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writings
my essay on Bast, thoughts on aromatherapy, what this page is about, reviews of stuff, and an old archive of Vents images my art page, photos from Wag 2000, and the daily image of the day for the day cast I really ought to do this, eh? misc contact information, and maybe even banners someday
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At least now I think I know what I'm doing with the site. :) >> 9:27:37 PM Bruce...I think it's California. I know that's being broadly generic and all, but speaking as someone who lived most of her childhood and all of her adolescence (as well as the bottom edge of her 20s) there, I have a good point of reference to base this on. California drivers are psychotic. And people in California are not nearly as friendly or trustworthy as they are out east. It's more metropolitan, which means there's more crime, which means people just don't have the luxury to be friendly. Or so, I think, they believe. I have family and friends who live in California, and I'm not singling any of you out nor am I referring to you. I am saying, though, that when I moved from California to Missouri there was a perceived difference in behavior. California lost whatever varnish of pleasantry it ever had years ago, and it's readily apparent in the way people treat each other, themselves, and the roads they drive on. And as much as I love my family, as much as I miss San Francisco and love the weather, it's one of the things that keeps me from moving back there. As much as I miss the weather and the cultural aspect of California, I sure don't miss the bastards in Beamers and SUVs who think they own the road. (And for the record, driving in inner-city Chicago is somewhat similar. Still not as bad as California, unless you're on the Ryan Expressway. Then all bets are off.) >> 3:49:01 PM Ahhhh. Can you say Soundblaster Live! boys, girls, and gender-inspecific others? I knew you could. It doesn't fix my frames annoyance -- for that I need a couple bottles of something guarana and a room with low lighting -- but it's nice to be able to listen to "You are my kiiiss!" here at work without the cracks and popples that my old 16-bit soundcard used to diffuse through any sound I played on my machine. And I installed it myself! Call me weird, but I kind of like installing my own computer hardware, even here at work. Not that I'm saying Jim isn't competent, but hardware installation is still a new enough thing for me that it's fun. >> 3:33:37 PM I have a confession to make. I shop Urban Decay. I know, I know. Totally poserific. But there it is. I love their design, their colors, the names they give things. I just bought $24 worth of lipstick (with free shipping till March 2nd! bwahahahaha!). I'm not a proud woman. Midnight Cowboy eyeshadow is my favorite. Whenever I wear it, people always say, "Oh wow. You're glittering!" I love their foundation. I know, I know -- it's expensive. Yes, I know! But I can't help it. I don't like putting stuff on my face unless it's Urban Decay approved stuff. I'm gonna go sleep now, but I'll be dreaming of my little tubes of KISS and Midnight Cowboy lip gunk, which are even now sitting in someone's online ordering mailbox, waiting to be cracked open. >> 2:06:03 AM
But our BBS uses frames, and so I have to find a way to work with frames. Even though I hate them. No offense to Andy. I know why he made the system the way he did, and I even agree with it, but myself...I hate frames. Ungha. >> 7:05:14 PM
The first one is actually semi-serious. Song looking thoughtful over something Graysen is telling her. The follow-up is the end of Graysen's story, which is along the lines of: "...but if you're not the Chosen One, your head explodes! Tee hee!" and Song's reaction to that.
The stippling on the first one was a huge mistake...thank goodness for the Pen tool and CTL+L. I still don't know if I like it. I did it by hand when I was inking it, and I really should have put it in with Photoshop instead. Ah well. I'm learning as I go. And speaking of going...off to bed am I! :) >> 3:47:28 AM  Inibmutes asked if I'm going to do the webcomic. The answer is -- very likely, yes. I don't have delusions as to the greatness of my art, but it's one of those things I've been wanting to do for a while and I think it's time to start.
So for your perusal, some character drawings. Most of them (except for Graysen) are what is affectionately referred to as "super-deformed", and are from sections of the comic that serve as comic relief (thus their super-cute looks).
