Dec 11, 2012
Humour For Tuesday
This is an oldie but a goodie and came to me from my son-in-law, via email. :-)
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it.)
If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that's more like it!)
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
(O.M.G.!)
A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(O.M.G.!!!)
A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.(Creepy)
(I'm still not over the pig.)
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Dont try this at home - at work.)
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
(Honey, I'm home . What the...?)
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. That's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes.. Lucky pig! Can you imagine?)
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
Some lions mate over 50 ! times a day.
(I still can't believe that pig ....quality over quantity.)
Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmmm........)
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(Okay, so that would be a good thing.)
A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder how much the government paid to figure that out..)
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like t hat.)
Starfish have no brains.
(I know some people like that, too.)
Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig? Do the dolphins know about the pig?)
Now that you've smiled at least once, it's your turn to spread these crazy facts and send this to someone you want to bring a smile to, maybe even a chuckle.
In other words, send it to everyone!
(and God love that pig!!!!!)
Dec 10, 2012
Multitarian Monday
multitarian ~ having many forms but one central essence
Bah! Humbug!
Still no sign of my Christmas spirit, although the holiday depression is in full swing. We did knock off a bunch of our Christmas shopping on the weekend and we're going to need to get our out-of-town parcels sent this week. I found one item I've been searching for for weeks, but I can't tell you what it is because it's for someone who reads this blog. :-)
I have one batch of cookies done, and I have a date to do Christmas crafts one day this week. I've broken out the Christmas music and I might have to break down and get the Christmas tree up this week. Maybe. Just one good snowfall is all it will really take to jumpstart my Christmas spirit.
It almost turned into winter - we had freezing rain yesterday but today it's warmed up and we're getting un-frozen rain. Environment Canada still insists this winter is going to be more typical than last year, but I've yet to see it. The temperature is supposed to be up and down like a yo-yo this week but at least they're calling for a couple of sunny days *knock wood*. If it won't snow it might as well be sunny!
My big project for last week was updating my Goodreads account. I've read 65 of the 75 books I pledged to read this year, although Goodreads believes I've only read 59. But in any case, I can add four more books to the list - an anthology I wasn't impressed with, and the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
Other than a bunch of reading I didn't do too much last week. I did go on a crocheting binge on Sunday . . . snowflake bookmarks to give to my friends in my writer's group (we have a meeting tonight).
Ironically, I got a letter from my sister on Friday telling me she gets a pain in her neck and shoulder if she knits/crochets too much and darned if the same thing didn't happen to me Sunday night. Like migraines aren't bad enough - I have to get pain elsewhere too.
As far as getting back to a healthier lifestyle . . . it's a lot easier to get back in the habit of eating healthier than it is to exercise. I get up to feed the cats in the morning and I take one look at the wet, miserable weather we've been getting and I'd just as soon go back to bed as exercise. But one of these days . . . I just need to do it without thinking about it. :-)
What’s Up This Week:
The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.
Tuesday On both blogs I will find something humorous to post. Maybe a couple of somethings. :-)
Wednesday (on Random Writings) I'll continue to post the chapter links for Shades of Errol Flynn so you can catch up before it's gone. On Random Thoughts there’ll be a Christmasy hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)
Thursday Chapter 45 of Water. Hmm . . . just what was on that data cube Taja passed to Ravi? And what's he going to do about it?
Friday on both blogs there will be more Christmas music videos. :-)
Bah! Humbug!
Still no sign of my Christmas spirit, although the holiday depression is in full swing. We did knock off a bunch of our Christmas shopping on the weekend and we're going to need to get our out-of-town parcels sent this week. I found one item I've been searching for for weeks, but I can't tell you what it is because it's for someone who reads this blog. :-)
I have one batch of cookies done, and I have a date to do Christmas crafts one day this week. I've broken out the Christmas music and I might have to break down and get the Christmas tree up this week. Maybe. Just one good snowfall is all it will really take to jumpstart my Christmas spirit.
It almost turned into winter - we had freezing rain yesterday but today it's warmed up and we're getting un-frozen rain. Environment Canada still insists this winter is going to be more typical than last year, but I've yet to see it. The temperature is supposed to be up and down like a yo-yo this week but at least they're calling for a couple of sunny days *knock wood*. If it won't snow it might as well be sunny!
My big project for last week was updating my Goodreads account. I've read 65 of the 75 books I pledged to read this year, although Goodreads believes I've only read 59. But in any case, I can add four more books to the list - an anthology I wasn't impressed with, and the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
Other than a bunch of reading I didn't do too much last week. I did go on a crocheting binge on Sunday . . . snowflake bookmarks to give to my friends in my writer's group (we have a meeting tonight).
