- If I see one more person equate dislike of Sarah Palin with sexism, I may punch somebody. If she were a man who held the same positions I'd hold him in just as much contempt, so it's not sexism that makes me dislike her. It's principle. I don't like people of any gender who tout the ideas she does. She loses extra points for her abuse of the English language (see Matisse's piece above) -- which also has nothing to do with her gender.
- I got the final dose of my rabies vaccine last week and will be handling bats this weekend for the first time! I'll also be getting the equipment and some basic training so I can be on call to pick up injured bats. WOO HOO!
GNN Interviews The Joker. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. Hilarious comedy sketch video thing. I think my favorite part is Batman and Joker going back and forth, all, "You suck!" "No, you suck!" (Props to Dylan for the link, omg)
Also amusing: DrrrtyDJ69's Batman and Joker PSA vids. I've only watched a couple but they make my brain hurt. In a good way.
This slam poem is a beautiful explanation of why teachers are so important and why how much they are paid is irrelevant to what they make. Talor Mali rules.
It's an inspiring vid. Kudos to my Dad for sending it to me.
The Berkeley Humane Society's Emergency Medical Fund featured pet at the moment is a puppy named Uber. She was left in their drop box at 7 weeks old with a broken and infected jaw. They fixed that, but then discovered one of her legs is growing wrong and needs major surgery to fix. The surgery will cost $4000! So they're fundraising for that as well as trying to find her a home. If you can spare a couple dollars for her surgery it will make a big difference. And if you know anybody who'd be willing to take in a dog with some medical needs (her jaw and leg may need more medical attention as she ages), please put them in touch with the folks at Berkeley Humane Society.
My cousin is in training before being deployed to Afghanistan with his National Guard battalion and is doing a lot of reading in his downtime. Getting books through the base is not a terribly speedy process, so he's running low on reading material. If you've got any books you would like to donate to him and his fellow soldiers, you can give them to me and I'll send them along. I've already taken down the books I was listing through Frugal Reader and will be sending him a few at a time over the next several months.
In a piece from Hilary Clinton's Senate bid a while back, Sars lays out why she hates Clinton. Sars says now that she hates Clinton less than she used to, but still doesn't like her. I also don't like Clinton, and I think the piece sums up well what those of us who want to like her but just don't are talking about.
This is an awesome idea. Ganked from Graydancer. It has LJ-speak in it, but I think the basic message comes through: people are feeling down and bleah lately, so let's do something about it!
Wow - what is it in the air lately? Post after filtered post about how everyone is feeling alone, disconnected, unwanted. It's not like this is one or two people - it's like a rash all over my friends list the past few days. Male, female, betwixt, undecided, unconcerned...it seems to be an equal opportunity Brain Weasel.
Clearly, something needs to be done. I think we need to have a Brain Weasel Stomping Day.
The problem, as I've noted before, is "it's easier to see the Weasels when they're eating someone else's brain." So this is my call to my friends list, and to your friends list, and beyond. This Friday, make an effort to squish someone's Brain Weasel.
Have a crush on someone? Post a flirty comment in their journal. Admire someone's skills? Post a comment about it. Just think a person is nifty? This Friday is the time to tell them. Doesn't matter if the post your commenting to doesn't have much to do with your comment. Just post those good thoughts. Trust me. People will appreciate it.
Do this for everyone - not just those you suspect are feeling down (After all, you might not be on their Brain Weasel filter). Take a few minutes and help launch people into the weekend with a smile. And...who knows? Maybe sharing how others make you happy will make you a bit more cheerful in return.
What Is Snape?, by Orson Scott Card, is a fantastic essay, and a must-read for anybody who can't understand why I love Snape and alternately despise and dislike James Potter. (In fact, it reminded me of perfectly good reasons to despise and dislike Sirius Black.)
I'm pretty sure he's wrong about LotR being written as a sequel to The Hobbit, though. I am under the impression that LotR was in the works long before the Hobbit was written, and although it seems like a sequel because of when it was published and some story elements, it wasn't originally planned as one. But I could be wrong. I'm no Tolkien scholar.
Anyway: good stuff. And I agree completely that if Rowling has a big reveal and shows Snape to have been a bad guy all along it will lack artistic integrity in the extreme (or, as I usually say it, show that she really is a shitty writer after all). Good stuff.
I'm too busy/tired/scattered for a good update, but I have several things in my browser I've been meaning to blog about, so here you go.
Meet the Joneses is an interactive comedy. Fans can work on scripts and stuff, apparently. Crazy.
Does Being a Feminist Mean Voting for Hillary? - Courtney Martin lays out her indecision regarding the woman who may well be the first viable female presidential candidate. Personally, I think being a feminist means judging Hillary on her merits, not her gender, so I will not be voting for her in the primaries. I can't stand the woman anymore.
Dreams - an XKCD strip about thinking twice before posting on the intarwebs because a future employer might read it. Made me say "RIGHT ON!"
Fireworks Above, Trouble Below - it never occurred to me that fireworks, which I love, might be a nasty environmental hazard. Man. Now I don't know what to do.
The Loudness War. Or, how CDs are being ruined by idiot music producers who think everything needs to be OMG LOUD!!!!! Short, to the point, and very well-done. (Requires sound)
Check out the post Christian Spanking Porn on Blowfish (may be NSFW since it's got mentions of teh pr0n, omg. Links from that page may also be NSFW. Surf at your own discretion). Boggles the mind, it does.
My verdict: creepy as all get out. Sure, it's nice to think that even fundies are kinky. It's nice to see by-women-for-women porn. But yanno, that doesn't outweigh the whole "this is all consensual, wink wink" stuff, or the fact that they wanna force their kink (and religion) on everyone because it's "God's will."
I've been working on cataloging my library on here on LibraryThing. I'm almost halfway done - I've got 437 books in the database. Rawk. Considering that for some reason my barcode scanner can't read about half the barcodes properly, I think I'm making good progress.
I'll be putting up a proper lending library page at some point, but I figured I'd announce it now: if you see a book in my LibraryThing catalog that you want to borrow, let me know! I'm willing to ship my books to you, even (Media Mail, so it takes a while, but it's cheap), provided you'll ship 'em back when you're done. You just have to promise to take good care of the book while it's in your hands and to ship it safely back to me if you're a shipping borrower.
See, I feel kinda bad about having so many books (over 1100!), since I'm so anti-consumerism in other areas of my life. But at the same time, I love my books and can't imagine getting rid of them. So I figure loaning them out is a good compromise.
I'm adding new books periodically, and will post here when they're all in the database, but head over now if you like and see what all I've got! (note: books I own but have not yet read are not in the database because they're not up for loan. It'll be too complicated if I start loaning out the ones I haven't read yet!)
His point, in short, is that folks bitching about Flickr "censoring" them should put their money where their mouth is and donate to organizations that fight REAL censorship (yanno, the kind where they throw you in jail or kill you for printing the wrong things). I think he has a great point and plan on donating my "one-off charity" budget for this month to one of the orgs he suggests. Mind you, that's not much (I only have a spare $5/mo for one-offs, and there's no rollover from past months at the moment, as it's a new budget). But still.
And I'm not even in the debate, which I think is kind of stupid!
So, if you're all upset about the whole situation, please go read Earthdog's post. I think he makes a good case for putting your money where your mouth is.
I think Washington was wrong when he said you can only trust someone's oath if they're religious (I know a number of atheists I trust a damn sight more than some religious folks I can think of), but everything else is spot on.
