so we're down to very little money. between the car and some other minor expenses, we have to budget very tightly until my next paycheck comes in on the seventh. augh. being broke sucks.

anyway..... i got a whole mess of stuff from shannon's british friend. personal effects, which is a mix cd that iain banks compiled. a james t-shirt. and the authorized biography of james. i like james - the band.

not much work on my novel today. in fact, i spent a couple of hours this afternoon staring off into space thinking about a particular story idea. something jelled, i think, but it's not going to be a very big section for so much work. huh.

i cut the web of flesh between my finger and thumb today while i was trying to change the battery on my backup power supply. those little connections are a pain in the ass (or hand) to get off. and the big project that ann-marie gave us on tuesday is still with us.

okay. after thirty some hours of serious contemplation, a bit of research and the requisite structure building, i think i'm back in business with not fish; duck. i still don't have the ending for the original bits written (not a bad thing anymore) and i'm fairly rough on the specifics of the new half. on top of that, i have to convert everything i have from both into the third person. that should be tons of fun.

on the upside, i have a whole mess of creating to do. i like being flat-out creative. coming up with conversations, describing scenes and actions. these are some of the things that make me happiest.

in other news, i finished the forever war by joe haldeman on the metro this morning. i'd been meaning to read it for quite a while and i picked it up at the goodwill book sale at the convention center a few weeks ago. it was an interesting read. very much a product of the times it was written in, but still entertaining. he handles the relativistic effects of space travel very well. good hard sci fi. i always appreciate that in a book. the next book in the pile is something by gene wolfe, another author i've been meaning to pick up.

unfortunately, our monetary situation (we ain't got none) means that buying groceries will be a chore. books are right off the list. poo.

so i posted my good news to the list yesterday and got some good support. online communities rock! some of them even asked when they could read it. i sent out a few copies to the list and reminded them that i was going to be headed into revision country fairly soon so comments were always welcome. i just hope their opinion of me doesn't drop as a result...

in other news, i seriously considered the state of not fish; duck yesterday. the story i have is good and viable, but it hones fairly closely to the storyline of the podium and i'm not sure that i'm comfortable with that. i'm still considering my options, though. f'r example: remember those novel ideas i mentioned earlier? i think one or two or three of them would fit right into not fish. maybe as parallel structures. it would require yet another twist on the whole process, but that's to be expected. draft upon draft upon draft. that's the way the novel gets written. novel comes from new - "write it new." coincidence? i think not.

the trick is getting the good ideas to shuffle themselves out of the pack. good trick if i can pull it off. the will? yes. the ability? yes. can it be done? yes. will i do it? hell yes. besides, this is fun.

it's been a quiet day on the hotline today. there was a blip with ohio and iowa called to report that one of our servers was acting funny, but nothing to make me hit the panic button, which is good. nobody likes to hit the power button. not without cause, anyway....

good thing for the day: i got my review/critique of the podium back from peter goldstein, one of my english professors from college. it was three pages and exactly what i'd asked for. it was pointed and critical and savage in all of the right places. nothing that i couldn't fix, mind you. it will take work, but if the work makes the book better, so much the better. on a related note, my grandfather's short review of the podium was "excellent." so i'm two for two, really.

but now is not the time to be resting on my laurels. i'm expecting commented copies of the podium from both reviewers which i shall devour. then i'll sit down and rewrite the whole thing. or, at least, the bits that need to be rewritten.

i love editing. it's one of the best parts of being a writer. as you can tell, i'm jazzed about this. it makes me feel validated. i'll end with peter's final words.

"I hope all these criticisms haven't been discouraging. I'll repeat-I think you have a lot of talent, and some first-rate ideas. I would look forward to reading what you wrote next, or what you did with this. I suspect the book, even as it stands, is better than I could have done at your age (I've never been a natural prose fiction writer-I was writing plays at that time, and to be honest they weren't that good.). What you need more than anything is experience: the experience that comes simply with seeing more of life and grappling with it on paper. And as long as you keep living and writing, that will come."

i forgot to mention yesterday that i woke up at 1 am on friday night with story ideas and characters and scenes running through my head. "i can either try to sleep," i thought, "or i can write all of this stuff down and let it wrinkle out in the morning." guess which one i chose? okay. so that was yesterday. this is today.

we went out last night and i wore my shiny pants. the only problem with them, though, is that my wallet doesn't feel super comfortable when i wear them. so i took my id and atm card out and put them in shannon's purse. what i forgot was the magnetic card to our building. so we ended up sleeping at my parents house in kensington. they're in long island visiting my mother's parents, so it was cool. (it would have been cool in any instance, but i like not having to explain myself or my actions. it makes me look less foolish when i have to justify the stupid things i've done in life. yes, i know that's an inherently stupid philsophy to act on. shut up now, please.) and so we got in this morning looking disheveled and weirded out. still in our club clothes. the good news is that it's starting to warm up here. every silver lining has a cloud?

