HOLY SHIT
I JUST GOT AN EMAIL SAYING THERE'S A SPOT OPEN FOR ME AT VIVIDCON
I swear, I was fourteenth on the waiting list, I've been there for months, I seriously didn't think--holy crap!
...now let's just hope my parents are still willing to pay for it...
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Has anyone else noticed that the amount of time one has to do things is inversely proportional to the amount of things one actually gets done?
It's summer, and I have somewhere in the vicinity of thirteen hours every day in which I can do whatever I want; this leads to, obviously, not wanting to do anything. I don't want to write, I only sort of want to vid (and I get frustrated by knowing that I won't actually be able to finish it until a week and a half from now, when the season finale of Doctor Who gives me the clips I'm really, really hoping it's going to have), I don't want to draw, I don't even really want to watch old episodes of Doctor Who--and it occurs to me, hey, I wanted to do these things a lot more when I didn't have so much time to do them in. It was so much more satisfying to spend an hour and a half writing when I knew I only had three hours to do it in. Which makes me realize that 1) I really, really want it to be September already and 2) I really, really need a job, but I can't get a job until September because I'm only going to be living here until September, and I'm rather doubting employers, even part-time employers, will want to hire someone who is for sure gone in two months. Auuuuugh.
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You know, I don't believe I've made a vid yet that didn't suffer from horrendous technical difficulties--although A Day in the Life really only suffered an inability to find the bits I wanted amidst all the inexplicably ten-minute-long clips WMM had handily cut the episodes into--but this, oh, this takes the cake. This is not something I can blame on a faulty computer. This is just really, really, completely unexplainable. So let me elaborate!
As I've mentioned, the song I wanted to use was an m4a file which turned out not to work in Windows Movie Maker; this made me sad and upset, but ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shizuka_blooms gave me a link to a website that converts media files and thus allowed me to make it an mp3 file instead; this made me happy and not-upset. So I started making the vid! And it was going very well. Except I noticed a bit of lag time with the audio--if I started it from the top, there wasn't a problem; if I started it even a second later, it would inexplicably be a little behind where it was supposed to be. For example, if at twenty seconds in, there was supposed to be the lyric "it's time to shine", it would for some reason be playing a lyric that came a few seconds before that. (This is purely an example. I am far from twenty seconds into this vid. I haven't even gotten to the lyrics yet--still on the opening instrumentals, which still suffer the same problem.) This was very annoying.
So I restarted, because, hey, restarting cures many things. Nope. Still there. Take out the song and put it back in again? Nope. I checked another vid file--that one was working fine. Restarted again. Nope. Closed down all other programs. Nope. Hey, that K-Lite Codec thing really has an insane amount of icons on my toolbar--uninstall that? Nope, and now even starting at the top doesn't work, so reinstall. Hrm. Ooh, there's a new Windows Update! Will that fix it? That will probably fix it. Installed. Did not fix it. Made things worse, actually; for some reason, everything was reeeeally slow when it finished updating, and the tablet function of the laptop was barely working, and then it just sort of froze, so I did a forced restart. Everything seemed to be back to normal after that--except, no, for some reasons all my Collections folders in WMM have been completely wiped, so I'm going to have to reupload...let's see...52 episodes of Doctor Who, plus 34 of Heroes and 16 of Life on Mars...and every episode takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes to upload, so, uh, at this point this whole thing is getting kind of ridiculous. WHAT IS GOING ON. And, no, it still doesn't work. Tried putting the song in the other vid file--same problem. SO.
1) shizuka_blooms, have you ever had any problems with a song converted by that website?
2) Has anyone here ever had similiar problems with Windows Movie Maker?
3) Will anyone buy me some ridiculously expensive new movie-making software?
4) Have I offended God in some way? Does He have some fundamental objection to the song, or perhaps vids in general?
5) Is there some physical representation of Windows Update that I can punch in the face?
