Virtual Office Tuesday 11th August

[byslantedlight]

This morning may have involved playing purposeful hooky in the expectation of working all afternoon/evening, but then all plans being thrown into disarray resulting in - eep! But so far so fab... *g*

1. Downloaded (with alot of faff - stoopid drm) the new KJ Charles book (A Fashionable Indulgence, an actual m/m romance book published actually by a major publisher - Penguin/Random House!). It's not the sort of cover that draws me in, to be honest, but she's exactly the sort of author... *g*

2. Phone call from new hairdresser (eep!), catching me just as I was about to leave (eep!) saying my new hairdresser (eep!) was sick today (eep!) but I could see someone at 4pm instead of 1pm, and still have my hair cut (after seven months or so - eep!) So... instead of playing hooky all morning and then having the rest of the day to work... eep!

3. Finally got to NT Place, to attend talk where this thing was opened up for us to see... *g*
It's "the Pope's Cabinet", is all gaudy bronze gilt and polished stone and alabaster, is about 500 years old, was made in Rome and bought by chappy whose heart had been broken when his wife died so he went off on a Grand Tour of Europe because he couldn't stand to stay at home. This was one of the things that he brought back with him... *g* It has hundreds of wee hidden drawers in it - some hidden inside other drawers - and it used to also be partly a musical organ! It's one of my favourite things in the house and you don't get to see inside it on an ordinary visit, so yeay!

Then, as I was innocently driving home like a goodun, instead of going to the supermarket, I happened to glance over at a row of shops and saw that this place was actually open... ...for the first time since I've lived in Somerset (and been going past the shop *g*), so I had to stop. (And, you know, buy a copy of Nation cos Terry Pratchett said he thought it was the best book he'd written) and possibly a t-shirt... Cos. The Discworld Emporium! *g*

And then the main road home was closed, so I diverted the twizzly ways, and then I had to have lunch cos starving, and now I have barely any time to work before I have to leave for my haircut (eep!).

Today's Work
NT talk
Haircut

Job 1 pgs 1-5
Job 1 pgs 6-10
Job 1 pgs 10-16

Job 1 pgs 1-10
Job 1 pgs 1-10
Job 1 pgs 1-10

Hacktrack mile
Riverford dinner
Fiddle practice
Writing


Ah well, its all good fun and panicked-rush, isn't it... *g*

Comments

[jessebee.livejournal.com]

The Pope's cabinet looks purely AMAZING. What a marvelous thing! Does one actually get to touch, or only stare and drool? *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's fab, I love it... actually there are two much smaller less exotic ones in the same room, and I love them too - but they're not for touching, they're for drooling... well, except in the sleepy-mornings when I'm on duty and I have to dust... although, sadly, not inside the drawers... *g*

[jessebee.livejournal.com]

JEALOUS! You lucky thing, you :-)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hee - do bear in mind that there is also hoovering and dusting involved... though I'll admit it's less tiresome when you're hoovering and dusting pretty things in huge houses... *vbg*

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

The thingy with all the drawers is amazing. Were you allowed to touch it? I bet your fingers were itching to!

It must be One of Those Days - I've started trying to do worky things over and over, and been interrupted/distracted every time - and now the day is almost over, so I'm giving up, pouring some wine, cooking supper, sorting out a boiler... as you do. But declaring work null and void for today. Tomorrow will be wonderful!

Hope the hair isn't too traumatic. New hairdresser is always scary scary times.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'm allowed to touch the outside of it when I dust it in the mornings - but not the inside, which is the fun bit. I've been longing to see what was inside when I heard that it had hundreds of hidden drawers... *g*

Erk for one of those days - I wish I could declare it a non-work day, but the deadline's tonight! Tomorrow will be wonderful though! *g* And actually today's been quite cool in many ways...

Not sure about the hair though. She's blown it straight and it's mostly just getting in my eyes... Hopefully it'll be back to its normal less-spiffy but less irritating self when I wash it back to being sort-of-curly tomorrow. It never used to be curly, mind... finally, a benefit of ageing!

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

What an incredible work of art! I hope your day is going well, and the work will get done as it should, in its time...

That book cover brought to mind my favorite couple in Sense8 - Lito and Hernando... be still my heart! I only watched the first 6 or so episodes, then stopped. Sometimes a show will be so good, I'll be enjoying it, and then I get over halfway and I can't bear to continue because bad things are about to happen and I don't want to face them, even to get to the ending I want. I think I will finish it, though. Have you seen it? Looking around for images of L and H made me want to watch it again... I couldn't find an image that really matches what that cover is doing, but oh well. Here's a small taste of them:

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, cute-looking couple! I had to look up Sense8, cos I'd never heard of it, but ooh, new SF! I like the sound of it too - I wonder if I can get my paws on it somehow... *g*

I've got to admit that I'm not convinced by the models on the cover - the clothes are pretty good, but there's something about their hair... or maybe I'm being unfair, and if I compared with paintings it would match perfectly well!

Still not started work properly yet - or made dinner. Only just home and I paused on lj! Eeeeep!

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

Oh dear - I can only sympathize - know exactly how that feels!
BTW, I don't know if this will work over there, but I watched it here:
http://ezseries.tv/sense-8-s01e01/
Maybe? Someday? when time has stopped...

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! It says it wants me to download something called MusicHub Search, which is a search engine - I'm always a bit suspicious of these things. Did you have to do that? Was it okay?

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing me at the KJ Charles! And that Pope's Cabinet is seriously wonderful.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeay KJ Charles! *g* There are going to be three in this series - I just wish they were simultaneously in paperback, because I already want to flick back through the pages... On the bright side, Think of England was out in paperback at the beginning of the month, and I like it much more than I did when I read it electronically (and couldn't flick... *g*)

Oh, and she's in a new anthology that's out soon too, with a story that sounds good!

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

That cabinet looks like a lot of fun!

I bought KJ Charles' book only to discover it's a DRM >_< now I'll have to search for a program to use to read it.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The DRM thing throws me too - I hate it! I suppose they're trying to stop piracy, and I hate that there are sites that list books to download for free, because it really is unfair to authors (the best-selling ones too, but especially smaller authors in specific genres), but...

It came up as an Adobe DRM thing for me - possibly because it's happened before and I gave in and signed into it (worriedly, in case it tried to lock up other things, but so far so good). Then of course I forgot what username/password I'd used, cos it was so long ago, so I started again using a different email address - and then my Kobo wouldn't recognise it, and... argh! So what I'd thought would be a five minute download job, as per her Samhain publications, ended up taking forever... I'm sure if I gave in and got the kindle app it would have be quicker, but I don't want to, cos I don't like the stories of Amazon locking up people's kindles either...

Anyway - I found the right help page, and followed the instructions and it turned out I just needed to have had my Kobo plugged in before I opened the DRM so that it could see where it was supposed to be going...

But faff! I initially just tried to upload it via Caliber, but it didn't work that way, and... faff! Presumably due to the big publishing house... I also hate the way that you can only put a DRM on specific devices that you've registered or something - I want to be able to move books that I've bought to anywhere in my house! I'm just really hoping they'll release it in paperback too, so I can read it properly!

But I've started it, and as expected it's properly, properly good... *vbg*

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

It came up as an epub locked file. I've had to pay twice to download it! And as you said, it can only be downloaded to one device which is a hassle when I have a laptop and an android phone that I like to occasionally use for reading. The joy of a major publisher publishing an m/m title is gone for me now. Let's stick to specialised publishing houses like Samhain and Dreamspinner.

I'm not sure now if I want to buy the two sequels to this series when they come out...

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh no, it shouldn't have been that bad... Unless - did you open it without signing up for the Adobe account? Come to think of it I've done that in the past directly on my Kobo I think, and found that I couldn't download the ebooks to my computer as backup copies. I almost ticked that option this time, then realised that I was doing it the other way around this time and did want them on more than one device, so had better not. Otherwise I think I would have had to buy two copies as well... I *hate* that!

The only thing about the larger publishing houses carrying the titles, and being encouraged to do that, is that I do think it helps "normalise" something that still isn't accepted as normal yet - lgbt fiction and mm romance and that sort of "genre", and I do think that's a good thing and want to encourage it...

Ideally I'd wait for these books to come out in paperback and buy them then, but they seem to wait to release them that way (if they do at all) - presumably they realise that people will pay twice for them if they do that... *sighs*

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

Oh no, it shouldn't have been that bad... Unless - did you open it without signing up for the Adobe account? Come to think of it I've done that in the past directly on my Kobo I think, and found that I couldn't download the ebooks to my computer as backup copies.

Yep. *resists the urge to bang her head against a wall*

Hmm... I don't think it will ever be normal. I mean, sci-fi and fantasy novels still are not accepted or given the same respect as other genres. The books that make up an awards' list often are very long, full of suffering, and purple prose^^ And this is what is praised. While it's understandable to wish for wider acceptance and to be seen as "normal", the results of m/m books, novels with non-hetero protagonists, or even fandom people attempting to go mainstream haven't produced the desired result. That's just my personal opinion.

One publisher only releases the works in printed format after a whole year has passed from the ebook version, presumably to maximise ebook sales.

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Amazon and Kindle, one author told me she signed up with Amazon to publish her novel on Kindle and Amazon locks that novel for three months or so to be available only on their website. Another form of monopoly.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I've heard of that - that's bizarre! It's one thing to be the publisher, fine, but whoever heard of books that can only be sold in one bookshop? Mind you, many of them are also restricted because if they're in .mobi then you can't upload them to a non-Kindle device, so there's various m/m fic I can't read because I don't want to give in to being restricted like that. I suppose I will one day give into it in some way, but... not yet.

I'm really enjoying A Fashionable Indulgence - I hope you are too! Oh, and I hope it's going to come out in paperback!

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

Apparently Amazon promises that sales will be better if it's restricted to only one site >_< at least that's what the author told me. As you say, it's bizarre to think of a book that is sold in only one bookshop. I think this is why physical books will still be around. They're so much more accessible, which is the ultimate irony considering how publishers say ebooks are the solution.

I think I won't be buying any more DRM books if I can help it. M/M publishers at least offer their writers' work in every format. I didn't realise what a plus that is!

I just finished Backwoods Asylum by Megan Derr. A lovely and cute story that put a smile on my face. Recommended if you don't mind stories about shifters.

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

The Pope's cabinet is quite amazing! I wonder what the excess baggage charges were. :-)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Heee! *g*