Coffee and Voices

Good news – I woke up this morning with a craving for coffee.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Amy, I've known you for (fill-in-the-blank) years and you don't drink coffee. I've never seen you take even one sip."

And you're right, I don't drink coffee. But one of the voices in my head does.

Now, before you call for the men with the white jackets, let me explain...

I write fiction, fan fiction mostly, and the way that I write it is by listening to the voices in my head. There are a few shows that are really strong -- well written, with good characters, portrayed by incredibly talented actors who do such a good job of bringing those characters to life that the characters become almost like real people to me.

No, don't start dialing -- I said 'almost'. I still know the difference between reality and fiction, but the walls are sometimes a bit thin where I am. Which might worry me, except that I know I'm not alone in this flimsy structure – there's at least one co-conspirator in here with me.

So, this morning I woke up with a craving for coffee, which means Daniel. Except, I don't know if it's because I don't have any coffee in the house, because he had something important to say, or just because he's impatient, but it's actually Jack who has been yammering away.

Of course, he waited until I pulled out of the driveway to start talking. That's right: he let me take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, make lunch, and feed the cats before he started babbling. It could be because I've yelled at him before for jabbering at me when I'm in the shower, but the other activities are all interruptible, so it was probably just a case of Jack being Jack, i.e., mischievous. He's got this really wonderful grin...

{Yes, I pulled over to write down what he was saying. I occasionally talk on the phone and drive at the same time, but I draw the line at trying to write. Usually... Just kidding!}

I've been hoping that my new work schedule, which is more in tune with my body clock, would entice the voices to come back. I know some people don't believe in it, but having to get up early (even if I go to bed earlier) leaves me with no energy and a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton. During the summer I had an early schedule, so I didn't write anything. And it's been a bummer, because for a while the voices were garrulous and I was really enjoying the satisfaction of writing...

Oh. You're still going to call for the men in white coats? Okay, just give me enough time to type up my notes and send them to P. After all, this whole thing is her fault, err, I mean, her idea.

Anyway, I still don't like the way it tastes, but a writer has to suffer a little, right? So I drink my cup of coffee, salute Jack, and wait for Daniel and, hopefully, the rest of the voices, too. Welcome back, everyone, I've missed you...

Nifty

Another way to spend time online...

Games for the Brain

Yes, I'm a Browncoat

Like Jane, I've spent a lot of time lately watching and re-watching (and re-watching) Firefly episodes. There are only 14 episodes (damn you Fox!!), but they are all I have to tide me over until the end of September, when I plan to spend a lot of time at my local theatre watching Serenity, the movie based on this show.

Note to the cautious: don't start watching this show unless you want to be totally consumed -- yes, it's that good. Oh, you'll also probably start cursing in Chinese...

Lucky Lis has already been to an advance screening -- I'm really jealous, although not enough to give up living in Paradise to be someplace where this kind of thing happens (sorry, Dad!).

Return to Earth

Welcome home, Discovery!

YES!!

Return to Flight

Sad Moon Day

While I was working on this post, I found out that James Doohan died. Like so many other people, I always liked the character of Scotty. I'm glad that James didn't mind being identified with the role. Tonight I'll watch a ST movie and raise a glass -- rum, not scotch, but the sentiment will be the same.

My original thought for today:

Why is it that it took less than 10 years from when President Kennedy said 'Let's go to the moon' to Armstrong and Aldrin leaving their footprints in the dust and yet, here we are, more than three and a half decades later and we still haven't made it to another planet? Hell, we haven't even been back to the Moon since 1972! I know that our probes and probes are doing great work, and we need to continue on that avenue, but it's also time for us humans to get going....

Harry-mania

I've been working on a Harry Potter post (mostly dealing with my disappointment with the third movie), but am finding it difficult to finish, so for now I'll just ask that you please don't assault your mail delivery person tomorrow, okay? They've got enough to deal with....

{Yes, I'm aware that the above is grammatically incorrect, however, colloquially it's okay.}

Return to Flight

Why Fly to Space?

