Jordan Castillo Price's Blog, page 67
February 9, 2011
Is my Kindle here yet?
After a couple years of reading ebooks on my iPod touch, I've taken the plunge and ordered a Kindle! Yay!
There is also free two-day shipping if you order today. Here's a link
if you'd like to join me in impulsive ereader shopping.
Although it wasn't a terribly impulsive purchase. I'm still anti-stuff, and I would like to winnow down what I already own rather that adding more to the pile, especially since I'd like to move to a groovy loft someday with very little to tie me down.
Yesterday I saw a color Literati on sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond while I was refilling the C02 canister for my soda maker. Now, I don't think of it as any sort of main brand of ereader by any means...but the thing was just 40 bucks, so I almost did an impulse buy then and there. The dealbreaker was that nowhere on the packaging did it say which file type the ereader accepted. Also, the demo model didn't do anything. It appeared to be on, but when I pushed the navigation thingy, nothing happened. (I also poked the screen, but I see now it was not a touch screen). So I shrugged, bought my C02 and left.
Then today online I was actually shopping for a monitor, because I can re-configure my standing desk to be more user-friendly if I swap all my gear out, but to do that I need a more modern monitor there, because the little computer I'd hook to it won't do a vga hookup and the old monitor there is vga only. So I looked at monitors for a long time, realized they were probably cheapest w/ the free shipping at Amazon, looked at Amazon for a while, decided I could make do well enough with the setup I had...and bought a Kindle.
I've been planning to buy a cheap Kindle, cheap Sony and cheap Nook this year so I can give better customer service, and also to ensure my ebooks look as good as they can on all of them...but I don't want to drop the money all at once. I think seeing that Literati and coming so close to buying it is really what decided me. I just thought, "Ya know, if they won't even list the file type on the box, how user friendly can it be?" and I decided it must be marketed toward an ebook dabbler rather than an ebook user.
I also figure I'm going to do another round of edits on GhosTV soon, and the thought of doing them either on my iPod or at my desktop was not appealing at all!
There is also free two-day shipping if you order today. Here's a link
if you'd like to join me in impulsive ereader shopping.Although it wasn't a terribly impulsive purchase. I'm still anti-stuff, and I would like to winnow down what I already own rather that adding more to the pile, especially since I'd like to move to a groovy loft someday with very little to tie me down.
Yesterday I saw a color Literati on sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond while I was refilling the C02 canister for my soda maker. Now, I don't think of it as any sort of main brand of ereader by any means...but the thing was just 40 bucks, so I almost did an impulse buy then and there. The dealbreaker was that nowhere on the packaging did it say which file type the ereader accepted. Also, the demo model didn't do anything. It appeared to be on, but when I pushed the navigation thingy, nothing happened. (I also poked the screen, but I see now it was not a touch screen). So I shrugged, bought my C02 and left.
Then today online I was actually shopping for a monitor, because I can re-configure my standing desk to be more user-friendly if I swap all my gear out, but to do that I need a more modern monitor there, because the little computer I'd hook to it won't do a vga hookup and the old monitor there is vga only. So I looked at monitors for a long time, realized they were probably cheapest w/ the free shipping at Amazon, looked at Amazon for a while, decided I could make do well enough with the setup I had...and bought a Kindle.
I've been planning to buy a cheap Kindle, cheap Sony and cheap Nook this year so I can give better customer service, and also to ensure my ebooks look as good as they can on all of them...but I don't want to drop the money all at once. I think seeing that Literati and coming so close to buying it is really what decided me. I just thought, "Ya know, if they won't even list the file type on the box, how user friendly can it be?" and I decided it must be marketed toward an ebook dabbler rather than an ebook user.
I also figure I'm going to do another round of edits on GhosTV soon, and the thought of doing them either on my iPod or at my desktop was not appealing at all!
February 7, 2011
Featured Author on Full Moon Bites
I'm the featured author this week on Full Moon Bites. Stop by and say hi!
February 5, 2011
He can't say I never use the snowshoes now.
