I am tired and low on creative energy. I cannot write an entry today.

However, feel free to write the entry you think I should have written today in my comments.

Last I heard these were to be posted today, and I haven't heard anything else, so here goes: fic I wrote for snarkyrainbow for mcrsecretsanta. She had a yen for Bob and Frank, weird food, acting like dorks and making out. ~2000 words; Bob/Frank; PG-13.

Title: Fall in Mutual Weirdness
Summary: Bob has discovered a home truth about Frank Iero: love Frank, love his weird food.

( Food is an important part of a balanced diet. )

OH HAI GUYS I FORGOT TO MENTION I'M DOING A SIGNING IN TORONTO TODAY:

January 7, 2010 @ 7 p.m., Yorkdale Mall Indigo Books
with Megan Crewe (author of Give Up The Ghost)
and Neesha Meminger (author of Shine, Coconut Moon)

Both Megan and Neesha's books are beautifully written and they are also lovely people, so even if you are justifiably sick of me waving Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter under your nose, you might want to come out and say hello to them and pick up some great new reads in the process.

Or, you know, you could say hi to me and get me to sign your books and stuff. Whatever.

***

Also, today is the OFFICIAL release date of Rebel in the UK which means it should now be freely had at all good bookstores (including the noble law-abiding ones in Ireland who have been clinging fast to that embargo notice). Yay!

Stolen from tekalynn, who got similar results to mine. But I didn't find it accurate at all.

Your result for The Fan Fiction Personality Test...

The Mindgamer

Everything is possible, nothing is ever really over.

Take The Fan Fiction Personality Test at OkCupid

Analysis:

You scored 53% on Slasher, higher than 39% of your peers.

You scored 50% on Weirdo, higher than 13% of your peers.

You scored 62% on TrueFan, higher than 26% of your peers.

You scored 72% on Mindgamer, higher than 60% of your peers.

You scored 60% on BarelyFF, higher than 59% of your peers.

You scored 37% on Immature, higher than 30% of your peers.

Or, more precisely, experiments in cacao, since no actual chocolate has been made (so far).

I ordered three different kinds of cacao nibs from Chocolate Alchemy on Sunday, and received the package this afternoon. I tried them all raw (by which I mean sterilized at 140 degrees), and then again after roasting them.

I strongly recommend the Madagascar, which is described as a "powerhouse" for good reason. Intense flavor -- far too intense when raw, and still pretty shocking when roasted. Very fruity, which I adore.

The New Guinea is smoked -- and yes, tastes rather a lot like hickory smoked chocolate when roasted. When raw, it tasted alarmingly like Baco-Bits that someone forgot to salt. The smoky smell dissipated almost entirely during roasting, but the flavor remains. (The raw nibs may find their way into a tasty snack mix at some point in the near future. Just saying.)

AJ particularly liked the Ivory Coast (Fair Trade designation). To my taste, it's the purest chocolate flavor, with fewer fruity notes. It had a nasty bitter aftertaste when raw, but it mellowed incredibly when roasted.

Seriously. Not us, not us at all.

Area Cat Refuses To Die.

~~~

In other news, Pachelbel is slowly losing weight. We stopped syringe feeding because after missing a feed, she started showing an active interest in food again. She hated the syringe feeding and it was only delaying (and possibly only slightly delaying) the rate of weight loss anyway. Quality of life thing.

~~~

tenbears is due to start work again today but sturdily procrastinating with the diligence and attention to detail for which he is known, while I am falling over in shock at the competence and thoroughness of today's substitute home-help and wondering if I can keep her without bad-mouthing the regular one.

Of course, the place is in such a state she might not want to.

~~~

P.S.:10B just went to work, good man.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

OMG, I'm soooo tired. Talking about science for five hours straight to seven different people is very draining, even if the science in question is my own research that I think is totally cool.

I think I managed to sound reasonably professional and articulate, and everyone at Lamont Doherty seems nice. The campus is very pretty; or rather, looks as if it will be very pretty when the weather gets warm. I had fun, but I' think I'm going to go collapse now.

Thanks to everyone for the good vibes and encouraging comments on my last post. You guys rock.

I bought this new deodorant that promised to smell like peaches, and peaches smell good, so I bought it, and now I think it actually smells like the first deodorant I ever had. It is a very strange feeling.

What is the collective noun for movies? I saw enough movies in the past two weeks to warrant using one.

( The Blind Side, Christmas Day - 3.5 out of 4 stars )

( Up in the Air, Boxing Day - 4 very enthusiastic stars )

( Sherlock Holmes, whatever the 29th is - 3 stars )

( Avatar - 1 star )

ETA: This is pretty amazing and makes a certain thing slightly less stupid. h/t ariastar

http://fattymcblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/wowzers.html

I did something that we've here on Fatty Mcblog have been pondering and also making fun of for years. I bought something from the maternity department.

Is this ok? I don't know. It fits, so that's a good thing.

But seriously, I bought something from the maternity department at Target. The only thing I can really see in the difference is that it says maternity on the tag, which of course I have quickly removed. Nothing would be worse than sitting down, taking off your cardigan and having your skinny friends see that you are, in fact, wearing a sweater meant for a 9 month pregnant woman.

Has anyone else ever done this? And, is this the last of me doing this?

It makes perfect sense to do so...Maybe the teams of maternity and fat should join forces.

And as a PS. I really want the jeans with the band.

Fun with Work In Progress:

Chapter the Third, in Which A Certain Morbid Orchard Entraps a Pilgrim, Whereupon He Devours An Entire Cannon and Engages In Debate With a Number of Sheep.

Prester John is really an ornery little bastard of a book, but man, sometimes I do get to have fun.

I'm turning into a proper gardener. Not a knowledgeable one, especially, but a proper one.

I can tell because I get a little feeling of excitement and joy whenever I see bees hovering around my veggie patch - as they are doing fairly regularly at present; they seem to love basil in particular.

I'm terrified of, and slightly allergic to, bees. That hasn't changed. But it fills me with delight to know that they are happily pollinating my fruit and vegetables.

We've had our first tomatoes, and our first strawberry is nearly ripe - I've put up birdnet (which hopefully will not keep out the bees) to protect the rest from being eaten, as there are definitely a few underway. I can see at least three beetroots which look like they are verging on pickable, but I am virtuously waiting until at least Sunday to do so, because my book says 55-110 days to harvest and we are still only at day 52. Yes, yes, I know three days probably won't make much difference, but this is my first ever root vegetable crop and my first ever crop grown from seed, so I should be patient and give it time to get to a proper size.

I have bean flowers in the bud (they will be purple) and melon, strawberry, zucchini, capsicum and tomato flowers. And basil flowers and sage flowers, and my parsley is going to seed, but never mind that. Lots of happy marigolds, too, which are finding their way into salad, along with mint, basil and pineapple sage. No nasturtium or violet flowers yet, but my succulents are happily producing multicoloured paper-like blossoms. I am hoping very much that I'll be able to cancel my veggie box for a few weeks in a month or so. It's all very exciting...

In other news, I've discovered a rather clever composer of songs, Gabriel Kahane. I recommend in particular his 'Craigslistlieder', a cycle of songs with lyrics culled from Craigslist personal advertisements, which can be downloaded here from his site (homepage here). I am particularly fond of the last track, a somewhat operatic aria (I suspect a more educated Catherine would recognise the musical references I can tell he is putting in there - sounds a little Quilterish to me in places, but I really couldn't say more) from a man who has a compulsion to put ice down people's shirts. Really, this is six minutes of your life that you don't want to miss. It's incredibly clever and funny and very well-sung and composed.

The frightening part is that he is one of the more appealing characters in the song cycle...

And now, off to Blackwood for the day to visit the Digger's Club Garden of St Erth and my sister-in-law!

Yes, well, I aten't dead. And I have most of a proper post, but in the meantime there is a kitten. And surely the internet was crying out for pictures of cats.

She seems to be settling in OK.

So today I woke up feeling very ill, that scratchy back-of-throat kind of Imma Get Sick Soon, Ok? thing. So I decided to let my body sleep as long as it needed to.

Which was apparently til a briar thicket sprang up around the house. Paging local princes and princesses and their weedwhackers of destiny.

Anyway.

I feel somewhat better now, though the throat is still making disgruntled noises. 

Changing subject, for those of you who don't know, I will be at Arisia on Friday the 15th and ONLY Friday the 15th. I am not going to the con, as I have a novel due and can't spare two weekends in a row, but I will be performing Friday night with s00j  and stealthcello --if you missed our Giant Palimpsest Tour, here's a chance to catch it!

So, I would like to take the train to Boston, because trains are at the heart of our show, and also because I could work on the train. If I did that, could anyone pick me up at the North Station and bring me to the con? Possibly bring me back in the morning?

Does anyone have spare room in their hotel room or someplace close to the con?

The next weekend, I will be pulling my first Guest of Honor gig at ConFusion. I am SO FREAKING EXCITED. I have TONS of programming, such that others worry about my sanity and I just say HOORAY! I get to talk about awesome stuff for hours! I have a panel on cartography! On folkloric symbols! On authorial passion! I am thrilled. Also, if you want to see me at ConFusion in a non-panel capacity, make your requests now. My schedule is filling. (I'll be performing with Sooj on Saturday at 10--with a special first-time-anywhere song/reading!)

I'll be in MI on Tuesday to hang with earthgoat and her clan. I have some social time, thus. And I'll be at con parties, and hopefully a luncheyklatsch on Sunday. Dance card is in the comments.

Also, I have the most kick ass outfit for judging the masquerade! Maybe I'll bring my wings to Arisia, too...

Finally, check out karnythia 's new crowdfunded serial Mirroring the Monsters. She's in unemployment hell--read and give if you can!

This looks like fun ... I think. The idea is great I just don't know anyone involved in the contest. It seems to have come out of the anime communities, which I have no familarity with at all.

There are, however, a *few* Dr Who/Torchwood prompts and I think prompting is still open (not sure). The emphasis seems to be on art and very short fic and the system is weirdly complex too.

But ... sex positive, consenting community, for those who are interested in exporing that emphasis here's an option: http://community.livejournal.com/saying_yes_2010/

