badgerbag

Because I thought today could not top the extreme weirdness of Active discussions in related forums appended as relevant to my books when I did my daily check to see if anyone's bought anything (am sad person, yes). Which are not about the symptoms of syphilis or whether masturbation sends you blind and raving, but are all categorised 'Politics' and on immigration, the BNP, Cameron, etc. And the same ones in all instances, so it's not some anomaly of keyword it's picking up.

But this evening, checking my recommendations list:
The Humbling by Philip Roth (Oct 29, 2009)
Recommended because you purchased Evelyn Sharp: Rebel Woman, 1869-1955
WTFBBQ???!!!111???
That would be the book which is currently shortlisted for the Bad Sex Award (and, as I commented somewhere else, surely Roth is now eligible for a Bad Sex Lifetime Service Award?).
The suggestion is perhaps not quite of the weirdness of Mike Featherstone, Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity (Theory, Culture & Society S.) because you rated Cold Comfort Farm (Mybug strikes back) but it's still well into the bizarre.

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What was the name of the period right before the Disco Era?

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⌈ Secret Post #1050 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

101.

( More! )

Notes:

THIS goes into effect starting with Submissions Post 151, as secrets were posted before the poll went up last week.

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #150.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

At Joe's Pub, 8 - 10 PM: reading, and singing and playing guitar.

I found my purple swingy, flared skirt!  Folded up in a drawer that holds cotton sweaters and so on.  Why?  How? When?  I put skirts on hangers ....

I still haven't managed to get a hair cut.

I did manage to do some shopping, though I did have stand for a very long time -- nearly a half hour to give Ann Taylor - LOFT my money.  But it was worth it because they signed me up for Ann Taylor - LOFT discount credit card, which was paid off as soon as I paid the amount with my debit card.  The total was nearly $50 less, which made the pain worth it.  That's why I had to wait so long to get to the cashier.  She was signing up everyone, which added about 7 - 10 minutes to each transaction.

I cannot express how glad I am this phase is concluded.  Today was just one more example in so many this fall of me running around madly trying to get things accomplished that suddenly had to be taken care of -- most of them about el Vaquero, such as, for instance, finding a taxi and taking a bunch of stuff over the Public Theater (which Joe's Pub is a venue of).  That ate about an hour, and was just one thing.

I managed to write about 15 words today, right after getting up, waiting for the tea to brew and the coffee to be made. Since there wasn't coffee yet, Vaquero was quiet.  As soon as he'd downed his first cup of coffee that was the end of that.

But now it's the holidays ....

What else can I whine about?  Damn it, it was all good, productive, terrific, and financially gainful.  It was hard though.  Touring is hard work.  It's wonderful and rewarding and all that, but it isn't easy.

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...I seem to have ONCE AGAIN selected a plot which requires writing an epic. Did I learn nothing from last year's story which involved ten duels and an orgy, or the story the year before which required a six-page sex scene featuring bondage, blindfolding, psychoactive drugs, Tiger's Balm, erotic asphyxiation, and spirit possession?

I appeared on TechVi’s Bottom Line today talking about Google Chrome OS with Molly Wood of c|net. Click here to see the show (it’s short — just under 6 minutes). We’re playing around with Chrome OS in the office now and I’m vaguely impressed but hesitant to get excited about it. What will be most cool is that features from the OS will end up in the browser, so everyone will have a chance to experience a bit of Chrome no matter what kind of computer you have.

New tattoo design for a client. Check out my blog for some of the preliminary sketches and stuff: http://kiriko-moth.com

This post is dedicated to shewhohashope.

( Equally co-dependent brothers, fewer dead women )

Within the past few hours, it appears that LHC has been coming back online...
======================

Friday 20th November

22:01 Circulating beam 1... (slight change of plans)

20:38 two turns!

20:24 Beam all the way round to Atlas.

19:55 We'eve got beam 1 around through sectors 23,34,34, and 45 to the collimators to the left of CMS. Took the beam through CMS and then managed a minor quench while steering the beam through sector 56. We're using a single low intensity bunch so the quench is what we call a quenchino and recovery is quick. We hope to back in business in 20 minutes. Image of horizontal trajectory and predicted correction.

========================
From:

http://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/news/LHC-latest-news.htm

(as I post this, it is 22:15 in Geneva (10:15pm), so the last update of "circulating beam 1" was about 15 mintues ago. Presumably, many more updates are coming, so follow the page if you're interested in what happens this time.)

I had heard a few months ago that they were planning to circulate the beams again on my birthday, November 19th. More recently, they said they expected it by this weekend. So today is 1 day late from the previous schedule, but earlier than this weekend (although maybe it will still take through the weekend to get beam 2 going?) For those not following the progress of LHC, they started it up in September 2008, then a few weeks later had a major disaster that required shutting it down for nearly a year to fix. Now it is coming back online, and ready to go! But it will still take a while before they are doing actual experiments. They will need to slowly increase the energy, doing double and triple checks that everything is working, before it actually gets to the point where they're in new never-seen-before territory.

i think i love this

my heart hurts just watching.

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So, many of you reading this blog know my very first book way back when (18 years ago, to be exact) was a self-published chapbook called Telepaths Don't Need Safewords. The chapbook eventually sold thousands of copies, but it has been out of print for several years now.

Circlet.com is releasing an ebook edition of it now, and until the end of November, it's FREE. You still have to go through Circlet's shopping cart to get the download, but you pay nothing!

I figure now is a good time to do this because an ebook from Torquere Press is coming in a few weeks that features Arshan as the main character, and it's something of a prequel. May as well remind people what that original first short story was like.

The ebook includes all three stories from the original collection:

Telepaths Don't Need Safewords
A tale of Arshan and Mriah, an established couple attending a glitzy, decadent BDSM costume party, and the adventures and trouble they run into there. What no one there knows is that they have a secret, a telepathic bond that allows them to read each other's thoughts and share feelings.

Cat Scratch Fever
As humans attempt to gain a foothold on an exotic and alien planet, their leader finds taming a cat-like female alien the key to establishing peace.

Heart's Desire
A lonely domme hosts a play party, where everyone takes on a fantasy role. But reality can be so much more painful, and so much sweeter.

Download your copy in PDF form today and tell your friends!
http://tinyurl.com/telepaths

just edited this to make our gender politics clearer. thank you Adrian for the intervention.

PRESS RELEASE

TIME: Sunday, November 22, 3:30pm
LOCATION: Mac Arthur and Grand Ave. at Lake Merritt

CONTACT: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Liz Latty
PHONE: (510) 282-5223
EMAIL: morethanavigil@gmail.com

BAY AREA COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO HOLD VIGIL FOR QUEER/TRANS TEENS MURDERED IN MARYLAND AND PUERTO RICO

OAKLAND, CA - Outraged at the murders of two queer and trans teenagers last week, Bay Area queers and allies will gather at Lake Merritt this Sunday for a candlelight vigil and open mic to mourn and brainstorm ways to keep their community safer from violence.

Last Friday, 19-year-old Jorge Steven López-Mercado got into a car with Juan Martinez-Matos, 26, who later said he had been "searching for a prostitute." Martinez-Matos murdered, beheaded and dismembered López-Mercado after, he said, he discovered that López-Mercado had male genitalia and was wearing feminine clothing. Martinez-Matos then set fire to Lopez-Mercado's remains and left them on the side of a road. Martinez -Matos is now in custody and has confessed to the murder. His bail is set at $4 million.

The same week, in Baltimore, Maryland, queer fifteen-year-old Jason Mattison, Jr., was raped and stabbed to death in his aunt’s home by an adult male, a family friend with whom, according to a Baltimore police spokesperson, Mattison allegedly had a “forced sexual relationship.”

Queer activists say they worry that López-Mercado's murderer will successfully invoke the defense of “gay or trans-panic” to justify the brutal killing. "The fact that Martinez -Matos is saying that López-Mercado was 'wearing women's clothing' indicates that he might try to say he was 'fooled' and therefore 'forced' to kill López-Mercado for their gender identity," Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, one of the organizers of the Oakland vigil said.

“This is completely inexcusable,” Liz Latty, another organizer of the rally this Sunday, said. “It’s blaming the victim. We unequivocally denounce the way that the lives of queer and transgendered people, sex workers, people of color, women and low-income people are devalued and seen as disposable. We especially denounce the ways in which femme-presenting sex workers of color are incredibly targetted for violence.”

Referring to López-Mercado's murder, police investigator Ángel Rodríguez Colón told Univisión, “These types of people, when they enter this lifestyle and go out into the streets, know that this could happen.”

“We are outraged at the murders of López-Mercado and Mattison,” Oakland vigil organizer Latty said. “We, queer and transgendered people in Oakland, are mourning these senseless deaths. Yet we are also a resilient community. We wish to stand in solidarity with those in Puerto Rico and Baltimore who are surviving despite this invisibility and injustice.”

Bay Area organizers of the vigil have been in contact with friends of López-Mercado and are hoping to coordinate memorial events and future actions with the Puerto Rican and Baltimore queer communities.

Harry Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the FBI in Puetro Rico, said that the agency will monitor the investigation since federal statutes regarding hate crimes are implicated. Puerto Rican lawmaker, Charlie Hernandez, who authored the Hate Crimes Act of 2002, has been asking officials to consider charging Matos under that law. It would be the first time in Puerto Rico that a murder would be classified as a hate crime. According to the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, López-Mercado is the tenth murder victim of a hate crime in Puerto Rico in the last seven years.

But Oakland vigil organizers say they want a different kind of justice that doesn't rely on increased policing or punishment. They say that the prison system has not made life safer for victims of violence, especially those who are queer and transgendered people of color. Organizers say that violence against queer youth of color is only exacerbated by increased police enforcement, which disproportionally targets and locks up low-income people, people of color, sex workers, and gender non-conforming people.

“Hate crimes legislation and more police patrols would not make our communities safer. It would not have prevented the murders, and no punishment will bring these two men back,” organizer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha said. “Systemic homophobia and transphobia killed López-Mercado and Mattison, who like other queer or gender non-comforming youth of color, faced barriers like street harassment and discrimination in every facet of life. What could've actually saved the two young people's lives are things like free or affordable public transportation, an end to housing and employment discrimination against queer and trans people of color, and the decriminalization of sex work."


"We don't know how Lopez-Mercado identified, gender-wise, right now," added Piepzna-Samarasinha. " What we do know is that transphobia is a huge part of why they were murdered. As we continue to receive information from Lopez-Mercado's friends and family members about how Lopez-Mercado saw their gender, we will change their pronouns to the ones they preferred. We want to work to create a world where all people are free to live in safety with any gender expression they desire."


Vigils mourning López-Mercado and Mattison will also take place this Sunday in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Amherst, MA, Tara Haute, Abilene, TX, Atlanta, and Durham.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle Gourmet | November 2009
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So today is the second twipocalypse. I ended up in a cafe near a movie theater last night and was amused by all of the twihards loitering for their midnight shows.

ktempest is weeping for the future of humanity and posting about how there are Twilight memory sticks with the cullen famiy crest.

Very interesting post over at arcaedia about Harlequins new vanity press.

this comment from Susan Gable over at AbsoluteWrite --

About Harlequin Horizons:
Harlequin Horizons is the self-publishing division of Harlequin Enterprises Limited -- the global leader in series romance and one of the world's leading publishers for women. The rich array of industry-leading publishing services and products available to authors through Harlequin Horizons is fulfilled by the world's leading self-publishing company, Author Solutions, Inc. Titles published through Harlequin Horizons will be monitored for excellence and retail potential for possible pick-up by Harlequin's leading traditional imprints. For more information about Harlequin Horizons, please log on to www.harlequinhorizons.com.

Sooooo...this is a way to make the aspiring author feel like this could be their big break. Write a check, self-publish, and then you MIGHT get picked up for "the big leagues."

It's interesting to me that self-publishing (though not encouraged, but, hey Wil Wheaton advocated it) is scorned less than vanity publishing.

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Linda Olsen has published a list of resources on the Social Web. The blog entry is in Norwegian, but the list is not.

( Spoilers observe )

Did grading this morning, doing some reading of first drafts, so will be drabbling soon.....

nevermind. had dept. meeting. all creative energy SUCKED out of me.

John McCain is a block from my apartment right now.

Yes, that John McCain. Former Presidential Candidate John McCain is a block away from here at some sort of Security Summit.

My street is packed with people, there's a noisy protest starting up at the park, there are police everywhere, traffic is backed up and I can hear sirens and see the flashing lights even here, on the 6th floor.

Damn it, tonight's plans were to sit in the dark alone with a blanket over my head eating chocolate pudding and feeling sorry for myself, and John frickin' McCain is on my street.

If I wasn't fairly convinced it would get me hurt, I'd see if I could pie the guy in the face. [Note to police: That is a joke. I'd have to make a pie, and I am not wasting a perfectly good pie on John frickin' McCain.]

I'm still going to eat pudding and feel sorry for myself.

Update on SSHRC: I applied anyway. I worked too damned hard on that semi-colon not to submit it. But at least I don't have wonder if I'm going to get it.

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Sam is on the bus; ETA Saturday, 4am. He will be very hungry.

Our weekly support meeting for women with disabilities is later today at 5pm Pacific! Join us at http://gimpgirl.com or on Second Life!

Hi; it's me and my colorful avatar-generator avatars again! I was inspired by a comment from taraljc to try my hand at making Number One, and while I was at it I made Winona Kirk and re-did Helen Noel because she didn't look like Thora Birch. Because Kirk is sometimes a captain, sometimes a scientist, and sometimes an engineer in the fiction I've read and enjoyed, I have put her in all three colors, so there are a zillion variations here.

Also, my Number One is Paget Brewster, and pictures of her are under here, too. ( Read more... )

Has there been a movie or TV show featuring a black POTUS where the US was not then faced with some major crisis, ranging up to an extinction-level event?

Granted there's something of a selection bias in that US Presidents tend not to be featured unless there's a major crisis. I can think of some exceptions, though: that one where it's about a widower-President's romance, or that murder mystery where the killer was telegraphed by the casting choices. Oh, and the one where it turned out you really can replace the President with some schmoe off the street without it much mattering.

[I kind of want to watch By Dawn's Early Light now, because it has James Earl Jones playing Alice (the general in the Looking Glass command plane), not to mention Rip Torn in a major role and Darin McGavin as that Guy You Really Don't Want to See as President in a Crisis. I don't think I have it on DVD, though. Huh, it's nearly 20 years old now]

I’m putting together a list of netbooks and notebooks that would be good to give to kids ranging from 7 – 14 as a “first laptop”. I have several netbooks designed for kids on my list, but wanted to ask the parents out there: what laptops or netbooks have you bought for or allowed your kids to use? Any models or brands you’d particularly suggest to other parents looking for a durable yet inexpensive computer for their kid?

We've got a new foster. This morning I got up and went to feed Flower, the semi-feral who came with our house, on the back porch and there was a KITTEN out there. I scooped him up and brought him inside. He's got a lot of fur, but he seems very thin under it all (I can feel each one of his ribs) so I'm thinking he's been outside for awhile. We dropped him off at the vet's for his worming, his shots, and his FIV test. I think he's maybe about 4 mos. old. I'll see if I can take a picture of him to post sometime this weekend, once he's calmed down a bit. They sure come out of the woodwork once it gets cold out!

And yes, we've still got Emmy. I'd hoped to be able to take her out to adoptions this weekend, but the vet diagnosed her with a yeast infection in her right ear, so we have to give her ear-meds until it's been cleared up. Here's hoping she can go out NEXT weekend!

Now kids can't write letters to Santa anymore?

I didn't believe in Santa when I was a kid, but there is something very sad about this; it's like first the cup cakes, now this shit. Seems like everything is being taken from kids. But I guess this had to happen, it's a scary world out there...well it's always been a scary world, the thing is now we know it.