and this is why getting up in the morning can be worth it

Okay, so after the events of San Antonio, which I really cannot go into or I'll start my rant on the difference between a bad mood and freaking psychiatric condition....

Read this and think about how weird and unexpected and amazing the world is.

Same blue dye in M&Ms linked to reducing spine injury, via CNN

Also, in a far less important but cute point of order--oh my God, look at that mouse!

2009 DVD Commentary Challenge

So it's almost August, and general_jinjur and I are prepping (and by that, I mean, I am just re-reading the rules and she's off being innovative) for the Fourth Annual DVD Commentary Challenge.

Short version

The challenge runs from August 1st to October 1st, in which readers have the opportunity to write a DVD commentary on another writer's story. There will be two posts, author permission and commmentator sign-ups, both of which will go up on Saturday, along with the rules and regulations (of which there are few; I am a fan of minimizing).

All fandoms, FPF and RPF are welcome and wanted. The challenge is open to all fandoms. There are no limits to the number of stories you may write commentaries for. dvd_commentary is where commentaries will be posted; feel free to browse and see what this is all about. An index was created here by general_jinjur, along with links to significant posts.

We've had kind of epic responses the last three years, so we're both hoping this year will continue to top out.

ETA: Corrected the below. I swear I had a coherent thought here and then it went--wherever it was. Sorry, general_jinjur. I--really don't know what was going on with that one.

Author Permission

We require author permission for DVD Commentaries of their stories. If an author wants to be commentaried, please add your name to the author sign-up page. There will be a post for author sign-up, along with some small changes we're making to future procedures for this.

Commentator Sign-Up

See above--if you want to do a fic and the author hasn't given blanket permission, please contact the author.

General

More information will be posted on Saturday, August 1st. Feel free to browse the index, see waht people have done and are doing, and get an idea if this is something you want to do. I will say, these are incredible fun to read when completed, almost as much fun as writing them. The links to 2008's rules are in the index for reference.

So. Saturday August 1st, we'll get this thing going. If you have any questions, you can ask here or wait for Saturday for the complete announcement and rules.

Most importantly, have fun! This is pretty much my favorite challenge of the year. New to me fic, commentaries, and HTML. You really cannot beat that combination.