For one week, recommend/share:

Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

From The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, concerning holidaying at Barbados:

It would have seemed to observers that I was where I lay. But 'I'--that is, the conscious part of my self--had in truth abandoned the physical envelope in which it dwelt in order to worry about the future, or more specifically about the issue of whether lunches would be included in the price of the room. Two hours later, seated at a corner table in the hotel restaurant with a papaya (lunch and local taxes included), the I that had left my body on the deck chair now made another migration, quitting the island altogether to visit a troubling project scheduled for the following year.

It was as if a vital evolutionary advantage had been bestowed centuries ago on those members of the species who lived in a state of concern about what was to happen next. These ancestors might have failed to savour their experiences appropriately, but they had at least survived and shaped the character of their descendants, while their more focused siblings, at one with the moment and with the place where they stood, had met violent ends on the horns of unforeseen bison.
(pp. 22-23)

It's the unforseen bison that get me. Really, it's an excellent book, asking us to think about why we travel and what we really want when we get there and why it rarely ever quite goes the way we planned and dreamed. I'd definitely recommend reading it.

For one week, recommend/share:

Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

Since I missed yesterday, I shall CHEAT and do both days three and four in this post. (It doesn't count when it's honest cheating. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Any fic I could rec? Has probably already been recced by the fandom in question to death, since I usually come by fic via other people these days, rather than seeking it out myself. (Apparently, in college? I had a lot more time to goof off online seeking fic. Which astonishes me since I remember never having any time when I was in college.) So, a book that I like to mention every once in a while: The Shoemaker and the Tea Party by Alfred Young. I do not actually own a copy of this book, and that should probably be rectified, which is why I have just added it to my Amazon wishlist. A treatise on memory, memorialization (that is too a word), who makes history, and how we write about it. Oh, and a bit on the American Revolution too.

Other history books I'd recommend: The Refinement of America by Richard Bushman, looking at material culture and how during the colonial period Americans acquired more beautiful things and why they did it, and Gay New York by George Chauncey, which would probably be incredibly helpful if somebody wanted to, I dunno, write about Jack Harkness in New York City in the first half of the twentieth century. Just a thought. Ho-hum. I would whistle innocently here, if I could whistle.

Now, for a site recommendation, and this is probably also a CHEAT since it could possibly go with the book/fic/ebook recommendations instead: Girl Genius comics. Agatha rocks like a rocking Mad Scientist, and I kinda love it when Gil is a complete dorkface. They've been working on this comic for I dunno how many years now, so there's a lot of canon to work through, but I've honestly forgotten probably most of what happened in the early stuff and am still enjoying the hell out of the storyline currently going on.

Okay, an "actual" site I'd like to share is IDEA, which gives you sample dialects from around the world of individuals speaking English. Very cool, and very useful particularly for VA and writery things (or, okay, that's what I think of when I think to use it). Also, I just today noticed it was housed and operated by the University of Kansas, which is probably cooler than it should be.

So! I pondered, and now I have answers concerning top 5 fannish things.

From kindkit: ( Top 5 Fitz/Eight moments in the EDAs )

From brewsternorth: ( Top 5 Eight moments from the audios )

From pontisbright: ( Top 5 detectives )

From pontisbright (yay, again!): ( Top 5 Team!TARDISes )

This was fun. I'll gladly do more.

I'm a total sucker for fic-related memes. That one about the first sentence of your past 20 fics:

( Read more... )

Speaking of Fitz, I've listened to the first two parts of "Company of Friends," with Benny and FIIIIIITZ. They were both magnificent and awesome and pretty much exactly what I would have hoped for, so I look forward to listening to the Izzy & Mary stories, since, er, I've never even thought much about them as companions.

NORA CHARLES. Even if Nick is really the detective, she's still the best damn amateur around.

(Okay, actually, Nancy Drew is probably honestly my favorite. The older books that you can still find in hardback. Mmmm. Yay. Between the Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew, I was set on reading mysteries for life.)

In other news, this post is really all just an excuse to use the shiny new icon from lyssie. Oh yes.

( woah, unexpected Eliot love )

Title: Somebody Else’s Conventional
Author: aces
Warnings: It’s ridiculously Hollywood Blockbuster Summer Romance. I honestly don’t know what came over me.
Rating: PG, mostly for adult language
Word count: around 7500 words
A/N: Second fic for livii for the EDA ficathon on henriettastreet, from the Fitz/Anji possibly-post-Time-War prompt. Er, basically ignores Timeless, so consider it a slight AU.

( Read more... )

Title: Three Time Travelers in a Boat
Author: aces
Warnings: This is so fluffy you might find yourself floating away from your computer screen.
Rating: G
Word count: approx. 2400 words
Prompt: for livii, from the prompt for getting some proper time off and having some fun.
A/N: I know there’s more involved than just rowing. This is a special planet where the normal rules of boating don’t apply, alright? Also, I make no claim to even begin to be as awesome as Jerome K. Jerome. I just really, really couldn’t resist the title. (And there is no dog. K9 did not feel obliged to come along.)


( Read more... )

So many choices! I could go with Barney Miller, he'd be very understanding and compassionate. Dalziel & Pascoe would be alternately witty and crass but they'd have my back (if they thought I deserved it, anyway). Emerson and Ned and Chuck would sort it all out, and I'd probably get pie. But I think I want to go with Albert Campion. After all, he's a universal uncle. I've always liked uncles.

*

I was just reading Dr. Seuss poetry. Which may or may not explain why I wrote the above paragraph the way I did. (At least it involved no rhymes?)

*

I spent today up to my eyeballs in microfilm. My eyeballs hurt.

I'm still getting used to the cubicle thing. I see out of the corner of my eye people walking past and get easily distracted. One of my co-workers sort of glides exactly the way a character from an animated Monty Python sketch would. (As if my headspace weren't surreal enough.)

*

I like to use my bookstore receipts for bookmarks. They're a handy way to remember where I was when I got a book, a way to ground me--Ohio when I found that Doctor Who novel, Colorado when I picked up that book on architecture with a gift card. My mom uses anything she has at hand and leaves it in the book for the next person to stumble across--I've found appointment reminder cards from the dentist or eye doctor, a note from my brother, a hall pass I had my senior year of high school because I was in NHS, even a picture of me from a play in high school. (I swiped that one; it's hanging on my wall now.) It's a bit like finding signatures or notes from people when browsing at used bookstores, glimpses of whole other lives that have been lived.

*

April may or may not kill me. It's my fault for scheduling so many things, but April may very well kill me. And if it doesn't, May and June come close behind...

Oh my electronic gods, I signed up for two stories with lgbtfest in two fandoms I've never written before. EEEEEEEEK. What the hell was I thinking again?

Aaaand I got started on the fic prompts I asked for, um, days ago. Ficlets, not drabbles.

( MUNCLE, Mr Waverly and Daylight Savings Time, from periwinkle27 )

( Reginald Hill books, Edgar Wield and his motorcycle, from kindkit )

And I shall get back to the other prompts! I have ideas percolating! They're just taking longer. And I suddenly have no time due to all the ficathons I signed up for. (Seriously, what was I thinking.)

I was thinking the other day that I've always watched procedural dramas/mysteries on television, but the--rules? tropes? better word that I'm currently blanking on?--have changed somewhat in the past couple decades. It used to be all gifted amateurs detecting things, like Murder She Wrote or Diagnosis Murder; now it's all authority figures working things out, typically with forensic science (or other branches of the maths & sciences) like NCIS or Numb3rs. Is it just *my* tastes have changed and I didn't notice the authority-figure shows back in the '80s and early '90s, or have television shows cycled through one phase to another again?

ETA: Has anyone watched Castle? It's actually kinda awesome.

I FINALLY finished rereading the EDA Parallel 59 after weeks of spending on it (the problem with only reading it during mealtimes, when I can be arsed...). It's probably the first time I've read it since, er, *checks publishing date* 2000?

( Shall cut to spare those who are not interested in Middle Skool Who )

Speaking of the Doctor, and beer, I finally tried a ginger beer last weekend. It was not at all what I expected--I liked it, but I think in smaller amounts than the entire bottle I drank--and I did not get drunk. Indicating that I am not a Time Lord. Alas. It's not like I was going to run into Shakespeare anyway.

ETA: Aaaaand I have discovered today that one of the washing machines I use in the apartment complex apparently will only cooperate if I bang on its lid. Maybe I should drink more ginger beer after all.

( book meme, gakked from roseveare )

My family are all leaving town tomorrow. THANK THE GODS. I love my family, I really do but I need to write fic and, I dunno, play Tetris or something.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that the Donald Lam books had never been nominated for yuletide before. I probably shouldn't be shocked since, uh, I'm not sure they're read a whole lot anymore, but still. Obscure, not that obscure!

This weekend was almost perfect (which is good, since the rain's moved in for the long haul, apparently). Gorgeous weather, and I spent most of the weekend outside either reading or traipsing around my neighborhood, and when bits of my neighborhood look like this,

( one picture only, I swear! )

it's not hard to go traipsing. Actually, it's a *lot* easier to get exercise when I can just walk out my front door and wander around in areas like this.

(That said, the area is the perfect place for a murder mystery. I can see the police detectives and their subordinates loitering, looking for clues, talking to witnesses. I have read and watched waaaaaay too many mysteries and procedural dramas in the past ten years.)

Title: Another Day at the Office
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Summary: Locked up in a basement with the house above you set on fire? Typical.
A/N: Written for Niki in Yuletide 07. Could be either book or movie canon, but I've paid far better attention to the books. Takes place before Underworld but after Child's Play.

( Read more... )

Somehow this has become a smashing Sunday afternoon, when usually Sundays are notable for being an utter depressing waste of time. And most of this weekend has been rather terrible what with a dishwasher that continues to foil my attempts to understand how it works (there is an ON button, and there is an OFF button, and why is this so damned complicated?), a music CD that continually seems to want to destroy my poor overworked computer (I just want to listen to the music, that's all I ask!), and a coffee cake that did not get cooked long enough.

But that was all in the past, and not this unusually lovely Sunday afternoon. I have dozed with a book in my lap, curled up on my entirely pretty loveseat (apparently when going furniture-shopping with my dad a couple months ago, I was in a really girly mood), and written a brief letter to one of the best friends I have ever had in my life, while listening to some soothing and quiet music. The patio door is open to let in the cool breeze, I finally got some cleaning and laundry done this morning, and I think I finally managed to relax this weekend.

This was very probably exactly what I needed.

Oh, and Georgette Heyer's The Foundling is right at the top of the list of fantastic books to be reading on a lazy Sunday. Gilly is very probably the best duke ever. Way cooler than Wellington. And far more fun and charming than Avon. Um. One of those was a real duke, the others are fictional. At least I still know which is which.

So Atlantis is definitely getting a scientist orgy, so long as John and Elizabeth can join in. (And I'm *sure* Teyla & Ronon are stick fighting. Bless 'em.) I'm slightly heartened that it appears more people on my flist know who Fitz Kreiner is than they do Tony DiNozzo, even though nobody knows who they both are. (labdog, if you actually *do* know who Fitz is--why didn't you tell me?!?)

Radek slightly beats out D'Argo as da man. Harriet Jones, PM wins by a landslide. You go, Harriet.

And apparently the sofa of reasonable comfort *is* a trick question. Ha! HA, I say!

Ahem.

Have been rewatching Our Mutual Friend because we're going to be reading City of Dreadful Delight in my European seminar, and it's this fantastic book that eventually talks about Jack the Ripper but before then we get to discuss the urban male voyeur and Victorian porn. And yes, that does relate to Eugene Wrayburn wandering the streets of London in order to torment Bradley Headstone. (Also? I would totally marry Mortimer. Totally, totally marry Mortimer.)

Also, I have fic.
Title: No Consideration for Others
Author: aces
Fandom: Doctor Who (not-really-Old-Skool)
Rating: PG?
Characters: Koschei, Ushas, Theta, Drax
Warnings: Time Lords using naughty language. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.
Notes: It’s like meta. Or dramatic irony. Maybe.

No Consideration for Others

Dude, The Mummy Returns is really some kind of warped version of the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Liz Peters. Right down to the precocious & menace-to-himself-and-all-society son Alex (who's still not quite as pedantic or loquacious as Ramses), and yes, Brendan Fraser is an American Emerson (while he doesn't speak with the same elegance as Emerson, no doubt he swears as inventively and reacts with as much impetuosity when wife or son is threatened).

So basically it's Amelia Peabody on crack.

I still prefer Ramses.

Tomorrow night, I am planning to go to the movie theater and make use of my handy-dandy rain check in order to see H2G2 FREE. Because if there is any human in the Universe who has a more surreal and unhappy existence than I, it is Arthur frelling Dent.

*mutter angst grumble swear mutter*

( book meme, snagged from jenlev )

Can somebody please explain to me why the '96 Doctor Who TVM is on MoviePlex right now?

It is scary how much I have this movie memorized.

*

Latest Elizabeth Peters book is going to be in my hands next week. *squees quietly*

*

The *only* reason I remembered today was April Fool's was because of the archives listserv. Which tells you how strange *my* life's become. This grad school lark might just do my head in. But most people in the public history professions I've met so far seem a bit odd, so that's alright.

*

"Yes! These shoes! They fit perfectly!"

I'm going to, uh, go away now...

Sassafrass tea and dark chocolate, cure your ills. My poor voice needs a rest, and it will get one after tomorrow night's performance, but I probably really shouldn't have been singing that much tonight at rehearsal.

Ah well.

On the other hand, the copy of Seeing a Large Cat by Liz Peters I ordered on Prospector *finally* showed up today; all my Amelia Peabody Emerson books are at home and therefore no good to me out here. Huzzah for the Ramses/David/Nefret goodness! (Yeah, Amelia and Emerson are cool too, but I'm all about the second generation. And Amelia intimidates me. I think I've had a crush on Ramses Emerson since I was fifteen or something. He hits all my particular...er, interests. Yes. Bugger.)

A meme I think I've only seen on versaphile's LJ, and which interested me strangely:
What is the core principle by which you attempt to live your life?

Everything is a learning experience. Everything. Therefore, everything has value, worth, merit, interest. Even the negative experiences of my life, painful and demoralizing, still have the benefit of being something I can learn from.

And I am so behind on LJ comments. Sigh.