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[01 Jul 2009|02:47pm] |
So...last November was the last time I updated my dA blog. It was a few lines of happy-shiny Obama-y triumph. I don't update enough blah blah blah...I'm just bad at maintaining multiple blogs.
(For the record: although I do think he's especially dropped the ball queer-wise, not to mention with regards to copyright law and the non-release of those torture photos, I still think he's 1) infinitely better than McCain/Palin and 2) a pretty decent president on his own. He's followed through on a lot of things I hoped he would i.e. stem-cell research, and of course there's the whole 'we as a country have reached the point where we can have a president of color' thing. That's still kind of amazing to me.)
Anyway, this totally random individual who doesn't even devwatch me commented with a more-or-less-polite Obama bash, including the words 'traditional marriage' and the claim that McCain is a moderate.
I have no idea what to do.
On the one hand, the #1 rule of the internets (well, top ten, anyway) is Don't Feed the Trolls.
On the other, this is my page. My house. An area for me to express myself, more or less under my jurisdiction. I shouldn't put up with this.
On the other hand, is letting myself get sucked into this probably futile discussion-headed-for-debate going to be a huge emotional drain? Haven't I had to deal with this bullshit for as long as I've been politically conscious--hell, haven't we all been surrounded by, steeped in this kind of bullshit for ages? Haven't I paid my dues?
On the other hand--yeah, I know that activists never stop paying. I'm not sure I consider myself a full-fledged activist yet, don't know if I've put in the hours, but it's something I certainly aspire to be.
Is it my responsibility as someone trying to be an ethical human being to respond point-by-point? What do I owe the commenter, and myself? Do I have an obligation here to do everything I can to educate, or is it futile? Am I being baited?
I'm not going to delete the comment because I am pretty hardcore anti-censorship. But I still don't know what I'm going to do.
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| Random notes on movies |
[12 Jun 2009|11:32pm] |
xposted from fb
On the Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs movie--it hasn't even come out yet and it has made my hatelist. The dinosaurs fucking dawned hundreds of millions of years before the last glacial maximum, people, and now I'm going to have to explain to tour after tour of second-graders that dinosaurs did not live at the same time as mammoths, etc. The entire premise is total bullshit--for one thing, technically many dinosaurs did not 'die out,' they evolved into birds.
Also that stupid female rodent thing makes my blood boil.
On a brighter note, I am increasingly excited about the Where the Wild Things Are movie. Looks like a cult classic in the making. From the previews it actually seems to be doing a good job of capturing the feel of the book--about a child, accessible to children, but not childish and with a definite dark edge.
The 'Buffy' movie is. Well. Megan Fox? Really? She is the cherry on top of the godawfulness sundae. This movie is essentially a giant 'Fuck You' to all the fans.
Saw Up today--I give it 7/10 for sweetness and lack of fail. It was typically Pixar-pretty, although I did feel it didn't showcase Pixar gfx as much as previous movies. Even Cars had a lot of ray-tracing shinies and sweeping vistas and beautiful lighting. Here I felt the lighting, while quality, was not exceptionally spectacular in the same way previous movies were. From Monsters, Inc. through Wall-E, the graphics were the first thing I gushed about while leaving the theater. This one...good, even for Pixar, but not great.
Bonus points for making an APIA main character without making a huge deal/ulterior motive out of it. Bonus points taken away for the persistence of gender problems; this was a buddy movie, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that every single Pixar movie has centered around a male character or characters, even when it made little to no sense to assign those gender roles. Excellent rundown here: http://vastpublicindifference.blogspot.com/2008/06/pixars-gender-problem.html
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[06 Apr 2009|04:37pm] |
So it has been pointed out to me that I am the worst person ever at updating my lj regularly. Or blogging in general. I just fail.
Anyway, last week the museum scheduled me four 9am shifts in a row and now I never want to have kids. Seriously, what's wrong with them? They're stupid, and short, and cannot follow directions like 'do not throw the bowl of sand onto the floor.' Also they are loud. Damn kids.
So, there's that. Other than that...things have been pretty uniformly busy and boring to hear about.
I mean, I have been writing a Dinotopia campaign for Call of Cthulhu in my nonexistent spare time. Go look at the wiki, I sacrificed my grades for it.
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[18 Feb 2009|08:16pm] |
THERE IS TOTALLY A SPIDER IN MY ROOM
GUYS
YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW FREAKED OUT I AM
Okay, so I have this totally unreasonable and completely disproportionate fear of spiders. I don't know. I just flip out whenever near one or the possibility of one. I fear spiders more than death.
The thing is that my cat is TOTALLY USELESS as a hunter.
ME: Go, cat, go!
