Conundrumization - verbing nouns and confusing others!

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2007-12-19T08:05:00.001-05:00

Okay, let me run this by you. I was standing outside, staring up at the bare trees against the cold white sky, and I had a thought. But I'll start with those that came afterwards, if that's all right with you.

Anyway. Have you ever had an image, a bundle of words, in your mind, that you didn't use, put down, or speak? These words are descriptive, interesting, but you've heard them before. They're not a cliché. Mine (the original thought) were "tree limbs like brittle bone fingers." Maybe I'm wrong and someone else would consider those cliché, no matter. I've heard those words, or similar, before, describing the same thing. But I don't think it's done to death, not yet.

However, I would never use those in a story, I think. Because, and I only managed to put words to this a few moments ago, I would be contributing to making that image a cliché. I would be wearing the rut a little deeper.

This does not bode well for me at all. Also I should have been in bed a few hours ago.

Also also, I have used three different publishing devices to update my blogs tonight.

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2007-10-26T00:40:00.001-04:00

Just checking to see if this new program works at all.

Blogged with Flock

"Out here in the fields / I fight for my meals / I don't need to be forgiven"

2007-06-03T02:39:00.003-04:00

I don't believe I've updated this thing since well, since a hell of a long time ago.

I have been doing a lot of awesome -- that is, I've been writing, reading, and watching things. Also, actually seeing people, which is really weird, as I'm not in any classes right now.

I drove two hours to Richmond to return my apartment key on Tuesday, which took all of a minute and a half. Maybe I could have mailed it, but I didn't want it arriving a day late and dooming me to pay a month's rent or something. To mitigate that I bought books and hung out with people, visiting three apartments in the span of an afternoon and evening.

Then I went to Morehead to visit a friend, and I showed him several strange anime he immediately copied off to watch on his own.

I actually bothered to bring up the update window for two reasons, though -- the simpler is that I now have high speed internet at home, which is weird on its own. The guy came today, and hooked us up. I was not aware, actually, that DSL uses standard phone lines. My whole experience with high speed has been campus- and cablemodem-related.

The second reason was just to talk about all the books I've read since I got home. Because I have nothing better to talk about, and really, as I established yesterday with my friend, what you're reading is possibly the most important thing about you.

So.

The night before I moved out I started the second Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex novel, called Revenge of the Cold Machines. It's by Junichi Fujisaku (or Fujisaku Junichi, I suppose), and was interesting. It wasn't good, by my usual definition of the word -- it was very poorly written. And, as usual, I don't know who to blame. It was translated, obviously, by Dark Horse Press, which wasn't so obvious -- of course, I think DH has been publishing (and re-publishing, and... you get the idea) the GitS manga for years, so they nabbed the novels as well. So did they get a bad translator? Seriously, it reads like fanfiction, with lots of adverbs describing the way someone does or says something, and short sentences that punctuate nothing. One of the head scriptwriters from the show wrote the original, so maybe it comes down to him? No idea, and that bugs me, actually. If I don't like something, I wanna know who to bitch about.

Apart from the writing, which I don't think would even get published, anywhere, if it were just someone writing in that manner, it was nice. The story was interesting, and appropriately cyberpunk action. I mean, it features a scene where a guy's head pops open and an accomplice, riding a motorcycle, speeds by and ganks the brain case from the open skull before the police can interrogate him. Wicked cool. It's actually three related short pieces, and the middle story actually has a tachikoma as the narrator -- that is, one of the sentient, increasingly-aware AI-enabled tanks Section 9 uses.

After that was Read or Die volume four, by Kurata (writing) and Yamada (art). That's the end of the R.O.D. manga; at least, it's the end of the first version. It's sort-of picked up by Read or Dream, with different characters. It's the conclusion of the story, and really doesn't have any distinguishing features on its own. What I mean is, it's difficult to talk about Matrix: Revolution without mentioning the other two. Was that the name of the third? I never saw it. My example still stands, though, because I'm lazy. It's a neat series, which I was first introduced to several years ago in the EKU anime club, with the ova. It's about a woman who works for the British Library secret services, retrieving and protecting rare books. She can control paper, which is even more awesome than it sounds. She's also a bibliophile -- and I mean really philic, or whatever the adjective of that would be. The ova had several scenes where she was getting really flushed and, essentially, turned on by books. Now, I love books, but usually I need some content to get that excited. O_o

I never said these descriptions would be coherent.

Next up is Eric by Terry Pratchett. With this I've read all the Rincewind novels, save the Science of Discword stuff (I guess he's at least tangentially involved?). It's a Discworld parody of Faust, with some stuff about Biblical creation and the Trojan War thrown in. Oh, and also the Inferno. Very funny, as you would expect.

After that was Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny. He's another of the writers I read who seem to get ignored way too much now. He very nearly changed the face of sci-fi back in the seventies, and no one knows who he is anymore. Damnation Alley isn't his best piece, but it's a cool disaster fiction sort of novel, about a guy trying to drive cross-country after the typical nuclear disaster.

Then I finally got around to the second volume of Fables by Willingham, titled Animal Farm. Fables is about the fairy and nursery story characters we all know (and, as it turns out, some we don't), after their desperate migration to our world following an invasion of theirs. The basic set-up of the series is that Snow White is the vice-mayor, or whatever, of the "city" Fables, and she really runs things (Nat King Cole can't be bothered). She's estranged from her sister, Rose Red, whom no one has really ever heard of (the version of their story is more interesting than the version cannibalized for the Disney crap, really). The first volume follows Bigby Wolf as he tries to solve a murder. The second follows Snow as she tries to deal with an insurrection (oh, and apparently Goldilocks is a gun-toting Marxist revolutionary -- hilarious).

Then Monday night I started Legends II: Dragon, Sword, and King. It's a collection of fantasy novellas edited by Robert Silverberg. It's meant to collect brand new pieces by the authors of famous fantasies known for their unique worlds, or something like that. The first Legends featured Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchett, and some others I guess. I really bought the first one for the Pratchett piece, which was my first exposure to Granny Weatherwax. So let me break this collection down by author:

George R. R. Martin This is actually amusing, as I spent a lot of the weekend discussing Martin's Song of Hyperbole and High-falutin' with my cousin. Martin is not as bad as Jordan or Goodkind, he is tolerable. The story from the collection, called The Sworn Sword, highlights this. It's good, but could have been shorter. I developed a metaphor about writing after reading this and the following story, actually -- weaponry. Martin's writing is a hammer. It works, it kills the dude in front of you, but it's tough to carry around all day (for reference, Jordan is a club -- even harder to deal with, and often just doesn't do anything useful). This story is a continuation of his first Legends piece, The Hedge Knight. It stands alone, though. It is a good introduction to the setting, what with the worrying about lineage, arms, heraldry, and such. It doesn't have much in the way of magic, though, which sets the tone for the collection as a whole.

Orson Scott Card This one was an entry into Card's Alvin Maker series; it's The Yazoo Queen. Alvin Maker is about an America in the 1800s (I think) where the Revolutionary War didn't happen, and magic exists. It's really neat, and among other things, Card didn't toss his writing skills to go for the huge novels, they're all in the two hundred to three hundred range. This story features, along with Alvin (an adult, which was so much nicer than the book I've read, where he was seven), Jim Bowie and Abraham Lincoln (trivia: David Bowie is supposed to be a reference to the frontiersman, but the musician got it wrong -- it is supposed to be pronounced "Boo-ee" [buoy]).

Card's classification in my newly-minted weapon nomenclature, by the way, is a rapier. Fine control to do exactly what the person wants. However, the finest control, the most wicked killing, is knives, which would be Zelazny and Gaiman, Clarke and Pratchett.

Diana Gabaldon wrote Lord John and the Succubus which, like Martin's entry, doesn't really feature magic (though there's something that might be a real curse and may be a joke at the end -- I mean, a gypsy curses someone, isn't that what they do?). It concerns a side character of Gabaldon's Outlander books, Lord John Grey. It's neat primarily for the protagonist, who is a gay British liaison officer in the mid 1700s. The writing was better than Martin's and not as good as Card's.

Elizabeth Haydon wrote Threshold, set in her Symphony of Ages series. It has something to do with world trees (neat) which are the origins of time, but each is a different time, yet they all exist at the same time (huh?). It's got some cool looks at what it means to swear oneself to someone (similar to Martin's, but a bit better), and some of the writing is nice. Other parts of it drop down to the workaday writing of the hammer, but never quite to the club -- though there are some clichés sprinkled throughout that even Martin generally avoids. Often they have to do with horses, which hints that maybe the writer should go see a horse up close sometime (maybe she has, but it just felt like typical romantic fantasy ideas about horses -- not the extreme "like the wind" stuff, but basic crap).

Terry Brooks rounds out the collection, with a Shannara story -- Indominable. It was good, actually, probably the second-best piece in the collection. Now, this is weird, as several of my friends back in high school used to try to get me to read Brooks. I avoided him, because he seemed terribly derivative -- and still does, actually, but this story wasn't too bad. It is, in a way, the aftermath of the typical fantasy quest -- in fact, the protagonist thinks back to the stuff he did before, and his friends he traveled with were a "killing machine" (used more than once to describe him), a borderman, an elf prince, a dwarf, and a gnome. Of course, the protagonist is the illusionist. It's like a second edition DnD party. Of course, I've had a few people accuse me of writing DnD sessions, which isn't what I'm doing, but I have to parody something common, and all the common themes have been written up into modules. Anyway, that's why I may be overly sensitive. This piece, though, doesn't feature the by-the-numbers group, and uses an interesting effect of using illusions on oneself. I read it faster than all the others, in part because it's readable, and in part because some of the bits were common, though not molar-grindingly so.

The best piece, in my opinion (which you might have gathered already) was Card's. It had the best writing, and the most original setting.

Just today I started the sixth Slayers novel, Vezendi's Shadow by Hajime Kanzaka. I really like Slayers in all its forms, though actually the manga has always seemed a bit odd -- it works better as novels or anime, I think. The writing is better than the GitS novel, though it's still a translation. This one is by Tokyopop, and holds no real surprises. The neat asset of the series is the first person narration; it is very casual, and (in the translation, anyway) makes liberal use of phrases-made-into-terms-with-hyphens, as well as pauses, asides, and some good-natured snark. Lina is also a bit of an unreliable narrator, always describing the simplest of plans as amazing, provided she thought of it.

So that's what I've been up to. I'm just about halfway through the Slayers novel, which is sad in a way -- Tokyopop, for some reason, has only licensed the first six novels, despite Japan having like fifteen. How do you license six? It's not as though they worried about profits and just did a few. That's two, maybe three, depending on price. When you do six you must be sure you're getting your money back, which makes sense to me. Seems like there's a built-in audience for the novels, given the show is/was pretty popular in America.

2007-01-17T00:29:00.000-05:00

Whee. This is a big picture post, because I wanna. First, I thought I'd finally get around to a picture of my knife set and bartending kit. Here they are on my counter in the flat.

Now, moving on. I drove up to Lexington today, to the Japanese market. It was odd -- almost nothing was in English, but for what I was looking for it wasn't a big deal. I bought some nori -- toasted seaweed sheets for sushi and onigiri (though I think it's actually algae, and not seaweed, I dunno -- and some neat bits and pieces. Like this bento box and chopsticks. They didn't come together, but they match pretty well. The box is smaller than I'd like -- I actually bought two, which turns out to be too much space, so that's like eight bucks wasted. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Here's the box open, with my lunch for tomorrow in it. It won't actually be lunch, I suppose, as I plan to eat it at the class break tomorrow. I always get hungry during night classes. You should be able to see blueberries, blackberries, and some fried chicken chunks in the top tier, on the bottom of the picture. The lower tier has some olives, half a hard-boiled egg, and an onigiri. I made the onigiri before I bought the box, so I it's actually a bit too big. It's got fried salmon in the middle. Mm.

I also got some supplies for serving sake. Here's a small tokkuri and a matching choko (flask and cup). Here's a larger, dish-type guinomi. I liked the color and flower pattern. Here's an awesome guinomi. Bunnies are cool. That's it. Bunnies are cool.

Finally, I've meant to post a picture of my pitiful bookshelf here in the flat since I moved in. Now I finally am. It's a bit empty, I know, but I forgot all my textbooks at home, so I'll use that space directly.

That's pretty much it.

2007-01-06T02:04:00.000-05:00

I thought I should take a moment to mention this site I just ran across, called For Always and For Always. It's a Jonathan Strange fan site, but apparently focuses more on the Raven King (which is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion). Now, that's not a link to the front page, but to what the keeper calls "Mathematical Formulae." Here's an example:

5.) The Gentleman with the Thistle-down Hair = (Legolas x Lucius Malfoy) / (Dumbledore + Voldemort) = Yes, stop thinking about Legolas and Lucius Malfoy having sex [1]. Well, all right, go think about it, I'll wait. [...] Back now? Okay. The Gentleman with the Thistle-down Hair is a fairy (yes, a "fairy," and not a "faerie," which is a term that was made up by Spenser in an attempt to look all cool and ancient, which was then appropriated by idiots all over the world in the centuries to come who were striving to look all cool and ancient, too; Clarke's failure to use it is Reason #409,871 to love her fiction, as far as I'm concerned), and a king, and a total ass. He possesses many of the traits we associate with both Legolas and Lucius, such as preening vanity, blind hubris, excellent hair, vapidly exhibitionist magic, and opaque, overwhelming self-love. The Gentleman is both darker and brighter than you expect, and responsible for more than he -- or anyone -- realizes. He's also basically completely evil. Basically. Completely.

He is a bit manic, and I disagree with his statement that the Man with the Thistle-down Hair is evil. He is, more simply, amoral. But still, quite entertaining.

2007-01-05T03:53:00.000-05:00

This is a bit of an experiment, but I'm certainly enjoying it. Despite the tedium in several of the stories, I have enjoyed Irving's The Sketch Book. So I borrowed a bit of the concept -- and some fun references -- to start this short story. It's called "A Sketch on the Wickedness of Dueling."

(From the sketch-book of one Edward S. Irving.) The passage from Boston to Londinium was treacherous and wore mightily on the nerves. The sky was always a blank grey, and few fish attended our passing, which the sailors took as a very ill omen indeed. But in the end that is not so strange. We toiled up the Thames and landed safely in one of the English harbors so famed in worrisome verse and heated prose.

This passage of water seemed to have disconnected me from my home, and grouped in with my memories of the rambling old house were my father's plans for me, which mostly amounted to my studying under a Londinium newspaper man he knew and bringing back to Boston the many merits of good English journalism. However, the distance made me restless, and I hovered in the water-worn recesses of the metropolis for just a week before leaping aboard the first boat I could find destined for France.

This new passage was much more pleasant, with the sun burning away the mists each morning and blazing away as it drooped into the west. We landed safely in the capital of the new revolutionary French government, that shining island protected from the ravages of the continent. Brittany is strange indeed, for the son of a colonist's son. Men roamed the streets in packs, scratches and bruises displayed for best effect on faces and wind-whipped bare arms. The ladies glided past alone, or in pairs, their dresses concealing feet and their sharp, quick faces doing nothing to hide their wit and slyness.

All the men wore swords, and so for once I did not stand out – it had been my mother's habit to dress me with an iron dagger dangling from my breeches. My brother Francis tells me she started soon after I could walk. As I grew taller so the little weapon lengthened, until, when I stepped off the ship-planks at the Brittany port, a long, devilish hanger of some considerable weight thudded against the posts and greatly offended a youth – younger than me, at least – with a rapier sharp as fire in his hands seconds after I thumped his knees. It was only with a promise of a night of drinking at a public house of his choice that I got away with all my skin.

