Thursday, May 28, 2009

Would you read this book? Children of the Deep: 2012


Working on yet another pitch for my Cthulhu Mythos end of the world novel:
--
Children of the Deep: 2012.
When the end of the world comes, who will you love?
It's 2012, and the world is ending. The meteor Ag-Noggoth burns in the sky, heading toward Earth, and the buzz in the New Age and Pagan communities is: Change or die. Meri, a freelance writer, mocks the miracle power beads and various Xochitl Tictl herbal concoctions that everyone seems to be addicted to. Then she falls in love with a man who is like no other she's ever encountered.
When the end of the world comes, who will you be?
Drawn by her lover and his mysterious family into the cult of Becoming, with its refrain of "change or die," Meri slowly slips from reporting the phenomena to being its figurehead. All over the world, people are becoming...but what will they finally be?
--
Is that enough or do I need to bring into it that there's another sentient humanoid race on earth who is going to take over?
I used this next pitch, which goes in a different direction, for a recent get-an-agent contest . I didn't win so I don't know if the pitch is crap or if they wanted something else. It had very specific rules--no more than 3 sentences/150 words which is why there's so much punctuation.
--
26,000 years ago, a race of aquatic humanoids crashed on Earth; abandoned by their god Ag-Noggoth, they hid—and waited. As the dawn of a new age approaches, humanity rapidly begins to evolve. Freelance writer Meri is caught in something bigger than she can imagine, in love with a man who isn't what he seems, and as the comet called Ag-Noggoth approaches Earth, Meri holds the fate of humanity—and that of the Children of the Deep—in her newly webbed fingers.
--
All comments welcome.
(Deep One plush toy from Toy Vault)

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

new must see movie: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

OMG--I LOVE giant creature movies, the tackier the better.  My friend and I love to rent them from Blockbuster and then rip on how awful they are.  And this one looks to be the MOTHER of all bad giant creature movies.
I cannot make this up:  MEGA SHARK vs GIANT OCTOPUS.

Supposedly coming out May 26th?! Why is this the first I'm hearing about it?  And why isn't it called Megalodon vs Kraken, wouldn't that be much cooler? Or are people too stupid to know what Megalodons and Kraken are?

Color therapy

As I was going through all my books over the last few days, deciding which to keep and which to sell, I found a whole bunch on color therapy. I'd forgotten all about my interest in it. At one point I had even had a bunch of transparencies printed up in solid colors and experimented with sending various types of Reiki energy through the different colors to see if it changed. Yeah, that's me, trying science-type experimentation on things science claims to have disproved.
For now, the color therapy books remain in the sell pile, but it got me to thinking and I used my google-fu to see if anything new was being talked about on the web. I found an article on a health blog. It's not really from a new age perspective, like all my books are, so it was interesting to read.
The blog calls it "Chromotherapy" and claims it dates back to ancient China and Egypt. Which gets my attention, of course. Egypt! They did reflexology too, back in the days of pyramids. In the modern form, there is The Lüscher Color Test, a psychological tool.
During the test, patients are exposed to various colors. The colors they choose (and the order in which they are chosen) are believed to be associated with particular mental states.

Here’s a brief overview of what some of the colors represent (according to Dr. Luscher):

  • Blue is associated with contentment and belonging.
  • Green signifies self-esteem and willpower
  • Red represents confidence and a proactive attitude.
  • Yellow indicates eagerness to learn and to experience “new encounters”
That is too funny because I have always hated yellow. If I had to put all the colors in order on the table in front of me, I'd put yellow on the floor! But I am eager to learn. So what does that mean?
And then some crazy person like me decided to put color to the test. My tests were not scientific, of course. I'd lay the colored sheet on someone and run energy through it, then switch to a different color and ask if it felt different. I could see the colors and so could the person--no control, no double blind. Hey, it's not like I had an NIH grant to study it! Or any training in setting up experimental protocols.
I assume the people who did this other study has the credentials I lack. They found an interesting association between certain colors and altered mental functioning. The exposure to a blue background (led) to twice as much “creative output” as was found with a red background.

The color red promoted “attention to detail”. Red also improved proofreading ability and memory - as compared to the color blue. The rate of improvement was approximately 31%.

Hmm, maybe there is something to always doing proofreading with a red pen! And maybe I should take the color therapy books out of the sell pile...

