Yeah, so, we gave up on Merlin. It stopped being funny-bad and just started being bad-bad, like, really bad, like A. going "Did they hire people from fanfiction.net to write this?" I knew going in that it bore little resemblance to any version of the original myth, so I wasn't huffily offended or anything, and I'm obviously up for interesting retellings of familiar stories, but it was less a retelling and more of an unraveling, like they were flattening all the interesting parts of the old stories and just making the characters a bunch of random people with no real connections to each other. By the time that Mordred, rather than being the secret child of his father's incestuous shame raised to bring that father and his peaceful kingdom down, was revealed to be some random Druid kid, I had had enough.

I did go read the Wikipedia summaries of the rest of the episodes, and get one last hearty laugh at the description of the unicorn episode. And my final question: Why does Merlin dress like a cowboy again?

(Actually, my final question is who thought it was a good idea to change the race of only one character and then demote her from princess to MAID? "Guinevere's a servant!" = cool. "Guinevere's black!" = cool. "Guinevere's a black servant but everyone else is white and rich or an apprentice Destined for Greater Things!" = AUGH DIE DIE.)

Does anyone else find this apartment unutterably depressing? The Danish modern furniture looks like it comes from a 1970s chiropractor's office, and even the plants somehow make it feel overgrown and abandoned. And he rattles all around that big, semi-painted place by himself? Just having a bunch of art by local artists does not make your place cool.

***

Last night a phone call was interrupted by squawking. After determining that what Lily had in her mouth was a greyish bird, not a rodent, I got her to drop it in the bathroom and locked her up in the bedroom. It was a sort of teenaged bird, bigger than a fledgling but not able to fly, partly because I think she was holding it by the wing and partly because it just wasn't very good at anything besides thrashing and hopping. Thrash and hop it did, until I eventually got it settled in a paper grocery bag with its top mostly taped up (it escaped through the handle-hole of the laptop box and banged itself against the sliding glass door a bunch before I recaptured it). Shhh, I said when lodessa and sainfoin_fields arrived. I just got the baby bird down.

It didn't wake up when we turned on the bedroom light, though, so I started to worry it might have just expired from the stress, but it if was only sleeping I didn't want to wake it up by checking. So Schrodinger's Bird spent the night asleep and/or dead, until 6:30 am when Lily realized what was in the bag and I woke up to more thrashing and squawking. I put the bird in the closet and the cat out in the hall. Thrash, squawk, scratch at the bedroom door. I put the cat outside. Thrash, squawk, screeeech of claws on glass slider. Epic battle of bird v. cat. It was like being in a cartoon.

Eventually I called the wildlife rescue place when they opened, and waited for them to call me back, and at ten this morning I was able to drop Schrody off at a vet sorta-not-really near work and go in an hour and a half late. Now I am tired.

Lily's opinion? "If you hadn't bought me new and different food, I wouldn't have had to catch my own dinner, duh."

Edit, now that my camera is charged: ( Behold the pathetic creature )

***

New lazy low: I am listening to music by turning on both laptops and just streaming iTunes from the old one. The depths of my desire not to have to move and clean up my files are partially fused with infinity.

I am typing on a new laptop, which to me feels like saying "I am typing in a brand-new house while riding my brand-new pony!" because of how rarely I get new computers. My previous one was four years old, and so is A's, but we could never quite decide about our feelings on upgrading. We don't truly need a new computer, since 75% of the reason we're dissatisfied is because the MMO we play doesn't run well on his or at all on mine, so buying one felt like a luxury. The other 25% of the reason for upgrading is the hilarious laundry list of problems with my laptop, which was not really intended by its makers to be hauled around in classrooms for three years (and in fact, only made it through two):

Broken hinge, so it's not so much a "laptop" as a "desktop once you prop the lid against the wall"

Battery dies the instant you unplug it

Weird glitch caused by me changing the default icon for Notepad files -- unless you right-click and choose "Open", just double-clicking a folder will search it instead (the fix involves messing with the registry, so I've left it alone)

Many of the letters printed on the keys have worn away, leading to lodessa's mournful "Where's the N key?" one night

My favorite -- I ripped the sensor out from under the spacebar while cleaning with an envelope a few years back, and improvised with the ear snipped off a rubber Halloween bat. There's a trick to striking it just so with the side of your thumb (simply pressing doesn't work, because the rubber isn't very flexible), and I always forget until people try to use the computer and are confused why nothing works.

So yeah, time for an upgrade -- in the form of me walking into work Monday morning to find my boss jetting off to Staples to buy a couple of $299 Acer Aspire 5516s for the Battlestar Galactica to use as extra internet terminals. $299 turned out to be the right price indeed, and now I am typing on Thessaly, named because she isn't my favorite, but she is extremely thrifty and practical and hopefully long-lived, and also has a very shiny widescreen. (My Sandman-based naming scheme started when I couldn't think of anything to call my previous computer and just typed DEATH into the box, and she follows Delirium the ill-fated iPod and Delight the well-fated iPod.)

And augggggh now I have to move over all my old crap. I only have a 40GB hard drive on my old computer, but I've been hauling around stuff for TEN YEARS without going through it and I feel determined that this time, this time, I will start clean and dump all that whatever-the-hell has collected in my folders. (Computer clutter is terrifyingly easy to accumulate because, you know, you just stick it in a folder and voila! Out of mind! O hai resume I wrote in 2003!) Luckily A. finally got all our computers networked through the router, so I don't have to burn DVDs, but still: auggggggh.

First: does anyone have suggestions as to good places for interesting but not bank-breaking throw pillows? Recently we fell in love with this octopus one, this coral one, and this patterned mod one, but, uh, spending $150 on three throw pillows? Not so much. Cost Plus was a bust, Crate and Barrel yielded a solid green pillow for $25 that we held off on in case we found something patterned that clashed, and now I'm drawing a blank. Times like this I sure wish I sewed and had a machine, because nothing is easier than a pillow cover.

ETA: Never mind, Etsy is still the bomb. Octopus pillow, coral pillow, patterned mod pillow, each less than half the cost of the ones I linked to above. Also I might buy this one for my bedroom. ETA 2: Bought the pillow to go on a chair beneath this Charley Harper print I bought recently. Yay birds!

****

The weirdness of only getting my news in print, online: does the general public/media say "So-to-my-yer", not "So-to-my-YOR"? I hope this isn't one of those things where pronouncing it properly becomes ridiculous, like certain California place names (i.e. saying "San Ra-fay-el" instead of "San Ruh-FELL" for San Rafael -- I know the former's correct but it's just far too late on that one).

****

The weirdness of growing up with famous parents:

Did you ever meet Bubbles?
Quincy Jones: Are you kidding me? He bit a hole in my daughter's hand! Rashida's hand. Rashida Jones -- did you see I Love You, Man? That's my daughter. She was a little girl. And Bubbles bit her hand. Michael used to bring Muscles and Bubbles by the house all the time, you know.


Rashida Jones was once bitten by Bubbles the Chimp. Just when I couldn't love her more.

****

Not weird at all: she's unlocked it so I could link it, but doesn't want to be deluged by defensive Hetalia fans, so please be mindful if you repost the link -- my friend tokki_chan has an interesting post about the Japan v. Korea controversy over Hetalia. She has good thoughts both on the portrayal of Korea itself as well as the reactions to Koreans' reactions, and I'm glad she finally got them down.

Soccer Hooligan #1Knight Valiant: ::takes shield with snakes on::
Soccer Hooligan #2Shady Dude in Tavern: The snakes are now yours to command!
Really Really Bad CGI Snake: Hiss!
Me: ::laughs uncontrollably for three minutes::

Merlin: You could make it up to me by buying me a drink.
Arthur: I can't be seen buying drinks for my servants.
Me: Wait, aren't they at a party at his house? What, does Camelot have a cash bar?

Arthur: After all, I need someone to make my bed, muck out my stables...
A.: Is that code for gay sex?


So bad. SO BAD. Hai guyz remember that time in the 5th century when they made antidotes out of snake venom instead of driving out bad spirits with hot irons and also when they had plate mail and used actual sharp swords to actually stab at each other in tournament bouts which also included Saracens centuries before they existed and there was a 19th century cast-bronze statue in the courtyard of Camelot of a man on horseback with stirrups, because everyone had stirrups in the 5th century? Those were good times.

Tonight I watched two episodes of a show which had people living in 16th century castles and using 10th century technology and wearing 14th century plate mail, as well as "medieval" costumes which I would be embarrassed to wear in a high school play, and which starred some attractive young people who just happen to have the same names as several of the main characters from a rather well-known 5th century folk myth.

Also, Giles is in it. But the book-loving magician is played by an actor who forces us to say "I don't believe it" every time he's onscreen. Also there are some pretty girls.

The girls and the joy of nitpicking the -- historical inaccuracies? that seems too mild a description for the utter slapdash carelessness on display here -- are enough for A. Me, I'm just wondering what kind of world we live in where sexy canonical hetcest isn't the major pairing in a fandom.

The absolute best dinner for a hot night remains soba noodles which have been rinsed in cold water and drizzled with sweet chili sauce and mixed with cold salad shrimp. People who aren't vegetable-phobic would probably like crunchy green onions or beansprouts or something on top. You don't even have to slave over a hot pot, since you cook soba by dropping it into the pot just as it hits boiling, and then turning off the burner. It's almost worth the 106F+ weather to enjoy it so thoroughly.

(The absolute best lunch in terms of nutrition might not be a Firecracker popsicle, but it was still a pretty yummy lunch.)

****

I have no connection to and thus not much feeling for any of the celebs who've died recently, other than the usual sympathy when there's a death, but jonquil linked to this video of Michael Jackson dancing with the Nicholas Brothers, which led me to this video of the Nicholas Brothers making their big splash in Down Argentine Way. (Cue Sanford jokes.) That is some bang-up good dancing there, and makes me wish that a) golden age Hollywood had not been quite such an appallingly racist place and had given these guys their own movies, and b) I knew how to tap dance.

