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Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
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12:48 pm - Where's my ebook?
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So, the final volume in the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light was released today.
You might notice that the rating of A Memory of Light is sitting at 2.7 out of 5 stars on Amazon. Is this because the book is bad? (Well, possibly it is; I wouldn't know.) Click to view the one star reviews and you'll see the overwhelming reason:
Like others, I'm rating this hard cover only release one star due to its delayed e-book. This is the only way I can think of to encourage publishers to avoid this type of anti-reader decision.
I think this holds great promise.
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| Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
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11:35 pm - I owe some posts on pregnancy, childbirth, and baby, but...
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those are going to take awhile. (Clearly.)
Anyhow, my husband and I are going through our files as part of the (vain) attempt to put the house back together. I doubt I mentioned it, but the baby apparently demanded we recarpet the house before he was born. This message was not communicated to me; it came through loud and clear for my husband. The recarpeting was complete the day before he was born, and the house has been a shambles ever since. (I'm left to wonder why the baby didn't want new kitchen counters or new windows in the entryway, but apparently he's fond of retro formica with gold stars and amber glass. His taste could use some refining.)
So: files. I finally ran across my GRE scores; I figured I'd kept them, but apparently shoving them in a "scholarships" file wasn't the best place for them. In a "letters" file I didn't know I had, I ran across one of my failed attempts at keeping a journal (one entry). OMG: the overangsty flailing! The great tragedy of, er, being in graduate school! I cringed! I laughed! I... put it in the bag of things to be shredded without a backward glance.
I should perhaps look back at the original novels I wrote about the same time. I suspect they're equally dreadful.
I also ran across my Birkman personality profile from my previous job; I wondered what happened to that. In many ways, it's still accurate. In others... yeah, no, I don't crave strong authority figures, sorry.
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| Saturday, April 2nd, 2011
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8:45 pm - I was going to post this yesterday...
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...but then I remembered it was April Fool's Day, so I figured today would be a better day.
I am about 15 weeks pregnant. This has been simultaneously good news and a personal disaster.
On the good news side: I'm apparently not a carrier for anything we tested for, and the baby seems healthy so far. We don't intend to find out in advance whether it's a boy or girl. (It's not twins, though.) My husband and I are happy.
On the personal disaster side: I was doing very well at writing, playing the piano, and exercising on a daily basis at the beginning of the year. Starting at the end of January and going through the first half of February, I was nauseated constantly. That improved, and I immediately got the worst cold I've had in the past ten years. It lasted more than two weeks and I was advised not to take anything for it. That cleared up, and I started having problems breathing when I slept... It was pretty much all I could do to drag myself out of bed to go to work in the morning. Unfortunately, all of this has meant I couldn't get much exercise, play the piano, or write. Alas... I'm finally feeling more normal again, which means I'm trying to pick all of that back up.
I've now read nine books on pregnancy and childbirth (nine!); I haven't been reading much else. I look forward to being able to read things that aren't related to pregnancy at some point in the future.
[X-posted to my LJ account.]
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| Thursday, February 10th, 2011
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8:58 pm - So I finally got around to reading this article
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| Thursday, November 25th, 2010
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10:12 pm - Success!
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At 3:30 today, the road had melted enough that we were able to make a quick trip to the grocery store and buy stuff before they closed at 6. (We drove back home Sunday night and haven't left since. The closest grocery store is 6 miles away, and that's not something you walk unless you really, really have to.)
Things should remain clear for at least the next week, but the weather reports keep changing from day to day, so we have more food now. So happy I shoveled the driveway; in retrospect, totally worth it.
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| Friday, November 19th, 2010
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12:06 am - Wiki deletion request.
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I realize this gets lost in the profusion of spambots currently attacking the wiki. There's a fairly extensive deletion request with an updated response to my original reply. This is her second request (the first being sent via PM maybe around a year ago?).
