Apollymi ::||:: Dark Passion Play

I'm definitely having some issues remembering to do this. I'm trying to get better, but sometimes I just plain forget. At least until lunch time. Why it's easier to remember then, I don't know, but it is.

It's been outrageously hot for April-May so far. I've been spoiled on our winter. I want the winter weather back! Not in the least because I hate when warm weather comes with all its attendant bugs. Bugs bugs bugs. Cockroaches, mosquitoes, gnats, fleas, and all the other icky, nasty, mean things.

I've been having some sort of weird issue with my right hand. It wouldn't be a big deal at all, except for that I write with my right hand. It's definitely my dominant hand... and lately when I try to close my hand or pinch my fingers or hold a book page open, it starts hurting then trembling then twitching. It's actually a bit painful and I would really like it to quit. I looked up hand tremors -- and it's one of the early symptoms to entirely TOO many things: carpal tunnel, repetitive stress, calcium deficiency, vitamin D deficiency, thyroid problems, Parkinson's, epilepsy... The list goes on and gets progressively more terrifying. I would much prefer one of the first 4 than the last 3.

I don't know... It's not like it's all the time or anything and it's not like I have great joints. Maybe if it keeps up beyond next week, I'll see about making a doctor's appointment. I just hate going to the man; he always so condescending, and it always takes so long to get an appointment. Yeah, we'll see.

Everyone I've ever talked to has said that if you don't like your primary care physician then fire them. I doubt I'd be able to find a good one, so I'm not sure on the wisdom of bothering.

When I get home, I'm going to install my copy of the Rosetta Stone program and German 1 on Wraith, so I can keep up with my studying while I'm on the go. See? I can be smart sometimes. (Or as Katsuko would put it: I can be a smart cookie for not being a cookie. I forget which one of us originated that expression, but we like using it.)

And now to see about trying to get some writing done before I'm gone for the weekend.

So I did a video post yesterday. Mostly, it''s me babbling, but there's a lot of babbling in there about the books and such. That's rather important I'd guess.

That's a lot of what's going on now: writing and editing. I'm probably going to be trying to do more video blogs (vlogs is apparently the word, though it sounds like something that involves whips and chains) now that I have the hard drive upgraded and such. I still need to upgrade the memory on my laptop, but that's a fight for another day.

In fundraising news, the latest attempt failed as well, so I gave up and started shopping used. I managed to get an iMac G5 (a PowerPC, not an Intel, which is quite all right) for what I had of my own money, even though now it means I'm very broke. Well, not very broke -- I can afford to eat better than ramen or mac and cheese -- but not exactly as comfortable as I'd like.

Hopefully copies should be shipped out now for Amaranth, at least from the Cacoethes site itself. Regarding Amazon, I'm not sure. It's finally back in stock, but it says it would be 3 to 5 weeks before it would ship. That's not a lot better. This is so frustrating!

...at the rate people (and in some cases, I use that word only because I assume they are indeed homo sapien) are frustrating me, I'm going to have to make an icon to use that reads: "The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it." Of course, though, then I'd need to find out how to create a secret lair; that's apparently a necessary property.

But yeah, that's about it. Ciao, my lovelies!

So, yesterday's whinging aside, this week isn't going *too* terrible. Yesterday was just so bad and so long that it felt like it was pulling me under. Today is a little better. I'm working on trying to deal with everything.

I've been running a virus scan on my work computer since nearly 10:30-ish. Sometimes I despise McAfee.

My home PC's monitor has gone on the blink -- literally. So any home computing that's getting done is being accomplished from the MacBook until I can get up the other $600 towards a new desktop. This time I'm taking no chances and will be getting an iMac. It's what I wanted and couldn't afford last time. I am in the process of doing upgrades on the laptop too, just in case getting the money up for the PC takes longer than I'm expecting.

I'm going to be taking classes again during Summer Semester, A term to be exact. It's the 13 week term. If all goes as I want, I'll be in Introduction to German 1120. If I can get financial aid other than what the job provides, I might try to take one more class: Ancient Mythology. But that's a big if.

Anyway, due to the new financial constraints on me, I won't be going to Dragon*Con this year, not unless someone buys my ticket, my hotel room, and my gas to get up there. I don't exactly see that happening. I'm not a popular enough author yet to be a guest they'd sponsor to show up.

But on that note... Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1 is now up on Amazon.com, now with the cover picture showing. One of the people who pre-purchased a copy says that Amazon is telling her it should ship today; another told me April. I guess we'll see, but it will be shipping out soon.