after some intense workage, i've decided that i have four distinct story ideas at work. each and every one of them is valid. i just don't have the full outlines for all of them down. i have titles, though. how stands ethelred's ghost is next in the queue just because it's got the most material and a full (or nearly so) outline. and it's been waiting patiently. after that would be theft is such an ugly word. and then two others. theft comes next because it's got a lot of material, too. i'll admit that these are merely dreams of novels, and the hard bit is writing them, but i love having the knowledge that i can write them if i take the time and effort to do so. it is within my abilities. i'm confident. i have the talent, the desire and the will. why the hell not?

watch this space. it's not going to do much, but if you're bored, it'll give you something to do.

these are just some of the quotes from my mailing list (all taken out of context, which is the best way to read any quote). paul morrison, who is one of the regulars, posted all of these yesterday. i thought i'd share. call it my way of saying "this list cracks my shit up!"

"Have you seen _Space Truckers_? One of the strokes of genius in the script is a failure of the environmental control systems that makes the ship overheat and forces the younger, more attractive members of the cast to wander around in their underwear for half the film. It has good particle-beam-headed killer robots too."
- Richard Baker

"I want electric motors (and regenerating braking) with a turbine to charge it. Because that would sound all cool, and I'd be able to shout "TURBINES TO SPEED!" as I drove along."
- Jim Battista, discussing the features of his dream car

"Is this the point when I put on my Genie Pants and start singing and dancing "Can't Touch This?""
- Jim Battista

"WARNING: consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead."
- Fionna O'Sullivan

"Barring such an eventuality I'll just emigrate to Canadia, crossing the border with my plaid suitcases and forehead maple leaf tattoo. Upon reaching the blessed land of liberty I'll shout: "Allo, vous, mes Frenchie friends! Allons-nous a jouer du Ice Hockey! Eh! Alors! Ou perhaps le curling! Mon nom est Jacques et je suis Canadien. My soeur married a moose.""
- Gryffyd Dempsey

>...IQ tests, which are after all only aptitude tests for various types of task and not a true measure of "intelligence" as many people seem to regard them as (or at least take them too seriously as).
Except for the ones where I do extra-good. *Those* are accurate!
- Jim Battista

> I expect he hasn't told us anything more about it 'cause he said narsty things about us...or quoted us out of context or something...
For the record, when I called you lot a "wretched hive of scum and villainy," I meant it in the nicest possible way.
- Jim Battista

"I once left a tooth in a bottle of Coke for a whole damn summer and it didn't do diddly-squat. I felt ripped-off."
- Jim Battista

"I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma and smothered with secret sauce"
- Amanda Lowery

"There there little camper, once you've learned to handle your desperation and have actually become *happy* with being single, a lovely wee lassie will show up and wreck it all for you. *ahem* I'M HAPPY NOW! WHERE'S THE STUD MUFFIN WHO'S SUPPOSED TO WRECK IT ALL FOR ME THEN!??!"
- Amanda Lowery

"Is that a path you really want to go down? My revenge would be unspeakable."
- Claire Bickell

"My financial problem is very simple - I don't have any money"
- Phil Dyson

> >Do I RC that each member/participating country gets to run off its own Euro coins and bills, at least as far as the pretty stuff goes? So that the UK can still put Lizzie on things while the Germans do cool stuff like Gauss and the normal distribution?
> Not exactly. The bills are the same everywhere, but the one side of the coins are for each nation to do their best with.
Okay then. Close enough. So you can put "KRONERS RULE!" on it or whatever. That oughta make you feel better.
- Jim Battista

"I can imagine being emotionally attracted to a dude -- after all, I'm a dude, and who could resist anyone as lovable as YT? -- but the idea of wanting to play with a man's danglies... ugh. Why ruin a perfectly good bed partner by attaching a squid to her pelvis?"
- Jim Battista

> Also, think about a crowded office where everyone is trying to use voice control.
"SELECT ALL! DELETE! EXIT!"
- Paul Walker

>Well, if it's "Labor Day" then why aren't you Americans at work?
Some of us are. Some of us have to give two 1 1/2 hour lectures tomorrow, and some of us aren't prepared. Some of us took a week-long vacation in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in the week just before classes started...
- Brad De Long

"I'd just like to point out that the new Crocodile Dundee movie is not my fault and nothing to do with me. I think I speak for all Australians when I say that this is something that should not be happening."
- Claire Bickell

> Personality tests are marginally more exciting, but less accurate.
But I'm disqualified from those because "I"'m a software construct with no personality beyond a sarcasm generator.
- Richard Baker

"The Robots of Cthulhu will devour you all! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ok, I'm going to bed now..."
- Peter Horton

> You sure know to turn a girl's head.
I sure do. Big fuckin' c-clamp and a looong lever. That and my dashing "Get Duffed!" t-shirt.
- Jim Battista

""Other blogs focus on more specific areas. Adrian Hon (www.vavatch.co.uk), award-winning lecturer on Martian exploration and author of several GCSE guides, links mainly to science-based sites - incidentally, he's 17."

