(in the dark) the shine of small things

++ In the continuing saga of [Bad username or site: ayrdaomei / @ livejournal.com] and Her EverShrinking F-List, I've done another cut. (But hey, some credit! It's been...like two months since the last one.) As ever, no offense intended. I've just been finding myself with less and less to say about more and more journal entries on my friends view.

++ You know, my not posting much about myself? It's really not for lack of trying. Yesterday, I got about half a sentence into a heavily, heavily filtered post. Spent about 10 minutes trying to reword just that half sentence. Decided posting about myself and things unrelated to fandom is for the birds.

++ Okay, I will say this: HA! Pert stuff aside, sounds familiar.

++ Been to the movies a bit in the past week:
( Blood Diamond - minor spoilers )

( Charlotte's Web - no spoilers )

( Casino Royale - spoilers )

++ In books: Robert B. Parker has a new Spenser novel out! The Spenser stories have been on the decline for a long while now - you read them in like a half a day, and Spenser's funny, and beats some sense into some people, but nothing more gripping than that. Still, I always get excited when I hear Parker's written another, always eager to get my hands on it. There's always such potential for goodness before you've opened a book, you know? And rather surprisingly, since it's been out less than a month, I found one of the copies still on the shelf at the local library. Good times. Course, my dad always calls first dibs on any Spenser book I bring home, so I also picked up the next in Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas collection. Oh, and [Bad username or site: johnnybvo / @ livejournal.com] got me Pride of Baghdad, which I heard made Playboy's list of the seven best fiction books in '06. And if that's not a compelling endorsement, I don't know what is ^_~ Leisure reading, yay.

++ Has anyone seen Mandy Patinkin in concert? He's coming to the Lyric Opera House next month and I'm seriously thinking of going. Balcony seats are just under $30, which is a bit much, but I think it might be worth $30 to hear Mandy perform some of my Sondheim favorites live for once in my life. Jim Gaffigan is doing a comedy show the night before and as much as I love Jim, he's come a ways from his Improv days it seems. Tickets for his show are rather pricey considering I'm fairly sure he's still not a real mainstream name in stand-up. Or maybe he is, I dunno. At any rate, I won't be seeing him again.

++ Doesn't look like we'll be getting any snow this coming week :/ I know, I shouldn't talk when people are buried under it in some places. But. I just find rain especially draining this time of year. If it's going to be wet, I wish we'd get some snow.

+ If you don't like the new LJ default, you can go back to the old style by selecting it under your settings. I had a mini-crisis when I opted to demo the new LJ style a few days ago and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to go back to the old one.

+ Death Cab tickets for their show at The Norva go on sale in a few hours. I'm gonna try for a couple. I have such bad luck with Death Cab, one of those deals where I always find out they're gonna be in town like the day before, or a couple months after the fact. This is the first time I had a heads up, so we'll see if it works out. Paul Oakenfold is also gonna be at The Norva, and I'm torn as to whether I want to go to his show. I usually enjoy his mixes, and dance around my room like a dork when I listen to them, but I'm not at all one to start dancing in a crowd of people, so I'm not sure there's a point to going to see him spin live.

+ A criminal defense attorney named Esther Windmueller came to speak at the law school yesterday, and there was something very familiar about her. It finally came to me - she looks like an older, less fairskinned Claudia Black. They totally coulda been sisters. Same long dark hair, same nose, similar eyes and lips. It was kinda awesome. She's a very passionate, dynamite speaker. I wish I'd known about her last year; I might have been inclined to try to summer with her. Perhaps I'll email her about the possibility of externing with her office next spring. Or perhaps an externship with the Public Defender? Hmm.

+ Of course, OF COURSE, as soon as I go through the hullabaloo of ordering the Mel Brooks set just to get Robin Hood: Men In Tights, the studio goes ahead and re-releases the Men In Tights dvd singly again. I think you can get it for $9.99 most anywhere; it was advertised at that price in the Best Buy circular.

+ ( A's stuff )

+ I'm starting to set up that tracking feature for tagged posts, so my f-list will be changing a little over the next few days. Probably not gonna be removing too many people; mostly because I've finally conceded to myself that I'm just not likely to get back to that place where I comment on every entry that pops up on my f-list. (And as always, everyday is amnesty defriending day, and if you're inclined to drop me, go with the flow. I'm not one of those people who's gonna go all emo on you.)

+ I'm so behind on my shows! I haven't even seen the last 4 eps of Deadwood. Which might be a good thing - I don't know anyone who wasn't disappointed by how the series ended :/ A little better with Prison Break, I think I'm only an ep back on that one. But more importantly, The Office is back in less than a week! ♥

+ Supreme Court Preview this weekend! Dahlia will be back (yay!) as will John Yoo (boo!), and many others. It's my favorite event at the law school; I just love sitting back and listening to all these minds discuss really big issues. I love listening to the reasoning as they try to anticipate where the Court will fall on certain questions. It's a lot of fun.

ETA: Oh! ( new Postal Service? )

Okay, I canned the idea of splitting my f-list up into any more filters because I was managing the ones I had rather poorly anyway. I've cut 20 journals* from my f-list, and done some restructuring of my filters. For the new people, I have this thing, I get antsy when my f-list tops 50, and I get downright uncomfortable in my proverbial lj skin when my f-list tops 60. It's been over 60 for a couple months. I was due for some changes. In the rare event you're upset to have been cut, please know I'm not interested in being cliquish, and I'm not trying to be an ass; I'm just trying to keep my space manageable.

About the restructuring of my filters: I decided separating my f-list into baseball people and non-MLBpeeps was a really bad idea. (Well, not so much the separation, because sometimes I filter my MLB posts, so it's good to have a filter for that, though I think I'm gonna be doing that less.) Actively using my different filters as the way I checked my f-list didn't work for me, because I ended up checking one substantially more often than the other, and the idea with my f-list is I've always to tried to maintain some kind of balance of different things that interest me. So. I've removed the mlb peeps/non-mlb users filters from my lj panel, and have replaced them with one filter for viewing all user journals I have friended.

* With rare exception, I've removed what remaining alternate journals I had friended, so heads up to [Bad username or site: jchalo / @ livejournal.com], [Bad username or site: offspeed / @ livejournal.com], and [Bad username or site: nyychick23513 / @ livejournal.com] regarding [Bad username or site: redheaddancing / @ livejournal.com], [Bad username or site: benched / @ livejournal.com], and [Bad username or site: __fortunatefool / @ livejournal.com]. I think all three of those are friends only journals and you probably want to keep your user info tidy, as far as the friends/friend of count. I also removed [Bad username or site: sandbenders / @ livejournal.com]...but I can't remember whose writing lj that is. [Bad username or site: tripthemighty / @ livejournal.com]'s I think? And if so, I don't have her friended anymore so this is moot. But if it's someone else's, well, there's your heads up.

I felt like posting, though I resisted the impulse, not really having anything to post about. But what the hell, when has that ever stopped anyone in the history of lj. Three things.

+ Bri went to the Royals/As game yesterday and put her new camera to good use. I have a tremendous amount of love for this pic and this pic, especially. And about 20 other pics. She got some neat shots.

+ I was thinking to myself how times have changed, when I'm more excited about an NL rivalry matchup (STL-HOU later this week) than Yankees/Sox. And then all the hullabaloo today about the Sox trading for Mirabelli, and the Yankees trying, and completely failing, at swooping in to intervene, and something about that was just so very I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET! NEXT TIME! and entirely amusing to me. Also, my f-list is all atwitter about Mirabelli's return, and their enthusiasm is kinda catching. I imagine this is pretty much the last time you will see Sox fans unconditionally happy for the next 7 months. It's a special day.

+ I love when my local grocery store hires new register people, and you can always tell who they are, because they're all shiny and they try to make small talk with you as they're ringing you up, except they're not quite good at it yet, so mostly they just offer nonsequitur after nonsequitur and you're a bit...what? Still, they're so earnest, it's cute.

There was something else...but I've forgotten. Alas.

eta: Oh and speaking of grocery stores - Denise Lee Richards! What the hell? I mean, seriously.

edit 2: Hypothetically speaking, if someone were interested in getting themselves a copy of Photoshop CS, it would probably be a good idea to join [Bad username or site: ysi_leftovers / @ livejournal.com]. Some of the most interesting things show up there.

edit 3: Oh man, I just noticed a few new friends. **waves** Hey. Welcome, for as long as you stick around ^_~ I'm in the last week of exams, so I'm not adding anyone right now, but I look forward to the opportunity to cyber-stalk get to know you ^_^

Did Phase two of the Great F-List Trim of 2006 this morning. I cut another 12 journals from my regular reading list, which means I've cut about 25 or so journals in the past two weeks. Some of those journals were Friends Only, and I know there are people who only like mutual friends on their filters, so there's your heads up. Also, I cut at least three journals that I had cut previously and then added back - sorry. I really do try not to be a jackass about this stuff.

Those of you who use filters on your posts, would you do me a favor and take me off any individual filters you might have for sports besides baseball? College sports, soccer, hockey, football, basketball, winter olympics, etc. If you do use such filters, I'd appreciate it. If you don't use filters, obviously it doesn't matter, I'll just continue to be wedded to my friend the scroll function.

So you know what's stupid? LJ added that see 'all user pics' thing to the user info, right? But that link only appears if there's a default user pic. If you go to the userinfo of someone who doesn't use a default, there's no link. What the hell sense does that make? If there's a default userpic, I don't need the link, I can click the default image. Checking out the userpics of someone who doesn't have a default still requires you to open a new page, copy and paste the the url for all_pics and insert the username. Lammmmmmmmmmme, Eljay. Way lame.

Confession: I was flipping stations just now and heard Joe Buck announcing on one of the football games and I've left it on since. Because it's nice hearing his voice even though it's all greek to me.

Anyhoo - a favor to ask of those of you in/around cities with MLB teams. You know the little fold-up pocket schedules the teams put out, you pick 'em up at gas stations or the customer service counter at your local grocery store? Every year I ask a handful of friends to send me one for their respective team, with varied success, since it never occurs to me to ask until like June. I figured this year I'd ask early and open it up to everyone. I'd love if you could send me an '06 pocket schedule for your team, AL or NL. I'm more than happy to cover the cost of shipping, and if you need my addy, drop me an email. Please and thanks?

Couldn't sleep last night so I got caught up on The Office - US. I'm pretty impressed. I didn't think they'd be able to keep it going this long, but it's been good, consistently, and it's very true to the spirit of the UK original. Not terribly fond of the US version of Finch (Packer?), but I hated the UK character too; he's meant to be disgusting and dislikable. And while he's a laugh, I do think Rainn Wilson's Dwight is too over the top. The thing I've always loved about the show is how the characters are such regular, everyday people. As obnoxious as Gareth was, he still felt like someone you could run into on the street. Dwight's much more sitcom loser-ish than real life loser-ish, I think. But other things of the yay: Jim and Pam! Their chemistry has gotten better since the first couple eps of S1. When I tried to figure out what worked about Tim/Dawn, I always gave much more credit to Martin and Lucy than I did to the way that storyline was written. But Jim/Pam strikes all the same chords in me, and I realize it's not just the performances; Gervais and Merchant really did a tremendous job in how they let that relationship develop so that you really got drawn into it and found yourself rooting for them. Anyhoo. Way to be, The Office - US. Probably the most successful translation of an English show since Sanford & Son ^_~

Also, I suck and watched The Machinist instead of Bull Durham yesterday - I KNOW - but I'll probably take care of that today. I promise :-P

(oh and Alex - I defriended [Bad username or site: diedbyyourhand / @ livejournal.com], since I figure you're posting your own recs to SSN, along with those from other people.)

+ [Bad username or site: sensefille / @ livejournal.com] is coming over for dinner and the Yanks/A's game later. We find ourselves completely incapable of deciding what we'll be having. I have the Food Network on right now, hoping to be struck by divine inspiration. (ooh, salmon!)

+ ( Textbook returns go straight to Beth and Co. ) Fall is going to smell delicious, and I think it shall be BPAL that saves me once baseball leaves again.

+ I finished watching Before Sunrise this morning (I fell asleep to it last night). Such a girly movie but I really liked it. Must see Before Sunset now. I loved how stripped down it was, no melodrama (though it was threatening, towards the end there), no politics, no death, no soul-crushing pain, just this boy and this girl and a lucky meeting on a train. Sweetness and light.

+ Which you know, was kinda what I needed after the news about the Chief Justice passing.

+ Also, my journal editor gave me a box of Tazo's Calm. Which is cool, because I love Tazo teas but I'm way too cheap to buy them for myself.

+ Did an flist cut, and I don't think I'm gonna be around for a while. Just a head's up.

+ [Bad username or site: mypetorchid / @ livejournal.com] introduced me to this really fun Canadian band - The Stars.

The Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
and all of the time you thought I was sad / I was trying to remember your name

The Stars - Reunion
Tainted Love's too fast to dance to / so let's leave them all behind / they hated us with everything they had / and we hated them in kind

The Stars - One More Night
one more night, the end should be a good one