In Which The Interwebs Makes Me Happy

So normally I try to write a few blog posts on Sunday, so I can be ahead in the week. But this weekend I only wrote one. We spent the rest of the evening playing Halo until our Xbox offered us up the red ring of death again.



Damn you Xbox. Why do you make it so hard to love you?



So then yesterday I was super busy at work which led to a range of consequences:

1. I didn't get to comment on as many blogs as I usually do. Though I did manage to read most of them

2. The super busy amounts of work, combined with crazy dogs that were trapped inside until the lawn fertilizer dried, left me in a super foul mood.

• Also, co-worker that I don't even know: If I tell you I can't help you with something and I don't know who you need to speak with, don't keep pressuring me to give you a name. And when I cave, certainly don't tell that person I gave you their name.

3. Which in turn left me with no idea on what to write for a blog post. Mostly I just wanted to take a bath, read a bit, and then go back to bed. Steaks for dinner notwithstanding

So what all this means is that today's post is going to be a random post of fun things I like on the interwebs.

Yay!

Do you read
hyperbole and a half blog? I swear, if you don't, you will regret it. Check out this post which may be my favorite. So. Funny.

We were discussing on Hannah's blog the wonderfulness of The Silence of the Lambs and I mentioned to her the wonderful Lego musical version which she has not seen. So here it is in all its glory.

WARNING: there is language in this video, much like in the real movie. You. Were. Warned.



I know we've talked a bit before about the kind of music I like (rock. A bit of metal thrown in as well). Lately I've been re-listening to Twin's Fair to Midland CD (shhh, I stole it from her...) and I had forgotten how much I LURVE them. Their song Dance of the Manatees is awesome, but my favorite is the below: (unfortunately the video is just the lyrics but you can still hear the song)




Here is Brother's, Twin's and my all time favorite LOLCat

Here's another fav


And that's all I have for today! Hopefully you found something that made you smile.


PS - I'm off all next week from work. Since Twin and I will be doing hella gardening and yard work, I probably won't be as present on the interwebs as I normally am. But I will be back in full splendor the following week.

In Which We Speak Of Moms

So how was everyone's Mother's Day?

Ours was kind of non-existent. I mean, Myself, Twin and Brother helped her and our dad paint the main floor of their house on Saturday. But Twin works on Sundays so not much happened on the actual holiday.

Of course our mom forgot it was Mother's Day until like 3 days before. And we had only realized this fact a few days before that.

We did send her flowers, which arrived while we were painting so that was fun.

The card read:

You created me Mom, so I guess you're to blame
For the love that I feel just from hearing your name
You're as tender and corned beef and as warm as pastrami
I wuv my mommy

Which is the best Mother's Day poem ever, and comes from Futurama.

When we were little our mom used to work nights in a nursing home. There is supposedly a "haunted floor" in the nursing home, but she didn't work on that one.

To seemingly make up for this fact she used to read to us before she went to work and before we went to bed.

I'm sure most mom's read fun things to their kids but not our mom. Nope.

She read us Stephen King short stories.

I distinctly remember The Mangler giving me nightmares.



Still though, it's not like we asked her to read us happy fun stuff.

So happy late Mother's Day Mom, and thanks for the nightmares.

How about you? Did you do anything fun for Mother's Day?

Friday Fun Words

Yvie here right on schedule to bring you new words to use in your daily chats and conversations.

The weather here has taken a turn back to winter. We didn't have any snow in March or April, which is unusual, but now we may get some in May.

What the heck is up with that?

Needless to say, I will not be sunbathing today.




Onto the words!


Rehamp - when you re-use your clothes hamper

Gobid - when you, erm, go bid on something...

Pantsh - pants for drunks



Ninglati - glitterati ninjas

surprisingly, nothing shows up when you googs "ninja" and "glitter" together...

Coltrill - Coltrane for birds

Prearver - Preacher Preview

why isn't this a movie yet?

Pessnod - a pessimistic nod


And that is all for this week ape-friends!
I hope you have a snow free weekend!

In Which There Is Too Much Conflict?

So a few months ago I wrote about how, though I loved The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I felt the pace was just a bit too fast. I mean, I understood why it was effective. I literally could not put them down. But I like my stories to let me enjoy them a bit and a manic pace takes much of the leisurely love out of the equation.

Still, as a writer, better to have a manic pace than a slow one.

I think I've found a book that has the same issue, but in regards to conflict instead of pace.

I'm reading A Game of Thrones and there is so so much conflict I actually want to hide a bit.

Too much conflict you say? No such thing!

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (HA! I love you Inigo Montoya)

I love the characters in this book. Love them so much. I want things to go well for them and I want them to be happy and smiling etc.

I most certainly don't want bad things to happen to them.

