First, a brief bit of fail: Google really thought that the anniversary of Tetris was the important thing to commemorate about June 6th?

( Fannish happiness part one: Star Trek )

Fannish happiness part two: I resisted Buffy for years. No longer. I'm sure you all have some vague idea of the sheer intensity of squee I am going through right now. Shan't even attempt to babble about it here, or I will never stop. DAMN YOU, Joss.

Still depressed. Still having issues (practical, familial, financial). No immediate end in sight. Don't wait up for me. Won't be posting fic.

That said, though, I am absolutely desperate for one little bit of help. Long long ago miriad told me about a movie David Hewlett was in way back when called Where the Heart Is. I downloaded it and shoved it in a folder awaiting the day SGA was over and I was desperate for another Hewlett fix. Well, that day has come, and... I lost Where the Heart Is during the computer swap. And now it seems to be un-torrentable. And I have no money for movies.

You guys, if I don't see David Hewlett in an itty-bitty cupid costume soon, I might die. Plus, Uma Thurman.

Can anybody hook me up?

*bats eyelashes*

Adorable solider is adorable.

(I got that from miss_porcupine's DoD photo zen tag, which includes quite an impressive amount of plane porn and silly men jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, but also tends to show soldiers being utterly adorable. Including a video wherein a Marine greatly resembles my grandmother's sheltie (but cuter).

Abigail Nussbaum is my favorite reviewer, and I'm rather crushed by her evaluation of Star Trek. It's about half the (IMO) not very interesting criticism that Star Trek shouldn't be "updated" and about half the (again, IMO) much more valid criticism that she just didn't like this Kirk. But the real reason I point it out is for the passage where she describes her Kirk:

My Kirk was first and foremost the one from the movies. The one who got old and fat, who paid the wages of his youthful womanizing with a son who wanted nothing to do with him, and of his meteoric career with an admiralty he loathed. This Kirk was shocked, simply flabbergasted, at no longer being that brash young man who could do no wrong, but in a way he never stopped being that person. Even dying he was full of wonder and a sense of adventure.

I love character meta that makes me fall in love with that character all over again. How perfectly expressed. Oh, Kirk.

Lastly, the Clios are in! They were medium-good this year: There's the T-Mobile dance which makes me grin like a dork for the rest of the evening every time I watch it, a haunting and magical public-service ad, and the hilariously surreal Abe Lincoln. The legacy ads included one I hadn't seen before, from The Guardian.

End linkspam. I promise.

Fail #1: Amazon Rank. (Thought #1: Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Thought number 2: The particular implementation of the "adult content" policy is ridiculous beyond words, but why are so few people complaining about the fact that they have such a policy at all? #3: If you do have an adult content screening system, the way to do it is to remove those items at the search level, not to fuck with your underlying database, especially not a database that has such a huge impact. That's just... *hunts for words* bad stewardship. #4: Man, they had better bend over backwards figuring out how this happened and reversing this policy and apologizing to authors and readers and EVERYONE and just kissing ass and begging for their reputation back)

Fail #2: Spent all day fixing my electrical system and freaking out because I thought I would have to pay $100 for a repair guy which I could not afford. Dodged that bullet, but my complete and total money panic is getting old.

Win #1: Dad called my uncle and had him deliver me an easter basket this morning. Swear to god, an easter basket. With a bunny. No joke. *glow*

Win #2: Paul Davis! I rec this fic/meta thing to make up for the Davis fic that I have failed to write for a week straight now because of all the various technical failures in my life. Oh, and also: John Sheppard plays Lube/not lube (post plus comment fic)

Win #3: I am name-squatting at Dreamwidth, not yet using. Decisions about journal importing and such to be made when I actually have a computer again. No, that's a lie. When I have an actual computer again I will watch a shitload of TV, spent a solid day playing Rome: Total War or Civ 4 or something, and then try again to write some fic. Then I'll think about it.

( In which it is all hilarytamar's fault )

Catalysis for Dummies is the cutest John/Rodney AU in quite a while.

And a Kings rec, the first NC-17 Jack/David I have liked yet: All Tomorrow's Parties

Awesome linkage:

A Mathematical Limerick. I am fairly sure this wins the internet. (It works, as far as I can tell. I won't admit how tough it was to remember how to deal with that)

Now this is a man who understands procrastination: Part one, two, three, four, and five.

