Why Are We Not Laughing?!

Correction: Why am I not laughing? Well, I do laugh every day but I haven't done my blog funnies in a while. Does anyone miss them? Does anyone even read my blog since I got all boring and angsty??

My laptop is crying right now.

I'd do this. Would you do it? I totally would.

Suddenly I stopped eating Oreos for the rest of my life

Aw, Sweet Brown. She's talking about Oreo Spider!

Pretty much my sentiments exactly about this season. I have faith the finale will redeem itself, though. Thoughts?

BABY SLOTHS SO CUTE

I'm dying. I was like, "What is the internet's sudden obsession with sloths? Have they replaced kittehs as the new meme, I don't underst...AAAHAHAHAHA"

And finally, these total dorks cracking me up at a party at the YMCA. I especially love how they just get into it at the end when the Y employee starts dancing with them!

This time last year:

Being Your Own Reviewer? - I reviewed my books honestly, then glowingly, then hated on myself. Fun stuff! Oh, and a short Cobalt excerpt too.

Birthdays Are Relentless - And Some Music

So this last week I had a milestone birthday, which I am surprisingly okay with - probably because all year long I never told anyone I was 39. I kept saying, "I'm going to be 40!" so when the dreaded day finally arrived, I was just over it already. And it was awesome because my parents went all out with the decorations and I GOT CAKE which is a huge deal for someone who's not quite but almost given up sugar.

Take a look at the purple suckers in the cup on the table. There's a story to follow.

Okay, there were only 12 candles, but it took me FIVE TRIES to blow them all out! You don't realize the meaning of "restrictive lung disease" until you actually really try to use those weak lungs. (I am totally making an excuse for "just getting old.")

My awesome step-dad painted this beautiful picture of Anya, and I got a print with a custom-made frame.

So about the purple suckers. They were root beer-flavored. I got in trouble for chomping down on mine (I don't have any patience with hard candy), because my mom said they were supposed to make a fart noise when you lick them. Lia and Emily patiently licked theirs, waiting for a fart that my mom assumed was due to the suckers' design. When everyone started to express their disappointment that no raspberry sounds were forthcoming from their pops, my mom took out the package to try and figure out how they were supposed to work. I grabbed my phone to look up reviews, and discovered the fart wasn't in the design - it was in the ingredients! And the reviewers all gave the suckers 3 to 5 stars. -_-

I'm more than okay ripping some good ones in the comfort of my own home, but not in front of my sister and my step-dad! And I quickly found out that if I didn't walk around all clenched, I sounded like a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

That's the story of my 40th birthday party.

Now for musics. I've been obsessed with the following songs lately:

Lia's already laid claim to the beautiful Russian actor in the Woodkid video. Sorry, ladies.

Hooray for the League of S.T.E.A.M. and their awesome props! Also - there's just something about a guy in guyliner. MMM.

I am really getting into chap-hop lately, which is saying something because I hate traditional hip-hop and rap. Mr. B is one of the quintessential chap-hop blokes over in England, and I've been overplaying this song like crazy. Which is cool, because we just put up our interview with him over at Behind the Steam!

And earlier today we talked with some more lovely fellows from England - our first non-music related interview, with some filmmakers who are working on an indie steampunk webseries project. (Geek alert, one of the actresses was a former Doctor Who companion!) But they're in need of funding for the project, which can be found here. We found them all so charming and friendly that we promised to get the word out to help them make their project come true. Our interview with them is set to release on Monday.

Now here's a couple of funny pictures because I need to get them off my hard drive! :B

This time last year:

Monday Sickie - Yeah. I'm getting over another flu. I'm always sick on my birthday! And I'm appalled that a whole freaking year ago I thought I was within weeks of being done with Cobalt. That's it, I really need to get strict with a fiction schedule.

Judging a Book By Its Cover and GRRAGHBLAGRAGH

I was just complaining a few minutes ago that I've had nothing to blog about for weeks, so I decided to just make something to blog about. :B I remembered a funny thing about books that happened a little while ago.

Way back when my oldest was about 7, we were at the library and I was looking for some good "chapter books" to read to her. I picked up this one whose cover looked mildly interesting, and read the inside jacket blurb. I came really close to checking the book out, then decided it sounded cliched and dull, and I put it back. I'll tell you what book it was after the following interlude (kinda like a more entertaining way of doing that "scroll down for the spoiler thing that some posts do)...

So this is a comic that Lia and Emily came up with late one night (late night is when it gets all crazy up in here) called "The Adventures of GRRAGHBLAGRAGH." I'm unofficially the star in the comic because they kept tagging me as the star on Facebook, especially after they made three in a row and I started yelling, "DO YOUR HOMEWORK EMILY!" The comic has kind of turned into an undersea representation of our everyday lives...

The scary sea monster is apparently my mom.

Alrighty, spoiler scroll is done. Here's the book I turned down. A week or so after that library visit, the 4th book in the series had just been released and there was a piece on the news about some excitement with its fans. That got my attention. I'll forever regret not discovering it on my own before the news told me it was popular and I should probably read it.

Really??

Have you ever judged a book by its cover (not like the Harry Potter covers are really bad at all, anyway) and then later found out the book you put down was actually super awesome?

This time last year:

RIP Laptop (at least until it's resurrected) - My laptop is doing something stupid again because I dropped it. Actually, I fell asleep and kicked it off the couch onto a hardwood floor. They tend to get all butthurt when you do that.

