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May 18th, 2008
girliejones
 | 12:11 am - Dessert Party
I had a really great day today - the kind where you realise you are glad to be alive. It deserves its own non-tired, coherent post which I'll do tomorrow.
In the meantime, the other day ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kathrynlinge reminded me of the parties we used to throw back in the day ... feels like I'm reminiscing about the 70s but I'm not ... and I was just thinking, you know a day like today was a pretty typical day pre-the ex.
So I think it's about time I started throwing the kinds of parties I used to. First up, a dessert party! I'll try and pick a day before I go away but that's getting to be pretty soon!
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May 17th, 2008
jennafern
 | 12:05 pm - TV and writing...
Ah, Saturday at my computer. At one time, a few years ago, I spent most of the day on the computer. Granted, I was taking college classes at the time, writing, playing my Star Trek game, and chatting, but I was on the computer all day. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to spend this much time catching up on a Saturday.
I’m glad the TV season is winding down, my time and attention has been divided because of all the kick ass shows I’m watching. Bleh.
Survivor’s ending stunk, Amanda should have won. Smallville was fantastic. Apparently, Moonlight’s last episode was on last night. Fuckers…I hate when they do this shit. It’s bad enough they killed Jericho and Journeyman isn’t coming back. At least CSI’s ending was good. I thought the car was going to blow, the way they did it left it open for him to live.
Battlestar is on for a few more week, I believe…and it’s getting very good. I have no idea who the last Cylon could be. LOST is over in two weeks, and I’m ready to see how much they’re going to fuck with us this time around.
AI’s Davidfest is next week, I’m voting for Cook. He’s more talented, mature, and his own artist. Little David will be molded into whatever bubble gum teenybopper crap the producers want. Let’s see the real talent win this year!
SYTYCD is starting on the 22nd. Woot!
Less TV means more me time! I’m hoping to have a character/story idea to work on in the next few weeks. I’ve been editing the Lucky books, again, getting rid of some things my sister said she hated seeing in books. Her advice was good and it was an easy edit!
If I can get back into Lucky’s groove, I’ll continue with # 3, but I’m not going to force it. When I do that, I just get frustrated. I know what I need to do; soon, I’ll have the time to do it.
For now, I’m still sending out query letters. I’ve received a response from one editor already. She said my letter was well written (aww) but that the concept of a killer was a hard sell to women (it is?), and that Lucky sounded like a movie vigilante. (duh)
There’s an Angelina movie coming out soon called Wanted. She’s an assassin that works for a secret organization. When I heard about this movie, I was PISSED! Then I read more about it and realized it wasn’t SO similar to my Lucky story, but enough where it made me cringe. (I know, nothing is original anymore, blah blah)
So I’m thinking, I WANT to see this movie. I love Angie, I love McAvoy (the other main character), and I love the idea of a kick ass assassin movie. Now if I want to see this movie, half of my girl friends want to see this movie, and a shit load of guys want to go see this movie, how could a book, similar to this…not sell well?
I haven’t a clue.
All the romantic suspense, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal and so on, books out there usually have a strong female character. Check.
They have a hot guy thrown into the mix. Check.
You can usually find one or two subplots one sometimes surrounding secondary characters. Check.
Complications? Check. Life threatening situations? Check. Steamy scenes? Check.
The difference between Lucky and the other books out there, she’s not trying to save the world, universe, a society of secret beings, a kingdom…no, she just wants to protect her family and find a killer. Is she a “heroine” protagonist? Depends on how you look at it. Yes, she kills for a living, but the people she gets rid of aren’t your average everyday citizen…they’re the true bad guys. She’s a hero to her family and perhaps some of the victims.
It’s not like the concept is ahead of it’s time or anything. Many characters have been an anti-hero type. I’ve made it apparent in Lucky’s books that she struggles with it and I think that makes it believable more than anything else.
The agent responses from my email submission have mostly stopped. I still have about 30 outstanding. *Sigh* To think of how much time I spent, reading guidelines, making sure they were a good fit…and get nothing back. Sad. I still have a few snail mails out there, and one more email to an editor. Tomorrow I’m printing to send submission packets out to publishers.
