Just over there
What little writing I did over Thanksgiving was on my fic “The Other Girl” — mostly revising and trying to make sense out of the part leading up to the visit to the Burrow. I don’t think anyone except myself will notice the changes I made.
Not completely happy with certain sections of it. Especially the conversation in the car between Buffy and Ginny. It needs serious work. The ideas are there. Not sure if they flow well enough to keep.
We’ll see.
The annual Thanksgiving week marathon drive… less driving this year
– sort of — but more stressful. My car decided to develop some kind of engine problem less than an hour from my destination.
Sounds like the fan is on high speed (or maybe a bearing is going?) when the engine speed gets above idle. And it gets worse the faster the engine gets (Not road speed…)
Sort of limped home today… tried to keep the engine below 3,000 rpm the whole trip (Which in 5th gear is approx. 70mph. But had to keep it above 2000 rpm to keep it moving. Not fun. Kept expecting it to die the entire trip back.
It’s off to the garage first thing in the morning… I hope it is easy/cheap to fix…
Okay… not really… but my receiver (the part of my stereo that gives me true Dolby surround sound, a radio, and a switch for a A/V few things (except HDMI – that didn’t exist in cheap receivers when I bought it 3+ years ago)) just gave up the ghost… not smoke but the smell of electronic components melting (and the sound died completely this time.)
Now I need to find a replacement… maybe there’ll be a Christmas sale somewhere? Under $300??? (I was looking a couple weeks ago…. everything that had the minimum of what I really NEED (enough digital audio in, Component Video out, etc.) was $300-400.)
And the Chinese company that made the one I had (which had enough ports for everything for half the price of SONY or other brands)… doesn’t seem to sell around here anymore..
I’ve been working on my ‘Bond’ crossover this week… hoping to get the next part done before the new movie came out. Didn’t quite make it. It’s about half done…
Maybe after Thanksgiving…
And none of my other fics got any attention….
New tires on the red buggy (At 153,031 miles). Yokohama AVS dB S2′s — just like last time. I got 24K miles from the last set (better than the 20K the Dunlops I had before that. And a few more months.). Probably could have gotten another couple thousand out of them if it was summer… but I needed better tread for the fall/winter weather.
The red buggy is a heavy car. The kinds of tires it is spec’ed for (V or W rated) wear out fast. And that is for all season tires. I would hate to have to buy summer and winter tires for it like I did for the 318. (someday)
(And now it needs a new radio… maybe for Christmas? I also need a new home stereo receiver (but the ones that have all the things I need are a bit expensive – twice what I paid for the one I have now for the same features. And I think it is time to replace my cell phone.)
Looking at the results (so far) of the TN election…
I really don’t see Tennessee as quite so conservative as the election results would indicate. But 80% of the people voting — voted to change the state constitution to define marriage in the “Leave it to Beaver” sense. I expected it to be split a little more evenly. Apparently a lot of people LIKE the government interfering in their religion.
(How the amendment was framed seemed to me to be more religious in nature than anything practical.
Given how blatantly discriminatory the whole thing is I have to wonder how it would survive the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Though the current SCOTUS would probably think it is okay..)
It isn’t a real surprise that it passed — I didn’t hear or see a single argument AGAINST it in the media at any time in the past few months. Must not be a very vocal non-heterosexual community in the state.
Oddly enough… Knox county (Where Knoxville is) and one of the counties next to it had a higher percentage of voters saying no to the amendment than almost anywhere else in the state. At least according to the exit polls from CNN. Not that it is much to brag about…
A series I ran into a couple years ago (and forgot all about until now) — I’m not sure how to classify it. The folks who host the site it is on call this kind of story Yuri. Not something I would typically read. (Mainly because I’m not the kind of audience it is aimed at so I don’t run into this kind of story very often where I ‘hang out’.) If it were fan fiction it would be called femslash (which I do read, as anyone who comes here should know by now.) — though this story barely deserves a PG-13 rating.
