cleolinda | Three-day pile-up

So I cried in the doctor's office yesterday. Fantastic. Fortunately, it was the kind of doctor who has not only a large, soothingly lit desk, but a regulation box of Kleenex on that desk. She agrees with me that the Lamictal sounds like it's doing well, and I'll be jumping up to 100 mg on Saturday, per the instructions on the packet, and each week after that, I'll be adding another 25 mg until we get to 200, at which point we'll decide if I want to stay up there or come back down some.

Meanwhile, still trying to sort Black Ribbon out. I'm getting so much further into the overall story that I'm having to mentally tie up some loose ends before I proceed. There are at least three minor male characters that I kind of need to figure out before I proceed--all of them are at the very least mentioned in the story as it exists online, and I kind of need to figure out where I'm going with them, as my initial ideas have changed. Not drastically, just... you want to tighten that kind of thing up, if you're unsure. That, and I'm bringing several new characters in from another story I folded into the Black Ribbon universe, which means that several bits will be added to the story--one is an inventor friend of Rose's father, for example, which I liked because he was a pre-existing character in another story who could fill an empty slot in Black Ribbon. You just need to time to sort these things out.

(There's a site I stumbled across a while back, where you could create your own free wikipedia--the way that Kingdom of Loathing has a fansite-run wiki, that kind of thing. I realized immediately that it would be great for helping a writer during the world-building process--you could have all of your notes in one place linking to everything relevant, because I'm always forgetting things and planning them out all over again*. I'll find the link again if anyone's interested.)

* I happened to open a document tonight that was last updated 9/28/03--that's right, exactly three years ago, to the day. And I didn't remember writing any of it. Also, I'm sitting here going over a list of minor characters muttering, "Carmichael's wife's name is Lucy? Who the hell is Carmichael?"

Another unusually awful news story, this one about the latest school shooting that was, for a change of pace, perpetrated by random homeless man in his fifties. You know, I generally like the month of September, but I'm starting to think this one can just go fuck off and die.

Links that are, if not actually amusing, at the very least not depressing:

stefficus: "Anyone gearing up for NaNoWriMo 2006 might want this shiny stuff: a couple of cute, post-anywhere progress meters and a word count utility. And now the pimp request - we want writers over at the International Story-a-Day Group, or isadg. T.he basic premise is that we post a random title every day, and everyone writes a short story to go with it. it's deadly quiet over there right now, but since the original title list and idea came from the NaNoWriMo forums, i thought trying to revive it as a way to limber up the writerly muscles for november would be fun. there's an expanded title list (still culled from the adopt-a-title threads at NaNo), and i promise there will be a title every day in october if i have to crawl to the public library and post from there.

silvergleam: "I really enjoy your posts/ writing and wanted to get the word out (and hopefully encourage others to buy the book.) So I've created a Facebook group which is available here for view (assuming you have Facebook). It's called Movies in 15 Minutes=Pure Elysium. I just wanted to make you aware of it, and, if you want, you can post on your blog for the m15m community so that people will know it exists and (all those of us who are college-age...actually...now it's everybody who wants a Facebook) can come join and we can all talk about our love for your parodies!" Awww, bless.

From the Popbitch newsletter: "Susan Kuhnhausen: 51-year-old Oregon nurse came home from work to find an intruder with a claw hammer. Susan fought him off and strangled him with her bare hands. The dead man turned out to be no burglar, but a hitman hired by Susan's husband to kill her." Daaaaaaaaang.

What happens when the inmates run the asylum. Or, in this case, the prison.

Hi-res OOTP scans from that Newsweek article. Also, Luna and her radish earrings. More stills, though small, at Yahoo.

Wait, Uwe Boll actually fought people over the badness of his movies? Like, in the ring? He fought the guy from Something Awful? (I think I am most saddened by the fact that his name is not actually pronounced "Ewwy." As in, "Don't waste your money--that movie was totally ewwy.")

Set pics from The Other Boleyn Girl. The pictures weren't actually working for me by the time I got back to my own computer, but you can see the same ones at the Costumer's Guide. It's just Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in coverups and French hoods at this point, although Eric Bana (who is still completely wrong for the whole thing) is in full costume.

Coincidentally, Johansson will also play Mary, Queen of Scots.

Hi-res scans of the Marie Antoinette issue of Vogue.

First head of state appears on the Daily Show.

Was Mona Lisa pregnant when she posed? Well, that would partly explain the smile.

John Scalzi invents the schadenfreude pie.

I am way too excited about the Order of the Dragon blends at BPAL, because I am a total Stoker/Dracula fangirl. I am also way too broke. I'm just hoping I'll be able to snag some decants on the secondhand market a few months from now, really.

amberdulen: "I thought you might enjoy this scan of a Lost: Season 3 pic that I found in this week's TIME magazine. It seems fairly cracked out to me. And crack is meant to be shared."

My sister had me do her Johari adjective thing, at which point I realized I had one and hadn't ever done anything with it.

Someone linked to one of those BMW short films (read: really nice commercials) that used to run on the BMW website. You know, the ones with Clive Owen. The one in question was the Guy Ritchie one where the entire premise seems to be, "My wife is a superlative bitch, so we're going to throw her around the back of a car until she can't remember her own name. Which is Madonna, by the way." Clive Owen is really enjoying himself, which is the best part. I saw that one when it first came out, but I think I saw the edited-down version that was mostly Madonna shrieking ass-end up (not that this, in and of itself, is not fine cinema), because I didn't remember it being quite so funny.

I ended up watching all the others, since they were handily linked on the Related Content sidebar. The only other one I saw when it originally came out was the John Woo short, "The Hostage"--it's all right, but I do remember people (on Fametracker? I can't recall) getting bent out of shape over the twist ending. Feminist indignation, etc. I'm also not sure why Clive has to elude the police in order to save the woman, since there's a SWAT team at the guy's house in the first place.

I was really surprised to discover who they'd gotten to do the shorts, though. I remember the big-name directors being a big deal at the time, but--like, John Woo and Tony Scott, I can see them getting excited about playing with car chases. But Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer, Wong Kar Wai, and Alejandro González Iñárritu (or, as I like to call him, Accent Man)? I'm impressed. Not to mention that several of them are written by Andrew Kevin Walker. So, here's some links if you feel like having a sit-down:

The Ambush, Frankenheimer. Fantastic. Also quite possibly the best ad for any car I've ever seen, sheerly in terms of showing what the car (supposedly) can do. I mean, this is a car that outdrives a van full of, like, machine-gun ninjas, rear-ends the van and then peels off with barely a scratch. Also, I think the car blows up the van with the power of its mind. I'm pretty sure that if you had this car, you could live forever.

The Follow, Wong Kar Wai. A gentle, moody short in which Mickey Rourke's face is, mercifully, for the most part unseen. What has that man done to himself, y'all?

Chosen, Ang Lee. Notable for a gratuitous Hulk reference and a totally awesome chase segment that involves maneuvering in very small circles--at one point, backwards. This is not even to speak of the pimp-slapping of the monk.

Powder Keg, Iñárritu. God bless Stellan Skarsgard (I'm fresh out of accent marks). I'd seen him in plenty of stuff before--he's a "Movies in Fifteen Minutes" survivor, if nothing else--but he will always be Bootstrap Bill from now on, as far as I'm concerned. Which is probably for the best, because the time I'd seen him before that, codpieces were involved. Also Clive Owen, coincidentally enough. Anyway, this one's more haunting and serious than the others, and one of the best.

Ticker, Joe Carnahan. I really liked this one, once it got going. It's got Don Cheadle and, towards the end, Dennis Haysbert and, I think, Ray Liotta. I think it's the twist I liked best--it takes it up to the level of "Powder Keg," in terms of actually trying to say something.

And then there's this one with James Brown and Gary Oldman. Yeah, I don't know, either. Nothing wrong with this one that a lot of driving away, very fast, from Gary Oldman and his scary, scary leotard wouldn't have solved. Unfortunately, we don't really get that. Even Clive Owen looks disturbed. "Dude, we're five minutes in and there's no driving yet. And stop asking me if I like girls. Seriously. Hey! HEY! DON'T WAGER MY SOUL!" Also, the Marilyn Manson cameo is completely gratuitous.

Also, best wishes and good thoughts for Lily Rose. We're all thinking about you. Like, in a good way, not a creepy way.