![[dreamwidth.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_other.png){kind=small}
So, today is the day of doom for Windows 7. Which is why I spent most of the weekend creating a brand new clean install to run under VMware Fusion on my Mac, just in case Microsoft decide to amuse themselves by turning off the activation server as well as discontinuing security patches for anyone not wanting to pay them lots of extra money. The intention is to use this for all those old Microsoft Publisher files that I very occasionally need to open because there’s no Mac program that can do it, and a bunch of Sims 2 game modification tools that are Windows only (but can still be used to mod my Mac game if I drag and drop, then copy back again). And that’s about it. I liked Microsoft Money in its day, and never actually replaced it, but I’m about 10 years behind on entering my bank account transactions, so I think the moment has passed.
I’m not too fussed about security, as the plan is to disable its network connection to anything other than the iMac it runs on once any software requiring activation has been installed. But I’m too exhausted to do those installs right now. After the mind numbing process of installing three years of security updates on Sunday I need a break. In typical Microsoft fashion the OS can only see one month’s security bundle at a time, so you have to slowly find and hide each one in turn from December 2019 to October 2016, and then unhide them one at a time in the right order to install them. It took hours. I was never so glad in my life to finish, hit suspend and go back to the comforting embrace of macOS.
Mind numbing work doesn’t require a lot of attention though, so I burned through a fair number of episodes of Lucifer while I was doing it.
Amazon tricked me into a Prime subscription about a year and a half ago, by hiding the non-Prime purchasing link in teeny tiny non-obvious text. I cancelled the trial immediately out of sheer pique of course, but they kindly did it one day before the start of the US Open tennis, so I watched a lot of tennis over the next couple of weeks and also burned through a couple of seasons of various shows before the cancelled trial disabled itself at the end of the month. I then got Netflix last January when Titans dropped, watched that, moved on to other things, and pondered a few other shows for a later date. Lucifer was one of them, since seasons 1-3 were locked away on Amazon, which meant Netflix’s season 4 would have been a bit of an odd starting point. But a bunch of Amazon purchases in late November that were expensive enough for it to be convenient for them to be delivered while I was home rather than propped up on the doorstep in full view, plus the fact that most tennis coverage has moved to Prime and no longer needs subscriptions to 5 different channels or services prompted me to try Prime again, this time with no trickery involved. So I’m currently working my way through Amazon Prime Lucifer before moving on to Netflix Lucifer.
It’s been a long time since I read Hellblazer and its various spinoffs, but our devil is a little different from how I remember him, other than that extended holiday from Hell. I’m not sure who came up with the idea of turning his show into a police procedural (or what they were smoking/drinking at the time), but it actually works surprisingly well. Eventually the case of the week gets submerged into the general lives of the characters, as they make more and more connections between each other. Sometimes the show gets dark, often it’s funny. And I’m in awe of Tom Ellis’s eyeliner. I wish mine looked as good.
Devils actually seem to be my theme for streaming media. My One True Show of the moment is Daredevil, which I adore and keep coming back to do rewatches of.
I’m not too fussed about security, as the plan is to disable its network connection to anything other than the iMac it runs on once any software requiring activation has been installed. But I’m too exhausted to do those installs right now. After the mind numbing process of installing three years of security updates on Sunday I need a break. In typical Microsoft fashion the OS can only see one month’s security bundle at a time, so you have to slowly find and hide each one in turn from December 2019 to October 2016, and then unhide them one at a time in the right order to install them. It took hours. I was never so glad in my life to finish, hit suspend and go back to the comforting embrace of macOS.
Mind numbing work doesn’t require a lot of attention though, so I burned through a fair number of episodes of Lucifer while I was doing it.
Amazon tricked me into a Prime subscription about a year and a half ago, by hiding the non-Prime purchasing link in teeny tiny non-obvious text. I cancelled the trial immediately out of sheer pique of course, but they kindly did it one day before the start of the US Open tennis, so I watched a lot of tennis over the next couple of weeks and also burned through a couple of seasons of various shows before the cancelled trial disabled itself at the end of the month. I then got Netflix last January when Titans dropped, watched that, moved on to other things, and pondered a few other shows for a later date. Lucifer was one of them, since seasons 1-3 were locked away on Amazon, which meant Netflix’s season 4 would have been a bit of an odd starting point. But a bunch of Amazon purchases in late November that were expensive enough for it to be convenient for them to be delivered while I was home rather than propped up on the doorstep in full view, plus the fact that most tennis coverage has moved to Prime and no longer needs subscriptions to 5 different channels or services prompted me to try Prime again, this time with no trickery involved. So I’m currently working my way through Amazon Prime Lucifer before moving on to Netflix Lucifer.
