So, the search for a cellphone continues. I finally FINALLY found a Verizon store that wasn't closed by the time I got off work, but the afternoon experiences were varied. First Verizon store was so busy that I couldn't talk to anyone. The second Verizon store, the girl wasn't very informative (I wanted to know about the pre-paid, which she had no clue on) and she had little to no stock so I could see what phones they offered.

Went over to the Sprint store and the girl there was very informative and nice and I got to play with the different phones I was looking at. I'm going back tomorrow morning to talk to the owner and get a little more information, but since it's the cheapest option, I wouldn't have to switch companies, apparently it's free roaming (which was the number one issue I was dealing with and why I was considering switching if I had to continue to pay Sprint for roaming), and they have better phones...I think I'm staying with Sprint (90% sure).

And besides, Sprint has the phone I want ;) I need one with a slide out Qwerty keyboard because a) I need a keyboard if I'm going to start texting and b) I don't want something with a hinge since that's what has been the breakable issue on my current phone. And...I want a red phone. I really, really want a red phone. Meet the Samsung Rant. The reviews for the phone are awesome, it's a slide-out keyboard, and it's red. I think that pretty much decides that ;) And once I get the unlimited texting set up on my new phone, I'll welcome any and all texts you all wanna send so I can try it out! Or I could just let Hewlett and Misha be my guinea pigs since they're bound to send out an abundance of Tweets in a week.

In other news, I was sad to see that Walter Cronkite has passed away. He will be greatly missed. I always enjoyed his reports. It's just been one after another lately, hasn't it? The world has lost alot of great people this year :(

Okay, I need people to weigh in on cellphones. I've been off-contract for Sprint for 4 years now, so I could virtually go anywhere. Coverage for AT&T as well as T-Mobile is spotty to none in the areas I need, so it's either stay with Sprint or go to Verizon.

Sprint: Had it since I got my cellphone service, 450 minutes plus unlimited text is $49.99

Verizon: Coverage better than Sprint, but the same 450 min/unlimited text plan is $59.99

So...anyone have an opinion? Help me! :D

While you're pondering that, have some Cracked links--

Cracked on Fanfiction: The main writers and readers of all kinds of fanfiction are women, but they particularly dominate this genre. This might be due to the need of many women to experience emotional as well as visual stimuli to enjoy sex. Fanfic comes with emotional bonds to the characters already built-in: they've been formed during the fan's experience of the book/show/music/whatever. This saves the female reader all the time she would have wasted in a romance novel, building up a 200-page bond with the characters in order to finally get to the sex. Instead, having already invested the time to read Harry Potter, she can immediately dive into some hot Lupin/Snape action. Which isn’t to say men don’t write fanfiction, it just tends to all be all about them boning a female character with the addition of “Oh yeah and we were on a spaceship or something.”



Cracked on Supernatural: The show's creator is Eric Kripke, who wrote the screenplay for the 2005 movie Boogeyman. He was offered creative control of a TV show in exchange for a promise to never, ever write a movie again. For some reason, possibly involving blackmail, a sizeable number of producers and directors from the X Files then joined on to the show. A lot of X-Files acting alumni also pop up on screen, where the viewer can occasionally see them wandering around dazed, wondering what happened to their careers. What Supernatural lacks in writing and budget, though, is almost made up for by the fact that unlike in the X Files, the audience doesn’t have to worry about the creators getting bored and making the two leads fall in love and have a baby. Well, not unless they’re really desperate for ratings.

I'll tell you right now, this is not going to be as detailed as the report from last year (the one that took me 6 hours to write, yeah;) But it will be detailed with some special highlights! Thanks to nakedwesley for the pics (because her camera is awesome).

