A title this would be, had I the originality.

I recently had a work meeting with someone senior who turned out to be from Wales. Thus one small tangent of the conversation involved me saying I was from Wales, and stating that I had a Welsh GCSE certificate. Second language, of course, but who’s counting?

Of course, what happens? I get back a short work email … entirely in Welsh. I can distill the odd phrase or word and get the gist of the email – all but the last sentence.

Now, do I:

- admit defeat, and reveal my inadequateness in using Welsh (after all, I’m not genetically Welsh and haven’t lived in Wales for three years)?
- soldier on, find someone to translate the text for me, and fire off some pithy comeback in Welsh, and keep the illusion going?

Oh, these work dilemmas…

Mirrored from almost witty.

Angels for whom heaven is not enough. Demons searching for redemption in a mortal's arms. Seraphim, nephilim, heaven's warriors or creatures from the pits of hell—love could be waiting for them all.

Samhain Publishing invites you to step into the light or embrace the forces of darkness with stories of angels and demons from any mythology. Will your angels be wicked and your demons be wanton? Only you can decide on which side of heaven or hell they’ll fall.

Samhain Publishing is seeking submissions for their Spring 2010 demons and angels themed anthology. Stories can be of any genre or heat level, and submissions are open to M/F, M/M, or multiples thereof, but all submissions must feature either an angel or demon theme (or both!) as integral to the story. Submissions should be 20,000 to 30,000 words in length.

Submissions are open to all authors previously published with Samhain as well as authors aspiring to publish with Samhain. Submissions must be new material, previously published material will not be considered. Additionally, manuscripts previously submitted, whether individually or for past anthologies, will not be considered either. Please be aware that manuscripts submitted to this anthology cannot be resubmitted at a later date unless by invitation from an editor. However, submissions with merit for possible publication at Samhain are and will be passed to interested Samhain editors even if not chosen for the angels and demons anthology.

Chosen manuscripts will be published as separate ebooks under their individual titles in Spring 2010 but will be combined as one print title for Winter 2010 print release.

To submit a manuscript for consideration please include the full manuscript (of 20,000 to 30,000 words) with a comprehensive 2-3 page synopsis in addition to a letter of introduction/query letter which details the genre, heat level and story length. Full manuscripts are required.

As well, when you send your manuscript, please be sure to use the naming convention Title_AngelsDemons_MS and Title_AngelsDemons_Synopsis. This will ensure that your submission doesn’t get missed in the many submissions we receive, and makes it easy for me to find in my ebook reader.

Submissions are open until November 1st and final decision will be made by November 16th.

Submissions and questions can be directed to Angela James at editor@samhainpublishing.com Please put Angels and Demons Anthology in the subject line.

**permission to forward granted**

He's Amazing, He's fantasic,
His methods are quite drastic,
But he'll help you when you're sick!
Ladies and Gents we proudly present-
Doctor Mechanic!




Just a new costume design I'm working on. He needs to be made for August 17th and I for one am hugely looking forward to making him. His main features are: Mechanical arms, X-ray eye with added diagnosis vision, voice modulator diaphram and coal powered arm drill.

I've had two good days.

It felt like I spent the whole of Monday getting ready to send off a submission to Samhain. Janette slept from her 6am meds until her lunchtime ones were due, giving me a bigger writing window than I've had for a while, so I used it to polish and email the sub. I paused for several moments before hitting send, because I've been working on this submission package for three weeks and it means a lot to me.

Bathing and feeding took us halfway into the afternoon, then #2 daughter and her fiance arrived fresh from the vicarage to talk wedding arrangements. That was exhausting.

Monday evening I edited 521 Quarter Square words, maintaining the 500 words per day minimum I promised to write/edit while we're in this heavy-duty nursing phase. By 10pm my eyes felt as if they were sliding down my face towards the desk, so I took the hint and crawled off for an early night.

Tuesday morning, I edited another 521 words exactly (which included a whole new page of dialogue) as soon as we'd got Janette settled downstairs, which gave me the rest of the day to pop in and out of two workshops (Lynn Viehl's Left Behind & Loving It and The Not Going To Conference Conference at Romance Divas) whenever I got the chance. Critted a friend's chapter when #3 daughter nipped home for lunch and gave me a break.

I crashed out suddenly after dinner this evening and slept for three hours. I'm receiving the 'running on vapour' signal loud and clear, but with luck and a following wind Janette's surgery will fix everything next month.

 “History, I believe,” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.  This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

 

No country in the West has been so thoroughly priest-ridden as Ireland.  The priests have taken not only Ireland’s past, but her future.  For the past sixty years, priests and nuns have inflicted physical, mental, and sexual abuse on children in Catholic schools and orphanages.   A nine-year effort culminating in a 2,600 page report published last May by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, found “a climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment...  Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.”  

 

As we saw in the Archdiocese of Boston, and in other Roman Catholic dioceses in America and Canada, when confronted with charges of sexual abuse of children, religious superiors simply moved the offenders to another location where they were free to abuse again.  “There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse.”  

 

Last week, Ireland outlawed blasphemy.   From the new law:

 

Section 36

(1)  A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offense and shall be liable upon on conviction to a fine not exceeding €25,000.  

 

(2)  For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.

 

Section 37

(1) Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 36, the court may issue a warrant (a) authorizing any member of the Garda Siochana to enter (if necessary by the use of reasonable force) at all reasonable times any premises (including a dwelling) at which he or she has reasonable grounds for believing that copies of the statement to which the offence related are to be found, and to search those premises and seize and remove all copies of the statement found therein, (b) directing the seizure and removal by any member of the Garda Siochana of all copies of the statement to which the offence related that are in the possession of any person, specifying the manner in which copies so seized and removed shall be detained and stored by the Garda Siochana.

 

(Note:  “Garda Siochana” is Irish for “police”.)

 

The first offending document must surely be the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse’s report.   

 

What a terrible shame it must be to worship a god powerful enough to terrorize children into submitting to torture and rape, but so pitiably weak his reputation must be defended by threat of a fine.

My god.. where did tonight go?

I hate this work that is in my way. It is the last week of my notice though, which means soon back to regular updates. God I miss them.

Now sleep. Tomorrow I shall again attempt comic and the Tom poster I've been working on for months.

You’re in a mid life crisis

Your ears aren’t what they once were and you have resorted to doing online hearing tests.</p> The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 12kHz

Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear!

Bah. Time to buy a Ferrari. If I can hear it coming.

Mirrored from almost witty.

Okay, so for October expo I'm being Seigfried. Which means Matt has to be Nightmare so we can make out and show yaoi fan girls what being gay is all about.

(Well, not really as Matt has refused to fanservice with me, but it would be sweet if we could.)

But yeah, the costume looks like this:



So I decided I'd just make a duct tape dummy of Matt and just build it over the top of that. Screw treating it as armour- it's all going to be flesh. Kinda like a lot of fursuit construction really. I absolutely love fursuits. One day I shall do one, but for now I'm making non-furred armour suits.

But yeah, we did the dummy today. Hillarity ensued.





(the mop is so Matt can find the strength to keep his arms up.)

It's all been carefully cut off him and is now a pile of tape on my floor ready to be stuffed.

Remember that some weeks ago, our #1 daughter announced the date of her wedding would be September 2010?

Yesterday afternoon, our #2 daughter announced the date of her wedding: November 2010.

They both want to use the horse and carriage available from a local wedding car company, and both receptions will be held in the same hotel, although the room will be decorated acccording to their individual tastes. The services will be different, #1 preferring a civil wedding while #2 wants to marry in the 1000 year-old Norman church in our valley.

#3 daughter is slightly grumpy about having to buy two bridesmaid dresses, but I suspect the real reason is that she feels left behind. We suggested she find a nice doctor so we'll have a full set.

I'll be wearing my Irish Blue kilt, and, yes, I've been made to promise I will also wear something underneath. Spoilsports. The clincher came when #1 daughter asked her mum to picture me climbing up into the open carriage in front of all the guests.

I'm glad we have these happy things to look forward to, with Janette facing surgery next month. It's good to focus on this new horizon, beyond the scary one that's been our main concern for months.

As a professional media creator and writer, this is going to come off as incredibly snooty, out of touch and sneering at people who are working on content for the sheer love of it. So be it.

GSG2DWS5 has a very short interview with the editor of Doctor Who magazine, Tom Spilsbury. It’s eight questions long, and since one of the questions is: “Do you have a girlfriend at the moment?” (prompted by Mr. Spilsbury, admittedly) we can ascertain it’s not going to win a Pullitzer Prize any time soon.

The highly amusing element is the legal disclaimer at the bottom:

“This interview has been officially endorsed by Tom Spilsbury himself. This is EXCLUSIVE to GSG2DWS5 and we reserve all rights on this interview. Any reproduction of this interview without consent from both GSG2DWS5 and Tom Spilsbury will result in legal action being taken. All Rights Reserved.”

Really…

Mirrored from almost witty.

It's late Thursday evening and I shouldn't be posting now. Nursed Janette all day and finished editing a difficult chapter tonight. Dead on my feet now. Please give us a peaceful night.

