I have just spent a glorious weekend with 11 totally insane people. The usual suspects were there: eatenbyweasels, esmerelda_t, gingerpig, lonelybrit, madders, princess_s, ruric, vampirefever and the newly betrothed vic_amy_z. We also had some fresh blood in the forms of sometimeredhead, a woman with a prodigious caffeine habit and a disturbing knowledge of government lube guidelines, and ok2nv_theoracle, this year's token male and token American! He did us proud. ;)

My liver may never forgive me. I consumed about 70cl ( around a fifth) of scotch, and almost a third of a similar-sized bottle of bourbon. And then there was the bottle and a half of ginger wine that was my main 'mixer'... ;)

( Let me tell you more! )

( Horbling #6 iconic quotes )

( I can has laptop! What it is? )

In conclusion: I AM BACK, Y'ALL! Whatchoo been upto?

In about 5 hours, I have to get up, to catch a bus to catch a train to catch a lift to a wild weekend of debauchery, good food, good porn and good cooking.

I will try and check this post before I stagger out the door, but I make no promises. Mornings and I do not get on.

Smooches and hugs to you all! See you when I get back! And if you do something I really really need to see, please drop a link here. I'd hate to miss anything!

Why are so many people such utter f*ckw*ts? And why do I have to work with them?

One of them left a box of bananas in a narrow hallway out back at work - a box of bananas that I had already moved out of the way twice so it wasn't a hazard.

I'm sitting here now with a bloody and bruised neck and shoulder, a bruised elbow, middle finger, knee and ankle, all on my left side, because when I closed up shop an hour ago, I grabbed my cash drawer and one of the scratchcard lockboxes and headed for the office.

I'm laden, I can't see the floor as I come round the door, but I know I cleared everything out of the way not an hour ago... So, I trip, go sideways, rolling my ankle. I totter into the office, hit the wall, which shoves the scratchcard lockbox (open tubular steel piping aimed for my throat!) into my neck and shoulder, at which point I lose verticality and come down on someone's effing scooter that should never have been in the office in the first place, scattering cash all over the place, wrenching my wrist, landing hard on my knee and scraping a load of skin off knuckle, neck and shoulder.

No gaping wounds, thank god, but christ, I'm not going to be able to move tomorrow, and I can forget about putting on a bra. And probably nodding. I can feel my neck muscles tightening as I type. I'm going to be black and blue and scabby. Lovely. I may take pictures. (Why should I suffer alone?)

Oh, and the f*ckw*t thought it was hilarious. It doesn't seem to occur to her that IT'S HER FAULT for moving the banana box from where I'd put it safely out of the way. She didn't even put any bananas out!

So, In conclusion: OW.

In other news, I have 660ml of 5.3% pear cider and two Jaffa Cake muffins.

But I'm still fuming.

*SMISHES YOU ALL (CAREFULLY)*

Is it me, or does someone have their finger on the fast forward button of life? I can't believe it's September already!

For anyone who's wondering, I'm still in love with my Buffy boys, and my Supernatural boys and my SGA boys and the rest of my menagerie, I'm just completely obsessed with the guys in tights and spandex right now, so most of my ficbrain is focussed in that direction. Most. ;)

If any of you are tempted to take the fandom 'research' poll that's out there, I'd advise you to read this, this, this (links taken from metafandom) and follow a few of the links in those posts before you get drawn into their asshattery. (Not that I'm biased, or anything, but the reason for their 'research' is a contract to write a book entitled: 'RULE 34: WHAT NETPORN TEACHES US ABOUT THE BRAIN.')

rounds_of_kink is asking for prompts again here. And remember, 'kink' covers a lot of ground, from something as simple as enjoying playing with someone's hair (or someone playing with yours) through to auto-erotic asphyxiation, scat, bloodplay, etc. So go and prompt. You could end up with some delicious new fic that hits your buttons.

Rounds of Kink prompt call

And finally, LJ are offering three extra days of Paid Time to everyone with paid journals for the downtime experienced on Thursday August 6th. You have until September 10th to claim your days. Why wait?

Anyone else watching Dark Blue and wanting Carter to slam Dean up a wall and eat him alive? No? Just me then. *g*

This is the edited and extended version of my WriterconUK talk on Modding Communities, given on Saturday, 15th August, 2009, at the Ramada Hotel, Coventry.

It contains my own personal views on modding and as such, does not pretend to be the definitive guide on 'How You Should Mod Your Community'.

I'm sure there are things I've missed, and things that people will disagree with, but these are my thoughts on the subject, at this moment in time. Though I refer to fandom throughout this post, the thoughts and ideas here can easily be adapted to other arenas.

( Wearing The Modhat - an Essay )

I'm back! And I bet most of you didn't even know I was gone. :P

On Friday I trundled off to the Ramada Hotel in Coventry for my first ever WriterconUK Midimeet. Of the 25 other attendees, I had met precisely one before: kitty_poker1, so it was a weekend of dizzying memory blanks and jumbled names/nyms/IDs.

A complete(ish) list of attendees can be found here, as I am really not up to that amount of coding right now. *g*

There were talks and presentations a-plenty, and I got to pretend I knew what I was on about by giving a talk on (my opinion on) how best to moderate communities. It was both terrifying and thrilling. And apparently also educational. (Yay me!)

I had my first ever Thai food on friday night and will now pine piteously because there is no Thai restaurant in my town and that makes me saaaaaaaad. :(

The program of events for the weekend can be found here. With any luck, people will be making posts in writerconuk reiterating their presentations and talks for anyone who might be interested.

Feel free to link me to anything interesting I might miss in my mad scroll through flistdom.

Roll on WriterconUK Midmeet 2010!

*smooches to you all*

In five weeks' time, I'm off to my first WriterconUK midimeet, which this year is being held in Coventry. I'm also going to be presenting a talk on 'Communities, their Creation, Maintenance and Moderation'... or something like that. Does that sound pompous? *chews fingernails nervously* ;)

A great bunch of people will be there, from a variety of fandoms, but there are still a few places open if anyone else wants to join us.

The signups so far include:
me!, just_sue, kitty_poker1, suki_blue, bogwitch, kazzy_cee, hesadevil, quinara, ningloreth, miso_no_tsuki, eternal_red, hab318princess, thismaz, lilachigh, hils, curiouswombat, speakr2customrs, and mirasol.

It takes place over the weekend of 14th, 15th and 16th August. Membership closes at the end of July, or earlier if all places get filled.

Latest writerconuk details here, and the membership post is here.

I'm getting to be quite the social butterfly. I need a laptop. Or a netbook. kitty_poker1, why did you let me walk away from that pretty little netbook? I neeeeds it! :D

I am back from the wilds of Kittyville!

Fun times were had by all. Alcohol and delicious foods were consumed in abundance. suki_blue was lunched with and, let me tell you all, she is an sneaky enabling enabler! Thanks to her evil evil evil generous nature, I now have in my possession ~60 Justice League of America comic books, plus two starring The Flash, all canon for the ficcing. (Also, a deepening curiosity about Dick.)

And thanks to kitty_poker1's generous hubby (and live-in masterchef), I also have 50 more of The Flash in digitised form, and a whole bunch of Batman movies. (Oh, and five seasons of Two and a Half Men. So silly, but oddly addictive.)

The journey out was easy enough: smooth ride, easily made connections, with only a minor hiccup in that Google maps lie about where Fenchurch Street Station is! *writes them a stern but educational email*

Then, on the way back, I got onto a Circle Line tube train at Tower Hill, aiming for Paddington, and was mildly amused that my MP3 player random-shuffled its way to Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street just as we pulled into Baker Street station.

Sadly, the amusement was shortlived. As we pulled out of the station, it was announced that the train I was on was no longer a Circle Line train and that all people who got on it expecting to actually get to their Circle Line destinations should get off at the next station because it was being hijacked by TPTB to go to Hammersmith instead. I didn't even know they could do that! But, a connection was found and I managed to get myself all the way to Paddington (the very next station on the Circle Line) without getting lost... much.

And all that excitement has worn me out, so now I will relax and start digging through everything that's piled up in my absence: 200 emails, a flist of skip=bajillionty, and an answering machine full of aural spam. Tis a hard life, indeed.

So... what have you all been upto?

ETA: I came this > < close to buying a netbook. I was petting it and reaching for the plastic. I managed to escape uncharged but I fear tis only a matter of time...

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

I'm not only posting the sentence, I'm off to visit one of them!

kitty_poker1 and her hubby have the dubious honour of several days of my company, so I won't be here to keep an eye on things. literati will be wielding the mod-hammer in a bunch of my comms during my absence, and I'm trusting you all not to break the internets while I'm gone. Play nice. I will be checking up on you!

And now I have to go finish packing and remind myself not to forget my tickets (this time).

*smooches and hugs to all*

So, I was confessing to entrenous88 about my newest addiction - Batman/Flash (Bruce/Wally) fic (yes, cartoons, comics, I have gone animated, people, are you happy now, world?!) and she said maybe I should do that meme that was going around last month where you list your top ten pairings and let other people comment on what trends they see. So...

Vaguely in order of adoption, these are my boys:

Spike/Xander (Buffy)
John Sheppard/Rodney McKay (Stargate Atlantis)
Sam/Dean (Supernatural)
Jack/Nathan (Eureka)
Connor/Murphy (Boondock Saints)
Dexter/Miguel (Dexter)
Jack/Ianto (Torchwood)
Nikolai/Kirill (Eastern Promises)
Mulder/Krycek (X-Files)
Batman(Bruce Wayne)/The Flash(Wally West) (Justice League)

let me have it. :D

I have 5 2 1 0 Dreamwidth invites to give away.

There's a community over at DW specifically set up so that kind souls can give out codes to people who want them.

Comment here if you want one. If there are more than five takers, I'll come back to this post when I get more.

I'll post again when I have more. :D

Today (actually it's 3.16 am now, so technically this should read 'yesterday'...) has been declared lurker amnesty day! Have you read me but never commented? Do you surf by occasionally? Here for the fic? Have you friended me but never said a word? Say hello! You are under no obligation to ever comment or delurk again, but here's a chance to do so in a post just for that.

COME SAY HI. Or... just wave at your monitor. *waves back*

Thanks to a wonderful donor (who shall remain nameless so as to protect them from their flist), I have a Dreamwidth account: darkhavens.

(NB: I am not leaving LJ. Not unless they kick me out. I have comms to run and a flist to obsess over!)

As per the donor's request, I have created a bloodclaim over there, which will become operational once I've imported everything and made sure I haven't cocked it up. *g*

I have also created slashthedrabble and slashtheimage, and new prompts will be cross-posted to both LJ and DW (so I don't get confused *g*).

Way back in January, once again staring at an empty page in MSWord, I decided to do something drastic: I signed up for findyourwords, choosing 50,000 as my target wordcount for the year 2009. That's more than I've written in the last two years combined.Wordcounts (posted fic only): 2006=53k, 2007=25k, 2008=22k. EEP!

I then continued staring blankly at various empty pages until March, when I discovered comment_fic and became addicted. A couple of days ago, 6 weeks on from word one, I broke the 10k barrier and decided to get myself a widget to celebrate:



*hugs you all and twirls*

I'm sure most of you have already seen posts regarding Amazon's completely unacceptable behaviour.

click here to contact amazon's customer service
You have to log in, of course. They don't want just any old riffraff emailing them. ;)

sign the petition


And surprise! Now Amazon has been called to account, they're now crying 'glitch!'. Suuure.

First of all, thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes, by email, ecard, PM, comment and journal post. (If anyone sent one by skywriter... I missed it. Sorry. :D ) It was a wonderful day full of the bestest food and the bestest booze and the bestest boys doing the bestest things to each other. ;)

Secondly, to anyone who has a flist of 500+ or moderates a comm of 500+, you need to READ THIS POST IMMEDIATELY.

Thirdly, and this applies to everyone, here is a little security advice for your lj:
1. ENABLE A SECURITY QUESTION IMMEDIATELY.( or...Not )
2. GO HERE AND REMOVE ANY EMAIL ADDRESSES THAT YOU NO LONGER CONTROL.( Why? )

Wondering why I'm so worried? It's because posts like this (click for larger version):

have started popping up in various comms again, and that's not good. If you follow a link in a post like this, you should run your antivirus programs immediately, as the linked pages can contain viruses and keyloggers, and if they gain control of your journal, they will systematically delete every single post there, and then they will attack any comms you moderate.

It sucks, but them's the facts. For a much better look at the problem, read acari's post how not to become the next hacker victim.

(Please don't ask for technical details or help because all I've done is read the posts that are floating around and thought "I gotta warn everyone!". If you read the linked posts, you have as much info as I do.)

20 minutes ago, madders sent me a recipe for 5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake. Now I'm sitting here eating chocolate cake and telling you all about it, because really? It's Chocolate! Cake! In Five Minutes! What's not to love?

( easy peasy cake recipe inside )

In conclusion: OM NOM NOM!

Hi, everyone. I'm still alive, still... around, just very very quiet. I can't believe it's March already and that I'm staring 39 in the face, but at least I have the week off work to cope with getting older. *g*

( So, what have I been doing since last I posted? )

Teeny pimp, cos I just gotta:

ship_manifesto - the place for your "Why I ship this pairing/threesome/moresome" manifestos. All fandoms welcome - live action tv, manga, anime, literature, computer games (Suki, I'm looking at you *g*). Go check out the masterlist! Stake a claim! Share the love! /pimp

One last thing! If you or anyone you know is being inundated with popups, and/or has seen their computer slow down considerably, you may be infected with the Virtumonde/Vundo trojan horse. Spybot, Norton, Symantec, Adaware, AVG (and possibly others) are not catching this. But all is not lost. malwarebytes.org has the solution, and for free! There is a paid, always-on version with automatic updates and scheduled screening, but the freeware version does the job just as well. I diagnosed a customer's computer woes while selling his wife cigarettes and told him to use this prog. He was back in 3 hours with tears of joy in his eyes. Well, okay, he was happy and said thank you, but it works! :D

The dreaded lurgy has laid me low this past week and a half, but I'm breaking radio silence (though I can't actually get above a whisper right now) to wish you all:






I hope 2009 treats you all better than 2008 did. *smooches*

As some of you know, I work retail in a tiny convenience store in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Devon, England. Wednesday nights are the bane of my week because they are, as a rule, OMG-kill-me-now boring. B.O.R.I.N.G. And from 5pm to 8pm, today followed that pattern faithfully.

And then the football (soccer) team came in, wanting to buy candy. All young, all buff, all rather pretty. And all of them stark bollock naked. I kid you not.

They were all polite, some shyer than others, (However could I tell? ;) and one of them even apologised, at which point I told him I'd seen weirder things in the shop. He laughed.

I'm still grinning.

(But I am going to be so disappointed if they don't turn up again next Wednesday. *g*)

Late last night/early this morning, literati, my personal code monkey bestest friend, ♥♥♥, tweaked the code for my journal layout to add a taglist in my sidebar, and also to make my tags appear in a heirarchical form on my tag page. (How to.)

Wassat, I hear you thinking? It's this - isn't it nifty? But of course, that only works if you have your tags organised, and I... didn't. So, I went through my tags and renamed them into something that would look pretty when the code went live. (Heads-up to anyone who had any particular tags bookmarked or linked.)

Then I figured that there might be some improperly or incompletely tagged posts in my journal, so I went back to the beginning and started checking, post by post by post.

24 hours later, I have added over 70 formerly untagged older drabbles and drabblesets (some over 2000 words!) to my btvs:s/x:misc tag (and if I have to explain that acronym, you don't know me at all. *g*)

Lesson for the day: Sometimes, a touch of OCD can be a good thing. :D

BT Update: They're still a$$hats, but finally, after 24 hours or so, the illegal, immoral cookies from hell stopped appearing and messing up my ability to browse. There is still some lag time between my clicking a link or typing in an url and hitting 'go' and actually having the page start to load, so I may still be being rerouted through the Webwise servers, but BT haven't contacted me at all to discuss the matter, despite promises of <24hr responses to my emails. I'm still looking for a new ISP. And I will be complaining to someone further up the foodchain.