Is anybody else thinking about sinking $50 on this year's MacHeist? There are only 9 days left, but I'm still going back and forth. I've always wanted ChaChing, on the pro side. VectorDesign and SoundStudio sound like an amazing deal, but I doubt I'd ever use them. I'm curious about TextExpander, but I don't know that I'd use anything else. I don't want any computer games, and I dislike having like third party apps all over my desktop! So I can't decide.

And in a completely random turn of events, I went back and fixed a bunch of broken images in my old picspams and memes, like The Veronica Mars Files picspam, my movie cap quiz, and my completely shameless FNL S1 pimpage. (Am I not supposed to say that anymore? What did fandom decide? I personally vote YES to "pimping." "Plugging" lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.)

But actually it's not so random, since the reason I spruced those up is because I've finally succumbed to del.icio.us, about a zillion years after the fact. Tell me, del.icio.us users, how do you deal with spaces in tags? Like, suppose I want to tag something "veronica mars." If I type "veronica mars," delicious will file my entry as "veronica" and "mars." So how do you do it? Help me standardize my tags!
Poll #1204948
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

How would you tag something Harry Potter?

Do you use capitals in your tags?

Ancient fannish conundrum: how do you tag ships and pairings?

When you tag things, are you mindful that your del.icio.us is part of a larger fannish network, and that your attention to cohesiveness and comprehensiveness could help other people find what you're tagging more easily?

( Top Five Favorite Canon Pairings In Television )

( Top Five Panfandom Fics )

( Top Five Favorite Crack!Pairings )

( Top 5 Fandom Implosions )

( Top 5 Unreleased Albums That I Need Immediately )

( Top 5 HP Moments )

( Top 5 Things About Veronica Mars )

( Top 5 Least Favorite Things About Veronica Mars )

( Top 5 Icons I Need In My Life )

HA! DONE!

Also, if you have somehow not heard about the Open Source Boob Project, then you should not go here. But I feel that I should at least say SOMETHING about it, because it really really really sucks and is one of the worst, most misogynistic things I have ever had the misfortune to come across in fandom. I'm mostly stupefied as to how anybody can think that's okay. And I am really sad to see so many women say they don't see what the big deal is. Sadface!

In more cheerful news, did you see Thomas Dekker's new look? DUDE, HE IS SO TOTALLY HARDCORE!!! I sent that to one of my sisters last night, and I am pretty sure she cried. (She was very devoted to his bangs.)

But clearly I will never get around to it unless I do them in lists form.

So far, OTW and Google are tied for bringing the April Fools funny!

I never posted about any of the LJ drama that's been going on, but I basically agree with this: Why Fandom Won't Leave LJ Until LJ Collapses. I don't think fandom will ever have the picture-perfect content-focused social network we dream of, but I'm reasonably confident that something new and shiny will come along that we will repurpose, just as we've repurposed LJ.

I also had a great discussion with almightychrissy and thermopylae_h about why LJ sucks for fandom and how it could be better. But I'm not naive enough to think we'll get most or any of the features I really really really wish we had. As people have pointed out, LJ *is* the MySpace of Russia, and all you have to do to get a sense of where LJ is headed is have a look at www.livejournal.ru. But even though I really do think fandom's future is elsewhere, my future, for the time being, is definitely here. I'm not going anywhere!

wee_warrior and futuresoon cast the Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell movie. Cillian Murphy as the Raven King? BRILLIANT. Chiwetel Ejiofor would be a perfect Stephen Black, and I adore the idea of Ian Holm as Mr. Norrell. Jude Law is a pretty decent choice for The Gentleman, since he can do charming, childish and menacing in equal measure. And, ha, this is kind of embarrassing, but Jonathan Strange in my head is totally Eric Stoltz. Does Eric Stoltz even act anymore?

them0rgue made a convincing post about why Lily and Bart should totally get married, at least for a little while. I know my journal has hardly been friendly towards Rufus and Lily's epically star-crossed love, but I really do believe that Lily/Bart creates a wealth of conflict and interesting new relationships. Rufus and Lily puts the kibosh on Dan/Serena and resolves more conflict than it would create. Vote Lily/Bart!

