'facing' prosopagnosia

I mention having a facial recognition problem every little bit. Last night during a couple of new TV shows I scored on a couple of actor spottings before Scott did, and he was all like wow, you're getting better at this.

Information About Prosopagnosia --Click that.

I've been paying real attention the last few months on what exactly helps me recognize people. For instance, from my original post on mind blindness-

Likewise, I get tv personalities mixed up like crazy. I never could keep Dan Rather straight from a couple of other news reporters. There are a few actresses I can keep straight because I've seen their movies so often (usually scifi movies), and by now Harrison Ford is iconic in my head, but I had no idea Steve Carell, Dan Burns, Maxwell Smart, Evan Baxter, and the mayor of Whoville were all the same guy. Do you know how many times I saw the complete Star Wars trilogy before I knew who Mark Hammill was? Probably dozens.

So you guys probably don't realize, after three months of Benedict vids, that the marker I use to recognize him across character changes is the way his eyebrows look as he turns. For some reason, I'm pretty good with eyebrows.

Since I already mistakenly auto-sub eye and hair color for everyone I see with my faulty cataloging system, I can't count on eye color since his crazy eyes change color almost scene to scene, as confirmed by rabid fans around the world and this article mentioning sectoral heterochromia. (His eyes even have their own blog.) My own eyes are a mix of yellow and brown that I think make me look kind of werewolf-y in certain lights, which I bring up in my 100 Girly Questions Survey.

click for more Ben eye studies

The last thing on a person's face I can manage is noses for some reason, so everyone that I recall in my mind either has a blur there or a variety of noses I can plug in like a Potato Head. I'm pretty good with silhouettes, so the way a face moves means more to me than how a face is arranged. The more quirky a face is, the easier it is for me to remember and keep attached to a name, so Steve Buscemi has been a favorite for years, plus I actually like him. Cartoons and animation, on the other hand, are EASY. I never forget an artistically depicted face.

One of the ways I do most of my actor spotting is when I hear them speak. Very few actors can disguise their voices from character to character. But last night I was on point for two actors by their faces, despite some key changes that threw Scott off, and we've both been noticing I seem to be getting at least one a week now. I'm the person that watches TV with phone in hand, pausing the DVR to race through IMDB links, and I'm usually wrong, so me getting two right in one night this week was epic. I think I'm getting the hang of 'tagging' face parts in a sort of linear way so I can keep names attached to them.

I've said in the past that I'm a Sherlock fan, not a Benedict fan. I'm also obviously a Khan fan. What I need to be clear about is that I don't dislike or shun Benedict as a person. I simply don't recognize him from one movie or interview to another, so I don't attach any sort of meaning to his face unless he's doing a particular character that I'm watching. I'm very Benedict deficient when it comes to Ben fandom. It kind of hit me the other day that some people might misunderstand why, since there's been a little controversy around him here and there, which I could care less about.

I don't often see people talking about fandoms from a point of view like mine, a prosopagnosic asexual. Since I am, as a fansite owner, a highly visible representative of a show that actually uses continually sexualized characters, themes, and plot devices, I imagine it's difficult to think of me not giving an eyeblink to any of it. Lexx is brilliantly done. I love every shred of it unconditionally, like I do Sherlock. Star Trek, as some of you have seen, is a whole other beast for me, conditions galore had to be addressed before I finally embraced the new timeline.

You can see the impact prosopagnosia has had on me being a fan. I really do obsess over story lines and characters, film edits and effects, and the way I get swept up into a story. I could be halfway through a show before I realize someone I like from something else is in it, so I'm not just following actors around from show to show like many fans do. Either I very seriously love a character portrayal or I don't, and usually don't even care about stuff like Batfleck quibbles.

This has actually been a taking a break post, time to get back to the other thing I am working on.

love you just a little too much

click for wallpaper

I've run across a few writer blogs with posts about how one handles more than one project at a time, and how that can refresh a person, etc blah blah. Then I talked to @bonenado about what if, and he indicated he'd really like to see my favorite super secret exciting scifi one get done. Plus I've got a group project for another scifi on indefinite hold, and notes for several more that venture into other genres. I still think this one needs to get done first, but if I wind up reclusing, I'll keep a rotation plan in mind.

more wallpapers

I have somewhat jested for years I need a handler. Nobody ever knows what I mean. I've already been through the torture, even if it was haphazard and mostly unintentional or subconscious. I've already trained myself to super focus. A person could even make a case for mild twinning and that's why I feel so lost all the time. All I know is that pulling all the splinters back together has been every bit as challenging as everything else I've ever gone through. Doing it on my own... well, let's just say that I didn't hear Scott walk in the door after a day out with mama and Bunny yesterday, and if he'd been any closer when I ran into him around a corner, I'd have been able to deck him into a wall. It was funny and we laughed, but PTSD is no joke, and the adrenaline that shot through me in nanoseconds made me feel kinda shaky for a few minutes. Even after all these years, I know if I snap I would be able to take someone out in a very nasty way. Spending so much time over the last several months crunching my stuff into a readable format is doing things to my head. Every little bit I step back with my head whirling, thinking that was real. So many things I never told my psychologist...

more awesome wallpapers

Today I'm fleeing into Lexx. I'm sad that particular love is so neglected and I have several little projects there on hold, as well. I just need a break. Giggy is getting impatient about getting her character post. Not Ellen-Giggy, the Giggy in my head. I know people see me tweet with Ellen sometimes, but like I've said before somewhere buried in all my posting, Mark Hamill doesn't exist in a galaxy long ago and far, far away. By the way, when Ellen let go of the @giggerota handle on twitter, I grabbed it so someone couldn't turn it into something smutty. Really get tired of parody accounts that ruin the character. If Ellen ever wants it back, it's hers. Until then, it's just going to sit there ignoring troll bait.

