Ossobuco's journal

Life is fairly unremarkable, fandom even more so; I'm still playing Dragon Age: Origins and am near the end. I have been blogging about it on LJ/DW in case anybody is remotely interested. I'm watching Doctor Who with my mom, with a general idea of watching an arc or two from each Doctor until we reach the more modern ones (though we watched I think four arcs with Fourth Doctor because we loved K-9 and also Tom Baker, haha). Mom and I also watched BBC's Sherlock which is AAAH SO GREAT, SO GREAT, WHY SO SHORT, CAN WE HAVE NEXT SEASON PLEASE. Appropriately, I've been re-reading the stories. Fun, fun.

Dragon Age is the main thing in my life, though. Emma and I have epic fanfic plans and it's going to be tremendous.

Oh my god.

My friend convinced me to play Dragon Age: Origins, and I'm only six hours in but I am ADDICTED and it is BAD because it means I spend all day at work (while testing video games) thinking about how much I want to GO HOME AND PLAY A VIDEO GAME.

On a related note, ALISTAIR. HOLD STILL AND LET ME DECLARE MY UNDYING LOVE FOR YOU, YOU BEAUTIFUL, SARCASTIC, COMPETENT, BLOOD-SPATTERED HUNK OF MAN FLESH.

... I mean. Uh.

Moving right along.

Yes, this game is awesome.

Well, then, I am home again. In a way, it felt more like leaving home than coming home, because I got so accustomed to my place in Florence and the people around me. Italy was glorious; I honestly had a wonderful time and I am already planning to go back if I'm financially able next year.

Some of the souvenirs I've brought back with me, the long list of fond memories and cool experiences obviously omitted: a great-looking winter jacket with lots of pockets, two bottles of delicious wine, tons of recipes from my host, chocolate, a black truffle in a jar, a stovetop espresso maker, and also a herniated disc in my neck. Woohoo! At least the MRIs look cool. Anyway, I'm seeing a doctor and getting physical therapy for that, but it's not very much fun, and I hope I'll be able to go back to work without too many problems.

I have also brought home some seriously unreasonable expectations in terms of food, because the quality of the food there (especially the produce, I mean, wowzers) was really stunning. Coming back to the bland rubbery mozzarella and lousy tomatoes here is a sad, sad thing. Fortunately, I found good Pecorino cheese at Trader Joe's yesterday, in which I am drowning my sorrows.

Most importantly of all, Mango is happy that I'm home. ♥

( Various and sundry fandom updates (vague spoilers for The X-Files) )

So, then, I'm leaving in exactly a week. I feel it prudent to announce a hiatus now while I'm thinking of it, though I suppose it wouldn't really be that out of the ordinary for me not to post here for a couple months. Anyway, yeah - I expect not to be around JF while I'm abroad, though I will be doing a photo blog.

LJ/DW may or may not be updated, depending; I'll probably continue to check my flists when I can.

Ci vediamo, tutti! <3 I hope you all have a lovely holiday season, and I shall see you when I come home.

We have only a handful of episodes left to go, and for all of the ways that seasons 8 and 9 have disappointed me, driven me crazy, or filled me with rage, I have but one thing to say:

( Spoiler )

In other news, Dieselpunk fic chapter 1 has mere sentences remaining. I am finishing it tonight, come hell or high water.

Edit: HAH! Fuckin' posted. And technically finished before midnight. YES.

1. It is cold.

2. When did Law & Order: SVU really go to shit? Or did I just happen to catch a particularly bad episode? Hmmm.

3. Exactly three weeks until I leeeeeaaaave. So excited. SO EXCITED. I realized last weekend that I will be able to go to the Lamborghini museum, where they have my favorite car ever and a bunch of others, holy shit, holy shit, I might will cry.

4. IT IS COLD. Fuck you, Seattle weather. You cannot do this to us.

I am still watching the X-Files with my mom; we're getting through season 8, ( slight spoilers )

I went to a satellite Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in downtown Seattle - it was wonderful. My sign said, "Love is all you need;" my friend who came with me made a sign that said "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations."

Friday was my last day of work; I leave for Italy in exactly a month and a half. I probably can't spend much money at all, but I think ends will meet up just fine. I may have to forget about doing chibi-Romano for AkiCon next weekend, so I'll just be going as regular old Italy, I suppose.

Right now, I am watching Leaves of Grass, in which Edward Norton plays a professor of Classical philosophy as well as his pot-growing twin brother. It moves slowly, but the pace is comfortable - almost minimalistic. The film is extremely visual, with great colors and a very photographic sensibility. The writing is natural but smooth. Edward Norton is just awesome.

