Cut off my hair. That is all.

mood: satisfied

"It was a nice day."

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman.

Gosh, that's a boring first line, even if it is my favorite book. Here, have some more I can knock out by heart:


"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

"All children, except one, grow up."

"It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips."

"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen."

"On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition, and Astrology."

"Lyra and her dæmon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen."


There, now *those* are some first lines. And I shall be very disappointed if you are unable to identify every single one of them. Also, it's apparent where my literary tastes lie from this entry...

tags: writer's block

So I went and saw X-men: First Class with Jenny while I was in Houston. It was pretty much exactly what I was expecting. And what I was expecting was a two-hour-long tragic gay love story between Charles (Professor X) and Erik (Magneto). IT WAS SOOOOO MUCH THIS. The manly tears! The significant looks! The awkward parenting skills!! Oh, X-men, don't ever stop being gay. ^_____^ It was awesome.

The fandom has, obviously, exploded over this movie. There's so much new fanfic, and art, and everything, and all of us old-schoolers are like "What took ya'll so long? Here, read the part in the comic where they're living together in domestic bliss!" Because, seriously, I can't even remember when I started shipping Charles/Erik, but it was definitely there for me even during the first movie/the old-school 90s cartoon (I saw it later than the 90s, but still...)/Evolution. THE COMICS SHIP THEM SOOO HARD TOO. There is an actual line where Charles says they're "Bookends of the same soul" or something like that I KID YOU NOT. How do the writers think that is NOT SLASHY?!

*Ahem* Anyway, thank you, X-men: First Class. Thank you for the fic explosion. Now to go see Thor! Apparently Thor/Loki is almost as obvious and tragic as Charles/Erik! Yay for comics and their subtext that is aaaaaaaalmost text!!

mood: cheerful music: You've Gone Away Enough, Mirah (from Charles/Erik mix) tags: charles/erik, x-men

I went on my ff.net favorites page to dig up some Alice fanfic for Jen-chan.  Then I saw a title at the very bottom of the list. "Hm," I thought, "The Misadventures of Videl and Gohan. Wow, it's been a long time since I've read that. Come to think of it, it's been a long time since I read ANY DBZ stuff..."

Well, three days later I pulled myself out of a spree that included not only 'Misadventures' but also all the 'Walk this World' stories (AU Mirai timeline, Trunks/Juuhachigou) and all of Dragoness Eclectic's stuff ('Raditz's Return, Mythic Descent, etc. I didn't realize I'd never read the third volume in that series!). I now have a strong desire to draw Raditz fanart. And I just ordered 3 volumes of Dragonball manga off of Amazon (only about $3 a volume! For NEW volumes!).

...Yeah. So much for Alice fanfic... 

mood: nostalgic tags: dragonball, fandoms, fanfic

I'm still alive!! And yes, I think I have enough critters to qualify as a zoo at this point. All my ball python eggs have finished hatching, and out of 18 eggs I got 17 healthy baby snakes! The last egg contained a full-term but heavily deformed hatchling that died before emerging. I won't go into the gruesome details, but let's just say it was...missing...a significant part of its head >_< ANYWAY, aside from that I had a great year with the balls, and hatched more than my share of little morph babies! Mostly Cinnamons. I'm keeping the prettiest girl Cinny, and selling the rest. Anybody want a ball python? By the way, my current ball python count is (counting all the babies) 34. Total snake count is 38. Ayup. I go through a *lot* of frozen rodents.

I got my big male leopard gecko a new girlfriend after his last one passed away- I can hear him courting her sometimes (he shakes his tail and you hear it beating against the aquarium, lol), but no eggs yet from them. Fingers crossed! I have another girl for him, too, but she's not quite up to size yet.

