Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sure.
I thought I'd tweak the blog a bit, since the old layout was looking so very, I dunno, 2005. Hah! Time to polish it up a bit. Not like the content'll improve, particularly, but at least it'll look a bit snappier than before.
Snow more?
I keep hearing rumblings that we might get more snow, although I've seen no sign of it, except that the winds are kicking up again, and when that happens over here, it usually means there's some kind of front coming through, and a weather change is afoot. We'll see.
I saw that Daylight Savings is this Sunday. Urgh. "Spring Forward" is my least-favorite of time changes. I dread that. I can't remember if the Bush-era changes to that are still in effect, or if it went back to the old schedule. Knowing Obama's penchant for staying the course with Bush-era screwups, it's probably still the same revised schedule. Either way, I repeat: Urgh.
47,000 words.
I saw that Daylight Savings is this Sunday. Urgh. "Spring Forward" is my least-favorite of time changes. I dread that. I can't remember if the Bush-era changes to that are still in effect, or if it went back to the old schedule. Knowing Obama's penchant for staying the course with Bush-era screwups, it's probably still the same revised schedule. Either way, I repeat: Urgh.
47,000 words.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ass Wednesday
Whoops, I mean ASH Wednesday.
Got the taxes done last night. Woo hoo!
Today was drizzly and overcast all day. Kinda yuckish day.
Worked on the next draft of the SF book, among everything else.
B2 has been increasingly enjoying painting, which is cute -- I set up some painting time for him each day, along with reading and writing time. He's quite precocious, which is fun to watch; he really doesn't miss a beat.
I keep meaning to get that old printer out of storage, get it up and running. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. The fun never ends!
Got the taxes done last night. Woo hoo!
Today was drizzly and overcast all day. Kinda yuckish day.
Worked on the next draft of the SF book, among everything else.
B2 has been increasingly enjoying painting, which is cute -- I set up some painting time for him each day, along with reading and writing time. He's quite precocious, which is fun to watch; he really doesn't miss a beat.
I keep meaning to get that old printer out of storage, get it up and running. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. The fun never ends!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Fat Tuesday!
Happy Pączki Day, people! Fat Tuesday is usually Polishified here in Chicago as Pączki Day, which required an obligatory run to wait in line to snag some yummies...
They're really basically like aggravated doughnuts, but the stuffing on them is particularly good, since they only make them once a year. The powdered sugar ones are the cheese-stuffed ones, which are exceptionally good. B2 ate almost an entire cheese one, which surprised me. There are all sorts -- chocolate custard-filled, custar-filled, plum, apricot, parisian lemon, strawberry, raspberry, apple-cinnamon, and many others.
I don't believe in God, but I do believe in Pączkis. Mmmm hmmm!
45,000 words.
They're really basically like aggravated doughnuts, but the stuffing on them is particularly good, since they only make them once a year. The powdered sugar ones are the cheese-stuffed ones, which are exceptionally good. B2 ate almost an entire cheese one, which surprised me. There are all sorts -- chocolate custard-filled, custar-filled, plum, apricot, parisian lemon, strawberry, raspberry, apple-cinnamon, and many others.
I don't believe in God, but I do believe in Pączkis. Mmmm hmmm!
45,000 words.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Splashdown
I got to the end of the first draft at 43,000 words. Definitively the end. Since this is short of what I intended for the overall length of the book, what it means is that I'll go back to the front and read through it and add more on the front end to get to the word count I want for the piece. This is a natural process, anyway--invariably on rewrite, sections are added and expanded (or eliminated). But the ending I got to just works so fluidly in the story, I had to go with it. I'm thinking I'll need about 55,000 more words written, which shouldn't be a problem.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Putting the "Yo!" in "Yeoman"
One of my all-time favorite 60s STAR TREK babes, Yeoman Tonia Barrows, played by Emily Banks (sadly, only for one episode, "Shore Leave")...
41,000 words.
41,000 words.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Flurried
It's flurrying outside. It was raining yesterday. Alright, then. I'm sure we're going to get another proper snow. It just seems likely to me.
Found $.50 on a quick jaunt to the grocery store for some things for the boys I forgot to get the other day. I'm rich! Woo hoo!
Okay, so this weekend, I'll buckle down and get the taxes done. I will. I just put it off this week because it sucks to do it. But I'll be a trooper and get it done.
33,000 words (so far. More to come)
Found $.50 on a quick jaunt to the grocery store for some things for the boys I forgot to get the other day. I'm rich! Woo hoo!
Okay, so this weekend, I'll buckle down and get the taxes done. I will. I just put it off this week because it sucks to do it. But I'll be a trooper and get it done.
33,000 words (so far. More to come)
Friday, March 4, 2011
No, I don't
I don't have insomnia tonight; rather, I dozed off earlier this evening, watching a movie, and that temporarily woke me up a bit.
It still sounds like it's raining. It's one of those desultory rains that really would rather be snow, but the temperature is not quite accommodating, so it's just raining on and on and on. That bugs me a little bit; I love storms, but ongoing rainfalls are boring. Hits me kind of the same way that endlessly howling wins irk me.
But it's a good thing; all of that rain'll rinse off the sidewalks and get the city looking pretty again, get us out from under the winter blech. I'm still amazed that spring is so close at hand.
