YET *EVEN* MORE things that made you happy today!

[Ore Cart]

  Consider doing mosaic's with chipped up ceramic tiles?  Google or whatever "mosaic art".  Very fun and no limits on you imagination.  It's a bit of work though. And it's cheap!

[Ore Cart]

  This forum is really hard to follow.

[von Corax]

This forum is really hard to follow.

Our topics do tend to wander more than other fora allow.

[Xenos]

I've banged out 5300 words of original fiction in the past 3 days, but only over about 8 hours of actual writing.

It's not the best writing. But it's the vomit draft.

I'm shooting for a goal of just shy of 1700 words a day, for the next 21 days. I'd like to have a full book the size of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe done by early February. Will I succeed? Cross an elephant and a rhino for my answer there, but I've got several friends (and a couple of family members) checking in on me daily/weekly for word count.

I'm currently up by 3689 total, or if you only count today's words, 139. I'm going to be writing more after I get some sleep.

What's the plot, you ask?

Character of mine (that's a multiversal planeswalker, D&D character that I've converted from D&D to an original character--basically just sanitized all the IP off of him) is on a particular plane (my own invention), the adopted prince of a northern kingdom, icy all the time. They're at war with a southern kingdom, bunch of theocrats. He's assigned a bodyguard and takes exception to that (he doesn't like the idea of people possibly dying for him).

Classic romance shenanigans ensues.

Oh, also he's gotta stop the war. And maybe some Hawkeye M*A*S*H type stuff along the way (he's a healer, literally have a few paragraphs already where he spends several hours in a surgery tent doing what doctors do).

Is it good? Probably not. Am I having fun with it? Absolutely!

[The Bullet]

My 1955 Citroen 11BL passed the MOT today!
Will get the paperwork on Thursday so I can have it registered as a historic vehicle and get the license plates on Friday.

[Xenos]

I'm now at 16,800 words. And have started making them into an audiobook as I go.

Working title is "Prince of Ice, Heart of Fire."

I wrote 5000 words **YESTERDAY** alone.

This is becoming a bit... Surreal.

[Xenos]

27,618 words currently.

I'm now writing between 1,600, and 3,300 words a day.

I should be finished with the vomit draft Thursday, maybe sooner.

[The Bullet]

Wow Xenos,

you are really making progress.
Keep it up.

[Xenos]

And as of 1:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, my book is done (the vomit draft). 35,155 words.

I wrote a book in 10 (cumulative, 12) total days.

[The Bullet]

Another trip with my old Citroen.
Running better every time.
Getting used to the unsynchonised gearbox and the other "features".

This car brings happy faces. When I drive around, people start waving and smiling.
Making the trips longer every time since I am getting more and more confident.

Even had it to 100 kph once for a test. Never thought it would run so smooth.
According to the papers, it can do 125 kph max, but I will not test that in the near future.

[Ceir]

Even had it to 100 kph once for a test. Never thought it would run so smooth.
According to the papers, it can do 125 kph max, but I will not test that in the near future.

How does it go - hear me baby, hold together!

Thing tax: I was not prepared for how funny this is - nonstandard noise-making arrows.

[LukeHogbin]

The "new" laptop I ordered the other day is waiting for me at the post office. So I'll go pick it up tomorrow.

[LukeHogbin]

Crisis averted, found my bank card! Now let's hope the folks at the bank will also UNBLOCK it via the phone.

[Xenos]

So. I mentioned a bit ago I wrote a novella, clocked in at 36k words.

It's in editing, but I don't like editing. So I started writing another story to keep my mind from going, ya know... BLIP.

I figured "oh, it'll be another short little novella, but I'll take it slower, not gonna crank it out in 10 days like last time." And I'm sticking with that "writing slower" mantra.

I'm currently at 10k words, and uh... The main character hasn't even got out of the starting location, and has only met with two of the other prominent planned characters.

Folks, lemme tell ya...

This'n's gonna be a long one.

(Do not think that means it's slow! During those 10k words, you're introduced to some of the world's gods, find out they're living and active, and can even be killed. You're introduced to some of the world's organizations, and find out that there's heavy prejudice. Also there's someone that gets murderized to death by killing! Whacky fun! /Wash from Firefly voice)

[Sorontar]

I have been playing a punk roleplaying character for over a year (a 5e D&D bard) and I have finally been able to really play him as I always intended. Most of the party has been combat-orientated, playing with a hit-it-where-it-hurts fashion but last session we were presented with a dilemma. My bard and another character were in a mansion on a secret reconnaissance mission and were about to be discovered. The rest of the party were outside, keeping watch and spotted the mini-boss return in a rush. He knew something was wrong. Combat was not a good option.

So my bard created chaos using an illusion of a ghost and the creation of a magical white peacock while the rest of party broke into the mansion to "rescue the endangered woman who they heard crying out" (i.e., the peacock). Furthermore, my bard and accomplice manage to interfere with the miniboss's secret notes in such a way that will delay their plans as well as cause hassles for some of the local nobles (and thus draw their attention to the miniboss). My bard doesn't like those nobles, nor the miniboss.

In the long run, it was a lot of fun, with confusion for everyone but me. I am thinking that the party needs to make our name now as the "ghost wranglers" (we had already dealt with 2 in the previous session). The bard is already looking for ways to trap ghosts in magical items.

Sorontar

[Cora Courcelle]

Not only are we in Whitby, enjoying the Goth Weekend, but the sun is shining 🙂 (anyone who has ever been to WGW will appreciate that this is good news) AND, most importantly, my niece has just had a baby girl. Happy day 😀

[The Bullet]

Running my vintage car.
Built in 1955, it had not seen a road for 30 years until I bought it last September and got it road-legal in January.
We have now covered the first 500 km so last week was time for a check-up, oil change, grease round,....
Everything is in good shape. some seals had settled so the respactive nuts had to be re-tightened.
No defects, no leaks.
We did some further finetuning on the carb settings.
Great feeling, running it in the good weather with the bottom of the windhield tilted outwards.
Many people smile and wave as we come along.

[J. Wilhelm]

THE BIG PLUNGE


It may seem quaint to you. Insignificant, perhaps, but it's been 14 and a half years, since I've had my own rental dwelling.  A bankruptcy and the death of my grandfather, left me living at the margins of society because both my bank account and credit did not qualify me to be a renter or lessor.

So I rented rooms in someone else's homes. And I feared the time when, inevitably, the lease would come to an end, as the landlord decided to move. 

The first time it was a divorcee, living with her very rebellious teenage son. A friend of my mother who offered a room in a house she was fixing to sell later. She promised 12 months, and gave me 10.

Then I shared a room with a young undergraduate college student for a single year. He was a nice person, but when he got angry he turned in to a sailor, using curse words I have never heard coming from the mouth of a nineteen year old. And he likes to dance the "horizontal mambo" with his girlfriend in a very loud manner. She was into paddling. It was exactly the same routine, every night. They were not very original.

The next guy was an Aussie post graduate student in biology who vaguely resembled John Lennon in his hirsute years. He wore a T-shirt with the word "meh" printed on it. That pretty much summarized his attitude toward life. He had a somewhat marmy girlfriend who was pushing hard for marriage and flew all the way from Australia to lease a condominium for the both of them. He was the brains, she had the money.

Then I passed through my lowest point and briefly became houseless, I won't say homeless because a kind Christian couple took me in for a couple of weeks.

Then I found a job at a dry cleaners, and a room in the "The Jamatorium™, an old three bedroom house with way too many termites, and two 40-something roomates who mostly got along. One was a bartender, a rough biker-looking tough guy with a long ZZ-Top beard and a temper, who could break anyone in half if he chose to, but in reality was a gentle southern American Appalachian country boy of Irish ancestry and a love for anything having to do with nature (and a serious addiction to 4/20 if you know what I mean).

The other was a Polish-American from Chicago who loved anything hi-tech, loved raves, trance music, anything neon colored, and loved to travel around the world... He made his living "selling accounts" to high tech companies, whatever that means, and thought way too much of himself. He was our landlord as he owned the house together with his brother. The parties in that house were ferocious- you see, they both played in bands before. The Irish bartender was a drummer, the guy from Chicago was a bassist.  All their friends were musicians. At least one day per year, we'd have a party with about 20 or 30 people, and kept the entire neighborhood awake. We lived together when the Pandemic and the giant Texas Snowstorm hit.  We worked well together.

I spent 9 years in that house. But out landlord got tired of fighting with his brother for maintenance money for the house and two years ago he decided to sell it and go on another trip around the world.

And that's how I ended here, at "Camp Randall's" (named after the supermarket on the other side of the street), an old 1960 condominium complex, living with a pre-med student in a two bedroom unit. His parents, who live in a closeby historical city named "New Braunfels" are a firefighter and a school principal, and  bought a condominium in Austin so their son could go to university. I don't believe he pays any rent.  But he's graduating this May, and his girlfriend - also a pre-med student - also seems very attached to him. She doesn't like me very much and sometimes will not even look at me, never mind say "hello." But as far as I know, her name is not on the lease, and I don't even know if my roommate's parents know shes been living there full-time since December *ahem*. I don't suppose she can sustain a verbal confrontation with me.