Graydancer hits the nail on the head by rephrasing a neat quote so it reads:
If you aren't satisfied with your life, change it. If you won't change it, put up with it. Whatever you do, if you're going to talk about it, at least do it in a way that will entertain us.
Quoth I, I can't put proper highway shields on the map for the wedding because I need scalable vectors to do that and I am not willing to make them myself.
Quoth he, How about these? And these? And these? Will they work?
I am posting links of interest to my del.icio.us nearly every day. If you're wondering what I'm reading, that's the place to check it out. I've even sorted stuff by tags and whatnot. Yay.
First, a disclaimer: I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR. IF YOU ARE BROKE OR LOOKING FOR INVESTMENT ADVICE, SEEK ADVICE FROM SOMEONE WHO IS, ETC ETC ETC!
Anyway.
Man. Money is a bitch. Seriously. But there is a certain sort of pride one gets from being on top of things which can't really be gotten any other way.
As some of my readers may know, I have a lot of debt. When I graduated college, I owed $80k and change to various financial institutions for paying my way. Goddamn private schools.
Well, I have recently lined all my debts up (car loan, credit cards, remaining student debt) and I am now only $70k and change in the hole. Not bad, considering that I finished school only 6 years ago and for all but the last year or so was living paycheck to paycheck.
I attribute this to a number of strategies, largely developed through long discussions with Antwon (who has hella financial acumen. Seriously. He was making wise money decisions when he was like six or something).
Off the Mommy Track - a great article by a childfree gal about her child-bearing friends. I have to say, I agree with what she's saying 110%.
I am deeply grateful that so far none of my friends have turned into scary Hyde-Mommy hybrids. Hell, only one of them has even started down the having-a-kid path (and she promises not to make me hold it or babysit it, so yay). But I often ponder what will happen when my best gal friends start breeding and it makes me fret a little. Heck, I'm a little nervous that when my favorite male cousin's baby arrives he will suddenly be unable to talk about anything but the kid. Yikes.
Anyway. This article rocks.
EDITED TO ADD: There's a very interesting discussion on this topic going on over here at Feministe. I'm actually one of the posters, which is fun, even though I disagree with the main point being made there at the moment, which is that "breeder" and "crotchdropping" and other similar CF vulgarities are by their nature misogynist. I'm finding it awesome having a discussion with people I disagree with that isn't getting nasty. It probably helps that the people arguing with me are folks I really respect and excellent writers.
I strongly suspect that neither I nor they will be persueded to alter our respective stances, but the discussion is really making me think, which I like.
An alarm clock which wakes you with birdsong and gentle messages voiced by Stephen Fry. Now if only they would make one for women... (this one addresses you as "sir.")
This video is awful UCLA security guys tasered a student a bunch of times while other students were yelling for them to stop and demanding their ID numbers. The student wasn't even fighting back (though he was mouthing off quite a bit). Someone recorded it with their cell phone's camera, which was smart. (Warning, the vid is pretty disturbing.)
There's an article about it here. The UCLA Chancellor has a statement about the incident which is pretty weak, imho. "Stand up or you'll get tased again" is pretty clearly excessive use of force. This guy was on the ground from the shock of being tased and either couldn't or wouldn't stand up, so they tased him repeatedly. There were half a dozen rentacops there, they could have carried him out, but they tased him over and over instead. In fact, one of the officers threatened to use the taser on a student who was demanding his badge number, saying they would "get tased too." Disgraceful.
UCLA's security and administration should be ashamed. Kudos to the students who protested and especially to the one who recorded it (though the camerawork is pretty bad the audio is clear and utterly frightening).
Check out Jonathan Coulton's music, which is geekariffic and awesome. I've been listening for about an hour now (I downloaded all his free songs, and shelled out a buck for Re: Your Brains, which is amply worth it).
I was chatting with a pal about podcasts yesterday. I have the 'casts I listen to linked in my blogroll, but nowhere do I talk about what I like about each of 'em. I also appear not to ever have blogged about the podcatcher I use, Juice.
Watch the video Dove | Evolution. Has sound but doesn't require it.
It's a time lapse movie of a billboard being produced, from the model's makeup and hair to the photo retouching. It's seriously unnerving. Reminds me of The Art of Retouching.
Knowledge vs. Belief: a brilliant piece of writing in one of the communities I read. I've copied it below for posterity, because I really don't want to lose it.
Tasting Notes Generator - at last, a quick and easy way to get a bunch of things to say when wine tasting. Memorize and bust out with something cool-sounding the next time you are offered a glass of wine.
The Random Cocktail Generator - Just input a few characteristics (what kind of cocktail you have in mind, how complex you want it, etc) and it gives you a recipe! Awesome.
Snapmania - an online photo editor/manager dingus. Pretty nifty, though I haven't looked into it much.
Stories from the Front Lines - an essay about what it was like for one woman in a conservative California town in the Central Valley to work as an escort at a health clinic which provided abortions. She quit when a "pro-lifer" picked her up off her feet and threw her into a brick wall -- while she was five months pregnant. Scary, sobering stuff.
“Maddy: Dad. I need to know the truth. Are you famous?
Me: No. Not really.
Maddy: But there are people who know who you are, aren't there?
Me: Well, yes.
Maddy: And they think you're famous?
Me: Some of them do, I suppose, yes. Why?
Maddy: Well, you see, I've been looking at people a lot recently. People in cars. And sometimes I think that maybe they're movie stars or people I've seen on the TV. And I thought to myself, "Don't be silly. People on the TV wouldn't just be driving about." But then I thought about you. I mean there are people who'd see you, and go "He wouldn't just be driving about" and you are. So I think probably they are movie stars after all.”
– Neil Gaiman [Quoting Maddy Gaiman] 09/20/02
That's absolutely brilliant, and fits in with something Nick Lea said to me when I met him at an X-Files convention.
Nick: So, how are you?
Me: Um, honestly, a bit nervous.
Nick: Why? We're just people.
Awesome. Famous people really are just people. I suppose some of them let the fame go to their head and become asshats, or get freaked out by the fame and hide, but the cool ones are just folks. Awesome.
Damn you, Emusic! I was doing so well getting on with my music sorting project, but now I've gone and downloaded nearly a hundred more songs from you! ARGH!!!! *headdesk*
Albums downloaded today:
PJ Harvy, Dry
Burning Brides, Leave No Ashes
Brain Donor, Brain Donor
Clannad, Dulaman
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Fetish
John Lee Hooker, Boom Boom
Mediaeval Baebes, The Rose
The Coup, Party Music
So now I have more music, yay, but at the same time I am a lot further from finishing the damn sorting project - which I really want to have done asap so I can have all the newly sorted music on my Neuros when I fly out for Annie's wedding next week (NEXT WEEK OMGWTF HOW DID IT GET TO BE THAT SOON AUGH!).
*sigh*
Oh, well. If all else fails, I'll use some half-assed hack to finish. Like labelling all the ones I haven't sorted yet as "uncategorized" or something. Yeah.
Here’s my answer. My reasoning for not having kids is due to the fact that I’m selfish. And if I ever change my mind and decide to have a family, my reasoning will be the same.
Perfect. He's honest without being a dick, and explains his reasoning without being condemning of parents. Good on him. I should start watching his show.
My pal Conrad is an attorney in Las Vegas. Check out this interview about his latest case (click the link under "Build your own Newscast"). He is the guy with the shaved head who's Dean's attorney. This case is getting a lot of publicity, and I hope it'll be good for him!
Yeowza. This sequence is why I love Frollo so much. Tony Jay, who voiced him, was amazing. Sadly, Jay has passed away. Blessings to him, wherever he is now. He was a talented man.
I think I should start a fanclub for 50-something (or older!) female bloggers who kick ass. So far I have found two:
Marn, who gardens on a scale that involves backhoes and bulldozers and lifts weights like there's no tomorrow (she can do chin-ups! By herself! And only a few years ago she was all out of shape! Holy crap!)
Liz, who bodybuilds, loves Zydeco, is amazingly culturally aware, and is currently working to kick the ass of Brenda, a nasty tumor that is partially blocking the vein that lets blood down out of her head and neck.
I admire both these women immensely for a zillion reasons, chief amongst which is that they blog so honestly and articulately about their lives. They are living proof that being a woman over the age of 30 is not a sentence to futility and fainting spells. They are ass-kickers! And yet they are human. They cry. They have moments of doubt. They are afraid of things. And they share that too! Which is really powerful, because it helps me believe that in spite of my own moments when I cry or doubt myself or am afraid, maybe I can kick ass as much as they do.
Many profound thanks, Marn and Liz! You gals rule.
You are entirely too full of awesomeness for me to blog properly. It's not fair. My "Stuff to blog" bookmarks folder is constantly overflowing, dammit.
You can read full entry, but this is the pertinent part:
"You used to do that too y'know, when you were a small child." my mother told me as we walked back to her place. "Yeah," I replied "But you told me to knock it off, strangers didn't have to do it for you. That's the difference between a parent and a breeder. "Parent" is a verb."
So true, so true. "Parent is a verb" is a slogan I'd love to see on bumperstickers everywhere.
The MsScribe Story is a fascinating (in a trainwreck sort of way) writeup of a huge kerfluffle in the Harry Potter fandom some time ago. It's amazing the lengths to which people will go sometimes.
If you haven't read The Credit Card Prank, you should - it's not only funny, but will make you call your credit card companies the instant you so much as think your card might be lost.
Bush Pilot is a video from a German comedy program that is just hilarious. It's like something off the Daily Show, but with subtitles.
Where the Hell is Matt? is a crazy site about this guy who travelled the world and videotaped himself dancing everywhere, then spliced the vids together. It's pretty cool. Weird, but cool.
Holy cow. I just watched Jon Stewart's response to the 9/11 attacks on YouTube. It's here. Blows me away. I didn't get back into the Daily Show until after this aired, so I missed it. I'm glad we have YouTube so I could see it now.
I looked through Glenn Feron's portfolio again today. Man, is it good for one's self-esteem. He lets you see glamor shots both before and after retouching. If you haven't seen it before, go look. And even if you have seen it before, it's worth another glance.
Like mashups (aka bootlegs; where you take two different songs and smash them together to make a new song)? Check out BootieSF
A new law for online discourse: Tubman's Law. Brilliant.
Reader's Prayer. I want to get this done in calligraphy to hang in my library.
The late, great Cancer, Baby takes on Mood Ooglers, those horrible people who will tell you things like "smile, it can't be that bad!" even though they don't know you or know why you have your current expression on your face. Read the comments as well for more good stories of harshing on Mood Ooglers.
For those who know both the theater scene and something about religious ritual, I present: The Theater Ritual. Brilliant stuff.
Take "Super Mario Bros." and cross it with the Burly Brawl from "The Matrix Reloaded" and you get.... Super Mario Reloaded. My brain hurts. But in a good way.
Gettin' political: Lt. Ehren Watada is refusing to deploy to Iraq, citing a soldier's duty to refuse to participate in a nillegal war of aggression. Rawk.
Check it out: San Jose Metaphysical Bookshop is having a concert! It's a fundraiser to help them with the expenses of moving out of their current location and into a new one.
I am mightily peeved I can't go - one of the owners called me last night to tell me there will be a ton of vendors and performers there and it sounds like a blast.
The one thing that almost makes up for it is that if enough people who buy tickets mention my name, I will get a bigass gift certificate to the shop. Rawk! So! Go on my behalf! Have a great time! But be sure to mention me by name when you buy the tix, either over the phone or on the online form. I want that gift certificate, darnit! Plus, they're a fantastic shop and a great community resource and they need this fundraiser to go well.
This entry over at OPL is really good. So good, in fact, that I have nothing to add except "Right on!" So thanks, Nate, for taking the words out of my mouth (off my keyboard?).
Although unlike Nate I don't have contest deadlines coming up because I am so friggin' busy I never write fiction anymore. I think about it constantly, of course - in fact, I had a recent epiphany about the novel I'm plotting which I think will make it both easier to write and more interesting. I love that. I should get my shit together and write more fiction, dammit.
This post found through Carnival of Feminists gave me some food for thought. Her main point: "feminists should believe in female beauty." The tricky bit, of course, (which she leaves out) is that it should be our beauty, not what mainstream culture considers beautiful. I think we feminist women should all work on looking good to ourselves. Nevermind the rest of the world. As I have read on several feminist blogs lately, it's none of my business what other people think of me. But it is my business what I think of me. Imagine if we feminists went to the effort to make ourselves look beautiful to ourselves, so that when we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirrored surface of a window it made us stand up straighter? Imagine the aura we would project. That's power.
It's hard, of course, to separate society's beauty standards from our own - that takes some real work. But taking care of our bodies, keeping them in good health and avoiding fashion mags like the plague is a good start. I know some women who do this already, which is very cool. But some of us (like me, for example) need a little work.
Feminist men can do something about this too: believe in female beauty, real female beauty - not the stick-thin, plastic crap the media is selling. Appreciate the beauty inherent in all women if you don't already. (Most of the guys I know are better at this than most women would give them credit for. But then, the guys I know are by and large awesome.)
This clip makes me wonder if I should start watching Boston Legal. It's the closing arguments from a recent ep, with a fantastic, impassioned speech by James Spader. Huzzah.
Here's a transcript, in case you can't listen to it at work.
After the prosecution's arguments, Spader's character gets up and says:
This comment by Naamah is awesome. She's talking about depression, and how it's possible to claw your way out of the pit and turn your life around - if you work hard enough. My favorite bit:
It is possible to turn your life around, to have things come together, to have things work out for the better, or even the best. I won't lie. Some of it's luck, but most of it is fighting spirit. Luck means fuck all if you don't have the guts to kick life in the ass and spit in its eye, then choke it until it gives you what you want.
Never. Quit.
That is the only, the best advice I could give anyone suffering from major depression.
This shit? It will be with you for life. Depression does not go away all the way. But really mean motherfuckers, true-hearted bitches, they can learn to fucking surf the lava flow. There is strength in it, more strength than those who never have to deal with the dark will ever, ever know. That's the plus you get. That's the upside. And it doesn't seem like much right now, but trust me. It is one hell of an upside. I would not trade it for anything.
Never quit. And someday you will own it, and it won't own you. No bullshit.
I don't think I can really add anything to that. As usual, she has summed it up beautifully.
aaaaaaaaaaaand let's wrap up with one for the childfree in the audience: the entry Crib Lizards at Dervala.net. (Warning: Contains derogatory references to children!)
Well, I survived being Maid of Honor at my oldest friend's wedding (by which I mean the wedding of the person who has been my friend longest of all my friends, not the oldest person who is my friend). Aggravatingly enough, I have managed to utterly exhaust myself in the process - I fell asleep waiting for the fiance to call last night and barely woke up when he did call, then had a heck of a time waking up this morning. I think I got about ten hours of sleep but it doesn't feel like it at all. Good grief.