Well, I'm 18 now, and I only wrote two GCSE guides, and I don't really lecture on Martian exploration. Neither do I link mainly to science-based sites. Apart from that, it's absolutely correct"
- Adrian Hon

"drink 'til you reboot"
- Steve Fulljames

"Karkkipussi! There. That's all my Finnish except for "Hakkinen" and maybe "sauna" if that's Finnish."
- Jim Battista

"Fuck. Where's my tinfoil helmet? It's never there when I need it."
- Lars Henriksen

> > > >\'You *Put* Money Into My Retirement Account?\'
> > > \'You Put *Money* Into My Retirement Account?\'
> > \"You Put Money Into My *Retirement* Account?!\"
> \"You Put Money Into *My* Retirement Account!?\"
"You give all my money *away*!?"
- Paul Walker

"Mine had two nicknames: "the bunny" and "fuckin' piece of crap German crap nice car nice car please start you useless pile of German scrap metal superior German engineering my ASS!"."
- Amanda Lowery, talking about a car she used to own

> Assuming that you're a wrathful deity
oh very much so, what do think i do all weekend, but be wrathful and stuff.
- Steven Gross

"Why watch Dawson's Creek? What reason is there? Buffy has it all plus vampires."
- Martin Lewis

"Has anybody seen _Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer_? Is it true that one of the characters develops a multi-stage telescoping biomechanical death willy?"
- Richard Baker

"One of my friends is a vetinary student and he once told me about the time they had to learn to do rectal exams on horses. One of the students fainted when her arm was entirely inside the horse, slid out and fell onto the ground, and was promptly covered in horse shit. I'm glad I'm a physicist..."
- Richard Baker

"But better than that footage of the dude who's doing Something behind a hephalump and the hephalump sort of sits and his head, his entire head, goes into the animule's ass.
Jim, who for that reason among others avoids hephalump tuchuses."
- Jim Battista

"Do you think if I point my camera at girlies around campus they'll strip off for me?"
- Steven Gross

"_King Cobra_ is without a doubt the best movie about a giant hybrid snake featuring both Pat Morita and Erik Estrada that I have seen this month."
- Jim Battista

"I seemed to have forgotten that throwing a frisbee involves a shouted "Sorrreeeee!" as it sails 20 feet to the left and 12 feet over the head of the person you're throwing it to."
- Amanda Lowery

"Never underestimate how rubbish software can be."
- Fionna O'Sullivan

"My entire life is role-playing. I'm actually an astoundingly wise entity filled with benevolence and working for the benefit of all sentient beings, but I masquerade as a librarian."
- Patrick Gliddon

"For when you absolutely positively need to find the latest magazines about nuns giving enemas to Nazis."
- Jim Battista

"No problem, just catch the knives she throws at you. I've seen it done in films, it must be possible."
- Kim Randell

"Beware the hand of Eccles, for it is vengeful"
- Steven "Eccles" Gross

"I think I've done a good proportion of all the martial arts out there, and in each one I either get battered or I get in trouble for going mental (kendo masters dissaprove of headbutts)"
- Andrew Cunningham

"I did a little fencing... Got in trouble when using sabres, because I put a huge dent in a face mask. Apparently just battering your opponent's sabre out of the way then whacking him on the head is considered cheating, even when he keeps on trying to kneecap you. Been years now..."
- Andrew Cunningham

"Arguement against immortality: imagine an immortal Eccles!
Arguement for immortality: imagine an immortal Eccles!"
- Steven "Eccles" Gross

"Ok, it's tennis, but really its about breasts. Those at least in the uk will have noticed big adverts for some sports bra manufacturer. It shows anna kournikova in said bra and the caption "only the ball should bounce". As she played her game at wimbledon yesterday i swear her breasts were bouncing too and I was watching quite carefully as well!!!"
- Steven Gross

"What? There was a WORLD war? Let alone two of them?!?!?! my god when was this? I've heard nothing about in the news! I know there was that thing the Americans singlehandedly won, saving the rest of the defenseless world from an evil tyrannical genius (usually played by a british actor in any film of the event). But like a WORLD war, that is totally outrageous!"
- Steven Gross

"Let me be the first to say HOLY SHIT! JESUS H. FUCKING CHRIST ON A BICYCLE! I knew it was supposed to be big, but, as the Onion said on 20 July 1969, holy living fuck!"
- Jim Battista, referring to a large solar flare

"Note how, under Will's sudden reappearance and influence, it takes mere moments for the list to devolve from intelligent and scientific conversation about the effects of space on a human body to the effects of various planetary environemnts on werecreatures."
- Amanda Lowery

