I am DONE with law school.



This is the best feeling ever.

Feeling: indescribable

Super secret message:

Happy Birthday pathstotread!!

To celebrate, someone managed to get you the best hour of television all season. You, my dear, have friends in high places.

P.S. Check your email.

Feeling: jubilant

Yes, I am a sheep. "So...Good Talk" post-ep.

Pairing: Like you need to ask.
Rating: PG-13, for the inevitable language
Disclaimer: Gilmore Girls and its characters are the property of lots of other people. Still a student. Still poor.
Summary: Nothing you haven't seen before.

( All That's Left to Say )

Feeling: mellow

Have had a lovely relaxing weekend to make up for a rather lengthy week. The hearing on Thursday went well, so I'm relieved to have that done. Maybe I can actually go to all my classes this week!

Went on a lovely shopping expedition yesterday that involved scouring the clearance racks, and came home with three lovely (and ultra-cheap!) shirts. Now I'm searching ebay for matching necklaces. I think I'm going to skip the Superbowl party; I'd rather stay here and get ahead on my reading between commercials. Who knows, might even get a little bit of the 3L paper done!

Last night, I *finally* saw Eternal Sunshine. Would someone please tell me what the hell I was waiting for?? I'm going to watch it again this week, possibly tonight. Absolutely fabulous.

( Ramblings about Eternal Sunshine and romances... )

Feeling: touched

I haven't been adding to the flist regularly for a while (especially since I haven't been around all that often lately), and I've decided to narrow things a little further to better spend the little time I do have online. So tonight, I went back through the flist and pruned it a bit. If your journal was removed, it was because:

(1) Our interests don't overlap as much as they used to.
(2) We don't comment in each other's journals.
(3) We don't communicate outside of LJ.

If I did de-friend you, it's nothing personal, simply that we don't seem to be interacting much.

Feeling: sick

This is what comes of TWO snowstorms and being sick. A angsty-schmoopy S/V post-ep. You've been warned.


Title: A Thousand Gaps
Ship: S/V
Rating: G
Summary: "A hundred gaps, a thousand places in his life where Sydney should have been, but never was. It became habit, after a while, to fill her in."

( A Thousand Gaps )

Feeling: sick

Decided to heed all the advisories today and not venture out onto the snow-covered streets. Some kind people who live closer to work are covering for me, so I'm going to stick to things within walking distance today and go back into work tomorrow.

I put this up on FF.net last night, but I'll go ahead and post here as well, if only to have one correctly formatted version out there. It's a brief and very spoilery bit of GG spec, brought on by the blizzard. What can I say? At the moment, there's nothing more attractive than a man with a snow shovel.

Title: Snow Shovels and Silence
Rating: PG
Pairing: LL
Spoilers: Through ep. 101 (5.14, I believe)

( Snow Shovels and Silence )

Feeling: irritated

Sorry to have been absent for so long; in addition to my normal hectic schedule, I've been out of town with spotty internet availability for the last month. Since the coming snowstorm has driven me indoors for the weekend, I've taken a stab at a (very brief) bit of Lostfic.

Title: Blueprints
Rating: PG
Ship: None really, hints of S/S
Spoilers: Through "Hearts and Minds".
Summary: She's stored that part of her life away, rolled it in a tube beneath an old coat and two boxes of out-of-season shoes. Post-series, Shannon POV.

( Blueprints )

Feeling: cold

One word:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feeling: ecstatic

Thanks to all of you who gave me cell phone advice. Unfortunately, I ended up taking none of it because Cingular screwed me over.

Hello, Verizon!

The short version: if you have problems while outside your home area, Cingular can't do a damn thing to help you.

( The saga, because I need to rant. )

Feeling: relieved

My longsuffering Nokia appears to be dead, so I'm in the market for a new phone. The good news is that my Cingular contract is also up, so I'm hoping to wheedle a new phone out of them. So I'm opinion-shopping:

Poll #337337 LB
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Which cell phone should I get?

Feeling: curious

I have three words for all of you:

Go. See. Collateral.

Love, love, love. I could rave about Michael Mann, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx all night, and probably will. Just not here. Suffice to say it's beautifully made and brilliantly acted. The climax is a bit overblown, but that's my only gripe. The characters are well-drawn and the plotline is, for the most part, blissfully unpredictable.

It's also got the best score since Ocean's 11. Better. The music shifts genres and decades from scene to scene, and every single song is excellent. Rock, techno, jazz, anything, doesn't matter. It's excellent. The ultimate cruelty? The soundtrack isn't on iTunes! I might be forced to travel to an actual store to buy music. I hope I'll remember how.

My kingdom for the name of the song playing while they're ( minor spoiler ) It's not on the soundtrack and I want it. [/whine]

ETA: Nevermind, found it! Turns out it is on the soundtrack, and I'm being a blonde. It's a Korean remix of Paul Oakenfeld's "Ready, Steady, Go", if anyone was wondering.

Feeling: impressed

Don't know where this came from. I'm on cold medicine.

Not that you should assume the two of those are related.

Title: Not While the Toaster is Watching
Rating: G
Pairing: L/L
Summary: Sometimes, he thinks it would be easier to just kill her and have it done with. But then he'd have to find a place to hide the body. (1/1).
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.

( Not While the Toaster is Watching )

Feeling: sick

Today's must-read news story is (belive it or not) from USA Today.

It's about juries and the so-called CSI-effect. There is not enough Word in the world for this article. I enjoy CSI, too, but it has skewed peoples' understanding of criminal investigations horribly. This should be required reading in jury rooms.

A parting vignette: I participated in a mock trial last January which, like most trials, involved some pretty well-balanced evidence. The jury (eleven boys from a local middle school) voted, rendered their verdict (guilty on a lesser charge) and filed out. I was thanking the jurors as they left, and one of them turned to me and asked, "Did we get it right?" I shrugged. "You know everything we know," I told him.

He expected to get an answer from me -- he thought there would be a definitive story out there, a wrong or a right. Needless to say, he was wrong.

That mock trial? Was a real case. Down to the crime-scene photos in my coursebook.

Draw your own conclusions.

Feeling: thoughtful

Congrats to everyone involved with the Festival of Fic -- those who won, those who were nominated, those who worked hard to put it all together. There are so many amazing authors and so much amazing fic out there -- you all deserve congratulations.

Also, to those of you who voted -- seriously? Um, wow. Thanks.

( If you hate gushing, this is not the post for you... )

Feeling: grateful

This is belated:

Happy Birthday carmen_sandiego!

Saw The Village tonight. (Don't worry, I'll keep this non-spoilery.) After a good bit of thinking, I've decided I liked half of it. I'll say up front I love Shyamalan -- his movies never fail to be atmospheric and beautiful to look at. I love the was he structures his films as series of perfectly-matted pictures, with a sense of stillness and quiet, the way he bucks the trend toward ever-more kinetic directing. There's also a sense of craftsmanship, of meticulousness, about his work -- everything serves a purpose; even apparent missteps futher a deeper point. It's why I like his movies, even Unbreakable, despite its obvious flaws.

Which is why I partially like The Village. Particularly in the first act, he's created an eerie world that's a pleasure to be sucked into.

And then the twists start. There are several, only the first of which is actually surprising. Shyamalan has incredible gifts as a filmmaker, and I think we would all be better off if he would end his compulsion to deliver the shocker and if his audience would let him do so. He rests the film on a series of increasingly thin surprises, and in the process loses what was so enjoyable about it at the outset.

I sounds as if I'm being rather harsh, but I did enjoy much of this movie. I'd like to watch this movie again and turn it off at the halfway mark. The first half is an enjoyably creepy mood piece with solid performances and a romance that's just understated enough to be compelling. The direction is, no surprise, beautiful. I'm also developing a rather disturbing attraction to Joaquin Phoenix.

If any of you has seen it, comment here and let me know what you think. I'm curious.

It's about time I rented Signs....

Feeling: thoughtful

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

After a super-busy week at work, the parents came into town for a long weekend, so I've been out working and/or playing tourist for the last six days. (Apologies to the flist; I'm horribly behind.)

( We have seen: )

I have learned three things:
1. DC is my favorite city ever.
2. I will probably never walk normally again.
3. I am the biggest sap ever. ciachick711 and carrielynnobu accuse me of having a cold, black, empty heart (long story short: nothing fictional makes me cry), but plunk me down in front of a memorial, and I'm a wreck.

This was too good not to post:

Who is your long lost Live Journal twin?
LJ Username
Your twin is:	carrielynnobu
This cool quiz by livelyhope - Taken 2589 Times. </a>

New! Get Free Horoscopes from Kwiz.Biz

Happy Birthday alikona727!

Feeling: nerdy

I am unworthy to post such badness. Thank all of you for the screamingly funny badfic, you are sd-1 and ff.net rolled into one.

Drumroll please.....

seirina wrote A Little Ditty 'bout Jack and Diane
carrielynnobu wrote some requested Trory
delordra wrote A NIGHT AT THE OPERA
carmen_sandiego wrote I Still Remember
ciachick711 wrote L+L= tru luv
thestickywicket wrote Wolverine Was Mad
andsoitbegins wrote Evil Mr Sark
bbunny wrote some untitled badness
dianora2 wrote some WW badness
minion_mel wrote Spy High
redraidermush wrote U OUghtta Know
kiwikatzkatz wrote Irina's Happy Ending
scout27 wrote Plz reed me (or something along those lines)
kenya121 wrote Fight 4 Our Luv
magi_47 wrote hot mcvaughnald had a farm

annnnnd that's all, folks. (At least I think so.) Post, email or otherwise harass me if I've overlooked anybody.

On a personal note, I'm having something of a week, so thank you all for the much-needed belly laughs. Viva la suck!

Feeling: amused

I've been bowled over by the badness -- you all make me so proud.

A list of your truly terrible entries will be posted here later; I've unfortunately been swamped at work today and have no time to compile the links list right now. So, those of you tardy badficcers, get to work! You still have time to post your works of horror before the final list goes live.

Watch this space.

Feeling: working

It's that time again, kids....

The Second Annual International Badfic Day

Those of you who were around for the first badfic day remember the joy, the pain, the exhilaration of scraping the bottom of the barrel, of stooping to reach the lowest common denominator, and succeeding.

Those of you who are new to the event...never fear! You, too, can achieve true badness.

Now, some of you are sitting at home, saying, wait, how can this be the Second Annual badfic day? The first one was only a couple months ago! To you, I say: this is the sort of logical, detail-oriented thinking that keeps you from true badness. Let it go! Toss Strunk & White in the corner! Throw Lynne Truss into the drawer! Let go of your petty obsession with grammar, your dalliances with characterization, your fixation on plot! Embrace the songfic, the deathfic, the Mary Sue!

Badness lies inside each of us. Yes, even you. Don't deny it any longer.

Write your badfic. Post your badfic. For the love of everything holy, don't beta your badfic. If you wish to share your badness, leave a comment here, and a list of links will be posted tomorrow evening.

Here's a little something to get us started:

( Slave 4U )

How bad can you be?

Feeling: devious