Dec. 21st, 2009 @ 05:30 pm As it turns out, I'm NOT a wimp...
location: United States, Massachusetts, Boston
Current Mood: in pain
Current Music: Eddie Izzard - The Deathstar Canteen | Powered by Last.fm

I woke up this morning with my lower back going into full-on bitch mode at me.

I of course blame this on the Plow Snot that had been dumped at the end of my driveway that came up to — OhSweetJeezus — my chest. Now, I admit I be short (5-feet, 1-inch in my stocking feet to be precise), but that's a fuckload of snow.

Even in snow that wasn't pushed into a tiny mount of Plow Snot, it came up to my knees, which is roughly 16 inches (I have long legs for my shortness). I figure...drifting snow. And I'm being a baby about this (I mean literally, because I was whining the entire time I cut through the Plow Snot just so I could see my car, let alone reach it.)

Thanks to my local paper, I can now officially say that I was not being a baby. My town got whammed with 14 inches of snow. So there.

And my lower back is still in full-on bitch mode, although giving myself a nice big stretch seems to make it happy and calm it down for an hour or two.

In other news, Sing-Off Live Finale Tonight! Go Beelzebubs! Okay, not a chance in hell you're gonna win, but I'll be happy if you beat Voice of Lee, if only because their fans over on the NBC community are kind of ass-hatty.

[Side note: Stay the hell away from from the NBC boards for this show if you want to prevent cranial trauma by head-desk. The FAIL is great there. And I mean FAIL on a scale that I never thought I'd witness this side of a newspaper comments section.]

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Dec. 21st, 2009 @ 01:17 pm Fleece! Still looks like pansies. Sort of.
Current Mood: calm
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Remember the dyed fleece from last summer? I took it to KM's last week, and we decided I should run it through the picker before trying to card it. I sort of divided it by color, and this is the result. I think I'm still going to card it.( my dyed fleece, the next step )

I'd never used the picker before, so that was interesting. I still want to spin this for my Ravelympics project, although the entry names aren't really helpful. The amounts of each color vary wildly, so it'll be interesting to try to come up with a repeat that isn't completely goofy.
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Dec. 19th, 2009 @ 10:29 am Anyone available for a fast turn around beta?
Have a DA bit 1471 wc from a prompt on [info]consci_fan_mo and would need to post by tomorrow night. Its a fluffy-angst, first kiss bit between Alec/Logan. Alec loses a bet with Max.

If you have time are interested, lmk, thanks!
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Dec. 19th, 2009 @ 11:33 am White Collar Picked Up.
Current Mood: pleased

White Collar has been picked up for second season. Yay! I watched the pilot again last night and enjoyed it just as much on the second viewing.
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Dec. 18th, 2009 @ 11:31 pm The Beauty of Fannish Creativity
Current Mood: calm
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I'll saunter past the obvious pun in my title. But this is what I discovered this week  in the Internet Archives and then spent time documenting on Fanlore.
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Dec. 18th, 2009 @ 07:32 am It's Friday. Argh!
Current Mood: grumpy

Does White Collar have a newsletter? Unsubscribes from the fic feed. Learn to use cut tags, for fuck's sake.

Why does 2-in-1 shampoo not have detanglers? I'm using this shit to speed things up. Why do I have to suffer as a result?

I had a dream in which Frank Sinatra - the young absurdly thin version - was espousing on his philosophy of life, all with a Sinatra soundtrack running in the background. Yes, my dream version of Frank thought it meaningful to tell me that one must live life like a tango. For fuck's sake, stay out of my dreams Forrest Gump philosophers.

I need to grocery shop, bank and hit the post office in less than 2 hours. I have yet to have enough coffee to move without walking into door jams. Fuck what a start to a day.

Grumble and bitch whiny mcwhiner wishing you a better day than I'm likely to have.
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Dec. 17th, 2009 @ 10:12 pm Hey look! It's a squirrel!
Current Mood: calm
Tags: , , ,

I feel like I am cautiously able to poke my head up and look around again.

1. We're waiting for the dishwasher parts at which point we will try to repair the dishwasher once again. After that it is curtains for the machine.
2. I am eating a bit more but only with the help of medication. I plan to go back to the MD after the holiday and ask for the ovarian cancer screening. It is most likely the EDS (connective tissue disorder) that is causing the problems but the symptoms are lasting longer than ever and even the medications are not restoring me like they used to. Once the BigC is ruled out I feel I'll have the luxury to fiddle with the other more likely-but-not-likely-to-kill-you tests/possibilities. The tests are fairly cheap and non-invasive a(at least until they find something odd) and together can catch up to 80% of the cancer.  Earlier detection vastly increases your odds. So if you find yourself :
  • Abdominal pressure, fullness, swelling or bloating (me)
  • Urinary urgency
  • Pelvic discomfort or pain
  • Persistent indigestion, gas or nausea (me)
  • Unexplained changes in bowel habits, such as constipation (me)
that is persistent (more than 3 weeks) and not going away. Get tested.

