The year in review meme! (I ignored any first sentences that were wholly or partially links.)

January: Happy new year, flist!

February: Man, I really want to enjoy the Sarah Jane Adventures (which I am partway through, yay Netflix) but I keep getting smacked in the face with Rusty's Mommy Issues.

March: Lann & I were watching tv on the sofa, and Luna was sitting next to me.

April: Dear self: I know that you think the few words Canadians say differently than Americans are kind of hilarious, especially since you've started watching HIMYM & humming "Let's Go To The Mall" to yourself, but!

May: I went to see the wolfman movie tonight!

June: My local Burger King had Uhura & Nero glasses, so I bought the Uhura one because SHE KICKS ASS.

July: I like how Apple keeps using inappropriate background music in their tech commercials.

August: Hey, I am home from vacation!

September: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

October: Yargh, I hate it when teevee makes me choose.

November: I hit my NaNo quota for the day!

December: Oh my god, guys, my BRAIN.

For about a month now I've been having dreams that I miss my flight to London, usually due to very convoluted circumstances and/or laziness. I am less than 24 hours away from leaving the country and am, unsurprisingly, sort of restlessly nervous. :/

( OH HEY DOCTOR WHO )

The next one airs on New Years, I guess? And I will be IN LONDON, but have no idea where I will find a television. D:

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope today brings you all joy and merriment. I'm so glad to be home with my family I can't even begin to describe it.

And if you're in the Midwest, stay safe! Lots of rain and snow at my house.

Did I mention my mom also put up the Christmas tree here at home?? She had told me because of her surgery she wasn't going to do it but she did it! It was a fabulous surprise.

Okay, I am sorry, but this is awesome.


Jimmy Fallon and the Roots redo John Denver and the Muppets.

We've discussed the fact that the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album is the single greatest Christmas album ever, yes?

Okay, so the migas?

Look, when wing2j barely stops inhaling something long enough to tell me it's delicious? I consider it an unqualified success.

People, let me sing to you a love song of migas.

A year-plus ago when I went to Texas to visit familiarcraving, she picked me up at the airport and drove immediately to The Magnolia Cafe and insisted that I order the migas. Now, you people know me. I don't do breakfast. I've happily eaten meatball subs at 8 AM instead of chowing down on breakfasty-type foods.

But she insisted.

You guys. Migas might be the most incredible thing I have ever eaten, and that is saying something. Oh, sure. It's tortillas, eggs, salsa and cheese, so how could it be bad, right? NO, YOU GUYS, MIGAS IS INFUCKINGCREDIBLE. Migas is so damn good that, a year and a half later, I was still jonesing for it so badly that I made it for dinner my own damn self. Eggs! Cheese! Fried tortilla chips! Peppers! Onions! Tomatoes! HEAVEN!

You should all make it tomorrow morning. I guarantee you, it will be the best breakfast experience of your life, without question.

Tomorrow, wing2j (because he's in love with her) wants me to make Paula Deen's gumbo. (Which, somewhat shockingly, contains no butter.) Depending on what we're doing tomorrow night (other than skipping Mass), I may try a chocolate peppermint cake instead.

YUM FOOD.

PS: ALSO TODAY WAS GRINCH DAY AND MY GRINCH OF A HUSBAND TURNED IT ON VOLUNTARILY. THAT IS HOW GOOD MIGAS IS, PEOPLE. MY HUSBAND WATCHED A CHRISTMAS SPECIAL OF HIS OWN VOLITION.

Oh, Robert Downey Jr., never stop talking.

Downey Jr has dropped a series of other hints about the subtext of [Sherlock Holmes], previously describing the lead characters as "two men who happen to be room-mates, wrestle a lot and share a bed".

I finished up my Christmas shopping today! With almost twenty four hours to spare! I even bought wrapping paper that has robots on it. Now to actually wrap things. :p

One of these days I will learn to take Netflix's judgment seriously. It's almost like it knows what I like to watch! Someone explain to me why exactly I just sat through "Kingdom of Heaven"? D:

...although I don't think I would have otherwise had occasion to utter the sentence: "Legolas, I don't know if you are aware, but you've just set Tony Blair on fire."

You guys.

Okay, I know I abandoned the ACoH, but I'm so far behind that we're just going to have to declare that a victim of the 2009 Curse and move on. That just means it'll be eighteen times better next year, right? Right.

So I'm on vacation now. For two weeks.

I'm looking forward to the rest, but more than that? I'm looking forward to the cooking. I've told myself that I get to try to cook something new and delicious every day. Tomorrow, I'm making migas for dinner. (It's probably closer to breakfast, but I've been talking it up to wing2j since I got back from Texas, and he'd strangle me if I made it without him.)

There's going to be some epic baking. (I found a recipe for a gingerbread/applesauce cake that I'm dying to try, and there are nutella cookies to be made, and...oh, Lord. This will get fattening.)

I'm so tempted to start a cooking blog. So very tempted. If nothing else, it would encourage me to cook more.

