A friend showed this cover to me this evening and -- look, I love covers. A lot. It's not a secret. But this is literally the most unexpectedly awesome cover I have ever heard in my entire life. It manages to make an oft quoted song that is widely known as, well, ridiculous albeit awesomely catchy, into basically a theme for corrupted childhood. It is literally amazing. If I was a vidder, I would be vidding Iron Man to this faster than you could say Tony Stark's Childhood Was Sort Of Messed Up (which, I mean, isn't the shortest statement in the world but still. Point stands.)

So seriously, you will initially laugh. And then you will stop laughing. Kay Pettigrew - Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire

Alrighty, so what are your favorite covers?

Yesterday evening we had our fake Thanksgiving to send my cousin off. He's being deployed on Thursday. It was loud, raucous - family. Inappropriate jokes in front of parents and grandmothers, making fun of the last person to get their driver's license, embarrassing family stories in front of my cousin's new wife's parents. It was...nice: neither the obligation of Thanksgiving or the sadness of losing someone. There's something cathartic in a low-key goodbye and I think everyone felt it. Seeing Matt off isn't about being sad, it's about seeing him do his job. It helps that he's prepared, supported, that he is well aware of his duty and that he has always wanted this. And that he knows we will skypeing and sending him letters and stupid crap in the mail. That probably helps too.

Still, there was few brief seconds of looking down into glasses and fiddling my feet under the table when he took the time to acknowledge all of it, how it important to him that we could all be together and the table and the recognition that it was possible that it could be the last time. It was brief, to the point, and I loved him for it. So fucking mature in a way that I don't know if I could be.

So I haven't been trawling the blogs like I usually do and was only informed last night by a friend on set that NBC gave "Southland" the early axe - despite the fact that it's already filmed six of the thirteen season episode order and their ratings are tanking all over the place with their new shows. UGH.

Hollywood Reporter - "'Southland' canceled"

I am so disappointed. There was a period of time where really excellent drama excelled on network broadcasting, but it seems more and more that we're moving to the point where anything with a hint of real life in it is being forced to be taken up by cable shows or simply not being produced whatsoever. Perhaps the most telling piece of the whole article is,

While "Southland" enjoyed support among NBC brass last season, after screening the finished episodes from the upcoming second season, the show's content was deemed too dark and gritty for broadcast TV, especially for 9 p.m. Additionally, a high-end drama like "Southland" is certainly far more expensive than newsmagazine "Dateline" for low-trafficked Friday night.

More and more television becomes less about entertainment and more about the bottom line. In a time when ratings for every single network are down, there seriously needs to be a reevaluation of the system. Jay Leno five times a week is not good programming: it is cheap and cost effective in a world where no one is watching advertisements any more. And you know what? NBC used to be a powerhouse when it came to cutting edge programming.

John Wells, Executive Producer of "Southland" and involved with some of NBC's best known dramas, "ER" and "West Wing" probably says it best: "I'm disappointed that NBC no longer has the time periods available to support the kind of critically-acclaimed series that was for so many years, a hallmark of their success."

There is now nothing I watch on the peacock anymore (with the exception of Chuck come Spring, although maybe those episodes will be too dark for NBC also - whatever the case I don't hold out hope for Chuck surviving past May). If network television continues to choose to shoot itself in the foot and offer up cheap programming instead of shows that made the network an icon - the hit show "Hill Street Blues" was awfully similar to "Southland."

As someone who would really love to work in television at some point, seeing things like this happen over and over again is probably one of the most depressing things ever. Not only are writers being treated like second-rate citizens in the industry, not only are women outnumbered at least nine to one, but now more and more the only places that will be left to write are for talk shows and reality television.

FACT!: I can make anything a depressing schlockfest.

Brick
Rating: R for language
Summary: He looked like shit. Smelled like shit. Felt worse than shit could ever possibly feel.
X-posted to pacificplayland.

( Somewhere )

Zombieland was the best -90 minutes of my life. beatfu and I have been writing fanfic at one another literally since we got back to our computers.

In other news: Working with my creative nonfiction professor to edit a piece I've written in an attempt to get it publication worthy which pretty exciting. It's weird though - I am so comfortable with the idea of strangers reading these things, but it's showing it to the relevant suspects that's really awkward to me. Don't mind opening doors for friends and strangers, but family isn't allowed to see that.

Boredom leads to scribbling up art deco Hornblower!card designs on my sketchbook. I'm sort of infinitely pleased with how it came out, and it definitely won't be mistaken for anyone else's in the class so that's something.

( I would kill for a deck like this: )

Words cannot express how annoying this is: I'm enrolled in a drawing class this semester to fulfill an art requirement for my major (which my department acknowledges is fairly ridiculous for those of us that aren't animation majors, but que sera sera). I managed to get into this art class via the skin on my teeth as they fill up very very quickly. On the first day of class we buy all our supplies from the campus art store which is, you know, totally reasonable. We are then promptly informed that the classroom we were originally scheduled to meet it is not the actual classroom; it is, in fact, across campus.

So we trek over there, the door is opened and revealed is... a mass of construction, air ducts and loose electrical wire and unfinished floors and walls. "Hurm," is the general consensus. "Don't worry, this'll be finished by Monday. I just wanted to show you guys the building." Alright. Sure. Okay.

Suffice to say construction isn't done and the class is now cancelled until further notice, which basically mostly likely means: the class won't run at all. So basically I've spent sixty dollars on art supplies and eighty on a textbook I will probably never got to use.

NNNGHK.

The laptop has now died for the third time in under a year. I'm not entirely sure why this happens to me - I arguably download the least amount of STUFF out of anyone I know and I run two different kinds of internet safety hardware.

So I've lost all the things I was working on, including paintings and story notes the photos from the trip that I'd intended to have printed and framed.

BLARDHGLKHG.

It's okay. I AM ZEN.

Oh hey, two posts within what - twenty-four hours? I've finally managed to get home after missing my initial flight and am now hunkered down quite comfortable in the Pack Of Dogs. I'm slowly reformatting/resizing the photos I took over the past two weeks; holy crud I have literally a million pictures of sail boats. Visiting San Francisco was so brilliant (although I'm not sure I could live anywhere where I've got to wear a sweater in July) and it was awesome to meet napkins and bisouspapillon. Maybe eventually I'll get up to fanime and be able to see you girls again! Fisherman's wharf was amazing, the view from our hotel room was phenomenal.

( San Francisco Pictures +24 )

Lastly!

The "You Should Write..." Meme!
MY THREAD

Yeah, feel free to be like 'that one prompt I gave you two years ago.'

General vacation/Comic Con thoughts to follow once I've gotten home and had time to get up some of the photos, organize thoughts etc. Mostly: Oh god, Iron Man. But also: Kristin and I went to two maritime museums in two weeks and it was pretty much icing on the whole fabulous cake. Also, it came to my attention that the next Hornblower she had to read was Beat to Quarters, which she had with her. So for eight hundred miles we traded off reading Hornblower aloud while the other drove. Two hundred more pages and we would have been through Ship of the Line. Best drive ever? Quite possibly.

( Which brings me to the inevitable Hornblower fic notes )

--

As an aside: have a few pages of outline for The Circus Movie That's Really More A Dramatic Family Tragedy. We'll see how that one goes.

In supernatural panel yay!

So we're officially in San Diego - trying to figure out the hellish public transit system so we can -get- to the shuttle lines, mind, but we're definitely in the city and that's something.

So, what are everyone's plans for the week? I know a bunch of my FListers are attending; are there any thoughts about meetups or any of that jazz?

Spent the whole day down at the Maritime Park near Fisherman's Wharf. Have eight bajillion pictures. Hands cold, but incredibly pleased.

Off to Denver and then deadhead to San Francisco. Does anyone have any suggestions in the way of Things To Do? Right now the schedule is pretty flexible although I imagine we'll be running off to do all manner of tourist-y sight seeing, but any experience input would be fabulous.

It's been a while since I've recced fic, but if you have any inkling toward Iron Man then you need to RUN, not walk to samdonne's Nebraska.

"Tony tried to spot the connections, the collisions that gave birth to new threads. Before long he saw the failures, the breaches in his thinking, the misfirings, the thoughts that flailed, uncontacted, unsparked, undetected and undelivered by outside intervention. He stared down into the gaps and tried to imagine filling them with another intelligence. (He did not remember doing this very same thing as a young child, assembling imaginary companions—the building blocks of deities—, who would fill the holes and close the loops that his carers could not or would not fill or close; assembling, in the end, like so many before him, vastly improved mothers and fathers.)"

This is the first time I've participated in spn_j2_bigbang and I had a real blast with it. I worked with bad_peppermint on her story The Hapless Soldier's Sigh (I'll link over there once she's put it up) and it was just a real delight to illustrate off of - so many great ideas!

( Art for The Hapless Soldier's Sigh )

Good books, good comics, movies, songs. A particularly moving cup of coffee. It makes me want to create something impossible.

The role of Iranian women in protests. (Source: USAToday)

Tell the world how they have stolen their election.
Keep updated, stay educated.
[banner by candlejack]

Have been spending literally all my time camped out at ontd_political's live feed and discussions posts for this. Seriously, gogogogogo.

Reposted from one_hoopy_frood. This is not LJ-cut to save space because it is not something that deserves to be shoved aside and overlooked in favor of slash fic and catmacros. Seriously you guys, if you don't have linguist skills (in general or right this moment), at LEAST repost this to your own journal. Literally the worst thing you can do next to being ignorant is to BE SILENT.












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