Party pooper LJ!

[wiseheart]

Well, folks, it seems that LJ has decided to crash our birthday party - the original post is no longer visible. But I still have most of the comments in my inbox, and will re-post the original entry and list the available comments with the simple mentioning of the names, if it's all right with you. If not, tell me, and I'll delete yours.

We won't allow LJ to crash our party!

Original post

Hi folks! *waves*

Time is flying by, isn't it? It's that time of a year again - I'm getting older. In this case, I'm turning 56 on October 9, which means I'd have been retired for a year already, back under the old regime. Women could retire at the age of 55 back then. So I've decided to ignore all that fantastic headway we've supposedly made towards democracy in the last two decades and have considered myself retired for the last year, blithley overlooking the fact that I'll have to work another 6 or 7 or only God knows how many years.

So, let's party! Last years virtual birthday party yielded 943 comments on 7 pages, which won't be easy to top, but we're good, aren't we? WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN BREAK THE 1000-COMMENT-BARRIER! So, let's give it a try! In the recent years, it has always been great fun, so let's have fun again!

You're all cordially invited to help yourself to a slice of virtual cake of your choice. If you want to post your favourite recipe in a comment, be my guest. If not, just drop by and say hello.

Cheers!

Note: The party will be closed on October 9, at midnight, sharp.
Join us and have fun! Feel free to start any thread, any topic you want; we can discuss it, mock the general stupidity of life and laugh at it.

Last count was 1328 comments on 6 pages.

NB: Shoud the original party post mysteriously reappear, I'll delete this one.

Comments

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

artemis10002000 said:

FIRST!

Mwahahaha!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

altariel:
Last!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Gah, lj! :(
I hope the original post reappears!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Me too! We were having so much fun and it is really annoying that the whole post just has disappeared.

[sammydragoncat]

I was wondering what happened

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It seems at least one other person has had this problem from this question on the support board. However, the fact that it is still unanswered more than 4 months later does not bode well.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Again, artemis10002000 replied to a comment:

Indeed! But considering the unquestionable Nietzschean superiority as
> compared with mere kludges, that is not surprising, is it?

Their reply was:

Of course. Nietzscheans can't let themselves be bested by the genetically
inferior.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

lhun_dweller:

Hey, Nietzie! Your lab test came back: turns out your great-uncle twice
removed was a monkey! HAH HAH HAH....

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

jenn_calaelen said:

Yay party! Happy early birthday!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

A brief exchange of comments between us along the same thread:

> Thanks! I find that I've taken to celebrating myself - and the fact that
> I've managed to survive another year on this planet - in the recent
> years. :)

> BTW, made some headway with the Umbar story, so Chapter 2 might actually
> be finished in time for the Edhellond anniversary. Woot!

Their reply was:

Surviving is a good reason to celebrate :)

Go you! I have started thinking about ideas - but really need to do some
digging through canon and fact check before I get too attached to an idea
that won't work ;

[bk_forever]

That is so unfair, LJ! We were having such a good time and you took all the pretty pictures and things away! BAD LJ!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

As you can see below, I've found the first cake picture, and I hope I can unearth more from my inbox.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

artemis10002000 answered to the Favourite Cake thread:

Important thread #01: What is your favourite cake?

> If you have a recipe to share, share it. If you have a yummy picture,
> show it! Let us all drool over our keyboards with virtual delight!

Their reply was:

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

espresso_addict in the same thread, describing lemon cake for me:

> Hmmm... never heard of that one, but it sounds like a certain sort of
> orange cake I sometimes make for Christmas, only with lemons.

Their reply was:

It's sort of a moist, sweet lemon sponge, with lemony syrup drizzled
through the top two-thirds of the cake. Mmmm...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

disthrainsdotte said:

Happy Birthday Soledad, I hope you will have fun. Time does indeed fly.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

wiseheart

> Happy Birthday Soledad, I hope you will have fun. Time does indeed fly.

Their reply was:

Thank you! It does, doesn't it?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

espresso_addict replied to a comment in the dragon thread:

> Haven't seen that one. Can't wait to see Benedict Cumberbatch's Smaug,
> though. I think his most seductive voice would be a delight to hear. I
> liked the Great Dragon of Merlin, too.

