I just read a really good story on Teaspoon and I'm reccing Calufrax soon. What a wonderful feeling! :D

I'm also starting to go through my list of bookmarked stories so I can figure out what else I want to rec. I think this is my favorite part of reccing, when I'm just starting my list and there are lots of empty slots to fill. I'm not having to make the hard choices yet, and it's like picking out gifts from a store, traipsing through my bookmarks and thinking "Oooh, how about that one? Or this one? Or the shiny one over there, oh yes, I love that one!"

Later it will get harder as I have to start to weed and swap, as I realize my list is too long (it's always too long) and I have too many recs with the same characters, or of the same genre, or that won't work for some other reason. Then it will get difficult and frustrating and involve hard choices, but right at this moment it's all shiny possibility, and I feel I can rec ALL THE STORIES, and also go out and find more because I've run out of really good crack!fic to rec and surely there's some good crack!fic that I haven't discovered yet? I must go find some and add it to the list! And if I find some other new gems along the way, how marvelous, because have I mentioned that I'm going to be reccing Calufrax soon?

One of the reasons I started getting "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" DVDs is that I have been waiting for season two of Downton Abbey to become available on Netflix. Strictly speaking, those DVDs *are* available, but they are sitting on my queue with a little red tag next to them that says "very long wait." They have been so sitting for awhile now.

Come on, Netflix, how much can it cost to buy another set of Downton Abbey DVDs? Let's get a move on, okay?

So I've been watching "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," and there was this actor on it who was really familiar, but I couldn't place him. Then all of a sudden it came to me, and it was "Oh my god, that's Rani's father!!! Rani's father is having sex with Rose!!!!! MY EYES! MY EYES!!!!!"

Then I saw the episode with Matt Smith, but somehow that wasn't weird at all. I had already known that he was in the show, so that might be the explanation, but somehow I think it's that after unexpectedly coming across Sex Client Haresh, nothing can faze me anymore.

Here's my belated answer to the following meme:

Comment to this post and tell me if you want to play, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

persiflage_1 gave me the following things to talk about: Sarah Jane Smith, adventures in fanvidding, Sontarans, movies, books, ears, travel.

( and here we go! )

I just finished reading a really good story on Teaspoon that had one tiny flaw: the writer kept referring to the city of Berkeley, California (and once to UC Berkeley), but kept misspelling it as "Berkley." No big deal, right? One little missing "e." Except each and every time I came across the misspelling, it took me straight out of the story.

This particular mistake probably only affected people like myself who are very familiar with Berkeley. But it got me wondering: what takes you out of a story?

For myself, I think the number-one thing is OOC behavior. (Or, to put it more accurately, behavior that I consider OOC, which I recognize may not be the same as what the author considers OOC.) After that, it's misspellings and grammatical mistakes, but this depends on their frequency -- a typo or two isn't a problem, but a consistent error drives me crazy (I start waiting for the next time it will show up). Cultural errors are also big issues for me. Well, since I read mostly in Doctor Who, I probably don't notice a lot of the cultural errors (and maybe even make some myself), but if I do happen to come across one, it takes me right out. Finally, I also have a problem with canon errors, which can be difficult when I'm reading a story that has been jossed. Usually I can think, "Oh, this was written before 'X' happened" and then go on, but I can never not notice the discrepancy.

How about you? What takes you out of a story?

Calufrax will be out of reccers again by the end of the month! Please help by a) signing up to rec, or b) boosting this signal, or c) (best option): both!

If you read Doctor Who fic on Teaspoon, then you can rec at Calufrax. And there's nothing like the satisfaction of seeing a fic you've always loved pick up more reviews because you recced it!

Here's the official "how to rec" explanation from the mod:
All you need to do is pick four to seven of your favorite fics on Teaspoon and tell us why you love these stories. All characters, pairings, genres, eras, and ratings are welcome, as long as the stories are well-written (that is, the author should know how to spell, format and the difference between "it's" and "its") and avoid attacking any particular character or pairing in a malicious way.

Sounds easy, right? It is! To sign up to rec, join calufrax (membership is open) and then leave a comment on the signup post.

(Yes, now! What are you waiting for?)

My television is broken at the moment, so to make up for this lack, I have been searching out television programming on the internet. And what a bounty I have found! Free, legal bounty! Tonight I watched an old episode of The A-Team at NBC.com and was amused to recognize none other than Marc Alaimo, who played Gul Dukat on Deep Space Nine! It was a lot of fun to see him doing scenes with Murdock, played by Dwight Schultz, and imagining that this was actually some weird time-traveling meeting between Dukat and Schultz' TNG character, Reginald Barclay. Then I discovered the original Battlestar Galactica, with Galactica 1980 mislabeled as "season two." LOL! But it's not all decades-old TV classics on the internet. There are new episodes, too. CBS.com has Big Bang Theory. Comedy Central has The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Syfy.com has Being Human. CWtv.com has Ringer. And PBS.org has Downton Abbey, but unfortunately only season two, and I'm still on season one (but the next DVD is in my Netflix queue!)

I really ought to hurry up and get the TV fixed, but I find that I am surprisingly in no particular hurry. Of course, new Doctor Who won't be on for a long time. ; )

Doctor Who got mentioned in a recent episode of "Big Bang Theory":

Here is the link to it on Vimeo (password-protected, so this link will hopefully always work):

http://vimeo.com/35838718
password: suddenly

And here it is on youtube:

http://youtu.be/fA7-4Nz9YNc

It's Doctor/Sarah (I know, I can feel your shock), to Suddenly (A Brown-Eyed Girl) by Nine Days.

I just came across an American version of Top Gear. Why does this exist? Just like everyone else, we have the British version of Top Gear. Isn't that all we need? Why do American television executives seem to believe that Americans won't watch TV where people speak with British accents?