Fun and games and the end of November and NaNoWriMo

So, something silly and refreshing and different.

Here is a comparison of two very cool videos. The performers are all doing the exact same piece. There may be Muppets and an otokoyaku singing a classic aria from Georges Bizet's Carmen.

Please watch carefully, there will be a quiz at the end.

1. 姿月あさと - カルメンより - ハバネラ (Shizuki Asato performs the "Habanera" from Carmen)


2. The Swedish Chef, Beaker, and Animal of the Muppet Show perform the "Habanera" from Carmen (Special guest appearance by Statler and Waldorf)


***

Okay, here is the quiz question:

Which performance did you like better?

***

Enjoy the beginning of the holidays! Gosh, I've Christmas gift lists to make and a wedding to go to and coffee jelly to cook.... (All of which, of course, I'll be blogging about - I'll get permission from the soon-to-be-weds....)

Meal in the City: "Big Breakfast" at McDonald's EDSA-Panay

Yes, ha, so you thought I'd never post about my bad fast food-eating habits, eh? Well, no need to fear for my health. I mostly go to a fast food place to eat breakfast and I don't eat these meals every day.

I'm a creature of habit at fast food places: I have a very short list of things I'm willing to eat at any one of them. Don't know why I got so picky, and at fast food chains too. Anyway, here is my breakfast pick at the Mickey Dees:



Many of us are likely to be familiar with some variation or another of the McDonald's Big Breakfast; this is the local version with garlic fried rice.

For a while there in October, the quality of the sausage patty served with this meal suffered a drastic change. I tried it soon after coming back to work, and it tasted...well, it tasted awful. Like chewing burned rubber or something. Since normally the patty was nicely done, juicy and with a small hit of spice, I was badly disappointed. Of course I chalked it up instead to supplies being hit hard by the typhoons.

(The typhoons affected the supply of vegetables too: KFC couldn't serve coleslaw; McD's had no lettuce to put in their burgers....)

Happy to report, then, that the Big Breakfasts are back to normal. I was halfway through this portion when I remembered to take the picture. With this I drink orange juice, to counteract the early-morning grease.

(Why some people insist on chugging *sodas* at *breakfast* remains a real mystery to me.)

I was "good" for the rest of the day, too, eating mostly beans and rice at lunch. I'll also take a picture of it the next time I order and post it for you.

(I can go back to regular programming now that NaNoWriMo is almost done, yay! :D)

There. Last NaNoWriMo post for now.

[UPDATED because I managed to write a little more today - and actually got in one ending.]

That right there is proof that I have reached one of my life goals: I wrote a 50k words (and change) original story in less than 25 days.

*happydance*

Now I shall wait for next month to finish writing all the possible endings and send the completed story off to friends and loved ones who want to read it.

Yeah, I'm walking on sunshine and clouds. :)

[And I'll be back for another dose of novel madness next year!]

So I've got a novel-like monster-manuscript-thing. Now what?

[Picture unrelated, but cute, and also, hey, it's a puppy-smile Totoro, what's not to like? ♥]

Okay, so that's the next question that might need tackling, whether it be for me, sitting on a manuscript that's 51,000 words and change long; or for anyone who's ever thought seriously about seeing their names in print.

To publish or not to publish?

Bear in mind that when I say publish, I initially mean "print off a bound and professional-looking book-like thing to proudly and perhaps overbearingly show off to family and friends". The whole idea of prepping the thing for actual PUBLICATION as in selling it in a bookstore comes a far second (and is anyway a topic I'm not actually qualified to write about - dammit, Jim, I'm an amateur not a published person!).

Enter John Scalzi and a very recent blog post.

Just to make it clear, there is a Grand Canyon's worth of difference between "vanity press" and "self-publishing". DON'T, for the love of all that is good and chocolatey (and bacon-y), go the vanity press route - you'll be fleeced, you'll be cheated, you may very well lose your intellectual property rights over your own work, and you're likely not going to *sell* at all.

