Being Peta

Brain dead.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:40:12 GMT

two days and only 6 hours of broken sleep. I've been running on a coffee high for the last twelve. Time to crash, though hopefully not burn.

No nanowrimo-ing for me for day 10. My first day where I haven't been able to produce anything. Ah well. I'll make up for it over the next three days. I have a comfortable buffer zone in place with my word count so I'll just wear it. For those reading the embarrassing ramble I loosely give the term novel that I am currently uploading on a secret account somewhere in the Youyangs guarded by rabid murlocs... I will update tomorrow. I've actually got 3 more chapters written out so I'll post up the third chapter tomorrow, hideous abuse of grammer and punctuation and all.

Also I'll post pics of my latest aquisition that arrived in the post this week and reveal my terrible secret in the bargain... okay, one of my terrible secrets.

First week of nanowrimo.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:52:45 GMT

Okay....

With the a time management schedual in place to balance my work mum responsibilities without burning out I've commenced my first nanowrimo at the start of the month. I've been absent from the web ways for quite some time trying to organise RL to free up this month as much as humanly possible for the tast. All emails will be answered eventually I promise. (Sorry for being such a rotten snob.)

With the first week drawing to a close I'm pretty pleased with my literary effort. Over 23,000 words logged so far. On the other hand, as I'm working off a synopsis, I can already forsee a huge run over of words before this story is finished. Which isn't such a bad think except that it means more time will be needed to complete it.

Story wise, I'm lovin' getting to play in an (almost) new sand pit. This story is based in the Terinu universe but set a centuary into the future and so involves a whole new cast. I've enjoyed learning about these new characters and seeing how they handle the stauff I'm throwing at them. Also getting to write a purely word based story of a decent length has been good excercise for my muse.

In keeping with the need to focus on my novel I'm limiting my own line time to almost nothing... it's too big a distraction... until I've atleast hit the 50k mark.

On the other hand, after a prod from kiki, I've decided to go ahead and post this evolving story as I write it to anyone else interested. I'm opening up another livejournal account as it's the most brain dead way I can think of to do it. This journal will only be made available by invitation only as I don't want it available to the general publ;ic just yet. It's going to be raw and choc full of ambiguities, creative use of grammer and spelling errors that would make an eight year old laugh.

Astroboy review. No spoilers as far as to the actual story.

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:07:11 GMT

Just to clarify in my last post... i did enjoy Astroboy last night. I've seen all three of the Japanese produced cartoon series including the original black and whites produced by Tezuka himself. Plus I have some of the reprinted Osuma Tezuka Astroboy comics and the redrawn series by Akira Himekawa. Astroboy was my single biggest early influence when it came to making space opera Sci Fi my genre of choice.

But long time fans will definately be disappointed if they're expecting any kind of adherence to the original story line or the dark, emotive mood Osuma wrote the series in. THIS big screen version is targeted squarely at kids. It is thoroughly westernised and many tragic elements lightened up. And there is massive inconsistences with the original story created by Tezuka. (e.g. Metro City floating in the sky instead of Tokoyo.)

The characters are well 'drawn' with a decent attempt to keep to the style of the original comic... e.g. big noses on Tenma and Elefun and those pointy 'horns' on Astro's head which would have been a nightmare to place for different facial angels in 3D. (Love the explanation for those on the human boy Toby's head... 'hair gel'.... not a style young Japanese boys used in the 60's I think. lol.) I believe that originally the producers wanted to make Astro look older... more of a teenager, I'm so glad they didn't. The action scenes are well paced and are exciting without leaving you feeling dazed. The film does suffer from some glaring inconsistences e.g. the trashed Earth surface below metro city isn't exactly that trashed except for its robot scrap heaps: there are lush green growing areas and a thriving working city.

My other beef is the voice for Dr Tenma. Nicholas Cage is BADLY cast. His voice sounds half asleep and does not suit this character at all.

I'd like to discuss some aspects of the story line but I won't for now, given that many who read my posts are in the U.S. where the film is yet to be released.

It is a great movie for kids and adults (like me :) ) who enjoy watching animation. I go to the movies to have fun, not to be reminded about how awful our species really is to each other. My kids loved it. I had a good time. That's all that counts.

Astroboy the Movie

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:05:19 GMT

Just come back from seeing Astroboy.

I loved it. :) I won't say anything more because i don't want to spoil it for anyone else.

It was also really nice to see a cameo of Osamu Tezuka in Astro's 'awakening' scene. Nice touch guys!

Must find an excuse to go see it again.

Chaypeta gets crafty

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:25:53 GMT

I made a birthday gift for my friend Angela. She's a dear friend who comes around almost every friday night for our weekly World of Warcraft session.

This is Minimolt, Angela's main WoW avatar. She took me about a month on and off to complete from scratch (I design all my own doll patterns individually.) She stands about 33cm tall and is double skinned (cotton sheeting underskin with doll skin sewn over the top). her face is hand painted in acrylics. her staff and jewelry are made out of butchered junk jewelry bought from a stall selling sets of this stuff at really cheep prices. I'm really hoping to get some more if the stall owner returns. I don't make many dolls, although my computer monitor has a bad octopi infestation problem which I'll show you in another post. Every so often I feel the need to make something three dimensional and this is how I go about it. I don't sell them as I need to (a) be really inspired to make on and (b) I always customize my dolls to the individual they are going to be given to. Plus my volume is pretty low. I've made five dolls in total although i do have a number of plushies that keep creeping out of my imagination and into reality. my daughter usually claims most of those though.

For those who are concerned... yes the comic continues but my muse stubbornly refuses to return to it until I get all these other things out of my system.

GEELONG PREMIERS!!!!!!!!

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:53:18 GMT

GEELONG WINS THE 2009 GRAND FINAL!!!!!!!

GO CATS!!!!!!!!!

(Off to get as silly as a parrot. be back later. :) )

Ryan's Podcast

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:56:44 GMT

My eldest son Ryan is on the puter every Friday making a podcast with Matt, a friend from school. They've been at it weekly for months now. It's a general interest podcast where they discuss wierd and unusual news stories. If you're interested the podcast is called 'Radiovideo'.

You can find it at radiovideo.uuuq.com
(No 'www'.)

Ryan joined at episode seven. There are ten so far.

Go. Download. Listen. Join the forum. :)
(Note the registration confirmation email doesn't function so you can log in automatically almost straight away.)

My nephews have just been diagnosed with...

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:49:05 GMT

I got a call from my youngest sister a little while ago. She sounded a bit strained and asked if I had time to talk. Of course.
She explained she had taken her eldest son for his child psychologist appointment... a one off related to an incident at school I won't go into. While there the psychologist asked her outright if Rhys had ever been tested for autism. My sister sat up straight away... she'd been suspecting autism for a long time though a test three years ago, conducted by a trainee mind, had not been conclussive. Well the short of it is that the psychologist tested my nephew and he proved positive for autistic traits. She puts him as having asbergers syndrome.

For my sister this was a bit of a relief as it's something she'd felt was probable all along given Rhys's behaviours. He's already getting extra assistance in school and is in an early intervention program even pre diagnosis.

It's when the psychologist asked my sister when she wanted her second son Khyl tested that blew here away. Khyl is extremely intelligent. Mind bogglingly intelligent. How many children do you know can name many of the constellations or even know what a constellation is at the age of four! Khyl also taught himself how to read and write. If you ask him what animal is that he will not only tell you it is a zebra but also what species of zebra it is. But due to his extremely poor social skills he was kept down in three year old kinder. The psychologist hasn't assessed him yet but has given my sister a preliminary diagnosis of high functioning autistic/ ?asbergers with a genius IQ.

My sister is sure what to do with his schooling. At his intelligence level kinder is nowhere near stimulating enough but the kinder teachers feel he isn't socially ready to deal with going to school next year which is what the psychologists insists should happen. My sister is getting in contact with the Autism Victoria to get more information before she decides what to do.

My sister is feeling overwhelmed but as i said to her both boys are very sweet lovable kids and there isn't any diagnosis that is going to change that.

WoW

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:17:45 GMT

Last night Vegout was running a heroic Upgarde Pinnacle on his main.
The blue proto drake dropped.

He won it.
*Hugs*

(Of course he hasn't stopped crowing about it ever since.)

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:02:09 GMT

Moving along with plotting my nanowrimo novel I suddenly realized that, though i loved what i had so far, I've only enough story for 25,000 words, unless I want to pump it full of filler fluff (eck). On the other hand i still don't know how I'm going to resolve the main crisis although I'm pretty confident I know how to build up to it. I'm going to play around with not resolving the crisis but letting it build to even worse things. (Falling back to one of my old tricks... if you get at a brick wall of creativity then think about what could happen to make things so much worse and then write that. My only worry is ending up with an apocalypse... lol.)

I'm finally starting to get to know and like my protagonist. Suxs when you've got some really interesting and fun support characters and your main is just blah. I've changed some of his personality traits and interests and he's so much better for it.

In other news I have to work out how to transfer moneys from my bank account to paypal. never done it b4 and don't know where to start. Off now to ring my banks customer service. Wish me luck.

In an emergency break glass.

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:29:09 GMT

I am off chocolate until after nanowrimo. A few pounds crept back on after my big loss last year so i want to get rid of them before Christmas... shouldn't be a problem. So chocolate is off the eatables list.

I do have an emergency snickers bar pinned to the notice board above my desk.

Just for emergencies.

Nanowrimo character design.

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:53:47 GMT

I have spent a good chunk of this evening developing characters for my nanowrimo story plan. I forgot how much fun it was starting a story from almost scratch with brand spanky new characters forming right under my fingers. Having more creative fun then I've had in a LOOOONG time! :)

Am loving Mindmap... so easy to inset stuff and juggle it all around. I'm using it to note down any old idea that pops into my head and to flesh out my characters in point form. I've spent the last hour or so moving these newly minted beings onto the character sheets on Ywriter and fleshing them out even further. I am going to finish loading these in before I start trying to order the actual story events into a comprehensive chain. I'm being very strict about keeping the cast to a manageable level. Only working on characters that are essentual to the plot.

It's early days yet, but I'm still concerned that my main protagonist feels a bit bland to me. Have to find a way to make him more interesting. My other main characters are coming along nicely though. Lots of juicy idosincrisies to play with.

I had a general idea for the basis of the story in my head for the last couple of months. It's wicked fun working on expanding it.

Just to recap, this one is set in the Terinu universe but close to century in the future.

How the kids are doing.

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:45:42 GMT

My little girl is off to her first school camp this morning. we had a smattering of real tears as it finally dawned on her that she was going to be away from home for three whole days. But that didn't last long. By the time we arrived at the school she dissapeared into a cloud of her friends with nary a goodbye.

And Ryans stoked. (My eldest son, 15.) He's just been approved to do start his VCE on Info Tech in year ten. He already does year ten Media studies, Computer science and Games Programming even though he is still in year nine. (Note to nonAussies... VCE is the final years of secondary schooling comprising of year 11 and year 12... need to do these and get high marks to get your first pick at uni courses.) His Info Tech considers him a gifted programmer. I'm not surprised... games development is his main hobby and he's teaching himself several other programming languages just for the fun of it.

And Chayton (other son) is involved in the school choir and lead vocals for his schools battle of the bands this year. This is the same kid who tops the goal count at Soccer and organised his own vigilante group 'The Tinies' to stamp out bullying back in grade 1. Go figure. lol

Nanowrimo.. story writing software fun!!!

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:11:25 GMT

My trolling the net has lead me to rwo pieces of interesting software which I'm going to trial to help me build the stories.

One is called 'Ywriter' which is a way to break down the story into it's charcater, plot, chapter, scene components. It's got lots of versatility and an intelligent organisational system. Google it, it's a tiny download and easy to install, and then jump onto Youtube for a tutorial. that's all i did to get started with it. It also seems to have a very comprehensive built in set of instructions.. Going to give it a thourough test run tomorrow with a dummy project after I've done the house cleaning. I'll let you know how it went.

The second which I've been having fun with for the past hour is a program called 'Freemind', which is basically a fairly straightforward mind mapping software to explore ideas with in a fluid enviroment... it is EXACTLY what i do on paper when I'm planning a story. Once again I found the download through googling, then Youtubed to find a tutorial. (After a string of night shifts I need to see and hear and not just read the instructions to learn.) I've played around with a dummy mindmap on it and had a ball. my advice is just screw around with it for a couple of hours, it's really quite powerful.

Both of these apps are FREEWARE.

I'm going to do a dummy run of planning a short story on Freemind and then using Ywriter to expand it into a full fledged writing plan. You can use Ywriter as a word processor and write the whole thing on it, but I'll see how I go.

Nanowrimo 2009

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:06:19 GMT

I've gone and done it.

I've registered for this years Nanowrimo.

I've wanted to do a nanowrimo for the last three years, and would have done it last year if Vegout hadn't been unemployed and trying to set up his own business at the time. This year there are no excuses. Conditions are as good as they're ever going to get.

I'm going to apply for two more weeks leave for the second half od November, seeing as I was knocked back on my request for four weeks over August/September (only had two weeks of it approved.)

Right now I'm trying to plan a time table of time allotments over the month for when I have time available to work on the story and strategies for getting away from the family on weekends and evenings. I have spanky new little netbook ( a Toshiba NB200, replacing my poor little ASUS which really wasn't powerful enough in the end to handle what I needed it of it.) and i intend to carry around with me. Must make it a carry case.

Next problem: what to write. I have two possible ideas in mind. One using my Terinu cast and the other set in the same universe but in the future with a differnet character set. plenty of time to play with both. i hope to be sold on one by the time November rocks around.

I don't trust myself to be able to wing it from nothing on Nov. 1. So I'll be spending time over the next two months putting together a plot, charcaters and researching what i need so I have no excuses to procrastinate. i also intend to use Write or Die for speed to stop myself from getting stuck making perfect prose... something I'm terrrible for.

Anyone else doing Nanowrimo this year. I could do with a writing buddy.

I'm registered at the Nanowrimo site as Chaypeta, (of course :) ).

Yay

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:34:07 GMT

Back on the internet. (It's been down for a week.)
Also I only have four more weeks to go b4 my holidays. :)

Interlude: A Tez and Leeza story for Jeriendhal

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:30:27 GMT

To Royce, this one is for you per your request on my free drabble offer. I do want to write one on Tez and Maria but my musr got stuck on the Leeza Tez crossover and wouldn't let me go until I'd written it.

I figured that Tez, with his immortality, would see just about every event in history, so I let him jump forward in time to be a small part of the Terinu universe. He appears to be spended a lot of time with the vulpines based on his dress and current manner. Sorry about the crap title. my muse was all wrung out when it came time to name the thing. I'll think of a better one later.

This thing grew to over 2250 words. lol. man I love 'Write or Die', it forced me to keep forging on when my perfectionist brain wanted to stagnate on a phrase or find the perfect word. i think my work is better for it.

INTERLUDE.

Tez and Leeza .

By Peta Hewitt. 2009-07-23

Oh fragg, my head!!!

Leeza gripped her throbbing skull and rolled over away from the source of the stinging light and in the process knocked a half filled wine glass perched on the bedside table all over the antique galen period rug covering the floor.

"Good morning my lady," said an annoyingly cheerful voice nearby.

Leeza's eyes flew open. She struggled to sit up amongst the tortured bed sheets cocooning her still clothed body. A shimmery evening dress was wrapped uncomfortably tight around her legs. Nova she hated dresses, what in blazes was she doing wearing one?

Then the events of the previous night started filtering back. A banquet had been held on Vulpines satellite VIP conference centre. She and other members of the crew of the Navaho were welcomed by dignitaries from Vulpine Prime. She remembered the kids, Terinu and Gwen in particular, bringing her a glass of what she believed was a light red. Unbeknownst to her they had actually substituted it for a very potent Creo vintage wine. And potent in Creo terms could mean deadly in others.

‘The little buggers,’ she fumed. They had been trying to give her the slip all evening. Looks like they'd finally found a way.

"And how are you feeling this morning?"

Leeza looked up sharply. She had forgotten the voice that had greeted her. On the sofa in front of a large viewing port sat a small but incredibly handsome auburn haired human man. He was laid back, in comfortable repose, a wine glass filled with what might be some sort of fruit juice hanging carelessly from the finger tips of one hand. He was dressed in a lavish suit of the most finest and fashionable Vulpine style. His long hair curved around his shoulders. His eyes bright: too bright and piercing for this time of the morning.

Morning? Was it even morning as the space chronometer marked it?

It was then that she noticed his ears. Delicate ears mostly hidden under that thick mane of hair, just their very unhuman like points showing through. 'Oh, a moddie,' thought Leeza.

Sometimes people did that, didn't they? Get bits of themselves modified to mirror their inner fantasies.

Feeling rather foolish at her own silence, Leeza cleared her throat, which felt suspiciously like the bottom of an unkempt bird cage, and nodded a clumsy greeting at the unusual fellow sharing the room. Which... come to think of it... wasn't her room. Oops.

"Um' hello," she said intelligently. "Ah, where am I?"

"In my apartment," replied the man smoothly.

"Oh," Leeza took a good look around the room. Apart from the extremely generous size of the viewing window, showing a breathtaking panorama of the green planet slowly circling below, the room was furnished with very realistic looking period reproduction furniture... or was it reproduction? The timbers to the bed head at least looked real and not synthetic. This was one extremely expensively appointed room in any case. The man sitting across from her with the slightest hint of amusement on his face must be rather well to do. He was very pretty, for a male, and with the exotic touch of those ears... a high class 'companion' maybe. A rather scary possibility explaining her presence here crossed her mind.

She had to clear it up straight away.

"Er... what am I doing here?"

The man smiled even more amused and swirled his glass before elegantly depositing it on the foot stool in front of him. Damn, everything he did was elegant. "My name is Tez, just Tez, nothing else, but thank you for asking..."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I...."

"And you, Miss Blake, are here because I brought you here."

"Oh."

The man, Tez, reached across to the drawer of a side table next to the couch and pulled it open. He took a small vial out of it and rose to his feet. Leeza noted with some surprise his short stature. "I'm doomed to be stuck with short males" a part of her brain murmured unbidden. Tez leaned down and picked up Leeza's right hand from where it clutched the bed covers. He turned it palm up and deposited the vial in her hand.

"Here,” he smiled kindly. "A little antidote for what ails you. Creo wine can have an interested effect on humans who have not become accustomed to that particular brand of poison."

Leeza looked at the vial in her hand. It contained a small amount of purplish liquid. Her temples were beating a Scottish tattoo against her forehead. Wordlessly she popped open the vial and downed the sickly tasting liquid in one gulp.

"Thanks, I think." She said clumsily recapping the vial and handing it back.

"You're welcome," Tez replied. "You will start to feel a bit more like yourself shortly. And a fair bit hungry. I took the liberty of ordering breakfast, I hope you don't mind."

"No, no, I mean, that's fine. I don't want to be any more trouble..." Leeza shook her hands and struggled with the bed sheets in a valiant effort to untangle herself.

"No trouble at all," replied Tez smoothly. "You will do me the honour of joining me for breakfast." He gazed at her expectantly.

Leeza smiled weakly, knowing she could not both refuse and retain some semblance of dignity. "Sure, ah, yes. Thank you."

A final tug sent the bed clothes tumbling to the floor. So much for dignity. Leeza rose with all the grace of an arthritic camel, trying unsuccessfully to camouflage the sudden wave of dizziness that assailed her as the floor rather rudely decided to drop away from her feet. She reached to steady herself on the side of the bed head but her hand somehow meet and entwined with Tez's surprising strong grasp. She looked at him and he smiled back and assisted her to the small round breakfast table set with a traditional vulpine breakfast for two on the platform several steps above the bed pit. Leeza smoothed out her scrunched evening gown and attempted, if not to look graceful, well a little less like the drunken goat she was sure she resembled.

"So," she said still trying to form some sort of history on her current situation. "How exactly did I end up here Mister Tez."

"Again, just Tez."

Tez took a seat opposite her. "I think it was somewhere between one and two am ship time. I was seated in the longue trying to think of a way to escape that boorish finance minister Mister Greenfields when I spotted you near the punch fountain speaking with Mr Verity Grainfed, Vantex Industries senior accountant. Well, I did say speaking but I think he was doing most of the talking and you seemed to be using him in the same way the dear elderly use gravity belts to assist them in walking."

Leeza's mind scrolled back a few reels. Oh yes. There had been a silky speaking Middle Eastern gent with hair replaced in stripes of bright gold: a failed attempt to look trendy and disguise his fifty-ish age category. He seemed... nice... despite his bright, overly eager eyes and his developing paunch. He certainly didn't seem to notice if she was slurring. Was she slurring? She couldn't remember.

