Realm of the InterNutter

Thoughts, stories and ideas.

Finances, Fucked up, and Fuckassery

I'm still hovering around the halfway mark with the New Compy Fund. If I clean everything out at once, I'm just past halfway there at $1.8K and this is because my automatic payment to my personal funds got cancelled because I took it out of the wrong account.

It's sorted out, now. Don't fret.

And I forget how I got through $210 out of my emergency funds, but it was probably food or clothes.

My scrimpings are up by $340 thanks to the kind contributions of MeMum and her technophobia, and also cooking in bulk and hoarding the rest in the freezer.

My plans for this week include making a gigantic bone broth as the base for a stew, and chucking in any vegetables that I can get at an affordable price. I predict loads of cabbage. Or, at least, the cabbages that I can actually ingest.

And now for the fuckassery. It turns out that all my extant compy might need is a new hard drive, which will mean backing the whole thing up, dragging it to Chermside and the nearest Apple store, and getting them to fix it for WAY less than it would cost for a new one.

This will cost amazing amounts of time, because Apple never do anything real quick, and might still result in me needing to get a new compy anyway, so I'd rather have that $3K ready in the wings. Just in case.

You can help, too, if you like. You can buy my books in e-format or even that one in print or get hold of my Amazon Exclusive Novella. Whatever floats your reading boat. You can pledge at my Patreon for as little as a dollar a month, and gain access to all kinds of weird shit that I haven't placed into the public view. Or, if you just have spare money lying around, you can send it directly to "nutty (at) internutter (dot) org" via PayPal.

People who send or otherwise figure out how to contribute $500 will get some kind of contact details so we can hash out that book you want me to write. Since I'm in the home stretch with Rael, I do request that you let me get that one out of the way real quick. The end of that one is thirteen weeks away and it'll probably take that long to argue about world-building and characterisation. And I'll put it up on Google Docs so you can butt in any time you like.

Just think - this is probably the cheapest authorial commission you can get. I have done zero research on this and I just know it's true ;)

I've reblogged all my books for sale. Nobody buys the short stories. I might as well change their pricing this October for All Hallows Read. Even though they're not spooky at all.

Also, I need to get my Beloved to weigh in on my cover-so-far for this years' free Halloween story. Which, thanks to one of my Betas, may yet have a Spanish Translation.

Everything's turning up sort of cool, actually.

Challenge #01718-D257: Where Angels Fear

[Name] is a professional adventurer/planet saver with extremely acute hearing. The other speaker is their much calmer and more logical, though not necessarily smarter, best friend)

[Name] buried the pillow over their head and groaned.

“I can’t tell if those are gunshots or fireworks,” they whined.

“Do not be silly, [Name]. Fireworks are illegal on this planet.” -- RecklessPrudence

There's a reason why Iman Goodboy spends most of her time in her livesuit. She could control how much of the

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Running my arse off

Mayhem is a bit crook,so Miss Chaos is going to scenic Coominya to spend some time with her Nanna solo.

The travel arrangements are a teeny bit convoluted, but I will take anything that results in me not being tired off my arse for a lonely drive home.

...which is why I'm writing this blog entry at twenty past four in the morning.

Also because there's bad weather coming and I can feel it in the right side of my face.

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Challenge #01717-D256: Show of Faith

"Shhhhh." [Name] put a finger to both of their lips. "Let's just enjoy this. Things are going to be awful in a few hours, but right now I've tricked myself into thinking we can handle this. Let me bask in it." -- RecklessPrudence

The human had a mantra for everything that was going wrong. Human Steve was multitasking. Gathering and patching and applying gum and ductape as fast as their two hands could manage. The mantra was four words, "I can handle

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Rush'd

Okay, so Chaos has a fun run event at her school, I have the cleaners coming, and I have seven minutes before I have to go out and watch for the bus.

Don't expect a story before this afternoon.

I have 1000 words to write, which will happen after everything else, and my $20 patrons will have the finish of the last chapter and the beginnings of a new chapter to read! WOW!

