Fiddle-Dee-Dee, Said Scarlett

Title: To Drive The Cold Winter Away
Fandom: The Dark Tower: Marvel Comics Canon
Pairing: Vaguely Aileen/Roland
Rating: PG-13, I guess
Summary: He had become as cold as the winter nights themselves, but not beyond all human caring...
Notes: This is a holiday giftfic for Lauren! And the best I could manage to ICly do anything for Ro and Aileen! I HOPE YOU ENJOY!

( To Drive The Cold Winter Away )

BEATLEMANIA DAY AFTER TOMORROW!

Also, um, hi!

I've been really busy. Spring is crazy here at the ranch, and I've been spending a lot of time in town! And out of it...I spent the weekend in the Verde area, camping with The Wizard and co. Oh man, it was beautiful. We got a secluded camp site, we caught a bazillion crawdads plus FISH! We caught fish with fairy nets! Fish big and healthy enough to eat for lunch!

Which put our camo wearing, country blasting, rod and reel neighbors to shame. ;)

And we floated in the waters in inner tubes, and drank and smoked and forgot the real world existed for a little while. We're hoping to do it all again in two weeks, but maybe go to Childs' instead of BP. We're determined to get our camp on as often as possible this season!

Elf boy is back in CA for the summer, but he wants a Legolas costume waiting for him when he gets back. He even promised not to cut his hair, as long as I make him the costume. Complete with ears. I told him point blank what would happen if he he starts hanging out with me all elfed-out. He said deal. :D

Farmer's Market season is nearly upon us! I've been prepping for that. I had a nice herb garden started in one of my indoor planting cages, but the damn cats managed to Mission Impossible their way inside of it to dig everything up and eat it. :/ They're lucky they're so damn cute and love me unconditionally.

Oh, I've officially picked up Murphy Pendleton as an RP character. :D I've only been playing with him a couple of days, but I'm really enjoying it. And he's my character most likely to break the fourth wall!

Critters are good, family is good! I'm gearing up for the big concert day after tomorrow! Oh, Beatlemania! You sing in my dreams...the closest thing to the real thing you can see live today. I am excite, over 9000. My uncle's coming this Friday, but I'll be at the casino and The Wizard has offered me the spare bedroom whenever I need to hide out in town.

Also, sending out well wishes that will probably not be seen.

Now I need to return to cleaning le bathroom! I am making very good progress....

Oh this weekend has been lovely!

The Wizard threw me a birthday BBQ Friday Night, and we ended up staying awake till 3 AM playing Liar's Dice and Texas Hold'em! Lots of delicious food was eaten, lots of delicious wine was imbibed and a smattering of green was enjoyed. :D And Valyn came, and he tried to make me a cake, but he was already drunk so it didn't work but I don't care. It was the mere fact that he wanted to make me a cake. He also introduced me to the Dead Rising games!

Yesterday it was Family Day, and my BIL, sister and one niece (eldest) and one nephew (youngest) came up. That was a bit....well, my BIL was rather rude and inconsiderate, but there was nothing me or my mother could really say or do. My littlest nephew kind of made it all better, when he gave me his favorite hackey sack and told me it was a birthday present and I could keep it forever. <3 He was so excited about it, I hugged him and told him it was the best present!

Today (despite being also Giant Bunny Day) we're having quiet at home time. We're getting Chinese food and I'm going to spend the day building the LEGO Black Pearl my folks got me and then playing Silent Hill, as Emi-chan got me the HD collection. <3

Also, delicious Chinese food!

So....

I've already played through Downpour twice and today I'm starting game 3.

I couldn't even tell you what it is about this game that I love so much. It's not nearly as interactive and frightening as a Silent Hill game should be, the Big Reveal is relatively so-so, the action specific button reflex bits are annoying as hell, there aren't any boss battles, the final battle is ridiculously disappointing, the monsters are lackluster for the most part, the ball was dropped on so many aspects and themes that could have been further explored, Murphy comes from the Henry Townshend School of Emoting and Reacting, and yet...

