My Proposal: That I Stop Watching Stupid Romantic Comedies

I should have known better.

When I boiled down my movie-reviewing options to "The Proposal" and "Year One" for the weekend, I should've gone to see "Year One." Sure, it looks like one of Jack Black's bad movies (his movies are, in my experience, either freaking awesome or freaking horrible. There is no middle ground.) but romantic comedies almost invariably grab my feminist chain and yank it, hard.

"The Proposal" was no exception.

Continued...

File under: Feminism, Movies, Rantings
Posted at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

SHOCK!

Your result for The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test...

Androgynous

You scored 83% masculinity and 70% femininity!

You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles.

Take The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test at HelloQuizzy

File under: I'm a What?
Posted at 06:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Insectoid Horror

One of the most horrifying things I was exposed to in college (aside from the ordinary horrors like unrequited love and having to maintain a 3.5 GPA) was a disgusting kind of insect-looking THING which I frequently saw on one of the walkways around campus. Imagine, if you will, a hornet, with no wings and no stinger, but pale, like a grub. Two inches long or so.

Now imagine, if you will, coming upon this thing at NIGHT, while it wriggles futilely on the cement before you.

I'll wait while you get your stomach churning under control.

Well, I encountered them regularly for all four years I was at college. I never figured out what they were because I tried to pretend they didn't exist (as much as you can do that while muttering "ew ew ew!" and carefully not stepping on them, anyway).

Today, however, I tracked them down.

Potato bugs. Also known as Jerusalem crickets. Here, for the brave and the strong of stomach, is a link to a photo taken in Valencia, LA, not toooooo far from where I went to school. DO NOT CLICK THIS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

The ones I saw were paler than that, and smaller. Possibly immature ones?

I have now seen enough photos of potato bugs to hold me for life, thank you. The one good thing to come out of this (aside from the pleasure of knowing wtf to call those monstrosities) is that I found this hilarious FAQ (no photos on that page, but the rest of the site has more pix) about them. A must-read.

File under: Pure Ego!
Posted at 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Books and ebooks

Last week I crossed the 1,200 book mark in my library. 1,200 total books, 220 of them unread. (Yes, yes, I know, I'm supposed to be reducing the number of books I own but haven't read. Powell's Books and various wonderful friends have been conspiring against me. I do not hold it against either group. I've read more books already this year than I did in total last year, so I think I'm doing all right.)

While Twon and I were up in Portland for Memorial Day weekend (photos coming; work has been trying to kill me lately), we wound up part of a discussion about the wonders of ebooks. I find ebooks very clinical and even vaguely horrifying, but couldn't entirely articulate why in the moment. It's a bit more clear to me now, sitting at the desk in my library, with my ten packed bookshelves around me.

Continued...

File under: Books
Posted at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Quick Knee Update: MRI Results

Saw Dr. J today (as previously mentioned) to go over my MRI results. The MRI shows no tears or anything, and no signs of arthritis, hooray! However, this does mean that I have classic patella-femoral pain, which has no simple fix. Boo.

He's suggesting that I consider lateral release surgery, which has a very good success rate and a very low chance of making my knees worse. The down side is that even if I do both knees at once to keep recovery time to a minimum, I'd have to be off the Aikido mat for three months.

THREE MONTHS.

Sure, that's not that long, all things considered. But given that I'm training toward my next rank, that's a long time to not be training -- especially since there's backsliding when you're not training, so three months off would set my progress back at least four months or so. So I'm dithering. Trying to decide whether my knees are bad enough to warrant doing the surgery.

File under: Chondromalacia
Posted at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Knees Update!

So, I hit Fremont Orthopedic and Rehabilitative Medicine today for an appointment with Dr. Jauregito. Got a bunch of X-Rays (the tech commented on my familiarity with most of the poses, heh), then met with the doc. He was nice -- very efficient, concise, and friendly. Also up front with me, which I appreciated. He pointed out that my knee issue is one with a lot of different names, which is a bad sign, and a lot of different treatments, which is also a bad sign. Not much progress has been made in the fifteen-plus years since I was diagnosed, which is kind of depressing.

He made an appointment for me to get an MRI and I'm going to meet with him afterward to discuss the result. There's a possibility that I'm developing arthritis in my left knee, which would suck, but he doesn't think that's the case. It's apparently unusual for someone my age to still have as much pain as I do with this sort of condition, but then I've always specialized in being an edge case.

So, next week I get an MRI, and the week after I see him again to discuss what the MRI shows and what my options are. Woo!

File under: Chondromalacia
Posted at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Time flies

Two years ago today, I woke up a married woman for the first time. Holy crap.

It doesn't feel like two years, at least in part because Twon and I aren't all that big on anniversaries (except our zeroth-date anniversary, but we cheat because it's the big Thank God It's Over party for NaNo, so the party's thrown for us). I still haven't finished sorting all the photos we got from our friends and photographers, let alone put them in an album like I planned.

They say time flies when you're having fun, maybe that's why. I'm still as crazy in love with Twon as I was the day we got married. Best. Husband. Ever. /comic book guy.

File under: Pure Ego!
Posted at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Chondromalacia Strikes Back!

So, as I've bitched about before, I have knee problems. When I was about 12, I was diagnosed with Chondromalacia Patellae, which is a collection of symptoms and has no set treatment or cure. In short, when I do things like climb stairs, run, or ride a bike, it makes my knees hurt. A lot. So does doing nothing, which is really unfair. Or sitting with my legs crossed for too long. Or whatever.

Anyway. They've gotten better over the years -- until recently. I think that all the work I did getting ready for my brown belt exam pissed 'em off and now every little thing sets off the left one, which has always been worse.

So, I'm going to make the rounds. Again.

Continued...

File under: Chondromalacia
Posted at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Skillz

Dianne Sylvan blogged a list of her skills/talents over the weekend, and challenged her readers to do the same:

Here are some of the things I can do, from the awesome to the silly. Sit down and make your own list--what are your talents? Your skills? What can you do, either through innate ability or acquired learning?

This is a pretty keen idea, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Continued...

File under: Pure Ego!
Posted at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Bats are awesome

Check it out! I went to my first ever event with the California Bat Conservation Fund over the weekend. I'm a volunteer with the CBCF, and now that I've got all my shots, I can help out by holding a bat for people to look at and talking to folks about bats. So I went along and helped out the other folks at The EcoFest. It was tiring, but fun. The bat in the photo is Gaia, a hoary bat. She can't fly well enough to be released into the wild (she had a horribly broken wing which healed reasonably, but not well enough), so she's an educational animal. She was very well behaved, and only got a bit wriggly when she was tired of being stared at and held.

I really like working with the CBCF and am looking forward to more events like that. Sure, I get peopled out, but it's really fun to show folks a cute, furry bat and say, "This is [bat's name], isn't she adorable?" and have them say "Yes! Oh, my gosh! That's a bat?" Most folks think bats are creepy, huge things, not little furry mousey-looking critters. I mean, look at that little bitty bat! SO CUTE.

Some trivia: hoary bats are native to the area, and live in trees -- they roost alone, which is part of why they're so very furry! They have to be able to stay warm on their own, rather than in a colony (where a bunch of bats can all huddle together for warmth). And yes, that fur is as soft as it looks. Maybe even softer. There are more pix of hoary bats (and other bats too!) at the CBCF Flickr page.

It looks like I'm going to be with the CBCF at the Santa Cruz Natural History Museum in July, so mark your calendars! July 11, 10am-1pm. Be there or be square!

File under: Bats
Posted at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Kid Issues

First, an aside: how the hell did I not have a Childfree category in my blog already?

Onwards.

Antwon's comment on this post says pretty much everything I was going to say.

All I'll add is that I know I'm one of the folks in Junglemonkee's social sphere who is in the "anti-kids" camp. I acknowledge this, and acknowledge that my loathing of (most) children is indicative that I have a problem. I have actually taken to saying that I have a phobia of kids, because it's more accurate. Kids under the age of about seven (and especially under the age of about three) squick me the way that some folks are squicked by spiders. I've been known to hide in a back room at a party when folks with a toddler in tow show up. It's to the point where I'm working on it in therapy, even. Though I doubt I'll ever be happy to be around small children, I'd like to be able to be around them at all without becoming panicky. We'll see how that goes.

File under: Childfree
Posted at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

WTF, Internets?

OK, so I haven't posted in... uh... like two and a half weeks. WTF?

It's not that I haven't had stuff to post about. See my Twitter stream. I think it's just that I haven't felt especially moved to post anything.

Well, that all ends today.

I present: CHIBI WATCHMEN!

So insanely cute. Seriously. Be sure to read all the pages of All Aboard the Owlship.

File under: Pure Ego!
Posted at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ow.

Cinequest kicked my butt this year. I was dealing with some non-movie-reviewing crap and my head just wasn't in the game. I still had a great time, though, and am really looking forward to next year. Cinequest 20 should be badass. It sounds like they're planning something big to celebrate the double-decade anniversary.

Antwon sometimes says that Cinequest is like a NaNoWriMo that only I do, and he's so right. I just vanish into movies for at least a month -- I start watching screeners and writing about them as soon as I can get the PR folks to hand 'em over. It's so fun, but my God, it's exhausting.

At least now I can recouperate in preparation for next year.

File under: Pure Ego!
Posted at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Notes from She's Geeky

This is my notes post for She's Geeky. Instead of doing a separate post for each session, I'm just going to keep adding to this post as I go to things.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

2008 Book Wrap-up

Somewhat belated, a list of the books I read last year!

1. Surviving a Borderline Parent
   
2. Mossad Exodus
   
3. The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre
   
4. Deja Dead
   
5. Healing the Child Within
   
6. Women, Work, And Autoimmune Disease
   
7. Rain Fall
   
8. The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Vol. 1
   
9. Agents of Light and Darkness
   
10. Science Fiction Omnibus
    
11. Iron Man (movie novelization)
    
12. Califia's Daughters
    
13. Making Money
    
14. Sandman: The Dream Hunters
    
15. Swordspoint
    

Fifteen. Not bad! But not great. One of my goals for this year is to finish more books than last year. (I'd aim for 52 like Elke but I am too fond of dense nonfiction and too short on time for reading to make that goal actually happen.) I still have my requirement in place that I'm not allowed to buy new books until I'm down to 180 books in my unread category (and once I get there, after one book-buying splurge, I have to get down to 160!). Exceptions are made for my collections, though -- Pratchett and Gorey in particular. And for classes. And books I'm given or which I get for free also don't count.

Anybody want to bet I won't see 180 any time soon?

File under: Pure Ego!
Posted at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)