|
|
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012
| |
8:03 PM - I hate everyone right now.
|
|
| Monday, May 21st, 2012
| |
11:27 AM - WisCon cannot come soon enough.
|
I mean, it's coming Friday (for me; I'm flying out Friday morning), which is, objectively, pretty soon. But not soon enough, dammit.
Low-key weekend; I went to the Kennedy Center with ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) alpheratz Friday night to hear Nelson Freire play the second Brahms piano concerto, which was lovely. And I watched the three-part Community finale: ( Spoilers and feelings behind the cut )
I also bleached my hair and dyed it purple Thursday night. I am hoping that this might summon a job interview out of the ether, in the way that going out without an umbrella will conjure rain. It's not at all colorfast and I'll need to keep touching it up, but I have half a bottle left so that's not a problem.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/842047.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Saturday, May 19th, 2012
| |
11:35 PM - Dear Avengers Fandom:
|
My offer to Norse-pick your Thor story still stands.
I would also be overjoyed, if you do not have access to the online OED yourself*, to provide you with a full list of historical citations for any word or phrase whose current usage you suspect might take take Steve Rogers by surprise. Seriously, it is not a problem. Please ask!
*Which you might! If you have a card at a university library or large public library that maintains a subscription, you can probably access the online OED through the library's webpage!
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/841799.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Monday, May 14th, 2012
| |
11:00 PM - Meme answers!
|
|
| |
12:56 PM - I feel like starting a meme.
|
Remember the Hypothetical AU meme, and how much fun it was?
I feel like doing something like that again. So let's play the Hypothetical Crossover game! Name any two fandoms you know I'm familiar with*, and I will tell you how I would, hypothetically, cross them over!
Take the meme, spread the meme, do the meme, love the meme.
*If I've written it, or written about it, it's fair game-- try the TV, Movies, and Books Read tags in my tag list.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/841316.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Monday, May 7th, 2012
| |
2:37 PM - A few things
|
1.) Work appears to be blocking LJ. They usually only block for security reasons, malware etc-- anyone know what might be going on?
2.) Avengers!
So, a couple of weeks ago on Community-- this is related, I swear-- there was a bit where wackiness, in the form of Dean Pelton, ensued at Abed, and Abed turned to Troy (and the camera) and deadpanned "I need help reacting to something."
And I had to pause it for about five minutes to catch my breath, because THAT! RIGHT THERE! That is fandom in six words.
So, I saw Avengers on Saturday, and I am so glad that all of you were there to help me react to it. ( Nattering about modes of fannish engagement, much more than about the actual movie. No spoilers for Avengers, but comments may be spoilery. )
3.) Meanwhile, in fandoms I am in-- I'm not 100% sure it made the cut, since the panel poll only closed this weekend, but in the event that it did, would anyone like to co-mod "Doctor Who: Beyond Wibbly-Wobbly" with me? Panel description:
As if 32 seasons and counting of broadcast TV (not counting multiple spinoffs) weren't daunting enough, the Doctor Who franchise also encompasses audioplays, books, comics, and unlicensed video spinoffs-- multiple lines of each, often written by the show's writers or starring its actors, and all borrowing from each other, or lending elements to current TV continuity. Not to mention webcasts, games, the Peter Cushing movies, and multiple stage productions. So where is the good stuff? How do we find it? And is there any fic for it once we do? This panel is for resource-sharing, recs and anti-recs, pimping and discussion of the vast and confusing world of Doctor Who paracanon.
Most of my paracanon experience is with the Big Finish audios, which I would be more than happy to have an entire panel on, because they're wonderful, but I would love to have a co-mod who's read more of the books and/or comics than I have. Or really any co-mod at all. Anyone out there going to Con.TXT and have strong feelings about Doctor Who paracanon? Wanna run a panel with me?
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/840835.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Sunday, May 6th, 2012
| |
10:10 PM - Character roulette results!
|
|
| Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
| |
12:27 AM - Books finished, April
|
|
| Monday, April 23rd, 2012
| |
10:48 PM - Character list meme
|
The character list meme is back! And it's been two years since I've done it, so here goes! You know the drill:
1) Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment. (That way you're not leading the questions asked to fit the characters.)
2) Ask your flist to post questions in the comments.
For example:
'One, Nine and Fifteen move in together. Is this a really bad idea?'
'Under what circumstances might Five and Seven fall in love?'
'Which character on the list would you most want on your side in a zombie invasion?'
3) After your flist has asked enough questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.
Ask away, and in a few days, I shall answer!
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/839959.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Saturday, April 21st, 2012
| |
5:22 PM - This week's interesting morsels from the menu transcription project
|
Not as exciting as the menu from the Volapük Club Banquet, but still of interest for their circumstances, if not their cuisine: a twenty-year reunion dinner for veterans of the Brainerd, Minnesota Blueberry War, and a dinner given to the National Academy of Sciences by, I think, Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell of "The Yellow Wallpaper" fame. (I'm not so sure of the identification; the handwritten note on the back seems to call him J. S. Weir Mitchell, but the time and place are appropriate (Philadelphia, 1901), and the thing that looks like a J also looks a lot like the D in 'Dinner', and I suspect it may be an idiosyncratic way of writing 'Dr.')
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/839896.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Friday, April 20th, 2012
| |
10:31 AM - I would like to state, for the record,
|
|
| Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
| |
6:18 PM - I had almost a whole hour
|
|
| |
12:45 PM - AO3 Hits Meme, Revisited
|
|
| Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
| |
12:06 PM - WisCon panel assignmments
|
I am on three panels at this year's WisCon:
Vid Party Conversation, Sat, 2:30–3:45 pm
We'll discuss some of the vids shown at the vid party, and vidding in general.
Spoiler Rules,Sun, 10:00–11:15 am
Guest of Honor Debbie Notkin wrote a fascinating essay, "On Spoiling the Plot." http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050815/notkin-c.shtml What are your preferences for plot spoilers? Do you hate it when people give away a major plot twist? Are you equally frustrated when someone gives away even minor elements of a plot in your presence? Is there a time limit for revealing spoilers? And why do the same people who hate to have book plots spoiled for themselves eagerly view very spoiling movie previews?
What I Like About You: Negotiating Layers of Fannishness, Sun, 10:00–11:15 pm
What does it mean to be a fan of a source? Fannish love takes many different forms: consumption, discussion, squee, analysis, transformative works, critique, and deconstruction are just some of the many ways we engage with fandom. How do we balance the many, sometimes competing modes of fannish engagement within ourselves and our communities?
I'll be at the con Friday through Monday, and probably leaving Monday around noon. Is anyone planning on driving to/from Milwaukee at those times?
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/838579.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Friday, April 6th, 2012
| |
9:11 PM - Books finished, January-March
|
( Pratchett, Valente, Ryan and Jethá, Bengtsson, Healey, Lee, O'Brian, Novik, Graeber, Blank, Rex, de Bodard, O'Brian )
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/837932.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
| |
1:07 AM - San Francisco
|
I am definitely seeing it at its best-- it was a beautiful clear sunny day in the mid-sixties-- but on the basis of the last day and a half, I'm pretty sure San Francisco is the most wonderful city in the world and I want to live here.
So I left the con Sunday morning-- there will be a FogCon con report at some point-- and decamped to laurashapiro's, and she showed me all around her delightful neighborhood and then she and her partner took me to Borderlands, where I spent my entire book budget for the trip and the next several months.
And today I got up very early and took an early morning tour bus out to Muir Woods-- it was that or spend half the day on transit just getting there, and I think I made the right choice. The redwoods were every bit as amazing as promised-- I have no words. There was a brief jaunt to the Muir Beach Overlook, where I think there were ravens-- at least, crows, even massive steroidal ones, still caw, and these birds made a noise almost like a sow's grunt. I ditched the tour in Sausalito and took a ferry back across the bay, and there were wonderful views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz and the skyline, and I saw a sea lion! Just swimming along as though being a sea lion was a perfectly normal thing!
Lunch was a sandwich from Acme Bread at the Ferry Building, and then I spent pretty much the whole afternoon walking-- up to City Lights (where I bought nothing, because I spend all my book money at Borderlands) and all through and around Chinatown, and around Union Square and down Market Street, and then back toward Noe Valley in stages-- there was a break to admire the view from Dolores Park, and another one at Omnivore Books, the food bookstore (where I bought nothing because the first thing I pulled off the shelf turned out to have a $500 price tag. Admittedly, it was an out-of-print translation of Apicius, but still).
And then dinner at Incanto with Laura and a grad school friend. Conversation good, food amazing, and I probably don't need to eat any more meat this week, or possibly ever. There was fake-spaghetti made of pork skin cooked to meltingly tender and then drizzled with beef tallow. There was a cake of chopped pig's trotter fried crisp on the outside and topped with foie gras, and I really did not need to know that foie gras was that tasty. On the other hand, I am very happy know that seared lamb's liver (with baby beets and chives) is that tasty, because I can make that happen in my kitchen.
And now I am very tired and very full of food and losing the ability to put words together. But, vacation! Is happening. Is lovely. Is full of wonderful things, and I still have another two whole days of it to enjoy.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/837387.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Thursday, March 29th, 2012
| |
9:48 PM - Down and safe. And starving.
|
|
| Monday, March 26th, 2012
| |
4:24 PM - Con.TXT panel suggestions continued
|
I have just suggested five panels for Con.TXT. And volunteered to moderate all of them, uff da. If even some of these make the cut, I am going to be looking for co-mods.
Doctor Who: Moff’s Long Game
Season 6 started us on a long plot-arc that hasn’t resolved yet. How many loose ends has Moffat left hanging? How confident are we that he’ll wrap them up? And where are we going in the meantime? Come and share criticism and/or celebration of the last season, and speculation and spoilers for the next one!
Beyond Wibbly-Wobbly
As if 32 seasons and counting of broadcast TV (not counting multiple spinoffs) weren’t daunting enough, the Doctor Who franchise also encompasses audioplays, books, comics, and unlicensed video spinoffs—multiple lines of each, often written by the show’s writers or starring its actors, and all borrowing from each other, or lending elements to current TV continuity. Not to mention webcasts, games, the Peter Cushing movies, and multiple stage productions.
So where is the good stuff? How do we find it? And is there any fic for it once we do? This panel is for resource-sharing, recs and anti-recs, pimping and discussion of the vast and confusing world of Doctor Who paracanon.
Community 201: Queer (Meta)narratives in the Contemporary Sitcom
Seminar, pass/fail. Prerequisites: Community seasons 1-3, ALL THE FEELINGS. Discussion topics may include Troy and Abed’s frustratingly queer bromance, the Dean’s frustratingly queer everything, the conflation of Britta’s personal and political axes of Fail, the problematics of Pierce’s role, Annie and narratives of adulthood, and audience response and Inspector Spacetime fandom, and the use of metafiction to subvert narrative expectations. We will also address the questions of where the good fanfic is and why there isn’t more of it, dammit.
All Things Vorkosigan
Spoiler-heavy discussion panel for all things Vorkosigan: What we love most about the books, where they fail, where we’d like them to go next, where to find the best fanfic, which characters give the best life advice, and just how much we’re anticipating—or dreading-- Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.
Small Fandom Speed Dating
Searching for a new fandom? Or have a small fandom you want to pimp? Come, stand up, and say what you’re looking for, or what your fandom has to offer, and we will do our best to matchmake. Bringing handouts or visual aids is encouraged; long-windedness is not, and your moderators will enforce brevity (possibly with noisemakers).
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/836499.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| |
10:20 AM - Weekend; Con.TXT panel brainstorming
|
Busy weekend-- or at least, a busy and social Saturday, followed by a Sunday curled up on the couch playing Civ IV and ignoring my laundry. cinco and I went to the Reason Rally, an atheist/secularist rally on the Mall. Verdict-- surprisingly well-attended given the constant drizzle, but I want to kick whoever was in charge of programming. ( Because really )
Then in the evening, I met neotoma and greenygal for dinner and John Carter, which I recommend catching while it's in the theaters-- it's a thoroughly enjoyable swords-and-sandals popcorn epic, and I am staggered by how incompetently it's been marketed. ( Because really. No spoilers beyond what you'd get from the trailer. )
And now panel suggestions are open for Con.TXT. Help me brainstorm what to propose! I feel strongly that there should be a Doctor Who panel. I would also like to do a panel-- probably half discussion and half pimping-- for Doctor Who paracanon, but I really only know the audios. Any fans of Doctor Who books and/or comics want to co-mod a paracanon panel with me?
My other main fandom at the moment is Vorkosigan. How much interest would there be in a Vorkosigan panel? I'm probably going to propose one, even if it's unlikely to make the cut.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/836285.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Friday, March 23rd, 2012
| |
11:38 PM - Gastronomy and historical conlanging (...is the name of my Community spec script)
|
I have just found what is, beyond a doubt, the niftiest thing in the New York Public Library menu collection: The menu for a dinner given in 1892 by the Worcester, Massachusetts Volapük Club!
(Volapük, as-you-know-Bob, was a constructed language-- earlier, more cumbersome, and rather less successful than Esperanto, and based on some truly questionable linguistic assumptions-- e.g., that /r~l/ was too difficult a contrast to expect speakers from every linguistic background to learn, but that /u~ü~i/ and /o~ö~e/ were just peachy.)
