every building in town is a flat one

Gone to Anime Central.

Be back Sunday.

*MWAH*

Because I can't talk about Iron Man enough lately...

All of the following versions are in a very raw state, but I want general opinions on which one you like best. (No, I'm not finally redoing my LJ layout because of Robert Downey Motherfucking Jr., why do you ask?)

Version one (and, I admit, my personal fav, but don't agree with me just because)

Version two

Version three


And now I'm off to totally read for class play with stuff for my Yoko wig, then read for class.

In my first post as a free woman, I'd like to say the following:

I've just seen Iron Man. Twice. In a row.

It was that good.

Plz to be linking me to all of your spoilerific flailing posts; I'm too full of joy to say anything articulate about that movie except for two requests.

1) Whoever can get me that aforementioned Black Sabbath song gets something shiny.
2) Whoever can get me a cap of that magazine cover in the movie--the one with young!Tony taking over the company--gets something really shiny.

I am also in no way contemplating either of the following:

- writing a fic called "[Unspecified Number] of People Tony Stark Has Never Shagged"

or

- crossplaying him for DragonCon. All I have to do is build a mini Arc Reactor, and he did it in a cave.


PS - For those who don't know, I handed in my BA this past Friday. Which means I'm back in the land of the living. It's good to be here.

Okay, I was totally going to make a ninja post about not being dead and about having less than a week to work on my BA before they pry it from my cold dead hands, but then I saw this.

A link to a new Dark Knight Trailer.

Incoherent Squeeing Thoughts (that spoil nothing but the above trailer):

- HOLY SHIT AWESOME
- Heath's Joker voice is incredible because it's so unlike any voice he's done for a movie before. The inflection is just so strange, and his emphasis on syllables...You have to hear it to believe it.
- Having watched it twice has only further solidified my feeling that they're not going to be able to find anyone to step into Heath's shoes if they continue using Joker as a villain in this franchise. Or that if they do, they'd better wear some thick fucking socks, because the boy looks to have done an amazing job.
- So nice to see Rachel Dawes as a character with dimensions beyond cardboard. Thank you, Maggie.
- Love getting a better look at Harvey Dent this time around; Aaron was an inspired casting choice and looks to have settled into the part nicely. Also, him + chemicals on the floor = totes Two-Face, yesno?
- In that same vein, the "where do we begin" line at the start of the trailer = totes also Two-Face, yesno?

Think I'll watch the trailer one more time, then snag some sleep before getting up for more BA work + skit rehearsal + the daily grind. Expect a music pimp post sometime soon. Spam me with your Bat!thoughts, babies!

For all that it was only a few hours ago, I can't remember exactly which link I hopped to get to the posts that I'll be referencing. If you're out of the loop like I was, this is the failboat that started it all. (Note: you will have to scroll down below the blue line to read exactly what started all the commotion. Everything before that is edits, updates and commentary.)

synecdochic has some very read-worthy reflections, I'm keeping an eye on the discussion in amanuensis1's post, and vito_excalibur takes home the gold with the Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Program.


But before I really get into what I think about Open Source or Back Up or the posts linked above, I'm going to start at what really spawned this post.


( Because it starts with a costume. )

And that's all I have to say about that.

OMG PARDON ME WHILE I FLAIL


OKAY. SO. *deep breath*

We've known for a while that James Marsters (aka Spike, aka John Hart) was coming back to DragonCon this year. I just went and checked the site for any updates to the guest list and, lo and behold, we've got Gareth David Lloyd.

After a moment of near hyperventilation in joy, I paused and managed to put two and two together.

Gareth = Ianto -> Torchwood
James = John -> also Torchwood


If these two have a panel together, my ovaries may explode.

So, now that it's 3 AM (and hey, I've got nowhere to be tomorrow until 5 PM) I'm going to have a snack and hopefully finally do some BA work.

To give me something shiny to look at so I (also hopefully) won't end up watching another ten straight episodes of Eyeshield 21, meme!

Quote a bit of my fic, threads, or OOMs at me? Find a sentence or a paragraph that presses your prose-buttons in the right way, and comment here with it? Don't care how long or short.

(If you need help finding something in particular, ask! Odds are I remember where to find it, and it will provide another short term procrastination tool.)



Actually, given the fine layer of dust they've accumulated, I think I'm going to wash the dishes and then have that snack.


EDIT: Something else you can do. Go watch this trailer and flail with me about the movie. It looks like it could be one of those you could watch with the sound off and just bask in visually, but you never would because the story is so cool. Give it a look.

In honor of April Fool's, I feel obligated to point out a few things.

If you like xkcd, you should check out Dinosaur Comics today.
If you like Dinosaur Comics, might I recommend Questionable Content?
And if you're already a Questionable Content fan, you should really be reading xkcd.

Also, I'd like to point out the delightful assortment of videos on YouTube's Featured Video list today. At the risk of spoiling the surprise: yes, children, YouTube rick rolled the Internet and it was good.

Have a good April Fool's everybody. I'm going to bed. Hopefully you won't have burned down the internets while I'm away.

I must have pissed off the travel gods today, because I missed my flight back to Chicago. Did anybody else know that if you're not checking in at least 30 minutes before your flight, they won't let you check in at all? Even if you're only on minute 28? Because I sure didn't.

So now I'm chilling at the ever so glamorous airport, hoping to make one of the two later flights I'm on standby for. If that doesn't work out, I'll get rescheduled for something tomorrow morning. A pain in the ass, yes, but it means I don't have to cough up any extra money for a fresh plane ticket (which would seriously put a dent in my upcoming pattern and wig purchasing plans). The first maybe-flight is at almost 6, with the other at 6:45, so at least I don't have to be camped out all night. Also, in a panicky moment of trying to find alternate transportation, I coughed up the $7 for internet, so at least I can whine to y'all as opposed to stewing in my fury.

...oh my God. I can watch Eyeshield 21 in the airport. And Torchwood. My day has officially improved.

I've got about two hours to kill before I shuffle toward the gate and pray for deliverance. Until then, do you have any Grey Poupon good spam?

I've got some! Fear the Gummi Bear. (It's equally catchy in German and French.)

Did no work on my BA today. Have declared tomorrow (today?) and Saturday to be Work Days; cosplay-related shopping will be done as study breaks.

Instead, I got my hair cut and now feel like a normal human being again. Once home, watched a bunch of mindless TV, not the least of which was a bunch more Eyeshield 21 episodes on ye old internets. I'm getting way too invested in this show, Hiruma especially. Wibbled rather hard over a not terribly wibble-inducing moment (unless you're me, apparently). Am also flailing with joy as I'm almost to the actual introduction of Hiruma's soulmate fuckbuddy kicker for the team.

I love this show so fucking much. If you aren't watching it, you're seriously missing out.

Time for me to hit the sack, but before I go, a meme! (Because it struck me as a particularly cool one.)

Based entirely on my personality (so if you've met me before, block what I really look like out of your mind), hunt down a "played by" who you think would best represent me. Reply here with the picture or link.

This person may be male or female depending on whether *I* strike you as male or female.

Hey, internets.

Guess who's back.

So, what'd I miss?

Despite the fiendish efforts of United Airlines, LaGuardia Airport and the weather, I've made it to NYC.

We're hitting the Strand for great book shopping today, and later there will be drinking and Rock Band.

Praise the fucking lord.

Because psiTunes commanded it, I'm making a post. (Hopefully the typing finger motions will carry over into Word, where my paper languishes in capslock lolcat form.)

I'm in the middle of finals week here and trying to crank out most of a ten page paper by midnight tonight. I am moderately optimistic. After paper crankage, I have to study for tomorrow's final and pack my bags, because after said final, I'm jumping in a cab and going to the airport to visit the boyfriend for a couple days. While I'm in NYC, I'm going to be mostly off the grid, but will return to available-ness once I get back home late Tuesday night.

I'm going to throw MA in the bar tonight if it kills me, because I want to play her and damn if I'm not taking advantage of a steampunk bar.

Thoughts on the strike:
I feel like most of what I can say is much better expressed by gao over here. To add to that, if I don't post content on Friday, it'll be because I'm too busy enjoying New York and playing Rock Band with the boyfriend and my friends. Personally, I'd like it if I could designate Friday my 'finish and post your damn DMC4 epic fic thing' day. I mean, hey, it's got girls, guys and sex all in one neat little fanfic package. Are demons an acceptable substitute for faeries, if they're gay demons?

Also, I've been watching way too much Eyeshield 21 lately, mainly so I can get to the introduction of Musashi as a character and know more about this guy everyone's shipping with Hiruma. Having dipped a toe into the E21 fandom, I feel like I can safely say that not only is Hiruma the fandom bicycle, he's the greatest fandom bicycle since the invention of the wheel.

And now I need to go write about terrorism. *le sigh* My goal is to get to the top of page three, then go have dinner. We'll see how well that plays out. Encouragement and spam are much appreciated.

This will be a short post, because I am collapsing into sleep.

Gearing up for finals week; apologies in advance for any thread flakiness on my part.

Went preliminary cosplay shopping with the girls today and it was frighteningly successful. I have platform gogo boots now. Once the flames are on them, there will be pictures.

If anybody on the old flist has copies of the songs "The Riddle" or "Falcon in the Dive" from the musical Scarlet Pimpernel and could hook me up, I'd be ever so grateful.

And that, I think, is that for now.

So, today was my last day of class in my last winter quarter as an undergraduate. I feel like I should muse on the meaning of that, but I'd rather talk about something shinier and more argumentative.

You know how 6Apart used to make policy changes and stealthily slide them past us and hope we wouldn't notice? Well, it appears that SUP BITCHES? was hoping they could utilize their superior Soviet stealth technology and no one would notice that

THERE ARE NO MORE BASIC ACCOUNTS.

That's right, kids. Your options are now tits or gtfo 'ads' or 'pay up.' And doesn't that just fill you with the warm and fuzzies toward the new management?

Naturally, a shitstorm of comments is already brewing over in news; I'll be keeping an eye on it to bring you the good meta and the epic lulz.


In unrelated news, I actually got around to participating in todays DE post in the backroom. My contributions are Apollo and Artemis at a bus stop and Dean Winchester meets Artemis. (And based on that last one in particular, I'm having breeding-plotbunny-thoughts about her in the SPN!verse and hunting and hunters and what that means there and general giddiness.)

For now, I think I'm going to skim over the news post and then watch some mindless internet!TV while having a snack. Eventually, there will be laundry. What're y'all up to?

First, for those of you playing sleep deprivation bingo at home, I have in fact slept tonight, but woke up to do work on my BA (more on that in a minute). First, however, it's time for things I find much more interesting:

- Like the fact that I've got a copy of the Devil May Cry 4 OST! Don't ask how, just tell me if you want a copy for your very own.

- Britney Spears is an anime character! No rly! Apparently it's for for her next music video. (Possibly an acknowledgment of her lackluster dancing of late?) The first two pics are kind of hot, but the third one makes her look like she's going to be the youma of the week on Sailor Moon and try and eat my face.

- Tomorrow is the second Senior Pub Night. Am going long enough to get my giant free pub glass, then heading back to anime club.

- Speaking of anime club, our Acen skit plans are shaping up nicely. I smell potential victory at Masquerade this year.

- Tracking back to DMC, like my brain does a lot lately, I'm trying to convince myself not to remake my LJ header with THAT picture. The face-biting one. You know what I'm talking about. Obviously, I'm not trying very hard.

- I have never watched a Zero Punctuation game review before, but thanks to some link hopping and a pit stop over at gaygamer.com (because really, I wanted to know what they had to say about the gayest game in Christendom) I have just seen their video for DMC4. ( My thoughts under the cut. ) If you want to check it out, it's here; worth watching for his final description of the game alone--"you could probably replicate it by putting a wasp next to a spider, playing some Slipknot in the background and pouring red and green gummi bears over whoever wins."

- ONE MORE DMC THING AND THEN I'LL SHUT UP, I SWEAR. Again, due to link hopping, I found some fanart. But not just any fanart. Go here, scroll down to the 'mixed' section. Second row, pic on the far right (probably NSFW). Yes, that's girl!Dante, if she were in DMC3 (aka, the game where Dante is shirtless). Dante's...girls are partially reined in, but...honestly, what it reminds me the most of is girl!Dean. "Yeah, I'm fighting demons and I don't need a bra. I'll just distract them with my hotness and then shoot them in the face a lot." (If you want to see girl!Virgil--who is more clothed, btw--then look at the first row of 'mixed' pictures, third in from the right.)

- Today is my last day of class in the winter quarter. Also my last chance to meet with my BA adviser before Spring Break. I really don't want to go, but I skipped last week, so I kind of have to. Am going to try and slapdash together some new BA stuff to send him before I have to go to my discussion section. Thank God my hair's washed so I can flee the house at the last minute without having to worry about looking like a total scuzz ball. And now, to the Afghans.

Messages of support and/or distraction are greatly appreciated.

PEA ESS: You know that meme about blogging about something new? Yeah, I'm in, but I'm too lazy to copy paste.

Why yes, you can has bullet points.

- Has everyone been to read the draft of the LJ Abuse Policies and Procedures? Because you really should.

- Does anybody know why the brutal honesty meme girl deleted her journal/got her journal deleted? Because I just went to see if I had any more comments (since LJ is still sucking and blowing at comment notification) and that fucker is gone.

- I really need to work more on my Dante/Nero DMC4 fanfic epic, but sometimes I just wish the fandom clouds would part and other people's already completed stuff would just fall the hell into my lap.

- There are only three actual days of class left in the quarter. I'm not utterly wigging out mostly because I think I keep forgetting that fact. (Also, the thought of cosplay shopping over reading period helps.)

- While "fall back" is a great concept, this "spring forward" business is for the fucking birds. I should go to bed because SOMEHOW it is 4 AM when it should only be 3 and I have a skit meeting tomorrow afternoon and I really shouldn't let this sentence get any longer.

Okay. Time for sleep.

EDIT: Or, y'know, time to finish up that epic MA-Ramon slowtime. Yay for spontaneity (which is what that whole crazy thing started out as) and boo for seemingly unresolvable issues. We'll just have to see what happens when PLOT gets rolling. *starts building the bunker now, kthanx*

Small state of the Kat post! Perhaps later, there will be music, once I've listened to the things that are clogging up my desktop. (This is what I do with my music now, when I download random songs I don't know. They sit on my desktop until they can be evaluated and then if they're lucky, they make it into the music folder and eventually iTunes. I'm hoping this method will clog my hard drive less. Not that my hard drive doesn't need cleaning. But I digress.)

John Stossel gave a talk on my campus tonight. As a child raised on ABC News and 20/20, this was an epic win for me. Also, they were selling copies of his book and he signed it for me. I know one of you out there has to think this is cool.

Next week, the girls and I are making a pilgrimage to the cosplay hotspots (Target, the fabric store and Belmont) for a preliminary round of shopping. Will let you know how it goes.

I need to print out my readings for Security tomorrow, but first:

brutal honesty

It's my first time; be gentle.

Now, about those readings...

Goals for this evening:

- chuck Artemis in the bar
- watch Wednesday's ep of Torchwood
- write up the Soviet invasion case study for my BA
- flesh out the summarized sections of the Anglo-Afghan War case study
- edit my introduction (add the 'why this matters' and 'how I will conduct my paper' paragraphs)


To make this post matter more to y'all, I has a song!

Victoria Petrosillo - Le Héros D’un Autre - this is the theme song for Heroes when it airs in France. I found it through a Devil May Cry 4 fanvid and, after some serious Google-fu, wrangled a copy for myself. A translated approximation of the lyrics can be found here.

Also, YouTube videos!

- Some seriously badass guitar playing.
- Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre presents...Torchwool (If you've only ever seen ONE episode of Torchwood. Watch this. I highly advise against drinking anything at the time, as you will spit it all over your monitor.)
- And in conclusion, an adorable cartoon called Wake Up Cat

Status report from Chi-town:

UChi-con has been survived. Devil May Cry 4 is one of the most slashable games on earth and I demand you point me towards the fandom (if I don't start writing first). The boyfriend has gone home; we are getting him Rock Band as an apartment-warming gift. I have many books to read, most of which have nothing to do with class work or my BA.

Those of you I'm in slowtime with, expect the tags to start coming a lot faster. However, before I can start picking those up, I need to straighten my room the hell up. Possibility for a longer, better post later. Catch you on the flipside.