Miss Cellaneous

Cute, Tiny Animal T-shirts

I still have one more shirt to go, which will deserve it's own entry, so here are the photos of the finished shirts.

I just realized that not everyone on my flist will know what's going on here. Whoops! If anyone's wondering why a bunch of pictures of handpainted shirts showed up in my journal... last year, I started taking a small number of commissions for cute, tiny animal t-shirts. I had to delay the second order to finish graduating, which I am finally finishing up now. I'm not sure when/if/in what altered form I'll be doing t-shirt commissions again, but if you have any interest in a shirt for yourself, that will probably effect which way I decide.

Anyway. Enjoy the photos. :)



The animals this time included: ( bearded dragon, black cat, Chinese dragon, European dragon, phoenix, moose, rhino, fatty tuna (toro), tiger, yeti, owl, griffin, and a coral snake )

So, having run around like a loon all of last week, I crashed like a prop-plane on a windy day yesterday. I stayed in bed, watched a ton of S3 Buffy, and finally rallied to go teach and go to rehearsal.

My fund-raising proceeds magnificently (and more is always welcome. I've decided to be shameless about that). Again, please e-mail or comment if you'd like to know more about this project, about the Stroke Foundation, or how to donate. Thank you to everyone who's already supported me, whether emotionally or financially. It's much appreciated.

Also, I am remiss in thanking all the people who said nice things about me in infinitemonkeys carnival of love. It means a lot to me, truly, and so since I am too lazy to go back and navigate to all of the tons of people who posted and who I wanted to say lovely things about, comment here with your name, and I'll tell you what I admire and adore about you! Many of the people who commented are people who I only know slightly, but greatly respect and admire and I'd love to tell you why!

I made less than two grand last year. My refund is less than four hundred bucks. I filed online. When I checked, they said I should have my refund electronically deposited by today. It wasn't. I called. They said they 'were working on it.' How much 'work' does it fucking need? No deductions, no interest, nothing. I had zippo. What the fuck are they doing, chiseling it on stone tablets in ancient Babylonion cuneiform?!

So no tax refund until they're damned good and ready.

And if I have to hear "The Waltz of the Goddamned Snowflakes" one more fucking time, I'm going to throw stuff and that scares the cats.

Sometimes, there are reasons Fark exists.

This is a real headline: Clinton creaming Obama in Ky.

O.O Are there no real editors left in this world?!

So I was sitting there reading, minding my own business, when I looked over at my fish tank and noticed little bits of stuff up near the surface.

"That can't possibly still be food," I thought, and went over to take a closer look. And it wasn't. It was about 15 - 20 little fishie babies. They must have appeared just in the last two hours, because I didn't see them when I fed them all a little while ago.

And damn it, I'm sorry I missed the actual birth. Not just for the whole Miracle of Life thing (because it seems like it would be really cool to see them be born), but because I want to know who the mother is!

I have a soap opera on my hands in Ye Olde Fishe Tanke.

I have three live-bearers, and one (Spike) is a male. That leaves one of the two mollies: Buffy II and Cordy. The babies seem to be elongated and golden-y, like Buffy II, but they've got a dark splotch (which means they may go dark like Cordy). I didn't notice any obvious signs of pregnancy in either of them, although since Cordy's a balloon-belly it's kind of hard to notice. They pretty much look pregnant all the time. (Am I imagining things, or does she actually look a bit smaller today? Gah. Can't tell.)

You know, I got these two over a month ago from the pet store, and even though you have to kind of figure that you're buying already-pregnant fish when you get females, I thought these two were already through any incubation period. Spike's a platy, so he's not going to get either of them pregnant. Cold dead seed, and all that.

So one of them was already pregnant, or else I've got a FISHIE MIRACLE on my hands. Or some kind of freaky mutant fish thing. One or the other.

And these baby fishies are huge! Most of the other babies I've seen have been little itty bitty thingies that are hard to even make out. But these are pretty damn large.

