I posted this as a comment in one of chaoticmoth's posts, but I figured it merited its own amusing post, since it's so well done. See how many you recognize! :p

Stolen from chang0002, for those who are Rock Band fans...

more graph humor and song chart memes


more song chart memes

Friday and I'm back in the office. Thankfully it looks to be a quick and relatively painless day. w000t!

So one of the 'brilliant ideas' our fearless politicians have up their sleeves is to close down a few streets to cars. One of them, although a potential pain in the butt, does make a bit of sense: closing parts of the Embarcadero from the ball park north past the Ferry Building and up to Washington, and closing that street up to Chinatown (more about that here). The only PITA part of it is that we usually take the Embarcadero when we want to get onto 280, and this would successfully cut us off (well not really--we'd just have to shlep down Van Ness and onto 101, or take side streets down to 280, but still, it would be a PITA).

The latest one, though, is to have them shut down Market Street.

Yeah, I don't think that one's a very good idea. Take a look at this map:



They're thinking of shutting down Market between Justin Herman Plaza (where the Ferry Building is), down to Octavia (where that red line on the Central Skyway ends--this is an old map, btw, it doesn't cross Market anymore :p ).

See the problem? I do. The only streets parallel to Market is in SoMA, so that means that there'd be TONS of traffic on Mission (the first bolded street south of Market), which is tight to begin with. And nothing to the north, and don't get me started on the congestion on THOSE streets during rush hour. And I don't feel like spending an extra hour trying to get home, thank you very much (for the record, that black dot under "San Francisco" on 10th street is pretty much the location of where I work).

Like I said, interesting plan on paper, but not so much on the execution. ;)

Wow...looks like a light day today, emailwise! O_o...

*knocks on wood*

Here's to hoping it remains this quiet today...!!

Hmm...maybe I can sneak in a few words on one of my WIPs during the day... ;)

I happened upon this site by accident (well, sort of...emmalyon was looking for any yarn stores in Denver while we're there, and this site came up:

http://www.knitmap.com/

Neat stuff--thought you'd enjoy it! :)

Check out the New and Improved Tor.com. I think they're trying to be a literary MySpace (minus the trolls and annoying music modules), but it's still pretty shiny and very cool. Lots of writing, pictures, downloads, blogs, and whatnot. Worth checking out!

And if you happen to sign on, add my name to your list of followers. Or not. Up to you. :p


ETA: MORE INCENTIVE! Until July 27, they're going to keep available all the ebooks and wallpapers they've been giving away all summer via their mailing list. Lots o' good stuff from John Scalzi, Kate Elliott, Kage Baker, Karl Schroeder, Jo Walton, and more! [End of shameless plug]

So lynxreign had mentioned old floppy disks in one of his posts this morning, and it got me thinking of the old Apple IIc games I used to play in high school...pretty tame compared to today of course, but at the time (1986-88) they were a lot of fun to play. These were simple games like Lemonade Stand, where you'd decide how many cups of lemonade you wanted to sell and for how much, and depending on the day/weather/chance, you'd see how much money you'd make with each turn. Nice little simple game about making profits and keeping it in the black. And if I remember, each day would start off with a quick MIDI song snippet like "Stormy Weather" or something like that.

The only other game I can think of at the moment was "Jungle Hunt", which was one of my favorites...another simple one, in which the player had to get a little guy to swing on vines, jump over boulders (which looked suspiciously like Cocoa Puffs), and swim with alligators.

So...anyone else have memories of those simple games of yore?

Still feeling dead tired this morning, and I'm not sure why. It's not as if I didn't get enough sleep...I just feel sore and tired, like what sleep I did get wasn't all that restful. I don't feel like doing anything today, which kind of annoys me since I do want to get some writing done.

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More annoyance: my wireless keyboard and mouse finally gave up the ghost last night after realizing it wasn't the rechargable batteries that were dying. I've got the original keyboard and mouse plugged back in, which of course means I can't put the keyboard on my lap while writing...but ah well. That's what I get for buying the cheapass Microsoft version for $15 at Office Max! :p

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I love the fact that the new show The Cleaner is using Depeche Mode's "Clean" for their commercials. The song works on so many levels for that ad, now I'm curious as to how the show will be. It stars Benjamin Bratt, so I figure it can't be too bad. That, and the show is on A&E, so it should at least not suck. :p

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Rewriting Love Like Blood this week went very slow, due to the week being so sucktastic at work. I've managed to get a few pages in here and there, but nothing big. I also didn't write down any of the wordcount I got this week either, due to it being low. But I know I at least did something with it, so it's not a total loss. Hopefully this coming week will be better.

