Australian Thunder... Finally!

I know what you're thinking. You're looking at the date on this photo and wondering why the hell it took me so long to post it. Apparently I went to the Thunder From Down Under show at the Excalibur in Las Vegas on 11/18/08, and I know I mentioned it to you ladies at the time because I posted blogs while I was there, but it has taken until now for me to get it on the blog.

This is the way my mind works. It's very slow sometimes. I tried taking a picture of the picture a while back so I could post it, but the quality was so bad I didn't want to use it.

Then along came Budley's birthday last May, and to celebrate the occasion, I bought him a new fax/copier/flatbed scanner/printer thingy, fully intending to use it to scan this photograph. In fact, I bought it mainly for that purpose--aside from the fact that our old fax/copier machine made me want to throw it against the wall every time I tried to use it.

But wait, that was in May of 2009, right? Right! It has now taken me a full TEN MONTHS to get around to trying the scanner. You see, I never seem to think of these things when I'm at home or Budley is home to ask him how to do it. I meant to do it Wednesday night, but I forgot. SO Thursday morning, while he was sitting at his desk checking something on his computer before he went to work, I finally remembered to ask him.

He had no clue, but handed me the owner's manual. After a quick look at the table of contents, I flipped to page 88 and read the instructions. I had been thinking of using my trusty Kingston thumbdrive to make the transfer, but, lo and behold! I discovered that I could put it straight on to the memory card that goes in my camera. After searching the house only to discover that the camera was buried under some stuff on my desk (remember the lost purple pillowcase from my Wickedly Romantic post? That's what it was hiding under) and then found that the card wasn't in it. It was in this little holder thingy that I have to use to transfer images to my computer because my card reader doesn't work anymore.

And so, with the card in hand, I went back to the scanner, read the instructions and made three scans of the photo using different quality settings. Then I took the card out, put it back in the little holder thingy and stuck it in my USB port, and opened the folder to view the pictures--and couldn't find them. I looked at every picture on the card and no Australian hunks! The I noticed that those scanned photos were in a different folder. I opened it and there they were!

I chose the 600 dpi version, and if you click on the pic, you'll understand why. See the charming fellow standing to my left? He's got a nipple piercing!!! I knew there was a reason I stood between those guys. Most of the girls chose to sit in the lap of the guy who is front row center, (he was the MC, but then did this really wild, raunchy dance on his own) or even lay across all three laps in the front row, but I picked the two cutest ones and said I wanted to stand between them. One of them commented, "Good choice!" when I told them that, too.

And so, for perhaps the first--and only--time in my life, I had my arms around two half-naked Australian hunks. I will say here that instead of hot, pulsating flesh, those boys were COLD!!!! No wonder their nipples were standing at attention!

But no matter. It was all good, and well worth the wait and the twenty bucks I had to fork over for the photo, as I'm sure all of you ladies, and possibly a few of you guys, (Eat your heart out, Stewy!) will agree. Now that I know how to use the scanner, no photo will be exempt from the blog. Of course, it will probably take another ten years to scan them all.

Yeah, right. Like I've got nothing better to do. . .

And now for the big news!

As many of you may already know, I signed with Sourcebooks without ever getting an agent. Since then, all I've heard from just about everyone is, "GIRL, YOU NEED TO GET AN AGENT!" Well, yesterday, I finally did it. I am very happy to report that I will now be represented by Melissa Jeglinski of The Knight Agency! This means that I will have someone working on selling that stockpile of manuscripts I have squirreled away in my hard drive. (And yes, they are backed up several different places!) I have already sent her two of them to look at and I'm hoping she will like them. Granted, they aren't about Zetithians, but they're pretty hot just the same! And, yes, Nancy, I sent her The Boy at the Bar! No promises or anything, but it's a start!

Then I just had to get out of the house, so I walked down to the mailbox and found the dress I had backordered for the RT convention waiting for me and spent the rest of the afternoon playing dress-up.

And THEN, as if that wasn't enough, Fed Ex came with my ARC's of Hero! They are absolutely, positively gorgeous. I love the blurb on the back,too.

Whew! What a day! TGIF!!!!