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Crazy
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Dec. 6th, 2009 @ 06:01 am
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125 NPCs. 25-75 left to go. I keep getting ideas for acquaintances the more I try to think up enemies. Unfortunately, those acquaintances aren't the "job title; why I know them in 20 words or less" that I'm aiming for. No, I appear to need acquaintances who have bizarre plot hooks.
But it's progress nevertheless.Current Mood:  creative |
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I had a spam email slip through the filters today with the subject line "Invest in your wang" and the first thought that crossed my mind was "that's a volatile stock to add to a portfolio." Get it? Because it goes up and down a lot? And don't get me started on my follow-ups about small cap, large cap, and international wang stocks, because the metaphor breaks down really fast.
I think I've maybe suffered permanent damage to my humor programming as a result of working in financials too long...Current Mood:  silly |
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2 queries isn't 10 queries, but it's more than I've sent out in three weeks, so it's a start. It would probably go a bit faster if I didn't spend so much time trying to psychoanalyze agents based on what they write in their blogs, but I understand this behavior is fairly normal in authors in this social networking world of ours.Current Mood:  accomplished |
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I'm still not 100%, but I can probably survive for 5 hours in a car. Then I can continue to baby myself until con starts tomorrow evening. This thing hit me *hard*. I was feeling a little out of it Tuesday evening, and by 11 on Tuesday night I was desperate for sleep. Slept 28 of the next 32 hours, then slept another 8 hours. Fever peaked at 101.1 at 11am on Wednesday, so yeah, I wasn't going anywhere yesterday.
I've had food and coffee today, so hopefully my body will start getting back in whack - or at least let me know what parts of what is wrong with me actually have to do with being sick. Caffeine withdrawal symptoms are easy to confuse with certain cold/flu symptoms, and I'd rather be able to tell whether I'm sick or just Jonesing.Current Mood:  sick |
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First they "forget" my user settings so I get an update whenever someone's character in D&D Tiny Adventures gets a boil on his or her ass - or whenever anyone on my friends list plays *any* game. Okay, fine. I start re-hiding the spam posts. Only Facebook doesn't actually save any of my settings, so I keep getting game spam every time I login.
Then their site is 5600-baud make-a-sandwich-while-you-wait-for-it slow to load all week long. C'mon, I *know* you have more bandwidth than this.
Then I login today, and my *entire* friends list has been deleted, along with every post I have ever made. That's between 150 and 160 names I now have to pull from my imperfect memory, send another friends request to, and wait for confirmation from. And what happens when I do that? Is that list going to be wiped out again in two months? Is Facebook in the habit of erasing my account information without warning or explanation?
So I start looking for some news item on the site somewhere and dig around in what passes for help files. Nothing. Not even a few hairs to serve as a clue to what the hell is going on with my account.
I've had a LiveJournal account since 2003. I've seen interruptions in service. I've seen stupid corporate drama. But I haven't had any serious problems with LJ in 6 1/2 years.
EDIT: And now it's magically restored my friends list. Still slow as hell. I might be unusually cranky because I'm sick and losing my voice, and I'm supposed to be on panels at a con this weekend. Enough of this. Time for bed.Current Mood: sick |
| » Addicted to self-study? |
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I could go to bed right now, but I won't. Just one more module of French...
I was a terrible student in high school and college. Too much being told I was smart when I was in grade school, I think. I had no discipline. At some point, though, I learned it well enough to tackle big projects. That or I just work best at my own pace - breakneck some of the time and slacker some of the time.
Or maybe it's because this software makes learning a foreign language feel like leveling up in D&D...
Put another way, Unit 3 of 4 of Level 1 of 3 complete. And I think I'll tackle the first of 4 Lessons of Unit 4 tonight before bed. Because I don't have to get up early tomorrow anyway, and this feels more like fun than like work, tonight - the best time to work on *any* project, in my experience.