My neighbor was outside when I came around the house to see if I could find my dryer vent or not, and she seemed pretty amused at the idea of me going out there with snowshoes to try to unearth it. She said, "Come around here by my garage, that's the lowest point," and I kid you not, there was a five-foot drift next to me. On average I think I was walking on about four feet of snow, and each step I took sunk about a foot.
Without the snowshoes, forget it. Wouldn't have been able to make it even a couple of feet in. So they do work. (You can also see from my neighbor's fence that we're at the bottom of the hill, but that the snow filled it in straight across.)
Here, I found my vent and uncovered it, yay! And then I fell over. Boo. I floundered for quite a while--seriously, you don't realize how hard it is to stand up from a limbo-like position until every time you try to push yourself up, all that happens is your hand sinks. Then I decided to use my head. (Not literally...that would probably have been plan C, since my head has more surface area than my hand.) I put the snowshovel across the snow and pressed my hands into the flat of the scoop to lever myself into a standing position. Phew!
No, I don't plan on opening that back door anytime soon.
Now I can wash and dry my blanket. Yay!
(It looks like I fell spreadeagle, ha ha! That's just the way I used the shovel to push back onto my feet.)
Without the snowshoes, forget it. Wouldn't have been able to make it even a couple of feet in. So they do work. (You can also see from my neighbor's fence that we're at the bottom of the hill, but that the snow filled it in straight across.)
Here, I found my vent and uncovered it, yay! And then I fell over. Boo. I floundered for quite a while--seriously, you don't realize how hard it is to stand up from a limbo-like position until every time you try to push yourself up, all that happens is your hand sinks. Then I decided to use my head. (Not literally...that would probably have been plan C, since my head has more surface area than my hand.) I put the snowshovel across the snow and pressed my hands into the flat of the scoop to lever myself into a standing position. Phew!
No, I don't plan on opening that back door anytime soon.
Now I can wash and dry my blanket. Yay!
(It looks like I fell spreadeagle, ha ha! That's just the way I used the shovel to push back onto my feet.)
One of THOSE days
I was having trouble sleeping, which is not usually a big deal since I don't have a day-job, and can sleep whenever I want or need to and so I don't stress out when it happens. I think I was awake from 1:30 to 3 or so. The cats always find it amusing when this happens and pile on. I listened to some podcasts and hovered in and out of sleep. I dreamt that someone was ringing my doorbell, that I got out of bed to see who was at my door in the middle of the night--but then I realized I hadn't actually got out of bed, that I'd just dreamt it. And that I don't have a doorbell so obviously no one was ringing a doorbell at 3am.
Finally, I got to sleep--and Puffy, right next to me, starts throwing up in bed.
I have three blankets piled on and I just rolled down the top blanket to keep the puke off us. I started to fall asleep. He started trying to bury his puke. SIGH.
The sucky thing is that there's a 5-foot snowdrift against the back of my house where my dryer vent lets out, so I will need to snowshoe around to the back of my house to dig it out if I want to do laundry. I imagine it'll be kind of like digging a grave--I can pretend I'm on Supernatural and I'm gonna "burn the bones." I don't feel like it, but I also don't want to need to use a laundromat until the spring thaw.
I haven't quite worked up the motivation yet. At least I will feel justified in the purchase of the snowshoes I "never use" according to my ex.
Finally, I got to sleep--and Puffy, right next to me, starts throwing up in bed.
I have three blankets piled on and I just rolled down the top blanket to keep the puke off us. I started to fall asleep. He started trying to bury his puke. SIGH.
The sucky thing is that there's a 5-foot snowdrift against the back of my house where my dryer vent lets out, so I will need to snowshoe around to the back of my house to dig it out if I want to do laundry. I imagine it'll be kind of like digging a grave--I can pretend I'm on Supernatural and I'm gonna "burn the bones." I don't feel like it, but I also don't want to need to use a laundromat until the spring thaw.
I haven't quite worked up the motivation yet. At least I will feel justified in the purchase of the snowshoes I "never use" according to my ex.
