Beneath A Million Stars

I can't think of a title.

2008-09-12T20:58:38Z

I owe yarn ~~porn~~squee badly now but that will have to wait until tomorrow I think.

Guess what, non knitting members of my flist? Know how you all nod and smile politely when I babble about knitting/crochet/yarn? Ye I'm about to start learning to spin my own yarn, so you can all enjoy more incomprehensible squee only this time about roving and drop spindles etc. And probably a lot of 'oh god I can't do this it's impossible' since I spent about a month saying that when I was learning to knit... sorry guys I promise to squee about things that make sense to you lot too.

Speaking of things that make sense to the majority of my flist. The Hub announced their next guest. Sara Lloyd Gregory.
I have to admit I'm still slightly hoping for someone like Tom Price who has been in a few more episodes rather than lots of one episode people (with the obvious exception of Matt Rippy) but still more guests is cool. Was anyone in the group who got their tickets already? I've been watching the huge fuss over the extra 50 gold tickets on the forum... I guess I might have been a little pissed off if I'd spent all that money but I'm honestly quite surprised by the people who feel the event suddenly isn't worth attending because there will be an extra 50 people at their drinks reception.

And on the subject of the Hub I have the shoes for my Nef costume now. I don't have the costume itself but I'll get there on that. Probably.

My mother and I went shopping today. We had a really good day, got a couple of things I've been wanting for a while and just had fun. Spent ages looking at the dresses in a couple of shops. I'm blaming The Hub for this entirely, but I've suddenly got more girly in that I wish I could buy all these pretty dresses. I'm not going to because I know I'll never wear them, I mean I'm still nervous about the two dresses in two nights thing, but for the first time in my life I'm looking at dresses and thinking 'oh I wish I could get that it's so pretty'. Odd.
But yeah we had a good day and we were getting on well and so this evening I tried to sit down and talk to her about some things, thinking that after today maybe stuff was just... better. Didn't work. Just got the usual 'too busy' type reply. This despite the fact that she wasn't actually doing anything at the time. *shrugs* I don't know, we seem to have got stuck somewhere and we can't get past it.

The 'This is the fourth time I've tried to post this and LJ keeps eating it' entry

2008-08-25T16:45:28Z

Okay, fourth time lucky, right?

[1-11] Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog (all from act 1)
[12-23] Doctor Who (mostly S4, a couple of random others)
[24-55] Torchwood (all from Exit Wounds)

here at epiphanyofsort

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-08-21T17:24:00

2008-08-21T16:24:42Z

Argh.

I decided that my tutor had been so good to me that I'd let her know that I was dropping out and retaking next year.
I forgot that my tutor tends to be very persuasive.

I had a long talk about how hard I'd worked and how I'd be throwing it away and that 70% average was brilliant and I should stop expecting perfection from myself and that if I think it's too hard she'll be happy to work through some topics with me... etc etc etc.
*bangs head against brick wall*
I don't think it's too hard. I think I'm going to fail because I haven't put any effort in. I'm averaging 70% without working at all. I literally do not study at all apart from doing the assignments. I could probably easily be at at least 80% if I was actually putting even a little effort in.
The only problem I'm having is my memory isn't working quite right. And since a lot of this builds on the last module and for a lot of that module I was ridiculously high thanks to being on the wrong meds that means my memory of that is less than perfect the combination isn't a good sign for completing an exam.
But I really can't say to her 'well actually I haven't put any work in, those marks are without trying' so I said I'd take some time to think about it.

My point though is that I don't want to pass this with the minimum pass mark. I really don't. I know I'm capable of passing really well. But not right now.

Daily updates... or not

2008-08-10T23:17:05Z

Yeah remember when I said you'd have to put up with daily progress reports... well the non knitters can breathe a sigh of relief because clearly I'm incapable of that ;)

However I did manage to take photos so you can just have a delayed report.

As of the end of day two my first sock looked like this:

That's the leg finished, the heel turned and the gusset finished yay.

And as of right now it looks like this:

So one sock down, one to go (oh and a pair of wristwarmers too...)

The good news is that I'd calculated I got four days for each sock or wristwarmer with one spare day at the end in case I over ran and this one took me less than 3 days so I'm ahead of myself.

I'll babble about the yarn and the pattern and how much I love both tomorrow. I'm sure you all can't wait.

In other news speed stacking is possibly the coolest game ever invented and when I'm not knitting I will from now on be found trying to stack and unstack cups as fast as humanly possible

Going for gold

2008-08-08T22:07:50Z

Sooo today was not only the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, it was also the opening ceremony for the Ravelympics.

The Ravelympics is a knitting challenge being organised on Ravelry during the Olympic games (hence the name). The point is to cast on a project at the beginning of the games and finish it before the closing ceremony ends. So all over the world today as the opening ceremony was held in Beijing knitters everywhere were casting on and knitting as fast as possible.

I'll come back to that and tell you what I'm knitting in a moment.

First of all some FOs:

Seven of Hearts socks are completed... only there are ten hearts because... well because I was born in October and because I just felt like it.

And after those I cast on a pair of Jaywalker socks. I did manage to finish the first sock yesterday but since I knew I had new projects to cast on for the Ravelympics today I've had to put the second sock on hold for a while. Despite this I can still present a picture of the one finished sock:

I've used the Opal yarn that I was given a long time ago and despite the fact that I always thought the colourway was a little odd - the pink always seemed out of place to me - I love the way it's striped with this pattern. The fact that the heel and toe of this sock have both turned out to be pink was a complete conincidence but I really like the way it looks anyway and I think I'm going to have to try to create the same effect on the second sock. But that won't be until after the Ravelympics is over.

So back to that. My challenge is to knit one pair of socks and one pair of wrist warmers. I'm knitting the Monkey socks which are so popular lately and a second pair of Rose's Doomsday wristwarmers since I gave away the other pair and really really want one to keep for myself. In case anyone is wondering, yes this is a hell of a lot of knitting for me to attempt to do in 17 days. My wrists are going to make me pay for it afterwards I'm sure. But I'm knitting for Team TARDIS which is not only the biggest team entered but has also got at least one entry in every event so I'm determined to do all the other fangirls proud.

For the record my socks are entered in the Sock Put and my wristwarmers are entered into the Mitten Medley and the Cable Steeplechase.

Sooo as long as this is going on you're going to get daily(ish) progress reports (sorry non knitting flist members).

I've started with the socks today. This morning before the opening ceremony it all looked like this:

Beautiful Krafty Koala Hand Dyed Sock Yarn nicely wound into a ball and ready to go.

Now it looks like this:

That's the ribbing at the top done and three out of the six pattern repeats needed on the leg. Which isn't bad progress for a few hours work, especially since I repeatedly dropped stitches during the ribbing... I blame it on the excitement.

All the people I owe PMs or emails or whatever to I promise they're coming, I want to actually reply to you properly rather than keep giving you quick three or four line messages so I'll find some time tomorrow to sit down and actually do that.

On the list of things I've learnt tonight...

2008-07-19T01:47:07Z

I shouldn't drink and knit.
Ends badly.
*goes to frog the last pattern repeat on the socks*

(for the purposes of this post we'll ignore the fact that me and alcohol aren't supposed to mix anyway)

Look it's another craft post. Bored yet?

2008-07-03T23:35:58Z

Okay apologies to Shosh who has heard/seen most of this before. And apologies to the people who are sick of me talking about this. I shall post photos and then I shall go away... well no I'll babble a lot too... but after that I'll leave. You all love me really ;)

Finished projects and those on the needles first:
First of all, the thing most of you are sick of hearing about. SOCKS!
I have finished knitting a pair of socks. I am incredibly incredibly proud.

I was a nervous first time sock knitter. Everyone tells you it's impossibly hard. Then they start offering advice. Lots of it. And they all contradict each other.
Anyway I mentioned to Shosh that I was thinking of trying it and she managed to avoid doing any of the above things. Instead she told me I could already do everything I needed to be able to and then warned me it was addictive. So off I set.

I cast on a simple toe up stockinette pair of socks on DPNs and it was all going fine. Except by the time I got to the heel I was bored. Really bored.
So I frogged that and instead found a pattern for cuff down socks that included cables and such. Yeah I don't believe in starting with the basics apparently. But as it turns out all those people who said it was impossibly hard were very very wrong.

Sooo ladies and gentlemen I introduce you to my first ever pair of socks XD

Unfortunately it turns out that when Shosh said addictive what she actually meant was dangerously addictive. LOL so with my first pair finished I have now cast on for Seven Of Hearts Socks:

These ones are toe up and magic looped and I'm loving the pattern already, although the K4tog is a bit of a pain at times.

On the crochet side of things I've been doing a shawl:

Not finished, not even close, but the pattern is so simple that I'm really loving doing it.

In the queue for next are a few things.
I'm absolutely dying for an excuse to knit the Heere Be Dragone Shawl but I'm making myself wait.
I'm getting some laceweight from Violet Green soon that I'm planning to use with the Adamas Shawl pattern.
Since I'm well and truely addicited now there are several socks including Monkey and Anastasia

And on the non knitting/crochet side, Kate I'm going to do a trial run on that t-shirt design we were talking about at the weekend. XD

Icon Post Finally

2008-06-30T21:56:59Z

[1-4] Angel
[5-11] Firefly/Serenity
[12-14] John Barrowman
[15-59] Torchwood
[60-68] Animals
[69-75] Misc/Stock

Teasers:

( Dear Buddha: please bring me a pony, and a plastic rocket )

x-posted a few places - sorry!
ETA: It's taken me ALL DAY to post it. LJ kept eating it. *not happy with LJ*

Icons Moving

2008-06-30T19:33:03Z

(apologies to the people who have already seen this on Shaz's LJ)
Last time I did a proper icon post on here I had some idiot attacking me in my journal accusing me or stealing their icons and being very aggressive about it.Then recently there was some drama involving dancy_dreamer's icons and a certain person who shall remain nameless but does a really bad job of pretending to be Shaz. So we did some talking between ourselves and we have opened:

epiphanyofsort

We can't actually stop any of the above things from happening again but we can at least make everything one step removed from our personal LJs. So dancy_dreamer and myself will in future be posting all icons and graphics to epiphanyofsort.

I'll still do icon posts here but they'll all be fake cuts to the community.

GeekCrafts XD

2008-06-27T22:09:50Z

Check it out guys, I made it onto geekcrafts.com. I got a message earlier about my items and automatically assumed it was the awesome stuff witchybelle4u sent me that had made it on there, so I ran off so that I could squee over the fact that I now owned all that awesomeness...
Cue staring in shock when I discovered: it was me

*all proud*

Happy Birthday dancy_dreamer

2008-06-20T06:01:38Z

Happy Birthday Shaz

*glomps*

Hope you have a fantastic day honey.
Enjoy yourself.
(Jack bear is taking very good care of your presents)

Because I love to make you all jealous :P

2008-06-04T12:36:00Z

You know how you guys get all impressed by the fact that I can knit or crochet or whatever random craft I'm subjecting you lot to on any given day? Well... I just did a Doctor Who themed swap over at Craftster (I'll post pictures of everything I sent some other time, Adrian II was one of those things, he's now happily living in his new home having survived a trip by royal mail) but the main point of this post was to flail madly and show off what my partner made for me ~~and make you all jealous~~.

I'm going to annoy you all by starting with the things you won't be that excited by because they'd be useless to you but are awesome to me :P

From left to right: TARDIS stitch markers (yeah knitting, I know you're all smiling politely now and hoping I won't babble incomprehensibly too much ;)), A TARDIS domino pendant and a TARDIS stamp

Two ATCs (that's Artist's Trading Cards) - Ood!!!

A TARDIS sharpie holder

A TARDIS tote bag

Dalek cards - guess what one or two of you will be getting in the post in the near future ;)

TARDIS photo journal made from scrap paper.

And finally...

An acrylic painting of one of the Weeping Angels from Blink. I had to wait an hour after getting this for someone to come home so I could show it off, it is amazing. I nearly died of excitement just getting into the package and I didn't have a clue what was in there so you can imagine my reaction when I opened it and found this

witchybelle4u2 is an awesome swap partner. I can't even begin to explain how much she's made my day/week/month after yesterdays news.

And now I'll leave you all alone and go back to quietly knitting and frogging and reknitting and refrogging which I've been doing since some stupid hour last night.

Because apparently I still haven't got the hang of the whole looking at a calendar thing

2008-05-31T21:10:16Z

I'm a day late but:

Happy Birthday Emma

Sorry hun I'll learn to cope with dates by next year I promise ;)

Hope you had a fantastic day though
*glomps*

On an unrelated note: JODIE IS NANCY. XD

Friends cut

2008-04-10T17:26:26Z

Over the last couple of days I have removed a few people from my flist. Actually quite a few.
I think maybe one or two people I removed just because I haven't seen them post anything in a long time or received a comment from them so I'm assuming they're inactive. If that's not the case I'll happily add those people back. It just makes me happier not to have a lot of names on my flist who aren't actually posting anything. It's tidier that way.
Everyone else who was removed has gone for a reason. I'm sorry but I haven't got the energy or the patience for the drama I'm not going to bother with it.

Needless to say the important people are still here because I love you guys and probably wouldn't know what to do without you all XD

is dead

2008-04-08T14:22:22Z

No really *is dead* is not an exaggeration. Although today that's mainly to do with the fact that I had only about 3 hours sleep last night.

I will do a proper write up later when I has eaten more, taken my cat back to the vets and then possibly grabbed a couple of hours of sleep.

However dancy_dreamer and _stolendreams_ would like the express the following things:

People taking photographs are very irritating.
People in the front few rows taking flash photographs are even more irritating.
Said people are even more irritating when you're front row of the circle and have a fantastic view but out of the corner of your eye keep seeing the LCD screens on their cameras light up, doubly so if said lighting up is followed by a flash
People who sing along with 'I Am What I Am' are also annoying although not quite as bad as the previously mentioned people.

John Barrowman = FTepicW

Also I would like to point out that after sitting next to dancy_dreamer all night I am now deaf in one ear :P (and joulez217 will understand that one after panto!)

For people going to the next ones: Be prepared to be made to cry, to part with your money for the shiny merchandise (the programme in particular is well worth it although I still haven't read many of the words... I've started at the pretty pictures a lot though), and to laugh. And to fangirl madly.

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-03-25T18:58:00

2008-03-25T19:07:25Z

tw_fandom_award
The Torchwood Fandom Awards

There is one day left to vote for the awards.
There are some categories that could REALLY use your vote. Some horrible ties going on.
*eyes f-list* anyone a Jack/Gwen fan for example?

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-03-23T05:36:00

2008-03-23T05:37:35Z

Hey flist (and anybody happening to be wandering by since this is not flocked).

I've dusted off my fic folder which I discovered has a few Torchwood pieces in it that I wrote before the great laptop crash of January. Right now I have one fic I want to post and there are a couple of others I need to do a little more work on that I will be wanting to post soon.

Would anyone be prepared to beta for me?
I'm looking for someone to go through my grammar - because I can see when other people screw it up but not when I do - and general feedback on plot/pacing/characterisation mainly. Also someone prepared to tell me to shut the hell up, stop worrying and post it would be useful because last minute 'but it's not good enough for people to see' panics are very common with me.

*smiles hopefully*

ETA: *blinks* well umm... I was expecting one maybe two half hearted 'eh I've got nothing better to do' responses, not five people willingly volunteering!

LJ Strike and Ramblings

2008-03-20T20:47:58Z

So I'm assuming everyone knows about the strike and the reasons behind it and such.

I know some people on my flist will be taking part and some won't. Everyone has their reasons for doing so or not doing so. That is fine. But since we're all posting about why we are or aren't taking part I figured I'd join in on the fun. ~~Plus I'm bored.~~

I will be taking part in the strike.

Do I think it'll really make any difference? No, to be honest I highly doubt it.

Livejournal is a business and, like any business, most of their decisions are made with an eye on making money. We are all users of the service they provide, meaning we are customers. Some of us pay for the privilege, some of us have ads displayed on our journal as a way of paying, some of us don't do either of those things. That's fine.

Unfortunately a lot of stuff the strike is supposedly protesting is stuff we all agreed to when we signed up for an account and agreed to the TOS. Now I'm not saying the TOS was worded EXACTLY the way it currently is when we signed up. I'm sure it's changed over the years, in fact if it hasn't changed since god knows how long ago when I signed up for my very first account I'd be stunned. However they do include a part that says that LJ may revise the TOS as and when they wish.

So yes, they had every right to get rid of the basic accounts without telling anyone first. Yes we have every right to be annoyed about it although I wonder how many people currently annoyed are actually basic account users? I know I'm a Plus Account user. Yes I do think it's a shame that after all this time LJ have decided to get rid of this option, after all LJ has been ad free or had an ad free option since the very beginning, but I'm not sure it's worth protesting over. The really unfortunate thing was that they implied in a statement that they were getting rid of basic accounts because it made the sign up process to complicated for people to understand. Way to insult your customers.

Then we have the people who are joining the strike because it seems like fun to try to damage a big company. Power to the people. Etc. That's not actually helping. Supporting a cause you don't believe in is actually probably less helpful than ignoring it and doing nothing.

The people that are amusing me right now are the people taking part in the strike who actually left LJ on one or other of the last few LJ screw ups. People are suddenly reappearing and posting that they won't be posting. Then afterwards they'll post that they didn't post. So surely on either side of the strike LJs stats are going to increase. Even if the strike does have a big impact on the stats for one day, they're going to look at the few days on either side and see increases. Not helpful really.
In fact, surely with everyone logging on the next day to check and see what happened during the strike the stats are going to increase quite dramatically for the day after. That's not going to really work as a protest either.

Yes LJ's customer service is incredibly bad, but I'm not sure striking is the way to improve that either.

So why am I doing it? Two words: Mental illness.

Whatever happened with the interests and the censoring, no one should ever censor mental illness related things. Ever.
Everyone raise your hand if you know someone with a mental illness. Now in the highly unlikely event that there's anyone sitting there who doesn't have their hand in the air, you can all raise your hands too because you know me.
I do everything I can to hide it. Everything.
The world is not yet fully accepting of people with mental illness. Oh sure some places are wonderfully supportive, but not others. If I had a physical disability I would get a hell of a lot more support than I do at the moment. That's a rant for another time though. But my point is people with mental illness are often left feeling they have to hide the reality from their family, from their friends, from their colleagues and their boss, from the world.
The last thing that mental health awareness needs right now is a company like LJ hiding the word 'depression' from their popular interest lists. Yes it's back now, but the fact that it disappeared in the first place is simply not good enough.

Will I leave? Probably not. There are a lot of reasons including simple fact that I have a group of friends here that I wouldn't want to leave behind, the fandom community is still mostly here, IJ's attitude to mental illness is probably more damaging than LJs and unless someone has a better alternative that will solve all of the above problems and more I doubt I'll be going anywhere.

So I'll take part in the strike. I doubt it will help. I also doubt it will hurt.
~~And I can be strict with myself and make myself sit down and study far more because I won't have an LJ to check for a day.~~

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-03-19T23:00:00

2008-03-19T23:10:10Z

PC ANDY!!!! WE HAD PC ANDY!!!
AND WE HAD JACK/IANTO SHIRTLESS!!!

Okay I spent so much of that episode squeeing that I'm no actually sure looking back on it if it was a good episode or not, all I can remember is that I squeed a lot, PC Andy went away for a while and I was sad, he came back and I squeed. There was Jack/Ianto and I squeed A LOT, it stopped and I was sad, PC Andy came back and I squeed etc etc.
Yeah I'm going to need to rewatch that I think and attempt to be more calm and therefore fully take in what's happening.
And no not just for shirtless Jack and Ianto... well maybe partially...
Also when they started talking about going to the island... announcing loudly to everyone in the room that 'that's what Dalek man was talking about' will get you some funny looks.

Did anyone else get upset when Gwen said she wouldn't recommend Andy for TW? Dammit I want Andy on the team.
Not sure I liked Andy having a crush on Gwen, although I did love Rhys and his reaction to that

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-03-10T23:37:00

2008-03-11T02:01:31Z

Sunday morning joulez217 and I dragged ourselves out of our hotel room at some stupid hour of the morning and found our way to Manchester, managing to be the first in the queue at gmex.

After queuing, spending money we shouldn't have and getting very excited over the arrival of Kai Owen we heard a squee behind us announcing the arrival of sasha_lilyrat and her friend felicie4. Hugs and fangirling were had and then we heard that cs_whitewolf , atraphoenix , conjunkie and erin_giles had arrived so cue more excitement, hugs and geeking over the reunion of the bears. I believe at this point we were joined by laligin and shadowbyrd and possibly other people (as usual raise your hand and I shall edit you in). We then headed off to get ourselves some energy in the form of caffiene just to build up our excitement levels for the day.

We headed breifly to the cloakroom to dump stuff where we ran into skitty_kat and galacticconman and possibly more people, I lose track.

After this we collected everyone and went to get Kai's autograph. His first reaction to Ianto Bear - who was the first bear he met - was to ask if Gareth had met him. Which of course the answer was yes! He quickly realised however that we had a couple of Jacks, several Iantos and a Tosh and no Rhys anywhere in sight. So he complained. We of course told him that there would be one.

joulez217 (and Ianto Bear) and Kai

atraphoenix (and 4th Doctor Bear) and Kai

cs_whitewolf (and Ianto Bear and Myfanwy) and Kai

In the excitement we forgot about a second autograph we had to get from him so we had to go back a few minutes later. When we went back we asked if he'd mind posing for a photo with the bears and he offered to come round the table to do so for us. I think it was at this point that he told us he would pose but not smile because there wasn't a Rhys bear and erin_giles told him she'd get one before the end of the day.

That is supposedly NOT smiling!

I think it was just after this that we were joined by jemzamia and her friend (again, does she have an LJ?) and tiggerbrasilf and a few other people (okay I failed at remembering LJ names at this point) too. Hugging, squeeing, excitement and then it was decided we needed to get a photo of all the bears together. So we lined them up against the wall and took a photo.

