Remind me not to do that again.

This was national novel writing month, and I love doing nanowrimo. Normally.

See, this month became notorious when I had deadlines on the 9th. Those deadlines didn't happen so every day of work became the day I HAD to work until I dropped to try and make the late deadline.

My nanowrimo novel seemed lackluster and boring.

So, it sat there and sat there and sat there.

Staring at me with big sad puppy eyes. "Don't you love me? Don't you want to write me this month? Why don't you love me? Please come play with me! Please? Are you mad at me? Please don't be mad at me."

I mean, what do you say to your novel when it looks at you like that? How do you tell it that you have just too many other responsibilities this month and can't work on it?

So, I gave myself the last week.

For the first three days, I got mad, I got bored, I got tired, I got unhappy, and I got nothing done.
For the last four days.... I wrote 50,000 words.

Yes, that's right. I wrote 50,000 words in four days.
I have the book.
It's UGLY. It's missing two giant pieces to the middle. I needs to be put into PROPER order instead of whichever scene I felt like writing at the time. It needs all of the pieces to flow smoothly from one to the next. It needs people arcs to be followed through and not just tossed in like spice.

But it's there. I can see the spine and some of the organs. I know that it can be fixed. I LOVE the fixing part.

And it has an ending.

BUT PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY: REMIND ME NEVER TO WRITE FIFTY-THOUSAND-WORDS IN FOUR DAYS EVER AGAIN.

My wrists hurt. I didn't sleep last night. But I have a small treasure. It feels like a good thing, and I know it's the start of the book I want. That's the best part. I've got all the pieces to clean up, edit, fix, patch, and string along now. I can turn this ugly duckling into a swan -- and that's the part I love to do.
This is why I torture myself with nanowrimo every year -- it's one month of doing the stuff I'm not so fond of, to spend eleven months doing the thing I love the most -- editing.
Just, next year, I should spread out the writing over the entire month.

owie.

Screw reading, I want to reply!

The thing is, when it rains, it pours. I swear, stupidity is contagious -- BE WARNED.

I have ANOTHER pet peeve when it comes to OSS -- the forums. DEAR GOD, THE FORUMS.

For this example, we're going to use a good ol' standby for demonstration purposes -- the user desktop experience. In linux world, you have a metric ass load of choices for your desktop environment. You can have gnome, kde, xfce, enlightenment, gnustep, and of course -- all of the copious 'we-don't-need-no-stinking-graphics' console-like-based desktops like ratpoison, ion, awesome, etc. etc. (excuse me if I missed your favourite out of the billions of tiling console-only ones.) So, with these choices, there's enough for everyone to be happy, right? NO! Apparently, people can't be happy unless they can spout nonsense from their keyboards. Let's get to the example that is currently causing me to question how humanity ever made it past banging rocks together to make fire, shall we?

This is our posted question to a forum:

Hi! I was wondering if anyone tried out the latest version of XFCE, since it really looks like it has improved significantly over the last version. I'm curious to know if thunar is stable yet and if anyone has tried using it with compiz-fusion.

Seems simple and to the point, no? I mean, this person is asking for specific information, so you would ASSUME that he would receive either an answer from someone that related to this question or no answers because no one uses xfce where he posted this message, right? HA!

Here is about the second or third reply to our poster's question:

I've been using the new KDE and it's so fast and cool. I can do so much more with the new release than anything else.

Yes, that's right. Instead of answering ANYTHING our poster asked about, this person decided to tell us all about NOTHING related to the question or the post -- except for the fact that it's another desktop environment. Ohhhhh and we're not done.

About the sixth or eighth post down, we'll get this reply:

I don't believe in using something with that much bloat and waste! I run a clean and effective desktop free of all that useless garbage. It's so much better to run Ion without all that bloated crap taking up my screen!

Effectively we have been told NOTHING by these two posters -- and in fact, not only did we not receive the information we asked for, we've been INSULTED! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

You want to know WHY more women don't get into Linux?! WHY would any woman want to subject herself to this kind of bullshit online if she doesn't HAVE TO?! ENOUGH of the penis comparisons! Your desktop IS NOT YOUR PENIS. Your IDE is NOT your penis. Your chosen programming language is NOT your penis. And last, but not least, your editor -- vi or emacs -- is ALSO NOT YOUR PENIS!

If I ask a question about a desktop environment, for the love of all that's left of rationality in this world, EITHER ANSWER THE QUESTION OR STFU. I mean, honestly, can you people replying like this not READ?! I mean, is it REALLY too hard NOT to say a goddamned word if the question doesn't apply to you? Seriously?!

Ohhhh now I know, not all of you participate in the "I didn't read the damn question but I'm going to shoot my effing mouth off about bullshit anyway" phenomena -- and to those of you that don't, I thank you from the bottom of my shoes. Thank you thank you thank you.

But the rest of you? Can you all go post to 4chan or something instead? Perhaps stay on facebook/myspace?
Wait, you've already commented without reading a damn word I said, right? That would be icing on the cake.

Oh forget it.

I have a pet peeve with a great deal of the OSS developers out there. Now, this doesn't include all of them -- some of them behave considerably better than others -- but I have had the misfortune to stumble upon far too many that anger me to the point of not wanting anything to do with Open Source projects that it isn't funny any more.

My pet peeve is with bug reporting. Most OSS projects have a bug tracker and in theory they encourage users to post bugs so that they can be tracked down and fixed. IN THEORY.

The problem is, in an absurd amount of projects, if you actually take the time to write a bug report that isn't a duplicate, and describe the problem as best as you can, some developer will come along and dismiss you as an effing moron.

Let's say that I notice that the latest version of one of my favourite applications has this slight bug where when I do one thing, like maximise the window, my cpu usage will skyrocket. Now, this doesn't happen when the application is minimised, and it didn't happen with the previous version, and it also doesn't happen with some different window configurations.

Now, being a responsible OSS application user, I will report this odd behaviour to the application's bug report, thinking, oh, this must be a new bug in the application I'm using, because it doesn't happen with any other application, any other VERSION of this one application, or with some other configurations of my system. Since this behaviour is NEW, and the only thing I have changed is my APPLICATION, it MUST be the application's fault -- goes the logic.

With the bug reported, all should be well right? The developer should look at my bug and ask me questions or try to duplicate it or other things, right?! NO! What do I get?! I get the developer telling me that it's NOT the application's fault, it must be my window configuration. That's right, even though if the developer had actually READ my bug report, they would know that THIS BUG DIDN'T HAPPEN UNTIL THE NEW RELEASE WITH THE SAME CONFIGURATION. BUT DO THEY READ THAT PART?! NO! THEY TELL ME THE BUG IS INVALID AND CLOSE IT, REFUSING TO HEAR THAT THEY MAY BE CAUSING USERS OF THEIR APPLICATION ISSUES!

WTF.

Why the hell do they even have a bug tracker then? Why not just say to all their users, "everything is someone else's fault, not this application, so go complain to them."

Look, if you don't want users filing bug reports, DON'T ASK THEM TO. If you don't want to hear a goddamned word that someone may be trying to tell you about your new code base, DON'T ASK FOR IT.

I am absolutely sick of this mentality.

Want to know why people don't bother posting effing bug reports? That's pretty simple: YOU DON'T LISTEN TO A DAMN WORD THEY SAY!

Honestly, I'd rather spend my time finding an alternate application than post bug reports any more, it's just not worth my time to be told that kind of garbage*.

(*see rant on gaim/pidgin for yet ANOTHER example of bug reporting / developer idiocy.)

Fusion Cooking

My friends are always asking me to put together a cookbook... and I keep promising to do so. I have thousands and thousands of fusion recipes that I've made so I probably SHOULD assemble them, no?

This recipe is super easy and fast... great for a lunch or a cool dinner during the hot spring/summer.

