K. Tempest Bradford

In order to stave off being completely depressed about such a day, I’ll need your help.  Post the funniest, silliest, happiest thing you can imagine in the comments.

September 16th, 2008 | Tags: bad day | Category: General | Comments (16)

When I got my new job I was finally able to afford to start weight training again. It had been several months since I could work with machines. Freeweights are okay, but I much prefer working more than one muscle at once. Plus, it takes less time. I’m also much more motivated if I know that the gym will charge me whether I come every week or not. No use wasting cash.

Yesterday I went with my roommate who loves the weight machines as much as I do. We’ve been contemplating the ab crunching one for a while since we both love the twisty abs/obliques machine. I tried the crunch last week and found it very useful, so I did it again yesterday. First set of 10, the weight wasn’t enough so I barely felt it. Second set the weight was right and my abs said “Heeeeyyyyy!” Third set, I crunched while alternately raising my legs in turn, which really made my abs go “Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!” Since the first set had been a bust and I did the leg thing only on the third, I thought, “I should do one more set.”

I am not always as smart as I look.

I crunched down and pulled one leg up. My abs said “All right, I have put up with this shit 30 times already! No more!” and I said, “No pain no gain!” On the third rep, my abs said, “Fuck that! [CRAMP]” and I said, “Quit yer bitchin’.” On the seventh rep, my abs said, “I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t hear me before, I said [CRAMP].” I said, “8… 9…. 10….! OH JESUS OWWWW!”

I stretched a bit to make the cramp go away, but it was so bad that any time I made a hint at bending forward (like to get my water bottle) my abs said, “We are still cramping and we hate you!” I had to hobble quickly to the stretching area and have my roommate spot me as I bent over backwards on a balance ball. A few minutes of that finally took care of it, but wow.

My overall goals for weight training are not to become overly muscled. I basically want to tone and be in good shape. I don’t do that thing where I just keep going and going until I collapse, making the weightlifter face. So I have no idea why I didn’t listen to my abs and, instead, pushed them until they mutinied. I guess I’ll know better next time.

The other aspect of weight training is that the next day I’m always sore and stiff. Only a little, usually, because I always stretch before and after and then the aforementioned not pushing myself to crazy limits. But I still have to resist walking like a stiff person when I am stiff :) The only way to break the pain-stiffness cycle is to keep moving and not give in to the stiffness. But oh my, today my abs are all, “LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO US,” and it’s painful to stand up, bend over, and any number of other movements. I’m not alarmed, as it’s not acute pan. But it’s definitely time to pay for yesterday. And I knew it was coming. Gah.

This will all be worth it soon. I weight train so that I will be strong enough someday to kick someone’s ass if the need arises. Also, when I’ve built up some muscle, I’ll consider some self-defense classes or martial arts training. I’m not feeling in any particular danger, I just really want the ability to beat the shit out of someone if I need to.

(Does that sound too violent?)

September 15th, 2008 | Tags: doing stupid things, kicking ass, weight training | Category: General | Comments (1)

Seriously, it’s like a parallel fandom, making fun of those awful books. Have you all read Growing up Cullen? I blame Alaya for that one. I didn’t think I had it in me to laugh so hard. But oh, it gets better and better. Like this:

Click here for the source.

The last panel where they’re under the rainbow kills me every time. Particularly the puppy in the corner. Sparkling vampires. jeez.

(okay, here’s what is tragically sad and awesome at the same time. The alternafandom of Twilight-mockers? has a name: lolfans. They also have a wiki. Oh Cleolinda, I love you.)

September 14th, 2008 | Tags: making fun of stuff, twilight | Category: General | Comments (8)

This must be short as I am late for something.

Old cartoons, you love ‘em.  I know you do.  Mysterious Cities of Gold?  Freakazoid?  Danger Mouse?  Bananaman?  Nickelodeon in the 80s, Disney Afternoon in the 90s, Cartoon Express in the… whatevers. You watched it all, now talk about it today at Fantasy and win some money and make me proud.

September 12th, 2008 | Tags: childhood memories, Fantasy Magazine, old cartoons, television | Category: Elsewhere on the Internets | Leave a comment

Warner Brothers is suing a Bollywood film company because the title of their film is ‘Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors’ and Warner Bros. thinks that name is too much like Harry Potter.

Seriously.

Yet the film has nothing to do with wizards or magic. It is a Home Alone-style story. And according to the article, Hari is a common Indian name, and “puttar” means son.

And also, Jake Gyllenhaal is going to be the Prince of Persia.  Oh world.

Go win some money.

September 5th, 2008 | Tags: Fantasy Magazine | Category: Elsewhere on the Internets | Comments (2)

I don’t do memes!  However, this is interesting (to me).  From Wikipedia:

In the Gregorian Calendar, Easter Sunday falls on 19 April more often than on any other date.

Events

1775 - The Battle of Lexington and Concord which began the American Revolutionary War.

1943 - Bicycle Day – Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.

1961 - The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.

1993 - The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.

1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168.

2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave. (interestingly, the pope before him became pope the year I was born.)

The trend seems to be: bad things tend to happen on my birthday.  Seriously, for a string of years it was like a sad little game, trying to predict what horrors I would wake up to the day I became a year older.

I share my birthday with the following people

1979 - Kate Hudson, American actress

1965 - Suge Knight, American record producer

1981 - Hayden Christensen, Canadian actor (dude, this keeps getting worse…)

1946 - Tim Curry, British actor (okay, that’s better)

Holidays

Easter Sunday 1908, 1981, 1987, 1992.

I spent a lot of birthdays in church wearing a dress I hated.  At least I got brunch, chocolate, and jellybeans later.  But it won’t fall on my birthday again (in the Western tradition) until sometime after 2022.  And the earth will be destroyed by then.

September 4th, 2008 | Tags: birthday | Category: General | Comments (4)

I’m always amazed at how many creative, talented, and funny people come out of the woodwork whenever there’s some kind of contest or challenge like the Fark Photoshop things or the “Make McCain Interesting” thing that Stephen Colbert started.  I’ve watched far too many of these, but here are my favorites:

September 3rd, 2008 | Tags: politics, videos | Category: Elsewhere on the Internets | Comments (5)

Seriously, my need for Scrivener is growing every day.  But as there is no hope on the horizon for those of us with PC or Linux, I am seeking other alternatives.  There isn’t much out there for Linux, which is the OS I really need it for.  I do most of my writing on the eeepc and prefer something that will work on that to something for windows.  I am also not interested in emulators.  Well, scratch that–if a Mac emulator for Linux that worked was available, I would consider it.  But emulators generally make me break out in hives.

I tried Writer’s Cafe for a while, but there is no atual word proessor within the program and that made it not as useful.  And then at one point it lost a bunch of my data–I was done.

It occurred to me that there might be creative ways to use OpenOffice to get what I need.  Essentially, I have a lot of information that I need to access quickly as I write — research notes and websites and names of things and some outline stuff.  I need it organized in a good way so it’s easy to enter and find.  I need it to me on my local disk cuz I can’t always get to the web and don’t always want to.  I think notecards are awesome.

So, I need some organization advice, I guess.  What is the best way to gather together all these disparate things in a computer environment that keeps the information I need handy so I don’t have to pause too long and get more writing done?

August 31st, 2008 | Tags: scrivener | Category: Writing, Writing Life | Comments (14)

Working for a living is no fun.

Well, it is a little fun.  But my new job is very intense and takes up a lot of time.  It won’t always, but right now there are many Things To Do and I am doing many of them.

Why am I whining about this?  Mainly because, due to this, I have less time to do things for Fantasy that I want to, including doing interviews of authors, actors, producers, etcetc.  Yes, we are starting to do interviews of folks in the wider media now.  And as much as I would like to get on the phone with Robert Picardo and ask hm what Kate Mulgrew is really like, I just do not have the time.

So, if anyone out there is interested in doing some interviews for Fantasy, email me asap.  If you don’t have a lot of experience, don’t worry, I’ll assign you to the easier ones (author spotlights and artist profiles all start out with the same questions, then I’ll guide you through how I go about doing follow-ups based on them.  It’s not hard to learn, you just have to be interested).  If you have some or a lot of experience, then I’ll let you loose on authors and actors and such depending on your areas of interest and knowledge.

Gmail address: fantastictempest.  Subject: Interviewer Applicant.  In the body of the email just let me know if you have experience, if you’re more comfortable doing email, phone, or instant message interviews, and links to stuff you’ve done, if applicable.

We don’t pay interviewers (or anyone else) so I am indeed interested in folks who are looking to build up experience.  You have to start somewhere, and I do have time to give guidance and advice and editorial oversight so that you’re not just flailing in the wind.

August 29th, 2008 | Tags: Fantasy Magazine | Category: Non-Fiction | Leave a comment