Went and saw 9 yesterday with Lee. Got there half an hour early, saw the line and went "oh, hey, why are all these people here? There are no interesting movies playing." (Gamer looks lame, District 9 has been out awhile, there were four kiddie movies, and let's not even discuss The Time Traveler's Wife.

Actually, no, let's, because I love making mockery of things that are overnight successes for dumb reasons like 'Edward Cullen is shiny and the perfect cardboard man.' I understand Asimov has a point with science fiction not actually having to be its own genre (after all, I've read the Robot books and it's not like the Honor Harrington books aren't just Horatio Hornblower with spaceships for the first five books). But I wikied it. (I wiki everything. It's a drug.) It's some boring romance where the steamy penultimate sex scene is when she's 18 and he's 40-something. (For those of you who don't wiki everything, he's unglued from time and keeps bouncing back and forth- always showing up with nothing but his birthday suit- in time, usually in his personal timeline. (Means his wife met him years before he met her, because it was old-him meeting illegal-her before young-him met college girl-her when they were both in the proper spot for their timelines. It's a genetic disorder, which means the female lead gets to have tons of natural abortions (whoops, miscarriages), because apparently fetuses can time-hop too. Moms not included. (It actually makes me wonder which parent he got it from and whether a pregnant woman would hop around with the baby. This is likely not discussed in the book, because it's about not being master of your own destiny, since the traveler finds out everything from the wife and she finds out the necessary dates from him.) There is huge angst about the miscarriages and he gets his tubes tied, pissing her off, and making her jump the bones of one of his pre-tied-tubes selves that pop into the future to make with the bavymaking. (And of course that pregnancy sticks, but I forget if that just meant junior started jumping later in life. It ends with him showing up someplace in winter with snow and getting frostbite in his feet and him having to gnaw them off and then he hops to someplace where he cannot run away because he has gnawed off his feet and is hit by a car and dies. And her story ends with the just-before-the-whole-frostbite-thing version of him showing up at her deathbed to say goodbye. (By the way, perhaps you should wiki that, because less of half of that was bullshit.)

Anyways, no major movies out (though the 9 theater was crowded because it was opening weekend), so we figure everyone hit the movies because it was overcast and drizzly and not good weather for doing outdoor activities. (Oh hey, speaking of The Time Traveler's Wife still, the hair on the guy in the poster looked familiar (though the name meant nothing because the actor wasn't hot enough to check up on IMDB when whatever movie I was watching with him in it was playing. Lee went "blah, blah, blah, standard male haircut", to which I say "you haven't ever seen Stargate: Atlantis but for commercials, but I bet you could identify Joe Flanigan solely from a cropped picture of his forehead and up." To which she says I have a point and rattles off some movies this guy's been in (like Troy and some other boring movie I have also avoided, and she was surprised I'd avoided Troy, since she watched it a couple times while we were still loving together. Mad skillz.) But I still have no idea where it is I've seen him.)

Anyways, 9 was bunches of fun, even if I did keep getting flashes of "is this what Cyborg 009 would look like it if the guys who thought up the Terminator stuff remade it using sock puppets and Henry Selick?" (This sentence will not make any sense to you without having seen Cyborg 009, Terminator, Wallace and Grommit, Coraline, Nightmare Before Christmas, and 9. And even then, only if you are me.) It even had an all male voice cast, with one token girl. Admittedly, she played the hero, so that's an upgrade from 009's useless love-interesty twit who was just good as binoculars. I will take twelve of the little ones with the flashing eyes and adorable hoods, and one bone helmet with built-in dangle earrings. Please hold the bodiless doll head attached to potato-bag snake.

I spent most of the movie trying to figure out the voice actors. 9 was easy enough- because I be a huge Elijah Wood fan, and 1 had a most commanding 'I am eldest, I know best' speech that could've come straight from Saruman's mouth (because I still don't know who that actor is) and the only other movie I'd heard 7 in was Labyrinth and the actress is 20 years older and doesn't sound the same (maybe if 7 had been a whiner I would've picked up on it). I was disappointed the dead sock puppets couldn't have their souls put back (at least the ones who still had their lifeless bodies lying around), but it was a heartfelt shiny goodbye scene.

