Lovely Facilitator

I’ve been talking about the wonders of technology, and specifically what it can do for us. This invention has me thinking all sorts of possibilities for keeping my Richard Armitage obsession well fed but not in plain sight:



Facial Recognition Billboard Only Lets Women See The Full Ad

By Yi Chen on February 21, 2012

A new kind of outdoor advertisement is being trialled on Oxford Street in London’s West End. The interactive advertisement uses a high-definition camera to scan pedestrians and identify their gender before showing a specific ad. The built-in system has a 90 per cent accuracy rate in analyzing a person’s facial features and determining if they’re a male or female.

Read the rest here

I need one of these devices in several rooms of my home, and when I walk near, I see something like this:

But it would have to be sophisticated enough that when SO walks near, he would see this:

which would ensure he asks no questions about the awkward looking contraptions spread throughout the house.

And maybe there’s a workaround for Servetus’ difficulty:

https://twitter.com/#!/ServetusRA/status/174607695729532928

The sensing unit mounted on the lectern with the display on the back wall behind the students? And perhaps with rotating images of Richard Armitage so she would not become dazed by her ogling. But of course if the students happen to look, they would see this:

The only downside I foresee is the students becoming confused by her spontaneous diagramming of Luther’s pants?

RA screencap courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.Com. Other images in the public domain.

Can’t Get Off of This

I have a serious (no, it’s a semi-serious, oh heck, it’s a snark) piece about Lucas North. But I’m saving it for later after I’ve gorged my imagination on Richard Armitage and food. I’m also wondering if all of you have a favorite food you like to eat while watching him — animated or stills. Or perhaps you have a food for him animated and one for him in stills. Bring it on, and yeah, I’m going to tell you mine. :D

Actually, I have a food for each of his characters.

Harry — blackberry cobbler, which is sweet with a zing, and topped with some ice cream.

Monet — some sort of white wine, and does it matter what I eat with it?

Guy — a big chunk of devil’s food cake with lots of hot fudge slathered on top or a steak.

Lucas — blackened red snapper. Fish and chips don’t quite fit him.

John Standring — cheese (any kind) before the transformation and some pudding after.

John Porter — Masgouf and falafel on the side, which I can pop in my mouth as I watch all the episodes in one sitting.

John Thornton — beef stew and later some sort of cream pie (I’m not particular) at the finale.

Ricky — definitely fish and chips, and the greasier the better.

Alex — what else but orangesicles.

John Mulligan — dry toast with nothing on it. Maybe a little butter. And some black coffee.

Heinz — Not sure about this one. No German foods seem to really fit him. I’m at a loss. I did eat nachos and popcorn on my first viewing. Perhaps some German chocolate cake (it’s my favorite cake), or is that too lame?

Yes, I’ve left out a few. Have to think about them some more, but for now I’m thinking about the future:

Thorin — carne asada tacos al carbon. Oh yeah! And something later that’s topped with a chocolate mole. Or I could eat a 1/2 pound cheeseburger in honor of Peter Jackson.

edit: I meant to list one more! Paul — pistachio nuts ’cause they’re salty and a little sweet, and I can’t stop eating them even when I know I should.

Graphic courtesy of Teena via RichardArmitageNet.com

Widows on the Web

One of the ways I’ve connected to other Richard Armitage fans is through their fan fiction, and when I stumbled onto the GuyxMarian community at Livejournal in late 2008, a new addiction was born. :D I found a treasure trove of stories to keep me well occupied with the continuing saga of Guy and Marian, and the first Gisborne fiction I read was by Spikesbint (some of you may know her as Angelfish69 or the Admin of Armitage Daily or simply Angela). Little did I know how high she would set the bar with “Prisoners of Circumstance.” It is a tightly written story that resolves GxM in a way that left such a warm feeling when I first read it. Still feeling it after three plus years. LOL! But it was a story that became even more satisfying because it’s complete. Thank you, Angela.

Another one I read early on was “Fallout”*. Bookishy, the author, has done a great job capturing the Guy and Marian characters and potentially making them something else, and I would love to see how she develops them further, but the piece remains incomplete. It has not been updated since 2009. Maybe her imagination got distracted by something. I do give her credit for that possibly being the case. But dammit! I want the ending of that story, and I hope she’ll come back and take mercy on all of us and finish it. I’ve been waiting to say that for almost three years! :D

I wish “Fallout” were the only story left dangling or at least one of just a few fan fictions that remain unfinished, but there are many stories waiting for an ending. That frustrates me, and I’m not alone. A couple of years ago a friend of mine, who is also a fan fiction writer, posted her frustration about it on IMDb. I told her when I was starting this blog that I was going to save what she wrote and post it at some point. She was fine with that, and I’m not only posting it, but making it a permanent page on my blog. Not because I have an ax to grind with fan fiction authors. Not at all. I’ve loved witnessing people trying their hands at writing and have marveled at the imaginations and abilities of many of you. In fact, your efforts were part of the impetus for this blog. Which brings me to the real point of this piece.

I do not want my Diary of an RA Fan to be a widow on the web — something that starts but eventually goes nowhere. At one point in the life of this blog, I was thinking about scrapping my diary entries as they are not really conducive to publication and have to be heavily edited. I’ve pondered for a long time about finishing, and several of you have counseled me about that and several of you have sent me notes asking me for more entries. I thank all of you for your input. I started and I’m going to finish! But I need the fan fiction page to keep me focused.

As to fan fiction, I plan to say a lot more about it this year. In the meantime, some words of wisdom from broughps.

Graphic by Angela.

Vidders to Watch

Richard Armitage is now a channel on YouTube and boasting a few thousand videos. I was scanning the ones at the top, and there are a lot of great ones in the popular category; however, there are some you may not see unless you go through all 3,000+. I’m here to help. :D With this post I’m beginning a series called “Vidders to Watch”. It will be a periodic feature of videographers who often stand out either with their vision of a video, pushing the envelope with a technique, clean and sharp editing, or all of these. The series was born out of fans’ requests for lists of the best vidders. I’ve emailed lists numerous times and love doing it, but these posts will be for those who wonder yet never ask.

When I was deciding to run this series, one of the first vidders who came to mind was JulietD001. Her videos are usually clean and highly stylized. She also takes chances and is not afraid to provoke and possibly offend. One of her videos is on my Top 10. It’s in color, but I’ve become partial to her black and white pieces. Enjoy!

Be sure to check out her Robin Hood videos and all the others as well, and for more information about her, see Maria Grazia’s blog, Fly High.

I have more of these posts planned, but feel free to make suggestions.

A Little Regression Therapy


[click to enlarge]

I had to post that screencap again. :D

And I can’t tell you who is the winner of the Guy Secrets contest, but it’s someone with big plans for Little Guy:

She will join a host of others who have no shame about their love for Little Guy:

Dhana, who was not content with just a Little Guy. She made a Little Lucas too complete with pea coat. :D

Kiteflier, whose Little Guy escapades were the first I saw in 2008. Don’t be a snob and miss out on that!

Some other exploits of Little Guy are in the Robin Hood folder on C19.

I’m sure there are some I missed. Feel free to show us your Little Guy! :D

For those who did not win, thank you for your entries and don’t despair. There will be another Little Guy contest sometime! In the meantime, some ‘i’ dotting and ‘t’ crossing for those who may wonder.


[click to enlarge]

The above is a screencap of the random selection. Number five in the slideshow was chosen.

Other than all of that, can someone tell me the absolute best way to ship a package to Italy. I’m thinking Fedex but open to better suggestions.

edit: I may have met my quota for at least six months on the use of the words “Little Guy”.

Screencaps courtesy of my stash.

Guy Secrets Are Up

This was tough. I received 20 cards and about 30 secrets in the Guy Secrets contest. Three cards were from people who decided not to have them published. No problem; I never want anyone to feel awkward. One card I already published, but the person doesn’t want to be in the contest. Two cards really weren’t appropriate. Censorship you say? Yes, and you can thank me now for it. LOL! Interesting what happens when you open up a contest to the entire web. Phew! Yes, I knew I was going to get something not fit for print. I’m lucky it was just two. :D

And there was a very interesting card that came in this morning. See if you can guess which one.

Go here to see the slideshow. It plays automatically, but you can hit pause if you like.

I’ll do a random selection, contact the winner, and announce Tuesday.

Change of Plan

Sometimes I am slow. Oh yeah, sometimes I darn near walk on water, but other times I’m just stupid.

The impressive Guy secret cards I’ve received have made me rethink the selection process. It’s not appropriate to garner votes for best secret given the nature of some of the cards. So they will now be numbered, and then the winner chosen by a random number generator. That way no one will feel any rejection. This contest was never designed to make anyone feel awkward but to merely have fun and connect with each other about something we might not be able to say without the cloak of anonymity, and yes, for some of the cards to be just bullshit. Some are. :D

For those who want to participate but feel they don’t have enough skill with graphics, I have some good news. There is no graphic experience required. All you need is either a scanner or a digital camera, some index cards and whatever supplies you might find around the house, e.g., old magazines, ribbon, markers, etc. Yes, you can also make a fancy graphic, but it’s not necessary. Also, there are free editors available such as FotoFlexr to change up a photo you may already have or snag one from the web. Here’s a submission below from someone who wanted to share but does not want to enter the contest since she already has a Little Guy. She took a photo and laid the print part over it, scanned and emailed. That simple. She also could have taken a picture of it with a digital camera if she had not had access to a scanner.

Most important: I can’t even get to the submissions until tomorrow afternoon, so you actually have until 1:00pm (GMT+5) Sunday, January 8th. I’ll post them all sometime tomorrow evening. That’s a little less than 24 hours to enter, so be bold and make a card, and I’ll help you any way that I can. Send me a note if you need some help.

For those who have entered, you should have received an email confirmation from me. If you haven’t, I didn’t receive your entry. If you just sent me your secret but no card, you need to send the secret on a card. I’m pretty sure I’ve responded to everyone who did this and gave you a chance to make a card. If you haven’t heard from me, again, I didn’t get your entry. And for those who sent some cards but don’t want to enter for a Little Guy, I’m posting those too — unless you say no.

And Some Thanks

I should have put this in the last post!

Thank you to all of you who have been reading my blog. In 26 days, I have gotten 26,000 hits or 1,000 hits a day on average. Some of that was due to ‘The Hobbit’ trailer, but candidly, that only lasted a few days. The rest are people coming back to read and subscribe. 60 additional subscriptions in those 26 days. I very much appreciate that! Can’t tell you how much! It will certainly help in propelling me forward in my 365 Project. Otherwise, it would just be me listening to myself talk, and that’s not much fun. More than me being heard, this gives such a great pleasure to meet so many other fans. I can’t say enough good about that. It also gives the ability to introduce some of you to other bloggers who are much more interesting than me. No, I’m not being self-deprecating. I mean that. There are some interesting folk who are Richard Armitage fans. I’m happy to be a conduit for them — except when I want to get on my high horse about such things as SOPA. Then I want you to listen to me. :D

Another picture:


[click to enlarge]

Can you tell I’m trying to get you in a Guy mood? Hope it’s working.

For those contemplating entering the Little Guy contest but not sure, I have a post for you later today or maybe tomorrow morning.

Screencap courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.com

Playing Catchup Has Never Been This Fun

From mid August to mid December, I was not very attentive to RA Universe, and I’m still terribly behind on my reading. But I am making up for lost time, and the blog pieces I’m reading are wonderfully done. Stay tuned for when I cheat a little and reblog some of what others have written. My biggest problem is deciding what to highlight first. Other bloggers have referenced and even highlighted some of these pieces, but that was their highlight and not mine. :D

And for the record, I was so right about giving Phylly the Do Wah Diddy Diddy Award. More on that later.

I also made several promises last year that I intend to make good on this year. No, that’s not a burden. It will be a joy. One of those is the Little Guy contest. More on that later today.

A picture to wake you up in case this post is not enough:


[click to enlarge]

Phew! that look would wake up most. :D

Screencap courtesy of RichardArmitageNet.com

The Chameleon

It was jarring to see the mixing of Richard Armitage’s characters in my last piece where several have “Guy hair”. That kind of cross-contamination doesn’t fit with how RA brought these characters to such lovely fruition.

The richness and distinction between his characters is what makes me such a rabid fan. From almost the beginning, I was stunned at this ability. And then there is Richard Armitage himself, who has managed to make his personality evident while not letting it bleed into his characterizations. He is not Guy no matter how gorgeous Guy’s hair.

Quick! When’s the last time you’ve known of an actor who played such distinct characters and was this distinct himself?!