Here's my 2009 books poll. If anyone is interested you can find me here on goodreads where I've written a review of every book I've read since January 2007. My Librarything has a nearly complete list of the books I own but I've only added reviews for books I own. Without further ado: ( Schnaucl's 2009 Book Poll )

And now, the Ru-action to the Doctor Who season 5 trailer, coordinated with the scenes as they appear:

( Cut! )

Wild Card Weekend is almost upon us. No, I'm not talking about SUICIDE KINGS this time -- although this weekend would be a great opportunity to go out and buy it -- but about the NFL.

The Giants are out, but the Jets are still in it (it's good to have two teams), travelling to Cincinnati for a rematch with the Bengals. Needless to say, I'll be pulling hard for this game to turn out the same way as the last one. Cincy will be playing all their starters this time, so I expect the game will be closer, but I do think the Jets have an excellent chance of winning again and advancing to the next round. Let's Go Jets!

That's the game that matters most to me, of course... but it's no fun watching a football game unless you care about the outcome, so I'll be rooting for certain teams and against others in the other three wild card games as well.

I hate Evil Little Bill, so of course I will be cheering for the Ravens to upset the Patriots and eliminate them from this year's tournament. I have mixed feelings about the Ravens themselves. I don't much like Ray Lewis, but I've always been fond of Bawlmer, and of course I am an Edgar Allen Poe fan. But I'd cheer for almost anyone against the Vile BB.

I also hate the Philadelphia Eagles, but not as much as I hate the Dallas Cowboys, so I guess I have to cheer on Donovan McNabb and company. If the Cowboys get eliminated, extending their long drought of playoff victories, Jerry Jones will probably fire Wade Phillips and the Cowboys will start all over with a new coach, which always causes a certain amount of chaos.

So here's hoping the Eagles win. (Then next week I can cheer for someone else to beat them).

In the Arizona - Green Bay game, my feelings are mixed. I think Green Bay treated Brett Favre shabbily; but then, I'm more a "loyalty" guy than one of those "it's a business" guys. On the other hand, I love the Green Bay fans, the history and tradition, and the fact that the team is publically owned, rather than being the personal plaything of some asswipe billionaire like Jerry Jones. (More teams should be publically owned). On the Cardinals side, I like Kurt Warner, who was a class act when he was with the Giants, as a mentor to Eli. But I don't like the Bidwells, or the fact that the Cardinals still refuse to give up the championship they stole from the Pottsville Maroons. Tough call... but Pottsville takes it. May the curse endure. Go Packers!

It's been a momentous 12 months here at LiveJournal. We crossed a capital T at Ten years young. And, like most precocious pubescents, we celebrated turning double digits by publishing our first book! Needless to say, we've experienced some major changes, both inside and out. Before we recap, we'd like to thank you for bearing with us as we've struggled through ungainly growth spurts, identity pangs, and, yes, the occasional blemish. We hope you'll continue to stand by us: We're gaining wisdom with maturity.

Stuff you liked

• Back in February, we placed a call for entries for our ten-year anniversary anthology in lj_turns10. In December (less than a year later!), we officially announced the publication of Live Journal: The First Decade. Featuring an inspired collection of writing, photographs, and artwork from the pages of LiveJournal history, the book has been selected by Blurb.com as a top staff pick! We are proud to have played host to so much talent over the years, and we thank our contributors for sharing their extraordinary work.
• We all love quirky surprises, but not when it comes to managing our account settings. This year we streamlined settings into one central account management area. No more pouring through FAQs to figure out how to control privacy settings, modify notifications, adjust mobile settings, or update contact information!
• Being users ourselves, we realize our own mothers couldn't find us on LiveJournal based on our usernames and userpics alone (*heaves heavy sigh of relief*). But since there are times when we actually want to be found, we created a search tool--Find Your Friends--to help locate people by email address (it's in the Friends drop-down menu).
• Spam counter-attack: The war against vicious malware and spambots reigns eternal, but we've been making serious inroads to ensure your online security. We've established new protocols, such as requiring email address validations. We've grown more savvy about ferreting out suspicious behavior. We've added features, like whitelisting, to help you protect your communities. Our valiant (i.e., overworked) spam avengers (a/k/a the LiveJournal ops team) are standing on red alert so you can sleep safely at night.
• After an intensive beta, we launched My Guests at the end of the year, which lets you see who's been hanging around your journal. A number of you have even discovered secret admirers (not all of whom are creepy)!
• Last, but by no means least, we want to thank our volunteers for providing invaluable support and feedback. Their Herculean efforts enable us to answer your questions more efficiently, identify spammers, reduce abuse, and deliver better features (through tireless testing). On behalf of the staff and the larger LiveJournal community, we are truly grateful for their diligence, intelligence, loyalty, and passion.