Later that very night I met him again at the Point d'Accorde. “Eduard,” my new companion said at the door, “entrez-vous. Come in, come in.” He was most cheerful, and his bright green eyes flared from the dimness of the eaves as a cat's visage might, the creature just awaking for a night's pleasures. The pub was crowded, in spite of the heavy sun still looming along the western waters. The pub jack hoisted barrels behind the bar, great sloshing canisters of ale and small, prim wine vessels. My erstwhile dueling-partner-made-drinking-chum, whose name was, he said, Fairfax – which didn't seem very French to me; given its status as an assumed name (a habit many in Brittany keep up, I found) it was understandable – beckoned the jack over and bid him scrape the refuse and dried drink from the bar. He did so, large, blacksmith-arms slashing a rag over the battered surface. “Maintenant,” Fairfax said, “bring us melomel.” He reared back on the stool, smiling his wide, fox-smile, and said to me, “young American man, you will be glad to have struck me, as it has brought you to this.”

~~~~

That's a bit less than half what I wrote today. It may not be all that interesting yet, but I'll (hopefully) deal with that in the second draft. I'd like to hear from some of you, concerning this bit, though.

"I'm guided by a signal in the heavens / I'm guided by the birthmark on my skin"

2007-01-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

So. I'm on my own, again (obviously), but am far more cheerful. I've already written over 1,000 words on a new short story, read nearly half of The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories.

What, then, do you imagine I did with myself this fine, foggy evening?

If you said "meet some cool people," you are, of course, wrong.

No. I fried steaks and made a fancy pan sauce, which involved brandy, mushrooms, and brown sugar. Then I ate same while watching re-runs of Good Eats. It was good, but a little too sweet. I can't make it with my parents around -- at least, and expect it to be consumed -- my dad hates sweetness with meat. Even ham, apparently. Anyway, I made too much of the sauce, as the recipe was for twice as much meat. Oops. Anyway, here's a picture of what I ended up with.

Now, I'm probably going to go for a drive, make a really dry martini (after the drive, dummy), and maybe write more. I'll probably post some of said writing once I think I'm done for the day.

2006-12-29T18:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I did more cooking -- hurrah, or whatever. I thought you might like to see my attempt to make fruitcake. If you look closely you can see my grandmother's flour sifter, full; that green pot has all my wet ingredients, and the nuts are in that baking dish. Look behind the sifter, there's my dad's mallet. I needed it for the cloves and allspice berries. Cooking is fun. ^_^

Anyway, Here is the mass of wet ingredients. And here is the finished product, which I de-panned just ten minutes ago, and sprinkled with a second dose of brandy. Dad apparently intends to try some tonight, but beyond that we'll see how far I can age it. It may make a good New Year's dish, if I actually see anyone for New Year's -- usually I'm just at home, watching television with my parents.

2006-12-28T02:35:00.000-05:00

I thought I should let you people know that Good Eats has taken my break in its warm, medium-rare grip. Seriously, I'm re-watching episodes for fun. Tomorrow I'm off to Morehead -- primarily, it seems, because my mother wants to keep us in stock of the lactose-free milk I require, which no one in this town thinks they should sell. However, while there, I'll be trying to cobble together the necessary bits for fruitcake, as well as an imitation steak au poivre (that is, we won't be buying tenderloin cuts, but peppercorn? Sure.) Of course, I can't have normal heavy cream -- has anyone bothered to pull the lactose from that product yet? If not I may have to fake the pan sauce with flour. It worked well enough with the pepper steak. Hm.

Yes, I'm crazy. Also, you may be interested that we don't have any aprons around, so Christmas day I ended up wandering around in an old white smock my parents brought me from their work. I'll end up in it again, I suppose, as I mean to start the pre-ferment for my bread tomorrow night.

2006-12-25T20:30:00.000-05:00

Whee, Christmas day. Ever since my grandmothers died, Christmas day has involved my parents cooking -- now, normally my dad doesn't cook. I'm not really sure why, he can, and seems to enjoy it, but there you are. Anyway, on holidays such as this he roasts the turkey, which you can see here, featuring my dad's hands as he pokes and prods to make sure it's done. He made me carve it this year. : p I got to use one of the knives Mom bought me yesterday (a six-knife set, it's fairly nice), so all right, I guess. Mom made sides, such as peas, mashed potatoes, so on. I made these honey-roasted sweet potatoes. This is the first year I've ever made anything, as this is the first year where I actually knew how to cook. Here is my plate, with all the things piled on. My dad also made the dressing, which is really good. The plate is one of a set it turns out we have (I've never seen them before); they were my great-aunt's, and come from France. Neat.

EXTRA-SPECIAL HOLIDAY IMAGES:

View through my window on the twenty-first (the solstice).

My dad decided to take a picture as I rocked out with my metaphorical penis exposed, so enjoy.

2006-12-24T20:31:00.000-05:00

Tired. Well, this has been a busy day. I actually went shopping with my Mom, because I needed ingredients for the several things I mean to make over the break here. I actually made supper tonight -- green pepper steak, one of my favorite things to get when I eat out. It turned out really well, and both my parents even liked it. I meant to get a picture (yes, I'm a nerd) but I forgot. So, later, maybe. I also mean to try and bake some bread, make fruitcake, and these honey-roasted sweet potatoes I saw a few days ago. I have everything I need except the myriad fruits and nuts for the fruitcake -- I'll have to go to Morehead for those.

My parents let me "open" my gifts (that is, take them out of the plastic bags, they didn't bother to wrap them this year) earlier. I have a sueded shirt that I'm a little uneasy about, but we'll see -- a set of bartending tools, including metal mixer, double jigger, waiter's corksrew, Also they got me the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie (with the music CD), Beowulf and Grendel, which I've heard weird, bad things about, but I'll definitely try it no worries, as well as Yoshi's Island DS, Super Princess Peach, and Guitar Hero II.

Yeah, Guitar Hero II. Woo!

That's pretty much my day. I need to try to write something, as well as read more of Herzog (bleh). I did my reading of The Lord of the Rings -- today Bilbo gives Frodo his mithril armor and Sting. Tomorrow the Ring goes south.

2006-12-23T01:33:00.000-05:00

So, I just started -- and, er, finished -- the third Series of Unfortunate Events book, The Wide Window. Everything I've said before is still true, essentially. Good writing, awful things, so on. I liked the rather low-key revelation concerning arson near the end, though, and I wonder if the narrator's reference, midway through, to a loved one being plucked up by an eagle to feed its young has anything to do with Beatrice. And if you know, one way or the other, keep your big face-mouth shut. I'm reading the books, I'll find out eventually. Though apparently I should wait until I've read all but the last before I can move on to Letters. Sigh.

That's about it. Now I'm going to the website and see if I can figure out what Sunny's saying.

2006-12-22T23:45:00.000-05:00

Well, thus far in my postscript, I have referenced Poe, Moorcock, Pratchett, and the editor of a collection of Conan short stories.

Really, I love what I do. Though the Pratchett reference wasn't theoretical, I just needed an example. Ah well.

2006-12-22T21:56:00.000-05:00

Status report: the bread pudding didn't turn out so well. It tastes good, actually, though I sort-of wish I'd given in to my idea of putting in some brown sugar as well. Next time, I suppose. The problem was that it didn't cook well enough, turns out. The bottom was quite liquidy, and I think I know what happened. I remembered enough to put in a pan of water to keep the oven from killing the pudding -- but I put it on the rack under the pudding. On re-reading everything, I was supposed to put the pudding pan in the water. I'm guessing the pan in the way kept the bottom from heating as much as it should have. I can't think of anything else, as it wasn't just a few minutes from being set properly (disproving my original thought that our oven just doesn't heat as well) and the top is nice and set.

I'm thinking more cinnamon for next time -- the recipe called for a teaspoon, and I put a bit more in anyway. So -- two, I suppose. I finished up the dishes, and here I am, meaning to write some of my postscript. I'm going to post the outline here, incidentally. It's supposed to be around twelve pages, I think, and the outline is very, very sparse. I have the material, I just usually can't remember it all at once. Anyway.

Introduction
Personal side
looking at setting
why are we looking at setting?
In what ways are we looking at setting?

Setting's importance to fantasy in general
it sets fantasy apart (sometimes the draw)
storytelling devices (externalization?)

Setting's importance to my specific fantasy
(same as above)

2006-12-22T18:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I just put this bread pudding in the oven, so we'll see if I'm a total failure at baking in less than an hour (In two years I have failed to make proper scones no less than twice). This is just about the only useful thing I've managed to do all day. I haven't written anything yet, and my reading is driving me crazy -- Irving's essays are, on the whole, boring as hell. It wouldn't be so bad if he had varied his sentence structure at all, but no, they're all the same long, lolling, lulling sentences. All of them. And so nearly 200 pages in I've read all of two short stories, which were good -- most of the collection is made up of useless essays on such wowing topics as Christmas in rural England, and how winter is a moral guide. There's even one about how awesome it was to sail to England. The Boar's-Head Tavern essay (wherein Irving describes a day he spent trying to track down the tavern Shakespeare populated with Falstaff/Oldcastle, young Hal, and all the rest, then finds it gone, talks to an old woman, and sees some relics of the old pub in the local church).

I'm considering taking a break from it and reading the third Snicket book -- I bought the sixth, The Ersatz Elevator, last night. My mom bought me a small cutting board and santoku knife. I didn't know anything about it at the time, it was just the best compromise between price and shape/size/edge. Apparently it is quite the nice knife? You cooks out there could maybe advise me on this. The name is Japanese for "three good things" (or so I'm told by the intertron). The "san" bit is three, so it sounds about right. It's referring to slicing, dicing, and mincing. I'm not exactly sure what some of the differences are there, of course, but eventually I'll look it up. If someone wants to explain, please do.

For the benefit of Irishblessing I thought I'd tell you I fried some button mushrooms today (in reference to a conversation we had months ago, when I bought sliced mushrooms and couldn't tell her what sort I'd eaten).

That's my day. I should try to write/edit this short story, or plan/start my thesis postscript (you know, for the third time). That's all.

2006-12-21T01:08:00.000-05:00

Blah blah. A day in the life, right? Well, I went to the dentist, failed to find short/medium-grain brown rice in the shops, and discovered that pork chops are good after soaking in fresh-squeezed orange juice. Incidentally, for those of you who care, the twin threats of the Food Network and the Fine Living Network seem to have collaborated to catch my by the collar like a kitten in a cat's maw. I caught a bit of Alton Wossname last night, and he was very amusing. Mom doesn't like him, apparently. Ah well.

Does anyone have a favorite gin I should try? I've been buying Seagram's, because of the price, but I had Beefeater's in the steak house last weekend and the g & t was very good with it. I should try sloe gin, as that's actually what the masses of England were drinking during the "epidemic," wherein it was common for plays to be canceled because the players were too drunk to act, and the audience too drunk to pay attention.

If you missed it, Chris Funk's appearance on The Colbert Report was really cool; I was a bit disappointed, as I thought for a while that the whole band would show up. Ah well.

"dum dwee dum dum dum dwee dow"

2006-12-20T19:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, I said I would post a picture of my poster now that it's framed. Well, here it is. You can see the personalization on the left-hand side, above Peter's foot.

Anyway, even more exciting is what was delivered to my door just half-an-hour ago, in the dim darkness. It's my anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings! It's leather-bound, with red lettering, like a Bible or something. Check out the cover without the slipcase. It looks great. And the gilt-edged pages are awesome, and super-shiny.

So, yes, exciting. I read the new prefaces, concerning the history of the emendations on the text, and re-read the portion just before the company leaves Rivendell -- remember, the nine walkers leave in five more days!

2006-12-16T22:09:00.000-05:00

Okay. I'm just testing a new blog updating program. Hello, world; bonsoir, la monde; and all that.

2006-12-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

So, my parents and I went to Morehead today -- re: the nearest town to actually shop for anything apart from groceries and lumber. My parents went to Wal-Mart to get presents for me, because (as an only child) Christmas is still about buying as much as possible for me. Er. It's strange, now that I've been introduced to a world where people buy one or two gifts for one another. Stunningly, I have actually gotten things for my parents this year. I bought one of those Samuel Adams holiday packs for dad, as he's wanted one for years, and I'm knitting a scarf for mom.

Anyway, the actual reason I'm posting about all this isn't to discuss my family's odd Christmas habits, but instead to mention books. I hung around the only bookstore in Morehead while they were shopping, and after much painful hemming and hawing bought The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and selections from the Sketch Book by Washington Irving and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I've never read any Austen, and only "Rip Van Winkle" by Irving. I once had an acquaintance tell me my writing reminded her of Irving, so we'll see how that goes. And, as I'm considering specializing in Victorian lit., I thought I should probably get off my ass and read something by Austen. Good forces of the world willing, it'll be more entertaining than Jane Eyre, which I read last winter break.

If I remember correctly, may be "excited" (that is, bemused and vaguely, laissez-faire interested) in the fact that I will read the Austen book. I think she has a thing for Darcy? : )

Books I didn't buy but wanted to: A collection of plays by Wilde, because it had a scratch on the cover; The Adventures of Cavalier and Klay by Chabon, because it was expensive; La Morte d'Arthur, by Malory, because I'm not sure of the quality of the "translation"; The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket, because it was in paperback and I prefer to have it in hardcover; a collection of all Lord Byron's poetry; and a collection of ghost stories by Edith Wharton -- a professor of mine thought it was shameful that I hadn't read any Wharton, but the novels of hers in the store seemed unappealing at best. I had to force myself not to use my debit card, and stick to the choice-limiting cash I had on hand, because I need that money for rent, and possibly vehicle repair.

I did get my parents to pick up a frame for the poster I got -- I e-mailed the agent/wife of the artist who painted the cover of Peter Pan in Scarlet, mentioning how great it was, and asking if any posters were available. She sent me one, for free, as they'd just got some in from the publishers for promotional purposes. I'll get a picture up soon -- the artist personalized it. They're both sweet people, it seems. So, as they lost a promotional poster in the deal, I'll tell all of you, buy a copy of Peter Pan in Scarlet, or at least read it, some way, somehow. It's a really good book.

So, that was my day. My parents are finished wrapping my gifts, apparently, so I guess I can leave my room now.

2006-12-13T01:52:00.000-05:00

So, I went out and bought a cribbage board today. Because I don't own enough games no one will play with me, sure -- next up is Munchkin and the super-expensive Arkham Horror, then I'll just start making paper-airplanes out of money.

So, right now, I'm watching TV Land's collation of TV Catchphrases -- it's neat. Welcome Back, Kotter's under examination now, and I love that show. I used to have Kotter's family stories memorized.

It did get me thinking, earlier, about the claustrophobia of television -- so many shows, especially sitcoms, have four or five cameras, and that's it. I mean, The Cosby Show had the kitchen, from one angle, the living room, and the bedrooms. That was pretty much it. When we left those settings, we were disoriented, confused, but also excited and a bit giddy. In contrast (and because I watched them one after another every afternoon for years), on Cheers the single setting with its few cameras was natural. The show was about a bar, so we had to be in the bar. Let me see, with the bar counter, the edge where Norm and Cliff sat, the view of the tables, the less-used but still common view of the counter on that side where Frasier sat whenever Lillith came with him, the office (from two angles), and the game room made at least seven views of the same place. Whenever we saw someone's home, like Sam's apartment, it actually felt intimate, and for the first few moments after the cut we feel like we're intruding -- a bit, anyway.

Yeah, that's about it. Man, I hate Leave it to Beaver. Not era-hatred, I love Dobi Gillis (or however you spell it).

2006-12-12T02:21:00.000-05:00

Hm. I thought I would take a few moments to discuss the books I've read recently.

The I'll start with Swords and Ice Magic. It's the sixth book in the collection of pieces about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser -- not in the "series," as really Leiber wrote short stories, and they were later collected; so, this is the sixth collection. The stories were excellent, as I've come to expect from Leiber. I don't have much to say about them, really -- rather, nothing I haven't said already. They're cornerstones of fantasy, the Lankhmar stories (named after the city most of the stories happen in or near), and anyone with more than a superficial interest in the genre should probably read them. They deal with topics such as religion, philosophy, and the toll "adventuring" takes better than most books written now. Or anytime, really. Leiber set out to writer adult sword and sorcery (a term he coined, incidentally), with complex characters, and he succeeded.

Then I read Fleming's Goldfinger. Ugh. It wasn't too good. If you've seen the movie adaptation, hold the golf scene in your mind, if you will. It's a cunning piece of adventure movie cinema, yes? A smooth, smarmy scene wherein all the characters lie, cheat, and smile, while the tension builds in the audience. In the book, the game takes two chapters, and Fleming lovingy describes every hole -- all eighteen of them. Segments of text such as, "Now Bond was angry with himself. He, and he alone, had lost that hole. He had taken three putts from twenty feet. He really must pull himself together and get going" (095) serve as drama in this book. And, really, Bond does a single thing that's remarkable -- he tapes a note up and leaves it in an airplane bathroom. Apart from that, it's good luck and the intelligence organizations of two countries that really keep Auric from robbing Fort Knox. Fleming doesn't even nod toward the sense of time and space Aristotle described -- settings are flung about like birdseed at hippie weddings. All the planning for the heist, for example, is done in a warehouse in New York, and they truck down to Kentucky the day beforehand. Instead of, you know, planning nearby, for practical and thematic concerns both. Bah. Oh, this book also features a lesbian who gets the hots for Bond the moment she sees him, and blames her former lesbianism on abuse as, "naturally," she was molested by her brother, as she was from the south. What?

Anyway. After that I read Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident. And it was fabulous, no surprise there. Really, there's no reason to be avoiding these books -- Artemis is blazingly intelligent, and really does shift his mindset through the books so far (a good sign). Hilarious references to mythology, brazenly reinvented (such as a centaur inventor/IT guy with a specially-modified swivel chair) speckle the books. My only complaint was minor -- this book sets up Artemis's thawing, if you'll excuse the ice metaphor referring to the Arctic book, and as such it focused on the side characters, such as Holly and Butler, more than Artemis, at times. It's not bad, and not even bothersome, but it did lack a little of the verve involved with the first, which was just a great thrill-ride over-the-shoulder of a criminal genius pulling off his plans.

Then I started a book recommended to me by a friend, called Black Sun Rising. It's the first in a trilogy by C. S. Friedman, and is nearly 600 pages long in paperback. Now, for the most part, I swore off books like this. I haven't read a new Jordan book in years, and gave up on the Sword of Truth soon afterwards. A year ago I broke down and read the first book of Martin's massive series, but primarily because I meant to meet him and thought I should read something of his before pumping him for information. It was better than the others, but only by a bit. This book, Friedman's book, is very good, though. It's about a planet colonized by humans, set about 1000 years after they make planetfall -- so they've spread as one would expect. The problem is a natural force the colonists named the "fae," which is a lot like ley line energy. It responds to psychological stimulus, and so people can "Work" healing and visions, but their fears and anxieties can create "demons." It's a neat, sci-fi take on fantasy. Given that the world responds to mental pressure, people can't rely on technology -- ships reserve one person, at least, to stare at the steam engines and think about how they're working properly, because if any of the passengers think "oh crap the engines are going to die and we'll be stranded" the fae would respond and kill the engines. Given the anxiety a lot of us (me especially) feel getting on planes, that's an excellent way to drive home the setting concept -- what if engines responded that way here? A great idea, really, and well-written. Not great, not earth-shattering prose, but better-than-average, with good, earthy ways of looking at things that shift appropriately when the POV changes. Also, she's very good about creating people with good and bad -- the person who is, almost literally, the equivalent of Sauron is sympathetic in this book. I look forward to the rest of the books (and the rest of this one -- I think I'll probably finish it by Sunday. I guess I actually read more slowly than other people, or something, though I used to read books this size in a day and a half back in high school).

This evening I took a break from Black Sun Rising (not through any fault of the book, but just because I was really eager to read this other book) to read The Reptile Room. It's the second book in the Series of Unfortunate Events, and it was just a lot of fun. I think I finished it in, I dunno, two hours? That's about right. Fun, still as wordy as ever, and not actually quite as horrible as the first.

And that's it. Back to the Friedman book.

2006-12-11T16:24:00.000-05:00

"One thing which I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is that my uncle's death was far from natural."

That's actually a picture I took, but I thought the quotation from "The Call of Cthulhu" apropos.

2006-12-09T16:54:00.000-05:00

Stating the obvious: (verb) arguing that Anglo-Saxons considered Vikings a threat.

Damn paper.

2006-12-07T17:01:00.000-05:00

So, right. The first line of Twain's "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" has just made me laugh more than I have in a long enough time, I trow -- possibly I haven't laughed as much since I drove Holly of the writing center mad during the end-of-semester party.

"It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English Literature at Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper's literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have read Cooper."

You can read it online here.

2006-12-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

I just remembered that I haven't gotten to tell anyone about this, so, those of you actually reading, a story:

I tried to get a Nintendo Wii at launch. I wasn't incredibly concerned, at the time, about getting ahold of one, like most everyone was with the PS2 and are, again, with the PS3. Of course, since then, none of the stores around have had any, and the person at Hastings told me they actually have pre-orders, or whatever, that still aren't filled, so the next shipment will be cut into by that. Odd.

Anyway. I went over to Wal-Mart, as they were doing a 12:01 release, but a few hours before I showed up they handed out tickets to the first 32 people in line, as they'd only gotten 32 units to sell (presumably several employees got systems as well). I heard all this from my friend Shane, who was number six in line -- apparently he and his girlfriend spent 48 hours in Wal-Mart, which is disconcerting, at best. I stood around for an hour, talking to Shane, and left with the two of them after they got their systems.

Greg: 0 Universe: 1

I had called Hastings before all that, and found they were doing something sort-of similar. That is, everyone present when the opened (at ten, ick!) would get an envelope. In X number of envelopes would be tickets, proclaiming the bearer to be randomly sorted into the house of getting-a-damn-Wii. The others would get five dollar coupons for Wii games or accessories.

Now, you haven't seen me, about two weeks ago, post in all caps, spouting gibberish and things about Link, so you already know, rather like the audience of an epic poem, what happened here. The journey is in getting there, one would think.

I stood in a line for about half an hour. It was very cold, but I ended up making conversation with some of the people near me, so it wasn't so bad. Sure enow, I got one of the coupons, but, and here's what reminded me of this whole thing:

Somewhere up front, possibly the first three people, someone, like me, chose poorly, and got an envelope full of angry orange coupon. But this person, I guess, was crazy. Because he lumbered toward his car, stopped (in the thoroughfare, you know, where cars pass), and shouted at the employee doling out envelopes. Comments like, "could have told us!" and "waited in the cold!" drifted back to those of us who had stood in bed until nearly zero-hour, if you will. Apparently, then, someone got there way the hell too early, thinking it would be a news-report style, camping-out waiting game thing, and hadn't bothered to call up and ask how they would handle the demand.

Wait, let me separate that comment and put it in italics, like Lovecraft and Howard:

He hadn't bothered to phone up Hastings and ask how they would handle the assured demand on opening day. You know, like I did, and probably, everyone else.

Greg: 0 Universe: 2

That's about it, really. I'm still hoping to get a Wii before Christmastime, so I can put Wii games on my list, but we'll see how that goes, I guess. I remember that I got my Gamecube in, like, February of my freshman year. My roommate was irritated that I had one, and had Smash Bros., but only one controller. I didn't think the set-up was the best, mind, but I was cheap and usually bought a DVD or CD every week back then, because Morehead was frigging depressing.

So. Yes. I had to be up at ten for cockroach-spraying. I haven't seen any around, but, you know, preventative measures. Or something. Whatever.

Sorry. What I forgot about this frackas is that I called up Wal-Mart once I got back from Hastings and asked, you know, when they would get more Wii units in. The guy on the phone told me they expected more that day. So, hell, I thought I'd check that out. I ended up going back to Wal-Mart twice that day, and finally, the second time, an employee told me they expected more on Wednesday. Well. That's not what I heard, from, you know, an employee. Anyway.

And, later, over the phone, I had an employee tell me they had no idea when they would get more. Super.

Greg: 0 Universe: 3
You know. I used to keep track of who was winning, me or the universe, back in high school. Do I need to start again?

2006-12-03T22:10:00.000-05:00

So, Aurora accepted the poem I submitted a few months ago. They screwed up the formatting, which did matter -- for once -- but this isn't particularly surprising. Oh well. I posted it up here before I submitted, but if, like nearly everyone, you didn't read it, but would like to now, here it is: Aurora Online -- "Funeral".

2006-12-01T11:51:00.000-05:00

Really, what could be better to wake up to? Pitchfork: Stephen Colbert vs. The Decemberists. Here's the direct link to the Comedy Central Motherload video, wherein Colbert challenges the Decemberists during a segment titled "Who's Riding My Coattails Now?"

And then, finally, counterchallenge! Decemberists double-challenge Colbert. My favorite part of the whole thing?

Furthermore, we'd like to announce the very first 'Decemberists vs Stephen Colbert Guitar Solo Challenge'. Put down the pen, Colbert, and pick up the axe! Let's see what kind of a man you really are-- let's SHRED. Let truth and good music prevail!!!

2006-11-29T22:59:00.000-05:00

Wow. Cool. I got a response to my post about Burroughs (over at my blogger account, not here), from the editor/webmaster of the Burroughs tribute site group. I thought I ought to mention what he told me, cause it's good info. Only the first few Carter books are public domain, and most of the characters &c. are still copyrighted.

Also, he mentioned two of Burrough's books that are considered some of the most pro-Indian pieces of the twentieth century: The War Chief and The Apache Devil. I didn't know about those, so thanks for letting me know. And now I let others know. Truly, the circle of life is grand, especially when it's a circle of literature, and not life. ^_^

2006-11-29T16:40:00.000-05:00

Huh. Apparently Burrough's John Carter stories are public domain now. I've read A Princess of Mars, I bought it last semester, and it's a lot of fun. It has several uncomfortable moments for the modern reader, because Carter, true to his time, is quite the racist, especially about Native Americans. But, I just marked that down under "verisimilitude" and wandered off into a good story about kidnapping red chicks and fighting big green ape-things. Good stuff. Here's the first chapter under Wikisource. It links on to the rest. I recommend it. And it's free.