EDIT: FIXED YAY
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auuuuuuuuuuuuugh
Okay, so, the song I want to use in my next vid, the vid I have been vaguely planning for weeks, the vid that will finally allow me to get off my ass and get back into vidding, is an m4a file. I thought there was nothing wrong with this! m4a files do, after all, play in Windows Media Player; clearly they are different from no other file. Ahahahahahaha NO. No, Windows Movie Maker refuses to acknowledge that m4a files even exist, APPARENTLY. So. Does anybody here know either
1) How to convert an m4a file into an mp3 file, or
2) Where one could acquire a copy of Carbon Leaf's "Echo Echo Shine" that is not an m4a file?
Because that would be really helpful and stop me from breaking down quietly into an unproductive heap. And you don't want that to happen, do you? You want to see a really bouncy, joyous New Who vid, don't you? One with lots of Donna in it, but also Rose and Martha and fair bits of Jack and Sarah Jane? You want that, right?
...please?
EDIT: Aaaand found! *hugs shizuka_blooms muchly, for she is awesome*
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selenak, I don't know if you've seen this yet, but it is right up your alley--(Boulevard of) Broken Dreams, a DW vid that takes four different songs--one for Rose, one for Martha, one for Runaway Bride Donna, and a bit of one for the Doctor--and melds them all together completely brilliantly, and it's just wonderful and perfect and *flails*. harena, swingerzetta, any of the others here who watch Doctor Who--this is just awesome. (And it made me tear up a little, which I will always consider to be a bonus.) Great props to dodificus for reccing it in the first place.
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Hot motherfucking damn.
....I'm going to have to get up at, like, 6 AM to get into this, aren't I.
You know, since I'm mentioning Heroes again, I might as well ramble a bit about it. It's weird--I'm so completely into Doctor Who right now that Heroes feels like a foreign entity, something that isn't really connected to me any more, which is almost certainly due to there being no new episodes of Heroes compared to there being eleventy million new (well, to me, anyway) episodes of Doctor Who, but it's still very, very weird. I'm not reading Heroes fic at all any more--even if I see a rec, I just shrug and ignore it. (Whereas I'm devouring Doctor Who recs as if they were delicious pancakes, of course.) And yet, I still wear my helix-symbol necklace every day (shut up), and it's not like I don't like the show any more. It just...isn't a priority, right now.
And then I watch the Sawatte! Kawatte! vid again and something deep down in my heart flails a bit and I realize that, oh yes, it's still there. It's just lurking. Waiting for its chance to strike. And--if all goes well--on July 22nd, it'll finally get its chance.
...*wonders if she can finish the majority of Doctor Who by then*
(Speaking of Doctor Who: hey, I just noticed something. This week's episode, apparently, will be the 200th episode of the series.
...I'm sure they're not going to do anything big at all.)
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Remember my desire to associate Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend' with the Master? Of course you do. Then you must be unspeakably thrilled to know that rionaleonhart has keyed me in to the fact that a vid for such actually exists, and it is unbelievably awesome, even if the vidder had to leave it unfinished due to a sudden attack of taste. (Fie, I say. A proper vidder should have no such thing.) In any case, behold, one of the greatest things that this or any other world has created.
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Probably I should have linked this earlier, but, for the Whofans here who aren't part of the fandom at large and thus might not have heard of this--some unparalleled genius listened to Skullcrusher Mountain, perhaps too many times, and thought "why, yes! This song is totally the Master's big dorky evil declaration of love to the Doctor!", and then they made this, which is just too awesome for words:
It features both New Who and Old Who, so--swingerzetta , I'm looking at you--if you're familiar with the former but not the latter, it's actually still very watchable, as long as you know the dynamic. And if you know the song, well, you're pretty much golden. (The bit about the half-pony half-monkey monster, in particular, will just make you cackle.)
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I think it is a very good thing I have neither the ability to use nor access to an animation studio, because if I did, you would all be subjected to a very silly animated music video about the Master and the Doctor set to "I Love It When You Call", even if it would be actually kind of awesome.
(These are the things that I think about when I should be doing my homework.)
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| 2008-04-20 09:22 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| apparently i really like the master, big damn wwii au, doctor who, heroes, i has a meme, i like music, life on mars, mylar, omg i can write fanfiction, omg other characters, vids |
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Tagged by shizuka_blooms : List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.
Oh, gosh. Let's see. Music, music, music...*ponders*
1) Fiona Apple - "Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)"
Those boom times went bust
My feet of clay, they dried to dust
The red isn't the red we painted
Its just rust
And the signature thing
That used to bring a following
I have trouble now
Even remembering
I get the majority of my music off of fanmixes. This came from one for Mylar. I like it! It is surprisingly bouncy. Also, I totally did not know it was Fiona Apple; her name does not appear anywhere on the file, so I thought it was by some band called Tymps. I fail at knowing things about music.
2) No Doubt - "Bathwater"
I still love to wash in your old bathwater
Make me feel like I couldn't love another
I can't help it... you're my kind of man
I can't remember where I got this, but it's another sneakily bouncy song. I like bouncy! I also like sneaky.
3) Garbage - "The World Is Not Enough"
The world is not enough
But it is such a perfect place to start, my love
And if you're strong enough
Together we can take the world apart, my love
Moar Mylar. I think. Maybe. Or maybe I just associate it with Mylar, which would make sense. And I am being sneaky and combining this with Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name", because 1) they are both Bond movie songs and 2) I associate both of them with Sylar. (And also the Master, but we're going to get to him next.) "You Know My Name", incidentally, is the song that inspired a particularly nasty part of the still-unfinished WWII AU. It's mean. Actually, it was originally going to be used in a Victorian stage magician AU, where it would have been even meaner, but it shifted into something a little more bearable. Dammit, one of these days I really need to get back to that story.
4) Pink - "Cuz I Can"
So I'll cash my checks and place my bets
And hope I'll always win
But even if I don't I'm fucked because
I live a life of sin
But it's alright
I don't give a damn
I don't play your rules I make my own
Tonight
I'll do what I want
Cuz I can
(ice cream, ice cream, we all want ice cream)
I associate this song with the Master. In fact, I sort of want to vid him to it. It's just so...him. (And yes, I have a few ideas as to what the ice cream would be.) Also, bouncy!
5) The Feeling - "I Love It When You Call"
Oh, I-I-I-I-I-I
I'm flipping with a coin that’s got a tail on either side
Oh, I-I-I-I-I-I
I'm gonna be the one who makes you stop and realize
You could have it all
We should have it all
I love it when you call
I love it when you call
I love it when you call
But you never call at all
So what’s the complication it’s only conversation
I love it when you call
But you never call at all
Guess what kind of fanmix I got this song off of? A Master fanmix? Why, yes! I love this song to an unbearable degree. I really, really do. It is probably not even worth mentioning the bounciness at this point.
6) Lemon Demon - "Knife Fight"
Let me tell you something-- I can't be beat
Oh yeah?
Yeah, cause I'm the king of the street
Well guess what man, I'll pin you to the wall
Oh yeah?
Yeah, your knife is way too small
Hey, my knife is super sharp, and that's what counts, I'm gonna make you bleed copious amounts
Yeah, well I'll be sure to thank you right after I shank you
This song, like all Lemon Demon songs, is so ridiculous, and so awesome, and by God, the moment I have enough material for it, I am so making a multi-fandom vid set to this. Knives! Fighting! CAN'T YOU PICTURE IT? (Probably I am the only one who can picture it.)
