seperis

Urgh, I missed posting about this earlier, but blame work and uh, life. But!

My newest niece was born on Thursday, weighing in at ten pounds and eleven ounces, is ridic adorable, has more hair than I thought possible, and cheeks so fluffy they almost demand pinching. She is obviously perfect in all ways, sweet beyond the hopes of mortal men, and brings my total number of nieces to three, making a total of four offspring born to my sisters.

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Also, randomly, Child dyed his hair purple. As a parent, my greatest disappointment is that he's so very bad at it that there are pink blotches throughout, as all my lectures on the use and abuse of unnatural hair colors have fallen on deaf (and now purple-stained) ears. OTOH, wearing a purple shirt, he's a never ending source of hilarity. So there's that.

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These are gonna be the shortest thoughts on Star Trek ever, mostly because I have cramps, though you may not know this, Star Trek can fix those for like, the entirety of the movie. I shall add this to my ibuprofen and water daily. Possibly hourly.

( part i: problems and thoughtsCollapse )

( the prime directiveCollapse )

This was not a bad movie, it was just not a movie for hardcore fans who kind of thought the entire Khan arc was awesome.

( part ii: what I likedCollapse )

I may have more thoughts later. Mostly, I'm working into what I did like, which actually does outnumber what I don't on the strength of how much I do like how there is a surprising amount of personal character development going on

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Dear PRISM,

If you wanted to know my search terms in asstr.org that much, dude, just ask:

1.) minotaur, tits, cow, udders - humans submit to gene therapy to become a race of minotaurs but not enough women show up, so some of the males were made cows with unnervingly positive results and some amount of grazing, with a short digression on their secondary stomaches. And udders and orgasm related lactation, of course.

2.) boy, catheter, guiche ring, exercise, enema - guy meets guy. Guy wants to infantalize guy and drugs him, has him declared insane, and makes him wear a diaper and the most traumatically designed catheter ever created. Then there's estrogen shots and lactation. As seems to be a thing.

3.) wonder woman, inflation, gore, green, rubber - I'm pretty sure I block that one out perodically because I don't remember anything about it and have to go look again. I'm also pretty sure I've run out of free concussions before brain damage is an issue, but you gotta do what you gotta do. There was kryptonite lactation, because why the fuck not?

Dude, find your own porn from now on. I do not exist to fulfill your kinky needs. I am doing this for science. I'm not sure which science, but no one likes a doubter of the scientific method.

Adding: each of these represents an entire classic genre, dating back from the days of usenet when we had no ability to google but had to just read the tags and hope they got the anatomy of a human-bull hybrid right, because that just throws me right out of the story and you know how frustrating that is? Our forefathers of alt-sex battled spammers, uncomfortable autobiographical accounts of things that should never be written in the first person singular and claimed as a true story, and vanilla missionary sex with two consenting opposite-sex adults after marriage to get where we are today, and look at where we are. PRISM, you have made our wholesome and totally above reproach search for human-minotaur rubber wonder woman genderswitch lactation porn feel dirty. Thanks a fucking lot.

--seperis

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My least favorite time to write anything is when I really have something to say. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it's true, and this is why; when I do have something to say, that rarely if ever coincides with any desire to talk about it, which sets up a conundrum in that everything else piles up behind it. As many a apocryphal mother has said, you can only eat one bite at a time, except that would end with choking and a tragic yet easily preventable death when you have too many bites and don't get with the program, while this just ends in not being able to talk about anything at all. Or at least, nothing that makes much sense. It does lead to a lot of uploading old Smallville fic to AO3, so if you're curious, almost everything is there now.

TW: abuse, alcoholism, etc in part two.

( this is what I'm not talking about, part 1Collapse )

( this is what I'm not talking about, part 2Collapse )

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Apparently This Matters: The worst time of day for work

(CNN) -- A lot of people don't know this, but for every 30 minutes of legitimate work, all employees must be allowed one full hour of Internet cat videos.

People who don't know that the internet at work is for cat macros need to understand: they block porn and gaming websites. It could be argued--and be totally wrong, but hey, let's see who contradicts me--that macros were a socially-progressive, dynamically charged form of civil rebellion against the corporate fat cats--(is it backshadowing if I use this after the mention of the cat macros?)--in the pay of the Illuminati who control the government and want to deny us the god-given right to stare at the beauty of the human form au naturale because society, economy, morals, communism, reasons.

(Later, we added DYI demotivational macros, because if we're gonna be at work anyway, it's not like we had much motivation to lose, and it combines surprisingly well with cats.)

And that's how Tumblr was born. All because of cat macros and server-level software that reported on us if we tried to disable it on our work computers.

This has been a True History of cat macros. And Tumblr.

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So let's say due to reasons, you let your webhost expire and kind of lost your site. And sure, you could go to wayback and get every goddamn page one by one, strip the code out, and--seriously, who does that?

If you need to do that, however, there's an easier way.

Warrick is a Linux based Perl command line program that seems to be doing just that--pulling the site, stripping the wayback code, and fixing the relative and absolute links. From what i can see, it gets html, css, all images so far, and pdfs, but as that's kind of all I had on my site, could pull other extensions. I'm still validating--four thousand files--but so far, it seems to have at minimum gotten the bulk of it, and checking the html, the wayback archive's code has been stripped out.

It's available in iOS in beta, but it's almost painfully easy to use at it's most basic level, so if you have access to a linux system, I recommend this.

The page above has some good instructions, but quick breakdown if you use a linux desktop and don't do command line.

( quick instructions for installationCollapse )

Notes: This takes a while. Start it before you go to bed.

I'm still validating the files--seriously, four thousand--but this seems to be working pretty well so far.

If anyone tries, tell me how it worked for you!

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Wikipedia freefall (noun) - the gradual degradation of efficiency that occurs when you try to research a topic on Wikipedia.

Today:
Nicola de la Haye, who in her sixties spit in the eye of the French army while defending Lincoln (successfully!)-->William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury-->William II Longespée-->(LOST TIME)-->Diane de Poiters-->Henry II of France-->Diane de France-->(LOST TIME)-->Henriette of England-->Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche.

In case you are curious, Armand has the distinction of banging both Philippe, Duc d'Orleans only brother of Louis XIV of France and Philippe's wife, Henriette of England, daughter of Charles I and mistress of Louis XIV, and possibly fathering her first daughter. While hitting on Louise de La Vallière , who would become Louis XIV's official mistress.

If life was fanfic, this would be due to a thwarted passion for Louis XIV, who cruelly turned him away because of his Destiny to be A Great French King and He Must Think of Duty Before the Great Love of His Life Who Swam the Rhine For Him (really did that!). Just saying.

I need more hobbies.

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Missing e on Tumblr stopped working--again--so my tumblr reading off my phone is limited. I can accept certain drawbacks using my phone to do anything, but dude, my laptop is all seeing and all knowing, and by God, I will be able to see dates Just saying. I also lost my glasses--somewhere--so currently wearing prescription sunglasses while sitting outside on a cloudy day and ignoring the way that the page has rainbow sparkles. It's like posting while tripping, but without the paranoia, claustrophobia, or certainty I understand what the leaves are thinking. So not an improvement; leaves are awesome.

Android users!

Wi-Fi Mouse, turns your phone into a laptop. I've tested it a few times, but I think this is more useful for those whose touchpad is either acting weird or hates touchpads. However, it is a surprisingly sensitive mouse and works very well using wi-fi once you get through the (short) adjustment curve. This does require your laptop and your phone be using the same wi-fi network.

Bubble UPnP - for all your home media server needs. If you use anything at home with UPnP for sharing purposes, this can pick it up. I use Mediatomb off my home server and it not only picks it up brilliantly, it makes video playlists. I almost cried.

General

I have yet to find anything free--or paid, for that matter--that works as well as Mediatomb. I had a temper tantrum with the javascripting and decided to use something else. I found nothing that would work for a semi-headless server, so went back and fixed all but one part of my javascript so now it works as well as can be expected.

I'm finding this annoying. I've said before Mediatomb is easy, and it is, provided you want to do the hour of hand-compiling the various aspects to get the javascript coding to create your own hierarchy. It's totally worth doing, don't get me wrong, but I'm not a professional coder, I just play one for fun, and the minimum level of understanding is probably just around or below what I can do blind without a reference text. That is not friendly to non-geeks or even most geeks who aren't pros or really used to doing their own hack work, and the thing is--this is a truly, truly good piece of software. It would be great if they fixed the goddamn javascript sorting and added playlist functionality, which could also be done with javascript. If my C+++ was even marginally better--yes, I did read the entire goddamn code from the ground up--I'd be asking to work on this. With the release of the new Youtube API, full youtube functionality could be added back.

Mostly, I resent the fact that as-is, provided you compile yourself, it's really good and I could be and am perfectly content with using it, but outside the geeknet, this isn't gonna catch on, and it should. As a UPnP, it's the best I've found once installed for a user, it's clean, and it's never to my knowledge so much as bugged during playback. Once it's running, it's fine; your only actual jobs are opening the web-based interface and clicking to add things--the javascript sorts and organizes everything.