CAT: *pokes at general spider area*
ME: Yes! Slaughter that vile creature! Halt its reign of terror!
SPIDER: *moves slightly*
CAT: *flees to other side of the room, whiskers aquiver*
ME: ...cat, you are useless.
See, I get that this is totally hypocritical of me. And it is probably fitting that my cat and I share similar irrationalities. But dammit, cat, why can't you be one of those urban tigers I hear about?
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[22 Jan 2009|11:27pm] |
1) Check out unreasonablefaith.com - there's some decent stuff there.
2) I have had to give pretty much EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY (non-anthro-majoring) FRIENDS anthro 101. When will we start making it a mandatory subject? If I have to explain social constructionism and ethnocentricity one more time I will...well, I'll do it because I think it is important to spread knowledge, but I will be really upset about it.
3) Commentary: the Musical! I has it!
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| Please excuse incoherence and warped sense of significance. |
[18 Dec 2008|09:09am] |
So...I have been up for about 24 hours now.
What have I been doing, you may ask?
I spent most of yesterday playing Starcraft: the Board Game at the (quite rightly deserved) urgings of Steve. It took about eight hours, but that was mostly because we were all learning the game. After the game concluded, we were all pretty excited about playing board games for some reason--I am guessing it has to do with OMG THERE IS A WORLD OF FUN OUTSIDE D&D TO BE HAD, not that we love D&D any less--and went to Steve's games closet to discover a Pokemon board game, which turned out to be even more fun (at least for Steve and me, the ones who actually really love Pokemon to a somewhat unsettling level). Then, since Steve used to collect Monopoly games, we played the Lord of the Rings version of Monopoly. And then we watched Dr. Horrible for the millionth time.
To summarize: I have spent an entire day playing board games about video games and a classic piece of geek lit, and then sang all the words to a musical about a supervillain. I feel there has been some kind of line that has been crossed.
I decided to post because I have been awake for a really long time and no longer have any judgment at all.
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[04 Nov 2008|09:52pm] |
I know not all of us are American, but...as I'm sitting here, waiting for the results, too on edge to make the post about Christianity and the election that I was going to (at least partly spurred by something my friend said to me: "Yeah, you seem like a good Christian girl gone bad.") I feel I need to make something clear:
If McCain and Palin win, I'm going to apply for graduate school and probably citizenship in another country. Most likely Canada as it's closest and speaks English; if not Canada, England. I'll have a whole new set of problems to care about, but as for America...McCain would be the final nail in our coffin. That's it for foreign relations. America will no longer be a country I could say I belonged to without an overwhelming sense of shame.
I'll probably finish up my last year here, and by then I'll have applied to and hopefully been accepted by a number of grad schools elsewhere. Somewhere the vice president doesn't think creationism is a scientific theory.
The world needs Obama, America needs Obama...I need Obama. Please, my country, don't fuck this up.
Edit:
WE WON
THIS IS SO AWESOME
I CAN FINALLY BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN
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[21 Oct 2008|01:06am] |
Things that will not make me take you seriously:
1) Putting "science" in quote marks.
2) Seriously quoting MacKinnon and/or Dworkin.
3) Using blatantly inflammatory rhetoric.
Have been researching a paper for my Sex Panics in the US and UK class (taught by Gayle Rubin! SO AWESOME.) and I chose to examine antiporn feminism as a sex panic. In the course of such research, naturally I must read a great deal of self-identified feminist antiporn literature.
It is difficult going. One reason I have to actively force myself to read things I disagree with is that I keep getting tripped up on wanting to tell the author off, using actual reasoning instead of insane ranting. It just seems that if I could get one or two sentences in, I'd feel so much better. "That evolution occurs is a fact; how it occurs is the theory, just like gravity." "No reputable study has ever shown a link between abstinence-only sex education and decreased sexual activity, only decreased safe sex." "What you consider a whole and separate person is actually a cluster of cells that, through the next eight or nine months, will slowly absorb its physical and genetic identity from the woman who is not in fact simply a container or an incubator for the prioritized life."
It's been like this for a while. I know that I'll never respect myself if I choose to be exposed only to viewpoints that mirror or inform my own. It's just really, really hard not to throw the book I'm reading at a wall.
( So, er, here's my venting at the essays I can't respond to directly. More ranty and less reasonable than actual academic standards demand; I am not trying to write a damn paper here. )
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[13 Oct 2008|12:01pm] |
Argh, may actually have to dress up this year. Did not want, but might be working a Halloween party at the museum.
I'd do Inara Serra or Toph but I don't think anyone would get it. Plus, Toph has a difficult costume to make last-minute.
