The forum has moved
... has a new home at http://emmamaree.com/forum
Come visit the official forum and catch the banter with people whose interests range from Doctor Who, rock music, books, writing of all genres, TV shows, video games, art, comics, roleplaying and sports.
It's more than just a message board or a fan forum - there's also private areas for serious critique of writing and art, and places more relaxed displays of your talents.
They're a friendly bunch who'd welcome some new faces livening things up, so feel free to sign up.
Reading, Writing, Attorney-ing and Time Travelling
Bear with me, I'm being a bit experimental here - I want to do a round-up of all the random awesome stuff I've seen on the internet. If I was cool, I would do this on Wednesday and make it Web Round-Up Wednesday - however, I'm not, and most of my randomly articles tend to be gathered throughout the week.
So instead, let's make it... Skiver's Friday! AKA. I should be working but it's almost the weekend and I've found some funny links - day. Then I got distracted and didn't finish the post, so really it's Skiver's Saturday. Shh.
WOO ENTERTAINING IMAGES. If I posted every image that entertained me, I'd never sleep.
Then there's Iconic Photos, some great photos from throughout history.
In the news, we have lots of stupid people. Including yet another woman who can't live without her expensive things and someone who got a Pit Bull to look 'hard' and couldn't be bothered to train it.
It seems people are having divorce parties now? Can't decide if that's a good thing or not - I like the idea of making things a bit easier in a rough time, but the cakes there - particularly the 'Hooray, I'm free of them now' feel of some of them - are just laughably bitter.
Awesome Christmas presents - Fondue Mugs, EatMeCrunchy Bowl, Baconnaise and Marshmallow Fluff. I don't like Christmas much - not only is it generally quite unlucky for me, but the pressure to find the perfect gifts for everyone really bothers me. I'm quite far behind on my Christmas shopping, argh. D: Feel free to leave a comment with your go-to gifts when it comes to finding Christmas presents for people - this year I'm abusing the use of cute microwavable teddies, and presents from last year that I never managed to post out.
*resisting the urge to comment*
For gamers, there's a Flash demo of the newest Ace Attorney game. I am rushing to play it as soon as this post is done. <3
(EDIT: Played it! Be careful, when examining the scene it'll glitch if you examine the chess board first. Examine something else instead.)
If you're a fan of sparkly vampires, 11 Points' 11 Random Observations Outside the New Moon Premiere is very funny. The Vatican have also complained about Twilight leading Christians into a world of undead romance, or something.
On the fanfiction front, I've been reading some Doctor Who fanfics. Today's recommendations are short, standalone stories that are suitable for all - 'This Moment Has Been Prepared For', a cute re-imagining of Donna's ending with a winning first line and 'Drinking Tactics for Nine Hundred Year Old Minors', a comedic story of Elven & Sally Sparrow's drinking trip turned feminist nightmare and the only good thing related to the Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith that I've found so far. Oh, and it makes me giddy that a campaign to Save (Torchwood Character) Ianto Jones raised £12k for Children In Need.
Last stop are some writing related links. The Reality of a New York Times bestseller has been crushing dreams for a while now, but it's still required reading for anyone expecting to be the next J.K.Rowling. A follow up to the post is here. There's the guide to Write Badly Well, which has taught me things like the word 'syllepsis'. I knew what it was, but didn't know there was a name for it? Now I can proudly say that syllepsis is (are?) awesome.
For those of you who like reading more than reading about writing, there are the 'Very Short Stories' of Edith Zimmerman. An example is below the cut, so click 'Continue reading' for a sample.
Jared is a Strange Fellow
Advisory: This post quotes homophobic slur-words.
As often as I use it for reference, the Wikipedia community isn't one I care much for. Though always stringent when it came to rules, lately they've become almost tyrannical, and the sites owners seem to support it, introducing I.P. recording for all visitors - a move that takes a bold step out of the comfort zone for the privacy-conscious.
Buuuuuuttt that's not why we are here.
Why we are here is to laugh at vandalism.
Some recent edits got flagged up by the forum members, prompting me to do a bit of investigation into the history of some of the pages. And there, I found this beauty:
'''''Dragon Tamers''''' is a novel about jared and his adventures with his good freind betty the dragon they get up to all sorts of mischief, in the sequel, mason comes along, he is well known as the evil Lord Gandolf, he is also a dragon tamer, but his dragon, Frodo is not as well tamed as jareds betty, this series is written by [[United Kingdom|British]] author [[Emma Maree Urquhart]].
Jareth - not quite Jared, but close.
Also, a later edit: jared is a poof.
I want this on a t-shirt.
JARED IS A POOF.
Apparantly.
Also amidst this edits were the words "I'm on drugs." Was this directed at the author of these edits, or at yours truly? We may never know, but to me it seems like a cry for help from our dear intoxicated editor.
His drug-fuelled world is filled with dragons called Betty, David Bowie with insane hairstyles, and epic fantasy focussed on very short people.
Poor thing.
With lolz,
E.Maree
xoxo
Still Alive
Hey. I’ve been away a while, it feels, though those of you stopping by the used-goods.net front page will know otherwise.
Due to being a dangerously chaotic kind of administrator, and… well, liking plug-ins, the blog was inaccessible for a while.
It’s been fixed, and more cool things should happen from hereon. I still lack my Macbook, though, so the full amount of reviews, artwork, writing and perhaps even podcasting will be held up.
But I’m still alive, so, I guess… this was a triumph.
(Portal references are a lie.)
Love,
E.Maree
xoxo
Updated Forbidden Knowledge
I was in the process of jazzing up FK with some plug-ins when I found an automatic wordpress update plugin. Itw worked like a charm, and now everything's working smoother than ever, complete with a new backend. The admin layout is a lot brighter and fun to use, this makes me happy. :3
Now, this blog has been neglected of late, but I'm working on sorting that. Look out for fun things like this in the future:
- Life updates. My boyfriend and I move in to our own house on my birthday, the second of October, which along with the workload requiredb to afford this is sucking up a lot of my time.
- Writing updates. New short stories are underway, including a new one you can read over at the forum.
- Art updates. I'm still drawing, I just don't have scanning time.
- Reviews. Books, movies, games, anything really... I'll be working on developing my critical abilities.
- Essays. I'm still in two minds about this, haha, it reminds me a bit of school, but I should be attempting some essays.
- Site updates. UG's overhaul is still not completely finished - I need to sort out issues with spam on the blog and news, for instance.
- Merch updates. I will eventually get round to designing new products from Punk Ethic. Where I will get the funds to create these projects is another question entirely.
- Creation of a 'member's club'. This is more complex, and still under construction, but I'm working on unifying membes via a feature called E.Maree's Army. It might involve premium forum status or access, early viewing of sample book chapters, exclusive wallpapers and other such goodies.
How I'm supposed to do this with SMF, WordPress and a normal HTML/CSS site is a good question. xD
...Fun times.
Also, if anyone reading this and is proficient in WordPress design, I'm looking for some help integrating the blog into the main site's layout. Give me a buzz at emaree@used-goods.net =]
Thanks for reading.
E.Maree
xoxo
Well, it's nice to actually GET paid
Just got my first paycheck today. =D
It's not much - £90 for just under a week's worth of work, I'm gonna say around 3 full days - but it gets me out of the messy situation of being unable to pay the hosting bills for my site. Without my sites, Emma is a sad kitten. >: Plus, the site's form an important, if grossly underestimated, part of my livelihood - publicising my work and giving me an outlet to sell it.
I'm working in Vue Cinemas right now, and it was a slight culture shock to begin with... I've never held a 'real' job before, and being stuck in the arse-end of the employment, otherwise known as retail, probably wasn't a nice soft welcome. I had trouble not being able to work at full-potential and help out when I was getting trained up, I am easily wounded by customer abuse, and my ever-mysteriously frail health state meant that after enough hours with movie times and short staffing preventing me from taking a break, I'd be on my last legs and unable to keep standing unless I was concentrating on till-work. This triggered a return of my old mate depression, which didn't help.
Buuuttttt I'm doing okay now. The hours are long and the pay is next to nothing, but I can do it fairly well and enjoy it. =] With luck and enough saving, myself and my boyfriend will be able to save up and get an apartment of our own and move out of our temporary carvan accomodation. xD But the current housing crisis makes that tricky.
Work is... an interesting experience, and one that's drastically cutting into my time spent writing and drawing. But it's contributing - to society, to the relationship, to a future. It's also being part of the loathed rat-race and being penned in by minimum wage and the restrictions of my age, but it's doing my best to make my own living. And that's nice.
SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER SEASON NAO. OSHI- =P
E.Maree
xoxo
Plug!
Hiya to any new readers from the Grumpy Old Bookman blog, nice to see you. 
Thanks as well to Michael for chatting with me, and being surprisingly friendly. Evidently I got him on one of his Amicable Old Bookman days.
As Mr. Allen said, this place isn't updated regularly, but I have a reason - it's for specifically work/writing-related news. I have a more personal/daily life Livejournal that's been updated almost daily since 2005-01-21, but it's more for friends, and I'm sure if you've followed the link here you're not too interested in emo outpourings. 
However, I am active in plenty more places. The links from this blog occasionally mess up, so if they don't work for you, please copy-and-paste them. :]
Dragontamers.net is the site for the series that got me a mention in the blogs, but the main place to go there is the forum, the Writer's Block, which has a load of amazing, friendly people to hang about and chat with. You don't need to have read the books, or even like me, just as long as you're friendly enough and want to be a part of the community.
It's currently having technical difficulties right now, and support's being a git and not really helping, but I promise I'll have it up as soon as possible.
Used-Goods.net, the site you're currently on a sub-directory of (aka, you're reading the blog on it), is for all my personal work, a sort of portfolio site. It's in need of a few updates, so I'll put some new stuff up there soon, I just want to get the forum up and running first.
DeathByAbsynthe.net, and for the moment the more important MySpace site, is for my newest project, the melodramatic rock band Absynthe. If you're into a fairly dark style of lyrics with innuendo in buckets, catchy choruses and some nice metal-inspired guitarwork, you should like us. I'm doing lyrics/management for now, my boyfriend's co-writing the lyrics (between you and me, he's better), and our slightly unstable line-up consists of far too many people. Add us, comment us, we're all chatty and want to hear your views.
I could always post a sample of the lyrics up here some time too. 
Thanks for visiting, feel free to keep looking around.
Urq<3
xoxo