And now, I have to figure out what dinner for the rest of the week is going to be. I think I might want to try making beurre blanc with scratch. Maybe over salmon.

I'm not going to fit out the door by the time I have to go back to work.

johnnybvo: you should start partaking in those topics of the day
things
to post more
lol have that be your lame new years resolution
ayrdaomei: the writer's block?
you think?
let's see what today's thing is
"What's your idea of the perfect proposal? Brought to you by Leap Year, in theatres January 8th"
johnnybvo: not helping the cause
how about try one a week
the one that jumps out at you
for January?
lol it will be fun watching you squirm your way through them
lol never going to happen.

Damn right it's not going to happen.

I do, however, feel compelled to share that the Barry Zito Fathead has been discounted from $99.99 to $39.99.^†

You're welcome, America.

^† When I first made this post, the Fathead was $29.99, which was imminently more hilarious, but just go with it.

I would like it if my writing process was slightly...faster. I guess I need to let things percolate, only slightly less than forever, before I can come back to them and finish them. Over six months ago, I handed a "finished" History Boys fic (~1400 words) to oliveoyl to read over and get her thoughts on it. She had some wonderful thoughts! And I went through and bolded all the parts of the fic that needed to be fixed, and I've only just come back to it with how to fix the wrong things. But I'm pretty sure it's almost finished this time, for reals! *facepalm*

~ Memo to news people: I am fairly confident that more people know Brittany Murphy from her role in Clueless, than from her role in Little Black Book. I don't think I want to live in a world where the reverse in true. But more importantly, may she rest in peace. I enjoyed her work. My heart really goes out to her mother. I wouldn't wish discovering their fallen child's body on anyone.

~ So...the 6-12 inches on Saturday? Ended up being more like 15-20 inches. That was fun. We got the full extended edition Lord of the Rings trilogy in, as well as lots of food - Bri introduced me to something called potatoes o'brien. Even digging the cars out and clearing out our parking spaces on Sunday was kind of fun.

Now the walk out to my car this morning, tip-toeing through ice? That was not so great. Hopefully the complex management will get another salting and plow run in today.

What did you do with your snowy weekend, fellow east coasters?

There is always that moment, when I am watching The History Boys, that I remember what's going to happen & nearly turn the film off. I know it would rob me of an ending and possibly defeat the point of the story--but it's always tempting, in that moment, to leave everything in the pleasant subjunctive. It's only when I remember that I infinitely prefer the ending the movie gives Posner to the one he gets in the play that I continue watching through to the credits.

When I was a sophomore in high school, we were home for basically the entire month of January because it would not stop snowing. As soon as it stopped snowing, we got freezing rain. The roads were literally impassable for nearly a solid month. We kept losing power, and at one point, my dad declared that if it went on one more day, he was booking us a hotel room just so we could shower in peace and warmth.

I haven't seen this much snow in my entire life, and I was born in fucking New England.

I spent the entirety of that weather disaster baking, because there's only so much sitting on your ass and staring at the TV one human being can do.

I am about to abuse the everloving shit out of my Kitchenaid standing mixer because it is still goddamn snowing and I can't open any of the front doors of my house, since there is too much goddamn snow in front of them. Screw leaving the house, y'all, I CAN'T EVEN OPEN THE FRONT DOOR.

I am so over winter. Someone call Mr. Heat Miser for me.

Somehow I never knew that baby!Rufus Wainwright was in the movie Tommy Tricker & The Stamp Traveller. My brother informed me of this tonight over the phone, but I didn't believe him until I found it on youtube. Why hello, Childhood, it's all coming together now. ♥

Apparently this song is what English sounds like to non-English speakers. I find it only slightly less coherent than some Bob Dylan songs, and super catchy to boot. :D

01. Patrick Watson - Beijing
02. Joanna Newsom - Sprout & The Bean
03. The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize
04. Regina Spektor - The Calculation
05. The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You

It has come to my attention that I might not have been as sober as I thought last night. *facepalm*

Also, it appears I am going to be godmother to Natalie's baby. I'm actually sort of honored, although the circumstances and babies are a bit weird and I am actually going to be out of town on the day of the baptism. :/

Something interesting to keep an eye on -- or really, ear out for -- during this storm is thunder. Yes, I said thunder. Thundersnow is rare, but not uncommon when it comes to powerful winter storms like this one, which can generate the strong vertical motions in the atmosphere needed to create lightning. The most likely time for thundersnow would be during the most intense part of the storm, which shapes up to be Saturday morning into afternoon.

So...I may or may not live to regret this, but that sounds kind of awesome, yes? Yes. (Well, not so much if you, like Bri, are supposedly to be working tomorrow.) They're calling for anywhere from 6-12+ inches of snow.

Yes, please and thank you.

THE GREAT LORD OF THE RINGS SPAM POST

I know that a bunch of people have linked it already, but this post will never be old. ♥

no but seriously: