I'm feeling energized, if still coughing a mile a minute. I've gotten over 1800 words typed since I woke up this morning. I'm thinking of taking a break to work on a Of Dragons and Men/Duke of Cambridgeshire short. I know I've been a flake, but I started school and did renovations on the house.

So, by tonight, I'll have the ficlet written, but then I've gotta catch up with my NaNo numbers.

Jenn

Something to cheer you up on a Saturday morning: more Boom-De-Ada from the Discovery Channel.

( Click the cut for the embedded video )

Thanks to cofax7 for the link.

I can't seem to get the bar to show properly, it keeps showing up right under my icon. What's with that? Anyone have any idea how to fix it.

But anyway ... here's an update on my word count. I've had a really good couple of days. No one needed any help and Himself is working on the bulldozer. I'm not allowed in the shop while they're doing any sort of 'pull' job. Right now they pulled the right side master push cylinder and they're working on the water pump. Everything is way too heavy for me to be any help so I've got the house to myself and I'm writing. Yay!

Ahem ... so here it is:

17105 / 50000 words. 34% done!

http://community.livejournal.com/rural_ruin/808469.html

I know this ruin well as I attended the church as a child. It is on the mountain side above and outside the village of Abercarn, Gwent I had hoped to get closer but the first picture and the close up of the tower were taken from outside a locked and chained high gate. The front view is taken from the main steps up to the church which have been mined out by locals wanting good stone for patios and walls. The windows, all of which were Victorian/Edwardian stained glass were removed and put into a near by less isolated church that had no stained glass.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/veterans.asp

Restaurant chains are offering free meals to U.S. military personnel in conjunction with Veterans Day.

Friday Night Lights

( spoilers )

***

White Collar

This episode was full of "Hey it's that guys!" ( spoilers )

***

pet peeve of the day:

it's spelled PER SE. It means by, in, or of itself : as such : intrinsically. not PER SAY, which is just WRONG. If you don't know how to spell it, DON'T USE IT. Because spell check is not going to pick that one up.

Whew. I feel better now.

***

I barely managed to stay awake on the subway coming home tonight, so I took a long nap, but I am still all sleepy. I am very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

***

This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/91247.html. people have commented there.

octopon - Pirates of DarkWater fandom asylum. Completed!

gotham_gazetteCompleted!</i>

vagrant_story - Vagrant Story fandom asylum. WIP; will be deleted unless more interest is shown.

And,

Please feel free to join commedia; a personal project of mine, aiming to review and analyze comics (and other selected media) that feature DC Comics' The Joker.

It is currently a WIP because I am still going through my 500+ hardcopy!issues collection. I do not download torrents/scans.

I'd like to point out that currently I have two polls up for debate, as can be seen here explaining two routes the asylum's project can take. IE: spoiler free reviews, spoilerific reviews, and whatnot. =) Otherwise, the FAQ and The Rules are already up. The tags/memory post is still a WIP.

I am also open to affiliating with other comic book and/or Batman related asylums, except for RPGs.

15545 / 50000 words. 31% done!

The Man is watching SGU, and I'm in the living room on a work break, so I'm seeing parts of it, too.  This has happened before, I've caught parts of it while he watches, and it's mostly been boring with sides of skanky, though every time Greer is on doing the "Mad Dog" character (or whatever inappropriate thing it was they chose to call the black character), I wince.  Watching Ming Na's character be a cowardly bitch has been less than enjoyable, too.  (Now we know what the "context" will be that they claim will make what they'll do to her all a-okay!  She's a bitch and she deserves it!  *gags*)  But from what I've seen in tonight's episode, just half an episode, I'm beyond appalled.  The way they treat women on this show is HEINOUS.  I can't believe anyone watches this show and enjoys it who thinks of herself as a feminist, even remotely.  YES, I said it and I'm not taking it back.  TPTB are deliberately presenting their beloved young male demographic with these disgusting abuses of women as titillation, completely unapologetically. Seriously, people, this is wrong, and Syfy needs to hear how we feel about it. 

DO NOT comment to me about how you really don't think it's so bad.  Really, don't.  If I know you, I'd like to think better of you than that.  If I don't, I guarantee I won't want to if you say that here.

All my mini_nanowrimo peeps; please note that there's an important announcement on the comm. Anyone who has forgotten to post on a given day so far has a ONE TIME chance to recoup. If you would, spread the word.

Yesterday was a bad day and a bad day for writing. I made my word count, but I've been trying to do double or triple that every day and yesterday I wasn't even close.

On the other hand, the words I wrote were on Appetite, which pleases me. I don't want to let AKB stagnate all month (and there's no worry about that) but Appetite is really my focus. Or I would prefer it was my focus. I've been flitting between three different projects, really.

Started AKB 73 today. Writing for four year olds is HARD, yo.

I'm struggling with Appetite. I'm making new words, I don't hate the words I'm making (for the most part) but at the same time, I feel like I've lost some essential grasp of their characters that I had before and I feel like I lost the window into their world and I'm pressed against the wrong side of the glass, trying to peek through.

I'm doing this thing with my body right now where I feel like I don't know how to fit in it any more. I feel uncomfortable in whatever position I sit in and it's like I don't have any muscle memory for what my body "normally" likes to do, so I'm trying to fake it, but it's not working. It's really messing up my back and my neck and shoulders. And writing Appetite right now is a little like that. I'm HERE and I'm in the body, but I don't remember how it's supposed to move or sit or anything. There's no muscle memory.

...I suspect that made no sense to anyone but me. What can I say? I've had a rough week.

All my mini_nanowrimo peeps; please note that there's an important announcement on the comm. Anyone who has forgotten to post on a given day so far has a ONE TIME chance to recoup. If you would, spread the word.

Yesterday was a bad day and a bad day for writing. I made my word count, but I've been trying to do double or triple that every day and yesterday I wasn't even close.

On the other hand, the words I wrote were on Appetite, which pleases me. I don't want to let AKB stagnate all month (and there's no worry about that) but Appetite is really my focus. Or I would prefer it was my focus. I've been flitting between three different projects, really.

Started AKB 73 today. Writing for four year olds is HARD, yo.

I'm struggling with Appetite. I'm making new words, I don't hate the words I'm making (for the most part) but at the same time, I feel like I've lost some essential grasp of their characters that I had before and I feel like I lost the window into their world and I'm pressed against the wrong side of the glass, trying to peek through.

I'm doing this thing with my body right now where I feel like I don't know how to fit in it any more. I feel uncomfortable in whatever position I sit in and it's like I don't have any muscle memory for what my body "normally" likes to do, so I'm trying to fake it, but it's not working. It's really messing up my back and my neck and shoulders. And writing Appetite right now is a little like that. I'm HERE and I'm in the body, but I don't remember how it's supposed to move or sit or anything. There's no muscle memory.

...I suspect that made no sense to anyone but me. What can I say? I've had a rough week.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=12930

By David Lambert - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


The Ewing Family Saga Continues...

DALLAS:
The Complete Twelfth Season

Featuring All 26 Episodes in a Three Disc Collector's Set
Available on DVD... (more)

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=12929

By David Lambert - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


WARNER HOME VIDEO BRINGS MORE CLASSIC
ENTERTAINMENT TO DVD WITH THE RELEASE OF

THE WALTONS:
THE MOVIE COLLECTION

AVAILABLE JANUARY 26, 2010

Essential... (more)

So,  for a while, my grandmother (who is in her mid-80s) has been in and out of the hospital. It started when she fell in her kitchen and scrapped herself up pretty good. Since then she has claimed to have fallen in her apartment several times - each time ending up in the hospital.

It turns out that this was a lie. She had not fallen and she was just using the hospital to get attention from her family.

Okay, a little background. My grandmother has always been a little bit, no, scratch that...a lot manipulative. She has always been the first person to lay a guilt trip on somebody. It wouldn't matter how many times you visited with her or went over to see her, it would never be enough. And while you were visiting, you would be treated to all the gossip about everyone else - even people you didn't know. This talking behind other's back has cost her a friend that she had had for 25 years, but that is another story.

This leads to now, with her being in the hospital. While in the hospital she starts not only playing up the "can't walk" thing (yet refuses a wheelchair) but also starts telling falsehoods of neglect to the nursing staff. This leads to the staff calling in a caseworker from the state. She lied and said that her family never checks on her or visits her.

Grandma is assigned the caseworker and the woman calls all grandma's children (one being my mother). She tells my mother, my aunt and my uncle that grandma needs round the clock care and that they have 24 hours to figure out what to do with her.

Well, my aunt lives in a cramped trailer over 2 hours away, my mother is nursing a broken knee and is in the process of moving and my uncle - well, he has frickin' power of attorney over grandma, which is why he checks on her damn near ever day. But Grandma lied about people visiting her, so therefore the state thinks that the family is neglecting an old woman. This despite the fact that my uncle and my cousin, D, check on her on a daily basis and my other cousin, W, drives her around.

So, due to all her lies, she no longer can go back to her apartment. The apartment where she had a lot of freedom to do what she wanted to do and all the independence to do it.  Now, the state is going to send her right from the hospital to a nursing home. One in which she has to be signed in and signed out and they dictate the schedule.

Well, I hope that she is satisfied with what her lying has given her in the end. I am quite sure that it was not her expected outcome. I can just shake my head at the situation. She didn't want to go to a home when the family asked her before, and now, she will probably end up in the same one where she committed her own mother. Irony, this has it.

So, the moral of the story is: don't lie. See, people will find out and it will come back to bite you (even if it takes a while).  I wish I had sympathy for her, but knowing what a liar she is...it may seem awful of me, but I just don't.

I am sure the family can fight the state on the case of neglect to get her back into her apartment, but you know, she has so many of us burned out and just burned now, that I don't know how many of us give a damn. Hell, maybe in the nursing home she will have whatever she wants now - people who she can talk trash to about other people and the opportunity to bitch to us how she is being treated.  I hate to say it, but I don't recognize this woman any longer and I really don't like who she has become.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/11/netflix-friday-2-audition.html

Ahhh, Takashi Miike. For a long time one could just assume that if you were a horror fan or geek, you'd already seen this. But it's been ten years now. Newer and shinier Japanese horror has come, gone, and been mulched into tweener entertainment. Newer Japanese horror conforms to standard plot structure and pacing.

Takashi Miike thinks standard plot structure and pacing are for little girls.

The first time I saw this movie was during a Japanese Horror Film Marathon on DirectTv. I'd just gotten a big-screen, my friend Mike and Lovely Wife sat down to grab some late night horror.

For a while it's ... kind of a romantic comedy. A Widower, still devastated by his wife's death a decade earlier, is urged by his teen-age son to start dating again. His cheerfully amoral TV producer friend concocts a cunning plan. They'll going to hold auditions for an imaginary TV series in order for our sweet, likable but socially awkward Widower to meet young women.

Hijinks ensue!

If by hijinks, you mean staring at the screen, screaming "What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?"

It happens in a moment, in one shot, a tectonic shift in the movie. The train goes off the rails. And the train is on fire, and full of dynamite and naked clowns who live under your bed.

Be aware -- the pacing is glacial, and this is not a shock-horror movie. It's a slow accretion of creepiness. Do not even bother to watch this while there's daylight. This is meant to be watched at midnight, uninterrupted, to let it wash over you. For a good half the viewers, it'll be a "meh." For the half who find just the right night, it's a mood, a tone poem of unease.

No spoilers in the Comments, but feel free to recommend some other horror fun.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/11/your-entertainment-setup.html

Ran into an interesting design problem the other day. The house we moved into (it was a flip, old house/new wiring) has one of those iPod docks in the front room. Pop in the iPod, play though speakers built in through the whole house. The CD player and AV receiver running the system are tucked away in a nook, on a shelf just above the stacked washer/dryer units. The wires for the system run from a hole in the wall behind them, into the back of the receiver.

Now of course, you don't need to do a hard-wire hookup anymore -- just connect your A/V receiver up to an Airport Express and stream your music. Which is what I was intending on doing last weekend ...

... until I discovered that the power outlet running the AV receiver was behind the washer dryer stack. No way I'm pulling down a half-ton of machinery to plug in an Airport Express that probably won't fit back there anyway when you replace the washer/dryer. By hiding the power outlets behind the appliances, the designer made the wiring cleaner, simpler -- and utterly un-upgradable. Of course, why would you upgrade? You can hook up your speakers to your iPod! When will we ever invent anything cooler than that?

I theory, I can't even unplug and replace the AV receiver without pulling out those appliances. Remember, when installing anything in your house:

a.) Assume it will break, or you will need to remove it at some point.
b.) Remember you will be pissed off and impatient when doing so. Design backwards, to minimize your own frustration. The longer it takes to make it pretty, the longer it'll take to tear it out it when you need to. When, not if. When.

