Homemade Chocolate

I made chocolate today. I was food shopping this morning and randomly bought cocoa. I'd run out ages ago and it's nice to have around for making random hot chocolate when the mood strikes me. So when I got home I put the tin on the counter and was inspired to make something with it right away. "What can you make I cocoa," I asked the tin. Google answered; coconut chocolate. Equal parts coconut oil and cocoa, and enough honey (or other sweetener) to take the extreme bitterness out of it (which in my case was 2/3 the amount of the other two). It's really yummy. And mostly good for you. If I could handle the bitterness on its own I'd totally leave out the honey, but alas, my poor tongue is too sensitive to bitter tastes.

So that's in an icecube tray in the fridge and I take a tiny bite of one square every now and then.

Neverwinter

This game is my latest obsession. Not for the game itself (which is a whole lot of fun), but for the player content. They have this feature called the Foundry where you can play quests made by players, and make your own. Some of the Foundry quests are as good as the best of the dev quests. They are a whole ton of fun to play.

The other element of Neverwinter I absolutely love is their screenshot software. It records the script of what your character does and then you can open it up in the editor and move the camera around and get extremely high quality screenshots. I messed around with that last night and this was us in Blackdagger Ruins.











In other random news, this is what the stats for my blog looked like today:

I love it when things work out

I was supposed to start an online writing course (writeaboutdragons.com) yesterday, but the organiser sent an email saying it was postponed until July. I'm so happy about this. Now I have the time to finish the dress I started in September (and put off because the pattern was miles too big and I became disillusioned at having to undo and repeat all the work I'd done so far).

So now I have time to make the dress. I'm going to unstitch it today and iron the pieces, then cut out the pattern pieces in the smaller size. But before I go near the mock-up I'm going to try measuring things. I have this idea to cut strips of the pieces at the waist and bust level to see about sizing without having the hassle of sewing the entire thing up. It will at least give me an idea if the size is way off like it was before. But I'll see if that works out.

So...
today: rip, iron, cut pattern, test size by making strips from the pattern pieces
tomorrow: (possibly finish cutting pattern) cut material
thursday: sew
friday: finish sewing, fit
monday: cut actual material
tuesday: sew
wednesday: finishing touches

I'll update with my progress later in the week. I think this schedule doesn't give me enough time, but we'll see how it goes.

Furious Yoga

I've been doing yoga for over a month now and I'm really enjoying it. This morning I was out of bed and all set for 40 minutes of stretching at 7:15. Yoga first thing is completely different to yoga second or third thing. It's like that first stretch when you wake up, only it lasts for 15 minutes rather than 15 seconds. I think I'm getting a little stronger too. And I'm definitely getting more flexible - only by a tiny bit, but it makes me feel good about the whole thing.

*

We went to see Fast 6 (Furious 6?) on Wednesday. So much fun. Heists and fast cars, they go together so well. I kinda want to watch the whole series now, because this movie mentions things from earlier movies - not that you need it to get what's happening.

*

I'm playing an MMO called Neverwinter at the moment. Set in the D&D world of Ferun. I prefer it to a lot of MMOs I've played. The controls are set up like a shooter, mouse-look and crosshairs (which are a circle in this case). You use abilities by pressing the mouse buttons (and Q,E, and R) and it makes combat so much easier. And so much more fun. You have to dodge attacks, aim at enemies - it's not a case of trying to remember a rotation of abilities and having 20 different keys set up. It lets you get on with playing the story rather than playing the mechanics.

I don't think I have much other news.

Archery

I've been down to the range twice since my bow arrived. Yesterday I was just remembering how things work, and shot well enough, but was wrecked after 3 ends (15 shots). Today I loosened the tension on the bow and only brought one arrow with me, forcing myself to take it easy.

I was trying new things - stance, follow-through, focusing on my target instead of sighting down the arrow. It was kind of cool, actually. Over the 40 minutes I was out I could see myself improving. The times when I remembered my steps of shooting (anchor, relax, focus, follow-through) I was only about a foot from where I wanted the arrow to go.

Now, I consider this excellent for someone who wasn't using any reference point on the bow for aim. All I did was stare at where I wanted the arrow to go and relax my body so it moved where it wanted to. My arrow landed exactly where I was looking on the x axis, but up between 1 and 2 feet on the y axis. At one stage it went clear over the whole target and had a slight run in with a rock. It got a bit scraped up, but the vanes are fine so it's all good.

I think the people shooting on the target next to me thought I was a bit crazy. They offered me extra arrows and everything. But they were friendly.

I can't wait to go again. I'm so obsessed. I'm going to have mad callouses on my fingers from pulling the string.

I Bought a Bow

Look, look! I can post again without feeling like a stranger on my own blog. Yeay.

So, this is a little random. And of course it needs a story to go along with it. We went out for brunch yesterday and I decided I wanted to go to REI (they are having a sale and I wanted to see if I could pick up a wicking string top; I couldn't, but that's not part of this story). After REI we went to the games shop and on the way home we ended up going north on the 101 instead of south.

"You know what's up this way?" I said. "Bass Pro." Yes. Bass Pro, a fishing, hunting, boating, really crazy-american (sorry Americans, but face it, you do have a penchant for going over the top with things) outdoor shop. That place was an experience - taxidermy animals all over the place, antlers lining the walls, a massive aquarium in the middle of the giant shop. I was pretty cool, but pretty frightening at the same time. I suppose hunting is such a small thing in Ireland that seeing a whole shop dedicated to it was odd.

Anyway, we just went up to see the place, because we'd been told it was worth seeing. I kinda wish I'd brought my camera, but I would have looked weird taking photos and the security people probably would have given out to me.

So, this all brings us up to the point of my story. They had a load of archery stuff upstairs (down from the racks and racks of guns and rifles) and I got all nostalgic about archery. There's a range here in Chandler by the dog park and I always look in wistfully when we pass. So we looked at bows. Not seriously, because they were all over $200, but I can't say I wasn't tempted.

That evening, as I was importing old posts into Blogger, I came across a post where I wrote about the archery class I did back in '06 / '07. And I'd written the name of the bows we used. And out of curiosity, I went on Amazon to see if they sell them. And they do...

So, I think the title of the post says all that needs to be said at this point. Well, except that it's bright blue and will be here on Wednesday and that Chandler Archery Club is giving a one-day lesson in June. they run lessons through-out the year too.

Blogger Finally Set Up

Right. Call me crazy but I just spent six days transferring my Livejournal to here. And it's not even my entire Lj - it's not even half of it. The posts only go back to 2006, where my Lj goes to 2001. But with 500-odd posts taking this long, I don't even want to think how long 1600 would take.

And how did I do it? Why did it take so long? Because blogging services hate each other. I had to use wordpress as an intermediary. But it all worked out splendidly - tags and comments came over, which is pretty cool. I'd been willing to settle for posts alone, but this is way better.

So, farewell, Livejournal. We've had fun, you and I. But you've lost your way. You want to be a social media outlet first and a place for lowly writers to rant about their lives second. I can't say I won't miss you, but at least now posting updates is fun again. And I'll still be checking my friends page, and I may even set up some kind of auto-post-to-Lj when I post here thing, if I can be bothered figuring it out.

Into Darkness

We went to see Star Trek into Darkness last night. A kind of spur of the moment thing; Liam had this idea that it was out on Thursday (even thought the posters said Friday), checked the cinema website, and sure enough it was on.

Go see this movie!

If you enjoyed the last Star Trek movie at all, you will love this. Everything about it is perfect. But I think my most favourite aspect was the characters, and specifically the antagonist. Talk about amazing character development. Here is a bad guy you respect, who you care for. He's not simply a man out for destruction - he has a worthy goal. It just happens to clash with Kirk's worthy goal.

I'm playing scenes out in my head just thinking about it, and Abrams really did a masterful job with this. Everything ties in to everything else so well.

I really hope he does another one.

Short Story Submission

I just dithered for about half an hour over sending an email. Now, I'm pretty good at dithering over emails in general (Have I spelled everything right? Does it make sense? Do I sound like a fool?) but this email was special.

It's the first time I've submitted my writing in the hopes of getting accepted and paid for it. Imagine it - me, published. My heart does a little dance and I can't help smiling when I think of it. And then my brain steps in and reminds me that there will be hundreds of other writers submitting, and that my story doesn't stand much of a chance of being accepted. But still. It's exciting. And now I need to forget about it until August, when they announce the line-up.

Until then, it's back to Zachery and all his troubles. Though, I really enjoyed* writing this short story and am considering writing more. But I need to give Zachery some attention first. He gets very angsty when I leave him alone for too long.


*It's so easy to say I enjoyed it when it's finished. You should have seen me agonise over it when things weren't working out. I even gave up at one point, but my subconscious wouldn't let me off that easily. It continued to work though the snarly knot I'd made of things and drove me back to the story so it could see if its solution worked.

It's Spring and I'm Excited for Plants

This year I'm having another go at growing things I can eat. Everything died last year when I left them for three weeks, so I've said we can't go anywhere until I get at least one harvest this year. So what am I growing?

The first thing I planted was a potato from the pantry that had sprouts growing out of it. I can't even remember what kind of spud it was, but I think a russet. We'll see anyway, I suppose. At the moment it's a foot tall with three leafy stalks. I fill it in with more soil every few days in the hopes of getting more potatoes out of it. I'm quite excited about it, but it's only a spud and an experiment at that, so my hopes aren't too high.

Next up was the basil. I planted two lots - one in a big pot outside and the other in a little glass inside. The one in the glass came up last week and there are a million basils growing because I just poured a bunch of seeds in. The pot outside came up today. I was so happy to see it - tiny little green things all happy and growing. River got very excited at my excitement and celebrated by licking my face.

Next comes my big hope for the summer - strawberries. I'm not sure how well I reported my strawberry failure last year, but I got some seeds and managed to kill them all. They sprouted fine, but they never got beyond tiny seedlings. So this year I bought a kit with root balls and a hanging planter and I check on it every hour. There's no sign of anything yet, but it's only been three days. I just want to have my own strawberries so badly. I imagine they'll taste like rainbows and stars and fluffy coloured things. Or maybe just strawberries. Anyway.

Yesterday I planted coriander. Coriander seeds are massive, like little gooseberries (like really little - half a centimetre). No movement on them yet, but that's fine. So I think that's all my growing.

Spring in Arizona

I've never really had a favourite month. When I was younger and people would ask I'd always say August because that's the month I was born, therefore it is special. But living in Arizona I finally have a proper favourite month and it is February (it'll go back to being August once we move back to Ireland). I remember loving February here last year and I've kind of been spending the whole year waiting to see if my memory was correct. And it was. I just went for a walk with River and it is the most perfect day out there. And that's what February in Arizona. 28 (or 29) days of pure perfection.

I also want to jot down (for posterity) that I fixed my mouse today. Ever since I got it (over a year ago) the scroll wheel has been a bit sticky. It just never scrolled smoothly. So yesterday I finally got annoyed enough at it (can't even remember what pushed me over the edge) to go buy some small screwdrivers and open it up. It took me about half an hour just to work up the courage to yank off the outer casing. I didn't want it to break. Anyway I got it down to circuit boards and pried off the wheel eventually. And sure enough, the grippy part of the wheel was loose and floppy and altogether bad.
I cleaned it up a bit (lots of gunk floating around it) and put it all back together. But it was even worse after being poked and prodded. So today I opened it up again (it took about 1 minute this time), cut off the offending grippy circle and stuck a new piece of grippy rubber on with superglue. And oh my god, it's like super-duper-extra-responsive scroll wheel. It's like having been crawling and now I'm flying. Everything goes up and down so fast.
I kinda love that I fix things. I don't think that happens much any more. People tend to take the easy route and throw the thing out and buy a new one. But I love fixing things, and even more when I make them better than they had been.

January round-up

Not much happened in January. I think the highlight was skiing in the middle of the month. We headed to Sunrise, me with the hopes of taking up skiing and actually managing to make it down a slope that wasn't the beginners area. I've never managed it with snowboarding (all of twice I've tried it) because stopping on a snowboard is hard and I don't like it when I can't stop (also the reason I've never gotten good at rollerblades).
So my hope came true. By the end of Sunday I could wend my way down the hill with only a few stops to get past the most steep bits or to get myself in a good position to go across them. And now I'm conflicted. Because I got on well with skiing I want to try snowboarding again - because the slope in sunrise is very learner-friendly. But at the same time I feel I should stick with skiing until I can do parallel turns. We're thinking of going this weekend again, but I get the impression I'm the only one who really really wants to go.

What else happened? I made 2 t-shirts. I had a bunch of them from PAX which were too big for me so I cut them up and made them into t-shirts with raglan sleeves. I'm pretty proud of them. So of free t-shirts from PAX, one is a bodice and two are still t-shirts, but different.

I've come to a grinding halt with Altaran (aka book 2). I have no idea how to make act 3 work out the way I want. I don't really even know what the way I want is. So I'm going through what I've written and sorting out what happens (yes, I am pretty fuzzy because, while I had a plan, I made a lot of the story up as I went along) to see if I can draw a good (dramatic, tense, satisfying) ending from it all.

I think that was pretty much January. We're thinking of going to D&D encounters again. A new story is starting on Wednesday. I've been playing Neverwinter Nights and my head is filled with D&D. For the first time ever, I actually get how a bunch of rules I never understood before work (like identify and the difference between spot and search). Of course, it is 3rd ed rules, but oh well. I should just play Pathfinder instead.

Right. I think that's mostly that.