3. Had a lovely chat with a friend that cheered me up.
4. Was deeply amused by this fanzine listing: Flying Nun fanzines. oh my!
5. I too have Livejournal membership discount coupons to give away - if anyone is planning on becoming a paid member, the coupon will give you $10/off a yearly subscription. Just drop a comment below. I think you need to be on my reading list.
6. xlorp begins his 2 week (unpaid) time off next week. I'd rather have more time with him than the money so it is all good.


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Dec. 18th, 2009 @ 12:19 am (no subject)
location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba

Thursday November 19, 2009

I'm the man who unionized
Vanderdecken's crew
And that's about the strangest thing
That man will ever do.

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Environmental Health Perspectives
Cigarettes are widely contaminated with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France. The research team describes the study as the first to show that "cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially pathogenic microbes among smokers and other people exposed to secondhand smoke."
Contact: Neil Tickner
ntickner@umd.edu
301-405-4622
University of Maryland
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=2021
Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health
A nutritionist in Nigeria says that malnutrition and iron deficiency in schoolchildren could be reduced in her country by baking up snail pie. In a research paper to be published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, she explains snail is not only cheaper and more readily available than beef but contains more protein.
Contact: Ukpong Udofia
ukpyudofia@yahoo.com
Inderscience Publishers
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/ip-lte111909.php

Friday November 20, 2009 Jason D. Wittman reading at DreamHaven Books. He read an alternate history political fantasy set in the late 19th Century. Since it had more extensive use of lighter-than-air craft and of pneumatic message tubes than our 19th Century, it might be considered steampunk. However, it didn't have either steam or punks (though it did have probably-nonracist skinheads.)

**"The granddaughter of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini has said that blood and parts of his brain have been stolen to sell on the internet."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/8371171.stm

Sunday November 22, 2009 Reread: Wilfred E. Binkley, _President and Congress_, 1962. Begins with the making of the US Constitution, and goes through the Eisenhower Administration.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention thought they were emulating what they thought the British system of government was. They were wrong on both counts, and relations between President and Congress kept taking unpredicted courses. (Brits were equally wrong about their system of government; the realities were seen as deplorable aberrations.)

Alexander Hamilton was more clear-headed than most; he recognized that the First Lord of the Treasury ran the British government. However, his expectation that being Secretary of the Treasury would give him equivalent power in the US turned out to be inaccurate.
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Dec. 17th, 2009 @ 07:51 pm (no subject)
Current Mood: amused

Dean and Sam equines. I don't think you even need to be in the fandom to enjoy this. Sam is so Sam!

I finally saw the Cra$h & Burn pilot episode. I'm going to give this one a shot. It's like a cornucopia of Canadian character actors. Good actors, people you see and remember but can't quite recall their names. First up, Jack from Slings & Arrows. And from Traders, Donald!! Hello, hi there. Clark Johnson!!! Steve Bacic in the oddest choice of clothing ever for a guy who runs a garage. Mesh and sheer shirts over leather pants? Riiight! But it's Bacic so I just kind of rolled with it. Peter Stebbings. Capt. Alicia Vega from SGA. Ramona Milano!! It's Canadian actor bingo heaven.

The show looks interesting, which is odd (for me) considering it's about people working in insurance, but there you go. Traders made banking sexy (to me) so why can't insurance be interesting?

[personal profile] dira is hosting a Horrible Fanon Childhood Showdown. The one I had the hardest time with was Lex Luthor versus Parker. I mean canon Lex's childhood was no walk in the park and how Lex survived his fanon childhood remains a mystery. But Parker. I have no idea if anyone has actually wrote wee!Parker fic, but I'm sure her fanon childhood was was equally dire.

Tomorrow I mail off the deposit for the cottage of awesome. \o/
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Dec. 16th, 2009 @ 04:38 pm Sweet Charity Vidders - 2008 & 2009
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If I've done this correctly, links to all the participating Sweet Charity vidders on the final compilation should be here. Clickable & lickable - go forth and watch and leave feedback. [A Dreamwidth post with comment count unavailable comments | Post a Dreamwidth comment| How to use OpenID]
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Dec. 15th, 2009 @ 03:17 pm So
Current Mood: moody
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I finally stopped flipping out long enough to remember what I read about giving permission. I gave myself permission to be crazy, and I gave the swirling worry permission to exist. Magic. Went from pacing to sitting down and finishing a sock to relatively functional calm. Not that this is a permanent change. But it's a lovely step in the process.

