everything but the girl

So the Slash Panel Podcast from Phoenix Rising is uploaded, and sitting in our SpellCastPlus folder but it can't go live because it's a smidge too long for our monthly account quota. So we're trying to upgrade the account, and PayPal is "unavailable"!

As NA!Draco used to say, my mood is enraged. Bleh at PayPal! Don't you *want* people to spend money, you silly company?

Anyhow, what this means is, it'll be up soon at FictionAlley's SpellCastPlus page and shortly thereafter via a nifty ODEO streaming thingy!

Wheee, we have an icon themed on FictionAlley's table plans for the WWN room at Phoenix Rising this weekend - and a larger-sized version of the same image ( behind the cut )

Come to the FictionAlley table in the WWN room and create a drabble or drawble on a balloon - then take your creativity with you, or give it to a friend to take home from Phoenix Rising - let your creativity rise into the air and take flight!

We'll see you there!

Elvis Costello's albums are now finally on iTunes! You can get them via this link - and I'm listening to Every Day I Write The Book for the first time in how many years?

: happy sigh

I wanted to show off my two new FLAIL icons - the Heroes one is by lay_of_luthien and the Supernatural one is by nyaubaby and I am so so squeeful over both of them! ( They're behind the cut because the Heroes one is spoilery for the most recent ep... )
And in honor of the cancellation of Gilmore Girls, which I never watched in the first place but which I have managed to acquire what I think of as "pre-series Peter Petrelli/Sam Winchester, thank you very much" icons, I've added this one too:


Yes, two Milo Fighting People icons in one week. It's a coincidence, isn't it?

I've also been talking with robertstandring about the SpellCast Live Podcast that we're having two weeks from tomorrow night at Phoenix Rising - you can still send in an audition and get cast in advance - but we're also going to be doing some casting at PR itself - Robert is going to announce a time & place (or two) early next week.

Also, the FA meet-up may be moving from the Acme Oyster Bar to the Sheraton, so FA people can be on-site to deal with some SpellCast and Artists & Authors Night things - more info when we know for certain.

In non-fandom things, I was very amused to see the NY Times use the word frenemy to describe the relationship between Peter Parker and Harry Osborne in Spiderman 3. No, the word isn't in the Merriam Webster dictionary yet, so I guess that the Times now considers the presence of a term in Wikipedia to be sufficient grounds for them to use it? Go, Times! You're ever so very cute!

And in a non-fandom-with-implications-for-fandom thing, I wanted to write about the situation at Digg.com a bit.

Some of you may've heard what Digg and a few other news aggregation-cum-social networking sites did this past week. They decided to allow postings of the code that can be used to crack the encryption on HD DVDs (and I think Blu-Ray too, but I'm not sure). You can read the BBC's article sumamrizing the situation here, or read it on ZDNet or see the Digg link-posting that has pushing 6000 "diggs" at this point on this page - it links to a youtube posting that has the key in video and text form.

I'm not gutsy enough to risk my LJ account by reposing the code - I'm still a little paranoid. But I really admire what Digg and other sites have done, and I find some parallels - and also some nonparallels - between the situation at Digg and the way a lot of fandomers look to The Powers That Be, which are some of the same people/entities - the major media producers and distributors. ( Babbling about law and social networking and the internet behind the cut... )

Dammit.

I wanted one more year of fandom waiting and speculating and discussing and theorizing.

Not the movie and the book in the same damned week.

In case you didn't hear, book 7 is coming out July 21. 2007.

Anyone planning a reading party?

Oh, and also?

I know of some *amazing* plans now underway for Sectus and for Prophecy! For that, I will squeeee.

I just got into my office for the first time all year - the first time since December 23, actually - to find a package of coins from ruhgozler and over a dozen cards from wonderful fandom friends! I'm bundling them up and will open them this afternoon - I'm only here for 45 minutes because I have to take our doggie to the vet - but I wanted to say a quick thank you!

But in a much less fun find in my pile of mail, I also have, alas, a stack of 14 cards that I sent, but which were returned to me for insufficient postage. So, um, I'm repostaging them and remailing them this afternoon or tomorrow, too.

---

Now, fandomstuff!
I'm thrilled to announce FictionAlley's partnership (along with SugarQuill and Leaky Cauldron) on the From Fan to Fandom challenge - FictionAlley is hosting the artist side of the project, which focuses on this prompt:

A Phoenix Moment: A phoenix moment is a moment in the Harry Potter series, real or imagined, when someone displays one or more traditional traits of the phoenix, whether transformation, loyalty, heroism or something else. The moment and the interpretation are up to you, as is your artistic medium.

Read the rules and prize info here, or check it out on the PR site - and if you want to learn more about the fanfic section of the challenge, click here, or to learn about the essay section, click here.

FictionAlley's judges will be pennswoods and SpellCast Artist's Corner host mudblood428!

Create some magic, and enter the challenge!

I've set up a poll on FictionAlley to see if anyone wants to come to a fandom get-together in the Rockefeller Center area on August 1 and/or 2 - you can go and vote here. And if you're reading this and not a registered user of FA, then (a) register :) and (b) please come anyway - I'll be posting location info here in my LJ and at fiction_alley as well as on FA itself.

I know there's an Au Bon Pain nearby, but if anyone has any recs for locations, that would be great. Nonpricey with alcohol availability is probably ideal, but without alcohol is viable too (see: Au Bon Pain).

And if anyone has any icons, I'd love to gack, please?

Just to keep my life organized...

[Poll #728592]

And a very happy mother's day to all the mommies here on the flist - may you have a little time to yourself today, for relaxation, newspaper-reading, playing online, watching the Cybermen episode from last night (which I can't do as my internet at home is still down, although it's likely to be fixed later today), etc.

Sigh, I've watched The Doctor Dances at least three times this weekend already, and watched TGITF again yesterday, and I think I'm going to end up (meep!) getting some Dr Who icons. I watched it a bit back in the early 80s - the boys a year ahead of me were very into it, so I caught intermittent episodes back then - but I was just a smidge too young to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Tomorrow People (same crap special effects, not quite as good plotting, right?) so I never got into it. I saw the lame-ish Milennium episode with Aaron, and have just absorbed all the squee from the flist these last few months, and my brain has utterly capitulated.

Harry saw some of School Reunion with me, and he's obsessed now with K-9. Are there any recs for specific older episodes - what was it, Doctor #5? 6? - that I can watch with him that aren't too scary (ie age-appropriate for a 7 year old) which have a good amount of Tin Dog?

And are there any K-9 action figures still rumbling around the shops?