Beach... Beach... Beach...

"'It's just,' said Ford, 'that you mentioned a party.'

'I did,' said Slartibartfast, and hung his head. He realized it had been a mistake, because the idea seemed to exercise a strange and unhealthy fascination on the mind of Ford Prefect... The old man felt that he should not have mentioned the party until he absolutely had to. But there it was, the fact was out, and Ford Prefect had attached himself to it the way an Arcturan Megaleech attaches itself to its victim before biting his head off and making off with his spaceship."
- Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

In this very same way have I attached myself to the idea of going to the beach on Sunday. It exercises a strange and unhealthy fascination on my mind. It was brought up several days ago, and I have latched onto it and cannot let it go.

I must go to the beach tomorrow.

All Together Now

I made a valiant attempt to get all three of us into the same picture, just to see if I could, and this is the closest I got. Unfortunately Starbuck leaped off the top of the couch as a picture was being taken, and Jolee thought, "Yeah right" and looked out the window. If you were to observe that these responses to the photo-taking might be indicative of each of my cats' general behavior patterns, I would say that's a good point. We can infer from this photo, for instance, that Starbuck does not stay still and Jolee is a great big hater. We would be correct in both cases. Nevertheless, it's the closest I could get to a 'happy family portrait.' Because, as much as Sweetie is part of the household too, unfortunately Jolee would never let him get within two feet. That's not going to happen.

I Respond to the Haters

Well, not really, because there aren't a lot of haters in this discussion, just a couple of people who are offended by the thought that they might be (however unconsciously) perpetuating gender stereotypes. I have made posts further down in the threads, which people might have missed, in clarification of the views expressed in my original post. A roundup here:

Re: me being a fangirl whining about how people don't like my favorite character,

I'll admit that Brienne is not the most charismatic character. I totally respect people's rights not to like her. But it is just frustrating that on the whole, when you look at which characters seem to draw the most vitriolic responses from the fan community, those characters are female. Dany, Catelyn, and Sansa also get their fair share of the hate. (And for that matter, Cersei, who gets the most hate, with perhaps the greatest reason, but also with the most pathos… if she'd been born a man, what a different situation her life would be.) What is up, for instance, with people who can't seem to get their heads around Danaerys simply being queen of Westeros, without having to "share" with Jon (the most popular theory) or Tyrion or another male character? Now, I'm not necessarily saying she'll be queen in Westeros, as I think the situation is more complicated than that, and GRRM is not as black and white as that, and Dany's own motives for going there are questionable and it's clear she hasn't put a lot of thought into them. It's just an example.

I believe GRRM has a good variety of interesting female characters, yet they seem to polarize the fan community the most. Why can't we read more into this? What's wrong with having a discussion about how maybe– just maybe– it's because it's not customary for female characters in fantasy to play so many different roles? Look at The Wheel of Time, where the female characters are largely the same personality with different names and hair. The women in ASOIAF are differentiable, and for whatever reason that polarizes people in a way that just does not seem to happen to the same level with the male characters.

Your comments about Brienne? I could definitely have a conversation about them, because they have to do with the text. And you have a good argument. What I resist is the idea that, in order to talk about the character in many threads, you usually have to sift through umpteen snarky comments about how she's big and ugly. I think there is something about her ugliness combined with her heroism (or would-be heroism, whichever you prefer) that makes many readers distinctly uncomfortable.

I'm much more interested in that than in "fangirling" her.

And re: me 'bashing' that particular forum,

And, to everyone more generally, my Brienne post was planned to be the first in a series. Because, as I mentioned above, I don't think it's just Brienne. I think it's Catelyn, Sansa, Dany, etc. Oh, I'm not done! There's a trend of female characters being either put on a pedestal or demonized. I think this is a larger issue in society in general than a few idiots at one board, and I think it's indicative of gender stereotypes that are deeply ingrained in us. Woman characters across many different types of media are typically responded to by being placed on a romantic pedestal or seen as evil. In hindsight, I think this article might have been poorly written, because I've really brought up two issues at once. People are focusing on the part about the forum, which I think is somewhat distracting from the other point I made about Brienne. Admittedly, this is my fault for putting the two issues into one post. When I wrote it, I wasn't sure how much intro the topic of Brienne needed.

