ashton7

 

Those who have received the annual Christmas card in the mail will know just how appropriate this is ...

Happy holidays, everyone. I haven't posted anything in ages. Just going crazy getting ready for our trip out of town. We're leaving next Friday and won't be home again until January 2nd. Luckily, I'll have my laptop along, as usual, so will still be able to check emails.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Copied the idea from Teneya ...

I've started posting my convention report from the Lord of the Rings convention here in Orlando. Right now I've only posted the first part about the first day and a half. I'll have more and photos, of course, as time goes by. And it will all be up on the site and maybe some on my LJ eventually. For now, though:

Our Stargate LotR Convention Thread

Happy Birthday to my significant other, Leah bizarro7!

Well, I'm way behind on updating my journal. We had lovely, lovely company last weekend. Maryann came down from Jacksonville and Susan came up from South Florida. We had a rocking party Friday night for the SciFi Friday premieres, complete with special cakes with Leah's cartoons on top -- one for SG-1 and one for Atlantis! If we'd had more company, we would have made one for Battlestar Galactica, too. LOL. We had hoped that local fans Patty and Randi could come, too, but Patty was in Australia and Randi had family in town. We're hoping to get together with them soon. Anyway, we put up a huge banner of Daniel in the dining room, barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs out on the grill, had all sorts of good eats, and settled in for the premieres.

We all spent SG-1 laughing, cheering and clapping and as one we groaned when it said "To Be Continued" at the end! Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica were equally as fun.

At the end, we all piled into the van and went to Books a Million for the Harry Potter premiere party. It was great fun, too. There was a lady dressed up in a robe who went around with a Sorting Hat and let us all pull out a really cute "house" pin. Exactly at midnight, everyone who had prepaid for a Harry Potter book was sent through the line very quickly and handed their book. We went to Barnes and Noble afterwards to see if they were giving out free stuff, too, but they were being stingy. They had posters but they wouldn't hand them out unless you could "prove" you had prepaid for the book and they made you stand in a huge line first to boot. It was chaos there. The Books a Million party was a lot more fun.

Thankfully, we had Maryann and Susan here for the rest of the weekend, so we spent the time watching DVDs of Ben Browder, Michael Shanks, Chris Judge, rewatching the SG-1 premiere, chattering, and shopping! And eating cake, of course.

I have to say that Part 2 of Avalon didn't disappoint, either. Mark was just here visiting today and right now I'm counting down to Queer as Folk. I don't know about everyone else, but last week's episode ranks up there as one of my all-time favorites. I can't wait to see what happens next.

So, nothing profound. Just lots of company the last week or so and lots of happiness with all the current TV viewing. I'm hoping to write some "real" reviews sometime this week.

There are no words. I hope you are all safe.

Well, obviously, we're finally home from our vacation down "south" to the Everglades and the Keys. We had mostly a nice time although it was hot and humid, of course. But no more so than here at home except for the last day when it suddenly shot up to 100 degrees! It didn't rain the entire time we were away, which was amazing, considering the fact that, being in the sub-tropics, we usually have rain showers at least once a day during the summer and it has been raining like crazy here in the Orlando area for the last few weeks. This *is* the rainy season in Florida, after all.

We saw lots of wildlife, including tons of fish on the coral reef at John Pennekamp State Park, lots of alligators, turtles, birds, deer and the most bizarre sight of all: bottle-nosed dolphins in the heart of the *Everglades*. We visited the Coral Castle, a place I've wanted to see for years, and the gorgeous Vizcaya Estate and Gardens, as well as a fantastic place that was a Fruit and Spice farm run by the local agriculture department. We got to actually eat some of the weirdest and most exotic fruit, picked fresh right off the trees. I couldn't even tel you the names of most of them they were so unusual but they were all tasty! I do remember one of them because it was one we saw in Australia: Jackfruit! It was tasty, too, and we actually brought one home with us. It's huge and not quite ripe. We have to wait a few days to eat it.

Down in Islamorada, we went to Robbie's and fed the pelicans and the Tarpons. Some of them were so huge they were as big as sharks. They would come right up out of the water and eat the fish out of your hands. If the pelicans didn't snatch them away from you first. Then we drove back up to Key Largo to take a trip out to the coral reef. The day before we'd watched the sunset in Key Largo from a place at the Marriott on the bay called Breezers.

On our last day, we drove home on the famous Alligator Alley (Tamiami Trail) and stopped to take an airboat ride while we were on the Indian reservation. At one point, we were out in the middle of a sea of sawgrass and we'd stopped at a deserted dock. There was an alligator up underneath the dock, just sitting there, all beady eyed. I took some photos of him. But something suddenly annoyed him (I don't think it was my photos because I wasn't taking one at the time!) and he started thrashing and banging up underneath the dock where we were standing! It was something else.

Photos later ...

