It’s a cool day outside. There’s more of a Fall feel than Winter to the day. A nice day for a cuppa.

The second week of the experiment was less successful than the first. But my body decided to be all out of sorts this week. Nothing major, just weird aches and cold spells. Like it was adjusting itself to something, but I have no idea what. Had the suspicion it’s the onset of the Change. Nearing 43, so reckon it’s a possibility. Or just my body being weird.

I have three books I must read this month or face a fate (for me) worse than death. The Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, vol. 1, and A Game of Thrones. Each would probably just take me a day each to get thru if I just sat meself down and read them.

As you’ve probably noticed, procrastination is ever a companion of mine. It’s gotten me bitten in the ass more than once, but mostly it’s just annoying. The true thing is the number of times I’ve been able to pull things out of my ass at the eleventh hour for the save that leads to me not working on the procrastination.

I forget how long they say you have to do a thing before it becomes a habit. But I do know there are aspects to my personality that are there because they were the conscious that became the unconscious. It can be done. Just always easier when you’re not putting the thought into doing it. When it’s not staring you in the face, daring ya.

Part of me wishes I knew another language, but I would also not mind just knowing another accent honestly. That ‘honestly’ is not in the sense of ‘to tell the truth’ but as in ‘come by another accent honestly’. See, my regular speaking voice has been throwing people off my whole life.

At a very age, I had allergy induced earaches that actually cut my hearing by near half for a time before coming back to normal. So, growing up I had people wondering if I was from New York City, though which borough I cannot say.

Then I would get other guesses. New Jersey. One girl asked me if I was Italian from either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, I cannot remember which, cause I talked just like a guy she knew who was.

I’ve also gotten two votes for Austria. One kid went thru a list a couple of months back of German, Italian, Switzerland, and one other. Another girl couldn’t even proper guess and made a wild grab of Arabic but her face said how lacking a choice that was.

I have confused a clerk by asking for quarters and had to over pronounce it before being understood. When I ask at work if they want to use the ‘payroll’ option to pay, some hear ‘eggroll’ or ‘the table’ instead.

And I know I’ve added to how my accent is. If there’s an interesting sound to a word, I’ll say it that way. And if you get told you speak in a way repeatedly (NYC), then you tend to hit those sounds a bit more. And I throw in an occasional foreign word here and there.

And like many others, I will do bad impressions of movie accents. Usually Russian/former Eastern Block and English ones.

But if I could, I would like to try and work on a Yorkshire accent, or neighboring Lancashire. And yeah, mostly cause of two blokes.

From Lancashire comes me Doctor, the Ninth, Christopher Eccleston.

From Yorkshire comes, of course, Sean Bean.

Mind you, if was true ambitious, I might give Sir Patrick Stewart’s old accent a whirl.

http://www.wimp.com/yorkshiredialect/

Join the others for a cuppa

If we were meeting for drinks, I would tell you how much I need a hot one. It’s getting cold in these parts and I ain’t liking it one bit.

Give me the Summer and I’m a happy camper.

Work’s been a bear  for some reason. Just been more tired lately. Hopefully not the winter sick coming on. I only get sick when the seasons change, so this cold snap might be what does it.

So near thru my first week of the experiment to do something creative every day. Couple bits to do better but I’m not pushing it this early. Just seeing how it goes.

This weekend is the Fan Fest here in town. It’s a Winter off shoot of our Comicon. So of course I’m working all weekend. And there was some great guests. Oh well, waiting for Summer and Comicon.

Had my first religious discourse with a fella who came up to me at the bus station wanting to testify. Not that it’s the first time one has come up to me, but the first one to ask who my god was and a discussion proceeded from there. Gave me an idea of how to explain my religion, but need to do some  work to better express myself and to have more answers.

Not too much else happening. Oh, going to try again the reading challenge bombed out on this year. The one with 50 categories. And got some friends to try it out as well. Started a Fb group for it. Should be interesting. Another thing to keep track of in my planner. And on Good Reads, another new thing.

See what the others are having this weekend.

So how ya doing?

NaNo has started. Did about half today’s quota, posted a couple of entries onto the blog set up for it, then had to monkey with the settings on the posts to get it close to right. And also edited them in the process.

Still fuzzy on a lot of the details and feeling a little anxious about putting work out there with such possibly glaring errors. But have wavered less on this effort than on others in the past, so that’s something.

We’ll just have to see how it goes.

Went to a friend’s Halloween party last night. Had fun. Lots of junk food, and curiously spinach balls. No one was sure who brought them, but we had to wonder why.

See who else is sharing.

It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Almost forgot how to get here.

One week til NaNo. Adapting The Count of Monte Cristo into a Western. And doing it journal style on an online blog. Should be interesting. Or disastrous, haven’t decided.

Not too much happening. Work about the same.

Oh, but don’t know if I told you. Last month started a meet up thing with friends of mine based on fandoms. Our first one was for Harry Potter and the one last week was for Supernatural. Just a way to geek out and talk about them. Hardest part is scheduling, of course. But we’ve had a decent start I think so we’ll see how it goes.

