Hello All!

Anyway, I have been a VERY long-time lurker, but while procrastinating today I stumbled upon some devaintart-work that reminded me so much of Eugenides and Sophos, especially since they seem to be on friendly terms/working together in Conspiracy of Kings. However, since lately I seem to sporadically squee at anything that remotely reminds me of MWT books, it could just be me.

Notice, this is NOT my artwork, but that of "tracyjb" on Deviantart, and these are HER characters, not MWT fanart. Just wanted to disclaim!!

Eugenides on the left, Sophos on the right? And they WOULD get caught in a field of sheep... 
Also, Tracyjb's other stuff is brilliant too, this one was just too perfect!
 

Here has visited one more thrown school. Certainly some can not like a state, in comparison with last is worse... But also in this there is a snap. Any autumn spirit when you look out of a beaten window and you see orange-red trees and when so the sun beautifully sits down... Much all school, any figures, posters, a heap of school desks, chairs, sports hall and many other things in this report.

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

I love this place and I visited this again) Now still a horse and carriage court yard. Plus sorts of a palace, lakes and one more building nearby to manor.

Hi all!

Here some pics from a glass factory near Cuneo.
It closed down in the early 80's..Huge place in the heart of town.
People there say it might be demolished pretty soon....

 



And some more: s947.photobucket.com/albums/ad311/Carignian/Abandoned%20Factory/

Kaliningrad (Königsberg), fort 2 (Bronsart bei Mandein)
 

( +10 )

544! That's how many entries Harlequin/Mills&Boon received for the writing competition. *sigh* I *know* they're not going to give away that many fainting couches.

I do feel sorry for all the editors who have to slog through that many first chapters. I've decided to remain optimistic (why not?) and I'm working on the revisions to that story. I hope to write some H/G once I have that done.

In other news, the six inches of snow has melted, but the leaves are still there!

I slept until eleven this morning, so the fact that it is now 12:15 the next morning DOES NOT FAZE ME. NOTICEABLY. I AM NOT FAZED. And neither is James, who I'll get round to in a bit.

First off, I only just realized, that I've made my knitting kind of synonomous to the mo and the novel. So I've got to write the novel AND grow the mo AND finish knitting my blankie.

Yes, I knit, yes, it's a blankie. I'll post a picture of me wrapped up in it all cosy and comfortable when I finish. AND YOU'LL ALL BE VERY VERY JEALOUS.

And here's James. I'm still behind, but not as far as before, as I now have 15,244 words, according to the NaNoWriMo word count validator thingamajig.

( Bridge Kanulu VIII )

Today's had a really odd feel about it. It's after the end, but before the new beginning. It's an odd headspace to be in.

The last two days have been focused solely on the end of the school year for 2009. Monday started with a party in my final 8AM French class, with coffee and croissants all round. Later on was the final LINK party of the year at Mr. D's house, which involved a lot of cake, tiny doughnuts and pavlova, occasionally interrupted by someone with a camera.

That night was the traditional 7th Form Leavers' Dinner, which went off brillantly. Everyone was given a disc of photos from this year, with a personalised cover that just had photos of them on it. All of the photos were projected onto a massive screen behind the dance floor. It was awesome!!! Congrats to whoever thought of that!!!

I ended up sitting with the other Senior Leaders, which was a bit gutting because I'm sure my mates had a great time over at their table on the opposite side of the room. However, this was one of my last Senior Leader things, so it was all good. After dinner (chicken and veges followed by mud cake for dessert.... delicious), all the usual suspects made speeches about how great our Year was and how much we had achieved. Then, everyone had to stand up and say what we were doing next year, which was very... eclectic. Lastly, we got up to dance (ironically at one point to Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall'), before the leavers' jackets were dished out. Excellent night.

Tuesday consisted mostly of the 7th Form awards (which reminds me, check this out for the whole show:  www.youtube.com/TheMarkySharky#p/u/13/J2doAnt00L4 ), followed by far too long in prizegiving practice. By the time we were let out of the hall, half the 7th Form were nursing intense hangovers from the previous night and the 'champagne breakfast' most of them went to, and most of the other half had given up completely on school in any way, shape or form. It was over for now, until Prizegiving that night.

Prizegiving itself was pretty straight-forward, if excruciatingly long. I did pretty well out of it as far as prizes go though, if I do say so myself. Again, it was a good night, although I keep expecting to be attacked by Terminator-style kangaroos after that guest speaker's speech. Congrats to my friends who got prizes!!!

Anyway, if yesterday was a massive ending, I guess tomorrow is a massive beginning. I don't feel eighteen in the slightest yet. I feel like I've barely finished being a terrified third former. It's crazy. But here I am!

It was me, this time, replying to a friend who was complaining about having to act grown-up.

"Adultery is highly overrated."

It took me a few minutes of staring at that sentence to figure out what was wrong. I blame the effects of pregnancy on my brain ;)

Right now, the Backlash Girls are discovering the delights of the Danger Wood training ground at their new school which include:
a fort, trip-wires, and menacing ponds.

