I hope this is all right to post here.

Back during Strikethrough, I used Snapetoy's post on how to set up Semagic to simultaneously post to multiple journals and have been happily doing so. However, I got a new computer this week and realized I don't remember how to set that up, and of course the post was on GJ and is now history! Does anyone remember how?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me.

ETA: Thanks to eemilyvr1 for the link!

Does anyone remember GreatestJournal? Well it's finally down. I was on it yesterday and it was working fine so it must of happened within the last 24 hours.

What I keep on getting is:

403 Denied
GJ is currently down - Please go to LiveJournal

Old users: you can backup all entries and comment with ljarchive

As of January 6, 2009, after a year of issues, GreatestJournal is finally dead. Oh well.


Check this out http://greatestjournal.com/

SUP sacked a number of employees in their San Francisco office. no_lj_ads has a tiny summary and a few links to a few sources (they call it the Grim Purge which I find inappropriate...)

ITV's Demons is getting the Snark & Fury treatment!!

Demons - Episode One

For anyone interested in following the blog I have set up a LJ syndicated feed: snarkandfury.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/05/frozen-soap-bubbles.html

http://www.skipweasel.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/freezebubbles/album/slides/ice%20giant.html

***

I asked Derek for a text-fic while I was at the laundrette today. I got this:

In Dublin the rules had been different again - no one there looked twice at a rogue alchemist's tinted goggles, not if they wanted to keep their head, but in London, in London there was nothing but impertinent questioning. Jacob Silver had spent a month trying to acquire the necessary and it was testing his patience. Really, how hard could assassinating a Demon king BE?

( More about Jacob Silver )

Well I for one thought it was a good choice.

Casting a relative unknown who has already proved themselves with theatre and telly roles gives some assurance that the role can dominate over the publicly perceived persona of the actor. One of the real problems in this day and age and the dominance of the Cult of Celebrity is that the opposite so often happens.

Not surprised though that fandom is in meltdown whining and moaning but then they would be over anyone chosen. Apparently the actor's lack of 'hawtness' is an issue. Well I think his looks are unusual but then the Doctor has always tended to have that quirkiness about him. I enjoyed his performance in the Sally Lockhart mysteries and also trust the new production team.

The Guardian's sensible commentary.

I can't even comment on Demons - seriously who on earth though that giving Philip Glenister a rubbish American accent was a good idea? Having his first name as Rupert as well? Pretty cast but please, please throw a little money at the script-writers.

I've added some stats and figures to do with organ donation and opt-out schemes. The contents of "Post-Death: Cremations, Disposal of Bodies and the Funeral Ritual Instinct" by Vexen Crabtree (2007) is now:

1. The Funeral Ritual Instinct
2. Disposal of Corpses in an Overcrowded World
   1. Practical Matters Must Trump Intellectual Ones
   2. Cremations Have Been More Popular Than Burials Since the 1960s
   3. Arguments for Cremation
   4. Religious Protests
   5. The Personal Disposal of Ashes
3. Organ Donation
   1. Opt-Out Schemes are Better Than Opt-In
   2. Strange Beliefs
   3. Objection: My body is my property and I can do what I want with it
   4. Objection: Freedom to Choose
   5. Conclusions on Organ Donation Schemes
4. Military Remembrance Parades

Well I've made it into Week 14 and thank you for your help. This week the 2 contestants in each tribe with the least amount of votes will be leaving.

Our topic this week was Resolve and my entry on the topic 'On Becoming a Warrior Widow' is here.

Here is a link to florida_phoenix tribe poll
Here also is the entire Week 14 Poll entry with links to all the entries.

My Christmas and New Year have naturally been dominated by the death of my husband Crys (marvo). New Year's Eve was particularly hard to get through but I did as evidence this post. However, I did not reflect back on 2008, breaking a tradition of many years. Nor did I make a few scribbled resolutions in a newly bought diary. I bought no diary or calender for 2009. I treated Wednesday night as just a Wednesday night to the degree I could. I did not watch Big Ben count down to midnight and closed my ears to the fireworks and shouts in the street.

However, yesterday morning I did write some resolutions though they were affirmations about continuing with things I had begun in 2008 like losing weight and to work on sorting out the house. What they reflect overall though is my resolve to live in this world and to continue my journey.

This is a harder task than you might imagine. Do I love Crys any less because I am willing to go on living?

Often it is taken as a mark of a great love that when one partner dies, the other cannot bear to live without them. Therefore, they will pine away from the loss becoming less and less part of the world. This happened with my Dad. His devotion to my Mother was such that the year he lived beyond her was a settling of his affairs and preparing for his own journey. He had no obvious illness during that year and although he died of cancer, which must have been growing for some time, there was hardly any time between diagnosis and death. He did not fight it at all.

I see it this trend in literature all the time. Even Arwen Evenstar died of a broken heart after the death of Aragorn. That cannot be me, despite my long time identification with Arwen.

Of course, I will mourn Crys for the rest of my life but I am resolved not to fade from this life even if my soul mate is no longer on this side of the veil. As Buffy Summers said to Dawn at the end of Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "the hardest thing in this world is to live in it." That phrase has never failed to move me to tears even before this loss. This world isn't an easy place for me to live in. I have always been an outsider but I have deal with this through my relationships with others who experience this same feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. Odd and strange we may be but we have that sense of connection with each other that forms an anchor.

I spoke last evening to a close friend, who also has become a widow very recently. She is so raw right now and wanted to know what it is like two months on. We also discussed the perception of others that we are brave. Are we brave? We don't consider our selves so because what other choice have we?

To collapse completely? We are both dynamic women, who have always asserted ourselves. We may wobble but shall not fall. To follow our loved ones? Aside from the devastation this would cause to our families and friends, it not our path.

The other option then is to choose life on a daily basis. It seems kind of obvious that we are both choosing life, even if some days that is just placing one foot in front of the other and not thinking too much about the future because of the void it holds. Yet I am sure any philosopher you'd choose would say that the only thing certain about the future, aside from death and taxes, is its uncertainty.

We talked finally about being warriors because even if we don't wield swords or are able to draw a longbow, we have always identified as warrior women. I quipped at the end of the conversation that now we have become warrior widows as well as the widows of two warrior souls. It was just the right phrase. So I shall now be Vivienne: Warrior Widow. While it has a nice ring to it but I don't see me pitching it as a new TV series to the BBC because I just know if I did they'd cast Julie Graham as me and I'd have to suffer jaxvor's Snark & Fury.


This has been my entry for Week 14 for therealljidol. I shall naturally post a link later today when the polls open so folk can vote for me if they choose to. The founder of LJ Idol promises this is the 'Month of Doom'. Is that like the Duck of Doom? We shall see!

I lost enough sanity in 2008 to be facing 2009 with much of a new personality!

Here we go. My entire list of books read in 2008.

( Books read January-March 2008 (1-34) )

( Books Read April-June 2008 (35-75) )

( Books Read July-September 2008 (76-104) )

( Books Read October-December 2008 (105-134) )

Monday, went to the pub, met tamara and several and various other friends, gave tamara Saffron Gin - it is beautiful to see people's reactions to the bright, Irn-Bru coloured liquid!

The pub was pretty busy for a Monday evening, but then again, it was a monday between Christmas and New Year. Many people on holiday.

Monday and Tuesday, ccooke has been excavating our table from the heaps of stuff. We have a table! Then cleared up the rest of the lounge. (I did help a little). It's beautiful. Yay ccooke!

Tuesday I went with apiphile into The Graphics Centre and managed to only buy a couple of pencil-sharpeners. yay me!
In tidying up a lot of my art-supplies were gathered and put together in one place, where I both know where they are and can reach them. (Knowing where the big case of pencil-crayons is, but not being able to reach it without climbing on a chair and/or asking for a taller person's help is not as useful). Having the pile drawing-and-painting stuff clear in my head helped to avoid buying un-needed things.

Also we wandered around Covent Garden-Leicester square and went into cybercandy (I bought *exactly* 100 grammes of jelly-belly!) and into the Drury tea shop on New Row (jasmine tea! Also I bravely resisted buying a tea-pot I do not need). And into 'wow retro' where we admired clothes and did not buy even one coat! ... And I forgot to look for/at the covent garden christmas lights.
And into hmv where DVDs were bought, and CDs looked at with a kind of wonder - does anybody still buy those? Even Derek who buys music was bemused. (Me, I get music from the generousity of the internets and youtube and spotify*)
*I have spotify invites, I believe. Anyone want one?

