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| Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | | 8:54 pm |
Codex Update
Well, I have a host, and a site picked out. Nothing's there yet, but the new home of the Codex Scribanus will be: http://lunaludus.110mb.com. Now, I'm working on getting the HTML for my site's pages--and the HTML versions of my fics, as well--up to date. And, as someone who likes to type his stories in HTML first (I'm strange that way) let me just say, for the record: CLOSE-PARAGRAPH TAGS ARE AN UNMITIGATED PAIN IN THE ASS.Seriously--who came up with this bullshit? You don't need to close a line break, so why the hell do you need to close a paragraph?! ...anyway. I'll update this entry when everything's online, which will hopefully be later tonight. (UPDATE: The site is live! Everything's up and working fine. I haven't finished updating the HTML on my stories, but in the meantime, I put the existing ones up. They should do, for the time being.)Today's story: Alexander Harris and the Shadow Council (Buffy/Addams Family/Harry Potter) | | Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 11:06 pm |
FFN update
Still can't get in. Still no sign of the password in my mailbox. I've sent an e-mail to FFN's support address describing my situation, but it's Friday night, so I probably won't get a response until after the weekend. Nothing to do on that front but wait. In the meantime, I have a site to move. | | 12:32 am |
Oh, for crying out--
Something's gone wrong with my Fanfiction.net account. I can't log in. Every time I try, I get a message saying the e-mail/password combo is invalid. I've tried multiple times to utilize the site's password recovery function; each time, I've gotten a message saying the account password was sent to my e-mail address. Unfortunately, this is FFN. Despite having multiple options selected, I haven't received a single e-mail alert from them in years...and that e-mail problem appears to extend to the password recovery, as well. :P I have two stories that I am finally making good progress on. I have a new job that I'm just starting to get the hang of. Geocities closes in three days. I still have to move my site. I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS CRAP.I swear, if the password is wrong because some jackass hacked my account... I'll give it a day. Then I'll give Xing holy hell. Current Mood: pissed off | | Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | | 12:51 am |
#$%$#&@#$@$%&WQ#$!!!!!!!!!!
You know--since Geocities is kind of shutting down and all--it would have been nice if they'd given their soon-to-be-orphaned users, who are moving to other webhosts, some way to download their files WITHOUT ALL THE FUCKING GEOCITIES ADS STILL EMBEDDED IN THE FILE CODE.That's what I get for being lazy and doing my site edits right in the GC file manager. :P I guess that in a way, I'm lucky I haven't written more--stripping the ads out of the files I do have is already enough of a pain. At any rate, barring a catastrophic computer failure, the move will take place tomorr...er, later today. Today's story: Reis Ayanami (Neon Genesis Evangelion) Current Mood: pissed off | | Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | | 9:32 pm |
Progress report
Here's where I'm at on everything: - Chapter IV of The World Without is at 4/8 scenes...or possibly 4/9. There was one scene I'd pulled out, but I'm thinking I might need to put it back in for pacing. Either way, this chapter should be ready for my betas in another couple of weeks.
- Chapter IX of Leap of Faith is at roughly 3/5 scenes, and I really, really need to learn to work out my characters' back-stories before I need them in the story. :P No ETA on this one, but revisions on existing chapters will hopefully be ready to go in a month or two.
- Finally, my site. There are a couple of weeks left before Geocities shuts down, and I still have yet to decide on a new home. I'm leaning very heavily towards 110MB, but there are a couple of things that worry me...most notably, the inactivity limits. 110MB's is 150 days; that's better than many of the hosts I've looked at (most of which would delete after 30) but still a problem, given my writing pace. So I'm still looking at other hosts.
Whichever way I go, I'll probably move the Codex this weekend.
In other news from the Geocities exodus: Shack, one of my betas, has moved his fanfic link index. That was a pleasant surprise--it's been ages since there was an update, so I'd figured he'd just let the site die. (He did trash most of it in the move, so it looks like he's planning on rebuilding from scratch...again.) Anyway, the new address for Shack's Fanfic Clearinghouse is http://shackfic.webs.com. And with that, I'm out. Today's story: The Right to Live (Naruto) | | Monday, October 12th, 2009 | | 11:17 pm |
Fun with Love Hina
Going back through some old e-mails, I recently came across a challenge I'd posed to one of my betas a while back. We were discussing the Love Hina manga versus the anime version, and...well...I got a little silly:
> Very glad I watched the anime, then, since I did happen to like it (flying
> hot springs turtles = genius!). I think the series had 26 episodes plus a few
> movies, so about how long do you think they should have made it to include
> all of the manga elements?
