The Chronicles of Half/Wise

Why Sherlock Holmes needs a sonic screwdriver, or

2009-12-26T21:26:47Z

A review of the Sherlock Holmes movie for those who are interested, by a fan of the original canon, under a cut though it contains no plot spoilers, not really.

First, we will start with what I liked:
All of the characters except the main villain(s) (as far as I can remember) are from the canon, and act in ways more or less consistent with their characterization from the canon, however much there may have been in said canon. There are little tidbits here and there for the person who has read the canon, they are of course out of place, but they work and they're fun when you pick up on them. The interactions between Holmes and Watson are often very funny, you can tell they've been living with one another for awhile. Robert Downey Jr. is excellent as Holmes, you both wait eagerly for him to explain things and watch with glee as he bluffs or grandstands his way out of this or that. The main plot at first annoyed me, but be patient, at the end Holmes explains it to you and you feel it's less silly than it seemed. They packed quite a bit of what we are told about both Holmes and Watson into the story, but especially Holmes, as the story is named for him and we were given more details about him in the canon. I also liked that while they included Holmes's violin they didn't attempt to have the actor pretend to play it. They had him strumming fitfully at it while thinking, which I liked, instead of pretending to play, moving the bow around enthusiastically and forgetting to move the fingers of his other hand, that always annoys me in movies.

ETA: I forgot to mention that there's a bit of steampunk element to it.

That which I found the need to nitpick:
Watson usually describes Holmes as neat in appearance and well dressed, he is not so in this version. You can almost forgive it, except there were times when all the clothing appeared a bit odd to me. At one point Watson is wearing something I couldn't even give a name to, it was very odd. As with all movies, there is fighting, things exploding and the jumping off of ridiculous heights to land safely in some water below. There are some voice over bits where you're hearing Holmes's thoughts, they could have gotten annoying and at first I feared they would be prevalent throughout the movie, they were not.

Every time Watson took his hat off, he turned into Jude Law, it was a bit strange. Hat on, Watson, hat off, Jude Law. Maybe he needed a wig or something, and to gain about ten pounds, I'm not sure.

You may be asking, yes, well, I just wanted to know why Sherlock Holmes needs a sonic screwdriver. It's not fair, dangling that sort of thing in front of a geek and not giving it to them. Well, I'll tell you. Picking a lock the old fashioned way seems to take Holmes a long time, and someone invariably opens it for him, so I thought, what he needs is a sonic screwdriver. Because the Doctor is Sherlock Holmes after all, hadn't you noticed?

So, overall, I liked it. But really, it's up to you to decide if you like it. Also, don't go see the Avatar movie. It might be flashy and shiny, but the plot seems to be lifted directly from American history. The trailer we saw in the theater made me mad. I wonder if anyone is boycotting that movie. . .

Merry Christmas to me, I says.

2009-12-18T02:06:30Z

Hah. I just bought me a nearly front row ticket to a Great Big Sea concert in Boulder, which is a hell of a lot closer than Denver, which is where I saw them last time. Now I just have to wait patiently for the middle of March to roll around, and oh yeah, figure out where the hell to park, I hate that about city-ish places. But:

Great Big Sea! In Boulder! It nearly makes this dreary Colorado life liveable.

Way hey and away we go.

Dear internet,

2009-10-23T00:24:10Z

Can you please tell me why people look at their caller ID for calls they missed, see a number they don't know and then call the number back and more or less demand who you are and why you called them? I'd really like to know.

I'm also tired of a call that comes into work where they want to give free magazines to, and I quote, "Working women like you". It raises a number of points in my mind. What do they say if a man answers the phone, do they ask for a girl? Why are they offering crappy, girly magazines? And, is it really so odd to find women working in this day and age? I'm sure I'm thinking about this too much, but they've tried twice to send me Ladies Home Journal and Cosmopolitian. It's a bit insulting. They're not even useful magazines, if such a thing exists.

On language

2009-10-18T03:23:39Z

In a recent conversation with a co-worker I explained the term lubber, as in landlubber. It was a term he'd never heard before, that I had known from childhood. Perhaps it is because I am from a coastal state, (in fact, I believe the state has more coast than borders). He is from Alabama, which has very little coast. He put it down to me having been a sailor. Then he remarked that I "don't cuss like a sailor." I didn't get a chance to disabuse him of his misinformation.

The absolute worst 'sailors' I ever worked with cursed every other word and were generally very unintelligent people. The best sailors I've ever worked with cursed when appropriate, usually when things were going bad. They were the most intelligent people I've worked with, and it showed in the words they chose.

My point is that it's people in general that possess good language or bad, I use large words in the stead of curse words, most of the time.

Priceless.

2009-10-05T00:01:23Z

You know what's great when you're hungry, tired and cold?

A bowl of homemade barley stew, crusty bread with butter and the hotest, blackest cup of tea that I can brew. Then crusty bread with cheese, another cup of the blackest cup of tea I could brew and a homemade chocolate chip cookie, all consummed in the span of an hour, sitting next to the Little Woodstove That Can(TM) watching NCIS while it snows outside . . .

Priceless my friends.

2.15

2009-09-22T23:09:52Z

Today I spent $2.15 on my Halloween costume at the thrift store, not bad, if I do say so myself. I just wish everything you bought from a thrift store did not inevitably smell like an old lady's house.

It is also ironic to note that I can tie a bowline, a sheetbend, a sheepshank, a reef knot and all other manner of sailing knots but have no idea how to tie a tie.

I am very angry.

2009-09-20T02:06:38Z

I have two flavours of angry: frustrated angry---inwhich the girl genes take over and I cry and that makes me angrier; or pissed---inwhich the white hot fury makes me go very quiet and kind of violent until I scream or hurt something. Or drive like a lunatic.

I am pissed. Here's why.

I currently work for a vet, it's a place holder job that pays me money. I started in the kennel but I work all over the place now. I work the kennel on Saturdays though, where you have an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon inwhich to bother me. We are very good about telling people this. Some people are special though and don't feel that the rules apply to them.

I recieved a call from a woman (who was suppose to drop her dogs off yesterday), she's calling to let me know her mom will be dropping her dogs off, but won't get there 'til five, when I close and leave. I said fine, as long as she was at there at five. Otherwise I was going to leave.

Did I mention these dogs were new to us? No? Well, new dogs have a habit of not showing or not calling to say they're not showing, happens constantly. Then if they do show a great big load o' paperwork needs to be done. 'Kay?

So at five, no one's there, I go to shut down the computer and get my keys when a young girl walks in, kind of agitated. She starts asking me if I can wait ten-fifteen minutes for her mom to get these dogs and bring them over.

Here's what got me pissed, the mom didn't send the girl in to find out, SHE LEFT HER THERE. The girl was somewhere between 12-14 and the mother left her at a local business with a complete stranger because she didn't want to deal with her older daughter's dogs for a night. One night.

This appears to be a very irresponsible family. This woman left her daughter for twenty minutes because she couldn't bother to be on time or make her older, adult daughter run her own errands. I just don't get it. It's not that I don't think a young girl can take care of herself, it's just that I could have been anyone. Nor did I have to stay. I did of course, but the whole thing was ridiculous.

I just don't understand, and I'm not sure I want to.

Cleaning finds surprising things.

2009-09-16T01:49:23Z

Every once and awhile I go through my stuff and throw things away(or put them up on Amazon for sale, depending), I am very good at this. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't gotten rid of x, since x is of no use to me and then promptly go through x and get rid of y and z as well.

This afternoon I went through what I thought of as my writing folder; it contained old notebooks, school assignmnets and some scribbles I couldn't read. (I have very neat printing, it is in fact, neater than my typing, but if you demand cursive out of me---well, you had better be prepared to spend some time deciphering it, that's all I can say.)

I'm not sure why I was saving the school assignments, since you never write anything good for a teacher, at least, not the teachers I had. Those were easy to toss, in fact, most of it was, especially since I had transcribed anything good to my computer shortly after I bought said infernal contraption.

Then I came across an offical letter thing from what appears to be a university. I never applied to nor attended any schooling after high school, so it puzzled me until I turned it over. The back was covered in neat lines of my printing and I realized what it was before I even read it. It was my screw you letter to the first people who fired me*. It's a thing of beauty I had thought I threw out years ago. It's full of big words and an almost Victorian turn of phrase that I seem to write in when I know I'm right and someone's being stupidly wrong. I mostly write such things for myself, but it would have served those idiots right had I sent it. Now I need to ponder what exactly to do with it.

And try to figure where exactly the piece of scrap paper came from (mostly becaue curiosity has yet to kill this cat). It would be ironic if it belonged to my former employers.

*They fired me because I wasn't a shallow valley girl willing to sell them my soul.

BTW, best thing I heard today: "The guy that invented the radio just dissed Jack the Ripper."

