bethinexile

Every so often, I'll make a comment to someone's post and think, vaguely, "Hey, I've had that thought in the back of my head, and now I've been nudged into putting it into words.  Maybe I should post it to my own blog and share the love (or face the music)."

Then, of course, I don't.  Naturally, no-one else here ever thinks about posts they'd like to make but don't, right . . . ?

So, here's a mild amplification on a response I made a little while back on a post on the little_details comm.  The OP had asked about pre-existing specific terminology on a fantasy subject -- specifically, a collective noun for dragons.  My reply turned into a rumination on the nature of specific terminology.

(It's not unusual, on that comm, for the questions asked to indicate a certain naïvete/youth/absence of broad experience or knowledge.  Often, the real answer to a question ought to be "You're supposed to be a writer -- invent an answer!"  But the OP is really trying to find out if the answer already exists, which is certainly a legitimate question.)*

( rambling about language )


*There are also questions that more or less translate into 'Tell me what to write" or "Write my story for me".  Those drive me nuts.

I haven’t been around much for the last two weeks – posting at odd times, responding to comments slowly or not at all, etc. In fact, I’ve been on the road, off with my partner having a vacation, which was lovely but often did not include reliable internet service.

We drove from south Florida up to Ohio, collected my mother-out-law (my partner's mother), and then went out to Philadelphia for a few history-saturated days. Cleo came too.
( Picspam!! )

One final image: Why You Should Not Wear Tie-Dyed Socks in Heavy Rain.

Part 1 is here. 
Part 2 is here.
The background is here.

The poll at the end of Part 2 wasn't close at all!





Now, don’t get me wrong. I like doin’ stuff for people. I’ve been doin’ that kinda thing for as long as I can remember, and I wouldn’t keep it up if I didn’t like it. I like the fact that I can do it. Usually it’s satisfying, sometimes it’s fun, and for the last several years it’s been pretty good as a lifestyle. The hours aren’t bad and the perks can be great.

What is not fun is bein’ asked to do stuff that just plain won’t work. I’m not big on hopeless causes. Or crazy schemes, either – although, yeah, some people might claim that most of my own ideas are crazy, and maybe they’d be right, in a way, except I’ve got a pretty good track record of getting crazy schemes to work. That oughta count for something. It’s the reason I’m still alive, after all.

And I really don’t like bein’ whined at when I’ve already said no. I suppose that if Jack ever listened to people saying ‘no’, he’d never get anywhere . . . but he hasn’t exactly gotten anywhere so far anyway.


MacGyver’s mood improved as he drove. He knew LA well enough to find enough back and side streets that he could mostly avoid the worst of the traffic, especially on days like today, when he didn’t have to go anywhere in particular. The sun was warm but not fierce, and with the top down on the Jeep, the wind blowing through his hair seemed to blow the crankiness away.

He thought he’d been driving at random, but somehow he wasn’t surprised when he found himself crossing Chavez Avenue. On both sides of the street, the signs on the shops were now all bright red and yellow splashes of Chinese characters, with smaller English text underneath, often misspelled. Mac wondered for an irreverent moment if any of the Chinese signs were also misspelled, and what they might accidently say if they were.

MacGyver loved Chinatown. He had a lot of friends here, and he seemed to pick up a few more with every visit. When you did favors for folks here, they remembered, and returned the favor when you needed it, often with interest. It was a good place to have friends.

It was also a good place to find a laundromat, since there seemed to be almost as many laundromats in Chinatown as there were lawyers’ offices in the corporate zone of LA or fly-by-night talent agencies on the fringes of Hollywood. Mac pulled up in front of one that had an especially cheerful sign, in both red and yellow, and an empty parking place out in front. Auspicious on all counts.

Inside, most of the customers and all of the staff were Chinese. At the counter, a pretty girl with a waterfall of dark hair changed his singles for a little paper cup of quarters, and gave him a radiant smile in the bargain when Mac thanked her in his execrable Mandarin. An old woman, her face seamed with deep furrows, popped out from an inner room, examined MacGyver with the critical eye of a professional horse-trader, and delivered a torrent of Chinese that made the girl blush. Mac found himself blushing as well, and retreated behind the first row of washing machines.

In the relative safety there, he dumped out his dufflebag and eyed the unpromising contents. He usually just shoved stuff into the machines at random, but the last time he’d done that, one of his flowered shirts had bled multicolored streaks onto every white T-shirt he owned, and he’d had to give them all away to a buddy who ran a tie-dye shirt stand on the beach. The funny thing was that the flowered shirt didn’t seem to be any less bright after all that, which meant it probably had more ammo in reserve.

Poll #1837434
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

Should MacGyver:

Yes, indeed! We have ticky boxes! Choose as many as you like.

Part 1 is here.  The explanation, or inspiration, or background, or alibi, is here.

The poll at the end of Part 1 was close, but the answering machine eventually won.



The phone continued to beep shrilly, and MacGyver’s resolve crumbled. He was reaching for the phone when the answering machine clicked on.

‘Hi. This is MacGyver. We all know how these things work, so when you hear the beep, go for it.’

“Mac? It’s me! C’mon, buddy, pick up. I know you’re there. You must be. I can feeeel it. You know that correspondence course I’ve been taking in precognition and clairvoyance and all that stuff?” Jack Dalton’s voice prattled away, and Mac snatched his hand back as if the phone had suddenly become radioactive.

“Well, let me tell you, buddy, it’s amazing! I got myself a bunch of those US Geological Survey maps, and I’ve been going over them with a dowsing pendulum doodad for one of my homework assignments, and I’ve got a red-hot strike! Gold, buddy! For real! The only thing is, I’m gonna need a bit of help getting out to the place to check it out – you see, my car kinda got repo’d last week, so I’ve been stuck at home, well, good thing I’ve got the correspondence course to keep me busy – ”

The answering machine ran out of tape two minutes and thirty-five seconds later. Mac didn’t hear it. He was upstairs in his loft bedroom, hastily cramming laundry into a dufflebag. The nearest laundromat was in the main marina services building – bad idea, Jack might be able to find him there. He had his key to Pete’s apartment, and he needed to water Pete’s plants, and there was a little laundromat on the corner of the block there – but that was kind of a long drive. Heck, maybe he’d just get in the Jeep and stop at the first laundromat he saw, as long as it was in some part of town where Jack Dalton couldn’t find him.

Poll #1836053
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

Should MacGyver:

For a little background on this craziness, read this post from March.



Strains of cheerfully twangy music nudged MacGyver out of sleep, and he opened one eye and watched the sun heroically setting on his TV as the credits rolled on one of his favorite Westerns.  Outside, the day was bright and clear – there’d been a strong wind off the ocean all night, and the smog had been blown inland and scattered, leaving the sky a clean pale blue.  A fresh breeze still carried the smell of the Pacific into Mac’s living room, through the open windows of the houseboat.  He could hear seagulls squabbling out on the dock.

Life might, just possibly, get better than this, but not by much.  A lazy day stretched before him: nothing he actually had to do, and plenty of time to do whatever he wanted, beginning with watching TV.  He could putter around if he liked – his motorcycle needed an oil change and there was always something worth doing with the cars.  The very pretty new neighbor three houseboats down had dropped a few hints about needing odd jobs done, and based on the smells that came from her kitchen on a regular basis, the offer of dinner wouldn’t be hard to accept.  He did, eventually, need to get groceries: he was out of fresh fruit and the sprouts in the fridge had sprouted.  And sooner or later, he was going to have to get caught up on his laundry: he was wearing his last clean white T-shirt, the oldest and thinnest of the lot, and his hamper was overflowing.

But that could wait. Pete was out of the country and Mac’s next assignment was already settled and wouldn’t start for a week, so he was safe from interruptions.

He’d just decided to put another Western into the VCR when the telephone rang.

Poll #1835536
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

Should MacGyver:

ETA: Part 2 is now online here.

Remember the improbable discussion from last weekend?  I'm still dreadfully tempted to write a dark!laundryfic.


As a Choose Your Own Adventure.


With reader input.


Anyone up for some crackishness?

Preamble:
This ficlet has multiple points of origin.  Last year, for Fig's Crossover Alphabet Soup, I wrote a short letter-V fic crossing Vala Mal Doran with Vila Restal, of Blake's 7.  In the back of my head was the memory of a 'lonely prompt' from the fic_promptly comm.  The ficlet I wrote didn't actually fill the prompt . . . but it continued to lurk in my hindbrain.

This weekend, during fic_rush, lost_spook launched a new Blake's 7 pairings comm, b7love_250.  I added some Vala prompts, since the idea of her tangling (literally) with any of the B7 crew fills me with glee.

I'd hardly hit 'post' when the plot bunny bit.   Accordingly, here's the prequel to V is for V_la (hereinafter to be known as 'What Vala Claimed Happened'). Unlike the first ficlet, this is not, repeat not gen.

Paian's prompt on fic_promptly, with the fill, is here: Blake's 7/Stargate SG-1, Vila Restal & Vala Mal Doran, thick as thieves

And now, What Actually Happened.  PG-13.

( Thick as Thieves )

This morning, my partner was getting ready to go get her hair cut, while I started on the laundry.

“What laundry are you doing first?”

“I figured I’d start with the dark laundry.”

She replied, with a suitable level of deep gravitas: “Why isn’t there any dark!laundryfic?”

I suppressed my giggles enough to say, “Well, I don’t usually write darkfic – that might work better in your fandom.” (My partner’s fandom lends itself very well to darkfic.)  "You should definitely write some dark!laundryfic."

“I’d like to use ‘dark!laundry’ as a tag sometime,” she said.

I leaned on the laundry basket. “I suppose in a MacGyver dark!laundryfic, he’d be attacked when he went to do his laundry and beaten senseless.”

“By the laundry?”

“No, by thugs. And he’d be severely traumatized and become phobic about laundry.” (In retrospect, amnesia or a long hospital stay would probably be required.) “But that’s not my style of Macfic.” I mentioned a different fic writer, whose relentless darkfic joined my don’t-read list years ago. “If I wrote it, Mac would fight back successfully against the thugs, using the laundry and the laundry detergent. And his favourite shirt would be shredded beyond salvation. One of the floral shirts, which he’d be wearing at the time.”

“The shirt he’s wearing gets destroyed? Yes, that’s more your style.”

“And I’d ruin his jacket, too. The one he wore in the late seasons. Pepper hates that jacket; she thinks it’s ugly. I promised her ages ago that I’d write a fic in which the jacket dies if she’d write a particular piece of smut. And the jacket is dark. But that would be crackfic, not darkfic.”

We both nodded sagely, and she left for her haircut.


I really have the Bestest Partner in the world. *is smug*

Update, 4/22/12:  the fic starts here.

Along with starting the Tumblr account for icanhastofu, I also set up a Google Analytics account, so I can track my traffic spy on fandom boost my ego with gratuitous details.  A few days ago, I enabled it on the LOLMac journal here on LJ as well, which is giving me a lovely lesson in international geography, a few giggles (someone ended up on LOLMac after Googling 'lolita', which must have been a disappointment) and a lot of squees.  I mean, wow!  There's someone in Romania who likes RDA and (presumably) enjoys the jokes!  Is that cool or what?

At the same time, the main section of my brain immediately starts fretting at the privacy implications.  Yeah, yeah, Google Analytics and web traffic tracking are ubiquitous.  You're tracked everywhere you go.  I opted into the Guest Tracking on LJ when it was first enabled -- but that's a two-way option:  if you want to see, you must allow yourself to be seen, and you know it's happening because you accepted it.  But still.  LOLMac is a great joy in my life, and it's a place where a lot of my friends hang out, and I don't want to squick anyone out by spying on them, as it were.

( An offer you can't refuse, unless you want to )

Well, aughh.  I just discovered a weakness in the LJ tagging system -- apparently you can only page back 380 items in a given tag!  Given that, at present, I have over 400 items under the Jack O'Neill tag and over 700 under the MacGyver tag, this just plain sucks.  I want Stargate fans in particular to have the ability to page back through just the Jack items.  And the early years of the gallery (wow, does it feel weird to say that or what?) have some items that I like to think of as, well, classics.

So (rather than whinging and whining about how Ebil and Feeble LJ is), I've decided to Expand my Online Empire, bwahaha.  I present to you:

http://icanhastofu.tumblr.com/

(The name 'lolmac' is already taken on Tumblr, by a crazy Filipino.)

I'll use this to post, or repost, the best of the older LOLs -- I've already found out that each one can be set up with a 'click-through' link, which will take you to the original LOLMac in situ, with its mouseover text and comment thread and crackfic where applicable.  Also, the tagging system on Tumblr seems to be very robust, and I could definitely use improvement in that area!  The layouts are nice and clean, and there's an RSS feed option, for anyone into that.  And this gives me the opportunity to pretend that some of the, ah, less inspired LOLMacs never happened.

