beaglej

Emailing back and forth with a friend of mine while I'm at work. It gets awesome so fast. Background info: Christy is wrapping up work on a novel, which is thematically based on a poem, Prisoner of Chillon. Other background info: I am not nearly as good a writer as she is.

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From: Christy
{unrelated preamble removed}

Funnily enough, I thought of titles for the two sequels (which is hilarious when I consider how hard it was for me to find a title for this one). I’m also going to be using a poem as the motif for the other two, so I’m currently looking for ones that are thematically appropriate (I lucked into Prisoner of Chillon).

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From: Bailey
I still read that as "chillin'," ... as in "Prisoner of Chillin'." I wonder if that's like being a slave to love?

Anyways I'll be totally useless on the poetry front because I've never enjoyed poetry all that much. My poetic knowledge extends to Shell Silverstein and Dr Seuss. Though now that I'm thinking on it... should I familiarize myself with the chillin' poem to pick up on thematic symbolism or would you rather I read it as an uninitiated casual reader might?

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From: Christy
lol… I <3 you.

You can read it if you like. (It’s a very cool poem and totally worth reading) There are a few references to the poem throughout the novel, but you don’t have to read it to “get it.” I just thought it was thematically appropriate.

I’m totally going to write a novel using Dr. Seuss as a theme.

“But… what was he doing on the box, Sam?”

“It’s a crazy, twisted world, kid. Now eat your eggs.”

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From: Bailey
You could revolutionize a whole genre. Call it Seuss Noir.

"Mary Lou took a long drag from her who-smoke and reminisced about the days long past, when she met that bitter, cynical, and sad excuse of a man. He taught her so much about the world, and about herself, it's just too bad she couldn't have saved him from himself and a noose of Christmas lights a couple of years later when it turned out that, like always, things went back to the way they were before a scandal."

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From: Christy
That is amazingly awesome.

But why stop at noir? What about epic fantasy?

“To arms, my brothers! To arms!” The field was already laden with the dead, but the rallying call of the captain pulled them forward. The Zooks followed with rapid determination, leaving the forgotten remnants of their bread, as always, butter-side down.

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From: Bailey
Or a horror/thriller.

Once-ler locked himself in the grandiose office of his factory, leaning heavily against the door and panting to catch his breath as sweat poured down his brow. The light under the door was cut as the Lorax prowled the halls, breathing deeply and following the deep musky scent of Once-ler's fear.

"Your fine beaurocratic office won't protect you, Ler... where do you think they got the wood for your desk and the pulp for your paper?" Once-ler glanced nervously at his over-priced and majestic desk and wasn't sure if the stacks of paperwork sitting atop it were rustling of their own accord or if he maybe left a window open somewhere. "They came from MY forest, and heed the call of the Lorax even in death!"

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From: Christy
Historical fiction:

“Burn the heretic!”

Horton’s legs shook in subtle fear as he mounted the headsman’s platform. All around him, people bearing the insignia of the Vladikoff regime. Horton placed a hand against his chest, hovering just over where they had mockingly pinned the thistle for which he was preparing to die. His gaze swept the crowd, coming to stop but briefly on Kanga. His former lover smiled when she noticed his attention, curling up beside Vladikoff himself.

“Do you have any last words?”

Horton braced himself. “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

The executioner chuckled grimly. “So you’ve said before.” The attendants quickly moved to strip the remainders of his finery away. The thistle fell to the ground before the chopping block, and Horton kept his eyes on it as his knees were kicked out from under him and his head laid down against the block.

The small speck of dust lingered on the tip of the thistle, only falling when the jarring thump of the axe ended Horton’s blasphemous proselytizing.

Don't really use my LJ for much, but I'm so excited about this that I have to plaster it all over the entire internet that I have accounts with!



LOOKIT MY BABY ITS GOT ALL THE BABY PARTS IT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE AND IT'S A SHE BECAUSE I'M GOING TO HAVE A DAUGHTER AND YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT SHE WAS SUCKING HER THUMB AND I COULD SEE IT AND SHE HAS TINY LITTLE FINGERS AND ARMS AND LEGS AND TOES AND A CUTE ADORABLY HUGE HEAD AND EVEN THOUGH IT'S ON THE INSIDE(-ER) I COULD SEE HER HEARTBEAT IT GOES SO FAST.

