Politics make me laugh

Well, not really, but political cartoons do. Check these out:

Obama Gallery

>.>

In case anyone's interested in a sneak peak at its awesomeness, I've started posting Boneteller on Shalights again.

http://shalight.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=drafts&action=display&thread=308&page=1

Just the prologue right now, but I've got the first 2.5 chapters written, so once I get some feedback, I'll put more up and whatnot.

If anyone wants to, feel free to join too. ;) Shalights can always use more crazies to brighten up the boards.

Funny 'Net Conversations

I've had a lot of them lately.

Strangest one was on Wajas though. Overall, it's a very friendly community there, and it's nothing new for older players like me to get randomly messaged (especially since I say in my cave that "if you want to chat or have any questions, feel free to message me"), but this one went a bit above. I've gotten beggars and newbies with questions, but I dunno, this was just random.

First of all, the title of the pm: -eats your soul-
The message: What? Yummy!

I reply, trying to play along: But now I don't have a soul anymore! D: Whatever will I do?

Strange Person replies: Eat it up.

Me: Eat what up? Your soul? You already ate mine, anyways.

SP: Got any wajas to breed, sell, or give away?

Huh? Not only the random change of subject, she changed the title of the pm from '-eats your soul-' to 'Wajas'

I reply: Every Waja in my cave Sales group is for sale, and any male with a stud fee is up for breeding. :P I'm not giving any away right now though.

SP says: I'll look through your sales cave.

Anyways, I don't see any reason to reply to that, so conversation is over. Then, a couple days later I get a message from her asking how I am. I didn't get around to replying until a few minutes ago, but still.... weird.
If the following conversation turns out to be as random as the first, I'll keep it updated here. xD

Edit:
So SP asks how I am. I say, "Fine, you?"
SP replies: Good. So do you have any wajs for sale/breeding/giveaway?

-_-

Uh-huh

http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/hes_barack_obama

JibJab ftw

I like the part about him disregarding our growing national debt.

LOL

The polar bears refuse you.

That could have gone better. :P

So today Katy (my older sister) came home from college for dinner and brought one of her roommates, Kiley, with her. My parents made a nice dinner and we were all sitting around the living room table, chatting about stuff and eventually got on the subject of how Nate (my little brother) had a job as a referee. Then my dad made the comment on how I make mounds of fake money and, as Annie Dillard said when she was in a similar situation, “all hell broke loose.”

First we had to define fake money and how one earns it. I get it from playing Wajas, an online breeding game where you raise wolf-type animals of varying breeds. CWP costs real money to buy, unlike the usual WC that’s the normal currency in the game. Each CWP is worth the equivalent of $1 USD, so if I’m doing a commission for someone on Wajas I might say, “They’re paying me twenty-five dollars” rather than CWP, since they’re worth the same and ‘dollars’ is easier to say. CWP are used to buy upgrades, customs, and other expensive items on Wajas, and for someone who really enjoys the game like me, are something we all strive for. To sit there and listen to my family discuss it as fake money (especially my Tante BiBi, who was just blown away by the whole concept) was kind of offensive. They talk about it, and my earning of it, like it’s completely stupid. At least my mom didn’t come in with her whole ‘all people on the Internet are fake’ ideal too, that would have been really bad.

Also, my mom has to tell her that I’m always drawing Wajas, which I’m most definitely not. I say that, no, I draw just about anything, and very rarely Wajas. It’s just that I sold adoptables on Wajas for a while (something where I draw a lineart and recolor it repeatedly to look like different people’s Wajas), did at least a couple hundred of those pretty-much effortless works before closing up shop and moving on to actual commissions, and now she’s gotten it into her head that that’s all I do. Nate at least came to my defense, since he sees most of what I do, and mentioned that I draw humans too, but no one really listens to him.

Anyways, eventually we did get off that subject, but then Kiley said I should take Graphic Design, which is what she’s majoring in. I quietly disagreed, saying I didn’t particularly like art classes, and was about to go on and say that I had other things I was far more interested in anyways when my mom interrupted.

“Mary hates art classes. She doesn’t want people telling her how to draw, what to draw, or when to have it finished (although if that’s not a commission, I don’t know what is). She doesn’t like any seeing her art either, except those silly Internet people.” (Huh?)

Kiley said, “Oh, well, then I guess not. Graphic design has a lot of hard critiquing.”

I speak up again here. “No, I love critiques, I just don’t like my mom talking about it.” She’s stupid, there’s no two ways about it. Yes, she has a Ph.D., but when it comes to most things I do, she’s just dumb and annoying, as has already become very apparent in the conversation.

My mom sighs. “I don’t know what I said, but she hates me ever seeing what she’s doing.”

“It’s because I can be drawing anything at all and you come in and say, “Is that one of those Wajas?”!” It’s a pain in the butt! Anyways, that’s the first time I’ve really spoken up, and everyone just kind of looks around in shock. “No, I could be drawing a dragon or a human or whatever else, but you have no clue and it’s stupid! I don’t like listening to all your dumb comments.”

“Well, what is a Waja?”

Everyone has a different idea for this, although I have no clue where they got it from. A whole new conversation starts, and I try over and over to tell them that basically they’re wolves, but no one’s interested in what they are, they just want to speculate. Eventually I say, “Wajas is Navajo for wolf, okay?”

No one hears but Nate, but luckily he’s good at speaking up and throws his arms in the air and says, “I figured it out! Wajas is Navajo for wolf!”

“How’d you figure that out?”

“Mary told me.”

“Well, that makes sense. I’ve always wondered what they were.” Because apparently they aren’t obviously some sort of canine-type creature. :P My family has issues.

Anyway, past that the discussion sort of ended because BiBi had apparently given up on following the conversation and started talking about her dolls. But holy cow, what a pain. I wish my mom would just shut her mouth; if she wasn’t always making such idiotic comments I could just talk and there would have been no problem. But she does that all the time and there’s no stopping her but, again, that’s a different story. I’m going to have to make a blog about ‘different stories’ soon enough.

What the heck?

Every once in a while I have really strange dreams. I know I've told the stories of some strange ones (not on here though :P), but even those get topped by these. Last night was one of those.

It was pretty-much like a romance novel set in the Air Force, with the kid I sit by in Seminary as the guy and I'm not entirely sure who the girl was. I hope it wasn't me, but last time I had a romance novel dream (yes, I had one before, several years ago), it was me (although the guy was fictional). Also, the guy was renamed Murder- in reference to a murder of crows though, not to actual murder, and although I know that detail, I forget the story behind it- because Quinn is a horrible name. I pity him every day I have that class.

I mean... Quinn. What the heck. He's attractive, but his name is not. Wouldn't that be the saddest thing if someone asked you who you liked and you're like, "Quinn." Wow, anticlimactic. Sad name.

Anyways, so like I said, it was set in the Air Force (well, they said it was Air Force, but I have no clue how they work and I seriously doubt it's like it was in my dream xD) and apparently the guys had been there a while but there was a group of girls just coming in that they had to teach. Murder/Quinn ended up getting paired with Girl and it just went on from there, albeit very slowly.

I think over a year had passed when Girl and Murder were flying somewhere, I think scouting, when Girl asked for something or other and Murder apparently misheard and replied like, "You want a... simba?". And then Girl jokingly was like, "Yeah, give me a simba," and then he leaned over and kissed her (while strapped into the cockpit chair things of a plane?). It, like, worked when he first kissed her but then after a second it was like my logic kicked in and then suddenly they had to awkwardly crane their heads and it was really funny, if semi-disturbing. xD

Pretty much an LOL SHIELD MY EYES! D888 moment.

Then I woke up but it's stayed in my head.

My mind has just been failing lately. But that's another story.

Tigerface

Sadly, my commissioner didn't go for it. But it is entertaining, amIright?

Actually, she said, "As for the tiger herself. Frankly, I laughed."

And I did warn her beforehand that I wasn't actually planning on doing that face, but it was just so funny that I couldn't get rid of it. There is another half to the image I needed to show her, so she got the good and bad sides... and quite liked them both, the tiger simply isn't how it needed to be. xD Gotta fix it now, but it was good for a moment and I'm saving it for ever and ever and quite possibly coloring it and making it into something useful to me like a tag or something along those lines.