You got your fix

• We recently debugged a number of the oustanding issues with the rich text editor so your entries look great regardless of whether you know html. You can read more about text editors here.
• In response to user demand, we brought back international voice posting. For more info on voice posting, read here.
• At long last, we revived TxtLJ with Verizon. For more info on TxtLJ, check out the FAQ.

Paid features you enjoyed

• In December, we introduced My Stats, which provides detailed data on who's been viewing your entries as well as statistics on commenting, RSS requests, friending history, and more. Despite a few early glitches, the response has been extremely favorable.
• This year, we launched and improved Notes (i.e., the feature formerly known as Alias), which lets you add private comments on friends and commenters (it's in the Profile drop-down menu). This way you won't be caught red-faced when you strain to remember details about that wonderful LiveJournal friend who sent you a birthday vGift. For more info, read the FAQ.
• When we first announced View friends pages by date, we thought it would be a quiet, minor enhancement. The rave reaction floored us, which made us all very happy. We gave it a fine tuning in February of 2009, so it's even better!
• How embarrassing! It appears pingbacks have gone back to the shop for service. We’ll keep you posted. We didn't know just much you liked pingbacks until it went in for service. It's back and, judging by your irritation when it wasn't available, this is good news. FYI, pingbacks send instant notifications (via screened comments) whenever someone links to one of your entries on LiveJournal. For more info, read this entry in paidmembers or check out the FAQ.

Mixed reviews

• The search is still on. Some of you have reported getting more comprehensive results for keyword searches using the new Yandex search engine and like the ability to search within content categories (like entries or comments). Others have not been satisfied with the relevancy of search results. Please be patient. We're still tweaking this product.
• This past December, we wanted to try out a new holiday promotion. Given the crap economy, we decided to offer our Paid/Permanent users a stack of $10 coupons to send to Basic/Plus users for paid account upgrades. We hoped you would like it. And some of you did, but many were disappointed that we didn't offer Give More as well. We want to thank you so much for letting us know. Your input will help us plan better in the future. Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users can continue to send out coupons through January 15th. Coupons can be redeemed through January 31, 2010.
• We were pretty excited about Your Journal Your Money, which allows Paid/Permanent users to earn extra cash by displaying Google ads to Basic/Plus and logged out users. A number of you tried it. Some of you really like it. Others, not so much. (Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users who do not participate in this program will not view ads on journals. Participants will see ads on their own journal, but won't see them on other journals unless they specifically opt in.) For additional details, visit here.
• We relaunched m.livejournal.com, our mobile app. While it offers a nicer UI and enhanced functionality, some of you think we can do better on load times. Like most of us, it's a work in progress. You can customize your mobile settings here. For more info, please read the FAQ.

Missing Inaction

• We shudder to bring up the neon purple elephant squatting on our heads, but, yes, we didn't give you those a la carte userpics. We've been making radical improvements to our backend in order to support them. But no excuses. We know you want them. We cringe every time you mention them. We're sorry we dropped the ball on this, and we promise to do our best to get them to you in 2010.

Stumbling points

• Back in early August, we experienced outages related to a series of DDoS attacks. We are proud to report that we were down a total of one hour over the course of a few days. We thank our heroic ops guys for getting us up sooner and more consistently than any of our less fortunate social networking friends. We apologize for leaving you temporarily stranded.
• A couple of months back, we offered a free, unrestricted vGift, which induced a snowflake cookie avalanche. This resulted in backed up/delayed notifications, which, in turn, led us to reboot systems, rendering scrapbooks unavailable. It took a while to shovel free. Apologies for the inconvenience. We learned a valuable lesson that should keep us calamity-free in the future (fingers crossed while knocking on wood).
• That darn Best Buy ad. First off, we're sorry about the audio auto-play (we got it turned off as quickly as possible). While it's true that we'll continue to show this type of ad to accounts that normally see them (never to Paid/Permanent accounts), we'll make sure the sound defaults to off moving forward. We promise to do our very best to keep ads to a minimum on LiveJournal, while keeping a roof over Frank's head.

Full steam ahead!

