ravings of a sparrow

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Friends only - almost
Future dated entry. - Just so it always stays top - (unlike me) - for todays entries - crawl down a bit.

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OK - this journal isn't quite friends only. Just mostly. A lot of it is x-rated and I didn't want under 18s being able to read it - if you are over 19 and want to be on my flist comment please. But tell me how you know me & why you want to be friended - because I'm not really that keen on total strangers reading about my sex-life. If I do know you then you know all about me & what sort of person I am so I'm happy to let you read (or skim over the bits that make you blush) to your heart's content.

This "friends only" banner was made by

spikeface

If monkeys can then why can't fanfic writers??

Rules
Back from my run and thinking about my post on fora. It occurred to me that saying I'm not good with rules might make anybody who knows me - especially if they've heard/seen my grammar rants or my plagiarism rants or seen my frustration with things like the Lucy Lawless list - think "What?? No rules?? You're joking??". So I figured I needed to clarify.

I'm not a rule-breaker. I'm a risk-taker.

I'm not obsessed with rules. I'm obsessed with order. They are different - trust me.

I like - no, I need order. My objections on the LL list to people who whine about the weather, the nasty things the boy in school/the video shop/the street said about them because of their Xena t-shirt, the tv show they saw last week that's completed unrelated to anything Lucy - without marking it OT or the people on those lists posting where are you from, what's your age, happy birthday/christmas/new year posts in breach of the rules - aren't because of the rules - they're because of the chaos. It disturbs the order.

I need order like I need air.

It's why the new ROC forum on her website is going to drive me crazy in a very short time (we only need one thread for Diamonds & Guns, dammit!!). And why I love the fora at TWoP. They minimise thread repetition there. If you have a post about Alex Cabot or the actress who plays her, no matter what that post is about, it goes in the existing Alex Cabot thread. If you want to compare ADAs you don't start a new Cabot vs Casey thread. You post it in the existing Cabot or Casey thread.

Order.

It's a beautiful thing.

Rules are just things that get in the way of order.

Current Mood: calm

Fora.
Oh man.

definitely not my week as far as fora go.

I assumed I'd be kicked out of the forum mentioned in my earlier post. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to get a message that pretty much indicated I was still a member. "Excellent," I thought.

I went in & started reviewing my old posts (terrible stuff boredom - makes you waste time on all sorts of daft stuff). I didn't like some so I edited them. Then I noticed a delete button. Brill. There were a couple badly needing deleting.

I deleted them. And carried on browsing. I spotted an old post that referred to how much trouble I could cause and I decided it could use a smiley given recent developments. It wouldn't let me edit. Told me I couldn't. That was when I noticed my user name had changed - while I'd been using it.

I logged out. Couldn't log back in.

"Oh well," I thought - I was expecting to be booted.

I went to check some email. Had one from the group's mod. It seems I broke the rules by deleting. Forum rules say can't do that. Ok - I accept that. I'm not good with rules. I seldom read them. Often they're just common sense and I understand them but if they're not just common sense and I can't see a good reason for them then I simply don't get them - (regular readers know why). And - worse - if I truly don't get them, don't understand them, then I start asking those irritating "but why??" questions. And that gets you kicked out faster than sacrificing the mods daughter to a full moon would.

And I don't get that rule. If it's not permitted to delete a post why have a delete button?? I only deleted instead of editing because I spotted the button and used the option provided.

Anyway. I hadn't read the rules. No problem. I would normally have apologised and promised never to do it again. But the email was dead snotty. Even I felt it was rude (and man - if I can see it it must have been coz I don't do subtle!!). The WTF moment got to me so I told her that I was editing prior to leaving the community. I was polite and chirpy about it though (honest I was!!). I got an even snottier reply. I was still polite and chirpy when I asked why the delete key then. Got no reply to that one.

Ah well. I figured that forum was stuffed already, now I know it's stuffed so it shouldn't bother me, should it??

I expect when the kid gets back from having Sunday dinner with her g/f & family she'll walk me carefully through whatever it was I did or said that was outside of social rules in general and explain what to do (and more importantly what not to do) in future. Coz if somebody was rude like that I must have done something.

Until then I'm going to go for a run - calms me down & clears my head & then I don't break dishes & things... *g*

Current Mood: bewildered

4th July
HAPPY REBELS' DAY TO ALL MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

and a belated Happy Canada Day to the Canuck

E-mail's not working again.

Nothing from Australia, Canada & Africa (and NZ & some S E Asian ISPs are intermittent) is getting through (my sis in Aus is right pissed off with that as my niece twice tried to thank me for her birthday pressie and eventually gave up & phoned me - and chatted about school, friends, the joey they found in the backyard after the bushfires & life in general, for over an hour at international rates (ouch!!).

And mail from some of my yahoo groups isn't getting through. Oddly enough they're American groups - but I don't seem to be having issues with US individuals.

I have a nice apology from Yahoo though (sent not to my yahoo mail - coz it's not working properly *g* - but to my gmail one, which is my designated alternative mail).

They have finally admitted it's their fault. It's a holdover from the earlier accounts z2a & z2a2 which I had, in succession, years ago (I'm now z2a3). Somebody who was really p/o'd with me back then reported me as spam & kept getting me shut down so I had to keep re-registering. Somehow Yahoo put some kind of warning flag on me which meant that if I got one report - boom - gone again - and they never removed it. For some strange reason this has been blocking some of my outgoing mail (without ever telling me) and blocking (randomly) mail from some specific locations or users coming to me.

It's now gone berserk and is stuffing up my mail all over the place. And apparently the rocket scientist who designed it didn't think to put in a code to remove it.Probably didn't think it needed one because I appear to be the only (according to Yahoo) innocent person who has ever been caught up in it.

So they're working on it.

They assure me that they'll get it sorted and they might even be able to recover my missing mail (I'm not holding my breath on that though).

So after TWO YEARS of email problems we finally have an end in sight.

Sort of.

Current Mood: pissed off

Done it again
Blown another forum, that is.

And this time I broke my golden rule. I always - no matter how focused, how vehement, how strongly I feel about something - always attack the opinion and never the person.

This time I attacked the person.

I reckon I'll be kicked off before I can log in again.

Not sure I really care.

There were some good discussions on there and some great writing tips. And a good handful of folks I like/respect/admire. But there was one person there who really, really, really winds me up. She's in a lot of groups I'm in (or have been in the past) and she almost always attacks the person - and she does it in a cold, patronising, know-it-all, humourless, condescending manner.

Some of that could be because English is not her first language, I've often excused her in the past based on that and never responded with fire when she's done that to me. In fact often I've simply let it go without response. It isn't really a good excuse to use for her though because she speaks (or at least writes) excellent English. And speaks it a lot better than I speak any language. She probably speaks several more languages equally as well. She understands them like a Terminator does though. No nuances, no colloquial jokes, no semantics.

This time though. I didn't let it go. I posted a comment and I bent over backwards to indicate that any failure to communicate was mine. She replied in her usual manner and accused me of stating that she had "an inferior command of English".

I lost it and called her - on the open forum - a pillock. I thought about using a PM but I decided not to. I figured a PM would be worse - and cowardly.

Now whether I was thinking straight is open to debate - maybe I let the heat get to me - it's bloody hot here - and humid - and not cooling down at night. I've had about four hours sleep since Sunday because of it (south facing bedroom). I'm not using that as an excuse though. Such rudeness is extremely bad manners and I let myself down because of it.

I'll miss some of the forum discussions. And I'm sorry that I might have upset some good friends who use that forum a lot. But I'm not sorry I called her a pillock because by God she's a first class with oak-leaf cluster pillock!!

Current Mood: cranky

Memorium
I grieve for the bright, smiling, young child. The one who always looked happy as he sang, in spite of the awful childhood he was having.

I grieve for the young man. The great musician who was so screwed up by his childhood that he hated himself and his looks.

I grieve for the adult. Who was never quite an adult. Who remained in many ways an innocent child and who tried to gain for himself a childhood he never had.

I grieve for the man so emotionally damaged that he had surgery after surgery to try and make himself better, or feel better, without ever being able to define that better or even truly know why he felt that way.

Whatever he may or may not have done (nothing was proven and the first accusers took money to make it go away. I ask if you truly thought someone had abused your child would any amount of money buy you off?? It wouldn't me.) Whatever he did or didn't do. I will not judge. That is not my place. Any judgement rests with a higher power than me. A man has died. Fifty is young to be dead.

I grieve for Michael Jackson. Who I once met. (Not as a fan. I was part of his security detail when he came to Exeter City FC.) A quiet, shy and painfully withdrawn young man.

I also grieve for Farrah Fawcett. Another taken from us too young. Often dismissed because of the way she looked. But a strong, intelligent, gifted human being none-the-less. She bore with dignity a dreadful disease.

Both at peace now.

I grieve.

Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

Quick teabreak rant.
Dear fanfic reader, thank you for reading my short fic. Thank you for telling me you read it. But please, next time, read the bloody disclaimer/author's note first.

If you do that then you won't feel the need to whine at me, (partly in l33t speak [which I fucking HATE] - and partly in a language that desperately wants to be English if only you could spell and understand grammar!!), that I'm stupid if I think that Uhura would be in a relationship with Nurse Chapel because OMG she's in love with Spock. And how dare I make Spock & Kirk a couple (which you appear to believe is spelt coople) because they're not eww queer.

Did you not see the bit that warned for slash??

Did you not see and understand the fandom identification ST:TOS and did you somehow miss that I'd spelt it out as The Original Series - just in case any reader was unaware of the meaning behind the initials?? Did you not understand that in TOS Uhura was not in love with Spock nor he with her??

And then to reprimand me, in terms suitable for a three-year-old having a tantrum, for calling Uhura black. Don't call me a bloody racist. And don't point out in such a patronising manner that the proper term is African-American because you know what?? It isn't. Apart from the fact that Black is the polite term in my country - yeah - surprise, surprise - there are black people in other countries. Nyota Penda Uhura is not African-American she's not American anything. She's African. African. You know - from that continent about 5,000km and a bloody great ocean to the right of where you're standing.

And yes I have taken my fic down - but not because of anything you said. I took it down because it sucks. And yes, I'm re-writing it. And I will post it again. And you know what - I'm going to post it with this note (cleaned up for the bad language because it's a PG site) because I feel like being an obnoxious bastard.

Current Mood: pissed off

Better
I'm better. Fit as a fiddle and raring to go. (Why is a fiddle fit?? Who decides a fiddle's fitness level?? How does a fiddle exercise to get fit anyway??). I've been cleared as infection free and I'm back to work tomorrow. I don't think I planned that very well. Oh I'm pleased to be back to work because I hate not being able to do things but whose daft idea was it to be sick for the fortnight before Wimbledon and then go back to work for Wimbledon fortnight?? Oh well, there's always the highlights programme.

Rachael popped over to visit me today. She's been waiting until I was no longer considered infectious because she hasn't had mumps either. She brought me a bunch of flowers as a get well (or rather a you've got well already) present. (Giving somebody flowers means different things in Europe to the things it means in the USA). It was a small bunch of pinks (a mixture of really deep pink and dark crimson ones) from her garden. I don't think I've ever been given flowers before in my life. I'm usually the one giving flowers. It felt very, very weird. But I was touched. Of course I don't own a flower vase - not being the sort of cove who usually receives flowers. So I put them in a glass. They're now sitting regally in the centre of the kitchen table in a pint beer mug with the England football team Three Lions crest on it. See - you can make flowers butch!!

Good Solstice to the pagans on my flist.

I'm feeling much, much better. In between watching the hurling I'm repainting the garden furniture (table & 4 chairs). I knew I couldn't sit still for much longer. *g*

The doc says that (unless anything happens in the way of a relapse) I should be no longer infectious and therefore ok to go back to work on Wednesday.

Current Mood: bouncy

Fiction & the ridiculous
Crackfic.

I don't get it.

It doesn't make sense.

I really don't get it.

Oh I know what it is, I don't need a definition. And I know what it's supposed to be and do. And I know it isn't supposed to make sense.

But I still don't get it. Not proper crackfic I can understand and appreciated AU fics and even slightly off the wall fics. I can enjoy fics where the characters are quirky and the plots slightly bizarre but not crackfic.

I need it to make sense.

I don't find it funny. I don't laugh. Mostly I don't even smile. I really don't get it.

I started wondering about it recently because there's been a multi-fandom crack fic on one of my communities, written by an author I often appreciate.This time though I'm left bewildered. I don't like the story at all. And then I started thinking about other writers (in fandom) that I don't like - one in particular that hundreds of folk in the 'verse seem to adore. I loathe her stuff. Once again, to me, it just isn't funny. I find it ridiculous, boring, lazy, badly written, repetitive & unoriginal. To me it seems she's substituted insanely-acting freakish characters for good writing, believable plot and entertaining stories. Yet I think she can write. There are two of her stories that aren't solely composed of lunatic-fringe idiots behaving like drunken navvies on a bad acid trip. They're thoughtful, fairly well-written and have a decent (serious) plot. I like them.

And yet all these people think she's hilarious. They find her stories side-splittingly funny. They love her stuff and greet it like the second-coming.

Same with crackfic. It gets tonnes of "wow, love this, it's hilarious, update soon" reviews.

Maybe it's just me. I'm at a disadvantage. Sometimes the world itself doesn't make sense.

But I really don't get crackfic.

Current Mood: confused

Bleh
Not well. Thought I'd been feeling incredibly tired the past few days. And a bit bleh. And a lot grumpy, to the point of being really, really rude for absolutely no reason. (I'm often rude but usually for a reason *g*).

At work today I was feeling so bad that I finally told the foreman I was sick & left at lunch-time. I rang the doc to see if I could get an appointment this side of Christmas and, surprise surprise, was told I could have one for early this evening. I walked into the consulting room and before I could even sit down she told me, "You have mumps." My reaction was "WTF. Mumps?? Are you sure??" Then I sat down and said, "Sorry, you're the doctor, of course you're sure." She did the usual "say ah" routine & confirmed it. I have mumps.

Wonderful!!

Kids get mumps. Teenagers get mumps. Women of my age do not get mumps!! Except that it seems they do. So I'm signed off work for the next ten days. Even more wonderful. I'm self-employed so I don't get sick-pay. No work = no pay. Just as well I've got plenty of savings from my overtime. I'll be fine. Bored but fine. Can't read because I can't concentrate. Can't watch tv the light hurts (I don't watch much usually anyway though I did manage to watch the England game against Andorra tonight). Can't even write because I feel like shit and staring at the screen gives me a headache. So I'm just going to lie on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and being grumpy (when I'm not sleeping that is.)

Mumps!! Bah!!

Current Mood: sick

Well
It seems that the bloody awful story I complained about in This Post is not only truly dire in its background, setting, characters and lack of research - but the only good bits are plagiarised.

Why do people do that??

I can understand borrowing an idea - after all, even Shakey's plots weren't original. But to steal the actual words, and not just a couple of lines by accident but wholesale - huge chunks of dialogue.

I just don't get it.

How can you derive any sense of achievement from having your name on work you know isn't yours??

How can you gain any pleasure from praise that doesn't belong to you??

What on earth is the point??

Current Mood: baffled

Finished it
Well I finished it. The short story for the Academy that is - not the novel I've been having problems with. It's not a particularly brilliant effort but it'll have to do. I've sent it so it's too late to change anything.

I've withdrawn my other story from the submission to the publisher. It was putting me under far too much stress. Apart from the fact that the editor appeared to want to write the damn' tale herself, I really couldn't handle the you-must-write-this-way crap.

One of the characters was Texan, sure, and part of the story takes place in Texas. But the other character is an English carpenter and the other half of the story is set in England.

Naturally the Texan used American words and I was quite willing to use American spelling for the narrative. And an English carpenter might use some Americanisms if they watch a lot of telly, garbage instead of rubbish, saying cool, maybe even referring to a "popsicle stand" - though without actually knowing what one is (I googled it to find out). But they simply wouldn't talk about faucets in the hotel room or ask for a cell number (unless you'd been arrested!!) Hell - my spell check doesn't even recognise faucet it suggests that I actually want facet.

I'll re-write to get it back to the way I want it to be and think about sending it somewhere else.

