The dryer's still broken, but at least the laundromat wasn't too bad, so I was able to find time to watch last night's ep properly. YogurtWatch is updated.

( Spoilerish musings... )

YogurtWatch is delayed due to a small domestic crisis. Sorry, folks. Should have an update ready by tonight.

YogurtWatch is updated.

In my continuing adoration of this show, let me just note ( minor spoilers )

YogurtWatch is updated.

Another fine episode. I do appreciate Fiona's approach to home remodeling.

The Different Types of Critiquers by elissadcruz. An excellent list of the various types of critiquers, with their flaws and merits. Seriously, I think I'm going to keep a printout of this handy for discussions with my writing group.

YogurtWatch is updated.

( And now we know... )

New Burn Notice! I continue to love this show with unbounded delight.

( Spoilery ramblings.... )

YogurtWatch is updated.

My characters are pestering me to hurry up and write the next several chapters of the NIAY right now. They're being really quite insistent about it. I've no idea why; if they think their lives are going to get any easier as the novel progresses, they obviously haven't been paying attention.

So, this is now several days post-con. Hey, by MediaWest*Con standards, this is timely.

The con got off to a slow start this year. It felt like attendance was down; I don't know the actual membership count, but there seemed to be fewer decorated doors and less general chaos. The housemate & I were a bit down as well, due to otterwort and coffeerainbows having to cancel due to illness and an outbreak of Life. We did thoroughly enjoy the luxury of each having a queen-sized hotel bed to ourselves, but we would've gladly traded the space for the company.

However, it was good to see other folks, and do the usual con things. Shopping was shopped; I picked up a couple of old zines I've been on the lookout for, and assorted what-nots. The biggest-ticket single item was actually a 16 gig flash drive at OfficeMax, ridiculously on sale, and not technically a con expense.

Art-wise, I behaved fairly well. I snagged a print in the dealers' room of some unpronounceable crystals, and two Nicole Pellegrini watercolors from the art show, an abstract/surreal piece called "Pathways" and a lovely cool alien landscape which could actually stay on the wall when we put the house up for sale. I love her work; being not full of pretty men (hey, it's MediaWest*Con) it doesn't tend to sell well, which I think is a shame, but on the other hand, lack of competition means I can actually afford to buy it.

The hotel was still pretty rough; I suspect they're finding two problems for every one they start to fix, as one does. The pool was closed. The fifth floor was a construction zone, which doubtless contributed to the perception of it being a smaller than usual con. The other guest rooms haven't had much if any work done. Hopefully next year they'll have everything all spiffy for us.

The hotel staff was great, though. The newer ones seemed a bit bewildered at first, but they got into it pretty quickly, and the old hands were having a ball. R the restaurant guy has moved to another restaurant, but was hanging out with the FOE and said he's going to get a regular membership next year.

( I went to some panels.... )

Wow, that's eight panels. I think that's some kind of record for me.

I only stayed for a bit of the art auction; as the need to sit on my hands grew, I decided the better part of valor involved going up to the room.

I have totally fallen in love with having a laptop with wireless capability, even if the hotel's wireless was only slightly faster than home's dial-up connection. signeh had me pull up Susan Boyle's initial performance on Britain's Got Talent; holy crap, if you have not heard this, go listen to it now. Seriously, I'll wait.

signeh and I talked writing whenever we could fit it in. It was good to have a nice, long natter or two. If only we could have had the whole group together....

I was going to post my pre-MediaWest*Con to-do list, but it's long enough that typing it up would constitute another item on the to-do list. And if I add one more thing to the list, I'm going to go stick my head under a pillow for the next two weeks.


In less stressful news, Season 2 of Burn Notice is scheduled to be out June 16. Squee!


(Crossposted to Dreamwidth)

New Burn Notice will commence Thursday, June 4, at 9:00 Eastern (8:00 Central).

Squee!


(Crossposted to Dreamwidth)

Yes, I'm over there under the same handle. And thanks to B's generosity with invite codes, I didn't have to confront my issues with either OpenID or PayPal.

At minimum, I'll be crossposting (well, content that's not service-specific) for a while. How much or little I shift over there in the long run will depend on what it looks like when it's out of beta, and, like the rest of fandom, how widespread the migration ends up being. If you're playing on Dreamwidth too, comment (here or there, I'm easy) so we can find each other.

