bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (RSL neil window)
bironic ([personal profile] bironic) wrote2014-03-23 05:12 pm

A Song of Ice and Remix

Oh, hey, Remix is happening. Just signed up! It's been a few years since I participated, and more than a year since I posted a story at all; I'm hoping this will get the ficcy juices flowing. Kept my offers to three fandoms to make things less stressful, especially since I expect to be working on a vid of some kind around the same time. We'll see how it goes with new mods.

Other than that, things here are as usual, except for the wild turkey I saw pecking at the sidewalk a block from Harvard Square this morning. In the voice of Michael Palin, beautiful plumage. Two other passersby were filming it with their phones.

Been exercising almost every day and cooking to take better care of myself, which of course doesn't leave as much room for fannish activity, but still, there has been time this week to start reading A Game of Thrones. About 300 400 pages in now. It's not as overwrought as I'd feared; the mental effort goes to keeping track of all the names -- I can't imagine how much harder that would be without having first seen the show to have faces to pin them to -- rather than ignoring purple prose.

Also I printed this out and hung it up in a simple frame in the kitchen yesterday for laughs whenever I wash dishes.

Oh, and a childhood friend and I are going to see Eddie Izzard live in May!

On a break now between making chicken paprikash and roasted vegetable soup for the week and going to a former classmate's for a dinner party. She and her husband have one of the most beautiful houses I've ever seen, and one of the two best of anyone around my age, yet they just decided to move. I suppose I can't complain, since they'll be a few minutes closer to me. Tonight's challenge was going to be figuring out whether to leave too early to watch Cosmos here or stay too late to watch Cosmos there, but lo, it appears the episodes do appear on fox.com after the fact.

[identity profile] alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com 2014-03-23 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
the mental effort goes to keeping track of all the names

And it gets no easier, particularly with the gap between books for those not reading them all at once. (Luckily I read them one after the other and have skipped the last book because I've forgotten all the names/families/connections.)

Saw Eddie live last year and it was "glorious." :))
ext_2047: (RSL neil window)

[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2014-03-25 12:07 am (UTC)(link)
:D

particularly with the gap between books

Ya, worse than the gap between seasons, I'm sure, and even for that I have to watch the previous season finale to remind myself what the heck was going on. I've never encountered another source where so many things happened to so many people and yet in the big picture hardly anything moved.

[identity profile] mific.livejournal.com 2014-03-24 10:00 am (UTC)(link)
I'm signing up for Remix too - it's good to see it back again.
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2014-03-25 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
Agree. *high fives you*

[identity profile] amnisias.livejournal.com 2014-03-24 11:38 am (UTC)(link)
Now I want that cookbook, just for the cover!
ext_2047: (RSL neil window)

[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2014-03-25 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
I can recommend the save-picture-as option, for sure.

[identity profile] bitter-crimson.livejournal.com 2014-03-24 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
i read the books before watching the show, and mostly i did the same thing i do whenever i read/watch things, which is, i have ~no idea~ what anyone's name is until i've probably almost finished the thing haha. i'm just really bad at names so i don't even bother trying to learn them. if there are a ton of characters then i just try to figure out who's who in each scene from context clues and their personality and stuff.
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2014-03-25 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
Makes sense. It's nice the characters on the show say one another's names so much to help them sink in, but even there, several casting choices, while all the acting is excellent, have left me confusing some characters for others. Or not recognizing one from one season to the next or one scene/costume to another, but that can't be blamed on two actors looking similar. :)

Having the show in back of mind while reading the books has its advantages and disadvantages. It's been an immense help in picking up names as I go, for the most part. It also has me more deeply invested in them and in the plot than I might have been if I'd gone in cold. But it also has me paying as close attention as I can to all these bazillion names, not only the main characters, and who belongs to which house, and which character or house has feuded with which other character or house over what matter and how long ago, etc., because it seems like any and every name will come back at some point to be highly significant, and if I haven't picked up on that character's backstory or physical description then I'll miss something critical.

But still, so far it's fun.

[identity profile] chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com 2014-03-24 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I met Eddie and he signed my CD of the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack in silver sparkly pen. He was super nice.
Chicken paprikash, yum.
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2014-03-25 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, right! Cool. I don't think there'll be anything like that at this huge venue, but I guess you never know.

The chicken came out nice and moist, but not enough flavor. Maybe I diluted with too much yogurt at the end, or maybe just should have salted. We'll see about adding some kick to tomorrow's portion.

[identity profile] thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com 2014-03-24 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Hee, that's a hilarious cover.

The last time I took the 1 bus the driver said the turkey had been following him around Harvard Square all week. I wonder if it's the same turkey. How do they survive the cold?
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[identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com 2014-03-25 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
Natural down coats. :) A coworker said she saw a turkey by Petsi Pies - I wonder if it's making the rounds in Cambridge.