Lee and I had actually driven out last weekend to Pensacola to see the new Miyazaki movie (Pongyo, or something like that. In my head it's the Little Mermaid anime). I got to her place late, so dawdled getting out, and we were fifteen minutes late. The counter girl informed us that the movie was no longer on her screen and she couldn't sell us tickets. I debated buying a ticket for a different movie and just going to the Punjab show anyway, but she had an ornery look on her face, and I hate the Pensacola theater and wasn't upset at all to not have to give them money. We went to Steak & Shake instead.

So I'm a blog reader. I forget where I found this link (mostly because I read a blog, which'll reference another one, which will reference another one, etc, until basically it's like wiki'ing Dakota Fanning and ending up at the Great Barrier Reef. Sure it made sense while following links but you've got no idea how you actually ended up there.)

Anyways, somebody was discussing their NaNoWriMo and how, ever since they found Write or Die, they've actually stayed on schedule for their daily word count. (NaNoWriMo, btw, is the Nation Novel Writing Month. Write 50,000 words of a story. Do it in less than thirty days. The last week in November is when the actual word counts start.)

So, Write or Die. It's negative reinforcement of not writing, rather than positive reinforcement. Keep writing or your computer will make nasty sounds effects and suchlike. Set the level high enough, your words will start disppearing as you continue to delay your typing. Masochist that I am, I wanted to try it out. I banged this out in half an hour and am considering giving it another go to see where the story leads. (I have gone back and checked for obvious typos, but otherwise it's unedited.)

( I always seem to default to Petra. I suppose it's because she's my most hashed-out character. )

You may recall a new Doctor Who was announced awhile back. The actor in case is 28, which is usually a good age for finally breaking out into big 'celebritiness' for non-teenager-focused shows and movies. Unfortunately, I'm cranky his big debut is going to be Doctor Who, who has always had mass appeal to the elderly as well as the young. Hiring younger and younger actors mean the older audience members lose their interest in the character because he's just a young whippersnapper who is doing his Doctor Who impersonation all wrong. The old series seemed to alterate between thinkers and doers. Seems to be it's about time for a thinker.

Unfortunately, the companion they've finally picked out is even more of an unknown, with a hell of a lot less experience than Junior over there. Like Freema, she was in a previous season (I haven't seen 'The Fires of Pompeii' but I bet she was just so gosh-darned cute playing the soothsayer). I understand they didn't want to hire a big name to outshine their newbie, but couldn't they have gotten someone who at least looks like an adult? She's 21, but all the pictures for her make her look like she's straight out of Dawson's Creek. (I kinda wish they'd hired the little miss who played Sally Sparrow in the doctor-lite episode in season 3. She was spunky.)

Anyone seen 'Fires of Pompeii' to give an opinion on Miss Gillan's acting skills? Am I being fair in thinking she was basically hired because she'd been in a previous Who episode and that she wouldn't outshine Mr. Smith? (Because you know Ms. Tate would've.)

Ah, work drama. Where would I be without you? Sane and less cranky, of course, but then I'd never have anything to bitch about and then I'd be more cranky.

So, customer drops off a trimmer. ("It won't start, it should be under warranty, blah, blah, blah.") Dad's the one who wrote it up, so really, I have no idea if the customer asked to be called if it wasn't under warranty. Mechanic tears into engine to discover foulest case of carbon build-up seen in a weed whacker. (It's a more common and even more annoying problem with this brand's big blowers, because basically you just buy a new blower once this happens.) He's then stuck tearing it down to basic components and soaking it overnight to clear the junk up. Then once that's solved, it turns out the cause of this was ancient gas run through the machine, gunking up the carburetion. So there's a part to be replaced. I look up the registration, find it's been registered to a business and thus has a one year warranty, not two. Shrug it off, since either way, it wouldn't be a warrantied repair.

So the customer comes in for unit. Proceeds to bitch me out for his $200 repair bill. Okay, try to keep customer happy. The icky overnight valve job is written off, please pay me $100 for the carburetor replacement. Customer proceeds to bitch that it's a two year warranty, why does he have to pay anything? I point out that 99 times out of 100, the carburetor is toast because they've used bad/old/stale/vegetable gas in the machine.

(Hello, does nobody pay attention to things like oxygen and ethanol? They do shitty things to cars, never mind even less-forgiving teeny two-stroke engines. Oxygenized fuel may burn cleaner, but it sure has hell has no shelf life. And the heat range on ethanol means the piston is practically at melting point while running. (I actually had someone at the city replace a cylinder and piston on a big cut-off saw (which costs something terrible) and not three months later, his piston was funny shapes. And it's not like the guy who did the job hadn't done it a billion times before, which means the workers put something weird in it.))