I'd be lame and do Neil Gaiman's Death again, but I don't have the hair for it anymore, plus I don't know what happened to my black pants.
Should I say I can't work just to get out of wearing a costume? Aaargh.
Also, guys have so many more options geek-wise. Women in comic books etc. have such complicated outfits. Color me shocked.
Edit: I could be Link, I guess? I would need to buy practically everything, but two oversized green tshirts (one for the hat, one to cut into a tunic), a long-sleeved white shirt, a couple of belts,and white leggings can't be that hard to find. It's the gloves I'm worried about. One just does not find longish leather gloves lying about.
Edit 2: Evasion successful!
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[09 Oct 2008|11:49am] |
Random Question:
So I'm thinking of changing my gmail address.
Pros:
1) I kind of don't really like 'paperdragoness'--it's something I went with when 'papercrane' wasn't available. I like papercrane, but that's somewhat in my past now. It's not horrible, as handles go, and it means something to me, but...I came up with it when I was thirteen and I'm not that person anymore.
2) With the emergence of gmail as The Way To Communicate, I've begun to use it for more official things. Not super-official, just things like sharing docs for student orgs. And it's a little weird to see 'name.name' or the like for everyone else and then this somewhat immature handle.
3) It would be nice to choose something most people can spell, unless I went with my name, which I might. I dunno.
Cons:
1) It is a giant pain in the ass.
2) Giant. Pain. Ass.
So...what do y'all think?
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[02 Oct 2008|11:02pm] |
INSANE OLD BUS LADY: Have you ever noticed that Ann Arbor is shaped like a heart?
ME (attempting to be polite to total stranger): I have not. How fascinating.
INSANE OLD BUS LADY: A heart on the sleeve of God, perhaps?
ME: Perhaps indeed!
INSANE OLD BUS LADY: You look like a real American girl.
ME: Er, yes? Oh thank god it's my stop.
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[23 Sep 2008|11:52pm] |
Been a while; school and various student orgs kicking my spare time to the curb.
Anyway, the main point of this post is to let y'all know ( I HAVE A KITTY. )
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[15 Aug 2008|08:18pm] |
I HAVE A NEW APARTMENT
I am rooming with a friend of mine in a gorgeous 900 sq. ft. apartment, and I am just completely thrilled. It's pretty cheap for the area--about $900/mo--and just a couple minutes' stroll away from a bus that goes right downtown.
Dudes. It is going to be awesome.
I think I feel like an actual adult now, which is weird because my parents still pay for the majority of my schooling/living expenses.
Also, I think I may cave and buy Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign. Not that I use InDesign much, but the University's offering the package for about $150 to students, which is phenomenal.
In other news, bought FFTA2, and it has been consuming my life in the most awesome way possible.
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| Not even trying for interesting anymore. |
[30 Jul 2008|11:18pm] |
So, I have two art projects that were due like THREE DAYS AGO that I cannot finish because I CANNOT ACCESS A FUCKING SCANNER. They are done otherwise, it is just that I CANNOT FUCKING SCAN THEM AND GET THEM TO PEOPLE.
It is super frustrating.
In other news, I have gotten hooked on South Park. I spent eighteen years of my life not watching it, and then suddenly it was like WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. It is stupid and pointless and I love it so, so much.
Kenny rocks. I'm just saying. Every time he comes on screen I go YEAH KENNEH! And thus I have about twelve pages of Kenny (and some Kyle) sketches in my sketchbook. That I can't scan because hello, I don't have access to a scanner.
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[26 Jul 2008|08:06pm] |
So, Dr. Horrible = Awesome. As I have said. Yes, the third act was a bit of a disappointment, but nonetheless.
( Icons! )
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[17 Jul 2008|02:09pm] |
If you haven't been watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, there is SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU. Neil Patrick Harris, Joss Whedon, and Nathan Fillion. Superheroes, supervillains, and it is a MUSICAL.
Free until the 20th. WATCH IT NOW.
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[10 Jul 2008|09:53pm] |
Back from CA.
Something I have discovered: I megaloathe Las Vegas. It is the festering sore on the face of America. Everywhere you turn there are bottle-blond bitches who want to be Paris Hilton, and vacant-eyed geriatrics seeking whatever in the slot machines. It's like an oil slick; bright and shiny colors at first glance, and then you realize it's all grime and despair.
It is not my city.
The relatives on my mum's side of the family are very into making plans. They love planning out minute details weeks in advance, which can get annoying. My dad's side of the family, on the other hand, makes no plans at all. Since I don't speak Canto, I have no idea what's going on at all when I'm on family vacations with them. I just nod, smile, and get dragged from place to place.
That is all.
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