Of Beta Reading

Have you ever been asked to beta-read someone's work? It's not all fun and games. Yes, if the story is interesting, at least you enjoy having read it. But when you are tasked with finding errors or denoting plotholes of every size, the task becomes less enjoyable. You start second-guessing your edits. (Am I being too bitchy? Am I not being bitchy enough? Is that even a word? How can (s)he communicate this more clearly? How do I explain that you need to avoid starting sentences with 'He did this' or 'He did that'? Plus a million other thoughts.)

Well, I just finished beta-reading what was a great introductory piece by a friend of mine and an all-around great GM (that's Game Master for you non-geek types). It was a good little story. I enjoyed reading it. Had questions here and there... had issues here and there and there....

Sent it as a file to him along with an extremely friendly, warm and fuzzy e-mail reminding him that these were only my opinion and to disregard them if he so chose. I'm always awkward at this point. Will they be offended or grateful or a mixture of both? Or am I going to get asked to co-author something in the future? (It's happened.)

::sigh:: I guess that I'll have to wait. Did I mention that he's my GM? I did? Did I mention that I go to gaming this Sunday? Did I mention that my character is totally at his mercy? I did? Oh, good.

::faints::

Idiots I Formerly Worked With

Oh, joy... Oh, ecstasy...

Chalk this one up to immaturity and severally not understanding someone's personality type.

My boss, El Jefe, is paranoid. Seriously, the world is out to get him. Everyone, all the time. So when former employees and he had a 'falling out', he assumed that they would try something. Me? I tend to trust in others to behave like intelligent adults. HA! I need therapy.

Anyway, one of the guys goes and puts some of the work he was a part of on his personal site in his gallery. Problem, he doesn't cite us as the company who did it, he doesn't mention that he was a part of a team. Nope, just 'look what I did'. MAJOR SLAP ON HANDS. Result, he can't use the materials now. Doh! If he'd given proper credit, he could have. Not now.

Did he learn anything?

No... of course not.

This weekend El Jefe calls me. Tells me that someone made a website from his old personal company name and has horrible lies about him up on the web, did I know anything about this? Um... no. I'd have ratted out the stupid boys if I did. (Thus why they didn't tell me.) He can't prove who they are yet but as we talk and I make a few suggestions, he finds out that the site is quoted to a "private party" in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania? Hey, didn't the first of the two guys keep going to PA to visit his family? Bells go off. We do more digging. Yep, the space was bought by guy #1 at guy #2's prompting and they built a site slandering El Jefe.

Today, I walk in not having EVER seen the site and let the boss know that I'd like to take a moment to look at it and I hear "my laywer made them take it down already." ::blinks:: That was fast. Oh, and several law-suits are pending. Woohoo!

Note to anyone eager to slander El Jefe: He carries grudges beyond rational levels and he happily searches for his name online... often... You've been warned.

Sad News

I got into work this morning to find an email from my aunt in Washington state. She was trying to call my mother and I yesterday. (She had our number saved incorrectly.) I was at work so I had mom call. Mom called me at the office to let me know that one of my aunts (her baby sisters) had passed away up in Alaska.

Oh...

I've never been close to my family with the exception of my mother and step-mother. (Dad knows he and I have communication-issues.) But it still threw me pretty hard. I'm kinda numb and sad. Plus, it makes me worry all the more. My mother is the eldest of her sisters. Two of them are gone already.

I think I'm going to make dinner again tonight. Something she really likes.

The Weekend Report

Ah... a three-day weekend. Glorious. How did a girl recovering from a nasty cold spend her three-day weekend? Sleeping, reading, sleeping, eating, playing on the computer, sleeping, and... oh yes, laundry and cooking. Joy.

Oh, Sunday was spent trying to keep my character alive in the Demon the Fallen game I play every Sunday. Let's see... There were two snipers shooting at her. Five bombs in a church. And loads of mind-controlled cops. A crazy mage, who is on my side but I still had to lay divine healing on his shot-up tush... okay, torso... twice and then his nearly blown-up entire self once. Me? I was puddled at his feet, a bloody angelic mess, passed out, turned back into my human form and nearly died several times on the operating table. Joy.

Did you know that fallen angels can have guardian angels? Nope? Ha! Yes, they can. While my character was floating on the verge of dying, her dead love came back and sat by her bedside petting her hair and telling her she'd be alright.

Yes, I cried. I'm a sap. I'll admit it.

Monday was spent being lazy at first. Slept late, woke up rudely to the sound of my mother dropping grocery bags on the table and yelling for me to get my a$$ out of bed and help her. She'd tried calling my cellphone to wake me before she got home so I'd be up and ready to help... problem is... my cellphone was still in my purse and my purse was in the other room. Anyway, by the time I threw on clothes and dashed out to help, she had everything inside. So I put everything away while she sat talking about the check-out lines, etc. (She works the night shift on base, so she'd just gotten off work an hour earlier.)

After I put things away, I made her breakfast as an apology for not helping with the groceries. Fried eggs over easy, sausage, toast, milk and water. She was cooing at me the whole time. Then off she goes to bed and off I go to read for a bit. Once she was good and asleep, I wondered out and washed the dishes and started lunch in the crockpot. Chicken peanut soup, yummy.

Then laundry, then a nap, then lunch with Mom, then more dishes, then more reading and more laundry, then making dinner... Pork chops baked in the oven with a little apple juice in the pan to keep them moist. Green beans, bread and butter to go with it. (I was getting tired.) The dishes did not get done again, my bad. My last set of clothes stayed in the dryer. And I spent the rest of the evening lost in a book.

Mom left for work and I went to sleep. Joy. Another weekend over. ::sigh::

Photo Enforcement

Okay, I read in the paper a recent poll was taken of local drivers asking if they thought that the police forces' decision to move to electronic photo enforcement of the speed limit was fair. Over 70% of the idiots polled said 'no'.

No? Um... you're speeding... breaking the law... endangering countless lives... weaving in and out of slower traffic like you were a professional racecar driver risking even MORE accidents... and you think it's "not fair" for the police to use EVERY TOOL they can to fine you. Er... hello moron. You shouldn't be driving. You shouldn't have a license. You are a hazard to yourself and other drivers.

Oh, and these are the same idiots who take off their front license plate so the photo-enforcement red light cameras don't catch them. Or they hide their plates behind those "shields" which are only good for hiding your illegal driving and making it nearly impossible for eye-witnesses to get your license number if you flee the scene of an accident. Jerks.

I'm all for the police using every tools in the toybox to capture us when we drive badly. Not get chippy with them when you KNOW you were speeding or driving agressively or worse. Morons. If you are gonna drive that way, be ready to pay for it. Hopefully, it'll only be cash outta your wallet and not blood outta someone's veins.

Bathroom Freshener Complaint

Okay, I know this'll sound childish, but WHY did the building where I work have to go and change the bathroom air freshner? The old stuff was okay, if annoyingly flowery. But the new stuff... God help us.... the new stuff smells like FRUIT LOOPS¹! FRUIT LOOPS!

Okay, when I'm 'powdering my nose', I DO NOT WANT TO BE THINKING ABOUT BREAKFAST CEREAL. Ok? I mean, when was the last time you were eating breakfast and thought "gee, I wish my bathroom smelled like my Fruit Loops?"

::gags::

Sorry, I've been snarling about this for days and finally HAD to blog it. I mean... ewwww....

¹ Fruit Loops is a popular fruit-flavored, high-sugar breakfast cereal commonly eaten be hyperactive children and silly adults like me who eat what we like even if it's a 'kid's cereal'. ::raspberried everyone::