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17 May 2009 @ 01:32 pm

So I saw the new X-men movie. Now, while I did enjoy the film, I understand why it got the reviews it did. The movie's biggest problem is that, basically, it's fanfic. The entire point of the movie (as indicated by the title) it to explore Wolverine's back story. If you care about Wolverine, you'll have a good time. You get an interesting back-story, the acting it great, and there are a lot of cool explosions.

But, and it's a big but, if you do not already care about Wolverine this movie will not make you care about him. And, as is generally the case, if you don't care about the main character the movie will be boring for you. It will just be a series of explosions. And no matter how good the explosions are, they can't make up for a total lack of emotional investment in the characters.

In short, the movie cannot stand on its own two feet. You have to come into the theater already invested in the characters in order to make it work for you. So, for all those out there who like Wolverine a want to see a movie about him, you'll have a great time. For everyone else, rent the first 2 X-men movies.

PS: I have dreamwidth codes if anyone wants.

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05 May 2009 @ 10:07 pm

I can has Dreamwidth?

Thanks to

tzigane I now have a dreamwidth account! This makes me very happy. She is a wonderful person. :)

Now: Lets see if I can figure out how to use it before my computer crashed again. So, did this crosspost?

(And I really do think it was a coincidence that it bluescreened right when I hit the create button.)

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05 May 2009 @ 01:43 am

Must not claw at eyes Must not claw at eyes Must not claw at eyes...

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28 April 2009 @ 07:30 pm

BUY THESE BOOKS!

Sarah Monette has recently completed her four book series, Doctrine of the Labyrinth. The books are, in order:
Melusine
The Virtu
The Mirador
Corambis

They are amazingly good. Please go buy them! Now, I'll admit my reasons for telling you to buy the books is largely selfish. I want more books from this author, and I think I'm more likely to get more books if she is making more money. As opposed to say, her not making enough money and having to keep a day job rather than write.

( Want details? )

BUY THESE BOOKS!! I've got them all in hardback; you can spring for the first three in paper. :)

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13 April 2009 @ 09:25 pm

Update: Amazon pleads stupidity

Okay, so we know it was stupidity any way you cut it, but they are claiming unintended stupidity:

Amazon's official story:
This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

The unofficial "we didn't want anyone to see just how stupid we were" story as per http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/2009/04/idosyncratic-code-amazonfail/

From: Mike Daisey *email redacted*
Date: April 13, 2009 2:00:34 PM EDT
To: Anthony Hecht anthony @thestranger.com
Subject: Re: In case it gets lost in the comments…

Well, this is the real story: a guy from Amazon France got confused on how he was editing the site, and mixed up “adult”, which is the term they use for porn, with stuff like “erotic” and “sexuality”. That browse node editor is universal, so by doing that there he affected ALL of Amazon. The CS rep thought the porn question as a standard porn question about how searches work.

The livejournaler is full of shit.

md

On Apr 13, 2009, at 1:41 PM, Anthony Hecht wrote:

> Ah, very interesting.. I would actually love to know a little more detail if you have it.. would be great to get the real story out there on Slog, especially as this livejournaler’s claim that he “bantown”‘d it for kicks is making the rounds:
> http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html
>
> a.

(from email)

Actually, I buy this. "Never attribute to malice that which can be as easily explained by idiocy."

Current Mood:

irritated

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12 April 2009 @ 11:47 pm

Amazon, Why do you fail me?

To sum up, it looks like Amazon is deliberately making it harder to find LGBT Lit. For more details, go here:

http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/100114.html

This truly ticks me off on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it disturbs my happy candy-land fantasy that we're getting past this as a culture.

Now, I acknowledge that Amazon has the right to do anything they want with their own business. We, in turn, have a right not to buy things from Amazon ever again. Now, I somehow doubt that they did this specifically to hurt the LGBT community. Rather, I think some twit convinced the higher-ups that having OMGTEHGAY!!! pop up on searches was hurting their sales. Thus, to prevent such idiocy from being perpetrated in the future, we just have to demonstrate that this sort of behavior will hurt their sales a whole lot more.

(PS:

tehdely suggests here http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html that this may be a result of values-trolls abusing the the "mark as adult" button. I'd love to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, if I could actually FIND a "mark as adult" button.)

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28 March 2009 @ 09:09 pm

I turned all the lights off, and as per instructions I am LJing about it. Now, doesn't it a bit - awkward - to turn the lights off but keep the computer on?

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06 November 2008 @ 12:54 am

You are the new day
You are the new day

I will love you more than me
and more than yesterday
If you can but prove to me
you are the new day

Send the sun in time for dawn
Let the birds all hail the morning
Love of life will urge me say
you are the new day

When I lay me down at night
knowing we must pay
Thoughts occur that this night might
stay yesterday

Thoughts that we as humans small
could slow worlds and end it all
lie around me where they fall
before the new day

One more day when time is running out
for everyone
Like a breath I knew would come I reach for
the new day

Hope is my philosophy
Just needs days in which to be
Love of life means hope for me
borne on a new day

You are the new day

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05 November 2008 @ 11:17 am

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

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04 November 2008 @ 11:29 am

I voted. It was amazingly easy. Took half and hour, and 25min of that was just getting to and from the polling place. No lines, no waiting. So don't be afraid of losing too much time out of your day. You could be in an easy district too.

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04 November 2008 @ 09:58 am

It's Nov. 4th

!!!!VOTE TODAY!!!!

It's your last chance.

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02 November 2008 @ 03:11 pm

Election day in the USA is this coming Tuesday, Nov. 4

!!!!VOTE!!!!

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18 September 2008 @ 08:44 pm

Return To Sender

Dear Government,

First of all, let me say I do appreciate the sentiment behind your recent purchase of AIG. However, I believe there has been a miscommunication: we wanted Health insurance. Also, there seems to have been some confusion surrounding the term 'national'. If you could please send us the receipt so we can make the exchange, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
John Q. Taxpayer

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11 July 2008 @ 11:01 am

Why can't I write happy?

When I'm reading a story, one of my qualifications for "good" is that it have a happy ending. I don't read, and I especially don't read fanfic, to be depressed. That said, I find it especially irritating that I can't seem to manage to write stories with happy endings. The best I seem to manage is an ending less horrible than it otherwise would have been. Let's review (and yes, this will spoil some of my story):

Of the stories I've written where I've attempted an upbeat ending, they've ended with:
1) An alternate version of McKay stuck in a degrading low end job. (But our Rodney got back home.)
2) The machine induced reversal of Rodney's trans-gender surgery. (But still better than losing eyes, hands, and most of his face.)
3) The portent of Rodney and Jeannie's relationship falling apart when he rejects her decision to marry and stay home. (But she accepts his decision about the transgender surgery. No wait, that makes it worse.)
4) The horrible side effects of a botched study of ancient tech finally stop. (But only after seven years of intermittent agony.)

Did I mention these were the supposedly happy ones?

So back to my original question: Why, oh why, can't I write happy?

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04 June 2008 @ 10:21 pm

I have a burning desire to see Severus Snape knocked up. Yes, yes. I know that mpreg is second only to Mary Sue on the list of fanfic sins, but I tend to like them when they are done well. It my not happen a large percentage of the time, but they CAN be done well. Really. I mean it. Really!

This is of course assuming the author comes up with a good enough explanation that I am able to suspend disbelief. This is where HP fandom has the advantage. "Magic" is just such a better explanation than "Ancient aliens decide to leave baby making machines randomly lying around" (*cough* SGA *cough*).

Snape himself though is the real selling point. He is just such an interesting and grey character. He's usually controlled, but can fly into rages. He's intelligent. His has a tongue that can flay your skin off. His motives, while they may stray to good, are by no means pure. He lies so well it approaches fooling all of the people all of the time. I just want to see how he reacts to the the situation. And if I also get to see him in mother bear mode, it's a bonus.

