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    Monday, October 6th, 2008
    yonmei
         		9:20p
    A thought for Nanowrimo
    I have had what may be an idea for Nanowrimo this year.

    Supposing that a native of the 21st century were cast back fifteen hundred years or so: what, in all seriousness (if one was not a Connecticut Yankee) would constitute your superiority over the time locals?

    Most modern education and training would be dependent on modern science and technology. A doctor trained in the 21st century who was landed back in the 6th would probably find most useful a basic knowledge of germ theory - not something you actually have to be a doctor to know. How many doctors could manufacture a general or a local anaesthetic from 6th century technology? How many people trained in modern surgery could operate when they had no anaesthetic to use on their patients? How much modern medicine is mostly about learning the modern pharmacology - and how many 21st-century doctors could recognise anything useful in 6th century materials?

    I know how to make bread in a gas or electric and have an idea of how to raise a wild yeast so that the bread rises. (I've never made sourdough leaven from scratch, but in principle I know how that works.) But most 6th century people didn't eat much bread because it required an oven to bake it in, and in any case I know enough to know that baking bread in a wood-fired oven was a skill in itself - given the properly made oven I'd probably be able to learn how, but I have no notion how I'd make one. I can make the most basic kind of bread quite well - mix ground wheat or buckwheat or oatmeal or corn, cook over an even heat on a flat griddle - but even that I've only made on a gas flame and a (relatively) modern cast iron griddle, which provides a steady heat and an even surface. Virtually everything else I know how to make is much more dependent on modern gadgets or supplies.

    Gardening? Well, given a modern iron spade and a supply of good earth and seeds from packets, I can grow things, sometimes.

    I'm literate, which would be a useful skill in the 6th century, assuming anyone could get over my being female: but although I could probably learn to understand Old English, I would need to learn all over again how to write it. And any other part of the world would be even worse. Being literate isn't much use if no one else can read what you can write. I could teach children how to read and write modern English, of course....

    ...but the one skill I have which could potentially be worldchanging (and would certainly be an highly-employable skill) is arithmetic. It's not that I'm that good at arithmetic by 21st-century standards: but being able to use (what we call) the Arabic system of numerals to do calculations, at a time when the invention of zero was still being discussed philosophically in Hindustan, would give me an advantage - and knowing the techniques of calculation which either no one did yet or only a few mathematical scholars, would be an advantage that no one could beat until, well... either I taught other people or they learned from me.

    How fast would Arabic numerals catch on if one rather odd clerk was using them? It took two or three centuries for the system to filter into Europe via Arabia, and a couple of centuries before it got out of Hindustan. But everywhere it's gone, it's taken over eventually. How fast would it take over when it was just being used?

    Anyway. That's my thought. Hapless 21st-century-ist in 6th-century island, attempting to earn a living as a secular clerk... or possibly deciding to become a nun, atheist or not.

    Current Mood: artistic
    stele3
         		10:49a
    Hellooooo, V for Vendetta.
    I'm starting to seriously believe that America is teetering on the brink of fascism. From a Yahoo News story about Palin:

    Reporters weren't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park in Clearwater to talk to Palin's audience, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

    When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head to where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out, confront him orher and say, "Can I help you?" and turn the person around, Times staff writer Eileen Schulte wrote on the paper's Web site. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written, Schulte reported.



    We think that "freedom of the press" means "not government run." But no, no - this is it. They literally had the press imprisoned in one area and wouldn't let them out.

    ......shaedowcat? wishforhome? If McCain wins, I'ma come live with y'all in Canada.
    musesfool
         		12:12p
    so small against the building waves of stars
    Have a poem:

    Night Song

    She wants to own the moment
    when knowing slides away and she enters sleep,
    like someone riding a raft
    in a following sea.

    She tries holding onto
    the small smooth animal of her breath.
    She strokes it like a cat
    and like a cat

    it pads into the dark
    without her. She wants to name the time.
    She tries "Loss".
    It doesn't fit.