Random: From now on, I shall endeavor to keep Certera's Law in mind when selecting my online reading material. (Like I wasn't already)

I just bought my comic-con pass! Hell- I figure if the financial apocalypse comes crashing down on me and I can't go, I'll only be out $75. And those suckers are selling out fast. I'll be stunned if there are any four-day tickets left next week.

ETA: This is my new favorite poem.

I have been having so much fun watching the unspooling feud between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer.

Okay, full disclosure: When I lived with my grandparents, they watched Mad Money nearly every night. I think Jim Cramer indulges in shallow, idiotic, distracting, insulting hijinks to mask his own vapidity, that he creates artificially pumped-up enthusiasm and a deceptive sense of urgency to aid his self-serving boosterism, and that his presentation of his own expertise and certainty borders on the criminally irresponsible. Oh, and that he strikes me as a thoroughly unpleasant person who is going to scream himself into an early but very well-deserved coronary.

So it's not like I'm biased.

Part one, Part two, and Part three. They get steadily funnier, until the climax of the third one, which is pretty genius.

And now Cramer is going to be on the Daily Show on Thursday. Must watch! But what I really want to know is this: how could any celebrity think that it's a good idea to get in a pissing contest with Jon Stewart? I mean, you will lose that fight! Was Cramer stupid?

Random: I am making raspberry filled fudge brownies. If they turn out half as good as they smell so far, this could be really something. Thank God for Nestle pre-made dough (don't stone me! I know I'm a heathen!).

I have a new userpic, found when I was looking for Teal'c pics. It makes me happy. I consider this my birthday gift to myself (small pleasures, no?).

Thank you so much everybody for the birthday wishes! Especially wendy and hilarytamar. Shiny!

Nothing exciting happening here. Think I'm going to park my butt in front of Write or Die tonight, because this is getting silly. Have started to have a lot of fun over at Academic Earth, the collection of open-courseware videos from various universities.

Random: While it is perfectly possible to use cooking oil for lube, it is not, in fact, possible to substitute the other way around. Which is another way of saying that I have to go grocery shopping.

Right. *waves* Still alive, etc. That's all.

( A list of randomalia )

Some little elf nominated two of my stories for a Blue Moon award (including the gen one I thought nobody read!). I am all a-twitter! Thank y0ou so much, little elf! I scrounged around a bit today finding some stuff to nominate. I always feel weird doing that because I know I don't remember the best stories I read this year-- The ones that get nominated are just sort of free-association of the stuff I liked over the last four months or so. (Like how Oscar winners are always movies that came out just recently. Or something.) But anyway. Eeee!

And lastly, there is an awesome Valentine's Day thing hosted here. Simply send an email with any anonymous Valentine messages you want to send to any ljer, and svmadelyn compiles them all.

The public, squeeful version of today's post:

( Merlin! Plus grammar rant )

In short, Merlin is the gay lovechild of Smallville and Torchwood, christened and glitter-sprinkled by Xena.

I just... *facepalm* I'm doomed.

Random: I would totally wear this shirt. Where do you suppose I get a Rachel icon?

ETA: Aaaaaand... they just cast Santiago Cabrera, my favorite from Heroes, and the most underappreciated Pretty in that series, as Arthur. And Arthur is eyefucking him like no tomorrow. I am doomed.

Just watched the Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon. And, okay, it isn't as bad as MegaSnake or Sumuru, but it sure as hell ain't good. You know, if I were Michael Shanks, I would have started to object to being typecast quite a while ago (probably at least by the time they had him talk about Sumer and Babylon on Eureka- then again, didn't he play somebody totally different in Judicial Indiscretion? Maybe I should watch that). That is, if I wasn't busy objecting to being cast in such crappy movies.

Confidential to Michael Shanks:
Dear Michael,

Please, for the love of God, get a better agent. Also, your fake snooty British accent has not improved with age. I still love you, though
-Justine

End of SGA has leaked. Have not yet watched it. Won't, til after the New Year. Am trying not to think about it. V. sad.

