(no subject)

After yesterday's MT I knew I would be in some pain this morning, and I was -- I feel like someone hit me in the shoulder with a hammer a couple of times -- but I also realised that I have essentially had a low-grade headache going for weeks, and I think so much more clearly without that pain. It's honestly amazing.

This morning I caught up on...uh, everything ever. And I have some fun stuff to share with you!

I don't know much about fashion, so when I had Ianto doing his "fashion" posts for Askworld I found a couple of male fashion blogs and kept reading them after the game ended, which is where I found Tequila Bottles of Awesome and Steampunk Cheetahs. Amusingly, neither of those items are really fashion related (nor are those blogs the ones I originally found them on, I should point out).

I had the sudden and bizarre urge to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey the other day, despite knowing that it is in fact one of the most boring films in existence. I also, on iamshadow's recommendation, downloaded a copy of Desk Set. So I'm thinking of having a film festival while I clean the flat this weekend, and wondering what other films people can recommend about the interplay between technology and humanity. And if you say "The Matrix" I will hurt you.

Ideally, given that Desk Set and 2001 are ten years apart, I'd like to find one from either the late 1940s or the late 1970s. Or both. A history of technophobia by decades, that would be fun! Wasn't the monster in Dr. Caligari supposed to be a robot of some kind? I know Dr. Mabuse used a fair amount of technology -- phones, speakers, and cars are all converted into TERRIFYING THINGS in the Mabuse films.

I was going to go to a movie if I got out at 1 today, as it looks like I will, but I think I'm going to make a quick stop at the post office to mail some Nameless copies and then go home and sleep instead. OH SLEEP. I WILL WOO YOU LIKE A LOVER.

(no subject)

*tadaa gesture*

The first round of fics for writerinadrawer is up, so you should go and read and vote!

WIAD is a Torchwood-centric writing competition/festival. Writers are given a prompt and submit their fics, which are then posted anonymously. Voters leave anonymous votes for their favourites and least-favourites. Those with the most negative votes are "drawered" and are out of the running for the next round. It's a nice way for people to get honest anonymous feedback, especially since all votes must be justified.

Before you vote, check the rules to make sure your vote will count and remember to base your reasoning on quality of writing, not ship or theme. Have fun! This time it's all drabbles, so it's fast reading and a ton of good quality fic.

Check out part one here, part two here, and vote here.

Looking over the entries I'm definitely middle of the pack in this one -- even if I could have voted for myself, there were several that were just plain better. TIME TO STEP UP MY GAME.

(no subject)

I will admit I am something of a sucker for photobooks.

I make a yearbook every year, which includes scraps of my life (train tickets, reciepts, etc) and also the particularly good or memorable photos I took that year. I've also made photobooks as gifts, which is fun for me and also avoids the whole "wtf do I buy for them" conundrum.

Lulu.com has offered photobook-printing for a while, but this is the first time I've tried my hand at one. I've always gone with the flash-layout clone you can find at Walgreens and about a dozen other photo sites, and I have to say it's much more flexible and useful than Lulu's version.

That being said, Lulu offered a contest. I am also a sucker for contests. You make a book, sign up, and you're entered in the contest. The thing is that you have to make the book general-access in order to enter, and I didn't want to confuse anyone checking my publishing page. So.

There is a photobook at my publishing page. It was made as an entry for a contest. I do not suggest that you buy it, because frankly you have to buy three at a time and $26 for three 3x5" photo books is ridiculous. But it's there, and if you click preview you can view the whole book online; I can't make free PDFs available, but if you want a PDF for whatever reason let me know and I'll put up a sendspace of it.

It's all photos I took of Chicago, with a funny (possibly creepy?) little story I made up about the "Piper of Chicago" who comes out on winter nights to make all the statues in the city wander around with him. :D I might do up something more intricate with that story later, I don't know.