TOFOG, School, and Publishing

Deb: “Here.”
Me: “What is it? Oh!” [Huge smile] “Deb, I love you!”
-Deb giving me a copy of the only-downloadable My Hand, My Heart, the newest Russell Crowe album which was produced by none other than Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea.

It’s that time of year again, when all us good boys and girls go back to classes. I’ve got a Monday night class (Development of the Novel) and a Thursday night class (Lit. Theories). One class should be fun, though it requires that I read Pride and Prejudice within a period of about four days (I read 143 pages yesterday). The other, Lit. Theories, will be a real pain in my ass. I’m not at all looking forward to it.

In other English major news, there was a party at David’s house Friday in honor of his return from spending a month in Italy. Most of the gang showed and I didn’t go home until after one o’clock. I also found out that David’s most recent book has just been published. He gave me an autographed copy with a personal note inside, and I’m about half way through it. Prose poetry all the way through, very interesting, and a departure for him as he’s been a more “traditional” poet up until now.

Book Review: The Prayers of Others, by David Keplinger. I’m quite liking it. Prose poetry is a very interesting form and the pieces in this book are the best of what David does. Here’s an excerpt:

“ONLY THE PRAYERS of others can save me. Likewise, mine save only them. The little girl who lost her tooth went looking for it through the house. Had she swallowed it last night? Her thinking and the house were large. She flung a piece of string, as though to lasso the tooth, as though it were a loose, wild beast that must be tamed. We’d do anything to comfort her.”

I suck at hyperlinks, or else I’d add the one that takes you to the book site. If you google the title, though, you can find it easily.

Another exciting bit-I’m going to be published this fall in the Hungry Eye, the university Literary Magazine. I’ve got two flash fiction pieces that have been selected and I’m mundo excited about the fact that, as of October, I will be a professionally published writer. No, there’s no money in it, but it’s still my name in print.

Swing Heil!

Annie O'Shea: But he's never told a lie in his life.
Jackie O'Shea: Well, he's making up for it now.
-Waking Ned Devine

I’m a bit irked with Netflix at the moment, because they’re lagging and where before if I sent a movie back on Monday, I would get one by Wednesday, right now it’s not the case. I sent one back Saturday and two Monday, and I won’t be getting any of them until tomorrow (Thursday). I want my movies! In the meantime, here are the latest.

Movie Review: Waking Ned Devine. A very fun movie that combines lots of “local color” and comedy with some nice tender moments. Also, there’s a scene where a sixty some year old man is riding down the road on a motorcycle while totally naked-save shoes. Any movie with that in it is worth a watch.

Movie Review: Swing Kids. I’ve heard of this one for a long time, and finally watched it. Boy, it’s good. Robert Sean Leonard is fantastic as Peter, and Christian Bale likewise does a great job as Thomas. An added bonus is the appearance of Kenneth Branagh as a Gestapo officer. While there are definitely uncomfortable moments in the movie, they’re well done and it’s fascinating to watch a story about Nazi Germany from the P.O.V. of the teenagers who couldn’t escape the politics. Talk about making extremely hard decisions, yeesh.

A New Low

“It hurts us.”
-Gollum

My guy suggested we go see Pulse yesterday, and I agreed on the condition of also getting dinner. After all, the previews actually creeped me out a bit and I was optimistic that the movie wouldn't completely suck. So much for optimism.

Movie Review: Pulse. Without a doubt, the most boring horror flick I’ve ever seen. Very heavy-handed, to boot. We start out with a college boy walking all paranoid-like around campus, the camera lingers meaningfully on people’s laptops, PDAs, cell phones, etc. My God! They’re all around us! He dies, sort of. His girlfriend and her techno addicted friends realize something’s wrong. They run around a lot and die. For some reason, running away works for the girlfriend, but no one else-don’t ask me why. Otherwise, there’s no way at all to fight the ghosties. You must, apparently, be blonde to survive. The movie contradicts itself, goes off on completely irrelevant tangents, fundamentally doesn’t make sense, gets preachy as hell at the end, and doesn’t believe in turning on the lights anywhere. Ugh.

I hereby resolve that the next time I go to the movie theater, it sure as hell won't be for a horror flick.

Shades of Armageddon

“It wasn't a dark and stormy night. It should have been, but there's the weather for you. For every mad scientist who's had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is complete and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who've sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the overtime.”
-Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Today is my first day back on the campus job and when I walked into the Psych. building I was greeted by the sight of an armageddon. The school is known for its impressively large cricket population-they wander down the halls, through the classrooms, and into the bathroom. Today, it would seem the vast majority of that population is dead and scattered in the hall. I can only guess that, in honor of classes starting up again next week, someone called in an exterminator. It’s impressive, though, walking down the hall amid dozens of dead crickets. Just a little morbid.