Happy Halloween!

Things I learned from Lexx:

- Brains are not attached to anything and come very easily out of their skulls.

- Doesn't matter what accent(s) you have as long as you sound obviously not American.

- Women cannot be friends with each other, especially if they are cannibals. They are also neither useful nor interesting, except as cannibals.

- WHAT IS WITH YOUR HAIR, DUDE, IT LOOKS SO DUMB

- Evil is blatantly obvious to all but its brainwashed followers and is also dumb as rocks, to the point that ( spoiler )

- Even planet-destroying super-weapons have lousy pre-set security clearance.

- However, on planet-destroying super-weapons, cryogenics come standard, motherfucker.

- ( Spoilers )

- The blurb on the back of the box LIES. It promised ( spoiler )

- I want a little robot bug thing.

As many questions as the first film brought up and did not answer (maybe it just forgot), I am not interested in continuing.

I am so tired.

Congratulations, Spain! My money was on the Netherlands, but I suppose I should've listened to the psychic octopus. This thing was so fun. :D Sportssssss.

Since the end of the World Cup, my squee quota has been occupied pretty effectively by the Hetalia dub, which is so much better than I was expecting that I'm about ready to dance through the streets throwing pasta. (Though... the fact that America's bit that was released today could be offensive apparently went straight under my radar until I started wondering what all the wank in the comments was about. Maybe this makes me a bad person? I mean, I get why it's in bad taste, having thought about it, but I feel like Hetalia is already so borderline-offensive that I'd be uncomfortable taking serious umbrage with that and letting all the rest slide by. This all being why my fandom life is very, very separate from my professional life, incidentally - my office partner asked about my Hetalia keychain the other day (which normally no one sees, since my keys are usually in my pocket), and I was like, "uhhhh--it's this Japanese show, with personified nations acting out political events with each other, and it's really weird, and gonna change subject now" and it was awkward.)

My mother loaned me this book called Self-Made Man, which is about a woman who spends something like eight months living as a man and observing/interacting. I'd heard about it before, actually - someone recommended it to me in college before I came out - but hadn't eve rread it. Being in the position of very desperately wishing I could accomplish that fully, wholly, honestly, and for the rest of my life, I'm not sure how much it will do for me personally, but it will definitely be interesting. It does bring up questions, though, about how I interact with my male friends and how they see me and all this. I do my best to be one of the guys, to exist on the same level, to compete and talk about the same stuff and laugh and make jokes and all, and the interaction on my side comes pretty easily. I just am always left wondering if they would say or do still different things if I weren't there (even though they are very clear on the fact that I'm not going to get offended or something), if they still change their behavior to accommodate a "woman," to what degree they see me on a different level than themselves. Obviously it's hard to tell; obviously I don't have a baseline for comparison.

As;lkdjfljdsk, gender is stupid.

The joy to be found in football is a fleeting joy, indeed.

On the plus side, Germany's gonna wreck Uruguay's shit on Saturday, and if the Netherlands don't totally beat down Spain on Sunday, there will be blood. Or at least I'll lose a bet at work.

Oh, and Paul the Psychic Octopus...



That's right, Paul.

I'm looking at you.

The German team are my new best friends. It's almost enough to make me feel less bitter about Italy!

When the World Cup is over, my life is going to feel so empty.

I was going to clean my apartment today, but I got completely distracted by reading about biplanes (yeah, I've got a Hetalia dieselpunk!AU fic in the works in which Italy and Germany are mechanics and America is a biplane pilot and it's all so much fun, I just need to actually write the damned thing) and watching The Daily Show.

As of last week, I am the proud owner of a PS3. I'm enjoying it (though MGS4 is pretty determined to not ever let me actually play the game and would rather show me cutscenes about how much war sucks, to which I am like, YOU DON'T NEED TO TELL ME THIS! I KNOW! NOW LET ME PLAY MY GODDAMNED GAME), but Mango is enjoying it even more than I am. She spends hours every day curled up in the box that it came in and looking pleased with herself.

Happy Fourth!

Italiaaaa. ;__________________;

Germany? <3

AMERICA! :O

Spain? Argentina? Netherlands? Brazil?