It’s been a long time since I read Hellblazer and its various spinoffs, but our devil is a little different from how I remember him, other than that extended holiday from Hell. I’m not sure who came up with the idea of turning his show into a police procedural (or what they were smoking/drinking at the time), but it actually works surprisingly well. Eventually the case of the week gets submerged into the general lives of the characters, as they make more and more connections between each other. Sometimes the show gets dark, often it’s funny. And I’m in awe of Tom Ellis’s eyeliner. I wish mine looked as good.
Devils actually seem to be my theme for streaming media. My One True Show of the moment is Daredevil, which I adore and keep coming back to do rewatches of.
It’s been a while (years, even), but I finally figured out what to do about having imported more icons from my Livejournal permanent account than I had slots for here; I’ve stumped up for a paid DW account. That gives me a few slots in hand to juggle around, so I shall probably switch out the ones I don’t care overmuch about any more, and add a few for more current interests. At some point I also need to switch my default icon from my “road trip” stuffed toy Krycek mouse to something a little less like vacationing and a little more like settling in.
Because the other point of buying a paid account is that I want to use it as a motivational device to get myself around to posting again. I’ve dabbled with posting on various forums, and have emitted the occasional non-personal sarky one-liner on Facebook, but I’ve never found a fannish forum for interaction that I really like as much as the LJ style blog post with threaded comments. As there are still a few folks around, I reckon I’ll try to rejoin them.
The impetus for this latest post is a flurry of emails over the past couple of weeks with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rozarka, by the end of which I was getting into the swing of Britpicking for HP again, and feeling the urge to dig out some of the various random chunks of story I’ve written over the years and try to turn at least a couple of them into completed stories. Though there’s the fear factor to be considered. I was a couple of thousand words into a Daredevil fic last summer, when it suddenly turned out to be cursed. Every time I opened the file to work on it my work phone would ring within minutes and I’d end up in a several hour conference call in the middle of the night. As I’m more of a fan of sleeping and having evenings and weekends than finishing stories, the fic had to go on temporary hold. one day I may consider it safe to go back to it, but I need to build my nerve up first.
Other than looking after some intermittently wobbly servers, I’m doing okay right now. I hope everyone else is too. A very happy New Year to everyone.
Because the other point of buying a paid account is that I want to use it as a motivational device to get myself around to posting again. I’ve dabbled with posting on various forums, and have emitted the occasional non-personal sarky one-liner on Facebook, but I’ve never found a fannish forum for interaction that I really like as much as the LJ style blog post with threaded comments. As there are still a few folks around, I reckon I’ll try to rejoin them.
The impetus for this latest post is a flurry of emails over the past couple of weeks with
rozarka, by the end of which I was getting into the swing of Britpicking for HP again, and feeling the urge to dig out some of the various random chunks of story I’ve written over the years and try to turn at least a couple of them into completed stories. Though there’s the fear factor to be considered. I was a couple of thousand words into a Daredevil fic last summer, when it suddenly turned out to be cursed. Every time I opened the file to work on it my work phone would ring within minutes and I’d end up in a several hour conference call in the middle of the night. As I’m more of a fan of sleeping and having evenings and weekends than finishing stories, the fic had to go on temporary hold. one day I may consider it safe to go back to it, but I need to build my nerve up first.Other than looking after some intermittently wobbly servers, I’m doing okay right now. I hope everyone else is too. A very happy New Year to everyone.
It's been a quite scary number of years since I last made a post to my LiveJournal. Stuff was happening, and every post I made in my head that referenced it seemed to come out whiny. I didn't want to seem like I was in constant doom and gloom mode, not least because I wasn't, so I aborted those posts. Of course, the longer I went without posting the harder it got to do it again, which led to my extended hiatus. I've continued to read and do occasional flurries of drive-by commenting though.
Anyway... I have stirred myself sufficiently to get around to mirroring my journal to Dreamwidth, where I'mmuridae, and anything I post from now on will be crossposted to both places, for now at least.
Because, having rearranged the deckchairs at least that much, I think I will try to wrap my brain around the concept of posting again. But first I need to check to see whether all my posts and comments made it across intact, juggle filters, and figure out what I do about having more icons than I have room for at Dreamwidth.
Anyway, hello again to anyone who sees this at either site, and feel free to add me at Dreamwidth as I suspect that will end up being my primary site going forward.
Anyway... I have stirred myself sufficiently to get around to mirroring my journal to Dreamwidth, where I'm
muridae, and anything I post from now on will be crossposted to both places, for now at least.Because, having rearranged the deckchairs at least that much, I think I will try to wrap my brain around the concept of posting again. But first I need to check to see whether all my posts and comments made it across intact, juggle filters, and figure out what I do about having more icons than I have room for at Dreamwidth.
Anyway, hello again to anyone who sees this at either site, and feel free to add me at Dreamwidth as I suspect that will end up being my primary site going forward.
* happy Dolphin noises *
That finale was everything I wanted from it and more.
That finale was everything I wanted from it and more.
Crowded House!!!
♥♥♥
*happy sigh*
How did I manage to never see them live before? Thank goodness that omission has been resolved.
It'd have been worth it for the illuminated geese alone, but the gig was rather good too. :-)
♥♥♥
*happy sigh*
How did I manage to never see them live before? Thank goodness that omission has been resolved.
It'd have been worth it for the illuminated geese alone, but the gig was rather good too. :-)
Movie nostalgia
8 June 2010 18:01Yawn. Is it bedtime yet?
Yesterday I succeeded in configuring Handbrake so it would convert NTSC films to mp4 format without the audio going out of sync. Success! Yay! The downside of that is that I then stayed up until the wee small hours watching Captain Blood (now without extraneous mouth flapping) and am tiiiiiiiiirrrrrrreeeeeeed.
As I have also converted The Sea Hawk, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex I may be embarking on a bit of a Flynn rewatch.
Yesterday I succeeded in configuring Handbrake so it would convert NTSC films to mp4 format without the audio going out of sync. Success! Yay! The downside of that is that I then stayed up until the wee small hours watching Captain Blood (now without extraneous mouth flapping) and am tiiiiiiiiirrrrrrreeeeeeed.
As I have also converted The Sea Hawk, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex I may be embarking on a bit of a Flynn rewatch.
Um... hello, 2010?!
23 May 2010 21:04Despite possible appearances to the contrary, I have not dropped off the face of the earth. I haven't decamped to Dreamwidth, or Facebook, or any of a dozen other social networking sites. I am still here at Livejournal, reading posts, and sometimes commenting on them.
I just seem to have got out of the habit of writing posts of my own.
I think I've been waiting to have something interesting to say, or something that isn't a great long lament about the horrors of cowboy builders. All last year and for the early part of this, I could have written a (friends locked) post a week on that subject, but it would have been depressing for me, let alone anyone else, so I didn't. I'll probably still get around to writing one on the subject, but as the downward spiral has hit an upswing over the past few months, I might shoot for an upbeat tone.
In the meantime, I've decided to write a post just-because. I don't necessarily have anything of great import to say, but we're nearly five months through the year and I haven't posted anything yet so I figured I should at least wave at the world and say "hi".
A few random, scattershot thoughts in bullet form:
* I'm going to see Crowded House in a couple of week's time. Whee!
* I'm generally liking this season's Doctor Who (and loving Matt Smith's Doctor a lot, as he's more or less exactly what I hoped his Doctor would be, youthful looking with old eyes and an older soul). But there's something not-quite-there-yet about it, just a missing extra spark that would tip me over from liking it a lot to outright obsession. I'm hoping it'll get there at some point. C'mon Moff, you can do it.
* A little less plot recycling would be nice, too. It was very nice, during this week's Doctor Who episode, to finally get to see "Inferno", "The Daemons", "The Green Death" and "The Silurians" in glorious HD widescreen... but I can't help thinking that Chris Chibnall really ought to have shared the writing credit with Malcolm Hulke, Don Houghton, Robert Sloman and Barry Letts, since they wrote most of the plot for him.
