Mutating Gene Meme

OK, what does it say about me that I had to read the instructions three times and I'm STILL not sure if I got them right. ;)

Here goes nothing!

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

— You can leave them exactly as is.
— You can delete any one question.
— You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. [For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…" to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is…", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…".]
— You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…".

You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.
Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

My origins:
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite.
My great-great-great-great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Shakespeare's Sister.
My great-great-
grandparent is Excuse This Mess....
My great-grand parent is Jennifer.
My grandparent is Snag.
My parent is Dilettante

Here I go!!!

1. The best comedy in classic Hollywood is: My Favorite Wife with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn.
2. The best sexy song in rock is: You Owe Me Some Kind of Love by Chris Isaak.
3. The best use of ground meat in American cooking is: a nachos with everything! (I'm guessing I won't really find these in a South American country - so I'm calling them American).
4. The best caper movie in American film is: Ocean's Eleven.
5. The best mystery novel in a series is The Last Lion Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters.

Now, I tag Anissa and Faking It. Have fun!

It's printing now!!!

All 273 pages!! This is the first time I've printed the entire finished manuscript! It's so exciting. :)

I was planning to print it at Kinko's so they could hole punch it for me and not tax my poor little printer. But, well, that was going to cost $150. I figured I could handle the hole punching myself for that! Geez!

So now I get to listen to it print in joyful anticipation of my week of editing while the maple leaves gust by the window. :) What a wonderful October day!

FYI...

If your husband buys face paint for Halloween - the top shelf in the bathroom is not high enough to keep it out of the hands of a a two year old who clearly has monkey DNA.

Also, soap and water is not enough to get it off.

Also, it will turn your sink and wall purple.

Also, two year olds get tired of being scrubbed after half an hour and you are left with a slightly purple child for the rest of the day.

And I wonder why I don't get anything done...

I'll have my coffee any flippin' way I want it!

I don't usually (ever?) blog about femininist issues and I don't really consider myself a hard core femininist, but this reallllly bothered me, and I thought I'd share it here, with all of you, so you could be bothered too. ;)

So here I am, trapped at the doctor's lab for AN HOUR waiting to take my glucose intolerance test, which explains why I'm watching local news at all. I was trying to concentrate on Detection by Gaslight - but couldn't quite manage it.

The story - news story - on the news - with real anchorpersons and everything - was this: Can the way a woman orders her coffee at Starbucks tell you if she's high maintenance. Cue eyeroll.

OK, first of all, it's not like it's the first time I've heard this. Secondly, even if it were, how is this in any way shape or form news?

They actually had a female reporter out at Starbucks asking women how they ordered their coffee. (And for the record, I take a 5 pump vanilla latte, but my husband orders a grande soy no whip mocha). And THEN, they bring in this "dating expert" to say that women should order their coffee in as complicated a way as they want to so that their date can decide there won't be a second date. ARGH!!!!!!

My thesis boils down to this: It's a FOUR DOLLAR drink. If a man walks into a bar, and orders a four dollar mixed drink to his specifications, he's debonair. If a woman orders her coffee to *her* specifications then the NEWS STATION says that she's high maintenance and men should beware.

Of course, no mention was made of how men order their coffee and this is the northwest, after all, where men drink it in just as high quantities as women. I'm still appalled - STILL APPALLED!

I'll vacuum in high heels and pearls before I order my coffee any old way so as not to send the wrong message to the opposite sex, thank you very much!

My little detective

My 6 year old just walked into the den and dropped off several notes saying, "I found these around the house."

One says "Rob, you will be sorry. Wa ha ha. Mr. X."

Another says, "Rob, Safty is histry. Mr. X"

And "Rob, I am on your trail. Mr. X."

Perhaps I shouldn't have bought her that boxed set of Babysitters Club Mysteries...

Um, she just came back in and took the notes and said,

"Excuse me, I need to check these for DNA."

Oh boy!!!

The End

Yes, I typed it. Yes, I'm done. WOOOO!!!!! OK, so this is several days past Sunday, but I *did* come down with that fluver, as did everyone else in the house, so that set me back a ways. Each time I'd get a kid asleep and start to type, one would wake up crying. That's not good on many levels, but really makes trying to eek out an ending difficult. ;)

I'm still not 100% thrilled with the last two paragraphs, so I'm going to give them another look today before sending them off to my brilliant and patient CP. Then, the massive printing (probably Kinkos - I'm not sure my poor little ink cartridge can take it!) and a read through before sending it off to the beta readers. I know I have a couple of consistency issues with character names that I need to address. But still....

