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Below are the 20 most recent friends journal entries:

May 25th, 2013
11:43 am maureenlycaon [Link]	Scaly, cannibalistic llamas I’m going to tell you a story about llamas. It will be like every other story you’ve ever heard about llamas: how they are covered in fine scales; how they eat their young if not raised properly; and how, at the end of their lives, they hurl themselves – lemming-like- over cliffs to drown in the surging sea. They are, at heart, sea creatures, birthed from the sea, married to it like the fishing people who make their livelihood there. Except that Kameron Hurley isn't really talking about llamas -- which you might already have suspected. She's talking about what we expect to see, versus what is really there, and reality, and gender stereotypes, and her own experiences in both studying history and in writing her own stories. And it's brilliantly, engagingly done. If I could drag you by the scruff of the neck and force you to read it, I would. Especially if you write fiction, too. Ultimately, we cannot see the real world past the stereotypes in our minds. What we can do is make allowances for this fact, and be prepared to change our stereotypes and our mental pictures when new information finally does make its way in. That's what I try to do. I assume that I'm perceiving as scaly, cannibalistic and suicidal things that are really none of those things at all, that it may never occur to me (until someone explains it) that the surgeon in that infamous story might be a woman, that there are invisible gorillas all over the place I'm not seeing. In the end, that's all I can do. The problem comes when someone shrilly insists that most llamas really are scaly and eat their own young, and that saying otherwise is just PC gone berserk. Here's another story entirely. Or is it? It's a moment when a brave dev team (and an artist) cleverly brings a male CEO face to face with the fact of his own scaly llamas, and accepts it in good spirit. Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL! A third link, which you might enjoy: James Tiptree Jr.'s classic story, The Women Men Don't See. Creeps like these will never get the message, of course. Malice and sociopathy aren't easily treated. But ignorance is. And hey, reading mind-blowing stuff is always fun -- to me, at least! Current Mood: impressed Tags: artrecs, cool stuff, fic recs, meta, random (Leave a comment)
May 24th, 2013
02:10 pm zenni [Link]	diddle lee dee potatoes Give me a character or pair and I'll answer any of these for you. α : Sleep headcanon β : Drinking/drunk headcanon \|\| Flint γ : Childhood headcanon δ : Sex headcanon \|\| Nate ε : Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon \|\| Viv, Zurich ζ : Any AU headcanon (modern, school, medieval, and so on) \|\| Viv η : Cooking headcanon θ : Mood headcanon (16 comments \| Leave a comment)
May 23rd, 2013
07:57 pm kentsplace [Link]	Forests of the Night by S. Andrew Swann Like many genre authors Swann appears to have wanted to take a swipe at a Chandleresque mystery. The initial problems with that are he does not have Chandler's way with words, or the ability to make his characters sound witty. At the same time a relatively complex mystery does not hit its stride until about 2/3rds of the through the title. This is not a bad read, and I think Swann would have better served his reader if some of the small exposition dumps about this world had been spread more evenly throughout the book and not back loaded towards the end (and I know some will disagree with me on this). Nohar is a bidpedal tiger. In a near future world humans bio-engineered animals to turn them into weapons of war. Tigers, lions and bears oh my (and literally). Nohar is descended from two combat veterans, and is scratching out a living as a private invetsigator. Then Nohar is approached by a representative from a company who wants him to look into the murder of a political campign manager. Things do eventually progress in a reasonable manner to build an entertaining mystery/suspense tale. Isham and Aagel are introduced who play larger roles in Swann's other Moreau books. Eventually Swann ties together the Moreau and Hostile Takeover books into his Apotheosis trilogy. (Leave a comment)
07:56 pm kentsplace [Link]	Doctor Who Character Encyclopedia by Jason Loborik, Annabel Gibson, Morey Laing As character guides for a television show goes this is one of the better efforts, and I think much better than DK Book's other recent genre effort the Star Wars Clone Wars Character Guide. The information is very recent as it includes all of the doctors (except Peter Cushing) and many of the companions, including Clara. There is a nice use of color photography where available, but I think the book places too much emphasis on the characters introduced during the 10th and 11th doctors tour of duty. It also feels, and some of this comes form casual reading in other places, that many of the older companions were ignored or given short shift. I mean really the main picture for Romana isn't Mary Tamm who played the character the longest? Regardless if you have a soft spot for guides like such as I do, and are a Doctor Who fan see if you can find a copy for a reasonable price and you'll likely enjoy it. (Leave a comment)
