I have earache. It's been going on for about a week, but it hasn't been too bad. But last night it changed from discomfort to a real ow, but only intermittently. Unfortunately I can't get a doctors appointment until Friday. So I am distracting myself with this meme, found while surfing randomly.

1. Pick 10 of your favorite books or series.
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books.

1. A sea of mist drifted through the cloud forest: soft, grey, luminescent. On the high ridges the fog showed brighter as the morning sun began to warm and lift the moisture, although in the ravine a cool, soundless dimness still counterfeited a pre-dawn twilight.

2. It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery guessed by vega_ofthe_lyre

3. In the Land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - guessed by spectralbovine and mrs_redboots

4. She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted when she first arrived here--was it only three months ago?--with the prospect of fresh orange juice every day. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - guessed by vega_ofthe_lyre and mrs_redboots

5. I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkable smogless Detroit day in January 1960, and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides - guessed by r_becca

6. I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King - guessed by vega_ofthe_lyre

7. When the girl came rushing up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes.

8. There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire. Stardust by Neil Gaiman - guessed by r_becca

9. Histories have previously been written with the object of exalting their authors. The object of this History is to console the reader. No other history does this.

10. He remembered Mary had said, 'They all speak Welsh, most of the time. Even Aunt Jen.'

There are quite a few people who have cast Rosamund Pike as the reboot Christine Chapel. That made me very excited when this picture came through my door on the front of a Theatre Royal Bath programmme

Isn't it gorgeous? It is making me really want a late 19th Century McCoy/Chapel au. I'd have a go myself but (a) I'm working hard on my exchange fic and (b) while I love reading au's, I don't actually want to write them.



( Bonus Karl Urban and Chris Pine )

For those of you on my flist who like dinosaurs (I know there are a few of you :D), lookslikerain has made some very pretty icons. Obviously my favourites are the ones with actual bones, but there are some adorable model dinosaurs too.

And also, how did I not hear about this song before?

( I am a Paleontologist - They Might Be Giants )

Dear Yuletide Writer

Thank you so much for offering to write in one of my fandoms and I’m really looking forward to reading whatever story you write. This is my first Yuletide and I’m so excited. As you can see I have requested three book fandoms, the first is a single book, the second two books and the third is a series of, let me see, 18 books now. I will be incredibly happy with whatever story you are inspired to write about these fandoms and characters, but here are my prompts and some additional information in case that helps.

( My likes and dislikes )

( Jennifer Crusie – Welcome to Temptation – Phinn/Sophie/Dillie )

( Diana Wynne Jones – Magid verse – Nick Mallory )

( Elizabeth Peters – Amelia Peabody series – Ramses Emerson/David Todros )

I keep messing around with my Yuletide letter but I WILL be posting it when I get home this evening.

I'm just about to go out (in this hideous weather) to buy some yarn. My plan is to knit a cardigan for my friend's baby - it'll be the most complicated I've attempted and will really challenge my pattern reading skills. Now I just get to choose pretty, pretty (washable) yarn.

( Spoilers - Glee 1.09 Wheels )

I was complaining to my mother how hard it is to find old movies (on TV or to rent) anymore. Then this post by twistedchick reminded me how wonderful Cary Grant was. Did you know he was from Bristol? Do you have any favourite pre-1960 movies that you would recommend?

An informative post on the medical vs social models of disability by innerbrat.

I never really wished I was a fan of Stargate Atlantis until I saw these icons by captjamieway. Amazing text design and typography.

And finally two Star Trek recs

When The Game Ends, We'll Sing Again by jlh. Kirk/McCoy. R. Summary: College AU: Four young men meet as Harvard freshmen in 1959. Great Kirk voice. The concept of the au reminded me that someone once described the Star Trek Reboot as Star Trek XI: The College AU.

I Want Your Love And I Want Your Revenge by felonazcorp Bones/Lady Gaga. PG-13. Seriously, the pairing works. Go try it.

I keep forgetting that it is Bonfire Night and then wondering what all those loud bangs are. Sadly it looks like the big fireworks display took place last weekend and I've missed it. I'll have to buy some sparklers to make up for it.

Yuletide is very confusing. It has taken me ages to work out how the sign up works. I didn't realise that your requests could be different from your offers, doh! I think I've decided on the fandoms I want to request and I'm happy with my prompts. But I'm being completely indecisive on what I think I can offer, because I'm panicking about being able to write anything decent. At least my McCoy/Chapel exchange fic is taking shape, so that is one less thing to worry about.

( These are the fandoms that I'm probably requesting or offering. )

I discovered a lovely new webcomic The Battle of Dovecote Crest. It is about a group of American Civil War reenactors and the small museum that they work in. The artwork is beautiful and the first storyline really shows the life of the post grad-school museum worker.

I got to play with acid today! (OK - just making up 5% acetic acid and sticking rock in it - but still.) I'd forgotten how much I enjoy proper experimental labwork. All I have to find is someone to pay me to do it.

Via pir8fancier, this is an absolutely amazing Writing and Fandom Resources List compiled by goseaward. It puts together dozens of sources of fandom and writing meta for many hours of fascinating reading. This should be recced everywhere.

Today I badly want to watch Hot Fuzz again. I have the DVD of Shaun of the Dead but not Hot Fuzz or even Spaced. Foiled again.

Instead I bring you an awesome Hot Fuzz Vid Forever Fuzz by jescaflowne. Hot Fuzz contains so much (intentional) UST between Nicholas Angel and Danny. And this vid pulls that all out using material from the film and also the DVD extras. The song choice works well although I was a little dubious about it at first (Peter Cetera?!?!) and is very earwormy dammit.

So deliberately slashy. Yes. Nicholas Angel/Danny is the thing. And this exchange of tweets between Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost proves it. Some of this was pretty funny. (I'd advise not reading the comments because they were pretty irritating).

And this is some proper fanfiction from Yuletide (of course). Obviously this is exactly the way that the two of them would get together.

The Policeman Officer's Seduction by Grace
PG-13. Slash. Nicholas Angel/Danny Butterman
You ask someone back to yours after a night at the pub, that's pretty cliched, isn't it? And what could be more romantic than Point Break? But Nicholas just doesn't seem to get it.

I am pretty much DO NOT WANT on the topic of a US version of Spaced but this article completely reinforces that.

I finally got around to getting a new LJ layout. I'm not entirely happy with the header, I went with a Star Trek theme but it ended up being very very pink (again). I'm am fond of many other colours but dark pink is always the first thing to catch my eye, whether in layouts or clothes.

* * *

I'm loving Glee at the moment. It is a weird mixture of hilarity, satire, sweetness, musical numbers, and extremely irritating plot lines but I look forward to it so much. My favourite character changes every episode, although Sue is always entertaining.

( Glee 1.08 Spoilers )

I came across some Glee fic recs yesterday and for once the idea of Glee fic appealed. This is what I have read so far all based on recs from people. I'm not quite ready to jump into the archives.

( 5 Glee fic recs )

Reccing and delicious

I'm in the process of updating my delicious. It is mostly fanfic recs and contains everything that I have recced in this journal and a few other things. I've been organising the tags and I have included the tags that I look for when searching for stories i.e. fandom, character/pairing and rating. I've been debating adding other things like wordcount, but I don't use that myself when picking something to read, so I am going to leave it. I'll be sharing more links over the next few days, mostly Supernatural and Star Trek because that is what I've been reading since getting the account.

My criteria for a recommendation are that I enjoyed it, I remembered it when it came to compiling a list of recs, I liked it enough to comment (if it is based on lj or dw I will always comment before reccing), or something about it grabbed me. I may recommend things that aren't amazingly written because I like the idea, or the ship (but any reservations will be indicated in the rec. There are many things that I thought were amazing but haven't got around to reccing. I rec old things and new things, popular things and unknown things. And I always describe why I chose the story in the rec. I try my best to include warnings although I don't always remember/realise that they are necessary. I frequently rec things created by my friendslist because I probably friended them because I like the way they write/vid/icon.