Man, it's so hard to pick a final song, so I'll just go with something relatively at random:
7) Aqua - "Freaky Friday"
Freaky Friday, things ain't going my way
Everything is gone, my life is a country song
Freaky Friday, go play on the highway
Everything is wrong, what the heck is going on
I, uh. May have originally planned to use this as my Life on Mars vid, and in many ways I think it could still work, but the lyrics repeat too often, and there's really only so many times you can use the clip of him getting hit by the car. So I picked something else. I do love this song, though. Also, I will upload any of these at your request, should you be so interested. And, one last time: BOUNCY!
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If you enjoyed Due South in Fifteen Minutes, or you are already familiar with the show, and you like things that are fun, silly, and catchy, I can only recommend checking out the vid Goody Two Shoes by laurashapiro and pipsqueaky; it is, in fact, all of those things, and I don't think you need any knowledge more than what you get from DS15M to enjoy it. It also has the bonus of including both Rays, which is nice. (And yes, it also shows that the two Rays actually do get to meet, in the finale; let me tell you, it is epic. Hint hint.) And you will find no greater summation of Fraser's love affair with gravity. Be warned that the song will get stuck in your head allll daaaaay loooooong.
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| 2008-04-04 22:41 |
| possibly my previous post may provide elaboration--hey, alliteration! and rhyme! |
| Public |
| all things joss whedon, battlestar galactica, deadwood, doctor who, due south, good god that's a lot of tags, heroes, house, i like television, i like writers, lost, omg i can write fanfiction, pushing daisies, ramblings, rome, sarah jane adventures, stargates of one kind or another, supernatural, torchwood, vids, yes i am really very odd |
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It gets easier.
Well--sort of. There's a reason I find it hard to read Buffy or Angel stories; even if they're happy, they make me think about things, and maybe it's been months since I saw their respective finales but I still don't want to think about those things. I downloaded an Angel vid, an absolutely brilliant one that summed up the whole series, that made me cry my eyes out, and I kept it on my hard drive but I don't think I'll be watching it again any time soon. And I can't really think of Firefly the same way after I saw Serenity. Joss, honey, you're brilliant, but you frequently make me want to curl up in a corner. Thankfully, you're probably one of a kind. I sure as hell hope so.
I've told you all my story about the two hours between hearing about the second season finale of Heroes and seeing the second season finale of Heroes, and it's actually quite a good story, but unfortunately it does not really apply in this case, because, y'know, the reason it's a good story is because I explained some very good reasons as to why the Heroes writing staff could not possibly be that stupid. Which is great and all if you're talking about Heroes, but I'm not actually talking about Heroes, and, unfortunately, the show that induced me to talk about this...well, it doesn't have that great a track record of "not being stupid". Alas.
It is a well-documented fact that it is a peril to watch a currently-running TV show if the show is prone to large amounts of drama. Again, see Heroes. And Lost, and Battlestar Galactica, and anything by HBO or Joss Whedon. (He's got a new show in development, did you hear? I'm already afraid.) At least with shows that have already ended, well, you know, or you have some idea; you don't live quite on the same edge of your seat. Although I did mention the Buffy and Angel thing. Okay, so it's kind of crap whether or not the show is still running; my point is, you love drama, you have to be prepared to get burned, because drama does not love you. Drama likes to watch you suffer. Sometimes, of course, it makes you ecstatically happy, and sometimes it's so jaw-droppingly brilliant that you know you could never stop watching, but one must always be aware that loving a dramatic TV show is akin to an abusive relationship. And you can't distance yourself from it to numb the pain, either; if you do, you've missed the entire point of a drama. Drama should affect you. If it doesn't, why watch? And if it does, why can't you stop?
Then, of course, there is the quiet joy of watching a show you know will not break your heart; casting shake-ups aside, nobody's ever going to die on House, and while Pushing Daisies may be entirely about death, it's never actually going to kill anyone we care about. In Chuck, the only actual hey-this-character-is-intriguing death, well, he's feeling better, he thinks he'll go for a walk...the Winchester brothers are proven to be immune from permanently kicking it, soul-selling aside (and what, you think that's actually going to do the trick?). I'm not even going to mention the Stargate universe. How high's the count on Daniel again? Seven? Eight? One of the best things about watching Due South is that, well, it's been over for over a decade, I already know how it ends, and I already know it's basically the happiest, slashiest ending ever. Although Due South actually does have its moments of drama and did kill a character and kick two other characters out, but I didn't really care about the dead guy, both of the absentees got appropriate send-offs, and one of the absentees actually came back, so basically I'm just rambling at this point.