I wonder if the other books are around somewhere, then...

Anyway. Other stuff. Ganked from Wil Shetterly's blog, Steven Brust's Advice to Aspiring Writers. Brust writes the Vlad Taltos books, so some of you out there should be interested. One of my favorite pieces of advice? "4. Concentrate on basics, such as grammar, and constructing a good sentence. If you can write a good sentence, you can do any form of writing." There are a few there I like, but don't do at all, such as number one -- don't tell anyone you're writing a novel. : ) Shetterly deals with that afterwards -- it's different for different people. But Brust is funny, and really talks more about attitude and work ethic.

Another from Shetterly's blog, by him this time: Three Stories into One: a Key to Plotting and an End to Writer's Block. This is good as well, and highlights why I get irritated with people when they complain about writer's block -- it usually means they're just not putting their mind to the right fulcrum. My nearest bout of what one might call writer's block happened when I wrote that first novel, once I got three of the four main characters together. The fourth showed up, found their books for them (she worked at the library), and helped them puzzle out a prophecy (in an attempt at humor, they figure it out very quickly -- not sure how that'll hold up when I go back to it). Suddenly I couldn't move forward.

What to do? Well, if I had listened to all the LiveJournal posts ever, in the history of ever, I would have complained about it, and slumped in defeat for two weeks, derailing my work ethic and writing process. Instead, I lay down in the "library," spread-eagle, staring up at the ceiling, working out what the problem could possibly be. After five minutes I had twirled the different dials, and the one that caught was Asphodel -- why in the hell, one part of my brain said to another, would she leave her home, family, and nice job to help these crazy people that just showed up?

So I applied those two parts of my brain, and all the rest. Twenty minutes later, after one encounter with my father ("It's four in the morning? What are you doing up? On the floor?"), I had clicked all the pieces into place. Well, obviously, I said to myself, as Dad had gone back to bed, she doesn't think they can get the job done. She's much smarter than the main character, after all.

And I was back to writing, where I did 100 more words, saved, and went to sleep, to get up the next day and fill out the first few scenes I would need. Wee, and the like.

Yes, I do still have a paper to write, what's it to you? I'm not puzzled, it's just tedious. I know all the stuff, there's nothing new to discover as I'm typing. Sigh. Okay, back to medieval monks and their unconscious mirroring of Celtic myth. Or something. Maybe food.

"you'll be pushing up the daisies in the old boneyard"

2006-11-27T04:06:00.000-05:00

Argh. So, we managed to nearly double the amount of time it took me to drive from home to Richmond today. My car screwed up in a new, exciting way, and almost halfway I stopped at a rest area, and Dad insisted, over the phone, that I wait for him to show up, so he could check it out, and drive it to Richmond with me following in his car.

Hell, I enjoy driving my parents' car -- it's a newer model of what I have, its brakes function properly, and it accepts gasoline in an expeditious manner. So I slumped on the slightly chill tile of the rest area -- no seats anywhere -- and read most of a short story.

Then the car acted mostly better, after Dad poured some crap in the tank that's supposed to deal with water in the gas. I dunno. It still doesn't accelerate the way it actually should, but it goes, and that is, traditionally, what I look for in a car.

Incidentally, the magazine I was reading? Weird Tales! It's still (after some stops, and management changes) in print. And they're very honest about how Lovecraft is what gives them a market presence. So, that's another market for me to submit to, and also, I liked all the stories I read it in, whereas a lot of the pieces in Fantasy and Science-Fiction Magazine bugged me. So woo.

Oh, and I tried Pernod over the break, with my dad. He enjoyed it more than I did, though I mean to try again, and make sure I use the proper amount of sugar and water. Anyway.

The thing that actually convinced me to open the update program was that I just started Goldfinger, one of the Fleming Bond novels. It's, er, odd. One chapter in, and I have no idea what Bond looks like, though Fleming indulged in the all-too-common APB (all points bulletin) description with the first character Bond encounters in the second chapter. Super. I mean, at least in fantasy novels they're probably not dressed like any preppie asshole on the streets, yeah -- there's a reason heavy-handed writers might be tempted to stop everything to pile on details about how someone looks, with no reference to any other senses. At least Fleming had a nice sensual description in there: his hands were like "mud packs shaped like hands, or an inflated rubber glove." The mud pack thing could have been something special, but I often slide into multiple comparisons myself, so I can't fault Fleming too much for that.

The narrator/Bond (it's in third person, but so far there hasn't been a difference, really) has only referred to women once, so far, and that as "whatever tart he pick[ed] up that night." Yay, misogyny.

Oh, my parents got me a new phone as a sort-of early Christmas present. Really, we were able to get new phones on our contracts, and mine sucked like a dockside ragamuffin in a Navy town. I'm a consumer whore, and my parents like shiny things, so we have two Motorola Razr phones between us. We had to find a new homescreen background for their phone, so we wouldn't mix them up. Of course, I can't get the pictures from it still, as now I need some proprietary software, or some crap like that. Ah well.

2006-11-20T01:58:00.000-05:00

I meant to make this post last week, so this is probably a truncated version.

Right after reading Peter Pan, I read Peter Pan in Scarlet. What this is, you see, the Great Osmond Street Children's Hospital (who own the rights to Barrie's famous book/play) commissioned a sequel for the centennial, and received over 200 entries. Peter Pan in Scarlet was the book they chose, and it's excellent. It never shies away from making Pan as strange and sort-of awful, but we get to see him in a not-so-typical situation. The basic premise is that all the Lost Boys grown up in England are having dreams about Neverland, and when they wake remnants come with them. John's wife pulls a saber from under his sheets, and sets off a flintlock pistol when he when she fluffs the pillow. Curly goes to sleep on the train and wakes up with warpaint on.

This book fleshes out many of the characters, though Slightly, my favorite Lost Boy from the original, is a bit of a different character, though the change makes sense. In the new book he's a musician, a clarinet player, who wants to play blues but doesn't feel it's quite respectable. I liked him in the original because he was always making up stories about his life before he was Lost, seeming a natural storyteller -- certainly, none of the other boys show any inclination. He's still artistic, then, in the new book, but it's slanted a little. Still, he's my favorite Lost Boy.

Nibs, who, if I remember, is the only Lost Boy in the Disney adaptation to get anything approaching screentime (though Tootles, I suppose, is present), doesn't come along.

Anyway, this book was quite as stunning and dreamy as the first, even with the modern complicated plot -- if you think about it, the actual plot of Peter Pan isn't so complex, which isn't a problem.

2006-11-17T16:33:00.000-05:00

This is wonderful. It's a comic turning in-flight safety demonstrations into dance. And it's so cute.

2006-11-16T04:36:00.000-05:00

I missed a lot of the typical books for reading youth when I was, well, a youth. I was thirteen when I read The Hobbit for the first time, and fourteen before I read The Lord of the Rings. I was seventeen when I read The Sword in the Stone (as part of The Once and Future King), and read The Chronicles of Narnia the same year.

As a friend reminded me with her poll a week or so ago, I read some very poor mysteries, and Doyle's Holmes (good mysteries), along with some Poe and Michael Crichton (sp?) when I was in middle school. I honestly can't remember anything before that, save the very first books I had, of nursery stories -- I had most of the Little Golden Books that Hardees gave away with their kid's meals, up on a shelf of their own, which is now holding several Salvatore books, and a Zelazny collection, at home in my "library."

What I'm getting at is that I didn't read Peter Pan. I've just now finished it for the first time, in fact, and for whatever record this will serve as, I'm twenty-three. Barrie, the author, is famous for loving children, but has had the least number of pedophile theories woven about him -- it is pretty much accepted, through his writings, letters, and the accounts of acquaintances, that Barrie was physically and psychologically very close to asexual. He delighted in children in a way parents don't, and that certainly comes through in the book.

But he was also old enough, experienced, as William Blake would put it, to see children as conniving, carelessly cruel creatures. "Gay, innocent, and heartless," he calls them, and Peter exemplifies them all. Pan actually made me a bit uncomfortable all through the book -- he's not a typical hero, after all, despite his connections with mythology. He's not all bad, and serves, I think, as a literary argument that kids are neither, until they're no longer children.

I did find myself fascinated and sympathizing with Jas Hook, though. I would dearly love to see a good performance of the character -- reviews say the first performance of the play, the one Barrie put together himself, had a Hook so well-played some children had to be taken from the theater, as he was too terrifying. At some point Boris Karlloff played him. Certainly, if you know of a film Hook that meets the standard, speak up. I can't remember Hook pulls it off or not, though certainly he doesn't look quite as ridiculous as the Disney Hook does.

Of course, through all the discomfort and fascination, the adventure and the tragedy, there runs something that would confuse my high school English teacher, who was stunned to learn all of us, her senior class of 2001, missed being children. Personally, I feel a strong tug of sadness for a place I've left forever, because Peter's life was my life once, and that's probably the point of the whole affair. And really, my life now is closer to his than most people my age, or even younger. I still wander about wherever I may be, flat or home, when alone, and take swings at make-believe figures careering above my bed. I can still creep outside after ten in the evening and feel a fright from the black woods, successfully circumventing my knowledge of the safety of my home -- the only really dangerous animal around would be snakes, and they're typically not out at night. That twist of fear, and the mist-eyed fighting, I've always had them, and sometimes I suspect they're the things that make me a writer, as far as I actually am one, at least. Certainly, even though I'm terrible at visualizing my settings like most other people do, I can still make good places, and I think it's because I can call up the emotion, as I run through them all so often.

Like now, of course, with my drooping-Keats Romanticism. I hadn't read Peter Pan, but I suppose I will again, in time. All through the reading, I wondered what it would be like to read it to children, maybe even to mine, if I ever have them. Will they be confused by the leaps the narrator takes, as I was? And will they come away even a little worried at how Peter treats people, or is that really as implicitly natural to children as Barrie felt? Even Wendy, after all, takes no thought of how her mother must feel until the very day she left Neverland.

I should have been in bed hours ago, by the way, but I was busy reading. I does bother me, sometimes, that I can't remember what I read as a kid -- after very, very young, but before fifth grade. Sometimes I think maybe I didn't read all that much, though I remember checking books out of the elementary library -- the Bruce Conville "My Teacher. . ." books, and these picture-novelizations of old horror movies, like Dracula and The Blob. I've never watched those movies, but I've read the kid-books. I think The Blob was my favorite, actually.

2006-11-14T00:50:00.000-05:00

2006-11-14T00:49:00.000-05:00

One can't escape the long arm of liquor.

I tried a new drink this evening, and gave an old attempt one more chance. That is, I mixed a gin and tonic, and found it wasn't quite so bad. It was better than a martini, but as I hinted at earlier, what wouldn't be?

The gin and tonic was created by the British army. No, really. The amounts of citrus (lime, mainly) and quinine required for health reasons (to prevent scurvy and malaria) by the British army in India bothered so many of the soldiers, they cut the foul flavors with gin. Simply, the tonic water (the delivery method for quinine) was so bad, they had to add liquor to make it taste better.

Tonic water still contains quinine, "for flavor," it's claimed. Less than previously, but still. What? It is terribly bitter, but not as bad as I remembered. Maybe the bartender was cutting back the gin to save money, or something. Anyway, I made a wee version -- This wiki claims you should use a highball, but I used a lowball, and cut the ingredients appropriately. I didn't want to waste gin, in case I hated the drink, right? Well, it was better than I remember, though the quinine is still bitter as a smart high schooler. I didn't have any lime, so maybe it'll be even better with. I'll find out, eventually.

The new drink was the mojito. Supposedly it was a favorite of Hemingway's, though he preferred it without sugar. Given what I know of his life, this isn't surprising -- he always did go out of his way to make his life worse for himself. Damn volunteer ambulance driver.

Anyway, I picked up a mix (everything but the liquor) out shopping tonight, and made the drink -- though it's a bit touchy, really. The back of the mix bottle claims one could make a "mojito spritzer" by adding club soda to the mix -- if you look closely at the wiki, club soda is part of the drink. So, what now? It's sugar, rum, and lime juice, mainly, so I figure I'll like the real thing if I ever gather together all the ingredients. I suppose the only difficult thing to find will be the mint leaves.

So, that's tonight's venture into debauchery. Incidentally, I added the line to the g&t's wiki about Bertie Wooster. Someone had to say something.

I become convinced that I have a low alcohol tolerance, by the way. I'm fuzzy/tired, the phase (or so I'm told) before tipsy, and I've only had an ounce of rum and 3/4 of an ounce of gin. Oops.

2006-11-09T04:30:00.000-05:00

So, how is it, I've ended up here at my computer, past four in the morning (after going to bed at one, no less), reading articles about how to pick people's pockets?

Oh, I remember, I write about a thief. Damn it. Damn Derik anyway, doesn't he already know this crap?

2006-11-08T19:15:00.000-05:00

My quest to discover the joys, and narrowly avoid the perils, of alcohol continues. This day: the martini.

My father hates gin. Not like I hate close-minded creationists, no, like I hate drowning. He claims, and I'd imagine he's not lying, that the smell of gin, all on its lonesome, makes him ill enough to puke. There's a whole story behind that (which I've heard), but simply, I didn't come to gin with the sort of parental smile and nod that welcomed whiskey and wine into our midst.

Not that that stopped me, or even made my dad say I shouldn't try it. I just had this tale of woe flitting around in my head.

I started, as usual, with just the straight liquor -- a teeny, airplane sized bottle of Tanqueray (I guess that's how you spell it). I daub into a fluted wine glass, and sniff -- that's a lot like rubbing alcohol, hmm, and potpourri -- then drink. It's, er, odd. I could see how people enjoy it, I guess, but they enjoy coffee, too, and I most decidely don't. But, let's remember, straight tequila didn't woo me either, but tequila + citrus did, so, on to mixing. I've already had a g and t (as Bertie would affectionately call the gin and tonic), and it was atrocious. Of course, g&t was originally produced by desperate British military officers in India and other malaria-stricken countries, solely to help the quinine go down more smoothly (quinine is still in tonic today, for flavoring, they claim).

The martini. A classic, and it turns out, particularly American drink. This doesn't bode well for me, as I've shown a subconscious migration toward, er, not American drinks in the past. Though rum is arguable, I suppose. Modern Americana, then. Right. Originally, the martini was two parts gin, one part vermouth (differing places used different sorts -- sweet vermouth with sweet gin [a British gin popular with the drunken masses in the late 1700s and early 1800s] is one example), now, it's traditionally 5 to one: two ounces of gin and 1/2 ounce white vermouth for a single drink, garnish with differing things. The three standard garnishes are: olive, the original, cherry, presumably for sweet-tooths like me, and white onions; stories abound about the white onion, apocryphal or no, they all point to someone tricking associates by ordering water with their martinis and using the odd onion to differentiate the chicanery from the drunkenness.

I made a bit of a mistake to start with, buying a bottle of sweet vermouth, but I went back out and got the proper kind. I dropped two ice cubes into my mixing glass, then poured in the half-ounce of vermouth. Two ounces of gin later, I stirred the concoction and strained the drink into a highball (I don't own any martini glasses; if I decide I want to drink margaritas from them, I'll get some, I suppose, but that's spoiling what little storytelling tension I have here). Yes, James Bond orders his martinis incorrectly, you should stir drinks with only liquor -- shaking is useful for fruit additions only. Of course, some people say it's all right, as he primarily drinks vodka, not gin, but still, the shaking is adding more water from the breaking up of the ice, so he's ordering a watered-down drink and trying to be fancy about it.

It turns out, however, sweet vermouth just more vile than the normal stuff, a comparative, mind. Normal vermouth is as bad, for me. So, the martini is right out. I tried with olive and cherry (I hate onions); it was no good. I'm not well-disposed to gin, but I don't quite hate it, yet. I'm not sure I can stomach the stuff on its own, really (I bought a bottle of Seagram's, as the teeny Tanqueray wasn't enough for a single martini, let alone two, so I've had two brands, London and American).

Does a cosmo use gin, or vodka? I may hate the martini, but I still believe you can't call a mixture of vodka and vermouth (or anything else) a martini -- it requires gin.

Alas for the martini, the drink with so many stories attached. Churchill famously felt bowing towards France added enough vermouth to the drink; General Patton pointed his gin bottle toward Italy. Hitchcock glanced at a bottle of vermouth, but didn't open it, and Hemingway preferred what he called martini "Montgomery," mixed 15 to 1 -- the odds, he claimed, Field Marshall Montgomery awaited before going into battle.

Of course, these anecdotes all point towards just not adding vermouth. So, chilled gin as a martini? With a garnish, I guess. I'll try one of these days, when the taste (and smell) of the vermouth leaves me the hell alone.

2006-11-04T00:33:00.000-05:00

Hm. Several month ago I heard some people were going to re-start the comic series Gen 13. When I went to the comic shop Thursday for board games I noticed the first issue on the shelf, and picked it up (I missed the start of Jack of Fables -- oops -- so I have issue three of that). It's very good. Some of the storytelling features are novel and interesting, like the introductory zoom-in-and-out -- though usually we associate that with movies, where the camera zooms in on one object/person and pulls out on something similar in another scene.

The characters are much more realistic than they were before, visually -- they're still fairly superlative: Caitlin Fairchild (if that's her last name in this version) still looks, well, the way she did before, but now her physique wouldn't be totally impossible for someone to end up with. Just very improbable. Also, for what it's worth, a woman (Gail Simone) is writing, so probably there should be less worry over sexism? Was that a problem in the first? I wasn't old enough/sophisticated enough to notice.

Bobby does have some weird-ass hair, but whatever. It's done a very good, almost uncomfortable job capturing the way people act around sixteen-seventeen. All the characters are surrounded by douche-bags -- they're not so great themselves, mostly. I mean, Caitlin is pretty much a wet dream for a lot of guys, as she's an attractive genius, and that's all we see of her in the first issue, but Bobby's convinced the other kids are in on the conspiracy, and so on. Grunge, whatever the hell his name is, just wants to skate. Which, really, was relevant back then, but not so much anymore. But it's still funny.

It astounds me, by the way, that they're giving writers first billing on comics now; did they always do that? I mean, I know they used to hide that info. in the masthead, and now they put it on the cover, so maybe it was always in this order and I just didn't notice? Anyway, given how obsessed most comic fans are with art (they seem to view the story as just a thing that's there, like air or squamous jellies) it just seems odd, that's all.

So, with all of one issue read, I would recommend Gen 13. It looks as though they're revamping the origin a bit. Probably it would be best for anyone who wasn't a fan originally to wait for a trade collection.

2006-10-22T02:05:00.000-04:00

Oh, now that it's past midnight -- I've been following the Lord of the Rings chronologically for a month now. Frodo crossed the ford of Bruinen Friday, and Tuesday he'll wake up in Rivendell. If I get my map up the way I want, I'll try to get pictures around.

2006-10-21T23:30:00.000-04:00

Half HP productions, what were you thinking?

All right, audience, let's see if you can figure out what this show's about before I tell you.

Exhibit One.

Exhibit Two.

Exhibit Three.

So. What in the awakening hells is this thing?

If you'd like to read this out loud, to really feel the effect, you may want to take a large breath, because it's a:
Lovecraftian steampunk fantasy/sci-fi magical girl/anthropomorphic book big robot fighter mystery mystical action anime.

It's called Demonbane.
I blame the mercury in all the fish Japanese people must be eating.

You might have caught the "Lovecraftian" modifier there at the beginning. It's set in "Arkham City," the protagonist dropped out of "Miskatonic University," and the grimoire he meets is called "Al Azif." Whatever the main character's name is, he correctly identifies her as the Necronomicon.

Yes. By the way, Exhibit One was the protagonist, Exhibit Two features both him and the book, and Exhibit Three shows the "Deus Machina" (I'm not kidding, that's what they call it) the show's named after -- Demonbane.

Here's a quiz: Who's the better Herbert West?

or

If you said the second one is better, cut your wrists with some glass. I'll wait.
Just to be sure -- you said this asshat is the better choice? Go to the special hell.

Also, Herbert's specialty is robots, apparently, and not, uh, reanimating the dead. Like, you know, Herbert West did. In that short story, by the guy, Lovecraft.

Jesus.

So, you're Half HP, and you have an aborted child of a show on your hands, that didn't make it far enough in the creative crucible (that, to continue my conceit, I'll call the mother's womb) to have defining features. Oops. What do you do, HP? What do you do?

That's right. Fanservice. Unapologetic, asinine, unreasonable fanservice. For reference, the first woman is a nun, the second is a bookstore owner who does two things: show off her mammaries and refuse to sell the protagonist anything, claiming he'll get something even better later. The third is the book, who is A) underage, I think, and B) not a human, but an image projected by the book's soul, or something stupid like that. You know, they could have gone to the trouble of making her look just a little Arabic. I mean, it's anime, we're not expecting sensible crap here, just put her in a turban, it'd be fine.

Oh, right, remember I mentioned magic? Magic?. Yes, because the most powerful book in existence, with the keys to summoning Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep (lurker in the dark in the hizzie!), and possibly Azathoth, the blind god at the universe's center, needs to make out with an idiot and bind herself to him so she can do something. With sparkly blue magic circles appearing in mid-air for no reason I can understand.

Did I even point this out yet? Protagonist douche gets all green-hued and mismatched eyeballed when he morphs with Al Azif -- because we sinned greatly in our past lives, and the first two decades of Guyver weren't enough to even our karma.

You know, this started out with a funny, mildy irresponsible detective flunked from the magical studies section of the local university (their program is hell to get into, but they have a nice private library and, really, the ACT isn't that hard). But suddenly cute magic-girls were flying at me, and big robots showed up, and Howard Phillips is screaming, squamously, from his much-visited grave in Providence.

Incidentally, when I looked up where he's buried, I found out some grave robbers/pranksters tried to dig him up, but couldn't find the body (don't mock me, Lovecraft and Howard used italics to add emphasis to overblown sentences all the damned time). You know why? The desecration that is Demonbane spilled out into the dimensions of the great old gods, and retroactively destroyed the body, and the coffin containing it.

Will I watch the second episode? Yes. Why? No one's willing to suit up in latex, so I have to punish myself, I guess. Maybe if I watch enough, I'll never see Guyver again.

Perchance to dream, right?

2006-10-19T15:05:00.000-04:00

I thought I would post a portion of the newest thing I have to do for creative writing class. The assignment was "a piece in a (traditionally) non-literary form." And, given our reading for the week, one of those forms is the epistolary -- despite the long tradition of false letters in literature.

So, then, "Correspondence between Howard Fullbright, Archaeologist, and Alwilda Smith-Peters"

522 Cozen Square
Ridgewood, Massachusetts

7 March, 2006

Dear Alwilda,

I hope you are doing well, and that your sister hasn't locked herself out of the house recently. I received your last letter this morning, and now sit under a window, which tapers to a point about three inches across at the bottom, with the last moments of day dying in the sky through it. The weather has been terrible, which is no surprise, this far north. Trees are just beginning to grow their leaf-coats, and the flowers are still gleams in their seeds' eyes. Mostly it rains, and I suppose it's good for the plants, but I've grown to hate my macintosh, as I'm bundled it in almost every other day as we range the woods.

Good luck recovering from your injury, by the way. I never did learn to ride a bicycle, and I don't feel I've missed much. I'm sure you don't agree, of course. You've always waxed poetic, if I may say so, about the speed, wind, and freedom of near-flight you get with the cycling, and it's lovely to hear you speak of such things, and lovelier to watch your face color, then rise like bread as you recreate the sensations in your mind. I have felt something similar these past weeks, leaning against the wind that swoops across the hills. Often I feel a drunken silence in the glens and saddles, only to be struck again by the wind when I top a peak – it carries traces of phlox and columbine, and did even early last month. It's encouraging, and the force of the hill-wind reminds me of you and your rushes down hills on your thin-beamed blue bicycle.

Charles D. continues to be rather rough-fisted, as I said last time. He insists all the boys call him Mister Ward, and, frankly, I'm surprised he allows me to call him more familiarly. An odd man, to be sure, but quite cut out for the sort of work we're in for up here. He has a trunk filled with maps, and all of the New England woodlands and coasts; I don't mean a sort of valise, but a large steamer trunk, which fills his cabin with maple and cold iron smells.

How is Jeremy Coldiron, by the way? Did he win the election for sheriff? There's a fellow here named Holiness Coldiron. He told me, after much pressing, that a few of his family moved “south” (all he's willing to divulge, I'm afraid) two or three generations ago, to avoid “besmirching” (his word, not mine) the family honor. That is the whole of what he will tell me regarding his family, but he is quite vocal about the expedition. Every morning he comes by. First he knocks on the door, peers in when it's opened, and says, “Have ye lost anyone yet?” From underneath his stiff brown hat, rather like those the pilgrims in the portraits always wore, it seems very comic at first, but as the weeks have gone on it has grown disconcerting. I never fail to shudder when I see that hat scuttle over a hill's rise, Holiness following after. He appears sometimes at dusk, sometimes at noon. Yesterday, for example, he stamped through a pool of last year's dead leaves, sending the taste of rotten maple and birch through the air, and asked me, “So where's ye damnable guide, Bookman?” This is all he will ever call me, so I paid no attention to his odd “ye” and rather insulting reference to Charles, and pointed him to a disappointing cave the others hadn't given up on just yet.

The day has failed at last, Ra or Lugh slain again, as your fables would have it. The locals call it “the Devil's racket,” and certainly the trees do rustle and creak here at sunset as I have heard them do nowhere else. Every night for a week Davis has been dreaming horrors. At least, from his shouts and rank sweats it seems that way. He jostles and jitters when the sun sets now, thinking of what awaits him in bed, I suppose. I've had a few odd nightmares myself, actually, but nothing to get so worked up about. A few tentacled figures, covered in seaweed, and the odd mountain man turned cannibal chasing me with a hatchet. Davis has just come through the door, in fact, and his trouser cuffs are wobbling – that's how hard he's shaking. Perhaps the warm soup will help. I should have some myself.

Any thoughts? Some of you might notice an allusion there, hidden in the suspiciously-banal.

2006-10-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

Originally written in class, off-the-cuff, so to speak. Recalled in tranquility (possibly accurately), now:

