Three Ring GeekCircus!

Ryan came to Arizona this weekend to spend a few days with the folks he’s talked to for about five years, but had never met before. This was, quite frankly, awesome. We met him in Dark Age of Camelot, and we’ve been friends ever since. It was terrific to actually see the person I’ve yammered at for all this time.

The highlight of the weekend was supposed to be going to see The Dark Knight. And that sure was a highlight. It’s an amazing movie. After the debacle that Joel Schumacher created, Christopher Nolan has totally redeemed the franchise. And Heath Ledger put in a performace as The Joker that makes his death all the more tragic.

But instead, Rock Band stole the show.

I hadn’t had a chance to play it. Ryan and I picked it up on Thursday and Bear set it up, but we didn’t get to it until Friday morning. I happened to be sitting in the bean bag with the guitar at the time, and we had agreed, by popular opinion, that Bear would take the drums because he’s as close to Animal as we can get. Which meant our poor guest got the microphone.

This turned out to be a good thing, but more on that later.

We played until we had to leave for the movie. The kids watched in a kind of stunned awe, then became groupies. We had cheers and encouragement from the peanut gallery. And we did rock, make no mistake. Bear pounded on the drums like a pro, I jammed out on the guitar, and Ryan belted out melodies with a sound better than most modern groups.

That night, though, Ryan’s voice got tired. And since letting Bear hold a microphone’s a variety of tragedy, they handed it to me. Which may have been more or less tragic. We’re not sure.

I can sing. I’m very musical. I have a great sense of pitch and rhythm. I play a ton of instruments, even if I’m out of practice. But our TV has really bad sound, I’d never heard most of the songs on the list, and the sound of Bear’s drumming drowned out quite a lot of the tune. And that makes for a bad, bad combination.

I do not say these things to make excuses. I’m just setting you up to understand exactly what happened.

“Mississippi Queen” happened.

The lyrics are fast. They are semi-screamed. If you haven’t played Rock Band before, a kind of tune graph scrolls across the top to let you see how long notes go on, and what pitch they ought to be, while the lyrics scroll underneath the graph. When you don’t know the words, and the lyrics don’t make a lot of sense, this results in a lot of mush coming out of your face, as well as many stumbles, and you making up words while you miss the rest of them. Generally, while you belt something out off-key. Especially if you’re half deaf already. Like I am.

Generously, they didn’t take the microphone away at this point. They gave me a lot of crap, though. I did better on Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive”, which I’ve been singing since the 80s. I didn’t do great on Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So”, but I managed. The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” wasn’t tremendous.

And then. Oh, and then. “Train Kept A-Rollin’” by Aerosmith. Which was bad. It wouldn’t have helped me much to hear it beforehand.

They still didn’t take the microphone away. I think they wanted to keep watching the train wreck. But at this point, what happened next was their own damn faults.

On the random list, up popped “Sabotage“. This is by the Beastie Boys. This is scream rap. And it makes no damn sense. I do not know anyone outside the Beasties themselves who can sing this right. Certainly not me, with all my classical piano training and sense of melody and harmony. We barely made it through the song, because I had resulted to making up lyrics when I lost the thread of the real ones, Bear was doubled over his drum set laughing, and Ryan could barely strum.

It took ten minutes for us to stop laughing. Bear had rolled onto the floor and had tears rolling down his cheeks. None of us could breathe. It was fail. It was tragedy. And it was so freaking funny that they let me keep singing.

Until Faith No More’s “Epic” came up. And then they put me out of my misery. Or maybe that’s out of their misery.

I got a little of my own back on Saturday, when we made Ryan sing a falsetto set of “Still Alive“, the Portal Song, “Roxanne” by The Police, and “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. Still, I easily took the award for “Most Painful Rock Band Performance” for the weekend.

We went out on several highs. “Creep” by Radiohead. A rendition of “Say It Ain’t So” wherein we all sang the chorus, and sounded like a pack of upset basset hounds. And then we gave Bear the microphone for a round of “Sabotage”, which may or may not have vindicated me. And the band’s slogan, “WTF DOES THIS MEAN?” held its deep resonance with us all.

Now that Ryan’s gone back home, we’re sad. We miss him. And Muffy the Guitarist, and Spaz the Drummer, miss Ed the Lead Singer. It’s just not going to be the same without him around.

However…Rock Band 2 comes out in September. And it features an Online World Tour mode.

I think the band’s getting back together.

Well, I didn’t need a couple days, apparently.

I actually finished the thing on Monday. It came in at about 62k words, and that was because I throttled it some. If I hadn’t, it might have run over to about 75k, which I wouldn’t have minded, but I’m aware of my current market on this one. I’d actually hoped for about 40k, but the story had too much in it.

