bironic

My birthday is in a couple of days, so after a small group of us went to see Star Trek: Beyond yesterday, we came back to my apartment for a Star Trek-themed party. Wish I could have invited more friends, but things are limited by the size of my apartment, and the timing conflicted with Boston Fangirl Brunch anyway. Instead, please consider yourselves part of the extended virtual celebration.



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DRINKS

Klingon Bloodwine
Cherry juice with pulped fruit

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. Cold.
Orange-Earl Grey iced tea

MAINS

Scotty's Lemon Chicken
She cannae handle much more flavor

Ferengi Spore Pie
Mushroom-swiss quiche

Terran Salad
Mixed greens with vinaigrette

DESSERT

Cellular Peptide Cake
With mint frosting

We played a couple of card-based games, including Slash, which was fun. In the background we put on some TOS episodes, "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "The Gamesters of Triskelion" -- one iconic, one kinky/hilarious -- and then the Deep Space Nine revisit, "Trials and Tribble-ations." Also I found the scene from the TNG ep "Phantasms" where Data dreams that Troi has been turned into a cake (TW: strong noncon overtones), because that was the inspiration for the cake I made for the party.



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I'd been looking for an excuse to make more recipes out of the Star Trek Cookbook for a while. This made me happy. Even if it involved turning on the oven on two 95-degree days! The trials of a summer birthday.

Music: NPR/Stephen Thompson's Austin 100 lasted most of the drive to/from New York this weekend. It provided a dozen new-to-me songs I'm calling keepers, including four that sparked vid ideas. Two of the vids I'd definitely like to make at some point. One of those would be perfect for Club Vivid -- next year, that is -- once I figure out what fandom(s) slot(s) into the structure it presents.

Books: That thing where I said I was re-reading The Dispossessed because I'd made it almost to the end last time but petered out? I'm a little more than halfway through now and have no memory of anything beyond the middle of chapter two. It's a perfectly fine story of character, comparative politics and cross-cultural communication barriers. I'm beginning to suspect I didn't read much of it at all and have been confusing it with Stranger in a Strange Land, which I similarly didn't finish years ago.

Brain: Day four of four days off, and I'm feeling better than last week, although still not great. Took care of a lot of to-do's yesterday. Could use more days. Unfortunately, this is another week of Many Things To Do At Work + several evening engagements. Also feeling all a-roil regarding my career path after -- well, a lot of things, but most recently a grad school alumni party at our professor's house last night, at which many people shared the impressive things they are doing. I will continue to plug away at my tasks and do my PT exercises and see what happens.

Food: Taking care of myself by making sure meals are prepared for the week. Tried a couple of new recipes today that came out well. If you are interested: chicken and white bean chili (subbed a can of chicken near the end for raw breasts, and milk & yogurt for half-and-half & sour cream) for lunches; the simplest, silkiest cauliflower soup for afternoon snacks; and quick sautéed mushrooms with garlic, parsley and a mix of butter and olive oil to bring to a friend's tonight.

Now to figure out how to spend the 2 1/2 hours until the get-together.

Had a lovely time in San Francisco.

I stayed with my college friend R., which was a treat. Also got to have dinner one night with old friend G. & his fiancée, and another night with the most excellent laurashapiro.

Four days was barely enough time to get a sense of the layout and a taste of the neighborhoods, so it served as sort of the sampler tour. ( Highlights for me were: )

I caught a cold on the way home, so basically all I've done since then is watch a lot of TV and movies and spend a few days at the office.

On Saturday I decided to make it fun by setting up mini-marathon themes, like "Australia" (more of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries season two, Tracks, Rabbit-Proof Fence). Other times, random pairings turned up unexpected similarities. Like how Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Turbo both featured a sudden and hilarious Auto-Tune song. Or how Talk of Angels and the second Bridget Jones' Diary turned out to have f-->f-->m love triangles.

Hm, what else did I watch? 12 Mile Road with Tom Selleck, which was like The Horse Whisperer lite; Touching the Void, which was pretty good; and Her, which I'd give maybe a B? I can't decide whether the ways in which it broke formula and tried to have insightful commentary on gender, relationships and societal attachment to technology outweighed the parts that were same old, same old. Interested in seeing Ex Machina at some point.

Caught up on Game of Thrones and John Oliver; watched some Ace of Cakes reruns; tried to watch the season premiere of Penny Dreadful but got bored.

