Weather, life, woes

[lady_karelia]

It's past one in the morning and the current temperature is 84 degrees. Yeah. Heat wave. I finally set the a/c to 65, having sworn to never ever set it this low, but 70 just doesn't do it. It's still about 75 inside. Not as bad as without a/c, granted, but I'm craving cold. I want to shiver, I want to feel cold, so I can feel like putting a sweatshirt on. Or something. One month and it'll cool down. I'll survive. I hope. We've been having a "severe weather alert" for the past few days, advising the public not to leave their air conditioned homes, so I guess that qualifies as a heat wave in the Southern States, but I don't read/watch news enough to know whether it does or not. Who cares. It's fucking hot is all I know! And looking at Germland where, last year, we were melting away in a heatwave, makes me downright jealous. The high over there is way lower than the low over here. I'm not saying I wanna be there right now, honestly, I'm not. But, you know... It would be nice if the weather gods got it right for me once in a while. *grumble*

In other news, my brother and I went to see HP and the Order of the Phoenix again last night. It was as enjoyable as it was the first round! And we decided we want to see Stardust next cuz the trailer looks just brilliant, and I like Neil Gaiman anyways. I reckon blue_paris might join us for that one. And then there'll be The Golden Compass - I need to read the book.

On reading, I've been reading non-fic lately. After DH, I felt no need to read fiction, really, so I've been sticking to the likes of The Montauk Project and similar. Rather interesting.

In fandom, aside from LJ doing major fuck-ups, some people are ignorant, others are particularly ignorant, and some are, well, ignorant. If fandom continues to go this way I can see it die a death very soon. Sad, this is. Do you really think anyone is going to continue writing with two reviews for each hundred hits? I know I won't. I'll keep writing, but not for fandom. The same goes for podcasts. If 495 downloads get us 3 feedbacks, do you seriously expect us to invest 60 hours a month to bring a podcast to you? You must be kidding.

And to those of you who continue with LJ because you like what they are doing - you scare me. Today it's the potentially under-age depiction of some art, which allegedly has no artistic merit while the pro-anorexia crowd are still going strong. Tomorrow it might be those who refuse to believe every word the newspapers print. The day after it might be those who don't follow the Christian path. And by the time they come for you, there'll be nobody there to defend you except yourself. Good luck with that. I'm paid up here until the end of the year, but I know I won't review the pay option. Supporting some institution who imposes beliefs on anyone goes completely against my beliefs, and this is exactly what lifejournal has been doing lately. I'm disgusted with it.

Aside from that, I've spent fairly little time online. Not read much lately either. Lapita's Southern Magic is still one of my current favourites. You can find it on The Petulant Poetess. And, oh, we started a round-robin on TPP. The first chapter is posted, Soul Bound is writing the second chapter, and I'll be doing a chapter somewhere, sometime. Christy and Amsev are in it too. It looks good so far.

Comments

[firefly-124.livejournal.com]

I guess it's all a matter of perspective. I would be giddy with elation at a review rate like 2 reviews per hundred hits. Actually, let me rephrase that. I was utterly blown away by the experience of getting a large number of reviews for my exchange fic, and am still blown away as I'm getting more when I'm uploading to archives. But the bulk of my stuff, particularly my WIP, is lucky to get one review per 200-300 hits.

I'm sorry to hear the response rate is so low for the podcast. I know I'm one of the offenders, as I don't thnk I've yet listened to the last one in its entirety, much less sent feedback, though I did enjoy what I heard.

The round-robin is on my ever-growing to-be-read list. It sounds like it'll be a fun read!

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

A few months ago, one in fifty review/reads was pretty much the norm, with erotica much higher and rare pairings considerably lower. The dynamics have changed over the past six months or so. Several people are currently trying to push the review issue. Yes, I know, we all write for ourselves. But I have no doubt that the vast majority of us love receiving reviews, not even squeeful ones, but simply the acknowledgment that someone who reads the chapter/story is sufficiently entertained to waste 20 seconds of their time to let us know...

It's similar with the podcast. I go into chat and people tell me they love it. I look at the downloads, fantastic! Then I look at the feedback, both on the site and the mail, and... zilch. It disappoints me insofar that other podcasts have real commercials. We spend time making up commercials that are so very obviously spoofs that even the dummest person will recognise them as such. Da world's gone topsy-turvvy me thinks *snerk*.

The round-robin... I'm actually looking forward to my turn, LOL. SW wrote a most intriguing first chapter, and now the second one rests with SoulBound, who no doubt will introduce some more potential open endings continuation. Teehee, it's so much fun. :-)