Nikki

This is Nikki, our new dog. Bailey isn't totally sure about her yet, but seems to get upset if she isn't in eyesight. Nikki is apparently some kind of mutt-terrier type. I think she looks like a weiner dog. Mom is convinced she's a Jack Russell.

Freecycle Victory

I don't know if you guys have heard of Freecycle, but it's awesome. In Arizona they had problems with people throwing away too much stuff, and a lot of it was still useful- just not to the person who currently had it. So someone (i forgot his name) had a bright idea to make a bunch of area specific mailing lists that people in that county or town could post if they had something they needed to get rid of, but thought someone else might like. You can post wanted ads too, but you've got to give something away for each wanted post you put up. Lots of funny things get given away, someone had too many spider plants in their yard the other week, and someone else was getting rid of a spare door from their basement, stuff like that. I usually use it to pass on books I've read, if I don't feel like taking them to the used book store. But I've gotten a tea pot, things like that, out of it. One time I asked for knitting supplies, since I'd just started and a nice lady told me she had a bag of yarn she would like to give me- I drove over thinking it'd be a grocery bag and found it was a fall leaf litter sized bag jammed almost to bursting with yarn. Too big for my trunk!

Anyway, I finished some books, put an offer up for them, and at the same time asked for knitting needles. A nice lady over off Sandy Plains replied to me, telling me she had a bag of them. When I got there it was sort of like the "too much yarn" time- I've got a bag with over fifty needles in it! And circulars! Brilliant! I can't wait to go home and start knitting on them! Thanks Freecycle!

I hate being cold too.

The most amusing knitting project I've seen so far.

In Dreams

The last dream I had this morning before the alarm blared was really, fantastically neat.

I was at a bookstore, probably a Borders, considering the shelf height. I went to the Scifi section and there were all these great books, something about a elfin detective (it had great cover art, and it was a series and they all looked good), and a fantasy Kingdom inside a kid's closet...

And a whole shelf of Doctor Who novels I hadn't seen before. There was a Doctor I hadn't seen before, and some anthology type books, different Companions with different Doctors, stuff like that.

And right there with them, Del Rey edition like the Conan books, was a collection of short stories where Barbara Gordon, as Batgirl, was the Doctor's Companion.

It made me laugh a little when I woke up.

Oh yeah, I finished "Twilight Streets". It was a great read. I keep being impressed how good all the Torchwood tie-in novels are. I've still got my Forever Knight tie-in novels, and I don't know that I'd pick them up again, but I'm not getting rid of them either. I know I've tried reading a Highlander tie-in or two, and couldn't get anywhere. So far all the Torchwood books, especially "Border Princes" and "Slow Decay" have been really great- they're great enough that I'd rec them to people who haven't seen the show. And as much as they're a punch in the wallet, price-wise, I really do like them being hardcover, they feel excellent in your hands while you're reading them.

Top Ten (+1 Honorable Mention) Vampire Books

For Julie. Since I can think of this list much faster than the "you must read this" list. ^_^ Aaaaand, they're not in any particular order.



The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

The first five Anita Blake novels by Laurel K. Hamilton

Necroscope by Brian Lumley (actually not a book I like, but it certainly has it's effect)

Demon Under Glass by DL Warner

Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano



The honorable mention goes to Gerald Tarrant of the Coldfire Trilogy by C. S. Friedman.

SWEET AWESOMENESS

OMG LOOK AT HOW COOL THESE ARE AND I MADE THEM ALL BY MYSELF AND THEY'RE TOTALLY FREAKING SWEET!!! YESSSSSSSSS!!!

There's a what in the fridge?

Off the back of my Kroger Brand Coffee. In the spirit of the OMG Cholesterol pic. First, I didn't know there was a "wet" section in the fridge/freezer. Secondly, what do you keep in there?

I bought a new French cuff shirt yesterday, nice cream colored thing with a woven-in sort of pinstripe thing that makes little boxes in the fabric. It made me wish there was a Taxonomy of Men's Shirts site. It's got a strange collar/cuff variation that I couldn't spot on Wikipedia- there's a corner taken out of the cuffs when they're folded over and cuff linked in place. Same thing with the collar- instead of coming to a proper triangle point they sort of swoop back like someone took the corner off them too. I wore the shirt with my keyhole cuff links. ^_^

Oh right. Reason I needed a new shirt was that I was really nervous about Fiction Writing class. We were having our first workshop and Aubrey and I did our stories first, and sent them in over the weekend for people to write critiques about. Faced with fifteen random people who'd read something I'd written in three days (it was assigned late Tuesday night, due Friday, had to do research for it...) I was wanting to climb out a window rather than hear how much they hated it. Anxiety shopping is bad, but... Anyway, turns out no one hated it. A lot of people liked it, a lot of people never read fantasy of any sort and were a little confused by the whole thing, a lot of people thought a sort of minor character was a lot more important than she was. There were a few "explain this more" bits, and someone didn't know the word "warren" (did i miss something and it went out of usage?). The teacher was very impressed I did twelve pages in the amount of time I was given, but told me he thought the story was longer than I'd written it; it was, I just had three days and realized I couldn't hack out the 25-35 pages I thought it was, so I wrapped it up where I could. He liked that answer. (another out of usage moment- apparently "jimmy olsen" is a very dated reference- i forgot Superman was canceled in the 1950s.....?). Apparently I need to tell people the story takes place in England because the hints of "sweets", "petrol stations", "football" (combined with) "Manchester" (in the same sentence), "Blackpool", about five hundred mentions of "toffee", and the curse word "shite" weren't enough clues. I did use the word "gibbous" to describe some moons. It was very awesome to do that; I hope Howard could hear me. The best compliment of the night was a lot of people wanted to see more of the story and know where the character was going. The other best compliment of the night was the teacher telling us some quote about how some people have novels inside them and some have short stories; he then told me I have the breadth of novels in me.

Um. Oh. Right. My friend Allison started a webcomic. It's pretty. There's only about three pages right now, but they're really pretty. Maybe you should go look at them? Forewarning, she's got a splash page up right now with a mermaid on it; you can guess why that's not worksafe. Seafoam.