"But all I really want is for my art to live forever, for people to speak my name in the same awed tones they use for Larry Buchanan or Spencer Gordon Bennet or Ed Wood, for my film to move people in the same way as _Zontar the Thing from Venus_ or _Atomic Submarine_..."
- Richard Baker

"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of the parts where Data says, "Captain, the gravimetric harmonics of the antichroniton field indicate that it may be possible to disrupt the tachyon flux with a polarised baryon stream." when he really means "It's a purple cloud - we should fire the green beam.""
- Richard Baker

"Neat note: "Live free or die" appears on the license plates in the great state of New Hampshire. You can be prosecuted for cutting that part out of your tag. Isn't it ironic, don'tcha think?"
- Jim Battista

"They'll have to get Denise Richards to play the human mastermind that saves us all, so we can watch her stumble over three-syllable
words."
- Jim Battista

"Scientology -- the religion that exists to make Christianity seem sensible and rational."
- Jim Battista

"Though I might grow a beard once... if I were to, I wouldn't stop with the little pansy-ass beards that people have these days; I'd want a Bad-Ass Motherfucker Moses-size beard. That and a big long shock o' hair, but on me I think it would have an interminable stage as a honky-fro."
- Jim Battista

"You Know How Einstein Got Bad Grades In School? Well MINE Are Even WORSE!"
- Amanda Lowery

"Because they took Buffy off for two weeks to show the infernal game, I think it's fair to say that snooker is now the enemy of all that is good."
- Richard Baker

"The list hasn't changed much, I now have 75 unread emails, and my first 'Hello'-mail has been morphed into a global domination battle between Ants and Goldfish with X-ray vision in less than 20 hours. Pretty good going - please keep it up !!"
- John Ingram

"Actually I would like to live in the US for awhile. But I would leave before I became insane..."
- Lars Henriksen

> I just successfully defended my dissertation.
Were there swords? And Barbarians? And horses? Did you have to paint your face blue and shout about them not taking your freedom? They May Take My PhD, But They Will Never Take My DISSERTATION!
- Amanda Lowery

"Love of money is the root of all evil (well, actually Barney is the root of quite a lot of it, but money is pretty bad too)"
- Richard Baker

> Ok, now I'm curious, what sort of interview takes 4 and a half hours?
*cue disco music*
*THIS* kind... And your qualifications are? Oh, well, with a resume *that*... lengthy...
- Jim Battista on a *different* kind of interview

"what do you think makes you suitable for the post of supreme ruler of the universe?"
- Steven Gross goes to a job interview

> Were you in a debating society or something? How eloquent...
Eloquence is ... uh... fuck you!
- Andrew Cunningham

"I didn't do the ghost story detective thing... i know you're supposed to find a big book called "History Of This House", or talk to a local and they say "arr, that's where mad meg ate her son", but I never did."
- Andrew Cunningham, discussing a possibly haunted house he was in

"Although she is cute, why should i covet my neighbours ass?"
- Steven Gross questioning the logic of the tenth commandment

"Believe in a loving god, infidel, or die!"
- Paul Walker

"This reminds me of my new film plot. There's this huge passenger ship, and it's sinking. There is general panic, and lovers being separated forever and all that slushy stuff. But there's also an assassination squad of psychopathic vampires onboard who want to take out a Cardinal of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (that's the Inquisition to you and me) whose travelling on the ship. And get this: the Cardinal is a smart guy so he blesses the ocean, turning it all into holy water. The great torrents rushing through the corridors of the stricken vessel now cause vampires to spontaneously burst into flames... Titanic meets From Dusk Till Dawn"
- Richard Baker

"But you must (and I know it's Very Hard) excuse the poor Christians. Their entire spirituality is in utter shreds, tatters, and total disarray. Cheezy morality, political high-jinks, bad science and a narrow-minded ghetto mentality are the only things that pass for what used to be a very lovely attempt at bringing meaning into a frightening universe."
- Patrick Gliddon

"Is it only me who finds the concept of a bunch of girl guides (who tend to be pretty tough at least in my experience) armed with serious siege weaponry slightly scary."
- Marcus Flavin

"beer merely makes me more intelligent, more witty, a better dancer, and much better looking."
- Andrew Cunningham

"By removing the cover on this monkey you are invalidating your warranty"
- Steven Gross

> We have mojor flooding here too! Food truck can't get through and the storms are breaking up the satelite feed and I only got a pixalated Buffy tonight, no ones worrying bout that are they.
Oooh, I could Pixilate buffy any day of the week.
- Steven Gross

"I'm not a Geek, I'm a criminal mastermind."
- Claire Bickell

"Internally consistent and all, but not enough BOOGA! and EEK! and SHRED! for my taste. It was *really* about all them people interacting in the face of Great Problems, and I like my schlock *schlocky*, dammit! I want BIIIIIG SKEEEERY monsters that do Weird Shit and, ideally, violate basic principles of physics."
- Jim Battista on the movie Pitch Black

> And Will, you bastard, there _weren't_ shapeshifting alien vampires in _Gandhi_
Yes there were. They're only in the Director's Cut, though.
- Amanda Lowery

"I find that bonkers is such a subjective term. We prefer the use of "differently sane""
- Steven Gross

"Anyone who makes a little red-haired girl the object of affection can't be all bad."
- Amanda Lowery on the death of Charles Schultz

"But I like my body, why shouldn't everyone be able to bask in its gothic perfection. Proportions perfect as if designed by a blind woodsman."
- Steven Gross

"And a friend once had to interview a man whose full legal name was Glory Be Free Salvation Holly Hazel Basil Brown. He went by "Bud.""
- Jim Battista

"Sometimes a bit of melancholy is a perfectly charming counterpoint to the drably delirious ecstacy of my day-to-day existence."
- Patrick Gliddon

"Seeing a giant turtle get taken away in an ambulance is coolly surreal"
- Jim Battista

and a pleasant good afternoon to you all. we woke up at 11:50 this morning, which means we missed all the earlybird sales at the mall. yesterday the parking lots were empty across the street. today there is not a space to be had. interesting. we've decided that we're not going to be driving to the mall (something we've been doing because it's so cold) for the rest of the year. it would take just as long to find a parking space as it would to walk to the mall. for those of you who don't know, we live right across the street from the springfield mall.

there's an interesting article in salon today about all of the sexual shenanigans of weimar berlin. it sounds like hitler was shocked for a reason. that doesn't justify throwing people into concentration camps, though. nothing justifies concentration camps.

we went to nocturnia last night and had a good old time. it was fun and we saw all manner of people that we knew. the goth scene in this city is small enough that everyone knows everyone else (on sight, if not by name or reputation).

happy thanksgiving to my faceless, voiceless, existence-less readers. (nevermind if you aren't american). one of my strangest thanksgiving memories is of going to a lecture when i was in college in england. that was exceedingly odd.

we watched timecode last night, which was a good concept. good stories, in the whole, too. it was a bit distracting, though. my vision kept wandering around and i always got the feeling that i was missing something on one of the other bits. i liked the way specific characters wandered from one window into the next one and when you saw the same scene from two different perspectives. did it work? i dunno. it was worth the watch, though, which is always important. there's even a really funny bit where an artist pitches an idea about a film with the same concept as timecode. that was, perhaps, one of the ultimate post-modern conceits.

this morning, i took my movie situation and spun it into the beginning of another novel. i'm not sure if staring a new novel at this point is such a great idea. i still have to finish not fish; duck, do the re-edits on the podium and i really want to get started on how stands ethelred's ghost?. of course, how stands... is still in the concept phase. i don't have much more than the vague premise of a plot and a handful of notes. with the one i started this morning, i have an idea and a conceit to wrap it around. while i'm on the topic of my novelistic dreams, i even have a vague setting/ story somewhere down the road a bit. i just don't know if that one will even pan out, to tell the truth. time will tell, i guess.

so. we just finished watching chicken run. shannon is making some tapes and i'm sort of watching the x-files marathon on fx. dinner is slated for fiveish. shanghai noon may factor in sometime later this evening. yeah....

saw pink flamingos last night. horribly bad movie, but in a good way. i sat in the bar for six hours last night. it was fun. our table won most of the door prizes, which was cool. dc can be a lot of fun sometimes.

when i got home, i wrote out a short script (situations, not words) for a movie. i might actually make it one day. perhaps. depends on whether i can get people to give me a hand. unlike novel writing, moviemaking is a cooperative effort and i have a horrible time getting people to do what i want them to. one of (the many) reasons that i hate people.

i'm still tweaking the comments portion of this thing. if you like what i've done, let me know. if not, then leave me alone. either way, why are you here?

we went out and got all manner of things at various stores today. groceries (we saved $28 with coupons and member cards), honeybaked ham, movies, and hickory farms gummi bears. mmmmm gummi bears.

cool beans. i finished another picture (two for the day!), updated my galleries and put in this comment feature that i found in blogvoices. i'm still tweaking, but it looks interesting. much spiffier than some ol' guestbook.

it's only tuesday but it feels like friday. probably because i'm off work for the next five days. woohoo! okay. time to go watch a movie, eat dinner and have a drink. maybe even in that order.

still cold here. soooo cold. so very, very cold. brr.

i forgot to mention yesterday that the wedding picture to the left is the one i made of jenna. if you went to her site and right clicked, then the joke is even funnier. probably. the new one is something i cooked up yesterday afternoon. a bit more obvious than i like to be usually, but it works. i may upgrade my site soon. depends on whether or not i make any more pictures today.

