skip the light fandango

Friday Night Lights

( spoilers )

***

White Collar

This episode was full of "Hey it's that guys!" ( spoilers )

***

pet peeve of the day:

it's spelled PER SE. It means by, in, or of itself : as such : intrinsically. not PER SAY, which is just WRONG. If you don't know how to spell it, DON'T USE IT. Because spell check is not going to pick that one up.

Whew. I feel better now.

***

I barely managed to stay awake on the subway coming home tonight, so I took a long nap, but I am still all sleepy. I am very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

***

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Gakked from wisdomeagle, here ("I'm sure all of fandom has heard of this by now. Post the first lines from some of/20 of/50 of/all of your fic. Your flist writes drabbles for you.") and here ("So. Here they are. Sixty-odd first lines of fanfic. [. . .] Do as you like with these: put them in drabbles, put them in ficlets, put them in novels. Change the names, leave the names, edit them, what have you. Post the drabbles here, there, everywhere. Guess where they came from. Marvel at their inanity. Ignore them. Up to you.").

So under the cut we have almost 150 first lines, in alphabetical order.

( 148 first lines )

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Okay, so among the tutors there is me, and there are my two friends, and there are the people we are friendly with. And then there are those for whom we experience, shall we call it, antipathy. Mainly for their lack of ability to do their damn jobs, and to dump work on those around them, ie us.

Well. Tonight at dinner, me'n'my friends and another tutor were having a lovely meal together, good conversation, the rest of the table mostly deserted. We'd finished, and we were just in the mopping up stages--you know, the few minutes before you actually make the effort to stand up and leave.

And just then, who should come along but one of the tutors we (the three of us anyway) are on not-so-good terms with.

And all four of us were like, "Well, I gotta do this," and "Oh, I have a lot of work," and "Hm, well, I'm off to do such and such," etc. And we all stood up and left, abandoning the newly-arrived Unliked Tutor.

It was awkward. And probably very obvious? But on the other hand, we were finished, and we were just about to leave anyway, and we did say hi to her quite personably before we all up and left.

But, heh. Timing! Whatchagonna do.

I need a *sheepish* icon.

Last night I found myself ranting about a letter to the editor in the local paper as I frequently do. The gibberish found there is ridiculous. There's also some rational letters - the ones that agree with my views frequently fit this category *g* - though not as often. I've been reminded many times that it'd be a good idea to skip that page, but that doesn't sound very appealing.

I think for me part of the fun of having a local daily is the letters to the editor. I expect to see certain regulars express their views on particular subjects. I read the paper in a certain way and the editorial pages get read after the headline story. (Then the comics, obits, rest of the main page, local news and then the entertainment page(s).)

We've debated cutting the paper for the on-line edition several times for a variety of reasons, but I always vote for keeping it. There's no place else to get those discreet little snippets about snow-blower theft or worse yet snowmobile theft or dear god! an accident in a Tim Horton drive-thru. There's no other place to read about whose kid got drafted (let me tell you there is no bigger deal in this town, than when a local kid is a draft prospect) or how close the local Junior Team is to hosting the Memorial Cup, this year. Then, there is the drama of politics between the county and the city or the neighbouring townships versus the city. For over an entire year, the mayor and the council were in a stand-off and that was entertaining; you'd never see that outside the local paper.

In conclusion, I do enjoy my local newspaper. While they do offer an on-line editions, I'm not ready to switch to getting all my news on-line, not just yet anyway.

I did have things to say about Bones, but I don't remember what most of them were. ( spoilers )

***

Supernatural: Changing Channels

( rambling about the episode, with spoilers )

I will probably have more thoughts tomorrow.

( spoilers for next week's preview )

Oh, also, here is Matt Roush's review of the episode. (Spoiler: he really liked it.)

***

Damn, I totally didn't realize that the parade tomorrow is going to fuck with my commute (or my walk to the office after the subway, anyway). Maybe I will sneak out of work and try to see some of it. I did in 1996, when I worked down on Wall St. (I mean, I literally worked in a building on Wall St., not that I worked in the financial industry at that time.) and it was kind of awesome, even though they are not my team. Hmm...

