This show will leave my eyes lodged in permanent upwards-roll position, but the kids who play Merlin and Gwen are pretty cute, aren't they?

Netflix now permits Firefox for instant streaming! I'm watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. I like it, and moreover, I feel like I may be getting into an anime mood. I hadn't been for a while. (And I should be working today, so anything that comes in 22-minute installments is good.)

While I'm messing with my Netflix queue, has anyone watched Sunshine? Is it any good? Is it too scary for my mom?

FYI: Coinstar is waiving its redonkulous 8% counting fee if you get your coins turned into gift certificates. Borders is among the merchants for which Coinstar issues gift certificates. Borders is in so much trouble that their coupons lately have been in the 30-40% off range.

...books bought with my piggy bank (and I do own and use one, as I despise dirty loose change) are a completely acceptable end run around my self-imposed ban on purchasing non-necessities, right?

With Lost over for the season, I am all out of fresh TV and down to raiding the free movies and Netflix. I watched The Fifth Element because I had never seen it before. It's very pretty, though I had already been exposed to the prettiest shots via cultural osmosis. People who see films a decade late can't be choosers, however.

I read Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study, which is plagued by clunky exposition, world-building that thought it was more involved or clever than it was, tin villain dialogue, and unforgivable hostility toward chocolate. Everyone else seems to have loved it, but felt the later books in Snyder's Study series went downhill; life is too short for me to test whether my contrarianism would extend to preferring subsequent volumes.

If Anne of Green Gables happened today, Anne would have been put on Ritalin post-haste.

Last week...was a week when I really should have been able to avoid the Internet, but couldn't.

This week is a new week.

It may be that I am a niche of one obsessed with girls who are obsessed with cold, but I think Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness was awesome. Has anyone read anything else by McCaughrean to recommend it? It looks like most of her other original novels (she also does fairy tale and mythology retellings for kids, which is an influence apparent in The White Darkness) are geared toward a younger audience -- which doesn't mean I won't check them out, but I liked the perfectly-pitched-to-mid-teens quality of what I read.

My running time plunged this month as a result of my neck and back yoinkage, and many of these miles were such shuffles that they barely qualify as running. Yet what they lacked in speed, they made up for in discomfort. I am, therefore, counting them.

I am not counting the time I spent on the elliptical with the arm levers turned off. I fucking hate the elliptical.

Resolution Accountability
3/23-3/29: 20.75 mi
3/30-4/5: 17.0 mi
4/6-4/12: 13.0 mi
4/13-4/19: 8.3 mi
4/20-4/26: 14.6 mi

In related news, I'd like to speak on behalf of the entire mid-Atlantic region when I say that 90-degree temperatures in April are NOT ON. Where is our Great Gaian Parasol?? Is it in the garage with the flying cars?

1. Dumas, FITE!: Count of Monte Cristo >>>> The Three Musketeers

2. Vorkosigan saga, various: I still find Miles (and now [spoiler] too!) to be Much Too Much, but one thing I appreciate is that yes, I do think about my height that often. And it's not like I'm super-short for my gender.

3. Start of Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money: fascinating, and yet I think I prefer not to be reminded so often of how money is now MADE OF NOTHING.

4. Oh, Mandy: My work spouse is the only person I've ever met in RL who read and loved Mandy. (I'm sure that ten of you will now jump in and tell me how much you loved it as children, but none of you have mentioned it before, so I'm going to be suspicious.) I knew there was a reason we got along! We've decided this is a perfectly good excuse to re-read Mandy. I have a feeling it will have aged just fine.

And now, to bed. I have had 3 hours of sleep in the last 48, so it's time to massively correct the ratio.

Feel bad again. Completely self-inflicted, but I can't not type. It's kind of my job.

I have to give props to Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for teaching me how to stir-fry tofu. Before, my tofu stir-fry always either turned into tofu scramble or stuck to the pan. It was, for a near-vegetarian who doesn't have the fierce objections to tofu that plague many people, a rather embarrassing situation.

Today's DS9 break (the first one, at least): I chuckle much at Julian's dishing out marital advice to Miles in "House of Quark" that (a) shoots down a Sisko-approved plan, and (b) is totes correct, to the point that it could only be more correct if it had come from Keiko herself. (Which could never happen, of course. The writers can only permit Keiko to communicate the really important stuff to her husband via sighs and eye-rolls.)

The Miles-Julian friendship has its origin in "Armageddon Game," obviously, but I think that one scene is the start of the real action.

