Hell's Half Acre

Some of you who have commented on If Clothes Could Talk have noted that I must be slightly crazy. I usually respond with an anecdote about how I really like to organize information...and have been doing so ever since I was a kid.

Well, now I have proof. My mum has been going through some old files, and she found an excel spreadsheet I made when I had just turned 13. It's an inventory of all of my stuffed toys (I had quite a lot). 

Here is a snapshot of it (with spelling mistakes preserved):



And yes, I had a Leopard named Cheetah.

I'm actually REALLY glad I made this at that time, because I wouldn't remember the dates these days. So, I'm quite proud of myself for recording this seemingly useless information before I forgot it. :P

Starting towards the end of S6, my sister's boyfriend (J) started to watch Supernatural with us... I didn't really expect him to get into the show. In the beginning he only watched it with us occasionally, so I figured he didn't need to know that much about plot and whatnot.

Lately, I started noticing that we constantly had to wait for J to come over before we watched a new episode together. Then we had the following exchange one night...

The thing you have to understand is that my sister names her plants, not even like someone names their pets, but like someone names PEOPLE. One of her plants replicates itself, so she started two other plants from it, and said I could have one...and then I got a plant from my friend who was leaving town...so we had three plants without names.

Me: My plants don't have names. I should name them.
J: What are the other plants names?
Sister: Charlie Edward Plant, Peter Jenkins, and Jethro Tall.
Me: So, what should I name my big plant?
J: Jefferson Starship.
Me: Hahaha...actually, that works, it IS a hybrid...
J: *points to little seedling*...and that one can be Little Dean.
Sister: And his brother can be Little Sam!

So, that was my first hint...and then the other night, we were getting ready to watch last week's episode...

J: I'm really liking this Supernatural show, you know? It's like...the way they do it, it's funny, but you also take it seriously, even though you know, it could be ridiculous, but it never is...because they do it so well...and...I'm not explaining this well...
Me: Haha, I know what you mean.
J: And that Dean - he really cracks me up. *laughs*

And I guess I kind of forgot that he hadn't seen it from the beginning, because we watch the whole thing and at the end of it he was like...
J: Wait, so what was the deal with that guy?
Me: *eyebrow raised* Lucifer?
J: Oh, is that who he is? I couldn't remember.
Me: *boggles* Um, maybe I should loan you my DVDs.

So, there you go, my sister's boyfriend is now a Dean!boy who likes the show even though 50% of the time he has absolutely no idea what's going on.

Check out what I made!



It's for my niece.

For those of you who have never seen Avatar: The Last Airbender (the series, not the horrible film). The symbol on the pillow is the symbol for water-bending (the ability to control water.) My niece really likes the show (because she is awesome and has good taste), and she really likes the characters of Katara and Sokka, who are both from the Water Tribe. Anyway, yeah, I decided to make her this pillow. Hopefully she likes it. And if you don't know A:TLA, you should watch it. It's super awesome.

The design is actually from a pattern that I found online for a blanket. I have already made the blanket for myself, so all I did to make the pillow was use a much smaller crochet hook than I did for the blanket - and that effectively shrunk the design to the size of a pillow (rather than 1/4 of a blanket). Both sides of the pillow look exactly the same. It measures 16''x16''. I stuffed it myself and then crocheted it shut with the fringe.

Although someone else made this particular pattern, I did figure out how to make my own crochet patterns on my computer. So I'm going to make myself a Supernatural pillow next.

ETA: The blanket pattern and a picture of the blanket for those who might want to use the pattern themselves.

Yesterday, I explored Sam's clothes purchasing habits, today, let's look at Dean's...

Now, the problem with Dean (one of the many, poor boy) is that he has VERY FEW CLOTHES. So, these pie charts are a bit ridiculous, because I am working with very small numbers.

But let's do it anyway!

( Dean's taste in clothing through the seasons...using pie(charts) )

I hope you enjoyed this journey into Dean's duffle...

borgmama1of5 gave me this sweet idea for a bar graph!

Behold CLOTHING BY SEASON OF ORIGIN!!

( Behind the cut, for those who don't care about all my hard work... )

I will add them to their respective season entries in If Clothes Could Talk. :)

Let me know if anyone has any other cool ideas for graphs...

Guys Guys GUYS! 

I think...I think I might be done my vid. I just need to make a better title screen, because my current one sucks...but, other than that...I don't think there's anything more that I have to do to it, besides figure out how to export it from the editor.

Oh man...what if it sucks? HOW DO I TELL?

I want to write a meta to go along with it too...because, well vids are a kind of meta in and of themselves, I'm used to using WORDS.

I am both excited to soon share it with you, and extremely nervous that it secretly is horrible and you will all be like "yeah, it's great"* and I will not know that you are only trying to spare my feelings, because I have laboured over this for a whole frickin' MONTH, when I could have been doing other stuff like...dating movie stars and assassinating foreign dictators!**

I don't have many transitions between clips, they are all hard cuts...but it's a fast song, and when I tried to put a fade between clips it made me seasick.*** So, hopefully that is okay. 

I used clips from multiple file formats, so hopefully when the program makes the final vid nothing screws up and the audio and video all align. 

Anyway...um...yeah, I'm excited and nervous...I think that's the gist of this post.

ETA: Oh, also: Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!! Before I became part of the Supernatural Fandom (and before episode 5x16) I had no idea how important this holiday was to you guys. Also, I didn't even know that American Thanksgiving happened on a Thursday. So, thanks for teaching me that stuff.

*this quote must be read in monotone and sarcastically.
**in this instance "dating movie stars" means "posting If Clothes Could Talk on a regular schedule" and "assassinating foreign dictators" means "sitting around feeling sorry for myself."
***I am not joking. Mind you, I get seasick when I'm hungry and I tend to forget to eat while I'm working on the vid...but still, I didn't like the fades.

Well that was great fun!

It was very intimate, informal, and entertaining...and the venue extended the curfew, so they ended up entertaining us for nearly 3.5 hours! 

Both Neil and Amanda were hilarious...there were some serious songs and readings too, and those were nice as well. Amanda sang a very nice version of that "follow you into the dark" song. Neil read some great short stories and poems. The two interacted like a married couple that obviously love each other a lot, and it was all rather adorable.

Part way through the evening, Neil read this story about a girl whose sister becomes the host for an orange alien...and it was hilarious...and I suddenly had this moment where I thought "holy shit, this guy wrote an episode of Doctor Who" ...haha. It was like my first Supernatural Convention where half-way through the J2 panel I realized that they were Sam and Dean...things that I already know sometimes suddenly catch me off guard, it's odd. 

Amanda is very beautiful too. She had this great dress on and looked amazing, but she bounded around the stage in her boots like a normal person (as in, she didn't walk around like an elegant lady wearing a dress...it was cute.) The dress had this long train, and she'd just gather it all up and hold it in her hands when she had to move quickly (which was always).

At one point, she apologized because she was playing a lot of new material for us. And the following exchange took place:
Amanda: You guys don't mind, do you?
Audience yells: No, it's great!
Amanda: Oh good, I just needed to hear that because I'm insecure.
Audience member yells: We love you!
Amanda: That doesn't matter! ...I mean, thanks, but I'm sure people love you too, and you're still insecure! So you understand how this works.

I thought it was a great exchange, because it's so true.

I only had my cellphone with me, and I was high up in the theatre, but here is a picture:


Also, for those who like Supernatural locations - I'm pretty sure that the Vogue is the theatre that Supernatural used for Criss Angel Is A Douchbag.

So, last night in the wee-hours of the morning, when people are most likely to do slightly insane things...I decided to google myself to see what people are saying about me when I'm not around.

Now, I'm not very GOOD at googling myself...but it's fun. I discovered that I was mentioned in someone's review of Bobby's Guide to Hunting (or whatever that book was called) on the Affairs Magazine website, when they talked about how the timeline was messed up. And a few references (mostly on tumblr) about my clothing catalogue.

There were a lot of hits for my report about the backlot fire. I was particularly amused by the "headline" on the CW boards - which was "Supernatural Backlot Burns Down!" As if the whole thing had burned...oh Sensationalism, our abundant friend.

I found a couple of reviews for the demented'verse, all of which were favourable (yay). One caught my eye because it pointed out that the 'verse has gotten progressively angstier as time has passed. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. I mean, I think I always had a nice mix of humour and angst...but then, maybe it's just a reflection of the material I've been working with - it's hard to write non-angsty stuff when Sam's dead, or doesn't have a soul.

There was one comment from someone who said they weren't going to read it at all because it had Ron/Hermione in it! I mean, sure, if that's your attitude, I don't want you to read it either...but wow, I guess because I don't hang out in the Harry Potter fandom, I had no idea that there was such hatred for canon-ships! That just astounds me. I mean, I don't usually like reading het, but my love of canon-compliant stories means that I'll happily read Sam/Jess or Dean/Lisa. Same with Sherlock fanfic...sure, I prefer John/Sherlock, but if a story also has John/Sarah or John/Mary, that's perfectly understandable.

Anyway...um, I'm not sure where I was going with this.

Do you think my stories have gotten progressively angstier? (Personally, I thought they were getting progressively better written - but maybe I'm just deluding myself.)

Do you hate a canon-ship so much that you won't read a story that mentions it? (even if it's just part of the background painting and not the main part of the story).

I also went on the Supernatural anon meme thingy (once I found it)...because I never know what sort of wank is going on. Firstly: Spoiler-city over there - that was stupid of me. Secondly - apparently they were much more upset about Kevin Parks' answer about the timeline than I was, which I found amusing. I mean, yeah, it's slightly disappointing, but it's hardly a personal insult.

Thirdly, people be crazy, yo.

This is a lot of places by now...but I couldn't help but post it here anyway:



The video says it's 9 digits of pi, but I actually counted 12.

(If you don't get the reference in the title, I suggest you read my VanCon 2010 reports).

I was cruising through convention videos this afternoon, and I found this one, in which Jared and Jensen discuss WHY they wear what they wear during certain scenes. It's very interesting look at how Wardrobe has to balance story-telling with practicality.