sundries

[rm]

Is 11-year-old boy reicarnated WWII pilot? This is sort of unclear and boring at first, and then when you get about halfway through it, it's like "oh, well, yeah, that is a bit weird."

Did something really wanky happen on yuletide last night that the mods had to delete posts?

I'll add to this later. Have to bring the cat to the vet now. Oh cat. ETA: on cat -- she's getting fluids, blood and urine tests, a vitamin shot, her nails trimmed and x-rays. They think it's her liver. I'll know more later and yet more tomorrow.

Welsh rugby player comes out. [note: audio file, when I find a transcript, I'll link] This is slightly old news (a few days), but as you might imagine, if it's both about gay stuff and Wales, about 80-billion people link me to it. And it's good stuff. So hey! Also, in the land of shallow: I really do love the accent. (I do! Stop laughing!)

The holiday cards came. They look STUNNING. So those will start going out "soon."

OMG, Yuletide pinch hit while dealing with sick cat.

I watched Gattaca for the 80-billionth time last night. If you want to get me (or the lens through which I tend to view and get attracted to other media), watch that. No time to wax poetic about it today, but "I never saved anything for the way back." To think I once had a lover who said I only liked it because it was gay and well art directed; he was so afraid of me.

Los Alamos National Labs just accidentally blew up a building. I have the sudden urge to say that "dynamite is never the only option." Way to go, guys.

Comments

[miep.livejournal.com]

Little Kitty?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Speaking of reincarnations of things a half-century old, apparently steam locomotive "Tornado" came to the rescue when bad weather brought down the electrics to the train line in Kent nearest the Channel Tunnel.

Oh dear, Yuletide. I wouldn't put epic wank past that comm, from what I've heard from seasoned YTers.

*good vibes sent to cat*

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's fascinating with the kid. The drawing he did with the crosses on the wings of the plane?! Wow, wow, wow.

N.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

What's up with cat? And which cat?

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

I'm not certain what specific yuletide posts were deleted, but there seems to have been a rather high number of comments this year from people who think that yuletide madness stories written for their recipient might reap the lion's share of the thanks or that the move to the new archive (and the related shaking out of bugs) will make it harder for recipients to know who to thank for the main assigned story, which...

...is sort of true, but as astolat wrote, if this is a concern, simply edit your author's notes to say something like "gee, I loved getting this prompt for my main assignment and..."

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

What's the matter with the cat?

I've got my own cat health drama here. Cosette has kidney issues, and for the past week, I've had to coax her to eat. Now, she'll only eat dry food if you put moist food on top of it. This is kind of unusual for her because she usually scarfs down whatever you put in front of her. The vet isn't too concerned because at least she's eating something. Also, the moist food is better for her with her kidney problems.

Oh well...I have to take her back in mid-January to have her kidney levels checked again anyway...

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

My cat has had kidney issues for three-and-a-half years now! The main problem she has from the kidneys is that calcium build-up on her teeth makes her mouth prone to infections, which makes her reluctant to eat. Get the vet to check her gum margins, cheeks and throat for infections. The medication has kept her kidney issues completely in check, but her mouth is an ongoing issue, even with teeth cleaning.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

Ref: Yuletide, I think people were complaining about people writing pinch hints or extra stories for people and that they may like them more than the original assignments, or something like that. That's the gist of what I could figure out.

(Except in the emails sent out on the 25th, people are told which story is their assignment, and then any extra stories are mentioned. Unless that's being changed this year.)

I swear, the amount of wank in that comm this year is so much worse than usual. I think people have forgotten that the whole spirit of the exchange is to write fics for small fandoms.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Good grief. I don't get it. As you say, the whole point is that stories in microscopic fandoms are being written for the love of it. Yeah, it's a pity that some people have had to bail on their original prompts, but there it goes. The stories are being written. People write differently. It's no affront if someone can generate 1000 words in the time it takes one to write 500.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that the yuletide thing had to do with people whining about how no one will be able to tell the difference this year between the story written by assignment and the one written as a treat/pinch hit/whatever. The argument, as I understand it and such as it is, goes that the recipient's first and most weighty gratitude and feedback should go to the person who wrote her big assigned story, and not to some mere volunteer who contributed something merely because she was inspired/wanted to.

