Ood to a Grecian Urn

I painted this for a friend of mine, who's an obsessive fan.

Not necessarily of Dr. Who - he's kind of an amazing dude.  Once he becomes interested in a thing, he learns - nay memorizes - whatever aspects of that thing interest him.  He can name the Yankees players from  the inception of the team.  I'm always in awe of the sheer amount of information that's packed away in his brain.

I'm the idiot who introduced him to Dr. Who.  Within two days, he knew more, and could remember more details about the series than I ever could.  I'm always impressed when talking to him about anything.

He's also incredibly clever, with this vast well of knowledge. As we were rambling about tv shows (Dr. Who in particular) he said:

'You know what would be hilarious?  If someone painted 'Ood to a Grecian Urn'."

So I obliged.

What I learned from playing Skyrim

It's easy to rule the world when everyone else is too lazy.


Your character is the obligatory 'chosen one', wandering around, saving the universe, blah blah blah.  Upon reaching each new location, talking to the NPC (non player characters, for those who don't game) open up all kinds of new quests.  Some are exploration, some to find a mythical item, the usual.

So you tromp out to the far reaches of the known world in search of whatever it was for whoever needs it, and it occurred to me - any one of these characters could go out and do the same thing, find their own damn missing harp/shield/cereal bowl, and gain the powers and riches associated with whatever it is.

So why don't they?

Most of the characters have a pretty believable backstory, so they own a business/have a family/new obligations so they can't go gallivanting all over creation.  But others?  The only good reason I can see that they haven't gone off to find item x their damn selves, is that they're just too lazy.

Kinda reminds me of real life.  'I would/could do x, but I have (insert excuse here).'


Travelling merchants are often idiots.  


Wander around enough, and you'll find tons of destroyed carts and dead people near giants' lairs, in underground tunnels full of monsters - and an obligatory diary saying basically, 'we thought this would be a shortcut'.

Life lesson:  that 'shortcut' might not be such a good idea.

Vacation spots are not always as described in the brochure.


Likewise, you can find families and adventurers dead at the mouths of caves and stuff, with the convenient diary hinting at what you're in for.

One such place was marked on my map as 'Bottomless Pit of Shadows'.  There were (gasp!) monsters inside.

What were they thinking!?

All I can imagine is this couple in Essex:

'Ooh, 'Enry!' (Yes, I'm picturing one of the Pythons in drag.) 'Look what just came in the post! 'Miserable Pit of Unrelenting Doom!'

Noncommittal grunting, from the late middle aged man reading his paper in a horridly upholstered easy chair.

'Doesn't that just sound lovely?  'Aving a special right now!  Two for one 'oliday package, free hour in the torture room/spa!'

'Mmm-hmmm.'

'We haven't gone on 'oliday since 'Mount Decrepit of Insuffrable Damnation' with Alice and Roger.  Remember those slide shows?  A pity about the Ice Toothed Hellhound, though...'

Anyway.

The other one was a great piece of storytelling, and pretty heart wrenching.  (Spoilers!)

There's a lighthouse that looks like the wrong side of a Saw movie inside.  When you follow the story, a family moved there, only to be kidnapped and butchered by the monsters in the basement.


Life lessons:  Names mean something, and always get a neutral party to appraise real estate.

There is one other smart adventurer in the whole game.  He has no name, and you meet him once.


I can't remember the name of the place I found him.  He greets you near the entrance to yet another cave and says something to the effect:

'Watch out, dude.  I'm a pretty hardcore adventurer, but it's harsh in there.  I can take spiders like the best of em, but FIRE BREATHING spiders?  Screw that, I'm out.'

life lesson:  Forewarned is forearmed.  Don't ignore good advice.  Or be ready to stick your head in a bucket when a spider sets it on fire.

Oh %&$^, where do I live again?

This happens to me every time I have to fill out a form.

Over the summer, Boyfriend and I celebrated not having to move from the glorious apartment that we found last August.  It was a big deal for both of us.  Since we've lived together, we moved every single year.  I moved around a lot before that.

Still trying to wrap my head around the idea of 'home' and setting up a space.  The first two or three places that I moved into after college, my roommates and I would fix up and decorate, only to have it then sold out from underneath us, or an unscrupulous landlord suddenly jack the rent up by double.

