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Mar. 25th, 2016 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Had today off because....it's Good Friday.
Co-worker: No clue why we have tomorrow off.
Me: We're working for an Irish-Catholic Union run organization dating back to the 1800s.
Unions in NY take Thanksgiving, Columbus day, Election Day, President's Day, MLK Day, Christmas, New Years, Good Friday, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and the 4th of July off. It's a union dictated thing.
Companies that I worked for that did not have unions, only got Thanksgiving, Presidents Day, MLK, Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Memorial Day and the 4th of July. And not always President's Day or MLK.
Now if you are a professor or teacher - you get all those holidays, plus spring break, Christmas break, the summer, and half the Jewish holidays off...what you do with that time is another issue.
But you don't have classes, I know because the students get that time off. And the trains in NYC are blessedly empty of students and their teachers...during certain hours (basically my commute).
2. SIL conveyed a story to my mother about hunting a restaurant to eat dinner in NYC with her girlfriends. They went to five places before finally getting seated. The previous restaurants were nasty to them and/or ignored them in favor of hipsters - who they'd seat first. (SIL is 44 years of age.)
Okay, there are two definites in life:
* Youth is a temporary thing. You will grow old. And faster than you think.
Either that or...
* You die.
So...why?
Luckily, I've managed to avoid this problem -- mainly because I don't go out to eat at trendy places and tend to eat in Brooklyn.
3. Have discovered "Scrivener" which is a wickedly cool organizational tool and formatting program for writers of all stripes. I'm writing a sci-fi novel and this thing has space for my research notes, character notes, settings, details on space-ships, and splits the manuscript into chapters - so I can jump around and work on a section at a time without scrolling through the whole thing constantly, which results in the beginning getting edited to death.
You can even do a split-screen.
Much easier to track information, etc, than in word.
Now, I know how people like GRR Martin are doing what they've been doing for the past few years. Although I think he does it the old fashioned way...with index cards and action figures.
4. Saw the pilot of the new ABC/Shonda Rhimes television series "The Catch" starring Peter Krause (Six Feet Under/Parenthood) and Mirella Enos (The Killing). It's...okay. Interesting concept, and the casting is fairly realistic. Both characters are in their 40s. Krause looks enough like an everyman sort that I can believe he'd be a con-artist. Non-descript, doesn't stand out. Usually they hire hunks for these roles, which doesn't work -- because hello, they stand out. What you need is someone who is bland, a Matt Damon type -- which is Peter Krause. And the lead is tough but vulnerable in just the right way.
The concept could get old...but maybe not. In the first episode, he bilks her of 1.4 million, most of her client records, and disappears. He'd been her fiancee. She's an investigator/co-owner of a top-notch private investigative/security firm. The set-up is that she was busy hunting a con named Mr. X, who kept bilking her clients of millions, always one or two steps ahead of her. At the same time she's planning her wedding to Chris Hall. Then one morning, Hall asks if she would just run away with him - elope, leave everything behind, but they would have to leave now. This minute. She pauses, but, "I have to catch Mr. X. I love you, but I have to catch this guy first. Once I do that I'm all yours." He says goodbye. She changes her mind - darts back to meet him, and elope as asked, but alas, he's already gone. And has bilked her of the 1.4 million. Humiliated, she turns the tables on him and
pulls her own con, bilking his group of 5 million from their off-shore accounts. He sends her a lovely painting of two lovers as a token of his affection. Turns out that he's fallen for her.
It's sort of fun. But not really gripping. Actually, it's rare that I find anything gripping nowadays. I like it a lot better than the critics did and much better than How to Get Away With Murder - a)less violent, b) more likable characters and no annoying flashforward/flashbackwards. The cast is a bit older and diverse. We have a rather hot FBI agent by way of Interpol, who is African or sounds it.
Co-worker: No clue why we have tomorrow off.
Me: We're working for an Irish-Catholic Union run organization dating back to the 1800s.
Unions in NY take Thanksgiving, Columbus day, Election Day, President's Day, MLK Day, Christmas, New Years, Good Friday, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and the 4th of July off. It's a union dictated thing.
Companies that I worked for that did not have unions, only got Thanksgiving, Presidents Day, MLK, Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Memorial Day and the 4th of July. And not always President's Day or MLK.
Now if you are a professor or teacher - you get all those holidays, plus spring break, Christmas break, the summer, and half the Jewish holidays off...what you do with that time is another issue.
But you don't have classes, I know because the students get that time off. And the trains in NYC are blessedly empty of students and their teachers...during certain hours (basically my commute).
2. SIL conveyed a story to my mother about hunting a restaurant to eat dinner in NYC with her girlfriends. They went to five places before finally getting seated. The previous restaurants were nasty to them and/or ignored them in favor of hipsters - who they'd seat first. (SIL is 44 years of age.)
Okay, there are two definites in life:
* Youth is a temporary thing. You will grow old. And faster than you think.
Either that or...
* You die.
So...why?
Luckily, I've managed to avoid this problem -- mainly because I don't go out to eat at trendy places and tend to eat in Brooklyn.
3. Have discovered "Scrivener" which is a wickedly cool organizational tool and formatting program for writers of all stripes. I'm writing a sci-fi novel and this thing has space for my research notes, character notes, settings, details on space-ships, and splits the manuscript into chapters - so I can jump around and work on a section at a time without scrolling through the whole thing constantly, which results in the beginning getting edited to death.
You can even do a split-screen.
Much easier to track information, etc, than in word.
Now, I know how people like GRR Martin are doing what they've been doing for the past few years. Although I think he does it the old fashioned way...with index cards and action figures.
4. Saw the pilot of the new ABC/Shonda Rhimes television series "The Catch" starring Peter Krause (Six Feet Under/Parenthood) and Mirella Enos (The Killing). It's...okay. Interesting concept, and the casting is fairly realistic. Both characters are in their 40s. Krause looks enough like an everyman sort that I can believe he'd be a con-artist. Non-descript, doesn't stand out. Usually they hire hunks for these roles, which doesn't work -- because hello, they stand out. What you need is someone who is bland, a Matt Damon type -- which is Peter Krause. And the lead is tough but vulnerable in just the right way.
The concept could get old...but maybe not. In the first episode, he bilks her of 1.4 million, most of her client records, and disappears. He'd been her fiancee. She's an investigator/co-owner of a top-notch private investigative/security firm. The set-up is that she was busy hunting a con named Mr. X, who kept bilking her clients of millions, always one or two steps ahead of her. At the same time she's planning her wedding to Chris Hall. Then one morning, Hall asks if she would just run away with him - elope, leave everything behind, but they would have to leave now. This minute. She pauses, but, "I have to catch Mr. X. I love you, but I have to catch this guy first. Once I do that I'm all yours." He says goodbye. She changes her mind - darts back to meet him, and elope as asked, but alas, he's already gone. And has bilked her of the 1.4 million. Humiliated, she turns the tables on him and
pulls her own con, bilking his group of 5 million from their off-shore accounts. He sends her a lovely painting of two lovers as a token of his affection. Turns out that he's fallen for her.
It's sort of fun. But not really gripping. Actually, it's rare that I find anything gripping nowadays. I like it a lot better than the critics did and much better than How to Get Away With Murder - a)less violent, b) more likable characters and no annoying flashforward/flashbackwards. The cast is a bit older and diverse. We have a rather hot FBI agent by way of Interpol, who is African or sounds it.
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Date: 2016-03-30 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-30 11:07 pm (UTC)It certainly helps with organization - crucial to writing a sci-fi novel. (You have to keep track of the world-building, the characters and the plot. I got lost after 166 pages and a three month break.)
Also, I think it is necessary for script-writing, due to the formatting. Haven't tried writing a script in a while. Last one was with the collaborative theater project -- where I collaborated on a script -- we did it via Google Docs and Drop-Box.
Which are nifty collaborative writing tools.