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So, apparently there is an *actual* freak cold snap hitting Wellington, snow on the Desert Road and all. I feel slightly less faily about the fridge-like state of g/t day 2. :-D It was so damn cold the other night that house guest ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) erilyn and I (who had spent the past two nights sleeping the respectful distance of two good friends in a king size bed apart) actually had this conversation: erilyn Now that stickmarionette and blademistress are gone, I can sleep in the spare bed, and you can have your own back. arysteia Um... I think we may have to make like fanfic and conserve body heat. erilyn Huddle together for warmth? arysteia Uhuh. An hour later... We're lying that respectful distance apart... erilyn SPOON ME! arysteia *inches cautiously closer* erilyn Seriously. arysteia *huddles in, drapes arm lightly* arysteia *begins to thaw out, cuddles more tightly* erilyn So remember that one fanfic... Cue an hour and a half of concrit and meta on the best fanfics of the last decade, while close spooning. After which, finally warm and toasty, we drifted off to sleep, visions of sugarplums Clark, Lex, Conner, John, Rodney et al dancing in our heads. Then, the next day, my builder finally arrived to fix the monstrous languishing WIP that has been my apartment. I left him to it, so I could accompany the Aussies to the airport. Imagine my shock when I returned to find him *vacuuming*! I complimented the work he'd done already, and then there followed this conversation: Builder: Wow you've got some cool stuff! arysteia *embarrassed* *what the hell can he mean???* Builder: Your dvd collection. All my favourite shows. arysteia Huh. Builder: And your action figures. arysteia Glances over at Clark and Lex, who stand a *little* close to each other in the shadow box... Builder: And your pictures, they're the best. arysteia *dies* *what now???* Builder: I can't believe you've hugged Tealc! And John and Rodney too. That is so cool! Oh, and General Hammond too!!! I love Stargate! arysteia Huh. Well you may as well see the rest too, the ones I haven't got around to mounting... *shows* Builder: This is the best job ever. I will do an awesome job on the bathroom too. arysteia *God has smiled on me!* *Geeks of the world unite!* *dances and twirls*
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Dear Teh Intarweb,
1) You are stupid.
2) I am possibly stupid too, because I forget how stupid you are.
3) 49 minutes after an episode airs is TOO SOON. (Yes, I did the time difference conversion.)
4) My heart is broken because you killed my favourite character/I'm over the moon because my OTP got married (delete as applicable) is a spoiler if said character/couple is sadface/grinning in the icon right next door.
5) The correct cut text for a spoiler warning is "spoiler warning". Do not use witty text unless you are clever. Your text is not witty and you are not clever if said text is: Die in an avalanche of Character'sFavouriteProduct, Writer McProducerson. Or: My CutePortmanteauName loving heart is ecstatic.
6) If you like two fandoms, chances are other people might too. Especially if they're in the same genre. So your incredibly lame fic about the All Blacks having sex in the shower is not the place to blurt out Plz r&r becuz my guy didn't win Dancing w/teh Starz.
7) If an OP is subtle enough to post I'm sad about the thing with the girl on that show then you are not showing your brilliance by replying Me too. Poor NameRankSerialNumber. I can't believe they Verbed her. It was so unexpected. Y'know, the 'unexpected' right there is a clue.
8) Do not prompt at an unrelated kinkmeme: Mary Sue and Gary Stu are delighted at the way PopularShow ended with a proposal, and have celebratory sex. People are hiding there, and they thought they were safe among the incest and the whipping and the infidelity and the mpreg. If mpreg is not a sanctuary, what is?
9) Rallying the villagers to storm a production company with pitchforks and torches is also spoilery if they're monogrammed pitchforks. Go anon or stay at home.
10) Flist, you're not included. ILU! We go way back.
