Anything Not Nailed Down Is A Cat Toy

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-08-05T18:12:00

2012-08-05T23:12:11Z

Some Artsy-Fartsy Shots of Sis's Pool (Now With Cheap New Night Lights!)

The covered deck needed some nighttime lighting, so I installed this string of festive little electric Japanese lanterns that I found at a craft store. They give off enough light to easily see by, but not enough to attract bugs or give off heat. 'Cause hell, look at that thermometer in the third shot. It's hot enough at 9:00 PM already without a bunch of light bulbs getting into the act.

The underwater lamp actually gives off much more light than appears in these photos; I was using my little digital camera which made everything look rather dim.

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-07-13T01:35:00

2012-07-13T06:35:54Z

I Had The Pool All To Myself, And It Was Excellent. So I Took Pictures.

My sister’s pride and joy is her swimming pool. It’s an above-grounder -- she would have preferred an in-ground, but the cost of that was beyond her budget. So no diving board or shallow-to-deep sloping bottom, but it’s a wonderful thing anyway: thirty feet wide and four feet deep, and hidden from the highway by a wooden lattice and a line of large trees. It's also got an underwater light and several solar battery lanterns on the sides and decks for nighttime swims. Now if we could just get the grass to grow...

Sis has decorated the sides with very pretty flowers, caladiums, and pink plastic lawn flamingoes. BECAUSE THEY ARE TASTEFUL AND FUNKY.

Now, normally the inside of the pool looks like this: lots of little ‘uns splashing and screaming and climbing all over you, after having thrown every damn floating object they can find into the water so that the pool’s surface becomes a flotilla of wall-to-wall junk. (At least they’re good about not peeing in the pool. Thank God.)

But today…all the kids were at camp or day care, all the other adults were at work, I had the day off…

…and the pool looked like this.

Tranquil; clear; no sound or movement but the soft little plash and dancing droplets of the water fountain. Heaven.

This is me, in Heaven.

This is the covered deck, formerly the porch of a mobile home. My sister had it moved to the side of the pool, and it fit perfectly! It’s a great place for folks to sit protected from sunburn, and the shade from its roof and the breeze from the water and fountain make it nice and cool.

The dogs and cats like it, as well.

The other deck is uncovered, for sunbathing. Sis has put stepping stones between the decks so that grass and dirt won’t get tracked into the water.

The view between the decks is scenic and tranquil, too.

Yes, it’s a view of hay bales. ‘CAUSE THIS IS TEXAS, Y’ALL.

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-06-03T00:06:00

2012-06-03T05:06:52Z

LIFTOFF! The Barnes Family is Officially Airborne!

The little 'uns have been growing like weeds, and flexing their wings as if in practice for the big day. And judging by the expression on the face of the chick squished into the far left, that day can't come soon enough.

I was worried that one or all of them might try flying a little too soon and would flitter to the ground, where they'd be fine if it weren't for the damn cats. So I sawed down a small tree that needed to be cleared out of the yard anyway, and propped it up under the nest to act as a safety net -- any chick landing in it would automatically grip his toes and stay safely perched and pretty well hidden from the kitties' view, and Mama Bird would easily find him and continue to feed him.

"PUT THE CAMERA DOWN SLOWLY, OR WE WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE MEASURES."

"TWO WORDS: TIPPI HEDREN."

*ahem* ...Anyway, from the porch and safety-net sapling, it's a clear shot to some large oak trees with lots of branches:

And from there to the swimming pool and a nearby pond for drinks of water and flying insects to catch and munch:

This morning the nest was empty. I quickly searched the ground and the cats' whiskers, and found no mangled bodies or bloody feathers or puked-up beaks, but I still fretted about the chicks' fate. Then I looked up at the electrical power lines...

IT WAS THE CHILDREN! :D

AND THE WIDDER, SWOOPING DOWN TO FEED THEM! :D

HERE SHE COMES AGAIN, OVER THE PASTURE WITH A MOUTHFUL O' BUGS! :D

The chicks spent the day flying back and forth from the nest to all over the yard, following their mom and learning how to hunt for bugs themselves. Tonight they returned to the nest to roost, but before long they'll abandon the nest altogether and find new homes. *sniffle* I'll miss seeing their beady little eyes staring down at me!

I will not miss their latrine.

