Friday, June 13, 2014

A Bit of This and That to Tide You Over Over the Weekend

The next Fandom Classic on my list is Project Sunflower, which clocks in at over 200,000 words.  Since (due to work/con last week) I just started reading it on Tuesday... yeah, I'm not close to done yet.  I'm pretty sure I can finish in time to review it on Monday, though!  In the meantime, here are a few odds and ends to see you through the next 72 hours:

1)  You've probably already seen it bandied about elsewhere, but Obs is running a contest: write a story with one or more ideas which are traditionally derided as awful.  As is my curse, I came up with an idea yesterday that I kind of liked... but which I don't think I have any chance of getting it done in time.  Oh, well; it should still be fun to see some other authors' takes on it.

2)  You know what's a good feeling?  When you take a look at your FiMFiction profile and find that you've got half a dozen new notifications... and when you go to see what they are, you find that someone has, over the course of several hours, read and favorited half of your stories.  That's happened to me a few times (and once recently, hence why I'm mentioning it here), and it always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to think that someone just blew an afternoon binging on--and enjoying!--something(s) I wrote.

3)  I watched a World Cup game on Thursday.  Well, it was on in the same room as I was in, anyway; I think I'm to stereotypically American to enjoy soccer.  And while I realize this is a minority opinion, I thought the vuvuzelas from last time around really added something.  They made the event feel more exotic and spectacle-ish, you know?  Ah well, maybe not caring about it will give me more time to write about my alicorn OC and/or finish reading this fanfic.

11 comments:

  1. "I think I'm [too] stereotypically American..." You can't be too American, Chris. It's, like, a virtue or something :p

    I was just reading about halflings before I checked here and now I'm picturing thousands of the little buggers blowing vuvuzelas. It's easier to imagine lightfeet doing that than the hairfoot, so I guess that settles the debate on which subrace I hate more

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  2. I am like most Americans in that I do not care about a sport unless we can beat the rest of the world at it. ;)

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  3. 1) Ditto here, only I kicked out my first idea when I determined it was turning into War and Peace. The second idea worked much better for a short.
    2) What's even better is to get multiple notifications on an obscure crossover fic you wrote ages ago, and realize that somebody liked it enough to tell others, who also liked it. (Yes, I wrote a Bolo/Pony story) :)
    3) I heard that some sort of football game was on, but when I tuned it in, all there was were some guys running up and down the field kicking some black and white ball. Guess I'll have to wait until fall for some real football...

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    1. 3) You know, I think that stopped being witty at around the same time as Europeans calling American football "handegg" (seriously, why do you call it football?).

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    2. Laziness. We were already playing football, then the rules changed over time to be more like rugby, but we didn't feel like changing the name. Also to piss the rest of the world off :p

      Oh, and we Americans aren't really known for our wit. That's what we keep the Brits around for

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  4. One nice thing about getting ideas from contests:

    Even if you don't make the deadline, you can still potentially get a story out of the whole thing. As for Obs's contest, I've just hit 3,000 words on my entry and figure another 1,000 or so should bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Thanks for linking to the contest's group, by the way--I always forget that FimFiction even has groups!

    As for sport, there are only two of them in my mind: sumo for individual effort and cricket for team effort. And since neither of these are ever shown on American TV, I don't hafta worry about watching them!

    Mike

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  5. The best thing about the World Cup is that, at least in Brazil, you get a half-day off to go watch the game – even in the years when we aren't hosting. Not that I care much for the match, but having more time to procrastinate is always nice.

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    1. Seriously?! Closest thing to that in America is when people, who're technically still at work, will neglect their duties to watch some football game on TV. That was back in college, though. I don't think it's as prevalent outside the campus setting

      When Season 3 was starting up, a co-worker tried to convince me to work Saturday morning so she could watch a game Sunday (when we'd normally work). Pissed me off 'cause I'd been waiting so damn long for that premiere and it turned out her game wasn't even the same time we'd be working; she just wanted to drink! I'm not in the least bit sorry she was fired

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  6. Also a good feeling: When a reader complains they intended to read "just a chapter or two" and ended up going to work/school on only 4 hours sleep.

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  7. ...Well, that explains where all the comments have been coming from for the last day. <.<

    And yes, I know that feeling, and it is a good feel. :D And you know the contest deadline was pushed to the 27th, right? I need to light a fire under my ass and keep going with my entry.

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