Housecapades: Part VI

Posted by Piscis on

After many weeks, screams, dollars, and disasters, I have a newly remodeled master bathroom. Yesterday was the first day I was able to take a shower in it since owning this house.

 

Before

Pre-remodeled bathroom

[Click for 360 view]

 

You always try to steady yourself for everything to go terribly wrong when remodeling, though no matter how much you prepare for, it’s always more.  Rotten walls and floor behind the old shower – sure, I expected that.  Pipes the wrong length, height, or size for the new stuff – of course.  Things breaking left and right and needing to get three times the parts and materials as anticipated to compensate for bad design – naturally.  I wouldn’t have guessed the floor would end up delaying everything for days.

Whoever did that floor is just, well, a bad person.  Linoleum on top of linoleum stapled six-hundred times through a layer of plywood and even more linoleum beneath it into the subfloor.  I threw my back out trying to get it all up, leaving me useless as my dad and a friend had to finish the rest of the demolition.  Bad times.

 

After

Remodeled bathroom

[Click for 360 view]

 

I could go on a tirade detailing the countless setbacks and frustrations the whole process entailed, but at this point I’m just glad it’s over, and grateful to have gotten so much help with it all, particularly from my father, who willingly came all the way up here for the first week just to take part in this misery.

In light of that, here’s hoping he has an especially happy father’s day today.

 

Bene vīvite.

 

[I kind of regret that I never got a true “Before”, but I’d already repainted and replaced the switches/outlets when first moving in.]

Burn the Filth Away

Posted by Piscis on

Burn away the filth

 

Yeah, filth burner, that’s what I’m talking about.  Cleanse it with fire.  Scorch those germs away.  Got a pile of dirty dishes making an eyesore out of your kitchen?  Screw cleaning – just stack them all up on this baby and turn that adjustable temperature control up to immolation and poof – no more dishes. It’s tested.  It’s proven.  And it wipes clean.

Durable Filth Burner*.  You know you want it.

 

[ * May or may not have simply been a misreading upon first glance and in actuality been something far less ridiculous ]

 

Bene vīvite.

Realism

Posted by Piscis on

Unrealrth?

 

When writing fiction, ensuring that your characters’ actions and motivations feel natural is key to telling a relatable story – or at least one that doesn’t have your readers shaking their heads in disbelief.  We can only take so many plot contrivances before we lose the ability to take a narrative seriously.  But does that mean everything in a story should unfold in a strictly realistic manner?

It can be a tricky balance to strike.  Minimizing the required suspension of disbelief is a worthy goal, but it’s also important not to use realism as an excuse for bad storytelling.  After all, real life isn’t often that interesting, and things not happening as they usually would is the gist of what makes a story worth telling.  No one excitedly calls up a friend to explain how normal of a day she had.

The premise and certain major plot points of a story may not always be particularly realistic, but if they are in service to a theme – a powerful driving force in narrative by which reality is not bound – then that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  We can usually swallow a few unlikely coincidences for the sake of poetic meaning, especially when they can (and should) still be grounded by the details surrounding them and characters’ reactions to them.  It’s also good to keep in mind that when people complain about unrealism, what they’re often actually harping on are stereotypes and clichés, ironically because they are, much like reality, regularly encountered.  What they truly want to see is something fresh and different.

Internal consistency is imperative, and reality is a good base model for how events might unfold in a given scenario, but don’t let a singular pursuit of realism steer you away from weaving a cohesive narrative.  If being unrealistic tells a better story, then tell the better story. We’re all just making stuff up, anyway. (>^-‘)>

 

Bene scribete.

What a Deal

Posted by Piscis on

WD Cloud Drive

 

Oh, hey, a networked hard drive you can set up to access from anywhere.  That could be handy. $100?  O.K., yeah, better than an ongoing subscription to a cloud service.  What’s the storage space on that thing?

 

That's a log of storage

 

Oh.  Well, um, hmm.

I guess that should be enough to store a list of things I could use it for.

 

Bene scribete.

10-Minute Story: The Grumpy Sparrow

Posted by Piscis on

Yeah, I don’t know.

 

Sparrow

 

There was a bird.  It turns out it was a sparrow, let’s say.  It was a terribly grumpy sparrow, which, as you might imagine, made it a very bothersome creature.

It flew around the forest, day after day, looking for sugar and saying unkind things about the other animals in its passive-aggressive manner.  It was rude as well as grumpy, it seems.

One day, the sparrow landed next to an incredibly stupid frog.

“Helloooo,” said the frog.  “Are you a fox?”

“No,” replied the sparrow.  “I am not a fox, you incredibly stupid frog.  I am a bird, of which a fox is clearly not a type.”

“Oh,” said the frog with a thunderous ribbit, then hopped around in circles.

The sparrow fluttered its wings and chirped in irritation.  “Look – I realize that you are incredibly stupid, but do you know where I might find some sugar?”

The frog jostled and regarded the sparrow with a distant, wavering look reminiscent of the way a tree might gaze upon the sky – which is to say, stupidly.  “Is sugar the black things that fly around and I eat them?” burbled the stupid frog.

“Not,” spat the sparrow, “in the slightest.”  It was at that very moment – or perhaps the moment immediately thereafter – that the sparrow murdered the frog, which was, one must agree, a gross overreaction.  But the sparrow was quite grumpy, you might recall.

Thereafter, the sparrow flew around some more until it came upon a fox and alighted on a branch overhead.

“You – fox,” he called.  The fox looked up.  “Can you believe I was mistaken for you not long ago?”

The fox wrinkled her nose.  “No, I don’t believe that I can.  You’re a bird, of which a fox–”

“Is clearly not a type.  Precisely.”

The fox tilted her head.  “Say, sparrow, now that we are speaking, would you mind coming down closer so that we may chat more amicably?”

“Of course not,” huffed the sparrow.

“Whyever not?” asked the fox, licking her chops.

“Because you mean to eat me up.  I am grumpy, not stupid.  The frog – now, the frog was stupid.  Though I do believe I murdered him.”

“That sounds awful.”

“Only in that he was not made of sugar.”  The sparrow squawked and fluttered off, fed up with another tiresome day.

 

Bene scribete.

Steampunk Serials: Folio 4 Now Available

Posted by Piscis on

 

The fourth volume of Shauna Scheets‘s Steampunk Serials is now available for purchase!

You can pick up a digital copy of it and the three preceding issues for 99¢ each at Amazon and other eBook retailers.

 

 

Bene scribete.

Trucks and Beer

Posted by Piscis on

After bringing you something profoundly hipster last week, I figure it’s only fair to jump to the other end of the spectrum and show you one of the most redneck things I’ve ever seen.

 

Hat for beer

 

I give you a baseball cap.  Advertising Ford.  With a bottle opener.

(Would it surprise you to learn that I found this at Wal*Mart?)

Trucks and beer, ladies and gentlemen.  Trucks and beer.

 

Bene vīvite.