Cleolinda everywhere

Re: Friday's Secret Life: People do this every time one of the characters refers to "Miss Cleo," so--I just want you to know that I'm not trying to hint that you have to call me that. I'm not a TV hotline psychic or the little old lady down the street or anything. Plain "Cleo" is just fine.

Also, if you feel creative in the comments or something, this is precisely what folks created slodfans for. I mean, fanfic of fanfic will probably destroy the universe, but that's what it's there for. (Newest post: Icons!)

(This afternoon: more guerilla photography, lest I get busted taking pictures of vintage toys again. "Is that--" "NO!" "--one of my forks?" "... Maybe." I did discover that the NECA action figures do have a bit more bendability than I had originally thought. I also put two characters close together in the same shot for the first time and it is TERRIFYING. Like something out of Gulliver's Travels, for real. Anyway. That'll probably go up tomorrow.)

I've rambled on too long already, so: remind me to tell you what I ended up doing to rescue my hair for the next chatty/linky post.

Meanwhile, I totally, deplorably forgot to link the big first-anniversary Made of Fail episode when it came out; there's also a poll up for you to weigh in as to whether you like the new intro better than the old one. (I'll be guesting on the next epsiode, which will be Harry Potter-themed.)

Also-also, from lightlack: "I was wondering if in one of your future linkspam posts, you might be able to post something about this story in the LA Times about a very young girl with severe schizophrenia. I don't know this family personally, but they're friends of a friend, and after I read the article I wanted to help spread the story, in case somebody out there with connections might know of some resources that could help this little girl out."

( Linkspam of major WTF )

I had dinner and then took a hot shower and that was apparently a baaaad idea because I'm about to fall asleep right here at my desk. So, before I pass out:

ipomoea spotted a few original Movies in Fifteen Minutes hardbacks for sale in Austin!

( More linkspam )

Re: LiveJournal: Here's the press release about the layoffs.

Back at the ranch, as it were, I got so sucked into this afternoon's rerun of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit when Sister Girl was over doing laundry this afternoon--it was one of those L&O specialties where they started off with one crime and midway through switched to another that they discovered in the course of investigating the first one, which was great and fantastic and all except that I kept screaming "BUT WHAT ABOUT BRIANNA????"

... maybe you had to be there.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I ran around doing housework (you know it's bad when I try to procrastinate by cleaning) until I ended up throwing up all over the bathroom. (Which then, of course, had to be... cleaned.) I have no idea what that was about, except that I'd had a heavy breakfast (well, you know: greasy fast-food biscuit) on a nervous stomach. And then I felt feverish and had chills all day (and a good bit of today as well), so maybe I'm legitimately sick, who knows.

I made Sister Girl take the rest of the Mountain Dews with her, though, so that temptation is at least removed. Also, I think the withdrawal headaches have eased up.

I'm also trying to remind myself that I may be in a hypomanic phase (what with the running around cleaning), so if I suddenly crash and don't feel magically energetic anymore, that's not a moral failing. It just means that if I feel good now, I need to make hay while the sun shines.

Apropos of nothing much, one more thing about Prince Caspian: ( Read more... )

Oh, by the way, I got an email newsletter/casting call from Universal Pictures, and when I tried to copypaste the info to pass it along, it turned out to be a series of image files. Huh. Therefore, I will present it to you as it was presented to me (click to enlarge): ( ARE YOU THE NEXT MCLOVIN????? )

Of course, I saw the name "Edward" and ran screaming, but there you are. (Oh, and the MySpace and Facebook links were clickable; at least you don't have to type those in. The latter demands to know whether you are THE NEXT MCLOVIN' OR MICHAEL CERA?!, which should give you an idea of what they're looking for.)

Speaking of Edward, mistress_gwen has started the comm sparklpires for lolfans. Enjoy.

( Catchup linkspam! )

Since we were on the subject of the Secret Life of Dolls earlier today--top ten movie-related Tonner dolls that do not exist but would put a spectacular hurt on my wallet if they did: ( Skip down to the next cut if you'd like to avoid the dollness )

From anjalilj: "I know this isn't quite your usual sort of linkspam, but I was wondering if you could drop a link for this anyway: An old classmate of mine from Bryn Mawr College went missing from her New York City apartment a week ago, and hasn't been seen since. Her friends and family are trying to get the word spread as far and wide as possible in the hopes that they'll find someone who's seen her. Here's a link with photos from Daily Intel (a New York news blog) and Neil Gaiman's journal. Thanks a whole bunch in advance."

Join us on Facebook to help a great cause, the United Way of Central Alabama. Wave to my friend David, y'all!

Linkspam! ( There's a reason I chose this icon for today. Just keep reading )

A Breaking Dawn followup: I have had no flames on the recaps at all, which has terrified me because I'm just assuming that I will get them eventually, and the hey-it-hurts is only going to multiply the longer it takes them to get here, so I keep trying to imagine what's holding the Hater Brigade up, and all I can think is that maybe they're taking a page from Aro's playbook and taking a month to mobilize or something. You know, let's make sure we organize this, stock up on the Haterade, get babysitters for the kids, alphabetize our sweater sets, whatever. And then I started browsing the comments at shinga's Twilight recaps, just out of curiosity, and I think I've figured out what it is (because she got plenty of visits from the Brigade): I have anonymous commenting disabled. I've had it disabled for years, actually. (I can't believe I can say that I've done anything on this journal "for years." But there it is.) I guess only the most dedicated 1% of Twihards is willing to actually create a sockpuppet account, and even that is so exhausting that they can't muster anything more virulent than "Please do not ever mention Twilight again" once they get here, which is what happened before. Which I am perfectly cool with, by the way.

(Maybe I've also dodged the Hater Brigade because I can rarely bring myself to snark on something at length unless I have some kind of genuine enthusiasm for it? And that enthusiasm comes through even when I'm bagging on something? This is the reason I will not be doing a Brisingr recap later this year, by the way. [Also, because I keep wanting to pronounce it "Brisingr...uh?"] The only enthusiasm I have ever been able to muster for Eragon was "Hey! Let's look at the costumes in the movie, because I love costumes! AND ALSO, THEY MAKE NO SENSE.")

(If you go to the Eragon costume link, by the way, please be advised that the "I have not seen the movie" statement is now outdated. I have seen it--on cable--and let me tell you, it manages to be even worse than screencaps alone were able to indicate.)

Linkspam! ( Frog princess, Stinky the Hutt, unicorn shit )

Not much going on today, except HOLY CRAP AN AVALANCHE OF HARRY POTTER STILLS. Also, Sister Girl has gotten a Brittany spaniel puppy (she's living in an apartment on her own now, not here with us, so it's very much her first pet as an independent adult), and he is tiny and and skinny and recovering from some stomach parasite and darling. I held Pete in the car when she took him to the vet this morning, and despite how sick and sad he was when she first got him earlier this week, he kept looking up at me and breaking out into this huge grin, like, "This is the sweet life!" AWWWW.

( Day the Earth Stood Still trailer! New HBP stills! Werewolves and circuses and vampires! )

I'd like to clarify something about asking y'all to boycott The Seeker : I have no problem with changing things from books to movies in general. Y'all know how I championed Stardust this summer; I actually thought that the changes, of which there were many, worked really well in the context of a film, and that everything that needed to be there was still there. I've actually gone to the mat defending various Harry Potter omissions and alterations (you may remember how much I loved Prisoner of Azkaban); I actually liked the Arwen additions in Lord of the Rings; and I'm more than willing to give the His Dark Materials adaptations the benefit of the doubt until we see how they handle the religious themes. I'd even be okay with them soft-pedaling or even omitting that element if they did it in a way that (somehow. I know, I know, I don't know how either) made sense. I know saying that will probably cause bedlam in the comments, but you certainly get my point: filmmakers who seem to respect the books as books, which are not movies, but try to adapt them as gently as possible to film anyway are okay with me. I know that the anti-religion element is so key to His Dark Materials, but I also can't imagine an American movie aimed at kids where characters set out to "kill God." I mean, I'm sorry: I don't see that happening. So the the level of respect and fidelity with which the HDM filmmakers try to get around that sociopolitical impossibility, that's what I care about.

And then... there's The Dark Is Rising. There's just a level of contempt for the entire undertaking that floors me. To wit: ( Oh, god. That means I might have to do a sequel )

( The rest of the linkspam! )

Okay, I'm hugely behind on the linkspam because I spent all of last week either 1) puppying, 2) hand-writing and editing 300 in Fifteen Minutes (now with many icons), or 3) sleeping for dear life. Moreover, I kind of don't care. I have a huge list of starred links on my Google Reader, and I'll probably cherry-pick the very best (and no longer hopelessly outdated) ones for this week. But really, I feel like I'm too dependent on linkspam these days anyway.

So: I saw two movies last week--300, obviously, and I pretty much started laughing when Marching Flute Guy showed up and didn't stop from there. If there had been any doubt, the Guitars of War pretty much sealed my fate. I totally want this on DVD and spent my week in the Comedy Mines listening to the soundtrack. I feel like the Fifteen Minutes turned out pretty well--it actually beats Van Helsing by about 100 words in terms of Shortest Parody Ever, although... well, if you've seen the movie, you'll understand how it's a pound of plot in a ten-pound sack. Still, I worked pretty hard at tightening it as much as possible, if only as practice for the second book (which I hope will have shorter parodies--but more of them), so 2300ish words is like beating the four-minute mile for me.

The other one I saw was The Namesake, which ( more; mild spoilers )

April 23, 2007 is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day! Have you heard about this? One of the Grand Poobahs at the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) has decided that, in his opinion, professional writer who posts his/her work online free of charge is a "webscab" (leading to the question, "Who's on strike, exactly?") and, moreover, a "pixel-stained technopeasant." Many technopeasants, myself included, claimed that title (rather gleefully) for our own. So papersky's idea is to have next Monday be, in essence, Give Your Work Away Free Day: ( Whee! )

( Crème de la linkspam )