Something to cheer you up on a Saturday morning: more Boom-De-Ada from the Discovery Channel.

( Click the cut for the embedded video )

Thanks to cofax7 for the link.

Signed up for Yuletide, perhaps foolishly. EEK! Wish me luck! Short post today b/c am using my phone to post. More tomorrow!

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/511088.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

It's been one of those up and down weeks, tell me about it.

Spent much of today being spammed. Posted something on ONTD and forgot to turn off comments. Shit.

But my 'stupid' mistake last week on booking the 'cheap cheap' sale fare from here to Rome and back via Honkers has turned into an opportunity.

After clicking all the right buttons, and swiping the plastic, I realised we had a 17 hour stopover in Honkers (Hong Kong, if you didn't guess). 17 flippin hours in the airport... and I thought 7 in Sydney airport on a delay in the Qantas Club was bad enough.

Helen sorted me out and I <3 her. Hong Kong International has 24 hour checkin, so even if our bags don't get carried across from one airline to the next (we're swapping from Cathay Pacific to Qantas there), we can still put our bags in.

Turns out we can escape the airport, and do at least a few things in the only Asian city that has held any interest for me so far. A rapid train into central, up the peak on that vertical train, then back down and a ferry across Victoria Harbour, some 'real' Chinese takeaway (perhaps even scorpion), and dinner by the harbour before heading back to the airport.

Sounds like a plan.

( and in other news... )

Crazy, huh?

The upshot of having to talk to MIL? She is now also on my faceachebook. Damn. Boss, supervisor, and Mother in Law all on facebook. Thank goodness I can still bitch about them on Twitter, and here.

*smacks head*

Good news: Starfighter has been updated!

Bad news: I FORGOT ABOUT IT WHEN YULETIDE NOMS CAME AROUND. And it didn't make the list from anyone else either. Arrrgh.

Title: Diamonds, a Club, and a Couple of Hearts
Author: Flora (florahart)
Artist/Mixer: elanorofcastile
Beta(s): Several people have read bits and parts; lauriegilbert has been the most involved culler of commas and shortener of sentences (half of which I defied her about anyway).
Series: Reboot/ST XI
Characters/Pairings: primary pairing is Kirk/McCoy; however, there is a Kirk/Gaila scene and Spock/Uhura and Pike/Number One are referenced.
Rating: NC17
Warnings: mostly just smut (het and slash), AU.
Word Count: ~23,500
Summary: Jim Kirk is a hotshot new shortstop in the Constitution League. His team is young, but they have a lot of potential, and oh by the way, the team doctor? Is hot.
Notes: Written for startrekbigbang. Baseball AU in which all the characters are human, and the setting is some nonspecific time between now and 2258. Lots of nods to various baseball movies mashed up with lots of moments from/rearrangements of ST XI. Lots of other nods to things from the Trek canon (of any timeframe/reality) and para-canon, such as character names and backgrounds. Concept is inell's fault.
Art: here
Fanmix: here

MY POST IS NSFW.

But first, a Word Count update! \o/





And now, because you've all been indulging me lately, a tasty snippet.


"Malfoy…Draco? Your cock it's…" Harry smirked, swiping his thumb over the wet head. Malfoy's hips jerked beneath him. "It's crying. It's crying tears of sperm."

A pillow smacked him in the face, and Harry fell over laughing.

"I abhor you, Potter," Malfoy grunted into the mattress.

Harry only laughed harder.


Now, to cut this or not to cut this. That is the question.

I have so many things I think about writing everyday and somehow I never get around to it. November is way too busy for me to do NaBloPoMo but maybe I'll try in December.

This is something I saw the other day. It's a documentary! About a cat circus! No, really, a cat circus.



And this meme I gacked from postingwhore:

• Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal.
• Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
• Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

( sorry, didn't realize it was huge )

It's Beka Cooper from the cover of Tamora Pierce's Bloodhound! I went to the library last weekend and ended up grabbing Terrier and Bloodhound and am totally in love with them. The covers were also really well done, too, which surprised me b/c usually teen fantasy fiction covers are awful (or they were, back in the days when I used to read regularly). Anyway, I love it. Beka is awesome. (That's five sentences, isn't it?)

Title: Full Moon
Author: alisanne
Rating: PG
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Summary: Severus is never shy to give his opinion, and neither is Harry.
Word Count: 100
Genre: Humor
Warnings: Er, humor. *g*
A/N: Written for veridian_dair, who yet again managed to successfully guess which fic was mine in the snarry_ldws week 7 competition. Also, please to be excusing the lame title.
Beta: sevfan
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are not mine. No money is being made from this fiction, which is presented for entertainment purposes only.

( Full Moon )

Okay, so yeah. We went to see Zombieland tonight. I was 500 words shy of daily quota (but am still ahead by nearly half of tomorrow's, thanks to yesterday's push,) and I decided that I wanted a real, grown-up date, with dinner out, and nice drinks, and, apparently, zombies.

It was laugh out loud, ridiculously funny, that movie. Predictable leik whoa, and probably the closest America will ever get to a zombie movie in league with Sean of the Dead. Zombies come from eating mad cows, apparently. Who knew?

Look, this movie isn't gonna change anybody's life, but it will make you guffaw at Woody Harrelson fan-humping *Secret Stealth Celebrity Cameo who's name I am withholding*'s leg in an epic geek-out moment. Or the four-gun funeral salute, with pause in the middle to reload the double-barrel. Or the Purel scene. Or the squeaky nose.

I'm just sayin.

And I'm also sayin, for a movie in which The Rules Of Survival play such a prominent role, how the HELL is it that when the Hummer rolls up on the gates of Pacific Playland, and pushes gently through as twilight gives way to dusk, Dominus and I were the ones who leaned over to each other and murmured "Rule one: Don't go at night. Rule two: Don't go alone. Rule three: Save the last bullet for yourself." Sadly, none of those rules made an appearance in this film. Though they should have done, as they were all broken at one point or another.

Still, I believe I will officially add Zombieland's rule two to the list from now on, as it bears keeping in mind.
Double tap. Always double tap.

Okay, I'm in not too bad of shape with this assignment, I guess, unless I've woefully misinterpreted what it's supposed to do. The instructions were... terse. But my brain is seriously shutting down, so I'm going to quit working on it for tonight and come back in the morning.

CSA this week included: daikon, red radishes, turnips, a few little carrots, garlic, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, arugula, turnip greens (in addition to those on the turnips), dandelion greens, and purple beans. [Still around from previous weeks: cherry tomatoes, radishes, daikon, turnips, acorn squash, butternut squash, beets.] Turnip puree again, probably; cook some of the red radishes for SO; plain steamed beans; lettuce salad. I might turn the other greens into a tart (don't have that recipe online yet). I also have a recipe for shrimp with cherry tomatoes and feta (also not online) and have a pound of frozen shrimp, so maybe that (using last week's tomatoes, which are now about ripe).

Other than that... Taught classes. Got prep done for Monday for both classes. Had a meeting. Dealt with work email. Dictated about 800 words each on two different fics; one for a fest, the other DD. Played some with Juno.

Now waiting for SO to get home. He'd indicated he was going to try to get home early tonight, but that didn't happen; he decided he really needed to work out since he hadn't all week. Okay, fair enough, and I worked on the assignment meantime. But if he doesn't get back soon, we probably can't have our Friday night date since restaurants around here close pretty dang early even on weekends. So we'll see. There are some leftovers if we end up not doing anything tonight.

Wow, OK, hi. This week can go screw itself over on a pointy stick. Like, really. Wow. I've been back from the beach since Sunday morning and have done nothing but work since Tuesday. And that's because I had a holiday on Monday or else it'd have been non-stop work since Monday. And I literally mean non-stop, because I was even working in my sleep. What little sleep I managed to get anyway.

Anyway, Sunday I took to catch up on all the TV I missed over the week and then Monday I started on my skip-300 flisting spree and managed to get it down to skip=75. Then, I basically... wasn't online pretty much all this week because of all the overtime and all the bringing work home with me and the stormy weather and the power going out and, oh lookit, my flist is back up to skip=200 *flails*

Speaking of TV, on the way back home (after another hour of overtime at work, oh joy) I watched this week's SYTYCD which my sister downloaded for me because she's a sweetheart when she wants to be and she felt sorry for me heh ( Spoilers for SYTYCD 12 here )

Still haven't watched this week's SPN or Vamp Diaries. There was no new Glee this week and I don't think White Collar has even aired yet? If it has, the download isn't available yet anyway. Speaking of White Collar, let's talk about it up to last week, yeah? ( Cut for White Collar spoilers )

Tomorrow I get my hair cut YAY! Not that I'll do any drastic changes to it or anything but it's gotten to the point where it just won't behave *sighs*

It's the weekend, peoplez! \o/\o/\o/

My toes are partially numb but I am in a ridiculously happy mood. Why? I went to see Poe Evermore at the PA Ren. Faire tonight.

I spent a half an hour silently shipping Irving/Longfellow. Longfellow blew a cork into Irving's ear. Mary Shelly had a mental fit. And Poe cracked jokes about his own stories, and gave us the run down of Pit and the Pendulum and The Fall of the House of Usher in under a minute.

He also insisted The Stylus would only involve happy, smiley poems.

Yeah. Yeah, it just was that kind of show.

I was looking for statistics* about same-sex marriage opposition when I ran across this precious article posted back in June. (Warning for extreme sexism and various other acts of privilege.)

The author--Sam Schulman--goes on at length about what he objects to about same sex marriage, and what he thinks marriage really is. Bolded sections are emphasis added.

The relationship between a same-sex couple, though it involves the enviable joy of living forever with one's soulmate, loyalty, fidelity, warmth, a happy home, shopping, and parenting, is not the same as marriage between a man and a woman, though they enjoy exactly the same cozy virtues. These qualities are awfully nice, but they are emphatically not what marriage fosters, and, even when they do exist, are only a small part of why marriage evolved and what it does.

Got that? It's important. He's tackling the key issue of what is marriage, which is absolutely crucial to any non-religious discussion of and why same-sex couples can't have it. Brace yourself... 'cos he hits the same conclusion about "traditional marriage" that I got, only he thinks it's a good thing.

Marriage, whatever its particular manifestation in a particular culture or epoch, is essentially about who may and who may not have sexual access to a woman when she becomes an adult, and is also about how her adulthood--and sexual accessibility--is defined.

Marriage is not about raising children, or living together and sharing resources, or being a unit in the community. Marriage is about female sexuality--and the control thereof. In case that wasn't obvious from his earlier quotes, he makes sure you understand:

This most profound aspect of marriage--protecting and controlling the sexuality of the child-bearing sex--is its only true reason for being, and it has no equivalent in same-sex marriage.

He also points out that "A same-sex marriage fails utterly to create forbidden relationships." He seems to think they are important--nay, mandatory, because, "without social disapproval of unmarried sex--what kind of madman would seek marriage?" He then goes on to talk about the "kinship" that marriage creates:

Even in modern romantic marriages, a groom becomes the hunting or business partner of his father-in-law and a member of his clubs; a bride becomes an ally of her mother-in-law in controlling her husband. There can, of course, be warm relations between families and their children's same-sex partners, but these come about because of liking, sympathy, and the inherent kindness of many people. A wedding between same-sex lovers does not create the fact (or even the feeling) of kinship between a man and his husband's family; a woman and her wife's kin.

This kinship is important to him--he says

In a world without kinship, women will lose their hard-earned status as sexual beings with personal autonomy and physical security. Children will lose their status as nonsexual beings.

That latter seems like a bit of a red herring, and he doesn't explain it well. But it does tie into some of his other points, about marriage and illicit sexuality and the importance of at least giving lip service to the idea of virginity.

Marriage, to him, is all about men getting access to women's sexuality, and since same-sex marriage turns that concept on its head, it is wrong.And he doesn't even spend much time grumbling about the "wrongness"--he's bitching about how the inevitible failure of same-sex marriage (because marriage can't survive without illicit sexuality and forced kinship) will destroy the last vestiges of men-owning-women marriage.

Umm.

Yay?



* Stats: Specifically, I was trying to find out if the opposition splits equally along gender lines, or if more men oppose same-sex marriage than women. Any relevant research info would be welcome.

This entry is crossposted at http://elf.dreamwidth.org/280002.html. You can comment there with OpenID from your LJ or IJ account. Comments so far:

I have decided to start a temp agency. If you are looking for work or looking for prospective hires, you may want to check out this post over on LJ. :)

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/final-reminder-for-bookshops.html

A quick reminder (as I was just asked) that today is the day that the bookshop Graveyard Book party reports have to be in to Harper Collins. By 9 pm PST.

http://files.harpercollins.com/Mktg/HarperChildrens/PDF/GraveyardContest_rules.pdf are the rules and info for those who lost them.

