Lovin' the Language Blogfest

Wahoo! It's been a busy weekend for me, in more ways than two. Yesterday was the Queer Film Blogathon and today is the I'M LOVIN' THE LANGUAGE FIESTA!

This amazing blogfest is hosted by Jolene B. Perry, and I want to thank her for it. The rules are simple: Pick any five lines or any five SHORT excerpts from one of your WIPs. If you're feeling shy, and don't want to share from your own work, share from something you LOVE.

Today I would like to share three sentences from my current WIP, Bane Hollow and the Apocalypse of Judgment. I could very well quote from my favorite novels, but others have beaten me to the chase.

This first piece is near the middle of the novel. Bane and his buddy Styx are getting ready to fight a "monster."


Styx took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm gonna strike first. I'll try and freeze it and if that doesn't work I'll have to battle it. If it's got me in a headlock, I want you to jump in and cut off its ass. If that doesn't work and I'm eaten, I then want you to take whatever's left of me and sell it on the black market, okay?"

This next one speaks for itself.


Mr. Winky lived in a hot pink high heeled shoe. 


"Terribly embarassing," he told Bane and Styx. "Though, I'm powerless to disapprove--wifey likes the ghastly thing, and I've learned, after three hundred years of marriage, that my needs don't matter." 

And this last piece is from a scene break in the second chapter. It illustrates a dilemma many children face, which is often acted upon in tragic ways.


Bane killed his father that night.


He stabbed him in his stomach, slit a gash in his neck and thrust the cold steel into the devil's heart. The blood splashed and flowed like a pipe but Bane didn't care. He had endured beatings for far too long and it had to stop! He had to die! And so he continued to kill him--carefully tracing the sword that dug into his father's head. The paper trembled on his knee as he drew, tears splattered every empty space. The page was slipping into the wind. He tried to grab it with his left hand, but his wrist. . .just wouldn't move. Away with the breeze the paper flew, until it was going. . .going. . .gone into the clear night sky.

And there you have it!

Thanks again to Jolene for hosting this and I can't wait to read the other AWESOME entries!


 50 entries so far... you're next!

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1. Jolene Perry	2. Kelley Vitollo	3. Gabriela Lessa
4. ali cross	5. Chantele Sedgwick	6. The Life of a Novice Writer
7. Lindz at Rapturous Randomocity	8. A Nudge in the Right Direction	9. Kayeleen Hamblin
10. Shallee McArthur	11. Sarah Nicolas	12. Liz Writes Books
13. Write About Nothing	14. Random Thoughts	15. Trisha @ WORD+STUFF
16. Imaginary Friends	17. Kaylee Baldwin	18. Angeline Trevena
19. Heidi Willis (Some Made Hope)	20. Fiction And Film	21. Daydreamer to Writer
22. Nicole M. White	23. Random Writings	24. Frost Light
25. Fully Authorized	26. Liz Sez	27. shaunnagonzales. blogspot
28. Loralie Hall	29. Teralyn Rose Pilgrim	30. Little Things
31. My Characters Lives	32. The Random Thoughts of Chippy	33. My Pet Blog
34. Lucy Adams	35. Southern Girls Living Fearlessly	36. Ruth Josse
37. you are the unicorn of my dreams	38. Writing Fire	39. Writing With Shelly
40. The Write Soil - Writing Exercises	41. Jennifer Hoffine	42. Vicki Rocho
43. Chronicles of Illusions	44. Summer Ross	45. YAtopia
46. Building Castles on the Beach	47. Jen Duffey	48. From Sarah With Joy
49. Wendy Higgins	50. Pocketful of Playdough

You are next... Click here to enter
This list will close in 8 hrs, 15 min (6/27/2011 1:34 PM CST)

Sloppy Seconds

I'm a bit late to the festivities, but rather late than never, right?

Tomorrow is the last day of the Garbo Laugh's Blogathon, for which I have been preparing most diligently. The focus of this event is lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or otherwise non-heterosexual depictions in film. The OP wanted us to focus on classic films, but I've seen so many of it in the posts of my fellow bloggers, so I opted for something a bit more...modern. 

*Ahem* Ladies, Gentlemen and Superheroes, I give you the next best thing since American Pie--a  laugh-fest ripe with raunchy, heartpounding debauchery--EATING OUT 2 SLOPPY SECONDS!

Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds is a gay-themed romantic comedy film released in 2006. It is the sequel to Eating Out. The film debuted at the Outfest film festival before a limited theatrical release. 

Billed as "the first american gay sequal" eating out two was every bit as funny and sexy as it's prequal. Times Four!   

