Things I have noticed:

If you don't actually know the end score of the game, watching the Mavs play the Heat in game 6 of the NBA finals is just as tense as watching it live. I was totally yelling at them pretty much the whole game. omg.

I would like to party with Christian Kane. Yes, I would. It sounds like fun: [ mp3 of the house rules thanks Kassie! ]

My friends find it bizarre that I like basketball. I am still trying to figure out how I will be able to convince them to go watch Golden State Warriors games next season.

My personal corner of fandom has pretty much slowed to a well, a really slow thing, during all of this MsScribe stuff. Personally, I was active on fandom_wank back in those days (mostly due to a pretty strong sense of cynicism about my only active fandom at the time, Harry Potter) so I remember pretty much all of the events discussed in the saga. To find out that so many of the huge blowups in that fandom are waaaay more correlated than anyone would ever have imagined is sort of horrifically awe inspiring.

And on a more personal note: I'd be lying if I didn't say that I, at one point, wished I was a bnf. I imagine that most fandom newbs wish for that. But good lord, cliquishness, in most forms is not pretty, nor are the lengths msscribe went to in order to be part of that. I can also admit that when I was in junior high I helped to ostracize a girl simply because she shared a first name with one of my friends. It was a stupid, horrible thing to do and it is such a perfect example of how mobbish and vicious teenage girls can be. I only wish that that sort of behaviour was limited to teenage girls who don't know of any better ways to get out their aggression than skullduggery and name-smearing. What a shame that so many supposed adults engage in the same petty vindictive behaviour all over fandom all the time. I would love to think that we will all learn from this, and learn how to better assess our cliquish persuasions, but I doubt people really will. For me, that's always been one thing that sucks big time about fandom.

In my first attempt at gardening since I was a little kid and my best friend's mom taught me some stuff (and my best friend made me lick a snail because I didn't want to look like a girly girl in front of my male bff) I have discovered that I still do not like bugs, and that I grow easily frustrated by gardening difficulties.

I have planted so far: 6 planter boxes and pots of mixed flowers, 2 tomato plants, a cucumber, a zuchinni, and a crookneck squash. I have seeds for carrots and beets and plans for a raised box of lettuce, spinach, basil, and other herby salady things. It was quite disheartening to go check on my little vegetable plantlets this morning only to find holes, HOLES! in some of the leaves. I really do not like bugs at all. They might kill my plants before I can eat them! This is highly distressing!

In looking for the link to this engadget post, which made me bust out laughing in the middle of my quiet office this morning, I was reminded by unholyglee's Jack Daniel's icon that I had wanted to post this mp3 by a Santa Cruz county/bluegrass/I don't know band called DevilMakesThree which is, essentially, the best ode to Jack Daniel's ever. [ DevilMakesThree - Old No. 7 ]


PS. I I owe people anything, replies, media, music, comments, or anything else, please let me know, as am afraid I might have fallen behind on a ton of things lately.

PPS. Run DMC's greatest hits, anyone? [ zip file, 65mb ]

So 129 comments later, I am feeling somewhat meta-d out, and at the same time, all the more thoughtful about this feedback-response thing.

( some more finalized thoughts on it )


In completely other news, I was invited by my Italian friend (that's friend of Italian descent to those of you who aren't from the US and to whom countries of origin are actually, you know, countries of personal origin) to "go to Northbeach and watch Italy slaughter the US" on Saturday. Interestingly, after seeing the SF Giants play the Pittsburgh Pirates (baseball) last Saturday and watching both the 3rd and (currently! omg it's looking bad for the Mavs!) the 4th game of the NBA finals, this will be the fourth sporting event I will have actively watched in one week. I am feeling quite sporty all of a sudden.

So I pretty much missed the whole hate meme phenomena, or at least the SGA one. A lot of people have been posting their outrage, and yeah. I just don't get it (hate memes that is, not outrage) because it seems like, at least in the supernatural threads, it was all about "blah blah blah I hate this person because they write stuff I don't like and they're obviously a huge bitch because other people do like it."

Um. Way to be self-sabotaging fandom! Hating people who are actively participating in fandom just because they're participating is not going to help anything. And what's up with the personal vendettas against BNFs? There's this really nifty feature called the scroll button when you don't want to read something.

Anyway, some people defend hate memes because they're like, the only opportunity for non-BNFs to be heard and anonymous commenting levels the playing field or something. Yes, it totally sucks that lj is more of a popularity contest than a cohesive community, but seriously, if you're yourself are actually involved in fandom, can you not see the good in encouraging everyone to participate? Because it seems to me that a lot of times creative people play off of each other and encouraging that should never, ever be a bad thing. One thing I do wish though, is that some of the stuff brought up in the hate threads could actually be discussed outside of the context of petty, spiteful commentary.

eleveninches posted the other day, I think in response to something that came up in sga_hate, about authors responding to feedback. She asked if people are affected by whether or not an author responds to their feedback. While I didn't see the original threads, I imagine some of the hate was directed at several prolific authors in the sga fandom who somewhat notoriously don't respond to feedback. In response to her questions I said this about my feedback habits:

I really try to leave feedback for everything I enjoyed reading, but if it's a writer who I know doesn't respond to feedback, I usually won't bother. Above and beyond any considerations of fandom etiquette and politeness, not responding to feedback (at least to me) seems to indicate a certain level of indifference towards even getting feedback at all.

And personally, I like writing feedback, I like picking out what I loved, and telling writers exactly what worked for me. So I usually spend a good amount of time trying to construct something more than a quick "thanks!" (not that there's anything wrong with doing that, sometimes it's all I have time for too.) Fandom is a reciprocal culture, if I don't feel like the time I put into feedback is appreciated, I won't leave it. And more than that, feedback is pretty much the best opportunity for readers to interact with writers, it's how a lot of meta gets discussed, and how a lot of people meet new friends. I don't think every writer has to automatically make friends with all of their reviewers, but I think it's nice when the channels of communication are at least open to that, even if all it is is a standard thank you reply, at least that's something.

Some of the best meta discussions I've had have come out of feedback threads, synecdochic is especially good at fostering those sorts of conversations when she posts fanfic. I know I've gotten to be better friends with at least half of the writers on my friendslist through conversations that started with feedback. And I know not all authors are interested in that or have time for that, but at least a thank you is, I think, called for when people give you a compliment. It just feels, at worst, rude and at least, like they don't care that people have left them feedback.

(stealing eleveninches' questions:) What do you guys think? Does anyone think a blanketed thank you is a poor response to feedback? Do you not leave feedback if the author doesn't say thanks? Do you get annoyed seeing an author saying a standard thank you to every comment left for them? Do you not care and leave feedback regardless of the author's actions? And, because I know there are several authors on my friendslist, do you guys all respond to your feedback? Do you feel like you have to? Or that it's a waste of time when all you can really say is "thanks" 40 times?

So. Yeah, I saw V for Vendetta the day it came out (or actually at 10pm the night before if you want to get technical) and I've been reading various flisters' reactions to it and I just. ( v for vendetta book spoilers )

( Lost thoughts )

and ( West Wing thoughts )

In non-tv related news: I have a friend who has been studying in South America since last August, she's been in Ecuador but school just finished so she recently began traveling. This is an email she sent me a few days ago from Chile.

I thought you all would appreciate this....so I went to lunch today and the restaurant had menus in spanish with english translations underneath. one of the items was papas fritas, or french fries. But in spanish, there are two meanings for the word papa--la papa means potato, and el papa means the pope (you may already know this). Anyway, underneath papas fritas it was written, fried popes, one dollar. There were also steamed popes and mashed popes, should you prefer those. I myself am vegetarian, and so passed on the popes, cooked any sort of way :)

Hee!

Hello, I think I have the flu or strep throat or something equally awful. I've been sitting around watching seasons 1 & 2 of The West Wing and intaking large amounts of airborne, emergen'c, vitamin water, and oscillococcinum. So far I can't tell if it's made any sort of difference at all, but I've run out of the oscillococcinum so I guess I'll have to venture outside my apartment sometime soon.

Anyone know what happened to stamplet? Nevermind all is well!

The nsync kerfluffle (oh how I love that word) didn't make it to my flist except for other people mentioning that it was going on. I think I got the gist of it though. ( cut for my thoughts )

Well I wrote a good deal more than I ever thought I would on the subject. And I think I feel better because of it.

Everyone should go read [ Leather ] by app1e_pi. It's Dom/Billy at it's best, leather and kilts and porny goodness.

Also, if anyone wanted to rec me good BtVS or A:tS fic of the slash variety, I'd be very greatful.

I've been watching Season 6 of Buffy over the last few days. I know a lot of people don't like the 6th and 7th seasons but I do. ( the season aired what, 3 years ago? Do I still need to spoiler cut this stuff? )

On a non-Buffy related note? I HATE my roommate right now. I cannot possibly win with him. He's pissed at me for not having time to ride my bike, he's pissed at me for not passing along a phone message the "right way". I am *so tired* of having to deal with his immature bullshit. The only time he deigns to speak to me anymore is when he's asking me for bill money or telling me what new way I've fucked up. *steams* I have less than a month left, I can ignore it for that much longer. Because I know the second I bring it up it'll turn into an even bigger thing and I just don't want to deal with it. It does suck though, not being able to be in the same room as him because of all this.