Now, bring me that horizon

Jan Moir can fuck off. She can just FUCK RIGHT OFF.

That is all.

No link. I am doing my best to treat this as unimportant because otherwise my head asplode. Google will give you homophobia re: Steven Gately. I refuse to even link to the googledocs version. Lots and lots of no.

How easy is it to get a tabloid to print your totally fake celeb story? Very.


YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO:

karaokegal's Fourth Annual “Come As You’re Not” fanfic costume party.

Who is invited: YOU! If you're seeing this posted anywhere on your friends list, even if you've never heard of me, please come to the party anyway.

I’m inviting you all to write a fanfic as someone other than yourselves.
For a week, starting on October the 31st. The idea is to write fic in a totally different style/form/pairing/fandom than you ever normally would.


Sell the Vatican. End world hunger.

Proper Toy Story 3 trailer! With plot!

Kristin Schaal is a horse. (Just... go with me on this one.)

I'm about 1/10th of the way through Unseen Academicals and really properly starting to warm to it. Librarian POV is always, always awesome.

Yesterday I read, replied to and posted something like a hundred fanmails. Maybe even 150. Today V isn't here to do the signatures but I can read and sort. Best name of the day so far: Crimson Starks. (Although it's still early. Yesterday it was Sawyer Sendelbach. Neither of them have anything on Tuesday's winner, Logan Strain.)

Waitrose's apple and blackcurrent crumble cake is REALLY NICE.

So it was my birthday on Saturday!

I had a nice weekend. I got books (Unseen Academicals! Dark Entries! The first volume of Girl Genius in really-exists-format!) and a plug for the kitchen sink, and stroopwafels! We made a chocolatey mess (there is both cake and melted chocolate in there somewhere. And possibly also the lost city of Atlantis. We watched Masterchef and Merlin. We went out and had a nice meal and saw Up, which was so lovely, and omg heartbreaking (I pretty much cried throughout, but in the good way) - and in 3D. It wasn't horribly painful, but also not quite brilliant enough to be worth bothering with when there's a choice, I feel. Apart from occasional wow-moments it probably didn't add that much to - SQUIRREL.

(That's an Up joke. But it's in the trailer so... yeah.)

Anyway, I also spent a nice amount of time in bed, and this morning some men came and replaced our faulty fuse-tripping slightly Rusty old hob with for a bright shiny white new one called a Moffat. This is truefax.

Sooo. Yes. Two Bocelli tales to tell today... one I forgot about from Thursday, and one from yesterday.


1. On Thursday, we saw Brian May! He was at the concert, for some reason, and hanging out backstage in the interval. He had a little dressing room to retire to, and a bodyguard who we exchanged a couple of happy words with (He said 'You'll understand if I don't hold the door for all of you,' after holding it for Brian and Friends, and we said yes we did understand because there was a billion of us.) One of the CEFC tenors asked Brian May if he'd like to join the choir. Brian May said no, we probably didn't want to hear his singing. He was very tall and had lots of hair and my actual first thought was, that's a tall many-black-haired man, but he's got a bodyguard so he can't be Gareth. And then it was Brian May. So that was weird and awesome.

2. Here is what happened on Sunday.

On Sunday, Jessie and I trekked over to Muswell Hill (about 2 hours on the bus and tube because the Overground isn't on Sundays), and got on a coach to Birmingham (about 2.5 hours, we made very good time). We found that there was tea and biscuits and there was sugar for the tea, which was better than in the O2! We all made satisfied noises. Then rehearsed (maybe another 2.5 hours?), during which we, the choir, did almost nothing. We practiced a few of the songs, obviously ones where something had gone wrong in the concert - but not, hilariously, the one where we actually missed the entry altogether. That's right - we were going to go on without having rehearsed it AT ALL. Instead we sat very patiently and J and I played increasingly silly games of I Spy. We spied, in no particular order, buttons, bums, speakers, David, footprints (and shoeprints, and later bootprints) on the floor, boredom, unicorns, and boredom.

Then we were released to find dinner. There was very little dinner to be had. But more than in the O2, where there were about 20 restaurants and no chance for us to get in them whatsoever. We were clever and walked further than other people (not for miles or anything) and found a half-empty Nandos where Jessie had an acceptable veggie burger and Imo and I had a reeeeeeally nice chicken. Mmm, chicken.

This little escapade would probably not get a mention if it wasn't for the fact that a) we really didn't have much time and could easily have not made it back on time, b) some of the choir who didn't wander far enough didn't get as much to eat, or possibly anything at all, and c) when we arrived back we just had time to get changed before we were told the concert was cancelled.

... yes. We went to Birmingham. We rehearsed a bit. We ate nice chicken. We came home again. That was what we did on Sunday.