Ironically, I got a letter from my sister on Friday telling me she gets a pain in her neck and shoulder if she knits/crochets too much and darned if the same thing didn't happen to me Sunday night. Like migraines aren't bad enough - I have to get pain elsewhere too.
As far as getting back to a healthier lifestyle . . . it's a lot easier to get back in the habit of eating healthier than it is to exercise. I get up to feed the cats in the morning and I take one look at the wet, miserable weather we've been getting and I'd just as soon go back to bed as exercise. But one of these days . . . I just need to do it without thinking about it. :-)
What’s Up This Week:
The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.
Tuesday On both blogs I will find something humorous to post. Maybe a couple of somethings. :-)
Wednesday (on Random Writings) I'll continue to post the chapter links for Shades of Errol Flynn so you can catch up before it's gone. On Random Thoughts there’ll be a Christmasy hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)
Thursday Chapter 45 of Water. Hmm . . . just what was on that data cube Taja passed to Ravi? And what's he going to do about it?
Friday on both blogs there will be more Christmas music videos. :-)
Dec 7, 2012
Eighteen Days Until Christmas
So . . . it’s the holiday season, but I don’t have my tree up, I haven't started my baking, and there’s no snow on the ground. We’ve had lots of rain though. And yesterday it tried to snow. But now it’s warmed up again and we’re supposed to get rain for the next four days. So I’m going to start off my traditional holiday music series with a few of my favourite Christmas songs that seem appropriate for the current state of my Christmas Spirit. :-)
12 Pains of Christmas
White Trash Christmas
Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire
Dec 5, 2012
Dec 4, 2012
Humour For Tuesday
Okay, I stole this from a site called Bookgasm. I'm giving you the LINK to the original post because it's pretty long (there are 50 reasons in the original) that I've taken the liberty of only posting my top 30 favorites.
30 Reasons No One Wants to Publish Your First Book
Author: Allan Mott
1. Being innovative doesn’t justify writing a Civil War epic entirely in texting slang and emoticons: “ts u hor! i dnt gv dam :< !”
2. There’s this thing called punctuation. You might want to look into it.
3. Where are the vampires?
4. No, seriously, where are the vampires?
5. The world isn’t quite ready for an illustrated children’s book called SOME MOMMIES ARE INTERNET PORNSTARS: “Mommy and Daddy’s door is always locked and your online access is completely blocked! You asked them why and they say, ‘Don’t worry, honey, we’ve just found a fun new way to earn some money!’”
6. Submitting a manuscript handwritten in your own blood does indicate your passion for the material, but not quite in the way you might have hoped.
7. Iambic pentameter? Really?
8. It’s not technically a novel until you’ve written it down first.
9. Yes, enclosing a bag of flour along with your manuscript and causing an anthrax scare will get people’s attention, but it’s the wrong kind of attention.
10. You’re not just being paranoid; there really is a vast corporate conspiracy to ensure that your revolutionary ideas never leave your parents’ basement.
11. Most good books aren’t created with the sole hope that they might someday be adapted into a Martin Lawrence movie.
12. You’re actually the 139th person to submit a conspiracy thriller involving the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, entitled THE MICHAELANGELO CIPHER.
13. And the 78th to submit a chick-lit manuscript about an attractive woman’s sweet tooth and affection for footwear, called CHOCOLATE AND SHOES.
14. You know the part where the protagonist stuffs those puppies into the wood chipper? It’s not quite as funny as you seem to think.
15. A young-adult novel set in the behind-the-scenes world of network reality television featuring over two dozen characters, graphic underage sex and dead prostitutes? Are you fucking kidding me? No, seriously, are you fucking kidding me?
16. You know the talented creative writing professor who told you your work showed so much creativity and promise? Turns out what he really meant was that he wanted you to blow him.
17. Because they threw away their annual budget on the new Lindsay Lohan autobiography, BOOKS ARE RETARDED.
18. Everyone who attempts to load a copy of the manuscript onto their Kindle is found dead three hours later.
19. There’s a fine line between writing authentic regional dialogue and making all of your characters sound like stroke victims.
20. Just be thankful they refused to publish it, since the common accepted response to a novel that ends with the protagonist realizing all the terrible things that happened were in a dream (or was it?) is some stern re-editing of your face with a pair of brass knuckles.
21. Writing a book about vegetarian zombies kinda indicates you don’t exactly know why people like zombies in the first place.
