and miles to go before I sleep

Guys, don't ever, ever, ever buy an MP3 player from Creative Zen. Just, don't do it. I have one from 2005 and it's now not supported on their help site and they sent me a polite email telling me I was fucked and none of the online resources I've found have helped and I'm pretty sure that I just turned it into an expensive paperweight. I can't get any of the music off of there now. I had a shit-ton, and I can't access any of it.

Guess it's back to listening to CDs. I don't have the money to buy a new player, and one of the online resources told me to delete the firmware so that I could re-upload the firmware...but it's still not working and now the player won't load at all.

2008 isn't letting us go without a fight. After pounding Oregon with snow and ice, it's decided to flood. My dad has been at work for almost the last 24 hours straight, sandbagging; his work is right in the worst flooding area, bad enough that they were showing his direct boss and coworkers on the evening news, talking about how bad it's got.

Can I ask for good vibes/prayers/whatevs? My dad's a 63-year-old guy, and his back is already wrecked from shoveling snow for the last two weeks. It's really coming down outside, beating on the roof of the house where I'm sitting in my PJs. I'm so worried about him. He doesn't even have a blanket with him, or a warm place to sleep tonight. They've shut down the street that his work is on, so he can't even get out of that area.

Daaaaaad. ;___;

Well, I was holding off on this in the vain hopes that I would finish ficsoreal's Sweet Charity request before the end of the year, but with shaedowcat and my buddy Jaron on their way into town, I fear that is not to be. So, ficsoreal! It's about halfway finished, I promise! (If you even remember what the hell I'm talking about, Christ, it's been so long, I suck.) Almost all of this is bandom. I have fallen far, my friends.

( I was a busy, busy girl... )

Last night I posted about what I have come to call The Hormonal AU. Spencer is 15, Ryan is 16 and a girl who attends Catholic school. They are teenagers. They are hormonal. Shenanigans ensue.

I posted the bunny here, commented a bit more here, bunny got into the mix here, and then poor softlyforgotten¹ made a reply and quickly fell into our web of insanity here, and once those boxes got to small, here. I had to sleep, but promised them porn if they could make these two crazy kids get over themselves.

They did. *g* God bless their pointy little heads. bunnymcfoo and softlyforgotten, this one's for you. Unbetaed, unedited, I'm still half asleep. NARGH.

In case you got lost in the aforementioned tangled web, the Smith family+1 are on a vacation in Hawai'i, there's a storm, they've lost power, they're all camped out in one room with the parents on one bed, the twins on a nest of blankets on the floor, and Spencer age 15 and girl!Ryan age 16 are barely sharing a bed. Warnings for underage sex, obviously.

( Commence pr0n! )


¹ It's especially appropriate that softlyforgotten got dragged into this, since this little bunny is sort of the warm-weather, het version of Walk the Line, her much more fabulous fic that you should all read if you haven't yet.

Most all of the snow has melted, revealing discolored grass, flattened leaves, and mud. And now it's raining like a mofo. And somehow in all of the snow and ice, my car has a flat tire.

2008 cannot end fast enough. :( :(

However! 15-year-old!Spencer/Catholic-school!girl!Ryan. They've been missing each other a lot since Ryan left public school for her Dad-approved Catholic girl's school; most of their communications have been via cell phone and weekend, since Spencer's 15 and Ryan can't afford to buy a car. Except then Spencer's mom is like, "time to learn to drive on the freeway! In fact, let's go pick Ryan up from school." So they drive across town and putter outside the school. Except then when the bell rings all these GIRLS in CATHOLIC SCHOOL UNIFORMS come pouring down the steps, and the part of Spencer's brain that has recently become pretty much fixated on porn goes "GNAH?!" like some kind of Pavlovian response and oh God his mom is in the car right next to him chattering about, like, some funny story at work and he's gripping the wheel, breaking into a sweat and then RYAN comes down the stairs and OH GOD SHE'S ONE OF THEM, she mentioned how itchy her new uniform was but Spencer had thought of, like, jackets and wool trousers and people standing at attention in formation, not her white polo shirt with the top two buttons undone and the plaid skirt swishing against her skinny legs, and Spencer's mom is like, "there she is, hi Ryan" and rolling down the window, not noticing that her son is currently choking to death on his own tongue.

Or something like that.

No matter how insane they may be. My mother and I were talking about my grandma recently, who is getting on in age and thinks she'll pass on soon. As I've mentioned before, my grandma's kind of spooky...but I never realized how spooky until I had this conversation with my mother:

Mom: So we talked and we agreed that you should get the death-bird, blah blah blahbitty...
Me: Wait. Death-bird?
Mom: Yeah. We've never told you about the death-bird? It's this wind-up ceramic music box shaped like a bird. Mom says that it chimes once every time someone in the family dies.

I vaguely remember the bird she's talking about from when Grammy used to live with us, though of course at the time I didn't realize it was the FUCKING 'DEATH-BIRD.' It's this red ceramic bird with a crank on the bottom. Apparently when a relative dies, it chimes once without being cranked or even touched; Grammy says she's heard it do this twice.

Me: And she's giving the Death-bird to me?
Mom: Well, she said you might like it. You're into weird stuff.

Fair point, I guess. I just don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, IT'S A FUCKING DEATH-BIRD. On the other hand, IT'S A FUCKING DEATH BIRD. What am I going to do with this thing? Put it on the mantlepiece where it will keep watch over me and all that I love? Should I make offerings to it? My ambivalent feelings, let me show you them. Let me show you my ambivalent feelings. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:

We lost power three days ago. It just came back on. It's a Christmas miracle! God bless PGE. *smishes them all*

We're still, however, snowed in. Two feet of snow in the past week = crazy driving times. My brother can't even get out of the driveway with chains and snow tires on his car. We've got plenty of food, thanks to my mother's hoarding ways, and only a few presents have gone astray in the weather; now that the power's back on, we should be okay.

Merry Christmas, everyone who celebrates it.

I think it's been said before, but...Ryan = Dorothy, y/y?

"Hobo, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Brendon = Scarecrow with no brain, Spencer = Tin Man with no heart, Jon = Cowardly Lion.

Make it so. [/Jean-Luc Picard]

I find this to be a well-thought-out response to the Warren controversy. Particularly:

Gay-rights activists are outraged that Warren has been invited to give the invocation at Obama’s inauguration, a platform which, they believe, legitimizes Warren’s discriminatory views. Some even seem to think that Obama agrees with Warren’s offensive rhetoric about same-sex marriage.

That’s ironic. Gay-marriage advocates have adopted the same overwrought logic that many conservatives applied to Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. How could Obama listen to Wright’s offensive rants all those years unless he agreed with them, they asked.

Among Obama’s several admirable qualities is his ability to sit and converse —- debating, but also listening —- with those with whom he strongly disagrees. That’s why he stands a better-than-even chance of tamping down the harsh partisanship that has dominated domestic politics for the past 15 years. He won’t silence partisans determined to see only differences, but he can forge coalitions of interest with those looking to cooperate where they can.

The funny thing about bipartisanship, which is really the only thing that can save our country from a recession right now, is that it's bipartisan. There will be people in Obama's crowd that I, as a queer feminist, personally won't be happy to see; I will still be glad that they're there, because that means something's getting done. Now, Warren took heat from conservatives for inviting Obama to come to his megachurch in 2006 to talk about AIDs. He's already shown himself to be someone who is willing to reach out on issues. By inviting him to give the invocation, Obama is reaching back to Warren's flock of evangelists.

Do I agree with Warren on gay rights and abortion? No. Do we still need this man, and the people who he preaches to every day? Absolutely. Does this mean that Obama doesn't support gay or women's rights? Of course not, he's just not allowing the culture wars to dominate every single part of our political climate.

The culture wars must end. Obama knows this. That's what he's here for.

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Man, it is snowing here. The whole world is white. :) I haven't seen a proper snowfall in 6 years, yo! Color me happy about this.

Aaaand, the weird dreams continue. I had a dream two nights ago that a giant spider had lair EGGS in my HAIR and I woke myself up by flailing around in my bed. Then I went back to sleep and had another dream in which I told all my coworkers about the spider egg dream and they thought I was crazy.

Then last night I had a dream that was basically a series of advertisements for a new first-person shooter videogame. Like, they were CGI and everything. I was sort of IN the ads, but I was also sort of watching them. There was this R.U., a Robotics Unit, in a bunch of weapons testing scenarios; the RU sounded and acted like Wall-E. Its job was to go out and capture on film the results of weapons detonations, test flights, and the like. So this little RU guy would go out and quiver on the sidelines while these giant explosions happened all around him; it was all happening from his perspective, you never actually saw him. The ads were promoting the new weaponry, like, look at the boom! Oh and there was this hot chick who was the RU "keeper" and began each ad with a rambly monologue about how happy she was to see the RU had survived this far and what they would be blowing up today, etc.

Weeeeeeeird.

The Sweet Charity fic continues afoot! Mastema continues! Other, ahem, fic is lurking in the background!

I want to get my first tattoo on New Year's Eve: 2008 has not been a good year for me or my loved ones, but I firmly believe 2009 will be better and I'd like to get inked to commemorate having survived and looking forward to a brighter tomorrow, all that positive stuff. I think I'll get "alis volat propriis" on my arm; it's the Oregon state motto and means "she flies with her own wings" in Latin. Which I think is doubly appropriate, both in sentiment and my love for the state. But I can't decide on a font! Help!

I've been looking at stuff on dafont.com, which is a fantastic resource. If ever you need a font for anything, go check it out. They have custom previews and everything. Here are some of the fonts I'm looking at. I know I've got to shoot for stuff that isn't too fancy, since a lot of the more delicate designs will fade with time, and I don't want anything too small or it'll become unreadable. (Also, does someone know whether the start of words has to be capitalized in Latin? I'd prefer for them all to be lower-case, but I don't know if not capitalizing the start of Latin words renders them meaningless.)

I could go super-simple...

bigattino

...though I'd probably have them bold the letters, those are too skinny.

Tintin talking


Or more whimsical, which would suit my personality...

monsterfreak


Leaf 1

(I actually really like that one...maybe get the lettering done in black or dark brown and the little leaf flourishes in green?)

Ogilvie

That's probably too skinny, but I just love the stabby ends. STABBY.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions? At the moment I'm leaning towards the leafy one - does anyone know of any other leaf or Nature-oriented fonts?

I wish to write a song called "Death to Edward Cullen" that decries the tendency of popular entertainment to glorify stalking as another way of saying "I love you," at least when a man is doing the stalking.

I require your assistance in this matter. What other pop culture songs/TV shows/movies/books/whatever propogate this myth?

*flings self at Internetz*
*rolls around in them*
*rubs them all over her body*
*notices you all staring*

Ahem. Sorry.

Oh my GOD, I have so many emails/comments/etc. to get back to people about. HI GUYS HI HI HI, HOW'RE YOU DOING? Did I miss anything fantastic? Did anyone do their hair? *flings self at you all*

Me, I got my Christmas shopping done and worked some more on Mastema and sought comic book advice from flyingtapes and made about 5 billion sugar cookies and put up the trees (we always have two) and thought some more about my tattoo. (Soon I shall seek your advice about the best font to use.) I also almost lost my mind in this podunk redneck town. GAH. Gah. These people. It's gotten a little better since when I was growing up, but not a whole lot.

I'm sorry, I'm just babbling right now, but I'm so happy to ~seeee youuuuu~. I'll be on AIM, someone get on and chat with me, yo.

Guys, I have to disappear from the Internet for a while. Nothing's wrong, everything's okay, other than the fact that I looked at the Wildblue t user agreement and unless we get our usage down below 70%, it's going to stay this slow and agonized. So. Staying off the Internet. :( To everyone that I owe a comment or email to, I'm really sorry. I'll be back as soon as the evil internet warlords let me. Bye.

I have a bit of writer's block -- more like "oh my god, I just finished writing this massive story that took up seven months of my life, I don't know what to dooooooo~ and the internet won't wooooooork~ for more than five seconds at a time, WOE IS ME" -- so I started poking through my bandom writing folder and came up with this: that old Cobra Starship GSF AU set in stereomer's fabulous mutant 'verse. I had totally forgotten about it! I never finished the damn thing, but here it is in all its half-assed glory.


Strange Things: AKA that mutant fic where Frank is the head of the underground, VickyT can stretch her limbs out to ridiculous lengths, Maja has super-hearing and super-headaches to go with them, Beckett is an empath, Alex is an everday human, and Gabe Saporta has the power of DEATH. Yes, DEATH. I have no idea where Travie and Ryland are. I think they're dead. Sorry 'bout that. I also profusely apologize for any and all characterizations in this fic, I'm sure they are all dreadful. This will probably not make any sense if you've never read stereomer's mutant AU.

( Strange Things )


And that's all she wrote! As always, if somebody else wants to grab this, by all means! I will not be writing any more of this.

Guys. Maybe it's just the exhaustion talking*, and maybe I'm highly susceptible to suggestion at the moment, but I'm wondering: do you guys think that self-publishing "The Second Circle" through something like Lulu Press is an option? Not in its current form, obviously: I am NOT gonna self-publish something with the names of Ryan Ross and Spencer Smith attached, thank you, not even under a nom-de-plume.

However, when I've got people who aren't even IN bandom dropping me comments to tell me how much they loved the story, well...that's something to look at, maybe? And I'm NGL, I need the money hella bad. Baby needs a new eye exam and prescription for glasses! And a computer whose battery doesn't fail in half an hour! And a car that isn't patched together from spare parts! And -- well, you get the picture.

But how to go about doing this? As I said, I wouldn't be comfortable self-publishing a story with the actual names of Ryan and Spencer attached -- I don't know if that's libel or legally wonky or anything, but I wouldn't personally be okay with doing that. Obviously it's a little different from other kinds of fanfiction because you're not actually using someone else's universe, but there still might be something that someone could legally take an exception to. Even in the limited space of self-publishing, there's a chance someone might see it when I really don't want them to. Plus I know there are people on my flist who have said they will read anything of mine besides RPS. On the other hand, maybe most of my flist -- and let's face it, you're my primary prospective customer base -- wouldn't be interested in the story unless it was specifically RPS and Bandom? I don't know.

What do you think? Here, let's have a poll!

Poll #429 To publish or not to publish?
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Would you buy a copy of Second Circle?

*I have been having the weirdest dreams the last few nights. Not proper nightmares, just...weird, bad dreams. I don't know what's going on, I feel pretty much okay when I'm awake. :/

I feel like Homer Simpson in that Halloween episode of The Simpsons that spoofed The Shining. Except instead of television, it's the Interwebz that has me going into murderous withdrawal and encroaching insanity.

See, I have satellite internet. Most of the time, it's pretty damn good and it's the only thing that I could get, living where I am. Unfortunately it has two major drawbacks: a) it's an invisible beam going up to a satellite in the sky, so if there's heavy clouds or rain or a tree in the way, service gets interrupted (have I mentioned that I live in OREGON? In the COUNTRYSIDE? With fir trees that reach two hundred feet and a six-month rainy season?); b) I have a monthly download cap that, if I or anyone in my house exceeds, our bandwidth gets chopped in half. They do this to prevent pirating.

So, I missed the Sons of Anarchy season finale and couldn't find it anywhere on the TV schedule on repeat, and chose to download it. Surprise surprise, that put me over the usage cap. So for the next week we're puttering about on lowwwww Internet capabilities.

*fingers her axe* (And that's not a euphemism.)

*****

Another thing I hate about living out here: the way the men in my hometown treat women. Either we're sex objects or we're non-existent. I had this really driven home for me last night when these two regulars came into the pub. They're a married couple who are amicably divorcing, so this was sort of their last night out on the town together before she moved out.

Now, they seem pretty cool and the guy's all right on the (very) relative scale of guys I see around me; but it was amazing to see how she just...disappeared. He started talking to my male coworker and another guy at the bar, and NONE OF THEM referred to her by name. It was "my wife" or "your wife" and shit. Every time she started to say something, one of the guys would talk over her. It wasn't even hostility on their part, it seems like the divorce was totally a case of "your life is going in that direction, mine is over here, I'm sorry, I still love you." They just didn't see her as a human being.

I finally slid down to the end of the bar to chat with her because I felt so bad. She's clearly an awesome person (I heard her taking one of the guys to task for being a homophobe) and turns out to be an artist (she's gonna send me her portfolio so maybe she might be a comic book illustrator for me!), but none of that mattered to any of these guys. They didn't even refer to her by name (AMELIA, MOTHERFUCKERS, HER NAME IS AMELIA, JESUS). It was fucking unbelievable.

*STELE3 SMASH PUNY BAR PATRONS*

(OY VEY. I hate satellite internet. It was the only kind that I could get out here in the boonies, but ho brother. There must be snow at higher elevations because the last two days have been GNARRRRR.)

Panic won video of the year in late August 2006. Jon Walker was made an official member of the band only the previous month. I do not have the Internet wherewithal (points above) to go searching for this, so can anyone tell me: what video did they win for and was Jon Walker actually IN the video?

ficsoreal, this is for the Sweet Charity I owe you. Yes, from way back in Spring. Yes, I suck. *POINTS AT THE SECOND CIRCLE*

Belatedly stolen from aerynvala.
+ stop what you're doing.
+ print screen of your current desktop - This isn't exactly my desktop, but it is my current wallpaper. Made for me by clayeer! Where the hell are you, Claire, I haven't seen you in ages. *goes hunting*
+ if you have last.fm open, print screen - Don't have one.
+ if you have a music player open, print screen - RealPlayer
+ pick a folder, open it, print screen - My folder for The Book, containing all the pictures, files, and other sundry things.

Speaking of The Book, I had a veerrrry interesting chat with wishforhome the other night re:characters. Dean, I totally think I'm gonna do this -- but I hope you understand that I'm going to be plaguing you with questions now! Jordan's as much your creation as mine!

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans.

...because I can't come up with my own fucking characters. Plot, yes. Dialogue, yes. Characters, no.

Is there anyone around that wants to help me brainstorm? Or just, y'know, GIVE ME CHARACTERS THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE AND CAN WRITE? At this point I just want to delete the 100+ pages that I've already written and walk the fuck away.