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Work Stuff: Had not one but two meetings with my boss on Friday (one a monthly one-on-one, the other the weekly email-team meeting), and I think we all came to the conclusion that it wasn't so much the sheer number of emails we'd been getting, as it was the level of difficulty. For some reason we've been getting a lot of stuff that can't be solved by simply taking a look at the file to see what went wrong. I think we all decided that we'll do what we can, and if we're a day or so behind on the emails, so be it. Makes me feel better that it wasn't just me feeling a bit helpless there.

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OMGYAY MY PERSONAL CREDIT CARD PAID OFF IN FULL OMGYAY

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That's about it for now...not sure what we have planned for today (maybe a walk to the library or somewhere else), but I've a feeling we'll have another lazy day. Have a good Sunday, kids!

Not much happening today...went to see the 11am showing of Hellboy II, and of course enjoyed it immensely...great cinematography, great soundtrack (the fact that they used Travis' "All I Wanna Do Is Rock" in a key scene amuses me to no end, and Eels' "Beautiful Freak" was also a great choice), and I have to say this one, although it had more action to it, it was also sillier. Many scenes played for the humor (the Krauss/Hellboy smackdown was straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon). Oh yes--I'd completely forgotten about Krauss until he walked on screen--totally not how I'd expected him to be played but totally worth it!

So yeah--two BIG thumbs up for Hellboy II. Even though emmalyon has to state that the BPRD building is actually in Newark, not in Trenton, as the screen erroneously stated. ;)


Tomorrow? Maybe a walk, some laundry...and not much else. Hopefully we can get some sleep too. :p

A picture of for emmalyon... :p



more cat pictures

...I've just found out that starting next week, I can start working at home TWO days a week. So Wednesday and Thursday I can sit around and goof off are my two WAH days now.

WOOHOO! :)

(list idea yoinked from bonniers and abennettstrong)

Jonc's Nifty List of All the Writing He Has Too Little Time to Work On


Current Projects

Love Like Blood -- close to two-thirds done on the second revision. Basically cleaning up the prose and grammar, padding some scenes that look a bit thin, and keeping an eye on the flow.

Can't Find My Way Home -- still outlining and worldbuilding. This one still needs a lot of work.

Eden Cycle Trilogy -- Kinda sorta on the backburner for now (read: don't have time for it at the moment), but ready to go when I have the extra time. Moved to the Dana for easy access. And _nimisha_ has a copy so at least I have one fan of it. ;)

Belief in Fate/Decline and Fall -- outlining the original to use for planned rewrite. I know, outlining after the fact doesn't make much sense. :p

On the Backburner/Trunk Novels/Other

Children of Dun Corran -- *sigh* I really liked the idea behind this one, but I wasn't feeling it at all. I may pick this one up sometime in the future, but for now it's been put away.

IWN -- I should either kill this one off or release it when I'm like 82 or something and in need of a quick buck. :p


(that's all I can think of for now...)

more song chart memes



more song chart memes

It just dawned on me how much we have planned this late-summer-into-fall season. Worldcon in Denver, and the California State Fair, both in August; tickets to the opera The Bonesetter's Daughter in late September; and a trip back east in early October.

I'm sure there's going to be more that I just don't know about yet, but of course you all know I'll post about it as soon as it happens. ;)

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Oh--and speaking of the State Fair, check out their webpage on just how much silliness they have this year. Animals! Horse racing! Food that's really bad for you! Kitten-petting! Grand Funk Railroad! Hollywood Sound Effects! Weird Al! And MORE!!! OMG I could plotz!

(No lie--there really is a kitten-petting area. Look here at #6.)

It's kind of scary that we're both looking forward to the fair for a second time. :p

Comment on this post and I will choose seven interests from your profile. You will then explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

I suckered myself into this one via chang3002, so here's my answers for him:

bad puns
I grew up with bad puns...my dad and one of my sisters used to challenge each other with them during dinnertime, much to the rest of my family's dismay. ;) What can I say? I love wordplay. Although I have to say I'm a bit out of practice when it comes to throwing out painful zingers. I have to start that up again... (In the meantime, go here. You won't be sorry. Okay, maybe you will. Depending on whether you like them as much as I do. ;) )

conlangs
I got into creating fictional languages when I wrote the Eden Cycle trilogy. I created anjshé (a primer of which you can find on my LJ here) originally as an alien language that had to somehow tie in with the human race for plot reasons, so there are many influences hiding in it, such as Japanese, mangled English, and a bit of Gaelic thrown in. It's by no means extensive, but it was fun to create and maybe when I get back to the trilogy I'll extend it.

