Previously on The Other Side....the first three episodes and the second lot of quotes.
At Omnicron, Addie has an idea...
Addie: I think we need to get the word out start an advertising campaign, maybe get a TV spot.
Evil plant Squire: Pop ups on the websites.
The Depps are concerned over the disappearance of Sam.
Sam's mother Sandra: Couldn't you ask your friend at the Embassy to look for him?
Sam's dad John: I don't have any friends at the Embassy.
Sam, at the Embassy, being lectured at length by Isaac.
Sam: Did you want me to talk at all or are you happy just continuing to talk to yourself?
Isaac: Well, I do prefer to provide both sides of the conversation because at least I know I'll get an intelligent answer.
Sam: Oh I'm sorry, you asked me before if I knew anything about the Embassy bombing and I thought that meant you wanted information. But I can see you want to go on talking so go ahead.
During another difficult talk between Addie and Delores, a phone rings.
Delores: Hello?
Squire: Table destroyed! Requisitions! Form P27!
After the commercial has been filmed for Omnicron...
Black Knight: Now that I have seen you in front of the camera, I am seeing you in a new light.
Sophie: That's really shallow. I like it!
Isaac on the phone to a superior, talking about Sam: He's not interested in co-operating because he's a stubborn jackass...yes. Just like me. Sir.
Sam's father shoots at Sam (accidentally), Sam runs and hides. Isaac finds her and shares his hip flask.
Isaac: You're not driving.
Sam sneaks back into his parents' house to find evidence as seen in a dream that his/her parents were responsible for the Embassy bombing. The Other One notices him/her climbing up the trellis.
The Other One: I think I'm going to tell your parents you're here.
Sam: Who even are you?
The sky darkens and purple light glows over the house. The Other One: Looks like a prophecy storm.
Sam: Nah, it's my sister.
Addie and Squire have a fight over where to go. Addie picks up Squire to make him go with her.
Squire: Ah! Bad touching!
The roses: Two more princes on the ground
we will feast and go round and round
that's not right, I thought there was a better rhyme.
In her room Kelly is floating in mid air and glowing with purple light.
Rat: You totally barged in!
Sam: Kelly? We kinda need to talk. Have you learned nothing since we've been here?
Kelly: I've learned from the rats.
Later on...Sam: The good news is that I got her consciousness back from the rats.
Isaac Are you on drugs?
Sam: I wish I was.
Isaac: I wish I was.
Re: the death dome that Sam and family are trapped inside: I guess it would be pointless to ask why someone invented something like this?
Sam: Where's the grimoire?
Rat: In her room. Behind the My Little Pony books.
Alfredo turns up to his wedding as a rose-bush in man shape.
Vizier: I can see that your bachelor party was....eventful.
The Other One has a vision of Good King Ulfred, long deposed and deceased: I know you! You're that dead guy.
Ulfred: Yes. I am the dead guy.
At the wedding Big Magic happens and Alfredo becomes infected with Sam's gender change curse. The King is assassinated, the Vizier becomes a giant could of evil and Sam becomes an ultra-buff older and weapons trained version of himself.
The signature punch of the Garidbaldi line? Crotch punch.
Isaac: How are you doing?
Sam: I killed like, ten guys.
Isaac: Huh. We'll organise some counselling for you later.
Steve: Enrico falls to the ground and he cries and he's playing to the news cameras but there is a shred of sincerity in there.
Isaac: Could you get a change of clothes for...The Princess? Maybe something in a powder blue beret? (i.e. U.N. uniform.)
Sam: So gay.
Gerald: Sam.you've......grown.
Sam: Yes. And I'm not interested in you.
Random out of game comments of interest:
Steve: I retract my Delores.
Svend: Sticking your junk in a beehive.
Omnicron employees meet up with The Other One to save the world.
Sophie: Trolls can't lie, they aren't smart enough. Orcs are smarter, that can become Buddhists.
The Other One reminding Sam's Dad that he's seen Sam recently: Remember? There were hugs. But not for you.
Isaac: So the skewer. The pig sticker. The sword. Do you know how to use it?
Sam: Yeah.
Isaac: *wtf?*
Sam: *IDK*
The dead Fifi appears to Alfredo in a superfluous shower scene in the safety of the Earth Embassy.
