I hope you all have a happy New Years, whether you're doing something special to celebrate or hiding from 2010 (OMG we're going to be living in an Arthur C Clarke novel...again).

I saw Sherlock Holmes on Tuesday with iibnf, and loved it! ♥ ♥ So I'm now re-reading some Arthur Conan Doyle and ( minor movie spoilers )

But what amused me most is this line from the start of The Speckled Band: "Very sorry to knock you up, Watson", said he. Holmes/Watson mpreg, anyone?

What I really want to re-watch, but suspect it won't be as enjoyable now as when I was a kid, was the Sherlock Holmes comedy Without A Clue with Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. I just have a craving to see it again for some reason.

Today, I met a kitty.

That is all.

New goal: University of South Florida.

Deadline is 15 Feb. Do you think I can make it?

Locals - anyone want to see Sherlock Holmes this week? Maybe a morning session in the city with lunch afterwards?

That's odd, there's a 10:20am session shown for tomorrow (though might be a bit busy as its cheap(er) Tuesday), but not for Wednesday. Earliest that day is midday.

I've watched like 6 or 7 episodes of True Blood in the last day or so. Can't make up my mind if I like it or not, so I just keep watching it. We're not supposed to like Jason, right? At all? Cause I keep wishing he'd die.

It's the most perfect tv-watching holiday weather - cool (for December) and rainy. Great for curling up in bed or in front of the tv.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Mine's been pretty up and down, but mostly good. Randomly I've gone all maudlin now though - missing things and missing people, and, yeah. :/


But! That won't detract from the fact that SESA IS LIVE, and while I haven't had time to read anything aside but my own gift yet, I have to pimp it out. Please go read Expect the Unexpected, which is Howie/Nick with lots of PINING. Unf, pining. ♥ It caters to my tastes so well, thank you so much, santa! ♥

Have unwrapped the AwesomeCam 9000.

So far, even little pictures are coming out quite nicely. :)




Piglet says hello.

It is sleepy time now.

I AM FREE FROM THE CLAWS OF SESA AND IT FEELS AMAZING! AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING.

I mean, I love sesa! I do not love only sleeping two hours in a night however. It's completely my own fault though, so I can't even justify it. Now I just have to wait for STORIES SWEET EUREKA THE STORIES! ♥ ♥ ♥

I doubt I'll post anything before Christmas (actually, that's not true, I'll be gushing about the story I received tomorrow!), so I just wanna wish everyone the happiest of Christmas. I've been really very absent lately, which I'm sorry for, but I adore you all! If you look in that stocking behind you there's a present from me. Go look!

Actual subject line of email sent out by reception last week - Wands in the Board Room and Meeting Room no 2. Bet you all wish you worked at my firm.

Tried to give blood this afternoon. Unfortunately, the lady missed the nice big vein in my left arm (which was kinda excruciating) and they tried in my right arm, but didn't get a good flow going. I'll try again next month.

Crazy BSB fan has left another comment on one of my youtube videos. What I love most about these is they way they totally and utterly fail to make any sense whatsoever. It's practically performance art.

thewriterfanlvGod - Stop messing with me, losers, this will answer the song, I wrote 12 years ago that BSB paid Sandra for illegally.I love BSB, and you couldn't even lie to toad, much less about me. Btw, Stop harassing me, and lying to Backstreet Boys and Beyonce, Sandra Mcnanny and Brittany Calhoon, your all frauds and you lied to every business and even the President about me, I won't do them now Go BSB!.I legally left the contracts, stop enforcing them.

I love Harry Shum's Twitter. And his Twitpics. They are full of gems such as:





I don't know if I should feel as weird as I do for feeling so close to this cast. Like, they are very much interested in talking to fans, and they put up all kinds of pictures from the set. I don't think I've ever seen an entire television ensemble cast be so into sharing.

When's midnight PST? It's not in three hours, is it? D:

No, wait, we're ahead, right? OH GOD, I HATE TIMEZONES, PLEASE TELL ME THAT WE'RE AHEAD.

When they died, they left behind five children and a three-story mansion filled with surprises.

Their deaths were surprising enough in themselves.

Mid-afternoon rowboat ride in Mississippi. It wasn't far enough away to be anything more than a day trip, but they never made it home. Their three sons, who still lived in their hometown, convened on the house that day for supper, but found no one inside. A wait (worth it for my great-grandmother's biscuits, I hear) left them alone for several hours. By then, it was time to call the police.

Police later searched the lake for bodies. They found nothing except the rowboat floating alone, one paddle some 500 feet away, drying in the stifling Southern heat. I like to imagine that the humidity wasn't nearly as bad then as it is now.

