zvi likes tv

My mom's been in a frenzy of cleaning out the house, and we stumbled across a huge box of Christmas cards my dad had from when he was a prison chaplain. I rescued about a hundred of the most attractive ones. Because these are from my dad's ministerial work, even the ones with Santa on them have explicitly Christian text. I do have a limited number of Kwanzaa cards, if you'd like something non-Christian from me.

Let me know if you would like me to mail you a card. I'd love to mail internationally, as long as your local post office can deliver cards addressed in roman letters. (Or Cyrillic, actually, but I don't know Arabic, Hebrew, or any Asian scripts.)

I didn't get the LiveDVD working, so I was computerless for the week I was at my grandmother's. That was okay, though, Grandma and I watched The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal a bunch, and some As The World Turns. (I first watched ATWT for the Nuke/Loah storyline, when Martha Byrne had the role, and it still freaks me out that Noelle Beck is playing her now.) Also, we ate food and took naps. It was cool.

Anyway, bunch of stuff happened while I was gone, as I totally expected. I had to go to skip 700 to catch up on Dreamwidth, which was … not fun, but not the most painful experience of my life either.

Some stuff that got announced while I was away that you might think is cool:

• Photo/Image Hosting brainstorm for Dreamwidth's mediahosting project. Lots of people have lots of awesome ideas. If you have any, you should post them there.
• con_txt registration is open. $90 until December 31. As slash media cons go, con.txt is expensive, but they do give it back to you in making the whole experience run nice. I think you should, whenever you have contact with a member of ConComm, express the hope for a bar for vid show night. The difference between a vid show 'loud' room with a bar and a vid show 'loud' room without one is profound, and I find it's a much more pleasant experience with a bar.
• devildoll explains why you should join the OTW. It's the fall membership drive. (Unfortunately, DD's promo is a graphic with no alt-text.
• choc_fic is doing 100 Days of Color. Sign up to celebrate your favorite character of color in whatever way you like: recs, vid, fic, art, picspam, love letter, or whatever.
• Fannish Holiday Things
  • Holiday Recathon
  • The Yuletide Brainstorming Post is already way too big for me to navigate and figure out if the stuff I want is there, so I'm just going to figure out what I plan to request and work from there.

    The problem is, I don't know what I want to request. Last January, my plan was to request the incredibly obscure Razia's Shadow, plus two Les Liaisons Dangereuses prompts, plus a Dangerous Liaisons prompt. I really, really, really want someone to write me a story about Merteuill and Cecile Volanges getting it on, or possibly an AU of Merteuill seducing the Presidente herself, in order to put the kibosh on Valmont's plans. On the other hand, the past year has introduced me to the wonders of Die Hard 4, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, HIMYM, NCIS: LA, I would like some Glee fic about Mercedes and Tina to wash the bad aftertaste of the show out of my mouth, I could request Psych because I love it so, Leverage is pretty much my baby, etc., etc., etc. And I didn't get that Roads of Heaven fic I was hoping for last year. Oh, Yuletide, why do you force me into the hard choices?

  • Last but not least: 3_ships is open. Signup for I Saw Three Ships is open from now until October 30.
• and NaNoWriMo has opened for registration. Very exciting. I won last year, and I'm going to try to win again this year. Write or Die is a web tool that can really help you write. Dr. Wicked has said he should have a desktop version available by November 1, but I'll believe it when I see it, honestly.

I have identified 46 active fannish Secret Santa projects for 2006. (Not all of these are strictly mediafan projects. lazytown_santa is about a Norwegian kids show, and I don't think these people are descendants of Star Trek fans. Also, 7 anime fandoms had secret santas I could identify. In addition to exchanges, there were 7 advent or calendar based projects, 2 wishlist organizing projects, and a couple of things I couldn't categorize.

Yet, I feel this is not all. I am sure there are more secret santa and fannish winter holiday things going. For one thing, this list is extremely LJ biased. For another, I just found one today. On December 29, I found out about superbatsanta, the Secret Santa project for the Superman/Batman community worlds_finest.

The other thing is, people do point to my list as a resource. (Or, you know, they point to the predecessor of this list, which was the profile page for 3_ships.) Now that there is del.icio.us, I find the userinfo page is a little too much work to maintain, and I just use that.

So, what I am saying is, if you know of a secret santa exchange, please post about it here. Give me a link, give me an LJ comm, tell me a little (a little!) bit about what makes this secret santa project special. If you know of a winter calendar that's collaboratively run, post that here. If you know of a winter fannish project that could use a little extra publicity, give me a ring. There's no obligation to buy, and if you know of something that didn't happen this year, but did go on between 2002 and 2005, let me know that too.

There are a few ( caveats. )

And, please, link back to this post on your LJ. The point is to find out about SeSas and other winter projects beyond my friendslist, so spread the word. Thank you.

Sorry it took so long to write this.

Um, so you got my assignment, and you are going to write a fic for me. That is so cool! Thank you! Look, more than anything, I want a good story. So, if you can't write a good story based on my suggestions, write a good story, and I will be super-pleased that you wrote a story for me. I am going to suggest many, many possible elements below, and if you can work two or three of those things in, that would be super cool. I often feel at sea (I'm supposed to give a personalized present to a complete stranger! Eek!) so I want to give you as much direction as you want. But, again, if you don't want any, don't take it and just write a good story.

I like farce, banter, and intensity of emotion (but not angst for angst's sake.) I like stories about two (or more) people trapped in a situation that no one on the outside can really relate to. (The Nine is like the most perfect gen story ever.) I like fanfiction that explores the science fiction aspects of its canon. I like alternate realities (where a change here and there in canon events creates big changes, and the story explores what those are.) I like happy endings, hopeful endings, and endings that punch you in the gut and hurt (but again, not so much with a villain randomly capturing people and torturing, if someone is beaten up, it better be because the villain is the sort to do the maniacal rape and torture in canon.)

I like canon. A lot. (Except for the last two Anita Blake books.)

I like mpreg, kidfic, eating, forced marriages, clan/family building, intrigue and politics, mysteries, melodramatic declarations of love, severely understated declarations of love, experimental story structures, and sex scenes that advance the plot.

( some dislikes )

( Wiseguy )

( Les Liaisons Dangereuses )

( The 4400 )

( Anita Blake )