amand_r

Hello all, it's been a while, so I shall UPDATE BY NUMBERS.

1. Cookies have been awesome. I am taking a break. I have many new things that I want to try, but they aren't going to ship well in this heat. That said, if you ever want some cookies, feel free to drop me a line. I am now making shit on demand. Except the chocolate caramel shortbread. They are a pain in the ass.

2. Kidlet is done with preschool! Well, for this year at least. I have embarrassing video, but I am too lazy to upload it.

3. My computer died recently! It was horrible. I was trying to log on, and it kept telling me my user profile couldn't load properly. After shedding bitter tears, I managed to save all my files from safe mode onto an external drive, and then I had to reinstall the OS from factory settings. Strange how everything runs now. On the other hand, there's something cleansing about getting a fresh start.

4. I have been reading a great deal. You can find my reading on Goodreads. Right now I'm reading about the monster of Florence.

5. I MADE PASTA FROM SCRATCH. IT WAS AWESOME.

6. YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS AWESOME? HOT DOGS.

7. Here is the story of how I am bitter:

One day I started watching Wire in the Blood. I watched 2 eps and then forgot. Then a month later I was all, “I should check out Wire in the Blood”, and lo, I already had. I resumed my watching. BY THE WAY the special with Tony in Texas was the best thing ever. I lolled so hard. Anyway, I got to the end of season 6 when [spoiler] and it ends with [spoiler] and Then I click ed the “Next” button on the Netflix streaming screen.

Nothing happened. I looked and saw they only had up to season six. Never mind, I will download the torrent somewhere.

That's right, in my head I had convinced myself that there are 8 seasons.

Oh wait, no, that's Waking the Dead.

It became increasingly difficult to locate the season seven torrent No one had it. I was going to do a shot out to my flist. Then I decided to see when it was released. So I checked wikipedia.

Boy, am I bitter. WHAT A FUCKING WAY TO END. NOT TWIN PEAKS EPIC, BUT JESUS.

8. I read the new Sookie Stackhouse. Yeah.

9. I had so many things to say! I have no idea where they went.

10. Lastly, I have a novella/thing coming out in October, and the publisher, Candlemark and Gleam was nice enough to send me promo postcard things to distribute. I was thinking of handwriting some short short stories and offering to send them to people for postage. Would anyone be interested? Want one? I guess if you sent me five bucks, I could send you the card and a half a dozen cookies. Or something.

Postage has gone up package wise, by the way. That's how they get ya.

Off to read more about excising vaginas.

Title: Buy My Fucking Cookies
Fandom: Mander fandom
Characters: Mander, Vstroyer, You, eBay, THE DAMN ASSHOLE WOT OUTBID ME, cookies, the computer
Rating: W for WOE and C for COOKIE (it's good enough for me)
Wordcount: 1000
Author's Notes: I am totes not joking. Warning for butter.
Summary: I HAVE A STORY OF DEFEAT AND TRIUMPH TO TELL.

( She was a baker desperately trying to lose weight. And desperately trying to buy DVDs. )

I woke up this morning to this:



GAH. THIS CAN ONLY MEAN ONE THING—IT'S TIME FOR NORWEGIAN COFFEE.

( A PHOTO ESSAY OF MINISCULE PROPORTIONS. )

1. KEL AND VALANCY LINKED TO THIS. IT IS AWESOME

2. ALSO, DEAD LIKE ME, I LOVE YOU. KIFFANY IS SPECTACULARE.

Rube: What do you mean no blueberry pancakes?
Kiffany: They are seasonal.
Rube: Well, explain something to me. Are the blueberries fresh? (Kiffany shakes her head NO.) They are dehydrated? (Kiffany nods YES.) Well how can something hatched months ago be seasonal?
Kiffany: I don't make the rules, I just play by them. Something else you want?
Rube: My heart's set on blueberry pancakes.
George: Are you pregnant?
Rube: I certainly hope so.

I THINK KIFFANY IS A REAPER.

