Ben Wyatt and Leslie Knope are my life now.

That is all.

I did another thing! For Chrome and Firefox this time.

Good: Via a bit of URL wizardry, both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal allow you to filter entries by multiple tags, and - in communities - by poster. Awesome!

Bad: The only place these functions are noted on either site is in the FAQs, where you have to go and look up the formulae every time you want to use them. Boo!

Solution?DreamCatcher

DreamCatcher is a filtering tool for Dreamwidth and LiveJournal. It allows you to filter journal entries on either site by:

• poster


• multiple tags (and) - all posts tagged with both tag1 and tag2


• multiple tags (or) - all posts tagged with either tag1 or tag2

CHROME: Chrome users can install the DreamCatcher extension by clicking here.

FIREFOX: Firefox users can use DreamCatcher by snagging the bookmarklets on this page, and dragging them onto their bookmarks toolbar.

Filter on, my fellow geeks, vexed no more by the trials of awkward copy-pasting.

I should note at this point that I know nothing about Javascript, Chrome extensions, or, indeed, anything. At all. So if you spot a bug, please let me know, and I'll do my best to figure out where I messed up.

In non-geeky slightly less geeky news, apologies to everyone I was chatting with last night when I vanished! My internets crapped out, and after several rather cross attempts to reconnect, I instead decided to take it as a sign and went to bed.

I did a thing!

So, Firefox has an excellent extension called LiveJournal Hook, which adds a right-click menu to the update/comment boxes on LJ, for easy insertion of HTML and site-specific tags. It's compatible with Dreamwidth, and includes the ability to save your own custom bits of text or code to add to the menu.

Chrome, alas, does not have LJ Hook, and there are at present no plans to port it. What Chrome does have is the Insert Text extension, which, similar to LJ Hook, allows you to save custom snippets to a right-click menu and drop them into any text area.

What it also does, is allow you to import pre-configured text snippets.

Take one free afternoon, a cup of common HTML tags, and a liberal dash of LJ & DW-specific markup, mix well, and let set.

( LJ Chook )

And voila! I hope this is useful for people; if you find that it is, feel free to link other needy Chrome users back here at will. And if there are any glaring omissions, or you catch a mistake in any of the code snippets, please comment and let me know!

unfucked the bathroom
(though cupboard can wait for now);
one load of laundry

Tumblr-drying thoughts
on 'The Woman' and last words —
still lots to go there

beef, noodles, cashews:
things that wilt symbolically
in the microwave

invited abroad
to reheat for a few weeks,
(wilt, melt, crisp, unwind)

but without wifi,
a room of one's own ( — The Woman),
I'd murder them all

no time for a nap,
laundry's done and so's this post
terpsichore beatnik

The Good:

→ Finally finishing unpacking! Look, shut up, I am constitutionally incapable of throwing away useless crap in case I need it some day, so finding space for everything I brought home and chucking out as much as I did is a big achievement! Also, ALL MY BOOKS ARE NOW ON BOOKSHELVES or satisfactory approximations thereof. THIS IS A STATE OF AFFAIRS THAT HAS NOT EXISTED FOR SOME YEARS.

→ Somewhat relatedly: packages! Specifically, ones from silveraspen and unravels. Thank you guys so much. I may or may not have gotten a little verklempt in a seasonally-appropriate manner; what is certain is that I am currently keeping my ears warm with a silly hat, and that Full Dark, No Stars has just jumped up to the next spot in my reading list.

→ T-minus 3 days until the premiere of Eternal Law. A genial Good Omens rip-off with Tobias Menzies, Sam West, silly wigs and shitty special effects? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART. I don't know why fandom isn't all over this show - as it is, the entire '#eternal law' tag on Tumblr is basically elb and I screaming joyfully at each other. Get on this, fandom!

The Bad:

→ Finally finishing unpacking. I'm just saying, there's a reason it took me so long. Depressing process, depressing symbolism, depressing drawers full of depressing relics, etc.