Have you seen the promotional photos for the next Gossip Girl episode? My thoughts basically boil down to BITCHES AIN'T SHIT. Bring on Blair Waldorf Strikes Back is all I'm saying.

What is up with all of these TV starlets releasing albums!? Don't they know that is only for movie stars? First we find out that Ed Westwick is in an appropriately named British rock band, then we find out that Thomas Dekker has been posting fansongs about his character to MySpace, and now ONTD has got ahold of a leaked demo from Leighton Meester's upcoming album. CONSIDER MY MIND BLOWN.

Tags: fandom, gossip girl, livejournal, movies, seasonal

1. I saw August Rush this weekend, and it was an exceedingly melodramatic and silly piece of fluff. But the kid genius's ability to hear music in everything, along with the soundtrack's use of urban sounds, reminded me of a composer I studied in a music class I took for humanities credit. He sampled everyday sounds from the city (car doors slamming, people yelling, sirens, etc.) and used them in his compositions. Does anybody know who I'm talking about? I believe he was fairly well-known.

2. I enjoyed taking everyone's shipping polls, but I had some difficulty deciding which ships I actually ship. To me, shipping is a verb. I remember this one time when carla_scribbles told a friend that the Lee/Kara shipper she had on her f'list wasn't too crazy, and I was all like: "Are you talking about me?!" Because I had never considered myself a Lee/Kara shipper! ( Ever since then, I have felt confused about the semantics of shipping. )

3. ( Figure Skating! )

4. OTW is open for membership. I have joined. I think it's an interesting and worthwhile project, and I hope it will be successful.

5. ( Haiku meme! ) Here's my favorite...

Haiku2 for caitiedidit
his stop gap girlfriend was super ridiculous and obstructiony
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

When I haven't posted in a few days, the next post always feels awkward. I don't know why!

+ For the first time ever, I am on LJ Talk! But no one else is! Of course.

+ Today is the new Mansfield Park. Personally, I hated it. But I can't remember why. Kelly hated it too! Also, I remember it being very orange?

+ I have gotten to the point where I am pretty fantastic at Medium on Guitar Hero. I have tried to play a little bit on Hard. I have beaten five or six songs, but it was definitely not pretty. It seems kind of impossible that I'll ever be able to use that last key and not totally lose my other fingers in the process. I know it's probably not, because at first Medium seemed impossible, and it took me a long time to be able to hit the red and blue power chord. But I cannot decide if it is worth it to learn to play on Hard. I do not know! Probably I should just suck it up and keep trying. Playing on Medium is probably kind of lame?

+ I watched most of Ten Things I Hate About You on Encore last night, flipping back between that and the election coverage. Honestly? It was not as weird as I thought it would be.

+ I visited metafandom this morning to look for an old post, and I was totally flummoxed to see the dozens of posts in support of or opposition to the Organization for Transformative Works. I spent a long time flipping through some them. ( Love yourself, fandom! )

+ Because The CW loves me and clearly knew that I was suffering from Gossip Girl withdrawal, they are airing a hokey Gossip Girl Revealed special tomorrow, along with the pilot. It will have a bunch of behind the scenes footage, cast interviews and deleted scenes. Including one where Chuck buys Blair's necklace? I'm excited! And, hey, if you are interested in Gossip Girl or are just really bored what with the strike (which is looking up, yay!) killing your TV, they'll be playing the entire series on Mondays, starting tomorrow at 8PM. The Pilot intrigued me, but it was really not that great. The third episode is when the show hits its stride, and it's been genuinely awesome (at what it does) since then. It is good times, I promise! I would totally love it if more of you guys watched it.

+ And for those of you who already watch Gossip Girl, I am going to go ahead and recommend New York Magazine's recaps. ( Why I like them so much. )

I hate posts like these. It is like I needed one post about Gossip Girl, and one about how I love hate love fandom and then another one for all of the random stuff that no one cares about but me. Like how awesome I am at the second easiest level of Guitar Hero. Heh.

Does anyone else have a problem with phonetically pronouncing words, even when you know the real pronounciation? Like, if I'm reading aloud, I will say "social mores" like the "mores" is "more" even though I know it's "moraise." (Who came up with that, anyway?)

Recently I had to give a presentation on India's caste system, and I spent the whole fifteen minutes beforehand chanting "caste like class" over and over and over in my head. Because otherwise I would have said "caste like paste" and looked like a complete idiot.

Please tell me I am not the only person with this problem?

All of this fandom discussion about fic and what is the right kind of fic and what is the wrong kind of fic, etc. is making me want to aggregate my recent thoughts on the matter. But they are kind of undeveloped and fuzzy and have changed a lot since Canon Cult. But I have thoughts! Maybe later this week. HOLD YOUR BREATH, etc.

Hey, you guys! Look! Someone posted a comprehensive synopsis of the Veronica Mars: Special Agent Girl promo Rob Thomas filmed for the CW. I am pretending that the hot, profiling guy is Brendan.

Oh, man. Logan totally wouldn't have been in it. AWESOME. Admit it -- even if you wanted the show to be cancelled, you're still sorry you missed that wank.

Also, if you use your journal to post or discuss fannish things, I encourage you to join up real quicklike at fandom_counts, which is basically just an LJ census of fandom-related journals.

P.S. Did anyone watch Kevin Williamson's new show, Hidden Palms? PLEASE REGALE ME WITH STORIES OF ITS HEINOUSNESS IMMEDIATELY!

It's the summer, and I am ready for a Summer Album that I can play. Like Kanye West's Late Registration or Common's Be or Bloc Party's Silent Alarm or Coldplay's XY or Tom Vek's We Have Sound -- all excellent summer albums. But where is my Summer Album of 2007? I can't even think of any upcoming releases that I should be excited about! Troubling.

I have got a bit of a tan, which is unusual for me. I am very fair-skinned, and I generally use the lightest foundation/powder -- ivory this, porcelain that, etc. I was putting on my makeup today, and it seemed too light, and I couldn't figure out why until it hit me that I've been outside so much lately that, duh, I have a tan. I guess I need to go buy all new makeup now. Does everyone have to do this during the summer?

Also, a group of people are talking about starting a gigantic new fanfiction archive, sort of like FF.N, except better and without any censorship. The idea seems to be a response to FanLib.com, a fanfiction archive funded by $3M from venture capitalists and set up by dot-com opportunists looking to make money. It's very... wrong. Fandom should never be corporate. If you're interested in following the project, the original post is here and the community is otw_news.

ETA: FanLib is also headed up entirely by men, whereas fandom is mostly made up of women. rez_lo talks more about how WRONG FanLib is. And, ha, the RIAA is sort of involved, too. IT FIGURES.

+ The people at Gilmore Girls have clearly been watching too much Grey's Anatomy. This show is ridiculously boring when there's no Emily; I basically spent forty-four minutes asking myself why the heck I'm still watching this.

+ One Tree Hill has the power to make me violently hate just about anything it's touched (i.e. Michael Trucco), and that includes Blake. Also, Chris Richardson is ridiculous. He's singing through his nose on purpose? That explains SO MUCH.

+ Kristen Bell is slated to be Jason Segel's (Marshall from How I Met Your Mother) love interest in a movie he wrote himself. That ought to be a fun bit of fannish overlap for xfunkydoryx.

+ My thirteen year-old cousin had a hysterectomy today, after years of health problems caused by a very rare birth defect. This is after years of misdiagnoses and severe, chronic pain and failed surgeries and false hopes and FANTASTIC insurance companies, I'm sure you can imagine. HMOs are really FANTASTIC people. If only real life medicine was as shiny as it is on House and Grey's.

+ And that shipping meme, stolen from lots of people...

Six Ships I Like
1. Gaius/Six (BSG)
2. Trixie/Honey (Trixie Belden)
3. Ron/Hermione (HP)
4. Katara/Aang (Avatar)
5. Deb/Keith (OTH)
6. Jaina/Kyp (SWEU)

Three Ships I Used To Like But Don't Anymore
7. Sharon/Helo (BSG)
8. Grissom/Sara (CSI)
9. Logan/Veronica (VM)

Three Ships I Don't Like
10. Michael/Sara (Prison Break)
11. Keladry/Dom (Tamora Pierce)
12. Harry/Hermione (HP)

Two Ships I'm Curious About But Don't Actually Ship
13. Alex/Addison (Grey's)
14. Vince/Eric (Entourage)

( The Questions )

Will someone please give T.R. Knight an Emmy nomination? I do not like the George/Izzie stuff, but he is making me believe it, AGAINST MY WILL. (I'll have you know that my will is well nigh unbreakable.) Between last night and the work he's done with the story line about his dad dying, he deserves a nod at least.

And if the GA writers really want to launch a successful Addie spinoff, it kind of makes sense to actually give her some freaking screentime. Or at least what we were promised in the promos! BOO.

"Television watchers without pity: We get it." - Grey Matter

UGH. Don't these people realize that TWoP would be such a better, happier place if all of the posters didn't know that television people are paying attention to them? They are on the ultimate power trip, and it makes things so much less fun.

I only just got a chance to power through Friday Night Lights, but Tyra's mom taking her to the Father-Daughter dance was possibly the greatest thing I have ever seen on television. I am about to cry just thinking about it.

Time to squash another Veronica Mars rumor that seems to be gaining traction this morning — this one claiming the enitire supporting cast has been let go. Not true. No one — not Jason Dohring, not Enrico Colantoni — has been released from their contract. -- TV Guide

LOLZ, VM FANDOM!

Someone on TWoP pointed out that it's ironic that Veronica gets so much shit for jumping to conclusions based on little to no evidence, and the fandom spontaneously combusted this week over NOTHING.

( Spoilery speculation for the final five episodes. )

WHY IS THE VERONICA MARS FANDOM SO MOTHERFUCKING UNHINGED?!

Seriously. Read this and then read the comments and tell me what the hell planet these people are from. I doubt that the VM:FBI show will get picked up, but if it does at least all of these people will no longer be watching.

ETA: Bahleeted Edited.

ETA2: And may I just reiterate that this is only a stupid rumor? The way fandom is carrying on, you'd think that Rob Thomas had killed Jason Dohring, pulled the still-beating, emo-bleeding heart from his chest and eaten it covered in cheese. Shut up, fandom. At least until we know something for real.

TWoP has been bought by Bravo! Like, the network. Which means they are basically owned by NBC. That's... weird.

Hopefully this means that the recaps will get shorter, funnier and less hellaciously pretentious.

Does anyone on my f'list watch Doctor Who? I have a question about the 10th Doctor's series. I randomly watched the season finale, and the end has got to be the most depressing stuff I have ever seen on TV. I have no intention of watching the show, but I want to know what happens after that.

The Lamont/Lieberman primary is going to be really exciting. I'm not taking a side, because as much as I would like to see Lamont win handily enough for Lieberman to withdraw from the race, I know that if I was a Connecticut voter watching all of that out-of-state money pouring in to influence the outcome my state's election... I wouldn't like it at all. Apparently, that's sort of backfiring for Lamont because it's generated too much mainstream coverage, and high turnout is now expected. According to the pollsters, the higher the turnout, the more likely Lieberman is to win the primary.

The Cassie Claire write-up is nearly finished over on Bad Penny. I've known about the controversy over the Draco Trilogy for as long as I've been lurking about the HP fandom because I fell in with Ron/Hermione canon thumpers. And obviously their (and my) bias is showing since we disliked Cassie & Co for reasons unrelated to her plagiarism. Cassie and her friends were the precursors to the Harmonians and the original Draco Fangirls Slash Ron Hatas. But until I'd read white_serpent's account, I had no idea of the extent to which Cassie Claire borrowed plagiarised to write her epic homage pastiche fanfiction. Which I venture to say is the most popular fanfiction in the history of fanfiction.

( thinking about novel-length fanfiction in general )

I don't know why or when this happened, but WeeVer (OMG DIE FANDOM DIE) has become the hot new thing. I have nooo complaints. Absolutely none. I mean, c'mon? In the season premiere when Weevil circles back to pick her up even though she spent an entire summer being on Logan's side, when he thinks that Logan killed Felix? You know you squeed a little on the inside.

How did Logan act after Veronica spent the previous summer not being on his side? Uh huh...

Speaking of bad portmanteaus, Meredith/Derek in the Grey's Anatomy fandom has been shortened to MerDer. I find it amusing that the prononciation is likethisclose to "murder." I really will never understand fandom's penchant for awful ship names.

