I hope you've been (or are being) energized by the annual winter craziness. I kept it low key with the favorite Aunt and Uncle -- by the way, thanks for the CD recs everyone. ( CD purchase round-up under cut )

Next year will be much easier for the Aunt and Uncle. Their multi-CD player died last Christmas and was accidentally recycled with all the CDs inside! They figured this out on Christmas Eve. Ahhh *rubs hands* Next holiday I'll dictate the holiday music ;-)

Solstice had a weirdness factor for my. I lit a flashlight around sunset with the intent of carrying the light home and through the night. I had really weak batteries and decided to stop at Target and look into the Wii and Wii Fit Plus - they and everyone else in brick & morter is sold ou tof the Wii Fit Plus with the balance board.

But in my disappointment I spotted a 4-day sale on an undercounter TV/DVD player - 15.4 inches. Good price and something that I've wanted. Thing was they didn't have it in the store I was in and it was one of those things that was going to sell out. ...So I drove 30 miles to the store with stock.

The flashlight was dead when I got home, but I still felt good because I had a new LCD to get me through the dark time of year. I installed it last night and tomorrow I will do the torturous job of facing the basement cobwebs to run the satelite line to the kitchen, above the cabinets. I'm taking Monday off for the furnace cleaning guy.

That's it. That's my life of late - quiet and homebody-ish. A nice change after the Jailboy incident. There's no update on his sentencing. At some point in January I'll have to do the 6 hour round trip to pick up may freakin' spare keys -- assuming he signed the release forms *sigh*.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get out the Holiday New Year's cards.

We're all watching the weather here in North Jersey because we have
parties and festivities planned. It's one thing to be forced to wear
stockings in 1 inch of snow and quite another to do it in 6 inches,
let alone 8-12". We may be getting any of those numbers. We are
pretty sure that no matter how the storm tracks, makd will be buried. ;-)

I have received lovely holiday greetings from wesleysgirl, Mr. WG and da Boy (tm). One day before New
Years I'll get out my greetings, I hope.

But all knowing flist, I have a need to know --- What do you think of
the Wii and more specifically Wii Fit?

I'm thinking more for th Wii Fit because I would like to do mor
exercise, but turning into a game or a competition with the game
system might be the only way for that to happen. I'm not much of a
video gamer otherwise. I'm completely happy with Spider Solitaire and
free-MahJong these days. Although if there are games you really like,
I'd love to hear about them too. If I get it, I think I may also pick
up a kid game or two for when a certain pair of boys visit -- 5 and
nearly-7.

So give my your thoughts on the Wii Fit and which accessories you
thought you'd need. Thanks!

Where did I put my "LJ=Stupid" icon? Livejournal is about to force new sign-ups to declare male or female and removing the unspecified option. That link is to the LJ Changelog and , people who read code better than I do have interpreted it and offered suggestions if you want to complain about it. For full disclosure, that links to the post of someone who is fully invested in DW, but it's not like she's making this shit up. One simple option could Edit your Profileand choose unspecified before the code push goes through. But, JH, you say -I'm good with the gender on my profile -- well, I get that, I am too. However, I'd like the world to be more inclusive, not less. -still sounds like effort... -- true. The speculation by the people that read code better than me is that it's for advertising purposes. Apparently on Facebook, female profiles get bombarded by things like diet ads. And hey, I still have DW invites ETA: and if I actually wrote the html correctly *headdesk*

My aunt has given me the wish list for her in the uncle. It is vagueness, so I need suggestions

For Uncle - a Jazz CD - from what I've heard he's more of an instrumental fan, like Wynton Marsalis. He's also willing to try new stuff, so something running in that direction but veering away works.

For Aunt - Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings CD - I think I'm looking for the latest here, because she doesn't go out of her way to buy music.

and while we're at it

My Mom - she's a fan of the genre that includes Susan Boyle, Celine Dion, Pavarati, Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church, Joss Grobin. When last I saw her at Thanksgiving, she was actively seeking the new Susan Boyle CD. Any suggestions - even for another singer in the genre?

