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May. 18th, 2008 @ 01:07 pm Birthday -- a day late...
Current Location: HorseWithNoName, office
Current Mood: damp
Current Music: Mary Chapin Carpenter - This Is Love
We didn't really do much to celebrate the old 55th.  Is okay...yesterday I was moving slowly due to a bad night's sleep the night before.  Today we'll probably head out for a little shopping trip.  A new cat box and some more clumping litter.  (I bought the extra-large one of these and am amazed how easy it is to clean.  I'm also amazed that the cats will use it.  Maybe this will eliminate the need to pee on other things.  ARGH!!)  I also want to see if I can get a new goldfish to keep poor lonely Leroyella company.  Maybe even a new fish tank, who knows?

I received all my gifts last Sunday (we tend to do a combo mother's day/birthday due to their calendar closeness...)  I did get an AeroGarden which is pretty cool (although the lights are distractingly bright,) some chocolates, and two books (Jim Butcher's new one and Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic.  And so the day went.

I already have tiny seedlings coming up in the herb pods of the new aerogarden.  Cool.  Will take some pictures when I can, so we can compare to what I hope it will look like when filled with thriving plants...

It's unseasonably hot here in LA after a fairly long run of gloomy and relatively cool days.  The apartment has AC, though, so no biggie.

Other than that, I'm still debating what the next writing project will be.  I should probably just open all the files and see what hits me the most. 

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!!!!!!!!
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[info]karenetaylor
May. 18th, 2008 @ 01:52 pm (no subject)
Current Mood: stream of consciousness
The semester is over, and I'm brain dead, and I want more time to loaf and relax, but I have to hurry off to Iowa Wednesday for nephew who is graduating and to very belatedly plant my father's summer flowers, then rush back to see astounding play based on the dark, twisted, hilarious work of Martin Mundt. The play is "Worst Mime in the World," the story for which will cause you to bust a gut laughing, followed by a trip to the emergency room, but I can't imagine how they can possibly stage it - nor can the author. And then summer school may start the next day. But I only have 1 student signed up for the class so far, and there has to be at least 8, so I doubt I'll be teaching this summer, which is good. The summer course is intense: meets for 4 hours twice a week for 8 weeks. Yowza.

< breath >

The above was written that way because it's how my brain is functioning: long paragraphs that meander vaguely north or up or somewhere above and then crest a hill and zoom to the bottom and then twirl around and say, "How'd I get HERE?"

I have train tickets and graduation presents to buy. Oh yes, and a new laptop/notebook computer. Tis a welcome bribe to me as a tangible (and useful) commemorative of Barry and my 20th anniversary, instead of a grand trip to somewhere like the Greek Islands. He's getting off easy and cheap (comparatively), because the 25 anniversary isn't too far down the road. < eg > There are some fine and noble and sensible reasons to not spend grand trip money right now, and he has no great desire to be a world traveler as I do, and he can't quite fathom how I could physically make a trip to Europe and not spend the entire trip in massive pain, and while I have more faith that I could find a way, the question is a bit worrying to me, too.

Considering how emotionally attached I am to the leather jacket he bought for me on our 5th anniversary -

He said some months ago, "You know you could really use a new leather jacket. That one's pretty worn out. Why don't you start looking at one?"

The emotional outburst I had in response, "No! I love this jacket! This is my anniversary jacket! I don't plan to give it up ever!" took both of us by surprise.

--considering that, buying me a tangible thing that I shall use every day is a fine, fine choice for an anniversary present. I plan to buy an upscale, forward thinking, will last a long long time, computer, rather than a "I only need it for word-processing so why don't I get a turtle-slow, refurbished one for very few (comparatively) dollars and keep it for 5-10 years," as I have done with my last (and only) two laptops.

I do not yet know what I shall get him. Must think on that as I think on what to buy nephew for his graduation. Of course, I have only a few days to buy nephew's gift, while I have about a month to buy Barry's. Of course, if students suddenly rush to sign up for my summer course, that month could be gone, WHOOOSH!
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[info]tina_jens
May. 18th, 2008 @ 12:51 pm (no subject)
Hi,  everybody!