Customer repeats why does he have to pay for carburetor. ("Blah, blah, blah, I was told two year warranty.") I point out his warranty covers manufacturer defects. Stale gas is not a manfacturer defect. (I do not say that it's because the operator is defective, but it was a near thing, because I had a full house and he was seriously getting on my nerves and paying his bill and taking his happy ass home where he would never have to come back and see us again.) Also, by the way, even if it was covered under warranty, it was registered to a business, which is a one-year warranty.

Customer proceeds to get pissier. ("Blah, blah, blah, I'm a window-washer" or some shit like that. As if it's my fault for not remembering that when I registered the damn thing.) Mutters under breath about spending $6000 here, and why wasn't I bending over backwards so he could completely fuck both the boss and the mechanic over. (Like the manufacturer was going to reimburse me for that goopy carb, which was 98% not their fault. (The other 2% is them using those carburetors, but I suppose that's CARB and EPA's fault, because those assholes pick more on the two-stroke community than the car community. Like it's chainsaws that are the primary reasons for the destruction of the ozone layer.))

Anyways, the mechanic has already lost half of his charged labor for this job, I'm not taking any more off. I wouldn't even do it for my regulars, and you, good sir, I haven't seen since I sold you this trimmer. Which, btw, wasn't even $400. I can only assume that not only are you an asshole, you are an asshole who can't count how many zeroes he's spent in one place.

Finally get his credit card (debate charging him the first total of his bill, because there ought to be a 'putting up with assholes' surcharge), ring him up, point out the door, and turn next customer in line. (Who thankfully works in a small-business industry and has his own story to share. Unfortunately, the three guys behind him in line would also like to be helped, so had to cut that conversation short.)

I want ice cream.

Hey, E, you know how every time you go to the bookstore and spot the Melanie Rawn books, you sulk because Captal's Tower isn't out yet? (I confess, I do too. If only so she can go 'surprise, Collen's not dead!' *weeps about Collen some more*)

Neil Gaiman has something to say to you. Along with the gentleman who wrote to him asking about George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books.

It's hilarious.

(Note to self, get E into the bookstore to see the reprint of McKinley's Sunshine, because the cover's totally trying to hop onto the 'I'm a scary vampire book with romance' train, and of course, the book is nothing about that. Stupid publicists and their need for popular books, not just underground cult classics books.)

(Note the second, update book count. Also, does reading two books twice count as four or two? Hmm, must be two, since there wasn't a great deal of time between reads. Also, does illustrated stuff like manga and graphic novels count? I'm thinking of a four-for-one deal. They're minimalistic.)

So I've been ill this past week or so. I'd actually caught a minor cold right before Phoenix, but shook it off in time for the trip. I then proceeded to be rather travel-weary for the next few days, only to be tossed into a car for twenty-four hours with Dad and E, burning rubber to Tampa to check in on Joanie and Ed (who'd been hospitalized last month, rather near death's door, complete with funny (not funny ha-ha and more funny 'that's really sad') story about him waiting in his doctor's office while the doctor was out and Joanie demanding a breathing machine for him because he was turning blue and the office staff having to send someone across the street to the actual hospital to get one, only to discover no one in the office knew how to use it and poor cousin Phil having to figure it out while Joanie sits there thinking she's going to watch her husband asphyixiate because her doctor's employees have no medical emergency training. When the doctor came back, he made Phil show each and every employee there what he did to get the machine working).

So my sleep schedule got really out of whack, complete with my immune system taking a little vacation, and I got my cold back- possibly out of remission, more likely a different virus. Knocked me flat out- couldn't breath, couldn't sit up without getting dizzy, couldn't stop sneezing, couldn't really focus my brain on anything for too long without it meandering away, couldn't always eat because the cold made everything taste weird and gross. And on one memorable occasion, puked the food and cold medicine back up. That's been going on since Tuesday. It was worst over the weekend- I spent four hours on Maya's couch on Sunday staring off into nothing waiting for my head to be less dizzy so I could drive home and take a nap before getting on Vent with the CSC. (I was highly annoyed by the spaceyness, I mean, if you're going to be home sick, you should at least be able to play video games, and I got dizzy doing that. Possibly because that's what I did all Saturday...)

Anyways, I had already scheduled a visit with the doctor last month. My prescription was up, and he likes seeing patients again before he renews them, and I had no idea, because I haven't seen a doctor since high school, and I've never been on prescription needing renewing before. (It's only my second time on anything prescribed, period. And the migraine medication didn't really work, so I only refilled it once before giving up on the whole thing and going back to ibuprofen and washclothes.) His clinic is apparently really busy, because they scheduled me for an appointment five weeks out. (I can only hope that people who are actually sick get a closer appointment date. What if I'd called Thursday, would they have pushed me ahead a couple days and seen me Friday? I could've been dying.) So I went and saw him today and was explaining the cold thing to him, and that it felt like I wasn't getting enough air, even though most of the other symptoms- barring the cough, which was a latecomer anyway- were clearing up.

So I've been given a week's worth of Xyzal. For allergies.

(Because cold symptoms and allergy symptoms overlap? I did say it started with my throat, which has nothing to do with allergies, it would seem to me.)

... I'm more than a little confused, but I'll give it the week, and if I still have this awful wheeze and air flow problems, I'll give the office another call and get to shell out another $100 for a twenty minute visit and hopefully better advice as to the cause.

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

Computer Suicide, by everlyn
I loves me some Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I can frequently be counted on to be the voice of doom. Also, insanity. Either way, the icon makes for a warning tag that the opinion being stated is at odds from the standard one.

Consistency is Overrate, by bookloversdiary
I am female, and thus of the gender commonly regarded as indecisive. Changing opinions is like wanting your cake and having it too. (Does anyone else wonder where this statement came about from? It's your cake, why can't you have it?) So people in general, me in particular, have no qualms with changing our minds about what we want for dinner. After we've ordered. (Also, I have this internal timer I set when John's playing WoW. It could be an hour, it could be five minutes. But after it goes off, I wander off. This strikes me as rather feline behavior...)

Mock Fandom, by snarkel
I needed something to use as a movie/book/tv show/whatever snarky review icon. Han was the best I could find, amidst a bevy of "My fandom..." icons. (Such as "My fandom turned into a 'Best of Queen' tape", which all Good Omens fans will find amusing, and so will everyone else, but they'll be wondering where the quote is from. I think I also have a 'MY FANDOM SPEAKS ONLY IN CAPITAL LETTERS', for the Discworld fan in me. But I haven't loaded it.) But I hold little sacred, and so I mock. Especially things like Hercules Versus the Moon Men.

Diplomat, by pouring_icons
I'm not even certain I've read the Discworld book this is taken from (I only have eight or so, and I actually haven't finished Guards, Guards...). But I'm not known for being tactful (my main way of doing so is by keeping my mouth shut), so this pokes gentle fun at me or whomever I am replying to. And sometimes Margret, who once called to ask if I wanted a used book for my birthday. (Really, none of the S-B girls are good with tact, but it's toss up between Margret and E about who's worse.)

Authority, by iconsbycurtana
In my head, this icon goes by "I'm the alpha male!", which is a running joke over at Maya and Crystal's place, because even though there's two guys living with them and Maya's the one bringing in the money and paying the bills, Crystal's the alpha male. So this is my "because I said so" icon. Fear it. Respect its authority. And Fifth Element provides the perfect screencap for right amount of authority I exude.

Unhelpful, by iconsbycurtana as well
My advice, let me share it with you.

The current topic making the rounds of the blogs seem to be religion. I don't have strong feelings on the matter, so for the most part I've been sitting the debate out. But I got bit bored, so I thought I'd throw in my ha'penny.

I grew up vaguely Catholic- Mass most Sundays, funny ash spread on my forehead yearly, abstinence preached every so often, but no vigils or confessions to sit through. I don't understand confession myself, but I imagine it's a lot like going to the psychiatrist, only cheaper and with less advice and more 'you should be ashamed of yourself.' And that's basically Catholicism there. You should be ashamed of yourself. (Which made the revivalist tent meeting portion of Laura's Confirmation really weird me out. I thought maybe we'd gone to the wrong church, because I'd never had to clap before. (Laura, btw, was upset when we said it was weird and that she liked the song. What's that got to do with what we were talking about? I'm all for mixing in newer music with the 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again' music they always say, I just want to know where the clapping came from. Is it because that church had a bunch of converts from the revivalists?)) And while I can't say it's a deciding factor, it is one of the reasons why I take myself so seriously and don't really like to cute loose and have fun. (Some people are adrenaline junkies. I'm one of those people who takes a shot every year and complains about the rush the entire time, even though after the event I'll go "I suppose that wasn't as bad as I expected.)

