4 AM: Protagitron SMASH

Okay, so it's 4 in the morning, and I'm not asleep. Thank you, Douchebag Debaters Society, for choosing 1:30 in the morning to convene outside of my window in the alley. Oh, I shouldn't be too hard on you. One of you made me laugh with "Don't be walking like that! This ain't LAVAL!" And you did break up the meeting, like, two hours ago. I have only myself to blame at this point for my insomnia. I'm just feeling obscurely unhappy with myself right now, and instead of exploring the issue, I'm just bouncing ideas for genre fiction around in my head.
I've always wanted to be behind a series of books. Not, like, Harry Potter levels of success, but the kind of middling series that spits out a new volume every six months or so, for small but consistent profits.

The Butch Strongdyck Adventures:
I really hate the name Dirk Pitt, but Clive Cussler must be doing something right looking at his print runs. Apparently many, many people want to read about a terribly-named man doing ridiculously manly things in the most ludicrous fashion possible. It's never enough for Dirk just to punch someone, he has to punch some one while driving a jeep on a treacherous mountain passage, and instead of punching that person with a fist he's punching them with a cobra. Wait, no, that's something I want to use in the first Butch Strongdyck adventure, "Nile Dragon."Butch also wants you to know that his relationship with Dill McKidd, his wisecracking right-hand man, is only one of deep friendship, and not homoerotic in the least. No matter what Dill says about Bangkok after his fourth sloe gin. Butch Strongdyck is a registered trademark. All rights reserved.

The Two Hearts Agency Mysteries
People, look at the Women's Network, 'cause clearly the desires of an entire gender can be expressed by a network. The ladies, they dig the weddings. And ladies dig mysteries. They'll have to dig something that awkwardly combines the two with a dollop of product placement. Best friends and business partners Kate and Alice run Two Hearts Wedding Planners, and solve more than the case of the poorly altered Jessica McClintock gown. Whether a guest has received a Lalique champagne flute through the throat or choked on a Tiffany Novo engagement ring, Kate and Alice, like the bride, get their man. Also, every title will be a pun, each more horrifying than the last. The first in the series? For Groom the Bell Tolls.
It tolls for HEEEEEE.

By the way, trust me on the time. It's 4:36 am now, but the Blogger time stamp is being all screwy. Oh, I only wish it was still 11:55 pm on the 22.

Chasing the Applications Dragon No More

I'm trying to wean myself off of the Facebook teat for a bit. So, the account has been deactivated. The last time I tried this I barely made a week. This time I'm going for a month.
Pray for Protagitron.
I've already got the shakes.
In other Internet news... you get out of one fandom, and things suddenly get interesting. I went through a few years of being a minor X-Men fangirl, and have the shirt to prove it. Unfortunately, the virus-like spread of X-Books, and the unfortunate Ratner movie stilled my beating mutie heart. But now Deadpool and Gambit are going to be in the Wolverine spin-off movie, which means my butt is pretty much in a seat.
Yep, Gambit was my first fictional character crush. And he's played by Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. My fandoms are colliding.

Mythbuster

I just demagnetized my monthly metro pass for the second time this month. This is why I went one and a half years without buying another monthly pass, because I would screw it up at least once a month, and have to waste minutes standing behind confused tourists waiting to flash the troll in the booth my card. This time, my pass wasn't kept by my magnetized name tag, or next to my cellphone, or anywhere near the North Pole. It was just in my back pocket.
Cogito Ergo Sum*: MY ASS HAS ITS OWN MAGNETIC FIELD.

Those yo momma jokes are true! IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.

*Yes, I know this is not how it should be used.

It's Cake to be Square

I started a new project last month. I always had a weird half hour before work. My brain wasn't functional enough to read a book, but it was too functional to keep itself busy with the asinine CTV morning show. When they did a segment on a giant lobster being moved to an aquarium, I knew I needed to do something, before I drowned myself in my morning coffee. So, I started crocheting. I had hoarded all of my scraps of worsted, heavy worsted, and chunky yarn for no reason, and the collection was reaching absurd, Howard Hughesian levels. I needed a project to use them all up, and the logistics of planning a whole knit blanket were just too imposing at the time. My brain was still struggling with the semantics of why the tupperware collection still needed a box. And if it would be meta to put them in one of those big tupperware storage containers. Oh, and the mysterious crust in the fridge of incredible adhesive powers was bothersome as well. So, I turned to that classic, the granny square. With little to no thought, and a couple of segments of the Daily Show, you have another square. And another, and another, until you have a nice little pile. It's also nostalgic to remember which project each yarn came from, or when it was added to my stash.

I'm running out of scraps though, so I might have to go off and finish some projects in order to liberate some yarn. Or else buy more yarn, which won't be any help at all.

I think I have my priorities all mixed up. At least in baked goods, I know it's cupcakes first, now and forever. Just yesterday I mentioned Les Glaceurs, and today on a walk to Atwater Market, I found a place on Notre-Dame that's also in the teeny cake shilling business. This place is called Itsi Bitsi, and the cakes come with their own handy box. I tried the coconut cupcake, a tasty option. They certainly don't skimp on the coconut for garnishing the icing. I don't think it beats the Red Velvet cupcake, but that's just the addictive power of FD&C Red No. 40 talking. However, I don't see any peanut or nut-related cakes on their menu, which might just make it K-friendly. I shall have to find out. Right now, I'm going to call the cupcake race a tie. A delicious, delicious tie.

Please don't call CPS on me.

An old photo of the 'Stache I found, as a place holder for new content. 

Dear lord, I haven't written since the first? I didn't mean to be so neglectful. The past few weeks have been busy, but in the quiet, banal way that doesn't provide much bloggable material. Unless you really want to hear about my quest to find the perfect vintage curtains from Value Village. Or the discovery of a cute cupcake place in Old Montreal that serves adorable Red Velvet cupcakes. Or how many times I've seen the McGill logo at my job. 

Wait, *do* you want to hear about the curtains? I can take pictures, but I might have to clear off the desk first. They're from the sixties, and come in this horrendous, green exploded-houndstooth pattern.

Oh, and I've also developed a bit of a thing for someone at work. I thought I had finally ground such tender feelings under the jackboot of my bitterness. I was wrong, and finally admitted i when I realized I was clandestinely checking the work schedule. And making excuses to take stuff down to text. And chat to the fellow in question. 

I can be terribly dense at times. 

I would write more, but, well, it butts up against some of those weird blogging issues I have. Like, how much do you share? I know there aren't very many people who read my blog, and most of those that do know me offline. Chances are, they'll probably know the person in question if I ever talk about personal stuff. It was a risk I took when the Q situation went down, but most of the people I knew who read the blog knew what was going on anyway, and I kept a large chunk of it out of the blog. I don't like to out my secrets on my blog, even though I like to be as open online as I can, short of posting my Social Insurance Number. I try to write only things I wouldn't be ashamed to say in public. And a personal blog is more interesting the more, well, personal it is. However, as I know from experience, it can be weird to stumble across yourself making a guest appearance in someone else's blog, or find your anonymous secret revealed and broadcast. I want to find the right balance, something that's occasionally amusing, but won't lead to termination of employment or restraining orders. And I'll write more about it once I find that balance. 

Oh, and I still knit, I swear. I even have a bag of granny squares to prove I crochet!

Home and Garden

Here's a list of things I will do, in the interests of home improvement
1. Put Ikea furniture together
2. Hammer in nails
3. Use a power drill
4. Use anchors
5. Use a screwdriver

And here are those I actually do well:
1. Use a screwdriver

I have had to do all of them in the past few days. The results have been mixed.