Stolen from crazyfurries

[camwyn]

Step One
- Make a post (public, friends locked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it'll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two
- Surf around your friendslist (or friends friends, or just random journals, or holiday_wishes/wish_list) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.

There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

I’ll admit straight off that as entertained as I am by writing for fandom and RPing in it, I’m generally very much afraid of my fandoms. The Fallout fandom’s No Mutants Allowed contingent is legendary for its virulence, just by way of example. Transformers fandom has a tendency to go into weird places that I’m just not interested in, not to mention that it’s bloody huge and I wouldn’t know where to start. And in settings with expanded universes beyond the core canon I have a fatal combination of ‘lazy’ and ‘afraid of horrible quality/contradiction of canon’ that prevents me from reading the expanded stuff- f’rex, I loved Dragon Age Origins and Awakening, but I haven’t read the novels, nor have I read the Mass Effect novels or comic books. So if I make fannish requests here it is because I do not want to get hit in the face by angry purists or by unexpected suck.

1. A recipe for the best cookies in the world. I found a recipe in a cookbook once- it might’ve been in Harold McGee, I don’t know- that claimed to be for such cookies. They were thin and buttery and tended to crunch and had sugar crystals on/in them. There may have been citrus zest. I think it was a Dutch recipe. If anyone recognizes this or the cookies in question please let me know. I would not cry if other recipes turned up that were for other cookies that claimed to be the best cookies in the world, either.

2. Someone who can point me at an inexpensive web and email hosting service and maybe domain name hosting, too. I’ve got the domain ‘megaloceros.net’ and I’d like to move away from the catalog.com/webhero.com service I’ve been using, because I signed on with it years ago when it was a lot cheaper. These days someone with a pokey set of personal web pages that aren’t even particularly impressively coded is not their target audience and I don’t want to be stuck with them much longer. I haven’t ever had to move a web site, though, so if someone can help me out with what I have to do, that’d be great.

3. Some help from someone with an interest in both the Fallout fandom and the nation of Canada. At one point in one of the Fallout 3 add-ons, ‘the military might of Ronto’ is mentioned, and unless there’s something I’m missing I’m pretty sure they’re talking about a rebuilt city of Toronto. I would really, really love to work with somebody on figuring out what happened to Toronto over the past two hundred years and getting the area set up as an RP or fic setting. Bonus points if y’all want to work with me on ‘the Commonwealth’, too, which I’m assuming is Massachusetts.

4. If you are reading this, and you are Gabe Newell or Marc Laidlaw, HALF-LIFE 3.

5. Worksafe fanart of Arcade Gannon, the recruitable NPC from Fallout New Vegas. Mostly I’m just looking for stuff I can icon for an RP journal, but larger fanart is nice too, so if you know where I can find some that’d be great. Hell, I’ll settle for screencaps, since I haven’t got the PC version to do it myself.

6. Interesting cheeses. Whether it’s a recommendation for an unusual cheese that I can find in my geographical area (northern NJ, New York City) or an actual physical sample, I have a fondness for cheese and would like to try new ones, so if you know one that you approve of, lemme know.

7. Directions to an archery range within half an hour’s drive of Hoboken, NJ. Does such a thing exist? Outdoor archery fields are fine too, I just haven’t shot in years.

8. Enough nerve to ask for fic in the Fallout or Half-Life or Transformers fandoms, with the caveat that I’ve got headcanon (mostly derived from RPs I’ve played characters in) that I want used. I have a hell of a time with that kind of request.

9. I have an Amazon wishlist and a Thinkgeek one as well. I do that mostly so that my family can find stuff but if you’re interested lemme know.

10. … but if we’re being up front about it I really have all the stuff I need, so if you’ve got some kind of urge to put money somewhere I want it to go, stop by the Red Cross or Bide-a-Wee or donorschoose.org and drop the cash there, okay?

Comments

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

1. The New York Times Cookbook, which I don't have with me right now, had a cookie recipe described as the world's best cookies.

6. This place in NYC seems like it might be a good place to start looking. (http://www.artisanalbistro.com/art_bistro_cheese_shop_index.php)

[crazedcrusader.livejournal.com]

6. When I lived in New York, Fairway carried a ginger apricot Stilton that I still occasionally have fodie dreams about, no lie.

8. Depending on which incarnation of Transformers you're talking about, I might be able to swing that. What'd you have in mind?

[camwyn]

8. 2007 movieverse AU. mephron and I went sharply AU when Revenge of the Fallen turned out to be a thing of pure pain and evil; there's related material in tangled_metal and in the rise of the fallen posts I did to lay out what we were AU'ing specifically.

[crazedcrusader.livejournal.com]

I never saw Rise of the Fallen because of how bad everyone said it is, but I do own the first movie. I'll poke the brains and see what I can come up with, if you have any more specific fic wants?

[camwyn]

First movie is good, and I tend to prefer Ironhide or Bumblebee centric stuff. Preferably without Michael Bay's potty humor moments.

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

I can offer geeky fandom discounts of $40/year for email and hosting for a personal site- no setup fee. :) I know that's not FREE, but we're reliable and cheap. :) Dailydata.net, email me if you're interested.

[camwyn]

Ooh. That sounds promising. I don't think I have your address on this computer- could you PM it to me?

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Regarding hosting, I like nearlyfreespeech.net (http://nearlyfreespeech.net/). It's on this deposit-based, pay for what you use scheme that's excellent for tiny sites. They expect you to know what you're doing, though, and they don't do email.

[blackswanevent.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd like Arcade.

I knew it.

I keep holding out hope someone will get him on a quest.

[camwyn]

He's going to be coming along with Janice, actually. As my second human companion rather than my first, but.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I can attest that Google is reliable for web/domain hosting. Dunno about cheap, I don't pay the bills.