( Not really beta-read typing continues )

Found a link to a nerd levels test (87/100, whoo) and their results page linked to an updated test with organized results. (People like me probably complained. "Yes, I scored high, but what sort of nerdiness is it? I at least want to be cooler than those Trekkers!)





I can understand being ubernerd of history/literature (since I own non-fiction history books I read for fun...), but I don't even know how to code, and my idea of fixing my computer is google-searching the symptoms on another computer and testing them out on the broken one to see if it gets fixed. Also, my primary use of my computer is reading blogs and messing around on Facebook. (Which might explain the low dorkness factor...)

So even with internet access, my iidea of up-to-date Hollywood news is "anything that happened after November." Which is at it should be, because they're a bunch of assholes who don't deserve my undivided attention.

Anyway, anyone here a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender? I've seen the first couple season and wow Nickolodeon, where did you find these people? Great characters, plot, scenery, and funny jokes. It's everything I wish all my tv shows were, except for the fact the cast is under the age of twenty and animated, so there is some guilt over wishing I'd find a nice boy with (insert any character here)'s (insert any interesting 'good for picking up chicks' characteristic here, ie body/temperament/eyes/sense of humor). But who cares?

So I did hear mention ages ago someone was considering making it into a movie. (I vaguely remember going, "but doesn't this show have a finish line? Avatar learns firebending and defeat's Zuko's dad and saves minor characters/learns important life lessons along the way? Why would it need a movie?") So recently I came across something along the lines of current status of this movie.

1. It will be live-action. Goodbye pretty scenery and exacting hand motions, hello Power Rangers' karate and CGIed backgrounds with cardboard cut-out buildings.

2. Because making the four nations Inuit/Eastern/Islander isn't culturally diverse enough, the casting and setting will be more 'culturally and ethnically' diverse. (Reporter went to casting call here. (Link found by fellow irate Avatar fan here.(CLICK TEH LINKS LIEK WHOA! SHIRLY THIZ NOT SIREUS!)))

3. All main characters will be white.

4. Like with most movies with children in them, a state of disbelief will be needed to see the guy my age as being 16. (Guy playing Zuko, on his character: "He's, like, an evil prince." Okay, not a direct quote, but the evil prince portion is. (The law says you are an adult why?) Even worse? Guy playing Sokka, on his being cast: "All I need is a tan! XD" (Your parents did not beat the racism out of you why?))

5. M. Night Shyamalan is directing. (While I enjoyed Lady in the Water and portions of Signs, is anyone else confused by the director of choice? It's like asking Stephen King to write the script. Sure, he's good at his job, but his name itself is a connotation that this will be a creepy movie. You could try pulling a Harry Selick and just put on the poster "From the director of Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, we present Coraline." No wait, all your movies are creepy. You were hired why? To draw your fans to a movie they would otherwise avoid because they're too cool for kid stuff? (Nevermind that the fact half the main characters haven't quite hit puberty, Avatar has stuff for people of all ages to enjoy. I'd rather watch Avatar than On Golden Pond, but I can still appreciate actually casting a distinct anti-established Hollywood age. (See earlier post concerning Watchmen and Carla Gugino.))

So, anybody who's a fan of Avatar should probably just plug their ears and sing "la-la-la-la-la, I can't hear you" any time someone mentions this film. It has unfortunate things written all over it.

(You did click those links, yes? Does anyone know where I can get me some lederhosen to be authentically Belgian, which is, like, right next to the Netherlands, which means they're my historically accurate traditional costume as well? Or would it be dirndl for me?)

Lee, consider checking your user icons. I posted a comment on someone's journal and left my 'I love a good ramble' icon there (since of course it meandered off topic and I should come with a warning sign) and went back to check a reply and found some girl with a quill pen staring at me. (Well, at the top of the icon box, but whatever!) So I head over to my icon page, and that's the only one changed, but i am officially weirded out. (Especially considering the hotmail thing going on right now, but I still have the email account I registered my journal with, and I never had my email displayed, and it's not like all my journal entries aren't still here...)

Anyways, weird thing I noticed. Who knows how long it's been that way. Has anyone else seen that icon and not mentioned it to me because they figured it was just another one I added? It's cute, I like it, very 'how to respond' feel to it, but I've neverM/i> seen it before.