I am sitting here working on my memoir.  

It is very difficult, and I can see why there are so many bad ones on the market.  Mine is turning out to be horrendously sad, and I am going to have to fix that.  I think that sometimes it is easier to write about the hard things in life than it is to write about the happy things.  Happy moments need a careful hand so that they are not overblown.  That is what I think.  So maybe I will do the sad parts now, and then go back when I have the hang of the thing.  

There is also the problem of knowing when to start and when to stop.  It turns out that I am only 28, so that I don't have all that much to put into a memoir, but, still, I don't want to tell the story of my entire life.  I've settled on a time period between graduating high school and graduating college.  That's a whopping 10 years for me.  (I took the long way around.)  But still.  Where do I begin?  

Then there is the structure.  I've decided that going straight through is not the way.  I have to meander.  But I don't want to lose things along the way.  This is a difficult project.  

In the meantime, I am looking for more memoirs to read.  What's your favorite?  Will you let me know? 

Love,
Jo
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[info]gl0ry_gl0ry
May. 18th, 2008 @ 11:40 am (no subject)
Current Music: Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty - Stop Dragging My Heart Around
I know this is really nerdy and weird, but sometimes The Ghost Whisperer scares the crap out of me. Does anyone else watch this show? I love Jennifer Love Hewitt a lot, which is why I started watching, but now I love the show itself too. I love to watch it at, like, three in the morning. Seriously, it scares me. It's awesome.
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[info]alg
May. 18th, 2008 @ 10:46 am There is no faith in which to hide. Even truth is filled with lies.
Current Location: Arctica
Current Mood: a bit groggy
Current Music: VNV Nation, "Legion"
Some mornings, like this one, I find myself with far too much about which I wish to "blog." To write, I mean. I dread the day that "blog," as a verb, enters the dictionaries. Of course, that may have already happened, and I just didn't notice, in which case the dread is retroactive. Anyway, yeah, too many things. Yesterday, I wrote 1,049 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree. The last section of Chapter One has become problematic. It does not seem to want to end, and I need to find its conclusion today. I still have Sirenia Digest #30 to get out next week, and I'd hoped to have three or four days to do a vignette for #31 before I abandon work on the 22nd (resuming work once my office is reassembled in Providence).

After the writing, there was packing, packing, packing. The last of the books in my office went into boxes. I am now working in a mostly book-free room, which is about as unnatural as it gets. Ah, but before the packing, after Spooky got home from the vet with Hubero (whose fine, of course), we needed more packing supplies, and so I made the sojourn with her into Big-Box Hell off Ponce. Actually, we went to PetSmart first, to get Mr. H. a good, solid plastic-and-metal carrier for the long trip to Rhode Island. We saw an utterly delightful Black-headed caique (Pionites melanocephalus). We have these spells where we want a smart, smart bird, but, fortunately, these spells pass. Anyway, after PetSmart, it was Staples, where we had to get packing tape, bubblewrap, biodegradable packing peanuts, air in a can, and wipes with which to clean Mac screens. Those stores, all those people, they drive me nuts. Anyway, Spooky went back out to get Dusty's BBQ for dinner. And then we watched two episodes of Millennium, "Luminary" and "The Mikado." And speaking of that second episode...

I did not actually see Gregory Hoblit's recent release, Untraceable, but, near as I can tell from having had to sit through the trailer a few dozen times, it's a pretty blatant rip-off of Micheal R. Perry's teleplay for "The Mikado." I just checked IMDb to be absolutely certain that Perry was not given story credit. He was not. Untraceable is credited to Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker (screenplay and story), and Allison Burnett (screenplay). I would be willing to bet there's a lawsuit here, and a cut-and-dried case of plagiarism, if the matter were brought to the attention the the WGA. But, anyway, there was a bit I wanted to quote (from "Luminary"):

We are meant to be here. We step from one piece of holy ground to the next under stars that ask, "Imagine, for one second, you could drop in on a past life. What would you like to find yourself doing there? What would charm you? Make you proud?" Ask yourself that. And the question what to do in this life becomes so simple it's terrifying. Just to do that thing that would charm you. It would make you say: "Yes, it's the real me." Do that, and you're alive.