A. Advance Directives – a way to satisfy the requirement of consent when the principal can no longer physically consent. Three types:
1. instructional directives – living wills; specify either generally or by way of hypothetical examples (Medical Directive) how one wants to be treated in end-of-life situations or in the event of incompetence
a. DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) – common form of an advance directive
2. proxy directives – health care proxies and durable power of attorney; designate an agent to make health care decisions for the patient. Agent’s power does not expire with the principal’s incompetency.
a. “durable” power of attorney – survives a principal’s incapacity
3. hybrid directives – directs treatment preferences and designates an agent to make substituted decisions

There was no will. People expected one or the other to go, but not both. Not like this.

A. Probate and Nonprobate Property
1. probate property: property that passes under the decedent’s will or by intestacy
2. nonprobate property: property passing under an instrument other than a will. Distribution of nonprobate assets does not involve a court proceeding. Nonprobate property:
a. joint tenancy property (real and personal)
i. bank accounts, brokerage and mutual fund accounts, and real estate often held in joint tenancy
b. life insurance
c. contracts with payable-on-death provisions: pension plans, tax-deferred investment plans (IRA’s, etc..), stock custodian accounts
d. interests in trust
3. You can bypass probate with a will and go to probate without one.
B. Administration of Probate Estates
1. Purposes of probate:
a. provide evidence of title transfer to the decedent’s heirs or devisees
b. protect creditors
c. distribute estate
d. promote finality
2. Three common ways of avoiding probate:
a. taking title in joint tenancy
b. creating a trust during life
c. designating a payable-on-death beneficiary in a life insurance contract or other contract

My grandfather never touched his parents' things after their deaths. His siblings never did, either. Not that they didn't want to, but they never really had the chance. Before the legal document was even examined, one brother died in a car accident, a sister had a heart attack, another brother was murdered in his home, and the last sister went to the asylum.

He was the only one left, and he left everything as it was.

The house, easily the largest in the town, quickly went into disrepair.

And yet, he wouldn't touch it. Even though he was living in a house on the river less than a mile away. After he married my grandmother, she often made attempts to claim some of the house's content, like an incredibly old gramophone and ancient porcelain pitchers, but after that she couldn't convince him to do any more.

He did one thing, and that was to farm in the garden right outside the door.

When I visited, I'd never seen a house like it before. I was used to Disney World, stucco, and brick. This wooden thing was completely foreign to me. I'd seen things like it before, but only around Halloween.

"There's a haunted house here, Mom?" I asked.

"That's where Mamaw and Papaw Higgins lived," she told me. I was confused, both because I called my grandparents Mamaw and Papaw, and because I couldn't believe that old house was part of the past I didn't know. My cousins and I played in the gardens, hiding amongst the stalks of corn, always in its great shadow.

The house was a sort of blight on the incredibly rural town. Quaint houses in a row, little gas station that sold everything from hot dogs to clothing, post office...and then, that. That house, everyone called it. Dry, brown wood, with all the paint having fallen off long ago. The barn next door was overtaken by kudzu and falling to pieces, and vines covered the entire side, weaving in and out of the exposed wooden boards. You could practically see through the hulking beast in places.

I never got to go inside, even though we all desperately wanted to see what antique treasures we could find. If I could, I would, but like everyone suspected that my great-grandparents' death was the result of outside causes, so was the death of their house.

Arson brought it to the ground two years ago. The town's one-person police force never found out who it was, much like no one ever knew who killed them in the first place. I can't help but think I missed out on two great things, even if one of them was reviled by almost everyone else.

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This entry was written for therealljidol. Vote for me if you liked it, and I will likely include you in my will. Full disclosure: This story is actually a mixing of two different ones, but both are true, and both involve my family. Feel free to ask if you want to know. Outline sections from my husband's notes on Decedent's Estates. He just took that exam, and I thought it relevant.

Goodnight, sweet Luanne.

I saw Avatar (in 3D) last night with my sister and N, and was blown away. It is so gorgeous and so well-made, it is an amazing piece of visual art.

I can't say that I loved the film as a whole. Good cast (sidenote: I totally thought Sam Worthington looked like Misha Collins at times), but as for the plot...you've seen/read it many times before, it's problematic, and terribly unsubtle (the anvils, they hurt!). I still cared about the characters though.

But I'd still totally recommend that people see it, on the big screen. Despite the flaws, I kind of want to see it again, just to revel in the beauty.

And I saw the trailer for Sherlock Holmes for the first time. It made me lol, I must see it. I'll just keep telling myself that its a Bizarro 'verse version of Holmes or something :)

I've tried to find this for myself, but when I looked for info, I kept finding descriptions of the episode(s?), which I did not want.

Can anyone tell me when the Dr Who Christmas special is airing this year? It's two episodes, right?