So I watched Watchmen Saturday. As a big fan of the comic book, I hated it. As a big fan of cheesy movies, I enjoyed it muchly.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I suggest renting 300 first. (To quote the poster, "From the acclaimed director of 300, Zach Snyder" blah, blah, blah). Note the gratuitous gore and sex. It will be repeated in Watchmen. He hasn't made many movies yet, but he already has a signature. (It leaves me distinctly unimpressed. As porn goes, it's pretty good- though leaves me embarrassed to be viewing it in a crowded theater. As gore goes, I prefer Tarantino. His beheadings were silhouettes.)

As most people here have either already read Watchmen, I'm not really going to discuss the plot. We all knew going in it would end up being retarded because Watchmen wasn't about the plot. It was about the details, the off-topicness of lengthy excerpts from books and comics and the character drama and flashbacks to minor characters who end up being tiny cogs in the great machine that destroyed the world. All of that flavor text- all of what made us love Watchmen would obviously have to go, because otherwise it would be a twenty hour miniseries. So the plot is a couple of retired (and not-so-retired) vigilantes investigate a murder. Things happen. Thirty major cities get exploded by the doohickey that made Doc Manhattan and the truth gets suppressed. The end. (This is not what happened in the book. I like the evil alien invader actually created in secret by Veidt's unknowing minions who get exploded for it as well. But that story is filled with too many pesky details.)

( Major non-linear discussion of said movie continues. )

It's a couple days from my birthday and E. seems to feel I need to link some things I like so that I can get free stuff. I've never paid much attention to my birthday, but the timing is really nice. Watchmen out Friday, so to celebrate my birthday, I'm making everybody I know come and watch it with me. And nobody had better shush me. I don't care if I'm ruining your movie experience.

I broke my cell phone charm a couple days ago. I'd like a new one, but I'm pretty picky about my designs. It's why I still don't have a vanity tag-thingy for my car front.

So I still have a wishlist tag, and my most recent list is here, complete with strike-throughs for what I've gotten.

I've also made a Jinx wishlist and have made inroads into one at ThinkGeek, which is currently just funny t-shirts, but they have cool things too.

Speaking of t-shirts, does anyone besides me hate baby doll tees? (Not you, Pug, I see you thinking about it already.) I've got broad shoulders and the mediums dig into my arms and the larges don't fit the rest of me. I prefer large shirts, since I have this tendency to tuck them in and mediums are too short to tuck properly half the time. (Also, E's asked my about some lol thing and all I have to say, E, is just because I think it's funny doesn't mean I'll wear it splattered across my chest.)

I'm more of a button-up shirt comboed with a sleeveless shirt person, anyway.

I'm not really one for presents, so don't feel obligated to get me something, because that means I'll have to remember who got me what and give them something for their birthday too. (And unless it's got a funny story attached, like Margret's "I don't get the joke, but you keep making it and here it is on a t-shirt!" gift.) I just really don't want to be shushed whilst squeeing over Watchmen and pointing out the differences. It's not like you can't watch it again without me.

It's not spam if it''s one link every two to three weeks, right?

Anyways, knowing my job, isn't this hilarious? Actually, it's still hilarious, but my job makes it even funnier.



(As a side note, you may want to view this in a different layout than mine. It may jut be my laptop's tiny screen, but it eats any part of the image that's outside the journal box.)

As with all memes, ganked from a friend who ganked from a friend, etc, etc, etc, and so on and so forth. Go to Google and type your first name then type "needs"...then list the first 10 things about you from the various websites and descriptions used. Then share.

Replete with snarking, because it makes memes all the funner.