Now that I'm thinking about, I've probably moved at least once a year every year since 1998.  Holy crap.  Didn't really do the math until now.  That equals roughly a fuckton of different living spaces; some with roommates, some not; some houses, some apartments;  everything from what felt like a timeshare on part of a bathroom in Manhattan, to a five or six bedroom Victorian house with one of those octagonal side-tower deals.

It makes a little more sense now, that I've been having trouble settling in and making any big home purchases.

The other problem, is that I often forget where I live.

Not the actual place, per se.  But the addresses meld together into taffy like amalgams of actual places in my brain, leading mail to end up at places I lived at three years ago, addresses I've never been to, or best, places that don't actually exist.  I'll put the street number of one place, the street name of another, and a zip code of a third (or a zip code misremembered or dislexified so that it doesn't exist at all).

I had that happen again this morning, as I was signing up for a class that I can't really afford, but more importantly, can't afford not to take any longer.

Its a weird, sinking feeling, when you try to fill out the address lines on the form, and can't remember what they are. (Though not as bad as realizing that you've just written alpha numeric pudding of several different ones, and have to ask HR for the paperwork back because you've just managed to screw up your own address...)

I messaged Boyfriend in a panic.  'WHERE DO I LIVE? AAAAAAGGGGH!'

He hasn't responded yet.  Maybe he thinks I'm screwing with him.  I would, but this time its serious.  I was looking around for mail, but I was actually trying to be productive this morning and do some cleaning, so I threw out all the junk mail.

Let this be a lesson - never clean the house, because then you won't know where you live.

The 'I'm still five' edition, where I have a case of the 'why'.

First of all, happy New Year, everybody!

Boyfriend has the day off, so we made grand plans to do some major housecleaning.

Umm, yeah.  As of four p.m. today, we have assembled the last of the new bookshelves (more on that tomorrow), extracted six cases of books, and watched an episode of Dr. Who.  All while still in our pajamas.  Because that's how we roll on days off - gnarly and unshowered, ready for an emergency nap attack.  Which totally happens.

Anyway, I'm craving chocolate cake.  Knowing that any bakery worth going to is probably closed today comes second to the distasteful idea of having to take a shower and actually get dressed.  But we do have cake mix. WOOOO.

(Yes, I do understand the logic gap in laziness that requires me to bake rather than put on pants.  Its just one of those things.)

There's this recipe for rum scotch cake that I absolutely love.  Its super dense, moist, chocolately nirvana.  If anyone wants to try it:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-rum-cake/detail.aspx

I don't bother with the glaze or the nuts - who puts nuts in chocolate cake?  You put more chocolate. Duh.  I'm out of chips, but I do have a chocolate bar that I'm willing to sacrifice for the cause.  What I do not have, is instant pudding mix.

In the interest of 'no pants Monday', I've started a search about what in the pudding mix is so important to the cake.  Apparently, it makes the cake more moist.  But no one seems interested in WHY.  So far, I've spent about an hour on research trying to figure out what it is that makes this ingredient so magical.  So far, its either saltpeter or animal bones, or some other archaic ingredient that I don't really understand.  Boyfriend thinks we should just suck it up and get dressed.  I totally think we should try making saltpeter in the kitchen, which he says doesn't even go in food.  Whatever.

Boyfriend says we'll blow up the kitchen.  I still think that beats putting on pants, but I think I'm going to get outvoted. The cat is usually neutral, but boyfriend is bigger than I am.

Maybe I'll just go to the grocery store in my pajamas.  They're all festive, with champagne glasses and confetti on them - totally in the spirit of the day.  And it will still be No Pants Monday.  I win.

I found the picture of the two Jack Sparrows!!

OMG I found it!!!

Remember that story I told about watching two Jack Sparrows get into a fist fight? I FOUND THE PHOTOS. Well, not of the fist fight, but the moments before. I can't make this stuff up.

Hope this makes your day, they certainly made mine.

BBC News - Severed head of patron saint of genital disease on sale

BBC News - Severed head of patron saint of genital disease on sale:

'via Blog this'



I couldn't come up with a better caption than this. Now my brain is plenty weird, and I come up with strangeness that makes people in the grocery store suddenly remember that they needed to be in a different aisle (am I the only one who's chased my roomates around the store with a genuine, whole cow tongue?), but real life sometimes throws me such a great dose of WTF, that I'm all 'you win, world - I couldn't make this one up if I tried'.

This is such a time. Not only did I not know there WAS such a saint, some lucky person could own this guy's preserved head.

