I'm moving, so I sorted through my books. These are the ones I'm not planning to keep. Drop me a note if you want any of them.

( Book list. )

Depending on where you live, I may or may not be able to cover postage. Drop me a comment, and we can figure something out.

I got up at 5 am this morning and accompanied Jasper to Heathrow, where she caught the 12 pm plane back to Washington. It's 5:30 pm now, and she'll be landing in about two hours. I'll see her next on Dec 11.

Also, we went to Cardiff, and since Aug 24, I've been officially wearing a narrow titanium ring with YANA engraved on the inside. No pictures, unfortunately, because I didn't take any (my camera broke last summer) and I forgot to copy the ones Jasper took off her camera. Suffice to say, the Cardiff trip was a good four days. Despite occasional rain.

I found Stephen King's Under The Dome at a used book store in Cardiff, and as a Constant Reader, of course I had to snag it. For a book of almost 900 pages, it's a pretty quick read--I finished it just now.

( No spoilers, really, just cut for rambling. )

Now I think I will make dinner. And think about ending my hiatus at the roleplay comm I recently joined. I am playing Ray Kowalski. He's trying to hit on T'Pol. It's hilarious.

comment on LJ

Hello livejournal. I am still alive. Still working. Only 10 more working days to get through, including today. Wooh!

Bought my ticket for Christmas. I will be in the US, Washington DC area, from December 11 until January 2. I'm not flying via New York this time, sadly (sorry, onceforluck!), but directly into DC. I am still thinking about whether or not to buy tickets for September. The decision, it is a hard one.

I've also been rereading Sherlock Holmes short stories, and my brain insists I should write a Holmes/Who crossover, written in Sherlock Holmes short story style with Watson narrating, where Ten visits Holmes to consult him on a case.

[Poll #1593946]

Hello livejournal. I am still alive. Still working. Only 10 more working days to get through, including today. Wooh!

Bought my ticket for Christmas. I will be in the US, Washington DC area, from December 11 until January 2. I'm not flying via New York this time, sadly (sorry, onceforluck!), but directly into DC. I am still thinking about whether or not to buy tickets for September. The decision, it is a hard one.

I've also been rereading Sherlock Holmes short stories, and my brain insists I should write a Holmes/Who crossover, written in Sherlock Holmes short story style with Watson narrating, where Ten visits Holmes to consult him on a case.

Have a very serious poll on the matter.

I kind of fail at posting lately, don't I? I've been twittering a lot; apparently I have finally unlocked the Secret of Twitter. It's kind of like being in a big chatroom with a bunch of people where nobody is really talking to one another, except when they are. Um. That made so much sense. Anyway, yeah. If you have a Twitter account and I'm not following you, let me know. If you want to follow me, I'm t_eyla over there same as on LJ.

My new uni trimester has started. Actually, it started last Monday already, but since I only have three classes a week, we haven't really done too much yet. My classes this term are Fiction Production, Producing TV and Studio Production. The latter two are my electives--they were both second choice, since my two first choices (Creating a Sitcom and Writing a Short Film) didn't run. But I'm still enjoying them quite a lot.

( Uni babble. )

Good heavens, look at that wall of text. I surely have a lot to say on the topic of my uni classes, don't I? Granted, there's not much else going on. Went out with a couple of people the other night, and actually enjoyed myself. Maybe I should do this more often. And I've been reading Storm Front (1st Harry Dresden novel) for weeks now, but somehow that book is not managing to captivate me at all. I read a couple of pages and then put it down to do something else. I don't actively dislike it, I just find it very unsurprising and bland. Do the books get a little more daring later on?

In regards to fandom, um. Nothing going on there. Except dontwanttogo, the Doctor Who rewatch project. We've only watched one episode so far, but I'm enjoying it. It's something to look forward to every week, and it's a chance for me to talk a lot about the Doctor. I love talking about the Doctor. In case you didn't know that.

Oh, and the drama that is going on with house_cuddy is ridiculous. I do have to say, if I were a bit more knowledgeable about all the intrinsic relationships going on there, I'd report it on f_w, because that mod is behaving in an absolutely absurd way, and I would love to see him mocked and laughed out of fandom. Well. I'm sure even if I don't, someone else will. It's such a classic case of a megalomaniac asshat mod getting butthurt and going on a murder deletion spree, f_w's not gonna miss out. And all this even though I was never even a member of that comm. The ship doesn't matter, though--asshattery on the internet is asshattery on the internet, no matter if it's sailing a het ship or steering a slash steamboat. (Look at all those pretty alliteration. :3)

Last but not least, I actually enjoyed 5x12 of SPN. It wasn't too offensive (not any more than any other show on television), and the funny actually won over the embarrassing and trainwrecky. I'm impressed. I do miss Castiel, though. He's probably off going through the heavenly filing cabinets and looking for God's cell phone number. Damn the man, he never checks his voice mail.

Okay, this is a very long entry now. I think I'll cut it off here before it gets any longer. What's up, f-list?

comment on LJ

Over Christmas, I reread the seven Harry Potter novels, since I'd never read them in succession, and wanted to know if I still feel the same about them as I used to.

My conclusions:

( Bullet points, in no particular order. )

Next on the list: the first of the Harry Dresden books. I haven't read them yet! I'll be interested to see if they're any good.

Please to be excusing the angry icon; it's the only Harry Potter icon I own.

comment on LJ

I've finished writing all my Christmas cards! 17 cards, going to eight different countries. I love having friends all over the world. :3 Will be sending them off tomorrow, and hopefully they'll arrive on time.

Tomorrow's my last day of uni before the winter break. Saturday, I need to do some Christmas shopping, and on Sunday, I'm meeting tli and explodedpen. Monday I need to clean the flat, and Tuesday I'm flying to Germany to see the parents. And the kitten! I am very much looking forward to meeting the kitten. And the family, of course.

I've spent the last couple of hours storyboarding. That means taking a film or TV script and drawing all the shots you want to use to cover the dialog and the action. I wish I had a better sense of perspective, or the money to employ a professional storyboard drawing person--whichever, really. I'm supposed to draw a from-above shot looking down at our two protagonists, and I have no idea how to go about that. *pokes storyboard*

There was a lot of HP wank linked on f_w lately, which compelled me to pick up those books again. I've never done a complete re-read of all seven novels since Deathly Hallows came out. I think I shall be attempting to do one now. I'm about one quarter of the way through the first novel so far--and I'd forgotten how cute and awesome Dumbledore was in my head before movie Dumbledore came along and made the character boring. In my head, Dumbledore is this awesome ageless dude who dresses in swishy purple robes that are always a little dusty, and wears high-heeled cowboy boots with silver buckles. Also, he's constantly chewing on something, and has a ton of crow's feet wrinkles. Basically, he's a skinny John Wayne with a British accent. Who likes to wear purple robes.

And McGonagall was young. Nothing against Maggie Smith, she's awesome, but in my head, McGonagall was maybe 35, if that. Young, and absolutely kick-ass, and all the men are dying to get into her pants, but she has no time for that kind of nonsense, thank you very much. Think Claudia Black, with her hair in a tight bun, wearing inornate green robes and turning everyone into a gnat who dares to stare at her chest for a moment too long.

Oh well. I suppose my head works differently than everybody else's, at least where Harry Potter is concerned. I shall go back to storyboarding now. Sigh.

comment on LJ

I'm back in the UK. As expected, there are no internets at the flat. :( O2 texted me to tell me that they will be connecting our broadband on the 20th, which means I will be without internets for four more days. Woe is me.

I'm using the uni internets right now, which I'll keep doing the next couple of days. It's 8:15pm in the evening, and every door in the building is locked except the front door, so I'm sitting in the lobby at a wobbly table on a folding chair that I found standing around. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be here, but hey, they didn't lock the front door yet, and I can access the uni wireless network from the lobby just as well as I could from the IT room. I just hope they won't lock the front door without noticing me, or me noticing.

I've been reading Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. I'm half-way through the second novel by now, ( No real spoilers, but some tl;dr. )

There is so much stuff I still need to sort out before my USA trip. Most of that is money and meds stuff, taking care of which can't be counted among my favorite spare time activities. But hey, I do get to travel to the States, so all is well. I'm ridiculously excited about this trip. I've been wanting to see New York City and the East Coast for a while now.

. . . there was more I wanted to talk about, but I can't think of what it was. I know I owe a couple of people replies to comments in my last post; I'll get around to that once I've got my internet sorted out. Right now, the laptop is running out of juice, so I'll be signing off and going home to finish Throne of Jade. Oh, and maybe, if there's no internet to distract me, I could get some vidding or writing done. (She said optimistically.) And I need to get used to being back in the UK. Stuff is open on Sundays!

comment on LJ

I know I said I'd post about Anansi Boys, but actually I suck at book reviews, and this book is really, really hard to describe. Let's just say it's the story of how Anansi stole the stories from Tiger, and you should all go read it.

At the moment, I'm reading Samuel Shem's House of God (satirical novel on a medical internship in an American hospital, written in the late 70ies), and holy fuck, that book is cynical. Every word is true, though. This is exactly how modern medicine works.

( Read an excerpt )

I love this book.

So I managed to add 23 seconds to my vid, which totally counts not as fail, because a) I actually vidded 20 more than that, only that those 20 were crap and had to be deleted, and b) I vidded 8 more than required yesterday.

This seconds counting is sort of ridiculous. Ah well. Whatever gets the vid done.

This nowrimo thing has an interesting side effect - I find lots and lots of interesting things on the intarwebz while desperately trying to procrastinate. I checked fandom_wank, and this wank brings the lulz so hard. I quote:

Despite barely surviving a narrow brush with a lawnmower back in 2006, Harry Potter theorist Anise has continued theorizing the stuffing out of Harry Potter. Her theory is that Harry Potter is all about Calvinism and Gnosticism, and she holds forth in threads like "Debate: Did Harry Potter Have a Good Moral Message?" No it didn't. It had a Calvinist message.