Hmm...well, let's see--the anime left out, among other things...
- A complete and in-depth examination of Kanako (and no, the OVAs don't count)...
- Haruka and Seta finally getting together...
- The whole story behind Sara (very different in the manga from the anime)...
- Every single Hinata-sou tenant falling for Keitaro...
- Shinobu luring Keitaro to a love hotel...
- Motoko taking the Toudai entrance exam...
- Motoko *flunking* the Toudai entrance exam, and following Keitaro on the Path of the Ronin...
- Mutsumi hitting her head (again) and reverting mentally to the Age of the Promise...
- Naru student teaching--and Keitaro, impersonating a student, accidentally groping her in front of the whole class...
- Keitaro completing his evolution into Seta v.2...
- Motoko finding her true calling--as a romance novelist...
- Keitaro and Naru getting married--but not before EVERYONE else, led by Kitsune, gangs up to try to stop them...
- Of course, more fun with Nyamo...
(For extra credit, guess how many of these plot points were actually in the manga. ;) )
How long do you think it should have been? :) |
Anyone up for some extra credit? :) (Aside from my beta, of course--she just might remember what the answer was before...) Today's story: Across Dimensions: Parting Reality's Veil (Naruto) Current Mood: silly | | Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | | 9:18 pm |
| | Friday, October 9th, 2009 | | 5:25 am |
This is a joke, right?
The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize goes to BARACK OBAMA?!The man's been in office barely nine months. He hasn't accomplished anything as of yet. What the hell are they giving him the Peace Prize for? Scrapping the missile shield in East Europe? Today's story: Making Uzumaki (Naruto) Current Mood: disgusted | | Monday, September 28th, 2009 | | 3:42 am |
Paging Strunk & White
In honor of his new...er..."masterpiece"...the Telegraph offers its picks for celebrated hack author Dan Brown's 20 worst sentences. A few of my favorites: - 17. Deception Point, chapter 8: Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes.
(Telegraph comment: "It’s not clear what Brown thinks ‘precarious’ means here.")
- 16. The Da Vinci Code, Chapter 4: A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not move." On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly. Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.
(Telegraph comment: "A silhouette with white hair and pink irises stood chillingly close but 15 feet away. What’s wrong with this picture?")
- 14. Angels and Demons, chapter 100: Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers glorified the four major rivers of the Old World - The Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio Plata.
(Telegraph comment: "The Rio de la Plata. Between Argentina and Uruguay. One of the major rivers of the Old World. Apparently.")
- 9. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 32: The vehicle was easily the smallest car Langdon had ever seen. "SmartCar," she said. "A hundred kilometers to the liter."
(Telegraph comment: "Pro tip: when fleeing from the police, take a moment to boast about your getaway vehicle’s fuel efficiency. And get it wrong by a factor of five. SmartCars do about 20km [12 miles] to the litre.")
Today's story: Bound to Eternity (Naruto/Ranma/Sailor Moon) Current Mood: amused | | Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | | 9:39 pm |
Paging Oliver Stone
The Daily Mail reports: Adolf Hitler may not have shot himself dead and perhaps did not even die in his bunker, it emerged yesterday.
A skull fragment believed for decades to be the Nazi leader’s has turned out to be that of a woman under 40 after DNA analysis. |
Today's story: Mahoranma (Negima/Ranma) Current Mood: ... | | Monday, September 21st, 2009 | | 11:16 pm |
| | Sunday, September 20th, 2009 | | 3:22 am |
Three bad fantasies, three lessons learned
It's an almost universal axiom among writers that you learn from what you read, and you usually learn more from bad stories than you do from good stories. (For one amusing example, see this passage from Stephen King's On Writing.) I'm no exception to this. I've long been a voracious reader, with a particular taste for fantasy (my field of choice, if/when I finally start turning out publishable work) and I've learned a great deal from what I've read, not just in terms of style, but in terms of plot, of setting, of complications, and so forth. Three fantasy novels, in particular, stick out in my mind (and quite vividly, considering how long ago it was that I read them). These were all reasonably well-written books; stylistically, there was little I could find to complain about, and in the case of two of the three I'd read and enjoyed other works by the same authors...which made it all the more jarring, the way each of them jerked me so completely out of the story and made me want to throw the book against the wall. I came away from each of these books seriously pissed at the author, for a very specific reason--and vowing to never make such a blunder in my own writing. ( WARNING: Enough hot air to send a balloon to the moon behind the cut )Today's story: Blood & Spirit (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha) | | Monday, September 14th, 2009 | | 4:02 am |
| | Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | | 3:48 am |
| | Saturday, September 5th, 2009 | | 1:26 am |
F/SN Fun with YouTube
I was considering uploading some clips of Fate/stay night to YouTube, since I got recording the game footage down pat. Someone beat me to it, though, which just saves me the time. :) Here is the first bad ending to the game--my jumpoff point for The World Without, which I adapted/rewrote for the first chapter of that fic: And just for fun, here's what comes immediately afterward: ...Fate/stay night is kind of messed up, isn't it? :) Today's story: Quiet Magics (Sailor Moon/Ranma) Current Mood: amused | | Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 | | 2:01 am |
| | Monday, August 31st, 2009 | | 4:37 am |
Anime at the moment
Not watching anywhere near as much as I'd thought I might be--still pretty burned out, I guess--but I am following two series right now: - Spice & Wolf II - Picks up pretty much where the first season left off...which isn't saying much, as the general outline of the series seems to be more episodic than a driving plot. Lawrence and Horo are still gradually making their way north, still getting into the occasional mess that reads like a medieval economics textbook and takes them roughly half a season to untangle.
The character interactions have undergone a rather drastic shift--the focus is no longer so much on Lawrence and Horo, merchant and savvy wolf-demigoddess, as it is on Lawrence and Horo, man and woman. That's had the unfortunate effect of blunting much of what made Horo such an appealing character to begin with, and I don't like this season as much as I did the first.
Still, the show isn't bad, and with the second half just starting, there's always a chance for a strong recovery.
- Saki - This one's actually legal--Crunchyroll's running legit streaming subs on a one-week delay, so I've been taking advantage of that.
Saki is a mahjong anime. I didn't know anything about the rules of mahjong when I started watching...and after 21 episodes, I still don't know anything about the rules. :) In spite of lots of mahjong matches, and lots of discussions of strategy and maneuvers, they never really do much in the way of explanations--and that's all right, because they don't need to.
Most of the characters have widely divergent playing styles. However, those styles are reflective of, and portrayed as extensions of, each character's personality...and Saki is packed with memorable characters. The anime goes into some detail, for those who know the rules of the game, but the matches in Saki are presented primarily as conflicts of personality and philosophy--and you don't need to know anything about mahjong to appreciate those.
The matches are also presented as something a lot more like an action series than a tabletop game, to the point where it gets kind of ridiculous. You have players turning into angels, players vanishing into thin air, players being dragged to the bottom of the ocean, lightning flashing in the background every time someone draws a tile (and half the time, those tiles are on fire)...it's over the top, it's incredibly silly, and it's a lot of fun. :)
It isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it's entertaining, it's lengthy--I don't see any way this wraps up in 26 episodes--and I'm enjoying it.
Today's story: Indomitable (Naruto) | | Sunday, August 30th, 2009 | | 1:21 am |
Almost time
Chapter III of The World Without is now in beta distribution. (Now, let's see if I can't knock off this #$%^#@%%^&$# banquet and finally get Leap of Faith moving again, as well...) | | Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 | | 5:27 am |
| | Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 | | 3:52 pm |
Priorities
Way up north, three boys were just cleared of suspicion in a moose-beating case. They had an alibi, as it turns out: | In an effort to clear the boys, one of their fathers said the boys couldn't have harassed the moose because they were vandalizing a church at the time. |
"Um...Dad?" "Yes, son?" "Stop helping. Please." Today's story: Ripples of a Chaotic Pebble (Ranma/Sailor Moon) Current Mood: ... |
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