* I wish they had recycled theSilurians' Eocenes' third eye and big ears though. Pretty though the new lizard race are, there's really no reason why they couldn't have done a revamp of the original look with better face masks and less man-in-rubber-suit look.
* I was mostly okay with the Supernatural finale, because it took the characters pretty much where I'd expected them to go. But the last few episodes were the season in macrocosm; messy as hell, with the pacing all over the place. I'm hoping for a less uneven ride when September and season six rolls around.
* I have just set my alarm clock for 4:45am tomorrow morning. Eep! But I feel it's my duty to support this wacky simulcast with the US West Coast notion that Sky One is trying out for the Lost finale. I wouldn't necessarily want to watch all my US shows at dawn, you understand, but if the viewing figures are good enough maybe TV channels will take note and we'll get more and more shows broadcast the same week as the US. And it'd be even better if they could broadcast them the evening following the US transmission, since then those of us who are fannish on the internet only need to avert our eyes from spoilers for a few hours.
I just seem to have got out of the habit of writing posts of my own.
I think I've been waiting to have something interesting to say, or something that isn't a great long lament about the horrors of cowboy builders. All last year and for the early part of this, I could have written a (friends locked) post a week on that subject, but it would have been depressing for me, let alone anyone else, so I didn't. I'll probably still get around to writing one on the subject, but as the downward spiral has hit an upswing over the past few months, I might shoot for an upbeat tone.
In the meantime, I've decided to write a post just-because. I don't necessarily have anything of great import to say, but we're nearly five months through the year and I haven't posted anything yet so I figured I should at least wave at the world and say "hi".
A few random, scattershot thoughts in bullet form:
* I'm going to see Crowded House in a couple of week's time. Whee!
* I'm generally liking this season's Doctor Who (and loving Matt Smith's Doctor a lot, as he's more or less exactly what I hoped his Doctor would be, youthful looking with old eyes and an older soul). But there's something not-quite-there-yet about it, just a missing extra spark that would tip me over from liking it a lot to outright obsession. I'm hoping it'll get there at some point. C'mon Moff, you can do it.
* A little less plot recycling would be nice, too. It was very nice, during this week's Doctor Who episode, to finally get to see "Inferno", "The Daemons", "The Green Death" and "The Silurians" in glorious HD widescreen... but I can't help thinking that Chris Chibnall really ought to have shared the writing credit with Malcolm Hulke, Don Houghton, Robert Sloman and Barry Letts, since they wrote most of the plot for him.
* I wish they had recycled the
* I was mostly okay with the Supernatural finale, because it took the characters pretty much where I'd expected them to go. But the last few episodes were the season in macrocosm; messy as hell, with the pacing all over the place. I'm hoping for a less uneven ride when September and season six rolls around.
* I have just set my alarm clock for 4:45am tomorrow morning. Eep! But I feel it's my duty to support this wacky simulcast with the US West Coast notion that Sky One is trying out for the Lost finale. I wouldn't necessarily want to watch all my US shows at dawn, you understand, but if the viewing figures are good enough maybe TV channels will take note and we'll get more and more shows broadcast the same week as the US. And it'd be even better if they could broadcast them the evening following the US transmission, since then those of us who are fannish on the internet only need to avert our eyes from spoilers for a few hours.
What the world really needs. The End of Time bingo cards.
On the Digital Spy forums I've seen it referred to as "The End of Tripe", which pretty much sums up part one. I'm hoping for better things from part two. Not expecting them, mind, since RTD and season finales/extra special episodes tend to be the kind of road accident you'd want your very own TARDIS in order to get as far away from as possible. But I can always hope that Steven Moffat has presented him with a wishlist of things he'd rather like to still have standing in the Who universe after the dust settles and the TARDIS keys are handed over, can't I?
Though right now I think I'd settle for ( spoilers from part one )
In the meantime, as I am on call tomorrow but probably only in a "be available if disaster strikes" kind of way, I am contemplating spending the day in preparation by having a Regeneration Episode Marathon. The thing is, dare I brave "The Twin Dilemma"?
On the Digital Spy forums I've seen it referred to as "The End of Tripe", which pretty much sums up part one. I'm hoping for better things from part two. Not expecting them, mind, since RTD and season finales/extra special episodes tend to be the kind of road accident you'd want your very own TARDIS in order to get as far away from as possible. But I can always hope that Steven Moffat has presented him with a wishlist of things he'd rather like to still have standing in the Who universe after the dust settles and the TARDIS keys are handed over, can't I?