2013

I'm only 11 days late: happy new year, livejournal! 2013 isn't off to the best start for me ever, but it's getting better as I get over this cough / cold / 5-day headache / general affliction in which nothing much is actually wrong with me, but I don't feel quite right. Anyway, today I've been feeling mostly better.

I'm playing spec ops: the line at the moment and it's making me want to visit Dubai. I want to go on an architectural holiday. Because if the buildings in the game are anything to go by this city is the most amazing looking thing ever. I just took a moment to look up the actual buildings in Dubai and I think the game took liberties with reality.
So, apart from the architecture, the game is very pretty with dust-filled skies making everything pink and orange and red. It's also impossible. I keep dying (playing on normal), but at least it saves checkpoints often so you never get set back too far. Which makes me think they set out to make it so that you die lots. Twice now it's asked me (very politely, I might add) if I want to go down to an easier difficulty. But mostly it's fine, just when we get pinned down I die a lot. And once again, I've found that I am most successful with a humble pistol. And I don't run out of ammo with it either.

So apart from games and not feeling well, I'm back writing after the christmas break. I'm only managing a page a day, but it's better than nothing. I'm going super-hard on poor Zachary this time around. It's all good.

Right, I must eat.

Deftones

We went to see Deftones last night in Tempe. They were amazing. The difference between seeing one of your favourite bands and seeing a band you like is incredible. I knew every single song, so I didn't really care what they played. I rocked out to the whole gig. Whereas with bands I only sort of like, I'm constantly wondering what they'll play next, and if it will be a song I know or like, rather than just enjoying the music.
They played a surprising amount of songs from Adrenaline and White Pony, which was good, but a little unexpected. But it was cool. Bored and 7 Words work really well live. And my appreciation for the new album quadrupled, or something. The most I listen to it, the more I like it.
So yea. I'll totally go see them again if I get another chance.

More nano stuff.

I'm almost at 50,000. I'm exactly half way through my book half way through the month and it feels great to be on schedule. I had a really bad weekend last and fell behind by about 4,000 words (or a day and a bit). But I've been doing between 4- and 5,000 word days and have finally caught up. The nanowrimo stats page tells me that at this rate I'll "finish" tomorrow. I'm so happy right now. I really feel like I'm achieving something.

I should try not to fall behind on my daily wordcount

Catch up days are so hard. I barely wrote 2,000 words yesterday, so today I had to do over 4,000. I kinda feel like I'm never going t get to 90,000. Even though I'm on track, I kinda feel like I need a break now. I'll probably be fine again in the morning, just writing so much is tiring. I thought I could use some old material to speed things up a bit today, but it didn't really fit with what I wanted. Ah well. Might go play thief for a bit now. Dinner first, though.
Or maybe lordkilljoy will come home and we can watch more Supernatural. We're almost finished season 2. I'm really enjoying it, especially this season. It feels like it hasn't dragged nearly as much as S1. Can't wait for S4 - Castiel. Oooh. I feel like this entry is brought to you by my 19 year old self. Ah well.

I'm off for food now.

Sedona Hike

I'm exhausted right now. I'm trying to get my word count for the day done (and catch up on yesterday) and it's just not happening. And why am I so tired? Well...

We went out on Thursday and one of the lads mentioned, rather off handedly, that they were going to Sedona on Saturday. "Are ye going hiking?" I asked. They were. And I knew I was going with them. I found out on Friday that they had a free space, and not too bright and early on Saturday we set off for Cathedral Rock.
The hike was amazing. I'd really wanted to go for a bit of a walk when we were there last, but lordkilljoy wasn't up for it. So less than a month later I got my chance. The hike itself was short, but steep and we took a few breaks to catch our breath on the way up. We got to the saddle - a flat patch of rock between two steep drops - and ogled at the beauty of the place. It really is incredible. But that wasn't all. The trail went on a little more to a higher, narrower saddle and just standing there (in a vortex), surrounded by orange-red rock seeing the sun shining from the pristine blue sky and making the rock seem to glow was spectacular.
The descent took about half the time as the ascent - the whole hike taking us only two hours. With a good part of the afternoon left, we headed out the other side of Sedona to Slide Rock Park. It was nice - we had a bit of a warm-down walk around. But it was nothing compared to Cathedral Rock. I dipped my feet into the creek and the water was freezing. So cold that no matter how often you dipped them in and took them out again they never got used to the frigidness of it. But it was lovely to cool my feet down after the hike.
We came home then, had a lovely barbecue and by then I was fit for nothing but bed. And it seems I didn't get enough sleep, because I feel really tired now having done nothing more strenuous than walk around a pumpkin patch / farm / autumn celebration thing. Ah well. Maybe food will help. And maybe I can catch up on the word count tomorrow.

writing like a madwoman

Happy November!