This is my favorite, right up there with The Room.

I'm already freaking working on a Murphy app, and it's kind of eaten my brain.

Maybe it's just that despite the obvious cult presence in the game...the storyline does stay far away from all of that. Or maybe it's Murph and his delicious, delicious tragic angst. Maybe it's all the shout outs to The Room, or perhaps my heart was won simply with the ghost train to hell. I don't know.

I do know I'd hump Murphy Pendleton's leg in a heartbeat, though.

( Whiny Crap )

I should have bought those legos I've been eyeing for months.

But in good news, Leela will be coming back to visit next week! And may even be here for my birthday, which would be awesome. And I've got a mega magical mystery tour vacation planned for August with Emi-chan! L.A, Monterey, Morro Bay, San Simeon... and Ren Faire! Plus we're staying in one loltastically awesome 'themed' hotel, and an adorable B&B.

Speaking of, I need to do my measurements and figure out the style/colors for my garb. We're getting custom commissioned gowns. <3

Though I may hop a flight out there in between, just to get away. I've been trying to get out of town and just...reset, I guess, for a few months now. But shit just keeps coming up, which is nothing new. Emi and I had talked about AX, so...we'll see. And I could really, really use a con now that I'm getting back into anime and manga and haven't been to one in a year or so. PCC looks like it's out, as Val doesn't think he can spare a weekend in Phoenix right at final exam time. Which is entirely understandable, these are his last exams for his Master.

But hey, another point for my meds: I'm interested in things again!

As I've been stuck sick in bed for a few days, I've been sampling Netflix's offering of my favorite type of television program, the horror/supernatural anthology!

There are three I've been watching, and here are my impressions.

Fear Itself: My favorite, honestly. The first episode (Eater) is pretty gross, but that's the only one with a high 'ick' factor. And honestly, it's the film filters and atmosphere as much as the actual gore that's icky. So unless you really want to see Peggy from Mad Men reprising her role as a plucky female cop trying to make it in a boy's world and also deal with a misogynistic cannibal voodoo serial killer, you can skip it. But the rest were all damn good. The series is created by my own personal favorite horror director, Mick Garris. There are only about 13 episodes, each 50 minutes, and each from a different writer/director team. There are some very Twilight Zone-esque episodes, a few easy to guess endings, and a few spots of overacting, but really it's a nice little collection. I personally quite enjoyed 'Echoes' and 'The Sacrifice'.

And the last episode is based on the same short story that heavily inspired Alan Wake, so there's that.

Master's of Horror: Another Garris series! This one for nighttime cable, so it's kind of boobapalooza. It's the same concept as Fear Itself, but with a bigger budget and more well known directors/writers/actors. It's also severely hit or miss. And Netflix lists each episode as a single movie. And only titles half of them 'Masters of Horror: Title Here', so you have to know the exact title of the episode you're looking for. This makes watching it a bit of a pain. But they're all pretty graphic, and all over the map. The first episode I watched had an amazing female main character, and the next one made uncomfortable and wondering what sort of issues with women the writer had. :/

The Hunger: Showtime anthology that basically just tried to see how many different horror cliches/scenarios it could highly eroticize. The episodes are only half an hour each, and boast such guest stars as Daniel Craig, David Bowie and Collin Ferguson, and are presented in the narrator-box style. Again, extremely hit or miss. The first episode is rather 'meh', the second was creepy and skewed gender ideals and the third turned into a freaking live action hentai in the last five minutes. Also, the narrator parts are trying way, way too hard.

Man it's been a long time since I was confined to bed over anything outside of my monthly issues! But today is a bed day. I overdid it yesterday, both physically and with a huge Mexican dinner last night. That isn't stopping Leela from coming over today, though, since it's her last day here in AZ!

And also it is time for me to be gearing up for Farmer's Market season, with my chocolates. We have three different markets, all at different times/days. If I do this correctly, I can hit all three regularly.

Other than that it's just been prepping the property for gardening this spring - many veggies and herbs! - and regular ranch work. And DS9 on Netflix. I'm kind of reveling in 90s sci-fi lately.

And Mick Garris' 'Fear Itself'. Nice little anthology series, if you can make it past the first episode. It's...icky. Even the way it's filmed is just dirty and dingy and greasy and unpleasant. It's good, but the visuals in The Eater are the worst I've encountered in the series so far. It was made for basic cable, so it's only PG-14, but I felt some of the scenes in The Eater went beyond that.

Each episode is from a different write/director who is prominent in the genre, Garris himself even stepping up at least once! And since it is Garris and horror and a lot of short story adaptations, endings are often bittersweet at best.

But if you're a horror fan with Netflix streaming, I'd recommend Fear Itself.

Personal sad shit aside...

I had a really great weekend! I hopped a cab into town to hang with The Wizard and ended up instead up Thumb Butte paying Burnout 3 for 14 hours straight with a real life elven lord! (No, really, this dude looks like Valyn. If Valyn were a super geeky, hard-core gaming, cosplaying hippie dude.) I crashed at his place, actually, because we did not want to stop until we had all gold medals across the board. We ate pizza and smoked and drank gin and tonics while crashing cars madcap across the continents. It was glorious.

And we managed all golds, four minutes before it was time to meet up with the rest of the crew for Frisbee Golf. Which was the most intense game of Frisbee Golf I've ever played. The course was more than half uphill, over boulders and ravines and creeks. We usually do a pretty average course, which takes a couple of hours. Today's game took four. But I actually did pretty damn well. I'm learning the secret of hooking the shots!

And we had a beautiful interlude when The Wizard asked if anyone wanted any 'agua'. Then 'it's free! Aqua free-a!'. Which caused Valyn and I to, as though on cue, launch into a rendition of Big Irons. We sang the whole damn song as we hiked from one station to the next, the rest of our party baffled but delighted.

And depending on schedules and whatnot, Valyn and I are probably going to PCC together. We both need someone to split costs with, and he's already planning on doing a Fallout cosplay. He's making power armor in his workshop. That would be pretty sweet!

We finished off the day with Filiberto's Mexican Food and Animal Planet's Cute-a-thon.

And neither of the cats seem particularly pissed that I was gone for more than 24 hours! But now I am exhausted and full of Mexican food and need to shower.

Great holy hedgehog of Prague, I have been busy!

Mostly doing things with chocolate, but also recovering from a nasty bout of the flu. I have felt like something an ass weasel spit up after a week of binge drinking. :/ Monday, however, I was able to do all of my deliveries and errands in town. Once that was done, it's been nothing but light ranch work and taking it easy in bed.

So what to do while regulated to bed rest for a few days?

In my case, mainly reading Helter Skelter and watching Netflix between RP posts. :D I have to say, I am usually a bit leery of accounts written by attorneys, but Bugliosi has a pretty okay way with words. Even when going into the court proceedings and descriptions of legal adventures, he keeps things from being dry or clinical.

I watched Season of the Witch, which I actually more or less enjoyed. It was an entertaining movie that hit on a number of themes I tend to enjoy, and the visuals were pleasing. Other than that I have been documentary-ing it up! I devoured H. H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer last night. I read Devil in the White city a few years ago, but still enjoyed the documentary. Such a creepy case! Also The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, which was fascinating and heartbreaking. Now I'm making my way through Crospey, and cursing Netflix for removing Hearts of Darkness: A Director's Apocalypse from streaming. There were some random historical selections as well, but nothing worth noting. I'm watching Cropsey now, which is very interesting. It's a look at an urban legend that sort of came true, and may or may not have been solved.

If I'm up to it later, I think I will be going out to eat. I could use a big hearty meal.