2012 Books
#1: 2012-01-03 to 2012-01-04 - The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin ***
#2: 2012-01-06 to 2012-01-16 - Desperation, Stephen King **
#3: 2012-01-17 to 2012-01-19 - True Grit, Charles Portis ****


2012 Movies
#1: 2012-01-02 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 ***
#2: 2012-01-03 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 ****
#3: 2012-01-21 - Drones (long-awaited and amusing) **
#4: 2012-01-21 - Goodbye Solo (slow to start, but worth it for the great performance by Souleymane Sy Savane) ***
#5: 2012-01-22 - The Artist ***1/2
#6: 2012-01-24 - All That Jazz *
#7: 2012-01-25 - Notes On A Scandal ****
#8: 2012-01-27 - Certified Copy **1/2
#9: 2012-01-28 - 9 (hee!) ***
#10: 2012-01-30 - Pina ***
#11: 2012-01-31 - The Help ***
#12: 2012-02-01 - The Vanishing (1988) ****
#13: 2012-02-03 - Take Shelter ***1/2
#14: 2012-02-04 - Chronicle ***
#15: 2012-02-05 - The Descendants ****

PRENTICE PENNY JUST LAUGHED AT MY JOKE. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID FOREVER.

Oh hai. In other non-Twitter, non-psychotic news, I have been busy watching a lot of movies and plotting to take over the internet. Wait, that's also pretty psychotic. What I mean is, I've been in the planning stages of starting a standalone blog where I can put all kinds of movie chatter. I miss having a site of my own, and playing with designs, and I've been reading a ton of criticism lately, and I want to get in on that.

So far, the hardest part is thinking of what to call it. I'm bursting with links and ideas and references, but a decent title is eluding me. This is such a familiar sensation. I can't possibly imagine why! </ficwritingsarcasm>

The Best Of It - Part 1 of ?
Synopsis: Paris outs herself and Rory during a televised argument with Michele Bachmann. Peskiest of all is the fact that Paris and Rory aren't actually dating. A documentary crew wants to make Paris And Rory: Love In Stars Hollow anyway. Meanwhile, Rory goes slowly and quietly nuts. (And doesn't like Paris like that -- why would you even suggest such a thing?? Not that ... anyone did.)

“Now, now, now,” Taylor says. “Not so fast. There are serious potential repercussions here that need to be addressed. Such as: what if the Tea Party declares war on Stars Hollow?”

“Then it’s a good thing we’ve got such a valiant troop of Revolutionary War re-enactors!” Rory says as perkily as she can.

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I'm seeing a lot of discussion that contrasts our brand of media fandom with sports fanaticism, and yes, I agree that there's a huge double standard there in so far as it's socially acceptable to paint one's face and chant ritualistically in public and on television, and that there are entire talk radio stations devoted to dissecting every aspect of sports, but a similar level of devotion to fictional characters and the stories they're used to tell gets scorned and mocked. (Linked: most recent instance of said mocking.)

But come on, this isn't a reason to hate on football. Football is awesome! And a big part of my personal fandom experience, come to think of it.

I don't know how to fix people being ignorant assholes on the internet - or in general - but I know responding to contempt and ridicule (incidentally, "contempt and ridicule" were the only words I was able to decipher during the commencement address at my graduation) by passing it onto others is kind of a sad victimy thing to do. I would much rather work on improving my own situation than glare jealously at others who already have it better/easier.

Also:



2012 Movies
#12: 2012-02-01 - The Vanishing (1988) ****
#13: 2012-02-03 - Take Shelter ***1/2
#14: 2012-02-04 - Chronicle ***
#15: 2012-02-05 - The Descendants ****

First, since I just got back to LJ after a shamefully long absence, I figured I would repost this meme out of playful curiosity:

I'm running a test to see who's reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun.

-lifted from harbek


Second, I've become obsessed with finding old Playstation 1 games to play on my PS3. Half.com has a ton of them at fantastic prices, but I've come to learn that some of them are now officially collector's items, and worth their weight in gold. And of course the silly goofy dance game that I used to play all the time, that I was hoping to acquire for a few bucks, you know, the one with the dancing aliens and the burger-serving mascot dog?

Yes, that one is the most expensive of all. Decent copies at $51 on half, questionable copies starting at $40 on ebay. So now I'm more obsessed than ever, obviously. It's only a matter of time before I'm shelling out the bucks.