The Significant Other is damn lucky that I'm both broke and that this is already over, or I'd totally greet him at the door with the severed head of the saint of GD. I'm still kinda pissed that I missed this auction. Who needs food? I NEED the preserved head of the saint of genital disease.

And then I'd stand outside the local clinic with it, offering Hail Herpes and cleansing via prayer to the head (and all the dumb jokes that go with it). Donations of a financial nature welcome.


UPDATE: This is the chat conversation I just had with the SO about it -

SO: so, how much did the head go for?

me: expected to go for between six hundred and 1200 dollars
I would have done it.

SO: almost seem worth it
seems even

me: That's the only kind of useless item I would have done it for
SAINT HEAD OMG
I didn't know you could own such things
now I want one
I love you Catholics, making a billion saints so I have the opportunity to own the severed head of one of them.

SO: there was even a dog that was suppose to be a saint

SO: To have a real sanctified alter in a Roman Catholic Church, it needs to have bones from a saint in it. Not all of the bones, sometimes just a piece or a finger joint

me: dog saints? gotta have a saint? You guys are nuts.
PIECES OF SAINTS? Now that's just gross.


(Yes, functionally I'm five. Parts of dead people are gross yet compelling.)

Regretsy

href="http://regretsy.com/>Regretsy Makes me happy.

It's like the worst of fan fiction on display, only for the crafting universe. Poorly constructed, often born of a mind that would give sane persons nightmares, these 'crafts' are the worst of the worst offerings on a site for all things handmade, Etsy (barring all of the retail items there, of course).


The mind doesn't boggle so much that there are people out there that are lousy craftsmen; not everyone's creative bent translates well through manual skill. What does give me pause is that people have put these things up for SALE. The equivalent of (often x rated) macaroni art on craft paper. And often at an exorbitant price point.

And I thought self delusion belonged only to us writer-types.

VIVA-LA-CRAP!

Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction

It took me a little while to figure out how to get back to this blog.

I've been thinking about that 'write what you know' advice, and another level on which it often fails.

Real life experiences can sometimes be stranger than fiction, and more importantly, they don't have to make sense.

I visited the walk of fame in Hollywood a few years ago. Struggling actors dress up as costumed characters and busk for change from tourists in exchange for having their pictures taken. Some spots are considered 'prime', and there's a bit of competition for them, sometimes violent.

There was a person dressed in a spectacular Davey Jones (from Pirates) costume, and a fairly viable Jack Sparrow set up shop on one side of him. A few minutes later, another Jack appeared on his left. The Jacks glared at each other behind the scene stealing Davey (neither Jack was particularly good performance wise, and both were relying on the attention of the center performer). They began catcalling and harassing each other.

This escalated to fisticuffs after a little while.

That's right - in real life, I saw two Jack Sparrows trying to beat the crap out of each other while Davey Jones watched, shrugging and waving to the crowd.

If I put this in a story, no one would believe me. It didn't make a whole lot of sense (perhaps in the context of desperate actors?), and it had not much to do with the rest of my day. I have no idea how this would fit into a narrative.

Mostly, this was an excuse to tell you all about the fistfight between Jacks with Davey Jones keeping score, which was just awesome.

Space Case - A Visual guide of what NOT to do.

Space Ark

Wow. Just...wow. This is pretty much a textbook teaching tool of what NOT to do.

Check out that website design circa 1993. Difficult to read turquoise text. Funny shapes in the text, RAINBOW text...

And that's before you even get to the excerpt. I dare you to read past the first sentence. DARE you. Double dog stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole dare.

Demanding that agents pay $35.00 to read a copy is a nice touch, too. I'm not sure which is the best part of this, though the artwork is up there in caliber with the text, which is equal to the web design.

This is pure comedy gold, and made my evening.

Your old writing

People often ask about one's old work - if they can read it (I'm not that evil), what it was like, how long you've been writing. Not one writer has ever sprung fully formed from the first sentence - we all have trunk novels, stories, and whatever else is formed of words on paper, in varying degrees of awfulness. Through a series of moves, my old work is long lost, and mostly forgotten.

I can, however share this 'gem' from memory:


My best friend and I were huge ghost story and Twilight Zone fans, and decided to become 'rich and famous' or somesuch by writing our own. (We were six or seven at the time, I suspect 'rich' included such things as getting our own pony.)

