http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=e0aa67fa1ec0a1f3ebf94ca8fde0c383

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/11/16.html

hoi polloi: the common people; the masses.

Prompts can be used for any fandom, pairing, or even original fic, if you like. (Yes, any.) All I ask is that you credit me with providing the prompt and comment with a link to the entry.



Prompt #304


You've always been a good friend of mine,
But you're always sayin' "Farewell"
And the only time that you're satisfied
Is with your feet in the wishing well.


Wishing Well-Free
Written by Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke, Tetsu Yamuichi, Paul Kossoff, and John Bundrick
From the album Heartbreaker

Been reading most of the day (Under the Dome) -- am now on page 941, which means I'm almost done. So far a terrific ride, but yes, a judicious editor could've done some cutting. I don't think I care. *g*

Big rainstorm came through late this afternoon -- saw lightning but heard no thunder. It's cooling down, though, which is wonderful.

Put my name in for the Archive. Not much else at the moment.

I'm working on art tonight because I have one more application left to do (WOOT), and I've come to the conclusion that I really need to be rich and/or influential, so I can hang out at the SPN set and take pictures of what I need and not hassle with Google or trying to manip/scrounge random caps and make them work.* This was a conclusion I came to with SGA as well, because there was nowhere near enough boys in civvies--and there certainly wasn't nearly enough orange fleece. On one hand, necessity teaches ingenuity, and I definitely have been able to do pretty much everything I've wanted to do, but damn it, sometimes I just need Castiel in something other than his trench coat.*

Anyway, as I said, one application left to go, and then I have to put together a practice job talk in the hope that a hiring committee somewhere will like me enough to maybe invite me to their campus. Then I get to escape for a week over Thanksgiving, and I am totally cancelling class to do it. God, I can't wait to get out of here.

While not suffering through the sado-masochist exercise that is applying to stuff, I've been amusing myself by contemplating Dean's fangirling of Dr. Sexy, and am being rather diverted by reports from ChiCon. (DAMN not having any money, I could totally have gone, assuming I'd worked up the intestinal fortitude. I'm fucking looking at you, applications and Big Boring Academic Convention In December That Will Sadly Not Involve Panels With Jensen, Misha, David, Or Joe.) I feel kind of weird reposting people's con photos, so I will just say YES to the three-piece and red tie. Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

(.eta: I direct you HERE for one such example. I just... his NECK. *is kind of ashamed of herself*)

Now I'm gonna go and do art. I haven't opened CS4 in a few days, so my poor tablet is all dusty.

* = and I don't just mean Dean and Cas making out. Sheesh.

* = like Dean's gray t-shirt, for example. Trin and I have discussed this at length.

Those in my f-list/r-circle interested in the AO3 most probably already got an account, so I'll apologize to the ones who had to follow the queue-route when I could have shared the one invite code I received. Of course, that means that I still have it, so if you're looking for one, just ask! :)

Also, I have had my own AO3 account for almost a year now (my anniversary is on November 26 :D), so I might be able to answer those questions that dealing with a new site brings up. Of course, some options are so new that I haven't had a chance to use all of them, but I can very probably tell you if something is a known bug, if it is being fixed as we talk, if what you suggest has been discussed already (and what the decision was), which options are live and which ones are to come, etc.

I only have 19 of my works up (two of them new, the others among my oldest ones, from 2005), and most I still have to proofread, but that's because I'm planning to beta and finish all my WIPs before/short after I add them to the AO3 (I know ... :|). I actually posted many of my stories during the Test (last month, before the Open Beta), but they were deleted.

Nonetheless, I already knew this was to happen, as I did it to help test the Upload from URL thingy. It almost works like a charm right now -- there still are some bugs, but they are being fixed :D. This means you can simply give the AO3 the URLs of your FFNet, LJ, DW (and other journals/archives) stories, and most of the info will automatically go to the right sites: title, characters, fandom, tags. You'll probably have to manually tweak a couple ones, but if you use the Feedback form to inform about them, they'll very probably get fixed in the future.