I do think a part of the attraction for me would be a negative--the sorting problem does require javascript if you don't have a nailed down hierarchy of where all your folders are and your files, and even if you do, no one wants their titles to read supernatural.1.01.avi or captain.america.HDTV-700.LOL.avi. I have a whole bunch of short prototypes to take care of it (titles: Supernatural 1.01, Captain America), but getting ep names without changing my file names--which would be disastrous--would be nice, and the scripting to pull from a database isn't beyond me, but I'd need a lot more extended free time than I have just to create my own database with IMDB right there, teasing me if I'm willing to learn how to access teh API.

Yes, my problems are server related today. I have exactly six days until deployment of the latest build and I am stressed. Below, screenshots, because I will evangelize someone else into using this and feeling inspired with javascript. I need help.

( screenshots from web interfaceCollapse )

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Okay, this is because a.) exhaustion and b.) lack of sleep, so paranoia is probably rampant at the moment.

Amazon Worlds, earlier post about it here.

Again, my defense is paranoia:

I figured out what was bothering me as a writer about this.

Okay, assuming this takes off and paid fanfiction is a thing; would that be grounds to start C&Ding free fanfiction on the net? The thing is, right now, the original media is not in competition with free fanfic, and they also aren't losing money because there is no paid equivalent. However, with the advent of paid fanfiction--that they get money from as well--free fanfiction would be considered competition.

Anyone legal or economic or philosophically inclined have any kind of odds on it becoming worth the effort to C&D free fanfiction since it would actually be direction competition and because money theoretically is being lost for every fic that is downloaded for free from AO3?

The thing is, while the original media doesn't make money off this, neither do fanfic writers. Now they have a way to make money off fanfic, will AO3 be the textual equivalent of Pirate's Bay in the future?

Yes, paranoia. It's been a hell of a week.

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Kindle Worlds for Authors

You know, I'm actually not sure how I feel about this in specific.

Link Roundups

Tis the End Times by morgandawn

Another corporate attempt to corral and profit from fanfic? by ithiliana

I'm warily working my way through the links so far, and I would probably be doing a lot better at the pros/cons bit if I hadn't had really intense meeting today about the new build at work.

Includes:
Kindle Worlds by flourish - I like her breakdown a lot.

Seriously, Is This Happening?

Weirdly enough, approaching this from a reader standpoint, I seriously love beyond words this. I can pay my favorite authors for my favorite fic. This is like a dream come true. I mean, the ones without offensive porn, incest, or violence (per observation by coffeeandink) which are usually my favorites. I'm assuming A/B/O Sam/Dean SPN fic isn't going to be widely available there, is what I'm saying.

As a writer--I don't think I've written anything without two of the three above (three of three on a good day). And--okay, I'm not sure how I feel about pay-only access, either, if it can't be archived (which this going to Amazon's copyright ownership terms, that would be a no).

This would happen a week before a major deployment at work. Jesus, the timing.

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Thanks to work things this weekend, no Star Trek for me, which I am not sobbing hysterically over but as we have delayed double deployment at the end of hte month, it's more exhaustion than anything that's keeping me from doing so.

However:

FF_A thread on the Star Trek Prime Directive reminded me of my favorite almost-great-but-not-quite Star Trek novel, Star Trek: Prime Directive by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (NOTHING LIKE THE TNG MOVIE EVEN LIKE A LITTLE). It has the distinction of being a very SJW take on the Prime Directive before SJW as concept or acronym was a thing on the internet (Social Justice Warrior) and takes great, great care to hit you over the head like a lot on why the Prime Directive is Awesome Like a Lot Seriously Why Don't You Get This Let Me Tell You Again, Really, but luckily, there's a lot of plot, so you can pretty easily skip the lecture portion of the show (it could be a 101 course, not kidding), and it does, in all fairness, make a vague half-hearted attempt at why the PM is bad using idealistic college students and single mother activists. Yeah.

Okay, leaving that off, it brings up two very interesting things that I'm pretty sure canon never bothered to throw out and turned out useful and obvious. One is a cultural scale model for pre-warp cultures, which assumed a crystal-growing type of development curve--all culture develop like this in this order, more or less, with the curve adjusted for population lifespan and I think worked differently on humanoid/non-humanoid/sentient slime-like species/incorporeal-who-the-hell-knows populations (keeping in mind Diane Duane to this day is the only one that had a sentient ensign rock and meetings involving Debians and non-humanoids, so detail is sketchy). It also emphasized, unfortunately, the powerful level of paternalism involved, which on one hand it is, no like--WE MUST PROTECT THOSE LESS ADVANCED--without leavening it with the much less skeevy Unintended Consequences model, which the story actually does for itself on reading, so maybe it's better that wasn't part of the lecture.

Reading for story, however, not lecture, you do get a very vivid and very precise explanation of what could happen if you're not truly hand to God--literally speaking--God and know where each single sparrow is and when it's falling. The use of the culture model that decides when a civilization is truly ready for pre-warp is shown as badly flawed but the best they have to work with, hence the requirement for warp technology. Humanity is still arrogant--and by humanity, read "all lifeforms in existence, probably mostly sentient but who the hell knows"--but the first rule to abide is Thou Shall Not Assume You Know Shit About Anything, Dumbass, even though you really think you do, and pretend at all times that you're likely going to be wrong until proven beyond all reasonable doubt otherwise and then take it to committee if possible because you gotta be sure. Which is, in a lot of ways, the basis of the prime directive; the mistakes you make when a civilization is at stake, not just their development, but their actual literal existence (see: nuclear winter, genocide) aren't the kind you can fix and even if you could, will they still be themselves after in their uniqueness, and what would you be saving, so to speak, if you destroyed all they were beforehand?

(Interesting point in the story is based on that; the Prime Directive uses the cultural model to bolster it's pre-warp-no theory, even though the cultural model is flawed because of the Prime Directive, because chicken, see egg. They know the model is flawed and because of that the Prime Directive is very much a best-guess at the safest possible save point--warp technology--because the model itself has to use that as the standard as well. It could be safe to establish relations earlier--it's likely, actually!--but they don't know because the cultural modeling is only perfectly accurate after they get to contact the culture. It's not a live model, it's observational up until that point. This could be fixed very probably if the Federation was willing to just give up a few pre-warp civilizations for cultural experimental purposes and try this at earlier and earlier points and learn from their failures (civilization one: contacted at pre-industrial era: blows self up: Fail! civilization two: contacted at medievalish era: thinks we're gods, genocide, ten people left on planet; REALLY FAIL! civilization three: not yet into the bronze thing, maybe we should....: BEARS ALERT RAPTORS RUN FUBAR BEARS FAIL BEARS LIONs BEARS!). They're not willing to risk that, however, any earlier than the first safe point, so you see how this is just academic hell.)

In the book itself, because it was Captain Kirk I was totally fine with the ending, but I would also argue that it was luck that it turned out well, and not just luck, but really one-time only cannot replicate this particular cultural development (story backs this up; this was very unique to this culture and what was happening to it) luckyity luck-luck by ten. I'd also argue that this is far less an exercise in anti-colonialism--though it is--and even less a bootstrap modeling of culture--though yeah, there is some of that--but a pretty sophisticated understanding of risk, when the risk is how on earth can anyone say no when you're the one carrying a nuke to a rock fight--you can't lose, there's just no way, the fact you brought it at all is the deciding factor, not that you wouldn't use it, so don't come at all.

...yes, I am re-reading everything Star Trek related so the sobbing doesn't go into effect. I hate work right now like you have no idea.

Note: I like the Bears alert model. The Raptors and Lions and Bears alert model however, is my variation, as raptors and lions are by nature funny and will also eat you in non-stuffed-animal form.)

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Oh, for people who need teapots, especially for work:

Adagio Teas teapot - it holds plenty of tea, it is ridic easy to wash, and it's infinitely storeable. Only warning--when full, pour very carefully at first, I have no idea why, but it will leak a tiny bit. I've been using it at work for about a month and it's kind of perfect, but it does get hot, especially the lid, so I use a pencil to maneuver it off to remove the tea when it's done seeping.

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Depression Part 2 at Hyperboleandahalf - an illustrated guide to depression. Possibly the most hilarious, most painful, most metaphorical, most literal, most everything description of depression I've read in--ever. With awesome illustrations.

Most of still live with the knowledge that there are great swathes of the population--we'll call them 'idiots'--who at some point decided the depression in it's entirety can be expressed as 'not happy' and also, that it's something that can be cured with bootstrap puppy macros on the bright side of it's a wonderful life. I don't call people idiots for not understanding depression--frankly, I've lived with it over half my life, and I'm still fairly unclear on what the ever-loving fuck is going on--but I get tetchy on the subject when they believe 'understand' is a required prerequisite for 'believe', because I personally didn't sign up to be the professor failing to teach 101 adequately and then worry how they'll survive when they stop believing in air, as they seem to think 'believe' is a key facet in the existence of reality.

