If you like surprises, have a look at this comic. Just scroll down and watch (computer must be Javascript enabled).

And then come and join me in the pillow fort.

Yay, lolmac has kindly allowed me to share the postcard book I made for her (she had the winning bid for it in the help_haiti auction) with everyone! She is kind and generous. :D

So, without further ado...

( Part 1: Mac + Blake's 7 )

( Part 2: Sam + Mac )

( Part 3: MacGyver )

( Part 4: Mac + SG-1 )

( Outtakes )

It occurs to me that ( Spoilers for new Pterry book, 'Snuff'. )

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( Why I'm not allowed to read post-apocalyptic dystopian novels, even if they did win a Pulitzer. )

Title: You Captains Bold And Brave
Author: Pepper
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1139
Featured Character(s): Thor, Jack, Daniel, Sam, Teal'c
Pairing(s): None
Summary: Just please don't teach him the words to 'The Good Ship Venus'.
A/N: For TLAPD 2009 2010 2011. It's reached the point where I feel like I'm co-authoring this with 2009!me.

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( Have you tried switching it off and on again? )

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END.

My current background:



AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

I thought of an excellent time-travel story name: Imminent Victorians.

No, I don't have a story to go with it. Just the title. But it's a very nice title, don't you think? *pats it*

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I'm on leave next week, hoorah! Which means this week I'm panicking slightly about getting a load of stuff done. 'Tis always the way.

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Tea and biscuits was the only sensible way to deal with today's miserable weather.

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Argh, I am a bad person: I have two fics that I said I'd beta ages ago and haven't yet (I'm sorry!), and one fic that someone kindly beta'd for me but which I haven't given a final tidy up so I can post it. And I started on the end run for Valentines, but now I've stalled again. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.

On the other hand, I'm getting along awesomely (at last) with your thing, lolmac! So... nearly... finished...

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Kat has a new "lawn" (patch of wheatgrass growing in a tray), and it makes her a happy kitty. Without it, she was a sad and mopey kitty, who liked to sit and poke at her old, decrepit, dried-out lawn and then stare at us, meowing pointedly. She hid while we got rid of it, and then helped out with planting the new one, patting down the earth and supervising the watering. While it was growing, she kept running upstairs to gaze longingly at it on the windowsill, out of her reach. It took forever (five days), but finally it was ready to give to her, and once she'd pigged out on grass stalks, she was a sleepy, purry, mellow kitty all evening.

She tries to pounce on the water whenever it's being watered, and then sticks her nose right into the damp earth and sniffs and sniffs and SNIFFS.

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Hey, there are still some excellent episodes available for recapping on redial_the_gate! This is Season 10, your last chance...

Flesh & Blood, Uninvited, Counterstrike, Company of Thieves, The Quest pt 2, Family Ties (go on, you know that would be awesome to mock), Dominion (I think that and Family Ties may be partially optioned...? It's in some way negotiable? I can't see LJ at the moment to check what exactly the situation was).

ETA: Someone has claimed either Dominion or Family Ties, so I guess if you particularly want one of those, you can probably have it.

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I... have forgotten what I was going to say here.

Happy birthday to loquita, beanpot and binkii! SG-1 would like to mark this auspicious date in a traditional way: a full team cartwheel!

( You know that tradition, right? )

Crap, I've just realised that the urgent telecon I was so pleased to have finally arranged for tonight at 5pm... is tonight, at 5pm. Friday night, goddammit. I had dinner in a pub planned. It wasn't a big plan, but it was mine and I liked it. *sulks*

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Me: "All the calls and emails today have caused me to turn to ice cream (as opposed to drink)."
A: "If you overdo it we may have to take you to a clinic to thaw out."

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I took some time owing this morning and came in an hour late. I spent the extra hour mostly playing with the cat. I think she appreciated it. We played Catch Mr Spider, and then we looked out of the window for a while, and then she had some cat milk, and then we played Catch Mr Green Fuzzy Thing That I* Keep Trying To Eat And Then Have To Regurgitate Because It's Nearly A Foot Long And Made Of Feathers And I Get Yelled At Before I Get More Than An Inch Or Two Down.

It's kind of a disgusting object, by now, but she loves it.




* Kat, that is - not me. Hopefully that was obvious.

I'm okay, and in no kind of danger, in case anyone was worrying. I was in London on Monday, but I saw absolutely nothing of the riots. It's a remarkably big city. It's more like several cities stuck together.

This all reminded me of the Brixton and Tottenham riots back in 1985. They began for similar reasons, in a similar climate - economic depression, Conservative government, the possibility that the police had caused the death of an innocent. That was a scary time. I lived close to Tottenham, and I went to school with the son of a policeman who was violently killed in the Broadwater Farm riot. I didn't know him that well (I didn't like him that much, either, but then I was eight and he was a BOY), but I keep thinking of him now, wondering how it affected him, and how he feels about this current situation. It must be difficult.

Broadwater Farm is a name fixed in a lot of North Londoners's minds as a Place You Do Not Go. Reminded about it, I looked it up. It's been reconstructed, both in the local organisations and in the buildings themselves (although the ugly high rise blocks are still there). The results are amazing:

Since the regeneration, Broadwater Farm now has one of the lowest crime rates of any urban area in the world. In the first quarter of 2005, there was not a single reported robbery or outdoor assault on Broadwater Farm, and only a single burglary, from which all property was recovered and the suspect arrested; this compares with 875 burglaries, 50 robberies and 50 assaults in the third quarter of 1985 immediately preceding the riot. In an independent 2003 survey of all the estate's residents, only 2% said they considered the area unsafe, the lowest figure for any area in London. The estate also has the lowest rent arrears of any part of the borough.

In 2005 the Metropolitan Police disbanded the Broadwater Farm Unit altogether as no longer required in an area with such a low crime rate.

Oh, I want to go to Spain again. I've just been watching Rick Stein's Spain, and whilst the programme itself made me cringe a bit, it reminded me of the heat and the smell and the sights of Spain, particularly Granada.

Remember the part of the Alhambra where Washington Irving stayed, abyssinia? A dark, cool building, a relief to the eyes - and somewhere in the middle there was a courtyard, shielded by walls and tall trees, green like underwater, flooded with sunlight, and in every corner an orange tree with impossibly bright fruit.

( A glimpse of paradise. )

Okay, I can't post this to Redial, and sadly we don't have a mirror comm on DW, but hopefully the people who want to know will see this post: the rewatch of Camelot, which was postponed last week, is still taking place this Friday/Saturday.

Details of how to join in are here, and fortunately it won't rely on LJ being back up and working.

Shame I've not been able to post the recap, though. :7 Get well soon, LJ.

So, LJ, eh? And I had the Redial recap written on time for the first time, too. I wanted to use this icon. Ah well.

In the meanwhile, I have been mostly getting my nostalgia on with Airwolf, for some reason. Okay, because I was looking at Rachel500's AO3 page and saw her Airwolf stories, and just... couldn't... resist.

( Thoughts on Airwolf. Aren't you glad? )

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( Thoughts on Jack and MacGyver and Hawke and sex. Oh, shut up. )

It's Kat's first birthday today. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! There are things in my fridge older than her. We got her a motorised dangle toy thing that she finds TERRIFYING, so that's just great. It probably didn't help that, the moment we switched it on, the motorised arm lashed out and swung the spider dangle thing right at her head.

Hopefully she'll get used to it.

I also made her some Marmite cheesecake, from my cat recipe book. She liked that a little more. Yes, my cat is spoiled. *g*

Speaking of birthdays...

Title: Best Not To Think About It
Author: Pepper
Fandom(s): Stargate SG-1
Rating: PG
Wordcount:
Featured Character(s): Jack, Sam
Pairing(s): Jack/Sam
Summary: In his defence, he hadn't intended to propose to Carter in a storage closet.
A/N: For holdouttrout, a belated birthday gift. Another in the Storage Closet series.

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( In his defence, he hadn't intended to propose to Carter in a storage closet. )

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END.

Pick your five favourite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions about them. Don't cheat!

Mine are:

1. Blake's 7
2. Stargate SG-1
3. Magnificent 7
4. Robin of Sherwood
5. Sapphire and Steel


( I really shouldn't be doing this right now... )

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I have to rewatch some of these shows, sometime.

Related to this post, Ray the Stray appears to have been adopted! Yay!

I've been keeping an eye on the site (thinking of possibly getting a companion for Kat), and saw that he was first reserved, and then taken off the list. Evidently someone met him in person and found he was the kitty for them. Awwwwwwwwwww.

*sniffle*

I came across a very useful comm the other day: bitesizedcleaning. It's all about cleaning in small increments, and every week there's a small list of tasks that should take no more than 5 - 15 minutes each.

Cleaning more often and smaller sounds like a much better idea than saving it all up for one massive blast of time and energy, as is my usual practice. It was odd, forcing myself to stop cleaning after doing one or two things from the task list - I had loads of energy left. So I did stuff not on the list, like sorting my sock drawer and the wheeled box under my bed that holds all my jumpers (so Kat can climb into it to sleep, apparently). I figure I can do extra things like that when I have the cleaning energy, and when I don't, I can just do what's on the list.

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I gave up on the Grand Prix when it seemed like the rain would never end, and now I wish I hadn't. "It will surely go down as one of the most amazing grands prix in history," says the Beeb. Well, nuts.

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I would like to be a wizard at Unseen University. Their idea of a 3am snack is cheese boards one to five, cold roast beef, ham, biscuits, and the pickle carts. Oh, and the fruit cart for the Librarian.

I wouldn't be able to sleep after that, but it sounds delicious.

Hello! Still alive. Working hard (they are going to review my job description and salary banding, hoorah) and playing with the kitten (she'll be one year old in July, dawww), mostly. And running. Still plenty of running. Doing a 5k race this month, thinking of graduating to a 10k next. Oh, and reading. And buying a Kindle (whee! SO EXCITED CAN'T WAIT FOR IT TO ARRIVE). I'm going to have to sort out being on AO3, I guess.

( Sadly, I can't seem to find Kindle editions of Tamora Pierce's books... )

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Oh, Russian spambots, pls to be leaving me alone. Don't think I can't see your hidden html. What is the point of the white dot with the link to a sex site (I presume; I've not clicked on it)? I honestly don't geddit.

Poor little Kat was unwell last night. Not sure why, but we think it's probably because she bolts her food sometimes, particularly the dry bits (we give her a wet/dry mix), and then has problems digesting the unchewed lumps - I know, because I had the delight of cleaning it off the carpet. Half an hour later, she was complaining she was staaaaaaaaaaaaaarving - but I didn't want to repeat the cycle. Aha! I thought. I have a book on cooking for cats (yes, yes, mock all you like). There's a recipe in there that would suit.

Sure enough, there was: the 'white mix' for upset tummies. 50g of boiled rice, one hardboiled egg, mashed together with a dessertspoon of cottage cheese and a dessertspoon of plain, live yoghurt. Kat loves cheese, I said to myself. And she goes crazy for yoghurt - she will, in fact, climb up onto my lap and try to pull the spoon with which I am eating right out of my hand. That'll be perfect.

You can already see where this is going, can't you?

We didn't have the last two ingredients, but I popped down to the shop to get them because I am a soft touch. I boiled the rice and the egg, mashed them together with the cottage cheese and yoghurt. Kat hung around my feet, clearly understanding that there was Something For Her in all this noise and smell. I put it in her bowl. Offered it to Kat.

Of course she wouldn't touch it. Wouldn't even go near it, in fact. She backed away and gave me a hurt, betrayed look every time I tried to persuade her to try it. "What is this pale, lumpy crap? Why are you trying to make me eat it? WHY DO YOU WANT TO POISON ME?"

I left it out for her, but she didn't go near it all evening, preferring to go hungry. Nor would she try just the cottage cheese, and even seemed to feel that a spoonful of yoghurt on its own had been tainted by association (at least for a while). Just before bedtime, I gave her a little bit of her normal wet food, which she kept down with no problems. Oh well. At least she's okay.

Next time, I'll try the chicken soup recipe. She'll love that, right?

Right...?

Just putting this out there, in case anyone in my local area is in the market for a cat to love and hug and squish (I highly recommend it): this chap is breaking my heart.

He's been on the Cats Protection website for a while now (I've been keeping an eye out for a companion for Kat), and I'd totally take him home if I could. There's going to be an influx of kittens soon, and it makes me so sad to think he'll get ignored in favour of the tiny adorables. They too will grow up into cats all too soon, don't forget!

So, just in case the right person for him happens to be reading my journal...

Ray The Stray: male, neutered, 8 yrs old. Black, short hair. "He is quite shy and will need a quiet home with an understanding owner to let him settle and find his feet."

** I HAVE BEEN HERE AGES :0( PEOPLE KEEP IGNORING ME BECAUSE I HAVE KIDNEY MEDICATION, I TAKE IT VERY WELL AND CATS PROTECTION WILL COVER COSTS OF MY MONTHLY MEDICATION, PLEASE SOMEONE GIVE ME A HOME I AM FED UP IN MY PEN AND I HAVE SO MUCH LOVE TO GIVE!! I STILL HAVE LOTS OF YEARS LEFT AND I WOULD LOVE TO CURL UP ON YOUR SOFA, I HAVE HAD A ROUGH TIME AS A STRAY AND I WANT SOME LOVE AND A HOME OF MY OWN I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG **

*sniffle*

Do you read to go to sleep? I've never managed it, but it seems like most people do. I can't allow myself to read at bedtime any more, because I can't stop. Time vanishes. I have no willpower. It's partly that I'm a night-owl - but even when I want to go to sleep, when I'm really tired and my eyelids are heavy, my eyes are gritty, if I pick up a book, I feel compelled to stay awake and keep reading, fighting sleep all the way. I know that, if I try to put it down, my mind won't shut off - it's generally the only time I'm insomniac - so I might as well just stay awake and keep going. Eventually, I realised that I had to make a choice between reading at night and functioning at work. Sometimes I lapse (damn you, Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms), but mostly the latter is the only real option.

( Some thinkiness. )