No Mo

I've been looking forward to joining NaNoWriMo.org (National Novemer Writer's Month) since June. This was the 4th time I signed up, and this year I was determined to be ready, to hit the ground running, and to finish. I even trained for the event with this blog.

Well, the good news is that I'm still going to finish a book this year, for the first time ever. The bad news is NaNoWriMo itself. The kindly group of cheerleaders who used to offer inspiration to the 'Little Writer Who Could' morphed into a fundraiser.

I get it. It's a big job to keep a site up and running with such a big audience. People need to get paid. I might have kicked in someday, if I'd made-money-from-writing, thanks-to-their-encouragement. Which, of course, never happened. Frankly, I'd like to get paid for my time. I'm not. Why are they asking me for money?

Their 'hook' was that donations will help young writers who can't afford camps, workshops, and training. Apparently old writers who can't afford camps, workshops and training are dog-do. Seems to me that people with life experience who are trying to turn their lives around, and don't have lots of resources (or years) to do so, need assistance more.

There's also the feeling that they're milking the wrong cows. Markets for writers are drying up. Publishers become fewer and fewer. As more people give up on the job market, more of them decide that they may as well try write that book. So we have more writers than ever, and it's harder than ever to get a pay day. Seems like the wrong group to hit up for funds.

So I bailed out of Fundraising Central and took a full week off to get the bad taste out of my mouth. Now I'm starting again with a new attitude. Instead of NaNoWriMo, I'll celebrate "Personal Author's Year-end-Motivated Endeavor." PAY-ME pledges to motivate and encourage a struggling author, me, to finish her book by the end of 2014.

The time for fundraising will be when the book is finished. The fundraising drive will be correctly aimed at a target market of publishers and/or actual readers. So no donations, please. All I ask is encouragement.

Too Much Stuff Two: The Sequel

We've collected all the wrong stuff. We've saved all the wrong stuff. Why did we do it?  What are we to do with all this? I'm looking at our collection of one-thousand VCR tapes. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson with cassettes. Or perhaps not, since I still have a few dozen of those too.

Will I be stuck looking at the dratted things until the day I die? I wish I could do the same as we do with leftovers. ("I didn't like the meal, but I can't just toss this much food... so I'll put it in the refrigerator until it grows fuzz, then I'll toss it!") But alas. Tapes don't grow fuzz. They sit there in their cases forever. Even if the tape decomposes, fuzz will not result.

I could put them into boxes on the floor until Hubby trips on one and gets mad, then toss them. There are, however, four things wrong with that. One, I love Hubby and don't want him to trip. Two, the tapes might still be watchable. Three, doing anything with them would suck days out of my life, and I have a book to write. Four, there's no floor space left for boxes.

That's not all I collect. My beautiful Waterford crystal takes up 2 full shelves of the china cabinet, and china takes 4 more shelves. It's lovely, but I don't dare use any of it. Fears of lead content and radiation are valid enough that I don't need to go further. If I went further, I would mention dishwashers and microwaves. We use them constantly. They are the natural enemies of fine china and crystal. Nuf said.

Also lovely are my numerous collections of figurines, knick-knacks, and breakables. They were never meant to be used for anything. They're just for looks. Some are cherished mementos of my grandmas and my great-aunt, which means I'll be keeping them. Together with the crystal and dishes, that's 4 china cabinets full plus 4 cupboards plus any other storage and display space I can find.

Then there's stuff we saved because "you can't toss stuff that cost us so much." We have tons of old computer stuff. 3 1/4 floppies? We have hundreds. CD-ROMS? At leads a thousand. The old computers themselves? Many. Oh, and the cables! Parallel cables, Serial cables, SCSI cables, and proprietary cables for dozens of peripherals. The cables alone take up 4 big boxes.

Nor did we toss the peripherals. Our 1992 modems were quite the speedy dial-up connectors back in the day. And those zippy 4x CD-ROM players? Totally rad once. Now they take up space. No doubt they still work, but with what? And again, they cost so much money when we bought them.

Of course there are things we might actually need mixed among the useless stuff, so throwing it away by the boxload is not an option. I need to sort. But If I did, I'd want Hubby to participate, and he would have a fit if I threw away any of his 'stuff,' unless it flat-out didn't work. Sigh.

I thought I had the answer a few blogs back. Sell tickets to view the incredible mess... er, 'collections.' An even earlier blog advises, "Buy nothing and have the money." Alas, nobody listens to my advice, even me.

