Does anyone know if there exists a tutorial for Wraith make up? My Google-fu is coming up empty.

Thanks!

Can anyone give me some layout help? I kind of despise the free layouts available through DW and am looking for either free layouts people have already created or someone who can help me figure out how to convert one of my custom lj layouts to DW (I have a Jack/Daniel one I'd love to use at DW).

Any assistance is appreciated.

Duuuuuuuuuh.

That is the sound I made this morning when I received this email:

Someone has chosen to upgrade your Dreamwidth Studios account. The account that was
purchased is:

Premium Paid Account for 12 months

Congratulations on your paid time!

Um... thank you? Whoever you are? I just... seriously, I'm overwhelmed. Thank you.

Also, I suppose I should start cross-posting. ;)

I don't know about you, but I now want to play loud music around Nathan Fillion.

Also, I heard the "Your Mother's Lipstick" joke from him 6 years ago at DragonCon. Um, I love him.

Okay, so, I just clicked on my flist because I was like, "Oh ho, haven't checked the flist yet today. Must see what's going on in the world."

And then I realized it's only been an hour since I actually checked the flist.

Apparently I'm not quite awake yet.

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY I SHOULD NOT BUY MYSELF A TACTICAL DEFENSE PEN.

I mean.
It's TACTICAL.
And DEFENSIVE.
AND A PEN.

. . .

It is totally time for the weekend to start.

grass_stained has been hacked. The earlier post made "by her" at icon_tutorial most assuredly has links to malware. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS. If you have, run a virus check on your computer immediately and make sure that you also check for spyware.

If you see a post up at her journal, DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS. Please assume that it's the hackers continuing to cause havoc until you hear otherwise.

Hacks of this nature are a known issue among large communities. They typically get in by accessing an email you no longer use that is associated with your account.

To protect yourself personally, make sure you control all email addresses associated with your account. You can do so by going here. You can also enable a security question to prevent someone from getting your password using an old email address.

grass_stained has made an abuse report to lj and is working on regaining control of her journal.


Please try to spread the word re: malware links at icon_tutorial. The hackers set the community to moderated posting which means warnings can't be posted until grass_stained regains control of her journal.

I feel like everyone needs to see this. (Well, unless you hate Watchmen, in that case, LOOK AWAY, LOOK AWAY!)

Time travel in general makes me bang my head against things. I think it's utterly fascinating (mostly discussing the myriad ways one could fuck up their entire existence and the utter arrogance it takes to traipse through time anyway) but it's also extremely confusing.

Anyway, I think there are a few SG-1 fans who should totally listen to Hank's discussion of time-travel and thoughts about the Evil Baby Orphanage. (Also, if anyone wants to know more about the E.B.O., I'll go find the other Brotherhood 2.0 vidoes about it—it's a great idea and I'm jealous of it.)



TIME TRAVEL!

I have a million things to do so I just took a very quick look at DragonCon's site and though emailed announcements and such to put together a short preview of some of the exciting people attending DragonCon this year (who I care about). I've probably missed someone, but this is mostly to whet some appetites.

Firefly
Ron Glass

Stargate
Paul McGillion
Jason Momoa (not currently listed on D*C)
Lexa Doig (not currently listed on D*C)
Michael Shanks (not currently listed on D*C)
Michael Welch (okay, listed for Twilight, but I say we claim him)

Buffy/Angel
James Marsters

Farscape
Paul Goddard

X-Files
Dean Haglund

Full Guest List

I found a Barnes & Noble gift card today and am planning to buy a book very soon (possibly today)! I'd like for this book to not be manga (even though I still need to buy the latest FMA volume) and I'd like for my flist to help me select which book I should buy. There are three I've been thinking about reading, but I'm also open to other options.

ETA: I know I misspelled "thief." I'm tired.

[Poll #1375459]

Thanks for your assistance!

I wasn’t actually planning to do a Dollhouse review of any sort but then I had a bunch of flisters ask me if I was going to comment and I felt like my opinion matters. \o/

Here’s the non-spoilery bits.

There are problems. I think most of the problems came from the fact that Fox (of course) forced rewrites so a lot of things that would have normally been more subtle in a Joss-show were beaten about our heads (I honestly think they explained how the Actives work about six times). Though, that may help things further down the road because who could have missed the explanation for how the Actives work? Who’s not going to understand the concept of the mind-wipes? (Well, handwave some of the details, folks; I’ll get to that in the spoiler section.)

In addition to general pilot problems, I’m just going to say it:
This is not Buffy.
This is not Firefly.
This is not Angel.

This is Dollhouse. The tone, the metaphor, the actors—they’re different. I didn’t truly see the “Joss” in Friday’s episode, but what I saw still made me want to come back—and not just because of Joss, Eliza, and Tahmoh (though, I have to say right now, I think Tahmoh is the strongest actor of the bunch—damn, he’s amazing).

( Spoilers for Dollhouse 1.01 Ghost )

In general, I’m intrigued and I still trust Joss.

Will it survive? I think this is the question a lot of people want answered—Joss on Fox, why bother getting attached? Well, the simple answer is that if we—people who are already fans of Joss and his storytelling don’t watch—NO ONE ELSE WILL. Just because you might have your heart broken is no reason to quit. I think in the past few years Joss has proven that series can live beyond their tv-shelf life. So don’t worry about falling in love with a show that might get cancelled. If it is, maybe there’ll be a movie, an internet series, a comic book, a musical. Don’t give up before it’s started.

Also: Fox stuck behind Terminator which frankly shocked the hell out of me. Since they’ve put Terminator as the Dollhouse lead in, I really think they’re doing right by Dollhouse. Also, Dollhouse ads during American Idol, you guys. I really think Fox is going to give Dollhouse a fair shot. And if Fox is giving it a fair shot, you should, too.

My rule of thumb? 4 episodes. If you can’t get into a show after 4 episodes, yeah, maybe you should give up, but on a series—especially something that will have a season arc (and you know this will)—you need to give the writers time to tell you part of the story. So give it 4 episodes, keep talking about it, and see how you feel in a month.

What do I think? I think Dollhouse is going to surprise us.

2006 | 2007 | 2008

I will update and link back to my book list as I finish books.

I'm going to try to read 50 books this year, but this is a complete list of all the books I own and haven't yet read.

( 0 Books Finished )

( Currently Reading )

( Book Queue )

For all the many writers on my flist, there's a new comm designed to help you getyourwordsout. Based around the idea that the only way to write is to, you know, write, getyourwordsout is designed to help writers stay motivated throughout the year by offering a goal and a community.

There are 4 levels of pledges (200K, 250K, 300K, and 350K) that you can pledge to write in 2009. We're counting words from any non-bloggy writing including original fiction, fanfic, nonfiction essays, scripts, poetry, songs, um greeting cards? Basically anything that can be considered a literary work (oh yes, I just called fanfic "literary").

sopdetly and I are spearheading this thing so you can expect group word wars, prompts, and other little motes of advice and encouragement. (Dudes, I have ideas.)

The introduction and guidelines are here, and once you join the community you can make your pledge. I hope some of you will join us or at least spread the word. We're planning to close the comm on January 1, so you have to join before then!

Get Your Words Out!

(Yes, I totally stole the comm name from the Wonderfalls episode "Karma Chameleon." FTW! \o/ )

For anyone who knows they are attending DragonCon 2009, ticket prices go up today. Currently tickets are $60. The website doesn't list how much the prices are raising yet.

There appears to be a new announcement at shoebox_project from dorkorific, but children, I'm here to tell you dorkorific got hacked. In consulting with a friend this is the same thing that happened to copperbadge recently.

I'm not friends with dorkorific or copperbadge but I'm sorry to see either of them get hacked.

I cannot express how FUCKING HAPPY this made me.



John Williams is The Man.

Gundam Cartoon Academy to Turn Science Fiction into Reality in Japan

No, really. They are making a Gundam Academy as a way to research new technologies and think outside of the box (but not the idiot box—that's the good box, apparently).

Shinichi Nakasuka, a professor of astronautics at the University of Tokyo and one of the founders of the academy, said: “Studying fiction is an excellent way to get ideas about the future. Scientists often restrict their way of thinking to what they factually know. The comic shows how ordinary people without much deep scientific knowledge can come up with very good ideas.”

Dude. YES. People should get on with building machines that create wormholes and then seed them throughout the galaxy. I mean, like, yesterday.

btw, I'd just like to note my favorite part of the article.

One aeronautics expert involved in the project said that, as a serious scientist, he can see clearly which parts of Gundam are technically feasible and which are not.

Nuclear-powered thermal rockets and spherical helper robots should be pursued, he said.

Sadly he made no mention of giant robots to protect Earth (or whatever the fuck Gundam is about since all I really know are giant robots). But I'd like to sign up for a helper robot. Maybe it can keep me in clean underwear.

I did somewhat random defriending this morning. I was only looking to cull a few friends and communities in which I feel our interests have wandered. Partly this is to just trim up my flist so I'm not scrolling past so much and partly this is to get a flist that better reflects where my head is these days.

If you feel like I've defriended you in error, or if you already have me friended and would like to make your voice heard so I can get to know you better and add you to my flist, feel free to respond here.

These days my journal tends to gravitate around:

SG-1
Harry Potter (& Wizard Rock)
Whedon
A bit o' Bandom
a little FMA
a little Saiyuki
editing (& work grumblings)
Writing, writing, writing
steampunk

And it's always defriending amnesty, so if you'd like to part ways with me, please go right ahead.