Of course, not until I'd bombarded alh with too many emails, but she's gracious, so it was OK.

I've been folding clothes and talking to myself, which may seem odd, but that's OK. It's helping. Later, I go get trained in PetCo's method of kitty care-taking for their contingent of CAT cats.
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Dec. 14th, 2009 @ 08:25 pm Stoves and Emails and TV...
Current Mood: calm
Tags: ,

1. Stove is here. we're going to need to fiddle with the temp calibration - first stop is to get a new oven gauge as the old one is fluctuating.

2. amusement fact of the day: people who send you messages via LJ inbox but set their privacy settings so you cannot reply via the same. And then are vague in their requests. Making it harder = no response - not given what is happening around Casa De Morgan Dawn these past few months.

3. we got caught up on both Glee and Dexter. I like Glee for the music. As for Dexter - wow. Any word if it has been renewed for next year?

To still catch up: Fringe, Flash Forward, Dollhouse (we've missed all of season 2), Big Bang Season 2.
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Dec. 14th, 2009 @ 04:29 pm (no subject)
location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa

Tuesday November 17, 2009 "South Africa's intelligence services after 1948 had more reason than most to keep their stories silent. Apartheid made South Africa a polecat among nations, and by the end of the National Party's reign South Africa was a pariah state even among countries that were hardly squeamish about getting their hands dirty with the more nefarious elements of statecraft. When the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain's MI5 and MI6 think that your methods are contemptible, your methods are probably beyond contemptible."
Citation: Derek Catsam. Review of Sanders, James, _Apartheid's Friends: The Rise and Fall of the South African Secret Services_. H-SAfrica, H-Net Reviews. November, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25562

***Left books and magazines at the 38th St. LRT station.

To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist Church.

As I walked back to the Hiawatha Line, I saw a father and child on a two-seater bicycle.

At the 38th St. station, I saw that most of the books and some of the magazines had been taken.


Wednesday November 18, 2009 The small grocery down the street has injera: the Ethiopian bread made from teff (mostly) which looks like a sponge. And another East African bread I hadn't seen before, made entirely of wheat.
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Dec. 14th, 2009 @ 10:52 am I am having difficulty
Current Mood: hopeful
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( ramblings, not coherent, ignore )

In saner news, my back isn't bad today. Standing around on cold asphalt over the weekend wasn't really good for it, so this is a win. I think Terminator Stout is much better for it than oxycodone--I can still walk around, and I'm not nauseated, and my back just relaxes. Oxycodone involves passing out and waking up shaped like a pretzel, with even more back pain. That just isn't right.

We survived a total of eight hours of standing in the cold (two shifts, four hours each), working at the Holiday Express fundraiser for the Portland steam engines and their new home. The fun part was watching the 4449 in action. And I wore antlers. Frightened two dogs and three children.

The wildlife refuge area on the other side of the train tracks is pond-like, and froze in the cold; yesterday, it attracted walkers, skaters, and few sleds. I was a little worried about that, as the temps were rising, but we didn't see anyone fall though the ice. (We were on the trail next to the train, warning bicyclists and runners of the traffic jam ahead during loading and unloading.)

I could not have done a longer shift; as it was, when we got home Saturday, I staggered around and did a little laundry, and then fell asleep. Yesterday, I was wound up, so I didn't sleep in the afternoon, but I did crash early in the evening, after a lovely hot bath.

OH!! There's a roller rink at the park where we were. I didn't know that, or I'd forgotten. I think I want to go skate! I wonder whether that skill comes back...

I've been practicing doing the half-right thing, which actually led to some of the mess in the bedroom dwindling. It's not gone, but I think if I hadn't reminded myself, it would still all be a huge pile. Instead of a half-pile. ;-) It seems to be rewiring the thing in my head that's confused about time, just a bit.

And now, after a brief bout of freaking out, I'm going to go eat, and then empty the dishwasher. No, I didn't really need to tell anyone that, but I want the record. If you weren't used to the boring you wouldn't be here.

edited several times because I don't make sense
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Dec. 14th, 2009 @ 08:19 am Winner / Gagnant
Current Mood: cheerful

I'm now one of Goodreads First Reads lucky winners! I will soon - "please allow a few weeks for shipping" - receive a free copy of a book. I never win anything so I'm kind of pleased about this.

Look at the Princess may well be my most favourite mini-arc in Farscape. Ben Browder's joy appearing opposite his own children is the most happy-making thing in those episodes. So damn cute. I also love that the writers and actors involved had no problem with John being so frightened of Scorpius he shamelessly let himself be a pawn in a game where he didn't know the players or rules in order to have some protection from Scorpius.

Out of their Minds is a forty something minute episode of body-swapping joy. I love this episode more than I love pie. Season two re=watch is in progress. :)

Good Monday morning. I leave to do last minute xmas shopping. Wish me luck.
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Dec. 13th, 2009 @ 11:07 pm Hahha. Hey wait...that's not funny
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Tomorrow our new stove will be installed. we wait in dread because anytime anything in this house is touched...it breaks.  so let's see what the installers do with an aging gas line. excitement.

on that note...our aging dishwasher has sprung a bad leak. by the time we noticed it had warped part of the cabinet/floor.  we've tried various fixes (in fact that's how we spent the weekend) and need to wait a few days before testing again.  if this repair does not work, we need to order more parts and replace the gasket and spray arm. If it still leaks.....we may have to buy a new one since there have been too many problems with it (over 12 years old and we've done all the repairs ourselves).  I;d normally say...scrap the dishwasher concept, but I cannot wash dishes by hand with my bad hip/wrist and xlorp is running triage on way too much in our lives. 

thank goodness we no longer buy holiday gifts for each other...that's a major termite repair, a new stove and a new PC all in the span of 4 months. This is the rainy day we've saved for.  But ouch.

PS. my gastroparesis is back - this is the longest period I've had it without being on pain meds. Ouch again.

PPS.  On Tuesday we call tehc support and demand that they send someone out to fix the motherboard problems that have cropped up in my new PC.

PPPS. And...in spite of all this I think...hey..it could be worse. In fact...2 years ago this Christmas it was worse. My mother was in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism and both xlorp and I were embarking on the Year Our Parents Almost Died.

So termites-gas-stove-water-leaking-dishwasher-motherboards......"I fie in your general direction" (apologies to Monty Python for the slight liberty with the quote).

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Dec. 13th, 2009 @ 08:04 pm Happy Making Things
Current Mood: happy

Some things get me down. I try not to focus on those things for too long. So you get happy-making lists because I need to remind myself that there are things (mostly little things) that make me happy and prove to me the world is not made of suck. I like to pass them on sometimes. If someone sees something that gives them a moment of happy then it's all good. (Balance is important.)

1. I'm not sure how I ended up at the Language Log, probably via a link on one of my flists, but I'm enjoying it. This story on the high school principal in Massachusetts who banned the word "meep", was pretty entertaining.

2. Check it out: The Edge. September 2010. Four fannish friends from three countries geeking out for a week in the Haliburton Highlands. O.M.G.!!!! It's in the planning stages. I will try not to go on too much about it, but I'm am extremely excited about this.

3. As recc'd by [personal profile] yourlibrarian, Unconditional, a QAF ensemble vid by [profile] dreamrequiem. I loved the show, but couldn't handle it's fandom focus on the single pairing of Brian/Justin. This vid gives everyone from the main cast a few moments, at least.

4. Spotted at [personal profile] ciderpress's journal, kitten adorableness. Made me laugh. Still does.

5. This Daewon vid makes me smile every time I see it. Daewon has the happiest smile ever, it's sunshine and puppies all wrapped up in a grin.

and last but not least...

6. Jeffrey Donovan's old series Touching Evil which I just started a re-watch of this afternoon. As much as I enjoy him as Michael in Burn Notice (and I do) I love Donovan as Dave Creegan so much more. It's a great crime series with wonderfully developed characters. This is one of those shows I rec on a regular basis.
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Dec. 11th, 2009 @ 11:14 am Your Chance To Own A Piece of History
Current Mood: calm
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Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek - On-Set Script of  "Spock's Brain"  Currently at 0 bids.
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Dec. 10th, 2009 @ 05:01 pm This made my day
Current Mood: calm
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Working with websites stored on the Internet Archives is a lot like how the Internet used to be before Google and search engines. The only way you found another website was to click on a link..and then another...and then another. You wandered the deserts being guided by wisps of clouds and the angle of the sun. And if you ever looked back....you'd see no trace of how you got there.

Which is why finding this and then being able to create the Fanlore entry here made my day.

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Dec. 10th, 2009 @ 11:26 am brief update
Like everyone else things are crazy as ever-- though I'm thankful its basically in a good way.

( rest safe under cut... )

Okay, need to go and do a couple of errands then get back before my stove arrives ;)
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