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Oh, Glee! I don't know what I loved most about this episode ( because there were so many moments and songs! )

Don't the previews for next week look adorable! But I'll be in LA and probably won't see it until I fly home the next day as we're going out with friends from college on Wednesday night. But even so, I am so, so, so glad to have GLEE back!

And not just because a full season run for GLEE means that Fox has cut back its order to Past Lives from 14ish episodes to SIX, which is fantastic because that show is truly one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life. I ranted about it a bit when I saw the pilot at comic con, and I wish it were better because the cast members were all lovely but ( spoilers for the pilot ) I'm sorry, after an hour of focus on the details of what happened, and her really tragic and nightmare-inducing murder, I am glad that the show is not going to make it beyond six episodes.

Sorry, I'm in month five of having occasional nightmares based on that episode so it makes me a bit ranty. If you have any Kids In Peril triggers, do not watch the show or even read summaries of the first episode. Spare yourself what I put myself through. And yes, I know I put this bit outside a cut tag, because I think it's important that people know before any of the PR for the show begins.

Hell, Fox, why are you even going to air those six episodes instead of more, oh I dunno, Dollhouse. Which, yes, has its issues but they don't involve murdered kids.

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This dude SLAYS me! Just typography and a couple of animation/illustrations he's created a very engaging intro for Chuck! (Aww, and he said my Chuck art inspired him to add artwork to the text! <3)

His fan vids are very well done and I'm sure I've pimped his work before but just in case...

NuTrek set to NIN 'The Whole World Went Away'

One of my favourite Heroes vids - Cells, a Sylar character study. Spoilers only for first season.

I think what I really dig about his work is how graphic his work is. Not, graphic as in seeing explicit sex or violence, but graphic as in graphic designer. Also, excellent song choices. =p

Cheat day this Saturday...
is planned. =x

1/2 coil of garlic ham sausage (ahaha srsly, I doubt I can eat all that)
BBQ Old Dutch potato chips
Brownies with chocolate butter cream icing (courtesy of C. who rawks brownies)
Dry garlic ribs

AHhaha HOW CAN THIS BE GOOD FOR ME? Oh, wait, it probably isn't. =p But it does fall within the rules so I'm going to be totally lazy and just do the above.

No matter if you like her music or her style you cannot deny Lady Gaga is an artist.

Her Bad Romance Video - I just finished watching this through and fuckmeeee, both the writer and the artist in me have been inspired.

Some of the imagery gave me chills because it could have come directly from my dreams. Check out the hairless cat with metal teeth! The latex with crown outfits! The polar bear fur vest/cape! (And my own dream of a vest/cape made of snakes.) That FABULOUS Alexander McQueen dress and shoes! So much I can hardly process it all, still.

The use of cutting edge fashion in her video (using other designs than her own Haus of Gaga) feels so much like a creative collaboration. It's like MacQueen made a texture and she used it for a key element in her digital painting. (To use illustration/digital art analogy.)

Behind the scenes on the video
Some media reviews.

I have to watch this video one more time before lunch is over. *shiver*

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Just quick before I dive back into work. Supper tonight was so delicious I have to share!

1/2 sweet onion (I used a Walla Walla)
1 pre-cooked chicken breast cut into bite-sized pieces
1 splash rice wine
1 tsp soy sauce
A good shake of pepper flakes
A half-inch length of lemon grass, sliced fine
1 tsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp low-fat peanut butter

Sautee the onions and chicken together with the lemon grass until the onions are transluscent and tender
Splash a bit of wine in and let it cook until the initial PSSSHHH has subsided
Add the soy sauce and pepper flakes and sautee for a minute
Add the hoisin, stir, and let saute for 30 seconds or so
Add the peanut butter and stir it around until it melts

Scoop it all out onto a plate and eat. OMNOMNOM! It's like, spicy peanut butter sweet onion chicken goodness! SO GOOD!

Hey dudes! I've been compiling a list of places I need to see when I go places. I'm looking for awesome restaurants, interesting places, your favourite places to shop locally, etc.

I'm slowly building up my travel tags on Delicious.com so if I want to go some place I can just click that travel tag and have a list of things I have to see/do.

For example: I have to visit this place next time I'm in LA.

Any recc's?!

I'm watching more television than ever.

1. Metalocalypse - OMGGggadlfkja;j It is emotionally impossible for me to love this show any more than I already do. Unf.

2. Heroes - OMMMggggg ahhahahaha! I honestly still like this show. Somewhere along the way, during the epic marathon of watching, my inner cynic (who hated this show the first time around) had an epiphany and realized Heroes isn't all srs bzns, it's a cracky comic book soap opera! AND THEREFORE operating under a different set of rules than most television shows. I'm just going along for the ride, picking out the bits I like, and relying on fandom to elevate the show from what it is to something I can love.

That being said, I am halfway through writing something for a Heroes kink meme. XD Watch me fail to bring the sexy! Well, actually you won't see me fail because I'm posting this smut anonymously. =p

3. Dexter - This show just keeps bringing it. Sometimes I have to pause because the tension is TOO MUCH, DAMMMIT! The character is progressing, new challenges face him every season, and I'm often saying, "Oh NO!" when I watch.

4. Big Bang Theory - I'm still watching it but it's still and odd duck for me. I know it's a sitcom but it feels like it should be something else? I dunno. I don't really care about Leonard but I love the other characters.

5. Supernatural - Such mixed feelings. I do still love it but it also seems a bit... off this season. Like, maybe they're catering to the fans too much? Or maybe there isn't enough of a simple focus? (Find dad. Get the colt. Keep Dean out of Hell. yadda) The boys are spinning their wheels because what the hell can you do when you're up against the end of the World?

6. Project Runway - Most. Boring. Season. Ever. I'm only watching for the clothes and even THOSE are ho hum. I so don't even care who wins. Ugh. Also, the hands of the producers is very heavy this season. And we need consistent judges, dammit! I am hoping next season (back in NYC and with Michael and Nina judging) will be back to fabulous.

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OMG! Jensen Ackles finally proposed to his girlfriend!

*hangs out on SPN comms for the shitstorm*

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I was an 18 year old sophomore at Penn, sitting and watching NBC in my dorm room in High Rise South when the Wall came down. My dad called me that night and asked if I wanted to meet him in New York to fly to Berlin - neither of us had ever been, and we'd been able to only three months before when we were about to take a cruise from Hamburg to various Scandinavian ports, Gdansk and Leningrad. We hadn't done the drive that day, though, because my mom was concerned that we something would delay us and we wouldn't get back to Hamburg in time to make embarkation.

Maybe we'll go next year, she said. So we boarded the boat and in Leningrad I bought a pin that said (in Russian) "What have you done for the Perestroika?" I still have it somewhere, in some random box of college memorabilia.

But that November night, years before one could just hop onto the internet and see if any flights had seats, we had to call our travel agent, or try to get through to Pan Am, and all circuits were busy when we tried to call the airline. And then we realized that my passport was set to expire in nine weeks, and that could be a problem for getting last minute visa, even in this incredibly tumultuous time.

So we didn't go, and I watched history being made on my 13 inch tv screen.

Is there any random relevance, in this retroactive moment, to the fact that "We Didn't Start the Fire" had come out only a few weeks before?

I finally made it to Berlin for three days in July of 1992. We walked from the KaDeWe to Checkpoint Charlie - how many miles is that? Then we wandered around on the East German side for a while, visited a synagogue that was under renovation to repair the damage that had been neglected since the Holocaust, and walked by where there were still huge chunks of the Berlin Wall. Tourists could chip pieces off the slabs, and I still have the pebbles that I knocked off the Berlin Wall - I keep them in the plastic pouch in the Filofax I carried around that summer, in a drawer in my room.

And nine months later, Jesus Jones released Right Here, Right Now, and it encapsulated the enormity of the way it felt to watch everything that happened in those years.

Special thanks and hugs today to all my friends from Germany, who're sharing their memories and stories.

Happy Birthday boredgods!

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And instead of doing a separate post today, I'm just going to edit this to mention the extreme windiness caused by there being a hurricane developing a few hundred miles away, and to wibble about the gap in one of our bedroom windows and to gripe about how bad people in Hollywood can be about responding to emails when *they* are the ones who made the relevant commitment in the *first* place.

Also, in the continuing list of Broken Appliances in our house?

Garbage disposal. Sigh.

Not sure I am going to sign up for j2_everafter but if someone who's doing a fic based on one of the musicals wants a vid, let me know.

Also, hurrah for Danneel and Jensen - but in all the squee-citement, I fear I will never get an answer as to who designed the amazing dress she wore yesterday. WOE!

Dear Yule Goat,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing a story for me! If there's a story you've always wanted to write in any of my fandoms, go for it-- anything you are excited to write, I will be overjoyed to read.

( But if you want prompts, let me natter about the specific ways I love my fandoms! )