I'm going to complete sixty strips (that's about five months's worth) before I go into this, so it'll be a while before you see word of this. I figure if I actually COMPLETE sixty strips then I really DO want to do this. And sixty was a nice, round number, that would keep the comic from falling behind should I get lazy or bored or busy. >> 3:17:55 AM
I'm disappointed that they resorted to using stunts like "pick up this tarantula and hold it in your hand for two minutes" or "put your head in this box and pull the lever so we can dump cockroaches on you". I'm really disappointed about the noose dare -- good god, that's just cruel and unusually morbid. However, there were still some clever and genuinely freaky things done (like taking Blue out of the game entirely and not telling the rest of the group until two hours later about it), and I'll be recording it once again on Sunday when it comes on. It's a study in psychology rather than parapsychology, and that right there is why I watch it -- why does this scare them? Why does it scare me? And the all-important -- would I go and do that myself? The answer is usually "no, no way, not for $5000...well, maybe for $10000". >> 11:12:32 PM Long day. Worked on code. Brain is jelly. Time to go home. >> 8:07:36 PM
I'm going to put the old Blogvoices code back in. Hopefully it won't slow down the site too much (I'm verra impatient about loadtimes, in case you didn't notice). My new desk at home is such a shock to work at. A good shock, mind you, but a shock all the same. Everything is within reach. The chair isn't perfect (I'm still using my glide rocker), but that'll be fixed after tonight. Ummm...not much else to say except maaaaybe -- Oblong! Yep, that definitely had to be said. Oh, and a new design will be coming this way sometime in the next month or sooner, depending on my workload(s). Had an idea looking at someone else's website and this page of Dreamweaver templates yesterday. The trick now is to make it my own. >> 11:59:27 AM
Tamma Who Knows All would like to remind you all that it's Love Your Pet Day. >> 12:52:58 PM Three words for you, Gryph: Carnation Instant Breakfast. 8 oz of milk and a packet of powdery chocolate stuff mixed up and sucked down in less than a minute. It's what I've been having for breakfast lately. And thank you for the kind compliments, Corey. :) I'd have added them to the blogvoice comment but I was afraid no one would ever see it because of the lack of comment counter. I'm hoping blogvoices fixes itself sometime soon, or I'm just going to disable it. >> 12:12:07 PM
And for the hardcore gamers out there, you can also check out the music video that some wackos made based on this ancient piece of 80s arcade cheese. "All your base are belong to us!" >> 3:13:02 PM Four hours working on the desk, and I'm just slightly over halfway done. I'm ambiguous toward this whole build-your-own-furniture thing. It's the time slice that bothers me about it more than anything else, though I admit that it's kind of neat allotting several hours assembling something by hand. And I know that this is the paint by numbers equivalent of building stuff, but it feels kind of neat, knowing I'm doing it all by my self. :) >> 11:56:12 AM
In case any of you were wondering. :) >> 8:30:02 PM Gotta a new desk, and it looks something like this. Except with a cherry finish. Yep. :) >> 7:22:53 PM Oh yeah, and you can find me blogging on shemsu.blogspot.com as well from now on :) (Shortly to be appearing in my links column.) >> 4:55:04 PM Beans courtesy of my new scanner. Bwahahahaha! Long day. Not much to say. Back to work I go. >> 3:47:45 PM
But it sure was fun ;) >> 6:39:04 AM
And I bought my first tool today. Huh huh. It's a 5/16 (I think?) wrench that we're going to use to disconnect my battery from my car so it can get charged up properly. I've completed three out of four of the things I set out to do this weekend: Call my father, call my grandmother, either fix the old scanner or buy a new one, and recharge my car battery. And tomorrow looks like it'll be the day for charging up the battery. Plus I got out with Ankhka and took a walk around my neighborhood when I got up. I didn't get around to cooking the baked ziti like I was going to, but other than that -- I'm feeling pretty good. :) >> 11:13:33 PM Wow. It's amazing how much better music sounds through a SoundBlaster Live. The pops and crackles are gone. I've been wanting one of these for a very long time. They also have multiple sound channels, so now I'm less likely to miss IMs. And sound doesn't break up when I'm scanning things! Speaking of which.... The new scanner -- wow! The Genius VividPro II wasn't bad -- it wasn't good, either, but for a 1999 purchase, it was fairly cheap at under $100. In fact, I would have had no reason to get a new one except that sometime between when we left Remington and came to St. Peters, it stopped scanning stuff. Bummer. Compared to the VividPro, though, this HP ScanJet 3300 C is really spiff. The scan control panel is fabulous, and it's "smart" enough to know to scan just the image, not the white space around it. (Spiff!) The scaling tools also make more sense than the VividPro's did. As for the video card -- well, we'll know how good that is when I go to play EverQuest tonight. :) >> 11:04:46 PM The scanner is now officially dead. Two years of use, and it is no more. Long live the scanner. I invested in a HP scanner this evening. I wanted the dead-sexy Canon that only weighed three pounds, but despite exhaustive efforts (we hit two separate CompUSAs in our search for one), it was all for naught. Also a SB Live and a TNT2 card. Which I will now go off and install.... >> 9:10:29 PM You would like the movie Go if you...
I recommend it. Not that I'm a raver, but as films go it was funny, slick, and even a little nerve-wracking. The story of a drug deal gone horribly, horribly, awfully funny-wrong. Oh yeaaaaah. >> 1:56:39 AM
However, the way Amazon.com is going about it? Very wrong. I'm sure there will be some Shemsu who may ask why we don't use their "Honor System" for donations. 15% is why. You heard me. They want 15% of any payment made through them. To go the distance and supply some examples for you -- my $50 monthly donation would become $42.50 if I used Amazon.com. It's obscene when you compare it to PayPal's fee schedule. Even CCNow.com is lower than Amazon.com, at 8-9%, depending on the time of year. Amazon.com. Pshaw! >> 5:59:56 PM Ah, home cooked meals. Though I know my family in California makes their own dinners just about every night, Suz, the prodigal daughter (me) has strayed from that path. Why? Because I work eight to nine hours a day, and usually come home, get back on a computer, and pull another two to five hours working as a priest or webdesigner. Cooking a meal is a two hour chunk out of that time, and thus a luxury. Don't get me wrong...tonight when we go home, I will very likely make spaghetti for me and the guys. And on weekend nights I typically make dinners (and usually more elaborate than the weekday dinners). But some days I just feel too drained, in which case we'll go to a sit-down or take-out meal instead, or crack open the five-minutes-in-the-microwave freezer meals that each of us picks out for those occassions. The "feeling drained" bit is another reason I often don't make meals. If something that taps my emotional well happens, I just don't feel up to preparing a meal. If we leave work early on some days, it's usually because I had to prepare a meal. Weds. we left work at 7:30 pm because I had to be back online at 9 pm and I knew it would take at least an hour to prepare our meal (tortilla soup -- it was very delish). I've found one of the ways to "force" the hand of preparing meals is to put some defrosted meat in the fridge. I start getting nervous that it'll go bad, and so I usually end up cooking it before that can happen. :) Mondays, though...Mondays are just about always a take-out day, and will definitely be take-out day for the next three or four months since I counsel for two hours online and follow that up with a chat for two hours. At around midnight, when I finally wrap up, there's no way I'll have time to make dinner. But that's what happens when you have two jobs, basically. It would be nice if there was another me in the house to cook and clean, but since she isn't there, I take those opportunities instead as short breaks away from my expected tasks. Funny that it comes out that way, but in my life -- that's how it goes. As a final aside: Anyone notice that both of my previous entries started with questions? What's up with that? Also, blogvoices IS once more implemented. You won't see the comments counter because of the modification I did to it to get it to load, but it's working and it's there. Anyway, enough babbling. Ciao. >> 12:26:02 PM How will you be remembered? As a saint? As a bitch? As someone who was nice, but didn't do much for others? As someone who did what s/he said? Will you, in retrospect, be fair? Willing? Stubborn? Rude? Gentle? Forceful? There was this girl in high school who I remember thinking was perfect. Her name was Tara Harper, I think. She had a prominent tan, black hair, a great smile, and she was the president of student council. Everyone Loved Tara. She even had a cool name. Tara. I'm not going to tell you I found out a big bad nasty secret about her or that she got in a carwreck on prom night or anything like that. Truth be told, I don't know where Tara is now. I just remember as a struggling-above-the-headwaters teenager thinking how perfect she was, and how I'd never be that perfect. The thing in my mind that made Tara perfect wasn't her name, her body, or her title. It was her kindness. Tara was infinitely kind. Gentle. Soft-spoken. She smiled a lot. Tara was never sad. But Tara wasn't perfect. I'm sure my friend Audrey (who does sometimes read this blog) either remembers Tara or doesn't. She may even know something about Tara that I don't remember. But it doesn't really matter. The point I'm making is that no one -- not even Tara -- is perfect. I have this theory. Call me crazy, but I believe perfection isn't a state you can achieve and sustain. Despite this, I do believe that there are moments in life where you are perfect. Satisfied. Content. You'll feel them. And then they'll go away, and you might spend your whole life trying to go back to them. Or you might see them for what they are, and go on and live, like you're supposed to. Maybe that's what bliss is. Perfection. Maybe. How is Tara remembered by me? Tara is remembered as someone who was nice to me. Tara is remembered as someone who I tried to measure myself up against. Back then I didn't realize a lot of the things I realize now. And let's face it, Tara may be a cool name -- but Stephanie meryBast Sekhauesmutes is pretty damn cool, too. >> 2:36:30 AM