NO LOVE AT ALL,
Eleven minutes from a completed download, The World Outside Your Living Room
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I was a productive member of society until I went to see the new Star Trek film. And then I stayed up till four in the morning reading fic. And then I wept bitter, bitter tears when I had to be at work four hours later. This story was inspired by the barrage of debate at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) st_xi_kink -- surprisingly chatty for a supposed kink meme -- as to who tops, Kirk or Spock, and modelled (with permission) on the incomparable astolat's response to the equally burning question re Sam and Dean in Supernatural. My thanks also to china_shop for midnight beta, and slaying my run-on sentences. They were this long. She also questioned my use of the word sweetheart, but what can I say? That thing went viral in about five minutes. Fanon, hello, I embrace you. Title: Command Dynamics Author: arysteia Pairing: Kirk/Spock (also Spock/Kirk, and how old skool is that for the order to count?) Rating: PG to soft R Spoilers: nothing specific for the movie, vague references to wider canon ( Command Dynamics )
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I have drunk from the keg of victory, and I have eaten all the muffins and bagels in the land. But it is not enough. For: 1) I finished my Big Bang story. What, you didn't hear me shrieking??? 2) I had a fantastic dinner with The Wellington Fangirls (tm) and some new Wellington fangirls (there were some I didn't know about? Bzuh?) and astolat. It was awesome. I arrived half an hour early because I came straight from work where I'd stayed on editing my Big Bang! and I sat there alone in a restaurant, always awkward, and a big party opposite me was rip-snortingly drunk and yelling at the top of their lungs about office shenanigans and their sex lives. And I was popping nurofen and wishing fiery death on them, and then a wee angel said: "That will you be youx1000 in a short time! And your explicit porn and incest and mpreg trumps their broom closets!" So I turned off the death glare, and lo, it was so. And also, astolat is outstanding. Witty and funny and generous and kind, and everything that fandom should be in a shiny package. Yay. The rest of us weren't so bad either. ;-p 3) I moved into my new office. It is magnificent. Except for how the walls and all the furniture are the snowiest white you've ever seen. It's like being on the Arctic tundra, or in an operating theatre. Until you look down. The carpet is tartan (our proper clan tartan) and while the blues and reds and greens look good, the narrow white stripes create a hella funky optical illusion. I'll keep my eyes on the snow. 4) This one is technically spoilery if you actually read DC comics, in this case Legion of Three Worlds. If, on the other hand, you really only care about a certain character who was very dear to the hearts of Smallville fans who shipped Lex and Clark, then ( read on. )So. To celebrate. I will write a ficlet for absolutely everybody, friend or lurker, who requests one on this post. Only condition: you have to pick a keyword from this table here. Then give me a brief prompt to go with it, eg "Prompt 16 - Purple. Lex buys a new shirt". I will do any fandom/pairing I have ever written (Smallville (Clark/Lex), Atlantis (John/Rodney), Supernatural (Sam/Dean *or* gen, please specify!!!), Doctor Who (Doctor/Master; or, ahem, that one Master/Lex masterpiece/travesty), Classics (Alexander/Hephaistion; Achilles/Patroklos; actually, technically, Harmodios/Aristogeiton, but let's forget that one, shall we?), and also from the fandom I've never written but would really like to because it's eaten my brain (wider DC/JL), let's have a stab at, say, erm... Clark/Bruce, Bruce/Dick, Tim/Kon. Hit me people! First in first served; because I am newly disciplined I will write in the order they come rather than follow my inclination. :-D
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How am I crazy, let me count the ways. Okay, no, let's concentrate on the one way for now. I signed up for Supernatural Big Bang x number of months ago. It seemed like a great way to give myself a kick in the ass. Inflexible deadline, *and* the extrinsic motivator of a reward in the form of art. Genius. The non-evil kind, even. About a week later someone sent me an email exhorting me to consider the Smallville Big Bang. God fucking damn it, I said out loud, to the consternation of the students sitting closest to me. *This* is the one I *really* want to do. Huh. So I signed up for that too. Naturally, because Spn was due May 1, and SV June 25, I attacked the SV first. What? It totally makes sense in Bizarro World. Which brought me to last weekend, and the knowledge that I had a week to go, a plot outline, and exactly zero words. Well, I thought, There Is No Try. So I sat down every night for four nights and wrote four thousand words each time, at a mad clip. It was unlike anything I've ever done before. I didn't stop for typos, or even *shudder* missed punctuation. It hurt, but there was no time to look back. There was a minor panic yesterday when I suddenly found myself mouthing, Thirty days hath November, April, June... and realised I had a day less even than I thought. Pshaw. Forced myself to write another two thousand words in bed with the laptop, and the lunch hour today put me over the top. All of which makes the eighteen hours I sometimes spend to write two thousand words seem ridiculous. I'm a compulsive, terminal editor, I now realise. Write a hundred words, delete thirty. Write another hundred, delete another thirty. Oh, and another ten from the first bit. This was an amazingly freeing experience, not ever *allowing* myself to stop and second guess. I'm not suddenly going to become a writing *machine* but if I could keep just a little of the momentum that'd be great. Oh, and Write or Die helped a lot. Hearing that freakin' baby cry every time I stopped typing... Yikes. If you're a procrastinator, check it out.
