Friday Fun Times

Most. Random. Thing. Ever. Or at least today. Or at least this half-hour.

Things That Make Me Happy and Should Come Here So I Can Hug Them

After Monday, it only seems fair.

1. Friends who make me gorgeous computer wallpapers. :)

2. Jensen Ackles' smile. Seriously. Between him, corvids, and Matt Smith, my cubicle at work is a lovely, lovely place.

3. Folks who take the time to put up full MST3K episodes on Youtube. (Not linking because, duh: I don't want anyone backtracked and shut down because of me. But, if you're curious, try Googling "MST3k the sword and the dragon" or "the day the earth froze" and pay attention to the usernames.)

4. John Sheppard/Rodney McKay slash. This is the fandom pairing made of endless bunnies and sunshine and rainbows and I'm not kidding. Want proof? Try this, or this, or, lord love you, this.

A visual representation of McShep slash.

Things That Irritate Me and Can Go Away Now

Because it's my blog and I can.

1). The Christopher Hitchens love. I won't say I hated him and I'm glad he's dead. But I didn't like him very much and I sure as hell ain't cryin'.

2). The Ryan Gosling 'hey, girl' meme. What the fuck, people. All memes have a certain amount of annoyance  built into them, but this is one of the only ones that makes me want to chew glass when I see it. It's not funny. It's not original. Try doing it with cats and maybe I'll want to kick you in the balls less.

3). Companions leave the Doctor, folks, it's how Doctor Who works. Why the news that Amy and Rory are leaving should cause such widespread angst and heartburn -- before they've even left! -- is a mystery to me. Particularly when no-one in the fandom seemed to give much of a shit when the Doctor mind-fucked Donna and left her to her fate. Yeah. Good one, 10.

4). In addition to the above: Amy hate. No. Just...fucking no.

There.

Thank you.

I feel better now.

In Which We Write Letters: Stop SOPA

via

Anna here. This post is cross-posted at the feminist librarian.


Depending on your level of involvement in things internet-political and techy, you may or may not be aware of the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) now making its way through congress. Introduced by representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), this bill mandates widespread monitoring of internet activity and has the potential to cause the internets as we know them to be fundamentally altered as blogs and other social networking sites are shut down for supposed acts "piracy." You can read more about the act at the Organization for Transformative Works, TechCrunch, and the American Library Association. The letter Hanna and I sent to our representatives is heavily cribbed from the ALA talking points.

Find your U.S. Representative here. 

Find your U.S. Senators here.

---

18 December 2011

Dear Representative Capuano,

As librarians, bloggers, and registered voters in Allston, Massachusetts, we are writing to ask you to vote against the proposed Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261.

This bill, if it becomes law, will cause a widespread “chilling effect” on use of the Internet for commerce, communication, and participation in democratic society. The bill strikes at copyright protections currently granted to libraries and educational institutions by creating the possibility of criminal persecution of institutions and institutional representatives. for online streaming and other use of online resources in library and classroom space. SOPA's requirements to monitor internet traffic violate free speech and privacy protections and may create new forms of government surveillance of private activities within and outside the United States. The predicted consequences of SOPA are far-reaching. If passed, the potential for new jobs, innovative new ventures, and economic growth will be stifled.

Citizen engagement in online spaces depends on the ability to share and discuss a wide variety of media content across multiple social networking and other Internet platforms. SOPA will effectively shut down the vibrant creativity and vital political discourse that has been made possible by the World Wide Web. On behalf of ourselves, our online community of bloggers, and our library patrons, we ask you to vote against H.R. 3261, and support alternative ways for protecting legitimate copyright interests online.

Sincerely,

Anna J. Cook & Hanna E. Clutterbuck

Friday Fun Times

More Shaun!

Photo Wednesday: Christmas Tonttus

Hi folks, Anna here ...

This past weekend, Hanna and I were up in Maine celebrating an early Christmas with the folks. This involved a lot of good food, a Christmas carols service at nearby Colby College, and the creation of our very own tonttu for the apartment. Tonttu are Finnish house spirits that Hanna's mother learned about from her Finnish parents and grandparents. Here are some photographs that we took of the process of making two tonttus. It took the better part of Sunday morning.

these fellows were our model tonttus

here are some of the supplies Linda provided

We started with a base of cardboard, Styrofoam, and felt

all self-respecting tonttus need hats

Mine is on the left, Hanna's is on the right.

Hanna named hers Ibrahim; mine is named Helga

We brought them back to Boston on Monday to grace our Christmas shelf

While tonttu is the Finnish term for house spirits, some of you may be familiar with the Astrid Lindgren picturebooks which tell the story about a gentle tomten who cares for a family farm in Sweden. This is essentially the same folk character, though seen through the lens of a slightly different Scandinavian tradition.

I hope all of you are finding small and pleasurable ways of preparing for the holiday season ...

Travelling

Okay, so I'm the one travelling not you.

Well, maybe you.

If you are, best of luck to you!

In any case, here's a video for Monday: one of my absolute favorite yoga routines from Kathryn Budig and Yoga Journal.

I'd say it's fine for anyone who's an adventurous beginner or beyond; you may want to have a strap or a block (or two) handy just in case.

Friday Fun Times

Sheep and Doctor Who jokes. :)

For What It's Worth

It has recently been brought to my attention that some people actually take the recommendations and, presumably, the disrecommendations I make on this blog seriously.

I feel a sudden rush of power and blood to the head.

No -- wait, maybe that's just the third cup of coffee kicking in.

So with this in mind, here's my meaningless, completely insignificant recommendation for this week.

You enjoy raunchy, foulmouthed, violent cartoons, right?

Of course you do.

So I have three words for you, my friend:

Tripping the Rift.

All 3 seasons and the movie (not so great, but fun if you get into it and great if you've got a six-pack on hand) are available on Netflix insty and I'm betting that 5-10 minutes of hardcore Youtubing will probably net you the same thing.

Not for the faint of heart or the ready to blush since two of the main characters are Chode McBlob, the deeply profane and irreverent purple captain of Bob, an agoraphobic spaceship, and Six, Chode's feminist sex android.

Seriously, we are talking stripper jokes, sex jokes, drug jokes, alcohol jokes -- if you thought Little Britain was as bad as it gets -- well, okay, you were close but not close enough. There are also enough pop culture references -- visual and verbal -- to keep pretty much anyone happy.

The first episode is called "God is Our Pilot": Chode and his "faithful" android, Gus (think a limp-wristed-er version of Threepio) take a trip back in time and kill God. I mean -- what do you do for the rest of the day, right?

If you're in the mood to kick back and take nothing at all very seriously -- and enjoy a fictional universe where clowns are the evil villains we all know them to be -- then Rift is your new best friend, believe me.

Photo Monday: Athan's Bakery

Anna here ...

Yesterday, Hanna and I branched out from out usual weekend haunts to try out a new spot for weekend brunch: Athan's Bakery in Washington Square, Brookline. It turned out to be a great place for people watching, reading (Hanna: Freud's letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Anna: The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin), and nursing our morning espresso. Here are some photos I snapped while we were there.

The front room, full of sunshine and sugary things.

Cookies sold by the pound

Not exactly breakfast food, but ...

There were lots of students with laptops working away

Hanna's left arm, lovely earrings, and
new-hairstyle-in-progress

Abandoned coffee cups at the espresso bar.

Friday Fun Times

Rule Number One

This isn't really about Rule Number One: either the Whovian or Pratchettian version.

I have, thanks to the grace of the BBC and Amazon.com, finished season 6 of Doctor Who. Yes, yes, let there be rejoicing in the streets and cheering throughout.

And I have thoughts -- plenty of 'em! -- on an episode-by-episode basis, but as I think about those posts and what I want to say, one thought from the season-as-a-whole perspective keeps returning to me in an absolutely irresistible fashion.

It's a message to Steven Moffat and the message is this:

Mr. Moffat.

Thank you. In all seriousness, thank you so much for what you have done for a show I have loved for many, many years. Between you and Russell T. Davies, you have done what I never seriously considered to be possible, so thank you.

However, having just watched season 6 -- good one with Gaiman, by the way -- I have one word for you and that word is this: midichlorions.

Google it if you have to or simply watch Star Wars: Phantom Menace.

I urge you to think.

Think very carefully.

Think very long and hard and for many many hours, or possibly days, before you explain what no-one in their right minds wants you to explain.

Thank you for your consideration.

So -- About Those Zombies

So, I finished the first season of The Walking Dead in my mad "finish everything before Doctor Who arrives!" dash. (And I just caught the first couple episodes of season 2 on AMC during a marathon leading up to mid-season tonight.)

And I like Dead. I like it a lot. A lot a lot.

One of the things that really intrigues me about Dead so far is the strongly liberal/moral stance it has adopted and I nearly originally wrote that sentence as 'moral,' but that wouldn't be true because, well, morals aren't absolute no matter what the fundies might say and I think Dead has adopted a fairly liberal stance. True, they haven't come up against any dealbreakers yet, really: no gay zombies, or trans survivors, or anything like that. But a lot of horror, even very recent horror, takes a pretty conservative stance on things: sex is punishable by death; outsider status (unless heroified deliberately by the narrative) is punishable by death; etc., etc.

Dead seems to be defining some interesting new (or new-ish) territory outside of this rather routine horror storytelling. And this is quite apart from having characters who are adaptable, bright, quick to realise what's going on in the situation and I really have to reiterate my earlier point that I would like to kiss the actors and screenwriters all 'round for not making me live through an unending stream of 'But it can't be happening!' speeches 'cause I can't tell you how sick I am of that. My girlfriend can tell you of the long lectures I deliver to characters in horror movies instructing them to either snap to the truth of things and get a gun in hand or line up to be a hot dinner for whatever evil is on the rampage.

In any case, back to the point.

Dead seems to be lining up to take a slightly new view on things -- but it's being a little heavyhanded about it. You're a racist redneck? Better watch out: someone'll handcuff you to a pipe and (unintentionally) leave you for the eaters. Beating your wife recreationally? Watch out for the (sexually frustrated) sheriff's deputy with a chip on his shoulder -- then the zombies'll getcha, just to make sure the viewers get the point.

It's an interesting idea -- but already, even in season 1, I'm wishing they'd take it further -- and be a little more subtle about it. I don't think that the writers here are going to leave me high and dry the way the writers of Supernatural continually do: "Oh, here's an interesting---oh, shit! oh, shit! something controversial! Padalecki's acting skills can't cope! Retreat! Retreat!" (All said in a kind of quasi-Dalek voice, of course.) At least Dead is willing to talk about things like is suicide an acceptable alternative in this world? Okay, granted that it is, what about someone unconscious in a life or death situation (non-zombie related)? Okay, that's a bit blurrier so lets make it fun: what if it's a kid? What if someone does something really bad to get medical supplies so the kid can make it?

They're all interesting questions and I'm glad to see something genre that isn't backing away from them or cloaking them in so much symbolism and alien hoohah that they're unrecognizable to the naked eye or casual observer. That said, I'd also like some fairly basic storyline questions to be asked at this point: no-one seems all that concerned about infection, for example. Or where the zombies came from. Or where they're going. Or how they behave. Aren't these questions that a group hoping to survive for more than the next ten minutes should really be looking to?

Photo Monday

Cat picspam!

Brains for Thought

A couple quick thoughts for midweek -- well, more questions really...

1. Do the recent Halloween remakes/reboots/sequels have a hard time given that their progenitor film, made well over 20 years ago, helped set the rules for the modern slasher fic?

