Boo.

So, how's everyone doing?  Still alive and kicking, I hope.  I was actually searching for one of my old RP's and ended up cruising through this instead, so I thought I'd stop and say Hi.  Hi!

Happy February!  Hopefully January didn't leave a bad taste in your mouth.  It's that time again, though, where I remind you all that Don't Look needs your contributions!  Look, I'll make it easy for you.  I won't even make you click on the submission guidelines link.  I'll include them all here:

With this post of the submission guidelines, submissions are now open. Follow the guidelines like a pirate but the rules are not negotiable. We are willing to publish professionals and amateurs alike, but of course we want solid work with an odd, twisted spirit.

Flash Fiction / Short Short Story
We’re looking for innovative, unique and clever flash fiction or short short stories that are 200 words or less. All the regular rules apply: must be a full story with a beginning, middle and end, character development, setting, character, exposition, climax and resolution. Don’t think it can be done? There are plenty of examples in our issues.

Poems
100 words or less that explore modern topics and themes. No special requirements as to form or genre: we examine in turn all work received and accept that which seems best. Avoid excessive and well-worn abstractions, not to mention clichés.

Art
Stylistically distinct while maintaining a clever and warped essence should fill a 2.5” X 3.7” space. Abstract expressionism, impressionistic, photorealistic, almost any approach, will be all considered. Pencil, ink, painting, pastel and photographs welcome. Black and white only please.

Comic Panel / Strips
Funny, odd and twisted single or multiple panel welcome. Keep in mind, there is only a 2.5” X 3.7” space to fill. Black and white only please.

Nonfiction
We would love to see nonfiction essays or reviews, approximately 100-200 words in length.  Essays can be about anything, as long as they’re clever, interesting and well thought out.  Same for reviews, though what we’d really like to see are reviews of things that aren’t well known.  If you know an artist that’s not getting enough recognition, please tell us about them!  Keep in mind that we’re interested in the harder edge of truth, so keep the fluffy bunnies to yourself and give us the real story behind your thoughts.

If you have any questions (not submission inquiries), please contact mlewys@dsidecreations.com or jack.lee@dsidecreations.com.

So let's see what you've got!  We really depend on your submissions to keep us going.  Thanks for your help!

Life is once again conspiring against me in such a way as to make me unfit to be around people.  There is some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, but only time will tell if it's the bright sun or the oncoming train.  So for now, and I don't know for how long, don't expect me to be around this journal much.  I'm not saying that I'm never coming back, but I'm leaving no promises for if or when I might return.  Most of you have alternative ways in which to contact me if you want.  There's always email.  I do have a much smaller and quieter LJ account, but I'd really rather leave it small and quiet.  LiveJournal has given me a great many friends and more fun that I deserve, but I can't help but feel that its time is waning for me.  Until that changes, this account will be mostly silent.

If you really, really must be in on the few, sporadic details of my life that I occasionally regurgitate onto the web, email me or IM me and I'll drop you the name of the other journal.  Otherwise, thanks for every smile you've given me and be happy and healthy. 

“Not now, Patrick dear.  Your Auntie Mame’s hung.”
- Auntie Mame, 1958

There is such a thing as too much sparkling white wine.  I didn’t believe it last night.  But this morning, I firmly believe that you can have too much sparkling white wine.

Happy New Year!  I raise a toast to you with a new issue of Don’t Look - something that won’t give you a hang-over.

Don’t Look, Issue 8 - EU Version for A4 paper

“Defense Mechanisms” by Linn Næss
“A Song of Waiting” by Lars Riisnaes
“After the Apocalypse” by Mary Lewys
“Beaturtle” by Chris Lewis

“Silent Night” by Laura Austin (cover)

Folding instructions are available in download form and in video how-to form.  If you enjoy our zine, be sure to pass it along.  We rely on viral distribution - that means we rely on you to share the goodness.

Please keep distributing the issues.

Firstly!  Thank you to lordgloria for the lovely card!  It made me smile.  And many thanks to commodoresexual for my story, because I miss Burn Notice SO MUCH. 

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful holiday that didn't include too much stress and no major family blow-ups. 

I saw this on the flist today and thought it was very nifty.  Some of you (especially mathemavixen) might even agree.  The P22 Music Text Composition Generator will take a text file that you enter into it and make music to go with it.  I have absolutely no idea how it works, but it's fun trying to input different texts and hopefully making a sound that doesn't suck.  Here's what I came up with:

Metal should be cold, not body heat warm and slicked down from too
much kissing.  Lips shouldn't be near bleeding - sore and swollen and
tearing just around the edges.  Just where the metal pierces the
flesh. Tongues shouldn't move like sin dripping down his chin, running
down his neck.  And when you think you've found the cure and you
clutch at it, it shouldn't damn well turn and spin and dance away.
Then when it, when he, comes back and licks at the blood-tangy metal
that's somehow still in your lip and slides down your chest and
swallows you whole, what should and shouldn't happen anymore is
irrelevant.  It's you and him and it doesn't matter anymore how cold
you were or how hot the metal is.