This is probably the single best peice of writing meta I have ever seen, and has somehow managed to make all my difficulties with plot crystal clear to me, when a thousand writing metas haven't before.

You know how I said I was done with the sga_santa recs? I lied. Go read Short and Stout right now. Do not attempt to drink anything while you read it.

First, happy Hunkkah to all who celebrate!

Wow, I sure have been absent, no? It turns out that the internet connection here is flakey. Haven’t read flist since Thursday, won’t til next week. I miss you all. Merry Christmas in advance.

Random: On Thursday I had a lesson with this ESL student. He had a workbook page to do: "Words ending with -ship." One of the words was friendship, which he knew. The next was battleship. I asked him if he knew what a battleship was. He thought about it for a few minutes, and then made a perfectly reasonable analogy. "It's what you have when you're enemies. I have a friendship with my boss. I have a battleship with my ex-wife."

Random 2: We are under 14 inches of snow. This is the most snow I have ever seen, I am pretty sure. Walking through it is bizarre and deeply cool. Have discovered that once you pack things down enough, a snowboard actually makes a pretty good sled. (whee!). My dad is in seventh heaven, shoveling and bitching about all the people who don’t know how to drive.

There is an absolute flood of stories over at sga_santa. Quite a lot of them are getting lost in the shuffle, I think, and there’s not a lot of feedback going up in general. (Not that I’m helping- I’ve had barely any time to read!) I’ll stick up a recs list soon (or at least, a rec list out of the 15 or so stories I read). Are there any other recs lists up? I’d love to read some more of these, but no TIME.

I am 2000 words into my second Yuletide story, and I think I might be able to hit three. V. proud.

So, Michael Sembello, I understand that she is, in fact, a maniac at my door. Also that she's dancing like she's never danced before. But what I want to know is, is she dancing in a manner in which she has never danced before, or is she dancing as though she has never danced before?

This really, sincerely bothers me.

I am reminded of the time my mother and I spent an entire dinner trying to decide if "grits" should take a singular or plural verb. (I contend that grits is clearly a mass, uncountable noun, along the lines of water and sand. She replies that "grits is" is offensive enough to the ear that the plural form of the word should be respected. That also bothers me to this day).

I never claimed not to be deeply weird.

Have any of you ever heard the phrase "all mouth and no trousers"? It gets about 10k Google hits. I had never heard it before, but it may be my new favorite Wacky Britishism. I'm going to be trying to work this into conversation now. But you know what really makes it hilarious? the context.

One worry is that China’s rulers will try to push the yuan down to help exporters. That would be a terrible idea, not least because the government has the resources to ease the pain in less dangerous ways: it is running a budget surplus and has little debt. Last month it announced a huge 4 trillion yuan (nearly $600 billion) fiscal-stimulus package. Some who have crunched the numbers argue that this was all mouth and no trousers—much of it made up by old budget commitments, double-counting and empty promises. It was thus mainly propaganda...

*facepalm* The diction-level incongruity there strikes me as hilarious. I cannot stop snickering.

Forty Inspiring Speeches in Two minutes

It is REALLY embarrassing how much this moves me. Seriously. If I watch this in five days, I will cry- I'm getting that "oh my God if I were PMSing I would be sobbing right now" burning in the backs of my eyes.

You may commence pointing and laughing now.

ETA: And if you're thinking that explains a lot of my crush on Obama, you'd be right. *rhetoric swoon*

Oh! Also, did you all see Jon Stewart take Huckabee to the mat on gay marriage? Well done, Stewart. <3

( Have a poem )

Hearing Richard Dean Anderson say, "yes sir" really turns me on. Most men, really, but his is especially good.

As far as I can tell, Macgyver as spent the last three years getting impulsively kissed by a new beautiful woman every week. Every two weeks at the outside. And yet he still manages to look sweetly surprised and dazed every time. I like that in a man.

I want this so badly I can hardly stand it. Even though I'm not a gamer anymore. *grabby hands*

( Wizard of Earthsea, LeGuin )

Home safe from Wincon. Just calculated that I got 20 total hours of sleep over the last four nights, counting airplane naps (yes, I almost pulled an all-nighter the night before Wincon. I claimed to be intelligent, not smart). Am so tired I am stunned I got home from the airport. Still have to work two hours today.