Have you ever been a devious little monster like Ankhka and locked one of the kids in a place where it couldn't get out? If you haven't, here's what happens: it starts to whine. And whine. And whine. It's the most annoying sound in the world, and after a while you have one of three choices: Rip your ears off, throw your computer speakers down a well, or let the brat out. Watching Green Legend Ran in the original Japanese language was a similar experience. That's what the voice actor for the main character (Ran) sounded like. It was pretty awful. A lot of animé enthusiasts will tell you that this three-piece OAV series is a classic. I won't. I'll admit that the art is very good and the music is not bad -- the end song is decent and the character designs for everyone but Ran are pretty good. That's where the lucious Japanese goodness ends, though. The story is a rip-off of Miyazaki; even the ending lines of the main character are a painful echo of the breathtaking final words Nausicaä tells her people in the manga. Ran is not cool or interesting. You don't want him to live, and you can't find a lot of humor in his exploits, because this is not Miyazaki writing or directing this rickety story; it's a rip-off, and the worst kind because it's a poor rip-off. There is humor value intermixed with the semi-serious story, but unlike series like Fushigi Yuugi, it doesn't gel. It's really hard to take a main character seriously when he looks like he was designed by the Lupin artists (one of whom was...oh, yes, Hayao Miyazaki! Hmmm!). Maybe if he wasn't in 90% of the movie, it would be okay. But since he is in 90% of the movie -- and the movie is, in fact, named after him for some unfathomable reason -- you get almost two hours of a super-deformed uncool main character with a nails-on-chalkboard voice. Whoo yeah! Sign me up for TEN of those, Miss Hanako! Not! Not recommended, unless you're a completist, like me. For the rest -- go watch Princess Mononoke or read the Nausicaä manga. It's the same story, but fifty times better. >> 10:38:25 PM
It's not a letdown. It just means I'm going to have to find some way to divide things up so that the job of one person is dispersed over, say, three. >> 12:16:17 PM If Blogger weren't my current blog-tool of choice, I think I'd have to give Greymatter a long, hard look. I still might anyway. Andy and I will have to talk about it sometime as a viable option for the ever-expanding Mooville comooooonity. We watched Being John Malkovich tonight. I felt like I was watching a movie written by the staff of The Onion and directed by They Might Be Giants. It was definitely bizarre. Malkovich. Malkovich malkovich malkovich. Malkovich? Malkovich! >> 2:24:31 AM
And it is, of course, a Kanno Yohko song. >> 6:29:00 PM Adobe's Livemotion tutorials are about as useful as swimsuit catalogues in the desert, but there's a decent one here at creativepro.com that makes up for Adobe's inadequacies. One mug of Kenyan coffee, one package of cocoa, a spoonful of sugar, and a spoonful of creamer. If Kristoph were here, he'd finish it with a healthy dose of chocolate syrup, but it's fine without it. And about what I need to finish off the night. >> 6:25:04 PM It's an interesting world, the online gaming universe. >> 3:55:05 PM We're marking year two of the passing of Pateri. I guess it's good that I can count on my hands the people who I knew and loved who have passed away, that I can still tell you about what time of year (and in some cases, the exact date) they died. Some people don't have that luxury. Anyway, Inibmutes said it all in a poem that, one year later, at least doesn't make me cry anymore when I read it. I'm not blue or sad or depressed today. I'm just thoughtful and, having gone to bed at 4 am, a little tired. >> 12:34:24 PM
Whoa. It's the 11th? It's Sunday? Hm. Today was pretty uneventful. I spent most of it catching up on sleep, TiVo, and resting. Last night's D&D session was fun except for the last two or so hours, when Jeff and I (playing the responsible members of the party) sat around watching over the chest we're transporting because the rest of the group went off to kill bugbears. Hurray for Lawful Neutrals. :P I also learned a valuable lesson about "attacks of opportunity" and played a fighter with nine hit points. That lesson is: "Let them take the first shot, you ninny." I'll remember that. I didn't get knocked out, but it was close. Aside from that, in the encounter I was in I whupped ass in a variety of unique and unusual methods and fashions -- if I do say so myself. :) I also drew a fairly decent portrait of Dave's character and a cat-girl who I will call Super Lemon after the Nobel candy of the same name. If my #($(#&ing scanner was working, I'd be happy to show it off to you all. She's quite sassy. I used to do a lot of drawing during the campaigns I played back in California. There are stretches in any game (and