http://www.sniggle.net/Experiment/index.php?entry=06Jan10

Notes from the National Taxpayer Advocate’s Annual Report about social security levies, haphazard collection processes, rampant taxpatriatism, the undermining of the offer-in-compromise program, and increasing taxpayer noncompliance.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreekRunningNorth/~3/AIn0azADoZk/

A little treat, shot In the Mojave Preserve: About 15 years ago in this exact spot, a couple horses wandered over to Zeke to check him out. I’ve always assumed they belonged to some...

read more...

http://www.sniggle.net/Experiment/index.php?entry=05Jan10

98 years ago today, the Toronto World covered the Women’s Tax Resistance League and compared it to other tax resistance campaigns.

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2010/01/06/spinster-aunt-speaks-out-agin-crumulent-sickos-in-horse-industry/

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/?p=3299

Still from a YouTube vid exposing unspeakable sickosity at New Jersey Bravo Packing company. Disturbing in the extreme.

Spinster aunts are multi-faceted — which is fortunate, because otherwise our Down With Patriarchy! ways would render us friendless and alone — and one of those facets is that we have been horse-crazy since birth. Horse people are just as nutty as dog show people (Best In Show is no exaggeration), only with bigger vet bills. The ones who aren’t nutty are crooks. Only a small percentage of horse people have anything like what you might call a grip.

For years I’ve been a devoted fan of Fugly Horse of the Day. This excellent blog is authored by Fugly, one of the few with a grip. Sparing the reader the goopy glitter-butterfly sentimentality that seems to infest so many horse blogs, Fugly advocates for the species, rescues OTTBs (off-the-track Thoroughbreds), comments sensibly and humorously on the horse business, makes fun of the nuts, and exposes the crooks. Her blog is insanely popular, so an army of Fuglies nationwide can be mobilized at a moment’s notice to spy on crazy trainers, call bullshit on ignorant breeders, locate stolen horses, and rescue abandoned animals from kill-buyers at auctions. Some of her liveliest writing is on those crapulent sickos who merge “crook” and “nutty” into “sociopath.”

Behold Fugly’s declaration of war on the Bravo Meat Packing slaughterhouse in New Jersey. The slaughterhouse produces illegal horse meat for owners of exotic animals (lions, tigers, and bears, I guess) and exists with the protection of corrupt government. The horses who end up there are starved and brutalized by sociopath abusers before being turned into lunch for somebody’s pet ocelot. I am happy to report that the head sociopath recently died, hopefully in agony, but the slaughterhouse is still going full tilt.

“[Rescued mare] Buttercup was living at Bravo for close to a year and was a part of Monty’s “lean meat” experiment. To procure lean meat, a horse must start out fat and healthy and then be starved for months to a point of lean muscle tissue. Buttercup was not only starved at the Bravo kill lot, but medically neglected as well. She had gashes on her right front leg and severe cellulitis on her left back leg that were left untreated by Monty and Joe Merola for months. Consequently, Buttercup will have chronic cellulitis for the rest of her life in her left back leg. Luckily, she is still rid-able and the vet would like her to be ridden to keep the swelling down.”

This joint needs to be shut down, so I’m joining the Fuglitariat in getting the word out. I’m not sure how much crossover there is between the horse world and patriarchy blamers, but animal suffering is animal suffering, and I’m officially declaring horse abuse as a Savage Death Island blame-motif. If you live in Jersey and give a crap about shit, call up your state lege and tell’em to quit subsidizing this horrorshow.

Horse slaughter for human consumption is illegal in the U.S. This means that unwanted horses — often failed or lame racehorses or show horses, 100,000 of’em a year — are sent to American auctions, bought by kill buyers for $50 or $100, and shipped — under abhorrent conditions in double-decker pig trucks — to Mexico for slaughter.

Go vegan!

Related posts:

1. Atomic penetrators, and more!
2. Spinster aunt attempts to assuage guilt re: centipede
3. Spinster aunt still not dead

For those who may not know, Andrea Plunket, who claims to hold the 'American Copyright' to Sherlock Holmes is very unhappy with jokes and chatter from Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law and so on about a possilbe homosexual sub-text or actual text between Holmes and Watson. She's 'threatened' to withold liscencing for any sequels (already more-or-less confirmed) if any homosexuality spoils the true intent of the stories.

Aside from the obvious, and already explained, response of 'if it's all about protecting the true story why is the a movie where Holms meets Dracula?' and so forth, it's also interesting that the estate's claim on Holmes is shaky at best – their claim of licensing is based on a 1992 work that they retain the rights to but it's pretty clear that the original Doyle stories are in public domain. Still, Plunket felt that actor interviews implying homosexuality were so disturbing to the 'true intent' of the stories that she had to attempt to threaten the movie makers with very shaky claims of ownership. She evidently had no problems with Holmes the bare knuckled (masochistic) boxer or the brutal, thug with is crippling blows but (ooc) suggestions that the two might be queer were beyond the pale. I call bigotry, and I sincerely hope (whatever the quality of the movies are) that the studios etc ignore/defend or otherwise call bullshit on her attempts to threaten them by withholding rights she doesn't own.

I didn't think the movie was all that great and I'm getting tired of the purient, teasing 'maybe their queer, maybe they're not – isn't that funny?' stuff that is so popular now but I have to admit I'm all for the stuff Jude Law, Robert Downey Jr. and the producers are spewing now and I really hope Plunket's empty threats only encorage them.

ETA: this is, evidently, fairly accurate information regarding the legal status of the Holmes stories. Plunket doesn't have a leg to stand on.

The copyright of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works and of the Sherlock Holmes character were predominately held by his descendants starting first with his son Adrian Doyle. After Adrian's death in 1972 Dame Jean Conan Doyle (Conan Doyle's daughter) and the other descendants sold the rights to Baskerville Investments, a firm fronted by the surviving wife of Doyle's eldest son. The Bank of Scotland took over the rights after a loan defaulted and auctioned them off to the television producer Sheldon Reynolds. In 1981 the copyright expired everywhere except for the United States. Dame Jean, with the assistance of the Baker Street Irregulars, claimed the US rights to those works not yet in the public domain. Her Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate both licensed and defended the Sherlock Holmes character by requiring royalties and famously sued the producers of ', Meitantai Holmes and the movie The Young Sherlock Holmes for their unauthorized direct portrayals of Holmes. In 1999 Plunket, Reynolds' surviving wife, was refused a US trademark for Sherlock Holmes. In 2001 all but one of the remaining works were released into public domain and the Estate of Dame Jean requested that voluntary royalties be forwarded to children's charities in the United Kingdom. The Case Book is the only work with an outstanding US copyright and will pass into the public domain between 2016 and 2023.

I will give you all of the following things, on a schedule, at least one fic a week for the next ten weeks:

- a ridiculous and probably terrible fic where the Slash Dragon matchmakes harry and draco, because he is a slash dragon and that is what they do
- a friday night lights drabble for arboretum, which will also be terrible because there is no way i will ever do justice to friday night lights or any of its cast members.
- the 2 h/d fics, 2 cookleta fics, and 2 kradam fics that i still owe wovenindelibly /o\ /o\ /o\ from the AI auction, eek
- um possibly a fic where john watson will never, ever, ever get drunk around sherlock holmes because it takes all he has just to resist him when he's sober. :|
- the sequel to Trade, which i have promised keymash


In exchange, you will please link me to every sherlock holmes fanfic ever written.

I like staying at Crystal's house. She has unguents.

Crystal's bathroom is special because it is ornamented with an abundance of shower gels, body washes, facial scrubs, and ointments. As such, the shower becomes a special luxury; I go in old, frumpy Ferrett and come out anointed with unearthly scents of payayas and sea salt and cookies. I dabble in everything she has available (but not too much, no, I never want to be a bad guest; I scrimp out just enough to get a taste for it) and take luxurious showers where I am transformed into some sort of perfumeried chemist.

When I come out, only I know that I am suffused with cranberry, my skin exfoliated, my hair scented of lavender. It is a secret known only to me, since when I am at Crystal's I am at work, and the long amorous hugs that would give me away are few and far between at StarCityGames.com.

I might load my own bathing parlor with such scents, but they give Gini fits of sneezes and rashes. Plus, it seems like a lot of work, buying all that stuff from Lush. I don't have time to wander through malls and shopping forms, finding just the right hint of jasmine-infused cream to soothe my aching feet. That's not my lifestyle; I'm too busy beating Dragon Age to search for emollients.

Still, for a day I can wander through the banquet. Today, I smell like banana bread. AND NOBODY KNOWS BUT ME.

http://www.finslippy.com/finslippy/2010/01/morning-chat-with-the-voice-in-my-head-.html

I did quick-ish short fic for fandom_stocking last night. It's not an exchange I participated in, but it turned out I could pinch hit a couple things, so.

What I wrote:

Magnificent Seven fic: Could Have Been
Ezra/Chris; rated R for language/mild violence; check the warnings. Ezra lets an old woman beat him at poker, and it has unexpected results.

Angel: The Series fic: Put a Little Ice Cream On It
Angel/Wesley; PG-13. Wesley would like his proper body back. Immediately, if at all possible. (Also here at the stocking.)

That's one fandom I haven't written for in something like eight to ten years, and one fandom I've never written in before. Er. \o?

In debating large numbers of people on the Internet, you almost run into someone's mother. And it's difficult to get around her, even though she obstructs rational debate.

See, most people have a few strongly-held opinions on their upbringing. And why not? The circumstances that forged you helped make you who you are. And one of those strongly-held opinions tends to be about their parenting. For a lot of folks, their momma did a great goddamned job, or Mom was a worthless wastrel who held them back from their true potential.

The problem is when the mother in question is exceptional in one circumstance or another, and the child (now grown up and participating in discussions) cannot realize this. To wit:

"HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT CRACK-ADDICTED MOTHERS IN THRALL TO THEIR PIMPS ARE, ON THE WHOLE, LESS DEVOTED TO PARENTING? MY MOTHER WAS A CRACK HO AND SHE WAS A SAINT!"

Or:

"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT BEING WEALTHY AND BEAUTIFUL IS USUALLY BETTER THAN BEING POOR AND UGLY? I CAME FROM DANBURY, CONNECTICUT, LAND OF PLASTIC SURGERY AND SOCIALITE BRIDE TANTRUMS, AND YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT MY MOTHER DID TO ME!"

The problem of Your Momma is not restricted to Your Momma; it's basically any circumstances where someone has a deep-seated emotional tie to what is, on the whole, a circumstance that is either a) really, really rare or b) so personally painful that they are blind to the idea that other circumstances might be even worse. It doesn't have to be Your Momma; it could be Your Body, or Your High School Experience, or Your Sexuality. Regardless, the Your X issue really makes it difficult to carry on rational debates.

Because every debate, at its core, has to involve generalizations. That's because the really good debates, the ones that can't get settled, involve people, and people are such a multifaceted array of personalities that you cannot come up with any set of circumstances we could inflict upon the planet that would make every last human being happy. No matter what you did successfully, someone would gripe.

Thus, the best we can do is try to discuss what's going to make the vast majority happy. This involves discussing the things that will, in general, encourage people to make good decisions and finding the things that are bad decisions. That's tricky enough as it is, especially given that trying to find that majority and then discuss what's going to motivate/thrill them is a task that's almost impossible for humans and their small-numbers minds to encompass.

But it gets more difficult when you have people who are clearly from a background that's exceptional who cannot recognize that ("My mother was a single, paraplegic, out-of-work leper, and how dare you say that mothers like that are unlikely to provide a decent home for their kids?"), then you're placed in a position where you're not debating with them - you're debating with a formative event in their lives.

So it's almost always impossible to get across the point that "Look, what happened to you isn't what usually happens to people in that circumstance" (or worse, "What happened to you is indeed very terrible, but other people in even more horrible situations may have had it worse") without triggering all sorts of emotional landmines.

You're dealing with the core experiences that have shaped people. If someone feels good about themselves out of the gate and their Momma was a devout Christian who taught them the Bible, well, Christianity is very likely to be something that person feels that every right-thinking household should have. And if someone spent years recovering from the wreckage of their childhood and their Momma was a devout Christian who taught them the Bible, well, they're quite likely to be convinced that Christianity is a plague upon the Earth. And neither one is likely to acknowledge the pros of the other side and the cons of their own.

I'm not sure that's entirely bad. Our personal reaction to things is the only way we can analyze the world. A society of people who quoted statistics, ignoring their own personal experience, would be inhuman and rather creepy. And the fact that marginalized peoples - who, horrifyingly, are often told that their experiences are not only fringe cases, but do not even exist because majority idiots often believe that a minority existence is some kind of illusion that doesn't really happen - use this furor to push their way into the mainstream means that Your Momma has some good power behind it, too. Sometimes, that exceptional experience needs to be highlighted even if it's not the norm. (Sometimes because it's not the norm.)

But still, it does mean that it's almost impossible to find what the majority of people think because nearly every edge case is convinced that their way is just How Things Are. Any attempts to show other folks that that hey, maybe their formative experiences aren't representative of the entire galaxy will result in an argument that will inevitably feel like a personal assault - and flames, flames, flames.