Princess Ally (formally Alfredo): What can I do for you?
Fifi: Oh I don't know. Die a horrible death?
Ally: why?
Fifi: Amuse me?
Ally: there might be a problem with killing the Vizier. He might have turned into an incorporeal cloud of smoke.
Sam: How did you get into the UN?
Fifi: Are you trying to tell me you don't think the UN is a gateway to Hell?
Sam:... point.
Isaac: Sam?
Sam: How is this my fault?
Fifi takes sweet sweet demonic revenge on Enrico: Come and meet your family.
Enrico: No, no. I want to stay here for a thousand years and be the evil king.
Fifi: You can do that downstairs.
We shot the first bunch of stuff today for Conan's The Winding City web TV project. We got heaps done, literally heaps and an extra scene as well. We had no camera person so Lee did it. I taught Nick how to log shots. I held the boom for one shot. It was awesome fun.
I had some awesome down time with the other actors running lines (learning my long confusing line of evile), joking, looking through the Prado museum book that Giffy sent me and generally making new friends. It was awesome. There should be some good behind the scenes footage of three of us on the bed together. (ooh err)
I think I did pretty well in my scenes, but it's very cool and humbling to watch real professionals (or near professionals) working. The way they can just inhabit the role and make you really believe in their motivations. I have it pretty easy since Conan more or less wrote my role for me and I have no emotional motivations or romance plotlines I don't have as much to sell. The others do and from what I could see, watching the shooting, they did it.
We had an awesome crew and Nick and Nasia were very kind to let us invade their house in such a thorough way for an entire Sunday. It's a fantastic location, lots of big rooms and great flow.
So, I'm pretty tired out now. Feet sore and head sleepy. I always forget how draining filming is.
PoF: relaxation
CO: 80s movies
One of the reasons I like Jonathan Coulton's Skullcrusher Mountain so much is that there's nothing in the lyrics that fixes either the mad scientist's gender or that of the person that is being sung to. This means that I can sing it as a girl singing to a boy even though generally if you think of evil scientists with lairs on Skullcrusher Mountain as male.
Code Monkey by contrast is written autobiographically so is very explicit about Code Monkey being a guy in love with a woman.
Summer is here already in Wellington, we've had warm all week and yesterday was absolutely stunning. Looks like today will be as well. I saw a pod of dolphins in the harbour yesterday, they were swimming back and forth around the Frank Kitts park area. Really big pod of about 10, amazing stuff. Made me want to run out on my job, hire a kayak and go and join them. I didn't though.
Writing projects are springing up all over the place. It's a good thing. All leads towards the dream. I have been having 'ohnoes' this week about how it's possibly all out of reach and I should stop trying but I squish them back down again as fast as I can. Did give me a short story idea though, so that's all good.
Thoughts on redrafting: You have to do it with a set of rules in mind. Like, 'I will remove all the adverbs unless they are absolutely, positively necessary' or 'I will take out everything that I have already said before'. If you go into redrafting with a nebulous goal like 'make it better' then you can get stuck second guessing yourself. Because nothing is ever going to be perfect, and you have to step away from it at some point. If you give yourself concrete guidelines then it becomes much easier to finish.
PoF: Pjs
CO: feet went to sleep
Honourable mentions: Inspiration, pots of paint, having a tenant in our rental property again (Sing! Dance!) , Lee, meeting Sok for lunch, basking in the sunshine, my Juno shirt, the pretty sparkly Christmas tree in the middle of my apartment, short pants, milky way bars from the fridge, moving forward with my writing.
Please share the things that you are thankful for today
First thing is a wee plug for Don't be a Rodney which is for people who believe that climate change is an issue worthy of our new government to address. Basically it shows you how you can make a difference on one specific issue. Yay Morgue! You rock.
Squeeeeeee a new project arrived in the mail today! Well, the start of something anyway....which got me all enthused and excited and I wrote up something. I'm going to give it another look tomorrow and then get it posted....fun secret projects are fun. And secret.
