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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Sunday, May 20th, 2012 |
fanthropology
[ wneleh ]
|
8:07a |
Media References to Fanfic, the week ending 5/19/12
He's hooked: Yahoo Sports's Eric Freeman has written more NBA RPF, this time stories In which Metta World Peace challenges James Harden to a gunfight in the Old West, In which Tim Duncan solves a mystery in Lob City, and In which the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers fight for the future of the nation in Revolutionary America.In an article Zillow contributed to Forbes (seriously) about the building in Seattle where Fifty Shades of Grey is largely set, a poor unnamed journalism major wrote Posted online by British author E.L. James as a piece of “Twilight” fan fiction, the trilogy of books were picked up by a small publisher out of Australia in 2011.Alix Bryan, in a piece about 50SoG, attempted to explain: Wondering what fan fiction is? It’s basically recycled and re imagined literature. The quick synopsis is that fans extend the story lines of an original work, and develop already existing characters from a story. Fan fiction isn’t new, but it is quite uncommon for fan fiction to be published and skyrocket to the top of the bestseller list.( More 50SoG )On The Awl, Sarah Marshall wrote about Hannibal/Clarice, asking What does it mean when a number of women—by all accounts, happy, fulfilled ones‐pick characters like Edward Cullen or Hannibal Lecter to be their imaginary boyfriends?( Supernatural, Avengers, Andy Cohen )On Library Journal, Martha Cornog wrote briefly about Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre: Topics include audiences in different countries, comparison with slash fiction, fan groups and reactions, and valences of transgressive sexuality evoked in the stories.Finally, on Metro, Rachel Tarley shared that Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch has admitted that he is well aware of the wide range of fan fiction viewers of the BBC series produce and that he's even seen stories suggesting his character is in a homosexual relationship with Watson. |
| Friday, May 25th, 2012 |
montecook
|
5:19p |
A Couple of Quick Follow-Ups
A Couple of Quick Follow-UpsIn regard to my last two blog posts, I have a couple of things to add or clarify. 1. On Crowdfunding: Although my post was really about being a contributor to crowdfunded projects, and not a creator, I will say that I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I am so in favor of crowdfunding as a means to launch creative projects, and so certain that I'll be launching my own crowdfunded project in the next few months, I'm already consciously kicking "it" forward.
2. On Character Creation: It was not my intention to imply that people who like hours spent creating the perfect character were in the wrong. I just think that it's also valid to want to do it a different way. Most current games cater to people who love detailed character creation, and I think it would likely be a mistake to launch a game without doing so. I am interested, however, in exploring ways to do both--provide for in-depth chargen, and also provide for both low-intensity (simple) chargen and no-intensity (pregen) chargen. |
kara_gnome
|
7:42a |
Novelangst
Yesterday was a great day, but today it's back in the harness. I worked more on my upcoming novel than I thought I would, it's funny how once you get into it, it is just the best, most fun thing. It's an urban fantasy with fairies. I love twisted fairykins sorts of things, so mine is a twisty fairy about to learn the error of her ways, as Carrot would say. Anyway, lots of things and lists added to my dirty birdie draft, and I love my characters. It worries me that it's the same thing, I feel as if I have a lot worked out and as if I'm on point, but then I go to write and it all falls apart. Well, on the plus side, since this is a dbd, I've got to know that the story is really in the rewrite of this, and that, well, all that, that I think I do know but then can't seem to face the rewrite, really. Well, 30 days in June, if I try and take it in 10 day lumps, oh, I don't know. Breathe, kara, breathe. All this, you know, really is a part of being what's called a defeated perfectionist. Just, sorry about dragging you through the big 'ol can 'o crazy! lol :D Well, at least we have fun with it. My mil is doing a little better, but they still don't know how much damage is really done, yet. The hub's getting ready to go there, I'm really glad. They need him and he'll do better once he's there, too. Current Mood:  optimistic |
|
officialgaiman
|
4:16a |
Quick Useful Sandman Slipcase post
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/quick-useful-sandman-slipcase-post.html posted by Neil
A hasty post... There's a slipcased set of Sandman on the way. It's going to be published in November. I'm so happy. This is something that I have been asking DC to make for a very long time, and I am genuinely thrilled it's going to exist. It will look almost like this. (If you look carefully you'll notice that the final book in the box shown here is not The Wake. That's because that edition of SANDMAN: The Wake has not been published yet.)
