Dragon Con 2011

Dragon Con was overall pretty good.

I missed pretty much every panel I meant to go to. I didn't bother to dress up- I sortof half had a costume going, but in the end I didn't finish it. I went to drum circle three of the four nights I was there. At one point, while I was hanging out with Jason and Lisa, William Shatner walked right past us and I was only about 20 feet away from him while he scurried from the freight elevator to his hotel room.

There were some things I meant to do there that never got done. Not the panel stuff, but people stuff. I'm guessing it's a moot point by now.

Things for another year: stay at a hotel that's actually at the con itself. We stayed at the Holiday Inn and I thought we had a pretty good rate for it, but my god the walk. Especially at two am. I called Dad one night while I was walking it and got my ear chewed off even though I was walking right past the police station right then. It wasn't that I didn't feel safe or anything- the area I was in was brightly lit and well trafficked. It's just it was a hell of a walk. Fifteen minutes to the con, fifteen back to the Holiday Inn, ect. It got old.

Gareth David-Lloyd was his usual awesome self. Jenn and I went to a commentary he did on Countrycide- which isn't one of my favorite episodes- but he was really funny while he was commenting. And he played to the crowd, which was anti-Gwen. (Some days I want to feel bad for the character, since everyone (everyone I know, at least) hates her. She started out so great and brave and not all helpless and I really liked her then and then she cheated on Rhys with Owen and then brainwashed Rhys and it's even worse if you read the Torchwood novels and arggg. And then most days I remember exactly why I hate her too) After the commentary thing we had like, twenty minutes to get to another hotel and up some stairs and into line if we wanted to meet Gareth and as soon as Jenn and I went outside it was pouring. We did get over to the autograph place in time and rather than get an autograph I just told him that I remembered how nice he was the con before and how great he was in Torchwood and tried not to talk really, really fast or shout at him.

He laughed and said he's a jerk now and to go away. And then he let Jenn and I get our picture with him.



We all look goofy as shit, but whatever.

In other news, I'm almost done messing about with my Halloween party invites. Finding a calligraphy font that is readable under 18pts is a nightmare. They're either so freaking bland and everyone uses them, or you need to be the person who wrote whatever it is because you can't read it without already knowing the words. Siiiiiiigh.

ALSO I HAVE ORDERED SO MANY BOOKS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES PASTICHES I COULD BUILD LIKE A LITTLE COUCH CUSHION HOUSE OUT OF THEM. AND THEN GO LIVE IN IT UNTIL THE NEW BBC SHERLOCK OR THE NEW RDJ MOVIE. EITHER OR.

Sigh

I miss Torchwood.

I have no idea what the point of COE was besides ruining the show. Yeah, sure, it was pretty, and dramatic, and whatever- but seriously, admit it, it pretty much canceled the show. And I really, really wish I could understand the logic behind that. It was making tons of money, I loved it, I know a bunch of people who loved it; wtf.

And since COE I haven't wanted to watch the show, or read the books, or pick up the magazine. When I saw John Barrowman on Desperate Housewives it felt like a punch to the gut.

Sherlock Holmes versus T-Rex versus Kracken!!!

When you're this guy...



And you're fighting this guy...



And this guy...




You might need this guy...



Nope. Not kidding.



Oh right. I forgot Rodan is in it too. I'm pretty sure this movie is going to be awesome.

DragonCon and Triops

OK, so I finally went to Dragon Con. It was fun. Mostly.

Got up hella early, took Marta down, waited in line FIVE MILLION HOURS for a badge, and then the fun began. I went to the Torchwood Panel, which had Gareth David Lloyd and James Marsters at it, which was hilarious and great. They told a lot of cute stories and we all laughed al ot and I took a ton of pics of them. And then the panel was over and the guys went to the celeb signing thing so I went there too.

So the first one I get an autograph from was Gareth and he's so nice and genuine and awesome (OMG TRYING NOT TO GET ALL FANGIRLY HERE BUT OMG SERIOUSLY HE CALLED ME SWEETHEART LIKE TEN TIMES!! EEEEEEEEEEE! IN HIS ACCENT!) and he talked to me for several minutes. Like a nice, normal person. Which was great. It kept me from getting all fangirly and screaming incomprehensible things at him. (WELSH ACCENT IN REAL LIFE = 10,000% MORE AWESOME THAN ON TV 4SRS)

Getting James Marsters autograph was significantly less awesome.

