A Meerkat's Bolthole

Having now seen the amateur video of Monday's little aviation debacle over Downtown? Holy f**k. Holy.... And the first person to say anything related to "get over it, you're a bunch of whingers" as has been said in another forum, I will gleefully rip them a new one. Nevermind that the person who said that showed all the interpersonal skills and sensitivity of a block of concrete, that plane was Too. Damn. Close. Hell yes it's going to trigger memories, and unease is the least of the reactions those memories bring up. Never mind the fact that it was just plain dumb, dangerous, and did I say dumb? And so fkcuing avoidable with one simple announcement.

Anyway.

Woke up at 5am (after a dream in which I was able to do some good for charity by getting through a certain period of time without coughing-- swear to dog even my dreams are in on this germfest) not because of coughing (although there was that) but because my body wanted me to get up and get some essential chores done before the heat kicked in for the day. High of 91, supposedly. If anyone wants me today, I'll be in the shady spot on the sofa directly in the path of the a/c unit.

And, as some of you might have guessed by the topic header, this is your weekly dose of Castle Squee:

( behind the cut for the DVR crowd's sake )


Auctorial Flu update: Still meh. Still staying home. Starting to go a smidge stir-crazy.

After the "furries" episode was handled with respectful amounts of snickering, I wasn't too worried about what they'd do to Trek conventions. But man... I <3 the writers. They're using the lab rats to put a human face on fans, not using the standard stereotypes, and everyone's falling in with the "fannish enthusiasm" rather than more typical "fannish oddity" theme.

And their renditions of Classic 'Trek' stand-in? *howls with laughter.* Oh, yes.

Hopefully the second half will be as good as the first.

Brain never really engaged on Tuesday, so after taking Pandora to the vet, I gave up and dealt with a lot of small pending things. Y'know, filing, cleaning, laundry, answering e-mails, culling the pile of magazines TBR, figuring out what wines I'll be taking with me for the Seder Thursday night....

Also had some back-and-forth with Madame Editrix about the cover for Hard Magic. At this point, urban fantasy has a look that seems as carved-in-stone as Scottish romances, but there really is such a thing as too much over-identification, and I asked, rather plaintively, if we couldn't get away from the overt trappings, just a bit?

Some ideas were bandied about, and a compromise that I rather like was floated, but it will all depend on Voices Other Than Mine having their say. In a perfect world, the cover for Hard Magic would be a shot of Bonnie working a la the opening credits of CSI, only with a swirl of magic replacing whatever technical apparatus they were using, and No. Leather. Anywhere.

Also; no tats, midriffs, or high heeled anything. In the books, she is far more likely to be wearing cargo pants, engineer's boots, and a long-sleeved baby tee.

We'll see, the author said dubiously and yet with a spark of hope somewhere deep in her withered soul...

Thankfully brain staged a comeback Tuesday night, and another 2 chapters were red-marked and retrofitted. There are portions of this book I really like, and portions that are scaring me for what they're trying to do. That's a good combination, I think. But there's something rising out of the mess, slowly.

Like all books, this one's teaching me something new I didn't know about process: I'm still finding things my lizard brain left there for the mammal brain to pick up and work into the revised narrative, but the actual timing and results of that are...changing. I'm still not quite sure how. Updates as I figure it out.

And thinking about story-building let me to some more thinking about Monday night's episode of Castle -- ( some spoilers here )

And now, coffee, writing, and, um, more writing. And some red-lining and possibly some headdesking, kicking of walls, and whimpering.

I am currently sitting in a cafe about a mile from my apartment, listening to the Rolling Stones on the cafe's system, using free wifi, drinking good coffee, and writing while I recover from lunch. New Yorkers, let me share with you one of the best kept non-secrets of Freelancers Who Lunch: Cafe Boulud has a $24 pre fixe lunch, Tuesday-Saturday that is to die for. I had a green salad, rare hanger steak, and an OMG decadent morsel of bittersweet brownie with ginger and vanilla bean ice cream. All small plates, but perfectly sized for lunch. And they offer a special $24 bottle of wine, one white and one red. And they've extended it from Restaurant Week to all year. Make reservations and treat yourself --it's not fantabulous but it's pretty damn amazing for the price.


Quick roundup:

"Castle" last night had nothing new by the way of plot -- prep kids killing one of their own" -- but it was well-done for all its familiarity, and the use of the investigation to highlight Castle's relationship with his own teenaged daughter was nice (although I think she's capable of a greater sin than the one she confessed to, myself). So, 3-3 in the "not original but enjoyable" category, and no clunkers. And the pairing between leads continues to be strong -- they're not going for the UST here, contrary to expectations, but allowing them to actually develop a seemingly platonic affection. Castle is a hopeless flirt but she doesn't take it personally at all -- exactly as tough-minded as a female cop would have to be, regarding that sort of thing -- and he's actually learning from the cops, not showing them up, which had been a concern of mine.

Meanwhile in what's laughingly called real life, NY Senator Charles Schumer has flipped his position and now supports marriage for all couples, not just male/female pairings.. He's been a work in progress, so I'm going to say he's evolving, rather than adapting to political expediency, and hope I'm not being too idealistic on that. However it happened, we now have two Senators and a Governor who are in favor of non-discriminatory marriage regulations. Let's get a move on, Legislature!

And a federal judge has ruled that the FDA improperly bowed to political pressure from the Bush administration in 2006 when it set 18 as the age limit for Plan B contraceptives.

Less happy news: transit fares are going up in NYC. Less than they'd tried for, but still enough that commuters are going to take a bad hit to their budgets -- and get less service for their money. It's a tough call: on the one hand -- can't afford it! on the other... transit costs a lot of money to run, and they're not getting it from the State these days. Either way, it's gonna hurt. As one woman said on the news last night, "I'm going to be walking more."

And now, back to work.

Well, I was going to post my comments about last night's premiere of "Kings" here, but then I saw that kateelliot had already gotten that started, so I'll just send you over there..

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the workmen to show up (and also delivery of a) the floor tiles and b) the kitchen sink). The cats already know Something's Up and are being clingy/bitchy. It's going to be a long week...


So, should I do photoblogging of the renovation? Y/N?


EtA: also, LJ FTW in one respect, anyway:

Page Not Found

"I'm sorry, you've reached a page that I cannot find. I'm really sorry about this. It's kind of embarrassing. Here you are, the user, trying to get to a page on LiveJournal and I can't even serve it to you. What does that say about me? I'm just a webserver. My sole purpose in life is to serve you webpages and I can't even do that! I suck. Please don't be mad, I'll try harder. I promise! Who am I kidding? You're probably all like, "Man, LiveJournal's webserver sucks. It can't even get me where I want to go." I'm really sorry. Maybe it's my CPU...no that's ok...how bout my hard drives? Maybe. Where's my admin? I can't run self-diagnostics on myself. It's so boring in this datacenter. It's the same thing everyday. Oh man, I'm so lonely. I'm really sorry about rambling about myself, I'm selfish. I think I'm going to go cut my ethernet cables. I hope you get to the page you're looking for...goodbye cruel world!"

Okay, okay, good episode, poignant closure..gimme my happy ending, gimmie my happy ending, gimmie my happy ending, damn it... YES! *fistpunch in the air* happy ending!

Yeah, I'm a damn romantic. Your point?

Goodbye, Gris. Goodbye, Sara. Have fun, off there in fanfiction spinoff land...

How cold is it outside? 17 degrees at 7:30am. A man standing in Smoker's Purgatory last night was overheard yelling into the skies "At least, damn it, send snow!" It's cold, yeah. With a bitter, bitter wind. I'm staying home today.

in vague order of importance..

1. Three more stories are up at Anthology Builder:
- "Site 14." An alternative look at our future past, if we'd gone 'down' into space, rather than 'up.'
- "Harvey & Fifth." written before 9/11, a story about the ghosts of tragedy, and how we live with them. The title comes from a street corner in Oklahoma City.
- "Blow Job Red." -- Yes, I wrote a hookers-in-space story. But the further out you travel, the more familiar things get....

2. Spent Sunday afternoon visiting a museum I didn't even know existed: the Neue Galerie for German and Austrian Arts. It's small but lovely (and OMG the cafe!) but of especial note is the temporary exhibit of the drawings of Alfred Kubin. The brochures ends with the line "He transforms neurotic terror into aesthetic achievement," and while brochures are mostly marketing hyperbole, in this case it's a fair assessment. If you're in NYC, it's worth an hour out of your day to check it out.

3. And then from high culture to cultured cheese.... "The Librarian 3" was good fun, if not quite cracktastic. But oh my... "Leverage?" May be my new addiction. Cracktastic caper cheese that's oh so very pretty without being plastic (yeah, the plot holes are swiss, but the taste is finestkind stilton).

4. and while we're talking cheese: For Harlequin's 60th anniversary, they've put together a calendar of "vintage covers" with titles like "Love me and Die!" and "I'll Bury my Dead." Pulp noir romance. Gotta love it! (seriously, these covers would have worked for any Mickey Spillane novel, too). And then there's the classic "Island Hospital" (nurse romances, oldie but goody) and "Nine to Five: the private affairs of not-too-private secretaries." It's nice to know, no matter how highbrow any genre tries to get, we all go back to very very pulpy roots...

5. Books Read: A HARD TICKET HOME by David Housewright. wealthy ex-cop do-gooder caught up in missing child case that turns out to have some ugly complications. A decent read (author is an Edgar-winner and has a slew of good reviews) but I kept thinking I was reading a John Sanford wannabe, and when I want John Sandford I read John Sandford. Still, I might get his earlier book, Penance, out of the library. About halfway through KOP, which is also good-but-familiar. But will reserve judgment until the denouement.


Recap of weekend posts:

Thannks to everyone who helped out, Vera's home is safe -- but we're still raising funds to give her a small cushion, and take care of a septic tank problem. If you've participated, thank you. If you haven't, there's still time to get on Santa's 'good' list...

And hey, don't forget my Holiday Book Giveaway. Remember to leave your mailing address!


I managed to keep from working on anything all weekend. I feel kinda ill, now. Need to go pound at the keyboard for a few hours...

Hrm. No *poof* yet. Unless it kicked us all into an alternate dimension/universe? *checks newspaper* Nope, alas, looks like the same old one (and if the alternate universe is exactly like the old one only with a few pinprick differences I'm just not going to give it the satisfaction of noticing, okay?)

Reminder: if you missed it in your end-of-the-world jitters I posted an excerpt from BLOOD FROM STONE yesterday.. And I have a new darling from that book:

"The fact that Chang had even thought to think about that impressed Wren – she supposed it came with the job, to think like a criminal. Danny did the same thing. Funny, really. She was a criminal, and she didn’t think like one."



So, last night, having actually remembered the new season's starting, I watched "Fringe."
And?
And...I dunno.

( the pros, the cons, the decision )


Woke at 5 this morning, surprisingly un-tired. I guess I've recovered from my post-Trip meltdown. Managed to get the household stuff sorted before the sun was up. That's just Wrong, y'know? Today is all about short fiction. "Cold Iron Cross" is going down, man! Meanwhile I have started eying potatoes and lamb and bottles of red wine, and there's that red garlic in the pantry too... I think there's stew in the near future. Wow, all this energy. Must be autumn. Yay!

"Camelot" on "Live From Lincoln Center." (thanks to dancinghorse for the brain-kick on the proper name)

That music just.... every time I hear the overture I go to a seriously happy place.*

And Gabriel Byrne as Arthur? Uh-HUH. (the singing voice may not be magnificent but I can live with that for every other aspect so far... he makes a totally adorable Arthur.)

King Arthur (Gabriel Byrne), Guenevere (Marin Mazzie) and Sir Lancelot (Nathan Gunn, in leather pants, as he ought be). Also: Pellinore (Christopher Lloyd), and Morgan le Fey (Fran Drescher)

EtA: and the New York Times has their comments here


Also: there is nothing that lime-sage butter cannot make fabulous. Fresh river trout, and steamed haricort vert with that lime-sage butter? *dies happy*



*and I discover that even now I remember almost every word of the entire score.

There was going to be mock-blogging of SciFi's "Rock Monster" tonight, but my god, this thing's not only bad, it's so boring there's nothing to blog. It's like the Scooby gang (animated version) on luuuudes.

We'll be over at the Comedy Channel, watching Ron White (again) instead.