( Here's the Amazon listing for it -- they've dropped it from $200 to $125. And I'm sure there are other such deals elsewhere on the web.) DC are also going to be selling the Slipcase with some copies of The Wake. So if you have the rest of the books already, you can simply put them into the slipcase. According to Bleeding Cool, retailers have until this weekend to get their orders in for November to guarantee that they'll get them. So if you want one, either if you want a copy of The Wake with a Slipcase, or the set of all the books, you should talk to your Local Comic Shop now. (How do you find your local comic shop? You could always use http://www.comicshoplocator.com/) (The current edition of paperbacks contains the same colouring as the Absolute editions, although, obviously not all the extra material in each of the Absolutes. If you already bought the Absolute Sandmans 1-4, feel proud of yourself. You are not required to buy the books again. You are never required to buy again what you already have.)  |
| Thursday, May 24th, 2012 |
matociquala
|
12:21p |
|
kara_gnome
|
8:24a |
Ups and not so much
The hub's mom's still in the hospital and seems to go in and out of consciousness. She's pulling out leads and things that are supposed to be helping her and is not coherent, poor lady. Her daughters and extended family are there, thank goodness. They're a very close family, much closer than mine is. We're here in upper Michigan, not the upper peninsula, I should say, but the north part of the mitten, and my in-laws live in Chicago. The hub plans to go there over the weekend, and I'll stay here--I'd rather be supportive from a distance. Worry seems to affect people in different ways, and the hub's brand of worry, well, I don't want to add murder to my list of skills. I'll go there myself as soon as I can, which seems to be what he wants, too. I've been working every day, I love my paychecks, but today I have a day off, so I plan yard work and sleep. Working almost every day in a single office, I've been doing more of the things that managers have to do, and it's been great. A pain getting it all figured out, but then it's great. I've also found a few forms on the website that are going to make such a difference--working like this you have a little time to explore, you know? My garden, I don't know. I can't figure out what's weeds and what's not, so right now it's looking pretty raggly. I put in some perennials, different ones, to see what likes my yard and what doesn't, so those are interesting, and my peonies seem fine and my hydrangea is fine, but the garden is, well. I'm thinking that all these that came up and are really doing well are probably weeds, doesn't' that just seem the way? Current Mood:  hope mom's okay |
| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 |
matociquala
|
9:01p |
i just know that i'm harder to console
I'm working on "The Deeps of the Sky" tonight, and generating a regular festival of Words Word Don't Know: luminesced, tropopause, sheeny, thicks, unnavigable, dartlike, Meanwhile, I had a little argument with myself on twitter as to whether I should use some modestly bogus science to create a cool special effect. I went with it. ;-) Now I'm stopping because I have to figure out how the protagonist intervenes to stop the Bad Thing from happening, or how he mops up afterward... Oh, I might have just done so. Woot! Current Mood:  mellow |
montecook
|
1:28p |
Character Creation
Character CreationIt took me a long, long time to sort of own up to it. It's a hard thing to admit, actually. But I hate character creation in rpgs. I'm not a big fan of origin tales and the beginnings of stories anyway. I like to get right into the action. So I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that I was predisposed to dislike character creation. But there are other, more concrete reasons I don't like it, at least the way it is traditionally handled. 1. I don't like making decisions based on nothing. I don't like deciding that my character is this great diplomat before I even get a chance to see what the adventure or campaign is going to be like. Maybe it would have been better to devote myself to arcane knowledge or trapmaking. I don't know yet. And it's frustrating to have to decide ahead of time. It's like when someone invites you to one of those formal dinners where you have to choose from three entres ahead of time. I don't know what I'm going to want to eat some night four months from now. Similarly, I don't know what kinds of things I'm going to want to be doing three sessions from now. Or ten. Or whatever. 2. I don't like spending a lot of time making a lot of decisions at once. I remember, once, in a 3rd Edition game I was running, I introduced a new player to the game. After a lot of careful consideration, she decided she would play an elf rogue. At that point, I could tell that she felt like she was mostly done. So I could really feel her pain as I watched her face take on a look of horror as another player slid a pile of books, full of choices, at her. To the experienced player, the decision to be an elf rogue simply keyed to a number (dozens, really) of other choices she could now make. But she had thought she was mostly done. (I took her aside later, and advised her to ignore all those optional books and whatnot, and we made the character creation process as painless as possible.) 3. I don't like spending a lot of time on decisions that have little importance. It's kind of crazy, if you think about it, that the decision that my newbie friend had already made--race and class--were the "easy" choices, and then she had to go through and make a bunch of "harder" choices--skills, feats, weapon selection--that ultimately would affect her character a lot less. In other words, the choices that would define her most clearly were the ones that took the least time, and the ones that only barely mattered (should I put 2 points or 3 points into Move Silently) were far more laborious. That's why any game I create from here on out will, if at all possible, feature the following: 1. Lots of pregenerated characters. When I got started in the rpg field twenty plus years ago, it was common wisdom that "real" gamers wanted to make their own charactesr, and thus hated pregens. Pretty much the only games that offered them were games for brand new players. It's sadly taken me a long time to shake that preconception. But I'm a real gamer, and I love pregens. If you're throwing together a new game this Friday, I'd much rather sit down with a stack of pregens to choose from than pull out my dice and a stack of books to create my own. Pretty much every time. If I don't know the system, this makes things go much faster. And if I do, even better because I then likely know how to make a couple of minor tweaks to the character to make it my own. Does this make me less creative? I don't think so. What it really means is, I get my joy from the game in different ways. It also means that I have created a gazillion characters over the years, and I don't need to have the experience of creating a haughty, scholarly guy (or any other cliche) or a sneaky dwarf (or any other goes-against-the-stereotype guy), or the paladin with a drinking problem (or any other character with "issues"). Those are all great characters, and I'd happily play any of them, but I've created them all already, so I don't need to do it again. Ideally, these characters would be either right in the core rulebook or available as free downloads. 