Reading and Rocking on a Friday Night

For my own reference: links of interest. (Both pertaining to the whole 'Rihanna is back with Chris Brown' thing.)

- What It Doesn't Mean
- Putting Yourself In Someone's Shoes

Now that I've got that out of the way, on to lighter fare. Fact: playing Rock Band has done very funny things to my taste in music. Here is a list of songs that I have downloaded that I never thought in a million years I would like, much less listen to repeatedly.

• System of a Down - Chop Suey (I always thought this song was too hardcore for me. But it's one of the best most fun songs in Rock Band. I got attached after singing it a hundred times or so.)
  
  
• AC/DC - Let There Be Rock (I've always had a massive aversion to classic rock for some reason. This song, however, was too infectious for me to resist. Again, great guitar and fun to sing too. It comes together really well.)
  
  
• Judas Priest - Painkiller (I'm still getting used to the crazy vocals, but the guitar solo = WOW. Just... WOW. I just want to jump around and air guitar when I hear it.)
  
  
• Steely Dan - Bodhisattva (I knew this song only vaguely and it's actually really groovy and jazzy and fun to sing as well. It's the sort of song that makes you wish you could jam.)
  
  
• Modest Mouse - Float On (I have a bunch of Modest Mouse songs but I hate them all, but this one I actually like. It's the music that does it for me. But the singer's voice still annoys me a bit.)

Still trying to get through the book Consumed by Benjamin Barber, but it's hard because it's so dry. Also, I don't really agree with the author's ideology, but I'm trying not to hold that against him. His theories are interesting, in any case.

Eh, might as well throw up a progress bar while I'm here...

42,801 / 200,000 words. 21% done!

Passed 40,000 on Monday. I've been doing well lately; I've exceeded my quota so thoroughly that technically I don't need to write a single word until the 19th of this month. I like having a little bit of leeway like that.

I Had Totally Forgotten

The tesseract is the greatest thing ever.



See? :D

Gossip Is The Lowest Form Of Communication

*facepalm*

Either whoever wrote this poll is trying to trick everyone into answering a certain way, or the people who filled it out really don't have a clue.

Yes, it is important to raise awareness about domestic abuse. However, splashing pictures of a bleeding pop star on every gossip site on the web does not raise awareness about domestic abuse. It's a lurid violation of privacy. Domestic abuse is not something you gawk over, I don't care how famous Rihanna is. You want to raise awareness about domestic abuse, TMZ? It's a little thing I call 'charity fundraiser for a women's shelter'. Seriously.

To end, here's a quote from The Smoking Gun, on TMZ's history of printing photos of abuse victims:

The gossip outlet, which pays for stories and likely shelled out a fortune for the Rihanna image, last April published the name and photograph of a 14-year-old boy whom TMZ identified as the alleged victim of a sex crime. The child, the site reported, was the son of a celebrity, hence its interest in this particular minor's sexual abuse. ... [The story] was illustrated with a photo of the alleged victim that was taken when he was 10. So if TMZ editor Harvey Levin ... pops up on television to talk about his tortured decision to publish the photo of a domestic violence victim, know that he is full of shit.

This whole mess has confirmed what I already knew; TMZ is a pox upon humanity.

Progress And Such

Since the last word count bar I tried failed so badly, here's another:

26716 / 200,000 words. 13% done!

Much better. I have cracked 25,000 which is a great milestone. Here's an excerpt from my latest idea.

As soon as the sun sank beneath the horizon, I was back in action. Hidden underneath layers of straw was a small knife that I could barely grasp in my talons. If I could have used my beak to hold it, I would have. But my bastard owner had decided to bind my mouth shut as punishment for biting him earlier. And so I was left with no choice but to use my wretched claws instead. The knife was horribly dull, barely putting a dent into the bars of my cage. I pushed harder with the knife, metal noisily screeching against metal. Noise was the last thing I wanted; Qadir would bind my feet and clip my wings if he found me trying to escape like this. So I eased up on the pressure, slowly dragging the knife back and forth across the bar, praying to see some kind of chink in my prison. The light slowly faded, giving way to a dark night. Shadows were creeping across the vast treasure room when I realized that the knife was doing absolutely nothing. With a frustrated (but muffled) squawk, I tossed it through the bars of my cage, where it landed on top of a filigreed jewelery box.