especially one with ten people and one GM) where some characters are doing things while the rest cool their heels. I usually drew player characters, random bits from my head, or studies of objects on the table. The studies, quite frankly, often sucked. I'm not a very realistic artist. Maybe that's why I liked ancient Egyptian art so much when I saw it? It uses, I think, a lot of the conventions comic artists and animators today use. By that I mean the tomb or temple paintings. But not all Egyptian art is like that. The sculptures, quite frankly, blow my mind. Speaking as someone who is useless with a lump of clay, I'm always amazed by sculpture. The diligence and foresight required is something I don't have. Melissa once mentioned that it took her years to do one drawing. Like I said -- that's something I don't do. My drawing of Dave's character took about an hour, but that's only because I added detail -- the initial sketch and filling-in took about thirty minutes. Either I nail it on the first sketch, or I don't. And if I don't nail it, I move on to another page until either I do, or I admit defeat. My father is an artist. I think he told me once he wanted to be a cartoonist, but became a doctor instead. While I doubt I could ever draw professionally -- my proportions are pretty screwy -- I do enjoy doing it for fun. My brother Phil is the same way. Or used to be. I hope he's still drawing. It's a great way to dispell anxiety and work out problems. >> 10:29:35 PM
Can I blame Mercury Retro yet? Can I? Hunh? I had two slices of toasted pita and some gorgonzola cheese (what my sweetie Melissa refers to as "sweat cheese") for breakfast. Mmmm. Gorgonzola. I'm also marinating a flank steak for dinner tomorrow night. One bottle of Lawry's teriyaki marinade, a fingerful of ginger, one sliced hunky clove of garlic, and a handful of shitake mushrooms. We'll see how it turns out. We're cycling back toward being focused on the Web 2.0 project. That's not to say we weren't working on it the last month, but there were a lot of exterior distractions (webpages on the current site needing to be done, the entire Green Valley Trio being on-call for most of January) and I think we were still (!) recovering from Christmas. I'm looking forward to finishing it. The quest system needs a lot of work. But I put up a snappy 404 page (something the current play.net doesn't have, Believe It Or Not!) and did a few other...things. On top of worky work, I also have a full schedule coming with the probationer's group (I always do). The next few months should be interesting. >> 2:22:58 PM
And if that's true, I guess the domesticated cat is...um...the stage of reincarnation where you get to piss people off without consequences. ;P Heh. I'm feeling much better today. I took a bath this morning in lavandin and peppermint, which isn't to say I think they made me healthier, but it did make me feel better. I'm still unconvinced aromatherapy can have an impact on one's health in the same fashion as Advil or Tylenol can alleviate a headache. I'm speaking in regards to the inhalations that most aromatherapy books recommend; a few oils, if you apply them directly, can deliver good results (clove oil on a sore tooth, for example). And even in the inhalations department, there are exceptions -- I've used peppermint, oregano, ravensara, and eucalyptus effectively in treating colds. But... Most of the health claims, as far as I'm concerned, are simply silly. Apply X or Y to the abdominal area to cleanse the liver. Um...no. People who make these claims are overlooking what essential oils are really good for (and what I was using them for this morning) -- their ability to effect moods. On a sacred level, as well, I think essential oils are fantastic. I prefer them over incense any day of the week. And I can blend them into signature scents with relative ease (try to do that with incense). Jeff has been hooked by the voice of Arai Akino. She sings the end song of Outlaw Star ("Hiru no Tsuki"), and if you've ever heard the original Lodoss War soundtrack, you may have noticed a singer named Sherry -- that's Arai Akino (both the English and Japanese versions of "Adesso e Fortuna" and the original ending song, "Kaze no Fantasia" -- not the English version of that one, though). She's also one of the vocalists on the PSME soundtracks, singing the songs I accredit to Mokulen ("Time of Gold Flowing", "The Moonlit Song", "Tooku ka na RONDO", and so on). So anyway, one down, one to go! My Japanese music obsession is infectious! Mahahaahahah! >> 1:17:26 PM I could write to you about the godawful headache I had today, and the nausea and pain that accompanied it, but...how about not? My sister turned 35 yesterday. We're currently exchanging email on the subject. I never realized how good of a typer my sister Jenny is! Hey guys! She's single, she's a babe, and SHE CAN TYPE! Imagine me as much taller, with great hair, snappier comebacks, and a size four. That's my sister Jen. Continuing the semi-random quotes thread....