And since I'm rambling, I'd like to point out that Doctor Who is starting up again this week, and that is possibly the show most notorious for ripping your heart out without actually killing anyone, which is surprising given the sheer amount of NPC deaths it manages to rack up every episode. Stupid Whoniverse. At least the Sarah Jane Adventures isn't ever going to go dramatic, right? Right? Oh god please tell me I'm right, I don't think I could handle it if I'm not. They're kids, for Christ's sake! Keep your melodramatic claws off them, Russell T Davies!
Anyway, to get back to the very original point of this post: it gets easier. Well--sort of. Rambling helps, actually. Why else did you think I was doing this? To entertain you lot? Yeah, right. I wanted to do that, I'd get back to writing lots of Heroes fic again. Or writing at all again. No, it's my journal, its contents are subject to my whims. So I don't actually need to have a point to all this, because it's late and I'm not sure I've entirely processed some stuff yet and I'd like to get back to my Canadian happy place. So goodnight, y'all, and if you still have no idea what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky, you bastard. futuresoon out.
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Scads of free time + itch to do something that will not deplete precious levels of Due South fics before DVDs arrive + sudden burst of determination = oh hey I finished that vid I started like two months ago. You know, back when I was obsessed with the other randomly supernatural fish-out-of-water cop show. (Due South is randomly supernatural too. Ghosts, mostly. In closets.)
Summary: Sam Tyler is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Contains spoilers through the end of the show.
Download here at Mediafire (.wmv, 75 MB)
Watch here at Youtube
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I neither hate April Fools' Day or love it unabashedly; sometimes it is funny, and sometimes it is not so funny, but I'm not creative enough to come up with my own pranks and I've never experienced one which genuinely messed me up.
Well. Except for the "hurrah, you've got epilepsy!" thing. But even that really only means I have to take a bunch of pills and I twitch a little more than I used to. Small potatoes.
In other news, I have developed a fondness--nay, an addiction to really long podfic; the first podfic I ever listened to was half an hour, and the second one was five hours, and the third one was, hrm, let's see, two hours and twenty minutes (and I'm not quite done with it yet), and basically I have gotten to the point where I am thinking that if it is not over an hour it is not worth listening to, which will probably become a problem when it stops being spring break and I start having things I need to do again. Also, approximately 70% of the one I'm listening to now (not now now, just now in general) is porn, which, while having significantly heightened my threshold for such things, has also put me in the curious position of being forced to associate the pairing in question with really explicit sex, which is just disconcerting in a variety of ways. I suspect it's going to be very awkward when I finally start watching the episodes the pairing came from. "Wait, no, okay, they're going to a crime scene, not a hotel room, they're only talking in the car, the fact that they're sleeping like three inches away from each other doesn't mean anything*..."
*The other thing about watching vids when you haven't seen the episodes they're from is that sometimes a lot of scenes look really weird without context. Although I'm not sure any kind of context whatsoever could stop that one from looking really weird.
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A thing which you may wish to know: out of the kindness of my heart and the desire to squash that little nagging urge of perfectionism, I have gone back and reworked Not Dead Yet into an Actually Definitive Ultimate Version Which Does Not Have Timing Issues Unlike The Last Actually Definitive Ultimate Version. So here it is. And I've updated the original post with the link, too. I won't put it on Youtube, because that might be a bit confusing and I'm content to let the original sit there, but I figured I might as well make it available for the general public. It's like an HD DVD! The original ain't going anywhere, it's just that the shiny new version is also available. Only I think we probably have to say "Blu-Ray" instead of "HD-DVD" now, but my point still stands.