Far better to do the proper self-publishing bit: Scalzi explains and advocates the use what is called a Print-On-Demand service. (Lulu.com, CreateSpace.com) It can be done for either peanuts or, under some special circumstances, absolutely for free - that last link is for NaNo-ers and is definitely something I'm looking forward to myself.

[I'm already thinking about the book cover design, and I haven't even finished the manuscript yet or even verified it, haha!]

Why have to learn all these things and go through all these hoops just for a proof copy or a bound manuscript anyway?

Well, isn't the mere idea of having a professional-looking BOOK with YOUR NAME on it as the author a good reason to look into self-publishing? After all, I'm one of those dreaming writer-types who wants to be published some day, go on book tours, sign autographs for adoring fans, etc etc etc. And let's face it, a lot of people who write or profess to write also have dreams running along a similar vein. So learning about these sorts of things in advance can be a big boost towards making those dreams come true.

I want to say here, though, that I've got modest ambitions for my NaNo manuscript [which was the whole reason why I decided to go for it in the first place]. I intend to clean it up and really shop it around to the local publishing houses and see if it has any chances of making it into a real honest-to-cookies bookstore. I freely admit that it may be naïve of me to think that a printed-and-bound manuscript will help me in such a quest. Still, not going to stop me from trying.

[Next question: conversion into e-book format for the people who've asked to read the novel.]

NaNoWriMo Status Report 4

And a happy premonition THAT was.

I have just crossed the 50k words mark of NaNoWriMo 2009 - that is, I've WON, and on the very first try. My current word count stands at 50,557.

Now I can take the rest of the week slowly, and dawdle while I decide on the ending that my novel will have, without having to worry about the word count any more.

But first I shall go and clean up the mess and then fall gratefully into bed.

NaNoWriMo Status Report 3

I have either one more Friday to do this if I decide to slack off, or the next NaNo post will be the one that says I just passed 50k.

Nov 13 - 30177
Nov 14 - 32461
Nov 15 - 32461 (Yes, I goofed off and did not write! XD)
Nov 16 - 34669
Nov 17 - 37348
Nov 18 - 40235
Nov 19 - 42565
Nov 20 - 44286

I guess I can allow myself to start looking forward to what happens after this.

1. Well, I will have to see if I can attend the Thank God It's Over party. I hear there will be a raffle and that there will be moleskine-type notebooks up for grabs. Oh my, do want. The PinoyWrimos bash is scheduled for 5 December.

2. If and only if I manage to finish this monster, go and do that "get a free proof copy of your NaNo work". It's something in the forums that I spotted some time during the month. The offer's from www.CreateSpace.com.

3. Get a lot of sleep.

4. Start working on concepts for next year's NaNo. Yes, I'm going to go again.

5. Cross my fingers and hope that the folks behind NaNoWriMo have already received my USD10.00 donation. :) I would have given more if I could. I'm really getting so much out of this novel sprinting monster thing, and I want to give something back.

Reading in My Sleep: Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework, 1982

I remember being quite the disaster in the needle-type Home Ec classes when I was in school: I couldn't figure out a simple embroidery sampler, I pretty much failed a unit on crocheting, and I still have an irrational fear of getting stabbed by the needles in a sewing machine.

So, yeah, imagine my wonder and my absolute overweening (and, needless to say, misplaced) pride in myself when I discovered that there were a few types of sewing that I could actually DO: things like do counted cross-stitch, mend seams in a cotton t-shirt, sew buttons on skirts. I think I can safely blame the cross-stitch part on my mom, who went through an absolute mania for the craft when she was pregnant with my younger sister. And when I say mania I meant she was stitching gigantic designs fit for framing on walls.

Having gained some small measure of confidence in plying a needle thanks to completing my own cross-stitch projects, I find myself more willing now to learn all these crafts. So far, I think I want to tackle crochet again. I want to make a scarf and perhaps a pair of fingerless gloves or two.

So it's a good thing that I spotted this book in a store a year or so ago:


Maybe you've seen one or two of those yourself: an all-purpose guide to needle-craft. Knitting, applique, quilting, rug making, macrame, lace, and of course the essential embroidery stitches.

