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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) athenais | |
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Dear Author Person, Look. Everyone needs a Kaukauna Cheese Log in book form once in a while. Stodgy, dodgy, strangely tasty, one puts it away swearing not to touch it again and yet a few hours later one is getting it out for a little more. I find most quest fantasy falls into this category for me, and yet I keep reading quest fantasy hoping for something good. Once in awhile I find it. So I decided to read something that had been recommended to me and was available at my local library. I don't know you; in fact, prior to this book I'd never heard of you. However, I have an amazing track record for authors finding my shallow rants book reviews to either take me to task or just scare me by saying howdy. So I'm not going to identify your book or you. Nonetheless, I'm here to tell you something for your own good: never write another shape changer novel. Yes, I know you wrote a trilogy. Please stop. You might also like to avoid Young Persons fiction, although I see you've written that, too. Again, no. Your influences are showing so hard I think I can identify the passages from each book you committed to memory when you were twelve. In addition, please select a less limited plot next time. I kept waiting for you to subvert the paradigm or some damn thing, but nooo. You telegraphed what was happening in the first chapter and then that is by god what you wrote. Did they have to meet in a tavern? Did there have to be paladins? Did it have to be wolves? Couldn't there have been, I don't know, a wily old llama/shaman instead? Yes, of course there could have been, but then you couldn't have set your novel in a fake medieval Europe, and I'm sure you never even considered anything else. Perhaps I wrong you. But right now I'm trying to get the cheese log out of my brain and I'm mad at you. No love, Athenais Tags: bad fantasy
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rysmiel | |
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Well, I'm back. The colloquium was mixed. Mostly great scientific content, some of which was really exceptional, in various modes from really well-done systems biology to innovative bits of paradigm-pushing to classic genetics. The general standard was extremely high, with only a couple of exceptions. The judging posters process was kind of gruelling in terms of trying to make fine distinctions between mostly very good entrants. The whole thing was gruelling in a people-stuff way plus basically going for a whole day with a single half-hour break and no online time. And several of the talks had links from them which lead in dorections out of which I might get seminar material, so that is good. Annoyingly, 2001 turns out to be on in duParc at 9 pm only, and making my way home from duParc that late on a night before I have to go to work is not appealing. We did however watch, on DVD, both Twelve Angry Men, which is totally brilliant, and the original The Wicker Man, which definitely has its powerful moments and elements but also does not manage to steer entirely clear of farce at some points; one can tell that people did their research, and also which wrong sources they used. (Caesar writing about the Britons has enough of a propaganda slant that taking his descriptions as accurate is a mite problematic.) Other than that, over the weekend, I basically went flop, played Civ, and read Dante; Z and A were over for dinner one evening which was really nice, and I am I think getting my groove at least somewhat back, though I was not up to writing at all. Also, links c/o ashbet: Christopher Walken reads Lady Gaga's "Poker Face". The inevitable mash-up of the above with the original.and, found by myself: Christopher Walken doing "Let's Misbehave" from Pennies from Heaven (possibly NWS). Current Music: did you know "Green Eggs and Ham" goes to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ?
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) mnstf
von_krag | |
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Allison Scott a FGoH at MiniCon asked for this and well, electrons are cheap... Cheesy Peppers Corn bread 1 1/2 c. cornmeal 1 c. canned cream-style corn 1 c. buttermilk 1/2 c. vegetable oil 2 eggs, beaten 1 tbsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. sugar 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 2 Jalapeno peppers, seed & minced (fresh by choice caned if one must) 1/4 c. onion, finely chopped 2 tbsp. green pepper, minced 1 c. (4 oz.) Sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded (optional: 1/2 cup Tasso Ham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasso_ham & where I get mine http://www.cajungrocer.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=tasso&x=0&y=0 I use the COMEAUX'S but all are good.) Combine all ingredients except cheese in a large bowl; stir well. Pour half of mixture into a hot greased 10-inch iron skillet; top with cheese. Add remaining cornmeal mixture. Bake cornbread at 450 degrees about 30 minutes or until done. Yield 10 to 12 servings. Current Location: the kitchen
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls - Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays
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nellorat | |
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Sleep, GoodI just slept for FOURTEEN HOURS--minus two pee breaks, one moderate hypo, and 15 minutes to respond to a student's paper due this morning--and it feels wonderful! (No, I'm nowhere near self-sacrificing enough to do that paper thing in the middle of sleep usually, but I knew that so many hours wouldn't happen in one unbroken stretch anyway.) I teach at 4:00 p.m. and may even NAP! Last week I worked 45 hours, a personal record or close to it. And more demanding because (1) the two daily students for the Saturday test were very emotionally intense for me (and, of course, moreso for them), and (2) I'm not dissatisfied with the commute to Manhattan, because I can read and even grade/critique student essays, but it does make the day even longer. Teacherly BraggingDid I mention that on the October SATs I got two vicarious 800s in Writing and one in Reading? Well, if so, I just mentioned them again. Out of 800, of course. One student got one of each, and she's a talented sweetie, too, not a drudge! And the 8th-grade student, the one I'm BEING PAID to teach poetry and myth to? We started because she didn't get the poetry on the SSAT (private school entrance test), bringing her score down. This weekend, she referred to Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" as currently her favorite poem. The cool thing: she had no idea what that implied or how much it would mean to me. ICFA PoC Scholarship NewsNo wonder I felt blessed and needed to share it with the world. No wonder the response pissed me off so much. But, by the way, all seems to possibly be quieting down on that front, maybe. So, OK. The ICFA board has decided not to take an official position, which is completely right, since it is our project. And you guys, I love you. (I mist up! Despite more sleep I'm still emotionally labile, but that's one side of me.) I focus on the negative so much that even womzilla felt I was letting several nay-sayers outweigh all the support I got from so many wonderful people. But that's not true. For one thing, I could never have seen the situation from the other point of view at all until I didn't hurt so much; some time was needed for that, but also reassurance and solidarity. Mood: deciding between coffee and more sleep
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vgqn | |
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Last Thursday we put an old dresser out on the curb with a "FREE" sign on it. It was old and beat up. Mike had had it in the garage for years, thinking he would use it for organizing, but had come to the conclusion that he should just get rid of it instead.
We came home Friday night, and it was still there, but the drawers were gone. We were outraged! Why would someone take just the drawers? What were we supposed to do with the empty frame now?! We had dismal visions of needing to break it up and put it in the trash.
But after cooling down, I said, "Maybe, just maybe, they took the drawers (and the "FREE" sign, I'll note), because they wanted dresser but didn't have a big enough vehicle to carry it. This way, with no drawers, no one else will take it before they come back for it." So we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.
When we came home Saturday, it was gone. Yay!
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dhole | |
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So, apparently, I've gotten back to writing, after a bit of a dry spell. I'm not doing nanowrimo because I've got too many things I'm in the middle of, but there were 4,000 or so words of fiction written today, mostly in the 1851 thing.
They included these:
Given the course I had chosen, it would certainly not be just for me to complain of this violation of the principles of unarmed combat. Furthermore, I will admit that I had not the wind to make that complaint, or any other, for indeed, the chair had knocked it all from me.
I'm not sure that'll survive to the final draft, as it is a bit much, but they amused me.
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vito_excalibur | |
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It's understood
By every single person who'd be elsewhere if they couldThat's from "Middletown Dreams", off of Rush's Power Windows. That song was the soundtrack of my life. It's about getting the fuck out. And oh, how I wanted to do that. You don't know. I have so many weird stories from growing up based on the fact that if ever anyone asked me "Do you want to go to _____?" I said yes. Didn't matter where. As long as it wasn't my house and my family and my cul-de-sac and my deadly stifling suburban neighborhood. I went elsewhere. I counted down the months till leaving for college in Sandman issues with my best friend. And when I went to college, I loved it and it was awesome, but I knew I wasn't going to stay in Hyde Park forever. It was always an issue with the X. There was always a sell-by date on our relationship. I was going to get the fuck out. And when I moved to the suburbs in California, I missed the city like crazy. Until I lived in Chicago I never understood what my parents meant when they said the suburbs were empty like a ghost town. And now when I go home I know - cars fill the streets, but you can walk for miles and never see another human face. It's freaky. And I wanted to get the fuck out. We went to see Girlyman - one of their best concerts I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot - and they played a lot of songs off of their new album. Which is called Somewhere Different Now. And to me at least, a lot of the songs on there are about getting the fuck out. And I don't feel it. No I do feel it, but I feel it as an echo. A driving need that just isn't there anymore. I listen to "Everything's Easy" ("You never know: wherever I go is away") and I'm overwhelmed with the weird ghostly sensation of the absence of the person who would have shivered like a tuning fork with the sympathetic vibration from that song. And it feels so strange to not be her. But I don't want to get the fuck out. I like it here. I like where I live. I still like to travel. But the need to get out is gone.  Tags: music, thoughts
Current Music: he said that the oceans are rising, so put your children to bed
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