Epiphany

I've entered a novel writing competition just now. I've entered plenty before, and to be honest it always ends the same way. However this time I really thought it would be different. This time I actually thought I had a really good chance of getting on the long-list. As it turns out I was wrong. This led me to wonder if I've been doing it wrong from the start. I mean the people who are running the competition have Twitter; they were putting all their favourite lines from the submissions on their twitter feed. It didn't really bother me that I didn't see my own lines on the twitter feed, but at the same time I was really hoping, like everybody else, that I would see something I'd written on there. And then comes 12th July, which is their announcement today for the number of submissions who’ve made it onto their long-list. I'm not going to lie, I was really hopeful. But as it turns out yet again I was to be soul-crushingly disappointed, and I did not make it.

To say that I was devastated might be overstating it, but as it sank in that it was yet another rejection, yet another time when someone had read what I had written and decided it wasn't good enough, I felt the clouds close over the top of my head, as they so often do.

One of the hardest things I have done in my life, and believe me there have been many hard things in my life, is to congratulate everybody who made it onto the long-list whilst simultaneously pretending that I wasn’t trying not to cry. It’s odd; I don’t think I actually had an emotional response that caused me to cry. It wasn’t like I was frustrated or angry or sad. I think I was just resigned to the fact that this is how it’s always going to be. On the plus side this means that I’m an also-ran, so I am helping other people to win competitions. You cannot come first if you're the only one in the competition, after all. But at some point it would be nice not to be an also-ran, although I honestly don't know what I would do if I won something.

After I’d send a tweet to congratulate everybody on getting onto the long-list, I had an epiphany. Just because you don’t win or you’re not picked does not mean that your writing is not good. Just because you don't win all you’re not picked does not mean that the work you've done, all the words that you’ve strung together, are in any way substandard or lacking. The creative arts and novel writing in particular is very subjective. We all know this; a friend at work can recommend their favourite TV show for example. They might go on and on about how amazing the writing is, how good the actors are, or how fantastic the finale is. And then you sit down to watch it and after 30 minutes decide that it's the worst pile of camel shit you've ever had to struggle through.

There are also the people who, say, give a movie a rotten tomatoes rating of 10%. And out of curiosity you end up watching this movie, and find that you really really enjoy it. I guess my point is that it’s the most hit and miss industry I can think of. Sometimes it feels like you're trying to get into the club of really good writers and therefore if you can't get in you must be crap. Sometimes it feels like the amount of rejections you've had must have already been an indication of how bad your writing is, and therefore you should stop.

This is where the epiphany comes in.

I'm sure I don't need to remind anybody that 50 Shades of Grey is an international phenomenon with books, and movies, and tie-ins, and all kinds of crap. What it also is, is complete and utter shit. If you have a tumbler account you may know what I mean. People were sharing the worst paragraphs or phrases that they came across in the books. To begin with for me it was pretty funny. Some of the descriptions and some of the grammar was so bloody awful all you could do was laugh. Afterwards of course you think this just isn't fair. There is no justice in the universe if this complete and utter pile of badly plotted, pretentious, hastily slapdash re-written personal fan-fiction can get published, and yet people who sit down and write original works with the funniest lines and the best presentation get passed over again and again and again.

That's when I realised nobody should ever give up trying to get published if they believe the reason they’re not getting published is that they’re not any good. That is a lie. The reason you're not getting published is not because you’re crap. The reason you're not getting published is because everyone else is getting published. There are many reasons why other people get published over you. Some agents and some publishing houses need books that are “the next Harry Potter”, or the next 50 Shades of Grey. Therefore anything original that you have written is outside of their wheelhouse and they don't care. And that's okay, you know, because people have to focus on what they need and what they think they want. People are always asking me: Did you send it to the right agent? Well, Sherlock, I bother to read what the agent or publishing house wants before I decide whether to send my submission or not. First of all you have to start with an agency that wants fiction an not non-fiction. Then you narrow it down to people who want quirky or sci-fi. Then you narrow it down further to people who want first-time writers or female writers or character driven material. You see where I'm going with this.

Having sent my novel to many different agents I can say that it's always nice to get a response. It may be that they say something about the novel that may be helpful to you, for example “it was great and I enjoyed it but there was no sense of urgency”. That's when you just rewrite it and put more urgency in it. To be fair nearly 50% of the agents I have sent it to have had the time to get back to me with a response. If I don't get a response at all, I believe it's because the sheer number of submissions they must get, and have to read through, must make it nearly impossible to reply to every single one of us who send something in. And I'm okay with that.

The biggest thing I can take away from my epiphany today: maybe my work isn't shit. Maybe that's not the reason why I'm not getting published.

That, I have to say, is the most encouraging thing anyone could ever say about my writing.

I think that's it for today. I have drinking and partying and other things to do this weekend.

Peach and lube everyone. Soopytwist.

Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay

Supernatural is dead. Long live Supernatural

Yesterday it was announced by the lead actors that Supernatural the TV show will end with the finale of its 15th season.

A few facts that came to mind when I heard the news:

The pilot episode (called, remarkably, ‘Pilot’) aired on 13th September, 2005.
The show went through the first 5 or 6 seasons of its life under constant threat of cancellation. However:
The show is older than the network that now broadcasts it - the CW launched 18th September 2006.

A few feelings that hit me heavier and heavier as the day went on:
Yes, it’s ok that it’s ending. After all, The Winchester Boys have been through everything they possibly could have been through. What do you write about after 327 episodes?
The friends I’ve made along the way - the fandom events, the writing fanfiction, the competitions, the rewatches, the hiatuses, and everything in between.
I remember going on the piss with friends, coming back to the flat, putting on the latest season disc of SPN and drinking at least 2 pints of tea before I went to bed.
I remember the writer’s strike of around 2007, which helped screenwriters get paid much more fairly for their work, and the fact that we all supported them, even though it meant season 3 was 16 episodes long instead of the usual 20-21.
I remember moving to a new flat on 16th September 2008, and scrambling to make damn sure my internet was plumbed in ready for 18th, when season 4 would premier.
I remember watching episodes live - for everyone else it was Thursday night, but for me it was Friday 6 - 7am as I was in HK at that time. But we all got on the SPN fan Hell Bus for tweeting shenanigans, so that we were watching along with a group of people just not in the same room, or had people to talk to about the episode and lots besides.
I remember making new ringtones every week from best lines from the show.
I remember the LOLcaps to reacp each episode on Livejournal, the SPN Headlines of the week, and the icons I made for a dozen smaller, lower resolution social media platforms of the time.


Most of all I remember the fanfiction. I remember the now defunct SupernaturalVille site. Taken out by a DDoS attack some years ago, it was just too much to try to get everything back and put it back together. I understand why the volunteers who had real lives didn’t have the resources to rebuild it, but it still makes me sad to know that everything there was lost. I learnt a lot about writing, a lot about cliffhangers, about giving the readers what they wanted but in such a way that it was satisfying, not placating. I learnt a lot about group writing, about round robins, about putting stories together, about pulling others apart, about citing references for other writers to help and communicate. It’s safe to say that without SupernaturalVille, I would not be writing today. It shaped me as a writer, as a communicator, as someone who had found something they enjoyed doing and also that some people enjoyed reading what I was producing. Luckily, at the time I was posting everything that went on the fic site to Fanfiction .net as well - so when the site went, I did at least have digital-ready copies (as well as my own back-ups offline). Some of these I have reposted at Archive Of Our Own, so my work is still out there. I haven’t done a SPN fic in ages, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it’s still around. I didn’t sit down and decide I would never write for them every again; when Constantine came along I really wanted a crossover with The Boys so I wrote it, for example.

And now we get to the crux of the matter; writing. Some of my best work ever (and my only script ever) was written for SPN. I was living in a slipstream back then; I was writing constantly, getting about 2,000+ words written a day (on a work day), and then upwards of that on a Saturday before evening parties and shenanigans. Sundays were reserved for polishing the latest chapter that was then posted online for the world, and then going over the week’s fresh writing on the new Work In Progress so far and tidying, checking, fixing continuity or changing plots. The links were posted to social media, and then once everything was suitably pimped out, I had a shower, jumped on the bus, and went out to the weekly pub quiz. Life was perfect - simple, exactly as I wanted it, and I was producing over 15 works a year, running to an average of probably 30,000 words each. To date, I have over 1,600,000 words on the FF .net archive, and the bulk of those are SPN fics or crossovers.

There were the banner-making competitions, the fandom events, the convention circuit write-ups, the swapping of contacts and social media handles - the friends we have made and the support groups we have become. It’s a huge, huge movement, and campaigns such as Always Keep Fighting, the GISHWHES and Wayward AF have only made things official and expanded the network of fans prepared to help other fans they’ve never met simply because they like the same things.

In short, the show may be ending in late May 2020, but everything it has given the fans, and the non-fans helped out indirectly by those same fans, will not. I have a lot more to say on the writing I’ve done over the years for this and other fandoms, but this is not the time. That will come later, when I’ve had a chat with myself over not writing as much as I know I want to.

How do I bring this post to a close? How do I sum everything up and make it work? I don’t know. I do know that the clock is ticking down for The End of Supernatural (the real one, this time). I’m happy Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki have decided to go out on their own terms - the show wasn’t cancelled, or taken before its time, after all. I hope to see them in other productions - after they’ve had a break from constant filming. Vancouver and parts of B.C. may lose jobs, but other shows will come along and hopefully fill that void.

For now though, we have the rest of season 14 to look forward to, and then season 15.

And that’s ok.

Electronica Moronica

There is a reason I haven’t been here in ages, honest. First there was the whole jetlag thing, which as usual, I don’t believe in until I realise that I’ve been walking around for three days as if I’m just visiting from a different planet. Now, normally, this would not be anything out of the ordinary, but for some reason this time I just felt really detached from everything going on around me.

Then there was the whole “I suddenly have a burning need to put everything in my flat in order” thing. First it was the bookcase - I went through all of the books on said piece of furniture, and basically chucked out everything that has been there for years without me ever having touched it. Then it was the DVD and VCD bookcases, and I have to say there’s an entire canvas shopping bag full of rejects ready to be split among mates. Then came my wardrobe and chest of drawers, which have quite happily housed all kinds of similarly untouched shite for the past two years. That was fun!

And then there was the whole “everything here works wrong, and I’m going to do something about it” thing. Which included me buying an official pair of Apple in-ear headphones, and a Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset. First of all, let me explain why I was trying to eschew my Skull Candy ‘Noise isolating bass-rich ear buds with in-line microphone compatible with iPhone and Blackberry Curve and Storm’ in the first place. You see, it all started a couple of Fridays ago. It was the weekend before I was going away to Dragon*Con, and I thought I had to put a few of my things in order before I went away. I spent two and a half hours in the 3 shop, picking up my supposedly “reserved” iPhone 4. Once this was done, I just about had time to race home, plug my new iPhone into my iTunes, have it load my iPhone 4 from the last backup I did of my iPhone 3G, and then get back to work. I was impressed that it took so little effort to accomplish all this, and I certainly kicked the arse out of my new iPhone for (called JT) taking close to 300 photographs and about 30 videos at Dragon*Con. She also worked wonders data roaming in the USA, picking up my e-mail and also using the mobile site for Twitter. I would have preferred to use my third-party app for Twitter, but Twitter themselves decided to change the signing-in authorisation procedure just a few hours before I left Hong Kong. This meant that not one of the three third-party apps on my iPhone 4 were able to sign in to Twitter. I was not a happy camper, as you can probably imagine.

Anyway, it wasn’t until I returned to Hong Kong and had time to get reacquainted with my iPod aboard my new iPhone 4, that I realised my Skull Candy headphones repeatedly used the sound suppression blip, normally reserved in case of incoming mail or text messages, while just playing music or video. While not exactly the most vexing thing that’s happened to me recently, it did start to annoy me after a while. Deciding that I had tried it out every single kind of in-ear headphones during the last three years, I thought perhaps it was time I gave the official Apple earphones a chance. After spending HK$600 on a pair, I was monumentally peeved to find out that they lack any kind of proper bass - by any stretch of the imagination. Inevitably, I have gone back to my Skull Candy headphones, and now I am quite happy to put up with the occasional suppressive blip if it means I can have proper fucking bass.

So, on to my new Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset. Within minutes of turning it on, I had it paired to both my iMac and my iPhone. It works wonders with both Skype on my iMac and also receiving or making calls on my iPhone. However - and this is a huge fucking ‘however’ - it takes a little bit of ingenuity and patience to enable it to work with MacSpeech (which is completely MacSpeech’s fault). It is entirely possible, seeing as that is how I’m writing this blog post at the moment. All you need is Soundflower and LineIn. A little bit of jiggery-pokery later, and here we are dictating a blog post.

The headset itself gives good sound and obviously works quite well with MacSpeech, without being too heavy. Being wireless also means I can wander off away from Jarvis my iMac, and still be heard whilst on Skype. However, having it jammed in your ear for anything up to two hours while you’re talking on Skype can mean it starts to make your ear ache just a tiny bit. This could be due to the fact that the earpiece is roughly the size of a dinner plate. That said, I am enjoying using it immensely.

I think I should leave it there, as it is getting quite late and I’m supposed to be up relatively early tomorrow doing private lessons before work. Oh, and I do have a Supernatural/Doctor Who crossover fanfic to finish for my sister.

Soopytwist!


Tags:
~ iPhone 4 ~ Apple ~ bluetooth headset ~ MacSpeech

This week in ramblings

So we’ve went to go and see The Hurt Locker last night. I have to say it was so much better than Shutter Island. There were a lot of reasons for this - first and foremost would be the idea that it was compelling. Next would be that I actually cared about the characters.