~~~

I must, I'm afraid, cease censuring myself for a moment, so I can freely say, What the hell?

That is rude, and I apologize, but it was required.

Japanese punks, what's going on over there? You're not really punks, which makes of your title a misnomer. You just color your feather-fluff hair and sneer unconvincingly. You're more like goths than punks, really. Except your music is better, marginally. Which isn't saying much, I'm afraid. That's like saying your music is better than emo, which isn't hard to do, frankly.

I mean, your music isn't even very punk, honestly. Your lyrics are understandable, and any poseur-punk could have told you punk vocals require the sort of drug-chic best left behind in the 90s. You have been too influenced by pop, and while Japanese pop is more listenable than American pop, that does not absolve you.

Let's face it, Japanese punks, you're not, as a whole, asshole enough to beat out the Sex Pistols.

And, Jesus, the Sex Pistols were terrible.

2006-10-16T00:07:00.000-04:00

So, I was checking to see who Mark Hamill was in Metalocalypse, and went to IMDB. Here's some news I discovered.

First, he's the senator. Nice.

He's the crazy-ass (well, worse than the rest) in an animated Conan story -- Red Nails. Red Nails was, arguably, Robert Howard's greatest story. I just read it yesterday, and it is fabulous. I look forward to it. The cast is crazy, including Ron Perlman as Conan, which works really well.

Oh, and Perlman was Hellboy, by the way. And there's a new Hellboy movie slated for 2008.

Also, he's in the Dungeon Siege movie, which, apparently, wasn't a horrible rumor. The main character is named "Farmer," which hurts me, physically.

The woman who will be playing Valeria in Red Nails is Numbah 5 (Abigail) in Kids Next Door, and Foxxy Love in Drawn Together. O_o

2006-10-09T21:43:00.000-04:00

Religious prot. Rack - bard as strongarm

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

2006-10-08T17:05:00.000-04:00

First point -- Death Note people, you have cast-iron cajones, for naming your first episode "Boredom." I'm not screwing around: "Boredom". This is rather like getting onto a boat named "Buoyancy's Enemy," or reading a book named TV Schedules for the Blind Illiterate. However, most of the time the first episode of Death Note avoids this.

Basic premise: the top-ranked student in the nation (high schooler, of course), is bored as hell. A demon/monkey/angel/Noh theater dude is bored as well. Ryuk is his name -- the main character's name is Light. Yes, Light. Like you know, light. Damn it, Japan. Stop that. Bad media producer.

Light isn't merely bored, though, no no. He's disaffected, like every teenager, ever. The world is "rotten," he says, and ignore the horrible pun that makes combined with the prominence of apples in the opening. He finds the demon/dog guy's "Death Note," a notebook capable of killing folks. Like any good disaffected high schooler, he brushes it off as a daft chain letter, but takes the notebook home anyway, and pores over the instructions, while he should be doing something constructive, like studying, watching tv, or masturbating. In a bid to amuse himself he writes the name of a guy holding some kids hostage into the book, and said guy falls over, dead.

Whoops.

Then the, uh, well, the tale of interest, I guess, begins. He tests the book again, this time interposed with a scene I was impressed to see, honestly, and then Ryuk shows up to explain how bored he was, and doesn't life suck. He also intimates ooh spooky things about what'll happen to Light when he dies, and Light swears to, and I'm not being hyperbolic, to become the new god of a cleansed world.

Well, Japan, I can commend you for having the testicular fortitude to take a series in that direction right from the beginning -- Light is obviously a disturbed little bastard, but two things keep this from being great. Okay, three.

Light is, as I said, a disturbing little bastard, and I don't just mean he's emo. He's jaws to the wall nuts, by the end of the first episode, and I can't connect to him in any way at all. Sure, whatever, he bitches about how he's the only person in his class that would do the noble and right thing with the book, good for him, but still -- crazy nuts. It's daring to have a guy be that sure of himself and still be so horrible, I suppose.
It wasn't the best move to name this episode as accurately as you did, guys. "Boredom," remember? The episode needed to cut down on a little of the bitching and explanations, and just show us Light being moon'd, lunatic style.
I'm pretty sure this is meant to be a plot-heavy, twist-n-turn show, am I right? Maybe not in the way of a bad 70s soap, but just in that the progression of Light's whacko-brain and the repercussions of his actions will drive things, there's no super-hot action to focus on. So, Death Note production crew? Show us some of that, huh? The first episode only serves to set up Light's "quest," and show us Ryuk the Shinigami, who's morbid, oily-lookin', and mean, or something. Give us a hint of crap coming down, eh? Eh??

I don't have any screen shots, because I don't care enough to bother. The whole thing looks the same, with a pallet of "OH EM JEE PAINT IT BLACK!! EMOTIONAL HARDCORE!!!"

Don't confuse what I'm saying here, it's a decent show. I'll keep watching as long as I can, but I'm lucky it's just started -- if there were a backlog of these episodes, I probably couldn't make it through them all without a rainbow enema.

Luckily, I have most of the Soft Bulletin and Blueberry Boat just sitting around.

2006-10-07T15:07:00.000-04:00

I need a shirt like this, and if you're cool, you need one too.

"SpecOps-27. Wordage is our business. Grammar is our game."

2006-10-07T14:42:00.000-04:00

Here' s a video over at Youtube. You should all check it out, it's fabulous. If you like Salvatore's Drizzt books, you'll really enjoy it, but even if you just like fantasy, watch it, it's very well done.

2006-10-06T14:43:00.000-04:00

Now, this is one of the reasons I like the idea of re-reading Lord of the Rings along the calendar. We all know Frodo was stabbed, and that sucked, and it hurt a bunch. But it's never really gotten through (at least to me), just how long he spent wandering the countryside with shadow-knife stuck in him. He was stabbed on Oct. 6, late in the evening/night, which is today. He arrived in Rivendell on the 20th -- two weeks later. That happens in like two chapters of the book, time scale is lost. Even in re-reading today, I accidentally slipped in the events of tomorrow, when Strider returns from tracking the Riders and seeks the athelas. So I'll read that again tomorrow, and intersperse the travelling through the two weeks, I suppose.

2006-10-05T19:28:00.000-04:00

I bring the links that make the world go round!

First, I can't really do anything to liven this up: Iran's Supreme Leader: "Don't masturbate during Ramadan."

Here's a short review of the South Park episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft.". Some great lines (mentioned from the article, as I can't remember them from one viewing: Cartman: You can just hang around outside all day tossing a ball around, or you can sit at your computer and do something that matters. Blizzard employee: How do you kill something that has no life? It looks like Blizzard actually made the in-game stuff for the show, so they worked pretty closely together. Looks like you can watch it here.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett charged Terry Gilliam a groat for the Good Omens movie rights. Apparently the agent fee will be a farthing, and Gaiman had to hit ebay to pick one up.

Did anyone else hear about the guy that recited pi to 100,000 places? Yeah, 100,000. Fear!

2006-10-05T17:27:00.000-04:00

Do you have any idea how irritating it is to write a story and have to make sure, every time you use the word "dragon," the word "fate" can replace it sensibly?

That is all.

I link you to things that are important for your life!

2006-10-02T02:01:00.000-04:00

Some of you may be interested -- you should all be -- but Someone made a cake shaped like the Great A'Tuin.

should have a particular interest, but you should all be fascinated by glass models of natural science stuffs.

Halloween approaches on hooked feet, so prepare yourself a bat-costume with an umbrella and a hoodie.

There's a new replica of the original Star Trek phaser. Since this phaser is obviously superior to the Blackberry Picard & crew carried, you should be enthralled.

Apparently, There's a new version of Make Love! The Bruce Campbell way coming out, with more scenes and a prologue.

Somewhere in England, you could live in the Shire. John Hodgman is mortally offended that it offers no underground homes, which makes sense.

2006-10-01T14:32:00.000-04:00

So, Tolkien was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

Why, then, does Quenya have eight noun cases? That makes it like Latin, a horrible abomination of counfounding grammar and sadism.

Because there's a dim chance he'll read this tomorrow

2006-09-25T02:28:00.000-04:00

Superopie and I are both big nerds, and we chilled in the Sunspear HQ before logging out of Guild Wars for the night. I only have a trial account right now, but I'm going to get a full version. I recommend it to anyone, ever, especially if you have distant friends who are nerds like you.

2006-09-22T00:43:00.000-04:00

It's nearly time for possibly the nerdiest thing I've ever done.

What in the hell, you might ask, would be nerdier than LARPing?

I heard about this years ago from a professor, and I've always wanted to try it.

"It" is this: I am going to read The Lord of the Rings, rather, re-read it, keeping pace with the characters. Example: Today (now that it's past midnight), September 22nd, is Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. So, when I wake up, I'll read the long-awaited party. Then Saturday I'll read the next chapter, and so on. There will be a wait between the fording of the Bruinen and the council, for instance. The seasons will shift around me as they did the characters, and it will be fabulous.

Incidentally (obviously): Happy birthday, Bilbo and Frodo!