And they do, ohhh yes they do.

It got to a point the other night where something HORRIBLE happened (not that I didn't see it coming, but there were a few betrayals that were shocking) and I actually had to close the book and set it aside (much like I did with HP 7 when (HARRY POTTER SPOILER ALERT!!) Fred died. Of course, I could only put that down for like 5 minutes. But still...)

I'm still upset about that...

It was just too much horribleness happening to the characters. And to make it worse, this is book 1 of 4 so I know NOTHING will be resolved until I read 3 more novels.

Sigh. Just too much conflict.

Of course, I picked it back up after a bit and continued on. Still a lot of bad stuff happening but I can take a breath now.

So this is why I don't like too much conflict. Even if there was just one little nice thing that happened for the characters it would carry me through the rest of the trouble. But over the top conflict makes me have to set the book down.

But not forever. Just for a moment. Then I continue on.

In Which I Received (3) Critiques

I know I mentioned a few days (weeks?) ago that I won Chimera Critique's first contest. The prize was a gift card (which I spent on Karin Lowachee's Gaslight Dogs and World War Z and promptly added them to my TBR pile (Karin Lowachee goes to the top though. OOH I hope it's half as good as War Child)). The secondary prize was a first chapter critique, which was awesome.



I did a quick line edit (super quick, just looked for passive voice, typos (of which there were many) easy to fix adverbs and adjectives etc)(also Palindrome and Teebore took a quick look as well) and then sent if off.

Then I hit my funk (which has now mostly cleared, which is good). They said it would take about two weeks but I got the first (of three) crits back in less than a week. How awesome is that?
I peeked at it and then promptly stashed it away.

Note to self: do not look at crits while in a foul mood. It will not help.

I knew I needed to sit on it to try and get some emotional distance. I planned on giving it 4-5 days but instead (after I had written my post about my funk) I decided to suck up and brave it.

As it turns out, reading the firs crit cured my funk immediately. I wish I had known that. I felt a little silly the next day reading about my funk when it had more or less gone away.

The crit contained a line edit (which looked terrible because as I've mentioned in the past I need around 3-4 line edits so 1 didn't cut it) But what was even better than the line edits (which were very helpful, don't get me wrong. They caught a few things I most likely wouldn't have noticed on my own) were the overall feedback paragraphs. What they liked, what they thought needed work.

They clarified a few things that I had questioned myself. For example, everyone loves MC Quill (I do too. She was really fun to write) but people don't love MC Fox as much, which is the pits because he's like THE MC. But I had already suspected that Fox needed some work and had come to a few conclusions how to zazz him up.

Also they helped clarify where they thought the hook was (it was where I suspected) and therefore helped me come to terms with a better way to start off.

Overall I was very very pleased with the crit.

If you're looking for a crit yourself, you should give them a try.

So now I feel like I'm back on track with the revisions. Let's hope I stay there.

In Which We Discuss Online Crit Groups

So back when we were discussing crit groups, quite a few of you stated that you have online groups.

I find this very interesting and would like to know more.

How did you find your online crit group?
How do you exchange work? By email? Through a forum?
How do you handle crits? Do you just use Word's track changes, or is there another method you use?

If you do have an online crit group instead of a local meet up crit group, are you glad? D0 you wish it was a crit group where you could actually meet each other or do you prefer the distance of the interwebs?

I've never been part of an online crit group before and am just curious as to how you go about it so any details you provide would be awesome.

In Which I Read Web Comics

Do you read webcomics?
I do. A few anyway. I used to read a lot more but reading blogs took over that free time.
But I still keep up with a few of my favorites.

A few of them update every day but I like to save them all up and then spend and hour or so reading months worth of comics. It's awesome.

One of my favorites is Questionable Content.

Per the page "Questionable Content (or "QC," as it is frequently abbreviated) is an online comic strip that is ostensibly about romance, indie rock, little robots, and the problems people have."

It has an ongoing storyline which is great for long time readers, but the individual comics are typically stand alone.

click on the comics for a zoom in option

One of my other all time fav web comics is Girl Genius. Its tagline is "Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!" And if you like steampunk even a little (or want to explore steampunk a bit) I HIGHLY recommend this comic.

Unlike Questionable Content this one is pretty much a straight storyline, so you would have to start from the beginning. But the art is awesome.

Twin, Brother and I also enjoy reading VG Cats, which stands for video game cats. Since this one tailors specifically to gamers it's really only funny if you play a lot of games. It's not updated very frequently but when it is, it's usually hilarious.




Finally, the last one I read on a regular basis is XKCD.
There's nothing like a comic about romance, sarcasm, math and language that's done with stick figures.



Do you read any webcomics? If so, any you would recommend?