chesneycat

Happy birthday kernowgirl!


Wow, how long have I known you for now? Eighteen years plus a bit, I make it.  I still feel rather embarrassed over the vast discrepancies in our gift-giving that first year - I got a copy of Dragonflight, my first Pern book ever, and you got some coloured pencils from me in return.  Go me!  I suck!

You know, I probably wouldn't know any of the other people on my extended friends list (or MOM, or AMCF) if it wasn't for her, so you can all blame her thank her for getting me started in the fandom.

*raises a glass*

Cheers!

This one's for julietvalcouer and everyone else who knows her from AMCF...

"Return of the White" is was a recent fanfic posted at ff.net, stuffed full of the usual cliches.  It's not exactly godawful ("steady gates" aside), but the author has chosen a rather familiar name for the dragon in the starring role.  And thus, we have classic lines like:

"I awoke to Anareth planting herself on my arm and slapping me with her tail"

"And I hope a wild firelizard eats your guts out, Anareth said dryly. I can recognize humor, you know."

 

 

EDIT - and it's been pulled.  Why does the badfic always run and hide?

This post is inspired by a number of things. It's a topic that I'm rather fond of, I'll admit, but the two things in particular that brought it to my attention today were a thread by Lady Arwyn in the AMCF poll forum and a bit of market research I did in town yesterday afternoon.  The market research in question was for a new deodourant from Laboratoires Garnier, complete with mock-shop, advert-viewing and a five pound Boots voucher (way better than the usual cheap biro!) by way of reward. They're not going to appreciate my rather cynical responses, but at least they weren't Palmolive... dear god, the advert they'd come up with for that product! Picture a clumsy office-moron in her own little dreamworld, prancing around her workplace tripping over every good-looking man in sight, and spewing multi-coloured fake flowers out of her armpits every time her elbows raised above waist height. Oh, and all of this was to the cheesiest music imaginable. By the end, I was half expecting a fluffy pink unicorn to leap out of the nearest filing cabinet.... 

Anyway, the Dove advert was the usual "women come in all shapes and sizes", Sure was all "Yeah! Active! Busy! Womyn!", I'm blanking on the fourth, and the fifith, of course, was the Garnier advert.  Their new product, "Mineris", contains "all the goodness of naturally occuring minerals" or some such twaddle like that.

Firstly, minerals are minerals, and chemicals are chemicals. If it has a certain composition, that's what it's made of, end of story. It doesn't matter whether you milk it from a genetically modified goat, dig it up out of the ground, manufacture it in a massive ICI factory in the north-west or call it down from the ether via the eco-friendly hymns of new-age hippies.

It. Is. Still. The. Same. Thing.

In fact, digging up the "naturally occuring" variety out of the ground may be far more damaging to the environment than manufacturing it from more greenly available basic materials, but that's by the by.  My point is, I'm FED UP with companies and the public at large blithely going "ooh natural goodness" without a thought as to whether it makes a blind bit of difference at all.  Which, generally speaking, it doesn't.  Arwyn's thread hit the same nerve. There are too many people out there saying ridiculous things like "ooh, I don't want to pollute my body with chemicals". [Heck, let's poll AMCF and see what they think.]



Part of me thinks that if they did stop consuming any and all chemicals, the world would rapidly become a far more sensible place.

Oh, and the other problem with the deodourant?  It was meant to last for a whole 48 hours!  Seriously, two whole days.  Come on!  Are the people who purchase Garnier products really likely to go without a shower that long? Is anyone? What's the point of having something that'll work that long, when you'll wash it off before it's even been there half the time? If you DO NEED a 48 hour deodourant, can I suggest that you save your money and bathe more often?  Your friends, family and work colleagues WILL thank you.

Yeah, I know it's not as good as cavatica 's, but it's the best I could manage in half an hour last Sunday.

There ought to be a picture here, but if it doesn't show, you can see it here

</lj>

I've just stuck my nose out on the "let's diss Todd" thread at AMCF, and declared that the novels on which the whole board is based are no more than beach-fluff. Yeah, well, that's all they are. Of course, I've now been challenged to identify what constitutes a "quality" genre fiction author. 

My top three?  I listed Kay, Mieville and Banks, with a lower tier consisting of Reynolds, Hamilton, Egan and Erikson.  Of course, I forgot to include Tolkien, Martin, Hobb and Bujold (the latter stradling serious and fluffy sf with remarkable skill).  Wurts has pretensions to these ranks, but her books are becoming somewhat overwritten, and besides, Arithon's already too much of a Stu as it is.

I have my list, of course, but I'd be curious to hear anyone else's opinion on the matter.  What do you think of my named authors? What makes a quality novel/author?  Who've I missed?


[Posting here to avoid the inevitable OMG!anne is teh bestest!!Eleventy! responses...]

Edit: the AMCF thread has turned into quite a decent book discussion.  Looks like Cavatica and I have very similar tastes.

It's not often I get a PM from an AMCF niffy, let alone one who reads this LJ.

So, who are you really? Care to add a comment?



In other news, "random" is rapidly becoming my most-used tag. I guess that says something about me!

I predict my net-nanny-hat will be requried in due course...

Oh my.

Oh my oh my oh my.   Words fail me, they really do.   Providing a counterpoint is one thing, but picking your opponent's specialist subject?  To me, that signifies either very large balls, or a cluelessness of gigaparsec proportions.



Watch that space.  I'm going to have great fun with it next week.

It really takes a very special type of community to decide that they absolutely must have net nannies Member Advocates. 

You know the type. AIAM=Away in a manger, and all that malarkey.

Only this one is a lot more obscure. Thanks, Dux. It's going to bug me forever now. Or at least until the answers get posted at AMCF.

I have three left to find... so here are the initials of the first lines:

FMABDWAF
IAMIAS
NOASNBSOC


If anyone can solve them, you're clearly far, far better at googling than I am. I'm not looking for answers here, but if by posting the clues here I can cause someone else a few moments/minutes/hours of frustration, it'll make my day.