After Millennium, I slipped into Second Life for the first genuine rp I've done in days. Thank you Pontifex and Omega. Oh, and since most of my now-very-limited SL time is being spent in New Babbage, behind the cut is a screencap of Artemesia Paine and the Professor in the vacant room above Miss Paine's pie shop (and I really need to ask [info]blu_muse to show me how to take good SL screencaps).

The Professor's Return )


What else? After Second Life, Spooky read me a bit more of House of Leaves, and then I read myself a bit more of the Osborn biography, and finally got to sleep around 2:30 ayem. And that, kiddos, was yesterday.

Looking back over the comments to yesterday's entry about the silly Yahoo list, "The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy: 20 Great Movie Creatures," I have resolved to make a list of my own. But it will have a well-defined set of criteria for inclusion, which I will state at the outset. It may take me several days to compile the list. I may not get it up until early June, after the move. It will include fifty creatures, not twenty. Oh, and a few people were confused by the term "Pull of the Recent." It was coined in 1979 by University of Chicago paleontologist David Raup*, and it states, simply, that "the level of biodiversity is inflated in younger fossil deposits because sampling of the modern world is so much more complete than in the geologic past." That is, the farther one goes back in the fossil record, the rarer fossils become, since they have had a greater period of time to be destroyed by various geological processes (erosion, metamorphism, orogenic events, volcanism, plate tectonics, etc.). Also, Raup posits a collecting bias favouring more recent strata. This generally creates an overall fossil record that, in terms of biodiversity, looks a bit like an inverted pyramid**. Which is also what the list on Yahoo looked like, with 50% of its sample coming from films made since 2002 (though it also included creatures from as far back as 1933 and 1939). And before anyone asks, today's icon shows much of Europe, north and central Africa, the Middle East, and western India during the Eocene Epoch, some 55.8 ± 0.2 — 33.9 ± 0.1 million years ago.

*Raup, D. M. 1979. "Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications." Science Vol. 206.

** It should be noted that a number of more recent studies indicate that the "pull of the recent" may be less an artefact of the fossil record than an actual increasing rate of biodiversity over geologic time. See, for example, David Jablonski et al., "The Impact of the Pull of the Recent on the History of Marine Diversity" Science (Vol. 300. no. 5,622; 16 May 2003). For now, though, I stand by Raup.
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[info]greygirlbeast
May. 18th, 2008 @ 09:56 am Still hopeful
Had to go ahead and give Sass subQ fluids. She was showing signs of dehydrating. However, she was more her old bitchy self about the process. Now, she's camped out on the bed beside my laptop (Yay she doesn't hate me) and grooming. We haven't seen her groom in over a week. This is exciting! Okay, not so much to most of you, but if you've ever had a sick cat, you'll understand.

And I'll try not to spam the list anymore today. It's just--my baby is cleaning herself and telling us what she thinks about this whole "making her well" thing.
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[info]wishwords
May. 18th, 2008 @ 10:01 am (personal/writing) The return of the To-Do list
Current Location: living room
Current Mood: working on awake
Current Music: barefoot contessa
Because I am up early (gods help me) and want to get a bunch done today (hah!), I am posting a to-do list. As I am still in the grip of the sinus infection from hell, we'll see how much actually gets done.

Mike is coming over to write later, so I will be writing. That is a good thing.

To-Do:

1. Write 2k today.
2. Use up some of the damn eggs I still have from the wedding.
3. 2 loads of laundry, or we're going to work naked tomorrow.
4. Balance checkbook.
5. Make onigri for the week.
6. Post results from contest.
7. Post results from Livers for Boobies (and podcast!).
8. I'm sure there's something else.

I'll update during the day. Now, it's time for breakfast.
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[info]vg_ford
May. 18th, 2008 @ 09:24 am have a proposal read for charity
In a little less than 15 hours, my entry in Brenda Novak's auction to support research for Diabetes goes live. It's a one day auction and the bidding starts at a mere $2. (Yep, just $2.)