***

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Answers to the mini-dvd commentary meme. The offer is still open, if you're interested after this scintillating discussion. *snerk* I had fun, anyway.

( Back from the Great Beyond for little_missmimi )

***

( We Killed Yamamoto for elliemurasaki )

***

Last night, I dreamt that two fangirls had moved into my bedroom in my parents house, while I was trying to live in it, and they were moving my stuff around and taking over my space and I was an unhappy camper, and my parents were like, "but we were just trying to help!"

I don't even know what to do with that. I just know that I woke up disgruntled and er, have remained so. My gruntle has been dissed. Or something.

***

I'm not a Yankees fan, but I thought they were kind of adorable last night. And I really don't like the Phillies, though I think they are a really good team, so I can't be too upset with the outcome.

***

New show tonight! YAY! I am looking forward to this one a lot. Plus, new Bones, too!

Ah, tv, never leave me!

***

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I was busy chatting with angelgazing about yuletide, so I maybe wasn't paying as close attention to Criminal Minds as I should have been, but that was okay because ( spoilers )

***

In case you missed it, I have a poll up to gauge interest in a possible Dark Angel end of the year fic exchange. I'd need at least ten people willing to play to run the thing, and right now that does not look like it's happening, but I'll leave the poll open until tomorrow afternoon, so if you are interested in such a thing, you should let me know.

***

Mini-dvd commentary meme seen everywhere:


Pick a paragraph / passage / scene from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection [Note: Please include the title/fandom]. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Just so you know, the older something is, the less I remember, and I would prefer not to talk about the XMM or SV stuff.

***

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I started my Yuletide signup at 1:30 this afternoon. It's now 10:30. I took breaks--made dinner, ate dinner, had a discussion group--but still, the majority of that time was expressly devoted to signing up for Yuletide.

*collapses*

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filling out my yuletide signup is HARD!

I thought I had it all figured out, and while two of my requests are rock solid GIMME GIMME (Middleman! The Queen's Thief!), I am kind of like, I could ask for this, but I also want that, and what about this and oh, I forgot about that! So I have just spent all this time filling it out and now I am like, is that really what I want to request? I mean, Big Bang Theory! Warlock! but also, Flora Segunda! Smekday! Lucifer! The Sound and the Fury! L'Engleverse! White Collar! Ten Inch Hero! Omg, Up! I could ask for Carl/Ellie! Sports Night is eligible! I could ask for a Dan/Jeremy/Natalie threesome or a Dan/Dana/Natalie threesome that otherwise no one would ever write!

And even with the caveat that I am only going to offer to write things I would be excited about writing, the list is... long. Longer than planned.

Maybe I will do what I did last year - submit, mull, and then resubmit closer to the deadline. Even though it takes forever to sign up.

My life, so hard!

*goes back to filling out the form*

***

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I've been working on my Yuletide sign-up for the last hour and a half and I'm still only up to "F."

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So I threw something together for dinner last night which came out somewhat differently than I expected.

Pasta from 1 (small) box Mac&Cheese
1/2 box different pasta

Cheese sauce from Mac&Cheese (either mix the powder with butter/milk as directed or use the goopy kind, which is what I did because we were all out of the powdery stuff)

3-6 strips pig bacon
2 chicken breasts, cubed
Frozen veggies (I used corn & brocolli)

Caesar dressing
Tobasco Sauce
Seasoned Salt
Grated Parmesan
Tomato Spaghetti Sauce


Boil the pasta.

Put the cheese sauce in a 13x9x2 glass casserole dish.

Cut the bacon strips into 1 inch squares, then sautee in Caesar dressing over high heat, turning constantly and using the spatula to scrape up the carmelized sauce from the bottom of the pan. When the bacon is done cooking, more or less, add the chicken and some more dressing, continue turning and scraping. When the chicken is done cooking, more or less, add the veggies, and keep on turning and scraping. (You can turn down the heat at this point if necessary.) When the veggies are done, put the mixture over the cheese sauce. Add some tobasco sauce, some seasoned salt, a bit of spaghetti sauce, and some more dressing. Mix thoroughly so the cheese sauce mixes with the meat and veggies.

Strain the pasta in a collander, then add to the cheese/meat/veggies mix. Mix so the sauce covers the pasta completely. Serve with grated permasan cheese.

The bacon/chicken grease in the sauce made the whole thing end up tasting a lot more stroganoffy than I had expected (which is odd, since there's no beef in the dish), but that's not bad, exactly. It was quite tasty, which is nice as I was cooking for one and have plenty of leftovers.

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Tuesday

1. Free accounts at DW now have 15 icon slots. \o/

2. Comm: white_collar

3. Latest Things (DW's most recent posts) is a fun read.

4. Currently nabbing Fastlane because I do not have enough shows to watch.

5. V and Castle are on the to-watch-tonight list. I have my fingers crossed that V is not going to be too dreadful.

Wednesday

( V )

Title: Fever
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Buffy/Faith
Rating: Worksafe
Summary: Faith turns to Buffy for help as she struggles with a demonic fever.

( Fever )

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V

I have very fond memories of the original mininseries(es?) and the series that resulted from them, but I wasn't particularly excited about this remake, even with Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk in it. I enjoyed it, but it didn't set me on fire. As giandujakiss said, ( spoilers )

***

I'm watching The Good Wife, but man, it is a snoozer of a show. I like Alicia and Kalinda and Will, but it never really engages me. Sigh.

***

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This whole waking up every 90 minutes throughout the night thing is not working for me. I mean, I went to bed early enough that I don't feel completely braindead, but I'm still really sleepy.

I totally forgot it was election day until my alarm went off and the news was all, "Election day!" so I went and voted on my way to work. Usually I get up early and am at the polling place when it opens (it is literally across the street from my apartment). This is a holdover from when I used to live in Queens, as my parents always voted at 6 am sharp and were the first people on line. Last year, the line was long but I did not have to wait on it, since I knew my Election District; this year, there was practically nobody in the place. I held my nose and voted for mayor - seriously, I did not like either candidate, but I had to vote against Bloomberg for being an entitled fucker who ignored the voters' wishes and overturned term limits so he could run again. It's not that I am even in favor of term limits (though possibly I voted for them? I don't recall) so much as I am not in favor of a politician setting aside the will of the voters so he could have his own way, like a spoiled brat who doesn't understand that it's not his toy and he has to give it back at the end of the day. I wish the Democrats had found someone more appealing to run against him.

Leo McGarry would not approve of these shenanigans.

***

Big Bang Theory

( spoilers )

I had a hard time staying awake through Castle, so I really have no idea what the hell was going on, but I did like his scenes with Alexis, and the HITG was the demon priest from Sin City.

***

I would like to write, but I am still a little too sleepy and unfocused. I love to sleep so much! Why is it so hard sometimes? It makes no sense! Wah!

***

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1. I finished the Skater fic and the person it was for liked it. I'm a little giddy about this.

2. My copy of Half a Yellow Sun came today. facetofcathy reviewed this last week and made it sound like something I'd enjoy so I'm glad it arrived.

3. Spectacle, the Elvis Costello show, which I watched last night, featured James Taylor. He's mentioned a lot in Girl Like Us, the book about Carole, Joni and Carly that I'm reading right now so the timing was pretty good. (Weird point: oldish James Taylor looks startling like my Uncle Ray. Weird.)

4. With the time change I was up early and had everything for the day done before 11am. Unfortunately in a day or two I'll adjust to the change and go back to sleeping through my alarm. But for now I kind of see the appeal of being up and on the go early.

5. The family is doing secret santa again this year. The names have been drawn already and I can do my shopping/wrapping now. I expect to be fully ready for my days off in December before the middle of this month. \o/

Title: The Watcher's Diary of Lydia Chalmers
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
Characters: Lydia, Spike, Quentin Travers, the First Evil, Lorne, Angel
Summary: Lydia learns the world isn't quite as simple as Quentin taught her it was.
A/N: None of this text is new. It appeared first as part of my WIP Windows of My Soul, and then as individual ficlets. I think it makes the most sense in this form, however. (For reference--mostly my own--the ficlets can be found.

( The Watcher's Diary of Lydia Chalmers )

Stuff. And also, things.

+ I slept poorly last night. This is a crappy way to start the week, lemme tell you. And it is still too freaking cold to sleep on the LIRR.

+ Already in (email) conversation today, I have quoted Jeremy Goodwin* and big gay (totally not dead) Larry**. this pleases me.

+ I started writing a story last night that is supposed to be tiny and humorous, and meh, I do not like it at all. It's not funny and it's not interesting. Meh. It's a lot of blah blah blah, as you know, Bob, and that is just bad. It's a funny concept! I just haven't figured out how to make it work. I have other wsip to work on in the meantime.

+ Lastly, my copy of Crush arrived, so I typed this up, since I couldn't find a full version of it online:

Driving, Not Washing

It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed, always the same
                                       running from something larger than yourself story,
shoving money into the jaws of a suitcase, cutting your hair
         with a steak knife at a rest stop,
and you're off, you're on the run, a fugitive driving away from
                                                 something shameful and half-remembered.
They're hurling their bodies down the freeway
                                                 to the smell of gasoline,
which is the sound of a voice saying I told you so.
                                                                       Yes you did, dear.
Every story has its chapter in the desert, the long slide from kingdom
         to kingdom through the wilderness,
                    where you learn things, where you're left to your own devices.
Henry's driving,
         and Theodore's bleeding shotgun into the upholstery.
It's a road movie,
         a double-feature, two boys striking out across America, while desire,
                   like a monster, crawls up out of the lake
with all of us watching, with all of us wondering if these two boys will
         find a way to figure it out.
                                                            Here is the black box, the shut eye,
the bullet pearling in his living skin. This boy, half-destroyed,
          screaming Drive into that tree, drive off the embankment.
                                                                          Henry, make something happen.
But angels are pouring out of the farmland, angels are swarming
          over the grassland,
Angels rising from their little dens, arms swinging, wings aflutter,
         dropping their white-hot bombs of love.
                                        We are not dirty, he keeps saying. We are not dirty...
                   They want you to love the whole damn world but you won't,
you want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in the bath,
                                       who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.
It should follow,
         you know this, like the panels of a comic strip,
                   we should be belted in, but you still can't get beyond your skin,
and they're trying to drive you into the ground, to see if anything
                                                                                                   walks away.

~Richard Siken

So very Sam/Dean. Sigh.


--
* "...A full house. Dan already folded the 6 you needed and I have the other one. You don't have a house of any sort. You don't have a pup tent. You've got trip-7s and I have a straight. I want you to trust me right now. I want you to say to yourself, 'Yeah, I've dated a string of jerks in my life. They were stupid, they were mean to me, but maybe this one's different. Maybe I should take a chance and not adopt the break-up-with-him-before-he-breaks-my-heart strategy.' I want you to remember that when I started liking you, I didn't stop liking tennis. And I want you to know that I don't think there's a woman in the world that you need to be threatened by, no matter how glamorous you think she is. But mostly, I want you to trust me, just once, when I tell you that you have three 7s... and I have a straight."

**"This is our year, I'm telling you. Best football season ever. I'm so in shape, I'm a rock. It's all about egg whites. If we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is gonna *rule!*"

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Feast of All Saints ficlet

Feast of All Souls ficlet

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I just noticed this passage from Questionnaire for High Council Peer Review: D. Summers, written in late 2005:

55. HAVE YOU EVER STOLEN MONEY?
I have stolen many things in my time, but not money. If our budget problems keep on like this, though, I might get Faith to rob a bank.

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