Plan is to see Clouds of Sils Maria tonight with childhood friend and Avengers: Age of Ultron tomorrow with fan peeps. Kristen Stewart is my main draw for the former, and Hugo Weaving and Thomas Kretschmann for the latter, although I am given to understand that Weaving will be in the mask and TK has only a small part? Alas. We'll see.

Pretty good weekend, on the border of summer and fall. Remembering how the weather was like this last year, too, when I was moving: 90 degrees one day and 50 the next.

Sampled tasty dumplings yesterday with thedeadparrot and azephirin. We were planning to go apple picking today but A. couldn't make it. However, those still standing were still able to make apples happen. Thus, an afternoon's cooking:

( Pix: chicken, apple-blueberry crumble, mini apple pies )

The crumble is to take to work, with the excuse of my anniversary. (I like to do that from time to time, although I've been more thoughtful about it since an older colleague said she stopped doing the same a long time ago when she realized the men she worked with never brought in food, even when they came back from traveling.)

I'd never made pastry dough before, so I tried a simple recipe. It turned out fine. Next time I'd pile more chopped apple in the little pies, though. They cooked down more than estimated.

Now to decide what to do with the other half of the apples!

Besides being out in the beautiful weather, I learned some functions in Excel to make some budget spreadsheets. Woo, exciting life. Also watched the latest installments of Project Runway and Doctor Who, and the rerun of Cake Boss just now featured cakes in an Isaac Mizrahi show, so that's nice and full circle.

Oh, and got around to watching the Tom Hardy vehicle (ha ha) Locke. That was interesting enough as an experiment in stripped-down, theater-like cinema, but the ending didn't work for me, and the more I listened to the director's commentary, the more irritated I got that the character was supposed to be an Everyman. Village Voice was the only review I found that came close to how I felt about it.

I wasn't sure how a Saturday could start better than a good night's sleep topped off with a dream about having dubcon sex with vampire David Bowie.

Turns out the answer is by following up with a walk to check out the winter farmers market (it was okay; I bought a radish and some garlic-roasted nuts), taking advantage of the one-day 50-degree break in the weather to go on a long-for-me bike ride, and stopping on the way back at Trader Joe's to pick up a few treats like pea shoots and dried apricots.

Later, when my quads work again, there will be cooking. Am going to try these steamed gyoza and either spinach or pistachio muffins (maybe these or these) for St. Patrick's day/six-month anniversary at work on Monday. Trader Joe's had shelled pistachios, which would make the latter easier. Maybe this time I will not overmix the batter and actually achieve non-dense muffins.

...Hi, this is me trying to post more. Should talk about how fabulous Top of the Lake was.

Halloween wasn't going to be a big deal this year, and lately it has felt like I mostly sit around doing or stressing over not doing this freelance assignment, so it's a pleasant surprise to find that actually I have been part of a sort of extended Halloween celebration.

1.
Last Friday, ellen_fremedon, cincodemaygirl and alpheratz accepted my invitation to Oyamel, this excellent Mexican tapas place that had a two-week special menu for the Day of the Dead. ( Amazing food and drinks. )

2.
Normal weekend with a few highlights like putting together a bookcase with a coworker and keeping horror movie marathons on TV all day in the background (Stephen King, Hammer, Tim Burton, Twilight, etc.). Then we had this, you know, tropical storm/nor'easter, and the office closed for a couple of days but I didn't lose power or Internet, so even with responsibly setting aside a day for the above-mentioned assignment, I had time to fill my last Kink Bingo square, which was going to be a Vampire Diaries story but ended up being that Halloween-appropriate True Blood/The Queen of the Damned vid about hypnotizing/seducing fellow vampires into drinking your queenly blood. Hurrah.

3.
Speaking of vampire vids: Have you seen thirdblindmouse's new vid, Possession? She set Nosferatu to Sarah McLachlan. It is a thing of beauty and hilarity.

4.
My coworkers managed to pull off a potluck/costume party the day we returned to the office, which meant I got to wear a Star Trek dress and black boots in the style of Uhura, only with more modesty. Thank you, thinkgeek.com. Also I made these deviled eggs with orange-colored yolks and spiders made of olives on top, from something I saw on Pinterest.

5.
And today my friend A. and Mr. A. and I went to see a ballet version of Dracula, which... well, the (pre-recorded) music was entirely forgettable, the choreography 75% forgettable, the pacing poor, and the ending sudden and different from the book, but (1) the choreography for Dracula and his various pas de deux was spectacular, as was the man dancing him—bringing his elbows up behind him and his head forward like a bat, switching abruptly from slow and slinking to snake-strike quick when he decided it was time to attack his victims, making these elaborate creepy hand movements while pouring wine or taking someone's hand or touching someone's face or bowing in false obsequiousness, half-crawling and once howling like a wolf, lowering himself from a second-story railing head-first and extending his arms like a bat again, having partners begin mirroring his movements to indicate hypnotism—all very much in line with the book and early film depictions, and deserving of the standing ovation he got at the end, even if it might have been partly because he was the only one who got to do any decent dancing—and (2) they went full-throttle for the dubiously consensual homoerotics of Dracula seducing Harker after banishing the three brides. \o/ (  Dracula's hands were all over Harker's body... )

Vampires: still straddling the line between horror and desire.

Man, I would love to see David Hallberg play this Dracula. It would be worth sitting through the listless beginning and the endless tea party again. (After what felt like half an hour, the party at least was made interesting when everything went blue and slow motion as Dracula appeared on a balcony and entranced a spotlighted, normally moving Lucy.) One other saving grace was an ensemble danse macabre in a crypt or mausoleum or graveyard or something, the corps [sic, ha] done up like Helena Bonham Carter in a Tim Burton movie, only bloodier. There was a folk dance as well that had potential, but the dancers were out of sync and didn't seem to be doing as much as they were capable of. They did have a nice, gory wolf carcass. The scene where Mina was forced to drink from Dracula's breast worked well, although the audience tittered again when he ripped his shirt open, and the makeup people didn't powder his torso (or behind his ears, grr) to match the white of his face. Anyway, also impressive: The guy doing Renfield somehow danced an entire scene in a straightjacket.

In general, it was fascinating to observe the ways in which the novel could be transformed into dance, movements as clever metaphors. They stayed pretty faithful to the original plot and characters. catilinarian, I think you would have loved it too.

6.
That was going to be the end of it, but hey, does going to see a filmed performance of the Globe Theatre's production of Doctor Faustus count next week? Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who) plays Mephistopheles. Should be quite enjoyable if I stay on top of my assignment in the meantime and don't freak out about leisure activities. November is going to be nuts.

...

Thinking of all of you in New York and environs who are still struggling with power outages, lack of heat, gas shortages, etc. Though my mom & co. lost a tree and my dad's household is without power and is expected to remain so for up to two weeks, my family made it through okay.

Catch-up time! With a few pictures.

( Home Decorating for the Holidays – First trip to synn's new place )

( TV & Movies – Red Cliff, Sherlock TV show, Tron: Legacy, Stargate (1994), Thoughtcrimes rewatch, Brimstone ep rewatch, Vampire Diaries. With bonus link to an article about invented languages for fictional cultures. )

( Cooking – Mm, holiday food. )

( Hanukkah – Gifts, given and received, and a little help from technology. )

Should say something about fic now that I've got a bit of time to read some again. But I am not a big fan of Yuletide—I'm up to the "T" fandoms that I know and so far I've only got Texts from Cephalopods to recommend, along with about 10,000 other people, based on a possibly bogus YouTube video we watched when we saw the name of the "fandom"—and a couple of enjoyable Inception stories of late, Late Night Phone Call by sparkledark and The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret by eleveninches. Need to check out sga_santa and see if there's anything good over there. It's nice that the rare pairings (by which we mean everything that isn't McKay/Sheppard and Rodney/Jennifer, and maybe Sheppard/Weir and Sheppard/Teyla) are growing ever more numerous as the years pass since the show ended.

…Whoops, my friend just called to remind me that she and her husband and their puppy are coming over tomorrow evening for dinner. Guess I'd better figure out what they'll be fed.

1.

I posted two vids over the holiday weekend, to the general sound of crickets. :) In case any of you are interested but didn't see, they are:

Born Too Late, a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ensemble vid about dressing up and roleplaying as people from the(ir) past. I really enjoyed making it. Man, I miss that show.

Let's Get Messy, a multifandom vidlet of sexy mud/clay/dirt scenes that came together on Sunday when I found a suitable song by typing "messy" into the YouTube search bar. Ended up using source footage from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roar as originally planned and then adding True Blood, Sex and Lucia and SGA to round things out. Never knew I'd make a vid with implied Torrell (prison leader from "Condemned")/McKay and Torrell/Sheppard.

2.

Started a lighthearted little Inception vidlet yesterday for kicks and because I wasn't really in the mood to advance the BtVS one I'm planning for the other Bingo line, but I'm not sure that it's at all as funny as envisioned. :/ Not sure if the BtVS one will work either; if not, expect a screencap-illustrated meta.

3.

