Episode 616: Quel Désastre!

So apparently, I did damage the N95 further while trying to repair it myself. The cost of repair, even if I bring it back to Singapore, is likely to outstrip the value of the handset when it is traded in, so there seems to be little point in trying to do anything further. Anyway, this failure has completely destroyed my self-belief in this area, so in future, if anything breaks, I'll just throw money at someone else to fix it for me. On the bright side, this probably means that I'll be getting a new mobile once I get back home. If my contract's also up for renewal, maybe it's time to try some negotiation tactics with SingTel and get a better deal for myself. Studying in Costa was moderately successful, although I did spend more time at first laughing at/with Laura/Sophie than reading Peter Sansom's Writing Poems. Am going all the way back again tomorrow, once I collect the boxes from the shipping company. I hope they turn up when they say they're planning to, especially since I'm going to be getting up extraordinarily early (i.e. 8 am) just so that I don't miss the delivery!

Episode 615: First Book Review For Evolve Journal

So naturally, I went and found Lenka's album, My Cassette Player, after I got home at 4 am. (Random fact: It was released on my birthday.) I don't think any of the other songs are as catchy as 'Satellite', but as a whole, the songs have that quirkiness that will appeal to quite a fair number of people, I should imagine. I did manage to wake up in time for church this morning, and then spent the afternoon after that playing The Settlers Of Catan at John's place. Wasn't all fun and games today though, as I had to finish the book review for Evolve Journal. Have just done so, and I think it's pretty okay. It's going to be published on Wednesday, so I'll provide a link to it then. Am now catching up on Doctor Who, while writing a poem I had an idea for a couple of nights ago but didn't note down. (It's a lot more tedious to type out drafts in a Nokia 6610 with a wonky keypad than you might think! Hopefully, I'm going to get my N95 evaluated for repair tomorrow, and this state of affairs won't last.) It seemed interesting at the time, so I'm going to try and work it out in full.

Episode 614: Eurovision 2010!

Just watched Eurovision for the first time at Kathy's place with a bunch of other people. Was initially rooting for either Greece or Turkey to win (we printed out our own scoring cards), but then Germany's entry came on, by the end of which Christian and I were sold on her. Turns out the rest of Europe agreed, as Lena Meyer-Landrut was crowned the winner for the very catchy 'Satellite'. The commentator described her as being like Björk, Lily Allen and Gabriella Cilmi, which is somewhat of an exaggeration, although I can totally see where he was coming from. I also thought her weird Irish-American accent when singing was very cute, although it's really odd how she pronounced 'day' with an Irish brogue but reverted to a more typical pronunciation for 'way', when she really should have been rhyming them. Oh well, at least she won. I would have been appalled if some of the other entries that proved so popular with the voters had won. I mean, it's okay to like cheesy music, but some of the songs raking in the votes were just abysmal or not really that deserving of so many votes! I was heartily amused by the UK's appalling performance. We had only just managed to claw our way into double-digit points at 10, when Belarus completely blew us out of the water by netting 12 in one stroke. Poor Josh Dubovie must be feeling so humiliated now...

Episode 613: Failed To Repair N95

So it turns out the N95 is still going to get me $100 if I trade it in at SingTel, so it's worth trying to get it repaired. Sophie's recommended this guy at the Royal Priors, but it's definitely going to cost more than what my parents suggested should be the maximum I pay to get it repaired. I'd prefer to get that done at a Nokia store in Singapore anyway, since then there'll definitely be no issue about trading it in when the times comes, but my parents think they don't check the internal parts, so it won't be an issue that I've bought and replaced the LCD screen myself. Oh well. This'll sort itself out eventually. I'm just annoyed that I could've fixed it myself, but I must have screwed up something at some point that all those how-to guides didn't warn me about. So that was the entire first half of the afternoon wasted. Have been spectacularly unproductive after that, which I'm going to try and rectify by reading the book I'm meant to be reviewing! First though, I just want to register my disappointment at the FlashForward series finale. I don't care if they filmed it expecting to be brought back for another season. It's possibly the worst finale I've ever seen. What kind of arrogance presumes that you're going to get a renewal and therefore are allowed to film a finale that answers the least important questions of the entire season, while throwing a few curveballs that blatantly angle for a second season? Someone out there has actually analysed why FlashForward deserved renewal compared to V, which actually got it, but sorry, that guy is just wrong. Granted, the first season of V was also quite trying as TV, so if the second season doesn't buck up, you can be sure it's going to get flushed too.