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-05-19T14:03:00

2012-05-19T19:03:27Z

The Widder Report

Well, the young barn swallows are over a week old today. ALL FIVE OF THEM. WEDGED INTO A NEST THE SIZE OF A GRAPEFRUIT. O_O

They seem to be built with an instinctive sense of edges, though, and each keeps to his/her own spot in the nest, so that there's little danger of anyone pushing anyone else out. And see that bird butthole? The one above the big white feather? Right after I took that photo, the chick projectile-pooped right over the side of the nest! Then he turned around and resumed his regular position. It was the most amazing thing ever. THEY ARE HOUSEBROKEN, LOL.

The Widder Barnes, meanwhile, feeds them mostly in the mornings and evenings, when the winged insects are out in full force over our swimming pool and the livestock ponds, and I feed them after dark when their mom apparently sleeps in a nearby tree (or possibly goes clubbing.) There's also a new addition to the group: an adult swallow whom I have named Doris Freeloader. Doris seems to have no ties to the family and is only there to help herself to the perpetual cup of mealworms. She doesn't try to threaten or harm the family, but The Widder is smaller and a bit intimidated by Doris, and flies away whenever Doris appears. Fortunately Doris eats quickly.

These are the bloodworms (aka mosquito larva) that I feed the chicks. NOM NOM NOM.

I'll give you a moment to throw up in your mouth a little.

There, now you feel better.

Also, note the kitteh in the lower left corner. He's the one who killed Father Barnes. GO AWAY, KITTEH. DO NOT BRING YOUR EVIL HERE.

When all five babies are gaping their mouths at once, it looks hilarious, like a Hallelujah Choir of Skeksis and Fizzgig.

"Yuuuuuuuum, yum. It's larrupin' good!"

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-05-13T12:56:00

2012-05-13T17:56:52Z

We Can Haz Hatchlings?

HATCHLINGS!

Happy Mother's Day. :D

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-05-06T16:47:00

2012-05-06T21:47:35Z

In Which I am a Surrogate Spouse and Parent to a Bird Family

This is one of the many reasons that I barely have time to even look at things online lately, much less post:

See our front porch? See that thing in the upper left corner of it that looks like a splattered turd ball?

It's not a turd ball. It's a barn swallow's nest.

It was made by one of these:

We live in a rural area, and in the spring and summer there are barn swallows everywhere. They eat about a gazillion mosquitoes a minute, along with any other insect they spot, but unfortunately they sometimes swoop close to the ground to catch them...and end up being caught themselves by our cats.

And that's what happened to this gal's husband. The pair of them had almost finished construction of their nest, and after the poor male's demise, the female completed the job, ferrying mouthfuls of mud from the nearby pond and packing them along the nest's rim. Then she laid five eggs in the nest, and I began to be extremely concerned. Some research confirmed my suspicion that she was going to die from exhaustion trying to feed all those babies by herself, if she managed to successfully hatch the eggs by herself at all. See, normally one parent stays on the eggs most of the time, while its mate catches and delivers mouthfuls of insects to it to feed it. This lone parent would have to leave the eggs uncovered a LOT, in order to fly out and feed herself. Then if any babies managed to hatch, she'd be without a mate to help her feed them.

So I rigged up a water cup and a food cup beside her nest:

(Note visible Product Placement. McDonald's and Braum's are official sponsors of the Avian Widders & Orphants Association of Northeast Texas.)

I keep the food cup filled with live mealworms (purchased from the pet shop), and so far Mom Swallow is happily gobbling them up -- now she no longer has to leave the nest to eat. I also bought some cubes of frozen "blood worm" insect larva (normally used to feed tropical fish), and when the chicks hatch I'll thaw those out and feed the already-pulpy stuff to the chicks as often as possible -- it'll be soft enough for them to digest, and hopefully keep them healthy and full enough to prevent Mom Swallow from dropping dead of a heart attack. I'll also move the water bowl further out and lower its water level, so the babies won't accidentally flop into it and drown.

Wish us all luck, everyone!

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-02-25T15:53:00

2012-02-25T21:53:18Z

*bangs cooking pot with a great big spoon*

EVERYONE GO VOTE FOR SPIKE/FRED HERE! --> http://nekid-spike.livejournal.com/4095589.html
IT'S A LAST-ROUND POLL! AND THEY'RE IN IT! ithinkyouhavetobeamember BUT IF YOU ARE A MEMBER, GO AND VOTE FOR THEM! YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO VOTE AGAINST SPIKE/BUFFY TO DO IT! ('Cause they're in another category.)

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GO GIVE SPRED A VOTE, AND I'LL PROMISE TO STOP SCREAMING AND POUNDING ON KITCHEN APPLIANCES!

