( The Atlantic Hurricane outlook for the weekend )
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| User: |  elinor_dear |
| Date: | 2009-07-10 02:11 |
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| Security: | Public |
Hello paycheck.
Oh...hi bills.
Bye-bye paycheck.
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El Nino conditions return to affect weather!!! WASHINGTON – El Nino is back.
Government scientists said Thursday that the periodic warming of water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which can affect weather around the world, has returned.
Moar here @ The SOURCE!!
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( Hurricane forecast, and a test of cut and paste from an email )
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It has been at least a year since I first became aware of Lolcats. When I first encountered the pictures of cats with misspelled captions I didn't think they were at all funny. But over repeat exposures I learned the dialect of the humor and now I appreciate them. By "dialect of the humor" I don't just mean that I gained the ability to decipher the misspellings, but I also learned how the misspellings and the pictures and general knowledge of cats work together to make an individual Lolcat funny (or not funny. Many of them are still meh.) One particular lolcat meme has been very useful to me as a means of expressing my own experiences. It is the "I haz a" meme. The final word may be sad, or happy, or warm. The usual way to express that idea would be to say "I am sad, happy, warm." Except the phrase "I am sad" implies that at this point in time sadness is my defining characteristic, which may not be true. If I am not completely sad, I have to say "I am a little bit sad" or "part of me is sad." These statements are longer to say than "I haz a sad." Taking out the grammar and spelling errors, "I have a sad" implies that I own this small sadness which is separate from myself, but which affects me. This is a very useful way for me to picture emotions which are a piece of my current experience, but which do not dominate it.
All of that is just an introduction so that I can say "I have a scared." Yesterday we received 5000 books. So far only about 500 of them are sold. I'm getting ready to ship 1000 of them to a major convention. The sales at that convention will be the difference between an extremely tight budget with a stressed scramble to create the next book, or a more relaxed budget and steady work on the next book. I have been scrambling for months just to keep up with my life. I really want option two, the one with relaxing in it. I want like I want air. But it is all out of my hands. I can spend the time/effort/money to get the books to the convention, what happens after that I can not control. All the logic and calculations say that we will be fine, but I have to acknowledge the fear, stare it in the face, own it, then set it in the back of my brain where it will not interfere with the things I must do.
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| User: | elinor_dear |
| Date: | 2009-07-08 15:53 |
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| Security: | Public |
Starting getting a headache last night, woke up this morning and it's a migraine.
Coffee, drugs, darkness and sleep for me.
And, oh, this is my day off.
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Our shipment of XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery books arrives today. I had to go rent a second storage unit to house them because the first unit is already full of inventory. I need to do some research on the cost of warehouse space. I'm pretty sure that the storage units are still cheaper per month, but I need to know where the tipping point is.
We're getting another shipment of books next week. This will be historic since it is our first 2nd printing. We've almost sold out of Under New Management which is the first book we ever printed. The first printing was 5000 copies
No word on distribution deals. More waiting there.
My short story "Stories that Bind" is now available in print. A Time To... Volume 3: The Best of The Lorelei Signal 2008 is now on sale.
I now have three stories available at Anthology Builder, which makes me very happy. In the near future I'll be putting together a custom anthology full of cool stories.
I've found fancy clothes to wear on Hugo Night at Worldcon. Now I just need jewelry to match and I need to drag Howard out to rent a tuxedo for the event. We're both in a strange mental place where neither of us really believes he'll win, but a tiny voice whispers "what if." It doesn't really matter, just getting nominated is amazing and we intend to dress up to celebrate.
I have been spending far more time as a publisher than as a writer lately. Hopefully life will slow down after the big August conventions.
Gleek is enjoying her trip away from home, but we'll all be glad to have her back.
Summer is half gone and still chaotic. I'm already looking forward to the return of the school schedule, although I'll miss staying up late and sleeping in.
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| User: | fadethecat |
| Date: | 2009-07-08 12:23 |
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| Security: | Public |
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
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I gained five pounds.
I haven't weighed myself for two or three weeks... until now.
I want to punch myself in the face.
And then die.
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Ooooooh man. Man, man, man, man, man. I'm starting to feel upset. NEED FULL TIME JOB PRONTO.
At least the house is much more clean now. I gave myself a mopping blister yesterday.
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| User: | josethebean |
| Date: | 2009-07-06 23:55 |
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| Security: | Public |
I haven't said anything in forever! I've been devoting my life to my new job. It's kind of absurd. I feel like I was one of the partners. Anyway, it's weird but interesting. People are still idiots and uppity.
Jake and I are still doing awesome. I love him more every day. So sappy and awesome. Penguin!!! He's my best friend in the whole world and that says a lot considering Leslie is a clone.
I love my tiny house. I think it's right at twice the size of the purple bedroom. hahah. THE WHOLE HOUSE. My pile of laundry takes up 1/5th of my whole house. Some how I manage to fit in 5 freaking cats, too. I feel like I live in a shoe and I'm a cat lady, too.
The other night, Jake and I drove off to the middle of nowhere (using his handy GPS toy) and watched a really awesome lightening storm. Great night.
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The phone call came at 10:30 PM. It was a crying Gleek who is off for her first week-long solo visit with cousins. "Mom, I miss you."
"I miss you too Gleek."
"Everything is different here."
"Families are all different aren't they?"
"Yeah. No one goes outside. I look out the window and it is all bright and shiny and I want to go out, but no one will go with me!"
"Yes that family is more of an inside family. Do you play fun games inside?"
"Big girl plays great games, but the little girl games are boring. And they only let me have one yogurt a day! I miss you! I want to be at home, but I also want to finish my adventure."
"Isn't it funny how we can feel two opposite things at the same time? I feel that way a lot when I'm off at a convention."
"Yeah. I want both things. Does Bestfriend miss me?"
"Yes she does. She came up to me at church and told me that she'd painted a picture of the two of you together."
"She is like the perfect friend. She plays outside with me."
"You'll have fun when you're back together. When do you travel to the next house?"
"Tuesday."
"And then you'll come home on Thursday."
"On the 10th."
"Thursday is the 9th."
"The 10th will be one week, you said I would go for a week."
"You'd rather come home on the 10th so you have a whole week?"
"Yeah. I want all of my adventure. Bye."
"Bye honey. I miss you. You can call me again if you need to."
" Okay. I miss you too. Bye."
Sometimes they don't really need me to fix anything, they just need me to listen.
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I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the last two loaves of bread that I've baked have been heavy, dense brick like objects.
They are edible, if you're really bound and determined to eat bread.
Ergo, I'm trying it again tonight.
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http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/07/everythings-drawn-and-super-80s.html Anne and I went to the grocery store this afternoon. When it was time to get the orange juice, there was only one left, and it was way in the back of the cooler. I reached in really far to get it, and as I did, Anne began to sing the chorus from Take On Me. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know this*, but even if you do, I'm telling you this story right now because it's a perfect excuse to point out, once again, that my wife is awesome. It is also a perfect excuse to repost the Literal Version of Take On Me, which is almost as awesome as she is. Almost.
*GARAGE HATE* We've spent ALL DAY cleaning that fucker out, and that means we've been sweating our balls off in a sweltering humidity oven of hell while wading through hundreds of boxes of soggy bullshit, which, judging by the mountain of trash bags now sitting on the curb, we should have thrown away a year and a half ago, when we moved in here, instead of actually TRANSPORTING our garbage from one place to the next.
We had a leak. That's what prompted this afternoon of torment. Before plumbing could occur, we had to do something about the disaster that was our garage, because every object with which we didn't feel like dealing has been shoved carelessly in that area since we moved here. It was, uh, kinda scary in there.
Now we await the plumber. I guess I'm glad to have the garage dealt with, BUT OH MY GOD DID THE DEALING SUCK.
Also, I am very gross.
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| User: | vebelfetzer |
| Date: | 2009-07-05 10:29 |
| Subject: | |
| Security: | Public |
Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there.
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My brain has not been a quiet place of late. I suppose that makes sense because my life has been anything but routine for months. I keep running from one major event to the next with little time to pause and reflect. None of this is news. I've been complaining about it for months. But over the last week I've finally figured out how much work July will contain and it is less than I'd feared. I'm very glad to have a less stressed month, but I am also very aware that less schedule stress means less money coming in. This leads to a potential financial stress in a couple of months, but I am not going to fret about that now. Pre-orders are still open and we've yet to see how books will sell at GenCon.
My house feels empty. My parents were here for almost a week. Before they came I was worried about having guests in the house while we had the stressful week of opening pre-orders. I was worried that my inability to pay attention to my guests would be a source of stress. The opposite turned out to be true. My parents just slid into the household without a ripple. They left me alone when I needed to work and picked up all the household slack that Howard and I were leaving around. But now my parents are gone and they took Gleek with them. She gets to accompany them on a trip through Idaho to visit cousins. This long-promised solo trip is something that Gleek has really been anticipating. I'm glad she gets to go, but the house feels empty. It always feels empty when one of us is missing.
Two days ago I had my first experience with someone knocking on the door looking for work. It was a little scary. I was very aware of the possibility that this was a scam attempt or a fishing expedition to scope out our house for theft. On the other hand I was very aware that this man, his wife, and baby might really be so hard pressed for money that knocking doors was the best option. They did not want charity. They wanted work. I did not let them into the house, but I did give them some work in the garden. He worked hard and when he was done the rest of the yard lived up to the flowers my mother planted. I think it has been years since the exterior of my house was so nicely groomed. I paid him for the work and he left me his name and number so I can call him if I have more work. It is possible that the tale of woe was fabricated, but I received fair work for the money I gave, so I don't much care. It was a chance for everyone to come out ahead and I think we all did.
Over the last few weeks I have been using my down time to watch The Office on Netflix. The show is sometimes painful to watch because some of the characters are extremely hurtful to other characters. Most of the hurt is unintentional, but that does not make it less painful. For me the most fascinating thing to watch has been the evolution of the series itself. It starts out as a faux documentary about an office full of caricatures who interact with each other in amusing ways. But then there will be these small brilliant moments when a new facet of the caricature is revealed and suddenly instead of a caricature, there is a person I actually care about. The annoying people remain annoying, but somehow it becomes affectionate annoyance. I understand how these people still work together despite all the pain. All that said, I'm not sure whether or not I'll be watching season five when it comes out. I've loved watching these characters grow and the next logical step is for some of them to move on and leave the office. Unfortunately due to the nature of serial entertainment, those characters can't be allowed to leave. They must stay, trapped. In order to retain character tension, the relationships must be broken up and reformed. If no one is allowed to move on, then the illusion of life which I've loved is destroyed. Instead of The Office it becomes more like Sartre's No Exit. I'm not sure if I want to watch that.
Yesterday I had no work to do. The internet had gone into hibernation for the holiday weekend and I'd already answered all the email. Not only that, but my house and garden were both in beautiful shape due to the intervention of others. I ended up sitting down and playing Fable 2. I think that is the first time I've really played a video game in years. It was fun. But I also got up from the game with an awareness of how expensive video games can be for me. They don't want to just stay in the leisure time. Instead I want to start stealing time which should be spent on other things instead. Also there are already five people in this house negotiating for turns with the game. Adding a sixth doesn't seem very helpful. It is possible that my character will languish in neglect. But perhaps I'll find the odd hour here and there when I can putter in a video game universe.
Our Fourth of July celebrations were extremely low-key. Howard and Kiki spent most of the day either groggy or sleeping after their all-night game session. Link, Patch, and I just hung out at home. At dusk we joined some neighbors for fireworks. Our contribution was a box of party poppers left over from New Years. I did not have to plan or organize anything which made it a nearly perfect holiday for me. It was good to have a real break.
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In case you've forgotten what music videos from the 80s were like, let me remind you...literal version style!
"Total Eclipse of the Heart"
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| User: | elusiveshoe |
| Date: | 2009-07-04 23:15 |
| Subject: | |
| Security: | Public |
Tired!
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Dam! I like how the flow of this arc is turbine out! It's electrifying!
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