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Feb. 8th, 2010 @ 12:07 pm Watching Life on Mars (UK) on DVD
Current Location: Work
I have a few thoughts.

1. Gene Hunt is amazing! I knew he was a fan favorite. I'd read about it, but until I saw the DVDs, I couldn't understand the appeal. He rocks and rocks hard.

Favorite Gene quote from the first episode: "Anything happens to this motor, I'll come 'round your houses and stamp on all your toys. Got it? Good kids."

2. The car is hot. I think it's a Ford Cortina, but I'm not sure. It's also orange. That's my color.

3. More Gene's a Badass: The scene in maybe the 3rd or 4th episode where he's dead asleep but the police radio says there's been a stabbing. He wakes up immediately and does some awesome stunt driving (backwards down a one-way with a lovely spin-out) to go to the scene of the crime.

4. The music composer does good work, but I seriously don't want to hear him talk about it. Bear McCreary he is not. His extra on the music of the series was boring. Unfortunately, there is often a disconnect between an artist and his (her) art.

5. I like the ambiguity of the story. I want 1973 to be real, but I think Sam is in a coma.
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The Master
Feb. 7th, 2010 @ 08:16 am On my personal language journey
Current Location: Home
Current Music: David Bowie, "Under Pressure" (featuring Gail Ann Dorsey)
Anyone who knows me for a short amount of time knows that two of my main interests have been and still are foreign languages and music. I majored in music education, but I studied and worked overseas. These things are like a hand in a glove with me because one thing helps the other.

When I do discuss the languages I know, I usually mention Spanish (my dad's first language, but I learned it in school), German (lived there briefly twice) and Finnish. Finnish is the best of my foreign languages, even if it is a bit... shall we say... obscure. The one language I usually fail to mention is Russian. Until now.

The story of me and the Russian language, cut to save your flists )
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Neil Finn
Feb. 3rd, 2010 @ 11:26 am Stuff with a side of more stuff
Current Location: Work
So last week [info]gracie_musica and I went to my bass teacher's gig on Thursday. I had a great time, and she said she did, too. It was the first time for me to see him perform since the gig of his I went to over a year and a half ago when I had just become his student. (It wasn't even 3 full weeks after I started lessons with him.) This particular show was with him and a singer/guitarist. They guys would do a few songs at a time together, both individually alone, in a rotating cycle until over 2 hours of music had passed.

A year and a half sure shows lots of change, but maybe not the kind that would be most expected. I always liked how he played, but I can tell my development as a musician. I know what he's doing now, whereas I didn't really know back then. I certainly didn't anticipate the mark of my bass playing progress was that I get it, but I do. Maybe not all musicians, but since he's my teacher, I get him. I recognize his techniques when he's using them.

There was also a nice personal element to things. When I walked in the place, which was very small, he saw me and came over to give me a hug. His fiancee who was sitting down came over to hug me, too, and invited that I sit with her. As I was waiting for Gracie, that didn't happen, but they still both made me feel very welcome. When the show was over, I got another hug from my teacher (both of these at his instigation), and even some more thanks when I had my lesson on Saturday.

He's pretty, so I'm not going to complain about getting hugs from a pretty, if engaged, man. But I like that it showed personal comfort with me. I contrast that with the one-armed hug I tried to give him after I left my first gig of his. That one was horribly awkward, but this time it wasn't. Yay, good stuff!


On Saturday, I saw Gracie again (because what's life without a little Gracie in it?), and later she and I and our mutual friend Jessica went to the Olive Garden. It was my first time to go there, and I had wanted to try it for a while. As we were telling Jessie about things, Gracie commented on my randomly singing at the show. I was not! I pointed out that someone behind us had requested "Free Bird" as a joke, and I started singing that. So I sang it again at the table, and one lady at the bar clapped for me. It was really cute.

What is it about Olive Garden, by the way? I didn't realize this until I was outside waiting for my friends. The name of the restaurant is OLIVE Garden, but the company's logo thing involves a bunch of grapes! Grapes. Not olives, even though the name of the place is Olive Garden. If you want a picture of grapes, call yourself The Vineyard or something.