I'm particularly proud of that trip-wire image--despite the fact that it was sheer luck I came across it. Man, I love autumn colors...


The Facts Are...
I have no neuroses to report today, nor any particular triumphs. I was up to almost
14,000 words
new since NaNo started, though. (As of yesterday.) That makes the novel a little over
30,000.
I think it's a little fat, but this is a voice-driven YA superhero story. Whatcha gonna do? She's just *talking*...


The Big Question:
To bring to writer's group or not to bring?

I have been informed that my lack of updating is worrisome. I'm not sure exactly why but apparently it is.

Now it is study week and today is one of the only full days of study I have before my math exam on monday (holy shit!) so here is a quick update of my life before ra-ra arrives (hehehehe)

I have passed my journalism!!!!!! she sent an e-mail this morning to tell me and dear god am i happy! further explaination of my happiness after exams should i remember and if i forget then remind me coz i really wana put it out but dont have the time atm.

i will not be passing my economiics internal because i have no time and internals finish on the 20th. i have to study.

the ceremony last night was boring and oh so not worth it. although i do state for the record that missscara should have engraved on her head student pen 'i got this pen because im awesome'...not like shes lying or anything...

also because i wont be updating tomorrow...HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISSSCARA!!!! 18!!!!! holy christ. she will be treated to coffee and cake of her choice where ever she decides it is she wants to go tomorrow. and i still need to print off those pix but im afraid ill break the printer again...eep!

holidays rule! i know im on study leave and not actual holidays but this is great already! apart from the study which i havent really got to yet coz i only woke up an hour ago but do u see?

must leave you with thoughts of my impendingly happy doom now.

That would make seance. Thank you for clarifying.

The girl who wrote this makes these sorts of mistakes constantly (she's very sweet though so I don't mind). I think it could only make me giggle more if she'd said "thank you for clairvoyifying", hahahaha!

Unlike The mill on the Foss, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The remains of the day certainly didn't feel over-long. I loved this book. Though I’m sure I have seen at least some of the movie in the past (it’s entirely possible I'm remembering another similarly cast drama), I had no idea of the plot or that it centred so tightly around one character. Stevens is a butler, and as he travels through 1950s England he reflects upon his career in one of the great English houses between the wars. Though Stevens presents his life as a series of lessons on how to be a great butler, the scenes he uses as examples, and the reactions of other people to him, illuminate what a constrained existence he has led in his pursuit of his goal. Given that so much of the novel is a monologue, it was surprisingly captivating. Part of this is probably due to the interesting social setting, with Stevens’ master playing a key role in negotiating between European nations before the Second World War, but I think much of it was due to the sympathy I felt for Stevens as the story progressed. I'm glad I picked it up at the library.

015 James Cameron's AVATAR
017 U2 - No Line On the Horizon promos
021 Cormac McCarthy's The Road
020 Misc/icontest entries (The Book of Eli, House MD, Avatar: The Last Airbender)



all here

I'm currently catching up on an odd little podcast called Fast Karate for the Gentleman. It's not bad, though you can tell in the early episodes that they're still sort of deciding what they're about.

But the true gems of this show, for me, are Dave's multiple malapropisms. My two favourite examples so far in the first five or six episodes:

'Joel, you know nothing about the basic tenements of video game advertising.'

and

'... which has existed since time immemorable.'

He manages at least one of these an episode. Had it only happened once or twice, it would be annoying. But the fact that this is a common occurrence is a constant provider of podcast hilarity.

It was a cold evening. Child and I climbed into my car. He automatically slid the air vent on his side of the car closed. I turned the key in the ignition and set the heating controls to hot, windscreen, full blast and air conditioning.

Teen: Why do I always have to shut my vent thingy?
Me: To help the heater demist-ify the windscreen quicker.

There then followed a moment's silence as Teen tried to figure out why I would want to demystify the windscreen, and totally failed.

Hello Sounis-friends!

It's an index of just how scatter-brained I've been for the last few months that I only just remembered this. I don't know how many of you are a) in the New York City area and b) doing nothing tonight at 6:00, but there's a fabulous-looking author's panel at Books of Wonder this evening.

MWT will not be speaking, alas, but given the buzz I've seen at this comm about The Hunger Games and Graceling (which just jumped to the top of my TBR list...) and maybe even Great and Terrible Beauty, I think some people here might jump at the chance to see Suzanne Collins, Kirsten Cashore, and Libba Bray. Especially when they're joined by Michael Grant, Scott Westerfield, and Justine Larbalestier.

It is going to be a night of awesome, my friends. I don't know if anybody else can make it - especially on such this short notice! - but I felt like you would appreciate knowing that it was happening.

alison lohman, lady gaga, lolita, merlin/cast, ncis (mostly cast)




set sail from sense, bring all her young