Though right now I think I'd settle for ( spoilers from part one )
In the meantime, as I am on call tomorrow but probably only in a "be available if disaster strikes" kind of way, I am contemplating spending the day in preparation by having a Regeneration Episode Marathon. The thing is, dare I brave "The Twin Dilemma"?
Oh look. Here. I have a brand new icon for that. Hello TARDIS, hello reindeer.
Many thanks for the snowflakes,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thimble_kiss and phantomminuet. As soon as I can wrap my brain around the concept of the internet again, I may be sending out a few of my own, to share the love.
Because snow is infinitely preferable to rain, which is what we have here right now. I went from dry to my best impersonation of a drowned rat in just the five minute walk from the station to my front door. And then, while fumbling for my keys, I heard the clatter of something falling out of the front pocket of my handbag and skittering across the path into hiding. Argh. Darkness and rain does not make it easy to find anonymous little skittering things, especially when you can't figure out what they were. I'm hoping it was just a hairslide. Please let it be just a hairslide. I know I had one in that pocket at some point and it's not there now, and the sound of the clatter was about right for that. At least it doesn't seem to have been any of the several Really Important Things that were top of my shortlist of Stuff I Really Don't Need To Lose Under A Hebe.
Further investigations will have to wait until morning and daylight as I appear to have lost my sole remaining torch, and the light of an iPhone screen isn't exactly adequate for the task. And probably shouldn't be allowed to get that wet anyway. (Memo to self: give up waiting for the torch to magically reappear and Buy Another One ASAP. Then it will reappear, and you'll have a spare.)
Snowflakes aside, I'm not nearly ready for Christmas, having spent two consecutive weekends on the sicklist. I think I'm giving up cold medication, as it doesn't appear to agree with my stomach. Blech. Thankfully I'm finally feeling moderately human again, which means that I can turn to panicking about all the cards and presents I haven't sorted out yet. Eek.
And getting my car taxed, tested and reinsured. Eek.
And the shopping list of other odd jobs and commitments I need to get around to. Eek. Some of which are moderately urgent. Double eek.
Would someone like to buy me some organisational skills for Christmas?
I'm slightly concerned that my brain may be irreparably addled, as I'm finding myself liking the BBC's ploddingly cracktastic Paradox better than FlashForward at the moment. What this probably means is that I should axe both of them from my viewing list, but in fairness to the latter I haven't seen its final episode of the year yet since (a) my brain was in snooze mode when it aired last Monday and (b) the episode before it was an exercise in dullness, ( possible spoilers, I guess ) I think I'm basically now watching for each episode's brief glimpse of Jack Davenport, which is not really enough reason in itself to carry on.
Though I am feeling sadly bereft of Supernatural until it returns on 21 January, so I need something other than Spooks to watch in the meantime. I'm watching Blake's 7 and Lois & Clark on video, as part of my attempt to cull my bookshelves by watching and ditching the remainder of my VHS tapes, but both programmes definitely look rather dated now.
Many thanks for the snowflakes,
thimble_kiss and phantomminuet. As soon as I can wrap my brain around the concept of the internet again, I may be sending out a few of my own, to share the love.Because snow is infinitely preferable to rain, which is what we have here right now. I went from dry to my best impersonation of a drowned rat in just the five minute walk from the station to my front door. And then, while fumbling for my keys, I heard the clatter of something falling out of the front pocket of my handbag and skittering across the path into hiding. Argh. Darkness and rain does not make it easy to find anonymous little skittering things, especially when you can't figure out what they were. I'm hoping it was just a hairslide. Please let it be just a hairslide. I know I had one in that pocket at some point and it's not there now, and the sound of the clatter was about right for that. At least it doesn't seem to have been any of the several Really Important Things that were top of my shortlist of Stuff I Really Don't Need To Lose Under A Hebe.
Further investigations will have to wait until morning and daylight as I appear to have lost my sole remaining torch, and the light of an iPhone screen isn't exactly adequate for the task. And probably shouldn't be allowed to get that wet anyway. (Memo to self: give up waiting for the torch to magically reappear and Buy Another One ASAP. Then it will reappear, and you'll have a spare.)
Snowflakes aside, I'm not nearly ready for Christmas, having spent two consecutive weekends on the sicklist. I think I'm giving up cold medication, as it doesn't appear to agree with my stomach. Blech. Thankfully I'm finally feeling moderately human again, which means that I can turn to panicking about all the cards and presents I haven't sorted out yet. Eek.
And getting my car taxed, tested and reinsured. Eek.
And the shopping list of other odd jobs and commitments I need to get around to. Eek. Some of which are moderately urgent. Double eek.
Would someone like to buy me some organisational skills for Christmas?
I'm slightly concerned that my brain may be irreparably addled, as I'm finding myself liking the BBC's ploddingly cracktastic Paradox better than FlashForward at the moment. What this probably means is that I should axe both of them from my viewing list, but in fairness to the latter I haven't seen its final episode of the year yet since (a) my brain was in snooze mode when it aired last Monday and (b) the episode before it was an exercise in dullness, ( possible spoilers, I guess ) I think I'm basically now watching for each episode's brief glimpse of Jack Davenport, which is not really enough reason in itself to carry on.
Though I am feeling sadly bereft of Supernatural until it returns on 21 January, so I need something other than Spooks to watch in the meantime. I'm watching Blake's 7 and Lois & Clark on video, as part of my attempt to cull my bookshelves by watching and ditching the remainder of my VHS tapes, but both programmes definitely look rather dated now.
Since apparently I need a 24 hour turnaround just to do commentfic.
However I have now written something during the month of November, so I don't feel quite as much of an abject failure as I did before. The fact that it's Supernatural crossover crack fic is irrelevant. Hey, it's all canon now after all!
I got two lovely responses to my "Sam and Dean trapped in Top Gear" prompt:mariana_oconnor's In which Sam is taller than Dean and the Impala is Sub Zero and saiariddle's All we know is: he's called the Stig!. Two different Stigs, too, which is entirely in keeping with the show's own modus operandi. :-)
And in return I wrote these:
( Sam and Dean trapped in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit ) - original here
( Sam and Dean trapped in Primeval ) - original here
However I have now written something during the month of November, so I don't feel quite as much of an abject failure as I did before. The fact that it's Supernatural crossover crack fic is irrelevant. Hey, it's all canon now after all!
I got two lovely responses to my "Sam and Dean trapped in Top Gear" prompt:
mariana_oconnor's In which Sam is taller than Dean and the Impala is Sub Zero and saiariddle's All we know is: he's called the Stig!. Two different Stigs, too, which is entirely in keeping with the show's own modus operandi. :-)And in return I wrote these:
( Sam and Dean trapped in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit ) - original here
( Sam and Dean trapped in Primeval ) - original here
I don't think I've been quite so concerned about the length of the run of filler episodes as some, largely because I categorise 5x06 as mytharc, albeit of the standalone variety, but I was still getting itchy wanting to get back to the main plot.
( SPN 5x08 )
( SPN 5x08 )
Randomness
5 November 2009 20:33One project ends, another one follows hard on its heels, with no advance warning. But at least we've moved on to projects that can be sensibly completed in normal working hours. Progress!
I may even have caught up on my sleep deficit.
Things that make me happy:
1. Three day weekend. Three. Days. Off.
2. "A Wind Is Blowing" by Monica Edwards, a book that I've only been trying to buy for 30 years, is now back in print and my copy of it arrived yesterday. *snuggles* My thanks go tolucie_p who kindly sent me her German edition of it a couple of years back as a stopgap, but there's really no substitute for the real thing, if only for the absence of a good colloquial translation for Jim's "Jumping gin bottles"! I'm hoping the book will stand up to my fond memories of it - I recall it as rather darker than her other stories, a tale of a staunchly independent boy on the cusp of manhood having to adapt to sudden blindness and how the fallout from that affected his family and his girlfriend, with a happy ending that was also bittersweet.
3. New Supernatural tonight. Or, well, tomorrow morning. With good word of mouth from people who've already seen it. And no work to interrupt my viewing pleasure.
4. Spooks is back. And so is ( spoiler spoiler spoiler )
5. After a month of struggling with back pain if I tried to walk more than half a mile in one go, I am suddenly miraculously cured. Not sure whether it's swapping from flat shoes to shoes with a low heel, not spending hours at home bent uncomfortably over the work laptop, or spending some time on Wii Fit at the weekend and reminding my body about proper posture that's done the trick, but it's a wonderful thing no matter how it happened.
On the more "eh" side of the scale:
1. I think I'm a bust on Nanowrimo this year. I dutifully picked up the computer and wrote about 700 words on Sunday, but there was no forward momentum and - perhaps more importantly - no real idea of where I was going to go for the next 49,300 words. The trouble is, I deliberately didn't put any effort into thinking about Nano for most of October, since it was entirely possible that the Project that Ate my Summer might have eaten November as well, and once I knew that it wouldn't, I only had a few days left to figure out what to write. Faced with one cherished project that needed more thinking time to figure out the details, things that were already part-written, and half a fanfic idea that showed signs of being able to last the distance, I had a stab at the fanfic, since it was the most tempting prospect. Big mistake. The voices weren't coming, and it definitely needs more spadework.
2. My kitchen is still a vision in cracked plaster. The year has got away from me and I still haven't managed to find someone to come in and replaster and paint it for me.
3. Next door's fireworks sound scarily close to my house. Take them down the end of the garden and away from my wooden conservatory, guys!
4. and 5. Apparently don't exist. More upsides than downsides. Result!
I may even have caught up on my sleep deficit.
Things that make me happy:
1. Three day weekend. Three. Days. Off.
2. "A Wind Is Blowing" by Monica Edwards, a book that I've only been trying to buy for 30 years, is now back in print and my copy of it arrived yesterday. *snuggles* My thanks go to
lucie_p who kindly sent me her German edition of it a couple of years back as a stopgap, but there's really no substitute for the real thing, if only for the absence of a good colloquial translation for Jim's "Jumping gin bottles"! I'm hoping the book will stand up to my fond memories of it - I recall it as rather darker than her other stories, a tale of a staunchly independent boy on the cusp of manhood having to adapt to sudden blindness and how the fallout from that affected his family and his girlfriend, with a happy ending that was also bittersweet.3. New Supernatural tonight. Or, well, tomorrow morning. With good word of mouth from people who've already seen it. And no work to interrupt my viewing pleasure.
4. Spooks is back. And so is ( spoiler spoiler spoiler )
5. After a month of struggling with back pain if I tried to walk more than half a mile in one go, I am suddenly miraculously cured. Not sure whether it's swapping from flat shoes to shoes with a low heel, not spending hours at home bent uncomfortably over the work laptop, or spending some time on Wii Fit at the weekend and reminding my body about proper posture that's done the trick, but it's a wonderful thing no matter how it happened.
On the more "eh" side of the scale:
1. I think I'm a bust on Nanowrimo this year. I dutifully picked up the computer and wrote about 700 words on Sunday, but there was no forward momentum and - perhaps more importantly - no real idea of where I was going to go for the next 49,300 words. The trouble is, I deliberately didn't put any effort into thinking about Nano for most of October, since it was entirely possible that the Project that Ate my Summer might have eaten November as well, and once I knew that it wouldn't, I only had a few days left to figure out what to write. Faced with one cherished project that needed more thinking time to figure out the details, things that were already part-written, and half a fanfic idea that showed signs of being able to last the distance, I had a stab at the fanfic, since it was the most tempting prospect. Big mistake. The voices weren't coming, and it definitely needs more spadework.
2. My kitchen is still a vision in cracked plaster. The year has got away from me and I still haven't managed to find someone to come in and replaster and paint it for me.
3. Next door's fireworks sound scarily close to my house. Take them down the end of the garden and away from my wooden conservatory, guys!
4. and 5. Apparently don't exist. More upsides than downsides. Result!
Argh. Bunnied.
23 October 2009 14:54I almost never get around to writing fanfic. I have a marginally better record with original fic, and the offline shared universe stuff I write with a couple of friends, but that's mostly because they know where I live and can come and poke me with pointy sticks if I don't get around to finishing it.
However the general fate of any fanfic I embark upon is for a couple of pages to get banged out in the first flush of enthusiasm/inspiration/creativity, after which it languishes half finished on my hard drive forever.
The thing is, despite the fact that I don't have a good record for producing fanfic, that doesn't stop the plotbunnies from coming along and bugging me anyway. Take this week, for instance. I'm up to my ears in work, putting in 12 hour days, expecting to lose vast quantities of sleep in the course of the weekend... so naturally the Supernatural plotbunny takes that as its cue to pop in to my brain and say "hi".