My plan for yesterday was go to my folks’ house at noonish, plop in front of the TV, and watch Highlander with my brother and father. Instead, I arrived to find my brother and two extra cadets at the house. Six of us, all together, sat down to watch the first episode and my mom, who’s not a) a bit TV fan, and b) an action/violence fan, proceeded to grate my nerves by talking during the show. I didn’t go over to be social, I went over to watch the damn show on a big ass TV. She also interrupted to ask when we could go over to the Pine house because she and dad just finished doing the floor.

Then, we get over there and she’s all wanting me to fawn over how well the floor came out and be shocked and fucking amazed that it’s so wonderful. It’s a damn floor. We get back to the house, and my brother takes one of his cadet palls to Wal-Mart so dad, a rather quieter mom, and I watch the next episode without him. By the time my brother returned and we finished watching the third, and final, episode on the disc, I’m so ready to get the hell out of there, it’s not even funny. Gah. Sometimes, my mom is way too damn needy. I’m not the kind of person who handles that kind of needy well-thus the reason why I’m not going to produce offspring.

It doesn’t help my mom-situation that my dog is old and going down quickly-she just got diagnosed with doggy cancer. The dog, a basset/weiner-dog mix, has been in the family for twelve years and for most of that, she’s been my dog. Now, since I’ve moved out and cannot have a pooch, she’s still with my parents. I love her to death, but I know her days are numbered. My mom, however, is refusing to let her go. Worse, she expects me to be totally distraught about the whole thing. Let’s face it, the dog is very old, she can’t last forever. Not only that, but up until a few months ago, she was incredibly healthy. Her decline was pretty abrupt. At this point, I’m leaning on the side of putting her to sleep because seeing her limp around with her skeleton poking out is more painful than letting her be on her way. *sigh* In other news: here’s a movie review.

Bill Engvall: A Decade of Laughs. When the Netflix envelope said “Run Time: 16 Mins” I thought there must be some mistake, it wouldn’t be the first time at any rate. However, it turns out that someone decided to make a DVD less than twenty minutes long, with not extra features-except maybe some hidden ones. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bill Engvall, and the music videos were fun to watch, but as far as overall DVD quality goes, I was disappointed. Fortunately, there should be another Highlander disc in my mailbox by the time I get home to help ease my pain.

Getting an M.A.

The top five things getting my masters means to me:

5. Not being able to watch the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy because I have a Thursday night class.
4. Taking two night classes a week, each at 3 hours a pop.
3. Getting to write a 40+ page thesis
2. Once more spending months on end without being able to see my guy half as often as I'd like.
1. More student loans.

Yes, there's lots of fun involved. It's a riot. Yet, to have any chance of getting decent job as a professor at a college/university, a masters is essential. Also, I have to admit that I like being a student. Yeah, I'm a freak. Kathy, the professor I'm working for on campus, told me straight out to go for my PhD, but I don't think that'll be immediate. Another few years, another few thousand in loans, yay!

Book Review: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman. Not a discworld book, but still having all the great fun of Pratchett's style, which Gaiman's meshes well with. Two clever chaps and a very funny book. It's about the end of the world, the anti-christ, and the war between good an evil. Of course it's hilarious.

Quickie

"I am immortal, I have inside me blood of kings - yeah - yeah
I have no rival, no man can be my equal
Take me to the future of you all."
-Queen, "Princes of the Universe"

The past few days I've been checking out the graphic novel collections of the two biggest local libraries. My, their collections leave much to be desired. About the only thing they have worthwhile is Frank Miller's Sin City. *Sigh*

My brother is going to be home this weekend from the Air Force Academy and since my mom's worried about him-he's gone from being mundo extroverted to fairly withdrawn and that freaks her out-I told her I'd make an effort to hang out with him. Now that he's over that whole annoying me for entertainment phase, I rather like him, so it's not any big sacrifice I'm making or anything. Since I'm Netflixing Highlander right now, the plan is to have a mini-marathon Sunday. It's hard though, since I have a Highlander disc sitting on my desk at home right this minute, to resist the temptation to put it in my TV right now. Will power, discipline, etc... Sunday had better hurry up and get here already.

In other news, I plunked my butt down in front of my computer last night and typed out just under 3,000 words for my next submission of Oracle. Now I'm at a pausing point because while I know exactly how I'm going to end this chunk (I already have the scene mapped out in my head and everything) I'm stuck on what to do between that and what I've already got. It occurs to me, as I write this, that it might be a good idea to put up a post that's along synopsis lines, so the whole two people who look at this blog every now and again will have some idea of what the hell I'm talking about. *Note to self: duh*

Colm Meaney Day

Jerry Lynch: "You just don't have the requisite Celtic soul, man."
-Intermission

Colm Meaney is an interesting fellow. He played Miles O'Brien for years and on two different Star Trek series. He's also done a score of films, and I wonder how he finds the time for it all. Since I've recently Netflixed a couple of his movies, I thought I'd dedicate this post to him. (Sorry about the lack of images-stupid library computer)

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation. Good fun, often more than just a little dorky, and vastly, vastly better than the original.

Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. My favorite series of the franchise. Interestingly enough, like TNG, it also featured a bald commanding officer. Coincidence? I think not. Here's where Miles O'Brien came into his own though. He got a family and a bigger role, and dozens of his own adventures.

Movie: Intermission. An overall nut-job of a movie, though in a good way, like Snatch where you get a dozen separate characters that all end up falling together in fun ways. Meaney makes an appearance as Jerry Lynch, a nutter of a cop who's out to prove he's "all that," and failing. He does and excellent job with his role, and there's a turn at the end which is rather well done.

Movie: The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. Long title for a movie, but it has some fun moments-like those with Meaney. He plays Morgan the town pub owner and local womanizer who's always scheming about making a bit of extra money. Not a bad movie, but I'd never watch it twice. If only they cut out more of the Hugh Grant and added more of the Colm Meaney...

Movie: Bitter Harvest. Adapted from a short story, the flick is set in 1920's Ireland. Meaney plays Harry, a bitter man who's hell bent on ruining the life of his "enemy" the local pub owner. The problem, of course, is he becomes consumed by this vendetta that he himself started, because "a man is known by his enemies" and the pub owner is the best he can have. The movie won a few awards, but I ended up struggling with the directing. The acting was good, the setting was great, the story wasn't bad, but the director didn't take advantage of them. His shots, angles, etc. really could have been done better, but I guess other people liked it just fine-one of the awards was Best Feature Film from the Newport Beach Film Festival. Okay, not quite an Oscar, but those folks were more impressed than I.

After all this, I can't help but wonder where Meaney will pop up next.

Immortals, Newfies, and Slackers

Ramirez: You cannot die, MacLeod. Accept it.
Connor: I hate you!
Ramirez: Good. That is a perfect way to start.
-Highlander

School doesn't start for another two weeks, and my campus job doesn't resume for one. I don't start babysitting again until after Laborday. All together, this means all I'm doing right now is working at the bar three days a week. So, that accounts for about twenty some hours a week which are already spoken for. Sheesh, compare that to my schedule for my last semester of my undergrad studies:

Monday, School 10:00-8:30
Tuesday, School 9:00-2:30, Bar 4:00-9:00 (or later)
Wednesday, School 10:00-3:00, Bar 4:00-9:00
Thursday, School 9:00-2:30, Bar 4:00-10:00 (usually)
Friday, School 10:00-3:00, Bar 4:00-9:00
Saturday, Bar 4:00-9:00

Counted in with the school hours are the ten hours a week I worked as a tutor in the Writing Room on campus. What all the above means is that I was working full time while also carrying eighteen credit hours. So, the fifty + hour "work" week was my norm. Now, to more than halve that... I don't quite know what to do with myself and I'm feeling a bit of slacker guilt. Fortunately, I only have a week before I start back up with having stuff to do all the time. Free time is all about that happy medium, it's good to have some, but once you hit a certain point, it starts to grate a bit.

Well, here's my entertainment updates: I've taken Hercules: The Legendary Journeys off my Netflix queue. The plots quickly got to the point of boring predictability and they had one too many villains laughing maniacally. Yeah, it's a peeve. I mean, come on, the good villains are the ones who, creepy as they are, you can actually understand where they're coming from. Take the Operative from Serenity who's all the more flesh-crawly because he's so sincere about how he's making the world a better place. I'm going to try Xena, because though it's the same ilk, I remember liking it more than Hercules. So, we'll see how that goes. It'll be a while, though, I'm going to do Futurama first. That, and Highlander-which has become my new TV series addiction. I mean, come on, Duncan MacLeod is totally badass and Tessa's no wimp, and Richie is wonderful because he's bad. It's the Jayne appeal, though Richie is far less hardcore. What is about "bad" characters that makes them so instantly likeable?