The story starts when Kyle (Jim Verraros, of American Idol fame) and his friend Gwen (Emily Brooke Hands) become attracted to Troy (Marco Dapper, who's straight btw), a hunky farm boy from Illinois who poses nude for their art class. Troy befriends and confides in them that he's slept with girls and guys, but is reluctant to embrace any gay feelings. The trio come up with a scheme where Kyle pretends to be an ex-gay and is dating Tiffani (Rebekah Kohan), in order to break Troy's shell and get him to sleep with the both of them.

Marco Dapper

This wacky plot is the reason I chose this story over it's prequel. It deals with a very sensitive issue some males face, and is often swept under a rug, as well as the antithesis of gay mens' fascination with straight guys--often to the detriment of their dignity. Although the story's moral does not transcend that of the minuscule setting (which I would've liked to see) it did, however, manage to somewhat capture Troy's struggle with his sexuality, much to the benefit of Kyle and Gwen, who were treated to many nude encounters. Despite this underlying issue, the movie managed to dish out the laughs--and boy did I laugh. This was my very first introduction to gay movies and although I was scared at first, I quickly realized that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There was no overt sexual romps of any kind, (save for Gewn and her sexcapades, which were more Cinimax Afterdark than Hardcore Porn); the love triangle was akin to YA novels or ABC Family Programming, and few of the characters were well developed and funny.

I did have some issues with it. Troy's (Marco Dapper) character came across as dumb yet perfect, a horrible cliche that is often used and abused. Sure, he has the body and looks of a god, but beyond that he was as smart as a teaspoon, which made me wonder: why go through all that trouble to woo him? All Kyle had to do was make his move and I'm sure he would've succumbed. Another irk of mine was the acting. Instead of showing us their emotions, one or two of the characters decided to tell us. Gwen was feeling bored, so instead of sighing and slouching to indicate her sloth, she said "I'm bored," in an upbeat manner. Sometimes I couldn't tell if this was to play upon the overall quirky vibe of the movie or just plain bad acting.     

All in all, it was a decent film. And as  Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times wote:  A Rubik's Cube of shifting sexual orientation and elaborate sex fantasies, Sloppy Seconds gathers all the accouterments of soft pornography ... into a plot of stunning imbecility. You may be right Ms. Jean, but the movie was a low budget film not meant to be taken seriously. Sometimes, a good ol' laugh is all we need. And this movie does just that.  

Dr. Phil's Personality Test

I happened upon Dr. Phil's TV show one afternoon and was intrigued by a personality test he supposedly had on his website. The test I found was different from the one I actually saw him advertise.

...Until I discovered the website Psych Central.com.

They have a very interesting test which determines what sort of person people perceive you to be. Apparently it is the one Dr. Phil developed, but they have found no evidence of this, so they advise you to take the quiz with a grain of salt.

Some of the questions are not-so-typical, and then there are those which are quite ordinary--like your favorite color and how you walk. Needless to say, I took it four times and this was the result:

Results of your
How Do Others Perceive You? Quiz

You scored a total of 42 

The Lively Center of Attention Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical, and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.

I'm pretty impressed, because this is basically who I am. I WILL make you laugh--no ifs, ands or buts about it. I am also very sensitive and overprotective, which, I've been told, is a superb combo. However, what it failed to compute is the fact that I'm very quiet. Yes, I am. Even with all my energy, I love nothing better than to sit outside in the afternoon and watch the sun set. You have no idea the kind of happiness that can bring to your soul.

Test Your Personality

New Title. New Music. And A Site For Beautiful People?

From this day onward, I shall be known as Frost Lord. Now bow to me!

My first title was called Frost Bolt, but I discovered it was not unique--World of Warcraft had beaten me to it with a spell of the same name. I then decided on Frost Light, but was never quite pleased. So after a bit of thought, I opted to use this one. For now.

I also added a new ambiance. It is the music from Final Fantasy V. Usually mp3 on websites are considered a nuisance (mainly because they're too loud, or not to the person's taste), but I used a tool that balanced the volume before I uploaded it--plus the player runs the track at mid range, so it's very quiet. If it is disturbing while you read, tell me and I'll change it.

I was fortunate enough to see Green Lantern this weekend, and, after much anticipation, I must sadly inform you that it sucked. I could get into great detail, but why rob the critics of their fire? Instead, I'll touch on five things that make a movie work, and rate it out of five.

Story   **

It was poorly done. The characters were made of starch; many of them added nothing to the plot, especially the tiny man; and the denouement left much to be desired.

Music   **

I know the composer tried his very best to capture the feel of this movie, but it seemed he got bored and asked his deaf assistant to do the deed.