I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE

BUT I'M STILL GOING PUBBING AT SIX AM BOTH DAYS THIS WEEKEND TO WATCH

In other news, I read Farenheight 451 recently because I never read it for school and it seemed like a good thing to do. I have yet to form a real reaction to it; the story was not wholly gripping, Beatty was the only interesting character (Montag wasn't bad, but he was a terribly predictable protagonist), and Bradbury's descriptive writing was by far the most interesting thing going on. Not to say that the rest was uninteresting, it just all felt very... superficial. Not in the sense that it wasn't meaningful, not intellectually or creatively, but... there was the sense that very little was explored to its full potential, and the parts that should've had the most emotional impact (i.e., um, the ending) seemed to fall flat.

But I enjoyed it! I really did.

Also, HOLY FLYING NUTS, I am going to Florence in January for six weeks. :D :D

I am currently console-less, but since everyone at work has been raving about Red Dead Redemption, I'm wondering if it's time to give in and buy one so I can actually play games again. The burning question is: 360 or PS3?

Thoughts?

Good news: going to Florence in January!

Bad news: Ronnie James Dio. ;___;

I have a cat. Her name is Mango. She has three legs and Feline Leukemia.

She sleeps next to me at night, and carries on conversations, and clearly listens to me when I talk, and hobble-runs around the apartment, and is basically the cutest thing ever. Kind of Siamese-ish coloring with really bright, beautiful blue eyes that would be super-dramatic if they weren't a little lazy and off-center, which really just makes her cuter.

Caaaaat!

Most of my stuff is still in boxes, but aaaah, I have an apartment, it is mine, it is awesome, it is full of plants. Their names are Rosemary, Basil, Reggie, Bettie, Socrates, Solon, and Greenwich.

My apartment still needs a name. This is turning out to be a much more difficult thing than I first thought it would be.

Life's been so full of moving and job and other strange adult things that I don't really have any fandom-related stuff to report, except for Hetalia, and that's only because I Have A Problem. I'm working on a steampunk AU that's kind of getting epic, and I also have this really, really upsetting and terrible WWII fic in the works as well. So, yes, basically, my life has become incredibly boring.

I'm so glad that Kari is back on Mythbusters!

It's the future! :D

Happy New Year to all!

I saw Sherlock Holmes today with my mom, but I'll talk about it later.

Ahahaha, so, for my birthday, my cousin got me the first season of Lost in Space on DVD. This show is pretty kooky. Some parts of it are slower than molasses, but some parts are just hilarious. At the moment (that is, to say, three episodes in), I could care less about most of the family, but I'm strangely enamored of Dr. Smith and how obviously sinister he is. I'm really amused at how Dr. Smith thinks that he's all that, and that he's engaging in this epic battle of wit and deception with Don the pilot and John the captain and John's son Will, but in reality they're all (except for Will) complete idiots, and they still see through Dr. Smith's "act" because he's the most affectedly evil person to have ever gotten a Ph. D.

Also, the amount of subtext between Dr. Smith and the robot is unbelievable. I'm serious. I have to get screenshots of this.

I haven't actually gotten to a part where the robot does his most-quoted "danger, Will Robinson, danger!", but like I said, I'm only three episodes in.

I also got a pocket watch for my birthday. And a really lovely telephoto lens for my camera. But more importantly, a pocket watch. And my mom and I went to the Queen Mary Tea Room, which is the best thing ever.

Hetalia costume gathering and potluck tomorrow! And on Monday, I am leaving for the coast! It is vacation time!

Thanks to my brother, I have now seen the Twilight film Rifftrax. This shit is pure gold. Also, I didn't know how truly, amazingly terrible that movie actually was. I don't even know where to begin. The acting? The writing? The nasty pool-water-blue filter over every goddamn shot? The fact that they used Iron & Wine music? I love Iron & Wine. Why would they do this. ;__;

I'll never forgive them. That's one of my favorite songs, too. Fuckers.

Anyway. No, that film was beyond terrible, but the Rifftrax were awesome.

In other news, my job is totally awesome. I don't like waking up in the morning (big surprise, I know), but I really have no complaints. I really need to start making my own lunch to bring with me, though, because the cafeteria is kind of pricey.

Speaking of eating, I want a cupcake.

Everyone needs to know how much I love The Man from UNCLE. This is one of my favorite episodes, and not just because it's got William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, pre-Trek, playing off each other and the main cast MAGICALLY.

Also, Illya, I love you. I love you so much.

(In more real-life news: I saw KISS on Sunday, and went to a car show twice last week, and dropped my laptop on the floor. ;_; But it was saved by science. NaNoWriMo has been, well, an interesting experience so far. I start work in a little under two weeks. That's more or less it.)