Which reminds me... I still haven't bought a new calendar. And I'm not just talking about 2012. I didn't get around to buying one last year, either. The one on the wall says December 2010 (accompanied by an accusing picture of Spock who knows how illogical I am).

I was going to post one of those thoughtful the-year-in-review kind of posts, but I have decided that, given I have to get up and work a long day in what is likely to be 25-30°C heat, getting some sleep would be better use of my time between now and then.

So, Happy New Year, everyone! Good and happy wishes to all.

p.s. My New Year resolution is to post more often.

Stop laughing.

I don't really have anything much to say except thank you muchly to all the lovely people who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. It brightened what was a very chilly, wintery day (come on, weather; it's almost Spring).

And thank you to the lovely craterdweller for the birthday present. *points to icon*

Oh, I almost forgot about my holiday. To Australia (Sydney, specifically)! Next week! My mum hasn't been for about 40 years and I've never left NZ, so we're going to do all the touristy things that newbie tourists do. Hopefully, it'll not be snowing (like it is right now; seriously, what IS up with the weather?) when we're due to fly out.

So apparently, some thoughtful person(s) nominated my Spock/Uhura art for an award. That's kind of nifty.



I think voting went up today over at spock_uhura. There are fics, art, vids and icons all in the running... plenty to look at - and if you're a member of the comm, you can vote. Go and have a look at the other nominees. 'Cause they're awesome.

Goodbye to what was, largely (for me, anyway), annus horribilis.

Let's hope that 2011 proves better for you, me, and the universe's inhabitants in general.

Happy New Year!

p.s. If this post contains any errors you can blame it on a combination of Posting After Midnight Syndrome and my first attempt at using the new iPad LJ app (and the inherent awkwardness of typing on an iPad).

p.p.s. Dear Neighbours, Midnight was more than half an hour ago. You can stop the fireworks display now.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

A few of you have been wondering how close I was to the 7.1 magnitude earthquake which wobbled much of New Zealand early on Saturday morning.

Well, it certainly woke me up (4:35am, no less) and our house creaked and groaned and swayed for about half a minute. When it was over, I commented to my mother, jeanlucbev, on whether that was a not-so-bad house shaker, or if we had just felt the fringe effects of a real doozy of a quake somewhere else.

The answer came with a panicked phone call from my aunt in Christchurch at 6am. Her house was pitch black, without power, water or, until then, phone. Much of the content of her home was on the floor, including a TV and smashed items from her china cabinet.

We live over 300km away from the epicentre (which was about 30km from Christchurch), so we we much less affected, but nearly all of our extended family lives in Christchurch and they've all been affected in some way.

Because we New Zealanders essentially live on a bunch of faultlines and are somewhat earthquake prone, we have fairly strict building codes which mean that our modern buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes (to an extent). A lot of the damage this quake caused was to heritage buildings - and much of Christchurch's history is now gone.

( Some pics if you're curious. )

Scientists are saying that the magnitude, depth and proximity to a major city are all comparable to the Haiti quake. BUT -- NZ is not densely populated, the majority of Christchurch's buildings were built to earthquake protection specifications, and our quake happened at a time when most people were in bed and not out in the streets being hit by falling bricks and debris.

So... we're okay, my family's okay, and Christchurch will be okay - eventually.

...written by my brother.

Backstory:
My mum (jeanlucbev) has been house-bound recently and a friend has brought some romance novels for her to read. When my brother visited the other day, we amused ourselves very much by reading the blurbs on the back/various random passages from the books which were full of descriptions of the leading man's manliness (one line even read, "He laughed manfully"), his manly name (Luke Powers, Jake Tanner), the leading lady's determination not to be swayed by his charm... but ultimately swooning giving in, and other generic, formulaic romance novel-type stuff.

We joked that the authors always seem to have names that suggest a middle-aged woman with a caring, trustworthy nature - and might turn out to be guys just trying to make a buck. My brother suggested he could be "Barbara Comfort" (he didn't know there's a real author by that name), romance authoress.

Anyway, I got an email today with news on Ms Comfort's latest novels.

( Clicketyclick )

p.s. illariy, icons are coming soon, I promise!

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

illariy did well to find two non-Spock icons in my collection (and one of them's not even Trek-related!). The six she picked:


This is one of the first icons I made - and possibly the first photo-manip I did. It's Spock's head on Jascha Heifetz's body and it represents two important parts of who I am: the violinist and the Spockist. Plus, I love the idea of Spock playing the violin (and I know I'm not the only one - there's fanfic!); Nimoy has just the right hands for it (um, not sure about ZQ) and musician!Spock is canon.


One of my few not!Trek icons. This one's from the Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out. The gas cooker lives on the moon (which is made of cheese, of course). I felt the need to branch out from Spock Trek icons and started making some from other things I liked.


I originally made this as a Christmas (2008!) present for trekchic, but then I *cough* stole it for myself. It always amused me that when Kirk went shirtless his skin looked plastic!shiny smooth. Nimoy's natural hairyness makes the waxy look seem even, um, waxier.


Star Trek represent! In a recent-ish episode of The Simpsons, Bart kisses a girl and the scene cuts away to a sequence of movie kisses (recreated Simpsons-style), including the Spock/Uhura turbolift scene from ST:XI. Fandom crossovers bring out my inner geek.


I am the world's slowest icon maker (you knew that already). What usually happens is that I make a few icons, put them aside until I have a decent number to post, and they languish on my hard drive. Then I see them sitting in my icons folder and decide that, even though I haven't got around to sharing them, I want to use them (that's okay; they're my icons, right?). I made this icon a month and a half ago. Honestly, I don't know when I'll get around to posting the set this is part of, but I couldn't let ZQ languish on my HD.


Q made me do it! I found this photo at Trekcore and Q's robe kind of reminded me of wings, so...

Comment if you want to play.

My entry for trekreversebang can now be revealed (yay). The beauty of the challenge was that after I drew my picture, an author ran away with it and wrote a shiny story based on it.

So, please go and read heeroluva's fic over here!

The art can be found at my fic/art journal (which now has ONE entry in it - I feel so productive!)

Clicky the piccy for embiggenment:


The art is rated PG-13, with warnings for non-explicit nudity, evidence of torture/abuse, and blood (the green variety).

I feel I can't let today go by without a tiny shoutout to Leonard Nimoy.

Happy Birthday, bb; you're still my hero.

Still alive. Just not on LJ. (And I bet you thought those two sentences were mutually exclusive.)

Working a day job and a night job (violining) for most of the past month. Stupid roster person at work didn't give me any days off.

Tiredtiredtired.

Can't write whole. Sentences.

Apparently.

Have had to correct typos 6 times already.

Bed now.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZ.