telophase | (no subject)

I posted the plaintive cry of Where did I put my book? a few hours ago, and garnered plenty of advice, much of it rather Zen in nature, although I felt much more like Sam Vimes reading Where's My Cow? to young Sam in the latest Discworld novel, Thud!, than any sort of Zen master, or even novice.

Where's my book?
Is this my book?
It upchucks on the carpet!
It is a cat!
No, that's not my book!

Where's my book?
Is this my book?
It smells very very strange!
It is a box of BPAL imps!
No, that's not my book!

Anyhoo, I'm sure that all of you have been desperate to know just exactly where I put my book, and in the interests of providing some dramatic tension, I shall LJ-cut the answer.

Where did I put my book?

On top of the computer CPU, which is on a little rack-thing under one wing of my desk, which means that anything placed on top of it is well and truly hidden unless you are sitting in the computer chair and rotate to just the right position.

And also to add some more wildly inappropriate dramatic tension to my Livejournal, the book I am currnetly reading is one of the ones I got from the library on Thursday, and I'm really enjoying it.

I shall leave it up to YOU to guess which one it is.

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I logged into lj just now feeling very grouchy (because we just watched the last few Firefly episodes and I want to beat Inara with a clue-by-four and

diony thinks she's probably being perfectly sensible, and I am immature enough to reflect on the Vast Differences in our philosophies of life, and well no you didn't need to know all that).

But now I am giggling instead, because of your post. Thank you.

If you, or anyone else who has watched all of Firefly, could answer my question

http://www.livejournal.com/users/thomasyan/124501.html#cutid1

or agree with me that the situation is fucked up, I would be most appreciative. I also think that in the comments,

thymidinekinase has come up with the best answer I've heard so far as to why Inara is on the ship Serenity in the first place.

Nice to know my barfing cat could bring some joy to your life. XD

*giggles like mad at the poetry*

The Sea Trolls

BPALs are scents??? Thought it was something to do with manga or anime. Showing my age again.

So did I! I had to google it to find out what it was and why Telophase was posting so many of them.

:D For my explanation of it, see my replies to

riofriotex.

By which I take it you weren't actually reading the BPAL reviews (not that you have to or anything XD), since they're all about how they smell? :D

BPAL is the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/), the J. Peterman of perfumes. They make perfume oil blends whose catalog descriptions make you want to buy them. All of them. Now. They've got a really good viral-marketing scheme going, however, because you can purchase sample-size 1 mL vials of their scents and test them to see if you like them before you buy bottles. And of course, since due to things like skin chemistry, something that smells good in the vial may or may not work on your skin, you'll probably have a mostly-full test vial left over.

Which is where the fandom comes into play. People swap and sell these things constantly, to test however many they can and find out what sort of scents work on them, and there's some busy forums up on the BPAL website, and a couple of high-volume LJ communities. It's a lot of fun, and it's really interesting to see how scents work and don't work.

I've learned that my skin takes musk and transforms it into something that smells like something decomposing but takes myrrh and transforms it into soemthing wonderful, while

yhlee's skin does the exact opposite. The scent I am currently wearing the most, named Velvet, is made of three major elements it would never in a million years have occurred to me to combine: Envelop yourself in the soft, sensual embrace of gentle sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh.

sophia_helix has a BPAL Newbie FAQ (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sophia_helix/366892.html) that talks about the fandom and swapping and so on, if your interest is piqued. At the very least, you really should go to the BPAL website and read the scent descriptions. XD

And here's my rundown post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/telophase/234134.html) that I update to keep track of all the BPAL imps* I've tried, with links to my reviews. :)

*They call the test vials "imp's ears"

No, I hadn't been reading the BPAL reviews before, but thanks you for all this info - it sounds interesting and now I just might! Afraid of becoming SO interested I might start spending money I don't have though...

This kinda relates to the friends survey you linked to in a later post - I have a VERY short friends list because I just can't take the time to read any more postings than I already do. I appreciate the way you use subjects, entry tags, and LJ cuts - it helps me limit my reading (especially when I am SUPPOSED TO BE DOING MY SCHOOLWORK).

Once you've got a good set of imps, you can swap them around for a while, and jsut pay postage - everyone re-uses the packaging material anyway. XD But then of course you'll fall in love with a scent and haunt the forums and eBay for bottles of it because you can't stand to wait the two months it takes to get it from the Lab.

Heehee - I try to cut things that seem long just 'cause I hate scrolling and scrolling - prone to repetitive-stress injury - and I cut the BPAl reviews in part so that people who don't care don't have to read them, and in part because

mrissa is a very smell-oriented person, and if she reads a description of a smell, she can actually smell it, Which is good ... as long as it's a good smell, and she has thanked me for cutting the reviews. I figure - it's no extra trouble on my part, and if it does a good thing by her, so much the better.

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BPALs and LJ friending

Re: BPALs and LJ friending