Thursday I arrived at the airport last in our group (we spread out so kimberweeme got there at 12:15PM, Lesley at 12:30PM, and I at 12:45PM. Jerilyn decided to pick us up, so we waited until 2PM for that and it was off to the hotel! nakedwesley had gotten there by that time, too, so it was the start of fun times. As per usual, our pre-con Outback celebration took place at 6:30PM with Adrian, April, and Regina joining us. FUN TIMES! Meat and porn, the start of a fun weekend :P It was a traumatic end, though, since I had set the download to get Torchwood and it only got the first 30 mins, so Kath had to download the ep on her laptop and get it to us. We watched at midnight, with headphones on since the other roommates were asleep. There was crying and denial and crying. Curse you Torchwood!

( First Day of Con! )

( Flanigan, the butt of the joke. )

( Spot the actor...there they are! )

My flight headed out at 2:30PM and I got home at 5PM. The flight attendant, getting off the flight, was perplexed by my Chatting Squirrel ADB shirt, but didn't ask ;) No mouse caught, but I did catch up on Harper's Island (I knew it!) and True Blood (sigh), and Weeds (double sigh). I need to still watch Eureka. A great con was had by all! \o/

• Home from Shoreleave after touching down at 3:45PM


• Exhausted still since I was unable to sleep for real on the short flight


• Not unpacked...well, except for my new John Sheppard action figure since I don't want him to get crushed


• Planning on going through my wonderful buys very soon, if nothing else to just bask in the pretty :P


• Missing my friends already because it's no fun to do "mock the bad fanfic" alone


• Still in search of a chocolate milkshake, the same shake I've been on the lookout for since Friday


• Supposed to be getting a special autographed picture done for me at the next SPN Creation Con, since I talked to the dealer who is going to arrange it at Shoreleave, and a certain special autographed picture done for me at DragonCon because I'm not going to that one


• Trying to look at new cell phones since I broke mine at con (hey, 6-7 years with the same phone, it's time for a new one anyway)


• Not writing a con report until at least tomorrow since my pics, vids, and notes are across two laptops


• Going to catch up on Harper's Island, Eureka, True Blood, and...I'm sure there was something else, but I haven't turned on the TiVo yet

So, yes, I'm now going back out and find a milkshake and coming back to watch TV as long as I can stay awake. Early night, sleep!

Christopher Heyerdahl: He is charming and funny and entertaining and funny and brilliant and FUNNY! :D His first talk was tonight and there were lots of questions about Sanctuary and Supernatural and, of course, SGA. Even I got to ask my question (about him getting back into character for Halling after not playing him for so long). I know Chris hasn't done alot of cons so far, but he's a natural. Also, it remains true that nobody can talk about Joe Flanigan without doing the voice ;)

Robert Picardo and Ethan Phillips: They did their House Calls skit and they are HILARIOUS! Also, they kept cracking each other up ;) I kept laughing start to finish. I'm interested to see how they do for their talk (because I'm sure it'll be just as entertaining).

Tomorrow morning is my picture with Chris, Rachel, and Jason. Chris is VERY tall and so is Jason. Rachel's a bit taller than me. I'm going to be a short person in the land of giants ;)

Also, Kimberly and I just finished watching the finale of Torchwood. ::sigh:: Let's focus on the happy! Chris! Bob! Rachel! Ethan! Jason! FUN TIMES! I bought so much stuff today. The SGA Season 3 and 4 guides, the SPN Season 1, 2, 3, and 4 guides, the unauthorized SPN essay book, a ton of Lorraine's art, 2 pictures to get signed, and...I can't remember if that's all, but that was a good day's work for con ;) It might be everything I'm buying for the entire time, but we shall see. CON! \o/

There is a mouse in my house! I mean, it's probably been in the attic for a long time now (since I've been hearing scratching/gnawing noises off and on sometimes), but tonight was the first time I actually saw it live and in person :/ I was trying to watch Torchwood and Bella was in the floor playing with what I thought was one of her toys. Um, no, that toy moves! So I scrambled up and followed her following the mouse, yelling at her to get it. Well, she got it multiple times, but it's no fun when the mouse doesn't play back, so she kept putting it back down to watch it run and then run after it. She finally lost it when it went under the stove. There's a mouse in my house! Tomorrow after work I'll head over to Wal-Mart and get a trap and try to figure out which closet I can put it in so Bella can't access it while I'm away. MOUSE IN MY HOUSE!

