JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A PIECE OF ZOMBIFIED TOAST.

I'm pretty sure my neighbor is psychic. She has this amazing sense of timing. Literally THE SECOND I was about to turn the computer off and go to bed, she starts pounding away on the piano. And ladies, she is NOT good at it. She sounds like that cat on YouTube who sort of mashes at the keys with its paws and face, only far less adorable. I want to crash an Al'kesh into her head.

Oh great, now she's on the phone REALLY LOUDLY.

Apparently she's leaving on August 1st and lawd awlmightah, the peasants will fucking REJOICE. She's managed to wake me up every weekend for the past two months. How weird is it that she makes MORE noise when her eight-year-old kid ISN'T home? I mean, the kid throws tantrums like some metaphor about throwing stuff. Mark always says that we're lucky they aren't fat, but you know what? Fat people generally have low self-esteem, and I am GOOD at making people feel like shit. One "You know, plaster rains down on my head when you stomp around like an enraged hippo" and they'd be tiptoeing around AND baking me brownies.

In other news, Michael Shanks? Possibly the sexiest man on the planet.



Bonus points to Richard Dean Anderson for the, uh, "symbolism" going on in the background.

Has it ever felt as though your life was a fiction novel and it only progressed as the day went by, based on what you did? 

Lately it seems like this life I'm living is nothing but a covering for something bigger to come. Like i cant break out of its grasp because I'm virtually stuck inside and I'll only be released when it wants me to.

Its weird to say in the least.

Fandom: Silent Hill 4
Pairing: Frank Sunderland/OFC (OMG you guyz she’s not a Mary-Sue!)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 965

A.N. This is only tenuously a Silent Hill fic, and there’s nothing horrific or supernatural in it. Frank Sunderland presumably had a wife but we don’t know anything at all about her, including her name. And we don’t know all that much about Frank either. But because I write lots of Frank fic and RP him at Chaos Unraveled on Insane Journal, I have way too much fanon for him. Cross-posted to my Insane Journal.

The first chapter, Glass, is here.

( The school year was almost over when Judith first started reading her poetry to Frank. )

So, hypothetically speaking.

You are trapped in a room underground, which may or may not be a suffocation chamber, with about eight other people. You know that there's a room on the other side of the wall, but no door that you can open. You need to blow a hole in the wall, but you don't want to blow yourselves up or cause a cave-in (at least, not one that you can't escape from).

So...what combination of materials would yield a small explosion?

ETA: The room you are in is bordered by another room. You are blowing a hole in the wall so that you can get to the other room.

I'm home again! And so is my luggage, only two days later (they lost it, I suspect somewhere in Turkey). I am gradually readjusting to things such as not speaking Arabic to strangers and eating things other than lamb. I have many, many stories to tell and photos to post, but most of them are on my Mac laptop, which, alas, needs repair. (Even macs, apparently, do not survive being dropped screen-first on to metal tables, but that is what super-deluxe warranties are for.)

I didn't have much time to check LJ while I was gone, so let me know: how are all of you? What exciting things have happened? And, most importantly: hi!

Got a call from the hospital a little after 11am and it was my Dad, which had me wondering if getting local anesthesia meant you could make calls while being operated on!

But no . . . he and Mom are at the hospital and waiting. Surgery has been delayed 'til 12:30pm, might get pushed back further depending on how things go.

Sounds like they're tired and bored (they've been there since 8 or 8:30am). I'm at home, have offered to go up there but they keep telling me I should stay here and we can get together tomorrow.

Since we all miss each other and a few of us hang around IRC rooms anyways, we decided to make an IRC room for LJSCers. It is nothing official, but just a place for us to all get together again (and be able to regulate the room). I know a lot of you prefer AIM chats, but give it a chance? It's not that hard to connect to or anything. But yeah, the point of this post is to help out anyone who has issues and serve as a new directory since IRC lets you pick nicknames. I'd appreciate it if other people made posts with links to to this one since I'm not LJ friends with everyone from LJSC and I've been kind of taking a hiatus from LJ so I'm not even sure who reads my journal anymore.

Anyways, I recommend downloading X-Chat (Chelsea's post is kind of a walk through for using X-Chat), but you can also use Pidgin to connect to it. And if you don't want to download anything, you can connect to it via java at HHC.com (click "Chat") or at di.fm. If you decide to use one of the java chat rooms it will automatically connect you to the #hardcore channel, so you'll need to type in /join #habibi to join the correct room.