2. Is The Walking Dead deliberately setting out to be a moralistic zombie tale or is it just happening accidentally?

3. Do all SyFy Original movies suck or just most of them?

4. Does The Asylum really hate women?

5. And if it's going to be November, why can't it be the end of November so I can get my goldurned Doctor Who season six DVDs?!

Photo Monday

More photos, folks -- I was hoping to have a post about The Walking Dead -- the first season of which I have nearly finished -- for today in honor of the season, but I have done something truly dreadful to my lower back which results in me being unable to sit and type for more than, oh, say 10 minutes at a time.

So wish me luck at the doctor's office tomorrow and maybe, if I'm a very lucky girl, I'll be able to write the post for Wednesday.

See, I think this was once a really sweet mother-and-child
statue...but check out Mommy dearest's hand.

Little 'n large tombstones.

Guess where? Hey, it's Halloween!

Spiffy fountain again.

Friday Fun Times

I love the jumpiness in the cuts with the people holding the cards.

And if you'd like the (slightly more) lighthearted video with cards:

 

Plus the lead singer? Smoking hot. Kind of like a 3-way love child between Cillian Murphy, Colin Morgan, and Bradley James.

Random Post is Random

So I don't know about the rest of you, but, for me, this is a week when I find myself trying to find Supernatural wallpaper with lots of pretty boys. (Also pace a con interview I saw with Jensen Ackles where he referenced feeling like a real idiot going in to do the publicity shot set-ups and then being like, "But wait -- I need more fans -- my hair isn't blowing enough!")

In light of that, here are some random thoughts for midweek.

1. The last episode of the latest season of Inspector Lewis drove me up a wall. If there was a way to put together more stereotypical Irish characters and a less-nuanced view of 20th century Irish history, I can't think of it. The only way would have been if a pedophile priest had turned out to be the killer. Up. A. Fucking. Wall. I'm tellin' you.

2. The most emo video in the world but, shameful reveal here: I adore this song.

3. Did you know Joss Whedon has just finished principle photography on a version of Much Ado About Nothing with Sean Maher and Nathan Fillion? True. Jury's still out on whether Fillion and Maher will be Beatrice and Benedick. Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease---

4. 

No, I don't know what's up with his hair either.

Photo Monday

More pictures of...things!

They killed Kenny!
Sorry, I really am sorry... This is in Mt. Auburn, btw.

I have no idea. But I bet it would be a cool hang-out on
Halloween.

Spiffy fountain.

Ditto.

A last rose.

Friday Fun Times

The world's briefest intro to Doctor Who....

And I got this from a SciFiWire story but the text surrounding it is as stupid as everything else SFW ever puts up, so I'm not linking to it.

The Endless Fascination of the Undead

I realise I am, once again, behind the times, but I just got to checking out The Walking Dead.

First off, I have to admit myself humiliated that I recognized neither the sheriff himself (Andrew Lincoln) nor the lovely African-American (Afro-English, actually) gentleman (Lennie James) holed up with his son in the first episode without the assistance of IMDB. I really should be and am embarrassed. Of course, once I realised who the actor playing Grimes was, I had a hard time seeing him as hard-core bad-ass sheriff'y type. But I'm sure I'll get over that.

I have to say that the thing I really love about this show is how quiet it is. No moaning, no groaning, no stumbling, very little screaming, shrieking, or general freaking out. So far -- only a couple episodes in -- people mostly seem to be coping in a pretty reasonable fashion. After enough horror movies, you get really sick of the continual freak-outs; a couple of "Teen Screams" movies off Netflix will have you practically praying for someone who doesn't continually insist that what is happening clearly in front of his eyes isn't really real. (Not to mention blood that looks real.)

The hospital wake-up is very good -- I'm relieved I didn't have to see Andrew Garfield in the same state as I unwittingly saw Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later.

One of the reasons I kept wanting to see the show -- apart from the fantastic art hung in the windows of a couple local comic shops -- was I saw one of the comic covers that featured the "don't open / dead inside" door graffiti and I wondered if that was in the show. Turns out it is -- and it's awesome.

The zombie make-up is fucking fantastic and the extras must be having a blast: "Okay, what we want you to do is kind of wander around aimlessly and then bite people. And make it look good." Where do I sign up, please?! I'm sure more has been written about the Bicycle Girl in the first episode than I could ever cover, but I find both Grimes' original reaction to her and his later dispatching of her fascinating. The original encounter reveals both his practicality and clear thinking -- and how much the hope of finding his wife and son safely at home is sustaining him. He isn't really thinking all that clearly -- as his subsequent breakdown reveals, a large part of him is hoping that this is all a bad dream -- some sort of bad reaction to anesthetic or perhaps he's really just back in the coma.

His going back to find her is...interesting. I keep coming back to that as one of the more interesting points of the pilot. It's a pretty foolish way to spend your time, really. There are so many zombies about the place that if you see your new goal in life as "putting down the infected," you're totally set for the rest of your life. It seems fairly obvious that the show creators are setting up a parallel between Grimes who sets out to find this one individual and "put her out of her misery" or whatever it is he does and Morgan who also has a specific individual on his hands, so to speak, and can't bring himself to treat his wife as Grimes does the Bicycle Girl.

There's a pretty surface-level interpretation here: one can't kill the person one loves the best. But I think there's something more going on here: in the middle of all the ghastliness of his first couple days awake in the new world, Grimes remembers the Bicycle Girl, tracks her down, and doesn't simply blow the back of her head off, but talks to her, tries to get something back from her -- before, of course, blowing the back of her head off. The one-sided conversation he has, even with a zombie who is clearly dying of starvation in front of his eyes, is fascinating as Grimes tries to make sense of what's happening in front of him and come to terms with it in some way.

Morgan, on the other hand, has had longer and more horrible circumstances under which to come to terms with what's going on. He knows exactly -- or as exactly as any of our character can know at this point -- what's going on and that his wife will never come back. At best, he can hope that she wanders away and is lost in the undead hordes; at worst, her persistence at the door will be rewarded and she will kill him and their son -- or doom them to wander as undead with her. Either way, their family is over: as the man said, "There ain't no comin' back." He's prepared, he knows what he has to do, even his son understands in the end and hides without trying to stop him -- and he can't do it in the end.

What this means in the long run for the two characters I have no idea. I don't even know if Morgan shows up with any regularity after the first episode. But I'm eagerly anticipating going through the rest of the season and finding out.

Photo Monday

...and more to come later in the week. Not just photos, other stuff, too.

I just started watching The Walking Dead and whoo-boy! Is that a fun time or what!

This is Shirley the Sheep at my mom's fiber arts table at a recent
show in Boothbay.

Geraldine testing out new rag rugs. The foot is Anna's.

Mt. Auburn cemetary.

Ditto.

Ditto.

Playing with settings on the camera...

Mushrooms or possibly pancakes. :)

Announcement!

Okay, the exclamation point makes this look way more exciting than it is.

I'm going to be taking a brief blogging hiatus for the rest of this week and all of next. Return on the 17th for fun and frolics!

(No, please. Really. I'll miss you if you're gone.)

And if you just miss me too much during the hiatus, check out the evil angel tumblr (for a fairly random mix of stuff) and the everything is gay and nothing hurts tumblr (for an ever-increasing amount of slash fic.) if you really can't stand the pain, you can come visit me on archive of our own (a.k.a, ao3) as Crowgirl.

Photo Monday: Maine and Back

This post brought to you by Anna.

This passed Saturday, Hanna and I drove up to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens to visit with her mom and dad. Linda was exhibiting at the Maine Fiber Arts Showcase. It was a rainy afternoon, but luckily the fiber arts event was inside the visitor's center.

As usually happens when we visit with Hanna's parents, we drove north with things to give/return to them and they met us with more things for us to take south again ... a new sweater for Hanna, the tam that Linda knit me for Christmas and finally blocked, and what Hanna has termed "the rudest thing ever":

Kevin with the rude squash (photo by Linda)

In exchange, we finally allowed Shirley -- the stuffed sheep from Michigan that we gave Linda for her birthday in July -- to move to her forever home in Maine.

Shirley and Linda at Linda's display booth (photo by Anna)

The garden is impressive in size and scope, although we didn't get a chance to see much of it in the rain. One section is the fairy house village. I think this is where these magical creations were headed:

fairy houses in the garden library (photo by Anna)

a fairy castle? tree house? (photo by Anna)

Shirley got a bit chilled (photo by Anna)

When we got home, Geraldine was pissy because we had left her alone all Saturday -- but she was somewhat mollified by the four new rag rugs we brought home, courtesy of Linda. Rag rugs are clearly for kitties to sleep on, not for humans to place their feet.

enigmatic cat is enigmatic (photo by Hanna)

Monday again, huh?

Anne Lamott, in her great Bird by Bird once describes the first day of the week as "your mute, Slavic uncle Monday." She suggests not starting big things -- no new novels; no screen plays; no house cleaning projects -- on Mondays 'cause, dude...uncle Monday.

And so that's how Monday is personified for me a lot of the time: an out-of-proportionally big guy, in an overcoat that doesn't fit, and huge clown shoes. Except all in a kind of rusty, grungy black. Shaggy dark hair, and no use for language.

In order to give uncle Monday a little run for his money, lets look at pretty things instead, shall we?

My two favorite new Tumblr blogs are all about the pretty things. Lets give some love to "You only lose what you cling to" and brown dress with white dots. These are both primarily photo blogs; the former is colloquially known as "fuckyeah cats lesbians and buddhism" -- just so you know what you're getting into: some of it may be NSFW, but the photography is wonderful.

brown dress is my new favorite photo blog at this point; sometimes the stuff going up can seem a little...posed and slightly artificial to my eye -- my totally untrained, amateur photographer's eye, by the way -- but then there's shots like this and this and this .... oh, and this.

So go forth and look at pretty things and maybe mute old uncle Monday will come and chill out with you for a bit and think about cats rather than glooming in the corner and thinking about cockroaches.

Friday Fun Times

Following through on last week...don't blame me if this gets stuck in your head for hours! I can still sing most of this -- as well as most of the opening of Act 1, all parts -- from memory; how sad am I?

Oh, and I suppose this is probably mildly NSFW if you care about that sort of thing!

Rant: SW Fans, STFU

My parents and I have watched a lot of very bad movies. And when I say "a lot," I mean a lot: we must be past dozens and into the low hundreds. Movies so bad that they kind of paralyze you into watching them -- you know the ones I mean. Where you finish it and turn to the other people in the room as the final credits roll blissfully past and say, "Why did we watch that?" Movies like Quigley Down Under and Species and Twister. Okay, maybe not Twister for which I have a sneaking fondness based largely on Bill Paxton and the nifty-shit aunt who gets her house destroyed by the F4 or whatever the fuck it is.

 Anyway, my point is: I watched a lot of bad movies with my folks when I was living at home. And I've watched a lot of bad movies since -- sometimes, I search out bad movies: movies with disappointing CGI, poor casting decisions, bad use of documentary footage, or movies that are simply a bad idea. Some of these movies turn out to be joyous little slices of deliciousness as in the wonder that is Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, a German attempt at Jaws dubbed into English which takes place in what may or may not be Majorca and the climax of which features Ski-Doo racers being stalked by a genetically recreated Megalodon with the accompanying soundtrack of a cheery little pop-song that I swear to God is unironically and with no apparent attempt at family-unfriendliness or sarcasm called "Do the Sixty-Nine." Sheer glory, I tell you.

Over the years, though, my parents and I have learned that there's this great thing on the remote to help you deal with bad movies: it's called the "stop" button or the "power off" button. It really works like a charm -- and I want all the Star Wars fans currently bitching about the Blu-Ray release of the movies to learn the fuck about it.

 Don't like it? Don't freakin' watch it.