> And then there was this seriously godawful film titled "Fire Dragon", in
> which a fire dragon and an ice dragon fought each other, and they
> actually were made of fire and ice, respectively. Wonderful idea,
> horrible execution.

Their reply was:

The Earthsea anime film is very odd; some of the backdrops are
beautiful, the dragons are spectacular, but the plot is ... bizarre is
the kindest interpretation. There's a picture of the dragon on the
poster, here (http://www.ghibli.jp/images/ged_poster01.jpg),
but I think the version in the film was better.

I have to admit, despite everything, I'm really looking forward to The
Hobbit film. We probably won't get Cumberbatch's Smaug until film 3,
though.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

jenn_calaelen in the Dragon Thread:

> Not-so-important thread #1: Seen any pretty dragons lately?

> I watched Dragon Fighter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Fighter), featuring Dean Cain, on German TV tonight. The film
> itself was painfully clichéd and predictable, but boy, were the dragons
> gorgeous!

> Which one was your favourite dragon?

Their reply was:

I recently rewatched How To Train Your Dragon - and the main
dragon in that is very cute (and really feline). I'm also looking forward
to seeing Smaug in the Hobbit film (as well as the rest of the
film, although it will probably be bad in many ways, but hopefully fun as
well).

I really hope that at some point they make a film of the Temeraire
books, as they have loads of wonderful and varied dragons, but not a
lot of hope that they will - or that if they do it would be any good.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

espresso_addict's reply to a comment in a different thread:

> Thank you! :) Well, it's probably easier to make resolutions when there's
> only 3 months left of the year, eh? *g*

Their reply was:

Well, my main resolution was going to be to finish one of my ongoing
novels, which is probably easier to do in 12 months than 3. But I think I
might be a little bit less ambitious.

(I don't have the time to take out the line breaks caused by e-mail, I hope you don't mind.)

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

wiseheart:
Oh, WIPs! The bane of every author's existence! I'm still surprised that
I've managed to finish the first book of "Elvenhome", after picking it up
again on the end f a six-year-hiatus!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

lhun_dweller answering to my reply re: getting older:

> Yes, we are, aren't we? But since the alternative would be to die young,
> I'm quite willing to accept the inevitable wrinkles and occasional aching
> joints. *g*

Their reply was:

[grabs a mug of ale and raises it]

I second that!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

wiseheart:
*nodnod* Survival is the highest Nietzschean imperative.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

lhun_dweller:

THE TOPIC IS BOOKS! I am sending you the Star Trek Preciousesssssss this
weekend... my interviewing schedule won't allow me to go to the Post
Office and arrive at my work office (one of my two offices) a tad later,
alas!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

wiseheart:
Ah, that's all right! That way, I'll have longer to enjoy my reading of
them. (God, what have I done to English grammar again?)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

lhun_dweller:

My dog, Mac, is joining the party. He is playing with his hollow, rubber
ball that has holes in the ends and largish bits of dog biscuit inside.
He is making many interesting sounds, which translate roughly as
follows...

GREEEEEEEEEN BALLLLLLLL! Biscuit must come out now! Yummy, crunchy peanut
butter biscuit... We wants it!!!! We wants it NOW!!!! Hey you! you with
the thumbs! Get my biscuit out NOW!!!!

From here, you can:

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

And here I remember having said something about thumbs being supremely well suited for getting biscuits. *shrugs* I don't get my own comments mailed to me.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

rcfinch:

Finch signing in. I think I'll wait with the cake until I feel I've
actually earned some. What kinds do you have?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I told her to take a look at the Cake Thread and choose.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Stupid LJ! You are welcome to repost any comments I made. I back my LJ up on Dreamwidth at regular intervals as I'd hate to lose my entries and comments.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

So do I! But LJ's black hole was faster.

[bk_forever]

Birthday ficlet


Nosy the alien fluff slunk silently through the Hub, peering around cautiously. It was the middle of the night, so the lights were low, filling the open space with shadows and making it really rather spooky, No one was around, which was just as well, considering what it was planning.