For everyone else, however, there's this post; if you don't understand depression, if it's still hard to get your head around, if you have family or friends who live with it, if you just want to know--this might help. Depression is vast and individualized and no two people who have it will conceptualize or experience it the same way. However, I've noticed that no matter how differently people describe depression, they're always right, possibly because for me, they all say the same thing--that depression is less a thing that's there, but a word that encompasses the vastness of absence, knowing perfectly well the scope of what should be there and no longer is, and realizing you'll have to wait forever while living without it. It can be weeks or years or a matter of months, or so the calenders say, but while you're waiting, it's always forever.

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Per FFA: Hyperbole and a Half Is Back!

I love this blog so much..

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Every time I think that I've become rational about Trek, I am immediately proven wrong--one might say there's some kind of alien intelligence plotting against me in my brief moments of calm. Most recently, I wandered into Gamestop for two games for me and a headset for Child and you'd think I'd be safe, but no. No, they had the trailer playing behind the counter, and me and one of the guys working there immediately collapsed into what can only be called squee, at length, while we both cursed the vagaries of fate that it wasn't May seventeenth already because holy shit, how were we going to survive?

Star Trek: Into Darkness, Trailer #3, American version, International version.

Also, the We won't fit clip of joy forever.

Less than two weeks. I can do this.

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...somehow, I have ended up in the Experimental Cat Breeds category of Wikipedia. Honest to God, I have no idea how I ended up here, and I can only partially blame scy for her talk on her cats, because I was already reading about the Cat Genome Project and am now staring at the cat that steals souls with its steely glare. I'm saying, when you look into the abyss, the Ukrainian Levkoy is looking back.

I don't even own a cat. And yet, suddenly, I deeply want one that two generations back would be very likely to attempt to a.) eat me or b.) consider eating me if I were somewhat smaller and so would simply maul me like a lot.

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300: Rise of an Empire

Okay, if this is just at the purely oiled twelve-pack abs level of goodness that 300 was, I'll be ecstatic. I say this not from plot or believability or wtf was going on with Xerxes army--I say this because I don't actually have many clear memories of anything that wasn't hot men in loincloths running and leaping (and running. And leaping. Christ, the leaping. With a spear). And Gorgo spearing Theron like the squealing pig he is.

However, second character listed? Artemisia. Satrap of Caria in her own right and the only female general in Xerxes army. Right after Queen Gorgo.

Fine, I'm in for the oiled musculature and to see two very powerful women make war. I'm very okay with myself right now.

( okay, i love historyCollapse )

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Uncomfortable realization: I become more deeply sympathetic to Crowley in proportion to the amount of facial hair he's sporting in any given episode. It's this entire combination of accent and scruffiness that's doing something terribly unhealthy to me, symptoms of which may or may not include thinking Kevin's being really, really mean about not just telling Crowley what he wants to know.

I feel the entire cast should have a no-shaving episode so as to evaluate how I would react to them. By that I mean, I wouldn't survive. Purgatory flashbacks alone are watch with caution--Castiel manages to pull off filthy like showers should be banned.

This has been a message from my libido, which currently is really confused, since before now, I can honestly state none of my kinks included less than minimum hygiene requirements. Goddamn television.

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In case you're curious, my earlier re-reads of the Anne books are here.

The Blythes Are Quoted by L.M. Montgomery - Kindle version

One of the nice things about the Anne of Green Gables series is that it grew up with me, especially the later books after Anne's marriage--and I would give a lot for more authors to cover the married lives of their heroines. My favorite by far is Anne of Ingleside this week (my favorite changes by the hour) because while first time true falling in love is great, keeping in love and living lives of adventure (no matter the scope of the adventure) is what I love most. Negotiations with in-laws--hilarious!--mischevious kids--awesome!--life lived like a novel where the romance may go but it comes back because you want it to is what I want to read about.

( more or less ramblingCollapse )

The stories are in general a lot of fun and tackle some themes she hasn't before, not head-on anyway:

Some Fools and a Saint - a mystery that is, while you kind of guess where it's going, still satisfies very much in the how it was done.

Penelope Struts Her Theories - an old maid who writes papers about childcare is faced with an actual child. Make that two. It has to be admitted, she did not get a great specimen of a kid to work with here.

A Commonplace Woman - not happy, but an interesting departure in the indifferent family, the utter dick of a doctor (who is totally not getting Gilbert Blythe's patients, the dick), and the dying woman upstairs with an entire life no one knew about. It's not happy, but it's satisfactory in a way I didn't expect when I started it.

An Afternoon with Mr. Jenkins - not entirely happy or sad, but thoughtful in the sacrifices parents will make for their children.

I liked most the glimpses into Ingleside, of Susan and Anne and Gilbert, and hell yes Anne and Gilbert are still in love (thank you LM) and reading between the lines, Anne's recovery from the death of Walter in her poetry and the brief conversations.

Also read:

The Blue Castle - I love Valancy second only to Anne. When she found her gumption, she really found it.

Magic for Marigold - I would have loved this as a young teenager much more. I liked it, but eh. I liked it much more before Old Grandmother died. She was awesome.

Anne of Green Gables, et al - I went through the entire series out of order, and cried yet again for Dog Monday--goddamn that dog's awesome--and Rilla bringing up Jims, and liked Rilla much, much more now than I did as a teenager. I always love Anne, because Anne is awesome. And I love Miss Cornelia so much I want one to move next door to me and bring me gossip every day.

Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea - I still love these like a lot. I have a soft spot for bizarre courtships--Ludovic Speed killed me dead, because okay, I know people like this, who literally require something along the lines of a concussion to jump their track, and Old Man Shaw's Girl that broke my heart and put it all together again, and The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's that never stopped being hilarious, and The Miracle at Carmody which love surpasses all things, even the most powerful thing of all, your own mind.

I continue to skip Tannis of the Flats, which I still hate like burning, but a lot of it now is that I don't know how to read it or what I'm reading or even what I'm looking for.

( i still hate this story, racism, classism, wtfCollapse )

Current and Upcoming

Jane of Lantern Hill - I'm at the part where she goes to her father!

Emily of New Moon, Emily's Climb, and Emily's Quest - I say this with love; I have to be in the right mood for Emily. Emily's classism and snobbery popping out drives me nuts, and while I get that is a thing that people do and everything, those are my default do-not-wants, but luckily, I can usually read around them. And I love Teddy and watching them all grow up.

Gutenberg

For quick reference for anyone who wants them for download. Some may not be out of copyright in your country/principality/political dominion, legalcakes:

Anne of Green Gables - all formats
Anne of Avonlea - all formats
Anne of the Island - all formats
Anne of Windy Poplars - HTML
Anne's House of Dreams - all formats
Anne of Ingleside - HTML
Rainbow Valley - all formats
Rilla of Ingleside - all formats
Chronicles of Avonlea - all formats
Further Chronicles of Avonlea - all formats
The Story Girl - all formats
The Golden Road - all formats
Emily of New Moon - HTML
Emily Climbs - HTML
Emily's Quest - HTML
The Blue Castle - HTML
Jane of Lantern Hill - HTML
Magic for Marigold - HTML

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So for two weeks I've been on twelve hour days and Saturdays for the build that they decided on Friday will be delayed until June. On one hand, I love my work and I love my Duckling and I love all the other ducklings and I love seeing their progress. On another--two weeks averaging around sixty-five hours each week, and I'm tired. On the third--assuming I had tentacles--the new testers are amazing and I don't regret that they came to me for help and I was able to give it to them and get to know them, so I'd have done it even if I'd known there was a delay.

Why Animation Has Betrayed Me

The Story of Simon Petrikov by mydeathstartsnow, Adventure Time - see, I watched this show casually and without commitment of any kind--honestly, I didn't even realize I watched it enough to be affected--and yet. Fuck Adventure Time. I knew it watching it was pretty much the equivalent of living in someone's brain during a particularly surreal four-hit acid trip, but dude, I Remember You was not fair.

This is still, not live action, and at least three quarters fanart, which probably is what makes it amazing, since as a rule I don't like still vids, and yet--the multiple styles and types work as well as action does, switching between scenes and emotions the way live action simply can't, not usually, and goddamn heartbreaking. I'm pretty sure the storyline is pretty clear even without a lot of knowledge of the show, but mostly, I love the use of fanart in this one. I've seen it done before, but using it not only to carry a storyline, but switching stye and type from chibi to manga to convey the emotion like this is not usually this powerfully done.

Though I am perfectly willing to be proved wrong if anyone has recs of it. For me, I need a gateway vid to get into any particular style, and this one seems to have done it.

Also, fuck Adventure Time. I was fine with feeling like I was having acid flashbacks from certain points in my college career at random. Now this. Goddamnit.

Other News

Currently re-reading the complete Anne of Green Gables, including The Blythes are Quoted - Montgomery's last works before her death, and I'll say honestly, some of them are among her best. I was afraid something would spoil the Blythes for me--HAPPY ENDING OKAY--but no, never, and the new short stories were interesting and among her most polished work.

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Due to work related overtime--every day but Sunday for the last week, including today, I am logging a terrifying number of hours, but it helps that Duckling keeps me entertained--I'm in a comfort-fic zone and my Kindle makes it ridic convenient to do so. Especially if one happens to--due to pure absentmindedness, not kidding--get on the bus going north toward home but the wrong bus going north and end up going to Techridge when one lives--well, nearer to Rundberg?--yeah, if you are in Austin, you're laughing at me, but it was a nice drive! Got in lots of reading.

Including the following this last week:

Qui Habitat by domarzione - both unfinished novel and series, an AU in which the Ori conquered the Milky Way and are on their way to Pegasus. It helps to have some SG1 basics, but it's not necessary, context will be given. The novel that starts teh series is the WIP, but it has nine related short stories as well.

This story has the distinction of being the only one I've recced no less than five times--I just checked--and the reasons for this are multitude. It's politically complex, with high worldbuilding--and I do mean high--and a stunning range of characters both primary pov and secondary. It has backstory not just for plot purposes but to flesh out the world, some short, some longer, all riveting. The style is very spare--I think I told her once that she wrote the most ruthlessly unemotional prose in history and more than that, for all the right reasons and for the most effective reasons--the horrors are more horrific and the heroics are more heroic when they're laid out so baldly and so precisely. Jonah's story, Huma, is the most emotionally exhausting of them, and the precision is devastating to read and worse when you re-read--which seems impossible, but there's no end to the way Jonah's slow breakdown hits you no matter how you come at it--Jeannie Miller's story, Loyaulte Me Lie comes from a place where utter exhaustion of everything takes the place of logic when there's nothing left of hope, so you'll hope for anything, anything at all.

It's extremely re-readable as well, which puts it in my top ten. I come back to it about once a year and every time, I somehow forget something and get caught up in it again. I think sometimes it works best on re-read because of that--you read for what you know more closely and hit everything you missed.

The Retrograde Series by ltlj - I did a long rec here of it, but have recced various parts of the both original story and the series itself more than ten times, and it's still one of my favorites to re-read because like the above, it's complicated worldbuilding, it's political and complex adn fascinating, and it's a completely different view of Atlantis as it was and as it should have been.

Fireball by celli - John/Rodney - the NASCAR AU of Stargate Atlantis, and from this I learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about racing cars, NASCAR politics, and monkeys on a track at the wrong place at the wrong time. Again, worldbuilding, hell yes, and good characterization and a monkey which right there just makes everything magic.

The Identical Series by lanning - Smallville - I recced it here nad probably some other times too. I wish I could say something I haven't said before other than wheee! But it's kind of like that. Smallville AU of the best kind, with nothing that broke our hearts--or our suspension of disbelief, which I want to point out, to even be a Smallville fan you walked into that willing to pretty much believe black was white if told to in a firm enough voice, or that anyone gets junk mail delivered to the hospital--YES THAT STILL GETS TO ME OKAY--or everything fell apart with the destiny of a rain of blood (and potentially toads).

But this is like, everything I wanted Smallville not to be because they woudl really do it badly if they tried but Lanning did it well! Imposters, clones, awesome OC's, plottiness, Lex angst, Jonathan not a dick--no, seriously, he's awesome and you love him, it's insane, lions lie with lambs and whatnot--meteor rocks, and jumping from balconies because you're not afraid. And issues with the Whoville Who's and their Christmas shenanigans with special mention of the manpain of the Grinch.

If anything's gonna get me through one more week of this, it's gonna be these fic, just saying.

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My ducking is now making fun of me in three languages, and at least I have a fighting chance with French and Latin, but his first is Fon, which he swears he's calling me a very nice tester, and like, I can't call him a liar, because how would I know, but I'm suspicious. Also, there is no way to ask him to speak clearly into my phone so I can see if google translate will confirm, since he looks terribly innocent and then I feel uneasy, because thing is, he would be saying that all this time just to see my reaction and you see where this is going.

I swear I am tempted to refresh my college Russian just to see what happens, but that feels like admitting some kind of really strange kind of defeat or this becomes a really unnerving kind of linguistics war, and while education is never wasted, I don't see this ending any other way than both of us abusing the internet to find ways to be nice to each other in languages the other person doesn't understand, which--I mean, there's something wrong with that. I don't know what, but it's just there.

OTOH, my duckling is still more awesome than all ducklings, and I could be totally prejudiced in his favor, I did have a moment of pride when one of my coworkers mentioned he got the same look on his face I got when a test failed and you have to start over--that would be, one part wtf, two parts, you're kidding, a half-part I am not paid nearly enough to deal with this, and a tiny part, how would this respond to some part of this computer being set on fire? Which is of variable size depending if this is retest 1 or 8--it can get larger.

This build is a lot more fun with all the new testers involved, no matter how frustrating it usually would be.

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Totally random observation while uploading fic to AO3 today.

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The only explanation I have for this is that Child was still pre-verbal when I first watched Tarzan, so this part of Tarzan--to this day, as in, five seconds ago--still sets me off into fits of tears. Basically, anytime the gorilla mom or the human mom are on-screen, I have this total connection and also, being me, hoping a gorilla mother would take in Child should I be killed by tigers. Fuck tigers. Just, fuck parent and baby gorilla eating goddamn tigers.

Parenthood, let me remind you, is rarely sane, and I'll be honest, the first year of parenting should be considered a viable entry in the DSMIV on principle. It manifests in two very distinct ways and I think most parents will agree with me on this one; you will spend a significant amount of time being paranoid--and I do mean paranoid--about completely normal things like killing the kid by changing his diaper wrong, or you're copacetic with putting a baby seat on a motorcycle but like, the likelihood of aliens actually existing goes up like whoa and a certainty kidnapping is imminent. Sometimes both at the same time but in general, the human brain does get there are limits, and when air itself becomes a viable threat to your sprog, it does eventually reset itself to sanity or something less likely to require medical intervention via IV with concerned strangers asking what the voices are telling you.

To give you perspective on this, my nightmare scenario--born of a goddamn Dean Koontz novel turned shitty TV movie but strangely having very little actual relation to it--was a home invasion where I'm tied to a chair, Child (pre-verbal, remember?) in his high chair, and the burglar for sadistically inclined reasons is willing to trust in probability and sets a whole bunch of small legos on the high chair for Child to choke on while I watch. Child never once choked on anything in his life that I remember--and believe me, I would--but that stuck in my head and became this Thing. I mean, I get there was some deeply symbolic subconscious meaning going on, but dude, the literal was plenty nightmare fuel for me. Which is why I was like the only parent in the world who didn't worry about their kid setting the world on fire with his discovery of matches--though this could also be because Child's hand-eye coordination has never been what we'd call advanced for his age--but did spend valuable time considering how to trick the hypothetical burglar in question into tying the ropes badly or working out how to secret a knife on my person without that leading to dramatic questions on my intentions should it come out I was carrying one in less dangerous conditions, like say, going swimming.

It's also the reason that to this day, the four times--I can count this--when I was genuinely shocked into terror at home, my first act was to palm a knife from the kitchen. A steak knife at that, I wasn't picky here, I wanted sawing capabilities as well a pointy tip. Writing it out looks insane, but I can promise you that if someone were to break into the house--or like, there's a sound like that is going on--today, I won't even think about it, I'll go for the first I find in the drawer. You also have to keep in mind my one and only work-related event of the flying squirrel guy when I was a caseworker, after being knocked over by the door, I crouched there holding an unfolded stapler guarding the erstwhile door with ninja-like thoughts on how I'd use it even as at the time my brain was screaming at me what the hell are you doing to do to the guy with a stapler? Staple him? and my internal answer every time was YES. YES I WILL. A THOUSAND TIMES. because apparently, that's just how I roll. Apparently, that includes not being sure if a stapler refill has a thousand staples, which I'm looking up right now, just in case.

In case anyone is curious, Child has officially entered true teenage surliness, but this is my kid and so, it has variations. Everything is out to get him and unfair, but he expresses his pain both normally (as TV has taught him, of course), but also in reciting blank verse at the top of his lungs and gets my five year old nephew to add performance art to the entire situation. It is really, really difficult to hold onto parenting values--I am still working the entire raise him not to be a serial killer or menace to society rock bottom minimum parental accomplishment and it's working out well so far--when he's treating me to at least college-quality improv in the living room and I don't have to even pay for tickets. Being a parent, I think he's genius, but also as a realist, I think he's a genius at knowing how to work with my weaknesses by reciting the equivalent of teenage-level Gilgamesh in which he fights the good fight against parental monsters and symbolic representations of heroic tasks like taking out the trash. It's unreal. I mean, I don't know whether to send him to his room to think about what he's done or applaud, so I end up doing both, which may be the very definition of a mixed message.