Of course, they're also all swimming out in the open at the top of the water, like complete dumbasses, so they'll probably end up eaten at some point in the not too distant future. I kinda hope some of them live long enough so I can figure out if they're Buffy Spawn or Cordy Spawn.

And if they're Cordy Spawn, I'd better terminate them now before they turn evil and try to take over the world.

::it's the ciiiircle of liiiife::

the_grynne was taking drabble prompts and I asked for Special Agent George Blake of The State Within, with maybe a side of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. What she gave me was a beautiful little jolt called Purgatorio. In fact, I strongly recommend reading them all. Enchanting is the word.

The talent for crossover takes various forms and I love them all, but my favorites all have one thing in common: they're not so much cleverly fitted together world-mashups (though those are always fun) as they are another means of discovery about the character(s), who are always more complex than the canon stories they inhabit.

Crossover recs gladly received!

Don't address a woman thusly: My, aren't we the entitled little cunt today?

Lost my pot virginity this weekend. ( Was it the lovely, tender experience I had always dreamt of? )

Feel free to share your own wacky drug stories; I’m sure they are more interesting than mine.

There's a mammoth thread over at Shakesville right now that features the lamest bunch of losers you could imagine----whiny white boys who took offense at a discussion of sexism on a feminist blog of al things! My God, the horror! Why, white guys suffer, too, you know! The thread is nine hundred comments long, and it's like a bingo palooze, featuring the guy I linked to last night and dozens of other dudes, calling women cunts, telling us to go get laid, and being twitchy and paranoid. They share a complete inability to actually listen to what women say, leaping to conclusions and filling in sentences with whatever they need to suit their purposes. This last is a classic trollism, because trolls and some men like to ignore what women say in favor of what they'd like women to say. (When you put words into a woman's mouth, what you're doing is the same tactic that 'no means yes' apologists are doing. Of course, clueless assholes like to say that being called on racist, sexist, homophobic dogwhistles amount to putting words in their mouths, but that's bullshit. "Welfare queen" is not a phrase that indicates a royalist revolution, asshole.)

Here, for your amusement, I bring you the classic Nice Guy.

Women- please read this short true story from my life.
1. "Now gather round and listen to the story of a man named Jed..." Oh, sorry. He only wants female attention, see that? Get lost, men.

I had a very good friend growing up. 2. I DO TOO have female friends! She used to call me the nicest guy she ever met. She was very quiet but friendly. I too was a quiet and friendly guy... not without my flaws but certainly not offensive in any way. 3. I was a NICE guy! Who better than to call them than myself?! Well as it so happened, we part ways after high school, seeing each other a lot less. She decided to major in women's studies and sociology. 4. DAH DAH DUM! As time went on, our occasional phone calls and hanging out turned into more and more of her political views. I listened as any friend would, the conversations initially were interesting and nothing seemed at all unusual. After some time she seemed to start treating me differently... no longer the close and personal friend, I felt more like an outsider.5. SHE WAS TURNING INTO A FEMINAZI! Also, she wouldn't fuck me or get me beer or listen to my rants about Playstation and how I got fired for hygiene problems. I found out why when one day it came out-she said I was sexist, ignorant and uneducated. Although you might think I'm omitting an important detail, I promise you I'm not. 6. All right, Mr. Nice Guy, that totally settles it. I'll take your word for it! This all was very unwarranted. Several of our mutual friends also had similar problems and I finally decided it was enough and simply stopped talking. 7. My imaginary friends, let me show you them. I tried reason. Nothing worked. 8. Hysterical bitch. Luckily, years later, she moved near me and I got the guts to call and try to make amends. She had since graduated and moved on to other things, even got married. 9. Even though she was a ball busting bitch. She regretted how she treated me those years earlier and apologized. It was a good feeling to have that friend back.. but I'll never forget what it's like having a best friend who I grew up with call me all these names and suddenly become very hostile. 10. And it's TOTALLY TRUE! An anonytroll said it, so it MUST be true!