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I've mentioned this to some of you before individually, but I'd like to mention it once en masse too. If you live in Wellington (or if you don't but don't mind travelling) you should think about coming to get/together this year. It's a pan-fandom get together (exactly as stated on the tin), not as big as a full con, and certainly not as crowded/intimidating/noisy/sweaty etc. ;-p A couple of dozen kiwi fangirls, and usually a handful of Aussies too, get together (there's that phrase again) each year to chew the fat, ogle the hot guys, pimp each other into new fandoms, eat some junkfood, swap some fic or vid recs, commemorate some old fandoms, watch some highlight eps, and play slash pictionary. Always a highlight, that. But nothing scary, dig? You can dive right in if you're feeling brave (make a presentation, mod a panel), or lurk quietly till you've found the lay of the land. I was nervous once, just once, my very first time (actually sinpozium in Sydney), but that lasted all of an hour till I realised how cool and friendly everyone was. Or possibly until I had to draw Gollum undercover in a gay bar for pictionary. Come on, you know you want to. It doesn't matter what your fandom is, as long as you're slash friendly (and if not, how are you still on my flist after all this time?). There have always been a few het OTPs that have snuck in, and a few entirely gen fandoms where people should just watch the damn show. Check out the comm, the appropriately named get__together, or at least check out slash pictionary. How can you not be tempted by that???
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...aka Armageddon '09. Given my long and proud tradition of awkwardness (telling John Schneider he was my first crush, having Chris Judge and Joe Flanigan tell me to feel them up, "you know you want to", having David Hewlett ogle my seethroughunderlights! shirt) I was resolved to be cool this year. Fortunately, that's what God invented mothers for. Mum turned up at my place Friday night with a Santa sack, and the announcement she'd won the Doctor Who package of some competition or other. My eyes bugged out as she waved around the deluxe box-set I'd tearily decided not to buy since it was, y'know, sixty-five pounds, and the dollar is currently worth about a peso. "I'll have to give it to some deserving kid at school," she said viciously. "Since you already have every dvd on earth." "I have the downloads," I managed to grit out. "You forbade me ever to buy another dvd when I bought this apartment." [My mother is actually very cool, but she blames me and my Amazon habit for single-handedly starting the credit crisis.] "Oh. Good. You always were an obedient child. I suppose you can have it then." "Thank you, Lord and Master of the Universe." I pondered killing my mother and defrauding all my siblings so I could finance a life of crime. "Is your sarcasm a sign you don't want anything else?" She pulled out tickets to the con, tickets to the cocktail party with the stars, and various other things I had to explain. "I'll have to take Sandy [the neighbour who is SexandtheCity!Samantha's clone]. Too bad we don't know who any of these people are." Positive no jury that had either a fan or a daughter on it would convict me, I announced I was going back to bed. "Oh, for God's sake. Go and get dressed! I entered for you!" And so we went. And my mother flirted (and was reciprocated) with both Flash Gordon and Hercules, and then she told the Doctor embarrassing stories about my childhood. I drank a lot. After the first few I no longer cared. It was awesome. Then I switched to "Fantastic!" and Peter Davison in his gentlemanly English accent impersonated me and my kiwi accent impersonating Chris Eccleston and his northern accent. It was still awesome. ( Wherein Flash Gordon is a picky eater but praises me for being a teacher and burninates dim-witted questions; and the Doctor and Turlough both disapprove of Torchwood and all it stands for, dish on other Doctors, and laugh about BBC budgets and sets. )