My Mother's Husband - M&M fan - seen anything lately that looks cool? He's got tons of collectibles, but I don't think he keeps up on the cutting edge.

***

In other news, it's the middle of December! This is significant because I missed the first two weeks of December. Things are getting back on track now. I received holiday greetings from thebratqueen - thank you! Much like Missy byrne, she made a lovely handmade card. My friends have skilz!

It occurs to me that I should have brought a santa hat along on my summer vacation and in preparation for this time of year. I'm sure I'll find something.

In the meantime, this may just be a sit back and relax kind of day.

gblv has given me Cthulu in a Santa hat vgift for the non-denominational mid-winter celebration -- It's awesome!*

I was neglectful and failed to mention that the first of the Winter cards arrived over the weekend -- media_junkie was first in the mailbox. Well, my mailbox I should have double checked the post marks, because byrne's card arrived from Canada today.

My class is going fairly well. It's VBA for those that are interested. I've done bits of SQL, VBA, BASIC and god help me Fortran over the years -- not to mention programming in MatLab. So there's a lot in common, but I've never done any them long enough to become proficient. I have to say that this is much better than the last intro-VBA class I took. ...well except for those moments that the teacher wanders off on a tangent. So, South Virginians are known for rambling stories of trading professional services with the lawn guy? He also wants to talk about his favorite TV -- Mr. Ed, Dragnet, I Love Lucy. *headdesk* Do they only have TVLand in southern Virginia?

Anyway, I don't have time during class to do important things like read LJ & DW or write. However when he wandered on tangents today I managed to dust, pack away the seasonal decorations, wash dishes and do some general cleaning. The appraisal guy is coming tomorrow.

I should get done early tomorrow, which will give me time to drive back to the area around work. Did I mention that I left my ATM card in the bank machine? It was the night we decided to drive 175 miles to visit Jailboy. No one touched my account and someone kindly turned it into the bank. Unfortunately, I didn't get the message until late on Monday. I called them on Tuesday and let them know that I wouldn't be able to get there until Friday. Good thing I took out enough money, huh? *headdesk*

*sigh* I've got to hit the craft store anyway. I need tacky glue and a bit more felt wouldn't hurt. There's holiday crafting underfoot!



*It wasn't awesome that 'ol HP was a racist, but slimy space monsters that drive you insane are really cool :-D

Title: Ligers and Tigons and Tony, Oh My (3/?)
Author: justhuman justhuman
Written for: spoonyriffic
ncis_ficathonPrompt: Tony/Gibbs - Supernatural (the genre, not the show) - a series of strange killings in DC leave our favorite NCIS team puzzled, and soon it is revealed that there is something more nefarious behind it all. First Time fic. Rating between R or NC-17, whichever is best for the fic.
Archive: Please ask
Genre: teamfic, adventure, romance
Pairings: Gibbs/DiNozzo, mentions of canon pairings and maybe a surprise
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG this section
Disclaimer: CBS and people much richer than me own all this
Word Count: 6425, this part
Summary: While working a case, Tony runs into a problem with potentially deadly consequences. Now it's up to the team to do what they do best and investigate until they find a solution.

A/N: Many thanks to luvinmike and tejas for the beta assistance in this part. As always, all mistakes are mine.
Part 1 - Harvest Moon
Part 2 - After the Harvest Moon

( Part 3 - Hunter's Moon )

Or so wesleysgirl, flaming_muse, and wolfshark tell me. Thanks for the virtual cookies ladies. I missed the memo the cookies, caused I'd have sent a bunch myself.