    "Loss" is grey and salty,
    but not the word she means. She tries "Hunt".
    But it's not the hunt but before,
    the moment the cat steps

    away. "Consolation" then.
    But she can't get the syllables from her mouth
    before she's gone. She wants
    to be the seachange polisher,

    who with her cloth will make
    the owned moment shine. She has not reckoned
    with the slip of words against
    her craft, how it will swamp first,

    so small against the building waves of stars.

    ~Lola Haskins

    ***

    Current Mood: tired
    Current Music: commercials on the radio
    digitalwave
         		10:47a
    Art: Blaze of Glory (rating PG-13 Dean & Sam)
    Title: Blaze of Glory
    Artist: digitalwave
    Fandom: Supernatural
    Characters: Dean & Sam
    Rating: PG-13
    Summary: Heaven didn't want them, Hell couldn't hold them. Damn either side that tried to make them their slave. Finally, they'd both said, 'Enough!' Let them find other soldiers for their private little war.
    Spoilers: General series spoilers
    Disclaimer: The characters in this artwork remain the property of Eric Kripke, Robert Singer and related production companies. None of the pretties belong to me, I'm only borrowing them.

    If you'd like to play around with any of my images, whether as icons, wallpapers or whatever, just ask. Credit would be nice.

    Also, feedback would be wonderful and much treasured.

    ( Blaze of Glory )

    Current Music: Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
    yonmei
         		9:39a
    On back rubs
    Yesterday, while having tea and engaging in feminist abuse of the novel Charlie Stross was kind enough to give me, I noticed that [info]feorag had a sore neck.

    So I offered to see if I could rub it out for her: in fact, I offered three times, and she finally accepted, and I spent fifteen minutes or so trying to get that nasty knot in the muscle of her neck rubbed out (and am not sure how successful I was).

    This morning I read this post on unfogged, and I thought how much I hate people who repetitively offer a solution to my problems when I'm not sure I want to accept/that it's the right solution.

    How far is offering backrubs (or neckrubs) like offering advice?

    Current Mood: contemplative
    frogspace
         		12:28a
    Merlin/Arthur
    Der Wahnsinn hat Methode!

    Die erste Story, die mir gut gefällt, hat mit [info]janne_ds First Night bereits das Licht der der Welt erblickt.

    [info]_becca84_ hat für alle drei Merlin-Folgen Screencaps gepostet (zwischen 1700 und 2600 pro Folge, deswegen auch als zip-Files).

    Und [info]revier schreibt die längsten und slashlastigsten Reviews überhaupt. \o/ ( Kostprobe )
    1.01 The Dragon's Call
    1.02 Valient
    1.03 The Curse of Nimueh

    Selbst die BBC Character Profiles lassen den Merlin/Arthur-Subtext nicht zu kurz kommen. Als Beispiel nenne ich da nur die Video-Clips über Uther und Arthur. Heh, heh. Merlin als Arthurs heimlicher Beschützer. *schmacht*
    Sunday, October 5th, 2008
    musesfool
         		6:09p
    that you'd come and look for me
    I had a bad night last night, got maybe four hours of sleep, but this afternoon I met up with [info]amberlynne, who is visiting our fair city, and [info]krisdia and [info]barely_bean and a bunch of other lovely fangirls for brunch at Craftbar. I had some really good French toast with ($6!) bacon and a lot of fun. Then they went off to discuss more SGA stuff and I came home, watched the end of the Giants game (wow, they were pretty dominant, huh? It was awesome.), and fell asleep for an hour.

    I do have some idea now on how to proceed with that story I was stuck on, so that's good. And I posted a story last night!

    My Superhero Boyfriend
    Supernatural; girl!Sam/Dean; AU; adult; vague spoilers through 4.03; 1,080 words
    "You'd give it up for Tony Stark?" "Like you wouldn't?"

    In which Sam and Dean have a totally dorky conversation about which superheroes would make good boyfriends. While they have sex.

    I amuse myself, anyway.

    **

    Current Mood: tired
    Current Music: The Blood - The Frames
    yonmei
         		10:27p
    Disney is kidnapping Father Christmas!
    I keep seeing an ad boasting that Disney has kidnapped Father Christmas and intends to put him on display in Disneyland Paris from November.

    I find this very disturbing. Of course the ad makes it like this is voluntary - that Father Christmas is choosing to do this, but everyone knows Father Christmas doesn't leave the North Pole voluntarily any time before 1st December.

    (Well, Raymond Briggs figures he goes on holiday in August, and he could be right, but someone's got to feed the deer.)

    Current Mood: anxious
    elke_tanzer
         		10:44a
    So, about pre-Perry Journey...
    Before Steve Perry was included in the lineup, Journey sure did have a different sound. And there are echoes of that earlier sound in the later music, to be sure, but it's echoes only.

    The earlier Journey sound is definitely more mid-1970s. And like I said, it's not bad... it's rather good, but it's a different style than I'm used to.

    A lot of the songs seem to me to be these muddy-ethereal, wandering pieces that would make great background music if I wanted to flop in a beanbag chair and watch the walls wobble... listening to them while sober and well-rested seems kind of pointless, unless I was at the same time trying to do something slightly-randomly creative, like drawing or painting or something. If I was completely exhausted? Or strung out on too much coffee for my two eyes to focus on the same one thing? Or rather drunk? I'd so be all over this music.

    But that said? Sober, well-rested, awake (all of which, in direct contrast for the past months and months of overwork and stress, I am actually getting toward being right now? Holy shit!)...

    I kind of really like Mystery Mountain.

    :-)

    Want to hear what I'm talking about? You've got a few options, including actually buying (or buying downloads) of the first three Journey albums, but there are a bunch of other options, some of which I'm sure I don't know much about, but I'm going to link to 'em here anyway...

    1. Try to seed http://www.pandora.com/ with specific songs from Journey's first three albums.

    ( tracks are here... )

    2. Listen to samples of the music from Journey's own official website via http://journeymusic.com/discography_cont.html

    You can also buy the music right there, too. :-)

    3. And you can always purchase CDs or mp3s of individual songs from Amazon or iTunes or your favorite local indy record shop...

    Journey (from 1975)
    Look Into The Future (from 1976)
    Next (from 1977)

    4. Stream a couple concerts from Wolfgang's Vault

    ( details are here... )

    (Side note: Wolfgang's Vault also apparently has a bunch of Bowie concerts available here. I haven't signed up for an account yet, but I may just have to...)

    5. Scavenger-hunt on YouTube

    ( Journey playlists by years are here... )

    6. Supplement purchased music with concert bootlegs

    After buying everything that is commercially available, use Google to find sites linking to downloads and/or torrents for concert recordings, begin to learn an entirely new fannish subculture's vocabulary and behavioral norms and etiquette, and shyly start compiling a flat text file of notes about what's available and what you've begun to collect, and then finally acknowledge that you really need not only a well-organized folder-based file structure on your external hard-drive but also a spreadsheet to keep track of all the albums, concert setlists, bootlegs, media appearances... and gosh, start to think that if no one else has put together a database-backed website to track it all already, someone really should do that...

    *cough*

    What? This is Elke The Organizational Freak talking, after all...

    Current Mood: busy
    icarusancalion
         		10:44a
    School, challenges. The current temperature is 65 degrees F. Softometer reading 8.7.
    Ahhh... The school situation has been (mostly) resolved. Or at least I'm not doing 20 credits anymore.

    Now to write some Out Of Bounds. *rubs hands together*

    Decisions, decisions... oh, payday! Now. Should I sign up for [info]sga_santa this year?

