Shutsumon's Journal

This is what happens when Joss Whedon gets bored because he's on strike...



Joss Whedon should get bored more often because he's right - the world does not have enough supervillian musicals.

As it says in the title I'm starting a worldbuilding project and I've made myself a seperate journal for it. Just posting here in case anyone wants to friend it and follow along.

For some reason I've been trying to work out if this movie really exists or I dreamt it. I remember seeing it as a kid. I don't know why it's suddenly bugging me but it is. I can't even remember if it was any good.

It was about a young woman who goes to Egypt because she's a descendent of someone involved in the excavation of Tutankhamen's tomb and she's convinced she's going to die... it's intersperced with scenes from Ancient Egypt and I think it ended up being a love story of some sort.

Anyone know what it might be?

Apparently the laws of nature mean you don't get deserts on the east of a continent in general. Most especially not the south-east.

And guess where I'd put my coastal desert? On the south-eastern side of the himalaya like ridge of mountains that forms the boundary between the south-eastern and north-western continents (they kind of whacked into each other on the slant) of my supercontiental landmass? Well it wasn't the south-west.

Now obviously most people aren't going to know this but now I do it's a problem because I like to do things right. And merely flipping it won't actually solve the problem since I'd actually got the western climate pretty much right (I based it off Europe from as far north as the tundra and as far south as the Med so I couldn't really miss.) If I flip it I'll have less rain in the north (well-watered as opposed to soggy) and possibly hurricanes in the south! I really don't need hurricanes...

And all I wanted was to work out where to put my Tibet-like plateau with reguards to the mountains.

*headdesk*

Steampunk Star Wars.

I just had to share this when I found it...

So there's this "fact" that I've known since I was a kid. I think I got it from one of my parents that they had Gas Lighting in Islamic Spain in the medieval period. So I'm worldbuilding and I think that would be a good addition to my setting but I want to check details so I consult google to get them and check I'm not mis-remembering.

I don't think I am since I found two references to gaslights in Medieval Córdoba. Both are buried in the text.

An article about a documentary called Cities of light states:

In one of the many striking images of Cities of Light, the camera glories in this mosque's towering Arabesque arches and crisscrossing vaults, decorated with glass tessarae brought from Greek Byzantium. Muslim palaces had running water and gas lighting not just indoors, but along prominent streets.

And This page states:

While Europe suffered the Dark Ages, Córdoba came to possess half a million citizens, seven hundred mosques, the first gas streetlights in Europe, three hundred public baths...

Which is great in that I'm clearly not alone in this belief but I need more information and google seems obsessed with giving me info on the War on Terror which has nothing to do with this.

Can anyone possibly point me to some authoritive text (or two) on that period of Spanish history that has more details.

The Chinese did have gaslighting (piped in bamboo apparently) earlier so it's entirely feasible for a kind of pseudomedieval steam/clockpunk setting anyway but I'm attempting to stick with tech that was known or at least theorised in Medieval Europe.

In other worldbuilding news:

Behold Archimedes Steam Cannon

and

Behold the Ancient Greek programmable broom bot.

I started an art class last week so I can finally learn to draw properly I hope. Last week I just drew spheres and cubes and similar - you know basic exercises - so I didn't bother scanning them in. But this week the teacher and I fetched a kettle from the kitchen of the hall where the class is held and I had to to try and draw and shade it.

It was bloody hard let me tell you.

It turned out wonky but the shading is okay and that was the major point of the exercise... and you can see it's a kettle which is always a bonus when drawing something. :-)

Anyway without further ado here is a wonky picture of a kettle for you to laugh at.



Comments and criticism welcome.

I fell behind during the week. I wish I could stop dozing off in the evenings, I suspect I need more daylight but the weather has been terrible.

Anyway I'm in the midst of page 41 which means I need to write at least another 3 or 4 pages before bed to be caught up. I wanted to make it to page 50 tonight but I doubt that will happen without a miracle.

Writing a panel script is not at all like writing a novel. With a novel I can jump ahead and write the scene in my head. I can't figure out a way to do that with my script but my writing brain in still working in a non-linear fashion.

Dammit, but I want to write the chapter where Sarah's mother finds out about Sarah's powers now but I can't because it's quite a bit ahead of where I am now (though things are moving faster than I expected).

Right now I'm not sure I can do this but I'm going to give it my best shot. Next time I swear that I'm going to adapt one of my novels.

Well I started writing on Tuesday on the back of my wild idea and I hit page 25 before just midnight Sunday/Monday. So it's well on track.

I also have an excerpt of extreme siliness up on my profile page.

It's not supposed to be a comedy really...

Brief reactions to the first ep of the new series.