When I talk about gender stereotypes being deeply ingrained, I'm going to give a personal example. When my posts come under scrutiny, there is a part of me that squirms uncomfortably and wants to placate people. Why is that? I certainly stand by my opinion. I believe it's because as women we're raised with more of an emphasis on pleasing people, on compromise, on being communicators and peacemakers. We're trained that we're supposed to interact more passively with the world around us. Why is it that, even though I think I'm right, a small part of me feels badly about being offended by stuff I saw in a forum? Like, "Oh, sorry guys, I'm going to shuffle off now, it must be my fault that I'm offended, never mind…"

I am a feminist, with majors in Philosophy and English and a minor in Gender Studies. And I'm putting out there that I fight against feeling this way even though I realize I, as a woman, am conditioned by society to feel this way. If I struggle against feeling like the mean girl who ruined people's fun, imagine all the women who aren't aware of what's going on and how it feels to them. "Oh, I guess every other woman ignores rape jokes by idiot 13-year-olds because it comes with liking fantasy novels. There must be something wrong with me because I'm offended. It's my fault for reading 'boy' books."

OK, so some of us might not want heavier forum moderation. But me? I don't want any woman reader to feel the way I just described. As I said, larger issues at play here than one forum.

By the way, my favorite character in ASOIAF is in fact Jaime Lannister. Should I put that in bold? People seem to keep assuming something I never actually said. Brienne's probably in the top 5, but still.

Random NOLA Celebrity Sighting: Brittany Snow?

Apparently this girl, who had a late lunch at the restaurant today, is in movies. I didn't know. I've never seen her in anything. But a girl I work with recognized her as being in the movie John Tucker Must Die, and couldn't think of her name. So she went in the office and looked her up on the internet, and came back out and declared her to be Brittany Snow. (We weren't particularly busy.) Her credit card also backed this up. Apparently she is in town filming Black Water Transit, which Laurence Fishburne, Stephen Dorff, and Karl Urban are also in. They did not, however, have lunch at the restaurant.

She and whoever she was with were very chill and had very large sunglasses on. But other than that, there was nothing to indicate that she was in movies. She looked like a random Tulane student to me. Who knew?

Edited to add: Oh! She was the crazy neo-Nazi girl that Matt dated on Nip/Tuck. I should have recognized her from that. But she looked skinnier in real life.

Harry Potter Fug

GFY fugged the Harry Potter kids yesterday. And it is truly hilarious. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming of not talking about Harry Potter. Because until I pre-ordered it the other day, I totally forgot that the new Harry Potter book was coming out in less than one month. I tricked myself into forgetting, see. By a strict policy of continuing to play video games and read other series. The plan is it will sort of just sneak up on me... and oops, what's this? Guaranteed release day delivery from Amazon! Is that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on my doorstep?

Or at least that is the plan. So. Back to that.

What Harry Potter kids? What movie? What book?

We Be A Little Bit Linked Over Here Today...

My THL post from a couple weeks ago about the Brienne haters was My Elves Are Different-ized. This comes from being linked over at Patrick's Fantasy Hotlist... I'm pleased to see this hasn't kicked off a bunch of flaming. Though I honestly don't think he gets a lot of rampant fanboy-types over at his blog, which is nice. [Edited to add: It appears I spoke too soon. If Blogger had an eye-roll smiley, you can feel free to picture it here.] Seriously, I hope people realize my intention was not to dis everyone who hangs out on that particular board, but rather to use it as an example of a bias against female characters that I wanted to talk about more.

