Somehow, I was struck by this plaintive little story in the local paper:
Mason City officials say one person was injured in a fire that apparently started when a shoe placed next to a heat lamp in the top of a fish aquarium overheated.
The fire happened Sunday afternoon at a mobile home. Officials say the fire was contained to the aquarium that was a housing a lizard.
Fire Capt. Richard Paulson says one person was injured and taken to a Mason City hospital. The person’s name was not immediately released.
Paulson says the lizard died in the fire.
Poor lizard. And I can just imagine the kind of living space where a shoe is likely to wind up on top of an aquarium.
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I can't stop laughing about this, although the fact that this guy is an elected official should give me pause.
In the opinion of Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the "Peanuts" television Christmas special.
Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page, where he declared Obama to be a Muslim. Only people on Wiseman's "friend's list" had access to the post. ( Unsurprisingly, the mayor also doesn't get the Friends List concept )
I'll be over here, listening to Joe Cool's Blues, one of my favorite albums. Wynton Marsalis' dad Ellis wrote some of the music for the Peanuts specials, and Wynton and his brothers join their dad and other artists to record these favorites. Now, that's family values transformed into art.
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![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ozma914 |
| 2009-12-04 04:45 |
| Ozma's presence will be sparse for awhile. |
| Public |
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For a variety of reasons, I won't be around much for -- oh, probably the next month or so. All seven of my regular readers are aware that this isn't uncommon, and it just means RL will be overwhelming for awhile -- all I ask is that, since I'll try unsuccessfully to keep up on my friends lists, please hit me with an e-mail if there's something I need to know. Very rarely do I go a day without checking e-mail!
One of those days will be next Wednesday, when I'm heading down to Missouri to pick up Emily; she'll be spending Christmas break with me, and a weak later Jillian will be here for her winter break. Yay! However, my mind is completely blanking on what to get them or anyone for Christmas, which I hear is coming in a month or so.
On a much more down note, Jillian's actually here right now, thanks to getting sick at school; the doctor thinks she has H1N1, and since she has asthma, the flu's a bit more serious for her than for most people. Still, she seems to be doing okay, and plans to put up Christmas decorations here with her boyfriend (!) this weekend.
My knee, sadly, is not doing better, but I think the swelling and stiffness is due in part to the cold, wet weather we've been having. None of me does better in those conditions. Frankly, that's been overshadowed by the fact that I'm scheduled to see a urologist mid-month due to high PSA readings; what Public Service Announcements have to do with prostate problems, I have no idea. ;-)
I'm approaching the time when I should be hearing back from the two novel publishers I submitted to earlier in the year. Considering all of the above, you have to wonder if high PSA readers are caused by stress.
So, yeah -- kinda busy. Please don't defriend me! In the immortal words of Ahnold, I'll be back.
Meanwhile, a fun link to 20 outrageous Sue Sylvester Quotes, from the TV show "Glee":
http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20323853,00.html
The most recent episode was a killer! Not one, but two smack-downs, one of them a long time coming.
On a more "huh?" note -- GoogleGate?
http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/google-gate/
If not before, I'll be here with my next column!
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Been looking for a place to post your fanfic? Got an idea for a story you want to see written? Know of that one fic that just begs you to tell about it to others?
Then look no further: ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) multi_fictionHere is a place for all your fanfiction needs. We offer fanfic, challenges, and recs in every fandom you can post about. Come share the fanfiction with us, whether it be yours, ours, or rec some complete strangers. There are very few rules, but all are there for your benefit. We have a friendly atmosphere with a welcoming friends list. Give us a try.
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I've been so scarce on LJ for so long, I think I'm making more of this posting thing than it deserves. So I will just babble.
I had the best Thanksgiving in a long time. My father died over a decade ago on Thanksgiving, very suddenly, and that cast a pall over the holiday for years. But I've reached the point in mourning where you welcome the reminders of the person you've lost. And memories of my dad were nicely bookended by the opportunity to see my kids, both of whom came home from college. M:TNG-1 was ill, but at least I was reassured she was getting a bit of rest, and emails indicate she's feeling better now. M:TNG-2 brought a delightful friend, or, rather, ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) jwaneeta brought them both and the cranberry sauce.
Mr. M slaved over the stove Wednesday night and all day Thursday, producing turkey with all the trimmings, including absolutely amazing fig stuffing. We set up and trimmed the Christmas tree, wandered around Iowa City, and jwaneeta dragged me out to the movies. We saw "2012,: which is the funniest film I've seen in ages, with the added bonus of pretty images of the Earth being destroyed.
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| asylum_promo (posted by mugetsu) |
| 2009-12-04 03:19 |
| Octopon, Gotham Gazette, Commedia, Vagrant Story |
| Public |
 hopeful |
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octopon - Pirates of DarkWater fandom asylum.
gotham_gazette - Batman fandom asylum for all batfans.
vagrant_story - Vagrant Story fandom asylum. Pending/WIP.
Please keep in mind that I will be retiring Vagrant Story and Gotham Gazette if no further interest is shown.And, Please feel free to join commedia; a personal project of mine, aiming to review and analyze comics (and other selected media) that feature DC Comics' The Joker. It is currently a WIP because I am still going through my 500+ hardcopy!issues collection. I do not download torrents/scans. Two important polls need to be voted on, as seen here explaining two routes the asylum's project can take. IE: spoiler free reviews, spoilerific reviews, etc. This asylum will continue to be WIP until further interest is shown. I am also open to affiliating with other comic book and/or Batman related asylums, except for RPGs.
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And now for the 'Potioneers' part of this morning's nightmare.
The Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers:
From the beginning.
Picking up from where I left off.
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Okay, so you remember that I had that prompt table with 25 drabble prompts (or more likely you haven't a clue what I'm talking about). The idea was that I post one entry with the table with a gap for every drabble, then just fill in the blanks and give people a link to that entry when I updated. Well, I got a batch of Potioneers drabbles and a one-off back from my beta this morning and decided to update the table, also including a few that have been lurking on my hard drive for a while because I wanted to at least wait until December before I started posting any of the holiday stuff. I change the entry that the links go to, preview it and everything seems fine. Then, I do all the code for the post linking to it. Then I think to myself, 'I have saved those changes to the table entry, right? I didn't just preview them.' At this point, I tell LJ to save the changes, and even though the preview worked just fine, it refuses, saying the entry is too big. There then follows the best part of an hour of me trying to work out by trial and error just how much I need to cut from the post to get it to fit since it doesn't say how far over the limit I've gone...
As it turns out, the answer is that I have to 'cut' everything except Potioneers, so the other drabbles are here in a separate post, and that's why it looks like I'm spamming my FL.
( Christmas Karma: SS/HG, Prompt: Malfoy )
( The Sound of Silence: SS/HG, Prompt: Silence )
( Cracked: SS/HG, Prompt: Potter )
( Under Night's Canopy: SS/HG, Prompt: Canopy, Warnings: Nudity, Implied lewd behaviour )
And just in case anyone with an eidetic memory is wondering, I did try to be good and stick to writing the prompts in the order they came up, with the obvious exception, but my first attempt for the prompt 'Fleur' was so poor, I wouldn't let anyone other than my betae see it, and they're far too nice to copy it and show anyone.
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Warning: VERY frightening zombie Santa photos from last year within. You've been warned -- this might put you off the Jolly Old Elf forever.
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
( So I blew up Santa Claus. Boy, I’ll bet that sentence put me up on some kind of terrorism watch list. )
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| irishrose1 |
| 2009-11-30 21:12 |
| Holiday Cards! |
| Public |
 busy |
Yes, this means you!
If you would like a holiday card, the please comment here with your address.
If you have moved since last year, please comment here with your address.
If you celebrate a holiday other than Christmas, please comment here with your address. (and your holiday!)
If you hate my guts and wish I would die, please comment here with your address. *eg*
All comments are screened, by the way, so don't be shy!
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People do not teach their children boundaries these days. For example, by the time I seven or eight I knew not to go crawl up in the bushes in front my neighbor's house, peek into the window, and make scratching noises and hiss at the cat in the window. The little shits in my neighborhood, however, can't seem to grasp the concept that doing that is wrong. I'd go out there and give the little bastards a piece of my mind if I wasn't sick and in my pj's.
I guess I shouldn't have expected manners from the brats considering how, a year or so ago, they thought it would be fun to randomly open the front door and let the cats outside. It was unlocked because it was daylight and my dad and I were both home. That, of course, does not happen anymore; the front door is locked and/or barred at all times now. As it should be, honestly.
Maybe it's because the kids on the cul-de-sac I live in are mostly boys. (There are a few girls and I haven't had any problems with them.) I don't know. I do know that if it happens again, I'm going to scare the crap out of 'em. And if their parents say anything to me, well, I'll just tell them they should teach their kids not to peep into other people's windows.
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| irishrose1 |
| 2009-11-26 22:23 |
| Can I be Scrooge now? |
| Public |
 bitchy |
We had a pretty decent day filled with a relaxing time, a little baking, and just hanging around.
That was before we went to the family thing.
Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I just don't particularly like them. Oh, they're ok most of the time. But through various ways that might be considered dubious, a couple of them live in large, expensive, houses that are furnished with things that could probably pay for my house a few times over. Just the place you want to take your two year old, yeah? So, rather than actually getting to talk to anyone or try to be civil and family like, we spend all of our time watching Liam like a hauk to make sure he doesn't bump, break, or otherwise harm anything. So lots of tension and can't really respond to anyone because we are constantly redirecting Liam. Sure there are toys, but there are lots of things, expensive things, that he's not seen before and look really cool and enticing to a 2 year old.
And it didn't help any that they told us about 10 times to be sure and be there BY 5. It started right AT 5. Don't be late, because we will start without you, etc., etc., etc. So we show up at 4:40 figuring that would be good and Liam wouldn't have to wait too long before the meal started. But, about 5pm they announced it would be at least another hour. Great. Liam's hungry and we're in this huge expensive house.
Well, guess what? We failed. About 10 minutes before dinner's ready he saw it. The nice big crystal elephant, and he got to it just before Mr IR did. Just as he grabs it, Mr IR very sternly says "no!" and of course 2 year old Liam knows that means to get your hands off...so he drops it like a hot potato. *facepalm*
Nice big crystal elephant is now missing an ear and part of a tusk. Which lead to the 80 year old ass that is my uncle grabbing Liam by the arm and yelling at him to keep his hands off everything. (Which very nearly lead to me shouting at him to get his hand off my son and leaving.) Of course we apologize to my aunt and tell her we'll replace it. But I can't find anything close that doesn't cost a few hundred dollars. I'm about ready to throw my hands up and say too bad.
Is it worth it? All the tension? The total lack of anything resembling family fun and joy of being together? It seems like the older I get, the less I like them.
Ah well, enough bitching. The rest of my day was good. No work tomorrow. It'll be a good day.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
(To those of you who celebrate it, that is.)
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Credits and notes as for Part I, except that, since OWL and the House Cup are keeping Annie so busy, the final beta passes on this and subsequent chapters are by geyer.
( An Angel's Touch )
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sleepy
blah
stressed
annoyed
hungry
stuffed