I have a dozen up there already, all from 2007 -- anyone wanna look at them so they don't feel lonely?

I don't seem to be able to actually embed this image, so you'll have to follow the link.  Trust me.  It's worth it.  Especially if you like any or all of the following:  1) yarn crafts, 2) math, 3) girls with brains, 4) erudite puns.

http://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2012/02/25

Anyone else creeped out by the idea that, after you're dead, the Mormons regard themselves as having an undisputable right to baptise you posthumously in their church?

Yea, me too.  It's creeped me out for years.

Now we have Internet Vengeance^[TM]!

All Dead Mormons Are Now Gay

"I'm running a test to see who's reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ Username. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun!"

Variation the First:
Having left a suitable one-word answer -- cryptic, imaginative, sparkly, whatever -- do feel free to enlarge on it.  Or not.  Your choice.  Since you're here, either you're already a friend and I'd enjoy hearing how you're doing, or else you're not and I'd like to get to know you better.

Variation the Second:
Repost if you want to.  Don't if you don't.

So, yeah, I ended up writing two letters, and one writer had to drop out, so here I am again.  I actually think this is the better fic by far, even though it wasn't the letter I originally claimed.  Danged plot bunnies.



In 1934, Glenn Cunningham was the fastest man alive.

In 1908, Cunningham was a bed-ridden cripple, both legs fire-shriveled, one foot toeless.

Cam thinks about Cunningham a lot. Mostly in the mornings, during the part of the morning when he has energy to spare for thinking.

( More under cut )

It was Cameron Mitchell’s twenty-third trip through the Gate, so the number wasn’t anything special or different. What was different was the landscape.

( No trees this time . . . )

This just in:  if you haven't already, go to Google and search on "let it snow".  I'm told it doesn't work in IE, but not inclined to test it.

If you wait long enough, you also get a 'Defrost' button.

ETA3:
If your own journal layout allows for custom comments pages, you still have full commenting features in your own journal.  Layouts in the following groups are apparently still fully functional:  Component, Minimalism, and Expressive.
If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can tick the box at the top of the page that says 'View in my style' (which appears when you're on other journals, including comms), and the commenting features will carry over into other journals and comms.
If you have a Basic or Plus account, you might not have the ticky box.  In this case, type the following code at the end of the URL to restore commenting features: 
   ?style=mine

Thank you, dbskyler!
(Please note that this trick, again, only works if you have one of the layouts that retains full commenting function.)

ETA4:  As of 12/22/11, I'm told that at many if not most of the journal with custom commenting have had it magically and globally disabled -- that is, the default setting has been switched from No (not disabled) to Yes (disabled). (Aren't double negatives fun?)

If, between yesterday and today, the shit hit your fandom, do this:
- First, go to http://www.livejournal.com/customize/options.bml  (you must be logged into LJ).
- Under Presentation --> Basic Options, make sure that "Disable customized comment pages for your journal" is set to "No".  Save the settings.
- If you control multiple comms as well as your journal, there will be a drop-down box allowing you to make the same check for all of them.
- If you're using a layout that does not give you this option, you must choose:  either switch to one that does, or stop complaining about it forevermore.

* * * original post begins here * * *

This post is for actual solutions, workarounds, and coping mechanisms.  It is not for any of the following: rants about LJ, invitations to DW, or reminders about the no-invite-code joinfest DW is having right now.  All those topics are adequately covered elsewhere.

For anyone late to the ragefest:  LJ's most recent release has broken a new set of features, this time in the commenting interface.  At present, there are some fixes, and I'm hoping to learn of more.  'Scream and leave' is a reaction, not a fix; take it as already expressed and let's move on and look at fixes.

( I'm tucking most of the original post under a cut )
ETA2.9: I'm moving the summary of the best fixes to the top of this post, and putting most of it behind a cut.

 I didn't feel writerly last night (not enough pasta, perhaps), and I had an Artistikal Notion, so I spent some time creating a Celtic interlace.  It still needs cleanup and tweaking, and then I have an idea of something else to do with it, but in the meanwhile I wanted to share teh pretty.

( Whacking huge image under the cut )

Next time there's a persistent problem with LJ, I'm just going to Google 'Russia politics elections'.