As we plunge headfirst into the next decade, we want to take a moment to look back and thank all of our employees, both past and present, who have worked so hard to create our unique and magical universe. We couldn't have made it this far without you: Your contributions brighten our path everyday. We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you. Whether you've been around for ten days or ten years, your humor, intelligence, talent, and creativity are what makes this the most vibrant global community on the Internet (the best place on the Web, in our humble opinion). Here's hoping that 2010 will be the greatest year yet! We thank you for joining us as we embark upon another glorious decade of LiveJournal history!

Judging by the emails I receive, there are a lot of aspiring writers among my readership.

I wanted to make mention of a couple of summer writing programs that might be of interest to you.

First, the legendary Clarion workshop, which began with Damon Knight in Clarion College, Pennsylvania, and is now in scenic San Diego. An intensive six-week writer's boot camp that will make you, break you, maybe change your life. I will be one of the instructors at this year's Clarion, along with Delia Sherman, Dale Bailey, Samuel R. Delany, Jeff Vandermeer, and Anne Vandermeer. For more details, check out

http://clarion.ucsd.edu/

Applications for Clarion are being accepted now, and will close on March 1... so if you've ever wanted to have me read and critique your work, and learn the secret handshake and the diagonal relationship, speak now or hold your peace until the next time I do a workshop (which probably won't be for a few more years).

[[ I do NOT read unpublished manuscripts that are mailed or emailed to me, so don't even think that. I do my teaching and critiquing only with a workshop context. And sorry, no, I won't be your mentor.]]

Clarion has been helping to turn out professional SF and fantasy writers since the 60s. Maybe you're the next one. You'll never know unless you apply. But be warned, only a few are chosen. Admissions are extremely competitive, with only one of five applicants getting in.

For writers who are already published, but are looking to take the next step in their careers, there is the Taos Toolbox, founded and run by my friend Walter Jon Williams and held right here in scenic New Mexico.

http://www.taostoolbox.com

Walter Jon's pitches his Toolbox as more of a "graduate study" program, for writers with a bit more experience. Graduates of Clarion, Clarion West, and Odyssey, neopros with a few sales under their belts, even journeymen looking to improve. I am not connected with the Toolbox, but I did a guest lecture there a few years ago, and it struck me as a great program. This year Nancy Kress will be assisting WJW with the teaching, and Carrie Vaughn (of Kitty and Wild Cards fame) will be giving a guest lecture. And when you're not writing, reading, critiquing, or listening to lectures, hey, you'll be in Taos.

Clarion Workshop and the Taos Toolbox. If you want to write, check 'em out.

• Actors and Movies: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince among shortlisted for Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
  
  Trailer of Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, which stars many actors from the Harry Potter films, released
  
  
• Communities: daily_deviant posted their reveals for Kinky Kristmas 2009
  
  lupin_snape posted the masterlist for Snupin Santa 2009
  
  
• Hot Rec: Joined Up with Joberknolls by Anonymous (Snape/Lockhart; PG)
  
  Open Hand by scribbulus_ink (Snape/Lupin; NC-17)
  
  Dream Within a Dream by SweetMelodyKiss (Snape/Lupin; PG-13)
  
  
• Searches: daily_snitch is looking for fanworks and resources featuring Alicia Spinnet
  
  

Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch!

• Actors and Movies: HBP among finalists for Oscar Visual Effects nominations
  
  Emma Watson Burberry ads
  
  Half-Blood Prince one of 7 Academy Awards' Achievement in Visual Effects finalists
  
  Dan Radcliffe receives Half-Blood Prince Gouden Flip award on Deathly Hallows set
  
  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows teaser trailer now online
  
  
• Communities: hp_beholder announces info for its third round. Sign-ups begin Jan 28.
  
  snapeholidays 2009 pre-reveals/anon list.
  
  quiz_sshg, a Snape/Hermione quiz community, is looking for story suggestions for various quiz topics.
  
  
• Essay: faithwood: Gringotts Wizarding Bank (Of Malfoy Fortune, Goblins, Economy and Politics).
  
  
• Hot Art: 1979 by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, NWS)
  
  Party Spirit by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, WS)
  
  Sir Guy Goes To Battle by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, WS)
  
  
• Hot Recs: A Tutor for Teddy by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, R)
  
  For One More Chance by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, R)
  
  The Investigation by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, PG-13)
  
  A Life Closed Twice Before Its Close by Anonymous (Harry/Ginny, NC-17)
  
  
• Resource: hp_yule_balls 2009 Reveals and Masterlist.
  
  
• Searches: daily_snitch is looking for fanworks and resources featuring Alicia Spinnet.
  
  

Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch!

Icons include:

(20) Stock/Spring/Easter,
(54) Classic Winnie the Pooh drawings,
(11) Hayley Williams

Preview
 
See them here at my journal :)

I hacked the ljdump Python script someone else wrote to make an untagged entries list exporter:

http://code.google.com/p/ljuntagged/downloads/list

I tested it on Livejournal and Dreamwidth, and it seems to work, so hooray.  It mmmay work on other LJesque sites, but I don't have accounts on those, so...

If you have input on this, feel free to provide input.  I'm very new to Python, so I'm sure I missed something.

Yay!

Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll illustrations, Logan Lerman



In my journal

A bit late, because I left my list at school when I went home for Christmas. I'm turning into a walking Absentminded Professor stereotype already.

Anyway, poll is here.

Various sources are reporting the Pepper Johnson might be a candidate for the defensive coordinator opening on the Giants, created when Bill Sheridan was released.

That would be a risk, maybe -- Pepper doesn't have the experience of most of the other candidates -- but it's one I'd be glad to take. I have fond memories of Pepper from his days in the Giants defense of the late 80s and early 90s. He was always a fiery competition, a real leader, and the Giants defense desperately needs some fire right now. The last thing we want is another Xs and Os guy like Sheridan. Pepper has never been a coordinator... but neither had Steve Spagnuolo until Coughlin hired him, and Spags was great.

Other reported contenders include Dick Jauron, Romeo Crennel, Percy Fewell, Bob Sutton, and George Edwards. Some of them might be okay... but if it was me, I'd go for Pepper.

# 46 icons


Here ^^

10 California Diaries (BabySitters Club spinoff) illustration icons :)
( Read more... )

• Actors and Movies: Empire Magazine Scans Online; Dan Radcliffe Talks Seven Potters Sequence
  
  Videos: Emma Watson Spring/Summer 2010 Burberry shoot images released (Update 4)
  
  
• Archive: Simply Undeniable, a Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione archive, has been updated with new stories.
  
  
• Challenges: hermionesirius announces the 2010 Valentine's Day Challenge.
  
  severus_sighs is having the Severus Sighs Birthday Challenge.
  
  severusbigbang will have a Review Challenge alongside the big bang fest.
  
  
• Communities: remusxsirius has posted its Holiday Fic Fest's Final List Before Reveals.
  
  Nominations are open for hpgw_otp's Best of 2009 Awards.
  
  snarry_swap's Daft Day Snarry Swap has started posting.
  
  
• Discussion: foudebassan has thoughts on racisim on a character developing level for fics featuring the Lucius/Hermione pairing.
  
  
• Hot Art: Let Your Hair Down, Miss Kitty, by Anonymous (Bill/Minerva, R)
  
  Red Wall, by Anonymous (Harry/Draco, PG-13; see warnings)
  
  The Day Before the War, by Anonymous (Harry/Draco, R; see warnings)
  
  
• Hot Recs: An Awkward Path Toward Grace, by Anonymous (Remus/Severus, NC-17; see warnings)
  
  Bungle in the Jungle, by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, R)
  
  Catch Me If You Can, by Anonymous (Severus/Sirius, NC-17; see warnings)
  
  Chasing Time, by Anonymous (Harry/Draco with other past/side pairings, PG-13; see warnings)
  
  Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me, by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, R; see warnings)
  
  The Christmas Wish, by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin, NC-17; see warnings)
  
  The Trouble with Good Sense, by Anonymous (Harry/Draco, PG-13)
  
  
• Polls: elyaeru is gauging interest for setting up a possible/potential Draco/Hermione archive.
  
  first_order, a community focused on Order of the Phoenix members, has a poll on canon/fandom perception and challenge preferences.
  
  
• Resource: iulia_linnea posts the 2009 Harry Potter Random Facts Fest Master List.
  
  
• Search: daily_snitch is looking for fan works and resources featuring Alicia Spinnet.
  

Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch!

Life is magical... but full of pain.

The Jets are in the playoffs. Who woulda thunk it, a couple of weeks ago? The game against the Bengals was certainly impressive. Can they do it again, though? We'll see.

The Giants didn't play. I don't know who those guys in their unis were, but they sure were inept.

Goodbye, Bill Sheridan. A good guy, by all reports, but a horrendous defensive coordinator.

I meant to post yesterday on the weekend's games, but got busy writing instead, and finished a Tyrion chapter that I've been struggling with for six months. Nibbling away at that knot. We'll see if the finished chapter holds up to reread and polish today.

• Actors and Movies: Video: Matthew Lewis on Celebrity Mastermind, talks Neville & Deathly Hallows.
  
  First photos of Emma Watson's Spring/Summer 2010 Burberry shoot released (updated).
  
  Afshan Azad in Deathly Hallows, Julie Christie & Shirley Henderson not.
  
  Timothy Spall snags souvenir from Hallows film set.
  
  For Your Consideration Half-Blood Prince posters.
  
  Daniel Radcliffe talks Deathly Hallows Seven Potters scene in Empire magazine.
  
  
• Communities: The Forbidden Awards are now open at forbiddenawards. Nominations may be made here, and a list of current nominees can be found here.
  
  hp_nextgen100/hp_nextgen100 is a new drabble community focusing on the next generation characters of the Potter universe.
  
  first_order has its Master Holiday Drabble-A-Thon List.
  
  
• Hot Art: Can't Stop Myself by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Charlie/Angelina, George)
  
  Carol of the Bells by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Luna/unnamed centaur)
  
  Most of what is good dies fast by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Sirius/Harry/Draco)
  
  Mystical Mistletoe by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Harry/Hermione/Ron)
  
  Neverending, (Ever Changing) by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Fleur/Ginny/Angelina/Luna/Tonks)
  
  
• Hot Rec: A Little Sideways by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Cedric/Luna)
  
  Sleeping with Ghosts by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Harry/Cho)
  
  In Memory of Sigmund Freud by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Snape/McGonagall, Snape/Moody)
  
  Of Celluloid and Fate by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Snape/Lupin)
  
  To Knit Our Loves in Fabulous Strain by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Snape/Regulus, Snape/Lupin, Snape/Lupin/Regulus)
  
  Far Out by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Sirius/Snape/Lupin)
  
  Leap of Faith by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Charlie/Draco)
  
  Potter Shots by Anonymous (Rated NC-17, Draco/Albus Severus Potter)
  
  
• Searches: daily_snitch is looking for fanworks and resources featuring Alicia Spinnet.
  
  
• Updates: Sweet and Sour, the Snape/Hagrid archive, has been updated with seven new stories.

Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch!

A few days ago (Jan. 1st, to be exact), I started what promises to be the epic knitting project of this year. Mom's been wanting a ruana (think short cloak) made out of her favorite yarn, a wonderfully soft baby alpaca in a bright turquoise blue. The color's recently been discontinued, so when I saw it on sale at one of my favorite online yarn shops, I jumped and bought a friggin' mess of it.

So now, I've begun what will probably be a long and arduous process towards making Mum a ruana. I managed to learn the continental knit stitch, which I'm hoping will make the process go a little faster, as it's supposedly a more efficient stitch than your standard English method. But still, it's going to take a while.

Actually, it's kinda a bit like an epic quest--long long arduous travels where there really isn't much, and then frenzies of activity at certain, not-always-anticipated points. So I think I might try to keep track of things here, so you all can watch my trials and tribulations as I attempt to knit a huge blue square with a slit in it. Hopefully it'll be entertaining. If nothing else, you'll get to see me angst at the pattern instructions, which are a little more vague than I like. Hopefully there'll also be occasional pictures too!

And so, the status so far: Getting the gauge right was a pain in the NECK. I had to do four swatches before I found the right size. I finally settled on a 29" 10.5 circular needle, and cast on. Much to my pleasant surprise, I managed to get all 236 stitches onto the needle. Since then, I've worked...about two inches of the 23 needed to get to the point where the slit goes. The rows are LOOOOOOOONG, as you might expect. It takes me about half an hour to do one row. I'm hoping I'll get quicker as I go along. I'm also somewhat surprised to discover that I'm almost at the end of the first skein. I know it was going to eat up a lot of yarn, and some of the yarn from this first skein got eaten up in swatching, but MAN. I'm going to get a lot of ball winding practice. And end-weaving practice. Uuuuurgh.

So right now, it's less of a ruana, less of a blanket even, and more of a...ruffle. More to come!

OK, I read 300+ books in 2009, so ouch a poll will take way too much energy.
Feel free to come look at my list here at http://lydiasings.livejournal.com/317212.html and recommend books/ talk about what you like/ etc.
Happy reading everyone!

2amtomorning
If you find yourself at the crossroads of insomnia and insanity, this is the place to channel those demons that keep you sleepless. Vivid pictures, poetry, ruminations, and confessions from the nether hours between dusk and dawn. Originally formed to celebrate the city at night, there's a strong urban theme.