1. Merlin fics:

'Secret art' by vensre (431 words, Arthur/Merlin, G)
A quiet, companionable moment between Arthur and Merlin. It made me smile with their spot on voices and the little twist at the end.

'Dress rehearsal (almost as good as the real thing)' by srin (3,300 words, Arthur/Merlin, NC-17)
Just when Arthur is about to confess his attraction to Merlin, Merlin happily admits to have something going on with someone else. And then Arthur offers Merlin, who is inexperienced and a bit nervous about it, to help him practice.
Arthur moved me to no end in his efford to enjoy what he's sure is this one time he'll have with Merlin, and Merlin is so sweet in how he figures out what's going on and what this means for him.

'Services rendered' by rageprufrock (5,500 words, modern day AU, Arthur/Merlin, NC-17)
There's a reason why I'm not linking to her dreamwidth account; I don't want you to see any comments just yet. I'm not going to spoil you. Just read it. Trust me.

'Hey, who turned out the lights?' by timetraveled (3,060 words, Bradley/Colin, PG-13)
A lovely, sweet fic with the boys being boys, some snort moments, Angel helping Bradley to figure out there is no problem and kissing that had my toes curl in delight.

2. Merlin episode recaps:

franticsga's recaps of the Merlin episodes as they are aired in the USA:
episode 1: 'The dragon's call'
episode 2: 'Valiant'
episode 3: 'The mark of Nimueh'
episode 4: 'The poisoned Chalice'

3. Merlin moment:

Or rather, this little Colin (and Bradley) moment from the Australian 'Secrets behind the magic special'. Even in slow mo it's only 9 seconds, but I love Colin's smile when he gets up off the floor after His Stunt of which he's so proud, and the way he turns to Bradley who's been making sure no harm would come to Colin watching him all the time.



4. The Merlin fandom

5. Colin Morgan

Just rewatching interviews, behind the scenes vids and whatnot makes me incredibly happy.

Speculation. ( Cut for spoilers. )

Last Friday loreley_se came over from London to visit me. She arrived quite early, which meant she had to be up at stupid o'clock, but also that we had a whole warm and sunny day ahead of us, which we started with walking around town, sitting outside a café with coffee and apple-pie and doing some clothes-shopping. We took the light-rail back to my place and sat in the garden having more coffee (she had to test Arthur of course) and switched to wine; some of us before dinner and some after.

The next day we drove to Werchter. I'd made a list of which acts I wanted to see and loreley_se gave it an ok, so here's what we saw and what I personally thought of it (any live performances I'm linking here are marked #) and are from concerts we attended, although not filmed by me):

Jasper Erkens: A curly haired 16 year old Belgium guy with a guitar and a big grin. Very cute and charming, a promising voice that obviously still has to mature but was surprisingly up to being on a stage like this, bit of a tendency to write songs that don't really fit his age, but a wizard on the twelve string guitar for which I have a weakness. Certainly a fun start for this day.

Regina Spektor: *heart-bubble* What a delight! So utterly, utterly wonderful, playful, sweet and strong, light and powerful, vulnerable and funny. Regina has the cutest face with a smile that looks shy and wicked at the same time. I'd expected to like her but this concert turned out my favorite of the day ♥

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Love their music, and especially the live performance of the song from the clip I'm linking here has the kind of pumping, trance-like rhythm that makes me jump around, but I think I'm the only one who isn't impressed with the singer. I know most people who love their music find her utterly charismatic, but she doesn't click with me. The concert was nice enough, but after bouncing around to two songs or so in the tent, I joined loreley_se outside to watch the rest from the big screen.

After this we moved from the tent with the smaller stage to the big stage for:

Franz Ferdinand #): This was the concert where I burned most of the considerable amount of calories I consumed that day. I mean, I dare you to stand still while listening to this #). Franz Ferdinand is the ultimate bouncing happily around music while singing at the top of your lungs. Too bad the end was such an anti-climax: during 'Lucid dreams' apparently something went wrong and Alex said 'we just broke our favorite drum-kit'. After some consulting they seemed to decide on something, Alex started 'Jacqueline' which I understand was supposed to be their last song, but after the first lines he stopped, said 'thank you, we're Franz Ferdinand' and stomped off the stage, leaving the audience dazed and confused. So yeah... If it weren't for the ending this would have been my favorite concert of the day, but this way it was like really good sex ending in no orgasm.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Grumpy old men making a lot of noise. Can't be bothered to find a clip. Could be I was still sulking over the Franz Ferdinand concert though, so I wasn't really in a good state of mind to judge.

Kings of Leon #): I know I should be ashamed of myself that I hadn't even heard of them before I saw them mentioned in the line-up for Werchter. I'm fully converted now though! I must confess the singer sort of won me over when I saw a close-up of his face on the big screen: besides that he's generally a thing of beauty, he's got a lazy eye *melts*
Soon enough it was the music though that got me. Delicious guitar rock that's both solid and melodious and the voice of the singer is strong and warm. It sure felt like I got my climax after all #). Huh, maybe this was my favorite concert of the day.

Part 2 tomorrow :)

I'm sorry, I can't get used to Dreamwidth. I keep forgetting to post from my Dreamwidth account to make entries appear both there and in LJ, so I've got a couple of entries up in LJ that haven't been up at Dreamwidth. I never read my Dreamwidth reading page. There are several features I miss on Dreamwidth and I don't like having comments spread out over two posts. I know there's probably a solution for some of the things that annoy me about Dreamwidth, but I can't be bothered to figure it out. So here's what I'll do:

I'm switching to LJ only (like I've basically already done in fact) but I'll keep the Dreamwidth account in case things change around here to my liking. Dreamwidth is after all still in beta so who knows.