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28 March 2008 @ 10:18 pm

On lists and tastes

I love themed fic listed. I think that people who compile such lists (hi

korilian ^_^) are wonderful. Not only are these list a great tool for finding stories I can't quite remember the title or author of, they also cater directly to my joy in reading fifteen bajillion takes on whatever plot I'm currently obsessed with.

I've been playing in Harry Potter fandom lately, and I've come across one such wonderful person, who goes by painless_j She has made MANY themed lists, has a list of other people's themed lists, and link the a couple other people's lists of other people's themed lists. Dayenu, but she's also cross-referenced her themed lists with her recs. Have I mentioned I also love rec lists? She's great!

But this is where it gets a bit odd. Granted, different people have different tastes in stories, but one would think that if you come down to something as specific as "HP gen fanfic portraying Severus Snape at an age younger than 11", there should be a good amount of agreement as to what is a good story in the genre. But not so. A number of stories I like failed to get her recommendation. That, I sort of understand. Two people might not love the same stories, even if they both sort of like them. However, she's also recced a couple stories that I disliked to the extent that I couldn't finish them. And it takes a LOT to stop me reading a story that fits my current OCD.

This finding has now sparked the interest of my inner anthropologist. I had previously thought enjoyment of a story was a simple matter of liking of the theme plus quality of writing. Obvious, this equation is overly simplistic, or painless_j and I would be in perfect agreement on what constituted a good child-Snape story. What then can account for such disparate views? Is it rather some complex calculus on the number of overlapping genre likes and priming on one's opinion of the the author with adjustment for preferred story length divided by the ratio of word to grammar errors multiplied by a tolerance variable and....

Did I mention my inner anthropologist is kind of a geek?

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07 March 2008 @ 11:00 pm

SGA 4:20 - Dolphin noises ensue

( SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Spoilers) )

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08 February 2008 @ 11:21 pm

I must say I’ve been enjoying the heck out of the past few episodes. I mean yes, I acknowledge it has seemed like the writers just threw up their hands and started stealing plots from my mom's romance novels, and that their Effects budget has been reduced to coffee change, there by necessitating everything be shot in one room. But despite this, the dialog has been witty, the acting has been good to exceptional, and I've just had a lot of fun watching.

Especially Rodney. ::Hugs Rodney::

They've even been pretty consistent on the characterization, a rare thing indeed. Yes, these are filler eps., but they are good filler. Cotton-candy, as opposed to the sawdust of yesteryear.

Which brings me to tonight’s ep..

( Trio (spoilers) )

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04 February 2008 @ 09:55 pm

Random Thoughts on Fic

Well, I haven't gotten a chance to post in a while, so I thought I'd ramble on a bit about fanfic and prove I'm still alive.

I like fanfic. In fact, I like fiction in general. What I've figured out I like best are long angst filled dramas, the kind the yank your emotions around and have you sniffling over the poor poor character. Mercedes Lackey described the process of writing this kind of story as "making you like a character then dropping a mountain on him, picking him up, dusting him off, then dropping another mountain on him." Or something like that anyway. Hurt/Comfort fits in here nicely.

This isn't the only kind of thing I read of course, but let's just say that I'm a lot less picky about the whole 'writing quality' thing if the story fits the above criteria. This means that when such a story is also intelligent, well plot, and brilliantly executed, I can spend weeks obsessing over it and years fruitlessly watching the webpage for a sequel.

I've done this for every fandom I've ever spent real time in: Gundam Wing, Highlander, Smallville, SG1, SGA, Harry Potter, and even (briefly) Charmed.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, got any recs?

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12 December 2007 @ 06:37 pm

Do good, go here:

Give toys to children's hospitals. Ones they actually want:

http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

The hospitals have registries at Amazon. Pick a hospital from the board and send them stuff. Or you can just give money.

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