Love In The Asylum

AND THEN THINKGEEK TRIED TO RECRUIT ME.

Like, not even slightly kidding. See, we have them as a client at my office. And I'm used to the kind of coy, oh ho, you're so good at this, you should come work for me instead thing from corporate communications people after I catch them on a particularly good mistake, which is flattering, but, you know, silly and obviously not serious, but this was not that. This was ThinkGeek's PR rep getting my personal company email so he could get in touch and say, hey, I was really impressed with the work you did last week, you caught a mistake very few people would have noticed but that our fanbase would have ripped us a new one over, here's a link to a job opening in our media department if you're interested.

Honestly, if it weren't in Virginia, I would seriously consider putting in my application - it would take some studying to get my html skills up to snuff, but if I'm going to stay in marketing and PR I can't imagine many more awesome places to ply my trade than ThinkGeek. Although if I had an employee discount there I don't think I'd ever see any of my paycheck.

Anyway, the best part of this (aside from the fact that ThinkGeek tried to recruit me omg) is the mistake I caught that actually led to this whole thing. Which was: in a release about their launch of several new Star Wars related products, they misspelled womp rat. And Grand Moff. Which I noticed because a) I am a good and diligent editor and b) I was double-checking all the Star Wars spellings against Wookiepedia, because I know that Star Wars fans are insane. Of course I only knew to bother to do that because c) I am an enormous nerd.

So basically, this is the story of how my obsessive geekiness and kind of embarrassing infatuation with Star Wars got me scouted for a PR job.

So, today was super boring. My manager was out sick (and thus not there to give me anything to do or find me anyone to shadow), the other new hire and I ran through all of our training packet material before lunch time, and you can only read so many product indexes on the company wiki before your brain starts to leak out your ears. I did my best to find useful ways to occupy myself, but I still ended up spending a lot of the afternoon texting back and forth with colourofsaying while trying to look like I was watching webinars about sales strategy.

Somehow during the course of this conversation we ended up plotting out an entire HBO series about the trial of the Templars. Not really sure how we got started on it, but seriously, it would FUCKING AMAZING.

The main character would be a French Templar of about 30 who had served at Acre/Outremer/Cyprus during the conflicts of the 1290s but was at the chapterhouse in Paris for the arrests in 1307. Sometime between 1307 and 1310 he confesses after being tortured, and after the executions in 1310 he's sent off to another order for his penitence - the framing device of the story would be his deathbed confession. There's plenty of focus on him and his crisis of faith in the order/the church and his survivor's guilt after confessing to heresy, but also major stories about the political conflict between Philip the Fair and Clement V, what James of Molay and the other Templar masters were up to, Hugh of Chalons and a few of the other knights that escaped the initial arrests, and some of the baby Templars.

William of Nogaret is the villain, because fuck William of Nogaret. (He's currently at the top of my list of Medieval Figures I Would Most Like to Punch in the Face. AND YES I HAVE A LIST.)

It would mostly be a political/historical drama, but it's HBO, of course it's also going to be full of sex. I desperately want a scene with Philip reading out his accusations of sodomy and indecent kissing by the Templars while he fucks a stable boy (I'm taking some historical license here, but not that much!). William of Nogaret is perving on everyone like a creepy fucker, including spying on a serving girl while jerking off and being ickily obsessed with hearing about all the torture the Templars suffered. Main Character Guy is...probably in love with someone. And the tiny bb!Templar he is mentoring will have a gay romance that starts in the flashbacks and continues while they are all in prison. (BB!Templar is going to die, but so is James of Molay and Philip and Clement and...basically everyone who isn't Main Character Guy. Fucking history, what can you do?)

The whole thing would be full of back-stabbing and political machinations and tragic sacrifices and secret arrests and wild denunciations in the middle of the papal court and paranoid conspiracies and torture and moral compromises in the face of horrible suffering and all the historical references a couple of medieval nerds can cram into a show. Tell me you wouldn't watch the fuck out of that.