"I have had a few dealings with Mr. Grainfed. And, he's not really the sort of gent that a nice young woman who is, well, slightly under the weather should really be associating with."

Oh. Leeza bit her lip. He had seemed to be polite. Even offered to take her back to her room for a rest seeing as she was feeling a bit 'light headed' at the time.

Oh.

"So," Leeza's brain clocked forward. "You decided to 'rescue' me and take me to your rooms instead."

Tez's forehead crinkled in the slightest suggestion of a frown before smoothing over. “I was merely doing my gentlemanly duty, rescuing a lady in distress, even if she wasn't aware of it at the time."

"So that's what you do, "Leeza said. "Rescue ladies in distress."

"I try not to make a habit of it."

"I see." Leeza crossed her legs, starting to feel a little more confident now she knew some of the details. The purple antidote was kicking in, helping to blow out the last of the fog that had enshrouded her mind. "And you expect nothing in return."

Tez casually gestured to the room around. "What do you suppose I could possibly need? And," he added picking up a fork and smoothing the butter on his vulpine wheat cake, "I would never be so crass as to impose myself indelicately on a lady. Not in this incarnation in any case."

Oh, though Leeza again. She felt an inexplicable pang of disappointment. How long had it been since she last... her second year in college. Yup, that was it. Anyway she was married to her first love: faster than light engineering. No time for messing about with the opposite sex. At least that was what she kept telling herself. What the hell did you say to a guy anyway?

Across from her, elegantly using the side of his fork to cut his wheat cake into bite sized pieces, Tez looked so... so damn gorgeous. He may have been short in stature, but the vulpine finery sat on him well, accentuated his lean well muscled form. Damn. Why did he have to be so fraggin'...well... gentlemanly.

"Those wheat cakes are best while still warm." Tez nodded at Leeza's untouched plate.

Oh fragg, she was blushing. Could he see she was blushing?

“Unless your appetite desires something else?”

Oh fragg!

“No, no,” Leeza ducked her head and ripped apart a chunk of cake with her spoon (oops again) and stuffed it into her mouth. “This is just fine, delicious,” She mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“You don’t happen to have any coffee do you?” She attempted to change the subject. What she didn’t need right now was a caffeine withdrawal headache taking over from the hangover.

“There is a pot percolating on the side board,” he nodded. “It should be just about ready now. I’ll get it for you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Leeza interrupted hurriedly. “You’ve been much too kind already. I’ll get it...”

Leeza made to stand up, but being unaccustomed to wearing an evening gown at anytime, much less first thing in the morning, her left foot entangled with the skirt hemline pulling her forward off balance and straight into the lap of her benefactor. With surprising quick reflexes, Tez took her by her forearms and using her momentum, flipped her across the dangerous steps leading down from the platform and straight onto the sunken vulpine style bed. He landed astride her.

The clatter of plates and glassware signalled the end of breakfast.

“It seems you haven’t quite found your feet yet, my lady,” Tez murmured, his face inches away from hers.

Damn, he even smelled good. That just wasn’t fair.

Later, much later, Leeza would blame the last remnants of creo alcohol still bathing her brain for what happened next.

Seven years of avoidance, of backing away and clumsily extracting herself from any situation even remotely suggesting the possibility of romance. Seven years of shear damn frustration rose up in her gorge. Impulsively she grasped Tez’s shoulders and pulled him down for a hurried, messy and strangely satisfying kiss.

“Well,” Tez whispered bemused when she finally let him up for air. “That was... unexpected.”

Leeza stared up at him. Her mind stubbornly blank of anything that sounded even remotely intelligent. She watched as he very carefully lifted himself off her and laid down beside her on the bed, his head perched on one fist contemplating her curiously.

“I couldn’t help it,” blurted out Leeza when she could finally trust herself to speak. “You’re so damn... sexy!”

“Really,” Tez mocked surprise. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, well you are! And it’s not fair with you being so nice and polite about everything!” Leeza stared up at the ceiling as if searching for a hole to climb up out of and angry to find that nobody had conveniently thought to manufacture one there. Nova what was happening to her? There was definitely a kangaroo running loose in her top paddock. Yea gods it must be an entire mob!

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t want me to be so nice and polite?”

Leeza turned her head towards him intending to respond with “I didn’t mean that at all,” but only got so far as “I” before she found Tez’s lips coveting hers in a long and wickedly sensuous kiss. Her last thought before all thoughts became redundant was ‘nova this bloke can kiss!’

***

Tez watched from his viewing window as the vulpine battle cruiser Navaho pulled out of its docking clamps. He sipped from his wine glass and thought about the human woman who had boarded it a few hours before hand: a woman whom, in a random and impulsive act of kindness, he had spared a bit of pain and given a bit of pleasure.

He had acquired the ability, over the many eons of his unnaturally long life span, to scent the destiny of others. Some were born to mundane lives, doomed by fear or inopportunity, to never achieve the heights that they were capable of. And some were thrust kicking and screaming into greatness that comes with tragedy and sacrifice: an unsung greatness, but greatness nonetheless. Leeza Blake, daughter of Admiral Blake of the United Federation Forces was definitely amongst the later.

First Ten people win a free drabble/story of their characters.

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:18:34 GMT

Gacked from jeriendhal

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request a drabble-ish of any pairing/character (with a prompt) of their choosing from me.* In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level. Of course, reposting not required!

