Why do these stories always go plotty, with elaborate settings and magic systems and historical doodahs and original characters and plot arcs and all that? WHY?

And why can I not write anything at all? I just want to sleep for a million years. Open files list:

"Liegeman", penultimate chapter.
Untitled short Seven/Ace-ish thing on metagames.
Iceland, aka Seven Nights in the Northern Lights.
Giles mpreg (very rough outline).
GBX Big Sky cabin post-Chosen apocalyptics.
Giles/Ethan/Buffy in Hell.
Giles/Xander and a barrow wight.
Helios Hyperion.
A file of abandoned kink meme responses.

Progress: NIL.

Addendum: If you haven't watched James May's Toy Stories at all yet, you should probably check out the most recent one, which is all about slot car racing. (Which the Brits apparently give the name of their most popular brand, Scalextric.) He and an entire neighborhood recreate a classic and long-closed racing circuit... literally. Along the entire course. I've enjoyed the entire series so far, but this one was especially good.

James May built (or rather, caused to be built) a house made of Lego. Here are lots of photographs. Metafilter has more links and a discussion of Lego. And I really want to watch the BBC series this was done for.

ObGrammaticalObservation: As a kid and avid fan of Lego, I said "Legos" to mean "pile of bricks or other Lego-made pieces". Lego lawyers (you enjoying that visual as much as I am?) want you to say "Lego bricks" instead because it is a trademark. I love that the Mefi discussion went there.

Is there anything more satisfying than the sight of Jeremy Clarkson suffering? (I feel a gen crossover coming on, full of Giles and James May rolling their eyes at him simultaneously, plus a strange Buffy-Stig alliance.)

PS: So, I dunno, is it new Buffyverse kink meme time?

Screwed up time of gym appointment with the trainer today. Bleah. Am un-worked-out and therefore restless. Well, okay, I can reschedule.

Rescheduled with him for tomorrow morning... right smack dab in conflict with breakfast with friends. Gah. Well, okay, I'll be late to that.

I am, at this point, congratulating myself for having written about 500 words today. Which is pathetic, but since it's all I've managed I'm attempting to find the positive and be all rah-rah. The procrastination techniques are getting more and more desperate. Soon I might find myself answering my comment backlog. Noes! Well, okay, I'll just keep slogging.

What chaos can I wreak next?

Stephen Fry was on Top Gear last night, as the star in the reasonably-priced car. I am eager to watch this one. Mr Pedia is a huge fan of TG (though I suspect he'd get into a fistfight with Clarkson approximately 5 minutes after meeting him in real life) and has insatiable appetite for it. To the point where our mutual first-time watch of BSG has been interrupted in the middle of season 1. He'd always rather watch Top Gear instead.

I will confess that Top Gear is much, much funnier than BSG. Which is probably why I'll enjoy BSG then never go fannish about it: I need the snark.

ETA: Only James was on the right track for girl-attracting mods. Sheesh.

I had my first climbing class tonight and wow. Just wow. I've never done it before tonight, and I have to say, it's one of the most fun things I've ever done. Right up there with riding a motorcycle around a track. Only that's actually dangerous, and this merely felt dangerous. It's a workout in many ways: mentally engaging, physically interesting, and different from anything else I've done before. I was initially worried that my fear of heights would make this too scary to do, but instead the fear was just spice to the physical challenge.

Stokage. I have a membership in the climbing gym for the month the class will run, so I'll be hopping in tomorrow or sometime soon to take my belaying test and clamber around a wall some more.

Hooray for a year of fitness work that makes this fun possible!

Top Gear: The Daily Mail interviews James May. I have friends who are like that. Heh.

Weekend: Work, Warcraft, watching TV with sahiya and Mr P. Top Gear! We showed S the Vietnam special, which is one of the very best Top Gears ever. Jeremy wailing that he is the most miserable person alive is a wonderful thing. Then more work, more WOW, and a little gardening, which I couldn't find a W word for.

Best of all, though, last night I was visited by a burst of writing in Blackmail. I think I might post the next three sections soon. They'll reach completion together with another evening or two like last night. Um, that was not a euphemism. Not intentionally anyway.

Send writing-inspiring virtual tea and cookies. Well, since I am declining cookies at the moment, send virtual soy lattes with extra shots of espresso.

I forgot to mention one of the weekend WINs that made me grin particularly hard: I saw not one but two Bugatti Veyrons in a car dealer showroom. One was red, the other black; both were used. But I'm guessing that even a used Veyron is not exactly cheap, yeah? Given the low production numbers, I'd expect them to hold value. (I declined to ask about price, though the dealer did ask Mr P if he were interested. Mr P has that look about him. Ha.) I did wonder about the stories behind the cars. Who bought them? How many miles did they drive before they decided that the top speed was something they'd never see? What are they driving now instead? Is it anti-climax?

I think James May was the perfect driver to take it up to its top speed. That review wanted the numbers and the geeky appreciation of amazing engineering that May brought to it.

Things I have watched in the last few days:

Being Human, first episode. Good. Tense television. Fascinating characters. Will watch more avidly.
Dollhouse, second episode. Can't get excited. Dushku played the usual Dushku character again, so her acting skills were not over-challenged as they were in the first episode. Tall ex-cop is her Watcher figure. Dialog is still lame, especially when compared with Being Human.
Top Gear, series 1 episode 1. They were still working out the formula, but it was the limp editing that harmed it most. Clarkson and Hammond were recognizably themselves. The dial was set to 6, however, not 11.
Top Gear, series 2 episode 1, aka the first with James May. Clarkson needs two personalities offsetting him, two people arguing with him, and May's a good foil. The formula is present and the editing is better. This is where modern Top Gear truly begins, I think.

Writing continues apace. I'm definitely in spit out the first draft mode, not worrying too much about the stuff I know is wrong and will have to be changed. Keep telling yourself that, A. Stay on target. Stay on target! It's pure crack, this story, even with the serious parts-- the emotional payoff is something that would only make sense to fanfiction readers. I suppose that therefore my job is to make that statement untrue by telling a persuasive story.

Need to figure out Xander. He's the emotional driver of the story. As always, for me.

Throughout the week I keep a file open in BBEdit with a draft of whatever my next entry here will be. I write something almost every day for it. Most of the time I delete whatever it was without posting, on the grounds that it's too boring. Today, I don't delete it! Today you suffer! And then thank me for deleting it all normally.

I almost always think out loud about the week's workouts. ( Fitness wittering behind the cut... )

I cannot for the life of me remember why I typed this up, but I did. I think it had something to do with somebody on ffrants whinging that it's overly-restrictive to define a drabble as 100 words exactly. But that's the point, dude. ( Word counts... )

Am contemplating cutting back the frequency of giles_watchers posts to Sunday / Wednesday / Friday. The fandom is slowing down, friends. Pardon me while I weep quietly. I'll be here to turn out the lights.

You can find all the Top Gear soundtrack choices identified in this forum. It's interesting to me how electronic dance & ambient music has taken over TV and advertising soundtracks, even in the US where the tattered remains of radio is still playing classic rock 24/7.

Have been seeing scenes from both Reconnection and That Big-Bang Highgate Cemetery story in my head during quiet moments. I think I'm ready to write again.

Random: Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" (sung to a possibly recognizable tune), in Dutch, with Dutch stereotypical mad German scientists. (Why are all mad scientists German?)