Second Grade Scarface

I was horrified, and then hilarified. (The last kid had to get helped out with his gun!)


EMBED-Scarface School Play - Watch more free videos

(I don't know if they're in second grade, I just like to alliterate.)

Revision-o-Rama

I've been revising Novel X, my NaNoWriMo 2009 winner, for a month now and I'm pleased with the progress.

This is my first time I've spent so much time revising a completed novel and I now understand why people sometimes slip into a coma during this process.

I'm currently in the Getting Rid of Word Overuse stage that makes my wrists throb.

After reading Natalie Whipple's rant on cusswords, in which she brings up other repetitive words in YA fiction, I ran to my WIP and went through it with the fine-toothed comb known as "Find," to weed out any unnecessary use of "that." I am now going to run it again for "like." Maybe the apocalypse will happen before I get to "just."

I also edit for a living and I see now why people pay me. I should charge myself an editor's fee.

4.4: Who Slept Through the Earthquake?

Ten minutes ago Terry began stirring anxiously in his sleep, doing that muffled barking of a deeply slumbering dog.

Thirty seconds later, a 4.4 earthquake hit the greater L.A. area. It was the first time I actually heard the earth move, making a boom sound deeper than any stone against stone I'd ever heard before.


View Larger Map

I ran into the bedroom to tell Jifo about our animal's instincts. And he was sleeping sound as a vampire in daylight.

Screw the Daylight, Save My Sleep

photo by tallasiandude

why God why?

No amount of time manipulation will get me to rise early, so just give me back my freaking hour.

bacon and marines

With the Road to Phoenix now well-traveled and the Pizza Pilgrimage over, we bring you Part 3 of me and Selena's 36-hour road trip from CA to AZ and back.

Part 3: bacon all the way home

The morning of our return trip home, we headed out of Scottsdale toward a chicken and waffle joint and saw this:


Of course we had to eat here instead.

The menu featured poutine with eggs over easy (weird - so we had to get it).


And finally, the photo I've been promising for months...

This is our waiter, a marine who had a dagger inked on his forearm, bleeding green. Apparently, that's what marines bleed. I asked him to show me his chest piece and of course we had to photograph him in his topless glory. God Bless our troops.

Hope and Fear,Twilight and Sookie

Slow Panic brought up two great mysteries that make life beautiful:

1) Her post Hope, Fear
2) Her question: Twilight or Sookie Stackhouse?

On Hope, On Fear
The default for humans seems to be fear.

But I do believe the dark/light balance is vital and helpful - the fear keeps us cautious, skeptical, and wise in a way. The hope pushes us ahead despite it, but also after the fear has helped us make a more rational decision. It's when the fear grows greater than the hope that the imbalance causes us pain.

Now on to the second of life's enigmas...
Twilight or Sookie Stackhouse?

If you read Sookie Stackhouse first, you'll hate Twilight. The former is clever, funny, mature, and full of spunk. The latter is vapid, with annoying and useless characters, but it hit at the right time and touches some insecure teenage fantasy we never grew out of. Reading Twilight (over and over) is like drinking sugar-heavy soda with every meal. Sometimes you just need to go through that phase.

Reading Sookie Stackhouse, as I've already soliloquized ardently, is like reading about a good friend's life and realizing you can get through your own. It's funny because the Sookie Stackhouse universe is much more fantastical than the Twiverse, but the books are infinitely more realistic. (The characters actually have property taxes to pay.)

And, as with the first values, these worlds and storylines balance each other out with their dose of retardation v. realism.

Vampire Fantasy Team

Jifo is a hardcore fantasy basketball and football player. He has a knack for picking the winning line-ups, but in real life, he loves to root for underdog teams.

[Hence we are Clippers fans. I say "we" even though I know nothing about sports, because in couples you must defer to the master. Thus, if you ask Jifo, he's Team Jacob. (But I know he's pro-vamp underneath it all. Most guys are.)]

I have a similar penchant for the ethnic/non-obvious when it comes to my preference in modern vampiredom. Except for one particular Swede, but you'll understand...

So, to answer the question none of you asked, here is my official line-up for whose team I'm on in each of the vampire worlds I follow. *Subject to change as the storylines continue.

52 Faces Weighs In...

Vamp (And Other Supes) Showdown

Twilight (books and films)
Team Jacob

Blue Bloods
Team Mimi - she always gets shafted in the end
(and Team Oliver for that matter - that bratty half-breed doesn't deserve him)

True Blood - TV
Team Eric - but I don't like the deviations they've done with the storyline and characters
(I was Team Lafayette until he got traumatized and stopped acting queeny - bring the bitch back!)

Eric the way we like him, courtesy of True Blood Wiki

Sookie Stackhouse Book Series
Team Alcide (!!) from Book 3 until Dead and Gone
Team Eric from Book 4, but it's starting to fade (Book 10 hurry up and get released!)
and I'm finally beginning to forgive Bill...(only a little though)

Vampire Diaries - TV
Team Stefan - especially now that he's getting hardcore like a True Blood vamp

Vampire Diaries Book Series
they all suck in these vapid rags but...
maybe Team Matt, the Jacob of TVD

and even though they're not vampires, I'll weigh in on:

The Immortals Books
Another uninspiring series - maybe the hot redhead ex?

The Hunger Games Books
Book 1: Team Gale
Book 2: Team Peeta (wait. His name is spelled PEETA?? I thought that was just the awful accent of the audiobook reader. Okay maybe I'm Team Gale on lame spelling alone.)

And that's a wrap - what teams are you on?
Wanna know where I stand on other series? Send those requests!

National Grammar Day

Happy Let's Pretend Americans Can Write Our One (and Only) Language Day!

photo by sinister pictures

Grammar Girl got the guide.

Strong Cops Make Good Neighbors

...when you lack a fence.

It's no secret I'm not a fan of the lower-middle-class town we live in, though I've gotten used to it.

I came back from a Petco run on my day off to find a pile of the sweetest-smelling manure and some trash on one side of our front lawn.

I eventually had to call the cops on our Filipino neighbor (who fessed up already) before he would clean it up. He tried to play nice in front of the popo, but I wasn't going to shake his poo-spreading hand.

It's bad news when I say, "I shouldn't be living here," and the cops goes, "I wouldn't either."

Vindication

I have to say this turn of events is a HUGE relief for me.

I'd been arguing with Jifo for months over the fact that the Filipinos on the other side (whom Jifo swears are related to the manure-neighbors because he sees the same grandfather at both houses) let their yappy wiener dog sh** on our front lawn and even our WALKWAY constantly - and yet Jifo won't at least leave a note to ask them to clean it up because it's "just not him."

(Don't get me started on how confrontation-phobic Asians and Californians are, it drives me insane.)

I felt so vindicated today over the point I was trying to convey!

It's a matter of boundaries. Little transgressions lead to big ones when you have bad neighbors. I'm a fan of nipping small poops in the bud before they turn into piles of manure. Brief, civil notes usually do the trick.

Talk to your neighbors people, don't piss on their lawns.

In an unrelated note - Latino cops are hot.