*collapses into a babbling, frothing, very happy pile*

I'm still here guys. Really. I don't post anymore, but I do check my friends page daily. That it is also serving as my ghetto RSS reader for webcomic updates has a lot to do with it, but sometimes I am surprised to find my LiveJournal friends still post too.

So you know, hi. Again.

The contact info in my profile is all accurate if you wanted to connect outside of LJ or whatever. I think I have everyone at least on Facebook and/or Twitter, which is where I am most often. I'm on MSN/AIM during work hours too, but it can take a bit for me to reply, especially if I've got people at my desk.

Hey guys. I'm on LJM now. Except, really, it's just MSN.

So if you want to add me, I'm artbeagle@hotmail.com

Sorry Mom, if you're reading this, but Josh wanted to see it and was sad he had to work when we had made plans for.

( Psuedo-spoilers and mini-rant )

Josh and I are going to Blizzcon this year, and we had decided to go to Vegas afterward with our BFFs Jon and Christy. We had the trips all booked, convoluted as it was to book from Edmonton to Anaheim, a bus in between, and then a flight from Vegas to Edmonton, and associated hotel bookings.

But then Jon was transferred to a different branch and someone already had that week booked off and he was told, tough shit, rebook. So we decided the week before Blizzcon would be fine. It took me a while to get the approval to move my vacation since my boss was currently on vacation. So now that I have the approval, I call Expedia to change things around. I expected a service charge, but not this much.

To move our Vegas Vacation from August 23-30 to August 12-20 incurs:
- $150 per passenger to change the flights (this is for all flights involved)
- ~$5 per ticket difference in airfare
- $395 price difference for ONE WEEK earlier at the hotel.
TOTAL: $720

I'm still calling around to the airlines/hotels/etc to see if I can get a better price any other way. It's not looking bright.

I finally managed to finish a drawing/painting/whatever term you want to use on my new laptop. I was rather pleased with it actually. Not my best picture ever but I was playing with different techniques and liked where it was taking me. So I uploaded this picture to a few different spots on the internet.

Then a few hours later I went to show it to my husband on his computer and... what?? The colour is so fucked up I can't even quite describe it. Several hues are off, it's over-saturated, the contrast is fucked up, basically every way you could describe colour balance was broken on it. As best as I can with a copy of Gimp on my work computer, I have put together a demonstration of how broken it is:



I hooked up my PC monitor to the VGA port in the back to have a direct side-by-side comparison and was blown away by the difference. Managed to find the laptop's monitor display settings and toy with them a bit, but with only brightness/contrast/gamma to play with when saturation was the biggest (but not only) problem, I couldn't get it close.

Looked up the Intel drivers page, found that they'd put out a new utility that includes saturation adjustment, but woops, I can't get it because Toshiba uses a custom driver/chipset/I don't fucking know. So I got to Toshiba's support site and they don't have anything remotely resembling the new utility and I already have the most recent driver.

So now I might have to return it because the ENTIRE reason I bought it (for artsing around on the go) is completely void because I can't get the screen to look right. Giving them one more chance when I call tech support tonight after work, but I'm not holding out hope.

I don't expect much for advice (though if you have anything I've missed, I'd be glad to hear it), I just wanted to FFFFFFFFFFFFF-- at anyone who'll listen.

I just wanted to share this because it made me giggle.

