So, I tuned in to Las Vegas last night, because it was supposed to be the Chasez's episode. NO! I kept waiting for him to show up, and around the halfway mark, I realized that I'd been thrown a roadblock. I am much confused.

What irks me most is that now I'm forced to watch two episodes of that idiotic show intead of just one. OH MY GOD, with the badness. If someone on my friends list likes this show, no offense and more power to you but, what the hell, are you on crack? Holy Lawd! Waaaay too many irritating things to mention, but here are the high(low)lights:

1) Security. Easy to see why the security chief lost out on the manager's job. My God, a truck's been parked in the same spot all morning and even after he's called away, he doesn't tell someone to see what the hell is up?

2) Head of security needs to watch a standing-around-and-touching-a-car contest. In a casino??? There's nothing more pressing to take care of...in a casino? You know, one that's full of cash and opportunists? My God, the insanity.

3) Along with the above...okay, he's the security chief and he's schmoozing one of the contestants DURING the contest? I can't even begin to go into the idiocy of that plot point.

4) Tom Selleck -- any MY, he's looking yummilicious -- should have reined his cowboy friend in. Out on the horse farm I'm sure he's hilarious, but the girl (whatever the hell her name is. Not getting invested enough to look) was right; the casino *should* be filled with plenty of people to babysit his friend. Shouldn't have been her job. And the first time he started talking the way he did, Selleck should have stepped in to nip it in the bud. MAJOR ARGH.

5) This next one never fails to drive me up the wall. Some relative pops up from nowhere and people who know absolutely nothing about this person all begin harping about, "He's your family! You should give him another chance!" Idiots. Shut up. You can bet that if some relative popped up out of hubs!monkey's past and hubs!monkey didn't seem too happy to see him, I'd probably think hubs had a pretty good reason not to want him around anymore. Stupid, stupid, stupid cliche and if I never see it again I will dance with glee.

6) In a true Captain Kirk moment (always the last one down, always the first one up), the hotel manager guy managed not only to stay on his feet while everyone else who'd been gassed dropped like flies, but actually gathered evidence (OH NO! HE HAS A TATTOO!) before he finally collapsed. But! He never passed out! He was groggy and stuff, but he never lost consciousness!

7) Okay...everyone in the secure room is standing around looking stupid while watching the above scene play out on their monitors, but had anyone called the police? And why didn't manager boy do THAT instead of calling his pretty worthless security chief friend?

You know, I'm hoping that the casino is cleaned out and the place is blown up. But since that won't happen, I'll hope that JC shows up on the next episode so I don't have to ever, ever, EVER watch that mess again.

::shudder::

Doods! If you read my last post, you know that teenmusic.com (hahaha) posted this blurb about JC wherein they state:

Chasez will release the album under his own record label after losing his contract with Jive Records earlier this year.

I hope it's true, for no other reason than to see what JC would come up with for a label name. I think it'd be fun if he called it Schizophrenic Records. What do all of you think?

Let me hear it! NAME JC'S LABEL! I'll write a ficlet about the name that tickles my fancy most, and how I think JC would come up with it. Let's have some fun. :-D

JC!

Dipping one's toe into a new fandom can be scary. I'm trying the full-immersion method. I'll let you know how it goes.

Assorted Doctor Who ficlets, written as part of the lifeonmartha "1000 Drabbles of Awesome" writing fest, celebrating their 1000th member.

Martha meets Reinette: clickiness!

Here be dragons [and] I am the Wizard of Speed and Time: double clickiness!

Martha wants to learn Gallifreyan [and] Someone in Martha's family thinks about her traveling with the Doctor: more double clickiness!

The Doctor's lost. Martha goes to find him: clickiness!

My brain hurts. I used it a lot at work this week (hahahaha), and now it doesn't seem to want to work. Blasted brain. ::pokes::

Why is it that when I'm writing, I always get bogged down at the end? Always, without fail. Maybe I'll start writing the endings first, then go back and start at the beginning. This won't be any stranger than starting in the middle, which I've also done...quite a lot, actually.