Hell - even Bold Stokes really painful insistence on using Texas's as a possessive instead of Texas' doesn't seem so bad after all, what with the to-ing & fro-ing over this tale. *g*

BTW - not going to identify publisher - neither here nor in any private email. Wouldn't be fair. Most of my flist mates who are writers are American - this would mean you probably wouldn't have any problems at all. I'd hate to close off a possible market because I was having problems in ways that you wouldn't.

Current Mood: tired

Writing
Am I f***ing nuts??

I'm blocked. I've been blocked for months. I have seven - seven - unfinished stories posted in various places already, stories which I really need to finish.

So why the hell did I say "yes" when the RAOB asked me to contribute to the Valentine special??

I'm sitting here, staring at this nice blank page and wondering what the hell I'm doing. It needs to be there by Monday.

I might wind up sending them the story I was struggling to finish for Rad's latest anthology. At least that's half done. I was starting to chicken out of sending it to her anyway. Not good enough.

It's easier to send it somewhere that doesn't have language restrictions. Trying to write American only works when you know what the differences are. How can you use the American word if you don't know it's not the same??

I mean - I know a lot of them... but other?? Nope. Cut for space reasons ( Read more... )

Current Mood: disheartened

Snow is falling...
Been snowing heavily for about 3 hours. Settled nice & thick.

Whole bunch of people stuck on Haldon (bout 8km/5mile from our house) Motorists trapped

The kid's out there somewhere dealing with it all...

Current Mood: cold

The white stuff
It's snowing.

Again.

It hardly ever snows here in Devon so by local standards it's unbelievable. By other countries (or even Scottish) standards it's not a lot. It's snowed for about 7 hours in total today - in 2 to 3 hour bursts. It's been very heavy. Visibility was about 20 metres (in a car) on the way home from work. Unfortunately I wasn't in a car, I was walking. Visibility for me was as far as the end of my nose due to the combination of heavy snow and vicious wind.

It's settled quite nicely - about 10cm deep (be more by morning I would guess). That's around four inches or so.

It's worse in London. They had 25cm. There were no buses in London today. I know because I got a message from my youngest brother to say he wasn't working. He's a bus driver. My nieces were off school too.

It's very beautiful. As long as you're inside, in the warm and have coffee. I can't help worrying about the homeless folk out in this though. The local catholic church will open up its cellar/boiler room as usual. They can get 30 people on pallets in there. It's not enough though. Hope we don't lose anybody.

Current Mood: cold

Research
Can they even spell the damn' word??

Grrr some days I feel just like Victor. I want to yell "I can not believe it!!"

(Do Americans get the tv programme One Foot in the Grave?? Do you know Victor Meldrew?? Basically he's an old grump... though generally the things he complains about are worth complaining about - falling education standards, rising prices, shoddy goods etc)

OK - so what set me off this time...

I started reading a work-in-progress on the Athenaeum (desperate for something to read - I don't usually read WIPs and I don't as a rule read off The Athenaeum). The story had several gushing comments in their recommendations bits (of the kind I usually dismiss) but it also had a couple of comments that weren't so gushing but still said what a good read it was so I thought I'd have a look. It was labelled as an uber. It's set (in theory) in mediaeval England. I should have known better. If it had been a book I would have thrown it at the wall screaming "Do some bloody research for God's sake."

My chief period of history is 600bce to The Norman Conquest but (like most British folk of my generation) I have a fairly good knowledge of history up until the Tudors & Stuarts (less so after that) because that's the way it was taught when I was at school. And if this story bears any resemblance whatsoever to any European country, let alone England, at any time during its history it's completely accidental!!

If you're going to write a mediaeval-style fantasy that bears no relation to real history please make it a fantasy set in a mythical kingdom. One where a farmer's daughter (who lives in a village with a plentiful supply of books!! so that she is able read and write) might declare that she feels "fine" about marrying another farmer - who for some strange reason is not simply a vassal but is a friend of the king. And where a king just might travel to Spain (yep - mediaeval Spain - you know - that Arabic country!!) with his son to search for a bride for the said son.

Don't, for the love of God, please don't set it in England.

But the thing which really, really, sent me into Victor mode??

The author has a UK email address.

She really should know better.

Current Mood: grumpy

I absolutely could not resist this... (click the symbol - it's a link)

Current Mood: amused