I was home today and the rest of the week for an on-line training class. The process is kind of interesting. ( but perhaps not to everyone :-) )

I did get some cleaning in this morning, which is good because the appraisal guys are coming later this week. My mortgage company is going to refinance me down from 6.5% to 5 1/8%, keep me at 25 years, roll the costs into the mortgage and lower my payments - *thumbs up*

-- side note -- I'm watching Doubt. Sister Aloysius, Meyrl Streep, sounds just like my Irish great aunts from the Jersey City area.

Now I will go edit fic.

...and possibly bake cookies :-)

ETA: And by the way, LJ is not delivering comments - at least not my comments. grrrr argh

Thank you all for commenting on my post the other night. I probably won't be able to answer you all individually, but I appreciate the hugs. It occurs to me now that it is much more rant than information -- although, I stand by my tips about your first phone call should you be thrown in the slammer ;-)

But here is hopefully a more coherent account.( more )

It's snowing - thank goodness.

As my rant the other night indicated, I've had a hard week. I might post a more coherent version of events later, but right now I'm just breathing.

The snow feels good, like a transition. Whenever anything stressful hits, I move into uber!control mode. It's not pretty if you have plans that differ from mine.

The snow feels good, it removes any obligations to do yard work until spring. Life is what it is and time is moving on.

*** pause to answer phone ***

Oh god, the guy who was arrested while driving my car - his mother just called. Now I'm exhausted.

Looks at the snow ...

Thank you all for the hugs. I'll be posting a more coherent report of the events later. Just want the snow for now.

Back in NJ, but not quite at home.

I'm safely at the home a friend, but not the friend that was supposed to pick me up from the airport.

So there's stuff going on. Stuff that I will probably not report fully in an open post. Here's the bullet points.

*I'm fine
*Limited intel tells me no one else is hurt
*Limited intel leads me to believe my car is fine...but I may need to go pick it up from a location a couple of hours away
*I'll be home Wednesday...at some point
*I may be offline/limited contact for a few days

Reason 997 why to love Dreamwidth - from their weekly update post

* Icon keyword renaming. As everyone with a fondness for icons knows, if you rename an icon's keywords (maybe you've changed your naming scheme, or discovered a typo that's been there for months and you just realized) all previous uses of the icon revert to default, because the keyword has been changed. Well, thanks to allen's hard work -- and I mean 'hard work'; this patch went through a ton of revision -- you will soon be able to pick whether or not you want to update old posts to use the new keywords, thus making sure that your old posts keep showing the right icon even though you've changed the icon's name

By the way, reason 903 to love DW is that their weekly news post is actual news and won't make you want to scratch your eyes out.

I've got invites.

What's American Thanksgiving without some football talk?

Title: The Third Saturday in November
Author: justhuman
Rating: PG-13, with mentions of bondage
Genre: Slash
Category: Established Relationship
Characters/Pairings: Tony, Tim, Tony/Tim
Spoilers: Mentions of SWAK. Timeline is sometime in S4
Warnings: None
Summary: Tony explains to Tim what being a Buckeye means to him. In SWAK, Tony and Dr. Brad Pitt (not the actor) aren't just filling in a little back ground and giving Kate something to gripe about. They're alluding to one of the great sports rivalries - Michigan Wolverines and the Ohio State Buckeyes. The 13-13 tie mentioned in SWAK was the 1992 game.

Word Count: 2128
A/N: Many thanks to djmicheals and lookithaslegs for the holiday weekend beta. I did a bunch of editing based on their comments, so don't blame them ;-)
Disclaimer: These characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount, et al. HBO is owned by very rich people, ruling me out completely. No copyright infringement is intended.

( The Third Saturday in November )

The pumpkin was good, but there are 4 other offerings that I still need to try once dinner stops filling me up.

So far we've had Grannie Jeckle with only glimpses of Gannie Hyde. The glimpses have been directed at other people...so far

I've sent off a Thanksgiving themed NCIS fic for beta. Coming soon.

Sends good vibes to tejas hoping that her connectivity is soon restored.

*watches Giants game*

*pets* media_junkie New house that she can't move into, and by halftime she's probably run out of velcro referee to throw at the TV.

