I got this from kimmparker and others. I filled it out at work this morning while I was waiting for queries to run etc., but then things got busy and I didn't get around to actually posting it. So I will now.

If anyone actually reads it all, well... good for you.

( Mem-age )

The answers to the Movie Quotes game - thanks everyone for playing!

I left the answers "hidden", so any of you late-comers can still play along if you like.

( Quotes ahead! )

Saw this meme thing on T's LJ and others.

1. Pick 10-20 your favorite movies. (Does anyone expect me to do less than 20?)
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

[UPDATE: Please let me know if you're not able to see the answers. And don't mock my code, it was just a quick hack.]

[UPDATE 2: They're going fast! Some of the rest might be a bit harder. The hint from my icon wasn't necessary (go mlwl!) but if you look at my tags, one of them could be a clue to three of the yet-to-be-guessed movies here... (and no, it's not the Spider-Man tag!)]

( Quotes ahead! )

( Some Yankees Ramblings )

I watched The Royal Tenenbaums last night... I really like that flick. Wes Anderson has a style that really appeals to me... I love the quirkiness of his characters, the little worlds he creates for his films. And his use of music in his movies is outstanding. Anyway, I blabbed so much about baseball, I'm not going to write up a big movie review... just needed to rave for a line or two.

Shame on me for not knowing about this Spider-man 3 trailer until sue_tlc posted an entry with the link. I hate waiting! I wanna see Spidey 3 right now! Grrr... As always, it's hard to tell much from these things, but I think it's an interesting twist that they've apparently made Flint Marko (aka Sandman) the criminal who killed Ben Parker. That should certainly make things a lot more personal for poor Pete. And SWEETNESS! Harry's goin' Goblin on us, baby... that's my boy... the Goblin lives on!

So NaNoWriMo, I've changed course (which is actually what I've been planning since probably day five, but I've finally implemented it): I'm using the month to finish an old, half-completed draft I started over a year ago. So this makes word counts kind of irrelevant - I'm not going to win NaNo this year, and I don't mind in the least. But I am still trying to stay in the spirit of the month, and just bang out a rough draft without worrying too much about editing as I go. And I still have a very concrete goal to shoot for, which seems to help me. So I'm in the middle of Chapter Five, of Eight. That's more or less how I'll be tracking this thing as I go forward.

Oh, and I liked this Quiz - "Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?" ( Another cut to hide the Blogthing )

Peace.

Thanks to kimmyblair I have something simple and dumb to start this post with:


How White and Nerdy Are You?

Yeah!

So yeah, NaNo is not going well... or just, not going. I've been chatting with thessalymarley and g_smarmy about it; I think I made a mistake choosing the story I did at this time (and really, as evidenced by earlier posts, I hardly thought about the choice at all, which was a bit careless). Yes, I realize this is an excuse, but it still makes a lot of sense to me... I'm not sure what I'm going to do, my heart's not in it because this story is supposed to be a fantasy, and I didn't do any of the character-building and world-building I should have done beforehand. Last year I was able to kind of wing it, because the setting was so easy, I knew the two main characters well, and I knew where the story needed to go. Here I only know the characters, really (and only two of many), and some vague idea about the context but nothing about this land I'm making up, the people there, the conflict, etc. I'm glad I've written what I did already; whether I have a total change of heart and try to dive back into this now, or save the story for later when I've had more time to plan, having this prologue written is invaluable as a resource for me, whether it (or something like it) stays in the eventual story or not; it's good background material for me.

So anyway, the point is, I don't have the motivation I did last time to just plow ahead without much idea of the early plot; here, in every other sentence, I'm running into something I need to make a decision on, and I'm just not ready to commit to those things yet for this story. *sigh* I'm not prepared to let NaNoWriMo go to waste this month for me, but it's probably too late to do it the way it's supposed to be done. I'm thinking about alternative challenges for myself that can keep me in the spirit of it and still get something nice accomplished. And in the meantime I may be pretty wrapped up in other things for the next few days, so this might get pushed off further...

So I dunno. It stinks that it's not working out the same this year as last, but whatever. There's still a lot of month left... and I am charged up about writing again, which is nice. So if I can turn that energy into some productive writing time, then that's great, and I won't feel bad if I fall short of the NaNo challenge this time.

Oh, and I voted today. It felt good!

Peace.

Just a real quick check-in... mainly so I can post with a non-zero word count. I had two solid days of writing, after not writing at all the first day. So I've got the deficit from that day to overcome, but since then I've kept pace just fine. It's coming a little slowly right now, although today's was a bit better. I wrote something like a prologue, which might never actually prove necessary to the story in the long run. And if it does, it will need major work. But I think it's helpful that I wrote it, anyway, as it kind of sets the story in motion and can serve as a reference point for me. Also, it assures me that I'm just embracing every fantasy cliche possible, so I might as well not worry about that when I see it happening, and just do my best to keep going anyway (and if I'm lucky put a slight new spin on things).

