Comics reading day

Today was my day off. I spent it reading comics and looking up characters on Wikipedia. I'm slowly getting caught up on what's been happening in the X-Men comics over the past few years. I've been avoiding all but a handful of books but yesterday I got into a discussion about comics with a coworker.

I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. I've read through Young X-Men and X-23's two origin comics. Oh, I just looked at the newest Uncanny X-Men issue and Northstar is back from the dead and not a psychotic killer anymore, so yeah! For those that don't know Northstar is one of the more famous gay superheros who was killed, brought back as a brainwashed killer and then killed again. He might have been brought back and killed one more time but I'm not sure.

I'm tempted to read through Civil War and Secret Invasion. I dropped out of comics just before Civil War really got started due to having no money to spend on comics and having not yet discovered torrented comics. I will not be looking at any post Brand New Day Spider-Man comics. If you don't know what Brand New Day is I envy you and will not spoil your innocence. It's just horrible and utter rubbish and just horrible. Trust me don't Google it, don't ask your friends, just forget I ever mentioned it.

Gillian's Fiction

So over on Gillian's Fiction I have a small bit of news concerning that blog's future.

I also have posted a new short story. It's unrelated the the serial story I had been writing. I actually wrote it about six or seven years ago in long hand, typed it about four years ago and just yesterday posted it online after a little surgery to fix a section that didn't feel right. It's still pretty rough but I felt I needed to post something after a week of not posting on Gillian's Fiction.

Some thoughts on my new netbook(Aues Eee PC 1000HE)

Earlier I preformed an impromptu battery life test. I started at 8:30pm with a fully charged six cell battery. At 1:27am my netbook went into standby mode with 5% battery charge or 17 minutes left. So about 5 hours. Now this was with wifi turned on and Utorrent running, so I could probably get the seven hours the sticker on the netbook promised.

The keyboard is comfortable to use. The only real complaints I have with it are the small right shift key and small arrow keys jammed into the corner. I find myself hitting the enter key instead of the shift key because of it's size. Yes the left shift key is closer to normal size and I know you're supposed to use the shift key opppsite the letter you want to capatalize but I only use the right shift key. This is just a weird typing quirk I picked up years ago.

Before I started using laptops on a regular basis I didn't like touch pads. I have learnt to use them. Having said that I like the touch pad on this netbook. Besides tracking finger movements very well it has some interesting multi touch features. Two fingers moved up or down will scroll the current page. There is also a zoom feature that allows zooming by dragging two fingers apart. I've had less than stellar results from trying to zoom but the scroll feature works wonderfully.

I've had a bit of trouble with sound. Some apps were hard to hear while others seemed fine. I managed a fix by raising all the sliders in the Realtek equalizer. It's not an elegant solution but it works.

Midnight Cleaning

My room is now mostly clean. I'm pretty bad about keeping my room tidy. It's not that I don't like a clean room. I love the way it looks right after I've picked everything off the floor, swept and reorganized shelves. It's a gradual slide into untidyness that gets me. A shirt dropped on the floor, an old work schedule that fell out of my backpack, socks. Slowly it accumulates and before I know it the floor is lost beneath the shifting trash and dirty laundry. Until in a bust of energy, always late at night, I clear it away.

Tonight I went even farther and cleaned my closet. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the pile of tangled wires and stuff that nested within. About ten power cords, a few hundred feet phone wires, a few av cables, eight AC adapters, two mice, a keyboard, two parallel cables for printers, five flat hard drive ribbon cables and a set of jumper cables made up the bulk of the tangle. Besides untangling everything and sorting it out, I've also filled a garbage bag with stuff that I have no use for nor will I be able to make use of in the next year. An old caller id, a cordless phone, a corded phone that didn't work any more a set of small unpowered speakers, a broken scale, a busted door lock, two car sylinoids and a busted headset with a mic are just some of the things I culled from my closet.

There is still a little bit of tidying to do before I go to sleep so I be back tomorrow.

This week has just not been a good blogging or writing week. I thought I'd whip up a quick post.

First good news. I am typing this on my new Eee Aeus. So far I'm loving it. It is totally walk around the house portable. Small and light enough to easily carry one handed. My last laptop was a monster with a 17 inch screen. It was nice to look at and use but not easy to move around unless holding it with both hands and braced against some other body part. The ten inch screen on this gem is smaller than I'm used to but not to small to be annoying. It cost me $349 plus tax.