I'm offering to read and evaluate a proposal (defined as three chapters - up to 50pp - plus a synopsis) of an unpublished manuscript. I will also meet with the winner at RWA National for a drinks date to discuss that proposal or other publishing questions. Since I know I have a number of readers on this blog who may not be attending, I'd also be open to meeting at other conferences I'm attending (such as Readercon or Bouchercon).

Bidding is here, and it's really easy to sign up and get a bidder ID.

ETA: All genres welcome! I represent suspense, mystery, thrillers, romance, women’s fiction, fantasy, science fiction, YA, and other commercial novel-length fiction.

ETA2: It's also fine to bid for just the evaluation of your proposal if you are not going to be attending any of the same conferences.
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[info]arcaedia
May. 18th, 2008 @ 07:16 am Hopeful
I think this vet might be on to something. Sass had two doses of the antibiotic mixed with vitamins and 200ccs of subQ fluids yesterday. This morning, rather than being hunkered down someplace quiet, she was sitting up on the couch on her blankie all bright eyed. Her skin rebounds correctly this morning so apparently she's been drinking water. L and I have both seen her eat kibble. After her morning dose of antibiotics we gave her some more canned food which she ate like a lady rather than a ravening beast.

I want to squee, but realize that it could just be the vitamins giving an illusion of health. We will see if she will drink out of the shower this morning. If her skin stays normal, we will forgo the subQ today. This bears close monitoring and some hope.
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[info]wishwords
May. 18th, 2008 @ 09:30 am GETTING DOWN TO THE NUB

I had to give a presentation the other night to a local writers’ guild regarding goal setting as it relates to writing. Now I rarely, if ever, use notes when presenting anything. I know the topic I’m going to speak on, keep a few key points on the subject in my head, then just spout away. I enjoy doing it this way because it gives me the opportunity to feed off the crowd’s energy, change course and tone depending on the body language I see or the comments and questions some folks make. That said, that night was no exception . . . but something odd happened along the way . . .

I started off talking about goals in general, stating things like, “If your goal is to write a book, maybe the first question you should ask yourself is, why? Why do you want to write a book? Just to say you’ve written one? So you can prove something to yourself or your family? Or is your objective to get published? Either reason will require a finished manuscript, but the goals that need to be established to accomplish either might be different due to the established deadline you set for yourself. For example, when do you want the book completed? In a year? Five years? Does a time line even matter to you? If it doesn’t, chances are you’re really not all that serious about writing a book. Without a timeline, vis-à-vis deadline, that doggone book will never get written because you’ll always be able to find an excuse for not writing. Things like, the laundry needs to get done—(although ‘laundry’ at that moment consists of one blouse and a pair of skivvies)—the lawn needs to be mowed . . .twice—that closet’s been cluttered way too long . . .”

Anyway, while I’m yammering away, I see sparks of enlightenment flash in the attendees’ eyes. This goal setting thing is making sense to them. They’re taking notes, smiling, nodding . . . Suddenly something dawns on me, and I ask, “How many of you want to write a book because you want to get published?”

95% of the group raised a hand. Poor babies.

Seeing that, I felt a surge of moral obligation to get them down to the nub of things so they’d be prepared for the inevitable. We talked about the challenges that might be awaiting them…publishers and their antiquated business practices, elusive agents, picky editors, fickle readers, self-marketing, meeting REAL deadlines, the day job most have to maintain along with writing and why, the critics, the reviewers (often not one in the same, but both able to knock your feet out from under you.), the stalkers, the nay-sayers, etc. With all that said, the nub came down to the original question….WHY do you want to write a book? Most of them, still smiling, nodding, even more pumped up than before, answered, “Because I can’t not write one.” Sigh…..

As writers, how many times have we heard that answer from other writers? Knowing what we know, the struggles, the constant, ever-changing challenges that come with this profession, we still write. Like a one-member nomad tribe, we keep plodding through that desert with a skin-bag half-filled with water. We keep pushing on regardless of illness, injury, insults, or ill-payment. To me, the real nub of it all is this…..writers are just a strange lot, and it’s to that end, I’m left to quote Dickens’ infamous Tiny Tim, “God bless us every one!”

