Via a friend on Facebook:

" If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & please pass it on."

I have cleared out all of my Firefox tabs except for about a dozen that fall into the to-read category! Fic recs coming as soon as I pull everything from delicious and lgbt_fest that I meant to come back to later.

Here, have some random:

In which many people write Nine things About Oracles, as inspired by a pendant.

I Has a Sweet Potato, the saga of a dog and some sweet potatoes. Obviously. (And if you haven't already come across it, Dogs in Elk.)

In the realm of bookish discussion, authors that expose their id on paper. A somewhat belated link.

Here are some truly inspired ideas for Neil Gaiman t-shirts.

Battle of the church signs!.

Roger Sutton on the queerness of Batman.

I am sure we could dream up some sort of library program based around Romance Title Bingo.

How awesome is sex toy recycling as a concept?

A quiz, for your edification and amusement, So Who Do You Think You Are?, or, which Diana Wynne Jones character are you?

I know numerous people who'll relate to Writing a Novel, A Love Story, from YA author libba_bray. Also from Libba Bray and equally awesome, albeit in a different and much more serious way, thoughts on growing up with a gay, closeted dad, There is Nothing Wrong With You.

The Secrets of Storytelling, a look at narrative, the power of story, and our brains from Scientific American. Relatedly, What do kids love most? Their parents reading to them: Study finds that children are hungry for bedtime stories.

Six Reasons Why You Should be Watching Being Erica picspam. I emphatically agree.

I like this bag, but can't really justify buying it. Ah, well.

I have four open Firefox windows with something like 128 open tabs. (zulu/queenzulu, stop laughing!)

I have stolen troutkitty's laptop table (Dave. Dave the Ikea laptop table. Dave is awesome. and pulled my computer chair and a mouse into the living room, and am going to comment on posts and leave feedback, tag delicious links and compile recs to post.

Here is a slightly fuzzy picture:



Note the coffee, headphones on the keyboard, and the lovely Trout sprawled on the coffee table in front of the open window, from which there is the barest perfect hint of a cool breeze.

And then I need to go to Canadian Tire to get a soaker hose for the lawn and some potting soil for my tomato plants. Summer weekends, mmm.

I am on a Studio Ghibli kick.

A couple of months ago, we rewatched My Neighbour Totoro.

If you haven't seen it, words cannot describe either totoros (sorta like.. well.. maybe if you took a bear crossed with a cat and an owl and he was eight feet tall...) or the cute:





The first time I saw Totoro, it was a Chinese dub that a friend's coworker had lent to her when she found out she liked anime. We picked up a surprising amount of plot without understanding a word of it. The little totoros make dibby-dah sounds as they walk in the Chinese dub. We called it the dibby-dah movie for the longest time. It is still one of my all-time favourites, which was why there was about a four or five year period where everyone gave me stuffed totoros. They're all sitting on top of my bookcases, with the exception of the large one. By large, I mean two feet tall and three feet wide. He has taken up residence on top of my filing cabinet in my office at the library. (And if anyone tells you that totoros eat cows, they liiiiiie! Look at those teeth! Vegetarian!)

Totoro is still one of the best all-ages movies out there in existence ever. Also, I, um. Need another DVD copy. Mine is the old English release, and the newer Disney-released version has better subtitles. (Whiiich would make three versions, since I also have the Japanese version. And several more versions on VHS. But who's counting?)

Then a few weeks ago, we watched Kiki's Delivery Service when Mannie and her little guy came to visit. (Take that, fundamentalist extremists! An absolutely charming, gentle, endearing story about a little witch girl!)





Tonight, we watched most of Pom Poko but got bored before the end (now I remember why I don't own the DVD. Still good, but not my favourite.) I like the folklore elements (Japanese folklore, where shapeshifting racoon-dog/tanuki testicles are canon!), but with all the slapstick and the kinda weak plot, and it didn't stand up very well to a second viewing. I'll probably go back and watch the last twenty minutes later tonight. If you are curious:





Then we watched Whisper of the Heart, which is all kinds of awesome. It's a deceptively simple story about a Japanese schoolgirl who reads books, follows a cat on the train, and tries to decide what she wants to do with her life. (Budding romance via library book! Meticulously crafted visuals of everyday life in modern Japan! Heroine who is totally unaware that she could possibly be described as "spunky" and hence is not in the least annoying!)





I thnk either Spirited Away or Princes Mononoke next. (Although I also have Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa.) Oh, Studio Ghibli! You are the anti-Disney and I love you for it!

Yesterday was my darling troutkitty's birthday! And I had meant to post then, but we were doing birthday-ish things like going out for supper and such. We had pizza and pasta at Coco Pazzo's, the local place with a wood-burning pizzaoven, mmm! I smuggled Lush bath stuff back from Edmonton for the girl, and she never suspected, bwaha. And by "smuggled," I mean handed to a friend attending the same conference and said "Quick! Can you pretend this is yours and take it back to the library for me?" Which made her car smell like Lush all the way back, and my office smell like Lush all last week.

I had arranged for a seekrit birthday visit from queenzulu/zulu and drakkenfyre, and had to sacrifice the seekritness because troutkitty's dad was going to come the same day (he came today instead, as all involved opted to spread out the visiting rather than having everyone here at once), but the important bit was that people came! Yay! There was Mario Kart Wii, homemade Mexican food (details of the truly awesome black bean mash here, and a ramble down into the coulees. Pictures to follow, of scenery, river-wading, expeditions up a hill, and other such things.

And now I am just about ready for bed. How long until another weekend?

Okay, I knew Sarah Waters had a new book out and I knew it took place in the 40's, and I was waffling on whether to order it from Amazon now along with a couple other books that fall into the want-enough-to-own category (plus seasons one and two of Psych) or wait and...

Nobody told me it was a GHOST STORY. (Thanks for the link, guyindkny!)

Especially after rewatching the BBC miniseries of Fingersmith this weekend, I am trying to convince myself that I don't need to spend an extras $10 just to buy it from Chapters in-store immediately.

Or in this case, an invite code to Dreamwidth? I've got four left. As I am on my usual curve of procastination vs intention, I don't know how many people are still needing one, but just comment if so!

... coffee. I need.

Hmm, let's see if I did this right and I can crosspost...

( in the meantime, have an awesome gay rights video from Singapore )

I can also be found at dreamwidth, daemonluna.dreamwidth.org. (Thank you, jadelennox!)

I... am still not sure what I am doing with it. I'm sure I'll figure it out. *g* Right now, I'm subscribing to and granting access to pretty much everyone on my flist over here who is over there. Eventually, there will probably be some cross-posting. (Learning things via mucking about FTW!)

I am Unimpressed.

You've all seen Amazon Rank a zillion times today, right? (And a more extensive list of affected books here.)

And the petition?

And the google-bombing?

The utter randomness of some of the titles make me wonder if part of the colossal fail is due to a search algorithm gone wrong. (ETA: ie, something like this.) But don't get me wrong--the underlying philosophy still makes me furious.

Today, I dragged troutkitty out of the house on the premise that taking a brief walk around the neighbourhood would make her feel better.

Then we ended up hiking through the coulees for almost two hours. ... oops? (If you have no idea what a coulee is, they are the folds in the hill around the river that look like this, and I am blatantly borrowing a picture from a friend's Flickr account for show and tell.) We went down the hill at the end of 4th St, meandered along the river bottom and ended up at Indian Battle Park.

I had a water bottle, cel phone, and two granola bars. We were wearing comfy runners. It was all good. But there is a lot of down and then up again between here and there, what with it being a river valley and all.

On a totally unrelated tangent, Dreamwidth is exciting! So far, I have only created an OpenID account. (My reading list has one person on it! It's dine! If anyone else has an account already and I have missed you, lemme know.) Definitely thinking about getting a paid account eventually.

