Adam Simon: an SF amateur with aspirations of being professional, but who doesn't quite know how to "play the game" on how big-time stuff is sold, or how to add mass-market appeal. "Hey, I know this Delgo is obviously a labor of love, but it looks like something Adam Simon would've made." An Adam Simon's projects are missing a broader connection that would connect with mundane people. The opposite of Pixar.

Inspired by Adam Simon, a SF/horror movie writer who played a self-deprecating version of himself in the movie The Player, where he spends more time talking about the sciency-fictiony aspects of his movie pitch, instead of the salability.

I re-connected with my 2nd boyfriend. He was my Edinboro University boyfriend. His name is Wayne. We dated for about a year. He was a great guy, but had a lot of issues. Well, it's bee about 26 years and he is all better now and we can resume a friendship.

I like Live Journal but Face Book has it advantages.

EeePC T91 vs. Equus NOBi ... Discuss!

She's the one with the black hair. People who know me can see the family resemblance.

After years of trying to put a name on an annoying thing I've had for years. Well, there it is, I have a combination of tinnitus and hyperacusis.

My symptoms? A constant buzzing/hissing sound in my ears, all the time (though the intensity can vary). Then there's my hypersensibility to high-pitched noises people would overlook or else wouldn't hear at all.

Example 1: I can sometimes tell that the TV is on from a room away, even with the sound cut off. I feel something halfway between a buzz and a pressure in my ears around most TV sets.

Example 2: Back in France I couldn't put a foot inside the Val d'Europe mall without feeling discomfort leading to pain in my ears. No one else around me could hear the buzzing sound I was complaining about, I even got nicknamed Joan of Arc because I apparently heard things no one else did. But the buzzing and pain disappeared every time I stepped out of the mall, so I know it wasn't mere imagination.

Example 3: I just can't stand nightclubs and most parties. My ears kill me.

I've gotten the Must-Haves printed for my art show panels... now I'm trying to decide how to fill the rest of them, and I'm having quite the time choosing! Which of these do you think I should definitely bring?


Kelu and the Moon Goddess


Demure


Flight of the Godkin Griffin Book Plate


Blue Willow


Guardian of the West

Must draw more comics. Somehow.

But first I gotta do my homework. Oh, then I have some commission work to do as well.

This may take a while :(

Well, after purchasing a 32gig thumb drive and a 350gig notebook drive, I have now replaced the old 20gig drive in my PS3 with something far more substantial. I'm amazed at the ease of the whole routine, including the PS3's built in backup utility and drive storage and such. In fact the hardest part was removing the dang screws from the little hard drive housing around the old drive. Scott had to employ a few tricky moves and some pliers before he finally got them to budge. But once we switched drives out everything else was a breeze. As much as people complain about the PS3, I'm glad that they made a system that trusts its users enough to allow them to do this if they want. At least my model does. (I bought one of the first gen PS3s on the advice of several friends because it has much better PS2 game support)

I spent a little time surfing the Playstation store since I could finally potentially buy content now, but beyond some binge purchases that really deep down weren't of much interest... Well, there wasn't anything of much interest. But at least I don't have to delete Scott's Fallout Games if I ever want to play Oblivion again!

Yesterday we also took a rare excursion to the Florida mall. We hadn't been in a good long while so it was neat to walk around and look at stuff. I discovered the Bijoux Terner store which is a nice concept in that everything is $10. Some of the items like earrings and necklaces I wouldn't ever consider paying $10 for (I'm a cheapskate like that), but they had literally hundreds of watches and I finally found one that really suited me. It's a cuff watch like a bracelet so it's easy to pull off and on, and actually fits my incredibly teeny tiny wrist! And if it breaks, it was only $10.

We also went to Sephora... Or I should say I went to Sephora and Scott hung outside in the comfy chair reserved for men who would rather tear their eyebrows out than hang out in Sephora for an extended period of time. I alllllllmost bought this eyeshadow set, but resisted and bought a much smaller and cheaper palette. I may get it anyway eventually, but just couldn't bring myself to spend that much on makeup no matter how cool it was. Instead I attacked their travel sized section and got some solid perfume, a small traveling eyeshadow set in colors I really like, a travel mascara set, and some hair refreshing spray. I've been curious about spray on shampoos for awhile so it'll be neat to experiment with.

And that was my estrogen allotment for this month. I could totally go back and buy half the store, but budgeting for Christmas and all. Whimper. And since that was my estrogen allotment for the month we avoided Lush. Ahh, sacrifices.