    On the one hand, it gets me writing something that's finished, packed up and ready to read in one sitting. Gives me a breather from AUs and figure skating. On the other hand, the deadline for [info]sga_santa is December 10th, the last day of finals. The only way I could finish the fic in time is if I wrote it over Thanksgiving holidays.

    On the third hand, I have a plan to finish Out Of Bounds, and the Thanksgiving holiday is probably best spent working on that.

    But on the fourth hand, 1,000 words isn't very much. When strapped for time (like I was last year), I'm perfectly cool with writing a shorter fic: Silent Night.

    In other news. My cat is able to somehow control the softness of his fur, ranging from soft to Ultra-Impossibly-Must-Pet-Again-To-Prove-It's-Real-Soft. We call this the "softometer" and the two of us rate the fur on a scale of 1 (who rolled the cat in brambles?) to 10 (angel down).

    Current softometer reading: 8.7

    Current Mood: peaceful
    copracat
         		10:51p
    Summer Snarry Art Games begin next week! Snarry fans you are so damn prolific.
    musesfool
         		1:55a
    fic: My Superhero Boyfriend (Supernatural; girl!Sam/Dean; adult)
    This is completely gratuitous and self-indulgent. I blame Tony Stark.

    My Superhero Boyfriend
    Supernatural; girl!Sam/Dean; AU; adult; vague spoilers through 4.03; 1,080 words
    "You'd give it up for Tony Stark?" "Like you wouldn't?"

    ( My Superhero Boyfriend )

    ~*~

    Feedback is adored.

    ~*~

    Current Mood: amused
    Current Music: Indigo Girls - You and Me of the 10,000 Wars
    Saturday, October 4th, 2008
    stele3
         		10:20p
    Wisdom for the ages.
    Note to self: don't try to drum while drunk. Seriously. Don't do it. No pre-show shots for me, dudes.

    *****

    Have resumed work on The Book. Methinks Gerry's characterization has changed somewhat; he is now an unholy cross between teen!Gerard and teen!Brendon. YEAH. I know. Antisocial hatred of the world mixed with helpless ADD-energy. The poor boy never had a chance.
    musesfool
         		10:38p
    like the deserts miss the rain
    [info]fleurdeleo and I made a day of it today - we went to Bloomingdales, where I got a new pair of sunglasses - very Jackie O, they are allegedly going to be featured in the new issue of Harper's (not that I care about that, but the saleslady seemed to think that was a selling point) - they're BCBG Max Azria, and they came with their own little case, which is good, because I have a terrible habit of mangling sunglasses, even the expensive ones. Not that I actually paid for these - I am still working off last Christmas's gift certificate. I also got two lovely tops, both of which were on sale, so I got two tops that were each originally $90 for a total of $62 combined. Go me! I am sad that they removed the Origins counter, though.

    Then we went to see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which I liked a lot, even though the gross bits were possibly the grossest thing I have ever seen (and I watch Bones) - I had to hide my eyes for that whole sequence, and then they kept bringing it up AUGH - and there was a moment where Nick was really douchy, even if Tris was awful. I need to get the soundtrack. I loved Norah, and I especially loved Norah's lipstick. I also really loved seeing familiar NYC places on screen (Veselka!).

    Then we had dinner at Brasserie, which is possibly my favoritest place in the whole wide world. Sigh. I mean, it's ridiculously expensive, and I had the fig and vanilla dessert on the waiter's recommendation, and it was okay, but no match for either the chocolate beignets, the chocolate trio, or the creme brulee, so I wouldn't get it again, but the filet mignon is amazing. (I miss the fantastic crostatas at Panzano in Denver. I wonder if they still serve them. Sigh.) Plus, we split a bottle of Sancerre Sauvignon Blanc, which is just a lovely, lovely wine I highly recommend if you like white wine.

    Now I am home and contemplating writing.

    The world might be going to hell in a handbasket, but at the moment, I am fat and happy.

    ***

    Current Mood: content
    Current Music: Everything But The Girl - Missing (Todd Terry Remix)
    auburnnothenna
         		4:36p
    Meme
    Gacked from [info]general_jinjur

    1. Grab the nearest book.
    2. Open the book to page 56.
    3. Find the fifth sentence.
    4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
    5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
    6. Tag five other people to do the same.

    Granger chuckled. "He's got his head up his butt most of the time, though, so if he didn't run over 'em, he probably didn't notice."

    When we got back in our cars, I checked in with the office on my radio. There was nothing new, the troops were still assisting the lab team at the crime scene, and Norm Vincent was waiting for us in his office.

    Norm Vincent was really apologetic. The Battenberg cheif was a decent guy, and like I said, was under quite a bit of strain with all the hours he'd been putting in. He'd seen and heard nothing of any use at all.


    Donald Harstad, A Long December



    not tagging any one

    Current Mood: good
    Current Music: Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains
    frogspace
         		11:10p
    Warten auf Merlin
    Heute lief die dritte Folge Merlin, oder?

    Während ich mich in Ungeduld übe, hier eine Frage an die Leute auf meiner Flist, die mich unwissentlich damit angefixt haben: In der DVD-Review Giving Fan Fiction Its Head. The BBC's Torchwood: sci-fi where everyone’s bi and hot guys cry heißt es unter anderem:
    Torchwood isn't quite great. But it is a watershed: the first show to take fanfic conventions into the mainstream. Unsurprisingly, Torchwood's exploitation of a hitherto underserved fetish has resulted in excellent ratings: its debut broke BBC audience records. With such success, there are sure to be imitators. The manporn deluge cometh.

    Bilde ich mir das ein, oder ist Merlin wirklich so slashig wie sich das anfühlt? Und könnte das aus den im Artikel genannten Gründen Absicht sein? Wenn man schon mal einen Fetisch entdeckt, den zu bedienen ein größeres Publikum anlockt ...

    In Interviews zumindest wurden Parallelen zu Smallville gezogen, wo es um die Jugendjahre von Superman geht. Wenn in Smallville die Spannung daher rührt, dass aus den Freunden Clark und Lex später einmal Feinde werden, dann ist es bei Merlin genau umgekehrt. Merlin und Arthur rasseln herrlich aneinander (wie z.B. hier in dieser zweiten Begegnung zwischen den beiden.) und dennoch muss Merlin sich damit abfinden, dass Arthur, der Typ, den er nicht ausstehen kann, sein SCHICKSAL ist, er der Mann an seiner Seite sein wird und sie dazu bestimmt sind, beste Freunde zu werden!

    Sag mir einer, das wäre *nicht* slashig! Und dann wird Merlin auch noch Arthurs ( Spoiler ), weil er Arthur ( Spoiler ) Und auch die beiden weiblichen Hauptfiguren gefallen mir sehr gut. Ich könnte mir sogar vorstellen, die vier über kreuz zu shippen, slashen und miteinander zu verkuppeln. /o\

    Wohl dem, der ein Drache ist, und nur ein OTP kennt, Merlin/Arthur. *seufz*

    PS: Anthony Steward Head als tyrannischer Uther = FTW!
    musesfool
         		1:38p
    they anticipate each other's moves well
    from the "you should totally vid that" files: ( spoilers through SPN 4.03 )

    I have also been thinking more about ( spoilers for SPN 4.03 )

    I have lots of things I want to write, but I can't seem to get untracked. So I am writing girl!Sam porn instead. *shakes head* Sometimes you just gotta dance with who brung you.

    Woo! Marcus Naslund with the first goal of the season! And his first as a Ranger! \o/ Rangers with a 1-0 lead!