08:07 am maureenlycaon [Link]	Return of Narcissists on Parade! (Boy, what a shitty morning. My sciatica hurts like hell, then I get a ferocious cramp in my other thigh that sends me screaming out of bed and actually crying. Then, as I try to settle down in front of the computer, my juice glass falls, hits the bare patch on the floor where the wood pokes through, and shatters, sending needlelike shards everywhere. And I step on one while forcing my crippled, decrepit body to bend over trying to clean the mess up.) Now that I've wasted your time on that, here's a lulu for you: Woman Brags About Hitting Cyclist, Discovers Police Also Use Twitter (Looks like the cyclist will be all right, though.) In fact, it appears that bragging about what a badass she is on the road appears to be a habit with Emma Way. Even though the crash hadn't totally been confirmed, people started looking into Emma's social media profiles. They reportedly found photos of her tailgating other drivers as well as a picture of her speedometer a 95 MPH that were also sent into the police. Once the tweet started to go viral, Emma deleted her Twitter account. But by that point, the damage was done and the tweet was out there in perpetuity. Again, I refer you to this site, so you can play the game of Fill Out the Narcissist Checklist. Current Mood: grumpy Tags: news, personal, stupid, wank (Leave a comment)
02:46 am morgielefae [Link]	( Day 02 – Favorite gender to play ) (Leave a comment)
May 22nd, 2013
06:05 am digitalwave [Link]	Look what I got to do!!! Last weekend we managed to put on our 24th consecutive WonderFest here in Louisville. The con was successful, everyone who came seemed to have a great time and I saw some unbelievable models and artwork. One of our guests, John Tyler Christopher, is a fantastic comics artist who has been doing some amazing art for Marvel lately. He had a great time at the con and was just as much a geeky fanboy as the rest of us. He was really sweet once he found out from Lee that I was the one who pushed for him to get to be one of our guests. I was really honored, he gave me a couple of gorgeous art prints. Here are two of my favorite pieces of his: X-Men Rogue & Gambit Iron Man The most mind blowing aspect of the weekend came about from two of our other guests, John Eaves, special effects wizard, all around sweetheart of a person, and long time Trek contributing artist, and Ken Palkow who designs movie props. He designed and made the new phasers for Star Trek Into Darkness. He brought some with him and they were stunning! I still can't believe I got to see actual props from the new movie. Heck, Lee got to play with them! I'll have to have him send me the pictures he has of him and the new phasers. John and Ken arranged a special screening of the movie for late Saturday night at one of our local IMAX 3D theaters and Lee, Amber and I got to go. It was so much fun getting to see the movie with people who had actually worked on it! Here's a picture of my pass for the screening. I'm definitely keeping it as a souvenir: ( I still can't believe this happened! ) And, that's not even counting getting to meet, and spend time with, Lee Meriwether, the original Catwoman and an all around wonderful actress in her own right. If you ever get a chance to see her one woman stage show go! Plus all of our other guests like Sara Karloff who is such an amazing lady and so much like her father. We got the last of them on their way back to their respective homes yesterday so, yay! Another one survived. Next year will be our 25th year putting on the con so it will be something even more special. So, all in all it was a truly wonderful weekend all the way around. Hope yours was just as nice! :) hugs You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth ( comments) (Leave a comment)
01:57 am morgielefae [Link]	( Day 01 – Favorite character(s) you've ever made ) (Leave a comment)
01:55 am morgielefae [Link]	FINE I GIVE IN Day 01 – Favorite character(s) you've ever made Day 02 – Favorite gender to play Day 03 – Character(s) you've made more than once Day 04 – Biggest pet peeve Day 05 – A graphic you're proud of Day 06 – Pb(s) you've grown to love through rp Day 07 – A plot you'd like to do in the future Day 08 – 'Ships you would like to do in the future Day 09 – Character(s) who have progressed greatly Day 10 – Favorite character friendships Day 11 – Favorite setting Day 12 – Favorite character(s) someone else plays Day 13 – A memory Day 14 – Character you'll most likely never play again Day 15 – Favorite game(s) you've been in or are in (Leave a comment)
May 21st, 2013
02:44 pm zenni [Link]	whistle Give me a ship/crack ship/just pick one of your characters and one of mine, and I will tell you: 1. Who cooks normally? 2. How often do they fight? 3. What do they do when they’re away from each other? 4. What nicknames do they have for each other? 5. Who is more likely to pay for dinner? 6. Who steals the covers at night? 7. What would they get each other for gifts? 8. Who kissed who first? 9. Who made the first move? 10. Who remembers things? 11. Who started the relationship? 12. Who swears more? 13. What would they do if the other one was hurt? (40 comments \| Leave a comment)
May 20th, 2013
07:50 pm rainkatt [Link]	Still around I say that a lot, when I bother to post. Sorry. Still at the same place, doing payroll. They've added a fourth to our little cave of corners (it's a fairly large room, but we each face our own corner; we'd hoped the arrangement would be more... Friendly. But we manage.) I still like the people and hate the software. We are hoping for a conversion by early next year, but no one's holding their breath. Seriously, the folks responsible for this mess could have never even walked past a payroll department, much less done a payroll once, or talked to anyone who has. Simon and Holmes are doing well, and still act like a small gang of troublemakers, galloping up and down the hall, fighting, cuddling, playing, getting into things they shouldn't. Simon comes to the coast with us on weekends, but Holmes stays home. I bribe the friend who drops over to feed him with spinning fiber. I'm finally actually using my loom, in my spare time from work, knitting, spinning, and trips to the coast. I'm enjoying the learning experience, and am hoping that, eventually, I'll be able to use more handspun for weaving. Loving the place at the coast, but still only able to deal with going about once a month, or I get overwhelmed with the rest of life. I'm working full-time, so that lovely buffer of a day off in the middle of the week is gone. We are maybe going to paint over the long weekend. Or sleep. :-) This entry was originally posted at http://rainkatt.dreamwidth.org/307763.html. Current Location: Home, omg Tags: cats, life (Leave a comment)
May 18th, 2013
07:11 pm kentsplace [Link]	Book review The Night of the Living Trekkie by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall So a lot of humor just falls flat for me. Good Omens was all right, and Hitchiker was a bit a stroll thru mud. But, I had read good reviews of this book, and while having to take unpaid time off of work Wednesday I walked to my favorite SF bookstore and low and behold they had a copy. If you read this book be ready to laugh at yourself, or at least smile, if you are a Star Trek, and yes even a Star Wars fan, have gone to one or more conventions, and enjoy a pair of writers trying to make their characters at least two dimensional (I think saying they were three dimensional would be me giving them a little too much credit). The in jokes even begin with the character's names. Lead character Jim Pike (if you're a Trek fan you'll easily get that one) is working at a Houston hotel where his sister is coming for a Trek convention. A Gulf War vet Pike wants no responsibility after his experiences in the Gulf. These really aren't typical zombies that end up attacking people, eating them, and then shambling after them. I think a good job was made at trying to make these zombies, and how they were created, at least a little different, and sorry sweetie no spoilers explaining the zombie creation. Find a copy, enjoy the quick read I hope you find it as pleasing as I did. (Leave a comment)
07:07 pm kentsplace [Link]	Book review A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber Part of the reason I delve into YA fantasy and science fiction is that there is, at times, more variety, something at least a little different from what clogs the adult science fiction and fantasy book shelves. Oh, both are overrun with angst filled vampires etc. but I have discovered some fine authors via YA such as Ben Jeapes, Tamora PIerce, and Scott Westerfeld and Kenneth Oppel. Which is part of the reason I decided to try David Weber's first attempt at a YA novel. I am familar with his popularity, and I've read one of his books, amusingly, not a Honor Harrington novel. I wanted to see how he handled the move from being primarily a military sci-fi author to a YA story. Weber handles it well, not perfectly but well. While looking at some online reviews while reading the book, I understand this was, at least in part, a fix-up of short stories previously published about Honor Harrington's ancestor Stephanie Harrington. Fourteen year old Stephanie is not pleased with her parents over their move to the relative new colony