Sound City Burning

len@pwcons.com — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:09:00 GMT

Due to the grueling 9-to-5 hours (grueling for a student used to lesser timeframes, anyway) I wound up caught in all the trouble around the big snowstorm that was going on here last night. Rigth now, the snow lies peaceful on the Tilburg pavements, but yesterday, they meant a complete stop to Tilburg bus services and a limited run of trains which meant I was out for over two hours in my desperate attempts to get home.

I did get there eventually - which is more than can be said of some people, going by the stories floating around the newsroom right now - but I was soaked, cold, and miserable. I didn't feel up to returning to school today, but bravely I soldiered on anyway. I got a lot of work done today: posted my review, sent in a piece for magazine, and got a few questions sent off to ESA. Then I got word back on the interview I'd sent in - a 'sufficient' on one of the two competences I needed, but a sad fail on the other. I have no idea what this means, except that I've been told I can use newsroom products to make up for my fails in that department.

And then it was time for my first progress report, AKA That On Which They Grade Me. I got called into the back room, sat down. The teacher advisor was sat on one end of the table (snarky Belgian bastard that he is. I've always liked the guy ever since I had a flaming row with him over my filmed Zaltbommel report last year) with our two student advisors to his side, asked a few questions. I flailed, of course: it feels like all I've been doing is sitting on my ass, making journalistic products that suck ass (further confirmed by the fail I'd gotten that morning) and being too terrified to make phone calls.

As it turns out, though, they seem to be convinced I'm valuable, clever, and bring a lot of solid content to the table, which surprised me. (I was also informed without compunction to 'quit the timid crap' since I've proven I deserve to be heard. Watch me flail) It also leaves me one of (so far) two people on my group to achieve a Good judgement rather than simply Sufficient-- but it also makes this a strange, up-and-down day. Right now I don't have the juice to write for my products any more. A lot now depends on getting stuff in from ESA.

It's been a weird couple of weeks. Right now, I can use a vacation.

Extra for y'all at home: watch this space for a radio report on Christmas that involves me and my team singing 'the worst Christmas song of all time', aka a horrible filk of Last Christmas in very very off-pitch Dutch voices. When it goes up, it should be marked Focus Actualiteiten 18/12. Check it out. ETA: It's up now. Should be somewhere in the last few minutes. If you don't value your ears.

*uses Irene Merryweather, Star Reporter icon*

What Happens During Newsroom...

len@pwcons.com — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:10:45 GMT

...sometimes, you go in in the morning wanting nothing else but to be elsewhere, looking forward to an awesome day spent wibbling about having to call ESA about some extra information for your piece. And then 'Avatar' comes up, and you find the balls to lament the fact that you're section Magazine and so you're not allowed to write about it out loud.

The net result: after calling just about anyone I know who has anything to do with film, I finally have a 'date' set to go see the movie in 3D in Amsterdam in a few hours. Review is due by tonight.

Maybe life in newsroom isn't that bad after all.

len@pwcons.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:15:05 GMT

It's a long, long day at the newsroom today; I've finished off most of my work for the week, gotten back some feedback on the magazine article I'm writing about SpaceShipTwo ('some errors, awesome topic') and the future of space tourism, and now I'm mindlessly poking around for a topic for my 'rubriekje'. A 'rubriekje' would be that tiny little slab of text you read in the front pages of a magazine that doesn't do much beyond elaborate on a cute theme, explain some exciting new gadget or line up some hilarious quotes, to be consumed and then forgotten.

I think reading this many news sites is starting to send my brain into some kind of trance. The world starts to blur around me, the amount of empty bottles on my desk - everyone's desk, because it's large, and round, and seats all twelve of us - seems to be multiplying, and I'm not sure how many more tiny impromptu lunch breaks I can manage to get my head back in the game.

I have one more major thing on my list, beyond getting more students to cough up some opinions so I can add that to my article as one of many component atoms, and that's contacting the European Space Agency for their take so I can have some back and forth.

As it turns out, two of my colleagues here at Culture went out to do a TV item and wound up invited to participate in a few scenes for the soap they were interviewing crew about (Spangas, for the Dutch, if it tells you anything). Meanwhile, I just rather randomly reinstated contact with one of my cousins after I accidentally gave her email address to the guy I was interviewing over the phone. Serendipity? It's just one of those days.

ETA: I'm pretty sure the Friday slump is universal. Most of the editorial staff is nodding off above their computers (if someone got a dime every time one of us opens up a window of Bubble Shooter, they'd at least be able to make a good day's living). Not completely unwarranted for some, especially one of my colleagues who just got told her spin on her topic is wrong and she has to come up with a new one. Ow.

len@pwcons.com — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:19:39 GMT

Een grote vraag aan de Nederlanders die deze LJ lezen en die nog steeds studeren: zouden jullie bereid zijn een kort stukje bij te dragen aan een magazineartikel waar ik mee bezig ben over ruimtetoerisme?

Ik zoek hierbij naar de volgende informatie...

Naam:
Leeftijd:
Studie:
Zie jij wel iets in een dagtrip naar de sterren?
En hoe zie jij de toekomst van de commerciele ruimtevaart?

len@pwcons.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:06:02 GMT

Still no deep thoughts, but maybe a little more background. School-wise, this time. Obviously, the teeth thing didn't help me during my first trimester and I managed to mess up most of my classes; in fact, I'm still waiting on the results for two things I'm pretty sure I've messed up. At the same time, I've been working hard to get an interview done so I can hopefully get my propedeuse (a document stating I've finished my first year of school) and not get kicked out of school.

That's the past.

The present is GeR or 'nieuwsbedrijf', the school's in-house newsroom where we're supposed to learn the professional ropes before they kick us out for our second year internship. (You can find the site here, if you're Dutch and interested) It means very, very intensive work for ten weeks straight. I'm in the first week right now, which means I have 9-to-5 classes. Next week, the real work begins.

Obviously, this terrifies the shit out of me. I'm just trying not to wet my pants, most of the time.

My student councillor stared at me the other week and said, "You know, in all the time I've known you, I've never seen you to be so insecure," which made me laugh; I'm one of the most insecure fucks you've ever met, and the only reason I fly underneath that radar is that I'm usually better at dodging frightening things without looking like I'm dodging.

So that's what I'll be fighting over the next ten weeks. Honestly, I'll be pleased if I make it through without getting a stress illness and using it to avoid speaking to people for the rest of my natural life.

At least the advantage of RP is that I can repeatedly and futilly tell myself to take after Arthur or Ender or something.

Speaking of which, anyone see any good RP memes lately? I have a hankering.

len@pwcons.com — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:25:36 GMT

It's only after an email from bakenius that I realised I haven't actually updated this journal in months. Which is weird, because there's been a lot of stuff going on - and I don't necessarily mean the positive kind.

Over the summer, I took up a job as an evaluator for a local company, interviewing people about their experiences with our work. It did the job - it got me some money and some more confidence in dealing with people - and that was about that. I was - somewhat clumsily - fitting back into school life when in mid-October I made a very unfortunate tumble and landed with my face on a desk, knocking two teeth out of my mouth and one into my jaw, fracturing it.

This was not pleasant.

Neither were the weeks following it, starting with extensive amounts of painkillers and mashed meat for dinner and winding up with me missing at least six weeks of education and papers and whatnot due to a variety of problems, some physical and some psychological. I'm struggling back up right now, but I'm hesitant to say it's going well because usually when I say that I take a nosedive and wind up worse.

I don't have any deep thoughts right now. I might have them at a later date. But updating y'all on what's up might be a good idea.

In the mean time, Colin and Bradley keep me (fannishly) happy.

len@pwcons.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:41:20 GMT

My life in bullet points!

- Just sent in my assessment file for school. I already have a list of things that I know they'll tell me I have to redo, so I'm already working on that. Not as bad as I thought it'd be a few weeks back, when I was sure I was going to get kicked out, so yay to that.
- Am going to New York from August... 18th, I believe, to 27th. If any of you folks in the region would like to hang out, I'll be staying at rushin_doll's, woo, let me know.
- Star Trek is awesome, even to an old-school Trekkie like myself.
- My life is boring, but at least I've got a pretty skirt.
- I should never try to make gnocchi again in my life.
- Insomnia still sucks, and I need to get into sleeping more rather than trying to tough it out, because emotional spazzfits due to lack of sleep are not fun.

This about shows you how exciting my life has been recently. I wish I had something more extensive than that to write up, but I just wasted most of my 'Len recaps her life' mojo retroactively writing my progress reports for the past seven months. Yay, bullshitting skills!

Oh, y'all should also try watching Being Human. A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost move into a house. It is... not nearly as cracktastic as you'd think.

len@pwcons.com — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:05 GMT

For I am a meme sheep:

Give me a current or past character of mine and I will list for you their:

01.) Full name?
02.) Best friend?
03.) Sexuality?
04.) Favorite color?
05.) Relationship status?
06.) Ideal mate?
07.) Turn-ons?
08.) Last sexual experience?
09.) Favorite food?
10.) Crushes?
11.) Favorite music?
12.) Biggest fear?
13.) Biggest fantasy?
14.) Quirks in bed?
15.) Bad habits?
16.) Biggest regret?
17.) Best kept secrets?
18.) Last thought?
19.) Worst sexual/romantic experience?
20.) Biggest insecurity?

Hell, toss in my OCs, too, if anyone wants to know about them. La.

len@pwcons.com — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:56:28 GMT

Sooo I haven't been around here in a while. I figured I might as well toss up a meme and maybe some ramble to make up for it.

First, the meme:

Everyone has a character they feel connected to, whether it be in a book, movie, show or video game. But how do others perceive you? Have your f-list tell you a character they see you as, and maybe even explain why.

Secondly, me:

I'm coming up on the end of my second semester at my new school. Our methods are... haphazard to say the least; a lot of the time I feel like I'm lagging behind, except I'm not. It's just that things aren't organized, and nobody ever has any idea of who has what.

Still, I'm coasting along okay. I'm just a little secluded at this point-- halfway into forging some connections at school, but I've always been an odd duck socially to begin with. I think the certifiable answer here is 'I don't know'-- I've spent some nice train rides with my fellow students, but I'm too private a person to push beyond anything else.

Which is the state of me. I need something fun to do that isn't work or school or RP related, but most of my friends have vacated the country for the next couple of months. I'm trying to do some stuff with the family instead, but schedules are a biatch.

Christmas! Shawshank!

len@pwcons.com — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:27:00 GMT

You know, it's utterly sad, but few things make me happier than the ending of Shawshank Redemption.

Except my brother and my mom watching it for the first time, and gleeing in utter surprise at said ending. It is a <3 worthy Christmas, indeed.

len@pwcons.com — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:17:22 GMT

So the amazing rushin_doll is doing the 5-questions meme over at his journal, and he asked me some questions. I'd toss up the counter-meme (IE let ME ask you five questions) but I'm afraid I'll have to skip it for now due to the brainpain of doom.

Yes.

1. Let's start off easy: what character type do you find yourself most drawn to in fiction and why? I know parts of this, but I want it all in one place.

Ha. You call this one 'easy'. Silly Ana.

Oddly enough (or maybe not), my 'classic' character type has always been the angry, snarky mercenary. Most of my early original characters (before I started to diversify) fell into this niche, and even the new ones still take home quite a few characteristics from it. People 'outside of' the law, of the way society generally operates. Over the years, though, I've become more interested in them when they're acting to change something, rather than just killing for the hell of it.

And I like them layered. Very layered. For Little Strangers (mediocre to crappy that that webcomic was) I took docwholigan's old Hooligan Tuesday (carefree angry merc) character and tried to poke some extra layers in, of uncertainty, of not wanting for more simply because she thinks she can't even though she kind of wants to, etcetera.

But that shifted. While the characters of Little Strangers were originally developed by Troy and I as a kind of 'role reversal' for our usual characters: his Hooligan was my type of angry mercenary with a Troy flair, and I took his bumbling-but-savvy dope and gave it some of my own in Stephen Millen. I used to love Hooligan best. Now I love Stephen most of all.

So, yes. In recent years, I've found myself hovering more towards the area of Responsibility Issues. I'm interested in the contrasts between public responsibility and personal health/growth; I love characters with Messiah complexes, characters who identify so strongly with a cause that they can't let go, people who think further and then come to the conclusion that they have to do something.

And the little ways they find to make some space for themselves. Or, in some cases, that they won't let themselves make. It builds up a tension that can be broken in awesome ways when they finally cave and take a chill pill for a while, and those are always the stories I love the most. And, of course, I love it when they (like, say, Arthur in Merlin) are Great Heroic People who turn out to be prats, or mean, or otherwise human when they're not embarking on their Special Quests. Or people who have had great tragedies that have swallowed their world whole-- responsibility again, but now usually for something on the inside.

I personally think there should be more stories devoted to what these people do when they're not on their Special Quests. And how hard it is for them to do it. And the tension between that person and all the enormous things they have to do, the decisions they have to make that don't fall in our traditional 'ethically good' part of the spectrum.

Of course, I also like smart alecs like whoa. And stories about people with really messed up trauma in their past and how they deal with it. When it comes down to it, the real trick is producing a character so layered I keep going '...that's awesome' at every turn and it takes me five years to figure out exactly how all the layers interact.

But it's taken me about fifteen years to realise why I loved Hazel most out of all the characters in Watership Down, so there ya go.

2. Favorite food. Be detailed and specific!
Oh, I love food. Italian and Greek food, especially. My favorite is pretty easy: spaghetti carbonara with lots of garlic and bacon. Whenever I go to a restaurant for the first time, I always order the carbonara because I have to know how good it is. Add a Caprese salad (mozzarella, pesto and tomato) as an appetizer and a good bruschetta alongside, pour a glass of Murphy's or Guinness and it's a damn good night.

And now I've made myself hungry. I still need to get back to that awesome Italian place in Tiel, obviously...

3. Similar to #1, give me some details about your shipping preferences. Don't forget to include some stuff about the sorts of ships you dislike, too!
Well, I mentioned in #1 how I've always liked both the plucky, independent mercs and the serious, responsibility-ridden heroic types. So that's a bit of a tip-off, right there. Chemistry is always going to be number one, of course, but it's so broad a concept that mentioning it seems a little dumb even as I do so.

In all honesty, the thing that's most important to me in any ship is that both characters have been well-fleshed out. The relationship has to have more to it than just 'these two should hook up and now they have, teehee!'. I want something you can wrestle stories out even *after* they get together. I want A to find out stuff about B they didn't know before, and deal with it. I want B to realise, maybe slowly, over time, that their life has to adjust to deal with certain things, *not* in a way that makes them go 'must change now!' (unless the resulting conflict is interesting) but upon noticing that it's already happening.

I like conflict, too, though. I like relationships *with* conflict that still have some hypothetical possibility for stability to them-- some day. I tend to latch on to pairings that make a lot of meta-y folks go 'they could never have a healthy relationship' just because I want to see the story in which they do wind up having it. Through character development.

Anyway, that's all broad lines. When I was younger, I liked pairings that were already close: best friends, for example. But a lot of *those* pairings usually lack the underlying tension I tend to look for in pairings, and so in retrospect, a lot of them have me going 'or maybe not'.

When it comes to het, I want to see pairings in which the woman is strong, mouthy, independent, and a fully rounded character in her own right. When it comes to slash, I want to see pairings that, while OTP, are more than just 'OTP!!1'; I want them to be people of substance that do more with their lives than ponder how much they love the other person.

...And that still doesn't say much. But, yes. I'm also, on the flipside, a very OTP-y person. I tend to go for the most obvious pairing in the text - the one that's shown together the most, that has the most chemistry, tension, and is shown to care. And then I rarely let go. My one problem is that canon is still a very high good for me, and shipping characters outside the set pairings of a show or a comic can be a little hard on me-- I still believe fully that 1 and 2 together are what I'd like to read stories about, but I also want it to be realistic. I don't just want to toss two characters together.

Essentially, maybe, I want to see two messed-up, individual people understanding and willing to deal with each other go through some conflict and growth. And I want to know and love the backstory of both.

Shipping for me is, hence, kind of an underbelly thing and an intellectual thing at the same time. A lot of it comes down to the kind of stories I want to read. About people learning to deal with their issues, about loyalty, and about that kind of gut-level understanding you only get with a handful of people in your life. Not about the small things, but about the big things.

And call me a romantic, but when it comes to shipping, I mostly just want to believe that that means there could be something stable. Even if it's only 'some day'.

Of course, there's a lot of ships who can possibly correspond to the above, and I don't ship a lot of them. About 75% of that is probably because I already have a ship, something that jumped out to me more, and like I said, I'm ship-monogamous (that doesn't mean I won't recognise the significance of the ship for one of the characters, because I believe that falls under 'well-rounded character'. I just won't ship it actively). The rest of it is just a case of the ship not clicking for whatever reason.

There's also a lot of ships I just don't like. Usually it's just because I don't find them interesting-- like when one character is a bit of supporting cast blatantly shuttled in to give the lead a love interest. Or, in recent years, when something that really is just a friendship and doesn't look like it has any inherent potential for more (to me and this is a very personal thing) and is turned into a ship by the fans/the people in charge because they just want to ship the folks who're close.

Or when the characters simply don't appeal to me thematically. And that's a broad thing I can't elaborate just because it tends to depend. I ship Wash/Zoe, I ship Mulder/Scully, I ship Torg/Zoe, Starbuck/Apollo, Cable/Deadpool, John/Chas and a whole host of other things. When it comes down to it, I'm not sure why I don't particularly ship Paris/B'Elanna, for example. But realism and chemistry, obvious answers as they are, are probably the key.

4. How did you get into comic books?
Heh. This one's easy. In a far away, grey past, when I was actually heavily into Sailor Moon (don't ask. I thought Sailor Pluto was awesome) I stumbled upon a little crossover called Sailor Hellblazer. It featured John Constantine as a Sailor Scout. Yep.

So, a few years later, I hear about this movie called Constantine which was based on the original canon of that. I went to see it along with bakenius and had a good time. At this point, I decided I wanted to read the comics.

Getting the comic itself proved to be a dangerous endeavour. I remember being absolutely shit scared out of my mind the first time I walked into a comic book shop, because I was absolutely sure they could read the noob off my face and they'd chase me all the way out of the store, laughing. It didn't happen, I bought an excellent issue of Hellblazer (Cross-Purpose, which I think is #203 or so) and I was hooked.

I wound up going through every issue of Hellblazer in a week. In the end, it was probably Garth Ennis' run that opened my eyes to the potential of the medium and made me a fangirl. His run still probably makes #1 on my list of absolute top favorite comics ever

5. What's a question you wish I'd asked you here?
A: What color is your hair this week, Len?
L: Red!

len@pwcons.com — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:32:26 GMT

1) I absolutely, positively have to own Spore and soon. Even if I have no money. Seriously, it's everything I ever dreamed of in a game. (I have not at all been playing the amoeba-stage only version on my iPod all day. No. *cough*)

2) I have my final evaluation back from my omg VERY FIRST TERM of journalism. Grade is passing, commentary is, 'Len, you're very serious, you know a lot, and you can make that clear in a conversation. Sometimes, you can be a little bit more 'assertive' (using your own words), now you're often the expert in the field and yet don't show it that much in the discussion.'

On the blah side, it's not a 'Good' grade. Anyone who knows me, knows I'd eat my own gramma for a 'good' grade. Maybe next time.

On the good side, at least I'm passing classes again, unlike the past year and a half or so. So all in all, not bad.

3) I have a sausage sandwich, and it rocks.

4) I'm trying to watch that 'True Blood' show everyone keeps talking about, but I can't make it through ten minutes without laughing. It's all just a little bit too laid on thick for me.

On the other hand, How I Met Your Mother is absolutely awesome. It's like Friends, except actually good. I fully encourage people to watch it.

len@pwcons.com — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:09:50 GMT

Aaand yet more from the icon meme, this time from damanique and kirke_novak...

Okay. *breathes in*

1. I love Power Girl. This is not a secret. I have big bewbs. This is also not a secret. I'm usually blonde. Once again, no secret. So an icon of the Mistress of Might, the Patron Saint of Blonde Buxom Women, having beaten the crap out of some moron? I AM ALL OVER THAT. Why yes, I am that shallow.
2. Irene Merryweather! She's a supporting character from Cable & Deadpool, and I love her so damn much. This is during one of the early arcs, where she's trying to figure out WTF Cable's up to.

She's kind of my Patron Saint of Journalism.
3. I LIKE INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL COMPETITIONS, OKAY? I'm a closet nationalist. This = for when our national team fucks up like whoa.
4. One absolutely amazing bit of Kerrigan, Queen of Blades art from the upcoming StarCraft II game. Kerrigan is another character that I love unto death (the 'HA! Bad guys win!' ending of StarCraft is still something I consider one of the best endings ever) and I absolutely had to icon that image.
5. Jack Harkness. He adds sexy to any icon page. ANY. ICON PAGE. I still miss the episodes of Torchwood I lost when my portable harddrive went kablooey.
6. Oh, Starbuck. For a long time, she was my favorite character in ANYTHING (until BSG started sucking). I always associated her with one of my favorite songs, Bad Religion's 'Generator', which is known for producing something of an emotional reaction if you're fully invested in it.