Yes, I watched Torchwood finally, but I have no coherent thoughts on it because I'm too pre-occupied with the mouse in my house. Oh, and I cannot find my headphones either. Great thing to find out a day or two before I'm supposed to be on the plane, eh? I think everything else is packed and ready. Got two SGA novels, two MPREG novels (no, really, mainstream MPREG novels), and my PDA is ready to be loaded up tomorrow night with the current information. Shoreleave is coming soon!

Let's start off with Torchwood--Children of the Earth: Day One...( We are coming )

Tomorrow, tomorrow, gotta wait until tomorrow! Fantastic return of Torchwood :D

In other news, my javascript actually works the way it's supposed to for date/holiday calculation (I checked over the holiday weekend) and today I coded up the image change based on date calculation, which seems to work, so we shall see. I love it when my coding works! \o/

All other thoughts have gone straight out of my head in favor of Torchwood. Jack's back :D

Mmm, Sundays. Doing nothing and wearing pajamas all day. That's the life! I did half-watch two movies so I could clear them off the computer, but neither were worth mentioning. I synced up the con laptop with the downloads from my work laptop, so now it's ready for con. I do, however, need to clear off more stuff from the con laptop because it's close to being dangerously full. I've got a ton of vids in the "to watch" folder, which is what's tying up most of the memory, so I got through all the multi-fandom vids today. One folder down, nine to go :/

However! As I was going through those vids and deciding which to save, which to delete, I found an amazing SPN/Dark Angel crossover vid called Manmade Monsters that's a story-vid. I went into it knowing nothing about the story or anything and I was enthralled. It made me go seek out the "What Comes Around" verse so I'll be reading that either later tonight or tomorrow. The twist at the end of the vid and what that opens up for the universe (which I guess is fully explored, going by the story summaries), it's a wonderful possibility. Dean and Ben and Alec and Sam having to deal with all of this...oh yes!

And while I was revamping my con laptop, I changed the background to the SGA/SPN fusion art piece that I...still have no idea who drew it. (It's John and Rodney sitting in front of the Impala, John in his panda shirt and Rodney holding a stake...anyone?--ETA: elayna88 helped me out!) I think it was done as an illustration to the SGA/SPN fusion "A Year in the Life", maybe? And that, of course, inspired me to go re-read my absolute favorite SGA/SPN fusion "Leaving All My Yesterdays", which I initially read back in 2007 way way before I watched SPN :) I still adore it just as much. Jeannie and Rodney McKay Love!

I have completed the Couch to 5K Running Program!

Nine weeks, 30 minutes of non-stop running, and I did it! YAY! \o/ And in case anyone else wants to give it a try, and because I'm nice like that, I gathered together all the information in one zip file for you (alternatively, you can download the files yourself). It's got the printable program so you know what each day's expectations are, along with three complete podcast programs (so you can choose between techno with no prompts, pop music with some prompts, and techno music with multiple prompts). I personally did Robert's (the techno with lots of prompts) until I got to the continuous running weeks and then switched over to Suz's (pop music with some prompts) because the music is better :P

That was the accomplishment of the night, but during the day there was other accomplishments (maybe?) Washed all my dishes, attempted to make half a batch of cookies...but that didn't work out too well, so the deers and crows got to eat those. Also, I packed my clothes for Shoreleave. Tomorrow I'll copy over a few files from the work computer to the con laptop and I'll be good to go. Woo! Shoreleave, here I come!

Oh, and I just saw pictures of the lovely David Hewlett from his gig as Grand Marshall at today's 4th of July parade. Can I just say, Baz is getting SO BIG and he's definitely got the blond Hewlett hair. Oh, and David was awesome and pretty, too ;) Of course he was!

Found out my savings account interest rate went down a tenth of a percent yesterday when they re-vamped the banking rates across the industry :/ I mean, it's not a HUGE loss, but still...new rates won't go into effect again until November I think, so that's less interest for four months. Boo. Still, it's more than I'd be getting at any other bank, so not a big complaint there.

And now...as the far away echoes of fireworks ring outside my window, it's time for a nice relaxing shower and possibly more J2 fics (there's alot of them...I'll never catch up). Three-day-weekends are the best!

I just woke up from a five hour nap. I...don't exactly know WHY I slept for five hours, but apparently doing nothing all day is a bit tiring. And, really, I didn't do anything exhausting today to warrant the need for that long of a nap. Went to the post office early this morning to send off all my book requests, ordered Papa John's online because I found a great discount code (yay!), washed all my clothes so I can start packing tomorrow for Shoreleave, watched Season One of Big Bang Theory, read some J2 Big Bang fics, and laid in the hammock outside while I read some of my library book (it was a beautiful day!) So, yes, after all that I laid down on the couch at 4:30PM for a quick nap and quick turned into five hours. Go figure!

I'm really hoping my TiVo works correctly while I'm gone to con next weekend because I just realized earlier this week that Eureka is back next weekend AND the two hour finale of Harper's Island is airing. Important viewing here! And please, please...anyone who's watching Harper's Island, don't put any spoilers for the finale outside the cut once you've seen it because I won't get to watch until at least Tuesday. 13 weeks of commitment, I want whatever twists they still have in place to be a surprise (not like many of their twists lately haven't been overly obvious, but still).

Well, guess I'll go take a shower and return to sleep. Is 13 hours of sleep good for you? We shall soon find out!

Tomorrow is the last work day of the week \o/ Yay holiday weekend! And it's a shorter day since I only have to work 6 hours. Woo! I guess I'll be doing some more CSS coding all day, which has been what I've been doing the past two weeks.

When I got home, I found out Mollie Sugden had passed away. :( She will forever be Mrs. Slocombe to me. John Inman, Wendy Richard, and now Mollie Sugden. Frank Thornton's still going strong, as is Nicholas Smith and Trevor Bannister, but they're the only ones who remain from the original cast :/

I can't believe it's already July! Time is just speeding on by. And I'll be at Shoreleave in one week! What in the world?! It's gonna be fall next time I turn around. Let's hope that the three day weekend doesn't go by too fast. Downtime is much appreciated.

So...did everyone hear about the latest Sci-Fi news? They're relaunching a new take on Alien Nation, which goes along with the relaunch of V (and Joe Flanigan might be involved!). I guess when they run out of new ideas they just reach back into the shows that shaped my childhood :P

Tonight was David Hewlett's episode of The Closer. Umm...well...it's a job ;) I look forward to more well-developed Hewlett characters in the future. May they do more than make adorable Hewlett frowny faces :P

Yesterday was spent napping off and on all day, along with catching what television or movies I could. True Blood was good, as always. I'm hoping to catch some of the new HBO shows whenever they become available, too.

The SPN mini-con gathering has finally been scheduled for August 15th. I've heard back from about half the SGA people for the September gathering (I'll give it a few more days and then officially pick a date). The SH gathering...well, I've not heard back from any of those participants, so we shall see if it gets scheduled.

Do you realize that there are only 10 days before Shoreleave?! How did that happen? Time is just flying by! This week's a four day week, with 4th of July, and then next week is Shoreleave! OMG!

And the best download of the week goes to Fanfiction Downloader since I can now download all the parts of Fanfic.net stories into one document without the copying and pasting hassle. I'm not saying the quality of fic on that site is fantastic, but at least now when I see a rec for a longer story on there I can give it a try rather than saying "Fanfic.net? I don't think so."

Flamingo left me at around noon today. Sad to see her go, but we had such a wonderful time while she was here. I taught her some LJ stuff and about CSS and PHP and templates. I think I'm going to help out with coding the new archive, which is exciting and good practice for me. We also watched Paul's Numbers ep (well, I re-watched it, but she saw it for the first time) and we watched a TNT close-up for SH off Kassidy's site and...what else? Oh, so much. Talked about fandom and the boys and saw Star Trek (again) and had good food and just a wonderful, wonderful time.

Today was spent trying to catch up on some lost sleep. I went to bed at 3AM last night and was up at 7AM, so the mid-afternoon nap helped a little. I still need to head to bed early tonight and sleep some more, though. Hopefully I can get the new Harper's Island episode before bedtime, though. My TiVo decided not to record it, which I figured out when it was halfway through, so I'm hoping the download link holds out and I can grab the entire episode ::crosses fingers::

I sent out emails to everyone who expressed an interest in the NC mini fan gatherings for SGA, SPN, and SH. If you mentioned you were interested and did not receive an email, let me know. I'm spreading it out so that SPN is August, SGA is September, and SH is October. This will be a fun fall :D

And week 8 of Couch to 5K is done! \o/ I only have 3 more days (1 more week) in the program :-o This is exciting!

Wow, two beloved entertainers gone in the same day :( Though I'm very sad that Farrah Fawcett lost her battle with cancer, she is finally no longer in pain and that's a blessing. The loss of Michael Jackson was totally unexpected, though. We have lost two great people today.

So as to not make this post completely sad, let's focus on some happier news. Flamingo is here! \o/ Well, right now she's asleep and I...am not. But tomorrow will be more fun and we're going to see Star Trek (again). And I'm sure there will be plenty more fandom discussion, as we've had fun doing so today. And I can certify that Mama Dip's is Mamabird approved ;)

I spent yesterday half-worrying that the bank had somehow misfiled my deposit since it was not yet entered :/ On Friday, I opened a CD and had the bank guy handle my deposit at the same time (half to CD, half to checking). CD went through early Monday morning...deposit didn't process until around 3AM this morning. That's WAY TOO LONG for a deposit I made on Friday. But yay, my money is not lost and I can see it in my account, so all is well.

Finally got to see the latest True Blood episode tonight. Trying to catch up on Weeds (since I'm behind for the new season). And Tori and Dean is currently recording on the TiVo, so I might go ahead and watch that tonight ;) Speaking of which, I had to return Mommywood today even though I was only 40 pages in, which means I put in another hold request and have to wait for the 4 people in front of me before I can get it again. And I still need to finish Jim Beaver's book since that's due in a week and I've already renewed it once. So many books, so little time!

Read the J2 Big Bang story The Untold Love Story of Inanimate Objects today and...I'm still processing it. The subject matter, I'll be honest, is a messed up situation :( I do usually enjoy non-AU J2 fics more than total AU ones, but this is a scary potential future that...yeah, it's a messed up situation.

And in other, happier, news...Flamingo is supposed to be here Thursday night and spend part of Friday with me (since I took off work) before she has to drive back home. Woo! Fandom time! A good precursor to Shoreleave, which is coming up really, really soon.

Today was filled with good food (Outback), good shopping (Sunbeam outlet!), and good times with the parents :) And I just finished watching Marley and Me :( I knew what was going to happen going in, but it still brought me to tears. Such a good movie!

Bella got a new cat bed today. She's currently snoring in it, so I take that to mean she approves :P The sides of it aren't as high up as the old one, so hopefully this will help so that she doesn't have to contort her neck as much (since she likes propping herself up on the side for some reason).

And I got a signed, framed print of Martin Roberts' "End of the Alley" for 75% off...a wonderful, wonderful deal. It's currently hanging in my living room, which should complete my artwork collection downstairs I think.

My parents are leaving tomorrow morning. It's been a nice weekend and now I must begin another work week. Time has passed too quickly, as always :)

We've been running here and there any everywhere today. First to Wal-Mart (again), then to the mall so I could get my free $10 gift card and Momma could buy random things, and we swung by one of the thrift stores. Oh, and then to Cracker Barrel so Daddy could get some stick candy and another thrift store. Got home at around 5PM so I could start the bread machine so I could make bread, spaghetti, and corn on the cob for supper. Between 5PM and mealtime I did my scheduled run (Week 7 is done! \o/)

And after supper I watched Harper's Island...( Oh wow ) So, yes, I'm still very much interested in the show.

Tomorrow, more running (and running around) and Outback. Now, it's sleepytime ;)

Today at work I wanted to bang my head against the wall on multiple occasions. And then I got home and my parents are here...which has been going great until about 15 minutes ago when my mother started in on me. Yay? But I'm going to try and concentrate on making the weekend a happy one, hopefully.

I got excited when we were at Wal-Mart tonight because they have SPN Season 1 and 3 on sale for $19.99 apiece, but with tax I think it's a little bit more than Amazon. But...it's RIGHT THERE. Hmm...must ponder this some more. I'm sure we'll return to the store before the weekend is over.

A MeandThee discussion yesterday got into the Harry/Johnny zines (Magnum Force), which is always a good thing for me. And I got a chance to finally figure out where in the series the first SH crossover zine is placed (my original list didn't mention where it lay chronologically). When I first found out about the Harry/Johnny zines, I was told point-blank that they were pretty much porn. I own all of them and...yeah, they're pretty much porn. Surprise! :D

Someone on SPN storyfinders was looking for a specific J2 recs list, which has now been linked. It's separated by genres. This may prove beneficial for my future reading searches ;)

And that's all I can think of at the moment. Tomorrow is Friday \o/ Weekend is upon us. Let the relaxing commence.

Happy Kick!

Okay, I honestly just named it that so I could rhyme the other two :P But it's a happy day when I come home and have homemade peanut butter cups and I can hear the crickets chirping outside. It's much cooler than usual, but that will soon change because by the weekend we're supposed to be up to 100. Yay? But my parents are supposed to come up, which means I'm hoping to take them to Outback for a combined Mother's/Father's Day on Sunday...and also because I get a $10 gift certificate if I do. Hey, I give, I give!

Happy Fic!

I came home and discovered that memphis86, as part of this year's J2 Big Bang, posted a sequel to The Seahorse entitled Palace of the Brine. \o/ The Seahorse was the first SPN fic I ever read (seriously...my first SPN fic was a J2 RPS AU MPREG...I start big:) I love Seahorse and I re-read it alot. I'm very excited to get started on the sequel!

Happy Pic!

And finally...Joe Flanigan (courtesy of Jeni at mgmpics)--you can click on the pic to make it full-size.



This is a man who enjoys his job, people. FOR REAL :P

Let's see...what have I done today?

• Re-read one of the J2 Big Bangs (Antichrist Bride) and read another one. I'm slowly making my way through, trying to make them last. No new ones have been posted today, so I don't know if the postings are through or just taking a day off.


• After pondering what to do with my powdered sugar, I made homemade peanut butter cups (with a few modifications to the recipe). kimberweeme also gave me a recipe for homemade cocoa brownies, so I can make some next time I'm out of mix (which, at present, I am).


• Watched Fired Up!, which is one funny movie! Plus, Danneel Harris is just adorable :) I chose that instead of the Netflix DVD of the first V movie because...well, I wasn't quite in the mood for lizards today :/ Maybe tomorrow.


• Ran my first day of Week 7...now have heat rash, but oh well :P Onward!


• And at 5PM I installed Sims again on my work laptop. The results were, amusing. ( Read about John and Rodney's family adventures. )

And that was my day :)