I am not Ozzy

I really love the book I Am Ozzy. Seriously, reading it almost cut in on my manuscript editing time. I could barely put the thing down.

There are some pretty wild stories in there, as you can probably imagine. I won't divulge too much in case someone reading this plans to read the book in the near future.

But I will say a few things:

Ozzy was not always a fan of animals. Some of what he described in the book was difficult to read. One of his first jobs was killing animals in a slaughterhouse, so maybe that skewed his perspective a little.

He has a lot of regrets, not just about the animals, and he lays them all out on the table. He views his past with the eyes of someone much older and wiser. This book, I think, shows who he really is. He has a much more normal mindset than one might think.

Sharon Osborne is a fricking genius when it comes to business, and Ozzy would not be where he is today without her. Black Sabbath was in the picture before she was, but I’m pretty sure Ozzy would have already faded into obscurity or oblivion without her skills.

That being said, I decided the book could have been improved by adding a British slang glossary. For your reference, I have compiled a brief list of some translations.

Chin - to punch someone in the face
Bog - bathroom
Arse - ass
Bollocks - testicles, but also nonsense
Nick - to steal, also jail
Slash – urination as in, taking a slash
Dodgy - suspicious or unstable
Legging it – running away
Neck - drink or chug?
Knackered - drunk
Sozzled - drunk
Pissed - drunk
Legless - so drunk you can't walk

the end
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Other places to find me:
www.LeaRyan.com
Twitter: @LeaRyan1

random monday updates

Currently reading: I Am Ozzy

I accomplished a lot more than I thought I would this weekend. I think I made it through three or four chapters of transferring on-paper changes to the witch book into the computer. I highly do not recommend editing 18 chapters on paper at once and then entering them manually. I have a stack of paper covered in my chicken scratches. One chapter at a time is much easier, I think. But, only two or three chapters left! Yay! An October release is so very possible. Maybe even September if I want to attempt to get on the radar before October.

I'm very glad to be finishing the witch book project. I love the book very much, but I've felt this pull to get back to drawing lately. I have a book full of sketches that I'm starting to feel obligated to use for something or another.

Other subjects.

Found: black nail polish with tiny glitters
Searching for: black nail polish with large glitters

Also found: suitable sunstitute for Urban Decay's disgustingly overpriced Rocket Pocket lip gloss. It is Hard Candy Plexi gloss - similarly shaped packing, tastes like frosting, stays on forever, has color, $5. Sold.

This week, probably tomorrow, I plan to finish I Am Ozzy and post something in the blog about it.

Other places to find me:

www.LeaRyan.com

Twitter: @LeaRyan1

show and tell picture time

I thought this shot was cool because it's nature in action. I was sitting on a deck. I looked down and next to me, this spider was following a green caterpillar. He sort of looked like he really wanted to eat the caterpillar but didn't know quite how to go about it. Of course, the caterpillar was running (as well as a caterpillar can run) for its life. You will be pleased to know that the caterpillar lived through this ordeal. I scared the spider when I took the picture. He bolted under the deck.

Also in the interesting photo department, I have a blurry camera phone picture of the Avatar DVD display at walmart. Note the wall of large, creepy, shiny eyes. Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?

What I Don't Miss About My Childhood

And now for part two, what I don't miss about my childhood.

10. Little brother meddling.
9. Endless room cleaning sessions.
8. The command line interface on ye old commodore 64, although having to use one may have contributed to my computer skill development.
7. Bratty children with low self esteem bullying me.
6. Walking FOREVER to get to school in any weather. Uphill, both ways, in the snow.
5. Being dragged along to whatever boring ass function the adult in charge of me at the time felt the need to take me to.
4. Having to do the dishes after dinner every night with NO DISHWASHER! The horror.
3. Not being allowed to watch whatever movie or TV show I wanted.
2. I couldn't drive a car and I really love/loved cars.
1. No control over the dinner menu. I hate sauerkraut!!!!

That's all for that subject, for now at least.

The bug identified!

The mystery bug in the last blog post was a Greater Bee Fly, or if you prefer fancy words, a Bombylius Major! Thank you to @GrowerGirl for the bug website. It was ever so helpful.

What was the website, you ask?

www.whatsthatbug.com

What the heck is this bug?

The blog is different today. I visited my dad this weekend and while I was walking around the wooded area on his property, I saw this weird looking bug. I am hoping that someone can help me identify it.

It looked like a bee at first because the body was sort of fuzzy and round. It flew in a way similar to a bee too. However, the coloring is wrong and there is this proboscis (feeding tube thing, yes I just looked it up) sticking out of its mouth. It was using it to feed or whatever from flowers.

Here are some pictures. The last shot is of the bug on a flower. Sorry it's blurry!

