loldemort

Up late

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:01:21 GMT

Been listening to the soundtrack to Brokeback Mountain on Spotify. The soundtrack was put together, and in large part written by Gustavo Santaolalla, whose album Ronroco I am listening to now.

The unwisdom of share buybacks

Mon, 04 May 2009 17:45:37 GMT

From the Telegraph: RBS launched a £1bn share buyback in 2006, paying an average of £18.38 for the shares, which now stand at just 44p.

I wish...

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:17:16 GMT

I wish that there was some way to invest in Florette. Their salads are perfectly delicious and not too expensive (well, they are on perpetual discount at my supermarket, which surely helps). Unfortunately they seem to be part of some enormous multinational.

Food diary - 2009-01-28

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:02:07 GMT

Breakfast: 2 raw Brussels sprouts and a cup of coffee (skimmed milk, no sugar).
Lunch: 3 raw Brussels sprouts and a cup of coffee.
Dinner: 2 portions breaded fish cutlety-things and plenty of oven chips, all baked.
Nibbles: about 5 more raw Brussels sprouts and a cup of coffee.

Aw!

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:10:25 GMT

What he really said

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:04:11 GMT

Discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is even more devastating than other forms of discrimination such as racism, as it reaches right into families and leaves no refuge for its victims.

Michael King, Professor of Primary Care Psychiatry, University College London. Quoted in Pink News.

The delightful Chuck Storm

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:38:00 GMT

Should he ever come round my neck of the woods and do that, the urge to leap out and kiss him better would be quite overpowering.

C****

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:01:57 GMT

C**** is the son of the people who live across the road. The mother did my garden for a while, then suggested that C**** take over. Turned out he wasn't a gifted gardener, so he doesn't do it any more.

C**** is in his early thirties, and has apparently been smoking dope since his early teens. He talks frequently about how the Illuminati control western civilisation. He is convinced that they are listening to him, using their devices. They are trying to stop him from bringing about the societal revolution that will destroy their control and usher in an age of peace and plenty, where everyone will live on government handouts. In the last few months he has started shouting at the Illuminati as he walks up and down our avenue.

Last Saturday, two-ish days ago, I heard him shouting outside as I was preparing to go to the shops for my grocery. It takes me a while to get ready, so he'd been going strong for about twenty minutes when I finally got under way. Once outside, I saw that he was on his hands and knees, chalking something on the pavement in front of his parents' house. It seemed to be made of squares and small circles, and could either have been a hopscotch ladder or the cabbalistic tree of life, take your pick.

I decided — perhaps it was a little cowardly of me — just to walk past on my side of the road. I thought that since he was pointed away from me there was a good chance he wouldn't see me. Even though he was busy shouting and chalking however, he must have heard my steps because his head turned towards me. (It's odd — remember that he's on all fours with his feet towards me and his head away from me — but my memory is that his head turned almost through 180 degrees, even though I know that's impossible.) I distinctly felt a kind of shock when he caught sight of me.

"Hiya mate," said the head.

"Hiya C****," I replied, walking on as fast as my legs would carry me.

The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:26:37 GMT

http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html

That is, in the opinion of the editors at cracked.com. In my own very humble opinion, anyone thinking of writing off-world SGA scenarios, including nasty fauna and aliens-made-them scenarios, needs to read this article. And the comments.

Anal probes - coming to a hospital near you

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 06:21:33 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7155635.stm

This article looks forward to a future where surgery is done mainly through long, flexible, tube-like robots inserted through what they coyly call "natural orifices or cavities". The idea being that if cuts are necessary, they won't be disfiguring if they are done from the interior spaces of the body rather than from the epidermis - though I would have thought that healing the incision wound might be more complicated in such cases.

Just goes to show how advanced the aliens really are, of course.

New year's McShep

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 11:23:02 GMT

I've been thinking that I should bestir mystelf to write a McShep for the new year. After all the genre has given me much pleasure over the years, and I did make a couple of faltering starts a year or so ago. If I start now, 27th December, that gives me 5 days which should be enough for a short story, even at my usual glacial pace.