2. Fast character generation options. There's great research out there that discusses how many choices people are comfortable with in a given situation, and the numbers are much smaller than pretty much any "mainstream" game's character gen system. I want to create a game where you can make three or four important decisions and have a cool character ready to go. Ideally, it would be configurable enough so that the people who do want a bazillion options, and want to tinker with every tiny aspect of their character can do so as well. And everyone in between can be happy too. To make this work properly, the affect of the choice should always be commensurate with the time and mental energy required to make it. In other words, if deciding between wookiee and blogon really is going to affect your character forever, there should be a lot to that choice. If the decision between the 4.5 crescent wrench and the 5.5 crescent wrench is not going to matter, then there shouldn't probably be a whole crescent wrench subsystem in the game. 3. Choices that are not entirely front loaded. A lot of people want to be able to shape their whole character to fit their character concept right out of the gate, I get that. But others don't want to have to make decisions way ahead of time. In real life, and even in (good) fiction, people change over time. They develop. I'd like to create a game that embraced that idea. Where not all your character defining choices had to be made before the first adventure even started. (When I was a kid, I had a friend who refused to name his character until he had played for a while, to get a "feel" for him. That's a bit silly and extreme, but the sentiment means a lot to me.) This would mean, potentially, that the game would grow as the characters grew. There might be rules that didn't come into play at the beginning of the game. Imagine (just as an example) a game where political affiliation--monarchist, populist, or anarchist--actually affected your character abilities. Now imagine that the game was set up so that you didn't have to make that choice until you'd played three or four sessions. The issues just wouldn't come up until then. Then, after you've got to know your character, you are presented with those choices, right when they are going to affect the flow of the game. That might be kind of cool, and possibly quite preferable to having to make those choices at the beginning, based on little or no information. Sure, there are games out there that go down these avenues already. But I think there's room for further exploration. |
| Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012 |
montecook
|
11:33a |
Crowdfunding
CrowdfundingThis is news to no one, but crowdfunding really is the wave of the future. Or rather, the present and the future. This morning it occurred to me that it is both forward-thinking and prudent to start mentally allocating money that I would normally spend on cool stuff and use it to fund crowdfunding projects at Kickstarter and elsewhere. Why? Here's my own, personal reasoning in three points: 1. Bang for My Buck. Funds go directly to the project and the people working directly on the project. I often think about "bang for my buck" when I spend money, and up until now that's been a rating for how much enjoyment or time (or both) I get for my money. With these kinds of projects, however, I can look at it both that way and a new way. If my money is going directly to the creator, to support this project, a greater percentage of my money is going directly to what I want, and not to marketing, sales, administration, or other things. (Middle managers in creative industries beware. Crowdfunding spells the end of your usefulness.) And, on a personal level, I still benefit more, and get more bang for my buck because that creator is then that much more likely to do more stuff I will like later on, because he or she has been rewarded for their talent and creativity. 2. Active Fans. Before crowdfunding, we as fans of things were mostly passive. Someone, somewhere, tried to make something, and probably (95% of the time or so) had to go to some "gatekeeper." This was a financier, an editor, a manager, or some other person who got to say "yes" or 'no" to the creator before he or she could make it (or at least produce and distribute it). We've all heard the stories about great writers whose fabulous works were rejected before getting published. What if they'd stopped trying when one of these gatekeepers said no? Millions of fans would not have got what they wanted. In a post-Kickstarter world, some suit at FOX doesn't get to decide to cancel Firefly--it's entirely fan supported (I know... I can dream, right? But you see my point.) With crowdfunding, fans can actively support a project ahead of time, rather than after the fact, and they can do so with power and meaning. 3. Cool Projects Get Cooler. Before crowdfunding, if someone needed $10,000 to create a project, and it somehow makes $20,000, that extra money often just goes into someone's pocket (and it's rarely the creator's). If, in a Kickstarter campaign someone needs $10,000 but then reaches that, they can then start looking at "stretch goals" so that if they raise $20,000, they can enhance the project in some way. This benefits the project, and everyone who is going to enjoy it. (It's also brilliant because it benefits the people who already funded--so when you fund, you're incentivized to help spread the word to your friends.) It's also clear to me that smart creators are realizing that those funding their projects should get more bang for their buck, and so generally I will get more for money I spend with them directly than buying something online anyway. No, I'm not advocating doing away with brick and mortar stores, online retailers, or anything like that. Crowdfunding is to get projects off the ground. In fact, even as we speak, smart retailers online and in the physical world are making sure that they work well alongside crowdfunded projects not in competition with them. Really smart retailers are actually contributing to projects that they know will sell well in their own stores. Lastly, it's worth noting that there are people out there who still think that crowdfunding is "begging for handouts." To them, I say, "the meteor has struck, dinosaurs." I have donated money to Kickstarter projects here and there already, but I am going to be using my dollars even more from now on to support the projects I want to see made. And I'll be using crowdfunding to help get my own new projects off the ground, to be sure. |
kara_gnome
|
6:37a |
In law worry
My mil had a stroke that's affecting her left side some time yesterday. So far she's not doing too badly, her arm isn't right and there's slurring in her speech. I can't tell you how worried I am for her--she pretty much holds my hub's entire family together, and she's kind and funny, ugh, I really hope she comes out of this all right. Current Mood: worried |
| Monday, May 21st, 2012 | |
officialgaiman
|
11:49p |
A Preamble to a photograph
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/preamble-to-photograph.html posted by Neil
This is a very long preamble to a photograph.
When Amanda and I were first going out together we would spend a lot of time on the phone, talking about big real things. We don't talk on the phone anywhere nearly as much any more, and when we do talk on the phone we're more likely to be trying to figure out the logistics of where we are in the world and how we can warp space and time in order to be in the same place relatively soon than about our hearts or our lives. That's just the way things are, and when we're together, late at night, in bed, we still talk about all the big real things.
But we used to talk on the phone. One night I said something to Amanda about my life, and beds, and the sizes of beds, and she got very quiet. I thought she was crying on the phone, which seemed odd, as I'd not said anything (to my mind) about hearts.
A week or so later, she announced on Twitter that she was writing a song. She posted photos of herself after each verse. It seemed like the whole of Twitter was cheering her on.
I got to Boston a few days later, and she played me her song, on the huge grand piano in her cramped apartment. She'd taken a tiny fragment of my life and made it into something else, a story about a couple, from joy to death, exhibited, as in a legal case or at an inquest, as a sequence of beds. I cried when she played it.
She asked me to give it a title, because I had inspired it, and I didn't want to give it a clever title, and so I called it "The Bed Song", and the name stuck.
It's one of the songs on her new album.
She's asked a number of artists to make art to go along with the book, asked if I would do something for "The Bed Song". I thought about what I wanted to make, realised it was a sequence of five photographs, mirroring the five verses/exhibits in the song. And that, while I love taking photographs (my lomo cameras are some of my favourite possessions) I did not know how I would take these photographs...
Fortunately, a few days later there was a gathering in Barrington Illinois to honour Gene Wolfe, and my friend Kyle Cassidy was there with his beautiful actress wife Trillian. I asked Kyle if he'd like to collaborate on making art: I'd write a script, describing the images, as I would have done if I was writing a comics script. He'd take the photos. Kyle said yes. Then I told him the deadline we were on...
And that we'd need people of all ages, willing to be photographed, in couples (all but one), naked in a bed.
Kyle set off, undaunted.
Kyle is an amazing photographer. We found volunteers through friends and through Twitter. It was relatively easy to find people to pose in their twenties and thirties and forties... finding older models was harder. I was hugely pleased when my friends Samuel R. Delany and Mia Wolff agreed to pose for the last photograph we needed.
Many of the people who had their photos taken told Kyle that it was a life-changing experience for them, and I can believe it.
The photographs were beautiful. The sequence of photographs worked as a story. We were happy, about everything except... Kyle had taken too many good photographs.
Each photograph was a piece of art. Amanda's doing an art book already, of the art that's been made for the album, but we desperately wanted to see Kyle's photos reproduced at the size and at the same quality as they'll be hung in the art galleries they'll be hanging in this summer, during Amanda's art tour. And we wanted the photos that weren't just part of the set of five, that would hang in the gallery and be part of the art book, to be seen.
So that's what we're doing. We're making a maximum of 666 of them (to commemorate the % by which the Evening With Neil and Amanda Kickstarter exceeded its level). If the demand is less, we may make significantly less. We want copies for our models, and a few for ourselves. You'll get one if you support the Kickstarter at the $1000 level or above (so each of the 35 people hosting a house party, for example, will get a copy), and you also get all the goodies from lower levels as well.
Right now we're just finalising the specs -- Kyle wants a lock on the box (or slipcase) it comes in, for example, but we need to decide what kind of lock...
There will be photographs, reproduced at the same size (HUGE -- the book is planned to be the same size as the recent oversized Little Nemo Sunday pages) and quality (amazing) as the actual prints. There will be an essay by me about the song, what inspired it and what it means to me. There will be the script for Kyle and the emails. There will be a reproduction of Amanda's handwritten lyrics. And we will sign it, and limit it, and I very much hope that each of the people who winds up with a copy is made very happy by it.