I'm not sure I want to put my thoughts about forum moderation/free speech into words right now. It's something that's evolving for me. I do know that it is very easy for people to say "ignore the idiots." But sometimes it's like... imagine if you were being battered by little bits of paper that someone was throwing at you. They don't actually hurt, and they are certainly ignorable, but you can't help thinking that if you went and sat over there, you wouldn't have to deal with it at all. Because the guy next to you never gets bits of paper tossed at him. And that's not really fair, is it?

Anyway. It's sort of a crappy metaphor.

Hello, SF/F Blogosphere!

Bet you thought it was going to be more radical feminist rhetoric over here and less... cats. :-P

X-People

Me: Like, for example, why is it X-Men? [Sweetie being currently in the middle of reading an X-Men comic in bed.] Not that I know a lot about X-Men, apart from having watched the cartoon when I was a kid, and the first movie. But there are definitely female characters. There's the one with the black and white hair-- Storm.
Sweetie: The creator is actually surprisingly feminist. I mean, there are strong female characters, but--
Me: So why didn't they make it X-People?
Sweetie: Well, if they made it X-People now, it might not be recognizable as part of the X-Men franchise. So I can see how they would say that, from a marketing standpoint.
Me: Or because male is always the default choice in our culture.
Sweetie: I never thought of that.
Me: It's always fun to do the switch test, to see if there's a bad gender stereotype you wouldn't have thought of. You said there were four male X-Men and one woman.
Sweetie: Yes.
Me: Could you see them being called X-Women, and the group being four women and one man?
Sweetie: Not really.
Me: Exactly. And you are an enlightened, educated man. Imagine how many other people have never thought of that before.

I Can Has Plastic?

Behold. $1,000 worth of sparkly platinum plastic. Which isn't exactly a million dollars, but it gets me where I need to be this summer. I was very, very excited when it arrived in the mail today, in its fat envelope. Here, I pose with my new plastic. New plastic, by the way, comes courtesy of the Science Fiction Book Club. Shout out to SFBC, for being awesome. (Amazon, btw, did not believe me to be creditworthy enough for their card.) Turns out not only do they sell science fiction and fantasy books, they also dispense minorly-lifesaving credit lines (with points to be spent toward free books!) to their faithful members. Who knew?

Kiss my plastic.

"If I had a million dollars, we wouldn't have to walk to the store
If I had a million dollars, we'd take a limousine 'cause it costs more
If I had a million dollars, we wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner
(But we would!)"
- Barenaked Ladies

I Hate the Radio

I just heard some rap song purportedly entitled "Lip Gloss," by some 17-year-old "artist." It was a horrible experience. I wish I had that 45 seconds of my life back.

What are these children thinking?

I am working a ton of shifts this week, in an attempt to not be poor. (Because I get paid by the hour now, this is what my attempts to not be poor look like. Nothing but work, work, work, all the time!) Sometime I should tell you about the creepy folk that frequent the restaurant/bar where I work. It's sort of a fine line. They pay me to stand there and be the face of the restaurant, basically, so you have to be polite to people. Let's just say I've had to get the hang of "polite but firm" very quickly in this job.

On a hilarious note, though, the other night the bartender from the bar next door came in. The other hostess and I were both sort of new, and we didn't know that he was from next door, so we stood there looking expectantly at him. He stood at our stand and looked at us.

He said, "Can you feel the tension?"

We stared at him.

"Do you... need a table?" I asked.

He stared some more. We couldn't help it. We stared back. It was so weird. It was like a standoff. "Is this getting awkward yet?" he asked.

"Yeah," we said. "Totally feeling the awkwardness."

"Yeah," he said cryptically. "I know."

Then he walked off to talk to our bartender. We both burst out laughing. It was the weirdest thing ever. He was basically doing it on purpose, waiting for us to stop being polite and either ask who the hell he was or tell him off for being weird, but we just couldn't. So the three of us just stood there and stared at each other.

OK, I think you had to be there.

The Undergrads Next Door

I don't know why I'm so mean about undergrads.