Maybe that will be my new writing strategy, to not write a single word of the beginning or middle until the end's been sorted out. And yeah, a big bwahahaha! on that one, 'cause I doubt it'll ever happen. ;-)

In other news, I seem to have been blindsided by a crippling need to see the scorchingly gorgeous Freema Agyeman and David Tennant hook up in real life. Say what!? Yes, I'm as amazed as you are. After years as a real people slash addict, writing het came as a big enough shock, so to find myself wandering into the realm of real people het fic...yes, surprised to say the least. But my God, the chemistry between the two of them! Yikes!

They looked fabulous on the blue carpet at the UK National Television Awards -- Doctor Who won for Dest Drama, Tennant won Best Actor, but Freema was skunked, losing the Best Actress award, dammit. I read that they arrived together...squeeness! Arrived together and sat together and there was much smiling and hand-holding and many, many looks and hand-in-the-small-of-the-back action while going up to receive the award. They were completely adorable on stage, too. Freema Agyeman is my other sekrit girl crush. Luuuuuurve her muchly.

I want to read tons and tons of fic about David and Freema's Forbidden Who Love. So, yeah, any time anyone wants to start on that, they have my permission. Yes. ::pokes friends list::

OH MY GOD, I HATE GWEN.

( Torchwood -- They Keep Killing Susie )

I've wondered about this one a lot over the years. Today's question:

Style. Are there writers you can pick out by style alone? If so, what is it that you recognize? If you're a writer, is having a recognizable style important to you? Why or why not?

So...I saw a picture of JC with BSB and in a burst of my usual me-ness, thought it would be cool if they invited him to join the group. It would! No more worries about finding a label, he could sing, write, produce and generally bring a shot of quirkiness to BSB that their old skool fans would quickly come to love. Because he's JC and no one hates him. It's just not possible. Anyway.

I read this today and squeed. From cbs11tv.com.

"Obviously he’s coming from another vocal group just like us, so he really understands the harmonies, the melodies, and the - the complex simplicity is what he had mentioned to me once while we were in the studio - of what we do," McLean said. "We told him, hey, if you want to come out for a couple shows, come on out."

See? Squee! Today one show, tomorrow, all of their leads. Go, JC! Conquer those Boys!

( LJ cut for freshness. )

A couple of days ago I asked: If you write fic, do you read it as well? Not as strange a question as it sounds, but you'll have to go to the post to see why.

pjordha had an interesting response, and has graciously allowed me to use it for this post. Her comment:

I'll add to that question: If you write fic, do you read it as well...and send feedback after reading it?

So many times I've seen people talking about reading so much fic, and yet so many writers get so *little* feedback, so the math does not add up. If there's so much reading and enjoying going on, where's the feedback?

When I read something I like, I send feedback, even if it's only a "great story!", even if it's not entirely true. If I hate something, then I wouldn't send feedback, but nowadays I wouldn't bother finishing something I hated.

Sometimes I think writers (at least in popslash) are the worst for sending feedback. Either that or they only read the "popular" stuff. Readers-only or writers just starting out are much better at sending feedback in my experience.

Look at it this way: When a writer sees comments like "I read everything in XYZ fandom...save the really bad stuff," and that writer has written fic in XYZ fandom and never gotten any kind of feedback from those commenters, then they must only conclude that their fanfic is "the really bad stuff." Which is probably kind of demoralizing, I think.

The short answer: I'll be the first to admit that I don't send nearly enough feedback, but I'm making an effort now to let authors know that I love and/or like what they've done.

And just to play devil's advocate here, I've known writers who aren't enthusiastic about "great story!" responses. Since I don't know if that means they'd rather have had no feedback at all, I won't elaborate. Just tossing that out there as the flipside of the coin. ;-)

Thoughts?

By the way, pjordha's original comment is screened to encourage responses here. :-)

Picture this:

So...the iPod's on shuffle, and I'm at its mercy. I'm listening to Hanson singing 'O Holy Night' (Hanson Family Christmas Album), opening verse, I'm pretty sure I've never listened to this before. All of the brothers sing a couple of lines. Taylor, then Zac (never knew he had such a sweet voice! he sounds like a baby Tay!) and then Isaac.

OH HOLY HANSON! As soon as JC conquers the Backstreet Boys, I'm pointing him in Hanson's direction. I'd love to hear him duet with Isaac. Seriously. ::melting::