Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Uh-oh, no thanks to Lifehack, I have learnt about another interesting online book cataloging website called aNobii. Seeing as I’m going to hit my 200-book limit on LibraryThing, I thought I might sign up.

Not that I need distractions or any reasons to be using the internet more! I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing lately, and just finished a five-week poetry writing workshop this week. We were allowed to give our tutor two poems for feedback and comments etc. and I got mine back, one of which had the comment that I should be sending it out for publication! That was quite nice news, especially as that was one that I wrote whilst I was in the fabled place of convalescence.
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Yes, I finished Professor Solomon’s Japan In a Nutshell, a small book on the customs and culture of Japan. It was a wonderful read - light, informative, entertaining but I best not give away too much seeing as I’ll have to write a review for it for Blogcritics. It has chapters on legends and religious customs of Japan, etiquette like bowing and how to behave at a tea ceremony, recommended sight-seeing spots, and pop culture phenomena such as Godzilla (or Gojira as he is called in his native land). I’m a bit perplexed as to why it didn’t have anything about romaji (the Japanese language rendered in the Western alphabet) as there are a lot of Japanese terms in the book but one might not know how to pronounce them. I was just lucky I have some basic knowledge of the language.
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The first casualty of Spring Reading Challenge is…

*drumroll*

…a graphic novel called Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships by Eric Shanower. You can take a look at it here.

Again, another edit to show it in its glory thanks to the discovery of aNobii - here’s the cover.

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I finally finished writing a review for Blogcritics. It’ll be my first one since my vacation in the fabled ‘place of convalescence’ (you see how much more eloquent that is than ‘loony bin’??? You gotta love the euphemisms, they have their place).

Thanks to my Bloglines subscription to Lifehack, I came across some very interesting posts, related to writing, and more broadly, productivity. The first one is actual writing advice from George Orwell. They are excellent tips, and naturally being the hack I am, I’ve broken all those rules. Idiot me.
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You will now notice that Grace Notes has its own favicon!

What is a favicon? Check beloved Wikipedia for their entry. I owe this favicon and the one on Snarkattack proper to the work of a lovely lady who has her own blog, Singular Scene, which I have a link to.

The now infamous Nerd of My Dreams (NMD) was supposed to have designed one for me but sadly, he forgot and he has still to repair my awesome death metal tee which I’m sadly probably too much of a fattie to fit into, sob sob.

So yes, I’m quite excited about finally having favicons for both my blogs. Silly of me perhaps, but eh, they’re cute and I’m allowed. It did take a little bit of tweaking by my friend Rob to get them to appear. Thanks for the magic as usual, Rob!

I got a shoebox and filled it with some of the titles I want to get my teeth stuck into for the Spring Reading Challenge (yes, it’s not spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Apparently the people that come up with this stuff forget there is no season on the blogosphere, pout pout).

It’s not quite as scary as it looks - a few of the titles I’m already in the middle of reading…
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It’s not overly impressive, just what I came up with in writers’ workshop on the topic of confidence. The reason it’s not overly impressive is that it’s not fiction but my thoughts, which aren’t overly exciting, haha. When it was my turn to read my bit out, the old birds really enjoyed it…they really dig this sort of thing.
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A friend of mine sometimes has these dhal nights at her place and they scare me a bit (past negative associations) but I decided to be brave and not neurochemically challenged and go to one I was invited to.

I got to see face-to-face the 100 dollar (American) laptop for children in developing countries. From what I gather, there is some ‘one laptop per child’ project happening, and one of my friend’s friends had one to develop software (Rob, it ran on Linux!). It even had some baby version of Wikipedia. It was thanks to Boing Boing that I originally learned of this cute little laptop thingie/plan.

I don’t know how I feel about the whole ‘one laptop per child’ thing. I can think of other things I might want to give a kid in a developing country. In fact, I was actually discussing with my friend how when last I went to the Philippines, I saw kids in the village streets, dirt-poor, but kitted out with the latest mobile phone models. The one I had was dated compared to the things everyone else was pimping. I think I’d prefer if those kids had access to clean water all the time. I know, I know…bringing all my first-world values to the third world - but I did live there for a year so it’s not entirely foreign territory for me.

I have a pal who is heavily into fragrance. She’s pretty damn knowledgeable about it too. She recently let me piggyback on a purchase of hers and I ended up with some samples from a company called Ava Luxe which I of course wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for her fragrant expertise!
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Been a long, long time since I posted about reading (the ‘clockpunk’ post doesn’t count though I am seriously still awed by the awesomeness that is this term)…

…soooo I thought I’d post a bit about what I’ve been reading.
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A lot lately, a friend of mine overseas has been telling me about a tattoo that she’s planning on getting.

Then tonight, I was watching Miami Ink after my friend showed me a link to some of their artistry (and it really is folks, wow, the stuff they do is amazing) and it got me thinking…I wonder if I should get a tattoo?
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Oh my gosh, there is a word for my preferred genre of SF (speculative, not science, fiction - in case you’re wondering). There is a truly wonderful site called Boing Boing and granted they have a lot of weird but cool stuff.

Check this out!

You thought ’steampunk’ was tha shiznit? Well…it’s not as cool as ‘clockpunk’. Apparently, I’m a clockpunk lover. The last such novel I read was actually by Michael Moorcock and it was called Gloriana: or The Unfulfill’d Queen. That novel inspired me to track down a bunch of other Renaissance SF books (which I have a massive list of, just not to hand - you understand). I’ve been trying to track down Richard Cowper’s ‘White Bird of Kinship’ series in its entirety, though only missing the first one now. It’s an excellent example of clockpunk, I would say (hence why I’ve been bugging NMD to read it…the lazy dork! *giggles*).

I should point out that I prefer the fantasy-overlap type stuff. How naff of me but I’ve never claimed to have good taste. Expensive taste ain’t the same thing, she says winking.

As of last night, I have a new obsession. Thanks to the wonderful present Ashley got me, I’ve been playing this silly yet wonderful game called Hello Kitty Happy Party Pals on the Game Boy Advance.

The plot is simple - you have parties. In order to have a successful party, you have to pick up items, send out invitations and then pick up items to help your party be a success. You also get to make cakes and feed people so they stay happy. My mood has been pretty low lately and such silliness has been very welcome in keeping it up.
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Oh my gosh, can you spell spoilt?! I got a package in the mail this morning, just before my poetry workshop in the city began.
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I’m subscribed to three different word-of-the-day list thingies and here are some words I thought people might find interesting. They sure are unusual! You might learn something cool too!

omphaloskepsis (om-fuh-lo-SKEP-sis) noun - contemplation of one’s navel.

incunabulum (in-kyoo-NAB-yuh-luhm) noun - a book printed during the infancy of printing, especially one produced before 1501.

flibbertigibbet: a silly, flighty, or excessively talkative person

inkhorn: affectedly or ostentatiously learned

Argus-eyed: extremely observant; watchful

pule: to whimper; to whine

sawbuck \SAW-buck\ noun - *1 slang : a 10-dollar bill; 2 : sawhorse; especially : one with X-shaped ends

virga (VUHR-guh) noun - rain or snow that evaporates before hitting the ground

misology (mi-SOL-uh-jee) noun - hatred of logic or reason

favonian: pertaining to the west wind; soft; mild; gentle

Ugh, my birthday is coming soon, and while I’m not super-depressed about it like I was last year, I’m not really all that happy about the idea. So I thought I might make a wishlist of things I might like to get for my birthday, for my own reference too.
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Pretty straightforward, as the title suggests. I wrote from the point of view of my feet in about half an hour before class this morning. Again, the usual slight editing applies. Oh and it’s absolutely autobiographical, hahaha!

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