Phone conversation I just had with my mom: 

Mom: I'm just calling to tell you the Home Run Derby is on, in case you want to watch it.
Me: ... I think I'm going to give it a miss, but thanks.
Mom: There's some band on right now.
Me: What band? 
Mom: Some young guy. I don't know who he is, but I can tell he's popular.

I clicked over. It was David Cook.

Me: *facepalms* That's David Cook.
Mom: Who?
Me: From American Idol? 
Mom: Where did he finish? 
Me: First.
Mom: Oh.
Me: If you had told me this was the David Cook Derby, I might have tuned in earlier.

Looks like I'm not the only one who woke up wanting to meta on Torchwood, unsurprisingly. I haven't read the posts on my flist yet, but that's my next stop.

( Further thoughts on COE as a whole. )

I wrote most of this last summer, and just tidied it up last night. It doesn't have any spoilers for Torchwood; it's really more of a Who story, though it doesn't have any real spoilers for Who, either.


Shuffle

Doctor Who & Torchwood, Jack Harkness gen, 1,069 words, PG.

( Jack is dreaming. )

I meant to do this weeks ago, but I'm still earlier with the lunch poll than last year. Progress!

During one of the VividCon lunch breaks - either Friday or Saturday, depending on the poll results - I'll be hosting a Buffy the Vampire Slayer room party with free lunch. There'll be a sandwich spread, snacks, soda, and probably cookies of some variety.

What we watch at the lunch could go one of three ways, depending on what you all would like to do:

1. We could watch the musical, which wouldn't leave any time for vids.
2. We could watch a regular-length episode of the show, which would leave time for, on average, two or three vids.
3. We could watch a playlist of vids (and no episode).

If you're interested in attending, please fill out the planning poll:

Poll #1427175
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I'm interested in attending the Buffy lunch:

I could attend:

I would be most interested in watching:

If we watch a regular episode, we should watch:

I'm going to have vid DVDs available at VividCon for $3 each, available for pick-up on Sunday after Calls from the Public.

If you'd like one, please preorder by filling out the poll below. I might have a couple extras on hand, but for the most part, I'll be burning to order. (If you want more than one set for whatever reason, please comment to say so.)

The DVD will have all of my vids to date, including all of my VividCon '09 premieres.

Poll #1426720
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Vid DVD:

Things I missed:

1. Torchwood
2. Torchwood
3. having an excuse to use my Torchwood icons on a regular basis
4. seeing Torchwood cut-tags on my flist
5. Torchwood

( Some general omg and then a bit of wtf. )

My dad shipped me a box of books that included all but the first volume of David Eddings' Belgariad/Malloreon series. After polling on it a few days ago, I decided to go ahead and get the first book and reread the series for the first time since high school.

The poll was split between people who thought I should revisit the books and people who thought I should do no such thing, and my curiosity was piqued; the books were my formative fantasy series experience as a teenager, and my memories of them were entirely fond, so maybe there was something about them I hadn't picked up on back then.

I just finished Pawn of Prophecy, the first book. So far it's pretty much as I remember - there hasn't been any major glass-shattering moment - it's just ... what I recall, but slightly more so.

( Belgariad, Book 1 )

One book down, nine eleven to go. Twelve if I count The Rivan Codex. Fantasy, why so prolific?

Vidding: what a stupid hobby. Why anyone would do that for fun, I don't know.

I'm maybe a week behind on email, comments, my flist and god knows what else. My head has only been reattached for a couple hours (don't take off my choker - hey, has that been done on SPN yet?) and I haven't really decompressed from omgviddingomg yet, so today I am going to handwave my inbox entirely and lie around in bed with the cats doing nothing. (For values of "nothing" = watching a movie and possibly starting The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is my only pre-VVC required viewing this year. As such, I also plan on watching at least one Kdrama and possibly a bit of something else. Time: it's on my hands.)

