Epee's World

A farewell tribute to Ol' Blue, the trusty suitcase that ported so many zines home from conventions. Stuffed to the seems with 40 lbs. of zines until he could barely zip shut, he always saw my smut home safely. All those conventions have taken their toll and it's time to let the old boy go to the Salvation Army. Hopefully he'll find another life transporting something lighter, like some grandmother's lacy granny panties and crossword puzzle books as she flies north from Florida to visit her grandchildren. Gramma will never know that the little blue suitcase she's pulling behind her at Dulles once led another life as a conveyer of gay porn. I think that's rather sweet.

I'm spending the weekend cleaning out and cleaning up my apartment. I'm likely moving to a bigger, brighter, beyootiful apartment soon and the less I have to move, the better. So I've literally emptied out everything I have in closets, hidden under beds and tables, etc. and it's piled in my living room. I'm making my way through it all to donate to charity, then going through the linen closet and it's millions of tiny bottles and doodads and sorting through that as well. Fear me! I'll be lucky if this is done by Monday (plus my latest graphics project, which remains only kinda sorta started), but I can put a helluva dent in it.

So, my list o' thanks. I had a list that for the most part looked like every list of gratitude - family, friends, job, health, internet, gadgets (what?). But I've been feeling rather glum lately, fighting off the cold weather blues, and these two kiddos have been the best ever. I am thankful for the Sith kittehs, who keep my sanity (mostly) and are always there to comfort and be comforted. I am a grateful human slave, even when they barf on my bed. With me in it.

( Click for Sith kittehs pic )

So yeah, because my sleep schedule's been so fucked up, I haven't been taking my Wellbutrin. I really really need to remember that it's not optional.

Dinner tonight, which should have been dinner last night, was good, but it was only half of what I meant to serve and the meat was just a little too pink even though my meat thermometer said it was a lot more done that it turned out to be.* I really didn't feel the cooking vibe so we had the caramelized butternut squash/sweet potato dish (which was very good) and lamb, which was very good even if it was a little pink. We'll have greens and mashed potatoes tomorrow.

Things would have been a lot smoother if I'd been taking my meds, as it was I stressed this one waaaaaay too much.



*Um, hi...I'm really not in the mood for recommendations or helpful hints or solutions or whatever here.

Here's a piece of advice for anyone who is participating in any kind of LJ/IJ/DW based fest at any time of the year: when you email the mods, include your journal user ID, especially if your user ID isn't the same as your email address.

If your email address is the same as your journal ID, it makes things a little easier, but it would still be nice to include your ID nonetheless.

Here's the thing. Unless you communicate via email with the mods outside of the fest enough that it's reasonable to assume they know to associate that email address with you, chances are the mods will have no clue who's emailing them and will have to take the extra step of consulting a spreadsheet in order to figure it out.

When a fest mod is juggling 30+, 40+, 50+, or more fest participants, they are not going to remember who everyone is. They might not know you, they might not interact with you outside of the fest, or they might not remember. There are people who have participated in Snupin Santa just about every year, and I still wouldn't know them from an email address alone, much less know all the new people who rotate in and out each year.

So if a fest mod asks you to include your user ID and/or the name of your recipient in your emails, please try to remember to do it. It's not just a busy-work request; it can save the mod a little extra time (and let's be honest: a little extra irritation) if they know who they're dealing with straight-away instead of having to look it up. Trust me, trawling through a spreadsheet and looking for one person's email address out of 50-60 (or more) names is a pain in the ass.

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/518068.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

Right now I'm mostly thankful that I no longer have a migraine.

There's food in the oven and I'll do a much longer post about it all later.

Hope those of you who celebrate (and those how don't) had a great day!

Naturally, I requested Static Shock, and now I'm spreading the word in hopes this will reach someone who can actually write Static fic. :)

I now own a Philips MP3/video player*. So, does anyone know how I can get my various AVI files (and DVDs) into SMV format so I can take them places with me? Preferably a free way?

*And a pair of boots that are too narrow in the heel, so I'll have to return them. :(

Edit of SQUEE: I just realized I can now conveniently listen to podfics!

We went down to Salinas to J's sister's new place, and holy crap is it huge. It's got a nifty layout, and infinitely more space than their old house. We hadn't seen Natalie since before she was walking so it took a while for her to stop giving J and I the suspicious eye, but by the end of the night it was lots of carry-me arms, and where Sophie is usually all about her Uncle J, somehow this time I ended up with her hanging on me more often than not. I suspect it was that I was wearing a pink shirt so that boosted my coolness rating. It's interesting to see the ways her personality has changed now that she's a big sister. Sometimes I wish we lived a bit closer in order to visit more often.

Anyway, we hung out, ate food, played with dolls, tried to devise a plan to steal their adorable pug, and at the end of the evening I got the bonus of belated b-day gifts. See subject. I have also increased my fuzzy scarf collection by one, so I should probably put out some of the ones I don't wear often out onto the curb.

The drive was nice, and J and I talked a lot about the ways in which we'd like to focus on our projects for school and general creative things. I'm back to having a solid idea of where to go with my current assignments so I'm feeling very rejuvenated about them. Which is good, as I need to be doubly-focused this weekend, since I didn't actually get any extra days off, and the lab is closed tomorrow which is typically my dedicated time to go in and work all day on my homework!

It's the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday in Azeroth, with food-related daily quests and themed garments offered as a reward for fulfilling the quests.

Why, yes, as a matter of fact I do bring my penchant for cross-dressing to Warcraft.

