RivkaT

It seems somehow unfair that my Yuletide pinch hit is practically writing itself when my original assignment was taffy-slow. Time pressure is a strange thing.

( Sedaris, needlework technology, music and copyright law, Churchill, the racial wealth divide, books we loved as girls, and evolution  ) comments on DW

1. My own website won’t recognize my login! This makes me worry. The CMS is nice in many ways, but I am starting to realize how vulnerable I am now that I rely on something beyond the hand-coded html I can make myself.

2. I’ve been using this free file-hosting service Dropbox, and I think it’s great for document management—I keep all my works in progress, as well as other stuff including teaching materials, in my Dropbox folder. That means I can access them on all my computers and on my iPhone and have changes automatically updated across all my devices. It’s good for joint writing projects for the same reason. You get 2 gigs free, [ETA: I've maxed out on free space, so I'm not asking anyone else to sign up via me any more.  I still recommend the service though]. I’ve been using the service for nearly a year, I’m highly satisfied, and I only get email from them when I’m near to filling my space. So anyone interested in trying the service/helping a girl out, I encourage you to check it out.

3. I’m also on Google Wave now, though I still don’t know what it’s for. I’m rivkat and if you want an invite or if you want to connect there, let me know!

4 etc. Realms of Fantasy has made its Feb. 2010 issue available as a free download on its website. Aside from the skeevy naked-girl art from Frank Wu, I found the stories largely entertaining; Harlan Ellison, Leah Bobet, Euan Harvey, Aliette de Bodard, and Ann Leckie are the authors represented.

( Middleman, Wild Cards, original slash, urban fantasy )
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catdancerz , sol_se , realpestilence , rejeneration , laceymcbain , bexless ,ingridmatthews, ciian , flesh , sprat , grlnamedlucifer , suzvoy , pinkfinity (Cthuluclaus!), gblvr (another Cthuluclaus!), and anonymous givers: thanks so much for the virtual gifts! You are sweet and I feel terribly guilty about being out of the loop right now. I go through feast and famine with stories; hopefully more feasts are on the way, with my Eight Crazy Nights about to start.

( hip-hop and intellectual property; art and law; luxury brands; and sex for pay )
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Fic rec: Mistaken for Strangers, by bellatemple . As an acafan I couldn't not love it. And if you think about the SPN-fan relationship as indicated by the show, the title gets even better.

( Werewolves, assassins, dragons, young offenders, and whatever it is that CJ Cherryh writes )
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Hey, so I have an Archive of Our Own invite code—first come, first served.  [ETA: and, taken, but if you want the next one I get let me know.]

( art & free speech and mom & pop stores )

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( Wilson, Bazell, Price, Pratchett )
( Halloween costumes of dooom! Roooaar! )
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I wrote for three and a half hours on Friday!  It felt awesome.  This semester has been kicking my butt, for reasons I can't figure out.

( Pat Conroy, xkcd, John Winchester's Journal, Wm. Sleator, alternate histories )
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( Bright-Sided, Colored Property, and Clearance and Copyright )
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( high school shenanigans, very good YA demons, M Butterfly, anti-sprawl design ) comments on DW

( pirate economies, childrearing, alcohol recovery, and H.G. Wells' plagiarism )
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( KJ Parker, Diana Wynne Jones, Rapunzel variant, lesbian romance )

Quote:
Often I cared nothing for the woman I made love to. I cared for the thing she seemed to be hiding from me.
H.G. Wells, Secret Places of the Heart
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cathexys recorded a podfic of Tricking! (My very first hookerfic! Of a sort, anyway.)

( A self-help book about overeating: proceed with caution )



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Raising children: 2.0 took two pairs of boxer shorts, mushed them together, and insisted they were a baby. But she also maintained that she was the daddy and that the baby had two daddies, so perhaps I haven’t failed as a parent.

( mortgages, discounting, food, suburban history ) comments on DW

( Crusie & Mayer, Coben, Mitchell )

Quotes:
No one expects the fannish inquisition! – turns out this has been independently invented a couple of times, but it seems appropriate now
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. – John Updike
To a first approximation, every animal is an insect. -- J. Kukalová-Peck, paleontologist (seen at imnotandrei’s journal)
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( Firefighting, suburbanization, war and disability reporting, sexual and racial violence, Bellevue doctors, Library of Congress history, neuroscience and ethics (totally accidental, I swear) )
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Rec: giandujakiss ’s new Castiel vid “A Charming Man,” which I was privileged to beta. It’s exactly the argument about Castiel and what he is/does/portends for Dean, and how he fits into and upends Sam and Dean’s lives, that I wanted to see. Great use of internal motion and lyric matching; superfast cuts.

( Mostly strong women ... ) comments on DW

Things that are slightly annoying: (1) I tried to use a header on my DW (Dean and his weapon!), but I’m only getting the bottom half of the picture. ETA: Yay, fixed!  Thanks, sage . (2) I have filled ten squares of my cliche bingo card, no way I’m making a blackout, and of the ten only five are in a line! Sigh. (3) Got my first flame in years, so, ow, but I will eventually recover, as if from a UTI.  Imagine I had a really scathing reply for my anonymous coward, will you?
( Lemony Snicket, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming ) comments on DW

I have, of course, signed up for DVD commentary.  Anyone is always free to remix, podfic, analyze, or otherwise build on anything I’ve written. In fact, I adore that, and just want links! I’ve also been called on skanky race issues and told I promote heteronormativity, so I devoutly hope to survive further critical responses.

My current Dean song: Carry Me Home, by Marit Bergman. It’s almost happy!

( Reviews: Supernatural, slash/porn/feminism (not the same thing), music and the brain, Columbine )

I’m really enjoying Better Off Ted. Not too many triggers of my embarrassment squick, and some really funny lines. Ted on his strained relationship with his father: “We’re like oil and—what’s that thing that’s always disappointing oil?” Clever like that. (And, hey, I learned a new word for that: paraprosdokian.)

Miles Fisher: This guy is weird, and I like three of the four songs on his free EP. For one—a cover of the Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place—he has a music video, also freely downloadable, in which he does a creditable impression of Christian Bale in American Psycho, and the combination of the song with the images of 80s excess and sociopathy produces a deeply disturbing fanwork.

( parody, Alices in Wonderland, and music video )

Best simile I’ve seen in a while: “He’s as useless as a marzipan dildo.” (In fairness, my second thought was: mmm, marzipan. So maybe the insult didn’t have entirely the intended effect.)

( Harry Dresden, Middleman, Lucifer )