So, the BBC has taking to using single quotes when there is some as-yet-unproved allegation or statement in their news articles. (It apparently takes up too much screen-space to say "alleged.")

Now, it's not necessarily a bad approach, until you get headlines like Italian sex scandal woman 'dies'

It just makes it look like she didn't actually die, but was somehow faking it. Maybe that's because here in the States we use "air quotes" to imply that whatever is in the quotes is how someone else described it and probably not true? I don't know, but it just makes my brain cringe when I see it in this sort of case.

I mean, at least put it around the woman, since someone did actually die! 'Italian sex scandal woman' dies, for example. That's the bit you're not sure about. Someone really is dead, after all.

Aaanyway. Avoiding work. Can you tell?

I'm starting to think I'm the only one that loved this book. I've read so many reviews from people who didn't like it. Some of it is because there are people who are "shipping" established characters in fanfic (including those who I don't particularly feel are justified by anything we've read so far) and who therefore don't like the different things done in UA. And it got me to thinking about fanfic and how it relates to the enjoyment of a fandom. For some people, they just can't help writing fanfic, it seems. Yet, when they start to feel an ownership in that particular show/book/movie, it seems that, in the end, it hampers their pleasure. That is sad.

And, since I'm trying to get out of here at a reasonable hour today, that's all I go.

What Women Want: NOT this movie, for one thing. It had some funny moments, but it just did not come together as a story at all. Plus, it was pushing the boundaries of what it takes to be "Ping-rated."

The Legend of Johnny Lingo: Much better story. I kept expecting the trader guy to be the one from Johnny Lingo, but that's because I am silly. It was very sweet. Very unpretentious, too, which the previous viewing attempted failed at. Plus, hot Polynesian guys!

*ahem*

Now for bed. Hopefully I'll sleep, at least a little. Sooooo tired, but sleep has continued to be illusive.

I'm mildly tempted to make myself slog through the Wheel of Time so I can get to Brandon Sanderson's part, except that I want to listen to them as audiobooks. The narrator is the same one that did the Mistborn trilogy, and I finally had to borrow the last couple of books in order to get to the end before I died, because he...read...so....sllllllooooowwwwwwly. Ah well. Maybe I'll go back to the WoT wiki thing I found. Or ... just not bother.

Yet, if Brandon Sanderson is my nemesis, I feel I should be familiar with all his works.

What a dilemna!

Work has been really stressful lately, on top of still trying to not be sick. Considering my perpetual sleep problems, this is a Bad Thing (tm). I decided to appeal to the super-conducting copy machine for relaxation and meditation help. Google found me all sorts of videos. Some aren't as helpful as others, but I've been able to wind down to go to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, I tried one more focused on meditation than relaxation, and I feel much better about the day just from that. This, despite once again not sleeping as well as I should like. 'Tis awesome!

After making what might be an important breakthrough in my screenplay, I even feel inspired to do a little work on that. Yay!

The trick is going to be to carry this with me through the day.

I've been feeling run-down for the last couple of weeks. I have also been waking up coughing. I could go to the doctor, I suppose, but I'm not running a fever and my sputum isn't discolored (EW!), so they'll just tell me to take some meds and come back if it gets worse. So, i'm going to keep taking my meds and add some mucinex to the mix and see if that helps. If I'm not better by Friday, I am going to have to give in and schedule an appointment.

Perhaps I'll add some OJ to the mix, too. /hates doctors in general

I recently got an iPhone, and I'd like to get my scriptures on it for easy of carrying to and using at church. I know you can find several versions through Kindle, but then I found there are stand-alone apps like "LDS Scriptures" by Standard Works LLC. Anybody have a preference? (I don't know if I'll use it to actually read my scriptures, but I'd be willing to listen to comments either way.)

There was an announcement from my ward mailing list this morning for a send-off party for Dave Tennant. I was all excited, thinking maybe that I'm not the only LDS person in the DC metro area that likes Doctor Who. So, I open it up, and my confusion grows. I realize now that we just happen to have some guy named Dave Tennant in the ward.

I feel cheated.

What if [insert thing here] was [awarded/selected/created] by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee?

There's a whole new class of images just waiting to happen.

I think this is really where the right is failing. The Dems defeated McCain by mocking Palin. No more of this serious "We think you're trying to turn us into a socialist country and we don't like it" stuff, because nobody's listening. No, it's time to turn the left's tactics against them!

Since I don't have much time this morning, I'll stick with this simple LOlbama.

moar funny pictures

The real problem with having both an LJ and a Facebook acct is that I can't decide where to whine about the fact that, even though it's Friday, I don't want to go to work today.

Tired. Busy day at work, followed by another thousand or so words on the story. I'm at almost exactly 2500 words. I think I may be able to cut back on a couple of my plot twists. I'm still not quite sure about the whole "How do they figure this out?" thing. I have vague shapes, mostly that they prove it wasn't the guy who thinks he did it, so they take him back, and the real guy gets nervous. Simple, but hey, it's a short story, not a novel, right?

Did I mention tired?

So, been alternately busy and vacant. Should be busy all the time, but been off in the abdomen, and while I can soldier through quite a lot of sneezing and coughing, given the need, stomach troubles turn me into a major wuss.

I started work on a short story that's been kicking around in my head for about nine months now. The symbolism of stories and babies need not be discussed. I am at 1210 words (probably at least half of which I wrote when I started the thing), and I'm actually nowhere near the end of the story. This is quite amazing, as I'm usually horribly terse in my writing. This story is something of a mystery story, so I keep visualizing it as a Law & Order episode. Or at least with elements thereof. There will be no Order, either, as I won't do the whole trial thing. Anyway. We'll see how it comes together. So far, the only big change I've made from the earlier draft is to make the captain Hispanic, which has actually given him a personality and an interesting view on the situation.

We'll see if I get this done by Thursday, which is the deadline for my writer's group submission. *panic*

Oh, and I made some icons for a 20in20 contest. I always like playing around with icons, but they never come out as good as other people's in the contests I enter, I feel. That's okay, though, 'cause then I don't feel as bad when I lose. :)

( Brill! )</font></center>

I found why our budget went from 727k to 2k in one month. (It shouldn't have.) Still some numbers to fiddle and tweak, but looking much better than when my boss told me we only had 2k left. *wipes forehead*

Think I better leave before something else explodes.

Been thinking about my last post, about health care, politics, and things in general.

( Save the flists )

And in general, I hate politics, so I don't know why I'm getting so involved. I don't agree with either side on many issues, or my ideas are more in the middle. I hate politics.

Um...

Anyway.

Hi.

Also, lately, I've been making an effort when creating avatars for games to think outside the Western European mish-mash box. So for the FarmVille Facebook game, I have a little black dude with dreads. Adorable. Except that he's working on a farm and has to do everything I tell him, and I think I may have to change him, because it just has too many negative connotations. But he's so cute. :|

In this article, the BBC reports that Jimmy Carter has said the back-lash against Obama about the idea of a national health plan is a result of racism, because there is "an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

Um. No? The virulence of the reaction is mostly, I think, a result of the celebrity status Obama has. Those on the opposite side of the fence felt completely powerless when he swept in, because it seemed (at least to me) like most of the people supporting Obama were not looking at things logically, but were voting for a guy they thought of in the same way they follow Brad and Angelina. The strength of the backlash is as much a reaction against that as against this particular issue, I think.

Especially with the strength of the media support Obama had, it very much felt as if you couldn't say anything bad about Obama without risking life or limb. It's been about a year, and finally here's an issue to respond to that won't get you run out of town on a rail for objecting to, and so all the pent up helpless anger is boiling over.

( Cut this next little bit for being actually more politics than psychology. Democrats beware. )

I spent about an hour this morning mostly but not quite awake repeating in my mind how I was going to do something at work. At around 5am. At least two hours before I had to get up. Brain, what is wrong with you???

And it wasn't even the helpful eureka sort of solution, either, 'cause I have been intending to handle it this way from the beginning. Arg!

I have spent a fair amount of time reading up on Overthinking It. It's fun. In some ways it's silly. But in other ways it helps to show that "pop culture" is in many ways more important than we give it credit for. Take this article that compares aspects of the "Dark Knight" (with lots of spoilers for those who haven't seen the movie) to a couple of chapters from Brothers Karamozov. Way over-thinking it, maybe. Yet it works.

And fortunately, it also showed me (a) why I was watching an entirely different movie than everybody else and (b) why it's really not as good a movie as people say.

( Cut for spoilers and general wordiness )

Okay, back to the work grind.

I know that I am not the most aggressive person in this organization. I know that I don't say a lot. But I actually do listen, so when I tell you how the new implementation method is supposed to work, maybe you should listen. When I have been in a meeting where most of our department managers were reamed by the uberboss on not actually providing feedback when it would have been helpful, I suggested that having another meeting with other players to clarify the 3rd way without one of the two people who put the thing together was not a good idea.

When the uberboss sends out a long rant about how he is tired of hearing people complain about it, don't be offended if I look smug and superior about it. (Especially when I've actually pushed back about it, which I normally don't do.)

Also, continuing to send messages about it including the uberboss is a bad, bad, bad idea.

PS: You are absolutely miserable here. Why do you not find another job?

Finished watching Jane Eyre, which I've had from Netflix for ... um ... a long time. *blush* Aaanyway...

It's hard not to see a rather abusive side to the relationship, especially after reading the book. Mr. Rochester has a lot of power over Jane, and while you mostly see that she doesn't actually care...it's hard to ignore.

Also, I mean, I kind of buy her going back to him at the end, except...If the story were written nowadays, I'd say she had basically given up on living a respectable life and would have been going back to be his mistress. Because for all she knows, that's what she's doing. She has no indication that anything would have changed. Maybe it's supposed to say something about the power of love, but it feels like love making someone weak, and that's not how I think the world should be. (Not that the world pays any attention to my supposed-tos.)

And finally, all the adaptations tell it as Jane Eyre. And I know that it's the title and she's the narrator and all that. But really? The more interesting emotional journey is Mr. Rochester's. I haven't heard of anybody writing the story from his POV, like has happened with several Jane Austin books, but I'm a little surprised.

And on that note, I have to go beat off a plot bunny with a frying pan.

I cannot go to work today,
said little Peggy Ann McKay....

Sadly, today is not Saturday.

I am not as good a poet as Mr. Silverstein.