editcat

Woohoo!

Mon, 23 May 2005 16:47:49 GMT

I just got the results of my CVS, and what a lovely late birthday present! The karyotype appears completely normal (big sigh of relief). The results of the cystic fibrosis carrier screening blood test I had were negative (another sigh of relief). And I'm having a boy! Actually, I'd have been just as happy to be able to say it was a girl—it's just that knowing the sex makes this little person more real. So now I can stop saying 'it' and start saying 'he'. All we have to do now is come up with a name...oh, and make it through the remaining six months of pregnancy. But things have been going well, and I'm quite optimistic.

Update on pregnancy

Sat, 14 May 2005 19:05:36 GMT

I had chorionic villus sampling on Thursday. That means they took a tiny piece of the placenta, which is made by the baby and thus has the same genetic structure, and they are growing it in culture so that they can look at the chromosomes. Because I'm forty years old, there's some concern about the potential for serious chromosomal problems (the kind where the baby only rarely survives to birth, and never much longer). But the chance is relatively low, and we are certainly hoping for the best. They should know by next Friday (which is my birthday, and what better time for good news?) or early the next week at the latest. I'll also find out whether it's a boy or a girl.

The doctor took the sample with a needle stuck through my abdomen, which was not in the least fun. On the positive side, she used ultrasound to guide the procedure (the tip of the needle barely goes into the placenta and is kept well away from the baby). That means I got to see the baby moving around. A lot! It was amazing. The heart rate was 153, which I was informed is just right. And when the little arms and legs moved around, you could really tell it was a baby. The still shots aren't quite as convincing. But the doctor did manage to get one with the arm up (top image). She said the baby was waving, but I'm not entirely certain it wasn't thumbing its nose at us.

I've had to rest after the procedure (it carries only a very small risk of miscarriage, but my OB doesn't want me take any chances). But at least I'm able to sit up and spend a bit of time at the computer now. So I thought I'd share what I know with all of the lovely people on my flist who've been so marvellously supportive. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers; they mean so much to me.

Thanks!

Wed, 04 May 2005 20:36:42 GMT

I want to thank everyone for their support and good wishes. I have the most wonderful flist! I love you all. ::hugs:: I'm finally off bedrest, although I'm not supposed to do too much at this time. I'll try to catch up with allthejellies, although I'll be spending most of my vertical time trying to do actual work. Anyway, I thought you might want to see the ultrasound from last week.

All right, it doesn't look like much at this point. (The 'H' on the top image indicates the end with the head; otherwise there'd be no clue.) But its heart is beating, and the doctor assures me that it is quite normal. So yay!

Why I've been away

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:32:53 GMT

I haven't been on LJ for some time now (I especially apologise to aka_elle, as I was meant to go over community rules with her). There has been reason. Some of you are aware of my less than pleasant obstetrical history. Well, it appeared that it might be turning round, as I had made it through nine weeks of pregnancy without any problems. With only a few days to go before my ultrasound (when I hoped to have good news to share), however, I had an episode of bleeding. The bleeding was very limited, but I was immediately ordered to lie flat on my back until the ultrasound (yesterday). Fortunately, I didn't have any further bleeding. Even more fortunately, the results of the ultrasound were promising (I haven't had the official results, but I did have some things, such as the heart beating regularly, pointed out by the tech). But because of the stress of the ultrasound (especially as it included a transvaginal examination), I've been told off to bed rest again for a bit. I discovered I could use my laptop (if rather awkwardly) whilst lying on my side, so I decided to update my journal to let people know what was going on. I am quite excited by the positive development (I've never made it to this stage before), but naturally I am worried as well. I'll add more as I know it, and when I'm up and about again I'll post a copy of the ultrasound (if anyone is interested).

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 17:46:26 GMT

allthejellies

To Susi

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:20:00 GMT

Happy Birthday, Susi!

This absolutely must happen to Giles in somebody's fic

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 07:15:34 GMT

I read the following in the opinion columns of The Times (the anecdote was at the beginning, so that's all I've kept):

Let me shake you by the hand and lead you through my etiquette crisis
LA Notebook by Chris Ayres

Greeting people isn't easy. In fact, the most embarrassing, fist-biting moment of my adult life involved a botched handshake in a Manhattan gym.
It happened when I walked past a man I recognised—a fellow English journalist—in the changing room. We had both spotted each other, but neither of us wanted to talk. Being polite, however, I half-turned to make sure my acquaintance wouldn’t be offended. He did the same. Reluctant eye contact was made, so we both said "Hey!" in faux cheery voices.

This created another problem: could the greeting be left at that? With my shoulders now at 35 degrees to my hips, I decided that it couldn't; so I turned and offered a warm, sweaty right hand. My acquaintance (the greetee) didn't notice the gesture until it was too late.

Quickly, I withdrew. By this time, however, his own hand was being extended. Panicked, I sent my palm back into the action, only to notice that its target was now retreating. Unable to rescue the situation, I went ahead with the engagement anyway, missed, and ended up grabbing on to the greetee's startled thumb.

Once the thumbshake was over, neither of us could look at each other. So we exchanged strangled niceties, then ran back to our exercise machines to work off the embarrassment. I remembered telling myself that only the English could become entangled in such an excruciating social faux pas in a place of relaxation.

I have been wary of handshakes ever since.

When I read this, I was struck by how appropriate the whole situation would be for Giles to encounter, either as the greeter or the startled greetee (I hope it was the entire greetee who was startled, and not only the thumb). In fact, I could really see this happening if Giles were to run into Wesley early during the latter's tenure with Angel. This isn't so much a challenge as a hope that someone will someday, somehow incorporate the incident into a Giles fic.

Six Nations Grand Slam!!!!!

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:09:21 GMT

That is all.

Talk about damning with faint praise

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 06:38:07 GMT

I simply have to share this quote from Gerard Baker's opinion column in today's issue of The Times:

"It might even be said to have worked, after a fashion, in a sense, for a while, maybe."

I have never before seen such a sense of dubiety conveyed in only positive—more or less—words.

I ate today!

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 05:29:21 GMT

You may laugh, but I have been desperately ill since Friday, and nothing nutritive passed my lips for three full days. (What did pass my lips, unfortunately in both directions, was water. I am now up to fizzy drinks in the liquid department.) I really won't go into the grim specifics (I wish I didn't know them myself); suffice it to say that sitting has not been an option for me. But today at dinner I was able to eat some food, and though internal rumblings indicate a less than complete success, it was not an abject failure. More importantly, I am now able to sit at my computer for an almost normal length of time. I was able to keep up with lj only sporadically, which I regret.

I have to share something which may be of some interest, at least to jedi_penguin and her daughter Sandy. It's a letter to the Editor from the on-line edition of today's Times:

Letters to the Editor

March 08, 2005

Royal wedding

From Mr Phil Ridgway

Sir, I have assiduously been following the reports and correspondence about the forthcoming wedding of Charles and Camilla (letters, March 4, etc). I don't care about the venue, the dress or if she becomes queen. It's just that this is surely the best chance I shall ever have of seeing antidisestablishmentarianism used in earnest.

Yours faithfully,
PHIL RIDGWAY,
27 Naverne Meadows,
Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1HU.
[e-mail address deleted out of courtesy]
March 6.

I, for one, rejoice with him.

I'm back...

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:06:37 GMT

...and only a little depressed. I did manage to read my flist, but I wasn't up to commenting and probably won't do. I do want to thank all the people who sent me good wishes. They really did make me feel better. I'm especially grateful to phendog, who wrote me a House/BtVS cross even though she doesn't watch House (and let me note that it was good), aka_elle, who was kind enough to repeat my crossover challenge in allthejellies, and kaymickbee, who although also not a House watcher offered to write me a drabble (and something uplifting in a happy B/G future would be splendid). All the caring was greatly appreciated, and definitely raised my spirits.

One good piece of news is that my sister managed to make it after all. I don't see her often, and it was good to see her.I also think it made my parents feel better that both of us were there. The family were all very supportive of one another, and the service was exactly what my grandmother would have wanted. It also made me feel good that the quilt my mother and I made for my grandmother—which had photographs of all six of her children both as babies and as young adults, and which she took from her house (when she was still able to live there on her own) to my uncle's house (where she lived for two years, until she needed professional care), and finally to the nursing home, where it hung on her wall—was buried with her. For me, it was rather touching that everyone apparently agreed that it was important to her.

Will be gone for a time

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:36:37 GMT

My grandmother died Tuesday. She had Alzheimer disease, and she'd had a severe stroke, and she was in hospice care. So it wasn't exactly a shock. And I rarely saw her. But she was my last living grandparent, and I loved her, so I still feel awful. I really didn't want to talk about it, because, honestly, I didn't really want to think about it. But I'm going to be off lj for a bit, probably till Monday, as my husband and I will be travelling to attend the funeral. Which is not something I want to do, but I know that my father needs my support, because he's the eldest and will be supporting all his siblings instead of the other way round. And my mother is already emotionally exhausted from dealing with the details of the terminal illness. And my sister won't be able to be there. Lucky her.

As I decided to write about this after all, I decided to be selfish and beg for a fic to make me feel better. What I would really like to read is a BtVS/House crossover, with the pairings of B/G and House/Wilson. And I want it to have something to do with Monster Trucks. Maybe Buffy persuades Giles to go as a sort of tribute to Jenny. Maybe House and Wilson are in Southern California for a conference, or maybe Buffy and Giles are travelling. The details don't really matter to me. What matters is that they meet House and Wilson because of Monster Trucks, and House in his abrasive but perceptive way tells them how they really feel about each other. If someone could write this for me, even just briefly, I think it would make me feel better.

Banned books

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 06:31:12 GMT

Here's a meme that's definitely up my street, gakked from fannishnej:

List of the top 110 banned books (of all time). Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've read part of. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of). Read more. Convince others to read some.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (this book being on the list has kind of a grim irony, doesn't it?)
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark #110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I appear to be rather fond of banned books.

Worrisome fortune cookie

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 09:48:21 GMT

Hmmm...

Cookie Generator by Hutta

The cookie is apparently one up on me; I'm afraid malnpudl and I have been up to anything. Yet.

♥ Return of the Meme ♥

Tue, 15 Feb 2005 04:55:37 GMT

I had to do something to celebrate Valentine's Day on lj, so here's a meme I gakked from phendog:

Valentines Day Horrors! by deuceloosely
Username
Status
Seen with suspicious-looking blonde woman:	gileswench
Went back into the closet:	whoser88
Sends you a singing Ape-o-Gram:	escargoat
Brings one of your exes to the party:	catzen20
Came dressed for a "Slumber Party:"	beadtific
Chokes on a candy heart reading, "Be mine:"	reni_0629
"...but I'm not bitter."	chanceofrainne
Proposes marriage to you in drunken stupor:	mrsdrake
The "wallflower" who somehow manages to score:	aka_elle
Total valentines you'll receive:	74

Quiz created with MemeGen!

♥♥♥♥♥ Happy Valentine's Day, you lot! ♥♥♥♥♥

The Return of Sick and Twisted

Mon, 14 Feb 2005 10:22:09 GMT

A long time ago, I visited the then-newest feature at The Shrine of Insanity and created a sick and twisted little B/G (well, kinda sorta B/G, in a partners-in-crime sense) vignette. (This is only one of the many fun effects you can achieve by putting Buffy characters into these lunatics' story generators. The interactive porn can be, well, interesting, to say the least. I highly recommend this website as a work avoidance tool.) I posted the results at allthejellies. The lovely and talented phendog, abetted by malnpudl, convinced me (all right, it took very litle convincing) that it was worth repeating in my own lj for those on my flist who aren't members of allthejellies (or at least weren't back when I first posted). So here it is in all its glory (and no, I didn't play with it until it came out the way I wanted, although I did clean up the punctuation and such). If you're interested, check out:

Assassinate a Celebrity
By The Interloper

You enter a seedy bar and order a single-malt scotch, sipping it slowly and glancing nervously around.

'Waiting for someone?' Asks the barman and tips you a knowing wink. You think about stabbing him in the eyeball. You finish your first drink and order another. Your eyes stay fixed on the clock above the bar. 'Been stood up?' Asks the barman as he polishes a glass. You consider tearing out his liver and feeding it to him.

A few moments later you feel a tap on your shoulder and turn to see that Buffy has finally arrived. 'Hi Giles,' says Buffy. 'Let's get a booth.'

Your friend orders a Black Frost beer and together you head to a shadowy booth in the far corner of the bar.

'How have you been?' Asks Buffy as you sit down.

'Pretty fuckin' unappreciated,' you reply, then say: 'Let's get down to business.'

"Another One Bites the Dust" starts to play on the jukebox.

'Okay,' says Buffy and takes out a small black notebook. 'Who's your target?'

'Joss Whedon,' you say.

Buffy stares at you for a moment before writing the name in the notebook. 'How would you like the job done?' asks Buffy.

'With a stake through the heart,' you say.

'That's easy,' says Buffy and makes another note.

'How much?' you ask.

'That will be...' Buffy flicks through the notebook. 'An even thousand. Do you want to pay now or later?'

'Now,' you say and produce a padded envelope from under the table. 'That should cover it.' Buffy takes the envelope. 'How long will it take?' you ask.

'Not long,' replies Buffy.

Suddenly the jukebox stops playing and the volume of the television suspended above the bar is increased. You see flickering news footage and hear a monotone voice report: 'Shock news just in, Joss Whedon has been found dead at his Los Angeles property.' There is a gasp from the bar patrons. Your eyes grow wide. Buffy smiles smugly. 'At this stage the exact cause of death has not been confirmed, though it appears Whedon was attacked with a stake through the heart while in the the toilet. The police currently have no suspects.'

You look across the table at Buffy and say: 'That was fast.'

Buffy smiles and says: 'We pride ourselves on the fastest service in town.'

'Can I buy you a drink?' you ask.

Buffy nods and together you raise your glasses. On the jukebox, "We Are the Champions" begins to play.

'Here's to Joss Whedon,' you say."

But it didn't end there. No, the good (?) people at the Shrine were not done with their pogrom against celebrities. (And who can blame them?) So I returned to the Shrine for the inevitable sequel. Remembering that some people castigated me for slaying the beloved [sic] Whedon rather than the notorious arch-Spikolator Marti Noxon, I decided to remedy the situation. I fired up the sequel and plugged in Giles's name as the POV character, with Buffy listed as the ~~accomplice~~ friend. I then answered the remaining questions (there were quite a few, mainly about weapons) cold, with no foreknowledge of the story. This is what came out, changed only with respect to punctuation/proofreading:

Fresh after the discovery that your previous celebrity assassination attempt was actually an elaborate hoax staged by a friend and a hidden camera television show you set out more determined than ever to bring a celebrity down.

You spend weeks in high-intensity battle training, honing your skills. Stuck to the wall of your exercise room there is a picture of Marti Noxon torn from a magazine. The picture of your hated nemesis spurs you on, until finally you consider yourself ready and set off at last to personally...

Assassinate a Celebrity...Again
By The Interloper

You're loading the red rental van with a stake, crossbow and sword when Buffy arrives.

'What're you doing?' Asks Buffy, nervously eyeing an axe that you load into the van. 'You're not planning on hurting anyone, are you?'

'No, I'm planning on killing anyone,' you say, as you lift a bec de corbin and place it in the back of the van. 'Well not just anyone, someone.'

'Someone like..?' Buffy is clearly distressed by your answer.

You turn and look at Buffy and then pull a ragged picture of Marti from your back pocket. 'Marti Noxon,' you say. 'I plan on killing Marti Noxon.'

'Riiight,' says Buffy.

'Could you hand me that blowgun?' you ask, motioning with your hand.'

Buffy passes you the blowgun and you put it in the van. You close the door and walk around to the driver's seat.

'Wanna come?' you ask Buffy.

Buffy contemplates for a moment, then says: 'Okay, but only to make sure you don't get yourself killed.'

Buffy gets into the passenger seat and you start the van.

'Marti Noxon, here we come,' you say as you pull away from the kerb.

Sometime Later...

You are parked outside Marti Noxon's residence.

'I had no idea this was going to be so boring,' says Buffy, who sits beside you munching on some Cheesy Chips.

'We have to make sure Marti is home before we burst in, or else it's all a waste of time,' you say, gently caressing the crossbow that is sitting on your lap.

A few minutes pass before a Reliant Robin suddenly appears on the road and enters the driveway.

'That must be Noxon,' you say. 'Let's go!'

Together you leave the van and throw the separate pieces of your arsenal over the fence. Then you clamber over it yourselves.

'I can't believe we're doing this,' says Buffy. You both run up the expanse of lush green lawn towards Marti Noxon's looming mansion. The Reliant Robin is parked outside, but is empty.

You work your way around Marti Noxon's residence, finding it impossible to believe that someone you hate so much gets to live in such a big house. Towards the rear of the mansion you find an unlocked door. Together, you and Buffy slowly enter.

Inside is a dimly lit corridor and a set of double doors that are open to an enormous games room. At the opposite side of the room a fireplace flickers. You can clearly see the back of Marti Noxon's head sitting in front of the fire. Slowly you reach for your sword and bring it up in front of your face.

'What are you going to do with that?' Buffy asks.

'Die Noxious One!!' you scream, bursting out from the shadows.

As you enter the games room two figures in dark suits appear in front of you. 'Kung Fu Fighting' begins to play from speakers strategically placed around the room. You dispatch the first security guard easily with your sword.

Beside you, Buffy rushes forward and attacks the second guard with the stake. The guard dodges the blow and snatches the stake from Buffy's hands. You grab the crossbow that was strapped to your back and take the guard out from behind.

'Thanks,' says Buffy as she dusts herself off.

'Impressive,' says a voice, and you both turn to see Marti Noxon rise from the chair and slowly begin towards you.

'Don't move!' you say, brandishing your crossbow.

'Your puny weapons will not harm me,' says Marti Noxon advancing steadily closer.

'This is for saving my life,' Buffy tells you, bringing up the blowgun and firing it into Marti Noxon. Strangely, the weapon seems to have no effect. Marti Noxon continues to approach Buffy, before lifting her into the air with one hand and tossing her across the room.

'Buffy!' you scream, and then watch as Noxon slowly turns towards you.

You watch in disbelief as Marti Noxon's skin starts to peel away, revealing a metallic interior that shifts and unfolds. After a moment the head is all that remains of the original Noxon, her body replaced by that of a robotic killing machine.

'No!' you shout as Noxon begins to laugh. It is a booming robotic laugh that reverberates around the room.

'Behold the awesome power of Mecha-Noxon!' says that which was once Marti Noxon, raising an arm that resembles a cannon. A volley of bullets suddenly erupts from Mecha-Noxon's arm and you flee in terror. There is a crash, as behind you, Mecha-Noxon throws aside a pool table. Coloured balls roll beneath your feet and you fall, turning to see the grotesque visage of Mecha-Noxon leering down at you.

'It wasn't meant to be like this!' you scream, as Mecha-Noxon raises its left arm, complete with a spinning buzz saw. As Mecha-Noxon brings its buzz saw arm closer to your face, memories of your life come flashing back. You dwell particularly on those memories of Buffy, who stayed with you until the end, and died for a cause you believed in. A tear runs down your cheek as you face the certainty of death by Mecha-Noxon.

'It's time to die!' Says Mecha-Noxon.

'Then kill me!' you scream.

Suddenly, the eyes of the still-human face of the mechanical beast widen, and Mecha-Noxon tumbles towards you. This is it, you think and close your eyes. Yet after a moment you realise all is silent, and you have not been torn in half by a buzz saw. Slowly opening your eyes, you see the buzz saw has stopped spinning only inches away from your face and Mecha-Noxon is silent. Scrambling out from beneath the machine, you look up and see Buffy standing atop it, the axe you brought along buried in its back.

'You saved me...' you say in disbelief. 'I thought you were dead!'

'It takes more than being thrown across a room to stop me,' smiles Buffy.

'We Are the Champions' begins to play over the speakers, and you hear the sound of sirens in the distance. 'I think it's time to go,' you say.

Together, you and Buffy disappear into the night. And in the room you left behind, Mecha-Noxon twitches...

My only disappointment was that Giles's name never was used in the sequel (why'd they bother having me give it, I wonder?) But if you read the story knowing that Giles is the POV character, it all makes sense. The weapons, the action; everything seems so apt. Buffy even dusted off her hands after a henchman was killed, so they were obviously vampires. It's spooky. Although I don't know why I thought Marti Noxon would drive a Reliant Robin. Then again, perhaps I'm best off without that much insight into my psyche.

Be sure to visit The Shrine of Insanity and play around a bit. It's strangely addictive. And if this wasted five minutes of your life and precious space on your friends page you'll never get back, blame phendog. ::grins:: I'm sure she won't mind.

Another silly meme...but I can't resist

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:07:28 GMT

E	Enjoyable
D	Delightful
I	Insane
T	Trustworthy
C	Charismatic
A	Astonishing
T	Temperamental

Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com

Hey, at least 'insane' is accurate!

Leave for just a little while...

Sun, 09 Jan 2005 02:55:14 GMT

...and your flist is impossible to get through. Yikes! And I had a really good reason; I had LASIK done and am just now able to use the computer again. (And my vision has been corrected to 20/15. Woohoo! I've worn glasses almost my entire life, so this is simply amazing for me.) And I've probably overdone it just trying to catch up on my flist (which is fairly small, but prolix). So if anyone has received oddly tardy replies from me, or been surprised not to have me reply to something that would usually be up my street, now you know why. I think I'll go rest my eyes now...

The title says it all, really...

Sun, 12 Dec 2004 06:41:28 GMT

Visited the Drabble Generator. I was pointed there by supermom20 (who apparently even got the same template as I; I discovered there were others, but I liked this result for some odd reason). I couldn't resist the pairing of Walsh and Riley.

Overwhelmingly Tripping</font>

Walsh tripped along politely. She was on her way to meet her lover, Riley, for Valentine's Day. She smiled to see a platypus hopping along, carrying a computer in its mouth.

Walsh was almost in the Initiative Cave when she came across a squishy cake, lying alone on a gleaming plate. "That must be a treat from my flame-retardant bear," she said to herself, and tripped over to it. The cake looked phlegmy, so she ate it.

It gave her the most moist tingling sensation in her nose. "How unusual!" she said and continued tripping to see Riley.

When Riley came out to meet her, he took one look and fell over.

"What is it?" Walsh cried expeditiously.

"Your chest! And your neck!" Riley said. "They're throbbing! Can't you feel it?"

Walsh felt her chest and her neck. They were indeed quite throbbing. "Oh, no!" Walsh said. "I'm a man!" She, or rather, he started to cry. "It must have been that squishy cake you left for me. Did you know what it would do?"

"I didn't leave you any cake," Riley said. "I got you a nuclear reactor. It must have been that lame man who lives nearby. He acts a little sadistically, ever since he shagged a taser."

"But how can you ever love me, now that I'm a man?" Walsh sobbed.

"Well, I never knew how to tell you this," Riley said ardently, "but I actually prefer men. And I think your chest is really explosive like that."

"Really?" Walsh dried his tears. Walsh kissed Riley and it was an entirely bouncy sensation, like a nuclear explosion destroying the entire planet.

They spent the night having entirely bouncy sex, until the cake wore off suddenly.

Everything was rather awkward after that.

As a cat, I had to do this one

Tue, 07 Dec 2004 23:11:17 GMT

Gakked from phendog:

You scored as Love Machine Cat. Look out! The love machine is on the loose. You might want to take off a night of permiscuity and go get your junk checked out. Nothing sadder than a cat with herpes.

</td>

Love Machine Cat

67%

Nerd Cat

58%

Ninja Cat

50%

Pissed at the World Cat

33%

Couch Potato Cat

33%

Derranged Cat

33%

Drunk Cat

25%

Which Absurd Cat are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

That picture is too cute for words!

Bored enough to update with a meme...Blame phendog

Sun, 05 Dec 2004 22:18:04 GMT

I was checking my LJ whilst waiting for some laundry, and I decided to entertain myself with a meme gakked from phendog:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your own post...along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

I chose not to count dictionaries, which I actually keep closest to my computer, because they don't contain sentences per se on most pages.

‘’Dach chi i ddim yn malio am LLereurol? Ai dim on amdanoch chi’ch hunain ’dach chi’n malio? Dwi ddim isio i Slafennog ennill Cwpan y Tai, ac fe gollwch chi’r holl farciau ges i gan yr Athro McGonagal am wybod am Swynion Cyfnewid.’

- Harri Potter a Maen yr Athbronydd, J.K, Rowling, cyfieithiad gan Emily Huws

And another meme, from the same source (as I already have the nearest book out):

1) Take the book nearest to you.
2) Find the first adjective on page 50 and the last noun on page 100
3) Go to google's image search and search for that.
4) Write 100 words about it (your impressions, what it looks like, what it reminds you of, etc.)

Book: Harri Potter a Maen yr Athbronydd, J.K, Rowling, cyfieithiad gan Emily Huws
Search Term: pwysig tyrfa (important crowd in English; search didn't work in Welsh)
Image: http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200305/r3114_7286.jpg

100 Words (in English):

An injured Australian footballer sits by the pitch, looking sulky. It reminds me of being kept idle by my own medical problems. We had plans for Thanksgiving (visiting my husband's relations in Pittsburgh) ruined by my recent miscarriage. I knew it was going to happen, but I had to stay in bed trying to prevent it, and then it did happen and I had to recover from it. It wouldn't be so bad, except because of Kenneth's work we can't reschedule any time soon. And his dad is ill, quite possibly terminally, and his sister is upset we can't come.

Well, that second one was not very fun after all.

This space intentionally left blank....

Wed, 05 May 2004 23:52:25 GMT

This journal exists solely for the purpose of participating in some B/G shipper communities on LJ as a logged in member. Don't hold your breath expecting to see anything here. I'm posting this solely because I don't want this journal 'assimilated' by we_r_borg, or anyone else for that matter.