Monday, February 11, 2008

And the Music is Silenced

A couple of days ago, one of the sites where I post my music had a catastrophic failure of their back-up systems and -- okay, I don't really understand exactly what happened. I just know that the site lost all of its data. They're trying to raise the money to send the corrupted, failed drives to a data recovery place. The site is icompositions and there's a donation button on the page. I mention this because it's always possible a billionaire might be slumming and run across my blog and decide to save the day. Or maybe a millionaire. Or a thousandaire. Or someone with a spare $10. Or not.

I miss the site. I had tons of really cool comments from people who had listened to my music. The music isn't lost. I still have my copies of everything. It's the comments and the threads in the forum, and lists of favorites and well, everything that's meaningful and worthwhile about a place that's a much-loved community. I still have my music on Macjams and MacIdol but I hate to see any of the music sites disappear.

Anyway, here's to you, iComp! May your data be recovered and the music play again.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Avoidance

I gave blood again today. My least favorite part is when they prick your finger to test the hemoglobin count. Hate that. The guy took my pulse right after and it was a little high. I thought, "Duh, you just pricked my finger and made it bleed. That made me unhappy." Five minutes later he took my pulse again and it was fine. Yeah, I get over finger pricks pretty fast. Amazing, huh?

When I finished giving blood, I had four elderly volunteers hovering around me because they thought I was going to pass out. What they didn't know was that my semi-wobbly walk from the cot to the snack table was caused by arthritis in my knees plus cold, somewhat damp weather. Dry warmth is a lot kinder to me. After they plied me with water and cookies, I finally figured out why they were concerned and told them the cause. That made them all relax and they went back to work. Have to admit, it was kind of funny to see these four frail women staring at me with fearful eyes when I had absolutely no idea why. I felt fine. Still do, but don't tell me that.

Why "don't tell me?" I should be working on the next part of the Supergirl story I'm posting on my Comic Books Revisted blog, but I'm copping out with the ole "I'm a pint low" excuse. Yeah, one part of my brain is trying to snow another part of my brain. The sad thing is, it's working.

I also need to do my taxes, but I hate working with numbers. So I'm avoiding that, too.

And finally, I'm avoiding editing my novel because it's tricky and difficult. I'm turning it from Romantic Suspense into a Suspense Thriller and that means tough decisions have to be made at almost every line, especially since I need to cut nearly 20,000 words from the thing. It's a daunting task.

I guess I need to chuck this avoidance behavior and get my nose back to the grindstone. The pint low excuse has a statute of limitations. It is never allowable on any day but donor day. So tomorrow, it's back to work.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Keith Olbermann's Special Comments

I'm a big fan of Keith Olbermann, host of Countdown on MSNBC. His Special Comments are often extraordinary. He's an excellent writer, an intelligent student of history, and has an unashamed liberal slant. Last night he had a special comment that's definitely worth seeing.