Stir Fry Wraps:
Ingredients:
Flat bread (I like mountain breads or raw breads, but you can use any kind of flat bread.)
1 package Stir Fry vegetables (sugar snap peas, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, green capsicum, red capsicum, cabbage, carrot, rocket, mushroom)
1/2 cup soy yoghurt (you can use regular dairy yoghurt as well.)
2 tsp lemon juice (I know you've heard it millions of times, but fresh squeezed IS best)
1 tsp fleur de sel (or sea salt)
1/2 tsp white pepper (black will do as well, fresh ground is best)
1/2 tsp chili powder
A pinch of garlic powder

Wrap Sauce:
Mix together yoghurt, lemon juice, salt, pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder until smooth and creamy.

Assemble Wraps:
Spread two tablespoons of wrap sauce on flatbread. Add 1/2 cup to 3/4 cups of raw stir fry veggies to the flat bread. (For rectangular flat bread, put the veggies on one side and roll from veggie side, keeping veggies 'tucked under' -- for round flat bread, put the veggies in the center and wrap either side around the veggies to make a cone.)

Eat. :)

Chick Flicks

Last night was chick flick night... so, what did I pick out to rent?

Tank Girl
True Romance

Those are my chick flicks for the week! I LOVE those movies. How can a movie about a post-apocalyptic world where freaky punk girls have tanks and join a group of ferocious kangaroo-human breeds to make war on the overlord company entitled water & power -- NOT be the coolest chick flick ever?!

GOOD GOD. Have I mentioned the black hole that is my bunny lately? I know I named her entropy, but by all accounts I should have named her CARTMAN. She eats. And eats. And eats. And eats. It's all she does. She's a soccer ball -- with teeny tiny legs and two large horns. If I'm trying to sleep, she picks up her metal bowl and throws it around the tile making an awful clatter.

Ok, it's almost seven am and I'm not coherent exactly. I could use some goji berry juice. Or sleep.

Sleep it is!

[edit: oh my dear god, a few days later I re-read this and notice I forgot to finish multiple trains of thought as they derailed into a need for sleep. I will have to remember NOT to post when I'm THAT tired and easily distracted by my fat-butted-bunny.]

Taters!

I am a potato nut. I love potatoes. I love them boiled, mashed, crispy, stewed... you name it. From time to time I found glorious potato chips with yummy flavours -- usually kettle-cooked. I love kettle-cooked vegetables (and popcorn!) I've even eaten potatoes raw! YUM! (Oh yeah, dipped in yoghurt with wasabi.... oh good lorrrrrrrrrrd those are good....)

My two favourite brands from the states are Tim's Cascade Potato Chips and Kettle Chips. (I sneak in some salt and vinegar pringles every now and then too...)
I haven't had them in a very long time, which makes me sad. Booohooo! But! Knowing that I have an odd taste in food (cajun sushi anyone? potato chips inside my black-bean burger?) -- I decided to re-create some of my favourite chip flavours in my weekly dosage of mashed potatoes. Mmmmmmm......

My Current Mashed Potato Flavour Favourites:

• Fleur de Sel and Vinegar
• Cheddar and Beer (Ohhhhh yeah.... sharp cheddar and a GOOD beer.... DROOL)
  
• Dill Pickle
• Dill and Cucumber
• Yoghurt and Leek
• Wasabi (Nothing like eating BRIGHT NEON GREEN mashed potatoes)
  
• Raita (Yoghurt, Cardamom, Cucumber, Red Capsicum, Tomato, hint of garlic)
  
• Adobo (Oh man... alder-smoked jalapenos FTW!)
  
• Taco Sauce and Balsamic Vinegar
• Tandoori Curry
• Basil, Tomato, Mozzarella
• Sushi Vinegar
• Avocado and Smoked Almonds
  

And yes... I've discovered the joy that is using mashed potatoes with sushi vinegar inside of my sushi rolls. Oh man... mix the mashed potatoes with the seasoned sushi vinegar... spread it out onto nori.... put my cucumbers, celery, daikon, and wasabi inside... roll.... slice......... ohhhhh yeah. fusion sushi.

I think I should start posting recipes for my concoctions. I mean, who WOULDN'T like my fusion cooking?! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

TATERS!