| Dear Edwin Pierce |
[May. 25th, 2012|08:18 pm] |
Dear Mr. Pierce:
I have no idea where you live or how to contact you; I only know that you have an account at Wells Fargo Bank and have somehow managed to put my Gmail address as your contact address.
Sadly, Wells Fargo doesn't seem to be much help; I've called them and said "hey, I'm receiving someone else's account emails", but they clearly haven't taken my email address off your account.
If by some miracle of Google you read this, please contact Wells Fargo and correct your email address. Otherwise you're going to be wondering why you haven't been receiving various account notices which, frankly, you really need to be receiving.
Sincerely,
someone who really doesn't want to know anything about whether your account transfers went through, but thinks that you kinda need to know this
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/42879.html; comment where you like. |
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| sundry, various, and etc. |
[May. 21st, 2012|08:32 pm] |
1. At dinner with a friend the other night, I mentioned that I was thinking about seeing The Avengers, which led to her trying to wrap her brain around Ang Lee having made a Hulk movie, which inevitably led to Austen. Forget Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters; the ultimate S&S rewrite would be "ELINOR SMASH!"
2. I did see The Avengers and quite enjoyed it, in spite of having very little familiarity with the comic characters and not having seen any of the previous movies (and having read several analyses and spoilers already).
2a. You know you're watching way too much Sherlock when you look at Mark Ruffalo's facial expressions and suddenly start picturing Andrew Scott playing Bruce Banner.
3. Confusing Anthony Stewart Head with Murray Head leads to weird mental images.
4. Tangential to 3: The idea of a musical version of the Reichenbach Falls episode of Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Superstar, is wrong in so many ways, yet fits so well....
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/42564.html; comment where you like. |
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| overheard in the Castiron household: observations on various media |
[May. 11th, 2012|10:26 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | overheard | ] |
| [ | music |
| | older son in bed, same song; still like it | ] |
morning, after older son's fifteenth repetition of a four-note phrase
Spouse: Who has more to answer for? The CEO of J.P. Morgan for causing global financial crisis, or the creators of the new Muppet movie for bringing the song "We Built This City" into the consciousness of children everywhere?
Castiron: Hey, I like that song!
[older son begins sixteenth repetition; spouse just Looks]
***
evening, after watching some episodes on Youtube
Spouse: James May's Man Lab is like the best parts of Top Gear crossed with The Red Green Show.
(Yes, that's meant to be a positive statement. Yep, I know what someone's getting for Father's Day.)
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/42339.html; comment where you like. |
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| overheard in the Castiron household while watching Phantom of the Opera |
[May. 7th, 2012|09:38 pm] |
Spouse: Why hasn't Elmo ever played the Phantom?
Castiron: That's a very good question.
Spouse: He'd have to do it with Denyse Graves as Christine.
Castiron: And Telly as Raoul, and then the Phantom and Raoul can argue, and Christine can suggest that they cooperate!
***
(on television, someone sings "Christine!")
Spouse (the auto mechanic): That just makes me think of an entirely different movie.
Castiron: It'd be a great car for the Phantom to drive.
(later)
Castiron: Hey, isn't there a car called the Phantom? [Googles] Yeah, the Rolls Royce Phantom. That's what the world needs; a possessed Rolls Royce Phantom named Christine.
Spouse: Now, *there's* a crossover.
***
Spouse: You know what would really be great? If Freddy Mercury were playing the Phantom.
Castiron: That's a justification for building time machines right there.
***
Yes, it's beg week on PBS again. (Still. Pretty soon the non-beg week will be the novel and unusual thing.)
ETA: Come on, makeup artists, can't you make a Phantom with a genuinely disturbing face? A few burn ridges? Sheesh. [ETA2: Okay, it's a bit worse at the end, but still, not that disturbing.] I've seen people with more severe facial disfigurements in the grocery store or in the park, and *they* certainly aren't horrifying. Use some flipping imagination!
