The Twenty-Eight Hour Day

After getting somethings done during the week, Tim and I headed up to Disney Sunday afternoon. The goal? Have fun, have a date, hopefully see the new lights/water show at California Adventure. However, seeing the new lights/water show (called World of Color) didn't happen - because it's so popular right now, they are actually showing it three times a night, and you need to get a FastPass (i.e. a free ticket) to see the show from any reasonable area. They start giving the tickets out at 9:30 when the park opens, and the tickets for the first showing are apparently gone by 11 AM or so. The tickets for the second showing last until about 1:00 or so. Since Tim and I didn't even get there until about 3 PM, needless to say, we got no tickets.

However, we did happen to catch the Glowfest dancers show. OMG it was awesome!!! A combination of street-influenced contemporary dances and Bollywood. The Bollywood dancers were by far the better dancers - very athletic, very energetic, and just really fun! The show was so good we watched it twice. I'm so glad we did, too, because after the second show, the dancers lead the crowd into the Hollywood area of California Adventure (where Tower of Terror and the Animation Room are) and it turns into a big ol' dance party. It took the dancers about 15 minutes to get enough people for critical mass to get the dancing going, but from there it took off. The contemporary dancers (who seemed to do more improv) were on the street with the crowd, getting the adults into the party (the kids were already there), while the bollywood dancers were more on central stages and podiums. They played with the audience too - just from a distance. Loud music, mostly of the Top 40 upbeat variety (they started out with Black Eyed Peas' "I Got A Feeling" and went from there). It was such a blast, that Tim and I didn't regret at all missing the watershow. Tim's summary? "It was so much fun that even I could enjoy it, and I dance like a walrus."

What is your earliest vivid memory? Why do you think this memory stands out so much in your mind?

First question listed was submitted by riotgrrrlaz. (Follow-up questions, if any, may have been added by LiveJournal.)

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Have you ever stumbled across a celebrity in your daily life? Was it more or less exciting than you would have expected? Do you have any interest in meeting media stars?

First question listed was submitted by lilphil999. (Follow-up questions, if any, may have been added by LiveJournal.)

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Can I haz a weekend now? Even without the cute pathetic begging-eyed kitty or puppy?

(Ranting whine behind this imaginary cut, but it's just what happens to everyone, so fill in your own annoying-but-not-catastrophic version as what's behind this imaginary cut)

To everyone who has not contributed to the annoyingness of this week (if you're reading this blog, you're part of the everyone), *hugs* and *more hugs*

Went to see Percy Jackson movie this afternoon with wonderful BF, because we both loved the book series. We'd seen a whole lot of advertising before the movie, which had us a little worried because if there's too much advertising, it's because they really screwed up the movie and need to make their money back in the first week. Unfortunately, our worries were COMPLETELY founded - the movie reeaally sucked.

Special effects? Beautiful. Visuals? Stunning. Action? Plenty of. Actors? Pretty much everyone over the age of 18 was someone even I recognize. Acting? Great, given what they had to work with. Screenplay/adaptation? Sucked monkey balls so badly that it ruined the movie. Apparently, Craig Titley (who wrote the screenplay) is a frustrated author who thinks he can rewrite Riordan's book better by incorporating a lot of plot cliches.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE BOOK AND MOVIE FOLLOW!!! I'd put it behind a cut, but I don't remember how right now.

Anyway, so the story of the movie is very different than the story of the book, particularly in regards to pacing and theme. The book spends a good third of the book setting up who Percy is and the evolution of Greek mythology as needed for setting and story. How? By discovering it one piece at a time Then he finally gets his quest and then spends the rest of the book in a semi-continuous string of "out of the frying pan, into the fire" moments chronicling how three 12-year-olds manage to get across country in a week. The characters are flying by the seat of their pants and actually get surprised. There is no overriding theme, or message about families and absent fathers. Now cut to the movie - they spend at most 15 minutes setting up the whole world, including just handing a bunch of the information out so that it lands like lead bricks in the story. Then he goes on his quest, but gets a map that basically acts as an instruction book for the rest of the movie. Marauder's map, anyone? The result is that the plot starts and stops in episodic chunks. The end of the movie tries to have a touching scene between Percy and his father Poseidon, but since his character set-up got rushed, the scene fails to have much impact. So much for adding a theme.

Character development? There is none. Percy doesn't change. Annabeth's character mostly consists of her swordfighting ability and cuteness. Grover actually comes off best of the three, but he's been considerably changed - gone is the lovable insecure Ron-like goofball with dreams of being a Searcher. Instead we get a girl-chasing but otherwise stalwart and confident fighter.