This is the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework, edited by Virginia Colton. First published in 1979, the edition I have was printed in the same year that I was born, 1982. Yes, this book is as old as I am. And the amazing thing is, I wish I was that well-preserved: the pages remain crisp and clear, the pictures look great, there are no missing bits or pages or even a stray trail of chewed whatever.

I literally read myself to sleep with this book on those nights when there's so much on my mind. I may not be working the stitches or knots myself, but something about the book leads my mind into the same peaceful pace and patterns, so it's great for relaxing reading.

(I wonder if I'll feel the same, though, once I go and tackle a project or two. Like I said: rank beginner ahoy. I'm thinking of myself as having no knowledge at all - at least, not until I actually begin - and then FINISH a project.)

(Yep, this is what I'm going to do next after the whirlwind that is NaNoWriMo. Weekly update post on that one later.)

Meal Snack in the City: Chocolate + Bacon Lollipop

OMGWTF (and see the new tag below the entry).

I've finally tasted that evillest evil sweet thing that ever evilled in this world.


Please do not be fooled for an instant. That looks rather like an innocent milk-chocolate lollipop, nothing to write home about, nothing special, yes?

WRONG WRONG WRONG. Inside that chocolate shell is a liberal sprinkling of ground crunchy crisp salty BACON BITS. Yes and it's the real deal, none of your fake bacon concoctions, it really is pork belly.

OMGOMGOMG. This is an evil sweet and *ohmygodIwantmore*.

(Of course I can't be the only person obsessed with this stuff. Here, this is what Google coughs up when you search "chocolate+bacon": the first page of search results.

And of course the Wikipedia entry: Chocolate-covered bacon)

Reading in My Sleep: The Joy of Cooking, 1997

[I am really sorry for letting the post count drop some while I've been working on NaNoWriMo. Most of my words are falling straight down the rabbit hole of my novel - I should do better in diverting some of those towards this blog. Two weeks left in the noveling rush.]

As I said in the introduction to the Meal in the City series of posts,

"This is a blog where I talk about a lot of things that I find interesting; one of those topics that really get my motor running is food reading."

When I meet people for the first time I often hear questions about how long I've been wearing them, and the only answer I often give is something on the order of magnitude of "About fifteen years". I honestly cannot remember the days before I had to wear glasses although pictures of those times exist. It seems like I have always had to peer at the world through my specs.

Anyway, so why have I always been wearing glasses? One word: READING. Yeah, I got the four-eyes look in the traditional manner: read too much, read in the dark, read on a moving vehicle, etc. etc.

In this series of posts, there are pictures showing me asleep with a book in my arms - bit of a habit of mine, really. It's also a sideways introduction to my library and the wild mishmash of books that call my apartment home (along with me and my BF, who takes all these pictures for me).

Here's the first one:


The book in my arms is my current prize-winning bargain book find: a 1997 reprint of Joy of Cooking. This is the Irma Rombauer / Marion Rombauer Becker Plume edition. JOC was first printed in 1931 and remains one of the benchmarks of American cooking. Where other cookbooks might have a hundred or a thousand recipes, JOC (this edition in particular) has over 4,500.

And I bought this for just about PHP200.00 - or USD4.29. Yeah. Super bargain mode. I got VERY, VERY LUCKY at the bargain bookstore that I frequent. :)

I've already got a list in my head of all the recipes I want to try from this book. Failing that, I intend to lend it to my sister and ask her to bake some of the treats in it for me. (I have no baking skills and no oven at home.)

Have you got a copy of JOC? When was it printed? What's your favorite JOC recipe?

Presenting: Hamster!

Way back in July I talked about wanting this:



And now, as I had hoped for in the end of yesterday's entry, I get to introduce to you my Hamster:



So, yeah, meet my new baby. :) I hope to put him to good use and hopefully provide a review in maybe two weeks' time.

