Update Puter Tonight

Just a quick reminder. The April's Fool Conficker Virus is no joke and will be out and about at midnight. So people, do your thing if you use IE and Microsoft products--update your Virus program and practice safe surfing for the next few days. That means be careful what site you go to, don't click on strange links, don't open any spam emails, update all Microsoft patches, and don't give out any private passwords to banks.

Mac users have no worries ;-P.

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Post #2: RIP Andy Hallect

I was just writing about Whedon and Buffy and Angel, wasn't I? ;-( RIP Andy Hallect (Lorne). He was a memorable character on Angel. Sniff.

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Dollhouse Episodes 6 & 7

Hey, someone emailed and asked where my Friday Dollhouse post was. I didn't know anyone was interested in those mini thoughts ;-).

Let's see. I'm still watching because His Geniusness, Joss Whedon, has hooked me with Episode 6. He'd promised that that particular episode was untampered by any Wolfram and HartFox Execs, and the pacing definitely picked up with Echo and Paul Ballard finally connecting. Kewl Buffy-esque fight scene between them as Echo was programmed to be an assassin.

Loved, loved the scene where Melly of the Melons turned deadly. And Paul has his confirmation that the Dollhouse did exist (on a shallow note...Paul can be my nekkid neighbor any time, 'kay?).

This week was a complete turnabout from that serious Dollhouse vs Paul/documentary to a funny (but with serious implications) episode. It wasn't perfect but I enjoyed Adelle de Witt and Topher getting high together. That was pure Whedon humor, especially Topher's telling his superior, Adelle, "You haven't seen my drawer of inappropriate starches." OMG. I wanted that line for my own. And Adelle's, in her drunken Brit accent, "Indomitable! Oooh. I can eat that word."

The twist with the Dolls getting some of their memories back...that one had a bit of a plot hole problem for me. The explanation for their "dollness," the way I understood it, is that their mind/memories were wiped and they are essentially blank slates. Meaning, there are NO memories in there to get flashbacks of, so the drug shouldn't affect the memory compartment of their brains the way it was portrayed.

As for Echo--the show is hinting that she is still different from the others because she was having flashbacks without ever coming in contact with the drug. The sight of the uni on TV started her recollection. So I'm still thinking that there is something special about Echo.

Her flashbacks of her previous (real) life explained a lot about how she ended up at the Dollhouse, so Whedon is doing his job in making me root for her "self" to come back. I'm now wondering whether Alpha is her presumed-dead boyfriend? She was also on the run for two years before Adelle found her--what was she doing? Joss is still reeling me in ;-).

Next week looks kick-ass as the main characters wake up with their memories intact. I keep wondering how this series is going to keep going if by next week we're getting a mini rebellion. Or maybe it's just another mind-imprint by Dollhouse to test their dolls???? Ooooh! Or maybe we're going to get Joss' version of Prison Break, heh.

There you go. Happy now, Casee?

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And Meanwhile, Female Conversation Might Sound The Same...

but we're definitely more introspective AND clever (unlike THE CRAZY DUDE of the post below) in how we talk about our private lady things:

"Are they real?" "No, you made them up."

This wonderful lady celebrates her boobages with great humor and insight. I loved her references--"agents of fascination," "largely parasitic," "industrial sized," "the Rambo of bras." Even if I don't have her physical generosity, I feel that her description of how puberty (and her growing breast size) affected her thoughts and self-awareness was on target with every teen girl. Certainly, I have no problem nodding and grinning at the some of her experiences.

My new phrase: My agents of fascination bring all the boys to the yard. (Looking down at meagre melons...okay, probably not...)

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This Could Be One Of Those Stories...

I hear while my eyes are closed. The man was sent to prison for doing his thang with a car wash vacuum cleaner.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Seriously, a vacuum cleaner? I like the commentary at the end of the news item, with the suggestions for other, more powerful vacuum cleaners ;-).

But the scary part is, I can see one of the guys I listen to in the morning actually telling this "adventure" and every one of them borrowing quarters to go try it out.

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What A Girl Can Learn With Her Eyes Closed

Sometimes, while driving the two plus hours to the jobsite, I sit back with my eyes close and let the men talk. They talk. A lot. Here are some things I've learned and no, I won't be doing them, ever, I hope....

