OMG beautiful pictures of a rather young De Kelley!

*melts to a puddle***********

Drat. Our scale in the basement is utterly broken. I knew Cordelia had, over the years, messed around with it a lot. I thought, though, that it would be a matter of resetting it. I was just down there and did my best, but it's still off by at least fifty pounds-- I mean, I'd love to think that I'd magically dropped fifty pounds in the last month with no effort and no noticeable side effects, but.... It's more than unlikely.

Basically, I think Cordelia fiddled with the dratted thing enough to break something. Does anybody out there know anything about scales like this? Is it hopeless and time to replace the scale? Can it be fixed by taking it apart and fitting pieces back together? (Assuming Scott has time to try it or I have skill.)

It's a big, durable thing that we bought with the idea that it would last forever. We forgot to think about monkey children. Neither Scott nor I have used it in the last couple of years (I've been too depressed over my weight). Now, I want to try to do a scheduled weigh in every week or maybe every month so that I can be aware if I start gaining again (Geodon can do that) or if I'm still losing (the spine clinic appointment surprised me with the news that I'd lost about seven pounds in the previous two months).

Cordelia has mastered tying her shoes. I'd been putting the whole process off as velcro shoes work perfectly well, but when we were looking at size 13 gym shoes last Sunday, there weren't any in stock with velcro. Cordelia was enthusiastic about learning to tie laces, so we bought a pair. The learning process took about three days. During that time, other kids helped her out at school.

I finished a rough draft of chapter 3 of Torsion. At this point, I'm definitely thinking of the chapters as stories in an arc. I may actually name them at some point (or I may not. It's trouble I don't have to take). I'm now poking around at a couple of other works in progress, trying to decide which to pursue. Not touching something for months seems to be a real barrier to coming back to it.

I suspect that I'm having SAD issues. This is weird because I never have before. I've always preferred staying inside with the curtains closed and haven't missed the sun at all. Right now, though, I find myself standing by the kitchen window because there's light there or opening the living room curtains in the afternoon when the sun shines through. This is absolutely new. Ah, well, at least the fix is simple if it is SAD. I have to ask my psychiatrist if I can borrow her light box again so that I can test it. Last year, it did me no good at all, but I think it might help this year.

My second PT appointment is this afternoon. I'll be missing my volunteer time in the library (and I feel bad about it), but that was the only time available this week. The pain levels haven't really decreased, unfortunately. I had a couple of hours in the middle of the day on Wednesday when I felt pretty good, but things went back to normal after that.

I suspect that the change in the Geodon dosage has made me more vulnerable to migraines. I'm desperately hoping that that's not the case. I would hate to have to choose between anxiety and migraines. There may be something about meds that tweak serotonin that make migraines more likely for me. Who knows? Of course, if that's the case, I'm largely screwed. Pretty much all anxiety meds affect serotonin to some degree (or so says the psychiatrist).

OMG - Yuletide is here! Are you as excited as I am, writer? Thank you so much for taking part in this awesome exchange, and for volunteering to write for a fandom for which I have so much love. <3

I've tried to cram as much info as I could into this letter, because I myself am the type of writer who prefers highly detailed prompts. If you're not, remember that everything beyond the fandom and characters requested is voluntary, so feel free to ignore all of this! If you can fit in some of what I've mentioned here, so much the better, but the overall quality of the story should be your primary concern. Once again, thank you very much, and have a wonderful Yuletide! :D

Stuff I like: I'm a die-hard romantic. I am also a happy-ending junkie. Give me angst if you like, but leave me with some positivity. Doesn't have to be much; a sliver of hope will do! Plot = love. Many of my requested fandoms are heavy on the plot, and I would love for my story to be likewise. One of my requests is for a humor fandom, but humor would be very welcome indeed, even in the non-humor ones. (Which is not to say I want a parody; I'd prefer a serious story with elements of humor in it.)

Stuff I DON'T like: The only thing I feel can ruin a story is blatant OOC behavior from a character. Torture, particularly disfiguring, or deeply psychological torture makes me really uncomfortable, so I would rather not read about that.