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[info]storytellunplug
May. 18th, 2008 @ 11:23 am Music and Film
Current Location: Café Östra, Sweden
Current Mood: rejuvenated
Current Music: Portishead: Third
There has been much of the former and little of the latter this weekend, although I may catch up with that after hearing about another three Spanish horror films out and about. I will be writing a little review of the Spanish horror film after I've seen them, as I'm pretty much in awe of the Spanish horror scene at the moment and feel that no other country is coming close to them, not by a long shot!

Anyway pop pickers, the top ten albums of 2008, as we are nearly half way through:

  1. Portishead: Third - it's a fantastic album from start to finish, takes a little time to sink in but when it does you'll find yourself with headaches from your withdrawal symptoms if you go a couple of hours without playing it!
  2. Lightspeed Champion: Falling off the Lavender Bridge - took much longer than Portishead to get going but has some really top tunes on it, keeps me going when I need to.
  3. The Helio Sequence - Keep your Eyes Ahead - very similar to Lightspeed, in terms of feel and accessibility and also has a couple of gems on it.
  4. Eels: Meet the Eels (Essential Eels) - won't be in the final reckoning, as it's a best of but it's great to have a compilation of one of my favourite bands.
  5. Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts - atmospheric and great for writing. I've been jotting a lot of Nex to this album. And Slips has just come out so let's see where that is!
  6. Eels: Useless Trinkets - another that won't be in but what a gem to have - all those tracks you loved but missed, as they were on soundtracks or b-sides, etc.
  7. Thrice: The Alchemy Index: Vols. III & IV - this came as a bit of a surprise as I so wasn't in the mood for it the first time. It has at least two contenders for song of the year and is a strong album.
  8. Elbow: The Seldom Seen Kid - should be higher but I'm struggling with it, not matching the greats of previous albums for me.
  9. The Gutter Twins: Saturnalia - every year needs one of these off the wall type albums and this may well climb!
  10. Kaki King: Dreaming of Revenge - very mellow and easy listening (for me) but has a feel that I like that I haven't fully put my finger on.
Well that's how it looks so far - of course the end of the year will be very different but I was curious to see how things were looking, weren't you?
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[info]markdeniz
May. 18th, 2008 @ 03:38 am Self-promotion: Physical Feminist blog
Current Mood: determined
Current Music: The Terminator
I tend to hate doing this sort of thing but:

I have FINALLY, after about a year or so, started a Physical Feminist blog at http://caithream.blogspot.com/

While there may be some mirroring here in my social blogs, in [info]womenofstrength and the various Sarah Connor Charm School locations, I wanted something happening on the topic of Physical Feminism that might be noticed by those who look down their noses at social networking blogging places. ~;p And, well, where I might be inspired to be a bit more formal...but probably not much. Now that it is started, I hope to have something going regularly there. We'll see how that works out.

Cross-posted at my LJ, [info]womenofstrength, [info]sccharmschool and my blogs at Tribe, MySpace and the MySpace and Facebook SCCS groups as I figured some might want to know.
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[info]saigh_allaidh, posting in [info]womenofstrength
May. 18th, 2008 @ 01:48 am Thud: Above, Bookly Devilry
Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: NIN -- Ghosts III
May 17, 2008 Progress Notes:

Above

Words today: 650.
Words total: 37,300 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: Bed!
Liquid Refreshment: Water and a bit of scotch.
Munchies: Cheese and apricots.

Darling du Jour: Again I am darlingless. This scene has come down to the sloggy bits.
Words Matthew Won't Admit to Knowing: anonymous and ultimatum. Four syllables bad! Two syllables good!
Mean Things: Oh, Evil Asylum, why can't I quit you?
Research Roundup: N/A
Books in progress: Jeffrey Ford, The Physiognomy, textbooks.
The glamour: Book Mines for most of the afternoon, wherein I had to herd/capture not one but two sparrows who had flown in the door and weren't figuring out that windows are solid thing to get them back outside. Sparrows...can take a frightening amount of blunt force. I winced every time they took a damned header into our nice big glass front window.

Thankfully, I came home to do garden stuff, which was considerably less stressful.


Saturnalia is really turning up the heat here. It has a soundtrack and it's going to beat me with it in loving and gentle concern until I leave that book that's being so bad to me and come shack up with it, as it will of course always treat me with affection and respect and never put my bare feet and gravid uterus in the vicinity of any kitchens or bottles of Bud.

Its latest offer is not!Trent Reznor in a frock coat like in The Perfect Drug, hunched over and sexy in that tubercular way, feeding emo kids to the roaring furnaces of the machine at the heart of the city.

All this will be mine, if I will fall down and worship start writing it.

Only half the current book to go. :p
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[info]cristalia
May. 18th, 2008 @ 01:04 am (seasons) Metrics for 5/17/08
Current Location: heading to bed
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen
Tags: ,
starting count: 62631
ending count: 64683
change: +2052

starting line:
“So kind of you to join us,” he says, and the sarcasm in his voice is at odds with the respectful bow he gives her.

ending line:
“Night,” Nikki and Justin said, and watched him leave.

darling:
Nikki grinned. “Only as long as it works,” she said, and he rolled his eyes at her. “Seriously, though, tell me about Shanna.”

“What do you want to know? She’s as addicted to Dr. Pepper as Rick is, she’s grumpy in the morning and she drives far too fast. Her temper isn’t the best, and she’s got a mouth like a sailor.” He took another swig of beer. “And those are her good qualities.”

**

Well, we have another death, and the plot is churning forward. If I can do it right, I'll have sex tomorrow (in the book, you perverts!) and then more death. Lots more death.

Go death!
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[info]vg_ford
May. 17th, 2008 @ 08:34 pm painting
Current Mood: artistic
Tags:
I am still completing stuff for school and today I did some watercolors - no writing but watercolors - they turned out nifty too - I may try to scan and post them for you. I have another watercolor I need to do tomorrow and then some more painting (these are all art type painting - not house wall painting which also needs doing)

I received my Excel final test - he wants me to do it at home :))))))))))))) that is made of fabulous.

My Bio teacher - the one I've been complaining about - emailed me tonight with a study group set up for Monday. MONDAY - pfft - the bad part is they help so I will probably go - SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS

Enough is never enough.

But watercolor - Did I tell you I rather like watercolor and always have? - I want to someday be good at it.

:)
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[info]mallory_blog
May. 17th, 2008 @ 09:32 pm I bet Evil Knevel Prayed
[info]las[info]haceldama,  [info]opalexian, her boyfriend Chris and I all went to see the second installment  of the Narnia series, Prince Caspian.  It was good solid entertainment, and struck me as Tolkien-lite in the sense that there was a heck of a lot of sword slashing, arrows penetrating and  shield bashing, but without more than six or seven drops of blood.  And they insist on a sappy song at the end,  which never, ever seems to work.  But I think it good entertainment, and would probably make a fine used dvd purchase.

So then we went to dinner.  Upon departure someone had placed a flyer under my wiper.   Right down the High street a local Baptist church was holding a motor sports spectacular.  There would be church-bus jumping!   Monster truck car-crushing.  All for Jeeeeezus. 

Strangely enough this spectacular is to take place on Sunday, at 10:45 AM. 

Now I'm pretty sure Evel Knevel prayed. I mean when you're thirty feet in the air and coming down at a bad angle a bit of the old-time religion might be pretty safe hedge.  It can't hurt, even if the landing certainly will.  And I'm down with their effort to rope in the young people.  Praise the Lord and pass the octane booster.   But somehow this seems wrong to me.  Crushing cars for Christ seems well, wrong, if somewhat less so than certain thermometer designs.