MIDI file here

(That is, by the way, a very old piece of text that is mine and not yours so kindly don't use it anywhere else.  Copyright Laura Austin, blah blah.  I'm not entirely sure that I've got any claim on the midi file, though.)

There have not been nearly as many Soviet Russia jokes on my flist as I expected.  I am unsure if I should be disappointed or not.

Oh One Story.  Why do you have to jerk me around so?  All I want is to get my two free trial issues, fall in love, and willingly give you my $21 per year.  This will not happen if you continue to insist on not sending me my issues.  Please, please get your head out of your ass and fulfill your part of the bargain SO THAT I CAN GIVE YOU MONEY.

Tonight is my eldest daughter's first ever band concert.  She confided her nervousness to me and I helpfully pointed out that if she made a mistake, she would have an entire band full of people to cover it up.  At which point she tells me "But MOM!  I'm FIRST CHAIR!  I'm not supposed to make mistakes!"  Yes, my daughter takes life way too seriously.

DO IT!  Come on, I am so Adult Content.  I must be, what with the adult-being and all.  SO FLAG ME ALREADY DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!  See, I even used my RUDE ICON!  (Rude but oh-so-pretty.)

196 words of pre-story written and 424 words of actual story written.  Not bad for an hour's worth of writing and researching.  Now if only there was someone around to tell me that I was either too confusing, too insulting, or too... something.  I'm sure I'm too something, but I don't know what.

However, the urge to procrastinate has hit and I think I'm going to go read Astro City: Confession. 

All in all, the long weekend wasn't too bad.  There were only minimal fights between me and my mother and me and the hubby.  And after Thanksgiving, hubby and the kids put up our big, tacky inflatable Santa Claus in the front yard.  He inflates and pops in and out of his big, tacky inflatable chimney.  This stayed up in the yard for almost 24 full hours before some jackass came by with a knife and slashed it.  Now this on its own is enough to put my girls into tears.  Add to the equation the fact that the decoration came from their dead grandmother and guess how well they didn't take it.  The kids still want to decorate the yard, but I am hesitant to spend too much money on a bunch of stuff that will only get vandalized and destroyed.  So I'll make a big fuss with them over decorating the inside and see how they feel then. 

On the brighter side, we have 8 new fish.  No, I didn't buy any.  We discovered babies in the filter when changing it this weekend.  So I have the little nursery set up and am getting new grasses and stuff for them to hide in once we release them back into the bigger aquarium. 

Zatanna Zatara, the character I played in what was possibly my shortest RP ever, is apparently still rumbling around my head, more than a year later.  I dreamed about her last night.  The Books of Magic is now officially on my Christmas wish list.  In the meantime, Zatanna-in-my-head is hanging out with Constantine-in-my-head.  Help.

We've all discussed that I'm a dork.  This isn't new.  But something else has struck me as wonderful about this movie.  The actual military vehicles - do they even fly Ospreys anymore?  I can't remember the last time I saw one.  Then there was the Predator and the Warthogs!!  WARTHOGS!!  I love the Warthogs.  I mean, Michael Bay could have gone all traditional on us and used F-18s or some such things in the desert fight scene, but no.  Warthogs.  <3  Leave me alone. I'm watching my crack.

I'm trying to pick which picture to submit to JPG for their Bird's Eye theme and need everyone's opinion, please! (As always, for those of you on my flist who are into the more technical side of photography, I'd love to hear any concrit.)



Thank you!!

No, really, I have no reason to say that other than I like V for Vendetta.  However, over the past weekend I went to the Alamo and tried to explain it to mlewys, because I forget that people who aren't from Texas don't necessarily get it.  It was a little shocking to me how much of the history is just common knowledge to me that I had to explain, but it was fun.  It was a nice experience getting to show someone new that extra bit of Texas history.

Other than that, we ate.  A lot.  Texas bbq, German bbq, Mexican food, hamburgers, breakfast with funnel cakes(!), homemade hashbrowns, donuts... You name it and we ate it.  I have eaten more in the past 4 days than I generally do in a matter of weeks.  And she was an excellent guest.  She cooked breakfast on Saturday because I had rescued a six-week old kitten that's had her eye poked out and was taking her to the vet.  She didn't even complain that apparently something has died somewhere in the walls in my daughter's room.  Instead she just bought air freshener.  How awesome is that?

I took pictures, of course, which I'll be downloading soon.  She took pictures too, which means that there might be a picture of me floating around online sometime soon.  Probably the one where I'm staring at my feet. 

Let's see.  Been cleaning like a madwoman to get the house semi-ready for mlewys to come visit.  As soon as I make progress, the kids unmake it.  Dad's been in and out of the hospital.  Don't Look has managed it's one year anniversary.  Halloween has come and gone, as has eldest daughter's birthday parties and Halloween parties.  Work sucks.  Weather's turning cold, so my leg hurts.  But it's all ok.  I'm going to go home at lunch and do some last minute carpet cleaning before Toga's plane gets in and then I'm forgetting it all.  Because then I will have my Toga.  Take that, world!  We're going on a motorcycle ride tomorrow and to San Antonio on Saturday.  Maybe just relaxing and movie watching Sunday - we'll have to see what comes up. 

I've talked to this woman almost every day of my life for the past 7 years.  And now I finally get to see her.  HEE.  I think I'm gonna be sick.

Speaking of sick, tell my brain that no, it wouldn't be as much fun as it sounds to throw Remy Lebeau and John Constantine in a room together.

GIVE IT UP FOR THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY!

 

Can you believe it?  I certainly can’t.  This year has flown by – and I’ve had a ball.  I hope you, dear reader, have enjoyed each issue as much as we here at Don’t Look have had making them.  Keep passing the issues on so we can bring new readers, writers, artists, photographers, poets, and fans to our viral publication.

 

I bring you, Issue 7, Volume 2:

 

Don’t Look, Issue 7 - US Version for 8.5×11 paper - http://www.dontlookzine.com/issues/Don't_Look_Issue_7.v2.US.pdf

 

Don’t Look, Issue 7 - EU Version for A4 paper - http://www.dontlookzine.com/issues/Don't_Look_Issue_7.v2.EU.pdf

 

Folding instructions - http://dsidecreations.com/dontlook/folding-instructions/

 

Folding instructional video - http://dsidecreations.com/dontlook/2007/05/02/folding-dont-look-the-official-video-guide/

 

By popular demand (mine), Christine Stoddard contributed the beautiful cover.  Jack Lee, fellow editor and crazy, pitched in portentous tale to tickle your gray matter.  Paul Storrieville, Christine Stoddard and Wren Griffin contributed to our Six Word Stories – something that’s way too much fun.  Linn Næss closes the issue with one of her beautiful pieces.

 

Photo Contest Winner

 

Lesson learned:  keep contest short.  Luckily, we had two contributors, but only one winner.

 

 

That’s it!  See you again in two months.  Keep those submissions coming in!

Visit Telephoning


Previously posted on Telepho.ning:

I've been a long-distance fan of Oomph! for almost three years now. A friend of mine in England introduced me to them and I immediately fell in love with Dero. I've written fiction centered around (a completely fictional interpretation of) Dero. Yesterday while I was loading songs to my player here, I found my copy of Fieber and have been listening to it repeatedly, because you absolutely can't go wrong with Dero and Nina Hagen. Just for the hell of it, I Googled "Fieber video". And the first hit on Google? Warren's Del.icio.us page.

DAMMIT WARREN. I LIKED THEM FIRST. Quit making me look like some sort of brainless automaton that's just following you around the interwebs.

For eldest daughter's birthday, we surprised her with a trip to the Thunder Slam monster truck rally. Predator was by far the coolest truck in the stadium - too bad he totally trashed the front end of the truck. It was my favorite truck to take pictures of. Every time the flash fired, the Predator logo on the side would just light up. Excellent.

So yesterday I tried at least 4 times to post something interesting, but I was never able to get WordPress to play nice.  Yes, I could have just posted it directly to LJ (like I'm doing now), but that defeats the purpose of combining this blog and the one that's never used on my webpage.  To make a long story short, I am pretty much done with WordPress.  I can make it work if I turn off javascript, but then none of my other pages work right and I'm really not interested in having to turn javascript on and off everytime I want to post.  So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.  I could embed LJ into my webpage but I haven't done that much coding in years and don't really want to start now. 

As for the something interesting that I was trying to post yesterday, according to the Russian newspaper Pravda, the meteor crash in Peru wasn't a meteor.  It was an American satellite.  The reason hundreds of villagers are sick is radiation poisoning from the satellite.  Best part was that it wasn't any foreign government that supposedly shot down the satellite.  Pravda believes that it was brought down by warring factions inside our own military.  Which is just an excellent idea for a story, if you ask me.

Then there was the bit where the press got ahold of Bush's speech to the UN - phoenetic spellings and all.  Oops!

Originally published at raininglizards.com. You can comment here or there.

(This is the third time I’ve tried to post this post. Let’s hope it goes through this time.)

All week I’ve had the slightly less-than-honorable intention of bringing my notebook with me to work and writing in my “free time”, which translates to writing whenever I don’t think anyone is watching. However, I keep forgetting my notebook at home. This frustrates my currently rebellious streak to no end.

Just as a warning to anyone who’s seeing something new and different about the format of this post, I’ve decided to combine my almost never used Wordpress blog and my regularly used LiveJournal. Using this format, I can post to RainingLizards.com/blog and it will automatically post to my LJ. You can read and comment at either site.

Apex Science Fiction and Horror is once again having a raffle with some really excellent prizes. From the site:

APEX - Halloween Grab-Bag Raffle

You'll find nothing but TREATS here, guaranteed!

Here's a chance to fill your pillowcase with all sorts of goodies, including rare items from some of the biggest names in the field. For only $1.00 per ticket. And, a percentage of all proceeds made will go to the National Center for Family Literacy!

Prizes include 7 short story critiques, autographed books, art, t-shirts, autographed manuscripts... the list goes on and on. Each ticket is only $1 a piece. Good luck!

(Also, while you're there, conisder picking up a subscription for $20. I just did, and I'm very excited about it!)