Have a Holly Jolly Shopmas

I don't particularly care for Christmas shopping.  Possibly because I'm selfish and have a hard time coming up with gift ideas for people.  I find lots of stuff I want.  There's that joy when you find the perfect gift for someone but that doesn't seem to happen as often as it did when we first started celebrating Christmas.

Christmas shopping for my mom can be the hardest, it seems.  There's usually at least one gift we can figure out to get her.  That's the one she bugs us about.  But then trying to figure out what other things to get her can be difficult.  Chocolates, is obvious, and easy, but mom needs more than chocolates.  I do this shopping with my dad, who isn't very helpful.  We usually end up wandering around Fred Meyer, lost looks on our faces, going in circles around and around trying to figure what to get mom.

Today was that day.  I think we did better than previous years.  Dad, was of course lest than helpful. You'd think after what, 29 years, he'd figure out what mom likes.  I actually came up with some good stocking stuffer ideas, mostly food.  I like getting food in my stocking.  Now I'm exhausted and not wanting to do anymore shopping.  But I know there will be more.  There's going to be something we have to get and mom will probably drag me with her.

Also, found giant mouse/scratching pad.  It is awesome.  I hope the kitties love it.  If not, I can play with it.

Happy Winter Solstice!
Garnet

Every OS sucks

I suppose everybody has a love hate relationship with computers.  You love them because they make your life easier.  You hate them because they never seem to work right, which makes you wonder why you ever loved them to begin with.  I've got some computer hate and love this week.

Hate:

I have a Mac.  I also have a PC but it's getting up there in years and the hard drive makes a loud noise and is probably very close to a crash, so I use my Mac mostly.  When I got my Mac I pretty much looked right away for writing software for it, since Pages just seemed liked the hipsters Microsoft Word.  I had just started using yWriter5 when I switched computers.  It was only available for Windows.  Last night I discovered that there was a way to get the Linux version to run on a Mac.  It seemed simple, download this program then download yWriter and then use the first program to run yWriter.  So I did this and it didn't work.  No surprise there.  Things never work when they say they should.  Eventually it was 2am and I forced myself to give up.  In the morning after some sleep I went at it again and it still refused to work.  I looked back at the instructions asking myself if I downloaded the right program.  I quickly realized I needed to download an older version of the program I was trying to use to run yWriter.  Downloaded and installed the older version and low and behold it worked.  This makes me happy, but where did I save my yWriter projects.  I thought I transfered all my writing files on to the Mac.  Who knows what happened.  They're probably on my lost flash drive.

Love:

Deathspank.

It's a game.  You play Deathspank, dispenser of justice, on a quest to get an ancient artifact called "The Artifact."  It's funny, graphics and music are great and the voice acting is superb.  There's lots of side quest you can do.  One being hammering poop out of demon imps to deliver to the farmer so he can fertilize his cherry trees.  It's hilarious.  And oh so fun.  And it only cost $15.  And there's a second game for when I beat the first one, and then there's another game after that that doesn't star Deathspank but has him in it.  That one's called The Baconing and it's potential awesomness seems extremely high.  Too bad I don't have more monies.

I seem to find myself getting back into gaming.  I blame my 3DS and Steam.  But it's turning out to not be such a bad thing.  I've been making friends online and have been able to play with the sister which makes those thousand of miles not seem so far away.

Till next time,
Garnet

How to resurrect a dead blog

It's September, last post was in May.  I totally have a good excuse.

It was aliens...no kidnapped by bigfoot...no wait!  Time travel!  I time traveled into the future to help fight a zombie apocalypse.  Or maybe I traveled to a alternate universe to slay a dragon and save a handsome prince(who immediately married the princess he was betrothed too ):  )  Or maybe I did all of these things and more.  You have no proof that I didn't.

There was the fair last month.  I actually got paid this year to work at the fair.  Two days straight on entering entries in the computers.   Why does by butt hurt so much?  Oh, I broke my tailbone when I fell on my butt a week ago and sitting on hard plastic chair doing data entry wasn't good for it.  Then there was the judging, and entering in the results, and man, those quilters have a real attitude problem.  And then we put everything up on display.  Then the fair.  It was the hottest week the entire summer.  Walking the floor getting people to vote for the People's Choice Award for the quilts was sweateristic (now I know why they call sweaters sweaters.  It's cause they make you sweat, right?).  After my first shift doing this I stopped caring.  Why isn't there a people's choice for the other crafts in that building, like us knitters, or crocheters?  Finally the fair was over and we got to take everything down and give it all back.  Had almost 40 hours on my time card.  Yarn monies!

Now it's September and what next?  National Novel Writing Month that's what!  Well not next next, but next next?  I have a story I've been wanting to write for years but the plots never quite been all there.  Mostly character and world development but a wonderful idea struck me for it the other day.  Now I need to gather all the notes I already have and write some more so that I actually have a plan going into Nano.  I probably won't fail miserably if I actually know where I want the story to go.  This all assuming I can stop playing video games long enough to get anything done. (ha ha!)

Till next time (six months from now?)
Garnet Kimzey

Rawr!

I am writing a blog post!

I know it's been awhile.  Oh well, sucks to be you to be without my blog posts for so long.  I'm assuming there's someone desperately waiting for me to update this otherwise I'll just feel like it's pointless and stop posting to it.  Maybe some people would be happy with that.

So no writing from me.  Absolutely none.  Plenty on knitting.  I got the sister's birthday scarf with matching gloves done and she loved them.  And I knitted a baby blanket for Knit Wits.  And now I'm working on a blank for myself.  It's going to be pretty.

My nightmare cat has discovered a gopher nest and has killed two younger gophers already.  One of them had grass sticking out of it's cheek pouch.  And thus I learned more about gopher anatomy.  I just thought they stored food in incredibly large cheeks.  I did not know that they actually pouches over their cheeks.

Going to the beach this weekend.  Staying in a condo.  Maybe I'll get some writing done.  Oh, and I may have found an illustrator for the dragon book.  Maybe...

Ta ta for now,
Garnet Kimzey

Knitting Scarves

It's been an interesting day.  The weather was suppose to be rainy but was sunny instead so I spent some time out on the deck soaking up the rays and knitting.  I've been working a birthday present for my sister.  Around 4 pm I heard the coyotes across the street yipping and a'whailing, after a deer or something.  Thus began the rush to get all the pets inside and to close the pet door so the dog wouldn't run outside and get  into a fight.  Shorting after that, back out on the deck knitting was I, when I heard this sound that been bugging this last week.  It was a quick rat-tat-tat-tat on something metal.  I went to investigate I noticed a flicker pounding it's peak on the metal roof of the shop.  Stupid bird.  I went back to knitting only to be interrupted by that same sound, only this time the flicker was pounding it's beak against the satellite dish.  I usually like to discourage my cat from killing birds, but in the case of this flicker, I wouldn't mind if she caught.  After chasing off the flicker again I decided it was time to go inside where nature couldn't distract me.  That and the shadow from the house had almost covered the deck, blocking out the nice warm spring sun.

Tomorrow is laundry day, me thinks, them the weekend when I will hopefully meet up with a friend for coffee.  But since I haven't heard from all week to get a time and place I'm starting to think I may be in need of finding something else to do this weekend.

Oh yes, I mustn't forget.  I got a skein for yarn this last weekend, 45% yak and 55% silk.  It's absolutely beautiful and I can't wait until I find the perfect pattern for it.

And speaking of knitting scarves and have an idea for one using the stitch pattern off of a sock pattern my mom found.  Might do that after I finish sister's birthday present (which involves making a lace scarf).  Thinking though I need to make that lace scarf for myself I've wanting to do.  And I started another lacey scarf for myself this week with sparkly yarn.  I'm in a lacey scarf kind of mood I guess.

I know this isn't about writing, but the real point was to get myself writing more and if I have to write about my day to do that, then so be it.  Maybe next time I actually do a writing prompt like I said I would.

Until next time (whenever that might be),
Garnet

I don't know what to write about today

So I thought I'd talk a bit about the book I'm currently reading.  It's The Greatest Show on Earth but Richard Dawkins.  It's a book about the evidence for evolution, which is fascinating and giving me a much more in-depth information on the Theory of Evolution.  The classes that I've taken where evolution was taught didn't have much time to discuss and taught it as fact that you had to accept to pass the class.  Not that I had any problem with that but Dawkins is specially trying to convince and prove to you the known facts about evolution.  He gives more detailed information so you can understand the theory better.

The writing its self is engaging which is nice since there's lots of technical terms used which can get really dull and boring if not done right.  My only complaint is that sometimes Dawkins wanders all over the place and I can't quite follow what he's talking about.

It's a good book and one you should definitely pick up if you want to learn more about evolution.

Until next time,
~Garnet

Micro Fiction

Today I'm going to talk about micro fiction.  What is micro fiction?  Well, micro fiction, or flash fiction as it's also known, is a type of fiction writing where you have a very limited amount of words to write a full story, 1000 words or less.

I first came across micro fiction in a college creative writing class.  One of the required books was called Micro Fiction and contained stories of 250 words or less.  We then had an assignment to write a story in exactly 100 words.  I would like to share the story I wrote but I can't seem to find it.  I think it's saved to another computer.

From that exercise we did in that class and became more interested in micro fiction and eventually came up with a project for it on my own.  It's called 52 Dragons, 52 stories about dragons told in only 52 words each.  I haven't finished it yet, but I plan too.  So here are a couple on those stories that I have written.

Snout Fire

       Snout Fire was a bright green medium sized dragon with yellow stripes and an impressive frill.  He could spit poison, at least one hundred yards.  The brave knight Sir Kevin thought it only ninety yards.  He thought he stood at a safe enough distance to save the beautiful princess.  He thought wrong.

Death Fang

       He was the most feared dragon in all the land, but with a name like Death Fang it was kind of expected.  He was huge with glossy black scales and a glare that could melt steel.  You can imagine the surprise when they found him wearing a pink feather boa and lipstick.

The thing I like most about micro fiction is the forced limitation.  Having to tell a story in a very limited amount of words makes every one  of them count.  Often times with authors I find their stories too wordy.  They could tell the story in half as many pages and it'd be so much better cause they would get rid of all that unnecessary filler and descriptions that don't had anything to the story.  Wordiness in story is not always a good thing.

Well, that's it from me today. 
Until next time,
Garnet

Second Post

This is probably going to be short since my stomach's not feeling well.  Queasy, queasy.

So writing.  I said it'd be writing centric didn't I?  So what am I writing?  A blog post obviously.  But that's not what I mean when I say writing.  Stories, novels, limericks?  Not actually working on any.  I've been in a bit of slump.  I tried doing National Novel Writing Month back in November, though.  I got 6000 words.  And now I can't remember what it was about.  It wasn't about Gumdrop the gingerbread man, that was the previous years attempt.  Didn't even get to 3000 words that time.  What the hell did I write about? 

 Looked it up.  It was a story that had been bouncing around in my head for years.  It's about a gnome named Tweezers and the thing he finds.  It's an egg, which, once it hatches draws Tweezers into a war he'd rather stay out of.  I got as far as the egg hatching, which is quite a bit further then the first time I attempted writing it.  It started out as an idea for an Eragon parody.  It just wasn't humorous enough for me to get into.  Boring actually.

I haven't really written much on anything since then.  Some freewriting has been done but no stories have come out of it.  It makes me sad.  I used to have more ideas then I could write about.

I"m thinking for this blog I might do something like a Writing Prompt Wednesday, where I take a writing prompt I find and write a story.  I shall do that this Wednesday and see how it goes.

'Till Tomorrow
-Garnet

First Blog

Hi there, Garnet R. Kimzey here and this is my blog.  Now whether or not I get readers doesn't matter too much but it would nice.  This is my writing blog where I can write about writing or ideas or just write.  Mostly I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing everyday so I won't always be blogging about writing because sometimes there's something else on my mind.

About me?  Well, I'm using a pseudonym so anything I say about myself may or may not be true.  I won't ever say which.  Today the "R" in my name stands for Rutabaga.  I have a cat who is the cutest and deadliest creature I've ever let sleep on my bed.  I have a growing yarn stash which is taking over my bedroom but that's fine with me, as long as the cat doesn't eat it.  She likes to eat yarn which is not good for her or my stash.  I like watching education shows and cartoons.  I especially like cartoons that are educational, like Histeria.  I am kumquats.  I don't know what the previous statement means which is probably why I like it.

As for what I like to write, besides everything and anything, is stories, usually of the humor or fantasy variety.  I plan one day actually writing that novel and getting published.  Right now I'd settle for getting a short story published just so I can open that bottle on wine I have on my bookshelf.

I bought myself a Cadbury egg to reward myself for doing the dishes today (I shouldn't have let the kitchen get that messy) and I haven't eaten it yet.  It's filled with caramel.  Mmmmm, caramel.

Sometimes I get distracted by things, like chocolate.  Mmmm, chocolate.

I'm watching My Strange Addictions on TLC.  Currently they have girl on who's addicted to eating couch cushions.  Makes me feel better about my strange behaviors.  Actually, it makes me look down right normal.

There's something wrong with the "k" key on this keyboard.  I think something got stuck under it and you have to hit it really hard to get it to type.  One of these days I'll fix that.

I've rambled quite a bit haven't I.  I don't promise more organized posts in the future.  Tomorrow I may actually post something related to writing.  But I will be trying to post everyday and if I get any loyal readers I will expect them to hold me to that.  Nothing like an e-mail box full of angry letters to get one motivated to update their blog, right?

'Till Tomorrow
-Garnet