Also, thank you, eilowyn and velvetwhip, for the niftly blue dragons on my profile! (One of them smells suspiciously like pepperoni.)

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-02-20T10:40:00

2012-02-20T16:40:11Z

Here's a weird thing: since Feb. 8th I've gotten e-mails telling me about new comments on three (so far) stories I posted in spred. The e-mails show me what the comments are, but when I look at them in the actual spred community posts, they aren't there. The comments are all in Russian, from LJ accounts that are also in Russian. I ran the comments through an online translator and got this:

trainorilo:
Доброго времени суток! Не вижу условия использования информации. Можно ли копировать написанный вами текст на свой блог, если ставить ссылку на эту страницу?
Good time of day! See terms of use. Can I copy the text you have written on your blog, if you put a link to this page?

nedrudyxab:
Хороший пост, но много лишнего.
Good post, but a lot of superfluous.

gurlopiq:
Отлично. Ждем новых сообщений на эту же тему :)
It's cool. We are waiting for new messages on the same topic:)

It looks like spam -- did LJ recognize the comments as spam and automatically delete them from my posts? What would make spammers choose those particular posts? Could someone fluent in Russian (bats eyes at moscow_watcher) look at those journals and tell me what they think?

Справка! HELP!

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-01-15T12:38:00

2012-01-15T18:38:50Z

CAROLS!

Yes, pathetically I'm still trying to do Christmas stuff one month later. I was so busy and exhausted and stressed before and right up to December 25, getting it ready for others (and may I say right now that there's a special place in Hell for self-centered deadbeat relatives who every year deliberately fail to provide Christmas for their children because they know that my sister and I will do it to keep their kids from suffering major disappointment and unhappiness and they don't care that it straps us of every cent we've got AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!)...that I didn't really ever get to just relax and sit down or travel around quietly and enjoy the music, decorations, movies, community events, etc. The only time for that was late at night, when I was too tired to keep my eyes open. So I kept telling myself that between Dec. 26 and New Year's, I could do all those things...but in my part of the country, everything Christmasy gets yanked down then, and everyone but me is sick of Christmas and doesn't even want to discuss it anymore. And then I feel rotten for feeling cheated, because I've got so much to be thankful for and I'm acting like a big whiny self-pitying douche who can't stay out of the Christmas Clearance aisles.

ahem...ANYWAY...found this on Youtube: music videos of four guys pantomiming Christmas songs while dancing, beaming, and appearing to get progressively drunker by the verse. They're my new favorite holiday classics! :D

"Christmas in Killarney"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGstrljksN0

"Good King Winceslas"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMmxhhfQw0c&feature=related

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-01-07T00:07:00

2012-01-07T06:07:55Z

My Christmas Decorations, Part 3

KITCHEN! FOOD! Roast duck (cleverly hidden in the electric roaster) and roast turkey cooked with thyme, rosemary, and sage; cornbread stuffing with oysters; cranberry sauce; gravy; mashed potatoes; sautéed mushrooms; broccoli with cheese sauce; Parker House rolls and butter; cheesecake with blueberries; buttermilk pie. Damn, that was some good eatin’.

The rest of these pictures were taken in the den. The house is a ranch style, built in 1961, and it still has its original wall paneling and brick fireplace. That’s my mom relaxing in her comfy chair after I assured her that she wasn't in the photograph.

This big-ass line of cowboy boot stockings was begun in the mid-1950’s, when my aunt and grandmother saw some similar stockings for sale at Titche’s or Neiman-Marcus or somewhere and thought, “Hey, we can make our own and save some major bucks!” They then continued to make a boot stocking for each new child born into the family, and when they were no longer able to do it, I became the boot stocking-maker in their place. There’s about twenty in the collection so far.

My mom’s childhood piano, decked out for the season:

The fireplace decorations include a Neapolitan-style crèche from Italy (the Magi’s tent is from Wal-Mart), which amazingly has withstood three generations of kids without any pieces being lost or broken!

And in a place of honor on the dining room table…a replica of the little tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas. “Hark, the herald angels siiiiing…”

When I was little, I thought the line “With the angelic host proclaim” was “With the jelly toast proclaim.”

*curtsies*

*flashes underpants*

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-01-06T23:56:00

2012-01-07T05:56:35Z

My Christmas Decorations, Part 2

These are close-ups of some of our tree ornaments.

Hee, hee, hee…look, a Texas sock monkey.

I really like these enamel-painted animals from China: hummingbirds, butterflies, dragonflies, and fish. (Plus one green-haired mermaid.) I bent the branches (it’s an artificial tree) to form a deep grotto and hung the fish there, so that when the room lights are dimmed it looks as if they’re swimming in an underwater cave, with bluish light filtering in from…uhh…the moon, or luminescent glowworms, or…something. Anyway, the kids love it.

The little silver bell with the brown ribbon is a replica of the one in The Polar Express. Raise your hand if you can still hear it ring! *fist pump*

One more batch and then I promise I’ll stop!

sockmonkeyhere @ 2012-01-06T23:40:00

2012-01-07T05:40:59Z

My Christmas Decorations, Part 1

HAPPY EPIPHANY / TWELFTH NIGHT / LITTLE CHRISTMAS / THREE KINGS DAY! (give or take a few hours.) I’ve loved looking at the holiday decoration photos that folks have put on LJ, and now I’d like to post my own.

This is a shot of my sister’s house on a snowy day last year…not during Christmas, but the photo’s so festive that I decided to use it here anyway. This is where we spent the holidays.

Lights and wreath on the front of the house:

In the parlor, where we’ve plugged in the lights on the model ship and on the cat:

Purely by coincidence, the ship is painted in Christmas colors. I added the little lights to resemble the lights strung on real ships for Christmas boat parades.

We had so many playful indoor kitties and small, grabby children this year that we didn’t hang many ornaments on the bottom tier of the tree, so it looks a bit bare. (And kinda “meh” when the camera flash is used, ‘cause you can’t see the pretty tree lights.) And because we also have dogs who are normally house-broken but who love to chew and piss on new, unusual things, we can't use a tree skirt and we have to pile the presents up on the green-covered table instead of under the tree.

Two more batches of pictures coming up in the next couple of posts!

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-12-31T18:24:00

2012-01-01T00:25:00Z

Season's Greetings to everyone! I haven't had time to go online much at all for the last several months, but I'm determined to catch up at least a little bit today. I love looking at the photos people have posted of their Christmas decorations, and if I can find my camera I'll try to put up some pictures of our decorations as well.

In honor of New Year's Eve, I wanted to share with you a beautiful version of "Auld Lang Syne", performed by The O'Reilly Consort and included in their CD "A Celtic Christmas: Carols for Celtic Band." Unfortunately I could only find a small snippet of it online. Click on this link --> http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=4867599
then scroll down to sample 9 and click on that. It's only thirty seconds long, but it's a lovely highlight, with notes and key that are very different from the traditional version of the song. The other songs on the CD are wonderful, too ("Oikan Ayns Bethlehem" is especially memorable; almost haunting in its beauty.)

Happy New Year!

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-08-07T14:07:00

2011-08-07T19:08:02Z

Amish...Vampires? Oh, Lord.

Two of the biggest current trends in popular literature are: [1] Amish Romance novels (written by non-Amish authors, and I often wonder what the actual Amish people think of those books) and [2] Paranormal Romance novels (frequently starring gorgeous, emo vampires.)

Therefore, someone has written a novel that combines the two.

Because if bleu cheese salad dressing tastes good, and marshmallow Easter peeps taste good, then marshmallow peeps soaked in bleu cheese dressing will taste really good. Right?

RIGHT?

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/plain-fear-forsaken-novel

http://www.amazon.com/Plain-Fear-Forsaken-Leanna-Ellis/dp/1402255403

http://churchleadersread.com/2011/03/11/plain-fear/

http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/2011/08/plain-fear-forsaken-by-leanna-ellis.html

And it isn't a spoof, a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's completely serious.

Now, I haven’t gotten a chance to read this novel, and it may turn out to be a very good story and very well-written. It’s just…the concept, y’know? These two genres are so completely different from each other, and it’s hard to imagine how they could mesh plausibly AND satisfy both readerships. I’m guessing that most fans of Amish romances are drawn by the Christian, “clean read” aspect of those books – that’s what I’ve observed at my job in the local public library, anyway. I’ve also observed that those readers like their clean-read romances to be based in reality. They don’t check out things with fantasy elements, such as magic, time-travel, fairies, etc, even if the fantasy elements are benevolent. Traditionally evil fantasy critters like vampires, and the sex scenes that usually accompany them, would probably go over with them about like a turd in the punchbowl.

All I can say is please, pleeeeeeeeeze let there be a graphic novel version of this. An Amish manga would be awesome (as in not really), the likes of which have not been seen since the ghastly Buffy Season 8 comics. O_O

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-06-12T21:51:00

2011-06-13T02:51:31Z

YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!