I'm drinking broth, and for some reason it's totally hitting the spot right now. I wanted to eat something, but it's late, and besides, I know I'm not really that hungry. Still, my taste buds wanted something food-like, something salty. So this seems to be doing the trick! It's good broth, too, from this vegetable base that is like a paste in a jar that you need to keep refigerated. Much better than those packets or cubes of bouillon - this has a lot better flavor, and seems somehow more natural.

Finally, a quiz I grabbed from kelazma.

( My American accent, apparently: )

Peace.

Erm... it's like an hour away from the beginning of NaNoWriMo. And I still haven't really made a commitment to do it. But I haven't decided not to do it either. I would have been panicking at this point last year, but I'm really calm about it right now. I think I'm going to do it... but I'm still not sure. I have no idea what I want to write about. That seems bad, but it's not a huge problem yet. If I wake up tomorrow and decide that I'm going to do it, then I'll give it my best effort. But if the rest of my life gets too full, and makes it too costly to devote my time to NaNo, then I won't be afraid to ditch it and I won't feel like a failure. But I'll try not to let that happen; as I mentioned before, if I approach it right, it shouldn't take an inordinate amount of time. I can find plenty of ways I waste time right now that I can replace with NaNo-ing. So it would have to be some significant thing demanding my attention to make me give up the NaNo attempt. Otherwise, it's just a cop out, if I say I don't have time for it.

I was re-reading my NaNovel from last year... it's weird, I feel like I shouldn't like it, but I really do. I mean, of course there are mistakes and problems - it was a rough draft written at a pace that didn't allow time for fixing things or thinking everything through. But the important elements of the story... they really grab me. I don't know, I'm not saying this means anything at all, there's no way I can be objective about my own writing. But I would have expected that I'd hate it afterwards, and I don't. So at least I can be happy that I wrote the story I wanted to write, (at least the rough draft of it) - whether anyone else thinks it's good, I did what I set out to do. That's pretty slick, really. I think I need to let people read it... I wanted to fix a million things before I did, but I think it's going to be a while before I have a polished draft of it. We'll see... I'm still very wary of sharing my work with people.

So maybe I'll have another post soon to give my final decision on the NaNo thing. Of course, if I go silent again, you can assume I decided not to after all. But I think I will... I think I will... (I blame thessalymarley by the way, if I do... hehe...)

Before I go, I'll put the answer to my music meme (remember that?) behind a cut, and also another random meme I did a long time ago and saved. ( Check check it out. )

Peace.

Hey peeps. Sorry I don't seem to write much here these days. I liked this meme that's been going around amongst some of my friends, so I figured I'd give it a go. Here are the "rules":

Step 1: Put your MP3 player on random.
Step 2: Post the first line(s) of the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.
Step 5: NO CHEATING

I took g_smarmy's advice and used iTunes instead. I let it go to 40, since I figured I wouldn't use a lot of the songs because they started with the "title" or almost did. But now I'm thinking I'll leave them in, not say which they are, and see if people know them anyway. And I'll leave all 40 'cause I'm weird like that. There are a few on here that, frankly, I would never guess, because they were given to me recently by friends and I simply haven't listened to them much yet. But maybe said friends will recognize them, or others of you smarties out there. I was worried at first, because 7 of the first 9 come from the same "family" so to speak, I thought iTunes had gone crazy and was hooked on those songs, but it evened out somewhat as things progressed. There are quite a few on here that will probably seem pretty obscure to some of you, but I'll be interested to see if any of them get spotted. And like I said, there are quite a few that will be "freebies" if you're at all familiar with the songs, because the title is in the first line(s). As another hint, not that I think it will help any but the most devoted fans of this person, number 2 and 3 are written by the same artist. I think it was an interesting juxtaposition, how similar the first lines are in each of those stanzas; and they both have more or less the same cadence (though they're sung quite differently).

All right, enough blather. ( The list: )

Maybe when enough time has passed, I'll post all of the answers if anyone cares to see them.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I did cheat once. I skipped a song because the lyrics were in Swedish and I couldn't understand them, let alone begin to try spelling them.

Peace.

Well, let's see how far we get this time.

If you're wondering what I'm on about, it's explained in this entry (which I just decided to make public). So picking up where we left off, I had written a whole lot and only selected four songs:

1. Red Rain - Peter Gabriel
2. Firth of Fifth - Genesis
3. Misunderstanding - Genesis
4. When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin

( My insanity dwells within. )

Peace.