North

A few weeks ago, after a ton of headaches with our ex-landlord, Jess and I decided to send a complaint to the Virginia Fair Housing Office.

If something came of it, cool. If not, well, we're unjustifiably out $200, but the world goes on, and we tried.

However, a nice woman from the aforementioned Fair Housing Office called today and said that though they can't do anything about it, the issue resides with Consumer Affairs, and she forwarded all of the materials to them.

Glad to know something at least got done from the initial step. We'll see what happens from here.

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Had six contests and open reading periods originally for October, but I decided to wise up, for a few reasons, and get that down to four, which I think is a good number.

I've done some good work on it in the past month I think. I've been looking closely at a lot of things I was never really cognizant of before, and I think it's helped. I also don't understand the complete hatred of gerunds in poetry. I've heard it all before... but when a gerund needs to be there, it needs to be there. Simple as that.

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I found some pretty awesome paintings that feel like they could be a cover for Ghost Lights, but I'm not getting my hopes up, since I have no idea about the workings of obtaining cover art. But it's still fun to start looking around and having paintings, colors, and fonts in my head.

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Luke has given me a shout out before for getting a good number of poems accepted in a relatively short amount of time, and he certainly deserves the same right now.

I'm sure you'll be seeing his book around soon enough. All signs point to it.

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Speaking of which, I got two good rejections ("These made it to the last round, but we decided against them") in the last week or so for the last three unpublished poems in the second manuscript. Usually that means, at least in my experience, that sooner or later they'll get picked up by someone else.

Rejections, though many would disagree, can sometimes be a great thing.

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The new Doveman record, The Conformist, is one that will most likely be spinning for a while. It's a record that one can immediately attribute to other bands and artists as far as influences, but it has its own great thing going on. Check out Footloose too if you haven't, especially if you're a fan of the original soundtrack.

Also been enjoying the new Tegan and Sara disc, Sainthood. They're damn good at writing short pop songs that stick in your head, but there's more to each one upon each subsequent listen.

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I don't understand the hype around Paranormal Activity.

Has anyone seen The Gate? Yes, with Stephen Dorff. From 1987. 22 years later, that movie still freaks the shit out of me.

I guess Paranormal Activity pisses me off mainly because it's one of those "Let's take aspects from 25 different movies and try to claim it as our original film," and the comparisons are obvious if you've seen enough horror movies.

Once you understand the gimmick, and how it's clearly going to escalate each time the camera sits there and fast forwards until the, you guessed it, paranormal activity, it just becomes tedious to sit through. Though I applaud trying to make their relationship have a seemingly deeper element to it as related to all that's happening around them, it's another obvious plot point that you can see through from the very beginning.

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As far as hyped movies go, I thought Up was pretty incredible. I was actually kind of blown away. I love when hype's warranted.

How the hell they came up with that script is beyond me. I still think there had to have been illegal drugs involved. Either way, Pixar continues to kick ass.

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We had a brief stint of snow a week or two ago, but nothing since then. The leaves are falling as we speak, and I actually have the window open near me as I write this.

I'm enjoying the fresh air now, because I have a feeling this weather's going to change soon. And quickly.