Icarus

ngaio @ 8:56pm: Day 21
From soupytwist:

I have been thinking about this topic lately, so I would like to hear if you have any Thortz on ambitions - if you have any, what they might be, how you go about achieving them if so. :)

I'm a little weird with ambitions, because in many ways 'ambition' to me is linked to a lot of bad behaviour, politically motivated actions and relationships and all the stuff I dislike in the workplace. It's stepping over people and on people and being fake. Someone who is 'ambitious' is someone I probably don't like. And I actually know it's not true, Allegra and Dylan have the ambition of being published authors, Lucy an illustrator, another colleague a musician - these are ambitions I wholeheartedly approve of and support.

However, business ambitions aside, having things to aim for is, I think, a fairly necessary part of life. Or at least of mine. If I thought I was going to continue on exactly as I am now for the rest of my life that would be horrendous. Because for me at least growing and stretching myself is very very important, to improve myself in whatever way I can. Because I'm never going to be perfect but I can get better and be a better person. And also I like challenges (I curse 'em, but I like 'em!) and I like using my brain and learning and knowing things.

That's a bit vague isn't it?!

Do I have specific ambitions? No. But I have some waffley ones!

• To raise a happy daughter. Especially given the issues that both Henry and I come with with mental health and intelligence and social (in)ability. I know she will face her own issues and problems because she's human and all people do but I want to be someone who she knows she can come to for support and who she trusts. So that whatever is going on with her she knows she can come to me and I won't condemn her.


• To challenge myself. At the moment I don't have many chances to step outside my comfort zone, but when the opportunities arise I try to remember to take that step. I think it's important to me. I spent a very large amount of my life hiding in my own head and not interacting with people (do you know that I am fascinated with mutism, especially elective mutism? It's something which ... when I find myself thinking of the attraction of not having to speak I know to take my brain and mental health in hand), for a long time the world inside my head was more real than the outside world. Now I balance between the two and every new achievement in the outside world I feel expands and strengthens me. I grow when I do new things.


• To have a job which challenges me and which I enjoy. (OK, this one's been harder the last few months but as I said to my parents today 'there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it may be a train, we don't know right now, but there's a light.') Ideally I want a job where what I do helps people. (Actually in my current post I do help people, kind of, but something a little more direct.) At the same time, while I'm good at customer service (the peril of being someone who's bad at reading people and wants to please people, the life skills transfer over into work skills too!) I'm also good at systems and processes. I don't know the name of what it is I want to do, and I'm not sure how to get there, but whatever it is it involves problem solving and troubleshooting systems to make them work for the people who use them and the customer. And helping people. Recently I've been most interesting in researching posts in the charity sector but without many specific skills or qualifications it's a little tricky. (Living in the small of the back of nowhere doesn't help either.)

I think all of the above add up to - my ambition is 'to be a better person', better in terms of being good, better in terms of being effective, better in terms of ... being a person! Just better.

(PS soupytwist - That probably was absolutely nothing like you were expecting - sorry!)

p_zeitgeist, posting in metafandom @ 11:10pm: Friday, November 20, 2009

• albumsontheside: I wasn't trying to get you to like me. I was trying to get you to love me. - what makes certain fics popular? - why are some fics so unbelievably popular in certain fandoms, and why do the fans often react so personally to any criticism levied against said fics? -
  
  (tags: fanfic fandom criticism)


• thefrogg: Muses and Fic Nicknames - Am I the only writer who happens to actually...give a personality/name/body/whatever to their muse? -
  
  (tags: writing)

copperbadge @ 9:16am: My mother has a theory, which is genius I think, that the worse the economy is at Christmas, the more lights and decorations people put up. My own anecdotal evidence gathered since the age of ten suggests this is mainly correct. It's some kind of reaction formation thing. "We have no money, so this is going to be the BEST, BRIGHTEST CHRISTMAS EVER!"

Seriously, look around yourselves on December 18th. You'll see what I mean.

I have a new theory that is related to this: when the economy tanks, television writers start KILLING EVERYONE. I suspect it has something to do with desperation to retain viewers as the ad money dries up and things get more competitive, making use of the link between profundity and death. Which does exist, but not nearly as intensely as most professional writers think it does (see: modernist theatre's relationship to the end-of-show suicide. Just because it worked for Chekhov* doesn't mean it works for everyone).

At the end of the day, if one is searching for meaning in modern life -- meaning and ratings -- then death's not a bad way to go. That's crass to say aloud, but it's also true. And there's nothing inherently wrong with an examination of death, self-sacrifice, and our place in the world.

But seriously now.

The debate goes back and forth endlessly about the meaning or lack thereof in a given death on a given show, and if someone does find beauty and meaning in death, that's okay. I understand, better than I used to, why people do; if not emotionally, then at least intellectually. My theory isn't about whether a given character's death is profound or stupid.

It's just that there's been so much death on so many of my shows that I'm afraid to turn on the television. Meaningful or not, I'm tired of it. I'm scared next Tuesday Abby's going to get shot. I feel like I can't watch TV until unemployment drops back below 8%.

So until then I'll just be over here with my Stranger Than Fiction DVD.

* At the end of The Sea Gull, which culminates in an offstage suicide, the audience in Moscow was silent for a full minute. Chekhov thought he was ruined; he thought the play had tanked. It turned out, nobody could gather their wits enough to applaud, at first. This is an epic legend, in theatrical circles.

copperbadge @ 7:33pm: I'm bendy again!

Say what you like about chiropractors, and I don't deny a lot of it, but I can bend over without looking like an old man for the first time in weeks. My wii fit trainer approves. He didn't even yell at me when I fell over during the Sun Salute. Which is a hard yoga pose to fall over during. But the point is I fell over because I'm a klutz, not because I had no lower-back mobility.

Also I have nasal spray that the doctor recommended, but I've never really used nasal spray before. Is it supposed to drip back out? I feel like my brains are falling out my nose when I use it.

HI. I'M SAM STARBUCK, BUT YOU CAN CALL ME MR. OVERSHARE.

sinick @ 6:39pm: SchaDANfreude!
Check this for a chortleworthy guest spot!

*sniggers at the Twihards, because yes, Virginia, I'm Just That Petty*

fairestcat, posting in metafandom @ 1:16am: Wednesday, November 19, 2009

• trobadora: All-Human AUs? - Someone explain this trope to me. You have characters who aren't human: aliens, vampires, demons, angels, gods. What they are is an important part of their character, and writing them as ordinary humans takes away something essential to that character, and I just don't get it. Why is this so popular? -
  
  (tags: fanfic writing au)

• alixtii: AoOO Thoughs - I'm very uncomfortable with the implication, given by the existence of the primary warning tag "noncon/rape" that dubcon isn't rape. -
  
  (tags: warnings archiving ao3)


• smallbeer: my random morning thought processes - So, tell me how you would define "manpain" in a fannish context? -
  
  (tags: question terminology)

just_katarin: But Katarin, you just posted! - I distinctly remember, when Heroes fandom started talking about the problematic aspects of the show, the racism, the sexism, how uneven storylines and deaths were, all of it, we all maintained it was unintentional....We thought they meant well but now I see that that was a lie. That was... they never intended good things for the People of Color on Heroes or the Women on Heroes. -

(tags: sexism racism heroes)

hradzka: Donny Osmond RPF. By pros. - Mike Sterling has an interesting post that touches on on for-pay RPF from the 1970s. He points out that teen magazines included fictional stories about celebrities, mysteries and adventures and romances and -- yes, *exactly,* it was totally RPF. -

(tags: prowriting rpf history)

melannen: Statistics! - But when I was going through all the Dear Writer posts being linked in the yuletide community over at lj, I kept noticing that there were actually quite a *lot* of people who were linking their letters from their DW accounts instead of their LJs, and I was wondering if there really were a lot, or if it was an illusion based around what I wanted, and was expecting, to see. And then it occurred to me that this might actually be a pretty good metric of how fandom actually *is* moving: yuletide participation is probably as close as we can get to a real cross-section of people who are active in the sort of fandom that is on journal sites, and it seems like the site people link in their letters would be the site they consider their primary home, regardless of whether they crosspost and how. -

(tags: migration lj accessibility dreamwidth statistics)

copperbadge @ 7:34pm: And then the chiropractor tried to kill me.

