Mansun, "Take It Easy, Chicken"

I always liked Mansun, back in the day. Not as much as some of the other big Britpop bands, but their "Dream of the Grey Lantern" was a solid album, still holds up nicely. This is one of my favorites from that one...



51,000 words.

Poor Japan

Poor Japan, getting hammered by an 8.9-level earthquake and the accompanying tsunamis and massive fires, and now having one of its nuclear reactors explode (and it looks like several others are critically damaged).

The winds are howling over here, around 27 mph. That's going to nail the St. Patrick's Day Parade today, I'm sure. That blows.

The Descendents, "Ride the Wild"

It's been awhile since I posted any music, hasn't it? This is my favorite song by The Descendents....

Triggered

Saw an altercation this morning between "Trigger" the pit bull and somebody else's smaller dog. Two pet owners -- one fat woman with her little dog, and a sleekly-built co-ed from DePaul with Trigger. I only saw it right as it happened, heard the little dog yelp and saw its owner throw herself on the dog (first I thought she fell over and worried about the dog being squished, but I realized that the woman had done the proverbial "fall on the grenade" move to protect her dog from the pit bull). As I walked by, the co-ed was scolding Trigger for snapping at the much-tinier dog -- of course, with a name like "Trigger" (equine pop cultural associations aside), the pit bull's likely in a bad position as an ambassador of peace and love. I walked out of range before I could hear how the owners resolved things -- the fat woman was just dusting herself off while the younger woman was just admonishing her dog.

Sunny and cold today, but beautiful sunlight.

Found $.50 this morning. I'm RICH!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Alienation

Ooh! Exciting!!!

Break

There. I cranked out over 5,000 words this morning. Breaktime.

Oh, and this is my 900th post on this blog. *kazoo*

36,000 words.

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)