The last ten minutes

I HAVE FIXED FIREFOX! \o/

Yeah, it's a big deal when you've spent the last several hours digging around in firewall settings and trying to navigate the entirely useless Mozilla support page (note to them: fix your damn forums so that I can read topics without constantly getting bumped to error pages, all right?).

Anyway, the problem was that my Symantec Antivirus, which I uninstalled when the trial ran out months ago, still apparently had little bits hanging around that were blocking the new version of Firefox. So I had to download special crap to remove everything from Symantec. Stupid bundled software. You don't want it to begin with and then you can't get rid of it. I thought those programs were supposed to protect us from stuff like that?

Anyway, the important part is that Firefox is working and I can once again banish IE to a dusty, unused corner of my computer.

Next little story for brigits_flame. It's something like 1300 words. Comments are welcome and appreciated!

This week's prompt: Happiness is...

( Happiness is )

Happy birthday, arkiewriter!

This is my entry for the second round of the July competition at brigits_flame. Any and all comments are welcome!

The prompt: It hurts when I do this
1316 words

( The Writer )

Happy birthday, theemdash!

Other stuff that's occurred to me now that I've had a couple days to digest the finale.

( Spoilers for 4x13 - Journey's End )

I don't really talk about Doctor Who anymore, but since it was the season finale and all:

( Spoilers for Journey's End )

Happy birthday, tntoxfox!

Happy Fourth of July!

I'm going to see Hancock later this afternoon.

This is my entry for the first round of the July competition at brigits_flame.

The prompt: Heavy
Possibly NSFW language.
673 words.

( Heavy )

01) Bold what is true about you.
02) Underline what is half true.
03) Italicize what you wish was true about you.
04) Add one true thing about you to the end of the list.
05) Tag five LJ friends.
06) Ask me anything about the bold/italicized/underlined.

( Under the cut )

This is my introduction post for a community I've joined called brigits_flame. Anyone else can disregard, unless you really want to read it.


The name I go by online is Kay. I'm in my mid-twenties and a recent escapee from graduate school where I was trained as a microbiologist. After spending so many years in school I'm faced with the daunting task of looking for an actual job. I have a cat named Amy that I inherited from my grandmother. I'm a big fantasy/science fiction geek and when it comes to writing I've spent the last few years working mostly on fantasy/science fiction novels. I used to write mainstream short stories a lot and part of the reason I'm joining brigits_flame is to try my hand at that again. Also, I need to get back into the habit of writing in general. I was doing really well at the beginning of the year and then a whole bunch of grad school stuff hit at once and I had to focus on that, and then when it was over I didn't make myself start writing again. I think a little bit of competition and some actual deadlines are good ways to get my butt into gear.

I have a writing community at skylar_town, but for now I'm going to post my entries into this journal, which is my personal one. All entries will be public, of course, per the rules of the community.

Happy birthday, kefira!

Happy birthday, sky_dreamer47!

I am still alive. I haven't really had anything to write about. It's seemed to become a bit of a habit lately that I've just been updating once a week and summarizing what I've done. So I guess that's what I'll do here.

1. My brother Andy is starting at Purdue University in the fall, and last Friday I took him over to the campus for an orientation-type thing. It rained all day, and it was mostly boring, especially the financial aid session (which was also poorly organized, considering that after the hour-long presentation they wanted everyone to stick around to talk one-on-one with the financial aid counselors, of which there were four for about 70 students. Ridiculous. The only reason we got out of there in less than two hours was because a lot of people left without talking to the counselors anyway).

2. I've been riding my bike a lot lately because that's like the only way to get exercise around here without driving somewhere first. I miss my apartment complex's fitness room. The good thing is that my parents live near the outskirts of Kokomo so I don't have to bike very far before I get to lonely country roads and I can just go until I'm tired without having to worry about a lot of traffic.

3. I officially suck at summerwrite, but perhaps all is not lost. I'm working on an idea for a web serial, but that's still in very preliminary stages. There's a NaNoWriMo starting at Creative Muse Society next week, but I don't know if I'm going to have enough of my web serial planned or if I should just start on something else.

4. My cat keeps trying to be friends with my family's cat Skylar, except Skylar wants none of that. Skylar hisses and spits and growls, and Amy just follows her around the house and stares. The other day Skylar was asleep in the window and Amy got up on the table and poked at Skylar with her paw until Skylar woke up and took a swipe at her. It was hilarious, but I really wonder what's going through Amy's head that she thinks it's a good idea to literally poke at a cat who clearly dislikes her. Cats are weird.

Happy birthday, arsinoee!

Yay, Internet! Massive thunderstorm last night flooded half the city and more importantly knocked out my wireless Internet for the night. Desperate, I tried playing Sims 2 on my laptop instead. Except the mouse I used to attach to it is packed away in a storage shed in Kokomo, and the game was too frustrating to play using the touchpad. Really desperate now, I read a book. I finished The Princess Bride by William Goldman, which is so much better than the movie.

Let me tell you about my experience with the movie version of The Princess Bride. This is sort of like a confession or a fandomsecret post, except I guess now it's not a secret. But anyway, I first saw The Princess Bride when I was fifteen. I was in a play that summer and one day I and several other people went over to this other girl's house to help her sew costumes. She put in her copy of The Princess Bride to just play in the background because it was her favorite movie. I only paid attention to parts of it because we were all busy sewing and talking.

It wasn't until a little while later when I realized that The Princess Bride had this big cult following and was quoted in the Internet all the time. And since I had technically seen it before I always told people that I had, even though I couldn't have told you a single thing that happened in it (except Westley falling down the hill, because I remembered that scene). And, as it usually goes, I built it up in my head as this really good, really funny movie because of how people always went on about it.

Then I actually sat down and watched the whole movie a couple months ago. It was kind of meh. I was disappointed. I'm not sure what I was missing that makes so many other people love it. I had already bought the book, and since it's a pretty quick read (compared to the other two books I'm reading right now, anyway), I finished it last night and it really is a lot better than the movie. So there.

Happy birthday, semirose! And happy belated birthday, symian!

I drove to Kokomo last night because it was my brother Andy's high school graduation. I left my camera in my car, which was parked half a mile away because that was the closest spot I could find. And I really wished I had it with me, so I could have captured the chaos.

It started out as a typical boring high school graduation. 3,000 people packed into a stifling hot gymnasium with no air flow and even worse acoustics. Various school officials gave droning speeches that no one could hear anyway. The official class speaker was laughably awful. The band played a couple times. The honors graduates were named first, so I did get to see my brother walk across the stage. The salutatorian spoke and no one knew what she said. It would have helped had the microphone not been pointed at her forehead. The valedictorian was taller and so could talk into the microphone, but he sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles. At that point no one was listening, however, because as soon as he began his speech the tornado sirens went off.

This isn't an uncommon event in the Midwest. Evening thunderstorms happen almost every night in the summer, and we'll get tornado watches or warnings at least once a week. But when the tornado sirens go off the police and the national guard shut down the streets and ferry any people out into the nearest tornado-proof shelter.

So the sirens went off during the valedictorian's speech, people stopped listening and started shifting nervously, calling people on their cell phones. Halfway through the speech it would have been impossible to hear what the poor guy was saying anyway. A little further in the high school principal stopped the speech and told everyone that they were being made to evacuate the gym, cross the street, and take shelter in the school.

Let me repeat that. A handful of cops and national guard members were to escort 3,000 people, a good number of whom were elderly and/or disabled, OUT INTO A RAGING THUNDERSTORM, and pack them into the lower level of the school across the street. Needless to say, the whole thing was a disaster. According to my brother Josh, who was sitting in a different section from us, there were a lot of people around him panicking, but I didn't see anyone like that. Apparently at least one of the graduates had a panic attack and had to be carried out. I don't know if that's true. All I know is that my grandmother is in a wheelchair and we had to lift the wheelchair over the street curbs and walk all the way around the school to get to a wheelchair accessible ramp. Did I mention the school is next to a creek that floods at the drop of a hat? So the street was already covered in ankle-deep water.

Everyone was soaked, and pissed, and still hot because then they were crowded into stairwells instead of bleachers, and then the rest of the graduation ceremony was canceled. So only the honors graduates were the ones who got to actually walk across the stage, so you can imagine THAT caused a whole lot of outrage. Plus the graduates won't actually get their diplomas until they go back to the school on Monday and turn in their cap and gown. Everything was such a clusterfuck that the students just got sent home with them still on.

(there was no tornado, by the way)

This week I'd like you all to take the opportunity to talk about your current projects. Specifically, which character that you're writing now is your favorite? Why?

Some additional questions to spark discussion: Was this character inspired by anyone or anything? If there was one question you could ask this character, what would it be? Do you have any rants about this character? How do you think this character compares to your previous characters? Is s/he your absolute favorite ever, or just the favorite in your current project?

(if you're not currently working on a writing project, feel free to just talk about your favorite character that you've ever written)


Crossposted to creativefantasy and summer_scribes