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Other places to find me:

www.LeaRyan.com

Twitter: @LeaRyan1

www.flickr.com/photos/LeaRyan

www.myspace.com/Lea-Ryan

What I Miss About My Childhood

10. The fact that I wasn't subject to the whims of the corporate man.
9. The ability to swim laps in a quarter mile pool without dropping dead of a heart attack.
8. Sliding down the basement stairs.
7. Video games for hours and hours without having to attend to any grownup type duties.
6. Being one of only two major focuses of my parents' Christmas shopping.
5. Invincibility, except for those pesky occasional knee dislocations.
4. Summers in which my only responsibilities included having fun and keeping my little brother from dying while my parents were at work.
3. No worry about bills or how I would support my dependents if I lost my job.
2. Eating mass amounts of candy without concern for caloric intake and not gaining an ounce.
1. The option to punch the annoying asshole next to me without fear of arrest or prosecution.

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Other places to find me:
http://www.learyan.com/
Twitter: @LeaRyan1
www.flickr.com/photos/LeaRyan
www.myspace.com/Lea-Ryan

in which my friend set herself on fire.

Have you ever seen something that triggered a crazy memory? That totally happened to me today. I was reading a blog and saw a cartoon illustration of someone on fire and this thing that happened in high school just popped into my head.

I had a friend, I'll call her Jeanie, which is not her real name. She was a year ahead of me, so I think I was a junior. Jeanie was kind of wild. One day, she pulled me into the restroom to show me something.

She tells me about this party trick she saw someone do in which they sprayed their forearm with hairspray and lit it on fire. She proceeded to assure me that it 'wouldn't hurt'. Then Jeanie demonstrated, using her lighter and a can of hairspray.

It did not go well.

Jeanie's arm lit up like a, like a, like an arm on FIRE! With hairspray! I remember being surprised at how big the flame was. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t much help. I probably just stood there gawking.

I think she was surpised too because she started flapping. Jeanie beat her arm on her leg to put out the flame. I don't remember exactly what happened after that. I do remember she ran her arm under water. She ended up with second degree burns, I think. And she informed me that it did indeed 'hurt'.

Needless to say, when the adults, principal, nurse, parents found out, there were follow-up questions. They accused her of freebasing and she was subjected to many inquiries by authority figures and I think some counseling. Really all she was doing was being a dumbass kid.

So remember children, if you want to avoid various questions about what drugs you do and your mental state, do not set yourself on fire.

That is the moral of the Jeanie story.

____________________
Other places to find me:
www.LeaRyan.com
Twitter: @LeaRyan1
www.flickr.com/photos/LeaRyan
www.myspace.com/Lea-Ryan

Happy National Library Week!!!!

Oh my gosh! It's National Library Week! Where have I been?

I love the library. I think I'm carrying about half their collection around in my giant purse right now. Libraries are an indispensible resource for information and inspiration. Mine puts up with my 8 billion hold requests, and they don't snicker too loudly when I check out such intellectual DVD titles as Beer Fest.

Please support your local library, tell them you love them, pay those fines you owe. And take a child to one too, son, daughter, neice, nephew, whatevs.

And now, in a completely unrelated subject, here are some spring photos! They be on the flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/learyan/4521600487/in/set-72157623732774813/


__________________________
Other places to find me:
http://www.learyan.com/
Twitter: @LeaRyan1
www.flickr.com/photos/LeaRyan
www.myspace.com/Lea-Ryan

The Fourth Kind

The Fourth Kind is kind of lame. There are parts of that are genuinely creepy, but the action never quite seems to get off the ground.

The story bounces between what is supposedly ‘actual’ footage of interviews and reenactments of interviews, sometimes showing them at the same time, side by side. Doing so builds the tension, which I guess is the point, but it’s still kind of annoying.

A good portion of the movie is spent on people freaking out about what happened to them in the recent past. You are watching people being scared of things that happened to them previously, rather than actually seeing scary things, if that makes sense.

The Fourth Kind reminds me kind of that old writing advice that says show don't tell. This basically means give the reader an experience rather than just spelling out how they should feel. The Fourth Kind did a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.

Other annoying things about the movie: the uber pale makeup of the ‘real’ doctor doing interviews, the whiney voice of the ‘real’ doctor, and the sheriff's unrealistic temper tantrums.

Bottom line – the movie is slow and there’s no real payoff.

random monday updates

Yes, it's time again for random updates.

Got some newish music. Gorillaz Plastic Beach is weird but cool. Kei$ha's Animal has nice beats and I like her voice but the lyrics try WAY too hard to be cool. Either that or I'm just getting old and crotchety, which is entirely possible.

Should get the second proof copy of the book this week. This still isn't the final version though. Hey. it's a learning process. I made some slight changes to the synopsis last week. They're up on my website and mom's website.

www.LeaRyan.com
www.simplywonderfulbooks.com

I took some pretty pictures at the park this weekend. I might post a few later this week if the spirit moves me.

Also in park related news, I discovered that I am not in as good of shape as I thought I was. Apparently yoga three times a week and some cardio boxing have nothing on hiking through the woods on uneven ground. Saturday night and all Sunday, this girl was hurting! Darn my wonky old lady hips and that pulled hammy. I'm going back next weekend (weather permitting) to hike some more because now I feel like I'm missing something in the way of physical fitness. That's right, knock me down and I come back for more.

