The Agrinautica

   Continuing with the fourth and final installment of an index of last year's LJI entries...

Week 19: Open Topic 2010-03-23
Entry: A Rather Buoyant Scheme
Posted From: New York City, New York
Type: Essay, Steampunk, lots of hand drawn diagrams
Poll Outcome: Contestant-only write in / Gatekeeper vote: PASS
Notes: An idea that had initially come to me while 100 feet below the surface of the Red Sea several months earlier.

Week 20: "Playing House" 2010-03-30
Entry: Let's Play House
Posted From: The ROGUE BREWERY itself, in Newport, OR
Type: Fiction, fan-fic, film noir
Poll Outcome: 39 (9.0%), 46th overall
Notes: On crew dynamics in my new home, the 65' ketch Hawaiian Chieftain.

Week 21: "Hyperbole is Literally Hitler" 2010-04-06
Entry: Disappearing Bees
Posted From: Garibaldi, WA
Type: Several Mini Narratives
Poll Outcome: 46 (12.4%), 16th overall
Notes: "Hyperbole is Literally Hitler?!?!?!?!" Is a topic???? We were sure His Highness the Administrator must have certainly completely and utterly lost his marbles this time. Eventually after much talking among ourselves of "what the devil is Gary on about this time???" we decided the topic was "hyperbole" and he had just been a bit hyperbolic in wording it. So I wrote about hyperbole in media reporting on bee problems.

Week 22: "No Sight of Land" 2010-04-14
Entry: Third Watch
Posted From: Port Angeles, WA
Type: Narrative, nonfiction, recent personal story
Poll Outcome: Contestant only write in vote: PASS
Notes: A look at my shift as watch officer as we sailed up around the tip of the Olympic Peninsula earlier that morning.

Week 23: "Underdog" 2010-04-21
Entry: Pakicetus
Posted From: Sequim, WA
Type: Narrative, historical fiction
Poll Outcome: 45 (14.4%)*, 11th overall
Notes: Once upon a time in 53,000,000 BC...

Week 24: "Rolling Stop" 2010-04-29
Entry: The Fall
Posted From: Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA
Type: Narrative, nonfiction, personal story
Poll Outcome: 31 (12.4%), 30th otherall, ELIMINATED
Notes: An entry begun at nearly 2am in the aft cabin of the boat surrounded by empty beer bottles and whiskey glasses, written largely from memory about obscure historical facts, finished around 3 with revielle only four hours away... so I think I at least went out with style. (: Anyway, about the fall of the Byzantine Empire and then the subject kind of wanders around exploring the fall of the Roman Empire in other areas.

Week 24 Bonus Material: Getting Laid on the Boat -- The voice post I almost submitted for my entry instead. JUST DECLASSIFIED!
Notes: That abrupt end is me saying "ah this is crap" and hanging up (:

Official Fairwell Post: So Long and Thanks for All the Catfish

   Eliminated in the 24th round, putting me at 31st place overall. Averaged at 16.6th place in all public polls. Outlasted 86% of the 226 or so original contenders.


Totally Unrelated Picture of the Day

A picture from around the time I got eliminated -- 04/27 at Friday Harbor.

   After this last round of voting in LJ Idol, I was found 3 votes short of not being eliminated, and have thus found myself officially 20th out of 194, while the remaining 19 continue to duke it out.
   My goal this year was only to make Top 50, so I feel pretty good about my accomplishment. Without harping on it too much, I've come to feel that a lot of what it takes to get beyond this point is shameless scrambling for votes and I don't have any interest in playing that particular game. But I have enjoyed the LJ Idol experience and plan on doing it again next year. I thought about setting myself a new goal for next year, but decided its best just not to worry about that.
   See also, my idolist oriented goodbye post, and the official elimination post, wherein The Administrater says a few words, and then people proceed to mourn everyone but me.
   Anyway, I thought I'd go back and revisit all my entries from this season:

   Firstly of all, I thought it was interesting how many non-idol related entries were interspersed here the first few weeks, and those seem to drop off as Idol just takes over. d= oops. But also, as I note in my other entry, there are entries that are essentially essays, and there are entries that are narratives or personal stories. The overwhelming majority of idol writers seem to write personal stories. I almost never do that but its interesting to note that my first few entries are essays but I then switch to largely narratives to fit in with everyone else (also, writing a good essay is harder, but one can always come up with SOME kind of narrative). Anyway:

Week 0: "Introduction"
Entry: Our Protagonist
Notes: And a particularly dashing picture of myself.

Week 1: "Saying Goodbye"
Entry: Saying Goodbye ... When Your Family is Turned into Zombies!!
Type: Humorous Essay
Poll Outcome: 62 votes (7.9% of voters) *
Bonus Entry: Brainstorm Post
Notes: Still I think my favourite of my entries for this competition. Additionally, one can see in my brainstorm post a number of more traditional idol takes on the topic which I don't use.