→ Family. Never change. Or... do. Yeah.

The Ugly:

→ I am still spitting mad over the Sherlock premiere. Without spoiling anything, it was made all the more bitter by the fact that it was actually amazing!... right up until it plowed head-on into the iceberg of Steven Moffat's misogyny and sank straight to the ocean floor of fail. It's like he and Julian Fellowes had a competition to see who could make the most egregiously offensive holiday special, and oust Ryan Murphy from his throne of prime-time insensitivity. I... I'm so angry, I am mixing metaphors!

I've already spent quite some time ranting about this over on Tumblr (as those of you who follow me are no doubt painfully aware /o\); if I can manage to assemble all my thoughts into a coherent whole, I may post about it here, but, uh. Since I keep devolving into keysmashing and capslock whenever I talk about it, I wouldn't necessarily hold out much hope.

(If you want to talk about it in the comments, though, that is another story altogether. Just saying.)

SO HEY, YEAH.

HI.

I'm still figuring out filters and shit over here on Dreamwidth, but this seems as good a time as any to resolve to try and post more often. Or at least, you know, attempt to figure out how to divide up my occasional word-vomit between here and Tumblr without making every single person of my acquaintance want to murder me.

ARE YOU ON DREAMWIDTH? TUMBLR?

sophistry
sophistory

Ninety percent of flights in and out of Dublin airport are cancelled or delayed due to snow. Unlike most of the rest of Europe, East Midlands airport was doing fine - until an unforecast fuckton of snow fell last night, which is still coming down. Ryanair flights are getting cancelled left, right and centre, including one that was supposed to go out to Dublin this morning. I am physically wearing nearly every single piece of clothing I am bringing home in order to be able to also bring (about half of) the books I need to study and people's Christmas presents, and to not get thereby charged £20 for every kilo over the 15kg limit for checked baggage. My cabin baggage weighs 10kg - all books, none leisure.

Scheduled take-off: 4 hours, 15 minutes.

Airport coach departure: 1 hour.

Taxi ETA: 25 minutes.

Let's do this thing.

P.S. I got a First on my Mod I essay. Top 5% of the class, bitches.

Sooo. Updating fail, much?

Well, okay, not precisely. Those of you who have me friended on Facebook (and who check it with any regularity) will have noticed an uptick of approximately 34958304% in my updates since, oh, the end of September. What can I say; I may have had principles once, but Facebook is how pretty much everyone on the course communicates with each other, and... well, I suppose there are only so many banal updates about lectures and icy weather and the eternal battle for copies of library books that I can make in a given week. Go figure!

Anyway, I'm not even going to try and sum up. Tomorrow is the last day of term, and the past few weeks have been almost ridiculously intense (rants for another time: Collections Trust RAEG, and how very much I would love a consistent class schedule), so everyone is pretty much staggering blindly towards the finish line at this point. However! Good things:

- Today was a field trip to Cambridge with my fellow Digital Media & Curatorship special option-ers and my favouritest favourite professor, whom I am pretty certain subsists on pure enthusiasm and glee. I didn't get to go check out any of the gorgeous college architecture or the like, but that's just because - even though everything between noon and 4pm was optional, to allow us to go exploring - about 90% of us just ended up following Favourite Professor around from museum speaker to museum speaker like a line of adoring, starry-eyed ducklings. Also he handed out juice boxes on the bus ride back. JUICE BOXES. ♥________________♥ so absurdly charmed, I can't even. dsflkjasldkfjalsdf

- Tomorrow, we get to spend the entire afternoon in groups developing final pitches for digital media applications/projects for a local museum. There are three different groups with three different concepts - and since this is for Favourite Professor, everyone is super into it, but also super competitive. EXCITED. (Ours is totally the best. Totally. WE WILL WIN HIS APPROVAL.)

