Our family transport (an enormous Chevy Suburban) is known to us as The TARDIS.  If you watch the british television series Doctor Who then you'll recognize the reference.  If you don't, you have my deepest sympathies and you're out of luck and will have to watch an episode to understand.  The name arose last summer when I proposed that the family go visit Historic Fort Snelling for a Saturday outing.  I knew, like mothers often do, that the children would really enjoy the place, but I couldn't figure out how to describe it in a way that could engage their enthusiasm.  So, I lied.

 

 

( Well, not lied, exactly...Collapse )

 

Tags: children, doctor who, outings
I feel:: geeky

I love, LOVE scripted radio programming:  book adaptations, dramas, mysteries, comedies, sci-fi, quiz shows, political humor.  It's television for the mind and it's utterly brilliant.  I have a vivid imagination and a odd affinity for diction and vocal tone quality.  The voices and sound effects in the truly good programs paint a high-definition, technicolor image in my brain that rivals anything that modern television and film can produce. 

 

 

( To my sorrow...Collapse )

 

Tags: must see, recs
I feel:: enthralled
I hear:: BBC Radio 7

If you missed last week's debut episode of "Sherlock" on PBS in the US (produced by the BBC), don't miss the next one.  Written by Steven Moffat (of Doctor Who) and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.  Story is tight (one small plot hole), complex and intriguing; dialog is crisp and clever, timing is fast and furious; the characterization is brilliant; the modernization really works.  Cumberbatch is a fantastic Holmes.  He gets the subtlety of the character.  Freeman plays Watson as Conan Doyle wrote him: brave, loyal, romantic, man of action, not clever but absolutely not stupid. 

This is a fantastic version of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous characters and there are two more episodes in this series.  Here's hoping that they do quite a few more.  It's brilliantly done.

www.imdb.com/title/tt1475582/

Tags: recs
I feel:: impressed

Happy birthday to the work-witty ktargote  and to the prolifically fascinating stmargarets  and to the fantastic aibhinn ! 
I enjoy your posts and fics so much!

Tags: birthdays
I feel:: jubilant

OK, no further progress to report, but I've been running over the pattern in my head every night before going to sleep for the last four days. 
I was sick on Friday and Saturday and LH tore cartilage in his knee on Saturday and I've been making the rounds of doctor's offices with him since Saturday evening.  Tomorrow he has surgery so tomorrow night I MIGHT get to start sewing.  So now it's six costumes in four days.  No pressure or anything. Gah!

Tags: quidditch costumes; halloween
I feel:: stressed

Happy Birthday fernwithy !!!!!

Hope you had a fantastic day!

I feel:: excited

Just because you are paid to write doesn't mean you're better.

During last week's episode of NCIS the wife of a director of a large federal criminal investigation agency offers assistance to a strange woman lurking in a car on the street at the front of the wife's house. Husband realizes it's a dangerous assasin and runs out of the front door, gun drawn, yelling at wife to get down. Long-time wife of this long-time agent turns to her husband and says...

"What?!"

in a beleaguered, confused tone of voice, and making no move whatsoever to get out of the line of fire.

Is it just me or is that possibly the stupidest thing any writer could have asked that character to say in that situation? Or maybe it's the director who's stupid and changed the lines. Heaven forbid that the actress actually lobbied to have her character be so utterly brain-dead.

If my husband had been an FBI type agent for most of our married life and came running toward me, gun drawn, shouting to get out of the way, I'd drop on the spot. I mean honestly, how many times does one's husband come running out all upset like that. You'd think that she'd some respect for his combat skills and ability to assess dangerous situations. Never mind how stupid it was to confront an unknown individual lurking in an unknown car without taking anyone with her or letting anyone know what she's doing. Even I mention that to my husband before I go out to check on something and he's not any sort of law enforcement agent.

*snerk* my first thought was "any fanfiction author worth his/her salt would have written it differently."

Thank goodness Castle is better written, so far. The twists and turns of last Monday's episode were highly entertaining. The only thing that lets me know when we don't have the killer yet is the time left on the clock. Anyone they arrest before 10 minutes to the hour can't possibly be the killer no matter how the evidence looks so far. I'd love to have them abandon that formula sometime, though. Go ahead, really suprise me.

Tags: poorly written
I feel:: mischievous

gacked from aggiebell90.
Holy COW it's TRUE!
This is the most fun and most accurate quiz I've taken in a while.  Too funny!
LH used to be a bouncer for a Los Angeles night club in decades gone by.  Definitely Bill Weasley skills. 

Mrs. Bill Weasley

Your perfect HP man is Bill Weasley.

Tags: meme
I feel:: anxious

I’ve been looking for contact information for a dear friend whose email address I’d lost last winter when my computer crashed. I found her. She’s an assistant principal at a middle school in Indiana. After sending out an email to her, I made the mistake of looking up other people I knew in college. An old boyfriend, my freshman roommate, a neighbor from my junior year – all of whom have made a HUGE splash in the business world and are described in glowing terms by their employers and reporters in their field journals. 

( And here I am with only four living beings to my credit...Collapse )

Tags: children, observations, work: writing
I feel:: jubilant

I’ve had a horribly difficult time getting anything written lately.  Anything at all. Nothing on my book, no articles, few letters, hardly even anything in my journal. I have this thorough confusion of mind that comes over me when I seek to put my thoughts and feelings on paper. I’ve not been able to express any fluent thoughts on any of the topics of the day nor construct anything clever fictionally. It’s extremely frustrating, though it's a relief to be able to write this much here, finally.

All I’ve wanted to do is read; and I’ve devoured so many books this summer, my head is swimming. 

I spent two months solving mysteries in Medieval Shrewsbury with Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk written by Ellis Peters. I've read through more than half the canon of stories.
I spent the beginning of the summer following Archie Goodwin around New York City though 3 novels and several story compliations while he scoped out information for Nero Wolfe, written by Rex Stout. I went back again this month for two more books.
I went hunting for horcruxes again with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows. 
I quested through five books with demigod hero, Percy Jackson while he saved the gods and Mount Olympus from threats by modern heroes.   Thank you aggiebell90 for the recommendation.  It was a fun adventure.
And most recently, I tore through the night around Washington D.C. at a terrifying pace with Robert Langdon as he worked his way through a life or death maze of Masonic and Christian symbolism as written by Dan Brown.

I’m exhausted and my brain is racing. It's the equivalent of a 400-500 page novel about about every three days.  Must needs calm my brain so I can do some writing of my own. 

This is unfamiliar territory for me.  I'm beginning to understand how my husband and children feel with their ADHD.  I've always been able to make myself focus/concentrate when I wanted to.  But not at the moment.  

I have one idea and I've started on it, but it's slow going. Anyone familiar with this situation?  I'd love suggestions. 

Tags: original work; reading; writing
Watching over:: inching away from my library
I feel:: indescribable