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7th_Dizbuster wrote:
I am glad to hear the high fibre diet is starting to work. If only the creative juices were as easy to free up. Good luck!!
😆 😆 not exactly what I meant but that’s funny!! heehee
However, sex and toliet humor aside, I did get some writing done and I found listening to soundtracks was a nice way to put me in an imaginative frame of mind.
Listened to soundtracks of: Gladiator and Ghost in the Shell.why they both start with the letter G – I don’t know.
Anybody else get fixated on letters in their writing???
I’m very fond of names that start with M.
Quote from Fowler:
“Writing is easy, just stare at a blank page until the blood drips from your forehead.”
7th_Dizbuster wrote:
Light speed intro to the English education system
GCSE: up to 8 subjects taken at 16, the lowest legal age for leaving school, after 3 years study
AS level: new exam, relatively speaking, 4 subjects taken at 17 after 1 year of study in 6th form. Some polotition thought it would be a good idea to break up a 2 year course and give everyone another exam to stress over.
A level: Final exam, 3 subjects, 1 final year of study in 6th form at 18.P level: this is not a true exam but a measure of how many parties you can cram in from July to September before you start University.
Thanks for the explanation!! And YIKES I say, and I got all stressed out for the Millers Analogy Test!!
Is this a thread or a labyrinth????
From writing aids, to the sexploitation of women and back again… 😆 so back to the writing anyone???
because I’m finally getting it regular again 😈 and now I’m hardly writing at all!
So writing aids….like catalysts perhaps??? my old writing workshop leader had great excercises…one of my favs was to read a poem and use it to start freewriting.
Or from a picture or collection of pictures you’ve never seen before.
My mission this evening is to go home, talk to my sister, eat dinner and get infront of my computer…I’ve got one character waiting for me, and at least 2 other story ideas.
Wish me luck!
Logan, you make some really good arguements in all that. And i think generally speaking I agree on your distinction between hard and soft within the context of speculative fiction.
The only point I may disagree with you is that I don’t think the universe is completely knowable. And you also said we may not be able to understand it all anyway. So it’s just a shade of distinction.
But this is getting me thinking that, yes there can be a seperation into such genres but does that truly have an impact on the creator.
There must be some minds that say “Yes I will create this.”
But even then the end product may be very different than the intention, and it’s helpful to have classifications to discuss things.
To determine our likes and dislikes. Could there be simpler / wider lines drawn with varying hues, rather than cutting the genre up into smaller and smaller subsets?
YOWAYYO wrote:
Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me asking (and if you’d rather not say, it’s cool) but do you happen to work for that brewery that produces the delicious Samuel Adams? Just curious.
Anyway, beer taps in the Kitchen…
It’s weird, being the receptionist for a company that’s got a recognizable brand in some parts of the States is a bit of low grade hapazard reknown. I mean, no one ususally thinks about who answers the phone when you call Guinness, or Kellogg or BMW.
But once you have met that person, or reveal yourself as such, people are entertained and amused by it.It never occured to me that something like that would happen. I just liked the beer and heard it was a good place to work.
And the taps in the kitchen helped sell me on it too! 😈
Headgehog, yeah you’re right too…I also tend to forget about the details of Ep I, and many of the secondary characters do just tend to spew some lines.
Saw the preview for Ep III Saturday. It’s just so exciting!!!
Millienium Falcon
my first love, 😳 we turned my back yard into it so many times, with the top of the doghouse as the cockpit.
And the rope swing was a gun turret….
I can’t remember ever NOT being Han Solo for make-believe.
Dirty, not pretty but a workhorse….gotta love the Falcon!
Headgehog:
My angst isn’t with the storyline, but more with the disgusting acting and direction from episodes I and II. The worst part is that I know that a few cast members can do a MUCH better job than they did. It’s as if they didn’t rehearse, and were given their lines as the camera was rolling.
I don’t think that’s the acting so much as the directing…..
Headgehog wrote:
We’ve got some dedicated sadgeezers here.
Sidhecafe wrote:
Actually we’re not suppose to drink until after 4:30 pm. so 6 more hours til a beverage.Is that when the day shift ends?
That’s cool though, the most I get is a broken water fountain and a refrigerator condemned by the local health department.My shift ends at 5pm! Lots of folks work late though…I’m in the corporate office, they make the beer across town, and in Cincy + a couple of contract brewing places…must have fresh beer to all parts of the country! 😉
My post for that was time stamped at 2:19, but I wrote that mid morning EST.
Sorry to hear about the bubblar! Sounds like you need a small fridge under your work station 😉 !
Will definately miss my free beer perks when I start school in the Fall. A sad but happy day…bittersweet even….considering the tradition of religious orders brewing beer throughout time I think theology and brewing are complimentary in many way…..
YOWAYYO wrote:
I honestly thought my company had had enough of me “screwing off” during work hours and somehow suspended my access to this website to teach me a lesson. Only when I got home did I realize that was not the case.
Phew!
Hee, nah I’d never think that at my company, if they were like that we wouldn’t have the beer taps in the kitchen….course it’s a beer company anyway! 😉
Actually we’re not suppose to drink until after 4:30 pm. 😀 so 6 more hours til a beverage.MuadDib wrote:
That therefore means that 2001 has to be down graded as well, because we don’t yet have neurotic computers that kill astronauts and expire whilst singing daisy (although that does make a great shutdown sound ) By the way this isn’t to say that I don’t think that 2001 is a great film, I just think we have to be careful where we draw the lines between:
Hard Sci-fi > Space Opera > Low Scifi > Toilet paper.
Excellent point really. So perhaps the real distinctions can only be made by the generally accepted perception of the writer’s intention, mixed with the content, compared to the genre existing before each work.
That’s pretty much how these things get done- do you think?- not denying other factors, but this seems to be the case, especially in the instances where “Hard scifi” has been written by individuals with some sort of scientific training.
Question for Logan….in all this, I’m thinking you would classify cyberpunk fiction as Science Fantasy, (esp since Gibson didn’t even know how computers worked when he wrote Neuromancer)
good example: The MatrixSo what about BladeRunner??? Not hard scifi, because replicants aren’t really based on anything we can do yet…And Phil (Philip K. Dick)was more concerned with people’s reaction to technology/society’s reaction rather than the technology….hmmmm….
One of my all time fav Scifi movies though.
What a great choice for Tarkin!!! I LOVE it!!!
Such a great actor, and perfect for this insidious Empire man…I mean he and Vader actually worked pretty well together in Episode IV. Destroying Alderan and torturing Princess Leia…
YEAH!!! Can’t wait to see this new movie and THEN I’ll judge. There’s no point being all negative until after you’ve actually seen something to have an opinion of!!
Everyone can bitch after the movie comes out. I’m just happy to be looking forward to seeing it so I can make up my own mind.
I ususally don’t sit through them entirely either. I should have said, not that I really watch them, I understand WHY they exist…because some people don’t want to think to be entertained.
They want to switch off and observe something mindless.
Diversification.
And speaking of Bruce Campbell, I saw him in a film – he was a bank robber, on the IFC, and it was great. Can’t remember the title, Cool Running or Running Time. something like that.
Loved the Ash reference in Shaun of the Dead by the way…..did you catch that??
😆 😆 😆
Headgehog’s oh so pointed summation could very well apply to tv in general!!!
This is the reason why I completely fell of the BSG badnwagon….Friday night is not a good night for me to watch tv…and the repeat on Monday nights was just to late for me on a school night!
And it is easy to for me to accept the swill SciFi passes off…they are a television station after all – and like all of them they are trying to appeal to a diverse demographic to keep the ratings the entire time they are on air…so the serious scifi fan must wade through the mire of the spew that tries to appeal to a larger audience.
Though on occasion who doesn’t like to imitate MST3K?!?!?!?!?
Logan wrote:
Sure, as long as she’s good at taking dictation… trust me, avoid the Dominatrix Mistress type.
I prefer a maid, to take care of all those distractions, like cooking, pouring champagne….so I can concentrate on writing.
If you want to get anything done stay away from the Doms….
Hey, 7th_Dizbuster:
Here’s my cheap ass advice….just keep writing. Write out as many ideas as you get for where the story can go.
Don’t write for an audience, the best writing you are going to do is if you do it for yourself first.No matter how Chapter 2 turns out, you may change it ten times by the time you’ve written Ch. 10….and don’t get bogged down by rewriting now…get the ideas of your story down first, then go back to edit…you can get stuck editing your first chapeters and never finish the book, ever.
So just write my little padawan!!! Write!!! (insert evil laughter here)
thefrey wrote:
Congratulations on the Grad School thing. ;D Way to go.
I hope you get to go, it is a blast. Non-stop activity, it is impossible to be bored there. ;D
Thank you and thank you!! Unbelieveable I got into school! And they awarded me a very generous grant towards tuition!!
I’m just beside myself about all that, and though I’m looking forward to the summer, I can’t wait for the fall.
And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I’m a DragonCon again, my first time 2 years ago was such a blast, I must go again!!
corvina wrote:
I got Chip Delany.. but don’t know his stuff.
see my post above!!! Delany is an amazing writer – he’s credited with writing the first novel dealing with AIDS, and he did it in his Nyervon series….plus one of the few African American, and openly gay scifi genre writers.
Good sense of humor, and he’s friendly with Michael Moorcock….the class I had with him was amazing – we read some great stuff….Thomas Disch, Joanna Russ, Alfred Bester…
I really enjoyed listening to him and the class was a great experience in general. ‘course I was one of 3 women – it was a lecture class of 140.
I see all speculative fiction as the descendant of mythic storytelling…shamans huddled around a fire weaving tales to excite the imagination and inspire souls. Storytelling.
I believe that true mythic tales are teaching tales…how are we human? what makes us react to new things in different ways? where do we go from here?
Those are the landscapes that speculative fiction travels across.
kokopelli wrote:
Hey! Jack’s not the kind of guy that want’s to be put out to pasture!!
Not put out to pasture….more like corraled! 😈
A little Broca Divide action back in their lives…. 😈
My sis just informed me of this too!!!! Joss Whedon!!!
Just talking about Hotlanta plans too….in the event I don’t have to move on the 1st of Sept I will definately be there!!!
yeah!!! 😀
Dr. Who and the Royal wedding scared me….
Dr. Who back in the day because of the robots..(did watch it when I was a kid because it was too scary)..and Charles and Camilla’s wedding…it wasn’t the hats, but the other spray type headdresses that scared me!!! what was Camilla’s sister thinking??? It could have been a houseplant.
However, I do think: Hats for Everyone!!!! – all types should come back in style….and maybe some of those crazy headdresses too…
Woo-Hoo!!! 😀 😀 😀
That’s great Stanelle!!!!! Congratulations!!!
Yes!!!! Sometimes Life CAN be Very Good!!!
Yeah!
YOWAYYO wrote:
Congrats are definately in order!
I took the GMAT last August but didn’t do so hot…maybe I should hit the books harder if I decide to try it again
Thank you!!! I managed to get away with taking the MAT (Millers Analogy Test) and I have to say I studied my butt off – every night in the library after work for 2 weeks….I wsa doing horrible on the practice tests too…but the real test was so much easier!!! 😮 I was having a fit the morning before the test because I essentially over-studied my little brains out! But it was all worth it!
Logan wrote:
Congratulations on both counts! I keep on wanting to go back to school. Oh, and try to get your beau to post here, if he hasn’t already. I tried really hard to get my wife posting here — if only we had a “reality TV” shows forum.
Thanks Logan!! I’m very excited about school! It’ll be so great to put the noggin to use on stuff I’m really passionate about….as for my beau posting here…maybe if we added a board on windsurfing!
But ya never know 🙂yeah that is a bit on the old proverbial plate….but I did manage to see the miniseries and several of the first episodes of BSG….I was very impressed!!! Very very impressed….I’m hoping to catch up at some point on the reruns scfi channel is running now before the new ones start.
And yes I think Sadgeezer.com will make excellent procrastination space 😉 😉 !!
Oneill 2 is the perfect distinction for Major Sheppard.
What I did like about this series is the appearnace of the Wraith…not the storyline so much, mind you…but just the Wraith themselves…especailly the red haired female in one of the first episodes…in her blue dress- she was quite the fetching vampiric alien…
yummy Critchon…..or Daniel jackson for that matter…..Telemachus Rhade in this last season of Andromeda….all drunk and easy….hhmmmmmm
(yup just typed that publically…..)
The boyfriend works the overnight shift and confessed yesterday that he had Chowder and Guiness for breakfast yesterday…which is more like dinner for him…I thought it was gross – made him quesey too.
😆 😆 😆
Musical stoned hobbits….I don’t know about a crooning Aragorn…maybe legolas….esp if there’s a duet with Gimli!!!