THE DALLAS MAVERICKS HAVE WON THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP!

I think I just shit myself. :D

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-05-22T23:37:00

2011-05-23T04:37:35Z

alison_swift has purchased some mini BtVS figures and posed them with appropriately silly captions. Heeeee! XD

http://alison-swift.livejournal.com/165517.html

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-05-08T16:52:00

2011-05-08T21:53:59Z

Fic Rec:

Here's a wonderful drabble in which a Muslim slayer and a Jewish slayer give Buffy a small lesson in weaponry and religious faith.

Cross-Cultural Exchange by beer_good_foamy

http://beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com/160130.html

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-05-06T21:49:00

2011-05-07T02:49:35Z

Boobage Removage

*happy dance* Wow. For the record, simple mastectomy is truly simple! The surgery started at 10:00 AM this morning, was finished around 12:00 noon, I woke up not long after, and the hospital released me at 4:00 PM. My chest was kind of sore for the first couple of hours, but not excruciatingly so, and then it subsided to just a slightly bruised feeling by the time we left for home. If I'm not thinking about it, I don't even notice the bruised feeling; haven't needed any pain medication so far. My mom is still limping a bit from her knee replacement in February, and I was still just a wee bit sleepy from the anesthesia, so she and I took turns ducking into shops on the way home, to run errands and buy necessary supplies: prescriptions, pie, gasoline, dog wormer, cat food. (YES, pie was necessary. Buttermilk pie. It was our first stop.)

My three-year-old niece loves the rubber drain bags protruding from my chest; she keeps patting them and saying "These you bandages," in a very satisfied manner. And I've had pie and an enormous cheeseburger, and my flat chest feels so much more normal because I was flat-chested most of my life, and we all get to sleep late tomorrow morning. :D

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-05-02T22:48:00

2011-05-03T03:48:44Z

Oh Hai There, Mastectomy! We Meet Again!

This Friday I’m getting my remaining booby removed as a preemptive strike against more breast cancer. I first got b.c. back in 2006, and had a radical mastectomy then, plus chemo. (My reports on that are here.) Ever since then, my doctor has tested my blood every couple of months…and thank goodness, because last July the test raised a little red warning flag and yelled “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!” So the doctor ran some scans on me which included chug-a-lugging about 48 ounces of a barium/zesty citrus punch/mule piss solution (I made up the part about the mule piss), and he found a tiny clump of breast cancer cells in my lower backbone. The cells had migrated there from the original cancer site and then somehow managed to survive the chemo blasts and stay hidden and dormant until July, when they voted to start growing. Luckily they were still tiny and hadn’t been growing for very long, so the doctors drew a basketball court on my back with Magic Markers and gave me fourteen radiation treatments, and the cancery backbone bit is now a fried, dead little wad of scar tissue. (I asked them if they could just remove that vertebrae and replace it with a jar lid, but they said no.)

During the bone scan, a technician was perched beside me at a little console screen like Sulu at the helm of the starship Enterprise, and at one point he too-casually said “I’m just going to take a closer look at your lower leg,” and I thought “Oh, shit, I’ve got shin cancer,” and then Sulu asked me if I’d ever broken my big toe, because his console was showing a shadow on it, and I said “I’ve got cancer of the toe?” But he finally decided that it was just arthritis.

After the radiation treatments were finished, they scanned me again and found a suspicious-looking spot on one of my ovaries. It turned out to be harmless, but as a precaution (and much to the dismay of my insurance company) they let me have a complete hysterectomy, so I no longer have to worry about malignant things growing in my girly bits. I had that surgery in January, and it all healed up just fine…and just in time for a tumor to appear last week in my remaining breast. *headdesk*

Thankfully, within two days of its debut we had it biopsied, and it’s benign, but I don’t want to risk that poor ol’ teat ever growing another tumor -- the next one might be malignant, and might leak cancer cells into other parts of me the way the first one did. So this Friday it’s all coming off, and afterward I’m going to buy a T-shirt that’s printed across the padded chest: “THESE ARE FAKE. MY REAL ONES TRIED TO KILL ME.”

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-01-23T14:20:00

2011-01-23T20:20:07Z

*staggers in*

Whew, I'm home from the hospital, where I had a hysterectomy this weekend as a precaution against a spot on one of my ovaries. Fortunately the spot turned out to be harmless -- NOT cancer after all -- and now I don't have to worry about getting uterine, cervical, or ovarian cancer, so it was absolutely worth the trouble. Now I'm sitting here with a neat vertical incision from my crotch to my navel and a bottle of Lortab for company, trying to get caught up on a week's worth of Live Journal.

