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the Jack's Friends
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6th December, 2009. 2:38 pm. quick update on the state of me
I just stabbed a bottle of apple juice with a kitchen knife. The details of why are extraneous.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) yuletide story is almost 1,400 words. It's going to need a lot more than that before it's complete, and I'm going wildly outside of my comfort zone, but I don't seem to be panicking yet. Tune in this time next week to see me flipping my nut and/or switching to my backup plan!
Work is busy, but good. I've been staying later and later, then going to the gym, and getting home later and later. And I'm thinking about logging in to work for the second time this weekend.
I need to read 4 more books to hit 50 by the end of the year. Latest read: The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones. I'm probably going to cheat and read 3 volumes of manga and The Crying of Lot 49. 50 seems pathetically low number compared to what I used to read; I miss having free time.
I should have more free time next year, so book suggestions are welcome! For reference: my LibraryThing catalog.
Goals for today: 1) clean bathroom, 2) write moar Yuletide, 3) do more Christmas shopping.
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warren_ellis |
6th December, 2009. 1:32 pm. Twitter: The Grease Trap Of The Human Meat Computer
For a while, I had a capture of my twitter feed running here. It ended up doing something weird to my API calls, stopping me from running my desktop client, so I killed it. Which is probably just as well, as I talk a lot of shit on Twitter. It’s basically mental slurry, the wet lumpy bits from a day spent at the keyboard vented off into a trap so the buildup doesn’t blow some crucial valve in my head. Look at these, from the last month:
* THE MANY SUICIDES OF AQUAMAN: The Loneliness Of The Underwater Crimefighter When There’s No Fucking Crime Underwater
* BATMAN’S FATAL HEADSHOT: His Parents Died Twenty Years Ago, But Only Today Did He Find Their Hidden Rape Shed
* My daughter, hanging off the edge of the sofa she’s converted into a sick bed: "I need baconceuticals, old man."
* pitching new tv series SHIT MY DAD SAYS FROM INSIDE HIS CREMATION URN
* constantly disappointed at how few people habitually refer to me as "Love Swami"
(in re: Thanksgiving, and Yanks wishing me a good one:)
* Here in Britain, of course, it’s Thank Fuck We Got Those Weird Jesus Bastards On The Boat Day
* don’t listen to Wil Wheaton. Chloroform is not a flavour.
* LIE TO ME is all I want from evening television: a bloke from London shouting at people and then slapping them around a bit
* If you love something, set it free. With one of those tracker anklets. With a bomb on it.
* Huddled under a grey blanket in an abandoned hospital listening to Leyland Kirby’s doomladen SADLY THE FUTURE IS NO LONGER WHAT IT WAS
* The word that sums up 2009: "moonwater" or "shitbeetles"?
* the term "beard" shall henceforth be replaced by "crackling virility hedge"
* pitching my new tv show BACHELOR ROULETTE: ONE OF THESE WOMEN IS OFF HER ANTI-PSYCHOTICS AND WE GAVE HER A GUN
* I don’t care what anyone says, I’m changing my job description on my passport to "Space Bastard"
* hammer pneumatic fucking drills into that editor’s face until he has arseholes for eyes oh shit twtter’s on hello there
* when i find out who lost every wine opener in this house, i’m going to fucking flay them and sell their skin as cumrags for crackwhores
* @ why don’t you call people back after you sleep with them YOU VENAL SLUT
* #followfriday: the terrifying pill-and-whisky hallucination I had in 1988 @PinocchioWithScreamingCocksForEyes
* #followfriday multi-lobed "human rat king" with intertwined brain stems living under MI5 HQ in London @MisterSexCortex
* Good morning, sinners. One more day of this bullshit to go, and then we can all kill ourselves at the weekend. So SMILE!
* phoning Hollywood to pitch THE MUMMY IV: I SHIT DUST
* Related: also trying to beat out Joss Whedon’s TERMINATOR pitch with TERMINATOR: I SHIT ROBOTS
* But, coming soon, Sandra Bullock romantic comedy I SHIT NEW BOYFRIENDS
* I have 149,935 followers. The 150,000th must kill someone of my choosing or I will murder their family.
* Even when the darkest clouds are in the sky/ You mustn’t sigh and you mustn’t cry/ Spread a little stabbiness as you go by
* i wish to ride into battle upon a school of Mongolian Terror Trout
* and by "ride into battle" i mean "go to the pub"
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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dotfic |
6th December, 2009. 1:40 pm. Random Sunday items
Usually I don't pay very much attention to the plots on White Collar, but the rewatch on the fall finale involved a lot of pausing the DVR and reviewing facts. I'm going to give myself a brain strain before January. I'm still making happy dolphin noises.
At some point I want to rewatch that last ep of Friday Night Lights. I'm still wibbly over it.
I think chocolate is a perfectly viable lunch option, don't you?
Am 6 episodes in on Criminal Minds. HOMG YOU GUYS WERE RIGHT.
Two random notes:
*I boarded the Garcia/Morgan boat before they were even in the same room together. They're too adorable.
*Every show has one: The Magnificent Bastard. Hang on a moment, I have to add Jason Gideon to the list.
*I suppose it's official, I have a thing for FBI characters. The X-Files, White Collar, Without a Trace, Parker and Hardison pretending to be FBI agents, Sam and Dean pretending to be FBI agents, Agent Henriksen, and now this (really, Scarecrow and Mrs. King should've been FBI instead of a vague nonspecified CIA/NSA type of organization). Hm, that reminds me I have yet to see S3 of Without a Trace. It's still not available on DVD. Grarrgggh.
