The June tally:

7 books
11 volumes of comics + misc chapters

Let me know if you'd like comments on anything in particular.

( The list )

( Progress on reading goals thus far )

In honor of the recent release of House of Many Ways, I've been catching up on Diana Wynne Jones's backlist. Jones has been writing for a long time, and I didn't discover her stuff until I was an adult, so I still have quite a bit of catching up to do. But here are some brief thoughts on stuff I've read recently.

( Non-spoilery comments on House of Many Ways, The Merlin Conspiracy, Dark Lord of Derkholm, A Tale of Time City, Eight Days of Luke, Hexwood, Cart and Cwidder )

( Note on spoilers )

On a side note, I have totally failed as a book blogger this year. Will try to remedy that somewhat in the future...

We have just watched The Spiderwick Chronicles.

I feel as if I have now had a lifetime supply of CGI creatures. Please ... no more.

1) JKR was incredibly smart to bypass the nitpicky planning of them when she started writing. During the editing phase, however, she really should have just done it. A rough system for the whole thing would have helped her bypass any confusion as to class-related things, and I would have been able to steal it for fanfic purposes. What, this is totally selfless opinion.

2) The future Mr. E. M. Pink informed me that the fastest computer method of generating/normalizing a class schedule for a school is way slower than a human being. I.e., there is no way to automate this; I'm going to have to sit down and do it.

3) You can see where this is going, right?

I just started making up timetables for Hogwarts students in every house in every year in Google Spreadsheets. I actually haven't fried my brain yet, although I think I might if I don't get all these spreadsheets into a real Excel-type program.

Downside of this? I cannot tell you how awful a task is when it is both complex and kinda boring. And to do it properly takes time, so don't expect a dump or sample set of timetables for about a week.

Upside? It is doable, with time. Once I'm done, I can use these timetables as the master set for my entire AST/Satevis universe until Antares kicks the bucket from old age. I can ALWAYS know what Snape's schedule will look like. I can ALWAYS know what any student from any house's schedule will look like, so long as I know what classes they're taking, and what year and house they are in. That, my friends, is the difference between spending a moment thinking about whether Whosat is in Whatsit's Herbology lesson in fourth year and going rampaging on the HP Lexicon for a clue to the answer, and spending that first moment and the following hour that might have been lost to research on writing some more.

Which is why I'm doing it. I'm the kind of person that loses writing time to questions like these, and while you can't always answer every single researchy question satisfactorily, you can have reasonable answers ready for *some* questions, you know?

Today, I installed a computer workstation in the basement, using some of the old kitchen cabinets that came with my house and an 8' length of laminate countertop. Sometime I'll have to borrow a camera and take pictures, because it looks really awesome. It needs some knobs and the room needs some outlet covers, but the floor is almost done.

I've been disappointed in the stick-on vinyl baseboards I bought for the basement; the adhesive is only in the center of the strip, so the bottom and the top stick out from the wall. I think I may return the unused boxes and get some of the kind that glues on instead, but I don't know if I want to replace the stuff that's already installed or just try to make it work with some liquid nails and white caulk.

The laundry room floor is far too uneven to take vinyl tile. This is sad, but I can always paint it instead, along with the floor in the furnace room. You know, if I ever completely lose my mind. (Not that this is likely, of course, oh no.)

This person reappeared in sf_drama today, posting an article about asshole men who get laid a lot, with the link text "Sound like anyone you know?" The IPs match, but that wasn't really necessary for confirmation. And now everybody's all "this is mean, she's mentally ill, we shouldn't dogpile on her!" but -- well, last time around she hurt a lot of people, and it's better (in my opinion) for people to know what to expect.

I am drowning my qualms, and my ongoing need to renovate things, in mint juleps.

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2008/07/03/i-fucking-hate-men-and-i-blame-them-for-everything/

Ha, here’s a guy who thinks that blaming means “blaming.” Ordinarily I wouldn’t mess with fish in a barrel, but I’m sorely pressed for time. I don’t understand a word of this, do you? Do your worst, girls. I swear, I’ll be back soon.

I am an MRA, and learned about your blog from an MRA board, AntiMisandry.com:
http://antimisandry.com/misandry_radical_feminist_message_board-t12052.html?t=12052

One thing that I have come to realize is that blaming really doesn’t give you any power. You may feel justified in your designation of blame, but ultimately you depend upon the validation of others to reinforce your position. As long as you receive such validation, you are well-positioned relative to whoever (or whatever) you’re blaming. But ultimately, without violent force or coercion to enforce your beliefs (as punishment), you are weak and helpless when you feed off of a sense of blame.

It’s far more empowering to blame the victim, that being yourself. Take responsibility for your own choices, and you’ll experience a form of empowerment that external validation never could provide. Blame others (or other things) if you like. But the usefulness of blaming is no different than blaming a sand trap in the desert after you’ve fallen into it. It’s much more useful to prepare oneself to avoid becoming a victim. I suppose you view the law as doing this for you, but I think even then you are at the mercy of collective judgments. Personal responsibility over one’s own happiness and safety is the only true empowerment any one individual can experience — and yes, that is a very brutal reality to accept.

I would be interested in your thoughts.

John Dias

He’s so concerned for my well-being. It’s heartwarming.

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My whole State spent the whole day without Internet due to a mysterious problem in the telephone system. Can you imagine that?

I worked all day on my final term paper. Now that my Internet is back, I'm tired and going to bed. I'll reply to your comments tomorrow.

Codename "Chelovek" will be brought to you by Okerrkil River (Down the River of Golden Dreams and Stage Names in particular) and just a smidgen of Breathe Owl Breathe (Ghost Glacier EP.) And a touch of furious in-car plotting with Frank Black & the Catholics ("All My Ghosts," "Back to Rome," "Six Sixty Six," "Solid Gold" from Frank Black & the Catholics.)

It's good to be writing old world new world.

Happy Independence Day!

So I'm horribly nervous because two of our close friends have come down sick with similar stomach ailments, several days apart (indicating that unless there's a serious coincidence going on, it's a contagious bug.)

Put me out of my house? No biggie. Can adapt. Adaptive organism is me! Mutation tiem nau!

Stomach flu? I RUN SCREAMING.

I'm feeling a little funny since I heard the news, but it's probably the funny of hypochondria. Nonetheless, I'm downing echinacea-goldenseal and praying to the gods of No More Drama In My Life Please.

http://www.sniggle.net/Experiment/index.php?entry=03Jul08

Some war tax resisters hold back a percentage of their income tax, equivalent to the percentage of income tax revenue the government spends on war. This is a variety of protest, but does it count as a variety of conscientious objection?

God, I'm so soppy.

I hear today is More Joy Day? Well, my day wasn't particularly joy-filled, but these two things made me tear up, they were so awesome.

Animal friendship between species

Where the Hell is Matt? Also, that song, if I can find it, is immediately going into my DW playlist.

We have this new book at work, How To Feed Your Family For $75 A Week.  It's a reprint of a title from about 1993, How To Feed Your Family For $30 A Week -- something about Labor governments seems to inspire that sort of thing, I guess.  It's full of useful tips like reducing the fat content of your milk by adding water, and using the same tea bag three times. 

The best bit, though, is the opening chapter, which claims that "so-called 'progressive' social legislation is driving up food prices".  Yes, guys, gay marriage is the reason your groceries cost so much.  And multiculturalism, too.  Good stuff.

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

From defectiveyeti.

This day in my LJ history:

2002 & 2003 -- I was apparently leading a very boring life and did not post that week

2004: Partied at suricattus's place, played volleyball, and got soused on pineapple-flavored vodka. All part of a long and fun holiday weekend that also included a trip to the Bronx Zoo, a NY Restaurant Week outing with yahtzee63, and a Sting and Annie Lennox concert at Jones Beach.

2005: Posted my first ever Ocean's 11 fic: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you cheat. It's all musesfool's fault.

2006: Was in Punta Arenas, Chile, drinking way too many pisco sours and preparing to leave for Antarctica the next day.

2007: Was packing to go visit friends and family in NY. At least, my flight was on July 4th, so I presume I was packing on the 3rd.

2008: At school, working. Or rather, at school, procrastinating. I'm sure you're all fascinated.

Mommy and Our Piano Tuner, to Use a Hypothetical Example

Father to little daughter: You are the most beautiful girl in this photo... and I'm not biased.
(daughter smiles)
Father: Do you know what "biased" means?
Daughter (rolling her eyes): Yes, it means that you like both boys and girls.

--F Train

via Overheard in New York, Jul 3, 2008

While I'm being posty, I stumbled on this googling for the Ring articles, about the Met's Peter Grimes:

Because fact is that, absent of any moral virtues–he’s angry, violent, stubborn, and has a questionable obsession with young boys–the only thing left to catalyze people’s sympathy is sexual attraction; a force of nature that has been and will continue to be the root of infinite moral crises. If Grimes is hot, not only does that infuse the character with a preternatural power that neither the audience nor the other characters can fault him for outright, it makes his resistance to the collective conscience (because everyone desires him as much if not more than they revile him) all the more frustrating, and therefore, compelling. That being said, Anthony Dean Griffey simply isn’t right for this part.

LOL NO

Just, no. No no no. How can you miss the part of Peter Grimes that is also the poetic dreamer, expressed with exceptionally fine and lyrical music of startling weirdness? Now, I think a truly sexy Peter would be an interesting idea, but it's certainly far from necessary.

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Fell down, banged up leg, can't bend knee. Retiring to bed with ibuprofin and ice pack.

It just occurred to me that if I needed to learn Occlumency, I'd rather choose Snape as my teacher than Dumbledore. Snape is honourable in his own way, and he'd only use any information he might gather to needle me. Dumbledore, on the other hand, would use the information to manipulate me for the greater good.

* * *

Lesson no. 3 in Finnish: bored = tylsistynyt. Which is what I'm now.

Teddy is helping several adults try to fix the Room of Requirement in time for Neil's transformation, which isn't any small feat, as Neville, the expert, has been mucking around with it pretty much since he started working at Hogwarts. But he's generaled everyone to play to their strengths, even putting Teddy on some magical construction work on the door. Teddy was trying to install a new doorknob.

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Sixteen: The Room of Requirement, pt. 3 )

I bought a new home PC in May and have been getting it up and running ever since - sourcing drivers, moving files and subscriptions, etc. from the old machine. Last night, for no apparent reason, I got a "not responding" error and then a completely blank screen.

I seem to have a hard drive failure on my hands. On booting up, I get a message saying the hard drive monitoring system "has reported that a parameter has exceeded its normal operating range". Since that means nothing, it goes on to note that a problem with the hard drive is a distinct possibility. The small amount of diagnostic work I did last night seems to confirm that the hard drive is kaput. I could view the C:/ drive in My Computer via a horrible 'safe mode' format, but the system was telling me I'd have to format the drive before I could use it. I was also hearing an ominous clicking noise coming from the base unit.

I've only had this thing for 2 months, for chrissakes! Now, I have to call Dell to see if it can be fixed and I know it's going to be an absolute chore getting back to where I was. At least I still have my old machine and may be able to set that up as the main PC for a bit.

N

I had this totally bizarre dream that Jack and Ianto were staying over for a night in our old Moscow apartment. They had the living room - which in reality used to have a bed, but ages ago - and I sort of migrated back and forth between my parents' room and my and Dasha's room. And it was nice. Ianto wasn't in it very much, but I guess I was good friends with Jack? Very strange.

It's More Joy Day!

Unfortunately, More Joy Day is occurring on a day a) when I have a 12 hour clinical, and b) when I barely slept at all (why o why do I always have so much trouble sleeping before clinical?), so it will be a bit of a challenge to try to bring joy to people. But I will try, and I will look forward to seeing posts about it when I get home, many hours from now. And for now I will give you a joyous Tim Bayliss icon to look at.

Calendar page updated.

Shut up, it's been really funny this year.  BB has persuaded the housemates that they have a mole in their midst -- they don't, but it's funny watching them turn on each other.

Bridget, possibly the most stupid human being on the face of the planet, sat down on the couch and cried, "But what if I'm the mole?!"

Stupid as a carload of monkeys.  Bless.

ETA: Now suburbannoir are watching Twin Peaks. It is quite possibly the funniest piece of TV I've seen in many years. Sometimes the lulz are even intentional.

The night air is cool and swarming with Japanese beetles. I'm pacing underneath the buzzing glare of the sodium arc lamps, a thick sheaf of papers in my hand, scanning them hard for the second reading of the night. Every story gets read once for pleasure, twice for critique, maybe three times for analysis. And this one has such moments of pure joy that I'm scrubbing the tears away from my eyes.

The door clicks. Kathleen comes down the stairs from her apartment, all long legs and fashionable clothing and sweeps of beautiful red hair. She's heading back to the common room, where she'll sit with seven other students in silence, flipping pages as she studies and dissects her three stories for the night.

We nod amiably to each other, an easy friendship that doesn't need any words. And as she passes by me, the glint of her sparkly red shoes reflects diamonds in the moonlight.

"Click your heels three times," I smirk.

She stops.

"I don't want to go home," she says. "This is better."

I think about it.

"Yeah," I say. "It is."

It feels like a little betrayal to say it. But three days. Three fucking days and we already have this artificial construct that brings us together, circling the wheel of our ka, eighteen students devoted to fiction and love and life. We want to be writers. And here, we are writers. There's no day job, no worry about the rent, nobody who isn't a writer to distract us.

We breathe in words and exhale analysis. Our minds are being broken, our stories flayed out, our fundamental assumptions about who we are as creators is being carefully shattered so that we can reassemble them into something stronger. More us.

This is our voice. It's in these bits here somewhere. And if we can clear away this underbrush that chokes us, we're going to shout so loud that nobody in the universe can stop us.

---

I love my classmates. It is a visceral love. A fierce love.

They give me such beautiful gifts.

The thing about Clarion is that our relationship started the moment the acceptions were announced. We scanned each other's blogs, friended each other on Facebook, chatted on AIM, asked dumb questions on our customized mailing list. I remember hunting for photos, going, who will this person be when he's not just words on a screen? Is his face kind? What does this smile in this snapshot tell me about him?

Before we even got here, we'd split from one ill-formed Clarion mass into eighteen personalities - some more clearly defined than others. But we'd begun to get a sense of our differing dreams.

And now I'm here. When I got off the plane, I could pick them out, one by one. I never missed a name, because everyone was someone to me. And I knew that Emily was sweet and considerate, and Dana was a colossal comics nerd, and Monica had cool dresses, and Steffi was the runner.

But come on, man. They're not here to make me happy. I'm here with my chainsaw in my keyboard, ready to rip shit to shreds. I know I've got some talent, at least. To be a writer is the purest form of ego - you're looking at the billions of words that other people have poured onto pages everywhere and then standing on a chair to scream, "I'M FUCKING BETTER THAN THAT!"

Honestly. You think you have something to say about the human condition that Shakespeare didn't get around to already? You're going up against every man who ever wrote a word, and with you're still squeezing yourself into the authorial crowd at the bar and going, "Yeah, whatever, you guys have had your say.... But listen to me."

So yeah. I have an ego. Have to. Otherwise, I'd never say anything. And when I get to Clarion, I've got my ideas soaked in Sterno and ready to set them on fire, and I'm hungry to be the best in the class, and I'm geared to show them how goddamned good I am.

And they're all nice people. I'm enjoying myself with them so much, throwing myself into those conversations about movies and crazy stories that I'm finding myself drawn to seventeen different people simultaneously. Their personalities come into close focus as I talk to them, and I discover that E.J. has the best deadpan delivery in the world, and Gra-with-an-accent has a rangy, easygoing charm that I adore, and shit, even as I write this now I'm like, man, I don't mean to leave you off the list, but you know how it is. This narrative will suffer if I list everyone.

Thing is, I know them as people. Writers? I can't say until they submit their story for the day. Every morning, three or four of them sends something out to us. That's when they all show me why they're here - yeah, Keffy's got a way of turning sarcasm into high art, but she wasn't brought here because of her conversational abilities.

And goddamn, I've been in critiques where there are weak sisters where you wonder why the fuck they're here. But no. Every person here. Each person. Every last one has a story that's fucking knocking my socks off.

Oh, the stories aren't perfect. I'm punching holes in all of them with my critiques along with the rest of us, pointing out bobbled endings, highlighting unclear narratives, wishing for less murky characterizations because I wnated to see more. But all of them have some core that's purest goodness, some area where my eyes pass over their words and my sclera flare bright green with envy.

Jesus Fucking Christ, I wish I'd written that, I think. And suddenly, Sarah, the girl who sends me bizarre links flourishes into Sarah, the girl who wrote that pristine intro to that Baba Yaga story, and my heart swells with pride because I'm in the room with her and that must mean that hey, I'm right here with them. I have my own strengths, and so do they, and we're all mixing our talents in one big cauldron to boil it down and distill the most beauteous moment of our voices.

It's why I stay up until one o'clock in the morning to scribble on your manuscripts, why I speak so loudly in class, why I wake up at 5:30 in the morning after three hours of sleep because my mind is so buzzing with ideas it hauls me out of bed.

These are my comrades. My team. My life. Day four, and already my world is filled with so many beautiful gifts that my heart aches with the strain of holding it all in. Day four feels like three weeks have already passed, and then Kelly Link is reading us a story that's light-years better even than that, and the gift of her art reminds us of how far we have to go - and of the trust that she's placing in us by taking a week out to come show us how to do it, to take that amazing award-winning brain that produced such perfect prose and trying her best to shape us.

And it is an us. My life for you, my friends. My art for you. My beauty in your hands.

Make me whole.

It are my birthday.

Man, I don't think anyone's going to have the energy to do anything cool, but it's fuckin' awesome here at Clarion. Loves to my folks at home. Loves to my new folks here.

Love all 'round, in fact.

Almost done with calculat-o-post. Just got sidetracked by unusually dance-packed SYTYCD ep, as well as unexpected Comment Urge on this post. My long-winded, surprisingly ranty comment is here.

>.>

Methinks a meta post needs to be put together on the subject of my thoughts on the main HP characters, just to put together what I think about JKR's portrayal of them more adequately. I kept cutting paragraphs in that comment, and I hadn't even really dug into my Lily example yet. If I do meta on it, I think I'll restrict myself to just two or three characters so I don't write myself to death, especially since I was only really interested in the moms of HP toward the end.

*is having quiet, stunned moment at the other end of the keyboard* Uh, did you see that last bit of the last sentence? I'm not quite believing that I just wrote that, although I know it's true. Completely true. I'm not sure how to convey how fucked up that feels on the face of it for me, apart from saying that I'm one of those people who is meh enough about kids to have privately declared against having them ever.

That's not to say that I can't think of reasons why I would be interested in characters like Molly, Lily, Narcissa and Bellatrix, because I can. Being old enough to be a mom means you have shit to deal with, bills to pay, baggage, an education (or an awareness of how one could have changed things), and maybe also kids. I.e., you have at least 10 years of story-worthy material sitting pretty in your head. I don't particularly want to deal with new. I like working with characters that have settled into things somewhat, but are still unbalanced enough to be surprised and challenged 70% of the time.

But I can't deny that there's also this morbid fascination with the mothers in HP, especially the ones that are better drawn or better established. Like there's a question floating in the back of my mind: "what do they have that I don't? What led them to this place, where they have (or don't have) kids?" The answer wherein you end up with kids is one I still don't get the feeling behind. I can only approximate, and that fascinates me.

But it's been a long time since I got a perfect score on a test...

( Read more... )

OK, I definitely have sufficiently lurid pyjamas now. Thanks to the cunning and generosity of reynardo, I now have bright yellow pyjamas with squirrels on them (brown outlined in fuschia pink), with "ADORABLE" and "LOVEABLE" printed all over the bits in between the squirrels, also in bright pink.

They are awesomely, spectacularly, eye-blindingly lurid.

I love them to bits.

Andrew, strange to say, does not share the love. Though he did agree that the effect of these pyjamas could only be enhanced by cross-matching tops and bottoms with the lurid jade green polka dotted pyjamas, thus allowing me to be half yellow and pink with squirrels and half jade green with black polka dots.

(I did not get the impression that he felt this enhancement would be a good thing, mind you, just that it would indeed add to the general effectiveness of the pyjamas)

I suppose that if I ever felt like being more tasteful, I could wear my bright pink (but at least plain) pyjama top with the yellow and pink and squirrelly trousers. Though it is possible that I have, in fact, missed the boat on tasteful as soon as I put any part of the yellow squirrelly ensemble anywhere near my person.

(Did I mention that yellow also looks spectacularly awful with my colouring? This only adds to the love.)

Now I want to wear lurid pyjamas ALL THE TIME.

Thank you so much, reynardo. Your gift is greatly appreciated. And inspiring. Whether or not this is a good thing will remain to be seen.

(I wonder if there is such a thing as 'visual pollution'? Do you think I will soon find out?)

I am such a dork. OK, so I'm trying to make Chocolate Nutella bars. The recipe calls for an 8x8 inch square pan. I don't have one of those. I didn't feel like doubling the recipe and using a 9x13 pan, so I thought, "Hold on, what if I take a 9" round pan? The area should come out about the same!" And it did. I feel awesome.

I'm also almost a week shampoo-free. I've washed my hair twice with a baking soda scrub since last Saturday (Saturday and Monday morning), and ( hold on, some people might not want to read this )

ETA: Hey, this is cool. A list of collective nouns for birds. Reminds me that I've been meaning to read this book for a while.

It's come to my notice that a lot of my friends and acquaintances have more casual attitudes to copyright piracy than I do, and it's occurred to me that my own relative reluctance to do various copyright-violating things is not really consistent with my stated beliefs about copyright. (Briefly: the only ethically justifiable basis for copyright law to exist at all is in order to make it possible for creative people to earn a living by being creative. Any violation of the letter of the law that doesn't interfere with a creative person's earnings is fair game. This is a more complicated position than it looks, because you have to unpack what's meant by "creative", what's meant by "earn a living", and what's meant by "interfere"... but it'll do for a first pass.)

So: a poll, because ticky boxes make everything more fun.

ETA: It occurs to me that "uploading" in question #2 is a little ambiguous, since BitTorrent requires users to upload as they download. That's relatively passive, though, and not what I'm referring to; setting up a torrent is more the kind of thing I had in mind.

Poll #1216821 Information wants to be free... OR DOES IT?!?!!!
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

I believe that obeying copyright law to the letter is...