I wished for a moment that Giedre was still here, to tell me that it was better to stay calm and unruffled, to tell me that I'd certainly be free one day, she was sure of it. But she was gone now and I was alone without a friend for the first time in five years. It was true that I knew I would one day be free of this place, that I was destined to lead a life of wonder and magnificence, but it was nice to hear it from someone else besides myself every now and then.

"Simmer down, Nisr. I'm trying to sleep."

Go to hell, old man. I fixed my steely gaze on Bilal, wishing I could screech at him through the darkness. Sensing my foul mood, he grumbled about my bad attitude, his grizzled form curling up on a carpet of indigo and gold that was his home. There were others in the vault, imprisoned treasures such as myself, but no one else spoke to me. I was too fiery, too stubborn, too willing to go too far and earn Qadir's wrath. If it was within their control, they didn't speak a word to me; Qadir was the strictest of men and they dared not get in his way.

Me, on the other hand? I wasn't afraid of Qadir. I'd seen worse than him. I had no qualms about testing his patience.

I have no idea where it's going but it's holding my attention for now. The best part? I have two main characters and when I write them I actually have two different voices. Awesome!

I Is Ded From Laff

AWESOME.

I Cracked 20,000!

This is nifty; nice little word count meter to show my progress with GYWO...

22229 / 200,000 words. 11% done!

As usual, I am behind. I need to put in some serious writing over the next two days before things get out of control. :|

New Song Of The Moment!

I've been watching clips from the Grammys on YouTube (all I saw on TV was M.I.A. and her boys doing Swagger Like Us) and was immediately drawn to this performance: Lil Wayne and Robin Thicke doing a song called Tie My Hands.



It's so soulful for a hip hop song, I really liked it. After downloading it and listening to it a couple of times I went hunting for the lyrics and realized that the words are a lot sadder than I originally thought. And I already knew it was a song about New Orleans. Robin Thicke's chorus is especially down:

I work at the corner store, we all got problems, problems
No one's gonna fly down low, no one's gonna save us now
How you feel, you're not alone, we're all just jealous, jealous
We don't reach the sky no more, we just can't overcome, no

You tie my hands, what am I gonna be?
What have I done so bad? What is my destiny?
You tie my hands, what I am I suppose to see?
What have I done so bad? What am I gonna be?

Wah. But still, I love this song. I'm listening to it on repeat, as per my usual modus operandi.

Laughing Is Good For You

I was reading Pandagon this morning and for some reason, something Amanda Marcotte said struck me as hilarious.

"At this point in time, I had the stunning realization that the octuplets mom, who is being lambasted from every corner of the planet, might be on the sane side of over-fertile. She has certainly exposed how the pro-patriarchal arguments about the glories of unemployed, fertile femininity and the embracing of human life were all 100% empty---in the end, it’s all about having a man, and that was the difference between hero and villain. But maybe Nadya Suleman saw “Jon & Kate” and realized that you can have a litter of small children or a happy, peaceful marriage, but you can’t have both. (I guess the Duggars achieved it by removing Michelle Duggar’s personality and will from the equation.)"

*snort* Funny. Because I watch too much TLC, whilst lamenting how low that station has gone over the past fifteen years or so.

Anyhow, here's my profound question for the day, courtesy of a joke on The Daily Show, I think: how come cheese tastes so good when you put it on Italian food but so wrong when you put it on Chinese food? Think about it. ;)

Back On Track

After being seriously behind (I didn't even make my quota for January) I have worked hard and am now ahead of my required total word count for GYWO: 18,787 / 200,000. Hooray!

Then again... so very tired. *collapses into bed*