The 2011 Awesome Awards Official Playlist

As with last year, I did the music for Frea's excellent presentation of the Awesome Awards. And, like I did last year, I am posting a playlist for the entire list of tracks. This one's a bit more rock & roll than last year's, so hello all you headbangers.

Check it out after the break.

HTML is being mean to me, so we'll have to just go with links.

What the Frak is Wep Reading? The Drabble Edition

What the Frak is Wep Reading: The Drabble Edition

Sometimes, especially with the awesome, million-word-per-chapter Frea as our Empress, we here at the CIA (readers and contributors alike) forget that sometimes, less can be more.

Now while I am in no way saying that I want shorter chapters of Fates (seriously, I don't, I like them how they are), there are times that I appreciate the simple. The short and sweet. The passing moments. The brief encounters. And no, I'm not talking about every romantic relationship I've ever had, nor am I even writing about the all too fleeting moments of SWP on those very special Monday nights.

I'm talking about the lost art of the drabble. Fics that get in, get it done, and get out. After all, everyone needs something to do on their lunch breaks besides five minutes of eating and forty minutes of chain-smoking. So what would I suggest in something short and revealing? Read about it after the cut.

A Retro-Diary of Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger

So I've been teasing a retro-diary of one of the Chuck episodes on Twitter for the past few weeks. I like the idea of a retro-diary, because it's kind of a cheat. It's a way to talk about the episode as if you're viewing it for the first time, with the added benefit of knowing how it ends and having had the opportunity to collate your thoughts about it. You get the best of both worlds! Bill Simmons, one of my favorite sports writers, does this often for basketball games of personal importance, describing the vicious ups and downs that are associated with fandom. It translates nicely over to TV.

If you're not sure what a retro-diary is (Hi, Frea!) it'll be pretty easy to catch on once I start, but for clarification's sake, I'll explain. I watch the episode, and I write about it. I mark the time stamp (in this case, all timestamps will come from Hulu's stream of the show) to give you an idea of where I was in the episode at the time. It's very similar to my live tweeting, but I'm not restricted by 140 characters at a time, and-- as previously mentioned-- I have the added benefity of knowing what happens the whole time.

So, without further adieu, hit the break to join the fun!

mxpw vs. Frea - Chuck vs. Agent X

Chuck vs. Agent X
Season 4, Episode 22, original air-date May 2, 2011

Chuck and Sarah put aside spy work to have a weekend of debauchery, but Devon's plans for Chuck's big night don't go quite as expected. Meanwhile, Ellie's investigation into her father's computer leads to a life-changing discovery.

So...this is not the week of Agent X. In fact, it was over two weeks ago, and this review is over two weeks late. Wait a second! What the frak is up with that?

Only one thing we can say: badgers.

Take that however you will, and enjoy our review!  We even managed to talk about the episode...some.

Frea's schedule has been hellish lately; we appreciate your patience!

Giddy Up! Roundup Time, Ya'll!

I came across this blog, Big Glass Cases, written by an agent that works out of one of the big firms in New York, and I tooled around on the site for awhile, as I thought Ms. LaPolla had some great advice about writing and the industry (among them the need to take a red pen to the end of the seventh Harry Potter book; my preferred tool would be a chainsaw).

A post I really recommend reading is Band-Aids, as she talks a little about the querying process and a little about the writing process.  Some writers, editors, and agents are very stark about everything: you need to rewrite, you need to be better at everything, you need to do this and that and this and and this.  After awhile of reading those, you begin to feel like the scum of the writing world and HOW DARE YOU take a pen to a piece of paper for anything but your grocery list?  But Sarah LaPolla just has some friendly, helpful tips that don't threaten to overwhelm and instead are just what they need to be: good, useful tips.

Twitches and Errors

There was a bit of an error with Blogger this morning and I don't know if we'll ever get the replies on the "Post" thread back, or the poll that I put up, but...

The show's back for Season 5!  Awesome, right?

And in case we don't get the poll back, there were something like 200 votes, and half of those were for a Fates Sarah POV, so expect that to land whenever I write it.

:)

Happy Friday, everybody! 

Frea

Poll

So on Twitter, I made a really fun bet.  The upfront announcements are on Sunday, and I made the bet that Chuck won't return (and in the case that it does, same timeslot, same night).  So...

What should I have to do if I lose? There's a poll on the sidebar, up until Sunday, be sure to place your votes!

Frea

Silence

Given that I've got Everclear blasting, silence is clearly not the thing going on in my office today, but it seemed like a fun header, given that I've been very, very quiet on the blog lately. Lots of reasons for that, some of them good, some not so great, of course.  But I've got to cover a few things, I guess.

mxpw vs. Frea - Given that we haven't even done our review of Agent X, I can't help but imagine that our review of whatever the next episode is...well, chances are it's going to be a bit late.  I have two finals on Thursday, two final projects due tomorrow night, so...good news is that unlike my first go-round in college, I've actually started on those projects.  Also, I don't think you're missing much by not hearing what I have to say about Agent X.  Considering that if I lived my life by the rules of Bambi, the post would be all mxpw talking?  Yeah, really not missing much.

R&J - I wrote a page of it the other night.  If I get bored with any of my projects today, I'll maybe write more.

Fates - Had a breakthrough, it just came at a really bad time (aka I couldn't follow up on the lead, though I did stitch some scenes together and give myself a launchpoint for when I can return to it).

Coming Up on the Blog - mxpw and I are launching a big rewatch festival this summer.  We're going to hit up the first season of Fringe and the second season of Chuck.  And if you want to rewatch along with us and enjoy all of our crazy antics, the new blog design will have some great links for that.

Annnnnnnd finally:

Some people made some ebooks!  Yeah, that's right, I've got some treats for you today. I took my friend Monsieur Aardvark under my wing as my ebook apprentice, and he fantastically rose to the challenge by making ebooks of the great Nervert's Chuck vs. the Pacific Northwest and Revenge of the Bartowski.

And two days ago, I received an email from the fabulous ninjaVanish with ebooks for Chuck and Sarah vs. Themselves attached, to host on Castle Inanity!  All of those are up for grabs, as usual, on the ebooks page at the top there.

My schedule will hopefully clear up on May 23rd or so.  Fingers crossed that I go through a crazy Frea spurt of creativity and unleash the new blog design/five chapters of Fates/some R&J/more Violet/etc. when that happens.  Until then, see you when we do our review!

Frea

Double Agent Update

So lately, there have been several people on ye olde twitterverse that have lamented the death of DA. This is understandable, I suppose, since the last time it was updated was during some point in the Jurassic period. But it is not dead. Perhaps it's on life-support? I don't know. You can come up with your own analogy, I'm too tired to come up with one for you.

Anyway, the point of all this is to post a brief snippet about what you can expect when (not if!) DA comes back. Now, I am no Frea, so don't expect brilliance or a wealth of story material in one 500 word snippet (not that you are even getting that much), but here is a section of Chapter 27 for all of you to read*.

Oh, and yes, I said Chapter 27.