Cleolinda everywhere

Huh. I had no idea I hadn't posted in more than a week.

1) So... here's Tonner Jasper. Or rather, the page seems to have gone up too early and is now down. (I think the Toy Fair 2011 reveal is supposed to be on Monday.) Too bad I'd left the "click for larger image" tab open! MOO HA HA.

( Read more... )


2) I am feeling a lot better, although still busy and kind of winter-sluggish.

@cleolinda: After three days of fresh fruit intake, I feel much better. Maybe this whole time the Death Blarg was scurvy...?

@cleolinda: Yarrrr, we be at snow for three months, unable to reach the produce aisle. Two days ago, the salty dogs raided a Super Bowl parrrrty.

@cleolinda: Strangely, no one missed the fruit plate. Arrrrrrrr.

What I have been doing with my Feel-Bad Down-Time, besides feeling snerfy and/or lying in a quasi-tubercular cold-medicine coma, is reading. (Mostly research, a few classics, a new YA.) Writing is also going slowly but well. I was drafting a big "let's discuss all these books" post, but then I realized I ought to dole it out a couple of books at a time. And also, we need some more Varney.


3) I also saw True Grit on Sunday, but didn't mention it because--well, the Super Bowl. Which I spent curled up in my room reading Victorian vampire stories, but I figured no one else would be around. Feel free to discuss here if you want; I didn't really know what to say afterwards. The last fifteen minutes or so take the movie beyond what I had expected, and it stuck with me for a couple of days afterwards. I don't know. Oh, except that I officially endorse Hailee Steinfeld for Katniss in The Hunger Games.


4) Also, this:

YOU GUYS. Pictures from shadowmaat: Edward Cat is still precious. And homeless.



AND CHAGRINED.

We may have found a home that'll work out (and a back-up offer if it doesn't, I think), but it's not certain yet.

At least he has a special bed now.

(omg look at that face)


Meanwhile: the first Deathly Hallows trailer. Warning: there are scenes here that I did not expect to see until we got to the movies themselves. Also: you may tear up.

Ran a low fever today, because apparently we are still on this. I'm spinning my wheels on New Moon between cough syrup-induced comas and not getting anything done. Outstanding. And tomorrow being Happy Eating Day, I doubt I'll get much else done then, either. God, I want my life back.

Hm. Well, I think what we need is some cute. If you are in the Homewood/Birmingham (AL) area, there is a three-month-old puppy at our vet's who is in need of a home. They have dubbed him "Snoopy," but obviously he could be renamed:





Also, here is Sam home fresh from his bath this morning:




Now to decide if I want to pass out again or not.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

So. Not feeling much better; spent the weekend in a very grim, self-pitying funk. But I'm going back to work ("work") today because you have to move on with life. I think I'm actually going through kind of a post-partum project-completion slump, what with the first e-book finished. The only problem is, I now have to finish the second one, which casts a sort of "Sorry, your princess is in another castle" pall over the whole thing. C'est la vie.

Also, I should probably get on this Twilight tea-tasting thing. (That's our godforsaken vampire-related beverage. I was not lucky enough to get any TruBlood--sadly, because I hear that stuff is actually really good, a blood orange-flavored soda or something.) Question: what's the best way to make hot tea? I usually drink iced tea, so I have no idea--water at an actual boil? Steep for five minutes? I don't even know, and I don't think these things came with instructions. I'm probably going to make all three samples at once and get it over with--swish and spit if it's really awful, I guess. God help us all. But especially me.

Meanwhile, a college friend of mine is a movie critic now, and he announced that he could get me a screener copy of The Twilight Porn (tagline: "When you can fuck forever... you can fuck everybody"). I've never even seen actual hardcore, and I don't think my embarrassment squick could handle starting with this, but I know of someone else who might be willing to take that bullet. We'll see. I know I keep trying Twilight products "for science," but I don't love nobody that much, least of all science. "Twilight porn" is an extremely uncomfortable phrase as it is; these are two words that do not want to be in the same sentence together. Twilight is huddled in the corner weeping, and porn is banging on the quotation marks trying to get out.

Also-also: The Sparkenpire is now available at Toys'R'Us. You can, in fact, see the actual sparkle coating if you zoom in. (It's getting to be the season for Twi-spam, isn't it? I'll corral those into separate entries after this, for convenience of avoidance.) In cheerfuller Barbie developments: Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper, and Joan Jett dolls.

(In response to "Hello, my name is Twilight and I am a Dracula": I R not a Dracula!)

And finally: Tour of Terror II dates and locations have been announced. This time it's at various Hot Topics AND Nordstroms! I KNOW YOU ARE EXCITED. (All the replies to my link on Twitter were along the lines of "NOT MY CITY, OH GOD NOOOOOO.") The closest it gets to me is the ATL, which is still too damn close. (I don't know what Atlanta did to deserve this; it already got burnt to the ground once.) Invest in riot gear. You're going to need it.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Officials fear 'massive' wildfire toll. But you can donate to the Australian Red Cross.

I think we need a pomster to cheer us up.

( More linkspam )

Did I mention that I just realized yesterday that the Golden Globes are this weekend? I mean, not that that's a huge problem, but I hadn't started strength-training mentally preparing myself for the liveblogging. (The goal, by the way, is to have something you can actually read a week later and have any clue what I was talking about.) They didn't even have the Globes last year, due to the writers' strike, so it'll be nice to have the Drinky Oscars back.

(Please bear in mind, also, that I'm still reformatting the PBWiki as we go, now that we're all having to upgrade to 2.0.)

( Linkspam! )

I think seasonal affective disorder is starting to set in--it's funny, because I go through this every year (by definition, actually), so you'd think I'd have the warning signs down to a science by now. For some reason I'd gotten it down to "January and February are increasingly bad," but I hadn't ever really noticed December. Maybe because December is shiny and full of cake? I don't know. But it's suddenly occurred to me that, in terms of weather, November is cold (well, sometimes down here) but sunny, and December is just crap on a stick. And, as previously discussed, I think I may be a reverse vampire solar-powered.

So I'm not feeling so good right now. The good news is, it's not really an emotional depression; that lifted after I got through my birthday. It's just a sludgy Let's Curl Up on the Couch and Watch DVDs Instead of Doing Fuck-All depression. Which, I mean, that's great, but when you're dumb intrepid enough to try writing for a living, you don't get paid if you don't produce. So I suck, is what I'm saying. Seasonally.

(To digress, a nifty trick I have discovered: if you add your own Livejournal to Google Reader, and then you create a particular tag for it ["livejournal," let's say], you can then search any term in that tag. And the full text of your entries will be included. So basically, you've got your own personal LJ search engine. Hell, you could add anyone else and search them, too. Problem: It won't show any friends-locked or privatized entries. But since the majority of my entries are public anyway, it's extremely useful for tracking down That One Time I Mentioned Something; it took me two seconds, maybe, to find the "I am solar-powered" entry.)

Hmm. Let's have some Twi-spam. I can't believe Twimania's still marching on at this rate (well... actually, I can), but it is, and it's crazier than ever:

( If you ignore me again, I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE )

THINGS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH TWILIGHT:

All 26 Coraline alphabet posters! (Scroll down for the rest.)

SAG nominations: Who got snubbed?

49 Songs Queue for 2008 Oscar. I have four words for you: "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus."

Eddie Murphy won’t be playing The Riddler; Alan Horn Clears Up Dark Knight Sequel Rumors. Everybody breathe, okay?

Is Baz Luhrmann Actually Going To Make a Great Gatsby Movie? This is Sister Girl's favorite book, Luhrmann. Don't screw this up, or I'm going to get another long, angry phone call from her like the one I got after she saw the Benjamin Button trailer (also based on a Fitzgerald story).

Fuck You, Penguin ("A blog where I tell cute animals what's what").

Oh, and also--the Young Wizards forums have been spiffed up.

I feel kind of... weirdly relaxed. Would you know what I meant if I said I didn't have any good tension? Like--you know how you can't play a violin unless the strings are taut? That kind of tension. Right now I just feel kind of... boneless. I mean, it's nice. It's just not helping me get anything done.

(No I did not take any drugs.)

(No, not even legal ones.)

(NOT EVEN A DRINK, I AM SERIOUS.)

Repeat of important note: LJ's going out tomorrow for a physical server move. Just in case, you might want to back up your journals with ljArchive. If you need to get hold of me for some kind of OMG LOOK AT THIS! reason, I'm on Twitter and Facebook (see sidebar), and you can get me at my Yahoo email (dailydigest @). I'm not going to assume that the cleolinda at livejournal.com email will work.

Hmm. "Another Way to Die" is growing on me. My policy of not listening to a Bond theme song until I actually hear it over the credits in the theater seems to be working well for me. Although I was not terribly impressed by the sandy ladies. Of course, I ran off to Vegas and quickie-married "You Know My Name" when the other movie came out, so I'm probably unpleasable at this point, in terms of Bond songs.

(What is it with me? Lately it's like I don't like anything until I've heard it four or five times, and then suddenly I'm like, I MUST NEVER STOP LISTENING TO THIS. I mean, I tend to listen to things on repeat so this works out for me okay, but it used to not take me quite so long to realize I liked something.)

(I can't think of a segue to this, so I'll simply say that Sister Girl whipped out her iPhone the other day and said, "You know that song 'Personal Jesus'?" "Um, I'm a child of the '80s?" "Well, Hilary Duff..." "OH GOD!" Fortunately, it's more of an extended sample called "Reach Out," in which one is exhorted to reach out and touch her instead of faith. The video is... interesting. Kind of like a Vogue photoshoot gone horribly wrong. We both love that huge ring she's got on in the closeups, though.)

Anyway. Another Twi-spam may go up tonight, I'm not sure. Depends on whether we get riots and/or sparkling.

(Watch The Twilight Premiere Live! HEY YOU GUYS IT'S ANOTHER WIDGET! Of course, I just like saying "widget" over and over again. It's such a fun word to say. "Iiiiiiiit's a WIDGET!")

(I personally find this to be related: DiCaprio: 'Titanic Nearly Ruined Me.')

Re: Mad Hatter pic: I'm not the only one concerned it might be a fake. Also, since a number of people sent me this link--Alice in Wonderland set pics. These are the same or similar pictures to the ones I posted a while back, though--there's Baby Bonham-Burton in her red riding hood and everything.

( Moar linkspam )

I started writing up a list of Specific "Fifteen Minutes" Footnotes That Still Need Work (links, research, a quick polish, whatever), and the Dracula one's kind of long, the Van Helsing one's okay, the POA one is really short, and then you to get to the King Arthur list, and it says, I am not kidding,

Total mess. Seriously, you have like 6 pages of unincorporated research. Get basic intro together.
HAVE YOU DONE ANY WORK ON THIS AT ALL?
Pelagius?

And then I just said to hell with it and took the dogs for a walk.

Today's journal flashback: a handful of shorter movie bits, Wicker Park ("A movie I haven't seen in five minutes, if you will"), the cracked-out Jurassic Park 4 script (really honestly truly, not making it up), and... hey, why not a discussion of Picnic at Hanging Rock? Can't think why not.

Earlier today, because I don't want y'all to overlook it: Where my synesthetes at?

From mercat: "There are several different movements in action to try to save Pushing Daisies, so I thought I'd link you to them: Help Bees Help Daisies, Pies for Poverty, Honey for the Homeless, and a mail-in (more info)." And I'll tell you truthfully, now is the time to act. You know, not several months later like the Moonlight fandom, bless them.

And from entropy_and_me: ( Doctor Who spoiler ) I'll just be in my scream-proof anti-fangirl bunker now if you need me.

More linkspam, now that I have crushed half my readership's souls: ( Han Solo Ain't Never Had No Sex With Princess Leia in a Star War! )

So. Mostly productive today; posted True Blood recap #7 late this afternoon--I still have last night's episode to recap as well. (While we're here: An interview with Sam "Werecollie" Trammell [no spoilers as far as I can tell].)

Today's journal flashback: my dentist, Dr. Jones (no relation), likes to sing along with disco songs.

Oh, and something I think I'm going to start using Twitter for--you know those ALERT ALERT ALERT posts I do sometimes? I'm still going to do those for OH MY GOD GO HERE NOW things, but if I see something really awesome (litmus test: do I start shrieking and clapping like a fool?) that isn't quite that urgent, I will probably post the link on Twitter first (example) and then have it in the normal linkspam later in the day. So, you know, if you're into Twitter, something to keep in mind. And even if you're not, you can still check my page on your usual website rounds.

On to the linkspam: ( Alice in Wonderland news! )