world of Sphinx. At the least it will stunt her desire to become a forest ranger, and she is an ill fit with others her age. The ill fit comes from her knowing that she is smarter than just about everyone in her peer group. Events lead her to meeting a Sphinxian treecat, whom she names Lioneheart. The treecats are fully sentient and telepathic. Lionheart, Climbs Quickly as he is known among his people, is curious about the humans and wishes to find a way to communicate with them. The hyper competence of some of the characters harkens back to an Asimov or Brin fault as writers (Neal Stephenson too come to think of it). Stephanie herself should realize that she had the advantage of more schooling than most of her Sphnxian peers as she came form an older colony world. There are some pieces of politics in the book. If anything I think Weber, who at times sounds like a conservative in the book is also a proponent of preserving wildlife and ecology. Go figure. To compare this to a Heinlein YA would not be inaccurate. So if you like those Heinlein books you'll likely enjoy this. Tags: book review (Leave a comment)
09:19 pm mustbeghosts [Link]	I don't know how I'm going to survive the 50th anniversary. Fun thing is, my mom gets even more excited than I do. And the first thing I did when I got to the UK was... well I went to bed, but in the morning I bought a sonic screwdriver. Okay admittedly somewhere in there I had tea. BUT ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I DID WAS BUY A SONIC SCREWDRIVER. (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
01:08 pm maureenlycaon [Link]	Do you remember Omni magazine? If you're too young, it featured science news, fringe stuff, original science fiction, and other cool stuff. Too bad you can't pick up a copy -- it stopped printing in 1995. But you are in luck: The Internet Archive has just scored the entire collection for download or reading right online. Current Mood: pleased Tags: news, random (Leave a comment)
May 16th, 2013
05:39 am digitalwave [Link]	Supernatural 8.23 AVI & MP4 Downloads... Oh my gosh, guys, that episode was amazing! The worst part is not being able to get on and squeee about with anyone else because lj is being so wonky right now. That's partly why I've stayed up hoping to be able to post these for you all. It's behaving at least a bit right now so I'm going to seize my chance while I can. So, once again, I'm posting both types of episode files. This way, you get to choose. Follow the link and then just download whichever format you like best. :) ( Click me! ) PS If you have any problems with the file, or if you need to update your audio/video codecs to play the file, you can find them here: http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-Codec-Pack/3000-13632_4-10749065.html You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth ( comments) Tags: media uploads (Leave a comment)
May 14th, 2013
01:23 pm maureenlycaon [Link]	A browser plug-in rec -- rbutr Excuse me, I must share this. Good part: rbutr does something no one has done before to my knowledge. It collects rebuttals to web pages -- articles, columns, blog entries and so on -- that make (scientific) claims, and lets you access them just by clicking the plugin button. You can mark rebuttal pages as direct rebuttals to a specific paper or whatever, or just link something that generally rebuts the basic idea. Personally, I think this is a fantastic idea. So far, it'e embryonic, with only 2000 rebuttals as I type this, but it's growing and you can submit a request for a rebuttal -- or link to a rebuttal if you already know of one that you want others to see. (I've already submitted one rebuttal, to this story in the Guardian.) Bad part: So far, it's only for Chrome, Google's pet browser. I never used Chrome much before now, but now I'll be using it for this. As it sees more users the quality of the info will probably go down. There's no really solid control on the quality of rebuttals, so there's no easy way to prevent -- for example -- creationists "rebutting" papers and articles on evolution by linking to creationist sites or even just the Bible chapters of Genesis online. As hotly argued stuff like climate change gets more rebuttals, there'll be a morass of rebuttals and counter-rebuttals. You can vote rebuttals up or down, but that's likely only to be slight help -- especially if a wingnut cabal organizes to take rbut over, like what happened to Digg. Still, it would be nice if they branched out into Firefox, IE and Opera plugins. Current Mood: impressed Tags: cool stuff, geek (Leave a comment)
May 13th, 2013