1. Katharine needs to learn to keep her mouth shut. (Ha. Opposite problem, actually.)
2. Katharine needs your help. (Ah, the ubiquitous you. Do I even know you?)
3. Katharine needs our prayers. (Needs them stuffed up your humbler-than-thou asses, perhaps. I hate that. 'We'll pray for you!' I'd rather someone say 'I'll keep you in my thoughts' for whatever trouble needs praying for. Otherwise there's this 'oh, look, my prayers for your health worked! My God is the bomb!' and not 'oh, look, human ingenuity cured cancer. I knew someone had to get it right sooner or later.' Hm, I possibly have found another hidden soapbox inside of my 'Stance on Religion' soapbox. What would you call a soapbox inside a soapbox? ...)
4. Katharine needs to put out a Christmas album. (Who is this Katharine McPhee person and why has she stolen my Christmas music?)
5. Katharine needs a home. (Caitlin called my room a college dorm. *weeps*)
6. Katharine is one to watch. (I think this is some American Idol article. They stole my Christmas music too. Possibly Katharine McPhee is a contestant? I am now voiding all links to American Idol and Ms. McPhee from this list, because the next one talks about being booted out and the one after that tells me to stand up straight and the next one says I need my morning coffee and the next link after that says I'm a talentless whore. That last one might be someone's myspace page.)
7. Katharine needs a man. (That is not any better! Curse you, fanfiction.net, and your CSI fanfics!)
8. Katharine needs good food and comfortable furniture. (Oh, I like that one. I'm keeping it, especially because the rest of the article is about my relationship with Spencer Tracy. And by 'my relationship', I mean Katharine Hepburn's. Don't you love astrology sites?)
9. Katharine needs no explanations. (She can make up better lies anyway.)
10. Katharine needs another coat. (I think the article is about a fashionista, but I would never say no to warm outerwear. Unless it was ugly.)

Want to know what's even better than lolcats? Adding dirigibles.

Reread Get Off the Unicorn earlier this week- it's amazing how many of those stories got their own books later on in her career. Some of them I wish she hadn't and had opted for one of the others instead. (The Freedom's Landing books just don't have the same re-readability as some of her others.) And in said book was the part of The Ship Who Sang that always stayed with me the most, which had annoyed me when I read it, because I was all like "where's the coffee tasting? I distinctly remember coffee tasting after the alien planet and here you don't even go back to that planet!" But now I have my coffee tasting and I am much happier. (No, the coffee tasting is not a huge part of the story, but it's a fun part that I found cutely romantic and stuck in my head concerning said book. Even though it wasn't actually *in* said book. Because it was a short story she wrote to appease NH-834 fans who wanted that part of the plot finished.)

Anyways, so that makes five, even if it's a reread, and I spent four hours yesterday burning through Mercedes Lackey's latest 500 Kingdoms offering- The Snow Queen. Luna Books is actually a subsection of Harlequin or something, which I hadn't really noticed until I googled it looking for a publishing date for TSQ and came back with a bunch of fantasy-based romances. Ah well, I plead obsession with author for buying a Harlequin and beg the court's forgiveness.

Anyways, TSQ concerns a fairy godmother this time and she has no actual love interest. (Unless you count the hint in the epilogue that lets you know her story continues.) Considering the fact that love is the motivation of the villain and all the secondary characters, I appreciate not being completely inundated with the stuff. (Well, actually the villain is trying to destroy all emotion because she hates love, blah, blah, blah, boring girly shit.)

I liked The Fairy Godmother and One Good Knight better- the first because I liked the protaganist better, the second because it had the knight fall in love with the dragon- but it's better than Fortune's Fool which I may just dislike because I hate mermaid stories. But also because Fortune's Fool didn't have a Bookwyrm, and The Snow Queen did. Also, group questing more interesting than captivity in a genie's tower. And Ice Palace trumps Undersea Palace. Because I hate those.

Also, third time I can remember coming across the term leman, which I have yet to google because I got it in context, thank you very much. I mention this to E, and she goes "Layman. Normal people who don't understand technobabble." And I go, "no, leman, which, well, is a lay man, but totally wrong definition of the word there." To which there is much giggling.

Currently reading a book I refuse to name because I want to surprise Carmen with it when I see her this weekend. But she can't keep it, because I want to finish it sometime this year, and not ten months from now when she mails it back to me after she finally finishes reading all the other books she's currently got on loan from me. =)

I bowl Mondays. It's a fun league- nine pin, no tap, which means if you hit nine pins on your first throw, it's a strike. $10 a week for ten weeks, and you get to play round-robin with a bunch of friendly strangers. Before two weeks ago, I'd bowled maybe three times in my adult life. So yeah, my average is not something to brag about. It hasn't reached three digits yet, and considering the no-tap, that's sad. It does mean, however, that my handicap is FANTASTIC (numerically speaking, as anyone else would rather have an average of 130 than a handicap of 130...) so that, when I do bowl a good game, I'm the winner. Because fun leagues are meant to make it fun for sad people like me who think they've bowled a good game when they get 102 (last week's first of three games, it just went downhill from there.)