3. AAAAAAAND BEHIND THE CUT, ( SOME COCKTAILS FROM THE 1940'S. )

4. BLEAUGH.

5. ( Lame pics of my kid. )

So. There it is.

WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON IN THE HAUS OF CHING?



( THIS, BITCHES. )

My uh, my doctor might have upped my prozac. I'm just sayin'.

Episode 3.5 of The Tudors is a spectacular piece of television, because grieving Henry allows none to comfort him after the death of Jane except for (Will Somers) the Court Fool, played by David Bradley (Filch!). True to form, Henry is bonkers and the Fool tells him things he needs to hear:

Henry: Hey.
Fool: Majesty (looks at Henry's mad drawings)
Henry: well, what do you think?
Fool: I don't think. Are you mad? Thinking is dangerous. But I'll wink. (winks)
Henry: Idiot.
Fool: (laughing) What? What about you? Think about it, You find the perfect wife, she's sweet, pliable, she even has good tits. On top of that she gives you the son you've always wanted. And you let her die. Jesus, Christ of mercy, and you think I'm the idiot? And she's not the only one. Poor, abandoned Catherine—
Henry: Careful.
Fool: And that other one, whose name escapes me, as her head escaped her. All lost, all lost.
Henry: go to hell!
Fool: What, go there? I thought I'd already arrived. For surely gracious lord this, is hell.

Seriously, the ep ends with Henry's reform declarations, which are pretty much Catholicism, and the fool sitting on the throne in the empty throne room, wearing the crown and laughing drunkenly. That's good tv.

( Small photodump: I got a haircut and my kid is the shit. )

FIRST:

1. It is the middle of the night, and you wake from a dead sleep because you have to pee. You shuffle to the bathroom and don't even bother turning on the light because you know the way. While there you realise that you have to use feminine protection. You also notice that you run out of loo roll. You unwrap the loo roll and pull the old roll from the spool, and then sit there, half awake, holding the spool in one hand and the new roll in the other.

The spool is, I repeat, the spool is NOT the feminine protection that you have yet to retrieve. No, I stopped myself before it got that far, but I did wonder why it was so big around whilst I held it.

There's a moral (sp—is that spelled right? Moral? Morel? No that's a mushroom. Moral reminds me of sorrel, which always make me think of High Chapparal. Chapparal? Chaparale? Fuck. I'll quit before I start questioning the spelling of "the" and "chair") here, but I don't know who it is.

2. Watching season one of the Tudors again. Why does everyone give each other brooches? From now on, everyone's getting brooches from me.

Side note: OH HAI THAR, EXTREME HOTTNESS THAT IS JOHN RHYS-MYERS' ABS. HOLY FUCK.

3. In cleaning my house, I am stunned by the sheer amount of junk I have, in the form of bits and baubles and things that I cannot simply throw in a box and label. I have baskets and small boxes of little things that I simply don't know what to do with—things I no longer want and haven't needed in the past three years, not enough to unpack them from the basement boxes in which a great deal of them reside. I find myself pitching large quantities of crap. I want to be as light as possible.

Likewise, wow, half-price books, you are awesome.

Additionally, in going through my shelves and boxes of books in the basement, I am slowly filling a box of books marked, simply, "unread". So this year, I shall endeavor to empty that box. It's filled with contemporary novels, non fiction, and a bunch of classic lit I never got to. Like some Dickens and Orczy and even one or two poets whose volumes I purchased and never finished. I would promise not to buy any more books until I finish these, but that is foolhardy and something to which I can never hold myself. So I shan't lie that way. But it's a goal—read more. Read well. Read smartly.

That said, I read the latest Hamilton Merry Gentry book, Divine Misdemeanours. ( Hey, it's in my ereader. OMG SPOILERS )

4. OH HAI. RPF/RPS CARNIVALE THIS WEEKEND. RIGHT THE FUCK IN THIS LJ. cruentum IS SO EXCITED HE'S ABOUT TO VIBRATE THROUGH THE INTERNETS. THEN HE WILL BE THE GHOST IN THE SHELL, AND HE'LL HAUNT YOUR ISP AND WHEN YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING YOUR THESIS, HE'LL REPLACE ALL THE IMAGES AND PIE CHARTS IN THE DOCUMENT WITH PICTURES OF JB'S ASS. YOU MIGHT BE AMUSED. YOUR THESIS ADVISOR AT THE ENTOMOLOGY DEPARTMENT PROBABLY WON'T BE. I think I already addressed this above, but whatevs.

Don't let that happen to you. Write for the Torchwood/Doctor Who RPF Carnivale.

5. So we have a little bit of snow in Pittsburgh this past month. So some mutherfuckers decide it's a great time to do some URBAN SKIING. My favorite is probably the Joe Montana bridge at about 4:00 to the end, and if you watch the credits you not only see some awesome FAIL, but you hear them make fun of Yinzertalk, which is always fun. (h/t emquilxy)

6. I'm in season two of the Sopranos again. How did I miss this gem? TONY: (frustrated and with finality) Cunnilingus and psychiatry have brought us to this.

Yes. Tony. Yes.

7. My TW season 4 file is corrupted or something, and it was my back up copy. I checked the original and it has no changes since last month. It's like Jesus doesn't want me to write TW anymore. Okay, Jesus.

I take back all the mocking I did. I have never seen it like this. If you live in a place that get a lot of snow, feel free to mock me, but I just wasn't prepared for:

SNOWPOCALYPSE 2010

1. Lost power (re: heat) at 2 am. Ate the kid for warmth.

2. I kid, we did that huddle for warmth thing.

3. Discovered all coffee was unground. Used mortar and pestle.

4. No method of heating water. Did you know that when water is hot enough to burn you in the shower, it is still not hot enough for coffee?

5. Drank coffee anyway.

6. Went outside. ( Pics included! )

7. Went inside, peeled off clothes (PLUS: I have lost so much weight that I was able to wear my fleece pyjamapants under my old size 14 jeans. MINUS: COLD)

8. After lunch. POWER RETURNS! HUZZAH! COFFEE FIRST, CHARGE CELL, RUN DISHWASHER.

There was some hesitancy and debate about whether or not non participants were allowed to review the fic over there. OMG PLEASE DO SO. We won't be replying until after we've de-anoned, so don't get upset if we seem rude.

Anyway, here's a list of all the fic so far. I put the characters in the fics, and left out all the pairings. Deal.

ANON wrote The War at Home for amand_r (Jack. Gwen, Ianto, Rhys)
ANON wrote All The Best Stories Start With A Death for cruentum (Ianto, Jack)
ANON wrote Doctor's Orders for used_songs (Owen, Ianto, Tosh, Jack)
ANON wrote The Better Things for nancybrown (Ianto, Lois Habiba)
ANON wrote In This Time for electro_club (Andy, Ianto)
ANON wrote Great Balls Afire for blue_fjords (Jack, Rhys, Gwen, Ianto, Andy)
ANON wrote Nine Tenths of the Law for phaetonschariot (Jack, Ianto)
ANON wrote Cast no shadow for kel_reiley (Rhiannon, Jack)
ANON wrote We All Have to Start Somewhere for solsticezero (Gwen, Ianto)
ANON wrote hotaru no hikari (the light of fireflies) for xtricks (Tosh, Jack, early team)
ANON wrote Hearts (hand-made): 1.50 quid a piece for lionessvalenti (Ianto, Lisa, Jack, team)
ANON wrote Mind Your Language for lawsontl (Jack, Ianto, Gwen)

MWAH. GO READ AND REVIEW. NOT ONE OF THESE FICS IS BAD.

I haven't updated my wish list in ages. I rarely ask for things. I mean, what's the point? Things don't make you happy (this is pointed at you Nicholas H. Cruentum. Those boxers would not have made you happy. After you washed them.), and you know. Blah blah. But I figured I'd sit down and think about it, because once I asked for a hookah and I got one.

( Nothing I say here is really srs. )