It knew it wasn’t supposed to touch the Hub computers, but it had watched Tosh often enough to learn how things were done, so it slunk up to the nearest work station and switched on the computer. It didn’t have hands, so it picked up a pencil in its mouth and used that to prod at the keys, calling up an internet search window and using it to locate the livejournal it wanted.

It paused for a moment, checking that it was still alone, then scrolled down the page to find the correct journal entry and clicked on the button to leave a comment.

Slowly and carefully, Nosy began typing. It took a while, because it didn’t want to make any mistakes, but finally Nosy was satisfied with it, and it clicked ‘Post’, humming happily to itself as the comment appeared on the screen:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, wiseheart , MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!

Love from the Torchwood Team and Nosy the Fluff xxx

Then it closed down the window, turned off the computer and slunk back to bed, happy to have done its part in the attempt to reach 1,000 comments.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yay! Nosy is back! Thank you!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Oh, how annoying! I'd saved up some comments I was planning to reply to when I had a moment, and they're all been listed as deleted! Argh!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they'll be among the saved ones and you can still do so. I'm going in chronological order but probably won't do much more tonight.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Re: altariel & I discussing Bujold's Chalion series:

I've just purchased Curse of Chalion :) I'll try Paladin of Souls if I like it.

I haven't read the Ivan book. In fact I haven't read Cryoburn yet, largely because I've gathered a spoiler about the ending which I really don't want to happen. I gather from the hive mind that the Ivan book is designed to heter-oise Ivan & Byerley?

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

That reminds me, I'd been going to comment in this thread :)

I really like The Hallowed Hunt - it extends the worldbuilding in a really interesting direction, and the characters are great (but I know that I'm in a real minority on that one...)

I think you could read the Ivan book without having read Cryoburn, as it is set well before Cryoburn.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by heter-oise - especially as it seems to me that only fandom ever considered Ivan non heterosexual...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Re: altariel's comments on Parade's End

Sounds very interesting -- I've just used up my budget for DVDs for ages, so I'll see if I can catch reruns on Beeb4.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

And this was the "My Government Is Stupid"-thread:

How to make people's lives miserable?

You wanna know? Ask your government. Ours has just got the shiny idea of
> prohibiting the one-armed bandits (=slot machines) almost everywhere. The
> tax incomes they're losing that way (it's a two-digit number in billions,
> our currency is very weak) they compensate by raising the prices for all
> basic foodstuffs (meat and bakery products for starters) by 30 per cent.

> Good for small people, ain't it? *Tyr Anasazi actually applauds, as this
> move will certainly ensure the survival of the fittest.)

> So, how does your government make your life miserable?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

To which rcfinch replied:

How shall I count the ways... They're making me work almost two years
months more than I had to when I started working. They raised the VAT.
They raised the assurance taxes. They raised the amount we have to pay
for medicines before the health assurance kicks in from 220 to 350 euros
a year. They...

But no, I won't spoil the birthday party any further.

[illereyn.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

So, dear guests, I think I'll call it a day. Originally, I wanted to reach Page 2, but it's still 8 top-level comments away, and I'm close to fainting.

I've about 920 more saved comments in my inbox and perhaps two cake recipes saved on my laptop. So unless the original party posts miraculously reappears, I think we'll have lost one quarter of the comments, give or take a few.

I'm going to save this as a text file, just in case, as I can't access my Dreamwidth journal from here - my main PC is logged in to my writing journal. As for the rest - we'll see.

Good night!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Sleep well in your beautiful new bed!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

aviv_b said:

So I sent some other presents! Here's a cake and some presents just for
you!

(http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/897/149555)

(http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/897/4955)

(And I'm cheating, because this wasn't actually a separate thread, but I want to get to Page 2 today really badly!)

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

wiseheart:
Oooh, thanks! Is that a pterodactyl in that box?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Aaaaand the ersatz party has just hit the 100-comment-marker!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Stupid LJ! Could it have something do do with the huge number of comments?
Well, whatever, it won't stop us.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Many other posts have huge numbers of comments - it's simple malevolence. But no, it won't stop us!