I've got five Dreamwidth invite codes, if anyone is interested, leave your email in the comments (they're screened) or email me at alice.ttlg at gmail.com with "Dreamwidth invite" in the subject.

If you're not sure what Dreamwidth is, it's an LJ alternative designed by a couple people who used to work at LJ and it's very open and transparent in their terms and geared towards fandom (but certainly open to anyone).

www.dreamwidth.org

God, it's been ages since I've posted! To quote a song on this wonderful little music site, "Now I want to give away what I've taken back..."

Just Watch the Sky

Or rather, just watch that site! They have about 19 songs on there now, full length, one to a page and there's some really spiffy stuff there! Listen, enjoy! Links to Amazon from that site or just about all available on iTunes too I think.

The first song is currently White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes which starts to drive you crazy with repeating "I was following the" until you just have to love it and sing along and then it finishes the sentence - "...pack all swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied ’round their throats to keep their little heads from fallin’ in the snow..."

And there's some great Death Cab for Cutie, "Your New Twin-sized Bed" and "The Nerve" by The Republic Tigers (Let's just drive, I wanna see what the wind does to your hair) and "Slow Show" by The National which just makes me melt and "My Backwards Walk" by Frightened Rabbit (You're the shit & I'm knee-deep in it) and lots more!

There was 18 songs when I first went to the site a few days back and now there's 19, they added one at the beginning so I'm figuring they do that, add one, every so often (once a week?), so keep checking back!

ETA: All fixed now! Squeaky is a fabulous superfast guy!

What's the deal with IJ? I haven't been able to log in there - I hadn't been to IJ in awhile and I tried to log in yesterday and again this morning and I keep getting a message that the database is in read only. I see on Announcements that he's upgrading but there's no info about problems with logins.

I tried the support form at IJ and I get "invalid form submission" even when I choose "not an IJ user" and give my email address.

Is it all a Russian plot to keep me from posting anywhere except LJ?

;)

Dear newbie bookmoocher,

When you first join, you get a whole bunch of mooches (I'm fairly new too, just joined last October) and it's really fun and really exciting to send out all those books! But you really really really need to be careful when packaging up the books and sticking on labels to make sure sure you get the right book in the right envelope with the right label!

Because I do not like J. A. Jance at all and I was really really really excited about getting Cornelia Read's new book and having Ms. Jance show up in my mailbox was Not.A.Happy.Occasion.

Damn it,
alice ttlg

Just an fyi (although everyone else probably knew this ages ago and I just found out on Monday), Amazon has the boxed collector's set of the complete Angel series on sale for 50% off - $70. It is also possible to find the same thing, brand new, factory sealed, at eBay for about that or even slightly less.

DUH! ETA a url would be helpful, wouldn't it! boxed Angel at Amazon

heehee!

(safe for work, no pics, very funny!)

As I sit here watching the snow fall (on my computer desktop) and the lights twinkle on the Christmas tree (on my computer desktop) and listen to the carolers (on the TV), I'm so happy I won't have to do more than click off all that stuff to clean up! LOL!

Merry Christmas (or your holiday of preference or just have a great day) to all!

6A: I have a great idea!
LJers: What's that?
6A: I really didn't like all you people whining and complaining when we deleted those LJs back on Memorial Day weekend...
LJers: ...So you're not going to do that anymore?
6A: Well, no, we will delete LJs - we just won't make it easy for you to realize we've done it!
LJers: Come again?
6A: We'll remove the strikethrough, instead we'll just de-link all deleted/suspended LJs in any posts or comments and we'll hide them in in profiles' friends/comms lists.
LJers: ???
6A: Yes, it's perfect! Because you won't easily see that we're TOSing people left and right, you won't be able to complain and whine and organize boycotts or anything else we don't feel like dealing with!
(6A toddles off happily)
(LJers' heads explode)

Yes, it's all true, right here in LJ Releases (because of course *everyone* reads every single LJ release in full details).

Any links to deleted/suspendes LJs in LJ posts or comments will become plain bolded text, no link, no little LJ user head. You can only see deleted LJs in your own profile (if you had friended/watched them), to see deleted LJs in other people's profiles' friends/comm lists, you have to click on that link at the bottom to show the full profile.

6A took lessons from Cheney and Rove, didn't they? Full disclosure is stupid! It just gets you a lot of bothersome questions and whiny-ass people bitching and moaning. Much better to keep things secret because after all, what LJ users don't know won't hurt them, right? Ignorance is bliss, right?

Okay, so I can definitely cross off "renew paid LJ accounts" from my budget this fall. Because after all, 6A doesn't really want my money, do they?

My Boys is starting its second season tonight and it's become one of my favorite shows. I'm not exactly sure why, a large part of it is Jordana Spiro's good-natured smile and natural prettiness. She seems like the kind of girlfriend who'd be up for anything and wouldn't be worrying about chipping her nail polish. I can also relate to her being one of the guys (which I translate as being herself) and trying to sort out the dating rules when she's not a Rules woman. The men in the show are various typical stereotypes you've seen a zillion times but they're given some heart and made more three dimensional so they're interesting and fun to watch.

Close My Eyes, um, bad, bad movie, not even Alan Rickman could save this - the *only* reason to watch is very nice frontal nude scenes of Clive Owen! OMG! I did not realize *that* was in here! *stops fast forwarding, hits rewind, then play in slo-mo* oooh!

I Heart Huckabees - just a mess! And ewwww, yuck! Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin making out every time they turn around! ewwwwww! Mark Wahlberg was adorable (continuing my current obsession with watching almost all his movies) and Jude Law! Didn't realize he was in this, he's good too and so is Amish Girl but what is with the Shania Twain obsession??? All the existential philosophy stuff was silly and not in a good way and the whole thing just meanders all over the place but at least I didn't feel robbed of the time spent watching it like I did with The Departed. *shudder*

Last Holiday, nice feel good movie, no real hah-hah laughs and of course you know everything is going to be fine in the end but there were some nice characters, Gerard Depardieu was wonderful as the chef and the woman playing the stereotypical German valet and the blonde at the front desk and the hotel was gorgeous too. Although believing Queen Latifah as a shy retiring soul was a bit of a stretch. :)

I like this! It's a good mix of glitz and glamor and realism, all the prettiness of the 50's but so much a facade hiding the real stuff. And wow, excellent stuff about racism, prejudice, sexual harassment and sex! Great cast, Vincent Kartheiser (who played Connor on Angel), Christina Hendricks (Saffron on Firefly) who is a fantastic office sexpot, Elizabeth Moss (Zoey from West Wing) playing the small town new girl, Jon Hamm (Nate on Lifetime's The Division), John Slattery (who's done a bunch of stuff) and more. There's nice touches, Draper coming up with the idea for the Marlboro Man, old-fashioned strip teases at a bachelor party, the Italian guy trying to hide that he's gay and the psychiatrist giving the husband a complete report on his wife's session - eek, but it was a very patriarchal, patronizing time for women. And it's gorgeous too, I love the decor and cars and clothes and had a good laugh when the secretary talks about the latest technology and unveils an IBM Selectric! LOL!

I'd forgotten how much fun a really good football movie can be! And Invincible is really good - a well written script that does an excellent job of catching the spirit of blue collar workers in the late 70s with layoffs and strikes as well as the underdog trying to make in the big time. Excellent performances from everyone, especially the neighborhood guys and Mark Wahlberg and the football scenes are so much fun! Even tho you pretty much know what's going to happen, it's very well done and had me leaning forward and urging them on. Soundtrack doesn't hurt a bit either, they picked out some great 70's stuff that worked beautifully with the scenes.

The IMDb review for Invincible pointed out something I hadn't noticed right off - there's no real profanity in the movie, it's rated PG but you never miss it, they still managed to capture both the grittiness of the Philly neighborhood and the realistic roughness of the team's summer camp without the language.

The Big Hit is so bad, it works as great satire! All of it is hilariously bad, the cast camps it up something awful and it manages to pull together into a halfway not terrible movie! Very 80s look to the whole thing even tho it was filmed in 1997 and there's some nifty oddball subplots - the video store guy is terrific and the car chases are wacky. All in all, not a bad double bill of Mark Wahlberg.

Because I liked The Lucy Show (1962), Netflix thinks I must be interested in soft gay porn: Best of Boys in Love 2.

Because I liked Dick Van Dyke (the 1960's sitcom), Netflix thinks I must be interested in basketball playoffs: 1982 NCAA Playoffs!

So apparently Netflix thinks that people who watched I Love Lucy are gay men and people who watched Dick Van Dyke are sports-loving straight guys.

I guess women just don't exist in Netflix's world.

LOL!

The full reasoning behind Netflix's recommendations of these two:

Best of Boys in Love 2
because I liked:
Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss
The Real World: New York: Season 1
The Lucy Show

I can understand the conclusions they drew about the above shows/movies, it was more about the juxtaposition with Dick Van Dyke in the second recommendation...

1982 NCAA Division I: Men's Basketball National Championship: North Carolina vs. Georgetown
because I liked:
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Shield
Pink Floyd: The Wall

(and I specifically don't have any sports categories selected for recommendations!)

I like this show! Jeffrey Donovan has a good voice and the dialog is fairly decent, could be a bit tighter but good enough and I'll hope it improves as they go along. Pilot had a lot of explanation in it but the characters worked well together, the ex-girlfriend was a bit off at first but better by the end and I liked the stuff with the drug dealer who wanted him to move and it's a nifty loft he's got too. Sharon Gless as his mother is twisted and obnoxious and very good and I loved the voiceover about the best background for a spy is a home he hates and wants out of! The whole avoiding a tail with his mom in the car was also fun too! And since it's on USA, it should go the whole run of however many eps they've taped.

Keen Eddie, it reminds me of that although not quite as brilliant, but it's the same sort of fish out of water thing with a good edgy main character.

ETA: For anyone interesting in checking this out, USA is airing both the pilot from last week and this week's new ep together on Saturday, twice:

Pilot USA 07/07/2007 9:00 AM
Identity USA 07/07/2007 10:30 AM

Pilot USA 07/07/2007 11:30 AM
Identity USA 07/07/2007 1:00 PM

New eps air on Thursdays at 9pm central but USA repeats them several times, that evening, the next day and later in the week. (alice <3 repeats)

It's really beautiful - nothing spoilerly, all clips from S2 eps, all the scariest, freakiest moments, lots of really cool shots and put together really well. It's long, a minute, at least, maybe 90 seconds, and it starts off with a bit of slow spooky music over it and then a little girl voiceover begins, saying the following poem type thing:

...

The icy feeling in your chest
The prickling of your hair
These are signs to warn you
That something lurks out there

You may just not believe it
But I know that it's true
There is a darker side
To the world you thought you knew

So be fearful of the night
Trust in what you feel
For evil does exist
And nightmares can be real

...

It's really beautiful, very spooky and creepy and slightly hypnotic. Really good to see CW running long promos for it and they're airing reruns on Sunday nights too. Hopefully they're running this promo during their other shows too, grab some new viewers.

ETA: Dina's kindly snagged it and posted it here, thanks Dina!

Is your computer silently sending out spam? Hosting illegal content without your knowledge? Hosting identity theft websites without your knowledge? Silently participating in DDOS attacks like those that disabled LJ over the last three weeks?

( It's midnight on the net somewhere, who is your PC talking to? )

Join fandom_counts, no need to post or anything, it's just a count of fannish LJs and post the link on your LJ to pass the word to your flist.

Almost 17,000 in less than 12 hours - the profile page has the info in several languages so feel free to pass on to non-English speaking fen. If the membership hits the LJ max, notify the comm owners (link in the comm's profile), they have backup comms to allow people to continue joining.

It's fun to watch the count go up and up and up!