There is nothing like using restraint. Restraint begins with giving up one's own ideas. This depends on virtue gathered in the past. If there is a good store of virtue, then nothing is impossible. If nothing is impossible, then there are no limits. If a man knows no limits, then he is fit to be a ruler. The mother principle of ruling holds good for a long time. This is called having deep roots and a firm foundation. The tao of long life and eternal vision. Tao te Ching 59 (English/Feng transl.)
I really wasn't think about anyone or anything when I posted the previous entry. It's just one of those things that struck me. I bought art supplies. I'm drawing again. Be afraid. :) >> 11:39:11 AM I am, at long last, working on revising the Wehem area of Kemet.org because it's been a while and it needs to be done. Anyway, I ran across this quote in the Wehem that was written after we learned of PaTeri's untimely passing. Two years ago it was hard for me to read this and get much out of it since my brain was still in shock. Now it makes a lot more sense. I thought I'd include it here.
"And grief is in fact owed to the dead as the only ingredient that can help complete the death process. Grief delivers to the dead that which they need to travel to the realm of the dead -- a release of emotional energy that also provides a sense of completion or endedness, closure. This sense of closure is also needed by the griever, who has to let go of the person who has died. We have to grieve. It is a duty like any other duty in life." Malindoma Patrice Some
So anyway, there we were -- five people living in a three-bedroom, one-bath apartment because we'd nearly gone bankrupt from moving back and forth to and from Colorado, and what do my parents do? They buy their daughter a computer. Even back then, I knew what that meant. I never in a million years expected them to buy me one. I don't know how they afforded it. They just did. In addition to using it as a word processor, my Zenith PC was also capable of playing games. And the first game I bought for it was Pool of Radiance, a classic "goldbox" game from SSI. I played it until the data on my computer got corrupted and couldn't play it anymore. I never finished it, but I have fond memories of sitting up late, late at night with my band of four or five adventurers, sneaking around graveyards and abandoned warehouse districts, killing trolls and ju-ju zombies. Years later, after my brief stint of using a Mac, I sold the Zenith to my second college roommate. By then it was nothing more than an antiquated piece of hardware, but I'd gotten a heck of a lot of use out of it. Ultimately, it would be a device of revenge upon an individual who made my life pretty much hell for four months -- but at least I got $100 out of her for it. Anyway, this trip down nostalgia lane is brought to you by SSI, who are remaking Pool of Radiance! Or making a sequel. I don't know. Doesn't matter! It's Pool of Radiance! It's nostalgia! Now all I need is for someone to bring back Wishbringer and Fool's Errand, and my retro-experience will be complete. >> 12:41:22 PM
And you know how much I just love debate. Mercury has a sense of humor. :P >> 4:51:21 PM Fun fun martial arts resource. We're not just talking about that ninja stuff, either. >> 3:31:35 PM
ME: Exposition is a tricky thing in fiction. JEFF: How so? ME: Well, for one, it's something that new authors tend to do badly. They spend days and months and years building up all this backhistory for their Favorite Little World, and then they go and ruin it all by having a character go too far into explaining what kind of fish swim in the stream outside the castle of Their Hero. JEFF: Unh-huh. ME: In actuality, your reader cares as much about reading lists as my journal readers care about me doing a side-by-side comparison of my desktop screenshots. JEFF: Heh. Heh. Heh. ME: See? I knew people found that boring -- but it's my journal. Screw it! I can't say that when I'm writing fiction, though, because it's not self-indulgent -- you're there to entertain, not pillow-fluff your ego. I mean, I as an author find those sorts of trivia backfill things interesting, and the new author finds it interesting because they spent five or six hours researching breeds of fish, what kind of water they like, what areas they live in, and what type of current they can exist in, but does the reader really give a damn? No! They just want to see the hero get eaten by the fish. What the research is good for -- and what new authors don't understand or are nervous about -- is the author's own personal immersion. I have that knowledge, and it helps to immerse me in the story, and it makes the writing better, but fiction writing should not bring to mind a research paper. The analogy I like is that of a stained glass window. Research should be the sunlight that shines gently through the glass. It should not be a note tied around a brick that you throw through the window. JEFF: Hm. So what does this have to do with my enchilada?