Breaking Valradio silence for a moment

Carina Press wants to publish “The Valmont Contingency” (formerly known as “The Valois Contngency” if you want to read an excerpt of the first draft). The one day in the last year I forgot to take my cell phone with me to work and I missed The Call. I had to settle for The Voicemail and The Follow-Up E-Mail.

It’s an aggressive production schedule, too; they want an October 2012 go-live date. Good thing I’ve started the opening scene of the sequel, workingly titled “The Nobinata Gambit.” Grin.

In other news, I came down with a cold the day after I got back from the business trip. Drove home from work, dropped into a coma for a couple of hours, and woke up with stuffy nose and scratchy throat. Joy.

Missed my local romance writers’ meeting in the spirit of “let’s not infect everyone.” Some things are better when they’re not shared.

Thank you, exotic California rhinovirus (or else I caught it before I went there; in that case, sorry about the exotic Idaho rhinovirus, California).

However, now I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of zinc gluconate lozenges. I used them as often as I was allowed, and every time I finished one, I felt as if the symptoms had been knocked back several steps.

I’m almost over it after five days — and I’m normally a 10-day cold person with a fight to keep it from turning into bronchitis, the legacy of walking pneumonia in high school.

Maybe I should buy stock in Cold-Eeze or Zicam.

I Survived the Business Trip

SFO hates me.

Getting there on Tuesday wasn’t bad, although the pilot wanted the wings de-iced before we left (it seemed awfully warm to have frost on the wings, but whatever). In spite of taking off 15 minutes later, we arrived half an hour early, and had to wait for our gate.

Then the jetway broke. Yup. San Francisco International Airport had to push a portable ramp up to the airplane and we walked down the stairs like it was 1975. Ohhhhhkay.

Then there was the trip back. My “11:17″ flight took off at 2:10, during a small break in the heavy fog. And by heavy, I mean a smallish jet that had its nose up fairly close to the terminal windows appeared to have no tail at all.

The California office was nice (much bigger than the Boise outpost), the people were lovely, the job candidates I interviewed were personable and highly qualified, the hotel was serene, and the airport either hates me or was having a really bad week..

That is all.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The other tech writer at my day job quit last week. Personal reasons, emergency trip to London, etc. So, in a four-day week (Monday was the Presidents’ Day holiday in the US), I’ve been doing the work of two technical writers. Plus reviewing resumes for hiring a new technical writer…in another state.

In addition, I’m updating graphics for customer portals so that 12 business units can migrate to our new! improved! software-as-a-service in the next few weeks. And I’m going to the main office in California for two days next week. Translated from Geekspeak to English: Work is really busy and I’m doing some stuff I’ve not done before. Oy!

So don’t be surprised if there’s a couple of weeks of Valradio silence. I’m here. I’m just working.

The Date (Heineken), new butchered version

Someone cut this ad down to 15 seconds (I think; I didn’t time it but it seemed very brief) and replaced the fabulous 1960s song “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” (from the 1965 Bollywood-before-there-was-a-Bollywood film Gumnaam). Badly on both accounts; the singer’s mouth is still singing the original, but the music and words we hear are different.

I would post a link to the short-short version, but I couldn’t find one.

One has to wonder what happened; the original ad was 92 seconds long and didn’t take itself too seriously, but this…wow. A meaningful look, a magic trick deliberately shot from the wrong angle and a song that doesn’t match the vocalist’s mouth movements just doesn’t make a story.

There must be an interesting story behind the machete-edit, because it makes the editor look bad (though I’m sure he/she worked hard to make it as good as possible), it makes the ad agency that produced the original version look kind of bad, and it makes the brand look bad–or at least less good.

I read somewhere that the first ad in the series (“The Entrance”) had to fight off a complaint from another brewer in the UK who claimed it implied that drinking the beer made a person more interesting…except it never showed the dashing male character drinking the beer.