Wincon was wonderful for several reasons, and they know who they are. Honestly, I am all weirdly discombobulated, because something happened there that was really stunning and amazing and unexpected and wonderful for me, and between that and the extreme sleep-dep, it feels like I've been gone for weeks instead of four days.

Am so far behind on writing, even though I have so many things that I want to get written. *sigh* I would say watch this space, but I have been so bad about procrastinating. Also: How was it that I spent Friday with miriad and we DID NOT WATCH SGA?

Now I need to go handle a four-day backlog of politics. Am jonesing for Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart! Apparenly Colin Powell endorsed Obama? Man, I can't turn my back for a minute.

*boggles*

metafandom? Me? Seriously? In what universe?

*boggles more*

Also! I just baked for the first time in two years. It's a chocolate-strawberry dump cake, recipe courtesy of seperis. I think I love her forever for that. Three ingredients, no mixing, and the result is hot chocolate-strawberry goop with a chocolate crust on top.

\o/

Too much procrastination, not enough work or writing. Have to stop paying attention to politics; am possibly grinding my teeth down to dust (You had to make the VP debate EASIER because you didn't think she could COPE with it? Jesus Christ, is there anyone in this entire country who is even PRETENDING to treat Palin like an actual candidate? Also, way to grandstand, McCain. Do you really think that you- avowed economic know-nothing, lifetime proponent of deregulation, and not even on the relevant Senate committee- are really utterly necessary to pass the bailout? Are you really so scared of campaigning that you will use any excuse to panic-monger instead?)

Oh, right. I'm NOT thinking about that.

Anyway, tomorrow: answering my wonderful metafandom comments. Writing, for the first time since Sunday. Working on a beta obligation that I just fumbled so bad. Getting back to my abandoned online course.

( Watch me fail at domesticity )

Adulthood: FAIL.

I had three major appointments today, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them called to cancel with only an hours notice. Which means, of course, that I've been sitting at home all day but haven't actually DONE anything, because I kept thinking that I was about to leave in an hour. This one is more of a rueful laugh.

I finally have a John/Rodney icon I really like. I would tell you how many times I've played that scene since last night, gigglesmiling at the spit take every time, but then I would sound pathetic.

I also probably should admit how hard I laughed at this. SFW. Heh. Hehehehe.

I think, possibly, that I am madly in love with Obama. My weakness for orators is showing, y/y? Friday's Daily Show is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Random zinger from the Democratic convention, from Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio: "George W. Bush came into office on third base … and then he stole second. And John McCain cheered him every step of the way." (not the best snap, but the least predictable)

I am madly in lust with these jeans (okay, no laughter there).

I also desperately want this, but the idea of spending fifty dollars on something like that really is laughable.

Over and out.

I kind of love Gmail's targeted advertising. It used to be convinced that all I ever wanted were shin splint cures and yarn (neither of which I have ever bought), but somehow over the last few months it shifted to exclusively pitching vanity presses (publish without an agent! See your novel in print!). Except for one persistent ad for the "O'Neill Captain Jack," which is apparently a very ugly shoe. You have NO IDEA how much that amuses me.

So, I watched through SGA 5x03, and then got turned off and didn't watch any more. I wasn't swearing off my show, just... enjoying writing a lot, and not brimming over with enthusiasm for it. But, since apparently The Shrine is the best episode in the history of everything (I am still unspoiled! I have no idea how I managed this), and miriad nudged me, I thought I should catch up.

( SGA 5x03, the one where Satedans are actually Klingons )

( SGA 5x04, the one where it turns out somebody on the SGA staff can actually write )

( SGA 5x05, the one without Tori Higginson )

Overall, my feelings about SGA remain exactly the same: mountains and mountains of boudless love for the characters, very little for the show as show. A few fic wants, but no new bunnies (just the ones I was already nurturing: the Ronon/Keller, the John/Rodney/Radek, the Sam/Rodney, the alien POV. What is up with my non-McShep fic ideas in this fandom?) So the Shrine will be next, and hopefully I will be all caught up Friday, and maybe there will be some restored squee?