I was not at all put off by the gore, and the film was fascinating to watch. There were a few minutes where I felt I knew how much time had passed for the film, but overall it was a really good watch. I can see why it won the Oscar for Best Film, and as I haven’t seen Avatar I can’t say whether it’s a better film or not.

So that’s one good thing I’ve done this week. I’ve done a few other good things too, but unless you read Supernatural fan fiction you probably won’t appreciate them.

Little sister e-mailed me with an idea for a story a couple of weeks back, and I leapt on it like a half-starved leopard. I wrote a chapter or two in the same sitting, then send them to her by e-mail for very critical assessment. It’s been the most fun and the best way to get a story finished. It’s been an absolute blast and I’m actually sad that it’s all done. It’s kind of finished but I think it still needs some polishing. When it is finished and when it finally goes live on the Internet, have no doubt I shall be pimping it here too. It was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill, easy tale of the usual problems of keeping yourself alive while hunting various supernatural creatures. However, mulling it over (mull it, mull it, mullet), while making a cup of tea, I realised I was on the verge of coming out with one of those really odd split personality type William Burroughs tales. And that’s exactly what it turned into. I’m actually really happy about that because recently I’ve worried that everything I’ve done has been lacking flavour and personality. This latest effort - nearly 30,000 words in one week - has assured me that I’m just as twisted and perversely white and black as ever.

So Burn Notice has finished for the season but according to Jeffrey Donovan’s twitter feed, they are starting filming on season four right now. Excellent news - after watching all of season one within about three weeks, I was worried that we wouldn’t get any more seasons. That really pissed me off until obviously they were renewed for season two and three and now four. I just hope season four is as ace as the previous three series have been.

Supernatural is back this Friday (well, Thursday for the USA, but Friday in my time zone) and we can’t wait. It’s odd - I was really really hoping that season five would be the end of Supernatural. Not because I don’t like the show but because I love it. I was really worried that if we did get a season six it wouldn’t be as good as the previous five series. Now that season six has been confirmed, I’m a little worried that it could go all LOST bollocks where it just goes on and on and on and on with no end in sight. I’m also a little worried about the Russell T Davies factor. I trust the God who is Eric Kripke not to screw us over with the season five finale like Russell T Davies did to us for David Tennant’s Doctor bloody Who finale. However, I’m not sure that the new production team that takes over for season six is a good idea. I know that Eric Kripke will still be overseeing much of what goes on but from what I hear he will not be as hands-on as he was for the first five series. This is a little bit worrying to me, as when the creative force behind the show slips further into the background, it paves the way for all kinds of jumping-the-shark bollocks to go on (but as the great prophet Chuck Shurley once said - “it’s not really jumping the shark if you never come down”). Not that I’m saying that this is what will happen, but it’s one of my fears. Also, how do you write the arc and complete season six without the guy’s input? After all, he did say that his idea had a five season arc, and then it will be done and dusted. Would it not be better to finish on a high at the end of season five, and then perhaps negotiate some kind of movie deal? I for one would love to see really big Sam and really huge Dean on the big screen. But then, would anyone else who doesn’t watch the series really be interested?

This was supposed to be a really short post, but you know how I get when I start talking. Yes, I did say talking. I’m using MacSpeech Dictate at the moment as I have really painful RSI in my right wrist and my left hand is developing nerve problems from clicking the godsdamn mouse too many fucking times. This is not helped by Twitter parties doing Supernatural re-watches, Thursday morning Farscape re-watches via AIM, or doing the latest load of LOLcaps. For those of you lucky enough to have escaped my previous LOLcaps, I probably should explain that this means doing a Supernatural episode recap, in pictures that use lolcat speech. Very childish but highly amusing. I am working on one as we speak, following our latest Twitter party that comprised of a Supernatural Shapeshifter Sunday marathon - namely, watching the episodes Skin, Nightshifter, and Monster Movie back to back. A very good time was had by all and we will be doing more very soon - but more on that later.

And that’s pretty much everything I have two bang on about. I’m going to leave it here before MacSpeech gets annoyed with me rambling about shite.
Soopytwist.

Tags:
The Hurt Locker ~ Burn Notice ~ Jeffrey Donovan ~ Supernatural ~ Eric Kripke ~ RTD ~ Twitter ~ Farscape ~ LOLcaps ~ MacSpeech ~ fan-fic

The Online Identity Affair

Does this make me a lesbian? Or just living in a world that isn’t entirely real? I really can’t work this out. Hang on, back up - let me start at the beginning and maybe I’ll have a snowball’s chance of working this whole affair out.

That’s what I’ll call it, in a Man From U.N.C.L.E. kind of way: The Online Identity Affair.