I suppose it was inevitable that the Supernatural bunny would show up at some point... but boy, it knows how to pick its moment. Or, perhaps that's it. It's decided to mug me while I'm distracted and sleep deprived and my defences are down. In which case, it's probably a demon plotbunny. From the pink eyes, probably a crossroads demon plotbunny.
*tries desperately not to make a deal*
The trouble is, it nudged aside the lettuce leaves I tried to distract it with and dived for the virtual bacon cheeseburger. And then uttered something about "Dean's laptop", cunningly appealing to me with the tech geek angle. And now I have a plot synopsis and everything. I am so doomed.
Probably doomed only to have to find disk space to house another half written fanfic, but still. Doomed.
However the general fate of any fanfic I embark upon is for a couple of pages to get banged out in the first flush of enthusiasm/inspiration/creativity, after which it languishes half finished on my hard drive forever.
The thing is, despite the fact that I don't have a good record for producing fanfic, that doesn't stop the plotbunnies from coming along and bugging me anyway. Take this week, for instance. I'm up to my ears in work, putting in 12 hour days, expecting to lose vast quantities of sleep in the course of the weekend... so naturally the Supernatural plotbunny takes that as its cue to pop in to my brain and say "hi".
I suppose it was inevitable that the Supernatural bunny would show up at some point... but boy, it knows how to pick its moment. Or, perhaps that's it. It's decided to mug me while I'm distracted and sleep deprived and my defences are down. In which case, it's probably a demon plotbunny. From the pink eyes, probably a crossroads demon plotbunny.
*tries desperately not to make a deal*
The trouble is, it nudged aside the lettuce leaves I tried to distract it with and dived for the virtual bacon cheeseburger. And then uttered something about "Dean's laptop", cunningly appealing to me with the tech geek angle. And now I have a plot synopsis and everything. I am so doomed.
Probably doomed only to have to find disk space to house another half written fanfic, but still. Doomed.
I'm sure you know how much I love and adore the Generator style, in all its boxy, narrow width clunkiness. Oh, how I've missed it for all the years since I switched away from it. Which would be approximately 5 minutes after getting my LiveJournal account.
So thank you for restoring it for me. Doing some code fiddling tonight, are we? Oh, and thank you even more for trashing my active theme and user layers so that I can't currently revert back to them. *sigh* They look right. They just don't flipping work. And since the day job is eating my days, evenings, weekends, and even stealing from my sleep time right now, it's going to be a little while before I can get back to it and tinker sufficiently to overcome the damage.
So, in the meantime, I guess I'll be reverting back to older styles. Or fooling around with the zillions of different cookie-cutter Expressive versions.
But let's get this straight. It won't EVER be Generator.
ETA: Hurrah! Fixed! To my embarrassment I find that I never entirely finished designing my own layout. Must do that one day, before LiveJournal next delete it again.
So thank you for restoring it for me. Doing some code fiddling tonight, are we? Oh, and thank you even more for trashing my active theme and user layers so that I can't currently revert back to them. *sigh* They look right. They just don't flipping work. And since the day job is eating my days, evenings, weekends, and even stealing from my sleep time right now, it's going to be a little while before I can get back to it and tinker sufficiently to overcome the damage.
So, in the meantime, I guess I'll be reverting back to older styles. Or fooling around with the zillions of different cookie-cutter Expressive versions.
But let's get this straight. It won't EVER be Generator.
ETA: Hurrah! Fixed! To my embarrassment I find that I never entirely finished designing my own layout. Must do that one day, before LiveJournal next delete it again.
Thank you, Show
16 October 2009 13:57Today, workwise, is about as crappy as a birthday workday can get, but at least my giftwrapped weekly dose of SPN made me happy. Like Julie Siege's episode last week, I felt last season that Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin hadn't quite got a handle on the boys yet. Sometimes they could be off enough to wander strongly into the realms of caricature. But the boys seemed pretty recognisable to me this time, and I found this a more satisfying MOTW as well.
( Initial reactions to SPN 5x06: I Believe The Children Are Our Future )
( Initial reactions to SPN 5x06: I Believe The Children Are Our Future )
