So which Brit royal was playing up?
Mar. 22nd, 2010 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauredhel...because you can't seriously look at Cameron Rahles-Rahbula and tell me he's not a close relative of the Princes.
lauredhelThe art of political compromise
Mar. 22nd, 2010 10:15 amoursinOkay, I realise that there are going to be trade-offs, and getting health care reform in the US is really, really, important and will make a massive amount of difference to millions of people.
I just can't help wondering, is there going to be a special budgetary allocation for emergency gynae stuff like haemorrhaging, septicaemia, and all the other potential outcomes of self-administered or backstreet abortions*?
Which, I may add, will almost certainly cost more than performing early abortions in hygienic conditions in the first place.
*Or are they just going let those immoral sluts suffer & die? Or at the very least deny them adequate pain relief during treatment, a practice for which there is historical evidence.
Stormageddon
Mar. 22nd, 2010 03:58 pmlauredhelHoly fucking wrath of the gods, people. Hail the size of golf balls is coming down. It's blown holes all through our verandah roof. Blurry cos I got hit by a stone and had to take it quickly.
One of the smaller hailstones; not brave enough to go out once they got bigger.
Update: further roof damage
one of the hailstones that came in the second wave (bad focus, sorry)
(ETA: this is Padbury.)
One of the smaller hailstones; not brave enough to go out once they got bigger.
Update: further roof damage
one of the hailstones that came in the second wave (bad focus, sorry)
(ETA: this is Padbury.)
Building community before the conference begins
Mar. 22nd, 2010 02:01 amterrikoI'm going to be attending TEDxCarletonU next week, and since they helpfully provided a twitter list of attendees, I figured I'd follow it and try to get myself even more excited about meeting these folk.
And you know what? It totally misfired.
I was seeing messages like, "Is it just me or have ppl completely forgotten how 2 take phone messages? How does 'I have an Offer 4 u' --> 'Do u want 2 buy this prop?'" Another person tweeted seemingly every other song she listened to for a few hours. These are not the articulate, fascinating fellow attendees I wanted to meet.
I was really disappointed. I'd done something similar before GHC09, and it had worked really well, but this time I was losing respect for my fellow attendees by the hour. So I started thinking about it: Why were my experiences so different?
My first guess was that I had a lot more in common with my fellow GHC09 attendees. But I'm not sure that's true -- they were fellow women in computing, but the TEDxCarletonU folk are local to me, so we should have at least that much in common. And really, there was nothing stopping women in computing from tweeting about every other song they heard that day... but for some reason most of them didn't seem to do so.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the big difference was BJ Wishinsky, the online community coordinator for GHC. She was busy introducing us to each other, retweeting stuff we said that was likely to interest others, and getting us all hyped about the upcoming conference. She has a real gift for connecting people, aided by a lot of enthusiasm and curiousity. I swear, every conference needs to hire someone like her!
And as I was mulling over a post about this... something changed in the TEDxCarletonU feed. One of the coordinators was starting to post little twitter intros about each of us. Luc talks about how he's trying to encourage us all to network. And you know what? He may not have BJ's gift for the really personal one-to-one intros, but I'm finding that when I scan that twitter list, I'm slowly getting interested in these folk and excited about the conference after all. My mental image of them is suddenly not about what they had for lunch, but about what they want to do. It turns out even if they can't all spell, they are the interesting folk I'd hoped to meet!
So thanks, Luc. You turned what could have been a disappointing experience into one that's growing more interesting by the moment. And conference organizers take note: pre-conference social networking can burn bridges as well as build them. Do your best to build!
And you know what? It totally misfired.
I was seeing messages like, "Is it just me or have ppl completely forgotten how 2 take phone messages? How does 'I have an Offer 4 u' --> 'Do u want 2 buy this prop?'" Another person tweeted seemingly every other song she listened to for a few hours. These are not the articulate, fascinating fellow attendees I wanted to meet.
I was really disappointed. I'd done something similar before GHC09, and it had worked really well, but this time I was losing respect for my fellow attendees by the hour. So I started thinking about it: Why were my experiences so different?
My first guess was that I had a lot more in common with my fellow GHC09 attendees. But I'm not sure that's true -- they were fellow women in computing, but the TEDxCarletonU folk are local to me, so we should have at least that much in common. And really, there was nothing stopping women in computing from tweeting about every other song they heard that day... but for some reason most of them didn't seem to do so.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the big difference was BJ Wishinsky, the online community coordinator for GHC. She was busy introducing us to each other, retweeting stuff we said that was likely to interest others, and getting us all hyped about the upcoming conference. She has a real gift for connecting people, aided by a lot of enthusiasm and curiousity. I swear, every conference needs to hire someone like her!
And as I was mulling over a post about this... something changed in the TEDxCarletonU feed. One of the coordinators was starting to post little twitter intros about each of us. Luc talks about how he's trying to encourage us all to network. And you know what? He may not have BJ's gift for the really personal one-to-one intros, but I'm finding that when I scan that twitter list, I'm slowly getting interested in these folk and excited about the conference after all. My mental image of them is suddenly not about what they had for lunch, but about what they want to do. It turns out even if they can't all spell, they are the interesting folk I'd hoped to meet!
So thanks, Luc. You turned what could have been a disappointing experience into one that's growing more interesting by the moment. And conference organizers take note: pre-conference social networking can burn bridges as well as build them. Do your best to build!
Rolltop joy
Mar. 22nd, 2010 02:11 pmlauredhelWe just got a roll-top desk for the Lad, since he's been jonesing for one, and I kinda love it.
Eight drawers and a bunch of nooks for all hiscrap Important Stuff, and we can roll the top down to hide the lot.
I've ordered laminated maps of Australia and the world to cover the scuffed surface, and labelled the nooks and drawers in the vain, yet wistful hope that that I might be able to find sticky tape when I need it.
He now has a homework and art space that isn't the dining room table. This is all good.
Eight drawers and a bunch of nooks for all his
I've ordered laminated maps of Australia and the world to cover the scuffed surface, and labelled the nooks and drawers in the vain, yet wistful hope that that I might be able to find sticky tape when I need it.
He now has a homework and art space that isn't the dining room table. This is all good.
"Ghost Writer" and random Bujold
Mar. 21st, 2010 10:13 pmcofax7Upon having seen "The Ghost Writer", I have to say: did Polanski watch season 6 of Spooks? Because, seriously. ( I refuse to give up my feminist cred for having seen a Roman Polanski movie )
In other news, I reread The Warrior's Apprentice, and all I can say is, "You mean, he's like that all the time?" Heee! Also, someone needs to write a Yuletide story about Elena Visconti.
And now I shall crash out and head to bed like a good little bureaucrat.
*
In other other news, the Macy's suit sale is a dangerous thing, and Calvin Klein needs to reconsider their vanity sizing: no way on god's green earth am I legitimately a 4.
In other news, I reread The Warrior's Apprentice, and all I can say is, "You mean, he's like that all the time?" Heee! Also, someone needs to write a Yuletide story about Elena Visconti.
And now I shall crash out and head to bed like a good little bureaucrat.
*
In other other news, the Macy's suit sale is a dangerous thing, and Calvin Klein needs to reconsider their vanity sizing: no way on god's green earth am I legitimately a 4.
Why I'll never be a slash writer
Mar. 22nd, 2010 03:05 pmaquaeriI'm being sucked into fandom increasingly, and noticing my changing-or-adding-to-the-story urges (that I had more noticeably as child) coming back, so I suspect I will become a fanfic writer eventually. But I'm noticing the old* pattern in my recent Squee! moments and I just don't think what I'll become is a slash writer:
Warehouse 13 is a very, very silly show and I am not particularly interested in the central three characters (Artie, Myka, Pete) or chief villain (James) - they seem rather by-the-numbers to me. Note: three men and one woman, and Myka is a bit too much "this is the character for all you girls to like" for me to really warm to her. But the next three characters on the show: Leena, Claudia, Mrs Frederic, are all female (How did the creators get that past Hollywood??) and all kick my "I wanna know more, I may have to make it up myself" urge more strongly than the four main characters.
And then there was the episode where we meet Rebecca (Roberta Maxwell), an agent in her youth. And the show toys with the idea of her re-joining Warehouse 13 and I was practically out of my chair: 60-something female agent as part of the regular crew! Sign me up now! Myka and Rebecca would make an awesome field team! Instructed by Mrs Frederick directly! (I have no clue why she keeps telling Artie he's their best agent ever, because I see no evidence in the show for that, and it's got to be merely to maintain his fragile ego long enough for him to serve his actual purpose) With Claudia instead of Artie as the home base! Since the show is, sadly, not going to go there, I will have to make up those stories myself.
I note that in AO3, the heavy-duty writing for Warehouse 13 so far is slash between Artie and James. I am so not interested.
Lady Gaga's Telephone video. I've seen a lot of confused commentary along the lines of "what do the lyrics have to do with the video?" I am an unashamed Lady Gaga fan by now, and I've been listening to Telephone for three months on fairly heavy rotation and when I saw the video I burst out laughing. Yes, it's a song about a girl having a good time in the club and not wanting to deal with her boyfriend calling her all the time - it makes a nice sequence with Destiny's Child "Jumping Jumping" and 50 Cent "In Da Club". That's why it's hilariously funny when "in the club" turns out to be "in prison", and there's a good reason her mobile has no service.
As I understand it, Lady Gaga originally wrote the song quite some time ago, back when she was a songwriter rather than performing herself, and Telephone was apparently offered to Britney Spears, who turned it down. Then when Lady Gaga started doing her own songs, she asked Britney to appear on Telephone, and was turned down again. (I bet Britney is kicking herself now). So, if Lady Gaga is anything like me, she's going to feel quite some distance from the song by now, perhaps almost like it was written by someone else. So what do you do with someone else's song? You vid it of course, and imagery that contrasts ironically or casts a new light on the lyrics, is totally vid territory.
So yes, I'm claiming Lady Gaga as a vidder, although she gets to make up her own images rather than having to cut other people's, to her own songs rather than other people's.
Anyway, in terms of fannish squeeing, OMG Beyonce! Welcome to social critique about women, lesbianism, male gaze! And I really like the way the video is full of people of all kinds of ethnicities and a fairly wide variety of shapes. There are people who want to make the poisoning in the diner be some message about "obesity is deadly", but I think it's a vid full of everyday Americans, rather than the perfect bodies seen in most music videos. It is a shame they couldn't find dancers with a wider range of body shapes. I hope next time.
And finally, Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton edition). I want to write a whole separate post about the movie, but: I don't remember ever seeing a mainstream film that close to failing the Reverse Bechdel Test. There's one conversation between men not about a woman that I can recall: it's Alice's father and his business partners right at the beginning. And of course Alice turns up during it, and the conversation becomes all about her. It's like this funhouse mirror version of the new Star Trek, where the one Bechdel Test pass conversation is between Uhura and her Orion room mate about work, and then Jim Kirk turns up during it.
*The old pattern: when I read books or whatever that didn't meet my standards for enough female characters getting to do anything, I'd re-write the stories in my head, making up female characters. Part of the reason I've been reluctant to get into fanfic is that I don't want to have people scream "Mary Sue" at me all the time. Particularly as I am so over both Dr Who and Captain Jack being/becoming Mary Sues beyond all bounds. A female character that beloved by her creator would be nice, just for the change. IMHO
Warehouse 13 is a very, very silly show and I am not particularly interested in the central three characters (Artie, Myka, Pete) or chief villain (James) - they seem rather by-the-numbers to me. Note: three men and one woman, and Myka is a bit too much "this is the character for all you girls to like" for me to really warm to her. But the next three characters on the show: Leena, Claudia, Mrs Frederic, are all female (How did the creators get that past Hollywood??) and all kick my "I wanna know more, I may have to make it up myself" urge more strongly than the four main characters.
And then there was the episode where we meet Rebecca (Roberta Maxwell), an agent in her youth. And the show toys with the idea of her re-joining Warehouse 13 and I was practically out of my chair: 60-something female agent as part of the regular crew! Sign me up now! Myka and Rebecca would make an awesome field team! Instructed by Mrs Frederick directly! (I have no clue why she keeps telling Artie he's their best agent ever, because I see no evidence in the show for that, and it's got to be merely to maintain his fragile ego long enough for him to serve his actual purpose) With Claudia instead of Artie as the home base! Since the show is, sadly, not going to go there, I will have to make up those stories myself.
I note that in AO3, the heavy-duty writing for Warehouse 13 so far is slash between Artie and James. I am so not interested.
Lady Gaga's Telephone video. I've seen a lot of confused commentary along the lines of "what do the lyrics have to do with the video?" I am an unashamed Lady Gaga fan by now, and I've been listening to Telephone for three months on fairly heavy rotation and when I saw the video I burst out laughing. Yes, it's a song about a girl having a good time in the club and not wanting to deal with her boyfriend calling her all the time - it makes a nice sequence with Destiny's Child "Jumping Jumping" and 50 Cent "In Da Club". That's why it's hilariously funny when "in the club" turns out to be "in prison", and there's a good reason her mobile has no service.
As I understand it, Lady Gaga originally wrote the song quite some time ago, back when she was a songwriter rather than performing herself, and Telephone was apparently offered to Britney Spears, who turned it down. Then when Lady Gaga started doing her own songs, she asked Britney to appear on Telephone, and was turned down again. (I bet Britney is kicking herself now). So, if Lady Gaga is anything like me, she's going to feel quite some distance from the song by now, perhaps almost like it was written by someone else. So what do you do with someone else's song? You vid it of course, and imagery that contrasts ironically or casts a new light on the lyrics, is totally vid territory.
So yes, I'm claiming Lady Gaga as a vidder, although she gets to make up her own images rather than having to cut other people's, to her own songs rather than other people's.
Anyway, in terms of fannish squeeing, OMG Beyonce! Welcome to social critique about women, lesbianism, male gaze! And I really like the way the video is full of people of all kinds of ethnicities and a fairly wide variety of shapes. There are people who want to make the poisoning in the diner be some message about "obesity is deadly", but I think it's a vid full of everyday Americans, rather than the perfect bodies seen in most music videos. It is a shame they couldn't find dancers with a wider range of body shapes. I hope next time.
And finally, Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton edition). I want to write a whole separate post about the movie, but: I don't remember ever seeing a mainstream film that close to failing the Reverse Bechdel Test. There's one conversation between men not about a woman that I can recall: it's Alice's father and his business partners right at the beginning. And of course Alice turns up during it, and the conversation becomes all about her. It's like this funhouse mirror version of the new Star Trek, where the one Bechdel Test pass conversation is between Uhura and her Orion room mate about work, and then Jim Kirk turns up during it.
*The old pattern: when I read books or whatever that didn't meet my standards for enough female characters getting to do anything, I'd re-write the stories in my head, making up female characters. Part of the reason I've been reluctant to get into fanfic is that I don't want to have people scream "Mary Sue" at me all the time. Particularly as I am so over both Dr Who and Captain Jack being/becoming Mary Sues beyond all bounds. A female character that beloved by her creator would be nice, just for the change. IMHO
(no subject)
Mar. 21st, 2010 11:39 pmmaevelefinally heard jeff buckleys version of " be my husband" I had tried to figure out where the damo/hannigan version evolved from the origina, but jeffs is that middle step. damo covers jeff's cover. again.
You're all fired.
Mar. 21st, 2010 09:36 pmdamned_colonialLook, you KNOW that the late 19th century is not really my period, and you saw me getting into Sherlock Holmes fandom regardless. So what's your excuse for not pointing me at Edward Carpenter and telling me he was MADE OF AWESOME?
He believed gay love was a mechanism for radical social change! He inspired Forster to write "Maurice"! He campaigned for social and economic independence for women! He wore sandals and frolicked nude while eating nuts and berries! With his working class husband! In the 1890s, while Wilde was on trial!
In conclusion: fired.
He believed gay love was a mechanism for radical social change! He inspired Forster to write "Maurice"! He campaigned for social and economic independence for women! He wore sandals and frolicked nude while eating nuts and berries! With his working class husband! In the 1890s, while Wilde was on trial!
In conclusion: fired.
For those keeping track of these things...
Mar. 22nd, 2010 12:09 amunusualmusicAm now home and dry. Literally, its begun to rain outside.
Not a transatlantic flight but we can't have everything:)
Am steadily consuming mother's home cooking. Am glad that the healthcare bill seems to be passed by the house. Am shaking my head over this. I mean, really now?
EDIT: Via![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deadbrowalking : Virtuoso I came.
Not a transatlantic flight but we can't have everything:)
Am steadily consuming mother's home cooking. Am glad that the healthcare bill seems to be passed by the house. Am shaking my head over this. I mean, really now?
EDIT: Via
deadbrowalking : Virtuoso I came.Can't connect to database
Mar. 21st, 2010 11:13 pmnaienko posting in ![[site community profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_devI finally, gloriously, got hamsterjournal.com to work. I have begun to dig my fingers into the *swearword* BML, and now I've got a persistent error that has to go away to continue the process of making HamJournals HamJournals and not DW. It is as follows:
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /home/[username]/dw/cgi-bin/DBI/Role.pm line 230.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /home/[username]/dw/cgi-bin/DBI/Role.pm line 230.
Can't connect to the database.
I have rebooted the apache. I have recreated and re-edited config.private.pl. I even went to the extent of placing the user|pass into Role.pm, which eliminated those lines but not 'Can't connect to the database.' Is this like the frustrating two hours I spend while the Hubbub source was down, and I just have to wait, or did I broked something?
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /home/[username]/dw/cgi-bin/DBI/Role.pm line 230.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /home/[username]/dw/cgi-bin/DBI/Role.pm line 230.
Can't connect to the database.
I have rebooted the apache. I have recreated and re-edited config.private.pl. I even went to the extent of placing the user|pass into Role.pm, which eliminated those lines but not 'Can't connect to the database.' Is this like the frustrating two hours I spend while the Hubbub source was down, and I just have to wait, or did I broked something?
break
Mar. 21st, 2010 10:53 pmoliviacirceRight, okay, I am officially going on hiatus. It probably won't last very long -- at least, April is coming up, and Things Happen in my journal in April, so there's that -- but I am currently a bit overwhelmed by life being life-like, and I need to do some spring cleaning before I'm happy with my dreamwidth and LJ presence, and until I do that, internet shenanigans are stressing me out instead of making me happy. Consequently, I am taking a brief vacation, at least until I have time to actually do the spring cleaning.
Please feel absolutely free to email -- or drop me a comment -- if anything happens with any of you that I should know about! Or if the internet explodes! Or if somebody posts really good fic! Or if anybody has twins and/or releases an album! I will be reachable by email and phone and twitter and chat. I'm not dropping off the face of the planet or anything, just stepping away from DW and LJ for a bit.
Also I am going to New York tomorrow! Life! There is so much!
Please feel absolutely free to email -- or drop me a comment -- if anything happens with any of you that I should know about! Or if the internet explodes! Or if somebody posts really good fic! Or if anybody has twins and/or releases an album! I will be reachable by email and phone and twitter and chat. I'm not dropping off the face of the planet or anything, just stepping away from DW and LJ for a bit.
Also I am going to New York tomorrow! Life! There is so much!
On this day, 20 years ago...
Mar. 21st, 2010 07:48 pmsereneThis morning at 2:45am, I was sleeping next to my beloved someotherguy. Exactly twenty years earlier, someone tried to kill me.
I have told this story before, and I usually don't cut and paste, because I believe the narrative changes as my life changes, and that's part of how the truth works. Today, though, I don't feel like talking about it in detail—I'm really a little bored by it—which is kind of odd for me, because in general, the story kind of fascinates me.
Obviously, I survived, and there are a lot more details at The Day I Saw God and Left the Church, an essay I did for an atheist newsletter, but of course, that's also only part of the story. I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and I always rush to let people know that it isn't upsetting for me to talk about, and never has been.
Now, while I would never wish an experience like this on someone, I have to say that I will always look at March 21, 1990 as a turning point for me—as the day on which my life began to go in an authentic direction. I had swallowed a lot of other people's ideas about love and morality and god and life, against my own inner stirrings, and I started to come out of that. I look at myself now, and I can honestly say I am living the life I want to be living, as myself, in person, for real.
I spoke to my mom about it today. Our consensus was that that night and the aftermath were harder on her than on me, just as her almost dying from cancer was harder on me and my aunt than it was on my mom. When it's happening to you (at least if you're me or my mom), you are just too busy dealing with your recovery and stuff to really be all that upset about it. Plus, in my case, unlike in many (sexual/violent) assault cases, it was always clear to me that it wasn't my fault, and no one made it worse by blaming the victim, so I had no self-blame to worry about. My mom, on the other hand, had a hard time not blaming herself for not protecting her child, as irrational as we both realize that is, so she went through horrible agony in the months and years that followed.
Anyway, I'm so glad to be alive, and to be in this beautiful, brilliant world. Thanks for being here with me.
someotherguy. Exactly twenty years earlier, someone tried to kill me. I have told this story before, and I usually don't cut and paste, because I believe the narrative changes as my life changes, and that's part of how the truth works. Today, though, I don't feel like talking about it in detail—I'm really a little bored by it—which is kind of odd for me, because in general, the story kind of fascinates me.
Obviously, I survived, and there are a lot more details at The Day I Saw God and Left the Church, an essay I did for an atheist newsletter, but of course, that's also only part of the story. I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and I always rush to let people know that it isn't upsetting for me to talk about, and never has been.
Now, while I would never wish an experience like this on someone, I have to say that I will always look at March 21, 1990 as a turning point for me—as the day on which my life began to go in an authentic direction. I had swallowed a lot of other people's ideas about love and morality and god and life, against my own inner stirrings, and I started to come out of that. I look at myself now, and I can honestly say I am living the life I want to be living, as myself, in person, for real.
I spoke to my mom about it today. Our consensus was that that night and the aftermath were harder on her than on me, just as her almost dying from cancer was harder on me and my aunt than it was on my mom. When it's happening to you (at least if you're me or my mom), you are just too busy dealing with your recovery and stuff to really be all that upset about it. Plus, in my case, unlike in many (sexual/violent) assault cases, it was always clear to me that it wasn't my fault, and no one made it worse by blaming the victim, so I had no self-blame to worry about. My mom, on the other hand, had a hard time not blaming herself for not protecting her child, as irrational as we both realize that is, so she went through horrible agony in the months and years that followed.
Anyway, I'm so glad to be alive, and to be in this beautiful, brilliant world. Thanks for being here with me.