Because you need to know more about anime

2006-09-19T16:25:00.000-04:00

So, Black Blood Brothers. Apparently it doesn't even have an English wiki entry yet, so I don't have much background for you just now. I watched the first episode, though, and I can lead you through the perilous world of, you guessed it:

Anime Vampire Show #5923117a

Right into the intro, and it's decent. More heavy rock than pop, but this isn't really surprising. At this point, I'd like to hear some freshly-scrubbed, just past legal Japanese girl sing about fluffy clouds and love over vampire-frolicking, it would be an interesting change.

The show.

I should get this out of the way right now. This guy wants to be Alucard so bad it hurts. Look closely there, he even has an Edwardian knot tie, just like our favorite sociopath in red.

He's a bad-ass, and I'm sure you're as shocked by that as I was. For a reason we're not given, he's able to cut through over a dozen vampires -- with machine guns -- less than two minutes after we're introduced to him. Jirou is his name, by the way, as though that matters. "Not Alucard" is good enough.

I'm sure some of you, out there, in your dressing gowns and your bubble wrap (freaky), are whining that it's not fair to compare this to Hellsing. Look, here's the deal: it's new, it's got vampires engaging in violence, and they didn't bother to pull their thumbs out of one another's asses long enough to give him a different-colored coat and wide-brimmed hat. I should say, though, that I like his hat. It's a little like a cartoony witch hat, with the inexplicable metal hoop. V could wear it, except it's red, so if V ever did a Christmas special, he'd wear this hat.

Oh, by the way, moments after Jirou cuts a dozen men apart like ham meat, a woman shows up, taunts him with a mysterious shared past (you didn't think they'd forget something as important as a mysterious past, did you?), and proceeds to dodge all his attacks, hint that she's on the side of whatever bad guys this show will hem and haw over before revealing ten episodes in, and refuses to kill Jirou, despite wrapping him up in an apparently deadly (or acidic, anyway) rosary.

Oh yeah, all the vampires, unless they get killed, seem to have telepathy. Whatever, you know what, Japanese vampire buffs? Go to hell.

Wait! There are more clichés! People not connected to the main characters that get way too much screen time in the first episode! A mysterious bad guy with weird hair that we know nothing about!

You may want to know, then, if anything saves this show from obscurity and late night, quickly cancelled graveyard runs on Starz Action. Well, it's this:

They gave the main character a little brother and a sunny disposition.

But wait, you might say, what the hell? And well you should.

First, Jirou has a little brother, something like ten or twelve years old, I guess, and he's dressed in Victorian, Edwardian, something period but not Renaissance, clothing. He's your standard cute, golden-ringed hair fluffball, who treats viewers to over a minute of shouting "brother" (I can't be arsed to check what it is in Japanese for you people, I'm not being paid) and banging on Jirou's coffin top.

Upon waking up -- in the middle of a huge firefight on a ship -- Jirou smiles, and wishes everyone a good morning ("ohayo," I remember that much, kisama). He then proceeds to use telekinesis to slam his little brother into the walls and deck while admonishing him for not following directions.

So, why should you watch this? It seems to have more of a sense of humor than most vampime I've seen -- Hellsing had a few rare moments of humor (one of the things abundant in the manga which is showing up untarnished in the OAV), but not many. So, rejoice, and watch a vampire commit child abuse in front of a crack military/S.W.A.T./whatever unit.

Oh, anime. You're the crazy guy on the corner; I just have to watch when you're around.

2006-09-16T22:52:00.000-04:00

So, I watched Trinity Blood and Bleach yesterday. I'm sure the purists might bitch and moan, as Bleach has been popular forever, but they can go to hell. Trinity Blood excited me more, honestly. I usually like characters like the father's -- rather, the way he acts. It lends a sense of verisimilitude if someone aside from an unimportant walk-on or villain acts in a silly manner, but anime makers, on the whole, seem unwilling to let silly people just be silly. Vash is the best example, he's got, ooh, *depth.* Because, apparently, if you act silly but have depth, you actually switch between two modes like a socialpath.

Anime people: watch Doctor Who, season nine especially, and watch Eccleston. He's silly, he has depth, and he doesn't flip back and forth like an ass.

It's grasping at the brass ring of vampire crap, which has been played out for a very long time. Hell, most magazines put in their submission guidelines that unless it's extraordinary, they won't take a vampire story and longer. It's not extraordinary, but I'm not paying past my tv subscription rates, so whatever. The villain vampire was the stereotypical dapper-dressed, elitist "dhampir" ass-hat; he even said something like, "the thrill of the hunt," because the entire vampire trope isn't enough of a cliché. Regardless, decent fun, and I think Vash's old VA is doing the father.

Bleach. Oh, Bleach. What the hell were you thinking? I mean, I enjoyed Yu-yu Hakosho, or however it's spelled, but there was no call to do it again, with the Buster Sword. I mean, really. At least there's a reason the protagonist knows how to fight -- a crazy, martial-arts-obsessed doctor of a father doesn't make much sense, but it's better than, "Uh, he's a street kid. Get off my back, I'm drawing the redhead in another fruity pose."

I'm seriously sick of the whole thing where the protagonist is super-cool-powerful; that is, I'm tired of the creators jacking off on their pages and animating the dripping remains.

But wait! I'm not entirely full of vitriol. There's ham in there, too.

It may not be the creators' faults -- Funimation's dubbing Bleach. They did YYH as well, I believe. They're possibly responsible for such gems as "the soul society," though maybe that just sounded good to a Japanese guy, I dunno. Either way, the terms for things are atrocious. I used to be able to take a great deal of joy from "bad-ass good guy spending his time being bad-ass and having 'hilarious' problems in his social life." Cause, y'know, I used to watch Dragonball Z. Then Goku decided to stay dead, but didn't anyway, and I went to college. Also, the Fusion dance. Go to hell, Fusion dance. Special hell, the Dante section.

So, Bleach is probably all right. I didn't delete the tivo pass, anyway, so I'll have more episodes waiting when I come home in a week or so. But, really, whoever turned it into the playground of a three-year-old with a thesaurus? I blame you for cancer.

Good evening.

Utawarerumono -- first thoughts

2006-09-14T16:55:00.000-04:00

I've decided to write a little free-styling review of the first episode of this anime Unagieater said I might like. Short version, I did enjoy it. Long version:

Every time I watch an anime that I don't have baggage with -- that is, I've been hearing about it loads, it has something that appeals to me directly, or it's a sequel/&c. to something I liked, I sense, under the surface, a checklist, quietly and surreptitiously referenced as the show sprints along (and, if you've watched much anime, you know "sprints" is the appropriate metaphor for the pacing here). So, checklist, with this show's status:

Do we have a pedigree, despite this being the first episode? Check.
Did we put in a mysterious protagonist? That's a check, good buddy.
Do we have cool-looking not-quite-humans, preferably female? Check check check, lots of checks.
I mean, everyone in the first town has ears and a tail, leading to the inevitable:
Do we have some very slightly uncomfortable moments of sexual tension, brought about by misunderstandings and inability to communicate like adults? Check.
Did we remember the bad-asses? Check.
What about cute, useless animals? Check.
Anachronism -- that is, person totally out of place with the prevalent setting or period? Check.
We can call this many things, but the only one I can think of right now is "Samurai Champloo no Mugen" characters.
Did we remember to create weird-ass character designs, and then devise utterly normal, actually boring things for them to do? We're shamed you even asked.
Did we provide a villain, preferably a weeny, a blowhard, and a jack-ass, with a tenuous connection to one of our main characters? Yes sir/madam, and we even had him try to punch a guy in a horned mask.
What about foreshadowing? Did you remember to hint about some kind of, simply, "oh shit" moment? We're not f**king amateurs, sir/madam.

So, yeah, that's a 10-4 on the checklist, my good chum. I may develop this further and use it whenever I watch a new anime.

Anyway, the show itself. Wikipedia informs me, at least, if I squint, that this show's title means, "The one being sung." Sure, whatever. Great, Japan, just jack around with us, why don't you? No worries.

This is a reasonably funny show, with the potential for some decent story. I sense a Mononoke-hime, Nausicaa vibe going on here, with the forest guardian and all. That's perfectly acceptable, I think. Less preachy, probably. The main character has amnesia, because apparently I go through the trouble of watching foreign tv just to get crap from my mom's soap operas. Unlike those, though, he's remembering some stuff on his own, as actual victims of traumatic amnesia usually do. Spiffy.

The style's good enough. That's the deal, right? As Doc Hammer once said about Venture Bros. 01x04, it's good enough. They look mostly traditional, but everyone has some weird ear crap going on, except the main guy, or whatever, though I didn't notice them on the bad guys either. There are lizard things that I think are called some Nipponese bastardization of "raptor." Jesus I hope they just call them raptors when they dub it here. I still can't believe the Hellsing fans actually wanted him to be called "Arucard." That doesn't make sense on several levels: the sensible one is, he's Alucard! That's the deal! You spell Dracula backwards, you get powerful vampire name. Move on! The "way too into this crap" version is, they called him "Aakaado" in the anime/manga, not "Arucard." So go to hell.

I'm not sure there's anything else to say here. I'm not gonna bother burning the episodes, I'll just delete them when I'm finished. It is making me want to go and finish Scrapped Princess. Ah well.

"Yume kara samete mo / kono te wo nobasu yo"

2006-09-06T01:12:00.000-04:00

So, I've been absent from LiveJournal posting for a bit now. Of course, those of you who've been on board for a while probably didn't notice, as it hasn't been a month yet. I haven't gotten to write anything since Thursday, which is just odd.

I learned "speak" in Old English tonight, which brings me one step closer to saying "I speak a little Anglo-Saxon." I collect, it seems, "I speak a little..." in different languages, it seems. It's actually "spræc," which is quite similar to "sprech" in German. "Ic spræc, er, uh, Seaxe?" That's actually Saxon people, but you know, I'll figure it out.

I hope to write tomorrow, along with whatever work I'm given and the reading for next week's Old English class. I'm still a week ahead in creative writing, so no worries there. I do need to print things, though.

I spend much of last week watching xxxHolic, if you have an interest. It's fun. I know a lot of fans of the manga hate the show, and it's not as good, certainly. It does, however, dramatize certain things better than the manga does. For instance, it's more noticable that Dômeki watches, relies even, on Watanuki. Also, Himawari seems rather more sinister; Yûko warns Watanuki about her a lot in both formats, actually, but I never noticed until now.

I'm starting this week trying to catch up on .hack//ROOTS, actually. I have some awful subs, from Lu-Perry, and two from someone that are in crap formats, so I have to re-download stuff. I'll probably finish the third game (I'm actually done, I just need to watch the DVD, check out the two extra dungeons, and level up as I like, before moving on) pretty soon.

However, today I started Hitman: Contracts, and it's fantastic. I'll tell you, pulling a meat hook from its hiding place in a chicken and killing a super-fat, Scottish crime lord with it is a feeling unparalleled in most quarters.

You know, I still haven't seen House of Flying Daggers? And I really wanna. If you cringe, or whatever, and feel the urge to respond with "No!" don't bother. I'll enjoy it, like I enjoyed those people's other movies, adn that'll be that. ^_^ Plus, an archer.

I realize this is pretty much a boring, "what's Greg up to?" post, but I have little else to talk about just now. I did have to deal with stupid party-people next door last night/this morning, and the cops showed up -- I heard, through my paper wall, something about marijuana several times, so that might not have worked out so well for the jackasses.

Yup. Full Metal Alchemist is still as lame as I remember. Though the soul-eating magic angle Sam told me about remains interesting. Not enough, I'm afraid. I'll just watch Slayers or Sorcerer Hunters.

So, Robin Hobb is going to be in Joseph Beth this Saturday. I feel I should go, as I figure I should make an effort, you know, since I can't get to conventions. I've also heard her writing is very good, and certainly books like The Assassin's Apprentice sound tailor-made for me. The problem is, of course, that to do anything save check out the Q&A, I'll have to buy a hardcover book at full price. I just have enough money, but I thought I might like food. I'll get more on Friday, but I dunno how many tickets they'll be through by that time. Anyone interested in going? If anyone comes with me/meets me, I could suck it up and wait through crowds -- though authors tend to get tired near the end, there.

2006-09-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

So...

Uh...

Lawrence Fishburne played a very purple-clad cowboy, with a horrible fake accent, on Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

My world, she is turvy.

2006-08-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

Bleh. Tired. Not much to say -- probably more later, when I'm not so achy.

( ####============= )
18,906 / 80,000 : 23.6%

I only did about 350 words today, what with class and work meeting. It looks like I'll be screwed the first few days of the week, and I'll be able to write later on -- until I get a paper due, I suppose. Though, with fewer classes, that shouldn't be a huge problem.

Sorry about bitching. Still tired.

"sometimes it's for the money, often it's for the fun"

2006-08-25T01:02:00.000-04:00

Hell yes! Along with a bit of homework -- Old English all -- I wrote a whole bunch today. Over 2000 words, hurrah. That actually makes up for my deficit for two days. If I can do about 1300-1400 tomorrow, I'll have made up all the work I've missed, save Sunday (moving in day) where I figured I wouldn't do anything. Even if I don't make it up, that's okay, I'm just pleased I'm still capable of doing more than a few hundred words while here in Richmond. I liked some of what I did today quite well, so I'm gonna post some here for you. First, the word counter, and such:

( ###============== )
16,100 / 80,000 : 20.1%

And, some writin':

Derik gave Danielle a ruby, and the promise to meet her in the evening, then slouched off to his favorite flophouse, hidden as it was on the outskirts of Whitesteel Priory. The owner, a heavy man whose folds had grown over his massive oak chair, greeted Derik with his usual "H'llo, Darren." Derik tossed two bent copper coins onto the counter – it was a pocked, cracked thing, with three deep gouges that curved along fractured parabolas – and a key flew over the edge of the owner's yellowed libel sheet. Derik caught this and fumbled his way up a staircase so close musty that stepping onto the first stair was a bit like stepping into the ocean: that is, a new atmosphere hits you all at once, and you're not sure if you'll ever make it out the other end.

The room number was scratched on the key, which wasn't so good, as the hallway at stairs' end had a single, guttering oil lamp in the far, shifting black distance. Derik rubbed his thumb over the key, like he did whenever he came here, sighed, and banged on the second door on his left – the first was always occupied by some fellow with a large beard who didn't enjoy knocking, or people, really. No one answered, so Derik picked the flimsy lock and dropped the key on the tiny table near the bed. The room was just slightly bigger than the bed, with enough room to drop your shoes and close the door. Derik did just that, then collapsed onto the bed, bopping it with one fist to crush the worst of the lumps.

A smell of dead insects and rotting cloth filled the air when Derik struck the bed. Derik coughed and swallowed past the tainted air and spit in the back of his throat, threatening a little vomit. He pulled the velvet package from one pocket, and the lace handkerchief from the other, and balanced both on the table. "Lucky old Gerhold's next door," Derik said, fluffing the natty pillow. This was the only public place Derik would ever leave his stolen goods, as no one ever wanted to risk breaking into the wrong room and getting the tip of Gerhold's stumpy spear leveled at their face.

The man was a little shorter than Derik, which made him quite short indeed, and had a bulky beard capable of hiding hams – Gerhold usually smelt as though he were hiding hams, actually, and he wore thick cotton shirts and half-cloaks no matter the weather. He took a different room every night, and then crept out and took his usual, first on the left with the busted lock and the mass of homey quilts wadded under the bed. No one aside from Derik knew, and that was because he'd flattened himself on the stairs, a black cap he'd been fond of at the time concealing his forehead, and watched the whole process. It was odd, watching a man as stocky as Gerhold sneak along a creaky, water-eaten corridor with spear in hand, but he'd done it.

