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Entries for November, 2006

October 31st, 2006

good news/bad news

And totally unrelated to each other.


Good news: CJ Cherryh is working on the sequel to Cyteen. Feel free to "Yay!" I did.

Bad news: I tried to make a dentist appointment today and got "The regular receptionist will have to call you back on Thursday." Freakin' hell. I'd been hoping to be in by Thursday.

The damn tooth that the Jakarta dentist filled last January has been become more and more of a nuisance. It's not terribly painful, but there comes a time when even just annoyance, discomfort and occasional moderate pain get to be too much. And seeing as I suspect its just a filling thats a little too high, its sort of insane that I suffered it for nearly a year.

It's my usual MO: Hang in there until you can't take it anymore, then bitch about how long it takes to get an aapointment.


Also; Happy Halloween. Don't eat too much candy now, kids. You'll need some of it to bribe Santa come Christmas.

rurounibug ; 06:57 PM|7 replies

November 1st, 2006

NaNo: Day One

Waited till midnight to "publish" (by which I mean "NaNo tally") my title. Three words. Whoo-hoo. Go me. This is easier than it looked. Haven't broken a sweat yet.

Class: My 2Danimation charachter name was veto-ed instantly without even a second of consideration. I am hurt. It went like this:

Instructor: What's your flour sack's name?

We're animating flour sacks. It makes sense after explanation, but I'm too lazy to clarify.

Me: He doesn't have one.
Instructor: Instant fail.
Me: He's going to go by a symbol. Like Prince.
Instructor: No.

After class got pizza. Decided pizza tastes better in front of the TV, Have been watching TV since. Timothy Olyphant is hawt in Deadwood. Just sayin'. Also, I wish Calamity Jane didn't talk like such a lug. I hear the ghost of a "yuh duurr" every time she opens her mouth. Then again, she drinks an awful lot.

And is it just me or is LOST systematically killing and/or writing out all the Black charachters? I fear for Rose.

rurounibug ; 11:36 PM|fine, ignore me

November 2nd, 2006

NaNo: Day Two

Watched the rest of Deadwood season one. Contemplated Deadwood slash. Went online. Was dissapointed by meager pickings.

Went out and got cake. I am more with the NaNo as excuse to eat junk food than I am with the writing, it seems.

Got enough outline to finally, finally start typing. My prose is not snappy and polished. Instead it has that "words, why do you hate me?" quality that manifests in crappy dialogue, an utter lack of exposition, and narrative that chases its own tail.

Told self that circular storytelling makes for more words and loaded a wordcount to NaNo. Site traffic is making the counter load poorly. Am dissapointed by lack of instant word-counter gratifycation, but am still writing. In circles.

Need hug, and more cake.

And muses. Or failing that, something to plagerize.

rurounibug ; 08:59 PM|4 replies

November 3rd, 2006

NaNo: Day Three

Seven PM. Have not yet started writing. The outline is full of holes I can't fill in and the words still hate me. Cooked dinner instead. At least the counter is back.

Contemplated getting started on season2 of Deadwood, but did not. Timothy Olyphant still hot.

---------------------
ETA: Somewhere I have a floppy with tons of worldbuilding notes for the the -9r setting. From ship names to political relations between various goverments and locales to charachters' middle names.

However, I no longer have a computer with floppy drive. I don't know anyone who does. ARGH!


ETA2: My brother YIM-ed me just as I'd gotten into the groove of writing, hence today's anaemic word count. I guess I could stay up late and NaNo, but I don't think I will, even if I've had coffee. I'll just stay up and twiddle my thumbs or read or something.

(This is the part where I talk mostly to myself.)

rurounibug ; 08:19 PM|8 replies

November 4th, 2006

NaNo: Day Four

You know that feeling when you're writing and it's all, "Wow. This is going pretty well. I am so made of talent." ?

That is not how my NaNo-fic feels. Quite the opposite, really.


Also, I woke up at three today. PM. What gives, fucked-up sleep cycle?


Oh, and just for the record, while my brother was whining in IM about the state of his fandom, I took the opportunity to pose this question:

Me: Do you think Timothy Olyphant in Deadwood looks like Matt Damon? You know, Seth Bullock? The sheriff?
Brother: Maybe . . . maybe a little.
Me: Really? Weird. Cause I think not at all.
Me: Next question. Hot or not?
Brother: Hang on. Accessing gay mode.
Me: Is that like flash?