Episode 612: Getting Somewhere

So I was listening to Steve Appleton's When The Sun Comes Up while riding the 12 home from Roisin's birthday dinner and drinks in Leamington, and it suddenly struck me just how rare it is to hear commercially-oriented music being sung in a non-American accent. Yeah, pretty random, I know. I think this is definitely one of my favourite albums at the moment because it's so irrepressibly happy and upbeat. If I ever made music, I really wouldn't mind if it sounded like that. Could've stayed over at Christian's again, but I came home because I need to be up at a reasonable hour tomorrow to finish reading The Island At The End Of The World and make a stab at getting started on the review, as well as grabbing the titles for WSC and somehow getting started on my Harrix matrix assignment. (At some point, I should probably also think of starting revision.) I did come home to a very pleasant surprise in the form of an acceptance e-mail from The Cadaverine, so I am beyond happy right now. Oh, and if you ever get the chance, you should read Hart Crane's long poem, The Bridge. I just read aloud the last section, 'Atlantis', and I think it is exquisitely beautiful. Most of the time, my first reading of a Crane poem makes little to no sense to me, but it is always beautiful nonetheless.

Episode 611: Kissing Standing Up

Met Jerrick for lunch at Nando's and then did some shopping in Primark (two pairs of slim fit shorts) and Topman (two more of my favourite baseball t-shirts). Would have bought more shorts at Primark, but I wasn't quite prepared to venture into something other than solid colours. Spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in Starbucks, reading Paul Hyland's Getting Into Poetry, which I really wish I'd read before I ever sent off anything for publication because the bits in there dealing with that whole process really help to keep things in perspective. Met Dan after that and saw Mixed Things Theatre's Kissing Standing Up at The Tin Angel. I don't think I've ever been at a play as part of an audience of four, but I don't think the play was any worse off for that. It was an interesting piece of theatre, propelled predominantly by the energy of the cast, with some of the most odd breaking of the fourth wall I've ever encountered. Well, not that there were the standard three walls to begin with. Anyway, Randomly, I just saw a pretty impressive cover of Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' by Vice. Who'd have thought you could still find a boyband these days that can actually sing? You can check it out here.

Episode 610: Win Some, Lose Some

Have finished off another film review for Warwick Student Cinema because the Reviews Editor sounded like she really needed people to come forward and help out, and it's not like I've been using my time productively otherwise anyway. I also wrote that story I've been meaning to send in for that upcoming anthology from Six Sentences. I hope it gets selected, if only because how often do you see me writing a story with veiled references to prostitution? Just kidding. I really like Rob McEvily's site, and he's looked kindly on my work in the past, so I thought I'd support the anthology. I've also got the book reviewing gig at Evolve Journal confirmed, so I'm going to be reviewing Sam Taylor's The Island At The End Of The World to begin with. It was either that or China Miéville's The City & The City, but I'm thinking I'll save that for my next one. Of course, to balance out all this, the weather today has been crap compared to the past couple of days, and the lousy driving skills of a bus driver who was so ridiculously late to begin with also cost me the LCD screen of my N95. It's no longer under warranty, so I'm just going to get the screen off eBay and fix it myself. It doesn't look that difficult. Still, I think it's like some sort of cosmic sign that I should get a new mobile when I get back to Singapore. Don't you agree?

Episode 609: Tanning!

