that I invented my own writing) I didn't know other writers personally, in real life, until I was well into High School and we never talked shop. The first time I actually talked shop with other writers was, *surprise* Work Dinner. Which is why half the time I sit around with this happy face and glazed eyes, just insanely pleased to hear Cliff and Charles talk about writing something, or how they came up with it, or an idea.
I hope I'm not coming off like a pretentious ass, who thinks they can write anything without looking at books about it, or asking for help. I don't want to sound like that. I want help. Because I have no idea what I'm doing with script format. ^_^
But I am very flattered that everyone took the time to read it, and tell me what they think. And I'm glad they sound like they're really talking. ^_^ I'm pretty sure that's the goal. I'm gonna go poke at the script with Cliff's words in mind, and see what difference it makes. I might post a revision...
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