The menu is a wild blend of the completely understandable and the staggeringly opaque. I have not gone looking for resources for translation, and probably won't. But it's a wonderful glimpse of a century-dead fandom.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/836093.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
| |
8:12 PM - Temporarily phone-less
|
I am getting a new phone-- hopefully tomorrow, but maybe not until Monday if it doesn't arrive overnight-- and am without phone service until it arrives. Meanwhile, email will still reach me at home or at work.
(It is a cheap stupidphone and strictly speaking a step down from the current one, but I never use the current phone's higher functions anyway. I finally looked at the numbers* and figured out that I will save at least 50% of my phone bill and quite possibly a great deal more by moving to a daily prepaid plan-- for which my current phone is, alas, not eligible, but the cost of the cheapest one that is will be more than covered by the savings within the first month.)
*I used two of my minutes last month. TWO. Admittedly this is an abnormally light month, but not by all that much.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/835761.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Friday, March 16th, 2012
| |
1:49 PM - Favorite things in San Francisco?
|
I posted a while a go that I am going to FogCon! I am also spending a few days after the con in San Francisco, staying with the lovely laurashapiro and doing the tourist thing; I'm flying home on Thursday, 4/5.
This will be my first visit to the Bay Area. What should I not miss seeing/doing/eating? Recommend me anything and everything!
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/835451.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Thursday, March 15th, 2012
| |
10:26 PM - Community 3x11, "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts"
|
|
| |
4:23 PM - Well, shit.
|
|
| Friday, March 9th, 2012
| |
4:53 PM - Crucible of Gold
|
|
| Thursday, March 8th, 2012
| |
9:03 PM - Still not finished with Crucible of Gold--
|
|
| Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
| |
11:26 PM - So remember how, in Tongues of Serpents, not that much actually happened?
|
|
| Monday, March 5th, 2012
| |
4:13 PM - Little flying robots playing the James Bond theme.
|
|
| Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
| |
9:05 PM - ISO darning tutor
|
If you know of anyone in the DC area who knows how to do duplicate stitch or swiss darning-- or anyone who's going to be at FogCon or WisCon, for that matter-- I am getting kind of desperate to learn. There's no one at either of the local yarn shops I frequent who knows how, I haven't found a book on the subject or any online tutorial that makes the slightest bit of sense to me, and I have just had the most frustrating two hours ever trying to follow this and this and they don't. actually. explain. ANYTHING. Seriously, I had forgotten it was possible to be this frustrated, there were TEARS and WINE, more of either than I really wanted to deal with on a weeknight, and I finally gave up and sort of-- I don't even know, whipstitched a bunch of yarn over both holes I was working on? IDEK, they were both on the bottom of the foot and I finally figured that since I had comprehensively ruined any chance of making them look pretty I might as well just get the ends out of the way and figure that the whole thing would felt up with wear anyway, that's why we like wool in the first place. But, you know, eventually I am going to have to deal with a hole somewhere visible and I really would like to be prepared.
I don't want links-- at least, not unless you have one in a step-by-step set of schematic drawings, non-animated, with explanatory text on each one, and I'm pretty sure there is no such animal on the web because I have looked.
I would like to know if you know of a live person who understands this and who might be willing to give me a lesson. I will pay in cash or in kind.
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/833426.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
| Monday, February 27th, 2012
| |
3:39 PM - Cook ALL THE THINGS. ALL OF THEM.
|
I have really fallen off the internet these last few weeks, so I have entirely failed to write about the massive cooking challenge that cinco and jrho put together, based roughly on the show Chopped. But! They put together a cooking challenge! And two weeks ago they gave kinetikatrue three coolers of random evil ingredients, and last week was alpheratz's turn, and Saturday was mine!
The challenge was to cook three courses, enough for the assembled cooks, hosts, and guest judges, using the three or four ingredients provided plus whatever else was on hand. I had 35 minutes for the appetizer, 55 for the entree, and 35 for the dessert; that includes a 5-minute research period, though I did not end up doing any research.
Because I am a glutton for punishment wanted to host an actual dinner party, not just a cocktail party with food, but realized I probably couldn't depend on producing enough edible food to feed a crowd under those constraints, I made a three-course dinner of things requiring no last-minute prep, cooked while the guests were eating, and relieved each course with a small portion of the challenge dish. Basically, I spent the entire day on my feet in the kitchen and had pretty much the BEST TIME EVER, but then didn't get off the couch yesterday.
( Menu details behind the cut )
So, long story short: cinco is an evil genius, cooking is fun, and sometimes I get kind of ridiculously competitive.
(Also, someone left a tartan scarf at my place. holli, is it yours?)
This entry was originally posted at http://ellen-fremedon.dreamwidth.org/833228.html. There are  : comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