So I found this single bedroom, very near where I used to live when I myself was in college, about a mile north.  It will cost me $1600 to pay back the electrical bill I incurred in 2010 after my bankruptcy in the 2000s, but it'll allow me to hire services for this new apartment.

It seems like the absolute wrong time to be spending any money, when my instinct is to buy gold and leave the country, and I'll leave the reasons to your imagination. But here I am. My hard work in the last two years had made me a $7000 cushion of money that was meant for emergencies.

So needless to say I can afford it, but I don't want to. I want to be there, but I'm apprehensive. I qualify, but just barely. I'll be so happy that when I sign the lease the first thing I'll do is lie down on the carpet of the living room and "make carpet angels" (North Americans will understand this reference. But I know I'll be terrified just the same.

I filed my application today. I'll pay the utility bill after the 3rd, when I get my $1.1K paycheck, to cushion the blow. I don't even know how I'm going to move my stuff. But hopefully my roommate will offer help (?).  If everything goes well I'll take the room on the 23rd.

Wish me luck.
JWD
It should be trivial, but it isn't.

[Sir Henry]

Wishing you the very best of luck.

I assume that 'carpet angels' are similar to 'snow angels' but warmer and less visible.

[J. Wilhelm]

Wishing you the very best of luck.

I assume that 'carpet angels' are similar to 'snow angels' but warmer and less visible.

Indeed, but it depends on the quality of the fibres

Thank you Sir I'm sure things will improve. For one, I'll have to freedom to go back to work on my Steampunk wares.  Also, I'll have room to bring items from long term storage which have been rotting away for more than a decade.  Potentially I could close the storage unit, saving $200/ month (yeah I pay a lot in storage).  I'm sure I'll have to throw away most items in storage, but I'm interested in saving the 19th century family photos and 1930s family movie reels ( I may have to dispose of them safely if they've decomposed, I'm afraid).

[Sir Henry]

That's rather a big carrot to be dangling in front of you. But you are due a break from all the, let's call them 'tribulations' so as to not lower the tone too much, that life has been throwing at you.

When making carpet angels on nylon carpets is an earthing cable required or is the explosive contact with the metal door handle afterwards part of the 'fun'?

[J. Wilhelm]

That's rather a big carrot to be dangling in front of you. But you are due a break from all the, let's call them 'tribulations' so as to not lower the tone too much, that life has been throwing at you.

When making carpet angels on nylon carpets is an earthing cable required or is the explosive contact with the metal door handle afterwards part of the 'fun'?

Well, there's a grounded circuit, but I'm saving the electric charge for my Leyden jars.

[Justin Time]

...I'm interested in saving the 19th century family photos and 1930s family movie reels ( I may have to dispose of them safely if they've decomposed, I'm afraid).

Do you not have access to a scanner so the photos can, at least, be digitized?

I can tell you the name of a place that converts old film/video tapes to digital, if you're interested (my wife's into genealogy and is digitizing all of the photos, videos and films that can be, including some that were thought to be "beyond hope").

JIT

[J. Wilhelm]

...I'm interested in saving the 19th century family photos and 1930s family movie reels ( I may have to dispose of them safely if they've decomposed, I'm afraid).

Do you not have access to a scanner so the photos can, at least, be digitized?

I can tell you the name of a place that converts old film/video tapes to digital, if you're interested (my wife's into genealogy and is digitizing all of the photos, videos and films that can be, including some that were thought to be "beyond hope").

JIT

Yes, I actually have a couple of scanners I can use. The 19th C. photography is not in so much danger as the 1930s film.  My grandmother did a professional "restoration" (snapping new photos from the old material, negatives and positives) with a professional photographer in the 1980s.

But the film may be disintegrating by now, plus it could be a hazard due to nitrates(?). The films are numerous and date from 1927 through 1977, in 8mm black and white, and Super 8 sound+ color.

First things first, I must remove the material from storage. And hopefully I can retrieve the film before the temperature rises over 40C (the storage has no artificial climate, and this is Texas, we're talking about). Humidity and heat are a major problem.

I have an old 1970s Eumig 8mm/Super 8 projector in storage, but the lamp gets so hot, that it would ignite the old decomposed film.  I'm looking at adapting an LED lightbulb if possible.

It's all hypothetical.  I may even need to break the storage unit padlock 

[Caledonian]

I'm back on Brassgoggles, that's bound to be something to celebrate