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September 11th, 2007

08:40 am - I woke up this morning ...and it was ten minutes before I realized what day it is. I was stumbling around in a sleepy haze, thinking about the things I need to accomplish at work today, and that the mortgage broker is supposed to call at 9:30 a.m., and what a doofus my cat is for jumping on my head at 7 o'clock in in the morning, and I was actually in the shower before it hit me that today was September 11. The last time this happened was 9/11/2001. ( That was the last Tuesday morning before the future happened. ) Current Location: Home Current Mood: There are no words Current Music: "Swing Low, Sweet Chariots"

(belly up to the bar)

August 18th, 2007

07:12 pm - Saw Stardust... LIked it. Not altogether breathtaking, and I think they could have done better than Claire Danes for the lead, but liked it.   However.  My friend and I went to late afternoon showing (the plan was brunch, thrift stores, flea markets, movie, but after the thrift stores we were secondhanded out and the theatre was only a few blocks away and the flea market was across town).  We also arrived early enough that we not only had the pleasure of seeing the rest of the audience come in bearing their own weight in popcorn, but sat through the commercial block before the previews, Delightful paeans to the glory of McDonald's, pop music, caffeine-enriched beverages, sneakers, free refills on the bathtub-sized popcorn, Geena Davis shmoozing about that candy whose price is donated to charity, and, just before the lights dimmed and the previews started, complete with rousing music and video-game animation... ...the U.S. Marines. I wasn't shocked, of course, I'd seen those commercials before--I guess it was the CONTEXT that smacked it into me. We segued almost seamlessly into previews for: a) The Dark Is Rising (which looks stomach-turningly dreadful, btw); b) The Golden Compass; and c) about four other magical tales all seeming to feature the same winsome, blank-faced twelve-year-old (where is that kid from Love, Actually when you need him?) In other words: It's not like the ad people don't know the demo here. How is it possible that it's illegal to sell or advertise cigarettes to kids, but it's okay to try to seduce them into killing other people and quite possibly dying on the other side of the planet?  Now I can't the last lines of the Wilfred Owen poem out of my head: ...you would not tell with such high zest to children desperate for some ardent glory the old lie: Dulce et decorum est  pro patria mori. Current Mood: bitchy

(4 martinis | belly up to the bar)

July 28th, 2007

03:30 pm - The Last Train Yeah, so. Who'da thunk I'd finally get around to posting something about HP? At some point I may be able to post coherently and sans bitterness about HP&DH. Until then, there's this. Spoilers, of course. ( The Last Train ) Current Location: King's Cross Current Mood: crushed Tags: snape

(13 martinis | belly up to the bar)

March 31st, 2007

07:17 am - Wow, I *seriously* hate LJ. I just spent about an hour typing a post about my new experiments with my dear Gimp, resulting in more amateurish icons--but still better than the last ones. And LJ proceeded to slurp it up and consign it to the dark depths of cyberspace. How does anyone use this darn software?  Anywho. Dim sum is calling my name, so here are the icons sans commentary, a.k.a. my explanations of the learning experience involved in each, a.k.a. why they are bad. Five for Lost  and my newest hopeless cult ship, Desmond/Claire (in "Par Avion" they glowed with so much more chemistry than cute Claire & Charlie or insipid Des & Penny), and three for  Heroes (including a corrected version of one of the old ones). ( Follow me to the icons --->  ) Current Mood: annoyed Current Music: NY1 Tags: gimp, heroes, icons, lost

(3 martinis | belly up to the bar)

March 12th, 2007

12:07 pm - Me 'n' my GIMP made icons. And I don't mean that in the politically incorrect way.  ( I am almost as good at icon making as I am at using the LJ cut. ) Current Mood: determined Tags: gimp, heroes, icons, snape

(belly up to the bar)

January 19th, 2007

06:46 pm - Reading Record 2007 And so it begins. ( 2007 ) Tags: reading

(1 martini | belly up to the bar)