There's an "off" button, people -- better yet, keep your damned credit card in your wallet and don't shell out in the first place! It's not like Lucas isn't a multi-zillionaire nine times over at this point; I don't think he's hurting for your $59.95 or however much the Blu-Ray set costs. I myself own the original trilogy in two different formats at least 3 times over, the new trilogy -- I think only once. I'm happy with the edits I own: I was happy when Lucas brought out the original edits of the first trilogy on DVD; I bought the box set; and I stick with it. I have the circa 1998 edits, too, because I happen to like a lot of the changes he made to Empire. 

And while we're on the subject, please, for the love of heaven, stop going on about how Lucas is ruining his own story. It's his story, folks, his. Not mine, not yours, not anyone else's. Okay, it's moderately Joseph Campbell's, but we'll let that slide since he didn't seem to mind. And I hate to tell you: but as long as that copyright is in Lucas' beflannelled little hands, he gets to do what the fuck he wants with it and maybe, just maybe, at this point, we could all just shut the fuck up about it. The man is a compulsive re-editor; we're just going to have to live with that. Yeah, he does shit we think is stupid; who doesn't, really?

And on the whole, I am still far more grateful to him for putting the story out there in the first place than I am niggly about different audio cues or actors edited in to places they shouldn't be.

Photo Monday: BU Bridge

Hi! Anna here.

Last Friday, Hanna and I walked from our apartment over to Cambridge via the Boston University bridge which has been under extensive restoration for the past several years. It was a gorgeous September day. Here are a few photographs that we snapped on the bridge.

Hanna looking west up the Charles river
(photo by Anna, obviously)

Moon over I-90 (photo by Hanna)

graffiti on the freight rail  bridge below
(photo by Hanna)

girders in the sun
(photo by Anna)

Cross-posted at the feminist librarian.

I'm glad to say that I have totally reclaimed my love of RENT after many years of trying.

To celebrate this fact, enjoy one of the (very very) few undramatic, simply enjoyable songs:

So, really, I suppose this should be a Friday thing but y'know what? It's shaping up to be kind of a rough week, I don't have a lot of time to put a more complicated post together... and, honestly, I think we all need this.

Don't you think we need this?

And here's how they did it.

Thanks to Diana for pointing this out to me when my normal news sources were sadly remiss. :)

Announcement: Launching Fan Fiction Tumblr Today

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

(Anna here)

I look at this as the (nearly) inevitable result when you take two librarians + a galloping fan fiction addiction + the internets and stir: Hanna and I, in search of a way to share our favorite fan fiction with friends who have a similar taste in leisure reading (and occasionally writing), have established a Tumblr blog for collecting and sharing fan-created fiction.

everything-gay-nothing-hurts.tumblr.com

It's multi-fandom -- though our current obsession is with Supernatural's Dean/Castiel -- and we've enlisted the assistance of two pals (MH and R) to help us broaden our fandom scope. Our plan is to post a fic recommendation Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So if fic is your thing, please wander on over and subscribe!

~Anna & Hanna

Friday Fun Times

Okay, you have absolutely no idea how many times I heard the opening notes of this song while searching down this video for you. But it was worth it, my friends -- so worth it.

Enjoy the charmingly unselfconscious Jensen Ackles. And have a great Friday while you're at it.

Since I kind of think of it as "Whovian Wednesdays" around here -- although, obviously, I would never title anything that because, God, what kind of person do you think I am? -- here is something Whovian for your mid-week.

Also, I can't face thinking about The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People just now and I really do have to watch the episodes again to refresh a few details before I wibble on about them.

Normally I wouldn't link to io9 because I don't like the site that much but I can't resist the breakdown of 10 Totally Different TV Shows That Doctor Who Has Been Over the Years.

dr_who_who by the-quick-brown-fox.

Photo Monday: Uneasy Detante

This is life in our household today. Hope yours is a relaxing!

Geraldine attempts to commune with
Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg

~Anna and Hanna, Labor Day 2011