A. MA. ZING.

Show me your favorite covers/parodies of songs. Bonus points for anything having to do with "Single Ladies," as I finally watched it and I LOVE IT. Kanye would be disappointed to know I've waited this long.

Nail polish fans, where do I get China Glaze from?? I neeeed some and I can't find it!

• 12:35 Local Blockbuster going out of business = cheap DVDs for all! I'd offer BBV my sympathies if they weren't my least favorite former employer. #
• 14:38 H.O. scale fat people, for all your fat model-building needs. tweetphoto.com/6374553 #
• 14:47 Seriously? Seriously, modeling supply company? Is this what you meant to say? tweetphoto.com/6375076 #
• 14:49 @fatnutritionist Haha, indeed! #
• 08:22 Why does my husband always get the nice assistant and I get savaged by the bloodthirsty hygienist at our dentist office? Not fair. #

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(I was typing on my phone keyboard for this chat which is why my responses are sometimes a little delayed)

Laura: i just wanted you to know that ozzy's wedding is this friday and he expects one million guests
so you might want to claim a seat early

me: Oh man, I hope I am invited

Laura: i am pretty sure you make the list
you should know that the number of bathrooms is either 3 or one million--so far undecided
so if that affects your RSVP, so be it

me: If one million people are invited and none of them are me I will be pissed

Laura: yeah, that's what i'm thinking
bill clinton will definitely be there
and there is mandatory ice hockey

me: I think one million bathrooms is overkill
I mean obviously Clinton gets his own

Laura: see, i suggested that three was not quite enough, even if they were unisex
so ozzy went in the other direction
they're all port-a-potties, though
i'm sure clinton still gets his own

me: But I'm not sure every single person needs one

Laura: right
ozzy says we will be "popping champagne," so i think that three is definitely not enough but one million is too many
unfortunately i'm not convinced he knows any other numbers yet :-)

1. Old man cat Oberon seems to be doing better. The first few days of the antibiotics were really very distressing, as he wouldn't eat, which is a major warning sign with liver disease, and he was uncharacteristically bleary and lethargic, and most disturbing of all, untalkative. The fact that his appetite was normal prior to the antibiotics was cold comfort, as we had no way of knowing whether they were the cause of the change or whether it was a sudden uptick in his illness. Doctor Internet explained to me that these antibiotics could cause nausea, though, which sort of made sense, as Oberon would approach food as if hungry, but then walk away without eating. I spoke to the vet, who suggested trying to space out the two antibiotics as much as possible -- he is on two drugs each given twice daily, so the vet said to try to allow at least an hour between different drugs, which ultimately results in his needing four medicine-times a day instead of two. We did it immediately, though, and his regular personality has since returned. He's still not eating a lot, but he is eating both wet and dry food, so I'm satisfied with that.

2. Giant orca-cat Rufus is still fighting the ringworm, poor thing. The original patch has been healing beautifully but on Friday we discovered three new patches, which meant there was more shaving and now more topical treatment. He is the sorriest mangy-est looking cat in the world right now, but he's still an angel. We gave him a ringworm-be-gone bath today and he was positively patient with the process, even though it meant sitting with the lather on him for ten minutes before rinsing it off. I'm hoping we can get these new patches to clear and that'll be the end of it, as I've read numerous places now that shaving isn't necessarily the best solution for ringworm, as microscopic nicks can create new infection sites, and I really don't want to have to put him on a pill for this. Heal, Rufus.

3. Today D and I ran a bunch of ridiculous errands and in so doing discovered that our local Blockbuster Video was having a going-out-of-business sale. I haven't rented a video in years, but I did work at Blockbuster in college (not this store, but one in Boston) and walking around in there was surreal, insofar as my having two strange realizations: a) that when I worked at BBV, there were no DVDs, and b) this was probably the last time I'd walk around a Blockbuster store, and yet it was still so familiar.