Was there a similar complaint for The Date? The couple doesn’t get their beer until the end and are never shown drinking it. An issue with the song rights? I hope not; I love both the song and the 1960s Eurasian vibe it conjures.

Maybe it was the song’s Ghostworld association–the Gumnaam scene featuring it is shown in the opening scene of the 2001 film made from the comic book.

In any case, I don’t think it was Heineken International’s intention to set off a bunch of speculation as to why the original filmlet was cut down so drastically (OMG, maybe they couldn’t afford a full 30 seconds on the obscure cable channel I was watching!). Perhaps they would have been better off not using the short-short version.

Kind of a bummer for their image, as it was pretty good beer back when I could still drink beer.

Update: I saw this ad again, but it appears to have been fixed. The singer’s mouth movements fit the song, the ad is longer, and now the Facebook contest connection is explained well enough that a non-Facebook person (I’m a Twitter person) can understand what’s going on.

Either I saw a trial run that was later fixed, or I was extremely tired and not paying attention. (My money’s on a trial run, because I was paying attention as soon as I realized the song was different.)

Stuart the IT Cat

Stuart somehow reformatted Spooky Man’s shiny-new-laptop solid-state hard drive RAID on Tuesday. He (Spooky Man, not Stuart) had downloaded a rather large file and wanted to copy it onto a flash drive. Stepping into another room for a moment, he returned to find him (Stuart, not Spooky Man) standing on the keyboard, trying to remove the flash drive (bad kitty! you have to unmount it first!).

Upon rebooting, the computer couldn’t find Windows. Spooky man spent most of Wednesday reinstalling and reconfiguring the computer. But even after all that, it still wasn’t right. The third drive was missing, somehow — I say “somehow” because when I asked “so what’s wrong with it?” he made a face, then mumbled something along the lines of “Damned cat, I should have skinned him.”

So this morning, on the way home from the last doctor appointment for the month, we stopped at Best Buy and he asked a Geek Squad person for a second opinion.

The drives are all fine. They’re just uncoupled, and the third one, which I understand is some kind of hybrid hard drive that is half-solid state and half-normal, is empty. Somehow, Stuart managed to reformat that hard drive, says Spooky Man.

I say, he’s quite an intelligent cat — by nine months of age, he had figured out how to open drawers and understood that the doorknob opens a door — but I don’t think he’s quite that intelligent. Perhaps Spooky Man did something (or failed to do some other thing) while reinstalling Windows yesterday that changed his RAID from all three drives to only the fully solid-state drives and reformatted the hybrid. I didn’t say that in the store, because then he would have looked stupid in front of a Geek Squad Geek. Because of a cat. And he’s an A+ certified nerd (Spooky Man, not Stuart).

Not acceptable.

However, the final answer is that the computer is fine, the cat is fine, the hard drive is fine, and Spooky Man didn’t look stupid in front of the Geek Squad. They didn’t even charge us for looking at it.

Acceptable.

At some point, Spooky Man will have to accept that a highly intelligent cat is far more dangerous than a normal cat and treat Stuart accordingly. You cannot stick something interesting and different looking into the edge of the thing that you put on your lap (instead of a cat, the horror) and not expect him to investigate as soon as you’re not looking.

Well, you can, but you might end up looking stupid in front of a Geek.

‘Twas a week before the feast of St. Valentine

Love is in the stores, but things are low-key at my house. Finally.

Spooky man has successfully had a birthday, his nose’s inner workings are healing nicely, the Year of the Dragon has begun, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts have been ordered. This is how we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day 2012–good coffee, dark chocolate, and maybe some flowers because they’re pretty. Ahhhh.

One nice thing about loving the same person for 20 years is that you don’t have to make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day.

Spooky Man knows I love him because I made sure he had a new leather recliner, a full refrigerator and fresh books before his nose was remodeled. I know he loves me because he spent his VA-disability backpay on home improvements to keep us and the furbabies safe and dry. It’s all good.

Now that Things Have Settled Down, maybe I can get back to some serious word count on my works in progress.