WOOOOO!!!!!!

And dear sweet DH is so inspired that he wants to buy me a new computer, so I don't have to use my funky keyboard attached to my decrepit laptop anymore. YAY!

Thank you for the encouragement, oh blogging community, I couldn't have made it to the end without you all!

But first a plea...

Before the fun schedule post - I've got a favor to ask.

It's October, and therefore CHRISTMAS season begins in my house!!! No detractors, please. It's not my fault Halloween and Thanksgiving are stuck right in the middle of the Christmas season. ;)

So, please, I'm looking for some good Christmas fiction. I love reading books set at Christmastime, but a lot of them are really hokey which takes all the fun out of it. I usually end up rereading The Christmas Carol, but I need more! Any suggestions? Pretty Please?!

Also, let me know if you have any favorite Christmas movies. My must-watch-every-season films so far are:

Meet John Doe (Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper)
Christmas in Connecticut (Barbara again!)
When Harry Met Sally
White Christmas
The Bishop's Wife (the Cary Grant film, not Denzel, though I usually love him)

Thank you in advance!

The end is near

First of all - I'm having Tivo issues and have yet to see the Top Chef finale. ARGH! Fortunately, The Office has not been affected by issue, whew!

Just wanted to let you all know that I'm almost done - almost so very, very close to being done -so close! Did you all get that!! Sadly, I have two little girls with the flu and fevers (fluvers), but because it's finally so real in my mind, I'm finding time in the middle of the night (or during Go Diego Go) to get it done. Goal = Sunday night. Then I'll do one more quick pass (max time, one week) before handing it over to beta readers. That makes BRG (beta reader goal) next Sunday night. Wish me luck and pray *I* don't catch this fluver!

Because it deserves it's own post, I will now share with the world my morning schedule. I've been working really hard to get a good working schedule during the day. But the first hour and a half of my day really cracks me up when I step back and look at it. Especially considering I'm not at all a morning person. I used to wonder why anyone even bothered trying to talk to me when I had my morning cereal. Now that I've discovered coffee, I'm a little more verbal!

Top Chef Finale - pregame show

After all my rantings about Top Chef last season, I feel obliged to say *something* since the finale is tonight.

BTW - my friend Dilettante linked to this: http://www.avclub.com/content/hater/what_your_top_chef_favorite
which is hilarious.

So, we're down to Casey, Hung, and Dale. I'm routing for Casey. She's nice, and she can cook. Wow, that is soooo milquetoast after my last season endless blogging in favor of Sam, or in defense of Marcel, etc. I have to say that Season 3 just didn't really connect with me the same way. Possibly due to no tall, dark and handsome contestants? Could I be that shallow? Possibly, I could. ;) Sam was awfully cute.

Also, several of my favorites were eliminated way before the finale - Sara, CJ, Sarah, Lia... I really think a final three of Casey, Sara and CJ would be much more interesting. And sure, Hung is the anti-hero this season, but his "I'm here to win" lines and speeding around with a knife can't top Marcel *rapping* about his woes as the odd man out, or his use of foam. Neither can the top Stephen from season 1 and all his silliness - nor, to segue to Project Runway, can they compare to the Jeffrey - Angela feud and Jeffrey making her mom cry. It's just all a little bland this season.

But, I look forward with much anticipation to Project Runway and hope that they get a group together that's as much fun as Jeffrey, Laura, Angela, Vincent and the like!

Photography

Photography is something that's always interested me, but I claim to have no special talent - just an appreciation. I did take a photography class in high school and loved the darkroom, but, well, it's been awhile since then!

Fortunately I have friend's like Brian, who rocks at photography and is sharing his pictures via his blog as he travels the world with his incredibly intelligent and accomplished wife. She's in the foreign service, 'nuff said!

Today I'm linking to this picture of his view while making coffee. I know all of you writers are drooling like I am over how inspiring this view would be! Just think of what we could write with a cup of joe and a view like this!!

http://bpsphoto.typepad.com/bh_neelys_photo_blog/2007/09/making-coffee.html