a little bit batty

Drabbles for:

1. fox: The longer version differs very little ("DUE SOUTH PLEASE, as Fraser and Ray and Ray and that crowd have missed you.")

2. copracat: And the Riv didn't explode at all ("due South/Bat crossover?" although it wound up a due South/Titans crossover instead)

3. shadowvalkyrie: Fanboys ("Tim and Jason (and Bruce?), after that AU thing you wrote a while ago! (You know, where Tim hides Jason from Batman.)")

4. gloss: Campus tour ("ROBINS. Pref. Nightwing and Little Wing. ♥")

5. riseupwithfists: Ritzy ("BIRDBOYS. All working together semi-happily.")

of global importance: haiti urgently needs medical assistance

of local importance: there's a campaign of login phishing against dreamwidth

i'm at my family's home for xmas, with lightgetsin and my dad. my uncle was here over xmas itself and my brother and his not-a-girlfriend are currently roaming about the countryside taking in the (very very cold) sights. and yes, there was more snow in virginia that there is up here in connecticut (although i understand it's melting rather alarmingly back home), but it's a whole lot colder here. yesterday light and i spent pretty much the entire day in the room with the woodstove -- i was telecommuting and she was writing things y'all are likely to enjoy a lot! -- except for a very brief excursion to throw a frisbee for the dogs in between wind gusts. (light's dog can catch a frisbee in the air about half of the time, which is cause for extremely victorious victory laps. my dad's dog...well, she can tell you've tossed something and she'll go look at it and leave it there.) then my dad came home and totally pwned me at kids' books*.

speaking of kids' books, remind me to scan my 1935 lolcats book for y'all!

xmas presents highlights: electronic rubik's cube (it can solve itself!), the complete calvin and hobbes (gorgeous and heavy!), and a tea-of-the-month subscription (because i needed more tea, right?).

yuletide present: Proposition VIII from gael baudino's dragonsword books. it is so very much like the books, i am amazed! if anyone else out there has read these books, go, go read my story!

as for the yuletidery which i have wrought, i only finished one of the two stories i intended for my primary recipient. the one which just kept growing is...er...still growing. it SHALL be posted! and it shall be epic! and i am very glad that i finished up the other one, which is not epic but was still quite fun. and admitting that i wasn't going to finish the epic allowed me to pick up a little madness story as well.

i'm tracking yuletide (and other, eventually) recs here: female man - russ, spindle's end - mckinley, chronicles of the kencyrath - hodgell, grosse pointe blank, oregon trail, white collar, lovelace and babbage, and dragonsword so far! and i need to shift over a few spirited away recs as well. i'm trying to comment as i rec-bookmark, so we'll see how that works out.

and i'm uploading my older stories as i have time, too. egads. i appear to have spent many years not believing in titles. now i have to find a hundred or so all at once! sigh. so if you suddenly get a gift notification from me for something i wrote for you five years ago, uploading is why!

* the kids' book in question is it's raining, said john twaining by n.m. bodecker, and the rhyme which i completely flubbed and which my dad then recited by glancing at the book and then looking away:

There once was a King
who had three daughters.
The oldest he called Sip!
The second he called Sip sippernip!
But the youngest of all he called
Sip sippernip sip sirumsip!

Not far away lived another King
who had three sons.
The oldest was called Skrat!
The second was called Skrat skratterat!
But the youngest of all was called
Skrat skratterat skrat skrirumskrat!

Now by and by
the two Kings got together,
the King who had three daughters
and the King who had three sons,
and decided that their children
should marry.
And married they were!

Sip
got
Skrat
and
Sipsippernip got Skratskratterat
and
Sipsippernipsipsirumsip got Skratskratteratskratskrirumskrat. As simple as that!

i started my new job today! and i'm really really happy with it (you know, above and beyond the whole "not unemployed" angle). a bunch of the people that i used to work for in atlanta have formed a new software company and i'm going to be telecommuting to work for them from dc. i'm in atlanta this week to meet the new crowd -- and by "new" i mean "four people in the whole office are not previous coworkers" -- and already i've been sitting down in front of code for my first project. and it's a neat part of database programming! and they're all, "of course we're using the latest development software." i cannot help but think that these are all very good signs.

and i have an official email address @ my new company. now i know it's real!

but then i had to go out and deal with people. in a mall!

happy fandom thoughts:

* oh, bruce. seriously. from red robin #2, tim ponders his new "red robin" role: ( I still have to work on my new 'voice' )

* oh, steph! and tim! from batgirl #3, steph gets dosed by scarecrow: ( A weaponized rage-drug )

* i am pondering yuletide nominations and trying to figure out if i should change my nominations to include hothead paisan. at the moment i'm leaning toward swapping it for when night is falling, but i fret! and i seem to be the only person nominating any of these six fandoms, which makes me feel all responsible.

books:

• "Pit Dragon" series by Jane Yolen (already listed)
  
• "Dragonsword" series by Gael Baudino (never nominated)
  
• Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley (never nominated)
  
• Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls by Jane Lindskold (never nominated)

comics:

• Lovebunny and Mr. Hell (never nominated)
  
• Until the Full Moon (already listed)

movies:

• Tron (already listed)
  
• When Night is Falling (already listed)
  
• Spirited Away (never nominated)
  
• Where the Wild Things Are (already listed as a book, but never nominated (of course) as movie)

further thoughts:

• The Changeling Prince by Vivian Vande Velde (never nominated)

so, every day that i've been unemployed i've been finding some reason to leave my apartment, if only to go downstairs and read for a while on the side lawn. tomorrow, for example, i'll go to the grocery store and the library.

today i went to the maryland renaissance festival with abka, denis77, ellen_fremedon, and uschickens. we watched the jousting, threw hand axes near targets, saw aerial silk performers, heard some stomping good music, rode on an elephant, and people-watched the many many many lots of folks in all sorts of apparel. (you have to eat some of your food on a stick at a ren fest -- it's a rule! i had a chocolate-dipped frozen banana on a stick. tasty! on the other hand, i do not know and do not want to know how one manages macaroni and cheese on a stick....) it was a shiny day!

hey, sorry for not posting last night -- i wasn't in the metro crash yesterday, nor as far as i've heard was anyone i know. (in fact, the first i heard of it was when my brother in california caught the news and texted me!)

i was on that very train line a few days ago (neotoma and i had a big comics geek-out this weekend), but this is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades so i'm fine. the radio this morning said seven dead and two still critical, though, which is pretty awful.

minotaurs died of a heart attack this morning. esprix is passing the word along to his fannish friends here and in other posts to cons minotaurs attended.

we were never especially close, but he was one of those people who had been in my circle of friends for years and years, crossing fandoms like you do and always a lot of fun to hang around with when we met up. it's hard to think that he's not going to turn up next time.