Upon accessing "gay mode" his verdict was: Hot, but only in Deadwood. Elsewhere he looks goofy. Conditional hotness, dependant on being sheriff in a western.

Which is what I said.

It's a bit like Viggo Mortensen, who looks good as Aragorn, but not so much elsewhere. At least IMO.

Tommorow: Day five and hot girls.

---------------------
ETA: Slow going. Words, what did I ever do to you? Okay, there was that porn-writing for internet attention back in my late-late teens, but c'mon. Don't hold a grudge now.

ETA2: Broke 3000 words at quarter to four in the morning. Can go to bed at long, long last. Charachters finally taking on some semblance of personality. Have also stooped to re-phrasing, changing tenses, and leaving out hyphens to pad word count.

rurounibug ; 07:21 PM|2 replies

November 5th, 2006

NaNo: Day Five

I'm sorry, nano-fic, but I have to do other work today. Oh, 3D class, how I hate you, your boring, rambling instructor, sub-zero air-conditioning, and too-fast-to-follow instructional demos. Garg.

I have to install a big-ass prog on my lappie to do the work, since they upgraded from the version I already had and many of the tools are renamed and moved--not helpful, considering the super speedy demos and lack of handouts--so here's hoping it doesn't six my comp.

And if it doesn't, I might be back later and perhaps even get some word count.


ETA: Dear hardware, you're a 2GB flashdrive. I sincerely doubt that my project folder doesn't fit. WTF, yo?!

rurounibug ; 03:13 PM|3 replies

November 6th, 2006

NaNo: Day Six

OMFG, it's day six already?!

Didn't actually get any work done yesterday. It took hours and hours to get the program installed. Not happy.

Also, I promised hot girls and did not deliver. Most of you are probably realizing it was a lure. Sorry.

I'm just back from the dentist, and am gonna try to get some NaNo in before I have to leave for class. The class whose work I did not, in fact, get done yesterday.


ETA: Only got a little over 600 words today. I'm falling further and further behind. I hereby swear off school-work as well as house-work.

I wish.

Guy needs clean socks, yo.

rurounibug ; 02:18 PM|3 replies

November 7th, 2006

cloned from smurfs

This is not a NaNo post. I just felt the need to share.

Theres twenty-two, twenty-three year olds I know who bitch about being carded when they go drinking.

Now my problem, I think, is that I got all the "12-years-old-forever" Asian genes, but not enough of the looks to tip people off that I'm short and adorable because I'm half Asian.

Some kids just came around trying to sell newspapers or magazine subscriptions or something. I went to the door to tell them my broke ass can't buy nothin', and when I opened it, one of two boys, around seventeen, said, "Hi, are either of your parents home?"

OMGWTFBBQ?!!

I want to go home. Undignified shit like this never happens in Jakarta. If any of you are considering being five-foot-three? I do not reccomend it.

I wonder how young they thought I was, but I'm kinda glad I don't know.

I whined bitched confided to an Indonesian friend about how everyone here reads me way too uber-young, and he said, "Is that really a problem? Aren't Americans into that?" Oh goody, add a little creepy to the humiliation, why dont'cha?

When things like this happen, in my mind I hear my two relatively tall--everythings relative--brothers going LOL LOL LOL LOL . . . . Yeah. They're mean folks. My younger brother rests coffee mugs on my head. My younger brother.

Those of you who are Indonesian, I hope you are suitably horrified by the indignity of that. (I know people who've been horrified that I call my older brother by his first name, and sans honorifics. To which I said something like, "Why would I? He's not that great a guy," just to see them get all twitchy.)

rurounibug ; 07:53 PM|4 replies

November 8th, 2006

NaNo: Day Seven

Finished chapter one at 5653 words, including story and chapter titles.

I hijacked a charachter from a story I'd been sort of poking at for months before even considering NaNo, and I'm fearing him becoming Sue-ish if I focus on that charachter too much.

'Course it's tempting, seeing as I already have some backwork for that cha, and not for most any of the rest. (Who are taking shape slowly, but not nearly fast enough for my taste.)

I have also realized that I do not know nearly enough about space travel, aviation or any form of armed-forces procedure or chains of command or space-adapted nautical lingo to convincingly write a sci-fi space pirates adventure.

rurounibug ; 12:28 AM|2 replies

November 8th, 2006

NaNo: Day Eight

My novel is made of suck.

That is all.


Also, I overslept through the alarm clock going off, and missed class this morning. My power of ZZzzz is mighty, yo.

rurounibug ; 05:00 PM|1 replies

November 8th, 2006

"This sea-creature is perfectly safe to hold."

My teacher died yesterday. He was one of those teachers that just having been his student was special. An honor and a point of pride.

I am beyond sorry that I can't go to his funeral and pay proper respects.

There are so many stories, but I don't have the words for them. Usually my friend Die tells them, and I provide punchlines and details and interupt with, "Thats not what happened!" The next time I run into him, we will, as always, tell stories about snakes and monitor lizards and how long it takes to dig a clam from a rock, and how many times anyone with any sense needs to get stung before they stop picking up every-other sea creature their teacher points them at.

But today I am sad, and I don't have the words.

rurounibug ; 08:21 PM|3 replies

November 9th, 2006

private journals

Theres this definition on . . . well, on LJ, that for a journal to be considered private, it must be friends-locked.

Now, I know my "entry privacy status" says 'public', and I never flock posts, because lots of people I consider friends? Not on tabulas and/or unfamiliar with journaling progs, as many, many of them primarily hang out on vbb boards or forums run on similar software.

(This cut is not flocked!)

Or, to put it another way, if I don't close all my curtains and blinds, does that make it acceptable for my neighbor to come and watch my household activities through the windows, take pictures and post them elsewhere?


ETA: This is not aimed at anyone on this journal, but in response to someone on an LJ comm not being allowed to link to a post on what the comm considered a "private journal" where-upon she wailed, "But it's not flocked!"

rurounibug ; 05:52 PM|fine, ignore me

November 10th, 2006

NaNo: Day Nine

Just broke ten thousand, bee-yotch! Oh, yeah.

I know I'm still pretty far behind, but adding another whole digit? Let me say it again: Oh, yeah! This calls for dancing, and air-guitar in the living room. With much jumping around.

I bet my downstairs neighbor just loves me.

Of course, I have stooped to leaving hyphens out of hyphenated words to make it count for two, and going with the more awkward sentance phrasing if it'll give me more words.

Turns out? There is no honor in NaNo.

rurounibug ; 12:39 AM|4 replies

November 10th, 2006

NaNo: Day Ten

Do not feel like writing.

Is it December yet?


ETA: I wish I had candy.

rurounibug ; 11:13 PM|fine, ignore me

November 11th, 2006

NaNo: Day Eleven

Apparently "homework day" means chat on the NaNo forums and LJ comm.

Dedication? Dicipline? What are those? If they do not come in chocolate flavour, then I am not interested.


ETA: Needing a quick name for an incidental charachter, I just cameo-ed a someone from the Blackbirds universe, even though he's quite a bit younger here. I'm either hopelessly dorky, or have been doing too much NaNo because it amuses me a lot more than it should. I mean, it's not even amuseing, and yet I feel the urge to lol.

Oh, Bonny, you'll never be a gun slinging mercenary but you'll never be a pirate captain or swarm commander, either. Just give up and open a pub already.

rurounibug ; 07:56 PM|1 replies

November 12th, 2006

mohon ma'af

I called home today and my mother, who knew my teacher, reported on the funeral and how many people were there, even though his family was apparently pretty small.

The place was thronged by teachers and many, many students. People who are now doctors, phDs, etc. Its nice to hear, but I'm really sad I couldn't go. I can't even start to tell you.



There's a beautiful chinese movie, called--I think--The red shawl. Maybe the red coat. And its about this old widow whose husband, the teacher at a small village in the middle of nowhere, dies. His widow wants to have a traditional funeral ceremony, where the body is carried back to the village from the place of death. Not on a car or a wagon, but actually carried. This is a big deal because it's a very, very long walk.

So she gets all her money and askd people from her village to go around to the neighboring villages and try to hire people. Its not much money, and people try to convince her to maybe just have a symbolic walk. Carry the body a mile or so. She wont hear a word of it.

This story is interspersed between the story of the teacher and his wife, which involves him being away a lot. And everytime he leaves, she waits by the road in her red shawl, or red coat, or whatever it was. This is why the ceremony is important: he died in the city--I can't remember which--and she's afraid his spirit won't find the way back to the village otherwise.

Anyway, the day of the funeral approaches, and she hasn't managed to hire nearly enough people for the ceremony. (Its several days' walk.) The widow says, "hire as many as you can," anyway. It costs everything she has.

Then, finally, people arrive. Hundreds. They give her back the money the villagers had paid them.

It's generations of the teacher's former students, who'd left the village over the years, who'd heard about his death, and come from all over.



This is exactly how we feel. Even those of us who were too far away.

rurounibug ; 12:15 AM|fine, ignore me

November 12th, 2006

NaNo: Day Twelve

I think somewhere in chapter three there should be a computer malfunction:


"Dasdahd hjasdfjsah ajsdflja hasdhljha," The computer said, "jakhsdk hdjsa sahdasu ueun ndf rouay hdfsdjhf7."

"What's the readout?" Sellis yelled.

Cahill checked, "JHd 34 343h887 u7dsf," he said as fhgjfdh8n dhfsd dhfjksd 66djfhhjd kept scrolling up the computer screen.

"hsfj hfdsh7 dfhjsdhf3 fj dhf suehdf," the computer continued, "shdfjkds hsdfsdj yhdiufy."


I think it's good for at least five hundred words.


ETA: Made a NaNo icon of it for LJ, for use in the NaNoWriMo comm.

rurounibug ; 03:37 PM|2 replies

November 12th, 2006

gallery of the absurd

14 illustrates the absurdity of the celeb-stalking media through illustrations:

http://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com

rurounibug ; 04:39 PM|2 replies

November 13th, 2006

house of HATE (dun dun dun)

For those of you who don't have to have background noise in order to cocentrate on work, Dr. Phil has gone and taken a bunch of people who are terribly prejudiced against each other and stuck them in a house.

It's like Big Brother but sans the voting out and entertaining challanges.

Anyway, theres this lady on it who's fucking hilarious. Last time I was sort of dooling and zoned out when she started emo-ing because a redneck hates her, and seriously, the lady's made of LOL.

The house is filled with opposites like the fat guy and the bitchy skinny chick, the lesbian and the homophobe, etc. This lady was the black lady vs. white supremacist redneck.

And I don't remember what led up to it, because I wasn't paying that much attention, but one of the other girls apparently said something which led to an exchange that went more or less like this:

lady: You don't understand because you're white.
girl: Actually, I'm Native American.
lady: Whatever. You look white to me.
other girl (who looks sort of latina): What about me, then?
lady: Oh, I don't even know what you are.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Thats really rich, lady. And might I say, a little racist? After all her 'woe is me' whining, I can't tell if the hypocrisy is hilarious or painful.

. . . Maybe I should just work to dvds. Or radio, even.

rurounibug ; 09:13 PM|fine, ignore me

November 14th, 2006

NaNo: Day Thirteen

I know it's past midnight, but before sleep = same day, alright?

I'm trying to write a few hundred words from Lilaey's POV only to discover . . . Lilaey really bores me.

It doesn't help that its a filler-tipe I-just-need-words-today scene, either.

rurounibug ; 01:25 AM|1 replies

November 14th, 2006

Mowgli's Song

Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do not understand.

--Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

rurounibug ; 06:47 PM|2 replies

November 17th, 2006

NaNo: Day Sixteen

Again, post-midnight, pre-sleep. I count it as what is technically the previous day.

I suddenly realized that my charachter dynamic has changed. Huh. In chapter one theres only minimal tension, because I like happy things and hate in-team fighting. I much rather the good guys stick together and actually like each other, if at all possible.

But in the last few pages, everyone's been yelling at each other, and ha ha ha, I have reaction to the stressful situation of being stranded on a desert planet (No, no palm trees. I shoulda had some. And a message in a bottle.), down a pilot, and conflicting personal views coming into play re. how to deal with either situation.

Put like that, it almost sounds like the story makes sense. Sadly, it does not. All the charachters still sound alike, except maybe for Marsh, who was a pre-existing charachter anyway, and who'd I'd writen a few thousand words about over the last couple years.

( In fact, here's an older, pre-NaNo snippet:)

rurounibug ; 02:02 AM|3 replies

November 22nd, 2006

NaNo: Day Twenty-Two

I meant to write all day today. It is now ten thirty--PM--and needless to say, I haven't even started.

I don't think anyone who has read so much as two posts of this blog is going to be terribly surprised. But if you are, let me explain: I'm kind of a slackass.


Tomorrow is thanksgiving. No turkey for me, because my aunt is making ham. Thanksgiving ham? Is that even allowed? Isn't there like . . . a law or something? Because if there isn't, there should be.

Wah! Stuffing! ;___;

rurounibug ; 11:40 PM|3 replies

November 24th, 2006

it goes up and it goes down

The elevator in V's building pauses shy of his floor and makes scary gear noises that sort of sound like GEEEERK GERRRRRRRRK GERRRKKK GERK before continuing.

V: Haha. I probably should have warned you guys.

Jackass.

Elevators are weird in the same way that airplanes are in that people are terribly nervous inside them, but don't seem so until something happens. Like when you hit turbelance and people gasp and grab their armrests and you realize everyone is very aware of how far down it is and that people can't fly.

The elevators in the animation building have a tendency to be weird. One of them always goes all the way to the top floor, and will only stop at the other floors if it's on the way down. Of course, once it's stopped at say, the fourth floor, it's gotta go all the way back up before it'll stop at a different floor. It once took me around fifteen minutes to get to the third floor.

Elevators don't generally trouble me, but one time a lot of us got in one, the doors closed, and then the alarm went off, and a girl in the back started yelling, "OMG, let me out! Let me out!" while someone else repeatedly bashed the 'open doors' button.

Jesus christ. All it takes is one or two screaming ninnies to make you realise that you really don't like enclosed spaces, how far down it is, and that people can't fly.

rurounibug ; 09:49 PM|1 replies

November 27th, 2006

NaNo: Day Twenty-Six

Ignore the date of this entry. It's pre-sleep. You know how this works.

Ten thousand more words, byatch. That's like . . . two smut scenes, if I get stuck for plot.

Oh, man, that 50K is so close I can taste it.

It would suck to fail now.

rurounibug ; 03:00 AM|4 replies

November 27th, 2006

NaNo: Day Twenty-Seven

Soon, I will be able to draw and write and actually do schoolwork again.

Not making bets that I'll actually do any of those things come December or the 50K, because I would probably lose that bet, but when all my free time is tied up in one project, I miss all the stupid, idle little things I usually waste my time on. Y'know?

I like to pretend that if I weren't noveling right now, I'd be drawing.

It's totally a lie, but I like to pretend it.

rurounibug ; 11:29 PM|1 replies

November 29th, 2006

NaNo: Day Twenty-Eight

Only 6K left to go. Have resorted to attention-deficit scene jumping. Before this I was getting three or four pages before having to break narrative to jump ahead in time, or change POV.

Now? Bleh. I have an ending to get to, yo.

rurounibug ; 12:41 AM|1 replies

November 29th, 2006

NaNo: Day Twenty-Nine

I'm at my final battle. I need it to last for 4K words.

I have a problem in that I stretch dialogue for pages and pages, then zip through the action (since dialogue is easier, than thinking up a battle's play-by-play). Now that I've come the finale, and with a fair chunk to go and not much left for the charachters to talk about, I don't know if I can pull off a 4K space battle.

Also, I am having a problem with logistics, as it's a space battle, but I need the Rat's crew off ship for me to able to use the ending I had previously laid out and been aiming for. Moving the charachters around is getting to be awkward. And that's not even mentioning the necessary players that have failed to show up, and the fact that the main charachters have just left the only place I could conceivably have had them debark the ship.

Rocks fall, everyone dies.

Yeah.


ETA: I can't understand why my counter thinks I need 3271 words a day, when I have all of tommorow and a little less than three and a half K to go. Because even rounding up to 4K, I'm thinking 2K a day is a more logical outcome.

Actually, I can understand, I just sort of resent the counter's goddamn fear mongering.

rurounibug ; 08:40 PM|1 replies

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