Godspeed, Discovery

Deep Impact Perspective

For those concerned about the audacity and ramifications of a bunch of Earthlings messing with a comet, please read this explanation from the Planetary Society Weblog.

Local news coverage of the event can be found in the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and The Maui News.

Event sites:
Hawaii
JPL
NASA

DI Success

Deep Impact successfully collided with Comet Tempel 1 -- congratulations everyone!

Full-time

Well, today I started working full-time for the Mookini Library at the University of Hawaii at Hilo / Hawaii Community College. It's a temporary position, but has benefits (vacation, sick, medical, dental, vision)-- yippee! I'll be doing all the things I've been doing while I've been working here part time (Astronomy, Physics, Nursing, and Pharmacy collection development, website maintenance, annual reports preparation, other special projects). I'll be adding Reference Desk duties for 20 hours per week, and I may get to teach some Library Instruction classes -- I taught some at UH-West Oahu a few years ago and enjoyed it.

We're a bit lost in the paperwork jungle when it comes to how I can continue to work part-time for the Library at the Institute for Astronomy Hilo, but I think we may be close to some daylight.

Hope you have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend!

Testing comments

Testing the changes I made to the template to include comments...

MIT Weblog Survey

I just completed the MIT Weblog Survey. It was interesting to go back over the history of this blog and do the actual math to find what percentage of the posts have been personal (60%), business (40%), and current events / news (30%). My original guesses were way off....

WordCount

Yet another nifty place on the 'Net where you can spend {waste} bunches of time....

WordCount™ is "an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonness." The data comes from The British National Corpus (BNC), "a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of current British English, both spoken and written."

Okay, so it's British. It's still interesting....

To get you started:
1 the
2 of
3 and
4 to
5 a
6 in
7 that
8 it
9 is
10 was
11 i
12 for
13 on
14 you
15 he
16 be
17 with
18 as
19 by
20 at

376 god
384 love
1279 dog
2532 cat
3107 hate
14646 hawaii

86790 tella
86791 savills
86792 homemakers
86793 golgotha
86794 lauro
86795 multilingualism
86796 tangency
86797 carniola
86798 workless
86799 recrossed
86800 conquistador

aloha (currently not in archive)

SW III

Why, in this age when everyone loves abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms, would you have a lengthy title that can be shortened to ROTS?

Anyway....

This movie was much, much, much better than I had expected. Still some rough spots and some wooden acting, even from Ewan (who looks an awful lot like Kiefer Sutherland in these last two SW movies). The killing sequence has a wonderful musical score.

Note to N: there are a couple of groaner places in the very beginning when I thought "Oh no, please don't let this be like II." It never got that bad, I don't think. Then again, I started getting a cold that day, so maybe my head was more fuzzy than I realized. It will be interesting to see what I think the second time around....

Store Wars

Brilliant... absolutely brilliant: Store Wars

More Cool Sites

I haven't explored these much, but at first glance they look interesting:

Eternal Egypt

The Big Myth -- the Hawaiian link doesn't work yet, but the Egypt one does.

TV Shows on DVD -- you can vote for TV shows you want to be released on DVD.

Cool Sites

Lori pointed out this awesome photographer's site, Chromasia.

MapMachine -- National Geographic Maps, 'nuf said....

The End of Everything?

In the short article "What are the odds of Earth's cataclysmic end?" IfA researchers explain some of the possibilities other than a galactic highway. Don't Panic -- you don't need to lose any sleep over them.

One of the things I love about astronomers is their ability to talk about their science in plain language. You can hear for yourself at the free "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the End of Everything", a panel discussion by University of Hawai'i astronomers, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 4, at the Art building auditorium on the Manoa campus.

Another thing I love about science in general is that truth is almost always stranger than fiction ever could be.

Campus Hawaii Clubs

Hawaii is special in so many ways, even when it's exported to the mainland: "Hawaii clubs are fixtures at more than 50 colleges nationwide, and on many campuses are the only state-themed clubs."

Sorry, Dad, even if Cornell had one, I still wouldn't move back....