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My posts have been ever rarer of late, but it doesn't mean I don't love you flist. I do!!! I owe several of you mail/cards/parcels, and you will have them soon! Holidays next week, yaye! The good news is, I've been so busy because I have essentially had a fairly big promotion at work. I have gone from managing myself to managing myself and three other people. Obviously it's more money, which is always good, and even better the way things are at the moment. It's also a lot more work, and I'm slightly ambivalent about that. The cool parts of the work, ie writing and delivering new courses and mentoring gifted and talented students rock mightily. Managing people who are a decade or two older than I am is less fun. And the paperwork sucks. I like to spend my afternoons drawing the Battle of the Granikos on the activeboard, complete with troop dispositions and stick figure Alexander in red plumed helmet being saved by Kleitos the Black with symbolic afro, not writing endless reports. The *other* good news however is that I have gone insane and signed up for not one but two Big Bang projects. 1) Last surviving Smallville fans on my flist (oh, my original darlings, this was how we all met, remember???) this one's for you: I'm finishing and submitting Parallel. The huge fic I always jokingly called my masterwork, and never ever ever admitted I'd abandoned, but clearly had since it's been languishing for four years? Aha, that one. Current wordcount: 32,000. Of which, almost half is new in the last fortnight. We have atheneglaukopis to thank for this, who has been terrorising me via chat. She kept pinging me for the entire duration of the Mutiny at the Hyphasis yesterday, and is a very harsh taskmistress. If I'd had her first time round I'd have finished in no time. 2) Supernatural: Yep, this too apparently. Progress decidely thinner on the ground, which may prove problematic since it's due much earlier. It is entirely of a piece with my earth logic that I am working on the challenge due August 1 before that due May 1. I iz cleva! Now back to the manuscript! Current Mood:  gleeful
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Wow, it's been a while, but my Smallville renaissance continues unabated. This story follows on from my Lois and Clark go to Smallville Lex and Clark go to Metropolis verse. Prior parts here: Cleaning Up is Hard to DoWorld Enough and TimeI, SuperheroThis chapter is inspired by the season 3 episode Tempus, anyone? As usual, Lex and Clark are from Smallville, everyone else is from Lois and Clark. Title: Every Me and Every You Pairing: Clark/Lex Rating: PG-13 Word count: 3,804 Summary: Sometimes even the most powerful of men can use a little push towards a happy ending. ( Every Me and Every You )Special Dedication: This is for talitha78 who rocks my socks. Happy Christmas, J! The second half of you know what arrived and it is fantastic! Thank you again so much.Current Mood:  accomplished
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I've not been subtle with my feelings re our new PM, but I'm unsure whether to be amused or horrified by this: There is no sympathy from the Prime Minister for a New Zealander arrested in Thailand on suspicion of selling drugs.
Peter Scharmach was arrested in Phuket after police discovered methamphetamine, ecstasy and cannabis in his car. He now faces up to 20 years in prison.
Prime Minister John Key is unconcerned with the arrest.
"I haven't had any official advice on it. But if the bloke's been hawking off drugs in Thailand bars, it would seem to indicate that he is an idiot." It's tradition to pretend to care about NZ nationals in foreign prisons... Even stupid ones. Especially at Christmas. ***** On a happier note... The first half of my care package arrived, J! You are so awesome. talitha78 is awesome everybody. But you all knew that. ;-p I asked her to send me any leftover election posters/stickers etc so I could use them at work, and of course she excelled herself with a whole Aladdin's box of t-shirts and pins and paperdolls! Seriously. That cracked me up so much, because I had Princess Diana and Prince Charles paperdolls after the Royal Wedding lo these many years ago, and these are actually very similar. It's funny. Black Civil Rights is a prescribed topic in School Certificate History in NZ, and as with many (all?) prescribed topics, the textbook stops suddenly in 1990 when the last big curriculum review took place. And of course we assemble our own material for the time after that, so I have countless file boxes full of downloads and printouts and whatever, but only the first bit is examinable so we sum up the last bit pretty fast. And as a general impression, exacerbated by haste, it's always seemed a downer ending. It was only last year -- was it only last year??? -- that a kid asked me when I thought there'd be a black president and I said no time soon. I have eaten those words with relish, believe me. But it was a really special moment when I was cleaning out my office yesterday and tossing outdated graphs and statistics into the recycling, and my boss came in with a huge armful of his own crap, looking all teary-eyed. And frankly, he's usually a twat. I asked what was up. "I've just realised," he blurted. "We have to rewrite the end of the course!" Yes, I agreed, I know. "I never thought we would!" he continued. He's older than me, and a bit more jaded I guess. "Stop sifting that stuff, throw it all out!" So we did. It felt good.
