Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wishing You A Safe And Happy New Year
Just taking a moment today to wish you all a safe, happy, and joyful New Year. Be careful out there tonight, but live it up!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
A Little Ingenuity
Every once in a while, I surprise myself with a stupidly simple solution to a problem.
As I finished stringing the last bit of lights on our Christmas tree this year, I discovered half the strand was out - at the top. So the top two feet of our tree was unlit. Curses! And, since I was already all done with it, I didn't want to take them all off, so a quick trip to the craft store yielded a bunch of fake poinsettia which I jammed in at the top. Our angel now looks like she's sitting on a cloud of poinsettia!
Hubby observed that the top still looks a bit dark, so next year I will buy a new strand of lights and intersperse them among the flowers. Assuming we do a country-folk art tree next year. Hubby is talking about wanting a huntin' tree - even though he fishes rather than hunts. Complete with those shotgun-shell light strings. Well, I guess I can't hog all the fun. I give you the 2009 Tree:
As I finished stringing the last bit of lights on our Christmas tree this year, I discovered half the strand was out - at the top. So the top two feet of our tree was unlit. Curses! And, since I was already all done with it, I didn't want to take them all off, so a quick trip to the craft store yielded a bunch of fake poinsettia which I jammed in at the top. Our angel now looks like she's sitting on a cloud of poinsettia!
Hubby observed that the top still looks a bit dark, so next year I will buy a new strand of lights and intersperse them among the flowers. Assuming we do a country-folk art tree next year. Hubby is talking about wanting a huntin' tree - even though he fishes rather than hunts. Complete with those shotgun-shell light strings. Well, I guess I can't hog all the fun. I give you the 2009 Tree:
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Happy Holidays!
Not much to report this week - just plugging away as usual. I have some editing to do this week and next, so I'm really just popping on in between to wish you all a safe and happy holiday, and a very happy New Year full of great writing for you writers, and awesome books for all you readers. Cheers!
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Snow!
Woke up to three inches of the white stuff this morning, the first that has stuck this winter. My son will be happy. :) I showed him how to make a snowball yesterday when we got a dusting, and he thought that was Really Cool. Maybe it will stick around so that we can make a snowman now!
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Hee Hee, Guess Where I'm Blogging From?
(Yes, I know that isn't grammatically correct.)
I'm in my living room - which is far away from my desktop computer upstairs. Yep, I got my netbook. Yay! I can now go anywhere I want in my house and connect to the 'Net, as well as write whenever I get the urge to do so. While I will fondly remember my Dana, I have happily moved on to a Gateway Intel Atom N270. Jargon for Really Nice Little Guy That Is Fast Becoming My Versatile Writing Pal. It has shorter battery life than advertised, though it was more than enough to get me through my day. I sacrified some battery life (was looking at a Toshiba netbook) for the nicer keypad of this little fella, but so far I am quite enjoying it. I have small hands, so the scaled-down keyboard isn't much of a problem, after a short learning curve. This model has Windows 7 Starter, which is a watered-down Windows platform that doesn't allow pretty desktop wallpapers and whatnot, as well as a few other things it can't do which I haven't cared about so far, since this is only a writing and research machine - so it's been perfect thus far. I can get on the Intenet, write, and use Pandora. Very Happy Indeed.
So, in closing, I will do the happy dance and thank my Awesome Husband, who got this critter for me. Much love to you, hubby, for increasing my writing productivity. Woot!
I'm in my living room - which is far away from my desktop computer upstairs. Yep, I got my netbook. Yay! I can now go anywhere I want in my house and connect to the 'Net, as well as write whenever I get the urge to do so. While I will fondly remember my Dana, I have happily moved on to a Gateway Intel Atom N270. Jargon for Really Nice Little Guy That Is Fast Becoming My Versatile Writing Pal. It has shorter battery life than advertised, though it was more than enough to get me through my day. I sacrified some battery life (was looking at a Toshiba netbook) for the nicer keypad of this little fella, but so far I am quite enjoying it. I have small hands, so the scaled-down keyboard isn't much of a problem, after a short learning curve. This model has Windows 7 Starter, which is a watered-down Windows platform that doesn't allow pretty desktop wallpapers and whatnot, as well as a few other things it can't do which I haven't cared about so far, since this is only a writing and research machine - so it's been perfect thus far. I can get on the Intenet, write, and use Pandora. Very Happy Indeed.
So, in closing, I will do the happy dance and thank my Awesome Husband, who got this critter for me. Much love to you, hubby, for increasing my writing productivity. Woot!
