Well, I saw the film Repo: The Genetic Opera

Well, I saw the film Repo: The Genetic Opera

I was with a group of friends at one of their's house and they were like, Hey, have you seen this? Just in general, not to me specifically.
I confided in Claire that I had reservations, but everyone else, seen it or not, seemed keen on watching it.

So, I took my typical spot in the corner and just played along nicely.

It's a musical. Hey, that is cool.

It has Anthony Stewart Head. That is cool too. His brother Murry plays the American in the performance of Chess that I have.

Sarah Brightman too. Hey, she is an incredible singer. How did she get stuck with this? Did she loose a bet?

There is Alexa Vega playing the role of me. No, I mean Shilo. I did not realize she could sing - or is it overdubbed. I will have to look into that.

And Bill Moseley, no less, of House of 1000 Corps franchise fame. I mean, grindhouse/gore flicks are not exactly my thing, but hey.

Okay, so the film. The music is pretty good, the singing is (mostly) good.

The plot was as thin as the stage blood, but, I mean, operas are not exactly known for complex plots. Yeah, there are some back stories worked out for the characters. It is not completely see through - there are some twists, but again, the point is the music which is what really makes this all work.

It is the Faustian counter plot to the Ishiguro Kazuo, Philip K Dick, et al dystopia fictions that started coming out post-WWII. If you saw the film The Island? Imagine if that... insurance... was financed - And you could not pay your bill after having put the policy into effect.

Best songs (In my opinion, and in no particular order that I will admit):
Things You See in a Graveyard
Come Back
Chase the Morning / Everyone's a Composer
Seventeen / What Chance Has a 17 Year Old Girl? (Oh-Kay... this is probably because I am me)
At the Opera Tonight
Zydrate Anatomy
Infected (Again, because I am me)
Let the Monster Rise
Genetic Emancipation
Chromaggia
Depraved Heart Murder at Sanitarium Square
I Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much
21st Century Cure

Notable mentions:
Can't Get it Up if the Girl's Breathing (Mostly for the music. Okay, and for the title.)
Genetic Repo Man

And, there are plenty more good/amusing songs

Well, that is about all I am going to blog about this thing... publicly.
Take Care
LQ

Change of the Window Manager

It has been a while since I posted anything on LINUX.
For roughly a month, I have been enjoying the Linux Mint Debian Edition 64Bit. As I am not really interested in discussing the 32bit release, I am just going to refer to it as LMDE and be done with it - you can trust that I am talking about the 64bit release.

So. As mentioned in other blogs, I have mentioned that I have never been all that fond of GNOME and KDE can be fairly heavy weight on its own. I have used the Linux Mint Fluxbox, and XFCE and whatnot, but I have stuck it out with the LMDE GNOME standard to give it its full whatnot. Vague much? Well, sorry about that. If you have been following along this month, you may note that I have not been spending a great deal of system testing, just working through the "How I Use My Computer" aspect of testing.

As for the difference in the Debian over the normal Ubuntu based distro? It seems to not even be a factor on the day to day. My system is stable, releases are easy, things update nicely... Meaning, in short, I have rebooted much less, stayed more current, and my system has not been getting in the way of my doing-things.

As for the apps - well, the software manager gives me (almost) everything I need to be happy without much fuss. This is important to me. I mean, sure, any halfway descent distro is going to have some kind of package manager and it is not that big a to go, Oh, Hey, Where is VIM? apt-get install vim and you are done. So, the package thing - what I am saying here, is that it does not get in the way. Now, remember that "almost" up there? What is the deal with chromium-browser vs. google-chrome? I mean, really? Can someone please explain to me (or rather don't and I will go look it up) why I have to go and manually get the deb package from google and install it? Why is it not just an option in the repository? Why do I care at all? For the apps. Specifically Muro. But nevermind that.

My desktop was easily configured, and reconfigured as I worked through the options. I wrote a php script to take a directory, find the images, and make a wallpaper list xml thing so I have my rotating wallpaper, etc. It has been good. CPU speed and RAM have kept me content.

And complacent.

So - I installed XFCE this morning/last night (don't know, I just couldn't sleep). Wow. I forgot how fast a desktop manager can be. I am wondering to myself why I was content.

When I am writing, coding, reading, drawing, etc, I typically am full-screen. It is a descent enough size, but with my nice, small font (to make it harder for anyone to "accidentally" read over my shoulder, DAD) I prefer having what I'm doing fill my screen rather than what I may switch over to, or my background, or... whatever.

Sure, I would really like to make my wallpaper rotate again here, but then, that is one more thing out there, running, taking resources away from my fingertips.

But, before I go through all that, I am probably going to give FLUXBOX a spin.

Not that I have anything really against GNOME and KDE... just not for me, full time.