Bocelli came down with a throat infection 20 minutes before we were due to go on stage. He was sounding a bit subdued during the rehearsal and he didn't do nearly as much as he had in the rehearsal on Thursday - but he was there. We think they must have been discussing up to the very last minute. They've picked a date in November to reschedule the concert - but I'll believe it when I see it. Plus it's three days before our own promotion, which is the Benjamin Britten War Requiem, which is both important and hard. And I mean, that's about twelve thousand people had to pack up and go home again...

We were surprisingly unfazed by the whole thing - although J says in her 20 years of performing she's never had a gig cancelled that late in the day. It was just - it seemed to fit perfectly with the music issues, the lack of food, and the three hour bus journey (it was definitely three hours on the way back).

If I had the looks for it and lived in America, I would totally do America's Next Top Model. It honestly just looks like between one and thirteen weeks of incredible fun, to me. Driving around in limos, having wacky-awesome makeovers (I would totally not cry if they chopped my hair off), playing dress-up for the cameras and competing for snazzy prizes! What's not to love? But they probably wouldn't have me because even if I had the looks for it I highly doubt it would be MY DREAM OMG I HAVE TO BE A MODEL I HAVE TO, so I would be rejected on the grounds of not wanting it enough.

Same kind of applies to the Maria/Nancy/Joseph BBC ones, if I had the talent. It just looks like fun. Although I would have to be paid quite a lot to go anywhere near X Factor or BGT - even if I had the talent to get in. Funny, that.


In totally unrelated linkage, this is gorgeous. It's a collection of portraits of authors and characters, by various artists.
http://digitalmedusa.com/sgettis/word/
A really nice mixture. I am having the Douglas Adams one as the desktop picture of my new laptop.

Ooh er yeah I bought a laptop. It was pretty cheapish for a new one and, although I am aware it's completely absurd, I think there is genuinely something to my being more productive when not sitting at my PC. It's very silly and I ought not to let the habit dictate to me rather than the other way round. But still. Also it's PRETTY. I mean, it's just a laptop, it's got a screen and a keyboard and a shiny lid. But to me it is PRETTY. I have named her The Lady Grace after Airheart's airship (which is in turn after my favourite WP series).

I'm reading two books at the moment. One is in the bathroom being read in five minute bursts, and the other is sort of for work - we're having an away day with the adult team and all trying to read a few books in different genres beforehand.

Both of these books concern Jane Austen. Neither of them is actually by Jane Austen.

Book one is, of course, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is predictably awesome, and very well suited for reading on the loo - especially for people who are not natural Jane Austen fans. Small doses. It's very nicely done - the references to zombies feel really natural and obvious and being a fearsome Shao-lin trained warrior monk frankly suits Elizabeth Bennet so well I can hardly imagine what it'd be like if she wasn't one. In fact, the whole thing is making me wish I had a copy of P+P to hand so I could check exactly what it really says when P+P+Z starts talking about zombies...

The other one is The Jane Austen Book Club. And I'm frankly shocked by how much I'm enjoying it. I picked it up off the 'women's literature' pile (different from the 'chick lit' pile) and opened it up, expecting to hate all the characters and be horribly bored apart from when I was tearing my hair out.

But no. It's really entertaining. It's beautifully observed. It's wry and funny and moving. It's about six friends who get together to discuss Jane Austen. That's pretty much it. It's just... each chapter is about one book and one character, with flashbacks and bits and pieces and quotes from the books and scenes where they're discussing it, and it's just... really great. I don't like all the character completely - but I don't hate any of them, even though I expected to.

The only really weird thing about it is the POV. The pronouns the narrator uses are 'us' and 'we'. Never 'I', because there is no 'I' - it's like the book is being narrated by the entire group, or rather, whichever ones of the group are observing whatever's being written about right then. It'll say things like 'we all thought Bernadette had a very good point', which is kind of odd when it's just said something that must have included Bernadette in the 'we'.

I've never read any Jane Austen. None. I've seen the TV version of Pride and Prejudice (two if you count Lost in Austen), the films of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, and erm, Clueless. I feel like I'm getting the weirdest crash course ever...

Buzzing around our window yesterday morning - the single biggest fucking bee I've ever seen. Seriously it is enormous. I keep trying to think of things it's the same size as, and failing. But it's about as long as a standard USB stick. It's like two normal sized bumblebees stuck together. Possibly in the name of SCIENCE.

... and I rescued it! I ROCK.

( Cut for linkage, thoughts, and that really random one-very-obvious-gag comic I drew a while ago. )

For anyone who is on the internet right now and cares - Amanda Palmer is doing a live webcast - they're doing some kind of auction thingy and promoting the Who Killed AP DVD. She is showing it off. Neil Gaiman is there. He told her not to break the internet. :D

http://partyontheinternet.com/

This week's Zero Punctuation is GENIUS. Yachtzee reviews Wolfenstein through the medium of limericks.


New Merlin soon! I still haven't seen the promo. It's not like there is any way I won't be watching it.

Also, there is new America's Next Top Model starting this week. I have been thoroughly corrupted - I should hate it, but I don't, and I really don't know why, apart from obviously having a massive crush on Tyra Banks (and also both Mr and Miss J). And in sort of related news, the list of things that might get me to actually watch any of American Idol is very short. So well played, America. Well played.

LJ, make my meaningless decisions for me.

Poll #1450220
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

What shall I watch tonight after this week's Leverage?

Dear internets,

Good critical books and/or online sources about superheroes and the history thereof - do we know any? I'm going to dive into Wikipedia's reference links and also pop in to a proper bookshop on my way home and see if I can find anything awesome, but I thought I'd throw the question out there anyway.

My totally ideal things would be like, From Prometheus To Mr Incredible In Ten Thousand Easy Steps... or And Then Superman Said What? A Short History Of Trends And Themes In Superhero Stories, including What The Fuck Went On In The Silver Golden Infinite World Crisis Age Crack Period.

Interesting stuff on what has and hasn't been done with non-white, non-straight supers = extra credit.

Trailers!

The Wolfman.
Pretty awesome looking, but hard to tell if it'll be good and scary or just full of silliness. Very nice use of playing with the Universal logo. Plus, Hugo Weaving, who I wasn't expecting. Wooooo yay for Inspector Elrond-Smith-Mitzi.

I'm going to link to the Avatar teaser trailer but I haven't actually seen it. I figure it'll spoil me for this evening. cottonwoolfairy and I are going to see some a free screening of some footage. I've never done anything like this before - bits of a film, presumably all not in the right order, possibly spoilery or possibly just lots of pretty footage of aliens in the jungle. Who knows? Quite exciting though.

Also, not a trailer, but Eddie Izzard is running the length of the UK for sport relief. He is doing a marathon a day, six days a week. The man is MAD. And AWESOME. http://eddieizrunning.com/

I'm on holiday! So far I have achieved:

1 Prom. Technically that was yesterday but still. It was an achievement. Te Deum is a big fuck-off sing. I think it's the first time CEFC's been conducted by a female conductor. It's definitely the first prom I've ever done with a female conductor. She was really awesome. Very clear beats, very nice, wearing a really cool dress-coat-thing and generally very cool. We are also awesome but a) we are one of three choirs and b) you may have to take my word for it because we were a long, long way away from the front of the stage. WOO VERTIGO.

Actually, I think my favourite bit was the first two chords. The orchestra plays a chord, which is loud. There is a bar's rest, during which you can practically hear the organist cracking his knuckles and thinking pshht, you think that's loud? And then he plays a chord of his own, and it is LOUD. And that is my favourite part of the whole piece.

1 lie-in

2 viewings of The Goonies (one with director and cast commentary)

1 page of really random 2 page comic strip - in pen! So even though it is horrible there is nothing I can do about it now (because my computer image editing skils SUCK). I will pen-ify the second page and scan it in and then it will rot away in a subfolder somewhere forever, as it should, because it's terrible. But still.

1 new webcomic addiction (Celadore! Although now I need to stay away from Zuda comics, it's a minefield of addictive awesomeness and really slow-loading explorer-crash-risk pages...)

2 cups of coffee

2 successful avoidances of joining in with wank on the internet. (Sidenote: I spent a good couple of hours last week reading the Fandom Wank Wiki and enjoyed it immensely. SEND HELP.)

0 reading of Shatter samples even though I checked my work email out of interest and I think they're all/nearly all in now. I do not have to look. I am on holiday. Yes.

0 words of anything. In fact, I think -1 because I opened Impossible and deleted a word. Bah.


I am about to achieve groceries, and then this evening I will try to achieve food that is not Matzos. (In other news: MATZOS. They are not food in any traditional nutrient-based sense of the word, but I have so missed them. Apparently they don't grow in Barking. This would make more sense to me if it wasn't for the fact that I never had any trouble getting hold of them in Carlisle.)

I like Steampunk Fridays. There's no particular reasoning to it, I just seem to always find the best stuff on a Friday.

GRORDBORTS WIN.
I want one of these. My current bag is starting to fall apart and it's 'only' £65...

GRORDBORTS ERM. POSSIBLE RACEFAIL.
Of course, Steampunk is littered with potential racefail, as well as potential incredible racewin (imagine the possibilities of alternate histories where we weren't colonialising fetishising theiving arsehats!). Dr Grordborts does have this tendency to use pith helmets in its artwork in a slightly unironic manner. With this in mind, I don't know how to feel about this.