Tomorrow, Sunday, are the Russian parliamentary elections.  Putin is setting himself up for the presidency again.  So, like wasps after a picnic fruit salad, LJ gets another round of attacks.  Gah.

I'm hoping it eases up after tomorrow, anyway.

Like everyone else, I'm very tired of the constant attacks.  At the same time, I also appreciate the fact that LiveJournal is standing up for free speech, in a staggeringly hostile environment, against intractable entrenched enemies with deep pockets and almost limitless resources.*  That takes guts.  Every time I start to feel pissy about my fannishness being inconvenienced, I remember that the world doesn't actually revolve around me, and that people in other countries risk their lives for what I tend to take for granted.

But still.  Damn it, my fannishness is being inconvenienced.  Harrumph.



*I did some heavy research into the Russian mafia as part of the story background for Phoenix Rising.  Srsly, those dudes are scary.

The only member of my own birth family with whom I still interact is my über-geeky sister, who beats me hands down on all the tech questions.  (Seriously:  when we're together, she configures my wireless.)  So all I can do with truly fantastic articles like these is pass them on:

How to Keep Thanksgiving from Being a Family Tech Trainwreck

And even better:

Friday is Update Your Parents' Browser Day

I'll even overlook the assumption in the Atlantic article that the family alpha-geek is male by default.  This year.  Next year, Atlantic, get it right.  That should be "Be a good geek", not "Be a good boy".  Got it?  Because I am the IT Guy, and I Can Kill You With My Brain.

Instead of actually writing today (so far), I have wasted vast swathes of time reading old, old items in the archives at rdanderson.com.  I ended up saving some truly delicious snippets from the early days, when he was on General Hospital.  He didn't like the character and left after his 5-year contract was over.

The Soap Opera press loved him, though and interviewed him at least once a year, often more.

From an article in 1976: “With his solid, athletic body, he definitely looks like a man who should be wandering in a forest, not a hallway.”

From a 1976 interview: “I want to be a spy, I want to get beat up and shot at and stuff like that.”  \o/

( More juicy comments! )

*glee*

I'm nearly done on getting my major works up on Ao3.  In fact, I'm halfway through reposting Aftershocks, and that's the last of the novels to date.

What a pity that Ao3 released a code "upgrade" and broke the site.

Specifically, I can't use their Rich Text Editor.  They have at least acknowledged the problem: 

ETA: We've received several reports from people who are unable to use
the rich text editor. We're having difficulty pinning down this bug
since it seems to manifest inconsistently, but we are looking into it.
Apologies for the inconvenience.

"Looking into it."

I left Aftershocks at the end of a chapter -- in other words, on a cliffhanger.  Maybe I should attempt to edit the most recent posted chapter and encourage the readers -- I think there might be two, at most -- to go finish reading it on ff.net.

Why was I doing this again?

I had my follow-up appointment with my gastroenterologist earlier this week.-- this was Young Dr. Young, the one whose colonoscopy put me in hospital.

I was told that none of the 24 polyps they biopsied showed any signs of being precancerous.

( Crankiness, but not ickiness, behind cut )

And now, a short lesson in Camel Smuggling.

I originally posted these pictures back in April of 2010, before I'd started the bethinexile blog.  Back then, I did occasional personal posts to LOLMac on weekends, and then tidied them off into archives on Monday.  But I thought it would be fun to pull this one out into the spotlight again!

The wonderful KatXander, learning that lothithil and I did not actually have any camels of our own, saw to it that this was remedied.  However, I decided to do a little . . . customisation work.

( Enter the Smugglers' Lair . . .  )
Dingo now lives with Lothithil, and Cleo remains with me.  I've smuggled Cleo to several places already, including several conventions (Gatecon, MTM, Orycon).  And, of course, I smuggled her across the country last year!

I seem to be the only person on LJ who isn't having problems, so I better post while my good luck holds . . .

Missy and I had a good laugh when we watched the most recent episode of House, MD.  The Patient-of-the-Week had, as his most alarming symptom, extreme altruism: he was a software megamillionaire who was running around giving away his money. 

What had me grinning was the organisation that was shown in the teaser scene, the recipients of some of that generosity:


Yup.  It's the Phoenix Foundation.


I couldn't get a decent screen shot of the sign, but it's blue and white, with a blue and white bird logo.  Not identical, but close enough to make me speculate about the existence of a MacGyver fan somewhere on the production team.