The 14th Precinct

Two Instances of Fail and One of Decent TV

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:05:22 GMT

In its infinite wisdom and in a shameless bid to hoard its profits, the utility company has announced that the city will convert its meters to Smart Meters. In essence, our electricity and water meters will become computerized Borgs, reading the information about water and power use and sending it to the company remotely. This, the company is pleased to announce, means that utility techs will no longer need to conduct monthly readings.

Translation: We're firing them.

Wow. What a great idea. Let's fire hundreds of human workers and put our power grid in the hands of machines. Yes, there are no dangers there. No hacker with dreams of glory will breach the system and shut off the power as a joke; nor will they not use their l33t hacking skills to avenge themselves on an obnoxious neighbor. And the computers will certainly never go haywire and charge a customer for a million kilowatt hours. Oh, no. Such malfunctions never happen.

The best part is that in order for the transition to take place, they have to cut the power. They claim that technicians will knock on the door to give customers notice and a chance to shut off electronics, but since I live in an apartment complex, I have my doubts. I also doubt that the outage will be a mere five minutes. Like as not, the power will fail without notice, eating my final paper or the greatest lines of prose since Ellison's The Invisible Man, and I'll swelter in the dark for two hours while the "licensed technician contracted by the city" tinkers with sixteen electricity meters and an equal number of water heaters.

Yeehaw. City of Tallahassee, you fucking suck.

Oh, but that's not the end of either my bitchfest or the fail parade that inspired it. Nay. My latest professor has decreed that as part of the coursework, we students are required to set up a university homepage with picture and biography so that we get to know each other better.

Well, I don't think so, scooter. She can penalize me as she likes, but I'm not putting that kind of information out there for the perusal of people I don't know and have no desire to know. They're probably harmless, but all it takes is one nutbar or shopaholic with a mountain of credit card debt. I've been through the stressful, three-ring circus that is reporting identity theft, and I'm not volunteering for another stint in that carnival because she wants us to be a group-hugging coffee klatch.

But not everything sucks. I caught Bones last night, and while I think the Booth stalker storyline was rushed, it was a decent episode, and rekindled my desire for a Booth of my own. He stepped between Brennan and the bullet without hesitation. HOT. Actually, I don't know what was hotter: his heroic impression of a Secret Service agent, or Brennan picking up his gun and capping the shooter with a flick of her wrist.

I know TPTB would like us to fret over the possibility of Booth's death, but we all know that the network doesn't have the balls or the spine to kill such an integral character. There is no Bones without Booth, just a shrill, socially inept woman whose blinkered ignorance of anything outside an anthropology textbook defies credulity. Bones needs Booth in order to be accessible to the viewer, so Booth isn't carking it.

I do wonder who the Gorgomath killer is. My bet is on either the forensic psychologist or Hodgins. The former is more likely, though Hodgins is the only one wealthy enough to encase the bones in silver.

Why Christopher Tolkien Is a Nebbish Bag of Tooldom

Sun, 11 May 2008 17:30:58 GMT

I eventually moved the chains on my SPNfic yesterday, and it shows no signs of winding down. It's less than a third complete at 19,603, and if it weren't for the fact that I yearn with a young lover's need to fill in another prompt of my spn13 table, I'd heave its fat, cottontailed ass out the window. But no, I'm obsessed with the giddy pleasure and sated, post-coital, "I need a cigarette" satisfaction of seeing a prompt turn blue.

Dear God, I sound like a pregnant woman peeing on an EPT. My baby. What has fandom done to my brain? Any road, SPNfic will be set aside as soon as the second section is complete. I need to work on other plotbuns, and besides, my spn_summergen prompt will be sent on the 22nd.

When not taking dictation from a carrot-guzzling bun, I read a little Unfinished Tales of Middle-Earth. Christ, but Christopher Tolkien is a pedantic, insufferable bore. I nearly fell asleep during the foreword. His reasons for selecting the pieces he did might pop the buttons on his tweed trousers, but I couldn't give a damn. Nor would I give a damn if the knowledge came with a free side of piping hot cunnilingus performed by the elf of my choice. I just want to read the stories.

The bric-a-brac and bunting of story-building are only of interest to the builders, and often that interest is constrained further still to the works of their own craft. Readers don't care that you came up with the story in mid-poop or while engaged in a bit of sudsy fun with the shower wand. They just want to read it without you wanking furiously over their shoulder and interrupting the mind movie in their heads by scribbling production notes in the margins.

~deep breath~ I'm better now. It just makes me irritable to see someone trying so desperately to prove their genius with so many bombastic pronouncements. I don't care what you thought mattered, Christopher. I'm only concerned with what the story tells me, and I don't care that it mightn't tell me the story it tells someone else. Stop shoring up your own dubious claims to literary l33tness by cannibalizing your father's doodle pads.

OK. I'm really done now.

Flack's Kink According to Guera and a Rant About Don Eppes

Sat, 10 May 2008 17:01:44 GMT

I want to fic today, but my SPNfic just isn't tweeting my tweedlers. The first paragraphs of Et Tu IX have insinuated themselves into my brain in sultry enticement, but I'm just torpid. I could write on either of them if I'd just focus, but my mind keeps turning to the books I could be reading or to the conjuration of smutty scenarios involving Flack and ass play.

No, I don't know why. I loathe ass play. Maybe it's because I like anything that will arouse my sexual partner, or the sex partner of my OFC. Besides, Flack strikes me as a kinky bugger behind closed doors...

Numb3rs last night was...meh. It wasn't dreadful, but I was hopelessly confused by Liz Warner. I know she's whiny and juvenile when it comes to office entanglements, but I thought she was a competent field agent. Apparently not. Her attempt to trade on a grieving wife's obligation to her dead husband would have been skeevy and staggeringly arrogant on its face without the additional twattery of neglecting to get a read on Gina before wielding that particular hammer. Megan certainly would've done so. Either Don Eppes has fucked all the competence out of her, or Liz was never a good agent. In either case, her blunder highlights why she should not transfer back into the unit to replace Megan, a move for which TPTB are clearly angling.

And Colby, poaching your boss' sloppy seconds is gross. Surely, you can do better. Eugh.

Next week's promo hints that the season finale pits brother against brother. It shows Charlie getting cuffed and Don asking plaintively, "Charlie, what did you do?"

If Don Eppes gets up on his high horse and starts preaching to Charlie about "dangerous information" and his duty to ensure that it passes only into "acceptable" hands, I'm going to be in my basement, hammering out a space-time disruptor that will allow me to punch him in the face. His moral superiority has always chafed, as has his blithe assumption that Charlie's work and worldview are secondary to his own. He's constantly consumed with his rightness of cause and never stops to consider that Charlie, too, has a job and students to whom he is beholden. He thinks nothing of ordering Charlie to set aside his work and shortchange the students who are paying to learn from him so that Charlie can pull the magic numbers from his ass and save Don from the onus of effort. The message is constant: Who cares about your work, Charlie? It's all about me and mine.

It galls, and when you couple that attitude with Don's belief that Charlie's personal convictions are lesser or more naive than his because Charlie has never been exposed to the "real world", well, homicide has a dark appeal. If Don does choose job over Charlie because he doesn't want to admit that the institution for which he works is flawed, then I foresee a schism between the two that won't be easily or quickly bridged.

TV I Didn't Watch and Books I Might Buy

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:35:37 GMT

Since Without a Trace was advertising it as the arrival of Sam's baby bunting, I skipped the episode in favor of working on my SPNfic. I know nothing of real-life labor and delivery, but the TV version is usually patent garbage. The actresses grunt and scrunch and low like butt-raped cattle, hair frazzled and in lanky, stringy hanks, faces artfully red. They huff and groan and usually choose the most ridiculous location to give birth. I once saw Lily from Crossing Jordan give birth on Garrett Macy's desk. Anyway, I had no desire to watch Poppy Montgomery make like a constipated tick hound and take a biological dump all over the FBI field office. Did I miss any first-rate drama?

On the bibliophilic front, one of my recent buys was The Unfinished Tales of Middle-Earth by the parasitic conservator of the Tolkien legacy, Christopher Tolkien. I've yet to start, but I'm hoping it will shed more light on the history of the Elves. Apparently, there is a whole series of texts exploring the history and creation of Middle Earth. They were selling a set of five for fifty dollars, but I was leery. Are they worth the expense in the opinions of LOTR fans?

Roomie is at the grocery store, and I need to research Hamburger Hill and the presence and scope of troops of color during WWII for my SPNfic, so I bid you a temporary adieu.

ETA: And this is why research is your friend. Hamburger Hill was a battle in Vietnam, not WWII; the battle I was looking for was the Battle of the Bulge. Viva research.

CSI:NY 419-"Personal Foul"--SPOILERS

Thu, 08 May 2008 13:07:28 GMT

"You should piss Lindsay off more often."

Oh, Flack, I love you so. That line is a thing of beauty, and more importantly, it sheds some light on the Danny/Lindsay relationship from the perspective of someone close to Danny. It was intended as a joke, certainly, but it also intimates that Lindsay might be what Vince Vaughn called a "Class 1 Clinger" in Wedding Crashers. It implies that Danny hasn't socialized much recently. Whether his isolation is the result of his grief for Reuben or of his involvement with Lindsay is unclear, but it warms my heart to think of Lindsay as the human equivalent of the grabby, priapic face-hugging, life-killing chest-burster from Alien, and so I shall.

Speaking of decidedly unpleasant metamorphoses, the writers have succeeded in making the formerly likeable Reed Garrett into the stereotypically sullen, vainglorious, short-sighted douchewad. I was mildly dismayed when he presumed on his personal relationship with Mac to further his budding "journalism" career; I was markedly more unimpressed when he shamelessly thrust Mac into the untenable position at the press conference for the sake of mugging for the cameras and generating hits; I was nominating him for character kindling by the time they squabbled in the crime lab. He struck me as presumptuous and ungrateful and hopelessly naive. Unfortunately for him, it seems that naivete and Gen Y faith in the ability to change the world with the mighty keystroke has landed him in very deep and troubled waters.

And now...it's time for me to lose my metaphorical shit and caper and howl like a baboon on a strict regimen of LSD and crystal meth.

Like an anal wart on a high-priced call girl, the Danny/Lindsay phone call stuck out and was horrifically painful. Danny misses her? When has he had time to miss her between his justified grief and his ill-advised trysts with Riki? And what has he missed? The writers haven't shown her being there for Danny in any capacity. Ever. Even in "Snow Day", it was all about her. Her angst. Her woe.

That trend has continued throughout this season as well. She claims to have tried to give him space, but Flack's comment that pissing Lindsay off was a good thing implies a truth altogether different, and if she has given him space, I'd wager it was because she was butthurt and determined to punish him by withdrawing. She reminds me of a cat scraping litter over a particularly ripe turd, turning up her nose at the offending dropping and showing it her ass with feline joie de guerre.

It's always all about her. The conversation tonight provided ample proof. I can't do this. It's affecting my work and breaking my heart. Me, me, me, mine, me, mine. It's irksome and off-putting, and it boggles my mind that Danny misses someone capable of such staggering narcissism.

Then again, Danny's once strong character has been so thoroughly demolished and contorted by the writers' obsession with this deathless embarrassment that defining canon Danny is impossible. If you had told me in S2 that Danny would make a weepy, spineless, blubbering phone call, begging forgiveness from a cold fish and navel-gazing succubus like Lindsay, I'd've laughed at you hard enough to break wind. Yet there he was, groveling like a lovelorn tween. It was embarrassing, like watching your drunk relatives apologize for their shortcomings right before they piss in the potted plant or barf down the priest's cassock. Or like watching your toddler nephew reach into his diaper, pull out a fresh deposit into Le Banque Du Huggies, and proclaim it his greatest invention.

As Flack said last week, "Stop, OK? Just...stop." That scene nearly destroyed what was otherwise a solid if unremarkable episode.

B for the cases, but C- for overall effect.

NCIS 517: "Recoil"--SPOILERS

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:42:40 GMT

I was all set to write a puff post about my latest book purchases. Then NCIS veered into Wonky World, and I decided I had to choke a bitch.

Ziva David is a highly-trained Mossad agent who has killed before, has killed her half-brother, as a matter of fact. She splattered his evil, Kate-killing brains all over Gibbs' basement floor and did so with nary a whimper. Ziva is, plainly put, a tight-lipped, naturally suspicious and hyperobservant badass woman.

So, why, oh why, was she shambling around NCIS last night like a late-blooming model for Xanax chic and blabbing to doofy, googly-eyed fanboys who might be serial killer lackeys that she's Mossad? Why is she boffing squirrelly dweebs and pouring out her inner angst to them? Where is Ziva David, and what have you done with her?

I'm not opposed to Ziva being rattled by having to kill someone who tried to kill her, nor am I opposed to her being unsettled with her brush with mortality. She's not the T3, after all. However, there was no reason for her to lose the entirety of her spine and become the cliche, hollow-eyed, drunken Fed after their first shoot. This wasn't her first rodeo, and the other characters have gleefully celebrated her ability to torture in the past. Ziva is a trained assassin. So please don't insult my intelligence, or her, for that matter. If she's struggling with the intensely personal nature of the killing or the fact that she watched the light bleed from his eyes, then say so. Have her talk to Gibbs in the morgue, and while you're at it, explain why her justified killing of a crack-ass crazy, woman-hating serial killer is profoundly more traumatic than shooting her half-brother in the head after working with him for years.

Oh, show, I remember fondly the days when your writing didn't suck such unfettered, pungent ass.

CSI:Miami and Iron Man: Which One Didn't Suck?

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:40:02 GMT

Before I talk about Iron Man, I need to vent about last night's CSI:Miami.

God, what an overripe, empty, cack-handed, badly acted, priapic shit smear of episodic television. I hadn't watched Miami on Mondays since the first episode, but when the promos pimped Alexx's departure as "CSI turning on CSI," I was intrigued. So I watched.

If this had been the first episode of the franchise that I'd seen, it would've been my last, and I would never have bothered with CSI or CSI:NY. I realize that no televised cop drama resembles real law enforcement, but Miami is so outlandish as to defy the bonds of human credulity. I can buy Horatio keeping mum about the owner of the murderous chunk of slate; the connection is tenuous and there might be other explanations. But once Delko departed from protocol and let Brian Woods remain at large until he processed the knife for DNA, well, the show, already creaking under the weight of nonsensical plot and lackluster acting, imploded.

The episode was thin, and I felt like the director had mistakenly sent out early prints instead of the final cut. The acting was either amateurish and stilted or histrionic and over the top. I cringed during the evidence processing scene with Wolfe and Boa Vista on the marina docks. Such unfunny, joyless banter between colleagues has seldom been heard, and don't get me started on the maternal meltdown cum heroin overdose hysteria Alexx displayed in the warehouse.

And dear Lord, the l33t camera tricks during the DNA profiling sequence. It burns, precious.

This is horribly petty in light of this episode's sins, but Horatio looked old and bloated. Either the lighting was off, or the stylist is secretly avenging a long-festering wrong His face was puffy, his freckles were visible, and his hair had obviously been coiffed by a paralytic with a grudge, an eggbeater, and a Flowbie. Wow. He looked less like Horatio Caine, American hero and more like an aging actor who's grown comfortable and fat in his plum role.

What a wet, festering diarrhea pool of a show, though I see the reason for its appeal in foreign markets. It feeds into every stereotype held by foreigners and portrays American as thin, rich, indulgent, drug- and sex-crazed miscreants with an excess of money and time and a dearth of dignity and or personal responsibility. Everyone, even criminals newly released from prison, has the means to go jet-skiing, and medical examiners live in swanky houses with sprawling lawns. The show is as bright and vapid and ridiculous as the rest of the world thinks we are, and looking at the candyfloss garbage we export and tout as our best entertainment, I can't fault them. If our TV was my sole means of judging American culture, I'd think we were obnoxious ass figs, too.

F-

Iron Man was a fun summer movie. I can't speak to its fidelity to the source material because I've never been a comic book reader, but I enjoyed the movie nonetheless. Downey was wonderful as the sardonic, womanizing genius, Tony Starke. Even before his redemptive epiphany in the caves of Afghanistan, I liked him despite or perhaps because of his brashness. He certainly wasn't the most considerate man, but neither was he a degenerate reprobate.

I liked Jeff Bridges as Otto Stain, his treacherous business partner. He was a perfectly sympathetic, paternal foil for Starke. Right until the moment in which he admits that it was he who filed the injunction that prevented Starke from shutting down the weapons division. It's all downhill for him after that, alas.

I do have quibble with that plot point, actually. Stain isn't a dolt; he couldn't've been to have forged a partnership with Starke's father. So why would he admit that he was actively working against Starke? Wouldn't it be smarter to feign loyalty in public as he did for two-thirds of the movie and work against him in private? Tony is brilliant when it comes to circuitry and microchips, but remarkably obtuse when it comes to interpersonal skills. Had Stain kept his cakehole shut, Starke might not have understood the treachery until it was too late. Stain could've thrown his weight behind the board of directors and legally shifted the balance of power away from Starke, or he could've remained with Starke and continued to ply his under the table wares. Why out himself and give Starke a reason to go fishing in secret company files?

I know, I know. Handy plot contrivance to get the canon rolling, but still. My mind can't help but pick at these things(just as it couldn't help but quail at the homophonic error splashed in three-foot letters over a faux Rolling Stone cover. It's "Starke Takes the Reins", dammit. "Reigns" are for kings and dictators. Your dictionary, it begs to be loved. Fondle its pages now and then, and it will be good to you. It will make you look smart even if you must grab your manly tackle and steer in order to change direction.)

An A+ popcorn flick.

Stay for the post-credits teaser. Samuel L. Jackson in an eyepatch=WIN.

Goddammit and Hallelujah

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:35:35 GMT

Feliz Cinco de Mayo a todos que lo celebran.

Because Roomie bestirred himself and cleaned our bathroom yesterday, a bathroom that heretofore took its decor from the Delta house after the shoot, I decided to treat him to Iron Man. Yes, I had ulterior motives, namely the acquisition of Four Walls, but Roomie earned the movie, dammit. With not just gusto, but with panache. The man scrubbed the bathroom with nothing but generic dish soap, a scrubbie, and baby wipes.

So we went, and I was in a state of low-grade apoplexy all day. Look, I understand that we wheeled folk are inconvenient to those who've never had to fight their bodies for even the most limited of cooperation, but until the government drops all pretense and sanctions my execution because I haven't "earned" my life or "proven" its worth to society, I have rights. I have the right to leave the house, use public transportation, and patronize public venues. I have the right to go to the grocery store and buy food, and if I'm slower or more cumbersome in that process than you think I should be, too damn bad. Go fuck yourself.

I have the right to be as selective in my food selection as you are, and I'll be damned if I'll rush or forego an item so you don't have to wait a whole ten seconds to pass me with your cart and three screaming children. I have the right to look at the display of Nutri-Grain bars. You, however, do not have the right to either nudge me from behind with your cart or attempt to sandwich me between your cart and the aisle so you can get in front of me. This isn't the goddamn Wacky Races. If it were, you can be assured that I'd be Dick Dastardly with tactical nukes and you'd be a bleeding puddle in the aisle, right next to those oh-so-crucial Wheat Thins that you needed NOW.

