I was supposed to drive 2.75 hours today to my sister's house to help bake Christmas cookies tomorrow. But this giant, nasty storm picked this weekend to blow through the midwest, so I decided it'd be wiser to stay home. *sighs*

But at least I got to watch my brand-new Train DVD, "Midnight Moon". It's a live concert DVD that also includes interviews with the band members. It was great to watch, but I wish they'd done a DVD of last year's Train tour, which I saw, or maybe one of Pat's solo tour this year. That'd be cool, since I missed the solo tour. I'm hoping he'll tour again in the next year, and come to Columbus this time!

ASIN: B00005U2KA Train - Midnight Moon     Product Type: DVD          List Price: $ 11.98          Amazon's Price: $ 11.49          You Save: $ 0.49 Buy Now!

Season 6 of Scrubs came today! Of course, he's taking a nap now, so we'll probably put in the first disk when he wakes back up. So I thought I'd use that time to blog a bit. But I don't really have much to say.

I loved having my new iPod at work today. I kept hearing songs I haven't heard in ages because they weren't on my Mini. It was fantastic! Although, the iTrip stations are on there, too, even though I thought I'd deleted them. I'll have to try again. But it's great having all my music!
 

My four sisters and I try to make each other gifts each year for Christmas, since between three of them, there are six nieces and nephews, so we spend enough money as it is without buying gifts for each other. This year, I found a bunch of quotes about sisters, then I below the quotes, I have that sister's name vertically, with a word or phrase next to each letter of her name that I feel "fits" that sister. I printed each of these on a sheet of vellum and bought scrapbooking paper that I think fits each one's style to go underneath. Then they're each in different frames. I think they look really nice. I hope they agree!

Not the best picks, but hey...
** #1360968 Not An Image **

** #1359512 Not An Image **

** #1359515 Not An Image **

** #1359517 Not An Image **
 

I finally bought new icicle lights today, and we hung them up on the porch, replacing the ones I'd hung before plugging them in and finding out they didn't work! So it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here. Even though the snow is just about gone again. I hope we get a white Christmas this year!

I also bought a hardened leather case for my new iPod so it won't get all scratched up. I need to change some settings on it before Monday, so I can take it to work with me.
 

My Christmas present from George came today...so he gave it to me! It's a 6th Generation iPod Classic (80 GB). I'd had my 4 GB iPod Mini for years, and always had to split up my music collection into a playlist because it wouldn't all fit on there. But now...I've synched it up, put my whole collection on it...and it's only taking up 8.9 GB! Fantastic! I just have to keep it plugged into the laptop for a while this evening to give the battery its initial full charge. I'm sooooo excited!!!! Now I have to get all kinds of accessories for it...wall charger, some kind of cover 'cause they scratch easily, a docking boombox so I can play it while I'm in the bath, etc...

The only issue I have at the moment (and it's a very minor issue) is that I can't yet get Mahjong for it, or Solitaire. But this version just came out this past September, so I'm sure they'll expand the selection of games for it. I'll just have to keep checking iTunes regularly. But in the meantime, I've got ALL my music to carry to work with me now!!!

Oh, and the show went fairly well, though I only sold about half what I did at this show last year. It was still worth it. And I got to pilot the use of my laptop to accept PayPal payments twice today, which was cool.
 

I see that it's been more than a month since I last posted in this blog. *slaps hand* Bad! Bad, Seisa!

So I now have a MySpace account. I've been really obsessing over Pat Monahan (lead singer of Train, now with a solo album) and discovered that he has TWO MySpace profiles...so I just had to create my own so I could "friend" his profiles and get updates. If he tours again after the new year, I wanna know if he's coming to Cbus!!!
(http://www.patmonahan.net/index.html)

I did my first-ever juried craft show last Saturday, and sold $464 worth of stuff! I'll definitely be applying for that show again next year. It rivaled my Nationwide show from last year, which I'm doing again this year, this Friday. If that show goes as well as it did last year, I'll come fairly close to breaking even for this year. So, barring any major expenses next year, I may have a chance of going into the black next year!
 

I'm doing NaNo for the first time this year - National Novel Writing Month (http://nanowrimo.org). I'm a little worried about getting 50,000 words written in one month, but I'm going to give it a shot. The Columbus region had its kick-off meeting tonight at a Panera on the north side. It really wasn't organized, but it was nice to meet some people in person who have actually done it before. It's starting to sink in, I think, that I'm really going to attempt this. I did some more research today on haunted locations around Columbus...so I think I'm about as ready as I can be. Now I just have to wait until Thursday to actually start writing it!
 

George and I just finished a movie we'd seen a couple years ago, but forgotten about. It was made for TV, and filmed entirely in our hometown of Columbus, OH (if you live in Cbus, you'll see a shot of the OSU towers and the King and Fifth bridges as she crosses the Olentangy River on foot). Speak is about a high school freshman who doesn't fit in. Her close group of friends broke up over the previous summer, each of the other three girls joining a different clique. Melinda doesn't fit in to any clique. Her art teacher, played by Steve Zahn, is the type of teacher we'd all choose if we could. He assigns each student an object which they will explore in their own ways over the course of the year. Melinda finds her own voice through this art, and learns to deal with the past summer. I very highly recommend this movie to anyone, and everyone. It can be found on DVD through Amazon.

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I'm still working my way through Darkly Dreaming Dexter (see previous entry), and I just had to copy down this paragraph:

...Weren't we all crazy in our sleep? What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbor's children?

For some reason, I love that paragraph, that twisted explanation of dreams!
 

After watching the first season of Dexter on Showtime last fall, I finally bought the first book in the series (see below) and started reading it last week. I'm now on Chapter 6, and I recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries and dark crime drama. It's written in first person, from the viewpoint of Dexter, a sociopathic serial killer raised by a cop foster father. It's very chilling to be in his head. Jeff Lindsay is also very good at using alliteration.

"And the Need was very strong now, very careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready..."

"dear diligent Dexter"

"Deeply dead Dexter dating debutante doxies?"

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It is so sad that you and your college friend have drifted apart. Maybe you will run into one another again in an unlikely place... :)

I think this was always my favorite. The lyrics are so intense. They have the makings of a heavy song with raw vocals and driving guitar. Maybe a little tension release (for just a moment) in the bridge. Here is an idea: if your friend has picked up a new 5-string bass and taught herself to play it, she can drive that rhythm home with a rockin' bass line. That may have been what the song was always missing.

The only constructive feedback I have is that this song is way too dark. Of course, suicidal writing was always your forte, not mine. After all, I'm the happy one.

This is a review I received today for "Dreams"  [E]. Sounds a little...umm...personal, right? That's because it's MITCHELL!!!! This is my song-writing partner! She just joined the site on August 10, and was looking through "Who's Online" one day and found "Seisa"...now who else would use that name? When she viewed "Invalid Item"  , she was sure it was me.

She still lives in the same house as when we wrote together, and she works REALLY close to where I now live, so we're having dinner tomorrow. I am just so thrilled, I can't even explain it! Maybe after I settle down a bit, I'll be able to articulate this better. For now...MITCHELL'S BACK!!!!

Brandiwyn ♪
 

Maugh just mentioned in scroll that he wants to start up the Weekly Writing Meetings again...I haven't really written anything in so long, I doubt I'd be a useful member. And George was never very happy about me being tied up for an hour or two every Monday evening after work. I hope Maugh finds enough people to get it going again!

But it reminded me just how badly I've been doing with writing. I should be writing SOMETHING every day, even if I'm not working on Chapter 5 of "Invalid Item"  . I can't even remember the last time I wrote a short story!
 

