zoanthropic gave me this meme, and I figured, "why not?"

Comment and I'll give you a letter.
- You have to list 10 things you love that begin with that letter.
- Afterwards, post this in your journal.

I got the letter "A". Here goes, in no particular order...

1. Asses and arses.
2. Art.
3. Ascophylum. *grins*
4. Acadians!
5. Alaska
6. Ale (and lager and all manners of beer!)
7. Astrophysics (No, I'm not kidding; yes I'm that much of a nerd.)
8. Animaniacs
9. Animals
10. Anatomy (And I might not mean the science class this time.)

I hope that does it! Really, I should have had the letter "B". Beer... baseball... boobs... backrubs... BDSM... more beer...

I started sketching this on the way home from Sectus, on the airplane. It was an interesting challenge, especially when we hit turbulance, and I was too stubborn to pause. But when I got home, I didn't edit it right away, and the graphite became a bit too stuck on the paper, and manual edits became a bit more difficult. So, I've attempted to edit through photoshop on my laptop. (No art tablet - not even a mouse. Just a touch-pad.) So, here goes nothing. *sigh* Please tell me it doesn't suck.

Title: The Final Duel (Creative, huh?)
Rating: PG, I think.
Genre: Canon
Medium: Mechanical Pencil
Artist's Notes: I had a bit of trouble with the position of Harry's left arm and hand, but I did some extremely painstaking edits with photoshop, and I think I'm happier with it now. Better angle. Also, my crappy scanner is too small to get the whole image, so it cut off the bottom inch of the page, including my signature and the equivalent of a foot of Voldy's back. *shrugs* Gotta love technology.


( And it all comes down to this... )

Remember the picture in this entry? It was my "Instant Swamp", aimed at Six Apart's censorship spree. I figured, if I'm going to leave LJ, I'm going to do it "Fred-and-George" style. But this was planned to be a series of drawings. You didn't think I could just leave Harry sitting there on Snape's bed, waiting to be paddled? Oh no, I had to continue it. So, the next picture... takes place about fifteen minutes after the first.  Expect more pictures in the series... because you can't seriously think I'm going to leave Severus's clothes ON, do you?

Title: And One To Grow On
Rating: Hard-R (Not Worksafe)
Age of youngest character in picture: 18
Pairing: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Medium: Mechanical Pencil
Genre: BDSM, kink. Mild to moderate S&M and bondage.
Notes: The second image in a series. This is Harry Potter's 18th birthday, Snarry-style.

( And one to grow on... )

After Sectus, a bunch of us got together and spent a few days running around London.  One afternoon, we crashed back at calyxess's hostel room, and I asked for a drabble prompt.  The prompt I received was "Luna and tears".  So, I started writing.  And as some of you know, I am INCAPABLE of drabbling.  Plots always seem to emerge.  One-hundred words?  Not going to happen.  This is what I got.  I'm really quite fond of it.

Title: "The Picture of a Hero"
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,651
Ships: None
Main Characters: Colin Creevey, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom
Genre:  Canon-based, missing-scene.

 

Please forgive the lack of an LJ-cut, but I want to get everyone's attention.  I'm sure you know about this by now:
http://news.livejournal.com/102286.html
(Make sure you've read the article on LJ-news before you do anything else.)  In response to the new Pepsi advertisements, V-gifts, and logos all over the place, in VIOLATION of LJ's customer contracts, I say we take a stand, and hit Six Apart where it counts.

I just got off the phone with Pepsi Customer Relations.  I told them, very politely, with utmost concern for their corporate image, that their logo is being used in advertisements by Six Apart on Livejournal Paid Accounts, in violation of customer contracts.  I explained how the good corporate image of Pepsi could be tarnished by their sponsorship of Six Apart.  I let them know that we, the customer base of Livejournal, are infuriated at Six Apart.  We're going to stop drinking Pepsi and purchasing Pepsi products.  We're going to avoid anything sponsored by Pepsi.  We're going to tell our local restaurants and retailers to stop carrying Pepsi.

I told the Pepsi representative that we're going to tell our friends.  And there are a LOT of us.  I used the estimate of 30,000 irritated fans, going by the number we got from Fandom Counts.  I hope you think that's a fair number for me to use.

