Standing On Boxes

I’ve changed the image I used for the eBook (in Palm eBook format) of my Red Raider series. They have to be under 64K bytes and 8bit color .png images to work.

I’ve also been experimenting with a 3D image tool… the goal is to come up with the logo used by the Council of Watchers in this series, a stylized hourglass shape. It shows up on assorted Council materials (business cards, ID’s, equipment ownership tags…)

Logo image version 1

Logo image version 2

Note how simple they are at this point… just the image, not very logo-like. Part of that is the 3D image tool I’m using… a free/open source thing… very non-intuitive / clumsy interface. But very quick. Did I mention the free part?

I’ve added the first image to my eBook for the story. Sort of an end-plate. I’m also slowly adding story background info to it.

What would be nice would be a way to put URL’s in eBooks. I’ll probably have to use a different format for that one. Or pay for a commercial tool to create the eBooks.
(It would also be nice to be able to read them on my PSP… someone has written an eBook reader for it but I’m not sure what format they used… but it isn’t Palm… or even Microsoft (of course) and it wasn’t clear to me how you even get it to work…).

Okay. So it isn’t a big deal for most people… but the next Harry Potter book (6) comes out Saturday. I probably won’t read it for a few weeks. I have other things to do so I can take a week off in August. and I wanted to reread the earlier books first anyway.

How will this book affect my Harry Potter fanfic crossover series?

Honestly? I don’t really know. I’ve set my fic far enough in the future that the war/fight with Voldemorte is long over. Unless a major character dies (there are rumours about that again) or something changes very drastically … my story should still fit. But if not… the AU line will be where it has been since I started – post “Order of the Phoenix”.

Also… don’t expect (or worry about) spoilers here… at least for the next few months…

Tweaking a few fics… minor things; adding a couple words here, a paragraph there…

The Wikipedia has a rather extensive entry on trolldom.. A little too broad, in my opinion. Basically, just by disagreeing with someone… they can label you or your message/thoughts a troll.

Someone called me a troll in a USENet discussion thread (I think for the first time in 15 years on USENet) and I took offense. Now that I’ve had time to think about it… I think it was meant in the Rovian, let’s kill this subject kind of way…

Phooey… my skin must be getting thinner as I get older.

It annoyed me long enough to respond with a not me, never and vent here…

And now let’s delete my vent… it served its purpose.

Just read a new echo fic Discovery. She does such a good job writing fics with Luna Lovegood.

Very inspirational… I’m tempted to add Luna Lovegood to the cast of my HP crossover series. I can almost see the scene I would use her in in my head… having her run into Ginny, Buffy, and Co. in London (The next part of my fic “The Other Girl” takes place in and around London)… but I’m sure it would be a fanfic cliche for her to know what slayers are when no one else in the wizarding community (Other than Hermione, her boss, Ginny, and Tonks) has ever heard of them in my BtVS/HP/Tomb Raider/Highlander crossover.

Do I dare do it?

Especially after seeing how well echo “writes” her. I would definitely have to go back and re-read the HP books she appears in… so it would be an ‘honest’ portrayal.

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Okay… I didn’t actually write the Luna scene I was thinking of… but I did write what could possibly be the scene before that. But it needs work. The Dawn-Faith interaction feels too much like a scene from “Bond Girls” not “The Other Girl” (Or do I have them behaving the same in both stories? Yikes!)

Added some more to “Out”… haven’t completely filled in all of the holes in the story but it is getting there. Almost a first draft… Might even finish it this week.

Some excellent comments/feedback (thanks!) giving me some things to think about, things that might need to be tweaked, etc.

Okay… let’s gouge some more… before people notice that there was no reason to raise gas prices…

Today/tonight… gas on the corner –> (US zip code 37912)

$2.15/gal (87 octane (US))
$2.25/gal (89 octane (US)) – plus
$2.35/gal (91 octane (US)) – premium

We’re now were it was in April… and 9 cents/gal higher than last summer – around here.

Gas on the corner… it went up 9 cents/gallon TODAY. I checked the business news… and there is no valid reason for that to happen… virtually no changes in the last two weeks.

Except…

- the terrorist attacks in London today (but that has nothing to do with the US gas supply.)

Or maybe it’s that hurricane headed towards the Gulf of Mexico today… or the tropical storm that just raced thru the area?

Or plain old price gouging… – that has my vote…

Hopefully it’ll drop back down before I need to put more gas in the buggy. Good thing it didn’t happen last week when the T was here…

Always interesting to see which fics get a response and which ones get ignored.

Finally got around to revising/posting part 4 of “Summoned” and it was virtually ignored. Sort of expected that on TtH (300 hits – no reviews for the new chapter) – it isn’t crossed over with one of the top 10 BtVS crossover fandoms… and crossovers tend to get ignored on the BwW list. A couple comments on Ikoly. We’ll see what happens on ff.net (just posted it there this morning).

I don’t write for the feedback… as I’ve said before… but some response is better than none…