random unrelated questions

[norwich36]

Does anyone know if there is a Smallville beta community? Someone dropped me a comment on an old post asking about that, and while I know of this list of potential beta readers here, I don't know how up to date that list is, or whether the folks on it are still in the fandom.

On a completely separate note, is anyone in the Bay Area interested in doing some kind of fannish get-together the weekend of June 24& 25? Over Memorial Day weekend I was in San Francisco visiting a friend from college and got to meet the wonderful clari_clyde, and we thought it might be fun to have a larger gathering the next time I am in town, which is going to be for Gay Pride.

While I was out of town, serrico tagged me with that music meme that was going around, and while my answers are kind of boring, if you're interested they're


1. Total number of music files on your computer: 5, I think? All from bop_radar. Basically, a combination of technological incompetence and fear of getting in trouble (mostly at work, not from the RIAA people) has made me leery of downloading music. Plus, I'm always about 15 years behind most technology--I only got a CD player in 1999. A sizeable chunk of my musical collection is still on cassettes!

2. The last CD you bought was: "Songs and More Songs by Tom Lehrer," because I saw it in the store and had a sudden hankering to hear "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park."

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message: Well, I'm actually listening to that Tom Lehrer CD right now, though I don't know the name of the song that just played. I was listening to REM before that, so the last song whose title I can remember is "The End of the World as we know it."

4. Write down five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:

Ok, this question is biased toward people who listen to individual songs on a playlist. I'm going to go for 5 albums instead, since that's how I listen to music:

This Mortal Coil, "Filigree and Shadow"
Marc Cohn, Marc Cohn (this is the one with "Walking in Memphis" on it).
Joni Mitchell, "Ladies of the Canyon"
Bruce Springsteen, "The River"
The Proclaimers, "Sunshine on Leith"

5. Who are you going to pass the stick to and why?

Anybody who wants to do it.

Comments

[vibrantharmony.livejournal.com]

Hee, I love Poisoning Pigeons in the Park! My dad used to sing it to us, and I totally thought he was insane till someone sent it to me randomly one day. The element song is also awesome :P

I might have to grab this meme at some point. *ponders*

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I love the element song, too. Though my favorite Tom Lehrer song, the title of which I do not know ("So long mom, I'm off to drop a bomb, but don't wait up for me") isn't on this album, unfortunately. Though it does have my other favorite Tom Lehrer, "The Masochism Tango."

You may consider yourself tagged, if you like!

[radioreverie.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be in Berkeley on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. But I won't quite be *available*.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Meaning you're going to be busy?

[radioreverie.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm going to be sitting in line at the Berkeley Greek Theatre, if anyone wants to come and meet me!

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

You and your queues...! *pats*

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Is Radiohead playing that weekend? Are you going to have to camp out? Maybe I'll come visit that Friday, depending on when I get to town.

[radioreverie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're playing that weekend. I won't be camping out, but I will be showing up fairly early in the morning on the 24th.

[kristiinthedark.livejournal.com]

Oh! I love This Mortal Coil. All that you have here, really. But I get excited when I see TMC.

And I wish like crazy that I could be there at the end of June. Woe! But I am having some of the girls come visit me, so maybe we'll both have lots of company. :-)

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Wow, I've never met another TMC fan before! (Not that I've actively gone looking or anything, but that's cool to know).

Yeah, fandom really needs to invent the transporter, doesn't it?

[skuf.livejournal.com]

A sizeable chunk of my musical collection is still on cassettes!
Yay, mine, too, *g*. (That's a lot of commas, eek.)

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Old tech people, unite! (I don't know what I'm going to do when my cassette player dies, though, since it's very hard to find stereo systems with them built in, anymore).

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Last time I got a new stereo (uh, 5 years ago now?) I insisted on getting one with a double tape-deck so I could copy from tape to tape - even though everyone was telling me tapes were obsolete and blah blah. Well, I've copied from tape to tape more than a couple of times since getting it, so it was totally worth it to me :o) ! (And it has cd-player, too, so it wasn't like it was tape-deck only.)

And talking about old-tech: my vhs-tape for recording Buffy and CSI and other sordid programs were getting mighty shaky from being recorded over time again. Vhs-tapes are stupidly expensive here, so I was annoyed at the thought of having to purchase a new one. Then! I remembered I had an only-watched-once copy of Training Day (bad movie) - and stuck a piece of wood into that hole to make it recordable and taped it over. Voilà, fresh tape to record on!

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Ah, a person after my own heart! All my friends here are always raving about how much they love TIVO, and I can't really justify that much money when I have a perfectly functional VCR. It's true that it is getting harder to *find* blank tapes any more (and most of my local video stores should now be called DVD stores, since you can't rent VHS any more), but fortunately my VCR is fairly new, so with luck it will keep functioning for a while.

I wish I still had a dual cassette player--the last one I had wore out after I copied an old roommates' entire cassette collection one week right before I moved out.

[skuf.livejournal.com]

I have yet to fully discover what TIVO is :oD ! I'm not sure it's all that popular here, since I've never met anyone who had one. Or "it". I really have no clue what it is, lol.

And I'd forgotten about that: I also bought a new VCR when everyone was telling me I should buy a dvd-player, *shakes head at self*.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Tivo is just a kind of subscription DVR. One of the advantages of it, as I understand, is that you don't have to program the specific times your shows are on; it automatically searches for them and records them, and I think it also searches out similar shows and records them for you as well.

I did finally have to break down and buy a DVD player, since it's getting almost impossible to rent VHS films here anymore.

[lastscorpion.livejournal.com]

Whereabouts in the Bay Area?

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm going to be in San Francisco, so I was thinking there--but nothing is set in stone at the moment. Where are you?

[lastscorpion.livejournal.com]

Somewhat inland from there, but not all that far. Call it a couple hours' drive. I'll have to see what's going on towards the end of June.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Well, let me know. It's about a half-day trip for me, since I don't have a car, so I don't get to SF too often, but I'm probably going to come down again at the end of July for a play I want to see.