Need to brush up on my very rusty writing skills and this looks as good a method to do it as ever.

Though i warn you, my fandom knowledge base is very very limited. If you want any reasonable 'in character' stuff best stick to:

Dr Who --> (Doctors 4, 5, 9 and 10)
Farscape
Full metal Alchemist
My own characters from Terinu
Tez and Maria from the stories by Royce Day.
Torchwood (At a push... may not be very in character.)

Alternately I'm more then happy (most happy actually) to do your original characters if you give me a good description of their personailty traits and the scenario you want them in.

I'm also pretty relaxed about writing adult content as long as it doesn't involve paedophilia, gore or bodily products not normally associated with vanilla adult content.

I reserve the right to make the piece as long or as short as my muse commands me and there may be a delay before I get around to yours.

OMG.. it's another MMORPG

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:17:53 GMT

I didn't mean to honestly....
My eldest son downloaded it and i got curious. So one evening when I was feeling too tired to do much else and the quality of the tele was lower then it's usual aquatic state I set up my own account on Runes of Magic, a free, downloadable MMORGP. I logged in and went to the character generating screen. And was impressed.

It's similiar to WHoL and WOW but with some essentual differenes. For one thing there is only one race you can play... human. Although there are plans to install a second race, namely elves, in the near future. And the career choices are limited to six basic classes. Although upon reaching level ten you can select a secondary class from the list giving your character abilities from two different fields. There is a LOT of variety with the choice of faces and hair styles. Anything from a teenage boy or girl to a graggy faced, hard bitten bearded warrior. My first impression was 'pretty pretty.' Some of the face styles have a distinct anime flavour while others are fairly realistic. Skin tones are limited from alabastor to a mid range tan... bit of an oversite there :(. Hair styles are fantastic. A lot more variety then WoW AND you can have any colour you chose from a universal pallete. (Lots of green, purple, bright red and blue running around.) Though the bit I liked best was the ability to size and proportion your character. With a bit of imagination I could pretty much approximate most of my human characters from Terinu. I played with that for a while, a extremely fun time killer. Then I decided to design a character to play around with. So what the hell... I'd do a human approximation of Terinu. :)

So I generated this male character, who was short, dark dark blue hair of the right length, though not quite the right style. I chose an anime face to give in a slightly, not human look. I designated him a rogue, of course, and tapped accept. Thankfully nobody had used the name, I've found that has happened all to often in other games. And I entered the game enviroment.

First thought: Very bright graphics with these cute little foxes and a talking dog at the intro. Well i later learned that the foxes were actually wolf cubs but dammit they look like foxes! there is a very short intro which is a tutorial which gives you the basic key board commands and idea of picking up a quest... killing a monster and handing in the quest for the reward... for all the online role playing game virgins. Recommend you do it every time you generate a new toon for the reward, which is a ring, and the free use of a mount for the first 24 hours (real time, not game time.)

Then into the real game, with the bright graphics toned down a smidge and into a fairly WoW like structure of quest givers but with a confusing array of item drops from mobs. Runes of magic is called Runes of magic for a reason and your pack soon gets stuffed with heaps of different little stones with different magical attributes attatched to them. They have several purposes... namely upgrading your armour and to use in the crafting skills so save them up. Dailies are available almost straight away, usually posted on notice boards, and are rewarded with tokens that you can save up and spend on items. The base currency is gold, though, and only gold. No copper or silver here. But think of them as WoW copper because you need a ton to buy anything significant. the real money is in diamonds. But diamonds are the way that the people who run RoM make their money. I guess they have to make a profit somehow. For the most part you need to buy diamonds with real money to spend in the game. BUT.. it isn't neccessary to do that to play, at least as far as I've got. It would be nice to purchase a permanant mount though and for that you need diamonds.

Game play is pretty standard WoW fodder, but with a lot more very short very quick running from one person to the next style quest chains which is excellent for fast leveling. Instances are small and all over the place though you need to do the quests required to enter them before hand, and the standard game party is six. The story lines are fairly simple and don't feel as dark and moody as WoW, at least in the lower areas.

So I reached level 10 and obtained my second proffession. I was tempted to go Priest... the ability to heal myself during battle was very tempting. But this is Terinu so i had to go mage. Not a bad choice as it turns out. Rogue/mages are recommended as DPS divas and Terinu can certainly hand anything it's ass in a battle. lol!

Next I decided to accept a guild invite. This guild I joined, as it turned out, is an RP guild. A new game enviroment for me. I've often thought about rolling a charcter on an RP server on WoW but couldn't come at the thought of building a new character up from scratch doing the same old same old, especially as my play time is extremely limited at the moment. So here was my opportunity to try out something I'd never done before. :)

For the most part it felt like a standard leveling guild with a few top level charcters, mostly mid range, and me at the tail end of the level numbers. Guild chat was normal with all OOC inclosed in double brackets. The RP happened when guild members came together ingame, apparently usually at the Guild castle. (Yes, guilds get their own HUGE castle and you get your own house for your character which you can furnish to your taste. lol.) I decided to visit the castle to get a feel for it. And...

I loved it. Ghia help me.

