Confessions of a One-Track Mind

Made it to the food bank this morning for the first time in a few weeks. Got the usual canned goods, and a few happy surprises like some portobello mushrooms, chicken strips and a Boston creme pie. Woohoo! Pie!

Watched Leverage last night, first time in a while---I gave up on it midway through last season, being very dissatisfied with the quality of the writing. Last night was good, though. I LMAO at Nate's persona for the costume party (because I got the inside joke). Ditto how I guessed who dunnit...la la la...what? Lighten up, I'm not spoiling anything!

Church yesterday was interesting; AI introduced us to Bar Karma, which I'd never heard of, but it's a show on Current TV, and the really amazing thing about it is, it's fan-driven. Apparently, they post prompts on the show's website and take suggestions from cyber-fans.

I think a Bar Karma/Leverage crossover could be 57 varieties of awesome. And yes, that's William Sanderson behind the bar; I'm so happy he's still getting work! I've been fond of him ever since Blade Runner. And Repo Man. And I saw him in an ep of Trauma that J and I watched just the other day....

Brunch. It's definitely time for some solid food. I can't eat too early in the morning, but I've been up for several hours now, and I'm ready.

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Okay, when it comes to fantastic dreams, last night totally pwns.

First, I had a Leverage dream. There was something about a pawnshop, and Jeri Ryan's charachter wandering around asking if "the noses" had been done yet...it didn't dawn on me til I woke up to tinkle that the title of the episode was, of course, "The Nose Job"....

Wait, it gets better!

Then after I went back to sleep, I dreamed Jensen Ackles kissed me. He was talking to a handful of people*, me included, something about the right mindset for doing certain scenes, and then he said to me: "Okay, I'm going to kiss you." Which he did, briefly and a little off center. My brain was short-circuiting, going OMGOMGOMG! I'm kissing Jensen Ackles**! I completely missed whatever he said next, then he kissed me again, and this time it was dead-center and somewhat longer. I whimpered slightly when he stopped, which made him grin. The third kiss, I caught his bottom lip with mine, and it was more like a kiss-kiss. I'm still not sure what kind of point he was trying to prove, but he's welcome to come back and give me another lesson any time.
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* He was wearing jeans and a madras plaid shirt, thereby proving that my subconscious has a fashion sense all its own....
** He was just the right height, too. How often does *that* happen?!
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Title: The Inside Job
Authored by: vanillafluffy
Pairing/spoilers: Nate-Sophie And if giant spiders squick you, you might want to pass....
Rating/Work-safeness: PG-13
Approximate word count: 3200
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the Season One DVDs. Heaven knows I'm not making a profit.
Betaed by: mojavedragonfly
Summary: Nate's crew of thieves is being even sneakier thaa usual. They're up to something, the question is what---and how does Parker's new pet figure into it?


( A high-pitched noise overhead sounds ominously like a shriek. Nate stands motionless, listening. Great, they've built themselves a torture chamber up there and incarcerated an unauthorized mark. )

Thanks for your shiny comments!

Oh God, that hurts...kicked squarely between the eyes by a crack-fueled plot bunny. There's such an air of mystery behind Sophie's origins in Leverage. Then, all of a sudden, as I was browsing yuletide's brainstorming post, something spontaneously popped up. What if Sophie was REALLY Casey Brown from Candleshoe, all grown up? (What? Just because there's no way in hell Jodie Foster would grow up to be Gina Bellman is no reason to ignore a perfectly glorious crossover.) I'm thinking in terms of the character, anyway, not the actresses. Because Casey has been a grifter since she was a toddler, practically, and what if that oh-so-posh British accent of Sophie's was acquired to cover up the flat Yankee accent Casey had when she was a kid? What if the crew wound up in England, and Nate said, "Let's go steal a castle!"---and they wind up at Candleshoe?

Arrrgh! I'm waiting for my multi-fandom crossover exchange assignment, I SO do not have time for this.

Show of hands, please, y'all---how many of you are into Leverage?

I'm killing time for an hour, until I can snag a snack and a beverage and plonk myself down on the bed in front of the TV and see my Dean and my Sam and HOPEFULLY my Bobby again. At least, I *hope* that's what I'll be seeing, I hope Eric hasn't done/doesn't do anything too fiendish to them over the summer.

It's bad enough that there's no more Leverage until the new year---and that that went totally pear-shaped last night. I'm not going to go into detail lest I inadvertantly spoiler someone, but I *hate* last night's special guest star. I didn't like her in her big role in that big sci-fi fandom, and I didn't like her in that drama she was in after that, even though that was produced by someone whose work I usually adore. I just DO NOT like her, period, full stop. Fuck me if she's going to become a regular. I may not be back. If I DO start writing Leverage fic, the first thing I'm going to do is feed her character into a wood chipper. (Yeah, so it's been done. The Coen brothers can bite me.)

A couple interesting developments today: I heard from a former fellow inmate coworker that the medical billing company closed the local office today. No word as to whether this is just local or if other offices have been affected, but given the amount of abuse we suffered from management and callers, yeehaw! (Hey, I worked there for just short of five years, and in all that time, my total raises equalled less than a dollar. And I never made it through a day on the phones that I didn't get cussed out by some fuckwit caller. So let them call India, and let management try to explain HIPPA to someone who's ESL. I win!)