1) How to put titty tape on your dancer-girlfriend's nipples that would allow the nipple to peek out without being illegal (in Florida, dancers have to wear pasties on their nippies). Let's just say it involves very careful cutting of skin tape with the cap of a Brut, lots of body glue and saliva, and a certain way to FLUFF THE NIPPLES.

2) Men think their penises can still grow. They are still measuring them to check. And they actually bring this up in conversation.

3) Men can munch on breakfast and talk about body functions at the same time. In FM, Stereo, BlueRay, HD, Crystal, Supersonic detail.

4) The best time to read books is when one is in prison (huh, that accounts for the letters from prisoners....).

5) How to paint your super-big tires black so they appear bigger and why this is the more important than fixing other car stuff.

6) If one's son asks to play soft rock on the radio, one is to reply: "Son, when a rock hit your head, is it ever soft?" Then gaffaw for ten minutes with masculine agreement.

There's more but really, the info is too disgusting to impart to your sweet innocent ears.

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To Sleep, Perchance To Avoid Writing

I toted 300 12-foot length lumber boards from trailer to garage at my jobsite yesterday and immediately konked out when I got home. Exciting life, eh? Now I missed my two hours of writing time.

For those of you asking me what Viking Dude is about, emailing me that it doesn't sound like a romantic spy intrigue--well, it's not. Viking Dude is an urban fantasy/alternative fantasy. I started it while writing for Mira Books and awaiting their decision on Virtually Hers. Since I couldn't submit any romantic suspense while under contract, I decided to try my hand at writing another genre. My current favorite books are from the urban fantasy genre, especially those with heavy romantic elements, and Viking Dude seems to be walking in that direction, using many of the themes you find in UF.

It's first POV, male, and yes, the hero is/was a Viking. He's a dude in the Present. But he has powers that makes him very attractive to magic-practicing people. No, he's not a vampire. Or a werewolf. Or any kind of shape-shifting alpha. In fact, he isn't quite sure what he is, except that he can manipulate time in certain ways, and as the story progresses, he isn't even sure whether he wants to find out what he is.

If you've been following the blog, I talked about an editor wanting to see more than the proposal and first chapter my agent sent out, so I'm trying to polish and tighten up Chapters Two and Three quickly, quickly, quickly. And ya, I've been trying very hard to write and rewrite and edit and rewrite while I'm on my four hour commute to and from my job site, but it hasn't been easy. It's hard to concentrate with a noisy truck swerving back and forth among heavy traffic. Can I spell constant headache and back cramps?

Then I went and konked out last night. Argh.

On the good news front, I've gotten another order from the Australian bookseller for Big Bad Wolf, which brings total sales to 380 books. We're nearing 400 copies, woohoo! Of course, that's like a drop in the bucket compared to the sales number of my other books, LOL. I know there are many who push self-publishing as the next zen of publishing history, but really, if you aren't Stephen King, you aren't going to sell enough copies to justify a career. BBW is considered as having done quite well, by the way, considering that it had barely any publicity whatsoever. Thanks to word-of-mouth by many of you, my wonderful readers, it's still selling every week! I'm hoping to celebrate the 400th sale next week, so you know what to do...word-of-mouth. ;-D

While I work on Viking Dude for the editor, the anthology of short stories about the SEALs is on hold but it'll be my next project, I promise...unless something Big comes up, like Virtually Hers/One or Viking Dude getting sold. Then I'm going Not Ever Sleep Again because I need to write, write, write like a maniac.

So, what have you been stressing about lately?

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I Can't Print Magic Money

I paid a visit to an old neighbor of mine from another subdivision. It's been quite a while since I've seen her and although we aren't close friends, we were good neighbors. We shared a lot of laughs and stayed in touch through the years. My friend is in her early seventies and is pretty much alone. A remarkable lady, she often has many wonderful stories to tell, especially of her youth growing up in the South, and of her adventures with the men in her life.

