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July 25th, 2010
07:17 pm - What I Did On My Summer Vacation
Which is a misleading subject line, since I am proletariat and don't get a summer vacation anymore.
What I do get is streaming Netflix. If you've known me for long you've probably heard me whine and snarl about television. Not the industry or average show quality or anything erudite like that; I just complain about it all, its entire ouvre, its very existence. I've lately come to realize that it's not television programs that drive me to a frothing frenzy of hate. It's just the commercials. Because it turns out that when I can get the TV shows I want on demand, commercial free, I watch television a lot.
In the past few weeks I've devoured: all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, half of Fear Itself (remember that hour-long horror anthology show last year that went nowhere? Surprisingly improved without commercials!), the episodes of Merlin I missed, some animated Hellboy, and half a dozen movies that, well, if they weren't made for TV, I couldn't believe they were made for anything. And I've started more. Eureka? Sanctuary? Kolchak? Heck yeah! Queue it up! I'm a total desk potato.
Which, uh, is why I have nothing else to write about. I knew TV had a down side.
So where do I go now, flist? What awesome TV do I absolutely have to see?
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June 25th, 2010
10:11 pm - Mid-Trip Status Report
Hey, remember that road trip that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tahmthelame and I were going on, that you all wrote a scavenger hunt for? We are currently on the road and we are TOTALLY DOING IT.
Things we have done include: stopping at a yard sale, posing with statues (repeatedly), dipping our toes in the Atlantic, making a video with a diorama while quoting the Simpsons, and locating the world's largest hammock. We have eaten roadside seafood, late-night Wendy's, egg sandwiches, and boiled peanuts. We've driven 700 miles. We smell terrible.
I'll be updating in more detail when I'm not thoroughly exhausted, but so far the trip is a win salad with win sauce and a sprinkling of fresh-ground win.
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June 18th, 2010
07:02 pm - I Wrote This On Coffee and You Can Tell
There's a thing my sister and brother-in-law and I like a lot. It's called Alexander Rybak.
To call him "the Russian Justin Beiber" is not very accurate, but let the description set the stage. He's in his mid-twenties but half the time he looks about seventeen. He was born in Belarus and won Eurovision in 2009 on the Norway ticket. He's quite adorable. He fiddles. Last year, when I visited tahmthelame and engelhardtlm1 shortly after Eurovision, I forced them to watch the video of his winning entry, and by the end of the weekend engelhardtlm1 couldn't open his computer without compulsively pulling up "Fairytale" on YouTube. It became our Rickroll. With fireworks.
There wasn't a whole lot of him on YouTube. We found an interview in Norse and a video of him doing a cover of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" (wielding the violin like a ukulele) and the weekend ended and I put Rybak into the part of my brain where I keep one-hit wonders of whom I am especially fond.
Chumbawamba's in there. It's a fun place.
So last weekend I drove out to watch engelhardtlm1 graduate and get in tahmthelame's way and trip over moving boxes and eat their food and not help them pack. Good times, good times. And at some point one of them was like, "Have you seen Oah?" And I was like, "Huh-ah?" And they were like, "WE NEED THE YOUTUBE" and a computer was unearthed, and we watched the video forty times and sang along even though we only know half the chorus. The same half.
We do that kind of thing.
And THEN, because apparently our hunger for peppy Eastern European earworms is insatiable, one of them was like, "Have you seen the Superhero video?" And I was like, "BRING IT."
( This is getting long, let's make an LJ-cut. )
Video evidence:
-Fairytale
-Oah!
-I Don't Believe In Miracles / Superhero
-Trailer for Black Lightning
* The management does not take responsibility for any earworms incurred by viewing the above.
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June 15th, 2010
02:40 pm - Dare Me
In about a week, tahmthelame and I are embarking on grand adventures: a sister road trip guaranteed to feature bad smells, weird sights, and loud music. Sadly, we are flighty beasts who have only managed to plan an itinerary with about three stops in twenty-four hours of travel time. That's okay! It's what we want.
But we can do better.
(She doesn't know I'm making this post.)
(She doesn't have the Internet right now.** By the time she finds out, it will be far too late.)
Once, on a family road trip, our dad made up a scavenger hunt for us to play on the road. We got everything on the list except for black cows in a red barn, which apparently only exist five minutes from our house, which we passed at four in the morning the day we left. We even saw license plates from all fifty states that year. It was huge fun.
As I was driving home from engelhardtlm1's graduation party the other day, thinking about this four-day travelstravaganza, the memory returned. A scavenger hunt! But who would write us one? Then I thought, gosh! How fun would it be to solicit challenges from the Internet? The Internet is smart! It knows about fun things!
So how about it, Internet?
I'm looking for challenges along the lines of mild dares, scavenger hunt demands, photo opportunities, and activity suggestions. You post them in the comments. I make a big list, take it along on the trip, and we see how many of them we can do.
We'll be in the mid-Atlantic region. Our trip will hit one chintzy outdoor exhibit, one beach, one forest, and one historical site. We'll be in three different hotels and may or may not be meeting friends. (You know who you are, friends. We would like an email, please.) I believe we'll be passing through five states. We are hardcore nerds. We don't like spending money. We like being clever. We are quite lazy.
Caveats: We are not libertines. Challenges to do with drinking, seduction, or property destruction are likely to remain undone. (I'm flexible on the property destruction.) We're also attempting to have fun, so challenges likely to impair that, like "Eat nothing but Cheetos" or "Flash a cop", are probably not going to get checked off the list. (Unless we can think of a funny workaround.)
Can you please help make our trip more awesome?
--
**tahmthelame texted while I was writing this.
Her: Internet still not working. How did you survive??
Me: Did not. Died.
Her: Say nice things at my wake. :(
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May 25th, 2010
May 23rd, 2010
01:57 pm - Various
For lunch I heated up a Stouffer's meal of "swedish meatballs". It came out of the microwave with an acrid smell that I did not expect. I tried a noodle. "This is not food!" I cried. "This is a non-food item!" So I stuck it back in the box and put it in the trash, and heated up some Campbell's Chunky, and that's what I'm eating right now.
I hated to do it, but we must maintain standards.
Speaking of non-food items! I started playing Echo Bazaar about a week ago, and it consumed my waking thoughts, often my dreams. You run around Fallen London getting into fights and seducing people and eavesdropping and stealing, generally being THAT KIND of person, and you are paid in secrets and weird specialty currency, like moon-pearls and jade fragments and souls. Yes, I own a soul. In a jar. It's green. Will sell for two pennies! Anyway, you can interact with other players for XP and various stats, so if you're on Twitter, get in on that. I need someone to help take away the nightmares.
It's been a while since I made a state-of-the-plants update, so here it is: dead. All dead. The lime tree has enough leaves to continue to justify taking up a pot, but that's it. The ancient begonia burst into blossom and then decided leaves were boring, so it started losing them too. The ivy is okay, I guess. It's so inactive I treat it like a statue that you water twice a month. My parents sent me some seedlings (two tomatoes, two cabbages, two peppers) and I got an aster from church on Mother's Day. All are limper than Steve Rogers circa 1939. There's also a mixed pot full of perennials that are not, I suspect, going to live to prove it. This house is turning my green thumb brown.
Whimsy break: my Irish radio stream is playing "Tennessee Waltz" right now.
I've been reading a lot lately, working through pulp fiction and horror anthologies with lowbrow glee. Has anyone read anything awesome lately? Doesn't have to be in those genres, but they'd be a bonus.
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April 23rd, 2010
06:47 pm - Used Book Sale Loot Report
I finished my last Doc Savage novel, and have been filling the pulp-shaped hole in my heart with Hiram Grange, but something in me still longs for vintage fiction: when men were bronze, women were broads, and children spoke in horrifically annoying lisps, if they even showed up at all. So when I found out about the local used book sale, I (went "Squee!" in an undignified manner and then) hopped in the car to check it out.
It was pulptastic.
It was pulptacular.
( Cut for images of a previously scandalous nature! )
So my bedtime reading is secure for a few weeks, at least, and I learned where the old high school is, which is a nice perk. Add this to the carnitas I made yesterday and this weekend is shaping up to be pretty great.
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March 27th, 2010
07:38 pm - Afternoon
I spent an enjoyable afternoon at Starbucks with the local NaNoWriMo crowd. True confession: I have never actually ordered in a Starbucks before. So I picked something called a "tall caramel macchiato" which is some form of coffee, I guess? I mean, I've heard the jokes, but when the lady behind me put in an order about eight adjectives long, I kind of sniggered anyway. Someday, someone's going to make a ton of money by selling nothing but normal coffee for $1.99 a cup and directing customers to a condiment center where they can add their own splashes of cream and caramel and gold leaf and whatever else goes into one of those things. Self-service: it happened to every other industry, and it'll happen to designer coffee. You heard it here...okay, probably not first. But you heard it here.
I got comics! I love having excuses to head out in that direction because that's where my comics shop is. Today it was crammed full of middle-aged men playing Magic: The Gathering. Which--can you imagine that kind of thing in any other type of store? You go the hardware store to pick up light bulbs and there are five guys crammed into an aisle, taking apart a motorcycle. Yes, I see the tangential relationship between my nerding and their nerding, but I like being able to open the door without hitting someone, and shop without squeezing around tables. And guys...you're playing cards, not lifting weights. Try to keep the stench under control.
Wow, I'm just down on everything today, aren't I?
Whatever. After coffee I hit up the grocery store. That place is pretty much the Disneyland of groceries. I picked up some more bottles of Goya soda, "Cola Champagne" flavored, which turned out to just be a neat creamy-vanilla thing. They also have these kettle-cooked jalapeno potato chips...to look at my cart you'd probably think I ate nothing but junk (which, uh, is not altogether inaccurate) but I only go there to get interesting foods. The milk, bread, and eggs, I just pick up down the street. At least, that's what I tell myself when I go through the register with a single stalk of broccoli and four boxes of pocky.
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March 20th, 2010
04:24 pm - Springtime
'Tis the season! For my neighbor across the street to move his living room onto his porch, and stare at me whenever I come home or leave. I can only assume the mothers in this town have issued no general edict vis-à-vis staring, since people around here will look at you. Just straight-up look at you! I'm used to the city, where we embrace an altogether different sent of social mores, one more compatible with my special neuroses; I've developed a strategy for dealing with this, but something tells me that as far as solutions go, "stare back" is probably not the most elegant.
They had baby pullets at the pet store today, and oh my gosh, do I want to raise a chicken.
I need to resolve this city mouse/country mouse personality conflict, stat.
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March 17th, 2010
06:38 pm - YAY.
GUYS. helen_keeble got longlisted for the Tiptree award for this awesome short story.
(While I'm making with the linkage, thanks to ms_katonic for pointing me toward it in the first place.)
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