cry havoc

"His life was in taters."

A completely tongue-in-cheek (or shark-tooth-in-kneecap, as case may be) representation of the past twenty-four hours' realization that coming out from under the bed was A BAD IDEA. (You know I love you guys... right? You do know that, right? Right?)

A visual representation of my brain right now:



( It starts with a story. IT ALWAYS STARTS WITH A STORY. )

That is my brain, on fandom.

in case it's not obvious, this post is a JOKE, and mostly on me: because some fandoms days you're the shark, and some fandoms days you're the chum.

I probably shouldn't find this so amusing, but I do. Okay, I take that back. I have every right to find this amusing.

On September 29TH, 2007 -- did you miss that? we're talking almost three years ago -- I posted a novel critique: for those times when wiki just ain't enough. It's linked over on the sidebar (on my DW layout) because it remains a fond favorite for no reason other than how the story is an absolute wealth of amusement on all the ways exoticization -- of another culture and of the inscrutable homosexual -- can lead you wrong, though when writing the review I was too busy being amused in general to bother with the fancy words for the philosophical side of things.

( Tonight, I got this anonymous reply. )

Being an author -- in terms of one's interaction with the public -- is a lot like being a cat, I've figured out. When you forget yourself for a moment (or for an entire book) and do the equivalent of raising your leg to lick your own ass and then promptly fall off the sofa, you do not pop up with fur flying to hiss at the humans laughing at you. No, a public-skilled author is like a cat, barely a ruffle and at most an attitude of, I meant to do that. Perhaps a bit of self-grooming just to look like the cat, err, author is simply Too Busy to deign to react to the silly humans' reactions, and then a calm and self-possessed stroll from the room, tail in air. No words are needed for the cat to make it clear that We Will Never Discuss This Again.

The authors I respect as professionals, that's pretty much how they react to negative reviews, at least publicly: they don't give those reviews the time of day, because doing so is only guaranteed to make the humans laugh even harder.

Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Don't go replying to negative reviews -- and if you do, keep in mind that taking three years to get around to (a) discovering the review and (b) getting all self-righteous is only going to lead to (c) a bunch of folks rediscovering the fun all over again. Which, I would hope, is not the author's intended outcome.

[I especially like the part about "try and write a mystery novel"... because I have, and I find it a lot easier if you write it without excessive references to wispy hair. What kind of hair, you ask? Why, just read the review to find out!]

ETA: and another response, in comments, scroll down to enjoy. *rolls eyes*
ETA 2: please remember to sign your comment if you're replying anon... well, unless it's really obvious who you are. And I mean really obvious.

I took my 3-yr old camcorder to Fry's yesterday, in an attempt to find out a) what sim-card to use, b) whether I could record for longer with card or mini-dv, and c) what kind of security/exterior cameras they have.

Actual conversation.

Me: *holding up camcorder* I'd like to find out--
Clerk #1: We don't sell that camera.
Me: --what---wait, what?
Clerk #1: We don't sell that camera.
Me: *mildly annoyed* I would certainly hope not.
Clerk #1: *smug look goes away* Hunh?
Me: I've already purchased it once. I have no interest in a second one.
Clerk #1: *blank stare*
( Me: Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'd like to know what kind of card it uses. )

Some days, leaving the house just isn't freaking worth it.

I just read a romance review (mostly b/c I was already on the site for an SFF book review and started clicking random links), and spent a good ten minutes after the review thinking I had to be missing something. A puritan, and the Witchfinders, and the book's set during the Civil War. Oh, yeah, SURE the author did his/her homework, puritans weren't anywhere around by the Civil War! Obviously someone's been sniffing the historical glue. *nods firmly*

And then I realized: the setting is the English Civil War.

Oh. Right. In which case, puritans? Yeah. There would be puritans.

*heddesk*

This is my mother's sense of humor (but in my garden).



Explains a lot about me, eh.

All thanks to this conversation, I went perusing the 'net for more on this Torchwood thing, having been completely convinced for some time (for reasons still unclear) that it was a western. Oddly, when I mentioned to CP that the show had tentacles, CP's response was, "isn't that a western?" So apparently it's a group hallucination.

( Regardless, what we have here is your basic quasi-live-blogging. Sort of. )

Sitting at the corner, waiting to pull into traffic, watching big freaking trucks (of the sort that wish they had license plates that say "farm vehicle" but in fact have never seen a spec of dirt in their life), and I end up having to pull in behind a pokey mini-van. Gnashing my teeth, of course, at the quick glimpse of kid seat in the back, not exactly a Windstar but definitely one of those "room for everyone!" minivans that may be big on the inside but they're damn well small on style, and maybe that's why they're a favorite of suburban souls with no sense of individuality.

Or maybe not.

Because not more than half-block of driving behind this minivan, I realized just what I'd been reading on the bumpersticker right in the middle of the minivan's bumper.

I belong to the NRA, and I voted for Obama.

That sound you hear? That was the sound of my stereotypes getting kicked to the door.

Earlier this week, I was out running a quick errand, and feeling mighty pissed-off about the current project's deadline wackiness. Fortunately I have a collection of songs on the iPod for just such pissed-off moments when driving -- several collections, in fact. One that's suitably cranky for pissed-off moods, and one that's songs I normally wouldn't listen to but can't not be in a good mood as soon as I hear them.

Most of these get the curled lip ' scorn from the Leo if I don't change the playlist when he gets in the car -- there's several from the Monkees, and a few Erasure songs, that kind of semi-inane but relatively cheerful and uncomplicated pop and dance tunes. That includes 'Game of Love', discovered after viewing a truly amazing AMV, and 'Carameldansen,' an inclusion I blame entirely on misshallelujah, who was the source of my first introduction to this bizarre phenomenon -- a series of animated gifs of the Gundam 00 characters doing that... dance... thing.

( And it was thus that I discovered that if MissHallie ever gets her duff to the States, she should swing through this city so the two can meet. )

(This city's weird. I know that, but this level of weird is off the charts.)