So today, the parents and I are bowling against a trio of guys about my age who all have decent scores (ie, have averages higher than my handicap). Mom's feeling under the weather (possibly the same bug I've just gotten over), and Dad's pulling his usual 'it's not a good game unless I break 200', and I bowl pretty much my average for the first two games. (93 and 94, which have me satisfied, as I have beaten my 90 average.) I'd been bouncing off the walls the entire time- I possibly over-saturated my bloodstream with caffeine. But by the time game three rolls around, I am in the zone. The wussy eight-pounder and I are as one. That second arrow mark might as well be a magnet for all the times I hit it. Spare here, no-tap there, strike there. I only have two frames that I don't get my ten pins. The guys are scratching their heads, wondering where the hell all this came from? (I have possibly stolen their groove, because not a one of them breaks 100 that last game.)

My score? 183
With handicap? 313

Booyah, baby! Guess who gets to be top of the handicap game and series lists next week? And probably will for game for the rest of the league? *dances*

Even with the no-taps discounted, my score would still be way above my average. So yay, I had a bowling Zen moment game and want to drag people back there again so I can try and find it and keep it.

So talking cell phones with Dad right now. Apparently Margret broke hers and had to have to replaced? That's a new phone, you ditz, how did you break it already?

Anyways, he mentioned that he only calls people when he has something he needs to ask or whatever. Not much of a conversationalist, he is. And apparently he's annoyed with the twins for never answering the phone when he calls them. (I cannot vouch for how true this is, since the only time I've seen him call Laura, she answered the phone. Margret the ever-busy is probably the guilty party here.) So hey, you two, you see the home number, either pick up or call back when you're not busy so Dad won't feel like you're blowing him off. Because he's the one who's paying for that phone and that comes across as more than a little ungrateful. Especially seeing as how Mom just had to swap in her phone upgrade to replace the phone you broke.

Also, to repeat, Margret, you do know you lose your military ID and thus, its health care benefits when you marry? That's a who-knows-how-long amount of time where you aren't covered. I understand the marraige before posting is neceessary for joint-spouse, but you also need to get coverage for that break in time so that, should anything horrible happen- like your car getting t-boned by an eighteen-wheeler and you getting put in traction for years and no longer in the good health necessary for a military career- you need to have something to cover medical bills. Because you sure as hell can't afford it, the parents can't afford it, and mooching is not a way of life you want to get into.

So kindly do some research, maybe get some paperwork together, and let Dad know you're not blowing off his justifiable paranoia. Because that's his big issue about you getting married before your commissioning. Big mystery solved, now get to work communicating with him again. And I'd like to point out that this huge passive-agressive, nonconfrontational fight could've been avoided if you had just asked him why he was upset about you two trying to set the day pre-graduation, instead of bitching like a little girl on your blog or to your sisters or to your friends. Communication is the key to maintaining a good relationship.

/rant

( Short randomness on the Cecilia and Kate epistolary books )
Anyways, E. borrowed them off of me- I've moved all the paperbacks to the garage, so my bedroom's selection has shrunk quite a bit, so that set popped out more than they would if they were sharing their shelf space with the usual overload of books. She's quite enjoyed them and got bit by the Letter Game bug herself and has already left one for me to reply to. Unfortunately she's chosen a time period I'm not very familiar with- the early 1890s- so I'm going to head to the bookstore to pick up some Jules Verne and history books to give me a bit more to go by. I think she picked that time because I wanted to try out steampunk, but she knows even less about it than I do and it's not really a genre that interests her (Girl Genius' art is a bit busy for her tastes). We'll see how it goes. As it is, it might be a bit before she gets her reply letter.

Straying from the topic a little, I got an email the other day (read, I checked that email account for the first time in months) and had a letter reviewing an old Inu Yasha fanfic I never actually finished because I lost interest in the show. (It's a rather lengthy piece of work that's about 95% done and 30% rewritten/editted). Anyways, the reason I bring this up is she says "I think that if T.S. Eliot was still alive, wrote prose, and developed an obsession with Inuyasha, he might have written something similar to this." And I know it's meant to be complimentary- you remind me of that one famous poet I like! But to be honest, I've never cared for Eliot, mostly because of my general distaste for poetry and its need for a sparsity of words and heavy symbolism. I've also read part of The Waste Land and never could come to grips with its fluctuating narrators. Does wanting to tell her this make me a terrible person? I won't, because she actually left an "I've been thinking about your story, not just reading it" review, but a small part of still wants to check if she's got an email address to send a pithy little note going "Eliot was a hack".