In general: I enjoy reading about graphic sex, and very few things about it squicks me (except bodily fluids that aren't sexual fluids - none of that, please). Dub-con and/or BDSM is fine, though it's not something I seek out in a story. I'm easy. Don't be afraid to include stuff I haven't specifically mentioned here, or in my request. Yuletide stories are a gift, and I accept them joyfully! :D

( Fandom specific details: )

Coming with a K/S+Mc premise which is usually not my preference, but dealing very nicely with it: On Happiness K/S/Mc, TOS. Yum Yum!

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
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3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

Title: Maneuvers (Draws VII)
Author: Acidqueen
Series: Reboot aka ST:XI aka AOS – Draws Series
Codes: Pike/Kirk/McCoy, some others in passing
Rating: NC-17 for some hot scenes; kink inside!
Word count: 11.200
Author's Note: This is the sequel to "Domino Effects" and "Interlude in Green".

Thanks for the extremely helpful comments and the wonderful beta goes to madelf. All remaining flaws are solely mine.

Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom owns Star Trek, I own my brain.
For the other parts of the series, see Part I: Disciplinary Measures ** Part II: The Game Continues ** Part III: Rochade ** Part IV: Square One ** Part V: Domino Effects ** Part VI: Interlude in Green

( In which everyone's indulging in strategic moves, some more successful than others. )

I'm considering signing up again for Yuletide, because there were a few fandoms I missed when I did the first time. However, I'm a little paranoid that if I do, I'll feck something up, and my sign up will be lost. And that would be BAD. o_O

But this was something to cheer me up. Ehem. Yeah, I'm strange :)

ISS Kink Meme Fill: Mirror Kirk is the one who manipulates Kodos into killing the colonists.

EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

How you doin'?

I've been working on chapter 3 of Torsion the last few days. I have no idea where the story is going in the long term. I think the chapters are rather more like stories in an arc than chapters of something going to a particular end. Unlike with Rheotaxis, I could call the story done at any point. Of course, if I look at the chapters as stories in an arc, I have to name them individually, and that's not happening.

I also (finally) posted last year's Yuletide story to my website. I had wanted to rewrite it, but I realized that that wasn't going to happen. It's not quite the story I wanted to give my recipient, but I think it's not awful as it stands.

I also titled and posted the remaining two Fandom Stocking fics from last year, the Harry Potter/Belgariad crossover snippet and the Vorkosigan ficlet. I'm afraid I lost track of who, besides ceara, beta read those for me, and I'm not sure that I ever edited them at all. If you beta read either, please let me know so that I can edit the notes on the fics.

This means that I'm caught up on the fic posting on the website. I'm still hopelessly behind on fic recs. I need to make myself do a handful of those at a time and just get them into the documents. I think that's more likely to happen once my leg is better.

I have a beta reader looking at chapters 18-20 of Rheotaxis. Rewriting those will end up waiting until after Yuletide, I think, but posting is ahead in the foreseeable future. I just need to dig back through old chapters to be sure that I called Ken's sport 'football' and not 'soccer.' I think I did, but it's been long enough that I could be forgetting.

I redid my Yuletide sign up when I realized that two of the fandoms I'd offered would make me crazy. I added one fandom to those I'd offered in compensation. Nothing I'm offering suffers from a lack of offers, though, so I have no idea what I'll match on.

I do have a fair idea which fandom I'll be getting a story for. Two of the fandoms I asked for had no offers when last I checked (I don't plan to check again, so I might get surprised). Of the two remaining, one had only my offer and my request. The fourth fandom had several offers. It's possible that one of the other three will get some offers from people who aren't me, but I won't hold my breath. Fortunately, I'd adore good fic in the fourth fandom, so I'm not worried or disappointed.

The first PT appointment went well. I'm cautiously optimistic.

