zach_kw, no need to disown me anymore! I made good on my plans and saw Wrath of Khan tonight.

I freely admit that I only know bits and bobs of the Star Trek franchise, mostly through a good grade school friend of mine who was a Trekkie. (Trekker? What's the correct fannish term nowadays?) That meant I'd only seen a few episodes at most when I dashed out to see NewTrek in May, and while I loved it to bits, I knew I wasn't getting the full picture there -- of either the franchise or the fandom.

And I'm still not, I know, but...Wrath of Khan made it click for me even more than NewTrek. I get why so many people love this franchise so passionately, and not just out of nostalgia, either. Plus, both movies lend so much depth to each other that I would love seeing them back-to-back sometime once NewTrek's out on DVD.

Rock on, AFI Silver. I'll be back in a few for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, I'm sure. (Which reminds me -- gramarye1971, magwana, if you both still want to go, I can e-mail you to get more concrete plans set up? *serene*)

Who's a year older today?

batyatoon and newredshoes are a year older today!

Happy birthday, my lovelies. May it be as fantabulous as you are. <333

(...hilariously, and apropos of almost nothing, it seems I have typed the word "fantabulous" on Ziggy so much that it's automatically been entered into the autocorrect dictionary. Hee.)

Maybe I shouldn't be as excited over this film series as I am, but dude. DUDE. Ghostbusters! Wrath of Khan! Buckaroo Banzai! Who Framed Roger Rabbit! I am totally using this as an excuse to catch up on all of the 80s touchstones I missed the first time around -- or the ones I saw, but didn't get due to being so ickle and wee. (Like Roger Rabbit, which was nothing but, "Cartoons! Yay! :D" to my six-year-old self.)

...Well, okay, I'll use it as an excuse time and finances permitting, of course, but I am definitely seeing Wrath of Khan if nothing else.

(Local folks: any of you want to come with me? Non-local: want to come with me and crash on my floor afterwards? *innocent*)

All right, folks. I have a big favor that I want -- nay, need -- to ask of you.

If you ever rip some of the pages in a treasured book of yours, please. Please. Do not fix it with a piece of tape. Scotch, masking, electrical, I don't care -- if it's sticky on one side and smooth on the other, please don't put it on the book.

Because fifty, one hundred, or one hundred and fifty years from now, some poor preservation tech just like me is going to be hunched over that book, prying the tape off of it inch by agonizing inch so the adhesive won't rot the paper through, and weeping silently the whole while. It's possible they might even damage the book further in the process, because tape removal is a bitch and three-quarters of a procedure and, depending on the tape/paper quality/etc, damn near impossible to do cleanly.

Seriously, guys. Think of the preservation techs.

(This post is brought to you by the beautiful, beautiful mid-nineteenth century foldout from the Illustrated London News that I've been working on all afternoon, and the utter moron who thought it'd be a good idea to slap two different types of tape all over it. Some people want a time machine so they can go back to visit their idols. I want one so I can go back and punch this person in the face.)

(And it'll give me something to do while I'm weaving through town on a convoluted bus route.)

Name a fandom, and I'll give you the scoop on at least three of my unpopular opinions related to that fandom.

FYI before anyone worries -- I wasn't on either of the Metro trains that collided outside of Ft. Totten. I just got off of work a half hour ago, so all is well. (For a given value that involves two trains resting on top of each other very close to where I live.)

Anyway. I'm hanging out on the Hill for another hour or two to grab food and...well, not really wait it out, but maybe dodge the last of the rush hour crunch. Ziggy's here with me, albeit sans much battery power, so I'll kind of be around. But if you don't hear from me again until very late: that's why, not because I'm dead or in the hospital.

Even if you haven't been talking about the Iran election fallout lately -- which I am as guilty of as anyone, stunned and struck by the helplessness of what could I possibly do? -- I hope you've at least been following it.

The best reports haven't been coming from the major news outlets; they've been coming from Twitter, Facebook, LJ, and other social media. (Seriously, this is a fucking phenomenal use of new media and social networks, the likes of which I don't think we've ever seen before.) ontd_political has been hosting daily live posts that not only link to these sources, but compile the latest information from them in a very immediate, up-to-the-minute way. If you haven't been following the news, it's a good place to start.

This isn't about the candidates anymore. This is about people being shut down, jailed, or killed because they're expressing dissatisfaction and dissent. Death tolls from yesterday were estimated as high as 150 at one point; a young woman, Neda -- who wasn't even a protester, just a bystander -- was shot and killed as she stood with her father, her death captured by cell phone cameras.

Obama spoke yesterday about bearing witness to what's going on. That may be the best any of us outside of Iran can do, aside from telling as many people as we can to do the same.

I will be wearing green this week, and even if I say nothing more: I will be bearing witness.

Good afternoon, LJ.

Say hi to Ziggy.



(Did I mention I've been watching a lot of Quantum Leap reruns lately? Oh, show. I acknowledge your flaws -- most of which were a product of your time, I think -- and still love you to bits anyway. <333)

I need to commemorate this with a new ringtone. Any suggestions? Any neat apps I ought to get? OMG I HAVE AN IPHONE. :D :D :D!!!

I kind of want to make a new riff on this icon: "Man, I'm covered in red rot."

It's not quite as gross as it sounds. When leather ages -- usually to the tune of a hundred years or so -- it starts to powder and take on this weird, felty texture. The powder's hue ranges between brown and orange, but tends to settle somewhere in the rust-red area. That's red rot.

And it gets everywhere. And it sticks there, it's so fine-grained. You'll grab a book spine and come away with handfuls of the stuff if you're not paying attention.

I spent about an hour measuring a bunch of nineteenth-century leatherbound books this afternoon, and while it could be worse...man. I'm covered in red rot. :(

CNN's reporting two people shot at the Holocaust Museum.

Where do I even start in the "reasons to wig out over this" department?

*cackles* Oh, man, Apple's website is getting slammed right now.

But guys. GUYS. 32GB IPHONE. I've had the money squirreled away for this since December, and it's coming just as my poor four-year-old Nokia has started to fritz on a near-daily basis (instead of a near-weekly one), and and and. Oh, I am such a happy little Kool-Aid drinking Apple fangirl right now.

(Also? Super-thrilled about the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade, especially after spending over a hundred bucks to upgrade to Leopard two years ago. Very well played, sir.)

ETA: Aaaaand pre-order placed. YEEEEEEEEE. :D :D :D

Grab one can of refried beans -- whatever variety you want. (I go for either regular or vegetarian.) Grab another can of salmon. Drain it, then dump 'em both into a giant bowl and mix thoroughly.

Spoon some of the mixture onto a tortilla. Add sour cream and cooked rice, should you desire. Wrap it up burrito-style.

Nom.

(And it makes enough filling to nom for an entire week, which just adds to the fabulous. *g*)

Oh, man. Guys, I had the most incredible weekend this past Friday through Sunday.

First and foremost: newredshoes came to visit! We hadn't seen each other since I drove out to Denver over a year ago, and as usual, it was an utter delight to have her around. I got to show her my Big Damn Hippie Neighborhood -- some swaths of which I'd never visited myself (the nearby park is so gorgeous, I had no idea) -- and in retaliation, she brought along her Band of Brothers DVDs.

That series...oh. Oh. I continue to be amazed and still a bit incoherent; I went into it with curiosity but no particular expectations to fall in love with it, since war movies tend to kind of be the opposite of my thing. But this -- it made it click, for me. I've always respected the armed forces, but I've also spent nearly a third of my life watching a war that I strongly believe we shouldn't be fighting, that I further believe we undertook for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes it's hard to make things click under those circumstances.

Now they have, though, and my respect for service personnel has probably tripled this weekend alone. Not to mention that the series itself is just exceptionally well done TV, "Bastogne" and "Why We Fight" in particular.

And if you want to talk incredible, or incoherent? Visit the World War II memorial midway through watching Band of Brothers, on a beautiful spring day when several busloads of WWII vets have come to see it as well. They easily made up a third of the crowds on Saturday afternoon; a man stood at one of the gates to shake each and every veteran's hand as they arrived. "Thank you for your service," he said. "Welcome to your memorial."

(We're fairly certain that we even saw somebody from the 101st Airborne. He wore a Screaming Eagle hat and posed in front of the paratroopers frieze.)

Just. Oh, wow, guys. What more can I say than that?

