ria_oaks

The Daily Show's lineup for next week...

Mo 2/21: Lisa Ling
Tu 2/22: Anderson Cooper
We 2/23: Donald Rumsfeld
Th 2/24: Austan Goolsbee

...fuck yeah. My inner pundit!fan is peeking out again. XD

Anyway, better prepare for my interview I guess. Leaving in a couple of hours b/c I'm doing an errand on the way. Panic hasn't set in quite yet, heh.

On the plus side, it's sunny out! For the first time the days! It actually snowed a bit last night, which made me go WTF because that's pretty uncommon in Vancouver by this time of year, but it was just a bit. There are still remnants on the grass outside in the shade, though.

Other fandom-wise - My idea for a DS art community kinda got put on hold, in part out of laziness and in part because I'm still not sure if I should bother. 2 people expressed interest, but that's it so far. ^^ But I still kinda think it'd be nice to have a place to keep everything together and organized. I wish we could archive everyone's older stuff on it too, so everything really would be together and tagged by pairing/character/etc for easy searching. May just ask people to post once with a link to their gallery/earlier art/whatever and then tag it with all the characters/etc represented and go forth from there. Or something. Possibly I'm overthinking this, but I've never started a community...

Only a few hours left, so I figure I'd better do a year in fandom meme before it's too late! :) Okay, so I'm a bit late after all. ^^ Started writing this last night, but then quettalinde arrived and I didn't get a chance to finish it. So, here we go...

( Year in Fandom Meme )

In non-fannish news, I... kind of have a job? Except not really. Well, she did say she'd try to pay me... anyway, Mom called me yesterday and asked if I wanted to take over the marketing and search engine optimization of Dad's website, which we recently re-designed and re-launched (it desperately, desperately needed it!). The SEO alone is gonna take awhile, and I don't know much about marketing... so I'm reading up a lot. But it's good to learn all this stuff, in part because it'll be useful for other jobs, and in part because we really do need to get moving on selling and marketing his art. Because one day I'm going to have to deal with it all... it's frustrating, because he's an established artist who's been recognized by books and museums and has had lots of shows in Europe, and yet it's still very difficult to sell. I Googled 'selling art online' and got helpful advice such as "join Etsy or Deviantart!" um yeah. No. -_-

Anyway... Happy New Year! quettalinde and I had a nice, relaxing evening not going out and getting shitfaced. ;) Watched the 2nd ep of Farscape (I showed her the pilot awhile back), which isn't exactly one of the better episodes of the series though I actually don't mind it too much. I look forward to her reaching the later, awesome episodes. ^^ (speaking of, I watched the episode "Home" in SGA the other day (1X09 I think?), and wow did it have me flashing back to Farscape's "A Human Reaction". Seriously. It was also the first episode that I felt genuinely drawn into so far... likewise, that ep of Farscape (1X16) was the first that really made me sit up and go "shit, this is really really good". ) Anyway, we watched that, then Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because she got all the movies for Christmas and I've only seen it, like, once (compared to Raiders, which I've seen countless times). Then watched Anderson ring in the new year, which brought back happy memories of pundit!fandom...

Oh, and DSSS reveals are up! I'll post mine here in a bit.

Let's use this icon, in memory of my time in pundit fandom and because watching AC last night still made me giggle and go "awww, Andy" at various points. Especially the glasses.

Gah, I haven't exactly posted much recently, have I? Between work (publisher stuff, haven't actually gotten a travel job yet) and my last few weeks at school I've been pretty busy. I suppose I should make a proper update post (short version: finished school last week, got a bunch of deadlines so am really busy with work, and am theoretically starting to apply to travel agencies/tour companies), but really I just wanted to post this...

Gemini 2010 Awards - Vote for the best Canadian TV show of the past 25 years
http://www.favetvshow.ca/

Mom sent it to me and told me to vote for Degrassi, because her oldest friend (who I've stayed with when I visited Toronto a couple of times) is a Supervising Producer on the show. Thank god you can vote for multiple shows, heh, because both Due South and Slings & Arrows are on the list and I'm all for supporting a friend, but.. I've never even seen an ep of the show. And truth be told, while it'd be nice if it won for her sake, I so very much want Due South to win. It deserves it, dammit! Actually, Slings & Arrows probably deserves it the most, but that's not going to happen...

Anyway, you can vote either with a Facebook account or by quickly registering, and you don't have to be Canadian. So go, vote. :) The winner will be announced at the Gemini Awards on November 13th. First time I'll ever actually WATCH the Gemini Awards, heh, or at least some of it.

Lesse, other stuff. My one line summary above pretty much sums up my RL stuff right now, so let's talk about the new TV season! So exciting! (no spoilers here, no worries, just very general comments) Chuck season 4 premiere last night (and did we ever expect to see that, really?? So many near-cancellations...), which was muchly entertaining. Series premieres of Hawaii Five-0 and The Event last night, both of which I generally enjoyed. My familiarity with Hawaii Five-0 mainly comes from vague recollections of my dad watching it when I was a kid, and watching an ep of it a couple of months back because he recently bought one of the DVD sets. So I have some prior conceptions of it, but could basically enjoy it on its own terms. I enjoyed it, anyway, it was lots of fun. The Event was intriguing enough, so I'll tune in next week and see...

Glee premiere tonight, which was generally entertaining. That's about it for my Tuesday nights, other than a few new shows I might check out. Looking forward to Thursday for The Big Bang Theory! And Community. My interest in 30 Rock/The Office is waning, but I'll still tune in... then Friday's the big one. ^__^ Can't believe season 6 is already here. Sometimes I can't quite believe that we even GOT to season 6, especially considering that season 5 was always meant to be the last one. I know a lot of people have had reservations about s6, but based on spoilers and trailers... I think it'll be pretty epically awesome.

Oh, and in not-really-related news, anyone got one grand they can give me to fly to DC at the end of October? XD XD God I want to go so bad... I can get pretty cheap airfare from Seattle (like, $340 inc. tax, albeit in USD, and the roundtrip bus ride to Seattle is only $100) and could share a room or get a cheap hostel or something, but.. I can't really justify it unless I get an actual job in the next few weeks. Not sure if I'll be getting more work from the publisher after I finish this stuff, so I can't risk it. Butbutbut... it'd be SO freaking cool to go. And I could see DC, since I've never been there. If I actually had a decent amount of money and time I could do a proper trip along the east coast, go to New York again and such, but that def won't happen. Still... wish I could go to DC for the rallies, at least. Oh well. I imagine they'll air clips on their shows, anyway. And I can read live Twitter feeds.. woo hoo...

Okay, suppose I should go to bed now. Up early tomorrow to... work some more. Yawn. And then quettalinde's birthday dinner in the evening, so yay!

*is watching Anderson on Ellen* Oh god they are too precious. <3 And loved Anderson talking about trying to educate people about the use of gay slurs in schools and how it's still acceptable and allowable when racial slurs aren't... go Andy. :)

*pause for commercial break*

Okay, now they're playing 'last word' and he just won the first round and he actually jumped out of his chair. OMG. SO CUTE. Lol, he lost the second round though. Poor baby. I loved how in the first round, which was reality tv shows, Ellen said "Real Housewives of Atlanta" and he replied "amazing" because he didn't know how to play the game (he was supposed to name another reality show...). He's such a dork about his reality shows and his love of "Real Housewives", lol! XD XD And dude, he totally could have won the second round (tv hosts) if he'd remembered Jon or Stephen! Silly boy, you've been on both their shows...

Aww, another commercial break... hopefully we'll get some more of him?? I love his appearances on Ellen, they are so adorable and silly when they get together.

Show's back on and he's gone. Oh well, was fun while it lasted. :)

Oh, and happy birthday to Mr. Colbert. :) The 13th is over here, but it's just starting where he is, so I'm not technically late. ;) Poor boy's gettin' old, lol, but at 45 he is still as sexy and awesome as ever...

Mini (this... might have gotten a bit a lot out of hand) picspam to commemorate the day - all mostly real!Stephen, because much though I enjoy the character... I think he looks much sexier out character. More like a normal person, lol, esp with the casual clothing, mussed hair, and occasional scruff. And I love his natural grin, it's gorgeous (and I love it even more when it comes in a the form of a character break mid-show...).

( Picspam awaits - really not dial-up friendly! )

*collapses* Okay, and now it's after 1am and I am exhausted... I should never post "mini" picspams, they always get out of control. ^^

Aaand, yup, I lost the contest. *le sigh* Oh well, the winning entry was awesome and better designed than mine, anyway. ^^ I need someone who knows something about design and Photoshop to do something cool with my drawings for next time. Anyway, I got 106 votes, so that's pretty awesome! (winner got 132). Still feeling pretty fuzzy and warm that so many people voted for me...

Also, the recent BriWi post of awesome at RBR (namely, this picture) has inspired me too to draw some noir/1920s-40s pundits... I may be third in the comm to do so, but I'm still enjoying it. ^^ Got Anderson mostly finished, and I think he's turned out well. Sketched him on paper then (since I don't have access to a scanner) I took a photo of it and transferred it to my computer. Then got to work tracing and outlining and finishing it on my computer... halfway through realized his head was too big, likely creepily so, and had to re-draw parts of it and his body... looks better now. Anyway, will post when done. I finished outlining him, now am struggling with the various items on his desk (phone, typewriter...). I kinda suck at drawing this sort of thing. o.o And while with the phone I've got a good reference photo off of Google Images, with the typewriter I'm just using the BriWi picture above as a reference (did a search on Google, but they're all from the front or side, not the back...). Gonna have to give up on making it particularly correct looking. ^^;

And in other, you know, real life news... Cousin arrived today safe and sound (22 hour flight, harsh!) and we met up for lunch and then hung out all afternoon and had dinner. So nice to see someone familiar and hang out with her. :) *hugs* Seeing her tomorrow, hopefully she's going to get a place to live in St. Kilda through the organization I used...

And now, if I can stay awake.. LOST!!! 100th ep! OMG so excited! And I'm kind of half-asleep and it's 12:30am, but but.. wanna watch! ^^;

*bites fingernails* Okay, the header contest at RBR is finally underway and there were only 3 entries, lol. And one was a joke entry with a close-up picture of the first dog/Bobama (which has still managed to get 29 votes so far, lol). The other one is pretty awesome, and I can't really complain if it wins... I keep wishing I could've done a better job on mine. *sigh* Lacking in design skills. Anyway, it's 94-76 for the other one so far and the voting closing tomorrow night, so we'll see!!

Here's the header I made, anyway:

( Under cut )

Okay, I finished these ages ago and started this post like a month ago, but now I'm going to get off my ass and post it. :) I thought I'd posted or at least started posting about them but couldn't find anything, but I checked my saved Semagic files and sure enough there's a half-finished punditdoll post... ehehe. Anyway, fakenews_fanfic's Open Thread this weekend is a big free-for-all so I thought I'd post them there, and finish this post as well. And then post them to RBR (and speaking of, still no word on the header contest... ;_;).

