everything but the girl

1. The final HP premiere in London will be on July 7 at Trafalger *and* Leicester Squares, as per Mugglenet, etc. today. I am expecting to be there, in London from the 5th or 6th through the 10th (for some reason, it's 1200 dollars cheaper than flying home on the 9th, no I don't know why). Does anyone want to see Much Ado with me on the 8th or 9th?

2. lazy_daze and I are playing around with a fest at j2_fpsfest, where Jared & Jensen (and everyone else from the alt-verse in last week's SPN) are fictional people (and alpacas) and therefore the squick some have about writing fic about real people need not come into play! It's not just a J2 fest - anyone who exists in the alt-verse is fair game, in their fictional personas. Details are still being worked out, but it's going to be adorable and amusing!

3. Food & Wine Festival was last weekend in Miami; I had far too many burgers, and decided not to have any wine at the Grand Tasting on Sunday, so I stuck to cocktails. I think I had two to three sips from about twenty different drinks, and had much love for the Skinnygirl Margarita, this amazing Pomagranate margarita that had salt and chile flavor on the rim, and a vodka thing made from Florida oranges. The iced tea vodka was disgusting. And the new Jelly Belly cocktail flavours - mojito, cosmo, margarita - were gorgeous.

4. Loved last night's Castle - the emotions, the problem-solving smarts of the rest of the team, everything was fantastic and it was a joy to see Pasdar on my screen again. Gah, I hope this turns into a spinoff or something; after the hell that it sounds like the last two years of Heroes were for him, he deserves something good.

More catch-up postyness later.

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Oh, easy! Music concert of my dreams, hosted at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure's Wizarding World of Harry Potter, with anyone who wants to attend in, er, attendance, catered by Bobby Flay one night and the guy who created Bazaar another night, with bartenders making concoctions with amazing tequila and fresh-squeezed key lime and pink himalayan salt.

Who'd perform? Crowded House (with and without Tim), Paul McCartney (with Ringo), Roddy Frame, Jason Manns, the Scissor Sisters, Adam/Kris/Allison, Swing Out Sister and the cast of Glee.

And on all the other days, I'd have a chef making me delicious and filling meals that are low-cal and that I can replicate afterwards, even if I have to use my memory to keep the recipes - and I'd have a trainer, too. And a masseuse - in fact, a slew of them plus Marcia Kilgore of Bliss - to induce relaxation among everyone in attendance.

Who wants to come?

( Behind the cut! )

I scanned through old LJ posts about Chanukah, and found this circa 2004 Yuletide fic involving Aziraphale, Crowley and Chanukah. Huh, in the post I made back in '04 reccing that fic, I said:

I've been staunch in my refusal to read fics in fandoms other than HP. Yes, I've read "Pride & Promiscuity", but online non-hp-fanfic? I didn't want to be sucked into another fandom.

Hahaha! What an idiot I was! : hugs all friends from SPN, Heroes, DW/TW, Chuck, Glee!, Leverage, White Collar and other fandoms I've played in over the last five years.

Between facebook and LJ, in the last two days friends of mine have lost parents and grandparents, and learned about parents and friends suddenly admitted to the hospital. Hugs, prayers and good thoughts to everyone today, through the holidays, and into 2010 and beyond.

In memory of Aaron's Grampa Herb, and in commemoration of Chanukah, which starts tonight, here's a few of our latke recipes. We make ours in a combination of olive oil (full bodied, ideally) and canola oil. Also, do not use cold batter to make the latkes - they'll be way too oily!

Sweet Potato Latkes ( Start with a pound of sweet potatoes! )

Herb's Latkes (slightly modified) ( Start with about a pound and a half of potatoes )

We lost power yesterday evening, so a stockpile of links & info that I'd put together got lost - mostly recovered now.

1. Yesterday was a big mess in Miami - between the unexplained power failure at about 815 all over the beach, the tragedy with the crane that crashed into the house from Something About Mary, killing two, and the motorcycle accident on Macarthur Causeway that closed one of four main routes to the Beach and created major traffic tie-ups.

Hopefully today, things will be calmer and less catastrophic.

2. ( If you're interested in vidding *Heroes*... )

2a. Even if you don't vid yourself, you can suggest a song here.

3. Crowded House is coming back to the states! SQUEE! And I am (probably) going in NYC with jlh on April 30 - see more ticket info here! : flails with finnlove

ETA Tickets are purchased and jlh and I will be going, yay! General admission so if anyone wants to join us, we'd love to see you there. But just after I squee-ed about the ticket purchase going through, jlh said, "but heidi, where are you going to eat? didn't you hear that DTUT closed?"
me: OMGSLDFHLWHJEIOJWLKDSD
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jlh: yeah
me: : wails
jlh: we were like, where will heidi go in new york?
me: WHY WHY WHY? !?!?!?!?!?
jlh: with older places like that, it's either (1) the owners are kinda done or (2) there's a lease problem
me: BUT STILL
I had my bachelorette there!
jlh: I know darlin
things fall apart
the center cannot hold
mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
maybe we can get you out to brooklyn.
me: um, we could go to the cheese place? I have a wild and crazy love for fondue. [/ETA]

4. If you follow otw_news, you've seen that membership in the Organization for Transformative Works is now open, squee! To reiterate what others have said, of course you don't and won't have to pay to use the archive as a reader or as a writer, but becoming a member gives you a formal way to support and be a part of the organization.
Read more about membership here, check out the fantastic roadmap and if you're ready to contribute $10 or more, you can join here.

5. There's only a few days left to bid in this spring's Sweet Charity auction - I'm up for auction in the Vidding category - and there's a bunch of really talented people whose "prices" are still pretty un-pricey, so give it a look, bid and support R.A.I.N.N.

6. Very amusing article from Mechanix Illustrated's November, 1968 issue (in other words, three years before I was born, this is what people thought would be; huh). An excerpt:

[...C]onveniences ease kitchenwork. The housewife simply determines in advance her menus for the week, then slips prepackaged meals into the freezer and lets the automatic food utility do the rest. At preset times, each meal slides into the microwave oven and is cooked or thawed. The meal then is served on disposable plastic plates. These plates, as well as knives, forks and spoons of the same material, are so inexpensive they can be discarded after use.

The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer. These electronic brains govern everything from meal preparation and waking up the household to assembling shopping lists and keeping track of the bank balance. Sensors in kitchen appliances, climatizing units, communicators, power supply and other household utilities warn the computer when the item is likely to fail. A repairman will show up even before any obvious breakdown occurs.

It's cute. What I love about futurist articles from pre-1980 is that they never look at the social implications of all the futurey changes they're suggesting, or the environmental implications. It's as if those concepts didn't exist at all - which I know is not true because "Silent Spring" was already out - maybe the concerns of what would happen to all those disposable plastic plates and plastic roads hadn't permeated certain corners of the scientific community?

7. ( Vidding meme - I was tagged )

addicted to Listerine PocketPaks.