Category: general

Yesterday, I went biking with Brooke and Mari. Then I sat down and wrote a whole bunch. Then, I met up with Brooke and Mari and Brooke’s friend Nathan for dinner at Fazoli’s, and finally, Brooke, Nathan and I went to the Columbia County Fall Fair. (I was thinking we were going to the Georgia-Carolina Fair, but you know, I have no idea when or where that is.)

The fair was great. I hadn’t been to a fair in years. When I was a kid, Mom used to always take me and the boys to the Bluegrass Fair out at Masterson Station Park, which apparently doesn’t have a website.

We’d drive into Lexington, park in this huge field, and trek over to the fair, where we’d spend hours exploring, playing games, riding rides, and eating FUNNEL CAKE. Last night was like reliving that experience.

Despite our diets, Brooke and I even indulged in that sinful confection (and we forced Nathan to eat some, too). I have a picture of Brooke and Nathan with the funnel cake, but I’m not allowed to reveal it in public. (Something about a “chess cake dance” has apparently soured Brooke’s opinion on pictures…I wouldn’t know anything about that, though…) Here, however, is a picture of me sitting on a bench, right after eating FUNNEL CAKE:

You can just pretend this is proof that I ate it.

Brooke and I rode the Sizzler, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the Himalaya. The Tilt-a-Whirl was, by far, the best. I was so dizzy (and crushed) during the Sizzler that I shouted to Brooke, “I’m not as young as I used to be!” The Tilt-a-Whirl, though, was a lot of fun centripetal force without a lot of whipping my brain around. I don’t know, it was just better. The Himalaya was okay, though kind of boring after the Tilt-a-Whirl. I’d forgotten how hard you have to hold on to keep from crushing the person next to you, too.

I was going to play some games, like darts or pool or throwing a ball at stuff, but they were all so expensive :/ Things like that are more fun when you’re not the one paying for them, I think ;)

But I did get to ride on the merry-go-round, right as the fair was closing at midnight. Brooke tried to get a shot of me riding, but they all turned out horribly, and therefore they will not be posted.

Here’s something fun, though (click for large size goodness!):

So, it was a good day. Since I did Denny’s for lunch, Fazoli’s for dinner, and then had funnel cake, I ended up gaining a pound back–the 40 minutes of biking and the few hours of strolling around the fair apparently weren’t enough to counteract those foods’ combined evil influence. Still, I’m not unhappy. I think my weight loss is going pretty well, all told, and I had a lot of fun. Hopefully today we’ll go riding again, and I’ll eat more responsibly :)

I wrote a decent amount today :) Check it out.

I may write more later on, but I sort of doubt it. I’m supposed to be going to the Georgia-Carolina (or something) Fair tonight with Mari, Brooke, and a new friend named Nathan. Maybe Chris too. In any event, we’re having dinner first, and then the fair is supposed to be open until midnight, so I don’t know if I’ll feel like writing much when I get back.

Hopefully I’ll be on just as much of a roll tomorrow :) I seem to have remembered what I was trying to do. (Writing out a timeline helped!)

I did it again, and here’s a screenshot of my final score.

Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of lives in 12-7 and 13-1, and this lowered my bonus, so although my score this time was higher than my previous all-the-way-through score, it’s not higher by much.

Alas.

I can’t believe this! What is happening to this country?

Actually, I’ll tell you what’s happening. People are becoming islands. There are no communities. If people would reach out to the people around them, if people would demand accountability from others, if people would stop being so freaking selfish and actually look around them every now and then, we wouldn’t have children raising themselves, we wouldn’t have nearly as much crime, and we wouldn’t have a pitiful educational system.

And presumably, this outreach would also abolish stupid, discriminatory legislation, eventually.

But no. It’s not going to happen. “I’m too busy to meet the neighbors. I’m too busy to be active in a community group. My job is more important than other people.”

I just read a great article.

Our Traditional Non-Traditional Wedding

“I know that you are very special to Keith, so that means you are very special to us.”

That quote was so refreshing to read. I hope Mr. Silberman is right, and this will all be a historical footnote in 20 years.

It’s almost like Augusta suddenly remembered that it’s November.

Yesterday we had a lot of rain, and it cooled off enough then that I could open the windows. I left the windows open all night, and it was pretty chilly in the apartment when I got up.

Still, I was unprepared for the fact that a sweater wasn’t quite enough for the ride to work. I could see my breath, and had to keep rubbing my hands together.

It was great!

There’s nothing like fall and winter…the cool crispness really makes the skin tingle. I love it.

If you ever wanted a bookcase that was really a hidden door to your private office, these folks can do it for you. (Via BoingBoing; this actually is a Wonderful Thing. Unlike, you know, Unwonderful Things.)

I don’t know about you, but I have always wanted at least one secret passageway in my house. In fact, I always thought it would be awesome to have a passageway leading to an outbuilding or an underground complex.

My dad wants to build a compound underground, with a little house on top so no one would suspect. I guess that’s where I get it from.

I haven’t written much lately, and what I have written I haven’t liked a whole lot. I realize that this is because I’m losing my sense of direction.

I’ve told Tilya’s story, really. I can continue to write anecdotes about how sucky it is to be married to Neville, or I can move on. But I don’t know what I’m moving on to.

Yesterday when I sat down to write, I wrote two things that I then completely deleted. The first one was going to be a scene where Tilya finds Neville fencing in the garden. The second one was going to be a scene from the future, when their daughter Celia is having her fifteenth birthday. Thinking about it now, I may be able to use those scenes, but yesterday they were just crummy to me, and I hated them. I had to play a lot of Zuma to clear my mind (weird how that works), and then, when I was working on laundry, it suddenly came to me that I wanted to write a little more about Neville, and so I did.

I’m not sure that I like what I ended up with, but there is no editing during NaNoWriMo and I need to stop freaking out about making it perfect. You’ll note that yesterday’s entry doesn’t even have a real ending. That’s bugging the hell out of me. But you know, sometimes you just can’t write anymore, and yesterday was one of those days.

I’m looking forward to the weekend, to do some more writing without worrying about work and stuff.

Side Note: You’ll find that the archives of the book are now password protected. There’s a blurb at the bottom of the main page explaining why. Basically, if I have my whole book readily available to the public on a website, that’s the book’s first publication…at least in the eyes of some publishers. But this way, I am sharing it with my friends for comment, and the public only sees my latest entry.

So, I’m sure those of you following the book would like to be able to get in and read the archives. I’m not going to post the login information on the book itself, because that would kind of defeat the purpose, but I’m pretty sure listing it here adds enough of a layer of complexity (e.g., people have to come here to get the password, meaning the archives aren’t “readily” available to the public). Here’s the information:

Username: reader

Password: celia

If you ever forget the login, just come back to this journal and do a search for “password” or “login” to find this post.

And there you have it.

Yes, when Lineage II finally gets to that point where there are so many problems that it becomes unfun, like Asheron’s Call 2 did, I know exactly where Sean can focus his keen drive to run around huge worlds leveling up, buying clothes and implements for his characters, and going on story quests.

That’s right friends…it’s Hello Kitty Online World.

I can now say, definitively, that while Episode III was shaping up to be very cool, it will, in fact, be nothing more than a freakish caricature.

And, of course, the “we own all the art! you can’t have it!” people are sitting up and taking notice. Here’s a Yahoo!/Reuters/something article.

Some guy named Greg Palast is claiming that Kerry won. His entire argument hinges on the idea that exit polls are infallible.

Pretty funny.

Oh! And I (finally) found some “full results” that included third party presidential candidates. Here, according to the Washington Post (.com), is how our friend Michael Badnarik did:

George W. Bush * (R) 58,978,616 51%

John F. Kerry (D) 55,384,497 48%

Ralph Nader (I) 394,578 0%

Michael Badnarik (Lib.) 377,940 0%

Number 4! Not bad, Badnarik! (We’ll ignore the fact that Nader did horribly this time around…)

Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough has a neat article about all the election superstitions that got blown out of the water on Tuesday, and a couple that were scarily on-target. Fun stuff.

We won. But I basically have to shut up everywhere I go, even on the AMRN, which, you know, I own.

It feels like all the bloggers I read are shocked and horrified at the outcome of this election. (Many haven’t posted about it yet, or are avoiding doing so, but their silence, added to previous commentary, makes their opinion obvious.)

Over at BoingBoing, the so-called Directory of Wonderful Things, hateful, anti-Republican rants run rampant–see “Dumbass Republicans” and “Republicans are fucking stupid” (paraphrase).

It was all these people that made me believe Kerry had a good chance of winning, that the election was going to be a lot closer than it was.

There aren’t a lot of interesting blogs written by people who make decisions the same way I do. Den Beste pretty much shut his down in favor of an anime fansite. (He was hoping to avoid all the snarking that went on in his email. But as Sean said, he has no idea what kind of hell he has just entered into. Anime fandom should not be underestimated…)

Meanwhile, I’ve never really found another good blog that explored world events through a more conservative eye, while still being thoughtful and interesting. A lot of what I’ve seen is spiteful and reactionary. (This is partially why I keep telling AJ he should have a blog.)

I’m glad I voted for Bush. I think he was the best candidate available at the time. I wish there had been someone better, but there wasn’t. Kerry would not have focused on the things that I believe need to be focused on at this time.

I just feel like I’m a minority here on the Internet, and I’m wondering why that is.

I don’t see either of the two parties as having all the answers. I will tend to go with the Republicans in general because I feel that they are more balanced, but on social issues I am almost completely with the Democrats. Social change needs to occur. Eleven states, including my own, banning gay marriage? First of all, this is a ridiculous thing to even be thinking about when we’re at war. What is the point of having this vote now? Secondly, what right should the government have to dictate what kinds of primarily religious, social bonds we can form with each other? Someone on the bruno boards once said that marriage itself should be abolished in the eyes of the state, and that civil unions should be open to anyone–including a parent and child who live together, for example–so that those who have a true connection and who form real “households” could enjoy the same tax breaks as married people do now. This would have the effect of cutting down on marriages of convenience. Meanwhile, people who wanted to could have their religion of choice “marry” them, and they would apply for a civil union in order to reap the tax benefits. I think this idea has some merit to it.

Obviously, then, my beliefs concerning social issues contrast dramatically with those of your typical Republican. However, I don’t go completely over to the Democrat side here. For one thing, I will never agree that abortion is right. I don’t understand why other agnostics and atheists don’t agree. If they truly believe, or are willing to consider, the idea that this life is all there is, then why do they feel that it’s okay to take that life away from someone, without asking their opinion first? Why is convenience for those who have lived a little valued over the chance to live at all for an unborn child?

I also don’t know if affirmative action works at all. I feel that, especially here in Georgia, the real racism is not going to be curbed until education is improved and more people have access to true dialogue on the subject.

And so, obviously, you see that I feel that education is important. I have my own opinions on our educational system, why it is failing and what we should do to fix it, which as far as I know are not reflected in either party’s agenda.

What I’m saying here is, there are things that Bush believes in to his core that I would prefer to have nothing to do with. But that doesn’t automatically make Kerry a better choice. The “anyone but Bush” camp is horribly shortsighted, in my view.

I still feel that Bush is the best option we had available to guide us through these troubling times. Now I will just have to sit back, keep my mouth shut on my various blogs and forums, and wait for the outrage to die back down to a simmer.

I kept trying to post earlier, to say that I put up a little bit of the book, but Blogger kept giving me ISEs. It would load the post page for my other blogs fine, but not this one. Do I have too many posts here? Is it overloaded? Or what? In any case, it was pretty annoying…

I haven’t written much yet today, though I hope to rectify that in the few hours left before I go to bed. I’m at a point where I have to decide what to do next, and that’s always hard. But with a deadline like this, I just have to decide and plunge ahead. No looking back.

Part of the reason I haven’t written much was that I spent a lot of my afternoon waiting to see what was going to happen for the rest of the day. I don’t like doing stuff when I’m waiting on other stuff. I’m going to have to get over this, because it’s a complete waste of time.

The rest of the reason is that I went over to Sean’s parents’ house for dinner. He was going to come too, but he was still at work–we forgot that he was on the 12 to 9 shift this week.

So, there you have it.

I hope I can keep up this writing thing.