What else.

Oh the Twitter. I'm getting into the Twitter. Some people are much better at it than others. One thing that really bugs me is when people tweet noninteresting sorts of things every five minutes or so. I'm about to boot one such individual. I can't see what anyone else says because she takes up my whole screen with the nonsense. A lot of Twitter is nonsense (including my stuff), but dang lady, take a break. Or if you are going to take up that much space, say something funny! Like another person I follow that was tweeting about various objects to play jenga with like pregnant women or Robin Williams movies. That was funny.

Ryan out.

The First Second Life Post

The simplest way I can effectively describe Second Life is to say that it’s a virtual, online world to which users from all over the world contribute. I hang out there sometimes, not as often lately due to book working. I thought I would share some of my pictures and such.

The first picture in the strip below is my avatar. Yes, she is much hotter than me but hey, what fun is an avatar if she isn’t hot, right? HA! And I really never set out for her to look Latino but that’s where we ended up, so there you have it.

I’ve seen some crazy stuff on Second Life. I’ve seen a cake store. Don’t ask me what good a virtual cake is. I guess it makes a pretty decoration. I’ve seen a store that sells, um, male organs. I won’t put a picture of that on here because it’s pretty graphic, obviously. Ironically enough, those two stores were pretty close to one another.

I’ve wandered Wonderland, hiked forests, been to a recreation of the Sistine Chapel, visited art galleries, all without leaving my recliner office. One of my favorite things to do in Second Life is hang out on a beach. In the dead of February, in Indiana, I need a beach, even if it’s just a virtual one.

The three pictures under the portrait in my little strip here are: a creepy carousel, a stream through a forest with moon beams, and one of those aforementioned virtual beaches. I apologize for the small size. Get out your magnifying glasses, old timers.

There is more to Second Life than what I take advantage of. There are role playing games, clubs, concerts and various naughty activities, none of which I have participated in. People have relationships in Second Life. You can get married or get a job, buy some virtual real estate. It’s pretty cool.

That’s all for now.

The Thaw

The Thaw is a Ghost House picture that stars Val Kilmer and a bunch of other people I didn't recognize. When I picked this movie up at the Blockbuster, I actually thought it was something else. I discovered later that the movie I was thinking of was Whiteout.

Anyway, so The Thaw is about a science team that finds a decaying wooly mammoth preserved in some ice. There are bugs inside and when they thaw and hatch, they eat people. yadda yadda.

While this plot may sound exciting, it is not, alas. The story moves glacially, as in slow. Get it? Ice? Glacially? ha ha.

Seriously, the movie is really slow. It plods along forever before anything exciting happens. It does eventually pick up the pace toward the end, where it subsequently becomes global warming preachy.

I would recommend skipping this one unless you are having trouble falling asleep.

Monday blogging

Going back to work after a four day weekend is quite difficult. After four days of writing, shopping, playing Assassin's Creed, movies and brief time with children, going back to the grind is an exercise in why-the-hell-am-I-doing-this. But there we are.

I did a crazy amount of time editing over the weekend. The kids didn't get home until Sunday, so I had some significant quiet time. I worked on a book that I plan to release either the tail end of September or the very first part of October. It's about witches, so I'm trying to coincide the release with the time that even the normals are into creepy. I know talking about the second book before the first book is released is probably sort of weird? Untimely? Unbecoming? But that's where my mind is right now.

I don't think my editor is feeling my timeline because she's got other projects. However, I want to do a Halloween release and I don't want to hold the darn thing until 2011. I'm confident we will work something out.

Oh, and I received my first proof copy of She Who is Vengeance last week. I don't think I was excited about the first copy until I held it in my hand. It was a really, truly, actual book with my words on the pages. Very cool.

That book is due out in May. Info at the website, link at left.

I'm trying to put a post about Second Life together this week. We'll see how that goes.

That's all for now.

Blockbuster brings back late fees

Apparently, Blockbuster reinstituted late fees on March 1st. I figured that might happen eventually.

I don’t think that was a good move on their part. Bringing the late fees back is an act of desperation and it’s not going to save their business. Also not a good move on their part is charging the late fees to whatever debit card you gave them when you opened your account. That is going to alienate customers like me who don’t really want businesses messing with the checking account. Paws off, please.

What Blockbuster lacks is innovation. When you look at their competition like Netflix and Red Box, what you see are new ways of doing things. Those two companies took the movie rental concept and they changed the experience. They made movie rental more customer friendly. Blockbuster is left behind to play catch up and they’re not really doing all that good of a job.

I don’t visit Blockbuster very often, but I don’t want them to fail either. I like having their brick and mortar stores as an option. I like that they sell used video games cheaper than GameStop.

Blockbuster needs to come up with a new idea. They need to stop trying to follow and start leading if they want to survive. And they need to stop charging $5 to rent a movie. That shiz is ridiculous.