What until Sherlock finds out my blog was nominated for a Beautiful Blogger Award. Thank you, Alyson Dunlop!

Yes, the lovely and vivacious Alyson Dunlop  has nominated Sherlock Cares for a Beautiful Blogger Award! (Along with being a Sherlock fan, she’s a Whovian and a Dracula devotee. Oh, and she’s both a Scot and a Ginger!)

(And yes, there will be some Sherlock Cares updates at the end of the post.)

And while I don’t normally participate in chain letters (and let’s be perfectly honest, that’s what this is with the blogger twist), I appreciated the nomination and could think of many worse ways to acknowledge those folks who give me pleasure (and a way to avoid doing the work I should be doing…Very Wicked Grin).

So the Beautiful Blogger Rules are as follow:

1. Copy and paste the Beautiful Blogger Award in your post. (Done.)
2. Thank the person that nominated you and link back to their blog. (Done.)
3. Tell 7 things about yourself. (See below)
4. Nominate 7 fellow Bloggers, tell them by posting a comment on their Blog. (Yes on the nominating, again see below; Maybe on the commenting.)

The 7 things is bit tricky, largely because I’m pretty certain none of you actually cares, so I think I should put a few “scandalous” tidbits to some value to you. Okay, here goes:

1. I rescue things: cats, the things cats catch and release as toys (even the snakes), dumb fledgling birds, worms, backpackers who have no real understanding of the distances involved in my area, the technologically-lost-but-sincerely-trying. Well, you get the idea.
2. I can rarely make it through an entire Dr. Who episode. I absolutely love the Doctors and the witty banter and the marvelously fun and imaginative concepts, but, alas, they are usually formulaic with a deus ex machina (Latin, literally “god from the machine” which is a classy way of saying “pulling an unbelievable solution to the plot problem out of your … hat at the last minute.”). And since Moffatt took over, the additional formulaic solution to creating an emotional connection with the audience is to kill a character that your  made to like. Basically, he’s introduced Red Shirts with Supporting Role into Dr. Who. Which is why I think “Blink” was such a hit; not having the Doctor for most of the episode, Moffat had to create a Twilight Zone-style fully original, stnad alone script where the people had to solve the problem in a coherent and logical fashion (i.e., no giant plot holes solved by having the Doctor whip out a new gadget or gadget feature) which  stood out. Whew! That was longer than I anticipated. So I keep the next one short.
3. I’m a drug addict. My drug is caffeine. My preferred method is coffee, although good chocolate or tea are perfectly acceptable alternatives. No, this is a real addiction. When I give it up for Lent, I suffer from withdrawal.  Lack of caffeine can seriously affect my life. I have  at times chosen to spend money on good caffeine that was needed for necessities like taxes or real food (I’m pretty certain fishing a 3-year old protein bar from the back of the car doesn’t count as realfood.)
4. I’m in love. Well, yes, Sherlock, of course, but I absolutely adore Cabin Pressure. I avoided it for ages because I am really trying very hard not to become a member of the Cumberbatch Collective (but he’s making it very difficult by doing som many fantastic performances in so many incredible productions and being such a lovely man in all meanings of the word). Actually, I’ve become hooked on BBC Radio. I hope you caught Benedict Cumberbatch in Copenhagen. Marvelous! And Mark Gatiss is Living With Mother: Star Turn, it’s lovely (although I’m not certain I’d call it a comedy…).
5. I know more about sexual practices than you do. No, really, I probably do. I once had to help resuscitate a database of around 10,000 surveys on the various sexual practices of a large group of people across a broad spectrum of society for a sexually transmitted diseases research study. The resuscitation required re-keying a large chunk of the surveys. It also required reading the data to make certain it wasn’t corrupted. Unfortunately, there are some things you really wish you good forget. For example, necrophiliacs are almost exclusively men and heterosexual by a vast majority. Where are the Men in Black when you need them. This is just one of the reasons I try to avoid a great deal of the Johnlock stuff on Tumblr. If you haven’t checked out TheNorwoodBuilder on Tumblr, I highly recommend it. I completely agree with her post on sex obsession in Sherlock fandom (and am working up the courage to finish my response post to her piece).
6. I am a LonCon3 member. I’ll be posting a bit more shortly, but I am hunkering down to get everything done so I can head to the UK next summer for the 2014 London Worldcon (as well as having a UK Total Emersion Experience). I’m even working on plans for a Sherlock Cares fan table with assorted swag. I hope to see you there!
7. I was trapped in San Diego for 5 years and never attended Comic Con. In all fairness, it was just a very large gathering of the kinds of guys who hang out at the comic book store in The Big Bang Theory and had just been discovered by Hollywood as I was leaving the area. However, let me point out that this year there is a Sherlock Party and fundraiser going on sponsored in part by the Fabulous Bakerstreet Babes. Check it out! It sounds brilliant! (Thank you, Arthur.) And it almost makes me sorry I won’t be there, but even if I forgot the literally thousands of adolescent male-mindset attendees setting feminism back at least four decades and rational thought back … I can’t even calculate that , I remind myself of all the terrific things I learned in my Coursera class on Irrational Behaviour and Behavioural Economics. I would rather save the US$3-5,000 for the UK Project. (And while I’m at it let me recommend a couple of books that, had then been around when I was in my 20’s or even 30’s, would have completely changed my life for the better: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely and Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton)

Watson’s Beautiful Blogger Nominees

Okay, those are my seven things now for my list of nominees in return (much shorter):

1. Ariel’s Miscellany… a la Sherlock : Links, updates, news and lots of amazing goodies found on the web gathered in a single location by a smashing professional science fiction editor and Sherlock fan.
2. The Norwood Builder : At the risk of sounding like Arthur of Cabin Pressure, brilliant! You definitely want to check out the Mycroft posts, but I just love it all.
3. Baker Street Babes : An aural blog, but lots of good stuff and ways to hear about all kinds of Sherlock Holmes related things (Not just BBC Sherlock or even just Sherlock Holmes media).
4. Alistair Duncan’s Sherlockian Blog : Something for Sherlock Holmes Canon fans. I go back here when I need to remember how Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, myself and millions of other people are connected through this iconic literary character.
5. Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational Blog : Absolutely nothing to do with Sherlock, but everything to do with making better decisions for your life! Actually, this is what the Science of Deduction would have been, if Sherlock had the least bit of social skill.
6. The Mary Sue: A Guide to Girl Geek Culture — All things geeky and femme (including instructions on how to knit your own Sarlacc hand puppet). Where was this site when I was in college? (Oh, right, I’m old. There’s wasn’t a web then.)
7. The Cutter Alicia: Another Tumblr blog (to my surprise), but with plenty of excellent eye candy and some fine humour.
8. Bonus Nominee: KestrelSempai Music Videos : Award-winning fan music video producer Heidi Berthiaume doesn’t add new posts often but when she does, they are definitely beautiful. The videos range from Sherlock to Avengers to Dr. Who to… well lots of fandoms including anime and Leverage. Be a little patient if you have a slower connection. She doesn’t use Youtube , Vimeo or Amazon for her video distribution.

Okay, I must dash. No, I didn’t leave my riding crop in the mortuary, but I have to take a terminally-ill kitty to the vet for some medication. I’ll get some more posts up later today and tomorrow about some upcoming work and news.

A big thank you for your support and please share this list of Beautiful Blogs. Thank you kindly.