You know, I would get more done on the Novel-In-[AnUndefinedButLargeNumber]-Years if, every time I sat down to clear out some of the check-this brackets, the first thing I tackled didn't turn into this epic saga of frustration and time-sink. Seriously, internets, what do you think you're here for, anyway?

I used to know how to do dihybrid Punnett squares, darn it. Ah, brain cells, I knew them well, Horatio....

I really wanna go play on Dreamwidth. I have no invite code, but there's the OpenID option. However, the basic concept of OpenID makes me intensely uncomfortable, for reasons my geek-fu is not currently up to articulating.

Anybody want to explain to me why I'm wrong? Or, alternatively, justify my paranoia?

It occurs to me that I should mention here that I am home. (And have been for several days. Sorry, there were taxes.)

Writing output has plummeted to near-zero. I did, I think, fix one of the sticky bits in the novel; at minimum, it no longer sucks in the same way. (Drawback to using word counts as a metric: vital revisions which involve cutting things actively count against me. Still, it needed doing.)

I really must find a way to motivate myself to write in my own home.

Still not home, due to issues various and sundry. So, yes, I'm retyping it.

...What?

For all the short-shorts I've written, this is my first official drabble. My early encounters with the form did not endear it to me, most being not stories but random snippets that the writer didn't know what else to do with. Recently I've been seeing some pretty good ones, though, including infiniteviking's, from whom I picked up this meme:

Twenty-Minute Drabble Meme.
The first quote here will be your prompt. Any three- to five-word sequence in the last quote will be your title. The first fandom that you think of after seeing the prompt will be your source material. You have twenty minutes. GO.

I of course totally ignored the time limit, ended up having friends tell me what fandom to work in, and really used the last quote more than the first for inspiration (although they go so well together, it's eerie). But hey, I wrote something, so it's all good. And it seems to have broken something loose in my brain that was badly stuck.


Title: Why I Have No Monument
Fandom: The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
Prompt Quote: Why was I born with such contemporaries? (Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900)
Title Quote: After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one. (Cato the Elder, 234BC-149BC)
Length: 100 words (shorter than this header!)
Spoilers/Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Secret Adventures of Jules Verne is the property of Filmline International, Talisman Crest, and quite possibly Chris Demetral; characters, situations, etc. of SAJV are included in this work under the principle of Fair Use, and no infringement of copyright is intended. All other components of this work are © 4 April 2009 Liz A. Vogel.
Notes: Thanks to the members of Maintain The Write for kicking me until I produced something!

( Read Me )

I was going to post a new story here, just a tiny little drabble that resulted from the writers' weekend just past. However, my writing laptop uses 3.5" floppies (because I like it that way, thank you very much), and the friend's computer I'm borrowing for internet access has a floppy drive that evidently does not work. I... don't actually think there is any single technological interface that will allow these two machines to exchange data, short of hooking up a Backpack drive and burning a CD, which I can't quite bring myself to do for a mere hundred words.

I suppose I could just retype it.... Or, I could wait until I get home and post from there. Yeah.

Mostly a note to myself, although otterwort might also find it interesting: KeepVid sounds nifty, a handy way to download YouTube vids & the like for keeping.

Sadly, their player/converter software, while it sounds promising, is Win2K and above only. *pouts*

Went to the local bookstore last night (always a dangerous excursion). Managed to make it out with only one book, and an okay from the manager to use their electrical outlets if I wanted to bring in the laptop and try to write. This, plus the book (I Wouldn't Start From Here by Andrew Mueller, v. entertaining so far), left me feeling very brain-energized and psyched for writing.

So I spent the morning filling out a job application, and am now about as far from being in the mood for writing as it's possible to be. :-(

I feel like I either need to take a month off from everything, or take a month and work non-stop to get everything done so I can concentrate on writing. Unfortunately, the first is impossible, and I know from experience that the second doesn't work; "everything" breeds faster than I can kill it off. I want to believe that there is a workable middle ground somewhere in there, but darned if I can find it.



In other thoughts, Ian McShane on The Daily Show last night. Oh, my. His face seems to have fallen back on, and... was his voice always that gorgeous? I don't remember it being that gorgeous. The premise of Kings doesn't really grab me, but maybe I should tune it in just to listen to him talk....

I finally finished watching the Star Trek DVDs. All 79 original episodes, in order.

And you know, "Turnabout Intruder" isn't as bad as I remembered it. ( Spoilers for an episode older than many people in fandom )