Oh, and I did install Thunar to use instead of Nautilus before going through all this. That was one of the things that was missing from the release that I really wanted to use instead.

Is it still Friday? No? Oh well

I have made a few posts here lately and had not realized that I had not made a Friday Blog Post this week. Hardly not the first week, but that is not at all the point of this.

So, I missed Friday by a couple of hours. Oh, GLOBALLY, I missed Friday by a great many hours, but that is neither here nor there. Or, I mean, that is there not here? Nevermind in any case.

But, I missed it and am not going to have one this week.

Maybe you will be able to read about my dream next week, hehehehe.

Okay, so, on with the point, already.

Where do these things some from? I have no idea, but another one just came out. I am may think it stupid after a few days, so read it before I delete it.
Again, on DeviantArt, of course, A Trusted Friend

The "Author's comment" is on that page, so do you really need me to repeat it here? Oh, for you, this would be first, and there would be the repeat. Well, nevermind that.

Take Care
LQ

J&J Series 009 released

Yes, I am concerned about this drawing attention away from the piece I did, Living in a Fishbowl, but while I like that one quite a bit, the series is more important to me.


So, yeah, I wrote it yesterday afternoon. It is only about 3K words, so a pretty quick read.

[J&J Series, No. 009: The Distaste of Revenge]

I will mention again for first time visitors, start with 001 or it will loose a lot of ... sense.

New Fiction Submitted

Okay, so, here it is on DeviantArt: Living in a Fishbowl


This is a standalone short story about Tamara, a punk, growing up in a small, backwoods town in Tennessee, although that is not specifically mentioned.
The characters herein are fictitious creations of my own.
This is getting a content warning for adult situations (sexual themes) but not for language or violence, etc. for whatever that may be worth.

A little long for a short story at about 11,000+ words, I am submitting this now as a trial run before letting it grow to a full fledged novella.

There is also a likelihood, like it or not, that I may round out some of the sections cut during re-writes and keeping the size down - both canonical, and non <-- I let them run a frolic a bit and it got a little out of hand, but kinda exciting too.

This was supposed to be just light and quick, but it kept taking deeper and darker directions that I had to keep pulling it back from.

I have been living with this story for the better part of a week, and was really unsure if I wanted to turn this "trim" version loose, so I left it over the weekend to think about its future.

IF I get positive feed back, questions about the story, etc, THEN I may let it out in full, so please leave feedback.

Thanks, enjoy.

11-1-11 and a Tuesdays

I have always kinda likes Tuesdays. And some Thursdays.
But nevermind that now.

So, today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

My chosen charity fighting this is LOVE146. I have a donation page to support them HERE but the most important thing right now is getting the message out there.

There is a lot of hubbub about it right now, especially with the Super Football thing.

I knew it existed. I have heard people going off about it and there was an episode of Castle, or NCIS, or something - I don't know, did not really see it and most of those kinda blur together.

Then I read Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, I was like, "Whoa" because as sick and disgusting as the issue is, I did not know it was that big globally. I mean, Yeah for the fight, but whoa.

Anywho, I did not intend for this to be a big post or anything, but there are lots of links floating around the web about things you can do, but here are the three I will point you to:

My support page for LOVE146
LOVE146.org
Stop Child Trafficking Now Org

Oh, and one more thing, with all the groups out there, why did I pick LOVE146? Do you really need to ask someone known as Lady Quindecim? But seriously, reading their story was... Well, it struck a chord with me.

Take Care. Spread the word.
LQ

Yeah, what he said.

...
It's getting harder
just keeping life and soul together
I'm sick of fighting
Even though I know I should
The cold is biting
Through each and every nerve and fibre
My broken spirit is frozen to the core
Don't wanna be here no more
...

- from Wouldn't It Be Good by Nik Kershaw.

But, I'm just smiling through it all. Some days are just that way, eh?

Startled Awake

Well that was ... interesting.

I woke frightened as all get-out, pulse racing, sweaty as anything and I had kicked off all my covers.
I was freeeeeeeezzzziiiinnnngggg.

I put on a pot of coffee, took a hot shower, drank some coffee, was still cold.

So, I am sitting here, all bundled up like the sun had gone out, with the laptop warming my lap (or am I supercooling my laptop?) trying to remember what I was dreaming about.

Like a roller coaster or suspense thriller, I have the emotional impression that I would have really liked the dream. Pity.

So, I have been using LMDE64 for a while now and have one issue... power management. It would seem that it does not seem to really like waking up from being suspended if I had a number of tab open in chromium.

Because suspending and waking seems to be fine when I only have e-mail open, or something like that, I am suspicious of chrome behaving badly when all its threads get tucked away. Twice, once on each of two computers, this did happen.

Now, I know what you windows users out there are thinking; "Only one 'lock up' per machine in over two weeks? Wow!"

No offence.

But yeah. I mean, Chrome is not Debian's responsibility, nor is it Mint's, but hey, it seems to be a condition that I have witnessed. And two occurrences is not enough to definitively call it a bug, but I am keeping an eye on it.

Take Care-
LQ

Look! A Friday Update!

Yeah, it is Friday and I am, again, updating my blog.

It has been getting a number of updates this week because of having uploaded those latest "chapters" in my J&J short story thingie.

But that is okay.

It is snowing like it makes good sense. Not, like, record-breaking, or really news worthy, but enough for me to be mentioning here. Maybe I'll check Newsminer to see if they have anything to say about it.

Flurries. Pfft... Oh well. There seems to be something of a meteorological querk between them and me anyway.

Oh, and just in case they /do/ make it big, you heard it here first.

Let us see what else is going on around here...

Wow, the news is depressing. No wonder I don't look. Yeah, there are some good cultural pieces, but they get kinda overshadowed by the other stuff.

Ooo... this looks good: CELTIC JAM, 19:30 at College Coffeehouse, over on College Rd
But then, Sand Castle is playing too, but at 20:30 at McCafferty’s. Cool stuff, that.
Maybe I'll miss the InVein debut at 21:00 at CCH.

Or, Maybe I won't get out of the house at all. Hmm...

Okay, so, that's what's going on here. Nothing to see. Move along.

Take Care-
LQ

The Eighth in the J&J series is posted

Hahaha... it is one of my favorite ones because the story gets moving. I mean, I have seven segments that are trying to introduce the major players, their relationships, and the bit about the twins that sets them apart. So, as this one gets moving along, so does the story.

The plot thickens. 009 will be more exciting. At least, I am excited for it.

Anywho, this latest installment is fairly sizable, so I will, with little further a due, put the link on here so ye all can just jump right to it.

But before you click, if you have not already, PLEASE start at 001. I mean, 001 - 007 (fun and exciting as they may be) are just to get us to the point where I can really take you into their world and make things happen.

The newest:
[J+J Series, No. 008: The Mall? Really?]

The rest:
[J&J Series, No. 001: First Day, Five Years]
[J+J Series, No. 002: A Blind Date]
[J+J Series, No. 003: Early Years 01:Meet the Class]
[J+J Series, No. 004: Early Years 02:Delivered Late]
[J+J Series, No. 005: Early Years 03:Dinner Interrupted]
[J+J Series, No. 006: Discoveries]
[J+J Series, No. 007: From the Journal]
[J+J Series, No. 008: The Mall? Really?]

Okay, there is the SciFi one that has kinda been on hiatus for too long, but it needs to hold on a little longer while the J&J series gets a little more attention because I am not really at a stopping point. Write while the whiting flows, eh?

Anywho, someone asked me where this is going, you know? Like, in the end of it all. There is a possibility that I may try and take all these pieces and edit them down, mash them together into one, like, book. I suppose that really is where my mind wants to take this.

So, Take Care-
LQ

The next installment is posted

J+J Series, No. 007: From the Journal
(as always, if you have not already, start at 001)

Janet and Jules are 14 in the context of this chapter (for lack of a better word). We are taking a trip into a few of Jules' journal entries. My hope here is to show their relationship a little more, add some depth to some comments that had come out rather stripped down, and there is a hint of a foreshadow here.

I plan on revisiting the journal from time to time as a tool to give explanations without weighing down scenes and keeping things moving.

Tomorrow's update will be set in their 16th year again, late in the summer. Hear is a sample of what one:
J+J Series, No. 008: The Mall? Really?

Isa looks at Jules. "Rose and juniper. Hi, Jules. Ah, mocha and mint. Hi, sweetie."
Janet relieves Pam of leading-the-blind duty - "Thank you Pam," "No problem, Isa," - and leads Isa off away from the courtyard.
Pam asks no one in particular, "Do her parents know?"
Jules kisses Mark greeting on the cheek. "Nope. But then, I don't think my sister knows either."
Mark releases Jules from the hug he gave her. "She asked about a hundred times, on the way over here if she looked okay."
John laughed. "I said it's back-to-school shopping, not prom."
Pam finished the recant, "She said, 'I don't see a difference.'"
Sam, quietly, "They gonna be okay?"
Jules, "Fear not. Janet is in good hands."
There was general laughter as the cluster headed off to the trendy clothing stores.

If you like it, let me know. If not, you can let me know too.

Ah... writing feels good

The series continues. (Yeah, over on DeviantArt)

What was I doing over the holidays? Writing on the series.
In this 006: Discoveries, they are 16 again. 007: From the Journal is still going from paper to digital and 008: The Mall? Really? is almost done with edits.
007 is kinda small and I don't know if I will upload it today or tomorrow just to pace it out a bit.

Please, feel free to comment.
=^_^=

My current playlist this morning?

