Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 30th, 2014 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blueswanWhat I'm reading: Sackett's Land by Louis L'Amour; It's too soon to re-read the nine Longmire mysteries so the Sackett saga it will be. So far the antaganast has called out our hero with the chilling words, "I know you now! I know you forever, and you shall not escape!" I'm ready for lots of action and narrow escapes. (It's been over 20 years since I read the series, I have no memory of it at all.)
What I've read: Deadline by Mira Grant
What I'll read next: More of the Sackett series probably.
What I've read: Deadline by Mira Grant
What I'll read next: More of the Sackett series probably.
booklog
Jul. 30th, 2014 09:02 pminlovewithnightThe Unruly Passions of Eugenie R., Carole DeSanti. I wanted to like this. I really did. But it was totally incoherent.
The Life of an Unknown Man, Andrei Makine. I wanted to like this, too, but it was weird Soviet nostalgia for the first half and then an excellent Siege of Leningrad chunk and then more weird Soviet nostalgia. What is my Siege of Leningrad thing? I need to watch Enemy at the Gates again and have a revival of my Ed Harris crush.
Ladies-In-Waiting: Women Who Served at the Tudor Court, Victoria Sylvia Evans. I hate when I can tell a book was someone's thesis/dissertation, and that their advisor passed them through on strength of concept rather than writing something coherent. Interesting historical bits and pieces, though.
(depressive episode seems to have passed? I woke up this morning feeling human? who knows)
The Life of an Unknown Man, Andrei Makine. I wanted to like this, too, but it was weird Soviet nostalgia for the first half and then an excellent Siege of Leningrad chunk and then more weird Soviet nostalgia. What is my Siege of Leningrad thing? I need to watch Enemy at the Gates again and have a revival of my Ed Harris crush.
Ladies-In-Waiting: Women Who Served at the Tudor Court, Victoria Sylvia Evans. I hate when I can tell a book was someone's thesis/dissertation, and that their advisor passed them through on strength of concept rather than writing something coherent. Interesting historical bits and pieces, though.
(depressive episode seems to have passed? I woke up this morning feeling human? who knows)
comics read: Ms. Marvel, X-Men, Black Widow, Elektra
Jul. 30th, 2014 05:00 pmsnickficLook at me, reading comics and then blogging about them immediately after! Go, me!
( Ms. Marvel #6 )
( X-Men #16 )
( Black Widow #7-8 )
( Elektra #3-4 )
( Ms. Marvel #6 )
( X-Men #16 )
( Black Widow #7-8 )
( Elektra #3-4 )
(no subject)
Jul. 30th, 2014 06:13 pmbobcatmoranWork these last couple of weeks has been an adventure, of sorts. The server that houses our database was moved, and although most of the functionality came along with it, the ability to upload data from our field PDAs into it has not. Or, rather, it has, but only with odd, irregular delays in the process. Normally, once a file is put in the upload queue, the data will show up in about ten minutes. Lately, the upload time has ranged from ten minutes to two days to never. And because the database was held together by the computational equivalent of baling wire and string to begin with, files that have actually failed look the same in queue as files that might upload sometime later that day (or week).
So we've been doing everything the old-fashioned way, recording data on paper in the field, then hand-entering it, which is time-consuming and a horrendous waste of paper.
On the plus side of things, I made pitas on Sunday, and nearly all of them actually puffed up to have pockets (usually my success rate is around 30%). And Landlady made her first round of cherry tomato harvesting, so I have a bowlful of them to munch on and put in salads and whatever else I may care to do with them. Nothing like fresh summer tomatoes.
And I found an online source for the magazine that serializes the Les Miserablés manga (yes, that's a thing, and it's astonishingly well-done). Unfortunately, it's amazon.co.jp, but given that Kinokuniya no longer seems to carry it (I'm loath to ask them to special-order it since my trips into the city are highly irregular) and a good hour of searching didn't turn up any other options, Amazon it is, I suppose.
In the spirit of shameless advertising, I feel I should mention that I am translating said manga, if anyone's interested (link here). It's a slow process, because my Japanese skills are only so-so and I have to look up a lot of stuff. But no one else seemed to be doing it, and it's good language practice for me.
So we've been doing everything the old-fashioned way, recording data on paper in the field, then hand-entering it, which is time-consuming and a horrendous waste of paper.
On the plus side of things, I made pitas on Sunday, and nearly all of them actually puffed up to have pockets (usually my success rate is around 30%). And Landlady made her first round of cherry tomato harvesting, so I have a bowlful of them to munch on and put in salads and whatever else I may care to do with them. Nothing like fresh summer tomatoes.
And I found an online source for the magazine that serializes the Les Miserablés manga (yes, that's a thing, and it's astonishingly well-done). Unfortunately, it's amazon.co.jp, but given that Kinokuniya no longer seems to carry it (I'm loath to ask them to special-order it since my trips into the city are highly irregular) and a good hour of searching didn't turn up any other options, Amazon it is, I suppose.
In the spirit of shameless advertising, I feel I should mention that I am translating said manga, if anyone's interested (link here). It's a slow process, because my Japanese skills are only so-so and I have to look up a lot of stuff. But no one else seemed to be doing it, and it's good language practice for me.
I want to be fannish, but I don't have much fandom in me right now.
Jul. 30th, 2014 08:06 amhavocthecatI just blazed my way through the extant Percy Jackson books, which are actually quite good and which I would have read over and over and constantly over again if I were my son's age. I'm torn between love of Annabeth and love of Hazel (er, Piper too), and have decided I like them all quite well enough that I don't have to decide between them.
( Spoilers for both of the series. )
I'm also rereading The Ladies of Mandrigyn, by Barbara Hambly, which I have not read since it was first released. I was single-digits in age at the time, and wow, did I miss a bunch of the subtleties of that book, like how different types of women and women's personalities (and careers) were all worthwhile, and could do so many different things, like take care of the city and keep their businesses going and mount a resistance to an evil overlord type. I totally missed that one woman poisoning her husband for collaborating with the enemy, and the actual lack of narrative shaming of prostitutes. IN THE 1980s.
Clearly, this was the antidote I needed for that one irritatingly woman-less Zahn book that was written just one year earlier.
I haven't been doing much fannish stuff lately. A lot of reading, a lot of Diablo 3, and a fair amount of watching tv that I don't feel a huge need to engage with on a fannish level. It's not so much that I'm getting out of fandom; it's more that fandoms that grab me with the intensity of SG1 and SGA or BtVS (or before that, Forever Knight or X-Files or Highlander) are few and far between. I might've gotten into that level of involvement with Leverage or Fringe, if only I hadn't had major health problems during those shows' airings, and Vampire Diaries was looking likely, except that I could not have cared less about the epic love triangle at the heart of the show. OUaT is great and I'm fannish about it, but I tend to marathon a season at a time, which is not so great for participatory fandom.
I do miss St. Trinian's as a fandom. It's such a delightful pair of films.
I'd say Avengers (MCU, really), but I've also gotten tired of sorting my way through all the boy-focused fanworks to home in on the women-centric things that I want to talk or read about. Maybe Arrow or Sleepy Hollow, but I don't need to write fic, and my favorite characters aren't going to be ficced about much anyway. (Or they are, but primarily in het shipping, and I'm far more interested in them being the focus instead of half of a het pairing. Or, alternately, because there's canon femslash in Arrow, and I want some serious Nyssa/Sara character exploration.)
So I don't know where I'm going, fandom-wise, though I do know where I've been and how it affects me. I do wish I had more time for fandom. Or more energy. I get home, and by the time I get the kidlet to bed, I'm exhausted myself. (I'm sure it doesn't help that I had surgery about four months ago. My stamina isn't completely recovered from that.)
So I want to be fannish, but I haven't managed it for a while. Plus side, I don't know that I need to change it specifically, just to let it happen. But still. It's nice to find things to talk to everyone about. (Especially on Dreamwidth. Tumblr format doesn't particularly work for me, alas.)
( Spoilers for both of the series. )
I'm also rereading The Ladies of Mandrigyn, by Barbara Hambly, which I have not read since it was first released. I was single-digits in age at the time, and wow, did I miss a bunch of the subtleties of that book, like how different types of women and women's personalities (and careers) were all worthwhile, and could do so many different things, like take care of the city and keep their businesses going and mount a resistance to an evil overlord type. I totally missed that one woman poisoning her husband for collaborating with the enemy, and the actual lack of narrative shaming of prostitutes. IN THE 1980s.
