Category: General

watching 24 while blogging. I was gonna post a link to a weblogger quiz I saw the other day, but she’s been overwhelmed by its popularity. poor thing. I wonder if I could mirror it? <shrug>

I think I’m going to go in tomorrow, at least for a little bit. I want to see how the techs did with my new hard drive, and I want to dump in the contents of the zip disks sitting in front of me. mmm…nice clean hard drive. I can’t wait to get it set up the way I want! we’ll see how long I last. I figure I might make it until lunchtime, but possibly less than that if I’m sneezing a lot. I don’t wanna infect the rest of the office.

see, now it’s 9:30, and my brain is picking back up again. I don’t know what it is. when I’m sick, I totally lose brain power around midday and lose it until evening. then I have this little burst, which always leads me to go to bed later than I ought. damn.

what about illness & infirmity in Ult/Alac, anyway? I’ve always figured that illness was relatively rare among the Imperians, given their level of medical technology, but you’d have to imagine that the Alac would suffer from all sorts of medical problems, from colds on up. and I don’t think I’ve shown that, either.

my next step, I think, is to take the bits that I’ve written here and integrate them into the narrative, writing around them to fill in Aila’s first year at the Crater. (assuming, of course, that her first year includes a short journey away by Marcus, and ends before she goes off the menstrual medication.) I’m hoping, of course, that that work will give me enough heft in that section to power both the very, very weak section that goes right before it, and the remainder of the crater section.

and I’ve changed my mind again – while the formal name is going to stay “Delta Base”, the majority of its inhabitants will refer to the place as “the crater.” it just feels more natural to me, and seems more fitting for the people, the setting, etc., etc.

of course, I’m still missing, near as I can tell, a lot of the setup for part 2 (Ult) and the political issues that play out there. but I haven’t forgotten….

maybe I’ll actually take some nyquil tonight before I go to bed, even though I find it utterly vile. I just want to be able to sleep!

November just seems to gotten off to a raring start, eh?

I feel wrung out, and I’ve barely moved out of this room today. I hate colds. I wish I had enough of my brain back to get all the way through a complete thought. <sigh>

I check out Scripting News fairly regularly – some of his stuff makes me roll my eyes, and some of it is quite intriguing. but today I realized just how much the M$ settlement is freaking him out.

and all last night, when I did sleep, I dreamt about fonts.

feel like death on a platter, but I can’t sleep. can’t concentrate on work (will probably take part of today as a sick day) – can’t rest. my head is totally stuffed up, and I’m all achy & groggy. bleh. at least it’s not anthrax.

getting a f***ing cold. damn it. sorta adding insult to injury, don’cha think? I’m gonna finish my dessert, put away the remains of dinner, turn off the lights & TV, and go to bed. just wanted to see how the new graphics looked on the page.

raking the leaves is tougher than I remembered. 🙂

“Marin was also the one who introduced me to music. I was watching him, again, while he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, whispering to his machines, and I started humming some song from Tanu. He looked up, a little bleary-eyed, and smiled warily.

“‘Is that what your music sounds like?’ he asked, and it was the first time he’d asked me a question about myself. I nodded, biting my tongue, feeling as though I had disturbed him.

“‘Can you sing it for me again?’

“I flushed, and then sang: it was just a lullaby, something I had overhead my mother singing dozens of times when my younger siblings were having trouble falling asleep, something she had sung to me when I was a tiny thing. But it made Marin smile, and nod along with the rhythm.

“‘Have you learned any of our music?’

“‘The voice teach…teached…taught me a little music theory, and history?’ I wasn’t too sure on that point — it was one of the modules that Marcus had let the machines select, since he admitted to being musically illiterate. I looked away, abashed, and was almost startled to hear Marin’s chuckle.

“‘Better just to listen.’ Then he turned back to the machine, touched it on the side (very gently) and spoke again in its language. Then the room began to emit song — an incredible instrumentation, nothing like anthing I’d heard before, even in the musicology module. It was perfectly, wonderfully overwhelming. When I opened my eyes, Marin was grinning.

“‘Ask it to play you Marin gai melod anide’ he spoke in the choppy language he used to the machine ‘and you can hear more, if you like.’