On the Season 5 dvd box set of Stargate Atlantis are deleted scene featurettes included. Reviews of the featurettes on the first 2 dvds can be found here. I read through them and there are a couple I'm glad didn't make the cut and some that I'm looking forward to seeing and then there's one that ahm, almost made me cry for how much I'm missing Rodney.

( Cut for those who don't want to be spoiled: )

...if I wanted to read Donna/Doctor/Martha, what would be a good place to start?

Is that even a pairing that's out there, anywhere?

We've got a Senseo coffee maker, and a couple of months ago it turned out there was a potential problem with a whole lot of them, ours being one of them. There's a big recall and repair action going on for which we registered our machine too and a little over 2 weeks ago he (because our Senseo coffee maker is a he, a young guy in Arthur red) got picked up and we had to make do with our old coffee machine for the time being.

I missed him so!

Today, I'd just made a pot of coffee and the doorbell rang. It was him. He's back home. All repaired and blushing red. I immediately poured the pot of coffee down the drain and I'm sitting here with a mug of freshly made Senseo coffee. My second one actually.

OMG it's soooo gooood!!

Look, look, look at the gorgeous, fabulous pictures mrs_leary posted over here!! She's been to Pierrefonds, and got pics of Katie, Angel, Bradley, Colin, Richard and Anthony. And Colin is just... I mean, he looks... I'm all... And he's so...

Ok, just click that link and skip the bit I'm going to put behind lj-cut, because that's mostly me trying not to add anything to the three comments I already inflicted on mrs_leary *facepalm*

( Shameless Colin fangirling. And I'm not kidding either. )

My favorite Michael Jackson song is and always has been without a doubt 'Leave me alone'. It also happens to be my favorite Michael Jackson video-clip.

I've got beer in my fridge. A good solid Hertog Jan Grand Prestige extra stout. And it's calling me. But I have to be up early tomorrow morning. So.

Poll #1421188 To beer or not to beer (Ahahah! I crack myself up...)
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What should I do?

New 'The Sea Change' twitter:

In breakfast club with girls talking up the new shoot. New plans ahoy. Watch this space. Have ordered spicy berry smoothie to celebrate.

Colin mentioned there was some final filming to be done on this.

Yeah, I'm watching that space, but damn, I don't think I'd have the patience to be in filming, because every time I'm interested in some independent movie because a favorite actor of mine is involved in it, it takes forever for the movie to hit the screen! It's an interesting process (reading 'Hard Core Roadshow', the book written by the screenwriter of 'Hard Core Roadshow' was enlightening in that way) but I don't think I could manage it personally.

I'm a couple of episodes into the fourth season of Doctor Who now, so I was a bit surprised when in the Fandom Superlatives competition an episode in the third season was getting a boatload of votes for having the best monster, because I didn't remember any weeping angels. I checked and noticed I'd accidentally skipped that one. So I watched it tonight with mr. RC.

( Cut for spoilers. )

Don't like (as in; turns me off a story quicker than you can say 'But that's true love!')

* When Morgana and/or Gwen are jealous, evil bitches who want to keep Arthur and Merlin apart.

* When Arthur is not just an arrogant prat, but a complete asshole, sometimes even intentionally cruel.

* When Merlin allows Arthur to treat him badly without any kind of protest. When he bows his head and just takes it, even comes crawling back for more.

* Either one or both of them suffering horribly for unthinkable periods of time.

Like (as in; I have a specific weakness for)

* When Gwen and Merlin get together, find out they love each other to bits but not like that, split up and then support each other through the whole process of Merlin getting together with Arthur and Gwen getting together with Morgana.

* When Merlin can't let it rest when he and Arthur disagree about something. No matter how exasperated Arthur gets with him, he keeps bringing it up.

* When Arthur wants to do the right and just thing. When he's thoughtful and aware of his responsibilities.

* When Arthur and Merlin are passionate about each other; when they fight hard and love hard. When they grab, push and shove because they're angry or full of lust.

Fandom Superlatives!
SUMMER 2009 EDITION: GO VOTE

It takes forever for the pages to load, but it's so much fun!!

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 glee.

lilagrubb picked ( these icons: )

Happiness is getting on-line determined to do all sorts of things that pass for Useful from my personal fandom point of view, only to find two clicks in that one of my favorite writers has just posted a new fic.

:D

*copy/paste/prints and logs off*

Quite possibly I'm the last person with an ipod who hadn't found this particular goody yet, but today I found out about Videora ipod converter and I've been downloading and converting my favorite clips and vids for my ipod all afternoon, and I thought I'd share the info in case I'm not the only n00b around here.

It's so simple, even I can do it! I've now got 2 shortcuts on my desktop; one that helps me convert files I've already got downloaded so they play on my ipod and one that downloads and converts clips directly from YouTube. You can download/convert multiple files in one go, keep track of the progress and do other stuff while it runs in the background. Every file that's finished gets automatically uploaded to itunes so once you're done all you have to do is synchronize your ipod and presto!

For those who know how much I've been freaking out about not knowing who wrote this: turns out it was srin/mad_poetics. She reposted it here.

So yeah, turns out I already did know and love her fics :D