Week 2: "I Don’t Care About Apathy: What I "Should" Care About – But Don’t"
Entry: (You) Should Care About, but Don't: People in Other Countries
Type: Essay, Moral/Philosophical
Poll Outcome: 60 votes (9.0%) *
Bonus Entry: Its/It's
Outtake Entry: Free Trade.. in Sports
Notes: My plan to not be controversial goes out the window with only the second topic. Lol.
See Also: Week 2 Rec List

Week 3: "Moment of Bliss"
Entry: A Light in the Dark Ages
Type: Narrative (Historical Fiction)
Poll Outcome: 45 votes (15.4%)
Notes: First time I'd ever posted any kind of fiction on LJ. I feel like I tried to cram far too much information into too small a space.

Week 4: "Mistaken Identity"
Entry: Life as a Sockpuppet
Type: Essay? (well its not a personal narrative because its not a narrative)
Poll Outcome: 40 (24.5%)
Bonus Entry: Meanwhile, in the Real World
Notes: I meant to emphasize "Where do you draw the line between mistaken identity and perception being reality (ie mistake or not what is identified is what is)" more. There was more to this entry than I think people probably realized, because this LJ was, in fact, actually originally created as a prank, but then grew into a normally-used livejournal. So I really am not entirely sure at what point it ceased to be a "sockpuppet" and became "real." (it did, however, never have anything to do with the silliness accused of it in that entry)


Week 5: [Open Topic]
Entry: Clone Wars: Apis mellifera capensis
Type: Essay, Scientific/Interesting Facts (bees)
Poll Outcome: 45 (16.5%)

Week 6: "Ghosts"
Entry: Reruns
Type: Narrative, Fiction
Poll Outcome: 37 (15.5%)
Notes: First entirely fiction piece I've ever posted to LJ

Week 7: "Hope"
Entry: The Hollow Hope
Type: Essay
Poll Outcome: 36 (15.5%)
Notes: Again I'm using "essay" as a catch-all for non-narrative. This was a slightly humorous walk through of how I come up with entry ideas. Additionally I attempted to make the whole thing an analogy to brewing, but it didn't really fit very well. Also the phrase "The Hollow Hope" is taken from the title of one of my law text books.

Week 8: "Ranting, LJ Style"
Entry: Ranting on LJ
Type: Essay
Poll Outcome: 37 (15.4%)
Notes: Complete with a poll (which indicates 62% of respondants blog to express themselves), and a gratuitous reference to my social life which I recall inserting entirely in an attempt to find a way to make my entries appeal to the "more personal" standards of other idolists.

Week 9: "Unprepared"
Entry: Getting Stung 130 Times
Type: Narrative, personal
Poll Outcome: 54 (20.5)
Notes: First and, I believe, only personal narrative I've entered for LJ Idol. I'm probably going to be returning to Redding to move more bees this week.

Week 10: "Giving Thanks"
Entry: Thanks a lot, Jackasses
Type: Essay, Personal
Poll Outcome: No Poll
Notes: I was already pissed off because my "e" key was liberally distributing extra "e"s, and my browser had just crashed losing an entry, so I wrote about all the people who had done seemingly mean or harmful things to me ... and how it has helped me.

Week 11: "You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Entry is About You"
Entry: The Vanity of Thinking the Entry is Not About You
Type: Essay
Poll Outcome: 41 (19.4%)
Notes:

Week 12: "Sexual Healing"
Entry: Healing Through Fire
Type: Narrative (Historical Fiction)
Poll Outcome: 40 (12.1%)
Notes: I don't know about you, but when I think "sexual healing" I think the Spanish Inquisition! ;D Also I started a bonus entry on this topic about an Inquisitor that actually used the institution of the inquisition to SAVE people from harsher punishments under the civil courts (true story!) .. but then I didn't get around to writing it. :[

Week Week 13: "My Favourite Story"
Entry: Stories
Type: Essay? (not narrative)
Poll Outcome: 51 (14.5%)
Notes: My least favourite entry for the season. d= My problem isn't with the execution, but with the fact that it didn't have a point. I hate entries without a point.

Emo-Snal Green Room Holiday Party!
Entry: Green Room Holiday Party!
Type: Accidental Blasphemy
Notes: Ah lets not forget this. Where I didn't realize "Green Room" was a carefully guarded proprietary element of LJ Idol. I thought it was just a fun concept, but apparently its high treason. Nevertheless it was 151 comments of fun. I stand behind that I had no conceivable reason to know it was forbidden to use the name "green room" in vain.

Week 14: "Irish Revisionist History" & "Holidays"
Entry: Irish Revisionist History
Type: Essay
Poll Outcome: No Poll
Notes: No one else was writing about "Irish Revisionist History" so I had to. Also, linked back to the Green Room Holiday Party for the "holiday" topic as a piece of "performance art."