Three gorgeous one-of-a-kind hand-painted rayguns.
The White Devil!
The Crimson Curse.
And the er Yellow Peril...

... I think I disapprove, but I have judgement fail. Possibly reintroducing horrifying and unhelpful phrases we thought we'd seen the last of? Possibly reclaiming horrible phrases in manner of 'queer'? Would the latter be a lot more likely if it was made by a Chinese person instead of a New Zealander? What if anything does the writing on the handle say?

I will might post about this to steampunkdebate at some point. I'd be interested in what the people there think.

Also... they're so pretty. *cringes at own shallowness*

QUICK LET'S LOOK AT MORE AWESOME CUSTOMISED STUFF!
Home Cinema in the style of the Nautilus

Steampunk PS3 (I think my favourite thing about this is where he says he had to do it all without opening the case because that would void the warranty, which he couldn't do because it was a prize for a Sony promotion. It's a PS3 with steam pipes and dials on it that's still in warranty!)

AND THE PIECE DE RESISTANCE IN MORE THAN ONE SENSE OF THE WORD:
http://www.9experiment.com/

I think I've babbled about this movie in a linkspam post before. It's just one of those movies that might as well have been designed for me personally. It's a post-apocalyptic steampunk CGI fantasy starring nine rag dolls and a selection of terrifying machine monsters, invented directed by Shane Acker who I think I recognise the name off the LotR extras (he was one of their animators) and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekambetov (of Night Watch and Day Watch legend).

If you find the clip marked 'The Seamstress' (in the video box on the far right of the scrolly screen), be warned, she is a cross between a giant spider and an evil clown. Seriously, I'm going to be over here having nightmares now. But in the really awesome way.

Oh goody. Two people in my office have come down with Swine Flu, including my boss. To be fair, they almost certainly got it from their many small children. But still, I shall be pissed off if I get it next week, while I'm on holiday.

Meanwhile, I've got Popular going round my head - and not the one from Wicked, the one from Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. AND I can't even find it on youtube to inflict it on the rest of you. Although I did find WHITE SUIT which has become legend despite me not even really remembering it from the first time round, and a Dedicated Follower of Fashion Maid Marian fanvid which is kind of grainy and random but also kind of genius.

So you may or may not know the really icky EA comic con publicity stunt/competiton that asked fans to 'commit acts of lust' with booth attendants to win a 'sinful' night on the town with two of them. (What they actually meant was, take photos of yourself with them. What everyone but the most hardcore ick-nerd apologists heard was, 'wooooo sexual assault is fun and the prize includes hookers'!)

(Edit: ooh, ooh, there's an absolutely classic ick-apologist comment on that post, but! There's also a fairly awesome apologist smackdown. Glee.)

There's a reason I use the gaygamer.net link for this - their writer won a runner up prize in that competition. Here is their awesomely polite 'no thanks' email.

Also, gaygamer.net. I do not have this website bookmarked why?

This is what you get for asking me this question this week.
(It's so funny how I find him not in the least bit attractive nowadays. Shallow bleached-pretty-boy-fancier is shallow.)

Other than that, probably Dracula. You've got to go with the classics. Preferably young!GaryOldmanDracula. (See also: shallow.)

Ooh! Fantastic Mr Fox film really exists and will premiere in London. Expanded cast list looks excellent. Animation style... hard to tell when it's not moving but reminds me vaguely of the weird stop motion Alice in Wonderland that we used to have on video that really creeped me out*.

Funny, I never imagined the animal characters wearing clothes, but now I think about it, there may well have been clothes in the book. I can't remember.


Edit: omg, having watched that Alice's first five minutes again - I think I quite love it. The White Rabbit comes alive and breaks out of a taxidermist's case! He keeps stuff inside his chest! When he gets out his watch it's all sawdusty! But no wonder I was frightened as a kid...

Today I saw a very awesome film. It was a little movie that I suspect some of you may have seen called The Lost Boys and it starred THE EIGHTIES and HAIR and SEXUAL TENSION and also tiny, incredibly pretty Kiefer Sutherland. I'm amazed I've never got round to seeing this film before. Especially since when I mentioned to my sister that I had her DVD copy and was probably going to watch it this weekend, she grinned and nodded in that 'I know you will like this' kind of way.

( I, um. May have made a couple of notes. )

Friendly Hostility has ended.

( Spoilers I suppose, for anyone who cares and hasn't seen it yet. )

In other news, Prince 'of' Persia presumably in the same sense that Lawrence is 'of' Arabia.