I think this football obsession is getting out of hand. I am actually, seriously considering listening to sports radio. What the hell, self?

I mean, it's not like I'm going to make a thing of it (I HOPE) because I can't imagine European sports radio is any less mind-bogglingly irritating than American radio. It's just hard to keep track of all the crazy going on in the last minutes of the winter transfer window, and I want someone to explain it to me in small words a football fan can understand. Also, I am following the whole thing with Nando and Liverpool with a kind of schadenfreude-fuelled fascination, because while I love Fernando Torres and his jail-baity freckles, I despise Liverpool for reasons I cannot adequately explain. And look, I'll take any alternative to the endless Cescgate wank from this summer, that was just depressing.

This whole thing is starting to make me feel like I got taken over by brain slugs. Sports-obsessed brain slugs.

Well, I'm supposed to be off the tubes tonight, hanging out at my mom's and watching horrible crime shows with her and the kitties. But due to an unanticipated alignment of Friday the 13th-type circumstances (including melodramatic car trouble, my mom getting stiffed by a client, and the boyfriend winning the World Douchebag Trophy), that didn't quite happen. So instead I am getting up at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow so we can go help a friend move into her new apartment, and I have tonight free to do whatever I want. Which, as it turns out, is working on the Loew/Messi Fic of Utter WTF and making plans with hanjuuluver to go into town this week and stalk David Tennant. And making a music post! Because I got a new CD for my birthday last week, and something as awesome as Seanan McGuire really needs to be shared.

5 Awesome Seanan McGuire Songs (that make me think about other characters)

1. Take Advantage of Me

The kitsune girl with the sakura smile,
She winks as she pours out the tea,
And the mockingbird choir performs in vaudeville style,
‘Won’t you take advantage of me?’

It’s a cabaret of changes; it’s a night you won’t forget.
It’s the sort of invitation men would trade their lives to get.
It’s the place where who you are meets who you haven’t been yet;
You may wake up broken-hearted, but you’ll never regret
This single night of pure lunacy --
Won’t you take advantage of me?

This song is like Seanan McGuire reached into my head, found Fox and Jamie, and made a song about them. It is freaky how well this fits the two of them (aside from the fact that Fox is very much not a girl this go-round). It makes me want to write a story about the first time Fox takes Jamie to his favorite bar in the Lost Quarter, and Jamie's eyes just about fall out of his head.

2. Downhome Aphrodite

She was a down-home Aphrodite and her eyes were like the sea
And the minute that I saw her, lord, she had the best of me
And I said ‘Darling...won’t you let me take you home?
Because the night is dark, and faith is thin,
And ‘though I don’t know where you’ve been
This world ain’t a place for a woman all alone.’

I said ‘let me be your Vulcan’, she said ‘honey what’s your angle?’
I said ‘ain’t got no angle at all...
I’m just looking for a woman who knows how to roll the dice
And who doesn't give one good god-damn ‘bout where the cards may fall.’

Another Fox/Jamie song. I'm still not sure I understand what a thousand-year-old fox god sees in a geeky little twenty-something cartoonist, but the sheer depth of Fox's besottedness never ceases to amuse me. Oh boys.

3. Paper Moon

I don’t want to live so afraid to die
I never leave the ground, I never take a chance.
So you can find me out there in that endless sky;
Some people run away, but I prefer to dance.
Though I’m somewhere off the beaten track,
That’s no guarantee that I won’t come back.
So tell my lover don’t forget me soon...
He can see my face in the paper moon

Paper moons and tinsel stars
Light your way no matter where you are.
I can fly forever, never go too far...
If a man don’t reach, then what’s a heaven for?

Doctor/Master. It's odd - I have a huge playlist of Doctor/Master songs, but almost all of them are Master POV, which means they are mostly about loving someone who leaves you or doesn't love you back, with a little bit of bitterness and creepy stalking thrown in for good measure. But this song is definitely from the Doctor's perspective. So of course it's about running away.

4. In This Sea

I've always loved the lily-maids, the lighthouse keepers' daughters,
The children of the river and the keepers of the waves.
I take them to my bed and let them take me to the waters,
To the mysteries and silences no hero ever saves.

I've always loved what's best unloved, the ones bound fast to leave me,
The empty-handed maidens who have placed their swords in stones.
I take them to my bed, although I know that they'll deceive me;
It's better to be lost at sea than found, but all alone.

Doctor/Companions. I don't necessarily think this is how the Doctor would say he feels about his Companions. But it remains that the Doctor keeps taking in and (platonic or not) falling for people he knows will leave him, and I love that he knows what will happen and does it anyway, and I love how wistfully resigned this song is to the whole thing.

5. Pretty Little Dead Girl

Now she’s a pretty little dead girl in a coup de ville,
And she’s looking for a drag race up on Dead Man’s Hill,
And if you’ve got a brain, boy, you’d better drive on by.
Because she looks real sweet and she smiles real nice,
But you’d better take some well-meant good advice:
If you race with Rose, then you’re probably gonna die.

I..okay, fine, I don't have a pairing for this song. But it was too awesome to leave off! IT IS A SONG ABOUT A GHOSTLY TEENAGE DRAG RACER, WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE? NOTHING, THAT'S WHAT.

I have found a Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama where Six hunts for buried treasure with a ship full of 18th century English pirates while singing parodies of Gilbert & Sullivan songs.

( Don't believe me? I have proof! )

I think I can die happy now.

(and yes, if it wasn't more than obvious months ago, Doctor Who has TAKEN OVER MY BRAIN. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?)

colourofsaying made me an icon! Because she is awesome!



We made so many weasel-based jokes while she was making this that my roommate started looking at me like she was worried she'd have to hide all the sharp objects. And I'm pretty sure that we some sort of uber-nerd award for not only having an in-joke based on an obscure 12th century French romance, but arguing for over two hours about period weaponry and the correct number of weasels to put on it. :)

Hard at work reconsolidating the massive sprawl into something that can be compressed into one small-ish suitcase and an overnight bag, and I have two observations to make:

1. I have more pairs of jeans than any sensible human being should. No skirts, no shorts, no slacks, just eleven million pairs of boot-cut blue jeans. And apparently I've reached some kind of critical pants-mass where they become self-sustaining, because I swear they are breeding. I put away at least three pairs today that I have never seen before.

2. I went looking for my knife, and instead I found my sticker-maker. So now I'm thinking that Friday needs to be Sticker-making Day, y/y? Since it's too bulky to fit in my suitcase and thus this is my only chance to make stickers until Christmas break. I'm thinking Booster Gold Fan Club stickers, and Rahm Emmanuel stickers, and maybe something Star Trek. Or something else! I'm running out of room to put stickers on my laptop though.

I have concluded that the only thing more frustrating than not being able to remember a song is to remember it but have the internet insist that said song does not exist.

A few years ago I was given a mix CD of Celtic music - nothing out of the ordinary, just a bunch of the classics (Seven Drunken Nights, The Wild Rover, From Clare to Here, etc etc) since this was before I got into Celtic music. Actually, this was probably the reason I got into Celtic music to begin with (The same person is also to blame for getting me into filk and Loreena McKennitt. She was obviously a terrible influence). Anyway, what with one thing and another and the fact that I moved five times in two years, I lost the CD, and because I didn't have a computer back then, that meant that I lost the music entirely.

But a few months ago, I decided I wanted a few of those songs back, in some form or another. The Seven Nations stuff was easy enough to find - I got From Clare to Here and Back Home in Derry back quick enough, along with a bunch of new songs by them I really liked. But the rest of the songs that had been on the CD were a bit difficult. I couldn't remember the name of the band, and even when I searched just for the songs, nothing that sounded like the right name came up. And unfortunately I hated every other version of those songs I found. I can't stand the lead singers of The Wolfe Tones and Dropkick Murphy, people keep trying to turn Spancil Hill into a rock song, and apparently no one likes Four Green Fields at all. Worst of all, one of the songs I really wanted to get back, County Antrim, does not exist according to the internet. Every attempt on my part to bend my prodigious Google-fu to the task of finding it turned up exactly nil.

After a not insignificant amount of research, I finally have an answer, as helpful as it isn't. The name of the band is Causeway, they were an Irish folk band popular (within the circles of people who like this kind of thing) in Philly, and the reason I have been able to find jack-all is that their CD was self-produced in 1997 for their fans. So yeah, not all that widely distributed, and not all that likely to have ever made it onto the internet. Lucky me! At this point, my best bet is to hope the person who originally made the CD for me still has her copy and will be willing to make me a new one.

Alternatively, if anyone has any recommendations for good versions of the following songs, I'll take them: Black and Tans, Four Green Fields, The Wild Rover, The Fields of Athenry, Spancil Hill, The Black Velvet Band, Star of the County Down.

ETA: I'm also trying to find a song that may or may not be by Hadrian's Wall, but I've about given up on it since I only heard half of it once six years ago at a fair and all I remember is that the girl is blonde and she drowns herself in the sea. Oh my brain.

Given an open-ended choice of topics for my (short and informal) presentation this morning, I spent several minutes blathering on in Japanese about why Star Trek is awesome and I need to see the movie. I am kind of impressed with myself that I posess the grammar and vocabulary to even make this a vague possibility, even if it was rather muddled at times. (and so, so awkward, because I hate being put on the spot and thus stammer and hesitate to no end)

Still, I wear my Geek Hat with pride.

I always get a bit worried when my various obsessions start crossing over with each other. For example! I was over on the Long Hair boards and there was a thread talking about geeky hairsticks, and now I really want some, like, desperately. I can think of so many different kinds that would be just incredibly, geekily awesome: TARDIS and Dalek sticks! Sticks mounted with 20-sided dice! Sticks with Enterprise or Serenity dangles! I even started trying to work out in my head how I could make comic book hairsticks, a truly challenging problem since most characters don't have emblems that would lend themselves readily to be mounted on the end of a short piece of wood. I was thinking maybe Legion Ring or Lantern Ring dangles, or maybe batarangs/birdarangs? And Tony's arc reactor, sized appropriately, might look kind of cool - so would the Blue Beetle Scarab, and maybe even Steve's shield. Gaaaah my brain make it stop!

I did see some totally awesome steampunky hairsticks on Etsy, that were topped by antique watch gears, but they were sold before I had a chance to seriously consider them, or even snag the picture that was up on the seller's page. Woe is me. They were pretty epic. I've been keeping an eye out in Etsy ever since for similarly wicked cool stuff.

While not doing that, I've been rewatching Angel. I saw the whole series back in high school, because it was on TNT at the same time I got home every day from class, and I of course have a huge and passionate love for anything Joss. And when I saw last week that Andy Hallett had died, well. I loved Lorne so much in that series, and it was terrible to hear, but it did really make me want to see him again. So, rewatching! But now I really want fic. The only problem? I have no idea how to find the kind of fic I want to read, or even if it exists. My normal channels are useless here! I know it sounds weird coming from me, Ms. Batman and Superman are gay for each and the Winchester boys are totally having sex, but I don't really want to read slash! I mean, I ship Angel/Spike, because DUH. But I don't really want to read it. Mostly, I want to read silly cracky gen about Angel being socially awkward and wearing really ugly shirts. And maybe some stuff about their relation to the police that isn't Angel/Kate - like his apartment getting searched and them finding his fridge full of blood and freaking out? Oh, and fic about how every time they go clubbing everyone thinks he's gay. What can I say, it amuses me.

ETA: I bet something like these earrings, reattached to a generic hair stick, would work really well. And I could probably make Cap and Iron Man or Booster and Beetle chibis out of polymer clay. Um. I might have found a summer project?