Of course I toned down Teri's prickly exterior but basically stayed in character for the rest of it. I decided to keep to the story of being raised by a warlord, recently escaped to explore and learn about his recently realised magical talent. Dropped the whole Gene Mage/ Varn thing as it wouldn't fit in here and everything else that happened post his escape except that he'd been taken in for a while by a group of travellers (haven't elaborated on that yet but they will very loosely encompass his relationship with Leeza, Lance and Rufus amongst others from the series) and now is heading off on his own to make his fortune. In tune with proper role play I didn't do an info dump about his past history on the other players. Just used that inside knowledge to base his responses on. More fun to learn about someone gradually, anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised to see almost everyone Terinu spoke with had rather well fleshed out characters. There was a knight who's family had been murdered by robbers who was ousted off his farm and ended up joining the military. A dark moody character that other characters hinted might be a little insane. A petite female traveller with an accent who had problems understanding the language... played very well in character I might add. The guild leaders partner who seemed angry and distracted at rumours that another person was hitting on her husband, and that he might be cheating. And a trouble maker who happily spread those rumours, causing much angst and concern in the castle at the time Terinu was visiting.

I only meant to pop in and listen in to see what it was like and ended up spending two hours there with Terinu chatting to the other characters, getting a guided tour of the castle and surrounds, and nicking cookies from the kitchen. Now I understand why people do this. It's damn good fun. Like collaborating with a bunch of others on this one long twisty story where everyone writes the part of one character in real time. Deffinately something i could get into.

In fact i think the bits of time I allotted to playing WoW is probably going to side step into RoM for the time being. It's certainly worth a second and third look.

Night Shift Blues.

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:22:43 GMT

The thing i dislike most about working full time nights is that my circadian rythm, which was always a little off kilter since i started at Barwon Health, is now completely stuffed. My body does not know when to eat or sleep. And with only two or three nights off inbetween blocks of work I no longer get the chance to normalise it. I've taken to sleeping in late and and staying up really late (wee hours of the morn) on my days off to minimise the damage and make it easier to stay awake at work. Dislike this immensely as I normally get up before 8 am on my days off... I feel like I've missed half the day by the time I'm out of bed now. And I feel suddenly overwhelmingly tired in the middle of the afternoon and I have to down whatever I'm doing and just have a sleep. In fact I feel tired all the time... which is why production has ground to a halt on the comic. I'm simply too tired to do anything on my down time besides watch t.v. (normally only something I'd do if I'm desperately bored which I never am.), play some computer games or occassionally read. That's when I get the time for it.

I'm taking holidays at the end of August and then going back to my normal working hours. So the end of this is finally in sight.

Early morning at the ward. WARNING...Graphic medical type stuff.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:57:05 GMT

Seriously... if horrible medical proceedures turns your stomach please don't read.

It's 5:30 am and I'm taking a rare break at work. I can hear a squall of rain falling outside. It's short lived, never enough to do more then wet the ground. But still nice to listen to over the radio.

It's been a crappy night. I guess i should have expected it after how smoothly Saturday and Sunday night went. The highlight, or more acurately low light, was having to deal with a blocked urinary catheter. usually I'm really good at those but this thing was completely stuffed and had to be replaced. Problems: the lady in question is grossly, grossly over weight with a huge abdo hernia to hold up meaning even sighting a urethra a job in itself. Gross gross faecal contamination thanks to the day staff member who wasn't brave enough to risk all those skin folds after the poor woman evacuated her bowels last. The chronic hip and leg pain the patient suffers from meaning positioning her extremely large, stiff, oedematous legs in a reasonable position for the proceedure was next to impossible. And finally the lady in question is an ex registered nurse... no pressure there :P

But after dosing her up with lotsa' nice analgesia i attempted to replace her stuffed catheter. Twice actually with an hours break inbetween. It's the first time I've failed trying to place a catheter. :( I had to stop as the poor woman was just in too much pain with her legs to continue.

Then, as I'd used up all the available perscribed options for pain relief I had to chase down a Doctor to get an order for something stronger. This is mission impossible, by the way. You cannot get a Doctor here at night time except through the Melbourne based locum service. And at this time of the morning they nolonger take calls. They won't perscribe over the phone but have to come out and see the patient personally. All I wanted was a damn phone perscription for endone!!!

Eventually managed to get the patients own doctor's private number and rang her at home, waking her up. Note: Doctors are very crabby when woken at 4:30 in the morning. i don't like doing it. BUT! My first responsibility is to my patients, not catering to the medico's convenience. If I need to damn well wake one in the middle of the night you better believe i will. Anyway, finally got the order for analgesic I needed. Now to pass on this mess to day staff to deal with. Not looking for to handover. no no no.

The nice side was the patient in question was very gratious about the whole thing. Man I felt for her.

My eldest son cracks me up.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:31:05 GMT

Ryan is officially fifteen.

OMG when did that happen.

Hubby Wayne was quite chuffed with himself. He's a self taught chef and he makes the most amazing curries and Thai food etc. Last night he spent two hours cooking a curry banquet with all the trimming. Yes it was to die for (currently munching on left overs for lunch.) Wayne was very proud of himself and announced that it was all hand made, no tins used.

Ryan: " Yup... you can tell there was no tins or there would have been bits of metal floating in it."

Fragg I wish I was that quick.

The end is in sight..... and it's a good thing.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:40:50 GMT

Wayne got a job... yay!!!!

The short version... we've been in the financial hole since my partners ex-boss screwed us with sudden termination minus the termination payout (read: 12 grand ) also minus the super he should have been paying for the last three years etc. With at least five other (big) companies sueing him there is no hope of recovering our money. Wayne got together with a few other ex employers and formed their own company and have been able to pick up contracts BUT with the financial crisis contracts are downsizing or drying up. The two partners have been drawing wages from the company but with us having an alternate form of income... namely me, we haven't been pulling a full wage. Which means I'm working full time.

Full time night shift + all the OT I can get +mother duties and house cleaning = no time for Peta to play.

meaning no comic for the past umpteen months.

But Wayne starts work in July... no wage til August... but the end is in sight.

Only two more months of full time and i can drop back to part time again.

I can do two more months.

'Course I can.

Writer's Block: Doctor Who?

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:41:37 GMT

26-year-old actor Matt Smith was anointed as the eleventh Doctor Who this week. If you were in charge of casting, who would you cast as your ideal Doctor and why?

Submitted By norikoandshuya

View 501 Answers

Claudia Black :)

Because she is the only actor I feel could pull off a female Doctor and make her awesome.

Aussie Quiz

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:47:20 GMT

Waiting for my husband to get back from shopping to stock up for Christmas tomorrow (we're hosting it.) I spotted this on Jeriendhal's journal and pinched it. Just needed something vegi to distract me.

I WILL have to send you a parcel of timtams and instructions ASAP, Royce :)

1. Heard a kookaburra in person
2. Slept under the stars
3. Seen a koala ...everytime we go bush.
4. Visited Melbourne
5. Watched a summer thunderstorm
6. Worn a pair of thongs ...thats the footwear... not the other sort.
7. Been to Uluru (Ayer's Rock).
8. Visited Cape York
9. Held a snake
10. Sang along with Khe San
11. Drank VB
12. Visited Sydney.
13. Have seen a shark ...and swam with them.
14. Have used Aussie slang naturally in a conversation
15. Had an actual conversation with an indigenous Australian (aboriginal).
16. Eaten hot chips from the bag at the beach
17. Walked/climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
18. Used an outside dunny, and checked under the seat before sitting down
19. Seen Chloe in Young & Jackson's.
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus
21. Been to Sydney's Mardi Gras
22. Have gone bush-bashing.
23. Taken a sickie.
24. Been to see a game of Aussie Rules football ...watched plenty on the tele
25. Have seen wild camels
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Had a Tim Tam Slam Yummy! Try it with bundi and coke 
28. Ridden in a tram in Melbourne
29. Been at an ANZAC day Dawn Service.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Held a wombat
32. Been on a roadtrip of 800km or more
33. Seen the Great Australian Bight in person
34. Had a really bad sunburn
35. Visited an aboriginal community
36. Seen a redback spider
37. Have watched Paul Hogan
38. Seen Blue Polls in person
39. Wandered barefoot in the bush/outback
40. Eaten Vegemite
41. Thrown a boomerang
42. Seen the Kimberlies
43. Given a hitch-hiker a lift
44. Been to Perth
45. Have tried Lemon, Lime and Bitters YUM! Especially mixed with stones and lemonade.
46. Tried playing a didgeridoo
47. Seen dinosaur footprints
48. Eaten Tim Tams
49. Been to Darwin
50. Touched a kangaroo
51. Visted the Great Barrier Reef ...and scuba’d in it.
52. Listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson
53. Killed a Cane Toad
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre. .
55. Have read and own books by Australian authors
56. Visited Adelaide
57. Know the story behind "Eternity"
58. Been camping
59. Visited Brisbane
60. Been in an outback pub
61. Know what the term "Waltzing Matilda" actually means
62. Gone whale watching.
63. Listened to Slim Dusty
64. Own five or more Australian movies or TV series
65. Sang along to Down Under
66. Have stopped specifically to look at an historic marker by the side of the road.
67. Eaten a 4'n'20 pie
68. Surfed at Bondi
69. Watched the cricket on Boxing Day
70. Visited Hobart
71. Eaten kangaroo.
72. Seen a quokka
73. Visited Canberra
74. Visited rainforests
75. Used a Victa lawnmower
76. Travelled on a tram in Adelaide
78. Used a Hills hoist
79. Visited the Olgas
80. Used native Australian plants in cooking
81. Visited the snow
82. Chosen a side in Holden VS Ford ... my ten year old would rather walk then get into a Holden. He’s a one eyed FPR supporter and has the signatures of his heroes to prove it. Bedroom walls covered with posters of ‘Frosty’ (Mark Winterbottom) and his V8 Falcon.
83. Visited the desert ...snake and lizard hunting lots of times.
84. Been water skiing
85. Read The Phantom
86. Visited Parliament House
87. Gone spotlighting or pig-shooting
88. Crossed the Nullarbor
89. Avoided swimming in areas because of crocodiles
90. Listened to AC/DC.
91. Called someone a dag
92. Voted in a Federal Election
93. Have been swimming and stayed between the flags
94. Had a possum in your roof ... we’ve got one bugger living up there right now. Nothing like waking to the sound of ‘thumpity thumpity thumpity’ coming from your ceiling.
95. Visited the outback
96. Travelled over corrugated roads. Billions of times... a teeth jarring experience.
97. Hit a kangaroo while driving ...gawd the thing made a mess of my mother in law’s car.
98. Been well outside any mobile phone coverage
99. Seen an emu.
100. Have woken to the smell of bushfires