I only tell this story because I wonder if some of you are reacting the same way my friend did?11. You overly emotional, stupid cunts. I won't defend every guy out there, but one fact does strike me as interesting... and that is the number of "democrats" who support Hillary but will vote McCain if Obama gets the nomination. 12. TOTALLY TRUE! It's a lot different than the number of Obama supporters who will abandon ship. 13. ALSO TOTALLY TRUE!11 So what does that say about these people? 14. Well, considering they're your imaginary friends, Sparky, why don't you give us the creator's eye view? What is this? Gary Stu and his playmates? I don't know, but my guess is that to them, sex is so important of an issue to them they would rather see Hillary's short term competitor (Obama) fail than see her, and the democratic party's opponent (McCain) fail... simply because they percieve Obama's success as being directly linked to percieved misogyny. 15. Of course! It's only perceived sexism, because Einstein here doesn't see it, had a female friend once who was mean to him---wouldn't you love to get her side of it, if she existed?----and those vicious cunts would rather let Darth McSame win than untwist their panties and get over their perceived sexism.

There you have it, 'women'. He has female friends, and one of them was mean to him, graduated from college---which makes him at least ten years older than I get from this tale of woe----and now he jsut wants to help us.

God, I need more bingo cards.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

In between marveling at the going rate of purebred dogs ($9000? Are you kidding?), I discovered that my mother, sisters, grandmother, great aunt, and sister's mother in law and sister's MIL's girlfriend and possibly her family are planning a garage sale in our yard in about a month. And possibly a friend of mine. No, the yard is not that big. No, I have no idea how this is going to work. I mean, from what I've seen? This is a lot of stuff. But OTOH, the existence of spandex does prove that a great deal can in fact be fit into a small, small space.

Normally, this would lead to a fit of horror and discovering an important meeting in a mall somewhere, since nothing disturbs me quite as much as one on one customer service (both the giving and receiving). This is because I once worked retail and quickly realized this was not my true calling. It's also because I'll be required to help.

However, that wasn't my first reaction. My first reaction was office supplies. Colored pens and index cards and separately colored prices to show who has what, but then it hit me--oh, it hit me. After counting up the participants, I realized that this would be a fantastic reason to buy a bar code scanner to keep track of an items' original owner when it is purchased! Would this not be awesome?

I also had a fairly long fantasy of how I'd develop a multipage Excel spreadsheet to track going price and final price per item as well as what sold fastest and what sold the slowest. Last night, I started looking at the extra space on my domain and pondering the fact that I could totally write something up to use to keep track of money and items in HTML and work on uploading all scans to give everyone a complete list of a.) what was sold b.) what the price was and c.) who originally owned it. My favorite part was going to be the happy days I spent barcoding everything and then putting it into categories (toys, shoes, clothes, get-rid-of-this-at-any-cost, candles, books, wtf-people-would-buy-this, etc).

For reasons beyond my understanding, they totally nixed the bar code scanner idea, and I really want this.

True fact about my mother (and family): in all the years she has known me, she has yet to pick up one sure thing. I will participate in eight hours of something I hate if I get one hour of something I really, really love. If I get to bar code everything, I will totally sit there all day and gleefully work the yard selling stuff because that means I get to play with the scanner! And between times, I will get to make obscure bar graphs tracking absolutely pointless information regarding what was sold that is not only useless but that no one but me will ever a.) care about or b.) even know exists. I just--how is this not obvious? I even showed her my obsessive del.icio.us tagging to try and illustrate how important this is for my mental health and happiness. No go.

I was also forbidden to run out and buy one myself, which is just salt in the wound.

People confuse me. It is a bar code scanner! It's like taking away my new pony. Before I even got it.

First part here


( Fallen Woman, part II )

And here we end, I can finally go to sleep. Ciao!

1. Pens win! I slept through the game-lead goal, which is just ridiculously sad. I call for a White Out tomorrow :)

2. My dearest and darling kallysten, who writes pro-efic as well as fanfic, has a request:

Does anyone know someone who does podcasts and has a nice voice? The story i'd like to have someone record for me is 20 chapters long, chapters are usually between 2000 and 2500 words long. The highest rating is about an R, nothing graphic. I am looking to release one or two chapters a month. I don't have much of a budget for this, but I am definitely willing to talk money.

I know a lot of people on my flist are into podcasts, so I though I'd direct her to your attention. She is an utter darling, so if you have the time to make a spare buck or two, and enjoy the podcasting process, please contact her.

3. In honor of amireal, who accuses me of theft, there is no three. Three is evil and shall be cast off.

4. According to my poll, ladycat777 means angsty, erotic nc-17 fic. That is... actually, that's weird, since I once did a check of my fic and I write far more gen and friendship, particularly in SGA, but I am not actually surprised by this, not at all. I am surprised that Hunt Brother wasn't mentioned more often as the story people associate with me the most.

5. Happy birthday julia_here!! May your gardens be lush and beautiful :)

6. Today is disgusting outside, it's freezing, barely 55 and rainy, yesterday was thunder and lightning and as I've written before, I hate the rain, and thunder, and lightning. Therefore, with that in mind...

7. Gakked from villainny:

'If I hadn't met Ladycat, I....'

A quick question for you Canadians out there. I need to send the tax people an authorized copy of my passport. How do I get this? Do I need to go to a notary? They're expensive. Could I get one of my professors to do it?

[ETA - sorted, yes I could. Thanks!]

Iron Man:

Yes, the movieverse fanfic keeps coming. Sometimes even without pairings!

Snapshots from the Gawker Stalker is a great character portrait of Tony Stark a little while post-movie. (Foreshadowing a certain famous storyline from the comicverse, but you don't have to be familiar with same to appreciate what the writer is doing here.)

There is already meta on an a problem faced by movieverse-based fanfic, and yes, I think the poster is right there.

Crossover time: Supply and Demand is an Iron Man (movieverse)/ Doctor Who crossover. Spoilers for s3 of DW; it's a great idea, well-executed, and should work for readers of either fandom.

Which brings me to Doctor Who recs.

More crossover time: Jack and Sarah Jane, Down the Lane is a Torchwood/Sarah Jane Adventures crossover, in which Jack Harkness and his team pay London a visit. Great Jack and Sarah Jane voices, and Ianto's pov commentary is deadpan funny. I could see that...


Driving Lessons: in the episode The Sontaran Strategem, we find out that Donna ( minor spoiler )This story describes how she got the Doctor around to this, and the Doctor-Donna interaction is just a joy to read.

Their partnership is one huge element of what makes the current season so great for me, which brings me to a meta link. If you haven't read this post already: scarlettgirls love declaration for season 4 just about sums it up.

Still on the meta, this time for Old Who: This post about Barbara, one of the original members of the very first Team TARDIS back when the show started, and still one of the most fabulous companions ever, should be read by everyone.

Lastly, fanfic again: The Man in Black could be subtitled: Professor Yana's Journal Of Impossible Dreams. A tender, wistful and ominous portrait of Yana (and Chantho).

LOOKIT! IT'S IRON MAN/SPIDER MAN.

(Icon by lidi.)

Kerne, I think this is the one you mean:


But in the same cache I also found these moldy oldies, which I'm putting here to upload back into the rotation later:

Title: Purgatorio
Author: the_grynne
Fandoms: Sarah Connor Chronicles/The State Within
Characters: George Blake, John Connor
Rating: PG
Warning: Character death.
Summary: The sun already burned at the horizon.


'Have we met before?'

House of Women
nwhepcat
Clevelandverse, post-"Xander's Slayers." Xander/Faith. In the aftermath of yet another apocalypse threat, things at the hacienda settle back to normal. Wait, no they don't. A new and surprising Slayer joins them, as well as a former Watcher and a newly minted member of the Guardian line.
Previous chapters are here.
Clevelandverse Timeline is here

( say it )

( Spoilers for 4.06 )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I had thought that, though the government might be dragging its heels over the introduction of the Civil Partnership Bill, the Greens might just have enough swing with Fianna Fáil to ensure that it went through without too much protest. Then I saw what Dermot Ahern, our new Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, had to say in the Dáil during the debates on the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993.

Deputy Brendan McGahon stated:

‘Homosexuality is a departure from normality and while homosexuals deserve our compassion they do not deserve our tolerance. That is how the man in the street thinks. I know of no homosexual who has been discriminated against. Such people have a persecution complex because they know they are different from the masses or normal society. They endure inner torment and it is not a question of the way others view them.

The Lord provided us with sexual organs for a specific purpose. Homosexuals are like left hand drivers driving on the right hand side of the road. The Minister should seek a derogation from the ruling of the European Court to prevent this unacceptable legislation being foisted on the Irish people. I remind the Minister that the age of consent has been reduced to 12 years in Holland. Will we have to accept such an appalling move in years to come? Many Members of the Minister’s party are very unhappy about this legislation although some of them have expressed their support for it. The Minister should put the issue to the people in a referendum.’

Following which, Ahern stood up and said:

I do not often find myself in agreement with my constituency colleague, Deputy McGahon, but on this occasion I am. Perhaps it has something to do with the atmosphere in our constituency. [...] I am not being intolerant in my remarks. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a very tolerant person. As legislators, we have a duty to legislate for the common good. We seem to have reached the stage where we are legislating for pressure and minority groups. We have a duty to consider what is in the common good of all the people and to legislate for that. We should not legislate for hard cases, I do not say this in any intolerant way but we should legislate for the common good. [...] It was stated that we would be in breach of the charter of the European Court of Human Rights if we did not introduce legislation to implement its decision [that laws which made homosexuality illegal were unconstitutional and a breach of human rights]. I do not for one minute accept that we have to implement this decision.

Those were the days. All... fifteen years ago next month. And now Ahern—the brother of our former, unlamented Taoiseach, and who so far as I am aware has never recanted those remarks—is our Minister for Justice and Equality. It's good to know that we have a representative so swift to tell us that he's a "very tolerant person", even if, you know, his words and actions indicate the exact opposite. Between this, and Cowen's supporters apparently trying to promote him as an advocate of "family values", I'm both exasperated and even more disgusted than usual with the Irish political establishment—yet somehow, shockingly, unsurprised.

I has Taoist icon!

(Made by girlyb_icons.)

Someone asked for High School Reunion fics over at sgagenrefinders. I remembered this.

John/Rodney. PG. 1748 words. Written July 2006.

( The High School Reunion Fic )

Mine internet is still non existent. The internet company and the phone company appear to be deadlocked in an argument over whether or not it is my fault, with the internet company telling them that three different modems all presenting the same symptoms means that it is their fault, so suck that bitch! Or at least that is how I am interpreting the email exchange I got. Meanwhile my modem is still twinkling like a very small and squat Christmas tree.

As for me? I am fending off people who seem intent on getting me to formulate a plan for the rest of my life in two weeks, whether or not I like it. Not that I have caught up with all my sleep yet, although I am now less likely to need three naps in the day to get through and have suddenly noticed that the dark circles under my eyes are less dark. Or more to the point, I realised that I have dark circles under my eyes and they aren't a normal part of my face. Lying around and staring at the roof is about as productive as I've managed to get. Just as poor nonsequitania who went to the art gallery with me on Saturday. I barely got around one third of the gallery ,and when she very kindly invited me around for dinner I had to decline and repair home to pass out for a bit. Not that this gallery and company wasn't entertaining, even if I was more with the rabid criticism of everything I looked at with nary a good comment. No matter that half the ones I ripped to shreds I did like, and I am still terribly enarmoured with the Scottish skating minister. Hee. As for <i>why</i> the security guard felt the urge to tell N and I that we looked like twins (we look nothing remotely alike apart from being both female) I am at a loss.

My brain is not firing on all cylinders, although it is rather more awake and finally I've managed to sew the skirt I've been trying to start for the last two years, plus start reading through the metric tonne of books that I have had sitting beside my bed. I've been reading <i>Death at Intervals</i> which is rather hilarious, although I think I am going to be deeply annoyed at the ending if it ends how I think it is going to end because gah, what a cop out. Saramago writes in a stream of consciousness style that gave me a lot of problems trying to locate my page without a book mark, and this is indeed a novel experience for me. It would seem having no sentences makes such a task disorientating. Mind you, now that death is back.. hee. Very Terry Prachett-esque and the handwriting analysis bit was joyful. I am also most fond of the 'maphia' (not with an 'f') and every long digression into a deep ramble that is apologised for as being uncessary, but wasn't it still interesting?  The not at all subtle commentary on nationalism and patriotism also keeps making me snort my tea.

The 22nd is when I got to Perth to present a paper of some sort on my thesis. A paper I have not started yet, but oh well. It is only a short 25 minutes so that should be easy enough. Just got to get the energy together to type. As for anything else? I have no idea. Or rather I have a lot of ideas that need to be sorted through for realism, insanity, wishful thinking and funding,.Many of these decisions will depend upon my results, results which I don't think I'll see for a few months. Or rather, I hope I won't see for a few months at least. I'd rather not know I failed. Oh well I must hie myself home and find some tea. Lots of tea. Mmm. Tea.

Written for rez_lo, who asked for a crossover between The State Within and The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

George Blake. PG. Warning for character death.



The sun already burned at the horizon
- Dante Alighieri, The Purgatorio



( Purgatorio )

I haven't picspammed Life in a while in consolation I offer The Fallen Woman, this the episode when our little show finally found its footing. The first three episodes consisted of run of the mill procedural cases with little moments of character insights and arc stuff but in this episode they threw that away and basically said, 'Hey, we have awesome characters, a great music supervisor, a Zen cop and lots of light let's mix it all up and see what we get!'



( Downtime's the hardest. Pictures behind the cut )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

He of the creeptastically dulcet voice, Eric Stoltz (Little Women, The Prophesy, and The House of Mirth), has been cast in Caprica, the prequel to Battlestar Galactica. He'll play the lead role of Daniel Greystone, a wealthy computer engineer who, after an emotionally crippling family tragedy, uses his technological wizardry to forever change the future of Caprica. Alessandra Toressani has been cast as his daughter, Zoe, and his wife Amanda Greystone will be played by Deadwood's Paula Malcolmson. Also starring in the 2-hour pilot will be Esai Morales as Joseph Adama. (THR) [imdb]

Trailer for The X-Files: I Want To Believe, thanks to trailer_spot. [imdb]

Trailer for indie drama August, starring Josh Hartnett, Naomie Harris, Adam Scott, Andre Royo, Rip Torn, Robin Tunney, and David Bowie. Film centres on two brothers fighting to keep their start-up company afloat on Wall Street during August 2001, a month before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [imdb]

Film clip from Fernando Meirelles' Blindness, starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga, Sandra Oh, Danny Glover, Maury Chaykin. Based on the novel by Jose Saramago. [imdb]

The NY Times looks at steampunk:

'To some, “steampunk” is a catchall term, a concept in search of a visual identity. “To me, it’s essentially the intersection of technology and romance,” said Jake von Slatt, a designer in Boston and the proprietor of the Steampunk Workshop (steampunkworkshop.com), where he exhibits such curiosities as a computer furnished with a brass-frame monitor and vintage typewriter keys.

'That definition is loose enough to accommodate a stew of influences, including the streamlined retro-futurism of Flash Gordon and Japanese animation with its goggle-wearing hackers, the postapocalyptic scavenger style of “Mad Max,” and vaudeville, burlesque and the structured gentility of the Victorian age. In aggregate, steampunk is a trend that is rapidly outgrowing niche status.'

Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman debate economics in science fiction. (via)