From left to right Ianto (owned by tiggerbrasilf), Ianto (owned by cs_whitewolf), Jack (owned by conjunkie), Ianto (owned by joulez217), Tosh (owned by sasha_lilyrat) with Mam-Myfanwy (owned by galacticconman) and Terry/Myfanwy Pterodactly (owned by sasha_lilyrat), Owen (owned by galacticconman), Jack (mine!), Doctor (owned by atraphoenix) and Ianto (umm... owned by someone else! Help again?)

After a moment Kai comes running over to have his photo taken with them, without us even asking, and again complained about the lack of Rhys bear.

I'm not listing the bears again! Same order as before but with a Kai Owen on the right!

After more fangirling it was time for Kai's talk and we, of course, were at the front of the queue and so had excellent seats. In fact our bears sat on the front row and we were behind them. I won't recap everything because cs_whitewolf has already done so here but beware of minor spoilers for upcoming series 3 episodes. I will say though that he mentioned PC Andy and the squee was epic and we told him PC Andy bear did exist but unfortunately was stuck in Wales. He also nearly broke sasha_lilyrat when he said if Rhys wasn't with Gwen he'd want him to be with Tosh.

After Kai's talk some of the girls headed off for Build-A-Bear to get Rhys Bear and the rest of us set off to get the rest of the autographs we wanted. conjunkie and I got autographs from Anthony Head and Emma Caulfield who were awesome, and Anthony Head after meeting the Jack bears said he'd never be able to look at John Barrowman the same way again now he knew there was a bear of him hehe!

hey look it's a picture of me on my own camera! Shock!

We then headed over to get autographs from Anthony Lewis (Tommy from To The Last Man) and Siobhan Hewlett (Harriet from To The Last Man). I hadn't been going to get either of them based on the fact that I had no money, but had forgotten that sasha_lilyrat owed me money so suddenly there I was with exactly the right amount of afford both of them and since I'd seen how fantastic they were when some of the others got their autographs I ended up doing so too.

conjunkie and Anthony Lewis

me on my own camera again! Meeting Anthony Lewis

Then it was time for the Anthony Head talk. He got asked all the usual questions about Buffy and such. He also had a very polite disagreement with one (teenage?) guy who didn't like the fact that Sweeney Todd was a musical while the entire row of fangirls on the second row (yes we were back there again, but bears sitting with us this time) facepalmed as he patiently explained that it was originally a musical etc etc. conjunkie and I in particular were very disappointed to hear how he did record a song for Sweeney Todd that ended up being cut because the fact that he didn't get to sing was our main complaint after watching the film.

When we came out of the talk erin_giles had returned with Rhys Bear. We were all very impressed and the whole gang (which was insanely big so I'm not even going to attempt to list, if you were in there and I haven't mentioned your LJ name already comment please!) headed off to show him. He was so genuinely thrilled with it and I think everyone has photos of the moment so you can probably put together a second by second replay if you collect them all. He was just such a fanboy about his Rhys bear, I really don't think he expected the promise to get one by the end of the day to be followed through.

Now that is him actually smiling!

We were reaching the end of the day by this point, or at least the end of the amount of time we could go without food so we said goodbye to a few people and headed out to eat. We did return (of course) briefly so we could have one last look round, and all say our goodbyes. Sadly somehow or other we never got to say goodbye to a few people. But in the end we all parted our separate ways for train stations, bus stations and tram stops.

It was a fantastic time, and as always it was great to meet up with all the people I've met before and all the new people. All the guests we met were great, but Kai in particular was fantastic, really getting into the spirit of it and joining in with our madness. Although I'm still slightly disappointed we couldn't have had Naoko or Burn, Kai more than made up for it and was worth the insane journey to get there.

I'll do a separate flocked post about the rest of the weekend and other random stuff because I don't like using peoples real names and such on a public post just in case and because not everyone wants to hear what we got up to on our squee high Saturday night ;)

John Barrowman Book Signing Weekend

2008-02-26T20:14:21Z

I thought I should do this before I head off for the weekend again and come home with (hopefully) some more exciting pictures.

These pictures were all taken in the queue Saturday Morning or down the bay on either Saturday night or during the day on Sunday. I believe someone has a photo of what the bears got up to Friday night in the room but I was too busy being cold/high on sugar/high on pre Barrowman squee/a combination of all of the above to take any.

I got there Friday and met up with Joulez (joulez217), we later picked up Emma (atraphoenix), Denise (conjunkie) and were joined by Caspe (cs_whitewolf) and Stacey (galaxy_song). We spent pretty much the whole of Friday night on either a sugar high or a pre meeting John Barrowman high. We didn't even come down off that when a random man walked into our room.