I'm wondering when he'll realize his guitar is also a viable weapon of obfuscation of parental wrath. He's tone deaf--I mean, his singing can actually make my eardrums want to burst, he's discovered notes I didn't know existed and really shouldn't, not unless we're summoning Cthulhu for a personal visit--and his ability to navigate strings is very iffy, but I'm honestly not sure what I'd do if he started setting his teen-pain to a beat with terrible accompaniment. This ends in Elder Gods or sheer shock, but both ways will include insanity, and I do not yet have a plan to deal with this well. It may be the unbeatable weapon.

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This post was going to begin with something work related, but then as I was getting ready to type, I realized that I didn't--technically--know all the types of metaphors, and also, this leads to a fan moment IRL.

Specifically, Common Types of Metaphors, which I feel needs a new category; specifically, metaphors using common metaphors from pop culture. So I can cite this at some point to people who have never seen House and I can feel smug, instead of uncomfortably aware these people really don't watch enough TV, when I say, "That is my new duckling!" at work.

Per usual, it took me several seconds to realize their expressions indicated they were looking for infant fowl, not y'know, one of the new testers.

So someone get on that, please. Metaphor that depends on a metaphor and the circumstances surrounding its use in pop culture. I like 'pop metaphor'.

Also, I have a duckling! Due to my lead being--herself. and I love her--I was assigned one of the ten new sort-of-temp-testers, if you can call a minimum year and a half contract temp. They were hired and paid for by our vendor but work with us, which leads to about half of us assuming we're training them to take our jobs, which is possible but woudl increase the suicide rate by ten people if they expect ten testers to do the work of almost forty and who they were hired specifically to supplement.

So I--and the other ten testers with our ducklings--introduced them around and made much of them and currently Duckling is on a donut reward system of the future, as while I do not have donuts now and cannot guarantee when they appear, the number he receives depends on his good behavior. He's like, three negative donuts right now, and in addition, I will deliberately feed all the other ducklings donuts in front of him if he goes on like this, which I suppose means we have a pretty good working relationship.

Also, and I do not say this lightly, I got one of the best ducklings. Another one--not mine--I worked with was methodical to the point of insanity, and didn't seem to hear me telling him anything unless he had a question and agreed with my answer after a lot of thought. Mine is bright, willing, sarcastic as fuck (we bonded) and to my growing interest, is already developing a testing style of his own, which I approve of a lot. One of the bigger mistakes is to either a.) take your mentor-type-person's--your Duck Hen, if you will, though no, I'm not using that so that's the last time I'll say it--style as your own with slavish devotion and repeat all their mistakes or not know why some of it you do, or b.) take up the idea of Best Practices like you plan to start a cult and recruit followers.

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Written in Red: A Novel of the Others by Anne Bishop. Okay, I'm reconciled to waiting for more in the Black Jewels series, because while the worldbuilding in that one is basically my favorite ever, this is probably Bishop's best work to date.

Caveats

1.) If you don't like her style at all, you won't like this. But you may want to sample it, just to check.

If you do, she's leveled up in smoothing out a lot of her more annoying tics, and her structuring is better. It's also cleaner prose, and she's a lot, lot, lot better at giving the basics of her world early enough that you don't spend the first seventy pages in a fugue state of wtf. The story starts with a short but very informative history, which I'll get to next, and her baseline universe is both completely understandable and almost laughably simplified once you start reading.

2.) If you don't like her general characterization quirks at all, you won't like this.

If you do, her initial cast is slightly smaller and in the general types she likes, but with some newer additions. If you thought there was any chance there wasn't a major set of power dynamics play going on, dude, come on, this is Bishop. There are internal, external, world level, social level, and various pack level at varying degrees of detail. And she also does something new I'll get to in a minute.

3.) Anne Bishop is the closest thing to a fangirl writing fanfic for her own imagination out there. There are no cock rings. But eventually, there may be knotting. God, I'll honestly be surprised if there isn't.

Warnings

I thought about how to do this, because she's switched to Alternate History/Alternate Universe/Urban Fantasy with a vengeance, so what can be less personal in pure fantasy might hit differently in something not unlike reality. A lot of the stuff in Black Jewels I honestly would not have liked if it had been anywhere near real world conditions, and also, if the Blood hadn't obviously been the equivalent of alien. So below.

( trigger warnings, warnings, etcCollapse )

Review-ish

Right. Now review. This is going to be spoilery as hell, so there's your warning. And it's long, because I'm in that kind of mood. And I'm pretty sure there is no logical structure, because well, that would be like, work. I'll probably add some things and do some revision, but really, probably not going to be any more coherent than it is now.

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( character listCollapse )

( review: written in red: a novel of the others by anne bishopCollapse )

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Due to my laptop's battery having issues, I'll be relatively offline until the new one arrive circa this week. I'll answer email when possible. Also, I already miss my laptop.

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So I had an interview Thursday. I don't expect to get the job--this one is definitely going to be decided a lot on tenure--but I went ahead and applied because it's been a while since I applied for a job and since I really do like what I'm currently doing, it wasn't a big deal. Plus, I felt my interviewing skills needed a brush up.

This interview did not go as expected.

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As two of my coworkers, my aunt's husband on one side of the family, my aunt and cousins on the other side of the family, and several close friends are Catholic--and because the election of the new spiritual leader of 1.8 billion people worldwide is kind of a big deal, not to mention the election of a new major head of state--I got very lucky and refreshed right when the white smoke appeared, which means none of us got any work done for about an hour while we watched the live feed on my phone for the naming and emergence of the new pope.

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of Argentina, the first Latino pope, the first from the Western Hemisphere, the first non-European since the election of St. Gregory of Syria in 731, and the first Jesuit ever to be sit on the papal throne. And also, the second pope in over a thousand years to choose a totally new name. And what a name.

About
Pope Francis on Wikipedia
Who is Pope Francis on NPR

Record
Positions on Moral and Political Issues - no surprises on his social conservatism to be found, but his stance on economic injustice and poverty make some really interesting reading, especially in context of his history.

Human Rights/Controvery
Questions remain over Pope Francis’ role during Argentina’s dictatorship
'Dirty War' Questions For Pope Francis

(Note: The use of 'Dirty War' is apparently extremely questionable, so I'm only using it here because it's in the title of the article.)

Origin of Name

CNN Vatican analyst: Pope Francis' name choice 'precedent shattering'

Pope Francis chose his name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi because he is a lover of the poor, said Vatican deputy spokesman Thomas Rosica.

Above and beyond everything else, I'm very curious about a man who takes his name from Francis of Assisi, patron of the poor and disenfranchised and--right, here it gets interesting:

After a pilgrimage to Rome, where he joined the poor in begging at the doors of the churches, he said he had a mystical vision of Jesus Christ in the country chapel of San Damiano, just outside of Assisi, in which the Icon of Christ Crucified said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins."

I don't even know if it's possible to adequately comment on that.

Question: does anyone have an English language reference or workable summary for the Aparecida Document? I mean, this was from 2007 condemning child abuse, child exploitation, and child prostitution as demographic terrorism, which is a term I haven't heard before, and even if it's introduced as culturally (in general) a problem, the timing on its release is kind of breathtaking.

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From Cracked: The 6 Most Impressively Nerdy Marriage Proposals

For the record, I am not only uninterested in marrying anyone, ever, I don't even remember my last relationship, but should a random internet stranger do any of these, honest to God the sheer fanglee would possibly end with me surfacing a year later engaged in legally-defined monogamous cohabitation wondering if signing Seperis is legally binding and if I feel committed enough to ask what their actual RL name is and maybe give them mine (I assume we exchanged usernames during the vows?). I also assume I would at least be sane enough to ask for a google history of their most commonly used pseudonyms, a tumblr tag search, and which name they answer to in the prenup. I mean, how does one carry on a healthy marriage without being able to text and/or msg your significant other under their preferred username?

The last part worries me. A working arc reactor might make me forget to double check their usenet activities, which could end tragically for everyone involved. God. What if they were bronies? They might be bronies right now! Google would show that, right?

ETA: Fandom_Wank - Brony Convention Las Pegasus Unicon Beset By Strangely Predictable Or Even What What Might Call Inevitable Tragedy - keyword here: money.

Adding: Extremely informative breakdown of events in googledoc form here with a link to a breakdown of the finances. Uh, wow.

And also, a quote from JF comments that explains everything ever.

I just cannot even. Is there some secret fucking order of these people? People with weird employment histories who find gullible fandoms and fleece them mightily? - jkefka

Okay, why did no one realize this before? Of course there's an order; this is fandom. We have a community for everything.

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For the enjoyment of the masses:

MOD ANNOUNCEMENT: Fandom_wank Tenth Anniverary! and within that post--dear God, it's like Christmas--is a list with links of the greatest wankers of all time.

We are talking horsefucker (his wife? a horse.), MsScribe, the Second Life dude with his unnatural feelings regarding his My Little Ponies, CrystalWank (pastede on yay!), Snapewives, LaptopGate, and frosting/icing wank, amongst many. With. Links.

It's all the magic you can handle. Some of it in the form of chaptered novels.

Staring into the abyss has never looked so good, and better, the laughter echoes.

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Okay, it's not called Protect the Plastic Bag.

HB 2416 'THE SHOPPING BAG FREEDOM ACT'

Because dude, it is not Texas if we can't make it sound like this can and will involve something not unlike the Alamo and rugged individualists with steely gazes, patriotic hearts beating passionately beneath their man-quiet exteriors. I have to admit, however, his courage in willingly donning that shade of yellow tie to say this speaks volumes, though the language being spoken eludes me.

So this is gonna be fun. The contrariness, it stirs.

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For those not on tumblr or didn't have this reblogged:

Current Events
On Clarivoyant Wank and Wank Report
Flutiebear on Tumblr: A Con Artist in Our Midst

Andy Blake AKA Thanfiction, AKA Amy Player AKA Victoria Bitter AKA Jordan Wood, is following his usual script in SPN fandom (Huh), Dean/Castiel (not a surprise, if you think about it), and I think we all know how this story will end, as it has been written multiple times.

History
On Fanlore: Victoria Bitter and Andrew Blake/Thanfiction

The regular warnings--do not engage, do not believe, and for the love of everything holy, do not send him money.

ETA: I apologize for not adding clarification:

Andy Blake identifies as male, so he/him are the appropriate pronouns to use. Disrespecting his gender identity or characterising it as part of his mental issues is very damaging and harmful to other people who identify and present differently than their birth assigned sex.

Please use the correct pronouns.

(thanks to niqaeli for phrasing of above.)

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So you may or may not know that Austin, in keeping with its Greener Than Thou mantra, has discontinued the use of disposable bags, such as those made of plastic and oftentimes found at grocery and convenience stores for the purpose of carrying one's groceries or convenience items.

Being liberal, an Austinite, and environmentally aware, I am very supportive of this measure, but I find that when I now enter a grocery and/or convenience store to get one item and end up with thirty while staring in horror at smug checker, I become surprisingly conservative, and also, pro-landfill like you would not believe. I'm ready to dig some myself, lets put it that way, and hey, the future can suck it.

This is the city of saving a salamander that isn't entirely visible to the naked eye unless presented on colored paper (exaggeration. maybe.), I get that. I'm not actually opposed to gradual reduction of single-use plastic, though I want to point out, they aren't single use--they are mulitple use. Plastic bags are perfect for bathroom trash cans, for quick clean-ups of the house, for school projects, for insta-use lunch bags--I mean, I personally get a lot of wear out of them.

Paper bags? I LOVE SINGLE USE PAPER BAGS. They show you shop at high-end grocery stores while also being (limitedly) environmentally conscious, they work in a jiffie for drawing paper and backing for drawings, they're emergency construction paper and bookcovers, and also, they're hearken to the halcyon days of yore whereas as a child I carried them for my grandmother.

The thing is, this is Austin, and why increment when you can shove it down people's throats all at once? It's annoying, especially since as of March 1st, resuable bags were jacked up by 400% because that helps, really. It's also--SURPRISE!--a problem for those who are poor or on various social services, the elderly, and the disabled, because reusable bags are $4.00 a pop in some places; and they need to be washed but it's new enough to a lot of people--read a lot of fucking people--to wash their bags.

And I say this as someone who comes from a family with reusable bags, including ones especially for frozen food. We do it a lot, just sometimes not when we're only running to the store for juice and realize we need coffee, sugar, and there's a sale on mini-wheats. (When I travel now, I buy my mother reusable grocery bags. My next goal is to get one for her from Trader Joe's, since I forgot the last time I was in a state with a Trader Joe's.)

Actually, I know a lot of countries already have something like this in place and find this weird to consider not knowing, but the thing is, this isn't just a change of reusable to non-reusable--this is trying to create a mindset that allows an overhaul of the entire pre-, during-, and post-grocery shopping experience.

It's buying reusable bags, which is highly expensive right now, but okay, that much we can all do; we can shop, and hey, we can express our individuality by being like everyone else. Pack them in the vehicle, good to go. Take them into your store of choice, got it, you forget you run to get them out of the trunk, annoying, but okay. Bring them home, not so bad. Unpack, sure.

Wash them? This step will be hard to remember. Specialize your bags to decrease the wear and tear on bags that will hold dry goods and non-meat and non-dairy and non-frozen--really? Realize some bags can't be washed or fall apart in three or four washes, yes that was fun.

Get them back to the car--yeah, good luck, no one remembers that, and dude, I hope you don't take the bus or something to the grocery store and leave them on the table.

Better idea: surcharge the goddamn bags for a year or so. Go all paper. Work people into the anti-disposable bag theory knowing that you're working against decades of retail conditioning and making a massive change in behavior. And be aware we all become very, very fucking conservative at eleven at night at the local convenience store and our items number greater than five.

Also? Four dollars a reusable bag? You are fucking with me.

I actually do not know how this is gonna go, possibly because Austin is also weirdly contrary sometimes and Austinites are, on a whole, fans of opposing things for reasons. So while even if the city doesn't back down and the legislature takes some kind of Protect The Plastic Bag measure state-wide, Austinites will immediately--we do this--immediately remember we are a lone island of dark blue sanity in a virulent red state (dude, go with it) and turn anti-plastic bag like it had unprotected missionary sex in the dark with our mothers. Because we are not only Greener Than Thou, we are also Greener In Opposition To Thou, which is how we ended up with special nearly-invisible salamander protection.

Disclaimer: I am generalizing and simplifying the salamander issue (though not by much) and also, making sweeping, sweeping, sweeping generalizations. I also had to carry ten items in my hands from a convenience store today because I forgot the bag issue and left my purse at home and it was not fun.

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I don't think any company should be able to create a policy that literally prohibits its employees--that would be staff, including trained medical staff at a senior living facility--from trying to save someone's life and perform CPR. When I say "I don't think" what I mean is, are you fucking serious?

Below cut for triggering material, including links to information about the death of a patient in an independent nursing facility, links to audio and partial transcripts of the 911 call.

( Glenwood Gardens, et alCollapse )

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Granted, before my Android phone's data plan and the unlimited storage of the cloudplayer, my resolution to stop using iTunes with its distressing habit of deleting my libraries at random wasn't really working. Most of this was to the fact that I loathed surfing amazon's site to get music when iTunes delivered it directly to my player and didn't require extra software downloads and having to hit back twice when buying two songs from the same album. Because honestly, convenience wins.

This has been a thing.

However, my phone has more than sufficient memory to get my entire library if I want to put it on there (though from my rate of spending, not for long), and by dint of not even opening iTunes (helps that it crashed at least once and required me to get my library backup) until the habit was set enough with amazon. I've been using it to sample songs at the 1:30 when I want to buy and to get what I can't get at amazon (or is cheaper at iTunes, which is rare but happens) and apparently either something's changed radically or my memory is that bad, but when I went there to listen to a longer sample of a song on Amazon that cut off in the weirdest place ever, it took me a second to recognize the song and even longer poking my headphones between amazon and iTunes before I had to admit that the 1:30 sample length is nice, but the quality is hideous.

Is this just me? When they went to the 1:30, I don't remember it being this bad. I checked my settings, but the contrast to my library's music is almost painful. Did they strip the quality down? I mean, I get wanting to assure people don't uh, steal 1:30 of a full song as that is--seriously, no, I don't, who would bother, that's like stealing the middle third of a book you've never read--but it's not just as close to monotone you can get while being recognizably music, it feels stripped of actual chords.

So that was--I don't know, anyone?

Anyway, most recent musical additions:

Fuel - Shimmer from Sunburn and Bad Day from Something Like Human - both older and both a surprise; the only Fuel song I thought I liked was Hemorrhage and then looked at the cloudplayer and no, there were actually three, who knew. Bad Day especially surprised me because I really didn't care for it from amazon's sample at first and then right before it cut off, it clicked (which led to the iTunes thing above).

Midnight to Twelve - Moments, Good Morning Again, Remembering, and Slam from Midnight to Twelve - I liked them for the potential for pleasant background reading or writing music, but the more I listen, the more I kind of want to stop whatever else I'm doing. I'm not entirely sure why; these aren't flashy or normally what I would have considered memorable if I'd heard a snatch of them on the radio.

Imagine Dragons - Demons, It's Time, Bleeding Out, and Radioactive from Night Visions - the latter two were from my January purchase, the former two yesterday. I really just should have bought the album and been done with it. I already know that I'm probably going to eventually click with two other songs there any day now. For the record, the is possibly my favorite band name ever. I really just should have bought it just on that. Radioactive is my favorite, but Demons is bizarrely catchy--not earwormy, per se, but more really hard not to stop and listen to.