Hi Mr. Gaiman,

I was disappointed today to read you won't be part of the judging for The Graveyard Book contests. My not-wealthy, middle-of-nowhere bookstore just sent in its entry, and something we're concerned about is the fairness of judging.

For example, independent bookstores like Powell's (I'm sure you know) easily have enough money and are in a convenient enough location to ask you to come at one time or another. Against stores like that, who were able to put more money into their parties, we stand little chance.

I don't think that it's a lost cause for us; we were very creative. I'm just nervous to know you won't be judging. Can you tell me whether you think the judges will take things like size and location of bookstores into account? It would make me sleep a little easier until the results are announced.

Tusen takk,
Allison

Well, per the rules, the judging is based on:

(i) Overall creativity of the Party, as demonstrated by the invitations, signage, decorations, activities, entertainment, and refreshments.
(ii) Customer attendance and response (i.e., enthusiasm, costumes, participation).
(iii) Ability to capture and represent the spirit of The Graveyard Book.
...specifically to reward creativity, and not the ability to outspend other shops. (That was also why the party had to actually be at the bookshop, and not at another location.)

I asked my editor, Elise Howard, and she said,

Gosh, yes. Here's what we think is happening. We are looking at all the entries. On Monday, we'll send you the best 11, from which you will choose the Grand Prize Winner. The rest will get the first-prize package. So the short answer is that you ARE helping to choose.

The longer answer is that we will be very fair and will consider creativity, which includes work done with available resources, along with pure execution. (Don't you think? We haven't done anything yet; still waiting for more entries to come in.)

...which means that

a) I was wrong and will be the ultimate judge, from the shortlist. (Damn.)

and

b) everyone's on a level playing field.

Does that help reassure you?

PS -- Widgett's Graveyard Book Dessert competition winners have been announced over at http://www.needcoffee.com/2009/11/06/graveyard-book-dessert-challenge-winners/.

This one had NOTHING to do with me at all. But lor' the winning desserts look tasty...

Bullet points!

• I finished the first draft of my long-overdue LLM fic for accioslash, the continuation of Thicker Than Water. Anyone want to beta? It's very very chan and mpreg (knocked-up 11yo Harry ftw).


• 2 out of 3 Mini-Commission spots got claimed, so unless the 3rd goes today, that'll be the only ones I offer for the holiday season.


• I've decided not to do Yuletide this year -- someone got my tiny fandom disqualified (if I'd known anyone would bother, I could have easily defended it, but since it didn't occur to me to check it's now too late), and I just don't have the heart to play after that.


• Which means I only have santas_lap to write this season, and that's it, since I'm also not doing nanowrimo. It hardly feels like the holiday at all!

Wow, I wouldn't have recognize her if M6 didn't use the same voice for the dubbing. The daughter in the xmas episode of NCIS of season 6, it's Daisy from Bones.

Another MW/SM video from 7x03, I wonder where the "No, keep going" was. I think it's just after, Sean is laughing and the shirt is opened.



Michael: *do his joke* *wait for Sean's reaction.*
Sean: *awed* "It's beautiful."

Master, bless.

My most precious ones,

I am still waiting for the proof copy.

The flawed master should be released next week, hopefully early next week.

I am trying not to climb walls.

Fortunately, I am having dinner with my dearest wolfraven80, and this weekend I shall be sewing a few sets of robes to take my mind off the delay.



These will be robes of the non-trailing kind, to be worn over cassocks. I shall use polar (very warm), wool (warm and elegant), and a light polyester (for spring and summer).

I shall also update "Darkest before dawn" and catch up with robed_embrace. I am behind on so much it seems. I need to answer emails, there are letters on my desk (the cobwebs cannot be far off)... I want to compile No lasting city in the near future, the house requires a good cleaning... I have been wondering if I should write a press release for The flawed master and send copies of the book to local papers (do I dare?)... I need to prepare my Infinitus submission, and so on... Let us not even mention A Princely Calling.

First, dinner.

Your devoted
Logospilgrim, the quiet professor