Of all of the things in the Kickstarter campaign, it's the most likely to ship last, because the production process of objects like this is always beset with nightmares. We want it fancy and beautiful and unique, but each fancy thing we add means there's something else that can go wrong or delay things, and that printers and bookbinders and boxmakers will simply not be able to do what we're asking, meaning we'll have to find someone who can, or wait, or send something back to be redone.
Right now, Kyle is taking the handful of last photographs for the book. And as we were talking about it, I realised, with a creeping horror, that the final photo had, inevitably, to be me and Amanda. Amanda has been in many photographs naked, has no nudity taboo that I've ever noticed. I'm English. I have a nudity taboo.
Kyle took several shots of us in Philadelphia last week, in our hotel room. Some of them we had the covers over us, in others (the scary ones -- well, scary for me) we didn't. I held Amanda and did my best to go to sleep and not to think about the camera on a stick far above us.
I've not seen any of the photos Kyle took of us without bedclothes, yet. I'm nervous as hell about seeing them, but also certain that we'll find the one to be the final image, and glad it will only be in a very limited edition book. But the photo that Kyle just sent over showing Amanda and me together, under the covers, with me mostly asleep, is beautiful. And this is it.
It's the only one of the photos that's in colour, too. I think we may use it as the image on the limitation page, the one we all sign.
And, with Kyle's permission, I'm putting it up here.  |
|
officialgaiman
|
8:49a |
The unlikeliness of the long-distance golf-ball-headed chisel-wielder...
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/unlikeliness-of-long-distance-golf-ball.html posted by Neil
I've been thrilled how many people have watched and reblogged the commencement speech.
If you want to read it, there's a transcript up at the UArts website, here.
I went by train from Philadelphia to Arlington, where SFWA was holding the Nebula Awards weekend. I wasn't actually nominated for a Nebula: I was nominated, along with director Richard Clark, for a Ray Bradbury Award for the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife".
(I'd been nominated once before, in 1998, for writing the English language script to Princess Mononoke. And I lost.)
I hoped I had a chance, but didn't think it was a shoe-in: all the other things nominated were major Hollywood movies, including Midnight In Paris and Source Code. But I thought, seeing I was in the area, and that I had lots of friends I would see who would commiserate if I lost, and forgive me if I won, that it might be a fun trip.
I went. It was a wonderful ceremony. Connie Willis was made a Grand Master, and I kvelled.
The Bradbury Award is unique: a man dressed as a diver with an old IBM selectric "golf ball" for a head, holding a mallet and chisel to carve the happy and sad faces of drama out of a pyramid on top of a book. There's nothing like it.
And yes, Richard and I (and Doctor Who) won. I thanked everybody, Richard, the amazing cast and crew, Steven Moffat, and then I thanked Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman, who put a cranky old time-traveller into a police box almost half a century ago, and sent him off across time and space. Here is a photograph of me and John Scalzi dueling with Bradbury Awards:
I flew home this morning. I put the award above the desk beside my Jim Henson Creativity award, and surrounded it with poppets...
 |
| Saturday, May 19th, 2012 |
kara_gnome
|
6:50a |
A Prize
I got my beautiful necklace from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) stillnotbored ! I'll say, it's prettier than the pictures and very interesting. Lovely, prizes are the best :) Current Mood: sur-prize grateful! |
| Friday, May 18th, 2012 | |
officialgaiman
|
3:58p |
|
matociquala
|
12:11p |
This is just to say....
....that there's going to be an Annual Booksale when I get back from WisCon, as there are giant boxes of books all over my house again. You have been forewarned! Also, I will be doing an r/Fantasy (that's Reddit) Ask Me Anything on June 5th. Questions may be posted all day in the appropriate thread, and I will answer them in the evening. Because y'all don't get enough of a chance to listen to me babble... Current Mood: overwhelmed |
| Thursday, May 17th, 2012 |
matociquala
|
3:17p |
|
matociquala
|
1:14p |
your brain works a lot faster than mine.
Anything else I had to say about the Criminal Minds season finale is subsumed in ZOMG Reid knitted it himself!
He makes a pretty good Four. Also, I'm glad they did the Emily thing the way they did the Emily thing; it's good to see Will but he should have known better; I'm pretty sure that UNSUB plan fails on usual the Evil Mastermind overclever subroutine of relying on a coincidence they could not have known about in advance; I bet that's Kevin's cousin; Penelope needs a Stern Talking To of the variety she just gave Morgan a few weeks back; I'm still the only person in this fandom who likes Strauss, but dammit I still like Strauss; and FASTER JJ KILL KILL! Discussion in comments of parallels between JJ in Hit/Run and Hotch in 100 is open for business. Current Mood:  mostly quite pleased, really |
matociquala
|
12:20p |
don't you wish there were another picture of che guevara?
The following contains discussion of fitness, health, and weight issues. If that is triggery for you, please page down now!
Ob. Disclaimer: I absolutely support anyone's right to live in their body as they choose, at any size they find comfortable. This is entirely about me, and my efforts to reclaim my health and strength after half a decade of abusing and neglecting my poor body.
Well, I'm wearing a pair of jeans that, based on the brand and cut, must date back to 1987 or so. They're Chic, size 14 tall, and in high school they would have been baggy on me. Now, they fit loosely except for the waist, which is a bit snug--but then, that happened when I was sixteen, too, though the jeans were size 11 then. This is because eighties jeans were cut to fit absolutely nobody except a young Brooke Shields. They do, however, still make my ass look fantastic, a characteristic generally not shared by modern lower-rise jeans, which make nobody's ass look good. Not mine, not yours. Possibly Jessica Simpson's. But they do let one bend at the middle without pinching one's ribcage on the waistband, which I suppose is a win. I guess that means I am officially back in my high school clothes, generously speaking. As I also have a black bat-winged sheath dress from Chico's that I loved in high school, and have been hanging on to for sentimental reasons. I might dust it off for an eighties party later this year. If only I had some slouchy elf boots. I suspect I will save the jeans for eighties nights at goth clubs. I think I still have one pair of slouchy socks hoarded away somewhere... ;-) This is all prelude to saying that I'm hovering somewhere around 187, and have been for about a month now with the usual ups and downs--but I'm obviously building muscle, because I seem to be shrinking. At one point a month or so ago I noticed I had obliques, there under the slack middle-aged tummy. This week, I noticed the top set of ab muscles. Also, my thighs are no longer getting in my way during most of yoga--that stopped after scott_lynch and I walked somewhere around 40 miles in three days of NYC. I can do Hero's Pose and Lightning Pose without cheating now, and my body doesn't actually interfere with my ability to do a lunge anymore. It's still getting in the way of twists, and my biceps interfere with Eagle Pose, but that's not new. I'm a solid girl. I can also wear most of my beloved old corp-goth work clothes again, justifying my hoarding tendencies. Two suits are a bit tight, but they were always on the skinny end of the rack. I had to move the buttons back on a green suit I love, that I had expanded a bit when I was gaining weight. It's a size 12. I am facing the surprising possibility of shrinking out of my wardrobe again. In any case, look for a much better-dressed Bear at conventions this summer, since I love these clothes and don't have a dayjob to wear them to anymore. Curiously, I'm about 17 pounds heavier than the last time I fit in these clothes, which tells us about the power of rock-climbing. Muscle is heavy! My current weight goal is somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 pounds. Which should make the same size, roughly, as when I was in high school and weighed 150-ish. I was on track and field then, and at my most muscular before now, but I'm pretty sure my upper body now dwarfs what I had then. (Shoulders! They're awesome!) Also, um. Boobs. Some cup sizes have come to roost since then. Ahem. So I'm less than thirty pounds from my goal, which is very pleasant. My body is behaving as it should; everything physical is so much easier than it was in 2004, when I couldn't walk a half-mile without agonizing pain (now I can run five 12-minute miles back to back); and I'm enjoying the reduction in back and joint pain and the ability to sleep comfortably on my side or back again without feeling like my own belly is crushing me. I seem to be part of a coterie of SFF writers and fans on the "get healthy the old-fashioned way; move more and eat less crap" bandwagon, which pleases me. (personally, I have been following the efforts of Scalzi, Doctorow, Lynch, Sykes, Downum, Silverstein, Connolly, Buckell, and I'm sure a few others whose names are eluding me because it's time for lunch.) It pleases me because I'd like to see a lot of these people around for a damned long time. I'm also noticing changes in appetite, which tell me my body is adapting to its new lower caloric demands. Two whole pieces of fruit is too much to eat with lunch now; I am contented with half of each (plus some protein and vegetables and brown carbs, of course). (I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, about ten servings most days; I've finally figured out how to reach my RDA minimum of potassium, and it goes like this: a cup of fortified cereal in the morning (Special K protein plus, since I can't find Total Protein around here anymore), half an orange, a small banana, eight ounces of green coconut water, and half a sweet potato. Some strawberries or mango don't hurt either, or some beans.)) For those who are curious about how I did it (my doctor was, and she laughed out loud when I said, "Counting calories, restricting sweets and saturated fat, and getting off my ass!" She then replied, "So doing all the boring shit we tell people to do, huh?"), here's my plan, fondly called The Discipline: It's a refined version of the Hacker Diet, which relies on good old thermodynamics to make things happen. I'm keeping my caloric intake around 1700-1900 calories a day, exercising for about an hour a day on average, drinking lots of water and not too much caffeine, avoiding refined carbs (mostly: I get 100-200 calories of "treat" a day, which could be a glass of wine or a beer, or a brownie, or... PRO TIP: Guinness is lower in calories than most "lite" beers, and tastes a fuckload better. Now you know.), eating roughly twice as many vegetables as the FDA suggests, and trying to keep my protein intake around 20% and my fat intake around 25%--and also trying to keep my protein intake above 100g a day without too much reliance on red meat, or meat at all. (I do use