mokie: Firefies swirl beneath a tree on a moonlit night (happy)
From the Terminator 2: Judgment Day trivia page:
The "forced medication" scene (Special Edition only) had to be re-shot several times because actor Ken Gibbel wouldn't hit Linda Hamilton properly with his nightstick. The scene was very physically demanding and Hamilton was furious with Gibbel because he repeatedly botched it. She got her revenge in a later scene where she beats Gibbel with a broken-off broom handle - the blows are for real.
If you check Gibbel's IMDb page, you'll notice T2 is his last acting role.

She beat him right out of the movies!
mokie: A large white shark rearing from a tiny child's pool (devious)
While drawing up proposals for Camp Feral Child, I noticed that Missouri is one of several states racing to do away with child labor laws. And that's when it hit me: SUMMER LABOR CAMP!

It only makes sense. Why pay money to send them to camp when you can MAKE money sending them to camp? And they'll still be making arts & crafts, but now for a profit! It's WIN-WIN!

Education is your child's job, but who gets a three month vacation from work in this economy? Nobody! Tell your rugrat to get busy bringing home the bacon at Camp Make-a-Buck this summer!
mokie: A large white shark rearing from a tiny child's pool (devious)
Nephew is bored. And annoying.

I'm going to found a summer camp--30 city kids taken to Forest Park for three months, to learn to live off the land. I'll call it Camp Feral Child.*

"Tonight we eat gazelle! Quick, everyone over the fence before Zoo Security circles back!"

* By which I mean, I'm dropping him off at the park and coming back in August.**
** This was the original entry title. Thank desertwolfdesertwolf for the new title!
mokie: Firefies swirl beneath a tree on a moonlit night (happy)
I put words on toys this month. Words! On toys! And got paid to do it! I CONTROL YOUR CHILD'S MIND! Words on toys!

BEST JOB EVER.
mokie: Firefies swirl beneath a tree on a moonlit night (happy)
Earlier this month, I gave up on the ancient mattress with unexpected springs that pop my back all out of whack, the futon mats that go flat in all the wrong places, and the inherited bunkbed frame that looks silly in an adult's bedroom and creaks with my every move. So terribly, terribly uncomfortable--especially compared to...

A HAMMOCK!

Not the taut rectangle of canvas or rope spread wide by wooden dowels and prone to flipping cartoon dads on the lawn, but a proper Mesoamerican humidity-defying cocooning sling, almost impossible to fall out of accidentally, and so comfy they're damn near as hard to climb out of on purpose. While I don't recall the specific train of thought that led to this decision-making process, I believe I remember the key points.
  • Comfort. Hammocks are comfy. That's one of their key selling features. My bed? Not comfy.
  • Custom. Lots of people sleep in hammocks. Gilligan, for instance. And Nicaraguan truckers. Astronauts, even, and they manage it without gravity.
  • Health. Some campers swear hammocks fixed their back problems. After lugging 30lbs of gear and sleeping on rocks, you'd better believe their backs were plenty problematic.
  • Money. It looked way cheaper than buying a new bed.
All true. As added bonus, you should see how much more spacious the room feels without a bed taking up half of it. Oh, and I never have to make a bed again. Not that I ever made it when I had one, but it's the principle, you know?

There are a few problems I did not anticipate in making the switch, though.
  • Insulation. Without a mattress or futon beneath me, I tend to sleep a little cooler. Since St. Louis usually flips straight into summer sometime around April, I didn't think this would be an issue, but apparently we're trying out that 'spring' thing, so I'm sleeping in winter jammies still.
  • Temptation. With a bed, even a moderately comfortable one, taking a break from work to watch the news or read a little is no big deal. With the hammock, I'm no sooner comfy than I'm dozing off for half an hour. Or an hour. Or three.
  • Invasion. When the hammock arrived, I'd not yet taken the bed apart or out of my room. I wanted to set up the hammock frame ASAP to be sure all the pieces were there, and my 11-year-old nephew Zaphod lent a hand. And then tested it out. And then spent the night and slept in it. And then protested me moving it to my room. And then begged me to move it back into the living room. And then decided the bedroom hammockroom was a perfectly cromulent place to lounge.
By moving the hammock out of the living room, I changed his perceived territory.

Upside: I know what to get him for his birthday. Downside: sleepovers will probably mean double-bunked hammocks.
mokie: Ghostbusters' Vinz Clortho wears a collander and answers questions (nerdy)
Ready? Okay!

- I recently did some work on ad copy for a line of toys.* Next Christmas, you should expect to see me in the local toy store, laughing maniacally at my newfound power over the minds of the young and innocent.

- Just found out that the host of Adagio's webcast reviewing custom blends is apparently a well-known and much-travelled public speaker who appears all over yon webbish TV/*cast enterprises, especially tea-related ones. Oh, and he's a Mizzou student. Queue Cue conflicting feelings of, "Oh, hey, Columbia!" and "Oh, God, how old is he?"

- Somewhere along the way, I stopped spelling it 'cue' and started spelling it 'queue.' I don't know when or how to stop.

[On a queue, for a cue, on a queue, for a cue--I will remember this!]

- Current brief obsession under investigation: streaming music. What are the real differences between Pandora and Rdio and Last.fm and so forth? I will not rest until I find out! Or lose interest! [Done!]

- For those who haven't heard, from Time.com: Why Have Hackers Hit Russia's Most Popular Blogging Service?

Short answer: probably a politically-motivated attack to silence dissent. If you haven't been able to access Livejournal, this is why.

If you're feeling anxious and would like to back your journal up, you can do that, but bear in mind that it adds to the strain on the system and that LJ's probably not going anywhere. You might consider instead signing up for one of the alternate sites (read: LJ clones) until the dust settles--just update to the new site and, when LJ's back up, copy and/or crosspost. It's also a generally convenient way to mirror your journal so people in your particular hobby/interest-based community can keep up with you no matter what site they prefer.

As for the clones...

There's DeadJournal, which is the granddaddy of the clones and thus lacks some of the later LJ functionality (and accompanying glitches). I've had an account since LJ's 2001 growing pains, and never noticed any technical problems. I've noticed that the user base skews a little dark and gothy, and it's not really a hopping joint, so if you're looking for lots of Golden Girls fandom interaction, it might not be the ideal destination for you

There's InsaneJournal, which became fandom's favorite once the creator of GreatestJournal flipped everyone the bird and let it die. It could simply be growing pains, but IJ is very prone to technical troubles of its own, and if everyone rushes over when LJ's down you'll probably see that in action. If you're looking for active community action you'll find it, but if you're just looking to post something while LJ's down, you may want to look elsewhere.

There's Dreamwidth, the idealistic newcomer. They started out with some very specific goals and intentions (see the guiding principles and diversity statement), they've expanded with fandom and roleplayers in mind, and they've taken the open source part of LJ's code and done very interesting things with it--including things that LJ users have been dreaming of for years. (Hello, in-line cut expansion!) Unfortunately, things are still a little quiet at DW--its slice of fandom consists mostly of the serious discussion of issues folks (see the guiding principles and diversity statement?), while the icon-making squeefuls are happy enough camped out at IJ. You may not find the activity you're looking for.

In other words, pick your high school lunch buddy: the antisocial kid in black who doesn't mind loaning you a buck for the jello cup but won't keep up conversation, the comedian who's great for a laugh but will flake out on you at the drop of a hat, or the very reliable junior feminist who will tell you all about the new club she's starting to save marmosets. DJ and DW both require invite codes and I have some to share, because I was down with all the cliques in high school, donchaknow.**

Alternately, you could just update LJ via a client like Semagic, which can queue posts for later if LJ happens to be down. That's why it's magic!

* No specifics. You never know where I'll strike.
** Well, not so much 'down with' as 'oblivious to.' Also, there were only about 2-300 kids in my entire high school.***
*** Yes, I was the flake. Still am, to tell the truth.
mokie: They're coming to get you, Barbara! Zombie attacks a woman in a car (scared)
The next time I decide that the perfect sick day activity is watching scary videos, just say, "Slenderman."

I watched up to Entry #17 of Marble Hornets, noted the water bottle and Jay's coughing, and feeling cold, decided to give it up and go to bed. Except I was up all night, cold, coughing and incoherent, slinking through the dark house to the bathroom for a drink of water.

Happy fun heart attack time!
mokie: Cartoon Calvin struts with a helmet and cape (determined)
MISSION: stay awake at least until 1 a.m.

CHALLENGE: germs make me sleepy.

PLAN: caffeine + desperation.

STUDY NOTES: zzzzzzzzzzz...
mokie: Firefies swirl beneath a tree on a moonlit night (happy)
I almost forgot to tell you this, LJ, and that would have been terrible.

In anticipation of a party at a home with cats last weekend, I took some Zyrtec and prepared myself for the consequences--extreme sleepiness, vivid dreams (paroniria!), impaired concentration and unexplained itching (paresthesia) over the 70 hours it takes to work its way out of one's system. Oh, and the possibility of hallucinations. Yes, Zyrtec and I have a weird and complicated history, so I don't take it often, but it's a knock-out antihistamine and it was all I had on hand, and I highly recommend it for parties with cats. Or parties with lasers. Lots of gravity, there was.

But I digress.

I took the Zyrtec, then I fell asleep, because that's what happens first, and why I took it well before party-time.

And then I dreamt, and I dreamt of a movie that was like "Snakes on a Plane," but not. No! It was snakes in a stadium.

With velociraptors.

And not the really-a-Deinonychus/Utahraptor of "Jurassic Park," either, but actual pint-sized velociraptors, lining up in the stands to chase people who ran from the snakes.

And it was awesome.

ETA: as noted in LJ comments, I didn't say the famous line, but "I turned to the dream screenwriter and pointed out we were going to have problems building drama because the raptors moved faster than the people in the tiered stairs, though."

About dream/reading tags

y-* tags categorize dreams.

For types: beyond the obvious, there are dreamlets (very short dreams), stubs (fragment/outline of a partially-lost dream), gnatter (residual impression of a lost dream).

For characters: there are roles (characters fitting an archetype), symbols (characters as symbols), and sigils (recurring figures with a significance bigger than a single dream's role/symbolism).

x-* tags categorize books.

Material is categorized primarily by structure, style and setting. If searching for a particular genre, look for the defining features of that genre, e.g. x-form:nonfic:bio, x-style:horror, x-setting:dystopian.

Tags