The piriformis syndrome in my right leg seems to come from two causes. First, my tailbone was skewed to the left, pulling on all the muscles on the right. Second, one of the muscles (the name of which I've forgotten) has gotten lazy and stopped doing its job. The therapist told me that the latter is a hugely common cause of piriformis syndrome.

The tailbone has been realigned. So far, I don't seem to be having the sort of extra painful reaction to that that the therapist warned was possible. Of course, I'm also not seeing much benefit from it yet, either.

I have an exercise set for the lazy muscle. I'm to do one set of five repetitions twice a day and absolutely no more, at least not yet. I wish I didn't have to lie on the floor for the exercise, but there's no way to do it otherwise.

The therapist also did some ultrasound on the irritated muscle. I always have a hard time believing in ultrasound as a therapy because I can't perceive an immediate benefit or even effect. It feels sort of like an arcane ritual.

I have another appointment on Friday and then one on each of the next couple of Mondays. The therapist was hoping for twice a week for three weeks, but her schedule is booked up. I'm on the cancellation list. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I've mentioned this before, but something got me thinking about it again. When I was in high school (in 1854), you had to give a note to your teacher if you were absent or late. You'd write it in a special book, and have it signed by a parent (or yourself if you were over 18). On one page of my book, the following entries can be found:

"I was late for Economics class on tuesday November 29th, because I overslept. It will never happen again."

The very next entry reads:

"I was late for Maths class on November 30th. I am sorry. I overslept."

And that's me.

If I ever wanted to prove myself that I cannot write TV series AUs (or alike), this was my evening at bridge2sickbay - I gave up after three rounds ;)

( Way to fail - writing my own Kirk/Pike B5 prompt with Kirk/McCoy because I read the pairing wrong *palms face* )

( Spock/Chekov - Big Bang Theory )

( Kirk/McCoy - Miami Ink (obviously a tattoo reality show, never heard about it before) )

Regarding the way I learn (especially in the educational environment):

I'm not sure if this is because of my Asperger syndrome or not, but if I'm only reading, seeing, or getting "talked at" when I'm supposed to be "absorbing," I might as well be a piece of plastic. I consider myself a knowledge sponge, but my brain is very selective about what it will absorb (without tactile aids such as writing or doing) and what it will not. This is not intentional on my part, no matter what anyone thinks. It's just the way my brain works.

I really meant to do this sooner.

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

Here are the answers to the questions dreamflower asked me last week.

1. Why is Pippin your favorite hobbit?

Actually, when I first read the books, my favorite was Merry. I identified most with him. But the more I read and the more I thought about it, Pippin began to hold more and more appeal. He is the only hobbit, other than Frodo who has to deal with Sauron invading his mind, and he recovered so well from that, so it is clear that he is strong-willed. He has tremendous loyalty to both old and new friends, and he has a great sense of humor and fun. This last is something many other characters could learn from him. To me he is one of the most multi-layered characters in the whole trilogy. I could go on, but I'll move on to the next question.

2. What is the earliest book you can remember reading?

I remember my mom reading to me from "A Child's Garden of Verse" when I was about three years old. I also remember her reading "The Pokey Little Puppy" to me at about that same time. The first book I remember finishing all on my own was "Green Eggs and Ham" when I was about seven or eight. I was way behind grade-level in reading until I reached about fifth grade.

3. If you could meet Pippin in person, what would be the first question you would ask him?

Oh goodness, this is hard. I have so many. What was the date of your wedding, what was it like, how many children did Diamond and you have and what were their names, and what other important things happened to you after the war and when you went back to Gondor? Is that a Pippin-ish enough sounding question?:)

4. If you had a day in which you had to do something to please only yourself, what would you do?

I would probably talk my best friend, who I don't get to see much these days, into going out to the mall and lunch with me. I know that sound so small, but I don't usually thing large-scale.:)

5. What do you know now that you wish you had known in the past?

Probably that that lady was going to hit me on St. Patrick's Day in 1998. Then, maybe, I could have done something to prevent it. Well maybe not really. I guess that accident has made me the person I am, so I guess I'd just want to be able to deal with the aftermath better. This is a hard question. It kind of makes me think of "Flashforward".

Thanks for making me think.

I'm finally able to spend some time with reading, bigbangfic especially (damn, they are long! I'm way behind!). I totally enjoyed this fic right now:

Trilateral Negotiations - Kirk/McCoy/Chekov as core pairing - lots of hot sex, lots of humor, enough serious moments to make my heart ache a little in a good way *fans myself* Oh, and make sure to check out the lovely cover art thats is linked there!

This threesome is one that sneaked up on me in Reboot and I've got a big weakness for it, so getting a long story with them was a great gift this morning.

Just uploaded an S/Mc vid for a friend that will show up in the next Spiced Peaches, and I'm close to tears because it brings the TOS and S/Mc love back so bad that it hurts *sniffles******

*stares adoringly at the great acting and interaction of Nimoy and Kelley*

(This said, story is at 15.400 words and growing.)

Sorry to go radio silent but this week became a bit nutty. John's visit was fun, but exhausting, particularly Saturday. We all headed down to the Tech museum in SJ for the big Star Trek exhibit and all I can say is, if you're a local, go! Seriously it was delightfully geek-tastic. The combination of real science, sets/props/costumes, series timelines and more left me in fangirl heaven. I'll admit my biases run towards the original series and DS9 (still my favorite of all the shows), but there was a little something from each of the series to interest me. We did the "musts", like the action shot on the bridge of the original Enterprise (and got an ovation for it, I might add) and the holographic shot on the NG transporter pads and just generally had a grand time. I spent a lot of it peering closely at each of the costumes and reverse-engineering them. tersa and aelfsciene agreed with me that we must do some Bajoran costumes. tersa and I were thinking Vedeks and Aelf was tending towards a Major Kira costume.

After that we got together for pizza, snacks and Red Dwarf: Back to Earth. I thought it was cute, though nowhere near what the show used to be in its heyday. I also really wished I'd watched "Blade Runner" recently as I think it would've been even funnier to me if I had. We also watched "Skyhigh", basically a live action anime flick about beautiful young Japanese women being murdered, magic spells, crazy scientists, coma victims in glass bubbles and really kick ass Shinto priestesses.

Let's see, what else. Dance practice on Monday went well and M- and I are deep into reworking the drum solo we're hoping to pair with "Ringa, Ringa". We're hoping to have it ready by the next big show, Rakkasah. It's going to take some serious work, though.

Tuesday I actually got some tidying and laundry done, then Wednesday ran up to the city to meet with my old pal Dana and his wife Anne Marie for dinner in Chinatown. I haven't seen them since I moved out here 9 years ago so it was delightful to spend a little time catching up. They invited their friend Patrick along and we all merrily geeked for most of the evening. Seriously, I haven't talked Dr. Who, Torchwood and hockey to that degree in quite some time and we could've kept going all night if I hadn't had to BART back then drive home to get up for work in the morning. I hope they enjoyed the rest of their visit, I know Dana had some serious touristy plans for Thursday so I'm looking forward to hearing all about that.

Tonight I finally got back to Bollywood class and Vikashni wanted a full updated on why I'd missed a couple of classes. I filled her in and we chatted for a while before class started. There were only 3 of us tonight but it gave us a chance to really focus on the steps and get a good workout. It felt good to move again, and to push myself a little.

And after getting home I let Lola out to test the waters between her and Pye. Let's just say I managed to break them up before blood was shed, but only barely. When I introduced Pye and Kage, he at least had the good sense to acknowledge that she was the boss and back down. Lola is not willing to take any shit from Pye and he seems quite prepared to kill her. Ah well...it was worth a try I suppose. I'm seriously debating whether to lock her away in the bathroom again tonight. Last night I didn't and from 2 a.m. on she was whining and jumping on the bed. She did lay down for a bit, which was nice, but it didn't last nearly long enough. Having said that I think I'm going to call it a night and see if I can catch up on a little sleep. It's going to be a long day tomorrow.