Larocque and Roll

Like Christmas, but not quite September 30, 2004

I’m so excited - tomorrow registration for NaNoWriMo opens! I realize this elevates me to a new level of geekiness, but hey - a girl’s gotta have something to look forward to!

While last year’s attempt was a stab at the fantasy genre, this year I’m going to hack away at science fiction-themed tale. I have my main characters partially fleshed out in my head, a beginning, a major crisis (complete with plot twist!), but no way to get there from the intro. I have a rough setting, and premise, but that’s it. Since you have to get about 1,600 words per day to meet the 50,000 word quota by then end of the month, you pretty much throw everything you have on the page and worry about the editing in December.

Last year, I only got roughly 13,000-15,000 words, and most of that was in the companion diary I was keeping. Once I started writing the story, I kept thinking how bad it was, how I didn’t really like the characters, and how I really hadn’t given much thought to secondary characters; as a result, they were poorly sketched and stilted. However, the bright spot was the keeping of the diary convinced me to start a blog, which I did at the end of December. I still post to it occasionally, but not as often as I used to.

Right - now to see if I can find my username and password from last year!

Playtime

“Whoa! Where did you come from?”

Typical Blog Post

I’ve been really tired lately blah blah blah… not sleeping well blah blah blah… must be that time blah blah blah… cranky and bitchy blah blah blah… making poor food choices blah blah blah… napping blah blah blah…

Okay, I’m done with that.

Wee kitty cat September 29, 2004

Hey look! It’s another picture of a cat! This is Toeni again, when she was small. She had just arrived in her new digs and was still getting used to the place

Attack of the Bed Cats! September 28, 2004

Friday is “Post a Cat on Your Blog Day”, making official what is already pretty common. Here’s my contribution for today: Toeni (so named because she’s a polydactyl) and Cleo, my sister and b-i-l’s cats.

Another fine mess…

Last night I got it into my head that I needed to update Firefox NOOOOOOW. Normally, I’d read through the instructions and follow them, but this time…. nah, too easy. Just uninstall the version I’d been using (0.9) and install the new version (1.0).

Well, apparently, you’re not supposed to do that. First, you’re supposed to uninstall the extensions and themes, THEN uninstall the program to prevent conflicts. Which I didn’t do.

Long story not-as-long, I installed 1.0 and it opened, but wouldn’t reopen. Uninstalled it. Reinstalled 1.0. Wouldn’t work. Uninstalled it. Installed 0.9, and it worked. Reinstalled the extensions it couldn’t find on the initial install. Wouldn’t restart. *sigh*

The solution I found seems fairly simple - install it in a different directory. Which I will be trying when I get home.

(Update: it worked!)

I want me a pair of fingerless gloves! September 26, 2004

Well, this weekend was a bust - for the most part. Both mornings I got up late, and then spent too long trying to get into gear. Yesterday I decided I needed to make fingerless gloves with the Wendy Velvet that I got when I went home. However, I have now spent the better part of the weekend trying to find an acceptable needle size and swatching - the pattern calls for 3.5mm (which I didn’t have and had to buy at Zellers), but I’ve also swatched with 4mm and 4.5mm, which are the needle size recommended for with the yarn. The yarn also has very little give to it, so instead of a garter cuff (which I don’t really like anyways), I’ll use a ribbed cuff. I also thought about adding a cable or some other decorative feature to the back of the glove, but it’s hard enough to count the rows with this yarn, let alone pick out decorative features. I have a lightweight dark grey acrylic yarn to play with, so we’ll see how things go with these and then try it out with that yarn.

Why the sudden interest in fingerless gloves? I’ve decided that I want a pair for my NaNoWriMo attempt, and the lovely varigated Velvet was an excellent candidate. (I’ve also decided that I want the QaF socks for a bellydance/flamenco workshop I’m attending in November. Oh yeah - so not going to happen!)

Other than that, a pretty slow weekend.

A fool and her money September 23, 2004

Wear the old coat and buy the new book - Austin Phelps

What is wrong with me? Anytime I manage to save up a little money, I manage to blow it on books (and, more recently, yarn). Today was no exception. I finished early today, so I went to Wal-Mart to look at the yarn (crappy, and the store was dirty too), then the LYS, where I bought them out of Paton’s Up Country in charcoal. I still don’t have enough for a full sweater, but I can do the sleeves in a different colour.

Then, I went to Chapters. When it comes to book stores, I have absolutely no self-control. Okay, I have minimal self-control, but I choose not to exercise it.

• Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. It’s a cool pattern book, and some really neat things in there. It’s been a while since I found a knitting book in which I like all the patterns.
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Because I haven’t seen a single negative review of it so far. Plus, it has a blur by Neil Gaiman on the back (maybe that’s what the dream last night was about!)
• Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. I love Dave Barry. I’m not so big on Peter Pan, but the three or four pages I read I quite enjoyed.
• Muddle Earth by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. It sounds hilarious.
• Ella the Elegant Elephant by Carmela and Steven D’Amico. It’s the cutest children book, and I bought it for my mother. I’m going to put together a care package for her.
• DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web by Jason Cranford Teague. I’m going to figure out this CSS-thing if it gives me more grey hair!

I’ll get around to reading them….eventually….

Ladies, a word of advice: RUN!

Accordion Guy has posted a couple of tracks from a 70’s self-help tape entitled Picking Up Girls Made Easy. Ladies, should you be approached by some hip swinger trying out these cool and smooth lines on you, the polite response is not to laugh yourself silly (although that may be the preferred response). Rather, you should indicate that, while the 70’s may have been a groovy time for the single stud out-on-the-town, it is now the 21st century and he may want to look into updating his pick-up lines.

Some thoughts I had while listening to the clips:

• What kind of thoughtful brother buys his “sister” a see-through top?
• Also, why do the “sisters” always get blamed for everything?
• Romeo was the greatest pick-up artist ever? Honey, the last girl he picked up was the death of him (quite literally).
• “Groovy looking chick” - hee!
• “…lets her know that Barry’s got some bread” (paraphrased) - hee!

When email attacks!

Yesterday morning, I woke with the unsettling feeling that something ominous was going to happen. That something was making its way towards me and that it would cause me mental anguish. It also dawned on me that I hadn’t heard anything about the Amazon order I made in May. Little did I realize that the two thoughts were inextricably linked.

So I checked my email after dance class last night, and lo and behold, the email that brought both mental anguish and a feeling of dismay towards Amazon.ca - the notification that my order had been delayed another month. I had been sort of half expecting that sort of notification all week, but to actually recieve it was disheartening. So now my order is due to arrive sometime between the end of October and the beginning of November. Bah.

(And yes, I accept that it’s not Amazon.ca’s fault. I checked the publisher’s page, and the book is showing up in their “Coming Soon” section. I know it wasn’t there before.)

In other news, I’ve been having the strangest dreams again. Last night it was Neil Gaiman asking me to make him a salad for lunch on Monday. I woke up thinking, “I don’t have anything to make a salad with, and it’s Thursday!” Oh, for the love of little green apples….