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Moving to livejournal. Yup. So it's here. (At www.livejournal.com/users/darchildre, because the link doesn't seem to be working. Weird.) Nothing's there yet, of course. hehe

Goodbye, blogger! I enjoyed using you but now I am moving on! Farewell.!

All right. I'll admit it. I want a Livejournal so I can use some of the pretty icons I keep finding.

(I'm such a pathetic freak...)

Note to readers (all 6 of you): there is potential that I shall be moving to Livejournal. In which case, I would announce it and give you linkses and things. It's just that LJ tends to be more stable and the comments are built in (and thus don't try to go away periodically) and my archives wouldn't disappear with such alarming frequency and there are other features that I like. So that may happen in the future. This would, of course, remain up because there's almost a year's worth of stuff here and I can't abandon it. And, if Livejournal doesn't work out the way I want it to, I might come back. But I thought that you should know.

Yeah.

Reasons Sara should not spend large amounts of time on the computer reading fanfic (among other things) Example #2: I am developing a vague yet lasting obsession with Andrew Wells. Yup, the last surviving member of the Troika. And, by extension, the other two geekboys. But mostly Andrew. Which is sad, because there is not much fic with Andrew in it. And I've been looking since last year. (Ever since "He never really loved...hanging out with us." Poor Andrew. I seem to be really into creepy unrequited love of late. And, to be honest, always. hehe.)

So yeah. Andrew. Because he's sad and lost and alone and in love. And he's an utter geekboy. And he's...not entirely unattractive. See?

I should really turn the computer off and go to bed now. Yeah.

Yup, she's female.

I dearly love movies on tv. And I love Sundays, because there are more movies on tv. So now I am watching Pitch Black because it's on and it's sci-fi and it's got Vin Diesel. I like Vin Diesel. I like him even better when he's creepy and immoral and has shiny silver eyes. Hurrah for sci-fi films! Also, the guy who played Goliath on Gargoyles is in this film and it's kinda freaking me out in a fun way. And there's a cowardly British man in glasses (yea!) and an adrogynous teenager (yea! also fun!) with very very short hair and I can't tell it s/he is male or female yet. Though I'm guessing female. So many fun things in one movie.

I love movies on tv. hehe.

Watching Rosemary's Baby on tv. Ruth Gordon is a creepy, creepy woman. Also, it's incredibly frightening when Rosemary keeps saying "It's alive, it's alive, it's moving" when she's talking about the baby. Because my brain is hardwired for Frankenstein. Creepy.

Went to Two Towers again today, to have a snark fest and snigger at the bits of this lovely movie than deserve a bit of sniggering. It was great fun. We were somewhat obnoxious, but we stayed as quiet as we could and I don’t think that we annoyed too many people. 8)

Aside from fun snarking, I also got to talk to people who agree with me about Grima, which is terribly exciting. He’s sad and pitiable and not a rapist and really does love Eowyn, even if it is creepy obsessive stalkerboy love. And other people understand this. It makes me happy. hehe.

(Grape popsicles are going to make me giggle for a long long time after this…)

How cool is this?

The Discworld Celebrity Matchmaker!
apparently the guy who would suit me best is Otto Chriek

A visionary, an artist and a leading figure of the Information Revolution in Ankh-Morpork, Otto Chriek likes to be "on the edge". Although two parts in love with his art, he is also fiercely loyal and will always make time for the humans in his - existence.

There might be a slight problem if you're too fond of garlic, and it's probably a good idea to be sure never to be too far from a black pudding. A good singing voice would also be a useful asset. But with these few simple precautions, there's no reason why you shouldn't have the time of your life.

Can I just sit here and bask in the overwhelming coolness of this for a moment? 8)

So much silly Discworld cartoons last night...insane amounts. And they were very silly and the animation was very very bad. And Ponder! Poor Ponder. He looked truly horrid. But Granny Weatherwax was done well. And Glod Glodson. And Death, because, well...Christopher Lee! Yea! And they had funny quotable things which will be added to the quote page and things. "We're more popular than cheeses." hehehe.

I should read Soul Music again. And Reaper Man. Yeah.

Made an interesting discovery this morning. I can, if I want to, fit an entire bagel in the pocket of my leather jacket. It's very exciting.

(Wow, I like not having class til 11...hehe.)

I have a vague yet persistant urge to find and watch the 1984 Dune movie. But they don't have it at the library (surprise, surprise) and I have very little money and it would probably hurt me in some way. So maybe we'll put that urge away for a while until it dies.

(Right. I've been trying that for the last couple days. And then it'll pop up again - "Let's watch Dune! You know you want to." Blargh.)

