Distilling Down Chapter 6 Is Up!

Chapter 6 has arrived . . . and is twice as long as the usual chapters! Read it here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382391/7/

A brief teaser:

St. Petersburg, Jasper’s POV

Laurent had better get here soon. The café was slow this afternoon, and the waitress was giving me the evil eye as I lingered over my coffee, no doubt hoping I would cash out soon so she could go do whatever it was waitresses did on a dead day. Sadly, I had to stay. Laurent, you late bastard, hurry the fuck up.

The birds had taken care of the roll, saving me from going through the pretense of eating it. I hadn’t meant to order it, but with my Russian skills even being at the right café was a gift from God. I wasn’t about to bitch over a few unwanted pastries.

Shifting in my seat, I started in with the affirmations. You are patient, I told myself. You are calm. So calm, in fact, that in less than .02 seconds I was going to show that waitress where she could stuff her stink eye.

Deep breaths, Jasper. You are not here to eat the civilians. I missed being an unregulated gangster. Respectability had its moments, but this was not one of them.

Ashley Greene + Skinsuits + Sobe = Man Fail

So, Ashley Greene has been returning to her modeling ways, and has figured out how to confound every male on the planet with her latest photoshoot. Now, I was fascinated with the painted on scales and the whole idea of rolling around in the ocean in something that is probably water soluble . . . in front of a camera, no less, but I kind of viewed it as art. Anything that takes 12 hours to paint on by hand is art, right?

Okay, so it's pretty sexy art. And it does kind of lure you into wondering what Ashley Greene has under her skinsuit. Except that's obvious, right? The whole point of the skinsuit and the Sobe campaign of "Zero Inhibitions" is that Ashley Green is NAKED under the skinsuit. Because it's just paint, right?

And then my friend goes . . . "So where are her nipples?" and like a straight forward, practical type, I point out that her photo shoot is clearly at the beach, Turks and Caicos to be exact, so its not like she's cold. Besides, I'm a girl, and my mild technical curiosity around such things was satisfied by the invention of Photoshop.

Unfortunately, he's a guy, and details like Photoshopping the scales on the skinsuit seem hard, and these are outtakes, so in theory not processed, so this is a problem that just continues to confound him. It's like the whole shoot was engineered to make his brain fail. There is nothing else he's going to get done today besides wonder what is under there to make the nipples disappear. Whole universes could collapse around him, and he'll still be staring at these photos of Ashley Greene, wondering what went wrong.

I can only imagine the state of the world when these appear in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition. It hits newsstands February 10th, and it just might be the man fail heard round the world.

Kellan Lutz In February Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan magazine has declared 2010 the "Year of the Vampire" and are featuring vampires in their February edition. You'd think Robert Pattinson would get the vamp champ starring feature, but instead it went to Kellan Lutz. I'll take that.

Taylor Lautner Now Worth $7.5 Million

Apparently Taylor Lautner is more than willing to trade on his Twilight Saga fame. The kid (or probably his super dad) have just finished negotiations that official make Taylor Lautner the highest paid teenage actor in Hollywood.

$7.5 Million? I'm worth it!

According to Deadline Hollywood, the big payday is for a new film called Northern Lights. Tom Cruise is involved with the film, which is about fighter pilots. (Tom Cruise and fighter pilots. Right, who knew?). According to Nikki Finke over at Deadline, neither Zack Efron or Miley Cyrus make as much as Lautner, even though they have more acting experience. To which one can only say, experience, schmexperience. Who's got the hot abs here?

New Year, New Plans, New Fics

Welcome to 2010!

I know that lots of people have been doing reflections back on the decade that just passed, but I'm still home with the parents for the holidays (leaving for Ecuador the 13th, make it please come sooner!) and so I don't want to look back on the decade because I'm feeling enough time warp as it is just sleeping in my old room.

Thus, let's forget the past and focus on the future. Now, I'm not going to be one of those yahoos jumping up and down screaming about how 2010 is gonna be great. It's not gonna be that great, y'all. Calm the eff down. Loud noises in early January are bad, okay?

However, 2010 should be reasonably decent, and I'm looking forward to the year ahead. Lots of good things are going to happen, like me spending the rest of the winter somewhere warm and Eclipse coming out.

I also want to get back to posting every day, even though I know it likely won't happen until after I am out of the parents house. The Twilight withdrawal has diminished to a dull, yet constant ache somewhere in the back of my brain. I can't explain to Mom & Dad why changing the channel away when Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift broke up was a party foul. I just have to endure.

My endurance has been tempered by some sneaky fan fiction reading. Thought I'd share a few of my new favorites here, in case you are looking for a way to pass the time!

1. Irritable Grizzly Adams: Ignore that the title doesn't scream Twilight Fan Fiction. This story is a good alternative universe creation based on a unique take on the break up scene and the Edward-never-comes-back theme. I was hooked from the first chapter. I wasn't alone in falling hard for the story, as The Lazy, Yet Discerning Ficster also recommended it way back in the day. It even has a thread on Twilighted for the dedicated!

2. Geek Love: In addition to being an absolutely awesome story, I'm so thrilled that the author of Geek Love, SassenachWench, replied to pretty much every review I left. She seems like a funny, cool, and well-adjusted type--and yes, I am fan crushing on her hard-core at the moment. The story is Bella and Edward as computer geek types, complete with Nerf battles and binary code references. Updates regularly with lovely subtle humor and some gut busting scenes, too. Chapter 22 should be out soon!

Also, while I'm at it: You need to check out Elemental for a cool twist on the Forks families, The Naked Guy Upstairs for light laughs and love, and Art After 5 for some really well done angst (I've loved on this one before, but now it's complete!).

PS: My photo comparing Kellan Lutz to Marky Mark for the Calvin Klein campaign got pulled since Mr. Wanberg was in his underwear. I think this is a bad sign for my plan for billboard scans of the Kellan campaign, don't you?