The memory is a bit fuzzy, but I believe the story had to do with a woman reading about a train crash and then perishing a few hours later the same way. Nothing wrong with the basic premise - the writing?

All I can clearly remember was the debate about the title, remedied by using both ideas. This masterpiece was called:

'The Fantom book of Fate/The Phantom book of Phate'

We thought the spelling change was terribly clever, but couldn't agree on which to use - so of course we used both.

I suspect the rest of the writing was equally inspired.

I will eat almost anything

I had a location scout today for an unrelated project, but that's boring, so I figured I'd confide in all you wonderful people instead.

Everyone has an inner child somewhere, or so I've been told.  Mine lurks so close to the surface that I might as well still be four years old sometimes.  One example is that I love texture - so much of the world comes in through our fingers!  I adore visiting posh shops around the holidays, just so I can feel all of the sweaters on display.  It takes real self control not to run my hands through barrels of flour or dried beans at bulk food stores, they just feel so marvelous.  The staff neither understands nor appreciates the sheer tactile pleasure of running your hands through barrels of dried peas, though.

For whatever reason, I'm very aware of certain basic instincts (no, probably not what you're thinking!).  The dear SO bought some chain maille making supplies for his new hobby, including these really cool glass rings to weave into some projects.

Upon unpacking them, I had this almost irrepressible urge to put them in my mouth - they look like little life savers, only brighter, shinier, with some sort of beautiful depth.  (While I managed to keep my mouth glass free, I can totally why a toddler would want to try and eat one.)

Sick :/

Sorry I haven't been up and about in far too long.

Post summer madness, I jumped onto another feature.  Yay, more work, right?

I promptly jumped right back off after the most severe case of the flu I've had since I was a child.  Two weeks later, and the view of a real meal is still making my stomach leap around like a gymnast with Tourettes. Ugh.

Filling time when you're that sick becomes it's own challenge - the lack of focus makes writing or drawing darned near impossible. I tried anyway - the results were promptly deleted.  I orally expelled more interesting things than what came out of the fried brain pan.

So I surfed the web.  Read some Hugo winning short stories - oh my. Science Fiction has come far.  The past years winners were lyrical, engaging, heart - wrenching character based works that leave you with that fuzzy headed 'WOW' at the conclusion.

Lest you think I'm over focused on work:

http://accidentalpenis.com/

Because life is no fun without a childish giggle here and there.

Happy October!

Finally have the time to get back to writing.  Oy.

In order to keep this from being boringly short, I'm going to share an older anecdote:

I had been spending the night at a friend's house; up late, chatting, the usual.  She wants to show me something.
Sure.

A few moments later, she puts this small, whitish, egg shaped item in my hand.  Looks a lot like a candied almond.  I'm holding it, trying to figure out if I should eat it, try to guess what it is, etc.

After a few more moments she told me what it was.

'It's my gall stone."

GAH. I almost ate someone else's gall stone.

She keeps it in a small cardboard jewelry box as a memento.  In the cotton batting.

I almost ate it.

I'm not quite sure what that says about either of us, but there you go.

Unexpected Inspiration, critters in my walls

We finally got the new roof on our house, and expelled the furry roommates.  A dozen or so raccoons had taken up residence in the attic and eaves; they would throw loud parties late at night, drag race, get into teenage brawls, and never paid any rent!

(I've had similar human roommates  that were just as pleasant.)

Each victory leads to another challenge.

This time, there's a squirrel in the wall trying to eat its way into our bedroom via the closet.  It scrapes, scrambles, chews, squeals, and fights off other would be tenants - from about four a.m. to 10 p. m.

So I can honestly say I have insomnia induced by something scratching in my walls.  I also have daily fear that the creature in the wall will burst through at any moment.

Harrowing, even when one knows what the creature is.  I have so much sympathy for horror novel characters that don't know.

Poor Mrs. Rowling

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012205.html#012205

The greedy, desperate, and underhanded are at it again! There's another lawsuit against the creator of the Harry Potter series regarding the intellectual ownership of wizards named 'Harry'.

I read some of the (again - what is it with these people?) semi - literate, horrible sentence construction of this (again) vanity pubbed writer. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what an adult, wild - west sci-fi flavored ADULT novel had to do with the Potter franchise...

...apparently, no one else can figure it out either.

Plus, these people cannot seem to parse the difference between plagiarism and a derivative work - though neither applies here.

