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January 22nd, 2008
04:59 pm - Goddammit
One of my coworkers came up to a group of us standing around in the kitchen bitching over snacks and asked, "Are you a Heath Ledger fan?"
"Well, I don't know about fan, but it looks like he's going to be fuckin' awesome as the Joker in the next Batman movie," I said.
Then my coworker turned his laptop around, showing us the CNN headline.
I feel so bad for his daughter, and for Michelle Williams -- they got so involved with the Brooklyn community while they were together there, it's like a death in the extended family, someone's in-law's cousin. He was 28, y'all, and "pills were found near the body," says the Times. There are no words.
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October 14th, 2007
12:19 am - SGA 4.03
One thing about this episode that I haven't seen commented on...
( spoilers )
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October 7th, 2007
06:37 pm - Quote of the Day
Q: You’re very open about your influences. Some writers try to hide them. Is that something you do consciously?
A: The first thing I ever wrote—when I worked on something for a sustained period when I was about 10 or 11 years old—was a Sherlock Holmes story in the voice of Dr. Watson. I came to realize that everything I do is fan fiction. I think everything that we all do, all fiction, is fan fiction in that you are always inspired to write by things that you love. So much of writing for me is about finding a way to convey my own love of other writers’ work. When it comes to The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, as soon as I allowed myself to step into the room with Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and Ross Macdonald—who I guess are my favorites in that school of writing—I was honored, thrilled to be there.
Michael Chabon, Q&A from Details,
http://men.style.com/details/features/landing?id=content_5477
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August 14th, 2007
04:28 pm - RIP, Scooter
The Man in the Moon
The Yankees have had a traumatic four days.
Actually five days.
That terrible crash with Thurman Munson.
To go through all that agony,
And then today,
You and I along with the rest of the team
Flew to Canton for the services,
And the family....
Very upset.
You know, it might,
It might sound corny.
But we have the most beautiful full moon tonight.
And the crowd,
Enjoying whatever is going on right now.
They say it might sound corny,
But to me it's some kind of a,
Like an omen.
Both the moon and Thurman Munson,
Both ascending up into heaven.
I just can't get it out of my mind.
I just saw that full moon,
And it just reminded me of Thurman.
And that's it.
-- From O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto, edited by Tom Peyer and Hart Seely: a "found poetry" collection based on Rizzuto's Yankee broadcasts.
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August 7th, 2007
04:28 pm
I don't know, this just feels like the right time for a GIP.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v152/chiasmus252/ad-mood/annoyed.png) annoyed
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11:40 am - New story up at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) sga_flashfic: "The Sweetest Thing"
The parts of this weekend that I didn't spend drunk with geeks, I spent writing this story.
The Sweetest Thing, or "the one where Rodney's a restaurant critic."
I should warn you that I also spent the entire weekend really hungry as a result. *g* Enjoy!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v152/chiasmus252/ad-mood/rushed.png) rushed
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August 2nd, 2007
03:21 pm - Fact-based beta question
Would an Air Force officer actually say "LTC" or is that just for writing down? My sense of mil-speak is that when they can use an acronym, they do,* but one of my beta-readers thinks I'm wrong in this case.
I know there are beta communities for this sort of question, but I haven't been able to find them. Pointers extremely welcome!
* this seems to be typical of Very Large Organizations as a rule -- the Big Evil MegaCorp I used to work for had so many acronyms they had a chatbot you could send any given acronym to and it would spit back the five or six things that string of letters meant at BEMC.
Current Music: The Decemberists, "Fifteen Military Wives"
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July 31st, 2007
02:11 pm - Run for the hills, it's wank
I have nothing to say about the ongoing HP wank that wasn't said better by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rivkat, here.
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July 22nd, 2007
June 15th, 2007
11:47 am - Scrubs spoiler news
Spoiler casting news. yahtzee63 will want to read this. The truly spoilerphobic will not even want to view the URL name.
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June 11th, 2007
09:47 pm - The first step is admitting you have a problem
I just found myself saying "But -- human neurological development doesn't work like that!"
To the TV.
To a Stargate SG-1 repeat.
Are there detox programs for nerds?
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June 10th, 2007
10:54 pm - Sopranos finale
( Spoiler cut! )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v152/chiasmus252/ad-mood/impressed.png) impressed
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June 2nd, 2007
04:59 pm - Reality checks
Via friendsfriends, a seemingly well-researched financial professional's post showing little to no evidence Six Apart is planning an IPO.
I'd also note from my own experience with the new media industry, the idea that 6A would IPO makes very little sense as well -- they're getting the money they need through VC funding and growth, they're not growing so rapidly that they need more than they can raise independently, and the jackpot in the industry now is getting acquired, not going public (see, e.g., MySpace, YouTube, Blogger, etc.).
