December 17, 2007

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:48 pm

Konichiwa Songfighters,

How's everyone doing today. Today has been a busy day at the job. But I can't wait to get on the train and get back to work on the novel. I don't know how I'm finding all the inspiration and motivation but I am. I'm enjoying writing this story.

QotD: In writing Septemberian and listening to a JC Hutchins interview, it got me thinking...What are some of your favorite DIY websites. Are there some sites on there that you dig that are for people to create content? (i,e.- lulu, cafepress or smaller sites like a sites where you can print out greeting cards or cd covers)

drë · Post by **drë** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:07 pm

QOT: http://cre.ations.net/ Great DIY stuff.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:09 pm

Wikipedia?

Actually, Songfight is one of the only user-content-driven websites I've ever been able to stand. Sturgeon's law, you know. Unless you're talking about something else, in which case I'll have to ask you to clarify.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:14 pm

Clarification:

Any site where either 1) people are posting up their own DIY content or 2) a site that can assist people in creating things. (I'm probably more interested in the latter but sites like the one Dre posted are awesome).

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:54 pm

drc: Got very little done today. Have a day-long "cross-cultural training" course tomorrow ("how to communicate with Japanese colleagues," yay for working for a multinational megacorporation which assumes the worst of its employees) which I need to get up at 6:30 AM to catch the train to San Jose for. Lovely. And since I'm an engineer I have to do the intense course which is a small and intimate affair, which means no napping in the back of the room. At least I can hopefully get some sleep on the train.

qotd: There's this really awesome site where they post a bunch of titles and people write and record songs for the titles and then people vote and review and help each other out with their recording skills and stuff. I forget the name of it though. TuneSong? FlowyBattle? I wish I could remember it.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:57 pm

SingingFishySongNetworkBattleBot 3000?

No, that's not right either. Gah!

sausage boy · Post by **sausage boy** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:13 pm

News: No news is good news, huh? I read that they discovered a giant rat...

QOTD: As I asserted a couple of days ago, I am a bit of a Warhammer nerd. So places like The UnderEmpire and The Warhammer Forum are chockers with relevant DIY stuff.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:15 pm

DRC: It's all coming down. The other shoe is dropping. I've had miserable study habits all semester, and everything is due at 4:30 P.M. tomorrow, whether it's done or not. No more extensions. If it's not in by 4:30, it's a goose-egg. I had one large paper that was to be due at that time anyway, but due to my negligence, two late papers are also due at the same time, for a total of 30-42 pages of writing. Of which I've currently got about five. I won't be sleeping tonight, so I might be pretending you all care and posting here periodically for the next fifteen hours to keep myself sane. Just so you know.

Märk · Post by **Märk** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:21 pm

Generic wrote:DRC: It's all coming down. The other shoe is dropping. I've had miserable study habits all semester, and everything is due at 4:30 P.M. tomorrow, whether it's done or not. No more extensions. If it's not in by 4:30, it's a goose-egg. I had one large paper that was to be due at that time anyway, but due to my negligence, two late papers are also due at the same time, for a total of 30-42 pages of writing. Of which I've currently got about five. I won't be sleeping tonight, so I might be pretending you all care and posting here periodically for the next fifteen hours to keep myself sane. Just so you know.

NER...
err..
SLACKER

jack · Post by **jack** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:36 pm

Generic wrote:DRC: It's all coming down. The other shoe is dropping. I've had miserable study habits all semester, and everything is due at 4:30 P.M. tomorrow, whether it's done or not. No more extensions. If it's not in by 4:30, it's a goose-egg. I had one large paper that was to be due at that time anyway, but due to my negligence, two late papers are also due at the same time, for a total of 30-42 pages of writing. Of which I've currently got about five. I won't be sleeping tonight, so I might be pretending you all care and posting here periodically for the next fifteen hours to keep myself sane. Just so you know.

ah, those were the days.......

good luck jon eric. i've been there and it ain't pretty.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:05 am

Why am I reading about Roger Ebert?

By the way, if you like poetry (and if you write lyrics, I hope you like poetry), you should read Seamus Heany. Can't stand his translation of Beowulf, but his poems are divine. He's the subject of one of these papers.

Lord of Oats · Post by **Lord of Oats** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:34 am

I can definitely relate to the bit about...that infernal place that they're going to censor if I mention it directly. I have the attention span of a...whatever has a really short attention span.

I seriously doubt I'll be able to stay up until 4:30. I'm quite sleepy as it is. But, you know, I'll be up for quite a while. Solidarity!

