ETA: Where Angels Fear To Tread. More Myrtle/Lilo slash for the slashthedrabble challenge "fool(ish)".

Computers problems? So not fun. I think the lifespan of whatever it is that makes computer come on is a lot closer to a day than to a year. Which'd suck, but--meh. England prevails! And by England I mean me :)

( Yes, I've been watching too much 'V For Vendetta', but whaddaya want, it's not like I get a lot of net time, anymore. )

ETA:

PIMP!

Read this: The Moon Is On The Sea

I stumbled across the author while trawling for last minute icons to go with this post, and ah! Providence!

My computer problems? Aren't virus-related! They're hardware related. I think this goes back to October, that power surge that made me have to do the first recovery (why, oh, why didn't I have a surge protector).

I'm pretty sure the problem is the hard drive, and possibly the motherboard. But I'm hoping just the hard drive. Turning the computer on at all is a total crapshoot--even odds it'll stall, or ask me to ctrl alt del, ad infinitum--or actually come on. I'm hoping it can hold on till I can either have it repaired or replaced. I'm kinda attached, so I'm hoping for the former.

Been away from LJ for most of a fortnight--can't access it at work and I refrained from turning the computer on for days at a stretch. Even if it came on I was either fighting with it, or running innumerable--that turned out to be pointless--virus scans.

In short, I was not having fun cruising the information superhighway. But hell, if the diagnosis I eventually got was correct, this thing could keep running for another year, or die on me tomorrow, if I leave it as is. Que cera cera (sp?).

Okay, the first finished fic of the seven on my plate. I've lost drafts and drafts of this--it bears little resemblance to the fic I originally wrote, but . . . maybe that's for the best =D


( Waiting To Happen )

VoicePost 1010K 5:10

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Restored. Should be up and running like normal by Saturday.

Sometimes, CSRs get restless at work. In fact, it's safe to say that unless we're being bitched out by irate customers, we're pretty bored. So sometimes, just sometimes, we get creative.

Behold! The masterpiece of one John T. (also known in my LJ as "Squishy")! Presented with his permission (click on the pic to make it larger):

( All My Lovin' )

ETA:
In Which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle

Seriously, go read. Even if you're not a part of the SPN fandom. Even if you've not read the previous stories in the Wolfpack 'verse.

This fic is just--brilliant, amazing. Some of the best damn writing you'll ever read.


And . . . just one random, unimportant reason I love my friends. . . .

Yesterday, Scott (the sainted soul who took a that Halloween pic of me dressed as Hermione) was kidding me over the company Jabber about me for once wearing a dress. Sending me links to these EGL dresses--saying I'd either have to come into work wearing a dress, or only take calls from customers of, well, let's just say a certain retailer based in TX and LA. (Suffice it to say, I chose the dresses.)
::clears throat::

Anyway, today, this bit of Jabberness happens:

Scott
you wearing your dress today???

rachel
I'm wearing three dresses, in fact

Scott
three??
sooo, how exactly are you wearing 3 dresses? one over the other?

rachel
can't a lady have some secrets?

Scott
no

rachel
through highly advanced alien technology, I'm wearing all three dresses against my skin at the exact same time (time being relative). the alien tech keeps shifting my consciousness slightly out of phase with this universe and into two others. two other universes in which I'm wearing two other dresses.
it's kinda like "Sliders", only with fashion

Scott
so, in other words....you're crazy

rachel
ROTFLMAO

It's moments like that that make my day and remind me with gentle waves of warmfuzziness why I love my friends. They know me so well, and like me anyway. Take me in such stride and aren't ashamed to be associated with me. They set the tones of my days for the better, and against all my silly struggling. And not just the ones in RL.

::bearhugs friends::

In a related bit o' postscript, this was the theoretical dress I theoretically chose over handling only calls from that TX/LA based retailer. Seriously, I couldn't deal with those fucking accents on a constant basis. It's hard enough not to tell customers to go fuck themselves without that damn twang. I'd rather wear nothing but GothLoli dresses for the rest of my life than that.. . . .

VoicePost 976K 5:09

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I got home, relatively unfroze =D

A hearty "Bah! Humbug!" to all.

I come bearing fic. The icon is from the wrong fandom, but--meh =D

( His Brother's Keeper )

It's been eating my brain for a week. Literally. To the point where I'm on the phone with customers, and I start saying bits of dialog instead of whatever it is I get paid to say.

I haven't been able to finish the books I was nose deep in, nor the fics I've been getting caught up on.

Never mind the fire_fic fic. It comes in drips and dribbles. But at least it's not (I don't think, but I'm no judge of these things) sucking.

Supernatural--omg. It's was like reading tabaqui--laughter and tears, right on the heels of each other. I'm in dire need of hug-age.

Oh, and snow? 8-10 inches today. Winter Wonderland my shiny hiney.

So. More Prisoner!verse. Concrit would be brilliant =)

( Heavy Words, And Lightly Thrown )

I'm going to sleep.

ETA!

I made a lame Seamus icon for this fic! Applaud me!

It's like HP has hijacked my muse. Every time I sit down to work on next fic in the DM 'verse (actually coming along fine, if glacially), or even that SPN fic (which I started fourteen months ago, happy belated, you insane bastid). HP is making me its bitch. But selectively; I've stalled on the Prisoner!verse.

Other, weirder HP pairings pound on my consciousness for attention. Like this puppy's done since Sunday.