For real, I'm typing this with the last ounce of muscle strength left in my body. She worked me over for half an hour. She found every painful part of my body and PRESSED ON IT.

She thinks my shoulder pain from last week is actually some ribs that are "poking out" which I figure, that can't be good. So she's going to poke them back in, I guess.

My body hates me. The feeling is mutual.

copperbadge @ 2:21pm: I am back from the doctor's office! I HAVE A DOCTOR. Not the Doctor, but a pretty good substitute. That was easier than I thought.

Dr. K gave me a specific amount of Vitamin D/Calcium to take every day, told me to buy saline nasal spray, took four vials of blood for various other issues, and said I'd hear from her in a week or two.

She was also very impressed with my ability to break myself, and gave me a neurological exam. All my neurologues are in order! So that's good.

Before I forget, and I should have recc'd this when linking to the GF cookbook the other day, ecaterin has assembled a Gluten-Free Recipe Archive with articles, recipes, and tips for GF living. She tells me she'll be updating it as she finds new info, so. Good resource!

That's all I got. That and a bandaid that says "OUCH" on it for my arm.

ridicully @ 8:04pm: I can't really tell if what I'm talking about are spoilers or not.

I don't know if short and superficial posts are better than no posts at all, but since they're the best I can manage, the question really is irrelevant.

Anyway, even though I live in a cave and didn't realize it was time for another episode of Doctor Who already, I really liked Waters of Mars once I noticed (because my circle started raving) and downloaded it.

I always like the Doctor's exuberance, even when it has a more than manic note in it.
And the drama was good drama.

Talking about it without a cut isn't going so well, but I'm too tired busy lazy to look up if I remember the code correctly, so 'I liked it. I *really* liked it' will have to do.

And now that I've posted the entry before I meant to, I'll wander off and search for new icons, because I've been feeling like it.

See http://ridicully.dreamwidth.org/245874.html to comment.

copperbadge @ 8:32am: Much as I love you guys, when it comes to suggestions on what to use that oil from the fried game hen for, my mother has you all beat cold.

She linked me to A Deep Fried Thanksgiving this morning. Skip the blithering article, which is a long self-involved introduction, and scroll straight to the recipes.

Deep fried stuffing balls.

(Also: she shoulda soaked her sweet potato chips in cold water before frying. Gets the excess starch out.)

copperbadge @ 10:51pm: 2400 words on VoA tonight! \o/

Never mind that a significant chunk of that was the introduction of a character I didn't know would exist until he did. I'm not worried! He will have a role to play in the story.

As much as I love the story and the worldbuilding, VoA is undoubtedly my problem child. Every single plot advancement is a struggle; writing scenes can be hard, but usually not quite this hard. It's getting easier as I settle further into the story and hammer out the details, but damn. Carry isn't making it easy on me. Then again, Carry wouldn't...

copperbadge @ 8:05pm: OH YES

ARE YOU READY FOR THREE THINGS

Not counting the TARDIS Awesome of earlier, which I will attempt to transcribe after Thing Three.

Spoilers for NCIS 7.08, ( Power Down )

3a. Gibbs has a full on survival kit in his bag in case he ends up in 1902. IT COULD HAPPEN. IF THE TARDIS COMES FOR HIM. Because he would make the most awesome Companion ever but only if he got to take Abby and please god someone stop me writing it.

copperbadge @ 7:30pm: IT COULDN'T WAIT

MCGEE JUST REFERENCED DOCTOR WHO

TERMINAL CROSSOVER OF RIDICULOUS FANDOMS

OUT OF CHEESE ERROR, PLZ REBOOT TELEVERSE

*laughs and laughs and laughs*

copperbadge @ 11:25am: I know you guys worry about me when I declare my intention to fry things, but I want you to know that I only ever hurt myself when I'm not paying attention. Granted, I'm not paying attention like, 80% of the time, but when I'm using fire and hot oil I always pay attention.

(And after the "index finger incident", also when I use knives.)

Which is why these videos? Will never happen to me.

I think the fire-safety one is my favourite; I like the captions. "Another disaster occurs!"