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What tarot card are you? Enter your birthdate. Month: Day: Year:

To add to today's amusing quality!

Apparently someone was so disturbed by my long, detailed review of the newest Stargate book, "City of the Gods" by Sonny Whitelaw that was recently posted to Amazon UK that they complained to Amazon about it ... and Amazon has *removed* my review. Now, I don't know why, because Amazon didn't see fit to tell me they had removed it. And last time I looked, the review itself had received 11 out of 11 "helpful" votes (which was obviously annoying "somebody").

I have written to Amazon and asked them to explain why the review was removed. Because I guarantee you that I will be fixing whatever they perceive as a "problem" and will be resubmitting the review immediately.

Amazingly, the same exact thing happened when I posted a review for the *first* Stargate novel published by Fandemonium "Trial by Fire." My review posted to Amazon. It was well received. And then it suddenly *poof* disappeared off the site one day. That time I didn't write to Amazon. I surmised that perhaps the problem was that I had used *gasp* a curse word (I think the word was "crap" or "damn") in my review and someone had used it to complain and get the review pulled. I rewrote the review without the naughty word and it has been there ever since.

Dang. I guess I'm going to have to get busy reading that Sally Malcolm Fandemonium novel so I can post a review of it ...

I am not amused. Not at all. I woke up this morning to find an email from one of the heads of MediaWest. It was a rather curt email regarding the art show. The subject heading was MediaWest Art Show. Since I exhibit my photos there every year for the last several years, before I opened it I can be forgiven for presuming that the email was probably something in regards to next year's art show space or something else equally mundane.

But no. The email was to inform me that I had purchased a piece of artwork in the art auction and failed to pay for it. They now wanted me to pay for it plus shipping. The artist has already been paid. They told me the name of the artist and the title of the piece of art.

The problem is that a) I've never heard of the artist, b) the title of the piece of artwork was totally unfamiliar to me and c) the only piece of artwork I bid on in the entire art show was a large piece of stained glass that I didn't win. Also, generally, since I am an exhibiting artist, they do give you any artwork you've won when you're checking out your art but I can understand how something like that can get overlooked, too.

When I emailed back for more details I was told that it was a photograph of two people so presumably the title (which is two names) refers to the two people in the photograph. The two names are of two people that have nothing to do with Stargate fandom (my primary fandom).

So apparently someone wrote my name and my badge number down as a bonafide bid on some artist's artwork in the art show. Whoever you are, if you are out there, this is not funny. You have not "screwed" me over. I am not obligated to pay for this because I did not buy it. You have committed a fraud. You have screwed over the *convention*, who are obligated to pay the *artist*. And if you are the same people who did the same thing to *me* last year by bidding on my artwork and then never paying for it -- I was paid by the convention and never even knew it had happened until this year when the convention auctioned off the unclaimed art for the Fan Fund.

A correction to the list of zines I posted earlier.

The Forge of Fire -- GEN, SG-1. A novella by Marianne Evensen. This one is dated last May, 2004, but I don't recall ever seeing it before.

This zine is most decidedly NOT GEN. It is SHIP. It is Jack/Sam SHIP. It has a bit of Daniel/Sha're in it, too. The editor/publisher told me it was GEN. But now that I've read it, I know otherwise. Sigh.

Here's a list of the new zines I've made up from MediaWest this year:

( New Zines that Came Out at MediaWest: )

Well, obviously we are home from MediaWest. I suppose most of you know about our "adventures in travel" but for those who don't or even if you do and you just want to read about it, here is the story of the curse of Georgia and our van's vacation at Mammoth Cave National Park ...

( Adventures in Travel )

“City of the Gods” is the latest of Fandemonium's officially licensed Stargate SG-1 tie-in novels. The publishers have gone out of their way to make this book sound like a dream come true for fans of Daniel Jackson – their descriptions of the novel’s content emphasize Daniel, they refer back to a well known and beloved Daniel Jackson episode, “The Crystal Skull,” and to add fuel to the fire of any Daniel lover’s heart, they promise that the book also contains a special section at the end with Daniel’s Mission Report *and* they even throw in a little hint that there is Jack and Daniel content in the book by referencing a scene between the two of them as if it is representative of the story contained in the book.

Nothing could be further from the truth. ( Read the rest of my review... )

*Faints* Ba'al "wants" me. Oh. My.

Gakked from Amy...

1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4.:
"The Game" by Laurie R. King. "...laid plans might leave us stranded i the middle of Kent." Well, that's rather boring.

2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
A photograph of Michael Shanks (that I took) pretending to be Puss in Boots.

3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Survivor Palau on Thursday night.

4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what time it is:
6:45 pm

5: Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
7:10 pm

6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
The air conditioning. The ceiling fan overhead. Leah coughing in the other room. The TV in the other bedroom. Something scratching (probably one of the bushes blowing in the breeze) on the screen on one of my office windows.

