Asrai Devin's Blog, page 19

Jake Doyle is back

Republic of Doyle is the favorite show in our house. Most Canadian television is mediocre, but this one is just non-stop funny and engaging.

The hero of the show is Jake Doyle, a man who seeks trouble out. In the first two seasons he's a private detective working with his father, Malachy Doyle. Since he's getting divorced he also lives with them, as does his neice, Tinny. And then they also pick-up Tinny's stalker admirer Des Courtney. I think Des may be my favorite character. He's so hapless.

Jake not only has trouble from his job, but also his personal life. He's almost always juggling two or more women. His ex-wife, the good looking Constable from the local RCMP detachment, the new crown attorney in town. his ex-girlfriend from high school.

One of the greatest features of the show is seeing the colourfulness of St. John's, Newfoundland. It's a beautiful city. And the show does it's best to play up all the sights and sounds.

It used to be that TV shows ran September/October through May/June. Nowadays, a series season will run "half the season". So Republic of Doyle begins January 11th and when it's not on we mourn it. I'm hoping CBC gives them a full season at some point.

And this year Russel Crowe is doing a show!!!!! Yay Robin Hood.

Do any of your favourite shows run half a season?

Tagged: Asrai Devin, CBC Television, Constable, Doyle, Newfoundland, Republic of Doyle, Russell Crowe, St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador, Television, Television program, TV series, TV shows

Row 80 First Wednesday Check-in

We are 2 days into Row80.

So far, I've played a lot of Dragon Ages: Origins. I love Alistair far more than I ever loved Anders. I haven't loved a character anywhere in ages. Origins drives  me a bit batty, because I'm forever accidentally talking to Alistair, since I'm there anyway and my only option is to say Never mind or make out with him, our characters make out a lot.

"That's what I'm here for. To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners." -Alistair

Plus he is so pretty!

Writing goal: Edit 1 hour per day, 5 days a week. Got in 2 hours in 2 days. By the time I got my hour in, I had to write up a blog post and then go to bed. I need to get some blog posts scheduled up.

Guest posting: emailed one person, I have a list of several  more people I want to email about posts. I have my blog schedule in a spreadsheet, it's only half filled out.

I haven't gotten outside at all this week. I hate cold weather. I have exercised with EA Active, so we do get moving. And I started my meal plan for the next week. I think I'll post my plan on Sundays instead of a Row goal post.

My husband got me a Nextbook Tablet computer for Christmas, so I can read ebooks from the library again. It also can do Kobo and Kindle, so I can read all the indie kindle books I've taken note of. I think we'll watch Twilight tomorrow or Thursday, my daughter thinks it's hilarious when I make fun of it. My 50/50 challenge list will be posted on that page.

Introduction to my house

I am addicting to renovation shows. We watch them all winter and then I spend days whining about wanting it to be warm so I can paint something or build something.

We lived in our last place for 5 years. And for 5 years we lived with a pink bathroom with harvest gold fixtures. I have NO idea why I didn't paint that bathroom until we were getting ready to sell the place. When we bought our new place I didn't have a chance to paint since we moved nearly 400 kilometres.

 

So I right now I am stuck with Honey Walls. They are yellow, which isn't bad except the entire house, minus the bedrooms are that colour.

 

 

 

 

Superstore had some "blackout" curtains on sale and my sister in law had just moved into their new house a month after us so she dragged me there to buy some because we have two giant windows in the living room, which is one of the only things we've done so far.  The curtains are not blackout, sun still shines through, which is what happens when one of your big living room windows faces south.

The other housewarming gift to ourselves was the entertainment stand. Our previous one was left in the basement of the house my mother moved into almost thirteen years ago when she left my dad. We didn't have anything so we brought that one, and we moved it three times. It lasted two weeks in this place when I found the one I always wanted. The electronics are all on top until our son is older and done with the button pushing.

 

 

 

One of my favorite things is we have a dining room. previously the dining room and kictchen were the same. Here they are separated by a cupboard.

 

 

 

The kitchen is nothing special. It's oak cupboards which are getting older. We are probably just going to paint them and put new hardware on, which is the same thing we did before.