I feel quite a bit of sympathy. That said, I note that the wiki page doesn't show up at all in the first few pages of google results for her full name (I've checked the first 6). [First+Last name in quotes turn up deleterius on the first page, mind you, but not the wiki.] The wiki article is on page 3 of google results for her first name.
I'm torn here because it truly is an unusual first name, and there's quite a lot of content in the wiki. I'm not inclined to delete any of it, but would consider leaving all content but renaming all references to her as "C***a" (which was the name used to refer to her on the_hms_stfu and occasionally on F_W). It's a deletion request, though, so kindly comment and cast your vote as you see fit.
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| Monday, September 6th, 2010
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4:10 pm - Vacation.
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| Sunday, September 5th, 2010
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10:44 pm
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Thanks to all who fought to save me from durance vile. I liked the cute animal pictures.
(No, seriously; we spent all day driving back home from our vacation with three dogs in the back seat. If that isn't cruel imprisonment...)
Happy (belated) birthday, Sep. ♥
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| Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
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3:05 pm - The Space Ark! wank on otf_wank
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I am suddenly reminded of the worst book my father ever read: The Last Ship by William Brinkley. (Okay, he gave up halfway through.)
Apparently it's about a ship that finds an uncharted isle to rebuild the human race after some apocalyptic scenario.
But! With lots and lots and lots of overblown vocabulary and not very much action. (Apparently the author's only other book was nothing like this; I'm guessing some cruel person gave him a thesaurus.) In any case, a quote from page 1:
The last stars paled in the sky, the silent waters stretched away in a vast mirror, glittering in the oncoming sunlight, bringing with it the softened sky of low latitudes, sea and sky so deliquescing into one that I would have had difficulty taking a sextant bearing, making a horizon.
Way too many clauses.
I'm highly amused by the five star reviews on amazon for this book; This one-star review is a more accurate portrayal. (And now I am vaguely curious in a horrified way about the sex scenes.) But, just think, you only have to pay 7 cents for a used copy of the monstrosity.
Of course, it doesn't come spiral bound...
( ETA: Okay, I couldn't resist looking inside the book for a sex scene. )
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| Friday, August 20th, 2010
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1:37 pm - Laurell K. Hamilton is talking again.
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| Saturday, July 31st, 2010
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12:49 am - The magic cards.
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So, I'm sorting and counting the magic cards again. This time I'm going to sell them. Really.
I just finished counting Revised; apparently we have 3399 cards from this edition. [I pretty much figured that; it should be ~3000 + whatever's in the binder, and there are 350 cards in the binder.] I'm missing Chaoslace. I need to buy one, obviously, to get one complete set.
I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth my while to complete two sets. The main issue is whether or not to buy another Underground Sea and Volcanic Island. They've become big money cards (should have bought them a few years ago), and I have to balance whether I can get enough out of a second set by completing it to make it worth doing. The only other rare I'm missing of any real cost to buy for that second set is Birds of Paradise, and that's nowhere near as expensive as the two dual lands. (Would I be better off breaking up the second set and selling the cards off one at a time? It's just so much work; I'd really rather clear 612 cards off the top before moving to individual sales.)
Urza's Saga is even more of a mess.
There's no similar question about the Unlimited edition (or, God help me, Beta). I just don't have enough cards in those sets to bother trying to complete them. I do have several Unlimited dual lands-- which I bought the last time I was going to sell the cards because I thought the individual cards weren't valuable enough to sell by themselves, so I needed to sell them as a group with some incentive. Now the individual cards do sell, and the dual lands went up in price, so this is all good.
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| Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
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8:12 pm
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[weird, the top got removed. retyping]
LJ is finally going to purge those inactive accounts, freeing up usernames.
What defines an inactive journal? You haven't logged in in two years. What defines an inactive community? No one's posted in two years.
But what of your old, inactive RPGs or fanfiction communities used as fic archives, you might ask?
Well, if you're asking that, you're not alone.
Promises have been broken! And what about permanent accounts? (Yes, it's Aja. T-shirts beware!) Are you finally going to honor our requests to make memorial accounts, then?
Communities of great historical significance will be lost!
This will go well!
ETA: Aja's proposing a day of silence! That'll show them.
ETA2: And LJ has now realized this was a bad idea, and will redefine inactive journals as those with no content but a welcome post which haven't been logged into in 24 months, and inactive communities as those with no posts in the last 24 months, and only one post ever with no comments.
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| Thursday, July 1st, 2010
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8:40 am - Harry/Draco fandom strikes again.
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Fresh off the "![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) pushdragon says all current H/D writers suck" kerfuffle, we have the up-and-coming "fic rec" kerfuffle.
kubrick041087 goes to the friendly ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif) harrydraco community and asks:
Hi,
I was wondering if you could help me please.
I'm looking for Ginny bashing fics. Particularly if its only ginny and the other Weasleys take Harry's side. I would especially would love it if Ron could see that his sister was being unreasonable or insane or whatever it is she is doing. I like it when Ron will take his best friends side.
Of course it would be Harry/Draco and I'd love it to be NC17 or R at the least (its ok if it has het sex in it as long as it has slash sex in it too.)
I don't really like established Harry/Draco relationships too much but I'll still read it (unless they are married at the beginning, I prefer to see the relationship grow before reaching that level).
Oh and Mpreg and threesomes squick me.
Thank you so much if you can help me x
(Well, obviously. Mpreg would totally kill the mood.)
This does not get the most positive response, and kubrick goes to do a little complaining in her journal.
Today, we have the following (from a journal which screams "sockpuppet"):
iam looking for fics in which ginny is an evil shrew who tries to kill draco because she's jealous of harry, just like in the books. also fics where harry isn't the usual goody two shoes but goes around hitting people and slapping babies. and going on murder sprees. and draco tries really hard to be nice to harry, but harry just doesn't care. and harry cheats on draco and draco cries and cries. And then draco finally stands up to harry, but harry bitchslaps him. And Harry decides he hates ron and hermione, because they suck, and ron punched draco in the face because he was gay. and harry kills all the weasleys and there is a huge party afterwards.
lucius and narcissa are muggle supermodels and blaise is a girl.
No OOC please, and bonus for non-con and mpreg!!!!
*hugs*
Will Kubrick stomp off in a huff? Only time will tell.
(If anyone thinks this is funny enough to post to the wank communities as-is, that's fine.)
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| Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
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12:17 am - CGI.
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So, I wasn't actually kidding on f_l about bad CGI-- in which category I place all CGI that attempts to create convincing human or animal movement.
From talking to my friends, I think I'm one of the only people in the world who found long stretches of the LotR movies actively painful to watch because the CGI of people moving was so wrong (look in particular at Minas Tirith in RotK; horrible).
Ditto the second Matrix movie, with the fakest fight in the world (Neo against all of the Hugo Weaving-duplicates). Independent of story quality issues, that was a huge letdown after the action scenes in the first movie.
I've yet to see anything involving people or animals with CGI that doesn't immediately throw me out of a movie.
Since I expect the Hobbit to be CGI-heavy, I pretty much expect to enjoy it in some patches and hate it in others.
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| Monday, May 24th, 2010
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12:53 pm - I'm of two minds on this.
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So, obviously I'm out of touch (this probably has to do with not looking at twitter and other various things). I discovered Reocities for the first time a few days ago. I'm pleased, because it preserves Vejiitasei Ascendant and Soul Under. (Yes, I could get to them via the wayback machine, but that's a big hassle to use. I can't remember whether VA is available in the Yahoo! group files area; I should check.)
OTOH, I know people some people were looking forward to the final death of their old geocities sites. And here they are again.
(The old Dragonball things are certainly vanishing off the web. SSJTrinity's site is still around, but embyquinn's all vanished with the demise of the aol user sites. Katchan's stuff is pretty much only available on the raac archive or via Wayback, ditto Nora Jemison.)
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