driving
When you grow up in the middle of nowhere in midwestern Massachusetts, you've got to enjoy driving or you're screwed. I have no problem driving long distances, which is actually quite funny since out here in California, driving more than ten miles is considered a major journey (unless you're going on vacation down to SoCal...then you're just nuts and too cheap to fly). emmalyon hasn't gotten behind the wheel once since we moved out here, but I have no problem with that...I still enjoy driving.

pocky
Come on...who doesn't love miniature chocolate-covered breadsticks? Or the fact that the dark chocolate ones are called Men's Pocky?? :p

stan brakhage, maya deren
I'm putting these two together because they're two filmmakers I studied in college. I will admit that sometimes when I watch experimental filmmakers, sometimes my reaction is one of tired admittance, that sure, they may have done something kinda neat and unexpected, but it wasn't anything groundbreaking.

These two impressed me, however...Stan Brakhage (he's the one in the icon I used) was one of those filmmakers that didn't just make something to prove a point...he continually--and I mean continually, right up until his death--made films that were a strange yet incredible mixture of poetry, confusion, pain, and truth.

And for Maya Deren, I love her stuff because though it's more linear than Brakhage's directionlessness, they have deeper meanings than what are being shown. She had a great cinematic eye, her work had multiple depths, and she inspired many female filmmakers to come. And she was a Smithie! ;)

more song chart memes

This song has been following me around a lot lately....

...and that was the extent of the fire at 2:30 this morning. Taken at the bottom of the steps, pretty much at the front door of our complex. Immediately to the left (and behind the concrete wall) is where our mailboxes and the door are. We're one floor up and on the other side of that particular apartment, overlooking the corner of the block. No serious damage except for that one corner, which was hacked away by the firemen to make sure it didn't spread. Nothing else got burned.


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Of course, this made me realize last night that I am sorely lacking in backing up my writing. The first time something like this happened (two years ago when someone decided to ignite two spray paint cans...see original post here), I realized that a lot of my writing, while on the computer, was not readily available for emergencies like this. I eventually bought a memory stick and put most, if not all, of my writing on there. I've updated the memory stick a few times since then, but not nearly as often as I should. And especially given the horror stories I've heard from fellow writers about their PCs going kerflooey, that's another reason to do so.

So last night, once again, my thoughts were...I really should have updated what I have on the memory stick...and to tell the truth, I'd been thinking about it more than once over the last few days. I know I have a goodly amount of space on the thumb drive (it's a 2GB drive by Cruzer), so it shouldn't take me long to update that. I will most likely do that later on today. And I will keep it on the desk instead of in it, that way I know where it is if something like this ever happens again.

The other thing I was thinking of was something some of my LJ writer friends do, which is sending it to myself as an email. I have a separate yahoo email that Emm and I set up but I rarely if ever use (not unless you count being constantly amused by spam subject lines a viable use), so perhaps emailing my work to myself via that email might be a good idea, just to have it on hand. I'm thinking the more places I have it available, the safer they are.

Which of course brings to mind the fact that I have quite a bit of longhand stuff--writing, art, and otherwise--that would need to be scanned in order to be added to the backup. Another long-term project, I suppose. I'm already close to finished with my main waste of time when I should be writing fun project, which was updating the mp3 collection with release dates, artwork and whatnot, so working on the longhand stuff would be a really good idea.

So yeah. Backing up my work in the near future would not be a bad idea at all.

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On a side note, Emm seemed to be more in control last night than I was, due to A)smelling the smoke well before I did, and B)was already halfway dressed by the time I looked out the windows to see exactly what was on fire. I was still in my jammies. She'd said she was about to kick me awake if I didn't get up myself. I ended up waking up myself from the sounds and lights of the firetrucks outside (there were FOUR in total, mind you, for such a tiny fire). To my own credit, I popped out onto the stairway to see how bad it was, but some guy flagged me away saying it was already under control and not to worry about it.

Kudos, by the way, to the SF Fire Department for not only making sure all was under control,
but covering all their bases and stopping by again today to check up on everything. This is why I never complain that there's a firehouse at the top of our hill and not a day goes by where they don't drive by, blaring their sirens and honking their horns. I don't care that they're obscuring the sound on the TV or waking us up in the middle of the night. They're doing their job, and they do a damn good one at that. ;)

Apparently we're forbidden to sleep in this evening...

There was a fire in the foyer of our complex...nothing damaging, as it was only in the area where the mailboxes were...it's now out and the trucks already drove away. All is good.

But of course, now we're wide awake and watching As the Wrench Turns on PBS.

We are so going to feel this in the morning.