(To nip this in the bud, since I've heard it before: Harry Potter and Tim from The Books of Magic, are both brunette English wizards who wear glasses. The similarities end there. Read before rant, ok?)

There was another, even more ridiculous lawsuit regarding 'muggles' - I'll have to dig up the eye-rolling details for further derision.

How NOT to market yourself - Lessons from Robert Stanek

http://conjugalfelicity.wikispaces.com/robertstanek

Just when you thought you'd seen it all...

So, you've been barred by those evil, elite, snotty commercial publishers that don't recognize your brilliance.

Rather than growing a clue right about there - you decide to self publish your 'epic' fantasy series. Okay, whatever you need to do to feel better...

I've heard of people putting up fake five star reviews on Amazon. How about over 200 of them?

What about claiming having won awards that don't exist? (While I've heard of that too, the sheer number this numbskull professes to blows my mind.)

You've become a legend in your own mind...what could possibly go wrong?

The wrong starts when real people get duped into buying your juvenile, unedited pile o' crap because they believed that you were an honest person, and wouldn't stoop to such bone - headed and underhanded marketing methods.

They came, they read, and now, any potential audience you may have had is PISSED. They're panning your work all over the 'net, warning off other targets.

People self publish crap all the time, no big deal. The biggie is lying about it. A bigger one is pretending to be 200 other people and lying about THAT.

Were it not for this shitstorm of audacity, this book would have died a quiet death, like its thousands of self published brethren. Many of those writers do go on to write something commercially viable - but you sir, have proven yourself unworthy of that goal.

You can't be trusted to turn in your own work, no matter how shoddy it may be.

For those of you who are interested in seeing just how bad this steaming pile is:

http://conjugalfelicity.wikispaces.com/kingdomsandelves1

Yeah.

Things like this make it really hard to buy that line about the 'evil, elitist barrier' in publishing. If 'evil' means correct word usage, and 'elitist' means proper grammar, I'm all for it. Honestly guys, if you're not getting a response, it might be time to take a look at the work. You don't want to be like this guy.

Another copyright maroon...

http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2006/04/no_hope_for_thi.html

Star Trek this time.

Here's my take on fanfiction:

While technically illegal, a bunch of 14 year olds writing about the characters they've fallen in love with (often porn*), and stretching their literary muscles (mostly with cringe inducing results), is mostly harmless.

Provided they do it on a fan fic site to share their little fantasies with other rabid fans, and bask in the glow of a similar interest.

Once said fan writer decided (usually erroneously) that they should be paid for this effort, and offer a highly illegal copy of someone else's intellectual property for financial gain, they should be gutted with a spork.

*there may be nothing on Earth unintentionally funnier than a sheltered tween's idea of how sex works.

Copyright infringement ain't so bright either...

This is old news if you follow publishing, but it's still an amusing read.

Some dunder-head self published a Twilight fan-fic. (And argued about it being illegal!) Some interesting threads and wank from the idiot herself:

http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/2009/03/train-wreck-now-boarding-on-platform.html

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1201887.html

http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2009/03/what-its-like-to-be-delusional.html

http://daljeanis.blogspot.com/2009/03/russet-noon-analysis.html

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136015

Rather than give up entirely, the hot mess of a 'book' is available to suffer through here:

http://www.sequel-to-breaking-dawn.com/russet-noon-english/

I was shocked when this first appeared, and appalled that it's available anywhere outside of a fan fic forum (excuse the unintentional alliteration).

Whatever one may feel about Mrs. Meyer's prose, there is absolutely no recourse for this reprehensible behavior. (Plus, this book makes Twilight read like Shakespeare in comparison.)

Thermo - meter

This is just what happens when the brain runs on too little sleep...

I was mucking about in a casual game (as the two lovely gentlemen on our roof made it impossible to concentrate on anything) and it got me thinking about the modern pronunciation of 'thermometer'.

It's a meter to measure heat, so at what point did 'thermo - meter' become the single word 'thermometer'?

What's in a name? More than I thought...

I am the MASTER of making myself look like an idiot.

On this last shoot, I kept talking about a movie that I had done earlier that's doing it's festival run, and doing pretty well.

Not considering that many others had not heard of or been involved with the film, there was some cognitive confusion as I kept mentioning the film's title.

I wonder how many people thought I was implying something quite different every time I mentioned -

Friends With Benefits.

Oh god, save me from myself.