My last pet rat died, meaning that aside from the dog and the cat I have NO OTHER MAMMALS. It makes me a little sad...maybe I should snag a four-eyed possum from work(no, they don't *actually* have four eyes, but they are disgustingly cute)~! Kidding, kidding...The frogs are all good, my imitator FINALLY laid a good egg that actually developed into a tadpole! The bad news is, I have no idea where they put it, since they chose not to utilize either of the handy water-filled salsa cups I provided for them. It's probably in the bromeliad, and in another month or so I'll see a baby frog hopping around. I hope. The auratus have quit laying , which is good since I was getting pretty overwhelmed with their voracious offspring! I only have 5 or 6 of their froglets left, and no tadpoles. Whew!

Between working at the Humane Society in the mornings, coming home to my critters in the afternoon, and working at Zookeeper in the evenings, my life has become an endless round of feeding, poop-scooping, and feeding again. All in all, it's pretty much my dream career, heh ^_~

I'm thinking of getting into either Rhino Ratsnakes or Emerald Tree Boas for my next snake breeding project. Not that the balls aren't great, but I'd like to try something a little different, too. What do you guys think?

mood: cheerful tags: ball pythons, pets, snakes

Listening to songs from the Valdemar books on Youtube (Threes! Kerowyn's Ride! It Was a Dark and Stormy Night!). Feeling teenagery (these books are SUCH a guilty pleasure- Vanyel's such a whipping boy/Gary Stu XP At least they're WAAAY better than Twilight). So much nostalgia! These books taught me that homosexuality existed! Dude, if I'd known there were CDs of these in middle school I would have snapped them up SO FAST. Faster than I bought the Masterharper of Pern CD. Yeeeeaaah.
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I still kinda want to buy them....>_<

mood: dorky music: Threes- Mercedes Lackey tags: fangirling, guilty pleasure, valdemar

The first 11doc episode, and the first with Moffat as the series exec! So, you ask, how did it go?

*SPOILERS BELOW*


11doc is totally fine, first of all, I quite like him. Needs to find his own voice, though, still a bit Tennant-y, and you could tell the writers were still thinking 'Tennant' when they were doing the dialogue. Someone on the doctorwho community pointed out that this could be because 10 *really* didn't want to regenerate and as a result his personality is hanging on a little more that usual. At least he wasn't as angsty or as freaking ARROGANT/God-complex as 10 was near the end -seriously, especially during Waters of Mars I actually wanted 10 to LOSE just to knock him down a peg or six! Although that would have resulted in more ANGST; quoting the doctorwho community again, I was also SICK of the Doctor ending every episode looking like someone 'kicked his puppy'. Also yay for not much regeneration sickness! Makes a pleasant change from unconsciousness (10) or amnesia (8) or whatever 9doc got (I'm sure it was traumatic)!

OMG so I loved kid!Amy/Amelia way more than grown up Amy. She was so very, um, matter-of-fact about having a smoking police box crash-land in her back yard and then a soaking-wet man haul himself out of it and vomit up glowing energy (also grinned at the fact that the Tardis landing on its side meant that the Doctor had to use a grappling hook and rope to get himself out :P). What is her reaction? She invites him in and feeds him a series of different foods until he finds one he likes ("You're Scottish, fry something!" I also liked that she could cook quite competently, apparently; at least waaaay better than I could do at that age, it added to her pragmatic, somewhat mature quality), then has him fix the disturbing time-and-space crack in her bedroom wall. Of course, when he gets in the TARDIS and confidently tells her he'll be back for her in "five minutes" we all know what's coming >_< It made it even worse that they then showed her happily packing all her stuff and going back down to wait for him (fruitlessly, of course) in the garden :C

I actually want to re-write it now so she *does* end up going with him as a kid rather than twelve years later when he does finally show back up again. I was intrigued by the fact that apparently the Doctor had no qualms about taking someone so young as a Companion; he ended up not taking her as a kid because of TARDIS malfunction, not unwillingness to expose her to danger or anything like that. It would give the show a very interesting Roald Dahl/E. Nesbit vibe. In some ways a kid might have an easier time dealing with the wacky situations; of course, some of the situations the Doctor finds himself in are far from kid-friendly! It might be an odd juxtaposition of a kind of escapism/Neverland situation, but at the same time a situation that could force the kid to mature more quickly, in some ways, than she normally would. I also wonder if the Doctor would be more protective of a child companion, and it makes me think of the situations in which a kid could be uniquely useful...In short, I will be doing 'If kid!Amelia was there instead...' rundowns for the rest of the season.

Enough about that...the other interesting difference in atmosphere, for me anyway, was that Amy lives in a small town, unlike Rose, Martha, or Donna, and it's reflected in this episode. Everyone knows everyone and nobody locks their doors. It almost gave it a feel like the whole village/community were Companions or semi-Companions like Mickey or Wilf. All the more since thanks to Amelia having been quite vocal about her 'imaginary friend' as a child and even drawing cartoons of him, everyone in the village pretty much recognized the Doctor XD A lot more 'secondary' characters got involved in the plot because of this; Jeff and his laptop, for example. It may be kind of an answer to Amelia being seemingly an orphan- the family connection to Earth has been important for all the other New!Who companions, but this one doesn't really have that, so instead she has a whole village looking out for her.

BIG FAN SQUEE of course, at the end where he's showing the aliens the sequence of all the *other* aliens that have tried crap on Earth before, followed by shots of ALL 10 Doctors (Troughton! McGann!), and then Eleven steps through the hologram and declares himself. "Basically...run!"

"If kid!Amelia was there instead..." In this episode there are 2 ways this could work out; either she jumps into the TARDIS the first time when he tells her to wait, or he manages to come back relatively on-time (no more than a month or two late as opposed to 12 years). If it's the former case, they'd have to come back anyway to deal with the whole Prisoner 0 thing, and if they came back to 12 years later it would be a big issue. Amelia would have been missing for that whole time, presumed dead by now, and the alien would have been living either in her abandoned house or with the new tenant for that time. The whole 'village' connection wouldn't be there since Amelia wouldn't have been there building it up, meaning they'd have a harder time getting Jeff's laptop, Rory's phone, etc. and getting information from everyone. Also it would kind of 'un-fix' her in time; she'd be displaced 12 years and wouldn't really have a 'home' to go back to, unlike most of the other Companions.  If it's the latter case, basically the same plot would play out (since the Atraxis are going to arrive whenever the Doctor does) but with older tech used for the virus transmission, etc. and of course Rory & Jeff would still be kids about the same age as Amelia. Amelia could have a lot more "I *TOLD* you he was real!" instead of being pretty much resigned that nobody believes her/thinking she made it up like she is as an adult.  She'd still be pissed at him ("It's been two months! You said five minutes!") of course.

mood: awake music: Go Places - The New Pornographers tags: 11doc, doctor who, the eleventh hour

OMG, Hanna is Not a Boy's Name, you got sooooo much awesomer since I stopped reading ages ago about halfway through the first chapter!! WHAAAAT!!!  Not only is the art awesome, and the story is great, it is full of pretty boys to slash with one another! And the author makes it SO. EASY. ^___~

So I spent the last couple of days downloading FST (fan soundtracks ^___^), looking at Hanna/...{Zombie} fanart, and reading fic. Okay, so only one fic, really, and it's only a two-parter, but it was soooo good. And fluffy! And it had Hurt/Comfort and hit all my favorite kinks!! ^____^ Somehow vert_is_ninja has managed to tailor-make a slash pairing (well, kind of, to be fair they aren't canon) to my exact specifications that I didn't even know I had! Except, y'know, one of them is undead, but if I didn't let that bother me way back when I was reading Chocolatey Goodness I'm certainly not going to let it bother me now! ...Actually the Hanna/{...} pairing kind of reminds me of Xander/Spike, except without the whole 'one of them is kind of evil' vibe. Also {...} is a lot more stoic than Spike. If you're wondering why I'm referring to a character with a set of ellipses, GO! Read now!! And then go to Beatfu's gallery and look at the pretty fanarts!! But only after you have thoroughly read the comic and looked through vert_is_ninja's gallery a lot!!! Now I will stop using so many exclamation points!!! Perhaps!!!! ^____^

mood: bouncy music: Halloween- Dandelion Junk Queens tags: fangirling, gay boys, hinabn, zombie

Snakey love, that is! The Blood has been rejecting all comers lately, which could be good or bad, depending on if she 'took' with Stick or not. Bark has been gettin' his groove on with all the ladies, and I have a fresh one lined up for him after he sheds, a really pretty 'dinker' girl I got a couple of months ago. I have some suspicions about her, it'll be interesting to see what she produces (I'm predicting she will make EITHER a solid black or a solid white snake when paired with the correct male, we'll see what Bark throws with her). All this loving, however, means it will soon be time for me to lay out some dough, because:

a)I'm expecting anywhere from 2-4 clutches this year, which means
b)I'll be housing anywhere from 12-30+ baby snakes for at least a month before I can sell them, and since
c)All my racks are full, this means
d)I need a new snake rack.

I have a couple of options, I can either go with the least amount of effort, which would be buying a rack from Animal Plastics, or I can go with the least amount of money, which would be making my own. I'm not planning on doing either until I actually get some clutches on the ground, however. Once I have some idea of how many babies I'm likely to have, I'll know how big of a rack I'll need. I'd really rather buy the rack...it's more space-efficient and a lot easier than building my own, but we'll see. Oh, I need to call Jen about that table to see if she still wants it! I'm gonna need the space...

I have 4 fully morphed Green and black Auratus froglets, 3 of which are one month old. The other one just morphed a couple of days ago, and there are 3 more not far behind them. I have 13 tadpoles in cups right now (not counting those about to morph), I just pulled 3 tadpoles out of the tank; the parents responded by laying 4 more eggs. And yet, with all this activity, my imitator still have yet to make a single good egg. Grr.

Carlos gave me a baby vampire crab! It's so cute and small! Right now it's kind of gray-ish but the adults are crazy purple and orange ^__^ I can't wait for it to grow up! Maybe if I pester him he'll give me a couple more...

Other than that, I got a new pair of critters for a future breeding project...here's a hint: they're slow-moving, and Bri will adore them ^___~

mood: cheerful tags: ball pythons, frogs, snakes, vampire crab

No matter how much I scold it, the month seems to keep relentlessly moving forward when I need it to pause and give me about 2 weeks extra. Any tips? >.<

This afternoon off was not as lazy as I would have liked, tomorrow I work alllll day (10am-8pm theoretically, although really I have yet to get out of the dog place earlier than half an hour *after* I was supposed to leave), BUT Saturday I'm going to Houston for Jen's bridal shower! Yay! Six hours in the car where I can sit on my butt! Er, um, I mean, I get to see Jenny~!! I think I will feel better once I get Jen's present done, then I can simply fall over when I get home instead of knitting, or at least, knit something different (Anchors!).

Nothing much is up with the critters, I still have 3 boy baby balls to unload and a *ton* of auratus tadpoles, the oldest of which have sprouted their back legs, which at least gives me hope that they will be *frogs* sometime soon. That reminds me, I need to make more fruit fly cultures...

I've started looking at homes around Austin (within an hour's drive, anyway) with at least an acre of land and under $130,000. If it's just me I won't be able to buy a place for another 2 years or so, but Dad has said (jokingly or not) that if I find a good place they'll go in with me and we can move. Reptile Ranch, here I come! Admittedly, 1+ acres, or even 5+ acres, is not much for my eventual dreams, but I can always move again later, and even 1 acre with a separate snake/animal building would be an improvement right now. Wish me luck!

mood: tired tags: pets, stress, work