i finished the first four sections of not fish; duck yesterday! those pesky portions that had been bugging me finally got ironed out. the whole thing is going to be really short. probably 140 to 150 pages, but i'm not concerned. if that's how long it takes to tell the story, then that's how long it takes. the story's the thing. now i only have five chapters left to write. i think i can do it. in fact, i know i can. later this week sometime...

we're going to see pink flamingos tonight at the psychotronic film festival (every tuesday at the lucky bar - plug plug). should be fun.

and i get paid tomorrow! and no work for the rest of the week! thanksgiving rocks! oh yes it does. oh yes it does.

did i mention that it was cold?

and now it's monday. it's as cold as a very cold thing here in the nation's capitol. i told shan that the brain was numbing my cold. it's that bad.

we saw titan a.e. on friday night (good flick. too bad fox animation shut down over the summer. they had a lot of promise.) and we saw princess mononoke on saturday night before heading out to catacomb. again, good movie. the voice sychronization was very, very well done. the story was just a little bit too moralistic (ditto titan) but both were well done. midway through both i had no idea where the story was headed. and that's a good thing.

at the risk of setting myself up as a strawman for the misanthropic bitch to knock down, i have to say that her schtick is getting old. don't get me wrong. i'm on her mailing list. i think she picks great articles to throw out for public consumption. and her message of "people are stupid" is spot on. her irony is just a little too over the top for most people. her tongue is planted so firmly in her cheek that the sarcasm detectors on her readers doesn't twitch at all. then again, that's probably why i like her writing.

gotta go. helpdesk call in progress.

so: i talked to vicki yesterday. it wasn't very informative. i mean, she told me that she was threatened by shannon, which i already knew. what i forgot to mention was the fact that shannon and i broke up. when i originally told that to vicki she looked at me and said "why did you do that?" my theory is that she wasn't willing to take responsibility for asking me to cut shannon out of my life. what really hurts is that i was the one who had to act like the adult in the end. i had to take responsibility because she wouldn't. and that really hurt. is she justified in feeling hurt because i said enough? yes, she is. am i justified in taking responsibility? yes, i am. what it came down to was that i associated vicki with misery and shannon with happiness. it didn't seem like a huge decision to make, really. i just wish that it wasn't so painful and that i didn't have to be the asshole. i hate being the asshole.

anyway, that was yesterday, this is today. today we are going up to see the pagoda in bethesda.

we hung out at catacomb last night. saw everyone and talked to joe from black mobius. nice guy, really.

sigh. i have to go pick up my great-grandmother's quilt and a bottle of single malt that my dad gave me for christmas. i left them in my ex-wife's apartment when i moved out in june. the kicker is that vicki's going to be there. i haven't seen her since june or talked to her since august. i have no idea what i'm going to say to her. and on top of that, shan's nervous because it's the first time i've seen vicki in six months. understandably so.

so that's the plan for the day.

we're on guest list at catacomb tonight. two weeks in a row at two different clubs! i guess that makes us movers and shakers, huh?

i finished the pictures for jenna. i'll put up the one picture when i get back to work on monday. it still makes me laugh when i see it. it's that funny. it's even funnier if you go to her site (see below) and right click on her wedding picture. you'll get the joke on monday.

warrren ellis is held by many to be the best comics writer on the market. following planetary 12, i'm almost inclined to agree. but then i read top ten 10 last night. alan moore is the man. don't get me wrong - planetary is very well done. the nature of the story, though, points towards event issues. top ten, on the other hand, is much more subtle. both writers have obviously written the whole thing out from the beginning but alan moore was much more circumspect about letting us know that something major was going to happen. he drew it all together perfectly and flawlessly. the only nit i have to pick is that he killed girl one. i thought she was cool. still, if that's the only flaw, i'm good to go.

would you write something like this to wendy? people are very odd.

very busy day today. we may have to clean out the storage area at the behest of ann-marie. i want to get my revisions done. i'm going to try to make a picture of jenna for shannon. and i have to write up a pricing guide and a solicitation letter. eventually. so many things to do today.

here we goooooooo!

it's cold and windy here in the dc metro area. not what you'd expect if you've been reading the onion lately. i don't think they live near here, otherwise they'd know that the wind would have blown out the fires by now. go figure. i'm still bummed because the world bank protesters didn't do much damage back in april.

to make matters worse, the main air conditioning trunk is right above my desk. they shut the local vent for my office, but the blower still makes my office feel like a meat locker. today i went down the hall and asked our office manager (sort of) if i could build a fire in one of my trashcans. she gave me a space heater instead. i set it up, turned it on full blast and blew the fuse. had to call in the building maintenance dude. now the heater is on low and it's kicking out plenty of heat.

got some good progress done on my novel. it's got a few sections that need some polishing, but the structure is nice and tidy. just like i like it. oh yeah, i have to write a few scenes, too. only about 20,000 words worth. no big deal, really.

got an email from rose today. she's off to hungary (an "exhilerating eastern european experience" is what she called it - i never thought i'd see those words strung together in that order) during the beginning of january. she's in alabama right now, so i think hungary in january is going to be a shock. when she gets back, she has to start cramming for her MA comprehensive exams. i'd feel sorry for her but she was the one that chose to get a master's degree. silly little student.

i really like the opening chords of kid a. i don't know why but those three synthetic organ sounds give me anticipatory chills. like when a woman leans over and whispers something sexy in your ear. sort of.

hurm. updates updates updates. i made two more pictures at home last night. they're the ones on the left. poking around my image files, i discovered that i suddenly have enough pictures to fill a hallway, so i updated my galleries.

i wanted to print out a few pages so i could edit at home but my building had a fire drill just as i was about to hit the print button. it was about the time i usually go home anyway, so i just shut everything down and got on the metro instead. oh well. not a big deal. still, that meant precious hours lost! um, yeah.

the iain banks mailing list that i'm on finally got our primary server back up! it goes down so often, though, that we have a back up mailing list that everyone is subscribed to. redundancy. the culture would be proud.

if anyone can tell me what bbn.com is, i'd be grateful. i'm curious.

and finally, there's an article in salon today about fan films. i love watching theforce.net gather information about the new star wars film. it's like watching the cia in progress except that we can all gauge the final accuracy in may of 2002. i'm not so sure about fan films, even though i found troops hysterical. on the other hand, given the way that hollywood seems to approach science fiction, maybe the fans would make better creators. they have a genuine love for the material. with the notable exception of star wars, i never really get that impression from the professional creators. everything is so shoddy. i'm sorry, but if your film's plot can't stand up to simple scrutiny, then you shouldn't have made it. never mind scriptdoctors - hand the damned thing to a group of fourteen-year-olds. sorry lucas, this applies to you, too. fancy effects don't make up for a bad story.

rant over. sorry about that. i just get passionate sometimes. on with the show.

okay. i finished galaxy quest (the novelization, not the movie.) the movie was brilliant. the book was just so-so. but it had the great lines down in black and white so you could catch them for further use, so that's okay. i'm reading the llama parlour by kathy lette. it's a shannon book. it was obviously written by an austrailian and a woman, but other than that, it's entertaining. good metro reading. i have my eye on zeitgeist by bruce sterling for a future purchase. as soon as it gets into paperback...

i'm slowly working my way through the rewrites. carefully. excising characters and references without losing the tone of the scenes. tough work, but i can do it. this is the fun part. really.

shan has the day off today. poo on her.

ah well. mmm skyscraper i love you is on and i have writing to do. later!

after two weeks of quiet, the hotline exploded today. everyone had a problem. network connection problems, data entry form difficulties, power problems. why can't they work out some kind of schedule so everyone isn't calling all at once?

on a less stressful front, i completed the cut and paste re-plot of not fish; duck yesterday and started reworking it. i'm several chapters in so far. still a lot of work to do on it, but i'm thinking the revamp is a good idea. it comes at the material from a completely different direction, which is never bad.

i just did three pictures based off of a picture i found on a link from a body modification website. there are other pictures laid on top of it, too, of course. all three new pictures are in the sidebar. the newest one is on the bottom. you can sort of see the progression of my artistic vision if you look closely.

oh yeah. finished sterling last night on the metro ride home. i liked the various stories (especially the linked ones) but i would have preferred a full novel. i'm reading galaxy quest for something small and simple.

argh. and now colorado has keyboard problems. damn. i should have checked that. once more into the fray....

bloody nasa contract forms. i finally (!) finished entering all the data for all of the sample contracts. sigh. so much work. but it's done now, so i'm going to take long steps towards starting the rewrite of not fish; duck. of course, i still have the rest of the guide to write up, but i can do that in the morning. i spent so much of my work day actually working that i think i need some me-time. yeah....

i changed the picture. the new one is the one i made on thursday before i went home for the weekend. let me know what you think. i like the colors but i think it's missing something. suggestions are always welcome, but i warn you that i am under no obligation to follow them.

saw the afternoon matinee of little nicky yesterday, which was a good, solid laugh. not overly intelligent, but that's okay. i'm almost done with a good old-fashioined future. i think i might start on the forever war tomorrow. or maybe one of shan's books. depends on how i feel, really.

and that's it for today.

so you want to start a band. the most important thing to remember is that image is everything. take the names of your musicians. you have to have a bond girl and someone from star wars. right? and a token former member of the wu-tang clan. and what band is complete without a who? but don't forget that you can't have a reputation without a chinese restaurant that you were discovered in but which you've since abandoned for an internet presence. but what happens when your band implodes under the pressure of drugs and sucess and an overbearing manager? your ex-wu decides to shed the shackles of the evil white man and your bond girl becomes a superhero. your who goes glam and moves to japan to live the good life with a supergroup. and your starwars character decides that electronic music is a better forum for musical expression and wants to carve a new sub-genre with a new group; just the artist and four samplers. just a normal week in the life of an average band in the twenty-first century.

so now we have more books (and we needed every single one of them, i assure you). i got some good deals and picked up one or two books i'd been meaning to read. i also found a book called griffyn and sabine, which is about a correspondence between two artists. the pages have the postcard art and some of them have envelopes with enclosed letters. it's a really cool design. i just hope the story is good, too.

impulse at the edge was great last night. we were probably the only sober people in the place, which made for an interesting experience. the music was pretty good and the visuals in the slow jungle room were spectacular. the only real criticisms were the line (people were cutting in all over the place) and that the place with the best music was outside on the deck. and it was COLD last night. as long as you were dancing, it was cool, but the minute the music slowed down, i could feel it.

bennigan's for lunch today. and some other things. more as i get information.

so my html upgrades are doing fine. thanks for asking.

i went out yesterday afternoon and hung out with my cousin greg, who i don't get to see very often (despite the fact that he only lives ten miles away from me). we went to dinner at mccormick & schmick at tyson's because our cousin rob is a waiter at that location. (greg is a bartender at the k st location in the district.) it was a good evening. the restaurant is very high class with wonderful food. good grouper and greg is right - you can put that jamaican rum butter on cardboard and it would taste good.

our conversation went all over the place as usual and one of the things we touched on was the idea of leaving characters alone after you'd finished with them. after dinner, i went home and thought about the state of my novel. i ended up waking up at 2:30 in the morning with these character ideas running around in my head. (note to self: do not pose mental questions about an ongoing narrative immediately before crawling into bed.) so i got up and wrote some outline down. i don't know if i'm going to use it, but i can see where it might make a stronger novel. sort of. we'll see.

today we're off to the used book sale at the washington convention center. and tonight we're on the guest list at the edge. it's not who you know, it's whether they're willing to put you on the guest list.

i was meant to be observing veteran's day by entering data into a system, but i mislaid the url. crap. oh well, guess monday's going to be really busy for me. the way it goes, i suppose.

one of the last things i did before leaving work yesterday was to mix a new picture. i mixed it at 576x576 pixels then resized it down to 288x288. i'm not entirely sure that i like it because it doesn't really have a solid design element that leaps out at the viewer. the colors are nice, though. that's always important. i may remix it again next week. either way, i'll post it up as soon as i get a chance.

i'm hoping that my html upgrades start working the way i want them to. soon.

well, the car repairs cost more than i thought they would, which means that i'll have to push the car payment back. damn all money.

i filled out the section about the steve's downfall, which came to about 300 words. i'm still not sure what the stripper's story is or even how the nitrous tank figures into the whole thing but i'll get it one of these days.

new issues of transmetropolitan and authority came in today. transmet was a bit bleak, very much in the vein of andrew vachss. authority was excellent, even if millar and quitely are quitting the book soon. and i was just getting used to them, too.

gak. i was so busy this morning that it wasn't funny. fuji (my sysadmin, not the company in japan) had a list of things for me to do. i wrote them all down and put "world domination" at the bottom, just so i wouldn't forget. you should never forget world domination.

i'm s'posed to be helping shan with her blog as soon as she tells me what pictures she wants on it and where. until she gets back to me, though, i can't do much. i've got a big list of things to tackle as soon as i figure out which thing i want to do first. i really should be updating the data on the contract site, but i have a headache and can't be bothered, really. besides, i have all day tomorrow to work on it. working overtime on a holiday is really the way to go, i think. if you're going to get paid anyway, do it when you're planning to be at home with nothing to do.

no progress on not fish; duck (my current novel-in-progress). i may try to get a conversation or paragraph of description pounded out today after lunch. the afternoon looks free so far. i just hope nobody calls asking for help. it can be bothersome working the hotline sometimes. especially when the phone calls interrupt some important personal project. i really hate that. oh well. they pay me and i work. it's a living.

i'm currently reading a good old-fashioned future by bruce sterling. it's a book of short stories but i wish it was a novel. i prefer his novels more - probably because i'm not a big short story fan. i'll let you know what i think when i've finished reading it.

story in progress time.

over halloween weekend, someone broke into my car and stole my girlfriend's bag. the only important thing they got was her address book. in a word: fuck. the following wednesday, i took my car in to get the window replaced. as of monday (two days ago) i still hadn't heard from the dealership's service department. yesterday, they got right on top of the window and assured me that everything would be ready tonight. yeah! i went by tonight and discovered that they need to replace yet another part. double fuck.

on the way home, i decided to drop by the used magazine shop and pick up some decade-old comics. they're not very good, but it's a guilty pleasure. walking home through the mall parking lot, i saw a group of cops (most of them undercover) searching someone's car. that had to suck.