And now to taxes. Don't groan. This part is good. I was working through mine last night, and I saw that I qualify for Making Work Pay tax credit. Gracie give me the tip on that one, and she was right. (Not that SHE had any doubt on that, mind you.)

I also found out, and this makes it even better, that I can use the interest from the car I bought in October to adjust my standard deduction. That's freaking amazing! I've been starting to get into some money stress exactly because I had bought a car, and this helps me so much. I'm looking forward to a nice return from both Federal and State that will give me a nice chunk of change to help give my account some breathing room again.
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Neil Finn
Feb. 2nd, 2010 @ 07:27 pm Cooking Tuesday: Jeaux's Boeuf a la Crockpot
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Icehouse, "Really Good Time"
Tags:
For today's culinary experiment, I decided to take a recipe from my friend Joe (occasionally Jeaux). He told me it was a "can't go wrong" recipe. I told him not to be so confident because I've been running 50/50 with successes and failures.

To attempt the recipe, I needed to buy a new crockpot, which I did last night. It's all new and nice, and should heat evenly all around.


So... the recipe

1 packet dry ranch dressing seasoning
1 packet dry Italian dressing seasoning
1 packet brown gravy mix
1 beef roast
1/2 cup water

If you want root veggies (potatoes, carrots, etc), put those in the crockpot first, then put in the roast (the cheaper the roast, the better for the pocketbook).
Put the dry ingredients on top of the roast
Pour in water
Heat on low for 8 hours.
Serve with crusty bread


The verdict? Yup, easy recipe. The roast was fall-apart tender and tasted quite nice.
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Neil Finn
Jan. 26th, 2010 @ 08:38 pm Wanna be pasta carbonara
Current Location: Home
Tags:
My last minute cooking something is a pasta dish I am going to try from stuff I mostly had at home anyway.

Stuff I had:
Mushroom alfredo sauce (in a jar)
Frozen chicken breasts
Whole wheat angel hair pasta

Stuff I bought today to go with it:
Bacon
Frozen peas

The pasta is finishing cooking, so it's obviously not done yet. I'm pretty proud of coming up with this idea on the fly, but I have questions. For example, I didn't know what to do with the bacon grease. That's the tastiest grease, and southern food reuses it. I just didn't know what to keep it and reuse it for! Also, I might do broccoli if I try this again. I prefer broccoli over peas.

After:

The dish tasted good, and I saved 3 big portions for later use. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the angel hair pasta. My sister-in-law had a good recipe for a salad of some type that used the pasta and olive oil, olives and some other stuff. I'll just have to search for it.

Also, I'd remember to add my spices sooner in the dish, even though it was rather tasty as it was without much help.

So this will probably be one of my "go to" dishes when I want to make something yummy that I can stock up for future meals. Score!
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Neil Finn
Jan. 20th, 2010 @ 08:10 am Writer's Block: School daze
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Jars of Clay, "I'll Fly Away"

Did you remain at the same school(s) or transfer to a number of different schools growing up? How did your early educational experiences impact your self-esteem and confidence?

Submitted By [info]scarletpeonies


View 1019 Answers



Oh, I moved a lot! My parents were construction workers, so you went where the jobs were. I didn't go to kindergarten, but in 12 years of school I went to... 13 different schools (one of them three times).

A friend and I were talking before how often it's not the educational system someone is in. My brother is a new parent, and now he's got best schools on the brain. Having been in many schools, I know from my own experience that what made me a success was me. I had to be adaptable to flower wherever I was (temporarily) planted.

So... I'm sure it affected my confidence since one of my views is that success comes from within instead of resting all in external sources.
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Neil Finn
Jan. 19th, 2010 @ 08:07 am Update: Slow cooker carrot cake
Current Location: Home
Current Music: "All Along the Watchtower" (Bear McCreary, Jimi Hendrix style)
Tags:
This was a failure. My slow cooker obviously does not heat evenly on all sides. That's good to find out now instead of later when I've blown much more money on a recipe. The pieces I could save just don't taste that great, either. Some carrot cakes have a great mix of flavors. This one? Not so much.
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Neil Finn
Jan. 19th, 2010 @ 12:26 am Slow cooker carrot cake
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Atrocity, "The Sun Always Shines on TV"
Tags:
So the recipe tonight (I couldn't wait until tomorrow to do it) was slow cooker carrot cake. The very idea of the recipe intrigued me. I had all the ingredients assembled before midnight, and it should be ready by 4 am. I'll just set me alarm to ring so I get up to turn it off, and then back to bed for me.

I don't know how it will turn out, but for the curious, here's the location of the recipe: http://www.crock-pot.com/Recipe.aspx?rid=510
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Neil Finn
Jan. 15th, 2010 @ 11:39 pm Tapioca pudding
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Jars of Clay - I Need Thee Every Hour | Powered by Last.fm
Tags:
Okay, folks. I'm already surprising myself. I was reading through a cookbook thinking to what I wanted to make on Tuesday. When I was done, I went to my cupboard to see just what supplies I had. Instead of the recipe I was trying to fill (a carrot cake you can make in a crock pot. I'm intrigued...) I found some instant tapioca. There was a recipe on back, and I actually had all the ingredients to make it.

My kitchen complaint is that I don't normally have all the staples to "throw something together". It comes from not knowing what I need and also not doing it frequently enough to get the knowledge about what I might need. But I had the ingredients for that little tapioca special. So I took photos and just might post them.
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Neil Finn
Jan. 15th, 2010 @ 10:27 am Amusements and un-resolutions
Current Location: Work
Saw this link on IMDb today: Super Dress Up Morgan Freeman

I saw a different internet "paper" doll, and I just find those amusing. So here's another Soulless Victorian Dress Up Doll.

These remind me of my great-grandmother because she was the first person to share paper dolls with me. I also feel fortunate that I knew my great-grandmother. Because of health and long life as well as the women in my family having children young, at one time we had six living generations. My great-grandmother died the day before she would have been 95, and I was 29 at the time.


For my un-resolutions, I am thinking of cooking again. I am not going to participate in orchestra this spring, so I may use the Tuesdays that would have been dedicated to orchestra to be a cooking night where I try one new dish a week. It could be fun. The types of dishes I am hoping to make are easy, tasty, and can be used as leftovers so I have portions for lunches later.

I'm also going to have to schedule my time off, and I have enough leave that I could in theory take one full 8-hour day off a week until my next leave posts. I was considering that during that paid day off work I could concentrate the whole day on finishing my novel. I loved Tasha's encouragement when I spoke about it last Saturday that I will finish it. There is no maybe. I have a fear that I won't finish in time because I wonder if my ambitions are too grand for me to accomplish. The encouragement helps.
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The Master
Jan. 13th, 2010 @ 10:22 pm For fans of Community: All that is Abed and Britta
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Big Daddy Weave, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"

As a fan of unconventional relationships, I started looking at Abed/Britta from Community. They aren’t the show-approved Jeff/Britta, the hot and unexpected that is Jeff/Annie, or even the most awesome bromance ever that is Troy/Abed. It seemed like a purely cracktastic pairing until I decided to look closer. These are my findings after doing a Community rewatch of the first 12 episodes of the first season.

Something witty and pop-cultural... )

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Are you there?
Jan. 11th, 2010 @ 11:20 am The problem of being a werewolf fan...
Current Location: Work
Tags: , ,
...is that sometimes the werewolf mythos is so weird. I feel like I'm picking and choosing as I'm writing my Wolfgang story.

Yesterday, because of a friend's recommendation, I read Gene Wolfe's short story "The Hero as Werwolf". I had to do it in two attempts because the first time, I was waiting for him to actually BE a werewolf in the traditional sense. He was a werwolf in attitude, hence Wolfe's spelling.

So I'm trying to figure out the rules of my world, such as the fact that some were made by science, and yet some others were there the whole time. After all, the legends have to come from some source!

