Words    Words    Words

41 responses so far ↓

• 1 Jonathan K. Stephens // Feb 9, 2008 at 8:58 am

  Hi Guys,

  I don’t know if you are aware of the medical problems that noted SF&F author Caitlin Kiernan is experiencing (http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/428947.html) but there are troubling parallels with what Steve recently went through. Living in Canada, medical situations are something I don’t have to worry about, but for a freelance writer in the USA the implications are nothing less than frightening.

  I’m sure that anything you could do to help the cause would be appreciated.

  All the best,

  Jonathan K. Stephens

  Ps. My copy of A Rose For Iconoclastes just arrived from CD Baby. I’m really liking it and I’m wondering if Steve will ever do another.

• 2 Kelly // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:00 am

  Oh, I admit - I’ve been procrastinating by a Torchwood marathon, and then deciding to give Doctor Who another try. Found I liked it after all, until midway through the second season when they pulled such a stupid and out of character move that I’ve been pissy and haven’t watched it since.

  I still need to get past season three of The West Wing - started watching it because everyone at my work talked in West Wing terms, and I was lost. I really enjoyed the show, but something shifted in s3 and made me… not so enthused.

  Oh! I should get last night’s Stargate… (yes, I *am* procrastinating at the moment… and waiting for my ride to the local farmer’s market).

  The nice thing is, when I feel really guilty about watching too much TV, I can remind myself it’s necessary for my dissertation. Heh.

• 3 PixelFish // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:01 am

  Mmmmmm….Civ. Thanks for waking the sleeping beast wot craves Civ, btw. I needed that, because I have to procrastinate on helping out with my boyfriend’s job hunt. (He just got laid off, and we’re scrambling our resources to see what we can get him.)

  We’ve also been procrastinating with help from World of Warcraft. (To be fair, this is the easiest way for me to hang out with my family, who lives on the other side of the country. We had my sister’s birthday party in Stormwind just two weeks back–we play Hide and Seek. Yes, we’re all grown adults.)

• 4 ojiikun // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:13 am

  I’m presently amidst the worst last-minute distraction I’ve ever had dropped upon my lap: being shipped off to Dublin from my usual haunts of Seattle for a fortnight. The stories of beautiful young lasses are true, the pubs are legendary, and the weather is quite fine if you’re from the Northwest. Needless to say, though being sent for work, little work has transpired other than a detailed survey of fine Irish distillations. *grin*

  P.S. Sixteen hours on a aeroplane are made brief by Firefly fanfics.

• 5 shelly rae // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:27 am

  Steve got me hooked on West Wing as well. I’m up to the end of Season 5 and I’m seriously bumming from recent explosions on the show (yes I know how to avoid spoilers). Procrastinating is easy of course I can find all sorts of things to do rather than what I should be doing but mostly I’m reading, writing, and taking care of my very old dog.
  Oh and sometimes I try to shape mud into useful things.
  Anon

• 6 Ricky // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:33 am

  ah man, Morrowind… if only it would work right on my newer machines… for some reason, the water is all messed up, but thats ok, because I have Oblivion now. And thats what I’ve been doing… playing Oblivion.

• 7 jeff // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:53 am

  Heh. Forward progress is being hampered by the arrival of Battlestar Galatica season 2, which I am watching again. I have also been spending too much time on Rockband, cause fake guitars and fake drums are more fun when played in a group.

• 8 pamola // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:55 am

  Well for time wasting there is desktop tower defenese (http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/game.asp)
  When I’m trying to be more enlightened with my time wasting is Freerice (http://www.freerice.com/index.php) Vocab quiz, where advertizers pay for rice to developing world.

• 9 Jason // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:03 am

  I’m procrastinating so egregiously that I can’t even concentrate on my distractions.

  I should be working on my novel, but I’m not, because it’s easier to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which I’ve vowed to understand this year.

  But I’m not doing that, because it’s even easier to read William James’s essay “The Will to Believe,” which is related to another writing project I’m working on.

  But I’m not doing that either, because it’s easier to tinker with my class syllabi. I’ll need those eventually.

  But what I’m doing, instead of being productive, is playing Cradle of Rome. Because it’s Saturday morning and I have no ambition.

• 10 Randy Bradakis // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:07 am

  I finished Oblivion and Morrowind, and I can’t quite get excited enough about them to replay them for the third time each. So I’ve been playing Rock Band and Assassin’s Creed. The former with as many friends as possible, and the latter with no surviving witnesses.

• 11 will shetterly // Feb 9, 2008 at 11:09 am

  I was confused just like the other folks who followed the link from the skzb LJ. FYI.

  As for getting something like universal health care in the US, all we can do this year is elect a Democrat. I’ll note that the smart money is on Obama, the only one of the corporatists that the polls say can beat McCain, but since I’m not a Democrat and the Democrats love to lose (note the lack of DLC support for Edwards, who dared talk about class), I’m not betting anything now that we’re down to McCain, who welcomes 100 years of war, and the two Dems whose rhetoric leaves them ready to pull an LBJ on us at any moment.

  What, me annoyed with the greed class?

  Kit, congrats on the sale!

• 12 Ben // Feb 9, 2008 at 11:13 am

  Im excited about this new job i am starting and i am just realsing what it means to be a grown up.

• 13 Litch // Feb 9, 2008 at 11:50 am

  Since the weather’s started to improve I am taking dogs to the park on the weekend more and riding my motorcycle.

  I’ve really been digging the new trend they’re calling “casual gaming.” It’s a (usually web-based) game you play for a little while when you have some spare moments. A lot of them are light puzzle type things but the ones that really have me right now are Travian, a sort of multiplayer online civ type game, and Skyrates, an avatar development trading/combat/quest game with furry pilots on floating worlds.

  http://www.travian.com/
  http://badges.etc.cmu.edu/skyrates/index.php

  And of course there are all the political blogs. I really enjoy Eschaton, lots of good information and the sensibility matches mine.

  http://atrios.blogspot.com/

• 14 Reesa // Feb 9, 2008 at 12:39 pm

  Other than being peeved at the recent spate of people, educated professional people mind you, that can’t read a sentence attached to each blog entry this site generates in RSS feed that says, quite clearly, who wrote each article…and wanting to write my own blog entry about *that* but my website’s down…it’s not too bad a beginning to a day, if one can call it beginning, or a day. I’ve been sleeping in random 3-4 hour chunks while trying to play catch-up at work this week, so my schedule is totally off from everyone elses and I have no idea what diurnal rhythm I’m operating in at the moment.

  Happily, I did complete at least one work project as well as writing several more pages on the novel and catching up on my writing group commitments. Not the most exciting week on record, and that’s perfectly all right with me, a bit too busy for “exciting” to be a selling point this week.

• 15 amysue // Feb 9, 2008 at 12:54 pm

  Sleep. Sleep. And after waking at noon, a brief respite from sleep with food and online catching up and other reading. However, now I plan to sleep again.

  I feel vaguely guilty and slothlike but haven’t slept all week and will need to be at work by 7am tomorrow so , sleep it is!

• 16 thegeminifactor // Feb 9, 2008 at 1:26 pm

  Distractions? Three words:

  Team.
  Fortress.
  2.

• 17 Konrad // Feb 9, 2008 at 2:12 pm

  I’ve been spending ironically large amounts of time on the free online game Skyrates. Ironic in that it was explicitly designed as an experiment in sporadic gaming: something you can only play for a couple minutes at a time every couple hours.

• 18 skzb // Feb 9, 2008 at 3:04 pm

  Jonathon::1:: Thanks. I don’t see myself doing another solo record, but I’ve been having that ol’ “need to be in a band again” itch. So if my ideas for that come together, presumably we’ll eventually record something.

• 19 Shawn // Feb 9, 2008 at 5:29 pm

  Dungeon Runners (http://www.dungeonrunners.com). This is a nice little mindless dungeon crawl that you can play solo or join groups. It doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s free. It’s online.

  Battle for Wesnoth (http://www.wesnoth.org). This is a nice turn-based fantasy strategy game that involves some plot and questing in its mods (like the Warlords series does). Plus it’s free, it’s open-source, and the mods are written by users. It also ate a month of my life.

  Hockey Day in Canada. Hockey all day long. That’s what I’m really doing.

• 20 Random (rfrancis@lj) // Feb 9, 2008 at 8:29 pm

  Our medieval music group competed (instrumental and vocal) in an arts competition today. Scored very highly and placed in top tier. Yay us. Piece was Alta Trinita Beata for harps (several harps, including me) and recorder. (Then sung in harmony.) So that was pretty distracting. :)

• 21 zizban // Feb 9, 2008 at 8:39 pm

  I am write a short story sequel to my NaNoWriMo novel, Bride of Thorkettle. Thorkettle started as a Conan-esque barbarian in a rather hostile world. Thorkettle began to resemble Vlad personality wise and his world late medieval. It was so fun, I decided to write another.

  I put a lot of inside jokes and gags in the first story, which amused me to no end. Unpublishable, but what the heck,

• 22 kit // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:56 pm

  Jonathan@1: Thanks for the tip, I am sorry to hear about Ms. Kiernan’s illness. I hope the ‘Interweb charity for authors’ is generous to her, it is hard being a writer (or a sick person) here.