* ME: Not much. But see, the problem I'm having with the Valdemar story is I'm tired of writing throw-away stories, but I'm also not used to writing stories with messages that don't make the reader's eyes glaze over. Writing stories that have a real, impacting meaning is harder than avoiding the list-trap, but it's the same problem. If you shove it down the reader's throat, all you're going to do is turn them off. And if you're going to do that, you might as well just go to work for Jack Chick and be done with it. No offense to my Christian readers. JEFF: Okay. ME: So I don't know what I'm going to do. Or maybe I do. And it has to do with what Ini wrote recently. We'll see. JEFF: Name the heroine Dorothy. ME: How bout...um...not. * He didn't really say that. But it's okay. It came out much more interesting this way. >> 2:54:33 AM
And my Valdemar story. And my book...which is discouraging me. Donna and I talked over the first few chapters, and she is correct -- there's some problems with the way I'm building some of the characters. So I have to think of a way to ammend that, because if I don't nip it now it'll just get worse as things go along. Meanwhile -- aside from needing to clean up some of the text and put the glyphs on the page, the article on Pasht is pretty much done. When I get the glyphs in, I'll probably post to the AEL pointing out that it has been revised in response to the post there. And then I can once again ignore this for a while. ;) For those of you who don't know who Pasht is or why I'd devote time toward disproving her existence...in my time wandering the Internet, looking at pages about my spiritual Parent, I've found a lot of instances where people believed She was a form of or related to a goddess identified as "Pasht". One author goes so far as to claim that "Pasht" is the root word for "passion" (thus linking Bast as a "sex/love goddess"). I think I even read a book (a published, bonafide, non-fiction historical book on the cat) that claimed the word "puss" comes from Pasht (uh...yeah, whatever). I actually thought there was a Pasht when I began the Bast essay thing -- though I didn't for a second believe the linguistic bullshit -- and then one day I was looking for information about Pasht, and realized there was a) No entry for a Pasht in George Hart's book and b) There was no entry for Pasht in Faulkner's. And at that point, it dawned on me that she just might not exist. And she doesn't. But the essay explains why. So if you're interested, go read. Egyptology is fun. :) We also found out that the authors of the Woerterbuch seem to think that the B3st.t spelling is meant to mean "She of Bast". Which still means that the ancient Egyptians knew Her as Bast, but since they also called the city Bast, they used that as a way to differentiate the two...and probably also because they didn't want to say Her name. It's a little mind-bending, I know...it makes sense to me, for what it's worth. I'll be talking about that further after I revise the Bast essay sometime in spring. We played our campaign tonight. Tsuki's quiet, lawful neutral, zen-like self is turning out to be hard to roleplay in a group of nine others who are mostly chaotic, boisterous, or downright scary personalities (Bubba in particular is a little freaky when he goes into Determined Paladin Guy mode). Hopefully next week, now that we're sorting things out, there'll be more chance to break her personality in as well as her flying jump kicks ("HoooWAAAAAA!"). >> 2:48:29 AM
You know what's scary -- I do have roasted soybeans in my cupboard right now. Heh. >> 2:12:07 PM Let's do a side-by-side comparison, shall we?   On the left we have my desktop after two weeks or so of rearranging and reacquainting. Note the almost total lack of extraneous shortcuts. It's relatively pristine, allowing plenty of breathing space for that really sweet drawing of Issei and his past-life self. On the right we have my home desktop, the result of three years of working with the same harddrive. Messy, messy, messy! I keep intending to clean it up...but...well.... Desktops are a fascinating look into the minds of geeks, in my opinion. Or at least I think so. :) Did I mention I have a date Sunday? It's with a very special someone. Not my typical type -- I don't usually go for blondes (even dark ones), but I'm making an exception this time. Okay, okay, I won't tease any further -- Melissa had an extra ticket to a concert, and since the men she asked didn't know better, I get to be her "date". Lucky! >> 3:06:42 AM
