While I wait to schedule my tattoo appointment, I thought I’d throw in another contest for one of my fellow Odd Shots peeps.

Let’s talk about…Guild Hunters versus Psy/Changeling. Both badass. Both sexy. Both a little bit…wild.

Let’s say there’s a hypothetical dance off. I know, I know. Just hear me out. On one side is Elena, Raphael and those other crazy angels from the Guild Hunters series. On the other side… Lucas, Sascha, Riley, and all the others in the Psy Changeling world.

You get to pick ONE for each team. You get to pick one dance.You tell me…who would win, what would they dance, and why?

Creativity counts! The most creatively hilarious answer will win their choice of Nalini’s backlist (either Psy or Changeling) shipped via Book Depository (international is A-OK). I’ll also draw a 2nd name randomly, so you have 2 chances to win.

The deadline for this contest is NEXT THURSDAY (3/18/2010), 12:01 AM.

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Here are some of my favorite movie soundtracks:

The Last of the Mohicans
Far and Away
The Secret of Roan Inish (love, love, LOVE this soundtrack. If you like traditional Irish music, this is an awesome CD.  The movie is wonderful, one the entire family can enjoy. If you’ve ever wanted to watch a movie about the Selkie legend, this one is fantastic. It was filmed in Ireland so the scenery is breathtaking!

A favorite music CD: (Irish music)

The Best of Altan: The Songs - Half the songs are in Irish and half are in English.
What about you? Care to share some great soundtracks (instrumental or otherwise) you just had to buy after watching a movie? (We bought the Juno soundtrack after seeing the movie. It’s wonderful too, but I can’t write to it).  I’m hoping I’ll be able to add more instrumental soundtracks to my collection after this discussion.

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But if she’s on a diet, we’d have to go with something else.  Something that will tone her muscles as well as provide hours of…entertainment. Maybe…hmm….

So what would you give Ilona for a housewarming present?

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Yesterday, I read the conclusion of a comic book mini-series that I hadn’t been terribly happy with from the first issue, but because it tied in to the main Justice League of America series, I kept plugging along. And when I got to the end, this is pretty much how I felt:

HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR LITTLE PROM NOW???

Every once in a while, though, I just have to stop and say, “No.” DO NOT WANT. Usually, that’s when characters seem to become victims to a storyline rather than an active participant in one. In this case, it was a [SPOILER OMG LOOK AWAY IF YOU PLAN TO READ CRY FOR JUSTICE] a superhero’s young daughter being killed — a little girl who has long been a part of this well-established superhero’s life — so that both he and his mentor can go through big “rise and fall” character arcs.

Character arcs that will probably last … oh, a year or so.

So it’s not that I don’t see the purpose behind her death in a storytelling sense. It’s not that I haven’t seen a kid’s death handled well. And since this is comics, sure — maybe she’ll come back (although kids usually don’t.) But this superhero was one of the few single fathers in comics, and his daughter living added to his character in a way her death never could. Now, he’s just another hero destroyed by the death of a loved one (oh, and he’s an archer who also just got his arm ripped off, but I guess that WASN’T ENOUGH TRAUMA to head into the rise-and-fall storyline — and who wants to deal with pesky kids when Daddy is trying to cope with the loss of his arm and whether he can still be a hero and how his daughter sees him now? That wouldn’t be interesting AT ALL).

Get the buckets of pig blood; cue Meljean’s rage.

Anyway, it’s the end of the mini-series so it’s not like I’ll be dropping the comic now. But I can and will be disappointed. Bitterly. And angry, bitterly.

What are your tipping points? Where do you go from “I don’t like this” to DO NOT WANT! Can you think of a scenario that worked for you in one movie or show or book, that didn’t work for you in another? Why do you think your reaction was different? (If you are posting SPOILERS, please clearly mark them in your comments!)

And in other news — Ilona is moving to Portland this weekend, and I won’t even be around! I’m heading off to the coast where I will be writing writing writing while my family plays (one awesome thing about Portland is that you’re only about an hour drive away from either the beach or the mountains). But here’s a little video I found with some things to do on a weekend here.

Powell’s is easily my favorite. Okay, the donuts and cupcakes and food carts don’t suck, either.

—
*except, of course, in a romance novel. Then I better get my happy ending, dammit.

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A lot of you wanted powers for speed reading, or the power to read books as soon as they come out – ME TOO. But then you’d lose all that glorious anticipation, right? So maybe this power would be a two-edged sword.

Some of you were just plain funny:

I guess my Guardian power would be to have super dirty breath in the morning to kill all my enemies…wait I think I already have that power. LOL

My guardian power would be the ability to get the housework done in two minutes, tops.

My super power would have to be the ability to walk into a room and have it instantly be vacuumed and dusted. This power stems from the dog hair and dust rhinos in my house due to my extreme dislike for a vacuum cleaner and dustrag.

My power would be an instant mute button. I would love to command quiet time–whenever I want. Children and husband beware!

I think my Guardian power would be invisibility. I have 4 kids and sometimes it would be good to sneak away and have some alone time. So when I hear “Mom?” I can go invisible and just sneak into the bathroom or something. lol

All I have to say is…there sure are a lot of you hiding from your children.

SO! THE WINNERS! These two popped up in the random number generator:

Maree Anderson says:

February 25, 2010 at 11:28 pm

My Guardian power would be to visualise my gym workouts in my head…. and reap with benefits without having to change out of my pjs and get my sorry butt out of my office chair. Yep. That would be freaking awesome!

Amy says:

February 25, 2010 at 4:14 pm

Hmmm. I believe my Guardian power would be to remember everything I read since I’m a librarian.  I haven’t read this series yet, but I’m intrigued.

 Congrats Maree and Amy – email me your deets (jillmyles at gmail.com) and we’ll get you a free book!

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That’s what happened to me with The Count of Monte Cristo, too, except it was my fault I hadn’t watched it yet. I bought this movie and it sat on my shelf for a couple of years. Don’t ask me why I never watched it, but for some reason I kept passing over it.  Well, I finally watched it last year and was so mad at myself for waiting so long. What a wonderful movie! LOVED it!

Now that I have Brotherhood of the Wolf in my Amazon cart, I thought I’d ask you guys for other movie recommendations. I’m looking for movies in the same vein as the two above…action adventure, along with a historical or fantasy bent (romance would be nice too but it’s not a requirement).  Share some great movies you’ve seen!

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They had just left Fort Bridger when the dogs began looking hungrily at the oxen...and the kids.

"At least it's not dysentery," the wagon master said helpfully, just before Ilona pressed SPACE BAR on his fricking head.

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I attended the Chinese Lantern Festival this past weekend, and thought I’d share some pictures. It’s one of my favorite festivals, especially when the weather’s as gorgeous as it was this year. The lanterns just get more and more amazing.

So cool!

The festival wouldn’t be complete without the tiger to mark 2010.

The fish below were just stunning – they’re hanging off tree branches, with kelp and seaweed all around.

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

p.s. If you like angels, check out the music video I posted on my blog today.

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I just can’t do it.

Now, I’m a ridiculously laid-back person. So imagine my surprise when I began this writing gig, and I found out that I had this new control freak raging inside me*. Not only do I have to control the content (which anyone with a Wordpress site can do — Thank you, Wordpress) but I have to be able to tweak and mess with the look any time I want to. The same is true for my promo items like bookmarks; even knowing that someone with more skill could make them prettier, I just can’t let them go out.

Not that this is all bad. I’ve had to learn to use Photoshop and manipulate CSS and HTML. I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I can get by (and the zillion tutorials and guides on the internet help a lot.) When I take breaks from writing, very often I’m looking through stock photos or tutorials, checking out other websites and promo item designs, figuring out how to make mine better. My idea of a fun lunch is checking e-mail, checking Twitter, and then playing with bookmark designs — and in the five years since I’ve started doing this, every site redesign and promo item has an improved design (and function) over the last. So that’s good.

Recognizing my limitations is not so awesome. For example, today I came across an awesome piece of artwork that had the feel I really want for the site, even if the subject wouldn’t fit. In my head, I’ve already combined elements with a really fantastic piece of steampunky jewelry that Jill sent to me this winter. But I don’t have the skills yet to put it all together.

And so I began to seriously, seriously, seriously consider finding someone to send a couple of JPEGs to, and say: Plz make something amazing for me? kthx.

Yeah, that impulse lasted for all of five minutes, and then I began Googling tutorials. So Photoshop, CSS and I are going to become even closer friends over the next several months of lunches.

*Before I began writing, I used to have a different inner control freak, which was budgeting, projecting expenses, and tracking my bank balances. I had monthly and yearly spreadsheets and crap with all kinds of crazy formulas. I made myself stop, because I can only have one control freak inside me at a time. I think there might have been a cage match to the death between Website Freak and Spreadsheet Freak, and the Website Freak won. Either that or the writing gig combined with quitting the day job just made the Spreadsheet Freak retreat in denial and despair.

Your inner control freak — do you have one? Have you had control freak cage matches? TWO FREAKS ENTER. ONE FREAK LEAVES.

I’d totally watch that.

Artwork: Conception by Myke Amend, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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