I’ve been on Twitter for a while. And I do like cars. So when I stumbled upon a few role-playing people on said networking platform, and one of them was playing none other than ‘Metallicar’ of ‘Supernatural’ TV show fame, I felt obliged to ‘follow’ them. A bit of surreal flirting, a little ignorance of the fact that, as far as I’m concerned, the Metallicar is female, and lots of fun was had. I have no problem admitting my love (not lust, unless you’re talking for how she sounds) for a female car. That’s fine. Besides, the user behind the obviously fake Twitter ID was male, right? Judging by the replies and the willingness to have a harmless flirt now and again made me believe this.

As it turns out, I was wrong. Said user is female. So am I. This is not what freaks me out. What is a little unsettling is that I still kind of enjoy ‘flirting’ with this user - because, as I justify it to myself, she is still a car who is a character in a TV show. None of this is real.

Or is it?

I run my own user account for Twitter, obviously. I also have two (count them) bots that retweet my favourite show’s targeted hashtags. They do this so that, in the case of the first show, it doubles the tweets and adds more users who follow and connect, and in the case of the second show, proves there is an underground movement of people still watching and wanting to connect via the show we still love. Originally, both accounts were to be completely automated and I would have no input to them whatsoever - just the occasional check that they were running and performing as their Yahoo Pipe instructions were set. But as time has gone on, I have received replies to the bot itself, as other users become curious or simply leave friendly feedback. That’s when you get into multiple ID (and therefore, personality?) territory. Writing as one ‘bot is easy - it’s just me, minus the swear words. Writing replies as the other demands thinking like the character in the TV show. It also involves using different Twitter clients on my iPhone, so that people can see my three different identities accessing Twitter from different software - not the same person in the same location using the same client. That would give the game way, after all.

All this is easy. This is fine. It’s when you throw a totally brand new Twitter ID into the mix that it gets complicated. Yes, folks, I have two perfectly good Twitter usernames - and while everyone knows the original one is actually me, the actual identity of the second one is a closely guarded secret. It’s fun because I can write stuff that people who ‘follow’ me would not stomach - and I can criticise or take the piss out of all kinds of stuff that I wouldn’t normally. It really is fun.

But it calls for yet another Twitter client on my iPhone, and another time zone. Pretending to be someone of a different gender in a pretty much opposite time zone turns you into James Bond as far as checking when and how you tweet goes. And the spelling. And the fun of having to understand how channels work over the pond so you don’t get caught out mentioning you haven’t seen a certain season of a popular show when it’s been aired on their continent.

Still, good times. Which brings me back to my problem: does flirting (albeit online because you’re bored and in need of a Monty Python-esque conversation) with a female character (of a car) who actually does turn out to be female mean you have lesbian tendencies? When you still check all the online photos of your favourite actors, none of which are female? Or does it just mean you like a bit of both?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Tags:
Twitter ~ Supernatural ~ Metallicar ~ lesbian

Stop! Update time!

So work’s been a bitch this week, and overtime has crept in so that I’ve watched all my favourite shows but not had time to log about them.

Note to self: find a way to get your Twitter feed RSS’d to your blog so you don’t need to update.

Anyway, let’s see… Ah… Bought two CDs in a shop (did not just download them from iTunes for a change): Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin and Them vs You vs Me by Finger Eleven. So far Breaking Benjamin is winning. Finger Eleven will have to grow on me - the song I adore, ‘One Thing’, is on a different album. No harm done - means I get an extra track to try instead of one I already have.

Saw the Supernatural mid-season finale and really REALLY need to blog about that - but that’ll be in a separate post. I have done a few posts re: the show for the Daily Buckets Of Crazy site, which is why I haven’t directly commented on shite here. But seeing as the show is officially on hiatus (commonly referred to by fans as ‘hellatus’) until 21st January 2010, I think I have a few days’ breathing room to yak about season five goings-on.

Still waiting for Burn Notice to return, but popular consensus says 28th January, 2010, so again, I’ll just have to wait it out.

Waiting on my mega DVD set of Farscape, which came out 17th November, but seeing as Amazon US have already sent it, I can calmly sit back and patiently wait for my postie to bring it, can’t I? Can I fuck! I want it NOW! And I’ve pre-ordered my hardback copy of the Farscape comic ‘Gone And Back’, so roll on December and the release. BOOM! Studios are ace and I can’t wait for the next instalment of the whole Moya saga.

Which brings us to Doctor bloody Who.