In other news, my "Stuff to Blog" bookmarks folder is overflowing with an utterly random collection of stuff, so here are a few links:
Of course, it doens't help me much with my attempts to identify a handful of nerdcore tracks I downloaded at some point without ID3 tags. Grrr. Goddammit, people, TAG YOUR FUCKING MP3s! IT ISN"T HARD! AUGH!
In other news, no, we have not set a date yet. Let me get through my friend Sarah's wedding this weekend (I'm MoH, so I'm slightly freaking out right now) and then the bffiance and I will get to work on it.
Dood! The Foremen are coming out with a "best of" album! Yay! And Metaphor records contacted me about pimping it on my Foresite. Holy schlamoly. So I have some info up there about it, go check it out! I've also dusted off some of the other pages. Hooray!
There's more to come once they get back to me, so stay tuned.
Carnival of Feminists XI has been up for a while now, but I'm slow sometimes.I think my favorite links from this one are:
Two takes on a new anti-rape campaign: one somewhat in favor and one pretty pissed off. I think that it's a good idea to target anti-rape campaigns at men because (gasp!) it's the men who are doing the raping most of the time, at least outside of prison. But at the same time, I can see the point made that this particular campaign is objectifying women while it says not to rape them.
Letter to Alex and Chris, Twelve Years in the Future. - I've probably linked to this before, but it is really awesome and bears linking to again. It's a mom's letter to her two sons saying, basically, to harm those who cannot defend themselves or to stand by and allow them to come to harm means you are a failure as a human being, even if you won't get in trouble for it. To protect those who cannot defend themselves even when it means standing up to your friends and being in grave danger or losing the respect of people you like makes you a hero. I think boys everywhere should read this post.
Here. Favorite: "If you want your religion taken seriously, stop treating it like fandom." and here. Favorite: "The next person to ask 'so when are you having kids?' gets strangled with a tampon"
Another link: Andy Runton draws incredibly cute comics using symbols and facial expressions to evoke communication instead of actual wordy dialog. Very cool. I suspect these comics would be really useful for teaching English - you could have the kids read the comics and then explain what's going on.
So, I was reading Molly Saves the Day and I got to her post Twenty Questions: Baby-killer edition in which she posts twenty questions aimed at the forced-birth contingent who've been posting "abortion is murder of little babies!" comments on her blog lately. I found the post very interesting, but thought some of the questions were a bit too... harsh? biased? I'm not sure what the right word is. Basically, some of them seemed like they were destined to put up the hackles of the forced-birth contingent readers.
I think for questions like these to work as discussion starters, they have to be genuine, honest, and not constructed to start an argument. I hereby offer my own twenty questions as an exercise in promoting discussion. The idea is to get people thinking about what extending human rights to the unborn could lead to.
The ones with *s are lifted from Molly's with some adjustments.
This is an awesome article about one guy clearing out his music collection. I'm sometimes tempted to do this myself - I have so much STUFF! But then I would feel kind of bad for hanging onto the MP3s I've ripped, so... yeah. Still, interesting article.
Now all my friends who are using LiveJournal can put my blogs in their friends list. See My LJ Profile for details. (Thanks, Jeff)
In other news, sorry I haven't been blogging much. Between Cinequest, work (which is awesome), and trying to take care of myself (*shakes fist at fibromyalgia*) I have very little free time. On the bright side, I am still feeling good in spite of how many movies I've seen in the last couple weeks.
It never ceases to amaze me how counterintuitive it is for me to take care of myself. Taking long, hot baths and getting plenty of sleep are really good for my fibro, but I always feel vaguely guilty shirking other things (like Cinequest coverage) in order to do them. I know that taking care of myself keeps me from having a major flare but even so... we are so conditioned by modern society (especially here in Silicon Valley) to take pride in not taking care of ourselves that it's very difficult for me not to feel like a slacker. I'm working on it, though.
If you're looking for hats and/or purses, check out Kayt's Stuff on eBay. Kayt and I know each other from Red Elvises fandom, and she helps me out with The Red Pages every month.
If you're looking for art, check out Melisander.org. Mei and I go way back - I met her when I was an exchange student at York. She was an exchange student too - from back here in the US! Crazy!
I really don't have anything to add. As someone who is young, unmarried, and who does not want children, her story really resonates with me. I remain optimistic that forced gestation/childbirth is not in California's future, but still ... I can see her point. And I will say this: married or unmarried, young or not: if abortion is outlawed, I am totally getting my tubes tied.
I checked out some of the projects of the various people I met last night whose work I wasn't familiar with, and I am really glad I did! Dig this stuff:
I looked at the company Wae Yip works for - Mindretrieve is a program you put on your computer which can then be used to search the web pages you have surfed. It doesn't refer to anything except files stored on your computer, so it's not a privacy issue. Spiffy, nu?
Tailrank, the brainchild of several guys including Scott Johnson, gathers articles and whatnot worth reading and ranks them. A quick gander intrigued me and I'll be checking it out in more detail shortly.
I'm not a rabid anti-diamond person - I am aware that pretty much every corporation does bad things and where one draws the line is a personal matter. If you have a diamond ring, I'm not going to give you crap about it. In fact, I'll probably coo over it, because those little hunks of rock are pretty. But if/when I get engaged, my ring won't have diamonds, and I figured it was worth linking to an article explaining why. I'll probably wind up printing out a version of this and carrying copies around to hand to people who ask why I don't have a diamond ring.
Stuff I've been reading lately that made my feminist heart go pit-a-pat. Many (OK, most) of these are via this post at Feministe.
NOTE: I like men. I have male friends. I have a boyfriend. My male friends and my boyfriend are good guys. They are not assholes. Anything I may say below or which may be said in the articles I linked should be taken as about SOME men not ALL men. Some feminists (myself included) are bad about including the modifiers when writing about societal trends.
Ilona Rankovic's store is full of ZOMGCUTEAUGH art prints she has painted. They're really lovely. And cute.
The aptly named Cute overload is a blog of cuteness.
Ealasaid.com takes no responsibility for any injury, illness, or urge to acquire artwork, small animals, or children that may result from viewing these sites.
Gals who, like me, get irked by how tricky it can be to pee while out hiking/camping/rock climbing may be interested in The Whiz (no, I am not making that name up).
Need cool fonts on the cheap? Try DaFont, which has an awesome selection.
Rock. Chinchillas are AWESOME. Dan invited Dylan and me up to his brother's house so we could meet all the chinchillas he has. SO CUTE AUGH! We took tons of photos.
Warning: May offend conservative Christians, Pat Robertson or Bill O'Reilly followers, and people without a basic sense of perspective.
I'll go a step beyond just offering a link and say: Right on, man, right on. I am so sick of the "oh, poor me! We're so persecuted!" act so many wingnut "Christians" put on. (I put that in quotes because really, they're not Christians. Jesus said to turn the other cheek when you feel attacked, people, not bend the truth to suit your rantings and get lawsuit-happy.) The Christians who are actually being persecuted are the Christ-following, reasonable ones who are being made to look really bad by those nutjobs.
I am really glad I got to read a rant that awesome. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Twon! You rock.
Personally, I think it's appalling that I didn't know about that massacre, even though I am a woman who excelled in math and science and now works in a tech field. I hope I always remember the massacre. It's proof that women can be killed for breaking into men's professions, even here in the Western World.
If I seem cranky and angry lately, it's probably because my health hasn't been so great. Nothing like the constant irritation of poor health to make me peeved by things I could otherwise take in stride.
But then, is this stuff I should be able to take in stride?
This great post about married life and feminism is awesome. I found it via the Carnival of Feminists, which I am still working my way through (LOVE the Carnival! It rules!). There's an interesting followup to it over here at Pandagon.
The issue around which both pieces revolve is the division of labor in marriage. Because we still live in a patriarchy, the burden for worrying about this is carried almost entirely by women. Either we are the ones who do the housework or we are the ones who have to monitor the equal distribution of housework. Plus, if a couple's place looks like a mess, people will almost invariably blame the woman -- and even if they don't, the woman will probably feel that they do, which is just as bad. Damn that patriarchy!
I am not looking forward to having to deal with this when I get married, not one bit. It is going to be a total drag. At least I have blogs like the above to get me thinking about it now and to offer me food for thought.
I'll be doing a proper multi-link entry at some point soon (I have a bunch of links in my "blog this" list from the last couple days) but first things first:
Check it: my Mom is co-organizing her 40th High School Reunion: Covina High School Class of 1968 Reunion. Dad's helping with the website, and I'm running the email list (for now, anyway).
So I read a series of articles about a boy who died of a mysterious blood disease and, in discussing it with my cousin, realized that his first reaction was "how sad" while mine was "wow, that is really interesting! Also, bummer for the kid and his family. But dood! Mysterious blood disease! Greatest pediatric clinic in the nation stumped! How awesome is that?"
Now I know why I love "House" so much - the main character is the same way.
An interesting idea: Google-bombing for choice. They appear to have succeeded in altering the top result for Googling Roe vs. Wade, which is cool. I approve.
Open Source Toolbox - Free equivalents to commercial software. AWESOME. (Thanks, Dad!)
Right to Wife - Fantastic article about Judge Alito's ruling in Casey vs. Planned Parenthood (Alito being the guy appointed by Dubya to the Supreme Court, and Casey being the case where his dissenting opinion would have upheld a law requiring women to inform their husbands before getting an abortion).
Belili - an interesting page about research into Goddess spirituality, with loads of references to books I have got to try and remember to get from the library.
The City - What if San Francisco were made of Jello... and an earthquake hit? (Thanks, Dave!)
The physics of bras - Interesting article in Discover about bras. (thanks, Ith!)
Dover Stained Glass Coloring Books - I used to color in a couple of these a lot as a kid. They are amazing. I should totally get more and get back into that. There's something really soothing about coloring.
There's something handy about having an entry open all day where I can cut and paste awesome links that turn up. Keeps me from building them up in a "blog this!" folder, anyway.
Fantasy Name generator - not sure what to name that town/elf/NPC? This neat generator comes up with a bunch of names at a go and you can set it for different cultures, too. Very handy.
Quotes on Homosexuality - some real gems here. I think my favorite is "Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?"" ~John Stewart
Elisabeth Eaves - an interview with the author of Bare, which is about stripping. Very interesting! I totally want to read the book now. :)
Squirrels - pix of squirrels, some taken with a remote. There are some AWESOME photos here. (found via FlickrBlog Behe's 15th-century science - intelligent design gets spanked. Very funny article. (found via... um. Someone on my blogroll. Crap. Don't remember whom.)
I am finding it tricky to do much of anything, due to niggling little health issues (very mild vertigo, which causes near-constant mild motion-sickness; a mild headache; mild grogginess). however, I have the cure for what ails you:
KITTEN! (.mpg, 23Mb) That would be Bug, the new family member of my friends Jen and Alex. OMG, teh cute! I may die.
Also, here is a random selection of links which I have viewed and consider interesting/amusing/whatever:
So, if introverts are people who find other people tiring while extroverts are people who find other people energizing, but I find MOST people tiring but some people energizing, what does that make me?
Naamah_Darling weighs in on abortion rights, and says it all with incredible eloquence. She is an amazing writer.
I have been listening to the confirmation hearings for John Roberts as I drive to and from work (or at least listening to stuff about them, if not the actual hearings) and Roberts is giving me the heebes. Seriously. The man will not answer a frickin' question directly. He won't take stands. He says he doesn't want to wind up bargaining for confirmation votes, but what he's doign instead is not giving the senators a real impression of his beliefs and opinions. Given that this man holds the future of so many women in his hands, that frightens me.
This dismemberment of Deepak Chopra's idiotic stance on evolution is a thing of beauty. I always knew I thought Chopra was kind of lame - now I know he is completely lame. What a moron.
Once work settles down, I am going to catch up on interdictor's LJ. He's blogging from New Orleans. THe saga starts here. He sounds like an interesting guy from the handful of entries I've had time to read.
Sweden lets you "borrow" people so you can learn about them. It's called a "living library." You can "borrow" an imam, a journalist, or a lesbian (among others). I think this is a fantastic idea.
Everybody's doing it, so I will too. (Okay, maybe 2 people isn't quite everybody, but still.) It's good exercise, since work is making me so stressed that I barely have the words to express it (other things I lack words for: Hurricaine Katrina's devastation, gas prices, and our government).
Ten Things That Make Me Happy (in no particular order)
Petting my cats.
Snuggling.
The darkness of a movie theater right before the movie starts.
The bf (duh).
Beating the computer at Scrabble.
Watching The Daily Show (although it also often makes me angry at various people, I am happy to live in a country where the show can exist).
Walking among redwood trees.
Curling up with a good book for a couple of uninterrupted hours.
Watching Mythbusters (though it also makes me envious. Coolest. Job. Ever.)
The new Burger King ad campaign is actually pretty darn cool. They have mindless rock music, some cool music videos (which are basically ads for the new Chicken Fingers but are still groovie), and the band they've made up is a hoot. Check it out:
I bought a different spoilery tshirt (spoiler warning applies to this too, though not quite so much) and am hoping that it comes out of backorder and arrifves soon.
How Not To Make Me Ex-Gay is a beautiful response to the horrible letters a gay blogger receives. Seriously. This guy is amazing. I don't know if I would have the serenity to frame that kind of eloquent response if someone attacked me like that.
She did some great editing to make me sound a lot more fluid than I did at the time, and I actually come across as fairly intelligent. The topic of her podcast is religion - intelligent and thoughtful discussion of beliefs. I was one of several people she chatted with at a party a week and a half ago. Woot!
Sars just summed up almost perfectly why I loved Darth Vader so much as a kid:
This is why I loved Darth Vader as a kid: he is one hundred percent tragic-opera yippee-ky-ay-motherfucker stone-cold spaghetti-Western-black-hat who's-your-daddy this-is-how-we-do-it-on-the-Death-Star-bitch we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you capital-B bad-ass. That dude is not trying to hear anything about Indian burns or the silent treatment, and the only thing he's long-dividing is your ass with his foot.
I wasn't in the same situation she was as a kid, but I had issues of my own, and I think part of Vader's appeal is that he turns that rage we felt into power. He doesn't sit and try not to cry when people tease him. He doesn't worry about what he's going to get on the test. He is the man.
She explains perfectly why one of Vader's post-op lines is so unbelievably retarded and disappointing, and she also summs up Lucas' problem as a moviemaker:
Lucas can really make a movie look like a million bucks. A big set piece, no problem. Huge battle sequences, shit-kicking Muppets, aging an evil chancellor three hundred years with static electricity, ain't no thing. Two people just talking to each other and he's at a complete loss.