I had a doctor's appointment so I did some more Christmas shopping on the way home and....accidentally bought myself presents too. On the up side, they were all on sale so my Ghost Busters logo tshirt and Juno 'Hamburger phone' shirt and the ridiculously short and cute starry rara skirt only cost $25 all up. Plus my Juno shirt makes me feel really cool and I think that's worth it. I did also manage a bit of Christmas shopping so I'm not all bad-no-willpower. Maybe I shall make January another buy nothing month....maybe.
I did the dishes and finished decorating my Christmas tree (still looks a little bare, need more decs!) and I have also managed some redrafting, editing the digital manuscript based on notes. I also luxuriated in the sunshine and finished another Stephen King short story. ("Home delivery" I'm still working through Nightmares and Dreamscapes, it's a fantastic collection.)
More editing til dinner time and then I'll watch some TV. I love summer, it doesn't get properly dark til after 9 now and it's warm outside.
Craft wise I've started working on a display folder for all the postcards Giffy's been sending me. It seemed sad to put them away in a box, so I'm sewing the postcards into clear file inserts. My sewing machine likes to make the plastic pucker some but it's doing the job. Problem is I have so many and they're only two to a file so the wee ringbinder I bought last Wednesday filled up already. Today I got one of those super giant lever arch binders and I'm going to use that instead. My plan is to cover the binder with some nice fabric so it looks good and then have it on the bookshelf.
PoF: Juno, but without the belly
CO: One in ten.
You have to take inspiration where you get it. If I'm fueled by anger from a busy and frustrating day at work or jealousy because my friends are succeeding, well...at least I'm fueled. They may not be pretty emotions, but they are motivating ones and I'm gonna use that.
(Seriously, so pleased for Matt and Debs and crossing fingers for both of them.)
I have been in a writing slump for sure, but I like the progress I'm making on re-drafting Kiki. I find myself thinking back to Stephen King's formula for redrafting, learned from a rejection letter in his high school days: "Second draft equals first draft minus ten percent." I think I'm getting there, although it is kind of strange to watch my word count go down it is also satisfying.
PoF: trackies
CO: tickets booked for Starlight Express in July next year!
Managed to get some Christmas shopping done yesterday. The shops weren't too packed so it wasn't too stressful. I even dared to enter the Kirk's christmas shop which was...ok, still packed. But I bought two lovely tree decorations (a beaded heart and a wee fimo sculpture of gingerbread cookies in a tin) and a sun bear fundraising toy that I really want to keep for myself but will end up gifting to a niece. I also managed to get an advent calendar with pictures instead of chocolates. They're on the third floor of Whitcoulls Lambton Quay right by the check out, but they didn't have many left.
So, feeling virtuous for making a dent and getting feedback from people on facebook I went ahead and put up my Christmas tree this morning. You know me, I love this silly season. I want to make it last as long as I can.
Yesterday I baked more afghans and a gingerbread loaf. I had to substitute a lot of treacle for golden syrup because I ran out, so it tastes a little funny. It also got a bit burned, but it's alright. Lee pronounced it "nice" against my expectations. I have some neat cookie cutters on order from a shop on Trade Me so I can get into the gingerbread cookie making for realz.
Yesterday I also made someone's day, which was nice for me.
I'm really enjoying My Bonny Light Horseman which is the newest book in the Jacky Faber/Bloody Jack series. It's the normal shape of disaster followed by disaster and Jacky getting into scrapes with handsome men. Plus I'm learning about the Napoleonic war. Well, kinda. Love it to bits.
I am almost done writing up my entry for the Kapcon Scenario Design contest, but I'm not very convinced it's a winning level entry. I think it's a good bit of fun and silliness but I think it will be outshone. Ah well, still good to enter and boost the numbers I guess.
I've had my 18 month review at work. That's quite a long time. It went well.
PoF: pjs
CO: should Softimus Prime stay on top of the Christmas tree? I think yes.
Please share your list of things you are happy for, I promise you it will make you feel a little bit better.
PoF: sore drumming arm
CO: roast lamb in oven smells goooooood
The title is a misnomer. I didn't do any writing today. Instead I met my sister, mother and little niece for a trip to the zoo. It was neat to see niece's joy at the different animals and there were heaps out and about. I got the best picture of a sunbear basically ever. Niece is also very good at roaring (lions and tigers are her favourite animals.)