It didn't occur to me that due to the economy, my friend might desperately need help. These past few months had been very tough on her. Her air condition had broken down and she didn't have any funds to repair it. She had to drive to the Catholic church every week to get a bag of free food. My friend, who had always been an independent lady, told me that it was the hardest thing to do, to drive her nice car to church and, instead of donating, stand in line to get help. She also told me that the church had asked her to come back once every two weeks now because there just wasn't enough food to give out to everyone.

My old neighbor is not your typical idea of someone in need. She lives in a relatively nice house and owns a vehicle. Her deceased husband had left her ample funds on which to live. However, much of it had been wiped out by Wall St. and hospital bills, so she's now alone, trying to make it with the few checks coming in. She has quietly sold most of her jewelry and nice clothes, along with some of her collection of pretty porcelains.

Today, I went out shopping to buy her some food and although she doesn't expect it, I hope to be able to help her out as much as I can. This has started me wondering about all the other neighbors around us who might be living in quiet desperation that we're just too blind to notice because we're busy trying to make it too.

If you have an elderly neighbor who lives alone and seems not to have too many visitors, please give him/her a minute or two and check up on their needs. Sometimes a gift of a rotiserie chicken dinner might be the first non-canned food they've eaten in weeks. Or, if you're able to, consider donating a sack of food to your local church. You don't have to be religious to do this. The Catholic church helping my friend didn't require her to be a member of their church or to attend any services; they have been giving out as much food as they can but there are just too many families in need right now.

I feel it's important to share this because many people feel too ashamed to ask for help. There are some who actually think such requests coarse or "unclassy," blaming the plight of the one in need on his/her inability to save enough money for rainy days. Sometimes, that rainy day money can be wiped out without a peep of warning. Think Bear Stearns, one of the largest investment banks, and those millions who had their accounts/investments with them when it went down like a house of cards. Some of those millions are older folks like my neighbor, who have no other means of income and are too old to go back into the job market. And too ashamed to ask their friends for help.

These days and these times, with that magic government printer churning photoshopped Lincolns, Washingtons, and Hamiltons in the background, we just need to take care of our friends--close or mere acquaintances--in our own way.

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Tell Me What Is The Next Uber

I'm going to ask this question on my romantic suspense panel at RT but I thought it'd be fun to hear your answers, especially for those readers who are into fantasy/urban fantasy/paranormal romance.

For example, vampires and werewolves are just old news. The market is saturated with vampire slayers and werewolve lifemates. There are now a slew of series that include "new" beings as heros, such as:

Demons (once the Big Bad, some are now actual heros, with some interesting greyness in their character make-up, of course)
Angels (and they aren't your mama's cherubic boys either. These angels are super beings who have sexual appetites)
Mages
Faes (the expansive mythology behind faes and fairies give lots of different twists to worldbuilding)
Norse myths (not quite saturating the market yet but in the last month, I've seen three books about Norse gods)
Greek gods/Greek myths (pretty standard for a while, actually)
Witches
Djinns
Zombies (iz the new black. Lotsa zombie books. Munch, munch, yum)

So what is next? I'm writing a time-traveling Viking with some Greek myth twist, but nothing to do with vampire hunters and daemons...I think. LOL, what can I say, I'm a pantser. I've no idea what's coming late in the book, except, of course, the Big Bad.

Maybe you can strike my fanciful imagination. What do you see as a different kind of hero or a different kind of Big Bad?

I know many readers and friends have suggested writing Chinese mythology as an aspect. I'm not opposed to it but to be honest, I haven't found the right combination of epic plot to make it work. Also, have you seen Chinese vampires? Argh. Green zombified hoppers. So not romantic.

Your turn.

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Post #2: Grrr. ArRrr. I'm Joss Whedon's Bitch.

Dollhouse tonight was the one over which Joss Whedon was given total control without any FOX executive meddling.

Holy smokes. I'm now a believer of the concept. There's still that disturbing "high-class" prostitution theme), but now there is SOMETHING/SOMEONE I can root for.

Joss, please accept my adoring worship.

P/S I want Joss Whedon's genius programmed into the writing compartment of my brain, please, thank you.

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It's Been A While

I know you've been missing your dose of Sexy Veges people have been sending me. Here you go. Happy cookin' this weekend!

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Another Episode

I had to make that two hour drive to work myself because I needed to do some paperwork at City Hall and of course, nothing's opened till 8am (the work truck starts off at 6.30am). I didn't have my work truck with me so I had to use my personal car, you know, that convertible that I heart so much.

Anyway, at 10.30am, as I entered that gazillion-dollar subdivision, I noticed the contractor right behind me. He followed me (of course) all the way in and I could see his frown from my rearview mirror as he tried to figure out who it was parking the nice car on his property, away from the work trucks (what, you think I was going to chance any injury to my pretty car?). Then I got out. You know, she of the "lowest of the totem pole." * She of the "getting away with pink sweat pants and panties" as I lay on the ground sinking into cement mix and mud*. Opened the trunk up. Took out my toolbelt and toolbox.

As I made the slow walk down the long, muddy driveway to the new mansion, he drove pass me. When I finally reached the area where I usually get ready for work, he was there.

"Hey," he greeted me.

"Morning!" I chirped.

"What's a roofer doing with a fancy car like that?" He nodded toward my very fancy convertible (for which I'd saved and saved for years, btw, and looks new because I baby it). He cocked an eyebrow at me. "It's a very expensive car, isn't it?" (meaning out-of-my-league expensive)

You know me. I had made it my quest to get him to smile. I did a few jiggly steps and then sang the first two lines of the Donna Summer song. "I work hard for my money...so work hard for my money."

Nope. Did. Not. Crack. One smile at me. One day...one day....

*earlier posted episodes

P/S I keep seeing these episodes fictionalized in a H/S series story ;-). You know, the ones with the bad-tempered hero and the mouthy and unconventional heroine.

Your exercise today: Tell me what you imagine were the various reactions from the other workers who really don't know me, when they saw me getting in and out of my shiny zoombaby. As I told you before, I mostly sit quietly in the work compound and basically get the menial jobs because you know...I'm female, not a state-licensed roofing contractor ;-P.

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Lemon, Lemonada

Help! I'm exhausted today. One of those days when everything went wrong at work, and at the end of the day, it feels like you've moved only three inches.

Then I came home to find two rejections for Virtually Hers. So I ate a tub of icecream.

After that I received another email from my agent telling me that another editor is interested in reading more of Viking Dude (my agent sent out Proposal and first chapter), so I'm going to have to really work hard at polishing Chapters 2 and 3 that I've written in the next ten days.

But I'm bloated from a whole tub of icecream. Argh. Told you it was that kind of a day. I've now worked on Viking Dude for an hour and only managed to move three inches, and bedtime is calling because of the 5am gig.

Life. I so suck at it.

Can you comfort me?

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Got $31 Million?

You can buy this village and play lord/lady of the manor. Apparently its former lord passed away with no heir and now the villagers need a "master."

The whole lot includes 22 houses, 1,500 acres of farmland, 450 acres of trees, a place to play cricket, a shop, even a blacksmith's forge. Just the thing for that new set of mail.

Hey, if you do, please invite me for a visit ;-). I know someone will grab it. After all, the house on which I'm working on costs $10. And the owner paid cash. For the price of three houses, he could have bought this whole village AND be called lord of the manor.

It's pretty too:

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Post #2: Look Ma No USB Needed!

I'm stealing links left and right today ;-). Author Jordan Summers posted this really fun new gadget on her blog.

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Insane. Indescribable.

From the What Were They Thinking category:

Via Vanessa Jaye, my excellent weird news buddy.

See the saber saw above? Apparently, a couple thinks it would be fun to use as a SEX TOY. I can't even imagine the sexy conversation that led to this epic fail idea.

And yes, they used it, with a plastic attachment. During the love game, the saw CUT THROUGH said attachment while in use. See me. Crossing. Legs. Here.

Girlfriend is injured but recovering. Girlfriend needs to think carefully about what tools to use as sex toys.

Gennita's Sex Advice for the day: Now, girls and boys, IF you significant other tells you that he wants to attach a plastic toy on his jackhammer/saber saw/power tool, what would you say to him? If in doubt, look carefully at the picture above.

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Discuss

Who is the first romance author you read who got you hooked?

I'll tell you mine this evening, after I throw a tantrum at a cement mixer (my current love affair).