The saddest part was that the humor and creativity was largely yanked out. Instead of Medusa tricking them into drinking drugged milk shakes, we have an overdramatic Uma Thurman reprising her role as Poison Ivy. Instead of a classy whiny Charon in an Italian suit, we get a very cliched underworld entrance in a dirt hillside. Instead of Cerberus chasing a red bouncy ball, we have an oversexed Persephone leading them to Hades. No Ares as a biker boy. No Hephestaus-automated broadcast to Olympus. No bitter Dionysius running a summercamp. You'd think it would be easy to at least include some of the humor in the dialogue (for example, Annabeth calling Percy "Seaweed Brain" and "Barnacle Boy") but no, we don't even get that. Instead, we get telepathic messages from Poseidon to Percy telling him what to do when he's in trouble. Talk about removing a character's initiative.

The feel of the plot is almost like Screenwriter Craig took the earliest ever outline of the final book, and then decided to be incredibly true to it. The plot is so weak now as to have no forward momentum and no mystery. Both the problems and the solutions are cliched - the type of stuff that any good writer (including Riordan) realizes is weak and finds a better, more creative way to do. The most annoying thing is that the revised plot doesn't even completely make sense. How does Percy instantly know how to use a sword? Why does Hades want the Lightning Bolt? Why does Luke have electronics in the camp when no one else does? It's a good thing there won't be a second Percy Jackson movie, because they've really screwed up bits of the storyline that get used in the later books.

All in all, very sad. But no second movie please.

So I finished and really enjoyed a couple of books recently, and thought I'd share the joy.

Up first is Tempting Danger by Eileen Wilks. Yes, it's sold in the romance section, but it only has two short sex scenes (far less than some urban fantasy writers like *ahem* LKH). That being said, it's an interesting werewolf murder mystery with an Asian police detective (Lily Yu) as the protagonist. Nice pacing, not too violent, a tasty-tasty male lead (Rule Turner). She sets up an interesting world (not unusual, but complete and vibrant) that I look forward to reading more of. (I think there are currently 5 books in the series).

The next is Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. If Jane Austen had written a fantasy for young adults, this would be it. It's written as a series of letters between two cousins in an alternate Regency-era England. The style lends itself well to relaying important events while still allowing for the frippery and social concerns characteristic of the time period. The plotline itself is nicely whimsical and moves along rapidly. Again, 2 more books in the series I have yet to read...

If humanity were to become extinct, do you think another animal species would evolve to take our place? What lessons do you think they'd learn from our successes and failures?

First question listed was submitted by nightofcydonia. (Follow-up questions, if any, may have been added by LiveJournal.)

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Accomplished back-up Nanowrimo goal. That said, with about 12% of the 50,000 words written and 50% of the month gone, I'm not optimistic about finishing the 50,000 words before Dec 1. It seems I'm maybe a 1,000-word-a-day girl (at least when I have anything else that I'm doing, like oh, working or sleeping).

While I was not writing, I read "Vicious Circle" by Linda Robertson. A very good read, complete with werewolves, witches, and vampires. I'd liken them to Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series - some definite innuendo, but very little sex (oh, and the werewolf is by far the hottest creature in the book - yummy!). Enjoy!

It is November, which has been unofficially dubbed by some as National Novel Writing Month. I have signed up again on Nanowrimo ( http://www.nanowrimo.org ) (user name Artemix) with the goal of finishing. Since my track record on that is less than stellar, my back-up goal is to at least beat my previous highest word count. Given that I wrote half of that number last night and I have 29 more days, I think I'm on track to meet my back-up goal :-). We won't discuss the quality of some of that prose - while I see glimmers of gems in some sentences, they look exactly like freshly dug gems do - all covered in dirt with no sparkle at all.

Is anyone else playing?

Reminder to everyone - if you have to wear perfume to work, apply it lightly. (Note - the only people who have to wear perfume to work are perfume salespeople and prostitutes).

If you are wearing and I can:
         (a) smell it from two rooms away when you come in
         (b) still smell it in the room 1/2 an hour after you've left in a well-ventilated lab, or
         (c) feel that it's causing my lungs to seize up so that they hurt more than after a 5-mile run
you are MOST DEFINITELY WEARING TOO MUCH PERFUME!!!!

And yes, I've mentioned this to you before, and yes, tea rose is a nice scent, but as they say "Too much of a good thing is still too much"

/rant mode

By mistake, I started watching Castle tonight - a crime drama - and me likey! Think Murder She Wrote crossed with CSI. And the bonus - Nathan Fillion is one of the stars. (If you don't know who he is, look in the dictionary under "delicious" and "wryly funny"). Mondays, 10 AM, CBS (I think).

SNurched from

dershem and

allaboutm_e - the book meme

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal. Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Result -

"Thread 4 pieces of chicken and 3 okra alternately onto an 8-inch bamboo or stainless steel skewer."

From Japanese Cooking by Emi Kazuko - it really was the closest!

First, goodbye to 2008. It's one of those years that I'm really happy to see leaving after being the most frustrating at work (or ever) (until I was laid off) and the most stressful ever (see previous comments). Two bright spots - moving to San Diego, and Tim (not that Tim was new for 2008, but he's definitely a highlight). 'Nuff said - so good riddance, 2009, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

My hopes for 2009 are much better. January starts at a low point, but I see much potential - a new (hopefully more pleasurable and less stressful) job (still to be identified) and much time with friends.

