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Word count: 385.

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 315.

Heartwarming youtube: The Message.

I've been sucked into Merlin, at least watching (girlchild loves it but gets scared when things get tense) and reading the fic, some of which is so good I had to rec it. It's an utterly ridiculous twisting of the Arthur stories, of course, and I'm still in love with the 12th century versions. But the characters in this are just so damn cute, I can't resist. Therefore, an OT4 icon, made by miakun, because I like them in any and every combination :-D

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 350.

A poem I found and love:
( On Etymology )

I did hear back from the mods, which I didn't expect. Basically, the problem was my tone. Oh, and the mod who actually suspended me and deleted my posts didn't read far enough back--or ahead--to notice that the thread had been and continued to be way off-topic.

I honestly didn't realize that TWoP had a long history of being faily. It's a shame, because I really liked the SGU snark, as well as the recaps of Flash Forward. Oh, well.

xposted to IJ and LJ

• Word count: 1,332.
  
  
• Interesting article: Clay Shirky's essay A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority. Authority thus performs a dual function; looking to authorities is a way of increasing the likelihood of being right, and of reducing the penalty for being wrong. This is, oddly, something I think about a fair bit -- probably because the university I used to work at is run by scoundrels and liars. Over and over again the president (or more often his horrible "spokeswoman") would say things that I absolutely knew weren't true. Even writing about it, years later, when I no longer work there, makes my heart race. Of course, living through the George W. Bush years was pretty much the same thing: liars, liars, liars. So what makes an authority the authority when you know that what they say isn't accurate? Looking to authorities might increase the likelihood of being right when the value of "right" has nothing to do with verifiable facts.
  
  
• Guilt still plagues me: Almost two years ago, I signed up for a story exchange and flaked out. I was having troubling writing anyway, and the prompts I received didn't spark anything. I felt horrible dropping out -- and have sworn off exchanges FOREVER as a result -- but I'm still glad I signed up because the person who got my prompts not only didn't flake out, she wrote a wonderful, wonderful story that I re-read again today: Salutation to the Dawn, a deeply romantic Ronon/Radek story with terrific world-building. Thank you, Pierson! I still love your story so much.

I had to start again, because the stand mike wasn't working. It'd be fine if I had a desk, but with it on my lap in the back bedroom, I get echoes, and it picks up the ambient noise every time I shift position.

So I started...and realized quickly that the mike that connects to the jack on my laptop apparently picks up the broadcasts from the Catholic radio station whose tower is about a block away. While there's a certain irony in having the Catholic station ruining my attempt to record the NC-17 slash, I'm getting down to the wire here, and this is not helping.

Fortunately, I don't pick the station up after sundown, which still gives me a fair chunk of recording time. I've also ordered a USB headset mike that should get here on Wednesday. I kind of wish there were an adapter so I could use the jack mike at work, because my headset is crap.

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 137.

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Word count: 1,024. Yay! No end in sight, though.

Okay, I should have known better. But I was enjoying the SGU thread on TWoP, with all of the lovely snark. And I appreciated the fact that most of the posters seemed to get why having sex in someone else's body was skeevy, and why it's problematic that the black guy in SGU is yet another Angry Black Man.

( Seriously--I should have known better. )

Current Mood: irritated

xposted to IJ and LJ

• Word count: 673!
  
  
• I just finished reading My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme, and I loved it. Who doesn't love Julia? I grew up watching her on PBS, and to this day my mother does a terrific imitation of her dropping the turkey, picking it up, and continuing to cook it. She was a fascinating woman and oh my, what a life she led.
  
  I also fell in love with her husband, Paul -- he reminded me a lot of my husband Webster, though Paul was in better health. The book is full of pictures that Paul took, and a few of them both; here is my favorite:
  
  

xposted to IJ and LJ

• Word count: 286. Plus I printed out what I have (17 pages) and am proofreading, and trying to figure out what's a story and what isn't. Poor Teyla.
  
  
• Stop being a wuss: How to make pie crusts the easy way. HAHAHAHA! Read the comments, too. I actually make a very good pie crust, and my recipe is not much different from this, though I don't use as much butter. Now I'm hungry for pie.

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 202.

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 258.

I used to watch "The Equalizer" every week. I loved Edward Woodward's character, who was a morally grey character that wasn't typical for the 1980's. Even though he was old enough to be my grandfather, I thought he had an incredibly sexy voice.

Years later, I saw the younger version of him in the original Wicker Man Despite the ridiculous campiness of the whole thing, I couldn't help feeling sorry for his rigid, uptight, clueless character in the end.

He was a damn good actor, and he'll be missed.

Current Mood: sad

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 263.

Doctor Who: made me cry.

Status: soooo sleepy

I'm not doing Yuletide this year. This year's deadline falls right when we'll be getting ready for our trip, and I didn't think I was going to have the bandwidth to deal with writing fic in a fandom I don't usually write in for a strict deadline. But I kind of miss being a part of all of the excitement.

On the other hand, my Podbang is going along pretty well. I HATE Audacity, I really do. It's not easy to use--why in the hell can't you record over something, or stop and start without creating a new track?--and it crashes a lot and doesn't autosave. I'm about halfway through with 4 hours of recording, although a lot of that will need to be edited. Although I have limited times I can record, because of my wacky schedule, I can take my machine to work and edit on my lunch hour.

Everyone's very excited about AO3, and while I'm glad to see that it's in open beta at last, my two attempts to upload have been exercises in frustration. I still don't understand the tagging system--and yes, I have read zvi's post--but for me, having tags for genre and communities and specific elements of a fic all lumped into one cloud make it difficult to know how to tag my fic, and how to search for something I want. While I'm glad that the Archive is RPF-friendly, the design and implementation don't work very well for RPF. And I really don't like the warnings options, because they don't leave enough flexibility for the authors or provide clear, straightforward warnings for the readers. I may try again later, but right now, it's not working for me.

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2881

♥♥♥Doctor Who♥♥♥

Current Mood: impressed & drunk

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BIRTHDAY!

*twirls around*

And on top of it, I totally woke up with it's my party and I'll cry if I want to stuck in my head. *pets stupid brain*

...

Anyway. Now that the crazy insanity of the big picspam of doom is past [though not really, because there's a chance I might be making icons out of the images now. WHY CAN'T I QUIT, YOU, STUPID PRETTY IMAGES?], let's talk about television:

( How I Met Your Mother )

( Glee )

( Bones )

( Ugly Betty )

( Being Erica )

( Legend of the Seeker )

( V )

...

Yay, birthday!

:)

Current Mood: birthday!