Second more good news. My store is part of a group of stores which was in competition with other groups of stores during the first quarter of this year and our group of stores won. And as part of the management team I got a larger bonus which just about covered the cost of my netbook.

Third good and bad news. I'm going to be getting health insurance through my store which they don't offer to regular employees just management, which I am in the eyes of my manager but not yet in the eyes of the company. The regional manager is going to push it through to get me health insurance. Now on to why I need heath insurance. Basically I be or may be becoming diabetic. It runs in my family and I really don't eat right or exercise enough so if I am it's my own fault. But my symptoms(dizziness, lightheadedness, difficulty remembering words, fatigue and tiredness not linked to lack of sleep) might be something else so I'll glad that I'm going to be able to get medical care.

Fourth good news. Our cat Tinkerbell started giving birth while I was writing this. So far two have come out but we think there will be more.

Thats all for now.

Writing problem/Look at this new cool comic I found!

I think I may have a problem. At some point in the last couple of days I started asking myself what I was saying with "Am I Memorex?" See I had this feeling that besides being a story that people might want to read just because, that there was something I wanted 'say' with the story. Not like I wanted to preach some kind of lesson but rather to show some part of me. And I figured out what part of me was trying to come out through the story. This has a downside cause now that I know what I want the story to be I can see bits that I want to change in the parts that I've already posted. I don't want to restart the story but I also don't want to make anyone who has been reading to have to go back and reread everything. Any ideas?

I just found this comic Khaos Komix because someone had an image from the comic as their LG icon and someone else said "Love the icon I can't wait for the next part," which totally made me go "I must find this comic," cause the one who said that is the author of Tales of Mu, which is an online serial story that I love(that link is to the first episode of the story btw). So I set out to find the comic, which was very easy cause the user with the icon had a link on their userpic page that I followed right to the comic.

I'm now a little more than half way through the archive and I can not believe that I did not know about this comic. I mean like a couple of years ago I set out to find as many LGBT comics online as I could and I found a bunch but somehow this comic never even blipped on my radar. I may need to set out on another hunt but that will have to wait for a little while.

There are a few other things I wanted to gush about but I really want to get back to Khaos Komix so I'm just going to list links:

Girl Genius - Adventure, Romance, Mad Science!

FutureMe.org - Send an email to the future.

EZTV - My source for torrents of current tv shows.

W Juliet - An awesome manga that I started reading but fell out of for some reason but now have restarted.

See ya.

Real quick post

Found my wallet. It was in the friend's car that took me home the other day.

Tonight walked home. Google maps says it's 3.8 miles from my work to home. I am tired.

Going to sleep now. Read my post over on Gillian's Fiction for more info.

Night all.

Quick post part 2

Still not much going on.

I've either lost my wallet or simply dropped in a friends car. I really hope that when I can look tomorrow in said friend's car that I find it. That wallet has my drivers licence, social security card, my check card and to top it off it has my last pay check. Do to Good Friday the banks were closed on the day I got my check and I just haven't made time to go to the bank. If I did't have a little saved up I would probably have cashed it sooner but because I have enough to get by on I let it slide. I'm feeling kinda scared. I just checked and there has been no activity on my check card so that's one good thing I guess. There's nothing I can do until tomorrow except try to keep from freaking out

Someone linked to a pdf titled A 6-Minute Difference in a discussion about fitness for transwomen. Its a very brief story about how one runner's times were effected by transiting from male to female. It's a nice read and has some interesting info for transsexual athletes.

The weekly digest of "Am I Memorex?" is up early tonight.

Quick post

Hi sweeties,

Sorry I haven't been around this week. I've been feeling a little depressed and like everyother time I've felt like this any blog posts I try to right devolve into whinning about being depressed. Everyday this week I've tried to write here but nothing good come to mind.

So here are three good things that are happening in or around my life:

1. I'm reading and loving The Palimpsest.

2. A coworker who has been trying to get pregnate for a few years now thinks she is now. Results from blood test on Friday.

3. My ear piercings are healing nicely and have not gotten infected once.

Yeah not exactly a stellar list but it's the best I can do for now.

Over on Gillian's Fiction "Am I Memorex?" is has reached the end of it's third week with no inturuptions which I guess is a fourth good thing.

Not much going on in my life otherwise. The last few days have been very routine.

No Title

Happy Easter.

I was going to write a short essay about how egg hunting and bunnies and even the name of the holiday have roots in pagan traditions but I'm not really in the mood to do that.

Instead I want to tell you about this movie I saw the other night called Repo! The Genetic Opera. It's a rock opera about a repoman for financed organs. It stars Anthony Steward Head (Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv show) as the repoman and Alexa Vega (Carmen Cortez in the Spy Kids trilogy) as his sick daughter who is dying from the same disease that killed her mother. There is blood, gore, and rock music. This repoman does just come by and threaten you when you default on you kidney payments. He finds you and repossess the kidney in the fasts posible manner ussally resulting in death. This movie is not just a slasher flick with singing. There is a solid story being told here.

One thing I want to be clear about is that this is an opera not a musical. In a musical characters talk then they sing about what they were talking about. In opera it's all singing.

Am I Memorex? - Week 2 up

Parts 7-12 of "Am I Memorex?" have been collected and posted in the weekly round up.

In other news, I no longer have cable tv in my room. Not a big deal since I rarely, less that once a week, watch it. Due to circumstances that would take too long to explain right now, because I gave up cable tv, I now have a bigger tv.

More tomorrow when it's not two hours past my bedtime.

Bloging on writing daily.

Part Eleven of "Am I Memorex?" is up.


The following is me talking a little about the story and how I write. There is a mild spoiler for Part Ten but it's nothing you shouldn't already know if you were paying attention.

Tonight is the first time the narrator refers to herself as a woman. The narrator/main character has always been a woman but before this part there was no way to bring this up. I mentioned her name in the short blurb I posted when part two went up but it hasn't come up in story until tonight's part. I was beginning to worry that there wouldn't be a good place to insert this info for at least another week.

This is of course a side effect of writing to a hundred word quota. The story advances slowly but not, I think, slower than if I was drawing it as a daily webcomic. It's an interesting thought. A daily three to four panel comic would have roughly the same or less story advancement as my daily hundred word posts.

I am considering doubling my daily word quota. This would depend on me getting far enough ahead that I would have a buffer to prevent dead days. Currently I'm writing about two days ahead of what I'm posting. I've been writing each part in turn, not just tearing off the next hundred words from what I've written. If I over write a part I either trim it down or move the last sentence to the next part if I feel the line needs to be saved. Typically I edit each post twice, once right after I've written it and then the next day before I create a new scheduled post for it on the blog.

I am writing in a very linear A B C fashion. I have a vague idea of where the story is going but for the most part I'm letting the characters pull me along. Already a couple of characters have shown me things I didn't know about them. I won't say what these things are cause they would be more than a lot spoilery.

Well that's all for this night. See you cats later.

Tonight I am drinking wine, read to find out why

This is going to be short. Today I was the manager on duty. The only manager. I think this is the first time I've ever worked open to close on a Sunday as a manager. I was a little bit scared but felt confident that I could handle it. And the day went pretty smooth.

I opened the store with two employees. They set up the store while I decorated the mornings cakes. I had a bit of a fright when a few hundred people walked into the mall all at once. I found out by asking one that they were a group from Georgia. Thinking that if even a fourth of them decided to buy a cookie I would be in danger of running out of cookies, I started baking more cookies. I don't know what happened to those people, I never saw them leave so I guess they left through another exit.

Luckily for us a group of dancers was putting on a show right near the cookie shop so we still got a boost in sales. We never ran out of cookies, costumers were served in a timely manner, all cookie cakes were decorated and picked up on time, I made the cheesecake brownies for tomorrow, and rolled out enough cakes for tomorrow. I counted the drawers and they were a few cents over.

Everything was perfect. (Let me stop here for a second and say that is the day was perfect it was because the people(most still in high school) I worked with made it that way. If my crew were not great employees today could have sucked but it didn't because they are some of the best workers I have known.) Then I counted the deposit and came up ten dollars short.

I recounted the drawers. I checked the safe. I recounted the deposit. I counted the drawers. I counted the deposit again. I added everything up on the calculator to check the excel spreadsheet we use add up everything. I asked an employee to watch me as I recounted everything again to make sure I wasn't just making the same mistake over and over again.

After about twenty minutes I figured out the cash in the deposit was correct. The missing ten dollars was in the coinage. This makes no sense. There is no way for ten dollars in coins to be missing from the deposit. There is never more than two or three dollars in coins in the deposit. I called my manager told him about the shortage and left the deposit for him to check in the morning. I left work about forty-five minutes later than I should have. Forty-five minutes of trying to find impossible ten dollars in coins.