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That's it. School's out for another year. Prizegiving last night was every bit as dull as expected (and I didn't even win the pool on how long the Headmaster's and Chairman of the Board of Governors' speeches were going to be -- at 25 and 17 minutes respectively I was too optimistic!) and also excruciatingly hot as we sweltered on the stage in full academic regalia on a glorious summer evening. On the plus side, my favourite of this year's my!boys was Dux, so I drink from the keg of victory, and the Head Boy who I *bullied* into joining the debate team despite his preference for rugby league gave possibly the best Valedictory I've heard in all my years teaching. He managed to quote Alexander the Great, Plato, Emerson, Bobby Kennedy, Barack Obama and yours truly in one speech. Yaye! He's also been signed to the Warriors (NRL team) which is quite the coup for an eighteen year old. And then the pipe band made me cry playing Highland Cathedral -- I have to say they're damn good. (They compete in the Adult/Open Division rather than the kids, and it shows.) Ah, tradition. It's a good thing it was a still night (despite the heat) because I know for a fact none of the prefects had anything on under their kilts... Saying farewell as only they can. My boys. Several are now off to be House Tutors at the top schools of Britain (sorry if they set anything historic on fire), one to a kibbutz, one to Japan, L to the sports fields obviously (though he swears he'll get some study in too) and the rest to universities hereabouts. I wipe away a gentle tear for another generation, and await the Christmas miracle that inevitably turns this year's frogs (ie Juniors) into next year's princes. Current Mood:  teary
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WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names): Lyolya Harold
NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s father, father’s father): Emmanuel Albert
STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name): Pavict
DETECTIVE NAME: (favourite colour, favourite animal): Purple Tiger
SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live): Athena Wellington
SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favourite colour, favourite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning): The Blue Brandy Alexander
FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of first name, last 2 letters of your last name): Vius
GANGSTA NAME: (favourite ice cream flavour, favourite cookie/biscuit): Chocolate Jaffa Cake
ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name): Krycek Waipapa
PORN NAME: (name of first pet, first street name you lived on): Claw Paw Burilla
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Title: A Special Relationship Fandom: Smallville/Doctor Who Pairing: Lex Luthor/The Master Rating: PG-13 Written for scribblinlenore’s mismatched OTP challenge over at black_dress_lex. Part of me is curled up in a corner channelling Ten, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and the other part is striding out to face the firing squad with the Foreign Legion, belting out Piaf all the way, “Non, je ne regrette rien.” Migraine warning: Do not attempt to figure out the internal chronology of this story. It is set now, and after now, and after s3 of Doctor Who, and considerably after s7 of Smallville. I fly the Tardis masterfully. Also, don’t ask how the Master was resurrected, or how Lex escaped an icy grave beneath the Fortress of Solitude. I can’t do all the work! ( A Special Relationship )
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God. Fucking. Damn it.
I can almost forgive National voters (almost), but ACT voters, if I see you any time soon I will *kick* you. Roger Douglas, you are an ass. And an extraordinarily arrogant one at that.
Goodbye to the Labour government, and goodbye also to Prime Minister Helen Clark. I didn't like you much when you first came to power nine years ago, I'll admit it, but I grew to love you and I'm sorry to see you go.
Goodbye to Winston Peters, the first ever prima donna of NZ politics, I'll miss your style if not your [lack of] substance.
John Key, how dare you co-opt "change" for the Right. You are a weasel. When I thought you were actually going to say, "I will be your President Prime Minister too," I wanted to scream.
It was amusing, in a very sad way, to hear friends over dinner earlier tonight all concur that if we could only have one win this week we all would have picked Obama. *sigh* And come the end of the night we still feel that way, though the thrill is definitely gone. There was only so much election karma to go round, I guess. :-(
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So... I got a gentle ribbing from the fangirls at Fandom Dinner on Friday after my confession that there are no functioning lights at my apartment. Just the soft blue glow of my computer to navigate by. And then, darlings that they are, they of course offered to buy me some new bulbs. *love* But no. It's true I didn't have a cent to my name (I had fifty euros and eight thousand baht but not one measly NZD till payday) but I've also been *busy*. For two weeks? they inquired, somewhat archly. Um... Yes. And also tired. So I come home and get straight into bed, and... I picked up some bulbs today, guys! Fiat lux!
The important point from my perspective is that my sister house-sat while I was away, and I came home to a house with no working lightbulbs and no toilet paper. Also no milk, which sucked because I really wanted a cup of tea after a month in Coffee Drinkers' Hell, but I let that one go because I left her a fridge full of off dairy I'd run out of time to dump, and fair's fair. But twenty-one is old enough to know better. I'm sure TP and, y'know, light are fairly high up the social contract.
I have been busy though. In the two weeks I've been back I've managed to edit the 8000 photos from the trip (I kid you not. 8000. Praise the Lord for digital.), take a couple of kids to the Youth Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference, refuse to go to the Young Nats (ie Young Republicans) Brunch, and have the court case. Remember the Court Case of Which I Must Not Speak? Except for how I totally did that one time under flock. And will again shortly, because it went very well. *happy dance* Er. Cart before horse. Cautious optimism. *touch wood*
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HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THE BBC WEBSITE TRAILER FOR THIS WEEK'S DOCTOR WHO? GO HERE IF YOU WANT TO. DON'T IF YOU DON'T WANT EVEN TO BE TEASED. OR TERRORISED. NOW ALLOW ME TO SAY @$%^(^)*(i&)*%@#!!!1! TO THE FACT THAT I WILL BE IN EUROPE NEXT WEEKEND. HOW CAN I BE DEPRIVED OF THE RESOLUTION FOR A MONTH???? FUCK YOU VERY MUCH, EUROVISION. WHO OUT THERE KNOWS WHAT THE INTERNET'S LIKE IN GREECE THESE DAYS? WHO'S IN THE UK AND CAN POST ME A COPY TO THE HOTEL IN ATHENS? I WILL BE YOUR SLAVE FOREVER! SERIOUSLY. FOREVER.
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Is this not the best birthday card ever? I think it just may be, hence my need to share it. *All* my favourite things! Thank you again, woolly_socks and vaudevilles. ILU!!!  [My photo skills do it no justice, it is much more golden and shiny. :-(] My birthday has been amazing, and it has barely begun. Well it began very early, when my sister rang at 2.02am from Sydney (where it was 2 past midnight and she was being efficient!). At 8.49, when I walked into work four massive minutes late for Senior Classics, uncaffeinated and bleary eyed, I found no students. This did not seem to bode well. The common rooms were empty. *sigh* They appeared at 9.06, bearing croissants and coffee. "We, er, took a chance you wouldn't report us for being late," said my favourite one. "Late, schmate. Give me the damn coffee." "Oh, and happy birthday. Hope we picked the right stuff." The stuff: a case of 'V' (NZ Red Bull), three kinds of Turkish Delight, three different Lindt selections, and a bag of Kahlua cremes. Erm... Yes, right stuff. Ta, loves. Junior Classics at 11. I didn't think these guys knew, but apparently they did, because I came back from my office to a giant chocolate cake and some horribly off-key singing. I'm not sure when this particular mother finds time to be a journalist because all she seems to do is bake. Damn well. I'm also not sure much *education* took place today; as a treat we all watched the William Shatner --yes, you read that right -- Alexander the Great movie. And then argued whether it was better or worse than the Colin Farrell. Votes stand about even. Still. Our motto is Virtutem paret Doctrina -- Let education make the all round man -- and I think I'm doing that, one little bit at a time. Thanks also to talitha78, erilyn, lapetite_kiki, and mab_browne for their birthday wishes. <3 <3 <3 ETA: I also got a birthday email from my ISP. Seriously. I know I'm a good customer, with a massive plan, and a tendency to still exceed my bandwidth and have to pay for more because I can't/won't risk being spoiled for Doctor Who, but seriously???
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Had a glorious dinner out with china_shop and Mr China last night, so glorious in fact that I had to *cliche alert* undo my belt on the way home. Thanks Mr C! Anyway, one topic of conversation (successfully embracing fandom but sparing Mr C the slash) was the apparent absence of Good Guys (capital G) from our screens. For our purposes, C defined Good Guy (capital G) as Clark Kent. Which gave me a momentary paroxysm as I blurted "Clark Kent = NOT!Good Guy" and she thought I was losing my religion, and then I clicked and realised she meant Old Skool not Smallville and we were back on the same page. Naturally Fraser from Due South was also a shoe-in. For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture. Stargate: AtlantisRejected without discussion on the basis of Monday's fangirl dinner (with missiedith and aworldinside) where much was made of Mengele!science and the failure of individual responsibility. And even John's "I'll do anything for my team" --> too bad for not!my team. Doctor WhoI made a half-hearted pitch for the Doctor but was hamstrung by the imperative not to spoil Mr C for new!Who, and C's lack of old skool. Wot? The Last of the Time Lords is actually the last of...? Heh. [Otoh, on Monday we had the hilarious moment where I mentioned the Time Lords exiling the Doctor to Earth, and the others were all, Huh, I thought there weren't any left... To which, heeeeeeeeeeee! Ah, the glory of forty years of canon, which confuses all, except People Like Me.] C rightly pointed out Bad Things the Doctor Has Done, which I thought were largely vitiated by The Worst Thing the Doctor Ever Did which is also paradoxically the Best Thing in the sense of being a giant Supreme Sacrifice. Boy, lots of caps here. I'm trying to be vague and non-spoilery. Ish. I may make a separate post on this since it's dear to my heart. Cut. BSGMoral compromise = watchword --> mentioned and dismissed in less than a sentence. Life on MarsSam's pretty saintly by comparison, but the Clark Kent scale doesn't let you grade on a curve. I peskily remembered the binned psych report to keep the guy in jail and Prevent a Subsequent Crime. Good Guys (capital G) frown at this. Still, at least Sam did too. SupernaturalSam I set on an ice floe right away because Selfish Motives Only, but I made the best case I could for Dean after sauvignon and bloody steak and apple crumble and far too much hot chocolate. It wasn't actually very good. C accepted my Saving People! motivation for Hunting Things! but parried my Supreme Sacrifice with a Supreme Selfishness card from the bottom of the deck. Astounded by our failure, we then cast around for More Shows, and failed there too. Has the Writers' Strike crippled us? Have we just failed as fans, and not watched enough tv recently? Mr C, of course, asked if we're just more sophisticated now, and need more sophisticated heroes. Which yeah, I take his point. Up to a point. I still like my Flawed Heroes to be Called on their Bullshit though, which I don't find you can count on these days. Who's got a Good Guy for me? Who's watching something I should be watching? Anyone?
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OMG, it's like the KGB are after me. I haven't felt like this in years (though it did used to be a regular sort of occurrence). I am, in fact, barricaded in at home with the curtains shut and the phone off because I am hiding from my family because it is Easter Sunday. And it's not even that I didn't want to go to festivities, it's that my mother didn't. I have an out, you see, in that this particular aunt never ever calls to invite me, so I just don't go. And when she complains I'm all innocent: Did you invite me? And she's all: Yes! And I'm all: Huh. By post? By email? By landline? By cellphone? Because I think I'd have noticed. And she's: I told your Mum. And I'm: I'm thirty-two years old! I didn't use my mother as an answering service when I lived with her, let alone fourteen years later! And she concurs. But this year, curse her sudden but inevitable betrayal, Mum decided she didn't want to go either, and said that she and I were going away for the weekend together. Informing me after the fact. Cue three days of hiding from the clan. I was in here with the lights off last night, lest anyone drive past. This is so ludicrous. I understand why she didn't want to go though. We have been catapulted into a sort of time warp since my grandfather died, and all sorts of new old traditions keep rearing their heads. Between my grandmother's increasing religiosity and my uncle's self-appointment as Patriarch and Head of the Family... He's completely in denial of the fact that a) most of the family sub-units are headed by women, b) most of the family members are women, and c) NZ is the great land of female empowerment and voting. He actually told my mother to be quiet at dinner a couple of weeks back. In those words: "Be quiet." She was all: "WTF?" And he was all: "Be quiet. Your laughter is inappropriate and your opinions unwanted." And my jaw dropped, and various people's heads came up and cutlery went down, and he added: "It's time to bring back some respect." And tanks rolled through Prague like tumbleweeds, and all the in-laws kept eating and I actually saw the collective thought bubble over their heads that read: "All these years I have felt left out but for the first time ever I am so incredibly glad I don't speak Old Country." The thing that cracks me up is my grandfather was a total atheist. Sexist yes, but religious no. One of my strongest childhood memories is coming home from Eucharist -- my grandmother used to take me regularly as part of her mission to save my soul: my being baptised was the no-budge condition for my mother's readmission into the family after the whole "I will disown you forever if you marry That Man" -- which was frankly, and literally in those days, all Greek to me. And my grandfather asked: "Did he speak to you?" And I was confused, so he clarified: "God. Did he speak to you?" Only he said Bog, which is the Russian, so I was even more confused and just politely said no. And he was all conspiratorial: "I knew you were a clever girl, but he speaks to your silly grandmother." Anyway. Here I am, in hiding. At least I can catch up on lj. Current Mood: paranoid
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Question: Would the majority of Americans really not recognise a hockey stick when they saw it? As in a field hockey stick, not an ice hockey one? Because I'm sure a million years ago Buffy rejected Joyce's notion of sending her to private school with the complaint she didn't want hockey knees, so the existence of field hockey appears to be acknowledged. But in the recap for ep207 of Torchwood over at AfterElton.com, the recapper comments: Even though they possess countless forms of alien weaponry inches away, Ianto’s instinct is to grab a broom-handle-like stick in his hand... which cracked me up harder than anything else. It wouldn't be important except that he also bemoaned the lack of Jack/Ianto, and the hockey stick was obviously ( [Vague non-plot spoilers for 203, 207.] )Which then makes me wonder... You recognise the cricket bats in 201 and 203, right? Or are all these things just weird Brit crap that you ignore as you enjoy the pretty? Or is noone on my flist watching Torchwood anyway, which makes it a moot point? ;-p
