Maius Intra Qua Extra

We have a camera mounted on the wall above the front door so that we get alerts on our phones when a package is delivered and when someone knocks on the door. Well, to be honest, it's an alert on my husband's phone, because frankly, I don't care. If there's a package coming, I already know about it and are probably checking the Amazon listing every fifteen minutes to see if it's been delivered yet. If there's a knock on the door, we won't answer it because we know it's a solicitor; we never have anyone come over, and if we did, we'd know about it beforehand, so any unexpected knock is nothing we want to interact with. However, my husband likes to know about anything going on out there. I'm quite happy to not get extra useless notifications.

But I digress.

Interestingly, no one ever notices the camera. It's up in the corner above the door, quite above anyone's head but not hidden in any way, and when it detects motion and it starts recording, a blue light on its face turns on. I guess people haven't quite realized that door cameras are now very common, so they don't look for them. Yet.

Now that it's spring, though, my husband has been getting tons of notifications of motion detection from that camera. We get year-round visits from the neighborhood cats (they are adorable; we have tons of clips of cats wandering up, scratching on the welcome mat, and often curling up and going to sleep on it) and the occasional fly-by by a bird. We got a bat for the first time a few nights ago, and we once saw a waddling blob that we could only guess was a nutria. But, with spring, the vast majority of interruptions are bees.

It's not a constant thing, mind you. We were getting probably five to ten notifications a day, usually clumped together in a fifteen-minute period. Thing is, my husband is deathly afraid of bees. Well, mostly deathly afraid of wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets, but he'll still also panic at bees. So, of course, he wanted to get rid of them.

He thought that the appearance of the bees meant that there was a hive behind the camera or in the hole above it where the two walls meet the awning. I didn't think so, because if there was a hive, we'd be getting constant motion detections, not just a few. But he wanted to kill it, so we sprayed poison into the hole a couple of times, and of course, nothing really changed.

Then he actually did some research and discovered that to detect motion, the camera emits IR, which bees can see and think is a flower. Thus, they approach the camera as bees do, flying in and out trying to figure out what's going on and triggering the camera repeatedly. The best thing to do in this case is to get bee repellent.

So, we ordered a bottle of bee repellent from Amazon. It's non-toxic, a mix of essences from various plants that has a smell that bees don't like. Luckily, it actually smells rather nice. The instructions were what you'd expect: saturate the area well with the spray the first time, then follow it up every couple days to keep the aroma steady. That's what we did, and it worked nicely, no bee notifications for the next two days.

Then, as it happens with Amazon sellers, I received an email from the retailer with instructions on how to use the repellent and a note to please be sure to contact them if I had any questions. Okay, that's odd, as the bottle already has instructions on it, but that's nice customer service at least. Then I read the email's instructions, which started like this:

On the first day, be sure to spray the whole area liberally to show the bees you mean business.

And that's now my husband's mantra. He has stepped outside with the bottle and yelled, "I mean business!" as he sprayed. He has gotten up from his desk and said to me, "I am going to show them I mean business," before going downstairs to spray. He has casually commented to me in the middle of conversations, "You know, I mean business."

So, I guess, if you're a bee, now you know to stay away from our front door, because my husband means business.

Okay, we finally got a chance to rewatch Good Omens 3 and I've decided that I really like it.

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Title: "Masters and Ceremonies"
Fandom(s): Original fiction
Characters: Mike, Chris, Amanda, Don, and Rick -- members of a software development team
Rating: G
Genre: General
Word Count: 464

Summary: A software development team's reaction to new Agile processes and ceremonies

Read it on AO3.

Author's Notes: fandomweekly's current prompt is "ceremony" and that word is only going to make me think of ceremonies in Agile methodology, because it's always struck me as odd that we use that word for a non-ritualistic process. In fact, many would argue that the whole point of Agile is to not get stuck in a codified, calcified way of thinking.

This was a fun little write and it made my husband laugh out loud (as we both have been on both sides of this, as both ICs and scrum masters). And that alone made it worth it.

Also, apparently I have invented the "software development" and "Agile methodology" tags on AO3.

Easter egg: All the characters are named after the main actors in Stargate SG-1.

My husband is currently doing a run in "Kingdom of Loathing" (a totally weird webgame that he's been playing for over two decades now; I played it as well and loved it, but didn't care to invest the time that it needs to be played well and stopped playing it after about four years) and he sent me an item description over Slack, with this exchange:

Him: Gabagool is not the most delicious member of the salumi-like meat family, but it is the most fun to say.
Me: That is so true. Sounds like a Doctor Who monster.

And then I thought for a moment about why it sounded like a DW monster, and I realized I was thinking about the Interstellar Song Contest's performer Dugga Doo. So, of course, I pulled up the video on YouTube.

And THEN I remembered Gallifrey One. You see, at the end of every Gally, the penultimate event is "The Year in Review", which is an hour-long video montage of things that happened during the past year -- usually clips of news events and interviews and such with the actors that played the Doctor or the companions.

This year, however, started with the entire Dugga Doo video, which everyone loved and we were all singing along. And then the video said:

"And now! One full hour of Dugga Doo!"

Best "Year in Review" ever!!

(No, it really wasn't a full hour of Dugga Doo. But it was hilarious.)

Mother's Day is coming up, so my husband and I were talking this morning about ordering something to send to his mother, and he told me something that I still can't get over.

Mom-in-law loves decorative items. I'd say tchotchkes, but it's more than just cheap little things. Her house is filled with all kinds of things, from crystal vases to Faberge eggs (not real ones, just enameled eggs), a collection of ceramic houses from Europe, glass perfume bottles, and much more. She also loves cats, so her TV room is decorated entirely with cat figurines, prints, cross-stitches, throw pillows, etc.

Note, all of this stuff was store-bought or received as gifts. MIL is not a creative type, preferring to spend her time reading, gardening, and watching TV. Most of the handmade items, like the cross-stitch cats and the framed drawings and paintings, came from her sister (who is a huge creative -- her Christmas cards are always handmade and beautiful) or her aunt.

Most of the gifts we send her are either decorative items or jewelry (she loves her jewelry), but last October, when we got home from visiting her, I suggested that I make a sparkly diamond art cat for her to put up in her TV room and send it to her for Christmas, in addition to the usual gift. My husband thought it was a great idea, so I ordered the kit (this one in specific) and spent a few hours (three or four sessions of one to two hours apiece) to make it. I sent it off, and then my husband ordered an enamel egg off Amazon for her real gift.

So today, as we were talking about what to get for Mother's Day, my husband told me that MIL, when she'd called to thank us for it, had said that the diamond art cat was pretty but she was upset that I had made it for her instead of sending her the kit for her to put together herself. Then, she received the egg a couple of days later and was happy with that.

And I'm still just going "What???" about it. Frankly, I'm insulted. She actually values the kit itself more than she appreciates the time and effort I put into making something for her.

And who looks at something that someone's made for them and thinks, "They shouldn't have done that. They should have let me do it." It reminded me of a beaded box that her sister made and sent us for Christmas about ten years ago. It was gorgeous, but I didn't think, "I could do that myself -- she should have just sent us the beads and instructions." What I actually did was put the box in the display case and then go buy a book on beaded boxes to learn how to do it myself.

Anyway, my husband has decided to send her a diamond art kit for Mother's Day. And you know, I bet she will never put it together. As I said, she's not a creative type, and the only creative endeavor we've ever seen her attempt -- adult coloring books -- she abandoned after an hour and sent the book and the pencils to me.

Urgh, I'm more upset about this than I really should be. I should go off and practice for the DWFO. But I'll tell you what I won't be doing, ever: making another thing for my MIL.

Title: "Gunge"
Fandom(s): Doctor Who
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones
Rating: G
Genre: General
Word Count: 296

Summary: The Doctor and Martha work to prevent a calamity of epic proportions ... widespread bio-disaster ... All right, all right, it's just going to be really gross, okay?

Read it on AO3.

Author's Notes: So here's the deal. I've been working on a story, and it's 1730 words of pure dross so far. Then I was looking back at another story of mine and thought, "I should write *this* idea instead," but you know, that's going to take two weeks.

Then I remembered I'd written this earlier this month, as just a practice adaptation of another fic I saw, and I thought, "Hey, I can clean that up in ten minutes and get it posted!"

So yeah, this is just crap that I'm posting to not miss a month. Just keep scrolling down your feed and forget this ever happened.

Title: "Cyberman"
Fandom(s): Doctor Who
Characters: Amy Pond, Rory Wiliams
Rating: T
Genre: General
Word Count: 406

Summary: In a graveyard in London, Missy is presenting the Doctor with the gift of an army. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond....

Read it on AO3.

Author's Notes: I started this one just after "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven" aired but never finished it because I thought, no one wants to think about this. But yesterday, romanajo123 showed me Big Finish's announcement of a Torchwood audio with Cyber-Ianto on the cover. Now, who knows what BF actually did (it's probably just Ianto having to dress up as a Cyberman; they've done this kind of thing before), but it got me thinking about how Ianto actually was cyberized and reminded me of this story. Modern Shivver has no qualms about offending people with her stories, so I finished it up and here it is!

But think about it, this is entirely canon: the Cyber-pollen hit every cemetery in the world, so every beloved character who died before this episode was cyberized: not just the Brigadier but Amy, Rory, Sarah Jane, Ianto, to name a few. So, here's the story of two of them.

And just saying, I love it when I get to put "Major Character Death" on a fic. Plus, this also has the F/M relationship tag. 400 words and it hits both ends of the spectrum.

I'm usually in a good mood -- I'm definitely an optimist -- but today, I'm just really happy.

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Set between Firefly and Serenity, because Alan Tudyk!

Apparently they have a script and animators, and the only thing they don't have is where it's going to be released. But, as Nathan Fillion says, "It's happening."

As a coincidental follow-up to my post about a new Stargate show being in the works, here I am posting about something new from the Firefly universe!

Apparently, Nathan Fillion has been releasing every few days short videos of him approaching various actors from the show and saying, "It's happening!" That's it. So far, the videos have shown Sean Maher, Gina Torres, Morena Baccarin, and Summer Glau.

The internet is going wild with speculation. It's not expected that they're starting a new live-action series, since Nathan Fillion already has a current series running (The Rookie). Also, people don't think that an extension of the series would work well with the actors being so much older, not because of looks but because of story reasons, such as why this particular group of people, in a not-exactly-peaceful system with dozens of worlds to settle on, would still all be alive and traveling together twenty-five years later.

On the other hand, the videos haven't included Alan Tudyk yet, so maybe this will be a continuation of the 'Verse after the events of Serenity! (Yeah, yeah, I know, too soon.)

Top suggestions on what this might be is an animated series with the original voices, and a series of Big Finish audios, and yes, Big Finish was specifically named, which warms this audio fan's heart.

But at this point, it's wait and see. I am not sure I'm as excited this time as I was for the Stargate news, because Firefly was so incredibly good and I feel like any addition to the 'Verse could not possibly live up to the original. But I'm still happy to see that something is happening after all these years.