If this ends up making any sense at all, I'll be surprised.
- LONG week at work this week. Besides the fact that being the new kid, I don't feel like I can say 'no' to any work that lands on my desk, you don't even want to know. I wasn't around much at all this week because by the time I'd get home, my brain was so fried, I just ate and went to bed.
- Maybe it's just my imagination, but can PMS exacerbate klutzyness? I'm never exactly graceful, but the past couple of days, I can't stop dropping and spilling things.
- Speaking of spilling things, again with an "is it a) PMS, b) long week at work, or c) me just being stupid" symptom, I tried to make three-cheese tortellini last night. Now, mind, that means I boiled water, opened a package of frozen tortellini into the boiling water, emptied a jar of Prego into a saucepan, and heated it up. Intending to turn up the temp. of the boiling water, I accidentally turned up the burner the sauce was simmering over. Yeah...well, my range top needed cleaning anyway. The wall behind the stove and my glasses, not so much, but they got cleaned, too, after that little eruption.
- Ficcing will be slow this weekend. Holiday weekend, so I'm off to visit relatives. Plus, I've ignored some schoolwork that I have to do over the summer for as long as humanly possible (and no, I'm not in summer school; it's semi-extracurricular-but-not-really....eh, not worth explaining), so I need to start devoting some of my normal ficcing time to it. ::sigh:: I really want to write, damn it!
- Two nights ago, I couldn't sleep, so I put up pornbattle prompts. Some of them were carefully laid bunny food. Others were totally random. Take, for example, Four/Four/Four/Four, Foursome. I have no real interest in this from a hotness perspective; I just like the pun. I also realized, wow, RDM missed out on such an opportunity by not creating a back-story where he could number the Final Five Cylons individually. Think of the possibilities of the Sixes if there was a Model Nine! Well, as long as it wasn't Tigh. I'm not really a femmeslash person (nothing against it, just doesn't do much for me--though I think I might've done a couple femmeslash prompts?), but I think Ellen should be Honorary Number Nine. Just sayin'.
- I placed at twelvecolonies ! It was a photo manip challenge, where the goal was not to make a seamless manip, but just to make something funny and crossover-ish. I only did two, and the other one didn't turn out well. My first computer's screen died in the middle of it, I tried to patch it together while my computer was hooked to my TV, that didn't work well at all, but I'd put in so much time that I figured, frak it, I want participation points. And I think Gaeta and Zarek at their execution as Thelma and Louise when the cops are chasing them in the car could've worked, if I had talent and time and a non-ghetto computer setup.
- But anyway, as for the one that got second place. My first idea was to do a bunch of Forrest Gump-type manips, putting Galactica characters in photos of important moments in history. Then I thought, well, in light of the finale, wouldn't it be funnier if I could put them in important moments in pre-history? I searched around through Google images, and this one popped out at me as absolutely perfect. I didn't have to change anything, except for the obvious addition of the doodled head and the number:
"Hera, quit drawing on the walls!"
- It's a long story, but my first introduction to fanfiction's existence was Jane Austen novel fic. At least the places I went, most of it is really bad. That always struck me as strange, since it seems that good content tends to attract good fandom writers.
Then I saw that there's a book out called Pride/Prejudice. It's a slash novel version of Pride and Prejudice, and now I must have it. That got me to thinking, maybe it's not that Austen fic is bad, but rather that anybody who's any good actually gets published in print rather than writing online. I wandered around Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and counted over twenty Jane Austen-related sequels/POV switches/kid!fics/crack!fics. Am I in the wrong fandom? :) Dude, I could be making money, if I just wrote for a public domain fandom! For a long time, I've thought that Mansfield Park would be a much better novel if it were Mary/Fanny and Edmund/Henry, rather than the two het love triangles of those four characters. And Mary even makes a joke about sodomy in the novel itself! It's subtle, but it's there.
- I haven't hopped in on the Last Airbender movie race!fail discussion, but I'm in agreement that specifically going out to put together a white cast for what is very clearly a well-researched Asian-based fantasy shows is just dumb. Is it good that I'm happy that it turned out to be so very, very bad (I haven't seen it, but Roger Ebert's review went something like, "You'd think that, as bad as a movie is, it would get something right, just out of dumb luck. This one didn't."), even though I've seen a few episodes of the show and was impressed and thought it could have made for a good movie?
- Along those same lines, I am torn by the fact that Brad Pitt has optioned The Sparrow to possibly make it into a movie. (If you haven't been keeping score, The Sparrow is the SF-first contact novel I've been begging you all to read so I have someone to squee over/discuss it with.) Part of me thinks this is great. The novel has enough sci fi elements that in order to be made into a movie at all, it would need a substantial CGI budget, and a good director. Having a big name like Brad Pitt attached would make getting that kind of financing possible, plus it would probably attract good actors to the main parts.
My concern is, Brad Pitt would obviously want to play the lead. I can see why--it's a great part. The problem is, the character's name is Emilio Sandoz. It's rather important to the plot and themes that Emilio grew up in a slum near the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and that he returned to his old stomping grounds when he became a priest. Is it wrong that it would bother me far, far more if they changed Emilio's background than if they dyed Brad Pitt's hair black and got him a good dialect coach? Realistically, I don't think there's a big enough name Latino actor of the right age to finance a movie like this, and I think Brad Pitt could play the part, even though he didn't exactly spring to mind as I read the book. Why do I feel so differently about this than I did about the Last Airbender kids? And why would I be totally repulsed at the idea if, say, the main character needed to be from a slum in Shanghai or from Sudan and Brad Pitt wanted the part?
Also, as soon as I heard the (slim) possibility this could be a movie, I started playing casting director in my mind. I'm convinced that Susan Sarandon needs to be Anne, though Mary McDonnell could do it if Sarandon's not available. ;) The actor who played Billy could be Jimmy, though he probably doesn't want to be typecast, and Jimmy pretty much is Billy, only with a science background. For George, maybe William Hurt. Sofia's tough--my brain keeps going to Kate Winslet for some weird reason, even though she's not a perfect fit by any means. D.W. ...I've got no clue (and if you read the book, I think you'll see why).
There's also a Quebecois character, Marc Robicheaux. That instantly got me thinking about Canadian BSG/sci fi actors, which led to, "Hey, AJ went to college in Montreal, so he must speak French pretty well. Right age, and I think he could pull off the temperament--why not?" On the other hand, I don't think he fits the physical description, but I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what that description was. I think Marc was blond? But it's not all that relevant to the character--like I said, I can't even remember it. Should I care about the producers getting the physical description of a secondary character right if it's not all that important to who he is?
Anyway, happy Independence Day early to all the Americans, late to all the Canadians, and happy weekend to everyone else!