Well, we survived it, and rather well, too. It was a good weekend, and the ceremony was perfect. I was a bit worried about how humid it was going to be on the beach, but there was a good breeze, and it was really pleasant. My baby brother is married! I started to mist up when I thought about that during the ceremony. I'm really glad I went down. Even though my parents' room was right across the hall from ours at the hotel! We actually got along great the whole weekend, so it was fine. I did kind of feel like I had to keep them included, though, so I didn't quite feel like it was "our" vacation. But before we'd even left, George and I decided we'll be back...but some October or April next time!

Okay, wish me luck. George seems to be in a bit of a foul mood already, and it's only 8:00 AM. We still have to drive to the airport, find a place to park, get through security, wait for our flight, fly to Philly for a layover, get through security again, catch another flight to Charleston, SC, get our rental car (and my parents), and find the hotel. And that's just the start of this "vacation"! Think we're both gonna' make it? We'll all find out on Sunday, I guess, when we repeat the above in reverse to get home!
 

I started to write an entry for today's "The Writer's Cramp"  [13+] prompt (Write a STORY or POEM that begins with the following line: I don't know exactly when I first stopped believing him...). But my first instinct for this prompt was to write about my ex-husband. And it started to look like it would just be an extended rant about him and everything that happened between us. Not a good story. I can't really think of anything else that fits that prompt, that really resonates with me to the point of writing it...so another day with no work, I guess. Sigh.
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/world/asia/07cnd-thai.html

I just had to link this article in tribute to Robert Waltz , who always seems to find this stuff...

8/22/07:
It was brought to my attention that the New York Times article is now archived, so would require a log-in to view. This one still seems to be open to the public, on the same story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6932801.stm
 

If you have not yet seen the movie Miss Potter, but enjoyed Finding Neverland, then SEE IT! http://imdb.com/title/tt0482546/ George and I just rented it on our cable On Demand this evening, and we will definitely be buying it, as we did Finding Neverland. I loved it! I'm wondering now if Beatrix Potter wrote an autobiography, because it was very clearly from her point of view. The suitors that her mother presented to her all had characteristics of different animals, and given that her "friends" were all animal characters, it seemed very much like how she would have viewed them. You really should see this movie, especially if you are a single woman in your 30s, or if you write children's stories.
 

I was doing some short story reviews for my Secret Pal, and I forgot to check the "anonymous" box on one! It's only the 8th day of the month, and I've already given myself away! That's the first time; I'm usually careful to stay anonymous until the end. She's not online right now, so I'll have to wait for her reaction. I hope she'll just decide to "forget" that she saw that slip-up...
 

Well, I've been at my new desk, with the rest of my group, for a bit over a week now, and nothing's really changed. I still have nothing to do, but I'm still hanging out in here and in scroll, so that's at least an upside. I haven't written anything in a while, though. My hormone levels have been messed up the past couple weeks...I don't care to get into that here.

In an effort to learn more about literary markets, I've bought a couple publications: Pindeldyboz (http://www.pindeldyboz.com/) and GUD (http://www.gudmagazine.com/). I want to talk here about GUD.

The first few stories didn't strike me as much. They are very odd, and some don't really seem to have any kind of plot to speak of. But I've found a few that I really like, and I'm about 2/3 through it. I need to point Storm Machine to it, because I think she'd like some of the stories, and I also think some of her work may fit in this publication, although the theme for the next issue is Mechanical Flight. I'm keeping my eye on this little mag! The ones I've liked so far are "Aliens" by Jordan E. Rosenfeld, "Unzipped" by Steven J. Dines, "Max Velocity" by Leslie Claire Walker, and "Fear Not Heaven's Fire" by Jaine Fenn.
 

My August Secret Pal started right off. I got a cNote on 7/31, the day Sherri assigned SPs, at about 5:00 PM, with GPs attached. I got another one yesterday at about 2:00 PM. The confusing thing is, the first one said, "Gotta love it! One pal yet two to spoil...it doesn't get any better than this!!! lol" Not sure I understand what that means...Guess I'll have to wait to find out!