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date: 03 October 2008 8:59am
subject: now he's flushed *himself* down the toilet?
Come election day I'm'a take Elizabeth May's advice and vote Liberal instead of my usual automatic preference of NDP/Green; until we get proportional representation, strategic voting looks like the way to go to get the Conservatives out. ugh.
And on a completely different tack, please edify me on this issue, lj (and feel free to elaborate in comments):
Poll #1271827 the water closet
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All
Eating lunch in a toilet cubicle:
View Answers
Did it all the time in school to escape bullies
0 (0.0%)
Did it all the time in school due to depression 0 (0.0%)
Did it all the time in school due to lack of friends 3 (3.7%)
Still do it 0 (0.0%)
I can see why it might be preferrable to other lunch-space options 16 (19.8%)
Sounds normal to me 1 (1.2%)
Sounds unsanitary to me 37 (45.7%)
Sounds unfathomably disgusting to me 14 (17.3%)
I can't choose an answer because even contemplating this question makes me nauseated 10 (12.3%)
date: 30 September 2008 10:38pm
subject: it's like your dream came true ... FOR ME
date: 30 September 2008 12:04am
subject: he's named like *my* name!!
. it is Eid, Navaratri, and Rosh Hashanah; I hope they will all be good for those of us who celebrate.
. I'm in no mood to discuss but cannot neglect to mention it: a mosque in Dayton, Ohio was gassed during worship. The gas was sprayed into the room with the babies and children.
. Fanlore is open! All of you people who understand wikis, go fill stuff out!
. I knew my vigilance would pay off! For any of you who love the song but are irritated by Leona Lewis' melodramatic voice: boyce avenue - bleeding love. Right-click-download away!
. I came home to find my mother extraordinarily pleased with herself for having (unknowingly) given my father the same haircut as Denny Crane. For his part, my father restricted his opinion to admiration for Denny's pink tie.
date: 27 September 2008 1:35pm
subject: homer, i'll tell you what i told redford: it ain't gonna happen
. I tried out my new bottle of Lavera Organic Sunblock this morning and discovered to my horror that (possibly due to its mineral ingredients?) it gave my skin a distinctly white sheen. For those of you unsure how this is alarming, white is not my natural colour. On the plus side, I may now qualify to apply for a job at Fair & Lovely! Remember, "EVERY DAY COUNTS FOR TOTAL FAIRNESS"!!
. BBC News was showing a broadcast of the recent conference on Millenium Development Goals, and Bill Gates was talking about distributing medication in Africa, and it reminded me of that stupid episode of the West Wing where Toby and Josh (I think) were meeting with the pharmaceutical companies, and how the pharmaceutical companies' big excuse -- which stymied the West Wingers as well -- was that even if they gave the proper HIV-AIDS medications to Africans with the disease, the patients wouldn't be able to take the pills in the correct course because *GASP* they have NO WATCHES and so APPARENTLY CAN'T TELL TIME. AT ALL. Oh, West Wing. You were made of fail in so many ways, and yet I love you.
. Speaking of faildogs that I nonetheless love, I've been watching QaF again and have noticed that my DVDs are steadily disintegrating despite being legally-purchased official releases. Those cheap bastards!
. My writing group has started getting together again, and in the course of the two meetings we've had so far I've managed to write a story about a girl whose skirt-sequins start talking to her and a story about a "white Indian" romance novel gone awry. One of these days, hopefully, I will write something that other people will actually *want to read*.
. ETA: so who is gonna be first to write a story where John Constantine gets to be an archangel for the Winchesters? It could be all, "When asked about being an angel, the infamous magician lit a new Silk Cut and shrugged, 'I felt like slumming.'"
date: 19 September 2008 9:56am
subject: some fuel for me mule
.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
yuletart open to fandom nominations! are you artistic? crafty? go sign up for an art-themed holiday exchange! even i am going to sign up, and i can't draw/paint/sculpt worth crap. but you don't have to be bernini, you just have to put love and effort into your assignment.. finally fed up with having to constantly rearrange my website to accommodate all the new junk/old junk, i have reposted pretty much all of my popfic over at
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
stubbleglittery. even the really primitive embarrassing stuff. whoo-hoo!That's about it for now. Except, y'all, I was so depressed this week -- as evidenced by aforementioned obsessive categorizing/listing/lj-making -- I don't even know why. I skipped school for the entire week (which turned out not too bad, b/c one of my classes got cancelled anyhow); this would be awful except I feel INFINITELY more enthusiastic about going back to class next week. Maybe I just needed the recharge? It's too bad that life activities aren't structured with the option for occasional lying low. I'm pretty sure we'd all benefit greatly from it.
