Aim For The Heart: July 2007

My copy of The Deathly Hallows finally arrived. This morning. I'm surprised the mail carrier didn't toss it from the road and run, because I would have been seriously embarrassed by handing it over this late if I'd been him. I heard the doorbell ring and thought, "Cool, my bacon salt is here! What should I have it with first?" But alas, it was the much-delayed copy of Harry Potter. Never fear. I went to Wal-Mart at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning and picked up a copy. I finished it Monday night, and I can honestly say it was a fantastic end to a magnificent series.

On impulse I also bought Janet Evanovich's Lean Mean Thirteen while I was at the store. I've always loved Ms. Evanovich's writing. I even have almost all of her old Loveswept romances. But there are two things that piss me off about the series. One, Stephanie doesn't sleep with Ranger enough. And two, Stephanie spends too much time letting the two men decide what she's going to do with her life. She lets Ranger plant tracking devices on her and has his men follow her or otherwise work as bodyguards for her, and she doesn't tell Joe where to shove it when he pulls his sexist, "I'm the man, therefore I'll handle it," routine. At least Ranger works with her and offers to help her. Joe just wants her to stay at home and clean his house and call him when she sees a mouse in the kitchen.

I'm also tired of her sleeping with Joe and doing damn near everything but with Ranger. I've always gotten the impression she's only holding on to Joe in the hopes that Ranger would come around. And if he did, she'd toss Joe aside without looking back. Dump him, if you're not interested in him. But for god's sake, quit cheating on him!

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Really, if the thread title alone isn't enough to make you click on this link, nothing I say will. But maybe you can read the often funny Straight Dope thread where this miracle of man is discussed in detail.

Bacon salt. Bacon-flavored salt. Bacon flavor + salt. It's even kosher and vegetarian.

Consider this a public service announcement. Just doing my part for the good of humanity.

It's 7:05 pm, and I have yet to begin the latest Harry Potter book, because it hasn't arrived. Why, oh why, did I pre-order from Amazon instead of running to Wal-Mart or Best Buy or Borders?

On a positive note, I finished edits on my book and sent it to my agent. I also cleaned house, folded all the laundry, and read lots of interesting, non-HP things online.

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This has been making the rounds in the publishing industry in the last week. From the article:

Oh, look: Someone's submitted Jane Austen's books to a bunch of publishers, only to have them rejected! It proves the publishing industry is horribly screwed up! Which means you can feel better when your own book is rejected!

Yeah, well. Not really. The implication here is that the novels were rejected because the agents and publishers can't recognize quality when it's presented to them. What's more likely, however, is that most of the agents and publishers do recognize it, and they recognize it's from Jane Austen, not this yahoo. The article notes that of the 18 publishers and editors who this dude sent the novels to, one seemed not to recognize the source, one definitely did, and the rest "simply rejected them or never responded."

It's a stupid stunt and doesn't prove anything except that publishers send form rejections. Duh. There's a saying among writers: "A no is a no." Profound.

What it's really saying is this: the only thing a rejection letter truly means is they aren't publishing your work. That's it. It doesn't mean your work sucked. It doesn't mean they don't recognize genius. It just means they aren't publishing that story at that time. Don't overthink it.

And if you think editors and agents can't recognize famous writing, you're fooling yourself. I daresay most of them love books even more than writers, and many of them have degrees in English and literature.

If you can't get published, quit blaming everyone else and keep trying to improve your writing until you can. And knock it off with the silly games. You're just wasting everyone's time.

Blog posts don't get much geekier than this.

I've been playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion again, this time with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and a new thief character. It's been a really great mod so far. I'm level six (I'm using a 3x level slowing mod instead of OOO's default 4x), and I've encountered some boss creatures and monsters that are very, very tough. I've only visited Bruma and the Imperial City, because I'm scared of venturing too far away. I love the new items I've come across. I've been using this awesome arctic bow that I got off some Skyrim bandit, and the shields are just beautiful.

Two of my favorite new features are the trapped chests, and the locks that I'm not high enough level to open. The funny thing about vanilla Oblivion is that no matter your character's Security skill level, if you, the player, are good enough to unlock Very Hard locks with a single pick, you can do so.

I haven't uncovered a lot of the new features and objects, since I am low level, and I haven't even started the main quest line (just been dungeon delving at the moment), but it's really feeling like I'm a Khajiit thief traveling Cyrodiil in search of adventure. Plus, as a thief, I've been ruthlessly looting Imperial City shops.

I highly recommend this mod (plus Martigen's Monster Mod, Thieves' Arsenal, Streamline 3.0, and most of the other 30+ mods I have installed.)

I recently started rewatching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, easily one of the best shows to ever be produced for television. This makes the third time I will have seen every episode (I'm in the middle of season 5 at the moment.)

Aside: I've only ever seen the show on DVD. I didn't understand what all the fuss was about when it was on TV, but then again, I haven't watched TV since I was 18. Before TV shows became common on DVD and before I got a DVD player, I hadn't watched a full TV series since I left for college. Now, thanks to DVD, I have shows I regularly watch, but always on DVD. I loathe commercials in a way that's probably unhealthy.

Anyway, it's a great show to watch while exercising. After I finish season 7, I'll rewatch Angel. The last two times I alternated Buffy and Angel seasons, to keep them more in line with how they played out on TV.

I also started rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and then I'll move on to rereading The Half-Blood Prince. Obviously, this is in preparation of the movie and Book 7, but it got me thinking about why we like to rewatch or reread entertainment. It's not like I don't know what's going to happen to Buffy and her gang, or who's going to live and die in Harry Potter. I've heard of people who dislike repeating entertainment, but it seems the majority of us love to reread/rewatch our favorites.

Is it the familiar comfort of returning to beloved characters? The knowledge that we won't encounter anything unexpected and therefore scary? I honestly don't know the answer myself. I just know that I've reread almost everything I've ever bought, and I have movies and TV shows I've seen more times than I can count. (Don't even ask how many times I've seen every episode of Futurama.)

Whatever it is, all I know is I'm looking forward to more Buffy in a little bit, and more Harry Potter tonight after a bit of Oblivion. Spike is about to reveal to Buffy how he feels about her, and Harry's about to meet Dolores Umbridge.

In a later post, I'll talk about what it's been like to restart Oblivion with one of the ultimate overhaul mods, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.