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You know that hour? Everyone has that hour. Before you go to work, or before you have to go to bed, or before you need to leave for the airport. You have a full hour, so it's a useful time. You could get a lot of stuff done in an hour. Homework, or prepare a report, or write, or whatever you want. In fact, maybe you should do some of those things, because it's a full hour, and maybe you don't get a lot of full hours. But for some reason, you just. don't. want to. The homework can be done later, the writing feels a little forced, you don't really want to vid, watching TV feels like a waste of time. But it's a full hour. And you think you should be doing something, but you can come up with legitimate excuses for not doing anything. So you write LJ entries and refresh your flist endlessly and try to get that song out of your head and wonder when it got to be so hard to get two characters to kiss, dammit. (Alternately: why the hell aren't there any clips of Sam Tyler drinking? THERE ARE NONE. I CHECKED. HE SPENDS HALF HIS TIME IN THE PUB, BUT HE NEVER DRINKS ANYTHING. I know he drinks wine in his apartment a couple times, but the pub is a much, much better fit.)
blahhhhhh thirty-six minutes left until bed. time to watch more vids. oh yes. that is clearly the answer.
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One of the more annoying things about being a vidder: having to go through sixteen bloody hours of material just to find one ten-second scene, and completely failing to find it, and having no idea in which of the sixteen hours it might be located, and being unable to continue the vid without that one bloody ten-second scene.
I'm not just imagining it, am I? There was a scene where Sam looks into the bathroom mirror and his reflection has black eyes? OR AM I JUST DREAMING THINGS AGAIN.
(Also, I find it interesting that "a scene where Sam looks all evil with black eyes" would actually need to be clarified as to which Sam you are referring to. THERE ARE TOO MANY SAMS.)
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Presenting!
Download at Mediafire (63MB)
View at Youtube
I have wrestled this thing to the ground, yo, and it's not even the vid's fault--no, it was entirely the fault of my old laptop, bitter hag that she was, but all that is over now (and trust me, it was quite a lot of all that), and I am done done done. Perhaps I shall get back to writing after this. That would be nice. *glances at 1000 words of 3:10 to Yuma and ponders what to do with them*
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Which is odder: yelling at your vid in a Manchester accent, or yelling at a long list of fics you either can't or don't want to read in a Manchester accent?
...either way, apparently yelling at the vid actually works, ahahahahah oh my god *falls over from sheer joy*
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| 2008-02-15 17:20 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| art, doctor who, heroes, house, i like comics, i like music, i like musicals, i like television, life on mars, my life and welcome to it, omg i can write fanfiction, omg petrellis, preacher, stargates of one kind or another, the internet is fascinating, torchwood, vids |
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A summary of my day, in six-word segments:
Vid won't save. Restart. No go.
Vid won't save. Try new method?
Life on Mars, the song: earwormy.
Preacher, the comic: Garth Ennis? Awesome.
Can't find friends' house. Memories: fail.
Fairy-tale musical: surprisingly dirty, oh my.
Ordering pizza: why so complicated? Mysterious.
Found: $31. Origins: gremlins? Bought soda.
Vid won't save. New method: questionable.
David Bowie's Jean Genie: female? Huh.
Vid won't save. Suspecting infernal interference.
Want Torchwood. Cannot has Torchwood. Alas.
Ballroom Blitz: not Misfits; Sweet, apparently.
Want draw? No. Want write? No.
Want vid? THAT WOULD BE NICE.
Read fic; Ianto = Time Lord. Interesting.
Catch up on TV? Not today.
Read six-word stories. End results: guess.
Bored, so, six words six fandoms:
Car accident, then timeshift; bad day.
Time travel: always better with two.
Some family: not just the flying.
Cardiff: alien sex capital of world.
"Physician, heal thyself"; load of crap.
Ancient alien races are always idiots.
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