*********
EDITED NOW THAT I'M HOME AND HAVE READ YOUR COMMENTS:

Ooh, what an assortment of titles you girls remembered! I think our first romance books "date" us and also tells us the emotions we were drawn to then, and perhaps, with our changing tastes, at this moment in our lives.

For example, I remember my first foray into romance were Harlequin-type books. In Malaysia, they were published under the umbrella of Mills and Boons and when us schoolgirls back home would fondly called them M&Bs. There was an "exchange table" outside the temple at which my mom worshipped and yeah, that was actually the very early version of a UBS! I had the greatest time rummaging through all these books from the 60s and 70s.

Being a naive teen, the dynamics of a male-female relationship was my prime interest and I was drawn to those books because they fed my curiosity. Emotionally, I was learning about this thing called male/female attraction and of course, the idea of the tall, dark and handsome in-charge Alpha male was very intriguing because those stupid boys on my schoolbus was nothing like that.

I think my first "big" book romance was Sweet Savage Love, that very, very old-school romance that horrifies readers now. But back then, it was THE book my girlfriends and I passed around. The story came around at the time I was getting bored of Barbara Cartland's elliptical heroines, so pure and sweet they gave me toothache. Steve Morgan's treatment of Ginny was awful but my God, did he give my teenage heart chills because he was so different from Prince Bland and Duke Yawn from Barbara Cartland's stories. And of course, there were no ellipses and closed door secretive groping, no, no, no, we got the real deal, what that Steve did to Ginny and what she did to him. I suppose, at that time, I was reaching my rebellious stage and wanted more than the mooshy syrupy idea being touted as twu wuv. The books after SSL opened a whole new world to me, not neccessarily politically correct, but damn did I have a good time imagining women slashing with knives or traveling the world alone without a chaperon AND having lovers. Woohoo!

I stopped reading romances for a long time. College and working for a living would do that to you. The romance author that pulled me back in was Nora Roberts. It was a rather silly but serendipitous moment too. I was helping an old neighbor clean out her closet and she had dozens of romance books and I recognized a few of the names from my M&B days. So I sat down in her garage and played books all afternoon, enjoying a particular title by La Nora.

I did not know how famous she was, that was how removed I was from the book world. I remember going to the store and on a whim, went over to the book shelves and thinking, "hmm, I wonder whether that Nora Roberts was still writing." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You can imagine my expression when I found she owned a whole shelf to herself. But yeah, La Nora hooked me back in with her wonderful stories and I must have spent all my meagre extra roofing pay on buying as many of her backlist as I played catch-up.

And thus begun my love for romances again and I came back just at the right time--the late 80s, when many of our current bestsellers were writing Harlequins and series romance and giving them unique twists--Roberts, Linda Howard, Iris Johannsen, Jennifer Crusie, Sandra Brown, Elizabeth Lowell, Anne Stuart, Kay Hooper, among many others, some of whom have moved on from their romance roots. That was the golden age of romance, with so many big names that every month was a feast of stories.

The emotions that drew me in those books were the idea of independent women, some of whom divorced or single mothers, taking care of themselves and taking on the most incredibly attractive and macho males. I loved the chase, the sparkling wit, and yes, the addition of the male POV made romance a lot richer.

In addition to my original question, can you look at your current favorite reads and point out to yourself what are the emotions in those books that draw you to those authors? I do think we can map our emotional changes/growth by the type of romance books we pick up.

For example, I'm now very much into urban fantasy type stories. I'll probably have to write another long post to dig out the emotions in these books that draw me to them.

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Happy Birthday, Jiggle Low!

Yes, the terrible twos are here. He hasn't eaten a book in months. Still marks the Alpha Pillow as his when he can. Has this love affair with spaghetti. Wants every female in the neighborhood for himself. Happy Birthday, Bad Puppy!

He ate spaghetti and ice-cream, in case you're interested.

***************
I'm reading Nalini Singh's newest, Angel's Blood. An interesting new world of archangels which aren't quite as angelic as traditional lore, who makes vampires. The heroine is a vampire hunter and she's been hired by the very scary-powerful and ethereally beautiful Raphael. The thing is, can she survive this hunt?