There was a small window in Derik's room, frozen in place by too many expansions of the cheap wood. A vague, half-remembered light shuffled through it, and this stuttered in a slow, deliberate manner. Derik sat up, brain stuffed with the vision-blurring wool of almost-sleep, and blinked. It didn't happen again, but the light never wavered either – he hunched over himself for quite a while, the tiny hours of the morning beginning to sneak by, but finally he slumped backwards and slept.

~~~

The next morning was as fine and promising as the previous day had been. A muffled sort of blue showed up through Derik's window, a small synecdoche of the wide bright sky cracking the winter kinks from its back and straightening up above Floren. People were up already, going about their madness and deviltry. Derik had planned to sleep until his body protested the lack of food or urine storage, but a loud, crackly cry woke him. He lay on the bed, thin cover stretched underneath him, and stared at the ceiling, covered in the dusty remnants of webs and the gentle fuzz that rises out of unfinished wood. Another cry pierced the thin walls, and Gerhold – Derik recognized the voice – said, "What the shit do you want, you hell-roasted wax-fucker?"

Derik laughed at that, as he usually laughed at Gerhold's proclivity for strange and byzantine cursing. He stopped laughing, however, when the walls rattled, a high, anus-clenching voice said something Derik couldn't understand, and the tip of Gerhold's spear appeared through the wall, accompanied by a thin laugh and a gusty "shit!"

2006-08-24T21:06:00.000-04:00

Irony:

Reading the book Maggie bought for my birthday, which smells of patchouli, and finding this on page 92:

toothpaste for dinner

"they want no ravers moving in around here"

2006-08-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

Yar, and the like. Here's some me-news, for those of you with an interest:

I have been working on my novel every day, in spite of school, but I've been hitting around 500 words, instead of 1000. I also had to do a memoir (gag) for creative writing, which is finished now, at around 1100 words -- that took me two days, which would be incredibly depressing, but it's a memoir, and I don't care. Even if I did center it on the Duke of Weillington.

I finally met my new boss and know about my job now. I am the "Program Assistant" for the English department -- that is, Professor Flann knew I would need to e-mail people for information and help, and gave me a title so the person at the other end wouldn't think, "Oh, just another grad. student." I've had to flitter out an e-mail signature featuring it twice, so we'll see how that works. She mentioned bunches of things she'd like me to look up -- apparently EKU requires teachers to do one more class than other universities, so she's swamped, and I'm doing the basic look-up stuff for her. Y'know, how much do the other low-residency M.F.A. programs around here charge? How many residencies do they have each year? &c. It was a bit tedious, but I made it through, no worries.

My birthday was fairly lackluster -- I've had better, but I've also had worse. Only one person showed up last night, so I couldn't really get around to games. We tried to play Trivial Pursuit, but kept getting distracted by videos and books. I'm hoping Friday goes better.

If my work continues in this vein, my week will be glorious -- I'm pretty much done on Wednesday afternoon. I'm sure work will advance on me later, but we'll see.

I'm having less trouble going to sleep once I get into the bedroom -- but I'm having a little more trouble convincing myself to get to bed. Classic school problem: I tend to keep a vague picture of all the crap I have to do slotted between my brain lobes, so I always want to try and get more done. I've already gotten a little ahead in one class, and I'll probably spend today on the other. Aside from glorious, hopefully unfettered writing. Mmm.

The downside is, with little money and no classes, I'm not sure I'll see anybody today. Everyone seems to be working or attending classes of their own. Ah well.

"Se theow is aac."

Johnny get ready and go ska tonight

2006-08-22T15:32:00.000-04:00

Here's an odd meme sort of thing:

Ten Things I've Done that You Probably Haven't

I was in hospital when I was three or four -- kindergarten aged, anyway. Six? I'm not sure anymore. And, I mean, hospital. At one point I was rushed into the emergency room of our local hospital: my liver was so swollen it was visibly poking from my abdomen. I remember nothing of this, save the faint, fingers on windows imprint of the mad, wheeled-cot rush. None of the pain, thankfully. I was later transferred to Lexington, and spent at least two weeks there, a bit frightened, mostly because my parents clearly were. I remember two pains from my stay: the wasting, sluggish ache of vomiting constantly with no energy to hold myself up, and the faux-rending pain of a catheter. My dad tells the story of hearing the doctor claim that none of them could figure out what was actually wrong with me. Just two years ago I heard him tell someone else -- he never bothered to mention it to me directly -- that our family doctor said it was Eastern Tick Fever. That sounds about right, as far as I know.
I wrecked my first car, snapping an axle in the ditchline, whirling across the road like a ballerina with greased feet, thumping into a tree, and cascading down a hill. To this day I'm not sure if I went end-over-end, like a thrown knife, or along the car's axis, like the spun cylinder of a revolver. I emerged unharmed, and technically committed a crime when a friend drove by and took me to his house to clean up and call my cousin. We met the police officer on our way back.
I broke my toe by catching the tip on a sleeping bag I'd left out on the floor, and resting my weight onto it, snapping it like a twig, with the same protruding, sharp end -- that came up through the base of my toenail.
On an informal sort of day, with just one try apiece, I outshot a professional gun-maker and marksman, using my right hand. I'm left-handed, and the rifle was an old-fashioned flintlock, with a powder pan on the right. The puff of grey from the flash pan is beautiful, in its own way, with the bellowing stink of sulfur, but I couldn't press that to my face, could I?
I've performed the soft-gentle piano chords of Yes's "Time and a Word" on a vibraphone, and had the sun burst through heavy cloud cover as I begin, just far enough to illuminate me and the shining silver keys as I played. Twice. This was our drum major's favorite, and we were both graduating that year. She wept when she noticed what was happening.
I have been accused of keeping a list of people to kill, and plotting to bring a weapon to school so I could shorten the list. This was based on a crass comment I made that I hardly remember, as three girls on the bus had driven me into hysterics. I hardly remember any of what happened. After talking to the police -- I know most of them personally, though not well -- no action was taken against me, and one of the girls was banned from the bus. She wasn't supposed to be on our bus in the first place.
I wrote a poem about no. six, and called it "Witch Hunt," because I was a heavy-handed bastard in high school, then posted it everywhere I could in the school, to the supporting voices of many. My band director, and a few other teachers, made a point of keeping it up all year. The copy at the front desk was torn down, and the advisor said it could be construed as threatening. It couldn't be.
I realize none of these have come from after high school, but nothing impressive has happened to me -- I haven't really done anything worth mentioning, since. Save no. ten. Anyway. The new principal of my high school took me aside and said I had to change my valedictorian speech (or, something -- we had six val &cs that year, because of confusion about the grading scale; one person had higher grades than me, so I guess, to everyone else ever, I would be a salutatorian). He claimed no one in the gymnasium would understand it. There was nothing to understand, save some imagery; I was tempted to ask why he was allowing them to graduate if that were true. Sick of my high school by this point (see six and seven), I aquiesced, and read a poem that had nothing to do with high school, graduation, or anything. Everyone loved it.
I have failed to learn to dance since my junior prom, despite how much I enjoy it.
I wrote a full-length (though short) novel of my own creation, then used it to fulfill my undergraduate (honors) thesis.

2006-08-19T15:08:00.000-04:00

Because, apparently, I'm the source of random trivia for many of my acquaintances, here's a neat short bit I found on cocktail umbrellas.

Also, by the way, Don the Beachcomber came up with the first zombie, a cocktail so strong he limited most patrons to two on a given day -- it has three or four kinds of rum, including 150 (or 151, whichever). That's how it got the name -- a friend of his had three and didn't remember his vacation of three days that started just after the drinks.

"carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters"

2006-08-18T13:51:00.000-04:00

For those of you scarred, as was I, by latter-day Buffy seasons: click here.

"work it harder make it better"

2006-08-17T21:51:00.000-04:00

Well, I did something like 1200 words today on my novel, but a bare 200-300 on the short story. I found out the deadline for that is in October, though, so I have some time to think it over properly. I suppose it's meter and snippet time, though:

10,181 / 80,000
(12.7%)

Here's the bit from my work today (and just the last end of yesterday's, I suppose):

~~~

Danielle clawed her way through the window as Derik finished running loving, appraising eyes along the expensive, gleaming appointments of the washroom. He turned as she straightened herself. She shifted on her feet, one hand upturned in a rather nasty claw-shaped formation that made Derik's eyes water at the sight of it. She didn't advance on him, however, and instead spent several moments ripping a foot of material from her skirt. Mass of filthy black material in hand, she quivered, latched her straining eyes on Derik's face for a moment, then flung the offending length of cloth out the window.

Of course, this length of cloth settled over the head and shoulders of a grounds keeper on patrol, and his muffled curses sent streams of fear and adrenaline through Derik's blood vessels. He jumped at Danielle, one hand wrapping over her mouth and the other fobbing off the hand that tried to biff him one in the eye. She let out a squeal, toned down and mellowed by Derik's hand, which grew moist and uncomfortable there on Danielle's face. Two voices were muttering below then, and one of them paused and said, “What was that?” The other, subdued – probably still under the skirt remnant – said, mnnnrrlafeffffrlgh like a scream?” This told Derik both grounds keeper guards were loosed from restraint and free to investigate and, ultimately, cause Derik's jailing and possible hand-loss.

He yoked Danielle by one ear and stared into her eyes until she calmed. “Now,” he said, “you're getting me out of this the way you got me into it, back in Burning Ridge. Giggle.”

Danielle snorted and glared at Derik, who continued to stare into her eyes, pushing every pleading thought and piece of pathos he could into his visage. Danielle licked Derik's hand, causing him to let loose a startled “ynuh” and take his hand away. Danielle, un-muzzled, giggled in a way that sent chills and organ-massaging tremors through Derik's spine. It was a high, loud sound, speaking of a whole world soon to be revealed behind both curtains and skirts slowly parting. He fled, throwing himself backwards and pitching over onto the bed. Danielle moved one foot closer to Derik, resting on it, one hand on her throat and the other at her waist. She giggled again, and waggled her eyelashes at him. Derik cowered against the bed, shoving sheets, blanket, and comforter aside in quest of traction.

An explosive, guttural laugh drifted through the window from the street below. “Haw,” one of the guards said, “someone's making good time with a lady who's missing her skirt.”

“Is that what this is,” another voice said, “on my head? You could help, you know.”

The half-language of effort and co-ordination, full of “hey” and “little more” followed. Danielle stopped fluttering her hands about and settled on the bed with a sigh. “So,” she said, “that's why. You're pretty smart when you need to be, you know.”

Derik closed his eyes and rolled his head about on the mattress. “I would say something about your tone of voice, but you're just saving up some awful punchline, so I won't bother.”

“See? Pretty smart.”

"it looks real modern but it's all about roots"

2006-08-16T23:14:00.000-04:00

Copy-pasted from Something Awful's "Your Band Sucks:

Why do people look at me funny when I tell them I like ska?
-Pilkington

Because you’re wearing a stupid fucking checkered fedora and suspenders and you listen to the worst music ever in history.

To which I say:
My fedora is not checkered!

"sent shivers down my spine / body's aching all the time"

2006-08-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I believe I'm done writing for the day. The back of my head is weighty and dragging, so I'm fairly sure I shouldn't be doing something as complex as stringing words together for public consumption. You, fair readers of my blogging, are exempt, as you have certainly seen me in worse condition.

Anyway, here's the final fancy meter for the day:

8,312 / 80,000
(10.4%)

Let me look up a vaguely interesting bit of writing. Let me know what you think eh?

~~~

The Abbey was, technically, public, so taking a walk up it wasn't illegal. Derik took advantage of Danielle's foisted-on presence by linking arms with her and kissing her cheek whenever someone passed them by, which was frequent at that hour of the mid-evening. This was causing vibrations and tremors to shoot through Danielle Derik could feel these, but knew she had enough sense not to shout at him in the middle of something. That is, he thought, provided I don't insult something she's read, and he winced at the images that flung themselves on the shadow screen of his memory. He took in a lungful of spring air, laced as it was with the decaying chill of winter passed.

The walking path ground underneath Derik's feet, as it always did outside a heavy rain or snowfall. The hill was primarily a kind of obsidian, more permeable than what one might find near a volcano or so Danielle had rattled off once told what the hill was called and topped by a layer of topsoil and dirt. This meant the whole mess was stable enough, but the surface bits tended to shift around, either under one's foot or climactic weather. Most of the mansions built on the site reached all the way down to the blackglass, a fact that had settled into Derik's mind and wouldn't leave well enough alone.

Hello, sirrah, Derik said to some well-dressed passerby with a tall hat and shiny buttons on his waistcoat. He could see gloved hands tighten around a walking stick, but he swept Danielle, still attached to Derik's side by their intertwined arms, to the left, putting her in the gentleman's line of sight. Then he started running and laughing; Danielle was forced to keep up, for once, and nearly broke her neck because of her long skirt. Derik laughed at this, until she slapped him, at which he sobered just a bit, grabbed her hand, and peered around through the cooling air. He spotted two guards in the red and white livery of his target and pulled Danielle toward them with both hands. Here's a good spot, he said, in a practiced kind of whisper that probably carried down the hill and into Triton Square. The guards jabbed each other with elbows, looked at the sky in a way that just happened to put Danielle and Derik in their line of sight, and laughed, great guffaws of raucous laughter.

Danielle squeaked when she noticed them, and clenched Derik's arm against her with the tensile strength of steel with its good name being dragged through the metaphorical mud though Danielle's skirt was festooned with a bit of literal mud, as the air was quite damp and her skirt unmanageably long. This didn't help her attitude much, and each round splatter-weight on her clothing added to the force behind her squeezing. Derik's hand tingled, and he pulled her along, leaving the guards out of sight as they rounded one end of the ellipse of Pinkeye Parlor.

As soon as they did round that smooth wall-space, Danielle pulled herself from Derik's clutch really, released him from a clamp of great strength and threatening aspect and slapped him. His hand went toward his face, but his probing fingers made the stinging worse, so he lowered his hands to his waist, hoping to look unthreatening. He tried to smile in a comforting manner, but the excitement of the moment, combined with his good humor at the joke he'd played, served to stretch the smile too far and reveal far too many teeth. Danielle pulled a hand back as though she meant to punch Derik in the nose, but she crossed her arms under her breasts and glowered at her friend. Well, she said after a moment, what do you have to say for yourself, you smarmy little jerk, you.

Several replies romped about in his skull, tugging at various nerves to catch his attention. Getting back at you had a ring to it, and Taking you for one of those romantic evening walks one reads about was a strong contender, but the slowly lessening pulse of pain in his face curbed these. Finally he slapped a hand against the cool marble exterior of the building and said, Slipping past all the guards so we could break into this place. With that, he scrambled up the wall, through a window that sat at least two stories about the ground which, itself, was high and tilted just in the way that a falling person would probably bounce and roll straight into Triton Square, or the adjoining fishmonger's stand, before stopping.

Derik was through the window and prodding everything in sight with his fingers before Danielle could figure out quite how he had scaled the wall in the first place. He hadn't stopped to check if she were following, didn't bother about a piece of advice for her first, mentored-session as a thief. There was a small knife jammed between two loose stones, but this wasn't a particularly enlightening piece of evidence, as it was eight or nine feet from the ground.

"tie your mother down / and give me all your love tonight"

2006-08-15T21:15:00.000-04:00

I've seen a few people do this random quotation thing, so I thought I would get in on the hot, word-on-word action.

Viz.: hit this site, Random Quotes, which should be quotations, by the way, and select five that embody your personal philosophy on life, the universe, and -- well, you know.

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
Nathaniel Borenstein (1957 - )

Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"

Anyway. The writing goes apace, I guess. Hold on, let me break out the meter again.

<table border='0' cellspacing='0'
cellpadding='5'> <tr> <td><table border='0'
cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0'> <tr> <td> <img
src='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/cel.gif' width='6' height='22'
border='0'><a
href='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter'><img
src='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/ck.gif' width='9' height='22'
border='0' alt='Zokutou word meter'></a><img
src='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/cc.gif' width='4' height='22'
border='0'><a
href='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter'><img
src='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/cr.gif' width='91' height='22'
border='0' alt='Zokutou word meter'></a><img
src='http://www.zokutou.co.uk/wordmeter/cer.gif' width='6' height='22'
border='0'></td> </tr> </table></td>
</tr> <tr> <td><div
align='center'><b>7,627</b> /
80,000<br>(9.5%)</div></td> </tr>
</table>

Yee-ha, I suppose. I totally skived off Sunday -- what with the moving and all. I did much the same yesterday, even though there were a few pockets of time I should have used. I was too tired; I haven't gotten used to sleeping in the flat yet, so I was breaking down like a Babylonian masonry project yesterday evening. I'm at home right now, if you didn't know and yet care.

I may post a bit of today's work, though it's mostly the sort of writing Gaiman described as "ditch-digging." That is, it has to be there, as a transition sort of thing, but it's not too interesting, really. You people really should make with the comments, though. If you'd like, obviously, but I know several of you do that sort of thing, as you've done it for me before.

Anyway, yes.

"suddenly everything has changed"

2006-08-13T00:42:00.000-04:00

Holy crap. Well, I'm getting ready for bed, nominally, and I thought I'd post about my writing status. I stumbled on the "zokutou word meter" today -- I'm sure many of you knew about this already, but be quiet. Anyway, here's my status, total:

6,336 / 80,000
(7.9%)

Ooh, shiny and the like. I did around 1600 words today, huzzah. That's five days of work there. The max. total on the meter is an estimate: I did around 77,000 words on the last novel, and I'm more comfortable with writing now, so I expect it to be a bit longer. I may even shop this one out, instead of hemming and hawing over it like the first. : p Anyway.

Here's a bit of today's work. I can't vouch for how interesting it is, I suppose. It's what I kinda consider the beginning of chapter two, I think. If you have anything to say, have at it. Anyway:

Derik stood in the doorway of a mausoleum, scrubbing his face with both hands, as though rubbing a layer of skin from his face would remove the promise he'd made from him, negating all his responsibility. Nope, he thought, still there. So I will have to lead my friend, who thinks of the world in terms of paragraph breaks, into a house that is not, in fact, mine.

He looked out over the scene stretched before him. This crypt hadn't been used in years, as the last surviving member of the Lofcræft family had moved to the capital ages ago. It was the sort of tarnished white only old marble attains, after years of rain, distant woodsmoke, and both ends of humanity's journey exuding gases from within and without. “So,” Derik said to the nearest shelf, plastered over with a relief of the person within carved as though sleeping on top of the repository, “at what point do you think Danielle will cock up the whole thing?”

He sighed and glanced out the door, which he'd broken apart a year ago with the aid of a large hammer – it was damn hard to make of without the smith noticing, Derik thought. There had been some sort of complex lock outside, of course, but it had been so long disused that only an act of divinity would have popped it open in one piece.

The cemetery lay in a patch of ground surrounded on all sides by housing, the kind of rickety, warren-like housing that shudders under light rain and falls over when thunder cracks above it. Even the most desperate of Floren's citizens didn't particularly want to sleep near the graveyard, and that made it an excellent staging point, as the few who lived nearby did so for the easy access it provided to one of several rich districts of town. They were servants, mostly, with the odd clerk or scribe among them. Derik could see the gleaming white speckles of manor houses splattered across one of the many large hills that rose from Floren, thrusting the well-to-do just that little bit farther from the people who made their money for them.

Danielle had scuttled off to her hotel, in search of clothes that didn't reflect so much light as to be incandescent. She'd also gone for what she called “necessaries.” Derik quivered, and his skin splotched with goose pimples when he thought of what she might deem necessary to burglary. Probably a how-to book and a lantern for reading in dark areas, like occupied bedrooms and hallways.

Derik spent quite a while staring at the hill, which was called Blackglass Abbey for some reason he'd never worked out. As he looked at it, with its flickers of white stone reflecting lanterns, fires, glowing light sources of more worrying origins, and the occasional torch, worry slipped from his shoulders like water from the back of a mud goose. His eyes roved from manor to manor, counting the lights wavering around them and calculating how many people were inside – the general manor house in Floren has a set number of servants and tenants, as the rick folk like to use their money for stranger spectacles, such as offering to improve the city's abysmal defenses, or fund and entire celebration in honor of some slack-witted wrestler or archer.

"come join the youth and beauty brigade"

2006-08-11T19:01:00.000-04:00

I suppose a person can be stricken with nostalgia over anything, in the end. Sometimes, when I look at the MSU bell-tower, little used and graven with words like "love," "peace," and so on -- these never fail to remind me of the four ministries of 1984, like the Ministry of Peace (Miniwar) -- or see the jagged winter shadows slathered across the single street of campus, I sometimes miss the old worm-ridden place.

I was miserable there, you know. The classes were no different than my high school's, and the people acted much the same. I drove home every Friday, in the very late afternoon, and returned from home around the same time, to dilly-dally in my tiny room with my reticent roommate taking space before his computer. Sometimes I miss those drives, the familiar road that I can still navigate, years after transferring, better than any route in Richmond.

And all because it was long ago, I sometimes think. We can miss a great deal, us silly little humans, bags of meat and synapse, if we put enough temporal distance between us.

I guess I'm writing this because I'm not looking forward to moving into my small little flat, away from campus and its illusions of life and light. I see water-stained browns and light-crushing dim off-whites when I think of the apartment, and I'm surprised every time I go in it and see the fresh white paint. More than the place I'm going to, where I'm leaving is what's important here. I really do like my home, here, closed in by hills and the warped mass of trees grown large on the swells of hill and, if you'll pardon the humor, dell. I tend to miss the walks along the road, peering at rock-sunning lizards, deer in the evenings, and the shattered remnants of stray dogs that limn the road every summer, a swelter of hot stink in June and a crumbled, scattered mass of bone in August. I like pressing beyond each turning of the road and enjoying each vista of distant neighbors and river current as they open up.

I like the quiet, and the distance that allows me to be as loud as I'd like, at almost any time of day or night. There's a power in wild blackberry bushes; they grow over our rotting, out-of-use coal pile, sitll slathered with shards of black, under the mass of growth.

Even the figure of my younger cousin, invariably white-shirted in summer, mowing everyone's yard (family's, actually, but that's just about everyone in sight here) under his straw hat, amuses me. He's twenty-one (I'm shocked to find), and still doesn't have a driver's license, as his parents worry over the insurance costs. At least, that's what they say. I never take advantage of it, but I could probably show up in the evening, every so often, and they'd feed me.

I'm wistful as my break -- possibly my last scholastic summer holiday -- winds toward its death, and I suppose this is a love letter to it, and my home, and the rolling days of summer. I never really see anyone in the summer; it stretches, usually, as a mass of lonesome days, my parents leaving around noon, and then the day's all mine. I write, poke around the internet, and take up whatever project I find myself intrigued by. Last year, about this time, I was carving a gandr and wrapping it in green runes. This year I've been knitting. Both summers I've spent a little time cataloguing books -- more last summer than this, though. I read, obviously, and watch a little television. I sit through weather, every year, until that same moment in July when I turn the air conditioner on of my own volition, the air of the house wheezing and gasping under the heat of poor ventilation.

After a few weeks, like every year, I'll begin to enjoy my schooling again. I'll probably acclimate to whatever rigours this new job has for me, hack out a sleeping schedule that keeps me alive, and in short, deal. But for now this is my tiny little tower-top of ivory and bone, wavering against the pressing tides down below. It still offers a spectacular view, I must say.

"this ride is gonna be rough / this meat is gonna be tough"

2006-08-10T00:17:00.000-04:00

Writing's been more of a struggle today. I'm still not sure where everything's headed, though the first bits are fairly clear in my mind. I thought, as I couldn't possibly finish before school starts anyway, that I would be a little more footloose with the whole thing. I still need to work out the destination, though, or I'll just freeze, not being able to make decisions, as I don' t have enough info. Anyway, I thought I'd paste some stuff from today up here -- this shouldn't happen every day (hell, I dunno if I'll be able to work on it every day after school starts), but it seems like a laugh. This is nearly half my day's work:

~~~

Derik had a hand in someone's pocket – he couldn't tell whose it was, as he'd thrust his arm past several people to reach this haven for money and, apparently, large wads of lint. The idea was for the mark to blame any sensation on the press of folks behind him, and they were rousting about, craning necks and doffing caps in efforts to see the fight. Derik could hear a stomach-contracting sort of rustle-bang pattern, with intermittent wet, sploshy-thud sounds. The lady keeping Derik and his mark from ever meeting was bouncing on her slippered feet, ribbons waving about. The smell of citrus and rose-water plumed up and gagged Derik.

