So it turns out that we're not out of the Compocalyptic woods yet, kids. (Don't panic! It's not that bad.) I've finally set Lizzie up at my desk--which I haven't worked at for nearly four months now, by the way--and it turns out that... she doesn't fit. See, it's a huge desk with an attached shelf overtop, and it's divided down the middle by a... well, a divider. And each half is only just big enough to fit the laptop--not really anything that attaches. You know, like the wireless unit for a keyboard and mouse, or headphones, or the iPhone jack, or ANYTHING AT ALL, really. The divider doesn't run all the way from the back to the front of the desk--if I pull the laptop out, I can fit attachments in... but that's all the way to the edge of the desk, so there's no room for a separate keyboard. I'm so disgusted, I can't even tell you.

(Also, I looked at the wireless mouse, and it is completely alien to me. Great.)

So what I'm facing here is the prospect of buying a second desk. I love this desk. I don't want it to go anywhere. Also, there isn't any real possibility of it going anywhere, because I'm not even sure how we heaved it upstairs in the first place. So I'm thinking it might be possible to find a light, cheap desk--a glorified table, really, if I can get one at the right sit-down height--and put it against the foot of my bed. I am really running out of room in my room, but this is the simplest solution I can think of.

So until then, I'm stuck with the flaky touchpad mouse and the keyboard I'm not quite used to, but, like I said: it's kind of on the level of complaining that my diamond shoes are too tight.

Been resting mostly--slept in this morning, since the dogs are off getting their baths to be all shiny-fresh for Happy Eating Day. Still trying to work on New Moon in Fifteen Minutes--I am this close to busting out the 5x8 notecards all hardcore "I are srs writer"-style, just because I get completely overwhelmed by my sea of notes. FYI: I have never had to use notecards for a Fifteen Minutes before. Don't ever say I don't love you.

Meanwhile, this breaks my heart: Chris Weitz finally admits that New Line screwed The Golden Compass over. 

Weitz claims that New Line didn't trust him to handle the content of the book, that the film was taken from him in editing. Heavy-handed hacking resulted in losing nearly 30 minutes of footage from the film, and neatly exercised the edgy thrust of Phillip Pullman's book. "It was an utter violation of my status as a director and the worst thing that has happened to me professionally ... I was treated badly, it was almost like they never read the books. They seemed frightened of offending the right." Out of loyalty to the cast and crew, Weitz said he "bit through my tongue" when Compass was released.

Also: 7 Threatened Fanboy Responses to New Moon. Which really piss me off, by the way. There's a line between "The Twilight movies are ridiculous and I disagree with their view of the world" and "OMG SOMETHING LIKED BY GIRRRRRRRRRRRRLS." I was glad it didn't outgross The Dark Knight because the latter is one of my favorite movies, not because such an event would shrivel my e-penis, BOYS.

(Also-also: apparently you can now talk to your kids about Edward Cullen and drugs at the same time.)


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: computer: lizzie, computers, his dark materials, movies, sparkle motion, twilight, why we can't have nice things, writing
Current Mood: still kind of weak and dizzy

Saw New Moon again today, because Mom wanted to see it--and, once again, the movie broke down at a key scene. This time they actually gave us free passes afterwards (which I intend to use on Sherlock Holmes next month, kthnx), but the lesson I think we should all take away from this is: don't go see a Twilight movie with my mother. Or, at the very least, warn a theater manager beforehand. She liked it, although she says she got bored during the Jacob third of the movie. I come by it honestly, people.

Still working on New Moon in Fifteen Minutes (although apparently not fast enough, judging by a number of inquiries sent in). Mostly it's my head cold that's holding me up--we're progressing to an itchy dry cough and sinus-exacerbated migraines now. I took another nine (Jesus, nine?) pages of notes at this viewing, mostly because I wanted to nail the stuff that pisses me off, instead of just going BULLSHIT LOVE TRIANGLE WHAT IS THE POINT WHATEVER I DON'T CARE. (Although that would definitely shorten the word count, and you know how much I enjoy accomplishing that.) The problem, though, is that this isn't 2012, where "No one cares about these characters" is a legitimate, objective statement. Seriously, no one cares. BLOW STUFF UP. Whereas I find Jacob to be a character in need of a far better story, and the love triangle to be, as previously stated, a badly-conceived, pointless, bullshit waste of time, but that's not universally agreed upon. Particularly in the eyes of Team Jacob. Who I am pretty sure will eat my face. I mean, the pro-sparkilarity slant will probably piss them off anyway; let's not borrow trouble.

