Welcome to my livejournal!

My fanfiction website and most of my fanfiction is currently unavailable.

Here is Currency.

Here is 882 Ways to Appease the Heathen Gods.

Here is The MoodRings Project.

Rocking out to Glasto coverage on BBC3 has me thinking about my top 5 most played tracks this week. Links are to YouTube.

Daddy's Gone -- Glasvegas (James Allan KILLS me with this particular performance.)

Kingdom of Rust -- Doves (I am new to Doves, but enjoying a lot)

LoveGame -- Lady Gaga (where's MY glowing pimp stick??)

Mathematics -- Little Boots (so catchy and clever)

Candy -- Paolo Nutini (this is the first song of his to really catch me -- his voice reminds me of Adam Sandler on Weekend Update -- but I keep playing it on repeat. Love this video too.)

bonus 6th: Franz Ferdinand's Ulysses because Kapranos is such a hotass and I'm still listening obsessively to this single.

What are yours?

So while B is away I've been amusing myself by watching Merlin. I've finished episode 7 so far.

( Read more... )

Much as this detour is entertaining, I want Blythe to get back so we can keep going Spooks. Matthew McF's man-pain is addictive to watch.

"Boom Boom Pow'd 09".

*dies laughing*

...

*still laughing*

Best ONTD tag EVER.

It's gorgeous out and all I want to do is sit in the sun and write, but my computer screen is completely invisible in daylight.

And I err, need to see it to write.

DILEMMAS. Sun and book, or couch and write?

Oh, it's a tough life....

Question for people smarter than me at these sorts of things.

I am both job and flat hunting at the moment. Yes, I know, ugh. One is bad; two is grotesque.

I want to create RSS feeds of my search results on certain webpages, for example, a real estate agent where I've searched for the number of bedrooms and the city. I want any new results to come up in my RSS reader (currently Google), so I can see at a glance what's been updated without visiting each individual update.

The site pages in question don't have the RSS button anywhere, so presumably this is not an offered function -- but can I make it happen myself? It's really working great on the sites that did have the button....

If not, any suggestions on the best way to keep track of the sites/searches I'm attempting to monitor? Is bookmarking the only option?

Wow, I just watched Lady Gaga on the MMVAs flaming breasts! and misunderstood and thought it was the MTV awards, and then I realised that it was MuchMusic! Dude. Go go MuchMusic, because seriously, those were some serious production values, clearly my memories of streetcar rerouting around a parking lot on Queen St W are very out of date....

I'm not admitting defeat on this, I WILL reinflate my bicycle tire myself, it's just I appear to have a Presta valve but that's not the real problem, it's more than I'm a fucking idiot when it comes to anything USEFUL.

An hour and a half of faffing with three pumps so far and no progress.

ARGHHHHHHHHHH.

Right. Maybe Youtube has videos on how to make the pumps work....

ETA: Hah, PUMPED, two Youtube videos and one glass of wine later. It's all in the way you hold the pump against the valve with your hooked fingers (if you're like me and don't yet have a fancy footpump with a locking mechanism).

This is all part of my mid-year resolution to not just give up on things that stymie me or wait around for help. Unfortunately this self-sufficiency is very time consuming and frustrating -- obviously there was a reason I tended to give up on the things that stymied me.

LOL.

It's starting to get so I can't even remember a time when it was possible to do a task in one easy step.

Today is our first day at our new summer house-sit lodgings.

Latest adventure (of many): trying to open the washer and dryer doors in my current occupation as huisvrouw. Prying with fingernails. Nearly kicking. Looking for the hermetic seal. Dashing back from the garden laundry shed to the computer in the living room. Realising I very nearly locked myself out in the garden. Cranking up Google Translate. Decoding the orange button as saying "Door". Dashing back out to shed to try that. Nearly locking self in garden in process.

And -- a jackdaw just chased a little finch right into the glass of the door, while trying to steal a butterfly from its beak. And now it's raining, which means I'm going to get wet on my way to try the laundry again. Where did I pack the umbrellas?!?!?

SRSLY ZOMG who needs science fiction or fantasy novels when you have MY EVERYDAY DISCOMBOBULATION IN HOLLAND. It's all action, all the time, over here.

Hi x

ETA: Dammit, totally did the soap cake thing wrong. Crap.

MUHAHAHAHAHAH top tickets to see Bellamy&Co and their Great Intergalactic Orchestra achieved for both Antwerp and Rotterdam in November, oh, I feel gleeful and spoiled! Is it November yet?

Sometimes, when you've had one of those days, you need a picture of a fawn and a bobcat snuggling and tidbits about a Johnny Depp magazine feature.

The most poignant thing I've read about the credit crunch -- the decline of bling.

"People think these big pieces are blindin' but they be like D-quality diamonds, and when you try and sell them you learn they ain't worth a thing," said Slim Williams, who founded Cash Money Records with his brother, Bryan "Birdman" Williams, in 1991. "You can't be doing it like we did it no more."

"Times are hard, ain't nobody rocking it like that anymore," Birdman said.

L.M.A.O.

Ahh, NOW I understand the allure of Twitter.

Mmm.


BTW: Jason Mraz = poor man's Jack Johnson???? Or is there more going on than I've heard?

I join the blockcaps chorus:

OMFG STAR TREK.

Seriously. THRILLING.

I don't think I *breathed* for the entire pre-title card sequence.

Also BEAUTIFUL. Space looked BEAUTIFUL.

Just YAYE.

I am addicted to watching Norway's winning Eurovision song on Youtube.

Are there dance remix versions of this song yet?

Hee! I love that Nora Roberts bought a small-town inn and did it up, romance-style. That woman is, like, the "start your own small business, you women out there" empowerment queen, even though she's totally Roarke herself.

I would totally want to stay in the Westley and Buttercup room I think.

http://www.innboonsboro.com/guestrooms.htm

I am now SUPER SUPER SUPER excited about China Meiville's new book The City & The City (May 15th!).

I am also SUPER SUPER excited about the next Scott Lynch (June 1st!) and the start of the new Joe Abercrombie series (June 1st!).

I shall have to save my pennies for June 2nd and order them all.

Bring the books to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

God, I totally can't look up release dates from my fav romance authors; I just know they'll be May and June too and then I'll be broke and have nothing to read in July!

The video (and song) for Ne-Yo's "Closer" is fantastic in a current desert of bad videos (excepting the awesome Lady Gaga and Lily Allen and okay fine Beyonce). Brandon Flowers, I am still not convinced. Why are you STILL wearing the same tatty feathers on your shoulders??? ETA no wait, that new Black Eyed Peas video is really good too.

This report brought to you by Circe at home, searching for something on TV to play while huisvrouw'ing.

Last night we finished watching the two seasons of the HBO series Rome.

That show rocked so fucking hard. LOVED IT. LOVED IT. LOVED IT. LOVED IT. Loved every character, loved every script choice.

New question! Have rethought new phone idea for now because really what I actually want is a netbook so I can go and sit and write outside/onna train/wherev, and maybe use it to read books etc.

Those of you who have netbooks -- what do you have, why did you pick it? I'm currently leaning towards an Asus EEE PC, but every review mentions the very small keyboard -- is this a big problem for writing have you found?

Again, any insights gratefully appreciated!

Does anyone who really enjoys talking about mobile phones want to advise me here? :) Advice gratefully received as I know next to nothing about them, and the more reviews I read the more alike they all sound.

( What I'm after )

So, we got a Twitter account we haven't "tweeted" on yet (or whatever you crazy kids are using as a verb), but for now just use to watch musicians tell us where their sekkrit gigs are & stuff.

But I saw Captain Cod has a Twitter thanks to the Daily Mail, which half-traumatised/half-titillated with their naked chest bloody picture of Tom in what sounds like some horror movie he's filming. (I don't remember teenagers in my high school working out that much as these HP freaks, that's all I'm saying -- my teenagers were more the scrawny hide their chests during gym types, bless.) So I thought, maybe I'll add the good Captain to Twitter.

Err. Sample posts from "Draco":

i have a guilty pleasure...baths...and...wait for it....bath bombs from lush :) i shouldn't really admit that? lol its fun when the fizz!

it's all about chocolate pancakes! I love them! plain chocolate chips for the perfect pancake, strawberries afterwards = happy stomach

My bad,how did forest gump not make it on that list,has to be in my top ten favourite films!

Dude. Dude. Chocolate and strawberries, scented bubblebaths, Forrest Gump? Is his life *actually* a badfic? V. impressive!

And yes, I was up at 6am, argh. At least in dutch time (only around 5 weeks till we leave, wow!) that's 7 which is slightly more palatable ;)

FRANZ FERDINAND TONIGHT!!!!!!

I keep meaning to post to say 2 recs:

1)
Definitely rent/download The State Within to get awesome awesome Sir Mark (Jason Isaacs) the British Ambassador and Nicholas Brocklehurst (Ben Daniels) the MI6 ambassadorial caretaker BFF awesomeness, and also their pal FBI agent George. Really enjoyable miniseries with fantastic characters. Isaacs disappears into his role (Sir Mark!!!) and Daniels is a hawtass (I very much enjoyed him on L&O UK on Monday too).

2)
For all those wanting and waiting for the new Scott Lynch or Joe Abercrombie books, I suggest trying Iain M. Banks' Against a Dark Background. I strongly suspect that both the above authors read the book and came away greatly influenced....it just riveted me and I loved it. An instant classic for me that really lodged in my imagination.

ZOMG ELBOW! Go on my boys! Girls Aloud! YAYYE!

Watching the Brits with Blythe has been fucking awesomely amusing. The GIP sums up the mood in our household :)

Hahaha, I loved this: Matthew Bellamy as 007.

Heee.

We're on episode 3 of The State Within! V. intriguing!