On the way out we got a brochure from River Fruit Winery who were selling fruit wines from a cart. After some research it turns out that they might actually be the same people from the winery we intend to visit after Thanksgiving, but for some reason are selling under a different name for the purpose of the mall. I wonder if they're not allowed to push for tourism there so they have to go under a different name, or they know the tourists will pay more so they go under a slightly different name and charge more.

But anywho, it is early in the morning and the comics will not draw themselves. So off I go to crank them out.

Freakin' intense.

A budget of 15,000.

Gross revenue of 100 million.

It beat Saw VI for the number one spot when it debuted nationwide.

Very good movie.

That is all.

The following FFF titles released in October and were submitted by FFF members for showcasing on the blog sidebar. They're still out there, so it's not too late to pick up copies for yourself or someone else.

To see the November releases (as submitted by the authors), check out the updated FFF sidebar.

Happy Reading!

S. J. Day
( See the pretty covers... )

This is related to Thirteen Ribbons. Trust me.

You see, I'm running the official 13R site on a WordPress framework. This means that the basics are there for posting and commenting, but extended functionality requires plugins. "Extended" includes OpenID logins, automatic database backups, spam catchers, et cetera. I've recently added a couple things which should directly boost the reader experience, namely:

• a convenient login widget which means you don't have to leave a page to log in and comment on it


• automatic (but optional) e-mail notification of responses to your comments, set to notify by default

I'm hoping that these help, but what I want to know is whether there are any other features that would make it easier for folks to enjoy the story. WordPress enjoys a highly active development community, so if you can think of it, there's almost certainly a plugin to do it, and I'll be glad to find out how to make it happen.

I'll also raise a second question here. A couple folks have asked me if it's really necessary to block commenting on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth just to shunt everybody over to the official 13R site. My original reasoning was that I really wanted to encourage folks to have the access to additional materials (FAQ, reader's guide, and more) available on that site, and to take part in discussion. Every single part of the story has at least one comment from one of the members of the Six Below racing team, and often more. Readers are free to interact with them, ask questions, whatever. I can't really synchronise the comments with LJ/DW, so it seemed the sanest thing just to disable comments here and point over there. Most importantly, I intended to stop directly crossposting the parts and instead point at the 13R RSS feed and 13r_feed (though I still have to tweak that some). How would that impact folks? Do the new enhancements to the 13R site help make the transition more comfortable? Am I missing something important that should stop me from doing this? Please don't be afraid to let me know here.

Anyhow, that's a lot to slog through, and thanks for reading it. Oh, and the most important reason for me to post: Be sure to check out this post on the 13R site for the super-secret thing I was promising. You won't be disappointed.

dracosphynx and I have just moved the website to its new revision; we're encountering the expected bugs here and there and are in the process of fixing them. If you find an error (or don't find a page), feel free to drop us a comment here and we'll look into it. Once things are settled I'll be telling you about the cool new features... this being the version of the website that will allow patrons and superfans access to protected content.

Thanks for your patience as we make the switch-over.

EEEEE! Hopkins did a picture of meeeeee! *bouncebouncebounce*

(David Hopins draws Jack, which is one of my favorite webcomics out there.)

Squee!

The good thing about today: had a nummy dinner with friends visiting. Gary made his famous spaghetti and meatballs, friends brought a super salad, we had home made focaccia with caramelized onions on top (my recipe,) wine and apple cider and some green tea someone brought that looks like a petrified moose turd but you put it in a glass pot and pour boiling water over it and it slowly opens up and blossoms into an elaborate floral sculpture underwater, made from tea leaves. Dessert too: Gary's chocolate chip zucchini cake.

And all the usual chores too, plus we replaced the boys' water trough because it was leaking. The bad thing: I'm getting farther behind because I'm being so careful writing.

So, for anyone who has been waiting patiently for more NaNo output from me (and there will be more, I promise) I offer a story written a couple of years ago, to fill in the gap:

Rabbit Food by Altivo Overo. This is furry and has a transformation in it, but no werewolves. ;p

Oh, and it got up to nearly 70F today I think, and the sky is still clear and there are stars for the first time in what seems like months.

As you remember, it started with someone smashing my car windown and stealing my GPS. Calls to the police non-emergency line went unanswered (I'm paying how much for city services?), ditto calls to insurance agent.

So on Monday, I took the car to my trusty mechanic, got loaner car, DROVE to the police department to make my report, swapped out teaching kits, did work on Alamosaurus. The paleontologists looked at my work and declared the vertebra was finished -- all I need to do now is glue it up. And yes, I'll post a picture or two once it's done. But not all the pictures I've taken -- there's over 100 of them. Also called insurance company and was told that the mechanic isn't one of their "authorized mechanics." The Customer Service Representative started reading the script to me, and I hung up. Turns out (explained by my mechanic who did NOT read a script to me) that I pay for it and they reimburse me.