Clearly, this was the antidote I needed for that one irritatingly woman-less Zahn book that was written just one year earlier.
I haven't been doing much fannish stuff lately. A lot of reading, a lot of Diablo 3, and a fair amount of watching tv that I don't feel a huge need to engage with on a fannish level. It's not so much that I'm getting out of fandom; it's more that fandoms that grab me with the intensity of SG1 and SGA or BtVS (or before that, Forever Knight or X-Files or Highlander) are few and far between. I might've gotten into that level of involvement with Leverage or Fringe, if only I hadn't had major health problems during those shows' airings, and Vampire Diaries was looking likely, except that I could not have cared less about the epic love triangle at the heart of the show. OUaT is great and I'm fannish about it, but I tend to marathon a season at a time, which is not so great for participatory fandom.
I do miss St. Trinian's as a fandom. It's such a delightful pair of films.
I'd say Avengers (MCU, really), but I've also gotten tired of sorting my way through all the boy-focused fanworks to home in on the women-centric things that I want to talk or read about. Maybe Arrow or Sleepy Hollow, but I don't need to write fic, and my favorite characters aren't going to be ficced about much anyway. (Or they are, but primarily in het shipping, and I'm far more interested in them being the focus instead of half of a het pairing. Or, alternately, because there's canon femslash in Arrow, and I want some serious Nyssa/Sara character exploration.)
So I don't know where I'm going, fandom-wise, though I do know where I've been and how it affects me. I do wish I had more time for fandom. Or more energy. I get home, and by the time I get the kidlet to bed, I'm exhausted myself. (I'm sure it doesn't help that I had surgery about four months ago. My stamina isn't completely recovered from that.)
So I want to be fannish, but I haven't managed it for a while. Plus side, I don't know that I need to change it specifically, just to let it happen. But still. It's nice to find things to talk to everyone about. (Especially on Dreamwidth. Tumblr format doesn't particularly work for me, alas.)
Tried Supernatural. Didn't stick.
Jul. 30th, 2014 10:10 amkourediosStarted watching the first few eps of Supernatural the other day. For fannish context, I guess. Or because I didn't know what else to watch.
Got to the one with the plane-crashing demon, in which the brothers very seriously remind each other that the Latin name for God is "Christos."
...and I was out.
Got to the one with the plane-crashing demon, in which the brothers very seriously remind each other that the Latin name for God is "Christos."
...and I was out.
[FIC] [NEWSFLESH] "All Your Tomorrows Start Here"
Jul. 29th, 2014 10:15 pmumadoshiAll Your Tomorrows Start Here (2682 words) by umadoshi
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Georgia Mason/Shaun Mason
Characters: Georgia Mason, Shaun Mason
Additional Tags: Canon Disabled Character, Adopted Sibling Incest, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Community: smallfandomfest
Summary:
George is no more immortal than I am, and she probably figured that out even younger than I did. The pair of us hit puberty fully aware we were gonna die someday, and confused as all hell by the way people around us acted like they could live forever if they just played it safe enough. But then again, there was no way we could've hung onto that ignorance ourselves. Being raised by people who got lost in grief over their dead six-year-old and never found themselves enough to love you strips away all of your innocence sooner rather than later.
Phillip died young. People died all the time. One of those days, death was going to come for us, too--probably literally, since we live in a world where it's up and walking around.
It took longer to grasp that we might not die together.
Set seven years before Feed.
You can also read the fic ( under the cut )
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Georgia Mason/Shaun Mason
Characters: Georgia Mason, Shaun Mason
Additional Tags: Canon Disabled Character, Adopted Sibling Incest, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Community: smallfandomfest
Summary:
George is no more immortal than I am, and she probably figured that out even younger than I did. The pair of us hit puberty fully aware we were gonna die someday, and confused as all hell by the way people around us acted like they could live forever if they just played it safe enough. But then again, there was no way we could've hung onto that ignorance ourselves. Being raised by people who got lost in grief over their dead six-year-old and never found themselves enough to love you strips away all of your innocence sooner rather than later.
Phillip died young. People died all the time. One of those days, death was going to come for us, too--probably literally, since we live in a world where it's up and walking around.
It took longer to grasp that we might not die together.
Set seven years before Feed.