If you use a IRC client, you can use any of the following servers: irc.happyhardcore.com, irc.di.fm, or irc.byteirc.net. The channel is #habibi (idk, blame Manda for the name).

( Directory )

If you have any questions or problems connecting, leave a comment here. If you want to be added to the directory, also comment here. This post is going to stay public, so please pass on the word.

I have a hematoma (a large, painful blood clot about the size of a dime) in my poor widdle finger! Correction, I HAD a hematoma in my poor widdle finger. Scorch and Big Mama put my hand on an absorbent towel and sliced open the problem area with a large surgical needle to relieve the pressure. Blood everywhere! It spurted across the table. Ooh, the carnage.

It was fun! My hand feels much better. Families will bond over the damnedest things.

me: I'm pregnant.
neutrino_cannon: So you said.
me: I did?
neutrino_cannon: *shrug*
me: *buys cigars*
me: So what are we going to do about it?
neutrino_cannon: *blink*
Mater: Why do you have cigars?
me: ...

Movie, dinner and Vagabonds. See you there.

This just makes me happy. Macabre and cute.

From Geekologie.

Coal: Cheap. Abundant. Clean.
(For the LOLs)

(Have I mentioned how annoyed I am that my mountains are being turned to dust so people in other states can have power? And how more annoying it is that I'm now one of those people? Gah.)

Find your mountaintop removal connection and learn more about how to stop it. (DTE, by the way, uses coal from mountaintop removal mines.)

Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams. While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day. Families and communities near mining sites also suffer from airborne dust and debris, floods that have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and contamination of their drinking water supplies. (source: http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/)

Want to see what a stripped mountain looks like?

I have to admit that I laughed a little at this poem. Try as I might, I've never been all that interested in art (going to art museums is not one of my favorite pastimes). A picture is often not worth a thousand words to me. I'd like to have the words and the picture and in the ideal scenario, telling the story behind the picture. Anyway, this is an interesting take on a still life.

( Nature Morte )

i'm going to attempt to make more public posts...for my admirers.

ya know, it happens...with the myspaces and the facebooks, it's easy to become the target of those with stalkerish tendencies. it's also easy to find yourself snooping into other's lives. we all live with it. but here in lj, it's not so easy to find someone. you'd have to look through communities or obscure interests and to find me. perhaps a due date community? i don't know...but they did.

yesterday, i had TWO hits within 40 minutes from two different admirers...two that aren't in anyway associated with each other besides they're ex's of brando. one of those crazy things, i know. we all know i'm paranoid but this was not imagined, it's confirmed. bleh....

now, one of these girls i've never met and hadn't formed any opinion about her. brando isn't one to talk about the traits, personality, or downfalls of past girlfriends. (except for something about this one using her mom's vibrator or something, idk for sure, it's been so long since i heard that story.) for a while this one was a regular on our myspace pages, no biggie. sorta funny then kinda annoying and then a WTF kinda thing. ya know? but yesterday, she found my lj. that's going just a step beyond looking at a myspace page. she's now officially "creepy vibrator girl" in my head.

the other, eh, i can live with that one. she's harmless (well, both are)and hell, i'm guilty of stalking her at one time. i'm glad that time in both our lives are over.

so blah blah blah....they want to read my words. okay. i'll try to post more public posts and call it a social experiment. i can track the increase and frequency of their hits on a pie graph.

i like pie.

Previews:



( You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain. )

Afterwhile, pedophi--no stop stop stop.

Smoke by livyer

If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

That includes you lurkers.

*Anonymous comments enabled.

( Spoilers for Season 4 (Bones) from ComicCon )

LE SQUEE!! Life is so good to me. So, SO good.

In other news I rented Penelope. I highly recommend it. Not only is it well narrated, colorful, and well shot it's very well casted and has great music. After I watched it, I bought it. I love it that much.

So I've been making SO many icons. It's kinda an addiction.

Lololol apparently i cant read. Breaking dawn is next week lolololol i love my life

We interrupt this blog for a special geeking out session.

Ahem. This was posted on one of my favorite coms, but I just have to geek out over it all over again.



BLUE BEETLE! JAIME! In a cartoon! And he looks so good! Exclamation mark! (Notice how I'm totally ignoring Batman?)
Oh, and he's gonna be played by the same guy who does Ron Stoppable.

Jaime Reyes makes everything better.

By the way.