Oh, meanwhile: I mentioned talking to a reporter from the (I will now reveal) Hartford Courant. (Article here.) Turns out my part (and that of a Hartford professor as well) got edited out for space considerations, which is okay. I mean, I was expecting to be in all of two sentences anyway. However, I am the one who gave the writer a crash course in the hilarrible world of the "Twilight" "Saga," and you can see my influence in the first few paragraphs. Let me just say, if I say nothing else, that it's not so much that the books themselves are dangerous or horrible or bad influences or [insert feminist/sociological complaint here]; it's that we need to talk about those issues in hopes of neutralizing them. A lot of girls and women read these books, enjoy them, and walk away unscathed, because they're just books. Unfortunately, we've also seen a number who don't. I'm not saying that there's any one truth here, in terms of whether these books do or do not harm whoever in whichever way. I'm just saying, clearly they've eaten society's brain at this point, and it's the sheer number of people who read them that give them their power. It's the zeitgeist now, so we need to be having these discussions, and it's the discussions themselves--there are no "answers"--that will keep us on stable ground. So, I'll say it again: Parents, talk to your kids about Edward Cullen. And drugs, if you get around to that.

(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: m15m, movie discussion, movies, my mother, the more you know, twilight, writing
Current Mood: phlegmish, like the people of Phlagnders

Phew! New Moon Fails to Break Opening Weekend Record. So The Dark Knight is safe. However:

Instead, after clinching the Best Midnight Opening record and Best Opening Day record, New Moon will have to settle for third on the Best Opening Weekend list after walking away with a pretty astonishing $140 million when it was all said and done.

If that number holds up (and it should), the film will replace Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for third place on the list of all-time best opening weekends (domestic), and will settle in behind only Spider-Man 3 (second) and The Dark Knight (first). Still, with $130 million, New Moon more than doubled Twilight's opening weekend ($69 million) -- in addition to taking in the largest domestic weekend gross of the year.

My final estimate of $140M did turn out to be correct, though. I feel irrationally smug about this, purely from a movie buff point of view.


Meanwhile, the new ep of Made of Fail is about to start recording, and it will actually not be an entire review episode of the movie. Not... entirely.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: box office, made of fail, movies, podcasts, sparkle motion, twilight, where is your god now
Current Mood: slightly less snerfy than yesterday

'New Moon' Smashes 'Dark Knight's' Opening Day Record!

Which means it's already made a shade just under one hundred million ($100M), which was my original entire-weekend prediction. (ETA: Or wait, the midnight screenings are included? $72M is a bit better. Although that's still more in 24 hours than Twilight made its entire first weekend.) I'm officially revising my estimates up to $170M now. (Well, in that case, let's take it down to $140M.)

You know, I'm not surprised, exactly. It was tracking above TDK all week, and it's already the highest-grossing advance ticket seller and midnight opening. And it may be that the mainstream won't turn out the rest of the weekend. But the official @Twilight account on Twitter has been RTing messages from fans saying that, as of mid-afternoon yesterday, they had already seen the movie four and five times. Four and five times. I understand, sociologically, psychologically, emotionally, financially, why it's happening. I'm not surprised, precisely. But I'm kind of astounded.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: crazy, movies, sparkle motion, twilight, where is your god now, wtf
Current Mood: miserably congested

So I'm still getting used to the keyboard (you know how laptop keyboards are more compact) and the touchpad mouse, since I haven't installed my wireless ones yet (for some reason, I never seem to hit the M key on this one hard enough), but: LIFE IS AWESOME. Also, I get to stay logged into everything (I cannot even tell you how happy this makes me), and I have all my pet programs back, or at least the ones I've remembered to go download so far (INCLUDING SEMAGIC, HUZZAH). I'm currently set up in the den with the dogs, rather than holed up in my room the way I usually would be, and I kind of love it.

My cold is still pretty gnarly; it's at that point where you can tell you're going to have to get snarflier before you get better, you know, as it progresses through the Stages of Phlegm, but I'm holding up. My nose is itching off my face and kind of hurts, plus the chest congestion and all, but I've had it worse.

I'm trying to get back to work now--had a day off, as it were, to freak out over the new laptop--now that I've successfully delivered 2012 in Fifteen Minutes and survived the New Moon preview on Wednesday. I'm not even going to pretend that New Moon in Fifteen Minutes is something Of Which We Do Not Speak, because we've all known since they greenlighted the movie the very day after Twilight was released that I would be doing it. So I'm working on that--couldn't sleep last night due to congestion, so sat up and wrote about six pages on it by hand (this is not all that much, though), and handwrote a bit more this morning. It's really intimidating, not just because I've got the Twilight one (which turned out pretty well) to live up to, but I've also got the last one I did--2012, of course--to live up to as well, since that turned out unexpectedly well. (Probably because writing these for five years with a determined focus on getting better at it has... well, in fact, gotten me better at it.) So I guess you could say that the problem with working on growing as a writer is that you have to keep growing, and sometimes you end up rocking in the corner and twitching a bit because of it. But really, my performance anxiety isn't as bad as it was last year, probably because I've got more time to wrestle with it. Please, let me somehow find a way to see an early preview of Eclipse next summer, I've been ever so good.

Speaking of which, I don't know that I've seen this posted anywhere:

Oh, and we'll be recording the new Made of Fail on Sunday, BECAUSE I HAVE A COMPUTER AGAIN AND I CAN.

P.S. I'm a Master Sparkler Taunter!



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: computer: lizzie, computers, health, m15m, made of fail, movies, podcasts, twilight, writing
Current Mood: happy, if snerfy

So I have a full-blown sinus blarg now, all in my ears and throat and chest, which explains a lot about the dizzy spells. Fnarr.

So! First of all! The experience of the early preview itself, aside from the movie: ( I HAVE SEEN THE SPARKLE AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE )


( THE MOVIE ITSELF )


( Philosophical ramblings )


In conclusion

@cleolinda: ICE-COLD MARBLE-SKIN BURN from @ebertchicago: http://tinyurl.com/yfd28cp

@cleolinda: RT @queenanthai: Okay, fine. FINE! Very truncated review of the Twilight Parody Porno here: http://tinyurl.com/yeb5lm2 GOD JUST KILL IT.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: actual sparkle motion, leaving the house omg, movie discussion, movies, o snap, philosophical ramblings, romance, sparkle motion, sparklemas, the lovely emily, twilight

JESUS CHRIST Salon linked to my Twilight page GET IN THE CAR.

( Sparklemas approaches, to the chagrin of King Solomon )


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: crazy, dolls, fandom, movies, sparkle motion, sparklemas, this is going to end well, tonner, twilight, why god why, wtf

... on THAT OF WHICH WE DO NOT SPEAK:

I went on another photo safari (this seems to be a new Saturday morning tradition), this time at Hobby Lobby, a terrifyingly huge artsy-craftsy emporium. (The reason the photo safaris happen on Twitter is because you can take a picture on your phone and email it straight to TwitPic from there, which then appears automatically on your Twitter feed.) I mean, I spent fifteen minutes in that thing and I am ready to craft THE SHIT out of something. You take TLE there, he'll think he's died (again) and gone to heaven. Note on photos: we did not even get into any of the vertical aisles at the store. This is simply the shallow end of the pool.( Read more... )

Back to work. Apparently the best part of the movie (minus John Cusack's best line) is online completely legally. Enjoy.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: 2012, books, christmas, copyright, cute, dogs, mail, movies, picspam, sam, scout, shelby, twilight

Oh my sweet God, no movie as stupid as 2012 has any right to be TWO HOURS AND THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES. I drank HALF a smuggled 12 oz bottle of Coke (Tiny Coke, if you will), and nearly DIED. My bladder is BRUISED.