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/42108.html; comment where you like. |
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| sundry and random |
[Apr. 16th, 2012|10:30 pm] |
1. Taxes. Done. Why do spouse and I always wait to start them until nearly the last minute? It's not like we're trying to put off payment until the last minute; we usually get a *refund* (thank you child tax credit), so there's no incentive to wait.
2. Adolescence + autism = sucks. I'm given to understand that regressions during puberty aren't unusual, though, so hopefully once the hormone storm has subsided and older son's no longer growing an inch every month, he'll get back up to speed. (And actually, some of his obsessive motions make absolute sense, given that he's grown six inches in six months; he's relearning how his body moves and getting used to shirts that used to come down past his hips barely hitting his waistband.)
3. I've gotten hooked on Film Critic Hulk. Interesting enough material to be worth the all-caps format (though I suppose I could copy and paste into BBEdit and then sentence-case the puppy).
4. How many times can Younger Son read through "You Can Count on Monsters"? Many.
5. Only 4.5 chapters left to write on the Fic of Doom! (Let's ignore the fact that some of these later chapters are running twice as long as the earlier chapters and will need to be cut in half.) (This happened with my last long fic too, the chapters getting longer as the story progressed. I'll be curious to see whether that pattern continues when I next write a long work.)
6. Things technology makes possible: Younger son took about 50 pictures with my digital camera, mostly terrible (he hasn't clued in about keeping his fingers out from in front of the lens), but a couple tolerable. If it'd been a film camera, I'd never have allowed him to touch it, but with digital, I'm not worried about wasting pixels.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/41821.html; comment where you like. |
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| um. |
[Mar. 24th, 2012|02:33 pm] |
Dear Bayerische Staatsoper:
When I've read summaries of the opera Eugen Onegin, I don't recall there being a male stripper segment. That said, thanks for the livestream, and the singing is lovely.
Sincerely,
someone who is beginning to think that the people who stage operas have weirder brains than mine
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/41444.html; comment where you like. |
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| random messages |
[Feb. 26th, 2012|10:25 pm] |
1. Dear self: You didn't write Friday; you wrote a minimal amount Saturday. So no, even though you have just gotten the notification of a new installment in a favorite fic, you may not read it yet. Write first. (Dear author of fic: Thank you for posting before midnight; it will not be your fault if I decide to stay up way too late reading it this time ;-).)
2. Dear older son: There are times I really wish (even more than usual) that you had communications skills appropriate to your age, because it would be *fascinating* to know what's going on in your head. Also, where did you pick up those Abba songs? I'm guessing school, since we rarely play CDs at home.
3. Dear younger son: There are limits to how many times your parents can tolerate The Love Bug. It is, however, very adorable that you call that red toy Volkswagen Bug "Herbie".
4. Dear both sons: That ball with the LEDs inside that flash when it's bounced off a hard surface? The minute it gives me a headache, it vanishes. (Dear ex: I know you meant well.)
5. Dear spouse: I'm not convinced that The Blues Brothers is appropriate viewing for a three-year-old, but I take your point that at least the swearing is done correctly and in appropriate contexts. And as the one who first decided that Top Gear is perfectly okay for him to watch as long as he doesn't start saying "oh, cock" (by which point the damage will have been done), I don't really have a leg to stand on. And at least we're agreed that either is more appropriate than Barney the Dinosaur.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/40264.html; comment where you like. |
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| various and varied with vague spoiler references |
[Feb. 18th, 2012|08:03 pm] |
1. How fricking long does it take for me to write this blasted chapter 9 on the stupid Fic of Doom? Way too damn long. Argh!
2. This week's topic of discussion in the Castiron household: What if International Rescue were staffed by the Teletubbies rather than by the Tracy family?
3. Certain episodes of certain television shows really do not hold up well to being watched in 5-10 minute segments over several weeks. The acting still works, and the emotional tension if anything is increased in spite of my being spoiled, but the dubious parts of the plot are, well, dubious.