 

 

 

 

The bathroom is tiny and we are down to one bathroom. I miss the en suite, but our bedroom is two steps away. If I had my way I'd make our son's room into the bathroom, make the bathroom the laundry room and put our son in the playroom/storage room, which is currently unheated.

The toilet is behind the door, you can see the shower curtain/bathtub in the right corner. And that is it, there is no wall space for hanging towels. The bathmat has to be rolled up when no one is in the shower.

 

 

 

Our bedroom is quite a bit larger. Or maybe it only seems that way because we downsized to one dresser. We do have a huge closet, but it has no doors or any shelving, so anything that's not hanging up is still in boxes.

There are two little windows that look out onto the backyard (where my garden will be). Odd trailer set-ups from the 70′s.

 

 

Outside we have a giant shed, which is somehow FULL. It's easily three times the size of our old one and we managed to shove everything in the old one. I don't have a picture of this right now, and there is a new snowfall outside so I'm not going out to get one.

So that's my little house pre-renovation. In the next few months all I get to do is plan, but I think I will share my plans since I need some extra help with colours. I'm terrible about settling on colours for inside the house. I like neutral colours, but that gets BORING after a while.

Any renovation junkies out there? Interior designers? Just really good with colour? Give me your input.

Keeping your resolutions

It's that time of the year when we make our resolutions. And then most of the time fail to do the work to change. Because, face it, changing is hard. If it were easy to change we wouldn't have to make resolutions, we'd wake up, decide to change and do it.

I wish change were that easy. According to Chip Heath and Dan Heath, it can be easier if you tap into a few keys that make changing easier. They explore these ideas in their book Switch. I'm going to spend my Monday's in January following up on the ideas in the book and hopefully give people a little boost in making the necessary changes in their lives to keep their 2012 goals.

To simplify and begin, we all have two parts of our brain when we make our choices.

We have the rational side who wants us to change and get up every morning to exercise before we sit down and write two thousand words of the next great novel, and then head in and put in our best day of work ever.  Heath's call this the Rider part of our brain.

We have the emotional side who hits the snooze button six more times and pulls the blanket up a little higher because it's cold out and decide we'll write later, because our writing isn't that good anyway. The Heath's call this the Elephant part of our brain, a good term since if we were sitting on an Elephant and it didn't want to listen, it would just run us over, which is what our emotional side often does.

I love Switch because it's universal, it can be stretched or shrunk to apply to any situation and any size. It can work on a personal level and also for big corporations (one of the stories in the books is how one guy made some spending changes within the US government).

Tagged: Alarm clock, Asrai Devin, Brain, Chip Heath, Dan Heath, goal setting, goals, Heath, Monday, New Year, New year resolution, Resolutions, Rider, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Interspiration #123111

Happy New Year's Eve!!

@bjbangs and the evolution of the Kit-Cat Klock. Cute! http://bit.ly/upxQyc

@Jenn_L_Oliver Puppies and resolutions. http://bit.ly/td3Qe0

@PrudenceMacLeod is making a resolution. http://bit.ly/vTSiXN

http://bit.ly/vnfGkY Feedback is good, criticism is often not constructive.

@TeresaMOwen Media and the modern man. http://bit.ly/uXYS70 Good post.

Donna Martin is having one heck of a contest slash blog reader drive. http://bit.ly/v2mJgD  I am a subscriber. :)

Tagged: Asrai Devin, blog links, blogs, Holidays, Kit-Cat Klock, mash-up, mashup, Massive Multiplayer Online, New Year, New Years Eve, Video Games

Spam is fun

I saved some of my more amusing blog comments to share. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted the one that gave  me the most glee.

The next time I learn a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my choice to read, however I truly thought youd have something attention-grabbing to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you might fix should you werent too busy in search of attention.

I tell you I've been told. Sort of. When I first read it I wondered if I had been whining (it's something I've been trying to stop doing or at least slow down).  But the comment was on a post about me doing crazy things, like ripping novels apart for crafting. 

Your special dedication to passing the message around had been surprisingly informative and has continually helped ladies much like me to arrive at their endeavors

I snorted when I read this. Arrive at their endeavours? Sounds like a euphemism. For sex or at least having an orgasm. Glad my About page was so interesting.

This web site is mostly a walk-by for all of the information you wished about this and didn?t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and also you?ll undoubtedly discover it.