Yes, I saw it. Yes, I was shouting ‘No, Doctor, no!’ Yes, I was shocked and appalled at his actions. Yes, I felt a horribly cold hand clutch at my one heart at the end… But the trailer for Christmas? How amazing was that? I am just so upset we’re losing David Tennant, but that’s a record that’s wearing thin and I shan’t keep playing it. Except to say I’m totally and in every way gutted that he’s leaving. (But intrigued by this ‘Rex Is Not Your Lawyer’ series thing he’s supposed to be making a pilot for in the US.) John Simm and Catherine Tate back again? Marvellous. Can’t think of a better ending - oh wait, yes I can - Martha Jones, too. Bah. Anyway, if it’s as good as last year’s Christmas effort then I’ll be happy. I wasn’t too impressed with the Planet Of The Dead, and though this Waters Of Mars was all shiny shiny aceness old skool Doctor style, it ended on a downer - at least for me personally. Hmm.

And that’s all the shite I’m willing to impart just now. I’m sure I’ll be back soon with more, though.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
Supernatural ~ Burn Notice ~ Farscape ~ comic ~ Doctor Who ~ David Tennant

Dear world: STOP IT


You’re not clever and you’re not fucking funny, pal. This week’s craptacular list of people/things as have contributed to my need to spork some fucker in the eye:

3 Hong Kong:
Fix your fucking log-in page so I can contact you to tell you to fix your fucking log-in page - seeing as I can't get through on the phone (THERE'S IRONY FOR YOU). And stop sending me random bloody texts about some sodding special offer that is about as special as my arse.

WordPress:
Stop letting me log in and then logging me out again when I press ‘save’ on the dashboard screen, before claiming my password is wrong. Like fuck it’s wrong! Or did you just commit computer password-bot fraud by letting me in with it FIVE FUCKING MINUTES AGO?

Michael Jackson:
You can fuck a long way off, mate. You. Are. Dead. Stop following me around and showing films and shite about what a completely wonderful suspected paedophile and all-round alien performer you were. You’ve done the dying bit, now do us all a favour and do the fucking off bit.

PCCW:
Stop sending me post for some random bloke whom I have never met. I have stopped returning his post to you clearly marked, and can only hope that the lazy fucker being cut off for non-payment will prompt him to call you and give a proper bloody address. Either way, I really could not give a fuck.

Twitter:
Stop having girlie tantrums and halting the server when it gets busy. IT’S YOUR JOB. DEAL WITH IT. I don’t ask you to fix my sodding fridge, do I? Do I ask you to check my net connection? No. All I want is for you to continue doing YOUR JOB.

The CW:
Why have you chosen to take ‘Supernatural’ off the air from 19th November until 14th January? ARE YOU OFF YOUR MEDS?

And since when has winning ‘The World Series’ meant you only play teams from your own country? Talk about fucking wank-arrogant.

That concludes the rant for this week. I need me some girlie porn now. Meet the new stuff - not the same as the old stuff (Supernatural 5x08 sporfle).


















Soopytwist.

Tags:
Supernatural

Conversations of the week (2)

“I’m sorry I keep calling you ‘Dave’ - your real name keeps escaping me. It’s…?”
“Dean.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Yes, really. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that… you don’t look like a Dean.”
“What does a Dean look like?”
Silence.
“Mate?” he says. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. Just having A Moment there.”


“Scholes can come to Oldham if he wants. In fact, he can probably do just about owt he wants without any bugger being able to say ‘no’. If I said he’d earned it I’d be massively understating the situation.”


“So us ‘Supernatural’ fans crashed Twitter, did we? That’s cos P Diddy is a twat and he just exacerbated the situation. Should have been arsed to read the fucking context of the tweets before picking a fight with fans of a fucking TV show. Ignorant fucker. Yeah, I was one of the sad fans that helped overload Twitter’s servers on 10th September, and contributed to its piss-poor censoring of the trending topics in a vain attempt to stop us having fun and promoting the show this 17th September - and yeah, next week I’ll fucking well be doing it again.”



“You know, your screwed-up sense of humor [sic.] and bizarre narrative would suit a ‘Farscape’ fan-fic really, really well. Ever thought of writing one?”
“Me? Fuck, no. How could you come close the ‘smoked crack the night before writing down some shite, now let’s paint it Technicolor, film it in MuppetVision and call it an episode’-ness that is the ‘Farscape’ show?”
“So… I’ll give you a week, yeah?”
“Aye.”



Tags:
Twitter ~ fan-fic ~ Supernatural ~ Farscape

Major Catch Up

And Sergeant Where Did The Last Fortnight Go? Yes, I know I haven’t blogged in years, but I’ve been distracted. Nay, busy. It’s summer school this month and as such, things are busier, free time is shorter, and the will to do owt but lie ont sofa and watch DVDs when you get home from work much stronger.

First off - been laughing at the audacity but cheeky fun of that bloke as put a sign up on the M60. Yes, you know the one - the wee copy of the Hollywood sign, except it says ‘Hollinwood’. Ace. Pity it were taken it down - he should have kept it up. Except the folks over in Hollywood (that’s in Stockport, not the USA) could be a mite put out that they didn’t think of it first...

Then I heard a rumour that the amazingly successful laughfest that is ‘Evil Dead: The Musical’ may be made into a film (oh, the ouroboros-ity!), as even the mighty Sam Raimi himself has been approached and seems amenable. Please say this is one rumour that won’t turn out to be a pile of shite. I’ve never been lucky enough to get to anywhere running the musical, so I will be the first in line to see a motion picture version.

Then there was going to see ‘Public Enemies’ last Saturday night. Mate may have had unshed girl tears cos she didn’t know the ending ‘fore she went in. Aw, bless her cottons. And it was Johnny Depp, after all. Still, pretty good stuff, if a little typical Michael Mann-ish in that it was Wong Kar Wai with guns and more angst (if such a thing is possible). Good entertainment. We’re off to the ‘The Hangover’ Monday night - which admittedly, would not have been my first choice, but I do need to get out of my work-sofa-work-sofa routine of late. It also looks like I’ll be going to see ‘Drag Me To hell’ on my lonesome, as I’m the only one round these parts as likes a bit of Sam Raiminess int dark. But at least I’ll see it on big screen. Huzzah!

Then there was the arsing about with Twitter and Facebook. Granted, I avoid Facebook unless I get an e-mail telling me summat less boring or inane than usual has affected my profile, so I really couldn’t give a pair of foetid dingo’s kidneys what happens there. I was rather annoyed at the mess that became of Twitter though, seeing as how I’m using it habitually these days. It was rather rude to find out I was unable to connect to the annoyingly addictive timeline anywhere other than on Tinternet - purr wee iPhone Dax did her best, but she was shut out for days. Resetting my blip.fm and Twitpic log-ins was a bummer, but it did seem to restore access. Until Twitpic went tits up again and stopped adding pics and links to my Twitter timeline. Ah well. And blip.fm does keep forgetting to add my blips to my Twimeline, too. Git. I’ll sort it later.

Which brings me to one of the two major reasons I’ve not been blogging: writing fan-fiction for ‘Supernatural’. Finished a wee one-shot for that challenge back last month (failed miserably, but hey, I took part). Here we go with a shameless plug:

“Triquetra”
Rating: Rated K+
Summary:
SEASON 4 SPOILERS. Written for UnGen Summer 09 Challenge re: The Fire, November 2nd, 1983. One fire, three perspectives, only one conclusion. References episodes 1x09 (Home) and 4x17 (It’s A Terrible Life).
Posted first (as always) at SPNVille.net.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the TV show ‘Supernatural’ either in whole or in part, but I wish I could write episodes full time. Or get a life. Or both.
Linky-link-link:



And that zombie story I started in February? I put it away for the LA convention in March, pulled it out again last month and still haven’t quite finished it yet, but it is finally starting to roll off the post-production line:

“Abra-Cadaver”
Rating: Rated T for language. And maybe the McNasty. And perhaps spades in necks.
Summary:
Set mid season 4. In 1987, John has a bad case of zombies, perhaps his worst yet. Meanwhile, in 2009, his boys discover that while some witches do no harm, objects in the rear view memory may appear hazier than they are. And they carry shovels.
Posted first (as always) at SPNVille.net.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the TV show ‘Supernatural’ either in whole or in part, but Eric Kripke is my dealer.
Linky-link-link:



So all I have left to say is that the other reason I haven’t been blogging is cos I’ve been wetting myself over watching ‘Farscape’ (one day I will have to make a note here of John Crichton’s best one-liners) and finishing that work of ‘Enterprise’ fan-fiction. Which I have technically finished, except for naming the bastard. I’ll sort it very soon.

Can you say ‘when fandoms collide’? I can - especially as I’m trying to get through season two of ‘Psych’ before I get to catch up with season three and the new season four as just started airing. And I’m mourning the airing break that ‘Burn Notice’ is going through right now until bloody January, and still wibbling over the end of ‘Torchwood’ series three and what that smug bugger Russell T. Davies did to my favourite character (yes, over and above my unearthly love for Captain Jack Harkness). GRRRR! Bad RTD, no cookies! And then I’m only up to season three of ‘Farscape’ but have to be ready for 10th September (or 11th in my neck of the woods) for season five of ‘Supernatural’ to start all over again… Another six (or seven) months of start-stop-start-stop sweeps / seasonal breaks / repeats mid-season broadcasting, avoiding spoilers, refusing to look at casting for next week’s episode and generally getting much too excited about each story as it airs. I’m hoping for a re-appearance from Chuck Shurley, the Trickster, Anna Milton (please don’t say she was brain-bleached by God’s minions) and of course Castiel. I can only hope he made it out of the season four finale, even after the way it ended. Oh, and that Dean finally goes postal on Lucifer. Please, please can we have Dean Winchester go Dark Side and eee-vil (like fruuu-its of the devil) and carve him / it / him into small pieces? (And I still vote Lucifer be played by Lucy Lawless - or David Duchovney. Or Jeffrey Combs. Or The God Who Is Bruce Campbell, seeing as he was down to be Big Damn Hero John Winchester but was unavailable…) Yes? Ok, thanks. Many cybercookies your way, Mr Eric Kripke. Love you long time.

