clo_again

Really gotta start working on posting regularly again, rather than meandering on Twitter for aimless hours. All the shenanigans LJ's pulled with the new TOS are finally giving me the impetus to boot it and move operations over here (or er, restart them over here since they've fallen off the Procrastination Cliff of late).

I don't know if I can bring myself to delete all the posts over there, even when they're backed up here; I certainly can't make myself delete the entire journal. For one, that's over a decade of my history. For two, I still use the Scrapbook because it's easier than sourcing image space anywhere else. Once LJ goes down for good (because let's face it; this kerfuffle is causing a final exodus that can't end well) then I guess I'll need to look into it but until then I'm thinking maybe I'll just private everything except a post directing traffic this way.

I guess I'll need to shift clofic over here as well. All the fic is backed up at Insanejournal (still don't think it's worth the editing it'd need for AO3) but I'd like to hang onto the comments. I should really get moving on that this weekend before LJ shut down the ability for external sites to import stuff which is what I saw predicted on one analysis of the new TOS.

As much as LJ's been the internet equivalent of a sad oldtimer dive bar for years now, I regret not owning any LJ merchandise from back in the day. This thing ran my life for eight-to-ten years; at the very least I'd like a hoodie. Hell, a keyring. I saw a Nirvana t-shirt in Topshop yesterday and for a minute it felt as if I was fourteen again. I wonder if retro LJ merchandise - or Frank the Goat merchandise to be Ultimate Hipster about it - will ever circle back to coolness? I hope so, especially if we can do it without giving actual Russia-owned-modern-LJ a penny for it.

So I don't know; maybe I'll be around more while I shift things over here, curse trying to set up a new DW for clofic, etc. In between those fun things, I'll be attempting to finish the latest fic I posted to AO3 because I thought it'd be a good idea to post another WiP as a motivational move. The jury is out on whether or not this was a spectacularly terrible idea yet, mostly because I had the first two and a half chapters written already so it hasn't become an issue yet (it will. I'm working on it though!).

It's the hooker!Andy Murray fic, because LJ may be circling the drain but some things never change. You can find the first two chapters over on AO3: before you come to evening, e, Murray/Djokovic AU, the one where Andy ended up a prostitute instead of a tennis player through a series of accidents and bad decisions, and Novak's mostly trying not to screw up his life.

*

Life stuff is also happening but it's of the tiresome, housing-is-stressful-and-I-have-not-yet-won-the-lottery-to-sort-it kind, so it can wait until I'm not half asleep and well past a sensible you're-in-work-tomorrow bedtime for someone who's trying to pretend to be an adult. It's fine; I'm not living in a box under the canal bridge yet so hopefully we can take that as an optimistic sign.

So I've got as far as a very-hasty LJ layout fix (the colours will not last I suspect, but I came up with a really pretty idea for a header last week, didn't scribble it down and now haven't got a clue what it was, so this is it until it comes back to me) and this is not going to be a post of substance other than that but my work contract finished last Friday so I have no excuse not to catch y'all up soon. Other than, you know, my limitless procrastination.

I'm surprised by how much being an aimlessly unemployed bum isn't really fun anymore. Not getting up at 6am is nice, and being able to sleep for most of the last two days when I haven't exactly been feeling like a million bucks has been lovely but...I miss having the motivation to get up and do something. And I miss the money already, dear god do I miss the money. Weighing up my need for shoes and DVDs against the perils of my overdraft is about as fun as it was for my six months of being unemployed last year, which is to say not at all; I need to find something soon. But something not crap. At this point it'd be really nice to have a job that I need to actually engage my brain to do.

I'm going to go fall asleep watching the tennis now. It's 1:55am, I should really go to bed, but moving sounds like effort and it's very nice to have the tv all to myself. Even if I am chosing to enjoy that by falling asleep on the sofa. Mmmm.

Slightly-less-hasty-than-intended bodge job of a new LJ layout, because it was really time to take the Christmas/New Year one down. Wish I had time for an icon overhaul but then I'd be going into work in PJs with unwashed hair and considering it's not my last week anymore (contract extension 'til March 31st ftw!), I should probably make an effort to appear at least vaguely presentable.

Also, hello LiveJournal. I am not ded. At some point I will finish memes and maybe post fic extracts and flail over the amazinghood of Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic apparently deciding they no longer want to hide their deep and touchy-feely love for each other. However, now I have to go and get ready for the amazing job that lets me go in half days twice a week and still pays me the same. Which I have until the end of March. Win.

(Of course, that's assuming I can get to work with the killer fog that's been outside all morning. If this was an episode of Doctor Who, I'd have been eaten by the fog monsters hours ago.*




* As much as I like to think I'd be the plucky local girl who works out how to defeat the fog monsters with a handheld fan and some de-mister, I rather suspect I'd be the foolish local girl who disappears and the Doctor gets indigantly rageful about, before forgetting about the instant he spots something shiny.


edit: I've just remembered that last night, I dreamed that I bought a Kindle. Er. Wishful thinking there subconscious?