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The insanity that is my workplace continues to grow and thrive. I received an email today from the mother of one of my students. The subject line read: Homosexuality! Bestiality! Incest! Oh dear, I thought, resignedly, this can't be good. In fact it was good. She was thanking me for enthusing an otherwise lazy sod with a new found passion for school work, and congratulating me on aggressive marketing for the arts, which usually play second fiddle to the sciences at our august institution. Heh. Speaking of, social science destroyed hard science in the results from the Scholarship exams, out last week. So we are officially cock of the walk. My boys raked in close to fifty grand between them, to my giddy delight. Also of the crazy, the IT guy and I are carrying out a bizarre courtship/competition based around illicit downloading. Every time I walk past his office he yells out the name of the show that he is currently watching while pretending to work. I glare and yell back that some of us have to do real work (insofar as my lecturing about the great love of my life, Alexander, can be considered work, IT guy begs to differ), but my torrent should have completed by the time I get home. We then compare minutes to completion and bit rate, as well as plot points, the next day. I am entirely aware how dorky this is. I am clearly having a mental breakdown. It started halfheartedly with House and its ilk, but we hit fever pitch when we realised we were both watching Torchwood. He complained about the lack of naked!Jack today, while fixing my wireless. How can I not carry on a ridiculous work based affair with someone who ships Jack/Ianto, and thinks the action based episodes without "huge operatic gay drama" are the worst? Other than that, I am about to expire from exhaustion. Numbers in my courses are double what they were last year, and the stress is killing me. But in a good way. Tags: life; the universe; everything, my boys!
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In honour of Day 14 of 14valentines. Today's subject is V-Day International. There's an essay on the subject here. I've really enjoyed participating in this endeavour, and wow, fourteen posts in fourteen days, that feels like more than I posted in the last six months. I am well into my lj renaissance, and feeling the love. By popular demand, today I'm posting my recipe for spanakopita. It's my own recipe, not a family secret, I just built it through trial and error, and a prodigious love of cheese on my part (if you, too, love cheese you might prefer the tiropita... hmmm... maybe I should include that too...), and a great love of pie (not the American sort) on dear old M's part. Yesterday I gave you the fiddly triangles, this is the full on pan version. ( To the pies! )Tags: food glorious food
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In honour of Day 12 of 14valentines. Today's subject is economics and work. There's an essay on the subject here. When I was eight (maybe ten, either way it was the middle of the eighties) I precociously told my mother that the clothes she wore when she was young (ie the seventies) were the most hideous ever devised. Nothing fazed, Mum replied that one day my children would tell me the same. Oh no, said I, impossible. My clothes are beautiful, and always will be so. It's a safe bet I was wearing a bubble skirt with a six inch elastic waist at the time, with lycra tights underneath, and ankle boots. Oh, and braces (suspenders to Americans). I also had a crimper, and could make my hair stick out like Tina Turner's. Fortunately I have no children to punish me. Last week my sister demanded requested fondue for her birthday dinner. Being filled with a new appreciation of the decade thanks to some recent dvd watching, I agreed. The fondue pot looked both rusty and too small, the spirit burner filled me with visions of my newly acquired millstone apartment burning down, and the recipes all called for long-vanished wines. Bah humbug. I set to improvise. And lo, the party was a great success. ( No fuss, no muss: fondue in an electric wok )Tags: food glorious food
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In honour of Day 8 of 14valentines. Today's subject is domestic violence. There's an essay on the subject here. I love cocktail parties. My mother thinks it is madness that useful and commonplace things like frying pans live in the garage so that my full selection of cocktail glasses can live in the kitchen. Priorities, Mum. I also love theme parties. I've done James Bond, and Robin Hood, and Alexander. My biggest and most ambitious would have to be the five course Master and Commander dinner. I still have some surviving pieces of ship's biscuit five years later. No weevils yet. When I've paid off more of my mortgage I'm going to do the eleven course menu from the first class restaurant on the Titanic. In this spirit, I've assembled a selection of cocktails that make me think of favourite characters from fandom. You don't need a party. Just pour yourself one, relax, and kick back with an ep or two. ( Cocktails for Fangirls )Tags: food glorious food
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