I could have cut some out, I guess, but I think it would have suffered. So I’ll happily take my 62k.

I have since Photoshopped a picture to represent the series on my website, which I may work into a banner when my eyes uncross. Photoshop work eventually melts my brain, but it’s fun! I’m trying to take a little break from writing, just a few days to recharge, but it makes me a little crazy. This one didn’t leave me tired. It left me charged up to do more. Even better.

I’ve found a way to pass the time, though. Stupid Sims.

Yeah, yeah. Radio silence again. It’s for a good reason, I promise.

I am within a couple days of finishing this book, so I haven’t taken the time to write anything that wasn’t the book. Including this blog. This book’s kind of a big deal to me because it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written. I’m such a short writer usually, but with the first in this series, I hit about 40k words and was like, “Wow.”

With this one, I’ll be lucky to come in under 65k. It would probably be closer to 70k-75k if I let it, but I’m shooting for a specific niche. I’ve never done anything “book length” before, and this is exciting for a few reasons, the most important of which is that now, I know I can do it. I always worried that I wouldn’t be able to break out of the 30k barrier, and now, I have.

I’ll come up for air again when I’ve got “The End” written. I can talk about my latest foray into Sims 2. Oh boy.

Anyone I know going to ComicCon?

I can’t make it. Which is bad, because I really really really really really OMG really want the Penny Arcade exclusive poster for ComicCon. So…hey, folks, anyone going? I want that poster to frame and put up in my living room.

Let me know if you’re going. I’ll send money. Cookies. My firstborn. Whatever you want.

There are few people in the world to whom I wish terminal crotch rot.

There are the people at Comcast, who, apart from a rare few intelligent souls, are complete incompetents, and who are, by and large, out to give you the worst service they can get away with for the most money they can charge. I wish I had another option where I live, because I’d take it, but Comcast is the only game on this side of town.

And then there are the people who killed my favorite MMO of all time. Star Wars Galaxies was as close to gaming perfection as I can imagine getting. This was my game. This was a piece of computer heaven to me.

I take this solemn moment to wish this man a healthy dose.

So my husband and I are standing in the kitchen discussing his work schedule tonight.

And he mentions that he’s told his bosses that he wants a day off in July. I say, What day? Because our 15th wedding anniversary is on the 17th of July.

He says to me, “The 18th! The Dark Knight is out that day!”

Batman…anniversary. Batman…anniversary.

He chose wisely.

We don’t cook out as often as we did when we had a gas grill on the back porch. There’s varied opinions on this. By and large, I’m much more fond of charcoal grilling. There’s not much difference between cooking on the stove and cooking on a gas grill, in my mind. Sure, you do get some charred taste, but it’s just not the same as when you’ve got little burning chunks to cook over.

Or, as my husband put it, “So for you, grilling is a prolonged fire experience and not cooking meat.”

It’s that guy thing. Cooked over any fire is superior to cooked on a stove. And yeah, there is a difference, I admit. But I like charcoal grilling a whole lot better. (Let’s face it: he’s right. Grilling is an event, not meal preparation, at least to me.)

Tonight, we availed ourselves of one of the complex’s grills to have a prolonged fire experience. That was after we realized that we had nothing to start a fire with. I had to go get matches. Once we had that handled, though, we went out, lit the coals (yay for charcoal that starts just by you lighting the bag on fire) and got the whole shebang underway.

And we had a hell of a spread. Hot dogs, hamburgers, bison burgers, grilled salmon, and corn. Add a can of Bush’s Maple Baked Beans, and you’ve got yourself a mighty fine supper. It tasted awesome. The fish was just gorgeous (I’d marinated it for a couple hours in cheap Italian dressing), the bison burgers were really good, the hamburgers were juicy and the hot dogs were very hot-doggy.

Highlights included shifting winds, Bear dancing to avoid the flames, and chasing the kids around with a charred fish skin. None of this should surprise any of you.

Dear Salespeople,

Everyone has to make a living. I understand that. I’m not certain why you’ve chosen the profession you have. Perhaps you figured that most people are idiots (and you’d be right about that), and you can take advantage of that to make said living. Maybe you didn’t entirely realize what you were getting into, and now you’re stuck. And I want to help you, I do. Helping you will also help me, so we both win.

Yes, furniture store saleswoman, I’m talking to you. And to the other salespeople who have “helped” me at your store, at the bed store, and at other stores in the past. Listen up.

Have you seen “Jaws”? You may think that you don’t bear any resemblance to the main antagonist in that movie, but let me disabuse of you of that notion. You’re identical freaking twins. Really. You smell the blood trail when I walk in the door, and you start to follow it with a tenacity that you don’t usually see outside of religious zealots. When you say, “Hello,” what you really mean is, “How much do you have to spend, and how far can I make you go over that?”

You know this. I know this.

But I want to share something with you. The harder you push me, the less likely I am to give you a sale. Your hard sell repulses me, kind of like two magnets with the same polarity. I see you coming, and I run the other way. You start to make oily comments to try to sell me your snake oil, and every word makes me want to buy something less.

I needed a desk. That’s all. I know exactly what I want, and I’ll go back and see if you have it on my own power. No smooth talk is going to change what I want, no playing up strengths is going to convince me to buy something that doesn’t suit my needs. I live at my desk. I play at my desk. My desk is the most important piece of furniture in my house. It goes hand in hand with my desk chair, and I have a fine one of those, thanks.

No need to try to sell me one. I guarantee you, what you have isn’t better than what I have.

When you said, “I’ll be nearby if you need anything”, I didn’t realize that meant “I’m going to stalk you through the store and hover around you like a vulture waiting for an animal to die”. I didn’t. But that’s exactly what you did. Every time I turned around, you were hovering right there, just at the edge of the room. It was like having a stalker, only without the thrill of it.

I should probably tell you that I found a couple of possibilities there. Your store delivers. I had my two kids with me, who were completely bored of the whole affair after only half an hour on the hunt. Those desks weren’t exactly what I wanted, but they would have worked out. I might well have bought one.

Except that there you were.

Salespeople make me hostile. You work for a commission. You want me to spend as much as possible on as little as possible. You latch onto me when I walk in the door, and you hound me, and you push me, and you try to convince me to buy something I don’t necessarily want. You’ve got all the reasons why I should. And it makes me want to pick up the nearest overpriced lamp and do you violence.

Stop pushing me! Stop acting like a shark, or a vulture! I guarantee you that if you do that, I will ignore the fact that I am “your sale”. I will find another salesman in the store, who is hounding someone else but has not bothered me, and I will give him the sale, just out of spite. I’ll come back in an hour if I have to. I will go to great lengths to put a kink in your day, because you have made the pleasant act of shopping into a game of predator and prey.

The money’s in my wallet. I’m the predator, and I bloody well know it.

Oh yeah. And about that desk? I drove up the road to OfficeMax. They didn’t have exactly what I wanted, either, but they had something close. It’s a little too tall, a little devoid of storage, and it didn’t have a keyboard drawer. It’s got a glass top, which makes me edgy. I had to buy a monitor stand for it, which doesn’t quite fit with my massive keyboard.

But I really liked the look of it. It has space for writing, space for sprawling, and it’s pretty. It’s sharp and functional. And every employee in the store left me alone while I shopped for it. So we picked it up, and one of the reasons for it was, “Then we won’t have to go back to the furniture store and deal with the freaking sharks.”

Better luck on your next sale. Hope your customer likes stalkers. Try perching in the rafters with binoculars next time.

Well, it’s been busy here. In the last monthish, we have unpacked (mostly, kind of), done a shit-ton of laundry (about which there will be a funny story coming soon), the kids have finished school and set about driving me nuts, made life altering decisions (like, I think I’m going to go back to Tanganyikan cichlids and abandon salt water), worked hard, played hard, and generally been active folks.

Personally, I have read about four books, contracted another story, edited said story as well as the vampire story I contracted early this year, fixed up my author blog, done a bunch of blogging, and plotted the sequel to that newly-contracted tale. It’s that plotting thing that got to me, though.

When I submitted my story, I had this vague idea of where the series was going. The publisher didn’t require that I actually knew, because they contract one story at a time. I decided that I ought to work on that sequel sooner rather than later and get it in the submission pile. Of course, I’ve never written a sequel before, and it’s been a fun, if challenging, experience.

Like the first one, it took me a couple weeks to hammer out. The original idea got hijacked by a new one, I had plot threads sticking out everywhere that had to get woven in, the works. It’s hard work getting a plot in shape, and for the longer, more complex ones, I actually write a whole synopsis out and outline and everything, as well as enter world information into my wiki. (A wiki, by the way, is a writer’s best friend, I swear it is.)

I got the final plot point beaten into shape yesterday. The synopsis was done. Points of view were worked out. It was as good to go as it would ever get.

The kids left me alone long enough today to get 2100 words in. And boy, did those words ever feel good. Like orgasm, only better. For a couple weeks now, I’ve been itchy and fidgety, and I didn’t know why. Now I do.

I had words in me.

Every now and again, someone asks me why I write. Why do I write? Because if I don’t, I will go insane. My family will go insane. I go a couple weeks without doing more than blogging, and I get unhappy. I just want to hug my word processor and thank it for existing, the entire shebang.

Bear thinks I’m loony. That’s nothing new. He doesn’t have words in him.

The move did not go smoothly, but it did go. I wouldn’t call all the things that went wrong “speedbumps” so much as “walls that dropped out of the sky to get in our way”. Bizarre stuff literally came out of the woodwork to stall us.  Such as…

1. Comcast. What a bunch of inept morons. I called a couple weeks before the move to arrange for the service transfer. I wanted the service turned on at the new place on April 30th, and turned off at the old place on May 5th. That gave us a couple days worth of overlap to get moved in.

On Friday, April 25th, my internet connection died. The kids came out of their room to say that the cable signal had gone out on their TV, too. I gave it about fifteen minutes to come back up, then called Comcast to find out if they were having an outage.

Well, no. See, that person who assured me that it was on on the 30th and off on the 5th? Yeah. She managed to put off on the 25th. Better still, they hadn’t just turned it off. A tech had come out and completely disconnected it. They didn’t have any techs available until the next day. So we were without cable for a day while they fixed it.

Then the tech was late. He grabbed the wrong work order.

Then they called us to confirm the appointment for the 30th. I’d made it from 10-12 in the morning, but when they’d messed our cable up, they’d had to reschedule everything, including the new connect appointment. They’d rescheduled it for 8-10 in the morning. I’m not even awake at that time. I had to get another appointment that same day, only from 2-4 in the afternoon. From 2-2:30, I have to pick the kids up from school, so I left instructions for them to call me, not at the number on the account (which is Bear’s cell phone) but at my cell phone.

They called Bear’s cell phone. At least they were on time.

But then our cable wouldn’t work at home. No channels were available. Why? Well, they’d left overlapping service, but they’d deprovisioned our digital box. We could get the signal through the TiVo, but we couldn’t get any of our digital channels. We just laughed that one off. By then, they’d given us every promotion they had running, and had waived the install fee, so we gave them that one for free.

2. Bees. Bear had the Friday off, and we spent it hauling things over to the apartment ourselves. We came over with a load at one point and noticed that gee, there were a lot of bees. Stuff got put down, we started to go out and suddenly, oh look, there’s a swarm of angry bees. We can’t go out the door.

We were trapped in the new place for about forty-five minutes before the swarm calmed enough for us to get back out. They were trying to take up residence in the wood beams under the walkway by the stairs. The complex promised to look at it, but they didn’t know when they’d get it handled. We couldn’t move more stuff until after dark, when the bees went to bed, and we lost about half a day. Worse, we weren’t sure we could move in that Saturday, when we had everyone coming to help.

They did get the bees taken care of. Which didn’t help with…

3. What “everyone”? We thought we had more help. A friend of mine had offered to fly out here to help us move, but I told him not to worry about it because we had it covered. A couple of Bear’s friends offered to come if we needed them, and we said we’d call if we did. But we thought we had plenty of hands.

We didn’t. Two of the three people we had engaged to assist didn’t show. The third had time constraints we didn’t know about until the deadline arrived. We should have called those other folks, but we kept thinking that we had it handled.

We’d planned to get everything out that Saturday, then clean on Sunday. At 11:30 at night on Saturday, we were carrying a guinea pig cage across the apartment complex, then going back for the cats (who were stuffed in a laundry basket). We had most of the important stuff moved, but not all of it, and there was still a lot to do. Neither of us could bear to walk on our feet anymore, or lift another box, it was almost midnight, and we hadn’t had supper.

Our one helper came back for a couple hours on Sunday, allowing us to get the rest of the big furniture (including my fishtank) to the new place. Bear had to work on Monday. We tried to get it to the point where I could finish it up myself on Monday, then we could turn in the keys, but it quickly became apparent that there was still too much to do.

Bear managed to get half the day off and came home to help. Our vacuum died on the last cleaning run. We kept finding more stuff. Finally, at 5:30 on Monday, we locked the door for the last time.

It was a long haul. By the end of it, we were just exhausted. Neither of us wanted to walk, or lift, or anything. We hurt. But the new place is really nice. It’s in a quieter neighborhood where the pigeons don’t come, so there are real songbirds here. Hummingbirds, too. We don’t have noisy neighbors, we have our own covered parking spot, and we have so much more room.

There are some kinks to work out. This place hadn’t been rented for six months, so we’re finding a number of plumbing problems that crop up as the pipes get used. Six months gave them a lot of time to corrode. In fact, right this second, there’s a maintenance man in my kitchen fixing the pipe between the dishwasher and the disposal. Seems like every time I ran dishes, the neighbor had water dripping on her head from the ceiling.

(And my desk didn’t survive the move. I’m working on our small octagonal dining room table right now. This is not an optimal workspace.)

But it’s still nice, and if it stays this way, I don’t think we’ll be moving next year. This is a place we can stay in for a few years.

Which is good. Because I’m pretty damn tired of moving.