Daylight Savings Turmoil

Daylight savings time has ended and it's time to "fall back." Another round of deciding whether to change the bedroom clock radio or just mentally subtract an hour. You may think that's lazy of me, and you'd be right, but there's more to it than that. There's a barricade of heavy boxes that I'd have to move to reach it.

Also, the clock radio is so old that it could very well crumble to dust if I touch it. Last, I don't remember exactly how to do it. I had to move a switch and press 2 buttons. (Or was it 2 switches and one button?) Nothing is labeled "hour" or "h" or anything logical.

Another downer with the time change is knowing darned well it is bedtime, but your favorite shows are still on and you have more to do after they're over. Right now my body is telling me I can go to bed in an hour but my eyes are telling me I have to stay up because the cat needs food before her insulin shot at 9.

Every year I sing the same lament. Springtime is a busy time and it hurts the schedule to have that hour taken away. Many's the time I've been rushed, even late, because the time change slipped my mind. Now that it's fall, I don't need the hour... don't even want it. As I already said, I'm tired and want it to be bedtime.

Changing the clock is also a reminder that we should change all the batteries in our smoke alarms. However, half of ours are equipped with those new 10-year lithium ones that won't need changing until 2020-something. The other half? I don't recall which they are, but they'll chirp their heads off when they need changing. They're good at that.

Who thought of Daylight Savings Time anyhow? I suppose back in the day more people had office jobs with 8-to-5 schedules. I guess it would give Joe Average enough time to do some active, outdoorsy stuff after work. These days, however, if you leave the office at 5 you are either a slacker or a member of Congress... possibly both.

But we're stuck with it for now, so there's no sense being a total grump about it. It is what it is. There's talk of just staying on it forever. That would be a decent solution, and I hope it happens. Still, I can't help but wonder... why didn't we just start and finish work at the right time in the first place?

Halloween Horror Story (Eeeeep!)

We had hoped to get through Halloween without any horrors, but it wasn't to be. Hubby came downstairs and, at at the base of the stairway, the carpet was squishy wet. (Eeeeeek!)

Where did the leak lurk? We know water accumulates under the stairs. Our first leak years ago was caused by condensation on an air conditioning line. It had no place to drip except onto the floor. All summer long. The bills totaled up to a terrifying amount. We've had several leaks since, all in the area where our HVAC and water heater reside. (Yaaagh!)

We bravely set out to see what was leaking. We don't have a spooky basement to descend into, but the closets to the water heater and HVAC were plenty scary enough. The doors creak loudly. Our active spider population supplies enough webs and creepie-crawlies to terrify any homeowner, and we hadn't opened the closets for at least 2 years. (Shrieeeeek!)

Hubby spotted the leak. It was a water line connected to the water heater. Water was spritzing out of it. The leak was probably about the size of a large pinhole; or a small spider fang, if you want to stay in the Halloween spirit. (Yipes!)

Also in keeping with the mischievous spirits of Halloween, today was the day we were finally supposed to get our rain. Sure enough, it started just as Hubby stepped on the squishy spot. The door to the water heater is outside, so we got drenched looking for the leak. Once we got back indoors the rain stopped. (Doom dum DAAAAAA!)

At this point in a spooky movie, people get nervous and call for help, only to find that help can't reach them... they're on their own. Sure enough, our plumber was booked solid. The emergency plumber who once replaced our water heater did not answer; his answering machine said that 'someone would call back when they could.' (Nooooooooo!)

Our regular plumber gave us the number of a fellow plumber who was reliable. We called him and he promised to be there in 2 hours. That's a long time to wait when a pipe is spritzing. Duct tape made the leak worse, so we knew we'd have to not use any water until everything was fixed. (Yowww!)

After 2 anxious hours the sky opened and the rain poured. It got so dark we had to turn on the lights. Then... there was a knock on the door. I half expected an enraged water beast, but it was the plumber. I led him through the pouring rain to the spider-closet of doom, then fled to shelter. (Squelch! Squelch!)

Once I got inside the rain let up. The plumber fixed the line and the only terror left was the bill (Howl!) 

So if kiddies come to the door tonight expecting to scare us, they'll be disappointed. We've already had our scare, and lived to tell the tale. (Sinister organ music plays....)

Seconds on the Whine

I'm still not through whining about media. My first glass of whine today is another round for the music business.

A song once claimed that 'Video Killed the Radio Star' but for me the real killer was greed. Radio died because nobody paid the talent. Why pay a DJ when you can play a canned program for a fraction of the price? Why pay ASCAP and BMI when you can have a talk show instead? There's an infinite supply of ranting jerks willing to call in for free.