Week 15: "Resolute"
Entry: Re-Solute
Type: Essay, Instructional
Poll Outcome: 44 (12.3%)
Notes: How to re-solute things. Another entry of my own I rather liked.

Other: LJists Converge!
Notes: On and around new years I get to meet fellow LJ Idolists supremegoddess1, blueashke, and of course, gratefuladdict.

Week 16: "Cracking Up"
Entry: Gettin Chicks
Type: Narrative
Poll Outcome: Unknown, Pass (Contestant Only Vote)
Bonus Entry 1: Video of Egg Hatching (if I knew I was actually going to write about the chicks at this point I'd probably have saved the video for the entry)
Bonus Entry 2: A Guide to Laughing on the Internet (if only the entry was mine!)
Bonus Entry 3: Earth Crackin (The Earth itself decides to join the fun with an impromptu earthquake while I'm writing my entry!!)
Notes: A remarkable number of bonus entries. And a fricken earthquake!

Week 17: "Colouring Outside the Lines"
Entry: A Moose Named Dennis
Type: Narrative, Fiction/Humorous
Poll Outcome: 77 (9.5%)* (third overall!)
Bonus Entry: Smurf Village
Notes: Another one of my very favourite of my entries. And yes superhappytime, that moose is named after you. One or two people asked me how the entry related to the topic. I say the entry itself is colouring outside the lines. Performance art my good man.

Week 18: [Open Topic]
Entry: And the Winner Is...
Type: Narrative, Fiction/Humorous
Poll Outcome: Unknown, Pass (Gatekeepers)
Notes: If there was one entry I wrote specifically for the idolist audience it was this one. But since it wasn't normal voting I'm not sure how many of them actually read it. )=
   LJ Idol Season Finale Steampunk Ball, what's not to love? Its got everything from Deloreans to G W Bush to vampires and a moose named Dennis.

Week 19: "Its Not What You Think"
Entry: Rainwater: Its Not What You Think
Type: Narrative (mostly)
Poll Outcome: 63 (8.3%)*
Notes: Persons as diverse as my own mother described the entry as "not his best" but dammit I think its a perfectly legitimate entry! :D

Week 20: "Blanket"
Prequel to Entry: "I heard bullets whistle, and there was something charming in the sound."
Entry: Blankets for Peace
Type: Narrative (Historical Fiction)
Poll Outcome: 72 (9.0%)*
Notes: Wasn't sure what to make of the lack of comments to the prequel. Wasn't sure if people thought I was making something scandalous up completely (the prequel isn't historical fiction so much as history, I don't think filled in a single thing from my own imagination), or just were at a loss for words. But there you have it: George Washington apparently supports pre-emptive strikes.

Week 21: "Love Means Never Having to Say..."
Entry: Finding the Meaning of Love 25, Lightyears From Here
Type: Narrative, Fiction
Poll Outcome: 72 (10.3%)*
Notes: I always include a lot of references, and I'm glad that people seemed to get a lot of them in this one. Additional things that no one commented on:
   The Ship: the Ex Animo. It's latin for "from the heart." I chose it because it (A) fit the theme of love, (B) was plausible that an interstellar expedition sent by an international Earth body would choose such a name and name it in a "neutral" language rather than any particular country's.
   The Crew: Capt Garrey (Gary), Helmsman Trogyev (Pilot Trog from A Moose Named Dennis), and Mark you'd have no reason to guess since its a common name but I used it as a reference to recently withdrawn Idolist lifeinamarble.
   The Location: Additionally, and in keeping with my usual habits of making up as little as possible, the planet in question, Fomalhaut does in fact exist, orbiting Alpha Pisces Austrini.

Week 22: "Getting Involved" or "Flying"
Entry: A New Beginning
Type: Narrative (scientific?)
Poll Outcome: 69 (18.5%)* (eliminated)
Notes: Or if I'd termed it "flying" I'd still be in. C'est la vie.

Any feedback on which entries you liked (or didn't) is always appreciated. (=

What Now?
   Return to regular programming? Going back through my entries to write up the above, like I mentioned, I was struck by how many non-idol entries there were interspersed in the beginning and how they dropped off. I was also struck by how much I happen to like my non-idol entries. I feel like I'm stuck in an idol style writing mode though so hopefully I can shake it off and find a happy medium again.
   Continued following of the remaining Idol contestants and writing to the topics as "the home game?" Probably.
   Also, its still three months away but I'm already looking forward to 30 in 30 VI. An entry a day for thirty days, are you epic enough? Consider yourself recruited! ;D
   And its not so much a blog thing (though I of course blog about it) but I'm also already getting excited for Epic Roadtrip 2009. More on that later but I'll be fishing for interested participants or persons interested in having us swing by.