And that's about it. I'll be over here, doing my line-editing homework or working on editing Hunter's Path. I want to start sending it around to people soon: agents, publishers, etc.

I so suck at updates, I'm so sorry!

I've been fanficcing like a mofo. I think in the last two months I've done about two chapters of one series, one chapter of another one, and a preview to yet another one. In order, those would be Belladonna, Whoever Brings the Night, and Route 666. I've also been glancing over Third Chance for a chance to expand on it. I like that one; it needs to be finished. Vidi too for that matter.

Line-Editing is going well. I'm about a week ahead on most everything I need to get done for it. That's pretty nice -- and maybe a little surprising for me. Not that I was a procrastination monkey the first time I went through school, but I was certainly never ahead of the class.

As part of the class, I've managed to secure an editing project for a fellow student's novella. It's only about 61,000 words, and I've managed to secure a $20/hour rate on it. I'm hoping it'll take a while because...

...my home desktop is dying. When I bought it two years ago, I upgraded it within an inch of its life; it started out at 512mb RAM and 120GB hard drive, but now it's 2GB RAM and 220 HD with an external 500GB HD. Honestly, I've spent more on upgrading it than I did on buying it. And now, already the fucker is dying. The DVD-R drive is gone, so I can't even clear off stuff from it to disk. I can't run Word and Excel at the same time. Sometimes I can run Firefox and iTunes at once. And Photoshop? That requires closing everything else -- and sometimes going into the Task Manager and closing background programs.

Now, all I could scare up for Sir Saves A Lot (formerly Kaichan) when I bought him was $300. My sister had bankrupted my mum again, my grandparents already pay too much for me, I didn't feel right asking my friends for money (nevermind that half of them owe me money), and so Oyaji was my only source of the extra funds needed. The limit he said I could put on the card he loaned me was $300. Have you ever tried going to a computer store with only $300 and trying to find something worth half a damn? Especially when you're an Apple person?

So I settled on a Compaq. I should have known better. Compaq has been bought out by HP, you see, and I had an HP that both the fans quit working on and the harddrive caught on fire. You read that right: on fire. As in it melted. Yeah, I was none too happy on that, nor was I too happy having to make the Compaq worth half a damn. RAM ain't cheap, after all.

So anyway, now that it's giving me fits, I'm putting back for a new computer. This time, my money is going towards an Apple. I'm eying a refurbished one through the Apple store or the FSU computer store. Still, that's $1549, of which I have $150 set back. I'm living very paycheck to paycheck as it is, thanks to FSU's budget crisis. I'm doing more and more work, but getting absolutely no more pay. I won't start getting royalties off my books until at least March or April, and class, work, and writing leave me no time for a second job (or would that be 3rd or 4th job?). I could call in all the money I'm owed, but the people who owe it to me are even more broke than I am.

Therefore, I've set up a fundraiser for getting the money up, here on Fundable.com. Any assistance would be most appreciated. The thing with Fundable is that it's either all or nothing. If all the money is raised by the deadline of 03 March, then it gets sent on to me. If not all of it is raised, if it's even $5 short, it all gets refunded to the people who pledged it. So chances are, you could pledge however much you want and it'd probably end up getting refunded to you because I've only secured $50 in 3 days.

And in other news, I'm still waiting to hear back from Cacoethes about Verdant. We'll see what goes on there.

Okay, somehow it's 2009 already. Yes, I was up at midnight.

This was the first year I actually drank on New Years Eve. Okay, so it was sangria, but, still... alcohol(ish)!

I have made it through all my fanfiction on the DarkMagick.net revamp. I have to finish the YGO recs page before I'm willing to declare myself done, though. It's sort of slow-going, but it's picked up a lot since I downloaded KompoZer. It's all the simple stuff from Frontpage that I loved without all the tricky "gotta know Adobe's way of doing things" that the new Dreamweaver does. And I like being able to hit two buttons and have a new line of a table just show up. Plus, freeware.

And my coffee seriously needs to hurry the hell up.

Okay, and I guess it's time for New Year's Resolutions again, isn't it? I'm going to be rather brief with mine this year, I think. Let's see:

* A post a day all year, barring LJ being stupid.
* Finish Ash.
* Write Azure.
* Write the other story kicking around my head (yes, the gay romance).
* Maintain weight at 140 to 145. (I'm 5'8"; that's a decent weight for my height.)
* Body toning would be good, but I know my free time.
* Don't drop out of classes.
* Eventually afford iMac 20" and upgrades to Macbook.