Really, he only had his hand in that pocket for a moment. Every cracksman and cly-hander knew not to overstay a welcome, no matter how long they might caper in a friend's doorway after several drinks. So it was just worse luck, then, that the something that had been blocked from Derik's sight as it approached on the other side of Maitesse and Scrivener's goosed him at that particular moment.

“Derik,” this goosing person said, voice full of the sort of gaiety and energy usually reserved for glad-handing politicians and madmen, “it's been too long, you horrible thief!”

This collection of words was delivered, much to the aid of Derik's building apoplexy, as his desired victim turned about and tried to push his face and arms through the crowd – Derik couldn't figure out which he worried about more: fists or recognition. The goosing hand balled up in Derik's grey shirt and pulled him backwards, then it turned him around.

The sky, Derik noticed, really is nice and blue today, with just a few of those dark clouds tooling around. The breeze is pleasant, and isn't throwing the smell of blood and fighting toward me right now. It really doesn't seem like a day tailor-made to kill me, does it?
He finally let his eyes focus on the person that had jarred him in the middle of his delicate money-making activities. She was taller than him by half a foot, wore expensive clothes in yellow and orange, and had her free arm tucked into her chest in a practiced way that lifted her bosom up and forward. Derik would have hacked and sputtered at this, except it was so damn familiar.

“Danielle,” he said, voice low, hissing, and vibrating toward the kind of high-pitched tension that usually signals the snapping of a violin string, “are you trying to get me killed?”

"I came from Wales, a soldier I was sworn"

2006-08-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

This is just a bit of random fluff, but...

I've been reading in several LiveJournals of folks about something called BPAL. I had no clue what in hell's teeth it was, except people were getting it in their mail? Well, someone finally linked to it, and it's actually short for Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. They make strange perfumes and colognes. Now, I rarely use cologne -- I have one bottle that a cousin bought for me years ago, when I was still in high school. I've used it maybe four times. But some of these things they're selling sound interesting, and (this is important) rather old-fashioned. It helps that many of them allude to mythology and the like.

Some of you might know this company, so do you have any recommendations? They have a whole line based on Alice in Wonderland, including the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse. They also have one called Villain, which is billed as, essentially, a Victorian cologne they've brought back. I've been trying to become more conscious of crap like this, and I thought I should go with the strange and peculiar if anything.

They also have one commemorating the area of London where most of the Ripper murders took place.

"if your child ain't all he should be now / this girl can put him right"

2006-08-09T01:16:00.000-04:00

I thought I would post the first page of what I started today -- it's theoretically another novel about our favorite half-fey, all panicky bastard, Derik. I did around 1200 words today; this is just the first 230.

Floren's streets, wavering drunkards of city planning that they were, had filled to the curbs with people, citizens and visitors alike. This made a perfect venue for what Derik liked to call “sidewalk shopping,” and what was, in effect, his habit of running his fingers and hands into the pockets of other people.

Winter was dead, said the crazy old man on the corner, Slim Jackal Sandy, and everyone agreed, even while they burrowed through the crowds to avoid his special fragrance. Slim wasn't one to bathe, and his beard – patchy rough in some places and dangly grown in others – tended to put people off their meals. What he meant, though, was that the sky had finally slipped its grey-shod weeds and bought some blue finery. The air still had some hints of winter; the wind could crack as well as caress, and the slightly stale, dead scent of hibernation still clung to bough and borough alike.

The citizens of Floren took this as a promising sign, and had burst from their doors that morning, ready to begin a day of cheerful shopping, taxation, trading, mugging, assassination, plotting, brawling, and dandification. This contrasted with the winter days only in that during the colder months, citizens tended to sidle from their doors on their way to these activities, clutching at their coats and cloaks with gloved hands, and cursing the weather before their brethren, rather than after.

"crooked was the path, and brazen was the walk"

2006-08-07T23:43:00.000-04:00

So, I wrote 2844 words today. I finished the short story I started last week -- I wrote over half of it today, that 2844 words. Keep in mind, I'm used to shooting for 1000 words per day. I'm impressed, at least.

I just wish I could keep this up when school started, because I'm finally getting ideas to congeal for another novel, featuring that lovable (well, not hateful) Derik, thief of many panic-attacks.

Maybe I should give him one of those stereotypical fantasy names, and it would be Derik the Panicky, or Derik the Easily Panicked. I should probably sit on that until I come up with a more descriptive version, but something along those lines.

Let me say, though, that this latest story isn't funny. Not really at all. I was mean to characters, actually, and it feels kinda good.

"I was meant for derision"

2006-08-07T20:57:00.000-04:00

There are certain things I can't let pass without spreading them as far as I can. These are some of those:

From Gmail's little RSS thing: "practical" personal blimps. Well, finally. I was bitching, just last night, about how I've always felt we abandoned blimps too soon, because some Nazi idiot thought it would be a good idea to use hydrogen instead of helium (it's possible they had no choice, I don't care).

Seriously, blimps could provide a reasonably inexpensive transport method within certain distances. I wouldn't want to cross the Atlantic in one, as it would take quite a while, but would I take one from Louisville to Cincinatti (connecting flight #1 for my Britain trip last year)? Hell yeah. They could hit 80mph back in the Hindenburg days, and don't have to bother about road turns, you see.

Straight to BoingBoing: "Only Traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists. There's quite the set of arguments, ranging from statistical to practical, claiming we shouldn't be reacting the way we are to terrorists. View, and be enlightened.

Again from BoingBoing: SciFi Channel is hosting the first episode of a cartoon called "The Amazing Screw-On Head." They're actually taking comments from viewers, and if enough like it, they'll commission the entire series. That's quality TV service. I'm gonna check out the episode as soon as I'm back in high-speed land. Anyway, it's a steampunk with a secret agent reporting to Abraham Lincoln.

I ganked this from a v. old post in Lynch's LiveJournal: A picture from the Mars rover that's a little better than five feet away. Seriously, they tooled the rover up a hill and took a breath-taking (literally, if you're a nerd like me) picture of Mars.

"digest the poop and sell the poop on ebay"

2006-08-07T17:19:00.000-04:00

I've been reading through the archives of Scott Lynch's LiveJournal, and I found an interesting meme I can use to embarrass myself: The Opening Lines Meme.

If you want to do it as well, just put in the first line (just the first!) of any current writing projects you have lying around.

Lynch's can be found here

So here's mine (some of the titles are working placeholders, not things I would ever, ever allow an editor to see in a submission):

The Opening Line Meme:

"The Nap-Time of Fate"
It all started when the leaves turned up their shiny backs and, still
green and fresh, leapt from the trees in great, spiraling bodies.

"Bernard and the Shine of Honor"
It's normal, or so I understand, to take life lessons away from horrible circumstances.

"Raiders of the Defaulters"
Telones was a solid man, in several senses of the word.

"Bernard and the Rape of the Tock"
It was a momentous day, I'm told.

A Serendipitous Formula
Derik, our erstwhile protagonist, slept the day away in a dingy little flat above Burning Ridge's half-busy street.

"you better you better you bet"

2006-08-07T13:33:00.000-04:00

Well, I finished reading The Lies of Locke Lamora last night, and it was excellent. Probably the best book I've read this year. If you know me, you could have predicted this -- it's about a group of thieves in a fantasy setting, and I adore fantasy thieves, from Garrett (Thief video games) to my own lame-ass, Derik.

This book is definitely up there, in my library, with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. My final reactions were different, though. Norrell stunned me, like a punch to the kidneys. I seized for a few moments after reading it, as autumn tinkled away outside. I couldn't conceive of ever writing as well as Clarke, and the turns of phrase I could remember haunted me. Some still do, like all the references to "behind the rain." It's such a simple idea that I could never have come up with. I specialize, apparently, in over-complex crap.

Lamora, on the other hand, galvanized me. I wish I had finished it during the day, instead of just before bed, because I wanted to write, desperately wanted to write. It forced me to finally think about my second novel, especially as I've been having doubts recently as to whether or not to send my first novel around to agents. I guess I should, I mean, it's written and all. I don't think I'll ever do what Lynch did, but his fantastic stuff didn't oppress me. And I'm finally going to try and get off my ass and get some notes down about my city, Floren, so I'm not just using it as a backdrop. I made some good efforts after reading about Lankhmar, and maybe now I'll take it the rest of the way.

Also, I've never heard/seen/read anyone, not even Lewis Black, use "fuck" better than Lynch. Crazy.

Oh, and Lynch has a Livejournal he keeps up better than I keep my pair of blogs.

"'neath the sun and California wine"

2006-08-05T18:54:00.000-04:00

I will say that I'm almost halfway through The Lies of Locke Lamora, and it's one of the best books I've read in a while. I moved things like a bed, table, and a few low stand sort of things into the flat in Richmond. That sucked, and we had to buy a whole new bed set thing, because there was just no way to arrange the bed from downstairs in the bedroom there. It would have swallowed the room. Ah well -- we still needed to buy the mattress and foundation, so it wasn't too bad. This'll be the first place (aside from hotels) where I sleep in a bed larger than a twin size.

I'm wanting to get blocks of blue and green fabric to decorate my walls there, too. I'm not sure exactly how to go about this. I suppose the simplest thing would be to cut out the blocks and attach them to a wall, but I was wondering if there was a way to attach them all to a common piece and put it up, as one? Almost like a quilt, I suppose. That would involve a good deal of sewing, though.

A friend tells me you can put the stuff up using starch. Does anyone know how easily removed the fabric would be? I have to vacate in ten months, and I'd like to get as much of my deposit back as possible.

Well, that was nicely humdrum and not quite whiny. I need to get out and see people before classes start, seriously.

"in the garage I feel safe"

2006-08-01T15:18:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd post this little memory vignette, as it may cause amusement in readers. My memory is hazy as to details, so -- as a friend and I have determined -- it's more an anecdote than a story.

Anyway.

I was in the writing center several months ago, indulging in the free time we get when it's not mid-terms/finals. There was a crowd of us, really, Helen and Sam and Bonaventure, and possibly one or two others. I had just reeled off some strange fact or piece of trivia, as is my idiom, and Bon said something about knowing everything. Someone -- Helen, I believe, made a joke about how I didn't know anything about underwater basket weaving.

My response was: "Actually, you know, everyone thinks you're underwater when you do that, but really you're not. You just put the basket materials underwater so they soften, then you weave it and take it out to harden."

There was the sort of stunned silence not common anywhere but around me and those like me. Only for a moment, but like the tiny moment of a bullet's passage, it was easy to feel. Then there was laughter.

"if you see a faded sign at the side of the road"

2006-08-01T01:09:00.000-04:00

I think I have the lack of sleep madness. My knees are wailing like Jewish memorial walls, and I'm not quite sure my brain has the facility to actually type out this post in anything like a proper kind of sense. So, as I'm gibbering more than is particuarly common for me, you should probably watch out.

There may, just possibly, be a few more people than normal reading this -- some folks from the Hogwarts_Elite community added me (apropo LiveJournal, not Blogger), so they might actually pay attention. Not as though I have anything to actually say, here, but hello, all you folks.

I took a drive just an hour ago, which is a bit odd, really. My car's been sleeping the slumber of the terminally ill for several weeks now, and just returned late last week in what amounts to working condition. I sat around for most of today on the computer, and that never really leaves me feeling as though I actually did anything, so I hopped from my (new, nice desk) chair and tooled off for town and the great beyond. Really, I circled town through a few byroads and the like, then headed off down the meager bypass toward Morehead. I passed a police officer, lurking at an intersection for speeders, waved, and slung about a U-turn a few miles past. Then I came home. I left the house at a quarter to eleven, so yes, odd.

That's really just about everything that's happened today. Sad. I'm a homebody, as many of you might know, so I'm not looking forward to leaving here to be in Richmond. I'll miss my parents and my house -- and, obviously, my reasonably slacker-style summer days. I've read a little over 100 pages of my Shakespeare text, and two plays I hadn't gotten to before, but I've made no progress at all on Old English.

I think I may be done with the first draft of my thesis, though, barring the afterword and the fiddly bits in between stories. I'll have to wait until I have what amounts to a final draft before getting to those, though, and that means meetings. Hence, not being able to do that over the summer.

If I'm good, and don't slack, I should be able to do one more short story before school starts, but I'm not sure what to write, exactly. I have a notebook full of ideas, so I'll just go through it, really.

Actually, looking at the notebook now, there's something I came up with while talking to some folks in the writing center that has decent comic potential. It could be a novel, actually, but maybe I'll try it short story length. That's possibly a problem, by the way; I think a great deal of my ideas could be novel-length. A teacher actually said that, once, so I'm not alone in this thought process. Short stories are easier during school, though.

You know, almost every application I've looked at over at H_E features the person saying they want to publish a book. That's not too odd, actually -- fans of books usualy would like to write, as movie fans want to act and music geeks want to perform. It just makes me self-conscious, really: do I look like a berk¹ when I mention I'm working at being a writer? I dunno.

1: It's rhyming slang -- the whole term is "Berkeley Hunt." Just guess what it stands for: remember, rhyming.

Oh, the Elite of Hogwarts. Sigh. Spellings have not been changed to protect the drunken

2006-07-30T00:58:00.000-04:00

Me: So on a scale between Cotton Mather and Ted Kennedy, just exactly how drunk are you?
xferinoc: wow. those are like, two of my favorite people EVER
RealDartagnan: dude
RealDartagnan: kendedy ++
RealDartagnan: thats' howdrunk
Me: I endeavor to provide satisfaction.
RealDartagnan: hehr
Me: You may need the special addendum to the scale: Billy Carter.
xferinoc: cotton maaattttthhhhhherrrrrrrr
xferinoc: ahahahaha
RealDartagnan: hahaha
flametayl: where does boris yeltsin fall on the scale?
RealDartagnan: just under kennedy
RealDartagnan: btu you haev to undrestand
RealDartagnan: russains aer preconditions to alcohol

2006-07-28T00:48:00.000-04:00

I have stared at the sky, blotched with night-white clouds and the wheeling light of planets, and phantasied myself the fixed point, with sky and light and earth shifting across my life. Deep rivulets of shadow have I crept through, sloughing away the clinging light. I've watched flocks, flights, murders of feather-beasts cross the air; I've seen the messages, lines, words between their twisting, creaking flight, in a language I do not read, or speak. I have waited on the crests of industry-shattered hills for the thunder to come, and listened to it shout wet triumph to the ticking ground. Cloth is an anagram of endless triangles, and Babel the impresario of sound and fury.

The tower and the plain, white salt the one and red rushes the other, crouch in the folds of all brains, the tooth and the gum, awaiting that one, salt-corpuscle moment. Turned inward, that tour blanc becomes an arrow of thought, meat-claws sinking into erudition and fancy.

I have felt water clutch at me, pull at me, push at my lungs and nose, creep its way into my neck as panic squeezes my eyeballs and employees earn their pay by ripping me from below the meniscus.

2006-07-26T19:46:00.000-04:00

I finished knitting my Tom Baker-era Doctor Who scarf a week ago, so I thought I'd post a picture of me with it.

I'm making my best Doctor face.

"I'd toss my Ring of Three Wishes if you'd just give yourself to me"

2006-07-24T14:05:00.000-04:00

Really, as my car has taken it upon itself to trap me at the house, I haven't engaged in my regular allowance of total nerd-ition¹. So, I'm positing a question I would like all of you to have at.

Who would win in a fight? the Lord Voldemort or Drizzt Do'Urden?

For anyone needing a few hints, or just a refresher course, here are some Wikipedia entries: Lord Voldemort ; Drizzt Do'Urden

I want to hear your opinion on who would win, and then a decent reasoning. Then, if you see someone has, in comments, disagreed with you (before or after your post), argue with them. I want a nice little discussion going. After a respectable amount of time, I'll stick my opinion up here as well, maybe with a few replies of my own for those of you intrepid enough to answer.

If I get a decent turn-out here, I may do this regularly.

¹ It's like perdition, but with nerd.

"don't want a policeman with a stick in his hand standing over me"

2006-07-23T19:35:00.000-04:00

I've been mulling over Maggie's request for an entry detailing the evils of Japanese food. To sate your ceaseless, restless, burning desire for ridiculousness, I'm copying over my essay about client behavior in a writing center. This was originally meant for the EKU Writing Center newsletter -- I have no idea if it was ever put in, so you glorious people now get a chance to peruse my ideas for improvement. I felt it would be imprudent, at best, to mention, in this essay, my idea for rotating knives along the entrance, as knowledge is half the battle (and, I believe, keeping that knowledge from those you wish to smite is the other half). So, here it is:

Many works have been penned on the appropriate behavior of a tutor during his, her, or its individual sessions. A tutor should not fling curses, magical or otherwise, at a client. A tutor should not use personal opinion to dictate the direction of the session. A tutor should not confuse the client^¹. A tutor should not work dark magicks in the blood of chickens, saving only the times it is required by comprehensive examinations.

Nothing (of note) has been laid out for the behavior of clients. The reasons are manifold: we, as tutors, cannot dictate the behavior of our clients, we are in place for the convenience of the clients, and we are employed to conform to the client’s needs^². It is now time to point out a few suggestions, in the line of maritime laws, for the betterment of tutoring through the regulation of client behavior. These precepts are simple and generally humane, excepting requirements put to sessions by the UWR.

A client will not deliver unto the tutor an extraordinarily large paper hours before it is due. The idea of communication, in general, is faking a desire to listen to your companion. To listen to a tutor, a client must be able to make far-reaching changes to a paper, if called for. Bringing unto a tutor a twenty-page paper mere hours before it is due breaks the illusion of conversation, as all parties are painfully aware that nothing other than superficial changes will be made in the intervening hour and a half. Also, it is good to remember that we are taught never to judge a collection of words by its superficial values.

