The Broken Hourglass: Revision Continues

The exigencies of events(1) have kept me from blogging about this for a while.

I'm still at the proofreading with several quests to go, plus the atmosphere stuff.

It is interesting. I know the rough outline of the major quests, since I had to know it to write anything at all--The events ought, after all, to affect things--but I had never even read summaries for some of the minor stuff, so it's fun seeing what people came up with.

You can tell most of the writers were modders first; everyone has had a great time coming up with multiple solutions to even minor problems. One of the FedEx quests has six possible outcomes.

I know this because the other part of what I'm doing is making an elaborate chart of quest-ending conditions. This should help in the final revision and, also, should help future modders when the game is released. At least, I hope Jason plans on releasing the chart!

So far, I've only reread a couple of my own quests. I always find it harder to edit my own stuff, since I've seen it so many times I end up blind to the errors. Also, there's always the temptation to tweak the quest just a little here, or a little there, and I don't think Jason wants plot changes at this point!

Anyway, that's what is (still)  happening at this end of things.

(1) This is just a fancy way of saying "stuff happened." It comes from my least favorite Andre Norton novel, and I've been wanting to use it for ages. It's not a particularly good explanation, but at least it's elegantly put. Or something.

The World of the Spider by Adrienne Mason a Book Review

A full review of The World of the Spider by Adrienne Mason is up on SpiderWatch. Short version: Nice but not particularly memorable.

Bees: A link or two

I'm still working on the whole bee vs. wasp thing. The couple of articles I've read so far say pretty much what I thought: Bees are stubby, wasps are not. This, of course, doesn't account for the sweat bee. So I'm looking.

In the meantime, here's a neat page on Types of Bees, found via bugguide's link section, which I'm still learning to navigate, and here's a nice, two-minute YouTube from the Green Nature site introducing bee types visually:

Garden Critters

One good reason to leave caterpillars alone:

'V' Delayed Until 2011, Reality TV Takes Over | AirlockAlpha.com

Oh good grief.

Mind, I had my quarrels with the V remake all along (see reviews, if interested), but my opinion wasn't improved by the really long mid-season gap, and waiting even longer seems absurd. By January, I won't remember who these people are.

Of course, there's always the hope that the re-re-re-imaging will improve matters (Erica might rediscover life outside of motherhood, for example).

'V' Delayed Until 2011, Reality TV Takes Over | AirlockAlpha.com

The Spider by John Crompton, a book review

A full review of The Spider by John Crompton is up on SpiderWatch. The short version: Wonderful prose, well worth reading, probably worth rereading.

Green Bees?

On a recent visit to Bolsa Chica, I spotted these tiny, metallic green wasps (I thought). They were fascinating, flashing in the sun, and I watched them for a while before taking a photograph which I, of course, posted on bugguide. It turns out that they are bees! There is such a thing as a metallic green bee.

Who knew?

Of course, now I want to know what the difference is between bees and wasps. If you'd asked me before, I'd probably have said that bees are chunky, fuzzy creatures and wasps are sleek, non-fuzzy creatures. But that, clearly, is not the difference.  And, since some bees are solitary and some wasps are social, their lifestyle doesn't help much either. Anyone got any ideas? Information? Links?

The Book of the Spider by Paul Hillyard, a book review

A full review of The Book of the Spider is up on SpiderWatch Short version: Readable and informative, but it isn't going to interest you in spiders if you aren't already hooked.

A Matter of Perspective

To me, the barrier is an eyesore, a regretted necessity.

To the heron, it is a convenient place to sit and watch for fish.

The heron, by the way, is a Reddish Heron, a name which pleases me to no end.

To my eyes, great blue herons are, at best, "bluish," and green herons are green sometimes in certain lights. It's nice to have the -ish acknowledged here.

Garden Critters

How Doth Yor Garden Grow?

Garden Critters

The Eensy-Weensy Spider adapted by Mary Ann Hoberman, Illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott, a book review

There's a review of the children's picture book The Eensy-Weensy Spider, adapted by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott up on Spiderwatch.

Short version: Cute, fun, and yes, you could sing it all if you wished.

Spiders by Nic Bishop

Almost forgot! The book review for Spiders by Nic Bishop is up on Spiderwatch. It's a non-fiction children's book, and it's gorgeous, truly a labor of love.

Librivox Audio Version of Dracula

Image by Aijalyn Kohler

I just realized that when I wrote my review of Dracula, I only mentioned the Norton Critical Edition. I don't know why as I'd intended to write on the Dracula recording I got from Librivox. This reading, I hopscotched between audio and paperback.

The quality of the recording is exceptional. The readers worked together so that each narrator has a different reader--not just the main narrators but also the writers of notes and newspaper articles. The audio on the Jonathan Harker sections is slightly off, but still good, and everything else is up to professional standards. I was amazed!

By the way, if you listen to audio books at all, you really need to go visit the Librivox site. They "only" record out of copyright stuff, but that covers a lot of excellent literature.

It's not only in English, either. It looks like most of the stuff is in English, but I've run across German titles and, according to their FAQ

We have complete works in more than twenty languages, including German, French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. The multilingual collections have many shorter contributions in even more languages. All we need is willing volunteers who are fluent in the language they'd like to record. Post in Book Suggestions if you want to recruit a team to work on a book in a particular language.

There are other free audio sites out there, but so far, the ones I've checked have all ended up linking back to Librivox for the books I was interested in. That may change over time, of course, though I do think it only sensible of them to crosslink.

Seaside Patriotism

Shedding Skin

I saw this one the other night while I was on spider patrol. I say one because I *think* it was one insect molting.

Folks at bugguide.net identified it as a Crane fly.

I wish I'd stayed to see the remainder of the process, but I was running around looking at things and only watched for a little while.


I aspire to be the sort of person who watches insects molting and spiders weaving and admires the process. I also want to be the sort of person who is efficient and gets things done.

The two desires do not always harmonize.

Edit: More info on bugguide.net. Apparently, this really was two creatures mating. See pic and the answers here.

Fixed Link to Spiderwatch

I just found out that anyone who has been trying to reach Spiderwatch has been routed right back to Bookwyrme's Lair in a no-doubt frustrating loop.  My apologies! The link is now fixed--or should be. Yell (or post in comments) if it isn't.

Garden Critters

Hmm. no wonder some of the roses have jagged petals.