there will be a fish

You know what I love about my dad? That conversations with him when we are both hungover and sleep deprived often end up full of references to things like Dyson spheres, the Kardashev scale, and Santa Claus machines.

From Cracked.com:

The 6 Most Impressive Cases of Identity Theft Ever Pulled Off

The 5 Most Half-Assed Scams That Were Shockingly Successful

These are both a) hilarious and b) make the Mission: Impossible movies seem a million times more plausible. :)

I just got the weirdest email, from someone named "John Lindt", who I definitely don't know:

Subject: Hi

You will see this soon. I am past you. I have cells in my body that are dead in yours.

...Kind of creepy, no? It doesn't seem to even be some kind of virus-spreader or anything; there aren't any attachments. It's just creepy.

This seems like an appropriate time to rec The Last Post. :D But now I feel a bit guilty for spreading the creepy, so here: my sister made a post full of bakery AU recs, all of which are adorable fluffy goodness. *thumbs up*

The Five Best Toys of All Time

This article is so delightful. I can vouch for all five of these toys! :)

Twenty-nine is the number of books I have lying around my room in piles, in the process of being read. These are not to-read; they have all been started to some extent or another. *sigh*

Three are from the library:

- a Lord Peter Wimsey short stories collection (I have re-checked this out SO MANY TIMES now)
- two Pippi Longstocking books (re-reading, because this fic made me all nostalgic)

Thirteen are fiction:

- Death Masks by Jim Butcher (fifth in the Dresden Files)
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 2 (my sister and I are reading these out loud with each other; we've stopped midway through Hound of the Baskervilles)
- Fragile Things (three short stories in; still in love with "A Study In Emerald", so I keep re-reading that and then forgetting to move on to the rest of the book)
- Hourglass by Claudia Gray (oh the shame, I am so behind on this lovely series)
- Fateful by Claudia Gray (WEREWOLVES ON THE TITANIC! I haven't actually started yet, but I've been enormously excited about it ever since claudiagray told me about this great idea she had, while we were drunkenly sharing a cab home)
- Sunshine by Robin McKinley (borrowed from katieupsidedown, I ♥ Robin McKinley)
- Naked Heat by Richard Castle (professional Castle fanfic!)
- Traitor's Moon (fourth in the series)
- Very Good, Jeeves! (what ho!)
- Busman's Honeymoon (still haven't read this, embarrassingly. I get all weird and "OH NOES there will be no more new [Sayers-written] Lord Peter after this!" about it, which I know is silly)
- Metamorphoses (Ovid is the shit, guys. Also, these stories are batshit. But they're kind of great for ideas, because when )
- The Westing Game (I never read this as a child -- which I realized on my unsuccessful hunt for our copies of Pippi Longstocking, before I gave up and hit the library -- and think I missed out there)
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (because I never really read it in school when we were supposed to, and not at all because Erik refers to himself as Frankenstein's monster in XMFC, nope....)

Six non-fiction:

- Unpopular Opinions by Dorothy Sayers (I'm looking forward to the jokey examinations of Sherlock Holmes canon, such as "Holmes' College Career" and "Dr. Watson, Widower"; I posted scans of a few essays from this here)
- The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror by David J. Skal (one of the coursebooks for my horror films class, which I loved but didn't quite finish; it's enormously fun)
- My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn (his autobiography, which I picked up used from a street vendor in NYC; it is written in the most ridiculously tongue-in-cheek, self-important style, and clearly full of tall tales, so I have fun with it)
- Imbibe! by David Wondrich (a wonderfully nerdy bartending recipes/history of mixology book)
- Bartender's Bible (what it says on the tin: lots and lots of drink recipes)
- Vagabonding by Rolf Potts (no relation to Pepper, I don't think. Traaaaavelling *longing eyes*)

And seven re-reads:

- Strong Poison
- Have His Carcase
- Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (all of the Harriet Vane books of the Lord Peter series, which I am not at all re-reading for the purposes of writing a The Eagle AU, no sirree....)
- Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold (where I stalled out on my epic Vorkosigan Saga re-read. I'm so close!)
- The Big Con by David Maurer (because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)
- The Twits by Roald Dahl
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (both also added to the pile during the great Pippi Longstocking bookhunt)


It's all getting rather ridiculous. NO MORE NEW BOOKS UNTIL THESE ARE FINISHED.

Hey, so I have this Archive Of Our Own invitation languishing in my inbox. Does anyone want it?

In other news, I think the one thing Inception fandom really needs is for someone to take the movie posters where they're all standing around dramatically, and manip them Dick In A Box-style. I'm thinking something like slodwick's hysterical SGA and SPN manips here and here. :D You know that's right.

We should really make that happen. Maybe Slod can be bribed...

1. Jeeves & Wooster recs: Mr. Wooster and the Restorative Preparation is possibly my favorite thing I've read in the fandom so far. (Okay, or maybe this. Or this. Or – ANYWAY.) Set pre-canon, it's written in a lovely Jeeves-POV and tells the story of just how Jeeves came to work for one Bertram Wooster. Because you just know that Jeeves wouldn't leave something like his employment up to chance, would he? It's clever and touching and brilliantly Jeevesian, and I keep re-reading it. ♥

1a. The author of the above story, innocentsmith, also has a great essay on Jeeves characterization, Gentleman's Gentlemanly Behavior. It makes me want to just point and go "Yes, THIS."

2. Moving on to Castle, the Ryan Report (aka that thing on their website where the writers do an in-character blog from Ryan's POV) for 2.21 "Den of Thieves" is SO CUTE. SO PARTNERY. SO AWESOME. If you ship Ryan/Esposito, it's golden; if you prefer the platonic interpretation, it's also golden. I love them so much, you guys. *draws hearts*

3. I have a new favorite proverb: Se non è vero, è ben trovato. It's Italian for "If it's not true, it's a good story." Isn't that lovely? (Proverb acquisition thanks to – who else – Stephen Fry on QI.)

4. BEST. GRAFITTI. EVER. One more reason to love Chicago! ♥

5. A Gadget Too Far: interesting essay on the judicious use of technology in stories. It focuses on sci-fi in novels/short prose, but the ideas are easily applicable elsewhere.

Question: Why do people blame Chris O'Donnell for Batman & Robin like it's his fault moreso than a) George Clooney, b) Uma Thurman, c) Arnold Schwarzenegger, or d) Alicia Silverstone?

My personal choice of blame for that movie is Joel Schumacher. But Chris O'Donnell? His Robin wasn't that bad.

Everyone has weird little habits, don't they? For example, when I make canned chicken noodle soup, I pick out the pieces of chicken and throw them away. What's something weird you do? Food-related or otherwise. :)

Also, thespatz just posted links to her favorite SPN prank-war fics, which immediately made me crave more prank-fic (Leverage! Sports Night! Psych! It would be awesome!), but I could only think of one other story (For Every Action, Man From UNCLE, delightful).

So, dear flist, do you have any favorite fics of this particular subgenre? Any fandom will do. Or you could write me commentfic to sustain me through the awful paper I have to write *makes big puppyeyes*

Oh my GOD, you guys. I am SO TIRED.

I was about to post about...something. But I have forgotten. I am just that tired.

Good night, internet! <3

Completely exhausted, but I'm flying back to Austin tomorrow, so exciting! My friends up here are as diligent as my friends down there about putting me on a plane drunk/hungover, and I'm not as crazy with the last-minute packing as I usually am. So, good deal. <3

This post is mainly to say that the existence of this picture makes my brain hurt at the same time it makes me very happy. :)