My mom's the disaster movie junkie--she hasn't seen a movie in the theater in six months (I think she last one she saw was Up), so I went for her sake. Man, I hate disaster movies. I worry about this stuff enough, you know? I'm not really into watching implausibly connected characters run and weep and do noble shit and die horribly for two hours (AND THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES). I'm okay with watching shit blow up; I just don't want to watch the cast meeble on about it. And let me tell you, internets, shit does not start blowing up until FIFTY-SEVEN (57) minutes into the movie. If you think I give a shit about John Cusack's ex-marital problems, you are WRONG, Roland Emmerich. And even the next hour and a half has way too much wibbling about humanity. BLOW SHIT UP. BLOW IT UP NOWWWWWWWWWW. Seriously: go buy a ticket to this thing, walk in fifty-seven minutes late, watch John Cusack and family outrun an earthquake in a limo (because this part is THE MOST AWESOME THING I HAVE EVER SEEN, at the very least the most awesome thing I have ever seen involving either an earthquake or a limo), and then after they get to Vegas, LEAVE. If you've seen Deep Impact and The Poseidon Adventure, you've pretty much seen everything else. In fact, you can probably just watch Dodge the Freeway in the trailer; I didn't watch it, but my mother says pretty much all the awesome stuff is in there, and the rest of the movie is just a game of Guess Who's Gonna Die (a winner is me!). I was also able to call not one but TWO ridiculous romances, because it was that kind of movie. Honestly, earthquake in a limo and Thandie Newton's French: best things in the movie. Everything else I laughed at until I was seized with urinary tract regret for the entire last hour.

(OMFG THE WOLFMAN TRAILER WAS SO AWESOME IT IS WHAT THE INSIDE OF MY HEAD LOOKS LIKE. I was seriously just sitting there all a-squee, clapping my fists [so it would be quiet!] chanting "WOLFMAN WOLFMAN WOLFMAN!!!!!!" and my mother was like, You are so weird.)

I also grabbed a few sheets of printer paper to fold up and stuff in my purse--turns out that you can just squeak by on six pages and the back of the first page if you take notes sparingly.

(THIS IS THE THING OF WHICH WE DO NOT SPEAK. WE DO NOT JINX IT. IT MAY STILL NOT HAPPEN.)



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: movie discussion, movies, my mother, the wolfman

I know people for whom Friday the 13ths are actually lucky; I am not one of them. But--knock on wood--so far, things are going pretty well.

( SPARKLEMAS COMES EARLY THIS YEAR )


BREAKING NEWS: SHIRT-ALLERGIC JACOB KEN DOLL. ARE YOU FOR REAL. WHAT IS THIS. I DON'T EVEN. FUHHHHHH.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: bad cat, barbie, dogs, dolls, movies, picspam, scout, sparklemas, the lovely emily, twilight

Mistaken for someone interesting, I have been interviewed at blogcritics.org. (We did it in October, so mentally replace "next month" with "this month.") In what is probably a first, I am actually asked about The Secret Life of Dolls a good bit. Also discussed: The Third Man, nineteenth-century fancrazy, and my newest "hobby."


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: books, dolls, interviews, m15m, movies, writing

Depression, I have often said, is like an influenza of the soul. A spiritual hamthrax, if you will. I has it. Do not want.

It's actually starting to worry me a little, the intensity of this go-round--it's not the usual stone-cold ennui. Normally I'm not this bad off until after New Year's (well, except for the pity party I throw myself every year in the weeks leading up to my birthday), and, again: that's more of a seasonal apathy-funk. This involves a lot of dread and distress and, at times, actual panic involved. I have to think this is because things are just generally bad around here at the moment, and have been for a good while now. Two different family members are having job-related crises, for example. I'm having performance anxiety in terms of trying to write, I don't have a dependable place to work, I'm just generally very unhappy. But it's taking on a hysterical edge that makes me uncomfortable--I keep having urges to act out in some way. I don't mean harm myself or anyone else; I mean, like, throw a gigantic melodramatic fit du shit. I know I had that minor meltdown where I started throwing shit earlier this summer, but that is the ONLY TIME IN MY LIFE I have ever done anything like that. So I'm not used to having the urge to, like, flounce from the internet for the hell of it or something. And that's why I'm sitting here talking about it so calmly, because I feel like the only way to combat irrationality is with detachment. Take an overview of the thing, recognize what you're doing, shove it into the light of day. So... yeah.

(By the way, laptop has been ordered; money has cleared checking account. It will take about two weeks from November 3rd for Dell to build and ship it, what with the custom art and the crazy-ass 17" facial recognition screen. I don't even know. I spent a ridiculous, extravagant amount of money because I could, and it felt GOOD.)

A little Twi-spam for the hell of it, since Sparklemas is fast approaching:

( T-REX, VAMPIRES CAN HAVE KIDS AND LITTLE DINOSAUR VAMPIRES SOUNDS PRETTY CUTE TO ME )


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: depression, do not want, makeup, movies, sparklemas, tour of terror, twilight, twitter, web comics, wtf

So I heard this song on Pandora and the chorus got stuck in my head, so finally I went to iTunes and bought it. (By the way--if you buy a song on your phone, how do you get it over to the iTunes on your computer? Because I'd really like for the sync process to not erase it.) So I'm sort of head-tossing and shoulder-dancing along with it while I'm writing in my journal like the thirteen-year-old I so entirely am. You know, as you do. The lyrics were a bit creepy in an obsessive/submissive way-- ( ... wait )

The last week or so has been jam-packed with Do Not Want, so I'm going to link you to all of it so that everyone else, in turn, can stop sending the links to me.

Sugar Daddy Ken. This is absolutely a real Mattel product. They claim the dog's name is Sugar, and thus Ken is "Sugar's daddy," but I think we all know what's going on here. Also: They AGED the Ken's face. I didn't even know you could DO THAT.

A closer look at/review of Sparkle Ken. I think Sugar Daddy Ken might be interested in this.

The Succu-Dry. Not safe for work or, I suspect, penises. That said, the combination of wordplay and vulgarity has resulted in the most magnificent product name I have ever seen.

The Panties. Not safe for brains. Do not click this link. I am so incredibly serious. Do not click this, you have so much to live for. But I have to post it so people will stop sending it to me. Yes, it's worse than Bella's Felted Womb. It will destroy your faith in whatever deity you do or do not believe in. Let us never speak of this again.

And finally, in a revival of our beloved Uwe Boll Slot: Uwe Boll. Darfur. Actual rape victims. I don't see how this could possibly go wrong!


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: actual sparkle motion, barbie, dolls, i am never making it up, i don't like people anymore, movies, music, music discussion, twilight, twitter, wtf

So here's what happened with my phone: that last picture of the teacup, the one with the blueberry-colored New Moon Red tea in it, was taken 0.85 seconds before the phone slipped out of my hands and plunged directly into the cup. I let out a great shriek and whipped it out so fast that it was like the phone simply fell in and bounced out ("FIVE SECOND RULE! FIVE SECOND RULE!!!!"). Sister Girl (who admits to heckling me right before it happened) put on a face of pure shocked :O, like someone had just been shot (she's lost a number of iPhones to the liquid element herself) and ducked behind the fridge door ("I CAN'T LOOK!"). So I dried the phone off in a panic and even tried to suck liquid out of the bottom of the phone, since it had fallen in straight down, which gave the whole procedure something of the air of CPR ("Stay with me! *huff huff* STAY WITH MEEEEEE").

And then ( The man who showed up had the most magnificent... )


And finally, from tasterainbows: Artist sued by manufacturer stealing his work, and if he runs out of funds to fight it, he'll lose by default?



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: appropriate responses to bad situations, asshaberdashery, batman, conversations with my mother, copyright, iphone, movies, my mother, my sister, onoz, tea, tribulations, twilight, wtf

So. Not feeling much better; spent the weekend in a very grim, self-pitying funk. But I'm going back to work ("work") today because you have to move on with life. I think I'm actually going through kind of a post-partum project-completion slump, what with the first e-book finished. The only problem is, I now have to finish the second one, which casts a sort of "Sorry, your princess is in another castle" pall over the whole thing. C'est la vie.

Also, I should probably get on this Twilight tea-tasting thing. (That's our godforsaken vampire-related beverage. I was not lucky enough to get any TruBlood--sadly, because I hear that stuff is actually really good, a blood orange-flavored soda or something.) Question: what's the best way to make hot tea? I usually drink iced tea, so I have no idea--water at an actual boil? Steep for five minutes? I don't even know, and I don't think these things came with instructions. I'm probably going to make all three samples at once and get it over with--swish and spit if it's really awful, I guess. God help us all. But especially me.

Meanwhile, a college friend of mine is a movie critic now, and he announced that he could get me a screener copy of The Twilight Porn (tagline: "When you can fuck forever... you can fuck everybody"). I've never even seen actual hardcore, and I don't think my embarrassment squick could handle starting with this, but I know of someone else who might be willing to take that bullet. We'll see. I know I keep trying Twilight products "for science," but I don't love nobody that much, least of all science. "Twilight porn" is an extremely uncomfortable phrase as it is; these are two words that do not want to be in the same sentence together. Twilight is huddled in the corner weeping, and porn is banging on the quotation marks trying to get out.

Also-also: The Sparkenpire is now available at Toys'R'Us. You can, in fact, see the actual sparkle coating if you zoom in. (It's getting to be the season for Twi-spam, isn't it? I'll corral those into separate entries after this, for convenience of avoidance.) In cheerfuller Barbie developments: Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper, and Joan Jett dolls.

(In response to "Hello, my name is Twilight and I am a Dracula": I R not a Dracula!)

And finally: Tour of Terror II dates and locations have been announced. This time it's at various Hot Topics AND Nordstroms! I KNOW YOU ARE EXCITED. (All the replies to my link on Twitter were along the lines of "NOT MY CITY, OH GOD NOOOOOO.") The closest it gets to me is the ATL, which is still too damn close. (I don't know what Atlanta did to deserve this; it already got burnt to the ground once.) Invest in riot gear. You're going to need it.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: actual sparkle motion, barbie, cute, depression, dolls, drinkage, for science!, movies, sparklemas, tea, tour of terror, twilight, vampires, writing, wtf

O hai there is still an e-book. And will be, until the end of time or Lulu, whichever comes first. Sample screencaps and how to PayPal instead if necessary are here.



Completely sluggish and irritable, which sounds like a classic case of PMS to me. A number of things I need to get done, like a new doll entry and, oh, THE NEXT E-BOOK, but would rather curl up in the recliner and sulk. Fnarr.

New Jane Eyre adaptation (DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME).

Essential plot twists for writers.

So it looks like it's exactly one month until Sparklemas. Sarcastic yay. I am adamantly refusing to watch any clips, because I actually get bored at movies if I've seen too much of it beforehand. Still not sure who all I'm going with; I get informed a lot by various people that I WILL be going to see the movie with them, but who knows how that'll actually shake out.

Meanwhile, I hear that the Official Drinkable Merchandise I promised to try For Science has arrived, and will reach the house whenever my mother brings it home from the post office. God help me.

("Hello, my name is Twilight and I am a Dracula.")

Tags: cute, drinkage, harry potter, jane eyre, m15m, movies, sparklemas, twilight, vampires, writing
Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Kings of Leon - "Use Somebody"

Wow. It is really kind of ridiculous how good I feel when it's sunny and how bad I feel when it's not. I joke about being solar-powered, but I'm starting to wonder.

Anyway, the entire rest of the week was nothing but nasty grim weather (although it was nice to listen to the rain at night). I'm still proofing the e-book somewhat obsessively (but then, I do this for recaps and Secret Lifes and 15Ms as well), and I'm doing a final read-through--is that really necessary, you ask? Because I asked myself the same thing. And in re-reading the notes for "Prisoner of Azkaban," I found one (1) typo, one (1) bad link, and one (1) incorrect footnote cross-reference (yes, even considering that I've figured out how to F9 and sync them all automatically). So of the three things I was looking for, I found exactly one each--which is enough to prove that I have to keep going.

But it got to the point where I wrote the introduction yesterday, worked on a few non-e-book things, and then just... packed it up for the day. (Well, the chimney guy showed up, so I had to pack up anyway. Turns out our "chase pan" is badly rusted--he took pictures on his phone and showed me--so there's yet another repair bill to add to the pile. Not sure how much it'll be yet--he has to work up an estimate and get back to us.) I made myself some soup and a sandwich and camped out to watch an old Katharine Hepburn movie--Undercurrent, which was pretty good, except that the end kind of fell apart. ( Major spoilers )

So there was that. That was pretty entertaining. And I didn't do a lick of work the rest of the day, and both my eyes and my intestinal fortitude feel a lot better for it today. Yay.


