Today on A Prarie Home Companion re-broadcast I heard Molly Ivins tell a story about Austin Texas in the 60’s that ended with a chicken on speed. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me but I would like you to imagine a chicken on speed and tell me you don’t get tingly inside.
The fact that I’ve referenced a single “recreational” drug in 100% of my posts this year shouldn’t concern you at all.
Stay in school.
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I’ve been hooked on the internet since my first page load in some unremembered location at some unremembered time (definitely pre-Google) . In those days the web was wild with roaming herds of gifs and copyright infringement and I had some of the most tasteful gifs and infringement in my entire Yahoo chat crew.
Years passed and the more the web grew, the more I loved creating things to put on it.
When I finally plunked down the cash for a domain name and hosting space, I was full of bright ideas and high expectations. I was going to write witty articles, helpful tutorials, insightful reviews and other such highbrow content. I was going to join The Web Community(tm) and be the next Molly, Scrivs or Dooce. The only thing standing in the way of my internet stardom and the subsequent groupies was the fact that the current (and then) Sunshine is terminally lacking in ambition.
The bruised, protesting web-rock-star inside of me cries little (tasteful) tears of agony every time I play games instead of writing or visit jayisgames instead of alistapart. I’m generally fine with that. Jay rocks and I’m working on a completing all missions in Kingdom Hearts II. I’m also busy collecting hobo gristle in Kingdom of Loathing. That takes time.
Also (in case you hadn’t noticed) I’m not writer of words. (Or a speaker of words but that’s another story). I’m primarily a reader of words. Most things I’ve ever written were brilliant in the heat of composition, but stank like hot fish guts two days later. In fact I stopped reading anything I wrote because the cringing was affecting my posture.
But, surprise, surprise, some of what I’ve written here does not make me want to hide under a rock. I was tagging old posts with the new and improved Wordpress tagging feature and felt really weird… turns out ir was the feeling of not blushing with shame. Yes the spelling, proofing and general sentence structure could use some help (really… was anybody going to tell me that I always spell friends wrong?) but the actual writing is bearable. Some of it even makes me laugh.
And that’s almost as good as being a webstar because groupies…? They are more trouble than they’re worth. So I hear. But words you’re not ashamed to re-print in the Holiday newsletter? That’s worth a gold star.
So this year we’re (I’m) going to try for a regular posting schedule so that I can perfect this phenomenon, or at least crank out some more goodies before the magic* leaves. It might be once a week or it might be once a quarter but it will be. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to act properly shocked and welcoming towards this post (yes this one that you’re reading now) and to anticipate future posts with all of the (tasteful) fervor of a chihuahua on speed.
*Your thoughts, opinions and/or revelations on the quality of previous entries on this site are irrelevant to them being magic. Just so you know.
Happy New Year
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Hi Internet,
I like to think that I ask for very little from life (highspeed internet, ice water with lemon and post-it notes) but nothing makes me feel spoiled like sitting in my apartment for 6 hours with no air. If you never see this post, it’s because my computer spontaneously combusted and/or I went crazy and attacked my air conditioner with my cordless drill (which can only be used as a blunt object since the great deal I got it for didn’t include a charger for the battery. Go me.)
It is, in a word, sticky in here. I could go on about this but despite the title of this post, that’s not why I’m here. I just thought the title would be cute.
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of things that don’t involve posting… like reading great books, finding beautiful websites, playing good games and agonizing over unanswerable questions (like at what point does orange become too bright?, when will someone invent a machine to convert brain waves to scores? and where did I just put my keys?). I do love my little corner of the web and I do want to see it flourish and grow and gain the attention of multi-billionaires who will want to buy it from me so I can chuckle at them and wave my standards in their faces… well. anyway. I need to translate some of what I’m doing into pixels. So what, oh reader, would you like to see.
Please temper suggestions with the knowledge that my writing tanks if I try to take it seriously at all. Of course it’s not so great when I don’t so perhaps you have nothing to worry about.
I leave you with that thought to ponder. I’m not sure what thought since I’m so not proof-reading this. You get all of joys of my run-ons , mis-spellings, comma splices and sentence ending prepositional phrases. Proofing is definitely an air conditioned task only. Except for that last sentence because, boy, was that bad. But that’s it. No scrolling for you.
If you don’t hear from me for the rest of the week, call my mother and tell her I melted.
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So hi everybody… How ya doing? In effort to cross something off of my three page to-do list other than “watch superbowl commercials and be horribly disappointed” or “attempt to hem pants while watching superbowl commercials and completely mess it up and have to pick out the stitches one by one” I’m updating my blog. (shuddup jordan) Here goes…
Since January 9th I’ve been gainfully employed at a job where goofing off on the internet is frowned upon. The horror. It’s actually taking me more time to get used to that than to adjust to getting up at 6 every morning. Luckily besides that the job is pretty awesome. And yes… that’s all the detail you get. I’ve been a bit paranoid about identity theft lately although I could just be making that up to justify my new shredder. Funny how little obsessions work.
In other news, if for some reason you (like me) somehow missed the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy on film you should rectify that situation immediately. If you don’t happen to have a wonderful friend with an overly large television and another wonderful friend with the directors cut of Return of the King (thanks jordan and blair) as well as a spare 12 hours or so… then I just don’t know what to tell you. For those of you keeping count you can now add Frodo (complete with purple shadowed eyes… does it make me dorky that I saw that scene and immediately wanted the hex code for that shade?), Sméagol of the multiple personalities, Samwise and the unutterably badass, beautiful Legolas to the list of characters (including Capn. Jack Sparrow and Kratos) that make my giddy. Ahh… Legolas… ahem.
On a more serious note; If you’re looking to be charitable in the near future, strongly consider checking out http://www.brinkmeyer.org A friend of mine just lost her father to cancer. He was very heavily involved with Habitat for Humanity here in Tallahassee and in his honor the family is doing a celebration build (awesome idea). They need donations to reach the $47,000 they need of so if you can offer anything, go to the website and see how you can help. I know Jamie and her family will appreciate anything you can do.
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In a rare occurrence I’m glad it’s Monday. Of course it’s less about Halloween and more about the fact that my weekend stunk worse than fish emulsion on a hot day. If you don’t know how that smells… count your blessings.
I’m exaggerating a bit though, so I’ll give you the high points.
For the second weekend in a row I’ve actually cooked. I think maybe it’s the weather. Fall makes me crave vegetables like nobody’s business. Last weekend I made collard greens (still good even though I scorched them a bit) and oatmeal cookie dough. This weekend I did baked chicken and potato salad. I think my next attempt will be yellow squash which is incredibly easy to make but soooo good. We’ll see though. If I’m not in the mood to cook the food never comes out right so generally I don’t force it.
I read four really good books this weekend. Yes I’m a fast reader but they are also young adult books so it’s not as amazing as it could be.
The first was incredible… as have been all of the other books I’ve read by Nancy Farmer. The House of Scorpions is a disturbing but incredibly human science fiction story that takes place some unknown time in the future. I had no expectations when I started it because I didn’t even read the cover flap. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t because I normally avoid futuristic sci-fi. I had to stop reading several times because things got too real or too overwhelmingly deep (which for me is about 6 inches… I like my reading light ;)). My little reality breaks never really lasted long because I wanted to find out what would happen next too badly. The story makes you think and for me stirred up some strong reactions. I would recommend this one to anyone of any age.
The other three were the first in Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series, her second series about a girl studying to be a knight. I’ve read them before and I will probably read them again. A bit under the radar of my audience but if you have a younger (precocious 8 to fantasy loving 16) sister, niece or cousin this is a good author to turn them onto.
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