 Everything you wanted to know about Halloween costumes but were too lazy to blog about? My characters often glimpse  at each other, much like teenagers who don't want their crush to know they are looking.

Receiving pregnant may perhaps not be as easy as it seems. You will discover some who do get pregnant the first time they have sex, but that isn't as common as some think. In general, a healthy couple really only has about a 20 to 25% chance of conceiving every single month.

Receiving pregnant? For people trying the chances are 25%, why does it sometimes seem higher for people who aren't trying?

My newest piece of spam was just a link for pornbeer.com. I don't want to send any traffic their way, nor have I clicked on the link, so if you go there it's not on me. It does sound like the perfect website for single males on a lonely night. Who doesn't love porn and beer?

Do you have any memorable spam?
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Is Spam Evil Enough Yet? (i.doubt.it)



Tagged: abuse, Akismet, Asrai, Comment Spam, E-mail, E-mail filtering, Friday, Friday Fun, Google, Pregnancy, Spam

Row 80 Round 1 2012 goal setting

Alright Row 80 Round 1 2012 is upon us. i have 2 manuscripts to edit, send for feedback, edit again and release.

So Round 1 runs January 2nd to March 22nd.

Writing goals:

Edit 5 days a week, 1 hour a day.

After editing is done, write 250 words 5 days a week or 1250 words per week.

When inital edits are done get feedback from 3 critique partners at least per manuscript. Then run through another round from their feedback.

Release date will for book one will be March.

Once editing on both books is done word count will be upped to 500 words 5 days a week. Phew.

Blog goals:

More guest posting: both getting and giving. Going to aim for 2 a month for Jan and Feb, one a week for March.

Working out a schedule in a spreadsheet, because I'm a geek.

Personal:

Get outside 5 days a week.

Exercise with EA active

Plan meals (gotta get our budget under control).

Read one book and watch one movie a week as per the fifty-fifty challenge.

Horrible mix-up

Due to a horrible mix up where I thought I was going to involved in a blog scavenger hunt but really the scavenger hunt ended before I even wrote this post, and the person in question really just wanted a guest post , today's post will be at Samantha Warren's blog. She's one of those keeners with her own domain name. Something I have coveted since the late 90′s.

If you don't want to read what I had to say check out her blog anyway. She's always got awesome content, like the floppy drives beeping and buzzing to The Imperial March.

(Bonus points if you can say my first sentence in one breath).

Go visit Samantha's blog now: http://www.samantha-warren.com/

Interspiration #122411

@_FabioBueno_ tells us about how amazing Stallone is. More than he seems for sure. http://bit.ly/uCLL95

@DebraEve celebrates late bloomer Sue Monk Kidd.  http://bit.ly/rZmw23

The Passive Guy has had some interesting posts about Amazon. Here is a snippet from a third party about indies not being truly indie because we still have to go through Amazon et al. for distribution. Personally I'll play my Amazon percentage to use their system. http://www.thepassivevoice.com/12/2011/is-disintermediation-possible-for-the-indie-author/

Tagged: Asrai Devin, Blog, blog links, Interspire, links, mashup, Sue Monk Kidd

A love so wrong that it's right

Okay, Bella is not the poster child for teen girls to emulate. Nor should we parent like Bella's parents. But it's the perfect teenage fantasy: no parents to tell you what to do. But they still provide your basic needs.

But I love me some Edward. I love everything about Twilight. Mostly the first book, I'm not into the continuing story. I just pretend they dont' really exist. I just imagine Bella and Edward happy in love forever teenagers.

But I mean come on, who would not want to be wanted like this? Wanted so bad that you feel out of control? Wanted by someone who has never wanted anyone else like you.

This is why I love Cam from "Mine Till Midnight" by Lisa Kleypas. He's the bad boy outcast who has never found his true place in the world, until he meets Amelia. And then he's found his place and she can be taken care of by him.

Do you love it when a hero shows restraint even though the heroine is throwing himself at her?

Tagged: Asrai Devin, Bella, Bella Swan, Breaking Dawn, Edward, Edward Cullen, Lisa Kleypas, Mine Till Midnight, Parent, relationship, Romance, Romantic, Twilight