wildpear

Previous poll review
In the Your Name poll, 73.5% of respondents spell their name out, unprompted, 26.5% offer an explanation or additional information, and 14.3% exaggerate the pronunciation to reflect the spelling. I've concluded that names are super inefficient, and we should switch to serial numbers.

In ticky-boxes, being gentle with yourself (69.4%) came second to hugs (77.6%), followed by three enchanted owl feathers that can draw forth the dawn (53.1%). Thank you for your votes!

Reading
10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall, read by Will Watt -- I loved this! The banter was hilarious, and the reading was flawless. Neither of the lead characters are exactly cinnamon rolls, but that helped to offset the impacts of some, er, questionable choices. I giggled my way through most of it and found it genuinely moving at the end. The basic premise is that the regional branch manager of a bed-and-bath store gets himself and his entire team fired for underperforming, immediately has an accident, and grabs the opportunity to fake amnesia and move into his prick of a boss's house (for "monitoring the concussion" reasons) a month before Christmas, in a bid to reverse the damage and save his team. Reads like a wild remix of the Sandra Bullock While You Were Sleeping Christmas movie, which I also love.

Will Watt is such a great reader that I then listened to another Alexis Hall, this one set half inside a MMORPG, despite my knowing nothing at all about gaming. Looking for Group was cute, contained a) a lot of gaming references and terminology, and b) a fair amount of '19-year-old guy falling for another guy for the first time, and also being very clueless!19, but eventually getting his act together.' The story scaffolding was showing by the end, but it still worked.

I'm now listening to Will Watt reading A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Galey. Magical AU London. This is an adventure story with lowkey m/m, set in a goblin market and a workhouse full of indentured children. The comps are Neverwhere and The Night Circus, and both seem apt; I'd add in Six of Crows, too. I'm 4 hrs 20 in and enjoying it so far.

Also in audio, Andrew and I started the new Rivers of London. It feels super self-indulgent so far, but you know, fun. Good sense of place, as always (to the point where I keep imagining Aaranovich swanning around Scotland, taking notes).

Ongoing: Guardian by priest, and Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman.

Kdramas
Just passed halfway in my Nothing But Love (AKA Nothing But You) rewatch. Still loving it. *smishes everyone*

Other TV
More North of North, the first few episodes of Middle Class Bogan (Australian sitcom about an upper middle class doctor who discovers that a) she's adopted and b) her birth parents are drag racers; features New Zealand's Robyn Malcolm; the main character is very uptight and it stresses me out, but not in a terrible way); the first episode of Chief of War (Temuera Morrison is outstanding); Bluey! Fringe with my sister.

Hudson Hawk (DVD from my collection) -- shamelessly ridiculous, and I am totally here for it!! :D Apparently New Zealand is the only country where this film was a hit. Rated five out of five giggles.

Desperately Seeking Susan at the cinema -- I love this so much!! Delightful romp with TV/movie-amnesia. Stars Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, and young!Aiden Quinn. Rated five out of five hearts.

We have tickets for Jaws at the end of the month.

Fandom
I posted a poll to the fan_writers comm -- possibly a tactical error given the state of my arms, but the discussion there has been great. It's so interesting seeing people's different approaches to writing.

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Letters from an American. (I should get back to Midnight Burger sometime -- I stalled out in the middle of chapter 18.)

Online life
Busy, busy, busy, but it's all good fun stuff.

Writing/making things
At this point, if I can finish my flashfic for the Crowd round of fan_flashworks for the 11th NZ time (10th in most places), I'll count myself lucky and satisfied. A lot of my time, energy and arms are going into other things.

Life/health/mental state things
Same as last week, via-à-vis arms being bad and things otherwise being mostly okay.

Food
I made easy fried rice on Sunday, malfatti yesterday, and today I have a beef stroganoff minus onions in the slow cooker. Also, yesterday I made a ton of Korean pork dumplings minus cabbage. I'm still slightly baffled that I cook now -- what is happening??

Good things
The profusion of m/m profic and excellent audiobook readers. Online friends, and active Dreamwidth comms and fandoms. An inbox full of things to reply to, and a life full of things to do. Cooking. Fic and art. Wishlist is coming!!