In the mailbox was an envelope from my most recent former employer. I'm not sure why they didn't just direct deposit that piddly little $30 check, but whatever. I have that, I have my WalMart card from Red, I'm good for now.

I've been rounding up cans. That should pad the finances a smidge. Every little bit helps.

Having gotten sucked into Leverage, I decided to revisit Tiimothy Hutton's Oscar-winning role in Ordinary People this afternoon. (On VHS---! IMDb dates the movie as 1980, and I was with my brother when he purchased the tape previously viewed circa 1985.)

My first thought was, OMG, he's just a BABY! Which was before I consulted IMDb and discovered he's *actually* three weeks older than me. His birthday was yesterday. Happy B-day, Tim! Seriously, I kept looking at those long, slim legs in those tight jeans (I swear, they don't make jeans that fit like THAT any more.) and feeling like a total cougar---and btw, starhawk2005, it's also got Fred Lehne as Tim's estranged friend, and sporting rock star hair that's not quite a mullet. Priceless. Ditto Adam Baldwin, who I've fancied ever since he did My Bodyguard. And to whet the appetites of anyone else who may contemplate watching it, they're all on the swim team together and there are a couple scenes in trunks.

One of the things that struck me---not-quite-jailbait aside---was how much Donald Sutherland looks like Kiefer, and vice versa. Consulting IMDb yet again and doing a little math reveals that Sutherland Sr was 45 when the film was released (presumably 43-44ish when it was shot, allowing for editing and all that) and Junior will turn 43 at the end of this year.

Even Judd Hirsch seems relatively well-preserved compared to the last thing I saw him in, which was Independence Day, which seems to be popping up on TV quite a bit lately. And his charecter, Dr. Berger, has the perfect comeback to my favorite exchange in the whole movie:

Conrad "Con" Jarrett: When I let myself feel, all I feel is lousy.
Dr. Berger: Oh well excuse me, I never promised you a rose garden.
Conrad "Con" Jarrett: Oh fuck you Berger.
Dr. Berger: What?
Conrad "Con" Jarrett: FUCK YOU!
Dr. Berger: Hey, that's it!
Conrad "Con" Jarrett: Geez! You're really weird huh, what do you feel huh? Do you jerk off, or jack off, or whatever you call it?
Dr. Berger: What do you think?
Conrad "Con" Jarrett: What do I think? I think you're married to a fat lady and you go home and you fuck the living daylights out of her!
Dr. Berger: Sounds good to me.

MTM...after several hundred Saturday nights spent watching the Mary Tyler Moore show, this is just---there are no words. It's like Barney the Big Purple Plushie coming onstage with a Glock and capping the whole audience. NOT cute/funny/perky. Freakin' scary.

As far at Tim's portrayal of the charecter goes, I'm totally floored that he's referred to as a "supporting actor". Conrad is so central to the film that it would collapse without him, and Tim nails it perfectly. He totally deserved that Oscar, regardless of the category. Now I really want to pursue more of his backlist....

My first action on staggering out of bed this morning was to grab my bank card and the phone and call the cable company...six days without an internet of my own was a week in Hell. (You know, Hell---where Time is dilated, so that six days is really sixty, which in Internet Time encompasses entire glacial epochs. Thank God that's over!)

The job situation: They've extended my probation by another week, and set a new goal that's even more absurd than the original ridiculous goal. I haven't a prayer, but at least it gets me paid for another week. They can fire me, but I'll be damned if I'll quit (can't get benefits if I quit, and I'd NEED them). So stay tuned....

The good thing about the extension is my schedule for next week; I'll have a 3-day weekend, because there's Posh Brits training on Wednesday (Yes, they of the $1300 bag!), which is an all-day thing, and I'd be out early enough to get home for Leverage. Unless, of course, I arrive for training and get hauled into HR and canned, which I wouldn't put past them.

Oh, and to add stress to more stress, Current Boss told me yesterday that I'm "overdrawn" on my vacation time and must relinquish three of the days I've selected. So either I miss my birthday week vacation, Dr Bizarre's wedding, or Halloween/The Full Moon Ball at church. Since it's probably going to be a moot point in a week, I'm resisting. (And plan to call in and go anyway. It's not my fault their fancy-schmancy new time-keeping software sucks ass. I was already planning to call out the Thursday before the wedding. Asshats.)

Was annoyed last night that I hadn't set a timer for SPN---I walked into the breakroom at 9:45 to find it was my favorite ep of last season. (Yeah, I know Mischa is made of awesome, but I totally cougar Brock---what can I say?!)

Thanks to combining Leverage and IMDb, I have rescued Secondhand Lions from my vid shelf and have rewatched it twice---Christian Kane's character is Robert Duvall's younger self in flashbacks*, and he gets to do swordfighting! In tight pants! With a big walrus moustache! Woohoo! That, and my renewed internet access are the high point of my week!
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* And yet, there is NO fanfic that I can find for it---how can this BE?!