cleolinda | Entries tagged with atonement

Re: yesterday's Scientology raids:

laughingacademy dropped me a link to

deathboy's London writeup, in which he saw "500 people rick-rolling [i.e., playing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." Don't ask me] the UK Scientology head office. It was at this point I saw the corners of the cops' mouths twitch into smiles as they realised it was ok: we were from the internets." Among the pictures included: I love the little sign that reads "DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING." Also: Metroblogging Los Angeles: Anonymous vs. Scientology IRL showdown in LA (I dig the "I'm too poor to believe in Scientology" sign. Also, the suparrrr-stealthy Scieno "ice" truck); the Anonymous Worldwide Raids and Shenanigans pool on Flickr; It's not ~~lupus~~ thetans.

( More linkspam )

Brad Renfro, 25, found dead at LA home. Sometimes this kind of early, breaking news turns out to be false. I'm kind of thinking this is not one of those times.

One Dead, One Injured, One Arrested After Roger Avary DUI Accident [Tragedies] (his friend, his wife, and himself, respectively); 'Pulp' writer apologizes after fatal crash.

The Tom Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientologists Don't Want You To See; Defamer's Top Five Creeptastic Moments From The Tom Cruise Scientology Video (You Know The One); Web Video Reignites Tom Cruise Storm.

Writer Paul Tolme, author of Defender Magazine article on ferrets, responds in Newsweek to allegations that Cassie Edwards plagiarized him: "[T]hat is some bad dialogue. It stands out as clunky and awkward even by the standards of romance novels. That’s because Edwards didn’t write it. I did." ( Read more... )

I'm deeply behind on my linkspam because my internet connection hates me, so it's going to be a little scattershot today. I have a story about a neighborhood feud, but I'm saving that for a less busy entry.

Golden Compass updates: ( Includes Subtle Knife footage )

Major kerfluffles: ( LiveJournal sold to Russians, Facebook, SFWA, fanfic for pay and more )

( Linkspam )

I am so tired, and not from working. I ran into a persistent human distraction today and got nothing done. Three pages of blah-blah-blah I can't hear my own thoughts so I'll just repeat vague ideas over and over. I felt so thwarted I want to cry, and in fact felt like that for about three hours. Apparently my time and my aspirations mean nothing, but at least I'm aware of this now and can plan accordingly. And cry.

Also, this kind of sums up my life right now.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Skunk Anansie, "Selling Jesus"

I really am leaning towards all this activity being part of a hypomanic episode, though, because I had that slightly dizzy, feverish feeling after I'd finished working for the day, like it was time to crash. Or maybe there's guarana in my High! Energy! Multivitamin!!1!, who knows.

Yeah... it's guarana. I checked the back of the vitamin bottle after being completely unable to sleep last night--I actually just gave up and sat at the computer until 4:30 am, that's how hopeless it was. The H!E!M!!1! contains not only guarana but also green tea and cayenne pepper (wait, what?); it's so effective that even after I'd only had a couple of hours' sleep, I went downstairs to let the dogs out, took today's vitamin, lay down on the couch, and was so very, very awake. Painfully tired; BOLT AWAKE. Also, my blood was really loud. But for three days in a row now I've gotten tons of work done and mentally I'm sharp as a tack, so... I'm just gonna have to get used to it.

("This product contains about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee." Okay, no, I can't hold my caffeine anymore, thanks for asking. I kicked Mountain Dew a year ago! Don't judge me!)

(ETA: Since several people have expressed concern, let me just assure you that it's just a very common, mainstream Centrum vitamin, not something exotic off-brand thing I found randomly. It's just that I never drink caffeinated drinks unless I'm in a restaurant or a movie theater, which is, sadly, not all that often. I've taken this vitamin on and off before ~~when I wasn't too lazy to bother~~, and I never had a problem with it back when I was also drinking caffeinated drinks. I seem to remember that the antidepressants I'm on can magnify caffeine effects a little bit, which is probably why I'm noticing it so vividly--if I take it early enough in the morning and give it a week to get used to it, I genuinely don't think it's going to be a problem.)

Meanwhile, I noticed in

audiography that all these entries would be titled, like, "1988," "1989," so I was like, "Oh, cool, some kind of '80s week." And then I saw the actual theme: Birth Year. I felt heinously old until posters finally showed up with some '70s entries.