ETA: And there's an incorrect link on "Goblet of Fire." Sarcastic yay.

ETA: And there's a cross-reference that's just wildly incorrect. Outstanding.

Tags: m15m, movie discussion, movies, writing
Current Music: The Donnas - "Take It Off"

More brilliant sunshine today; feeling good, except weirdly queasy, not sure why. Fortunately, I have an eight-pack (they make them in eights now?) of Coke in little bottles, so that should help.

Got a good bit done yesterday--outlined that new story idea I had in mind, and a possible book series arc for it. (This is how these things work with me--I suddenly come up with an idea, go to town with it, and then set it aside for later, occasionally picking it back up now and then. That's life on the Story Farm.) I'm going to have to do a good bit of anecdotal research into the paranormal (yay! reading books!), but I can't really tell you what or that'd give away the story.

Think I'm getting very close with the Harry Potter e-book thing--we're mostly down to the most tedious aspects: proofreading, checking links, filling in last-minute holes, and syncing up footnote cross-referencing. (That is to say, if I say "See note #89," note #89 better actually be the one I'm talking about. You have a new thought and add a new footnote, and you've fucked up every single instance of "See note ##" for the whole document. So I'm also going through and making it less specific if I can--"See the note about blah blah blah on the blibbity blee scene"--if I think you can find it without a number.) It's still a significant amount of work, but each round of revision is shorter and more technical. You can see the end coming.

(And then once we're done, it'll be time to start the vampire set! OH GOD.)

Also: It looks like I'm scheduled to do another episode of Made of Fail, huzzah!

Also-also: What the hell, y'all. What the hell. As Unlucky Bear put it, the werewolf fanservice poster looks like a boy band called All Fur One, and I don't even KNOW what's going on in the main one. I didn't even notice The Demon Jasper up top at first. BAD PHOTOSHOP. BAD. NO BISCUIT.

Tags: harry potter, health, m15m, movies, twilight, writing

( that's a really low branch are we sure it's dead )

( Look, I will sell my blood plasma to pay you NOT to bring that home and give it to me )

Tags: are you kidding me, conversations with my sister, dogs, mortal peril, movies, my sister, scout, twilight, wtf

Okay. Today was also pretty bad, but I think I'm going to be all right. At various points in my hormonal cycle, there are days when I feel like I could lead a revolution... and there are days when I can't deal with a papercut. I think last week had a few of the latter. (Honestly, I should just know by now that any instance of a mental No One Will Ever Love Meeeeee pity party = automatic Papercut Day and and should be disregarded in its entirety as such.) So. Things not going great, but I feel less overwhelmed.

A few interesting things:

"In before copious whining about how LJ operating like a business stifles their freedom," or, LiveJournal will now let you put Google ads (and profit from them) on your own journal. A lot of people have asked if I could do this or encouraged me to do so (back then, I said I was pretty sure you couldn't). I still don't know about it, though. If it pisses people off (and believe me, there are tons of people on the internets who accept sites that always used ads but flip the hell out when other sites start using them, omg hdu sell out, etc.)--losing your readership for a short-term gain is a long-term financial risk, if you look at it that way. How much money do you actually make off these things? Would it even be worth it?

Meanwhile, my New Moon recap has been quoted twice in Twilight and Philosophy (see "search inside this book" and put in "cleolinda"). SUCK IT, WIKIPEDIA, I AM NOTABLE.

(Actually, looking at the page on me, I believe the "Tiny Things, Tiny Minds" review linked at the bottom--is that the one where I was partially blamed for the imminent fall of Western civilization? Because I considered putting that on my resume. For real.)

Speaking of the sparkle,


Hey, I nearly bought that bedspread last summer. Decided it kind of clashed with the wolves, though.



Meanwhile, I have another new story idea, but it feels more like a book series and I don't know if I have the mental resources for that right now. Maybe it's one of those that I just end up tucking away (on the "story farm," as I think of it) for later.

Tags: bidness, depression, livejournal, movies, twilight, writing