We went to see "He's Just Not That Into You" last night and it's a decent film, though I spent most of the movie trying to place various actors (it's sad to say -- it took me nearly the entire movie to recognize Jennifer Connolly). The movie was alternately funny and painful; funny, because so true, and painful because I recognized myself and some of my friends in it. All in all, decent film, and I was tempted to fic a different ending for a couple of the characters because well, they deserved another fate.

I'm still behind on BSG, and curiously, not missing it so much. My sister-in-law and I discussed last weekend and we both think it's because the gap between the first half of season four and the second was just way too long for those of us with Swiss cheese memories and little time to catch up. I've lost my connection with these characters, those long hours musing in the aftermath of the episode, forgetting what makes them work, the history that guides their actions. It's as if they are strangers to me and I can't hear their voices in my head anymore. And it's like when your ex writes to you one day out of the blue about what was and it's been so long, you wonder if you ever knew that person at all. Anyway, hopefully will be caught up in the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, idella rec Benevolent Sibling, hilarious BSG fic. Seriously fun, so go read if you haven't already.

So I came looking for the fluffy and the kittens today because it's been one of those years and came instead across something called RaceFail09 with lots of links here. I'm exhausted just scanning the number of entries on this one.

So I'm still looking for something fun to read this Friday evening. If you have any recommendations, I would love to have them (Trek, X-Files, BSG, JAG, GA, The Practice, CSI, etc). The fluffier the better...

( Last night's BSG )

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I've finally thawed out from my first visit to the East Coast in winter in years. It wasn't the cold that got me as much as the black ice. Just have such fears of that stuff that are even worse now that I don't have to deal with it. I was walking so gingerly, grabbing on to co-workers' arms. It was amusing for them.

Also, I have a neighbor who walks around in the buff. I'm not sure how to process this information and now avoid looking out my windows at night. I'm not sure if this is a daylight thing too, but it's just... I mean, he *must* know that his windows are wide open, yes?

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Gacked from minisinoo:

No surprises here... though I'm less left leaning than I thought I'd be.

My Political Views
I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 3.61, Libertarian: 2.28

Political Spectrum Quiz

If anything does happen to Livejournal, you can always find me at my blog on my website -- http://seema.org/blogger.html; there's not as much fannish content there, but I keep my blog pretty up to date, much more than Livejournal. No plans to migrate anywhere else if LJ, unfortunately, goes under.

Gacked from musesfool:

Your main fandom of the year?

I'll go with X-Files because I actually wrote/finished fic from that fandom this year. And watched the movie multiple times. A scary number of times, actually, considering the quality, but eh. When you're on a trans Atlantic flight of 16 hours in duration, on-demand video is your friend

Your favorite film watched this year?

If we're talking pure enjoyment, it would have to be "Mamma Mia!" I loved that movie and just had so much fun. It terms of execution, story, acting, etc, it would be "Slumdog Millionaire," but unfortunately it hit way too close to home for me to truly enjoy it. "The Dark Knight" is another one that falls into that same category, but without the same resonance that "Slumdog Millionaire" had. Was "Juno" this year? Because I did like that one as well.

Your favorite book read this year?

"Eat. Pray. Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, hands down. Just one of those books I really enjoyed, didn't want to put down, and felt a personal connection to in certain parts. I also liked "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini.

Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?

"Mamma Mia!" For favorite songs, I was all into the pop this year, and am totally giving away my preference for Top 40 when I say songs by Miley Cyrus, Matchbox 20, Coldplay, and Britney Spears made my commute all the more enjoyable.

Your favorite TV show of the year?

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Leading up to the election, it was the one show I couldn't miss.

Your favorite LJ community of the year?

I didn't discover any new ones or participate heavily in the ones I did belong to. The new job made it just really difficult to keep up this year.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

See above. I dropped out this year more than I dropped in just because of the time issue.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

"Dirty Sexy Money" being canceled; having to wait *forever* for the last 10 episodes of BSG.

Your TV boyfriend of the year? Jon Stewart

Your TV girlfriend of the year? Scully!

Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Mulder and Scully on the big screen. I didn't care that the movie wasn't up to par, I was just so happy to see Mulder and Scully again and oooh so many moments to love.

The most missed of your old fandoms?

X-Files

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

Hmmm... nothing comes to mind right now. I'm pretty satisfied the way things are right now.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

I'm really excited for the last season of BSG.

Compass -- The truth was a harsh compass. Post series, pre-XF2 movie. Set after "The Truth" and before the XF2 movie, "I Want to Believe." Anything up to and including the movies are potentially spoilerific. Just one interpretation of how our heroes got to where they were in the movie.

Where exactly do Mulder & Scully live? Virginia or West Virginia? For some reason, I thought it was West Virginia, but I've seen it also as Virginia. West Virginia would so work better with my plot points and research, but eh, can change it as well if necessary.

I've gotten less productive since free cable showed up at my house randomly. Now I feel the need to drop everything and watch the latest episode of "The Girls Next Door" or "Property Virgin" and it's amazing just how often Ryan Secrest shows up when you have cable. The good thing is I'm off work until the 5th, which means I have lots of time to be somewhat productive and also somewhat a couch potato.

Bummed that "Dirty Sexy Money" was cancelled. Yes, it was a little silly, but I did enjoy it. And so much better than all of those reality shows. I still can't get into "Grey's Anatomy" or "Private Practice."

Facebook is way too addictive.

I'm now mostly unpacked from my trip. The good thing is, I don't have to see the inside of an airport until the end of January. The bad part it's still going to be winter in the Northeast and after 10 years on the Gulf Coast, I just can't handle anything colder than 80 degrees. Yes, I'm a big wimp. So big a wimp, actually, that yesterday I was wearing a parka in the office and typing with my gloves on.

