Nathaniel Green Again
Apparently in June of 2012 we LIVED at the Nathaniel Green Park. Okay, not really. What happened was I went once with my Aunt and Uncle, and then I later I took hubby. However I took photos of everything that didn’t move both times, so I probably have a shot of every species of flower between this album, this album and this album.
I know I should be editing, but I took some time the other evening and finished editing this folder, so I thought with the impending blizzard I’d share them. Yeah, supposedly there is bad weather coming either tonight or tomorrow night (depending on if you believe Weather Bug or Noa.gov) though I place my official bet now that we won’t see very much snow. This is based on the my experience since we’ve moved here. Every storm system is predicted to dump twenty-feet – schools close. Businesses close. People barricade themselves in. A quarter of an inch later, they all look silly. But, who knows? Maybe mother nature will vindicate them this time.
Anyway, on to the pics.
And now I am craving Little Debbies for no reason, so I may see if the brother has any stashed away. Have aΒ happy flower kinda day.
Jo π
What Happens to Old Film
Long ago, in the dusts of time, I used a camera with *gasp* film. Towards the end was a time of great activity (aka I was short on time) and when time was available I was short on funds and, well, anyway, I never got the last several rolls developed.
I’ve planned to do it. I’ve said I need to. Then this year for Christmas Dad gave me my usual Walmart gift card. For a change I didn’t need to spend it on a) the thing I wanted that no one got me or b) groceries, so I am using it to get those rolls of film developed.
I sent in two test rolls, to see if anything would even come off of them because I had no idea when they were from. To my surprise some photos did come off, and they are from 2005. Even more interesting, the two random rolls I grabbed happen to go together.
As I said there were photos, but that doesn’t mean they’re GOOD photos. One roll isn’t too bad but the other…It’s so bad that they sent me a card about how to avoid light pollution to my film and suggested I may have changed the roll in full on sunlight. Ouch.
Anyway, I thought I’d share them for a sort of throwback fun day, and to show you what happens when you wait 10 years to develop film. Also of note: Walmart did NOT return my negatives (there were a lot of arguments about this online when I tried to find out whether they even developed pictures anymore.) I did get a cool picture CD though so I didn’t have to manually scanΒ anything off.
These are from December 2005. We stopped at Shyla’s Christmas event, got to go to Branson and get a motel and see Ray Steven’s last show thanks to hubby’s work, had the big family Christmas, and then our family Christmas, as well as my birthday and my brother’s birthday. And of course there’s some cats.
So let this be a lesson. Do not let film sit for ten years. And now, I need to get some more developed.
Have a pink and yellow bonfire explosion kind of day!
Jo π
Not Dead, Just Cold
Though my last post was to tell you that I had an infection in my hand, I didn’t die from it. In fact I’ve recovered pretty well. There’s a couple of sore spots and a swollen bit, but my hand is functional. So functional, in fact, that I finished the rough draft of my book and have started editing. I need to cut at least 12,000 words (It clocks in at over 120,000). More would be nice, but I don’t see it happening unless whole scenes go, and I don’t think there any extra ones.
My M&M friend helps me write.
I’ve also been toiling away on the weekly Terrible Turtle Conspiracy webcomic pages. I don’t know if I mentioned its resurrection or not. The TTC was a webcomic I an my friend Jonathan used to do once a week. There’s not much of a plot – each chapter only loosely connects to the one before it, with some looser than others. The main thing is it’s all in the TTC universe. Anyway, we fell off a couple of years ago, but have started back up again. You can read Chapter Nine – the newest chapter, where Jonathan and I are on trial by the National Union of Fictional Folks for abusing our characters and running a poor quality comic. On page two they demanded that we do something to advertise our comic and make it interactive, so we have started a Facebook page and are running a selfie contest that ends January 31st.
Aside from that we got some snow. It wasn’t the snow-pocalypse we were promised (it never is) but it made some pretty pictures.
Oh! And my light up shoes finally came!
They light up in different colors, and also have some flashing patterns. I have a second pair in women’s size 7 that I am going to give away one of these days in an author event or something.
Anyway, I’m out for the night. Have a shiny silver disco kind of day!
Jo π
Owie
Yes, that’s just what it looks like: a hole in my hand. This was taken last Friday before it got infected and my hand swelled up like a rubber glove full of air. After an ER visit, antibiotics, lots of time with it elevated to drain, and a lot of whining, I am happy to say it once again resembles a hand and the fingers are all usable.