Yay crappy sentences, but I'm feeling spontaneously excited about nothing at all (seeing as the tiger incident was really last night).

:D

Tigerface fail.

Edit: She has been redrawn to the desired standards now. Just in case you were wondering. :P

Holy Moley

So, last night I went and saw Avatar with my little brother.

o_o

Really, there’s not much more to say. But I’ll say more.

I want one of those Ikran. Heavens, I want to turn into a Na’vi and live there the rest of my life.

I’m so jealous of the artists who got to come up with all those creatures. I wish I could’ve been in their shoes, bringing those most awesome of animals to life. D:

Scarface (because I got no names out of there but Jake Sully… xP) was a total creeper, and could hold his breath way too long. I hate it when people refuse to die ‘cause they’re so busy doing the wrong thing. Happens amazingly often in movies though.

If I didn’t have a whole list of commissions waiting on me, I would so totally be drawing up mounds and mounds of Avatar fanart. Mostly things with those ‘banshees’, because they are the awesome. Way better than any actual pteranodons.

And then I came home and the girl commissioning me had messaged me back about the sketches I’d given her. After mounds of other stuff in reply to the mounds of stuff I’d said in my message, she concluded with this:

“I think all of the sketches are awesome with just a couple of things to fix. But then again, you're not a mind reader (though you are pretty close!).”

Further proof of my psychic powers and much happiness in those two sentences. :D I’m loving this.

Rescued

My Boneteller problem has been solved. :D I just... needed to get rid of the old beginning, even though I didn't want to. Now I'm quite pleased to do so, since I've thought of a better one. xD

It's all because of Annie Dillard; I finished her "An American Childhood" last night, and started on "The Writing Life" today. What's the first thing it says? You have to be willing to drop old stuff so you can better everything else.

And then she keeps coming back to that. She moves on, but it always comes back to that you need to be willing to keep moving forward rather than getting stuck with your head on backwards. She's totally just bashing on people who can't let go of things. I was like, "Augh, guilt trip!"

But her books are almost as good as scripture at always giving me what I need in life. >.> Hopefully I'm not going to be struck down for blasphemy saying that.

I don't know if Madison saw my little epiphany moment during lunch today; I was reading my book, and then the new start just came to me like a whirlwind and I whipped out my notebook and started writing. I've written four-ish fat paragraphs in the ten or so minutes I've worked on it since then. xD And I'm enjoying it very much.

Hooray for Boneteller V3.5 (because the three pages of V3 just aren't enough to merit a whole new number :P)! xD

Amazing word

So, I have Dictionary.com send me a 'Word of the Day' every day. Many of them I already know, some are pretty dull, but you still get awesome words quite often. :D This one is definitely up in the top now:

"flibbertigibbet \FLIB-ur-tee-jib-it\, noun:

A silly, flighty, or scatterbrained person, especially a pert young woman with such qualities."

I'm using that. So totally using that, somewhere, in something.

As promised...

Snape's on the Snog Hunt.

http://ktshy.deviantart.com/art/Simply-Potterific-20-32407999

If you can't see the whole comic, just click on the image. :P

Personally, my favorite scene is the one with the Weasleys. Snape's leap of doom is amazing. :D

I need help.

I know, the one thing in life I hate asking for above all else, and I give a blog the title.

I need to get a manuscript of Boneteller done by June. If I manage that, I can get a free printing of it.

Problem is, I recently restarted the book. Can I write a book in 6 months? Yes, I think I can. Yes, I know I was nearly done with it in the last version, but it just wasn't going where I wanted it to. I had reverted to my usual tell, tell, tell writing style. Very little 'showing' at all, when that is really what this book requires. Boneteller is a scientifically based book. It exists on the theory of evolution, thrives on history, lives on mans' curiosity. It requires explaining. Not to mention just average description, which I've always had a bad habit of leaving out.

It has also evolved into a bit of a mystery too. The last version gave the whole book away in the prologue. For V3, I've cut that out completely. The story the prologue originally told will be revealed slowly, reaching its conclusion with the rest of the book's climax.

I have the whole plot of the book worked out. I have how it will be told worked out. I have things moving backwards and forwards, have snippets from all over written, have the characters running rampant in my head, even more frustrated than me at my lack of ability to put them on paper.

I've basically written the middle of the book. I've written pieces of the end, and know the conclusion.

The problem is, I can't start it.

I've never had problems starting a book. That's practically all I ever do. I start books without thinking out a plot, and then when I reach the point where the introduction is finished and I actually need something happening, I stop writing it. Eventually every started story does get a middle and end, after myriad rewrites, but the point is, I never have problems with beginnings.

Boneteller, unlike my Silvath books, unlike Sanni's stories, and unlike however many other stories I've written, is the one I want to get published one day. I want to get it perfect. I study and study and study. I go physically to digs, I go to museums, I talk to paleontologists; most of all, I read and read and read. But I still feel inferior, and its holding me back. Even with my experience, I don't really know what I'm writing about. Not to the extent I'd like to.

I think it's because I've studied the subject, amazingly, too much. I know so much about it, but also know I'll never quite be in it and it's making me reluctant to work on it. But I need to write Boneteller. I've written the start twice, both with minor yet big changes, and have had no problem with it.

Third time's the charm, but I can't get going on it. Ugh.

I'm wondering if maybe my problem is that I'm not changing the beginning from how it's been in the past. But I love that beginning, and am reluctant to pull away from it, not to mention it means thinking even more about the book. But the slight edits I've made to the usual beginnings this time around just aren't working. I can't get past the second page, past Dave's comment. Things were working out so nicely until I got to it. >.<

Dumb Dave, he does have a habit of ruining things.

Bu-ut yeah.... since I'm not actually posting any of the book, I don't think this rant is going to get me anywhere. xD Just needed to complain about it somewhere...

So, uh, yeah, done.

/an agitated Sparrow

My new philosophy.

This will solve all my 'I want this but can't get it' problems. :D

Life's Grand Solution

Now just to figure out how to get more than a book's cover to enter and open itself up to me.

This on the other hand...

So after school today I had to go to the dentist for a filling. He told me at my checkup that it was just a tiny cavity, we planned when I would come in to have it filled (today), and told me to expect to be here about 40 minutes.

Well, it wasn't quite that.

I arrived at the dentist's about 10 minutes early (due to a lifetime of being taught to be somewhere 5 minutes early, plus throwing on an extra few minutes in case my car has troubles). I had to wait, obviously, for a few minutes, but they got me in still about 5 minutes early (1:55 rather than 2:00).

They told me, "This is just a tiny filling so we aren't going to numb you are anything. If it does hurt though, just tell us and we'll numb you."

I was like, "Okay, sure," and quietly resolved to live through whatever pain I ended up in and not get numbed at all.

So, they got started. For about three seconds total, maybe, my one tooth hurt a little. The whole filling took a whole 5 minutes. Then they were like, "Okay, you're done!", did the usual, "Are you feeling okay? Does it hurt at all?" questions, and when I had no complaints they told me I could leave.

I was just like, "Wait, I can go home now?" I mean, seriously? Already? I'd hardly been there 10 minutes!

The dentist assistant girl just laughed at me and assured me I could. So... I left, and was home about a half hour earlier than expected.

Very fast. I'm impressed. xD

That'd take a lot of time.

I was thinking today about how God made worlds without number. I can see him physically watching over them all (well, not really, but I'm sure he's capable o.O) but then I thought about the Holy Ghost.

Does he have to go around to every single world and put his influence over every single Mormon and person that just needs to be feeling the Spirit?

That's just insane. o.o

I've always imagined the worlds were all made at different times, so maybe some of them are finished with their Plan and he doesn't have to bother with them anymore, but there's still plenty, seeing as they're worlds without number. Some might not be at the point where he needs to work there, but we can't name how many are still left.

Wow.

I'm glad that's not my job, especially since he probably gets ignored and rejected way more than any missionary. (If I go on a mission and no one wants to listen to me, that'll be my creedo. xD "Just think about how the Holy Ghost feels!")

~An amazed Sparrow