A half-remembered quote, "thoughts too deep for tears", sent me to the internet and the text of Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality. Rereading it, it seems heaven-sent as a source of chapter or section headings for anyone wanting to write a McShep. I was thinking of a story structure (Rodney's life-arc, of course) set to more-or-less the following quotes:

Shades of the prison-house.
The little actor cons another part.
His whole vocation.
I now can see no more.
Thou happy Shepherd-boy.
All the earth is gay.
There hath pass'd away.
In darkness lost.
Apparell'd in celestial light.

(You're supposded to know the lines from which these come. Sometimes the meaning comes from the adjacent words that are not quoted, e.g. "As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.")

In fact, looking at this one poem, I am amazed at just how many lines from it have made it as quotes into the English language: "The glory and the freshness of a dream", "The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose", "[That] there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth", "Where is it now, the glory and the dream?", "trailing clouds of glory", "Shades of the prison-house", "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears".

So rich a mine is obviously a minefield for anyone stupid enough to do ... erm ... exactly what I'm proposing to do. Still, I'm proud to say that stupidity never deterred me from a course of action before so I'm not about to let it now [hurrah!]. Over the next few days I'll try to flesh out those sections, until the whole story appears.

Stranger than fiction #2

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:53:03 GMT

A man brought his computer to a Circuit City store and asked for a DVD burner to be installed. Technicians tested the drive's new software by searching the computer's hard drive for video files to play back... and found child pornography.

Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of their doing so, the really important thing is the guy's name: Kenneth Sodomsky.

Still laughing at that one.

Wind Dam? Or ...?

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:40:02 GMT

This site is consistently interesting. It may make it to the carefully-rationed feeds of my Google Reader page. This post deserves a look. Is that a Wind Dam? Or is it a giant, floating posing pouch? If the latter, how can I get to meet the guy it belongs to?

Quick terminological question

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:57:53 GMT

What does a Canadian call someone from the US? Not, presumably, an American - I remember a Canadian friend of mine getting quite huffy about calling people from the US "Americans" on the grounds that she was also from America, just not from the US. "US-ians"? "Statessiders"?

I didn't think we could get this low

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:49:20 GMT

What have we come to that someone could do this while others looked on and laughed?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7063366.stm

Stranger than fiction

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 06:00:01 GMT

Browsing Towleroad this morning I came across this story of one gay American politician smearing (possibly) another. So far so unenlightening, until you read that the 20 year old "intern" (political assistant or researcher) at the centre of the story rejoices in the name Beau Breedlove.

The book of Daniel

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 20:26:37 GMT

Dreamed of Daniel Radcliffe playing with my little pony. V.disturbing. Had never been able to understand why people were slashing about Harry Potter and Draco or whomever until I saw this:

Speaking as an amateur of many years' standing, it is impossible that a treasure trail that promising should lead on to disappointment. So now he's invaded my dreams? First account for this, indeed! Well it's staring you in the face, love.

What soldier type are you?

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:10:10 GMT

You scored as Special Ops. Special ops. You're sneaky, tactful, and a loner. You prefer to do your jobs alone, working where you don't come into contact with people. But everyonce in a while you hit it big and are noticed and given fame. Your given the more sensitive problems. You get things done, and do what has to be done.

"VULCAN NECK PINCH!!!"
"owww.......(slump)"

</td>

Special Ops

75%

Engineer

69%

Support Gunner

63%

Artillery/Armor

63%

Medic

50%

Combat Infantry

50%

Officer

50%

Civilian

44%

Which soldier type are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

McKay and Mrs. Miller (308)

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 02:22:57 GMT

I'm sure somebody else must have picked up on it, but Teh Gay was just *so* plainly being marked at the end when Rod was preparing to go back to Rod!verse. Rodney asking Rod if he was going to click his heels and go back, and then at the critical moment Rod saying "There's no place like home." [I nearly cried! What *is* this with me nearly crying every time I was this damn program?]

So if Rod(ney) is being identified as Dorothy then, by a magnificent application of logic, John is a friend of Dorothy, and therefore Teh Gay Love exists between them Q.E.D.

First kiss cynicism

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:15:13 GMT

Am I being too cynical in thinking that one of the great things about [a certain kind of] gay men for slash writers is that they can realistically be portrayed as having their first kiss at age 35? Is it just a way of reaching back to the terrors and joys of youth, by giving it to early-middle-aged men?

