TMI: How Much is Too Much?

Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo Program Director, sent all the authors an email giving an outline about what to expect during November. I found this very interesting:

November 13: Nothing really happens on November 13.

Oh poor Chris, to be so ignorant.  Nothing happening on the 13th!

Guess, not much…only a little game.

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While cleaning, and organizing (not my forte,  much to my mother’s dismay) I came across a box of cards from The Unemployed Philosophers Guild. This gem held cute cutouts of Shakespeare, Jane Austin, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.

Took them to work to revamp my dull office and decided to check out their site.

Can a one person geek out to the point of passing out?

When I saw this, I almost reached that threshold:

<Insert Beetlesque fan girls crying in hysterics>

I think Dali would have approved of my reaction.  I think most people find an author or artist they love when they are teenagers.  That person, that when you view or read their work, it transcends time and you feel it.  Dali is my guy.  I loved his stuff.  To to point my mother started to call him “le pervertido”, the pervert in Spanish and couldn’t understand the attraction.

Do you think I cared? Hell no.  And when we were in Bonita Springs, on the west coast of Florida, I forced them to take me to the St. Petersburg’s Salvador Dali museum.

Awe inspiring.

Now I can have him on my desk!

Hurry! Grab the smelling salts

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Inspired by Anna’s list of books, I went looking on the net and found the American Library Association  list of most challenged books from 1990-2000.  How many of these have you read? Many I have heard of, but even more I haven’t.  Makes a great list to use when looking for a new book!

Highlight the ones you have read and post your tally in the comments. (Broken the law 15 times)

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

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I love podcasts.  Listen to many different types and am always looking for just one more podcast to add, here is a list of shows I listen to, and if you know of one that I should be listening to, please let me know:

Anime:

Anime Round Table-Canadians, anime and around a table…all win, all the time.

Anime Pulse-These guys always make me laugh

Writing:

I Should be Writing-A wonderful cast for anyone who wants to work on their writing.

The Secrets-I stumbled on this by mistake and I am so happy I have.  The secrets offers honest advice and real practical tips.

Grammar Girl: Essential, especially for a grammar noob like myself.

Books and Fiction:

The Dragon Pages-Great discussions between writing, and books, with a focus on Sci/fi and fantasy.

Escape Pod-Offers a Sci/fi story each week.

Pod Castle-Fantasy stories each week.

Mugglecast-Harry Potter…I know, but I can’t help it.

Movies and Sci/if and Fantasy:

SModcast-Kevin Smith, ‘nuff said.

World of Warcraft:

The Instance- General wow news. One of my favs.

Epic Dolls-Grrl gamer power!  A must.

How I WoW-Want to know the person behind that tier 6 lock?  How I WoW can tell you.

Casually Hardcore-The name says it all and then there is “Nemesis”

WoWcast-A great cast, just wish she would release them more often

Travencast-Holy crap they are coming back to WoW!

Okay, you know what I want to know?  Why isn’t there any quality romance podcast? Or any Romance podcasts in general.  Outside of the now defunct Kissy Bits, I haven’t been able to find another romance slanted show.

Smart Bitches, Dear Author, Wendy, here is my cry to you, give us lovers of podcasts some romance in our lives.

We need it.

We crave a funny, witty, even sarcastic show talking about romance novels, full of real commentary about what the genre really is about, helping to dispel the myths such as bodice ripper.  Give us real romance, give us those tidbits, those juicy morsels of reading a damn good book. Give us a show that talks to writers who love romance, talk to those who are trying to break its molds.

Give us a voice.

A voice that shows that people who read romances novels are not sexually repressed, lonely housewives trying to live vicariously through the insipid exploits of a innocent moronic heroine and her Alpha male lover.  Women who  aren’t very smart, who crave simple smut to fill her days.

Give that woman a break. Bury her.  Put her out of her misery and let the truth out.

Please.

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One of my favorite writing programs is called Supernote Cards.  Basically it allows you to write up and outline a story using digital notecards that have a number of great features, like background color, factor notes, character notes, trails, placement in the story, organization and a great search feature.  It is very simple to use and powerful. I use it to outline all my major projects.

One of the things I love most about it, is its size.  Using Java, this little app, can be loaded on a jumpdrive and used on any system that have Java installed!

And it just got updated!  Woot!  Off I go running to download!

If you would like to try it out, they offer a trial version both for the Mac and PC.

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Good news, the whole point of the “demolition” move of ‘08 actually accomplished its objective.  TMI has a fully functionally feed burner!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/tmihowmuch

Now I need to set my sights on fixing the rest of the site, rebuilting GLDC and trying to get some semblance of order.

What has this taught us?

Pixels are more fragile than mortar and brick.

And losing them or having them laying on the floor injured can hurt you too.

Did I mention I was sick last week.  Got a nasty cold out of nowhere which promptly knocked me on my ass for almost a week.  Strange, it hit right after the nightmare move…coincidence ?

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E-books. Regardless what your stance is on their quality and literary value, I generally enjoy them. Often times, while trying to whittle away the time, I read some of my favorite review sites and if they give a good one, I might get excited to read it. If that happens, impatience sets in and I want to read the book NOW. Here are a few reasons I really like e-books.

E-books work for me, because:

1. I have very bad short term memory. You tell me something now, even if I look at you, there is a high chance in about 10 minutes I will completely forget, remembering sometime late in the night. I try to compensate by writing notes to myself, but if I ever lose my notes or my notes are buried in a pile of papers they aren’t very effective, are they?

Hence, I need to look and get the moment I am still thinking about it. Being able to go online, and buy an e-book version is fantastic. It lets me read the book immediately and dive in. Also saves me from trying to remember to go to the book store later.

2. I still prefer physical copies of the book, and if I like it enough, I have bought the physical version to keep. This is win, win for the author and publishing house since now, I have effectively bought the book twice.

3. I like to have it on the go. I can read my e-book on my PDA, on my computer, at work on my screen and still do other things at the same time. Also, when I walk it is much easier to plop down a PDA , than try to position a book on a treadmill.

Now as a long time lover of the internet and e-book reader, you would think that the big retail guys would have bought a clue and offer e-books from their online stories. Amazon does it, so why don’t they?

Don’t know why they didn’t have it, so I often got my versions through Amazon, and smaller stories like diesel books. Until today.

Today Border’s Smart Idea department finally produced a winner, they are selling e-books!

Cheer! Another place where I can get my e-books!

Here are a few of my favorites e-book sites:

· Amazon E-book Store

· Diesel E-Books

· E-books

Free e-books

· Baen Free Library (mainly SF)

· Project Gutenberg (Free domain and classics)

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Communication.  That is what we all try to do. Whether it is through some form of artistic medium, such as art, film, stories, or simply through conversation, we are always trying to reach out to another person. Even if that person is ourselves.

I won’t bore you with the technicalities and in the end this little corner of the interweb may house too much information about me. It may turn you off, it may not.

But, I, like many others have something to say. Don’t expect it all to make sense, or for it to have a purpose. It won’t, but it can be entertaining!

If you have found this little site, it may have been from my World of Warcraft site: Gun Loving Dwarf Chick.

That site, and the community which helped foster it, have been great. Yet, I find myself looking to talk about other things that don’t relate to the game, and this is it.

You also may notice I am writing with my WoW character name. This is for two reasons:

1- I really like my toon’s name. I picked it from a novel I read several years ago, where the heroine’s name was Brianna. I modified it to Breana and love it. It fits my personality, and love of nicknames. Doesn’t hurt that a number of my friends call me by ‘Bre’ even though they know my real name.

2- It allows me to be more myself. There is truth here, but I will be talking about fiction and stories and creative juices. I could use my real name. I have in my other blog from time to time. But it really doesn’t fit, never has, and so I refrained from using it.

I could give you a detailed biography of who I am and where I live, but I will just bore you. Here are some of the basics. I am female, living in Mimi, Florida, married, in her early 30s and enjoys a multitude of hobbies, most notably, reading, writing, watching anime and playing World of Warcraft.

There is your foundation of who is Bre. Hope you enjoyed your visit. In the end, what can you expect from TMI? Just as the name suggests- me.

Just me.

And maybe some beer…

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If you haven’t heard of Dr. Horrible, don’t feel bad. I just found out on Wednesday! However it seems, Joss Whedon, the creator of one of my favorite Sci-fi show Firefly, got bored one day during the Writer’s Strike and decided to write a musical, with his brother and his brother’s fiancée.

Not just any musical, but a superhero musical, fully equipped it with a blundering villain, a cocky hero and the girl, the villain is too shy to speak too.

The musical is presented in three acts and when will be released on the web for a short period of time.

Each act is roughly, 10 minute long and will be available for free online viewing until Sunday, July 20^th. Afterwards, I assume you will able to buy it from ITunes, which has the series listed at a 3.99 price tag.

Here are the all important links

To the Sing-along blog

To the vids

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