dragonimp

Hm. That friend from high school who was posting the pro-Chik-fil-A stuff when that was a thing seems to have unfriended me at some point. Best guess, she either didn't like my politics (the one and only issue that ends up on my wall) or all the Pagan stuff in my Likes. Or both. Either way it's probably just as well.

Just got back from seeing Star Trek: Into Darkness. Very good movie, much more solid than Star Trek (2009). The actors seem to have settled into their roles and the writers have a better handle on things. The bromance was strong in this one and Spock's reaction to a new (female) science office invading his turf made me laugh. (The Spock/Uhura was played well, too. But definite bromance.) It just has this one scene that sorta kicked me out of the movie. But otherwise very enjoyable.

( le spoilers )

Today was the annual Antique and Craft Fair up in Walnut Creek. I'd been contacted through Etsy about this and had decided why not, I'll give it a go. Well.... I don't think I'll be going back. Mainly because I didn't sell ANYTHING. Technically I sold one item, but it was a Red Cross donation item.
(Plus, I'm pretty sure we were being messed with. Metaphysically.)

Okay, the day started out way, waaaaay too early, and we stumbled out and drove the hour up to Walnut Creek, on the way skirting by a guy in an over-packed SUV who was falling asleep at the wheel. It was thankfully not as hot today as it was yesterday, though it was plenty uncomfortable in the sun. But it was WINDY. And we discovered that my displays have some pretty big issues with wind. But we got it up and mostly secured, aside from one big topple of a display that was mostly bags and other soft items.

The wind backed off about mid-morning, but the whole day it was ... messing with us. Die down and then gust up. Gust in from one side and then come back in the other. Flip the table covering over the first few earring stands (these little dancer stands). Ripple the covering so that a little cascade of the stands fell, usually in such a way that the earrings looped around each other (and the stands) and had to be untangled. I started joking that Loki or some other trickster god was hanging around.

And then we get to the end of the day. The fair was officially over at 4:00, but other tables were starting to pack up as early as 2:00 or so. We'd had such little traffic that we were talking about leaving early as well, but I wanted to wait until 3:00 in case of last-minute shoppers. So it went something like this:

"You could probably start packing up."
"I want to wait until at least 3:00."
"You could at least get those earrings that keep blowing over."
"Yeah okay."
I put them on their storage tray, a mesh document stand, but keep it on the table.
Bit later:
"Let's start taking it down."
"It's not 3:00 yet, it's only 10-till."
WOOOSH-topple-topple-topple.
EVERYTHING on that table - including the items that hadn't been having problems - blew onto the ground.
".. okay, I guess we're doing it now."
That was the heralding of the wind coming back full strength and giving us hell the whole time we were packing up. Like I said, it was messing with us. Add to that the one and possibly two bees that got trapped in our bins...

Well, it was entertaining. But like I said, I don't think I'll be going back.

I posted about this way back when but now I know which scenes to look for: the scenes in engineering on the Enterprise, the ones with the warp core, were filmed at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - about 10 minutes from my house. My mom even did some technical editing/writing for the folks at NIF back when it was being developed.

So keep in mind when you see the warp core that that's not a prop; that's an actual functioning piece of (very expensive, very complicated) scientific equipment.

Fics are in progress (honest), but in the mean time have some arts for 520 day! These have both been posted elsewhere but I haven't managed to put them on DW/LJ because I'm behind.

( click through! )

If everything goes according to plan - i.e., the gallery doesn't implode or fall appart or something - these pieces will all be up for auction next weekend in the Fanime Art Gallery.

I went ahead and accepted the invite to join the Resembool Rangers group just for the hell of it. Bu-uut then I went and looked at their rules:

5: We don't accept Male/Male or Female/Female Relationship Art.
We're not discriminating against anyone, please don't take offense. Vic and us Rangers are totally accepting of homosexuals and lesbians, Vic has openly stated this. Evidence here. ^_^

Yeah, okay, I had already guessed it wouldn't be a yaoi-friendly group, but this seems kinda hypocritical. "We're not discriminating, we just don't want it here! We totally accept you, just not your art!" I think I'd be bothered less if they wanted to stick to the canon couples or something. Something tells me I'm going to be filtering them out before long.

And fandom, refresh my memory, but I seem to recall Vic being hostile to yaoi pairings with "his" characters in the past? But he says here that he had NO IDEA where people would get this impression and it MUST be because he's Christian.

It's less than a month to Fanime and I'm starting to get paranoid. I'm not in Artists' Alley this year but I would like to do the Art Gallery - the problem is, the Art Gallery seems to be the red-headed stepchild of the con. Year before last the website kept saying the info was "coming" and it never came. Last year the info never made it onto the web site at all, despite the fact that the guy who runs the Gallery gave them the info months before. I have no idea where people were signing up for spaces but they were all full by the time I got there. Keep in mind that since I had a table I was there before Artists' Alley opened. I asked him how I could have signed up and he said "the website." I pointed out that I had searched the whole damn site multiple times. (He was super nice and gave me a space when someone didn't show.)

This year the Art Gallery seems to have disappeared from the website entirely. It used to be mentioned under the Artists' Alley blurb, but now it's gone. The guy said he would be sending out emails to everyone who had space last year, but I've never gotten one. The Clockwork Alchemy site has a page for an Art Gallery, and now I'm starting to wonder if that's the only one. In which case - well, fuck me. My stuff is anime/manga, not steampunk.

I've emailed the Artists' Alley coordinators, but it's all run by volunteers, so.... yeah. Not holding my breath.

When proofreading his own copy, the author sees only what he meant to write, but not what he actually wrote.

That quote was referring to technical writing, but it applies to fiction as well, and it's why I've always had a tear it to shreds policy when it comes to feedback. I know I'm too close to a work to see all its problems or to see all the ways it might be taken. I see the scene I had in my head before I wrote. I need people who see the scene I actually wrote to tell me things like did you really mean to say that here? or why is that character doing this? or I think you're missing some details here, it's really vague, etc.

Maybe it's from being raised by an editor, maybe it's from passing stories around with my friends from the time I was in high school, but I actually enjoy getting redlines. Or maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist and I know I can't get there if my eyes are the only ones on the words. It's fun to see how another person reacts to my work. Even if I don't agree with the comment, it's still fun. And it's something I miss when I don't get it.

(And I know critiquing is hard work and we read fanfic for fun, but if something jumps out at you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a comment about it. Really. Tell me.)


I am back to writing, finally. Slowly, but at least it's going again. Part of the problem was both fics are at a turing point and trying to iron them out while dealing with the job stress was a bit too much. But I'm back at it now, so this has been on my mind.

Ash trees are found mainly in the eastern and southeastern areas of the U.S. Most species bear male and female flowers on separate trees. Flowering ash, Fraxinus ornus, bears bisexual flowers, each containing male and female reproductive organs.

I'm used to seeing the term hermaphroditic for things like this, but the thought of bisexual trees really amuses me.

Though our ash tree is not queer. It is very male and likes to drop its pollen bombs everywhere.