Other major highlights: meeting up and geeking out with kaydeefalls and another friend of Esther's (hi, guys!), which included tons of fandom babble and a mini vidshow at kaydeefalls' place; watching the sun set from the fountain at Dupont Circle as we listened to a busker run through the strangest repertoire ever (the Eagles' "Hotel California" and Radiohead's "Creep" both made it onto his playlist); deciding that the reason the air always smelled like honeysuckle, jasmine, and other flowers was because of the unicorns Obama brought with him when he was elected; and actually cooking a few meals for Esther -- complete with breaking in the NEW KITCHEN TABLE :D! -- without burning anything down or having them taste awful.

And then I slept for most of Monday, save my hours at work. Like you do after amazing weekends that take you all over the place both emotionally and physically.

Also! One consequence of being absorbed by awesome is that I only did very quick skims of my f'list this weekend. If some awesome of your own happened that I missed, please point me toward it! I have a backlog of e-mails that I'm going to tackle tonight, too, so if you fired something my way: never fear, an answer will be here once I'm home.

In the meantime, I'm going to go back to whistling paratrooper chants very quietly as I comb through the day's news.

I went into Ikea to get a $5 cross brace for one of my bookshelves, and somehow I came out with a kitchen table and two matching stools.

Oops.

But it's a good kitchen table! It is deceptively wee, which make it perfect for my pocket-sized apartment, and when you unfold the drop leaf it's like WHAM, DOUBLE MY ORIGINAL SIZE, BITCHES, so when I have guests over we can actually sit at a proper table instead of juggling food on our laps! And I can do the same thing in the morning and evening, too. Oh, to eat cereal without fear that I'm going to dump it all over my laptop or couch.

Also? There are, officially, no more boxes left in here. I have unpacked and sorted everything.

WHAM, BITCHES. >:D!!!

You may be asking yourself, f'list: "Self, should I, by some means or another, obtain the audio book of Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek novelization?" I am here to help with this handy one question quiz!

Why do you want to listen to the Star Trek audio book?

A) I want to experience a well-written encapsulation of everything I loved about the movie -- one that does not involve repetitive phrasing, occasional inconsistencies, and near-constant use of the passive voice.

B) I want to hear Zachary Quinto make monster noises.

If your answer is B, then yes. Yes, you should get ahold of this audio book.

You want to talk song/fandom combos that make you go, "Crazyviddersayswhat?" when you first hear them, but end up being too perfect for words?

Me too! Fancy that. :D

Circus by butterfly, Star Trek '09 -- that's right, James T. Kirk and Britney Spears, together at last. It makes me cackle, the use of motion is fantastic, and just like the movie itself, it's a ton of effervescent fun.

...also if anyone knows where I might find Star Trek caps I'd be much obliged because I think I ought to make an icon or two. :D?

I curled up in bed at nine o'clock last night, just intending to take a quick nap, and woke up ten minutes ago when my usual morning alarm started beeping at me.

As the saying goes: if I slept that much, I must have needed it.

...unfortunately, the saying seems to be ignoring the fact that I did almost nothing but sleep this past weekend. Somehow, I'm thinking that is less with the good.

Nnnngh where is my freakin' caffeine. *shuffles away to find breakfast*

Today's "Go Me!" moment: walking down to Teaism after work (so chosen because of the total lack of internet/cell phone reception on its lower level), plonking down with my laptop, and taking an hour and a half to read through all of last year's truncated NaNoWriMo manuscript.

...Yeah, you can totally tell I've been a fanfic writer for thirteen (!!) years, what with the way my worldbuilding breaks the "show, don't tell" rule approximately eighty gabillion times. *winces* Still, it has its moments; it has three scenes in particular I adore and hope like hell I can include in the final draft, and quite a few others that'll be reasonably solid once I pare them down and tweak the story structure. I may be facedesking a little in embarrassment, but it's not the despairing facedesk of, "Oh, God, this is completely unsalvageable and needs to die in a fire ASAP." Which is always nice.

Plus, it turns out I only wrote for fourteen of the thirty days that month, yet somehow still managed to crank out almost 34k. This? Also not too shabby.

All I need to do now is, um, remember where I was planning to go with it before I dropped everything and sprinted back east. But that's doable, right? Right.

Time to start making regular dates with a café corner, I think.