(I swear that this is not all due to Brad Dourif's prescence in the film as my favorite character. Really. It's partially because of that, but not wholly. There are other reasons that I want to see it. I promise.)

And now I have finally managed to sign on. And no one else is there. Story of my life.

Stupid MSN messenger...with the not letting me sign in. No one is going to believe that I'm really alive. Blargh.

Ok, brace yourself - tiny fanfic rant. Can we please stop with the silly, badly written LotR fics where Grima rapes Eowyn? Because that's just...no. It wouldn't happen. I'm sorry. (And I swear that I'm not saying this because he's my favorite character. Girl Scout's honor.) It's just that, if he tried anything even approaching that, she'd kill him. She'd break every bone in his body. She's a shield maiden, for God's sake! That's what, one step from being a bloody Valkyrie? Valkyries don't get raped. Especially by weaselly little non-fighter characters like Grima.

(Not to mention that, especially where movieverse is concerned, I just can't see him doing that. He's simply too cautious. What does he do to her in the film? He strokes her cheek. That's it. And he has to bewitch her to get that far. And he's incredibly hesitant while doing it. Creepy obsessive stalkerboy, yes. Creepy obsessive rapist stalkerboy, no. Jeezly crow, people.)

And now I have remembered why I don't read LotR fic...so much badness...

Have I raved about how much Te rocks on my blog? I haven't?! Well, go look at this for a little while and I won't have to. 8) I'll only mention that she writes as well and as prettily as she makes pictures.

All right. Now, some of you are going to want to flee or cower in abject terror for this will be
The Giant Blog Post of Doom!

Bwa haha.

Yes, this will eventually comprise the whole of the trip to London with such digressions and circumlocutions as seem to be required. So let’s get started, shall we?

Day 1 (Dec 25-26)

Yes, technically this is two days, but it felt like only one as I was on a plane for a bloody long time. The plane ride was acceptable. I slept a lot, listened to the Mikado and They Might Be Giants and read Dune.

We arrived in London and immediately got on the Tube. I love the Tube. It’s truly great. Most of this is due to my obsession with Neverwhere (heheheh) but a lot of it is due to the fact that Megan hates tunnels and I half convinced her that there were things in the dark that would get her if she left the train. Very exciting.

We got to the hotel and then went to Leicester Square to see if we could tickets from the half priced ticket booth. We got tickets to Les Mis. Incredibly nifty. Then got dinner at a place where the waiter was incredibly rude to us for no apparent reason. Perhaps he did not like Americans. I don’t know. We did not leave him a tip. And I stole many sugar packets from the restaurant. Hurrah for petty revenge!

Then, after visiting a small grocery store, Starbucks and McDonalds (to get dessert for Mom) we went to Les Mis. Which was truly awesome…as Les Mis always is, really. I even enjoyed Marius, which is a thing that I don’t usually do. He was well done. The Thenardiers were hilarious, Fantine was gorgeous and Valjean and Javert were fantastic. (I should like to know why Javert is not in the finale. I mean, it’s supposed to be Heaven, right? And he’s dead and he ought to go to Heaven because he was a good man and tried to do the right thing – he just didn’t always know what that was. So he should be in the finale. Someday, when I stage Les Mis (yeah, right) he will be. Ha!)

Then returned to the hotel, watched silly British tv and went to sleep.

Day 2 (Dec 27)

Left the hotel about 7:30 to get breakfast and go to the London Eye. Ate at Starbucks. We got to the London Eye very early and so walked around and saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the houses of Parliament. The London Eye is very cool. It’s a giant big ferris wheel that you ride in very slowly in these glass pods. You can see for miles and miles, so it’s very cool.

Then we went to the Transport Museum. It might have been kind of boring – as it was all about buses and trains and the formation of the Underground – but they gave us these little punch cards to punch and stamp at different stations, so it was cool. I also got to ask, once again, the immortal question: “Where the hell’s my flying car?” The 50s promised me a flying car and I don’t have one. Blargh.

After this, we went to the Sir John Soames museum, which is basically this Victorian guy’s house and all the weird stuff he collected. And I came to a conclusion – Sir John Soames was a bit of a freak.

Next we walked all over hell and half of London, trying to find a place to eat lunch. Everything was closed for the Christmas holiday except for a small sandwich shop where we ate.

After lunch, we walked to Harrods. Which was also closed. Blargh. So we took a bus tour, which was nifty and on which I learned how the old British monetary systems worked, finally. A shilling=12 pence. A tanner=6 pence. A pound=20 shillings. A guinea=1 pound, 1 shilling. A half crown=30 pence. Very exciting. I still don’t know what a sovereign is, however.

