Nature Leseul

wild_heart !

It's been announced that Jacqueline Carey will be participating in a panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con

Thursday
3:30-4:30 Evolution of Fantasy— Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Twilight—the great mega-selling series of recent years have all ended. What will the next one look like? Or is it already here? How is fantasy evolving? Panelists Jacqueline Carey (Naamah's Kiss), Lynn Flewelling (Shadows Return), Patrick Rothfuss (The Name Of The Wind), Thomas Sniegoski (The Fallen), Greg Van Eekhout (Norse Code), and Cindy Pon (Silver Phoenix : Beyond the Kingdom of Xia) answer questions posed by moderator Lev Grossman (The Magicians). Room 3
source.

I've got a 4-day pass for Comic-Con so I'll definitely be there. Anyone else going?


ETA: Jacqueline Carey just confirmed it on her Facebook:

At last, I have details about my appearances at this year's Comic-Con in San Diego! I'll be doing one panel and three signings over the course of the event. Here's the scoop:

Thursday, July 23, 3:30-4:30, Room 3
"The Evolution of Fantasy" panel with Lynn Flewelling, Patrick Rothfuss, Thomas Sniegoski, Greg Van Eekhout, and Cindy Pon

Thursday, July 23, 4:30-5:30, AA1
Booksigning with "The Evolution of Fantasy" panel members

Friday, July 24, 3:00 pm, Hachette Book Group booth
Booksigning

Saturday, July 25, 12:00 pm, Hachette Book Group booth
Booksigning

I'm afraid all memberships sold out a while ago, but I hope to have a chance to see those of you who were already planning to go! This will likely be the only con I attend this year, since I have some serious writing to do.
source.

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Also, I'm curious as to why Forever XXI's clothes don't actually fit me anymore. Size small used to fit me fine, but now it's like a tent, particularly in the shoulders and arms. Either I'm shrinking or they've changed their sizing. Come to think of it, I had the same issue at Old Navy. And a few months ago at The Limited. What gives?

This keeps up, I'll be buying my clothes at Gap Kids before long.

My unwavering hatred for "Come On Eileen" has been documented here before. I think it's one of the most annoying songs I've ever heard in my life. Whenever I hear it at I-Bar, I have to fight the urge to march upstairs to the DJ booth, whisk the record off the turntables in one smooth motion, and fling it like a Frisbee into the rafters.

I was at the mall tonight, unsuccessfully looking for something on which to use the last dregs of a Forever XXI gift card, when "Come On Eileen" came over the store speakers. In a teenybopper mall shop, of all places! I hurried out of there. The walk took maybe 30 seconds, but it was one of the longest walks of my life. The intolerable yowling of the lead singer followed me as I wove past the clothing racks and escaped into the mall's main concourse.

Less than half an hour later, I was in the dressing room at Old Navy. What came on the speakers? STUPID "COME ON EILEEN." And I was stuck! Because I was trying on clothes! I changed back into my street clothes as quickly as possible and hightailed it out of there. I think the song got halfway through by the time I pushed through the doors and into the fresh, "Come On Eileen"-free air.

It's going to take hours of Morrissey to recover from this.

Discovered unwatched episodes of The Unusuals on my TiVo wahoo. Why are good shows canceled?

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Twitter.

Those of you who twitter, do you push it to LJ? What do you use? I was going to use loudtwitter, but they're having issues. Hm..

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OotS #668

Okay, I've got one last convention this summer and I'm catching the plane in the morning.

I have no idea how much time I will have for the internet, if I even have access to it. If anything happens between now and the 14th that I need to know about, email me or link to it here.

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In art news, I painted some D&D minis. I wanted to take some pics, but my digital camera doesn't have a good enough resolution up close for this to work. It's time for a new digital camera.

The paint from my Illandria mini, my now-retired character, is peeling off a bit, and the folks at Origins told me that I need to remember to properly prime before painting to avoid this. My new minis are primed but I don't have any clear-coat to seal them in, so I may have to look in to that as well.

I also painted the dwarf mini I had been using for my Blackmoor character, but now that Blackmoor is transitioning to 4th ed, I'll be retiring that character too. It still feels right to get her mini done.

Most of the scuplts I bought from Origins are from Reaper, and they do such a nice job that I can't help but feel like I'm fucking them up a bit by slapping paint all over them. Some of the paint I have is also not terribly ideal - while some is proper mini paint, like my white and skin tones, others are just whatever water-based paint I had laying around. I also have some Ral Partha paints that have not dried out despite being something like fifteen years old. If I knew I was going to paint more than a half-dozen or so I would buy more paint, but it doesn't seem worth it just for a small set.

I'm happy with some parts of the new minis but not with all of them. Practice makes perfect I guess. I get the basics of the technique - wet paint/ink for dark details; dry brush for lighter details - but it'll take time before I feel like I'm getting it right.

Your result for Roleplayer Test!...

The Biographer

Plotful, Character-Oriented, Platonic

Take Roleplayer Test! at HelloQuizzy

It is true. I don't know about "platonic," but I guess you get that result if you don't answer "I am a huge horny bunny who is all about the smex whether it makes any sense or not!!!11"

This quiz uses way too many LiveJournalRPisms though. Like seriously wtf is a "crit post"? I guess that's a post asking "how am I doing at so and so" since I said I post them occasionally but really I'm not sure. I don't reccommend the quiz for people who don't RP in that venue because it's barely English otherwise.

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Thank you, Colleen, for giving me the title of this entry.

After spending many hours at a jjimjilbang in Seoul a couple of Saturdays ago, I've decided that they need to be introduced to the Western world. Any establishment at which one can shower, bathe in a spa, swim, sleep, see magic shows, watch movies, play video games, surf the Internet, and eat a good meal for less than $40 is an indisputably good thing. It's also a good way to overcome any insecurities about letting strangers see one's nude body. Perhaps I'm an oddball, a narcissist, or something worse, but I find it impossible to be insecure about my appearance when I'm in a room with several other naked men.

I can hear you snickering. Let me assure you that I am not amused.

I've been going on many other exciting adventures on my days off, including trips to Seoul Tower, Nami Island, and a couple of farewell dinners for longtime EV staff members. I've documented all of them with photos, as I am wont to do, and this one is easily one of my favorites. I may share the stories eventually...if I can remember to do so before they start running together in my mind.

As plans for VIP fall into place, so too do plans for Halloween. I went to Itaewon three weeks ago and ordered a custom suit. I came back to have it fitted the following week and was very pleased with its look and feel; all I have left to do now is pick it up from the tailor shop and find enough dark green hair dye to color the mighty fro I'll have come October, and my costume will be complete. Though I'm sad that Brook and I won't be able to coordinate costumes as we'd planned to do a few years ago, I might be able to convince a couple of my coworkers to go along with this crazy idea. It's worth a try, at least.

In other news, I'm now in a large apartment. It took me close to six hours of carrying things hither and yon and two hours of cleaning like a meth addict, but my old apartment is ready for a new tenant and everything I own in Korea is in my new apartment. It's clean, comfortable, and has a lot of empty wall space, though I'm not sure I want to spend the money on posters, wall scrolls, and other decorations that I'll either sell before I leave the country or spend vast amounts of money to ship back home. I'm toying with the idea of having a wild housewarming party; if I do, I will accept no excuses for absences aside from being dead or on another plane of existence.

I have countless other things on my mind, but they're best shared when I have more than a single sleepless hour ahead of me.

Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

Iris Rhame and her best friend Collette are hunkering down for a long summer of more of the same--hot, sweaty days, ducking out on chores at the diner where Collette's mother works, and spending time in the cemetary, playing at being psychic and summoning the dead. They aren't expecting any surprises, because nothing ever happens in their small town of Ondine, Louisiana.

But this summer, things are different. This summer, Iris and Collette are fourteen, which shouldn't mean anything's changing, but somehow, things are. Collette is suddenly very interested in boys, and has started bringing her new boyfriend Ben into her and Iris's private games of make-believe. But even more unsettling is the fact that make-believe has suddenly gotten very real. Because Iris has contacted a ghost. A real ghost.

It seems to be the ghost of Elijah Landry, who disappeared years earlier. At first, Iris is thrilled by the adventure, but she soon decides that ghost-hunting, when it's real, is a lot scarier and a lot less exciting than she had always thought it would be. But it's too late to back out, because now she has Elijah's attention--and she won't be able to rest until Elijah can, too.

From the flap copy and the awful cover, I assumed this would be a supernatural gothic like the Betty Ren Wright books I read when I was younger, and it certainly started out that way. Two kids, a quiet town, a lazy summer, nothing much to do, and then a haunting.

But it became much more than that. A ghost story became the backdrop for a coming of age story that feels so honest and real it's heartbreaking. Watching your best friend grow into boys when you're still comfortable with everything staying the same. The thrill of make-believe, and the embarassment of having your games shared with an outsider, even if he's someone you've known your entire life. And the moment where you realize that everything can't stay the same, that you're growing up and that's as it should be, and that sometimes that means leaving parts of yourself in the past.

The plot of this book is a ghost story, but the heart is a moving story about the pangs of growing up and struggling to understand your way from childhood to teenagerhood.

And I have to say--the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of Elijah Landry is resolved in a way I never would have guessed or expected. It's a quiet thing, but it shows how far the world of junior supernatural gothics has come--or maybe just that this one is a standout.

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We're still looking for entries for the Stargate Multiverse Track Fanworks Contest! Submissions are being accepted through July 10.

You may submit in the following categories:

Short Fiction
Poetry
Meta Essay
Cartoons/Comics
Original Artwork
Prop Making
Theme: New Beginnings

For more information, please visit our post here at sgmtv.

We have FEW submissions, so if you're interested in participating, now is a good time to submit!

YOU DON'T HAVE TO ATTEND DRAGON*CON TO PARTICIPATE!

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