Am still missing the lack of new Psych. This is what mainlining a series does to you. And Being Erica is done for the season, though I hear rumours of a season two. troutkitty has suggested Leverage. And I've also got half a season of Supernatural to catch up on.

We have opted to not drive to Calgary for the day for Easter, but will be cooking a ham, possibly tomorrow. Mmm, ham. If anyone feels like coming to Lethbridge to share it, we would happily feed you. :)

House, all I can say is ( emotional spoilers! )

Being Erica, your season finale did not disappoint! ( actual if vague spoilers )

And I have mainlined all three seasons of Psych in less than a month. It is fun and clever and self-referential and has random recurring pineapples! But seriously, fandom. WTF is up with Shawn/Lassiter being the main OTP? Are you BLIND? Shawn/Gus CLEARLY = not just BFF but OTP! (And... Gus/Jules? Just to get them paired up and out of the way? REALLY?) I sputtered in indignation. A lot. troutkitty laughed at me.

And MOST EXCITINGLY! I HAVE THE NEW TAMORA PIERCE BOOK! I preordered Bloodhound last-last December and it showed up in my mailbox TODAY! I am saving it for the weekend when I can devour it all in one sitting. Mmmm, one-of-favourite-authors new fiction.

So, yeah. I may have told the kids' department at the library today that ( we'll be shelving the picture books based on the colour of the spine from now on )Next year, I need an inflatable octopus for the pond...

I have been sadly remiss in fic reccing! I have many open tabs...

But! queenzulu has pulled off amazingingness of awesomeness with running the SECOND EVER HOUSE BIG BANG. (The sheer volume of awesome? Overran her bandwidth! But the archive should be up on the first of the month, which will be in the next few hours. In the meantime, everything should be linked over at house_bigbang)

And the most awesometastic part? HER STORY.

Woodwinds is part of her House/Foreman Percussion 'verse, but this particular bit is Wilson-centric, and ventures into volatile House/Wilson territory.

She is all with the nuanced and complex characters and OMG PLOT that impacts their emotional lives, and all the perfect little details, and the fragile mix of hope and despair, and...

Seriously, if you are at all familiar with House and want something that takes the emotional complexity of the show and goes further, you should totally go read it and tell her how awesome she really is!

(... I may have had half a bag of chocolate easter eggs. That may be why I am using words like awesometasticness. BUT EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID IS STILL TRUE!)

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Victoria! Yay!

The original plan: We spend Saturday and Sunday morning getting ready in a leisurely fashion, do laundry, clean up the house, etc. Sunday early afternoon, we leave for Calgary, potentially visit danma and ming_lei and the wee one, meet drakkenfyre and queenzulu for supper, stay overnight at my parents' and head to the airport at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning.

What actually happened: About 1 pm Saturday, troutkitty is talking to her dad. Who mentions a winter storm warning for Calgary overnight. We check the forecast. We check it again. We look outside at the 16C weather. We check the forecast again. We pack. Trout has a vet appointment at 3:30. We take him to the vet, come home, finish packing (and oh, wasn't that the DOUBLE ANGST for him, because VET AND SUITCASES.) We leave home at about 6 and get to my parents' about 8pm. Still no snow, but it is getting colder and we did drive through several rainstorms on the way up.

This morning: WHAM. There are 20cm of fresh snow outside and it is still snowing.

So yeah. I am glad we left in a bit of a rush in order to not drive through the aftermath of a snow storm. We also did not go anywhere today other than to the mall to pick up things we forgot.

Things we forgot: Swimming suits. Toothpaste. To mail the letters in my purse. Headphones for my ipod. Batteries for the camera. I am sure there are several other things we will discover when we get there.

But nothing crucial was left behind, and there was no driving through blizzards. So yay! (We'll see what I manage to forget tomorrow morning when packing up to go to the airport.)

And if anyone has recommendations for restaurants or shopping or such, let me know. :)

Vacation, yay!

What I was going to post Wednesday night: "I think I have misread part of the budget requirements for the $120,000 three-year grant application that needs to be in Edmonton by Friday that I have just spent most of my waking hours working on for the past six weeks. AUGH."

Well. I had. But the person in charge of finances at the library is truly awesome, and she found a fix for me, and I did emergency revisions on the budget and triple-checked the proposal and fixed typos and formatted pages (and figured out how to insert different-sized sheets into the same document, yay section breaks!) and my partner in crime grant-writing went and ran around some more and got things re-signed and we printed everything and...

All nine copies plus the original fifty-four page document complete with signatures from six contributing and eleven supporting organizations arrived in Edmonton yesterday at noon.

I am ded from gah.

Now I can stop dreaming about this damn grant proposal and can forget about it until mid-May. (Seriously! A couple nights ago, I dreamt that I had budgeted in all the ingredients for banana bread. And then I thought, wait! We can't ask people to make banana bread! We're just going to buy it! I have to rework everything!)

I am SO taking some time off. In fact, I am taking the last week of March off and we are going to Victoria. (troutkitty's working on a book set in Victoria. It started out as a ghost story in Salem, moved across the continent across the border, gained selkies and a whole lot more supporting characters, and I think the only things intact are the title, the main characters' names, and the ghost story part. Which is about typical. *g*) If anyone has any must-see suggestions or favourite restaurants, let me know!

And hopefully, we have hit our last cold snap of the winter and it will start to be springtime soon.

I feel the need to ramble about several random things tonight. I also have intentions of posting an equally random assortment of fic recs, too. We'll see how that goes later...

READING LISTS

I am up to forty-nine books read from my award committee pile o' doom. I am afraid that I have inadverently picked up a self-published book for my next one. *eyes book suspiciously* And it's blurbed inside by someone at a Catholic elementary school, someone at a private Christian school, and then it starts with a bible verse and an inspiring quote. Ummmmmmm. I am dubious and wary. (Then there was always the book from last year with the comma error IN THE TITLE.) My self-published book rant, let me spare you from it.

DOMESTICITY

About six months ago, I inherited a hand-me-down sewing machine from my aunt. ( It is officially vintage )

Anyhow, with the luxury of last weekend being a long weekend, I spent a morning wandering around on home decorating blogs--always a dangerous prospect--and now I am attempting to create a cover for the small cat's favourite chair out of an old Ikea sheet and a couple worn-out towels. Next up, a cover for troutkitty's notebooks with pockets for post-its and pens. I have no plans for any projects that can't be accomplished with interesting-looking scraps from the remnants bin, however.

LIFESTUFF

We made yummy things for Valentine's Day. troutkitty has finally seen the specialist for her evil arm issues. Surgery isn't an option, but thank GOD, the pain management clinic people seem to be helping. I was suddenly craving brunch at the Deane House this morning like WHOA, eggs benedict on their yummy, yummy biscuits. I was willing to concede, however, that driving the four hours to Calgary and back in the ice fog and if we left THAT MINUTE getting there fifteen minutes before they stopped serving brunch was probably not the best plan. So my girl made me biscuits. I loves her. For more than her biscuit-making tendencies, of course. But they were good biscuits.

WORKSTUFF

I can see the end of The Grant That Ate My Brain. It's for our early literacy/family literacy program, ( which is good, becuase the deadline is Friday )

And then I get to go back to all the things I have been pushing off to one side while working on the grant app. I have a teen program on Friday for which I have yet to even see one of the games we are supposed to be playing (Wii Music, to go with Guitar Hero and Rock Band) and have done nothing at all about figuring out where we are going to get any of the anime series on DVD, let alone the public performance rights, for our March program. (Anyone want to lend me the first episode of Bleach, Ranma, Fruits Basket, Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, EVA, and is Ouran host Club even out on DVD? We have Fullmetal Alchemist.)