    ***

    Current Mood: mellow
    Current Music: Rangers v. Lightning on msg
    digitalwave
         		12:53p
    Art: Mountains of Things (Rating R Jensen)
    This artwork is based on a WIP that [info]brynwulf has going, Mountains of Things. It's an AU. Jensen in the story has the tatoos, earrings, etc. that you'll see below.

    This is for you, sweetie, because I know that it's been a rough week.

    *hugs*

    Title: Mountains of Things
    Artist: digitalwave
    Fandom: Supernatural
    Characters: Jensen
    Rating: R (non-explicit nudity)
    Summary: You know, it's [info]brynwulf, I don't even care that there might be tentacle porn in my future with this wip. :)
    Spoilers: General character spoilers
    Disclaimer: The characters in this artwork remain the property of Eric Kripke, Robert Singer and related production companies. None of the pretties belong to me, I'm only borrowing them.

    If you'd like to play around with any of my images, whether as icons, wallpapers or whatever, just ask. Credit would be nice.

    Also, feedback would be wonderful and much treasured.
    Friday, October 3rd, 2008
    stele3
         		8:57p
    Overheard in Estacada
    My cook: Have you read the Bible?
    Me: Parts of it, yeah.
    My cook: Revelations?
    Me: Parts, yeah.
    My cook: I believe Obama is the Anti-Christ.
    Me: ... well, there's that. *walks away*

    Oh my God these people are so ignorant. Like, there are plenty of good reasons that you want to vote for McCain. *I* can think of reasons! But no, it's all about how Obama is secretly a Muslim terrorist and anyone who thinks otherwise "hasn't done their homework."

    My hometown, ladies and gentlemen. [info]notsolaconic, I hope you get here soon, I need an excuse to spend more time in Portland. GET ME OUT OF HERE.
    musesfool
         		10:36p
    a woman like that is not ashamed to die
    I am very tired. Today was a really weird day.

    My alarm clock is set to the all news station - it's often the only sustained exposure to news I get each day - and there was a lot of "What? Wait, what? No, really, WHAT THE FUCK?" as I stumbled to the bathroom this morning.

    So it was kind of a surreal day at work. I am being obscure on purpose, obviously, because I want to leave this post public, but yeah, it was a weird, weird day at BEMC, 'cause my guys have been breaking their backs since last weekend, and then pfft.

    I have been trying to figure out this story I'm writing, and I know where it needs to go but I don't know quite how to get there. It's making me a little crazy. Also, I kind of don't have the energy or attention span to focus on more than one or two wsip at a time, nor can I really get it flowing good at work these days (see above) which is making me sad.

    Maybe things will settle down soon. Sigh.

    I think I am going to watch my Iron Man dvd and veg out.

    Have an old favorite:

    Her Kind

    I have gone out, a possessed witch,
    haunting the black air, braver at night;
    dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
    over the plain houses, light by light:
    lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
    A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
    I have been her kind.

    I have found the warm caves in the woods,
    filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
    closets, silks, innumerable goods;
    fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
    whining, rearranging the disaligned.
    A woman like that is misunderstood.
    I have been her kind.

    I have ridden in your cart, driver,
    waved my nude arms at villages going by,
    learning the last bright routes, survivor
    where your flames still bite my thigh
    and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
    A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
    I have been her kind.

    ~Anne Sexton

    ~*~

    Current Mood: weird
    bethbethbeth
         		4:12p
    OTW: the Yay Projects edition
    I just realized that I've been making so many official posts about the Organization for Transformative Works that I'd forgotten to make any in my personal journals.

  • As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the first issue of the OTW's academic journal, Transformative Works and Cultures, has been published. A pdf version (thoughtfully put together by [info]elfwreck) is available here, but read it online, if you can, since some of the articles are multi-media)

  • The new wiki - FANLORE is open for business. Go set up an account. There are 513 articles so far; the story of your fannish history could be the 514th!

  • The new WEBSITE has been launched - and, with it, the new OTW blog (which...all I can say is yay! I love that the main spot for OTW news and information is finally on the website itself and not on any of the various journaling services.)

