web-goddess

How did you decided what you wanted to do with your life? I’m weighing in on the big questions over at MetaFilter.

64=65? I was a little wigged at first til I discovered how it cheats.

Congratulations to my old college friend Hoey and his wife Brigid, who’re expecting their first child any day now! Hoey used my sock monkey tutorial to make a monkey for the nipper. He’s gonna be a cool dad.

*Dark Tower Spoiler Warning!*
So I finished Song of Susannah. She didn’t die, yet. Man, that one really sucked though. As I explained it to Snookums this morning, it’s like in the middle of The Lord of the Rings, if Sauron suddenly realized that a man named JRR Tolkien was writing his story on another plane of existence and decided to keep the good guys from winning by arranging for a van to, you know, run Tolkien over when he was out on his morning constitutional in Oxford one day. It sucks. Mostly I’m pissed off because about halfway through the book it became glaringly apparent to me how heavily the conclusion was going to draw upon actual, real world events of the past five years. Not only is this cheesy – I actually groaned when the World Trade Center made its appearance – but it just draws attention to the fact that King had no goddamn clue how this was going to end when he started it. I mean, sure, I accept that he didn’t know the exact details, but I figure that an author should have a pretty good idea when he starts out whether the good guys are going to win in the end. Now I’m just cringing. It’s just such a sad, non-Romantic ending for our beloved ka-tet. (As I said to the Snook, “This book just got so meta I think my brain’s going to fall out.”) And good grief, the whole revelation of who Susannah’s baby’s father is? I could’ve puked. Really. He had to put Mordred in the story? Mordred??? I really, really hope King can pull out a satisfying conclusion to this series because right now book 6 out of 7 has left me incredibly frustrated. I didn’t realize how attached I’d become to the characters until he left them all up to their necks in cheesy, meta, cliffhanger crap.

You know those little handwarmer things, the little bags of goo that have a metal disk in them? And you flex the disk and suddenly the clear goo starts solidifying and getting warm? Yeah, anyway, I was serving this complete psycho hosebeast of a woman today when one totally exploded in her pocket. She was like, “Quick! Quick! I need a plastic bag!” and I thought for a minute she was going to barf until she pulled her hand out completely covered in nasty white stuff. It spread all over the glass knitting counter and started hardening before my eyes. The pocket of her nice wool coat must have been completely ruined. I gave her the bag and then directed her to the bathroom. Then I had a complete Heather McNamara moment in which I praised Jesus for answering my prayers and delivering me so righteously from such a bossy, mean, stupid customer. May all who demean and harass retail assistants suffer such a fate!

Can’t talk. Completely obsessed with finishing sixth Dark Tower book. Am intensely afraid that Susannah’s going to die. Must read now.

“Kissing Dementors: Fear and Social Discipline in the Harry Potter Novels.” Very interesting essay. (Link courtesy of Troppo Armadillo.)

Oh my gosh. Robert McKee is bring his famous Screenwriting Seminar Down Under! He’s the “hack” that Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze took the piss out of in Adaptation. Too bad it’s $600… Might have been good for a laugh.

I opened the mailbox tonight to discover the Camp Creative 2005 Course List. Sweet! Right now I’m loving some of the selections in the craft category. Would it be weird if I did the “Working With Wood – Making a Chair” class? I dunno; I just have a strange urge to try my hand at some carpentry. (My father is probably laughing right now, given that he was the recipient of my lopsided 7th-grade shop class wooden toolbox.) I also like the ceramics and stone carving. Decisions, decisions! Anybody else interested in heading up to Bellingen next January? I’m sure we can all camp out at Ma and Pa Snook’s… 🙂

Woohoo! I think I just won the 30,000th visitor contest over at The Zero Boss. Finally being in an obscure time zone is an advantage!