It isn’t fan fiction but has the same sort of breezy, light style a lot of fan fiction does.
This particular story is set in Japan – the main character is an “idol” – a Japanese specific celebrity type (They sing, they dance, they act – like Madonna or Britney Spears with a shorter shelf life?) who happens to be a lesbian. The story covers her romantic/work life over the course of several months while she works on a “Reality TV” style television show set in a Japanese high school.
(If you aren’t into Japanese pop culture, lesbian characters, or romance… you might want to skip this. It isn’t short. There are over 90 parts in the first story. And the second story is currently 42 parts long…)
I was really surprised at the nominations. I know people read my fics but I don’t have the same size readership as most of the other writers nominated (or of the ones I nominated myself)
I was trying to think of some way to say thanks… probably another part of one of the nominated fics/series? Need to do it before the voting ends.
“TtH” is doing the ‘fic awards’ thing – The Crossing Over Awards (2006)
It’s a TtH community thing – You had to be a member of the community to nominate fics for the awards. You have to have joined TtH by November 4th, 2006 in order to vote for any fics that have been nominated. And the fics had to be posted to TtH.
The TtH community is made up of over 5000 people, of whom approximately 20% have contributed stories to the site (Over 7000 crossovers of assorted lengths. The largest collection of quality BtVS crossovers in one location.)
And, somehow… several of my stories were nominated for this year’s awards (in 4 categories (3 in story categories, 2 in character categories)
FFA (Fic-For-All) stories are pairing based – BtVS Character +/ Crossover character
How much can YOU write in 20 minutes on a specific topic/character? I’m not very good at it (but I’m even worse at drabbles) but someone thought these were good enough to nominate.
Multiple stories in a series. Although this series has 4 stories incomplete, there are enough finished stories in it to qualify for nomination.
Hmmm… 3 of the 5 are in the same series…
This week/end was a “Noir” immersion… I dug my way thru ‘Noir’ fan fics (of which there are 10% as many on ff.net as there are ‘Kim Possible’ fics. So it didn’t take that long (Last weekend was actually devoted to the Noir fics by one writer. Very long ones.
Very few crossovers… all of the Noir/BtVS crossovers I’ve run across I’d already read since they are already posted at “TtH”.
I also spent the afternoon re-watching episodes of Noir (the 1st 2 DVDs – 9 episodes), followed by an episode of ‘Kim Possible’ as a change of pace.
I can’t see myself ever writing a Noir fic (crossover or not). The attitude of the main characters is just too different from the kind of thing I like to write about.
Haven’t been writing much in the past month… not sure why… maybe I’ll actually get something finished before Christmas? I’ve tried to get started… I’ve mapped some bits of story out… but nothing beyond that.
Of all things… I’ve started writing a Kim Possible story (well… started in the sense I’ve had a basic idea and I’ve written a couple paragraphs… I haven’t posted it here yet… not sure if I will. It is too incomplete.)
[Okay... I've added it to my 'Ideas' page since I don't know how much if anything I'll ever write beyond the couple paragraphs. I really have too many ideas and unfinished fics. With plenty of reserved space to go places if necessary.]
Tennessee has early voting. Approximately 2 weeks long, ending a few days before the election. It’s an interesting experience. I’ve done it a couple times now.
Drove, in the pouring rain, to a place I’d never been, in the dark… stood in line for an hour (and ignored the people behind me spouting old Republican prejudices (I’m not sure what Jane Fonda has to do with this years election… but a lot of people apparently still believe all of the Nixon anti-Fonda propaganda even though it was all made up out of thin air.)
Anyway… this year we voted on new voting machines — like giant iPods — scroll wheel and everything… much better than the buggy touch screens used in Florida.
I believe I voted for the right people (not much choice) and issues (I can’t believe people would actually want to make those changes to the state constitution — but I guess they like government interference in their lives?).
We’ll see in a week if it made a difference (given how much more socially conservative voters around here are than I am… probably not much…)