I'm also having an alpha male who IS an alpha, but who is NOT a lunkhead. One of the things I really hate in some full-on romance novels is that the alpha male (human or not) is usually a jerk. I hate that with a livid hate, and I don't see how that could at all be an attractive quality. [By the way, point of clarification, I am not labeling my story as a romance, even though it most definitely does have romantic elements.]

There's a big difference between being strong and being an asshole. I think too often fictional alpha males are written exactly like that. It's made me want to hurl some books across the room. Or set them on fire. Which I hear is considered blasphemy since I'm a librarian.

What made me even want to post this was trying to research more into Gene Wolfe's short story, and stumbling across a blog about werewolves in one author's romance series. She had this to say: "And although the heroes in this series are often hard and dark and impossibly arrogant, they each possess a softer, more emotional side that only the heroine is allowed to witness." link

Er... yeah. Just makes me think it's still the same basic and overused tale of a jerk who might be nice every once in a blue moon (pun very much intended). And I mock! I mock! "Oh, he's being vulnerable for his lady. Isn't he so absolutely sensitive!!!! This TOTALLY makes up for the 98% of the rest of the book in which he's being an absolute idiot!"

[info]gracie_musica and I were having a discussion about all this alpha male stuff when she was reading the first 23 or so chapters of my Wolfgang story. He's an alpha because that's who he IS. It comes from an internal well of strength. He doesn't have to get into some pissing contest to prove himself.

So... yeah, I'm still figuring some stuff out. About my world, about my character. But I know what I don't like, and sometimes that's a majority of the battle.
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Talia
Jan. 8th, 2010 @ 02:12 pm Whovian stuff
Current Location: Work
Tags:
So... I just got a new icon. Isn't blond Master!Simm pretty? (Totally rhetorical question, okay?)

I haven't seen any of the Who specials that are the end of Tennant's tenure with the show. I'll get to them once they are released on DVD (or if I have friends with "connections", not that I have trouble waiting). The one thing I don't really understand is in the show's internal logic how The Master, who IS a Time Lord (just like the Doctor) and died in "The Last of the Time Lords" can come back to life being played by the same actor.

I love me some John Simm, don't get me wrong. In fact, I really love me some John Simm, especially chavvy blond John Simm. I'm happy to have him back. It's just... if the doctor has to regenerate into a new persona after he dies, the same rules should apply for The Master. Period.
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The Master
Jan. 8th, 2010 @ 12:20 am That meme that's been going around
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Finn Brothers - Nothing Wrong With You | Powered by Last.fm
Tags:

Your result for The Fan Fiction Personality Test...

The Mindgamer

Everything is possible, nothing is ever really over.

Fanfiction is a creative outlet for you. You don't intentionally write it, it just happens. You find inspiration in several fandoms, but are not obsessed with only one.


You like to explore "what if" situations. What if this character had never made this very choice? What if this event had taken place sooner, never, elsewhere? What if these people had never met?


You are likely to write Alternative Universes, fan seasons or sequels and just follow your (sometimes pretty strange) plot bunnies.

Take The Fan Fiction Personality Test at OkCupid

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Bill Weasley
Jan. 7th, 2010 @ 11:14 pm Wolfgang story wordcount
Current Music: Black Eyed Peas - Let's Get It Started | Powered by Last.fm
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I think I'll have to add another tag for this since I am determined to continue writing my NaNo story until it finishes.

My new wordcount is: 60,025.

Yes! I passed 60K. Plus, I have these scenes in my head to write, such as the main couple painting the nursery in their home, or a wedding. Things are... coming together. I even got a good compliment by email tonight by a reader who asked me if I was going to get this published because she could see it happening. Awwww. :)

Well, no one will publish an incomplete story, so I better get back at it.
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Neil Finn
Jan. 1st, 2010 @ 10:52 pm So happy new year
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Neljä Ruusua, "Pelkkiä Ystäviä"
I have an hour and a few minutes left in this first day of 2010 (in my time zone).