We tried to go on a walking tour, but it never showed up so we went to the National Portrait Gallery, which was very cool.

After dinner (at a restaurant where people were not rude to us) we saw a play called The Woman in Black. It was very cool – a wonderfully scary British ghost story done as a two man show. Quite lovely.

Day 3 (Dec 28)

Ate breakfast at Starbucks again. Tried to go to Portabello road market, but we were too early. It is the curse of my family’s outings.

We took the Tube to Westminster and walked around a bit. Then we went on a Skakespeare walking tour which was quite cool. We had a lovely guide and it included a boat ride down the Thames and things.

Got lunch at a sandwich shop in a Tube station and ate it in Leiscester square, after going to the ½ price ticket booth again. During lunch, I found a truly gigantic LotR poster (I’m talking billboard size – huge) and stared at the picture of Grima. God, I’m such a freak. Hehehe.

Then we went to the British Museum. I saw Egyptian and Greek and Roman sculpture as well as Medieval British stuff. They had Viking relics as well. Very cool. I always think that I’m going to like museums that concern themselves with ancient civilizations more than I do and then I get there and find out that I really don’t want to look at someone’s old pots for hours. I end up staring at what religious relics I can find and then moving on. Still, it was fun.

We ate at an Indian restaurant – first Indian food I’d ever had. It was quite good and I enjoyed it immensely. Then we went to the theater again and saw a wonderful musical called 125th Street. It was absolutely marvelous – made you want to get up and dance throughout the whole thing. I should potentially get the soundtrack. Hehehe.

Day 4 (Dec 29)

Tower of London day. The Tower of London is very interesting, but it has horribly narrow staircases (a thing that always makes me terribly nervous) and it rained torrentially. Still, it was cool. We saw the Crown Jewels (which are funny because there is an incredibly old Coronation Spoon among them. A Coronation Spoon! How funny is that?), a Medieval tower, the armoury and many many ravens…which were, quite possibly, the coolest thing about the Tower, for me. And they had names like Hugin and Munin…which I suppose one has to do if one is naming ravens. 8)

We got stuck on the Tube while trying to get to Baker Street and had no lunch except for peanuts. Finally, we got there and went to the Sherlock Holmes museum which was fun but very tiny and somewhat embarrassing. You see, I have a very low level of tolerance for extreme touristism. I tend to want to hide instead of taking pictures. Hehe. And there were frightening waxworks figures.

We ate dinner in a pub where we had a treacle sponge for dessert. Treacle is quite possibly the most wonderful substance on earth, though no one seems to know quite what it is. It is not molasses, no matter how many times people try to tell me that.

Then we went on a Jack the Ripper walk, which was fun and interesting, though I already knew most of what the guide told us. (That’s somewhat scary, now I come to think of it.) There were an amazing number of small children on the walk, considering the late hour and the goriness of the subject matter. The guide did mention From Hell (the movie, not the book) but said that it was based on a book by Stephen Knight entitled The Final Solution. Someday, people will give graphic novels the respect they deserve and not be embarrassed to say that things are based on them (I should read From Hell again…)

Day 5 (Dec 30)

Woke up with a horrid sore throat and no voice. Why must I always get sick on vacation?

We went to a WWII museum which was very interesting and had nifty exhibits and films but also had creepy waxwork people and a fake fire marshal who yelled at Megan and terrified her. Hehe.

Next we went to the Globe theater. It was very wet. Seeing a play there would be very cool, but I shouldn’t want to be there any amount of time in the winter.

Lunch consisted of cheese, peanuts and treacle tart eaten in a convenient Starbucks. Then we crossed the Thames (on the Wibbly-wobbly Bridge) and toured St. Paul’s cathedral, which was absolutely gorgeous. As we left, a boy’s choir had started singing and it was all quite marvelous.

We returned once more to Leicester Square and bought tickets for The HMS Pinafore while I quietly jumped up and down to myself. Then stared at the LotR poster again, which calmed me down somewhat. Hehe. We ate Indian food again, then went to the Savoy Theater and saw the show, which was quite quite lovely and a lot of fun. Everyone enjoyed it – even Dad, who had thought that he wouldn’t. hehe.

We then returned to the hotel where I took cold medicine and went to bed. Why does Nyquill taste like licorice? Why can’t it taste like something slightly more pleasant? It’s not bad enough that it’s medicine, it has to taste like licorice? Someone, somewhere greatly dislikes me.

Day 6 (Dec 31)

The day we left London and went to Salisbury. Very cool. Our guide was extremely nifty and funny and did neat sound effects during his talks. Slept on the train on the way there but I did wake up long enough to realize we were passing through Basingstoke and giggle. Rhiannon, I have much to blame on you. 8)

Salisbury is a very cool town. It’s quite old and has neat building and many swans. Swans are very goofy looking birds with their improbably long necks. They’re very large though, and kind of scary. Salisbury also has a very nifty cathedral. Of course, being a cathedral, it has dead people buried in the floor. Megan is greatly distressed by this and thus goes hoppity-skippity over the slabs. It’s quite amusing.

Then we took a bus out to Stonehenge, which was gorgeous. You can’t go in the middle of the circle, however, because they are afraid of graffiti and vandalism. Ah, well. Someday, when you can go in the center, I shall return and do so. I bought a poster and shall redecorate my dorm and things when I return to school.

Then we returned to London and while on the train, I convinced Megan that Rhinegold would make an excellent movie. Which it would, but it’s far too long to ever get made. So I got to tell her the whole story of the Volsunga saga…which was quite exciting. Go me!

We ate at a Thai restaurant and tried to go to LotR but all the theaters were closed as it was New Years Eve. So we went to the grocery store and bought candy and treacle and returned to the hotel where we watched CSI and ate much sugar. Happy New Year!

Day 7 (Jan 1)

New Year’s Day. We had no breakfast, as everything was closed. Blargh. So we went to Westminster and looked at Buckingham Palace in the torrential rain. Then we walked through St. James’ Park and saw interesting birds, including pelicans, black swans and a jackdaw. It was very cool.

Then we went to Westminster Abbey, which was cool but not the best cathedral. They rope a lot of things off and you can’t just wander through. Ah, well. In the gift shop, we found a key chain with the Freeman coat of arms on – a thing that we did not know existed. How cool is that?

Then (after buying lunch at a Tube station) we walked to the Imperial War Museum, which is housed in the building that used to be Bedlam. It was quite possibly the best museum devoted to war that I’ve ever visited. They had a lovely display of WWI and WWII art and paintings inspired by Catch-22 (which were awesome) and a truly wonderful Holocaust exhibit. Which leads me once more to complain of the inadequacies of the English language. We need a word that means “I didn’t like it because it hurt to see but I’m glad I’ve seen it because it has enriched me by giving me knowledge that I need to have.” But we don’t have a word that means that. Silly English language.

We ate dinner at a pub called the Wellington. (Btw, the best pub name I saw was The Moon and Sixpence. Isn’t that lovely?) It was quite good food and I discovered what Spotted Dick is. It’s sponge cake with raisins in. So now I know.

After dinner, we saw The Lion King (which was the only show we had tickets for before we got to London). It’s quite cool, with gorgeous costumes and sets. Some of the juvenile humor distracts from the overall effect a bit and I wish it were all as stylized as some of the dances are – it would be entirely beautiful then – but it was quite good even so. I’ve decided that I want to be a shaman when I grow up. 8)

Since then, we’ve flown home, gone through customs twice (once to get into and then out of Canada), come home to a house with no power, seen LotR again (Eeee! Grima! Mine!) and slept quite a bit. And I’ve written the blog post of doom. Which you’ve just read. Silly person. 8)

Hi. I really am alive and have returned from London and soon there will be a giant blog post of doom to tell you all about it (in case you care at all...) but right now, this is all you get. hehe.

(And I saw LotR again yesterday. And Grima is still wonderful. hehe...)

Merry Christmas to me! For, among other wonderful things about Christmas, there is a new Very Secret Diary! Yea, Theoden!

"Suspect Wormtongue has crush on Eowyn. Cannot blame him as Eowyn quite smoking." hehehe. (Lord, my brain is pathetic...)

"Where is the horse with no rider? No, seriously, where is he? That was my favorite horse." (Actually, that one kind of hurts. 8) )

"Who wields the flame of Arnor now, you poncy tosser?" Boo-yah, Theoden! ::maniacal laughter ensues::

Oh...you can have this too. I'd post it tomorrow (when it's more appropriate) but I won't have time.

Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Give ye heed to what we say
News! News!
Jesus Christ is born today
Ox and ass before him bow
And he is the manger now
Christ is born today - Christ is born today!

Merry Christmas again!

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfrys of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on earth," I said
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deed
"God is not dead nor doth he sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, goodwill to me."

Then, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Be you blessed in all you do, now and in the new year. May your gods look on you and smile.

(Hey, it's been stuck in my head all day. It should be stuck in yours too.
And if non-family members are reading this, wish me a good journey in London. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. hehe)

New Very Secret Diary! Yea!!!!!!

Happy Solstice, everybody! (Yeah, I'm a little late. I was busy yesterday.) And also, happy day after the Solstice! Yes, this is exciting also, because it's the first day of looking forward to spring. Isn't that wonderful? hehe