Oh, Wikipedia

While reading the entry for Dystopia I came across this as-yet-unedited funny in the list of "traits":

"State propaganda programs and educational systems that scare most citizens into worshipping the state and its government, in an attempt to convince them to believe that life under the regime is good and just, e.g. Alan Moore's V for Vendetta or George W. Bush's USA."

Which is even more funny because I surfed in from the entry on Culture Jamming.

2006 Tokyo Hobby Show Figures

I will love you forever if you buy me a chibi Wolvie. Forever, yo.

This is the ONLY context in which those duds are not lame. Squeeeeeee!

Erm. Sorry.

Wacky Mathematics

Warren Ellis found a report that tells us Vampires are a mathematical impossibility. Because it was the MATH that was the impossible part there, obviously.

I've actually been going out of my house for things other than work lately. The Flogging Molly show was last friday, then the next day I completely confused my brain by going to a collage concert at the university that included chorales, orchestras, jazz bands, various combos, a lovely piano soloists, and a scene from an opera, among other things. Musical whiplash, it was.

On sunday we went to see The Prestige. Go. See. This. Movie. We were utterly floored by it, and finally arrived at the realization that this was due to the fact that we could find nothing wrong with it. The acting was fantastic, the directing solid, the visuals and editing were stunning and creative, and it inspired M to coin the phrase "Schroedinger's suicide." (That might be a spoiler, but if you can figure out what it means before the movie actually tells you, you're a freakin' genius.)

On the dork front, Cousin John and I spent three hours running around town searching first for inspiration, then for haloween costumes. I have not had such a good time shopping since I was a teenager. We found two costumes for him (yeah, we had to warm up a bit with one of them), both fitting our half-assed, throw a costume together at the last minute theme. My costume primarily consists of hair dye, which would be properly half-assed if I had properly read the directions on the packet. I'll share more (and pictures) after the Big Reveal Sunday night.

Dear Body,

It sucks enough that, if I fall asleep too early, you wake up two hours later convinced you've had a really good nap and are ready to go again. You have now gone above and beyond the call of suckitude with the heart-pounding disorientation upon waking. And I'm not even gonna touch the fact that for some reason I just woke up convinced that Japanese was my native language. What. The. Fuck?

No love,
CJ

Notes from the Show

Dear Flogging Molly,

Y'all give good show. I haven't bounced around like that much of an idiot in quite a while -- and I stayed OUT of the pit.

Please come back soon, preferably to First Ave.
CJ

***

Dear overly-aggressive, scrawny teenaged boys at the 18-plus show,

I posess about twice your body mass, old-school stompy boots, and an urge to kill proto-punks who try to pick on my friends who are doing nothing but STANDING STILL LISTENING TO THE MUSIC. I could sit on you and do enough damage that you'd not be in the pit for at least six months. Get some fucking self respect, assholes.

Violently,
CJ

***

Dear Zox,

I'm sorry I tried to miss your first-opener set. I'm also way glad I'm incapable of arriving fashionably late to anything, because you fucking ruled. The electrified get-down on the violin? Awesome.

Much love,
CJ

***

Dear straight-edge morons,

It's a dry venue. The black Xs that you put on your hands are nothing more than pretension. Also? Stop grinding on one another. You're off the beat, and completely disgusting.

Fuck off and die,
CJ

***

Dear U of M campus,

Thanks for hosting the show. Next time? If the tour comes with actors and clips hyping a really crappy sketch comedy show? Please consider providing alcohol. I know, I know, dry campus, but really? I was entirely too sober for that.

Trying to un-see things,
CJ

***

Dear tall man and tall woman who stood in front of us the whole night,

Please cease and desist the public displays of groping. Really. Or, at the very east, consider the restroom as a place to remove your OWN wedgies. I did NOT want to see you picking your girlfriend's ass, dude.

Can't un-see this, either.
CJ

Losing My Feminist Cred

I may be losing mine, because I think this is hilarious. I'm absolutely there on the I am NOT calling my cooch a "betty" front, and the ad copy is revolting, but the existance of a technicolor pubic hair dye is fucking hilarious. Also? If this means a resexualizaton of The Hair Down There, I'm all for it, because the expectation of a clean shave skeeves me out to no end. Dude, I'm not eleven anymore, and anyone with privileges ought to be glad of that.

On the Good Feminist front, I'll have to throw you over to Robin, who writes an open letter to NBC regarding Heroes that echoes my comments upon seeing the attempted rape of yet another female character. It's old. It's been done. In the middle of a highly creative mindfuck of a show, its a breath of stale air. It's not powerful; it's a cliché. I heard the collective eyeroll of a gazillion viewers saying "of COURSE the cheerleader almost gets raped by the quarterback while they're drinking at a bonfire. I've seen this After School Special before!"

And, you know, there's a powerful feminist critique there, as well, but like I've said, Robin's got that covered, and I'm apparently off my feminist game this week.

Karen Healey? Gots massive game. She takes on some of my least favorite arguments against feminist critique of mass culture (in this case comics, but you saw that coming), including the "you're not changing anything with your critique" argument (NB one might extend the observer effect/Hawthorne effect argument to suggest that public criticism reflects to its subjects the existance of an observer, and thus necessarily creates change, however small. That's just my take on things, though. Go read what Healey has to say).She also takes on the inherent misandry in "boys will be boys" arguments, which makes me wanna shout Amen from a very high, echoing location. She writes:

We are not our bodies. That’s, in fact, the essential argument of feminism – that the female body is not the only thing a woman is, that she is also and more importantly an actual person... This argument is also misandrist, as it plays the “Oh, teehee, those boys, they can’t help that they think only with their dicks” card. Did you hear that, men? You are also no more than your bodies!

Feminism in my life has always seemed more about caring that everyone be free from gender-based social constraints, and Healey really hits that button on my feminist fangirl console.

Blue

I may have spoken too soon yesterday. Between witnessing a domestic brawl (yes, more than one person involved) through a very thin apartment wall and getting some pretty unexpected bad news, I'm feeling rather blue today.



Still no prehensile tail, though.

Birthday Update

Y'all, 28 is turning out to be a spectacular birthday, and it's not even here yet. my mom colluded with Sue the Dealer (a knitting group friend) to get me a Babe spinning wheel. I've been drop spindle spinning since last march, but I think the acquisition of a wheel makes me officially a Spinster*.

It's good getting older.

*OK, I've been running around Renaissance Festival with two felted sheep, my drop spindle, and a pin reading "Spinster" for the past couple of months. Still, I feel more official now. :-)

Birthday Plans

That Time Of Year is here again. I'm celebrating my birthday next wednesday at Great India Restaurant at 7:00 pm. If you haven't already let me know if you can come, feel free to comment. I'll call in on monday so they have some warning, as usually the group gets pretty big.

In other news, I had the creepiest job interview ever today. I seriously nearly ended it at least once, but made due with asking the interviewer to rephrase the creepy questions. I never thought I'd say this, but hopefully I won't get that job.

Urgh

The upside of temping: nothing lasts forever. And yet, there is health insurance.

The downside of temping: knowing the people who are charged with finding work for you tend to confuse the words "moot" and "mute," even while condescending to you.

Oh, god, what an asshat.

Dear World,

Please stop with the stuff and the anxiety and the future and the plans and the how could I ever possibly make enough of the money that I don't even really give a shit about in order to work at a job that doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out and then there's the relating to other people and the talking and the writing and the freaking text messaging and the fact that I have no social skills and you just don't make it easy, do you?

I'm going to bed.
CJ

A Bit of an Update

Today's work: At Home. No new temp position yet, though my name is in for several. Instead, I have been wet-felting. Today's piece will be the backgroung for a needle felted wall-hanging. If I am not lazy and happen to remember, I'll post pictures.

Today's soundtrack: Bree Sharp, Brother Ali, Bruce Springsteen, Ted Leo, and Flogging Molly. Wet felting by hand takes a while. And I have ecclectic tastes. And a huge iTunes library.

Tonight's hijinks: spinning, knitting and watching CSI with E&M. Possibly some NaNo plotting somewhere in there, as I still have no clue what I'm writing. There's plenty of time before November, right?

Oh, Dear.

If you pay attention to the sidebar, you may notice a change. That's right, folks, I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month. I promised myself that I would do this the first November after I finished grad school. I haven't obtained a degree, but I am beyond done, so here I am... I have a month to figure out what the hell I'm writing, and then thirty days in which to spew it out.

Wow. This is exactly as insane as it sounds. Which means that the blog just might see some action.

Stop. That's just sick.