Unfortunately, I actually disagree with her a bit in the rest of the essay.
Dubya has a lot of nerve talking about a "culture of life" when he killed so many people as governor and even went so far as to mock the condemned. What a hypocrite. I hate politicians.
I gotta get my living will set up. If I'm ever in Terri Schiavo's condition, I don't want to consume valuable hospital resources for years. No hope of recovery = no feeding tube for me, man.
Check it out: Lisa Snellings-Clark (she of the awesome Rat Author sculptures) writes about the sculpture she's working on for Neil Gaiman, Bill Hicks, and how she thinks everybody should donate to Hicks' memorial wildlife foundation. Check it out.
I totally love Tomato Nation. Sars, the proprietess, is just plain awesome. Dig this quote from a recent issue of The Vine, her online advice column. In response to a gal worried about never having another boyfriend now that she's been dumped, Sars says:
It didn't work out, and you'll learn from it, and you'll either find love with someone else who digs you for you or you'll become a Thai-fighting spinster who rides a motorcycle. Or both. Whatever you end up doing with your romantic life, it won't proceed from one guy's assessment of you, so don't try to be something you're not. If the boys dig it, great. If they don't, you're a Thai fighter, enough said.
Interesting piece there. It asks some tricky questions, especially for writers. Go read it. I may post more about it when i'm done with my NaNoWriMo work.
What with my age and all, I'm doing the whole "do I really want to have children someday?" mental routine fairly regularly. I mean, biological leanings and my family push me one way, my firm dislike of 90% of humanity and 99% of puberty-age children push me in another. If I could have a well-behaved seven year old who would spontaneously turn into a responsible adult, sure. I could do that. But infants, two-year-olds, and 12-16 year olds mostly suck pondwater. There are exceptions, but man. I'm not sure I want to risk it. AFter all, once you have the kid, yer stuck with 'em. Ick. At least if a cat or dog turns out to be psycho, you can give them away or have them put down.
At least I'm not married yet so I don't have to deal with NEARLY as much pressure as I will if I ever do tie the knot.
She misspelled 10 names and one word in a mosaic outside a library. The spelling was fine in her sketches but she messed up while doing the piece itself. She noticed that she'd spelled "Einstein" wrong but just went forward with it.
"I just wasn't that concerned," she said. "None of us are particularly good spellers anymore because of computers. When you are in a studio full of clay, you don't give it much thought.
"When you look at Michelangelo's David, do you point out that one (testicle) is lower than the other?"
What a moron. Of course one of David's nuts is lower than the other. Has this woman never seen a man naked?
The library thought about making a game out of people finding the errors but she got all huffy about that too.
What a dumbass. She should be ashamed and offering to fix the errors at her own expense.
I just found out today (damn me and my RSS-hobbled reading habits, and damn Diaryland for its lack of RSS feeds!), so I'm sending a ton of belated good vibes Marn's way. I hope y'all will too.
Marn kicks ass. Marn is my hero. I want to be Marn when I grow up, only closer to urban areas with movie theaters and Costcos.
So send her good thoughts and wear your damn sunscreen.
I got 12 out of 14 right on the easy round and 13 out of 14 right on the difficult round.
I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it shows I have skillz. On the other hand, these skillz probably imply that I spend too much time looking at sex toys. Or too much time looking at dog toys.
It's kind of disturbing, even though I'm fairly self-satisfied at having earned a high score. I usually suck at either-or quizzes.
This column by Mark Morford of the SFChronicle is actually really good. He often irritates me with his over-the-top, let's-piss-off-the-right attitude (which is, imho, counterproductive), but I usually agree with what he has to say under the bells and whistles.
This time he hits the nail right on the head. Go read it.
I get this a lot: Mark, how can you write about light fluffy inconsequential things like dogs or yoga or car design or sex or music when there's so many vile gut-wrenching soul-curdling life-threatening atrocities and gang rapes and beheadings and Rumsfelds happening in the world right now that deserve immediate attention?
How the hell can you possibly write a whole column extolling, say, the virtues of single-malt scotch or of having sex in the backseat of small luscious European cars, when BushCo is right this moment ravaging the planet and eviscerating the human spirit and the environment is teetering on the edge and women's rights are being gouged and McDonald's is poisoning our youth and Dick Cheney is still upright, barely?
I hear a rumor that the LJ post where Cassie Claire announced she wouldn't be writing any more VSDs is now inaccessible... wonder if that means she's thinking about taking the torch up again? That would ROCK...
There's a great little article here about why indie bookstores are having such a rough time.
As a card-carrying Borders customer it's probably hypocritical of me to go "yeah! That's so true!" but hey, it is true. Little bookstores are having a hard time staying open and I feel kinda guilty right now for buying books at Borders.
Makes me wanna go find a good little indie bookstore and visit every week or something. Anybody know of any small bookstores around Milpitas/San Jose? Used or new.
"Watching these TV executives testify, it reminded me of the tobacco executives testifying, except that Janet Jackson's breast doesn't cause cancer." (From this entry.)
"When it comes to the environment, Republicans aren't just in bed with industry; they're sweeping all the shit off the desk so they can do it right there in the Senate office. They're a whore on the floor of a taxi cab. And I get so riled up about this because the environment is just different: if your tax cuts are making things worse, you can re-write the tax law. You can re-write a spending bill. But with the environment, once you lose that open space, it's gone. Once you pave over that wetland, it's gone. Once that species is gone, only the magic of Steven Speilberg can bring it back." (from this entry)
I know I have been a Bad Blogger (tm) by not posting about the Janet Jackson Halftime Scandal.
Here's my contribution:
Read this article by Marueen Turner over at Newsday.com. She hits the nail on the head, man.
This isn't to defend the Jackson/Timberlake performance; it was tacky, and it was out of place. But let's not kid ourselves by pretending that there was anything all that shocking about it. It was simply the next logical step in a culture that's made sexuality - specifically, women's sexuality - into an insanely profitable commodity. And it's only when the threat of public censure and government fines threaten that profitability that the perpetrators suddenly find their consciences.
Who knew that eating at the Golden Arches three times a day could not just make you sick but cause your body to start deteriorating? Morgan Spurlock ate at McD's three meals a day for a month and it could have killed him.
My body just basically falls apart over the course of this diet. I start to get tired; I start to get headaches; my liver basically starts to fill up with fat because theres so much fat and sugar in this food. My blood sugar skyrockets, my cholesterol goes up off the charts, my blood pressure becomes completely unmanageable. The doctors were like You have to stop.
Good lord.
Go read this, it's a wake-up call.
And it makes me feel really, really smug that I don't eat the burgers or anything at McD's. I've been known to eat their breakfasts, but that's about it.
I can see how networking sites could prove to be less of a help than they could be. People like me who sign up but don't really use them certainly don't help.
Okay, I just realized that I don't have a list anywhere of all the various networking sites I have profiles on. So, here we go! I only signed up on most of these because people invited me, and am not really all that active on them, although I probably should be. I really do need to network more.
Hm... I should redo my template so these are listed on there. But I'm at work. Drat. Will do it tonight, if I can...
He really is, you know. He's supported and encouraged and commiserated with me for 25 years, putting up with my adolescent inconsideration, childish temper, and now with me growing up and trying to stretch my wings. And he's done it with aplomb, too.
Rachel posted these in a comment to a previous entry of mine. In case you missed 'em, here they are again. (I've turned her cut-and-pasted URLs into links for ease of reading)
Quoth Rachel:
Wal Mart is trying to kill Geoffrey the Giraffe!! Read it!
So... yeah. I know you can save money shopping there, but please, readers, don't. Don't give your hard-earned money to these amazingly evil corporate bastards. Give it to other, less evil corporate bastards.
Here's one reason. And I don't believe that "Oh, the audit doesn't show how things really operate at our stores, honest!" BS the official was shelling out.
Violating child labor laws? They really are heinous corporate bastards.
Wow, I see in Elkit's blog that Chris Baty, of NaNoWriMo, has a book coming out! It's a how-to, personal trainer, pep thing for writing a novel in 30 days. Go Chris!
Well, apparently Cassie Claire will no longer be writing the Very Secret Diaries. However, a brave soul has stepped up to do an unofficial continuation, the Very Secret Journals. I've only had time to read a few, but they looked good! Check 'em out.
Dood. Margaret Cho has been speaking out about gay marriage, and people have apparently been emailing her about what she's said. Read her replies in her blog:
magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. (Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.) quis enim, consortes mei, non fateatur, (For who, colleagues, would not admit,) cum puella incedit minore medio corpore (Whenever a girl comes by with a rather small middle part of the body) sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos (Beneath which is an obvious spherical mass, that it inflames the spirits)
Guess who made it onto the best of Craigslist! Hee! Go read the post. If you're familiar with the writing style, you can prolly figure out who it is. :)
Neat article here about the youth of the 90s as compared to the youth of the 30s. I swear, I read somewhere that even back in the days of the Roman Empire, people complained about the "youth of today!" being dissolute and reprehensible.
See what John DeLancie and Lorenzo Lamas have been reduced to? For the low, low price of $19.95, they'll call a complete stranger and deliver a message composed by you.
I can't decide if this is a travesty or if I want to hint to people that having John DeLancie call me would make my day. (Well, make my day and simultaneously creep me the hell out.)
JMS, the creator of Babylon 5, saved a kitten. Go read about it here. This was no ordinary rescue mission - the kitten had fallen into a network of drainage pipes and was trapped underground. It took several attempts to get the little guy out. There are pix of the (now happy and healthy) critter, and boy is he a cutie. Go look!
There are numerous benefits to trawling the archives of antwon.com; an increase in one's tendency to construct dense prose, added vocabulary, heightened sexual appeal to the appropriate gender, and genuine amusement are only a few.
The one that springs to mind in particular today, however, is that Twon sure links to some cool stuff. He doesn't link often, but when he does, it's always to something cool. Check out the following:
Warehouse 23 - the basement of a mythological building run by The Powers That Be. There are all kinds of random things down here, including The Red Book of Westmarch - which has a photo of Tolkien and someone who sounds suspiciously like Bilbo tucked into it. Definitely a good timewaster, especially if you're a scifi/fantasy geek.
What is it with me lately? I just can't seem to wake up in the morning.
Anyway. This made me chuckle, even in my half-asleep stupor: Origami Boulder. For just $10, you too can have an origami boulder. Free shipping for a limited time!
Check out World of Ends for a neat essay on the internet - what it is (stupid - but in a good way) and what it isn't (something governments can control).
And last but not least, I've been catching up on Sinfest and am reminded what a totally kick ass comic strip it is. Go read it.
Prisoners are being subjected to 'Enter Sandman' from Metallica's self titled 1991 album, Drowning Pool's 'Bodies' from the film 'XXX,' and possibly the most fearsome of the lot - Barney The Dinosaur.
I'm seeing the new Matrix in... what time is it... um, about five and a quarter hours. I can't wait. 100 Agent Smiths! AIEEE! My squeeometer is going to max out, I swear.
Firstly, The Lords of the Rhymes have a new rap out. These guys kick ass, assuming that you like both Tolkien and gangsta rap. They even have a music video!
This guy is suing Nabisco for marketing Oreos to kids. Apparently partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is a tool of Satan or something.
There's a new 419 fraud scam kicking around. Most online folk have run across the Nigerian ones... this is a bit new. I can't wait for one to show up in my inbox! Not.
Apparently the pill can affect a gal's taste in men. Interesting stuff, but hardly surprising. I mean, everyone knows that hormones play a big part in being attracted to someone, and taking a pill that specifically affects the hormones related to reproduction could easily make a difference.
In my ongoing attempt to keep my "BlogLinks" email folder from exploding and showering my inbox with URL shrapnel, I hereby present you with some nifty links worthy of checking out.
The Antwon.com Guide To Taxes - another semi-obfuscated, hilarious tract from the offices of Antwon.com! This one's nice and early for next year's tax season.
There are pretty much two possibilities when it comes to your mathematical prowess: either you resolutely hate math, relegating the ability to manipulate numbers to the same level of difficulty as hunting unicorns, vacationing in Atlantis, and finding parking in downtown Rome... or you were sufficiently good at math that you got to the point where numbers took on names like "x", hung out with a variety of squiggly-looking Greek chaps, and went door-to-door wielding integral signs to beat the holy living hell out of other numbers for their lunch money while bantering about infinite numbers of four-dimensional slices of objects? in which case you have long since lost the ability to do something as droll as simple addition and multiplication. Either way, you're gonna need to get your hands on a calculator.
Definitely worth checking out when you're sick of bloggish tripe and ready for some actual reading.
After Gandalf falls, you get another view of the so-called terrorist Orcs. You know, the regrettable side of the Orcs does occasionally come out. The violence. It doesn't help their cause when these distinct, individual Orcs take it upon themselves to lash out at the inequality of the system. But notice that even these violent Orcs don't seem happy. They're not pleased with themselves. It's a violence borne of necessity.
Web Archive - this is amazing. These guys have been archiving the web since 1996. You can search for a website by URL, and see what it used to look like. This once again proves my point that putting something up on the web is quite possibly one of the stupidist things you can do if you don't want it to be read - even taking down the site doesn't guarantee that the wrong people won't find it eventually.
Bay Area Math Test - Dad sent me this a while ago, and I didn't get around to linking it because I'm lame. If you live in the SF Bay Area, this may hit a bit close to home...
Dood, I have way too many new links I find that I want to share every day. Seriously. I have half a dozen windows open right now with sites I think y'all might like, and over 200 messages in my "Bloglinks" folder.
This cannot go on! ARGH!
*pant pant*
Here are today's links.
The guys at Mondo have a totally sick sense of humor, but are really cool. I love their seasonal stuff... at least, when I'm in a mood to watch cutsie animals die messily. :) Oh, and the God and Devil Show totally rules.
The Audi-Oh is a potentially revolutionary product. I mean, imagine if you took your iPod and hooked it up to a vibrator!
I'm tempted to get a Hello Jesus shirt or something. I really am.
This takes on two things that really piss me off: Iraq and Reality TV. I knew there was a reason I loved The Onion.
Daaaaaaaaaang! My "bloglinks" folder is getting really overburdened. I gotta go back to posting links regularly. It's easier than real content, too, which is a bonus since I'm so busy. ;-)
Here we go!
Real-Threat.com - this is great. A site to remind us what we should really be scared of. (From Hedtke)
The warmonger and the peacenik - very snarky "dialog" between two stereotypes. I found it hilarious. Not sure where I stumbled across it, but it's cool.
Thank you, President Bush - a thank you letter to the Shrub from Paul Coelho. SOOOOOOOOOOO sarcastic.