  • And the Archive of Our Own is at the beta stage. Accounts creation is only open to OTW staffers and testers at the moment, as the bugs are worked out of the system, but the archive (1000-plus stories and more being added all the time) is open for reading - and critiquing.

  • The journal, the wiki, the website, and the archive are open to everybody - and completely free. However, if you're interested in supporting the OTW in other ways, here's a handy-dandy link to the "how you can help" page, which includes information about:

    -Volunteering
    -Donations
    -Fundraising, flyer distribution, etc.
    -Membership: $10 to become a member, which means (a) you're supporting the organizing and (b) you get a single vote in the upcoming Board elections. And, um...that's all membership gets you, but...it's just $10, folks!

    And now...off to watch SPN finally.
    • icarusancalion
         		1:15p
    An Archive Of Our Own is open
    The beta version of An Archive Of Our Own is open!

    And it's opening on schedule. Color me impressed.

    Also open: Fanlore, which is associated with An Archive Of Our Own.

    Current Mood: hopeful
    mos_self 12:55p
    My Turn To Talk, My Turn To Walk
    October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this means I'm participating in a Bay Area double-fundraiser event:

    The American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer --
    • the San Francisco walk (October 18), and

    • the San Jose walk (October 25).
    I believe that hope for a world without breast cancer starts with me, and that's why I'm walking.

    Throughout October I will post, one by one, my "10 Top Reasons Why I Am Making Strides Against Breast Cancer"

    Here's Reason #1: ( 'Because Guys Can Also Make A Difference Against Breast Cancer' )

    And on that note, if the spirit moves you, will you consider making a difference by sponsoring me with a donation?

    Any amount, whether $5 or $500, will be greatly appreciated.

    Current Mood: determined
    elke_tanzer
         		8:39a
    Yes, Elke is babbling about Journey again...
    I'll start out by saying that I have not yet listened to the first three commercially-available Journey albums (Journey from 1975, Look into the Future from 1976, and Next from 1977) although I have heard some of the live recordings from 1973-1978 of some of those songs. They're... different, from what Journey became when Steve Perry joined in 1978. Not better, not worse, just... different. And I'll admit right up front here that despite enjoying every component piece of this group's music, I'm more intrigued by vocals (solo or harmonies or call-and-answer) than by guitar solos which I am also fond of, although I am discovering that drum solos are also catching my attention.

    So my chronological foray into Journey's music really starts when Perry joined in 1978, when they released their fourth album.

    ( So... about Infinity, from 1978... (I think I'm in love.) )

    Next up will be Evolution, from 1979... but I think I will parcel out my squee into digestible doses. :-)

    Current Mood: calm
    Current Music: Journey's Infinity album
    yonmei
         		2:05p
    London, 28th-1st December
    I've booked a tiny hotel room in Belgrave Road Cartwright Gardens (the "Euro Hotel") for 3 nights. (TripAdvisor reviews say it's "spotlessly clean", it's close to two tube stations Euston Station! yay, which is all that really matters. The free breakfast is fine if limited, but so long as there's muesli, fruit, and tea I'm good. Full English breakfast cooked to order comes with room.)

    I briefly hoped I was going to be able to book an ultra-cheap room via the lastminute.com sale (they were boinging "1000 hotel rooms for £10!" all over their website) but I think they were all for dates in October (lastminute.com's 10th anniversary) and in any case, whenever I tried to book, their server crashed. Which is pretty much lastminute.com in a nutshell. But this will be fine.

    I thought I had booked a not-quite-so-ultra-cheap-but-still-pretty-good-for-London room in Belgravia, but just as I was composing the post to tell you all about it, I got an e-mail from their parent company telling me the booking had been rejected - their really-ultra-cheap rooms had both gone. So I booked somewhere else. Hopefully I'll get to keep this room.

    Current Mood: weird
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