Update 1:
Janette. Finally, we have a date for her surgery, 30th July for pre-surgery tests and 12th August for the operation itself, when they intend to remove the two big kidney stones and investigate the unidentified mass in that area.

Her consultant says the delays (5 months, unavoidable, because of complications caused by other related conditions cropping up) might have allowed the stones to cause permanent damage inside her kidneys. If that has happened, he says she might have to live with this level of pain forever. Morphine forever. We hope that doesn't happen, but we'll deal with it if and when it does. First priority is to get her through the surgery safely, and the second is to find out what the mass is and deal with that. That's the scariest thing. Difficult not to dwell in the middle of the night on sinister possibilities.


Update 2:
Quarter Square. The 2nd draft is going well and I'm editing as I go. Finished chapter 11 this evening, which is the one with a non-graphic but very erotic love scene. I moved that scene here from earlier in the story, in order to allow time for my prospective lovers to ramp up their electricity. Foreplay by lingering glances and hot subtext. Nailed it.

Onwards.

But, first, please give us a peaceful night tonight. I need good sleep so bad.

A little bit of fabric paint, a black t-shirt, and I could SO have this. It's me...really!

http://www.snorgtees.com/theonlythingwehavetofear-p-661.html?osCsid=2ba1dffb49dcc0370e611b2e3c5f32bc

I've been going over bills and seeing where I can trim back. There is surprisingly little. Even when K was making lots of money, we have a policy against buying on credit, and because we knew the gravy train would end, we determined not to add anything that required monthly payments. I have to keep the house phone and internet, so the cable tv added to that package is only $12 more a month. Seems very worth it. I paid my Evercrack up through the year, so I'm set there. I drive a little bitty car that sips gas.

Where I can cut back significantly is on eating, especially eating out. I'll be bringing lunch to work with me from now on, and K is going to have to find a way around his weekly social dinners. Our biggest social outing a week right now is that we bring dinner over to Skye and James' apartment on Thursday nights, but I make cheap, bulk foods. Tonight will be corned beef and cabbage.
Supplies cost $20, it will feed 6 people for the night, at about $3.33 a serving, and will likely have leftovers that 3 more will eat on for the next few days.

My medicine is what's going to beat us up. K is already panicking about that. But you know? It's going to be ok. At the worst, we will lose the house after the New Year. And if that happens, we will be in good company. Then K won't have to try to carry this very unreasonable mortgage on his shoulders, which has it's advantages.

as released for the new BBC One press pack.

See the carousel image? Keep scrolling right till you find Doctor Who - it's the third programme along.

A quite scary and spooky minute too!

I'm thinking of doing a '24 hrs - with pictures' blog event thing. Not just me & my blog. Lots of bloggers, all doing it on the same day, everyone posting a big Day Diary at the end of 24 hours and linking to others doing the same thing. Anyone interested?

I'm sorry if everybody knows already about this little gem of video:
Kissing Hank's ass, a humorous religion parallel between God and "Hank".

Witty, fun to watch and a really good metaphor...

A boat is waiting to maroon you on a desert island.

No, you can't keep the boat. The cox'n will dump you on the beach and sail away wordlessly, chewing a wad of tobacco and swigging his breakfast rum like the blackhearted jobsworth he is.

There's fresh water and wild food on the island. No electricity. This isn't a hi-tech marooning. Tsk!

You're allowed ten items in the boat. They can be people, animals, things, whatever you like. One of the ten items is you. *jab in the back with a rusty cutlass* Get in!

I'll take my family. My wife and our three daughters, each daughter's partner, and our dog Jacob with a companion for him.

When it comes down to it, people is all I need to get by. Preferably with at least one of them interested in having lots of sex on the beach with me.

That'll be my wife. I love Jacob to bits, but... you know. He's a dog.

There are many people I'd miss, and some I'd miss horribly, but my immediate family are the ones I'd maroon with me. I hope they're grateful.

So, that's me and mine sorted. How about you?

We just found out that K is not one of the 5 that gets shifted to another position. Not totally unexpected, he's a contractor and those jobs were sure to go to go to 'real' employees before contractors.

It's not great news, but at least we know. I think we can head in some good directions from here, but it's kind of spooky. And it means we don't get to go on vacation, for sure, which is really bumming Bug out.

The computer is done.


Well, not quite. More like I just got windows running and the first thing installed were the LAN drivers and firefox. :D.

You forget how jumpy a PC will be without the graphics installed properly. I am now off to begin the great installations, followed by a shit load of sleep.