College was the best experience of my life. In fact I dreamed about St. Lawrence last night, and woke up thinking about people I haven't seen in four years. So part of me wonders if my disdain for the Tulane and Loyola undergrads is based in jealousy. We live six to eight blocks away from both universities. They frequent the pool next door at all hours of the day. Splash splash. Yesterday one got in a drunken fight with another one. Oh, the drama.

I think a good part of it is that, at St. Lawrence, the majority of students lived on campus. We lived there, we ate there, we partied there (we did venture to the bar on a semi-weekly basis however), we hung out there. Mostly this was because there wasn't much of anywhere to hang out off campus. There were three bars. Maybe five or six restaurants (I think this is including the Pizza Hut). And we did, in fact, have to walk uphill both ways in three feet of snow, when I went to college. Now that was old school. So I feel very suspicious of this model of city campus life, where the undergrads live mingled amongst the real people, in apartments. With cars that they drive badly all over Uptown while on cell phones. Also, they wear poofy sack-like dresses and leggings. I can't believe they are serious about the leggings, which I thought were cool in approximately fifth grade.

I am very suspicious of all of this. And I feel sort of sorry for them too. Because at St. Lawrence, when we all lived together, you always had a friend within steps. You didn't have to drive. The bar was within walking distance. Everyone stalked everyone else in the same dining hall. We didn't have cell phones, and we didn't need them, because we were all right there. And there were never any "real people" around to roll their eyes at us and clue us in to the fact that things we were doing might not have been quite as cool as we thought. There was a sense of "us." I liked it that way. It's a unique benefit of going to college in the middle of nowhere.

I have fond memories of undergrad. But that doesn't mean I think undergrads should be let out, so the rest of us have to deal with them.

Cat Fights

I tried to photograph the cat fight that is taking place above, behind, and below me, but it's moving too fast! All I got is a blurry Jolee poised to leap off the couch. The daily morning cat fight is really too funny. Jolee bounces around gleefully like a furry fairy, while Starbuck just runs headfirst into walls. She has no grace. Also sometimes Jolee does this weird thing where he starts yowling a strange, unearthly yowl and then bites Starbuck on the neck. It's very creepy, and I don't know whether he means it or not, but it's a horrible noise.

I am going to try to get some actual things done today so I don't feel like a total loser.

Last night Mike beats Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic again for maybe the 4th time. I was in the living room reading, when I heard, "#*@&ing JOLEE! BINDO, YOU ASSHOLE!" I looked up and Jolee was flopped out on the living room floor near me. Then I realized he meant Jolee in the game. (The characters in your party have a tendency to get away from you and run straight at four guys with guns and die instantly.) Ha.

WTF So Pissed Off About My Apparent "Lack" of Credit

I got rejected for a credit card last year, and I assumed it was because I had recently applied for a car loan the same month. So here I am in a crappy situation in which I have a large medical bill, I took a paycut to go to the job where I currently am, and I will be starting a job that pays substantially more (ie: nearly double my current income) in ONE month's time. I'm not the kind of person who racks up unnecessary debt. I'm seriously talking about getting a credit card JUST to pay for a plane ticket I need to buy this month and can't afford. I'm talking about using credit to get through ONE month of my life, and then paying it right off. IF THIS IS NOT A SITUATION THAT PERFECTLY DESCRIBES WHY CREDIT CARDS WERE INVENTED, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS.

I applied for a credit card and got rejected... again. I didn't even apply for the real one-- I applied for the student one. I don't get it. I did a free annual credit report ON MYSELF the same day I applied for the card. It said I have 13 total accounts, six past and seven present, all in good standing. I mean, I read the report! What report are they reading that says I have "delinquent credit"? How do I still, after being an adult and paying my own bills for five years, apparently have no credit? The kicker is that there were 2 cards on the report I didn't even know I had. One was apparently a card from Bank of America that gave me a $1500 credit limit when I was a 19 year old college student and had an income of zero dollars. YEAH. And I can't even get a bullshitty student card for like $1000 at the age of 26 when I've been paying bills for years??

It just pisses me off that I thought I was being responsible all those years by not having a credit card and, you know, using a debit card from my bank account, when apparently it would have been better if I'd racked up tons of debt. I have ONE credit card with a $500 limit that isn't even enough to buy plane tickets on. Or anything useful. What if there's another hurricane and we have to freakin' evacuate again?

I swear to god, I should just call up Bank of America and tell them to send me another copy of that card. Jesus Christ.

X-Files 3x24: Talitha Cumi

And we come to the end of our DVD set of The X-Files: Season 3. I was quite surprised to have reached the end. I guess we've been working through them over the last couple months. In this episode, we learn that the Cigarette Smoking Man has a connection to Mulder's mother. We also meet another alien shapeshifter who apparently opposes the alien shapeshifter we saw in Season 2. There's a rather threatening appearance by Mr X, and we learn the cryptic piece of information that "the date is set." Obviously longtime X-Files fans will recognize this as meaning the date of the colonization of Earth by aliens, with whom the Cigarette Smoking Man and his Syndicate are collaborating, but it was a surprise to me that this is revealed as early as Season 3. I didn't remember that.

We do remember lots of things, though. The X-Files, which began airing when I was 12 although I didn't start watching until halfway through Season 1, was the first TV show I really, really loved. I must have seen these episodes enough on repeats (though some of them I distinctly remember watching in high school, and they must have left a strong impression) to know what's going to happen. Which leads to couch conversations like:

Mike: It's Mr X hiding in the bushes, isn't it?
Me: It's in the lamp! He's after the thingy that's hidden in the lamp.

But I had forgotten the cliffhanger. To leave us with the alien shapeshifting assassin striding toward them was sort of cheap. And though I can remember seemingly random plot points from ten years ago ("This is the part where Scully goes to the ice chest and hallucinates seeing Mulder in the car with the Smoking Man"), I can't for the life of me remember how it ends in Season 4. I guess that'll have to be our next DVD set we purchase, unless it gets beat out by Battlestar Galactica Season 1.

The title, Talitha Cumi, is Aramaic for "Maiden, I say unto you, arise." It's what Jesus said when he resurrected the daughter of the head of the synagogue. So, obviously a reference to the shapeshifter healing the people in the shooting. But there were no maidens there. A reference to the future healing of Mulder's mother, who has a stroke in the episode? It may just be meant as a general reference to resurrection, though.

Another clever bit was in the beginning when Mulder says, "He vanished," and Scully replies, "Without a trace." Then the scene changes and we segue to Mulder's mother and the Cigarette Smoking man at the family cabin in Rhode Island. This is a reference that probably only dedicated fans will pick up on, but clever writing nonetheless. It's a reference to Anasazi, the final episode of Season 2, when the soldiers report back to the Cigarette Smoking Man in his helicopter that they've searched the train car and Mulder has vanished without a trace. Cigarette Smoking Man gets angry and yells, "Nothing vanishes without a trace. Burn it!" Absolutely intentional that they quoted CSM's line, and imagine that, here he is. I'd never picked up on that before.

My top three episodes in Season 3? (And none of them are conspiracy episodes!)

1. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
2. War of the Coprophages
3. Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'

Jolee Sits Up Prairie Dog Style = So Cute

I think there are some birds he's trying to see over the back of the couch. When I take pictures of him on that couch, he is just to my left as I type.

Something Else

My parents inform me that I am not allowed to blog about video games anymore this week, because this space is supposed to be for important things, such as what's going on in my real life, my boyfriend, and my cats.

Well. I personally thought no one wanted to hear about my cats either (when the most popular label on your blog is your cat's name, it's safe to bet that you blog about your cats too much-- no, seriously, look over on the right. "Jolee" is the #1 tag). But all right, then!