So, here it is. Just be glad it isn't the Harry/Neville ficlet.

All things in due time =D
::clears throat::

( Six Conversations Seamus Finnigan And Harry Potter Almost Had . . . And One They Nearly Didn't )

Go to tabaqui's journal and catch up on The Song Of The Treadmill. It continually breaks my heart and makes me laugh, often within the same paragraph. An emotional roller coaster? You bet, but a subtle one. You don't even realize you've how intense the ride is till it's over, and you're going back for a second read, because no way one story could jangle up your inner landscape so mightily.

I'm still trying to comment on five and six, but all I wind up doing is rereading them, giggling and weeping.

I'm ragingly unstable.

( Meh . . . some ramble: )

And this . . . just wanted to be written. I obliged.

( Proactive Measures )

On the heels of the near life experience: another recovery on my computer. It wouldn't finish booting up past the blue Windows XP screen this morning, and I ran all sorts of scans on it, tried starting it in safe mode. . . .

Nada.

Spent hours back and forth on the phone with HP, running more scans, opening up my tower and poking around in the dust and gadget guts.

Only, twelve hours later, to have to do a recovery, anyway. This time, I didn't back up my data at BestBuy. I'd stopped saving stuff to my hard drive that I wasn't prepared to lose. Everything else went in various email accounts. and I just installed Mozy, (www.mozy.com) which'll automatically backup MY Documents ever Sunday.

Turns out the culprit this time? Microsoft. Apparently HP/Compaq computers are persnickety about downloads, and when I get updates for any software, I should get them directly off the HP website. Microsoft notified me about an update for Media Player, and, stupid me, I installed it. That was Friday night. Today, I spent all afternoon and most of the evening fighting with my computer, then running the recovery and reinstalling all my programs.

And trying to remember my favorites once my internet connection was back up.

Eventually I'm going to have to re-rip my cds. Again. All three thousand some odd songs, at least half of them mizes made by friends, and thus not labeled. . . .

But at least it's not my hard drive, like some of the HP reps thought. I'm trying to be thankful for not-so-small favors. I've got all my anti-virus stuff and firewall stuff up and running, not to mention two ways to back up all my crap. And I've learned more about my computer in a day of agonizing about it and trying to fix it, than I have in the years since I got it.

And now, I'm going to bed.

I got sprung from work early due to low call volume.

( Sweet, right? )

Hah!

It's been two years, almost, and more ridiculous plot twists and extraneous characters that I'd ever planned, but it's finally done. Demon Magnet is dead.

Long live "On A Pale Green Horse" (working title).

I killed the giant and created another, only, it's not gonna be quite so giant. Not gonna let the plot run away with me as much. I dunno if writing the Buffy/Highlander Xover cured me, or if finally getting a decent idea just knocked the block down, but--

DM is dead and I'm free. Free to go--wherever the hell with the story, free to finally finish it however the hell it wants to be finished.

If the initial burst of inspiration holds, I'll be posting the first of it next week as a fire_fic request.

It took awhile, dancinbutterfly, but I'm doing it =D

ETA!!!
The Song Of The Treadmill!

It's part three of the a five-ish part WIP, by one of my favorite authors, tabaqui. Scroll up a tick for the links to parts one and two. Read it now, though if I'd known how hard I'd be wanting more, I'd have waited till the whole thing was posted, lol.

So if you like SPN fic--and hell, if you don't, this'll convert you--mosey on over, have a look-see and, as always, show your love in comment form.

Prose. To. Die. For, and that's no faint praise coming from the bug who normally skims prose for all she's worth.

On the heels of pimpage--here's some fic.

( Life Is Good . . . Cue The Ominous Music )

This is basically a build on a few snippets of dialogue and a *gasp* concept that popped into my head last January. I wrote it and forgot about it until I stumbled across it recently, while trying to sort out all the stuff on my back-up disk. I didn't think anything'd actually come of it, and therefore said "what the hell" and inflicted my writer's block on it.

But now it's a ficlet! I'm so proud! If it doesn't totally tank, maybe that means I'm clawing my way out of the pit.

Dentist appointment before work tomorrow. Hold me.

How've you been?

Happy belated Halloween and early Turkey Day.

There should be an exclamation point after that sentence, but meh. ( Can't be arsed. )

Click on the link then the pic, and enjoy!

Om Nom Nom Nom!

This damn thing. Done for now, though there's still stories piling up behind my eyes for this 'verse.

But for now, it's answering fb for the previous parts and flist-crawling.

Other detainees in the Prisoner!verse are held here.

( The First Hours Of The Rest Of His Life 3 )

Since when does writing take me weeks and weeks? Am I getting bad at it, or are my standards getting high? Is it both? I dunno. I suspect it's the first one.

But at least I've got the Prisoner!verse out of my system enough that I can kinda focus on Demon Magnet some.

It just feels so long ago and far away. Almost three years since I started writing it. . . .

Thank you so much for sticking with this thing, written as it was between status calls, part orders and the dissemination of general information to complete morons. I've got DM to finish up for fire_fic, but I won't be able to till I get this 'verse out of my head for at least a few weeks.

I am so tired.

Part one, and other fic in the Prisoner!verse resides here.

( The First Hours Of The Rest Of His Life 2 )


I'll answer the feedback for this part and the previous part Sunday evening. You guys rock the hardcore patience 24.7.