Anyway, behold the pundit!dolls. :) They're much smaller than my normal ones (there's a couple of pictures in there of me holding them for comparison's sake); I liked the idea of making 4 quick little dolls rather than big ones (which are more of a production and are less portable. And somehow making small ones feels like less of a 'big deal' and therefore less totally insane. Course, it still took forever... and making them small was actually harder. *sigh* Oh well, they're cute and I love them. ^^)

So, the original idea behind them was to make them as simple as possible - black pants and white shirt for each, and then I'd draw something character-appropriate on their shirts, and put their last names on the back. Stephen and Keith were easy - for Stephen I went as over-the-top American as possible. Originally intended to just draw the American flag on his shirt, but ended up getting a bit carried away as you'll see. ^^ And Keith I knew it had to be baseball related, hence the Yankees jersey (also tied into the 'last name on the back of their shirt' thing). With Anderson I originally wanted to draw a cartoon fox, but.. yeah, that didn't work out. So I went with the tie, which I think is pretty cute. Jon was the hardest and his shirt stayed blank for several weeks as I finished the others (made him first). Thought about the logo of TDS, but since that's really just the name of the show it's kinda dull. Anyway, in the end I went with the Obama logo so it wouldn't be completely blank and because I got tired of trying to think of something better.

( Anderdoll, Keithdoll, Jondoll, and Stephendoll, aka the doll!PRT )

*collapses* Finally sent in my submission for the RBR header contest. Christ, I've been obsessing over it for nearly two weeks now... so fucking glad to see it gone. I swear, I finished the drawings within like 2 days (and the sketches only took an evening), the rest of the time was spent moving them around and creating the title and changing the background colours obsessively. It's pretty simple looking in the end, because I'm shit at graphic design... I'm just hoping that the drawings (which I must say I'm very fond of) make up for the rest. ^^ And the letters are kinda nifty, I guess - did them as bubble letters. But not sure how much I really like them in the end... meeeh. DON'T CARE. Cannot look at it any longer. ^^

Anyway, I'll post it once the top 3 submissions have been posted to the comm, just in case (crosses fingers) mine's on the list. Omg that'd be so cool. :) Know what would be even cooler? IF I WIN. *ahem* This started as a lark, but my competitive side took over... I just wish I were better at design/compuer graphics so I could do something better with the drawings. Oh well. It's DONE, anyway.

Still not feeling 100% today, but getting there... went out and walked around for awhile, along the beach. Nice day out, sunny and warm. :) Went and set up a membership at the local video store because I wanted to find a movie or TV show to watch tonight while lazing around not feeling well. ^^ And I know I should absolutely not be getting into new TV shows while over here, but... damned White House fandom has corrupted me and after all these years I'm finally getting off my ass and watching The West Wing. Hey, at least then I can traumatize my mom, who's been a fan for years, by finding the most random slash pairing in the show and shipping it wildly. ;) (okay, probably not as traumatizing as if she knew about the Obama/Rahm porn out there, buuuut...) (geekily enough, my second choice was Entourage, in small part because I've been vaguely hearing about it and wanting to check it out for years, but mainly right now because I read this article earlier today about how it's one of Obama's favourite shows. Me, celebrity obsessed? Nah. ;)

And speaking of... how fucking hilarious and awesome is this survey for including in it the bolded questions below?

Every now and again, The Stranger takes a snapshot of the city's sex secrets with a totally anonymous survey. The new sex survey is up. (...) It includes questions about how often you have sex, how often you look at porn, what kinky things you've tried (snowballed? sexted? had sex with a homeless person? had sex while watching Anderson Cooper?), how much money it would take to get you to prostitute yourself, which members of the Obama Administration you'd invite to your Obama Administration orgy...

And yes, both bolded questions are indeed on the list. :) The latter gives a list to choose from. Hee. (there's also a question about which Palin family members you would sleep with. I ran away from that one. Eek.)

(I totally voted yes to the Andy Coop question even if it's not true, just cuz I want to give it more results. Heh.)

AND on another note! As I was writing this I noticed a link to a story on The Stranger about Vermont legalizing gay marraige! OMFG!!! Immediately ran to verify it because I'm paranoid that way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/08/gay-marriage-usa

Yaaay! And it's the first state where the legislature actually voted on it rather than it being a court decision, so they can't just overturn it! Yay! 2 states in 2 weeks, they're catching up to us. :) Awesome news. That link also lists several states which are getting close to similar rulings, so here's hoping!