HSU IT Department

Read! Share! Post! Let's have a little book talk :)

1. Favorite childhood book, and why? - A tie between (1) Little Women (Louisa May Alcott), with its rich complex characters, warm and loving family life, and fully-realized range of affections and passion that it illustrates, both personal (art, talent, personal best) and interpersonal (sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, new and old lovers), and (2) The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster), because it's so original, weird, sharp, and creative. I mean, who comes up with the idea of a symphony that plays the colors of the world, or Subtraction Stew, or literally eating one's words? And of course Azaz the Unabridged totally reminds me of Dumbledore ("Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!")

2. First book you clearly remember reading? - Bambi. My stepdad gave it to me for my seventh birthday and I adore it to this day.

3. Favorite reading snack? Cheese and crackers. Salty, crispy, yummy, and doesn't leave grease stains on the pages.

4. Favorite reading location as a child? As an adult? - As a child I would take a bag of apples and a book and climb a tree. Now I'm more about the sofa and a glass of wine.

5. Most intimidating book you've tackled and why (and what happened?!) - Gravity's Rainbow. Still haven't made it past about page 50.

6. The longest you've gone without reading? - Um...six hours?

7. Genre you rarely read but wish you did? - Biography. I'm sure there are a ton of amazing bios out there, but mostly I just get bored when I read someone's life story. Which is odd since I've kept a journal myself since I was eleven lol

8. If you were taking a ten-day trip, how many books would you pack? 12-15. I have to have options, since I don't know what I'll be in the mood for.

9. What books are on your nightstand right now? - Red Rising, This Census Taker, Gods of the Blood, and Talking God.

Thanks to kellychambliss and therealsnape for this one!

Two names you go by:
1. Bobaggins
2. Bergé

Two parts of your heritage:
1. Optimism/cheerful outlook (thanks Dad)
2. Smarts (thanks Mom)

Two things that scare you:
1. Alzheimer's
2. Someone I love dying

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. my Roman glass earrings
2. comfy fleece pants

Two physical things that appeal to you:
1. A rainy day - the smell, the sound, the quiet peaceful feeling
2. Flannel sheets in the winter

Two of your favourite hobbies:
1. Reading
2. Book collecting

Two things you want really badly:
1. Trump to not have been elected
2. To get published

Two places you want to go on vacation:
1. England
2. Novia Scotia

Two things you want to do before you die:
1. Learn to make popovers (they never pop!)
2. See a manned mission to Mars

Two things you are thinking about right now:
1. Whether our ancient dog will poop on the floor tonight
2. Having another glass of wine

Two stores you shop at:
1. J. Jill
2. J. Peterman

Two people you haven't talked to in a while:
1. My best friend from high school
2. My brother

Two favourite websites:
1. New York Times / Goodreads
2. The Mary Sue / Smitten Kitchen

Two things you did last night:
1. Prowled Breitbart (I started doing this after the election, just to see what it was like; it's been...eye-opening)
2. Played Angry Birds

Two shows you like to watch:
It varies by mood. I love older shows like Mary Tyler Moore, Barney Miller, M*A*S*H, etc. At the moment Mr Psmith and I are re-watching
1. Friends
2. Mad Men

Two places you like to go to:
1. New York City or Chicago (tie!)
2. Used bookstores

Two favorite subjects in school:
1. History
2. English

Two favourite places to eat:
1. our local Irish pub, owned and run by a real Irishman
2. any Sunday brunch

Two people that who live in your house:
1. me
2. Mr Psmith

Two things you like about yourself (physically):
1. My feet, which are small and not bony
2. My boobs, which are just right

Two things you ate today:
1. Wasabi almonds
2. Homemade chocolate chip cookies

Two people you last talked to in person:
1. My mom
2. Various coworkers

Two people you last texted:
1. Mr Psmith
2. my nephew

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. reboxing original art for 200+ comic strips
2. having a double tall no-whip mocha

Nicked from kerravonsen. All questions must be answered with a single word.

1. Where is your (mobile) cell phone? dead
2. Your hair? silvering
3. Your dad? Trumping >:P
4. Your other half? out
5. Your favourite food? wine
6. Your dream last night? Picard!
7. Your favourite drink? wine
8. Your dream/goal? publication
9. What room you are in? kitchen
10. Your hobby? words
11. Your fear? dishonor
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? retired
13. Where were you last night? worrying
14. Something that you aren't? thin
15. Muffins? YESSSS!
16. Wish list item? simplicity
17. Where you grew up? red-state
18. Last thing you did? munched
19. What are you wearing now? jammies
20. Your TV? pernicious
21. Your pets? ancient
22. Friends? absent
23. Your life? complicated
24. Missing someone? always
25. Car? topless
26. Something you're not wearing? out
27. Your favourite store? book
28. Your favourite color? blue
29. When is the last time you laughed? today
30. Last time you cried? today
31. Who will redo this? you
32. One place that you go to over and over? Hobbiton
33. One person who emails you regularly? wendy
34. Favourite place to eat? alfresco

There is a meme circulating: put the letters of the alphabet into your search window and write down the first auto-complete for each. Other people get all kinds of interesting things (shyfoxling got "dg33fb led connectors" for D and "skankin' pickle" for S, which I don't know what it is but it makes me giggle). When I do it I get precisely what you'd predict if I were, say, George F. Babbitt: A = amazon, B = best buy, and so on down to Y = youtube and Z = zillow.

What does this mean? Why is my browser so conventional, so dull, so uninteresting? Let the record show that I have never searched for zillow in my life, and really who needs to google Amazon when you can just type in "amazon.com"?

I did notice today that if I type "what is" into google, the first autocomplete is "what is a caucus". No surprise there; it's a very unfamiliar concept to most Americans, even if you have had it explained to you as a child by a Dodo.

Edit: Ah, I believe I have sussed it out. It's because I do private browsing and clear my cache every time I close my browser. This means my search history never gets stored, so all google has to offer me is the most popular search for a given letter.

So my browser isn't boring, I'm just very very secretive :)

Antonio Gramsci did not like New Year's Day:

I want every morning to be a new year’s for me. Every day I want to reckon with myself, and every day I want to renew myself. No day set aside for rest. I choose my pauses myself, when I feel drunk with the intensity of life and I want to plunge into animality to draw from it new vigor...No spiritual time-serving. I would like every hour of my life to be new, though connected to the ones that have passed. No day of celebration with its mandatory collective rhythms, to share with all the strangers I don’t care about. Because our grandfathers’ grandfathers, and so on, celebrated, we too should feel the urge to celebrate.

And there is something to be said for that. But I still love New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, with its feeling of freshness and potential. I think there is something good about choosing a specific time to reflect on what has passed and what is to come, and to think seriously about how one hopes to shape the next twelve months of one's life.

We had a lovely, mellow New Year's Eve finishing up our Firefly marathon and then watching the first Star Wars movie. Both made us rather melancholy, Firefly because it was cancelled so early and so abruptly, with so many stories left untold, and Star Wars because they all look so damn young. Still, it was great fun to watch the young and dashing Han Solo swash his buckles across the galaxy, and cheer for Captain Reynolds and crew as they fight their way through Reavers to get the truth out about Miranda. It occurred to us both that Captain Reynolds bears more than a passing resemblance to Captain Solo, even down to the stripes on his trousers. And of course the aforementioned dashingness. Big damn heroes, both of them.

The last eighteen months have been a real roller-coaster for me and mine, and I am devoutly hoping that 2016 will be a more serene period. I also hope to do more writing -- yes, I say this every year, and so far have failed, but that doesn't mean I give up on it as a goal. I also plan to take a page from teddyradiator's book: "to keep my zen, to play more, and to cherish my friends."

Many hugs and warm wishes to all for the new year!

Everyone's doing it, so I might as well too. Since all the other questions were about movies and tv, I stuck with movie/tv characters for #3. Unsurprisingly, it was hard to limit myself to five (you'll notice that I cheated a bit on the first one...), although in the case of five favorite characters I actually had a tough time coming up with five. There are a lot of characters I like, but very few stand out above the others as favorites.

1) 5 Favorite Movies
(a) Gigi
(b) A Fish Called Wanda
(c) About Last Night
(d) The Heiress / Witness for the Prosecution (tie)
(e) Anne of the Thousand Days / A Man for All Seasons (tie)

2) 5 Favorite Television Shows
(a) Star Trek (original series)
(b) The Office (UK version)
(c) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(d) M*A*S*H
(e) Twilight Zone (original series)
Note: I binge-watched both Mad Men and Breaking Bad recently and could hardly force myself to stop watching so as to get some sleep, but it's too soon to know whether they'll be long-term favorites.

3) 5 Favorite Characters
(a) Spock
(b) Spike
(c) Jean-Luc Picard
(d) Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins
(e) Sally Albright
Note: I wanted to include Stephen Colbert, but I wasn't sure if he's a character so much as a persona. Regardless, he's definitely one of my favorites.

4) 5 Favorite Stars
(a) Audrey Hepburn
(b) Michelle Pfeiffer
(c) Maggie Smith
(d) Patrick Stewart
(e) Alan Rickman

5) 5 Things that make you smile
(a) Unexpected gifts
(b) Christmas (even though I'm an atheist)
(c) John Cleese, in any role
(d) Puns/clever wordplay
(e) Kittehs being kittehs

...because a Certain Someone (::waves at teddyradiator::) likes keys and I found these on Etsy and had to share:

Keys of Azhar
Keys to Atlantis

I devoutly hope to be back on LJ more regularly in another week or so. I have been so busy with freelance work, regular work, co-mod duties for my writing group, prepping for teaching a workshop in a couple of weeks, and getting everything settled for my upcoming two weeks of vacation that I have had zero time for anything else. Not only have I not posted here, I have not even had time to read and so have no idea what's going on with y'all (though I did catch shiv5468's post about the hoo-ha fairy which made me laugh immoderately). I hope everyone is well and happy.

In other news, it's actually really truly finally spring here!!!!!!