Well, American Thanksgiving to those that celebrate.

I'm on my way to Nevada to reconnect with the clan

*promise not to start the fight with the Grannie*
*promise not to start the fight with the Grannie*
*promise not to start the fight with the Grannie*

I'll be back, late, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. At mom's I should have some connectivity, but I'm not completely sure of the situation. There's an extra grandparent aged person apparently living their now, which would make

-My grandmother who has reverted and makes teenagers look sane, even tempered, and pleasant
-M's (M is Mom's husband who is not my dad) Dad who was pleasant if curmudgeonly
-M's Mom whom I remmebered as being nice -- note that M's mom and dad are divorced.

I'm hoping this means that I get the tiny spare room, because that room has the internet connections ;-)

In other news, you know how company suddenly results in you cleaning your house like a mad man? Or possibly you've experienced the phenomenon that a ficathon story that's due inspires yardwork? Well I found the flipside last night. Packing for a morning plane flight inspires 1500 word completed stories -- note this does not seem to help with your ongoing WIP.

Catch you on later on this week. I'm about to test my new long life batter on the plane.

Maybe the best thing about yoga is that you always approach it as a
practice.

- You don't expect to hit every position
- You don't expect it to heal every ill

And very rightly, teachers and students describe the work done on the
mat as a practice for life. Sure, it starts off as a physical
thing and maybe for some folks it stays that way, hopefully increasing
their balance and flexibility over time and easing some aches. But to
really get to those goals, you have focus on what you're doing on the
mat. It's impossible to balance if you aren't focusing on what your
body is doing right then and there. You can't be thinking about where
you're going to be in an hour or what a crappy meeting you had earlier
in the day.

One of the reasons I love yoga is because I know for the length of the
practice, I won't be thinking about anything else.

And there's a lot about life right there folks.

I get some daily articles from Yoga Journal and they pointed to a
great article on the site titled The Heart's Intention
by Phillip Moffitt. Even if you aren't interested in yoga or
Buddihist philosophy, there's good stuff in there about the difference
between intentions and expectations; intentions and goals. It may
just save you some stress.

( thinky thoughts on expectation )

Open beta is going on!

I left the alarm on and crawled out of bed at 6am to put my e-mail address into the queue. -- I was #83 and it gave me the estimate that I could have an account sometime today. The invite was timestamped at 8:30 - I was asleep until 10, so I have to go by the timestamp ;-)

To request your own invite:

http://archiveofourown.org/invite_requests

I've uploaded a couple of stories as a test, because there are various methods! They have a URL importer where you give them a link to one of your story pages and it attempts to fill out the upload story form.

Depending on the key words used in the headers, it managed to automatically fill in the Notes and Ratings sections on some of my stories. Their header section is going to be great because the turn the categories, fandoms and character names into links, which will no doubt be searchable.

My Importer experience:

No matter the source you should expect to do some amount of editing when it brings the story in. A lot of it was deleting header information out of the body of the story and transferring it to the main header. By the way, they've left spaces for notes before the story and notes after the story and you can use both. I like this approach better on a webpage. Short summary up top and then the credits and notes at the bottom. But that's just me; great thing is you can roll your own.

From my website - Worked really nicely. My pages are very simply constructed, so it wasn't a tough challenge. I just had to delete a little header and footer code along with the usual moving of notes and story information to the header form.

LJ-import - Worked really nicely. Not too much extraneous code that needed to be deleted.

DW-import - Not as nicely. Although, wow! The preview of my DW import looked like a screen shot of my DW page, including the calendar, interactive tags, links to other parts of DW and my journal and the feedback comments under the story.

And while it was tempting, I deleted all those comments out along with the other non-story stuff. It was one thing to import my journal with comments from LJ to DW - that was archiving my journal and preserving the original conversations. Also, any commenter that objected to the import could work with DW to have their comments deleted or could pick and choose comments to delete on their own by logging in with OpenID.

That would not work so well on AO3 because the person objecting to their logged comments would have to contact the author to do the clean-up and we all know the kind of messes that could lead to. I've reported it to AO3, because they might want to take a look at the situation and prevent that from happening in the future.

Also, you know the way that some stories end up with like 4 lines between paragraphs? That's usually some kind of miscommunication between the html editors and the rich text editors. When you looked at the preview of my DW import and the actual posted story, all was good. In the editor, there were all those extra lines between paragraphs, making it difficult to see where edits needed to be made to get the line spacing right.


****

Overall, the import from my web pages to AO3 worked the best for me. A lot of this is because of the way I treat story header info on my web site verses the way it's posted in journal land. The html code I use on the website is also much cleaner than the way the journal html comes over. -- I do things like use the P tags

Second choice for now is import from LJ as the DW import required a lot of extra editing.

Doctor Who on sale!

Via spikewriter and dragonydreams

Amazon's Deal of the day -- Any season of 9 & 10 for $32.49

WooT!


***

Remember the dark ages of 6 Apart (spit!), when we feared for all fannish works on LJ? Someone said, What if we had ? And after much thinky thoughts the Organization for Transformative Works came into being. The archive took a while, but the OTW *owns* the servers and is dedicated to preserving fanworks and fighting to make sure everyone understands that they are fair use.

The Archive moves into Open Beta in under 6 hours -- you can read about it in this post in otw_news

To control the traffic on the site, everyone needs an invite to log in. I'll be signing up for an invite code, but if you've got an extra, I'd love to have it.


***

And speaking of invite codes, I've got plenty for Dreamwidth if you'd like one :-D

( Where did we put that fourth wall? )

...because it's more food procrastination ;-)

I'm not sure if there was confusion or not, but fresh ham steak isn't ham. It's a piece of fresh pork sliced from what would become the ham.

Anyway, I got some lovely and varied suggestions in yesterday's post, if you want to check them out. I went for a variation on tesserae_'s Moroccan suggestion.

I love Moroccan dishes. If I had had preserved lemons on hand, I'd have gone that way, but instead went with apricots and almonds ... and olives because I wanted to. I browned the ham steak and sauteed some onions with garlic. To the onions I added a bit of ancho chili powder, cumin and coriander. In my experimental mood I went for something that wasn't entirely successful. I deglazed the frying pan with half a bottle of really strong ginger ale. That's how my family cooks ham, with ginger ale. The ginger was great, but it made the overall dish too sweet. It acts more like a glaze with a ham.

Instead of putting an earthenware dish in the oven, I went to the crock pot. A crock pot has a similar cooking profile to a tangine when it comes to the long and slow part. In the crock pot I put in some left over apricot jam because I had it. I added in the whole almonds, dried apricots that were sliced in half. In went the pork and onions along with enough water to cover. 2 1/2 hours on high and it was dinner.

I'll be happy eating the leftovers for lunch :-D

I'm a huge fan of tuna salad if it's made right. 99% of the time I skip it in a deli because it's too watery for me. I think this is how my aunt got the impression when I was young that I didn't like it.

For me, the classic tuna starts with a can - oil or water. Open and squeeze *dry*. Now by dry, I mean when you put the lid back on and let it drain your just getting started. Now squeeze - see a lot more water. Now keep squeezing until there's only about a 1/2 a can of stuff crammed in there and the drops won't shake off.

The new vacupacs that say No draining! - LIE! All lies; they are much too wet.

( My classic recipe for Tuna salad )

Today I was thinking outside of the box. I poked around looking for mayo substitutes. Now people want to sub mayo for a variety of reasons - the amount of fat; taste; vegetarian concerns. For me it was about finding something that was going to add something - maybe something less fatty, but if not, maybe something that had some good things going for it.

I poked on line and found a couple of recs that went beyond brand names, yogurt and making homemade mayo. One involved using mashed avacado and I think that will be an awesome substituted. See, it's fatty, but it's the good kind of fat and comes with other nutrients.

One of them involved spelt flour and while I've got nothing against spelt, I had my doubts. A third was going in direction that I was leaning and involved ground cashews cooked with some seasonings and water until thick.

I came back to one of my original ideas and went for peanut butter that I thinned down until it was a spicy Thai style peanut sauce.

JH's Spicy Tuna with Peanut Sauce

2 tbls smooth peanut butter (mine had some hone mixed in, you could always add a little)
1/2 tsp chili oil (or to taste)
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 the juice and zest of a lime
chopped green onion or scallions
1/2 - 1 tsp grated fresh ginger (I didn't have it today. It was good without but would be better with.
And if the chili oil wasn't hot enough for you, toss in some chopped hot peppers or some of you favorite hot sauce.

So mix all that together and taste. If it looks think, you can thin it down with any of the ingredients it seems to need or a touch of plain oil or water. Then add to the tuna.

This was plenty moist but not as creamy as my classic. It was perfect for putting on crackers or in my case on some small escarole leaves. It would definitely would go great on a lettuce or cabbage leave. This would also be a great filling in rice paper wrapper. I was thinking about the spicy mustard leaves that I have, but I think that might be too much going on. The plainer/sweeter tasting delivery device is a nice contrast.

Something else that would go with it is mint, basil or Thai basil. Thai basil definitely has that basil quality but on top of that flavor it has a slight anise or licorice taste. Trying to have it on a Basil leaf would be awkward. I could see mixing some in with the tuna, but it might be better to lay the herb leaves on the plain delivery device and put the tuna on top.

My friends will be seeing this as an appetizer come the holiday season :-)


Well, that was some serious procrastination for my wrisomifu tonight ;-)

I've got a fresh ham steak and I'm not sure what to do with it. It was part of our order way back when from the local farmer. -- Please to be noting, his is a *fresh* ham steak, not a cured or smoked one.

I read on the recipe sites that it's essentially an over sized pork chop. I'm not fond of pork chops - no matter what I do, they end up dry. I'm sort of inclined to put it in a crock pot and stew it until it shreds. But I'm looking for how you'd cook it.

Besides, the crock pot is currently filled with the cast off apples from the CSA, turning into applesauce and apple jam. That will be very helpful if this ham steak turns out like my pork chops ;-)

The friends and I rearranged CSA shares this week and I am now in possession of a boat load of greens and other stuff

- Kale
- Baby mustard greens
- escarole *loves*
- a scattering of turnip greens
- Chinese Cabbage
- and a small head fo a green/savoy cabbage

In *tiny* quantities I've got turnips, fennel, daikon and lemons
I've also got garlic, onions, hot peppers, peppers, carrots, potatoes, limes and squash
By the way, those peppers need to be used up ;-) (but not necessarily here)

And, of course, a pantry full of canned and dried beans, tomatoes, along with all sorts of interesting grains. There's also various dried sausages and bacon. I've got a seriously eclectic pantry, so don't be afraid to suggest anything; there's a reasonable chance I've got it.

I'm fond of cuisine that's not from around here, which is New Jersey.

By the way, this is is for tomorrow's dinner (and my lunches all week and no doubt some frozen leftovers). So assume I've got all day to cook it because I'll be home.

For those of you confused by the subject line, the Celtic Pagan New
Year, Samhain, just occurred on Oct 31 :-)

I mentioned briefly in another post that the celebrations I attended
were lovely - a good gathering of people to renew our friendships and
enrich our spirits. Friends Misal and the Pyrate wrote a great ritual
for Samhain, with interesting food for thought that I felt was
especially thinky for the writers out there; especially considering
the time of year it is for us. With NaNo and all the variations
inspired by NaNo and with Yuletide and the other holiday fic exchanges
looming, this is in a way, the New Years for fan writers.