😆 😆 I’m just tickling myself now!
Ok, ok.. during part of my mis-spent youth my breakfast of champions was either budweiser or a shot of tequila….though I would never recommend that to anyone.
My boring reply: I eat coffee for breakfast….with soy creamer….and a bit of sugar….
I eat eggs and toast/omlettes other common breakfast foods for dinner…
cause it’s easy and I’m not especially fond of cooking.
Sidhecafe wrote:
2 words:Solaris remake
Too true, that was a travesty of the original!
MuadDib, I couldn’t even watch the rest after I realized what they had done with the wife’s charcater (can’t think of her name right now)….turned it off and returned the rental.
The original’s DVD is amazing and has an interview with the original actress. Watching her years later was amazing, taklking about Russian filmmaking…and Stanislaw Lem.
Lexxlurker wrote:
Sting was perfect in that role. The scene where he mocks Chani and Paul at the end is one of my personal favs
I totally agree!!!
Sting was fabu in that role, I think my friends and I in high school stopped and replayed Feyd stepping out of his spice shower a thousand times… 😳 😉He is good at those mean creepy types, like Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels and Brimstone & Treacle.
You really could imagine what he’d had in mind for Chani if he managed to kill Paul…… 😯
Apparently none of the London stages can accomodate all the production effects, so it’s starting in Toronto…according to cnn.com today.
And yes, yes, I realize the Niebelungenlied connection. And true it is very melodramatic in true operatic style…
And yes there is music and verse galor in the books….but I just can’t get passed the idea of Hobbits singing about “going to Mordor!!!” 😛 😆
And don’t get me wrong – I’m not against musicals(saw The Producers 2 weeks ago)….but this just kind of strikes me as the whole “Death to Smoochy” ideas about ice shows….
color me stunned and astounded! 😆
Paul: Ahh, well, yes, you know I’m always in the mood for cattle loveplay.
Gurney (smiles): Moooooo!😆 😆 😆
I WILL KILL HIM!!!
loved feyd….hmmm sting goodness…..
Never particularly thrilled with a book being sold to a new audience based on a bad film intrepretation.
The only one I’ve been able to really forgive is, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
The Blade Runner cover is ok, since A.) Harrison Ford
and B.) as an adaptation to screen, it was a great movie – though missing half the book.Phil is hard to adapt to screen, though the ideas seem to be translated able, hence, Minority Report, Total Recall, Paycheck…et all…I am afraid, as I’ve said elsewhere, about what will happen with Linklater’s version of Scanner Darkly….
mandara k wrote:
t’s just that i have a restlessness, and a need to speed up the process of getting ideas out there and discussed and haggled over. Get in into the collective, or actually point it out or dig it up so it’s not so buried. Do you understand what i mean?
Yeah I do. There’s so much room for discussions like that but lots of people couldn’t be bothered, part of the reason I need to be back in an academic setting for a while…find some folks to stir stiff up with! And Weston is a very progressive school. There are such strong stereotypes about religious people..the politically agenda-ed folks aren’t helping that – I find myself having to educate people that those are stereotypes. Not everyone with strong spiritual beliefs/practices are the same.
Regardless of which group they associate or identify with.I agree with your friend’s idea of being able to handle what comes your way. People are capable of a lot more than we generally give ourselves credit for.
And yes, The Pour House is pretty much a college crowd upstairs. Downstairs there were a lot of suits- but it was fun! Heading out again tonight (party girl? me? 😳 ) Probably somewhere for a good martini!
In other worlds:
HisDivineShadow wrote and quoted:
thefrey wrote:
Sadly, theBrother and I will not be there this year.I am totally bummed over this, and not just because I want to see Wade/HDS prance around in a page boy wig doing a Johnny Depp inspired Willy Wonka.
But, on the plus side… and I always try to look there….. this means I can marshall my efforts for 2006.
2005 was going to be a problem Lexx track wise, which is why I was ‘not slit my throat’ dispondent over missing it.
What? no call back and now thisHDS as Willy Wonka?!?!? Wasn’t this the same man who made the dashing Capt Jack Sparrow 2 cons ago??
And no thefrey 😥 Was looking forward to a chance meeting with this well written Saddy Goddess!Boston’s a very fun place, I usually manage to have a good time! 😉
Actually heading down to the Pour House on Bolyston after work this evening for free apps and beveys.
There are so many schools in this town it’s crazy. I’m applying for a Masters of Theological Studies at Weston in Cambridge. (HDS turned me down – All good, however)
Here’s the real reason I’m such a Philip K. Dick fan…all the Gnosticism in his later works…Valis esp. 😛
Little weird I’m finding to tell folks what and where I’d like to study, seems to provoke a lot of strong reactions in people, not having anythign to do with me and my reasons – which would take getting to know me…no simple answers at the moment.
hopefully at some point I’d love to write some articles on spirituality in scifi – it’s such a great medium for so many things to be examined and commented on, spirituality/religion no exception- once I really get myself educated on the religion side of things.
Any favorite memories from Boston? And thanks for the good wishes for school!
mandara K, Congrats on the Chucks, you are sounding like quite the Cool One…all Goethe, Pink Floyd and the heady faashion sense!!
Marvelous, life is marvelous when you get rid of mind clutter.
And I hear this statement loud and clear…all set with the grad school app. just waiting to hear if I get in now…which may make DCon 2005 difficult to attend if I do, but my sister is Insisting, and I Really want to get back.
I have no idea what I could do to help out at a table – ain’t any stuff I could bring. But if there’s a way I could help out for a couple of hours I’d be more than happy too!
(need to spend time with the family while there too – we don’t get to see each other much)I can only really speak to the folks I have partaken reading or engaging in some way on these fair dark baords, but this quiz seems somewhat accurate a measure of some of the folks around here:
thefrey = Yoda But of Course!!! Makes total sense
Logan = Picard, also seems quite fitting!
mysteriesofthesea = Leia, revel in your crusade for justice O’ great hair-do’d one!!!
fun craziness…..still a little shaky with me as Aragorn 😳
totally have used both in regular conversation:
It’s the spice!!! The spice!
“The sleeper has awoken”
and muttered to self: “fear is the mind killer”
😀 😳 😀 😀
Samuel R. “Chip” Delany
Few have had such broad commercial success with aggressively experimental prose techniques.
Crazy…I studied with him in college about the history of Scifi lit and I really admire his work.
Dense, but extremely progressive.TranceGemini613 wrote:
Bah you’re all like well-seasoned Benden wine…older than I am but not nearly as tart (Hah, tart, double-meaning!)
😀 True, true…not really wearing my corset and red leather pants anymore!!!
Those were the days, to be bowed to by youngen metal heads as Cannibal Corpse was about to play….or swearing Barney was growling just for me throughout Napalm Death’s set….drooling over Swedish gods called Grave and generally flinching as I watched the boys get punched in the head in the pit (when I wasn’t in it myself)Last time I was in a pit, I found it hurt a lot more than it used too…
This summer a 20’s something laughed at me when I told her I used to go to Death Metal shows….said she could see it, but was funny to think of now….
How the mighty age!!! 😉 😉 Too funny really, it’s like another world to me now, not that far away…but very.
And I’m sure there are plenty here who played D&D Basics Rules Set I….the red box??? for days on end – eating Domino’s pizza???? All while listening to the Legend soundtrack????
Is this sounding like one of those comic strips? “Knights of the Round Table” or the other Dark Tower one?? 🙂
I came up as Aragorn
Putting your appointed path ahead of any inner conflicts, you make your own rules for the benefit of all.
“If my life or death I can protect you, I will.”
😳
Welcome to the 30’s club!!!
I generally have a good time shocking people with the fact I’m a scifi fan, StarWars geek…and an ex-Death metal chic 😈 from back in the day….(most people peg me as the folk music type for some reason)
I think as we get older it is harder for people to categorize each other….
Though my Stargate (or alternatively Hubble photos) wallpaper on my ‘puter might give me away. people at work started calling me a Trekkie after I disclosed I went to Dragon*Con 2004.
I’m just in incognito or something….
SPOILERS
Yeah, I was convinced she’s not real by the little docemtary/interviews Scifi did with the cast of BSG before the pilot of the new series started.
The actress who plays #6 makes a reference that would seem to indicate Baltar is really crazy, and she’s not actually there at all.
Which I think makes a lot more sense to the cohesion (uh, yeah) of his character.Given I haven’t seen what comes next of course 😉 I could change my mind!
I haven’t read any of the next reviews, since I’m on the American schedule. 😳
Thanks though!!!