and even more wallpapers

I woke up with this song in my head. I think it really bothered me that I was so ready to hurt Scott yesterday before I realized it was him. I've been so very lucky having him for a best friend. His patience with me surpasses anyone I've met, and we laugh a lot. You guys who've seen Sherlock, you realize John is his handler, right, because Mycroft can't control him. Irene butting in was a mess. She was trying to break from her own handler (Moriarty) who had her handling a whole ring of powerful people. Everything you see around you, when you open your eyes, is a heirarchy of handlers, like a tupperware sales pyramid. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for the majority of us regular people, but too many cooks around a pot messes up the meal. Irene messed Sherlock up. Then when John got married, Sherlock lost his handler and went off in a very dangerous direction, which has left us hanging for s4, because the sociopath finally did become a murderer, even if it was to protect his best friend/handler. People who don't know what it's like not being able to have/keep friends might not be able to realize how deep that kind of relationship can go emotionally, and how easily a person like that can step over a very big line. Or maybe they can. Maybe that's why the world loves Sherlock.


Afterthought- It's funny no one ever brings up John being a sociopath/murderer, as well. I have deep respect for John. You people thinking I'm crushing on Sherlock probably completely miss the whole John thing in my Sherlock posts. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you already see what Sherlock sees in John.

down to bizness

I have a nephew on the way who has already been named Rogue. Pinky approves. My first thought was Rogue Leader, since the wedding pictures have light sabers in them, but apparently it's something else. At any rate, I come from rogue parents, so it seems natural to me. I'm a rule changer, an over the line stepper, forging awkwardly ahead at all the wrong moments, and winding up in all the right and wrong places in synchronous nicks of time.

I've mentioned a few times that we're living on an edge of not knowing if and when our lives will drastically change without a lot of warning. @bonenado's work place has been on the market for a couple of years, and just recently one of the bids dropped out, leaving another bid to surge forward into finalizing paperwork IF an agreement is reached. We've managed to stay pretty calm through two years of what if with a new Bunny tossed into the mix for laughs. By the way, she's pretty awesome distraction.

I had a feeling we might be getting close, so I got my fees paid through the spring and am spending the summer paying for badly needed new glasses, restocked shoes and underwear, and now I'm focusing on clearing out my hard drive in preparation for the inevitable crash, now that my warranty and protection plans have officially expired. Our phone plans expired a long time ago, and we're not upgrading until we know how much our budget will get chopped. The last car and furniture payments are close to done, too, so we're on point with the when-the-ship-sinks Plan.

I don't like stressing out. I'm a denier. I block out and shut down and focus on the next meal, and if the stress gets through to my brain, I clean house like a banshee. I'm not afraid of being broke or poor, God knows how I literally starved and slept on floors or in a car in my younger days, and I even washed diapers in a bathtub for two months. I'm really good at spartan living, a natural Bohemian.

BUT. As tight as my own money belt already is, I have become accustomed to heavily using tech as a coping mechanism. I don't drink, I'm not on meds, I don't have friends in real life, I don't see family because we live so far apart- I'm alone. I spend 10-12 hours a day sometimes 6 days a week alone. My neighbors are usually gone, everything outside is toxic because super allergies, and tech is my only connection to other people. I don't even have a landline to call 9-1-1.

If my tech goes out, I may have to float a couple months or more before I reconnect. I'm crossing every phalange on my body that it doesn't come to that. I'm hoping that the rest of the summer is a productive spurt of me super organizing all my projects to help me calmly stay in denial. If I can't deal, I'ma try to stay off twitter because the last thing I want is my TL turning into a dump zone.

One of my disclaimers on some of my blogs is "I will never ask for or accept donations to keep this site going. Ever." I will respect my online friends a lot more if you do NOT try to help me. I see a lot of places on the webs asking for donations for everything from genuine local charities to a broad vague variety of entertainments. If you feel the need to give money away, please help pay for sick children's cancer treatments or lung transplants.

The reason I'm writing this post is 1) simple documention, this is a journal of sorts, and 2) I've mentioned a few times that I intend to never completely disappear off the internet again like I've done in the past, and if I do, that's how you know I died. Well, I don't want my friends thinking I died. I've got a few phone numbers, if my tech crashes while we're in limbo I'll have a couple twitter friends help me stay in contact or tweet links or something.

In the meantime, I'll keep popping out on twitter and facebook and keep writing and do my best to pretend none of this is happening while I go OCD all over my house and hard drive. Not worried, just antsy. It's all good. Distraction and staying busy is key.

@bonenado & Bunny excaped & I'm stuck in the web, heeeelllpppp

That account just followed me. I can't imagine that even working for me and Scott. His Trek thoughts are a very distant 'way back there' in a long line of zombie vampires storming werewolf Samurais in WWI bi-planes and long bows. He tolerates my Sunny in Philly/Farscape/Matrix approach to real life problems only because 1- I make good pie, 2- his mom never scared me, 3- his kid is cute, and 4- her kid is even cuter. If our love life hinged on Star Trek we'd be all pro-Kirk (me) vs anti-Janeway (him) with hard skirmishes around DS9. Anything Wesley Crusher would escalate tensions, and we'd have to resort to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition if we ever separated. Spock is a wild card we don't resort to unless someone wants to die.

Sorry, got distracted on twitter. Me in another life, perhaps.

Me irl.

And I am NOT a fruit loop. Someone's just jealous. Actually I'm being silly. I'm really part of a sacred fruit loop gang. You probably can't see that whole fruit loop convo I just linked because some of it might be private. It really started out with Trix. And in case some of you don't remember, this green haired chick from Dark Matter was Harmony, the bossy little queen on Stargate Atlantis. By the way, shout out to WormholeRiders and Holly, who'll be on the writing team for Dark Matter reviews, yay!

Actually (all this pink talk), my first inclination is always blue. If my local eye clinic had anything like this, yeah.

And I'd have blue hair, all blue clothes, blue shoes, an all blue house, a blue car, and you all would never see me again because blue is my recluse color. You almost never actually see me in or around a bunch of blue in real life. I almost literally cannot even talk to people when I'm looking at a certain color range of blue. I've been like that since childhood.

Pinkybluejacky (the name, not the pinterest) wasn't a plan, just an implosion of color in my head before a big turn in my life. At first I thought, Oh no, I'm going purple... but no, they never seem to really mix. My colors never made sense until I started studying how people survive breaking. I went over a bunch of stuff I'd written out with @bonenado and he thinks my coping personalities make a lot of sense. I am realizing only very lately that I'm really good at self handling in dysfunctional situations. I grew up super detached. ~skip a bunch of stuff I deleted~ Is it any wonder I went through an obsession with Zaphod Beeblebrox one year. Ha, left you dangling.

I haven't been able to get this song out of my head for days, so from mine to yours. You're welcome. This is like me and social media and fandoms and all the crazy trouble I always got into. This would be a great song for a super smash shipper vid.

somehow this turned into mild Felicity worship

I think these come closest to what my new glasses are going to look like, except my local eye clinic tacked $20 onto that. I'm getting the latest upgrade on hi-def digital lenses, which I think basically means my no-line multi focal changes will be a little more gradient in all directions that I point my eyes. They couldn't believe what great shape my 5 year old glasses are still in, despite many abuses that include actually walking on them in the dark, dropping them lens down on chat a few times, rolling over on them in bed, accidentally flinging them around like I do eggs and tuna, sudden yankings off my head forgetting I'm wearing headphones still attached to something, and many other things. Yeah, Bunny snatchings, for sure. My old frames are a more expensive wire/plastic combo by Michael Kors (eyewear not sold through that site, look here), so I don't expect solid plastic to last as long, even from Vogue (eyewear). The frames I had before these old ones lasted 8 years and were my fave glasses ever, alas, discontinued style.

I generally shell out around $800 cash every time I get new glasses because I get extras and warranty, so yeah, I know glasses. I've been wearing them since I was ten. I've been told I can't do contacts because my eyes have had almost continuous inflammation since I was a child, and very frankly was expected to be blind over ten years ago, but we live in a wonderful golden age of better health and nutrition and wonder drugs, so I'm doing fabulous, even with nerve damage causing continual pain and tear duct problems in my left eye. When I have serious talks with people who know my health history, it's understood that 200 years ago I'd have been dead by now, so the fact that I'm doing so well has everyone in the medical field cheering me on. I think we'd all agree that spending $800 for glasses once in awhile is preferable to being blind.

What a dismal post this is, bleah! Let's lighten the mood. I have this t-shirt. I got it way cheaper at a Penney's back to school sale one year, though.

The Succubus is the ep where Cartman gets glasses. You can preview a clip for free here that might try to sell you a download.

Oh, here we go, Benedict in glasses. That is one very eyewear savvy guy. By all means, click and enjoy, because I had to make it tiny to fit on my blog. When you scroll down a little you get Martin in glasses, too.

If you're still not sold on eyewear being all the cool rage, just check out Felicity Smoak, my uber girl crush. Even if you're not an Arrow fan, you've gotta admit she rocks. If you deeply need more Felicity, here you go. Give that time to load, it's tumblr. Yeah, I know I'm being mean not throwing pix here. I'm trying not to get sucked further into the internet. Those of you into serious self torture, just put "Felicity Smoak Benedict Cumberbatch" into a chrome search engine. Ok, I have no idea how this happened, but you see what I mean about getting stuck in the internet.

Ok, I totally caved. This one actually clicks to more stuff.

*need serious intervention* Pulling out the big guns.

Ok, I'm going to have an awesome Friday killing bathroom germs and making awesome crockpot stuff and not worrying about anything because right here right now, it's all good. I hope you guys have nice little surprises through your weekends and nothing sucks, but if it does, #aspienado gives you internet hugs and you know we're all in this together, wave little flags and let people know you're there, ok? Be your awesome selves.

#TBT why I stopped writing fanfic...

...because some people really do want to know.

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was contacted in a forum by a nurse in another state seeking a fellow writer to have a little fun smashing Star Wars and Star Trek together. Since this was back in the Dark Ages when smashing fandoms was still considered heresy, I shouted Hooray! and gleefully jumped into emailing back and forth.

It. Was. Awesome. I love writing words. I love Star Trek and Star Wars. I had often imagined what could happen if the streams were crossed. I floated happily along through initial construction, setting up several plot lines and testing out character interactions, like Q bugging the Emperor, when I realized I was playing ball kind of alone on one side of the court while Riker was making out with Leia on the other side. It was dramatic and romantic and completely left out plot devices of any kind, even bad ones.

That was my first experience meeting Mary Sue. I had no idea what to make of it. I thought we were writing a cool story, but turns out I was a tool for someone else's fantasy role play. It felt weird, like asking a stranger to watch and maybe even join in. I was at a loss.

Nowadays, fans skip the whole writing thing and do this cool stuff.

Next up was Sliders. I had a really good time with that one. I discovered I could write quick comedies in very few pages, and I had a ball cracking myself up over the time all the parallel Sliders wound up randomly sliding onto the same Earth in someone's shower at the same time and stepping out sopping wet having to figure out whose people were whose, and the Colins were a riot. You'd have to be there. Sadly, no one else in the fandom was interested because none of them were having sex with each other. Still, it's awesome running into Sliders fans here and there nowadays. Click pic for awesome.

A year or so went by, I was rockin out in the Xena fandom and had figured out that's basically how fandoms party, so I became a ringleader and took a rowdy Joxer bunch with me over to a crazy list feed before we all got thrown out of an actual fan club. It was a lot of work, but I loved it, and pretty much played it like a Vulcan surfing a wave in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. Yeah, I invented party Spock and didn't even know it, way back in the 90s. That is who Yablo was.

Yablo was trubba, but my gang was even more awesome trubba, and I didn't care. Until I was asked to read and comment on some fanfic. I'd already written a couple of 3-page comedies to be included in a fan book to Ted Raimi (never found out if they made it), one in particular that I thought was a genius mashup on Joxer accidentally becoming a Darkwing Duck figure, so I thought Ok, sure, let's see what other people have got.

I didn't expect a submission in a big yellow envelope in my mailbox, and I didn't expect it to be on par with erotica. I'm sure there was love in there somewhere, but since I was unfamiliar with the lingo, I simply fell over cracking up, and from there it became a comedy to me. So when I reviewed it, I had no idea that I hurt feelings quite badly.

Can you imagine if we'd had youtube back then? I'd have been in heaven.


From the frying pan into the fire, they say. My fourth experience with Mary Sue was an entire world fandom eating itself over a dead guy and a love slave, with the show itself instigating the never ending frivolities, and suddenly it all clicked. Marketing. I understand.

No I don't understand, apparently. Stepping back from Mary Sues means we can't be friends, whaaaaa. I have my own tastes and agendas, but being swamped on all sides with singular focus on internet orgies of every conceivable kind had me finally standing up brushing it off in private to a few people. Aaaaand, that didn't go down very well because that was back in the days before I knew I was an asexual person with Aspergers and before you know it, I became a worthless trading card left in the bottom of a drawer. Well, that's a quickie rendition of months of oncoming sadness, but you get the point.


I. Write. Stuff. I can take any writing prompt and turn it into several thousand words of honest to goodness story in minutes. I don't need sex to sell it, I don't need to be a character to feel it, and I certainly don't need validation to keep writing.

I see the fights going on through the years over someone stole my idea thing, and the copyright wars over stuff that's barely even legal to begin with, and I just stopped sharing what's in my head. Until Pinky started publicly blurbing at syfydesigns, which has over 26,700 views now, thank you very much. And then Pinky started publicly blogging on a real blog. And I'm sitting here looking at the view count wondering how in the world that happened.

I love fans. I've always said that. Fans are my coffee in the morning. Fans are my catharsis through rough days. Fans are there in the horrible dark nights when I'm scared and alone. The internet is full to bursting with fans being awesome.

But I'm sorry, I just can't have sex with you guys. I know, I'm weird...

But mostly, I'm busy. It's called a contract. And this blogging stuff is called warm up, you know, like athletes do before big games.

As I write, I am realizing my real life trumps all the fanfic I could have ever written. Maybe one of the reasons I don't Mary Sue fanfic is because I don't have to imagine it. One of the reasons I don't read it is because I've seen it all around me. The vamps. The violence. The slaves. The dead.

I have kept so many secrets. I have been so many scary places.

the new Hogtown order

Today is all about tech hurdles.

1- The only bill I still send in a check for experienced a massive envelope cutting/gluing/slinging into bills fail when 3 envelopes in a row got caught and stuffed into each other before finally being severed from the roll, and my bill doesn't look much different from a crazy nouveau 6 legged frog I saw once which had 3 back legs on one side. Weighing options- is it easier and faster to go dig up a generic envelope and address it myself, or just go ahead and set up auto pay? Turns out it would've been easier and faster going old school, but who knew, so that's that. Since I'm still using up checks I ordered in 2005, looks like I'll never have to order checks again.

2- "Please follow the activation instructions within the next two weeks as all debit cards will be deactivated as of July 15, 2015." Um, got caught a little flatfooted today, thanks guys, by the way, it's still June...

3- I finally made an appointment for new glasses. Guess which account the groceries and other stuff came out of today? Yeah. Tomorrow I get to make a special trip to my bank OR juggle what the other account owes me plus my personal account, which I'm sure the receptionists at the clinic can competently mix up because they've done so well in the past with mine and several other people's payments, files, and prescription lens info.

I thought everything was supposed to be paperless by now. I thought all this digital currency was supposed to make everything easier and faster. Everyone I know who has been freaking out about 666 and scan codes on our necks or in chips in our arms or whatever over the last ten years may as well just relax, because our world could never possibly EVER be that easy.

Lexx always says it best. Season 3, episode 7 "Tunnels", Kai winds up having a claim processed by bureaucracy in hell, called "Hogtown". All the Lexx eps seem to be loaded up on youtube at GoodTimes. Not sure how long it'll last since Lexx is still for sale on Amazon and elsewhere, so go jump on that. :edit: 7-9-15 Well, that didn't take long, did it?

orange you glad I didn't say bananaKhan

So I've been running this experiment for awhile, took this pinky blog link off my twitter bio months ago so I could gauge incoming based on other than people clicking the bio link, right? The 55% excludes my own visits (me working), the referring websites are mostly links I set up myself on my other blogs, social networks is mostly me direct linking to posts from twitter-facebook-G+-linkedin-tumblr-wordpress, and you can clearly see very little of my traffic here by comparison comes from search engines. I get more direct hits to the entire blog than any posts on any given day, so I'm pretty sure we've got some solid bookmarking going. THANK YOU, mysterious visitors, three of whom I know personally, actually, but the rest of you are mysterious.

Why am I bringing this up? Simple. I haven't seen this kind of response on a personal blog since the old Bluejacky stalking days. Why is this important? Because my publisher thinks I'm going into a cold sell (whenever I get my homework turned in), and I don't believe I am. What does this mean? My book might flop slightly less spectacularly than original projections projected on a virtual projector in my head. (Thank you, weekly projection meetings in a big retail and food chains, the only meetings I ever actually enjoyed.)

This is also a test run of how long I can actually sit in a chair today. I'm maxing out hard at 20-30 min now, but that's outstanding compared to yesterday, so there's hope.

I raise my coffee cup to all the people in my past who didn't survive me. I'm calling it a learning curve. Salut.

larak tarath

Bacon brownies. They're REAL.

Weekend fixins and doins. 

    

My theme song after I exuberantly hoisted a 26 pound Bunny a few times around on an old L/S herniated disc and inflamed the hell outa my sciatic lesion. I'm currently negotiating terms with the revolt and uprising. You'd be surprised how well the Mak'Tar chant of strength actually helps when one gets stuck.

Neo/Khan and why our Matrix is screwed

In a truly perfect world, a fan would create an awesome youtube tribute vid with a Neo/Khan mashup.

Sometimes I follow @bonenado around with my old Matrix gristle bone that I keep laying around to get out and gnaw on every little bit, to his disgusted not again because he thinks The Matrix was a boring movie. I've said from the start that there's no way any of them ever got out of the Matrix in the first place, that the Architect might be the one who's really trapped, that Smith might actually have a point, and that the whole thing is so layered with subroutines, how do we know the entire construct isn't an elaborate program written by a high school super nerd with nothing better to do. The fact that the Cracked guys brought up the story within a story within a dream within a story (or something) totally validated me, and I cheered through 98% of everything they said here.


I'll add two more thoughts.
1- All that kung fu when Neo could have simply used the Force to wage wizard wars messing everyone up with thought power alone, because brains are one more layer to the whole mashup, they use electrons, he's already part of the Matrix, so his thoughts alone could have conceivably shredded the place.
2- There could be more than the red or blue pill, and in fact, I can't help wondering what Neo could have done with popping a cocktail of red, blue, green, orange, yellow, white, and whatever else capsules, liquigels, and tablets since the pills themselves were simply code hacks.

From Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan quotes 
Leonard McCoy: Dear Lord, do you think we're intelligent enough to — suppose — what if this thing were used where life already exists?
Spock: It would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix.
Leonard McCoy: Its new matrix? Do you have any idea what you're saying?
Spock: I was not attempting to evaulate its moral implications, Doctor. As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create.
Leonard McCoy: Not anymore. Now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the earth was created in six days. Now watch out! Here comes Genesis. We'll do it for you in six minutes!
Spock: Really, Dr. McCoy. You must learn to govern your passions. They will be your undoing. Logic suggests—
Leonard McCoy: Logic? My God, the man's talking about logic! We're talking about universal Armageddon. You green-blooded, inhuman—
Not that I'm identifying with this person, but at least it's proof I'm not alone, clicks to source.

What does the Oracle have to say?


Ye olde Kevin Bacon Game. Click the snip to go directly.

In case you guys didn't know this is a thing.

So basically, Khan was doing his best to break the Matrix... And if you really think about it, it's all Spock's fault (the original Neo) because he's the one who tricked Khan, and now Khan thinks all his people are dead and they're really not. The Augments nearly overcame the machines, guys. Chew on that one for awhile.

a Khan in any other language

Paper.li has invited me to play with a free month of Pro, since the new settings they're working on aren't available to free users, which I'll probably do because I've been considering going Pro anyway. It's a cheap enough toy, who knows, I might really like it once I've upgraded.

In the meantime, we're at a stalemate. I've changed my distribution outlets, removed the widget off my blog, and I'm going to have to really get in there and crank down on the settings, which are frustratingly limited for free users, but if I pay $100+ a year JUST to use *a* new setting they're toying with after jacking the algorithm to the point of me turning my paper off (I'm sorry, I don't wanna be known for leading sex shocker stories), then they'd better have some rockin' awesome other stuff I can do, as well. It's one thing to be silly on my own blog or feed about stuff, it's another to jerk the general public around with distasteful shock jock material when my original intent is to entertain with fun, interesting, and positivity. And I need new glasses. >=l I need to stay focused on my actual needs in real life right now. This is a thing today. @bonenado is trying to make it home before they close the road. I've lived in this area since 1976, and I've never seen Springfield this close to being completely cut off from everything south of it. Seriously.

Mostly my day is just silly stuff while I get some work done. Who knows, maybe I really will pick up a little Russian. And I do seriously want to know about the voice overs.

in which an Augment purchases office supplies

I bought index cards yesterday.

I really thought doing all this electronically on a blog would be awesome, but wrapping my mind around moving a paragraph here to another chapter there in a pile of 'pages' I can't hold and glance through is more laborious on the brain than using actual paper. So, index cards. Sections, chapters, 2-3 word notes, tabs on cards where I still need to work, etc. Every author/writer I've ever talked to has said writing a book is the hardest thing they've ever done. I'm finding it mind-numbingly laborious, like working on a thesis, only I have to come up with my own material from scratch.

I'm actually not as bad off as Mr. Earbrass. I just need to get my bearings on what's what, what's where, and what's left to do.

I keep hearing Weird Al shout, "Where's my liquid paper? WHERE'S MY LIQUID PAPER???"


TODAY. PLAN. I let my house junk out this week because the pain sucked so bad, and I guess I must've actually been sick because I wobbled into a little fever after I started the z-pack. Two days on antibiotic later, I feel like going KHAAAAAAAAAN all over my kitchen and laundry, and whadayaknow, I need to round up a weekend grill-fest menu. Picked up corn on the cob while I was out, have country ribs and chicken to BBQ, blackened salmon, cheap hot dogs & a can of chili, a giant top sirloin steak for us to split, lotta salad stuff, loaded baked tatos, and @bonenado has requested a blueberry cobbler. Well, I say grill. We've had tropical storm Bill over us last couple of days, all kinds of flash flooding, rivers are waaaay up, and my front lawn actually had standing water in it yesterday. We're on top of a hill... I don't think our alien ancestors migrating here from planet Plymouth realized the wet/dry extremes and all the ticks and mosquitoes, and yet they conquered the wilds and here we are. Taking lots of zyrtec. And benadryl. I need more coffee. Happy Father's Day weekend, all y'alls.

evil will always triumph

Fandoms are both brutal and loving. They are heart wrenching and uplifting. Even though they feel extremely personal, they come to life through sharing.

I remember the days when I used to freak out. I remember the year I pulled nearly all my stuff into private and brazenly deleted great chunks of it, even after I'd talked other people out of doing that exact same thing. I remember what it was like having anxiety attacks or dark feelings about other people having access to my stuff. To this day and far beyond, 1- I will always regret disappearing, and 2- I will always be grateful to the fans who salvaged some of my stuff, saved it, and even translated it before I made it disappear, never to come back.

You'd think being a world class fansite webmaster wouldn't be that big a deal, but I know people who are so huge in fandoms and still so deep behind avatars that no one knows who they are. I've met people who never cross the streams between their public and private lives and trusted me enough to whisper their real names to me, or show me pictures of themselves. Sometimes the only thing keeping some of us out there is a huge commitment to our love for a fandom.

Then there are fans who plunge headlong into fandoms, happily creating without a thought to consequences and then found lying slashed and bleeding on their emotional floors when a gang beats up on them in public. Sometimes the fan pulls back their cool stuff out of hurt and anger, sometimes the gang pulls strings and has it removed, mocking the victim they cruelly threw into shock.

So I understand when fans pull vids into private. It's bad enough that youtube capitulates to license and whatevs (two of my fave to rant about fan raids involve the song The Final Countdown in any shape or form and a clip from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's 'Vacation' by the Go-Gos, the most consistently hunted down and deleted uploads I've ever seen), but when fans yank their creations, weeping and gnashing of teeth go on in little rooms all over the world. Loss of cool stuff is mourned.

I never used to salvage youtubes because I didn't know anyone could. The only reason I didn't delete my youtube account the year I was deleting everything else was because I had two videos uploaded that my niece created, and her original disc AND hard drive had both crashed. I had the only copies. So I just pulled them into private and let them sit.

Just before I came back out public three years ago, I ran into such a cool little seen video in the Merlin fandom that I feared immediately the owner would trash it at any moment. I think it had 112 views on it and was so buried in the youtube search engine that I found it way off somewhere on something like page 23. I had seen loads of videos, but THAT one, to me, was like finding a gold nugget in piles and piles of fan overload. I immediately set about researching how to get that video so that if it ever disappeared, it wouldn't be truly lost. (Wish I'd done that with my own stuff before I deleted it, BAD ME!)

This is that video. I love the detail that went into the technique. Since it has never disappeared, I've never had to replace it.


After I successfully captured that one, I thought Hey, I wonder if I can fix another one of my fave fan videos from years earlier that was super messed up and wouldn't play at all any more on youtube without a horrible screechy noise all through it. And it must have been abandoned, because comments mention it going back years. I downloaded it and whadayaknow, that screech was gone, so it had to be a youtube code glitch. For awhile I was the only person on youtube that had a copy which actually worked. Over the last year or so, youtube must've fixed maintenance on whatever glitched it, because it's playing again now just fine without having to be reloaded. This is the original.


In the old days, videos would sometimes disappear almost as soon as I'd embed them on a blog post, the most irritating disappearance being an Alien Nation fanvid (from the series, not the movie) set to the BeeGees 'Staying Alive'. It was super cute and completely irreplaceable. I've never seen it since. What's really stupid is that Alien Nation was so out of print when I wanted it that I got it from a company that records old shows off reruns in other countries. I have no idea if that's legal or not, but I'm pretty sure the fanvid on youtube was far less innocuous, legally speaking. Alien Nation eps can now be watched for free on youtube, apparently, so whoever had claims on the content, that seems to be over now because it has become public access material or something. The original fanvid was yanked so hard it completely disappeared, as if it had never existed. Usually a vid search will show that something has been made private or the content has been blocked, but there was just no record that vid ever even existed very shortly after one of the actors saw my blog post and started talking to me. I seriously doubt he had anything to do with the video disappearing, but maybe someone else he knew did. Or someone else who knew me who got jealous and pulled the right strings about legal issues, who knows. I've seen that stuff happen before. On an afterthought, it might've had something to do with that actor announcing he's a Republican. Silly reason to poof something cool.
We've become accustomed, as fans with favorite shows going way way back, to being able to access the things we want to watch when we want to watch, for the most part. Well, as long as we've got the money. Once in awhile an old series will get picked up by Netflix for awhile and everyone marathons before it's gone again, like Lexx, or an old series that went out of print for awhile will be rescued by a distributor and reprinted, like Sliders. Once in a great while, fans will come forth and share that they've got something so out of print that other fans go crazy on youtube when videos start showing up, like the old Hanna-Barbera and Sid and Marty Krofft shows. Collecting videos has become as big a deal as collecting songs off the radio with tape decks used to be. Fans grab the videos as fast as they come out and hoard them for when they disappear again. No, I didn't download this one, I'm not that big of a hoarder, but  you get the picture.