I was stamped Susan at narnia_ratings. :)


And Hufflepuff at platform_934. :)

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

My day so far (cut for the uninterested)

The rest of today/this weekend?  Not a darned thing, other than laundry and such.  Nice and quiet, so it will be interesting to see what pops up.  :-)

OMG LONGEST DAY EVER ABOUT TO GO DOWN. I WORK 10-6. IT'S BREAKING DAWN RELEASE DAY. SO MANY EDWARD CULLEN FANGIRLS. *hides in her blankets*

So yeah. Work. Gotta get going.

Also, meme for when I get home: Pick a pairing from a fandom that I enjoy and I'll upload you their "theme song". LOLOL, I just found my OTHER external harddrive with all my music on it and I want to share, but I wasn't sure what... so in a weird way, you guys are getting to pick.

It's hard to believe that it's time for more calendars. I've got a wide variety. Pick and choose, feel free to take for personal use. Please comment and no hotlinking.

( All in it together )

J: Wow, they're getting Netflix! They must really be having fun here!



B: And then it's like wiggly jiggly in your mouth hotness.



L: ...The only problem with my great plan is that I have too much peanut butter.



L: You should go see [our employer in his office]
J: But I don't have anything to show him!
L: Just show him your joy at being at work.
J: ...Maybe you should go.

::Video Clip:: Neil Patrick Harris plays Shoe Fairy on Sesame Street.

Whatever I may think about the ending of a certain web film, I freaking love this guy!

What a day, yesterday.

forestcats nearly exhausted herself, getting the house ready for our Havurah to have services; we ended up with just barely enough people to have them (it requires ten adults; in more orthodox groups, ten males who have had Bar Mitzvahs), but it went well, and folks seemed to enjoy the foodstuffs served.

We then collapsed in the living room, and watched the last disc of Battlestar Galactica season 2.0; I'd been waiting for the Pegasus to arrive, because I'd figured that it would show up, just like it did in the original series. But, 'twere a cliffhanger, of course, and we'll just have to wait for the next disc...

In bed at night, now, we're playgrounds for various kittens. I had one trying to nibble off my fingers and toes. Danger, danger!

Sign ups for disney_rumble Round 5 has started. The sign ups continue until August 1st, when the first icons are due. This is a really cool community. It's sort of like LIMS in that it has rounds and voting and a winner at the end, but a rumble has no elimination. The winners are based on points accumulation. Who ever has the most points at the end wins. It's very fun. Sign up here if you're interested. And tell them I sent you! (Seriously, you get points for referrals.)

( A thought about the end of Avatar: the Last Airbender (spoilers galore, of course) )

This was played during Mixup on JJJ tonight.

Is awesome.

Thursday:met up with Cat in the afternoon, and watched the 1960's movie to the live action Batman TV series, which hilarious. Then her dad drove up to Wolftrap where we watch the NSO perform I'm Not the Messiah, a musical adaptation of Monty Python's Life of Brian, and Eric Iddel was there preforming. It was awesome and funny.

Friday: Watched the documentry Dangerous Days, about the making of the movie Blade Runner, was very interesting. Also watched the first half of the season finale of Doctor Who's 4th season, awesome.

Bloody cheek! A random cat has just chased one of mine right in through the catflap. I cornered it in the kitchen, whereupon it leapt onto the windowsill and yowled indignantly at me. I opened the back door, and it legged it, knocking a vase and plant off the windowsill in the process. Bastard.

Anyway, have a literary!meme nicked from Azzy...

1. Choose, by random means if at all possible, ten books that you have read recently.
2. Post the first sentences of every book in your journal and invite your f'list to guess at the title and author of the book.

( I confess I picked ones I thought you might have actually read, as opposed to the ones I've read recently... )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

There are so many luxuries in our lives. By that, I don't mean cars or air conditioning or even the iphone. I'm thinking more about things like justice or compassion or morality. We don't really think of those as being luxuries, but it's not hard to see how they would easily be stripped away if our simple lives of leisure were taken from us. I always start thinking about such things whenever I read novels of post-apocalyptic worlds. Most recently, it was from Cormac McCarthy's The Road and now, Terry Brooks' The Elves of Cintra. In both, the characters exist in a world where society has fallen and mankind has been reduced to struggling to meet the most basic of needs. In that world, you see the many things we take for granted, abandoned because the people cannot pay the cost for them. While you might not realize it at first, there is a huge cost to be payed for any of the things I listed above. A cost payed in the sacrifice of valuable resources that could be better applied. Instead of justice or compassion or morality, the new force that guides an individual would become expedience and survival.

