almost forgot to blog

But then I remembered at (more or less) the last minute. Crisis averted.

....Until Next Time...

water day it was

Went out to Cowabunga Bay for about 4 hours today, rode around on the lazy river and nearly drowned in the wave pool, and slid down the "Surfin USA" water slide, and had really expensive pizza. I'm exhausted, but it was a good time. We have a season pass for the four of us (me, Steph, and the younger kids), so hopefully we can go at least a few more times during the year.

43

pretty good bday.
Worked, which was eh, but not all that bad. Saren bought me sodas, Wendy brought in a strawberry cake, and Joni got me a gift card to Amazon.
Then we went to dinner at Peter Piper Pizza (because i'm a grown up) and bought some new board games ("Unearth" and "Hey, That's My Fish")
uploaded the one year anniversary vlog post for OK What Now
and played some Mario Party Ten.
blogged, and now I'm going to go to bed - because I'm old, and going to bed at 930 at night is a freaking awesome present, shut up, you'll understand when you're older.

FireLickyCat Scratch Fever

Scratch, a coding site created by MIT, has caught Silas's interest lately. He's created quite a few games on there, and they're pretty cool. His username there is FireLickyCat, and you can find all his creations here.

oh, there it is

Guess my spark for story ideas just took a month off. It's back now. (Which is good, I was starting to miss it)
Now I just need to ensure that I *do* something with it.

(Easier said than done, especially when the 103 degree heat, driving, and stress from the work day make it so all I really want to do is sleep for the next four hours...)

done done on to the next one

It's been a month(ish) since I wrote the second draft of Stupid Monsters - and other than the teacher, nobody has given me feedback, which is... um. Okay, actually, my dad sort of did, and Saren said she liked it, and a coworker said she liked it, but otherwise, I'm still left longing in the constructive (or otherwise!) criticism department.

As a result, I've not gone back to do any of the (necessary) work on it. *I* haven't even reread the story since I wrote it.

So, it only makes sense that an idea for a sort of sequel would start popping up in my mind. It's *just* an idea at this point - not even a plot or really any characters (other than one, and she's really just an avatar)... but it's not going away. Hrm.

go knights go

So, we (along with, apparently, 29% of all other television sets in the city of Las Vegas) watched (part of) the Stanley Cup game one yesterday. It was wildly entertaining! Even though we didn't watch the entire game (I did go online later to make sure the Knights won - and they did (and I felt pride about it! What in the world is happening???)), I ...kind of got sucked into it a bit. Like, I don't care about sports or hockey teams or any of that AT ALL.
And yet... I found myself getting tense whenever the capitals were near our net, and ... yeah. I guess I can kind of see how you could easily get into it.

I'll still be very glad when all the games are done, since it's a massive amount of extra work for me (and a LOT of pressure/stress since the commercials that are airing during the games are SUPER pricey. I screw something up there, it's gonna be noticed, for sure). But, still. Go Knights Go.

oh, oh, oh, it's magic

So, I went to Firehouse subs to pick up dinner tonight. I ordered 3 subs, two drinks, and two cookies.
After I paid, the clerk handed me the cups and I went to fill them up, then sat down at a nearby table and waited while the subs were being prepared.
I realized then that the cookies I ordered were sitting on the counter in front of the clerk, and I was supposed to grab them myself.
So, I approached the counter and took a chocolate chip and an oatmeal raisin cookie that were in the pile of saran-wrapped cookies. I then sat back down, and waited.

Food gets done, and the employee that made my food handed me my bag of sandwiches. I thanked him, and left.

I get home, and we start going through our sandwiches - they were all in cardboard containers - each with a numbered sticker on them; 1, 2, 3. (I'm guessing that it matched the receipt, but I didn't keep it, and can't confirm that.)

After we finished the sandwiches, we went to eat the cookies. And that's when I saw that the chocolate chip cookie had a sticker with the #4 on it, and the oatmeal raisin had a sticker with the #5 on it.

HOW DID THEY DO THAT???

Nobody touched the cookies but me. And, yes, i'm sure the stickers were on there all along, but... why would they have stickers on the cookies out on display, and how coincidental is it that I would grab the ones that corresponded with the amount of items I was purchasing??

