Clearly...

I am not very good at blogging.

To be fair, though, I've had two relatives die within less than six weeks, I've had short stories due for my fic class, and I've been trying to get to the gym more. I don't even have the energy to blog about what's going on in my life, because it's (a) depressing, (b) boring, or (c) both.

I'm finished with chapter nine of deAngelis... sort of. I decided, after finishing revising the ninth chapter, that this book has got to be written in third person. It just has to. Jim Butcher and Kim Harrison do really well with first-person narratives, but I just haven't figured out how to do it, yet. My main characters are always full of spark and life and personality, but the supporting "cast", if you will, of my novels just isn't doing what I need it to do, and that's because I'm spending more time with my main character than I really need to be. So it's back to chapter one and changing everything to third. This should only put me a couple of weeks behind schedule, although I can tell you right now I'm not going to have the thing done by May 1st.

(Also, speaking of Jim Butcher, for those of you who haven't read Changes yet - don't be afraid! I know you may have heard some bad things, and while it is definitely going to rock you in ways you may not want to be rocked, the fact of the matter is that Jim isn't doing the things he did in Changes just to screw with us. He's a wonderful writer, and whatever you think he's screwed up, trust him - he's going to remedy it in one way or another. I mean, seriously, remember the out-of-the-blue romance with Anastasia Luccio that all of us were kind of like huhwaitwhat about? Yeah. He was doing it on purpose and there was a reason behind it, and we found that out after a while. So yeah. Calm the flip down, haters.)

I seem to have gained a few more pounds since my last post (sitting at 170 now), but I'm fully committing to my new workout regime, and while I'm not watching what I eat, I'm definitely more aware of it. My sister turned me on to this site called www.caloriecount.com, which is helping a lot both with being able to visualize what I'm doing and encouraging me to be more active in my daily life. It's only been one week since I started this new regime, but I'm determined to make this the one that counts. Yes!

Now for some wonderful internet finds!

I've been craving sushi for a loooong time now, and especially cupcakes (since I've cut down on sweets in my diet... but not entirely cut them out!), so these wonderful little things just made me all giggly on the inside. I will definitely have to try these over the summer! I've never worked with fondant before, but it shouldn't be that hard... should it?

This guy kind of rocks out loud. For those of us who can't WAIIIIIT for some of the films-based-on-comics to come out, this guy is friggin' awesome. All of these are "fanedit" trailers, with scenes, soundtracks, and music spliced together from different movies to make a "trailer" for an upcoming film. The guy has talent, and while clearly they are not professionally done, it is difficult not to try and watch them all in one sitting.

Also, I really really really want this lady to make my next birthday cake. I mean seriously. Hmm. I seem to be thinking about sweets a lot more today than usual.

And, for the last Cool Internet Thing of the day, I just have to point out that I must have one of these.

Did I mention that Adam made me the best shirt ever? It says "Team Edward", but has the blood sigil or whatever on it that you see all over the place on Fullmetal Alchemist. So clearly I am referring to Edward Elric.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Chocolate craving linked to depression (cbc.ca)
• Jim Butcher Changes Fantasy (popsyndicate.com)
• How I Learned Professional Wizardry Was Tough (overlypositive.com)

Things That Are Awesome, and Not So Much

The last month or so has been pretty cool for me, in a lot of unrelated ways. Although I spent the majority of the first part of Christmas break being ill, I was able to poke around on the internet a lot (after I recovered my faithful Dell Latitude D505 from storage) and find some pretty cool things (and finish reading an excellent book).

First of all, I've started using Google Chrome, which so far is the greatest thing I've put on my computer since Trillian and Mozilla Firefox. I've decided already, within the last twenty-four hours, that I'm going to be leaving Firefox for Chrome, because let's face it - it is faster, cleaner, and less glitchy (for the most part). After downloading the beta version, so that I can use extensions (the equivalent of Firefox add-ons), I have widgets that tell me what the weather is outside (anywhere I choose), a quick Wikipedia look-up tab that doesn't take me from the page I'm on, icons that tell me when I have new

 stuff in my gmail inbox or my facebook account, Xmarks (which is WONDERFUL considering I have more than one computer), and a page that suggests webpages similar to the one I'm looking at if I click it.

Also I'm using Zemanta, which is suggesting a lot of link-candy and possibly later some picture and "related articles" candy for me to put in this article... it shows up right next to the text box while I type! Fantastic stuff! My fiance, Adam, will be so proud when he finds out that I've literally changed my opinion about Chrome overnight.

(Also I discovered Google Reader, which is an excellent way for me to waste time when I ought to be continuing to de-Christmas the house).

That being said, I started doing a couple of articles over at Associate Content, but since we've already discussed the nature of my work ethic when it comes to writing, you can guess how well that's going. So far I've written an article on Just How Much I Hate Twilight, the best TV Detectives of the decade, and the best Action Films of the decade. Really I ought to be working on something for Steam-Vents, but the truth is that I haven't been reading much, and what I have been reading I don't really feel like writing about.

I did, however, finish reading First Lord's Fury, by Jim Butcher (who is definitely on my top ten list of Top Ten One True Loves Evar), and let's just say that it pretty much blew my mind. I'm all excited now for the next Dresden Files novel to come out, which will be sometime in April. I hate waiting that long, but the

blessing here is that I'm taking eighteen credit hours this semester and I really won't have time for reading a whole lot for pleasure. I really need to do well this semester, so that I can finish my theater minor requirements and happily transfer to IUPUI next semester. I'm at ISU now, which is fine, I'm just tired of being away from home - specifically, Adam - and I'm just... tired of Terre Haute in general. It was fine when I was doing theater, but I don't want to do theater any more, so it seems silly to be out there. When I'm at IUPUI, I'll be able to see Adam more, and get my comic drawn, and work, and see Jaime, and not be in a town that smells like rotting wood pulp (oh, Terre Haute, you and your paper mill...)

So, I'm leaving for school tomorrow afternoon and hopefully I'll have the cash to be able to buy all $250 worth of my textbooks. Blegh. Mostly I hate college just because (1) I don't have the craft space that I want, and (2) it generally leaves me broke. Also, I guess, there's (3) which is that it is not conducive to healthy eating AT ALL. This irritates me.

So, aside from those things, I've also learned, finally, how to crochet celtic cables (I'll post pictures of the scarf I'm making for my bestest friend Alek, once I'm done with it), and I managed to make a pretty decent meal for myself twice in a row.

By the way, does anyone know how to make the images from Zemanta not be stupid?

At some point I need to start getting back in the swing of things so that I can run my D&D 4e game this semester. Adam won't be able to come anymore, and Brandon is leaving in March for Japan, so that just leaves Colt and Skylar, and to be honest, that's just not going to work. I'm still not sure how it's going to work without Adam, although I suppose I could always try to draft Brian or Shadow. As far as Dungeons & Dragons goes, I'm starting to see how short 4th ed. falls behind 3.5 (I started playing an online 3.5 game with some buddies over OpenRPG), although that's not really why I'm so slack-y in the DM department. I'm just burnt out, to be honest. Adam says it's probably because I haven't been involved in a game as a PC for a long time, which is probably right. To be completely frank, I've only played in a total of three sessions of a Dungeons & Dragons game; then I started mine. The OpenRPG game is fine and all, although the DM really needs to work on his story, his grammar, and his spelling, but it's not the same... for a D&D game to really work, you need to have the human interaction, and you just can't GET that with OpenRPG. Plus, it gives me the ability to check my email, Facebook, and work on deAngelis while the DM is trying to figure out how to thwart the program's glitches and get the maps and monsters to load.

Well, this post is long enough. I should probably go and make some tea and then set about finishing up the de-Christmasing of the house. Until next time! (which will probably be tonight...)