Tomorrow I may continue the trend of ignoring my inbox and go watch a movie or set foot in a comics shop or just squint up at that giant flaming orb in the sky for a while. Who knows. I have no more deadlines and the world is my oyster. Or at least, I have no more vidding deadlines and the world is my clam strip.

omg, I have no more vidding deadlines and the world is a CLAM STRIP. What am I going to do with myself?

( Poll: What now? )

My current favorite sanity break from vidding is CSPAN. I turn on CSPAN and refer to the House of Representatives Floor Summary so I can see what they're discussing and what I've missed, and then I zonk out for a while in front of wacky House hijinks.

Today was a particularly entertaining one on the House floor, as the Clean Energy bill was debated and narrowly passed. There was booing, heckling, some absolutely amazing bitchface, the occasional OH SNAP and an eternity of Minority Leader John Boehner faking a filibuster by going through the last-minute 300-page amendment page by page.

(Sample OH SNAP, courtesy Rep. Wexman: "Is there any outside limit to the time [Rep. Boehner] might take, and do we have historical records that might be broken tonight?") 

I love the House of Representatives, is what I'm saying. Even on a slow day there are hijinks to be found. And they're nationally televised! Any time of day (really, any time of day, sometimes it's almost midnight and it looks like there are maybe five people on the floor and the House is still in session) I can turn on CSPAN and watch the House do very little very slowly, which is more entertaining than you'd think.

For the next two weeks-ish I'll have to find something else to watch, though, as the House is now in recess until after the holiday.

greensilver: aw, MAN
greensilver: they're going to recess until AFTER JULY 4TH
sweetestdrain: ....
sweetestdrain: YOUR SHOW IS GOING ON HIATUS
greensilver: it IS

Closing out pre-recess activities on the floor was Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who moved that the House adjourn before it did "any more DAMAGE to AMERICA."

As sweetestdrain put it: "your fandom is kinda wacky." 

My VividCon premieres project is back up and running, after my primary vidding drive crashed and burned a few days ago. This was made possible by three things:

- My habit of pestering sweetestdrain and renenet with my vid drafts
- jarrow's awesomeness in lending me an external drive to vid on
- VirtualDub's job log

Let this be a lesson to those of you who use VirtualDub and Premiere: you don't need more than a couple MB to back up your project. This requires a little planning ahead, but it's relatively simple:

( Backing up and restoring a project with VirtualDub. )

This is a PSA from me to you: Even if you lack the storage space to back up an entire project full of clips, at least back up your project file and VirtualDub job logs. No one ever wants to think they might lose a project entirely, but it happens, and this is a simple thing to do that can prevent losing a project from being a complete disaster.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll just be over here, frantically vidding against the clock.

Datsyuk, we missed you like WHOA. ♥

Also: ♥ ♥ Ozzie. Shutout for the literal win. \o/

Slashy moment of the game, courtesy of the announcers: "Everybody has been wondering what's wrong with Holmstrom. I'll tell you what was wrong with Holmstrom. Not having Datsyuk."

The hockey game: we shall not speak of it. Instead, let there be cats. It's been a good while since I posted any cat pictures, so here are some recent favorites:

( kitten Rays & friends )

This Fleury photo is rather classic:

( In which there is goalie woe. )

Hockey is a fan-thing and fan-things have picspams, therefore, a (watermarked) hockey picspam from last night's Red Wings v. Penguins game:

( Hugging, fighting, giant octopi, and the occasional defiance of gravity. )

At a fan party Friday night, I came up with a list of my ten favorite vids. I didn't have any of my vid DVDs or internet access, so brainstorming for this list was done purely off the top of my head, in a relatively short period of time. The one rule (borrowed from sdwolfpup) was that I could only use a vidder once, which in some ways did make it easier; that it shook out to one vid per fandom was purely coincidental.

These are vids I never get tired of; vids that make me laugh, cry, ouch and yay; vids that examine my favorite characters, pairings or fandoms; vids that exemplify what I love about vids, period. Even working just from memory, narrowing it down to ten was hard, but here goes. (Not all of these vids are available online, so this isn't a recs list per se.)

( Discussion of ten - okay, fifteen - of my favorite vids. )