A Mighty Fine Life

Queenitsy.com

I wanted to a) finally make a layout using only div positioning, and b) see if I could convert it to a WP theme. So I installed WP on queenitsy to use as a CMS (not that there's much content there to manage), and voila. It turned out more or less how I wanted (warning: lots of rainbow stars), which is lovely. Meanwhile, I still don't know PHP so I make no use of any of WP's actual features, but still.

I am pleased by it!

I moved the feminist nerd blog and combined it with my portfolio, so now all that can be found here.

First off, So You Think You Can...DANCE (dance dance) is back! HOORAY! It's my favorite reality-competition-type-show ever. And there was a Travis cameo! TRAVIS!

Bloggery: An article of interest at the nerdblog, regarding sexism in criticism of speculative fiction (sparked by an article sent to me by harmonyangel). Second, I've finally reviewed Magic Lessons and Magic's Child at Active Voice. The series was recced many months ago by gruyere, and it was indeed fantastic, though admitted the first first book was much better than the second and third.

And finally, as if I didn't have enough blogs in existence that I don't update, poisonivory convinced me that we should have a blog to make fun of tween stars. Especially the HSM cast. So that's here, though it may never actually be updated on my end.

As for me, I got 14 hours of sleep (went in to work 3 hours late today) and feel about 60% better. Hopefully, early bed tonight.

(ETA: GIP!)

I actually managed to fix something at the Refuge without breaking the place further! Two bugs that have been around since the site upgrade two years ago seem to be resolved -- you should now be able to reply to and delete reviews without getting an error message. If you still have any trouble or run into new and exciting problems, let me know.

The Refuge birthday stuff is up! Hooray!

Hmph.

I know many of y'all on my friendslist are much smarter and more technical-minded than I, so out of curiosity, has anyone ever run into an error where your browser tries to download .php files instead of displaying them? And if so, what causes it and how do you resolve it?

(The Refuge seems to be down. I haven't done anything to it, so I have no idea what's happened, but it isn't just me, since I found out about it via my friendslist.)

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any thoughts on this.

ETA: Many thanks to Jon and Nat, who nailed it. Dreamhost has corrected the error, and after I cleaned out my cache it all started working as usual. Hooray!

Today was one of the more productive days I've had in awhile. I managed to run laundry, clean the living room, and do a fair amount of writing, including updating not one, but two blogs! (Yeah, I work on too many of those. With another on the way, potentially. Because I need something else to leave gathering dust on the internet.)

At Active Voice, I posted a review of Dragon's Egg by Sarah L. Thomson. Three and a half cupcakes; some high points without many problems; generally cute.

At the feminist nerd blog, A Princess Peach Post, which is thoughts on the female characters in Paper Mario, as it's the only game I've ever played.

In other news, I'm now reading a collection of short stories and realizing that, while I already knew I can't write them, I'm not that interested in reading them, either. Something about the short...thing really doesn't click for me. But I'm going to finish this collection regardless, because I'm reading it for the feminist SF book club I was invited to join. And how fucking cool is that?

Hey! The Refuge is turning four years old! And we're celebrating! And if you're in the Newsies fandom, you should come play! Or...I'll cry.

(Seriously. Not to emotionally blackmail my friendslist, but if people don't participate? I will be horrifically, cripplingly saddened. So. You know. You should participate.)

For those who might be curious what it looks like when I really and truly get my hate on for a book, please see my review of Alcatraz Smedly Versus the Evil Librarian. A book I picked up expecting to enjoy, and ended up truly loathing. A lot.

Recent (and semi-recent) blogging I've done:
-Hannah Montana Part II (a follow-up to Part I, of course), about the serious problems with gender and sexuality in the show.

-Review: Among the Hidden, an interesting little dystopia, over at AV.

Hooray, the blogs! (...I volunteered to write about 30Rock for Hathor, too, didn't I? I should get on that.)

In other online, but not quite as, er...political, I finally have a due date for my Chad/Ryan manifesto, and a couple of plotbunnies for that pairing, too. And I'm almost done with the next chapter of G&D in the Newsies fandom; I just need to fix the build up at the end, because I'm not satisfied with it yet. (And I have Refuge secret slash to write.)

So hopefully I will be writing lots in the upcoming few weeks. And being super productive at work, but that's another entry for another day.

So my headphones had been slowly dying for a long time, and finally gave up entirely on Friday. I stopped at the CompUSA across from my job to pick up a new pair, and while I was there, a Miley Cyrus song came on. I'm used to hearing Miley Cyrus and of course began to lip synch and dance, as I generally do. It wasn't until I picked up a set of headphones that I realized it was actually coming from overhead speakers and not just my own music.

Unrelated things: I updated Active Voice.

Also, who all on the flist is doing Nano this year? Usually there is a huge amount of chatter about it by this point, but it seems like fewer people are into it this year. I, on the other hand, am actually doing it for the first time in three years (my fourth time total), and am very psyched. Mostly because I just figured out my whole plot. It just unraveled in front of me! Awesome! So of course, daily wordcounts and occasional excerpts will be posted over at temira.

Off to bed after a tiring weekend, but before I go, a review of The Sea of Trolls is up at Active Voice. [Summary: Based on Norse mythology. Very well written. Good and bad gender representations. Four cupcakes.]

Well, I'm working from home today, but...not a lot of work is happening. (Only a little bit my fault at this point.) So instead of completely wasting the day, I updated the feministnerdblogthing (Gender and the Geek), and then since I figured I might as well update blogs while thinking of them, I updated Active Voice (The Frog Princess). Yay me?

And now a meme from harmonyangel: Comment on this post. I will choose seven userpics from you profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

( And now mine. )

ETA: So I'm working from home, and thus didn't bother to shower. But I want to go shopping, as I no longer own any pants (long story), so I was goign to shower first. I told my sister I'd been putting it off because the second I got in the shower, work would finally call. She thought I was joking.

SURE ENOUGH. I turned on the water and she yelled that my phone is ringing. So now I'm sitting around in a towel finishing up odds and ends as I wait for a final phone call. NEKKID.

Scandalous, I know!

poisonivory and I finally finished our review of HP7! It's over at Active Voice.

Active Voice

...that is all.

For anyone who's interested, I finally redesigned QueenItsy.com. Not because I didn't love the previous layout (I did! I did!) but I was sick of the semi-transparent .gif making the text hard to read, and finally came up with an idea. It didn't turn out how I wanted (I hadn't wanted to use frames at all) but I do like it. (And I also redesigned the doll site last week sometime. 'Tis the season. By which I mean, I have free time.)

I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow for the first time in... well over a year, I think. And probably buying socks and underwear. Yeah, my life is thrilling.

( For anyone interested: queenitsy.com updates )

In other news... it's my birthday! Yay me!

funkiechick and I were very pleased with the reaction to the end of EYDW. Enough so that we decided to actually start working on the (not very) secret prequel again. So, yes. More of the EYDW-universe to come. Yay!

Which is kind of why we created eydw_universe. It will, hopefully, eventually have the prequel and all the random bits and pieces we've written (and hope to continue to write) that are set in the EYDW-universe. Which is quite extensive. Because we are insane.

So, yes. Is it a terribly egotistical, self-indulgent community? You betcha. You're still welcome to come play with us, though.

Saga updates! Finally!

Assuming it's just my browser being funky and not showing me all of the updates (some I can see, some I can't) I've updated Fanfic101 with some random stuff; nothing too major, just general corrections.

(harriet_vane, I added in an explanation of how "impact" is a noun, not a verb, and people who use the "word" [that was finger quotes] impactful should be slapped, just for you.)

That said, I'd really like to add in a more advanced section on style, but, well, I'm not quite sure what to do about that. I'd like to talk about tone and voice, warn people off of purple prose, rant about active and passive voice (because ranting is all I can do when discussing that, arrrrg) and so forth. But I'm not quite sure how to frame it, and suspect there are rather more issues involved than just those.

So, if you have thoughts--stylistic things you think should be included, whatever--please let me know; and feel free to spread the word because goodness knows my flist isn't that huge.

(Also: anyone who can give me a simple explanation of the difference between effect and affect, I'll love you forever. I know the difference instinctively and am fairly sure I use them correctly, but darned if I can explain the actual rule.

Thanks, y'all. :)