One of my favorite bits of the song is that line-- you can really belt it along, "Like the blood on my door! Wash me clean and I will run until I reach the shore!" and, yeah, somehow, it just fits.
7. First year media sciences, Intro to New Media class. It seemed as if every class, the professor would mention, at least once, that Williams (a social theorist in the media sciences sphere) accused McLuhan (also a media theorist) of being a technological determinist (believing that the progress of technology determines our future entirely).

It just kept popping up so much that, eventually, it became a running joke in my circle of friends for a while: "No, YOU are a technological determinist!" ... It was funny to us media theory geeks.
8. This is a reference to the book Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy. In the book, there's a couple of different alternative universes on display, with some running threads that pop up in different ways in each chapter. One of them is the Libertarian Immortalist party: a party which vows to abolish both death and taxes.

I kind of loved it.
9. This is an icon that bakenius made of me a few years ago. It's an animated portrait of me with the Galactica passing by in the distance, and it is absolutely brilliant. That is all I have to say about it. Just brilliant.
10. One of the many icons I made during my Hellblazer streak. I think this is actually the first. It's John Constantine at a punk club, coercing everyone to shout the word 'FUCK!' (I know, highbrow). It took me a lot of editing to make the panels fit in just so, but it wound up a nice icon I used a lot a while back.
11. Ianto Jones: his father was emo, and his mother was an iceberg. That's the only way you can explain THAT level of Stoic Woobie. The phrase couldn't leave me alone when it drifted into my head, so... ICON.
12. My favorite ending scene of any Sluggy Freelance storyline ever. I don't completely recall the storyline, but it was my favorite one pretty much ever. Anyway, Torg gets this sword somewhere along the line, and he finds out that the last guy to wield it was a 'good' guy who was driven mad trying to get revenge while using it.

Wait, now I remember the name of the storyline-- 'That Which Redeems'. Short for 'that which redeems, destroys'-- because the redemption the original wielder sought at the end of that blade was his undoing.

Anyway, Torg winds up in a fight, and at this point says FUCK IT, I'll get my revenge anyway (if I remember correctly) and it just basically is what TV Tropes would dub a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Torg.

In completely unrelated news, I am now heading down to Brussels to hit up woodface for fries. HUZZAH!

len@pwcons.com — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:44:47 GMT

In the interest of staying active...

Reply to this post and I will pick six of your icons.
Make a post (including this info) and talk about the icons I chose.
Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
This will create a never ending cycle of icon glee.

Aaaand spoonishly picked these:

1. Once upon a time, when camp_toccoa was but a wee 'un, an awesome writer/icon-maker/what-have-you called nullsechs asked us what kind of Band of Brothers icons we'd like. I am a complete Lewis Nixon fangirl, and so I asked for an icon.

Based on his tendency to hit on people in the series. "Goin' my way", fo' shu! This is what I got. It was awesome.

As a sidenote, I finally gave in and started buying paid accounts for myself because damanique got me 2 months of paid time to keep this icon on. Yep. LEGENDARY.

2. When I first got into comics, I was a huge-ass Hellblazer fan. I still kind of am, but back then, I was gleefully reading and rereading every damn one of those 200+ comics. In the process, I made a lot of icons.

This is John Constantine being a scary mofo, and I love it lots.

3. Nextwave wins you all. It's got its own theme song. Come on! IT'S LIKE SHAKESPEARE, BUT WITH A LOT MORE PUNCHING.

Quote by Aaron Stack, the great beer-drinking, women-ogling robot. LOVE YA, AARON. But only from a distance.

4. Thaaat would be Edwin van der Sar, the most awesome goalkeeper of the Dutch national football team in recent years. He's technically retiring now (although I heard he was coming back for some reason) but. Yes. Van der Sar is just awesome, and it makes for an excellent FOOTBALL WIN icon.

5. My favorite Deadpool-centric comic EVER is the '97 Deadpool/Death special, which details how he went completely bugfuck nuts and superpowered in the first place. Framing device for the story is Wade's romance with Death Herself (a 'hot skeleton in a dress' as Wade puts it), who's getting him to remember bits of his life. At one point, he macks on her. The icon had to be made.

6. That... comes linea recta from when someone was complaining at me about people constantly babbling about colour bars. "Why," I crowed, "Sometimes, you just have to say, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FUCKING COLOURBAR." The icon was later requested. Engaging story, I know.

len@pwcons.com — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:58:33 GMT

So, I'm told I need to post.

I could say nothing interesting is going on right now, but that would be a ginormous lie. It's that time of the year again: World Cyber Games time. I'm in the press center in Cologne right now, waiting for the first StarCraft matches to finish, while today's band is playing loud music on central stage.

... Yesterday, they had a crappy acoustic band that covered the already-crappy (and infamous to mine ears) WCG theme, 'Beyond The Game'. You might recognize it from many a complaint made by me about how they cannot seem to stop playing that fucking song. Ahem. Yes.

I'm currently trying to determine whether giving up my computer to go watch the band on stage is a good choice. The music is kinda good today.

I'm just glad I missed the opera cover of the theme song. I can only imagine how that must've gone. And yes, I know it's already up on YouTube.

I JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

len@pwcons.com — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:33:11 GMT

So, yeah, I'm back from the States, and I'm now a week into my first year of journalism school. It's been both interesting and time-consuming, and I honestly don't have the energy to talk about it a lot right now. It's sufficient to say I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. It's... nice... to actually be learning something you feel you can apply later on in life.

I've also been watching a lot of How I Met Your Mother, which has kept my hormonal ass going over the past few days. That, and yesterday's high tea with maruchina and a couple of old friends, which was also awesome.

HIMYM makes me want to write a paper on the progression of the modern sitcom, though. The show is so late-00s/my-generation in its approach to the sitcom format it makes me happy in a great number of ways. It's filmed in a multiple-camera set-up, same as Friends, but the whole... attitude of the show is different.

If I find the time, I'll ramble on the subject more, but I'll divert your attention to the note above re: my energy levels. Yep.

len@pwcons.com — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:19:32 GMT

First things first: I finally saw Wall-E yesterday; my mother and I had been planning to go see that one for a while now. It was probably the first time in a long time I bawled over a movie, and quite possibly the first time I've ever admitted it aloud.

I'm not even sure why. All I know is I spent most of that movie (and it is a gorgeous movie) with my heart making a big lump in my throat. I've been too out of the movie thing to make for much more of a review than that, but god, that movie got to me.

---

I find it's interesting how patterns keep repeating in my life, and by proxy, this journal. Of course, among the patterns is the constant push towards the future, the little changes I go through and all the stuff I wind up doing wrong and learning from later on.

But my attachment to music has always been so strong I inevitably find myself coming back to the exact same things, and with the current rebirth of my love of Anouk's music, I guess it was just a matter of time before I came back to this song.

'In The Sand'. The version she recorded in her kitchen with only an acoustic guitar for company.

The first time I ever heard it was a very, very long time ago. Back when my childhood friend Renee and I hadn't drifted apart, when she lived only a few streets away from me, before divorces and universities and desperate attempts to become adults. We both loved Anouk dearly-- we used to walk around singing the lyrics of 'The Dark' to each other during lunches and whenever the mood struck. She got a copy of Anouk's 'Lost Tracks' albums; I didn't have the money.

That's where I heard 'In The Sand' for the first time-- or at least, this version of it. The original was part of an album called 'Urban Solitude', which I loved more than life, but this stripped-down acoustic version always struck me the hardest. It was one of those songs that could make me cry, the kind of song I'd play over my headphones and I'd retreat to a corner of the room and sit there in the dark, repeating and repeating the song and singing quietly along.

It still hits me pretty hard. I'm sure at least part of it is familiarity, but there's also something about the song-- something some of the people reading this journal will have heard me wax poetically about in journal entries dating back to the Stone Age.

So some of these things just don't go away. I can't think of anything more comforting, even when they make me weep.

So many times I've cried
When dark clouds block the sunlight
And it's raining in my heart
I'll keep my head up high

So little time to try
To find out, about the feeling
That's deep inside of you
And keeps the dream alive

So remember
When you're down and out
In the sand

So many minds are torn
By overloading senses
You're breathing in and out
No second left to sigh

Can you tell me why
Nobody will tell me
What they're feeling deep inside
We're all just telling lies

Every time you wonder
Why the feeling lingers
And it's stuck inside your soul
You're crying when you smile

So remember
When you're down and out

When you're stuck in the middle
When you can't solve the riddle
Lay it down in the sand
When you can't help but shiver
Get you finger off the trigger
Lay it down in the sand

Get it out your head
Out of your hands
Lay it down in the sand
So remember
When you're down and out
When everything's missing
And there's nobody listening
Lay it down in the sand
When you can't help but shiver
Get you finger off the trigger
Lay it down in the sand

Get it out your head
Out of your hands
Lay it down
In the sand

And then, of course, there's Nobody's Wife. Which needs no wax poetic, and I've pimped in previous posts, but hell, have another live version. I always pictured that if I ever joined a rock band, the first thing I'd do was put out a cover version of this song. Just-- because.

len@pwcons.com — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:40:34 GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, pictures from my trip to the Azores. Woo!

	It is I, recently arrived in our room.
	My mother sleeps off the first-day ugh.
	The ocean just outside our room.
	The ocean just outside our room.
	More of the hotel garden.
	More ocean, ocean, ocean...
	Ocean...
	And ocean.
	The final word on whether or not I'm as much of a geek in real life. Answer: Yes.
	The back of the hotel.
	Pretty flowers. Well, my mom liked them.

	GETCHER CHEESEBURGERS! That's what you fly to the Azores for, clearly.

	This directions board amused the crap out of me. Because you can't read it.

len@pwcons.com — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:41:39 GMT

My good friend Mincho AKA mephiztopheles AKA bob_ofhydra stayed over here for what was planned as a five-day trip and wound up being two weeks-- he had trouble dealing with Germany. This entry isn't about that, as much as I enjoyed his visit; but during the course of it, he bought me a live DVD set of a performance by a Dutch singer called Anouk.

I have a strange relationship with my nationality.

I spend most of my time on the internet. A great deal of my friends and responsibilities are on here; they are my world. I watch American movies, I watch American TV shows, I listen to American music and I talk to my online friends about them. I make jokes about my 'Dutchicity', about orange and hats and pea soup. It's like living in an in-between area, where nothing is quite real: the US is a dream, my own home doesn't quite register.