Artistic Direction/CGI   ***

Three stars, even though it was the highlight of this movie, many of it seemed like rejected compositions of Star Wars.

Cast   **

Blake Lively was only there to look pretty, and I, for one, don't like her acting--her tone and body language indicate she smokes some HARD WEED before she steps on set. Ryan Reynolds was the only saving grace; his wit and humor was a decent touch. I wanted this to be the stepping stone for his Superhero Career. He deserves it, more so than Robert Downy Junior (who is full of himself!).

Direction   **

A director is only as good as the script. This is what he feeds off of--what gets his juices flowing. There is only so much he can do with a poor script and a bad cast, so it was not entirely his fault.

If you look to the upper left corner of this blog you will see a tab where the top 10 box office hits are listed. Currently, Green Lantern is listed at 53 million for its opening weekend--an impressive amount, but it is, in fact, the lowest opening for a Superhero Film thus far.

Finally, we arrive at the most narcissistic thing I have yet to encounter online. It is a stupid dating site called beautifulpeople.com. I won't even put a link, because I do not condone such a thing.

Let me share my experience with this site after I discovered it a week ago. Upon entering the page you are met with a backdrop of "beautiful people" in an array of seductive poses. Their props are a lion and a snake, of which appear far prettier than the actual models, but I digress... Below this image is a "as seen on so and so" banner and underneath this is even more nonsense that stresses on the theme "beauty equals privilege", such as exclusive parties and trips. For the sake of being curious (and I also wanted to see if the members were, in fact, made of diamonds) I joined and uploaded the photo I use here. I was then allowed into the site, where I was granted a trial period of forty eight hours, at which time members voted to determine if I was "hot" enough to stay. Seriously? -_-

I took this opportunity to scope out some of the females, and of the twenty or so girls I did look at, because I was so fed up with their dumbass descriptions, only four could possibly be considered stable adults.
The next day I got an email  from beautifulpeople.com. This is what it contained:

Subject:	The voting process is over
From:	“BeautifulPeople” <notifications@beautifulpeoplemail.com>
Date:	Mon, Jun 13, 2011 10:46 pm
To:	“Tyler Read” <tylerread@yahoo.com>

Dear Tyler, (used a fake name)

Unfortunately, your application to BeautifulPeople Network was not successful. The members of BeautifulPeople did not find your profile attractive enough.

Please note, only one in five applicants are currently accepted into BeautifulPeople.com.

BeautifulPeople welcomes you to apply again, perhaps with a better photo or a more interesting profile text.

To modify the contents of your profile and resubmit it for rating, simply follow these quick steps:

1)
Open “Edit Profile Page”: http://beautifulpeople.com/home/editprofile/
Change your profile picture and modify your profile text to make it more appealing to the voting members.

2)
Go to the “Home Screen”. (You can follow this link: http://beautifulpeople.com/home)

On the Home Screen, hit the “Vote me again” button to resubmit your modified application to the rating section. 

HAHA! I'll be honest, it stung for five seconds, and the fact I had to endure such a process simply to join a fucking WEBSITE left me disappointed. However, the aforementioned email gave directions to redeem myself. I simply needed a better photo and exciting text. All right, so perhaps it was just a bad picture, or even a lackluster bio? Seems fair enough. To ensure I did it right the second time, I re-logged and looked at some of the guys. It was here I found a major flaw in my process, and for this very reason I submitted a new picture. Within twelve hours I got this message:

Subject:	The voting process is over
From:	“BeautifulPeople” <notifications@beautifulpeoplemail.com>
Date:	Wed, Jun 15, 2011 7:32 pm
To:	“Tyler Read” <tylerread@yahoo.com>

Dear Tyler,

The members of BeautifulPeople.com have cast their votes. BeautifulPeople Network is pleased to inform you that the majority of members on BeautifulPeople.com found your application very attractive and granted you membership. 

Welcome to the BeautifulPeople community!

ROFL! That is fucked up! The second time around I took my shirt off, stood in front the mirror and snapped a picture in my briefs! The majority of the guys have similar photos and it appears that's what the ladies vote for.

This site boasts millions of members and is proud to say that they've rejected over five million "ugly" people. They were recently attacked by a Shrek Virus, where the rating module was disabled and over thirty thousand "ugly" people were able to join.

I've blocked this webpage and all its sponsors. I joined to see if it really was worth all the trouble (maybe even win a free trip or some shit), but what I discovered was far worse: beautifulpeople.come exists to further segregate men and women and promote an elitist way of thinking. The members are as shallow as they are unstable--aided by the media and a society that exalts such individuals.