Speaking of, I've been tapped yet again for an even bigger and badder version of a project at work that I first started working on back in early 2008. First it was a version for our local call center. Then it was an expanded version for two different call centers. And now it's an even more expanded version for three different call centers. Of course, it remains to be seen if the other members of this project team love my ideas nearly so much as the last two teams did.
I really don't get the Dilbert blues very often, which is why I like my job so much even though it has nothing in common with the fantasy career I had visualized for myself back in college. Oh sure, there are plenty of little irritations, some that involve internal procedures or misunderstandings and others that involve external customers. But I genuinely feel appreciated by my peers, my managers, and my co-workers, and that's worth a lot more to me than whether I'm "using my degree" in my daily work. Hell, my job stays at the office and gives me plenty of time to, say, learn French or write books while paying me enough to live in reasonable comfort. That's kind of all I really ask of it.
Anyway, to French.
Oct. 17th, 2009 @ 02:50 am
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| » Je parle le francais un peu. |
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I'd like French reading recommendations from francophone friends and family. I'm talking bare bones reading level, at this point. Picture books and comics are probably best, since they give me definitions via visual context rather than letting me fall back on a French-to-English dictionary. Never thought I'd see the day *again* when I wasn't ready for chapter books, yet, but here I am.
I'm coming along slowly, but my pronunciation is still pretty terrible. My writing is *slightly* better, this time around. At least I'm *noticing* circumflexes and accent marks. It actually hurt me to leave out the circumflex in the subject line, but I'm far, far too lazy to figure out if there's a way to add it.
It would be totally wicked if I got to the point of being conversational (or, almost unthinkable, fluent) in French, but I'd be happy just to be able to move out of the children's section of the library, as it were, and read at my age level. No seriously. I want to be able to read and write French confidently enough to enjoy Dumas and Guy de Maupassant and Voltaire. That would be enough for me.
In the news of the awesome, I'm now able to read about 80% of my writer profile on www.legrog.org - an RPG website for French-speaking gamers. Don't look at me like that. They came to *me* asking to add my writer info because of my (minimal) work on PARANOIA. Granted, I don't have the reading skills to read anything else on the site, but baby steps, right?
Because I can't imagine *not* knowing how to talk about RPGs in whatever language I'm trying to speak/write. I don't win at any language until I can talk D&D in it. But I'm fairly confident that my Rosetta Stone experience will not tell me how to say "Vorpal Longsword +1" in French, so I have to rely on francophone geeks to teach me francophone geekery.
EDIT: It might be the wine talking, but point de vie. Point de vie, point de vie, point de vie! HP = PV. Oui. C'est le vin. Mon lit ecoute a moi. Je l'ecoute.
More missing accent marks. Too tipsy to switch my keyboard's language. Bedtime.
Oct. 16th, 2009 @ 03:26 am
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| » The Zen of cats |
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I'm currently watching the cats chase each other up and down the basement stairs and battling for dominance over the chair in the family room. Doesn't look like I'll need the laser pointer to have them entertain me tonight...
After considering their personalities and other factors, it looks like we've done the geeky thing and named them Luke and Leia.
Sep. 24th, 2009 @ 12:30 am
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| » Home sweet bed |
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Back from Erie, PA. Lots of family. Inadequately restful sleep at hours I usually spend awake and coffee at hours I usually spend asleep. My body is very confused, and I am very tired and in dire need of a massaging bath. I'm going to get on that in the near future. Facebook will have to wait until tomorrow.
Sep. 7th, 2009 @ 08:26 pm
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| » Comes now the power |
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Installed carbon monoxide detector. Fixed dishwasher hose so it won't backwash anymore (yay physics!). Caulked the gap in the master bath's tile next to the shower to prevent shower water from seeping into the ceiling downstairs.
Also found a use for 4th Ed's stats for Tiamat. Nevermind that my PCs are only level 9. They'll probably enjoy the challenge, right? I believe in them!