protein supplements--whey and soy, mostly.) I eat a lot of high-protein dairy (skyr!) and I try to limit myself to 100-200 calories a day from refined sugar, which is roughly 20-40 grams. Or, well, half a can of non-diet Coke. Managing sodium intake is a killer. But I'm working on it. Sleeping eight hours a night also pisses me off, but it seems to be necessary. I got six last night, and noticed the difference on my run this morning--I kept having to walk up hills I normally cruise up in second or third gear. I also exercise six days a week--usually two days of climbing (with a little yoga); three days of running; one day of yoga. I also try to get in some vigorous outdoor time when possible--kayaking, hiking, walking the dog. Walking to the store. Picking up my jump rope for five minutes on an otherwise sedentary day. As I said, one of the most successful weeks of the Discipline recently was when Scott and I were on Manhattan, eating every goddamned thing in sight. But we also made a point of walking two-thirds the length of the island at least once (Riverside to Chinatown, with side trips), and we walked as much as time permitted, otherwise. I know it sounds like my fitness routine is crushing, and seven or eight years ago, it would have crushed me. (Hell, I had the pleasant experience recently of putting in a Rodney Yee video that, in 2006, I could do maybe fifteen minutes of, and having the full hour workout be only just pleasantly challenging.) But remember, when I started out, I weighed 285-290 pounds and could not walk a half mile. One good habit builds on another, it turns out--and I find myself drinking more green and herbal tea because black tea doesn't taste good after the first mug, and I find myself not hungry for seconds unless the food is exceptionally good, and even then not always. There's not actually a lot of privation; I just want more of what's healthy for me. It's okay if I have a measured ounce of cheese on my beans and rice, instead of as much as I can fit in the bowl. It still tastes just as good! Better, since it's as easy to afford small quantities of really delicious food as it is large quantities of sort of icky food. And far more satisfying. Who knew? Which is so different from all my old pathological ways of dealing with food and drink that it's a little croggling. Most of this, of course, is just basic health maintenance stuff, and not too hard once you get the hang of it. And it's not like I don't give myself days off: I will in fact have two or three drinks on a night out, for example. I'm fully planning on onion rings after archery tonight when I get dinner with the Thursday Night Shooters. Just... not too damned often. And budget for it. It's not the extremes that set one's level of health; it's the baseline. Current Mood:  relaxed |
kara_gnome
|
7:30a |
Hours and projections
So, it looks as if the offices I work at aren't closing, but instead they are all getting their hours reduced. I was surprised that out of the 5 offices--well, here you go; the 4-hour office was listed at 6 hours, and two of the offices that are now 6 hours were listed at 8 hours, no, wait, this isn't going to make sense. Basically, they're working projected savings figures off of how many hours these offices used to be open, but since then, they've already had their hours reduced. In just the offices I work at, there's going to be 6 hours a day less savings than they think. Which, I'm trying not to see it like this, but that's a pretty bizarre mistake, because out of the 5 offices I can work at, 3 are mislisted, so if this is the case, overall, someone's either going to look like a complete moron or it'll be ammunition for closures at a later time--they saved a quarter less than projected; something like that. People seem very grateful the offices are going to stay open, even with the reduced hours. I am, too. Current Mood:  some reservations |
| Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 |
matociquala
|
6:14p |
half angel. half eagle. one eye on the world.
The first volume of Shadow Unit is now available as a proper paper book with a gorgeous Kyle Cassidy cover. It will be available through Amazon within a week, and will slowly filter its way through the rest of the online distribution system.  This volume contains the first half of Season 1. Volume 2 should be available in about a month, with other volumes to follow. And of course, Shadow Unit in its entirety is available for free online, and as a modestly priced ebook through the usual sources. The story began in 2007, and will end in 2013. It's not too late to discover one of the coolest collaborative serials in the genre internets! Current Mood: chipper |
kara_gnome
|
7:18a |
Twisty
I am working a lot this week and next, and today it's four hours at one post office and then rush over to another so she can go to an appointment. This isn't as easy as it sounds, as the four hour office closes at the same time I'm supposed to be done, but if you get someone in at 1:55, that's it, all your pre-closing stuff has to be redone, which can really throw you very late. On the positive side, I'm working there tomorrow, too, so I can save some procedures until tomorrow if that happens. I had a terrible cold for Mother's Day. we still went out and did breakfast and went for a long dog walk, I kept hoping it was allergies, but by the time we were back from the dog walk, the allergy idea was out the door. It's all but gone today, so it was one of those miserable while they last sort of dealies. My dirty birdie draft is moving along. My four parts of sky are: 1) stitched back together 2) bullies who get beat up on 3) a woman's white shirt is lost and 4) A man haunts a woman. I'm playing with those in the twisty ghost sense, so we'll see, but they really do lend a lot of interesting ideas. Current Mood:  singing star happy |
| Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 |
matociquala
|
4:54p |
our prayers are always answered. that miracles can happen.
