corrinalaw

Oh, what a find. Marvel One-Shots.

Starting my morning with a laugh: and the joy of getting more of Agent Coulson.

First, A funny thing happened on the way to Thor's Hammer.

Secondly, Coulson and Sitwell in The Consultant.

More fodder for my theory about Agent Coulson: <"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0AsUfIHuVA">Lynchpin of the Marvel Universe</a>. In which the interviewer keeps presuming!

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/missing/crowley.asp

A 15-year-old boy named Pierce Crowley is missing from his New York home.

Watched Game of Thrones episode, "Blackwater", today. Twice.

What a fine TV show that is.

( And what a fine character they've made of Tyrion... )

Battleship is a very fun popcorn movie, and since it's by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), it's actually smarter than 99% of summer blockbusters.

Although this is a movie about how a white dude saves the day, actually .... it's not about how a white dude single handedly saves the world. It's a movie about how a team of people save the world, and that team of people, whose ancestry spans the globe, help each other by putting their egos aside and helping each other overcome obstacles.

I also think that the use of actual ships, active duty navy personnel, and retired vets (OMG the "old salts") also gives a certain amount of authenticity to many scenes. The big stuff is as fantastical as anything, but many of the smaller scenes and the stuff going on the the background just feels right in ways that other movies of this kind don't.

On a serious level, I respect that they didn't shy away from showing PT for disabled vets, and that one of the most important characters in the movie, Mick, was a vet who lost his legs, but not his wits or his cool under fire.

I like that Samantha is more than the love interest of Alex Hopper, but a smart, motivated woman in her own right. (And I totally want a movie about Samantha and Mick climbing mountains.)

I don't know why Taylor Kitsch's agent keeps looking for big budget action movies for him when the first 10 minutes of this movie show that as a comedic actor, the man is completely fearless, and his timing and delivery is spot on. Seriously, the first 10 minutes of this movie is some of the funniest comedy I've seen in ages.

Also, the little tag after the credits? Priceless.

----

Battleship is the funnest "kick-'splode" action movie I've seen in ages. And, really, it's what it says on the label -- I don't lie when I say that this movie features people getting kicked in the head and things exploding.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArghInk/~3/VK_QSWE63u0/

http://www.arghink.com/?p=7177

From now until 3AM ET, you can get Lani Diane Rich’s Time Off for Good Behavior for free if you follow this link.

I'm putting my house on the market -- again! I'm pretty impatient with all the super-tidiness and the need to vacate in a moment's notice that comes with having a house for sale. That's why, when the market was bad two years ago, I took it off the market for the 2010 holidays. Then in 2011, market was still poor and the typical per square foot price not what I wanted. I don't have a hot deadline to move, so I have the luxury of taking the listing out of active status when I want to. Which I did from Fall 2011 until now.

But activity is slowing creeping up. Indeed, in the center of town where I want to be, it's started being hot again. Which is a bummer: I was hoping to get my equity out and take advantage of the lower home prices.

But I keep chugging along. The plan was to do some more fix-ups and packing up even more clutter to have the house listing go active again in June and be active for the summer. Actually, the bigger plan was to: recover from a hellacious dayjob work schedule, then go visit friends in Europe, then start working on my house, and then list it for the summertime traffic. I've been back 3 weeks now from Europe, and whoo-baby! Here's what I've gotten done (or paid to have done) so far:

• Pulled up old gray carpet and put down new throughout the house
  
• Packed up my wall of bookshelves in the den to make way for the formal dining that is supposed to be there
  
• Peeled off the mint-green bargallo fabric covering the wall behind the bookshelves and painted with a more appropriate green accent color
  
• Power wash the exterior
  
• Bleach and regrout tile in master bath
  
• Unstack garage boxes and redo to make room for new stuff
  
• Pack up my home office closet
  
• Pack up music CDs
  
• Pack up kitchen cabinet knickknacks
  
• Trimmed trees and shrubs
  
• Wash windows inside & out
  
• Set up a formal dining area with art on walls, centerpiece on table

Also found time to take BBQ lunch to my family in south Austin, and have a family lunch with folks in Round Rock. Got to see 1 movie so far too! Still need to refresh and amend flower beds and put out new plants. I got that coming next week! But boy, what a long long weekend! Working and scrubbing and packing. ...

It is record-breakingly hot here in Chicago. I'm considering forming a permanent relationship with my air conditioner. I'm also seriously considering looking for jobs in Antarctica. Surely they need a project manager and I bet I'd never have to call anyone a cab.

So I'm staying inside and writing. I worked a little on Dead Isle, and then I wrote a fanfic, which was a nice way to break the TOTAL STALL I was in. And also, you guys get porn!

Title: Moving The Furniture
Fandom: Avengers (movieverse)
Rating: R (Steve/Natasha)
Summary: Steve thinks about sex a lot, and he'd like to have some, if he could just stop being an idiot around the people he'd like to have it with.

( It's not that Steve can't talk to women. )

Fake cut takes you to the fic at Dreamwidth.

I'm pretty sure this story makes it seem like I'm obsessed with Steve Rogers' virginity, but honestly, this one is all 51stcenturyfox's fault.

Foxy also got me an AO3 account, so that I can post this as a gift for her there. I'm not sure what my status vis-a-vis posting to AO3 is going to be in a permanent sense, but rest assured, all fanfic will also be posted at the Dreamwidth account and linked from here and the sam_storyteller LJ. (Posting is becoming quite the production number.)

Anyway, you can find this story here at AO3 as well.

Oh god, I am so behind with this review.

I'm really bad at reading stuff my friends have had published, and I'm not proud of that; I think perhaps some of it is that my Advanced Reader Copies usually come in digital format, and that takes more effort than simply dragging a book onto the train with me. I really need to save up for an ebook reader of some kind.

But I've been working my way through Steam Powered II: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories and it's really good reading. I was sent a copy because a good friend, Jeannelle Ferreria, had a story in it, but I've been enjoying most of the stories in various ways. I mean, I like steampunk, and I like to support work that presents more diversity than one generally gets in big publishing, but the stories themselves are really well done so I'm happy to recommend the anthology wholeheartedly.

Jeannelle's story, A Thousand Mill Lofts Gray, almost seems out of place in a Steampunk anthology because it's so firmly rooted in a historical era and a specific culture, but as with all of her writing I love how she presents that culture: the tension between a poor Jewish factory worker and an upper-class gentile photographer is fantastic and detailed. It does have a lot of lovely steampunk touches; one of the heroines who has a functional, jointed ivory hand because she lost hers in an industrial accident. It touches on the darker side of steampunk in a way a lot of stories in the genre don't: the fact that Steampunk romanticises an era before labor laws and unions, when colonialism and class snobbery were at an all time high.

I think my other favorite story is Playing Chess in New Persepolis, by Sean Holland; I mean, clockwork steampunk chess tournament with bonus love story for the win.

There's a strong variety within the anthology as well; there are a lot of women of colour represented, from a charming Cuban submarine designer in Amphitrite by SL Knapp to the exceptional adventure story Dark Horse by AM Tuomala (who has also published with my friends at Candlemark & Gleam) which is about the adventures of an Englishwoman, Prudence, and a Moroccan woman, Suhailah, set in Istanbul and told through Suhailah's eyes.

So I've really been enjoying it, and I think you guys will too; four hundred pages of steampunk and awesome women, what's not to like? I don't usually link to purchase pages in my reviews, but the anthology is put out by a smallish indy press so I'd like to help them along if I can -- the anthology can be found here for $8.99 for eBook, and there's a preorder link for the paperback.