Anyway. I donno. I had a good time at the convention. There was lots of neat stuff to look at, and people in costumes, and I ran into seemingly every person I know. I think it would be more fun if I was there longer and had a hotel room, but it was a blast, all things considered.



This is like... Day 10? 11? Those are the two survivors at this point. Sort of a small hatch out of this batch of eggs. The larger one is Tank, and the smaller is Motoko. There was a third, but he was really small and I haven't seen him in a day or so. Tank probably ate him.

It's Been Weird

Sorry for the long break, things have been a bit crazy.

Started my second summer class which is a snore-fest. It's a history class where we spend most of the time discussing where commas go and "coordinate adjectives".

Began working on a Harry Potter scarf. You know, just in time for hellish summer temperatures and the movie. ^_^

Built an epic lego castle- which isn't epic in a huge, or turrets sort of way, but wins in sheer fury and creative use of clear red 1x1s as blood. (KSU did something wrong with my financial aid that day)



There's this study abroad next summer to London out of Valdosta State and I'm seriously planning on going. It's six weeks and there's a class on Shakespeare and another on London as a Setting in Novels (seriously, that's the class name)- think I'll get an extension on the ticket and stay an extra week or two so I can go to Cardiff and do all the stuff I couldn't do in the two days when I was there last fall. I just spent the last two hours reading stuff for class and babbling in IRC to my friend in London (who's asleep) about all the stuff I want to see/do.

(narg. it's still bugging me. i mean, i write stuff, and i never think to myself, "gosh, i'll put the coordinate adjective here." who names these things?)

London. London. London. It's going to be awesome. Did you know I only took about three pics while I was there? Remember when I dislocated my knee in Florence? That was about two or three weeks before London so I was hobbling around by myself on these crutches and it was like a bad comedy putting a crutch aside without dropping it to get in my bag and get the camera out and take a shot. I think there's one of a "do not put your bike here" type sign in the brownstone-y type part of town I was in, the Gloucester Street Station of the Tube, and me at Platform 9 3/4. The hostel I stayed in, the first night I got there, it was about 4AM when I wandered in and when I got up to my room there were like, six bunk beds and the only bed open was on the top of one, and everyone else is asleep and I couldn't even switch the light on while I hauled myself up the ladder with the bum knee. In hindsight it's insanely funny.

Somehow international travel is much funnier than local travel. I can't think of anything particularly funny about this last trip to Florida, back in May. But I think of Italy and there's the night where we were so punch drunk happy to be heading home from Pisa that we danced in the train. Or the demonic killer cherubs painted on the wall of the hotel room in Pompeii. Or my bum knee and climbing up a bunk bed at 4AM. Or this really nice older lady I met on the Tube while I was heading to Kings Cross and she asked me what else I was going to be seeing in England and I said I wanted to go to Wales and see Cardiff and she got so angry with me she started yelling in the train and I thought she was going to punch me. (Wales is like the boonies to people in London) And she wanted to know if London wasn't good enough for me? Couldn't I just go see Oxford instead- Or was I too good for Oxford?!

Heh. Travel. It's awesome.

All things not being entirely equal

I'm taking a MayMester class on Gender and Women's Studies. Right now we're still back in the Women's Suffrage movement era learning about the struggle to get the vote, but today we watched a film called "Killing Me Softy 3" which shows a lot of magazine adverts on how women are sexualized to sell things. To go along with the film we had to bring in a magazine so we could analyze adverts ourselves.

With a choice between Torchwood Magazine and Knit.1, I went with Knit.1. (the Torchwood Mag only has ads for Lost Mag, and Supernatural Mag anyway...)

And after the film I had a chance to flip through Knit.1 with an idea of what we were looking for... And was actually really impressed. Especially since Vogue runs it, and after a movie worth of scrawny models half dressed, Knit.1 was really refreshing.

There's young ladies, old ladies, blonds, brunettes, a college girl in pj pants, some guy from SNL, a guy designer in a clothing warehouse/design shop, a guy in a tie, guys in hats; you get the picture. There's everyone.

And that world famous model pose, with the girl in a chair sprawled with her legs spread? That's actually a guy in this magazine. And it's more sensual than sexualized.

So, anyway, long story of analyzing magazines short, there's obviously guys in the knitting magazine. Modeling stuff. But they're also in there as designers or talking about themselves knitting. The guy from SNL knits. Two of the knitting blogs I like to here go to guy's blogs. Then there's this article. I know two guy knitters on IRC, and one of them is teaching me to spin.

So, we're in class learning about equality and objectification and rights and my female classmate leans over my shoulder to look at my knitting magazine and scoffs. And I'm like 'what' and she's like 'they're knitting'. In the sort of tone where you'd say 'they're eating. WITH THEIR FINGERS!'. And I'm like 'so?' and she says guys shouldn't knit, or guys don't knit, or something equally insane. Clearly they do. And she says she knows, because she saw a guy on campus knitting the other day and she laughed at him.

Part of me is like THERE'S A GUY KNITTER ON CAMPUS?! and the other part is like aren't we in equality class? Aren't we all equal? I forgot how men knitting is a sign of the apocalypse and madness... I know sexism goes both ways, but part of me really really wants to stand up for the rights of guy knitters. Not that John Brinegar really needs me to fight his fights for him, he's kinda big and grrr looking.

My Knitting Birthday

Sometime in April last year was when I started knitting. I can sort of pinpoint the date because the November before I met this super awesome girl and her boyfriend at a Nanowrimo event. Or it might have been the year before's Nano, but we didn't really get to be friends until the 2007 Nano. Her name was Amanda, her boyfriend was Owen. We all sat around at WriteIns talking about our books or his plays, and eventually I was like you guys have to come over and watch Torchwood or Doctor Who or Garth Marenghi's Dark Place- whatever it was, they did and we all started hanging out here and while we'd watch TV Amanda would knit, and I'd ask what she was working on, and she'd offer to teach me, and I'd say, nah, I'm good.

And then they got engaged and he got a job in Chicago and in March she was gone. And as soon as she was gone, I was like, actually, I do want to knit.



That's Amanda and Me at my birthday party, which is why I'm so tarted up.

So, April comes and I... don't actually remember how I learned to knit. I think I looked at some sites on the internet, or checked a book out of the library, and wasn't entirely sure what I was getting myself into, so I didn't want to buy a bunch of stuff and find out I didn't like knitting, so I posted a want ad on FreeCycle for knitting... anything. And someone behind the Marietta Square was like, I have a bag of yarn you could take, and someone near Roswell behind Sandy Plains was like, I have some needles.

I go to the Square, pull up at their house, and I'm looking for the bag, only all I see is this hugenormous yard bag- like for fall leaves, and I'm like, no way is that my bag. Only I peek in the top and it is. It's so much bag-of-yarn that I have to lay it down in the backseat because it won't fit in the trunk. And over in Roswell there's a freezer bag of needles- mismatched dual points, cables, circulars, straight. Enough needles that for a while I had about five matching sets in each size.

So, I start learning to knit from a book or whatever, and it just all constantly goes wrong. Casting on is a nightmare and everything I try knitting just gets wider instead of going straight up like it should...

Which is where I get to my first teacher, my best friend Kevin's Mom, who's from Germany and knits really fast, so at first you're always like "wait, how did you do that?". She showed me how to do a long tail single hand cast on, which is so easy- and what I was doing wrong- the book wasn't clear about what happens at the end of the row, so I kept adding a stitch. So, she sets me straight on what I'm doing and I'm so excited about being able to knit without the thing getting wider that I just start knitting a four or five stitch wide scarf and it's about ten feet long before I realize I don't know how you finish it.



Anyway, around this time Mom has to go to some doctor appointment down at Perimeter so I go with her because there's a knitting store there, and it's really the first place I've ever been to for yarn besides seeing it at JoAnn's or where-ever. We go to Strings and Strands which has so much yarn stacked up you sort of feel as soon as you open the door it's all falling in on you. I find a couple of nice skeins there, and ask what I do to get the scarf off the needles, and she's like it's called a bind off, and this is how you do it. And then I'm able to get the long thin scarf done and move on to something else.

I do a scarf with two colors all at once, a pair of armwarmers in July which I was so proud of I actually wore them right then, and Kevin's Mom shows me how dual point needles work, and I start a pair of gloves.



And you know what pattern I used for those? I didn't. I totally made that up in my head, based off what I learned from Kevin's Mom. I mean, yeah, they're totally shapeless and not formfitting, but I made that up. I didn't know anything about increases and decreases then or cables or anything.

So, I go to Italy which is where really nice wool comes from but no one knits there and I was living in what might have been the only city in all of Italy to have a place that sold yarn and needles. You hiked out of the town, down a hill, turned down a neighborhood street, and next to a Laundromat there was a store that was sometimes open and it sold buttons and pantyhose and beads and they had about twenty skeins of wool there and a few boxes of needles.



