Category Archives: Words Words Words

Scratch Pad May 4

9:03:

Gah. Another night of 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Liam woke up at quarter to six, which is better than yesterday’s five-thirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t working in the evenings at home, too, and going to bed late.

9:04:

Oh, thank gods — the file mailed correctly and arrived here safe and sound. I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t arrived or had arrived corrupted somehow. Cried inside and gone home to work on it, I suppose.

9:05:

Happy birthday, John David!

10:04:

Wow. The French dictionary team is having a worse time than I’ve had; their structure is much more rigid.

11:10:

Hee hee hee — I was just a guinea pig for the Wii remote, as I am “someone not of a technological bent”. I got to test some movement values. It was a pink remote, which amuses me immensely.

11:43:

I am aghast. This dictionary still uses the no longer academically accepted BC/AD abbreviations, instead of the BCE/CE.

12:10:

Eating (a surprisingly good) lunch at my desk, having regretfully cancelled a lunch date with the guitarist from Invisible (I know, I know — I can hear the band’s fans screaming in disbelief) because I want to make sure this is done and handed in by five. If I’m not done today, everyone else gets backed up too. When I went downstairs to get my sandwich there were a pair of guitarists practicing in the cafe, playing some really nice laid-back warm afternoon coffeehouse-type jazz. Made me wish I didn’t have to come back upstairs to work.

12:29:

Ceri sent me to see this picture. Maybe that’s how this dictionary got so awful.

13:45:

Overheard: “Screw the washing machine, get the PS3.”

13:46:

Starting to go a bit wonky. I’ll take a short walk when it’s done. I have another 150 words to find definitions for; four hundred down. Drive! Drive!

16:43:

It will never end. Every time I run a check I lose words, so I have to sift through the removed ones to find some to put back in, or tweak them to make them usable. I rebalance the totals. The I run my next check, and I lose more. It’s on ongoing cascade effect that wil keel mee dedd. *headdesk*

17:39:

Still here. Am bitter and determined now. It will be done today, damn it.

18:59:

IT IS DONE! WOO-HOO!

(also? Nice overtime this week. Go me.)

Scratch Pad May 3

11:42:
Now it’s a game. Can I transfer a certain number of words to another level to make the numbers even out? (If I think of it as a game, it’s fun.)

13:35:
Lunch out with the gang! I will have make the effort to come downtown semi-regularly once this contract is up simply for the lunches.

14:51:
The entire room emptied out to surprise our assistant producer in the cafe, as it is his birthday. Very cool. I am now back as I have a pile of work to do before tomorrow afternoon, and I am the only one in the room, which is eerie.

16:15:
I cannot believe this pile of work that persists in not going anywhere fast. It’s all about adding a word here, taking one away there, shifting between the levels to keep things at the target numbers… but there are still over three hundred missing. I am not bitter about the loss of the supplemental dictionary, but I could be if I dwell on it too long. It comes down to adding as many new words as possible, then doing a reverse casade thing where I move blocks into higher levels and look for lower level words to replace them, over and over.

22:47:
Yes, I am at home, and am slogging through this redistribution and inserting words into various levels, readjusting, inserting, readjusting… I’m not going to bed until my target levels are within ten or so words for each level. That gives me enough room to lose more for various reasons. Figures this would happen today, when I got three secondhand cello books in the mail that I won on eBay and want to play through them. Liam has a very definite cold, and is back on his cold syrup. It’s almost gone; there will be just enough to send to daycare with him tomorrow before I have to pick up more. He’s not happy and he’s kind of off his feed, but he’s not deathly ill enough to keep home. (Good thing, because I can’t stay home, and neither can HRH after taking Wednesday off for Liam and Tuesday off for the car.)

11:17:
There; done. Tomorrow, I get definitions for the five hundred-odd new words and make sure they’re within the specified length. That’s all I have to do before sending it to the people who need to upload it, to make the demo ready for next week. I say “all” but I know damn well I’m going to be working insanely hard, and taking a short lunch in order to get it done by five.

Now: bed.

Scratch Pad May 2

Happy anniversary, HRH! Eight years ago today we became engaged. I still haven’t completely forgiven you for proposing when I was exhausted and sticky from spilling apple juice on myself during our pause to rest in the middle of a long bike ride on a ridiculously hot day.

9:28:
I just mistyped “polygamist” as “ploygamist”.

9:44:
“Sleep”: something I only got 4 1/2 hours of last night, because of working on the tarot kit review (thus my brain was still active and wouldn’t shut up till after midnight), and waking up early before 5:00 thanks to intuition, twenty minutes before Liam’s asthma woke him up. Poor little guy is at home today, with HRH staying home from work to be with him.

9:51:
Craving all sorts of bread today.

10:01:
I am engaged in a morphological process. I love my job.

12:55:
Back from lunch and had to take a tour around the desks to dodge the cluster of guys playing Guitar Hero.

14:03:
I have just made sure that “cowbell” is restored to the dictionary. This dictionary: now with more cowbell!

