The Other Sandy

I finished the 12 main episodes of Cherry Magic and the 2 short specials that followed. Adachi grew on me over time, but Kurosawa continued to give me the same Uncanny Valley vibes I get from Jude Law. I did like their relationship in the end, even though I never really felt any chemistry between the actors. The post series short about the office junior trying to figure out why Adachi and Kurosawa always seem to be arriving at and leaving work at the same time, regularly eat lunch together, and have matching fountain pens was hilarious, mainly because Kurosawa was so stiff and earnest that I never thought he could be funny.

I've only watched one more episode of Tale of the Nine Tailed, in part because I got distracted by other things, and in part because I was spoiled for the ending and I was hoping the show wouldn't go there. I'll get back to this one eventually.

I'm slogging my way through the Warehouse 11 arc in The Lost Tomb Reboot. I like the show and characters overall and am very much looking forward to them getting back to tomb raiding in season 2, but this Warehouse 11 arc is a momentum killer.

I just started Word of Honor last weekend and I love it so far. There's only one problem. How am I supposed to concentrate on subtitles when this is on my screen?:





Seriously, I'll be staring at Gong Jun/Wen Kexing's face and suddenly realize I haven't read a single subtitle the whole scene, then have to go back and rewatch.

Well, so much for that idea.

Or at least that's what I've been calling it in my head. Look at this adorable grumpy face:





Pattern by Shylah Addante (a.k.a. Books and Hooks) on Craftsy.

Yes, another chibi. I can't help it; they're cute.

And I finally figured out why all my pictures have suddenly been looking so green lately. The tree outside my apartment got off to a late start this spring but has finally filled in, and it fills the entire field of view of my windows. All the light coming in is now being filtered through the leaves.

Pattern by XStitchMyHeart. I would normally link to the pattern, but I got it from her Etsy store, which no longer exists.

I did manage to finish this during the season finale last week, but I wanted to wash it and press it and make it look nice for its final photo. However, my sink was full of dishes that I was deeply uninspired to wash, and then there was a burst pipe under my building that cut off my water for a day.

The original pattern includes the show’s name under the characters, but (a) stitching letters is one of my least favorite things to do, and (b) I think the characters are clearly identifiable without the label. I also shaved off one column from each side of Katrina’s skirt because she just didn’t look right to me.

It turns out that the third full weekend of every month is International Hermit & Stitch Weekend. I did not know this. I found out too late to participate last month, but I thought I'd give it a try this month. (There's an official sign-up and blog community, but I'm not much of a joiner, so I just did this for me).

I also thought I'd take a break from the big project I've been working on for months and months, and do something small to remind myself that sometimes these projects can actually end, so I made this:



Chibi Sherlock and Watson are based on a pattern by Caroline Selby over at Crafty Companion. If you just clicked through to look at it, you'll see that I took rather a lot of liberties with the colors. I just wanted John and Sherlock to be wearing the outfits I most commonly think of them in. I've never chosen my own colors before and I'm mostly pleased with the ones I picked, except for Sherlock's scarf. The colors looked warmer on the skein than they did when stitched, and I should have chosen blues more than two shades apart. The contrast looked good on the skeins but was less obvious when stitched.

Oh, well. Call it a learning experience. I still think they're adorable.

Filched from mangacat201.

- Bold all of the following TV shows of which you've watched 3 or more episodes.
- Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode.
- Asterisk * if you have at least one full season on tape or DVD
- If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

( The List )

It appears that I've managed to watch entirely too much television in my lifetime. It also appears that I was willing to watch damn near anything back in the days when we only had 4 channels.

• I re-alphabetized the list because I'm a librarian and it was killing me not to have it in ALA filing order. I also added Max Headroom, QED, and Spy Game because they are criminally underrated shows that more people should have watched.

The BBC is starting up the new season of Sherlock on New Year's Day. The last I heard, we're not getting it on PBS until May. That means that in order to avoid spoilers, I won't be able to read Sherlock fic for five months. Five months. Yes, there are tools like Read It Later or Delicious where I could stash fic to read later, but five months. There will be so much fic stashed after five months that it'll be too overwhelming and I'll just wind up deleting it all without reading it anyway. I'm going to miss five months' worth of fic. And yes, I would like some cheese with my whine.

I had intended to post this sooner, but the new shows I tried this year had start dates anywhere from August to November so there never seemed to be a time when I'd seen enough episodes of everything to post. Now that it's the end of the year, I figured I'd better get a move-on.

( Rubicon )

( Sherlock )

( The Walking Dead )

( The Event )

( Chase )

( Hawaii Five-0 )

( Law & Order: UK )

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ETA: The entry referred to in comment 2a has been deleted because all of the linked videos it contained are no longer available on the internet. Boo.

Today was a really full day. Panels started at 9:00 a.m. with a review and discussion of the apocalypse storyline. That was followed by a presentation on Lucifer's representation in myth, religion, and literature.

Then we had the annual script-to-screen panel where we were all handed scripts and assigned parts. We read each scene, then watched it play out in the actual episode to see how things differed from the printed page. This year's episode was "Asylum." I played the rookie cop who fell under Ellicott's influence (after being volunteered by seesmooshrun), which made me happy because I got to die before the opening credits.

After lunch, we had a panel on what not to do when writing fan fic (we all seemed to have very similar pet peeves), which ended with a group round-robin fic writing exercise. Then we had an actual outside guest come in (all the other panels except the Q&A with the art department were presented by con attendees) and talk about various types of energies and how they affect us, from spirits to chakras to other people's feelings (I applaud myself for not giving off visible waves of skepticism).

The coolest panel of the day was the one I mentioned yesterday that I was looking forward to: arts & crafts. This is the first time I've done arts & crafts at a con. We were running super late by this point, so we didn't get to see the presentation on making LJ icons (it's now up on winchestmidwest), but we did spend about twice as much time as allotted either making tin hats or scrapbooks with supplies handed out at the con. One thing I learned was that glittery, textured paper may look very pretty as a background, but it's murder to glue anything to, even with the spray adhesive I borrowed from the tin hat group.

The final panel of the day consisted of video clips of classic rock used in the show. At that point, everybody split up with some people going out for dinner and a psychic reading, while others stayed behind to watch movies with some sort of Supernatural connection (mostly through starring Jensen or Jared, but there was also that crappy horror movie Kripke wrote). I've seen all the movies and don't believe in psychics, so I came home to watch the first 2 episodes of The Guard.

The Guard is a Canadian series about a search and rescue team with the Canadian Coast Guard. I mainly gave it a try because the cast includes Steve Bacic (Dr. Sexy, M.D. from "Changing Channels") and Gordon Michael Woolvett, who were both on Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda a few years ago. I love Gord's character, but so far the show isn't grabbing me. My main problem with it is that the 2 actors carrying the heaviest dramatic load (alcoholism and PTSD storylines) aren't very good. In particular, the guy with PTSD spends a lot of time doing the thousand yard stare o' trauma, but instead of looking broken, he just looks kind of creepy. I keep wanting to call Mulder & Scully or Sam & Dean to exorcise him or something.

I waited until now to offer up opinions because I wanted to see at least 2 episodes of every show I tried. I've seen too many good shows with bad pilots and bad shows with good pilots to judge right away if I'll like something.

The Vampire Diaries: Not to damn it with faint praise or anything, but it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be. It wasn't fantastic, but I might still be watching it if it wasn't on at the same time as FlashForward. As it is, I didn't like it quite enough to track it down on Hulu later.

NCIS: Los Angeles: This one surprised me. I never liked the original NCIS, but that was mostly due to hating a couple of the main characters to the point where I couldn't watch any scenes they were in. NCIS:LA has pretty standard plots for a show of this type, but I like the characters a lot more, and for those who like that sort of thing the slash practically writes itself. Since Stargate Atlantis got canceled, Nathan Petrelli died on Heroes, and the Winchesters stopped getting along on Supernatural, I have been all out of buddies on my buddy genre TV shows. Callen and Hanna should keep me going until Sam and Dean make up.

The Forgotten: This show was the biggest disappointment. It has a fantastic premise (about a group of volunteers who investigate John and Jane Doe cases after the police run out of leads and have to move on to fresher cases) and stars Christian Slater, but so far the characters don't interest me and the cases have been straightforward enough that I don't understand why the police couldn't solve them in the first place. The only thing I like is the way Christian Slater's ex-cop character keeps reflexively reaching for the gun he no longer carries when trouble breaks out.

FlashForward: I really didn't like the pilot all that much, but the second episode was much better. I still don't really feel anything for the characters, but the mystery is starting to get interesting. We'll see how long the mystery can hold me if I wind up not caring for the characters.