Story of the Year - The Ghost of You and I from The Constant - this is my second song purchase from this band, and I honestly can't even tell you what I like about it. Except okay, there's this kind of semi-The Lumineers catchy beat that kind of bops me, IDK.

Katy Perry - Wide Awake from Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection - I blame the media or something. Pandora. The RIAA. Universal Consciousness. I mean, I don't hate her music, but it's like, candy for me; it's too jarring to write to but doesn't catch me enough to want to listen to it alone. She's dance or driving music, is what I'm saying. And yet.

Lifehouse - Between the Raindrops from Almeria - everything Lifehouse, 3 Doors Down, and Our Lady Peace can be blamed on the Smallville fandom, where they seemed to make everyone's writing playlists and vid lists and possibly even on the show. They're kind of the equivalent of comfort food, and while the song has no surprises, neither does fried chicken, and yet I love them both when I'm in a bad mood.

Pink - Try from The Truth About Love - she's one of my top three female artists ever, and this is because of Battlestar Galactica vids at Vividcon. This may seem possibly the least sense-making approach to music, but here's the thing. I've heard that your musical tastes are pretty much set at x date and everything is variations after that, which may or may not be true. I can tell you I didn't like any of her music--again, taste, not quality--until this Starbuck vid and now she can kind of do no wrong. I don't even know what to call that; all it took was one vidded song and boom, all of her music suddenly came into perspective.

The Lumineers - Ho Hey from the single - this is the single representative song of a subgenre of Alt that I don't even know what is called, but I know I hate it--again, not quality, taste, I get I'm missing something here--but this? Drums. You can stomp to this, which suddenly totally worked for me, and if any of you ever happened to be in Austin and around my building during my break, if you ever saw someone back behind the cars stomping every first beat in a measure with added enthusiastic nodding (saying headbanging is wrong), well, God don't tell anyone, but also, that was me for a few days.

Rihanna - Diamonds from the single - Rihanna is one of my top five and rotates to the top two every once in a while because while all her music doesn't work for me, I love her voice and will listen to songs I don't even like on Pandora if she's singing them.

Muse - Madness from The 2nd Law - it's Muse. I mean, magic. It may or not be semi-hypnotic as well.

Hinder - Get Me Away From You, Talk To Me, Anyone But You, Should Have Known Better, I Don't Wanna Believe, and Save Me from Welcome to the Freakshow - Since 2009 when I first stumbled across them while writing War Games, they've moved from top ten to top three and with The Fray's last album not working for me, they're probably my favorite band. At least, I am really willing to

Luke Bryan - Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye from Tailgates and Tanlines - this both earwormy, breakup sex, and maybe this is only funny to me, but the entire thing inverses the sad breakup thing--they're kind of sad because the sex was amazing and okay, quickie before you go? But meaningful. It took me a while to actually walk through the lyrics and get the underlying hilarity.

All links go to youtube. I think I checked all these, but it's possible I linked to a bad one.

Currently, for teh curious, according to Amazon cloudplayer, the following is true:

Songs: 3244
Albums: 1806 (this does not mean full albums; one song from an album counts)
Artists: 1200
Genres: 102

...okay, call me crazy, but 102 genres of music? I can't even name twenty genres off the top of my head. Among them, according to cloudplayer:

Things That Are Alternative

Alternative, Alternative and Punk (really?), Alternative Pop, Alternative/College (no really), and Alternative/Indie which officially makes the word 'Alternative' meaningless to me yet it seems something like 1/6 of my entire collection is somewhere in here.

I Don't Actually Like Indie When It's Not Live?

Indie, Indie-Pop, and Indie-Rock - I see a pattern, except why did Alt get top billing in Alt/Indie instead of it being Indie/Alt and what the hell is the difference between a '/' and a '-' in the names?

All the Pops

Pop, Pop Latino, Pop Funk, Pop/R&B, Pop/Rock, Rock & Pop, Rock/Pop, Rap/Pop and from above Alternative-Pop - this is random, isn't it? Whose on top is a flip of the coin?

Really, Folk?
Folk, Folk-Pop, Folk-Rock, Anti-folk, Post-folk - there's anti-folk?? It's sole occupant is one song by Regina Spektar (Eleven Eleven if you are curious and I have no memory of ever hearing this song before in my life. What the hell?). For that matter, I must be sleepbuying or something--I recognize five songs in these lists.

I don't even know what Post-folk means.

Uh huh
Bootlegs - ...that's a genre?

This is weirdly fascinating.

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So finished American Horror Story Season One last night. I can honestly state that this managed to surprise me. Like a lot. I can kind of see how really hardcore horror fans would not get what I got out of it, but it's possibly the most original take on a haunted house I have ever seen.

( I have no idea what the hell that wasCollapse )

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So I got my mom a Roku player. I can say it is a.) ridic easy to use and b.) really convenient as if you lose the remote control, all the phones can be remotes! Well, all android, iphones, and windows phones. Which is like, half the fun of using it.

Also found: channel for Korean soap operas and German television. I don't think Child has ever been so excited in his life.

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And also, funny:

Phantom - an American submarine captain! A leader of a rogue KGB unit! One is played by Ed Harris. The other is played by...David Duchovny. In so, so, so, so many ways, I want to see this.

...was the end of X-Files too long ago to get a kick out of Mulder the rogue KGB agent instead of the rogue FBI agent?

The Frankenstein Theory - which is, what if Frankenstein were non-fiction and Mary Shelley was writing like, a true crime novel? Which actually kind of really works for me.

Fast and Furious 6 - please let this be everything I have ever dreamed of. Super Bowl Spot (now with youtube links!), Slightly different theatrical trailer

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A.) American Horror Story

Two eps left in season one. Still totally did not call at all what happened in this last ep. I cannot believe I didn't even consider that.

B.) Work

Refactoring SSP has been added to the current build at work, so it's going to be Retest All of SSP, Plus New Things Added to It, All the Time, as well as testing for malware uploads. I was assigned the latter, which I will be honest, I asked for because it looked like fun to test. I have no idea yet how I will be testing it. We just began system testing (to be followed by Joint SIT, to be followed by UAT, to be followed by acceptance, to be followed by Regression, to be followed by Prodfix. This actually in theory won't be as complicated and weird as the build that went out this month. Fingers crossed.

I had a C but right now there is no C, there is (hopefully) taking off work on Friday for no particular reason but doing my taxes, which does sound like fun, in a very federal requirements way.

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This is venting.

After reading the Free Food Restaurant meta--context at FF_A since the original meta post at AO3 was deleted and replaced with an orphan account I can't find the link for--I:

1.) rediscovered the power of a secondhand embarrassment squick. I did not know anything could make me twitch that hard for someone than reading that meta.
2.) realized I have probably passed the point where if I flounced, I could do it in any way that could possibly qualify as original. Which is, honestly, a little depressing to consider.
3.) wonder just how well this entire adding meta to AO3 thing is going to work when there is not a system of forced categorization so when searching for fic, meta does not display. Since that is currently happening right now. As in, Free Food Restaurant is showing up under two fandoms and no meta tag in sight. Of course, I'm still hoping for the magical day I can filter out crossovers without giving myself an aneurysm doing a complicated tag thing that only works about half the time.

I mean, if this is going to be an honor system thing like labeling crossovers or hell, labeling pairings correctly--which I am completely shocked to report people don't do that all the time--this is very quickly going to be a problem. Unless we are implementing a way to require that before huge amounts of meta posting start? Which does not seem to be the case.

I don't want to knock AO3 here or anything, since this was obviously the result of a lot of thinking on the subject and everything, but I have yet to think of a good reason, an actual good reason not just a why-not reason, why meta, which is not even by a stretch of imagination quite beyond anyone living labor under the legal problems that fanfic does, should be included with fanworks--that being fanfic, vids, and any form of art--needs so desperately to be included in a fanworks archive. I am willing to stretch and say I consider it a non-fictional creative work--because well, it is--but couldn't it have it's own non-fictional creative work archive? A meta archive, you might say. Separate from the fic. Which in general, the archive was created to house? Just a thought.

Because in general, when I am in a reading fic mood, I am not technically interested in meta, and when sorting through a few hundred thousand fics to try to find non-crossover fandom of my choice with my pairing or pairings--which already requires me to start considering a blood sacrifice to shorten the process of horror--I now will have to watch for snowflake's feelings on a pairing not being labeled as meta.

Spoken as someone who is really not okay with the nightmare of having to figure out how run exclusion strings with not only crossovers, but every single pairing I don't like and now meta may need to be added, assuming the writer bothers to label it. That doesn't always work.

