What you did today

[Tale]

What are we up to now? Does anyone know?

Previously on "What you did today."

Talk of iphones and who may or may not be hipsters. I think Nepenthe's the hipster, though I'm not quite clear on the contexts.

 

Yesterday, I appear to have played 11 hours of video games. Which, sadly, might not even be a record for me. Combined with grocery shopping and cleaning the bathroom, I'm really not sure how I had time for that.

[Guard Dog]

You know how it goes when you are really low on groceries but just don't want to trek the nearly 30 miles to the nearest grocery store? Well I woke up this morning and I decided I wanted grapefriut and coffee. I had neither. Maybe cereal? Yes I had Cheerios but no milk. Maybe toast? No bread, which also rules out sandwiches. I walked out to the garden to check on the strawberries... not ready yet. Well all this walking around made me thirsty so I opened the only thing I did have in abundance, a bottle of Blue Moon Belgian White Ale. So I sat down on the porch to consider my predicament when I realized I had finished my beer but was still thirsty. So I go another, then another. Well now I CAN'T go to the store because I can't drive and I've got a little beer buzz going so I'm not even hungry anyome. But I will be later. What to do?

 

Then it hit me, I live next to a river! And I have fishing gear! And Beer! Finally I have a real exuse to go fishing. Ah, time to load up the cooler with Blue Moon and ice, wake up the dogs and head to the river. It's gonna be a good day folks! Life is good!

[Gorgon]

Don't get drowned.

[Hurlshort]

Yesterday I upgraded all our family phones and switched from Verizon to Sprint. It set me back a pretty penny. My wife and our babysitter got Iphone 4S's and I picked up the Galaxy III S. They are all pretty slick, but I'm going to miss my original Droid.

[Gfted1]

Why did you buy your babysitter a phone? And youre eating the monthly charges also?

[Malcador]

She's obviously his woman on the side. Either that or it's something similar to a company cell phone, I'd guess.

[Tigranes]

For one of my research projects this summer I've been interviewing people, mostly students, related to music consumption habits, self-narratives, etc. It's tough going because for most things in life, it's difficult for people to get beyond the stock set of phrases and statements that we normally employ, and also because it's hard to hold people for more than an hour per group. But it's always interesting to actually talk to people about stuff. Today it was interesting to interview the teachers at a high school first, and hear them talk about how things have changed with the change of devices and other factors, and how music as a thing to cherish and to really pay attention to has transformed into something that is more like a 'spice' in life; then, of course, I talk to their 15, 16 year students, and they'll tell you about how older songs are better and the new ones aren't as good. (What's old? 2008.)

 

But it's regularly over 30C here and I'm often using public transport between 1 and 3 hours to get to places, so it's wearing me out. I hear the US is worse at the moment, though.

[Hurlshort]

Why did you buy your babysitter a phone? And youre eating the monthly charges also?

 

Monthly charges for the third line really only come out to about $30 a month. She watches both my young children during the day, so years ago we decided it would be a nice perk to offer her. She is a family friend, so we get a pretty good deal on the babysitting charges compared to putting kids in day care.

 

I'm actually making her pay me back for the phone though, if I was footing the entire bill she'd be using a flip phone.

 

Plus she sends us cute pictures of the kids throughout the work day.

[Gfted1]

Monthly charges for the third line really only come out to about $30 a month.

 

Yeah, thats true. I just got my daughter (and myself) an iPhone 4 and it barely impacts my bill.

 

I'm actually making her pay me back for the phone though, if I was footing the entire bill she'd be using a flip phone.

 

I was too cheap to spring for the 4S, so I got the base 4 from Best Buy for $50 each. Suri can go to hell!

[Fionavar]

I'm playing gardner ... in our wee yard that is

[mkreku]

Yesterday I decided to go to the beach with my cousin. We played a little beach volleyball, grilled a few sausages and then decided to take a swim. We walked out onto the pier and I managed to ignore maybe ten little yellow signs. I walk faster than my cousin so at the end of the pier I turn around and notice two hot women looking at us.

 

Naturally, I can't just jump into the water like a big sack of potatoes with two hotties watching, so I decide to do a backflip. I turn my back to the water, manage to push off well, feel myself flying through the air in a perfect arc and I hit the water like a sexy Swedish dolphin of love. 10 inches later I touch the bottom. First with my hands, then with my head, then with my neck and then the rest follows on top of that. Mother****er, that hurt. Getting your entire body weight on top of your neck is a bad feeling.

 

I managed to slow the dive with my hands, but my right hand ended up beneath my head and was subsequently crushed and is all blue and worthless. My head has a big bump on the forehead and my neck feels like someone bitchslapped me with a shovel.

 

The two hotties disappeared before the daze disappeared. I'm not sure they were too impressed with my performance. The ten little yellow signs I blissfully ignored on my way out on the pier all said the same thing: "Shallow water, don't dive!". I don't read manuals either. The sausages were tasty though.

[Hurlshort]

Ouch mkreku.

[Kor Qel Droma]

I got up this morning for an early tee time with a couple of friends today. For where I live, it's pretty hot here right now.

 

Came home, and played in the sprinkler on the front lawn with my youngest stepdaughter.

 

After a surprisingly long three hour nap in the afternoon, her, my wife and I headed out to see Brave in a nice air conditioned theatre.

 

Now I'm sitting on a deck chair in the driveway enjoying a cigarette, and pondering whether or not I should light one of those funny ones.

[Nepenthe]

What are we up to now? Does anyone know?

Previously on "What you did today."

Talk of iphones and who may or may not be hipsters. I think Nepenthe's the hipster, though I'm not quite clear on the contexts.

The only time I tried wearing an ironic t-shirt, it backfired terribly.

 

Monthly charges for the third line really only come out to about $30 a month.

 

Yeah, thats true. I just got my daughter (and myself) an iPhone 4 and it barely impacts my bill.

 

I'm actually making her pay me back for the phone though, if I was footing the entire bill she'd be using a flip phone.

 

I was too cheap to spring for the 4S, so I got the base 4 from Best Buy for $50 each. Suri can go to hell!

The only reason I went with a 4S was so I could fit my minimum requirement 60gb of music on it, it was primarily a replacement for my old wheel ipod, anyway.

[Guard Dog]

I got up this morning for an early tee time with a couple of friends today. For where I live, it's pretty hot here right now.

 

Came home, and played in the sprinkler on the front lawn with my youngest stepdaughter.

 

After a surprisingly long three hour nap in the afternoon, her, my wife and I headed out to see Brave in a nice air conditioned theatre.

 

Now I'm sitting on a deck chair in the driveway enjoying a cigarette, and pondering whether or not I should light one of those funny ones.

 

Why the heck not? It sounds like a nice mellow ending to a great day.

[Labadal]

Going to sleep at 4am on a Monday proved to be a very bad move. We were a bunch of guys playing cards and we were supposed to stop playing at 12am. Things didn't exactly go according to plans. Pizza was delivered to my front door at about 12am. Naturally, refreshements were a must, we would have it no other way. Eating pizza that late means there is no way you can go to sleep, so we said that 1am was the time to stop playing. Thing is: refreshements requires snacks, and refreshements, and snacks means we'll start talking a lot and not actually play much. At 3am I told them all it was time to go home. I was in the lead, so naturally, they would have none of it. Less talking, more playing, but by the time we were done, most of us would only get 3 hours sleep. Woke up today and felt like a zombie. Funny thing is that I feel more sorry for two of the other guys, since they had a 12 hour worday to look forward to. When I get home, I'll have to see if there are any refreshements left. Might help me sleep for an hour or two.

[Calax]

Went to adventureland (a little thing in Des Moines. Mixes a cut-rate six flags with a water park). And am now burned over my shoulders, face, arms, and hands. It hurts to lay down on the couch and snooze, or my bed... Wonder how working is going to be.

 

Also lost my glasses in a wave pool and am now wearing a pair that's at least 4 years old

Edited July 10, 2012 by Calax

[Rosbjerg]

The two hotties disappeared before the daze disappeared. I'm not sure they were too impressed with my performance.

 

So you basically piledrived yourself for 2 chicks? Ahh.. the stupid things we do to impress. Next time go talk to them instead, that works a lot better. :D

[Monte Carlo]

Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money.

[HoonDing]

It was likely just a lesbian couple.

[Raithe]

Being slowly driven crazy by this project thing.

I've been working on the "its an unpaid project that we want to develop, so we're pushing it along and shining it up and when we get it spick and span and really neat, then when we're totally confident on everything we can send it in to the powers above, and then hopefully turn it into a paying project where we can get serious" assumption. Then as a sideline to a phone call about it this morning, I find out its actually got a deadline and its currently being potentially late for it..

 

For various reasons, one of the key folk involved in the beginning of it, now works somewhere else. And whilst he can spotcheck stuff to a degree, he can't actually directly comment or provide information because that could make things very messy legally. So we get basically "um, yeah, somethings wrong about this.". We've got some folk at a university (professors and such) who have been running the numbers because they're interested in the problem, and they're all "here are the modelling stuff, its reasonable-ish". And frankly "reasonable-ish" just fills me with confidence. Especially if we're hanging our professional reputation on the line with it and the analysis based on said modelling and numbers generated..

 

I can't actually get some people on the phone to talk about this and look at the problems, the clocks ticking along, and up until very recently, I've only been working on the outskirts of the issue, so I don't have a total and full grasp on everything. There's one group that might have some information, but I don't actually know anyone there, or at least I have a name of someone there but no real connection. As said, the main guy they'd know no longer works here, the other guy they might know is off-the-grid and I haven't been able to get hold of...

So ringing them up myself and saying "hey, I'm so and so that you've never heard of, I'm working with x company that you might remember, and the guy you did know isn't working here anymore.. However, you did x and y for him back then, and we've used some of it in this, can you help us with this thing here, and yeah, I'm fuzzy on some of the details of what I'm talking about.." would not I feel make the best impression....

 

Oh yes, and its raining. And the thunder keeps scaring the dogs. But at least I was able to sort out mom's medications and drugs for the next 7 days.. So I can say some small fragment has actually been achieved today.

 

Joy.

[entrerix]

1st draft of book is all finished, vegas vacation is now over, tonight when i get home from work i will begin the process of editing.

 

any advice on the editing phase will be most welcome at this point!

[Monte Carlo]

1st draft of book is all finished, vegas vacation is now over, tonight when i get home from work i will begin the process of editing.

 

any advice on the editing phase will be most welcome at this point!

 

Again, there are so many schools of thought on this.

 

One (which I don't follow, but can see the sense of) is to put the moFo away for three months. Then come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes. I edit as I go along, some people think it's crazy but it works for me. At the end I then do a final edit (like games, books are never actually finished).

 

I re-read actively and get very choosy about every word. Is it necessary? I then (ruthlessly) apply the "show don't tell" rule to every chapter. I make plotting spreadsheets and timelines. I revise characters armed with the knowledge that I know what happens at the end.

 

An agent will employ professional readers to comb your script. They are looking at plot, structure, grammar and commercial nous. They are utterly freaking unforgiving. Getting as far as getting a reader rip up your script for arse-paper is an achievement, let alone give you a 'ready to present' rating (I got that once).

 

PM me and I will give you an email to send me the first three chapters.

[entrerix]

let me at least do my first round of revisions on my first 3 chapters before i send them to you, so i can save your eyes from reading any super obvious mistakes!

 

I'll send the first three chapters to you probably on saturday or sunday. but yeah i'll pm you for your email address

[Gorth]

Naturally, I can't just jump into the water like a big sack of potatoes with two hotties watching, so I decide to do a backflip. I turn my back to the water, manage to push off well, feel myself flying through the air in a perfect arc and I hit the water like a sexy Swedish dolphin of love. 10 inches later I touch the bottom. First with my hands, then with my head, then with my neck and then the rest follows on top of that. Mother****er, that hurt. Getting your entire body weight on top of your neck is a bad feeling.

I swear, I'm not laughing... it's just a nervous twitch at the corners of my mouth. The mental picture I see for me does look like something out of a Looney Tune cartoon (or whatever it was that featured Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner)