Y'know how boxed dinners (hamburger helper etc) are always ridiculously tame? They're very underspiced, sometimes bland, definitely never enough of whatever flavor they claim to have. Even with many recipes, I have the same issue.

BUT.

PSA: Wanchai Ferry boxed dinners? NOT THE CASE. I picked up a Kung Pao Chicken box earlier this week, which I finally got around to making tonight. Was just a little light on the amount of rice provided (just shy of a cup and a half dry; I bumped it up to two cups), but a surprisingly (and happily) large sauce packet, as well as peanuts and, red chili peppers. <3

So there's a note on the box, CAUTION peppers are extremely hot, and may be difficult to eat whole.

I'm like, pssssht, Tom chows down pepperocini like most people eat potato chips. No issue there.

Also on the box, it says that if you would like it extra-hot, smush up the peppers in their package a bit, to let the seeds get loose so they'll spread through the sauce. Given my usual experience with boxed dinners, I do so, only leaving one intact so Tom can be entertained if he so chooses.

I tried a bit of the sauce just before putting it over the rice. It was a bit spicy. So I made sure Tom and I each had a glass of water to go with our dinner, when I brought it all upstairs (he was in midst of a gaming session, and I wanted to relax a bit and watch something on my iPod).

Tom took a bite.

His eyes went wide.

He flung the glass of water down his throat in one go. "Get me some bread!!!"

...he's still carefully working his way through it, almost an hour later. (Granted, he had more sauce than I did, and also I like to mix my sauce in the with rice more than he does, that helped dull it some.)

So uh, be warned. ^^;; (But also note, this stuff tasted fantaaaastic, I'm really happy with the results.)

 
I am officially ONE THOUSAND two hundred and nine words above my neccesary word quotas. I have the irresistible urge to say BOO FREAKING YAH!!!1!, but, I don't say boo-yah.

So instead, I say:

BWA.

\0/

...I've been making sure to do juuuust a tiiiny bit more than needed each day, and it adds up and it's lovely. Only apparently one of the days I just went a bit over what my total was supposed to be by that point, instead of adding it on to the previous day's total, because now that NaNo's widgets are finally up and running, I see that I was a tiny bit short of 1,667 words one day. (The other big red splotch is because their site was down for the better part of a day and I couldn't update my word count.) But not a big deal, I was ahead of schedule any which way. *dancing all over* I cannot even believe how well this is going. I'm actually getting quite terrified, that I'm going to hit several days where I'm just scraaaaaaping for words. But I've already had a few of those, and really it's just been an issue of getting into a scene and then getting bored and not knowing how to get out.

I suppose I can always kill people again, that seemed to work. >_<;

But I seriously have paaaaages and pages of ideas, some good some utterly cheesy and craptastic, of Phisto things to write. Some are as awesome as failed attempts to give themselves wings again, some are as ridiculous as pirates landing on some obscure island and finding a lil hermit of a Phisto hiding from the world. (Is it bad that I actually reallyreally kind of like the latter idea? pirates!)

I'm rather frustrated that I couldn't for the life of me get into writing Mackie, he just felt so flat and I haven't the faintest what I was doing wrong. Meanwhile Veri? is beautiful. I'm in love with writing his character and I don't know why, I didn't like him at all! He was so one-dimensional!

Holy hell do I love what NaNo creates. ^__________^

I also think I might be actually showing Luce the way I want to have him be - very mysterious and devious, even for a Phisto. No-one really knows quite what he's thinking, and I absolutely love that.

Of course, now I'm nervous as hell to actually write his pov at any point... but I did it in a short story, prior to NaNo - which I have yet to post on AnJ, but rest assured I will because I *love* it. It's a scene more than a story, the sort of lovely little pointless atmospheric thing that I adore.

Plus it's Mackie and Luce, with their dark pasts hanging low and ominous over them.

<333

...I still wonder why I love the things I do about these characters. Their appreciation of beauty, the artistry and sense of the dramatic, is I suppose the main link. And really, prettiness goes an awful long way with me. But still, their world is SO, so different from mine, and while that of course has its own appeal.. I don't know. They're such polar opposites from me, but such a part of me.

Hurrah for artistic MPD! XD

 
Also as a note on the noveling front:

I really didn't think I was going to like Veri. He's such a whiny, depressing little thing. (Also, I think he has anger issues. He's the one who narrates "What the Thunder Said".) But after having written him today... I see why Meres hangs around. It's almost endearing, really, what a petulant little child he can be. He's very needy, and it's really cute sometimes.

But don't think I'm letting myself fall too much in love - I think he's going to throw a temper tantrum tomorrow, and I have no idea what the results will be, but I do have a strong hunch I'm going to be writing/typing away and cracking up and noooooo-one will know whyyyyyy. XD

<3

 
Icelandic is such a fantastic language, it's so unique and feels so old and I adore.

Of course, it leaves me in the odd predicament of being COMPLETELY unable to pronounce the titles of some of my absolute favorite songs - i.e., pretty much anything Sigur Rós does.

I realised I had an album or two of things I'd downloaded of theirs, soundtrack projects and whatnot, that I had forgotten I had, and thus hadn't listened to. So I'm listening to the soundtrack they did for Hlemmur, which is a documentary on I don't remember what. But it's quite lovely and wonderfully atmospheric, so it works quite well for writing to.

And then I came across a track that made me stop and really pay attention, because it was so unlike anything I'd heard them do and yet so much them. Musically, melodically, it's very them, but it's using a very retro keyboard sound, and it really sounds like some gorgeous song out of a long-forgotten video game. (This is one of Melissa's favorite sorts of thing, natch.)

The title?

Þversögn

yeah. so uhm. Even convincing my mouth to pronounce a "gn" instead of the usual "ng" took a good three tries. The o I can fake (thank you Lucia fest and Swedish genes), but, dude, idek where to start with the thingie.

Wiki you are my friend, for you led me to this.

Both characters show up fairly often in my Sigur Rós stash, and while the ð I learned awhile ago (in order to pronounce the title of my usual favorite, Viðrar vel til Lofstarasa), I was thinking that was a "th" sound, but then the Þ was a "th"? But I've got it now.

I wish I had the attention span to sit myself down and learn a few more languages, I absolutely love them.

 
I think it's snowing AND hailing at the same time. I was looking out the window at the snow a few minutes ago, feeling all nice and cozy with my nice cup of chocolate coffee and a snuggly sweater. I got up to get more coffee and water my plants, and it was hailing.

Now it's snowing again.

But no surprise, I suppose - it was snowing yesterday morning (as well as raining and slushing intermittently), and all of the sudden, FLASH!!!! and everyone in the coffee shop looked around stunned, and then BOOOOOOM.

Thunder and lightening.

While it was snowing.

Wtfh is with the weather in this state.

...Tom tried to tell me the other night that we wouldn't get more than two feet of snow total this year, it's been warm so long. I said bullshit, we were doomed - the weather WILL make up for how kind it's been so late into the season. :p (I've been told the lake is five degrees warmer than usual, which means it'll take 'til, y'know, just before spring to freeze, which means lake effect snow like WHOA.)


On a note totally unrelated to my post, but totally related to what I *should* be doing, online confessionals are a fantastic place to snatch story ideas. (grouphug.us is too full of whiny little over-dramatic high-schoolers though. Which works well for some stories, but not this one.)

 
Found an article this morning on the woman who created the Happy Mac! Somuchlove.

Apparently she's now the one making the graphics for Facebook gifts! (Like the ones you pay money for.) Oddly enough that actually sort of makes me willing to buy one.

 
Wanted to hash at least a few sentences out on my lunch break today (as I ooonly got in 600 or so at Tim Hortons this morning, ha!), but I realised I'd left myself at a point where I could take the story one of two directions. My character (MACKIEEEEEE!!!!! *loves all over*) could either continue wandering around Luce's house until we found something interesting for him to do, or he could hang out and listen to people gossip awhile.

In light of the blissful levels of easy word-count it should provide, I went with the latter.

So I asked the two coworkers who were on break with me what a good topic of gossip would be.

Flyer jumped on it first - "Andrew!"
We all laughed, and he shrugged and said "Sure, you can write about me, I don't care."

After that, the churches were suggested - later in the day, I realised Flyer had it on her mind because apparently they're closing one of the local churches, consolidating in light of probably money concerns, though they haven't decided which yet and how it will be done, which is causing all sorts of local angst. Andrew, however, took the pop culture tack on it, and said "priests", the whole Catholic alter-boy scandals. I also had movie stars suggested (good, but not in a time when movies don't exist yet - stage stars, however, are so fair game), and also neighbors, particularly "neighbors who don't close the drapes". I commended the idea, but pointed out that unfortunately I don't think that would actually *bother* my characters...

After about two minutes of consideration, however, during which time both coworkers headed back to work (early, as usual - I doggedly stuck out my break though, writing; also hi legal right to rest a bit <3)... I decided to take Andrew up on his offer. He is EXACTLY the sort of gossip my dear Phistos would delight in.

And here I thought I wouldn't be able to gank things from my everyday life to use in the sordid, 1800sish world of my Phistos. BWA.


But speaking of my darling Mackie, I am so ridiculously happy with the history I created for his name. It's progression is, of course, painfully obvious, but I am absurdly pleased with the rational I worked out. Initially, his name was Mephistopheles. The "-el" suffix on any angel name, I immediately cut away, as it means "God". From there, it's an easy jump to "Mephisto", which so far, is the variant I'm using in the stories... uh, for lack of a more distant variant, so far, but it works.
Over time, the Phistos' names shift, and change, and more and more forget their original Names. Their small world of luxury gradually begins to break down, and they lose sight of each other, and forget.. kind of a lot. It is awhile into this period when Mephisto is found in Berlin by Bono. He's wandering about, a little black ball of gloom and forgetfulness (which he at first chose, but then lost more than I think he'd planned). Bono, being the well-read thing that he is, and also a rock star, pounces upon the most ridiculously glamorous demon-name he knows: Mephistopheles. Only he decides that's too cumbersome for the modern masses. This is also 1989, 1990, the dawning of the perception of the "McWorld" idealogy.

So he dubs him "MacPhisto", mostly as a joke, though he likes the connotations it creates.

And then later B nicknames him Mackie and holy hell if anyone else EVER tried to call him that he would damn them to all manner of torment for beyond eternity. He tolerates B only because he is incredibly cute, and he is amused by the ridiculous impetuousness the nickname shows. (Also because B's eyes completely slaughter him, but that's a longer story.)

<3

 
So this turned up on Digg, due to the Futurama connection, but, this video is freaking amazing, as is the song.

1967.

*watches again, while downloading more of this guy's music*

 
So I took Tom's suggestion to do a torture scene, and it's turned out to be quite sadistically beautiful. Only I got stuck, and had to turn to him again. "How do I get *out* of a torture scene???"
"Well, you could strangle him, or..."

Apparently there's no way out of it but to kill the torturee, anything less would leave loose ends and be a chickening out, and, really, I need to show how nonchalantly dismissive my character is of human life.

Goddamnit I hate when he's right and it's something icky. But things like this, I trust his judgement. He is the guru of movies and plot. Also he's a boy, and a gamer boy at that, so he's much more familiar with violent things than I am. Good lord his freaking *normal* dreams are far more disturbing than any Phisto I've ever written. (He's woken up with his chest honestly sore, from having been shot in his dreams. It's quite unsettling, and I don't even want to know what it says about his subconscious.)

Luckily, after being stuck in a bloody little mess, I found some beauty in it, which my Phisto is reveling in, and I just figured out how to combine murder with art and make it all quite lovely.

...I really do understand why C.S. Lewis refused to go back to Screwtape after writing the one book, he was right, it really is terrifying to see where such characters can take you.