Actually, let's make this more than a grouse. Your entertainment setup, in the Comments.
Mine is very simple:

-- Sharp Aquos 42'
-- Tivo Series 3 HD (with those accursed Time Warner cable cards that reset themselves every three months). When I moved back to LA, went with Time Warner Cable after years of satellite for the Tivo interface. I have experienced a DVR without the Tivo interface. We will never speak of it.
-- Xbox 360
-- Apple 1Tb Time Capsule/Router
-- Rivet
-- Handbrake

Both the Tivo and Xbox have access to Netflix Streaming, the Tivo also gives access to Amazon VOD and now Blockbuster streaming. The Xbox also plays my ripped media stored on my Time Machine (it's connected by an ethernet cable) through Rivet. Apparently Orb, the stream-everywhere program is now available on Mac, so I'll download it just to give it a try and report back.

Considering getting an OPPO region-free DVD player, but to tell the truth I usually just rip my (personal, legally purchased) foreign DVD's with Mac the Ripper and then convert them to mp4 with Handbrake . *

You can use just Handbrake now, apparently, but I got into the habit of the two step process and some irrational part of me likes breaking the task down into specialized programs for each step. If you have any settings you like for Handbrake, toss 'em in. Tuning Handbrake is a sub-hobby all its own.

No, no Blu-ray. Regular old HD is just fine, thanks. I don't upgrade often, or go for the biggest/most expensive. My fetish for one-bag travelling extends all the way down through my life.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/11/ezra-klein-wonks-so-you-dont-have-to.html

The first part of his interview with the head of the largest managed health care company in America is here. If you've never been over there before, rip through the archives. Ezra has a remarkably clear writing style, and manages to do an excellent job of translating arcane health care terms into things people can understand.

Assuming you want to understand, and you're not just a crazy person who thinks making sure you don't lose your house when your kid gets sick is the moral equivalent of Dachau.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/beaucoupkevins-halloween-comic.html

Dear Kevin:

Yes, this interface. This is what I've been waiting for, since I saw Yves Baclan do it. Although I think he uses the concept a bit more artfully -- creating movement or adding information by playing with the layers on the original frame -- I think your execution is the dead-simple version that can be most easily utilized by the majority of web comic creators. Expect a phone call this weekend.

This links to the thing I mentioned on Twitter about e-print formats. But basically -- look, Flash. It works everywhere. It's already here. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel, Longbox.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/netflix-friday-1-invasion-earth.html

Welcome to the first in what will be a "as long as my attention lasts" series, Netflix Friday, focusing on "Watch Instantly" selections from Netflix. There are a lot of shows you can stream off Netflix on your computer, or Roku, or through your Xbox 360 or Tivo HD -- but much is what we might generously call off-brand. I think it's worth the time to give you some choices for those rainy Sundays when you're in the mood for something right now.

Invasion: Earth has a very dumb title. It also has a truly creepy alien invasion narrative linked to some real world anomalies (creeping chromosomal feminization), time-lost humans, aliens who are alien, and pretty well-done SFX for a BBC production at the time. Most impressively, it has Maggie O'Neill as the lead (!) scientist (!!) using her goddam brain to piece together the alien plan. The manly RAF pilot -- who would become the lead in any other version of this mini-series -- has a good run but at no point distracts us from the fact that Rather Large Brains are required to unspool alien intentions.

And even then, it might not do us any good. These are creatures who have mastered interstellar travel. To paraphrase Warren Ellis, 1.5 million Earthling children die every year from diarrhea -- we have not yet mastered drinking water.

Tonally, I adore this thing. You know how a lot of alien invasion movies start with "Holy Shit, We Are In Way Over Our Head," but then swing into "Those Aliens Underestimated Our Plucky Resourcefulness!"?

Yeah. Not so much on the second bit.

I am obligated to admit that the 100 year alien invasion plan I used in Blue Beetle was heavily influenced by the effect this show had on me in the 90's. Bonus points for Fred Ward doing yeoman's work as the American general. Because in any British sci fi, it's only a matter of time before the Yanks show up with the heavies ...

Don't read any spoilers, and just enjoy. All six episodes of Invasion:Earth are your Netflix Streaming recommend for this weekend.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/every-time.html

Nicely done, Greg and Lou.

I would like to note that those claw SFX are BETTER than the ones in this year's Wolverine movie.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/l4d2-trailer-2.html

Go fullscreen for the good stuff. I wonder what the cost per minute on that animation is?

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/black-lightning-trailer.html

This is absolutely mad, and I'd like to know why I'm not already watching it. (h/t Warren)

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/oh-is-that-what-you-call-it.html

The promo video for the new Barnes & Noble e-book reader, which begins with the single dirtiest sentence in all product video history.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-she-puts-up-with.html

Yeah, that's pretty much what the Lovely Wife deals with whenever we travel. (XKCD)