Little boys

2009-09-01T21:57:03Z

The Nation Park Service had been conducting what they call "Controlled Burns" in Rocky Mountain National Park for the past two days. I live a stones throw outside the boundaries, and I call it "Little boys playing with fire".

It's kind of nerve wracking, I keep thinking I've left the oven on or there must be something burning on the range. It's left a smokey haze over the whole town, is playing merry hell with my allergies and I think it's slowly smoke curing everything, which may be their plan after all.

I know controlled burns are usefull and helpful in many environments, but I'm not sure that is the case here, especially since they are burning what they burned last year. I really would like a downpour to put an end to all of this.

On comics.

2009-08-28T01:06:33Z

I've never really understood comics and have always had trouble reading them, even though I tried here and there. I've just figured out why this is so.

My sister has me reading an online steampunk comic called "Girl Genius", which has so much back story it makes my head spin, but that's not the point. I've only recently started to get into it and some of the characters. And while I was reading some of the speech bubbles and lamenting the ample clevage of the female characters, I realized that I was hardly looking at the pictures as my interest in the story and the words increased. (Especially as I have no interest in cleavage, thank you.)

I don't need the pictures, they get in the way, I'm sure I'm missing some of the story by not really looking at them, but I'd rather read just the story I think. Maybe with an illustration here and there.

Well, I've solved one mystery, it seems.

victory is mine

2009-08-24T22:34:17Z

Everything I know about computers could probably be written out on a sheet of paper, with room enough for a doodle of a schooner and a square rigger. (Because, yes, I'm the kind of dork who doodles tall ships, shut up). So when I fix something that isn't working, like the often on the fritz internet connection to our house--a cable connection--(which is funny, I never remember dial up as being so very tempermental)it always makes me feel very smart.

Even if all I did was turn it all off, unplug it all and start it all up again. Must remember to do this with not only the modem, but the wireless router, for some reason. Still. I fixed it, without calling the cable company and feeling like a dork when they fixed it in five seconds.

Black is everyone's color.

2009-08-24T03:24:22Z

I have a terrible, nostalgic habit of Googling the ships I have sailed on, mostly for pictures, but also for gossip. I did this not too long before feelng the need to relate the results in LJ, mostly because the cat is the only other sentient being here, and I can tell he cares less.

Someone bought the Clipper City and they painted her black! It doesn't improve her lines any, but it certainly makes her a nicer boat to look at (a ship that leaks rusty water over its hull should not be painted white.) Perhaps someone is finally taking care of that blasted ship. I almost want to go to New York and find out (apparently that's where she is, at least some of the time.) However, I do not like New York, or the Clipper City quite that much, but it certainly caught my interest.

Security questions

2009-08-14T03:10:28Z

I hate the security questions they have you answer for various accounts, either none of the questions apply to me or I just don't have an answer for(such as what's the name of your oldest nephew or where were you married or where was your father born) or I can't remember the answer.

I don't have a bad memory, it's just that the spelling of the town I was born in varies, Pt. or Point, it's optional. How am I supposed to remember. It's not like St. John's which is always abbreviated as far as I can tell. And the house number of my childhood home? Changed when they implemented the 911 system. I remember both numbers, and what if I wanted to be really sneaky and use the old number but then I forget that I was being sneaky?

I use to just put the same answer in all of them, but the computer programs wised up to that. Which nearly caused me a problem when I couldn't remember one of my answers.

Mystery solved.

2009-08-10T02:00:20Z

I have had, since sometime before I escaped the black hole of the Clipper City a burned CD that was labeled by it's orginal owner as being Great Big Sea's "Play" album. It was left in my bunk, and became mine when it's previous owner made a new copy and told me to keep it. This I was perfectly happy to do, there were two good things that came out of sailing on the Clipper City, and an introduction to Great Big Sea was one of them.

When I had regular access to the internet again I realized that the CD was too long to be the "Play" record and completely out of order, but since some of the songs were live, I figured they were captured in concert and added to the CD for some unknown reason. I liked it well enough and wasn't asking too many questions.

Last year I went to a GBS concert and realized that no one in the band was named Neil and that in one of the songs on the CD the singer introduces someone named Neil. I googled the first two songs and realized they were actually by the Saw Doctors, which seemed completely obvious once I figured it out. Different voices entirely, it was the accent that got me I suppose. Or not.

That left one last mystery with the CD, a song I called 'A Sailor ain't a Sailor" so I googled those words and found out it was actually called 'The Last Shanty' but I couldn't figure out who recorded the version I had. Everything else on the CD checked out as pure GBS.

Today I put the title 'Last Shanty' into youtube to see what I got, and lo and behold, I found the band who recorded it. They're called Celtic Connection and they're from Newfoundland(rather unsurpisingly). Well, that makes sense. Mystery finally solved.

I can rest easy now.

Mothers, they never listen.

2009-07-07T21:36:04Z

I'm having an argument with my mother at the moment, it goes something like this:

Mom- I want the new, wooden doors to be silky smooth when they are done.

Me-(former professional wood finisher)- O.o um, Mom? You should have sanded them before you put the stain on and told me to varnish them.

Mom-No, we just need to sand the varnish.

Me- O.o noooo. The wood is what is rough. The varnish by nature is smooth unless you apply it over rough wood.

Mom- Sounds like you can't be bothered to sand these, I'll have to do it.

Me-(walks away, head in hands thinking) And you're just gonna have to sand off everything we just put on...

I don't understand which part of this is hard to understand, rough wood, for the most part, becomes smooth when you apply sandpaper to it, then you finish it with a product of your choice not after.

A toast.

2009-05-23T01:44:15Z

Upon contemplating the fact that in the first weekend of June I will be attending my sister's college graduation I realized that I will be subjected to countless boring and inane speeches, I just hope none of them are sappy, boring and inane, I may have to spontaneously combust.

The writer in my brian began writing his own little speech, but it sounds like a toast to me:

To the unpublished writers who keep writing, and keep trying; to the unpaid musician singing to everyone out there; to the artist without a gallery showing, or financial recognition; to the teachers of the everyday and of the school of common sense; to the fishermen who fish on the angry seas like their fathers before them; and the sailors who refuse to leave history behind, and the volunteers who preserve it; to the players whose stage is more imagined than real, yet better than the actual; the dancers who move with grace through the crowded streets; to the overactive imagination that never stopped daydreaming; to the deviants, the social misfits, the mavericks, the folks who get their hands dirty doing hard work and the free thinkers: keep going foreward in what you do, and who you are; don't let anyone tell you that you need a "real" job with a pension, a stuffy office and your very own technological headache, the modern typewriter.
Be fantastic.

To the folks who live in out of the way places; to the small towns that are rapidly disappearing; the former fishing, railroad and farming communities; the isolated ethnic communities with their own languages: hang on as a long as you can, and always be you. And remember who came before you, pass along your stories, your songs, your triumphs and your failures.
Be unique.
To the boys, there are times when you are allowed to be as strong girls; to the girls, there are times when you are stronger than the boys: remember that the world needs boys and girls, of all shapes, colours, lifestyles and orientations. Don't listen to society, they've mostly gotten it wrong so far.
Transcend your boundaries.
To the everyday small heroes who work miracles with only the tools at hand, dream big and live small. Think differently, use what you have available and wonder what you can do next.
To everyone in the world:
Slàinte. L'che-im. And good luck.

I nearly quoted at least two Great Big Sea songs, and more or less quoted the First Doctor all without meaning to.

Anyway, it's probably better than anything I'll have to listen to on June 6th.

Randoms thoughts about things that Whirrr...

2009-05-07T01:38:23Z

My approach to something that I do not know how to operate or have not before encountered is to either press the buttons or select options until whatever it is does whatever it is I want it to do. (Conversely, if it's already doing what I want it to I try not to touch anything.) It's not that I'm a technophobe, but depending on the company that made, say the VCR, any number of buttons variously labeled MENU, INFO, GUIDE, PROGRAM or SETUP will allow you to set the VCR to record your favourite show while you're sleeping. Sometimes the remote has one or more of those buttons.

It usually works, unless the device, or program (it's usually an electronic something or other, I mean a hammer is rather straight forward) is completely counter-intuitive.

Also, big red buttons need be reserved for END OF THE WORLD buttons, and power buttons. I'm just saying.

Inspiration

2009-05-03T01:27:14Z

I find it rather interesting where stories come from, and I suppose anyone who puts pen to paper has different reasons for doing so, and different sources for inspiration.

For my part, about fifty percent of stories I commit to writing down seem to be me attempting to interpret and make sense of my own dreams. Thirty percent come from my own daydreams (which are prevelant and almost constant and sometimes work out the above dreams) and about twenty percent are inspired by another story, song or work of art that I want to emmulate or fix.