I've already had to replace a few Sherlock fanvids. I don't know if I'm spooking someone or if they're being rooted out, since once in awhile there really is a content issue, but the last one I replaced went poof. Usually if it goes private a person can at least see the title and an announcement that the vid is private, but when an embed goes completely blank without any title or explanation, it's been deleted. Who knows why. And when this stuff is happening almost as fast as I'm happily jumping on them, it makes a person wonder what's going on. The really good fanvid creators know how to dance around the limitations and do their own salvage moves, but the fans who don't know the ropes just simply lose their accounts and everything in them. Or they get mad at someone because something was said in a forum or elsewhere and delete their stuff in an emotional power play so no one can have it.
I actually grab as I go and write down when I used what in a notebook. I've learned to do that because I've had to replace so many videos during blog salvages over the years. Fans who worry about others taking credit or ripping them off or whatever usually don't realize they actually cause the situation that looks like theft. It's a compliment when other fans salvage content. When stuff disappears too quickly, I'm not able to give credit during salvage. I see this happen all the time. A great example is the original Adult Wednesday Addams web series, which has been lovingly snuck back onto youtube by various fans after the creator had to withdraw over a legal question regarding character usage.
Before anyone gets all gung ho about ownership, I should remind you that pictures you put on facebook are legally usable by facebook for ads in other places, and there has been debate for a long time whether blogger/google actually 'owns' your blog content since they are hosting it. Facebook has an opt out now (not easy to find), but there are plenty of stories out there about people finding their baby's picture somewhere online, and I'm sure we've all seen the wild variety of weird and old faces that show up in pop up ads. I've found my own content spread across several countries, oftentimes translated into other languages, sometimes used as bait to get people clicking on over to some kind of sales or sex site. Anything uploaded onto the internet is as easy to swipe as recording TV shows used to be on VHS. That's why I'm not that adamant about stamping my ownership all over my own material that I let everyone see for free. I truthfully get more traffic from curious bystanders running into my hacked stuff and looking for more than I do from direct linking on twitter or listing with fan listings. This blog is an exception, although it still pulls in loads of indirect traffic.
I don't steal. I back up content, like thousands do and have for a long time, and we owe our thanks for many memories existing on the internet to diligent fans. I don't take. I give credit every chance I can during the rare times I replace content. My sig shows up on salvage vids now, yeah. because I decided that since I'm uploading grandkid videos now, it's smart to put a sig somewhere on my videos so the content can be identified, although anyone could chop it back off if they wanted. It doesn't mean I claim someone else's work, but it does mean that I rescued it.
This idea of creator ownership is fine, but we've got to be sensible and admit that using two different kinds of copyright material in the forms of both original film and original audio owned by different sources really doesn't give anyone the right to claim ownership of anything except assembly of precreated content into a unique idea, but even that is on a borrowed format (the host) and an idea using other people's ideas. Some of the cleverest fan creations I've seen involve hacking and splicing several sources together into a new commentary or story, if you will, sometimes in such a brilliant way that even the owners of the original content are pleased at this new form of flattery. One gauge of true success in entertainment nowadays is how avidly fans will grab, hack up, and rearrange content. Any original content owner/creator fighting against their own fandoms without recognizing the free promo value in the creativity is foolish, I think.
Case in point- I not only started watching Sherlock because of fandoms on youtube, but bought two complete sets, one on DVR and one on blu-ray. Seeing the first episode on BBCA didn't prompt that, the fans did. I was sold on Sherlock because so many other fans were having such a good time smashing it around into new fan art.
~~~~~~~~~~
Why did I write all that, good question. Discipline. I've been at a pretty high pain level last few days and I needed to focus away from it. Running into a very recently placed and quite suddenly deleted vid set those little wheels in motion, and I started writing to fill up the time while the copy uploaded.
One more thought. The word 'slash' doesn't automatically made a fanvid actual slash. Once in awhile fans will insert graphics or actual footage they create themselves, but it's pretty rare. Just mashing two or more characters together doesn't automatically mean the content is rated any worse than the original content was in the first place. All slash is, for the most part in fanvids, is a signal to other fanfic shippers that here is a new 'ship' to check out. And honestly, I really like this song. I think it's well matched to the scenes in this fanvid.



I could probably write a thesis about getting brain high on violent scenes and how that can lead to (but not always) sexual fantasizing for some people just because the brain is syncing along throwing chemicals around, and that's just how bodies respond to an onslaught of new exciting stuff happening, but I won't. What I will say in closing is that THIS is how I have pulled through so much pain for so many years in my life, THIS is how I've been handling depression without meds or alcohol, THIS is what pushes me back out there to KEEP WORKING. Fans. Save. Me.
Don't be afraid of cool fanvids that make you feel like conquering.

Khanlock

CAUTION- this is a whine post. Poke your eye with a fork before I do.

Last couple of days have felt like I got decked in the jaw. I even asked Scott (j/k, ok?) if he knocked me out because I wouldn't shut up or something and maybe I blacked out and don't remember it. (Srsly, I'm joking. Scott would be terrified of hitting me because he knows he'd have to kill me on the first blow.) (I'm still joking. We don't hit each other.) (Well... sometimes *I* hit. But I don't hurt him.) (Ok, it hurts a little. Sometimes.) (But I did break a door frame once.)

Pretty sure it's a cute little TMJ/trigeminal neuralgia/fibro flare over-response resulting from pred taper backlash, and possibly puffing up a salivary gland. If you've never had a salivary gland infection, you haven't truly lived. It is the hell of swollen glands because every move your jaw makes involves shooting pain and pressure that feels like strep, mono, and the ear infection from hell, even though it's not, it's just pressure on a nerve. I feel like I should be throwing knives and laughing maniacally when I score points. Other than that, I appear and move around and function normally, no fever, no other symptoms, which means it's probably not an infection, and that means the only way this pain will resolve is me waiting it out because it's a nerve flaring up. I need something to viciously stomp on and violently splat. It won't help me feel better, but at least I'll feel gleeful doing it. Yes, the visualizations HELP.

I'm so experienced shunting pain over onto a platform above a dark little hole I go into while I ignore stuff like this that I keep wanting to do something. Working on the book would be useless like this because I wouldn't be able to control venomously shredding everything I think into intensely dark drama, and then I'd have to toss and rewrite later. I've already destroyed myself watching "His Last Vow" again, best not make this swelling sensation worse with more blubbering after what I just did over John and Mary (omg, isn't that the sweetest scene EV-ER, I always lose it when Mary does).

Anyway, I'm prowling around screwing everything up that I touch because I can't stay focused through this pain, constantly dropping stuff (a can of tuna casually tossed itself across the kitchen when I lost my grip on the can opener, stuff like that), even nearly killed lappy spewing hot tea all over the keyboard when I choked weird (thank you, screaming drama queen nerve). About the time I give up and think there is nothing in this world that will make today ok in any way at all, I run smack dab into TREKLOCK. Guys, this is the kind of day I'm having.


Ok, first of all, thank God for fans. I'm only about 10 weeks into my Sherlock obsession and apparently I've already graduated to hardcore junkie. I haven't been this bad since Merlin. You guys really have no idea how hard and fast I can rip through everything a fandom has on the internet, it's like chasing xanax with espresso. I've already done at least 200 or more preemptive vid rescues just in case youtube pulls them, and that's just on the Sherlock/Khan fandoms. I saved less than 160 Merlin vids over a course of 18 months starting 3 years ago, so let's face it, I'm so far down the rabbit hole this time in just 10 weeks that the only thing we can even hope will pull me out is something else dragging me kicking and screaming.

Some of you will read something in my book down the road and think back on this day and wonder how in the world I can really restrain myself that much, because what's inside me is as black as octopus ink, and that's not what I want to be remembered for. This kind of pain on top of stuff makes me feel murderous.

This is my fave spaceship crash E V E R.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time passed. It's worse. Since I've been through years of nerve pain, it's more pissing me off than anything. Since I found actual swelling now, maybe I'll go get antibiotic tomorrow if it's not any better. I've never had to get antibiotic after pred because I'm an over the top germ phobe, but since there's a Bunny in my life now, anything is possible.
I didn't catch where this actually came from because it goes to this

but it's the most brilliant crossover I've seen today out of hundreds of fan concoctions. You can click to a treasure chest filled with piles of fan gold and look for it if you want, good luck finding your way out of there.

Did I mention I love fans? I love fans. You guys get me through so much stuff.

I think I'll be ok.

Spork

Random thoughts from my weekend-

Wouldn't it be cool if we had search engines in our brains? I could type in "How old is my Ghost Hunters shirt" or "when did I buy my Ghost Hunters shirt" and bing, answer right there. I'm trying to remember. It's so old now I only use it to sleep in, looks pretty rough.

In other news, I ran into a barely seen somewhat beautifully done alt Trek pon farr fanvid, and glancing down the list of moar stuffs on the side there was a vid that had both Spirk and Spork in the title, and I'm all like Ok, who the heck else is part of a Spork menage, so I put it into a search bar and dang if I didn't come up with actual Star Trek sporks.

There are even ~get this~ Spork t-shirts. This one is unavailable but clicks to more that you can still get. You're welcome.

And then, of course, doing a 'Spock spork' search was just insane. This one clicks to an ST meme board on pinterest.

I'm still so innocent...

Someone figured out how to move stuff and hide behind furniture with her apples.

Someone else cruisin' for chicks in pre-gamer mode, all tatted up.

Tent happens. It's a thing.

 

Spent part of the weekend attempting to wrap my head around what I've got written so far. Couple of sections will be obliterated/changed, the rest is mostly like jagged leaps from stone to stone across a river. I write like I read, apparently, inside out and backwards. I'm to the point, though, where I can now go back through all the old blogs and spirals and permanently check stuff off as what's left gets transferred. Most of the really raw writing is done, I think. It hit me as I was organizing that I've probably got the hardest part done now. The rest will be more like time consuming refiling. After all the blog salvage I've been through, I can see me being more comfortable with that.

Rachelle Gardner says in her Memoir Guidelines that my autobiography can be as long as it wants but thinks it would be polite of me to stop on the shorter side of 75,000 to 120,000 words. Chuck Sambuchino thinks "Coming in a bit low (70-79K) is not a terrible thing, as it shows you know how to focus on the most interesting parts of your life" but says definitely stop at 99,999. Virginia Lloyd thinks 90,000 is a reasonable limit, but says if one goes over 100,000 it must be compelling material.

I'm currently at 84,000. There are two sections that might get chopped out and replaced, and I'm pretty sure I'll be adding at least another 20,000. My contract (seriously, guys) says I can go to 300,000, but even I can't imagine going there with an autobiography, even though I never shut up on blogs.

I'm dealing with such layered material that it's been a challenge to actually write it coherently in a somewhat organized fashion. None of it can be stated simply- my parents believed in 'breaking' a child to learn obedience without question, and since I 1- have Aspergers and 2- went on to get a sociology/anthropology degree, I can speak for both inside experience as a child and outside experience as a mother that this doesn't work. Unless you're into actual programming. Which isn't that far of a reach, I'm finding out. Throw in some other crazy stuff and yeah, I've got material that'll curl some hair.

I know thangs.

In the meantime, not sure if leaping from obsessing over Sherlock to obsessing over Khan is a healthy direction, but it's certainly inspiring for world domination. I'm in a pretty twisted place right now. Time to GET TO WORK!!! >=l