And also, I'm very much enjoying being engaged.

jalara pointed me to this JAG fic -- an alternate ending to the series finale. Very sweet, very nicely done. I thought some of you would enjoy.

I'm procrastinating, so meme. ( First lines from the last 15 fic... )

After much angst and hand-wringing, I booked my vacation. I had some work things to work around and I'm still mildly stressed over work interfering, but given that my vacation has a strong emotional undercurrent associated with it, I've got a couple of potential solutions in my back pocket. I think my boss understands how important this trip is to me.

Not much writing done this past week, nor much sleeping. I stayed up way, way, way, way past my bedtime to catch all the Olympics action and stepped up the workouts a little bit to get to my goal in time for the vacation.

We did go out shopping yesterday even though we were determined to avoid the malls because it was tax-free weekend here. It's something they do once a year, just in time for back-to-school, and the whole world goes insane. It ended up paying off and I got a great dress at Ann Taylor from their Celebrations line for next to nothing (our dinner at a fairly inexpensive restaurant cost more than the dress). Glad to have the dress because I don't really have anything black-tiey, and I have three upcoming weddings on the calendar and it'll be nice to have something that's more dressy to wear.

Plans for today are more workouts; weekends and Mondays are usually 90 minutes or more at the gym and then taper down the rest of the week. Seriously, if I see one more infomercial that says you can get cut and toned in just two 30-minute workouts a week, I'm going to scream. I'm also going to scream when that Fluidity workout infomercial comes on where women lament that they get "too big" when they lift weights. There's a part of me that wants to reach into the television set and shake them, and the other part wants to know, "Oooh, how do you do it?"

Question -- anyone know if Mulder & Scully rented or owned their apartments?

---

I'm completely in Olympics mode. I'm not usually a sports geek, but I love the Olympics, especially since the sports I used to compete in are front and center in a way they never usually are. I'm especially fascinated by Dara Torres. We were talking about her in step class today and everyone was like, "*How* does she do it?" Honestly, I would love to be that awesome when I hit my 40s.

I'm having major anxiety over some RL stuff right now, but there's nothing like a dose of humility to show what's what. For those of you not in the know, we're back on the house hunting/rental property circuit. We're a little crazy with the showings and we're both control freaks; actually, I'm the bigger control freak and all four-year old like "I. Can. Do. It. Myself." There may be trust issues in there too, but mostly it's a control thing and an intense feeling that no one is going to look out for us like *me*. So we've got lots of appointments with like the entire real estate community here in Sweat Sock City to see various rental houses (note -- we already have "relationships" with like 99 percent of the real estate world in Sweat Sock City because we have "commitment" issues. No, we're not working on those issues either, given that our MO is the same this time around).

( Oh the things that happen to you in the sexy real estate world )

Missing scene from the movie -- "I could be someone more than just the man you come home to." MSR, of course, and spoilers ahoy. My gratitude to my wonderful betas, talking_donkey and J.

( Where the Heart Is )

I realized today that talking_donkey are coming up on 10 years of friendship or more. We met online in 1997 when she sent me feedback about one of my DS9 stories, and that in itself was unusual because it was the era of the 'shipper wars -- Worf/Dax versus Dax/Bashir (or is it Bashir/Dax -- can't remember now) -- and we were on opposite sides of the battle. And yet, here were are, 10 years later. Don't know what that equals in Internet years or dog years, but it proves you can be on opposite sides of a heated fannish issue and *still* manage to be friends.

And then I have a couple of thoughts about the XF movie. Honestly, haven't stopped to wipe the grin off my face, I was so happy to see them again. But, couple of things -- ( X-File movie thoughts )

AC is *still* not working, which is so not awesome when we're now in like day 20 of triple digit temperatures. My vents actually spit out ice, which is just amazing when you consider the temperature outdoors. Ice in July? I don't think so.

The XF2 fics are coming in and The Water is Wide by aloysiavirgata is fun. Go read.

We saw the XF movie again today, which makes this only the third movie I think I've seen multiple times in the theater. The other two were "Titanic" (twice) and "X-Men 2" (three times). Usually I'm too cheap to see a movie more than once in the theater, but we had the free passes from Friday's mishap and used them today, not to mention it's so hot here right now that the movie theater is the one place we can find relief.

We had missed some things when the volume went out, so it was good to finally have a couple things make sense. Honestly, the second time around, I caught so many more little details, including nods to fans, that I missed the first time around and I felt really satisfied. The Boy asked if I still loved the movie, and I said yes. I left the theater feeling that I'd had the chance to re-connect with characters I loved, that emotional tug that keeps fannishness alive. Missed that feeling big time and it's good to have it back.

Ooh, I loved. Seriously, I could nitpick, but at the end of the day, Mulder and Scully and spending time with them again was so wonderful.

( cut for spoilers )

We had a mishap in the movie theater -- projector went out, then the volume, and what we could hear was obscured by the giggling junior high kids sitting behind us. We did get some free passes to make up for the movie mishap, so the Boy told me we could see it again. Very sweet of him, considering he's not even an XF fan. I think he still feels bad about making me going to "The Dark Knight" (g) (though he did temper that with "Mama Mia!" last weekend).

Still mostly spoiler free for the movie, and decided to head in a different direction with Mulder & Scully than I usually do, just to see what it feels like. It feels... unnatural.

So, pre-movie (28 hours -- how sad is it that I'm counting?), post series, and as far as I know, spoiler-free.

( The Practice of Running )

We ended up seeing "The Dark Knight" yesterday instead of "Mamma Mia!".

( cut for The Dark Knight spoilers )