{ today I am feeling "distressed" because "no particular reason". With thanks! M. }

So, first off, what-the-fuck-ever with that post last night, and apologies for subjecting you to it. It is now gone, even though a couple of you lovelies commented and were very, very nice.

Secondly, numb3rswriteoff. The second angst vs. schmoop (damn, what a fugly word) challenge is for rare het pairings. COME PLAY WITH US. WE CAN FROLIC. No, really.

Thirdly, I have SO MANY comments to reply to, so it's taking a while. I opened my inbox to c.25 emails. INSANE, YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE.

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Rec post is a-coming, rec post is a-coming. I have recently discovered the joy that is del.icio.us and I love it, tagging features and all. So, I have femgen fics, apocafics, haiku and other on-my-flist fics to rec. It's been so long.

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Eventually I will sit down and watch the first two seasons of The Wire. They are calling to me! And yet somehow I've not managed to find the time.

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Guess how I woke up this morning? The garage alarm went off. So I peg it downstairs to see what the fuck is going on and the culprit? A BIRD. THERE WAS A BIRD IN THE GARAGE THAT SET OFF THE ALARM. The alarm is a large ringing bell. Really fucking loud! So. Yeah. GOOD MORNING, WORLD. Thanks for the karma.

{ my purpose and my deeds. }

So, I did that thing where you comment on a flister's post and it turns out there's a meme involved? Except noorie is made of win, and her questions made me sit there all, "hmmm, GOOD QUESTION!" so I'm actually going to play along. Contain yourselves, folks.

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The HI, LET ME GET TO KNOW YOU meme! (Huzz!)

1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.

Man, memes are so pushy. They're all, YOU WILL OBEY, LOWLY ONES. EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! That's some serious dictatorial hell going on there.

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The questions noorie asked me!

(1) Who do you think is hot, other than Thandie Newton? :)
(2) What's the funniest thing you've ever heard/seen/read?
(3) What's your position on cloning?
(4) Most played CD this week?
(5) If you won 200$, what would you spend them on?

My answers! Yay!

(1) OH MAN. LONG LIST. To pick three out of an embarrassingly long list: Michelle Yeoh, Navi Rawat and Lena Olin. Huh. They're all women. /random LINK! Although I should do another one. You can never get enough pretty. /shallow
(2) That's hard, but here's a joke that ALWAYS makes me laugh, even though it's really not funny. "A man walks into a bar... ow!"
(3) I don't really have one. I'm for stem cell research, but I'm not up to date on how cloning would help. Things like having a child just to save an older child distress me. I'm all for measures that aid curing diseases, but I'm sceptical about usage and about the ethical-ness of research methods.
(4) iTunes says: none. But I've listened to a whole slew of albums for the first or second time. Maroon 5's It Won't Be Soon Before Long, the Walk the Line soundtrack, Alanis Morissette's The Collection, the Amores Perros soundtrack, the Bajofondo Tango Club's eponymous album, the Deadwood soundtrack (ha, theme much?), Brandi Carlile's The Story, St Vincent's Marry Me, Feist's Let it Die and The Reminder. I went through a Postal Service phase a couple of days ago, and then I switched to playing my 'top25' list. So.
(5) HA. Excluding Life Needy things like Rent and Tuition fees, probably DVDs or books. I have apparently fully embraced material living.

More than you needed to know? tl;dr? Yes, probably.

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I am still reading and answering emails. Still. Considering this: crazy excitable today? WHY, YES.

[Saving Grace.] 1x01-1x02. (spoilers)

 

                      

Holly Hunter in Saving Grace

Last week I watched a new show, Saving Grace. Holly Hunter blew my mind in Thirteen, and I'm always up for another crime show so I settled into watch.

I have no idea what the crime was. Some kid was into emo rock, a little girl got found, I don't even know how the two were connected. This week? Same deal. Someone stole a watch, he turned out to be the Captain's brother and was a drug addict or something, and then he shot him (the Captain, that is. That part ws pretty traumatic). As for the actual crime, someone died and was killed by his best friend who used to date [dead guy]'s wife.

So far, I'm guessing you're not convinced. I'm also guessing you have no idea what this show is about.