Well, a while ago, a friend of mine, as it were, from the lower 48 was going on and on about the band The Bravery.

So, for the holidays I gotz me somez.

Playlist:

[0/12174] The Bravery - Sugarpill (03:27)
[1/12173] The Bravery - Jack-O'-Lantern Man (02:50)
[2/12172] The Bravery - Red Hands And White Knuckles (03:25)
[3/12171] The Bravery - I Have Seen The Future (03:14)
[4/12170] The Bravery - The Spectator (03:50)
[5/12169] The Bravery - She's So Bendable (02:23)
[6/12168] The Bravery - I Am Your Skin (03:01)
[7/12167] The Bravery - Hate[eff] (02:56)
[8/12166] The Bravery - Slow Poison (03:32)
[9/12165] The Bravery - Song For Jacob (03:23)
->[10/8131] The Bravery - Faces [Sun Version] (02:57)
[11/8130] The Bravery - Rat in the Walls [Sun Version] (03:04)
[12/8129] The Bravery - The Ocean [Sun Version] (03:41)
[13/8128] The Bravery - Above And Below [Sun Version] (03:31)
[14/8127] The Bravery - Split Me Wide Open [Sun Version] (03:39)
[15/8126] The Bravery - Angelina [Sun Version] (03:12)
[16/8125] The Bravery - Fistful Of Sand [Sun Version] (03:10)
[17/8124] The Bravery - Tragedy Bound [Sun Version] (02:22)
[18/8123] The Bravery - Time Won't Let Me Go [Sun Version] (04:11)
[19/8122] The Bravery - Bad Sun [Sun Version] (04:02)
[20/8121] The Bravery - Every Word Is A Knife In My Ear [Sun Version] (03:36)
[21/8120] The Bravery - This Is Not The End [Sun Version] (03:59)
[22/8119] The Bravery - Believe [Sun Version] (03:46)
[23/8118] The Bravery - Intro [Sun Version] (00:29)
[24/8117] The Bravery - The Ocean [Moon Version] (04:04)
[25/8116] The Bravery - Above and Below [Moon Version] (03:11)
[26/8115] The Bravery - Split Me Wide Open [Moon Version] (03:34)
[27/8114] The Bravery - Angelina [Moon Version] (03:20)
[28/8113] The Bravery - Fistful Of Sand [Moon Version] (03:00)
[29/8112] The Bravery - Tragedy Bound [Moon Version] (02:27)
[30/8111] The Bravery - Time Won't Let Me Go [Moon Version] (03:52)
[31/8110] The Bravery - Bad Sun [Moon Version] (04:25)
[32/8109] The Bravery - Every Word Is A Knife In My Ear [Moon Version] (02:37)
[33/8108] The Bravery - This Is Not The End [Moon Version] (04:03)
[34/8107] The Bravery - Believe [Moon Version] (03:20)
[35/8106] The Bravery - Intro [Moon Version] (00:18)
[36/8105] The Bravery - Adored (03:40)

Total playtime: 1:59:30

For those of you playing along at home, you may recall that I have made reverence to the lyrics to Hate[eff]. My friend had sent me the youtube link so I could download it without going to the site. It has become one of my have songs, but at about the same time, I was really getting into Cherry Poppin' Daddies. So... I have not discussed it really.

If I keep doing two-fer posts like this, it will be hard for me to really up my post count, but oh well.

Okay, so, Take Care!
LQ

Happy gnu deer.

Okay, real quick:

[74/11308] Katy Perry - California Gurls (Passion Pit Remix) (05:12)
[75/13143] Level 42 - Lessons In Love (04:02)
[76/9530] Information Society - Strength (05:10)
[77/14324] Yaz - Sweet Thing (03:42)
[78/14343] Yelle - 85A (02:28)
[79/9541] Information Society - Hard Currency (02:34)
[80/10172] Lords Of Acid - Marijuana In Your Brain (03:56)
[81/7779] Lily Allen - Alfie (02:45)
[82/9866] Junkie XL - No Way (feat Lauren Rocket) (03:28)
[83/9863] Junkie XL - Cities In Dust (feat Lauren Rocket) (04:19)
[84/11202] Orgy - Opticon (02:57)
[85/10175] Lords Of Acid - Take Control (04:42)
[86/10808] New Order - Confusion (04:43)
[87/8857] Elvis Presley ft. Junkie XL - A little less conversation (03:33)
->[88/14342] Yelle - Mon meillur ami (03:57)

I am giving a test read to my next "installment" of the J&J series I am writing on DeviantArt.

Not so much a true and proper proof read. I will probably post tomorrow.

If you have not read any of them yet, click on my DA link over there on the right and have at it. The girls are 16 in the next segment. Maybe the next three, actually.

Take care and Happy New Year

LQ