Make me wonder about some of my favourite writers, are we all jsut playing in the daydream sandbox?

backhoe

2009-04-27T21:55:44Z

When I was a small child, so you know about an inch shorter than I am now, we use to go to a park that had the most awsome play equipement in the woods. They had a sandbox, and the only thing there was this toy backhoe, two levers that operated the bucket and a seat for the "operator". I use to sit at that thing and move dirt around as happy as could be, forget the swings.

Now, there's a real backhoe digging up our yard as it makes room for the foundation of our addition, and it is just as fascinating as the toy, but 100% noisier.

Pretty cool all the same.

The trouble is...

2009-04-23T02:12:38Z

My mother made me go to Oprah's website this evening for earth day coupons she was offering, and I got sidetracked by a link that said "Relationships". Now, I find most of Oprah's warm fuzzy self help mumb jumbo annoying, and still do, but beggars can't be chosers and since neither me nor my mother can figure out how to meet members of the opposite sex for the purpose of relationships, I thought what the hell.

Most useless use of my time in recent weeks, and yes, I count the half hour I spent looking at hideous shower curtians online last night while deploring the general tastes of humanity. There was nothing usefull. It was all inspiring stories of when Janey meet her true love by chance at the dry cleaners, etc. Not how to meet folks, which is what I was looking for.

This got me thing about words, and how I cannot do the internet dating thing because I've meet a couple a guys that sounded just write, no misspelling there, but turned out to be quite different in person. So I wrote an entire little essay on words. How productive.

My little word essay, incase you're interested:

The thing about words is that when written they can be arranged in such ways that cannot happen when being spoken on the fly. Written words can be tweaked, fussed over and rearranged until they say precisely what the writer wants them to, instead of what they more honesty express on their own.

In personal correspondence the words can give an inaccurate impression of the arranger, for good or ill. In stories, they can make or break the suspension of disbelief, the interest of the reader or the depth of the characters.

Sometimes an awful lot of words say absolutely nothing at all interesting or important, they just look good on the page, or make it seem that the arranger is intelligent for knowing so many words. (Dickens!)* Or they become redundant, the reader has been told too much, causing an information overload and the mind wanders off in self defense. There are times when words do not tell us enough. (But that is another story, to be told at another time. . .)**

In speaking we often sound awkward as we stumble over the right word or are at a loss for an appropriate response and long for the option of setting the pencil aside to stare out the window vaguely until the answer can be found.

The written word is so maleable that it misleads, the spoken word so honest that it mispeaks.

* Charles Dickens does indeed use far more words than I've ever found necessary, English teachers had us believe it was because he was paid per word. I tend not to believe them. (Mostly because they made me read To Kill a Mockingbird twice, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, that one about suicide, that other one about the boys with the sports bonding thing, and Hemingway.)
**This is an oft repeated phrase in the original book The Neverending Story, leaving tantalizing bits of secondary stories untold.

:(

2009-04-18T01:42:28Z

I just realized that the movie I have a craving to watch is currently located twenty yards uphill in at least two feet of snow.

Spring snow is not good for spontaneous, especially when half the household is located in the shed because half the house is gone.

No NeverEnding Story for me then.

My mom never ceases to amaze me.

2009-04-17T21:01:32Z

We've been watching Dealiest Catch lately, a lot. It marathoned over Easter weekend, and that's pretty much all we watched.

Last night she was telling me something about the captains of one of the boats, and she said, "You know, the brothers." To which I said, "Which set of brothers?" and she said, "Not the blonde ones." None of this is funny if you've never seen Deadliest Catch, so let me explain.

There are four core boats, that have been on the show a couple times in a row, and all of them are family affairs, three of which are run by brothers. The other, the father is the captain and his two young sons work on the boat. So, there are brothers in abundance. And two of the boats have black hulls and brothers, so, more confusion.

I guess we'll just have to keep watching until she can tell the Time Bandit brothers from the Wizard brothers, and remember who belongs to which boat. What a shame. Only, you know, not.

Clearly delusional.

2009-04-12T21:46:55Z

I was discussing with my mother the fact that my sister graduates from college this June. We were trying to determine if it was an all day thing, or a long boring thing full of speeches under the hot sun like high school graduation was. We have yet to determine this, as the invitation is "somewhere around here".

I asked if she thought it was a formal thing, and she said she didn't know, but I could just wear a skirt. My brain short circuited. She asked me why I was concerned, I told her I thought it would be hot. She said wearing a skirt would be like wearing shorts. My brain went completely offline. Last time I wore a skirt, it came to my ankles and I vowed never to wear a skirt or dress again. Being uncomfortable in my clothing is not something I enjoy, and here my mom thinks I'm going to wear a short skirt (which I interpret to being just above the knee?) that is completely fictional, I won nothing of the sort. I tried getting rid of the two ugly dresses that I bought for my eighth grade graduation and my high school graduation when we moved. They mysteriously ended up in CO. It's not like they'll fit my sister, we're of a height but built differently.

My mind boggles, I thought my mom knew me well enough to know I dislike skirts as much as a transvestite craves them. I think I'm going to bring some cut off jeans and my favourite tank top, because there is no way I'm sweltering in the sun because mei-mei decided to go to college.

At least she'll be the one stuck in the long gown thing. And the dorky hat.

It's the end of the story . . . or not.

2009-04-11T02:24:37Z

Dear Authors of the World,

I would be much obliged if you would resolve plot points of a single story in a single book. (Yes, fantasy and sci-fi writers, I AM looking at you.)

By all means, establish a world: characters, history, geography and even mythology therein. You can use all that in your next book, it's fine with me. But don't leave me hanging by a thread, you should be answering any question that I or the main character raised in reference to the plot. Fading to black does not a complete story make. Or did you forget to write the end?

From what I remember from my less than exemplary public school education, a story works like this: 1. Beginning/Introduction-in which we meet the characters and learn of the problem(s) (which you've figured out, yay you). 2. Climax-height of the action/suspense/promblem solving (you more or less have this, sometimes there are mini climaxes here and there). 3. Resolution-it's not just for New Years kids. Resolution, it means more than "The End", it means things are resolved, concluded, fixed for the moment, tidied away. Done. It means Colonel Mustard in the Observatory with the Wrench-done. Stop jury rigging your stories to last into the next book. It shows. Don't let your publisher talk you into it either, it's your story.

Just because it's the end, doesn't mean there can't be a new beginning. The world is full of problems, you don't need to drag the problems from the previous story into the New story. New story, New problems. Old story, Old problems. Sure, Sam Vimes will always be a suspicious bastard with a weakness for alcohol, but that's a character's personal problem, it's called baggage, it's allowed to carry over. Thursday Next's disappearing husband ought to have reappeared in the same book, not two or three later, it was, afterall, a rather major plot point.

I love stories, don't get me wrong. But it needs to end. Don't leave me saying "And then . . .?" when I get to the last page. You can make it sad, you can make it full of angst and sorrow and death and no hope if you want, it doesn't need 'And they lived happily ever after,' which is really just another "And then. . .?" statement.

If you never want it to end, trying writing for a TV show, there's a new episode every week! (If you really want it not to end, join a Soap.) Just think, no one would ever make a movie that just stopped in the middle of the plot. (Unless of course the entire movie is merely exposition for the next, yes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Whatever they call the 2nd one, I'm looking at you.)

Also, I'm calling you out on ambigious endings, or endings that make having read the story pointless. I will be the first to admit that my high school had me read a lot of rubbish disguised a learning. Reading a story about a person who awakens from a dull tedious life to grasp what she wants only to ambigiously, possibly, commit sucide at the end is really just pointless. Or incredibley caked in metaphor, which is another problem. Don't tell me it was all a dream at the end either. You've told me a story, if it was worth telling, the end needs to reflect that. It should also wrap up, show the characters winding down, don't just drop them when the problem's over, like marionettes with their strings cut. They seem more like actions figures you brought out to play with, than people who could be real when you do that.

Make your ending match your story while you're at it. Don't build your characters up as an Ocean's Eleven type crack con artist team who suddenly fail miserably at a carefully constructed con because of a wizard. You are not allowed the magic get out of jail free card so you can write a sequal about their retribution, or whatever your sequal is about. They're good, so they should remain so, and if you want them to screw up, it needs to be Ocean's Twelve style, in which it was PLANNED. Also, don't constantly mention a character of importance who never shows up. It's annoying, and they seem much less important.

Let's review: Beginning, Middle bit in which stuff happens (and stuff had better happen, I've read enough stories where the characters wander around like ducks on a pond while wondering what's going on), stuff gets RESOLVED once it's happened. Kill them all at the end if you really have to. At least it's an end.

Danke, and good night. (This brought to you by exhaustion and the letter B, M and D.)

The stupid, it hurts.

2009-04-08T01:03:27Z

My father just sent my mom an envlope by certified mail. Just the envlope. He spent three dollars and nineteen cents to send an envolpe that was obviously empty.

Sometimes it amazes me that I have to be related to that man. It's just mind boggling.