This is also the part where I start getting even more paranoid about my bag and my belongings. Having already had the painful experiences of being mugged at knifepoint and getting my purse snatched by motorcycle-riding thieves, I'd be an idiot if I don't try HARDER to hang on to Hamster. I'm already pondering the extra steps of getting locks for the bag that I bought to go with.

And if safety means permanently carrying that backpack in front so I can see it all the time, then so be it.

NaNoWriMo status report, Friday the 13th edition

In the Acknowledgments to her debut novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger describes writing as a solitary thing: it’s only exciting for the person who is doing the actual work of putting the words down. Anyone who happens to be watching will only see a hand with a pen, moving across a sheet of paper; or fingers dancing over a keyboard.

It’s true for me at least and for those of my friends who profess to the same craft. There is nothing exciting in watching my hands stop and start as they type. I might have a nice pen and a moleskine-type notebook, but that’s still only window dressing to the actual task of recording the words. And for me, writing is, like, the farthest thing on the planet from a spectacle. The act of writing becomes, literally, nothing to write home about, at least not for anyone watching.

Sure, I might have the resources of the whole damn world (a/k/a Google, Wikipedia, and sometimes The New York Times) at my fingertips, but they’re just sources of information; they’re impersonal, they’re out there in the vast stretches of cyberspace; they’re the farthest thing in the world from an audience.

Sure, I might blog about the work or post about it on Facebook or on some forums, and then people comment and strike up a conversation about the work or about my writing, but if any of those people actually went and saw me doing the actual writing work they’d quickly drift away with boredom.

So things can get wildly, wildly different when instead of writing in purely solitary fashion, you wake up one day and there is an entire community of people worldwide who are frantically writing along with you. I’m not talking purely about being in a writing class, although the experiences of this entire NaNoWriMo thing are starting to turn out to be just that – a lesson in writing, spread out over 50k words or more and precisely 30 days.

And how have I been doing so far? Daily breakdown, by date and total word count reached:

Nov 6 - 13667
Nov 7 - 16361
Nov 8 - 18759
Nov 9 - 21196
Nov 10 - 23422
Nov 11 - 26211
Nov 12 - 27712

Have I mentioned yet that it's been a HELL of a rush every day? Even when yesterday I failed to make 1667? The adrenaline, it is terribly addictive. :)

TECH NOTE: If all goes well, I shall have another post up over the weekend. Wish me luck - I might finally be able to buy an Asus Eee 1005HA Seashell later today!!!

(I shall love it and squeeze it and take care of it and call it HAMSTER! :D)

(Yes, I shall name my netbook Hamster because of THIS Hamster:



♥♥♥)

Meal in the City / Quick Photo Post 1: Three Meals

A recent return to Cara Mia for breakfast yields these two dishes: top, sausages given quick run through the oven and then served with bread, scrambled eggs, half a roasted tomato, and a hash brown. That was my breakfast.

The BF was supposed to have ordered an omelet with smoked salmon and vegetables, but his eggs arrived folded around just the veg. Kind of a disappointment. The eggs were cooked very nicely, though.

My very first pork katsu sandwich, from Metro, the upscale version of popular Japanese-Filipino fast-food chain Tokyo Tokyo. Whole-wheat the bread may be, but it was toasted to a beautiful golden-brown crust, the perfect contrast to the tender, soft crumb and to the deep-fried pork cutlet. Mmmm. Those billowing white things are actually potatoes in tempura batter, fried and then sprinkled with sour cream and onion seasoning.

New/Old Fandom and NaNoWriMo status report

PART THE FIRST: Rainbow Connection

Okay, right, so I'm one of those fans what jumped on a BANDwagon, so what else was new. I first heard of the existence of the by-now-LEGENDARY J-Rock group L'Arc~en~ciel in the early 2000s. The gateway was - you guessed it - Rurouni Kenshin. Of course I would have fallen in love not only with the generally pristine original story arcs, but also with the kickass OP and ED music. And my favorite out of the bunch was "The Fourth Avenue Cafe".

Alas, being naught but a broke kid struggling through university at the time, I could not afford to pursue my fan status any further than that - all I knew was that an amazing number of people LOVED Hyde, Tetsuya, Ken, and Yukihiro (well, it was Sakura banging the drums for the aforementioned single). I DID love "Spirit Dreams Inside" as well as, eventually, "Driver's High".

Then I fell casually into the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom and found out that L'Arc were back from hiatus and that they had contributed both OP and ED themes for the ill-fated movie. Of the two, I infinitely prefer "Lost Heaven". Have a video: a live version of the song, performed during the Awake Tour 2005:



Comments:
- Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of when I saw Hyde was - WOW, they have really stripped down the stagewear? I'd been seeing lots of videos where they were really, REALLY dressed up to perform live on stage. Hats, layers of all sorts, strange shirt and coat combos, really wild hairstyles, I could go on and on. But look at them here! No sleeves, mostly black, and plain, body-skimming cuts. WOW awesome. The gear here really makes them look just that good.

- I...I can actually duplicate that eyeshadow Hyde's got on. Wow. And I'm NOT a dab hand at doing my eyes. He simplified his image but he still looks damn hot.

- My favorite part of the video is at 2:25 and the lyrics "akai hanataba wo". Yes, all he did was throw out his hand, but there is something beautiful in the clean, spare movement.

- Having heard the studio version of "Lost Heaven", I prefer this live one. This is because there is clearly no keyboardist on stage but you can hear the instrument being used: either the music was canned beforehand or the keyboard is being played behind the scenes. The added arrangement makes the song sound much better for me.

Yes, that ALSO happens to be my current Last Song Syndrome tune - so it is also quite naturally part of the current soundtrack to the November that is slowly changing my life, one day and 2000 words or so at a time.

PART THE SECOND: Five Days Into NaNo

As promised, here is the first of the four intended NaNoWriMo entries. Yesterday, five days into the journey, I managed to break through the first major psychological barrier between me and the end of the novel: my running word count is now at 11,547 words. Daily breakdown (date - total word count):

1 - 1963
2 - 4637
3 - 7340
4 - 9101
5 - 11547

I cannot believe I have actually been able to sustain the story for this long. Before I got the novel started, I had been plagued by fears that it would be a one-trick pony, or that the tale would be finished even before I clocked the first 5000 words. Apparently not.

And while I've been writing to the daily quota of 1667 words AND BEYOND, every day I have continued to receive new ideas for where the story could go. One of my secondary characters is already working his way up toward co-main-character status, since he's turning into a wonderful counterpoint for the lead character. It's amazing - I'm just taking dictation from him at this point.

Note to self 1: whether you finish this monster or not, there are now a few people you will need to show the novel to after the end. Start making that list.

Note to self 2: continue being paranoid as to the save status of the novel. Yes, it's in the cloud, but be paranoid anyway.

Note 3: yes, it has occurred to me that between the 2000 or so words that I try to put in for NaNo every day AND the writing work at the office AND the blog entries, I am actually doing up to 5000 words a day. This is an amazing thing for me.

Okay, back to "Sparta mode", as a few of my fellow NaNo-ers are calling it. Your regular programming resumes shortly (i.e. in the next post).

Meal in the City: "Pork Tocino Breakfast" at Cara Mia Gelateria, Tomas Morato, Quezon City

I really love Amici and Cara Mia and I'm not ashamed to tell the world about it.

Other than filling people up on their gorgeous and yummy gelato concoctions - which reminds me that I must try their affogato delights very soon - Cara Mia has also taken to serving breakfast. This means that the kitchen and particularly the massive wood-fired oven that they have in every Amici/Cara Mia branch gets its day started really early. The oven not only makes the day's bread, pizzas, and certain lunch/dinner dishes, but is also used for preparing a few dishes on the breakfast menu.

I caught a lucky break early in October and was there at Cara Mia on the day they started their breakfast service. Here's what I had to eat on that day: baked Italian sausage links! A good first impression, though the sausages had some flaws....

