Fictitious Endeavours

Thanks shivver for sharing

Okay so, I'm awake too late on a work night and feeling agitated (and very dyslexic, you should see how I tried to spell agitated just now. phew) so I guess you're getting some random Reviews of Things. Which I suppose belongs on my fandom blog.

WELL IT DOES NOW, I guess.


I've always had a passion for libraries. And it had nothing to do with the fact that I had an academic librarian parent growing up. Well yes that's a lie. Despite my dad's Librarian-is-a-profession-not-a-lifestyle mantra (which he only adopted because people's "so, do you read a lot?" inevitable question annoyed the hell out of him. And for the record. Yes, yes he did. He had a wall of books, I had a wall of books. And he always dragged home the latest old version of the unabridged dictionary, sets of old encyclopedias and anything else "fun" that ended up on the discard pile.) I grew up with a whole academic library as my occasional playground, he taught me enough Dewey decimal so he could send me off to the stacks to amuse myself while he caught up on whatever work he needed to do while childminding and I had my first library card when I was three years old.

Back then our county library was seriously awesome. They were well funded, (this was before Prop 13 Ruined Everything) and had plenty of cool things. Like Puppet Pals. If you were a really responsible (child) book borrower you could get a sticker on your card that would let you check out a puppet for a week. I can still recall the spinner display with a couple dozen puppets in clear vinyl bags and the hard choice every week. (Because I was a very, very responsible borrower. The very idea of losing or damaging a library book still gives me the shakes.)

But the best thing was the Bookmobile.

When I was kid I lived in the boondocks. It was early suburban sprawl in our littleish town and it was a wasteland of homes with nothing but a Kmart and large hardware/craftstore/lumberstore close by. So because we were so far out of the downtown library branch, or even the east end branch beside the college my dad worked for we got the mobile library. It was just a converted school bus, painted a bright blue with the words Bookmobile in big bold letters, but to me it was magic.

And better yet because our house was at the edge of the subdivision and had a weirdly long, thin yard we ended up with a long unbroken stretch of curb out front, perfect for an oversized vehicle like a converted school bus to park for several hours in the afternoon every week. When you can run out the front door and into a library without really leaving your yard, you know you were blessed by the book gods. I checked out half a dozen books every single week. (I think they upped my limit because 1) responsible borrower 2) they knew my dad 3) they, ya know, knew where I lived.) They would also ask my mom and I what types of books we wanted them to pick up from the main branch since the selection was small, and we were their most loyal customers. They even taught me about the wonders of inter-library loan.

And when one of the librarians retired when I was a teen (long after the bookmobile had been budget cut out of existence) we were invited to party.

But then with highschool and college taking up my entire brain and life happening after that, I sort of forgot about libraries or read much of anything. I would read occasionally, I still had the wall of books. And I still added to the wall when I had the money.

But it wasn't until the e-libraries that I really got back into borrowing books. Or reading more books than reasonable. Except, not all new releases are easily obtainable from libraries. And the county library had to cut back on the number of apps they contracted with.... But then, as tradition, a county librarian let me know that the city library, in the next town over, gave cards to anyone who lived in the county.

And then I found out that other cities in the county have separate libraries. And well, I'm up to four cards now. Still can't get all the new releases, but two of the libraries you suggest books and I definitely do that.

And my point was? Do I have a point? Yay libraries?

/rambling

SO. It all started with our xmas light string. It sparked when we plugged it in. E-waste it is then. No big loss. It's very old, originally incandescent C9s that we've been replacing with LED C9s as they burn out. We then had to go searching for 25-50 bulbs C9 LED strings to replace our dead raingutter set, one (25) bulb or both sets (50 bulb). DH searched around town today, but no one had them. Plenty of LEDs no, C9s. (We have so many replacement bulbs).

So I thought I'd search at Big Lots since they've been frantically emailing about their xmas decorations. And I found the C9 string right away. Win. Then I thought I would check if they have any Star Wars mugs this year. (Nevermind my cupboard is bursting with Star Wars - and non-Star Wars- mugs. Can never have too many SW mugs. Right?) Trouble is, I just searched Star Wars and I found...


( clicky click )

If that doesn't ring a bell - try this

It seems the fandom gods have spoken. (Or Tumblr. It was probably Tumblr.)


I'd never even heard about this and it's a crime because it's awesome.




Pigs in Space + Tenth Doctor? I didn't know I needed that.



I never heard of any live shows happening but it looked amazing.

Things I'll get to one of these days

1) get back to my classic Who rewatch. (Especially since my Britbox account needs to be used for more than rewatching Jane Eyre facepalm.gif)

2) Watch Thirteen's first season blu-ray that has been sitting unopened on my shelf since LAST Christmas. I mean....


Things I did instead...

1) Faceplant in The Old Guard fandom. (SorryNotsorry)

2)Plan fic and not write it

3) Studiously ignore my original fic

4) Buy two Torchwood Big Finish audios (even though I have So. Much. Baggage. with Torchwood) solely for the Jack/Ianto content. Help.

Because I totally missed seeing this.

I showed him this Eurovision vid, because I thought he'd appreciate the sudden change in singing style.




And this is what he said:

"OMG, he looks like the Master. Aaaaand… he’s singing falsetto.”


Now it's all I can see. Now I can't stop watching and imagining a musical ep like that Buffy one. (But with Ten and Donna. Because that would be awesome. Also we need old skool Master AND Simm Master. Because of reasons.)

So I was just searching Reverso, in the Spanish-English dictionary section for words Junior's Spanish lessons.

When I came upon this entry Dalek voice.

Hee!

Ironically I was looking I was looking for a good translation for "mechanical spider" - Cassandra's friends. ;)


(I'm labeling my DW shelf in case anyone is wondering. )

( click for photo if you're curious )