Ugh!
Heh!
He's behind you!
Oh now fate's just playing silly buggers with them.
Over 900 years old and you still don't know that you should never say that something is very unlikely.
Ick!
Wow, she's cool under pressure.
Oh for goodness sake listen to him.
Oh for goodness sake she knows what she's getting herself into.
No, it can't be...
!!! It bloody well is! Don't you love it when actors lie.
That's spooky
Heheheh

It's going to be interesting to see how my friends list reacts

Script Frenzy starts in 3 days and this year they are allowing panel scripts for comics. I really want to take part so I've registered but I don't have a proper plot yet - just an idea.

And yeah - EdMo was a bust in the end... I've done editing but nowhere near 50 hours. Darned inexplicable tiredness. So April is going to be interesting...

Last Sunday (the 20th) was the 7th anniversary of my mother's death so I've been thinking about her a lot naturally. Today I randomly burst into tears at my desk at work. It was a sudden feeling of lonliness as I remembered she was gone - as if I hadn't known that for the last seven years.

In the process I snapped at a co-worker who asked if I was okay, and think I upset her badly. I just wanted to be left alone to pull myself together. :-(

My manager was cool about it though. She took me off the floor and let me cry myself out. then reassured me that it was normal to still have days like this even seven years later, because I felt like a muppet for crying after so long. Then she suggested I booked a couple of days holiday to spend some time looking after myself and thinking about my mother which was nice of her. Puts me down to one and a half days left until May but with Easter conveniently placed in March that should be okay.

Still I wish it had happened when I was at home rather than so publically, and certainly not just after the email about the cessation of birthday collections went round. I think some people thought I was crying over that since just before I decided to go all emo I had expressed my discontent about it - which just makes the whole thing even more embarrassing.

( Cut because I'm sure not everyone wishes to read me rambling about my breasts )

Yup, as of a few minutes ago I have purchased a 1 year self-committed account for this journal and a six month self-commited account for specficwriters.

The reason I've only bought a 6 month sub for the asylum is so I can stagger the renewal costs throughout the year.

I repeat my plea for anyone else who can afford it to buy an account as well. If you need a good reason I point you to this post by squeaky. He's bought an whole new server to support us all and he's got to pay for it somehow.

Because I am extremely sad I have set myself up with a twitter account and fixed it up to work with my aim and my mobile phone. This way if my internet goes up the stuff at any point I can keep people updated as to when I'll reappear on my normal blogs - plus I can update from work etc.

So if I ever disappear for days try there first?

I have decided I need more icons for my IJ since it seems I will be using more than I expected. Trouble is I've never been much good at making/finding icons. Tomorrow begins my icon hunt..

Here is a quote of the post I made on asylum_promo

Speculative Fiction Writers' Asylum

Hello, fellow IJers,

Aren't we just a wonderful bunch of creative individuals going by the number of writing and art asylums (fan and original) I see here?

I'd like to add my own offering to the mix. specficwriters is for writers of all forms of original "Speculative Fiction" no matter how good or bad. I strongly believe that all good writers start out as bad writers - and thus it's the bad writers who need writing asylums most. If you're not sure what that is I call on the great oracle wikipedia to answer...

Speculative Fiction is "an inclusive term covering a group of fiction genres that speculate about worlds that are unlike the real world in various important ways. In these contexts, it generally includes science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, alternate history, and magic realism."

For more information and to read the rules see the introductory post here and then join if you want to.

Looking forward to seeing you there,
shutsumon (maintainer)

It must be said that I haven't opened this on IJ rather than LJ because of the current problems but because IJ is currently smaller which gives it far more chance of being seen outside my immediate flist. :-)

If you can afford it (obviously that's not everyone) buy an InsaneJournal subscription. I will be as soon as I raise the money and I'm not even sure I'll be posting there much.



The reason I suggest this is that migration is going to put a major stress on IJ's server. If we don't pay our way IJ will eventually be forced to look for other sources of revenue to support the site. Squeaky has promised not to choose advertisers over users. Let's not force him to choose between shutting down or breaking his word at some point in the future. The server has already gone down once. IJ needs more servers and that means money sadly.

Look at it this way paid users are not LJ's main income source nowadays - the advertisers we despise are. That's why LJ has to satisfy them. Most people on LJ don't have a paid account. Let's not make that mistake on IJ. If it can make enough money from its userbase it'll be stable without going corporate.

Now I know that some people are on such a tight budget that they can't afford $20 for a subscription. I'm not suggesting anyone break their own banks to buy a subscription. But if you can afford it I ask that you at least consider it.

If you agree with my sentiments in the post please link it or copy-paste it even. There are likely people migrating on your friends' lists who aren't on mine.

Okay, the journal is primarily so I can keep up with posts from friends who jump ship from LJ during the current chaos. Not sure if I'll post much.

I have way too many blogs already.