A Steph update…

… for interested parties.

I almost have a coherent first chapter of the work in progress. I have one tiny gap to fill in by Friday, when it gets inflicted on the scary we-read-our-work-aloud writing group. I’m not sure what to put next, a normal second chapter or a flashback. (And, if a flashback, which one? I have lots.) My plan is to catch up on typing and see if anything leaps out at me.

Currently reading Master and Commander, because I wanted to have at least the first one read before the movie comes out, even though that’s based on what, the tenth book in the series? Anyway. It’s amusing, especially when Jack’s drunk.

I had signed up to be a beta tester for TextPattern, but decided it wasn’t going to be useful at work. (WebGUI looks better and better for heavy-duty content management.) But now I’m wanting it for my sideline work, and it’s not available for download anymore. Poo. I found the installer for the very first beta version, but there were at least five updates after that. We’ll see how far I get with the one I have.

In other database news, I’d’ve saved myself an awful lot of coding last week if I’d remembered how to do joins. Sigh.

I had time to work on all these things over the weekend because our trip to RenFaire got postponed and I couldn’t bring myself to vacuum. I did dust the fan blades last week. You gotta give me credit for that.

The video for “Fallen” is disturbing and nonsensical, which you could say about most Sarah McLachlan lyrics if you listened closely.

How awesome was Alias last night? More than made up for the three weeks of blahness that came before. Even if people can’t really dive into hotel swimming pools from ten stories up, because hey, at least she looked good doing it. I completely love that they played the love theme while she was stabbing her ex in the gut. Perhaps this is an indication of my mental health. That, and the fact that I was practically dancing in my living room while Sloane was needling Lauren. Assuming there are no more blah episodes, Alias can make up for the blahness that is Angel (wtf was up with the Ryan Adams song?!) and the West Wing, where the White House budget cuts seem to have included every single light bulb in the building. (Or did Rob Lowe make off with them?)

These are the things that occupy my mind.

One of Michael’s profs is a total dunce at CSS and web standards, which wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t teaching web design. We’ve both been rewriting all the code examples the guy’s been giving out in class. And he’s interviewing for a job here. Hee. (I will refrain from linking to the class’s website because you guys would just kill yourselves laughing, really, and I care about you too much to kill you, even indirectly.)

Would I enjoy teaching the stuff more than practicing it? Food for thought. No… must focus on writing. Off to ponder the nature of chapter 2.