If this round doesn’t work, I may seek out a smaller press. We’ll see how things look toward the end of June. Never give up! Never surrender!
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devinjay
 | 11:26 pm - Impressive
Sungha Jung - Canon in D
Sungha Jung, playing 'Canon in D' arranged by Trace Bundy - all the more impressive because he's so young.
You can read more about him, and watch other videos, if you click this link.
I'm particularly fond of his own arrangement of Sting's Fields of Gold.
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devinjay
| 10:34 pm - Apologies
Sorry about that laast friends-page-destroying entry. I was testing out posting photos at different resolutions from my phone, and then discovered that I couldn't properly edit or delete the entry from it.
Shouldn't happen again, I don't think. I'm still testing the ins and outs of posting from my phone, so I might make a similar mistake again.
I think I've sorted it out now, so your friends list should be back to normal.
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benpayne
 | 10:30 pm - Ipod stuff
So after beginning last October, I have finally finished listening to every single song on my ipod.
I don't know if I want to begin again *straight* away... there was a month or so there where the balance was just right but before that it was too much retro not enough new... having said that I'll probably do it again and just tinker with the balance... stretch it over a longer period and intersperse with just listening to my current playlist.
I wound up by spending the first few weeks of May listening with random turned off... so I cycled through my current playlist by album and mopped up the last few stray songs in between....
Was kinda interesting listening to whole albums again, which is something I rarely do... a couple of albums gained something by being listened to in their entirity... I found I got more into the latest Bright Eyes and Tanya Donelly albums, for instance, when listening to them in one sitting...
On the whole though I am happy to be back to random play, which is more interesting to me in its unpredictability...
In album news, I purchased the new Death Cab for Cutie from itunes this morning. Go buy it now!
Current Music: Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
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nyssa_p
 | 08:40 pm
YES! When you see kermit, you see happy news.
Everything is working! OMG! I managed to fix it all and didn't lose any information but for one module, and that's easily fixed.
And markdeniz, I got your avatar up :)
I love my new server! I KNEW it wasn't my fault that it wasn't working!
*dances*
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/crazy.gif) crazy happy
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nyssa_p
 | 07:20 pm
Okay, I have things sorted! I still have my old host running things for the moment, and I found a backup I did through Joomla a month ago, but I realised something.
This is a chance for me to update all my modules!
In the future I won't be doing it this way, but I'm trying to take things positively.
GO JOOMLA!
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halspacejock
 | 03:40 pm - SFNovelists post
On the 17th of every month I post to the SFNovelists blog. Usually I try and write something industry-related, and this time I've touched on writing - business or art.
Also, there's only two weeks left to discover what the Hal Spacejock free gift is. (No, it's not a fridge magnet or bookmark.)
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girliejones
| 03:10 pm - I love my list!
So you might have noticed the lack of complaining this week on feeling overloaded and lists and blah blah blah. That's because I have had my nose to the grindstone focusing on my week list. At first I was worried it was too easy - ha! At 50 items for the week, it proved not to be so easy. I have now completed 14 of these and have just tonight to work on it before the week flips over to a new week tomorrow.
Even though I've only completed 28% so far, I am actually really quite happy. The list has helped me get quite a few things done that would not have been done otherwise and have been hanging around needing to get done for ages - like this morning I *finally* opened a bank account for Twelfth Planet Press, New Ceres has had a bunch of stuff done, I've finished off a few other projects that were so nearly done and just needed things like - sew in the ends or add such and such a blurb to website etc or call so and so. It's been good. I LOVE It!
Anyway, off to high tea and tomorrow I have a Sea Rescue shift but I hope to get a fair whack of the rest of the list done tonight.
More later. 
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nyssa_p
| 03:36 pm
I'm sad.
I don't know if I'll be able to transfer my website from my old host to my new host. I'm preparing to start all over again (good thing I already have a backup of the articles), but it's just frustrating. I went through and backed up everything like a good little geek and my old host is not working, so I can't get at them.
At least with my new host, they've been answering my emails within half an hour.