You can also read the fic ( under the cut )
rocksalt_recs :(
Jul. 29th, 2014 05:21 pmsnickficAfter a really great two years, it looks like ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rocksalt_recs is closing down. I am so sad. I haven't used it a ton in the last six months or so, but it's been such a great resource for the SPN fannish community, and I've enjoyed reccing things there.
It sounds like there might be a possibility of it staying open if they found new mods to run it, so if that sounds like something you'd like to participate in, here's your chance.
rocksalt_recs is closing down. I am so sad. I haven't used it a ton in the last six months or so, but it's been such a great resource for the SPN fannish community, and I've enjoyed reccing things there.It sounds like there might be a possibility of it staying open if they found new mods to run it, so if that sounds like something you'd like to participate in, here's your chance.
One trip ends, another gets scarily close
Jul. 29th, 2014 07:42 pmumadoshiscruloose got back late this afternoon after being in Montreal for a music festival for most of a week. It's good to have him home. ^_^ It's also made me keenly aware that I'm leaving for Ontario in just a few days, so I started writing up a to-do list for before I go. It's undoubtedly far from complete, and already pretty scary given that it doesn't say much about the work that needs to be done in the near future.Alas, there's no way to avoid needing to work while I'm in Ottawa. Working in Toronto was always inevitable, since I'll be there for two weeks, but the Ottawa stop is only a few days and involves friends I hardly ever see other than during the whirlwind of Anime North. :/ It would've been nice to be out from under the immediate deadlines. Oh, well. I'll do what I can before leaving.
I already miss the kittens. (By which I mean I've been preemptively missing them for most of the month. ^^;)
My Newsflesh fic for
![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
smallfandomfest is back from final beta with wildpear, after some back-and-forth over untangling a bit of severe logic!fail on my end. >.> It took her two or three tries (due to brain frazzle over here; she was very clear) to convey to me that when she said Shaun's thought process was fine but what he says afterwards contradicts it, she did not in fact mean "clarify thought process". She meant "FIX THE CONTRADICTION". *facepalm*Anyway, that's fixed now (fortunately it wasn't a plot point or anything, so it didn't have repercussions in the rest of the story), so I can get that posted tonight or tomorrow.
Bend it
Jul. 30th, 2014 12:42 amswatkatI have been super impressed by the five (or was it six?) episodes of Korra S3 I've caught so far, not in the least because they seem to have not lost their pacing after picking up magnificently mid-S2 and taking the mytharc to epic AtLA-worthy levels in the S2 finale. More than ever, it feels like an organic extension of the Avatar 'verse - does, in fact, make it richer in its exploration of the ( spoilers )
So far, my only complaint seems to be NEEDS MORE CHIEF SOKKA. But that's always my complaint.
So far, my only complaint seems to be NEEDS MORE CHIEF SOKKA. But that's always my complaint.
They loooooooove each other \0/
Jul. 29th, 2014 11:38 amsansetsI have been poking on and off at making a long Steve/Bucky recs list since I saw Winter Soldier, because I have shipped them ever since reading the comics after seeing Cap 1, and I thought it would be kind of fun to have a recs list that mixed up between the two groups of fics. And now, however many months later, I think I'm finally going to declare this effort ready to post, because if I poke at it any longer it will never stop growing, and I can ALWAYS make another list later, right? I have made an executive decision that this list is only going to contain Steve/Bucky and not any of the various poly configurations that I also ship that include those two losers, because I needed a cut off point SOMEWHERE. As it is, this list is over 50 fics long, because I fail at anything resembling restraint. /0/ So, like, enjoy! Share it with your friends if they need more Bucky/Steve in their lives! I'm going to ... well, let's be honest, I'm probably going to go read more Steve/Bucky now. *g*
( To the end of the line )
( To the end of the line )
Drive by rec
Jul. 28th, 2014 09:34 pmdarthfangirlThe Confused Cats Against Feminism tumblr: ![[tumblr.com profile]](http://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
confusedcatsagainstfeminism.
Now also at![[syndicated profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
confusedcats_feed.
You're welcome.
Now also at
confusedcats_feed. You're welcome.
![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Sidetracks - July 28, 2014
Jul. 28th, 2014 04:40 pmhelloladies posting in ladybusinessSidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.
( Read more... )