This has left me a little frazzled. It isn't the shortage that has me frazzled. I've been short before. It the way we're short that has me upset. It's just not possible for the deposit to be short ten dollars in coins. I don't normally drink alcohol. But tonight I'm stressed out about those ten dollars so I'm drinking some wine, not a lot, just enough to relax me. I'm going to cue up the first season of Torchwood and drink a little more and probably fall asleep early, which is why I'm writing this now instead of later.

Hmm that wasn't nearly as short as I thought it would be. Oh well, Captain Jack Harkness awaits.

Oh yeah Part 9 of "Am I Memorex?" will be up later on Gillian's Fiction at it's normal 1 AM time slot.

Promotion news

Well today my boss filled me in on what is going on with my promotion. The cookie store is going to be remodeled and a pretzel shop, which is run by the same parent company, put in next door. The pretzel shop will be a separate business but be managed by my manager. I've been told that when this comes to pass I will be promoted to assistant manager and possibly be placed in charge of the pretzel shop or the other assistant manager will be put over the pretzel shop and I'll be kept at the cookie store.

So seems that I'll have to wait a little while before I get officially promoted, unofficially I'm already an assistant manager. I will be getting a change in title from team leader to shift supervisor. This change is partly for show and partly to keep me a symbolic level above the other team leaders he wants to install in the hierarchy.

I've started reading Palimpsest. In a word this book is intoxicating. I feel drawn into the world of Palimpsest. I'm still discovering this world but when I'm done I'll have a review until then trust me when I say this book is good.

Weekly Repost of "Am I Memorex?" Up

Today marks the end of the first week of "Am I Memorex?" on Gillian's Fiction. I know I've barely even started the story but I feel good about how it's coming along. On Fridays I will be reposting the week's parts in one post. This is for those that would prefer larger story posts and to make it easier to go back and reread the story, which I'm sure everyone will be doing, right;).

So here is the first weekly repost of "Am I Memorex?"

Out of Sorts/Rambling Post now with poetry

I'm feeling kind of out of sorts. I don't quite know how to describe it. I don't feel depressed, I think, but I not exactly happy or mellow. I feel empty. Hollow. I am feeling a little disconnected from things. This feeling started today I think. I can remember laughing at a comic earlier. I canremember laughing and what was funny but now I can't laugh. I feel tired. I may just need sleep.

---

Head full of cotton
Empty heart
Smile for them

Strained voice
Red eyes
Laugh for them

Tired body
hollow mind
Be happy for them

---

Yeah, I get to feeling like this and I write bad angst ridden poetry.

I was going to go the movies today but I woke up late and then I got caught up in rereading through the archives of A Softer World. I read all 418 strips. Hmm you know, A Softer World isn't exactly a light fluffy happy comic. A lot of the strips are actually kind of depressing. Maybe I should avoid four hour binges of semi-depressing comics.

Tomorrow I'll be going to the mall early to pick up a book I ordered after like five unrelated people recommened it. The book is Palimpsest by Cat Valente. I've heard very good things about this book and will report back on how it stacks up to the hype.

Oh yeah, part 6 of "Am I Memorex?" went up last night and the first weekly compilation will be up later. You know what, hold on a sec.. there, it's up now here. Part seven will post Sat morning.

Thats all I got right now.

Am I Memorex? - Part 5 up and some ramblings

"Am I Memorex?" Part 5 is up on Gillian's Fiction.

I really got nothing else to say tonight. I spent my day off at home doing a little writing and reading. I cleaned up my room a little but got sidetracked by watching Firefly. I just got the set of the series. Yeah I should have bought it a long time ago but I rarely by TV show DVD sets because they seem to cost so much and it's rare that I'll sit down and watch them so it's this whole "how much I paid for it" vs "how much I'll really use it." But I'm more secure financially so I'm letting my self buy a high cost($50-$100) item once a pay period. I of course spend more than that on other things combined during the same period but on smaller cheaper things. It's just the way my mind thinks spending of money. Buying twenty $5 items over a few days is fine but buying one $80 item feels like spending a lot of money.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, not cleaning my room. Well I did clean a little. I just didn't finish.

And here's a cake I decorated for a customer. This was one of those rare ocassions where a guy just wanted a cookie cake with chocolate and white icing but didn't care what it looked like. So I did this:



I liked the way it came out so I thought I'd share.

Ok, it's 3am as I write this so I'm going to clear off my bed, cue up the latest episode of Castle(I'm feeling the need for more Nathan Fillion tonight) and then go to sleep. See ya tomorrow.