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1. My icon states my frame of mind at this point in time perfectly. There are just one too many Joffrey's in this world that require slapping.
2. So Time Warner has decided to pull CBS stations in major areas like New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Detroit. This includes CBS and Showtime in NY, CW in other markets.
( Read more... )
3. Four places that you should never use your cell/smart phone, that is if you want to continue to live.
* On the steps, either standing or walking down them - of the subway, train station, or any public transportation area. If you do this, you deserve to be trampled to death. Actually you shouldn't do it on any steps, you ding-bat.
* While driving your car or bicycle (yes, I've seen it, bizarre, I know and in NYC no less) - if you text or talk on your cell/smart phone while driving any vehicle? You deserve to be demolished by an on-coming truck and hopefully have your idiotic genes eradicated from the gene pool
* crossing a busy street
* in a movie theater, regular theater, or during a performance, when doing so disrupts those around you - if you do so, you deserve to have someone grab it from you and stomp it to smithereens.
4. They've cast the film version of Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods. I'm leery of this. It looks like changes will be made, since neither Jack, his mother, nor Red Riding Hood seem to be cast by known actors.
The Daily Beast graded the singing of some of the leads. But...here's the thing about Into the Woods...it's not known for its singing. In the original only a few of the cast members had great voices, the Witch, Cinderella, the Wolf, and the Princes. Red Riding Hood, Jack, his mother, the Baker and his wife...were not really singers. Okay maybe the Baker. Johanna Gleason's (the original Baker's Wife) singing style reminds me of Rex Harrison and that was what was required of her character.
So my worry is more about them changing the story to meet the needs of the name-movie stars and less about the singing. I mean it's a movie - it's like tv, you can dub bad singing. (Not that they do any longer...which is a shame, Pierce Bronson should have been dubbed for Mama Mia...that just looked painful. So, for that matter, should have Russell Crow for Les Miserables...he mumbles. I could barely make out what he sung. I honestly don't understand why they don't dub. Seriously, if you can do special effects and make dragons appear on-screen along with the sounds they make, why not dub singing voices?) OR change it in the editing room. You don't have to be able to sing in a movie. Stage yes. Movie no.
5. Making way through Captain Jack's Woman - which I have an itch to fix. It's another romance novel that I want to rewrite. The hero is too chauvinistic for words, and the sex scenes are...welll, a tad on the redundant side. Yes, there is a way to make them less redundant. It's really not that different than writing a fight scene. This writer isn't good at either. Also she clearly doesn't like to write dialogue. The characters rarely speak to each other. Annoying that. I like the plot and the characters are interesting...but the execution needs work.
This happens to me a lot reading books (happened with fanfic too for that matter) - I keep wanting to fix them. I'd make a lousy editor or beta. True story? When I first came to NY way back in 1996, I interviewed for a literary agency. It was a rainy day. The sort, in which no matter what you do you get drenched - because the rain was falling at a slant. There was no way to avoid it. Anyhow, at the interview they gave me a computer test. Now I suck at tests, always have, always will. Doesn't matter what they are on. So my view of tests is they should be summarily outlawed. Don't show anything other than whether or not you are good at taking tests - which is hardly helpful, considering to my knowledge there are no "paid" occupations that involve doing nothing but taking tests. (I could be wrong...and if I am, someone out there will tell me. Gotta love fact-checkers. They do keep one honest not to mention humble). Anyhow..assuming I'm right..giving tests, yes, taking? No. I suppose the test givers and makers need to justify their existence somehow. But I digress. The test they gave me was to "copy-edit" a piece of writing on the computer. There was a series of sentences. It was timed. I kept getting it wrong, because I kept trying to rewrite the sentences. Not edit them. Rewrite them. The monitor came by to see what I was doing and ripped me a new one - you aren't supposed to rewrite the text, she scolded, you are supposed to check it for grammar and spelling errors and edit it. Not change the writing.
"But..." I gasped, "I was just trying to make it clearer." There went my career as an editor or agent in a book publishing company or literary agency. Although the salary was only $15,000 a year, which even at that time, I couldn't live on in NYC.
6. Eh, it's time for 5 positive Things:
* It was a pretty day and fairly mild (even if I was inside during 90% of it)
* Boot may come off tomorrow (hey, hope springs eternal?)
* I can sleep late, well later than 6am at any rate...have a doctor's appt at 10:15, he wanted 9:30, I said no.
* The piece of metal wire I found in my Fresh Direct Salad...was not swallowed and no other pieces were swallowed. (I'd know by now if it was -- hey that does count as a positive thing, I was worried I'd swallowed some metal objects last night).
* Breaking Bad starts soon?
2. So Time Warner has decided to pull CBS stations in major areas like New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Detroit. This includes CBS and Showtime in NY, CW in other markets.
( Read more... )
3. Four places that you should never use your cell/smart phone, that is if you want to continue to live.
* On the steps, either standing or walking down them - of the subway, train station, or any public transportation area. If you do this, you deserve to be trampled to death. Actually you shouldn't do it on any steps, you ding-bat.
* While driving your car or bicycle (yes, I've seen it, bizarre, I know and in NYC no less) - if you text or talk on your cell/smart phone while driving any vehicle? You deserve to be demolished by an on-coming truck and hopefully have your idiotic genes eradicated from the gene pool
* crossing a busy street
* in a movie theater, regular theater, or during a performance, when doing so disrupts those around you - if you do so, you deserve to have someone grab it from you and stomp it to smithereens.
4. They've cast the film version of Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods. I'm leery of this. It looks like changes will be made, since neither Jack, his mother, nor Red Riding Hood seem to be cast by known actors.
The Daily Beast graded the singing of some of the leads. But...here's the thing about Into the Woods...it's not known for its singing. In the original only a few of the cast members had great voices, the Witch, Cinderella, the Wolf, and the Princes. Red Riding Hood, Jack, his mother, the Baker and his wife...were not really singers. Okay maybe the Baker. Johanna Gleason's (the original Baker's Wife) singing style reminds me of Rex Harrison and that was what was required of her character.
So my worry is more about them changing the story to meet the needs of the name-movie stars and less about the singing. I mean it's a movie - it's like tv, you can dub bad singing. (Not that they do any longer...which is a shame, Pierce Bronson should have been dubbed for Mama Mia...that just looked painful. So, for that matter, should have Russell Crow for Les Miserables...he mumbles. I could barely make out what he sung. I honestly don't understand why they don't dub. Seriously, if you can do special effects and make dragons appear on-screen along with the sounds they make, why not dub singing voices?) OR change it in the editing room. You don't have to be able to sing in a movie. Stage yes. Movie no.
5. Making way through Captain Jack's Woman - which I have an itch to fix. It's another romance novel that I want to rewrite. The hero is too chauvinistic for words, and the sex scenes are...welll, a tad on the redundant side. Yes, there is a way to make them less redundant. It's really not that different than writing a fight scene. This writer isn't good at either. Also she clearly doesn't like to write dialogue. The characters rarely speak to each other. Annoying that. I like the plot and the characters are interesting...but the execution needs work.
This happens to me a lot reading books (happened with fanfic too for that matter) - I keep wanting to fix them. I'd make a lousy editor or beta. True story? When I first came to NY way back in 1996, I interviewed for a literary agency. It was a rainy day. The sort, in which no matter what you do you get drenched - because the rain was falling at a slant. There was no way to avoid it. Anyhow, at the interview they gave me a computer test. Now I suck at tests, always have, always will. Doesn't matter what they are on. So my view of tests is they should be summarily outlawed. Don't show anything other than whether or not you are good at taking tests - which is hardly helpful, considering to my knowledge there are no "paid" occupations that involve doing nothing but taking tests. (I could be wrong...and if I am, someone out there will tell me. Gotta love fact-checkers. They do keep one honest not to mention humble). Anyhow..assuming I'm right..giving tests, yes, taking? No. I suppose the test givers and makers need to justify their existence somehow. But I digress. The test they gave me was to "copy-edit" a piece of writing on the computer. There was a series of sentences. It was timed. I kept getting it wrong, because I kept trying to rewrite the sentences. Not edit them. Rewrite them. The monitor came by to see what I was doing and ripped me a new one - you aren't supposed to rewrite the text, she scolded, you are supposed to check it for grammar and spelling errors and edit it. Not change the writing.
"But..." I gasped, "I was just trying to make it clearer." There went my career as an editor or agent in a book publishing company or literary agency. Although the salary was only $15,000 a year, which even at that time, I couldn't live on in NYC.
6. Eh, it's time for 5 positive Things:
* It was a pretty day and fairly mild (even if I was inside during 90% of it)
* Boot may come off tomorrow (hey, hope springs eternal?)
* I can sleep late, well later than 6am at any rate...have a doctor's appt at 10:15, he wanted 9:30, I said no.
* The piece of metal wire I found in my Fresh Direct Salad...was not swallowed and no other pieces were swallowed. (I'd know by now if it was -- hey that does count as a positive thing, I was worried I'd swallowed some metal objects last night).
* Breaking Bad starts soon?