I finished those handwarmers the same day I dislocated my knee in Florence. So at least my hands were warm while I huddled miserably in the Florence McDonalds while everyone else went and saw the museums and I had to wait for the bus home so I could lay in our flat's front room and watch Doctor Who on my laptop all weekend.

The only other place to get yarn there was the weekly market- I still have some of it, and boy is it loud. And strange.

I got home and hadn't really gained any new knitting knowledge since I'd learned to use dual points. But while I was in Italy I'd fallen in love with Anticraft's Swamp Witch pattern, and I'd never done a pattern before. I decided not to buy the yarn for it until I had a job, and so it wasn't until late November, mid December that I finally got all the things I needed. Started the project, was super proud of it, took it up to my Uncle's, got done with it and started putting the tassels on. Which is where it all went terribly awry.

I'd screwed up counting the pattern somewhere and one side was about six inches wider and I didn't have enough tassels for it. And Mom was convinced that even though I couldn't finish it and it was lopsided and lacking tassels it was the greatest. thing. ever. Which only made it worse, because... well. I mean, it's broken. I didn't have more tassels. I had to hide it in the garage to get her to stop talking about it.

And it wasn't for... Oh, four or five months before I took it out, used something else for the tassels, and wore it. And everyone was like OMG THIS IS GREAT WHERE DID YOU BUY IT. Which is sort of a riot. One of the guys in my History class was talking to me about it and I admitted the screw up and he was like *rolls eyes* oh, well, I noticed that, I just didn't want to embarrass you in front of everyone by pointing it out. And then everyone at our table laughed.



That's sort of an extreme close up of when I started it.

And somewhere around that time I learned to cable, too, which is so much easier than it looks.



The funny thing is how many guys are interested in knitting. I mean, yeah, knitting. I've met guy knitters, but this time I mean like, oh hey what are you doing? that's neat looking, kind of stuff. I was working on this pink and brown shawl in class during a movie and the guys at my table kept reaching over to sort of pet the fabric. At the end of class they were all asking if I was going to put tassels on it, and maybe they should be bright red, and shaped like this...



That's the shawl. No, it doesn't have red tassels. But then again JoAnn's ran out of the yarn and can't get more at the moment so I'm kind of screwed until I get more.

And here's a hat I made.



And in that year of knitting I've had a bunch of teachers. Kevin's Mom. Jean. The nice lady at Strings and Strands. People at The Whole Nine Yards. And I actually taught people how to knit, too, which is the most astounding to me. Kayla, while we were in Italy, Mom when I got back. I've even gotten to the point where I'm planning knitted Christmas presents this year, and some for birthdays, too.

One of the other things that gets me as a history student is the strange and mysterious history of knitting. Egyptians knitted, only it was more like advanced knot tying. No one is entirely certain where knitting came from, other than probably the Mediterranean, since it's found in every place that had a port that shipped to, from, or through there. It's even in the Bible- the part about the soldiers dicing for Jesus' seamless garment. I always kind of thought that was a metaphor- that Mary was so badass she could sew something without seams, but it's actually dual point knitting.



Basically I am super happy to be a knitter.

Almost Perfect

Almost Perfect was incredible. Had a very disjointed and awesome writing style, great story, great moments for all the characters (poor, poor Ianto) (Jack tries to save the world his favorite way) (Gwen and Rhys in the line of duty).

In Dreams

The last dream I had this morning before the alarm blared was really, fantastically neat.

I was at a bookstore, probably a Borders, considering the shelf height. I went to the Scifi section and there were all these great books, something about a elfin detective (it had great cover art, and it was a series and they all looked good), and a fantasy Kingdom inside a kid's closet...

And a whole shelf of Doctor Who novels I hadn't seen before. There was a Doctor I hadn't seen before, and some anthology type books, different Companions with different Doctors, stuff like that.

And right there with them, Del Rey edition like the Conan books, was a collection of short stories where Barbara Gordon, as Batgirl, was the Doctor's Companion.

It made me laugh a little when I woke up.

Oh yeah, I finished "Twilight Streets". It was a great read. I keep being impressed how good all the Torchwood tie-in novels are. I've still got my Forever Knight tie-in novels, and I don't know that I'd pick them up again, but I'm not getting rid of them either. I know I've tried reading a Highlander tie-in or two, and couldn't get anywhere. So far all the Torchwood books, especially "Border Princes" and "Slow Decay" have been really great- they're great enough that I'd rec them to people who haven't seen the show. And as much as they're a punch in the wallet, price-wise, I really do like them being hardcover, they feel excellent in your hands while you're reading them.

Oh god Torchwood

I hope when I'm 41 I'm as hot as John is. Seriously. He's built. BUILT.

blah blah blah

Haven't felt like I had much to blog about recently, despite things going on.

Flogging Molly concert was great. I've never been to the Tabernacle, and it's a hell of a place for a rock concert. (It got damaged in the tornado, by the way). Used to be a church, and it's painted on the inside- looks like some talented kids got in there while it was closed one night, did the place up, and when the owners came back in the morning they left it as it was. Funny seeing all those pipe organ bits behind a punk rock band.

I rode the Marta to get there, from Perimeter Mall. In all the times I've ever ridden it I've never been sure what gives it the bad rap. I use it to get to the airport when I fly, and mostly that's so early in the morning it's only business types. Different riding it at night, mostly because I like all the lights outside the window in the darkness. Easy to pretend you're flying through space. Family panicked a little when they found I was going alone. I just don't know any other fans of the band, and I wasn't going to miss the concert because of that; it's like waiting for someone else to see a movie in the theater and they can't ever make it until the thing is on DVD. I hate that. Anyway, Marta- well lit, police every where, lots of other concert goers to walk the block and a half from Peachtree Center Station which had an escalator so tall that on the way back down I had to sit on the steps to feel like I wasn't going to keel off into space. And it's got one of those lovely white-rectangular-tile walls against the escalator.

Hrm. What else?

I guess since I haven't got a call from the police I'm not being called as a witness so I can probably talk about this... I went to Steak and Shake Saturday night, and arrived just in time to see a customer rough up one of the employees in the parking lot. Over a bunch of nothing. But my long career in retail and waitstaffing made that no surprise. It's not like I don't get upset about things, but mostly they're "what's the meaning of life?" kind of things or some great injustice (personal or worldwide) not... Steak and Shake. And this guy was totally off the handle. Mind boggling.

That's the same day one of the customers copped a feel on me, too. Must have been a weird day.

I love SciFi. I love space operas, but most of the time I love them better as movies or tv shows. I'll try reading a book now and then and there's always something off about it that I don't like. I'm struggling to think if there's even one scifi book on my shelves. Possibly not. Well. There's one of those Padawan Obi-Wan and Master Qui-Gon adventures for little kids, but I'm partial to that team up. Anyway, I went to Borders last weekend to pick up my new Torchwood novels, only they didn't come in, and I'd braved the cold to get there, and Jamie was being really nice (he's one of the store's customers, and a fellow Torchwood/Doctor Who fan, and he works at Borders and said he'd hold my books for me) so I went to look for something else to use my coupons on since they were going bad the next day. And after all my years doing retail I pulled that thing that customers do sometimes that's completely unhelpful to employees.

Me: Hey, Jamie? There was this book on the New SciFi/Fantasy/Horror/Romance table about a month ago, and it's not there now.
Jamie: What was it?
Me: Uh. There was a girl space pilot? And a soldier guy?
Jamie: ...
Me: There was a space port on the front cover.

So, he's doing what he can, and I'm remembering one Christmas at Barnes and Noble where a lady came in, and asked what a book was that had a green cover and had been on a table over in one of the isles (those little end table looking things that move around) a year ago. (I actually found it for her, can you believe it? And the table wasn't even there when she came back to ask). This is when I run into Mark Brummel, another of Dr. No's customers, and actually one of my customers that I knew from Barnes and Noble, and it was actually kind of funny to see him because I'd told him I was going to be there, and he said he wouldn't that night.

(Maybe a month or two ago I was there, and this kid came up to me yelling a lot and asking if I was "That girl from the comic store?" and I said yes, and he yells for me to stay right there and then just runs off. If it was a cartoon something would have fallen on me, right after that. Turns out he's Mark's kid, and he went to go get his Dad. This is also the night I first saw Swordbird, which has to be the most insanely creative rediculous thing I've ever encountered. Charles, theoretically, how would a bird fight with a sword?) (The other funny thing is I've got a really bad memory, especially for people. And I hadn't seen Mark in about six or so years since Barnes and Noble when he came into Dr. No's and I remembered him, but he's also the only person I've ever met who had epilepcy, so that's probably why. Also, one of my coworkers almost beat him up)

So now it's a joke that when I see Mark in our store I tell him if I'm going to Borders. And he said he wasn't, but then he was there, and I told him about the book that I couldn't remember anything pertinent about, and met his wife. She was nice. None of that "how do you know my SO? why are you talking to them?" stuff. I hate when people get like that. Both of them are nice, and so are their kids.

I realize this book is never going to be found, unless I go on cobbcat.org, then onto Galileo, and from there to Novelist, which has got to be the best thing ever. You can search for books by plot on there, and I'm not happy about the fact I'm going home empty handed so I call one of my library coworkers who knows the ins and outs of the system and can get on Novelist for me. And while I'm on the phone I lean on the shelf, then turn to see what I'm leaning on.

And I'm not kidding you, I went over the shelf two or three times, the whole SciFi thing not facing the front doors because I recalled seeing the book that I was looking for on that shelf when I was at the store months ago and that meant I could half the alphabet in my search, and just as he's asking me what to put in Novelist, there's the freaking book I've been looking for. Go figure.

It's Crystal Soldier by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. It's really good. Really, really good. One of the semi-main characters is a tree. It's really not, but M Jela Granthor's Guard (the real main character- seriously, that's his name) kinda treats the tree like it's a main character, and it grows on you (Cliff, make a joke here). Him and his pet tree. I like Jela and his tree almost as much as I like Damien Vryce and Gerald Tarrant as a team up. (They're CS Friedman characters, from the Coldfire trilogy). It's good. Nothing has really happened yet kinda. It probably has, but I'm liking the universe and the writing so much I'm not trying to figure out what's going on- Jela and the tree could spend the rest of the book walking around space ports and I'd probably enjoy it. It's too good to try and figure out, I guess.

And now, finally, Torchwood Episode 11 has finished, so I'm going to go watch it. After I spell check this. Yay.

Torchwood Lego Madness

My Torchwood DVDs arrived today. There's only about five million deleted/cut/behind the scenes/bonus features on each disc.

To celebrate Cybermen and Skeleton Warriors invaded my desk and went to war with Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, the Ninth Doctor, and Captain John Hart. ^_^




"It's like the Cybermen and Skeletor teamed up!" Gwen shouted.


The Doctor pointed to an armored man screaming in dark ages French, "We've got to save him!"


Jack pointed his trusty Webley and hoped bullets could take down fleshless monsters...


John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Christopher Eccleston pose for promo photos.


Jack tried to explain the 21st Century isn't exactly the most swashbuckling place in the universe, but John decided he really just didn't care.


"I thought I told you no guns on the TARDIS." The Ninth Doctor snapped at him. "Don't you realize we're on Whitney's desk?" Jack pointed out, gesturing to the iPod and the fallen Skeletons. "Oh. Right. But violence doesn't solve anything."


Gwen Cooper waved, and in a welsh accent said, "Hi Charles!"


Jack Harkness. The Doctor. BFF. SRSLY.


Aaaaand, I want to give big thanks to BrickArms. Lego doesn't make little guns.

Torchwood: T-41 Hours

I've tried to stay away from the Torchwood spoilers for this next season, away from all the clips, commercials, and teasers people have been posting. It's airing in less than two days, so I finally gave in and watched something. And, my god, was it SOMETHING.

Oh god.

Rec-ing Ball: Torchwood "Slow Decay" Novel

I've had a fair amount of fandoms over the years, starting with Forever Knight and those long summers in Florida where I discovered mailing lists and fansites. It's funny when you didn't think there was anything out there like that; people who wanted to exchange thirty emails about why someone in some show did something. Mailing lists are kind of dying out for fandom, replaced by forums and livejournal comms, so far as I can tell; I still remember when I'd check my old Juno account and have the box full with altered song lyrics and sub requests for fanzines. Hell, I still remember the cost of fanzines.

Torchwood and Doctor Who novels aren't quite as expensive as fanzines, but they're up there, and the ones I keep reading are good, which puts them in the category of Kinder Chocolate. Guilty pleasures, and addictive ones. Thank god for Borders sending me coupons every week.

I'm still in deep fandom love with the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack, so the first Doctor Who novel I picked up had all three of them in it. Jack's a hoot in it, and so is the caveman, and while it's not classic literature it's one of the better tie-in novels I've ever read. In fact, all the tie-in novels I've read/perused for Doctor Who and Torchwood have been pretty awesome. You can read the whole thing in one sitting, which I guess makes it less like the aforementioned German chocolate and more like a carton of chocolate ice cream. You get to the end and you're wondering where the whole book went. I read all of Only Human on the flight back from Vegas, with all the other passengers around me asleep, so I spent some time trying not to giggle too loudly.

Read Monsters Inside all in one sitting too, and then when I was watching the "Boom Town" episode of season one of Doctor Who I was amused to hear it mentioned in passing. It's less giddy than "Only Human", but still good. Maybe not carton of ice cream good, or maybe not chocolate flavor. And no Jack, despite where I'm guessing it goes in continuity.

