cybermathwitch

Once again, am pimping WhedonFest 2009 (Aug 7-9)



Go, look, register, etc. Rates will go up soon - early reg is almost over!

- I finally sat down and got a good look (read: I read an in depth review) at the Palm Pre. Want. Want so hard, omg. Unfortunately, money issues aside, we're with AT&T and don't have a data plan. So it's a no-go there, for now at least. And I don't actually mind waiting around, because I generally prefer not to buy the first gen of new tech in any case. But OMG is it drool-worthy.

- I have discovered that strep throat it kind of awful and I hates it precious. Am glad that antibiotics exist, and that finally, today, it no longer feels like I'm swallowing sharp gravel.

- Joanne Kelly is one of the leads in Warehouse 13. I don't know how I missed this before, but I saw her previously on the Dresden Files and she's one of those actresses that just grabs me no matter what she's in. I am very pleased about this knowledge. :)

- Speaking of shows on Skiffy (now SyFy): TIM MINEAR is working on a reboot of ALIEN NATION. This is... well, I would be terrified if it were someone else heading it, but barring Rockne S O'Bannon himself rewriting things, I'm pretty ok with that choice. I honestly think that he did the best work we got on Angel (I ultimately preferred his writing on that show to Joss Whedon's, though not by a huge margin). According to the article (which is very brief) the series is supposed to be set about 20 years after the crash, so the newcomers will be more integrated (or more separated, depending) with the human society. My biggest hope is that they haven't integrated to the point of moving away from the cultural differences, because that was by far the biggest draw for me of the original series. No matter what though, I'm extremely excited.

First, I'm currently in the process of moving all my fanfiction from here and koren_m over to the new fic community/archive I'm sharing with kadollan and jessofthebugs: awfully_clever. Currently jessofthebugs is posting her Chekov/Sulu series Victor, Victor over there as well as one or two ST: Reboot one-shots. Go. Read. Reply. Friend. (Actually, you'll need to watch the comm rather than join as it's closed to just the three of us for posting. But y'all know what I mean and how this sort of thing works. ::g::)

Second, I'm currently irritated by the lack of flexibility in the LJ layout. More specifically, that most active sidebar components don't work with it. If anyone has any workarounds, I'd love to hear them. I'm too deeply entrenched in the LJ universe/community to actually move my journal over to blogger permanently.

I posted this over at hermionebangers , but so far haven't received a response so I thought I'd try y'all: 

I need good post-DH harry potter fic, stat.  I'm trying to write for the HermioneBigBang, and my muses have all abandoned me.  I have a plot, but no character voices rattling around inside my head.  So anything immediately following DH and preferrably involving Harry, Ron, and Hermione would be awesome beyond words. 

Please rec me fic? 

 If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.
♥ ♥ ♥

Meme gakked from harmonylsc 
Rules:
1. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their Livejournal. (You know... if you want)
2. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
3. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

From Blog Buttons

Ok - in case it's not patently obvious why I have this one up: it's a cap from Legend of the Seeker, featuring Richard and Kahlan.  They are my new 'shippy obsession (thank serendipityxxi , it's totally her fault) and I think they're beautiful.  I think this picture, in particular is incredibly sexy, and very compelling.  It's something about the way that he's looking at her, like she's the only woman in the world, and it really gets to me.  (The version on my handheld is actually a cap from a different frame, and the look on his face is even more intense, if you can imagine that, but I couldn't find a high-res version to use on the laptop.)

(I am admitting to something that might be akin to cheating, as I have seen this meme floating around for weeks, and didn't bother with it initially because I kind of hated the wallpaper I had up at the time (river rocks that came with the OS) and it did remind me that I ought to change it to something I actually liked. The old one is also below, as a thumbnail. I think I had it up because it covered up a defect on my screen that was bothering me. (In my defense, the R/K cap already *was* the background of my handheld which was the computer I was using the most at the time.))

From Blog Buttons

 First - comedownstairs  in particular, as well as everyone else I know who is loving on the New Trek - you must watch this: http://arefadedaway.livejournal.com/295080.html  (I'll give you a hint - it involves New Trek and a Glee cover.)