Motto of my life, man.

acari, posting in metafandom @ 3:27am: Monday, November 16, 2009

• facetofcathy: AO3 Tags and Warnings - Under the cut is a screen shot of the tag fields at the AO3, and my thoughts on using them. -
  
  (tags: ao3 tags warnings)

copperbadge @ 7:01pm: Considering I haven't written any on this today, I feel guilty posting, but I've been meaning to post for like three days, so.

Chapter seven of Valet of Anize is up! You can find it here.

Conspiracies, wank, and meteor showers!

copperbadge @ 6:10pm: All ye who live gluten free, I have a book for you: Eat Well Live Well With Gluten Intolerance. iamshadow scanned it for me to pass on to my mum, and I thought I'd share it with all of you while I'm at it, because I know we have at least a few who must Avoid The Wheat in the Cafe.

Today was the usual hectic Monday, with the added complication of BossBoss being insane. But he did invite me to a weekend party to watch the Festival of Lights, which is this Saturday, so that's nice. Don't know if I'm going to go yet, but it's very informal, we're just having pizza at work and watching from the conference room.

And now I'm home making dinner and hiding from the world.

ngaio @ 8:13pm: Day 16
It was a good post day.

Firstly, and most importantly, mabiana Thank you so much! That was way too generous of you but that about made my day, because while the rest of my post (as below) was excellent, I was expecting it, whereas yours was unexpected post and so much yay! and thank you. again.

Secondly - So who has two thumbs and the two disk edition of Star Trek (Reboot, I can't never remember the damn number!) with additional comic? That would be me! (Where does this two thumbs thing come from, by the way? I see it everywhere. Why thumbs? Why not nostrils?)

I am *planning* on only watching the special features. Really I am. Aside from anything else I'm going round to a friend's tomorrow and watching his BluRay version on his big screen high def. TV (boys and their toys!). *Really* I'm not thinking I may end up watching the film as well ...

( Possible spoilers, if you can have spoilers for special features. )

copperbadge @ 8:23pm: Time for Sam's Three Things About Doctor Who!

Spoilers within for ( The Waters Of Mars )

3a. THEIR HANDS. THEY WERE LIKE BLADES. ALL THEIR HANDS WERE LIKE BLADES! *dying*

copperbadge @ 2:40pm: SO, THEN, I FRIED A GAME HEN.

If you're reading this on Dreamwidth or IJ or JF, you can check out the photo at my LJ. It went beautifully: I washed and VERY THOROUGHLY DRIED the chicken, then left it to dry for a little while as I set up the dutch oven with about 64oz of peanut oil. While the oil was heating, I dredged the chicken in flour and spices, patted off the excess, stuffed two cloves of garlic in the cavity, and tied the legs together (kinky) with kitchen twine.

I tied the other end of the kitchen twine to the handle of a large wooden spoon and, when the oil was at 350, I lowered the chicken carefully into it. There were no explosions or anything, but I didn't quite put enough oil in, so the breast stuck out a little. I fixed this by frying for eight minutes on one side, then using the handy string and carefully flipping it to fry for eight minutes on the other side. When the thigh-thermometer (thighmometer!) read 170F, I took the chicken out and set it out to drain. It probably could have used another minute or two, but on the other hand the breast meat is super-succulent and it might have dried out.

OM NOM CRISPY CHICKEN.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with 64oz of slightly-used peanut oil.

ngaio @ 8:03pm: Day 15
( Liveblogging Doctor Who - therefore spoilers )

Sorry for a bit of a cheat with today's Wriso, liveblogging a TV episode, but I really didn't have anything else to talk about.

copperbadge @ 12:00pm: Having spent about an hour pushing buttons and testing limits in Google Wave, I would like to register my total lack of enthusiasm.

Seriously, it's like they took Gmail, Googledocs, and Gchat, smashed them together, picked out all the useful parts, and THREW THEM AWAY. Then bred the result with a messageboard circa 2002.

( Initial review )

Look, I know I'm a luddite. I don't embrace new technology. I barely allow it to give me a peck on the cheek. But when I try out new technology I try to be fair about its odds of being useful to me, and Google Wave appears to be the most useless app for my needs ever invented. That's not to say some people won't find it useful and helpful, but for what I need it to do, it fails badly. It lacks a lot of the simple utility that has made Gmail so ubiquitous. Its comment threading function is not as efficient as Facebook's, its posting function isn't as accessible as LiveJournal's, and its utility as a chat program is nonexistent. Even as a tool for betareading fic, it's not as good as Googledocs.

