From Nightclub & Bar magazine article "Vodkas From the Edge":

"For the rebellious and fiercely independent barkeep, however, vodka is viewed as an antagonist--a pirate racing the open seas with no state and no singular raw material of origin (vodka can be made anywhere from nearly anything). Vodka is the domineering bully in the schoolyard of the all too finite space on the backbar, muscling away both the scarcely known and the remarkable. To beat the metaphor a bit more, vodka has likely collected the lunch money of every other spirit and is waiting for one or two after class..."

These boys have stepped up their gaaaaaame since the last issue, man. This is why I love this magazine. It's entirely written by people who are passionate about the topic.

Mai, Tris has ideas to run by you. Not that you're surprised by this point, I'm sure. XD I had to stop him from taking notes because it was time to go to bed. If someday I end up marketing for a nightclub, I blame--ohwait.

This afternoon I took a step back from absolutely everything and sat down with a movie that I've been lusting to see. I don't even know why I was lusting to see this movie. I had absolutely no recommendations - most of the people I mentioned it to gave me a blank look until I mentioned the father, son and holy ghost writer, director and producer: Quentin Tarantino.

And then they get that other blank look. That one that says they're flashing back on Lucy Liu decapitating people, or television previews of Rose McGowan literally shooting from the hip--midthigh, actually, or general gratutitous gore. In fact, I think if you examine the nearest Rogets Thesaurus, under synonyms for 'gratuitous gore,' you'll find 'Quentin Tarantino.'

And good god but we love him for that. It isn't the volume. It's the quality of that gratuitous gore. It's never enough to make you numb to it, just--

Whew, I'm getting a little hot. I'll save that for later. Anyway.

The thing is, after that telltale bloodlust blank stare, they shake their heads; "Death Proof" isn't familiar. Probably not.

This movie is just my brand of candy. And by candy, I mean candy laced with Jack Daniels.

( Let's tally up what we've got in this movie: )

All right. *clears throat*

So all of those ingredients wouldn't make this movie by themselves. You have to add Quentin Tarantino and whatever crazy ass people he gets to write with him. It's like six people sitting in a room with a blank piece of paper and cart blanche to do whatever the fuck they want with these nine characters. I can almost hear that conversation:

"Hey, what if this girl was a disc jockey? And what if she had awesome, I mean totally amazing, smoking legs. Like, Sydney Poitier legs."
"Why don't we just get Sydney Poitier?"
"Fuck yeah!"
"And we've got this intense focus on her legs, so why don't we do something horrific with that? Like, hang it out the window so you're all tense, going "she's gonna get that fucking ripped off. And then we DO IT. We fucking rip her LEG off!"
"Fuck yeah!"
"And then what if during the car chase, we ran them both up a random bank of dirt, Dukes of Hazzard style? And then ran Kurt Russell through a random fence!"
"Fuck yeah!"
"And what if we have the Death Proof Charger just fling some poor nameless slob on a motorcycle into a garage door?"
"..."
"...and the helmet would be red!"
"...FUCK YEAH!"

I was talking about that gore? He doesn't do gore just to shock you. That would imply that you had no connection to the characters he offs - and he does everything he can to get you attached to the character before he kills them. He does gore to snag you. Grab you by the throat and throw you into the movie. He does it to show you that he is not afraid of gore. That if somebody gets their head, their leg, their face chopped off, even if they're the hero of the movie, you are gonna fucking see it chopped off.

And then he stops. The gore absolutely stops. ...Or did it just stop for a while? When's the next time? He shows you how the pattern plays out, what happens when Stuntman Mike pinpoints a handful of 'girlfriends.' Then he shows you the pattern starting all over again. And he's so graceful about it. ...Wait, where did that one girl go? She went into the gas station. Why isn't she there somewhere? Did he take her? Are we about to see her ground into gravel? Who's that car behind them? It's not black... is it still Mike, just in another car?

This is the kind of suspense that has me curled up in my seat in delicious horror. The reason I loved the car chase wasn't because they were roughing up a pair of awesome cars. It was because Tarantino already made it obvious that if one of those girls got hurt, I'd see it in gruesome detail, after he made me love every single one of them for who they were. That man is the master of suspense.

I am in love with this movie. And the side effect of this movie that I did not, could not expect... it turned me on.

Flood update: Mom and my brother got up early this morning to help a friend of the family evacuate his farm. I'm still so exhausted that I didn't do more than stir when my brother came in and explained what was going on. I've been freaking out all morning and trying to distract myself, but just now I got a call from Mom -- everyone's all right, the family's all right, and on top of that, they rescued a ton of cats before the water comes in.

There is a mama cat with a litter of kittens in my brother's truck right now, and they're coming home.

I used the Dresden icon because. Burly brother rescues kittens? Uh huh.

I want to direct you towards my memories. There's some interesting stuff in there. But more importantly, there are links to some phenomenal House/Wilson fics that I stumbled across by accident.

The House/Wilson Filter

At the bottom of that list, you'll find several links to the Dæmon-verse by dominus_trinus. I'm still reading and compiling, because there's been some written since the first three - I know that because I followed a link back from the one I had been reading, which isn't part of these three.

You'll be entertained if you've read Pullman's "His Dark Materials", OR even if you only know about concept of Dæmons from the movie or the movie's nifty flash website. The characters are nicely written, the Dæmons are thoughtfully chosen, and the relationship is beautifully crafted. I guarantee you'll have a favorite Dæmon chosen of the two presented in full in this arc, and if you're like me, you'll be trying to piece together what other characters' Dæmons are.

There's at least one or two people on my flist who'll be staring at the idea of petting each other's souls as a kind of intimate foreplay. Do I suddenly want to write AU DE-verse involving Pullman's world? Oh, you bet I do. I won't inflict it on you, because I haven't any more understanding of it than the average moviegoer, but nevertheless, the idea of Tristan's soul embodied as a red wolf is quite, quite appealing.

"Scylla!"

"Brian! You're not dead!"

"Land of the living. Takes more than the flu to kill me."

Over the seven months of Scylla's employment at the resort, Brian got to know her about as well as possible, given the circumstances.

"Ninjas?"

"Absolutely. Sneaky devils."

( Read more... )

Bit much to cover tonight, but I'll do my best. It's been one heck of a day.

I brought Simon home with me to visit the folks, anticipating staying throughout the following week and not wanting to leave him by himself on Christmas. He is, after all, my guardian and my small and stalwart companion, and it seemed unfair to leave him alone, as he so dislikes said state of being. I brought home all of Simon's accoutrement as well - commode, bowls, food, brush, etc. - and set up my room as a sort of safe haven. Simon has been an 'only cat' since parting ways with his littermates three years ago, and I was concerned for both my own cat and the three other cats living with my family. Predictably, when I arrived the swarm of furry residents converged on my room and proceeded to inspect the newcomer in his carrier and his luggage like a trio of four-legged circling sharks.

Cosmo - the regal yellow patriarch of the feline contingent - presided with disinterest, although made it clear that Simon was to stay out of his way. Jojo - the Siamese female - continues to declare with spitting and hissing that she isn't having any of it. And Rav - the Bengal tom, who is the only male in the house with testicles intact (with the possible exception of my brother) - coaxed Simon into becoming his playmate after only a few days of anxious staring. Now they regularly chase each other around the house. Simon's a member of the family, as much as if he were my son, my brother or an 'adopted' friend.

I watched Ghost Rider. I watched The Bourne Ultimatum. I watched The Da Vinci Code, all for the first time.

( Read more... )

So I feel like I should stop lurking and update this thing.

The past few months seem to have been a time for rediscovery and settling in. So many small things that would have made a few dozen good blog entries got lost amid juggling lots of tasks.

I've got cable television now. I don't get to watch it much, but when I watch it, I honestly enjoy the luxury and the respite. Life has changed so much, when I used to loathe it and camp out before it for hours at a stretch. I've rediscovered the radio. I, in my utterly unabashed love of Christmas, am tickled to discover my favorite radio station playing nothing but holiday tunes right up until the 25th. There are nights when I prefer to have that on as I work at something else, rather than the television. It's soothing, and I feel more focused. I like it because the music is completely out of my control, and I can write while it's on, unlike when I have my own playlist running on the computer.

Cable television (I'm rambling, aren't I?): Food Network. A show called "Everyday Italian" featuring a woman named Giada De Laurentis and omg, I would so hit that. I have two girlcrushes, one being Marisa Tomei, the other being Giada De Laurentis (I've since given up on Trinity... I think she's more Tristan's type than mine. Or... something). No, I don't watch it for her (or I don't watch it just for her), I watch it for the incredible food. The recipes are on the website and this stuff looks like something I could actually do with my limited counter space and cooking implements. Someday I plan to have a butcher-block island in my kitchen, where I can artfully arrange a thick wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano and a handful of vine-ripened tomatoes that I actually grew. Someday I will have a kitchen that is larger than my bedroom. And the walls will be warm amber and the lighting will be recessed. People will want to come visit me just to hang out in my kitchen. Yes.

( Read more... )

Oh, gee thanks for the artbunny, nightengale, well...and joey_wheeler too.

Thanks to your suggestions for that potential far-off holiday event, now I want to draw them with lightsabers. What's more, there's a tutorial on DA on how to do it. Draw lightsabers, I mean.

I guess it was inevitable. XD

I noticed this back when skitz_phenom visited, but it took until now for me to find a slice of time to document it.

Perhaps a message that this apartment thing was a good thing after all? Not that I really needed the affirmation.

Observe: image of Tristan's "Robin" that I collected two years ago, when he adopted his cat.

( Click for photo )

Observe: One of four glasses given to me by my grandmother when I first moved in. Glasses are not from any collection she owned - she purchased them at a yard sale a few days before giving them to me.

( Click for photo )

Again, it wasn't until DV and I were trawling through my photo collection that we stumbled across this picture of Robin, and I noticed that the glass looked familiar. No comment from Tristan a/o yet regarding whether he ever owned a set of these glasses.

I have received three more patches for the denim jacket I've been outfitting since last year. These three are from Lin (tragic_elegance), and I'll have photography of the patches shortly. I need to go pick up some thread and a needle to sew these on, since I have an iron now, but I really don't trust the glue on most transferrable patches.

So. What did I receive from Lin?

+ One random "Anime Pavilion" patch.
+ A pretty awesome "Mobile Suit Gundam" patch.
+ And the best one EVAR (in Lin's words, XD): a Mounted Deputy Sheriff patch.

So sayeth Lin:

"I got it from my grandpa who got it from who knows where. XD"

I have a *mounted police* shoulder patch. What's more, I've been told that given this town has no mounted police, it's legal for me to wear it. WOO!

I also have a few more patches to put on:

+ One "I Did the Corn Maze" patch from Sorcha (sorchafyre) with a really amusing story attached. *G*
+ One red chinese dragon patch, purchased on sale.
+ One "I do things my way patch," purchased on sale.

This thing is really coming along! I guess the next thing I need is a thimble. This is some tough denim, and I killed my fingers sewing Shadow's (tranquil_ashes) Route 66 patch onto the shoulder. I know how to hand-sew, but I wasn't prepared for the amount of effort it'd take to push even a heavy-duty 'sharp' through this shit. Fingers = oww.

And I wasted way too much time on the fanfic debates going around the Internet, but hell, it was informative and fun!

Scylla -- [noun]: A person with a sixth sense for detecting the presence of goblins 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I suppose this beats 'Extremely Flatulent,' which was one of the initial ones I got. XD I'm like Frodo's Sting! Only not.

Heroes on the Half Shell VS The Power Rangers

Like Alien VS Predator. Only not.

No, seriously. I answered the questions honestly, and this is what I got.



( And of course, Tristan's )

From an upcoming log...

"You know what Tristan, I've always hated math, but somehow it's so much easier to understand when it has to do with alcohol," - Téa

You know...I was just amused by a thought after working on last night's log. What if... domino_effect was a television show, and our various 'scenes' were episodes? And we had millions of viewers (some part of a community fandom) watching our episodes and making inferences about the characters?

My main thought was subtext. I can just imagine viewers sitting on the couch watching the show and going "And the good Ship [insert pairing] saaaaails into port." And I wondered what kind of unintentional subtext we'd be presenting to viewers. XD Maybe we would WTF at a pairing, but is there 'evidence' in the RP to support it? Would there be 'crack' pairings? Would there be 'rival' pairings? *snickersnort* Random, yes. Off to work now.

...Aw, man, all you guys...

And you, and you, not to mention all of you....thank you.

And do I see a cake from you and you too? Just...just... damn,...

So I think I know what an Evil Spell tastes like, now. My family actually has a bottle of (mostly gone) Canadian whiskey, and out of curiosity I improvised.

Dude, I'm not much for hard liquor or strong drinks. But this? This is good. The whiskey actually makes the apple cider...more apple. sorchafyre pointed out that whiskey sort of tastes like dust and wood, and she's right...well that and it tastes like nail polish remover smells to me, but I suppose that's due to the high alcohol content.

For that matter, I have no idea how anyone likes drinking whiskey neat. I just *sipped* it straight up, and it stung the back of my throat and turned my esophagus warm all the way down.

Just commenting. Cold Evil Spell is damned good. Hot, this thing would probably be smokin'.