date: 10 September 2008 8:36am
subject: frosty chocolate milkshakes
I saw this in
izzytart's lj yesterday and couldn't stop thinking about it (which should be no surprise to any of you). It gives me hope to think of Obama winning, especially since it looks like my country's going to be re-electing the conniving elitist Bush-Lite come October.Also, ( that secret meme that's been going around. )
date: 08 September 2008 7:48pm
subject: live hornets! we smush them right into dough!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It wasn't a poultry nail and I couldn't identify if it was a rat claw or a cat claw, but I think we can all agree on the bottom line: NO ANIMAL WITH A CLAW SHOULD BE INCLUDED ON YOUR PIZZA.
date: 08 September 2008 11:42am
subject: kill spectators
Anyhow, for anybody who hasn't seen it: the Wee Sister betook herself to see Jared & Jensen at the soap-box derby this weekend, for those who are interested in that kind of thing. She took pictures!
Also, I hear Jordin Sparks lost her shit at the VMAs and implied that anybody who doesn't wear a purity ring is a slut? Well, guess what, honey -- I'm contentedly close to being asexual and I STILL think purity rings are fucking nonsense. ESPECIALLY if your parents give you one at 13 (along with your betrothal papers to a nice young person from a wealthy family that daddy picked out, I'm supposing). They're not some magical barrier against pre-marital sex; in fact, all they do is provide a visible, tangible way for their wearers to lord it over everybody else for having superior "Christian values" and being heterosexual future breeders.
Then again, Jordin Sparks is what, seventeen? And there's no better time to act like a jackhole than when you're seventeen; it means there's still time to grow out of it. heh.
date: 07 September 2008 10:26am
subject: 'implied', lisa, or 'implode'?
- the red-haired girl who waltzed into my Japanese Women's Self-Writing class sporting a Fullmetal Alchemist bag; she then went on to announce, "I'm totally not even interested? in women's writing? or Japanese history? but I figure it will give me some leverage? because I wanna break into shoujo?"
- the joke I made in my Gender & Conflict group that involved Dylan McKay's quote on steroids ("they shrink your naaaaads!") which was initially well-received but followed up by one girl saying in that Barbara Walters-beat.box.ing way, "'Dy-lan Mc-Kay'? I'll have to look that up on Wikipedia!!" while the others nodded in similar good-natured confusion
- nearly every girl on the campus wearing knee-high dress socks with heels + microminis/formal shorts
AAAARRGH. At any rate, eventually we'll be doing Sei Shonogon's Pillow Book in the first class, which will be nice although I'll have to refrain from mentally writing new parts to The Pillow Book of Tim Bayliss while we discuss it. hee!
Also, the sister and I watched Southland Tales, and I have to say -- it was cast brilliantly. Thank goodness the popslash recognition of La Timberlake as an all-singing, all-dancing, all-insane apocalypse machine is starting to gain wider acceptance!!
Plus, oddly and most unexpectedly, The Rock does the best human being impersonation of Homer Simpson EVER in that movie. Not on purpose, but there's a particular bug-eyed frenetic finger-wiggle he does that looks uncannily like Homer. Hee!
date: 06 September 2008 10:28am
subject: i usually think people who vote are a bit fruity
( For the second half of the double-length episode, I jotted down my reactions. )
I scrolled back for the entire week of friendslist entries searching for ANTM reactions and found only one from my fellow Canadian
tammylee, which is kind of comforting because all the Yanks were talking politics. *g*
date: 05 September 2008 3:16pm
subject: our island has not been this damaged since the a-bomb tests
A global alliance of small island-states will be calling on the Security Council of the United Nations to address climate change as a pressing threat to international peace and security. I've mentioned the Alliance of Small Island States before, and the situation has not improved since then; global warming means that the sea levels continue to rise with unnatural rapidity. We've seen the results of this in the typhoons and hurricanes, and small inhabited islands are seeing it in the encroachment of salt water upon livable areas.
Most of you will understand how deeply this upsets me, since my family is from the Caribbean and it's where I spent a good part of my childhood. The idea of my beloved island home being in danger from something that policymakers refuse to acknowledge even exists is terrifying.
So if you've got a moment, please hop on over to Avaaz.org and sign their petition of support, which will be presented by the island ambassadors to the UN.
For more information, here are some links:
draft of the Small Islands States Resolution
more information about those presenting the petition
information on Tuvalu's evacuation plan and climate refugees
information about how rising sea levels will affect us all
I'll close with this quote from the e-mail.