*shame*


2012 Movies
#10: 2012-01-30 - Pina ***
#11: 2012-01-31 - The Help ***

Still with the Dreamwidth spam comments. After reporting approximately forty of them on Friday night, I woke up this morning to six more of them. Seriously. I'm being attacked, and I'll keep reporting them as they come in, but I won't be posting there until they stop, and at this point I'm not sure they will. So while you guys are all moving over there in protest over LJ, I may be staying here and hiding from evil robots.


2012 Movies
#8: 2012-01-27 - Certified Copy **1/2
#9: 2012-01-28 - 9 (hee!) ***

Is anyone else getting huge amounts of comment spam at Dreamwidth right now? I mean, it is INTENSE. Also, they don't seem to have a point. Advertising? Toxic links? No, they are just crazed nonsense with gibberish titles. Unless the gibberish titles have some kind of mindhack effect, which I doubt.

Anyway, I've gotten probably 8 since I got up this morning, and before that a few per day since I started posting there again. It's enough to make me want to give up the DW ghost and just relocate here. Especially since your pages and the posting page of LJ isn't blocked from work - only the flist, and I can work around that.

(Oh God, who am I? I just heard someone say my name and mumbled "Suuup?" automatically even though no one was actually asking me anything. I'm in a Budweiser commercial, apparently.)

donnagirl suggested we should go to a conference together, so I've been trying to get myself into poetry mode over the last few days. It's like changing to new glasses, and not necessarily comfortable ones. I know, for instance, that going without my headphones on my 1.5 hour commute will catapult me into poetry mode, but do I want to do that? Not really, I love my headphones.

I love poetry mode, too, though. It's the classic instant gratification vs. delayed benefit dilemma. I must be strong.

2012 Movies
#5: 2012-01-22 - The Artist ***1/2
#6: 2012-01-24 - All That Jazz *
#7: 2012-01-25 - Notes On A Scandal ****

I just showed Melancholia to my family. I wanted to do it before the Oscar nominations came out, before it was snubbed and my dad was able to dismiss it as an unimportant film. Which sounds overly specific, I know, but I can predict his words pretty well. Also, those damn Oscar snubbinations.

My tenses did something strange in that paragraph, didn't they?

Anyway, they watched it. My dad was very unsettled by it, as I thought he might be. His mother's been mentally ill his whole life. He says the only character he was able to relate to was the little boy. I almost feel bad for showing it to him.

To me, every moment of Kirsten Dunst's performance feels so truthful. I'm embarrassed to say how much I relate to it, because I'm afraid it might make people think of me as an unstable basketcase. So that was a weird post-movie discussion.

So now we're watching Wipeout to cheer ourselves up. It's working... a little.

By the way, I'm only putting movies on my list that I haven't seen before, so:

2012 Movies
#3: 2012-01-21 - Drones (long-awaited and amusing)
#4: 2012-01-21 - Goodbye Solo (slow to start, but worth it for the great performance by Souleymane Sy Savane)

2012 Books
#3: 2012-01-17 to 2012-01-19 - True Grit, Charles Portis

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Happy Buffy's Birthday, everyone!

It's a little freakish how much I've been enjoying winter so far. I even shoveled. On purpose.

I finished Stephen King's Desperation a few days ago and now every Canesten commercial I see fills me with revulsion. It was truly his most viscerally grotesque book, and I say that having read most, but not all of his books - it can only be tied in grossness, never surpassed. And I have read some disgusting shit!

I found it reasonably compelling, and the kid at its centre was endlessly fascinating as a character. The end felt rushed, though, and almost forcibly expels the reader from the inner journey of one of its main characters, whose thoughts and POV have been prevalent all along. That was odd.

It was no 11.22.63 or Under The Dome, both of which I read in the past couple of months.

Despite my lukewarm review, Desperation's companion book, The Regulators, is in my virtual to-read pile for sometime later this year. I've never read a Bachman book before, so that should be interesting.

Right now I'm nearly done with Charles Portis's True Grit, which is a fantastic read, although a bit redundant if you've seen the Cohen brothers movie. They stayed so close to the book it's almost uncomfortable. I've seen the movie 4 times and I can almost anticipate the end of the sentence I'm reading when I turn the page.

I expect I'll be adding that one to the list tomorrow. But for now:

2012 Books:
#2: 2012-01-06 to 2012-01-16 - Desperation, Stephen King

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Went to the yearly get-together at my uncle's house last night. He usually makes delicious spaghetti sauce, but in the last few years he seems to have concluded that we're sick of his spaghetti, because, you know, we have it once a year and all. So he's gotten creative. Yesterday's meal was provided by his girlfriend, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Saguenay/Lac St-Jean Quebecoise.