Here's what I'm asking you to do:

CALL PEPSI.  Tell them what's happening with Six Apart.  Explain that 6A is violating customer contracts by placing advertisements in paid accounts.  Tell them that it will look bad for Pepsi, and that Pepsi should withdraw their corporate sponsorship for their own good.

I didn't call the customer service line directly because I couldn't find it at first, but I got connected through the vendor's number.  I think THIS is the Customer Service line: +1(800)433-2652
Or the basic phone number for the headquarters:  +1(914)253-2000 That should connect you to anybody at the Headquarters, and I'd recommend this number most. 

Here's the link to a page listing their entire roster of Corporate executives and offices:
http://www.pepsico.com/PEP_Company/OfficersDirectors/index.cfm

Here's their address:
Pepsi Customer Relations

Pepsico, Inc

700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577

(OMG... [Bad username: evilimp , you and your friends from your college can go directly to the office!  DO IT!  Seriously, will you???) Also, for the UK: PepsiCo United Kingdom     1600 Arlington Business Park     Theale, Reading     Berkshire, RG7 4SA UK     44-118-930-6666     Salman Amin     President And most importantly... TELL YOUR F-LIST!  Feel free to copy/paste all of this information.  Pass it on.  Flood Pepsi with phone calls.  Hit Six Apart where it hurts the most.  They want to piss off their original source of income - their paying customers - so we'll remove their shiny new source of income.  Come on, we're fandom.  We can do anything.  Who's with me?]

Yes, Harry's birthday has come and gone. And granted, this year, it would have been his 27th, not his 18th, but hey, why not? Actually, seeing as he was 17 in the book that just came out, we can pretend he's turning 18 all over again! Brilliant, yes?

And while we're at it, let's enjoy a bit of AU, and bring Snape back to celebrate. I figure, in my perfect canon, Severus would have had some phoenix tears handy, and healed himself after Harry had left. Then, he and Harry would have a lot of catching up to do over the summer.

Originally, I drew this specifically to post on LJ, so it's there, in all its glory. By all rights, it SHOULDN'T get me booted, but if it does... that's just proof of why I shouldn't stay anyway. I figured, if I'm going to leave LJ at all, I'm going to do it Fred-and-George style. Here's my Instant Swamp.

Title: Don't Drop the Cake
Rating: Hard-R (Not Worksafe)
Age of youngest character in picture: 18
Characters: Harry Potter, Severus Snape
Medium: Mechanical Pencil
Artist's Notes:: Mild kink/bondage. Boy bits showing! (*gasp*)

( Happy Birthday, Harry. Don't flinch! )

I've done some searching, and I found what seem to be several different ways to backup my LJ.  Can anyone please tell me what the best program/method is?  I want to back it up... before I post some artwork.  *devious laugh*

Aaah, setting up a new journal. Gotta love it. Here are the basics, while I'm setting up:

1. This journal will mostly NOT be friends-only.  Naturally, there will be friends-locked posts, but unless you know me well, or want to be friends, you probably won't care much about them anyway.   If you're here for fic and art and the occasional fandom commentary, don't worry, you'll see it. But please, still comment and say hi! I want to know who's here anyway.

2. If you want to be friended, just let me know!  Right now, I'm really trying to rebuild my f-list.  Don't hide from me!

3. I'll be messing with setups and colour schemes for a while, but I want it to feel like my Hobbit Hole back on LJ.  I hope it'll be recognizable.

4. Tune in to Emma's meta-chat tonight.  I'll be there.  :)

Okay, back to messing with colours and themes.  Gah, I'm really not very good with this sort of stuff.  I need icons, and a mood theme, and... and...
More coffee?

I'm sure you've all seen this post on lj_biz.
Here's my response to it:

*sniffs the Official-looking Statement-thingy* 
I don't think I smell manure.

*pokes it with my foot*
It seems real. 

But... Mr. Livejournal Person, YOU guys have already HAD two strikes against the "foot-in-mouth" meter.  I don't know if we can trust you anymore.  Really.  I want to.  I'm a kind, caring person who likes to trust.  But... after someone has pulled a chair out from underneath you twice, you don't want to sit in their chair again.

I believe in protecting children.  Child pornography is hideous and malicious and evil and should be stopped and prosecuted.  But... I was part of a community accused of engaging in child pornography.  I was essentially labelled a "pedophile", when NOTHING could be further from the truth.  It was insulting, to say the least.  And then, I saw friends who are just as much NOT pedophiles as me having their figurative chairs pulled out from under them.  We've added injury to insult.

So, thank you for apologizing for insulting your guests and customers, and for dropping them on their butts for the second time this year, but sadly, I believe this is too little, too late.  Your priorities are with your sponsors, not with your customers.  Calm rationality and reason seem beyond your grasp until after you've kicked up a maelstrom.  You jump into battle with guns blazing, when sending a diplomatic "please don't do that again" letter would have stopped the "unsavory" activity much more cleanly.  Clear ToU's would have done the same.  And your employee's comment about anorexia?  I'm sorry, but I've never seen such dangerous ignorance in my life... outside of the current American presidential administration, of course.

I have a paid account.  It will last a while longer.  When it runs out, however, it will become an unpaid account again. I'm just a few dollars in a very large bucket, but perhaps the intent behind my decision will add weight to an already large chorus of reason.

I originally posted this as a comment in emmagrant01's journal, but fiona_fawkes, told me that it should be a post of its ownand I think she may be right.  So, here it is - my essential thoughts on this whole LJ/6A thing, stripped to the bare bones, and thrown to the center of the village green for your amusement, mocking, or even sincere consideration.  (Note that I am editing this slightly as I go, as I discuss things with people, and listen to very good opinions and thoughts from fellow fandomers.)  You don't have to agree with me.  I don't expect everyone to agree with me, ever.  However, remember, at the core of all this... the community of fandom is a family to me.  We may argue, bicker, spork, cat-fight, bitch-slap, and even throw hissy-fits at each other, but in the end, I still consider you all family.  In the end, I want to see the best for all of us.  Because in the end... I think we all want the same thing: to write, draw, ship, slash, review, laugh, cry, and wank in peace, as one big creative, perverted community. 
Enjoy:

There are so many things to say about the implosion of fandom on LJ, but sometimes, I wonder if everything has already been said, misinterpreted, re-stated, re-hashed, summarized poorly, CAPSLOCKED, diplomaticized (oooh, new word!), and eventually *headdesk-deleted*

There are harsh reactions from people, people who aren't thinking this through, people who are in a panic, people who are defiant, and people who are angry... some at the same things, some at different things, and some at each other.

Some people call it a customer service issue. Some people call it a moral issue. Some people call it censorship, while others call it bad business.

I call it a tangled mess, with so many knots tied by so many different people, all pulling at once, trying to untangle it, and only making the knots tighter.

I love my fandom. I've loved my fandom's LJ home in the past. I wish we'd listen to each other instead of screaming at each other. I wish we'd stand as a unified front instead of some people running off to the Attorney General while others go into lockdown while yet others abandon ship while yet others stand defiantly, saying "I dare you."  But, as much as I would love for us to stand fully united, I know it won't happen.  Each person is going to reach in their own way, and that's okay.  One of the reason I love my fandom (and one of the reason it simultaneously drives me insane) is because we all ARE individuals.  What you do... is up to you.

As for me... I already had JF and GJ accounts. It took me three minutes to get a blank IJ account, just to hold the spot. I'm not using them yet; they're just there, in case I need them later. Even if LJ!mijan is gone, it's not the end of the world, because JF!mijan, GJ!mijan, and IJ!mijan are all ready to go. I only friends-locked one post on LJ - the post at the top of my LJ that boldly linked all my fics, including NC-17. One of them was technically 7th year, and showed a 17-year old Harry in the middle of naught-naughty. However, the fic itself isn't locked, and I won't lock it. My art is still available, what little I've posted. I'm not leaving LJ until I decide that my friends are ALL elsewhere, or I get deleted, whichever comes first. However, I'm never giving LJ another cent, which explains why nobody got LJ-gifts for their birthdays from me.  I have no love for LJ, I don't trust them as far as I could throw them, and they've repeatedly provem themselves to be complete idiots and asswipes.  However, I will use and abuse their privilages until I've bled everything out of them that I want... which means, "until I feel a new home has been established for my slashy little family".  As it seems that the community is reassembling over on InsaneJournal, I'll begin posting fic there, but I think I'll post it here, too... just to spite LJ.  Why not, indeed?  But I certainly won't remove what I've already built here.  And what about those who have been removed?  If ponderosa and elaboration end up in legal trouble because 6A actually reported them, which I hope never happens, I would be proud to stand beside them and back them up, if they would accept the show of support, because to me fandom is family and family stands by its own.

Aside from that, the best thing I can do is to keep talking to friends, keep reading fic, keep looking at art, be more faithful about reviewing and supporting my fellow fandom contributers, keep writing, keep drawing, and keep fandom going. Be ready to leave if we must, but don't run scared just because boogey-corporation said "boo!" If we leave, we've lost our LJ community anyway, so we might as well stick it out, keep doing what we're doing... just maybe be a *bit* smarter about it. I'll safeguard my real identity, but mijan is here to stay until they drag me out the figurative door and throw me to the curb, and I'll be damned if I'll change who and what I am for anyone, because if I do... I've lost anyway.

Anyone with me?

There are many reasons to be irritated at Six Apart right now.  The piss-poor customer relations.  The unclear standards.  The sudden deletions.  The double standards that seem to be impacting fandom more than anyone else.  The blanket label of "child pornography" in reference to art depicting Harry Potter at the age of 18 or higher, because Harry Potter is always a child, even though he was 38 at the end of the canon books and has fathered three children of his own.  Yeaaaaaaaaaah.  So, yes, there are many reasons why Six Apart is currently worthy of extreme bitch-slappery right now.

However, one thing pissed me off more than anything else, and on a deeply personal level.  The people of Six Apart want to ban LJ users under the guise of child pornography accusations, on the premise that our fanart is harmful and subversive and horrible.  However, somewhere in the middle of this stupid wank-fest, Six Apart is presented with the fact that there are pro-anorexia groups (not support groups for anorexic people trying to recover, but groups that actually treat anorexia like the best fad diet and a positive lifestyle) using LJ communities are their bases of operation.  In response, coffeechica simply states that they think those groups are fine, and that there's nothing wrong with wanting to be thin. 

I don't think I have ever, EVER been more DISGUSTED by a blatant display of idiocy than this.  There's nothing wrong with wanting to be thin, right?  Oh, my dear, dear coffeechica, you know not what you say.  Or, at least, I HOPE you don't have a bloody clue as to the filthy can of worms you just opened.  I really HOPE you don't know how ignorant and stupid you're being.  Because if you actually have a clue as to the real nature of anorexia and other eating disorders, then you are lower than a foul, loathesome, evil little cockroach.  Let me tell you a few things about eating disorders, seeing as it seems you can't tell the difference between a diet and a mental illness. 

So, coffeechica, is that what you want to support?  Is that Six Apart's stand on eating disorders?  There's nothing wrong with wanting to be thin, right?  Even if young, impressionable teenage and pre-teen girls are reading this stuff and starving themselves when they've barely reached puberty?  Even if these girls, after getting sucked in, aren't "good enough anorexics" and kill themselves out of sheer self-loathing?  Or if they overdose on diet pills and suffer heart attacks at the age of sixteen?

You say you want to snuff out child pornography to "protect the children".  Do you know how many teenage girls develop eating disorders because of the pressures of society?  Do you understand that by condoning and publicly stating your approval for these groups, more little girls will probably begin starving themselves?  The pressures of society are already there.  For many young girls, it might only take the smallest suggestion to tip them over the edge.  After that, it's a long, dark slide to the bottom of a horrible fate, and not everybody manages to climb back out.

Maybe you should stop worrying about who Harry shags after he leaves Hogwarts (as an adult, might I add), and start worrying about what will happen when people see your thoughts on horrible things like anorexia.  It's not a joke.  It's not a fad diet.  It's a mental health crisis and a tragedy of society... and you're doing your part to make it worse.  Congratuations, I hope you're proud of yourselves.