Pledge yourself to be a Patron on my Patreon

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Challenge #01716-D255: One Pot Screamer

Hwell Barrow gets his hands on "knurd" that Discworld drink that you wake up sober with. He drank a Lot! -- Knitnan

Shayde is old enough to remember what 'Kickapoo Joy Juice' was, and when she or her friends were studying for extreme lengths of time, she had invented 'Kikyernuts Brain Fire'. Which was a carefully-calibrated mixture of every stimulant known to mankind at the time. In a dose so strong that it was fractionally short of being lethal. She had a

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Almost Holidays

There's today and tomorrow until two weeks' worth of slacking off, so of course both my little darlings are trying various tactics to get that time off early.

Mayhem is trying the "oh I'm sick, I'm dying, I need to stay home five-ever" routine. Quickly kiboshed with the household thermometer. Chaos was a little bit more clever and insisted I missed a day. Going to the extreme of pointing out a missing day in the communications book. This missing day was (a)

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Challenge #01715-D254: Beautiful Downtown Babel

It was gridlocked regularly, so they added another lane. Then more cars and trucks came. -- Knitnan

Once, there was a city. It was by a natural port, so it grew with the aim of trade in mind. The lanes and byways were made by horses and the places where people thought it would be convenient to have a building. Cars came, and things changed. Narrow little lanes that could afford a horse became places to build. Wide lanes became wider. Traffic

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Blurgh... murgh

Today is going to be a FML day. I know this because Beloved came home to bed at one in the morning and I spent most of my time since then attempting to snatch a fragment of sleep or three.

The only plus side is that I remember a dream I had that was "sort of" about Steam Powered Giraffe.

It was a procedural drama in which the cops in question were looking into the SteamPunk community and... some very familiar faces

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Challenge #01714-D253: Discrete Service

The Exclusive Tailors and Modistes, who outfit Super Heroes. And you can send up Mr Humphries of "Are you being served?" here if you like. -- Knitnan

The Client had been aiming for a Look. That much was established. They kept asking for the special offers, and turning down the items available to the public. Finally, after fifteen different ensembles, they said, "Maybe... something from the basement?"

Ah. That was why they were taking their time and being so indecisive. "Of course,

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Cheevs?

Sometime last week, I actually contributed to a fanfic. And that means that my $5 Patrons would be treated to a new WIP. If I had any $5 Patrons.

But I'm still putting it up because having stuff for my Patrons is important.

I've begun work on Shot #8 for SESP, and I might just have time to animate some of it all, this weekend. Powers know I've been more than a little slack about that. I have features and shots to

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Challenge #01713-D252: A Lesson For All

"Bellringer Sale! 80% off". Then the bell began to ring. -- Anon Guest

The luckless staffmember ringing the bell was on a stone plinth that served most of its time as a display area that could also be sat upon if a shopper was desperate enough. The shoppers were not desperate for a seat, right now. What they were desperate for was a bargain.

A rolling sea of humanity, flooding the area. A surge made of pure greed.

There were no staff

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My plate overfloweth

Which is a fancy way of saying I have a lot on my plate. I haven't even sat down to my email, yet, and it's gone ten AM.

Tonight's dinner is spagbol with zoodles instead of spaghetti. Stage one of which is making the tomato sauce. Which meant getting buttloads of tomatoes [2kg] and slow cooking them in vinegar with sweeteners and herbs. Once they break down, I'll blitz them and add the mince.

I've already got the cleaning 90% done.

Further

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Challenge #01712-D251: The One That Got Away

The sign said "Wet Paint". -- Anon Guest

It said it in English, and it said it whilst affixed to a filthy-looking wall. There was something incredibly suspicious about all of this. Especially since this was apparently a derelict in the middle of nowhere with no alarms, diverse or otherwise.

Some part of Jen was screaming, Honey trap! But it was in stiff competition with the part of her that was so very tempted to see if the sign was telling the

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Techie Day

I'm flying off across Brisbane to visit MeMum and hit all her tech with a hammer.

I also have to do Self-Shill Sunday [since Saturday was spent solely on cooking] and the daily Instant and queueing up tomorrow's Blasts From my Past.

And of course my compy likes to freeze at random times during all of this noise, delaying everything.

The good news is that the new batch of "muffins" seems to be a success. If burned a little.

To this bread

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