Bedtime chat

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 09:18:24 GMT

I am officially hearing things. In particular, Rodney and John's bedtime chats keep appearing in my mind. Like this one, discussing weekend activities:

RODNEY: Tomorrow you could help me in the lab.

JOHN: Or we could go hiking on the mainland.

RODNEY: I need someone to check the calculations of the minions. I have never seen such sloppy work!

JOHN: Or go and play about on a beach somewhere. Or snorkel...

RODNEY: You know, Einstein had math postgrads to do his sums for him...

JOHN: Or we could just fuck... How about that, Rodney? Fuck your way to fitness and health.

RODNEY (LOOKING AT HIM FONDLY): As a special treat for the Math genius, I might even let you help me with my derivations.

JOHN (BEGINNING TO RUB HIMSELF UP AGAINST RODNEY'S LEG): Or I could go through your proofs and fix all the errors.

RODNEY (SOFTLY): And I would humbly accept the corrections from your hands.

JOHN (ROLLS ON TOP OF RODNEY): Now that's just dirty-talk...

Fandom pet hates and cliches

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 13:33:18 GMT

Pet hates first, although in fact I've only got one: when people over-determine referents by using "the man" or "the Scot" or "the flyboy" or "the blond" when a simple pronoun would be enough. This is of course more of a problem in slash, where the fact that the subject and object of those sweet lovin' type verbs are the same gender raises an unconscious (I hope) red flag of potential confusion. But just read what you write, people! "John pulled Rodney to him, stilling the scientist's complaints with a manly kiss" (it's more commonly done to avoid double pronouns) is no better than "John pulled Rodney to him, stilling his complaints with a manly kiss" — it's still perfectly obvious from the sense whose complaints got stilled, that "him" and "his" are different people. I don't want to be reminded that someone is blond or blind or French or a zoologist unless it's relevant at that moment, don't do it as a cheap way of disambiguating a referent.

That would be more of a criticism if I wrote more and better myself, of course :-)

Fandom cliches, by which I mean cliches specific to a particular fandom. I'm not sure about "snark", since although I first came to it via a fandom, I don't know which one. I believe it's a normal word in the States, so I'll let it pass even though it infests SGA fandom like an Iratus bug. However if I read one more time about John's crooked smile (or Rodney's crooked smile, since it seems to leap off the lips of one and onto the other's — perhaps it's passed by kissing?), or how John smirked at Rodney... I'll stab myself with my pencil. The worst thing about them is that it's so easy to pick one of them up without realising it. I'm quite sure I've got Rodney smiling crookedly somewhere.

The cliches seem to be a signalling mechanism: "hey, I'm up to speed on SGA!" That's definitely the case with "manly" in the first paragraph. Is it cliche or is it idiolect? David Hewlett uses it in at least one interview; I don't know whether it's also common in canon as one of Rodney's favourite words. Perhaps it's a lapse of taste on my part, but I'm inclined to allow cliches where, like "manly", they are all part of the fun. I don't think that applies to crooked smiles and smirks though.

John's yaoi look

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:58:22 GMT

Within the yaoi tradition, the ideal bishounen is usually slender and pale, with a heart-shaped face and enormous eyes, like two fishponds. His smooth pectoral muscles are hairless, but his head is covered by a tousled and feminine mop, with strands that fall fetchingly across his face when he's feeling shy.

[From Village Voice, my italics.]
Hmm, I wonder if Joe Flanigan cultivated the look deliberately? Strike that, of course he did — I meant, did he cultivate the look knowing that it was a yaoi look?

Joe Flanigan at the London Expo

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:30:09 GMT

So, off to Victoria Docks to see Joe Flanigan at the London Expo. But first I had to make myself lovely for him: spent all Saturday night washing and drying clothes to give me a choice of trousseau (staying chez Gordon and George so it's not my electricity or washing powder either).

