(no subject)

When I posted my Two Abortive Things about NCIS the other day, a couple of people were interested in starting watching, so I said I'd pick out "some good episodes" to start with. This isn't a full-on guide like the Torchwood guide was, but then NCIS is a much les complex premise, because while it technically spun off of JAG, there's little to no interaction between the two.

Essentially, an incredibly damaged ex-Marine with secret manpain (Leroy Jethro Gibbs) heads a team for the Naval Criminal Investigative Services, composed of quirky personalities up to and including:

An adorable Goth Forensic Evidence expert he may or may not be sleeping with (Abby Sciuto)
A British ex-military-doctor Forensic Pathologist who tells long involved stories we never get to hear the end of (Donald "Ducky" Mallard)
His assistant, a socially-awkward but endearingly cheerful trainee (Jimmy Palmer, HOW AWESOME IS HE? There was also Gerald, but he got shot in mid-S1 and didn't show up to begin with as much as Jimmy does)
A computer geek who is secretly a bestselling crime novelist (Timothy McGee, alias Tommy Gemcity)
An ex-cop and casual Olympic-level misogynist and serial killer who is desperate for approval from authority figures (Tony DiNozzo)
and either an ex-Special Service agent training to investigate crime scenes (Kate Todd) or
A Mossad secret agent who can kill you by breathing the right way but has her own very deep-seated daddy issues (Ziva David)

THEY SOLVE CRIME! Also there is some international espionage because at least three of those people use to be super special spies. It's never outright stated but usually kind of implied that Gibbs's team is the elite -- they're based out of DC and they're usually tapped when the Director needs a special-projects team.

Before you go any further, SEE THIS VIDEO. It is a compilation of many of the times that the agents have "headslapped" one another, including Gibbs's awesome self-headslap and the time he petted Tony's hair.

And on we go! Please be aware there are spoilers for all six seasons, but no spoilers for unaired episodes. I'm going to make an unusual request that if you do comment, please don't spoil the end of S4, because I really feel that anyone watching that arc deserves the awesome reveal.

( NCIS -- fun episodes to watch )

(no subject)

A little later than I intended, but in the name of TRANSPARENCY! I present you with the sales figures for the first 24 hours of Nameless. :)

So basically profit from Nameless is going to pay for my new maskmaking workbench. This is....obscenely cool, kids.

Those figures are pure profit-coming-to-me, after printing and shipping, and do not include the proof copy or copies I bought yesterday to sign and send (nor do they include the paypal money I've received for those copies). They're just slightly skewed because the 29 OPCSY copies include 22 that were bought when it first hit the virtual shelves a few months ago, so subtract about $12 from the Grand Total, but it's still fairly accurate.

ETA: It's harder to coherently present the download data in a screencap, but OPCSY has been downloaded 1345 times since it was published, and Nameless has been downloaded 320 times in the past 24 hours.

drgaellon, who I am convinced knows at least something about everything, pointed out to me that I can print Media Mail postage using PayPal. This is going to simplify the signed-copies situation significantly; I can have the books shipped to work, sign, package, and meter them on my lunch hour, and mail them before I leave for the day. The only problem I might encounter is my lack of innate organisational ability, but I suspect with The Spreadsheet Of Doom I may be able to fill significantly more orders than I would otherwise.

Once this first-five test-run is done, I'll be able to gauge how fast I can fill other signed-copy orders. It helps that I get a discount if I order in bulk -- ordering 10 copies saves 11% of the print price, 25 saves 25%, et cetera. So if the First Five go smoothly I will probably try to fill orders in lots of 10-25 at a time. I am much more optimistic about this today than I was last night.

I plan to make the charitable donations in the name of Christopher Dusk, because I'm a dork that way. :D

This morning I have done the dishes and laundry, and the oven is heating now for bread-baking. For someone who planned to do nothing, I sure am doing a lot.

I watched a bunch of Ouran High School Host Club episodes last night, the new dubbed versions by Funimation. I prefer subs because I think they tend to be more accurate since you can hear original vocal tone, but I think the dubs are quite good -- they start out a little rough but shape up pretty quickly. What I found most hilarious was that the subtext of the Official English Translations is even slashier than the original Japanese, and I did not think that was possible.

I still have epic mad love for Kyouya.

(no subject)

This is LONG OVERDUE, and my apologies to aethel for that!

aethel recently podficced one of my stories, Care and Feeding. It's about fifteen minutes long, and you can download it here. I said I would pimp it out and then it got buried under the chaos of my life. But it's here now! I hope you enjoy it. :)

(As always when Care and Feeding comes up, I add-pimp Nice Coat, by adina_atl, which was the originating story. I just wrote the companion piece.)

In other news, you know you're a foodie when you have designated tea towels for various tasks.

("Bread Rising Towel", "Cast Iron Towel", etc etc...)