11:50 pm morgielefae [Link]	I was thinking tonight that a lot of times, we put a lot of ourselves into characters that we role play. Even if we don't mean to, because it's hard to create a character without putting a small chunk of yourself into them, no matter how different from you that character is. One little thing that helps you identify with them or see into them. Or even a familiarity with a passion they have, one that gives them a characteristic they are able to talk about at length. Sometimes, though, do we pick the characters we do because, even subconsciously, we see a little bit of them in ourselves? I was seven years old when my sister left home the first time. There was a decade between us, and I honestly didn't understand what was going on. Just that P. would not be living with us any more, that she was moving to Savannah and would be finishing out high school with her aunt and uncle. Now, in my case, my mother is perfectly sane. My sister is the one that lashes out. Unmedicated bipolar schizophrenic, this was not a case of someone leaving because their values conflicted with the family they grew up in, but a case of someone who always feels the world is against her because the unbalanced chemicals in her brain have convinced her that it is. But the issues are there for me that I frequently give Regulus. Whenever an application includes a section for what the character would see in the Mirror of Erised, I always say that his family whole and happy again is his greatest desire. A hope that will never happen, and a memory that probably never existed the way his younger self saw it. A reality I have tried to intervene with countless times since I was a little girl and will probably never make happen. And one that was never as real as I ever thought it was. I think it's why I write Regulus so easily. The issues he has from his family life. Not only have I been there and done that, I've worn out several of the t-shirts. Mom and P have no relationship to speak of. I've been in the middle since I was seven years old, and I will likely remain there for the rest of all our natural lives. Both of them blame each other for their lack of anything. According to P, Mom only remembers she has one daughter. According to Mom, P has pushed her out so many times it hurts too much to try to pull her back in. According to me, they both need to stop the passive aggressiveness and freaking communicate, but my opinion stays in my own head because you can't convince anyone who thinks they're the wronged party that they're not, that it's very much a mutual thing, and I've been arguing with brick walls most of my life. I was thinking about this because of the very "Woe is me" status P posted on her facebook yesterday, complaining how hard mother's day is for her because Mom doesn't get along with her. Because somehow mother's day is about the child? Idk. Again, P lives on a very different plane than the rest of us, and she refuses medication because our reality doesn't feel real to her, and she doesn't like being forced there. Anyway, it occurred to me that sometimes, roleplay can be a very cheap version of therapy. Regulus is my favourite muse and likely always will be. Something about him called out to me the first time I read OotP, and I've played him ever since. Some people who have played characters this long usually seem to put them away after awhile because they feel they've played their storyline to every possible conclusion. And I don't think I ever will with Regulus. I don't think I ever can. (8 comments \| Leave a comment)
01:19 pm dreadpirate [Link]	it's allliiivveee I should have internet at my new place on the 18th! The screams of rage / frustration you shall hear is me trying to set it up. Because the building is "all set up" my ISP is express posting me a modem and instructions (to my parents home) and I shall be setting it up on the 18th. I don't plan to fully move in until the 25th, but there should be no time that I am lacking internet! Now that you know the important stuff is taken care of, I have to make arrangements to have my bed delivered, and hire some movers to move my couch. Also on haitus, balh blah blah but after this week? Tags should be more then once a day :P. Sorry I'm so slow guys, my brain is just racing off in all directions at once, and I keep starting tags and then going "oh shit I gotta google that -" and opening up new tabs and forgetting to finish my tags, and coming back a half hour later going; "OH CRAP." (also it's very much a Monday. I woke up and I swear before I showered and attempted to tame it, my hair looked like sideshow Bob's.) Tags: condo life, misuse of the word hiatus (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
02:01 am morgielefae [Link]	While I was running today, my phone fell out of my pocket and smashed onto the pavement. Fuck my life. I didn't even notice until my earbuds popped out, turned around, and saw it lying facedown on the asphalt. I was so hopeful because the screen wasn't the first thing I saw, but my heart sank. It's so far still working, but the bottom corner is completely fucked, and all the cracks are getting worse. (Leave a comment)