Honestly, there's not much going on with me right now, besides flipping out over money. Which I don't really feel the need to burden other people with. We've gone out for dinner a couple of times (Basil Leaf Thai, Superior Grill). I did go on a huge gaming binge last week. I might be over it. But I hadn't played any Oblivion for several weeks, so it was long overdue. We've watched a couple discs of Star Trek: Enterprise Season 2 from Netflix. Enterprise is the outcast Trek stepchild that's sort of hated on by Trekkies, but I have to say I enjoy it. I even love the non-Trek-ish credits that everyone hates. I think the song goes well with the show and its themes. Captain Archer and his crew are like the dorky freshmen of space travel, but there's something refreshing about how earnest they are... it's a different vibe than we get from the other Treks. They're so excited about meeting people, and they're like, "Open a channel! Hi! We're from Earth!"

And the aliens go, "Earth. Never heard of it." And then charge their weapons.

Come to think of it, I get an inordinate amount of pleasure from watching this scene unfold repeatedly. I am a bad person. :-P

Meanwhile, Back in Obliv...

I downloaded a better facial texture for the characters in the game. Here's a comparison. Thayet's skin looks less blotchy. It's one of the unfortunate downsides of Oblivion that they included so much customization, yet it's really, really hard to make your character not look like they've been hit by the ugly stick. If it looks like her skin's a little darker, I did that. The problem with doing your character's facial coloring while underground is that when you come up into the sunlight, you realize it looks a bit off. I didn't mess with any of the sliders that control face shape though. So it's the same exact character, with better skin and without those odd white/pink splotches. I really like how much more realistic the lips look.

Not that I thought Thayet was hit by the ugly stick before, but you really, really don't want to know how many hours it took me to make her.

To be honest, the reason I took/am taking a break from Oblivion is that I found I had stopped playing. As in, doing things to complete quests or advance the actual plot. I mean, I have played 120 hours and only managed to complete the Thieves Guild and the Arena. (Although, they are waiting for me in Bruma to assault that Oblivion gate, but they're probably going to be waiting a while.) It's difficult to say what exactly I have been doing in Oblivion. Before my break I found that I was going about behaving very... oddly. To wit, my fly amanita cap collection. I keep them in my Imperial City shack. I decided my next step is to buy a house with a basement so I can collect skulls there. Perhaps all manner of bones.

I told you.

See What Happens When I Take A Break From Oblivion

Some idiot comes up with a new laughable female body model. It is voted the most popular mod of the month at TESsource. And the other idiots go crazy making idiotic chainmail bikinis for it. Ugh.

I weep.

I've posted before on the lack of realistic Oblivion body mods out there. Honestly, I sort of like this one. By "sort of like" I mean don't entirely hate. I don't know. The underwear is certainly cuter (though that rope bra's gotta be chafing, but at least it's appropriate to the time period?), the model looks athletic and not too skinny, and she has a nice six pack going on. But the boobs. Oh, the boobs. They are out there. It's like, if they'd kept it ONE cup size smaller I'd be downloading this. I've mentioned that I don't particularly like Bethesda's body models in the original game. So this is frustrating. So close... but yet so far.

What is up with the chainmail bikini? It's the world's biggest oxymoron. Who first came up with it? What is the rationale for it? Do guys really sit around jerking off to video games?

Maybe I'll download this one anyway. Are giant boobs better than the weirdly chunky, pointy boobs my character came with?

No. No, I won't. And so, here I sit, patiently waiting for someone to rescue me from my pointy-boobed plight. I expect I will be waiting a long time. (Edited to add: a modder gave it a breast reduction! I might be sold. But sans chainmail bikinis, naturally.)

Ahahahaha! What T Rex?

Oh, you mean that T Rex.

The one that got OWNED.

Yeah, Bear With Me Here

I'm trying a couple experiments to get Technorati to see me. It's not going to work. But I've been inspired to waste an hour trying. I was just going to spend that hour getting stomped by the T-Rex in Tomb Raider anyway.