I watched P&P tonight, and I've decided that if I could change one thing about it, it would be to switch 2005 Mr. Bingley with A&E Mr. Bingley. Not because I don't think Simon Woods did a good job, but because one of my all-time favorite scenes from the miniseries is when Mr. Bingley visits Lizzie in Derbyshire. And the first thing he asks her is how her sisters are and if they're all still living at home (to see if Jane is married). And he's adorably transparent about it. And then when Lizze remarks that they haven't seen eachother for quite some time, he's like yeah, not for 8 months and 12 days! Because that's the last time he saw Jane and he's been counting! And it's just the cutest thing ever.

I was working on some Felicity/Ben (the other Felicity/Ben, I mean. Not Felicity and Ben from Felicity) fanfic, and it's funny writing it because they were just two characters that I shipped before I even knew what shipping was. I'm just convinced that in the fictional Williamsburg of the late 1700s, Ben made it back from the war and he and Felicity lived happily ever after.

And you know, there are a lot of other couples that I felt the same way about. Nancy Drew and Frank Hardy. Madeline and Pepito. (What?) Mandie and Jonathan. (What about Joe, you ask? Boo hiss!) Pollyanna and Jimmy Bean. (So canon! Really! There's a sequel!) Jane and Will. Trixie and Jim. Linka and Wheeler! Teddy and Jo. (*sob*) Jessica Wakefield and Aaron Dallas. Mary and Colin. And there are so many more that I can't recall at the moment.

What about you guys? Did you do any childhood 'shipping of your own? The more bizzare the better. Madeline/Pepito trumps all!

( 10 unpopular fandom opinions )

Pick 5 of your OTPs and then list which specific moment and what made them your OTP. Then tag 5 people.

( Harry Potter: Ron/Hermione )

( Stephanie Plum: Stephanie/Ranger )

( Alias: Sydney/Will )

( Dawson's Creek: Pacey/Joey )

( Veronica Mars: Veronica/Logan )

And briefly ( On Snape )

Okay. So anyone who knows me from the TP fandom knows that it sort of freaks me out when the fans and the fangirled coincide in close quarters. Tamora Pierce's involvement with her fans freaks me out. JKR's poking about the HP fandom makes me uncomfortable. Rob Thomas hanging out around TWoP seems ill-advised to me.

But this is the most direct case of involvement with the fans I've ever heard of. Michael Muhney, who awesomely plays the part of Sherrif Don Lamb on Veronica Mars, has an LJ account (thewizrd) and is a member of rack_of_lamb, where he comments there a lot. He has an LJ icon made by a fan. He's read and commented on one of my favorite author's Veronica/Lamb fanfictions. It's all very... weird.

And really, really nice. I guess. I don't know. It makes me distinctly uncomfortable, but I'm not sure that it should. Should it?

( Brief thought on 2x03 )

When did being a shipper become so tragically passé? How did shippers of any sort come to be regarded as plebians of the worst order? And when did swiss-shipping become so very cosmopolitan? Seriously?

[ETA] In a related note, today HBP shipper wank made the newspaper. Well done, ( spoiler )!

My arm is feeling a lot better now, so today I was able to drive on major roads in rush hour traffic. I still tense up a lot, but I'm feeling more comfortable. Except you know how when people pull out of a road or parking lot to cross a few lanes of traffic, and they look like they MIGHT all of the sudden be all up in your lane and your breath sort of catches, but they stop in the middle lane and wait for you to go by or they pull into the lane on the other side of you and it's all good? Well, that happened today and I almost completely shut down. If I've learned one thing from this accident, it's that I'm depressingly prone to border-line hysteria in the face of badness. I am sooo not a Gryffindor, y'all.

Speaking of Harry Potter, my Mom and I had an interesting conversation about pure-bloods versus half-bloods in Harry Potter today. ( Beware of spoilers for HBP! )

Anyway, I don't know if anyone finds that interesting or not. But my love for this book knows no bounds.

( Thoughts on Slytherin and Slytherin Apologists... )

( On Fred and George getting what they deserve... )

Seriously, I could talk about this book for so much longer, there were so many things I liked. But I won't, don't worry. *grin*