Ok, that shallot. Onion. Thing. Time for more Farscape. I doubt anything could compete with ‘Crackers Don’t Matter’, ‘They’re Out Of Their Minds’ or ‘Relativity’ for Best Frelling Episode Other Than ‘Scratch ‘n Sniff’, but I’ve been surprised before. You never know what will come next to trounce all that’s come before. Fuck me, do I love sci-fi. (But not ‘Sy-Fy’. That’s just silly.)


Soopytwist.

Tags:
Hollinwood ~ Hollywood ~ Public Enemies ~ Sam Raimi ~ ED: The Musical ~ Twitter ~ fan-fic ~ Torchwood ~ Ianto Jones ~ Star Trek ~ Enterprise ~ Burn Notice ~ Supernatural ~ Farscape ~ John Crichton

Masks and general shite

Been a strange few days at work. Kids all arriving in face masks, having their temperatures tested and their hands sanitised. (Let’s skip over the inherent weakness in expecting kids’ hands to stay sanitised for longer than ten seconds.) Kids all moaning and fiddling with face masks the entire lesson, pretty much mauling them with the hands they’ve just used to rub their eyes (itchy from having hand sanitiser ground into them seconds after they slapped it on their grubby digits). They have to pull them down to speak, cos otherwise I can’t tell what the fuck they’re saying. They have to pull them down every time they need to drink from their little water bottles - cos it is rather hot out, and they’re only wee. So they wipe their mouths with their hands - the previously sanitised ones - and pull up the face mask again, and carry on.

Remind me why they’re supposed to be wearing masks again?

Honestly. I really don’t see the point. But hey, they have to wear them and I have to wear them. It gives them one more excuse to pretend they don’t know what I’m saying, which gives me a good excuse reason to make them do some fucking work, giving em short shrift. It’s killing me - no pun intended. It’s one thing to do it for one day, it’s another to do it for as long as the WHO thinks it’s necessary. I think we should just close down for two weeks and be done with it. But again, it’s not my place to say. So I’ll carry on going to work with 65% of the students just not turning up (in some cases, doing lessons with one kid in each lesson, which begs the question ‘Why can’t they just all come together for one lesson and then I could use the free periods to do some reports?’) and shout through the mask, and get shitty with kids deliberately trying to avoid understanding me. Great.

On a brighter note, ‘Burn Notice’ has been great these past two episodes of season three. I notice we’re getting more Sam Axe in the form of Bruce Campbell - do the writers realise that they broaden the appeal of the show if they give us more Bruce? Looks like it. And we still have Fee, so I’m happy. And Michael’s still Michael, so it’s all good…

Suffering without any new ‘Supernatural’. Keeping myself busy on old ‘Enterprise’ episodes and with the many fic challenges over at SPNVille.net. It’s all go, but doesn’t feel like it. Should get back in the gym, as all that went out the window just before my holiday in March/April. It’s now June and I still haven’t been back yet. Can you say ‘lazy fucker’?

Been spending a lot of time on Twitter recently - when you have Twitterfon on your iPhone it makes it kind of addictive. This week I have mostly been laughing my arse off at @GeneHunt and @BrentSpiner - and the whole story of @mishacollins and his Minions just gets funnier and funnier. And there are all the girls on the @hell_bus that mirror my own smutty thoughts before I can type them. Gotta get that MacSpeak thing I was thinking of buying... Oh wait, might get an iPhone 3G S first...

That shallot. Onion. Stuff to do. Soopytwist.

Tags:
H1N1 ~ swine flu ~ Hong Kong ~ Burn Notice ~ Enterprise ~ Supernatural ~ fan-fic ~ Twitter

Enthusiastic Porn Star!

From the case file of Twitter:

[friend who shall remain nameless:]

LMFAO, I just had to look: @TozaBoma swears like an Enthusiastic Porn Star. Ranked: 42,932nd worldwide. - http://cursebird.com/tozaboma

Woo-hoo! The magic number 42! And I'm an enthusiastic porn star! A bit like New Ruby, really....

Laters...