bironic

So cold out. So cold.

Today I am grateful for: Heat, blankets, sweatshirts, shelter. Week-ago!me's decision to freeze a leftover takeout portion, so today!me could microwave it for dinner. Time with friends. Music and dance. Good reading. Having time to finish the Doctor Who finale. Interesting articles.

Regarding that last:

Real life robots! A photo collection. So many fabulous kinds of robots in various stages of development. Even the ones that propel along ethical debates. And the ones that make you want to slap a dude. (Titan the robot looked amazing right up until the caption said, "Titan danced for the audience, made jokes and even tried hitting on Russian women.") To recover, let's contemplate the sight of a robot transcribing a Torah. Or the "Real Android Matsuken" doppelganger. Once upon a time, I would have written an essay on all this; today I do not have the oomph.

A lovely NYT piece on passwords - sometimes obvious, sometimes circular, more anecdotal than research-based, but still lovely in its musings on private personal narratives.

On Interstellar, love, religion and entanglement

And, having finished DW, a browse around the AO3 Twelve/Clara collection, because apparently I have fallen for Twelve/Clara. Still, nothing I found in the Mature to Explicit range got them "right." There was, however, a brilliant discovery in the form of author RandomBattlecry in general and "Promises, Promises (Explosions, Explosions)" in particular. "So put on your best eyebrows, and God save the Queen." Or: In which Clara is the Doctor, the doctor is a uni professor, there's an earthquake, and a plot summary does the writing zero justice. Rated Teen.

Managed to have dreams last night about House (House had stitched up an internal injury on himself and now he was morbidly obsessed with seeing how the sutures were healing, so he kept doing self-destructive things to try to incur an open abdominal wound and take a look, and Wilson was tearing his hair out trying to stop him), Inception (something about Arthur and Eames; don't remember) and Project Runway (Anya was saying she and Joshua weren't getting along because they'd slept together earlier in the season). I don't even know.

This week has been a bit of a roller coaster. Let us focus on the good things. Like having made several donations; everyone and their brother seems to be doing pledge drives this week. Or how catilinarian emailed from the UK slash con Connotations to say "They Want More" appeared in the vid show! Or how I love my Festivids assignment and there are also two possibilities for treats. Or how I will totally be making these Oreo turkeys for Thanksgiving gifts. Or how I discovered this amazing, if possibly permanently incomplete, Doctor Who noncon/dubcon tentacle slavefic PWP with Amy/alien and past Amy/dom!Eleven. You're welcome.

Renaissance Festival turned out to be lots of fun last weekend. It was large and nicely shaded, the weather was great, and I was impressed by the quality of many of the arts and wares for sale—dresses, capes, vests, masks, intricate metalwork (helmets, goblets, battle axes, chain mail, jewelry, etc.), leather-bound journals, mead, spices, musical instruments. (I got to play a hammered dulcimer! Took a little while to get used to the way the notes are laid out on the board.) Not only meat but a whole array of foods available on a stick, including chocolate-covered cheesecake and macaroni and cheese. There was a large intersection with Harry Potter themes and fans; magic wands for sale, Hogwarts outfits, that sort of thing. A couple of girls next to us in one costume shop were having a conversation about how cool it would be to wear item X to the Quidditch World Cup that is apparently coming up in NY or somewhere.

( Pix! )

In conclusion: By Jove, I will either finish this House Halloween-themed WIP from 2007 by next Monday or I will amnesty-post it as is and stop thinking about it.