Res ipsa loquitur

Who out there has had experience with those water filters that you attach to your faucet? Does the water actually taste as good as bottled? I'd love to stop essentially paying good money to bring a bunch of plastic into my house and then have to carry it out again, but water from a Brita filter pitcher just does not taste good enough to me, so if water from a faucet filter doesn't taste any better than that, I guess I'm going to have to continue to be evil.

(I'm particularly poking cereta, way2busymom, and others who live in my neck of the woods and know what the water here tastes like when unadorned.)

To make up for this incredibly boring post, let me point you at an incredibly interesting post, from the food-meta blog Raspberry Debacle, which I love: A Sketch Towards a Taxonomy of Meta-Desserts.

Is it bad that my virtual birthday presents were way more exciting than my three-dimensional ones?

I had a nice quiet birthday. Planned cookout party had to be postponed a couple of weeks, so there was no cake, but the spouse took us all out for ice cream. The kidlet gave me a homemade card with a very surprised-looking face on it. The spouse gave me a box of chocolates. My parents gave me money and a nonstick sautee pan. Brother and in-laws forgot altogether, which means an extended celebration whenever they remember.

Oh, but here -- here I got so many stories! I'm listing them in the order in which I discovered them. I'd give the first one about an R and the last one maybe a PG; the rest are seriously smutty. If you like the stories, tell me if you want to, but tell the writer, for sure!

From khristaz, Benton Fraser and the Order of the Secret Goblet of the Philosopher’s Half-Blood Prisoner, some Fraser/Kowalski HP crossover craziness, with a view of Turnbull that would explain a great deal.

From vulgarweed, omg one of the hottest things I've ever read: Détente, Aziraphale and Crowley and a very big bathtub, and if you've ever wondered what I mean when I say, "Friendly dirty talk," this story is an extended demonstration. (It's a sequel to an earlier story, Compromising Positions, which is also a direct hit on my kink centers.

From panisdead, Showboat, SGA schmorn, short, sweet, and hot hot! John and Rodney.

From _inbetween_, It Takes Two, a hot little threesome with John and Rodney and a woman who knows what she wants.

From nestra, Cadence, a beautiful [pardon the pun] coda to her SGA music AU, Counterpoint. It has the stuff I love in established relationships -- the combination of sweet familiarity and a new barrier coming down. John and Rodney.

From kormantic, a sweet hot SGA snippet with kissing and amateurish smoking. John and Rodney. Bonus SGA-related dream.

[edited to add one more!}

From lamardeuse, Contact Points, bittersweet SGA established-relationship love and longing. John and Rodney.

Thanks to everyone for your good wishes. I'm 42 this year, so I'm the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.

"Where's the originality in intolerance these days? That's the real problem with bigoted quizzes, no creativity, no wit, no flair, no SNARK. Let's face it, homophobic websites need gay writers."

This is so cool! Alina, a.k.a. shored, is doing a graphic novel adaptation of my Harry Potter story, The Familiar. It's a work in progress, but she's already got eight pages up, and is updating every week. (Except that she went on vacation before I got around to updating, which is my fault and not hers.)

The story was NC-17, so I imagine the graphic version will get there eventually, too, but so far it's safe for all.

Check out all her art while you're at it!

[edited to add] When you get to page 8, be sure to click the Next button (which will attempt to take you to a page that isn't there) because her error message is a classic.

littera_abactor has written an absolutely hilarious Aliens Made Them Do Something Other Than The Usual Slash Cliches story here. Stargate, with the best butchering of the English language I have ever read.

Also, if you haven't read all the comments on the Aliens Made Them Do It post, don't miss them, because there are fabulous comment stories by makesmewannadie, _aerye_, brighidestone, marinarusalka, valarltd, pandarus, and me. It's like a mini-fest!

Well, I had one of those days where the warm-up exercise took all day long. But at least I wrote something.

Fair -- for nestra, who asked for Harry/Ron/Hermione, "Langour."

Also, I've finally done a site update to display the lovely gifts people have given me.

lilbakht has drawn me a lovely image of Draco talking to the Snape statue from Transfigurations.

And -- I've never, ever seen anything like this -- Ian McDuff has made a movie score for Transfigurations! To listen to it (and look at the score), you'll need to download the Sibelius Scorch plug-in; instructions are on the page linked. If you like it, please e-mail him and let him know!

pearl_o asked for Due South threesomes, so I gave her ... well, a twosome, actually, but it approaches the state of threesomeness:

Transition
Fraser/Kowalski -- R -- 4K

In return, I asked her for an Asylum snippet, and she came through magnificently.

Also, I've very belatedly put up three snippets that I did for ds_flashfiction last year:

Getting the Message (G)
Potluck (G)
Explanatory Notes (NC-17)

And in closing, may I just say that I really, really hate haiku.

One day when I had a sinus headache and my refrigerator had been broken for a week, I was whining to darthfox on AIM.

She said, "Would some nice smut cheer you up?" Then she wrote a Snape/Bill story and popped it to me, paragraph by paragraph, as written. (Which is quite a feat; she's braver than I am.)

The beta-edited version is now online. It's sweet and sexy and a tiny bit sad. Go read it. It's here.

The kidlet (4) has an inexplicable fondness for highly formal, old-fashioned stories. One of her favorites is "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" by Frank Stockton, in a little book illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

No, it's not a slash story, but it has a feel to it that I see in some of the better HP slash stories. It is, in its own understated way, a romance, I think. And I can't help comparing the griffin to Snape.

"Do you know," said the monster, when he had finished, "that I have had, and still have, a great liking for you?"

"I am very glad to hear it," said the Minor Canon, with his usual politeness.

"I am not at all sure that you would be," said the Griffin, "if you thoroughly understood the state of the case."

The Griffin and the Minor Canon.