It's good to be back! :D

Accent Meme!

2011-01-18T07:51:51Z

Oh, lord. I sound like Minnie Pearl on crack cocaine. XD

Say These Words:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting Image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

Now answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

sockmonkeyhere @ 2011-01-16T01:24:00

2011-01-16T07:24:16Z

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a head trip on some really bad acid! It’s…

BTVS ISSUE 39!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEE…!”

“…EEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

“…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

“…AAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEAAA…!”

“…AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIA…!”

“…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

“I’m Eddie Hope.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...!”

“…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

“…AAAAAEEEEEEEAAAAAAAA…!”

“Begone, Flying Toothed Kotex With Wings! YOU ATTACKED MOTHER.”

“Your real work isn’t done yet, Father.”

“Gaze upon the Seed of Wonder. It is our doorway from the old world into the new.”

“I don’t understand, New Son Who Has Totally Replaced Connor.”

“It’s all quite simple. The real Me wasn’t born yet. I’m an entire universe who exists in reverse and ages sideways, and am able to manipulate people into copulating without their knowledge or permission, which is somehow not considered multiple rape by ~~the Dark Horse staff~~ The Powers That Claim To Be. Luckily, at the last minute I was able to grow a fifth penis and impregnate myself.”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I pinch your head!”

“Yes, you do that…and I’ll simply pop on a G.I. Joe head and be right back in business.”

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaack...”

“Nyuuuuuuuuuuugh...”

“Wheeeeeeeeeeeze…”

“Gluuuuuurg…”

“…Wait, are you sure we aren’t just f*%#&ing again?”

SPLORT

“Take THAT, gross ovum thingy!”

“Oh noes! We lost connection with ~~Riverdale~~ Sunnydale!”

“Calling Doctor Bombay! Calling Doctor Bombay! Emergency; come right away!”

“Y’know what? Fuck this shit. Budgie Two, take us out of orbit. Ahead warp factor twelve, Mister Tweety.”

~end~

The Complete Fiddley Bits Theater Collection

sockmonkeyhere @ 2010-11-12T00:39:00

2010-11-12T06:39:42Z

Well, this is rather insulting: look at the set of Jo Chen "Season 8" souvenir glasses that Dark Horse is selling: they feature Buffy, Angel, Willow, Giles, Xander, Dawn, and Faith...but no Spike.

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/1011/11/buffypint.htm

I've written to Dark Horse, asking them why they left Spike out; I told them that I'd have considered buying a set if Spike had been included on them somewhere. Chen painted a Spike cover, so they can't use "it's Chen art only" as an excuse. Apparently they still don't get that Spike is an extremely popular character with a huge fan base.

(I would have protested about the lack of Oz on the glasses, too, but I'm not sure if Chen did any artwork with Oz in it.)

sockmonkeyhere @ 2010-11-01T21:40:00

2010-11-02T02:40:55Z

Aww...congratulations, San Francisco Giants, on winning the World Series! I wish it could have been my Texas Rangers, but hey, first runner-up is nothing to sneeze at, and we won a pennant, too: for the first time in our history we're the American League champions. The Giants are a great team and a class act, and I'm proud of both teams and truly happy for you. :)

sockmonkeyhere @ 2010-11-01T14:14:00

2010-11-01T19:14:54Z

HALLOWEEN FANFIC MEME

Gakked from shipperx:

All of you fanficcers out there, I want you to post a link to your most Halloween-ish story. Note, the story doesn't need to be about Halloween, or even take place at Halloween. Just the story that you think best fits the Halloween spirit.

Some ground rules:
1. It must be complete. No WiPs allowed.
2. Do NOT post just a link.
Post all header information, such as title, fandom, pairing, trigger warnings, etc.
3. All fandoms welcome.
4. All pairings welcome.
5. All genres welcome.

For example: If you think the story you've written that best fits the Halloween spirit scares the pants off people, fantastic! If you think the story you've written that best fits the Halloween spirit is a straight-up laugh-fest, fantastic!

*blows dust off five-year-old story*
*pretends it's still Halloween*

Title: Small Things
Length: ficlet
Disclaimer: based on the TV series Angel, created by Mutant Enemy
Setting: AtS early season 5
Rating: G
Pairing: none
Link: http://sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com/16579.html