• 23:15 only just realized I haven't eaten since about 10 this morning. Woops! Having some pasta now. #
• 09:25 Have to drink 6 x 8 oz glasses of water in the next 20 minutes GO! Worst part about ultrasounds D: Or rather, in an hour it will be. #
• 10:02 I would like an option on Google maps to avoid the freeway when giving me directions. I'm a nervous driver :x #
• 10:03 Oh hey, there is an option for that!! #
• 10:48 Made it to the clinic without incident (no thanks to @geebie who tried to jinx me!), now playing the waiting game. Also, my DS. #
• 17:26 Off to meet my mom for dinner and Star Trek! Let's hope the second viewing is as good as the first! #

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• 11:13 Called in sick today before realizing if I'd just suffered through today, I had a long weekend to get better in. Maybe it's better this way. #
• 16:54 WOAH I just accidentally found a new shortcut in photoshop. This will save me SECONDS in my work! (alt-right click+drag to resize brush) #
• 18:52 I thought "Wow, this picture is coming along really well and so much faster than usual!" then I noticed I'd been working on it for 7 hrs. #

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I try not to post my dreams on LJ very often because they can get pretty Effed-Up but I need to get this down.
( Dream after the cut )

• 20:41 Hmm. My media player seems to have disappeared. It *was* on my task bar but now it's not. Music is still playing but I want a specific song! #
• 22:11 Okay, Windows Media Player. I get that I have an Audioslave album on my computer. Could you not play a track from it every third song? #
• 08:04 is.gd/48QR Some of these tattoos are incredibly profound, thoughtful, and most importantly AWESOME. I need to revisit my design. #
• 10:31 Having a good time looking up interesting pose references. It's something I really need to work on. #
• 12:13 Looks like 2 kinds of Twitter users: advertisers and community members. Do any of the latter actually read the former?? Why keep trying? #
• 12:15 I know I'm not the first person to consider this, and in fact, am very slow to the punch. Don't judge :p #
• 13:42 Hey everyone, twitter is back up #
• 14:41 What does this say about me? I noticed #mcfly was a trending topic, and my first thought was "Oh, will there be a new Back To The Future?" #
• 16:25 Well would you look at that. I have June 26 off! Terminator day! #
• 17:34 Walked past a man walking briskly through the mall while a 4 year old girl hurried to keep up behind him. He didn't even look back at her D: #
• 17:46 Oh hells yes! I have a 4 day weekend, and except for one appt on friday I have nothing planned the whole time! I need some downtime so bad. #
• 18:58 'I baked a cake today but it imploded in the oven. It imploded harder than Vulcan. ... ... too soon?' #

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• 22:59 my computer shat a brick and I had to reboot. wonder if it has anything to do with running torrents for the last week non-stop? #
• 07:12 Hm, eating breakfast before I leave for work is much less expensive than eating it at work. I should remember this for next time. #
• 09:19 Maaan, where's my tax return? I wants a new laptop! I wants I wants I wants! *tantrum* #
• 10:24 #YEG Free pulled pork sandwiches available at the Legislature Grounds today from 11 - 2pm. You can't get swine flu from eating pork, people! #
• 10:59 I wonder when it became so popular for icon artists to fuck around colour/saturation on EVERYTHING. I just want one with the colours right. #
• 13:00 There's a guy on the legislature grounds protesting the fact that he has gophers in his garden. He is dead serious. #
• 13:37 RT: @frostedbetty: HAHAHA.. this is hilarious awkwardfamilyphotos.com/ (via @MissAmyO) #
• 15:50 To everyone not living in Edmonton: you are officially allowed to make fun of where I live. It is snowing IN MAY. Fuuuuuck. #
• 16:59 Sometimes it is really tempting to interrupt conversations on the bus and ask if they ever get tired of bitching about everything. #
• 17:12 Retweet @stormbrew Tweet from space: bit.ly/4eOb3
  via @Astro_Mike #
• 17:22 Ooh! Recorded Castle for tonight! @Nathan_Fillion makes me swoon whether he's in suspenders, a silk-screened tee or a tailored suit <3 #
• 18:05 Woops, my last tweet should have linked @nathanfillion! My mobile client... "has room for improvement" so I had to guess #
• 19:57 Tonight's dinner at the Anderson's: fries. Yeah, I am all about gourmet cuisine. Hey, I seasoned them! (with seasoning salt) #

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• 09:08 Hm, to get something bad to eat now or wait for lunch when I can go out and get something decent? #
• 10:20 I think I need to start charging a couch fee for playing therapist over MSN for two friends that seem to be trying to dominate my attention. #
• 10:56 Just found out one of the dramas I was having a nice hearty schadenfraude lol at had me at the center of it and I didn't even know. Awkward. #
• 12:53 I've gotten emails from Twitter that @peternwolc is following me like four times in the past week. Doesn't look like a bot, but still odd. #
• 13:04 "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy." - Frank Sinatra #
• 14:49 Hey neat - new Facebook chat enhancement: have yourself show online/offline by group. #

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• 22:19 housewarming party for friends tonight. for every new friend, I had a drink. Incidentally, I am having a FABULOUS time! #
• 09:13 In class instead of having brunch with my mom :( making it up to her later today. #

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• 22:51 I had it in my head to shoot the shit on MSN for a couple of hours, and maybe try and finish a character ref sheet. But instead, I'll sleep. #
• 11:31 Very interested in the course I'm taking this weekend, but having such a hard time staying alert. No rest for the weary, I guess. #
• 12:10 At Subway for lunch. I got L, N, O, and U for Scrabble peices. Do I win? #
• 16:43 Waiting for Star Trek to start. Eeee! <3 (phone going off now!) #

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• 20:53 Hoo boy... I just ended up getting someone else's breakup notice from Facebook because it was posted on a photo I commented on. AWKWARD. #
• 07:28 Who's bright idea was it to put a school bus stop on a one-lane road when 2 lanes are open around the corner? Blocked traffic for 10 mins. #
• 07:35 Digging through my purse for some gum, I found a lipgloss that I have NEVER used or even seen before. Where the hell'd it come from?? #
• 09:04 The current Achewood storyline is so ridiculous it's hilarious and I love it. #
• 09:30 Apparently the planets are aligned just right for drama and breakups. I better watch my ass. #
• 10:00 I want to go out for lunch today but got nobody to go with. Anyone free around noon for downtown? #
• 11:31 So nobody for lunch? Ok, guess I'll hit up Subway on my own. #
• 12:29 Having a laugh at the #annoyatrekkie search results (and ignoring the automated spambots that fill their tweets with trending terms) #
• 17:06 Chatted up by a super cute guy on the train, but of course as soon as the conversation got interesting , it was my stop. Sigh. #

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• 08:17 Holy shit. The work day hasn't even started and I am already done. Looks like a project day to me! #

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• 23:52 Just realized I have class until noon on mother's day (wtf, NAIT??) and we were gonna take her to early brunch before she has church :( #
• 10:19 I'm getting spam messages in my gmail inbox. This is very disappointing. I guess Google isn't infallible like we all thought. #
• 12:35 Auggggh, I got Melba Toast crumbs down my shirt. This is awkward and uncomfortable. #
• 13:36 I should have gone to subway for lunch instead of watered-down broccoli soup from the cafeteria. #
• 16:47 did it finish raining already? am on the lrt and it's just a little damp here, no actual rain. #
• 16:50 oh there it goes #

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• 21:57 Husband and BFF were convinced Wolverine would suck. I was more optimistic, and more importantly, RIGHT. Also, impressed by the beefcake. <3 #
• 22:11 halfway to bed before realizing I have no clothes to wear to work tomorrow. Have to stay up another hour and a half to get it done now. #
• 08:37 I'm reading reviews and commentary on Wolverine after the fact... how can you people hate that movie? At least admit it was fun to watch. #
• 12:52 My coworker, a relocated Newfie is currently on the phone with his family. I THINK they're speaking English... #
• 13:26 Hope Telus is next! RT: @mastermaq: Lots of Rogers/Fido people wondering why they started receiving updates from 21212. #
• 13:46 RT: @jabberwocky_: Researchers hijack botnet, score 56,000 passwords in an hour - arst.ch/1bs via @arstechnica #
• 15:09 RT: @stormbrew: Note: when jerking it outside an office, close sunroof. tinyurl.com/cndaz3 (mildly nsfw) #
• 19:09 Blizzcon tickets on sale May 16! #WoW #
• 19:17 OK something in here smells like burning food. I think someone is fucking up their BBQ because it's not from in here. #

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