She made cipaille, which is like the Quebec meat pie you hear typically about, except with about 900% more weird gamey meat, and a strange ulcerous hole in the top. I'm not a big meat-eater, and I came home feeling so sick I was convinced we were all about to have a super fun night of food poisoning. Turns out I was the only one who felt sick, and the pill I took to deal with that (at 11 o'clock last night) is still making me feel totally stoned 18 hours later.

On that note, how do you feel about the following?

There is a certain bathroom at my office where someone keeps leaving religious leaflets and postcards with honest-to-Hades handwritten bible verses on the back. Not just on the counter, but on the mirrors and in the stalls tucked into the toilet paper dispensers. Now, I am about one postcard away from pulling out a red Sharpie and scribbling, "This is inappropriate - people are trying to masturbate in here!" underneath the bible quotes.

Good idea, or totally inadvisable? Help me out here - I've lost all perspective.

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Mission already accomplished! Yaaaay.

2012 is starting out very well, with lots of shoes. I received 2 pairs of Fluevogs today from the Man Himself (Ida Clarks in black and beige, and vegan Raquels in orange corduroy that I got on sale) and I've got another one coming from a very fortuitous eBay win (Lovers in a discontinued burgundy/beige). Yes, I know that sounds completely insane, but, well, I've always been a collector. After this, I'll have a pair for each day of the week, so that'll be convenient, right?

Anyway, ( meet my dog Ramona )

Annnd... here's the start of my 2012 Book & Movie Cultural Extravaganza!

Movies
#1: 2012-01-02 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
#2: 2012-01-03 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Books
#1: 2012-01-03 to 2012-01-04 - The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin

As the last person to see the Potter films, I have very little in the way of a review. The Le Guin book is awesome, as was to be expected. Stephen King's Desperation is next!

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You guys, I am banned from checking my flist until I finish my NaNoWriMo words for the day and go shopping. This is because, due to NaNoWriMo and the total shake-up to my schedule while waiting for the new job to start, I FORGOT YESTERDAY WAS NEW COMIC BOOK DAY. D:

The store called me at seven last night to tell me my holds were in, and I was like, "It's WEDNESDAY???" They laughed at me. Whoops!

And well, it's not that I don't trust you guys to cut your cutables, it's that I don't trust me not to click them. *whimpers*

Meanwhile, NaNoWriMo (that hated awful-sounding acronym) is going pretty well. I've been keeping almost-a-whole-day ahead the whole time, and my goal for today is to break that "almost" and carry around a full day's buffer.

I partly credit the awful NaNo stats page for my good progress. I have no idea what moron thought it would be a good idea to tell people who were ahead in their word goals that they were having an "unsuccessful day" just because they'd only added 500 words today to their bank of 12,000 from yesterday. Not to mention the fact that it tells you first thing in the morning that you're having an unsuccessful day so far! Congrats, it's 7am and you've done nothing yet, failure!

( Deeper into stats. )
All this to say that, um, the annoying stats issue has actually fuelled my rage and caused me to do well. But not in any way that makes me want to keep the stats the way they are. Negative feedback? Seriously? In the least negative program this side of... damn, I can't think of anything more positive and encourage-y than NaNoWriMo was before this year. I'm sure even Up With People had its seedy underbelly.

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As seen all over my flist:

All of you fanficcers out there, I want you to post a link to your most Halloween-ish story. Note, the story doesn't need to be about Halloween, or even take place at Halloween. Just the story that you think best fits the Halloween spirit.

Some ground rules:

1. It must be complete. No WiPs allowed.

2. Do NOT post just a link. Post all header information, such as title, fandom, pairing, trigger warnings, etc. (See below for an example.)

3. All fandoms welcome.

4. All pairings welcome.

5. All genres welcome. For example: If you think the story you've written that best fits the Halloween spirit scares the pants off people, fantastic! If you think the story you've written that best fits the Halloween spirit is a straight-up laugh-fest, fantastic!

It's a tough call between scary and Halloween-themed, but since I'm pretty sure I've linked to my SPN Halloween gen/humour story a million times, here's the one I consider my creepiest instead:

Crooked Legs
Supernatural, gen, 1635 words.
Summary: Sam goes through some changes.

Happy reading! Muahahaha!

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I keep having thinky thoughts about that controversial Marie Claire article, despite the fact that the controversy is *so over* that the backlash has already come and gone. So I don't really want to talk about the article itself. Its very publication is going to go down as one of the great mind-boggling mysteries of the modern age, but the outrage is long over.

( So I'll address the article's subject, instead. )

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I just got offered a job! Way better pay and better benefits, so it's a total no-brainer. Plus, I have a feeling it'll be easier than what I do now, which is so often frustratingly vague. I'm gonna go from working all by myself to working in a cubicle hive, so that's a bit scary. And probably no more slacking and reading fic at work, which is a daunting thing. Still, it's not like my downtime here is oh so productive - I actually have been far less creative here with all this free time than I was when I worked 11 hour days at Blockbuster without having the chance to sit down. So, this downtime I have so much of here? Meaningless, really.

Anyway, I'd be insane not to take it!

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I'm writing a novel-length fic for NaNoWriMo! I decided it might be a good idea to participate in some way, the better to stomp this awful block I've been wrestling with since last November's epic fail, but I knew that 50,000 original words was not the way to go right now, after a year of cluelessness.

So I spent all weekend thinking up a list of hilariously bad ideas (omg so bad), and finally hit on one that didn't make me roll my eyes five minutes into planning it! Yay! In fact, I started typing out a few thoughts and before I knew it, I had 2 single-spaced pages and had followed the basic plotline all the way to the end.

o___O

And then I info-dumped all over donnagirl and arabella_hope (hey, are you still spice on DW, by the way? Because that makes us too adorable for words, I'm just sayin'...) which is a sure sign of commitment on my part. Or so my track record would indicate. Also a good sign: having two weeks before I'm technically allowed to start isn't frustrating me the way it normally would. I actually am psyched that I get to plan in deeper detail between now and then.

It's got all kinds of themes I love crammed into it, which helps. Like robots! Yay, robots! Not that I'll be spilling much of it here until it's all the way done (actually, if all goes well I'm hoping to post it as a big bang next spring). I just wanted to spew a little bit of my overly earnest excitement at you.

Yaaaay.

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First of all: Dear Dreamwidth, whyfor do you log me out every time I step away from the computer? I really love being logged into you. I don't know why you feel the need to reject me this way. *giant fake sob*

Second, a ficlet:

I listen to bands that don't even exist yet
Scott Pilgrim, gen, 750 words, originally posted here at The Bechdel Test Comment Ficathon for the prompt "Ramona & Kim, Halloween".

( so very very )

::

I also wrote this one (Buffy season 8, Satsu and Faith) although I'm not that happy with it, so I probably won't be reposting it anywhere.

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I'm queer. I mostly like girls, but sometimes I like boys, and sometimes I like people who are neither, or both.

Now this is a holiday I can feel good about, as opposed to the incoherent muddle that is Thanksgiving, which we never seem to celebrate anyway.

...

We're having a comment party at penny_lane_42's LJ and everyone who likes to write or read about ladies is invited! All fandoms welcome :)



...

Went to Geek Night at a local revue theatre yesterday. They were showing The Shining with what had to have been an original 1980 print - you should have seen the light damage and wear & tear on this thing. It had entirely forgotten the meaning of the word black. (Unfortunately, it hadn't forgotten the meaning of the N-word, which I'd forgotten was spoken multiple times in one scene. Even though it's being said by a crazed homicidal ghost and could probably be explained away as the character's word choice, not the filmmaker's, there's still something deeply uncomfortable about watching that scene nowadays. Just goes to show you how much the world has changed.)

Anyway, they do trivia contests for prizes on Geek Nights. Which means it's essentially "give Kath some prizes" night when you consider they're asking horror movie questions. I stopped after one prize, because I'm not that much of a dork, but yeah, I think Geek Night will be a thing from now on, if only for the cool prizes.

How do you like my new shower curtain?

It's way better than the flowered one I last used. I have vowed not to warn anyone ahead of time when they come to visit. Muahaha.

So, yeah. If you need someone to out-geek all your horror geeks, call me. Seriously, it's kind of my thing.

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First (and foremost!): Happy birthday to coalitiongirl! I hope it's a good day :)

::

Well, I have not gotten my wimpy self to do anything yet re: whedonland. *cowers*

If you've been considering getting into Chew but haven't gotten around to it yet, this month might be a good time to catch up with the first 14 issues! Because next month's issue will be finishing off the third arc, and it'll have extra pages and a fancy tri-fold poster cover, and you'll totally want that, right? Besides, where else can you get your monthly fix of cannibalism and gay cyborgs? May I direct you once again to my (only slightly out-of-date) introductory post? :D

Oh, and on the subject of awesome things:



Awww, local boys make good and play human Pong! ♥

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