Bit of Ivory

Seems to be People I Know on the News Week. If you go here, you’ll see a story on SCO, a Utah company, who is suing IBM over some Linux code that was supposedly stolen. Anyway, the BYU student they interview at the end is my eye-candy dance teacher from my last semester at BYU. Now you can see why I enjoyed my dance class so much.

My shoulder still hurts.

I tried out the LJ post-by-phone option on the LJ, so an update on the day is here.

(You need a player that can play .ogg files to hear it. Winamp is one of them. Someone might transcribe it, though.

Yes, that is supposed to be sarcastic.

I swear, today was Stupid Customer Day. It didn’t help that I was tired, but we had several “drop everything you’re doing, including helping any other customers, and cater to my every whim!” And they couldn’t just come in one after another– oh, no, they had to come in groups of twos and threes and fours. Not only that, but it didn’t slow down noticeably between the floods, so I hardly had time to breathe all day. About 2:00 I was getting really irritated with everyone– and I had to work for 2 1/2 more hours!

I’m sleeping in tomorrow. LATE.

Must get my strength up for Saturday. Details to come.

Sweeney has informed me that I am the Magic Very-Nice Looking Britsih Boy Spy. a;;lkda;lksjfalsjf;alsjf;aljf;lsjf;lasj

Am going to bed now.

Also: New icon from PoA trailer.

For anyone who thinks that I’m a little bit. . .out there, please go to KUTV, then click on “Peter Rosen’s Fresh Look on Life: Andy Griffith Collectors”. You’ll see my very strange uncles, especially my very VERY strange uncle John. He’s the guy doing the Barney Fife impersonations.

You’ll understand me ever so much better.

PoA Trailer: Wonderful. Still holding my breath on Lupin, but Gambon and Oldman have me convinced. And SNAPE IN A DRESS!!!!1111!!one

alskfjasl;fja;lsjfasljflaskfgsalghasjflasfj;aslfja;sljf

Wahleecon is going to be WONDERFUL. You all are coming, right?

In other news, I bought the RotK photo guide today. MMmmmmm Aragorn. MMmmmmmm Legolas. MMMmmmmmm.

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, peace was declared, ending the worst war the world had yet seen. In remembrance of those who fought and died in that war and in so many others, I am posting some of the poems written during the Great War, the end of which we celebrate today. I’m sorry I couldn’t have posted this earlier, but it’s never too late to remember.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

—John McCrae
(1872-1918)

The Dug-Out

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle’s guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

—Seigfried Sassoon
(1886-1967)

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

—Wilfred Owen
(1893-1918)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIRK!!!

An I could that told you *that* quiz:

Jane Austen wrote you. You are extremely aware of
the power of a single word.

Which Author’s Fiction are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I am having entirely too much fun making screencaps from The Emperor’s New Groove. Siriusy. Observe:

Not to mention these, although they’re not from ENG. :

Must get out my P&P DVD next, methinks. Can make an icon of Darcy jumping into lake.

Have been listening to the RotK soundtrack clips at theonering.net. MMmmmmm. December 17 is AGES away.

Am now totally convinced that JKR has read Georgette Heyer.

Submitted The Way of the Wolf to FictionAlley, and have gotten lots of great reviews on it. Almost as many as I’ve gotten at SQ in the 2 months it’s been up, which vexes me greatly. What’s the matter with you people? Only problem is that everyone wants a sequel, and I’ve got enough plot bunnies eating me right now. Not that I didn’t always intend to write a follow up.

Made orange rolls yesterday. And they are YUMMY. MMmmmmmmm.

Went to the dentist today. All went well, was completely painless, and they didn’t charge me a cent. That’s the kind of dentist visit I like.

Pirates is in the dollar theatres! Woot! Now I can go see it again. And less than a month till I can watch it whenever I want!

I enjoy writing posts entirely composed of short, unrelated facts.

It’s awfully nice to just lay here. I got a phone call on Thursday asking me to come in to work for a few hours yesterday, and maybe a few today, just to help us get ready for Christmas. I said I could, as it was only going to be 3 hours or so. At about 20 to 3 I went out to my car to drive to work, only to find that the battery was dead. The seatbelt had got caught in the door, so the inside light stayed on all night. This wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, except that I was the only one home. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad, except that the only cars left for me to jump Lizzy from were our van and our old ’78 Chrysler Cordoba. The Cordoba (named Sara) won’t turn over, so that one was out. That left You Know Who, our Previa. (Yes, our van is named You-Know-Who.) Problem: You Know Who is a stick. I don’t know how to drive a stick. I’ve had a few lessons, but they were 7 years ago. But as all I had to do is back You Know Who out of the garage, I thought I’d give it a shot. I only killed You Know Who about 20 times, but I managed to pull it out of the garage, jump Lizzy, and pull it back in. I was so proud of myself!

When I got to work, we were so busy that I ended up working an entire shift, plus an entire shift today. Along with the time I worked on Monday when Mary Ann was sick, and Tuesday when Becky had a doctors appointment, I worked 16 hours this week that I wasn’t scheduled for. Not bad.

Although it is extremely vexatious to be obliged to work when all you really wish to do is curl up with a good Georgette Heyer.

In fact, I think that’s what I’ll do now.

That’s right, folks! It’s not snowing! This is the first time I’ve seen the sun in over a week, so it was rather strange to find it merrily shining away when I woke up this morning.

So I decided I needed to define some memories on LJ, so I went back through my LJ today. As I was tagging my Nimbus entries, I noticed that I never recapped Sunday. Bad me! So, infinitely late, here’s Sunday at Nimbus:

Having stayed up entirely too late the night before, and the night before that, we all slept in a bit. Mellie and I had a bit of a chat while we were getting ready–not long enough, of course. Man, I need to see everyone again. Anyway, all of us roommates ended up going down to the brunch/auction at different times. I ran into Lou in the hallway, and finally gave her the book, hot chocolate, and brownies I had planned to send her forever. We chatted, and I discovered that Angua had gone with her family to MGM, and that I wouldn’t get to see her again.