Anyway, that’s where I’ve been all week, avoiding any kind of typing because it was hard to do with my left hand.
Hope everyone else has been doing better!
Have an in-infected kind of day!
Jo π
Posted from WordPress for Android
Henry Doorly Zoo Part 3
First, if you’re one of the three people who click the link to come to the blog you might notice that I have new wallpaper. Yeah, it’s the same type, but the photos are different (I swear) as is the header. Not only is it different, but it’s also more blue because I’m tired of the orangier look. Anyway, if you’re desperate for mosaic image wallpaper, you can get my old one by clicking the small image below and saving the larger one it takes you to.
And here’s the last part of the zoo photos from 2012. You’re probably glad of that, but I warn you there’s nothing better coming. Sorry.
If you missed part 1 and part 2, you can check them out. Or, you can always hop over to Flickr and scroll through all the photos there. Β Today’s set is from the Desert Dome, the Gorilla House, and a few random animals that they’ll be moving into the Africa complex if they ever get it done.
And that’s all of them. I might actually have to put some effort out tomorrow.
Have a snuggly groundhog kind of day!
Jo π
Henry Doorly Zoo Part 2
Annnnnnnnd…I’m back. How lucky for you. Before I get into anything, I want to tell you about the cool contest we have going at the Terrible Turtle Conspiracy Webcomic site. A lucky winner will be featured in a page of our webcomic – how cool is that? And to enter all you have to do is post a selfie! You can get all the details on Β the TTC site or on the Facebook Fan Page.Β (while you’re there feel free to drop a like!)
Today’s photos are from our 2012 trip to the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo. I posted photos of the aquarium and sea life yesterday (there were some good ones IMHO). Today’s images are from the Leid Jungle complex. the cat house, and Madagascar.
The third, and final part will post tomorrow night. While you wait, be sure to enter the awesome TTC contest for your chance to be featured in a webcomic! Remember,Β you can get all the details on Β the TTC site or on the Facebook Fan Page.
Have a Madagascar kinda day!
Jo π
Henry Doorly Zoo Part 1
Though we went to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha last April, we also went in June of 2012. Yes, the 2012 photo theme continues. I ended up with so many pictures that I’m splitting it up into three blogs. If you’re impatient, you can always check out my flickr album and see all of them (including the ones I’m not putting on here).
This bunch of photos comes from the aquarium complex.
I think the jelly fish shots turned out pretty good – and though there wasn’t much in the way of penguins I think I got some good shots of those in April. If I ever get caught up on my photo editing we’ll see.
In the meantime, there are waaaaayΒ more zoo photos in my Flickr albumΒ and I will post part 2 tomorrow.
Have Β jelly fish kind of day!
Jo π
One Week Left in the 2016 New Year’s Sale
Only one week left to get all three for $.99 each!
Itβs January 7th, which means weβre halfway through the big sale. So if youβre looking for a new book for the new solar cycle, you like a good horror or science fiction story, and you sometimes enjoy supporting independent authors, this might be the opportunity for you. So head to Amazon, Createspace, or Smashwords, and you can get your new book (paperback or electronic, whichever you prefer), and enjoy.
Oh, and if you do get one of my new books, please make sure to let me know what you think when youβve finished reading it. I enjoy your feedback, and reviews are always nice to receive for an author. So please donβt hesitate to let me know.
Hmmβ¦am I forgetting anything? Probably, but I canβt remember what is. In any case, Iβll see you tomorrow, my Followers of Fear. After all, itβll be Friday, and you know what that means.
View original post 282 more words
The Characters I Hate
Though I haven’t mentioned it, I have been reading. I’ve just started Tricia Drammeh’s newest (yay!) and next I have DM Yates Dimmidiums #2 to beta. Before those, I read a book that took much longer than it should have. It looked like a good book. It sounded like a good book. It had romance, it had action, it had excitement, it had adventure, it was decently edited – it even had hot men. So what was the problem?
The protagonist was a Mary Sue.
A Mary Sue is basically a character that every character in the book instantly loves. Mary usually solves all problems, is clever, witty, ultra talented, and if she has flaws they only serve to make her somehow cuter. Often she is a personification of what the author wishes she was, hence why everyone falls in love with this character.Β (You can read about the history of the term.)
