Rime of the English Major

Real post to follow soon, I promise!

Apparently, the last time I closed up my red editing pen, there was a fly inside the cap. So when I uncapped the thing just a few minutes ago, I was presented with a fly-kabob.

A very smelly fly kabob.

And a cap full of fly guts.

Said pen has now been consigned to the bin. Sad, really, it was almost a full pen. Le sigh.

It's true. You know it is. And no, I will NOT link you to TVTropes. I know better. Go find it yourself. You'll never see the light of day again.

My fiance, actually. It's very hard for me to save money with him around--not because he begs or pleads or insists that I spend money on him, but because I have this weird notion about keeping him warm and well-fed and comfortable (which he does right back at me, btw).

I've actually seen Jedi and Starfleet personnel at RenFaires before.


see more Fail Blog

Some levels of nerdiness, like certain volatile chemicals, are not meant to mix. Results may include explosions, third-degree burns, and incessant ridicule in funny accents.

Poll #1422917 Feed the Hippies!
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Would you read a webcomic called "Habitat for Hippies"?

The Perhapanauts #6 on sale tomorrow, featuring art by my friend Leanne Hannah!

http://comicbookresources.com

kilinka has arrived, so let the geeking commence!

Fuck, I have been living under a LARGE ROCK. D:

In spite of having met one of the people in question a few months ago and been reading her LJ since, I never made the connection betwixt Nella and in the apparent phenom known as *dramatic music* NOSTALGIA CHICK. For I am made of fail. And sucky workplaces.

However, I've at last seen the light and have now wasted dedicated the last two hours of my life to watching *dramatic music* NOSTALGIA CHICK. I am in stitches. I even had to break out one of the comedy!Labyrinth icons for this post!

Nostalgia Chick's Review of Labyrinth. WATCH IT. I COMMAND YOU.

GRATUITOUS EDIT: Nostalgia Chick: Top 11 Villainesses Mystique (X-Men), Demona (Gargoyles) and Rita Repulsa (MMPR) are ALL ON THIS LIST OMFG.

I am really really not looking forward to this week at work.

I'm one of four secretaries in a technology office. This week, two of the other secretaries are on vacation, which means that I get to be the switchboard for one particular very busy project director. In addition, both the third secretary and my direct supervisor are off on Monday. This means that on Monday, not only will I be the go-to person for two directors and the deputy CIO, I will have no one to ask question of if (as will most likely be the case) I screw something up.

I've been in this office a little less than four months. Grrrr... The worst part is, I've no doubt that I'll be able to handle anything and everything that comes up, so inevitably, I will become indispensable. (Wow, I'm modest, aren't I? But it's happened before.)

But why did it have to happen this week, when kilinka is coming for a two-week visit and I really wanted the chance to take some time off to geek out with her? Nyargh... Next week, I am SO taking half-days. In the morning and the afternoon.

Also, just as an aside to my older colleagues: Please stop smiling knowingly when I moan and groan about how much this week is going to suck, because I'm only twenty-five and once I grow up and give up this crazy notion of being a professional author, I'm bound to realize that money is essential for survival and the most secure way of making money is working for the State. Please. Stop. Better yet, die in a fire.

Please enjoy my random subject line. :B

I've got something important that may or may not happen (and is not related to either writing or fandom, amazingly) that I really want to talk about but at the same time, I don't want to mention it because I don't want to jinx it. I don't even want to ask y'all to wish me good luck. Just... think happy flying thoughts for me, okay?

Christian Group Urges Burning of Francesca Lia Block Book

In West Bend, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee-based Christian group is urging readers to burn a book from the "Weetzie Bat" series by YA author Francesca Lia Block.

And from the source article itself...

"Baby Be-Bop" is on a list of titles that a local group calling itself the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries objects to seeing in the public library. In February, the group asked the library's board to remove a page of recommended titles about gay and lesbian issues for young people (including "Baby Be-Bop") from the library's Web site. Then they demanded that the books be moved from the youth section of the library and placed with the adult collection, "to protect children from accessing them without their parents' knowledge and supervision."

Christian Group Sues for Right to Burn Gay Teen Novel

In a scene which appears to have been lifted straight out of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a group of Christians in Wisconsin has launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers which they deem to be "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian".

Because in a country that simultaneously preaches liberation and repression all in the same breath, young adults can't be trusted to choose their own books a) about gay people without turning into teh ghey; b) with racist or prejudice language because even if that language is purposely used to expose racism and prejudice; and c) because even the suspicion of minute traces of anti-Christan rhetoric immediately brand a book, a book's author and a book's readers anti-Christian and anti-American, in spite of the fact that said rhetoric might be in passing or part of a character's integral makeup, that said author may have been trying to make a point about the dangers of anti-anything rhetoric, and that the readers might not be Christian at all.

Book Burning, from the American Library Association

( The Top 100 Books Challenged in the Decade From 1990-2000 as Listed By the Office for Intellectual Freedom. )

120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature, by Nicholas J. Karolide, Margaret Bald & Dawn B. Sova

A friend of mine recently had a bit of a professional trouble that's made me stop and think.

Rod is a very talented writer of comic books (and the occasional novel) who is trying to get his career off the ground, rather like the rest of us. Normally, the artist he collaborates with is his equally talented wife Leanne, but since she's swamped with projects for the rest of the year, he had to look elsewhere for artists to illustrate his latest endeavour, Sovena Red.

Then things got a little... complicated... with one of the artists.

"Well, I soon learned that he was only prepared to give me two options with minor tweaks for the sum I was paying him. I complained this was not explained from the beginning. I have never (until now) had the experience of working with an artist who wanted to charge me more money (outside the agreed upon fee) to try additional layouts… $50 bucks a pop. No way! That’s not what we agreed to. But then he simply flipped and went nuts. After several back and forth emails with me trying to be as professional as possible, he is not prepared to let me withhold full payment. I paid him 50% upfront, fairly standard for a lot of artists. But as I’m unhappy with the services thus far, I do not want to proceed any further. Therefore, it’s over. My right as a unsatisfied client.

"He doesn’t want to let it go. Stupid, right? In such a small industry, being a jerk over small money like this just damages your reputation as a professional. He is going to walk away with a stack of my dollars without delivering anything to me, and yet he feels he has legal grounds to get it all." (Read the rest here.)

Now, if I were to classify myself as a writer, it would be the opposite of Rod—a writer of novels and the occasional comic book—and thankfully the artist I'm currently working with is as unknown and pretension-less as myself. But I enjoy seeing my stories illustrated, regardless of medium of format, so it's not inconceivable that I might find myself in the position of hunting for an artist someday, or even of being in the same predicament as Rod. Which brings me to my read question...

Where do artists (and I'm including writers, film-makers, and performers of all stripes in that category) get off on being such disrespectful assholes? No matter how good you are or think you are, there's always room for improvement. And in spite of what your swollen head and groupies are telling you, there will always be someone out there who is better than you are, at writing or drawing or building sandcastles or whatever. There's always room for improvement, and remember, you're not God's gift to anything. You started as an unknown and you can still end that way. It's never wise to alienate potential customers, because angry people talk. Worse, they Instant Message. And Rod is being very ethical about this whole situation, because he could be taking every opportunity possible to spread this artist's name abroad and warn fellow writers about how much of an asshat he is difficult he is to work with. But as far as I know, Rod isn't doing that. He's holding his temper, chalking it up to experience, and looking forward to Heroes Con next week. All of which is more than I'd be doing, if I'd been screwed over this badly.

Rod's a friend. He's offered me encouragement and support when I badly needed it. The same goes for Leanne. No one--no one--deserves to be treated like that, but artists especially should not mistreat one another. We're misunderstood enough as it is.

www.rodhannah.com
www.leannehannah.com

North Korea's going to obliterate us, half my friends are losing their jobs, and I'm too busy loathing my place of employment to even be grateful that I have a job.

On the upside, I'm learning how to make cheese.

I've been working.

I wish I had something more interesting to report, but that's pretty much it. For those of you who don't know, I have a petty, soul-crushing, shore-up-the-bureaucrats secretarial job with NYS Dept of Labor. It's boring and tedious and offensive to my common sense, but it pays well and has very nice benefits, and gives me a 9-day pay period, so much as I'd really, really like to leave, I'm fairly stuck there. *mumble mumble economy grumble buyouts mutter bitch bitch bitch* Brian wants to finish college (third time's the charm...), and at the rate he's able to attend, it's going to take another five years for that to happen. I'll probably be holding a squirming toddler at his graduation ceremony. After that? We're cutting out and moving to New England. Preferably the Berkshire region of Massachusetts, possibly somewhere in Vermont, but someplace where he can take pictures and I can write and we can be poor in peace, goddammit.

And where I can farm. I wants cows.

Badly.

God, I hate May. D:

That's pretty much the reason for my near-complete absence from LJ-Land. Everything in my family happens in May. People get born in May, married in May, brainwashed into Catholicism in May... in fact, so far the only thing that my people haven't tried to cram into May is death, and I find this to be a complete lack of consideration on their part. If only we could have the whole birth-to-death trainwreck shoe-horned into one month, then I'd have 11 duty-free months to get on with my life.

1st weekend: Mayfaire, 5th anniversary; drove to New Paltz & back
2nd weekend: Cousin's 1st communion; drove to Long Island & back
3rd weekend: parents' anniversary; they went away so I had to help babysit The Demon Third Child Jake the Spoiled Mutant their dog Jake
4th weekend: Memorial Day, saw Brian's family; drove to Cape Cod & back
5th weekend: brother's birthday party, provided the cake (lovingly dubbed a 'Chocolate Pride Cake' after a small catastrophe caused it to list un-straight-ly to one side)

So basically, every waking minute that was not spent at work, traveling, or engaging in social *shudder* interaction was spent recuperating for the next bout of the above. I had no time, worse, no energy, to work on anything. I fucking FORGOT that one coveted project even existed, for three weeks. So while I updated my Twitter and Facebook with decent semi-regularity, LJ has been unfairly neglected. Then again, it's not like anybody really gives a shit, right? ;)

Today there's a D&D session in my kitchen, so I've barricaded myself in my lair along with copious amounts of Mountain Dew provisions against the siege. I finished the script for the first issue of my comic book project The Unmentionables yesterday, and I've got one more chapter to go on the 1st third of the Blake's 7 story I'm writing for a friend's birthday. I've also got 2 B7 fanvids in progress, a lot of birthday DVDs that I haven't watched yet, and a lot of filing to do. Plus, it's breezy and cool out, and my windows are open, and there's pulled pork for dinner.

Best of all... May's over. :D:D:D

1) Blake's 7
2) Babylon 5

My ability to update my LJ has been severely impaired of late, mainly due to a lack of time and energy, as well as the sincere desire to keep my repetitive bitching to a minimum. Forgive me and praise me, jounce me and trounce me and hold me high. I'll try and do better. But for the moment, penguins.

Oh, and Thursday was my 25th birthday. ;) It was actually rather nice. Brian had taken me out to dinner and to see Sweeney Todd the weekend before (fantastic performance, I want into Merritt David Janes's pants now), and then on the day, he woke me up with another gift: a spice rack! Yay! This means no more 'Ah OH MY GOD Killer Zombie Spice Cupboard RUN!!!' Also got a sexy banner from draycevixen (V + 4th Doctor + Illya = *DROOL*), a lorryload of FaceBook messages, and a cookbook from my boss. It's only been two months, and she knows me too well. I'm a bit scared. Parents took me out for Chinese food that night, and there's gonna be a barbecue and presents later today. I also bought some gifts for myself: "Tellos" and both "Perhapanauts" trades and a bunch of mp3 albums from Amazon (Old Blind Dogs, I <3 Scottish music so hard!), and two t-shirts, a lunchbag, and a large tribble from ThinkGeek. I know, dangerous. *pets the tribble*

kilinka's visit earlier this month opened the floodgates and let loose the hounds of hell, as is usually the case, so I've been busy as a crackhead beaver on one writing project or another. She finally got over being at death's door (the nerve!) long enough to scan some of the stuff she did for me while she was here, as well as doing two a-fucking-mazing cover illustrations for my birthday. You can find those, along with a list of my current and hopefully-forthcoming original projects at memoryofixion. Current fanfiction project are enumerated at graphiteslog; however, unless you're a Blake's 7 fan, it's been pretty sparse as of late.

Lastly, have I ever mentioned how much I love Scottish music? My mp3 player is currently holding Old Blind Dogs, Tannahill Weavers, and Enter the Haggis, and it fills me with joy. I'm amazed I haven't driven Brian nuts yet... but give me time.

I'm not generally a fan of Roger Ebert's movie reviews, but I give the man kudos for being a politely sarcastic liberal with a painfully clear way of putting things, such as in this blod entry where he responds to Bill O'Reilly's latest pus-filled rant, this one against Ebert's own home newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times:

I understand you believe one of the Sun-Times misdemeanors was dropping your syndicated column. My editor informs me that "very few" readers complained about the disappearance of your column, adding, "many more complained about Nancy." I know I did. That was the famous Ernie Bushmiller comic strip in which Sluggo explained that "wow" was "mom" spelled upside-down.

Full blog post here: Thoughts on Bill O'Reilly and Squeaky the Chicago Mouse

(x-posted to graphiteslog and memoryofixion)

Right, so six years ago, I sold a short story called "Oddities" to this internet 'zine called Three-Lobed Burning Eye. They bought 1st electronic rights and 1st print rights, pretty standard. I got paid my pittance and it was all good... sort of. The story posted to the site immediately, but the print anthology sorta... lingered on. And on. And fucking on. Now mind you, I did email the editor from time to time, asking "Um, I can has book nao?" but nothing ever happened.

Until now.

Three-Lobed Burning Eye Annual - Vol. IV is now available for pre-order at http://www.owlsoup.com/legionpress/3lbe4.html, $15 for the B&W edition and $25 for the color edition. Limited editions will be printed ONLY in the quantity pre-ordered by April 30, 2009, so if you want one, order soon! My story "Oddities" is the first one on the table of contents.

Apologies for not letting everyone know sooner, but I only found out about this, um, TODAY.

I'm of two minds about begging people to order this, because while I really want to encourage small 'zines and this guy gave me a nice ego boost when I needed it, "Oddities" was written when I was a senior in high school and probably is not indicative of the real scope of my talent and brilliance. :P But for those who are seriously interested in my stuff and where I'm going, I'll go out on a limb and say buy this book. The other stories in it are most likely really good (probably better than mine by a long chalk), and more importantly, "Oddities" is the story that birthed The Hon. Aubrey Merridew--The Man in the Pink Top Hat and the star of The Unmentionables, the comic book series that I will (Someday? Please?) be working on with the brutally talented Leanne Hannah.

And y'know, if I ever meet any of you in person, I'll be more than happy to sign it for you. :)