I had sent an email to yet another host about three weeks back, and they only just responded. And they were the more expensive one! Three weeks to get a response on a sales question!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/sad.gif) sad
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jasoni
 | 01:06 pm - dvds, books and stuff
During a sleepless night, I filled the hours with all manner of distractions.
some movies -
Futurama: Bender's Big Score
This movie was quite funny. Where the Simpsons movie just falls apart and descends into a longwinded boring yawnfest, this one actually has a pretty cool storyline and the usual amount of funny, as if 2 or 3 episodes had been stitched together. Neato! The problem being, there are quite a few injokes, so if you've never watched the show, avoid this and grab the TV series instead. Bender is my thieving robot idol :-)
Alien Vs Predator 2: Requiem
The first AVP was a bit of a stretch, but the implausible storyline was balanced by the awesomeness of the fight scenes and the nerd-factor. You could watch it for that alone. As for this steaming turd of a sequel, I'm sorry I soiled my DVD player with its presence. I'm talking a cast of dozens that no-one cares about, survivors getting huffy and having pointless moments of conflict and lots of Blairwitch style hard-to-see action, in the dark. These dudes have infravision, for god's sake use it more! There are lots of quick blurs of movement, shit blowing up, some sort of secondary storyline that collapsed for no reason (the obligatory nerd guy gets the obligatory hot-chick, the bully gets his comeuppance but there's no reason for this AT ALL). The first one set up a sequel of such promise (the PredAliens, the whole backstory of how the predators used to visit earth to seed humans with alien face-huggers, etc etc) but this is the franchise's Highlander 2. As in, yes, they should try again, and yes, they should pretend this movie never happened.
Jackass 2.5
An unusual amount of focus on the human anus, and what you can do with it/put in it/make happen with it. There are other skits, but for what is effectively a bonus disc it is just a series of gross arse jokes. Where are the crazy scenes in shopping malls/insane stunts/random funny stuff? Not on here, that's for sure.
and now to books -
Zeppelins West, by Joe R Lansdale
okay, I admit defeat! I'm about 2/3 of the way through this, and I just *fucking* give up. I've loved everything else this guy ever did, but this is just enough of a turd to piss me off. Think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, think name-dropping and alternate history, and a streak of weird that normally works but this time doesn't. I was excited about this book, but "Bubba Hotep" it is not.
Rynosseros by Terry Dowling
Giving this a re-read, and I love it just as much as I did the first time. What an amazing setting, and the prose is just gorgeous! At a writing group the other week someone referred to Terry Dowling as a third-rate writer, and I have to object to this in most strenuous terms (I was just too shocked at the time to believe what I was hearing). This book is still a winner, and one of the few books I can reread without getting bored. It's future Australia, it's sandships crossing the vast interior, it's bizarre future tech, it's all good.
next, it's Dexter and No Country for Old Men. I'm sick of people talking about these and not knowing what they're on about :-)
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nyssa_p
| 12:20 pm
This host thing is going nuts. I might need to pay a company to transfer it for me.
Did I mention I have a paypal account to accept donations?
XD
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jamiekswriter
 | 07:09 pm - Bronislaw Kiewra a.k.a. Barney Kawra 5/15/06 8:08 a.m. R.I.P.
My Grandfather passed away Thursday morning. He was given last rites on Wednesday night, but he was pantomiming playing poker a few hours before. He said aloud: "Check." and then irately, "Are you in or out?" Which made me laugh because he'd always check the bet and if you'd hesitate a moment, would jump down your throat about it. He was 93. He died sitting up, too stubborn to lie down. I saw him Wednesday. I brought the baby over to him. He didn't notice the baby, but he lifted up his head at me, gave a soft smile and said, "Hiya Jame." He knew what was going on until the very end. I'm not sure I think that's the blessing I've always thought it was. He was in a lot of discomfort and pain. The Hospice nurses were as useless as tits on a bull. I've never heard a bad thing about Hospice -- just the opposite, but these bitches were terrible. Not to say my grandfather was a model patient. He wasn't. He was mean and stubborn, but still -- if you don't like the heat, Stop and Shop is always hiring cashiers. He died in his home that he built himself, in his own bed. And again, by seeing his experience, I no longer want to die at home. I'll stay there until it doesn't matter anymore, then wheel me into the hospital and jack me up with morphine and let me fade away. My mother and my aunt undressed him and washed him after he died. I can't imagine what that was like. I know I couldn't do that. And I don't want my son to do that to my corpse or have his last memories be of me in torment.
When I was in high school, I wrote this essay about my grandfather. I wouldn't change a bit of it. I was going to post it here as a eulogy, but for the life of me, I can't find it. Pisses me off too because I saw it recently. I'll post it when I find it. However, I do have something more valuable. When I was in school, we had to interview our grandparents. This is my grandfather's voice verbatim.
On his father, Kostak Kawra . . . "He almost drowned in Long Island Sound. The boat went by them too fast and turned him over but the Coast Guard seen it and saved him. We would go and dig for fiddlers. Put a little mud down there and we get 200 fiddlers and sell them so we could buy passage on the fishing boat and a couple of beers. So you'd ride for free. We were like Kings. . . My father and I were fishing in Niantic and a seagull landed on the bow and little by little, my father'd throw some bread at him until he came closer and he grabbed him. That bird squawked like anything. He didn't weigh more than a pound. He's all feathers. . . . My father used to suck brewery grains, what they make beer out of. He'd take a dish rag and wipe it up and then suck on the dish rag"
On his mother, Sussanna Augur . . . "She was a good milker. When my dad got drunk with the fellows, Mom used to milk Dad's cows."
On his best friend, Joe Chohoski . . . "I met Joe in Foxon in school in the 4th grade. They had a farm. I used to go up to his house and help him out in the woods. We used to collect garbage. He was quiet and the other guys would pick on him. I stepped in and said, 'If you lay a hand on him, I'll beat you to a pulp.' You had to be tough or the bullies would pick on the weak. I wasn't afraid. He taught me to ride a horse by tying a rope to my foot and then around the belly and tied my other foot. The horse started to gallup. He went a few miles and lay down. 'Joe! Joe!' I said, 'Help! The horse is going to roll!' So he comes running over and untied me. Another time, Joe and I were fishing in Niantic on sandworms and Joe threw his line out and the seagull grabbed it and started flying off. He got hooked. Joe was like look what I caught. That thing squawked and squawked so. He reeled it in an grabbed it and took the hook out of his beak and it flew away."
On another friend, Nick Bruzhook . . ."He was 6'2". He liked to drink. He had a job in the wire mill with me. He used to be a tile worker but he got fired because he tried to start a union. He was a half-assed carpenter. He'd work for hooks or bait or he'd work in the bait store for fat ass Wheeler. His name was Ernie, but we called him fat ass because he was fat. He died and left everything to Nick. Ernie's wife was well off so she didn't want it. He worked in the wire mill and had a kid in the store, but he was robbing him blind so he quit the wire mill so he could work in the store full time. He'd always give me gas when gas was short. Even if there were lines down the street. He'd always have gas even when the gas station didn't. I said, Nick, how come you got gas when the gas stations don't got them? He says they don't pay their bills. Nick wasn't paying the government, though, and he had to sell the business so he wouldn't go to jail."
A conversation we had on my Dad's boat:
Grandpa: "You see that white stuff on the rocks?"
Jamie: "Yeah, it's bird shit."
Grandpa: "The seagulls painted it. You don't say that. You say the seagulls painted it. It sounds better."
On fishing:
"Hornell pole. Don't make 'em anymore. They're a good pole. I pulled a lot of fish wih this pole and it never snapped. Guy offered me $50 bucks for it. But I said no. It's an old pole. It ain't for sale. They don't make 'em no more. It was a surf pole. It was about ten feet, but I cut it down a foot and 1/2 so I can go cod fishin'. I got 3 Hornells. I won't sell 'em neither."
"Another time I was knee deep fishing at Leete's Island at night. I happen to shine the light in the water and there were millions of little green crabs crawling over my boots. An army of them."
On Gardening . . .
"I'm pushin' 88. I get up in the morning. I pick a few squash. Take a rest. I pick a few cukes and I take a rest."
To my husband, "Tommy, take some tomatoes. I can't eat them all before they go bad. I'm shitting tomatoes all over the place out here."
"People don't eat enough cabbage."
Malapropisms . . .
"I don't want any putans in my salad!" (Putan is an Italian word for whore) (Hey me either)
"I bought you a Nemo pad." (For school every year I'd get a goodie bag with school supplies. He meant memo pad.)
Embarrassing Moments . . .
At my cousin Mitchell's wedding, the waitress had a tray with six salads on it. She was going back to get more when he shouted, "Hey Lady, you forgot me!"
At my other grandfather's funeral, my deaf grandfather thought he was whispering to me but wound up shouting, "That's Ziggy. Jesus! He got fat!"
At a mass for my grandmother a year after her death, I was living next door to the church and was woken up for the mass by the bells ringing. I threw on a dress and doused myself in perfume and busted out the door and was in the pew before the bells stopped ringing.
My grandfather: "What stinks? They're burning incense."
My mother (snottily): It's your Granddaughter.
My grandfather (loudly in church): Jamie -- You wearing perfume?
Me (mortified and muttering): Yes
My grandfather: What is it?
Me: Ysatis
My grandfather: What?
Me: Ysatis by Yves St. Laurent
My grandfather: What?
Me: (shouting back at him) It's French!
A pause
My grandfather: Oh. It's nice.
My cousin Mike: Honestly!
These were taken Memorial Day 2007
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benpayne
| 10:47 am - Electronic Publishing 2 - Novels
I'm still at the stage where I would baulk at the notion of reading a novel online. However, I kinda think that in ten or twenty years that will be the way things go. I could be wrong.
People like Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross have publicised the notion of giving novels away free on the web, and have done so quite successfully. However, their model seems to be based on the fact that people don't like reading online; that they will trial the novel, see if they like it, and if they do, buy the hard copy. This is probably a viable argument, currently, but I wonder what will happen if audiences become more accustomed to reading online, and grow to accept the notion of reading an entire novel that way. It seems to me that Doctorow's premise is that this is unlikely to happen (based on his writings on online reading in Locus etc, where he argues that reading online is a fundamentally different experience). But it's possible that we're simply in a transition period. That once people grow to accept and get used to the notion, they will adjust to it.
In which case Doctorow may well find giving novels away for free is less viable. *Or*, as I think he has argued, novelists will be forced to find alternatives, akin to the stuff discussed in my last post on cds, so that their income derives chiefly from other sources; appearances, teaching etc, rather than writing itself.
As with music, I can see this being a viable mode of income for established writers. I'm less certain of its viability for up-and-comers.
I think one of the big steps in electronic novel publishing will be finding a format that allows for easy reading and bookmarking etc. I don't really believe a dedicated platform is the answer, unless it can be produced cheaply. I also think publishers wishing to embrace the format need to charge *less* than they do for hard copy novels, just the way itunes etc undercut cd prices.
I'm not sure too many publishers are gonna support electronic publishing until it becomes obvious that it's the wave of the future (in other words, they'll get on the bandwagon once it's mostly past). The reason is this; the transition period will be difficult for them. Whereas publishers could quite reasonably survive by publishing electronically, the middle period of any such change, during which they need to produce works electronically *and* in print, will look unattractive to many publishers, for the reason that publishing relies on printing and selling large numbers of copies, in order to get a good deal from printers and to sell individual copies cheaply and profitably. The more readers who pick up a book electronically, the more the margin of profit is going to shrink as publishers are forced to cut back on print runs. For that reason, I don't think the big publishers will find it in their interests to promote electronic publishing until it becomes inevitable.
Anyway, this is all off-the-cuff rambling. I haven't done any research into the field at all, so I could be talking complete bollocks. It's just my feeling, based on what I've heard and read so far...
Current Music: Maya Jupiter
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benpayne
| 09:51 am - 2012 review
Speaking of reviews, 2012 has picked up another nice review, this time from Rich Horton at Locus.
Here's what he has to say:
2012 is an Australian anthology of near future SF, focused on the problems plaguing us now - or in 2012. Environmental concerns dominate, not surprisingly. The editors called for engaged fiction, which is a two-edged sword - some of the stories here are greatly weakened by their polemics. But others manage to stay urgent and involving without being too shrill. My favorites were "Apocalypse Rules, OK?" by Lucy Sussex, very amusing stuff about the real movers behind the various idiocies humans get up to; and "The Last Word" by Dirk Flinthart, in which a scientist and her ex-lover who is now a wheeler-dealer negotiate the development of a genetic treatment with effects that could be wonderful - like a cure for melanoma; trivial, like an easy suntan; or scarier yet.
Buy it here.
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benpayne
| 09:46 am - Aurealis review
Nice review of the latest Aurealis over at SF Site by Rich Horton.
Some positive comments on stories by Guerin, Sparks, Rayner Roberts, Plank, Blackmore and Maloney.
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benpayne
| 09:44 am - Not selling CDs
As an interesting tangent to the discussion on electronic publishing, Rolling Stone have a short piece about bands moving away from CDs as their source of income. I know Pearl Jam made comments several years back about their income deriving from live shows more than cds, and recently Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have released Cds for free.
I can see the argument that at some point cds may become obsolete. At the moment, the above arguments work quite well for bands who are big enough to make a living from music without needing cd-sales as part of that income. I'd be interested in some more quantitative data on how it affects smaller bands, though.
Current Music: Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You
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May 16th, 2008
girliejones
| 11:35 pm - RSVP laughs
My friend cracks me up at work - our discussion at lunch today:
Me: for some reason all the guys list *camping*
Her: well, they're WA boys
Me: yeah ...
Her: well, there's so much to do that's outdoorsy here. I would imagine if you lived somewhere where they had to make more of an effort to get outside...
Me: So, you're saying I should live in New York, so they would list "Broadway musicals" and "the opera"?
yet more reasons to move to my favourite city :-)
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girliejones
| 11:03 pm - People crack me up
It seems that I grasp obvious concepts about 17 years ahead of the average person. When I was 15, I awakened to my passion and raison d'etre - conservation and protection of the environment. One of the things that seemed utterly ridiculous was the absolute waste we generate for no real purpose. Like, I used to buy video tapes (to record Buffy mostly) and you'd buy packs of 3 wrapped in plastic. But when you unwrapped the pack, each video was wrapped in plastic individually. Why? What was the purpose? Seemed a ridiculous waste considering that plastic would take centuries to degrade in the landfill to where I was banishing it.
These days, you see News items like the one I just saw of a local council (somewhere in Australia, was the national news) where some guy is hooking up the bikes in his gym to collect the energy burned by people working out to generate the electricity to power the gym. Then it switches to the local pool which is collecting rainwater for their swimming pools and the local politician interviewed said: the main reason we are doing it is for the environment, but there is a bottom line benefit.
*boggles mind*
Like, um, when you stop wasting things, you don't have to pay for them in the first place and yeah, there is this resource that we haven't been using.
It's like my Dad who says to me the other day: banks try to sell you the idea of switching to electronic bank statements cause it's good for the environment but it saves them money. And I was like ... well yeah, but it's *both*.
See it turns out, if you realise you don't have to *waste* money in the first place creating useless waste, it's both good for the environment when you stop AND good for your bottom line cause you cut some fat.
I think I have a problem getting my head round the idea that people think the environment is unrelated to everything else. Like you can do something *for* the environment and then suddenly discover being "green" has all these other (economic/health/social) benefits. And then they explain them back to *me* as though I didn't know this and only chose this philosophy *for* the environment and not just cause it MAKES GOOD SENSE!
We are so wasteful. It's only a matter of time till people figure out, if you don't waste stuff you save money (space/resources/society).
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girliejones
| 10:38 pm - Really?
Just watching The View - Patrick Stewart was on it.
But did they really just say that in the USA 1 in 3 teens get pregnant? Surely that's ridiculously too high to be true?
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