"Academy Award winner Holly Hunter, making her television series debut, stars in this TNT drama series about a police detective with an emotional crisis living in Oklahoma City. A respected officer, Grace Hanadarko can't seem to run her personal life with the same sort of finesse she has in the field. Can a unlikely divine stranger influence her to get her life back on track?"

source: tv.com

Grace is a wildcat. She drinks, she cusses, she sleeps around. Every morning when she gets out of the shower, she flashes the elderly guy next door. She drives, she smokes. She's sleeping with her (married) partner. Girl's a hell of a cop, but she's also a fuck up in many ways. She does not believe in God.

So one night she's driving along, drinking, smoking, generally all the kind of dumb ass things you want to do if you want to die. And she hits a guy, the guy is quite obviously going die. In comes Earl (Leon Rippy, Deadwood). Earl is an angel. Earl wants to save Grace's soul.

You learn other things long the way. She's also pretty tight with her team. She's boysie, she hangs with the guys, she's slept with at least two of them. Her best friend is a forensics tech, a woman with whom she grew up. She's the only one Grace tells about Earl, and not only does she believe Grace, but she starts to collect 'evidence' to prove the existence of the angel.

Grace is surrounded by believers.

The man Grace kills/not-kills is actually a prison inmate, another of Earl's charges. Grace comes from a family of fairly devout Catholics. Her brother is a priest, she has a young nephew. At the end of the first episode, we find out that her sister died in a fire only a short while after having her son. For various reasons of Grace's deinquency, Grace feels like this is in some way her own fault I'm not entirely on board, but I think the idea is that this is why she needs a 'last-chance angel' as the inmate calls Earl.

                      

Kenny Johnson (as Ham Tipton) and Holly Hunter (as Grace Hanadarko)

It is a quirky show, led by performance more than anything. Grace is hilarious, as is Earl, and their interactions are amusing. Holly Hunter takes what is, at times, an ugly character and makes her charming, a little desperate. You bat between being amused and being a little sad for her.

The momentum of the weekly case carries you through the episode, but really, the cases feel a lot like subplots. The real intrigue is in Grace and her interactions with the people around her, the way she plays them off one another. Some of the lighter moments come from her attitude on the job - kneeing a guy in the balls for hitting on her, bursting a guy's tyre to see if he has the murder weapon on hand. These little details clue us in to Grace: she's a good person, but she's fucked up, and she needs this guidance.

Of course, I've only seen two episodes so far, but it's a good watch, and Fox has ordered 13 episodes in full, so I'd like to see where this goes, and if they can keep up that fine balance between the light and the dark. We'll see next week, I guess.

{ today I am feeling "thwarted" because "reality is conspiring against me". With thanks! M. }

Sometimes I have days where I'm like, there's SUN and a BREEZE and LITTLE BIRDS ARE SINGING and I DON'T want to DIE! And sometimes I have days where it's all woe, woe, bananas, woe, WOE.

Today my day has been: damn, y'all are chatty. And, no, Gran, I don't need a clock in the room because things happen here at the same time every day and my room is south facing, so basically I can read the sun. And, most importantly, I WANT TO SEND HER A VIRTUAL PINEAPPLE. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO THWART ME? I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME, INTERNETS.

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That recs post is coming, I'm just fuck lazy about it. The idea of a-href-ing, and cutting and pasting, and copying and pasting just doesn't appeal. Again, see: lazy.

In other news, books and I have FALLEN OUT. I know, I know, we're like the Toby and Andi of literature. We want to be together, but shit ain't working.

{ today I am feeling "high" because "meme!" With thanks! M. }

Final post of the day and then I'm going to sleep.

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I have this AWESOME plan to make a voice post where I say people's names, usernames and favourite foreign words. So. COMMENT HERE, PLEASE with your favourite words and their pronunciation so that I can compile a list and make a post. THEN YOU CAN ALL LAUGH AT ME. Come on! It'll be magnificent! You can even give me things (words/phrases) just to hear me say them in my 'odd' British accent. I'll recite shopping lists! I'll cuss! If you're that cheeky into the idea, you can give me words and ask me to do my best approximation of other accents. (Um. I reserve the right on those to be all, "FUCK THAT, YOU ADORABLE NOGGIN.")

Play! It'll be great, you'll see. If nothing else, you'll hear me giggle at how ridiculous I sound.

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No, this subject-header thing isn't going to get old any time soon.