16:01:
Okay; now it’s all about moving things around to even out the numbers. Ugh.

16:35:
I got an email dictated by Liam:
“Happy! Down wa car caarr oh hoo a a Liam Ma Ma Juice….Nemo!”
It made me smile. Apparently he had a nap that was just shy of three hours this afternoon. I’m not surprised.

Scratch Pad May 1

9:43:
I’ve just read that Boo has passed away! I’m sitting here in the office trying not to cry. He was a wonderful bunny, and gave Liam so much pleasure at the caregiver’s. He will be sadly, sadly missed.

9:44:
Beltane today. At least it’s sunny. I’m so sad about Boo that I’ve lost the cheerfulness I had earlier about the holiday.

11:40:
Life is playing Calvinball with my poor husband’s brain. Interviews, no interviews, job leads, more job leads… at least no one is pressing him for a decision nownownow, so he can explore all of them properly.

13:08:
Mmm. Every time I have the quesadillas at the Mexican restaurant here, they’re different in a totally delicious way. Today the onions were caramelized. Although for once, I couldn’t finish it, possibly because I didn’t have breakfast until 10ish. Had the pleasure of Scott’s company at lunch today too; very enjoyable indeed.

13:47:
Have I mentioned how appalled I am about the incorrect that/which usage?

13:49:
Somehow a bunch of the final level words were marked to be edited when most of them were OK. Hmm. Must have had my finger on the wrong button while I sorted things mechanically one day.

15:35:
DONE!

16:05:
And now we scramble to replace the words we’ve had to remove. Lots of copy/pasting, and math to see if we’re closing in on our target numbers. Friday is our deadline. It would have been easy if we hadn’t encountered that double setback.

16:54:
Enough. To public transport, and to continue reading Diana Wynne Jones’ The Pinhoe Egg (a Chrestomanci book! about Cat!).

Scratch Pad Apr 30

9:16:
The metro went out today while I was on it; it spent a lot of time sitting in stations, then at Lionel Groulx the power went out entirely, the cars going dark, the air flow ceasing. My first reaction: “I’ve read ‘Crisse, des zombies!’: I know what happens next, and I’m ready!” It went operational again within ten minutes, but altogether my metro trip in took forty minutes instead of twenty. And I still got into work only fifteen minutes late. I don’t understand public transport at all. Also, when it is sunny, the buses are more on schedule than if it is overcast, rainy, or snowing.

Reading The Earth Path on the commute now. I keep coming across things that make me peaceful, or wish I had time to write responses in my notebook. The main reaction is, why wasn’t this book available when I started writing the green witch book? Starhawk says things so much better than I do. (As to why I didn’t pick it up when it came out: I’d already done a pile of GW research, then I changed gears and wrote the Wicca book, then I had a baby. Never got around to it. It’s entirely possible I would have been tempted to give up if I had read it, because why bother?)

Slept horribly — didn’t fall asleep till after midnight, woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t relax enough to fall back asleep for the last hour before I had to get up. But when I did get up I saw that my new French door was up on my office, after much trial on the part of HRH due to power tools losing their charge and doorframes being badly bowed out of line. The cats are very upset, particularly Nixie.

9:53:
I want to edit MORE! Curse the contract which requires us to use as much of the original as possible! The colloquialisms and lack of that/which agreement are driving me around the bend!

10:53:
A (sends this definition to t!): “parapet: to be brave enough to state an opinion that might upset someone”
A: *beats dictionary*
A: *a lot*
t!: I thought parapet was a kitten with ESP.
A: [howls]

15:28:
“Prawns: large small edible seas creatures.” *headdesk*

15:41:
Ouch. Hello, brick wall. I’ve done an insane amount of work so far today, and I think I just died. Also, my back hurts.

16:43:
Yup. My brain is pudding.

What I Read This April

Betrayal by Grace, Lady Cavendish
Conspiracy by Grace, Lady Cavendish
Firebirds Rising ed. Sharyn November
The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason
Melusine by Sarah Monette
Mia Tells It Like It Is by Meg Cabot
Victoria and the Rogue by Meg Cabot
The Hours by Michael Cunnigham (reread)
Dead Man’s Ransom by Ellis Peters
Princesses by Flora Fraser
A Long Shadow by Charles Todd
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
Magic’s Child by Justine Larbalestier
The Earth Path by Starhawk
So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane

Wow. Busy month. But spending two to two and a half hours commuting every work day gives one lots of time for reading.

*headdesk*

My review of the Tarot of Jane Austen Kit is currently 1,075 words. (Two and a half pages, single-spaced — argh!) This is, erm, unacceptable, as my target range is between 300 and 500 words.

One could argue that I’m reviewing two things, the deck and the book, but I don’t think that would fly with either of my editors.

I’m going to bed; I can’t think straight any more. I’ll keep on editing it tomorrow night and wrestle it down to something more manageable. (Madame Guest Editrix — I am deeply sorry it’s going to be late.)