rivka:

Alex narrated a little piece of Mary Sue self-insertion fanfic this morning, complete with dialogue markers. It began like this:

"Hi, I'm Alex," I said. "I'm a new friend in Miss Frizzle's class."

As tends to be the case with Mary Sues, there wasn't much of a plot. When you're a student in Ms. Frizzle's class, and Ms. Frizzle is your teacher, apparently all you need to do to enjoy the story is to revel in the coolness of the situation. But there was a suggestion of a hint of a plot in this bit, which was my favorite part:

[...] "Wait!" said the children. "Didn't you go to Leo's party?"

"No," said Miss Frizzle. "I went to Alex's party, and she gave me a present."

"Wow!" said the children. "Wow!"

I think Alex has a long career ahead of her on fanfiction.net.

douglain:

Review by StePHANie hoLmes

Diet Soap #1 (November 2007)

"This author is the most paranoid person ever," I blurt within reading the first two pages. But the trick is that I cannot put this down, and I end up reading the surveillance issue from cover to cover. DIET SOAP, with its headlines including the brief history of cakes and cake-making that is more about covert listening devices and surveillance measures and less Betty Crocker happy homemaking, is the equivalent of reading the well-written diary of the neurotic person you have a raging crush on. Recommended.

matociquala:

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.

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*

datagoddess:

Today’s shirt is a t-shirt I got at GenCon last year. It’s black and has this on it:

OMG
WTF
STFU
PWN3D
URAN00B
LMAOROFL
KTHXBYE:P

Like an eye chart, so the text gets progressively smaller. I know I could make it look that way in HTML, but I’m too brain dead to even attempt it.

The last few days have been insane. My parents came down on Thursday, and we’re a lot further along than we were. My mom and I also had a run-in - I love my mom, but she’s still being a MOM and trying to make me into someone I’m not and never will be. She does the same to my brother - when they were here 2 weeks ago he called her on it. I’m impressed with as tired as I’ve been this is the first time I went off on her. I’m so glad that we’re close enough to being done that we can finish it on ourselves. And we’ll do something nice for my folks and brother’s family once we’re all moved.

Both of my knees have decided they don’t like me anymore. In different ways, of course, far be it from them to both hurt the same way. And I have lovely bruises all over, including one somehow in my tattoo (left ankle).

The upstairs is almost done, just need to do some final cleaning in the main bath and shampoo all the carpets. Mom did most of the windows. I need to go around with a Magic Eraser and get the marks off the walls, then Dan’s going to go around with the paint and touch up anything that really needs it.

Dan and his friend M got all the darkroom and photo studio stuff out of the basement yesterday. There’s still stuff we need to go through, but the unsorted piles have diminished tremendously.

Today was kind of a down day, even though we ran a lot of errands. I wasn’t going to do anything with the house today, then I ended up doing more cleaning out of the coat closet and put up the new shower curtain and other accouterments in the master bathroom. Even when I want to take time off I can’t do it, we’re so close but there’s still quite a bit to do.

In other news, I FINALLY have my new work laptop. Of course, I have no way to get into the company-I’m-subcontracted-to’s systems, which is a big problem, but I can get into company-who’s-contracting-other-company’s systems, at least. It also means I’m going to have fewer hours to work on the house since I have to actually, you know, work :-D

Oh, and did anyone see this week’s BSG yet???? It raised more questions than it answered, IMO. And my guess about who the final cylon is seems to be a little more validated……

Originally published at Just a little looney. You can comment here or there.

smofbabe:
Road kill plush toys

richardthe23rd:

And so, I'm back from the State Democratic Convention. The presidential candidates were no-shows, although they did send their national campaign managers; the first thing Terry McAuliffe did when he hit the stage was slip in a plug for his book, that crafty little devil. They claim this was bigger than the National convention in Denver in August, although if you include the guests and media for National, I would venture a guess not.

On the way home the radio was playing Over the Rhine on e-Town, and their song "If A Song Could Be President." I guess any song that manages to name-check Emmylou Harris and John Prine is all right with me.

jimhenley:
Lots of driving to and from Illinois the last few days for my father-in-law's funeral, which meant lots of tuning of the radio. Trying vainly to find Rachel Maddow in Eastern Ohio, I ended up on a station playing actual Western Swing, from back in the day. And man, it hit me during a couple of guitar parts with the force of revelation: Yes, that is totally where (quite a bit of) Steve Howe came from. Which Howe and others had always said, that country and western and jazz were much bigger influences on him than blues, but actually hearing the same sorts of progressions and tonalities made the claims manifest.

Speaking of Red/Blue culture shock: it never occurred to me that in whole regions of the country you could still hear music on AM radio - in English.

lizhand, posting in theinferior4:
Earlier today I read that Robert Frank's 1959 classic Pull My Daisy has been rereleased in NYC — this is the 26-minute film based on Jack Kerouac's one-act "The Beat Generation," notable for a cast that includes Alice Neel, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Larry Rivers and Peter Orlovsky, among others, with Kerouc narrating.  I'd never  seen it until I found it online tonight.  Best entrance: Corso and Ginsberg, looking like the Kramdens' neighbors dropping by after work with a bottle of beer and a jug of  wine.  Best line: "The Lower East Side has produced all these gum-chewing poets."  Was this actually being made at the same moment as Godard's Breathless?

21st Century Beat:  "Dang!" Brand new music video from Buck 65, the Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia golden boy who blew everyone away at the Airwaves Festival when I was in Reykjavik last fall.  Gotta love a rapper who works Glenn Gould and the penultimate line of Breathless into his act. 

holyoutlaw:


Downtown, Seattle
May, 2008

mac_arthur_park:
...when is it acceptable for the mother of the host of the slumber party to hide upstairs and cower under the covers?

