What's that website where I think you start off with a page about farms, and you try to type in as many things having to do with farms then when you complete enough you can move onto another page about religion and baseball and bands and stuff?

ETA: It's in a web format.

Got a nice surprise when I went to YouTube, James has uploaded a new vid with his son. Too Fast.

Um, I may have a slight Yuletide problem. Thank god for vacation time! 95+ recs in 63 almost alphabetical fandoms:

30 Rock, Band of Brothers, Beauty and the Beast, Big Bang Theory, Black Books, Blackadder, Bon Cop Bad Cop, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Brothers Bloom, Coffee Prince

Big Bang Theory round 2, Community, Contact, Dexter, Dirty Dancing, Egyptian Mythology, Evil Dead, Fanboys, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Fifth Element, Friday Night Lights, Ghostbusters

Gone with the Wind, Greek & Roman Mythology, Historical RPF, How I Met Your Mother, Indiana Jones, Jane Austen, Juno, Jurassic Park, Keeping Up Appearances, Kinky Boots, Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain (Amelie), Life on Mars UK, Lion King, Lone Gunmen

Alien, Lost Moon, Love Actually, Muppet Show, National Treasure, Never Gonna Give You Up, Nursery Crimes, Philadelphia Story, Practical Magic, Princess Bride, Quantum Leap, Roman Holiday

I Am Maru, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, RPF - National Public Radio, Shawshank Redemption, Shakespeare, Skullcrusher Mountain, Spaced, Springsteen, Star Trek RPF, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Closer, Watchmen, Wire in the Blood, Wire in the Blood/The Mentalist

Title: Walking Targets
Author: chibifukurou 
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Pairing: Matt/John
Summary: They're dependent on Twitter to keep them alive
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: detailed violence, DARK!!!
AN: This got a bit long and conveluted so if you see any grammar mistakes please let me know and I'll sort them out.

( Tweet... )

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+43%3A16%2C+18-19&version=31

“This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) NIV. All Rights Reserved.

Another set of recs is here. Fandoms are Anastasia, Catch-22, Chrono Trigger, Community, Earthsea, The Handmaid's Tale, Howl's Moving Castle, Hurog Series, I Am Maru, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Let the Right One In, Leverage, Like Water for Chocolate, Lilo and Stitch, The Lion King, Little Women, and Submachine.

My reading theme this year is Underappreciated Characters, and here are several recs that do an amazing job of taking those underappreciated or simply minor characters and giving them the spotlight. I have more recs in that vein to post later, but these to get started.

8 recs in 7 fandoms, including:

( The Last Unicorn, Lackadaisy, Mary Russell - King, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Little Mermaid, Anastasia, Whisper of the Heart )

So my sister-in-law and brother who live in North Carolina came to Minnesota together for only the second time for the holidays. On the way home from the Christmas celebration at my uncle's house, a few of us were for some unknown reason humming Battle Hymn of the  Republic.

Me: You know what's really cool? Mark Twain wrote an awesome version of Battle Hymn of the Republic, a satire. I don't remember much of it but it's definitely worth looking into.

Sister-In-Law: Wait, Mark Twain is a singer, right?

Me: *looks at her for a moment hoping she's being facetious...she isn't.* No...Mark Twain was an author.

S-I-L: *blank stare*

Me: ...Tom Sawyer?

S-I-L: OH!!* laughs* Then who's the Twain singer?

Brother: *shakes head* That would be Shania, babe.

Casablanca, The Secret Garden, Blackadder, Persuasion, Friday Night Lights, Spaced

THANKS EVERYONE, FOR A FABULOUS YULETIDE

Over here is the first rec compilation, this was the second part. Then we had a third part and a fourth. After that there was the fifth part, including the Unsung Recs (still open) in comments. This is the sixth part.


( To infinity...and beyond. )

16 recs in Calvin and Hobbes (2), Dykes to Watch Out For, Earth's Children, Eddie Izzard, The Handmaid's Tale (2), I Capture the Castle, Logan's Run, Master Li and Number Ten Ox, I am Maru, Mary Poppins, Red Dwarf, Asimov Robots, Sime/Gen, and Vorkosigan, at my DW.

There are times and places when the phrase "As if by magic" can be used well.

A situation where actual magic is occuring is not one of them.

Edit: Character in question was perfectly aware of the magical reality, to clarify.

Haven't been there in a kajillion years, but I have in fact been there a few times. Bachelorette brunch, corporate function, press junket thingie. It was especially exciting when I first lived in NYC and it seemed so glamor-ays.

In honor of its history and imminent demise, I offer one of my favorite jokes, which I heard at a soap opera press luncheon, where Dr. Joyce Brothers was the keynote speaker. (And yes, it was her who told this joke.)

An elderly couple is standing before a divorce court judge, and he looks at their paperwork, then at the couple, saying, "Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, it saddens me to see you here. You've been married 75 years, and you're both in your nineties. Isn't there some way you could work this out?"

Mrs. Johnson pipes up: "Oh no. It's been over for decades. We were just waiting until the kids were dead."

Okay, so I've already watched all of Season 2 on download, but Season 2 is just about to start in the US. Did catch a Season 1 re-run tonight and it did remind me of how much I enjoy this little time-travelling show.

Two more recs posts, with some of the same fandoms but no duplicate recs (...I hope):

3. White Collar, Public Service Announcements, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Anthropomorfic, Mo Willem's Pigeon Books, Fairytales, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Hip-hop RPF, Oregon Trail, Hair, Mad Men, Cthulhu Mythos, Slings & Arrows, Philadelphia Story, Grosse Pointe Blank, Emma, Arcadia.

4. Creepy Doll (Jonathan Coulton songs), DCU (Traci 13), Lilo & Stitch, Children of Men, Arthurian Legend, Fairytales, Saving Face, A Knight's Tale, I Am Maru, Shakespeare in Love, Romeo and Juliet, Withnail and I, Connie Willis' Oxford Time Travelers universe, Blackadder, Discworld, Mythbusters RPF, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zombieland.

Dialects can be tricky. Some might argue that you shouldn't write dialog in dialect at all, but I disagree; when done right, it can bring that extra hint of flavor that makes a story.

However.

If you want to write a character's lines in dialect, pay attention to the dialect in question.

Not all British dialects are like Cockney.
Not all US accents resemble a Texan drawl.

OK? Because I'm tired of - for example - reading Across the Universe fics where Jude sounds like a Londoner. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all!

This is very vague but we read a poem in high school English class about a boy and a girl who are young and in love on a picnic or something about sunshine and flowers. It ends with the relationship ending and they grow apart or die or something. It was written by a man and I'm pretty sure it was American.

We read another poem about a woman who is grieving the death of her husband I think. I want to say the woman is Romanian or something like that. I think the poem centers around an article of clothing like a scarf or a body part.

http://rahirah.dreamwidth.org/422939.html

I've already tossed this to my regular pool of sharks beta readers, but I'm not sure how many of them will have time to tackle it on a holiday weekend. So if anyone has the time and inclination to go over a 6000+ word sentimental Christmas horror story, I would be much obliged. Come at me with those raspberries, and be as vicious as you like with them!

I got, like, three hours of sleep last night, and in conjunction with the previous two nights, this was the last straw. I called in sick this morning, and slept in till eleven. I'm still tired, but I did get the house cleaned once I got up, at least in parts, and finished the first draft of the story. I'm still coughing, but I think that maybe perhaps it might be getting a tiny bit better. Four day weekend FTW!

:wheeze: