newnumber6

My word count is 34083. Will be getting my chips for reaching the half way point tomorrow, and probably sometime this week (unless I totally hit a wall) my chips for getting to the 3/4 point. If I keep to the same schedule, I'll reach 50k by the end of next weekend, and then the rest of the month is me-time.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to finish it, properly, because to get to where I intended to be, I'd need more than 50k words, but I can always write "rocks fall, everybody dies". Or more likely, just write to some significant change in plot (like her escaping towards the New World) and call it the ending of Volume One. Anyway, the action's moved to the island of Laputa where she's learning more about steam machinery, the Combine has been introduced (made up of some old and new foes of the main character), the seven dwarves have been killed off (well, a couple of them might survive, I haven't decided yet), and in her rage and desire for revenge she's just met Adam, who will lead her more towards the dark side.

In other news, I finally got a new boxspring and mattress, which is good because my old one was... old. This one is actually comfortable to lie on in all positions, although I haven't actually slept a night in it. Still, it means there's a possibility I'll wake up without a few minutes of sore muscles. The only problem is (emo)without the pain, how will I know I'm me?(/emo).

Speaking of emo, I hit a real sudden wall of depression yesterday. Not sure what caused it. I'm okay for the most part today, but then I haven't had a lot of time to think introspective thoughts today.

And, a two-for-one deal in Book Foo this week...
Wednesday Book:
Finished: Judas Unchained, by Peter F. Hamilton (sequel to Pandora's Star

Thought behind the cut, not terribly spoilery but may be a bit.
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Started: Axis by Robert Charles Wilson (sequel to Spin)

Monday/Friday Book:
Finished: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross (set in the same universe as Accelerando)

Thoughts behind the cut... (some concept spoilers)
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I would like to read more in the universe (and again, something set more during the Wars would be cool), but sadly according to the author's FAQ he has no plans to write far-future or Singularity novels in the immediate future, so it looks like it'll be a fair wait if they come at all.

And time to be crass again and play "Who should have won the Hugo?" of the nominees I read, now that I've read 3 of them (Blindsight, Rainbows End, and Glasshouse)
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Started: Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan

Heard good things about this one, will give it a shot.

Let's see, is there anything else needed in this post? How about ZOMBIES!
Lifeless: The First Zombie Apocalypse TV Series. Okay, it's not actually a TV series, yet. It seems to be something the creators hope will be picked up as a TV series, but they're filming a pilot (and possibly a few other episodes) on spec. Which at least gives me the _impression_ of a sort of fly-by-night fannish production that has limited chance of going anywhere and may not be all that great if it does, but still... the trailer didn't seem too bad. If it came out on TV, I'd watch it.

And huh, when did LJ add word-completion for the tags field? Neat. Although I never seem to remember what button to press to actually complete the word rather and so wind up typing it out anyway.

10 Questions, the Answers to Which I Will Genuinely Find Interesting
Stolen from greektoomey
Instructions:

[H]ere's what I'd like to see: answer the questions, here in the comments thread, or in your own journal. You don't have to answer them all. To perpetuate the meme, you could either re-post my questions in your journal and ask your friends-list, or, if you don't like my questions, you could make a post including these instructions and replacing some or all of my 10 questions with questions that you're really interested in seeing people answer.

1. If a magical wish-granting genie offered you a shoe-box and told you that whatever you wanted most that would fit inside that box would be what you'd find upon opening the lid, what would be in your box?

2. Who did you want to be when you were a kid? Who do you want to be now?

3. If you could ask your friends, family, partner(s), co-workers, or even other people on the street to change the way they interacted with you in one respect in order to make your life better, what would you ask them to change?

4. If you were to make the one change in your habits, behaviour, or lifestyle that be most likely to make your life better, what would you change?

5. What stops you from getting what you want out of life?

6. What's the one thing that has happened to you that has done the most towards making you stronger, better, and more capable?

7. What skill or talent do you most wish that you had?

8. Do you have any skills or talents that seemed useless or silly to you at first, but you now are glad that you have? What are they?

9. What one thing in the world are you most in love with right now?

10. If your life were a movie, what genre would it be in? Would you prefer to live a life that would make a different type of film?

My answers: ( Read more... )

Watched Dawn of the Dead last night. Still prefer Shamblers to Runners, but the movie was enjoyable on the whole, save a couple annoying moments of characters being too stupid to live. Have some more thoughts on zombies, but will save for another post I think. Still, the movie gave my good, zombilicious dreams. Well, semi-zombilicious. Mostly the dreams involved evacuating Earth from an unnamed emergency. I think the emergency might have been zombies, but they never actually appeared, just worries about a sickness. Also, we evacuated through wormholes. I managed to get a goatload (yes, a goatload) of my stuff through the gate before the last portal closed.

And, finally, Book Foo.

Finished: Slow River, by Nicola Griffith
Started: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross

Thoughts on Slow River behind the cut. Some mild spoilers. Overall enjoyed it.
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Getting down to the last of the 'easy' Nebula reads. Of the ones left, 1 is a book I might have read anyway (Haldeman's Camoflauge), 1 is a book that I might have read but have never been able to find in used bookstores (Silverberg's A Time of Changes), and the rest are all either fantasy, Part X in a Series I have no real interest in, or both. So it'll be a bit of a slog to the finish line. But I'm getting closer.

The future of Television, that is...

So, through undisclosed means, I watched two of the pilots for the new shows for the coming year.

Pushing Daisies: A modern fantasy about a man who can touch dead things and bring them back to life.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: A terminator series, set shortly after Terminator 2, with Sarah and John Connor on the run.

I quite liked both of them. Of the two, I think I liked Terminator a little better, but they're both worth a look, and I'll probably be watching both when they start (Fall for Pushing Daisies, January for Terminator). I do have some worries about Pushing Daisies - it's a concept that's good for the pilot, certainly, but I do have a bit of worries about how it'll be able to sustain it long term. But it's by the guy who created Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, so that's a plus in its favour. In Terminator's favour, it's got Summer Glau!

A little more detailed comments behind the cut... slightly spoilery, but it doesn't reveal any of the 'big twists' (though if you don't already know, I will be talking about who the terminators are played by, so that might ruin a bit of surprise).

Pushing Daisies: ( Read more... )

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: ( Read more... )

So yeah, both of these were on my (relatively small) watchlist for the next TV season, but it's good to see that my first impressions were right on in this case.

Just got home from where apparently all hell has broken loose. I seem to still have internet, but who knows how long that'll last.

Day started pretty normally. TV was out like I said, but still did all my stuff and got ready to go. Saw my brother just before I left, getting home from work. He mentioned something about a crazy person on the subway car behind him or something.

So I was walking down the street, thinking about writing as usual since I'm on a new writing cycle. That may have been why I didn't notice much strange for a while. There was some shouting at the subway station as I walked buy, and I wondered if maybe it was the same crazy guy. Continued walking though. Next strange thing (aside from some guy apparently shoplifting a lemon, but that's not important) was after I crossed the bridge and walked past the next subway station. There were police cars around it. There was also a police cordon around the graveyard, so I had to detour around it. That should have been my first sign, I guess. But I figured it was movie-related, and walked around the detour.

I went to the comic shop, got Mystic Arcana: Magik and New X-Men #39 (but haven't even had chance to read them so don't expect reviews up at my comic review site. Went to the used bookstore where I bought a copy of Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

It was in Eaton Centre that things really seemed weird. There were yells, and people streaming out with injuries. I thought 'wow, a terrorist attack'. Police hadn't arrived yet. Instead of walking through the mall, I walked around.

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But the important thing is, zombies now walk among us. I've learned what I can. They apparently react mostly to noise and movement that strikes them as 'out of place', but if they're close enough to you, scent does seem to take over. I don't know how long I'll have power, so I need to cook some food while I still can, it may be a long night.

Huge post time!

Okay, here's what I thought about the major shows I watched this year. They're not the only shows I watched, but the ones where I made it a point to watch them. There will be spoilers, in some cases for the season finale, as well as a look ahead at what's coming. There will be some ranting.

Ongoing shows: BSG, GA, Heroes, Lost, Office, Prison Break, Supernatural, SGA, 24
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Cancellations/Ending Shows: Drive, Jericho, SG1, VM
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The Coming Year

The networks have released their TV upfronts, detailing the new shows going on the network. A good one-stop site for it all is here.

Shows I'm interested in or vaguely interested in: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, New Amsterdam, Pushing Daisies
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My fall viewing schedule, Monday to Friday:

Monday:
8pm: Prison Break
9pm: Heroes
10pm: Journeyman

Tuesday:
8pm: New Amsterdam

Wednesday:
8pm Pushing Daisies

Thursday:
9pm: The Office
9pm: Grey's Anatomy (tape one, watch the other, probably)

Friday: I usually catch up on Supernatural where it airs on my local channel. Don't know if that'll continue, but it's a possibility.

Saturday/Saturday I sometimes get local broadcasts of US cable shows, plus there's always the typical animation block.

Once January rolls around I'll have BSG, Lost, 24, and Sarah Connor Chronicles

My thumb's sore. And not quite as opposable as usual. Am I devolving down the evolutionary chain? Or perhaps I just hurt it playing Ultimate Spider-Man. Probably the latter.

This year, I'm going to try really hard not to post a depressed, ranty, V-Day post. Because really, it's all been said.

Features I wish LJ had (or if they already do, I wish I knew how to do it):
1) Browse posts to a community written by a specific person. Mostly this is so I can track down some of my old posts, but sometimes I might want to see what someone else has posted before.

2) Apply tags to your friends list. A lot of times I watch, say, Supernatural a couple days later than everyone else, and lots of my flist post about it that first night. I don't want to backtrack 3 pages to find the posts about it, or go to everyone's individual journal and read back (as I ususall do), I'd rather just say 'okay, let's look at 'tag supernatural' on my friends lists. Though I realize it'd probably be a lot more complicated to code than basic tagging (depending a little on how the flist is implemented), it would still really improve my LJ experience.

