Relativity Condenser

bad moods

Tue, 01 May 2012 01:18:33 GMT

Am I in a bad mood or what? Some little kid (I assume but god knows) posted on AO3 today, one of those "stories" that has 30 fandom tags, one of them MFU so it showed up on the MFU feed, and about 50 pairing tags including NS/IK. The story itself is 1200 words long (!). I mean I had to look, it's 500 words just to list all the names. It turns out she plans to do one paragraph for each pairing, when I looked she'd only done five of them.

So I wrote a comment pointing out that I felt I was being snookered into clicking on the story by false advertising, since she hasn't actually written about my fandom, and why doesn't she wait to add the fandom tag after she's actually written something. (She's got over 3,000 hits for her five paragraphs so it's pretty clear why she's doing it the way she is).

She did add a summary now (there wasn't one before) saying that not every pairing is done but you can click to see what's already available. Yeah sure, I'll do that any day now.

I must be in a bad mood, because really, what do I care. I think I was just looking for a fight but jeez it didn't come to anything. I'm losing my touch ;)

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MFU Fic: Fairy Tales

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:12:49 GMT

Written for saki101 and originally posted at mfuwss for the annual Easter Egg story exchange. Link goes to AO3

Title: Fairy Tales
Author: elmey
Pairing: NS/IK
Rating: PG 13
Length: ~1100 words

Fairy Tales

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one of these days...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:19:21 GMT

...i'm going to write something short and cheerful! My Easter Egg is once again over 500 words and not exactly cheery. Mainly because I had to cut it down from something that had grown even longer and I don't have room to put the basically happy ending in. LOL. And I had such innocuous prompts! An old house and an old book. It's saki's fault for asking for slash; my slash, such as it is is always angsty. I'm going to look it over one more time tomorrow to see if I can pep it up--I'm probably the last to post, though the deadline isn't till Monday. Of course once I've posted I won't be able to put off reading all the other ones I haven't read yet :) I have to go to bed, but have an old house on me:

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no good deed...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:00:48 GMT

Can you imagine signing your organ donor card thinking you're doing a good deed, and then they give your heart to that succubus Dick Cheney....

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the return of the brunnen-g

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:35:10 GMT

In 2000 or 2001, the Sci Fi Channel started broadcasting a Canadian/German co-production called Lexx (a note for jest--it was produced in Halifax!) which was one of the weirdest series ever made--I became quite fond of it :) Is it just a co-incidence that the latest Alexander McQueen show has co-opted Kai (the dead guy)'s hairdo? Or is it time for the return of the Brunnen-G :D

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from the department of is love all it used to be...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:38:45 GMT

( there's more :) )

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MFU Fic: Calculus

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:52:55 GMT

I've finally posted my revised DtC 8 Fic at AO3:

Calculus

In the end, the only real changes are structural; it was completely linear before because I didn't have time to do anything else--the timeline is possibly more confusing now, but I like the rhythm better. ( ...read more )

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After all, it's always more important to punish women who have sex...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:31:36 GMT

I want to point out this reprehensible decision by the Susan Koman Foundation--the pink ribbon people--they're cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood's cancer screening and educational programs:

This is what "Pro Life" is All About

The reasoning is specious as hell, all you need to know is that last April the Komen Foundation hired Karen Handel as their VP of pubic policy. Handel is a "pro life" Christian, a former secretary of state in Georgia, and a Republican activist who was coming off an unsuccessful run for governor of Georgia--endorsed by Sarah Palin, no less-- where she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Planned Parenthood has been a target of the Republicans for years. The Komen foundation has joined the war on women.

Planned Parenthood’s affiliates provide around 770,000 women with breast examinations and pay for mammograms and ultrasounds for those who need and can not afford further diagnostic services. They will now have to look for other funding.

Next time someone asks you to buy a pink ribbon, just say no. Give the money to Planned Parenthood instead.

There's a petition and more information here.

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SOPA Resistance Day

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:15:08 GMT

SOPA and PIPA also known as the Internet blacklist legislation, if passed in the US as it stands, should be of concern to everyone in the way it will endanger free speech on the worldwide web, and of particular concern to fandom as another attempt by the big media conglomerates to appropriate the cultural commons that we all draw our enjoyment and inspiration from.

For more information, and to find out how you can help oppose these bills here are a few links:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Stop American Censorship

Ars Technica, which has a series of articles on both the politics and economics of the bills.

Obama has already announced that he opposes some of the more pernicious elements of SOPA, but it's politics and we need to keep the pressure on. Help make a difference!

ETA: Gah. I tried to get my mfushortstories colleagues to agree to put black bars over the stories today with a link to EEF, but of course we couldn't possibly do anything that would ruffle feathers. Who the hell in MFU fandom is for SOPA. Technically, copyright violation is all we do.

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Happy Holidays!

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:36:28 GMT

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Hooligans!