Tuesday was the day that I helped break trail for the new trail (an Eagle Scout's project) at Audubon Trinity Center. It was fun to go through the forest, looking for focal points for a trail and marking what would be cleared and what would be taken out. Discovered a delightful angle grinder (junked) that had been welded to a post that would make a great trail marker or art piece (suggested we leave it in place.) That night I rubbed my itchy face.

Wednesday morning I discovered that the itchy face was poison ivy. Then I learned that the car glass people sent wrong glass to my mechanic, who called and chewed them out. The kids in afterschool Mad Science program were just... unpleasant and out of control.

Thursday, poison ivy was much worse, and I put a patch over my eye because I looked like I'd been in a number of brawls. Ron, the paleontologist, looked at my face and said "I'd hate to see the other guy." I said "he was short, green, and had 3 leaves." I finally got some answers for assistance on prisoner's family I'm trying to help (dad in prison (non violent -- parole violation because he lost his job and couldn't continue paying restitution), family has SEVEN kids (not theirs; nieces and nephews abandoned by brothers and sisters. They've adopted 3 of the kids already -- two are autistic.) She'd covered a lot of resources, but with Christmas and Thanksgiving coming up it will be a difficult year. Charities are strapped for cash... I'm still looking.

Friday, I took my face to the doctor and was given a steroid shot and pills (the standard treatment) and the face did start to look better by evening. Went to Audubon to do some GPS work and was told that work on the trail had started.

Today (Saturday) I went out to the dinosaur dig to start the GPS mapping there. Decided to drive down rather than walk down the hill. Ahead of me, in the muddy road, I saw a truck that was stuck and thought I might be able to help rescue the drive (in my Nissan Altima) by driving on the edge and in the grass. Bad move. 30 feet in, the Nissan got stuck in mud in the field up to his frame. So, on the theory that misery loves company, I went over to the two women and checked out the situation. It was a Ford F150 with 4 wheel drive and it was stuck on a high hump. There was no way that 3 60-something women were going to push it off. We saw one of the dig crew, asked him to send back help... and 20 minutes later a 28 year old guy comes strolling up. Needless to say, the four of us didn't have enough muscle power to push anything out. Meanwhile, the professor's assistant and a full class of students wanders past our stuck truck (50 yards away) and doesn't stop. The other ladies fumed a bit, then one of them called her brother. He arrives to help and is blocked at the gate to the dirt road by three vehicles sitting next to each other and blocking the gate.

I marched over to the assistant and the class and yelled "EXCUSE ME! WE NEED SOME HELP!" If you haven't heard me bellow, I was in choir and know how to yell from the diaphragm... I can outshout many crowds. Scared 'em half to death. I said that we'd been stuck for 90 minutes, we finally got a tow truck and that the gate was blocked by 3 vehicles owned by someone at the dig and I was Getting Peeved. Hasty phone calls were made, brother shows up with Ford 150, second brother shows up with Ford 450, and we are hauled out. The ladies leave (a bit angered at the crew ignoring crew pleas for help) but I went off to the dig, found the guy who had come to help us (and gotten mighty muddy) and gave him the $15 we collected to help pay for his lunch and laundry. I told him that just the fact that he showed up helped immeasurably.

Then Derek came along with a class... and since I was there to GPS, I followed him around and marked stuff. After that, I headed to Audubon where I was greeted with the delightful news that "my trail" was finished! Dana drove me down to where it started and I walked, enchanted and amazed. We'd done a good job of picking the right places and the trail showed off a number of very nice microregions including a riparian (forest) pond. It's still very new, so more work needs to be done, but my trail IS finished!

They left in the woods (I suggested it) the old angle grinder, which will be turned into a geocache marker and trail marker. And I'm SO pleased with the trail. Bruce and I will walk it tomorrow and do some nice photos.

I have a rather bright red face now; steroids and sunshine aren't the best of mixes. However, what's a little inconvenience when you can have adventures?

My favorite quote is from the play, "Auntie Mame" -- "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death." I had three full courses this week AND dessert, too!

And now my computer is broken.

As in, like, physically. The laptop hinge is broken at the spot where the monitor connects to the keyboard.

This also means it can't go to sleep or wake up. And it's probably just days from falling apart completely.



I give up. The world wants to just fuck with me.

And the media blocked it, too, I bet.
(Thanks to shikei_and_cz for this...)