I am a geek *AND* a gleek!  Whee!

Second - if y'all aren't watching Legend of the Seeker yet, you must do so.  It's all on Hulu.  You have no excuse.  Go watch!  It is pretty and 'shippy and violent and sexy and did I mention pretty?  (My husband is particularly in love with the fight choreography.)  Many thanks to serendipityxxi  for turning me on to it. :)

Third: Have a weekly dose of Burn Notice and Royal Pains (both of which should also be coming to a Hulu near you, soon.) I am reserving judgment on BN until I have seen more, though so far, so good, and I LOVE ROYAL PAINS.  Hank can be my MD anytime.  Eye candy aside, the dialogue is quick and clever, and I like all the characters we've been introduced to thus far.  (Except the ones you're not supposed to like, of course.)  icepixie, you might want to check it out - it's a little bit like Northern Exposure, but with fewer moose (mooses?).  Also, it and Burn Notice both scream "SUMMER" to me - probably residuals from sitting up late watching Silk Stalkings (another great beach-themed show) on summer nights when I was in junior high.

I like Mental on Fox as well, but am less enthusiastic about it than the above two shows.  

I've also been watching So You Think You Can Dance, both because I have a huge crush on Cat and because I am a dance junkie.  But I think I like the audition/Vegas segments better than the actual competition portions.  Is that weird?  I don't know who I'm pulling for yet.

And lastly a meme, stolen from i_am_girlfriday :

The problem with LiveJournal is that we think we're close, but really, we know nothing about each other.

So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me, something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about, or something you've always been curious about but have never asked, or something completely silly that you'd like me to answer for kicks. No limits on the range of questions, either: ask me anything you want to know about, whether it's a fannish opinion or a question about a fic of mine or trivia about my real life or my thoughts on events in the offline world. 

 

 

 Awesome happy squee... Kirk/Spock Reboot fanvid http://blackpsychi.livejournal.com/19069.html

Name your 10 absolutely favorite couples (het/slash/canon/fanon) and ask people to see what trends they notice about your couples. Try to pick different fandoms. (Gakked from kadollan , harmonylsc , and others) 

In no particular order: 

Mulder/Scully (The X-Files)
Lee/Kara (Battlestar Galactica)
Chris/Rita (Silk Stalkings)
Doyle/Merry/Frost (the Merry Gentry novels)
Tiger/Del (The Novels of Tiger and Del)
Harry/Ron/Hermione (Harry Potter)
Jean/Logan (X-Men)
John/Aeryn (Farscape)
Richard/Kahlan (The Legend of the Seeker)
John/Elizabeth (Stargate: Atlantis)
Jean Claude/Asher/Nathaniel/Anita/Micah/Jason (the Anita Blake novels)

(I know, that's eleven.  Be glad I only added *one* extra.)

Um.  Hi.

I haven't been around much.  And I'm not actually 100% sure that this is a change in that particular trend, but ::shrug::.

I want to write things down and record them.  I want to keep a running tally of my life, online, and use the materials and tools that I have at my disposal to do so... I'm just not sure *how* to do that.

That's not exactly right.  I suppose, in an abstract way, I do know how to do it.  I could write you manuals and papers about how all these things work, but I'm not sure how to apply them to my life.  What things do I want to record?  How do I want to keep up with them?  Like my physical surroundings, if I had a cut and dried system of where things went and how things should be sorted and what kinds of classificiations and distinctions I should be making, then I could impose some kind of order on things.  I'm just not sure what those things are *for me*.

Take ravelry, for instance.   I can record what yarns I own, what projects I'm working on, etc.  There's also a tagging system, that would allow me to organize and categorize and classify my projects, my queue (projects I want to make someday), and my "favorites" (things I just thing are neat) into categories that are meaningful to me.  I know that many people are able to create and use tags in a completely organic way, and that works for them.  I, however, can guarantee you I need a better basic structure than that (because I've *tried* the completely organic thing, and it doesn't work).  So I need to decide at the outset that I'm going to mark all my books with a tag "book" and further that I'm going to call science fiction "speculative" and not "sci-fi", "scifi", "science fiction" and "science fic".  Because I *WILL* do the later if I'm not properly prepared beforehand.

