Category Archives: Cyberspace & Technology

Today:

1. I have a new printer. Completely functional! Copying, scanning, printing without stress, at last. And for the low price of two ink cartridges too. Thank you, back to school sales. And I purchased an extended warranty, thankyouverymuch. No way this one is going to conk out on me without recourse. Now if I could just isolate what’s clogging up my CPU after startup…

2. The boy has secured a two-day slot in the preschool we wanted for him! This will likely be confirmed as a three-day position tomorrow. I think I’m going to continue with the local caregiver one day a week for now anyway, because the boy hasn’t seen two of his friends in ages. And this way I can get tons of work done (read: get back on the manuscript review wagon) and sock away some funds.

3. I am making a kick-ass pot roast for dinner. You wish you were here. No, really.

4. I finally did the Facebook thing. Except not quite. The pro name is a Public Person page; my alter-ego Autumn is the regular page. This should calm my wibbles about the whole thing. Also, this way I get to be a fan of myself. This is important for building self-confidence and belief in one’s own validity.

5. EMILY THE-PIRATE-QUEEN HORNER HAS JUST SOLD HER FIRST BOOK AND A SECOND AS-YET-UNWRITTEN BOOK!!! Yes, this deserves all-caps. I capered madly about the office when I read the news. If you were a YUL NaNo back in 2002 you might remember Emily as my personal quota bar and word count nemesis. I ended up passing 50K before she did, but she’s absolutely beaten me to the publishing of fiction. And I couldn’t be more thrilled by the news.

Orchestrated Update

Total word count, Orchestrated: 4,050
New words today: Math tells me that there were 989, which isn’t the 1,000 I wanted but close enough for government work.

I shoved the story forward and started writing the next major plot point, and you know what? The story works perfectly well this way. I usually need to figure out how the story gets from A to B and I usually do it through writing. The in-between stuff often gets cut out, although it gives me valuable insight into character make-up and lives and motivation and secret dreams and so forth. This time, I just stepped over where the in-between stuff would normally be and picked the story up again. Maybe this synopsis thing will work for me after all. Whatever the reason, today it was easier to write the plot point than the stuff that would bridge to it.

So it feels like the actual story has begun. That’s a good feeling. Not that the previous 3K words weren’t story; it’s just that they were set-up and background and initial propulsion of character trajectory, and today’s work begins the setup of the Conflict part of the story. Or introduces the character who will initiate the series of events that build into Actual Conflict and create An Obstacle for my protagonist.

I would have had many more words had I not needed to refer to a list of characters that I knew I’d worked up. I couldn’t find the file anywhere. I searched through three sets of backups, to no avail. Then, after forty minutes of tearing out my hair, I realized that I’d wanted to print it out for ready reference. Where would I have put a printout like that if I’d managed to make one? I wondered, then spun my chair around, leaned forward, and pulled a file folder out from between two research books on the shelf reserved for my ongoing writing research. Voila: One file of hard copy reference stuff. I have no idea what happened to the computer file. I’ll have to retype it all, but at least I don’t have to do all the work of thinking characters up again and naming them and giving them quirks.

Jan brought me a USB hub that my computer recognises! Huzzah!

Yesterday…

… was a complete washout. I spent the entire day struggling with technology in some form or another. A USB port that had been working perfectly well up till yesterday around noon, and into which was plugged my external hard drive, decided to malfunction (yes! I show as a drive! no! there is nothing on me!). At first I thought my external hard drive (you know, the one that holds everything as a backup, plus all my music?) had given up the ghost, so that’s where I focused my attention once I recovered from the heart attack. After a couple of hours I discovered that it was the USB port creating an I/O problem. The tower won’t recognise the USB hub I own, so I had to juggle my peripherals. (Six. I have six things that require a USB port. There are only three ports that function now. Oy.) Then I tried to get the printer my dad had sent home with me to work, with zero luck. There were power issues (no matter where I plugged the damn thing in it wouldn’t turn on) and when I finally resolved that (by, erm, hitting it) I discovered that it won’t print anything. Oh, it thinks it’s printing, but nothing appears on the page. Even when the ink cartridges are full. Even after cleaning both sets of contacts and the ink intakes on the printer itself.

I did cross other things off my to-do list, but it was the kind of day where there wasn’t enough accomplished to account for the energy invested, and the grr of the hardware issues mightily outweighed the minor relief of crossing things off the list. So I got exactly no work done, other than sending an invoice for hours worked so far on the local freelance project I did before I left for Toronto. The boy’s thirty-eighth month post is late as a result. I can’t return a book to Amazon because I can’t print out the return form; I’ll have to beg Scarlet to print it out for me tonight.

Rawr. And gnarr.

The boy and I are running errands today. Wish us luck.

Non-Cello Content

I discovered yesterday, while the boy and I tested the new bike and trailer for the first time, that the trip to the library involves going uphill both ways.

I am serious. I will be using this fact as guilt trip material somewhere down the line.

The good news is that I am not dead today. This is huge, because of the limited energy/chronic fatigue thing. And despite the bike being a one-speed (while reverting to the use of coaster brakes was surprisingly easy, many were the times I forgot I could not simply reverse the pedalling to reset my legs) it generally handles well. Sure, I wish I had at least three speeds when going uphill from a stop (which, as I pointed out above, happens an awful lot), but it’s very good for what it is. The boy decrees the trailer Very Cool. I was somewhat surprised to find that we can carry on a conversation at a regular decibel level and hear one another while cycling.

The boy had his first ever Official Pro Haircut yesterday. I’ve been trimming it when necessary, but I lack the knowhow to do it properly. So off all those lovely curls across his brow came. He was very, very good, and got a certificate and a lollipop.

Saw the doctor this morning (and a medical student, who played the role of main doctor while my doctor oversaw the appointment) and we’re upping the dosage of my meds a wee bit to help with the lack of deep sleep thing that’s creeping up again.

I have just discovered Schumann’s string quartets. Not sure why it took me this long.

I picked up Guitar Hero: On Tour last week for my DS (after wibbling about it since its release, but Ceri finally told me I could do it, so I did). After failing miserably for a few practice songs I suddenly understood what the game was asking me to do and how I could do it. Even though most of the songs are unfamiliar to me I have an advantage in being able to absorb rhythm and therefore hit things at the right time. I flew through two levels on Monday night. The grip is made for someone whose hand is slightly larger than mine, and I have to lie my left forearm on a pillow in my lap to keep my hand relaxed enough to play, though. There’s a decent amount of humour involved in it too, so it’s not as annoying as I feared it might be.

Gryffindor went to the vet last evening for what looked like an abscess that was leaking on his tail. Turns out one of our sweet little hellion girls bit him, and the bite became infected while we were gone. When we came home it was bald from his obsessive licking. He got a huge antibiotic shot and came home in a little Elizabethan collar, which he managed to ditch within the first four minutes at home. Not only did he ditch it, he hid the damn thing. After searching for it allover we found it on the lampshade of my little reading lamp next to the bed.

Monday saw 1300 words added to Orchestrated. They were transcribed from my longhand work. Maybe today there will be new words. Despite having a brief synopsis and expanded outline, I still don’t know exactly what happens where. This is frustrating, because I know how the overall story goes and how it ends (that’s new for me), and still can’t write the thing. Grr. I may choose key scenes that I know happen and write them, then figure out how to link them. Give me a break, I’m trying an entirely new process, here.

Vroom!

So. much. work. done. today.

I am dizzy at the mound of stuff I’ve accomplished. And yet when I look at the file I’ve just built it doesn’t seem like much. Still, I’ve verified or updated a bunch of out of date contact info, tracked down new contacts and their info, written a press release and a supra-condensed version for free listings, added the finished touches to a two-page edit I did on Monday, and handled a bunch of communication/e-mail stuff. I am much further along than I expected to be. I can remember when writing a press release took me a whole day.

Whoa. I am mighty.

Also? I have crossed not one, but SIX things off my to-do list.

I like meeting new people. I got an e-mail this morning from someone who had found the Court via a Google search for cello-related things, and we have been chatting back and forth since then. Hello, new readers who have alerted me to their presence via e-mail or a recent comment, and readers I don’t know about who have been reading stealthily for a while! I declare this a temporary delurking thread. If you read the journal and have never commented, just say hi so I can say thanks and welcome in a way that feels more personal. I could always make a pot of virtual tea to share. I promise, you never have to prove you were here in any other way unless you want to.

*facepalm*

My life just keeps getting more and more interesting. Unfortunately it’s in the Chinese curse sort of way.

Yesterday my internet access went down, thanks to Microsoft sending out an XP patch that didn’t play nicely with ZoneAlarm, the firewall I and millions of other people use. I spent sixty-nine minutes and 28 seconds on the phone with an unintelligible person manning an outsourced help desk last night. We finally got things back up and running.

And then this morning, the laptop died. It’s dead. D-E-D.

For those of you keeping score, that leaves me with no computer. None. I am stealing time downstairs on HRH’s computer to tell the world that yes, I am actually alive, but I sure as heck can’t work down here. I may come down to check Gmail tonight, but apart from that, nothing. Looks like I’m writing longhand during this afternoon’s writing jam with Jan.

Mitigating today’s severe technological ARGH was the wonderful wedding ceremony I performed yesterday for Scarlet and Blade, with the assistance of HRH, Jess, and Winterwolf in the ritual. It was a wonderful day with perfect weather and a lovely potluck buffet afterwards. I like performing marriage ceremonies for friends; I’m allowed to play with them during the ritual.

Right. I can’t stay here any longer. It’s claustrophobic and very damp. If you need to get in touch with me, do it by phone.

ETA: It’s 11:14 and Blade has just finished closing up the ADZO tower HRH borrowed ages ago and has been hanging on to in order to transfer the last few files to the second ADZO tower he officially acquired. I have internet (and proper browsing via Firefox, thankyouverymuch, first thing I installed), a functional computer, and thanks to my external hard drive that I love with much love I’m fine backup-wise. I can even use my external monitor again! I have a whole desk in front of me instead of a laptop! Speaking thereof, we’ll try a reinstall XP on the laptop and kick it back into shape. I’ll lose a couple of pictures but that’s about all. Muah-hah. I’m still installing Thunderbird and setting up my email addresses even now. Did you miss me?

Hmm

I finally got around to reading a news story that came in on an RSS feed, and I am highly amused. It outlines a rejected pitch for a Wii game proposed by Luc Bernard, said to be a 2D proper Castlevania-like game. But the best part, in my opinion, is this:

– Attacks & Fighting –
The player will take the control of [the character] who will attack with her cello. She will be able to upgrade her weapon by gaining experience points every time she kills a enemy. You will be able to find armours in the castle which will make her less vulnerable to attacks. As the game progresses you will be able to cast magic spells as stronger attacks against bosses. But every time you use a spell, your magic meter will go down so you will have to find more magic in the castle to refill it.

– Skills & Upgrades –
You will start off with only have some basic moves, such as a normal cello attack and a attack when you’re jumping or in the air. […]

– Magic Powers –
There will be several powers that you will be able to find within the castle. Such as a shield spell, another one that allows you to summon pugs that will then attack the closest enemy. Others spells will allow you to play the cello and have flying notes then go all over the screen and give damage to all enemies, ones that can cast fire (to burn down things) and also water.

And another tidbit:

The [fight against the] orchestra conductor boss will basically be a rhythm mini game where you will have to move the wiimote and nunchuck at the right moments in rhythm (like indicated on screen) to attack him with flying musical notes coming out of the cello.

The complete article is here, but basically quotes the majority of Bernard’s original post sharing the rejected concept. It sounds like an entertaining concept and a good old-fashioned game. But then, I’m a cellist, and the idea of a character having the power to fight enemies by producing music that attacks them in different ways amuses me to no end. If I can’t have a Cello Hero game, then I’d settle quite happily for this. The Wii would be terrific for a cello game; the remote and the nunchuck combo is brilliant.