I just had one of those labor-saving strokes of genius that I need to share with the world. Which is to say, the easiest method ever in the history of popovers. Here is my basic popover recipe: 2 tablespoons solid fat (butter or animal fat (duck fat, mmm) or solid shortening) 3 large eggs, at room temperature 1 cup (250 ml) whole milk, at room temperature 1 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar 1 cup (140 g) all purpose or white whole wheat flour 1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten This tactic assumes you own a wand blender and a wide-mouthed quart Mason jar and a microwave. If not, just make the popovers the way you normally would--or if you are missing the wand blender but have a normal blender, you can melt the butter in a different container and use the normal blender. About an hour or two before dinner, take your Mason jar. Put the butter/whatever in it. Put it in the microwave and melt it. (If you are making Yorkshire pud and are waiting for the roast to be finished before you add the fat, skip this step for now, and stir the fat in before you bake the popovers.) Add the milk, eggs, salt, and sugar to the butter in the Mason jar (or blender)(or just put them in the blender if you are adding the fat later). Do not put the eggs directly into the hot butter before diluting it with the milk. Otherwise you will have scrambled eggs, which are nice, but not popovers. Whiz them all up with the wand blender. Add the flour and the wheat gluten. Whiz that too, until you have a nice smooth batter. Let the batter sit on the counter until dinner is nearly ready. If you are roasting something at 400 degrees, you're good; otherwise preheat your oven to 400 (F). (200 C) Liberally grease 9 cups of a 12-cup muffin tin, or if you are making Yorkshire pud, drizzle a little of the fat from the roast into the bottom of the cups. If you have one of the giant-sized six muffin muffin tins, then you will have bigger popovers and they need to bake a little longer. Using silicon cups for this results in popovers without stumps or a lot of loft, as they just levitate themselves out of the super-slick cups entirely. They still taste good! If you are using fat from the roast you're making, add it now and stir it in. Divide the popover batter between the nine greased cups. You can just pour it from the blender or the Mason Jar. Stick in oven. Do not peek! If you open the door before they are set, they won't rise properly. Bake for 35 minutes or until deep mahogany brown. Pull pan from oven. Tilt popovers in cups, or remove them to a rack or basket. Pierce each one with a bamboo skewer. (careful of the steam!) The purpose of these two procedures is to (a) prevent them from getting soggy and (b) prevent them from collapsing. Eat. However you meant to eat them. Do not plan on leftovers. Wash your one. dirty. dish. Oh, and the wand blender, sure. And the muffin tin. But that was inevitable.
ETA: Nota Bene
For even more loft in your popovers, preheat the muffin tin with the grease in it in the 400-degree oven for a few minutes before pouring the batter in. This is a bit tricky, though, and can be skipped. Current Mood:  i'm a fucking genius |
| Saturday, May 12th, 2012 |
fanthropology
[ wneleh ]
|
3:23p |
Media References to Fanfic, the week ending 5/12/12
For Yahoo! Sports, Eric Freeman wrote a fic In which the Indiana Pacers get in a plane crash and attempt to survive in the snow while being hunted by bears that coincidentally look like the Miami Heat. I couldn't get through it; it seemed depressingly lacking in h/c, which is the entire point of plane crash fic, yk? Regarding the state of publishing, The Toronto Star's Greg Quill wrote Name authors and newcomers alike are finding access to Internet readers via blog sites, fan fiction and Google’s and Amazon’s self-publishing e-book platforms, which account for 10 per cent of e-books on the market. (He later defines fanfic as author-approved online “mash-ups” by fans of cult novels; so.) ( Charlene Harris, The Avengers, Sherlock )In the University of Delaware's The Review, Erin Reilly, in 'Erotic novel puts fan fiction on literary map,' wrote that Fan fiction, a writing style generally reserved for Internet forums and websites, has infiltrated mainstream literature following the success of E. L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey,” an erotic adult novel that has sparked controversy among readers across the country.( More 50SoG )On Huffington Post, Brian Joseph Davis interviewed Jim Hanas about an upcoming evening of Say Anything fanfic reading, quoting Hanas: I'd been thinking about fan fiction and wondered what it would look like if it was taken out of genre and applied to something else. Say Anything -- and its open-ended conclusion -- seemed like a perfect launching pad for Gen X and Gen Y literary writers (so-called).Finally, Clive Thompson wrote about the Importance of Fan Fiction for Wired's Underwire blog; Alyssa Rosenberg commented on this piece on ThinkProgress. (Fic authors - did you worldplay as a child? And do you think it's at all related to your fic writing?) |
| Monday, May 14th, 2012 |
matociquala
|
10:52a |
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| Sunday, May 13th, 2012 |
matociquala
|
8:57p |
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