That Kind of Day, Eh?

I don't understand why so many bipeds feel the need to be so petty... and it's a festival on Earth these days.

There's a failed con artist with a fake tan, who got a million from his daddy to start a business (and who managed to lose almost a billion (!!!!!) in a year years later) who's trying to make gullible people believe that he could manage a country (when he's never been properly involved in politics before) - and he's just been caught on tape gloating that he's a predator.

There are politicos who help make money, thanks to all the horrors going on in the Middle East, whilst other politicos, in a kind of remake of the 1930s would like to know where the aliens are working in their country.

All that makes my blood boil, and today... the ugliness got personal (as I've lost a friend).

That this person has been forgetting my birthday (we're supposed to be good friends) for a decade... No problem. It's not that important (even though that person didn't forget to wish a "Happy birthday!" to... a sports coach met once a week for a few months).

That I'm always the one who has to keep in touch... I'll make the effort. No problem.

That this person played deaf when I talked about breaking down and thinking about suicide. No problem. It's my burden (and I understand it's not easy to know what to say [though a hug would have been frigging nice]).

That this person acted as if nothing happened when I said that I'd apostatised... Still not a problem.

My health is yo-yo'ing again, so I don't have time for pettiness (I've got fever, headaches, and most of my joints hurt, which is pretty scary - and painful).
As well, I'm drawing the line at pseudo-jokes.
I've never bought the 'I'm telling you something horrible, but I'll pretend it's a joke so you can't be mad at me'. People use 'I'm joking' when they've pushed you over the cliff, but they don't want the witnesses to tell the coppers what really happened.

I don't particularly enjoy having to get rid of knives in my back - and today's incident left me with my lower jaw on the floor, coz I didn't expect to be told something so low about my life - especially not from someone who I thought was a friend, but friends don't disparage you, your beliefs or your life.

I do have good friends who are lovely and kind, Merlin be praised. I won't be able to forget (or forgive) what that person told me, wrapped in a pseudo-joke, and I'm done being the only one making all the efforts. 

I'm nice, but life's too short.

Less pettiness, more empathy.

Gals in Charge

Last year, there was a kind of competition to have The Next MacGyver on telly. Anyone could participate (so I did!), and the main idea was that gals were to be in charge (I liked that).
Fast forward to today, and the new MacGyver is a testosterone-fuelled reboot of the original with the usual quota of (annoying, background sound bite) women. [That's one series I won't be watching]

Since I've decided to write the plots that had come to my mind, I'm sharing what I sent with you:

My title was:
Ever Heard of_

My logline was:

After years spent in Europe, Morgan Simon was going to meet her father at La Guardia, but he seems to have disappeared. As she goes looking for him, she rescues a lovely mathematician, who happens to have a secret life. Who needs urban legends when you meet people from a real secret society?

My sort-of summary/catchphrase:

No need for urban legends when you join a real secret society.

My first three episodes titles ans one-liners summaries:

1-     _ Eventful Encounters?: Morgan rescues Léah from clumsy thieves, and she joins the secret society.

2-     _Meeting the Family?: Morgan’s IT job (Problem #1) keeps being interrupted by her new friends coming to meet her (Problem #2), and McMaster is abducted by a mad scientist who wants to sell her to the highest bidder (Problem #3).

3-     _the Antikythera?: A mis-archived papyrus gives the location (in riddles) of three ancient Greek computers much more complicated than the damaged one that was found in 1901. What can they actually do? And who will get to them first?

My (main - and female) protagonists' names and descriptions:

-         Morgan Simon is a computer witch and a genius who gets easily bored; therefore, she’ll read about anything and she’ll try everything. She’s just arrived to New York City, where her father didn’t welcome her at the airport, and she goes looking for him, while balancing her new job – and her new friends’ challenges.

-         Léah Wenn is an unemployed mathematician who isn’t homeless because her society’s friends are helping her. She’s the busiest of them all.

-         Chris McMaster is the leader of the secret society. She’s a blind biologist who came up with a defence weapon that combines drugs and other elements that actually incapacitate bad guys in seconds (and that is completely safe) if her delegates need to make an escape.

My synopsis of the pilot episode:

When Morgan Simon’s father fails to show at the airport where she’s just landed, she starts looking for him on the net. She ends up at an airfield where, thanks to her love for strategy (and her passion for MMORPG and Live Action Games, plus a good poker face) she helps Léah Wenn get away from nasty people who are stealing industrial secrets for even nastier people. The ladies take a small plane, but neither has actually ever flown; while taking off worked fine, landing will be an issue, and Morgan has to feed an autoland programme into the plane’s computer with a laptop that has a faulty Wi-Fi connection. If they manage to land, Léah will need Morgan’s help in order to retrieve secrets that must stay secret, and that means that Léah will have to trust Morgan with her secrets (like working for a group with no legal status and no official connection that aims at fighting for the welfare of all) – and probably with her life, too.

I don't know if it's good.
I don't know if the written short stories will be good.
But I'm writing my plots.

Still Missing Him

After watching a series I really love tonight, I started changing channels, firmly convinced that I'd turn the telly off to go back to my computer. There was a channel showing episodes of The Mentalist; I found myself watching because I'll always associate the last episode of that series with the last time I was happy before He left for the island with no phones and no Wi-Fi.

It's been 568 days, and I'll keep counting until I start packing to go to the island myself...

Apart from the fact that I can still smile or cry thinking about Him, there's a Cole Porter song that makes me think of Him.

Here's a version of it with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire:

Same Old Same Old - The "Next" MacGyver Edition

Alas, this is not about the old series where a lovely guy saved the day with some gum and a paper-clip.

Nope.

I went looking for a TV calendar in order to check when my siblings could start sending me spoilers about my favourite shows again, and I found a mention of the next MacGyver's first episode.

You see, last year I shipped my own plot bunnies to the Next MacGyver competition. When I got a message telling me that my script ideas weren't selected for the next step, I remember sending an answer wishing them luck and promising to watch the new series (what's not to love about women kicking arses and saving the day with some gum and a paper-clip... and maybe some GPS device to update the concept?).

I quite like my ideas, and I'm somehow glad that I find myself free to develop them without having studio people telling me to change "this, and that, and that... Oh, and maybe that, too".

I hadn't checked the project since last year, but I investigated a bit after reading the première date. Then, I had to dig deeper, because the competition I'd joined was about promoting women and having a female "MacGyver" as the next number 1 in the cast, but I was reading about blokes, and more blokes.

I must admit that I was barely caffeinated, and I briefly thought I'd stumbled upon a different project, but... no.

Shelved is the idea of the next MacGyver being played by a woman; it's all about cunning men saving the world (from inside the US government apparently, and there's one woman around, but she sounds like a right ungrateful, entitled bitch - on paper, at least). 

I don't know how the initial project was killed, but I'm not interested in that remake - at all.

I don't know if it's rampant sexism, fear about something new, fear about having too much science (and too many women?) in one show, but I don't care. This "MacGyver" doesn't look interesting or challenging enough.

There's one good thing, though: my own plot bunnies from the competition just hopped ahead in my writing queue.

Of Lazy Companies

'Dear Customer,

please, do our job...'

I can't help but have this sentence stuck in my head to summarize what just happened to me.

I got a letter from a "CCC" company that was informing me of the change/renewal of some piece of "AA" equipment in my flat.

The bloody thing looked like a scam.

I phoned to "AA", but no one knew about it... until I read them the letter, & they pointed out the piece of equipment now belongs to "AAa" ('Hello, communication between services!?' <- my Sarc font is firmly on).

I phoned to "AAa", and they confirmed that "CCC" works for them - but they had no trace of the change in my file (the OCD in me was beginning to twitch a little).

I phoned "CCC" because the appointment in the letter didn't work for me.

I could change it; no problem... buuuuuuuuut the lovely secretary told me that I should call the technician on the day of the appointment in order to know when he's going to be at my flat.

Aforementioned technician only has a mobile number (that's logical), & such numbers aren't included in my phone package & I am NOT going to pay to phone a guy when it's the "CCC" company that should contact me.

I told the secretary that I wouldn't be able to phone the technician, & I gave her my phone number (an old-fashioned landline).

She said that they'd contact me. [I thought "cool!"].

Then she said that I'd have to phone the technician to know when he'd be at my flat. ô.O

I realized that she wanted me to do their job, but... oops! I'm not paid for that.

Either they call me or they can drop dead - & I'll call "AAa" to read them the riot act in fifteen languages.

Oh.. "AAa" sent me a link to a poll. When they asked me if I had suggestions, weeeeell, I may have made a few to have them work properly, & not like lazy sloths.

I fear there shall be a "Part 2" to this story...

That Spy Novel

My plot bunnies tend to be twisted (no surprise here).

Perhaps I decided that the action of An Honourable Spy should take place in the Victorian era because there are so many possibilities or perhaps because it would allow the plot to have some freedom and not be corseted by the current ways of spying (fewer computers, more ciphers and snitches).

I've got in my head all the background info for all my main characters, now, I just need to have a historical timeline, facts, and a plausible plot against Victoria (or other people).

I've decided that the action of my story is going to take place in 1887 and 1888 (plenty to do then!).

When I just blogged about my plot bunnies, I typed: 'An Honourable Spy (a [pseudo-]Victorian piece of nuttiness inspired by History, and too many spy novels)'. The second part was meant to give a general description, but... do you think that it might be fun to keep that in the full description of the book?

Meet Our 'Babies' [Book 1]

Since our company's website is only on Xampp for the moment, I'll use this blog to make you meet our books.

I've got photos of the one that was posted today (my cousin's M. St., which she'd promised to publish years ago):

I'll take pictures of the others as soon as I can (yes, I know, it was silly not to take pics of our 'babies' before we mailed them to Godmother National Library).

That 'White Rabbit' Feeling (A Dru Update with Some Book News)

Everything's mad (in my life), my dears.

There's not enough hours in a day for everything.

One more title for Éditions Aikyō was just sent to be registered (one of my cousin's this time).

I'm still growling on a regular basis, but I'm really recycling most growls into my Sci-Fi plots. Novel #3 has just exploded, because of a controversial piece of clothing that's presented as "liberating" when the bottom line I see is that some have been brainwashed to believe it was necessary to look "modest" (I've created a kingdom where I'm going to use the news to feed the bunnies).

I'm currently writing two novels: Muff&Sherly 3, & An Honourable Spy (a [pseudo-]Victorian piece of nuttiness inspired by History, and too many spy novels), and reading three: Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore by Italo Calvino, La coartada de Antínoo by Manuel Franscico Reina, and this beauty:

Look! A Car Goodvert!

I find this commercial for the new Fiat 500 Riva, "The smallest yacht in the world" absolutely delightful. So I've found a link to it, and I'm sharing it with you.
Enjoy!

^_^