bedofbones' Friends

11:47PM - Harry's Home (PG)

Inspired by saridout's wonderful artwork Time

(Since childhood Harry had dreamed of a home of his own)

7:53PM

 

8:09PM - Collectors' Edition! So pretty!

I haz a Tales of Beedle the Bard! Thank you nice UPS man and Amazon.com!

4:07AM - Manga/anime rec: Hikaru No Go post of doom, full of stuff and squee :)

Manga: Hikaru No Go (Hikago) (Hikaru's Go) (1998) ## Story by Hotta Yumi, manga by Obata Takeshi Status: 23 volumes (189 ch), complete, licensed Scanlated by: Toriyama's World and others Genre: Comedy Drama Fantasy School Life Sports Shounen Found: recced to me by an RL friend Summary: From Viz: After stumbling across a haunted Go board, irresponsible Hikaru Shindo discovers that the spirit of a master player has taken up residence in his consciousness. In his pursuit of the "Divine Move," Fujiwara-no-Sai awakens in Hikaru an untapped interest and genius for the game, and soon the schoolboy is chasing his own dream--defeating the famed Go prodigy Akira Toya! Anime # Status: 75 ep x 23 minutes. Starts at volume 1 chapter 1, ends at somewhere at volume 19. Sequel, Hikaru No Go: New Year Special, contains the following events, up to but not including the tournament, the North Star Cup. Series director: Susumu Nishizawa. DL: you can find the manga in the usual manga-trading places; the anime is available at GalAnime (without the sequel, which can be found in torrents). List of manga chapters and anime episodes (spoilery)

My notes: OMG I WANT MORE! A manga sequel, another anime sequel, anything! Just MORE! I can't part with this universe. I've watched the anime twice and think I'm going to do it again, and then maybe read the manga another time.

Gosh, it happens every time! Hear me solemnly forswear to form even a hint of opinion of a new thing offered to me to read and promise to treat everything as potentially exciting until proven otherwise. Because it happened again. You see, I have zero interest in sport stories or sport manga. How much do I care for board games or abstract strategy games? Not a bit, unless they are very pretty. I downloaded vol. 1 of Hikaru No Go just to see what it's like and to have my conscience clear when the friend who recced it to me would ask how I liked it. But after reading vol. 1, I rushed to DL the rest. I gobbled up the manga in three days, sleeping four hours a night just to be able to function somehow. I watched the anime after it, also in three days. I was so sleep-deprived that I kept falling asleep where I shouldn't have. But I simply couldn't stop reading/watching! It's a real page-turner and a story that will make you love its main characters.

My mind and my heart were in conflict about this manga all the way while I was reading. The heart clearly won, despite all the mind's protests and arguments. Won by a large margin even. The argument went like this. My mind tells me: Go is booooring; you don't like it. My heart meanwhile flutters and following it, I'm fidgeting in my chair: will he win? will he lose? OMG please let him win! My mind grumbles: down with the indoctrination! Who cares if Japanese players are stronger or weaker than the Koreans? But my heart says: OMG Hikaru is LOVE! Look at his face when he's in the battle mode! My mind tells me: people who are completely devoted to only one thing are the most boring and uninteresting thing in the world; you've known some like that and you didn't like them in the slightest. My heart keeps squealing: ♥ to Akira, ♥ to Sai, ♥ even to Ogata and Touya Meijin :) I'd think it's a testament to Hotta Yumi's writing skill that despite the nagging thought that the thing this manga is about is the least exciting and utterly unimportant thing in the world for me, I loved it to bits and pieces, read and watched it twice and still want more.

Try it! I promise you won't regret! Do you believe me yet? Want to know ( more? )

To wrap it up, I'm seriously considering watching the anime/reading the manga another time. Like, right now. Because it's LOVE! So much love! And I'm absolutely not ready to say good-bye to this universe and these characters. Gosh, half a kingdom for a sequel! No? Well, off to read HikaGo fanfiction I go then :)

( And dragons )

4:38PM - Oh where, oh where are the Merlin recs?

Who has Merlin recs?

I've seen a list from nel_ani (here, allow me) and frogspace (do enjoy).

There must be other Merlin rec lists out there, yes?

4:24PM

....the Texas cousins and I, the Texas cousins and I.

What the hell, Me. Where did all my grammar go just then?

Unrelatedly, I need to stop visiting SomethingAwful, because it can't do me any good at all. But they just uncovered a "horror" "writer" who got banned from LJ and wrote at least one story about the Loch Ness Monster living in the Chicago river.

Kids, I tell you this for free, if the Loch Ness Monster is living in the Chicago river we need to find him and save him and take up a collection to send him back to Scotland because there is some scary shit going down in that river and if he's there much longer he'll never be able to reproduce.

And who doesn't want little Loch Ness Monster Babies?

2:38PM

BossBoss and I were having a conversation about family today, and he told me he's the oldest of 34 grandchildren. Not counting the step-grandchildren since both of his parents remarried people with families as big as the original.

Knowing he's a Chicago native, I asked, "Hey, are you Irish, maybe?"

"Just a little bit," he replied.

So then I told him about the time when all the Texas cousins and me realised we were off the hook for years on account of the shit Bernard pulled, and he told me about how he misses the military because it was always a really good excuse not to answer family phone calls. :D

12:15PM

75 years ago tomorrow, Prohibition ended in the US.

Good thing PeaPod is delivering a large bottle of rum along with the rest of my groceries tonight!

Also, Jack & Ellis has been updated with the first portion of Chapter 38. Ellis is irrational, Jack is restrained, and Purva gets what she wants.

10:05AM

So, there were a couple of errors in the Christmas ornaments (egregiously, the Arabic was backwards *facepalm*).

I've made some corrected sheets but haven't yet updated the PDF file or the original post. You can find the new sheets below, just right-click and save-as.

Hooray for PROPERLY SPELLING SCHADENFREUDE.

English:
Sheet One
Sheet Three
Sheet Four

Foreign Language:
Sheet Two

7:55AM

Ahahaha. Oh, Dad, if only you knew how ironic your email to me this morning was.

Dear Sam,

I know you blog often, so be careful! There is a new website danger out there:

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/crime/New_hacking_method_threatens_web_users

Keep safe! Don't get hacked!

Love,
Dad

I was pretty wary the first time I met Lucky (he's my stepfather) but he is a Good Dad.

Not that this link would have helped me not get hacked, so it's not like his timing is actually off, but still. "Don't get hacked!" is so...cheery and upbeat. Bless 'im.

8:40PM

LOL, man, POLL CONTROVERSY. Or, in the case of real trees, contreeversy.

pocketmouse mentioned that they never take their fake tree down, just decorate it seasonally -- which I think is awesome, but I decided that if I were going to do something like that it would be something less prone to stab me with fake plastic needles.

Do you know, I don't actually own a Wildebeest of any kind? Though I'm very tempted to buy the deconstructible one. Kids: here is a gift for you to dismember!

So, when I finally get round to inventing Sammastide (also known as Christisn'tspringhereyetmas), it will involve traditional turducken dinner -- pizza also acceptable -- and the decorating of the Wildebeest, right before they hand out plastic scythes to the kiddies and play Who's Going To Lose An Ear.

ALSO: GIP. twirlynoodle made it for me. Because I am captain of the safety, and have the sexy orange hat to prove it.

8:22PM - Live Long and Marry Art (and Holiday Cards!)

I got one of the commissions I won in the LiveLongNMarry auction! It's by the wonderful rezokudan, and she bravely attempted Snarry for me! It's called Snowflake:

Here (sorry, link takes you to Live Journal since I don't know how to put up photos here!)

And in the spirit of Snarry,(and a snappy segue) if you'd like a cheesy, schmoopy Snarry holiday card, my sign up post is here.

5:46PM

YEAH BABY.

12:39PM

I AM the best brother ever!

I bought Emmy a funky necklace as a parentally acceptable Christmas gift and also this weird otaku-j'punk video game about assassins that she will undoubtedly have to wait until our parents are out of the house in order to play. It is the perfect cool-older-brother gift and might also be good career training should she choose a lucrative life of high crime.

YOU HAVE ACHIEVED: SHOPPING FOR ADOLESCENT SISTER
YOU WIN: SIBLING STREET CRED +20

Now I have to figure out what to buy Mama Tickey. This is potentially just as difficult, but way fewer cool points are at risk.

9:09PM - Sissyphus and school papers.

Glrgh. Having such a hard time starting this paper.

*Pushes the paper cart uphill.*

9:12PM

Mum and I amuse each other.

She sends me random packages, but I get my own revenge of a sort. I sent her my Christmas list today, and she apparently had much LOL over it. It's short, because I don't have many needs that aren't being met right now. I asked for an Italo Calvino book, something from the CTA gift shop, a Wii game ("I like puzzles, and adventure, but not a lot of explosions and guns, maybe something like Zelda?"), a PeaPod gift card, and a magnetic poetry set. Apparently last year's list actually got passed around her office for the amusement of the masses. Not that I can blame her.