I've gone to the US a couple of times, and it's bizarre to me. There's such a fundamental disconnect, because it looks just like the movies, because the people talk in ways you thought were only fiction, because there's street signs that look exactly like you watched in Lois & Clark that one time and there actually is a McDonalds on every corner when your own country only has about a dozen.

Nevermind the Denny's and Burger Kings and all the other crap.

There's a virtual image of the States in my mind that I can't quite define. It's Where My Friends Live, but somehow, that gets warped into Dutch day-by-day living for me; it's Where Stuff Happens, but that looks like an American movie. I have trouble adjusting when I'm there. American life feels fake. It feels like it shouldn't be, like it's just some dream that got built up.

And then there's me. And then there's the Dutch. I spend so much of my time online that I feel detached a lot of the time, and then suddenly something triggers it. A TV show that looks the way I know life to be, a movie that doesn't have the same taboos as the American movies I usually watch do, a foreign friend baffling at the fact that the stores are closed on Sundays and I sometimes can't get a pizza during the summer.

It's like getting snapped back towards yourself. The Dutch give themselves a lot of slack about a whole variety of things-- they talk about seperations of culture, or being global, or any number of ways that denies or looks down on a cultural identity. It's an oxymoronic situation, because on the other hand, we're very proud. We have our own ways, and on some level-- although I speak only from my own experience-- every other way gets an eyeroll and a 'Eh, repressed savages'.

Our comedians are different. Our singers are different. Our writers are different. There's a thousand themes no American writer ever touched that we touch every single day. And sometimes, in these moments, it hits me, and suddenly I'm no longer in-between: I know who I am because I know where I come from, and I know where the people around me come from.

The next day, it'll fade, and I'm back to making silly cracks about oranges. But the core of it remains, and I can get indescribably, not-quite-understandably ecstatic about it. It's like having amnesia and remembering who you are; it's knowing that there's a lot of people who have never experienced life the way you and the people around you do. It's a stupid, silly thing, but it means so much to me that sometimes it makes me cry.

I'm an odd woman. But I know I'm proud that I know a million American (hell, a million foreign) movie gods and rock stars, and still I feel she is the most gorgeous public figure alive.

I'll never have quite the words for it, but that's how it is.

(For the Dutch amongst us: yes, I'm enough of an Anouk fangirl that I own all the live DVDs. If simply for the renditions of 'Nobody's Wife'. *wistful fangirl sigh* I sang that song along like a theme song of my life when I was eleven, and it'll never lose that quality for me)

len@pwcons.com — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:32:46 GMT

Day One, Afternoon
The first day of travel anywhere is akin to being shuttled in and out of an iron maiden. You hurry up and wait in complex arrangements designed partly to transport you, but mostly to torture you—and inevitably, the first day of travel is also the day you realise you’re just about due for your period. You’re not yet sure of your ability to contact the outside world, the room is a big question mark, and the bus ride to the hotel inevitably winds up giving you a bad case of car sickness.

Yeah, I know travel by now. Staring out the window of the bus, my mind listlessly categorizes scraps of geography based on how much they remind me of other scraps of geography I’ve seen from different busses and taxis throughout my life. The bus stops at a mid-town hotel that looks like every other rural European mid-town hotel I’ve seen (and yes, there’s such a thing as a rural mid-town area; you’ll have to trust me on this) and all I can think of is Andorra, where the bus dropped us off at the bottom of a hill and we wrestled our way up, luggage and all. The bent of the hills recalls the tea bushes of Sri Lanka, but the atmosphere is bleaker. It reminds my mother of the Czech Republic.

They say you only remember the kind of things you did when you were really drunk when you’ve reached an equal state of drunkenness. I don’t know if that’s true for alcohol, but it’s definitely the same for travel. Suddenly, every shitty first day experience floods back into your mind and you think why the hell did I get on that plane? After all, you could be at home, lounging in a chair, sipping water as you watch a movie, confident in the knowledge you’ll have a computer to log in to in the evening and a place to crash should exhaustion strike.

Instead, you’re on the so-manyth hotel couch in the so-manyth hotel lounge, staring blankly at the so-manyth gorgeous view of the bay while you desperately hope the woman at the bar remembers you ordered something about five bazillion years ago. My intestines want to vacate my guts. My brain just wants to sleep. Instead, I have to wait.

And that’s the shiny first day of travel for you. It’s the same thing every single time.
Hurry up and wait. And if you’re really lucky, someone at the business end of it will hand you a goddamn fruit basket and call it a day.

So you start looking for something to make you feel a little more human. I spend a lot of time in bathrooms on the first day—not the comfy lounges or the thrifty restaurants, but the bathroom, where I can be alone. It doesn’t matter if it’s the airport or the hotel where we’ll be waiting three hours to get into our room: I’m just happy to file the edge down, make it all a little bit more manageable.

We wind up ordering something, four club sandwiches and some chamomile tea. Sit down, and squash down the irritation, the frustration of all the waiting. A good sip of tea can sometimes work wonders. At other times, it’s a barely-there band aid on the wound, and you’re stuck trying to scratch your own guts out again.

I’ll live, of course, but the first day can be a kind of purgatory, like the world is trying to gauge whether or not you’re actually worth the break. Today feels like one of those days, and so I find myself writing. In the end, it’s always words. Words and waiting.

Day Two, Morning
Hotel buffets are an odd beast; in fact, I’d go as far to say as that they were mammoths, ever the same everywhere, with little cosmetic differences. Still, I’m trying something new: I take a slice of bread and some blackcurrant jam in some tentative attempt to expand my hotel breakfast horizons.

I’ll freely admit that I’m horrible with breakfast on a holiday. I have one too many traumatic memories of being young and forced to eat badly puzzled-together breakfasts on shitty French campings. I never drink the milk anywhere but at home, partly out of habit, partly because experience has made my intestines queasy at the thought, as if they’ve placed a large ‘Dutch bovines only’ sign above the proper bacteria.

It is a better day than yesterday, though. Proper internet acquired, a full night’s sleep behind me, and the cramps have gone down to the point where I can actually move. The bread tastes like Finland for some reason I can’t quite place—I’m suddenly struck by visions of winters spent at Ronald’s hotel in Kuusamo, running down the snowclad hill right behind his house. Considering that just outside the windows rests an ocean beating bloody violence into the rocky coast, the cognitive dissonance is vast.

They serve a lot of cheese here. A stupid little thing, but it’s worthy of note, because the cheese means I’m not relegated to scoffing yogurt like I’m used to. The peaches (‘perziken’ in Dutch, if anyone was ever curious) are also a staple of any hotel breakfast, but over here they’re fresh, and somehow that makes all the difference.

I keep thinking about the ocean. It’s hard not to, considering it’s right there, and even when you can’t see it it’s like a backing soundtrack, like Danny Elfman is scoring my life one broken wave at a time. I’m in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with nothing but a few other, tiny volcanic islands to catch me if I fall into the water. Everywhere else is at least a thousand miles away, if not more. It’s literal, too. Even the European mainland is that far, somewhere behind so much tonnage of salt water.

That’s one of the reasons traveling across the ocean always made me a little uneasy. When you’re in Europe, or Asia, or hell, even Africa, there’s always the possibility you can reach home ‘on foot’. But go overseas, and you’re stuck. You can only go so far as the ocean. I like to know that I can still go home. I like to know that I can still be safe.

So I think I’ll walk down to the ocean as soon as I post this. It’s just a door and a short stroll down the path away. No beaches. I kind of like it, in its own bizarre kind of way.

The hotel coffee tastes like instant. I suppose that’s par for the course.

len@pwcons.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:35:02 GMT

So. I'm 22 as of today.

I am officially Past My Prime.

Commiserate with me, akiyasan!

I have cook books and a pie and hygiene products, because apparently between this year and the previous one, I have turned into a girl.

len@pwcons.com — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:58:44 GMT

One:

4-1. Four to one against the French. And I thought the three - nil against the Italians were insane. Holy crap, we're qualified for the quarter finals! How the fuck did this happen? Next week's going to be fuuuun.

Two:

The Guardian's recap of last night's France - Netherlands game made me laugh out loud. Thus, I must share.

Three:

Am restless as hell again lately. Not completely sure what's up. Oh well, let's just hope this mood goes quickly and stops bothering me. I blame being too sick to go to the gym last week.

Italy - Netherlands

len@pwcons.com — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:42:36 GMT

And we start the Eurocup on a nice, totally unexpected 3-0 against the Italians. HOLY FUCK.

I have no comment except that we rock hardcore right now. Pretty awesome game, and we showed those fuckers every corner of the field. HUZZAH.

len@pwcons.com — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:08:41 GMT

Some Eurocup thoughts:

1) Dear Czechs: You know you guys are my boys.

Well, my second set of boys. Naturally, the Orange must come first, for I am a patriotic little squirrel. But I've been rooting for you guys since Euro '04, and I am not willing to let you go. If simply because you people have the best keeper in the world that isn't Van der Sar.

But! Just because you have Cech DOES NOT MEAN you can simply run about like brainless morons, allowing the enemy to GET ALL THE WAY TO THE GOAL before the poor man deflects the ball. He's not a one-man defense, here.

In other words, dear Czechs:

PLAY BETTER.

I am rooting for you, dammit.

2) I better see at least one team kick the snot out of Portugal. Kind of like we did in that ill-fated game back in '06 that launched a Dutch football hatred to transcend even the one we hold against the Germans.

...Yes, I realise we were mean shits in that one, too, but dear lord, that doesn't mean I don't deserve to see Ronaldo cry again at least once. C'mon.

I might be somewhat of a vindictive person.

3) I'm going to have to upload some Oranje icons again. Right now all I've got is the Van der Sar one, and while I love Van der Sar like pie, the goalie uniform doesn't leave much space for the actual orange.

First game tomorrow. Dammit, van Basten, you better not let us down this time.

4) Yes, friendslist: it's that time of the-- biannual again. Beware the footie talk, and I owe whoever wants to come watch a game with me a beer. (For those of you not around to witness me rave and ramble during World Cup '06? I think all I have to say is that I inspired polls.)

len@pwcons.com — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:26:22 GMT

To: Daniel Way
Subject: Re: Deadpool in Wolverine Origins and beyond

Dear mr. Way,

Please just stop.

My sincerest weepings,

A Deadpool fan.

---

To: Duane Somethingorother
Subject: Re: The new Cable series & upcoming Cable solicits

I got nuthin'. Seriously.

Nuthin'.

All my nuthin's,

A Cable fan.

---

To: Flist
Subject: Re: Untitled post

Hey, kids! Guess who just caught up on comics today!

Hint: Follow the sound of headwalling.