President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific, recently said:
"Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns. We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high tides. These are not theoretical, scientific losses -- they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods.... For island states, time is not running out. It has run out. And our path may very well be the window to your own future and the future of our planet".
date: 26 August 2008 10:58am
subject: sorry 'bout the salmonella
Anyhow, I recently made two (non meat-related) things that turned out nicely: chocolate-covered frozen bananas (self-explanatory) and macaroni pie. The latter is something we'd eat all the time in Trinidad -- basically a pasta casserole -- and it is vitally important that you use not elbow macaroni but the long mezzi ziti type, as pictured here in Sarina's recipe. My mother absolutely insists on this shape of pasta; my father has reportedly REFUSED to eat somebody else's macaroni pie at a party upon finding that it had been made with elbow macaroni.
I was going to post my mum's recipe, but Sarina's is practically identical. The only different thing we did was to mix everything but the milk, then pour the milk over the noodles after putting them in the casserole dish. Plus we topped the entire thing with more cheese. It's lovely with roast chicken, which cooked nicely alongside it.
Apart from that, friendslist, life has been pretty quiet; I am working and watching movies and playing games and gearing up for what will (hopefully) be my final year at university for a while. But in the interests of stimulating actual social behaviour, I'd like to ask: what toys/pictures do you have up at work?
My computer desktop is the Wee Sister's drawing of the real-life Simpsons, and since I work in a place focused on the development of babies 0-3 I also have little figurines of Marge & Maggie. Plus a postcard of a blue door that
silvrsolace got me from Greece, because I find blue doors to be calming.How about y'all?
date: 19 August 2008 5:15pm
subject: new york is thataway, man!
frank sinatra
all of me - one of my favourite memories ever is
kitchendinah spontaneously bursting out into this jazzy little tune in the parking lot of a bar in Baltimore. ♥!!angel eyes - sinatra closed the last concert of his career with this tune. what drama!
don't fence me in - and he fucks up in the middle of the song. ahaaha!
i'm a fool to want you - i love the different modulations in this song: slightly angry to soaringly emotional to plaintive and back again.
if you go away - the opening verse is hushed and grey, and then swells up into hope. it's so neat.
old man river - the very very last part of this song has a long low note with astounding breath control that just gives me shivers.
one for my baby (and one more for the road) - LOVE.
three coins in the fountain - the way he hits the phrasing just a little differently with each pass!
time after time - lots of people like frank's voice after his throat hemorrhage in the early 50s, but i must confess - i like the early stuff.
you make me feel so young - y'all might have heard this most recently performed by stewie griffin, heh.
you'll never walk alone - he sounds quite young in this, all earnest and tremulous.
young at heart - i always think of that scene in 'liberty heights' where ben foster refuses to get out of the car while this song's playing, because you don't walk out on sinatra.
gene kelly
new york, new york - the "it's a wonderful town" version, with sinatra and jules munshin.
take me out to the ballgame - gene's hollering at the end pretty much makes this rendition!
i've got a crush on you - i totally love sinatra's version of this, but for some reason i don't have it available, so you get gene's.
singin' in the rain - because i had to include this.
The reason for this is because
dramedy was daydreaming the other day about Gene Kelly slash, and as I have noted here and elsewhere before, I am nothing if not suggestible.( just one thing necessary in manhattan )
date: 12 August 2008 9:18am
subject: the baby i chose to have baptized is missing!
ibarw, because when it comes to the mainstream news media we get:- TIME discussing how easy it is to paint Barak Obama as a "Left Behind"-style Antichrist
- one of the most racist pieces of sports coverage I've ever read (and that's saying a lot)
I hate the Olympics and am dreading 2010 when they hit my home city. But at least my subject-line quote from the Left Below episode of The Simpsons is cheering me up. hee!
date: 10 August 2008 7:51pm
subject: does it change colour when you're ticked off?
ibarw this year -- not deliberately, but because I don't even know what I want to say. But after reading Anna's last incredible post on how painful discussion can be and i_naiad's excellent post about appropriation, I kind of feel like I want to make one.A couple of months ago, I wrote an article for Sequential Tart called Becoming Visible: On being a woman of colour in fandom. I didn't post about it in this journal because I kind of keep my Tart stuff separate from lj stuff, just due to using my real name.
Anyhow, I happened to see a discussion about the article in somebody's journal, and one person mentioned that making [white fen] "see" us is too tiring an uphill battle to fight, and that creating safer PoC-only spaces in fandom was a better idea. I can understand that viewpoint. I've only been participating in fandom discussions on racialized topics for the past year or so, and it is exhausting. There's always somebody ready to reprimand you for your tone (I engaged in one extended, carefully civil conversation where the very second I revealed my ethnicity, the other person suddenly claimed I was "quarrelsome" and "aggressive"). There's always somebody ready to bring up the horrible experience they once had with people of a certain race/ethnicity,* which is why they get a free pass to use racial slurs and/or wail that they don't benefit from white privilege AT ALL and so saying that all white people benefit is UNFAIR.
Hey, you know when I benefited from Indian privilege? That time when I took my car for an oil change and the dude there was Indian, so he didn't charge me tax because I paid cash. You wanna know about when being Indian worked against me? You got a while?
That up there sounds pretty angry. And probably pretty reductive, and absolutely not taking into account all of the mitigating factors that inevitably arise when we're talking race and privilege. But you know what? I AM angry. And just like most other human beings, I sometimes don't take the time to be perfectly fair and rational when I'm angry. It's easier on the internet, because here when somebody asks me "are we talking feathers or dots?" in regard to my Indianness I have the chance to step back for a bit and collect myself; in real life when somebody says something racist to me, I'm usually so shocked and hurt that I can hardly even believe what I heard. And it's even worse when it comes from people I like and am friends with.
So even though I don't think that confining myself solely to small PoC-only ghettos is the answer for me, I'm at a point where I've had enough of working hard to be polite. It's the curse of the "model minorities", politeness; I actually, lamely, colonially, stop and think but i don't want to be rude! when it comes to pointing out that somebody has said something hurtful and ignorant. I don't think about how much it hurt me, I think about how much I don't want to cause a fuss because pointing out racism is awkward and embarrassing. I want to help you save face, at the expense of my own.
... These lessons are hard for me. Every time I start to think I'm a fairly aware and self-actualized kind of anti-racist feminist, something else happens to show me that I'm still labouring under the dictates of colonization. I'm still trying to convert what I've been taught about [black, heathen] Hindoos and the superiority of the [English, Christian] whites from "fact" to "fallacy" in my head, and it's fucking hard ... just about as hard as it's been to write this post without including any placating exonerations of white allies and such, even though I know many of you are.
So yes, becoming visible. It's a funny concept for a "visible minority", isn't it? Well, I've always liked a touch of wryness with my activism.
* however, when PoC are angry with white people over the hurts they've suffered, white people generally are full of sympathies such as: "that was so long ago! get over it!" or "you're a reverse racist!" or "*I* never did anything to you, why are you mad at me?"
date: 31 July 2008 4:02pm
subject:
http://pnhlondon.wordpress.com/
That blog belongs to a UK citizen who has a rare, chronic and severely debilitating illness, Paroxysmal Nocturnal Haemoglobinuria (PNH). Recently, a drug was developed that will allow people who suffer from this condition to manage their symptoms and live relatively normal lives. The drug has been approved for use in the UK (as well as many other countries), but the small number of UK patients who need it and who went through the lengthy drug trial to test it are in imminent danger of being denied access to the drug because it's expensive. Details about PNH, its effects and the changes that this medication brought about in the lives of people taking it are in the linked post.
If you are a UK taxpayer, please take a moment to sign the online petition:
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/2087
And then please take a moment to write a note expressing your support for a Health Ministry decision to fund this drug for patients who need it to live. You can write to the Health Minister here:
Dawn Primarolo MP
PO Box 1002
Bristol
BS99 1WH
or
Dawn Primarolo MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
(email) primarolod@parliament.uk
or phone her office here: (tel) 0117 909 0063; 0117 909 0064.
This is important for so many reasons, but battling the markups by pharmaceutical companies and the uneven allocation of resources are only a couple of them, and not even the topmost. That would be reserved for the fact that the person I know and love who has PNH is one of the dearest, bravest girls in the world, and if I had half her sunny and smart disposition I'd count myself lucky indeed.
date: 29 July 2008 9:30am
subject: mighty robots of battlestar galactica vs the gay robots from star wars
However! I got to see a really cool panel about costume design, actually got into the Dexter panel, and thanks to
kadymae got a great seat between her and divalea for the Eisners, where I bemusedly witnessed Samuel L. Jackson presenting Gerard Way with an award (he was very sweet, bandommers).I also got to stay in a Suite of Awesome with
cathybites, loveflyfree, sarahcascade, silvrsolace and the sister, and even better (and under his great duress) we had tbranch at the same hotel. Both of my con experiences have involved Tom, Cathy, and Reg, and I think I like that pattern. It keeps me sane. Especially when I get all migrainey and have to spend an ENTIRE DAY in bed recuperating, wtf. Plus I got to meet ethrosdemon, which was nice if brief!At any rate, I'm happy I got to finally meet Kate after knowing her online for a little over a decade (oh, those long-ago GEEB days!!) even if I was too sick to make it to the impromptu Tart meeting. And the Wee Sister and I had a lovely posh dinner for her birthday, and the Bongo booth was giving out Lisa Simpson fans on the day I went to the exhibit hall, and I saw Ianto wandering into the men's room. So, y'know. Good times. *g*
date: 20 July 2008 7:30pm
subject: you only wrote two pages of dialogue
Thank you a zillion times over for my four marvellous, wonderful, fabulously talented pinch-hitters:
kira_j, who deserves Justin-in-a-sari for being so awesome;etsu_88, possibly the sweetest girl in the entire world and her SECOND year doing this;phaballa, who is LIKE A STORY MACHINE I SWEAR Y'ALL; andi_naiad, who managed to get me a last-minute cover despite medical emergencies with her poor cat. Seriously, what a group of most excellent people! I am so glad I was able to come to you for help, folks -- you made it all much less stressful. *mwah*!I have about four stories to feedback before I post recs, but I am determined to do it before I leave for vacation on Thursday!! This wouldn't have taken me so long if you guys didn't write such great fics, so it's your fault, really. *g*
Thank you to everybody for participating!
date: 18 July 2008 10:00am
subject:
date: 16 July 2008 8:06am
subject: we don't care about your blintzes
This morning on my drive to work I saw a homeless dude's enormously-laden shopping cart tip over at an intersection. He was really clearly distressed about it -- there was a lot of traffic that he was blocking -- and by the time I processed this and thought, "maybe i should stop and help him pick all that shit up" I was already a block away. Sigh. That's gonna bother me all day. I need to develop a more instinctive stop-and-help reaction instead of my ingrained mind-your-own-business reaction (seriously, when people ask me how my weekend was or how i'm doing, i never reciprocate because i can't help feeling that it would be intrusive).
(ps: the above is most definitely not a plea for y'all to validate my behaviour, i just needed to get it out, y'know?)
Anyhow, I'm a third-through the remix stories and have been working on the femslash ones too, so there should be recs soon. Whoo! I love doing recs!!
date: 15 July 2008 1:52pm
subject:
We are live! Thank you so much to my intrepid band of pinch-hitters (whom I will not name just yet, but will be thanked profusely and publicly after the reveal); y'all really came through for me this year. Much love to you all!
Go, read. The bits that I managed to peek at while coding and uploading are really stellar.
date: 15 July 2008 7:08am
subject:
Should the last author get her story in to me before that, the remixes will go up asap (since I'll be at work, I can't guarantee a specific time); if she sends it to me and people are busy writing pinch-hits, I'll put up what we've got and then add the pinch-hit stories after.
So as of now, look for Remix to go up around 7pm PST for the latest!!
date: 14 July 2008 2:51pm
subject: grade me! validate me!
In other news, it seems I stupidly set the Remix posting date for the same day as the
femslash08 posting date! This isn't the reason for the slight lag -- that was due to something entirely different -- but all the same, I am glad that I only have the responsibility of running a single challenge because I clearly am discombobulated by the whole thing. ahahaha!Here is my femslash story, at any rate. And one I never thought I'd write.
( sticky stars and Willow/Tara, oh yes indeed. )
date: 10 July 2008 11:21am
subject: could that fat ghost be right?
Anyhow, I saw an interesting meme in
strippedhalo's journal and wanted to do it too!The rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into flickr search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.
1. What is your first name? marissa
2. What is your favorite food? roti
3. What high school did you go to? mcnair
4. What is your favorite color? blue brown pink
5. Who is your celebrity crush? bono
6. Favorite drink? sorrel
7. Dream vacation? ireland
8. Favorite dessert? egg tarts
9. What you wanted to be when you grow up? a writer
10. What do you love most in life? music
11. One word to describe you? concise
12. Your flickr name? I don't have one, so I used "missmaggie"
( ... which apparently gives the option of being either a cat or a dog! )
It's a BIG image, b/c I don't have access to any image programs, so be prepared if you choose to click!
date: 06 July 2008 10:06am
subject: it'll be a bart-mangled banner
Now, erm ... I don't have any particular icon-making skillz, so feel free to use these as bases and modify them however the hell you want. *g*
( Various icons through here, from candids/videos/photoshoots! )