The EPIC WIN Thread 3: SON OF EPIC

Just had a second date with the girl. We saw Looper (second time for me, but I was planning on seeing it again, anyway). Picked her up and dropped her off. Even walked her to her door, which she kinda rolled her eyes at. :p

And she said she'll see me later this week. Not sure what the plans will be yet, but there's that.

Okay then, folks. Brofist me up!
 
A beautiful day in the neighborhood! Friends came over. The kids played for a few hours. They had popsicles. We had frozen margaritas. I need a nap.
 
Had another date tonight with the girl I met last week. Given that I'm knee-deep in Nicktoberfest (watching horror flicks all month), she joined me in watching Killer Klowns from Outer Space. At the end of it, we argued its quality. She refuses to agree that it's the greatest movie of all time. Then...well, we didn't get to the next movie for a while. :unibrow: And honestly, we didn't "watch" a lot of Shaun of the Dead.

Although, on the way home, I revealed to her one of my deepest, darkest secrets. A secret that I've held for a very, very long time and told very few people.

*sigh*

In High School, I used to listen to John Tesh pretty frequently.

To say the least, she had a bad case of the giggles the whole drive home.
 
I woke up from my nap this afternoon covered in sweat and gasping for breath. It was because of the 20lbs of doomweasels planted firmly on my chest.
Go find someplace else to sleep, ya freeloadin' buggers! This is my comfy blanket.
 
I got out the old Dora TV telephone video game for my 3 year old:

Amazon product

and let him play with it this morning. We heard him asking, "where's the 2? I can't get the two!"

So I helped him learn how to do the controls. He was apparently playing a math game where dora would give him "1 + __ = 3" and he was looking for the two to complete the equation. I figured the video game waited for a bit, then told him the right answer, so I didn't think much of it, but I stuck around after showing him how to select the two.

The next questions was "5 + __ = 9" and he stared at it for a few seconds, then started saying, "Where's the four... wheress the four..." and he was able to find the four and select it. Apparently Dora did not become impatient and tell him the right answer - not only does he know his numbers, but he can do simple addition.

Obviously our plan of completely ignoring him and letting him decide how much to watch educational shows and how much to play outside is working. Thank goodness for Roku and Netflix.
Oh my god... they're learning.
 
Two good things happened last week. One, I started a new job after being unemployed for the better part of a year (it's only a 4 month contract, but so what? better than nothing!), and two I finally got my rig set up after moving over six months ago! :)
 
Here's a little insight into the writing process: Last year, late in the evening of May 20th (my birthday), I completed the first draft of my first, full length novel. It was 70,000 words.

As of today, about a year and a half later, I did the final edits and changes to it. The word count now? 81,000. It's a very different beast from what my editors saw last year. :)

It's kind of strange to look back and think about that feeling when I had the first draft printed out. All 300+ of it. The overall plot has remained more or less the same, but it's been little additions here and there. It was new or extended descriptions, some bits of new dialogue, etc. Sometimes it was adding explanations or clarifications to things my editors questioned.

There's something about the ending that still bugs me a little. Those that have read it know what I'm talking about, but I don't think it kills the entire book. It's a minor plot thing that's hinted at a little. It'll bug me 'til the end of time, but hopefully I can learn from it and not make the same mistake in Dill's next adventure.
 
Mr. Wasabi and I had started reading The Hobbit to our 7-year-old at the end of September. His teacher sent home a month-long project for October that was to read a book, something a little above your reading level, and use a foam craft pumpkin to make a character from the book. We got permission from her to use The Hobbit as the book for his project. He picked Smaug as the character he wanted to create with the foam pumpkin. This is what the three of us came up with:


I couldn't fit the entire tail in the picture. We reused some recyclables for the project, too. Smaug's head is a cardboard box covered in brown craft paper and held in place with a couple of paper towel tubes stuck in the pumpkin. His tail is made of an empty wrapping paper tube. He's sitting on two drink holders covered in a cut up gold gift bag that someone's birthday present came in. I love the way it came out!
 
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