I eventually made my way into the brunch/auction, but my stomach didn’t feel so hot so I didn’t think I could eat any of the nummy bacon, sausage, etc. I only had some orange juice. I took Dobby’s place at the table (he had a napkin tied around his neck and a bowl of cereal in front of him) next to Mellie and observed the auction for a while. Lou came in a bit later and showed me her various notes from AP. Good grief, the woman is disorganized. She had bits of it written on everything from her mom’s phone bill to gas station receipts. I’m surprised the finished product is as coherent as it is. Just kidding, Lou. Anyway, Lou was on her way out so we took a break and snapped some pictures before she had to leave. Then we hugged and cried and didn’t want to say goodbye, but of course she had to leave. I said goodbye to Leslie shortly after that as well *sniff*. I watched as the bidding on the Sirius and Remus banners went astronomically high, along with an Alan Rickman-signed FictionAlley tote. After the auction was over I met a few more people, including Redblaze and Chickadilly, and then Mellie, Kirk, Krista and I attended a reading by Peg Kerr. She read us stuff from her new unpublished novel, straight off her laptop. It was amazing.

After the reading we dropped in on the post-mortem, and ended up having a heart-to-heart with Ebony about what was right and wrong with Nimbus, especially with the slights we R/Hers and SQers felt were directed at us throughout the proceedings. It was a great conversation, and is the reason Ebony is on my friends list now.

Eventually Mellie and I went up to our room for the last time, and then took our bags to the front desk. Kirk, Krista, Mellie and I had plans to get some lunch, but we went back down to the area we held Nimbus in in the hopes of seeing a few more people. We ran into Sweeney Agonistes right before her folks showed up, so we were able to say goodbye. *sobs* Right as we were about to get food, my parents called to let me know that they were there. So I had to say goodbye. I hugged Kirk and Krista, and then I had to say goodbye to Mellie, which was almost the hardest goodbye of all, since I’d known her the longest, and she’s so darn busy that I hardly ever see her online.

And that was it. It was over. I went with my family to church, and to see the Orlando temple, and thought about how amazing a weekend it had been, and how it wasn’t nearly long enough. And how much I wanted to do it all over again.

Now I’m all depressed. All of you (and all my blog readers, too. You guys just don’t have a good page to link to. :P) need to come to Wahleecon. Siriusly. I need to see you again. Nimbus 2005 is just too far away.

*sigh*

Okay. I’m loving having as many icons as I could possibly want. Will take me a while to fill ‘em all up.

Have been watching some of the better episodes from Lois and Clark season 2. The first proposal is on right now. Is it bad that these old episodes still make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Clark/Lois is ever so much better than Clark/Lana. In fact, I’m not going to watch Smallville tonight. I’ll catch up on Television Without Pity.

Oooh. Into season 3 premiere now. Lois just said “Who’s asking. . .Clark or Superman?” *melts*

London Market and the Utah British Association are hosting a Bonfire Night tonight, and my mom and I are going. Am way excited.

Ooh! This is the “spent an hour ironing my S” episode, isn’t it? I love that line.

Went to the library today and chexed out every Georgette Heyer they have. Should keep me busy for a while.

Time to get ready for bonfire night! Whoohoo!

Gacked from edeainf:

In my first blog (Virtual Parchment)
I posted 173 entires.
I don’t know how many comments I recieved.

In my current blog (Bit of Ivory)
I’ve posted 267 entries (almost 200 double-posted in LJ)
I’ve recieved 595 comments.

In my Live Journal,
I’ve posted 197 entries
I’ve posted 449 comments and received 622.

My first blog post (Virtual Parchment, February 26, 2002): Saying that I decided to create a blog after Teri and RJA and other HoS Y!G people did.

My first Bit of Ivory post (December 2, 2002): Purely testing my new Moveable Type system.

My first LJ post (March 24, 2003): Trying to convince myself that I hadn’t sold out, and that I was only doing it to comment, and that I would double-post everything from my blog. Which is pretty much true.

Two years ago: (Nov 4, 2001) I had no blog or LJ. I had just started posting to the Harry Potter and the Heir of Slytherin thread at the Harry Potter Connection forums. I was eagerly looking forward to seeing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on opening day. I was taking tap dancing and Editing for Publication in college, and dealing with roommate woes.

18 months ago: (May 4, 2002) No blog entry on that particular day, but I was suffering from broadband withdrawal symptoms and working at the BYU library. Had just started beta-reading Ancient Prophecy for Raven Snape.

A year ago: (Virtual Parchment- Nov 4, 2002) “Guess what I’m holding in my hot little hand? PICTURES!!! Now I have to get them scanned. Dad, if I was to send them home with Lisa and Laura, could you figure out a way to get them scanned and onto a CD-R? Please? Who’s your favorite daughter, after all? :)” (These pictures would be of our HP costumes from Halloween.)

6 months ago: (Blog and LJ, link is to blog, May 3, 2003, since I didn’t have an entry for the 4th) Strangely enough, I was doing a very similar meme, except this one when back 20 years rather than 2.

3 months ago: (Aug 4, 2003) Posted want-ads trying to repel the Albus plot bunny (didn’t work, obviously) and soliciting beta readers for my SQ contest entry. Finally got my college diploma.

1 month ago: (Oct 4, 2003) Rambling post about BYU football. Redesigned my LJ.

yesterday: Weekend update, squeeing about my apple pie.

Gacked from connielane, most recently:

Hidden ’cause it’s really long.
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