SPEAKING OF MEDIA CONSUMPTION...

troutkitty is mainlining Farscape. We are both pleasantly surprised at Being Erica. (Although the end of Rabbit Fall was a HUGE disappointment.) Being Human is in no way similiar or related, but also of the good. I have decided that I want to watch Psych.

And now I need to go to SLEEP.

Mmm, lazy Saturday. This is the first Saturday out of four where I haven't had to be at the library. Chronologically: Kids Book Club (my pet program), an afternoon-long orientation workshop for the library board in which I was there just to smile pretty and answer any questions, and a big to-do for Family Literacy Day in which we had to send maintenance out to get emergency back-up cake. (We had a sheet cake for fifty, and a hundred and seventy five people came. The trick... we had a school choir sing, which means that most parents HAD to come and lots stayed and some brought siblings and grandparents.)

So this weekend, there shall be much sprawling on the couch with a book. (I am way behind on my RMBA reading, and the next committee meeting is Tuesday. But still, time to read!) There will be running of errands (um. We are almost out of toilet paper. And bottles need to be recycled.) and I have good intentions of making a big batch of spaghetti sauce (commonly known as chilsketti, for being as thick as chili) and maybe cabbage rolls, all to restock the freezer. We'll see.

Also, queenzulu is an auntie! Yay!

There was Christmas. It was good. Except for the bit where troutkitty was sick. But she did get to come home to a zombie themed stocking! :)

It contained:

• Whack a Zombie inflatable desktop zombie
  
• Shaun of the Dead on DVD
  
• The DS game Teenage Zombies
  
• World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide)
  
• Two things I can't tell yet because I am still waiting for them to come in the mail (curse you, Canada Post!)
  
• And a make-your-own-zombie-army kit of felt and fabric paints based on these zombie gingerbread men on etsy. Pictures to follow when we have finished assembling them.

Also, a bag of good coffee beans (zombie prevention) and the traditional chocolate orange in the toe.

I wanted to add this gelatin brain mold, too, but wasn't able to get it in time.

I am skimming through Yuletide stories, and have made it into the F's. We are now almost caught up watching Supernatural. I am idly curious about Merlin. We still have the Doctor Who Christmas Special to watch!

My typing is hindered today. I was reminded this morning, while innocently opening a taped-shut box, that sharp scissors are sharp. Now I have a Shrek bandaid AND a Peanuts-in-space bandaid adorning my right middle finger (because the bandaids are from work). (To which troutkitty looked queasy, and inquired as to how bad it was to need TWO bandaids. To which I say, um. No. It needed one bandaid, properly applied. I had bandaid-applying issues.)

I am scattered today. The alarm went off this morning. And my body said whyyyyy do you do this to meeeeee? I am not a morning person.

We get a drakkenfyre tomorrow! Yay!!! It has finally stopped snowing, too.

And now I am going to go to bed very soon.

I have eggnog in my coffee.

We have not yet made rum balls. ([Bad username: queenzulu!] drakkenfyre! Come and visit and we'll make rum balls! And maybe shrimp dumplings, too.)

The Christmas decorations (mostly, stockings and our wee foot-high tree) are going up this weekend.

And I'm wearing festive Christmas socks. (I work in the kids' department. I'm allowed to wear stupid holiday socks! Though I have given away some of my sparklier Christmas and Halloween pins to a coworker who also teaches Kindergarten.)

troutkitty and I have already got our Christmas present to each other. We now have a Roomba! (She says, I for one welcome our robot masters if they'll vaccuum so we don't have to!) The cats are... not quite sure what to make of it. I think it's awesome. (ROBOT. VACUUM.)

On an unrelated note seangaffney is looking for Canadian political blogs. I had no brilliant suggestions, but I thought some of you might. (carlanime? guyindkny?)