- I get to go home on Wednesday! My own bed! A tv! Christmas tree! Someone to cook my meals and do my laundry for a whole three weeks! Though I will totally attempt a butternut squash pie if I can locate the ingredients/remember how to work our oven. Plan for next year: adopt an American so we have an excuse to celebrate Thanksgiving and make pumpkin pie.

- It was so cold when we trickled off the bus this evening that when I inhaled, my teeth hurt. MY TEETH AREN'T EVEN THAT SENSITIVE. Fortunately, ginger wine exists for just such occasions. Mmmm, spicy warmth in my belly.

Internet cut out for most of the night, and then a fire drill at 9am on a Monday morning? Seriously, Leicester? Seriously?

oh my god, how do I even.

- essay got handed in. on time. YAY.

- full week of classes while still basically running on fumes. BOO.

- HP7 Part 1. IT WAS AWESOME. YAY.

- museum society day trip to oxford today, YAY^4509384.

- I spoke to the director of the pitt rivers museum and actually asked questions that didn't sound stupid, triple yay.

- we got off the bus home and tripped and accidentally a pub for five hours and oh my god I am dying

Safe and sound at home again,
Let the waters roar, Jack.
Safe and sound at home again,
Let the waters roar, Jack.
Long we've tossed on the rolling main,
Now we're safe ashore, Jack;
Don't forget your old shipmates,
Folly-rolly-rolly-rolly-rye-o!

Or: it's the seventh anniversary of the release of Master & Commander (in some timezones, anyway), I finished my Module 1 essay more than twelve hours before the deadline (quality notwithstanding), and I am slightly more-than-tipsy while watching the greatest (b)romance of all time.

OF ALL TIME.

And I may or may not have an SFF-geek tea-party tomorrow, and a Museum Studies/Archaeology/History Societies mixer on Wednesday.

Life could be worse. Life could definitely be worse.

♥

HOLY SHIT, I just found out that SIR TERRY MOTHERFUCKING PRATCHETT has joined Trinity as an adjunct Professor of English sdlkfjs;lfja BRB FINDING AN EXCUSE TO RE-ENROL IN THE OLD ALMA MATER

Queering the Museum: What happens when we stop thinking the world is straight?

Join artist Matt Smith for a guided tour of the exhibition and Richard Sandell, Head of Museum Studies at Leicester University for a talk about museums and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community on [THE SATURDAY JUST BEFORE YOUR MODULE 1 ESSAY DEADLINE, HA HA SUCKER].

>:|

Things I have learned from my first few weeks flying solo:

1. Getting the skin off a whole chicken is hard. Trackers and videogame cowboys make skinning animals look easy, but that is a LIE. Though in my defense, they likely did not have to worry about trying to cut around all the string so the chicken doesn't just fall apart in their crock pot. Just saying.
2. Finding bits of remaining viscera while doing said skinning is gross.
3. I've now also rummaged around inside uncooked poultry, with spices and sauces and things. Okay, so that's not actually something I've learned, but it is, I feel, still a landmark moment. What can I say, I usually just buy breasts or thighs.
4. Butternut squash is completely ridiculous, and probably contains less calories than it makes you burn trying to slice it.
5. Leeks are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.

More things:

A] I made a Halloween costume! It was awesome. It was also more than a little annoying and uncomfortable to wear, but what can I say. I suffer for my art~. Unfortunately, I don't think I have any photos of it, so I shall just have to wait until someone else uploads some to Facebook.

B] Have I mentioned yet that I somehow managed to land myself on the committee of the Museum Society? It's the kind of thing that will look great on CVs, but sdkfksldfj horrifying. The entire society is run by Museum Studies MA students, of whom 100% are there on a one year program, meaning there is precisely zero administrative continuity, and each successive year is left fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what on earth last year's committee has left them. Why... Anyway, we somehow have actually managed to register 50+ paying members, are having a fund-raising bake sale on Wednesday at which we expect to register more, are finalising the details for a day trip and personalised tour+talk to a museum in Oxford, and are In Talks with at least two possible guest speakers. What is this I don't even.