Everyone knows that the complete Farscape series is on amazon for $57.99, right? Don't ask what I paid to get it on DVD years ago and what I went through to do that. It was combination of used DVD bargains and shamelessly requesting seasons as gifts, finished off when they finally released those Starburst editions. That's how I got The X-Files too. (Patience is not my strong suit, but we're talking a wait of *years* here before they got to affordable levels).
NYS Senator Diane Savino on the Marriage Equality Bill. What she said.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ileliberte drew White Collar art. Eeeeee! <3
eta: Livejournal is sending me comment notification when it feels like getting around to it, instead of in any way that could be called timely. Just so you know.
(P.S. Thank you for the cookies. ♥)
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mecurtin |
6th December, 2009. 1:03 pm. Individual sensitivity and being a critic
Almost every Saturday night we have a "family dinner" at our house, with us, J and R -- a couple we've known for decades, who are our children's Jewish-equivalent-of-godparents, our friend Db, and sometimes other waifs & strays. R is a seriosu oenophile with a strong preference for bargains, so he brings wine that he thinks will go with whatever I've planned to make. And a couple spares, just in case.
One of the many things to love about this arrangement is that we get to drink a wide variety of wines without having to dither over which to get, while R gets the fun of tracking down and trying many different wines.
In this process we've made a curious scientific discovery. There is a chemical in some red wines that I (and I believe the children) can taste, that is undetectable to most people -- even R, whose palette for wine is extremely sensitive and well-trained. We have informally named this chemical "substance P", because it gives me the pip. P is never found in white wines, AFAICT, so presumably it's something in the skin/stem/seeds.
To me, a red wine with substance P tastes *exactly* like a cranberry that has gone bad -- a taste with which I am all too familiar, from decades of picking over cranberries to make sauce. It's quite repellant.
One of R's wine-choosing pleasures is trying to predict which wines will contain substance P. He's gotten pretty good at it over the years, so we were taken aback last night when I tasted the Andezon Cotes-du-Rhone 2006 and went "gack!!!" before going to wash my mouth out. I haven't hit such a high concentration of substance P in a *looong* time.
The big trouble (for me) with P-containing wines is that they are not rare. Many Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines contain P, and I am quite leery of red Bordeaux in general because of it. hmm. I wonder if we could do a little genetic testing when my whole family is here for Christmas -- I wonder if my parents and brother are P-sensitive.
Anyway, it occurs to me that P-sensitivity is never going to be found in wine critics, because they have to drink too many different kinds of wine. Robert Parker, for instance, gave this Andezon a "90", and believe me that is absolute proof that he is P-insensitive. So although oenophiles and wine critics are expected to have very sensitive and accurate senses of taste, they can't be *too* sensitive -- they have to be sensitive only to the things that are considered important, but they must be taste-blind to chemicals like P, which are not considered important.
There's an analogy here to qualifications for being a critic of books, movies, etc., which I leave as an exercise for the student.
This entry was originally posted at http://mecurtin.dreamwidth.org/116729.html. There are  comments there for this post.
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little_details
[ ingriam ] |
6th December, 2009. 9:25 am. Manual strangulation and heart rate
One of my characters in a fanfic I'm writing has a sense of touch - as well as all his other senses, but the one I'm focusing on is touch - that's been enhanced greatly from what would be normal for a human. Now, my question: if he were to strangle someone until they blacked out, with his finger pressed against their carotid artery, what would he feel?
Now, the victim's going to be putting up a struggle, but they're going to be bound and gagged, so it won't make much of a difference.
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little_details
[ x_trickster_x ] |
6th December, 2009. 11:22 am. Burns, healing, scars
Setting: Japan, 1996
Searches: "Burns scars" "types of burns" "treatment of burns"
Okay, so, what I'm looking for is quite specific. The character in question just knelt on and pressed his forehead and hands to a blisteringly hot, smooth surface for 12 seconds before wrenching himself away from it. I have a couple of questions.
I'm assuming he'll have scars. What would they look like? Would it be the same as branding but on a larger scale? Would there be nerve damage and if so, how does this effect him? He'll have received the best treatment money can buy but the severity/appearance of the scars is making me stop and think.
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little_details
[ systemaurora ] |
6th December, 2009. 12:50 am. University admission and A levels in England
So, I think I understand A levels enough to write about them in passing. But I can't make sense of a couple of, well, little details:
-do you take three "classes" each term (around 4-5 months) or is it for the full year?
-how many A levels does one normally take? I know three is typically required for university, but is it extremely exceptional for students to take more than three?
-what would be a doable but somewhat difficult amount for someone to take?
-when do most people actually start university? It says in a few places online most people stay in sixth form until they're 19; would starting a few days after one's 18th birthday be considered relatively early, or is that the norm?
character in question is a seventeen-year-old who is tired and stressed. I need her to show that she's somewhat gifted, and I'd like her to feel like she's starting school a year too early. Any thoughts on this? I'm completely overwhelmed!
I read five or six different wikipedia articles and googled around a little, but honestly I'm not sure how to google "how many A levels can I give my seventeen-year-old to make her cranky?" or "would this make my character feel like a freak?", lol. Seriously, any help is appreciated! The UK school system is so different from ours, and I really don't understand ours that well to start with, so... yikes! Thanks in advance.
Also, forgot to ask: Would a public school student (i.e. privately paying) wear a school uniform in sixth form? Thanks!
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