So our character (we’ll call her Mary) has a full time white collar job – the kind of job that you never really stop working. To wind down she does gardening. I’m down with that. Then the author starts to tell us how teeny-weeny-tiny she is. (I can’t count how many times we hear about her “child-sized hands”). She’s itty bitty, barely weighs anything – fine. I’ll take it. Suddenly, we are told that she’s still curvy with full breasts and a “luscious ass” despite weighing “100 pounds wet”. Ugh, but okay. Now we introduce the idea that Mary works out daily, while working this over-time filled job, and gardening. Okay. Fine. Of course, by now the hero, who has just met her, is head over heals for her, despite his swearing he will never date again after some horrible incident years ago (but hey, Mary is so great that upon *seeing* her he throws that out the window), and all of his friends, who are normally prickly, distrustful, and suspicious, instantly warm to her because she’s so funny and clever and can finish their sentences and figure out the truth of what’s going on (and a love triangle ensues, but that’s another story). Ugh. Then the author reveals that our white collar full-time working, gardening, exercising, witty, clever, smart, almost-psychic woman is now a WEAPONS expert. WHAT??? Are you kidding me? And… we’re not even a third through the book yet.
I’ll give you a hint, it just keeps going like that. She’s so perfect, that I’d like to see them put her on an episode of Dr. Who to see if she and her teeny tiny hands could out-perfect Clara. (sarcasm) Add to that the non-stop lectures this character gives us via her thoughts. She is a vegan, only eats all natural organic food (to the point of chewing someone out at one point), refuses to use technology because it’s “bad for you” (despite the obvious job requirements to do so) to the tune of a three paragraph lecture (meanwhile readers are reading this lecture on their eReaders!), only uses all natural herbs and holistic medicines, and don’t get me started on her views on religion, blah, blah, blah.
I can’t help it. When faced with a Mary Sue character I am instantly transported back to a high school mentality and want nothing more than to see someone dump a vat of pigs blood on them (ala Carrie). Not only does it grate on my nerves, the same way that tiny little princess that everyone just love-love-loved back in school made me want to vomit, but it makes the character unrelatable and unbelievable.
Or maybe it’s just me. I’ve run into a lot of these characters (the aforementioned Clara on Dr. Who is a glaring example), and there are plenty of people who seem to like them. (In the case of Clara it seems to be mainly men, though, so maybe they’re not paying attention to her personality?) but when answering the question “What inspired you to write your book” on an interview form today, I thought of them – of all the perfect Mary Sues. Back in the day, that was the reason I started my vampire series. I’d run into three different books in a row that had Mary Sue plain Jane who stumbles into fantasy land and within a week turns into a vampire/werewolf/monster killer. Um, no. Just, no. No ordinary woman is going to be able to turn into a ninja-style fighter over night (at least Mary was a work-out-aholic weapons expert to start with!). The characters also never faced consequences, despite being involved in incidents police would be called for, and there was never any mention of repercussions for any of their actions. Those things bugged the crap out of me then, and they bug me now.
How about you? What kinds of characters do you find annoying?
And while I’m here, enjoy some more random photos.
Have a Mary Sue kinda day!
Jo π
Can You Identify These Cars?
Ah, the fun of a car show. Before you picture me trooping through snow with chattering teeth and frost bitten fingers, I have to admit that this car show was in June. Of 2012. Yeah, I know. It’s more of those old photos I’ve finally gotten around to editing.
The Father-in-Law (who has since passed away) was a mechanic and show car man, and so we went to several with him and his wife Jean. At the time I took the photos I knew what all of the cars were (because he told me!) Now, I’ve sadly forgotten, and without him to tell me again, I have no idea what they are. So, if you know, please, please, please comment it somewhere (click on the pic to make them bigger and in the lower right hand side you’ll see it says “Comment”) or you can comment on the post. Any help would be appreciated.
And for a couple non-mystery photos:
I admit, the fact that both Jean and Lonnie have passed away has contributed to my ignoring these photos – as well as ignoring my photos from February of 2012 when we went on t rip with them to Iowa (we were still in Missouri then), but I will have to deal with them one of these days.
And that’s all for now. Have a sparkly red car kinda day!
Jo π
Most of the photos and art on this site, by Joleene Naylor are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
My Flickr Photos
ramblingsfromthedarkness.wordpress.com 