Happy New Year! :)

Some people say that the beginning of a new year dictates what the year ahead will be. Well... yesterday involved lots of shopping and visiting friends, and today I was home on the phone with good friends and cleaning my bathroom and closet. So there it is, whatever it is.

I did want to mention that I am still working on my story that began at NaNo. I've shared the story with seven people, but only three got back with any feedback. First was [info]gracie_musica, and her enthusiasm was a godsend to me. It felt like I was sitting on something that was awesome, and I wanted to share the awesomeness with someone who could appreciate it. After that came responses from [info]andyboal and one of my coworkers. All three have been wonderfully encouraging.

One aspect that has amused me greatly is that different characters have clicked with each of them, and at times it surprised me because there are moments when I feel that my most fleshed-out characters are the main character (Wolfgang) and one of his sisters (Sarah). The fact that my other characters seem real to people is a relief!

So I will keep writing on that story to have it done in time to redeem my coupon for a proof copy of the novel. I can do this. I can do this...
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Neil Finn
Dec. 29th, 2009 @ 02:05 pm Huh?
Current Location: Work
What's with all this best of the decade lists? Yes, I know it's 2009 and in a few days it will be 2010, but did Y2K teach us nothing?

The actual end of the decade is 2010. We've got one more year to include in what being a decade is. I don't inherently dislike lists, but this just surprises me.

Typing of lists and memories, I'm not doing a "this was my year" post as I have done at other times. I had a good year. End of story.


Unrelated, and probably grouchy sounding... a few days ago I went through the Burger King drive-thru and ordered a Whopper combo with cheese, no catsup, no onions. When I picked up my order there were all sorts of little ketchup packs in the bag. Um... folks? If I don't want it on my sandwich, I'm probably not going to want it on the side, either.

I'm fairly sure it was included for ease of the employees and the idea that it's better to have it when I don't want it than not have it when I do. But... I just said I didn't want any. So that's a pretty safe assumption, don't you think?
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Neil Finn
Dec. 18th, 2009 @ 11:31 am Writer's Block: James Cameron’s AVATAR

James Cameron’s AVATAR is in theaters today. What about this movie interests you the most?

Sponsored by AVATAR. In theaters December 18. Buy tickets now.


View 257 Answers



At first: Nothing. In fact, I was really confused with this one and the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender. It took me a while to realize they were two distinct movies.

I was not going to see it, but I finally looked at the trailer and that made the difference. It just seemed an adventure story I'd like. Plus, at his best Cameron is a great and satisfying filmmaker.
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Neil Finn
Dec. 8th, 2009 @ 08:58 am Read this in today's Dear Abby
DEAR ABBY: I'm a 43-year-old woman who has never been married. My boyfriend, "Phil" -- with whom I share a wonderful relationship -- has been divorced three times and has made it clear he does not want to marry again.

We're in the process of buying a home together, and I cannot let go of the hope that one day we'll live in it as husband and wife. It has always been my dream to find that one "right" person and settle down. In my eyes, Phil is that special person. I feel cheated that because of his failed marriages my hopes and dreams don't matter.

Phil loves me and is good to me, but I have mixed emotions. I feel that having shared an exclusive relationship for two years and the fact that we are now buying a house together means we should be married. Must I accept the relationship we have? -- DREAM LOVER IN MINNESOTA

===


My first reaction on reading that is GET OUT! Get out now!

Call me cynical if you like, but from my experience those "maybe X person will change" hopes never do become reality. On a related note, it's like we have trouble believing people when they tell us who they are. So if the guy in that scenario says he has no intentions of marrying again, I would believe him instead of hoping for something else.
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Mark Hart
Dec. 6th, 2009 @ 02:29 pm Alice? Bah, humbug!
Current Location: Home
So there's a TV movie Alice on SyFy soon, and there's the also soon Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland.

I feel like I am the only person in the world who simply doesn't like the Alice story. I was telling someone that there are several stories where a good cast has saved me from a product I might not have liked. (Yes, Twilight movies are an example, though an easy one.) I just don't like Alice at all, and not even the Burton awesome cast will convince me otherwise.
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Neil Finn