Otherwise all is mostly quiet. I was writing a little tonight and wrote the phrase "it was a constant silent defiance that made him glad he'd never had teenagers" and then thought that looked stupid so changed it to "he'd never tried raising kids" and then thought that wasn't quite right, so I started to delete it. But I clicked in the wrong place and ended up with "it was a constant silent defiance that made him glad he'd never tried raisins."

THE RAISINS. THEY DEFY ME SILENTLY.

1:55AM - FIC: "The Comprehension Series - Part 63" | AS/S | PG

Title: The Comprehension Series - Part 63
Pairing: Albus/Scorpius (eventually)
Rating: PG
Summary: Beware of raging hormones...
Words: 1,241

( Previous parts... )

( Part 63... )

3:21PM - Who's more important, cats or mice?

Cutest kitty ever.

Exhibit A: I have the mouse on the couch next to me. Kitty has sat down next to me (after frustrated attempts to sit on my and my keyboard). He is now scootching closer and closer to the mouse, soft as a cloud, stifling said mouse usage.

When called on this, "Monte...." he looks up at me with luminous eyes. He reaches with a paw and touches my arm.

Petting must ensue. I don't care if I'm rewarding feline distraction.

(The mouse has been knocked off the mousepad.)

2:40PM

Man, winter showed up on Monday and settled in. No lead up, no warning, just all of a sudden WINTAAAAAAR.

It's snowy here, and what my best friend in undergrad used to call "buttfuckin' cold". I'm not sure if that was an indication of what kind of sex was required to warm up, or some kind of metaphor, or maybe she was comparing the pain of being outside to surprise buttsecks. But it seems apt, on some primal level.

I have christened the steps of my new building by falling on my ass on the ice this morning, so that's over with.

In other news and for grate internet linkage:

dramaturgca pointed me this morning to The Ultimate Geek Crossover, Star Trek characters done up in steampunk.

I've been meaning to post this for a bit: abigail_nicole, at the behest of an anonymouse on my journal, has created a Sam's Cafe group on Ravelry, for cafegoers who do things with yarn. Go ye forth and purl, or something. :D

And finally, juniper200 tossed me a story wherein John Barrowman's peen is so powerful that even though he only took it out on the radio, the radio, the BBC has been forced to apologise for him exposing himself. I can only imagine that his cock somehow came through the radio speakers and earfucked some poor asshat who bitched because he was ashamed of how much he enjoyed it.

10:54AM

Hey, so remember my teeny tiny Christmas tree? I asked you guys for words to make into Christmas ornaments, and you...certainly did oblige.

It's time for SAM'S READ AND LEARN CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT EXTRAVAGANZA.

I figured since I'm probably not going to use very many of them (see: Mum sending me a fuckton of ornaments) I would turn all the words you gave me into ornaments and set them loose on the internet to see what they may wreak. I made three tree-toppers, two garlands, and several pages of ornaments of varying sizes. All are laid out onto American standard 8.5x11 paper, most in Landscape orientation, so they should print on American paper fine and on A4 paper with some rather excessive margins.

If you look at these pages and don't see your word, drop me a line and I'll add it in -- there's a little space left over specifically for words I may have inadvertently missed.

A preview, with sized-down versions of the final pages, is available ( under the cut! Image-heavy, fair warning. )

There are a couple of ways to acquire these pages. For people who just want to print 'em out, there is a PDF file available from Sendspace (megaupload mirror here). If you'd like to fuck around with the JPGs, there's a completed zip file also available from Sendspace (megaupload mirror here). Or you can go to my Livejournal Scrapbook and download single images if you just want one specific page.

Crafty tips:
For all pages, I'd recommend either printing them on card stock or gluing regular printouts to card stock (if you want the ornaments to hang around -- HA, see what I did there? -- for a while, I would use acid-free spray adhesive) before cutting them out. When I make paper ornaments I often glue the backs to construction paper, which adds some colour. Little kids think this is MAGIC. How is the paper two colours at once?

For the garlands, you can punch holes in each letter and tie them together with string, but that gets time-consuming. Easier is to glue the letters along a strip of ribbon or onto the links of a paper chain.

For the tree-toppers, I'd recommend gluing a bit of wire between the topper and its backing, then twisting the wire into a coil that you can settle over the top of the tree. Or, only glue the very edges of the topper and backing together, like a seam, leaving the bottom open. Then fit the pocket that creates over the tree. With the Doctor Who topper in particular you could probably also make the bottom word into a circle, glue it together, and settle it on the tree.

But, you know. It's your art! Go to town, do what you want, have fun.