C] I have thoughts on some things I've seen going around LJ/Facebook/Twitter, mainly concerning the mocking and maligning of All Those Girls who dress up as 'slutty nurse/witch/fairy/cat/mouse/etc.' for Halloween. I doubt I can really articulate them properly, since it's 2am AGAIN HOW DID THIS HAPPEN I AM GOING TO BE AWAKE FOREVERRRR, but mostly it boils down to: not cool. It's the whole social/marketing combo... thing (see what I mean about articulation?) that deserves derision and scorn, not the girls for whom, in the absence of mega budget and/or sewing skillz and/or the time and ability to MacGuyver together household supplies into a costume, 'slutty [noun]' has become more or less the only acceptable way to dress up within their particular age bracket or social group. So... yeah. That's been bothering me.

D] Also bothersome: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I genuinely hated both protagonists, and everything it seems like the movie was trying to sell me. I liked: Knives, Wallace, Stacey, videogame lulz, and Mae Whitman's well-deserved 'bi-furious'...ness? ...ity? whatever. Just, ugh. Nearly everyone in that movie deserved each other.

E] Also also bothersome: the way I have woken up late nearly every morning this week, with my phone clutched in my hand/under my pillow/jamming into my back and no memory whatsoever of getting up to turn off the alarm. Regular sleep schedule, please come back. I swear I'll treat you right this time. :((((

Yes.

Yes they do.

And that's okay.

( Talk of body image, fatshion, tl;dr, and probably a couple of swear words below the cut. )

I made cake! And jambalaya. And chicken pineapple teriyaki. And cola pot roast (om nom red meat, we needs the iron, precious). And people over here keep calling me/each other 'my love' (trufax exchange: "Table for two, please." / "Brilliant. Sit yourself down here, my love - the specials today are..."), and it is ADORABLE, and I am pretty sure I am overcome by an embarrassingly touristy *_* expression every time it happens. Also, I can already hear myself starting to ape the Midlands accent. I am in for a world of mockery when I go home.

My mum called me on Friday night at 2 am (don't ask), and then again at like 10am on Saturday morning (YOU CALLED ME AT 2AM, OF COURSE I AM STILL ASLEEP MUM), and then tonight when I was on the verge of collapse from exhaustion, she waited until half an hour past our designated Call Time to phone.

Our first all-day museum study trip is on Thursday; we give group presentations on said trip in front of the class on Friday; our first essay is due in on Monday.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

the end

Tomorrow (for my 9am lecture), everyone in my tutorial group has to bring in an object which they feel tells a story about themselves. Since my room is full of SFF/Patrick O'Brian/zombie books and nerdy posters, and I don't want to be That Person, I have instead tentatively settled on my creepy red-stained rubber gloves - from when I spray-painted a pair of canvases to mount said nerdy posters on, last week. If nothing else, I can at least subtly highlight how I totally understand how the display and spatial context of a given object can make all the difference in the world to the audience. Or... something.

Oh well. At least I managed to make it all the way to postgrad level before having to do a Show And Tell.

ETA: The lecture is two hours on intangible culture, memory, and oral history, in case you were wondering. It is very srs bsns indeed.

¬_¬

After:

- sweating all over the registration room, ew,
- some soup,
- a two-hour induction,
- a two-hour lecture-workshoppy-game-thing,
- and free departmental wine,

I wandered off with a few of the people I ended up sitting beside/workshopping with to find some precious solid food.

We ended up sitting in a bar-staurant for four and a half hours talking about AtLA, conventions, cosplay, Marvel vs. DC, comic book movie adaptations, Christopher Nolan, Disney princesses, Deadwood, Sherlock, Hayao Miyazaki, the 90s Batman cartoon, zombie movies, True Blood, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Day 1, Week 1: awesome.

I did not take any photos of my culinary endeavours tonight (I actually went back to my room to grab my camera, and forgot that the battery was sitting in the charger; good job, self), BUT IT LOOKED DELICIOUS. Juicy stir-fried meat, colourful vegetables - so many vegetables - and yummy, toasty rice. Idk, my bff rice cooker? It also tasted delicious (the dinner, not the rice cooker), although unfortunately something did not quite sit right with my stomach. Nothing terrible, just a slight feeling of oog an hour or two later and some minor rumblings, but still. I suspect it may have been the basil, and because I intend to be scientific about this shit, I am going to replicate the meal tomorrow night without the basil to find out. I will be sad if it was, though. Basil. :((((

On the subject of food, some people were curious about these, which, translated from my nonsensical quasi-mathematical equations, are actually Oreo truffles. Extremely scientific recipe as follows:

3 x packet of Oreos
3 x 100g milk chocolate bar
1 x white chocolate bar
1 x 250g mascarpone (or cream cheese of your choice)

1] Reduce Oreos to tasty brown dust in blender. This gets messy.

2] Plop in about 2/3rds of the tub of cream cheese, and mix it with the Oreo dust until you have one big turd-like lump of brown goo. You'll try to do this with a fork or whatever, but trust me, it's easier with your hands. Also? Messy.

3] Get baking tray. Feel free to line it with parchment paper, but I just used one of those foil trays, so... whatever. Using a teaspoon, your hands, a melon baller, or whatever works best for you, turn your one big lump of brown goo into lots of little balls of brown goo. And yes, if anyone walks in, it will look even more like you are playing with poop. Them's the breaks.

4] Break your chocolate bars into a bowl, and pop it into the microwave. Heat in short bursts (like, 20 seconds or so), poking at it frequently with a wooden spoon to make sure it hasn't suddenly metamorphosed into some crusty, immovable, lava-like substance that will never, ever, ever come off your bowl. When this happens, it happens really quickly (and I speak from experience), so be careful.

5] When your chocolate is nice and gooey/runny, coat your Oreo-cheese poop balls in it while making embarrassing "hot! hot! hot!" noises, and pop them back on the tray. There should be juuuust enough chocolate to do them all, but if you'd rather just dunk all of them into a steamy hot chocolate bath, then... just get more chocolate.

6] Melt white chocolate as above, and using a fork, drizzle it over the nascent truffles. This is probably the most important step, as it makes them look actually edible - or even, gasp, appetising - instead of... well. What they look like before this step.

7] Refrigerate until hard (about 45 minutes).

NB: Make your truffles smaller than the ones in my picture, because they are very, very rich, and very, very heavy. Eat two of mine, and you're pretty much done. I mean, I don't know what else I was expecting, since they're made of pureed Oreos and a cheese that is like 40% fat, but there you go.

In other news, I have class tomorrow,¹ and can't sleep. Whoops. Instead, I am back to obsessively contemplating my dorm décor. I am very happy with it at the moment; as I believe I mentioned, it is in large part very froofy and girly, but currently on the walls are this, this (both mounted on cunningly-coordinated canvas panels, so I can switch the rest of the BSG set in and out at will and have them all still match), a framed Good Omens riff on the Keep Calm posters, and, er, a few years' worth of Dragon*Con badges. In reserve: my AtLA print, a bunch of mumblemumbleautographsmumble, and all the Imaginism Studios (+ others) free art cards from D*C, a full set of badass Rome promo postcards, the rest of those BSG propaganda posters, a huge-ass The Girl Who Leapt Through Time poster, etc. And I want to put them all up, but I just don't have roooooom. Or frames. Or time to find frames. *angsts*

¹Maybe. I have departmental registration, at least, which is when I assume I will finally get handed some kind of timetable along with my library card, etc. But I theoretically have class tomorrow, is the point.