Wave is in beta, early beta, so I suspect it has a long way to go. I documented all these issues in a blip I made, which some other people have commented on with their own issues, and I would love to send this blip to the people who are working on Wave. Except, OH WAIT, THERE'S NO WAY TO DO THAT. I can't forward it as an email, I can't add them since they're not in my contacts, and I can't export the blip to a file to send to them.

I love Google, and Gmail, and the philosophy of simplicity that Google normally espouses. I don't know how Google Wave got past that philosophy, because it's clunky and complicated and beneath Google's usual standard.

ngaio @ 9:24am: Today
Today I *must*

- do the work I brought home from work

Today I *should*

- put all my clean clothes away, especially as I've sorted them by where they go and they're all over my bed
- refill the bird feeders (though there is still some seed in there
- answer all my LJ comments, what's the point in me posting if I don't interact with people when they comment on the posts?
- read two submissions to SPM that Allegra sent me over a week ago

Today I probably *won't*

- tidy up all the junk which I've been dumping on the stairs for the last few months and put it all away
- change what's on my bedroom walls and finally hang the lovely Firefly/Serenity travel posters I've had for over a year

inalasahl, posting in metafandom @ 7:38pm: Saturday, November 14, 2009

• rheasilvia: Posting a Fanfic Novel: The "How To"-Poll - In your opinion, what is the best way of posting a very long piece of fanfiction (think novel, 150.000 words or more)? [POLL] -
  
  (tags: poll fanfic reading)


• zvi: Podfic grumblings - Okay, I think we have established that I actually hate it when people put music as an intro or outro of their podfic. -
  
  (tags: podfic music)

copperbadge @ 8:41pm: R came over tonight to eat my homemade pizza and watch Wheel, and catch me up on life. This is how it went:

R: I had a really good date last night.
Sam: Yeah? Who is she?
R: She works at Kingston Mines.
Sam: Hmm. You have to stop dating bartenders.
R: No, but she's not like that! She only works part time, she's a student.
Sam: What's she study?
R: Uh, what's the word. It's like. Holtastic?
Sam: Holistic? Like, holistic medicine?
R: Yeah! Herbs and shit. She's a Pagan.

Now, I have nothing at all against Pagans, I have been one in my time, but R usually dates messed-up blues fans who drink too much and have unmannered dogs. I couldn't imagine what he would see in a woman studying holistic medicine as a vocation. It's just not something I can easily grasp. So I'm thinking all this and I was about to ask "So what brought you two together?" in order to find out, and I got as far as inhaling to say it before he said:

R: AND she's a PILATES instructor!

And all was revealed.

Then, unsatisfied with the pizza, we ate all the hamburgers in the greater Chicago area (which I cooked, because I have mastered the hamburger) and watched Notre Dame get their asses kicked by Pittsburg.

I feel bad for him, he's in a rough spot financially right now, so I'm glad he got a good meal and a little time to unwind. And I discovered that R, who I have always seen as a sort of all-knowing Casanova, thinks he's fucked up about relationships. Which is funny and kind of awful, because this is how he put it:

"I mean, all the guys I know are hound dogs, they see a woman they think is hot and the first thing they think is how they can take her home that night, and I'm just not into it. All mine go badly when I try. I want to, you know, know who she is...I'm really fucked up about sex. I want to have a family, that's fucked up, huh?"

Yeah, R. Wanting to know a little bit about someone before you fuck them is totally weird. Having an emotional connection with a woman before you put it in? Using dating to try and find a life-mate? What the hell is wrong with you?

So I gave him a pep talk about how that's not weird, it's just that he thinks it is because he spends too much time with musicians, and gave him a tupperware container of food, and sent him on his way.

If I could get him a nice girlfriend for Christmas, I would, but they don't sell Positive Relationships at Target. Maybe this Holistic Bartender will turn out better than the fine array of CRAZY PEOPLE he has dated in the past.