Here's a nice angry song because things have just been ticking me off today...

When Nerds Go Out On Errands

I love playlists! Well, I could say it's themed blog playlists I love, because I don't really make book playlists and there are no organized playlists in my phone, all the music is just crammed in there.

I was thinking the other day as I was driving to the grocery store and I started to slide out of control on the icy road, while one of the following songs was playing on the iPod, that it was freaking epic. Much more than a shopping trip was occurring; the particular soundtrack playing at the time had caused us to cross over into Nerd Adventure territory. (No worries, I didn't crash, and yes I really was thinking while sliding that it was super epic, and the kids got a lesson on anti-lock brakes while we were at it.)

Anyway, I have a small list of the type of tunes in our music library that can turn the simplest of food runs into Epic Nerd Quests. I really do sit up straighter and drive differently whenever a track from Pirates of the Caribbean comes on. Suddenly my messy mom van becomes a stately pirate ship, navigating the unplowed roads of Boise with ponderous grace. Until I crash into a parking lot snow mountain. But then I just Fus Ro Dah all that dirty snow away!

Any of the following tracks make our routine errands much more fun:

On the subject of playlists and music, over at Behind the Steam we just released our Top 10 Steampunk Songs for the new year! Go check it out. Most of it is epic enough for nerd adventures!

One of the bands featured in the top 10 list is The Cog is Dead, currently my most-obsessed-over steampunk group. They're releasing their second album soon, and this is one of their catchy new songs:

Do you have any playlists that put you in an adventurous or happy mood? What about playlists for your books or general writing?

This time last year:

The Sims Saga - The kids and I will never forget these "family" stories as long as we live.

Fatty Catty, An Adorable Baby, and An Adorably Weird Husband - One of my old "funny pictures" posts!

P.S. Right now I'm seriously procrastinating on 13 law blogs and 10 landing pages...

The Difficult Post

I did say I'd write about this after it was over with. And when we were in our hotel room starving at 11:00 pm and due to a comedy of errors we still hadn't had dinner, and were stranded on the 6th floor while my parents were stuck on the casino level and none of us could use the elevator because there was a fire department issue on the 3rd floor, I was all laughter and hilarity and yelling that I couldn't wait to blog about this while my mom was on the phone with me snapping at the hotel employees in general that no, she wasn't going to go gamble while they waited until the elevators were operational again, she was here to see her family! - well, that was the night before. I had, as the great Professor Elemental says, my "fighting trousers" on, and I was ready to take evil down.

All my life I've been a super wimpy, non-confrontational doormat (which is probably why particular members of that family thought I wasn't a threat to them), so facing them in the courtroom was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. My voice shook with anger as I read my statement, but I didn't look them in the eye, or I knew I wouldn't be able to go on. I didn't cry until my 14-year-old, who had severe anxiety about the whole affair, took the stand and broke down. She pulled herself together and read her statement, and so did my 12-year-old. Proud, angry mama bear was proud and angry.

The defense was pretty weak. It seemed to me that his defense attorney, whom my district attorney had told me was the best of the best, had kind of given up. He knew he was beat from the beginning. The evil one himself was allowed to say a statement in his defense, and it was all scripted, trite excuses and halfhearted apologies. No remorse whatsoever. Accusations of "unfounded animosity" against him. Pleas for mercy, since he was a "good man with much to offer the community and his church, but he'd just made a mistake." Really, the only thing he was sorry about was getting caught. He said a couple of things that probably had his lawyer mentally facepalming, that he probably thought were valid excuses for what he did, but undoubtedly showed the judge his true character.

And so we won. The judge gave him the lengthiest sentence he could for the plea deal he'd made, and he's going to be spending a long time in maximum security. Justice for my girls, hopefully some peace for us - but instead of feeling victorious like I'd thought I would, I feel kind of beaten myself. Nobody wants to say they sent someone to prison. I mean yeah, as their mother, as soon as I found out what was going on I wanted to castrate him and strap him naked to a hill of fire ants - but who wants their life to have gone so far down this path in the first place? To be the one who brought kids into the world thinking it was a good family and they were doing the right thing, only to have everything fall apart, to know her kids have been scarred for life, and to have to pull strength out of nowhere to fight a battle in court?

Maybe it's because I know it's not even halfway over yet. I still have to protect my kids from the other one, and I won't be able to breathe a sigh of relief until all the legal stuff is behind us.

Okay, enough whining. My DA and court advocate assure me I did "everything right and then some." The DA is a firecracker, and the advocate told me she'd never seen him as angry over a case as he was with ours. Both of them did so much to reassure us - more than they'll ever know - and they'll have my gratitude forever. In fact,  I'd love to send each of them the most expensive gift basket, with lots of chocolate goodies - but a heartfelt thank-you card will have to do for now.

I love how my blogging friend Shell Flower puts a related song at the end of her blog posts, so I'll add this one (which is probably my favorite Abney Park song right now):

This time last year:

Forwarding That Plot - I miss those writers' group meetings where we'd get more gossiping done than critiquing.

On Back Shavers, Victorian Mosh Pits, and Lia - Another classic Lia rewrite!

Dressing Your Characters! (Steampunk Edition) - A steampunk fictional character fashion show. Enough said.