I'm enjoying the tension between the protagonists, the play of opposites--of zest vs ennui, humanity vs absolute power. It's a very fast-paced book, and even though we're fed with many interesting details about the h/h's backgrounds as well as the secondary characters' history, there's never any info-dumping. The ending is a little rushed (I felt that the disposal of the bad guy needed a scene from the heroine's POV to really bring home the impact of her predicament) but the series is definitely worth following. Neat twist at the end, with consequences that I'm dying to find out in the next book.

What are you reading right now? Any good recs? Any downers?

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Uber Described Video For The Visually Impaired

Here's some Monday Fun! And the video is safe for work. It has one kissing scene and one bare chest.

This was a PBS featured appropriately titled Frenchman's Creek. I'm sure it was a wonderful pirate romance, but if you just listened to the "described video for the visually impaired," it adds a totally hilarious dimension to the story. Bone pipe and white foam take on totally new meaning!




Via Smart Bitches

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These I Know You Read More Than 6!

These are romance books most often recommended by romance readers to other romance readers, books that have a "generational" or "classic" feel to them, pivotal in moving the genre into new territory. Some of these stories were provocative for their time, and of course, generated very different feelings today because most readers aren't comfortable with the subject matter (rape/UberduperAlpha behavior/dated male-female concepts), but I feel they all elicited strong emotional response then and now.


1) MacKenzie's Mountain -- Linda Howard

2) Sarah's Child -- Linda Howard

3) "Born In" trilogy -- Nora Roberts (my fave was Born in Fire)

4) Lord of the Storm -- Justine Dare (a classic, very hard to find)

5) Knight of A Million Stars -- Dara Joy

6) Naked In Death -- J.D. Robb

7) The Stud -- Barbara Delinsky

8) The Lover -- Robin Schone

9) Prince Joe -- Suzanne Brockmann

10) Walking After Midnight -- Karen Robards

11) Sweet Savage Love -- Rosemary Rogers

12) The Flame and the Flower -- Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

13) Dream Man -- Linda Howard

14) Chained Lightning -- Elizabeth Lowell

15) A Man To Slay Dragons -- Meagan McKinley

16) Menage -- Emma Holly

17) Devil's Bride -- Stephanie Laurens

18) Leopard In The Snow -- Anne Mather

19) Outlaw -- Susan Johnson

20) Blaze -- Susan Johnson

21) Blush -- Suzanne Forster

22) The Morning Side of Dawn -- Justine Davis

23) The Windflower -- Tom and Sharon Curtis

24) Dream A Little Dream -- Susan Elizabeth Philips

25) Gentle Rogue -- Johanna Lindsey

26) Flowers From The Storm -- Laura Kinsale

27) Stormfire -- Christine Monson

28) Rangoon -- Christine Monson (Please do not read 27 or 28 if you have no stomach for the most bodice rippling trainwreck taboos ever. You have been warned. They will make you gnash your teeth and buy brain bleach. But, for the 80s era, this was definitely a definitive classic, like Sweet Savage Love was in the 70s)

29) Hangar 13 -- Lindsay McKenna

30) Slow Heat In Heaven -- Sandra Brown

31) Nightfall -- Anne Stuart

32) Dark Prince -- Christine Feehan

33) Outlander -- Diana Gabaldon

34) Clan of the Cave Bear -- Jean M. Auel

35) Bridget Jones' Diary -- Helen Fielding

36) Golden Surrender -- Heather Graham

37) Bad To The Bone -- Debra Dixon

38) Fantasy Lover -- Sherrilyn Kenyon

39) Cry Wolf -- Tamo Hoag

40) Knight In Shining Armor -- Jude Devereaux

41) Whitney, My Love -- Judith McNaught (the non-revised version, please)

42) Walking After Midnight -- Karen Robards

43) Untie My Heart -- Judith Ivory

44) In The Midnight Rain -- Ruth Windy

45) Winter Garden -- Adele Ashworth

46) Morning Glory -- LaVryle Spencer

47) The Bride -- Julie Garwood

48) Sweet Starfire -- Jayne Ann Krentz (considered the first mainstream futuristic romance)

49) The Negotiator -- Dee Henderson (I feel this is the first Christian book that crossed genre into romance, thus brought a lot of attention to Christian and sweet romances)

50) One of Barbara Cartland's...breathy...novels..., especially the one with the overweight heroine that went into a coma...and...woke up...so amazingly...thin...and...gorgeous and...talks...like this.... That's one of hundreds I read but it definitely remained in my memory.

