Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Over-Commercialised, Pseudo-Romantic Fertility Celebration Day

Bah humbug.

I get stuck with St. Valentine's Day?? Me?? The least romantic person in existence. The least romantic person it's even possible to imagine might exist. You expect schmaltz from me?? Oh boy.

Romantic?? Well, I suppose it should be. The whole sending-a-card-anonymously-to-someone-you-fancy thing could be. Except that it isn't like that now, about lovers or people you would like as a lover, it's got to the stage where people send their parents, siblings, or children Valentine cards. So not the right kind of love. Or kids in infant school (5 to 7 years old) being made to send cards to other kids in infant school. Which is ridiculous when you think about it.

But then - it's just a de-paganised version of Lupercalia - the Roman fertility festival. Nothing romantic about running through the street being walloped with a blood-soaked goat skin is there??

Did I send cards?? Not bloody likely. Did I get cards?? Unfortunately yes. Waste of bloody money, sending romantic cards to me.

And all those over-priced chocolates - and triple-the-usual-price roses... Bah humbug.

So what next...how about some links - recommended sites in my fandom - the Xenaverse:-

The original Xena the Conqueror fanfiction link site - created and maintained over many, many years (and the basis for the imitations) - The Annals of the Conqueror.

The original Xena-Uber & Mel/Janice links site - Ultimate Uber List

The original Xena (and Herc) pairing archive (want Joxer/Ares?? Gab/Callisto?? Xena/Jett?? it's here) - Asheras Archive

Want Xenaverse reviews?? Oldies but goodies - Lunacy and Blurb

And now I've an urge to go read some good Xena fic... see you tomorrow folks - have a good V-Day (in spite of me *g*).

Ze

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Monday, February 13, 2012

Ze, the schmaltzy Valentine's Day post is yours!

Plenty to read on Valentine's Day Eve....

Tamara

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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Grammy Night

We are testing out our cheap antenna tonight to watch the Grammy's. I want to see Adele clean up. Unfortunately Whitney's death yesterday puts in a sad spot for the telecast, may she Rest in Peace.

Enjoy the updates on this day 2/12/12.

Peace, Health and Happiness.

Elisa

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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Nothin' Much

We had a lazy day here at the Hoelscher-Hodge household. Next Friday my mom arrives and we're on Mid-Winter break for a week. I did manage to get a whole lot of laundry done. E consolidated our wood and chopped some more kindling. Most of the day though we relaxed. The kids seemed okay with it as well.

Tomorrow haircuts and getting ready for the work/school week ahead. Enjoy the updates.

Tamara

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Friday, February 10, 2012

Ramble...

I am lucky enough have a ramble this evening. Thanks to Rio!
I ramble a lot. I ramble when I'm trying to tell a joke or when I'm trying to explain something that just happened.

When Elisa offered me the opportunity to ramble here, I thought, "now there's something I can do". So here goes.

I've been working on a couple of sites, The Conqueror's Library and The Xena Library. At The Conqueror's Library you'll find links, story descriptions, reviews, artwork, covers and anything else we could find for every Conqueror story we could find. At the Xena Library, we've got a good start on linking to stories of genres from across the Xenaverse: Classic, Uber, Post-FIN, Mel & Janice, etc. Looking for stories with Amazons? We've got a page for that. Think Gabrielle and Ares have great chemistry? We've got the stories for you. Looking for stories about Xena and Gabrielle as nothing more than best friends? Well, I haven't quite got to that page yet, but it is in the works. The Libraries are really all about making it as easy as possible to find the Xena stories you want to read. I hope you'll stop by and check us out. And, let me know if you've got any questions, comments or suggestions.

Thanks,

Rio

Thanks again for rambling Rio, come on by anytime! And to all you folks, check 'em out and let them know what you think. Enjoy the updates.

Peace, Health and Happiness.

Elisa

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Thursday, February 09, 2012

Quiet

I'll let you get to reading....

Tamara

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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Drive Takes a Dive

OK... let's see if I can send tonight's update out without a glaringly obvious typo which I totally fail to see until it's too late and it's wound up in my inbox.

Next - apologies if you've sent me an email recently (chiefly in the fortnight up until last Saturday but also a slightly older one from Mel AKA Scribingbard) and I haven't replied.

Unfortunately the second-hand and rather elderly (80gig hard-drive, 256 RAM) HP PC I was using suffered a catastrophic and completely irreparable hard-drive meltdown. I use Thunderbird to read my email. The trouble with using an email client to read mail, rather than reading on the web, is that once you've downloaded it, if you haven't left a copy on the server (because you're saving space), you're stuffed. Your hard-drive crashes and takes everything with it and you've no way of reading them let alone replying. And everything you've saved for the past year - gone, never to be recovered.

In future I'll be leaving a copy on the server until I've replied. But that doesn't really help with those already lost. So - if you haven't had a reply, I'm really sorry but I can't send you one.

At least I'd backed my files up to cd. Although I can't do a lot with those cds yet, I'm currently using the (also second-hand of which I changed the hard-drive) laptop acquired a year ago. And it doesn't have a working cd drive!!

I will be buying a new pc asap. (Well, a new to me, refubished one anyway.)

So - a reminder - back up your files folks!!

Goodnight and may your God/s go with you.


Ze

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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

What the Dickens, this is heretical!!

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty's ascension to the throne. Sixty years. Whether you are a royalist, or you think the royal family (or all royal families) is an anachronistic bunch of free-loaders, or you're from one of the territories that still sort-of belong to what's left of the British Empire (and which really should cut the cord and become republics) or the rest of the world, and don't give a monkey's either way, you have to admire her stamina. Sixty years in the same job is pretty good going. Strange that England's (and it is England in this case not the UK) three longest reigning monarchs (the UK's two longest reigning) are all female. Are women just better at handling the job or queen than men are at being king??

Today is the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. The usual pontification is being done by the usual half-baked politicians. Lots of chattering about what a spur he was to social reform (erm - no - he reported the reform that was already happening - he didn't inspire it). And then the literary chattering classes shaking their heads about the way youngsters in school don't have the attention span to read his stuff these days. Got news for you chaps - kids never did like to read him, and it has nothing to do with attention spans. It's due to the fact that they're forced to read him in class. Being forced to read Jane Eyre as a kid means I still loathe that book.

Plus of course there's the fact that he's a pompous, sentimental, overblown windbag.

He was being paid by the word - and it shows. He was writing weekly instalments for magazines, and he needed to keep his readers coming back. And that shows too. He never "shows" if he can "tell". Preferably in huge info-dumps, the like of which would get any modern day editor buying red pencils (or blue, or which ever colour they prefer their strike-throughs to be) by the crate-load.

I've tried to like him. Truly I have. I re-read Christmas Carol (at Christmas), it's just about bearable if a little sickly. And I tried to read Tale of Two Cities last month, (brilliant opening paragraph, nonsensical and turgid rest of the chapter). And since I was born just yards away from where Mr. Pickwick was supposed to live I tried Pickwick Papers again last week. I managed a chapter and a half.

He's maudlin, sentimental in a sickly way. The only book of his era I can think of, off the top of my head, which is more sickly is Ellen Wood's East Lynne.

It's not the length of the books that means I (and the kids they're complaining about) can't stomach him. It's not the fact that styles have changed over time, or the bleakness of some parts of the stories. I like Sir Walter Scott. I like Wilkie Collins. And Mrs Gaskell. I love Jane Austen. I love Shakespeare. And Chaucer. And Langland. I even like Maksim Gorky, and you can't get much bleaker than that.

No, it's that he's awful. He's the Dan Brown of his era. Only with verbal diarrhoea.

I'm with Oscar Wilde on this. "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing."

Ze

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Monday, February 06, 2012

Monday Evening

Hey y'all, Nene Adams is doing fairly well but still has a long way to go for that new leg, help her out if you can. It will be greatly appreciated!

Enjoy the updates we'll ramble at you towards the end of the week...Have fun!

Peace, Health and Happiness.

Elisa

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Sunday, February 05, 2012

Help an Author in Need

Carla Capizzi gave me a little poke about Nene Adams and her need for a prosthetic leg. She needs a great deal of cash and so far hasn't raised too much. I know many of you out there have read and enjoyed Nene's stories online. If you'd like to show your appreciation in the form of cash for her new leg then head on over to Leg for Nene. Spreading the word far and wide helps too.

Tamara

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Saturday, February 04, 2012

Saturday Night

My daughter and I are headed to Whose Live Anyway in a few hours. The tickets were part of her Christmas gifts. She loves watching the DVDs we own of the tv series and I am hoping these guys live are even better. This type of impromptu comedy is usually pretty good and I am thinking these guys have it down to a science.

So enjoy the updates and I can update you all on Monday.

Peace, Health and Happiness.

Elisa

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Friday, February 03, 2012

Chick Flicks

E and I have had two movie nights in a row. That's rare for us. Last night was E's pick...Friends with Benefits. It ended up being much better than her chick flick pick of a few weeks ago (One Day). My one complaint about Friends with Benefits would have to be the preponderance of butt shots. I've now seen enough of Justin Timberlake's ass to last me a lifetime.

Tonight's movie was my kind of chick flick...Haywire. It stars Gina Carano, a mixed martial arts fighter (and former American Gladiator star). She's not going to be accused of being a great actress but she didn't stink. Where she really shined, however, was in the action sequences. She can certainly kick some ass. I'd like to see her in more action roles.

Okay. Enough babbling. On to the update.

Tamara

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Thursday, February 02, 2012

So Close

And yet, distance ahead. I live in Washington State, the one that will be passing gay marriage within the next few days. Unfortunately those who do not agree with that will be having it stalled and then put to a vote of the people. A vote on a civil right. Skip the religion argument because if that were truly the case then how do you get a federal tax break? I am sick and tired of politics and people who claim some upper hand by their religion.

Well I never figured it would be legal in my lifetime, but hey who knows I could be in for a surprise. Here's hoping.

On another note, can we all skip the pink ribbons? There are hundreds (if not more) of organizations that will happily and wisely spend your donation helping women with health care.

Enjoy the updates.

Peace, Health and Happiness.

Elisa

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Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Too Tired to Think

Sorry it's a bit later than usual tonight - I was having LiveJournal issues... if you can't get into any of the stories linked here, don't worry - LiveJournal are doing some maintenance, just try later.

Oh, that story below with chapter ?? - it's because your guess is as good as mine what chapter it is - 1?? 3?? Part 1 of story 3?? God knows. It's not exactly clearly titled. If someone, more awake than I am, can figure it out, let me know will you.

There's a distinct possibility that the website owner/unauthorised archivist I mentioned last night is a reader here - because authors I know have suddenly been approached for permission to host stories. It's usual to ask first but I suppose better late than never.

I would still recommend that, if you are a writer of fiction (fan or original) that you have posted online - even if you don't care who hosts your stories - you go and check those sites anyway. Because not only has the archivist posted stories without permission she hasn't always been careful about attaching the correct name to the story in question. This means there may be stories of yours credited to someone else. Or someone else's stories credited to you. And that might look a lot like plagiarism. And that is a hell of a reputation wrecker on the web!!

And, as it's half past midnight, I've been up since five-thirty, I'm practically falling asleep on my keyboard, and I've got to get up at five-thirty tomorrow, I am going to bed!!

Goodnight, see you next week and may your God/s go with you.

Ze

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