22. God may have told you to write this book, but he didn’t tell you how to give it a decent ending.
23. You may want to revise the query letter you’re sending to agents so it’s more about the book and less about how much you love kittens.
24. For the first 20 pages, everyone who reads it is certain it’s the funniest book they’ve ever read. Unfortunately by the 21st, they finally realize you’re actually being serious.
25. It’s never a good sign when a manuscript’s first sentence is “’Are luck’s run out,’ said the Princess, ‘there unicorns are to fast!’”
26. When writing erotica, you want to avoid graphic descriptions of acne, cellulite and back fat.
27. Life-affirming poetry written by a 10-year-old with a fatal disease is inspirational; that same poetry written by a 47-year-old housewife with a trick knee and occasional indigestion is really, really lame.
28. If you’re going to make your main character a forensic coroner, you’re obligated to know more about human anatomy than what you learned playing Operation as a kid.
29. A general rule to follow when writing for kids: If you could go to jail for saying it to them in person, you’re better off not putting it into print.
30. Historically, books written solely to settle a bar bet seldom make it to print, especially if they were written during a seven-and-a-half-hour period in the same bar where the bet was made.
30 Reasons No One Wants to Publish Your First Book
Author: Allan Mott
1. Being innovative doesn’t justify writing a Civil War epic entirely in texting slang and emoticons: “ts u hor! i dnt gv dam :< !”
2. There’s this thing called punctuation. You might want to look into it.
3. Where are the vampires?
4. No, seriously, where are the vampires?
5. The world isn’t quite ready for an illustrated children’s book called SOME MOMMIES ARE INTERNET PORNSTARS: “Mommy and Daddy’s door is always locked and your online access is completely blocked! You asked them why and they say, ‘Don’t worry, honey, we’ve just found a fun new way to earn some money!’”
6. Submitting a manuscript handwritten in your own blood does indicate your passion for the material, but not quite in the way you might have hoped.
7. Iambic pentameter? Really?
8. It’s not technically a novel until you’ve written it down first.
9. Yes, enclosing a bag of flour along with your manuscript and causing an anthrax scare will get people’s attention, but it’s the wrong kind of attention.
10. You’re not just being paranoid; there really is a vast corporate conspiracy to ensure that your revolutionary ideas never leave your parents’ basement.
11. Most good books aren’t created with the sole hope that they might someday be adapted into a Martin Lawrence movie.
12. You’re actually the 139th person to submit a conspiracy thriller involving the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, entitled THE MICHAELANGELO CIPHER.
13. And the 78th to submit a chick-lit manuscript about an attractive woman’s sweet tooth and affection for footwear, called CHOCOLATE AND SHOES.
14. You know the part where the protagonist stuffs those puppies into the wood chipper? It’s not quite as funny as you seem to think.
15. A young-adult novel set in the behind-the-scenes world of network reality television featuring over two dozen characters, graphic underage sex and dead prostitutes? Are you fucking kidding me? No, seriously, are you fucking kidding me?
16. You know the talented creative writing professor who told you your work showed so much creativity and promise? Turns out what he really meant was that he wanted you to blow him.
17. Because they threw away their annual budget on the new Lindsay Lohan autobiography, BOOKS ARE RETARDED.
18. Everyone who attempts to load a copy of the manuscript onto their Kindle is found dead three hours later.
19. There’s a fine line between writing authentic regional dialogue and making all of your characters sound like stroke victims.
20. Just be thankful they refused to publish it, since the common accepted response to a novel that ends with the protagonist realizing all the terrible things that happened were in a dream (or was it?) is some stern re-editing of your face with a pair of brass knuckles.
21. Writing a book about vegetarian zombies kinda indicates you don’t exactly know why people like zombies in the first place.
22. God may have told you to write this book, but he didn’t tell you how to give it a decent ending.
23. You may want to revise the query letter you’re sending to agents so it’s more about the book and less about how much you love kittens.
24. For the first 20 pages, everyone who reads it is certain it’s the funniest book they’ve ever read. Unfortunately by the 21st, they finally realize you’re actually being serious.
25. It’s never a good sign when a manuscript’s first sentence is “’Are luck’s run out,’ said the Princess, ‘there unicorns are to fast!’”
26. When writing erotica, you want to avoid graphic descriptions of acne, cellulite and back fat.
27. Life-affirming poetry written by a 10-year-old with a fatal disease is inspirational; that same poetry written by a 47-year-old housewife with a trick knee and occasional indigestion is really, really lame.