February 2, 2011
Hey, Dude, Where's My Car?
Oh, it's behind that showdrift up to the window. Duh.
February 1, 2011
What's THAT in your pantry?
After I made remarks today to both Tam and Val about getting stuck in the blizzard and ending up with nothing to eat but the weird stuff in your pantry, I realized that would be kind of a fun thing to hear about.
What's the weirdest food item in YOUR pantry?
The can of sliced beets is #1 on my list. It seems like we used to make a good beet and orange salad and I was going to try using the canned beets rather than fresh since it would be less messy, then never made the salad. Probably two years ago.
I have a pre-packaged Indian meal that's likely too spicy.
And I found some really old gelatin made with Splenda I special ordered ages ago...I don't think that stuff goes bad. I'm having me some Jello!
So what about you? What's weird in there?
What's the weirdest food item in YOUR pantry?
The can of sliced beets is #1 on my list. It seems like we used to make a good beet and orange salad and I was going to try using the canned beets rather than fresh since it would be less messy, then never made the salad. Probably two years ago.
I have a pre-packaged Indian meal that's likely too spicy.
And I found some really old gelatin made with Splenda I special ordered ages ago...I don't think that stuff goes bad. I'm having me some Jello!
So what about you? What's weird in there?
January 28, 2011
GhosTV Anticipated!
Boy, sometimes I think I am anticipating the release of GhosTV more than anyone else, because you guys won't believe how much mental energy it's gonna free up for me! (LOTS).Anyway, I just spotted GhosTV on this Goodreads list of Most Anticipated Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Books - Early 2011. How cool is that? It makes my day :D
I'm in edits now. I'll give you a release date when I get into book production. It's the longest PsyCop novel so far.
January 25, 2011
Standing, Sitting, Zero Hour, The Starving Years and PsyCop
Wow, I'm almost through editing Zero Hour. I think I underestimated that story, as I thought of it like a bunch of randomness that I had forced into a semi-sensible plot. But reading it all at once really surprised me. It's a better story than I gave it credit for being, and now in edits where I get to weave it together more solidly, tie up loose ends, and really get the themes to shine, I'm really tickled with it.
I mentioned my standing desk experiment in my last newsletter, and actually I did 90% of the Zero Hour edits standing up. And my feet kinda hurt! Even with the anti-fatigue mat. I figured out that I could make Scrivener Windows Beta and Scrivener Mac 2.0 play nice if I kept the files on a thumb drive. (Getting Windows and Mac Scrivener to work on the same project seems to be one of its bugs at the moment.) I'm on the last scene I'd like to add and I pulled it back to my sit-down Mac station for some reason. Who knows why the subconscious works the way it does? And then it should be off to![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380442897i/1319734.gif)
neyronrose
for edits. Probably tomorrow.
And then I get to dig in to the GhosTV edits with all the beta readers' notes and the really awesome field trip I did last Saturday to a Yoga center in Madison for an all-day retreat. I feel like I should lay it out there that my views on New Age religions (or really, they're older Eastern religions) and Vic's don't exactly align, and a lot of the stuff that sounds perfectly good to me, he finds phenomenally offensive and dumb and annoying. Just sayin'.
A lot of the stuff that my retreat leader said sounded interesting to me...but I can't wait to slip some of it into GhosTV and watch Vic blow a gasket.
GhosTV is a 100% sitting project. Maybe it's too complicated to stand and write at the same time.
And then soon I'll be able to write another couple chapters of The Starving Years, which, again, I'm way more pleased with than I would have hoped. Voting on the next part closes 1/30, though one reader (Tracy G) gave me an idea for how to use a combo of two of the votes that I will probably go with, since one of those two is well in the lead. Though I won't have time to work on it before 1/30 so I'll see how the votes go. This month's smexy installment is a culmination of 40,000 words of longing looks and flirting (yay!) and now I want to write sex, sex, sex til the end of the book...but I must restrain myself, because that would drag down the plot. And it's actually a quite plotty story. It's also a standing-up story. No idea why. (My brain insists on spinning a really naughty sex scene, so I'm sure it'll find a way to make it happen somewhere.)
I will probably stop doing the voting thing if response numbers dip too low--it doesn't make logical sense for me to bend my schedule around something that's being participated in by too few readers. I get the impression that most people wouldn't mind too much if that happened, they're just reading to see where the story goes.
I mentioned my standing desk experiment in my last newsletter, and actually I did 90% of the Zero Hour edits standing up. And my feet kinda hurt! Even with the anti-fatigue mat. I figured out that I could make Scrivener Windows Beta and Scrivener Mac 2.0 play nice if I kept the files on a thumb drive. (Getting Windows and Mac Scrivener to work on the same project seems to be one of its bugs at the moment.) I'm on the last scene I'd like to add and I pulled it back to my sit-down Mac station for some reason. Who knows why the subconscious works the way it does? And then it should be off to
neyronrose
for edits. Probably tomorrow.And then I get to dig in to the GhosTV edits with all the beta readers' notes and the really awesome field trip I did last Saturday to a Yoga center in Madison for an all-day retreat. I feel like I should lay it out there that my views on New Age religions (or really, they're older Eastern religions) and Vic's don't exactly align, and a lot of the stuff that sounds perfectly good to me, he finds phenomenally offensive and dumb and annoying. Just sayin'.
A lot of the stuff that my retreat leader said sounded interesting to me...but I can't wait to slip some of it into GhosTV and watch Vic blow a gasket.
GhosTV is a 100% sitting project. Maybe it's too complicated to stand and write at the same time.
And then soon I'll be able to write another couple chapters of The Starving Years, which, again, I'm way more pleased with than I would have hoped. Voting on the next part closes 1/30, though one reader (Tracy G) gave me an idea for how to use a combo of two of the votes that I will probably go with, since one of those two is well in the lead. Though I won't have time to work on it before 1/30 so I'll see how the votes go. This month's smexy installment is a culmination of 40,000 words of longing looks and flirting (yay!) and now I want to write sex, sex, sex til the end of the book...but I must restrain myself, because that would drag down the plot. And it's actually a quite plotty story. It's also a standing-up story. No idea why. (My brain insists on spinning a really naughty sex scene, so I'm sure it'll find a way to make it happen somewhere.)
I will probably stop doing the voting thing if response numbers dip too low--it doesn't make logical sense for me to bend my schedule around something that's being participated in by too few readers. I get the impression that most people wouldn't mind too much if that happened, they're just reading to see where the story goes.
January 23, 2011
Team sports...I don't get it.
I lived in Chicago, and now I live in Wisconsin. The Packers played the Bears for a spot in the Superbowl, and I see the Packers won.
I suspect my ex is currently crushed. I almost sent him a teasing email about the Packers winning, but really, I know he takes it far too personally for me to be able to even remotely tease.
When we were in couples counseling, this whole sports-fan thing was one of the issues where I simply couldn't get it. I do not understand this whole routing-for-teams-based-on-geography thing. It does not compute. The whole sport thing says that I'm from Buffalo, so I should care about the Bills. I don't. Why? Well, not only because I don't care about football (which I don't...maybe I inversely care) but because the team has little to do with the city. Probably less than I do, since I lived there for 18 years and my parents are still there. Most of the players probably aren't even from there. I think by virtue of living in the city that houses a team, the fan doesn't do much in connection with the team. The fan doesn't train the players, doesn't know them personally. They don't send them money. They don't chat with them on LJ.
Also, it seems counterintuitive to me to route for a team based on the city they purportedly "represent." If you love the game itself (which is what every fan will tell you, but it's a lie) they should love either the most skilled, or the most innovative players. They should love the athletes who play well, or play artistically in some way. But, no. It's usually just that their home town or home state or their college or their country is emblazoned on the uniforms.
I guess I just think the geographical team-thing is a stupid construct. There, I said it. Now if they restructured the teams to have something to do with idiosyncrasies and values, sort of like the house-system in Harry Potter, maybe then it would be cool. People align with Gryffindor or Slytherin not based on geographics, but based on values or self-image. I could maybe understand if NFL teams were like that, and people got so wrapped up in whether they won or lost.
The geographic-team construct is, in fact, creepy to me. Slap a label on it, say it has something to do with "my" city, and I'll rabidly defend it. No thanks.
Reading is like my fantasy team ideal more or less, right? You don't usually pick an author based on the city they're from. You pick them because their work resonates with you and you admire their skill or craftsmanship.
The whole sports-fan thing disgusts me, too. What do "fans" think they actually do for teams? Not the fans who travel to opposing teams' cities and route them on in person, the fans who sit on their barstools and watch them on network TV. How is that helping or supporting the team in any way? It's disturbing to watch people take pride in something they didn't do, didn't achieve, didn't have any part in at all.
But watch a fan spaz out when their team wins and ask them what they actually did to merit the sense of satisfaction and be prepared to be treated like an alien.
Readers, on the other hand, support their authors by leaving reviews on Amazon, by turning other people onto their books, and by sending personal emails or messages or tweets or whatever to the authors they enjoy.
I suspect my ex is currently crushed. I almost sent him a teasing email about the Packers winning, but really, I know he takes it far too personally for me to be able to even remotely tease.
When we were in couples counseling, this whole sports-fan thing was one of the issues where I simply couldn't get it. I do not understand this whole routing-for-teams-based-on-geography thing. It does not compute. The whole sport thing says that I'm from Buffalo, so I should care about the Bills. I don't. Why? Well, not only because I don't care about football (which I don't...maybe I inversely care) but because the team has little to do with the city. Probably less than I do, since I lived there for 18 years and my parents are still there. Most of the players probably aren't even from there. I think by virtue of living in the city that houses a team, the fan doesn't do much in connection with the team. The fan doesn't train the players, doesn't know them personally. They don't send them money. They don't chat with them on LJ.
Also, it seems counterintuitive to me to route for a team based on the city they purportedly "represent." If you love the game itself (which is what every fan will tell you, but it's a lie) they should love either the most skilled, or the most innovative players. They should love the athletes who play well, or play artistically in some way. But, no. It's usually just that their home town or home state or their college or their country is emblazoned on the uniforms.
I guess I just think the geographical team-thing is a stupid construct. There, I said it. Now if they restructured the teams to have something to do with idiosyncrasies and values, sort of like the house-system in Harry Potter, maybe then it would be cool. People align with Gryffindor or Slytherin not based on geographics, but based on values or self-image. I could maybe understand if NFL teams were like that, and people got so wrapped up in whether they won or lost.
The geographic-team construct is, in fact, creepy to me. Slap a label on it, say it has something to do with "my" city, and I'll rabidly defend it. No thanks.
Reading is like my fantasy team ideal more or less, right? You don't usually pick an author based on the city they're from. You pick them because their work resonates with you and you admire their skill or craftsmanship.
The whole sports-fan thing disgusts me, too. What do "fans" think they actually do for teams? Not the fans who travel to opposing teams' cities and route them on in person, the fans who sit on their barstools and watch them on network TV. How is that helping or supporting the team in any way? It's disturbing to watch people take pride in something they didn't do, didn't achieve, didn't have any part in at all.
But watch a fan spaz out when their team wins and ask them what they actually did to merit the sense of satisfaction and be prepared to be treated like an alien.
Readers, on the other hand, support their authors by leaving reviews on Amazon, by turning other people onto their books, and by sending personal emails or messages or tweets or whatever to the authors they enjoy.
January 21, 2011
Petit Morts Giveaways
Freebies and giveaways, hooray! JCP Books is the featured publisher at Rainbow eBooks this weekend (starting NOW). Pick up Hue, Tint and Shade and Slings and Arrows for free. All other JCP Books titles are 20% off.
I'm giving away a copy of Sweets to the Sweet on their Facebook fanpage.