31,000 words.
It still sounds like it's raining. It's one of those desultory rains that really would rather be snow, but the temperature is not quite accommodating, so it's just raining on and on and on. That bugs me a little bit; I love storms, but ongoing rainfalls are boring. Hits me kind of the same way that endlessly howling wins irk me.
But it's a good thing; all of that rain'll rinse off the sidewalks and get the city looking pretty again, get us out from under the winter blech. I'm still amazed that spring is so close at hand.
31,000 words.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Marching On
March always feels like such a long month, although I'm not complaining, after the eyeblink that was February. Historically, Chicago doesn't have much of a spring or fall -- just a long winter and a short summer, but as climate change continues, spring is a bit more apparent than it used to be. All the same, one can't rule out the crazy snowstorm in May, even if it's less common than it used to be. Usually, Chicago warms up in April, then gets cold again in May. I remember a number of years ago, a weeklong stretch in April when it reach 80 degrees, before the obligatory May chill kicked back in.
I saw something on the news the other day that Cincinnati had lost one-quarter of its manufacturing jobs in the past decade. That's pretty striking, although Ohio as a whole has been hemorrhaging jobs for the past 20 years. What never gets really discussed is that the state's fortunes declined precisely at the time that the Republicans assumed dominance of the statewide politics. Coingate was surely just representative of a larger trend, but it's odd to me that Republicans claim to offer solutions to Ohio's woes by ultimately doing more of the same, and expecting different results. The recent union-busting law is red meat for red staters, but isn't going to improve Ohio's economic situation; rather, it's just another case of kicking people in the teeth because they're able to. Aside from a policy of zero taxation of the wealthy, no social services or infrastructure spending, and giving corporations absolute free rein in the state, what "plan" does the Right have for Ohio? The race to the bottom is a race nobody wants to win. And even hacking the country's infrastructure to the bone will still not make us competitive with Third World nations. Even the most destitute of Ohio workers is going to look like a Rolls Royce to a Bangladeshi worker, and companies able to play Ohio workers against Third World workers are going to win at the expense of those Ohio workers. It's a losing strategy for the proverbial little guy, which is why Ohio's continued to bleed jobs. It's a problem because that same ideology is in play across the country, and the Democrats remain cowed by it. I'd like Obama to get fired up and push another infrastructure-building plan, something far more aggressive than his last effort, and have the Republicans strenuously argue against it. Far better than sitting on their hands and letting the loonies run the asylum. You know why the Republicans haven't been jumping at the chance to run against Obama? It's because they have no good ideas -- there's only so long you can say "No taxes on the wealthy, no estate taxes, no social services, no health care spending, no cuts in defense spending" before people start saying "Umm, WHAT do you offer me, exactly? How am I better off with you in charge?" Whoever runs against Obama next year is toast. Maybe Obama will (characteristically) just coast, knowing this. But he should be bold, rather than pandering to Republican delusions.
Oh, and this is an amusing corroboration of the above:
Republicans Stampeding Toward the Cliff
28,000 words.
I saw something on the news the other day that Cincinnati had lost one-quarter of its manufacturing jobs in the past decade. That's pretty striking, although Ohio as a whole has been hemorrhaging jobs for the past 20 years. What never gets really discussed is that the state's fortunes declined precisely at the time that the Republicans assumed dominance of the statewide politics. Coingate was surely just representative of a larger trend, but it's odd to me that Republicans claim to offer solutions to Ohio's woes by ultimately doing more of the same, and expecting different results. The recent union-busting law is red meat for red staters, but isn't going to improve Ohio's economic situation; rather, it's just another case of kicking people in the teeth because they're able to. Aside from a policy of zero taxation of the wealthy, no social services or infrastructure spending, and giving corporations absolute free rein in the state, what "plan" does the Right have for Ohio? The race to the bottom is a race nobody wants to win. And even hacking the country's infrastructure to the bone will still not make us competitive with Third World nations. Even the most destitute of Ohio workers is going to look like a Rolls Royce to a Bangladeshi worker, and companies able to play Ohio workers against Third World workers are going to win at the expense of those Ohio workers. It's a losing strategy for the proverbial little guy, which is why Ohio's continued to bleed jobs. It's a problem because that same ideology is in play across the country, and the Democrats remain cowed by it. I'd like Obama to get fired up and push another infrastructure-building plan, something far more aggressive than his last effort, and have the Republicans strenuously argue against it. Far better than sitting on their hands and letting the loonies run the asylum. You know why the Republicans haven't been jumping at the chance to run against Obama? It's because they have no good ideas -- there's only so long you can say "No taxes on the wealthy, no estate taxes, no social services, no health care spending, no cuts in defense spending" before people start saying "Umm, WHAT do you offer me, exactly? How am I better off with you in charge?" Whoever runs against Obama next year is toast. Maybe Obama will (characteristically) just coast, knowing this. But he should be bold, rather than pandering to Republican delusions.
Oh, and this is an amusing corroboration of the above:
Republicans Stampeding Toward the Cliff
28,000 words.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Sheening, cont'd
This amused me -- Charlie Sheen quotes as "New Yorker" cartoon captions. How meta!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)