I’ve previously raved over how much I love Janice Hardy’s blog, The Other Side of the Story. Imagine my joy when she invited me to do a guest post!

It went live last Wednesday: Fast Drafting, Fast Editing. Click for a peek at my writing approach.

Real Life:

Remember how I mentioned I was planning on getting a solo apartment? This is a bigger deal than it sounds; it can take years to get a place in Amsterdam. I’m lucky and know a shortcut or two. Still, optimistically, I figured I’d be waiting a good six months or so.

… it took two weeks.

I’m moving in early October.

Those of you who know me know I’m a bit obsessive. This news kicked my obsessive gene into overdrive, and I’ve been doing nothing but apartment-related research and planning. That includes the important things–”what will my finances look like” and “how big is this place, exactly” and the slightly less important things.

Like, you know, the average price of a colander so I can put it on my obsessively detailed spreadsheet.

Also: researching the most environmentally conscious one-person dishwasher, building a 3D floorplan of the apartment layout to test out various furniture options, spending ten minutes on a color slider to find the hex codes for potential wall colors, running around Ikea, comparing TV specs…

I could go on. For a very, very long time.

(If anyone’s waiting for e-mail from me–this is why.)

Virtual Life:

Researching TVs lead me to research DLNA. I spent several minutes poking at Google to find out if my computer was DLNA certified.

Then I looked down at my hands on my keyboards, and specifically the hand that was covering the “DLNA certified” sticker that I’ve been staring at for over a year without realizing it.

Oh.

Anyway, all this research lead to my giddy discovery that I can wirelessly stream media to my Xbox from my PC.

And from my iMac.

And hey, apparently my Xbox recognizes my iPod if I hook it up, playlists and all.

Wait, I can push movies from my phone to my computer without Bluetooth!

Oohh, and the reason I haven’t been able to update to ICS was because I needed to do it via the computer and my phone kept pushing me to do it OTA…

And with ICS my phone can recognize my face when I try to unlock–that is SO COOL.*

Suffice to say, I am not nearly as tech-savvy as I like to think I am, given that I’m discovering these things so very, very late. Right now, though, I have a beautiful amount of equipment linked via my home network, and that set-up will be even sweeter once I move into the apartment with my new TV.

All of a sudden, I live in the future.

* Although every time my phone goes “Couldn’t find a face” I take another step towards my inevitable existential crisis.

Fictional Life:

Oh. Right.

Publishing.

I knew I was forgetting something.