I don't remove myself from this circumstance, of course. I had a sister-in-law who we spent two traumatic years battling insurance companies, trying to save her life because she had a rare kidney condition and scumbag insurance folks who we could not affect. I've done a lot of research to see that my circumstances are not that exceptional, at least in America. But at the same time, whenever I debate this fact of what is clearly a very poor insurance scenario involving a disease that only fifty people on Earth have had, I feel my own blood rising because goddammit, you had to be there and see what those assholes did to her. This is why I don't post about health care as often as I should; I'm simply not capable of holding a rational debate beyond a certain point.

It's my Momma. And what am I gonna do? I'll tell you what I'm gonna do: I have seeded this very essay with tons of outs, strewing it with "some people"s and "a lot"s and "most"s. And now even though I've written an entire essay on how people in edge cases often cannot recognize that they are the product of statistically-anomalous circumstances, and allowed room for those edge cases to flourish, I will brace myself for the inevitable barrage of comments on how, "Well, I don't feel this way."

Good for you. That wasn't the point.

When someone asks for advice about night feeding and nappy changing for a 10 month old at Festival, is it wrong to answer;

Breastfeed and bedshare?

and;

use two plastic buckets with good lids -  one for pooey ones  that you can wash when you get home and the other for wee nappies that you can wash by hand halfway through?

That was my answer twenty one years ago, and it still worked 4 years ago when I did it again, but the world feels different now - not fair!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreekRunningNorth/~3/glAfM-I8Ayw/

Tracks found in dirt road in Joshua tree forest, southern Nevada, January 4. Can you identify them without clicking through to the Flickr site?

read more...

For the first time, I have to skip one, though I'll try to come back to it. It was dealing with Obi-Wan becoming Qui-Gon's apprentice. I read the Jedi Apprentice novels, and tend to give them a little brainspace, so I don't have a fresh take on the subject. Anon... any alternates? Or would some other point in the apprenticeship be all right?

Remus, Elizabeth, and young Dora. (I guess it would have been late '70's, early '80's, in which case Elizabeth would certainly need some cheering up, and Dora certainly does that.) for Anon
( Solving mysteries )

---

A Quantum Leap/Harry Potter crossover? for sreya
( The Gob-Leap of Fire )

So the glucose tolerance test was, once again, a bust. The Supreme Vein Expert of the clinic couldn't even find a vein in my hand. This is, in fact, the very first time he's ever failed to find a vein, so apparently some money has exchanged hands. Which is nice, but once again I'm walking around with elbows like a junkie. Albeit with no bruising, because that would require blood, which apparently I don't have.

(Thank you to the peeps on my Twitter feed, who were asking pertinent questions like, "are you a ghost? a vampire? a demigod?" and "Do you sparkle in the sunlight? Find people telling you you're not very cuddly? DO YOU HAVE THE SKIN OF A KILLAAAAAAH??????")

I was released after a few hours, to eat my own weight in meatball subs (not really, I just had one six inch sub) and stumble home. Next they recommend going straight to the pathology lab, where there are dedicated experts.

I'm very puzzled by this whole thing, because I've never before had problems with finding veins for blood tests. I drink heaps of water -- two litres before the test this morning -- so it can't be dehydration. (The nurse dude confirmed this.) I am wondering if heat might be the problem -- or the lack of it, rather. The air conditioning at the clinic is absolutely freezing, and both today and last week, I was so cold that my hands were sort of purple-ish. None of the nurses suggested it (and I forgot to ask), but they all seemed surprised when I complained of being cold, despite the fact they all wore long sleeves.

So. We try again.

Anyway, like I said, I nommed a sub and then went home, where I collapsed into bed and fell into a deep sleep for three hours. This ended in a nightmare, so I wasn't all together unhappy when the cat woke me up, nuzzling my underarm until I figured out he hadn't been fed this morning.

Once out of bed, I went to the library. It's AMAZING, guys, there are BOOKS and you can take them home for FREE. I spent some time lurking around the YA section, and embarrassingly found myself on the verge of asking a customer if he needed assistance finding anything. I WAS SURROUNDED BY BOOKS, IT WAS A NATURAL INSTINCT. My haul includes The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian, The Graveyard Book, Stargazer by Claudia Gray, and some histories.

I nearly grabbed a really interesting-looking book about Elizabeth I's role in creating the slave trade, but something about the blurb put me right off. Let me paraphrase:

So, no, I left that on the shelf and got a biography of Nellie Melba instead. And Barbara Hambly's novel about Mary Todd Lincoln, since I've exhausted the Benjamin January series.

AND NOW TO FIND DINNER! And watch some West Wing. Hey, you know how in the first episode of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Belle/Hannah says, "I've never been addicted to anything. Except the third series of The West Wing." Does anyone find it kind of ironic that she's referring to the series that contains a really dodgy and stilted set of straw feminist arguments about legal prostitution? And is it just me, or is season three a bit ... flat?

...somehow, the knowledge that the Chippettes are in the new Chipmunks movie, gyrating to "Single Ladies", only makes me love this icon more.

Yes, it's nearly midnight. And now they decide it's time to clear the snowbanks from our street. Not just plowing the street, which is also noisy but fairly quickly done. No, this involves multiple large vehicles. I feel sorry for Andy, who goes to bed around 8:30 and will be getting up in about 4 hours. This will surely have him awake.

Not yet sure that I have survived another holiday season in retail. Yes, I hear you saying Christmas is over. It may be for you, but the end of the holidays brings lots of work. Did I mention a 10 page, 947 item price change that I spend the day working on today? The one that was supposed to be finished yesterday? Did I add that the staff member who worked on it last night didn't actually make all the changes he indicated and that I had to go over everything he marked as complete and check them? And that he had, in fact, only done about 1/2 of the mere 1 1/2 pages he'd indicated? Or that our entire store has to be reset back to what it was pre-holiday? Far to much shuffling around of product and rearranging of shelves. We need a bigger store, too, while I'm complaining.

Domino's CEO quits to become athletic director at University of Michigan

Over at Consumerist, where I got this, several commenters are pretty shocked. I saw this part:

Brandon, 57, played on three Big Ten championship football teams under coach Bo Schembechler while earning a communications degree in 1974.

and it made perfect sense to me. At first I was going to say it's a Michigan thing, and then maybe a Big Ten thing, but then I realized there are college programs all over the country where this rule applies: it is more prestigious to be AD at The Big College Program than it is to be CEO of a multinational corporation. OSU, Nebraska, Texas, Florida, Alabama, USC... if you're from one of those states, you played at one of those schools during the glory years, and you have the opportunity to be AD, you fucking take it, you know?

Here's what cracks me up: this guy was the Domino's CEO. In Michigan, Little Caesar's has a weird stranglehold on sports; its owner, Mike Ilitch, also owns the Tigers and the Red Wings, and his company recently took over sponsorship of what was the Motor City Bowl in Detroit. That bowl has official tie-ins with the Mid-American Conference and the Big Ten Conference; for instance, in 2007, MAC champions the Central Michigan Chippewas played the Purdue Boilermakers, who were 7th in the Big Ten but still bowl-eligible with an overall 8-5 record. Yes, it's stupid that a team ranked 7th in its conference gets a bowl game, but bear with me here.

Given Michigan's poor showing recently, and its limited but extant prospects for improvement, it is entirely possible that the Domino's Wolverines will be invited to the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl within the next few years.

The BCS is stupid and I hate it, but if this happens I will laugh and laugh and laugh.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Here's info and a video on a very cool looking iphone (& ipod touch) controlled microcopter. Once I get an ereading tablet, this is going to be next on my list of gadgets to acquire (assuming the price is not too high and all the bugs are worked out). I imagine our cats will learn to either loathe or ignore it :) Of course, given that this is effectively a mobile spy camera platform, I imagine that people will find all manner of amusing and annoying uses for it. Here's more info + another video.

SHERLOCK HOLMES. I DO NOT EVEN. I JUST. I CANNOT. WHAT.

I JUST. I *WHAT.*

Yet another article about polyamory. Almost all of the examples are het, but the article does mention that close connection with the bi community. In any case, we're definitely becoming more visible.

The Boy and I have been continuing our whirlwind (and very chilly) tour of New York City. Yesterday we had lunch at Carnegie Deli, visited Rockefeller Center again to see what it looks like when it's not overrun by then million tourists, and went up to the top of the Empire State Building. Where they wouldn't let me go up with my Swiss Army knife in my purse. Seriously. I had to leave it with security, and pick it up when we came back down. What the heck is up with that? I can kinda-sorta see why they don't let you bring knives onto airplanes, but what did they think I was going to do with a Swiss Army knife at the top of a skyscraper? Nefariously sharpen everyone's pencils? Hijack the building and make them fly it to China? Uncork a REALLY evil wine bottle? I got nothing.

Oh, we also went to see this exhibit about black superheroes in Marvel Comics, which was very cool though kind of small. If you're in NYC and like superhero comics, I definitely recommend it. It's only a $5 donation to get in, and there's displays focusing on the Black Panther, the Falcon, Luke Cage, Blade, Storm and War Machine. Each section has original comics art from the 60s and 70s, as well as new art created just for the exhibit. And they give you some cool freebies, too.

When all the sightseeing was done, we had dinner with dotfic and dragged our tired feet and half-frozen asses back to NJ. And today we came in again to have lunch with suricattus and then hit the Metropolitan Museum for the Art of the Samurai exhibit and the Egyptian galleries. Whee!

Tomorrow is a non-vacation day for me: in anticipation of maybe-kinda-possibly completing my PhD by the end of 2010, I've applied for a postdoc fellowship at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, and tomorrow I'm going up there to apparently be grilled by the entire Physical Oceanography department about my research. I always get nervewracked and intimidated on these occasions, so some good vibes would be appreciated.

Originally posted by billijean.

Okay. I need to come clean with you.

You see, I've gone ahead on my own and changed the guidelines, the rules, of our relationship without even consulting you. That's not fair to you, and the lack of openness is not good for any relationship - our relationship. I feel like a bad lj-life-partner and I want to fix that by telling you everything.

It all began more than a year and half ago. Sure, it was simmering under the surface before then, but if I had just taken the time to think about and address what was going on, it wouldn't have come to a head. Well... maybe it would have, because I only have power over my role, not over Outside Influences. What happened was this: we were, most of us, already somewhat distracted by Facebook and Twitter. We'd talk about how we hated it and blah blah and then spend more and more time there. And less time here. Facebook was like that slutty girl in high school - easy, much less work, but also less satisfying. We couldn't stay away. At the same time, with the baby and my health getting worse (again. omg grr), I was finding it difficult to spend time online like I had in the past. In fact, I was struggling to cope at all. And then my computer broke. It died. And I had to use an old piece of crap Dell with 7 keys missing and no disk space and it would fall over in a faint with the effort f loading a web page. I couldn't take any more. I was hardly here, I stopped updating my websites. I even stopped using my camera because I couldn't download or edit photos. But I could still update Facebook - from my phone mostly.

But you know what? I missed you. I missed US. I kept trying with Facebook because it was easier to update with my broken equipment and you were mostly not here but over there. And Facebook sucks. It's like 2001 all over again. Don't get me wrong, 2001 was great... IN 2001. Do you remember 2001 - when almost everyone updated several times a day and entries were generally shorter? Some people updated like they were Twittering when there wasn't even any such thing as Twitter. But do you know why people on lj stopped don that for the most part? Because it's BORING. Because it lacks meaningful interaction. Because it was too much chatter. It was great for a while - when we couldn't stand to be away from each other for longer than a couple hours. But our relationship matured beyond that constant need for reassurance and feedback and then those constant, short updates became an annoyance.

I remember the exact moment when I had finally really had enough. It was when I was reading my friends page and one person's entry, in it's entirety was, and I quote: "*fart*". Really? This is what we had come to? I liked the playfulness, but I wanted more, too. I wanted substance; I wanted meaningful interaction. My journal began to change then, and so did my friends list. I wasn't the only one. I saw lots of complaints over the next few years about frequent, low substance updaters. The tide had changed. And so did my friends page. There were fewer and fewer one or two line updates and more and more longer posts. I got to know you better. Some people became essay writers. More of us got digital cameras and began adding photos to our posts.

But that change also brought pressure to "properly prepare" an entry. There was an unspoken rule against the one-line entry, or more than x number of entries in a day. Entries had to be detailed and forthcoming because the vague post (except maybe with acknowledgement and apologies) was also out of vogue. And then there were the days that were too full to allow time to sit and write up a 'proper' entry and we were afraid of 'cluttering' each other's friends pages with multiple entries, so we wouldn't write one, and that happened more and more often until we were out of the habit of sharing with each other, largely for fear of not following the new rules.

Recently, in the comments to one of my posts complaining about Facebook someone said that they don't have a lot of time to write longer entries and they are uncomfortable posting short updates to LJ, so send them to FB instead and I thought BINGO! We've become update snobs. We want all well-considered and carefully constructed posts on our friends pages. We want not-too-many posts because no one likes an attention whore. ... and then we're sad as the tumble weeds blow by and the crickets chirp because the place seems deserted.

So I have been rethinking what *I* want to see on my friends page and what *I* want from LJ. What I want from LJ is simple: I want you; I want us. And we can't have that if aren't making the effort to talk to each other - and if we don't feel free to do it.
- You know what? I don't actually have an objection to more frequent and shorter posts.
- I do object to continuous posting without ever revealing what the fuck you're talking about. Being cryptic is even less cool now that it was 8 years ago. If I can't figure out what you're talking about from reading the previous 3 entries in your journal, then uh.. no. More info or shush.
- I also have to admit that I'm not fond of the Twitter stuff. The formatting makes it difficult to read and so much of it is one part of a conversation between two or more people that I probably don't know on a topic I can't identify. I don't read them and I don't even register them as 'updates' any more.
- I love photos. Always have.
- I like recipes and lists and schedules and plans and timelines and summaries.
- I love travelogues, even if you only went to the dentist. [info]ohmyhead is excellent at this. He cracks me up.
- I want to know what your kids are doing, how your mother is and why you want to strngle her this week.
- I like to hear your interpretation of things,what you think it all means.
- I want to hear about your goals, successes and failures, and when you just came out even.
- Your work, your play, your health... all of it.

And I like to hear it in 50 words or 850... whatever works best for you. So I'm doing the same. I know my posts tend to the tl;dr end of things, but I also go periods of time with no updates because of time constraints. Obviously, going with shorter updates would sometimes work for me. (Though, as a person who rarely gets to converse with other adults, I kind of tend to go all verbal diarrhea on y'all.)

So... while I'm not making actual official New Year's Resolutions,
++ I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and update more - even if that means several times in a single day (I know... *gasp*).
++ I'm going to relax the rules a little bit, and try to be okay with shorter updates too.
++ And I'm going to intentionally spend much less time on Facebook - I've stopped using the apps and I make a point of coming *here* first.
++ And, more importantly, I'm making an effort to set aside more time for commenting, because as much as I need an outlet for my diabolical and diseased mind, it is the interaction that matters most.

These are my intentions and I hope it helps brings us closer together again. I want to be a good lj-life-partner. And because Facebook sucks.

*smooch*

***ETA*** By request this entry was made public so it could be linked. So by all means, link away. Maybe we can start a Revolution ;)

Hey, you people in New York and the environs! Go see Wicked! My cousin Katie Rose, who was so awesome in the touring company, will be opening as Glinda on Broadway next week!

She's also going to be on Good Morning America on Thursday. And I, of course, will be at work, but possibly the spousal unit could be programmed to tape it. If not, youtube, I'm sure...

Go Katie!

~A

The internet was mysteriously broken here for two days, from Sunday evening until some time today.

I could access from work today but they filter LJ and Twitter, as well as a random assortment of sites deemed to be entertainment, social networking etc. I can still read public LJ posts and tweets through the magic of RSS, but I can't comment or post. I could tweet from my mobile, but I'd have to go into the lobby and switch it on.

Anyway, it's back now, just in time for me to use it to work at home tomorrow if I'm trapped by the snow, which is already 2 inches deep tonight. The forecast is sub-zero with snow for the rest of the week.

Speaking of which, I never work from home, only at home. I think I understand this linguistic quirk. Someone who works at home is presumed to be surrounded by squalling children and pestered into doing odd chores by an opportunistic spouse, and probably puts their feet up at 4 to watch telly. However, someone who works from home may be considered to be merely using their property as a base for their far flung operations, working in control of their own destiny. Their spirit roams the internet being productive, and is immune to the physical distractions of home. Or something.

So a song comes up on Pandora and I'm listening without being too impressed, and it goes like this:

She's nothing like a girl you've ever seen before
I'm trying to find the words to describe this girl
Without being disrespectful...

DAMN, GIRL!

At which point I concede defeat and fall over laughing. Well done, song. You got me.

According to weather forecast, it should be -30°C here on Friday. In honour of that, I have translated a Finnish temperature scale that pokes fun at... well... decide for yourself who it pokes fun at.

( Official temperature scale )

This entry is also posted at http://helkamaria.dreamwidth.org/67051.html. There are comments there.

So as to not limit knowledge to those who are members of the community (omikuji_project ), I have two Omikuji-related announcements to make.

1. Omikuji will now come out on the 15th of every month, because practically everything in my world is due on one first or another, and it's been impossible to make that deadline. Everything will stay the same, just on the 15th instead of the 1st.

2. On April 1st, I will be releasing an anthology of all the Omikuji stories to date. There has been discussion of what form this will take on the community, so if you are not a member, please do join. It will definitely include all the stories, and excerpts from the letters that accompany them. The introduction will be written via the classic each-person-writes-a-line game over on omikuji_project .

I am still seeking cover art--there was talk of an Omikuji-member created art piece for each story, but unless they're all spoken for I don't think that's workable, so let me know if you want to claim a story or create a cover design. If you have any skills that would be of help (interior layout as well, hollaback.) One Omikuji-soul has already recorded an audio version of one story--if people want to take this on, I'd be thrilled to put out a crowdsourced audio anthology as well! But I want the Omikuji family involved in this as much as possible.

The anthology will come out through Lulu. Which makes this my first officially self-published project. I felt it was best, as this has always been a grassroots, crowfunded creation, to continue in that vein and not seek a press to publish it. Lulu puts out a good product and I'm hoping this will be a beautiful object as well as a testament to two years of family, love, wax, paper, and art. Thank you to everyone who has made it possible.

I will likely put one of these out for every two years that the Omikuji Project continues.

Finally, if you are new and confused and do not know what the Omikuji Project is, all the info is on my website.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

So Realms of Fantasy is having an all women-authors issue.

And how do you feel about that, brain?

Well, it's always good for women to get published. But on the other hand, I feel certain that there have been all male issues without calling them THE ALL DUDE REVUE. By definition, herding women authors into a single book or magazine and proclaiming it special for their appearance there is, well, segregation, and has an ugly implication that they won't be appearing in regular issues.

Of course, women do appear in RoF. Maybe not with the density we'd all like to see in a field in which women are doing thrilling, daring work, but they appear. So a special issue is all the more emoticon-inducing.

And if this issue doesn't sell, will it be used as an excuse to buy fewer stories by women in the future? Who knows?

But brain, isn't this what we want? A high percentage of female authors in a table of contents? Well, 50% would be good. 40%, too. But creating Very Special Issues once in a 15 year run isn't the same as addressing the problem head on by understanding the psychology at play and changing the editorial paradigm. It's just a bone, thrown.

I guess I prefer Weird Tales' approach, which is to do an issue dealing with gaze and gender, inviting writers specifically to contribute, and welcoming both genders as long as they engage with the subject matter.

I also shudder to think what the cover will be on this. It's gonna be bad, y'all. Bad.

All in all it feels a bit like a way to shut up those of us who criticized the magazine. And this sort of thing never shuts anyone up. Will I be submitting? Prooobably not. The email issue remains, and I don't have a lot of time this year--again with the issue of I get asked personally for stories too often to regularly submit blind.

I think I'd be happier about an All Email Submissions Issue. That would actually address one of the criticisms, and not discriminate against any one group (people who submit on paper can also submit online, I promise), and would be interesting: would quality drop, as has been claimed? Would the workload become untenable, as has also been claimed? Even better, email with numerical codes so that authorial gender was unknown, as in the famous orchestra experiment. I would submit to that so fast.

Because really, I fight the women's visibility issue all the time, by working as hard and as much as I can, as well as I can, and being in those ToCs, with my oh-so-feminine name right up there next to the male ones. I fight that fight, every day. It's not a Very Special Episode for me, it's my whole life. And that's tru for most women writers, I think, if not all of us. The way to win this fight is not to submit to segregated spaces, but to exist unashamedly and frequently in public ones.

But no, we have the hoary old moon-hut issue, where all the ladies sit together and don't touch the boys' stories with their cooties.

And the cover. Well? Boobs, chained women, girls making out, or disembodied ass? Taking all bets!

No, not the episode. But I think I may have a blind spot for everything that's bad about this show, or maybe I trained myself to only see the good... I've mentioned on previous occasions that Doctor Who is sort of like a Platonic Shadow, and the Form is in my head. As long as the Form is there, I'll see what I need in the Shadow.

( The End of Time )

( Oh no, I'm a girl! )

Oh, also, if you didn't like the episode that much or hoped to like it more, I highly recommend ariastar's recap with screencaps and the comments on it. I feel a rosy glow now.

I really didn't want to have to do this. Especially since I'm not an author or anything cool like that, to trade chapters of a nifty novel for assistance. But I just got an eviction notice. I've been trying to keep it together financially here for several months now, since moving twice in the same semester really threw me off and the bills started to stack up. My mom's been helping some, but since she objects to my relationship with Charles (even though he pulls much more than his own weight financially) I can't ask her for help anymore.

I'm way broke. I don't have much I can offer except felted doo-dads or possibly felted dreadlocks - I just learned how to make them and I've got a bit of roving left, though I already sold most of it, along with my spinning wheel and fiber processing equipment. I don't have much else to sell that anyone would want, and I'm really, really broke. Would anyone be able to help a bit?

It may be graduation before I can pay this back (unless I get a well-paying temp job for January). I graduate next December, if I can keep it all together until then and don't have to drop out due to this stupid financial crap. I'm also looking into a couple of legit sources for stay-at-home jobs for during the semester - ten hours a week at $5-something an hour just doesn't cut it.

As I said, if you're interested in some felted dreadlocks, let me know. I haven't actually made any before, but it'd be fun to try and I'd like to try to give something back right away. If you can help, there should be a button below where you can kick in through paypal.

I'm sorry about this. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't urgent.

http://www.finslippy.com/finslippy/2010/01/here-again.html

teaotter and I were talking today about how we found it odd that some people who are close to aren’t intellectual dilettantes. I’ve always read widely [[1]], and watch a wide range of shows on the history & discovery channels & PBS. I have a general grounding in pretty much every field of social and physical science, from anthropology to zoology, and a (often rather vague) grasp of most eras of history. What I have a hard time doing is focusing in detail on one topic. I’d vastly rather learn a little about many things than a lot about one topic. Becca feels exactly the same way.

I definitely have topics that I'm more interested in – I’m most interested in space travel, the history of technology, social history, trends in modern consumer electronics, alternate energy generation technology, and a few other areas, but I lack a specialist’s interest in focusing on a small subset of a topic and gaining an actual understanding of it, and I almost exclusively indulge my knowledge at the level of books and other media designed for intelligent and interested amateurs. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the reasons that I never completed my PhD, since those by definition require specialization, and it bores me. I’d rather watch a TV show on the history of refrigeration, read a book about the social history of 19th century Shanghai, and then read a long magazine article about the latest ideas about human evolution.

What struck Becca as odd is that some of the people we know, and in fact some of the people we are close to, including amberite is considerably more focused on her interests. Some of her interests shift and expand, but her tastes often involve studying one topic very extensively, rather than shifting between a myriad of more lightly studied topics. In our conversation, Becca and I both realized that we were puzzled both by the desire to focus so much on any single topic and by the lower of general interest that is pretty much an inevitable consequence of having a specialist’s interest. It was odd to realize that I really don’t understand why someone would focus when there’s so much out there of potential interest. Of course, while wonders like wikipedia and the internet as a whole are a generalist's paradise, RPG writing is pretty much the only living that I've found that makes use of my interests.

[[1]] At least in non-fiction – I’ve no interest in fiction that isn’t SF, fantasy, or very occasionally mystery or horror

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreekRunningNorth/~3/SezYsC1-Wwc/

I’ve been asking people over on Facebook to donate to the Desert Protective Council as a birthday present, and today my DPC colleague mentioned she couldn’t find the link here. Because...

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