On reading this intro, it might not sound all too exciting, but the comments involve people looking for internet lawyers to get them a fandom divorce, and a side show that brings more stupid. Also, a highly interesting theory is established, in which Dumbledore is Simon Magnus as well as Mrs. Granger's seekrit lover, which makes him Hermione's daddy what gave her all her smarts.

Oh, and then there's this icon, which would have made me spit coffee all over my keyboard if I'd been drinking any.

And these are the Chili Peppers in their socks on cocks stage dress. Many of you might know this vid, but even if you do, it's worth a rewatch ;).

And I have to talk some more about the Gaiman book (Anansi Boys) I'm reading. I've been trying to finish it for the last couple of days, but fandom keeps distracting me. I will make a more elaborate post about the book once I've finished it (which might well be tonight, it's only like 20 more pages or something). For now, I just wanted to quote a couple of paragraphs.

( Tiny spoilers and a lot of wonderful writing under the cut )

I adore his style. Sends me into giggle-fits.

Oh, and look at the awesome icon I found today :D. Credits are on my icon page.

Hah, I worked through my backlog of comments! I bet you noticed xD. Sheesh, I hadn't realized it were so many!

I found that I haven't answered the 5 questions yet that beandelphiki gave me a while back! So, I'm doing that now.

( 5 questions )

In other news, neery convinced me to join her in a not-so-na-nowrimo attempt. I've promised to try to either write 1000 words of fic or edit 30 seconds of vid each day from now till the end of the month. Watch me fail in the first couple of days xD. Well, I actually managed to vid 38 seconds today, but I don't really like the result. Sigh.

There was more stuff I wanted to talk about. Right. I'm reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys at the moment, and it's highly fascinating. It's a bit like I'd imagine an acid trip to be like. I highly recommend it. (The book. Not the trip. Even though I wouldn't be opposed to trying that, either.)

For some reason I ended up watching Queen (live at Wembley '86) clips on YouTube today, and I went all mopey and emo about the tragic story of Freddie Mercury. It's so tragic, I'm amazed it's true. I watched the Who Wants To Live Forever clip, and boggled at the prophetic statement he makes before he sings the song. He was diagnosed in '87, so he didn't know he was sick when he said that.

I bet this is old news for all of you. I MISSED IT AGAIN. Anyway. Queen wins. And The Show Must Go On is the most tragic, painful song ever.

If you're feeling all emo now, go watch this. Or watch the first 1 minute 20 seconds of it, anyway. It completely cracked me up. What is it that's so funny about spoons?

ETA: OMG CUTENESS ATTACK!

I know I'm about a year too late to be squeeing about this, but could they have picked a better song than ( Tiny Spoiler Doctor Who s3 Finale )

I've been reading Midsummer Night's Dream! I have to admit I hadn't read it until now - I know, shame on me. We only did Macbeth in school (and thank God we didn't do anything else, because that English teacher of mine had a way of butchering Shakespeare that made my heart bleed), and I've read Hamlet, but that's it, really. I'm always planning on reading a few more of his plays, but somehow it never happens. Well, almost never! ;) I'm baffled at how funny that play is! It's so and so many hundred years old, and I can still laugh about the jokes in it. It's really remarkable. It must have been a riot back in its own time.

Last night, I realized at about 8pm that my uni presentation was due today and not, like I had thought, on Thursday. So I spent the night making that presentation. It went okay, and I'm rather satisfied with how it turned out, considering this time last night, I had no fucking clue what I was supposed to be talking about.

( People in my seminar are the most boring people ever )

Other than that, I hate the uni schedule at the moment - everything starts WAY TOO EARLY in the morning - but I'm still in a state of high excitement because of my shiny new fandom. LURRVE!! ♥

I can has Harry Potter?

YES, I CANS!

*off to read*

Omg, I love Stephen King. I just got started on his new novel, Lisey's Story. I'm on page 66, and all he did so far was describe a guy getting shot. And he did it oh-so-well. With attention to every little detail, but not so it got boring, but so you had the feeling he was putting the world under a microscope, for the first time making it possible for you to see everything there is to the world.

And when you look into that microscope of his, you know how he comes up with all his monsters. Because they are all right there - usually, you just can't see them, because you're not looking into the microscope. But they make perfect sense once he shows you where to look.

It does pay out to visit your family now and again. We (my sister, my brother, my dad and me) just had the most awesome discussion about what's gonna happen in the 7TH HARRY POTTER NOVEL!

( Wild, intriguing theories )

I've just finished Pratchett's and Gaiman's "Good Omens".

( Good Omens )

Now, I need to get some coffee. I wrote a long, long scene this morning for WIP#1, and found that writing it had drained me of all energy to write anything else. But I'm feeling at least partly recharged by now, and coffee will keep me awake so I can get at least a few paragraphs done in WIP#2. So, I'm off *waves*.