(I also dreamed that I found a hidden library beneath a folding piece of floor in a house we were renting; it was like a whole secret apartment full of books I wanted to read and squishy seats and with the door bricked up. I think perhaps it was my subconscious crossing the line of wishful thinking, into full on delusions.

It was a really beautiful library.)

Oh LJ, I do apologise! Every night I get home from work, promising my laptop that I'll make the epic catch-up LJ post and every night something distracts me (of late, Merlin fic, Inception fic and playing on my shiny new WiiFit. Which is brilliant. <3)

I keep intending to flail over the imminent arrival of new Primeval (JANUARY 1ST IN CASE YOU DON'T FOLLOW BEN MILLER ON TWITTER (@bennylicious; he knows astrophysics, math and comedy, and once snogged Rob Brydon on Qi. There is nothing not to love!) and how my temp job which overpays me to do an easy job alongside lovely people keeps getting extended another couple of weeks. Or rant about how our Sky is broken and my parents live in this land of Special Crazy where they think if they ignore it long enough, it'll fix itself without them paying for the engineer and in the meantime my pointing out that I will pay for it because £65 is cheaper than buying the DVDs for Stargate Universe, Castle, Bones and Eureka which is just some of what I'm currently missing on an infrequent or (in SGU & Bones' case) every-week-frequent basis, only my dad has to call them because they won't talk to me and they just mumble incoherently about principles of paying for things while I shout at a pixelated screen. (A lot.)

But instead, I am going to bed. I leave you with a (youtube for now, sorry) link to a song that I can't stop listening to: Boy and Bear's 'Fall At Your Feet' cover and three of my recent Life in Cumbria pictures ( which I'm afraid are being to all look the same )



I also have the complete version of my latest thegameison_sh entry to post but I just need to run the editing fingers over it and add the last paragraph. Somehow this little thing has taken me almost two weeks and is still not done. Hmm.

Do not mention NaNo to me. I'm hoping for a mid-month turnaround in my motivation. That is all.

Anyway, yes. Consider this a placeholder post to let y'all know that I still exist and there's a proper post brewing! Um. Somewhere. How are y'all anyway? Hope everyone is still shiny. I do read my flist every day, promise.

To conclude, on my longer-than-usual-thanks-to-traffic trip home from work today, I was pondering what I'd do if I was the Queen and came up with two things:


1. The Royal Presence would be announced on all state occasions (and perhaps shopping trips and at breakfast) with trumpets. The trumpets would play the Red Dwarf opening tune. The beginning of this rather lovely version of the theme tune is a perfect example.

2. There would be balls. (As in parties, not...well. The other kind. Although there could be those balls too: I'd need a catchphrase other than "Off with his head!")

Anyway, there'd be parties to which I and a select few controlled the guest list. Fabulous people would be invited and anyone mentioning X Factor would be shot immediately. There'd be Masquerades. And Bond-themed parties. And epic Nintendo Wii parties. Possibly there would be parties designed by Elton John for the fabulous lulz.

And I'd force everyone to play drinking games and because I'd be Queen, they'd have to go along with it and all sing the See The Little Goblin song when I told them. I feel this is an excellent plan.

(Yes, I have entirely too many nice dresses and I never have anywhere to wear them. Possibly I'm slightly bitter about this.)

~

Now I really am going to bed on this promise of a real post soon. Hopefully. Good intentions and all that.

So I've talked about my odd dreams before. Giant butterflies, redesigned Londons, Philip Glenister shouting at politicians, faeries kidnapping people. I like my dreams. My subconscious puts effort into them, or at least into making them entertainingly random.

But. The last few days, I've sensed a theme. Friday night, I dreamed that Roger Federer had called a press conference to announce he wanted more points/money for winning matches against top ten players and the ensuing uproar.

Last night I dreamed I was at Wimbledon, which for some inexplicable reason seemed to have been transported in its entirety into the Australian outback, and while walking around backstage we bumped into John McEnroe who was shouting at someone else. (I don't know about what. Possibly that Wimbledon had just fallen through the Earth to the opposite side of the planet and they could not be serious about wanting to make it an Australian tournament from now on).

And just now I took a two hour nap, during which I dreamed that my neighbours had opened a Michelin starred restaurant in their house and Novak Djokovic had brought a coachload of friends (for some reason, this included some cowboys?) to try it out and I spent the whole time pressed to the window, wondering if could go and get him to sign every tennis-related thing I own. He saw me. He waved. But I still wussed out, probably because my subscious failed to provide a dream!kindoftrouble to yell at me for not tackling him to the ground for a hug immediately.