Tuesday evening, Aquarion and Derek came over and were fed Christmas pudding. With rum sauce! More rum-sauce than you could shake a stick at. (Still slightly less than enough for a bath, but only slightly!)

Oh the lounge is beautiful. Also more warm with cutter cleared away from the radiator! Yay. This is important now the weather is so cold.

I've just posted to 50bookchallenge my review of Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle, which I consider one of the best books I have read this year.

I'd reserved it at the library before Crys' death and was one that I really had to read quickly as there was a waiting list and so no renewals. In some respects its themes of death, suicide, mental illness let alone the descriptions of the narrator's experiences in a burn unit probably place it in the category of 'triggering'. Seriously if I was trying to avoid triggers I'd have to stop watching telly and all films apart from the most innocuous sit coms.

The story of a love that transcends time and death just struck the right note with me and I'm not alone as the book was widely praised on its publication.

Doubleday page with Excerpt.

I slept in this morning. The cats were very kind though Robin and Stalks-by-Night did do a coordinated assault at 9:30am. It works like this: Robin positions himself near my face and nips my nose while Stalks-by-Night rams (seriously hard) into the back of my neck and then scrambles down the covers to do catupucture on my back. I had been having quite complex dreams about being in an alternative reality with a young woman - still the details just vanished with such a rude awakening. Cheers kitties!

Last night I went out to the local Odeon with Kerry & Morgan. Kerry bought a huge bag of 'pic'n'mix' candies. My resolve was very weak. Sugar rush!!!

I was quite surprised at how good 'Twilight' was. It was a very faithful adaptation of the novel less the whining! As the novels are narrated by Bella I found the most annoying part was her constant angst and going on and on and on about Edward's beauty and her constant self-depreciation. This inner dialogue wasn't in the film and I felt this was a very good thing. With the novel being such a simple story, it translated well to the big screen. The locations were stunning and the musical score excellent. There was also just enough humour to temper the star-crossed lovers theme. Pattinson's looks were quite odd, so he looked the part of a vampire and Kristen Stewart had a very natural beauty. I felt the whole cast did well. Kerry and I both said we preferred Jacob Black in both novel and film but then we're both mad about wolves. The cheesy elements were also kept to a minimum, again this was appreciated and I think a good decision by the film-makers.

So overall a big thumbs up for this film. I shall certainly be getting it on DVD.

I've added section 2.2, on modern critics of religion, which mentions the attainments of Richard Dawkins and Paul Kurtz. If I can find two more people who have done as much, in modern times, to bring people away from religion, then I will add them to the list too.

The contents of "Anti-Religious Forces: Specific Factors Fuelling Secularisation" by Vexen Crabtree (2003) is now:

1. Anti-Religious Forces
   1. Communism
   2. Intelligence
   3. The Ancient Greeks
   4. Science
   5. Individualism
   6. Multiculturalism
   7. Human Rights
   8. Christian Intolerance for Magic and Gods
2. People of Historical Importance
   1. Those Who Became Historical Movements: Nietzsche, Weber, Freud and Marx
   2. Outstanding Critics of Religion in the Modern Era
3. Blows to Religion According to Moojan Momen

Robin lives by this rule..


more animals

There has been a complicated lawsuit about the upcoming 'Watchman' film between Warner Brothers, who made the film, and Fox over an old contract between Fox and the producer of the film, that have been concerning a lot of fans.

Apparently on Christmas Eve the judge in the case issued a summary judgement: Judge Rules for Fox in 'Watchmen' case.

To be continued indeed.

Not sure how marvo, resident in Elsewhere, will view these shenanigans but on his behalf I am posting the news.

( Loot )

Came up to Yorkshire on the 22nd.
23rd - went to Leeds and shopped (complimented a guy in a wine-shop on his shiny ear-holes. He was pleased).
24th went to York and was introduced to a pub called The Maltings (they had mulled wine, and mulled cider, *and* mulled Kriekbier, but I did not try all three). Also found a gift or two.

Buying gifts at the last minute is awesome: no time to fret that they will not be good enough. On the other hand, not feeling stressed that the shops are closing and I do not have all the presents I want to give yet! That also has its bright points.

( more loot )