They are playing Rockband, and if Michael Stipe had a grave, he'd be rolling in it.

The off-keyness, it burns...

jimhenley:
( Who comments the most on this journal? )

ranjtheobscure:
The first rose of spring. Black Jade, the mini.

athenais:

Cool down
Originally uploaded by lucy huntzinger

It's been in the 80's and 90's for the past four days. It's pleasant just now, thanks to the breeze that's started to blow a little fog our way. But it's still hot enough that the cats are keeping to the cool downstairs and actually positioning themselves near the fan despite the omgsoscarywtf noise.

Me, I made this drink yesterday and today. Lime-flavored sparkling water with a dash of pomegranate juice. Aaaaah.

I am sorry to say there will be no Artichoke Festival photograghs. I took my car in this morning to have the oil changed, and the mechanic had a serious discussion with me about the headgasket which is cracked every so slightly and is leaking a little water into the oil. I need to be really careful not to let the car overheat. It's fine for a drive to, say, Palo Alto in the cool of the evening, or my daily 1.2 mile trip to and from BART, but it would have been asking for real trouble taking it to Castroville. I am awfully disappointed.

Still, I'm sensible and I know there will be other Artichoke Festivals. I can't afford to have my engine seize up. In fact, the minute this car requires a repair of $1000 or more I will trade it in. I don't want to take on a car payment just when I'm about to get out of debt, but the car itself is only worth about a grand. So we now enter into the twilight days of the Estate Sale Wonder. Just ten more months, baby. Let me get clear of my other debts and I'll let you go into that good Honda dealer's night.

Meanwhile, I have spent my day reading a Patrick O'Brian book, critiquing three stories, discussing which computer to get now that we're finally getting one (the iMac 20" dual core, the one with the ATI card so I can play the Sims again after four years, and maybe even get on Second Life), steadying John up on a ladder while he chipped out the paint that sealed our other bedroom window shut, and somewhere in there I went grocery shopping. Also, I figured out a useful thing for my work in progress. Rock on.

I have fresh cracked crab in the refrigerator, a vase full of sunflowers next to the computer, sixteen more books to go in my series, some rather handsome rose photos posted to Flickr, and a cold sparkling drink to keep me cool. It's a good Saturday.

oxforddnb_feed:

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2008-05-18

Today's biography from the Oxford DNB:
Blackwell, Sir Basil Davenport (1922-2003), engineer and industrialist

lostvirtue:


thai tofu coconut curry (with veggies)

navarattan korma with rice and nan (and chai)

laotian/thai cripsy noodles with tofu (cantonese noodles, carrots, broccoli, bamboo shoots, celery, green peppers, in spicy sauce)

I don't think I'd want to eat any of these for breakfast necessarily. I think I'd die without any fruit and I do like raw veggies especially in the summer time, but yes. This post makes me very hungry. Fortunately I have another batch of farmers market fresh asparagus and I'm gonna try to make sauteed morels in earth balance & flour (for the first time). We also have fresh basil italian bread and organic free-range :)- strawberries for dessert. And that's not even counting the other goodies I picked up today.

sbisson:
( Microblog entries )

sraun:

Who uses the LJ jabber client consistently?

kijjohnson:
Okay, so I just started reading Galileo's Commandment: An Anthology of Great Science Writing. The selection of authors and works is interesting, but so far I am most impressed by the editor himself, Edmund Blair Bolles. He discusses topics like the marriage of style, voice, and content; the great conversation that is science (which almost exactly parallels in its nature the conversation that is science fiction); and the imaginations of science and art, in harness or conflict.

The introduction begins, "I love great science writing for the same reason I enjoy splendid autobiography or classic letters and journals. It puts me in direct contact with an active probing mind." In these sentences he has clarified exactly why nonfiction -- and in particular these genres -- are generally more powerful for me than fiction, something I've never been able to understand. And every page of his introductions brings something equally revelatory for me.

Another really interesting book I have read in the last few months is The Best American Sports Writing 2007, edited by David Maraniss. Maraniss's introductions are terse and most of the articles and essays are journalism, not literature, though a couple of them are both. It's an unfamiliar world, interesting or moving or even enlightening.

kijjohnson:
Just as last year, I am teaching the Novel Writers Workshop this summer, which involves a lot of reading and preparation. However, I am insane, so (also as last year), I am planning on also taking Jim Gunn's short fiction Writers Workshop.

I find myself once more in the position of writing three stories in a limited time. Last year, I only had an idea for one of them, so I asked athenais to pick two topics from my LJ interests list. She selected macaques and gazing into the abyss, and I wrote "26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss," which is in this year's July Asimov's.

For the third story, I posted a poll, intending to use the top two ideas to get going. In the end, I used the top four: extinct birds, sex, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and a chatty fool to write "Wife reincarnated as a solitaire—Exposition on the flaws in my spouse's character—The nature of the bird—The possible causes—Her final disposition." I sent this precisely one place before I decided that the world probably wasn't interested in my Tristram Shandy pastiche, however successful I think it.

Both the poll and the LJ interests thing worked rather well, so I am going to see what happens this time. A few of these are leftover from last year, but that doesn't mean they're any more intriguing to me than the rest on the list. You don't have to pick four, though you're certainly welcome to.

Poll #1189521 What do you think? 2008 edition
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What should the stories include?

holyoutlaw:


Waterfall Park, Seattle
May, 2008