But if you want to see a known daredevil jump over church busses, tomorrow is  your chance.  
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[info]flaggerx
May. 17th, 2008 @ 09:36 pm (seasons) Metrics for 5/16/08
Tags: ,
starting count: 62302
ending count: 62631
change: +329

starting line:
She walks through the break in the trees is hit by it: the hard-edged sensation of anger and discontent, laced with fear.

ending line:
A Dawn Lord stands, his dark eyes hooded with old grief.

darling:
Her grey eyes are heavily shadowed, rimmed black with exhaustion, and her cheekbones stick out, making her lovely face almost skeletal. Her long, red-gold hair flows over her shoulders, its richness only accentuating the fatigue in her face. Cassandra wonders idly what is sapping her strength, but now is not the time to ask.
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[info]vg_ford
May. 17th, 2008 @ 09:36 pm (no subject)
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: The Murder Channel - more homicide documentaries
1704 words on Seven for a Secret tonight. We have found the plot, and it is progressing. I'm still not sure exactly how it plays out, but Sebastien is the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
17,000 / 30,000
(56.7%)

If there weren't this damned convention mucking up my week, I could have this done by next Monday.

*falls over in front of the television*
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[info]matociquala
May. 17th, 2008 @ 06:51 pm (no subject)
I guess this makes sense...sorta.





Your Score: Romeo & Juliet


You scored 36% = Tragic, 40% = Comic, 46% = Romantic, 31% = Historic




You are the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps one of Shakespeare's most memorable works, Romeo and Juliet tells the story of two star-crossed lovers of warring families and their untimely deaths in each other's arms. What your score tells us about you is that you are most likely a romantic person who is willing to go to extremes for the ones you love. For this, your family and friends love and respect you (even if they may tease you from time to time). While you may be a bit of a fickle-heart, you are also a spontaneous and adventurous person with a big heart and a lot of love to give. We certainly love you, and we're sure that a lot of other people do too!




Link: The Which Shakespeare Play Are You? Test written by macbee on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
View My Profile(macbee)
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[info]tina_jens
May. 17th, 2008 @ 07:01 pm A Remembrance, Monsters, Etc.
Current Location: Still in Baltica
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: NIN, "Zero-Sum"
Cleaning my office, packing, I came across an invitation to the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Lynn-Henley Building of the Birmingham Public Library (which, at the time, was the Birmingham Public Library). This is the same building I visited on Tuesday and spoke of in my first entry on Thursday, the reading room with the Ezra Winter murals. Anyway, so I found an invitation to the 70th anniversary, April 7th, 2002. The building was opened to the public in 1932. My Grandmother Ramey was 17 years old. The US President was Herbert Hoover. Amelia Earhart flew from the US to Ireland in 14 hours and 54 minutes. Anyway, here's a contemporary illustration of the library, the one from the invitation:



Also, there was a somewhat odd list on Yahoo today, "The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy: 20 Great Movie Creatures." Some of these truly are iconic movie creatures — Kong, Giger's Alien, Jabba the Hutt, Godzilla, Oz's flying monkeys, Harryhausen's skeletons, Gollum, and heck, maybe even the magnificently erotic Davey Jones. A couple may, in time, prove to be iconic — the "Pale Man" from Pan's Labyrinth and the creature from The Host. But the list, as a whole, shows too much of what paleontologists call "the pull of the recent." That is, it's top-loaded with creatures from very recent films. In a list of 20 films spanning 1933-2008, 75 years, fully 50% of the list is derived from films released in the last six years! Even admitting that advances in CGI and SFX make-up are giving us many marvelous new monsters these days, this is baloney. Where's Lugosi's Dracula, Karloff's incarnation of Frankenstein's creature, Gort, or the "gill man" from the Black Lagoon? All of these are clearly more iconic, and far more deserving than some of those who made the list. The "ultra-cute baby Loch Ness monster" from The Water Horse? Not. Kraecher from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? Wrong. The gelflings from The Dark Crystal. Nope (though you might make a case for the Skeksis). Saphria from the godsawful Eragon? That's a joke, right? You want a dragon, then choose Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer or Maleficent's draconic incarnation from Disney's classic Sleeping Beauty. Sheesh, people. Someone needs to look up the word "icon" in a dictionary and try again.
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