Saturday morning we met up with Shaz (dancy_dreamer) on our way to Borders and then Kate (sasha_lilyrat), Sophie (luinecu ), talcat (whose name I've forgotten! Sorry! This is what comes of leave it almost two weeks before posting) Simon and Kay - did I miss anyone off there? I don't know Simon or Kay's LJ names.

From left to right: Captain John, Ianto, Tosh, Ianto, Dafydd, Jack, Myfanwy, Jack and Ianto
The bears spent roughly 5 hours on Saturday morning queuing to meet John Barrowman, as you can see they have his book all ready to be signed. This was taken after only about half an hour in the queue, they still had a long time to wait.
The little bear in a policeman's outfit is Dafydd (Shaz did I spell that right?) who is PC Andy and Ianto's love child. He is all dressed up in his daddy's uniform.

While queueing the bears met some very nice policeman who agreed to post for photos with Jack, Ianto and Dafydd. As you can see Jack got a little lost underneath the policeman's helmet.

And then from somewhere further down the queue Owen bear made a very welcome appearance and posed for his photo with Tosh.

I know there were a LOT of photos taken that day of us and the bears by other people so if anybody has them or knows where they are I'd love a link :). After a few hours in the queue it had started to dawn on us that the bears were fairly well known... we on the other hand were just 'them with the bears'.

I have NO photos from the signing due to really really bad security people. I won't start a rant on it because I'll be here all day but basically they were useless outside and over the top inside the shop.

But John recognised Jack bear as a Captain Jack bear and said he thought he was cool :D and Carole was lovely and told me that the bear and I should go and get warmed up. I didn't actually get to speak to him more than to say hello and thank you because of getting pushed around by security but even so it was worth the five hours and the fact that it's taken almost two days for my hips and knees to stop protesting loudly to meet them both and get their signatures.

After the signing we headed to Build a Bear so that Shaz could buy a proper PC Andy bear. While we were there we spotted a Geek!Owen from Adam bear which had to be photographed

We left Build a Bear with Shaz being the proud owner of, not only Dafydd (and after three or four times of writing that I really hope I've been spelling it right because otherwise I've got to go back and edit it at some point) but also his dad: PC Andy.

We spent most of the rest of Saturday meeting up with Kat (skitty_kat ), attempting to restore the circulation to our legs and to warm up a little. The warming up failed quite badly. Then Saturday evening we headed for the bay.

On a brief visit to the Doctor Who exhibitions shop we found Captain Jack, who kindly allowed us to photograph him and excitedly ask where he got his greatcoat from and generally fangirl quite a bit while he did impressions of Captain Jack smiling and running XD

He also posed with the bears and of course Captain John bear couldn't resist getting a kiss ;) Let's just hope he wasn't wearing the lipgloss.

We spent the rest of the evening in Pizza Hut before heading back for our very cold room where we were up until after midnight singing campfire songs and enjoying the post Barrowman squee.

Sunday we had to say goodbye to Emma and Denise. We also met up with Kat and Shaz again. Shaz should not have come in as she spent most of the day dying and worrying us all but that's another matter.

After the sad goodbye part we headed back to the bay.

The man who does boat tours of the Bay played the Dalek noise over his boats speakers for us and posed with the bears for photos. He nearly gave Caspe a heart attack when he balanced Ianto bear on his boat and Ianto toppled over, but we loved him.
Does anyone have the photo of the bears by the door that I can steal?

Also, Shaz got scared by an elf. I don't have pictures of him, but really he was an elf and he was singing and Shaz had to hide when we walked past him a second time.

The bears had their photo taken on the statue - help someone what's the statue of, I've forgotten! You can see Stacey attempting to balance Ianto bear on the left of the picture, they really were just pushed into any bear shaped space where they'd stay! (hence why Jack bear looks like he's about to fall out)

Bear threesomes were filmed, we sat in Starbucks for a while and finally headed to a bar where we happily fangirled out of the cold wind (although sadly not out of the cold - what was it with that weekend and lack of heating?)

OT3 XD

Finally we had to say goodbye to Shaz. And the remaining five of us headed off to get a meal. Caspe met a very nice man while we were there ;) and we eavesdropped on some guys who work on the Torchwood set talking about health and safety and the fact that John doesn't have something he needs but that it isn't his fault he doesn't have it.
After getting kicked out by the fire alarm we also had to say goodbye to Kat, which just left four of us :(

Spent Sunday night happily reading John's book and then having probably the most random conversations we've ever had while tucked up in bed. Just like a proper sleepover.

Monday morning we got up, squashed everything into suitcases and bags - seriously I bought one book, how come it all took twice the amount of space on Monday that it had taken on Friday? - and had to leave :(.
We headed for the starbucks round the corner from the station for one last cout of fangirling before we went to the train station. Joulez left first, and then I had to leave about half an hour later - no amount of suitcase stealing could change the fact that it was time for my train.

Miss you guys all loads now!
Can't wait for this weekend and for gmex. We must head back to Cardiff this summer (and Georgie you have to come too!!) so that we can have everyone together again.

The problem with a diabetic cat is you just cant feed them early no matter how much they beg or destroy the furniture. However the other problem is my mother is not going to be impressed if she comes home and finds cat claw marks all over her furniture. Lose lose situation really

Four Torchwood Drabbles

2008-02-20T02:01:21Z

Not the major fic I started writing over the weekend but that will show up at some point... if it doesn't get too out of hand.
Instead I bring you four Torchwood drabbles all for the Memory challenge at tw100

Title: Dreams
Author: _stolendreams_
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Fairly major spoilers for Adam

Ianto starts to dream of dark alleys, of young girls and of torrential rain. He dreams of the girls dying. He dreams about their begging and their screaming and of their fear. And always he dreams of a man who he can never quite see. A man who watches the killings, who helps to hide the bodies, who always seems pleased with events. A man who never says anything except ‘remember’.
He tells Jack all this, but he leaves out the worst part. Every time Ianto dreams he is the killer. And every time a part of him enjoys it.

Title: Flowers
Author:_stolendreams_
Rating: G
Paring: Owen/Tosh (hints)
Spoilers: Spoilers for Adam

He'll never know what they lost in those missing hours, but Owen is certain he did not send those flowers. Owen doesn’t do flowers. Not even if the look on Tosh's face when she read that card made him wonder what it would feel like to be the kind of guy who does send flowers. He takes a closer look later though, and can't help noticing that, if he was the sort of guy who sent flowers, they are exactly the sort he would have picked for Tosh. But of course it doesn't matter because Owen Harper doesn't do flowers.

Title: Forty Eight Hours
Author: _stolendreams_
Rating: G
Spoilers: Spoilers for Adam

Jack is missing two years from his memories, an extra forty eight hours here or there make no difference to him. He can't help wondering what happened though. The CCTV footage is so well erased that only he, Ianto or Tosh could have been responsible for it. He can’t imagine why, by all accounts, the rest of his team found themselves together, while he woke up alone in the vaults. He doesn't stop them trying to find out what happened, he doesn't help them either though. He has a suspiscion that whatever it was they probably never want it back.

Title: Proud
Author: _stolendreams_
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Major spoilers for Last of The Timelords

Jack wishes he could tell them about the year they’ve forgotten. He wishes he could tell them the things he saw them do. He'd love to tell Gwen how strong she was, and tell Owen how well he led the team. He'd like to tell Tosh how brave she was and Ianto how he took care of everyone. He’d like to tell them how proud he was of them. But then he’d have to tell them of their deaths, watching each other die and fighting an enemy they could never beat. So instead he tells them he's proud of them.

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-01-22T22:11:00

2008-01-22T22:20:15Z

Heath Ledger is dead

:( Really stunned by that. I have no words

RIP Heath Ledger

_stolendreams_ @ 2008-01-14T17:17:00

2008-01-14T17:19:31Z

Happy Birthday Caspe!

I was going to make you a pretty picture but sadly everything I need to do that is on the laptop which is still playing dead.

But hope you have a fantastic day anyway.

*smishes*

Ladies and Gentlemen I has a troll!

2008-01-08T15:29:53Z

Aren't I lucky?

nathan_poole has left me three messages in the space of about an hour today to accuse me of stealing one of his icons. Needless to say I didn't because... why bother?

Sadly he deleted the first message her left me but it read:
How many of these did YOU actually make??

The gun one (#55) was made by ME! On my laptop at work and now i find it being touted as one of _Stolendreams_ icons. If you are going to ask people to credit your icons to you, then atleast credit the ones you take off others, to them.

And the third is a private message that again asks me to credit him.

So after going on a hunt and discovering that I couldn't find a single icon post by him I eventually discovered the icon he was talking about in his userpics. So just to clear this up once and for all.

Here they are. One on the left by nathan_poole and one on the right by me.
Sorry buddy but they're not the same.

And while he was at it he was complaining that another icon looked very similar to his so:

One on left by nathan_pooleone on the right by me.
*says nothing*

flist, this post is public so please say a nice hi to nathan_poole if he happens to drop by again.