NaNoWriMo started today. I want to get cracking on book 2, so this is my motivation to get the rough draft (draft 0) out of the way. I'm going for 90,000 words over the month - 3,000 words per day. I got just over that today, but I feel a bit like a runner who's full of energy right now and is going well in the first part of the marathon. We'll see how things go as the month progresses. Anyway. I'm definitely going to have to rewrite the first 4 pages (because it's abysmal exposition and z being whiney) and I'll see how the rest of the story shapes up before making decisions on the rest of it.

Halloween was good fun. I got my costume finished - very rushed by the end, but it turned out well. Bookclub and the Saturday out were both good. The quality of costumes over here seems way better than in Ireland (or maybe I just wasn't paying as much attention to what people were wearing).

Have I mentioned we're going to see Deftones? I can't wait. I've been listening to them a lot recently.

I don't have a whole lot of other news. :scratch head: I guess I'll go.

NaNoWriMo

I suppose I should mention that I'm doing nanowrimo this year. I'm thinking of doing something very stupid and trying to get all 100,000 words of draft one of book two done over November (or there-abouts). I figure if I have 33 chapters and each chapter has 3,000 words that'll get me to 99,000 which is close enough to 100,000 to me. That means I have to write a chapter a day (that's where the "there-abouts" comes in, because that puts me three days over). And that's why this idea is stupid. On my best days in previous nanos I could write 4,000 words in a day, but that happened only a handful of days and I was exhausted by the time I'd written that much. I'm not sure I can sustain that energy for a whole month. Even to have a chance I'd need an immaculate outline, which I don't have at this stage. But there's still time before November.

First, I have to get my Halloween costume finished. I'm almost done with it. I have a bunch of fur to sew and the bodice to make and I have to put velcro on all the pieces to make them stay on me. Then it's just finishing touches and a bit of painting (and a paper mache shoulder guard - which I'm working on tomorrow) and I'll be done.

Our trip to Flagstaff was really good. We went to the Grand Canyon on Tuesday, the lava cave and meteorite crater on Wednesday, and Sedona on Thursday. Sedona is amazing. I want to live there. I drove there from Flagstaff, and we decided to go the scenic route (which is also the shortest distance). Oh wow. The drive was something else. We went over the mountains and coming down the other side was nothing but breathtaking vista after breathtaking vista. It was so beautiful. And the weather was perfect. Warm, but not too hot. The town itself is nice, if touristy. I wanted to see a vortex (how could I not want to visit a vortex - it's Sedona, you practically have to visit one) but either there was no parking or we had to hike (which lordkilljoy wasn't up for). So I'm going to go back some day and visit a vortex by myself. We just went home on Friday because it was raining. I can hear a voice in my head going: "Call yourself Irish? A little drizzle puts you off?" Yes, well. I hate rain. And living in Arizona has made me hate it even more.

Gravy makes such a difference

Dinner last night was amazing. I made bangers and mash and it was better than any I've had in a restaurant. They always try too hard, and add extra things into the mash or make their gravy overpowering. Mine was a perfect blend of buttery mash, salty-spicy sausages and sweet onion gravy. Delicious. I did do the restaurant thing of making a little mound of spuds and standing the sausages around it and pouring the gravy over the top. Nom nom nom.

I also made pumpkin pie yesterday. I was totally excited putting it into the oven, because the raw filling and raw base tasted amazing. What I didn't realise is that pie is not a straightforward thing to bake. So the edge of the crust got burned (badly enough to mean that it doesn't taste nice, but not so bad that you can't eat around it) and the filling didn't cook up properly. It was still quite liquid-y coming out. That didn't stop me nibbling at it while it was still warm, and I was less than enthusiastic about the taste. Somewhere along the way the sweet, rich flavours of the raw things had gone missing. So I put it in the fridge, but didn't forget about it. I had a small slice for breakfast (because even flavourless pie is better than dull cereal) and was pleasantly surprised. I think the flavours must have come back as it all rested together. And possibly pumpkin pie is better cold. So yea. I'm looking forward to eating the rest of it for breakfast over the weekend and next week, and desert and probably lunch, too. A whole pie is a lot to get through by yourself. I would invite friends over to help, but I don't think it's good enough. I don't want people thinking I'm a bad cook (because I'm not).

Did I mention we're off to see deftones in November? I'm so excited. I can't wait to go. I've wanted to see them since 1st year of college. And now it's happening.

I don't think I have any other news.