Delightfully Useless

Looking back, looking forward...

I did a lot of unexpected things in 2010. Such as flying to California for a week all by myself to visit a college (which involved falling asleep in a music class, surviving a bus-tire blowout at 70mph on the Pacific Coast Highway, riding in my first taxi, and trying to catnap on a bench in the Indianapolis airport at five in the morning while temporarily deaf in one ear). And hand-coding a list of over 2000 fanfic offers for help_haiti. And starting college - well, that wasn't completely unexpected, but majoring in geology was. So were moving out of my parents' house, getting a job, and getting a 3.84 GPA for my first semester despite not turning in two out of six English papers! O_O

I tend not to do terribly specific New Year's resolutions: last year's, if you remember, was "try to worry less about fitting in". This year, as I dig through the piles of disorganized whatnot in my new room (much of which is either memorabilia or stuff for which I might someday have a use), I think I'll go for "try to find a proper balance of living in the past, present, and future". Along with the standard annual resolution to aim for lower stress, more joy, and making the world better. :D

Happy New Year, all! *hugs flist*

I has a fandom_stocking! Which I am now linking so people can put things in it if they want. Also if you have a stocking, please comment on this post to let me know! (Although I'll be going through the comm posts too, there are so many of them I could easily miss yours.)

fandom_stocking's 2010 stocking post is up!

If you missed my earlier post about this, the linked post and the comm info explain most of it. One point that's not made as clear as I'd like is that the whole thing is completely without obligation - you can sign up for a stocking even if you have no time to put anything (even random good wishes) in anyone else's stocking. So there are no excuses! ;-)

The point of all which is: pull together a list of your fannish likes and dislikes (if you've been at all touched by the Yuletide insanity, I suspect you have one of these), go over to fandom_stocking and post it! Then, once stockings are posted, you can either go through and put things in everyone else's... or not. And just sit back and wait for Old Christmas Day to roll around!

Ah, what the hey. Influential authors meme!

'Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets [and comic book authors] included)* who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag everyone, because I'm interested in seeing what authors my friends choose.'

In no order at all:

1. Chris Claremont (hey, when they said "comic book authors"...)
2. JRR Tolkien
3. Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. Eve Titus (of the "Basil of Baker Street" series)
5. Elizabeth Enright ("Gone-Away Lake" and "The Saturdays")
6. Shakespeare (really)
7. Rudyard Kipling
8. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
9. C.S. Lewis (I'm not fond of him, but he did influence me quite a bit)
10. G.K. Chesterton
11. Robert Arthur ("Three Investigators" series)
12. Arthur Ransome ("Swallows and Amazons" series)
13. Adam-Troy Castro
14. Timothy Zahn
15. Kate Seredy

Stolen from lost_spook.

1) Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment.

2) Ask your f-list to post questions in the comments. For example: "One, nine, and fifteen are chosen by a prophecy to save the world from four. Do they succeed?", "Under what circumstances might five and fourteen fall in love?", "Which character on the list would you most want on your side in a zombie invasion?"

3) After your f-list has stopped asking questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.

The last time I did this it turned out wonderfully cracktastic, so perhaps it will do so again.

From primsong. Comment with BLUE SNOOD and I'll give you five questions to satisfy my curiosity. Go post the answers on your journal with these instructions and spread the madness!

( under the cut )

I say, can anyone (on Dth or LJ) tell me how to view a journal style sheet - the bit that actually has pre-written code on it, not just the "write your own bits of code here" slot? I have to learn CSS for work, and while the training videos are informational, I won't really understand it without a playspace to poke around in and a properly written style to take apart.

Pointing me to FAQs about "how to do this specific thing in CSS" would also be helpful. Thanks, anybody!

Okay - togsos was doing this meme and I (being - like her - a "sleek fabulous lemming", lol) jumped on the bandwagon.

Rules: Tell me you want to play and I'll pick up to three of your fandoms. Then update your journal and answer the following questions:

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

Togsos asked me about Sapphire and Steel, MFU, and Doctor Who, then added "but I would like a bonus set of the same answers on Star Trek next gen because it is a slide into fandom that is happening/evolving before my very eyes!" So, um, here's all that.

Under cuts, because you know how I ramble.

( S&S under here ) ( MFU under here ) ( Who under here ) ( TNG under here )

I say - anyone on my flist who doesn't already know this: fic_rush is going splendidly. Come over to fic_rush_48 and write with us! (Or just distract us with random chatter. That's what the hourly posts are actually for, after all... *g*)

(Yes, Prim, I am totally going to call you out in front of my flist. *hugs you*)

So primsong has randomly gone and bought me a paid Dreamwidth account. For six months. Which... I wasn't planning to really move, I have everything the way I like it here, and my friends are not there and Dth color-schemes are dreary - but how can I not go all commenty on a site where I have space for 100 ICONS?

So I rounded up all the icons I had handy that I really, really love, and some of the ones I'll probably get bored of pretty quick now I can actually use them. And I have, um, thirty-four. (This is not counting the ones of my LOLs that I haven't iconified yet, and the ones I'd been meaning to gank that I haven't remembered/found again yet, and the ones I will inevitably want from that "DreamSheep" comm - but still. Thirty-four.)

So I am putting out a general call: who on my flist has gankable icons? Where are the icon comms and icon makers in my fandoms? (I've never had occasion to look. And by "my fandoms" I mean anything I've squeed or rambled about even once.) Or just awesome non-fannish icons are good too. Point me to sources, people!

(Also if anyone knows of some good Q icons I will love you forever. Have I yet mentioned my current obsession with John de Lancie that was masquerading as "research" for Legend!fic until my sister decided to call me on checking out suspiciously random eps of Murder She Wrote and Touched By An Angel? lol)