Does anyone have suggestions for places that do couples massage in the area?  It doesn't have to be super fancy (I'm on a budget) but I'd ideally like to find a place that allows you to be in the same room as each other (the boyfriend has never had a massage before and is nervous about going alone).  I live in the Greenbelt area but am willing to drive/metro for the right place.

Thanks!

Tuesday, 14 July 2009, at 8:00pm

Washington Psychotronic Film Society presents

( The Big Bus (James Frawley, 1976) )

Apparently there are some new laws passed by the Montgomery County Council which are threatening to take your motorcycle car or trailer, even ones which are legally tagged and parked in your own driveway, if they haven't moved in the past 30 days. It sounds insane, but I understand the county began enforcing these laws July 1 and according to the Gazette, already some vehicles have been moved. You can read about it here.

In addition to restricting how long you can park in your own driveway, they are also defining all sorts of vehicles as "RVs" and ticketing or towing them if they are parked on the street. It looks as though a lot of people won't realize they are in violation until their vehicle is missing.

Hey guys - if you have ordered a print and HAVE NOT RECEIVED IT, please send me a message via Ebay. I've had a bunch of mail returned to me with...marvelously illegible labels, and I'm trying to sort the things out. Thank you!

I chipped a tooth last night. Unfortunately for me, we just finished open enrollment at work and I declined dental insurance. Somebody suggested looking into dental school in the area and seeing if they offer services at a reduced cost (kind of like Aveda does for hair).

So, my question is--does anybody have any experience with the Howard dentist school, or any other similar place? Info about fees would be especially helpful, as it doesn't really say anything about fees on their website.

Any advice, suggestions, dentist recs (FWIW--I work in Chinatown and live in Columbia Heights) would be extremely appreciated!

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07112009.shtml

.Also, Super Stupor 2 is on pre-order in the stoer - whoo!

---

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

http://www.rhymes-with-witch.com/rww07122009.shtml

.Also, Super Stupor 2 is on pre-order in the stoer - whoo!
And yes, I know he was actually living with his foster parents at that age.

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If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

 This book is a bastard.

I've restarted it 3 times now. I am literally able to scroll back up and read the the fourth versions of Chapters One, Two and Three, as well as the prologue.

The fourth versions. I've thrown away enough text to make up half of a novel, and my head, it aches.

Something my editors are slowly coming to understand is that the drafts I hand in at various milestones are not usually representative of the final piece. Soul Hunter changed hugely between the half I threw at my editors and the finished first draft that I handed in for them to give feedback for. Similarly, when it comes time to send in a synopsis, over half of the words in the document are just there to fill space, assure Nick that I'm still awake, and convince him to give me a juicy combination of money and the freedom to start writing.

I plot as I write - a planner, I am not - and this has served me well in the past.

So when I say this book is going slowly, you might think my hubris has finally caught up with me and that I'm struggling without a plan. This isn't the case. What we have here is a classic case of "Damn it, it's better if...".

Each time I sink my mental teeth into this bastard and the clickety-clack of fingertips on G15 Logitech keys starts to really cycle up into the chorus of production, I have a better idea for how the book should go. Specifically, the style in which the story is told. I've never encountered this before. Usually my first instinct has carried on without wavering. Now, in the fouth version of the first quarter of this novel, I feel I've finally got it nailed. 

After this book comes my Horus Heresy Series novel. It's pretty fucked up that such a grand project is going to feel like a holiday after this one. 


---   ---   ---


The kitten's name is Loken. 

As I write these words, he's tumbling across the floor of my office, bending like no living thing should bend, acting like he has a spine made from rubber, and gnawing ferociously on the pull-strings of my White & Nerdy sweater. 

I regard the moment our lives crossed paths as something of a sentimental mistake. I'm sure he's adorable if you like tumbling, soft-pawed fuckheads that bite your toes and go to sleep on your lap while you're trying to write about future war. But I don't like those things. I tend to regard pain (and indeed blood) around my toes as a negative, not a positive. I like to be able to shift in my seat without disturbing weaker, worse-tempered life forms into waking up and attacking my goatee. 

It's not like I ask for much, really. 



---   ---   ---

Last night, I finished Dragon Keeper, by Robin Hobb. She's been my favourite author for a very long time, for too many reasons to go into. However, after devouring her latest novel, I think I'm starting to feel her characterisation tricks grating on me. Specifically, the sheer weasel-arsed nastiness of every story's Guy You Love To Hate has reached a peak here, with someone so irritatingly petty - and a protagonist so simperingly passive about dealing with it - that it's no longer good characterisation. It's just annoying. 

That said, it was still a wonderful read. Next up is Salamander, by Nickarama. He's lost points already for starting on a fight. Start during a war, in media res, yes. Start during a fight and describe weaponry and its effects, no. I don't care that everyone disagrees with me. I'm entitled to be pig-headed in my adamant opinionalising. (Yes, it's a word, go away.)

Still, I have high hopes. I threatened (I mean... promised) Nick a secret review.

After Salamander is Nights of Villjamur, by Mark Charan Newton. I'm looking forward to this because the blurb reads like exactly the kind of book I love. I don't particularly care about a book's reviews (though, incidentally, the ones for this are all absolutely glowing), but there is no arguing with this as a blurb:

"An ice age strikes a chain of islands, and thousands come to seek sanctuary at the gates of Villjamur: a city of ancient spires and bridges, a place where cultists use forgotten technology for their own gain and where, further out, the dead have been seen walking across the tundra."

Fuck me running, right?

"When the Emperor commits suicide, his elder daughter, Rika, is brought home to lead the Jamur Empire, but the sinister Chancellor plans to get rid of her and claim the throne for himself. 

Meanwhile, a senior investigator in the city inquisition must solve the high-profile and savage murder of a city politician, whilst battling evils within his own life, and a handsome and serial womanizer manipulates his way into the imperial residence with a hidden agenda."

There's more, but you get the point. If this book is bad, with a build-up like that, I will eat my own head.

I know Mark, by the way. Not well - certainly not well enough to feel the need to be nice to him - and only really well enough to mildly dislike him for being better-looking than me. But bullshit aside, that's the kind of blurb that sells me on a book. It's the kind of Fantasy I want to write, when I can get myself 'round to doing "my own trilogy" one day.

I have a habit of instantly throwing out dustcovers on hardback books, as I love the feel of the books themselves - the texture, the heft - and the way they look on the shelf. I buy hardbacks whenever I can, partially because of that l'il tendency. The covers for both Dragon Keeper and Nights of Villjamur were a bit on the awesome side. I binned them just as I bin them all, but not without a long backwards glance at the kitchen gargabe. They sat there, crumpled yet salvageable, appealing in their prettiness to the wrong soul. 

After Salamander and Nights, next on the reading block is Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, and The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester. Previews and reviews when I get closer to gracing them with my eyeballs, but we're dealing with established classics, here. I've read a lot by both of them already, and massively looking forward to these.

---   ---   ---


Cathy finished Cadian Blood, my first novel. Barney read it first, when it was still so many pages of A4 photocopies, but in book form, Katie was the first to finish it. 

Her gleaming eyes right afterwards, and the way she talked about certain characters and parts... it revived my faith in it, to be honest. Previously, I'd felt it was written so long ago and untouched since, that I was going to have trouble sticking by it as an example of my current work. But I re-read chunks of it, and the confidence I felt when writing it came right back to me. 

Rob was up for the weekend, and it was wonderful to see him again. He's part of my monthly D&D group that ventures out here to the wilds of Northern Ireland, in the middle of the crunchyside, but this visit was purely personal rather than based around the bleeding of goblins and the looting of their tormented, murdered bodies. I gave him my proof copy of Cadian Blood to take home to my mum in England. Christ only knows what she'll think of it (a sense of vague but very real pride, no doubt), but I'm looking forward to hearing my brother's opinion (and Luke's, my brother's squeeze) if and when it gets to them.


---   ---   ---
 

I am currently missing the following things:

- Barney.
- Nik.
- Naze.
- A cafetiere.
- The many years of my life that my left shoulder didn't hurt.

Someone asked me why I feel like I overdue it so often. Like, why would i constantly work myself to exhaustion physically. Most people can tell when they are about to overdue it, so have I just lost the ability to tell when I get tired or am I doing herculean amounts of effort each day?

The answer is simple.

You see, each day I do get "better and better." Yes, I've said that a dozen times, but it's not just some sort of self improvement mantra. I wake up in the morning feeling like shit, and the pain in my back is incredible. After my morning dose of valium and the new painkillers ,which are less effective than percoset but at my current level of pain are more appropriate, I slowly start to get mobile. I have to use my walker to get out of bed or off the couch but after a few laps around the inside of my house I can move about.

Now, the exhaustion and other symptoms sneak up on me. In the beginning, it was easy to predict when I'd get overwhelmed. By the first day I could walk about, it was taking laps around the cul de sac. Later on, it was when we did the physical therapy laps at Washington Square that let me figure out when I'd get exhausted. But it's all very...hard to tell.

One day I can make 10 laps around the court and then walk inside and walk upstairs to take a shower. The only pain I'll have is some slight pain in my feet, sharp pain in my back, and irritation on the incision. Then two days later I can get badly winded walking downstairs and by the time I walk halfway around the court I'm wheezing and can't catch my breath. Lately I walk with my Mom to help run errands and while I walk around the store I'm perfectly fine but once we start to make it to the car I'm limping severely and it feels like I just had a workout at the gym.

I think my body is still so out of whack that as I attempt to rebuild my stamina and endurance, my body's sytems get screwed up and overreact/undereact depending on the exertion. I walk almost a full mile around the mall today goingto different stores: I feel fine exception for a minor headache until I get home and the endorphins wear off and I ache all over. I walk upstairs to get a fresh shirt, and my body assumes I wrestled Matt McFarland in a No Holds Barred Match. (Which I would WIN.)

Oh, and hand-eye coordination still needs some work. Not only did I reach for a can of La Croix and sent it flying across the floor, but as I attempted to put some car paperwork up I sat crosslegged on the couch. When I offered to get my Mom something to drink I stood up and lost balance, and nearly overshot myself and had to grab my walker for support. I ended up tripping backwards into the wall, but managed to avoid damaging the wall or hurting myself too badly. Like I said earlier, sometimes I feel completely normal and I tend to hit the ground running when I'm still weaning myself off training wheels.

By the way, while the creativity splurge made it impossible for me to sleep past night, I still got a lot done. I had a character I wasn't satisfied with and now the slight change has made it flow so much easier. But now I need help from you, faithful readers:

What is the proper term for fish that can only exist in freshwater instead of seawater? And please don't just say "freshwater fish."

In Other News,
You know, some teenaged shithead mocked me today for walking with a cane but I just smirked and looked the other way. If not for my cane to help me maintain balance, the walker which I use at home to help me stand up from chairs or get out of bed, or my Mom occasionally helping me move about to keep me steady I'd be in a lot worst shape than I am today. I'm sure kharma wise those kids will get what's coming for them. And as comical as I'm sure I was to them today,what really made me laugh was how overly accentuated their moves and actions were! The way they would laugh overly loud or mimic me with my cane to a comical degree, they looked like idiots.

Hey all --

Any good Polynesian/Hawaiian restaurants in the DMV area? My Hawaiian BF is feeling home-sick. :-/

He's at the hospital and doing ok. It looks like it wasn't a heart attack after all, but some sort of breathing disorder. He's stable now, and they'll continue running tests on him to make sure he's ok.

Thank you God for making sure he is doing ok so far.

I do have one angry post to make later, but for now I shall be very grateful for him recovering.

Today is mall walking day. I will bring you pictures of the side of town I live on that some of you have been begging for quite a while. Prepare to see the wealth and beauty of the Eastside...where once we held the bulk of movie theaters, jewelry stores, and had the two largest malls in Indianapolis. You can now see what has been nagging at my heart since my return home, and the ravages of economy, time, and just plain lack of care.

Great. Now my brain is over productive, having not written anything of value besides ideas for RPG characters and LJ posts for 10 days, and now my brain is gushing ideas and won't let me sleep.

And most of them seem good! I'm going to take half an hour to write some of them down to see where they go, but then right back to bed with me so I can sleep.

See? This list practically write itself on reasons for why I want to be a robot.

1. Immune to diseases and surgery
2. Super robot powers, plus I could make my hatch door swing open and close
3. No need to sleep, and if I did need to sleep, I can flick my On/Off switch to Off.
4. Possibility of getting formatted into a Transformer. I'd aim for Aerialbot or Triplechanger mode, but being a Maximal would rock too. (what did I tell you about TF overstimulation? I had the movie on in the background while I was writing today.)
5. Prominent place in the upcoming robot apocalypse. I wouldn't want to exterminate all humans, just put you all in your place building giant Egyptian style monuments to me and my cat (who is becoming a cyborg as well as a reward for being so awesome.)


Only cons that I can see
1. I'd have to drink beer for power, which sucks because most beers are nasty and I'd much preferred to be a whisky or vodka powered robot.
2. I'd probably have to lose some emotions or feelings, like you know, the ability to feel self doubt and loneliness and painful surgical incisions. Oh wait heeeeeeeey....

Poor Laura. She rarely drinks caffeinated soda, but she loves Night Elf flavored Dew. She gulped down three cans of the stuff in the last six hours. Now she can't sleep.

I left the bedroom because she sometimes falls asleep faster if I'm not there, but I expect her to trot back out here in half an hour.

This reality show looks interesting to me.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/colony/colony.html

A reality TV show of people who have to recreate society after the apocalypse happens.

BTW, this news article? I don't know how BBC magazines normally works but it just seems to post random blog comments and directs people there. But I give you a BBC magazine article where researchers have learned how to clone and create sperm, and now the debate of whether men are needed anymore can well and truly begin!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8142104.stm

Me, my brain is fried. I wrote 25k of words today and 7 pages of scripts and counting. Right now I wish I was a robot and tomorrow I think I will go for a walk around the neighborhood, something I haven't done in two weeks. My Mom will go with me for safety of course, but I feel the need to walk.

hi there everyone in dc!
My name is Alex, and I am a junior stylist at FIDDLEHEADS in dupont. I am looking to up my clientle by seeing if anyone wanted to get 1/2 off hair cuts or color. I am only available on wednesdays between 12-7. So come after work!

this is will never stop so dont worry about getting in a certain time.
Haircuts for men and women are: 32.50 for women (after the 1/2 off) and men are 17.50.
Color is based on what you want and we will have to discuss it.
IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED.....

PLEASE CONTACT THE SALON at 202-232-3800 and ask to be put with ALEX!
We are located in Dupont Circle on 17th st between P and Q.

THANK YOU SO MUCH and i hope to give you an amazing experience in my chair!


-Alex

Dig the new icon? Its taken from a picture called Ultimate Futurama and it's the Ultimate version of Bender. I thought it was cool enough to replace Rippersnapper as my main icon, although he'll stick around to scare you on your journals and represent the awesomeness of Fish related hardware.

I've been on a Transformers overload over the past few weeks. Thanks to the release of the new movie (which I'll review more thoroughly in a bit) and me being tied to a couch with nothing but enough free time to watch the original series, the animated movie and the first live action movie over again, I've been a little...overstimulated when it comes to Transformers. In one of the dreams this morning I had the shortest glimpse of Starscream just fly in out of nowhere, even though he did nothing but a fly by.

But sometimes things happen for a reason. As I was dealing with writer's block on my novel, I had a sudden brain storm involving the lamest transformer concept I could come up with. I instead dumped an old, somewhat repetitive character who I wasn't satisfied with and the new character fills the roles perfectly. I've added new dialogue and introduced new conflicts and action to the story. It's been a brilliant afternoon.

My only complaint is the eyestrain from staring at the screen for too long.

Today is going to be a good day, Im sure of it.

Edit: I left and went with my Mom to run some errands, so there is now more to this entry which I left open on my computer.

We left the house today and ate lunch at McAllisters! We had to cut the lunch short as my back started to ache while sitting, but it was good to get out. The problem was that the simple act of getting into a car, riding for 20 minutes, then getting out seemed like a journey all to it's own. Still, we then hit Michael's afterwards so Mom could get garden supplies and I hit Comic Carnival and shared the good news with some friends there that I was alive and moving about. I also picked up Transformers: Defiance, which is one of the movie prequel comics. I must say, these prequel comics from IDW are actualy pretty good with the exception of Alliance. Alliance hastily constructed from information given to you in the first twenty minutes of the new TF movie, and did not impress me too much.

Now, a more thorough Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review. Spoilers within.
( Read more... )
On a final note, I did a 3rd stupid thing to my back. This stupid thing was completely unexpected however...I threw open the security door when we returned home and I slid the key into the lock. Now, the security door returned at such an angle and force that itdrove the door handle directly into my incision!

I swear, am I trying to kill myself? Between the two falls and the stinging pain on my incision, it's like I'm trying to kill myself.

Thanks to Eddy Webb, I'm watching the dubs of Beast Wars 2 courtesy of TFCog.com. I've enjoyed the 3 episodes I've watched so far, I just wish I could watch more of the series as they've only dubbed two other episodes. It's definitely aimed more at kids, but it's pretty funny and I'm enjoying it. My favorites are the Tasmanian Kid and Dirge.

Now, I shall enjoy watching Tombstone while relaxing after a long day of walking and physical therapy. Man, the walking sure felt good and I was glad to get out. I probably walked almost a mile today, and over the next few days I plan on doubling that. It's been a good day.