Spooky Man’s Nose Surgery

It went well, and now he’s back home recuperating.

True to form, he had an unusual case, in that the septum deviation went “all the way up.” Of course. Biological weirdness is just how Spooky man rolls; I love him, but he is a freak of nature.

I’m slightly disappointed, because he doesn’t have any external scars, sutures or bandaging. Other than a little swelling around the nose, he doesn’t look like he had surgery. No blackmail photo opportunity, alas.

On the other hand, I get the bed to myself for the next few days — he has to keep his head elevated, which means he has to sleep in his new leather recliner (poor thing, she typed sarcastically).

And now he’s going to be able to breathe out of both sides of his nose, hopefully in time for his birthday in a week or so.

Heifer.org and Kiva.org rock

I am delighted with these two charities, because they give people a hand up, not a handout.

My grandparents were sharecroppers on my father’s side and homesteaders on my mother’s side. Kiva and Heifer allow other people to make something better for their families without sacrificing dignity; my grandparents would approve.

Kiva is a clearing-house for investors who want to micro-lend to entrepreneurs, usually in developing countries. Last spring I invested $100, and more than half of it has already been paid back (and reinvested). There haven’t been any defaults, either. Investments are in $25 increments, so you don’t need to jump in with both feet.

Heifer.org gives people livestock with the provision that at least one of the offspring of the original critter gets passed on to someone else. They also teach local communities how to care for their animals to maximize the food and income produced.

Spooky Man and I bought a Heifer.org llama for my brothers’ Christmas presents (because the last thing they need is more stuff, LOL). You don’t have to donate a whole animal, though; they have shares for as little as $10.

If you find yourself with some extra cash this year — after saving for a rainy day, retirement, and the kids’ college funds — I can recommend both of these organizations as a good place to put it.

Ancient Aliens 2012 Doomsday Episode

Oh, my giddy aunt. The History Channel aired an episode of Ancient Aliens about the 2012 apocalypse. Finally, a guilty-pleasure fake-history pseudo-documentary episode that Spooky Man and I can watch together.

We’re going to have to record it, because we object verbally when people say preposterous/stupid things that are taken wildly out of context and presented as fact. There will be lots of Pause button use.

This is so much better than reality television.

Five Things that Make Me Smile

1. I went to shiny-new-author Amanda Bonilla’s first book signing on Friday the 13th of January. We’re members of the same RWA chapter, but it was the first time we’d met (she lives in the McCall area, which is more than an hour away by car). Looking forward to reading her debut novel, SHAEDES OF GRAY.

2. Stuart Does. Not. Like. snow, particularly snow that comes up to his chin or higher. He’s a relatively tall cat, so that’s fairly deep for snow in this area. He doesn’t mind being carried over the snow, however, and he rather likes being rewarded with kitty treats for bravery in the face of frozen water.

3. I am approximately halfway through my heavy edit/rewrite of “Open Mike at Club Bebop,” the novella rejected so helpfully by Carina Press. Target date for finishing it is end of January, when I’ll send it off to a couple of other publishers.

4. Spooky Man is having his deviated septum fixed January 27 (next Friday); after recovery, he’ll be able to breathe out of both sides of his nose for the first time since we met, more than 20 years ago. Looking forward to pampering him a little as he recovers. Well, and taking blackmail photos of his black eyes and bandaging.

5. I saw more urban wildlife recently; raccoons crossing the street again, but this time at 16th and Main St (near the Cabana Motel, which I understand has changed hands and no longer rents rooms by the hour). The little bandits weren’t using the crosswalk this time, though.

6. Bonus Round: Technology has been giving me all kinds of grief for the past two or three weeks; in the last three days I have resolved all the issues, from the source control server connection that would only connect intermittently (service pack 1 is evil, apparently) to the 30-day trial software that didn’t want to install correctly (finally got it running and the document I was supposed to edit was in German), to the font that wouldn’t install from a network drive (copied it to a local drive and it popped right into place).