Then there's the age-old question of "what kind of a planning system do I need to be using?  What do I need to keep track of?  I have several little peices and ideas, but I don't know what the picture is yet or even what shape the puzzle is.  I know that I need a hard copy, paper calendar I can carry around, that's small and lightweight, and has the months in it with plenty of room to write.  I finally figured out a year or so ago that I "see" and "think" of time in months, so that's the best way for me to see my schedule.  Daily pages are *way* too excessive, and weekly pages seldom get used.  I know that I need some kind of contact/address book, and it needs to have both a high-tech component and a low-tech (ie, written on paper) component as well.

Going back to calendars for a moment, while I know I need a paper calendar, I also want/need to use my Google Calendar because that's where many of my events and activities first get posted, and I have several friends calendars I'm linked to.

I have my LJ tags where I want them (I think) but none of my others are that organized.  (Also, I feel like I should at some point go back and tag the old LJ entries from the before times when there weren't any tags so that they'll be searchable too.)

Any thoughts/advice/etc would be appreciated.

*****

In completely other news, I'm on Clue 1 of the new Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl, and while I can't say that the Knit Picks' Gloss Lace is flipping my switch all that much as a yarn overall, I LOVE the color I'm using (Mango).  It's a nice, cheerful orange-y peach that makes me happy when I look at it.  Which is a good thing, considering how depressed I've been lately. 

I've finished one of two socks for the Hogwarts Sock Swap (5), and I know I need to get cracking on the other one (it's due the 28th).  

My swap-ee for the Reducio! swap seemed very pleased with her package, and I'm pretty pleased with the idea/execution of said idea that I came up with.

*****

The House season finale blew me away and left me climbing the walls for next season.  I still need to go watch the season finale of Dollhouse, but I really liked "Briar Rose".  We're having to wait to watch the last two eps of NCIS because I had to put the Netflix on hold until I can deposit my next check (I was stupid, didn't keep up with my money well enough and accidentally went overdrawn).   Castle was lovely, though, and I'm THRILLED BEYOND BELIEF that it's coming back.  

I'm both looking forward to, and a bit nervous about the new season of Jon&Kate+8 starting on Monday.

I got a look at the 2009-2010 Upfronts at TV.com and I have to say I'm pretty happy with them.  I don't see the House spin-off though?  But there's a bloody lot of genre shows, which pleases me to no end.  And I've already checked out the pilot ep of Glee and can't wait to see more.  

I'm loving the new season of In Plain Sight (Mary/Marshall for the win! though Brandy/Peter are pretty cute, too) and the more I see of Royal Pains the more I want to actually watch it.  

*****

I'm reading New Moon right now, and liking it ok.  I'm not turning into a rabid fan, but I don't think that it sucks, either.
 

Speaking of rabid fan-girl-ness, I want more Star Trek OMGOMGOMG.  I also loved Wolverine, and was quite pleased with Angels and Demons.  The pacing of A&D is much better than it was in The DaVinci Code, I think.  I've finally see the original Night at the Museum, and want to see the sequel.  I wouldn't mind seeing Terminator: Salvation in the theatres either, which is kind of weird since I never liked any of the original Terminator movies.  But Christian Bale is lovely.  Speaking of lovely, "Australia" was lovely - and Hugh Jackman is ::guhdroolguh::.  

*****
WhedonFest is going to eat my brain.  I know it is.  And I'm going on a trip the weekend before, and GI Joe comes out somewhere in there.

Oh, and Skin Trade (the new Anita Blake) is out on the 2nd of June.  Want. Badly.

*****
Finally, I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday this month.  My Brain Age is 42 right now, I've cleared all the Basic Sudoku levels, am on World 6 in the New Mario Bros. and am trying to find all the zoo animals in My Sims Kingdom.

 

from joyshine 

( Books! )

Hey all, I've got a question for you.

When you think about cons - not the BIG ones like DragonCon or ComicCon, but the small ones that are fandom specific, like ScaperCon was, or like I imagine VividCon would be like, what do you expect? Or, alternately, what have they been like?

Several friends of mine (and I) are putting together a Whedonverse-themed con (as I've mentioned at least briefly) and some of the people who haven't really done cons before are worried about what people might be expecting, vs. what we're planning. I've only really had experience w/ ScaperCon, so I'd love y'all's feedback on this one.

Thanks!

So, for quite awhile now (years, probably) there's been a bag of tea sitting in my grandmother's cupboard. I knew from asking about it that it had been a gift, either to her or my mother, and we could all tell that it contained green tea. The package was all in Japanese, some of which I probably could have puzzled out, but I didn't try too terribly hard because the distinctive green package and picture of a chasen (a whisk used to make matcha, or powdered green tea) led me to believe that it was, in fact, matcha. So tonight before dinner I decided to give it a try and cut open the vacuum sealed package.

Instead of bright green powder, there were leaves. And these little pale brown lumps.

Then I got a whiff of it.

Yummy, lovely, wonderful toasted rice.

::blink::

Lo and behold, the package did *not* contain matcha - it was genmaicha! Genmaicha is green tea mixed with toasted rice - it makes a lovely, deep and rich toasty-flavored tea, and is one of my favorite types of tea. I'd been contemplating ordering some - but now I have more than enough to last me a long, long time. :)

I've got a question for y'all.

A local organization is putting on a Whedon-centric convention the second weekend of August (7-9) of this year. It's going to be a charity event with proceeds going to Equality Now, which is one of the charities that Joss supports. He's set things up so that fans can show Serenity and Dr. Horrible as group events as long as the proceeds go to Equality Now.

I'm trying to see what kind of interest there is. I know things are tight for a lot of people right now, but if any of you think that you might be interested, please leave me a note, or email me.

Thanks!

(Vague, I know, but we're still working on sorting out a lot of the details.)

I'm on GoodReads now. I think I like it much better than Library Thing. It's a little less technical and a little more user-friendly, to me, anyway. I wish there was a site similar to it for TV shows/DVDs.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Borrowed from Bekah (kadollan)

( Spoilers Ahead )


View all my reviews.

Hey all - just letting you know that everyone here is fine, and we don't have any damage from the storm.

The first five (cinq) (cinco) (5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:
Grabbed off of Joy's Blog.

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. (No refunds… no exchanges!!!!)
2. What I create will be just for you, with love from me.
3. It’ll be done this year (2009).
4. I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. I may even create something totally unbelievable and surprise you!! Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
6. In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note/post of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to it.
7. Send your mailing address if you don’t live close to me! Feel free to email your mailing addy to cybermathwitch @ gmail(dot)com.

IMPORTANT: This offer is null and void if I do not see you post your own note to pay this forward. 

 So, meme time! From i_am_girlfriday 

Name a fandom and I'll inform you as to my:

One True Pairing Ship:
Cannon Ship:
"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" ship:
"You are one sick bastard" ship:
"I dabble a little" ship:
"It's like a car crash" ship:
"Tickles my fancy but not sold just yet" ship:
"Makes no cannon sense but why the hell not" ship:
"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" ship:

 ::waves fist at LJ::  Why do I suddenly have lots and lots of skip pages on my flist that I didn't see last night?  Random post #34 that looked like one I'd read and I assumed that's where I needed to stop and it wasn't and now I can't catch up because I was supposed to be at Kroger shopping for the Gather 20 minutes ago?  Yeesh.

In other news, ladysorka  reminded me that today is Farscape day.  Thank your fandom, children. 

Seriously, take a minute today and think about fandom in general (bonus points for FS fandom in particular) and how it's shaped/changed your life.  Be thankful for the good things/people/etc that have come from it all.

I am thankful for my Scaper family.

I am thankful for my Hanniganite family.

I am thankful for the wonderful BSG and HP peeps I've found.

I am thankful for all the inspiration and learning that I actually am a damn good writer and digital artist.

::hugs flist and fandom::