So. Tennis players. I never dream about tennis players, at least nowhere near as often as I'd expect to considering it's my only obsession other than Casper to last longer than five years. Dear brain, what are you trying to say? Should I rob a bank and use my ill-gotten gains to become a professional tennis player stalker? You're seriously recomending that as a sensible life direction?

...Sounds good to me. ;-)

*

In other news! I have set up Dreamwidth crossposting. In theory, this will make my Dreamwidth account more interesting but it'll probably mostly change nothing at all. I do have a couple of Dreamwidth codes available if anyone wants one? First come, first served basis. Leave me your email in a comment if you want one (I just typed 'if you want me'. *blinks* Idek what kind of Freudian slip that is).

You can also read/comment on this entry here http://aomakutu.dreamwidth.org/1375.html .

Instead of doing anything in the slightest bit useful tonight, I redesigned my LJ. Partly because I was bored of the old header and the blue, and partly because I couldn't resist the combination of Johnny Weir's awesome hat and the last line of the 'what she was wearing' poem.

Still not sure the colours are right but eh, it's 3am. They're close enough for me to go to bed.

This is the first time in about three years that I've had a person-centric header instead of scenery, because I got tired back then of going off people-headers so quickly. Now I'm bored of scenery! Figures. We'll see how long it takes me to get bored of Mr Weir's fabulous hat. ^_^

Bed. Bedbedbed. Ridiculously tired considering I've had an extraordinarily lazy Saturday. It follows aa very busy week though. Which I should LJ about.

Tomorrow. After sleep.

eta: FUCK and of course it's only NOW I spot the error in the italics on the header. Sigh. Oh well, it's not a major thing; just enough to bug me.

A few days early for my seven year anniversary but new LJ layout is up. I had my old one for two years; I know because it was a picture I took before I left university and I made it out of Lancaster nostalgia.

Now Lancaster's just down the road and I have Australia-New Zealand nostalgia instead. It seemed time for a change. :)

I'm too damn tired to pick a quote now and I've just remembered I've got milk warming up downstairs ready for hot chocolate. Better go rescue that then.

Well I made it safe to London and am currently sitting in the Flat of Awesome, which is indeed the Flat of Awesome. It really makes me want to move out. *wistful* I could totally find a flat like this in Cardiff.

However, the flist threw up two things of interest despite my absence ;) today, firstly this interview with Terry Pratchett which is lovely but has totally freaked me out with that note about fillings, considering that my mouth has more fillings than teeth now. I really need to get a job so I can invest in none-brain-destroying dentistry. o_O

And the other was this charming interview from Anton Nosik, a higher-up at SUP. Which really sums up the attitude I've been feeling from LJ lately and when my paid account expires for the final time in a few days, I will be shifting base operations over to IJ. I'm not deleting anything; I'll be around here and posting odd things and comments and such, but all LJ's done in the last year is piss me off, whereas all IJ and Squeaky have done is impress me. I should really stop faffing and do something about it. I feel like LJ is pointing and laughing at us now, and damned if I'll stick around to support any service that treats paying customers like that, more than I have to. More people are migrating to IJ it seems now and if LJ carries on the way it is, I'm sure there'll be even more. I'd rather get comfortable over there now because I want to, before LJ does something that means I really have to.

In the meantime I am in London and kindoftrouble has left me keys and pointed toward the museums and Harrods, so I should be going. Things to see, expensive shops to visit, money to spend - but not too much, since we're not hitting Forbidden Planet until the weekend. ^_^ I might need to take out a loan.

Well that's it. No more paid LJ time for me. I completely forgot today was the last day until I went to read my comments and wondered why it switched to the default LJ style instead of mine. And Scrapbook! That's what I'll really miss; all that space and no limits on size. *wistful* Back to the evils of Photobucket, unless there's anywhere else people recommend? I don't really want anything more than somewhere to post the odd pic and LJ - now IJ - headers really.

Otherwise - though I just wtfed at the icons they've left active, because a couple of them are ones I never use - I suspect I'll deal. And possibly move base operations more to IJ in the coming months. I've already started reposting my fic there, because I hate asking people to friend my fic LJ to read it; it pisses me off to jump through hoops for fic and I feel bad making others do it.

In other news: I'm so glad they upped Ianto's sense of humour this series of Torchwood. So far it's Ianto for the win, *all the time*. Even Gwen didn't annoy me this week. They've hit the next level and it's awesome. Yay! Awesome!Torchwood! :D

Got bored of the pastel blue. Only, I'm not sure completely the opposite direction was the way to go.

Eh. Now if I can just put more things in my sidebar...

edit: Just realised both this, my Journalfen and my IJ headers use only pictures I took myself. Huh. Neat.