Let me lay it out for those who don't know: To some cripples, their wheelchair is part of them, a body part. It is certainly within the realm of their personal space. Touching it without their consent is tactless at best and a gross invasion of personal space and bodily autonomy at worst. The law should recognize this as assault if it doesn't. When you touch my chair, you are touching me.

Don't. If it is acceptable for a stranger to touch my chair without my consent because it is convenient to do so, then I demand the right to touch others whenever I feel like it and without regard to their feelings. I'd like to punch David Caruso, for starters, and after that, I have a hot date with Eddie Cahill's inseam.

I'm beyond tired of the double standard in this world that enables others to touch me while expecting me to adhere to the more stringent(and just plain right)standard of never touching a stranger without permission. I would never dream of shoving a stroller with a baby inside out of my way; the baby isn't mine, and I wouldn't want to upset the mother. Yet people think nothing of nudging, jostling, or outright moving me by the push handles, as if I were a mere obstacle and not a person.

And don't get your whinge on about my "responsibility" to stay out of others' way. I have neither more nor less obligation than anyone else, and frankly, it's hard to be swayed by that argument when the person who moved me then stands in the center of the aisle, cell phone clapped to their ear, while two children and a cart block forward progress.

Fuck the lot of them. I give as good as I get, oftentimes more than I get, and I'm tired of being the better man. Hell, I'm just plain tired.

I know this might not make sense to most of my able readers. How can it? You might think I'm exaggerating. If you do, how about a little experiment?

Go to the mall or the grocery store. Anywhere they offer store use of wheelchairs. Best Buy does. Go with a friend if you can. Use the chair. Spend thirty minutes or an hour at ass-level. See how people react to you, how they treat you. See how many even look at you. Finish your shopping and leave. The next time you go to that store, walk.

See if there's a difference. See if living at ass-level doesn't stink.

I'm so tired of the smell down here.

It wasn't all bad, though. We went to the Macaroni Grill for lunch, and the waiter had the loveliest west Texas, Matthew McConnaughy drawl. I swear that my panties nearly spontaneously combusted every time he opened his mouth and gave new meaning to the phrase "crown of fire". Humma humma. I'd've put my panties on my head and called it a Fruit of the Loom diadem if he had suggested it. Good God. Every time I think I'm done with the whole human race, God sends me an incentive to renew my membership.

Hallelujah.

Eddie Cahill's Hockey Woe, and Rebecca and the Anti-Don, Don Eppes

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:23:48 GMT

Now that the New York Rangers have been eliminated from the playoffs, I wonder if Eddie will do a final blog. He skulked off last year without saying goodbye to his readers, and I chalked it up to his busy schedule and his need for a manly sulk. If he vanishes again, then I'll call it a character flaw. Oh, well, everyone has them, and in the grand pantheon of human foibles, slinking offline after your beloved team's defeat is minor, indeed.

SPNfic has stalled once more. If I can't jumpstart it by tonight, then I'll set it aside in favor of Et Tu IX. Rebecca has quite a bit to say about California and loneliness, and I'm eager to see her reaction to Dr. Fleinhardt. I already know that her reaction to Charlie's Don, Don Eppes, will be spectacular. There's a lot of home in that Don, enough to hurt, and his devotion to the job above all else is going to rankle. I anticipate friction and at least one cataclysmic bout of savage loggerheads at the Eppes family table when Eppes opens his cakehole and opines that spouses of law enforcement officers "have to understand and expect to make sacrifices. It's part of the deal."

Oh, boy.

But that's several chapters hence. Part IX is just Rebecca, taking stock of her surroundings, the internal as well as the external, and shoring up her infamous and formidable defenses. I'm sure the quirky Dr. Fleinhardt will provide her with years of story fodder when Don's tired of talking about work. The white food alone...

Anyway, that's what I hope to accomplish, but I owe it to Gordonbun and SPNfic to give him another nudge before I return him to the hutch for further incubation.

Good and Bad and Agenda TV

Sat, 03 May 2008 17:55:31 GMT

Because I don't have enough of a fic backlog, what with spn13 in sore need of a contribution, I signed up for spn_summergen 2008. The assignment will be mailed out May 22, and the fic will be due July 4. No pressure there. The due date is problematic, IMHO, but I knew what it was when I signed up, so that's that. I'll just have to finish ahead of time.

Friday was a mixed bag.

The Good: I left the apartment and got some fresh air and sun for the first time in 2 weeks.

I had chicken teriyaki at Sarku Japan.

I bought Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman for seven bucks in hardcover. It was on the publishers' remainders table in Barnes and Noble.

I had a candy apple.

The Bad: Roomie went to McDonald's for breakfast, and the special education valedictorian who took the order botched it; I got a sausage biscuit instead of a sausage McMuffin with egg. They charged us for the McMuffin, however. Ass maggots.

As we were leaving the house to go to the mall, we noticed that the pipes outside were spurting water with the cheerful gusto of veteran bukkake competitors. At one point, they spurted in sequence and bore an uncanny resemblance to those lighted fountains in Vegas that spout and surge to music. If only I'd had a copy of Handel's "Messiah". Luckily, after the Great Sewage Revolt of 2005, the complex installed flapper valves on the pipe ends so that toxic sewage couldn't back up into the apartments of those who might have weakened immune systems, or who might be quadriplegic and therefore unable to flee a turd tidal wave should one come surging forth from the drain and toilet. So no sewage menaced my apartment from within. We notified the complex manager, and when we returned, they'd cleared the pipes and sprinkled the area with lime.

I couldn't find Four Walls, the latest CSI:NY tie-in, at the bookstore. Not a trace. I'll have to check Borders next week.

Speaking of Four Walls, its author, Keith R.A. DeCandido, has oozed onto the TalkCSI boards to schmooze and pimp the book. He even created a topic on the forum to pimp the release and trawl for comments. I know it's harmless, and I know it's writerly instinct to pimp your babies, but it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's because I know that if I were to post a thread dedicated to pimping my latest fanfic, I'd get thwapped for posting off-topic and told to post it in the appropriate forum(but only if it's PG-13 or lower, of course). But since he's a proficcer writing official fanfic, it's perfectly acceptable to schmooze, gladhand, and drop treacly, self-serving hints the size of Volvos about the status of his sparkly fic. In the most heavily-trafficked fora instead of the most appropriate ones, like, oh, say, Merchandise. Agh.

Moving on...

Before coming home, I ordered a 6" roast beef from Subway. What I got was a 6" turkey. Roast beef does not sound like turkey, nor does it look like turkey. I can only surmise that the hideously misidentified "sandwich expert" was another mouthbreather from Club Special Ed, mayhap even kin to the valedictorian holding court at the McDonald's. Greatness runs in families, you know.

Also bad this week: The Very Special Episode of NCIS in which we learn that Assumptions Are Bad, Many Iraqis Are Not, and Jardine Has a Secret. I love TV that makes the viewer think; I loathe TV that spoonfeeds the viewer an agenda. NCIS wasn't thought-provoking TV this week. It was congratulatory, rah-rah, feel-good glurge.

Oooh, Jamil learned English from osmosis. Oooh, Jardine is a nice American because she gave a young Iraqi girl a laptop to make up for the fact that she can't go to school. Oooh, Jardine has a comatose brother who was saved by Jamil's father after he was wounded in a firefight. Oh, woe, Jamil's father was killed by trigger-happy Marines because they saw him performing CPR on the fallen soldier and thought he was finishing him off.

The entire episode was a badly-contrived mess of flimsy pretenses stacked one atop the other so as to provide the platform for a group conscience massage. "We're not misguided, imperialist bastards for maintaining a military presence in Iraq three years after a non-declared war was declared over. We're good guys. See, we gave the cave-dwelling, backward brown people MacBooks." Good God. The presentation of the laptop at the end felt less like a gift and more like a bribe. "Some soldiers shot your father for trying to save a wounded Marine. Here. Have some technology."

Crap. Utter crap. Since when does Jardine speak Farsi and Arabic? And even if she does, are you really going to send an avowed germaphobe with no combat training as opposed to a highly trained Mossad agent?

Fail. Utter, utter fail.

CSI:NY 418: "Price of Admission"--SPOILERS

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:22:50 GMT

Dear Writers,

When choosing a surname, it would behoove you not to pick one that belonged to the pivotal villain in S3. When the name "Hank Bedford" appeared on the computer screen, I was sure he was the older brother of Drew Bedford, the 333 Killer who had so recently menaced Stella and Mac. For the life of me, I didn't understand why Mac failed to react like a man who'd discovered a rattlesnake in his undershorts, and then I realized that the surname was coincidental and not meant to connect to prior cases. In the future, maybe you could flex your creativity and choose fresher names to pull out of your asses.

But aside from that, I can honestly say this was the best episode of the season. Stanton Gerrard always adds spark to the mix, and he didn't disappoint. He was phenomenal as the protective yet oblivious father, and even though he and Mac were at odds when last we saw him, I'm glad that he wasn't the stereotypical shady, overbearing father who used his departmental clout to impede an investigation. On the main, he cooperated fully, and I was surprised that he was so confident in Mac's approach, especially since Mac was blackmailing him with a past procedural miscue in order to stymie an investigation into the Dobson affair. Either Gerrard is a forgiving man, or the writers are hoping that we, the viewers, have suffered a critical collective head injury that prohibits us from remembering more than a season at a time.

And oh, the shot of Gerrard standing behind the mirror while his daughter confessed to being raped broke my heart. There was such raw anguish in his expression. I've always wondered how a cop would feel when faced with the reality that of all the people they'd protected, they'd failed to protect the ones they cherished most. Thanks to Carmine Argenzziano, now I know. God, what a gut-punch.

Surely that must've been going through his mind when he walked into that interrogation room and shot Hank Bedford between the eyes. He meant to atone for his failure to protect his daughter, and he was willing to sacrifice his carefully cultivated and successful police career to do it. He didn't care who saw him do it because he wanted it to be seen, for his little girl to know that Daddy had taken care of the monster who'd hurt her. A more rational mind would point out that his act would likely exacerbate her sense of guilt, but he wasn't thinking rationally. He was thinking like a distraught father.

And poor Natalie Gerrard. She gets raped, keeps her silence for fear of the repercussions, and then sees those fears realized in the death of a guidance counselor who was trying to help her and the end of her father's career and impending murder conviction. I've no doubt that she'll be spending the rest of her life second-guessing her decision to speak out. This case was a tragedy all around. At the end of the day, nobody won.

I noticed that even though Flack grabbed his gun and raced to the interrogation room with the others, he wasn't in the final door shot with Mac and Stella? Where did he go? Did he kip to the bathroom? I always got the feeling that Gerrard was his rabbi in the department. It'll be interesting to see his reaction to this latest fall from grace. First Moran, then Truby, and now Gerrard. Flack's got to be rattled that so many people he trusted have collapsed.

Now a shallow note. Okay, two. Maybe three.

Flack dodging the knife blow and punching the rapist in the face in one fluid motion was dead sexy. Rowr. I also noticed that Mr. Out Cold lunged at the side that was opened in the bomb blast.

What wasn't so sexy was Flack's hair for most of the episode. Maybe it's in an awkward stage because he's growing it out, but it looked oddly squared off, like the stylist was trying to give him a combover despite his full head of hair. The sideburns have likewise reappeared. Could the leather trenchcoat be on the horizon? S1 Flack for the mmmm.

Lindsay looked fifty years old in her processing montage. The lighting in those scenes shot past unflattering into the sadistic.

Once again, the show is sticking to its pattern of saving its best for the final four episodes, thereby ensuring that I'll be stupid enough to tune in next season and suffer through eighteen shit slurries for the six sweet, heady chocolate malts that make the show worth watching.

A+ If only their upsurges in quality weren't as delayed and sporadic as a Viagra salute.

Busy Day In Hollywood, and None of It Good

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:14:20 GMT

Well, it's been a big day in entertainment since I last posted. First Gary Dourdan was arrested on drug possession, and then Sean Avery of the New York Rangers collapsed this morning and was rushed to the hospital in reported cardiac arrest. It was later reported that he had a ruptured spleen. I'm not sure if that was in conjunction with the cardiac arrest, or if the press leaped to that conclusion on hearing of his collapse because it was the most salacious. In any case, Avery is recovering in a New York hospital.

Gary Dourdan, though, is another kettle of fish. I shouldn't be as shocked as I am because hey, it's Hollywood. Who isn't snorting coke or downing Oxy by the fistful or chewing diet pills like Pez? But I am shocked because it's Gary Dourdan, and he plays Warrick Brown, who I adored before S8, and even though I know that actors are not their characters, there's a space in my brain that insists that no one who plays someone as cool and decent as Warrick could possibly pass out behind the wheel of their SUV and be found with cocaine, heroin, and Ecstasy. It doesn't jibe. It'd be like Charlie Eppes, geek god, being caught at a NAMBLA orgy or holed up in some flophouse with crab-infested hookers and a pyramid of crack phials. It's incomprehensible. And it makes me worry that one day, I'm going to read about Eddie Cahill, forty and blasted out of his mind on coke on Santa Monica Boulevard.

I've neither right nor reason to worry about that. I don't know Eddie and never will. But I do worry because I associate him so strongly with Flack that it would be like Flack going on a bender. Like it or not, fans--even sane, respectful fans--can be proprietary over the characters they've come to love, and the actors who give them life. So even though I know Gary is not Warrick, my brain keeps bleating, "Warrick on smack? Impossible."

His arrest makes me wonder why he's really leaving CSI at the end of this season. Is he really ready to move on, or has his alleged drug problem gotten out of control and begun to affect his work and his relationship with the rest of the cast? Did the rest of the cast know he might have been on drugs? How many of them might be snorting and toking up with him? Is Petersen chopping the lines while Marg scores the crack? Is Szmanda shooting up in the trailer while Eads rolls the spliffs? If they didn't know about his alleged substance abuse, how could they not have known? Granted, Dourdan never seemed anything less than crisp and professional in his role, so maybe he hid his alleged abuse by indulging only in private.

Still, it's a shame, and I hope the arrest gets him the help he needs.

A Gleeful Post

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:00:14 GMT

My tentative plan for the day is to watch Numb3rs S2 and then write some SPNfic before NCIS tonight, but I have a tendency to get hideously sidetracked by things like books and TV shows, so we'll see how the plan fares.

Right now, I'm enjoying writing this fic. I'm sure that a week from now, I'll want to grab the innocent yet ever-growing bun by the scruff and heave him out a high window, but today, it's fun. Maybe it's because I have no expectations for it, no unrealistic hopes of a feedback avalanche celebrating my genius and tai chi interpretation of Gordon Walker's backstory. I just want to tell this story and let it be, and if it generates buzz, that's gravy.

Lastly, a quote from Eddie Cahill's most recent hockey blog that fills me with glee:

The game ended no more than 2 minutes ago, and it’s taking tremendous effort to keep myself from throwing this computer out the window. Yes, I am one of those unreasonable and narcissistic fans who watches a game like that and thinks, “They must hate me, that’s why there doing this!” I can’t help it, I take it personally and I’m pissed. Hey, nobody’s perfect.

Hee! So much Eddie love. I'm the same way with video games. Despite the fact that I know the monster's conduct is governed by an impartial code generated by a sleep-deprived code god who doesn't know I exist, I become irate and hysterical when the boss kicks my ass. I am convinced, you see, that the monster knows I am crippled and is rubbing my infirmity in my face by being more savage than it would be with able players. It's patent rubbish. I know this. Yet logic disappears when the beatings begin, and I am tormented by visions of a goggle-wearing coder with a visible aura of funk, who laughs in sadistic glee as he inserts a "screw the gimp" parameter into the code.

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one with a persecution tinhat stashed in the back of the closet.

In Which I Mourn My Fading Youth and Channel Butthead

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:56:30 GMT

Not much to say today because I am tired. God knows why because all I've done is watch TV and read more of Dark Companions. I meant to write as well but never got around to it. I suspect it's because I've had no tea today. Why that should make a difference, I don't know, but I've noticed that since I've taken up tea, my creative output is directly related to its consumption. I can still write without my daily cuppa, but the process isn't nearly as smooth, as organic, without my dose of sweet, warm, PG speed. I wonder if I've unwittingly developed a low-level addiction, or if I've just associated tea with productivity and therefore "need" it to write efficiently. I wonder because Neil Gaiman mentioned a temporary ebb in creative drive when he swore off tea recently.

If I do have a jones for caffeine, it's nothing compared to my mother's caffeine monkey. She needed two pots of coffee and three Diet Cokes daily to get through a day, and at one point, her kidneys nearly shut down because they weren't being flushed properly. She added water to her intake after she spent a week in the hospital with a near-fatal kidney infection.

Jones or not, it sucks to be spent by 9:30PM and staggering to bed like a narcoleptic drunk by 11PM. Ah, for my youth, when 11PM-4AM were my prime writing hours and churning out five or six pages nightly was nothing. But youth has fled in the face of adulthood and its attendant pleasures, like stiff joints and moderate myopia. I should be grateful I'm not mixing Geritol kamikazes and calling myself a rabble-rousing hellraiser for making it to sunset or Jeopardy, whichever comes first.

At least the SPNfic is progressing; Part II is nearly done. Once it's finished, I'll return to the playing field of Et Tu. Haldirbun is still roaming the lettuce patch, as is Dowdbun, which, quite frankly, surprises me. Dowdbun was a preemie kit, little more than a scrap of idea, gossamer as wedding lace. I was sure he'd die, yet here he is two years later, robust and hopping madly in an effort to attract my attention. He's determined to be written, so much so that I've begun having dreams about Tommy Dowd and the SVU world.

I've talked about ideas for a Tommy Dowd fic before; if I recall, I was going to give him a blind paramour named Molly Donovan. The basic premise still holds, and Molly and Tommy are growing ever more vivid in my imagination, but I have two problems.

The first is that I've no idea what it's like to be blind; this might not seem like a major hurdle, but it is. Since I don't know what it means to be blind, and cannot possibly know short of severing my optic nerves, I run the risk of misrepresenting the experiences of the blind, or worse yet, insulting the blind. I have no idea how the blind conduct transactions involving paper money, for instance, or what sex is like without the visual stimulus. I can't fake it, nor would I want to. I know how angry I'd be if someone who'd never spent an hour in a wheelchair tried to write about that experience and got it wrong. I would, in fact, think they were a clueless clod with delusions of arthouse greatness.

My second problem is more universal. I have no idea where to stop. I have ideas for dozens of great scenes and dialogue, but if I wrote them all, the story would span eight years. I need to find a stopping point before I start.

If I do write it, it'll be nice to write smut without fretting over whether or nor each position is possible within the limitations of a disabled partner. Even in writing, crip sex is hard.

Ha, ha, I said sex was 'hard'. And now that I'm channeling Butthead, I need to sleep. Now.

ETA for the hell of it:

Commas, people, commas. They're the orthographic equivalent of Nerf bumpers and keep your drunken clauses from rear-ending one another on the Strunk and White Freeway.

Reviewing Ramsey Campbell and Bitching at Numb3rs

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:42:30 GMT

First and foremost, niamh_sage, your parcel arrived yesterday. I can't thank you enough for the books and the chocolate. I've already torn into both.

First, the books. The divine Mrs. C chose for me the following:

Dark Companions, which I'm reading now.

Ancient Images

Midnight Sun

The Doll Who Ate His Mother

Obsession

The Hungry Moon

So far, I've read five stories from Dark Companions. I've liked all of them, but "Mackintosh Willy" is my current favorite. It's an oblique story that never lets you see just what is going on, though you suspect it's dreadful. What did happen to Mackintosh Willy, and what's so horrible about old, metal cola caps?

Plenty if you're Ramsey Campbell.

"Napier Court", on the other hand, was a bit too coy for my liking. Shadow puppets can only frighten for so long, and how long that fright lasts is--for me, any road--a byproduct of how strongly we can identify with the protagonist. If we like them, we want them to live. If we don't, fuck 'em. In this case, I rather wanted weak-willed Alma(who reminded me very much of Eleanor, the starry-eyed, downtrodden sacrifice to Hill House)to do the decent thing and die before I killed her. As such, the story fell flat for me.

"Down There" was the median between the extremes of the nausea-inducing heebie jeebies of "Willy" and the eye-rolling, "Dear God, will you kill this stupid bint already?" teeth-gnashing irritation of "Napier Court". The buildup to the monsters' revelation is fraught with tension, and Campbell is excellent at conveying a sense of isolated claustrophobia in the heart of populous urban sprawl. The monsters themselves, however, are maddeningly indistinct, and my mind isn't sure whether to conjure a demonic Pillsbury Dough Boy or mutant dust bunnies. Oblique horror is excellent when done well, but no one can do it all the time, not even Campbell. Sometimes you have to see the monster to be satisfied.

The rains will roll in this afternoon, so I'm sure I'll read more today. Monday, too, since the forecast might as well read, "Don't make any fucking plans. Hope you like Monopoly."

Ramsey Campbell stories aren't the only place to find aggravating, simpering women. I liked Robin when she returned to Numb3rs. She was strong and refused to take guff from Don Eppes. I can only surmise that unlike most cocks, which come with mystical healing powers, Eppes' dong comes equipped with a terrible power to reduce capable women to nagging, clingy harpies. First Liz Warner, and now Robin.

She actually gets mad at him because the agent calling him to the scene is a woman; granted Don has slept with his particular woman, but given the rate at which he goes through love interests, I'd wager he's boned half of L.A. She snips and snipes and shows her ass while he's getting ready to leave, and then she gets even more indignant because he puts on a clean shirt.

"If it's not like that, why are you putting on a clean shirt?"

Hello? Maybe because he doesn't want to show up at an abduction scene reeking of ass and the fragrant eau de snatch of your Massengill. Maybe he wants to present himself as a professional and not as a slob who rolled up after a lazy fuck. Jesus Christ. With the exception of Amita and Megan, the females of Numb3rs have been portrayed as needy, clingy, manipulative, castrating, and predatory. Why must women undergo an appalling personality transplant once they've been touched by Teh Cock?

Sex is wonderful, but holy God, it's not that good, though I'm sure most men would beg to differ.

Boo, Numb3rs, for perpetuating the notion that all women are ruled by their need for the Sacred Peepee and will instantly become whiny, nagging fourteen-year-olds the moment their chosen Peepee is threatened by an encroaching vajayjay.

Watch Guera Gnaw on Some S5 Flack SPOILERS

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:29:29 GMT

Dear Supernatural,

I love Sam. I love Dean. You're hilarious, angsty hypnocrack. If you weren't, I wouldn't be knee and elbow-deep in a long, minor character-driven fic that's been driving me bugshit since February. But there are times, like last night, when your wink-wink-nudge-nudge "watch us thumb our noses at the establishment" humor is too much. "Ghostfacers" was irksome as hell, and I will be thrilled when you return to advancement of your myth arc next week. You're funniest when you're not trying to be.

La Guera

Season 5 spoilers for CSI:NY finally show us Flack's family. Apparently, he has a younger sister named Melanie who works at a dance club, and with whom he has a conflicted, contentious relationship. Additionally, both Mama and Papa Flack are alive and mentioned.

As someone who's been howling for Flack development for four seasons, I am thrilled to see this and hope it leads to some meaty material for both Eddie and Flack. It's about time we see a glimpse of the person he is when he's just Don and not Det. Flack, Big Damn Hero. I hope that Melanie isn't forgotten after the episode in which she appears, and cast into the plot chasm that swallows undesirable siblings, like poor Louie Messer, who had his brains scrambled for twenty minutes of angst and was never seen again.

Then again, if she, too, is pitched into the maw of Scrivener Incompeto, Eyeless Beast of Bulwer-Lytton, Eater of Writerly Competence, mayhap she and Louie will get together down there, do a little dance, make a little love. Can't you imagine the righteous indignation of the brothers on that score?

"What's your brother doing with my sister, Messer?"

"Maybe your sister there made the first move."

"She wouldn't do that."

"You sayin' she's too good for Louie, Flack?"

~fistfight~

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yes. I hope Melanie doesn't become Melanie the Amazing Disappearing Sister. That being said, neither do I want her to become a prominent focal point. An appearance now and then, a mention. But please God, don't subject us to X seasons of Flack the Good Brother running interference for his irresponsible, Black Sheep Sister.

It's too early to draw any conclusions yet, so I'm going to reserve judgment until she appears. It could go either way or in a direction no one anticipates.

The addition of a sister and the revelation that his parents are alive does raise questions, however. If his siblings(brothers were mentioned in "Time's Up") and parents were alive, and the sister at least lives in the city, why were none mentioned or involved in COTP? Even if there were sibling tension between Don and Melanie, wouldn't it have been set aside temporarily after she learned he'd nearly died? Maybe the tension stems from her absence then, but that's a stretch. The writers have never been that subtle or creative. Melanie aside, wouldn't Mama Flack have come running?

And if his parents are alive, why can't he go home for corned beef hash? Gavin Moran asked after Flack Senior in S1, which presumes that Flack could still visit them from a geographic standpoint. So is Flack not visiting because he doesn't feel comfortable, or because he isn't permitted to do so because of a familial rift? If there is a rift, was it caused by his decision to join the police force? Did Senior resent it? Did Mama want "better" for him?

I don't know why I'm asking these questions because I'd bet my grocery money that Flack having siblings wasn't included in the original conception of the character. The writers probably brainstormed the idea over a hookah bong in talks for S4, and I'd wager Melanie was a product of a margarita chug during the strike. The writers have too long a history of inventing backstories only to change them on a whim to fit the plot of the moment.

As for what the addition of a living sister means to my fannish works, that's hard to say. I certainly have no intention of introducing her into my crackverse since so much of that Flack is predicated on him being a brother perpetually in mourning and a son with a guilty conscience. Integrating her into my canon work will take some doing, however, since my invented dead sister features there as well, and no siblings were ever mentioned.

I guess I'll have to think on it.

NCIS 516: "Internal Affairs"-MAJOR SPOILERS

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:15:16 GMT

The Red Bloat has come at last, and if it weren't for caffeine, I'd be an inert, drooling lump of sloe-eyed woe, gazing blearily at the screen and wondering why I need a coma after a twelve-hour sleep. I'm in second gear as it is. Still, the last few days have been good ones, so I'll take it.

NCIS last night was incredible. Words cannot express how much I loathe Director Shepard, and after last night, I feel utterly vindicated in that loathing. If Jenn killed Le Grenouille, as the show clearly implied, and subsequently used her team as a collective human shield with which to deflect the blame, then she can kiss my asymmetrical ass. After I've gone without bathing for three days. That's not just obsession, that's open sociopathy and a blatant misuse of her team's loyalty. She obviously thought nothing of putting Tony in the untenable position of crushing and betraying the woman he loved(and after he and Jeanne's last encounter, you can bet that's going to have long-standing resonance), and though she cleared Tony with her credulity-mangling interrogation fu, I wonder if she would've let him swing if her Jedi mind mojo had failed.

And Jeanne Benoit...oh, dear. I never liked Jeanne Benoit; I found her needy, demanding, and emotionally manipulative, but no one deserves to be so thoroughly ill-used. Her "I wish I'd never met you." just stung.

I did notice a bizarre continuity snag, however. Fornell told Ducky that Le Grenouille had been dead 2 days when his body was found. Yet Jeanne told Gibbs that after the break-up with Tony, she'd done a fellowship in Gabon, one that presumably lasted several months, unless her transatlantic jet handily doubles as a hippo-dodging canoe. Later, she tells Jenn that her father had called her on the night he died, but she'd hadn't gone to see him.

If he died before her fellowship, which I presume because she was doing some serious driving and crying, and her fellowship lasted months, how could Le Grenouille have been dead for only two days? Has the FBI just been sitting on the investigation for that long?

Gibbs and his prehistoric technology FTW! That ancient computer made my antique look hip. And oh, the nostalgia when he plonked that dot matrix printer in front of McGee. I still remember tearing off the perforated strips of paper before I handed in my homework back in the day.

My pick for the cast member who suffers the dramatic exeunt by murder: Abby. Imagine the emotional impact. It would also drastically lessen the appeal of the show, in my opinion, but I'm just a viewer. What do I know?

Huzzah! More Eddie Squee. Macho-Flavored, of Course

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:44:12 GMT

I am a happy Guera because Eddie Cahill finally updated his hockey blog. The more I read of his hockey blog, the more I wish he kept a personal blog. I know why he doesn't; the crazies and hangers-on and celebrity stalkers would pile on like funk on an unwashed twat, but I still wish for it. He's so articulate and engaging. I will admit that he and I would likely disagree on certain issues, but since he would never be stupid or insane enough to open his personal blog to comments, it wouldn't matter. Besides, I want to know his thoughts on TV, politics, and life in the real world where the rest of us live.

Gordonbun fought his way to the front of the ficcing hutch, so he's my next project. I'm going to finish Part II and set him aside in favor of Et Tu IX. I started writing late last night, so I only managed five hundred words. I'd planned on scritching like mad today, but I had an emofest, sleepless night last night, wondering how in the hell my life has gone so far afield of where I thought I'd be. Thus, productivity on the ficcing front might be negligible. I'll most likely read or watch brainless television until I'm tired enough to nap.

Cutting caffeine may be good for my body, but it's wretched for my soul. I haven't written like a house afire since I put down the Coke and tea. Hell, I'm lucky if I'm awake past 10:30. The virtuous might lead a goodly, upward-treading existence, but God places into the heart of every man a vice so that he may truly live.

Viva caffeine.

Plastic to Burn

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:21:17 GMT

Dear "l33t" haxx0rz,

I am not a noob, and when you send me a message purportedly from my ISP requesting sensitive information that is none of your business, perhaps you should invest in a spellchecker or take a remedial writing course so that your illiterate scribblings won't send up red flags enough to make Stalinist Russia proud.

No love, you simpering, bare-assed fucktards,

La Guera

I made the trek to Sam Goody this morning, and predictably, I was thwarted in my bid for cash by the "we don't have that much cash on hand" excuse. I did get $84.33 in store credit, however.

I didn't spend any because I'm tired of being reeled in by crappy horror flicks. The bonus features on my Dexter S1 DVDS included two episodes of The Brotherhood, Jason Isaacs' Showtime series. I liked what I saw and would've snagged it, but lo, they had none. So, rec me a TV show, please. Are there any shows you recommend I try? Deadwood? Battlestar Galactica? Torchwood? Older shows like The Sopranos or Carnivale or Six Feet Under? Now's your chance to shill for your fannish cause and lure a convert to the fold.

I'm disappointed that they wriggled out of the cash trade-in, though; it would've padded the grocery budget for the rest of the month. I can't complain too loudly. Chef Boyardee is better than an empty belly.

In other news, I need to get on the ficcing stick. Time to grope blindly inside the hutch, seize a scruff, and see which bun comes out.

Lastly, a final pimp for History Lessons III.

Sundays Without the Chore of Church Are Still Boring

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:25:48 GMT

History Lessons III is finally done, thank you, Jesus, so if anyone has been following along, here's the next breadcrumb on the trail. I'll slap another link up on Monday, and that will be that. Right now, I'm eeny-meeny-miny-moing between Et Tu Part IX, the Haldirfic, and the SPNfic that I put on hold as my next project. I'll make up my mind tonight so that I can get that train rolling ASAP.

Other than that, I'm just lolling about, waiting for the arrival of the Red Bloat and wondering how much my stash of culled DVDs will fetch at the Sam Goody/FYE. This assumes, of course, that the adendritic nimrods in charge don't arrest us on suspicion of shoplifting because some of the DVDs were bought there and still bear the stickers so assaying. On the one hand, I'm hopeful because there are so many, but on the other, most are shitty horror films not worth the $12-$20 I paid for them. Thus, the nasal miner working the register might offer me a nickel per and consider it generous. I'm hoping for $80, but I'll consider $30 a win.

So, that's my Sunday in a nutshell. Ain't it grand?