December 17th, 2006

10:54 pm - Snarcissa Masterlist ( Curtain of mercy ) Current Mood: working Tags: snape/narcissa

(4 martinis | belly up to the bar)

June 24th, 2006

03:10 pm - My own personal Potterverse Look! Something from within the last year! Last week there was a meme going around asking about the quirks and tics that make up your own personal view of the Potterverse. In my case, most of these are either extrapolated from essays I've written or plucked out of fics I haven't written.... 1. Luna’s dead mum was the granddaughter of Mr. Ollivander the wandmaker; her name was Viviane Ollivander and she was in the family business, and was trying out new magical wand cores when her experiment went rather horribly wrong, hence Ollivander only using three substances for wand cores. 2. Snape didn’t show up at Hogwarts just knowing curses; some of the earliest magic he learned were healing spells to patch up himself and Eileen after Tobias got out of hand. Snape back-engineered Sectumsempra from Semprasomething that knit skin back together. 3. Pansy Parkinson has been secretly in love with Blaise Zabini for years. 4. Somewhere there is a grove of Tapping Saplings; Hagrid brought one back and Dumbledore aged it by magic to become the Whomping Willow. 5. Teen Sirius used to take wee Nymphadora for rides on his flying motorcycle; he was the first one to call her Tonks as if she was one of his mates from school. 6. Draco, as a very small boy, called Narcissa “Muv” rather than “Mum.” (This is an homage to the British Mitford sisters, of course, who I see as models for Bellatrix/Unity, Narcissa/Debo, and Andromeda/Jessica.) Of course, since he was about six or so, it’s been “Mother.” 7. My explanation for Remus’s ratty “Professor R. J. Lupin” briefcase is that it was a gag gift that the Marauders and Lily gave him after graduating Hogwarts. 8. There is a spell that can make a Muggle immune to all the Wizarding World’s various Muggle-repelling illusions/wards/tricks; it’s called Disenchantment. 9. Snape’s cover job for spying on Hogwarts between spring 1980 (when Dumbledore rejected him for DADA) and September 1981 (when he started as Potions master) was as bartender at the Hog’s Head. And he first went to Aberforth, not Albus, when he decided to turn. Snape had previously had a brief bartending gig at the Leaky Cauldron, but he was fired for being too surly; people like to be able to unburden themselves to the barman. 10. The Professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts is Danaeus “Danny” Dalrymple, a half-blood born in 1898. He was quite the man about town after the Great War. He’s been teaching since 1933, and while he never quite got the hang of new-fangled notions like eckletricity or compotatoes, he does try to keep with advances in his field of study. For example, a few years ago he stopped teaching students the Charleston; now they study the Watusi. Current Mood: thoughtful

(5 martinis | belly up to the bar)

12:43 pm - Good-bye, Sonny Corinthos Another ancien regime GH piece dredged from the bottom of the former hard drive. This dates, I think, to 2002, and I wouldn't even bother using it to fill up space...except for the fact that I have been proved so very very agonizingly right. ( Good-bye, Sonny C... ) Current Location: Still back in 2002 Current Mood: sad but vindicated Current Music: Elton John, "Candle in the Wind" Tags: gh, sonny

(4 martinis | belly up to the bar)

10:34 am - Long ago, far away If on a Winter's Night a Traveler... Fandom: GH (when it was decent, circa 2000) Characters: Zander Smith/Emily Quartermaine Rating: Embarrassingly G Disclaimer: If they'd been mine, do you think things would have turned out as they did? Warning: Because I can only write when I trick myself into believing that's not what I'm doing, this little ditty got its start as a script for a Zem scenario, with a little bit of blocking. Then it gnawed its way out of that cage and became something different, possibly a story. I have removed most (I think) of the obvious script references, but that's the reason if some of the segues don't seem to seg in any way. Note: Title stolen from the book by the same name by Italo Calvino (too beautifully apt not to filch). ( To Zander she looks as if she's made of light ) Current Location: Somewhere in the past... Current Mood: nostalgic Tags: gh, zander

(belly up to the bar)