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May 29th, 2007
07:53 pm - What she said
I had a whole long post about the Current Unpleasantness, and then I read Livia's post, which said it all much more cogently and succinctly. Damn you for being so smart, Livia!
The one thing I would add is that "we" are not being targeted as in fandom, but "we" as in LiveJournal. I'll repeat her central point:
Right now, Livejournal is in the unenviable position of being the landlord of a building where vandals are constantly pulling the fire alarm. Unfortunately, they must absolutely treat every fire alarm as if it were 100% real; they cannot rely on their own personal judgement and say "well, maybe there's only smoke and no fire here." Because putting illegal topics in your livejournal interests *could potentially* be interpreted as soliciting illegal activities, they must suspend journals that *are reported to them* as having illegal interests.
I would also add that including things like "pedophilia" in your user interests is not safe not just in a legal way, but in a personal security, evil people finding your LJ and thinking you're one of them kind of way. Please, even if you decide to leave LJ over recent events, think about that in the way you present yourself to the rest of the Internet from here on in.
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May 28th, 2007
06:42 pm - Women's hobbies
So, I had dental surgery on Friday (went pretty well, thanks) and I've been laid up all weekend watching Slings and Arrows, vacuuming the air-conditioner, and knitting a sock. Bear with me, because the last one of those is actually important.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is one of the best-known knitting bloggers in North America. Her blog has thousands and thousands of readers -- well over a thousand just on Bloglines-- she's published four books (I recommend Knitting Rules), and she has raised over three hundred thousand dollars for Doctors without Borders from her blog. And she consistently has the problem of bookstores turning down her events, or doing things like putting out ten chairs for a reading. In her hometown (Toronto) kickoff event, the bookstore, part of the Indigo chain, estimated thirty attendees. Please to click through here and here to see how misguided they were -- off by as much as an order of magnitude.
So Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, who was in her pre-knitterly-fame days a lactation consultant, knows a lot about women's work and women's interests and how they get undervalued. As a result, her entire current tour is meant as a visibility event -- they are collecting handknit hats for homeless shelters, and the theme of her talks have been precisely the invisibility of knitters and knitting, and the importance of standing up for both of them. As one attendee recounted it, she talked about the 'cultural humiliation' of knitters, and used the terrific example of Blue Moon Fiber Arts, the company that faced a financial crisis earlier this year when their bank refused their credit card orders, figuring there was no way hundreds of TWO THOUSAND people would join a sock-yarn of the month club and they had to be doing something fraudulent.
Surely, some of the dots connecting this to the current upheavals in fandom, and the continuing invisibility of "fangirl culture," to use Jenkins's term, are fairly obvious by now. If it's not clear enough, Pearl-McPhee even calls non-knitters "muggles."
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May 21st, 2007
May 14th, 2007
09:56 pm - Heroes NYC shout-out!
Taking a break mid-episode (what, I have a TiVo!) to share this with y'all:
( mini-spoiler )
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May 7th, 2007
11:21 pm - PSA
I made this for dinner.
It was insanely great.
So, what have you been up to?
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April 12th, 2007
06:25 pm - Well, fuck
I wondered why thamiris hadn't been around, but I assumed she just hadn't found something recently to delight her fannish fancy the way Smallville once did.
She was such a distinct presence, and she took so much sensual, vividly-described pleasure in things, that it's nearly impossible to believe she's gone. I missed her already -- I'll miss her a lot more knowing she won't be back.
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Thassay so hard, so sharp the conquering,
The dredful Ioy, that alwey slit so yerne,
Al this mene I by love, that my feling
Astonyeth with his wonderful worching
So sore y-wis, that whan I on him thinke,
Nat wot I wel wher that I wake or winke.
(The Parlement of Fowles, Geoffrey Chaucer)
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April 6th, 2007
10:13 pm - Thank you!
Oh, anonymous jellybean-gifter! Thank you! I am delighted.
And, I used it as an excuse to go out and buy jellybeans, which I ate with the last of the chocolate-covered matzoh, in the manner of Hillel, who said, "Whosoever has not eaten of the jellybean and the chocolate-covered matzoh together has not fulfilled her duties towards multiculturalism at this holiday season."
(Obscure seder jokes! Those ALWAYS kill!)
The stomach funkiness seems to be mostly cured, but this morning I fell back asleep and had two very vivid dreams. In one, I was laid off from my job of three-plus years (even in the dream, it seemed improbable). In the other, I came up with the perfect hat for the heavy sweater-jacket I'm knitting for Frack, the toddler fashion-plate. Yeah, I don't know either.
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