Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Extendable Straws = Productivity Boon!

An amazing innovation in straw technology.
My wife got me two birthday presents this year. I don't know what the second is yet, but she graciously granted me the first gift early. 

She purchased these connectable drinking straws from Vat19.com (Purveyors of Curiously Awesome Products), and my life has changed. The straws can be combined in a large variety of ways, and are only limited to your imagination (and, in reality, how much you suck). 


The first thing I did with them, of course, was steal her soda. 

The joints took a bit of adjusting, and at first I tightened the corners too much. Apparently, I am a suction weakling, as I couldn't draw any liquid, but Heidi could. We fixed it, though. 

For your irrelevant information, we were mixing Cherry Coke and Mr. Pibb. (I know, I know, Mr. Pibb couldn't afford the student loans to attend carbonated medical school like its superior associate, Pepper.) 


Fancy.

The next step was to use the straws to ease the process of drinking whilst writing.

I sat at the desk, put together the straw assembly, and, with a little bit of tape, had my new Drink Reach Extension Apparatus. 

A little bit of tape and convenient placement has now reduced the necessary head movement for drinking by a good eight inches, or removed the need for me to stop typing to pick up a glass.


Sure, to some, this may seem silly, but when I'm in the middle of an intense writing session, anything that beats distractions is a plus. 

Another satisfied customer
Though we're waiting for our full-family birthday celebration, already I'm feeling the another-successful-revolution-round-the-sun cheer. 

One last bit of frivolity and merriment I bring to you is the video of Heidi presenting a cake with 25 candles. Trick candles, mind you. It took me only a minute to put them out, due to sheer ingenuity and genius. What? Those words mean basically the same thing? Bah. Go watch the video.




That's all for this post. Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

NaNo UhOh

Sorry folks, I'm sort of phoning this one in. I know, it's a chump move.

My NaNoWriMo efforts have been choppy at best, so far. I wrote a couple hundred words before today. I did some great planning, but actual word-creation was just not happening.

Part of this is due to my poor sleep schedule habits. Part of this is due to self-confidence issues. Part of this is due to life* (*everything else).


And you know what? These things only matter as much as I allow them to matter.

So today I have finally made some decent progress in my project. I made it past the first scene, which was just tough to write, and the story is starting to move. Now I'm clocking in at a little over 2000 words.

So, instead of spending a bunch of time on a blog post, I'm going to keep working on catching up on NaNo. I pray the Bloggods will forgive me, as will you, dear reader.

Thanks in advance for the clemency I'm sure (read: hoping) you have extended!