7: When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
A couple of hours ago. We were out running errands and shopping for most of the day. We started out by going to the post office, went to lunch, went to Wal-Mart, went to Best Buy, etc.

8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?
My email and the Our Stargate Forum.

9: What are you wearing?
Uh. Nothing. And none of your business!

10: Did you dream last night? When did you last laugh?
I don't remember if I dreamed last night. I don't remember when I last laughed. Probably at some point when I was reading Live Journal. ;-)

12: What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Lots and lots of fannish artwork and photos based on Blakes 7, Star Wars, Highlander, Stargate, cartoons, Young guns, Genesis (the band), Lestat the vampire (a poster) and more.

13: Seen anything weird lately?
Is that a trick question?

14. What do you think of this quiz?
On a metaphysical level or just on a scale of 1 to 10?

15: What is the last film you saw?
Sahara. Last night. Brilliant.

16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?
A house in Arizona or New Mexico so I could get out of humid Florida.

17: Tell me something about you that I don't know.
I'm pretty much an open book because I talk a lot, online or off. Hmmm. Don't know. I'm really shy and I hate to talk to strangers and I always have to force myself to do it. It's true. In fact, I hate to talk to strangers on the phone. Leah will confirm this.

18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Make people more tolerant. Live and let live. I'm a Libertarian at heart.

19: Do you like to dance?
Yes, but I can't really do it anymore.

20: George Bush: Is he a power-crazy nutcase or some one who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?:
If I say he's a nutcase, is the FBI going to visit me? Yes? No comment.

21: Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Elizabeth.

21: Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Gareth

22: Would you ever consider living abroad?
In a heartbeat.

Current Mood: thoughtful

And just to show my week consisted of more than assholes being nasty to me in restaurants and cutting me off in traffic and migraines due to the stupid Florida weather that can never make up its mind whether or not to be hot or cold (but is almost always humid ) ... I've spent the last week finishing up the edits on the latest issue of Pretense 7. And I'm almost finished. I'm working on the masters ... the best part is that I've gotten some really kick ass artwork of Jack and Daniel this time around. Some lovely, lovely photo manips as *well* as some beautiful hand drawn artwork, both from old-time regular contributors and some up-and-coming new artists. (Or at least new to my fanzines.)

Best of all, I'm feeling energized about Jack and Daniel fan fiction, about SG-1, about Stargate, and I'm really looking forward to Season 9. I'm already moving forward on the edits and the masters for the other new zines, Redemption and Off the Record 2.

It was great to see Michael Shanks, Carmen Argenziano and Gary Jones here in Orlando a couple of weeks ago. I wish we had the funds to go to a few more conventions this year. Of course, who knows? Something might come up unexpectedly!

I can't wait to see those of you who attend MediaWest every year.

Current Mood: artistic

Sooo, to top off a weekend where I swear every single time we went into a restaurant we had some kind of problem (we should have known better by today, shouldn't we? I should have just cooked at home?) ...

Leah needed to go to Kinko's. So she says "Let's go out to lunch!" So we go out to Nathan's. It's not quite a buffet. It's got a salad bar and you can get soup and salad (which is what Leah ordered) or it's got all kinds of funky wraps and sandwiches and such (which is what I was thinking of ordering). There was no one in line. The placed looked like a disaster zone when we walked in, though. There must have been some *big* parties of people in there earlier. There were tables all pulled together and such and all dirty. The place was a mess. But a lot of people had already left. It was later in the afternoon.

Anyway, as I was saying ... no one else was in line to order. We walked up. Leah only wanted the salad bar so she told the girl behind the counter that she wanted soup and salad. Then she had to pick her soup. She did so while I was looking at the menu. I was trying to make up my mind what I wanted. I swear, we'd only been standing there all of a minute or two. I wasn't even aware that someone had come up to stand in line behind us when all of a sudden I heard Leah say "Uh, she's still taking our order."

And then I hear this masculine voice behind me say "Well, SHE doesn't know what she wants."

Leah says, "Well, you'll just have to wait a minute until we're done ordering."

He says: "Maybe NOT."

I'm standing there, blinking, stunned, still trying to take it in that this man (and he had a woman and I think even *children* with him), was trying to SHOVE past me to order because he couldn't stand to wait a minute or two for his turn. He YELLS past my ear at the girl behind the counter "I'll have a tuna fish sandwich ..." and, bless her, the girl shakes her head at him and says "Just a minute" and continues to wait for ME to order. I didn't even turn around to acknowledge him. I just ordered, although I felt pressured to hurry up then.

But I couldn't believe it. I have to admit, I turned around after I ordered and *ahem* looked him in the face and called him an asshole and walked off.

Is it just me or have people taken their stupid pills this week? Especially the drivers ... Especially here in Orlando ... Maybe I need to take a soma or something ...