Let my drabble page on Facebook fall by the wayside, need to get that going. And need to read three books before the end of the year, which shouldn’t be a problem unless my laziness makes it one.

Really need to work on that laziness. Nasty business that.

Looking forward to Star Wars, of course. Had a bit of a headshake over all the nerds mad that they had to watch some football to see the new trailer. I like watching football, so if hadn’t been working, would have had no prob tuning in, despite my team not playing. But to hear them go on, would think they had to walk over hot coals.

The weather is cooling off. Think we’re down to the 80s or something. Gets down to 60s at night. Most of my friends are happy about that. They like the cold. Not me. Will be mourning the final passing of summer this year.

Might have to get the Welcome to Night Vale book, if can find it. I only have like the first twenty or so of the podcasts, need to get around to that as well. Found out Stephen Colbert is a fan so that’s fun.

We will have to meet more often. I shouldn’t let our meetings slip by so.

See what the other bloggers are sharing with their coffee.

…you would find me with a book in my hands. Something that has not been in quite the while.

This week I rediscovered the joy of just walking thru the library and seeing what caught my eye. Seeing some old friends, some I had heard of, and new names.

My library used to have their fiction section divided into categories, but some time back they just mashed everything together by author name. So as you walk down an aisle, you can go from romance to regular fiction to western to mystery and so on. I’m still not sure how I like it. I have given thought to whether I would do my personal library like that or keep it in categories. It does make for an interesting look.

When I left the library that day, I had five books crammed in my bag, three in the crock of my arm, and was reading one. Just a shade bit rusty in walking while reading but did alright.

I’m wanting to write reviews for the books, just can’t seem to grasp how to. I know I’m making it a more difficult process than it truly is, but can’t get a handle on it.

I have started learning a little bit of German this week. Been wanting to learn something of a foreign language and German kept popping up over the course of a couple days. Got an app called Memrise that I’m using.

I also went to a BBQ joint on the other side of town with the MBM. The food was good, the staff great but best of all *le sigh* they had the perfect sweet tea. Now most places, when I order the sweet tea, I have to add more sugar to it to get it to how I like it. I’m a bit of a sugar fiend and have near turned people diabetic just by having them watch me add sugar to my tea.

But I took that first sip and found nirvana. MBM knows of my tendancy, but was willing to risk a sip to witness the perfection. When I asked her, for this post, about how long the taste lasted in her mouth, she replied thusly:

But she isn’t let that hurt our friendship, so all is good.

Found out we lost Rowdy Roddy Piper last night. In my religion (and funny enough, a belief of my family, who is not of my religion) we believe when it’s your time to go, you go. No stopping it. So it was his time, but still not fun. He was a one off. If you don’t know, Piper was a professional wrestler and actor. His most famous role was in the movie They Live. And he played the bagpipes.

Read As You Wish by Cary Elwes earlier this week, so of course the next time The Princess Bride plays was last night at midnight and had to watch at least half so now work on four hours sleep. Ugh.

Not much else this week. We’ll see what the next brings.

And a Happy 4th of July to ya!

And it figures I have work but what can ya do.

Went and saw Magic Mike XXL yesterday. Oh yeah that was a good time. Going to see it again next Sat with some friends. It was funny and of course very prettah. Lots of little nods to stuff in the actors’ lives.

Camp NaNo ain’t going good, but there’s time.

Not much this week. Finally seen an ep of Outlander cause of a sequence I’d heard about. Main female was annoying but couple fellas did very nice.
And kilts and accents always good. Not that a nicely done skirt is anything to sneeze at either.

There’s a few bits of nice scenery at work, but you can’t count on when you’re going to see them. ‘Nice scenery’ is my work code word for pretty lads. They can make a work day go by better.

But that’s true in life in general. Hence, Magic Mike.

So yesterday was the first real sign that I saw that the monsoon is here. Here in the desert, monsoon is the one time we can expect to get rain. Not that it doesn’t rain during other parts of the year, but this is when we can look for it.

There was a feel of humidity in the air. A light sprinkle for some minutes. Then later in the day a faint sand storm.

Sometimes the rain lasts for minutes, sometimes for hours. But it’s usually hard and heavy when it does. Just an example.

What is even more fun, for me at least, is when a haboob comes thru. Haboobs are dust storms that blow through.

Here’s what they look like at ground level.

And how they look from the air.

Fingers crossed I’ll be able to get some footage of my own to show you.

Wednesday is start of Camp NaNo.

Did get to meet a childhood hero of mine. Coach Danny White, formerly the Head Coach of the Arizona Rattlers and led them to their first two Championships (the first Az professional team to win a Championship) and, where I first knew him from, former quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. A team is often identified primarily with the quarterback and the coach and for me when I was little, the faces of the Cowboys were Danny White and Coach Tom Landry. I saw him at work, so I didn’t let on that I recognized him or do a geek out like might have elsewhere. But it was definitely cool.

Not much else happened really. Went to a ritual led by my Druid friends at the Irish Cultural Center, had a small part in it. Got to wear my sword so that’s always fun.

And of course, Gay Marriage is now officially just plain old Marriage. Whoo hoo!