The metaphor they used was seed planting:

There were seeds you planted that flourished and produced a good crop
--Was that because you were diligent and found the right seed,
watered, weeded and checked with your local extension service for
advice on pests and diseases? (Or in our terms, researched your source
material, kept up with your word counts, ruthlessly edited and took
the advice of your betas.)

or
--Was it because you picked something easy to grow that would come up
whether you watched it or not? (or in our terms, did you dash off a
flash fic or a PWP that were bound to be crowd pleasers.)

There were seeds that were planed and failed.
--Was it because you chose something challenging and lost interest?
--Was it through no fault of your own and the elements (or real life)
worked against you?

There were seeds that you did not plant at all
--Did you think that there were already too many things to do?

It doesn't matter all what the answers are, because another year has
past and the harvest is in. No way to improve the word counts for this
year. All that's left is to think of what you want the coming year to
be like.

Namaste!
--

1. Kidney stone situation all better now. Let's see, started getting symptoms on Sunday, had the percocet level pain on Wednesday when we found out that it had made it to my bladder. Friday I passed the stone and collected it. It's on it's way to a lab for analysis. Depending on the type of stone, I may get some dietary advice to avoid them in the future. The Doc did say it was a large stone and was impressed that I passed it so easily. Frankly, so was I. Thanks again for all the support and well wishes.

2. All my Samhain celebrations were lovely. There was a lot of reconnecting with familiar faces and snuggles from the friends that are the closest.

3. I don't know if I'm annoyed or not about the Republican becoming my new governor. It's not like any of us were happy with Corzine. Hell, I almost voted for the independent this morning, but caved to the Dems because the election was too closet. It is tradition to vote the opposite party into the governor's office. But the last time we did, it was a moderate Republican and she became a Bush appointee after we elected her. Ah well, it's not like any governor in NJ can stand up to the corruption of the NJ Legislature.

It'll be more interesting to see if a write-in candidate makes it onto my town council again this year.

4. Writing! I've been making my 10 minutes minimum and worked on the fic I was supposed to 2 out of 3 times so far. Added 1000 words to the next chapter. What I'm hoping to do is set aside a couple of hours on the weekend and bang it out.

5. I'll need to catch up on NCIS over the weekend to -- I mean, I watched them, but the commenting on.

( spoilers )

We're less than twenty-four hours away from November, at least in my time zone and that can only mean one thing to us writerly types -- Pain, Suffering, Frustration, Misery and potentially blood loss.

It is the National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo or just NaNo for short - where some people will attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I've already made myself crazy trying and failing to do that twice.

Last year, feeling a sense of desperation that I might sign for a third time, that the wise, wonderful, all knowing and not to mention, fucking intimidating Flist pointed me in a new direction. Intimidating because you all just seem to be able to write - how the hell do you just do that???? (Ducks the inevitable tomatoes.)

The direction was to wrisomifu - Write Something You Miserable Fuck - In their own words:

Write Something, You Miserable Fuck is a writing group for underachievers who enjoy the company of same. To join, all you need to do is commit to writing (original fic, fanfic, to do lists, your thesis, your memoirs - anything!) for at least ten minutes each day for the entire month of November. And you are permitted - encouraged even! - to complain bitterly about every single word.

This was what I needed. But you may have noticed, since it's less than 24 hours before November, at least in my time zone, that this is short notice. Dude, based on that comm description, did you somehow think that procrastination wasn't involved? Sheeesh.

You have until midnight on the 31st of October to sign up. No, I have no idea midnight in what time zone and I haven't calculated the full impact of the US and Canada shifting back to standard time at 2am on November 1st. Haven't calculated except -- 1 more hour to squeeze that ten minutes into!!!

Check out that user info of the comm - it has three links to posts where you can request an invite into the community.

In closing, I'm a miserable fuck and you can be one too.

Was that 10 minutes? It felt like 10 minutes.