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Male Pattern Badness

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:42:49 GMT

Yes, I am quoting from The Expendables 2, because, in the annals of bad parenting decisions, I took my son to see this blockbuster cinematic event (actually, in his book, this goes in the annals of awesome parental decisions, never mind the brain cells melted by senseless violence). Why yes, I was the only woman in the theater. The last time that happened to me, I was seeing Shame in the depths of Chelsea.

( more, with minor spoilers )

The school year can’t start soon enough.

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Podfic! and Supernatural redux

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:15:58 GMT

electricmonk333 has done an wonderful podfic of “Two Boys from Kansas in King Uther’s Court”, my SPN/Merlin xover, for podficbigbang. At 36k, this is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written, and has more action scenes than the rest of my fics put together, but electricmonk333 has a beautiful voice and does a wonderful job of sustaining the pace of the fic over 3 hrs and 38 minutes (a better job than the pacing of the story actually deserves, tbh).

CLICK HERE to dl and to see the gorgeous cover art by helva2260.

As people always say, it is weird to listen to your own fic read by other people, but even though I sometimes wished I’d taken a red pencil to the fic before it was recorded (too many adverbs and epithets *facepalm*), I still laughed at an embarrassing number of my own jokes. Listening to the fic, which is set in SPN S1 and Merlin S1 (I even had to invent an extra knight for Camelot, as there were no knights in S1—can you believe it?), also reminded me of how much fun it had been to write SPN fic, which I haven’t thought about in a while.

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Inspired by that, I, perhaps foolishly, decided my sons were old enough to watch SPN—S1 at least.

Son #2 drifted away, but son #2 and I devoured the pilot and “Wendigo” in one sitting. Omigod the boys were cute in those days, weren’t they?

( cut for my son immediately taking sides in fandom’s oldest debate )
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In my own personal Lewis marathon: I have watched “Old Unhappy Far Off Things.” Feel free to share your views on
1) Your favorite lady guest star: Juliet Stevenson? Zoe Telford? Saskia Reeves?
2) Hathaway’s adorable devotion to his guv’nor
3) LFox’s S5 hair or
4) Other
In comments.

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I’ve run three times this week, and done two of my three 10k workouts (more on the other blog). Wondering when I’ll get the last one in, though, since the weather is supposed to be between 100-104F tomorrow through Tues. With a low of 75. Which means that if I run at 7am, it’ll already be 80. *wipes away anticipatory sweat*

**

In conclusion: Why can’t I go see Magic Mike the minute it opens, people, why? I will be kid-free on Tues., though, and that is the first thing I’m gonna do, I tell you what. I need that movie like whoa.

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Stay safe

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:49:49 GMT

Wishing everyone who's more in the path of Irene than we turned out to be dry basements, unbroken windows and uninterrupted electricity!

I woke up this morning to find the storm had more or less passed us by (4 hours inland from Cape Lookout, so no big surprise). It's windy out there, but not enough to knock down a small boy on a scooter. A branch falling on a wire could knock out the power, but that true pretty much every day.

The threat of Irene, however, was enough to have them cancel the outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream we were supposed to see last night (my ten-year-old's first Shakespeare play). I thought it would have been cool to see the play amid the flying pine needles, but I suppose the actors thought otherwise.

Anyway, have two entirely dissimilar youtube videos:

1. Thanks for lilithlessfair I have been watching The Hour with Romola Garai, Dominic West and the wonderful Ben Wishaw. It is highly entertaining, and reminding me how much I loved Wishaw as Keats. So, in honor of the summer being almost over, here he is reading one of my favorite poems:

2. And because every day is crazy bird day:

Okay, must go check and see if I'm right about the winds not being strong enough to take the boys to Oz--stay safe everyone!

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Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender and Gillian Welch

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:24:36 GMT

Just in case you missed this floating around the interwebz this morning: the trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'll sum up the cast of this movie so you'll know not to blink when you watch it: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, John Hurt (& etc.). Don't blink.

I may have mentioned (several hundred times) how much I like the novel and the 1970s BBC miniseries. But this one looks pretty spectacular--and beautifully cast. I didn't think I could really accept anybody but Alec Guinness as Smiley, but Gary Oldman seems to have inherited the commemorative Guinness frames, so I'm prepared to be convinced. I recently listened to an audio version of it in the car, and I got worried that they would cut the character BC plays down to nothing. But that also doesn't seem to be the case.

And, if case you haven't seen the trailer for A Dangerous Method, here it is. This movie stars Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung and Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud. No. Really. And Keira Knightly as Sabine Spilrein. The movie looks slightly OTT (there is caning), but the story is OTT, and fascinating, so I have hope.

Both boys are in outdoor camps this week, so I have been spending a lot of time in the car delivering them and fetching them back. It has cut into my work/writing time, but it's also given me a chance to listen to Smiley's People and the first new Gillian Welch album in 8 years. It is awesome--it was worth the wait.

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