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Jun. 10th, 2008
(no subject)
Jun. 10th, 2008 05:46 pmSo, I took a cab home today.
It's nice that I feel like I have the cash to do that now -- the Red Line is supposedly running on the elevated tracks, and I could have taken the brown to the red at Belmont, but those are really just what the CTA claims, which is rarely the truth; with the amount of chaos that even the slightest accident creates in the CTA system, I thought it might be better for my mental health to just take a cab.
I dread to think what would happen if someone ever bombed the El -- not only would thousands of people be pretty much cut adrift, but the CTA is not known for their levelheaded and organised approach to emergency management. I believe the term for what they would do is "flip the fuck out".
Also, Cubs game tonight. DO NOT WANT.
It's nice that I feel like I have the cash to do that now -- the Red Line is supposedly running on the elevated tracks, and I could have taken the brown to the red at Belmont, but those are really just what the CTA claims, which is rarely the truth; with the amount of chaos that even the slightest accident creates in the CTA system, I thought it might be better for my mental health to just take a cab.
I dread to think what would happen if someone ever bombed the El -- not only would thousands of people be pretty much cut adrift, but the CTA is not known for their levelheaded and organised approach to emergency management. I believe the term for what they would do is "flip the fuck out".
Also, Cubs game tonight. DO NOT WANT.
(no subject)
Jun. 10th, 2008 07:29 pmThree things about life:
1. So R just got home. Apparently taking a cab was the way to go; he got out of a trade show at Merchandise Mart at five-thirty and waited on the brown-line platform for forty-five minutes while solid-packed trains ran through the station. The platform was so full people had to stand on the stairs. The red line still wasn't running northbound from Belmont, so he had to get off and catch a cab from Belmont, but having only ten dollars he had to make the driver drop him off at Halsted and Irving Park, which is some ways distant from our place. He's now devouring the last of the mac and cheese, topped with sloppy joe, which is so incredibly foul as to come back around and into genius. Still, the guy had to sit at Merchandise Mart for forty-five minutes, which is a hellish place to be.
2. I don't know if you guys are aware of how hard it is to write an entire season of American television, but I can tell you I'm getting to understand it. Even ripping off four seasons of Doctor Who for a season each of Torchwood America and Edgar van Scyoc Presents Doctor Who, it's a plow and a half. In some ways it's harder, because I'm rearranging things and still trying to fit them into a logical arc over the course of a season, and I have to adapt the Who episodes to a universe without casual time travel. I haven't made the job any easier on myself by tying three episodes of each series together for a sweeps week EXTRAVAGANZA featuring Ross Jenkins, USPAT officer extraordinaire, as well as those pesky Daleks ("I've even invented villains. They look a little like old-fashioned hoovers." "The Doctor does battle from his police box with evil vacuum cleaners." "Sentient evil vacuum cleaners. With lethal lasers."). Still, I'm working towards being pleased with the results. I've no earthly clue how I'm going to write the thing without confusing everyone who reads it, but that's why they call it creativity!
3. The reason I'm now working on Torchwood America is that it's the last barrier between me and three things: Jack & Ellis, Laocoon's Children, and Legion of Ghosts. I had too many projects running at once and I decided to engage creative dampeners; I've either completed or ditched all my other projects, and I'm not allowing myself to start anything else new. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, actually; I've been writing for nearly fifteen years now and it does teach a person self-control. I have ideas for stories, of course, but if I set them aside for a day or two I tend to forget their existence. I think after I finished Torchwood America S2 I'll be able to sit down with my J&E timeline and bang out a pretty detailed account of the rest of the book.
3a. I am ridiculously proud of coining extribulum/i (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bobthemole helped contribute to my massive ego by mocking up an OED entry for it). The more I think about it the more it becomes quite a useful term, actually. Technically, Jack and Ellis is an extribulum, as is any fanfic not printed in a paper zine or professionally bound. After all, if publishers consider e-printing "first rights", that means that extribuli do have a certain legitimacy. In an age of virtual data storage, a copy-protected pdf of an early e-published text might well be quite valuable someday. I've also put forth the theory that long-running and popular blogs could be considered extribuli on the same lines as early handbills and such might be considered incunabulae, but I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far firmly yet.
In summary: taxicabs good, television hard, writing intense, wordplay awesome. Also, if anyone wants to submit extribulum/i to Waterstone's dictionary competition, please be my guest; I would, but you have to be a resident of the UK.
1. So R just got home. Apparently taking a cab was the way to go; he got out of a trade show at Merchandise Mart at five-thirty and waited on the brown-line platform for forty-five minutes while solid-packed trains ran through the station. The platform was so full people had to stand on the stairs. The red line still wasn't running northbound from Belmont, so he had to get off and catch a cab from Belmont, but having only ten dollars he had to make the driver drop him off at Halsted and Irving Park, which is some ways distant from our place. He's now devouring the last of the mac and cheese, topped with sloppy joe, which is so incredibly foul as to come back around and into genius. Still, the guy had to sit at Merchandise Mart for forty-five minutes, which is a hellish place to be.
2. I don't know if you guys are aware of how hard it is to write an entire season of American television, but I can tell you I'm getting to understand it. Even ripping off four seasons of Doctor Who for a season each of Torchwood America and Edgar van Scyoc Presents Doctor Who, it's a plow and a half. In some ways it's harder, because I'm rearranging things and still trying to fit them into a logical arc over the course of a season, and I have to adapt the Who episodes to a universe without casual time travel. I haven't made the job any easier on myself by tying three episodes of each series together for a sweeps week EXTRAVAGANZA featuring Ross Jenkins, USPAT officer extraordinaire, as well as those pesky Daleks ("I've even invented villains. They look a little like old-fashioned hoovers." "The Doctor does battle from his police box with evil vacuum cleaners." "Sentient evil vacuum cleaners. With lethal lasers."). Still, I'm working towards being pleased with the results. I've no earthly clue how I'm going to write the thing without confusing everyone who reads it, but that's why they call it creativity!
3. The reason I'm now working on Torchwood America is that it's the last barrier between me and three things: Jack & Ellis, Laocoon's Children, and Legion of Ghosts. I had too many projects running at once and I decided to engage creative dampeners; I've either completed or ditched all my other projects, and I'm not allowing myself to start anything else new. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, actually; I've been writing for nearly fifteen years now and it does teach a person self-control. I have ideas for stories, of course, but if I set them aside for a day or two I tend to forget their existence. I think after I finished Torchwood America S2 I'll be able to sit down with my J&E timeline and bang out a pretty detailed account of the rest of the book.
3a. I am ridiculously proud of coining extribulum/i (
bobthemole helped contribute to my massive ego by mocking up an OED entry for it). The more I think about it the more it becomes quite a useful term, actually. Technically, Jack and Ellis is an extribulum, as is any fanfic not printed in a paper zine or professionally bound. After all, if publishers consider e-printing "first rights", that means that extribuli do have a certain legitimacy. In an age of virtual data storage, a copy-protected pdf of an early e-published text might well be quite valuable someday. I've also put forth the theory that long-running and popular blogs could be considered extribuli on the same lines as early handbills and such might be considered incunabulae, but I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far firmly yet. In summary: taxicabs good, television hard, writing intense, wordplay awesome. Also, if anyone wants to submit extribulum/i to Waterstone's dictionary competition, please be my guest; I would, but you have to be a resident of the UK.