50) One of mine, of course! Come on, where would you find a Chinese heroine tied down with a seat belt? Or all brothers named Steve? Huh? Huh? J/K. Fill up #50 and above for me.

Yes, I've read 95 percent of the books above. I'll come up with the next 50 this week, maybe. Please fill free to help get to #100 by giving me titles that you always hear people recommend to a romance reader. Yes, I also left out the inevitable Danielle Steele. I know everyone knows her and she should be on the list because of recognizability (is that a word?) but I decided she should be on another list with the Bible and James Patterson romances. Ahem.

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Original Whedon Dollhouse Script

This was supposedly the way Whedon envisioned the pilot for Dollhouse. Fox chopped it all up and dispersed the fragments in the first six episodes, thus confusing the heck out of many viewers. I think this script was tight and actually took out a lot of the sleaze factor problems I got from the first two shows that were aired. Anyway, it's interesting to see a writer's original vision and see what the PTB (Wolfram and Hart, ha!) do with it when they assume control.


Script_Dollhouse_1x01_-_Echo - Free Legal Forms

If you're still watching this show with me, what do you think of this script as the introduction into Echo's world and storyline?

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I Think I Thaw A Tweeterer!

I'm still trying to feel out Twitter, what it's about, why it's popular, whether I really am a Tweeterer. Did you see today's Doonesbury cartoon?

http://www.arcamax.com/doonesbury

Cracked me up because it summed up my feelings about Twitter at the moment. Still, I'm always open to new things and want to understand. Mrs. Giggles hated it after one day. My friend Maria sounded horrified and confused. Many love the mini conversations. Do you really hold mini conversations? Or are you like the Tweeters on Doonesbury?

Do you think we're just doing mini monologues to the world?

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Prove Them Wrong

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.

Here's the list:

1 Pride and Prejudice x
2 The Lord of the Rings (attempted, does that count? Hahaha)
3 Jane Eyre x
4 Harry Potter series x (actually, I didn't read all the books)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird x
6 The Bible x (it still amazes me how many people have never read the Bible)
7 Wuthering Heights x (my mostest favoritest bad boy book of all time)
8 1984 x
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations x
11 Little Women x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles x
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare x (Well, I was an English major, what do you expect? But this really isn't a fair, to say COMPLETE. Most people hadn't read all the sonnets or plays)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (argh. No. But I have seen a re-enactment, ahem)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger x
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (x, but I've forgotten most of it)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell x
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald x
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens x
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy x (okay, did not finish)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy x
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck x
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll x
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (All of them) x
34 Emma - Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis x
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne x
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell x (my favorite book of all time)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown x (umm. I sped through much of it because I do feel he heavily borrowed from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which I read 20 years before)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving x
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery x
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy x (sigh, this was a "forced to read" book)
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding x
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert x
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley x
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck x
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (You'd think they'd pick THAT book. You know, the one that got him in trouble with the Ayatollah. Bet you lots more people picked that book up than this one. Yes, I read it)
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville x (argh. I still suffer from nightmares of the giant dick)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker x
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce x (Okay, attempted to read. You know Joyce)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath x
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola x (most depressing book evah)
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray x
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker x
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom x
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton x (I LOVE THESE BOOKS. I LOVE THESE BOOKS. I LOVE THESE BOOKS)
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad x
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery x (Well, shoot, you know Reed/Joker made me read it)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare x (and this is not part of the complete works of William Shakespeare? BBC, thou art weird)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo x

(Ha, more than 6 BBC!)

Ya, I know. I was an English and Philosophy major, so reading heavy books was part of my life for 6 years. But there are some good books in there that came out of my childhood.

What I would have added in that might open up the field:

101) Interview With A Vampire--Ann Rice (the very first of them all!)
102) Atlas Shrugged--Ayn Rand (weren't we all turned into individualists by this book at one point or another in our young adult optimism?)
103) The Joy of Sex--Alex Comfort (come on, everyone peeked back in the "no-no can't have books like that out" days, even teenagers like me)
104) Linda Goodman's Sun Signs--Linda Goodman (this was like the first astrology book that was entertaining and amazingly literate and is a classic to this day. Millions still buy it. I still reread it)
105) The Stand--Stephen King (come on! Everyone always recommend this book to someone)

Okay, how many did y'all cross out on the BBC list and what book would you've added to that list. Pick a title that you feel has a "generational" feel to it. The five I've chosen were obviously biggies during my growing up years. Not that I'm grown up now, you understand. Just a bit wiser, perhaps, ha.

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The Sound Of Silence

I read that Asus has decided to discontinue their 8.9 inch eee netbook, keeping only the 10 inch one. So they're on sale now for $270, which is $80 cheaper than the sale price during Christmas. I'm soooo tempted. You don't get a 4 GB mini netbook with wireless at that price everyday, you know. And with Windows XP too! Personally I prefer the larger keyboard one but at $270, I know I can learn to adjust. Anyway, thinking about it....

Not that I can do much shopping these days, what with my dawn to dusk hours on the road and roof. By the time I get back home, I'm lucky if I could grab a few hours of food and relaxation (and writing!) before crawling to bed. Sometimes I'm too tired to cook so I fall asleep without supper and wake up growling like a bear in the morning.

Needless to say, I'm trying to find as many minutes in the day to try to get my writing done. I thought I could do it on the ride to and from work, but man, the driver likes his music at concert-level volume. This dude doesn't like silence at all. I've never seen anyone so in need of noise/sound. He talks/chatters at the traffic when there's a lull in conversation and of course, there's the ever-present music that continues from the radio on the roof during the entire day. To drown the voices, in his head, he told me. Yeah, it's drowning mine too, buddy.

When I get home, ahhhhhhh! Blessed silence. I just don't understand the fear of being quiet. I like the voices in my head. I'm very comfortable with thinking and not talking for hours. This man would turn up the music the moment he sees me take out a book--not to annoy me, because he's an okay guy--but because he knows that there will be quiet coming and I could tell he's just not comfortable with silence at all.

Have you ever been out listening to noise/music all day and realize how tired your mind was when you're finally alone, away from it? Are you comfortable with being by yourself, with nothing but your own thoughts? Or must you have some kind of background hum?

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Giving Up Speed? Going Back To The Golden Oldies?

Paul Harvey passed away this past weekend. He was one of my favorite "story tellers" on radio. He came on about 5.20pm every evening on AM radio and it would be one of my favorite times of the day. It meant that we're about to stop work (6pm) and that it was a treat to listen to his short tales, which always ended with "and that's the rest of the story." Since work became scarce last year, I haven't listened to him much and the boys in this new gig are more metalheads than golden oldie fartheads ;-). I'll miss Harvey's anecdotal style of story telling which is a lost art, imo.

********************

I was reading in the papers that, because of the depressionrecession, some Interwebbers are GIVING UP HIGHSPEED INTERNET and going back to dial-up to save money. You know, that crackle-pop-white noise-pop way of connecting online. Do you remember how long it took to load? But dial-up these days are $9.95 compared to our hi-speed, which is around $35(?), so that's a couple of hundred dollars saved there.

Do you see yourself giving up your speed to save some $$$? Maybe even going back to land-line instead of the ever convenient cell-phone during hard times? *gulp I'm thinking--no cable????! I was calculating the money that I would be saving if I do this:

Dial up estimated savings--$200
Land line, no cell estimated savings--$350
no cable, estimated savings--$600
I used to have the paper delivered, but gave that up
estimated savings--$250

Altogether-->$1400

Tempting, isn't it? I think, if I have to give up the above, my hi-speed will be the last to go. I can always catch the TV shows on the Interwebz, right? The cell--meh. I won't miss it as much as those of you who have the I-phone or who text a lot. I still don't do much with my cell other than dial a number.

What about you? Which one would you give up last?

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Marjorie Liu Just Gave Me Multiple Orgasms

Be still my heart. Go HERE and take a look at that. Now tell me you aren't in ecstacy.

Sigh. This is why I need to dig out my study.

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