Second-time lucky with Asia Writes, who've taken a poem and a flash fiction that I've been shopping around and getting it rejected, so that's good. Their site is actually a really useful resource if you're an Asian writer. I think I'm pretty satisfied with how this round of submissions has gone in general now. In fact, it's probably been the most successful of the three major batches I've sent out since February! Anyway, to make the most of the blazing sun while it's still with us (clouds and rain predicted for the next week or so), for the second afternoon in a row, I took off my top in the back garden and tanned while reading Stephen Clarke, in an attempt to arrive back in Singapore browner than when I left. The problem with tanning in my back garden is that the shadow cast by the house keeps creeping towards me, so I have to keep shifting my chair every quarter of an hour. I was out for an hour and a half, but sadly, I don't think I'm any darker! Quite disappointed. I did finish reading Dial M For Merde, so that's Clarke's stuff done with. Am now going to alternate between Clive Barker and China Miéville, and somehow squeeze in revision. Oh, and more tanning if the sun comes back! Haha...

Episode 608: Amazon Associate

If you read this blog regularly, you might have noticed that there are a few more banners up there than usual. That's because I'm now officially an Amazon Associate, so I'm trying to drive more traffic to their website and get people to purchase stuff. So if you'd like to help me and you're going to buy something anyway, just click that banner. Of course, I'm only doing this at the recommendation of the editor of that reviewing gig that hasn't yet been confirmed (it's the main way we're going to get paid eventually), so I'll probably take it all down if that doesn't work out. On the other hand, I'm really getting into the whole idea of using the Internet to make money. Nothing too hard. Just lame things like completing polls and reading/rating badly written articles. We'll see how long I can stay interested. I just figured since I'm online so much, I might as well try and get some money out of it. The 12 was being diverted because of today's marathon, so I skipped the morning service at church and went to the combined Pentecost service at Coventry Cathedral. Was tempted not to go because the weather was so good and I just wanted to stay in my back garden, working on my tan. Apparently, the temperature is going back down to tolerable levels soon, but if the sun stays out, I'll be spending more time in the garden. Who knows? I might get back to Singapore more tanned than when I left it.

Episode 607: Duotrope's Digest

So early this morning, I got two acceptances within the space of 10 minutes. One was from escarp, which took a completely rewritten version of a haiku they'd rejected just hours earlier, and Milk Sugar, a new journal that's just gearing up to launch. I'm going to be self-deprecating and say that may be the reason why they took all the poetry I sent in, although that said, the editor's favourite was a poem that had in fact been rejected six times previously. 'Nights After Eden', one of those 20-liners I wrote for EN273. De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess? I also sent in that non-fiction piece I'd done about Singapore, which went down really well, so I suppose I've succeeded with what I set out to do there, as the Craigslist advertisement is tagged geographically as Harlem/Morningside. As to why I was on Craigslist, I was following a link from Twitter via Six Sentences, calling for submissions to a new anthology of six-sentence stories being put together. I've got till Wednesday to submit for that, which I fully intend on doing so.

As a result of feeling slightly insomniac, I then decided to start reporting my submissions and acceptances/rejections to Duotrope's Digest. As of this moment, my acceptance ratio over the past year (more like four months) is 12.87%, which is quite heartening, I think. As a result of all this updating of my Duotrope account, I went to bed at about 3 am, overslept, and missed the Archaeology lesson. I did intend to turn up today, I really did, but looking at the Harris matrix assignment and the Powerpoint slides, I can safely say that oversleeping was a sound decision, as the assignment looks doable, and this was after I'd looked through the slides once. May try to finish it on Monday, along with that story I'm meant to write. Oh, this just in. Camroc Press Review is taking 'Les Maudits', which has also had six prior rejections. I remember tweeting about wanting at least one acceptance to come in this week, so I guess I've got more than I was hoping for. I'm also this close to securing a regular book reviewing gig with a journal, also something I found through Craigslist. It's not a paid position, what compensation there is to be had being derived through what I can get by hooking myself up with Amazon Affiliates and presumably driving traffic to the books through my reviews. The editor seems open to the idea, but I'm worried the fact that I'm still in university rather than an aged graduate will count against me in the end.