Bring on Series Four.

( Do I need to say spoilery? )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I spent most of this week being sniffly and exhausted -- the latter, I realize in retrospect, because the Sudafed (plus my usual dose of caffeine, which is significant) was wreaking havoc on my sleep cycle. I went off the Sudafed today, and I'm more or less breathing, so I'd say the cold has just about passed. But I haven't been much fun, or having much fun, though work was both productive and manageable. My work week is structured, though, so my toughest day is usually Tuesday. The upside is that it gets easier after Tuesday. The downside is that every Tuesday night I'm thinking, how the hell are there three days of this left.

Anyway. End of the week and a totally free weekend coming up. I have no idea what to do with that, though there are certainly ficathon stories I have been working on.

I was thinking I had something more interesting to say, but it seems, not so much. I should have a meme or something but I'm drawing a blank.

Oh, hey, here's a thing that annoyed me! In Fired from the Canon, the staff of The Second Pass blog review books that they don't think should be famous. The premise is that there are just too damn many books out there that people expect you to read. Quote: . Below is a list of ten books that will be pressed into your hands by ardent fans. Resist these people. Life may not be too short (I’m only in my mid-30s, and already pretty bored), but it’s not endless.

Then they proceed to give snarky reviews about why you shouldn't bother with White Noise, Absalom, Absalom, A Tale of Two Cities, The Road, On the Road, One Hundred Years of Solitude. . .et cetera, you get the idea. Now I know the point of this post is to stir up an argument (what should have made the list and what shouldn't) but to me, the premise is flawed. "Take my dismissive three paragraph review as a reason and justification for not even cracking these books that many people have found value in." The joke of course is that, in order to be able to write these reviews (and in order to make suggestions for the list) it's necessary to have *some* kind of experience with the book.

I just. . .this makes me froth. I admit my gut reaction was because Absalom, Absalom and Tale of Two Cities were books that meant a lot to me when I read them. I don't remember much about either book now but experiencing them at the time was valuable. On the other hand, I'm reasonably sure I'm never going to finish On the Road or The Corrections, and I literally couldn't get two pages into The Road. But hey, I know that because I tried them. And I don't think the people who say reading those books meant something to them are somehow stupid. And I'm certainly not asking anybody to take my two paragraph dismissal in lieu of reading the book.

I understand all this is a reaction to having canon forced down your throat, but "the people who like these books are wrong" is not the answer, either. I do think there's a place for a "no, really, don't read this, it will hurt your soul and scar your eyeballs" kind of review, but those are few and far between. And honestly, they usually make me want to read the book! But I think we'd all be better off acknowledging that nobody can read everything, and there's almost nothing that everybody needs to read.

ETA: Confession -- I didn't actually read most of the 'reviews' in that article. Which, you know, I think is fair enough, considering!

Hey, so. You know how there are these pretty people from some movie about singing and sometimes I like to spend my free time discussing how they are the best ever? Uh, now there's an RPF community where you can read stories about them. If you're interested in reading, join. If you've written, I'd really appreciate it if you'd repost there. If you want to tell your friends, feel free to use this banner to help.

A Hundred Boyfriends: a Zac Efron + Vanessa Hudgens + Ashley Tisdale RPF comm

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( More spoilers for Torchwood: Children of Earth Day 4 )

I'll just go shoot myself now, shall I?

I think that was the bleakest, most depressing hour of television I've ever watched.

( Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Five )

Fuck you, RTD. Fuck you.

( reaction post )

So... like, I just had a MOMENT of WHAT IS MY LIFE? I'm sitting here making a header for my new layout, and I'm zoomed in by like 300% on a picture of KARL URBAN'S CROTCH erasing background and just... REALLY? THIS IS MY LIFE? STARING AT KARL URBAN'S JUNK ESSENTIAL MAN PARTS*? FUUUUUCK.






ETA:
* BROUGHT TO YOU BY eonism.

This Octopus Pie comic describes my week.

I leave the dog alone for two minutes, only to come back to see that Pekoe has gnashed some unexpected item with her teeth. As soon as I purse my lips, she rolls onto her stomach as if to say: "Hey there. Look! I chewed something for you. I was going for a sort of Avant-gard, Dada-esque piece but then I decided to stick with classic Pekoe-ism. Are you just happy to have me around taking care of your stuff?"

But she is helpful to have around sometimes. Not sure if its the stress of the move (or the stress of living in Hobotropolis has finally cracked my brain) but I've been having terrible nightmares this week. Last night's offering including some stuff that was so bloody disturbing that I shot out of bed thinking: " What is wrong with you subconscious?"

Instead of climbing into my lap to comfort me like a loyal and understanding dog would, Pekoe looked up at me and snorted helpfully. And then went back to sleep.

At least her snoring was comforting.

Only six more days until the big move and then I can roll around on my hardwood floors and twirl around the book nook and generally be further away from Hobotropolis and the third floor drug dealer & tenant who think that 7 o'clock in the morning is a great time to start vacuuming.

Let the count down, well... Not exactly begin... Continue!

Title: The Sophie Horowitz Story
Author: Sarah Schulman
Number of Pages: 158 pages
Book Number/Goal: 35/75 for 2009
My Rating: 3.5/5

Sophie is a reporter caught up in a story about radical feminists Germaine Covington and Laura Wolf. The more she tries to get to the bottom of things, the more she finds herself tangled up in everything.

This is Schulman's first novel and it's very obvious. It's not nearly as well-written as the other books I've read by her and the plot's a little muddled and everyone but Sophie feels more like a prop than an actual person, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot. I'm glad this wasn't the first book I read by her, though.

Mooch on BookMooch

1. I got my Jump scans quite late last night, but they were all pretty easy (even Bakuman, which usually takes me three times as long as Bleach or Naruto because there's just so much text per page) and I got done fairly early.

2. We had a really awesome walk yesterday. Walked down to El Pollo Loco because we had a coupon, but that wasn't much of a walk, so after we ate, I suggested going down a block and walking around in the residential area west of Lincoln between Pico and Ocean Park. I had never been back there driving, much less walking, so it was a whole new area to explore. We saw a lot of neat houses and apartment buildings and just generally had a great time. Very hilly, too, so even though our walk was only 3.6 miles total, we got more of a workout than if it had been up here where we're on a plateau.

I really love that we have got to the point where we can walk to a different area and then walk around in there, as we've pretty much fully explored the area around here. At some point I would love to be able to say I've been up every street in Santa Monica.

The only downside was we both got a little too much sun. It was midday and if I'd realised we were going to walk so much, I'd have put on sunblock, but it was spur of the moment, so...

I really wish I didn't get so emotionally invested in shows. I really wish I could be the kind of person who can just watch a show and enjoy it, like some characters and not others, and go to work and be all, 'Ooh, did you watch XYZ? Wasn't it a shock, didn't see that coming!' without, you know, weeping for hours and raging at the heavens and desperately trying to think of some way for it to just not be true.

I wish I could be that kind of person. It would make things like this a lot easier.

Title: Purple Mischief
Pairing: Charlie/Hermione
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 4,855
Warning: Bit of fluffiness ahead, beware.
A/N: Written for the Granger Enchanted Valentine's Day Challenge (yeah, I know, months ago, I kept forgetting to repost). The prompt was, "She wouldn’t have minded the twins turning her that god awful shade of Purple it was the counter curse that bothered her."
Disclaimer: All characters and canon situations belong to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from the writing and posting of this fic.

Purple Mischief

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

YAY WEEKEND

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

ITEM! My mom was sick all last week, so sick that her work made her go to the hospital to get tested for swine flu. Guess who had swine flu? MY MOM. She's fine now, but when she told me she couldn't get why I cracked up.

Mom: It's not FUNNY. It's SERIOUS.
Me: Yeah, I know, but you're fine, and it's just THE FLU.
Mom: I feel like Typhoid Mary. Especially because I went to see [Immunocompromised Friend A] and [Immunocompromised Friend B] last week! When I was contagious!
Me: ...Mom, you knew you were sick already when you saw them and you risked infecting them with /whatever/ you had. It's not the swine flu that's the problem there.
Mom: True. But I still feel AWFUL.
Me: It's okay, Mom. And remember, it's just the flu, not Death Flu, okay?
Mom: :(

Anyway, my mom is part of a pandemic! Whee!

ITEM! I have too much stuff and I have reached the point of moving where I hate everything I own. Why do I have so much CRAP?

ITEM! Beets + Billy Blue Cheese + Crispy Garlic Slices = NOMNOMNOM

ITEM! The squirrel came back. The bastard.

Killing time while waiting for Marcele to get here so we can go to spend the weekend in Friburgo with Juju, Debs, Marcia, Tati & Clarabela. \o/

Anyway. Stolen from whisperwords:

. Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
. NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.
. They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.
. You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

For the past few days, my life has been an internet-free zone due to moving from WV to Silver Spring, MD. Having moved, I'm feeling *drastically* better about my life. A lot of things got sorted/aired over the last couple of days, and my QoL is a lot better for it.

Interweb goes in tomorrow afternoon, while I'm off doing tea with The Other Nine (my long-running group of LOTR Ladies, one of whom I've known since before I had an LJ (and isn't that a scary thought?).

Hopefully after Comic-Con I'll settle down, get into a routine with DCAC and the Washington Wetskins, and get back into the swing.

[/drive-by update]