Lego Fun--movie scenes

One of my friends does some work for Lego occasionally so I am always on the lookout for Lego-related items to send her.  And I am depressed and baffled still over the loss of Hogan, my perfect little perfect lorikeet.  So these pictures, found believe it or not on a natural health forum called NatMedTalk, cheered me up.  They are famous movie scenes done with Lego bricks.  Here's Titanic.  I used to LOVE that movie; haven't watched it in years. I'd probably cringe now!
And Edward Scissorhands:
Some people have too much time on their hands, that's all I can say.  But I'm glad they do, especially on days when I am down and need a laugh.
Funny that I never owned any Legos.  I had some kind of cheap generic type as a child.
(Both pictures are hosted on Flickr, BTW.) 

Off topic: I've entered almost 200 books, mostly new age, onto my book sale list.  Please check it out.  I still have an equal amount to list so look often.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

books for sale

Bert's Books for Sale:
 my own shelf

I've only added a few dozen out of the hundreds so keep checking back. Pretty much they are $5 each or 3 for $10 or make an offer if you want lots of them for new age, pagan, diet, writing & miscellaneous titles.
I'll add a bunch of paperback novels later, those will be $1 each or 12 for $10.
Right now my inclination is NOT to ship, you have to come and get them. If you are not local, we can negotiate something.

RIP Hogan


My little green bird died on Friday. Hogan was around 18, a perfect lorikeet (his breed, not his personality). He had never been sick, ever in his whole life, not even a cold, never had a blood test, never had missing or messy feathers. I thought I'd have him long after zombie-bird Lance (now 21) went into the wild blue yonder.
Thursday I gave Hogan and Lance each a corn tortilla. Lance wasn't interested, shoved his tortilla through the grate into the tray. Hogan attacked his, ate some of it, and then decided it was some sort of edible carpet and was sitting on it. He played with it all day.
Friday I got up early because I had a doctor's appointment. Around 7, 7:30 I heard a brief ruckus from one of the birds but it didn't sound serious. I did laundry and then around 8:15 went into to say hi to the birds and Hogan was dead on his tortilla bed. :( He was still warm so I think the noise I heard was him dying.
All I could think was that somehow the stupid tortilla killed him--bound up his intestines or something. I rushed him up to the vet, wrapped in a washcloth, and made an appointment to bring Lance in for his final visit with Dr Giddings, who is retiring.
Saturday the vet who did Hogan's necropsy called and said he was in perfect health...except for his liver, which was FOUR TIMES normal size. Poor little guy. He never acted sick, he was totally himself. His wife, Onnie, died in the fall, and she had a bad liver. Seems like that's what gets lories--liver or kidneys.
Let's do the dead lory rollcall:
  • Scarlett, red lory, kidneys
  • Goober, hybrid red-rainbow, kidneys
  • Zeebo, hybrid red-rainbow, unknown
  • Prism, rainbow lorikeet, liver
  • Guinevere, rainbow, liver
  • Onnie, perfect lorikeet, liver
  • Hogan, perfect, liver
Hogan's demise was not death by tortilla, thank the gods. I don't think I ever would have gotten over the guilt.
Lance is in the huge 18 SF cage by himself. I put him in the clean one (always the plan for this weekend) and moved all the toys and perches and rotated some in that he hadn't seen for a while. He's not fooled at all, though, he still knows Hogan is gone. Hogan was his last friend. My hope had been when I took them for their spring vet visit, I was going to let them play together at the vet and see if they fought. If they didn't, I was going to take the divider out.
I hate death and loss. A year ago I had FOUR lories, THREE cats and a full-time job. Now I have 1 elderly zombie lory, 2 cats and unemployment.
And this is a petty complaint, but only 2 of my 25 fakebook friends (all real friends, people I know in real life) acknowledged the loss of Hogan. And yeah, I spelled Facebook wrong on purpose.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

test book post

I am going to be selling a LOT of new age books and I'm thinking about starting a Goodreads or Shelfari account to list them all. Testing to see what would be more user-friendly for people to look at the list. These widgets show books I've read, NOT the books for sale yet.

This one links to my Goodreads list
my 'read' shelf:
 my read shelf
And it appears to be the winner. Links right to the list, shows covers and authors, and you can click on each book for more info.

This is a Goodreads widget with 200 book covers. I can tell it sucks from the crappy generated HTML code which includes each book title. Plus I have more than 200 books to sell so I'd have to make multiple accounts, pain the butt, so not happening.






This is the shelfari widget. It LOOKS cool but but will people want to click that many times to see all the books?:




Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog