three totally unconnected things

1. Hair

Yesterday was stinking hot -- had to be at least 80 degrees, and disgustingly humid -- and I finally had it with long hair. So I whacked it off, packaged it for donation to Locks of Love (they make wigs for kids going through cancer treatmet), and dropped by a hairdresser to get the ends tidied up. That means I lost 11 inches to the ponytail, and another inch or so to the clean-up.

My hair doesn't even reach my chin now.

It's a very weird feeling, and I think the loss of weight, and consequent loss of neck strain, may have contributed to my weirdly bouncy mood All Day Long. I found myself doing impressions in front of the bathroom mirror, which is generally something that only happens when I'm either massively sleep deprived or way too hopped up on caffeine.

-------------------------------------

2. Fanfiction

I put chapters 1-3 of "The Way of the Apartment Manager" up on ff.net on Saturday, and have received several nice reviews for it. Since it's a pre-canon story, and focused on an original character, I was worried about how people would react.

(Not that I have any real worries about my characterization of Yukiko, but people do tend to read fanfiction to get more of their favorite characters, so even well-written OCs are always a risk.)

-------------------------------------

3. Please Excuse Me While I Go Have a Moment of Quasi-Religious Ecstasy

The public library isn't open on Sundays during the summer. So I went to the mall instead. And stopped in at Borders while waiting for the bus. And happened to see the novelization of Revenge of the Sith.

And it was written by Matthew Stover.

Okay. You have to realize that Matthew Stover is one of my favorite authors. I bought his book, Heroes Die, several years ago because I was bored on vacation. It looked like a standard action/adventure slash-em-up. And it was... but it was so much more besides. He can write fights. He can write wrenching emotions. He can write deep philosophical quandaries. He can write ordinary people and legendary figures and people who are both at once. He can write dark and light and the knife-edge between and make you believe.

You understand, of course, that I HAD to buy this novelization.

...

It was everything the movie could have been, everything it should have been and wasn't quite. It doesn't match exactly -- he was working off the screenplay, not the finished film -- but Stover fills in the edges, brings all the depth of emotion and anguish and war that should have been in the film.

I am glad I saw the movie first, because it filled in the visual bits so I could better see what Stover wrote about, but I left the movie thinking, "That was pretty cool."

I closed the book thinking, "Oh. My. Fucking. God."

Because it was just that good. No. It was better than that. It was amazing.

Read it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

(Oh. And he actually uses Padme to good effect as a character, doing political maneuvering, instead of just treating her as decoration. For that alone, I love him. And hey, you thought the movie had blatant slashy subtext? You ain't seen nothing yet... *evil grin*)

three totally unconnected things

1. Hair

Yesterday was stinking hot -- had to be at least 80 degrees, and disgustingly humid -- and I finally had it with long hair. So I whacked it off, packaged it for donation to Locks of Love (they make wigs for kids going through cancer treatmet), and dropped by a hairdresser to get the ends tidied up. That means I lost 11 inches to the ponytail, and another inch or so to the clean-up.

My hair doesn't even reach my chin now.

It's a very weird feeling, and I think the loss of weight, and consequent loss of neck strain, may have contributed to my weirdly bouncy mood All Day Long. I found myself doing impressions in front of the bathroom mirror, which is generally something that only happens when I'm either massively sleep deprived or way too hopped up on caffeine.

-------------------------------------

2. Fanfiction

I put chapters 1-3 of "The Way of the Apartment Manager" up on ff.net on Saturday, and have received several nice reviews for it. Since it's a pre-canon story, and focused on an original character, I was worried about how people would react.

(Not that I have any real worries about my characterization of Yukiko, but people do tend to read fanfiction to get more of their favorite characters, so even well-written OCs are always a risk.)

-------------------------------------

3. Please Excuse Me While I Go Have a Moment of Quasi-Religious Ecstasy

The public library isn't open on Sundays during the summer. So I went to the mall instead. And stopped in at Borders while waiting for the bus. And happened to see the novelization of Revenge of the Sith.

And it was written by Matthew Stover.

Okay. You have to realize that Matthew Stover is one of my favorite authors. I bought his book, Heroes Die, several years ago because I was bored on vacation. It looked like a standard action/adventure slash-em-up. And it was... but it was so much more besides. He can write fights. He can write wrenching emotions. He can write deep philosophical quandaries. He can write ordinary people and legendary figures and people who are both at once. He can write dark and light and the knife-edge between and make you believe.

You understand, of course, that I HAD to buy this novelization.

...

It was everything the movie could have been, everything it should have been and wasn't quite. It doesn't match exactly -- he was working off the screenplay, not the finished film -- but Stover fills in the edges, brings all the depth of emotion and anguish and war that should have been in the film.

I am glad I saw the movie first, because it filled in the visual bits so I could better see what Stover wrote about, but I left the movie thinking, "That was pretty cool."

I closed the book thinking, "Oh. My. Fucking. God."

Because it was just that good. No. It was better than that. It was amazing.

Read it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

(Oh. And he actually uses Padme to good effect as a character, doing political maneuvering, instead of just treating her as decoration. For that alone, I love him. And hey, you thought the movie had blatant slashy subtext? You ain't seen nothing yet... *evil grin*)

wherein Liz is baffled by astrology

Random question:

Apparently JKR has revealed Draco Malfoy's birthday -- June 5th. On my friendslist, people are now trying to do astrological birth charts for him and analyze his personality that way.

Seriously, WTF is up with all this astrology stuff? I keep seeing people do this for HP characters, and go on and on and on about all the things star signs say about their personalities and likely futures.

...You do know that astrology is a bunch of rubbish, right? And the star signs aren't even accurate to the sky anymore, since they were invented back in ancient Sumeria and the stars have, y'know, moved since then.

And you know that these are fictional characters, and I rather doubt that JKR has been basing her own characterizations off of astrological charts? (I grant you, Harry being a Leo is kind of nice, but I think the Leo=lion=Gryffindor is about as deep as the symbolism gets.)

I really, truly, and utterly Do Not Get why people are so into astrology. Yes, I know that I'm an Aquarius, and the typical Aquarius traits match a fair amount of my personality... but so do about 7 other signs, to roughly equal amounts. It's set up to do that, so that no matter when you're born, you can find something that seems applicable.

Why do people persist in believing that the random placements of giant balls of superheated plasma, hundreds of light-years away, will have any mystical effect on our lives?

(Random related question: imagine a person is born on a different planet, one far enough away that none of the stars form our familiar constellations. Would you invent a new astrological system, or would you continue using the same old Earth-based one? Either way, how would you justify its significance?)

wherein Liz is baffled by astrology

Random question:

Apparently JKR has revealed Draco Malfoy's birthday -- June 5th. On my friendslist, people are now trying to do astrological birth charts for him and analyze his personality that way.

Seriously, WTF is up with all this astrology stuff? I keep seeing people do this for HP characters, and go on and on and on about all the things star signs say about their personalities and likely futures.

...You do know that astrology is a bunch of rubbish, right? And the star signs aren't even accurate to the sky anymore, since they were invented back in ancient Sumeria and the stars have, y'know, moved since then.

And you know that these are fictional characters, and I rather doubt that JKR has been basing her own characterizations off of astrological charts? (I grant you, Harry being a Leo is kind of nice, but I think the Leo=lion=Gryffindor is about as deep as the symbolism gets.)

I really, truly, and utterly Do Not Get why people are so into astrology. Yes, I know that I'm an Aquarius, and the typical Aquarius traits match a fair amount of my personality... but so do about 7 other signs, to roughly equal amounts. It's set up to do that, so that no matter when you're born, you can find something that seems applicable.

Why do people persist in believing that the random placements of giant balls of superheated plasma, hundreds of light-years away, will have any mystical effect on our lives?

(Random related question: imagine a person is born on a different planet, one far enough away that none of the stars form our familiar constellations. Would you invent a new astrological system, or would you continue using the same old Earth-based one? Either way, how would you justify its significance?)

playing with new ff.net features

Over the weekend, ff.net revamped their login page and the various pages that you can access to track your stories and whatnot. So I poked around a bit after posting chapters 4 and 5 of "Apartment Manager."

(Totally random aside: Junichi finally has a real clan name! Whatever I've been using here on LJ was mostly a placeholder -- really he is Mouten Junichi. And he will be fighting in chapter 13, I think. Aishou and Shinkan are still clanless, but that's okay. They were never meant to have family names -- I have to leave some people in the same boat as Tenten and the Sand siblings.)

Anyway, I am torn between being amused, irritated, and just kind of sad that several people have put story alerts on some of my one-shots. Which, being one-shots, will never be updated.

*shakes head*

Some people are just... weird.

playing with new ff.net features

Over the weekend, ff.net revamped their login page and the various pages that you can access to track your stories and whatnot. So I poked around a bit after posting chapters 4 and 5 of "Apartment Manager."

(Totally random aside: Junichi finally has a real clan name! Whatever I've been using here on LJ was mostly a placeholder -- really he is Mouten Junichi. And he will be fighting in chapter 13, I think. Aishou and Shinkan are still clanless, but that's okay. They were never meant to have family names -- I have to leave some people in the same boat as Tenten and the Sand siblings.)

Anyway, I am torn between being amused, irritated, and just kind of sad that several people have put story alerts on some of my one-shots. Which, being one-shots, will never be updated.

*shakes head*

Some people are just... weird.