After that I whizzed around various shops looking for specific items: cheap but nice quality tshirts for making into Twilight stuff to sell online, some sort of display folder for all the postcards Giffy has been sending me (ended up with a ring binder and clear files....), advent calendar with pictures and not chocolates (will have to go to LQ Whitcoulls for that one) and a paint palette. Took a while because I went to the Warehouse to see if they had any A5 scrapbooks. (They don't).
By the time I got home it was 4.30 and I had a nap. I have managed to proof read a little but then I wanted to look at my zoo photos and get some ordered from snapfish.
Plus my blog updating has been teh slack, so I felt guilty.
Our roleplaying campaign of PTA The Other Side finished last night after a two episode season finale. My character managed to get a pretty good cliff hanger, so did Steve's. I shall add quotes and summaries in a seperate blog entry. Anyway, it was epic and cool and true feelings were revealed and failed to be revealed and it was everything you want in a psuedo-comedic fantasy drama. I think. Plus it turns out that the Hellsing soundtrack fit the climax of our show perfectly.
Rock Band 2 continues to be awesome. We have unlocked Alanis Morissette "You oughta know" and downloaded a whole Foo Fighters album and I love to sing "White Wedding" and "Monkey Wrench" and the drums are good and challenging after the break I had from them and guitaring is hard, but I'm learning. Slowly.
PoF: In case of zombies
CO: It's ok not to have done more writing
I couldn't sleep in this morning so I got up to finish my book. Then I was going to write a blog entry about how I got to be a fan of comics but instead I went back to sleep and had a kick ass Hellboy inspired Batman and Robin versus Chthulu dream. It was all set in sewers and the batcave had been compromised by the weird tentacled beasties. It was all about trapping the thing because they knew they couldn't beat it.
Blogging's a bit light because Lee and I are sharing a laptop while his is broken and in Auckland being diagnosed, so of course the wireless card in my lappy crapped out and it's tethered to a short network cord now.
I finished reading The Graveyard Book which is Neil Gaiman's newest book and a kid's book. Just at first I didn't enjoy it because it was quite episodic and I was expecting it to be something else. I put it down for a few days and when I picked it up again I accepted it for what it is and really enjoyed it. It's very Neil.
I baked a cake yesterday for my mother and some more spice crisps. The spice biscuits didn't come out as tasty as last time for some reason but I'm hoping they've mellowed overnight some. I shall upload photos to tasty baking once the cake is iced and sliced. (Banana bread and gingerbread vampire photos added a couple of days ago.)
The other thing I did yesterday was give myself a break from writing. I just read and mooched and had brunch and lay about. It was really nice. Of course I kept thinking about my projects but that's all good. Sometimes you need a break.
PoF robe
CO waking up is hard to do
PoF: Gala tank
CO: hungry for dinners
I'm taking some of the stress off myself by actually finishing projects. Well, getting them closer to finished anyway.
So, I'm left with the two biggest jobs which is fine because there is much less feeling like I owe people stuff that I haven't done. I've also managed to lose three of those juggling balls I was complaining about earlier. I can manage two, so I'm feeling content. On the other hand I'm all tempted to start something new and fun and interesting and redrafting is boring and...yeah. I'm working on the attitude. I figure sitting on my balcony in the sunshine with the manuscript will help.
PoF: Spygirl International Founders Club
CO: sunshine
I made this banana bread and it is freaking awesome. I used brown sugar instead of white because I've used up all my white sugar with all the baking I've done lately, I think it made it even more delicious! It took ages to bake (I've never made 'loaf' before) but man, hot from the oven this was banana bread ecstacy.
I also managed to finish part one of a project for Star. I wrote a blog entry on Twilight for the library teen website. I'm not sure how much of it they're going to be able to use but I feel like I did a good entry. I balanced the better things about the series with the things I have major issues with. I have two possible follow up blogs, one for each main character but I don't know if they'll want them.
I got a huge packet of postcards and goodies from Giffy (and one from her beau) which was great fun to read. I love the pictures and how Giffy signs each seperate even though it's really all one letter and the way she thinks of me when choosing postcards (18th century gowns ohyes.) Much love to my Giffy and her beau.
Lucky timing resulted in our copy of Rock Band 2 being delivered while I was home for lunch reading Giffy's mail. I met the courier and brought it up and tore it open and assembled the drum kit and then....went back to work. I just couldn't think of a decent reason to call in sick for the afternoon. Heh. On getting home this evening though I got it all up and running and Lee and I have played Eye of the Tiger, Hungry Like the Wolf and a few more. We made up a new band "Random Floor Katana" using the time honoured method of 'things we can see in the lounge' and I re-created Lenore Goldfish and Bekah for the new game. Lee made Le Edge because he insists on naming his Rock Band sprites after famous guitarists but with his name incorporated. There' s a new older looking male face option so I also made Bruce Willis. Awesome sauce. The new drum kit is lovely, quieter pads, wireless and a metal bass pedal being the main awesome.
I love this Google maps Cloverfield trail.
PoF: WW
CO: TwilightRockBandWritingProcrastination
Weekends go fast when you're busy. Here's what my weekend looked like:
Friday night: get home and bake batch of cupcakes and chocolate cake.
Saturday: fail to sleep in, then get up and vote (take two stickers), sing the Making Fiends voting song, buy Batgirl tee shirt. Hang out at home briefly then go to Sweet Mother's Kitchen for delicious breakfast burrito with old friends, come home, ice chocolate cake while showing off 48 hour film to said old friends. Rush to The Winding City rehearsal and get there way late, rehearse. Lounge about in the sun with friends and talk about rehearsal, go to Jville for delicious Burger Fuel dinner, come back, eat dinner, partay. At partay, catch up with a bunch of people in between drinking summer ale and playing Rock Band. (Bliss to have a drum set that works.) Oovle homewards circa 11.15.
Sunday: Fail to sleep in, update blog with small sad political post, have shower, let Steve in to borrow stuff, say goodbye to husband, get in car. Drive to Kapiti while recognising that you are a smidge hung over and consider stopping for tasty baking in Jville, decide just to sing at top of lungs all the way instead. Collect parents, give mother birthday money to buy herself a painting, do the Kapiti Arts trail and purchase a willow basket off the Irishman who made it, several little things from an Otaki arts collective called Zambarta (where mum bought her birthday painting) and meet Tasty_fish for lunch. Lunch is pleasant but the cafe is very slow to deliver food. Pan fried fish and exotic cheese salad is so good you can't complain about the wait. Get back in car, swelter and finish off the stuff you had to see in the arts trail, find out that sister is being kept in hospital overnight for tests, see brother in law and niece. Have icecream, drive home, talk to husband, check interwebs, go to visit sister in hospital. Sister is absent. Turns out she's been let out for dinner. Got to Mexican cafe in Newtown for dinner (too much cheese) and then visit sister and she is there. Hang out with sister til visitor's hours over and then come home and watch Supernatural til bed time.
Phew.
Sister is fine, by the way and back at Mum's house today. Phew.
Steve sent me this nice little advice column about the Query query which is about query letters to publishers. Nice to add to my writing advice collection.
In other er....areas of writing advice, I got this amazing article off Zephfi called How to Write Smokin' Hot Smut which is very helpful for my current project. It's specifically written for fanfic, but the advice is actually pretty universal.
PoF: brown
CO: dumb ear
The thought of a National/ACT government makes me feel ill. At least the Greens got 8 seats I guess. I may just move to America....
Why does is make me feel sick? Well, check out the entry on No Right Turn who can always articulate politics better than I can.
And now I go up the coast and try to enjoy the Arts trail. At least I will see my sister and her family and that will genuinely be good.
Honourable mentions: things arriving in the mail, toasted sandwiches with cheese and mushroom and salami, Supernatural, live theatre, hugs from friends, photos uploaded on facebook and chocolate bars. And dreaming, always dreaming.
What are you thankful for today? Please to be sharing your list in the comments :)
PoF: cold feet
CO: Obama!
Writing hasn't been easy the last couple of days. I feel like I have too many juggling balls up in the air so I can't concentrate on any one thing. I need to get a couple of things actually finished but I have no attention span. I'm so nervous about the US election and I keep compulsively checking cnn.com to see the projected results.
That being said, I have made progress on a bunch of things today in small ways and bathed in the sun on the balcony so it's all good. I'm feeling good. I have a crazy busy weekend coming up too which I am looking forward to even though I won't have much writing time.
Two links:
Softer World is a strange photographic web comic that I learned about through Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. I've only read a couple of them but they're quite enchanting.
10 ways to avoid writing insecurity may have been written specifically for me today. I am struggling with a new genre of short story. I am incredibly insecure about it and keep stopping. Here I go to dive back in....
Beverly Hills Chthulu? Hells yes.
The other week Lee and I were sitting in Sweet Mother's kitchen rocking our pop culture hoodies. Mine was Wonder Woman natch, Lee's was his Cobra Kai one. Then we realised that there was a guy sitting at the counter wearing the Karate Kid headband! I said there'd have to be a rumble but Lee pointed out that Cobra Kai may strike hard, but they strike in packs and he was on his own. It could have been awesome.
On Sunday evening there was a fake horse on the road outside my house. It was a life size shiny black horse. It was brought there in a horse float and then a girl got on it and then hopped off again and then the whole group of people picked it up and ran across the road with the fake horse. Then I couldn't see it anymore because there are shop awnings in the way.
I had pizza from Scopa on Saturday night for the first time ever. It was freaking amazing. We had the carne and the quattro fromagi. I really liked the carne one. The cheese one, well....I couldn't help but think it was just flash cheese on toast. I like a bit more meat on my pizza to be honest with you. The carne suited me fine. Oh and we had these amazing cheesey rosemary potato pieces and they were awesome.
Meg Cabot may have the best ever Hallowe'en story pretty much ever.
PoF: WW Hoodie
CO: why do my feet be so cold?
Thanks in large part to Sass, I had some treats delivered to me at work today. I took some photos and made a new flickr set of socks.
Steve sent me some neat library themed links...America's coolest libraries, although the use of the word cool is a little jarring somehow, I very much like the Kansas carpark at the end. Very much.
Also the hauntedest libraries is all spooky and stuff. I love reading about hauntings.
Oh and I love this song by Jonathan Coulton (I know I'm late to the party here, I've been played 're: your brains' but I didn't really get him until I got to sing 'Skullcrusher Mountain' on Rock Band.) Anyway I really love this cute wee song he does called Code monkey. (Link to him performing it live.)
Short and sweet.
You found anything awesome lately? Share it in the comments :)
PoF: trackies
CO: hopefully got the drums working
Last night I didn't go to the Kiwi Pro Wrestling, I went to Circa theatre and saw The Pillowman's opening night. It's a play written by Martin McDonagh who wrote In Bruges about a writer who is being interrogated by the police about his stories, which often feature small children being horribly killed and about the deaths of three small children.
The play has a small cast, two police officers, the writer, the writer's brother and three people who personify some of the stories that are told by the writer. Although the play started off a little rough the actors soon warmed up and I became immersed. The play is incredibly dark, there is a bleakness there that the stories reinforce and the growing suspicion that you know who did kill those little kids and why is very real. The writer was played by Jamie McCaskill who 48hours followers will know from Darlene and Maori Detective, he was awesome.
The writer's stories are like fairy tales. The original Grimm ones full of blood and people behaving horribly. Those stories are going to stick with me for a while because they had the same charm as the Grimm's ones, the same dreamlike tone. The stories were told in between interrogations and conversations, woven into the overall story of the play elegantly.
There were quite a few links thematically to In Bruges, but what struck me most is the way Martin Mcdonagh can have violence and humour so skillfully woven together. Pillowman is very funny, there were moments that went from incredibly tense to hilarious in a moment. The audience was laughing so loud the actor's frequently had to wait to deliver their next lines. There was also a lot of swearing like in the movie and some similar characters as well as some of the bigger themes like death and the nature of humans.
It is very much a story about writers, which really struck a note with me given my discomfort about the story I wrote on Wednesday. It dealt with why people write and what it means to produce works and the consequences of writing such things.
Because of this I point specifically at Morgue, Steve and Seraph (both G Seraph and Seraph's Folly) and say 'go and see this play'. I would recommend it to everyone but it certainly wouldn't please everyone. A big chunk of two rows of seats of people didn't come back for the second half, for example. It is chilling and shocking and hilariously funny and I suspect it is going to haunt me for some time.
The Pillowman is playing at Circa theatre until November 8th.
PoF: Pjs and robe
CO: creative pursuits