twelve angry characters

The 12 characters meme is making the rounds again, and it gives me something to fuss with between tasks, so....

1. Mal Reynolds (Firefly)
2. Marcus Cole (B5)
3. Dana Scully (XF)
4. Zoe Alleyne Washburne (Firefly)
5. Susan Ivanova (B5)
6. River Tam (Firefly)
7. Fox Mulder (XF)
8. Delenn (B5)
9. Inara Serra (Firefly)
10. Badger (Firefly)
11. Tony Foster ('Smoke and...' books)
12. Claire Hansen (Keeper books)

Okay... this whole "you can't copy/paste things from LJ" thing is really getting on my nerves. Maybe if I switch to a different layout... no. Okay, fine. We'll do this the hard way, then. *Growls*

( And the questions )

ephemera

The office is dead today, and you know what that means... I'm bored, so I'm pestering all of you. :P It also means I've been reading random articles online, and have gotten through the news sites and out into the scary land of MSN Lifestyle (ugh) and, even worse, iVillage. OMG so. frigging. bored. And depressed about my utter lack of dating life, because that's what I get for reading those damned lifestyle sites. Must find ways to meet people. Absolutely must. Otherwise will wither away into Bridget Jones style prose and old-cat-lady-hood much too early. *Headdesk* Still, though... it's remarkably hard to think of places to meet either women who wouldn't freak out if I tried to flirt with them or men who I wouldn't want to smack upside the head. I'm afraid of clubs and bars as meeting venues, largely because... it never seems to work, or I end up with guys who I want very badly to Leave Me Alone. I've heard coffee shops claimed as great places to meet people, but I think Seattleites are too locked into our own little social groups for much of that. And of course there's the added thought that going out to bars/coffee shops/etc = money, and my last credit card bill was... ahem. A bit more than usual. And that wasn't the one with the seaplane ticket. o_O

Moving on from that series of complaints...

So I open my notebook, figuring I can at least make some notes on stories I want to work on when I get home or something... and the first thing that hits me in the face is the 12+ hand-written pages I wrote over my little sailing-vacation... which have been dashed into tiny little pieces by later revelations in canon. The worst of it is, aside from one stupid-big-hurking plot device that I had to use, I really liked that fic. Alas.

Also, there's a big paddle-wheel boat (don't actually know what to call them...) passing through Seattle waters today - she was sighted up in Portage Bay earlier, and about half an hour ago we saw her pass through the channel here at Shilshole. Her name is Empress of the North - apparently she cruises Alaska in the summer, and comes down here for the fall months.