As a result, music moved to the Internet, where paying customers and talent spend entire lifetimes trying to find each other in the midst of a world's worth of content. As reported previously, I'm not having much luck as a paying customer.

My second glass of whine is because of TV. TV has jumped onto the 'let's not pay the talent' bandwagon in a big way. It's called 'reality TV' and there's not much of it to like. They cut corners in all the wrong places. Where are the good scripts, the good acting, and good old-fashioned production?

I do understand that it's a big investment to do a TV show. For a producer, it's a long, expensive trek from pilot to pitch. When there's nothing left in your pocket but lint, will the network even listen to your pitch? You have no guarantee. I get why corners are cut. It just seems like maybe scripts and actors shouldn't be in those corners.

Well, at least there are movies. Special effects are better than ever. There is no shortage of top-notch professional actors on the silver screen. There are definitely scripts, well-written and... hauntingly familiar? Hey! What's with all the remakes and sequels? I think I need another glass of whine.

Two Terms Too Many

Today I mailed in my ballot. Hopefully I navigated through the smoke and mirrors well enough to choose from the best of a poor lot. Whether yea or nay, some will win, some will lose. Measures that fail might reappear in some future election, reworded and dressed in a new suit. Or not. Issues come and go.

You know what else I wish would come and go? Congresspersons! This is a new rant for me. My usual cyclical rant is about jury duty. Every year when my name comes up I gripe and moan that they still haven't implemented a plan for professional jurors. Then, once I'm off the hook, I forget all about it until the next year.

But Congress! They never go away, except when they should be in session. (Which isn't often. They've only been in session 92 days this year, none of them lately.) Once they're through hitting us up for election funding and a vote, they'll scurry off to do nothing... if we're lucky. If they do anything, it will involve screwing over the middle-income people in favor of the way-too-rich pseudo-people (aka corporations).

If there's one nice thing we can do for our grandchildren, it's to pass a two-term limit. I don't think we can pull it off with the current cast of characters in charge, but we could at least try to 'grandfather out' this 'congressperson-for-life' stalemate.

Speaking of grandfathering, Congress isn't the only entity that needs to have an expiration date. We're looking at you, Senate and the Supreme Court! People making laws and decisions about technology should not be too old and confused to understand it and use it.

So I'm all for getting the great-great grandfathers "grandfathered" out of D.C. at some future point. However, I'll try not to rant too much about it. I don't want to sound like one of those grumpy old people who obscess on one issue. I might be mistaken for a congressperson!

Halloween Then and Now

Halloween is a fun holiday for me. It's been interesting to watch it evolve through the years. Some things today are so much better; others... not so much.

There was no easy way to rent or buy a quality costume back then. There were only boxed costumes from the dime store. They consisted of thin fabric (I'll call it 'fray-on') with skeleton bones, or a Superman emblem, or whatever, printed on the front. The mask was a plastic face held in place with a flimsy elastic thread. One night wearing a dime-store mask and a fray-on costume was enough. After that, I 'planned ahead' for all future costumes.

There were accessories one could buy for a do-it-yourself costume. I recall hats of all kinds. There was also face paint, wax teeth and lips, and the most awful wigs imaginable. I remember seeing a black 'wig' that looked like piles of pocket lint dipped in black paint, then glued to a piece of flimsy burlap. It was far scarier than the witch costume it came with.

Today's costumes are so much better. Click here to see selections from Party City's website. You'll see what I mean.

Which brings me to the candy. They handed out BIG candy bars in my childhood. They were about the size of the ones in vending machines today. It's been interesting to watch them shrink through the years. Today's 'fun size' is barely fun at all. Candy was far better back in the day.

Trick-or-treating has evolved over the years too. I grew up in the free-range era, when kids went out to play every day. I knew all the neighbors and their kids. We lived on a dead-end hill, so the trick-or-treat route was up one side of the street to the Murdoch's place, down the other side of the street to the McClellean's house, then home. (With extra time at the Swenson's, because they dressed in costumes to hand out the treats. Cool people!)

These days there is still door-to-door trick or treating, but not so much. The problem is that people don't know their neighbors. People trick-or-treat at malls rather than knock on doors because it's safer. Yesteryear was better.

So... yesteryear wins for treats and trick-or-treats, 'today' wins for costumes. The final comparison is media, and 'today' wins, hands-down. We used to just have Charlie Brown; now we have that, plus Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, and Nightmare Before Christmas. Speaking of which... time to go watch. I have my couch potato costume on already. It's very comfy.