The previous meal having made quite a nice taste memory, I recently returned to Cara Mia for another breakfast. This time I was craving something local to eat. Here's what it looked like.


Breakfast at Cara Mia, second visit: Pork Tocino, fried egg, garlic rice, pickles, and coffee.

Pork tocino is something like a cross between bacon and ham: it's taken usually from the belly part of a pig, cured in sugar and spices, then pan-fried and eaten at the breakfast table. Some restaurants make tocino out of chicken and fish, but many people have memories of eating a properly cured and prepared pork tocino.

The pickles are made out of shredded unripe papaya mixed with carrots and what-not, and called "atchara". I'm not a fan, though, so I left the portion on my plate.

And the verdict? *Sigh.* First disappointment at Amici/Cara Mia, I guess, and most of that centered on the meat. The tocino was too sweet and had too much fat - I had to discard two or three large pieces. I quite enjoy a bite of forbidden fat every now and then, but that serving just had too much for it to be healthy.

Also, the meat seemed slightly underdone - it was a little tough to the bite and too pale, as though the pan were still cold when it was chucked in.

I also wish they'd fried the egg better: either cooked it for just five more seconds or turned the heat up one notch. There was still some raw white floating above the very runny yolk. In theory, that would have been dangerous to eat. No one wants to eat out, then come down with salmonella poisoning. Maybe I should have told them to scramble the egg instead of just cooking it over VERY easy....

Having had many stellar meals at Amici/Cara Mia, this first disappointment really stings. I'd thought they'd already had enough time to settle in for breakfast operations. Maybe they need some more prep time early in the morning? I have no idea how to remedy tocino cures and pan/stove temperatures.

I'll give them another chance soon - I'm nothing if not doggedly optimistic when it comes to food....

Meeting the Kindly Ones in Atlantica Online

Hey! How is everyone? My apologies for the brief hiatus. I did go and take a quick vacation over the holiday weekend - I needed to rest, recharge, and ready myself for the thrill and the stress of writing a novel for the first time.

Today, having fulfilled my daily word quota for NaNoWriMo by lunchtime, I've been leveling my axe main character in Atlantica Online. The previous blog post already mentioned that the game is celebrating its first anniversary since going commercial. All sorts of cool things have been going on since but I really, really like the current 200% EXP bonus imposed on all servers.

[Oh, and as of this morning, Titan server and the Grand Championships are back online. Hopefully they aren't glitching up any more.]

Today I completed all of the main storyline quests surrounding the world tree, Yggdrasil. The monsters hew rather closely to the Norse mythologies. You fight trolls and gnomes and Valkyries, and a few other monsters needed for mercenary recruitment, such as wolves and seals (seals?).

Anyway, if you're following the main game storyline you'll eventually be sent off to battle the three Norns in succession. The WHAT now? Oh, that would be Urd (the Past / the Crone), Verdandi (the Present / the Mother), and Skuld (the Future / the Maiden). In short, the Kindly Ones personified.

They're plenty tough if you're battling them at the minimum level of roughly 96 or so - unless, of course, you're smart and deploy some tactics against them. Have a title that gives you attack and defense boosts in effect; you'll have just enough time to finish all three within the standard 60-minute time limit for a title. Use good scrolls to kill their minions more quickly; in my case, I used Meteor Strike and Judgement scrolls.

All three have rather massive AoE spells so be ready for them. Have proper armor and weapons.

Spellcaster Urd is the first of the three that you need to fight.

Archer Verdandi comes next.

And spear-user Skuld rounds out the trio.

Having finished out the Yggdrasil main storyline, I think I'll wait a few levels before returning to tackle the Lady Knight recruitment quests. I've already got an LK anyway. Great investment, the LK - it's really easy to see why so many builds include her.

Next up, the trials and travails of the Constantinople Battlefield. *sigh* Guess I'll park my girl in Istanbul and see about the storyline quests. (And yes, I'll save doing the Janissary recruitment quest for when I'm over the Level 100 hump.)