Need to return to a regular exercise regimen lest I undo the last 2 years' work through sedentary living. It'll be a bit easier once we have a TV in the basement, but my office will have to do until then.
Aug. 17th, 2009 @ 02:15 am
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| » Not exactly the way I wanted to cut down on my internet usage |
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I just spent about three hours cleaning the apartment kitchen and giving the rest of the place a quick once-over. One day soon I'll have a bit more of my life back, but I'm afraid it's going to have to wait until this moving process is finished. At least this *should* be the last of the apartment cleaning, so I should be able to turn in the keys on Saturday. Now I can concentrate on settling into the house - unpacking, getting essential tools I never dreamed I'd need when I was living in an apartment, and going through the list of household projects I need to complete sooner rather than later.
Of course, that makes it sound like I've had time to *make* a list. I haven't, but that will be the first step - just ahead of prioritizing the items on this hypothetical list. I'll feel so much better once the grass is mowed, the carbon monoxide detectors are installed and inspected, and the last of the moving trash is hauled away. These are the sorts of things that can get a homeowner fined for failing to do them in these parts.
Hopefully I'll at least manage to find a couple hours toward the end of the week that I can use to plan D&D. Of course I feel somewhat guilty for wanting to have some free time when Beth has been working nonstop on getting the house livable while I've been at work. By the same token, though, I bought a house; it didn't buy me. Yes, I want it to be well-maintained, and I'm prepared to do what it takes to keep it like that, but while some projects need to be done as soon as possible, others will keep a week, a month, or even years. We worked very hard to get exactly what we wanted in a move-in-ready condition precisely because we didn't want to spend all our free time for the next several years fixing up the house. It's not perfect, but it's in great condition already, and we can make improvements to it gradually rather than trying to cram everything into the first year of owning it.
Anyway, I really need to stop rambling about a to-do list I haven't even written yet and get to bed.
Aug. 12th, 2009 @ 03:20 am
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| » The coffee it does nothing |
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I'm finally sleeping deeply again, but I think my body is now playing catch-up from the last month of semi-insomnia, because I'm completely wiped and it's not even 1:30, yet. So much for my grand plans to finish cleaning the apartment kitchen tonight. I think I'm going to go pet a very needy cat for awhile and then go to bed. Maybe I'll get up early enough to do this chore before work tomorrow, but I think I might just need the rest.
The list of projects I need to do and things I need to buy for the house is a bit overwhelming, at the moment. Intellectually, I knew it would be, but knowing and experiencing are two different things. I need to sit down and write up a to-do list soon, but it won't be tonight.
Aug. 11th, 2009 @ 01:21 am
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| » If you don't like the weather... |
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It figures that during a summer of severe drought the first night of nonstop thunderstorms and torrential downpours we get happens on the night when I'm supposed to be hauling fragile stuff to the house. All I ask is a window of opportunity one load wide, and then it can rain the rest of the night for all I care.
Guess I spend more time building boxes for kitchen items, instead.
Aug. 8th, 2009 @ 01:23 am
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| » We're homeowners! |
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They managed to get the deal to go through, and we closed at noon today after an ordeal of waiting lasting more than four months.
Now we just have to finish this whole moving thing we started preparing a couple weeks back.
Aug. 5th, 2009 @ 02:40 pm
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| » Hope on life support |
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It sounds like we'll be closing on Friday. I'll give the Oscar acceptance speech once I have the keys to the house, though. We should know for sure by the time I get up tomorrow - really, this time.
Jul. 30th, 2009 @ 02:09 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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LOL Cat 50 Years Later
Sketch comedy from that guy who does Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. This looks to be a promising project.
Jul. 29th, 2009 @ 01:44 am
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| » Gentle reminder |
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Once all this moving stuff is done and I have my life back, I'm planning to send out a round of submissions to various agents and/or editors. For anyone who generously volunteered to read Kingmaker or Lesson, there's no rush and I'm certainly not making any demands, but I'll admit that feedback will do us the most good if it comes prior to our sending submissions in August-ish. That being said, we welcome readers and feedback at any time.
Things have been slow but (virtually) sure on that front, though it looks about 70% likely that we'll miss our anticipated closing date of 7/24 for a variety of reasons that are not our fault (seller-side signatures needed on documents). Even if we magically manage to close Friday, we've put off the move until 8/1.
I cannot wait until I have the house key in my sweaty hand. It's been an extraordinarily long four months. Yes. Four. Months.
Jul. 21st, 2009 @ 02:48 am
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| » Preoccupied |
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CONvergence was awesome. Awesome music. Awesome conversations with awesome geeks. Awesome panels with awesome guests.
Did have one moment of mild irritation involving a party that kind of crossed the line between explaining its belief structures and stepping on or insulting the beliefs of others. The former is not at all unusual - from other cons trying to attract guests to folks of non-mainstream sexual persuasions trying to show people that what they do/are isn't shameful to folks who really want to share their love of Doctor Who. The latter, however, is not such a brilliant idea.
Please note: Encouraging passers-by to tear pages out of a Bible by yelling "desecrate" at them shuts down any dialogue you might otherwise provoke from people who do not already share your belief structures. It also tends to undermine your arguments that you're the rational ones in the theism/atheism debate. If a religious group tried to reach out to people who are not certain whether or not they believed in God by encouraging people to set pages of science books on fire to prove that science doesn't have all the answers, they'd get much the same emotional response from me - embarrassment on their behalf.
Destroying books is always irrational behavior. I don't care why you say you're doing it.
You could have been ripping out pages of Rush Limbaugh's latest book or Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, for all I care, but when you destroy a book in anger and as an effigy of an opinion or belief you don't share, you instantly lose the argument. It's like an offshoot of Godwin's Law. It's the reaction of an adolescent or even a child - not the response of an intelligent, rational adult. And if you're trying to convince people that you're more rational than people who don't share your beliefs, you're failing as miserably as the most hypocritical Christian who claims religion makes them better people even as they behave like monsters to their fellow human beings.
That's right. "Ours is a rational view of the Universe" is sort of the atheist version of "they will know we are Christians by our love." If you don't practice it, you destroy the reputation of your system of thinking/belief for everyone else who believes as you do, including the ones who practice what you preach.
You started out so well, too. I wasn't hanging out there at the beginning of the night because I have a passion for orange Tang mixed with vodka. I come to room parties and stay at them for the conversation. I like meeting interesting new people - hearing their stories and connecting with them as fellow geeks and people. You seemed like some interesting folks, and while we both knew going into the conversation that there were some things we were going to have to agree to disagree about, I felt like there was the potential for a conversation about things other than religion.
But now that image is burned into my memory. You haven't ruined my opinion of atheists, because I know several of them whose lack of theism manifests in actually rational behavior. But you've destroyed any respect I might have had for you and the organization you profess to represent. Whatever issues about religious people you have to work out please work them out in a more productive and rational way than having people destroy books to prove to you that your beliefs are better than anyone else's.
To all my atheist friends out there, please don't take this as an attack on you. Seriously, it was the folks at this party who were out of line, and I was at least partially irritated on your behalf. There are few beliefs (or a-beliefs) that I can't respect on some level, but hypocrisy pisses me off and fills me with loathing and contempt.
And here you probably thought I was going to obsess about the house some more.
Jul. 8th, 2009 @ 11:30 pm
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| » Peer Pressure |
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I finally caved to peer pressure. I'm now at Facebook. Several of my friends are there but not here and vice versa, and I'd rather keep up with all of them. Not planning to delve into the weird games and whatnot they supposedly have over there or anything...
Jul. 5th, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
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| » Not paying 60 bucks for 3 days of internet access |
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Beth and I are off to CONvergence in just a short while and will be out of contact with the outside world until Sunday afternoon or evening. If you're going to be a CONvergence, I'll see you there.
Jul. 2nd, 2009 @ 11:12 am
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