( My Blood Elf Death Knight in a dress: )

I did get a turkey caller as a quest reward, which I assume lets you summon a turkey to kill in order to help you make the required turkey meals for one of the quests. However, when you summon the turkey, it arrives with a great big heart over its head, which promptly shatters when it realizes you aren't a prospect turkey paramour, and it's labeled "lonely turkey". I couldn't kill a lonely turkey! I just let it wander free and haven't used the turkey caller again because I felt so guilty.

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/517717.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

We had our aging stove cleaned on Tuesday in advance of Turkey day. It worked fine last night....but this evening the gas is no longer flowing into the oven. Gas Bar-B-Que to the rescue! Thank goodness there was enough propane in the tank. We've never roasted a whole bird on the bar-bi before but it went well with the improvised metal roasting pan out of aluminum foil. Of course it meant xlorp had to sit outside in the dark tending the grill while I waved to him from the kitchen from time to time.

The cats were not amused. I am, however, hoping that we might get a new stove out of all of this. The one that came with the house was very cheap and doesn't heat very well.





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Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate it! Happy almost-the-weekend to those who don't!

Real post later, if time and family allow. Count one fly-by, lore. ;)

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/517550.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

Somehow, the Friday the 13th DVDs I ordered on the 23rd, shipped on the 24th and arrived today. And they managed that with Super Saver shipping (because I'm cheap). Dude! :D

I thought the "Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil..." opening lasted through season two; I'm sad they cut it on the DVDs.

I wish Rashid had been in more than two episodes. He was awesome.

I feel pervy for finding Adam Lambert, who is young enough to be my son, sexy and hot, but when he releases music videos like this one... Well, I'm only human!

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/517343.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

Take a bagel, slice it, toast it and put a generous amount of cream cheese on both slices. Then take a couple artichoke hearts and chop them up fine* and use them as sammich filling. Serve with Kalamata olives on the side.

Speaking of food, we got our box yesterday; I was just too wiped to report it.

Persimmons, tangerines, apples, kale, chard, lettuce, some other green and sweet potatoes.

( rambly stuff about greens and T-Day dinner )

I pre-ordered Nox Arcana's Winter's Eve CD (and finally ordered Phantoms of the High Seas, too). Music to listen to through the new year! ^__^

my cousins' wife was taken off life support and passed away. the cancer had spread into her lungs and she was in a medically induced coma for the last week. her oldest (9) told her father that her younger brother (5) was "too young" to have lost their mother.  neither child was able to say goodbye  - I am not certain if this is a good thing or not.

she was 45 years old.

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Due to a bit of stupidity on my part, I spent the day without internets. And you know...I missed people, but not the internets themselves. Lemme know if anything interesting happened.

Actually, you all should be glad I spent the day offline; I'm grumpy and crampy and apparently someone, probably Og, slept in just the wrong spot on the bed, forcing me to sleep in a certain position, so my knees and back hurt. It's not that I wouldn't happily kick him off the bed, it's that he does it in the middle of the night and I automatically adjust without waking up.

For those not on my NaNo filter, I'm declaring it a half win. I wrote 20,500 words and I'll probably manage another 5,000 before the end of the month. Or who knows, maybe I won't. Still that's 20K of fic I didn't have on October 31, so there you have it.

I have to go to our local upscale grocery store to pick up the lamb tomorrow. That's gonna be fun. I also have to go to Coco's to pick up the pie so at least I'll have French Toast for lunch or something.

You know that Christian side hug thing I linked to earlier? Well, my brain refuses to remember the actual lyrics, beyond, "Gimme that Christian side hug," but I'm earwormed by the beat...so I'm afraid I'm coming up with alternate rhymes for "side hug", like "self love" and "butt plug". I am quite sure this sullies the purity of their white boy gangsta rap about how they're such sexual deviants they can't even hug someone without being uncontrollably turned on.

My lyrics do make about as much sense. The last round went, "I'm a rough rider/with a Jesus butt plug/So gimme that Christian side hug/ 'cause I practice self love."

Edit: It dawns on me that apparently, Fundie boys are all Edward Cullen, terrified they will be overwhelmed by Bella Swan's outrageous flavor.* See what repression gets you?

*(tm cleolinda, IIRC)

I thought it might be helpful for my fellow Snape/Lupin shippers who are in the mood for some new holiday RL/SS icons if I did a comprehensive round-up of where to find them.

Fan Art Based:
Happy holidays - bluecage

art by aleoninc, colored by innerslytherin

art by aleoninc, colored by almost-clara

art by aleoninc, colored by isildurs-babe

Animated art by karasu-hime, icon by whitestar


Photo Manips:
Animated with Rickman and Thewlis, by beaded-thistle

Animated with Rickman and Thewlis, by isildurs-babe. Some of these are racy.

Animated, by captain-tulip


And I asked about the icon that matches the following icon on lupin-snape, but no one responded, so I'll try my flist:

- made by kaleidoskope in 2006. There's a matching icon with Paul McGann as Remus in a Santa hat. Does anyone have it? If I snagged it at the time, I've lost it, and I'd love to have it.

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/516668.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

And you know, I love knitting, but this is a LOT of work (not to mention the OMG WON'T FINISH ON TIME! panic). It's kind of making me feel guilty for all the times I've asked to have something written/drawn/made for me, instead of just telling people to drop ten bucks on a gift card from Amazon or Knitpicks.

(On a related note, I have things for people from that meme at the start of the year, and I am SO FAILING at getting them packed up and mailed out. Bad Dragovian. Bad.)