Guess who just pulled a mass of hair and scuzz  the size of a dead rat out the pipe under the bathroom sink with nothing but determination and a size 10 1/2 knitting needle? Yes, I am that good. I also scrubbed all the soap scum out of the shower with a toothbrush, but that's decidedly less impressive. Geez, that black crud smelled disgusting. I have got to stop shedding.

The servers are down at work -- no email, no internet, nada, so I've got the day off. Erm, I mean, I'm <i>working from home</i>. Only I've got nothing to do, so the effect is pretty much the same.

I really need to work on my dSSS story, but it's like pulling teeth. I am definitely one of those people who doesn't work well with a deadline. Le sigh. Also, I'm pretty sure my idea is lame, but it's the only one I've got....

Title: The Opposite of Love
Music: Vivaldi
Pairings: Morgana/Gwen/Arthur triangle
Length: 3:00
Download: Here. (35.4 MB)

I want to make cookies (oatmeal dark chocolate chip, no less), but I only have one stick of butter! And I've already consumed enough alcohol to make driving (but not cooking) a bad idea. FUCK! Everyone else is partying this Halloween, and I'm sitting around wishing I had cookies. That is when you really know you're doin' it wrong.

Lately I've been the opposite of productive. Not-productive. You might even say unproductive.

Not that this is different from unusual. But I did spend some more time faffing about with my tablet, which resulted in this: ( The hair is experimental, of course. )

Hey kids, if you’re not watching Glee, you should be. It’s freaking fantastic. I love musicals; they fit in really well with my world view. It’s a constant and nearly unendurable disappointment that the people in my life don’t burst into song and dance. I do the best I can to compensate and sing all the freaking time. What I lack in skill I make up in volume. Sometimes I dance a little, too.

Anyhoo. Glee is the antidote to my sadly non-musical life. Reasons you should watch:

( Mostly because it's brilliant.  )

I made faux-Ethiopian tonight. Yam/carrot curry and lentil wat. It was kind of an experiment and it was delicious. I also made faux-injera. I didn't have teff flour and hadn't even heard of it until I looked up the recipe, so I made a crepe-ish type thing that was a passable facsimile. At any rate, I'm calling my grand experiment a success. Plus, I really like eating with my fingers. *thumbs up*

I also found two ripe raspberries on the bushes I planted this spring, which, okay, not exactly a bumper crop, but I wasn't expecting anything these year, so it was a pleasant surprise. Raspberries are my favorite, far superior to blueberries. Though blueberries are good, too. I just finished a blueberry lager that I liked quite a bit. Still think a raspberry lager would be even better, so.

I went into work today, and actually got some work done, though not as much as I'd hoped. I set off the alarm but managed to get it turned off. I waited for the police to show up to question me or something, but that didn't happen. The security company didn't even call, so I guess that's good?

Anyhoo. Today definitely comes out on the plus side.

Okay, here are the promised Die Hard recs. If you've never seen any of the DH movies, not to fret: all you need to know is that John McClane is basically an urban Rambo. When he says "yippee ki yay, motherfucker" he does it without irony. He's bitter, divorced and estranged from his kids, a New York detective who can kill a helicopter with a car. Matt is a geeky twenty-something hacker. John spends the whole movie saving Matt's life, while Matt snarks about his taste in music. If that's not a recipe for (hot monkey) love, I don't know what is.

Spoilers for the entire movie and set-up for fic: ( Read more... )

Title: Aberration
Pairing: Vecchio/Kowalski
Words: 15,000
Rating: NC-17
Beta: A thousand thanks to the wonderful healingmirth 
Summary: When Kowalski gets back to Chicago after the Hand of Franklin thing, he's not in a good way.

( Read more... )

This weekend I:

• vacuumed
• swept
• mopped
• did laundry (two loads!)
• folded said laundry -- most of the time my laundry never makes it out of the basket
• bleached the kitchen counters and didn't ruin my shirt, a first
• dusted (half-assedly, but still!)
• cleaned two bathrooms
• picked up room and straightened desk
• took the garbage out
• went to a work thing and cut out early
• made salsa with tomatoes from the garden
• made a double batch of pita bread so I can both eat it now AND make falafel later this week
• watched Fargo, which is on my list of pop-culturally important movies I still haven't seen
• forced myself to write 500 (mostly crap) words

I have been crazy-productive, and I just want someone to witness it, dammit!

So I've got about 15k of Ray/Ray that I've been sitting on awhile. I've been staring at it so long, I've lost whatever perspective I had -- can't see the forest because all those damn trees are in the way.

Does anybody feel like reading over it and giving macro concrit, especially wrt pacing, plot and characterization? The prose could use work too, but I don't want to polish a scene that's going to be cut later.

Any takers? You can be rough as you like. ;)

I got bored and did a fanvid for "Reservoir Dogs". I couldn't help it -- that flick is so slashy and Tim Roth is so gorgeous.

The vid contains spoilers and buckets of blood, natch.

So. I watched Young at Heart with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day this weekend. And yes, I only watched it because Joe Dick mentions it in Hard Core Logo. This would be a follow up to my watching Point Break only because it was mentioned in Hot Fuzz (I still need to see Bad Boyz II).
( Length summary and half-assed analysis.  )

Holy crap, Dollhouse has gotten good. I'll admit I was skeptical. The first few episodes weren't that strong, and I don't think Eliza Dushku is a very good actress -- her mannerisms are always very "Hello, Eliza Dushku here!" no matter what character she plays. Which was okay when she was Faith on Buffy, but can be grating in everything else. But then Sarah Michelle Gellar was always the weakest link on Buffy.

BUT. The past five or so episodes have all been really good and trending in on great. Both last week and the week before were particularly awesome.

I know liking Dollhouse is kind of an unpopular fannish opinion, and I'm a bit irritated by all the people who declared how much they hated it before they even watched it kind of like how some people hated Dreamwidth before they ever used it.  So if you haven't tried it, you should. Plus, there's a lot of eye-candy.

I may have to write more about this later, but now I'm too tired to.

Title: Love Potion No. 9, or: A Midsummer Night's Dream in Camelot!
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Morgana/Gwen, Morgana/Merlin -- sort of
Words: 6,500
Rating: PG-13
Beta: Many thanks to strainconductor  and serotonin_storm 
Summary: Gaius had warned Merlin about manipulating others' emotions with magic. “Magic used for selfish purposes never ends well,” he'd said. But this, Merlin was confident, didn't count.

( Read more... )

Title: Then the War Came
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur, pre-slash
Rating: PG
Words: 4,500
Beta: Many thanks to ignazwisdom and strainconductor
Summary: After discovery, Merlin sought refuge with the Druids. Future fic.

( Merlin awoke to the drizzle for the third day in a row.  )