Suffice to say, somewhere in the midst of the whirlwind of the movie release, Sectus, the book release, Prophecy, and LiveJournal becoming Hosebeast^2, I've become completely overwhelmed.  Tell me, how many of you are finding yourselves unable to do almost anything but sit at the computer if you want to have ANY chance of catching up with e-mail and friends lists?  I can't do it, my loves.  CAN'T DO.  I want to friend everyone back.  I want to comment to everyone.  I want to answer all my e-mail.  (If I haven't replied to an e-mail or LJ comment from you, or haven't friended you back yet, please understand, I'm overwhelmed and exhausted.  Remind me in a week, if I haven't replied by then, and if I'm important enough to you.)  I want to talk about Sectus and Prophecy.  I want to give a proper review of Deathly Hallows.  I want to discuss the movie(s).  I want to give my opinion of HPEF and how they handled what could have been the best convention yet.  I want to sound off on LJ and their complete ass-hattery.  I can't.

So, I'm going to try to give the basics here, on the most important stuff (conventions and LJ), and post comments to other people's entries when my brain is slightly recovered.

First, important info outside the LJ-cut:

I already had both JournalFen and GreatestJournal accounts, and I've just created an InsaneJournal account.
My screen name is "mijan" on JF, GJ, and IJ.  So, I should be easy to find.  In the meantime, I'm not officially moving yet.  I've got the other three journals ready and waiting, but for now, I'm still here.  For now.

( On Livejournal, and abandoning ship without panic-driven hysteria. )
( On Sectus, and how a determined bunch of slashers can make a brilliant convention out of nothing. )
( On Prophecy, HPEF, and what I REALLY think. Be warned: unrestrained opinions behind the cut.  )and furiosity(respectively) that pretty much summarize my thoughts on it, too.  Don't get me wrong, there were quite a few very good things at the convention.  I had a great time in Toronto.  The unofficial programming was great.  I loved getting together with people, seeing old friends, meeting new ones.  The Room of Requirement (as that alcove near the ballroom at the base of the stairs came to be called) was perfect.  (I had a major sense of deja-vu in there.)  The meetups were grand.  Hanging out at the concert was a blast, especially with my darling Voldemort, jaina12.  (Your costume was better than ever, Voldy, dear.  I love what you've done with your hair.  *wink*)  Being pulled into random roundtables and discussions as I'm walking by... excellent.  Selling wands, fun.  Shocking the hell out of people by wearing a floor-length red dress to the second half of the ball... priceless.  Drabbles and drawbles and random squeeing.  Hanging out in the way-too-small Wi-Fi area in the lobby... amusing.  Late night take-out.  Twelve-pound bags of chocolate-chip cookies.  Desperation for Tim Horton's coffee. Getting tackled by people I hadn't seen in way too long.  Making inappropriate wand inuendo.  That's what Prophecy was all about for me.  And guys, if I tried to shout-out right now, I think my brain would explode.  I'll try for that in a later post.  But I saw so many people, including people I've wanted to meet for ages.  (ESSA!  OMFG*tackleglompsqueee!*)

However, that's where my compliments for Prophecy end, because that's where HPEF begins.  Oh, HPEF.  What are we going to do with you?  You did some things well.  I'll give you that.  However, from what I experienced personally, your idiocy has overshadowed your positive contributions.  Other people have gone into detail, but I want to summarize my own personal experience, and a few things that others have told me that haven't made it into summaries.  First, my roundtable.  My own personal rant against these idiots.  MY FUCKING ROUNDTABLE.  It's the first venture I've ever made into formal programming, and I was SO excited about it.  VERY excited.  Positively squeeful.  I agreed to have the time changed because HPEF messed up and booked someone else into two places at the same time. No problem, I'm flexible.  They told me that there would be a flier in the programming booklet with the new time listed.  That's cool.  Pretty much everyone reads the flier that gives the corrections for the full schedule.  But THEN, they wrote the WRONG DAY on the flier!  The roundtable was Friday at 3:00, but they wrote Saturday.  NOT COOL.  Not just to me, but what about the people who had planned to attend, and discovered on Saturday that their regularly scheduled slash was... not scheduled?  SO NOT ON.  I tried to tell as many people as possible.  That's the only reason I had ANYONE there.  And even if they had tried to correct their incorrect correction with some new distribution of information... it FAILED TO DISTRIBUTE.

That says nothing about how they invaded fiona_fawkes's "Shipping Harry" panel, attempting to cut it short without prior notice, and so rudely stating that they were NICE enough to let HER go over time, when she still had 15 minutes left!  And she told all of her attendees that they needed to clear out!  And why?  Because Steve Vander Orc was next to present in that room.  Get a bit of celebrity, and all of a sudden, anyone else is dirt.  I'm sorry, but isn't that something that we of fandom don't condone?

It wasn't just that.  Oh no.  It was the condecending tone used by a couple of the head honchos when directing the masses.  It was the way they treated several friends of mine, as if they were somehow superior, not simply facilitating the attendees' convention experience.  It was the lack of planning for the concert and other events (such as Snape discussions) that would need a LOT of space.  It was the piss-poor handling of the costume contest.  It was the $600 fee to be a vendor.  It was the way people, no matter how old or competent, were treated like children by the organizers.  It was the attitude.  It was how they threatened to revoke my registration because people had arranged to meet me at the ball to look at some of my wands.  (I feel the need to point out that the Sheraton itself was not the domain of HPEF, and unless I was selling my wands INSIDE an area reserved by HPEF, I was NOT VIOLATING THE RULES.  No money changed hands at the ball, where Prophecy's goonies threatened my registration -- although I will point out that the Securor who gave me the warning was actually trying to help me avoid being caught by Big Brother, but Big Brother still needs to bugger off in this case  And last time I checked, they didn't reserve the lobby, the hallway, or the ladies' bathroom, which are all Fair Game as far as I'm concerned, especially considering I would have paid a vendor fee if it had been REMOTELY reasonable.  Suck my nonexistant cock, bitches.)  It's how HPEF seems to have forgotten that it used to be "of the fandom, by the fandom, and for the fandom".  The Prophecy attendees are paying customers, but they were treated like HPEF's personal flock of sheep.  And this felt more like a money-making scheme than a non-profit convention.  Tell me, Oh Great Gurus of HPEF, did you use the $600 vendor fees, the increased registration fees, and everything else to pay for your own hotel rooms?  Did your accountant (the same guy who initiated the threat against my registration) help you write that off as tax-deductible?

I filled out one of the comment cards on Sunday.  I hope they listen.  If not... well... look at how we rallied against LJ.  After fandom chewed up and spit out Six Apart, HPEF would be like an after-dinner mint.</div>
Finally, on a more personal fandom note, I think I'm going to try to get back into fan art.  I used to draw, but our darling lizardspots convinced me, in the days during and following Sectus, that I should try my hand at it again.  So, I'm going to attempt to get back into that.  I'm also going to start paying more attention to my fics.  Yes, I'll spend time writing the next chapter of Convergence.  Yes, I have some shorter fics to write and finish.  I'll post them after the insanity dies down.  But I promise, I'll start paying more attention to fandom.  The conventions just reminded me what I love about my fandom, and why you guys are so important to me.

*hugs all*

I'm still in London... yes... I couldn't quite bear to leave England immediately after Sectus, so I stayed.  Went to see Stonehenge with dragon_charmer the day after the convention ended.  Yesterday, I went around town with a group of both locals and people who were still in town post-Sectus.  (More on that later - much slashy fandom happiness.)  Today, I'm meeting up with the same group, then my sister is coming into town from Cambridge, and meeting up with the bunch of us.  But for now...

Hi Everyone!

Flight went well.  I'm here in London with <lj user="kriken">.  We're settled into our hotel, and we've found an internet cafe.  We could get wireless in our room, but it's £1 per TEN BLOODY MINUTES.  Sorry, I'm not bending over for that.  Just insane.  I might use it briefly, but that's it.

So, please don't expect me to be online much.  I'm hoping that once the convention starts, there will be access to wireless on the university campus.  If not, well... cut me loose and don't expect lengthy IM chats each day!  

Also, much to my dismay, the texting programme I had tried to purchase was NOT what I had expected, and I'm not using it.  It's not for texting FROM non-US countries.  It's for texting from the US to OTHER countries.  Text messages (sent or received) will cost me fifty cents each, so PLEASE use them discerningly if you plan to use them at all.  

Other than that, the weather is lovely (no rain today - knock on wood), cool and clear, and I had the most delicious moussaka at a Turkish restaurant for dinner.  (VERY full right now -  need to go for a walk.)

Tomorrow, we're going on a walking tour (kriken, me, and possibly Azhure, and whomever else we can gather unto ourselves), maybe meet up with the other tour groups, maybe follow the "automated" tour that Kriket downloaded (it's really cool), and all in all... hell, we're gonna end up in a pub sampling the local libations.  :D

Anyhow... I've got to e-mail the family before they bug out.  Yeah.  *headdesk*

Love you all!

I'm about to pack my laptop, load the car, and head to the airport for Sectus.  See all you guys there!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

It's almost 4:00 AM here, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet so I can go to bed before I collapse. 

The line party was kinda dull because we were indoors, but they cut off the number of people who could go inside, so the line party was split up.  Also, people around this area don't seem to get into the Cosplay as much, because the three of us (me as Harry, Fiona_Fawkes in her Slytherin Prefect outfit, and TJ as Tonks) were some of the most "amazing" costumes there.  Seriously, there were hardly any other people in "full" costumes.  Disappointing, but at the same time, it meant that a lot of people stopped us for photo ops and such. 

Met a bunch of slashers!  YAY SLASHERS!

And the movie itself... in short, I liked it a lot.  I think they've made the best movie so far out of the worst of the books.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Now, however, I need to re-read the scene at the Ministry of Magic.  *grins*  No spoilers, but if you haven't seen it yet, consider that I'm quite picky and I really liked how they did it, for the most part.  Of course, over the next couple of days, I'm sure I'm going to nit-pick dozens of things I wish they'd elaborated or done differently.  And something at the end that I'm probably going to whine about in the morning... one particular line between Harry and Draco, and they cut it out!  But overall... my initial impression of the movie was good.

G'nite!

Okay, with much feedback, both on and off the journal, here's what I've got...

I'm definitely going to use the catch phrase "Got Wood?" as a tag line.  it won't be the main business name, but I'll definitely use it.  In fact, I'm probably going to do two-sided business cards with the phrase "Got wood?" written on an otherwise blank back of the card.

Now, the list of possibilities for the actual name:

Earthwood Wands
Greenwood Wands
Wands of the Wyrd
Woods of the Wyrd
Wyrdwood Wands
Phoenixwood Wands

You can see the theme I'm playing right now.  Do you have any other similar suggestions?  Do any of these stand out?  Gah, I hate picking names and titles.  Help?

I'm still using my old PS/CoS style necktie with my costume, and I REALLY need to update to the PoA style.  However, there's a problem.

Most of the Gryffindor ties I've seen are a wierd purple-ish colour.  I want to make sure the ones I order are that nice burgundy-red, not funky purple.  I borrowed someone else's tie during part of Lumos last year (she was dressing as a Slytherin, so she didn't need it), and it was just the right colour.   However, I don't have any idea where she bought it.  Here's a pic of me wearing the tie:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m313/fiona_fawkes/Mijanandherwandsfromvalis2.jpg

Any idea where that particular tie might have been purchased?  Or where to go to get the best necktie?  Is that an Alivan's tie?

Thanks!

So, I'm going to be an official vendor at Sectus.  Scares me a bit, you know.  But anyway, I've got the goods, I've got the woods, but I need a name for my "business".  SUGGESTIONS WELCOMED.  However, in the meantime, we've come up with a few on our own, some silly, some serious.  Please, give feedback:

* Mijan's Wands
* Mijan's Woodcrafts
* Wandcraft
* Wood Craft
* Begotten Woods
* Got Wood
* Woodrealm Wands
* Earthwood Wands
* Phoenix Wands
* Ravenwood Wands
* Woods of the Wyrd

Okay, I'll stop with those.  If you have ANY IDEAS, preferences, suggestions, and so on, PLEASE COMMENT.  Even if I don't use a specific name, it might lead to the right one.

Thanks!

Hello F-List!

My sister is in England right now, finishing her Master's Degree.  She's almost done, and is in the process of finishing up her thesis.  She needs data, and has designed a short survey.  Now, she just needs people to fill it out!  The only requirements - you must be a citizen of the USA or the UK. 

* Your answers will be kept CONFIDENTIAL, and will be used as general data for academic research.
* Your information (ie. e-mail address) will NEVER be shared.  She doesn't even ask for your name.
* It will only take about 5 minutes.

***DON'T POST THE ANSWERS ON MY LIVEJOURNAL!  Send your answers in an e-mail.  It's supposed to be confidential!***

 

Thank you for helping!  And please link this as much as you are willing!  We need as many participants as possible.