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:23 am

Yeah, I wouldn't expect anyone to stay up clear through 4:30 along with me just for the sake of solidarity. I mean, yikes. But of course, some Songfighters will wake up tomorrow and check the site, and I'll still be toiling away... there's a quiet beauty to that thought. Or maybe it's the 3:23 A.M. talking.

Thirteen hours to go.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:28 am

Apparently, the radiator was broken. I think I just fixed it, because it got hot again, so hopefully I can stop freezing my ass off. If anyone knows anything more about radiators, I'd appreciate the input, because I'd feel awfully sheepish if my house exploded.

Twelve hours to go; now I'm writing about slave narratives. This essay only needs to be between five and seven pages, and I've decided, to hell with the assignment prompt; this one's already dangerously late, so as long as I have something relatively sharp and critical to say about it, I should get credit. Yay for winging it!

These updates hopefully won't be hourly for much longer. I bet I'm being annoying.

j$ · Post by j$ » Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:29 am

The beauty of time-zones is that i can pretend to show solidarity while actually passing the time at work this morning not actually working.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:35 am

I was wondering whether that very phenomenon would happen.

I dozed off for about fifteen minutes, then the neighbors needed me to move my car, so the last two hours haven't been as productive as I'd hoped. I don't see any reason I can't finish all these; they'll just be a little under the length requirement, probably. But isn't that was 2.2 spacing and 12.5 font are for?

Lord of Oats · Post by **Lord of Oats** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:30 am

I thought a lot of profs these days went by word count (then again, Florida law has some weird obsession with total-words-written-per-course requirements,) but hey, if you've got page count requirements, just keep praying to the patron saint of just squeaking by and weaselry. I've got him on speed dial. It really shows in my recordings. I think his name is Joe, or some shit like that. I can't really be bothered to look it up.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:40 am

Yeah, you'd be amazed at how far you can get just calling someone "you" when addressing them.

Some professors use word counts. These three papers are for two professors who just gave us rough page counts, I guess in part to seem more casual.

And now, a digressionary ode to the block quote:

When I was a freshman, I was aware that long quote in an English paper were subject to reduced margins, but I also thought that they had to be reduced in font size, and single-spaced even in a double-spaced essay. Some blessed soul (I wish I could remember who you are, oh benevolent one) showed me in the MLA Handbook that such quotes could remain double-spaced, and should remain in the same font size. And there was much rejoicing that day, because rather than having two pages left on that particular paper, I found I was already done.

Today's paper, or at least the one I'm focused on right now, is twice as long as that one. I can do this, right? Nine hours...

And now the sun is up....

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:58 am

Solidarity! Yeah!

Charles (KA)

Lord of Oats · Post by **Lord of Oats** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:39 am

Well, it looks like other songfighters are waking up and assuming this post, so I'm going to bed. Good luck, and be extremely careful with the idea of sleep. There's plenty of time for that later. Coffee and sunlight are your best friends here, but both in moderation. Too much caffeine and you'll not be able to get anything done, and if you stare directly at the sun, you'll damage your eyes. Use your judgment, you know. With proper determination, you will win the battle against your basic, crucial biological needs. You can do this, man.

I'd try to write you a really inspiring song right now, or something, but I can't really afford to mess up my own circadian rhythm too much. Just listen to "Eye of the Tiger" or something. Oh, and when you reach the last hour or so, don't forget to play "Final Countdown."

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:42 am

jack wrote:
Generic wrote:DRC: It's all coming down. The other shoe is dropping. I've had miserable study habits all semester, and everything is due at 4:30 P.M. tomorrow, whether it's done or not. No more extensions. If it's not in by 4:30, it's a goose-egg. I had one large paper that was to be due at that time anyway, but due to my negligence, two late papers are also due at the same time, for a total of 30-42 pages of writing. Of which I've currently got about five. I won't be sleeping tonight, so I might be pretending you all care and posting here periodically for the next fifteen hours to keep myself sane. Just so you know.
ah, those were the days.......

good luck jon eric. i've been there and it ain't pretty.

No - I can happily say I have never been anywhere near where jon eric is. There is nothing so pathetic about students whinging about how much work they have to do. Seriously - either just do whatever your doing - or don't do it and go out and get pissed or something. That always worked for me. Now I've got two degrees. Ha!!

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:42 am

Yeah, I always front-loaded my cramming so I could spend more time working on my own stuff. The only times I ever came down to the wire on a project was when it was a group project where I was actually relying on my teammates, who of course always procrastinated.

This habit has not extended to my professional life. Now I fiddle around for a while, then get a burst of inspiration and work feverishly about halfway through the scheduled time to get my task finished, and then still end up finishing well ahead of schedule (unfortunately this has the effect of causing my schedules to slowly get tighter and tighter, although I've learned to also not announce my doneness until I've had some time to recuperate).