There's a gap between "The Doctor Dances" and "Boom Town". At the end of the first one they've just rescued Jack and the Doctor doesn't trust him, and by the time the next episode starts Jack is one of the team. He's allowed to tinker with the TARDIS, left on his own in there with no fear of him hieing off with the time machine, and the Doctor and Rose are amused enough with his flirting that he flirts with both of them, without any censure, but in the previous episode the Doctor didn't appear to trust him any farther than he could throw him. It made me wonder how many adventures were in between one episode and the next... Unless it's a reality tv show, I don't really think any show has a lot of one episode ending and the next starting immediately, except maybe in the case of 24. I figure the episode ratio is something like, that one really exciting day of the week for the characters, or that one day a month where it all really just goes to hell. What shows on the tv is the highlights, and leaves out all the other stuff. In any case, "Boom Town" references the adventure Rose and the Doctor go on in the "Monsters Inside" novel, sans Jack. Made me wonder where he was at during the novel.

Anyway, back to Torchwood and "Slow Decay". Even if you don't like Torchwood, or know anything about it, you might like it. You might just like the writing. Which is really, really good. It's so good, against all the tie-ins I've ever read, it almost needs to not be a tie-in novel. And I wish the author would just write something else fictional, because he's got skills. God given skills. Raining fire skills. Jack's dialog is just inane enough to make you question why the whole show isn't just him talking about things, the whole forty-five minutes of the show. And the aliens in the book are just icky enough for you to really understand why there really needs to be a Torchwood. It's all fun and games when it's Weevils and alien empathy machines, until something comes along that's the proverbial poking the eyeball out.

Andy Lane, if you can hear me, write something else. I don't care if it's Torchwood, though that'd be nice, or if it's something with the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack in it from that convenient gap in the episodes. Hell. Re-write the phone book. I'll read it.

This is just a part where Jack and Gwen were having a chat on the roof top at the beginning of the book:

"Where can I get a coat like that?" She asked.
"You have to earn it." Captain Jack Harkness said without turning around. "It's a badge of office. Like bowler hats in the Civil Service."
"They don't still wear bowler hats in the Civil Service." She replied scornfully. "That went out back in the 1950s along with tea trolleys and waistcoats. And I speak as someone who worked alongside loads of Civil Servants when I was in the police force." She caught herself. "I mean, when I was *really* in the police force, not just *telling* people I'm in the police force to avoid having to tell them that I hunt down alien technology for a living."
"I bet they still wear them." Jack said. The wind ruffled his hair like a playful hand. "I bet when all the Civil Servants arrive in their offices in the morning they lock the doors, unlock their desks and take out their ceremonial bowler hats to wear where nobody else can see them. Like a kind of administrative Klu Klux Klan."
"Have you got some kind of downer on the Civil Service?"
He still didn't turn around. "In an infinite universe," He said. "there are undoubtedly planets out there where the entire population has grey skin, wears grey clothes and thinks grey thoughts. I guess the universe needs planets like that, but I sure as hell don't want to have to visit them. I prefer the thought that there's a planet of Civil Servants then there's also a planet where everyone has an organic TV set built into their back, and you can just follow people down the street watching daytime tv to your heart's content."

And that's just from the first two pages! And he uses "whilst" several times in the book too. Of course, Jack wears a waistcoat in one of the later episodes, so that shows what Gwen knows about awesome men's clothing going out of style.

Read it. Read. It.

John Barrowman's Another Side

John's new CD premiered about a week ago in the UK. You can get it on Amazon, but be prepared to pay for it. Possibly with severed limbs and kidneys.

That said, the CD is good. Really good. Especially if you like to sing along. John sings really well and I'm not sure if he was going for a theme here, or what, but I swear it's almost every song we've all ever sung in the car or shower. And in the case of "All By Myself" sung badly.

If it was titled "John Barrowman's Ultimate Sing Along" it wouldn't be inaccurate.

First, we have "All out of Love", which he manages to sound very sweet in. Then "You're so Vain" which I saw on the youtube clip when he was on the National Lottery. I like it a lot better on the CD, because the video dancers in the background were way out of sync and the studio recording sounds so much better. I have nothing to say about "She's Always a Woman to Me" and "Your Song". "Time After Time" sounds completely different from every other cover of the song I've ever heard, which I have to give him major kudos for. "Everything She Does is Magic" is preposterously good. I've almost started singing along in public in time with my iPod, and I'm going to pretend I didn't do some goofy footwork dance move on the stairs. Thankfully no one was watching. But John can dance too! He sang the song on Strictly Come Dancing the other night, which I think is sort of like Dancing with the Stars. "If You Leave Me Now" is cute, and very seventies sounding. And "Heaven" (which it took me a moment to recognize, since it sounds similar to his cover of "Time After Time") startled me. It was one of those club anthems a few years ago, when it seemed a new remix of it was playing on the radio at least once a week. Part of me wants a techno remix of his version, honestly.

However, prize of the whole album is his cover of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good". I had to listen to Nina sing it this morning and Michael Buble too, to catch everything about it. "Feeling Good" is one of those songs I don't think I've ever heard covered well enough that I thought it stood up in awesomeness next to the original. I've never watched Six Feet Under but I love their commercial featuring the song. Makes me wish I could skate. Nina is a hard one to top, simply because I think she's so incredibly sultry at it, and it's a sultry song. Even the background music sounds sultry. It's perfect. And that makes all the covers automatically fail somehow. Michael Buble sounds like too much of a good boy to really carry it off, even if the instruments seem to get it more than he does in some places. Up until the first "And I'm Feeling Good" he sounds like he has no business singing it, and then all the sudden the trumpets start up and he suddenly sounds like the cat that got the canary. Unfortunately by the time he's almost about to sing that line again, he's back to good. The trumpets carry the rest of the song, really, and I know I'm nitpicking about his tone; he does a good job with it regardless, especially at the end when he gets passionate sounding and his voice frays.

John starts the song off sounding lovelorn, which is brilliant. And by the time he's gotten to the first "good" he's worked himself into a raspy tone. He doesn't sound as sultry as Nina, but I've pretty much given up on anyone ever matching her in that category. He sounds really, really good, and I don't know much about acoustics but it sounds like where-ever he's singing is big and empty because there's a slight echo of his voice. Somehow that really works. He ends it well too; he carries "feeling" only slightly longer than I can, and spends the last minute of the song rasping the lines in a very sultry way. What I was disappointed by was the band the put him with. There's not one trumpet. A lot of strings, which do this clever shivery thing, and some cellos, and a piano. No trumpets.

Now, if someone out there had clever music software and could put John's voice with Michael's background music, then we might have a real challenger to the awesomeness of Nina.

On a non-musical note, his cover picture is to die for.

My Formal Appology to the Hope Diamond

Dear Hope Diamond,

I'm very sorry for the things I said about you putting a curse on the Postal Service. My Torchwood novel finally arrived, after a whole month, whose delay was what made me suspect you in the first place for foul play. The bad blood between you and I was caused by an email I got from the company that sold me the book in August, telling me when the book shipped and when I could expect it. As this day came and went I grew more and more certain you had a hand in holding up my package, especially when I emailed the company about my book. They promised me another date, which came and went, and then a third upon which it arrive. Twenty-five days after shipping, I tell you.

Or rather, I was told.

The truth of the matter was revealed to me by the package the book arrived in.

Alas, it was shipped four days ago.

So, I hope you can understand and forgive my harsh words, and let bygones be bygones. I hear Washington is a very nice place. I hope you enjoy it there.

Lots of love,

Whitney

The Hope Diamond's Revenge

Apparently the Hope Diamond can read my blog from inside the Smithsonian. Still no package. And it's only shipping from New Jersey, not Mars!

And then I went on Amazon and saw this. It made me cry a little.

The Hope Diamond...

...Was donated to the Smithsonian Museum by being mailed through the Postal Service. Supposidly the Hope's Curse fell to the Post Office, delaying and slowing all mail since then.

Having ordered an Alphasmart, three textbooks, and a Torchwood Novel, as well as Dad shipping me a new cell phone, I've never seen more proof of the curse. Not a single thing is here yet. Hope they come tomorrow. I really, really need the school books...

Books, books, books, books.

Ran my fall booklist for classes past Abebooks today. It was awesome.

Shakespeare By Stages should be (according to the College bookstore) a $28.95 book. Abe sold it to me for $10.00.

Out of Many Volume Two is a $62.50 dollar book sold to me for... $1.40.

And, the Out of Many Documents Volume is a $29.25 dollar book, sold to me for $1.00.

Shipping and handling brought the whole thing up to $23. Which is pretty darn good for $120 worth of books.

But that's not all that's coming in the mail. The first Torchwood Novel is on it's way.

Squeeeee.