Where Dustbunnies Go To Die

Yesterday was rather busy. It started with the special meeting of the Torcon 3 corporation, where some outstanding business was completed. It went a lot better than I expected; we were done in about an hour. marahsk and the rest of the subcommittee whose report was being presented should be proud of having done a good job at preparing something which everyone agreed to. I'm personally pleased at the results for a couple of reasons, one of which includes that the taking of minutes didn't give me writer's cramp, unlike some past Board meetings. :)

Then, in the evening, I was in Hamilton for rosemary_ca's birthday party. I ate, drank, and danced, had green sparkly hearts stuck to the rear end of my leather pants by elizard100, checked out boys with pann_da_bear (it's scary how closely our tastes in men match), posed for photos for hi_co, and lusted over the band's drummer until I realized that he reminded me of Donnie, my former stalker. Not only did he resemble Donnie physically, it occurred to me later in the evening that Donnie was a drummer too. A scary coincidence.

There was a woman sitting at the bar in the area where we were situated who seemed to be the girlfriend of one of the band members, or perhaps she was just a groupie. At one point, I was sitting between her and pann_da_bear, and I became aware that I was being stared at. I turned, and she was leaning on her elbow at the bar gazing at us rather intently. She leaned over and said, "Don't mind me. Your friend's a great dancer." I leaned over to pann_da_bear and said, "Boy, has she got the wrong end of the stick." A little while later, she said to me, "You don't like me, do you?" I said, "I have no opinion. I don't know you," and turned back toward the bar, but she wouldn't let it go until she finally decided it was time to drag pann_da_bear back out onto the dance floor.

thegrandepoobah dropped me off around 3:45, I think it was, and I got to bed around 4:30.

Photos will be posted as soon as either rosemary_ca or I get them from hi_co. Surprisingly, I wasn't traumatized despite rosemary_ca's best efforts. I will say, however, that rosemary_ca can be rather finicky, requesting reshoots until the photo is just right. I didn't think it was necessary to retake that particular picture that many times, though. ;)

I got up around 2 this afternoon, went for coffee, came home, read the paper, had dinner, watched the hockey game (go Leafs go! *grin*) and got caught up on all of the weekend's email and LJ.

While watching the hockey game, I saw what may be the oddest commercial ever, for a concoction called "Cheetah Energy Drink." Let's see if I can recreate it here. To understand my reaction, you have to know that Ben Johnson ran the 100-metre dash at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in what would have been a world record 9.79 seconds, then was found to have been on steroids and was stripped of the gold medal...

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[a cheetah runs across a pale blue background]

Narrator: The Cheetah: The world's fastest land mammal, capable of reaching speeds of seventy miles per hour.

[a man runs across the pale blue background]

Narrator: Ben Johnson, former Canadian Olympian and one of the fastest men in the world.

[Ben Johnson catches up to, and passes, the cheetah]

Narrator: Cheetah Energy Drink: with ginseng and royal jelly, provides energy without caffeine. Be a cheetah!

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Is it just me, or is this a strangely inappropriate way to sell this product?

Here's something that's been making the rounds lately which may be of interest to others reading this. Author Robin Hobb apparently has her knickers in a twist over fanfic writers. According to her, no number of disclaimers can take away the fact that fanfic writers are violating copyright by writing stories set in another author's universe. She further claims that there is no value in fanfic for improving one's writing. Personally, I think that she's wrong on both counts; if I were a published writer, and someone wanted to write something using characters or situations that I had created, I would be flattered, unlike Ms. Hobb. (I would suggest that if she has only ever read fanfics which change her universe and characters to something significantly different from what she created, she may be reading the wrong fanfics.) If I intended to reuse the characters, it might even give me ideas for new areas to explore (though I doubt that I would change their sexual orientations *grin*). So long as the author isn't making money off my creations, or claiming that they're original, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Furthermore, while fanfic may not be the best means of improving one's writing, it can teach a budding writer how to put sentences together, how to develop a story structure, and how to write dialogue. In fact, it may even be a better way of learning to write dialogue, because the writer has to make it sound true to the canon. You can't have House wishing Cuddy a pleasant day, for example. You can't have Sisko musing on how the Founders are just "misunderstood," and that sufficient quantities of sunshine, lollipops and puppies are all they need to be friends with the Federation. (Well, not unless both are speaking sarcastically.)

Interestingly, she doesn't lump media tie-in writers with fanfic writers, because they're licensed to write their stories. Personally, I find myself wondering whether she's backing off from tarring media tie-in authors with her anti-fanfic brush in the hopes of one day being given a contract to write a media tie-in novel herself...

I'd be interested in hearing what any of my friends who write fanfic would have to say on this topic. I know some of you have already commented, either on the TT concom list or in each other's LJ's, but I have a different set of friends here and so the conversation might take some different twists. :) And terri_osborne, your opinion as a media tie-in author would also be something I'd like to hear. (Heck, feel free to send kradical over here too.)

And finally, if there are any TrekBBSers reading this who don't also read huntingdon's LJ, Timofnine has been in a car accident. He's compressed two vertebrae and fractured another. He claims that he's all right, but he's being still so that he doesn't damage anything else. Anyone wanting to pass on a message can post a comment to huntingdon's entry, here.