( cut for vague spoilers 3a and 3b )
3c. While I think the writers will be able to pull off the smaller fix-it believably, previous episodes have caused me to lose faith in their ability to pull off the bigger picture fix-it. (That said, if they decided "you know, we've set up a problem that really *isn't* fixable -- let's run with it as broken and see what that does to the stories"? That would be *awesome*.)
4. After 30+ years of turning yarn into sweaters and socks and other useful objects, I'm not particularly impressed by my ability to do so. But turning fluff into yarn? That's still *cool.* (I'm also very glad that technology has made it something I can do occasionally for fun rather than something I have to do to clothe my family.)
( cut for photo of yarn and detailed specs )
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/40188.html; comment where you like. |
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| in need of rewording |
[Feb. 9th, 2012|07:47 pm] |
One of my ongoing projects at work is getting our old out-of-print backlist back into print through print-on-demand. The cover copy of one book had the following phrase:
"But more importantly, the book suggests the depth to which New Zealand penetrated the man...."
The proofreader and I agreed that in spite of being memorable, that wording needed adjusting.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/39912.html; comment where you like. |
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| sundry and various |
[Feb. 5th, 2012|10:26 pm] |
1. This was not a year I remotely cared who won the Super Bowl.
2. One of the best times to go grocery shopping in the U.S. is a half hour after the Super Bowl starts.
3. On the way home from our lunch outing yesterday, younger son recited the entirety of this episode of Pocoyo. Which means that a. we're letting him spend far too much time watching stuff on the computer, b. his memory is pretty darned good, c. I need to listen to other stuff he's saying and see if he's doing this with other shows -- older son often echos lines from movies, but that's the autism there, and d. if he ever does it with the right accent, I'm signing him up for acting classes when he's old enough.
4. Why am I drawn to punk and heavy metal music lately? What is it about loud thrashing fast music that's so damn satisfying? Is it psychic caffeine, an outlet for rage, or what?
5. Shiner's current seasonal brew, Dortmunder Spring Ale, is pretty good.
6. I hope they're going to do the Ruby Redfruit again for this summer. Beer brewed with grapefruit juice and ginger -- sounds weird, but turns out to hit the spot when it's 102F out.
7. Does there exist a fic where Sally Donovan and Martha Jones go out for a pint and a debate on how best to cope with annoying geniuses?
8. Have been spoiled, but haven't actually seen that bit; summary data inclines me to suspect that I might have done the same thing in the character's shoes, but we'll see what I think when I actually watch it and find out how much of their actions were based on evidence and how much on seeing what they wanted to believe.
9. Speaking of spoiled, I really need to get back to watching DW season 6.
10. I clearly do not talk much about fandom with the spouse, as he had never heard the term "slash" before. (The topic came up because he was seeing homoerotic subtext in an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. Make of that what you will.)
11. Now I want to request Thomas/Diesel 10 for next Yuletide. Which is simply Wrong.
12. But not as wrong as the new Thomas episodes where the trains' faces move. That's so wrong it makes kitten trees look right.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/39547.html; comment where you like. |
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| random M songs |
[Jan. 22nd, 2012|07:52 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, random | ] |
| [ | music |
| | as if you can't guess from the post | ] |
1. "Molly Ban": a folksong that can be summarized as "practice gun safety". (Version I'm listening to is Pauline Scanlon, Red Colour Sun.)
2. "Mally Leigh": in its rendition by Connie Dover on If Ever I Return, the happiest and most chipper song I've heard in ages
3. "Mamma Mia": what older son is singing for some unknown reason. (It's interesting what he picks up -- he won't show any sign of interest in a song at the time, but a few days or weeks later it'll pop up.)
4. "Marusya Bohuslavka": song performed by The Ukranians that's currently making me go "where the heck did I put the CD? I need the lyrics!" (This is the only issue I have with buying songs on MP3. I don't notice the lower sound quality on anything except classical; I back them up in enough places that I'm not worried about losing them. But I want to sing something resembling the correct words when I sing along. It's enough of a challenge in English -- my mondegreens, let me show you them -- but in a language I don't speak, I really need something written out. Why don't MP3 albums come with a lyrics sheet?)
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/39278.html; comment where you like. |
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| in case anyone wondered.... |
[Jan. 9th, 2012|11:57 pm] |
There don't seem to be a lot of webpages discussing how (or even whether) one can take a snake's pulse. There are, however, plenty of pages discussing snake anesthesia.
(This fact brought to you by the letter S.)
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/38401.html; comment where you like. |
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| assorted and sundry |
[Jan. 2nd, 2012|10:40 pm] |
1. Crossovers I did not need in my head: the voice of Scottish singer Andy (no M) Stewart singing "Sherlock, Where's Your Trousers?"
2. Saying that fanfic is training wheels for writing original fic is like saying that sonnets are training wheels for writing free verse.
3. A concept that lacks a word: liking songs of protest and rebellion that are far enough removed by time, language, or distance for you to ignore the fact that actually, you're in or would've been in the group being protested or rebelled against. (This describes a decent percentage of my music library.)
4. Happy Asimov's birthday! His science fiction never did much for me, but I devoured his essays on science when I was a kid, and I still enjoy rereading the Black Widowers stories. (Now, *there's* a rare fandom I should suggest for Yuletide next year....)
5. I saw Tinker Tailor Solider Spy last week with my knitting pal; it was an excellent movie and seems to be a good adaptation of the book. Oldman's performance as Smiley was subtle and absorbing, and the rest of the acting was great as well. I'm probably *not* going to buy the DVD in the near future, but only because there are a few scenes so brutal, disturbing, or gruesome that I don't want the short people seeing them accidentally. (Generally they were telegraphed well enough, though, that I could look away in time and avoid having the detailed mental image seared on my retinas. But it's definitely not a movie for those who want to avoid depictions of graphic violence.) I might take an afternoon off sometime to see it in the theater again. And my knitting pal and I were amused to realize that there were three former Austen heroes together in one movie.
6. Evil Author list, entry #13: If in one of my works I am ever tempted to take a silly way out of a tense cliffhanger when the silliness does not fit with what led up to the cliffhanger, I will go write fanfic of my own story instead and get it out of my system, and then come up with a solution that actually makes sense and fits the established tone of the story.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/38286.html; comment where you like. |
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| Yuletide recap |
[Jan. 1st, 2012|11:05 am] |
Thanks again to Qikiqtarjuaq for the enormously fun Without a Clue fic, The Bloody Revenge of Jefferson Hope.
The fic I wrote, for Velvetmouse, was His Master's Voice, a Lord Darcy fic.
If you've never read Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories, they're worth a look. (Baen still has them in print in pbook and ebook format.) In a universe where magic exists and the Anglo-French Empire rules a large chunk of the world, Lord Darcy, the Chief Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, solves crimes with the help of his colleague Master Sean O Lochlainn, Chief Forensic Sorceror. The prose is nothing special, and the characters aren't particularly deep; what makes these stories worth reading is the world, where magic is a science and is treated as a science, and of course the mysteries themselves.
I went with a prequel to (most of) the stories, in which Lord Darcy meets a person who appears again later in Garrett's Too Many Magicians. It was great fun to write, though it turned into Zeno's fic for a while there (I have half the fic left to write! Oh no, I still have half the fic left to write! Oh no, I still....).
Someday I might try another Darcy fic; there's aspects of that universe that I'd like to dissect a bit more (gender being a big one -- we know female magicians exist, but we see very little of them in canon. Agent 055 is the only one we see actually working, and there's a reference to a female Healer who does midwifery; Mary, Duchess of Cumberland *has* the Talent, but it's never really made clear what she can *do* with it).
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/38114.html; comment where you like. |
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