I feel almost like I'm on the Carbonaro Effect, except that it's not *that* crazy a trick, and also, it wasn't discovered until I was at home, and there were no cameras here to film me when the surprise happened. (That I know of)
But, still.

so long ambition, so long desire, hello apathy

So, since two weeks ago (no, wait, three? nope - two.) when my class ended, I've had pretty much zero drive to write again. Sigh. I guess it was fun while it lasted.

I've thought about revisiting/revising Stupid Monsters again, a little bit. But that's as far as it's gone. A little thought. I haven't even reread it completely through myself. I assume that when I *do* read it again, that that will mean I'm ready to take that step  of working on it again.
Of course, it's equally likely that it will join the list of all my past work and just continue collecting dust.

it was "Laurel" last night, and the first part of this morning. But since about 10, it's consistently been "Yanny".
Weird.

Think my years of bad living are finally catching up to me. I feel drained and bluh.
Anyway, it's really weird to think that every single person you see came from a mother. It's just ...sort of amazing.And yet ordinary and super common.

2 sad semesters it was only 15 grand

So, all done with school.
Fittingly I finished my second draft (71 pages, exclamation point) of Stupid Monsters today. I turned it in to the teach, and also emailed copies to the rest of the class. I appreciated a lot of their insights and feedback, and told them as much. They've got my personal email address, so, if a friendship or two can be maintained from that, well, that'll be cool. I really hope, though, that I'll be able to keep up my motivation and [urgh, someotherword I can't think of right now] for writing.
SMv2 has some obvious flaws in it as well, and in a week or so, I plan on going back and fixing things, even if I don't receive any additional criticism from anyone that has read it. So, that's of the good. I also hope that I can generate the muster to creating something OTHER than Stupid Monsters. It's a great, fun universe I've made, but I feel like for the past month or two it's ALL i've done creatively. (partly because that's the case)

next question, please

the universe is just a big old simulation designed to answer questions posed by whomever is running it.
Since, oh, July of 2015, the question was "How many laws can a wealthy scum fuck get away with breaking with no repercussions?" And now we have seen that the answer is "All of them."
So, now that we have the answer, can we just move on to a more interesting and less stress inducing situation? Please?

flash fiction short story novella novel series

Stupid Monsters just won't stop growing. I'm *still* working on draft 2 (3?) and i'm on page 52, with ... another 20 to go? Maybe 25? It's (mostly) plotted out, but as I type it up (and the problem is that each week I say, "Okay, gonna work on the story now" and then I DON'T, until freaking Sunday/Monday, and then I spend all day doing the work I should have done over the course of the past seven days....
Anyway. As I keep typing it out, it just...kinda keeps going. Which is fine, it needs to be as long as it needs to be. I just need to get it DONE so that I can start fixing the stuff that I know needs fixing.

And, you know, tonight (in 17 minutes, actually, so I need to wrap this up and make my way to the class...) is the penultimate session. And people have expressed a LARGE desire to read the finished product, so I feel like if I don't get it done soon, I'm not only disappointing myself, but my followers (heh) too.

lost time and whatever else

i can not believe that it is twenty-eighteen. And already (almost) the 5th month. So often I hear people talk about stuff from 2011 or 2006 or 2017 and I'm like, ...oh, yeah. Those are all in the past. It REALLY doesn't feel like it a lot of the time. Is that a symptom of getting older? Where it still feels like fifteen years ago, date wise? Or is it just a me thing? Or both. Probably both. 

I've got a sleeping (though awake now, because children are loud and noisy) dog next to me, that's a pretty great thing.

Every Friday my work does a segment during the noon news called "Forever Home Friday" where the Animal Foundation brings in a dog (and every once in a while a cat) to be adopted. Supposedly EVERY single animal they've ever showcased has ended up getting bought. And they've been doing this segment for decades. Which is pretty darn cool, actually. I'm all for things that increase the amount of joy in the world. Lord knows there's plenty of garbage out there, and things that are working against people's happiness. 

Speaking of increasing joy... we're going to go grab some food for dinner, and possibly get a new board game. 

to make a long story short - too late!!

