ruuger

I was commisserating with a co-worker today about how we used to be smart until work killed our brains, and especially about how sad it is that we've both forgotten more languages than majority of people learn in their whole life.

And I thought, damnit, I will be smart again and decided that I'll spend 30 minutes every day this summer trying to relearn one of those languages well enough to at least read it fluently again.

So, because I'm not very good at making decisions, I'll once again let you do them for me:



(sorry LJ-only peeps, the poll is on DW)

I've also studied Russian (in high school) and Latin (in university), but not long enough to learn more than the very basics.

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/347620.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Guys! I just had the most brilliant idea ever!

There was an ad on TV for one of those shows where celebrities are hypnotised into doing stupid things and I started thinking: Would it be possible to hypnotise someone into forgetting a book or a movie or a TV-series? Just imagine - being able to rewatch things like Babylon 5 or Buffy again completely unspoiled. I'd pay for that.

(then again, how sad would it be if you didn't like it as much on the second time around)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/347055.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

The opening show is an interesting combination of Azerbaijani culture and gay aesthetics.

Last year's winning song is actually better than I remembered. The singer/host still has a really creepy smile.

( Read more... )

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/346783.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Almost forgot this one too, because I was watching Doctor Who.

The woos when the hosts announced the shoe-in countries sounded suspiciously mechanical. And the host guy's smile is creepy.


( the traditional liveblog )

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/346465.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

I'm still grumpy about having missed the first half of this because of The Avengers, just so you know.

( the traditional live commentary )

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/346321.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

So, I finally went and saw The Avengers, and here is the I've-had-a-really-long-day-and-I-really-need-to-go-to-sleep edition of my review:

1. It was about an hour too long, and I'm not just saying this because I forgot to go to the bathroom before the movie started.
2. The bits with Tony Stark were fun.
3. The bits without Tony Stark were boring.

In conclusion, will definitely go and see Iron Man 3, but there is no way I'm going to pay to see The Avengers 2.

eta: Nooo! I forgot that the first semi-finals for Eurovision Song Contest were today! :(

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/345993.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

So I finally watched the season finale for The Mentalist, and three quick thoughts:

( spoilers, nothing but spoilers )

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/345649.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Want to know how spoiler-phobic I am? Because The Mentalist season finale airs tonight, and I don't want to be spoiled until I can watch it - probably not until next week - I have a sticky note on my desktop with the words "Beware of spoilers" to remind me not to inadvertedly go to websites that might spoil me :D

(and to be honest, already for the last few months whenever I've visited any The Mentalist related websites, I've looked more or less like what Jane looks like in my icon)

(I'm also actively trying to remain spoiler-free of Game of Thrones, Eureka, and Fringe, but not as passionately as with TM)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/345492.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

And here is the happy post that I was talking about. And it is a happy post! I only complain because I care, honest!

( bulletpoints of random again )

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/345227.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

*sigh* So the last few days I've been rewatching Buffy S4 and really enjoying it now that the show's past all the Twilight-esque dramallama that was Buffy/Angel and was just about to make a really happy post about it...

...and then I once again made the mistake of reading the comments at Whedonesque and now I'm all grumpy again because of the Joss=feminism crowd.

Choice bits this time included someone half-jokingly calling a woman who doesn't like Buffy an "anti-feminist female", and another poster apparently completely earnestly claiming that the Bechdel Test is not a good tool because there are no movies where two men talk about something other than a woman either...

eta: Unrelated, but xf_is_love is running again this year and we could use more people signing up!

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/344951.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Note to self: If you think, "Oh, I'll just go and buy the paints tomorrow instead today", make sure that the aforementioned tomorrow is not Mother's Day when the hardware stores are closed. Because I'm now two days behind on renovation stuff that needs to be done before my father comes over to install the new doorframes.

(not to mention that I have now decided that I'm going to renovate the kitchen as well while I'm at it - just painting and small stuff like that, but still)

In other news, if I disappear from online during the next two weeks, it'll be because I'm changing my ISPs and am currently in the situation where I have a contract with both the new and old ISP, and neither (I have ended my contract with the current ISP, but it won't actually end until at the end of the current billing period, which is in two weeks. I have also made a contract with the new ISP, but it shouldn't actually start until my contract with the old ISP ends. I have very little faith that it will actually go this smoothly).

And on the weird dream front, I had a dream last night where the people at our office were soldiers protecting a space colony overrun by aliens in a kind of a Aliens/28 Weeks Later hybrid. There were no Australians in the dream, though, so I take that as a sign that at least I'm not stressed about work (even though I really should be).

eta: Note to self, part deux: When someone has brought chocolates to the break room at work, do not take one and then put temporarily in your pant pocket so as not to forget it on the counter when you make your tea. Four hours later you will take out your keys from your pocket to find them covered in melted chocolate.

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/344644.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

One for rarewomen:

Title: La vie en rose
Pairing: Jane/Angela
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Spoilers: none
Wordcount: 1756
Summary: "That was our thing, that's what we did together. We escaped together."

Read @ AO3

And two for mentalist_kink:

Title: John Doe
Pairing: Jane/Red John (plus Lisbon)
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Spoilers: "Fugue in Red"
Wordcount: 868
Summary: Jane meets with a stranger on his way to Malibu with Lisbon.

Read @ AO3

Title: I Know What You Did Last Wednesday
Pairing: Rigsby/Cho (plus Jane)
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Spoilers: none
Wordcount: 558
Summary: "I think Jane knows."

Read @ AO3

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/344493.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

I have been on a writing-spree lately, and found this (very) old plotbunny in my WIP folders and decided to finish it.

Title: Brother's Keeper
Pairing: Spike/Connor
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Spoilers: "Deep Down"/"Conversations with Dead People"
Wordcount: 1144
Summary: After being thrown out of the Hyperion, Connor finds his way to a small town in Southern California.

Read @ AO3

(no beta, so concrit is more than welcome)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/344084.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

It's time for... Ruuger Watches Buffy Season 4. But unlike Mark, I am totally prepared and prejudiced ;)

I remember I really liked the first half of S4, and was disappointed by the second half except for "Primeval" and "Restless", which I loved. I'm especially interested in seeing what I'll think of the latter, because it's been five years since I've last seen it, and I have since grown much less tolerant of overly clever self-conscious meta.

( random bulletpoints of random )

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/344037.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Phase One of who knows how many of my apartment renovations is over and I'll have a few days off now from it until I need to start preparing next weekend's work (after which all should be done in teh living room and I can move on to renovating my bedroom, which will be a slightly bigger project).

Anywhoo, to have some content in this post that might actually interest people, here's a list of tv-shows that I've been watching in recent weeks:

The Misfits: I finally watched season 2 and I think I loved it even more than I liked season 1. It has exactly the kind of slightly absurd sense of humour that I love (for example, Nathan killing the "alien" in the Christmas special has me laughing hysterically just thinking about it), and though I don't particularly like any of the characters, I find them all very interesting.

Revenge: You know how much I love roaring rampages of revenge, and with a woman being the one seeking for revenge (and for something other than being raped!), this show and me should have been the perfect fit. Alas, it wasn't :( Why is it that women's revenge storylines must always involve seduction and romance? Everything about the few episodes I have watched has been far too by-the-numbers soap opera for my taste, so it's unlikely that I'll keep on watching.

The Mentalist: Only two episodes behind at the moment. It's the pre-finale filler season so the last few episodes have been a bit unimpressive (though entertaining) and my main thought about them is that someone in the show's casting team must be a scifi fan because they've already had half the cast of Firefly, Enterprise and Voyager as guest stars, and now they had Teal'c and Major Kawalski in the same episode :) There was also a very prickish high school principal called Snyder...

Criminal Minds: I finally came to the conclusion that I'm just going to stop watching this show. Am I imagining things, or has the underlying theme for this season been "people with disabilities are dangerous"? Because I don't think there has been a single episode this season (that I've seen) so far where the killer hasn't turned out to have been somehow disabled or mentally ill.

Newsradio: I remembered liking this show back in the nineties, and so when one of the smaller channels has been showing reruns one episode per day I decided to check it out and turns out that unlike a lot of other things I liked in the nineties, it was actually good. And by good, I mean the funniest sitcom ever. I'd completely forgotten how funny Phil Hartman was, and I love Maura Tierney and Khandi Alexander.

The Walking Dead: I've watched two episodes and so far I like it. It's a total dude-o-rama and from what I've heard, it only gets worse, but there's zombies! I'm willing to forgive a lot for some good zombie action.

And finally, I just noticed that Macguyver will be on reruns this summer as well. Yay, Macguyver! If nothing else, I have to remember to watch the episode with Peter Jurasik and the killer ants - it's a classic.

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/343324.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Okay, I don't actually own any power tools, but spending all evening yesterday sandpapering and washing the walls, and then filling cracks with spackle did make me feel kinda manly too. But I'm still glad that Operation Fix Livingroom Walls is now moving to its final stages, because moving bookshelves around and washing walls is kinda exhausting when you're only about 5ft tall... And my subconscious agrees:

When I took a break to eat dinner, I watched Something New on TV (a chick flick about a business woman who hires a landscape architect, played by Simon Baker, to do her garden (there's a rude joke here somewhere, but I'm not going to say it)). As a result, I had a dream last night where I made Simon Baker renovate my living room. I'm pretty sure I also made him clean my bathroom as well.

(My celebrity fantasies are always adorably practical. I once went to bed hungry and had a dream where I made James Marsters cook me dinner (in my dreams I'm also always very bossy and domineering.))

The actual point of this post was to say that I will probably be incommunicado most of this weekend, so see you on the flipside :)

(assuming I don't fall off the ladder and break my neck)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/343265.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Because I'm trying to put off removing the wallpaper in my living room, you get two more pairing generators:

Buffyverse and The X-Files can be found here.

If you have suggestions for prompts/locations that I should add to the prompt generator, please tell me because I had trouble coming up with any :)

(also, if you want to make a generator for one of your own fandoms, I can help you)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/342828.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

I was bored last night and made for Babylon 5/Crusade and The Mentalist a random pairing generator, which gives you a prompt of two characters and a location.

(I may also add a fourth field for an object to make it even more Cluedo-like as soon as I remember how javascript works...) Done! You can now get prompts for such artistic gems as "Kosh and Ulkesh east spoo on Mars".

The Mentalist random pairing generator
Babylon 5/Crusade random pairing generator

(while testing these right now, I noticed that I mispelled 'vorlon'. Damnit.)

(and now the Mentalist one gave me the prompt Erica Flynn/Kristina Frye/on Jane's couch. Ouch. ;))

I dare anyone to actually write the prompts tey get!

(and who says that the prompts can't be written as gen - thhere are plenty of things that Kosh and Lorien could be doing in a starfury...)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/342600.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

1. To anyone who I still owe icons to: you may have to wait for a few weeks because I'm renovating my living room and had to move everything to my bedroom, which means that currently my desktop computer is buried under a mountain of books and DVDs.

2. shipswap, the rare pairings ficathon is currently open for nominations. I ran out of nomination slots, so I would appreciate if someone else went and nominated rare pairings from Buffyverse and Babylon 5 If you can't think of any yourself, may I suggest Franklin/Ivanova, Franklin/Marcus, Spike/Wes, any Dawn femslash pairings, Spike/Gunn, Giles/Wes... *makes puppydog eyes* Also, Jane/Cho for The Mentalist because I only realised afterwards that it's rare enough to qualify, despite being one of the biggest ships in fandom (eta: oh, and Jane/Red John - I somehow forgot about that, too).

3. The Ao3 stats meme that everyone's been doing. The results are slightly skewed because since the beginning of 2011 I've only posted my fic to AO3 (for version control reasons) and linked that everywhere.

( it's kinda obvious that the readership on AO3 favours small and new fandoms over big old ones - also, kudos keeps sneaking up on me... )

And for the record, if anyone looks at this and thinks "So few comments - goes to show how little feedback you get on Ao3", let me just say that even my most popular fics have gotten maybe 25 comments total all places combined. I have never beena popular writer, and if anything, I'm getting more feedback (in the form of kudos, if not comments) on AO3 than I ever got on LJ or ff.net.

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/342318.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.

Anyone know any good screencap galleries for B5? Most the links that I'd bookmarked have gone dead and the only ones left were Cap That, which only has the first two seasons, and good old JumpNow, which is unfortunately outdated in both quality- and quantitywise.

(and I can't make my own caps the capping software on my desktop has stopped working again which is trés annoying)

This entry was originally posted at http://ruuger.dreamwidth.org/341986.html. Feel free to comment either here or there. There are comments in the original entry.