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:59:37 GMT

For no reason in particular:

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another thrush lab :)

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:24:34 GMT

I need to have a picture in mind when I describe physical locations, and let's face it--rocky islands with Thrush labs on them aren't all that common on Google Images. Or maybe they are (below the cut because it need to be large to give the full effect):

( Thrush Lives! )

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well that sucked

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:25:04 GMT

We had our freak October snowstorm on Saturday--it started snowing around noon, by 2:30 our electricity was out. We were just hitting peak foliage season so the trees were still in full leaf and the snow was coming down in bucketloads, wet and heavy. All you could hear outside was a loud crack every couple of minutes, branches--huge branches--breaking off the trees because with the leaves full of snow, they couldn't bear the weight. It was actually scary; we're in an unusual suburban area, no lawns or flowerbeds, it's more like being nestled in the woods. The streets and backyards (and roofs and cars that weren't garaged) were covered with huge tree limbs when it was all over. Whole trees toppled into the streets and on top of the overhead wires that distribute power and telephone and internet/cable service here. I won't go into the question of why we have overhead lines hanging from listing wooden poles, a 19th century delivery system for 21st century services in a densely populated New York City suburb because it would lead to a diatribe on deregulation and feckless politicians which I'll save for another occasion ;)

Anyway it took till today to get our electricity back--why it would take this long is another question noone has answered--but our county executives assure us they have sent a strongly worded letter of displeasure to the power company! It was cold and dark and unpleasant and how people used to do anything by candlelight (or flashlight for that matter) is beyond me. I admit it, I am soft. And so are my cats who impatiently waited for me to go to bed at nights so that they could burrow into the blankets with me :)

The question now is should I go through five days of e mails or just start from scratch....

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WTF

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:28:58 GMT

Four to six inches of snow tomorrow night? In October??

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red plenty

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:48:36 GMT

Another picture that I'm putting here simply because it's unexpected and fascinating: The Russian economic ministries along Kalinin Prospekt in Moscow, from the 60s?? maybe.

I first saw a small version of it on the website for Red Plenty a book by Francis Spufford--which will finally be released in the US in February (it came out in the UK in 2010). I've been waiting.

The description: Is it a novel? Is it non-fiction? It all depends on your definitions. It tells a true story, but it tells it as a story. Whatever you call it, it’s about the moment in the mid-20th century when people believed that the state-owned Soviet economy might genuinely outdo the market, and produce a world of rich communists and envious capitalists. Specifically, it’s about the last and cleverest version of the idea - central planning via cybernetics - and about how and why, in the 1960s, it failed. To give the economics some human depth, Red Plenty generates a miniature Soviet Union on the page, peopled by scientists and politicians, fixers and managers, dreamers and cynics.

There are some interesting reviews here and here. Has anyone already read it by any chance?

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apparently...

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:47:24 GMT

we are finally leaving Iraq. After eight and a half years of war, what is there left to say.

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found: THRUSH HQ

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:43:49 GMT

No, it's not a movie set :)

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cat scratch fever

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:02:34 GMT

Yeah I know, but it's late afternoon, Friday...

From the brochure:

Cardboard, mixing deck-shaped cat scratching mat – with spinnable deck and poseable tone arm. Folds together easily – supplied with instructions.

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research byways

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:49:40 GMT

I'm easily distracted.

Kids, surely you are not like some of these kittens, are you?

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My annual DtC whine

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:58:26 GMT

The Down the Chimney signups opened up yesterday at muncle--deadline is this Friday. I'm so paranoid about getting prompts I can't work with; last year I betaed georgiesmith's story and her prompts were oranges, ugly Christmas sweater and Krampus. I couldn't believe she managed to produce any kind of a story out of them, if I'd gotten those I would have dropped out :(

At the same time it's such an important MFU event, it's a chance to get stories from people who don't really write much for MFU nowadays. I should support it. I'm always a bit embarrassed to hand in my signup sheet, because I have such a long list of things I don't want, and things I won't write :D

So I'll just be over here in my corner drumming my fingers and whining for a while.

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don't mind me, I'm just procrastinating again

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:08:11 GMT

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Fashion Victim

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:32:04 GMT

While looking around for crack shoes for the shoes comm, I came across this picture. It's OT for shoes but I'm in the mood to share so I'll put it here. Trying too hard maybe?

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MFU 30 Day Meme--Day #30

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:38:59 GMT

Day #30: Anything UNCLE related

Day 30. FINIS!! I had planned to go out with a bang; I was considering a list of my favorite episode related fan fic -- but after just finishing a month of crack_van I'm all reviewed out and I'm lazy to boot. So I'm going to repeat myself, I know you've seen this picture before, but it's worth warning everyone again:

When it comes to Illya and Napoleon, don't let the obvious aesthetic pleasure fool you-- caveat emptor ladies!

This public service announcement was inspired by jest

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MFU 30 Day Meme--Day #29

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:26:04 GMT

Day#29: Favorite cast member

I got nothin. I already answered favorite character, I don't know any of the cast members, though they all sound perfectly nice. For all I know my favorite would have been the extra who says "Bang you're dead" in Fiddlesticks. Actually that reminds me, it might be Leigh Chapman who played Sarah Johnson in Season One. Here's a great interview with her: A Chat with Leigh Chapman

And I have some random pictures too! Note the suave spy vehicle:

( the next one's even better... )

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MFU 30 Day Meme--Day #28

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 04:47:22 GMT

Day #28: Episode you use to introduce people to the show

I don't do this much, try to get other people to watch what I like. Because if they don't like it too, I judge them :) But OK, if I had to--I wouldn't necessarily use my favorite episode, though I would obviously use one I like a lot. If I were going to introduce someone to the show, I'd probably try to tailor the episode to the person.

Fiddlesticks would work for most women I think. Both Napoleon and Illya look great in it, they flirt madly with each other and with Susan; Susan is the perfect innocent; I like Rudolph, the plot moves, and the script is witty and smart.

( other people, other choices... )

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