So about this whole priest thing that Ini brought up.... Well, she pretty much said it all. How do I put this in my own snappy terms? I have to think about this. >> 1:08:20 PM Hee hee. I want my own WTF? mug. :) >> 12:24:59 PM
After all that, my brain is toast. After work, we went to Petsmart for kitty litter, and I wandered around lugging an extra-big container of Pearl Fresh dazedly mumbling, "Did we forget anything?" every thirty seconds to Ankhka. Seriously. Tomorrow I'll bang on the system some more. Tonight, after the saq-Nisut (AUS), we'll go off and have what is turning into one of our twice-monthly IHOP dinners. Mmm. Lingonberry. In other news, the Peter Sellers classic Being There is coming out on DVD in April. I haven't seen it, but I've always wanted to since it's one of my mom's favorite movies. That, and Somewhere in Time which I, too, admit a certain soft-hearted fondness for. Something I guess about true lovers parted and reunited. When the theme is done right, I just go ga-ga over it (and that, friends, is the secret to my love for Fushigi Yuugi). >> 9:36:45 PM Blogvoices is being very unreliable today. Couldn't even load this page this morning. (sigh) Anyway, for those of you who are Blogvoice users, check out the <head> source of my page. You'll have to skim past the styles and FAQ toward where the header ends and the body starts, but you should see some <script> tags in there. I put a link to a JS script that takes over the functions the Blogvoices site usually handles. You'd have to uncomment and comment it as BV goes up and down, but it's better than having no page load or crashing people's browsers. The script looks like this. If I was a better JS coder I might try and figure out a way to check to see if the BV site is up or not. You should also place a page on your site that handles the bvdown.html message. The rest of you, ignore me. :) >> 1:50:51 PM I hate being woken up by leg cramps. I never got leg cramps before I moved to Missouri. They're still a new and painful experience to me. I don't get them often. Usually after exercising. On one hand, they really hurt. On the other hand, if I getting them it means that I must have done something right the other day when I put my body through stretches and lunges, so there. As cramps go, though, the ones of the leg region are not so bad. Abdominal cramps are worse because they can range between knife-like pain to that abyssmal dull ache. And let me tell you, I have a whole heaping shoveful of dislike for dull aches. Have I ever mentioned I really, really, really don't like Star Trek. I don't enjoy the show at all. Babylon Five yes, Star Trek and it's thirty-one flavors -- no. I think the only Star Trek franchise I ever was interested in was Next Gen, but even that doesn't really jazz me (though I will admit that "Inner Light" was a pretty well-written and well-acted episode, and the song that Larry Warner and Chris Dickenson wrote about it is just wonderful to perform). We're up to the inquisition episode of Babylon Five. Like the television reporter episode, this is one of those that I think was somewhat weak. Maybe it's just painful to see a character you've been following for three years being tortured. Or icky. It's definitely icky. After this, we'll be quickly arriving at season five, I believe, and that's the point where I left off all those years ago. I always wanted to know how B5 ends. Now I get to find out -- in widescreen! >> 12:42:30 PM Suz, in my opinion it's the evolution of language. The dialect I speak is different from the one people spoke 50 years ago. I remember my 7th grade English teacher talking about how she lamented the way "kids speak today" (and that was back in 1988). If anything, I find things like l33t to be amusing and fascinating. As a writer, I can't help but be fascinated by the changes in language. There's only one constant to the universe: change. Or, if you're Kemetic, there's only one constant, ma'at, and we're all constantly adjusting to keep up with Her. But if you're not, what I said previously also makes sense. :) >> 12:05:53 PM |
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