Current tally of House episodes at least partly inspired by Berton Roueché essays in this book: 5-6. "Histories," "Poison," the clinic patient in the pilot, "Maternity," "Damned If You Do," and possibly "Words and Deeds." I looked him up on Wikipedia after posting about the book, and the article said in the introductory paragraph that many of his articles inspired episodes of the show. So no surprise there, if you're not me. Still a great read.

4.

Made this simple and super-tasty pork tenderloin last night and made doubly sure that I cooked it to the specified temperature because two of the Roueché essays were about tainted pork—trichinosis and mercury-contaminated feed grain, *shiver*, so safety was even more on my mind than usual. Then discovered that the recipe's recommended temperature is 20 degrees below the USDA's recommended temperature, which I always go by but didn't check last night. Sigh. Then read that the amount of time I cooked it at the lower temperature probably killed the bacteria anyway. Then read that the USDA recently lowered the recommended temperature to just 5 degrees above the recipe's, which I'm pretty sure I hit. We'll see in 10-14 days. If I die, at least I'll have done almost three Bingo lines first.

How can I begin to express what the first 24 hours of this weekend were like?

( Pictures may do it. With celebrities, zombies, cupcakes and SCIENCE )

Or, to summarize with words:

Friday night: We went to see Robert Davi (a.k.a. Kolya on SGA) sing a Sinatra/American Songbook tribute in Dupont Circle. He apparently trained to be an opera singer before he became an actor, and it showed -- he has a wonderful singing voice and comfortable stage presence. It was a great performance, except that the room of 1,000+ Italian-American something something anniversary celebrants would not shut up. Davi stopped his monologue a few times to ask them to be quiet, but to no avail. Really rude. On the bright side, afterwards we tracked him down in the hall and had a lovely conversation. I secured an autograph (when I pulled out the photo of Kolya, he cracked up and said "Oh, my God"), photo and a kiss on the cheek.

Saturday afternoon: I took a stroll through the USA Science & Engineering Festival that was going on on the Mall and randomly encountered Bill Nye the Science Guy! Way cool. Another photo op and autograph.

Saturday afternoon+: Made those braiiiiiiiins cupcakes, which turned out well, I think, even if the squiggly brain folds were thinner than in the original blog photos. Plus, cherry pie blood clot filling FTW.

Saturday night: Brought the braincakes over to alpheratz's, where friends were gathering for the third annual Silver Spring zombie walk, which ended up being hilarious. Costumes and gaits were impressive, the city brought a fog machine and spooky noise soundtrack, and a few impromptu skirmishes broke out between the zombies and the Nerf-armed zombie hunters. One zombie even attacked a pedestrian, who played along and fell to the pavement as his brains were consumed. Afterwards, you could see clusters of zombies gathered in the bars while street cleaners mopped up all the fake blood splatters. Even the guards got into the spirit of things. Instead of telling people to stop loitering like they do every other night, they said, "Zombies, go home! Go back to your graves!"

Sunday: Did I mention I also worked 17 hours this weekend? And that last night a former classmate came to visit and we went out for Ethiopian?

Yeah. I took today off.

And now, for festivids.

I. Question for friends going to Vividcon: I'm trying to book my flight now that I know when the con starts and ends, and I'm wondering -- should I arrive a little early or stay a little late? One or the other; I have some extra vacation time to burn. In other words, does anyone else have hanging-out-in-Chicago plans on either side and would like to meet up? Or am I being ambitious about joining other people's groups of friends? Hm, that way lies emo.

II. Saturday was a wash after about noon, but Sunday redeemed the weekend: I made about a minute and a half of a new vid that cracks me up, and I started watching the vampire movie Daybreakers, which is fabulous so far. ETA: Now I'm going to see my favorite cousin tomorrow night and Friday, and I found out we have Monday off for the holiday. Excellent.

III. The SGA Kink Meme has gotten underway, and while it is a thing of joy and beauty, I find myself hesitant to peruse the prompts that are piling up. I have Kink Bingo stories to write first, and fear overlap -- or that my limited creative flow will be diverted.

IV. Am I eating the same catfish other people are eating? Many of the recipes I've found talk about how catfish is one of the most flavorful fish out there, good to fry or bake, yum yum etc. I have to say, it seems pretty bland to me. This time I dipped some filets in flour and curry powder and pan-fried them, and it's really only the coating that makes them tasty, in the same way tofu picks up the flavor of whatever you cook it in. Though granted, they are indeed quite tasty this way. Especially with some tomato sauce-doused zucchini slices cooked in the same pot when the fish is done.

So. What is making you happy today and/or lately?