Friday, December 04, 2009
MWA Cuts Harlequin
Following on the heels of RWA's removal of Harlequin from its list of approved publishers, the Mystery Writers of America has done the same in a unanimous Board vote conducted this week. MWA members may no longer use Harlequin-published books as the basis for their "published" status. This is another blow for the romance writing industry's biggest hitter. After a media frenzy regarding the launch of Harlequin's self-publishing arm, Harlequin Horizons, Harlequin quickly changed the arm's name to DellArte Press - but it's still Harlequin under the new suit. It remains to be seen what happens to Harlequin's status with MWA and RWA going forward. GalleyCat has the full scoop.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Movie Review: New Moon
* Spoiler Alert *
Chiming in way late here, but I will say this movie was a big improvement on the first one. What Twilight, the movie, lacked, New Moon made up in spades. The dialogue and acting were better (though not perfect), and I remember liking Jacob in the first movie, of all the characters. He's in this one a lot more, so yay on that. Taylor Lautner, you rock. Can't wait to see what you do next in your career.
I expected a fun distraction with some good special effects, and I got that. You don't notice much heavy special effects use until about halfway into the movie (and if you read the book, you know why). I wasn't wild about New Moon, the book, as much as Twilight, the book, but I definitely like New Moon, the movie, better than Twilight, the movie. (That, and it reinforces why I am now Team Jacob. He's so much more fun as a character.)
The Spoiler Section: For those of you who have read the book, you will recall that Edward overhears that Bella's dad is attending a funeral, and he mistakes it for Bella's funeral. Without checking the facts (one of the ignoring-logic-in-favor-of-drama instances where I get annoyed with the Twilight universe), Edward decides he's going to commit suicide by provoking a much older clan of vampires into killing him. People who haven't read the book might get confused at first by this, because it happens so fast and after a simple phone call. They do explain it, but not until after you've already said to yourself, Eh??? A classic case of why misunderstandings aren't true conflict in fiction, and shouldn't be forced to become so.
After that, the slow burn of everything that happened before, including Bella and Jacob's there-but-not-there relationship, pretty much goes Fttt!, and it's all action. Jacob, sadly, gets tossed aside once Bella gets a sniff of Edward's continued existence. I hated the way she dismissed Jacob once Edward was back in the picture, in movie and book, after all he had done for her. (Insert unfriendly insult to Mean Jacob-Dumping Bella. How could you? WHY would you? You did see Jacob, right? He SMILES, and everything!) I will admit to being in Edward's camp at the beginning of this book, but I warmed up to Jacob and was really pissed when she dumped him for Edward. Even though I knew that was the way the book was headed. Sigh.
The movie is good, all in all. So go, expecting much improvement upon the first film. There's some nice scenery, and a couple cool songs on the soundtrack, though not as many as the first movie's soundtrack. I dare you not to be Team Jacob after this film. :)
Chiming in way late here, but I will say this movie was a big improvement on the first one. What Twilight, the movie, lacked, New Moon made up in spades. The dialogue and acting were better (though not perfect), and I remember liking Jacob in the first movie, of all the characters. He's in this one a lot more, so yay on that. Taylor Lautner, you rock. Can't wait to see what you do next in your career.
I expected a fun distraction with some good special effects, and I got that. You don't notice much heavy special effects use until about halfway into the movie (and if you read the book, you know why). I wasn't wild about New Moon, the book, as much as Twilight, the book, but I definitely like New Moon, the movie, better than Twilight, the movie. (That, and it reinforces why I am now Team Jacob. He's so much more fun as a character.)
The Spoiler Section: For those of you who have read the book, you will recall that Edward overhears that Bella's dad is attending a funeral, and he mistakes it for Bella's funeral. Without checking the facts (one of the ignoring-logic-in-favor-of-drama instances where I get annoyed with the Twilight universe), Edward decides he's going to commit suicide by provoking a much older clan of vampires into killing him. People who haven't read the book might get confused at first by this, because it happens so fast and after a simple phone call. They do explain it, but not until after you've already said to yourself, Eh??? A classic case of why misunderstandings aren't true conflict in fiction, and shouldn't be forced to become so.
After that, the slow burn of everything that happened before, including Bella and Jacob's there-but-not-there relationship, pretty much goes Fttt!, and it's all action. Jacob, sadly, gets tossed aside once Bella gets a sniff of Edward's continued existence. I hated the way she dismissed Jacob once Edward was back in the picture, in movie and book, after all he had done for her. (Insert unfriendly insult to Mean Jacob-Dumping Bella. How could you? WHY would you? You did see Jacob, right? He SMILES, and everything!) I will admit to being in Edward's camp at the beginning of this book, but I warmed up to Jacob and was really pissed when she dumped him for Edward. Even though I knew that was the way the book was headed. Sigh.
The movie is good, all in all. So go, expecting much improvement upon the first film. There's some nice scenery, and a couple cool songs on the soundtrack, though not as many as the first movie's soundtrack. I dare you not to be Team Jacob after this film. :)
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