As for our purchases, we got Aliens, Die Hard (Two Disc Special Edition! -- we watched this tonight), Let the Right One In, the first season of The Muppet Show, Stargate, and Independence Day (which I fucking hate but D loves). I carried around the collected Fat Actress but couldn't bring myself to buy it, blog fodder or no.

4. Owing to the aforementioned cat issues, D and I have sadly and reluctantly decided on separate holidays: I will keep our original plans to visit my fam in Florida, and D will stay here as attending physician at Kittycat General Hospital, with a slight detour to drive out to his folks' for Christmas Day. The last time we had separate holidays was prior to our marriage, and we were both so miserable we swore we'd never do it again, but I think it's going to be okay, even if it isn't ideal. I am probably going to change my return flight to come back a day or two sooner.

5. This past week has been one of the worst I've had in years, but I'm seeing the end of this shit show approaching, not too far off. One day at a time.

Amongst all the other self-care related calls I've been making the past few days, I just made an appointment for a consultation for My First Tattoo^TM. It recently occurred to me that I am about to be 33 fucking years old. I'm fine with having resisted getting a bigass "NIN" symbol as a dumb teenager (not that I dislike NIN, but its influence on my life was very limited), but at this point, I sort of trust my tastes and know myself pretty well.

This is not to say the art will not be music-related.



The consulting happens next Tuesday. I am pretty terrified, but it's a good kind of terror, as opposed to the unpleasant terror of the last few months.

Any tips from the tattooed lot of you?

i think this might be one of the catchiest songs the hidden cameras have ever written:



but can anyone explain to me what eff "the NA" is?

also, i have to eat crow for having so vocally hated metric all these years. this song is actually kind of excellent:



and just for good measure, this is still one of my favourite music videos of the last few years:

I need to take a moment, publicly, to express my love for and connectedness with my husband. If I am his rusted and reliable anchor -- and I am -- then he is my rainbow-striped hot-air balloon. The rope between us keeps me from sinking too deep, and him from flying too high.



No matter how shit gets fucked up -- and it does -- I never have to wonder if I'm loved. That's a precious feeling.

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of the new year, we've embarked on a self-improvement kick to boost our backend (pun semi-intended). This will allow us to offer you a holiday promotion in the next few weeks (yes, we're listening and working very hard to make it happen). We sincerely appreciate your continued patience and support.

Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

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Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!

• 23:50 I am hereby registering my disgust at the last dismissal from SYTYCD tonight. Unacceptable. #

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I love these, from Syrup's Fall/Winter collection:

As you should expect by now, after similar experiences with the first season and the second season, I once again encountered quite a bit of potentially homoerotic innuendo in the course of watching Season Three of Star Trek: The Original Series...

Perhaps this is only appropriate for a season, and a series, which ended in '69. ;)

On that suggestive note, I give you:

Top Ten Unusual Slashy Lines (TOS Season Three Edition)

[As with previous lists, "unusual" means that no Kirk/Spock lines were included.]

10) McCoy/Spock: "You've got a...a good bedside manner, Spock."

9) Kirk/Chekov: "He lost control. So did I. We're becoming animal warriors."

8) Hodin/Spock/Scott: "You shall test the skill of your very excitable repairman."

7) Spock/Scott: "That position, Mister Scott, would not only be unavailing, but also undignified."

6) Scott/Spock: "That's it--I've done all I can. There's nothing out there to grab a hold of and bring in."

5) Morg/Kirk: "You are small, like the others."

4) Dickerson/Kirk: "All I know, sir, is what the captain tells me, and he says he'll have the hide of the first man who so much as smiles."

3) Garth/Kirk: "On your knees before me! All the others before me have failed."

2) Alexander/Parmen: "Don't stop me! Let me finish him off!"

...and the most unusual slashy line of the season:

1) Adam/Kirk: "Oh, Herbert, you are stiff!"

Next up: The Animated Series!

Well, crap, I missed the first Monday!

This is proving more and more difficult. *laugh* Oh, passage of time.

So, you know the usual drill. Leave a secret. Respond to some secrets. Let's try to stick to some anonymity for everyone's comfort. No IP logging or anything like that.

Y'all, my dad got my mom a new puppy for Christmas.






Rufus is beside himself with excitement. New puppy is 8 weeks old and doesn't have a name yet. HE IS SO CUTE , GAHHHHH.

Dear iminu_urin2,

After the November Speaking Crow, you asked Kristian and me about why we write. I was a bit taken aback by the question, and mumbled incoherently a while about the comfort books brought me as a kid and the need for shared human experience and the importance of beautiful things and the necessity of criticizing the status quo. I've been thinking about your question ever since. I think what I actually meant was this:

I could have been a priest instead of a prophet. The priest has a book with the words set out. Old words, known words, words of power. Words that are always on the surface. Words for every occasion. The words work. They do what they're supposed to do; comfort and discipline. The prophet has no book. The prophet is a voice that cries in the wilderness, full of sounds that do not always set into meaning. The prophets cry out because they are troubled by demons.

-Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

I'm not saying I'm a prophet. But it's something to aspire to.

-Marika

I resolve to better resist the self-induced paralysis of my perfectionism.

• 09:52 In the unlikely event anyone's looking for a holiday gift for me: bit.ly/6zqn4z #

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**FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009**

So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything.

And finally some answers to some questions:

( Read More and Get Some Answers... )

After making my way through Star Trek: The Original Series, offering up my thoughts on Season One and then moving on to Season Two, I quickly got distracted by other matters (as you know), failing to offer up any more thoughts despite the fact that I finished watching Season Three back in September.

With the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture upon us, though, this seemed like a good time to continue my ruminations...

All modern series-revival campaigns are built upon the template formed in 1968, when Star Trek narrowly avoided cancellation through the efforts of many dedicated fans (coordinated by überfans such as Bjo Trimble), who wrote thousands of letters to NBC and finally convinced the network to keep the show for a third season. However, another familiar template soon followed: NBC moved Star Trek to Friday nights and slashed its budget, effectively sealing its fate.

For someone watching TOS in quick succession, the budget-cutting effect is very obvious. Only one episode early in the third season ("The Paradise Syndrome") has any location shooting at all. All of a sudden, landing parties tend to be made up of just Kirk, Spock, and McCoy--without a redshirt in sight--for no particular reason except that they're the three stars of the show. Gone are the one-off focus crewmembers like Doctor Helen Noel, Doctor Ann Mulhall, or Lieutenant Dave Bailey, who show up once to do their thing and are never shown again. (Actually, Mira Romaine is one third-season example of this.) Kirk even stops having as many love interests towards the end of the season.

Where Season Two had many episodes with themed planets based on Earth itself, Season Three had outer-space variations on more traditional concepts. The Enterprise crew had already encountered Space Amoeba in the previous season, but now got to live through Space The Taming of the Shrew, met up with Space Napoleon, and famously encountered a group of Space Hippies.

Most people also tend to think of Season Three as having the lowest quality of writing overall, with cheesier, wackier concepts than what had come before. (This is the season of "Spock's Brain," after all.) Having said that, I think some of the achievements in Season Three are overlooked due to the Fromage Factor. An episode like "Plato's Stepchildren" is often remembered for moments such as Kirk neighing like a horse, or The Kiss between him and Uhura--and it's set on Platonius, yet another Earth-based planet, which might as well be called "Plato's World"--but it still contains one of my favourite lines in the entire series:

Alexander, where I come from, size, shape, or colour makes no difference--and nobody has the Power.

That sort of Roddenberrian concept manages to make its way into these episodes in spite of the cheese, so that even when Kirk meets Space Lincoln, that Abraham Lincoln gets a line memorable enough to be mistakenly attributed to the real one in later years:

There is no honourable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending.

Ideas like those are what Star Trek is all about, and the ultimate cancellation of The Original Series in 1969 (mere weeks before humanity actually landed on the Moon) couldn't stop them from living on, igniting the passions of people like me who weren't yet born when those episodes first aired--which is why the franchise has been revived in every decade since, right up to this year's feature film returning Star Trek back to its roots.