Movie Review: Highlander. I adore the show, so it made sense to check out the movie that started it all. The dialogue is good, the characters are too, and it scores extra points for having Sean Connery. Connor's nemesis, the Kurgan, is so over-the-top as to be almost too tacky for words, but the general groundedness of the rest is enough to keep the Kurgan menacing and not just comical. To compare the movie to the series, I was vastly entertained at how much they blatantly changed from one to the other. Namely, the movie ends the whole "There can be only one" idea, because there is only one at the end. So, what's the point about having a show about Duncan if he doesn't win the Prize? But, that's why they changed it, eh? The other one that sticks out is the movie implies more invincibility-stab an immortal in the heart and they just keep on going-whereas in the series if you stab an immortal in the heart, they would "die" for a while before they revived. I like the series approach better. Right, to sum it all up-the movie is fun, and the series is too, but they are different animals. Which makes the series pilot totally ludicrous (since "Connor" makes an appearance as Duncan's clansman), but hey, you can't win 'em all.

Movie Review: The Shipping News. Alan Doyle (of the band Great Big Sea) says the book didn't quite capture Newfoundland, but the movie nailed it. Given such an endorsement, how could I not watch? Especially given that both Julianne Moore and Judi Dench star, with Cate Blanchett as a minor (yet essential) role. As an added bonus, Rhys Ifans makes an appearance as one of the Gammy Bird reporters. He would be the same guy who played Danny in Danny Deckchair, though how he wound up in this flick is completely beyond me (not that I'm complaining, mind you). The movie itself was great, one of the few I'd go out of my way to watch twice, in fact. Kevin Spacey is the main character, a screwed up guy who moves to Newfoundland after his wife (Blanchett) abandons him. He does a good job of going through the character's journey. Trivia note: the actress who plays Spacey's daughter was actually three actresses-a set of triplets. My favorite aspect of the movie has to be how the Quoyle's history unfolds and how big a role the setting itself plays into the story.

Book Review: Duchess of Nothing, by Heather McGowan. It has great reviews, and very pretty prose, but I abandoned it anyway. I'm in the mood for story right now, not pretty prose. From skimming a bit here and there, I know all the essentials of the story, so why read the rest? It doesn't help, either, that there are pages of text without a single paragraph break, that McGowan refuses to use quotations to mark dialogue, or that she thinks nothing of starting sentences with "and" or "but." Minor things on their own, but pile them up and I want to take her aside and say, "Look, why are you making your prose intentionally hard to read? Clean up the prose or else you're going to irritate people, which means they won't read this." It's a style thing, I know, I just get frustrated when the style becomes more important than the story. I'm of a Hemingway frame of mind-keep it simple, tell us what we need to know as efficiently as possible so we can start paying attention to what the story's about vs. how it's written. So, I'm not saying it's a bad book, there's a great chance that you could absolutely love it. I just didn't.

Chic. Lit, Death, and Immortality

Duncan MacLeod: "I am Duncan MacLeod . . .of the clan MacLeod . . . and you are dead."
Richie: "Uh . . . dead? Whoa, heheh. Geez, I ripped off a couple of cups and a bowl. I'm sorry, all right? Here, take them. They're all in the bag. I'll pay for the window. It's over. Okay?"
Duncan MacLeod: "It's over when I cut off your head."
Richie: "Cut off my head?!? You don't think that's a little extreme for petty theft? Hey dude, chill. Your insurance will cover it."
-Highlander, Pilot Episode

Book Review: The Queen of Babble, by Meg Cabot. I admit it, I watched The Princess Diaries when the movie was on TV. I was even entertained enough not to switch to another channel. This book, by the same author, also proved worthwhile enough to read to the end-though it was pretty touch-and-go in spots. If you're looking for a book that's a quick read and won't fill you up before dinner, this one isn't bad. Though the ALL CAPS scattered all over the first chapter and the overt predictability of the plot were a bit irritating, the main character was interesting enough to redeem it.

Movie Review: The Descent. My guy wanted to see it, so against my better judgment I agreed to go with him. There's hardly any part of this movie that's at all feasible, believable, etc. Of course the gruesome girlie violence is fun in bits, but that's way too small a thing to make this movie worth the price of a ticket. Don't waste your time.

TV Review: Highlander. I remember watching the show with my dad when I was a kid. Re-watching it is just as fun. I've only seen the first three episodes, but I'm already eagerly awaiting the next disc from Netflix. Okay, I'll admit it leans toward the cheesey-especially the pilot episode-but it redeems itself with mundo nifty sword fights and fun flashbacks to the past. Oh, and with Richie. Of course, having scenes where Adrian Paul is shirtless does no harm. The costuming of the show catches my attention more than on most shows. This is due, in part, because it's set in the early nineties which was close enough to the eighties for fashion to be more than a little hilarious at times. It's also fun, though, to see the costuming choices they make to define characters. Fun stuff.

Two Weeks' Notice

Mal: "How come you didn't turn on me, Jayne?"
Jayne: "Money wasn't good enough."
Mal: "What happens when it is?"
Jayne: [smiles] "Well that'll be an interesting day."
-Firefly, "Serenity Pt. 2"

When I started working at the bar, I worked in the kitchen. Then, due to a combination of me taking night classes and basic personality difference (even though she didn't mention the second, I think it had something to do with it-it definitely had to do with me agreeing to leave) with the new kitchen manager, the owner Mary, decided to put someone else in the kitchen.

So, the new gal comes in and I go from kitchen and waitressing to only waitressing. The new gal, well, I started out liking her well enough. Then she wanted me to make my own order once or twice (sorry, but I get paid shit to wait tables, I am not working in the kitchen on waitress pay), then she got bitchy with me a few times, "I told you we're out of that," (she didn't) etc, and most of the time I see her when she's working, her cell phone is glued to her ear-which really doesn't help with getting orders out in a timely fashion. Oh, yeah. Another peeve is that I would go back into the kitchen, say something like "Can you put that order on two plates?" and get no response from her. It's a minor thing, but it gets me miffed when someone can't even be bothered to acknowledge that I'm speaking to them.

Right. So, then we have yesterday. I was there for about an hour and a half and went back into the kitchen to wash a coffee pot when the gal is crying and asks me if I can cover the kitchen. She was having a crisis-apparently her cousin's mom is in a bad way and she thought her cousin would kill himself if she didn't go to him right then and there, and her mom kicked her out of the house, and... Breakdown, in any case. Mary told her to ask me if I'd do it, and so I said I would. Slow night and the bartender said he could cover the floor, no problem.

I ended up spending about an hour and a half in the kitchen and getting thanked by Mary and Rob. Mary also said she'd given the gal a deadline, "Get your shit together in two weeks, or get another job." She said it nicer, but that's the gist. Apparently, this isn't the first crisis. Rob also told me that he was more than ready to get rid of her. It's not that I'm without sympathy, I do have a little. It's more that I find it hard to feel bad for someone who doesn't do her job all that well (I've heard complaints about her even from the kitchen manager) and who's been bitchy to me on a number of occasions.

Mary told me to keep an eye out for someone looking for a job. I wonder what the next person will be like. So far, there have been two others who were hired to help out-one left a sticky note on Saturday for the K.M. to find on Monday saying she wouldn't be coming back. The other called one morning to say she wouldn't be in that day, nor the next, nor the next... Whatever happened to two weeks' notice? Professional courtesy? I mean, come on. I loathed the dry cleaners where I worked pre-bar, and the owners, but I still gave them two weeks and stayed civil. Alright, that's the end of my work bitch, I promise.

Movie Review: V for Vendetta. In honor of the DVD release Tuesday, my guy took me to his friend's house to watch it again. I have to say, while I thought it alright the first time around, I liked it better the second time. Certain things made more sense the second time, and I knowing the gist of what was going on let me pay more attention to the dialogue-hearing V talk is, alone, worth seeing the flick. Also, now knowing that the comic book was written by the same guy who did From Hell, made me pay better attention. Hrm, I think I have to add From Hell to my Netflix queue.

Vehicular Fun

"We're stuck in Michigan. The truck broke down. There was gas in the tank."
-Paraphrase of a phone message from my mom yesterday morning. Since there was no mention of who put gas in the diesel truck, I have a suspicion the perpetrator was in fact my mom.



I finally got my car registration taken care of. Gah. What a headache. But now it's done and all I need is a screwdriver to finish the job. Then, voila! My car will officially have plates.

I'm being productive today. Not only did I take care of my car: this morning, I finished my first critique of this month's batch. I also did the major grocery shopping thing this morning $125 all total. I shouldn't have to buy food again for a good long time. Still, feels kind of obscene for a single gal to have a cart that full of groceries. Oh well.