Another vid. :D This time I use the song I Turn to You by Christina Aguilera, another favorite of mine.



For a shield from the storm,
For a friend, for a love
to keep me safe and warm
I turn to you

( Complete lyrics )

It is Tuesday here in GA and since I will be out of the house most of the day tomorrow (or rather, later today I suppose), I figured I should post this now in case I don't have a chance to do so later.

Happy Birthday, Captain obeliamedusa!!!

May it be a (gravely) beautiful, wonderful day and may you and your swain (gravely) have fun in Vancouver with friends and family. *touches your arm gravely* I apologize for once again failing to prepare a birthday ficlet, Captain, but I shall do my best to rectify that error next year. Perhaps if I start now I will finish in time...

In any case, enjoy your day and I hope to chat with you soon!

*gravely hugs and salutes*

Current Mood: awake

Hullo, friends. I'm in the editing process of my first book now and it has brought up the question of accents. I didn't include any in my rough draft mostly for the sake of simplicity, but now I'm thinking about changing that. However, I have conflicting feelings about the use of accents in writing. On the one hand, it often helps define a character and adds unique flavor to their speech - for example, I can't imagine a Samwise Gamgee without his accent - but at the same time, poorly-done accents are distracting. I occasionally stumble upon Star Trek fanfic in which the author attempts to write Chekov's accent, and it doesn't always work well.

This makes me very curious. How do you all, as readers and writers, feel about it? I've read some articles by writers and editors who are against it as a general rule, but then again I've also read some great books in which several characters had accents, so I really have no decisive opinion on the matter. Not that I'm asking for your input in order to make up my mind - like I said, I'm just curious. :3

Current Mood: curious

A new year means a whole new slate of TV to watch and some endless possibilities. As 2010 swiftly approaches, it's time not only to make resolutions for yourself, but to make wishes for the small-screen as well. So tell us:

  ( What do I hope to see in this new decade of TV )

( Witty cut text )

Also, I have written 12,146 words since December 16, and I am so effing awesome because I have so far stuck to my goal to write every day, even when it's been really difficult and I've ended up writing 100-200 words of pure shit around midnight just because I have to. (And also when it's been really easy and I've written over 1,000 words without even realizing how much I had written because everything is just flowing out through my fingers). Hell yeah, this is going to be so easy. I haven't written anything yet tonight but I'm getting started on it as soon as I post this and I already know what I'm going to start with, which is a totally awesome feeling.

Current Mood: okay

Gregson, or Lestrade, I never found out which, had arranged for police wagon to be waiting, protection from the mob, and the importunings of the pressmen. Mary wouldn't let me hand her up into it, and Stamford did the office for me. Once we were on our way, the two of them combined to make me remove my coat and shirt, so that Stamford could examine and treat my injuries by the light of the first convenient street lamp we stopped alongside on a quiet street. Distantly I could hear the newsboys shouting out the latest headline. "Watson goes free!"

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

I've finally managed to scratch the surface of yuletide! Here are some recs:

Fandoms: C.S Lewis Space Trilogy; JRR Tolkien- The Hobbit; JRR Tolkien- Unfinished Tales and HoMe; The Last Unicorn; The Young Wizards (Doctor Who crossover); Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series; Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers; Fairy Tales- Hansel and Gretel; Legend (the movie); Discworld; Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn...( Read more... )

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Current Mood: 8D!!!!

Hello! I only slept about two hours last night but surprisingly am feeling pretty good now. I got all my traveling out of the way this morning and Lora and I have had a relaxing afternoon watching BSG and talking about fandom, waiting for beruscats, claudia603, and hanarobi to arrive later tonight.

I meant to do another Yuletide recs post but I haven't had time to read much in the last couple days, so just a couple quick links tonight:

Paul Simon songs:
Down By The Schoolyard has a great narrative voice and actually makes the lyrics to "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" make sense.

How We Begin to Remember does an amazing job weaving together elements from lots of different songs on one of my all-time favorite albums, Graceland.

There are lots of other fics for songs by Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, Amanda Palmer, and others. Here is the list of fandoms.

National Public Radio:
Wait Wait Don't Eat Me is Wait Wait Don't Tell Me for the zombie apocalypse.

I would also like to call everyone's attention to the Archive of Our Own's Zombies tag.

Oh oh and!
Merlin:
A great camelotsolstice fic you may have missed, Moment of Yew, 26,000 words of plotty gen with surprising magic and OT4 love.

Also posted at http://sophinisba.dreamwidth.org/259840.html with comments.

Current Mood: cheerful

Wolf House site is updated with HEAPS OF AMAZING AUDREY ART, SERIOUSLY LOOK AT ALL THIS FLY SHIT RIGHT HERE. And also the opinions of fabulous people.

Okay, now I have to go annoy Grace at work. My ears are so so sore, even with lots and lots if acetic acid and propylene glycol diacetate bein' dribbled into them. Clearly Queensland is punishing me for not visiting often enough. WAY TO MAKE ME WANT TO VISIT MORE, QUEENSLAND >:|

I am again catching up with weeks of posts. I’ve either had nothing to say or too much to fit into the time I could spare to write it – the end result being, I’ve posted nothing in months. My thanks to those of you who have so diligently posted to keep the rest of us up to date.

Life continues, much as it has been with little changing except that my children are becoming young adults and I am getting old. I stopped feeling like I was getting older when I turned 21, but I guess my body didn’t get the message. It sucks.

Christmas (or as my daughter calls it, Hogswatch) was pretty good. I made sure I got myself a present (just in case) and all my gifts went over well. My daughter even liked the gifts we gave her – astonishing!

Watched the first half of the last episode of the Tennant Doctor Who episodes. It was… interesting. The Master was a lot more compelling than the Doctor in it. Hmmm… I’m hoping they can hit the note they did with last year’s finale – when the Time Lord / human metacrisis stayed with Rose – but I’m not holding my breath.

Finally, I’m sort of surprised no one in my flist mentioned Avatar. I had determined not to spoil myself too much and was pleased to see it for the first time as a relatively blank slate. Sort of what I couldn’t do with LOTR – LOL! And it worked – I loved the film! I even saw it twice (the second time is the best!) which is something I haven’t done since LOTR. It’s a simple story, but very empathetically done. And the tree huggers beat the crap out of the corporate shills! Epic!

( And here begins the political rant... )

Current Mood: content

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Here are the books for 2009

( poll )

( Dragons )
( Valenth creatures )

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First, thank you dreamflower02 for your Xmas card! It arrived today by Shire post. The posthobbit got lost but pervailed until he found me. :D


And now, movies!

Yahoo!movies once again disappoints with their showtime listings today, so I didn't get to see Up in the Air. Will have to try again Saturday. I did get over to Target to get an iPod car adapter and discovered that a lot of the TV series DVDs are on sale for 50% or more off. Was able to get season 3 of Heroes finally for only $18 (saving $32!), and BBT season 2 for $17. Whoop!

Two movies from Netflix over the weekend:

Life as a House - this is an old one with Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jena Malone and Hayden Christainsen (before he became known as Wanakin - and he whines a lot in this movie too). Now I know why I didn't bother seeing this movie earlier. The acting was only mediocre, the storyline was rehashed and maudlin (dying man spends one last summer to teach his ngelected, wayward son the lesson of life) and the scenarios preventing him from building his dream home were tied and cliched, the resolution of which was just creepy and way too coincidental. Overall, it's a pass.

Definetly, Maybe on the other hand is a very cute, well-told love story, circa the Princess Bride but for a modern day audience. It stars Ryan Reynolds (Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place; XMen Origins) as Will Hayes, the so-described "boyishly handsome" father of Abigail Breslin's (Little Miss Sunshine, Nim's Island) Maya. Maya's parents are divorcing and one night after Will picks her up from school, she demands to know how her parents met and fell in love. Will then proceeds to tell her the story of his two great loves and various other romantic entanglements, changing the names of the women so that Maya will have to guess which one is her mother. The three potential moms are played by Elizabeth Banks (Scrubs), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy), and Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers). The movie will keep you guessing until the end.

Also saw Sherlock Holmes on Saturday. I've never read the books or short stories, and only vaguely remember the old Holmes movies. My memory is that Holmes was always stuffy and prentenious and Watson was worse, so I had reservations about seeing this movie, even with the temptations of Rodney Downey Jr and Jude Law and the promise that the characters have been revamped to be more exciting and accessible. The reviews were all favorable though, so I saw it and enjoyed it quite thoroughly. It does drag in some places and the villain could have been less predictable, but the chemistry between Downey and Law was spot on and really makes it worth the ticket price.

Title: Suburban Mating Call: Up in the Air
Pairing: Sean/Elijah
Rating: PG-13
Words: 707 (totally a coincidence, I assure you!)
Warnings: AU (doh)
A/N: Several people asked whether SMC!Sean would let Elijah go see the movie 'Up in the Air', starring George Clooney. This is the answer. ;)

( Up in the Air )

Current Mood: amused

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Current Mood: cheerful