Book Foo:

Finished: Big Planet, by Jack Vance
A Fire in the Sun, by George Alec Effinger

Some thoughts, minimal spoilers, behind the cut.
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Started: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (Thursdays and Sundays) (reread)
Stardoc, by S.L. Viehl (Wednesdays)

Random cracky crossover idea. Yet another thing I'm not going to write, and I'd be surprised if nobody else has come up with it yet, but I've been playing around with it in my head a little. One of them is Supernatural.
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One of my minor goals in life is to have the adjective 'intrepid' prefixed to whatever description of me someone gives. I mean, sure, intrepid explorer would be great, or intrepid astronaut, or intrepid post-apocalyptic drifter would be awesome. But I'd settle for 'intrepid manual labourer'. Or 'interpid slacker' or 'intrepid layabout'. I think I've just typed intrepid way too much.

Some TV thoughts. Spoiler-Free.
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Oh, speaking of TV, here's a quick list of the SF-related pilots for next year's TV. My thoughts:
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Life update: Apartment hunt continues. No luck yet. I hate moving.

Haven't posted much aside from typical comic stuff and dreams. The New Year tends to be the start of a slightly more depressive and isolated mood, so once again, if I'm less talkative than usual, that's probably why. It's not you, it's probably just SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder or whatever).

Book Foo! Finished: Cell, by Stephen King
Started: Big Planet, by Jack Vance

Enjoyed Cell. Like a lot of Stephen King novels, it fell down a bit towards the end, but it was a fun ride. I actually think it's one of my favorites of his. And it was inevitable for me to read it. I can resist a new Stephen King novel. I can resist a 'zombie apocalypse' novel. But put the two together, and I have to read it.

A little more detailed and spoilery thoughts behind the cut (though not terribly spoilery still), along with a selected quote.
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Anyway, moving on, the book also inspired me to start on my own Great Canadian Zombie Apocalypse Novel! I was walking the other day and was idly thinking about different variations on the zombie apocalypse, how King had a neat one in terms of cause, and so my mind wandered towards what I'd do, and I came up with an idea I liked. Like King, it's not truly 'zombies' and affects a large number of people all over the world at once, but the cause, effects, and who gets chosen vary. That's about all I'll say on it.

Speaking of writing though, I'm back on the horse. After PerExWriMo I decided to take December off and start wrting again in January. Of course, since I hate New Years Resolutions, I couldn't actually start on the first of January. I decided to wait a week. Well, a little more, actually.

Anyway, here's the plan: ( Read more... )Walking helps the plotbunnies.

Speaking of that walk, won't go into why, but I got to thinking about Copyright and the Public Domain again. I've mentioned before that eventually, if I became a famous author (yes, I realize that's nearly as unlikely as my 'if I ever got superpowers' imaginings, but bear with me), I'd want to donate a good deal of my work into the public domain so anybody could use it any way they wanted.

Yesterday, though, I thought about (probably not for the first time, but I'm not sure) specifically setting out as a project to create something for the public domain. Maybe alone, maybe collaboratively. Like, for example, ( Read more... )

I think I have some memes to do, too. Alphabet Meme, stolen from soleta_nf...
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Do I have any TV foo to do? I don't think so. Nothing's really been new. Torchwood finale sucked, btw, I'm done with the show. New Grey's Anatomy tonight though.

First of all, I'd like to wish a happy Eid to those on my flist who celebrate it. Well, to everyone really- whether you celebrate it or not you can still have a happy one, like Christmas.

Okay, movie foo: X3. As I mentioned a few days ago, I watched it. First, and I cannot stress this enough, COLOSSUS DOES NOT HAVE SILVER HAIR IN METAL FORM. ANY FILM IN WHICH COLOSSUS IS DEPICTED AS HAVING SILVER HAIR IN METAL FORM IS INSTANTLY A FAILURE. I'm sorry, but it is. This is non-negotiable. It just looks AWFUL. Metallic black, fine. Silver, no.

More spoilery thoughts behind the cut.
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Book Foo!

Finished: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling,
and Olympos by Dan Simmons

No quotes this time around because they were fairly long books and even when I found quotes I kinda liked I forgot the page numbers and didn't want to go digging. Some minor spoilery thoughts behind the cut. But I'll give you my 'back of the book review' of Olympos right here:

'If you're interested in the capabilities of penises of the future and those of Gods 15 feet tall or higher, than this is the book for you!'

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Started: Cell, by Stephen King (Fridays and Sundays)
A Fire In the Sun by George Alec Effinger (sequel to When Gravity fails).

I've only gotten a few pages into Cell and it really reminds me how much I want a good post-zombie-apocalypse TV series. Someone should make the Walking Dead into a TV show, I've heard it's good nad I don't want to read the books cause I have a horrible bias against black and white comics.

I dunno what's up with me, before about 6 months ago, I'd only had one zombie dream in my life. Now I'm on my fourth I think.

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Zombies! Weird Science Assignments! Vampires on a cruise!
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