So, welcome to the Archive Of Our Own! Enjoy! My username there is ghostwriter, and I have two pseudonyms: 898700 (for all the fics I had previously posted under my Jerico Cacaw pen name), and ghostwriter (for the fics I co-wrote with littlefurryguy under my Ghost Writer pen name).

This entry is also posted at DW.

Heroes-Shadowboxing
( Read more... )




Bones-The Dwarf In The Dirt
( Read more... )




Numb3rs-Ultimatum
( Read more... )

Hazy and warm, but a big cold front is supposed to move through ... sometime today. Stayed up much too late last night reading Under the Dome -- reached 500 pages, though, so I am almost halfway through. ;-)

Not much else at the moment, so have a story about the plan to recover Sir Ernest Shackleton's whiskey, buried beneath the Antarctic ice since 1909.

Last night I attended a most amusing party. \O/


cthulhia decided that what the world really needed was some sort of Real Genius/Dune crossover:

"Spice. Is. Nice."

"Paul Atreides, I must compliment you on your footwear."


And also crs helped compose the following to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot":

"I'm a little hedgehog short and stout,
here is my tail and here is my snout."


So...that was fun. Sometimes I forget to be social and then I go interact with other human beings just to see if my social skills still work and it's always nice to find that they do...good times.

Everyone seems to be doing playlist-making memes and, since I adore musical bandwagons and I've been meaning to do a musicpost anyway, here goes.



This one is called I Like Fall. Just go with it. Autumn makes me think nostalgia and rebirth, which aren't actually mutually exclusive. Fall, to me, is a good season for thinking, reassessing the past and using that knowledge for forging ahead when you've decided you're ready.

Songs with a * = highly recommended

( Tracklist and excepts are here. )

Mediafire folder is here.

+ ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN! I haz account! \0/

+ MERLIN 2.08, or DAYS OF OUR CAMELOT. ( STUCK ON CAPSLOCK )

http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=a12f60e0ab3e6c00dc71b59e818c41d1

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/11/15.html

agog: in eager desire.

No details to share, obviously, but it's a good thing I've had four years of practice in writing as I'm not because this will be the most As I'm Not thing I've ever written. I'm scared shitless, but oddly excited.

OMFG, there's another Yvi! I've known this (she's written some Buffy and X-Files fic), but now she's gone and signed up for both Yuletide and the Archive of Our Own before me, which means I don't get to be Yvi.

At least there's no other Recrudescence. Other than the person who took that name on Twitter. Gnerf.

Anyway! Now that I'm done pissing and moaning...welcome, Yuletide writer!

( Some possibly helpful things regarding Yuletide 2009 )

Prompts can be used for any fandom, pairing, or even original fic, if you like. (Yes, any.) All I ask is that you credit me with providing the prompt and comment with a link to the entry.



Prompt #303



Romeo and Juliet…
Samson and Delilah…
Baby you can bet…
A love they couldn’t deny…


Fire-The Pointer Sisters
Written by Bruce Springsteen
From the album Energy

First of all, THANK YOU for writing this for me. Yuletide is one of my favorite things every year, and I hope you feel the same way.

Generalities: I'm easy to please. Anything you can write for me will be fantastic. Really.

( On to the requests )

Again, author, thank you for doing this for me. It's going to be a fantastic treat after my first semester of law school.

hllangel

My friends and I are on the Graham Norton show tonight!!! Just a quick shot of us when he talks about going into the future and seeing Princesses Beatrice and Eugeanie. I'm on the same network as John Barrowman, how cool is that?

"The Freeman girl is getting better, Jimmy Sirois is holding up, and Nora Coveland is totally cool. Out after lunch. On the whole, not so bad."

"No," Rusty said, "but it'll get worse. I guarantee you. And ... if you suffered a catastrophic head injury, would you want me to operate on you?"

"Not really," Twitch said. "I keep hoping Gregory House will show up."

-- Under the Dome, by Stephen King
p. 323

*g*

The heroes_exchange Secret Santa is now open for sign-ups until November 20th! If you're interested, the sign up post is HERE

I have just successfully crocheted a long row of chain stitches for the first time ever. It's in horrible brown acrylic, the tension is all over the place and it's one of the ugliest things ever done to wool by a human being, but damn if I'm not proud of it.

Early indications are that my crocheting is going to be looser than my knitting, although not by much, and that I'm going to need cutting out of it at least once in the not too distant future.

But still.

Crochet! \o/

74 degrees, with hazy sunlight.

When I went to the grocery store yesterday, I came around a curve in our neighborhood and saw three big birds in the street. I thought at first they were crows, but they were too large. One of them flew when it saw the car but the other two stayed -- because they were having a late afternoon snack of dead squirrel. They were a turkey vulture and a black vulture (although I'd normally just call 'em both buzzards), and they weren't scared of my car at all.

There wasn't anyone behind me, so I just sat and watched them for a couple of minutes -- the black vulture was busy with the squirrel while the turkey vulture hung back. I finally edged forward, and they still didn't move, so I went around a little bit and the turkey vulture walked away from the car. WALKED. Good God. Anyway, it was really interesting to see them up close like that. It wasn't particularly gross, despite the fact that they were ... well, eating a dead squirrel, but aside from that it was kind of cool. I'd never seen them on a neighborhood street before. *g*

So. Maybe more writing today. Can always hope.

I FINALLY OWN A PAIR OF JIMMY CHOOS.

They are made by H&M, but they are Jimmy Choos nonetheless. My mum went up to Regent Street at 5 this morning to queue for me, and I've got to send her the money on Monday, and I may have to live on instant noodles for the next ever.

These are they:




They are in London and I am not, mum is currently in the process of lugging them home from central London in the rain for me. She is very very lovely.

Right, suppose I'd better go do something vaguely productive with my day...

xxx

A friend posted a couple of lines from one of my favourite Faiz ghazals today on Facebook: 'Aur bhi gham hain zamane mein muhabbat ke siwa/ Rahatein aur bhi hain wasl ki rahat ke siwa.' I remember the first time I read this couplet, in a newspaper article somewhere; how it haunted me for days before I was able to find the entire text of the poem. I went looking for translations today and I found this one by Agha Shahid Ali:

Don't Ask Me for That Love Again

*

That which then was ours, my love,
don't ask me for that love again.
The world then was gold, burnished with light –
and only because of you. That's what I had believed.
How could one weep for sorrows other than yours?
How could one have any sorrow but the one you gave?
So what were these protests, these rumours of injustice?
A glimpse of your face was evidence of springtime.
The sky, whenever I looked, was nothing but your eyes.
If you'd fall into my arms, Fate would be helpless.


All this I'd thought, all this I'd believed.
But there were other sorrows, comforts other than love.
The rich had cast their spell on history:
dark centuries had been embroidered on brocades and silks.
Bitter threads began to unravel before me
as I went into alleys and in open markets
saw bodies plastered with ash, bathed in blood.
I saw them sold and bought, again and again.
This too deserves attention. I can't help but look back
when I return from those alleys – what should one do?
And you are still so ravishing – what should I do?
There are other sorrows in this world,
comforts other than love.
Don't ask me, my love, for that love again.

*

It's a good translation, although the shimmering, lyrical grace of the Urdu is quite lost in the process. I went around looking for other translations. This one, for instance, translates the couplet as 'Other pains exist than those that love brings,/Other joys than those of lovers' mingling,' which doesn't work for me. This one does, 'If these images also seize my eye / even though your beauty still enthralls, / it's because there are sorrows other than heartache, / joys other than love's rapture,' which is even further removed from the succinct beauty of the lines. Then I looked around for VG Kiernan's - the most celebrated Faiz translator out there - versions of the same poem, but the internets failed me.

There are other sorrows in this world,
comforts other than love.

I suppose this one will have to do.

http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=09f0db55013ca9e46eae7db1474907ad

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/11/14.html

quiescent: at rest; still; inactive.