****

And speaking of videos, just in case you haven't seen it yet here is a mash-up of Buffy giving Edward Cullen his come-tuppence. It is deeply, deeply satisfying to someone who loves the former source text and hates the latter, especially since it explicitly deals with the stuff like smelling people and watching girls sleep that I found so creepy in Twilight and which Buffy dispatched so neatly. Honestly, I think that's my biggest problem with the Twilight series, that it drags vampire literature back so far after Buffy subverted so many of the cliches and either made them ridiculous or far more interesting. It's probably uncharitable to call Meyers lazy, since she started writing just for herself, but it's way more enjoyable to read/watch genre fiction done by someone familiar with the genre.

****

I've made any number of knitted things in recent months, but have been terrible about taking pictures. Worse yet, I haven't made and kept anything since last summer, so there are some cute items out there in the world that I desperately wish I had pictures of, like the fuzzy felted slippers I made for my stepmom and grandma or some very sweet dishcloths which now reside in England.

However, I did manage to get some shots of these dishcloths before I sent them to jonquil, who won them in the con_or_bust auction.

( Lilies of the valley and Daleks! )


Which leads me to something I've been wanting to do for a while, which is to offer sets of knitted dishcloths for sale, four for $25. Samples of some of my previous work are here.

If you're interested, either comment here or send me a message through LJ and we can talk colors and patterns. Like I said, they're made of cotton yarn, and you can use them either as actual washcloths or just as potholders, and they get very nice and soft after you wash and dry them a few times. (I will state up front that I can't actually make the Dalek pattern for sale, since it's listed as being for personal use, but if you're buying something else I might be willing to just make it at cost.)

From the AP:

Sanford managed to slip overseas undetected because he dismissed his security detail before driving himself to the airport.

Reggie Lloyd, chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, told reporters his agency had no legal authority to refuse Sanford.

"As an adult male, he's free to come and go as he pleases, and so we just honestly quit looking for him," Lloyd said.

Adult females, though...

Someone Just a Little More Funky
by Sophia Jirafe/sophia_helix

Characters: Michael, Holly
Spoilers: "Weight Loss"
Rating: G
Length: 1500
Note: Written as part of "Tesserae," a joint effort series which will span all of Season Five.

Summary: When everybody loves you, you're gonna be just about as funky as you can be.

*****

( 'And I'm allergic to sesame seeds,' Holly said, ticking off her ring finger. )

Augh, I miss posting. I think I am bad at it now.

HERE, LIVEJOURNAL, HERE ARE SOME THINGS I HAVE SEEN AND READ.

Movies:

Star Trek: I saw it opening night because I didn't want to sit at home by myself, even though the previews made me angry, and it didn't suck at first and then I started laughing and then I loved it! Then we saw it again with lodessa and her boy at a drive-in theater which was great because a) cheap b) you can bring in your own food and c) you can talk through the whole thing. Also d) we could totally have transacted any number of drug deals by hopping into the backs of people's cars, srsly.

Terminator Salvation: This is not a good movie! Not at all! And not a good bad movie either. Just boring. Apparently John Connor's big destiny is to shout a whole lot and grow stubble. In the future, everything will be sepia-toned and Kyle Reese will be played by the kid who got kidnapped in Alpha Dog and got it on with Lilly Kane in a pool shortly before his untimely and semi-accidental demise.*

Up: Which will make you cry at least twice. The rest of it is mostly just fun, especially the parts with the talking dogs, but there are two points at which every single person no matter how stoic or Y-chromosome-having will tear up.

Books:

I borrowed all the published volumes of Scott Pilgrim off spectralbovine when he psychically knew I would want them and brought them to me, and they are charming and funny and nerdy but man, Scott Pilgrim makes Marten Reed look like a functional and confident adult.

When I needed something to read in a creepy TV/phone-less Victoria boarding house hotel in a gold rush town/state park, I brought Flowers in the Attic and was glad I didn't read it at 13 like everyone else, because I probably would have loved it. Ew. Not ew to incest (it wasn't incesty enough, frankly), but ew to fucked-up gender issues. Also it could have been way more over the top.

Someone (moireach?) on Goodreads mentioned reading China Mountain Zhang recently and loving it, so I did and I loved it too. That sent me into a bit of a scifi kick so I continued on with my reading of the Foundation books, which I'm liking a lot. Not quite as lively as Heinlein, but fewer Slide Rules in Spaaaaace!

A few days ago I started reading Day of the Locust and thought I'd enjoy it, but after fifty pages of everyone wanting to rape the lead female character I thought perhaps I would put it on the "give-away" pile and read Anne of Green Gables instead of sporking my eyes out.

***

Because sainfoin_fields is shipping me with THE TWILIGHT MOVIE, please do me a solid and tell me someone (real/fictional) you ACTUALLY ship me with.


*I know he's Chekhov; Alpha Dog is funnier.