Remember that show "Freaks and Geeks"? My pal Jen is a huge fan of it. I saw just enough episodes to think I might like it... and it got cancelled. Bastards. And, to add insult to injury, it's not out on DVD so I can see every ep in its pristine glory! However, there is now a petition to get a DVD version. Go sign it, por favor. (Thanks, Jen!)
Silly interpretations of Emergency signs provided by our government. I think my favorite is "If you spot terrorism, blow your anti-terrorism whistle. If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud." (Thanks, Kay!)
I'm trying to decide if adding this feature to my page would get me branded a terrorist sympathizer by our government. (Thanks, Dad!)
Who knew Grover is so bitter? "A genius, a tyrant, a womanizer or just a washed-up drunk? It's time to expose Grover- the monster behind the myth." (Thanks again, Dad!)
Now you, too, can really take Underwater Basketweaving! Hurrah! At least, if you live in Arizona.
Dood, you really can get anything on Ebay! Check out the Imaginary Girlfriend Kit. The product description is really the best part, so go take a look. High bid is currently $16.57.
Terry Jones is losing patience with his neighbors. This is a great piece on American foreign policy. Jingoists and people who think "Freedom Fries" are patriotic should probably not read, as their blood pressure might be adversely affected.
I am dying to see Willard, which opens on my birthday, how cool is that?
Some very strange people are forming a Lord of the Rings tribute band. I may have posted about that already, but it deserves a double post. Thanks to Twon for the heads-up on this one. Heh.
I'm considering putting a link to Hamster for President in my sidebar. That's a great campaign.
Secretary won't be available on DVD until April 1!!! It was supposed to be out already, I am crushed. [weeps in corner]
The Ageless Project - yes, people of all ages really do use the web, not just youngsters like me.
Below the Beltway - harshest interview with an author ever: I tell Burrows that if he is willing to submit to an interview, I am willing to review his book at length in The Washington Post. The only catch, I said, is that I am going to say that it is, in my professional judgment, the worst novel ever published in the English language.
Mr. Rogers is Dead. I watched his show and Sesame Street religiously as a child. He will be missed.
Last, but most definitely not least: Caring for Your Introvert - an article that intrigued me both as a person with introvert tendencies and as the girlfriend of an introvert. Well worth reading. I do think that dividing the world into introverts and extroverts is a bit narrow-minded - there are people who fall somewhere between the two poles, after all. Even so, worth a read.
First things first: this is horrible. Some poor kid being abused and tormented in the public school system for her religion - and not just by the students, either. Good grief. Here's hoping her parents win the court case against the school district.
In other news, I'm still having a great time playing tour guide and showing my visitor the native ways and quaint customs of California. He's learning to say "cool" and "dude" and generally having fun. We went wine tasting today with a couple of my friends - very cool. :)
Also - Antwon appears to have actually broken his writing streak as he resolved to do. So congrats to the Twon! Hurrah! *throws confetti*
So if Jesus faces a vampire, does the vampire cringe automatically? If Christ touches a vamp, would it burn? I have to see this film. Apparently it will be available on DVD soon. I wonder if Best Buy will have it? Hm....
Well, hell. My "BlogLinks" email folder is up to 100 messages. This goes to show that I am (a) a very lazy person or (b) a very busy person. Maybe some of both. Either way, I feel bad, so here goes.
It is now legal for people who aren't married to have sex in Georgia. Hurrah. I can't imagine being the poor guy who challenged his conviction and got it overturned. I give him mad props for it, though. I can't believe there are laws like this still on the books - but there are! It's horrifying. We live in a nation that values free speech and privacy and the rest of it, but there are states where various sexual positions and partnerships are forbidden by law. Good grief. So yeah, kudos to that poor teenager, and here's hoping others will take up the cause. (link from Badsnake.)
And while we're on the subject of free speech and the rest, California's Senator Feinstein is working to prohibit 'desecrating' the flag. And how is she going to do this? By amending the Constitution to prohibit it. The scary thing is, with things the way they are at the moment, she just might succeed - the way the folks who got "In God We Trust" put on our currency and "under God" stuck into the pledge of allegiance during the McCarthy era did. Things like this make my blood boil.
Is it a mark of my cynicism that I find this upsetting but not surprising? US soldiers comitting atrocities in Afghanistan? The US government trying to cover it up? Witnesses to said crimes meeting violent ends? Noooooo, it couldn't be! [/sarcasm]
Feh. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
On a cheerier note, it is now possible to surf the web while you exercise, thanks to NetPulse. Rah. That's exactly what I need, provided it came with a keyboard so I could update my blog too.
Aaaand, in the vein of yesterday's just wrong post, here's another. Yes, it's PokeTHULHU! AIEEEEEE!
Had a very... productive day, I suppose. Did chores. Worked on web contracts. Hung out with a couple friends this evening when one went to pick up a couple others at the airport and took me along for the ride so she wouldn't get bored.
And yet I was feeling somehow ... unfulfilled.
Then I realized that I hadn't posted here yet! Dear God! No! I must post! I have a zillion links to share with y'all! Here are a few of them. Don't want to spend them all in one place, ya know.
Now, I've heard of a number of methods of meditating, but attending raves wasn't one of them. This is no longer the case. It's an interesting idea, really, and one I can get behind. I only ever dance at live concerts (preferably ones featuring The Red Elvises or the Phenomenauts or both) but that zen feeling of peace is certainly a feature of the experience.
This article by Ben Stein is wonderful. That man is spot-on, I am so serious. Admittedly I have less of a problem with having an intellectual elite than he does (since I'm part of that elusive top whatever percent) but I agree with him about pretty much everything else.
And now I must get to work. I have SO MANY things to do, starting with the new issue of The Red Pages.
Aaaaaand... one for the people who either are totally brilliant and artistic or have waaaay too much time on their hands column: The Daily Photo Project. This guy has been taking a mug shot of himself every day since 1998.
One of the cool things about reading through Antwon's archives is that I occasionally stumble across some cool link that he found a couple years ago that's still around and active. This is schweet, as then I can share it with y'all, and while it's not new, it's old enough to be retro by Web standards (I'm still in his posts from 2000, so I'm finding sites that have been around for years! That's impressive, nu?).
In case you're wondering why I'm reading Twon's archives, the answer is simple. He said once that he had so much content he could rest assured that nobody would ever read it all. I am obsessive and a completist, and had already been cotemplating reading the archives, since I read his daily posts already, and that pushed me over the edge.
Anyway. I now present one of those old school links: a search-engine drinking game. Basically, the game consists of a bunch of people sitting around running searches on random phrases and seeing how many hits they get. Just think - a bunch of my online friends and I could sit in front of our computers, turn on our various IM programs, and play it! Ha!
Anybody interested? Probably not as much fun as a drinking game played in person (so to speak) but hey, the site says that nobody's played it as far as the writer knows, so....
I just looked at the folder in my email inbox labeled "BlogLinks" and it's got 68 messages in it. Sixty-eight. Clearly I need to quit filing messages with interesting links and start posting the blasted things. And since I'm doing a lot of stuff on the computer this week (when I'm not running around being a total party animal and generally taking advantage of the fact that my parents are out of town and the house is mine all mine!), my handful of faithful readers may expect a slew of links in coming days.
Here's the first!
Some guy bought a town on eBay. Now, I'm as fond of eBay as the next person with weird interests and a bit of disposable cash, but wow. That's impressive. I guess it's true that everything really is on eBay at one point or another.