I sometimes think about this even in the context of our world today. Look at socialistic Europe with many of their post-modern nutjobs.. Some of whom spend their time forming committees about the rights of plants. In a world where some people struggle daily just to find enough food to survive, there are others sitting in comfy conference rooms debating the rights of broccoli. The dissonance is almost unbelievable in its starkness. The more that we have our needs met as a species, the more we sink into decadence. I can't help but wonder where the happy medium is in all of this.

Catching up a bit: I've been having problems in my left hand/arm with what I'm pretty sure is tendonitis, so I've been wearing a brace thing. Don't panic. It's actually more to remind me not to do stupid stuff like pick up five books at once while at work, not because I'm damaged. Just for the record. My hand feels a lot better for me not overdoing it for several days. Man I miss playing the piano though. Having bad memories of the summer before I went to college, which sucked. Except for all the Fushigi Yuugi bits. Those were good.

Have been reading at a monstrous pace for the past few weeks, whipping through Chalet School books, a Dorothy Sayers I hadn't read, Particia McKillip (her wordcraft amazes me), Alexander McCall Smith, and now rereading Tamora Pierce. Reading is good. I FINALLY have First Among Sequels and am savoring it.

Have also been writing/editing lots of poetry. Writing is good. Except for the fairy tale limericks. They're angelislington's fault. Really.

Have also just started replaying all the King's Quest games. This is more silly and amusing than good, but it's very silly and amusing. ;) (now if only I could get Quest for Camelot...damn that game was hard)

Have also been way, way too hot and sleepy (yes, even up here in cold Scotland), but we'll focus on the good things for now. ;)

I've got three calendars for TORCHWOOD this month. Enjoy the pretty.

( Just fucking or a relationship? You decide. )

I love the show and the new series, so there's a calendar for August. Feel free to take for your personal use, but please comment. No hotlinking.

( Three guys and a whole lot of great cars. )

HB and I did house-stuff today... among other things, we fixed the latch on our side gate (no lock yet, though), tidied up our wardrobe storage, reorganised our coat-wardrobe and got rid of two moving boxes!

I got some really nice stationary stuff from Kikki.K that I used to re-organise our 'junk box' in the kitchen, and my scarves/beanies/gloves. It's made a huge difference.

---

Tonight we went into Civic to see the new X-Files movie.
It was nice to see Scully and Mulder again. There were some nice little nods to the series (sunflower seeds, Mulder's Spalding etc...). I'm not convinced that it was 'important' enough to require a movie though. ( spoiler )

HB drove home.
There's a bit of road not far from here that has some tight bends downhill, over a bridge then back up hill. HB likes to pretend he's a rally car driver sometimes - particularly on this section of road. Just as he was starting to pick up speed tonight, we both noticed a wombat standing in the road. He avoided it easily (the thing had enough sense to not move), but it was a bit of a fright. I was actually surprised at how tall the wombat was - I've only ever seen dead ones on the side of the road :o He had longer legs than I expected.

---

Go Cadel!!!

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I've got four calendars for THE SENTINEL for August. Feel free to take for personal use, but please comment. No hotlinking.

( In the beginning )

This show still entertains me. Enjoy the calendar.

( Nothing like a little eye talk. )

It's hard to believe it's nearly August and time for new calendars, but here they are. Same rules as always. Enjoy.

( A Mountie, a Cop, Partners. )

Charlie would like to know if they call 'cabins' cabins in England. (Wooden houses that one 'roughs it' in instead of camping in a tent) I said, er, yes, I believe they do, but I thought I'd throw that question out there, just in case.

Charlie (and I), you see, were very busy using British terms on our holiday. (See what I did there?) He loves saying 'holiday', actually.

In other news, I would very much like to punch Charlie's father in the face as he, for some reason, planted the idea in Charlie's head that 'Meet Dave' was not a movie Charlie should see.

We had one rainy day, and thought it would be a good idea to take the kids to a movie. Meet Dave was the one film playing that everyone hadn't already seen/wanted to see, but Charlie was so freaked out, he spent the first half hour either crouched down on the floor refusing to look, or trying to leave the room. Fortunately we were the only ones in the theatre, so it didn't bother anyone but me.

He got over it, and wound up LOVING the movie, and he and Nicky spent the remainder of the day saying, "And put him in my butt."

Finally, I did see all of Doctor Horrible's Sing-along Blog, and it was really amazing. And I have to say, again, for the record, regarding Neil Patrick Harris, why, oh why are all the really talented, good-looking guys on the other bus?

Oh, and I posted this photo elsewhere, but see if you can guess what Charlie is playing at in this photo:

Let your arms enfold us
Through the dark of night
Will your angels hold us
Till we see the light

Hush, lay down your troubled mind
The day has vanished and left us behind
And the wind, whispering soft lullabies
Will soothe, so close your weary eyes

Let your arms enfold us
Through the dark of night
Will your angels hold us
Till we see the light

Sleep, angels will watch over you
And soon beautiful dreams will come true
Can you feel spirits embracing your soul
So dream while secrets of darkness unfold

~Secret Garden, "Prayer"

Grabbed from kc_anathema.

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Gadgeteer

39% Elegant, 59% Technological, 30% Historical, 56% Adventurous and 17% Playful!

Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

In the ideal world of my intentions, there would be full reviews of all these books, but I have to admit that, under current circumstances, there is no way that I can do them justice, so it's better to clear the desks with some quick overviews.

The Third Class at Miss Kaye's: Angela Brazil: I didn't realise when I read it quite how early a book this was, although I picked up on the references to (the lack of) plumbing and transport. In fact, it's only something like the second of Brazil's school stories, and comes off like The Fortunes of Phillippa meets For the Sake of the School. One of the more notable things about the story of how dreamy only child, Sylvia, becomes a normalised schoolgirl, is the role that the headmistress, Miss Kaye, plays. Brazil could have titled this The Third Class at Heathercliffe House, but the reference to Miss Kaye is crucial. She's in the wise Hilda Annersly mould and even more obviously influential - and a contrast to A Worth-while Term, which has a novice headteacher, somewhat in the mould of Madge Bettany, although author Judy Irwin come off the worst in any comparison with Brent-Dyer. For one thing, the book seems to be set in an alternate universe where the question mark was never invented.

Cicely, who is in her early twenties, inherits a school from a woman she befriended on a cruise during the outbreak of the second world war. As you do. Said friend didn't disclose that she was very sick to Cicely, who finds herself in charge of a small, select and slack school after said friend dies. Can she turn it around?

More entertaining, and surprising to me, was Mollie Chappell's Endearing Young Charms, which is a romance, though not that far removed from her books for older girls. I only knew Chappell as a children's writer - she comes off as somewhere between Oxenham and Streatfeild in tone, and this book certainly has charm. I'll be looking out for more of her romances.

Also amusing was Jane Shaw's Fourpenny Fair. Penny's a heroine by accident, her kind heart not being married with much sense, and her accidents are usually pretty funny. Even funnier was A Bullet in the ballet by Simon and Brahms, hence the icon. Definitely not a children's book, it's a comic murder mystery, with Inspector Quill of Scotland Yard trying to solve a murder, which of course becomes a series of murders, with the hinderance of the Stroganov Ballet Company, who live ballet, breathe ballet and try to be helpful to the nice police inspector who has never seen even the most well-known ballets and is trying to find the assassin of the ballet dancers who can breathe no more. By the end, I was literally roaring with laughter, you know, loud, hearty laughter. This is the first in a series and I'll be looking out for the rest.

Ethel Talbot's Ranger Rose was fortunately not terrible (which Talbot can be), but slight in some ways, although it's theme and Rose's journey were trying to tackle big issues. Weird ending though, and disappointing handling of the big final scene.

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is out in the cinemas this week. I won't be going to see it, despite having read the first two books, which I didn't find that funny. Coming soon is Emma 'Nancy Drew' Roberts in Wild Child, where a Malibu brat is sent to an English boarding school, where her dead father used to play quidditch her dead mother used to play lacrosse. The trailer looks as though it's trying for something between the Paris Hilton/Nicole Ritchie TV show, the Trebizon books and the recent St Trinian revamp, which I avoided. Unless if the reviews change my mind, which I doubt, I'll be avoiding this too.

Just decided this week that I'm going to Polycamp this year with the kids.  Just went last year for the day, and had a great time.  This year, will be staying one night, which is plenty with Penny and Sar along.

Details here if you're still on the fence or curious.

I thought you might get a kick out of the story I just got in my email.

Looks like Nerk's going big time.  :-)

Drug bust...