  Kelly@2: We just started season 3 and I keep telling myself ‘we’ve got one whole season left and some of 4 before the whole no-more-Sorkin thing’. I hope Season 3 holds up for us.

  Pixelfish@3: Cooperative games with your friends are the best. I’m sure you can find time for just a few more turns…

  ojiikun@4: Nothing like a visit to the ‘verse to pass the time. And fine Irish brews and Irish folk sound quite pleasing to the palate as well.

  shelly rae@5: Yay mud!

• 23 Michael // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:13 pm

  Yeah, my biggest distraction this week was some guy’s Firefly fanfic, dammit. Tonight my distraction du jour was Googling an old friend — the unusual thing being that this time, I actually found said friend. Don’t get that every time!

• 24 kit // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:20 pm

  Ricky@6: One of these days I have to give Rockband a try. :)

  Randy@10: Assassin’s Creed sounds fun.

  will @ 11: We’ve changed the default icon on Steve’s LJ. Hopefully the combination of the icon with the line on every post naming the author of the post will make this whole crossposting thing clearer. I might be posting tonight so let’s see how that goes. And thanks!

  Ben@12: In my experience I may realize what it is like to be a grownup but I’ve yet to 100% feel like one. Good luck with the job.

• 25 Mark // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:25 pm

  Well, I’ve been playing way to much on duels.com at work. At home I’ve been plowing through the B-5 boxed sets I got for the holidays and contemplating digging up my play disk for Might & Magic 7 and starting that over again. So far I have restrained myself.

• 26 GWW // Feb 9, 2008 at 10:35 pm

  I’m gearing up for a trip to the US to visit my dad who’s sick. 3 weeks away or so. And it’s pretty much eating my brain.

  Been playing NWN2 a bit to keep my mind off things.

• 27 Tom Kater // Feb 10, 2008 at 12:27 am

  My sister was just published in SMITH magazine’s book about six-word memoirs (just google “six-word memoir”…hers was “I fell far from the tree.” A funny one I read on the website was, “Pussy makes me do crazy things.” I jumped on the bandwagon and submitted one myself. I’d be interested to see what all the Scribblies would come up with…

• 28 will shetterly // Feb 10, 2008 at 12:43 am

  Reesa, people are sloppy readers, and that’s especially true of educated professional people. Sometimes I think every flame war begins with sloppy reading. I used to teach that writing should not be redundant. I’m beginning to think writing needs to be redundant, and the art lies in saying the same thing three times in equally interesting ways.

• 29 kit // Feb 10, 2008 at 12:53 am

  Tom Kater @ 27: Six word memoirs is as good as six-word stories. We should try it for the Voluptuaries (the writing group Reesa & I are part of) sometime. Love the example you gave.

  will@28: Did the new icon on my recent post make it feel any less ambiguous?

  Writing purposeful repetition is an interesting theme, one already close to our hearts here and so I think purposeful redundancy bears further discussion. Have you tried to integrate this into your own writing in anyway?

• 30 skzb // Feb 10, 2008 at 1:10 am

  Will, I think there may be some value in that approach (find three interesting ways to say it) in blogging; I’m not at all comfortable with it in fiction. I’m not all that good a reader, but I don’t need to be told something three times. To do that feels uncomfortably like writing down to the reader. None of our favorite writers do that.

• 31 Jason // Feb 10, 2008 at 8:02 am

  I do that sometimes.
  On occasion, this human attempts such a thing.
  That endeavor is undertaken by me from time to time.

  But I’m not one of our favorite writers, either.

  I’m way too easily amused.

• 32 will shetterly // Feb 10, 2008 at 11:33 am

  Kit, you’re talking about how an icon appears on “The uncanny valley of world building” when it arrives here:

  http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/

  Right? I don’t see any icons there. Maybe it has to do with the LJ option I chose for viewing. Which may be why some people were missing the attribution. (Uh, not underestimating reading too fast, mind you!)

  And, no, I haven’t tried purposeful redundancy yet. I’ve only just started thinking about how amazing poorly humans can read. We who think we’re good readers can be the worst, because our confidence makes us certain the writer was wrong.

  Steve, I don’t know if I’ll ever try to be redundant, ’cause it’s hard enough to say something reasonably well once. But just this morning, two readers of my blog, smart people who I respect, objected to me leaving out considerations that I thought I had addressed twice. So I added an afterthought in the hope the third time would assure them I had said it once. This may be why some writing teachers say to start by saying what you’re going to say, then say it, then end by saying what you’ve said.

  I am too fond of concision, which can make people think I’m too fond of being cryptic. I may have to add that to the things I must change.

• 33 will shetterly // Feb 10, 2008 at 11:36 am

  Okay, I also post too quickly.

  Steve, make that “I don’t know if I’ll ever try to be redundant *in fiction*” and “This may be why some *nonfiction* writing teachers say…”

• 34 Mudd // Feb 10, 2008 at 3:33 pm

  Made one hundred butter tarts for displaced Canadians here in Phoenix. Trying to make a sheath for the dagger I just made for an SCA event. While fending of eight little girls in sleepover frenzy at home. Quiet sometimes seems like myth.

• 35 GWW // Feb 10, 2008 at 10:28 pm

  I went to the casino for some R&R. Figured a night out playing poker would relax me. Usually does.

  They have a great 60 dollar buy in $1/$2 hold-em I like to play now and then when I can justify spending the money.

  Anyway, was going well. I was about 300 up. I got delt a pair of jacks. I raise preflop to $15. I get called by 2 guys. Flop comes Ace, Jack, Seven. I’m pretty happy. I made a set. And I hope one of the guys that called had like Ace King or something. I check, figuring I’d slow play the set. One guy bets $25. Second guy folds. I call. Turn comes a deuce. Suits all over. No straight possibility. No flush possibility. I’m pretty happy with my hand. I check again. Guy bets another $25. I figure I’ll see where I’m at and raise him $25 more. He calls.

  Flop comes another ace. I’ve made a full house. I’m pretty happy. I bet out $35 hoping to induce a call. He raises to $75. I re-raise for the remainder of my stack, about 100 more. He quickly calls.

  When he showed down his aces… I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it coming. He played strong the whole time. And the whole time I thought I was ahead I was behind.

  I keep thinking about if I could have gotten away from the hand… and I just don’t think I could have. In the same situation I’d prob play the damn cards the same way again.

  I’m sure I’ll be stuck on that hand for another week before I can let it go.

  Sigh.

• 36 Jason // Feb 11, 2008 at 6:41 am

  There seems to be some lingering confusion on the attributions for these posts. I’m not terribly interested in whether there should be or not, but there is. (I haven’t had a problem with it, but I keep seeing it, and it seems to be irritating Steve a little and Reesa a lot).

  So, maybe it doesn’t fit into your design or conform to your aesthetic sensibilities, but maybe you’d want to consider changing the font size or color on the post attributions, just to draw attention to them. Maybe exploit the humor in the situation by having a glowing, flashing name tag with fireworks shooting from it. Or have each of you post in a different color. Or have theme music. Or a picture of the poster at the top. Or a message under “Leave a Comment” that reads, “Now, remember–Kit posted this. You know that, right?”

  Heh.

• 37 Bawrence // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:04 pm

  Shawn @#19:
  I also play Dungeonrunner. If you have any builds somewhere in the neighborhood of lvl 20 who’d like a dungeon crawling buddy look up Audy ingame. I’ll be the lowbie that isn’t constantly begging to be powerlevelled.

• 38 Talesya // Feb 11, 2008 at 9:47 pm

  Since you ask for suggestions, I think the screen area could be much better used. With the large fonts and the side colums being given so much room, the posts and comments just sort of meander dpown the middle. It would only take a few tweaks to the style sheet, such as removing specified font sizes and changing them to relative (i.e. use small, medium etc. rather than 1.6em).

• 39 aut0poietic // Feb 13, 2008 at 11:16 am

  Distractions… I’ve been working on a concept site in Flex for a few weeks, with almost no progress — because I can’t stop playing Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn long enough to actually work on it.

  @Talesya Have to disagree with you there — for one, they’re already using em, which is a relative size (can be scaled by the user adjusting text size in 5.0 and above browsers).

  Also,there is a link between width of a column and comprehension — it’s the reason paperbacks are the size they are. General rule of thumb is that when the block of text goes over 5 in, comprehension/readability begins to go down.

• 40 Rathgar // Feb 13, 2008 at 2:24 pm

  Speaking of reading format, is anyone else annoyed with this new paperback format that’s like 1/2 an inch taller than the usual paperbacks? I’ve been doing most of my time wasting these days reading, and I just passed on a new Tony Hillerman paperback I’d like to get because my bookstore only had it in the evil format.

  I have a lot of paperbacks, and they all stack and pile up relatively neatly with each other. I really hope this new trend does not catch on.

• 41 Paula Helm Murray // Feb 13, 2008 at 10:21 pm

  GWW, that boggles my mind. I’m NOT a poker player, no matter how hard I try I do not have a ‘poker face’, my feelings are pretty much out there for people to see. I am a slot-monkey, but limit myself to $20-30 a visit to the local casinos.

  Something I downloaded called Rotatemania is my biggest time-waster. That and job hunting and the associated tusris associated with that issue (unemployment, looking for positions, filling out applications, discovering my handwriting is now shit, etc.).

Leave a Comment