Happy New Years to everyone!

So just to catch everyone up on my life, I got laid off last Thursday. The company was basically like "well, we don't have enough work (i.e. we're overstaffed for our current needs) so have fun on your future endeavors." Some severance (though they cut my insurance immediately) but still - like anyone except retail is hiring right before Christmas.

That said, ummm, can I beg and plead anyone who has any contacts they'd be willing to share in the San Diego biotech or environmental consulting field to share? Or let me know if you want to be reference?

Thank you!

If you like action figures, read on. Those who don't may want to skip...

Why is it so hard to sculpt a pretty Princess Leia? First we had Monkey face Leia. Then came another which was nearly as ugly and twice as manly. Now, in the new Shadows of the Empire 2-pack, Leia looks like the lovechild of an 80's aerobic teacher and a particularly ugly dwarf. For a very pretty woman/character, they seem to have an abnormally hard time sculpting her well!

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Dear Californian voters -

Congratulations on having the open-mindness to put a candidate's race aside as an issue in electing a president.

And congratulations to 48% of you for being open-minded and tolerant enough to believe that a consenting adult has a right to a legally recognized union (commonly referred to as marriage by our secular government) to another consenting adult of their choice, independent of sex. Unfortunately, the other 52% of California voters are not as enlightened.

If there's anything that history teaches us from the equal rights movements against racial and gender-based discrimination, it's that once discrimination is identified in this country, it will eventually be reduced and faces a real possibility of being eliminated. Hell, we've started implementing laws which prevent people from being discriminated against for being fat, which is a lot more of a choice than whether or not someone is gay. Already we see the shift away from discrimination in the voting percentages - in 2000, 61% of Californians voted for a similar bill, as opposed to the 52% now. So the success of Proposition 8 banning gay marriage is very likely to be a temporary one at best. In a century (hopefully much less) this amendment will be laughed at in the same way that laws preventing interracial marriage and laws preventing women and racial minorities from voting are.

In the meantime, since the only rational basis for banning gay marriage that I've heard is that some major religions don't approve, I would like to remind everyone of a couple important facts -
1. Those same religious institutions do not approve of divorce, but the state certainly makes those legal.
2. One of the founding principles of this country is separation of church and state, which means that what religion believes is unimportant to what is legal.
Perhaps the state should be banned from performing heterosexual marriages as well - maybe all the state should be allowed is to perform civil unions for everyone, heterosexual or homosexual.

Sincerely,
Heterosexual woman

Political commentary - yes, I'm biased strongly for one side. Or more accurately, strongly biased against the biased side and hopeful that the other side will be no worse. Am I old enough to be a cynic?

From a friend -
If the candidates were trains, what type of trains would they be?

Gakked from

allaboutm_e - Post your favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer line

"It could be bunnies"

Okay, I need to whine about work - any ideas appreciated.

I work for various project managers on different projects. Most of them I get along well with. Every once in a while we have a disagreement, but it usually blows over quickly.

Not one of them (and unfortunately it's a big project). Early on, this guy comes in and basically says "I'm a big picture person who's not good with details and I don't have time to just come in and chit-chat about them." Fine, so I don't provide him with details, just with big picture stuff. And then I go ahead and schedule what needs to happen and go on. Because of the size of the project, this gets overwhelming, so he transfers those responsiblities to someone else to do. Of course, he doesn't actually bother to mention this to anyone, so I get to figure it out over the course of like 4 months (yeah, I'm slow).

Recently, we've been doing some additional complex testing and sampling. When I try to let him know about it before hand, I get either a knee-jerk "No" before he's had time to think about it, or an email expanding it far beyond what it needs to be because he doesn't actually know what's going on. He of course broadcasts both to the whole fucking project team, and doesn't see fit to respond to emails in a timely manner even though he expects almost immediate responses. If I send him an email long enough to actually explain what's going on, then he won't read it. If I send an email short enough for him to read, then it doesn't give him enough details and I get the response above. 90% of the time we end up doing what I proposed in the first place, with modifications to address his questions and concerns, anyway. In the meantime, though, it takes three times as much effort on my part to get this shit done. Meanwhile, even when I tell him about stuff, he forgets about it and then comes down on me again. If anything gets screwed up, I tend to be the one who gets pointed to, because, well, I'm doing most of the fucking work on the project. Meantime, the concept of saying "Thank you" never seems to occur to this guy. I'm feeling like the red-headed stepchild from hell on this one.

Right now, I'm hitting a point where I'm going to tell him that I'm going to resign from the project team and they can fucking deal with it, or that I'm only going to do things as specifically requested in writing (email counts) because I'm tired of this shit.

</rant>

If you wanna watch an MSNBC reporter rip McCain a new one, may I recommend this excellent clip?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/keith-olbermann-on-mccain_n_119802.html

If you don't have the 12 minutes (yes, it stays on topic), the commentary basically calls up a bunch of McCain's inconsistency and hypocritical finger-pointing and complaining.

Now if we could only see something this refreshing on FAUX News...