(My year of birth, dear God.)

( Search inside... my PANTS )

Current Mood: help I am so tired

So, after a great deal of whining about writing, I had an excellent day today (it's either the multivitamin I started taking or a new hypomanic episode, and I'm more than happy to make hay while the sun shines either way). It was mostly research and taking notes ~~at hyperspeed~~, but it felt good and useful; I kept writing story connections in the margins. Also, last night I made myself type up some of my handwritten manuscript from a couple of weeks ago and set up the current draft in a large three-ring binder. I really am leaning towards all this activity being part of a hypomanic episode, though, because I had that slightly dizzy, feverish feeling after I'd finished working for the day, like it was time to crash. Or maybe there's guarana in my High! Energy! Multivitamin!!1!, who knows.

( By the Power of Crystalskull, the linkspam! )

Current Mood: accomplished

Hmm. Really fatigued, uninspired and out of it today.

( Linkspam )

Current Mood: blah

So I did watch all of Infamous last night, and I scribbled down the Harper Lee bit that I liked:

I read an interview with Frank Sinatra, in which he said about Judy Garland, 'Every time she sings, she dies a little. That's how much she gave.' It's true for writers, too, who hope to create something lasting. They die a little getting it right. And then the book comes out... there's a dinner, maybe there's a prize... and then comes the inevitable, very American question: What's next? But the next thing can be so hard... because now you know what it demands.

I identify with that last sentence a lot, let's just put it that way.

Meanwhile, I went to see Stardust again, this time with Brett the Vet, and somehow we got the time wrong and walked in "early"--just as the movie was starting. Which means that we missed all but the last five seconds of Beowulf, and every other trailer besides (sob). But yay Stardust! I did notice something fun this time around: Septimus has two rows of buttons on the front of his--waistcoat?--and each one has a little 7 on it. Heh. And there were actually other people in the theater, which surprised me.

Also: Six New Movies, None in the Top 3. ("Matthew Vaughn's fantasy epic Stardust, based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, continued to hold up well..." YAY! Also: It's not a graphic novel! Graphic novels don't have entire pages of text! It's just a short novel with very pretty pictures!)

( im in ur shadows... plottin my revenge )

Current Mood: happy

Happy belated Fourth of July, y'all. We spent it eating barbecue and multiple chocolate-based desserts, while my stepfather played drums (in Revolutionary costume, no less) down at the American Village. The pups got neutered yesterday and came home this afternoon as frisky as ever, so that's safely been accomplished. And I was all like, "With everyone else home to watch the dogs, I'll really be able to get some work done!" Yeah... not so much with that. It's been a lot more eating and shopping and movie-watching and dozing. However, we do have tickets for Midnight Harry Potter, which is at least something

( I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK )

Current Mood: full

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 )

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you: the POTC3 trailer, a full day early. Yes, it's dubbed into Russian. We can't have everything, now, can we? ( Can you have spoilers for a trailer? )

Also: More POTC3 pics.

( Linkspam )

More about my mental health, because I know you find it so very fascinating--I did quit caffeine two or three weeks ago, and cold turkey, too. In the up-and-down flux of medication adjustment, I didn't really notice any particular withdrawal, because I was too busy feeling crappy in general. So I had that going for me. The problem is, I have been stricken with a deep, abiding, psychological craving for the Dew ever since. It's not about the caffeine--it's about going downstairs at eleven in the morning and getting my little twelve-ounce bottle of yellow-green citrus happy. We needs it, precious. And the entire reason I quit was weight loss--Sister Girl had kicked soda a while back, and reported that after she'd been off it a solid month, the pounds really started to drop. In fact, we had all noticed that she had lost a good bit of weight, in a healthy way--weight she had gained mostly in a self-medicating snack-food funk over Asshole Ex-Boyfriend. So I thought, you know, I don't want to mess with my meds and try a new one and go on an actual diet, but quitting caffeine might be a good idea before I mess around with the rest of my brain chemistry, and really, it might be nice to have a few pounds drop off while I'm at it. I'm not expecting a huge difference, but I figured, you know, that might be a nice bonus while I'm going through a crappy adjustment period. Not to mention that messing with my dosages has alternately made me want to eat nothing and eat everything. I'm just saying, I figured it couldn't hurt.

Yeah. It's three weeks later, and I am still in the throes of this Proustian longing for my secret carbonated lovah. No, I don't want to replace it, thanks for asking. I don't want to drink a diet soda (which won't work anyway--where's the link for that study that says that the body doesn't recognize diet soda as "diet"?), a caffeine-free soda, or any other impostor you want to sell me. If it's not Mountain Dew--full stop--it's just colored water, people. I just want to remember all the hours we spent together, the Dew and I, writing the book parodies and pulling desperate all-nighters for class and running through sunlit fields together. I personally think it's no coincidence that "madeleine" and "Mountain Dew" have the same number of syllables.

(By the way--when did we stop calling it Remembrance of Things Past and switch to In Search of Lost Time? I mean, I understand that it's a better translation, but I missed that newsletter, apparently.)

Speaking of Proust, Little Miss Sunshine was so good. There are so many little things that are just so right--of course Uncle Frank is a Proust scholar. Of course Olive's song is both deeply inappropriate--appropriately inappropriate, if you will--and still manages to feature a message of acceptance in the chorus (I'm trying to be non-spoilery here). And the acting is uniformly good and real--you never feel like anyone's grandstanding for the audience, even though there are plenty of big emotional outbursts. The thing I ended up liking about it the most, though, was what amounted to a scathing critique of child pageants. The sad thing is, we all know they're kind of terrible; the JonBenet thing was ten years ago, and yet here it is right back in the news again right as this movie comes out, and all the movie has to do is put a normal little girl onstage next to these preening little sexified horrors and it knows that it doesn't even have to say anything else. Well, it says one more thing, which is that Olive's "shocking" dance is only the next logical step forward from those coy little ass-shaking, pedo-baiting routines.

Also, Steve Carell runs exactly like Tom Cruise. With the flat robot hands and everything. Priceless.

(I'm not saying it's a lock or anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone came out of this movie with a supporting nomination of some kind. Everyone's talking about the movie; everyone--at the moment--loves it. My best guess is that it might be Alan Arkin, who plays a... unique character, let's say, and might find himself on the receiving end of a Let's Honor the Old-Timer campaign; or it might be Steve Carell, who plays just absolute raw despair in a very quiet but unmissable way, which in and of itself wouldn't be that extraordinary, except that my God, it's Steve Carell. Who knew he could pull out a performance like that?)

Anyway. Good times. Also, we heard at the concession counter that the Vestavia Rave will be getting The Illusionist "next week," which is to say, Friday--the nationwide release date.

Also, I just got an email newsletter from Lane Bryant: "V is for Versatility." Yeah, but if it doesn't come with matching daggers, I don't want to hear about it.

Linky-linky:

Harlan Ellison did whaaaaat? I mean, yes, I have heard the stories--including the "What would you say to a little fuck" story--but Harlan Ellison did whaaaaaaaaaaat?

Interesting things you find on flickr: "Cameras rolling on the second day of shooting in Redcar of the Working Title film Atonement, based on the Ian McEwan novel of the same name." And here I just clicked on it because the photo was gorgeous. In fact, there seems to be an entire pool for photos taken on the set of this one movie.

Heh. I'd forgotten ABC was going to do this: "Airing opposite the Emmys, a 7-10 p.m. offering of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on ABC siphoned off an estimated 9.3 million viewers. The telecast, far from the run-of-the-mill rerun typically made available as award-show fodder, was seen as ABC's revenge for its top shows--Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives--being shut out of the glamour categories."

A new Antonia Fraser book, whee!

"Challenged" books drop to all-time low, yay!

The full story on the "Emily" billboards and blog.

Shit. I really am going to have to buy the new LOTR DVDs, aren't I?

And, finally, the new Halloween and LE blends are up at BPAL. I want the Dracula blends so bad. All of them. Even the ones I know won't work on me at all. Shit. (What? I have a Dracula thing. Like, specifically the book, not just an emo vampire fetish or something.) Seriously, that job I applied for better come through soon. Although, ironically? The university is a scent-free working environment. Yeah, I'll be over here with Mr. Bemis shaking my fist at the sky--call it "Money Enough at Last."