After debating for much of the day I decided to post the first portion. For anyone who skipped the previous post this is my unofficial nanowrimo effort (I haven't actually taken the time to set up an account at NaNoWriMo.org). I spent the first several days working out who the characters were and a few of the major plot elements, which means that at my current words per day rate I will run well short of 50k words. I'll have to see how many words I manage on the weekend, and if I manage to keep modestly upping the words per day rate.

Warnings: This is a fanfic for those allergic to that, set in the universe of Peta Hewitt's (chaypeta

) comic Terinu. Set on the world of Vulpine Prime, so yes, if you're allergic to furry the majority of the population are aliens who look like anthropomorphic foxes. For the rest of us, part one of the story comes under the cut.

{include: non-standard disclaimer} Terinu is a really cool and nifty webcomic. If you think my story is nice, go read the source material, it's even better. Fanfic written without prior approval or permission of Peta. She has been pretty cool about fanfic in the past however. Hey, she's nifty. Have I said to go read Terinu yet? Oh, but make sure you have time to work through the archives. Aren't Rufus and Melika made of awesome? The rest of the cast too, but hey, extra props to the Vulpine characters since this fic is set on their homeworld. Peta is of course free to ignore or use anything here as she likes. It's her sandbox, please don't send me home before cookie time, I wanna finally try a Tim Tam. (Silly grocery store put up a display bragging about stocking "Australia's Favorite Cookie" and stocked the entire display with packages nigh a month past the sell/eat by date). {end: non-standard disclaimer}

( The Unquiet Past, Part 1 )

...if your character never actually mentions the other character's name? Still in the opening of my nano, and have one character make an of hand reference to, "The Brushtail's pet digger," which as I think about it isn't really a nice way for him to refer to Lady Dorothea Bayard, AKA Aunt Dottie, archaeologist and family black sheep from jeriendhal's Terinu fanfic Spin Recovery. He needed to make reference to someone known for studying pre-subjugation history, and hey, what do you know there might not be anyone mentioned in canon so far (that I recall being mentioned) but Dottie fits the bill (and is probably eccentric enough to be known). Which yes, means what I'm working on is also a Terinu fanfic. Or at least set in the same universe, most likely it won't involve any of the major characters.

Although hopefully my characters will be able to avoid running into addiction and loss of limbs like happened in Spin Recovery. Which isn't to say that they'll manage to avoid the involvement of law enforcement. Then again a story without troubles isn't going to be a very interesting story. For someone is going to be a very naughty boy, forcing my main character to take care of things when she'd rather not be on scene at all. ("Troublesome commoners and their silly celebrations, should never have accepted that offer of shore leave to visit home. Could have been in training, or doing paperwork, or getting shot at by pirates instead of this.")

Now to try and actually write past the opening scene...

EDIT: Hurrah, I do believe I now have a title. "The Unquiet Past"

Well, it looks like Ubuntu 9.10 doesn't like the wired or wireless networking in my laptop. Spent a while poking at it, then decided to give it one last chance, a clean install instead of an upgrade install. Short answer, even with a clean install there was no sign this machine has networking anywhere but in the log files that reported neither part coming up.

Ah well, no money lost and 9.04 is working just fine. I'm planning on giving Nanowrimo a try this year, so I'm not going to spend the time to try and find a way around this until December at the earliest.

From Royce's fic Altered Trajectory

Rufus fought the urge to just turn around, as the hairs rose up on the back of his neck. Looking into the reflection of the dusty mirror mounted behind the bar, he could see a figure hunched down over in a corner booth, nursing a beer. He appeared to be about two meters tall, with a scaly snout emerging from the hood of the cloak that left the rest of his face in shadow. Given normally suspicious nature of the bar’s patrons, he might as well have been carrying a three-dimensional holographic sign stating, GREETINGS! I AM TRAVELING INCOGNITO! PLEASE IGNORE ME!

Link when I'm not on battery fumes...

From "5 Myths About Health Care Around the World," at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778_2.html

Under the header, Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies. "U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money." (emphasis added)

Can we at least have a rational debate about improving out health-care system? While we're at it can we also be honest enough that if it's going to be government run that we make that pass constitutional muster (with something more palatable than the "let Congress do any bleeding thing it wants to do" Interstate Commerce Clause AKA The "Limitations? What? You thought we were serious when other sections imply any kind of limit to Congressional Authority" Clause).

In which I make a brief post to comment on my habit of leaving lengthy comments elsewhere. AKA: Gee, maybe that should have become a post over here.

I'm feeling rather meh this evening. Such a wonderful word meh. It's not bad. It's not depressed. It's just... meh. No real energy, no upset over that lack of energy, no desire for that energy. Just a shrug and, "Ah well, today isn't bad but tomorrow will be better."

Maybe it is the peas. I willingly, intentionally added peas to dinner. Me, intentionally eating a green legume. Weird. :) Or lack of sleep. I did stay up a little too late last night. Although I got extra sleep the night before.

So I guess I'll just sit back, absorb extra vitamins and fiber, and run through flash cards.

Subject line says it all.

For those wondering, disaster averted.

Still, they really need to take the baby magnets out of the design.

Frankly I think those who feel that Mary Jo Kopechne is the only thing we should remember about Ted Kennedy are as misguided as those who feel that that incident should be stripped from memory.

Rant RE: Please Don't Blame FSU and A Great Day For Sports Photography?

So Scott Kelby held a contest recently on his blog. Send in your best sports photo for a chance to be Mike Olivella's assistant at an upcoming Florida State Seminoles game. Apparently this was beyond the pale as some so-called adult professional sports photographers decided it was worthy of throwing tantrums and crying until FSU would agree to tell Mike he couldn't allow the winner to use his Assistant's pass.

Really?

Do they have so little confidence in their skills that they feel that threatened by a guy with no media contracts being allowed on the sidelines? They have that little confidence in themselves and they dare call themselves professionals? They have so little confidence in themselves that they don't even wait to find out who will win or to look at the winner's submitted photo before starting to insist that the winner will be a trouble maker?

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned if they have that little confidence in their skills and that little maturity that they would whine until getting the chance to crush someone's dream opportunity -- then the appropriate action for them to take is to hand in their photography passes to FSU and go practice until they don't feel the need to act like a cranky toddler with no-sleep and a wet diaper.