I didn't see whatever happened last night (I've been buried under RL work, and didn't even see the pinchhit list issue until it was too late to do anything about it), but I've seen the whining about the assigned writer-versus-volunteer-treat-writer off and on for weeks now, and that would match up with astolat's mod smackdown of this morning.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I bet it was this long, wanky post that went up pretty late last night, where this person was like "I just would like to suggest that for next year, the Yuletide madness doesn't start until after the deadline, and there should be some way of distinguishing the original assignments from pinch-hits/treats, because pinch hit/treats get to choose what story they want to write" and blah blah blah a bunch of stupid stuff I don't remember. I was highly tempted to comment and start some wank myself, but I resisted. At the time I saw it, it only had two comments, but I would be surprised if it didn't grow quickly.

Also: oh no, cat vet?

[laura47.livejournal.com]

it had ~20 when i last scrolled by

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I saw that, and it was incredibly bitchy post about how some people had to SLAVE and RESEARCH and DO HARD WORK on their assignments and it wasn't going to be fair for people to like stories written as treats and madness. IT WASN'T FAIR!

Sorry, I couldn't help the capslock there. But yay for us, resisting the urge throw oil on the fire there last night.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I would have thrown oil. What asshats.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

That post was clearly full of happiness and goodwill. Ugh.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was the Anti-Yule Spirit, out to bring wank and misery to all! Like a creeping troll out of Icelandic tales, determined to sour the milk and tear up the sheep skins.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Have to bring the cat to the vet now. Oh cat.

Hope all is well. Sending healthy-kitty vibes.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

when they told me in yulechat the other day that there was angst about writing treats and people opposed to them, i was just flabbergasted.... again, i have a really good talent for avoiding all the unreasonable or drama-llama people in fandom (mostly be interacting with people individually) and i just keep getting surprised.

OT to great degree

[gairid.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the OT comment, but I thought of you when a friend rec'd THIS site.

Hope that the kitty is okay--Happy Holidays!

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

If you're collecting links Score another one for Cardiff; Gareth Thomas, former Welsh and British Lions Captain, current Cardiff professional rugby player, comes out . Furthermore, he does it with the full support of his ex-wife, coach, team-mates and large swathes of the normally wildly homophobic British tabloid press.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Remarkably, I heard about this a few days ago on Twitter (because if it's about the gay and the Welsh, it comes to me, let me tell you), but you're right, I should link it.

ETA: oh! I'd only seen the news articles. This interview is super lovely. Thanks!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

That was good to hear on Twitter, yes, though I had to quickly google and see that it was the rugby-player Gareth Thomas and not the actor Gareth Thomas (off "Blake's 7").

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Oh kitty, be well!

[seaopaque.livejournal.com]

Gattaca's gay?

[pocketmouse]

"I must say that this is a new twist in the long history of screw-ups by Los Alamos," said POGO’s Senior Investigator, Peter Stockton. “I have no idea in the world why they have a gun like this, let alone testing it.”

This is the best article ever today.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Man, I leave New Mexico for the holidays, and not 24 hours later, something happens.

[sethg]

See, my reaction to this news item was not “what a gang of screw-ups” but “I wish I was in their line of work”. Wouldn’t you just love to tell people at cocktail parties that you work for the “Shock and Detonation Physics Team”?

[pocketmouse]

Actually, I thought it sounded like a perfectly normal day in my friend's physics lab. You're just not supposed to say that in a safety interview. ;)

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

Gattaca is good stuff.

The suicide kills me though.

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

"dynamite is never the only option."

In Britain, we'd probably say "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"