References
AO3 Announces Meta Allowed in Archive - link to AO3's announcement page

In case anyone wonders if the addition of meta has a plan on how it will be handled:

Just as art, podfic and video can currently be found on the AO3, so can meta. The difference, of course, is that the AO3's current infrastructure already supports the direct hosting of meta in text form, so its continuation on the archive has been more a question of policy than ability. This does not mean that there won't be technical issues involved, particularly when it comes to users' desire to filter their search results to find or exclude it. We don't currently have a time estimate from our AD&T committee (which runs the AO3) on how quickly a solution can be created to address that. -- Admin-claudia in comments, AO3

ETA:

Free Food Restaurant - AO3 meta. Okay, it's hilarious, stupid, and lists two fandoms without any meta tags whatsoever. And also, again, hilarious. Free food, y'all. Fic is like free food, but not in a clever way like hummus. (THANKS cathexys!)

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Anansi Boys was fantastic. I'm pondering an immediate re-read just on the strength of the awesome that is Charlie.

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I finished American Gods Wednesday night in a single long rush because I indeed got much more interested.

( more hereCollapse )

So how is everyone else's weekend going? Read anything good?

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Finally, finally reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's been on my reading list for years, but I'm running into the same problem I did when I finally read Good Omens.

( because this is meCollapse )

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I finally had one of those idiom snap points one gets when one hits both fanfic and published novels using the same one wrong in three days of reading (my new ereader is probably to blame for this: I get to read all the books without a breather, and it never ends well when one jumps from fanfic to profic to Jane Austen to, do not judge, Anne Bishop in a single day. Though funny, can't lie).

Making do not making due or God help us, making dew (though the third one at least is kind of hilariously adorable--what kind of dew are they making?) - the thing is, it must be invisible to me usually or something, because I've read it in either three or four fics (and a couple of profics) in the last few days with the 'due' spelling, and odds say it apparently shows up a lot if I can get a three to four fic random sampler in four days.

OTOH, it's more a spelling than a meaning issue I assume; if you've only heard it and not seen it written enough, 'due' looks better than 'do', which is a legit criticism since it's the reason I spell grey with an 'e' instead of with an 'a' (and why a street nearby was changed to Payton when it used to be Peyton and I still spell it Peyton because fuck Payton, that just looks ridic and come on, it's been fifty something years with the 'e', why an 'a' now? IDGI).

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Also, forgot to put this in last entry:

Richard III found under parking lot.

I'll be completely honest; I had tears in my eyes reading that he's been found. Richard III is my number one historical crush, with Caesar and Elizabeth I taking second and third (I have like, forty of these, but they're mostly unnumbered, but these three are the loves of my life, okay?).

For all your woobie Richard III professional novel needs:
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman - this is one of my buy-in-all-formats books. I have bought it twice in paperback and once in ebook for my Kindle. This is the epic story of Richard III, who is the bestest brother, husband, and father ever, and everyone who hates him is just like, stupid, okay? Stupid.

I have many varied feelings on Richard. All of them are about how everyone else sucks.

Dear Henry Tudor (and Stanley, you fucker),

Suck it.

love,
seperis

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The following have occurred:

1.) Child's new computer was assembled to everyone's satisfaction except the computer's. So waiting for a part from Amazon to convert the power supply. The computer's name, for you playing the home game, is Stiles. Yeah, welcome to my life.

2.) My birthday Kindle Paperwhite has arrived and is not named Derek for reasons, most of them Child's. Due to reasons, I am out of active fannish names so this one is Destiel. Screw it, it was this or American Horror Story and I'm not naming my Kindle after a character on a show I have to watch from behind the couch.

3.) Child may or may or not be starting to develop a crush on Pete Wentz. This is new.

I have been a good parent and carefully kept him secluded from emo during his formative years, concentrating his attention on Breaking Benjamin and Skillet and Rise Against and Metallica--guitars broken in fits of mindless violence and sometimes teenage angst rather than from inner turmoil with messages written in tear-smeared eyeliner. Child was already a MySpace poet in the making like, from birth, and while MySpace is deadish, bad poetry never dies. He's already a surly geek who hacks his X-Box and whose clan is filled with inner teenage drama-angst. Like, why stack the freaking deck, you know?

This is really all Mikey Way's fault, let's just put that out there, or at least, my inability to stop reading tumblr about it. Child read over my shoulder, asked for a summary, then suddenly, his playlists are looking suspicious. I'm just saying, what the hell, Child. I introduce your ass to death metal--I cant' even pronounce some of those names in polite company, or around people who can issue federal warrants for persons of interest--and you repay me with pulling my album lists? This isn't happening.

If anyone needs me, I'm going to be failing as a parent somewhere else. At this rate, he's going to be a Republican investment banker or something and I'll never be able to show my face among humanity again.

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Dear Twitter,

After multiple emails, I get it. Hacked. Compromised. Salted password (seriously? Salted? All the slang in the universe and salted made the cut? Like steak?). I have changed it. I even closed my eyes so I couldn't see it myself. That should work, right?

Maybe-Paranoid,
Seperis

More information here on Twitter's blog.

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Okay, so I finally found a use for Tumblr--tracking the Mikey Way/nineteen year old model thing.

This is one of the side effects of fangirl osmosis; I never got any closer to bandom* than AIRPS, which is like, maybe a second cousin at best. However, in SGA fandom someone released a John Shepherd vid to Welcome to the Black Parade and end result--I ended up buying their albums and eventually ended up reading unholy amounts of MCR, Fallout Boy, and Panic! At the Disco (with and without !), sometimes combined with Cobra Starship, fic due to certain friends who shall remain nameless and filled my inbox with links for no particular reason, and to this day my playlists are suffering from the aftermath (Fallout Boy is the one that I cannot entirely explain though I've used the lyrics for subject lines at work before during fits of rebellion. They're the weirdest earworm music ever).

However, my total attention was engaged when svmadelyn told me in passing that Mikey Way had done something, which is how I not only embraced tumblr, I went to goddamn ONTD, which after the entire Britney drama days I swore to myself I would never return. Perez might have also been visited, though it causes me physical pain to admit that. I can't even explain the fascination, though part of it is assumed suffering of friends, but most of it is just this weird feeling I read this story in fanfic but I don't remember how it ends.

(* There is an unspoken time where I wrote N'Sync that was never posted anywhere. Ever. Like, three people know it exists and only shinetheway ever saw it, and I deliberately renamed the files so I can't even find it. I blame post-Smallville pre-QaF transition trauma or something)

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While monitoring the ziploc bag situation in the area of the garage which hosts the storage shelving unit, I noted we are officially at a point where we can call that area inventory and by my count, we're about two toilet paper rolls, one deep freeze filled with deer meat, and a small arsenal away from being listed on a survivalist watch list and people saying that we were quiet and kept to ourselves.

This is not, I repeat, not a dream of mine, but at this point, it may be a future reality I have to deal with. Also noted:

1.) Ungodly number of zip ties.
2.) More hand and power tools than I think anyone not building their own secret bunker could possibly need.
3.) Two shovels, which only tells me that the future bunker digging is gonna be a bitch.
4.) Extra wood furniture in the attic, I suppose for the coming of nuclear winter?
5.) A disturbing number of AA and AAA batteries.
6.) A lifetime supply of scissors in more sizes than I thought existed.
7.) A toolbox that cannot be opened by any conventional means.
8.) A stunning variety of Cup O'Noodles (delicious) in both chicken (awesome), beef (not bad), and shrimp (an abomination unto God).
9.) Uncountable Ramen secreted in various places throughout the house (I don't know why an unopened package of Ramen was under my bed, and dude, I am not stupid enough to ask.)
10.) A giant stuffed animal who may or may not have shown up on Sesame Street.
11.) Box of unused yarn, horrific colors.

Put together....well, I don't know what this means. I just feel that under the circumstances, it should make me nervous because I'm going to be honest, not really a survivor myself. I'm of the weak who will perish during the survival of the fittest when I lose access to Amazon.com and DW and have a psychotic fit when AO3 breathes its last. I'm saying this won't end well for me.

Not only that--I can shoot. I'm from Texas, and what wasn't passed in my bloodstream was taught early on. I can shoot, but not well. I can hit something, but I can't guarantee what it will be or where, and the answer is as likely to be 'my own foot or some appendage' as anything. I can fish, but that assumes the fish are proactive about biting and the bait very, very still. And someone else is holding the fishing pole. I am strangely--almost surreally, to be honest--better with an actual longbow, which literally makes no sense to anyone living, except for the fact that the first time I tried it was with a hot guy watching and weirdly enough, I am that shallow. And I paid for that shit for days, since I didn't have my arm guard on right and oh my God, gritting my teeth through the pain in a fit of vanity was such a mistake.

Yet, I do not see a post-nuclear-fallout world that is going to need a lot of bowwomen, especially since my requirements will be "and send a hot male along with me for eyecandy purposes". I mean, by then, humanity will be so mutated, if I don't have a taste for face-tentacles and superfluous arms, well--I don't, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I suppose if we can find a costume store that's survived, I could request he wear some kind of mask a la Phantom of the Opera, but if they don't have any in black, well, there goes that idea.

In other news, Dean the phone has been replaced and is being cared for and coddled beside me while I tell him he's a very, very good boy. Our love is pure.

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