Meeeeeme & my love of ampersands & wherefore idiocy?
Meme purloined from rain_sleet_snow - comment and let me know you want to play, and I'll tell you five things I associate you with- then post in your journal, enlarging on the five things. Or don't. Whatever floats your goddamn philosophical boat.
1. Stalker
Ah me. So cruel a word to apply to a mere diligent historian of her chosen microcosm. Stalker? I might pass for a stalker after a few too many hours with the thesaurus - I may even be working on my Masters of Stalking - but people make it sound like such a bad thing. Is there something wrong with knowing the approximate dates of the Great Migrations, the Golden Age of Discworld fanfiction, the sad dissolution of those fine minds once working in approximate harmony for the greater good of the, uhh, derivative but well-written drivel?
Accurate enough, though. And not such a surprise, given that I tracked Madam Amaya down on three separate websites. And harassed her until she gave in, hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Ahem. Could you get me a glass of water, please? Yes, thank you, quite, yes.
2. Discworld
A shocker, this one. There's an, oh, call it 0.00067% chance that if you have ever read one whole entry of mein blog here that you've not at least heard the name and vague references to it. A few of you, however, know no more than that, poor souls.
The Discworld is a flat planet, home to a thirty-plus book series, a goodly portion of my favorite characters ever, and a final resting place of Logic. Best described by the author, Sir Mister Terry Pratchett, as "a geological pizza but without the anchovies(1)", the Discworld wheels through space on the back of four elephants on the back of a turtle. There are varying theories as to the turtle's private support system: some say it's turtles all the way down, some argue that it's swimming, and some argue that asking the question is like asking what yellow sounds like (a very reasonable question, I might add, to those of a synaesthetic outlook, which is why we're still talking about it). It began as a satire and has developed into a sophisticated - ah, who am I kidding, it's still a satire. But we loveses it, yes we does, and it parodies everything, down to and including itself at its best. Technically fantasy, not untied to science fiction, patently hilarious, overladen with adverbs, and so forth, the Discworld's literary qualities are much debated, but everyone agrees that it's ludicrously fun.
Except for the ones who don't. But we don't talk about them. SHUN THE UNBELIEVERS!
For recommendations as to which books to read first, since I know my scintillatingly incomplete summary of that most two-dimensional of eight-dimensional worlds has whetted your appetite enormously, call 1-800-L-SPACES.
(1) Except in rare and rather unfortunate circumstances.
3. Brains
Useful things, brains. I keep lots of them around for just that reason. In jars, usually, or the occasional jewelled golden casket that makes tweety-bird noises when you open it, for the ones with the most interesting coruscations and extrusions. My original had a very special lump of fat, approximately the size of a child's closed fist, sticking out of the back, which incidentally contained my common sense; unfortunately my parents ordered it sawed off for mysterious and probably sadistic reasons of their own, and I've since misplaced both brain and lump. I do have the scar where they decided to CUT OPEN MY HEAD, though.
4. Footnotes
Well-known fact: Footnotes Make Everything Better.
Take a mediocre fanfiction, add an excess of almost entirely unrelated and rather idiotic footnotes, and VOILA! You have the secret formula for wondering reviews along the lines of "Are you sure you're not Pterry in heavy disguise?"! Well done, and have a drink!
Then write some more footnotes, because any footnotes spawned under the influence of alcohol are guaranteed to be a hundred and eight times funnier than what you could come up with on your sober ownsome(2).
But you don't get initiated into the Guild of Footnoters until you have achieved footnotes within footnotes and, if at all possible, a cyclical sequencing of footnotes that is entirely self-contained. It may take you sometime. However, persistence always pays off in the end(1), and if you work at it, I look forward to seeing you inducted into the Guild a month or so from now, bearing a manic grin and bracketed numbers like daisies!.
(2) Does not apply in the opposite direction, mind. Knurd footnotes are Strictly Not Encouraged, unless you're Virginia Woolf or David Wallace(3) and, preferably, dead(4).
(3) Who you should be reading right now, because he's brilliant. But don't read too much at a time, because that's a short trip to having your brain turn into porridge and ooze out your left nostril.
(4) Which it occurs to me is redundant because both Virginia Woolf and David Wallace are quite dead, in fiction and outside of it(1).
5. Fanfiction.net
Well, uh, shit.
Maybe I should get out more.
In other news...
I entered the AMC (American Math Contest) 12 on Wednesday and now it's hard to think, it's hard to look at the way the dead trees have dried into perfect dove-grey antlers for the tanbark-furred ground, and the sweet incongruity of weedy flower bushes growing up around their cool roots and boles, because I'm still pissed about Millie's damn birdseed problem that I got wrong and I shouldn't have gotten it wrong nnnnngh.
Isn't it odd to think of winter as the season of rainbows?
And rainbows: there's a word ill-chosen. Such an ugly word for that gaudy streak of loveliness, sun and mist. I'd rather it were called penelope or polychrome; as it is I shy from using it. A shame, no?
NOT SUCCEEDING IN DISTRACTING MYSELF. HNNNGH.
1. Stalker
Ah me. So cruel a word to apply to a mere diligent historian of her chosen microcosm. Stalker? I might pass for a stalker after a few too many hours with the thesaurus - I may even be working on my Masters of Stalking - but people make it sound like such a bad thing. Is there something wrong with knowing the approximate dates of the Great Migrations, the Golden Age of Discworld fanfiction, the sad dissolution of those fine minds once working in approximate harmony for the greater good of the, uhh, derivative but well-written drivel?
Accurate enough, though. And not such a surprise, given that I tracked Madam Amaya down on three separate websites. And harassed her until she gave in, hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Ahem. Could you get me a glass of water, please? Yes, thank you, quite, yes.
2. Discworld
A shocker, this one. There's an, oh, call it 0.00067% chance that if you have ever read one whole entry of mein blog here that you've not at least heard the name and vague references to it. A few of you, however, know no more than that, poor souls.
The Discworld is a flat planet, home to a thirty-plus book series, a goodly portion of my favorite characters ever, and a final resting place of Logic. Best described by the author, Sir Mister Terry Pratchett, as "a geological pizza but without the anchovies(1)", the Discworld wheels through space on the back of four elephants on the back of a turtle. There are varying theories as to the turtle's private support system: some say it's turtles all the way down, some argue that it's swimming, and some argue that asking the question is like asking what yellow sounds like (a very reasonable question, I might add, to those of a synaesthetic outlook, which is why we're still talking about it). It began as a satire and has developed into a sophisticated - ah, who am I kidding, it's still a satire. But we loveses it, yes we does, and it parodies everything, down to and including itself at its best. Technically fantasy, not untied to science fiction, patently hilarious, overladen with adverbs, and so forth, the Discworld's literary qualities are much debated, but everyone agrees that it's ludicrously fun.
Except for the ones who don't. But we don't talk about them. SHUN THE UNBELIEVERS!
For recommendations as to which books to read first, since I know my scintillatingly incomplete summary of that most two-dimensional of eight-dimensional worlds has whetted your appetite enormously, call 1-800-L-SPACES.
(1) Except in rare and rather unfortunate circumstances.
3. Brains
Useful things, brains. I keep lots of them around for just that reason. In jars, usually, or the occasional jewelled golden casket that makes tweety-bird noises when you open it, for the ones with the most interesting coruscations and extrusions. My original had a very special lump of fat, approximately the size of a child's closed fist, sticking out of the back, which incidentally contained my common sense; unfortunately my parents ordered it sawed off for mysterious and probably sadistic reasons of their own, and I've since misplaced both brain and lump. I do have the scar where they decided to CUT OPEN MY HEAD, though.
4. Footnotes
Well-known fact: Footnotes Make Everything Better.
Take a mediocre fanfiction, add an excess of almost entirely unrelated and rather idiotic footnotes, and VOILA! You have the secret formula for wondering reviews along the lines of "Are you sure you're not Pterry in heavy disguise?"! Well done, and have a drink!
Then write some more footnotes, because any footnotes spawned under the influence of alcohol are guaranteed to be a hundred and eight times funnier than what you could come up with on your sober ownsome(2).
But you don't get initiated into the Guild of Footnoters until you have achieved footnotes within footnotes and, if at all possible, a cyclical sequencing of footnotes that is entirely self-contained. It may take you sometime. However, persistence always pays off in the end(1), and if you work at it, I look forward to seeing you inducted into the Guild a month or so from now, bearing a manic grin and bracketed numbers like daisies!.
(2) Does not apply in the opposite direction, mind. Knurd footnotes are Strictly Not Encouraged, unless you're Virginia Woolf or David Wallace(3) and, preferably, dead(4).
(3) Who you should be reading right now, because he's brilliant. But don't read too much at a time, because that's a short trip to having your brain turn into porridge and ooze out your left nostril.
(4) Which it occurs to me is redundant because both Virginia Woolf and David Wallace are quite dead, in fiction and outside of it(1).
5. Fanfiction.net
Well, uh, shit.
Maybe I should get out more.
In other news...
I entered the AMC (American Math Contest) 12 on Wednesday and now it's hard to think, it's hard to look at the way the dead trees have dried into perfect dove-grey antlers for the tanbark-furred ground, and the sweet incongruity of weedy flower bushes growing up around their cool roots and boles, because I'm still pissed about Millie's damn birdseed problem that I got wrong and I shouldn't have gotten it wrong nnnnngh.
Isn't it odd to think of winter as the season of rainbows?
And rainbows: there's a word ill-chosen. Such an ugly word for that gaudy streak of loveliness, sun and mist. I'd rather it were called penelope or polychrome; as it is I shy from using it. A shame, no?
NOT SUCCEEDING IN DISTRACTING MYSELF. HNNNGH.