So, I'm mid re-write of Stupid Monsters, and I know I was told to make the story "as long as it needs to be", but.... I'm on page 28*. And I'm at ...maybe the 51% point?
I think it's still a decent story, I'm just... it might be too much of a good thing? I don't know. I'm going to finish it up, and see what people say, but it wouldn't surprise me if "dial it back some" is in the feedback I end up getting. Heh.


*(For comparison's sake, draft 1 was 18 pages, although the final three or four were quite obviously rushed)

whatever

not today, apparently. you'd think I'd learn.  And, honestly, the idea was sort of lame to begin with, and I don't even know if i want to do it at all. (OF course, i'm also running on 4.5 hours of sleep, so maybe my mindset isn't teh best right now either0

Grading Awol

I like AWOLNATION. The band has put out 3 albums now, each with 14 tracks on it. There have also been three different songs from various soundtracks, bringing the total number of songs I'm familiar with to 45. (I'm positive that they have other songs in their oeuvre, but, we're sticking with what I know.)
For the next five entries, I'll be picking 9 songs to discuss. I'll be talking about the songs, the lyrics, and, if they have one available, the music video.
Each song will be assigned a number, 1 - 45, and then I'll use the magic of the internet to select 9 randomly chosen numbers to determine which order the songs get talked about. 
The songs (and their numbers) are:

From the album Megalithic Symphony:
1. "Megalithic Symphony"
2. "Some Sort of Creature"
3. "Soul Wars"
4. "People"
5. "Jump on My Shoulders"
6. "Burn It Down"
7. "Guilty Filthy Soul"
8. "Kill Your Heroes"
9. "My Nightmare's Dream"
10. "Sail"
11. "Wake Up"
12. "Not Your Fault"
13.  "All I Need"
14. "Knights of Shame"

From the soundtrack for the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us:
15. "THISKIDSNOTALRIGHT"

From the album Run:
16. "Run"
17. "Fat Face"
18. "Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)"
19. "Jailbreak"
20. "KOOKSEVERYWHERE!!!"
21. "I Am"
22. "Headrest for my Soul"
23. "Dreamers"
24. "Windows"
25. "Holy Roller"
26. "Woman Woman"
27. "Lie Love Live Love"
28. "Like People, Like Plastic"
29. "Drinking Lightning"

From the soundtrack for Iron Man 3:
30. "Some Kind of Joke"

From the album Here Come the Runts:
31. "Here Come the Runts"
32. "Passion"
33. "Sound Witness System"
34. "Miracle Man"
35. "Handyman"
36. "Jealous Buffoon"
37. "Seven Sticks of Dynamite"
38. "A Little Luck... and a Couple of Dogs"
39. "Table for One"
40. "My Molassess"
41. "Cannonball"
42. "Tall, Tall Tale"
43. "The Buffoon"
44. "Stop That Train"

From the soundtrack for Fifty Shades of Grey:
45. "I'm On Fire"

garbage

almost 20 years ago today (it was 19), was the day that Steph and I got to go backstage before the Garbage concert and meet the band, and the photo with me and Shirley Manson was taken.

That's crazy.

I got nothing else to blog about - I was going to start the Awolnation posts, but since I fell asleep during Survivor, (my office pick got voted out, but he was a garbage person anyway, so even though I won't win the jackpot, at least he's not on our screens anymore) I'm obviously not awake enough to create soemthing that requires that much brain power and googling, so... next time it is.

workshop done

The workshop yesterday went pretty well. I had originally planned on recording it with my phone, but didn't - didn't have time to set it up and/or ask if it would be allowed, plus it went on for nearly 20 minutes and I don't think I had that much free space/battery power left on my phone. But, I received quite a bit of interesting feedback, along with an idea on how to tweak a certain element of the story that changes a LOT, but could make it better in a lot of ways. I was going to post it here - I may, still, but I ...might wait until after the semester, because I don't know if posting it online is something that I'm "allowed" to do. I may be over thinking this. heh.

We'll see, I guess. I might post "Stupid Monsters" for my next blog post, or I might go with my planned Awolnation post(s) instead. Or maybe something different altogether.