See? Rather simple for me compared to previous years.

And now back to the goddamn Recs page. (Maybe I should rename it that.)

I still haven't gotten my check from Seven Seas Manga, so I had to send in the "have to get a lawyer" email. If it's not here by Wednesday, I guess that's what I'll have to do. That was the date I gave them, after all.

My laptop is still dead. Completely dead. It won't even give me anything more than a swirling Apple logo. I'm still begging for donations (to kbell@katherinebell.net) towards a new one, one where I can get a real warranty -- not the crappy SquareTrade warranty eBay offers. (60 days to take effect, indeed.) Anyway, donations link:

In spite of everything that's going on, I'm hoping to have a costume done by Dragon*Con -- and have Verdant sent to Carady and Denise by then as well. I'm up to Chapter 2 in editing it, so that's a strong possibility surprisingly. As for the costume, well, that's a bit up in the air. We'll see. We'll hope.

Honestly, the laptop, Dragon*Con, and editing are my main concerns right now... and that's more than enough for my plate right now.

So... I'm back online after the big move. I'm still waiting for the reality of finally being in a new place to sink in. Maybe it will when I pay the first month's rent on it. Spending money always has a way of driving such things home.

I still haven't been paid for my Seven Seas work. I now call the trip to the mailbox "my daily disappointment". If it isn't here by Friday, there will have to be the nasty "I'm going to get a lawyer" email.

Also... ¬_¬ My iBook gave up the ghost. Even my computer techie guy is telling me to get a new one at this point. So I started doing some pricing. The best I can get the next level up laptop is $2000. I have... $95.

Basically, I'm begging for donations. Every penny sent in will go towards a new MacBook (not Air or Pro, just a MacBook). Donations can be sent by Paypal to kbell@katherinbell.net or clicking the button below:

And that's it for me.

Dear world,

Yes, I know you like pissing down on me. It seems to be among your favorite pastimes. Yes, you are making an art out of it.

But did you have to go after my computer, man? I mean, I just got the thing less than 2 months ago. I guess I just answered my own question. Of course. I sell the G3 to katsuko, so it's time for you to kill the G4. Of fucking course.

So you went with the logical iBook issue and killed the logic board. That was an easy cop out.

But of course, you chose your timing well. SquareTrade's website decided to quit accepting my password, so I had to call that in. They ask if I'm having any problems with one of the products while I'm on the line, and I said yes. And I found out that the fine print reads that if it breaks within 60 days, they don't cover it. I was 4 days short of my 60 days being up and the warranty going into effect. See, this is how you like to fuck with me.

So, of course, because it's been nearly 60 days, I'm out of the 45 day range that PayPal allows for filing a dispute. So pretty much I'm in the seller's hands for repairs/refunds/replacing, and somehow I get the feeling I'm not going to get any help there.

So, yes, this means I'm out over $600 for the iBook and $70 for the ultimately useless warranty.

Here's a big "Fuck you, world" and a "piss off". I would say I'm taking my toys and going home, but hey, you ate my toy.

No love,
Apollymi

This isn't a real update, since the most I have to report is that Paula doesn't seem very happy and I really hope I'm not part of the problem. But mostly, I want to say a few random things.

I have new icons! This is one of them (and cleverly relates to the rest of the post). Okay, they're all the Ninth Doctor, but what can I say? I have a favorite.

I asked katsuko the other day, if I was a Marauder, which one would I be? She was quiet for a while, long enough that I had to ask, "Not James, right?" Finally she responded, no, not James. Apparently, if I'm any of the Marauders, I'm Sirius. I can definitely live with this.

I'm 49 pages into the transliteration for Dance in the Vampire Bund. I need to do 40 pages a day, like I did Tuesday, a few more times, and I'll be finished. Then in three months, I can get paid. Hurray for getting paid. (I almost typed "laid" instead of "paid" there. Amusing typo.)

I have a headache. Chocolate and caffeine does not help it. This sucks.

I'm re-re-re-reading (probably a few more "re"'s on there, but I got tired of typing it) the movie tie-in book to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I like it. It ties in the first movie and the future, in addition to telling the story of the second movie.

My keyboard's left arrow key keeps sticking. It's very annoying.

We moved my desk at work. I am now in what I like to call the Seat of Power: the main desk in the Admin Office. Très spiffy.

And that's about it. Ciao.