28. If you’re going to make your main character a forensic coroner, you’re obligated to know more about human anatomy than what you learned playing Operation as a kid.
29. A general rule to follow when writing for kids: If you could go to jail for saying it to them in person, you’re better off not putting it into print.
30. Historically, books written solely to settle a bar bet seldom make it to print, especially if they were written during a seven-and-a-half-hour period in the same bar where the bet was made.
Dec 3, 2012
Morioplasty Monday
morioplasty restoration of lost parts of the body
Wow, it's December. How in the world did that happen? You sure couldn't tell by the weather. It's warm and rainy. It doesn't exactly put me in a Christmasy mood.
As you can see by the word count widget to your left, I did manage to make a come-back and crossed the NaNo finish line with a couple hundred words to spare. Unfortunately, the novel itself is far from finished, but I can take my time with it now.
If I had to sum up this year's NaNo in one word, that word would be stress. I don't know if was the insanely long span of grey miserable weather, the fact that I was writing in a linear fashion instead of jumping around like my previous NaNos, or the fact I was writing the sequel to a book that wasn't quite finished yet, but this was the most stressful NaNo ever.
As the month progressed and I found myself falling further behind, I found myself cutting more and more things out of my life - something I didn't have to do in previous NaNos. By the final week my husband was lucky he got supper on his bowling nights - the rest of the week he got to make supper. E-mails went unanswered, Facebook was ignored, even the puppies and kittens on the web cams went unviewed.
Which is why I'm doing a bare bones blogging for the month of December. I'm not doing book reviews, but I will be taking the time to get some reading in. I will not be doing poetry posts, although I may post my Night Before Christmas parody at some point. I will not be posting any flash fiction.
What I will be doing is a modified blog schedule with re-postings, seasonal postings, and yes, I will be continuing with Water.
What I will be using my break time for is to de-stress, catch up on my e-mail and blog readings, get my diet and exercise back on track, and maybe even a few mundane things like crochetting and Christmas crafts and baking. Oh, and editing. Lots and lots of editing. For me there's no better way to de-stress than editing. ;-)
I've already started the de-stressing process by being a lazy couch potato (or perhaps that should be chair turnip since I spent most of it in my easy chair) this past weekend. I read Forests of the Heart, by Charles de Lint (which I highly recommend to any one who enjoys urban fantasy, fantasy, or just a damn good book) and I've just started Fifty Shades of Grey (which I'm not impressed with so far).
There's something else for me to do during my break - get my Goodreads updated. Now there's a scary thought! :-)
What’s Up This Week:
The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.
Tuesday On both blogs I will find something humorous to post.
Wednesday (on Random Writings) I'll continue to post the chapter links for Shades of Errol Flynn so you can catch up before it's gone. On Random Thoughts there’ll be a Christmasy hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)
Thursday Chapter 44 of Water in which I have no idea what will happen 'cause I have no idea where I left off. ;-)
Friday on both blogs there will be a Christmasy post. Perhaps with music videos. :-)
Wow, it's December. How in the world did that happen? You sure couldn't tell by the weather. It's warm and rainy. It doesn't exactly put me in a Christmasy mood.
As you can see by the word count widget to your left, I did manage to make a come-back and crossed the NaNo finish line with a couple hundred words to spare. Unfortunately, the novel itself is far from finished, but I can take my time with it now.
If I had to sum up this year's NaNo in one word, that word would be stress. I don't know if was the insanely long span of grey miserable weather, the fact that I was writing in a linear fashion instead of jumping around like my previous NaNos, or the fact I was writing the sequel to a book that wasn't quite finished yet, but this was the most stressful NaNo ever.
As the month progressed and I found myself falling further behind, I found myself cutting more and more things out of my life - something I didn't have to do in previous NaNos. By the final week my husband was lucky he got supper on his bowling nights - the rest of the week he got to make supper. E-mails went unanswered, Facebook was ignored, even the puppies and kittens on the web cams went unviewed.
Which is why I'm doing a bare bones blogging for the month of December. I'm not doing book reviews, but I will be taking the time to get some reading in. I will not be doing poetry posts, although I may post my Night Before Christmas parody at some point. I will not be posting any flash fiction.
What I will be doing is a modified blog schedule with re-postings, seasonal postings, and yes, I will be continuing with Water.