Neck still yoinked. It is not the most painful pain, or even constant, but for some reason it's very distracting in its milder phases and is giving me paroxysms of grumpy hysteria when acute. I get testy when I can't find a comfortable position even after having given up any pretenses of being able to function. It also comes bearing a novel-to-me form of poundy back-of-the-headache. It's so rare that I experience a genuinely new headache.

Because I'm certain that my personal campaign against ergonomic propriety is at the root of the problem, I've been browsing new desk chairs. I've concluded that there is no desk chair on the entire Internet that is both small and high enough to accomplish what I need it to.

[Edit: Or it could be something to do with the two giantly swollen lymph nodes I've just noticed on my neck. Oh, body.]

Wiping my computer several weeks ago meant shelling out for new Office. I'm not totally horrified by Word 2007, and it sure is a lot prettier to look at than its predecessor for casual use, but for heavy-duty editing with track changes? It sucks. Oh, my god. Why would you make me flip between panels to use track changes?

And what do they mean I can't create my own smallcaps button? W.T.F.

40 minutes 'til Kings! I haven't mentioned that I am digging Kings, largely because I think it will be a fandom to which I come for the fic, but can't stay for the wank. And I probably won't be wanting to read the right fic anyway, so...WHATEVS, I advance break up with you, nascent Kings fandom.

Although I'm in one of those bizarre productivity streaks I sometimes enjoy and generally experiencing moderate-to-high spirits, I'm physically wiped. I'm on antibiotics for a sinus infection, and -- to put it gently -- my body has launched protests over the massacre of helper bacteria. There's something annoying and perverse about yogurt being the best remedy for your extremely upset stomach.

ION, now that Psych and BSG are both gone, I don't know what to do with my Saturday evenings (I can't pretend I was staying awake to watch them on Fridays). People seem to be saying that Dollhouse is picking up, but I still don't know if I can get over my urge to smash. Instead, I watched Deep Space 9, enjoying the early-S2 parade of serious guest guys. Frank Langella! John Glover! Richard Beymer! Guy who plays Ric's dad on General Hospital! And...Steven Weber?

This time around, upon my 2.5th viewing of the best show ever, I'm enjoying all of the really early continuity touches. Everyone deeming Nog to be a terrible influence on Jake. Kira declaring her lack of any artistic ability (see, so, she isn't Kara Thrace -- a comparison I never found that apt anyway). Winn's anecdote about Kai Opaka warning her not to attempt to look into the eyes of one's own gods. Oh, show. There will never be another like you.

Also, I noticed that Netflix Watch Instantly now has the first book of Avatar, which I've long intended to check out. Who knows where Sunday will lead?

Resolution Accountability
Saturday: 4.0 mi
Sunday: 3.1 mi
Tuesday: 4.5 mi
Wednesday: 5.0 mi
Thursday: 5.25 mi
Saturday: 6.8 mi

We won't talk about last week. This week: new shoes! Apparently my bow-leggedness and my tendency to overpronate despite being bow-legged have duked it out, and I now have a neutral stride. I certainly did not have a neutral stride when I started running.

My new shoes were too shiny, so I had to get them dirty with a trail run this morning. The ground was still mostly frozen, but at least they look like they've had some love. And it was beautiful and crisp out -- spring cold feels better than any winter cold, save for snow cold, which is the greatest cold of all. Don't ask me to explain.

( Mother Naytcher hates your puny cell phone camera )

( Why this post. )

So: I'm white; my other characteristics are irrelevant in this context. I realize that recent events in fandom are only a small portion of the racism that fen of color experience on a daily basis, but they have been virulent and the hurt they cause is very real. I am so sorry that so many have been hurt by racist attitudes and behavior. I am especially sorry that I personally have spoken at times when I should have been quiet and listened, and failed to speak at times when doing so would have been helpful -- I will work on striking a better balance with this in the future. The oppression, dismissiveness, diversions, silencing strategies, and scare tactics that have marked RaceFail are not OK with me. This post is here because it's important to me that people reading this journal know that I feel this way, that I am aware that I regularly exercise and benefit from white privilege, and that I am committed to trying to recognize this, to deal with it, and to react in a sane and constructive way when it is pointed out to me.

When I walked into my room tonight, my first thought was, Something is slightly off.

Upon a nanosecond's closer inspection, it became evident that everything was slightly off, because the day's wind gusts had knocked the attic panel out of my ceiling, at which point I'd guess that it banged into the two nearest bookshelves before coming to rest directly on top of my computer. Shreds of insulation have peppered everything on one side of the room, including the giant pile of freshly folded laundry.

All Of My Precious Stuff seems to have survived intact, albeit with some bent pages and ugly dents -- and really, could one get much closer to a higher power telling you it's time to decide on a new computer without it being outright destroyed? But what a HUGE mess.

So vindicated for not having actually cleaned in here this weekend.

-This week has been nuts in ways and for reasons that I don't really feel like discussing at the moment. 2009: simmer down now, OK?

-Yesterday I went on a frantic cleaning spree. Unfortunately, I puttered out before hitting my room or the kitchen, where I spend most of my time. Sometimes, Other People's Messes bother me so much more than my own. When I've made the mess, at least I know what it contains and where.

-TNG viewing last night included "Sub Rosa," which is such a bad episode that it may be worse than the clip show. Come to that, it's probably worse than any episode in the first two seasons. Almost fifteen years later, it still kills me that they wasted a final-season Crusher episode on it. My pain, so fresh.

-Obligatory DST whine: I am so. messed. up. by the time change. I haven't really talked about it, but in the past month, I've returned to biphasic sleep. It's been great in terms of increasing my daytime wakefulness and giving me more hours in the day. When it came time to adjust to the change, however, I stupidly tried shifting my schedule later, when I should have gone earlier. Your crazy numerical system confuses me, OK?

Resolution Accountability
Wednesday: 6.5 mi
Thursday: 4.5 mi
Saturday: 9.0 mi
Sunday: 4.5 mi

Still no new shoes.

-Immediately after Fionnula Flanagan's episode of TNG is Terry O'Quinn's episode. *creepy music*

-One of the new characters on Lost last night is TOTALLY THE CHICK FROM SHERMAN'S MARCH. *cries and cries* I realize that actress is a "Hey! It's that girl!" girl who has been in many other things, but she is always and forever the chick from Sherman's March to me. Maybe in the next episode we will discover that she has to die for unrequested musical numbers.

Lost all makes sense when you're reminded that Eloise Hawking is Data's mom.

PEEPS. How excited am I about the snow day tomorrow? So excited that at the grocery store (where I was stuck with all the panic shoppers, because Sunday is my usual shopping day), a stranger in the parking lot remarked, "You look happy!" That's right: I am radiating waves of happiness.

Part of my enthusiasm is that a migraine devoured my entire Saturday, and I feel entitled to some sort of weekend -- but mostly it's the joy of SNOW.

I am on S7 of my rewatch of TNG, which will be an excellent use of my snow day. I am now totally on board with my own theory that Troi needs to be treated with newfound respect. Troi is counseling people all the damned time, and it seems evident that the writers did think that These People Need Therapy, which is a concept I can get on-board with. When Jean-Luc Picard needs to chat about his feelings, he voluntarily goes to Chuck Norris Deanna Troi. That should count for something.

Also, her relationship with Riker through much of TNG's run is actually more modern and interesting than I remember it being -- in the sense that they are absolutely not a couple, but sometimes almost make out and hold hands a bunch, all while sleeping with other people at least twice a season.

Resolution Accountability
Monday: 3.5 mi
Thursday: 5.0 mi
Friday: 5.0 mi
Sunday: 7.75 mi

I need new shoes. In truth, I needed new shoes at the beginning of February, but I think I need to try a different brand, which meant saving up to pay retail. I do not know how I go through sneakers so quickly. (It all makes me want to try barefoot running, but they don't make these in my size, and I'm not courageous enough to go completely unshod. And yes, I've actually tried a pair of EU 36s on to check.)

Um, OMG, Psych's very special finale guest star (the third one, I mean...)? And the closing scene? \o/ Thank goodness they are renewed. I have been avoiding looking at their renewal status for months, and it turns out that they've been safe since last year. There's a future yet for my campaign to bring back the original Young Gus.

Also, [other special guest star] had this gray Banana Republic Wilshire bag that I have loved for months. Someone in charge of props has good taste.

Resolution Accountability
I forgot to make myself accountable last week; I had a lot of work, a lot of minor annoyances, and little energy. In part, I blame the Girl Scouts, with their sinister cookies. Why is GS cookie season so close to the winter holidays and Valentine's anyway?

Tuesday - 5.0 mi
Wednesday - 3.3 mi
Thursday - 2.0 mi
Monday - 5.25 mi
Wednesday - 4.0 mi
Friday - 5.5 mi
Sunday - 7.5 mi