This morning I chose the black jeans and dark-violet shirt, and the navy blazer with light-blue lining. Then down to the Turkish barber's with George to get rid of my scary-old-man white beard and too-long hair. A delightful, slim, dark, hairy, totally beautiful young man faffing around and generally rubbing himself up against me for three quarters of an hour, then bending me over and washing my hair in the sink afterwards, followed — I kid you not — by massaging my neck and shoulders in a way that totally had me gasping with pleasure. Almost made me stop thinking about Joe for a moment.

Coming up to half past one and running an hour late (the barber's had a queue; no wonder!) I finally drove to Canonbury and then off on the train to Custom House, the Excel centre, and the London Expo.

Seven pounds later and I'm peering round a large, industrial-looking space filled with ... stalls selling tat! One particularly stuck in my memory: an album of what looked like badly drawn cigarette cards, of people who hadn't been that famous when they were alive, and were by now most certainly dead, going cheap for £23. Everybody much younger than me, some of them even pimply. Rows of bookshelves filled with erotic manga featuring, apparently, mostly 8 year-olds.

I was just about to run screaming out the way I'd come when I saw them! A row of tables littered with empty cups, and some harrassed, sweaty people behind them. In front, mostly empty space with a few confused-looking goths admiring each other's getup. Yay! Celebs! The contact lenses not offering pinpoint-sharp vision, I waddled up and peered hard at the inmates. Three children, a marginally pretty blond piece in his mid twenties, and Dirty Den looking exceedingly bitter. I squinted at them again, aware of the apparent lack of anything Flaniganesque, and hoping that I'd missed him. No, still not there, but by now Dirty Den was looking back at me like an Alsatian that's spotted a half-buried bone. I moved on.

More dreary celebs, this time from The 4400, but not including Joel. Sigh! Joel's so pretty, he'd have done while I was waiting for Joe.

The auditorium. I sat for a while, listening to a group of people talk about getting your work into their Manga mags, and agreeing that if you could trick someone into illustrating your script, you'd have a much better chance of one of them actually having a look at it. Editors, then. The lowest of the low. My heart sank, and a tear trickled down my eyelash and threatened to drop onto the navy-blue blazer. Luckily at that moment the compère chirped up and told us how excited she was to be here, and I laughed so hard it shook the tear away.

At that point I'd done a complete circuit, and no Joe. I decided to do another quick circuit, concentrating on the celebrity pit-stops and the signing area. Still no Joe. I was smiling bravely, through the pain, when suddenly a cheer erupted from the auditorium, which was just in front of me. I ran towards the sound, and Oh! blessed American drawl! Standing in the doorway I peered up at the stage, cursing my four-year-old contact lens prescription, and was rewarded with the sight of someone with dark hair and dark clothes holding a microphone! IT WAS JOE!

The auditorium now miraculously full, I sat on a corner seat near the door. Truth to tell, I could only recognise it was him from the face on the screen above him. But the voice, with its characteristically unpredictable pitch changes, yes, there was my god in human form. Not quite as slim as I remember him from TV, but maybe that was the clothes. The clothes! He was wearing black trousers, a light blue top, and a dark or black jacket... the very same colours as me! Proof that divine providence wants us to be together, I thought.

Hmm, he needs to anticipate better with some of the questions. One teenager asked him if he liked animé. Wow, he loved animé! Like everybody here, he joked. But was then unprepared for the supplementary: which particular storyline was his favourite? I think that at that point you're supposed to say "Gundam Wing". Or possibly Wind. But no, Joe had to admit that he didn't actually know any of them well enough to name them. We all squirmed at this demonstration of feet of clay. I decided that he was simply being adorable, and that was that.

Not being able to find my digital camera in the mess that I call my home, I was reduced to pointing my mobile phone at the indistinct, wavering figure on the stage, and clicking and hoping. Now I've seen them and blown them up, I have a grainy, indistinct, static figure to pin my wonderful memories on. It will have to do, until I can get that job scriptwriting on SGA.

Knowing what I know now, would I go back next year and spend seven pounds and a whole afternoon just waiting for a chance to see Joe and listen to him again? You betcha. He admitted that he gets on really well with David Hewlett. You can't buy that kind of dirty-talk!

gateworld.net

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:27:52 GMT

Found http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/ where there are plot summaries, complete transcripts, reviews and stills from each episode in each of the three seasons so far. Fantastic resource, now I can have all my canon questions answered.