What I will be using my break time for is to de-stress, catch up on my e-mail and blog readings, get my diet and exercise back on track, and maybe even a few mundane things like crochetting and Christmas crafts and baking. Oh, and editing. Lots and lots of editing. For me there's no better way to de-stress than editing. ;-)
I've already started the de-stressing process by being a lazy couch potato (or perhaps that should be chair turnip since I spent most of it in my easy chair) this past weekend. I read Forests of the Heart, by Charles de Lint (which I highly recommend to any one who enjoys urban fantasy, fantasy, or just a damn good book) and I've just started Fifty Shades of Grey (which I'm not impressed with so far).
There's something else for me to do during my break - get my Goodreads updated. Now there's a scary thought! :-)
What’s Up This Week:
The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.
Tuesday On both blogs I will find something humorous to post.
Wednesday (on Random Writings) I'll continue to post the chapter links for Shades of Errol Flynn so you can catch up before it's gone. On Random Thoughts there’ll be a Christmasy hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)
Thursday Chapter 44 of Water in which I have no idea what will happen 'cause I have no idea where I left off. ;-)
Friday on both blogs there will be a Christmasy post. Perhaps with music videos. :-)
Dec 1, 2012
NaNoWriMo 2012 - Wrap Up
Happy first day of December. For thousands of us, that means finally being able to give our keyboards a rest. I don't know how many people signed up for or completed NaNo this year, but there were over three billion words written in the month of November. That's a heck of a lot of words.
But now we can go back to reading a book, or watching TV, or even just come out of our caves to join the world again without feeling guilty. NaNoWriMo is over!
As you may or may not know, this is not my first NaNo win. I actually wasn't even going to do NaNo this year, but I'd talked a few of the ladies from my writer's group into giving it a try, even going so far as to giving a NaNo info session at the library and talking them into giving us a couple of write-ins, so I pretty much had to participate.
So let's start by re-capping my previous NaNo wins:
The first time I won was amazing. After years of writing (mostly poetry, short stories and articles) I had not only finished a novel, I did it in 30 days. Ironically, I almost didn't try. For the two weeks prior to November I wasn't able to write a word. Then November 1st a name popped into my head - Treasure Beaumont. Then her story, called Forever and For Always started just spilling out onto my keyboard.
The second time I won was even more amazing. Not only had I finished another novel and within the 30 days, it wasn’t going to require nearly as much editing. This one is called The Faery Heart, but it too is still waiting on my hard drive.
The third year was interesting. I had my idea well in advance – I knew the characters and the story, I even knew the setting. And then at the last minute I was seduced by a shiny new idea. 12,000 words into it, I discovered that not all ideas are suited to NaNo, so after taking a day to think about it, I scrapped it and started from scratch again. I won NaNo with my original idea, Quest of the Valkyrie, and did not even need to include the 12,000 words from the story I started with.
The fourth year I again thought I'd give NaNo a pass. I already had three not-quite-finished novels and I wasn't really sure I had the time. But somehow or other I found myself sitting down at the keyboard on November 1st and not stopping until I reached my 50,000 words. This one was called Fire and Ice.
Which brings us to this year. I have to admit it, my heart just wasn't in it this year. I'd had a massive overdose of grey, miserable weather and was feeling depressed and unmotivated. I started out strong, the first four days I was ahead of the game, but then I had to really struggle for my word count. I had six days with no word count at all. By the second week I was behind by 7,000 words and I stayed well behind until day 26. Finally the spirit of NaNo kicked in and I wrote 15,000 words in four days, reaching the 50,000 mark in the wee hours of November 29.
There were a lot of things about NaNo that were different this year than previous years. First of all, I wrote my novel in a linear fashion. All the other years I would write until I got stuck, then skip ahead to something more interesting and then go back and fill in the gaps - or sometimes not, which is probably part of the reason why those novels are still waiting to get finished.
Something else new to me this year was going to a write-in. We had two at our library and to be honest, I didn't find them very helpful. I found I got more writing done when a friend and I went to Timmies and McDonalds.
I also went into semi-hermit status this year. As the month went on and my word count wasn't keeping up, I started to avoid going out and even cut myself off from the internet - especially my email and Facebook. There were many times when I was ready to throw in the towel, but I'm nothing in not persistent. However, I felt really stressed out most of the time - it was like pulling teeth to get the words to come, until those last four days.
But I made it through, that's the important part. And although I reached my 50,000 words I've still got about 20,000 before the story's done. So that makes FIVE not-quite-finished NaNo novels I have. For the record, I'd like to state that I unless I have at least two of those novels completely finished and edited next year, I will not be doing NaNo.
So if you see that little NaNo widget go up next year with the name Lady Cat on it, you can totally call me on it. ;-)
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