A client will not partake of substance abuse, legal or otherwise, without seeking the blessing of a deity, or permission from the tutor. Clients often do not understand the strictures placed upon them, and they rebel mightily, as Samson against the Philistines. Substance abuse is one habit, however, that has had no place in the tutoring session since the early 1800s. True, it was once used in an attempt to expand the client’s mind, in a desire to make the assimilation of knowledge easier, but was proven a futile exercise, as the Victorian men began to consider the philosophical implications of their hands and hunger for Cheetos.^³ The substance abuse has proven distracting for clients and tutors alike.

The client shall not inform the tutor that he, she, or it is not a good writer at any point during the session. There are practical concerns here – a tutor must come to the work in an unbiased state, and slander (from the writer or no) will alter this state. It is also the tutor’s prerogative to make decisions about skill on their own – they have the training and capacity, after all. Finally, this claim may set up a self-perpetuating cycle, ultimately leading to the death of those involved, a wormhole looping space back into itself, and possibly the cessation of the universe’s expansion, drawing all the particles of existence back into themselves, crushing everyone and everything into a mass smaller than a pin’s head.

Clients shall not weep during sessions. This is unnerving, and destroys the ability of the tutor to effectively and objectively deal with the paper. The only thing, tissue-thin and constantly threatened by the darkness of the four worlds, standing between a tutor and madness, is his or her ability to cast off the veneer of humanity and dwell in the deepest pits of editing. The re-humanization of the client through tears and sobs breaks this barrier, sending the tutor into a spiraling descent into the depths of the pit, never to return.

The client will not, under any circumstances, insist on a simple “proofreading”. This is more dangerous than the client can possibly realize. The lore of tutors claims this is only to avoid mindless drudgery on the parts of both client and tutor – a paper that is simply proofread will only function on a grammatical and punctuation level; its possible deep flaws, concerning organization, laboring of points, and habitual usage of Nazi propaganda cannot be caught. While true, this does not break the surface of the lake known as “proofreading.” The legends, long lost and now held in a secret trust under the Los Alamos testing sites, say that “proofreading” was once, truly, the “reading of proof.” This was a risky ritual involving the events of an initiate’s life writ small on slips of brushed animal hide. These slips were coated in mucous, set aflame, and cast into the ink-dark rivers of yore^⁴, to float in their pyretic glory toward an oracle who would devour the ashes and pronounce the “proof” of the initiate’s life. If the proofs were grand and worthy of praise^⁵, the initiate was brought fully into adulthood, with all the responsibilities and jaunty headdresses this involved. If the proofs were weak and tasting of saltpeter, the initiate was flung into the maw of a great kraken-gator, scourge of the pre-modern society^⁶. This haunting legacy is the true reason tutors must always resist the siren-like call of the client to simply “proofread” papers.

1 Cats are perfectly acceptable targets of confusion – see Cats, Treatment, Confusion and Party-games.

2 It is not necessary to point out the fallacies behind these assumptions.

3 Of course, this mind-expanding ritual traces its way back to the writers of yore – Coleridge, Poe, and B. Jackson were well-known paint-huffers, but ultimately the fumes entered their brains en masse and destroyed them utterly. The fumes managed to cross into the brains by sneaking through the Alps, on elephants, but the moral still remains true, probably.

4 Darker by far than the ink-dark rivers of today.

5 Anthropologists feel this was determined by gassy by-product – the more produced in the oracle’s gastric system by the ashy meal, the more grandiose the life.

6 See Scourges, Pre-modern, Amphibi-diles, Kraken-gator.

"all the things you tried to hide / will be revealed on the other side!"

2006-07-21T20:27:00.000-04:00

Neat-o! In a thread on LiveJournal, thisaestus provided me with documentation for something I've been wondering about for a while.

Question: is human flesh kosher?

Here's the answer!

"she didn't like it when her fanbelt shrunk and got shorter -- ointment!"

2006-07-18T19:11:00.000-04:00

It's normal, or so I understand, to take life lessons away from horrible circumstances. I suppose I have the one lesson to keep close and nurture: one really shouldn't sneak into ladies' bedrooms at night.

It was all innocuous, at least to begin with. I escorted my friend Danielle, visiting from the capital, to a show one spring evening. Danielle can be quite the cudgel to the eyes, if you understand me. She's just a bit taller than one would expect, with black hair just past her shoulders, and the sort of ringing laugh that sets many men's hearts to twisting and leaping in the chest cavity. The air was pleasant that evening, with just a lacing of the scents of coming summer twisted into the breeze flowers, heat, and the drifting nasal hint of loads of people emerging from their winter slumbers to caper in the streets. Well, it's in a figurative manner, the capering.

"let the cool goddess rust away"

2006-07-11T22:15:00.000-04:00

Here we are -- what, week eight of summer holidays? Not much is happening just now, for me. The sticky thirst is pasting my mouth closed: I had a cup of ramen earlier, so that's about all the sodium I'll need this week. Cough.

I just submitted a paper to an academic journal: the paper's second, not first, submission. The first actually got a v. nice rejection, including a suggestion on the sort of journal that it would go well into. Heartening, in a way. I'm thinking of submitting a few more of my papers. I'm strangely sensitive about my academic papers, and yet I'm generally blithe and bonny about my fiction. I suppose fiction is famously more taste-oriented than academe (whether that's true or no, the image is widespread).

I need to get back to writing, as well. I haven't for nearly a week, and the last days I wrote were spent on a comic script, which is an entirely different sort of affair.

drawing

2006-07-09T05:22:00.000-04:00

I'm painfully tired right now -- I've been trying to get to sleep since about one. IN my sleep madness, I drew a picture of Billy from my zombie short story/comic. I'm actually thinking of drawing the thing, now, just so people could actually see the damn thing, lame art and all. Here's what the comic would look like (without the scribbled notes concerning how tired I am - probably).

2006-07-06T00:27:00.000-04:00

So, my father thinks it's foolish to believe parts of the Christian bible were written, originally, in Greek. You know, despite the insistence of western Europe upon Greek and Latin, and the textual evidence, and, essentially, facts.

To start at the start - a guy appeared on the Colbert Report, touting his book, Misquoting Jesus. It sounds interesting, actually - it's all about the textual errors, mis-translations, and legerdemain involved in the bible. My father can't see this as anything other than an attack on Christianity - he called the author a "false prophet." I'm not kidding here, those are the words he used.

Aside: he did agree the president is also a "false prophet." All right then.

Anyway. He also told me that it's my right to believe in Hindu, or whatever, but I'll "pay for it one day." That's - super, dad. Way to be supportive - and sane.

I'm not even interested in HInduism. Somehow he can believe Native Americans were fine, but everyone else went to Hell if they didn't convert. I'm not sure how this makes sense. He doesn't even have a logic, here. I've met people with insane logic, but at least there was a line of reasoning. In a way. Probably.

It hurts my brain that less than a month ago my father was kvetching about, essentially, Telephone.

If you don't remember, or never played it, Telephone is an elementary/middle school game, where someone - usually the teacher - tells someone something. That person turns in his or her seat and whispers it to the person behind. That person turns, &c. It goes up and down desk rows, to keep the players close to one another. At the end, the final student tells the teacher what he or she heard, and it's never what the teacher whispered to the first student.

Now, with that reference explained: my father was going on (and on - he tends to do this) about how people can't be trusted to pass things along. I think he might have been attacking my tendency to ignore television news and just read web sites, but then again, maybe not (this time, anyway).

So. He thinks it's impossible for people to relay anything like news around in the span of an hour, or a day, but he thinks it's possible for scholars, scribes, and kings to keep a bunch of writings pure through thousands of years, hundreds of versions, and half a dozen languages. No, no, I understand, that makes perfect sense.

~

On another topic: I finished The System of the World this morning, by Neal Stephenson. I started this trilogy over two years ago - I spotted the second book in a bookstore, signed in the first edition by the author. So I bought it, because I well love Stephenson's writing, and the first book as well.

These books are huge. They are no less than 800 pages, and that's in full-size hardcover. They're brilliant, but sometimes bits would drag on, and this past week or so the book's felt like an albatross dangling from my collar. They just take so long to read. I thought I'd read a bit before I went to bed this morning - this was at about 2:30. It was over the event horizon - technically, that's where matter can no longer escape the pull of a black hole. It's also what I call the point in a good book where a reader can't stop, no matter what happens around him or her. So I read until 5:30, when I finished the book, stumbled around the house, and went to bed in the dim pre-dawn.

Croquet

2006-07-02T13:19:00.000-04:00

Croquet is, of course, a sport known around the world as an excellent excuse to drink in public. And it serves this purpose well: the combination of jealousy, violence, rage, and color-coded balls often lead to alcoholism.

This is, however, only the tip of the proverbial ice sculpture: croquet is a fine, noble sport enjoyed for thousands of years by poofters, punters, and the occasional berk. The goal of this game is to reach the home staff before all comers, which explains the use of mallets – one must be ready at all times to defend one's position against interlopers, other players, and pedestrians with too much curiosity and a failing of respect for the painted ball.

This game, like many others, originates in deeper, darker areas of history (quite like basketball's iniquitous origins in the middle ages as a form of torture); namely, it comes from the lotus fields of the deep orient. The mallets were used, traditionally, to crush the lotus's delicate blossoms into a fine, shapeless, soulless pulp – the pulper (for the pulper was so called) would use a living child as pestle, scattering the blossoms along the child's back and pounding the mallet about wildly until the blossoms were no more. The juice, liberally mixed with the resulting bodily fluids, was then squirreled away in a large plastic box, in which a variety of balls, color-coded for easy identification, were rolled. Archaeologists believe the red balls were filled with mercury, and the black balls represented peace.

Like all familiar, daily rituals, these permutations took on a significance far outweighing their soporific roots. Descendants of the lotus blossom trade believed the mallets could be used to ward off spirits, and indeed, the haunting of the Savoy was ended by the judicious use of a blue croquet mallet, a red ball, and three wickets, sharpened into vicious tines.

The Vikings used croquet mallets to settle duels amongst children, in place of legal trials. Blankets were spread over the ground, and the combatants had to stay within the clothy confines. Each participant was given three mallets and three balls – for hurling – hence the traditional six of each sets one might find in a local croquetery. The child with the least shattered mallets and hurled balls when an opponent gave up was declared the winner.

The Romans, infatuated with the barbarians, adopted this game as well, giving it a place of high honors in the coliseum. It's said that Spartacus won the loyalty of a century of Danish slaves because of his coliseum-won prowess at the hammer and hurl – as croquet was then called, as it was the style at the time.

The sport as we know it has been attributed to many sources: one such claims Tate and Hamilton, pressed by society into a duel, spread their picnic blankets in a park and had at each other with mallets blazing. Then, of course, one tripped over a wicket, and shot his opponent in the face. Thus, so the story goes, was the game born.

This is, of course, mere fancy. Some anthropologists and popular culture critics claim it is precisely this surfeit of apocryphal stories about the game that make it so popular with the foolish, fond, and moon-pated. However, the real origin is much more mundane.

Napoleon decreed it so to keep his forces in order before the battle of Waterloo.

2006-06-30T02:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, just to see if I can remember these simple things...

Je parle en peu francais.
Boku wa chisai nihongo wo hana shimasu.
Labhraim beagan gaeilge.
Ich lerne Deutsche.

Uh... My book on Old English is across the room, but it isn't structured like most other language learning books, so I don't know "I speak a little X" in OE.

Of course, that's actually "I'm learning German" up there, which is true - the BBC actually has excellent, free language websites. Very cool.

It is depressing, though: I had four semesters of Japanese, and three of French, and I'm not really that good at any of them. I don't have anyone to practice with. Hopefully the Old English class this coming semester will be good.

Also, it's kinda odd to type out Japanese, after so long writing it in my pidgin remembrance of hiragana and kanji.

2006-06-24T04:09:00.000-04:00

All right, look here - this is getting ridiculous. I mean, I know Lynne Truss once said it was just sad to see someone with bookshelves full of books he'd already read, but still...

I should make sense of that for some people, I suppose. I think, at last count, I owned something like 200 books I hadn't read yet. Currently, looking about my room, I can see 12 that I've started and haven't finished yet, as well as entirely too many that I just haven't read at all. The books I've started include a collection of Shakespeare's tragedies, a collection of criticism on Shakespeare, a book on Old English language, The System of the World by Neal Stephenson, Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales, and the collection of Irish folk tales Yeats collected (a gift from Jessica, which I am, in fact, reading, if only in parts). It's also four in the morning, and this summer that's far too late for me.

Observances: A post-it about a possible Shakespeare paper topic (concerning who rings off in the plays, actually) is stuck to the wall above my bed; I have two short story drafts pinned to my corkboard, along with a note as to when the battle of Bannockburn happened (June 23-24, so yesterday and today, in 1314) and &c. Also, I notice one note on the corkboard is about who rings off in Shakespeare's plays, so I have no idea what I put in the note above my bed.

Of course, my vision is blurring, so I don't think I'll bother checking - I'm kidding, naturally. I'll check. But not until I'm in bed already.

That's enough of this.

2006-06-18T20:11:00.000-04:00

Hallo.

I haven't written in this for a while, and I suppose I really should take to it again. Perhaps I will. Mostly, you see, I've been writing fiction over the holidays - I wrote 26 pages of a story, realized it was rubbish, trashed it, and did another - with a few of the first's elements - which ended up at nearly 30 pages. It's less than fifty words shy of one magazine's cut-off point, actually, which is 10,000 words. This worries me - my novel is 70,000.

I'm working on a second, now - of course, I'm also trying to revise some older stories, submit to magazines, read my collection of Shakespearean criticism for classes fall semester, and look over the possibility of trying to get a PhD. - or D Ltt, or something. Maybe even a second M Ph, it looks like. I dunno. Either way, it's a weird time.

I "fixed" my camera, though - by "fixed" I mean "un-installed the drivers." It works perfectly now, so maybe I'll get some pictures up soon. Though, as normal, pictures will show up at my Blogger account, as the picture uploading thingie is much better. I may experiment with LiveJournal's version, though, so maybe that'll change. We shall see.

If you people still remember, I'd still like the occasional suggestion for my false encyclopedia. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's simple: suggest, as a comment to any post here, a topic you'd like to see me cover in a false encyclopedia entry. Here's the only one I've gotten to do, as suggested by Maggie: Phrenology.

Oh, for anyone reading this on my Blogger account, ignore the bits about going somewhere else for pictures.

shopulent

2006-06-17T00:55:00.000-04:00

shopulent: "The phenomenon of increasingly opulent and ornate shopping centers (shop + opulent).

The Venetian Hotel's shopping concourse has a canal with gondoliers, frescoes, paintings and gold trim everywhere; it is utterly shopulent."

I'm just testing out a function of Google Reader. Don't mind me.

2006-04-16T02:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm still waiting for reccomendations - I want to do another entry into your COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, but someone has to give me a topic.

Also, I've stolen this from Rogue277's Livejournal. It's a Wikipedia game. You go to Wiki, type in your birthday (just the month and the day), and put down in your journal three events, two births, and a death that catch your eye. I knew the death already.

EVENTS:
1799 - Napoleon leaves Egypt, en route to France, to seize power.
1924 - The distance between Earth and Mars is the smallest since the 10th century.
1940 - World War II: The Germans start bombing London.

BIRTHS:
1754 - King Louis XVI of France (d. 1792)
1947 - Keith Moon, English singer and drummer (The Who) (d. 1978)

DEATH:
1305 - William Wallace, Scottish patriot (executed)

The Victorian Obsession with Phrenology

2006-04-11T22:52:00.001-04:00

As we were all so constantly reminded in school, phrenology was a “science” wherein men with strong, vise-like fingers could determine a person's personality, hair color, and favored sandwich garnish(es) from the shape, size, and general malleability of the skull. Models were often employed, cast in plaster, marble, or phrenolium (Queen Victoria's phrenolium-carved head model still stands outside Westminster, frowning gently upon the populace and declaring to the masses that the well-loved queen loved worcestershire very well indeed). Famously, Edgar Spinthrift-Smythe, a phrenologist hailing from the far-off land of Cambodia, was the first to understand Pittsburgh's love affair with Steel, by molesting a to-scale model of the city cast in bronze and porcelain.

However, the Victorian obsession with this artful science, while widely recognized as palpable and wide-eyed, is poorly understood at best. Some scholars blame the schools (thus setting up a convoluted system of wormholes and accrediting services that, ultimately, places the blame on the scholars). This is foolish, of course, as it is well documented that the advance of astrology from its blocky, imposing fortess in the wastes of Ohio, bedecked in its gaiety and hoisting grim war-spears, wiped phrenology and the Victorian love of same from the minds of common man.

Franz Joseph Gall, a German born under an exploding star, fell to earth in the pastoral nicety of Germany. It was this man, found mewling and squinting into the depths of his departed space, that invented the science of headology. His publicist, an orphan from the hidden planet tiny-Giganticus, changed the name to phrenology in all the pamphlets advocating the study of skull shape. Gall learned of this three years after his death, and the squalling frightened Hitler's mother, leading to the famous episode of in the bakery, which I need not go into here.

The Victorians lacked a discipline relating to the shapes of heads. Dickens was the most vocal critic of his contemporaries, haranguing them from his open bedroom window on several occasions. One of these times he might have said something about phrenology, we're not really sure, this kid was being really loud across the street.

The Victorians, as established earlier, lacked a head-shape discipline. Phrenology filled this longing in the heart of the average Victorian, displacing the peculiar fetish for ankle-innuendo jokes around the office crumpet dispenser. The advent of Gall's phrenology was a godsend. As the story of Gall's space-birth circulated through the nicer, better-dusted drawing rooms of Victorian society, this feeling of “godsend” grew, until the London post office received a note from God saying he had nothing to do with it. This note was never read, and burned in the Great Fire.

Of course, as is true with all obsessions, eventually phrenology grew to outstanding proportions, dwarfing the town of Cardiff. When its growth was complete, the obsession ripped the Cardiff church apart and wore the steeple as a jaunty hat. It rampaged across the English countryside, frightening skirted women on trains with its tugboat-sized feet and uncovered lower legs (being young, it still dressed in the kneepants that were de rigeur).

Queen Victoria's dead husband, Albert, rose from his stately tomb to do battle with the obsession. It has been reported by men that were present and mostly sober that the Queen herself pulled the lever forcing Albert into the hellish necrotic animation that was his doom. She is quoted as muttering, “think of England” as she loosed her husband, proving she had an excellent sense of humor as well as a sense of duty.

Albert flew to the obsession's location at the time: the Sherwood Forest. They did battle in the skies of England. The obsession had lasers and a mighty grip on the forces of electricity, but Albert could command the creatures of the skies and seas by reciting poetry written about him post-mortem. Birds flew into the obsession's mouth, tearing at its throat and smothering the air from its lungs. Fish leapt from the sea, arced beautifully in the gleaming sun, and fell to the earth to suffocate slowly, save the one plesiosaur that landed safely in a Scottish lake, never to be seen again. Albert's mighty fist crushed the obsession's skull, ending its stranglehold on Victorian society, allowing them to in turn become obsessed with humorous hats.

The Victorian Obsession with Phrenology

2006-04-11T22:52:00.000-04:00