Drunken Owls and Other Delights

I am now a proud owner of an HP laptop purchased just a few hours ago at Best Buy down in San Bruno. While my primary list of Wants for a laptop remains pretty much the same -- good internet, Dropbox, and MS Word -- I do like that this has all the other bells and whistles that works well for me. I do especially like the fact that this one has a number pad off to the side of the keyboard -- something that's important for a writer who tends to use accented letters in their writing!  It's very similar to an Asus model I was looking at, but significantly cheaper.  As long as I can get my writing done and maybe stream some tunes, that's good enough for me!

Right now I'm just noodling around on it, seeing what I can play with and what I can do with it. But yeah, the main plan here is to use this as my editing/revision platform so I'm not hiding up back in Spare Oom all day long. (The downside to that is getting distracted by whatever A might be watching on the TV, of course...)  So far it's pretty speedy and does what it says on the tin, so I'm not complaining!

Ah, Friday...thanks for coming! It's been a mercifully short week due to a holiday and taking my birthday off, but it's been a BUSY short week here in BankLand. One coworker's laptop has decided to commit harakiri and another coworker sounds like she has the plague, so we've been a bit shortstaffed. Added to the fact that I'm reverting to work I haven't done in at least six months so I'm a bit rusty.

I'd say this week's been a bit of a wash schedule wise, but not entirely. I happened to get some serious editing/revision done on A Division of Souls and finished up Chapter 17, in which the opposing forces begin putting themselves into position for a Big Showdown later on. Now to work on Chapter 18, in which one of our heroes finds out where she stands in all of this. After that I'll have to do a bit more shuffling, pasting and editing...I've been grabbing about three or four chapters at a time, reordering and combining, and then working through the new files one at a time. This seems to work quite well, as many scenes end up getting fleshed out, and the slow, clunky and/or extraneous bits get cut out. This is similar to the way I wrote the second and third book--mapping out a few chapters ahead of time with some skeletal notes, and working on them. Not only does this make me focus more sharply on the prose and what needs work, but it also makes the process that much faster. Considering I started this revision late last year, I think I've made some serious progress in a relatively short time. It's also reminded me of what process works best for me.

I've been squeezing in poetry and photos where I can, so it's not as if I'm ignoring it. Plus I don't have too much to share photo-wise that I haven't shared already. I can of course post some of my older pictures, but I'd also like to take and post new ones too. As for the weekends--art and Walk in Silence in particular--it's been a bit of a busy month with other weekend events outside the house, so I get to it when I can. Music has been going well, as I've been gravitating to my guitar collection quite a bit lately. Just need to make sure I play with the Wacom and get some WiS work done too. I also need to update my WordPress site again. I'm a bit behind in my 'Blogging the Beatles' series, and there are a few other posts I have burbling in the back of my brain that I'd like to post as well.

Also, now that I have a replacement laptop, I can sit out in the living room with Emm again. I haven't been the last few days, mainly due to a few writing-related things that I wanted to take care of in Spare Oom, but I do plan on getting back out into the real world again. And as I'd mentioned somewhere else, I actually do like the setup of Windows 8, as it gives me that little bit of a roadblock to keep me from drifting off into internetland--by the time I get to the main screen, my brain is saying "what are you--GET BACK TO WORK, SLACKER!" and I return dutifully. :)

So! What's on tap for the next few weeks?

--Dutch paintings at the de Young Museum this Sunday (including this famous one!)
--Peter Hook (former(?) bassist of Joy Division/New Order) talking about his new book next Thursday
--Elgar's Enigma Variations at the Symphony next Friday

...and not much else, as far as I know. I chose not to go to the SF Writer's Conference this year (I may go next year though), so February is open for the most part. I'm hoping to get a good chunk of writing work done that month as well.


Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

It's been a relatively relaxing weekend for the most part, so I can't complain. The weather's been weird the last few days, so I'm not entirely sure if/when it'll rain. However, it's been a bit on the cold side so I get to rock my wool coat I bought in Paris, so it's not a total loss. ;)

So Saturday started off with a trip over to the Marina! It wasn't exciting as it sounds, of course...this was to drop books off at the Fort Mason SF Library bookstore, and to also drop off a handful of clothing and other things at the Goodwill up the street. This in the process has greatly cleared up a lot of space in Spare Oom, which is always a good thing. Now I just need to get rid of a few boxes and also put a few things up online for sale, and the room will be even clearer. Yay clean room!

After that we did a bit of shopping and came home with another new toy--this here new laptop we picked up at Best Buy to take place of the sadly-departed Lenovo. This one's an Acer Aspire M, which I'm REALLY liking so far. I'm happily embracing the Windows 8 that came with it--as everyone's saying, there's a bit of a learning curve with it, but it's relatively easy to pick up after some playing around. I figured out rather quickly that if you use the oft-forgotten and ignored Windows and Menu buttons down at the bottom row, you can do some deft moving around. I also chose to go with a touch-screen. I don't use it as much, but it helps when I'm navigating various places. I can see how some people who've been using older Windows versions might be worried or annoyed by it, but it's not nearly as bad as everyone's making it sound. Just like any other computer, you can tweak a lot of it to fit your tastes and uses.


Yesterday I made good with my whiteboard schedule and spent some time with my new toys! I spent a good hour with the synth, which did come with a user guide, but is more of a schematic than a booklet on "nifty things you can do with this here box of knobs and buttons". But as one does with such toys, I just turned it on and started fiddling around with the settings. In the process I somehow created a Nine Inch Nails-like beat with weird noises, which was kinda cool. I'm thinking once I understand this little thing a bit better, I should be able to do more with it. I do like how it has a headphone jack so I'm not bothering Emm in the other room, but it also has a built-in speaker as well so I can use it as background if I want to, say, play my guitar along with it.

After that, I pulled out the tablet and started toying with that again. For some reason it was being very touchy and not exactly working the way I want it, but I think it's partly due to me just being so new with it. Test drawing #2 ended up being one of my made up maps I like drawing. It's not the same as doing it on paper, but I can get used to it. I think one of the things I need to get used to is the placement of the tablet. They suggest you place it so it lines up with the monitor (this way your movements will be mirrored on the screen), but I found that having it off to the side a bit worked just as well. It'll take some getting used to, but the learning curve is pretty easy. It's just a matter of getting used to it.


Today is a bit up in the air, as I'm not sure if we're actually going to do anything outside (plus there's football!). Later on in the day I'll be working on Walk in Silence and doing a bit more playing with my toys. I do need to get MS Word up and running on this laptop, so I will most likely do that today as well. So if anything, we'll head to the gym, have lunch, and then spend the rest of the day relaxing, watching games and playing with our toys. I may even get some writing done too!