Edited 11:13 AM: You know what? Fuck Technorati. It indexes my old URL, and it's not even updated anymore. I thought it might be a problem with my HTML validation, but guess what-- it's the EXACT SAME TEMPLATE over there. I don't do ANYTHING to that blog, and it's still seeing it. If I go post over there, it will show up immediately. WTF. Every time I try to deal with this, I just end up getting annoyed. I shouldn't even use their tags or link them. I think I'm going to stop. I certainly don't get anything out of it. Fuck Technorati. I need a California Turkey wrap from Roly Poly right this second. You wouldn't even believe it.

When Fanboys Attack: ASOIAF Version

I posted on Hathor Legacy today about the rampant Brienne hatred among George R.R. Martin's fans.

There is a disconnect between the way male characters described by Martin as ugly (and there are lots) are regarded by fans, and how Brienne is regarded. To illustrate how ridiculous the bias is, consider the example of the POV character Tyrion.

Tyrion is a vastly popular character. He is also a dwarf, with a giant mass of scar tissue where his nose used to be. In a recent book, he was placed in an arranged marriage to a 13-year-old girl who wouldn't consummate the marriage because she was terrified of how ugly he was. I have actually seen many posters say, "OMG I hate Sansa! What a ___. How could she do that to Tyrion he's all kinds of awesome, I hope she gets raped by a ____." And then they'll be like, "I think Martin should hook Tyrion up with (insert beautiful female character) or (insert beautiful female character)." Yet if someone mentions Brienne hooking up with someone, anyone, there's an outcry of fan eeeeew that derails entire threads.

Yeah. Because every beautiful woman wants to have sex with a noseless dwarf just because it's your favorite character. But an unattractive woman doesn't deserve love.

The rest is here.

Starbuck Hangs Self!

I hate to laugh, because she was obviously in pain and freaking out, but Starbuck just managed to get herself tangled up in the cord for the blinds and then leap off the couch. I was sitting here, and all of a sudden I hear panicked, "MAAAAAH! MAAAAH! MAAAH!" I turned around, and she was hanging suspended with the cord wrapped twice around her and stuck in her legs.

Hahahaha.

See what I have to deal with. She's in my freakin' underwear!

This is Starbuck's box. She's so dumb.

Here's my Floofer, just as a special bonus. Because he is the prettiest pet ever to exist anywhere ever. So there. I have proof. And just because he's not as dumb as Starbuck doesn't mean he doesn't want to be blogged! (Don't get me wrong, I have several blackmail pictures of him being dumb too! Which maybe I will post later in the week. I just dumped 118 photos off my camera.)

Hot. Like Hell.

According to last night's news, it reached 100 in my beloved 70115 yesterday. I believe it. I've been putting in my outdoor time this weekend (the quest to rid myself of the world's worst tan line progresses slowly).

I'm amused by the drive on Whatever to send John Scalzi to the new Creation Museum. See here the New York Times article on this particular religious right attraction. People kept emailing Scalzi (his blog is uber-popular, so I can only imagine), until finally he acknowledged that the museum is really close to him, and he will go only if he receives $250 in PayPal donations. Naturally, since he would only be going to snark the Creation Museum, any money raised will be donated to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. So if this sounds like a worthy cause to you, you have till Friday to go drop in a couple of bucks. He reports today that the drive is going "poorly"-- poorly meaning that he'll actually have to go. Ha.

I might dye my hair a different color today, for fun. This is the kind of stuff I do when I'm trying to grow my hair out and I get bored of it. I was debating getting highlights, but one of the girls I work with thinks I should go darker. I've never done that. It might be cool.

And finally, speaking of humans and dinosaurs living in peace and harmony, let's just say I am doing rather poorly in Tomb Raider just now. And that's all I'll say about that.

I have the day off today. I work weekend nights, so you could say that Monday is the weekend for me. I'm going to run a couple errands, and then maybe start the monumental task of ripping all my CDs onto the desktop for backup. (This is why we got the one with 400 gigs.) Plus there is a box of leftover Popeyes. Which should be lunch, but I'm eyeing it now. I also need to watch the taped finale of The Shield before I accidentally read something on the internet that spoils it.

YA THINK I Might Be Cold?

You know, just a little bit? It's sort of like my "light armor vest" in Oblivion that's really a bra and exposes my whole stomach... I'm sure it made sense to some gaming developer somewhere who does not get out much. But it doesn't make much sense to me. At least Lara is sensibly wearing socks with her boots?

Because it was my birthday yesterday, and because Oblivion and I are on a break (we're not divorced, or even separated, don't worry-- just on a break), I went and got myself a new toy. So. This is Tomb Raider: Anniversary. I can climb around on cliffs and flip onto ledges and stuff... but my boobs be ridiculous, yo.

Seriously. I think in real life I'd fall over backwards.

Birthday. It Is Mine.

I'm 26. :-)

We're In the Money!

So today I talked with the principal of the school where I'm pretty sure I'll be teaching in the fall... and I found out my salary will actually be $5-6K more than I thought it would be. This is pretty exciting to me, since I've been in 'starving student' mode for way too many years now. Seriously, if someone gave me ONE thousand dollars right now I'd flip for joy.

You might be like, "You got a job? I didn't know that!" or "Wait, teaching? You have a mouth like a sailor!" I've made the decision that I'm not going to blog about work AT ALL, or mention where I work, or anything like that. I'm also in the process of anonymizing (anonymous-izing?) this blog. I think there ought to be enough Sarahs in the City of New Orleans that I'll be OK. So this will be the last you hear about work. Except my summer job as Magazine St. door girl, naturally, because it might lead to some amusing stories and, well, I'm pretty certain no one there particularly cares.

I want to be able to be myself on this blog. But I'm not entirely stupid.

Oh, Windows Vista

Why do you have so much hate for everything I love?

Not only did I play several hours in KOTOR 2 the other day when it magically decided to work, only to suffer disappointment when it lapsed back into being incompatible and crashing, but AIM has not worked for at least a week. And we all know I cannot live without my IMer, and people probably think I'm dead. And on top of this, yesterday we discovered Vista won't play iTunes videos we paid good money for. Yet here I am on the desktop because, well, my laptop is four years old and the warranty ran out. I need to spare it from menial things like gaming and checking the internet. It must be saved for essential situations like airports.

My main issue with Vista is that it thinks it's smarter than me. I KNOW it is blocking AIM from connecting. The reason I know this is because Vista up and decided to do it to Firefox for awhile. It worked for months, then one day Vista was like, "Hey! This thing isn't made by Microsoft? ... What to do with it? ... [block]." It's not in the firewall, it's somewhere else in the settings that I can't find. Because of course now I don't remember how I fixed the Firefox thing. But the point is, I don't think my operating system should display such an alarming and annoying mind of its own. I do not purchase an OS just so it can one day up and decide that the settings I've put in place aren't good enough anymore. It's such bullshit.

Also. Can we talk about how every time I want to move a file into a different folder, Vista pops up a box and I have to give it permission not once, not twice, but THREE times. YES I AM SURE I WANT TO MOVE THE FREAKIN' FILE ALL RIGHT? I WAS SURE THE FIRST TIME I CLICKED YES. I realize that Microsoft is marketing toward people who don't really know or care about how to operate their computer. But that doesn't describe me. God forbid I ever have to go into my registry and delete some keys. I do not even want to know what will happen on that day.

I like the way I put it to Mike: The problem with this approach is that it's vastly outdated. In fact, it's backwards. Think about it. Windows has been around and popular for what, fifteen years? From that one can conclude that a lot of people have probably figured it out by now. But Microsoft did not conclude this. As far as I can tell, Microsoft concluded the opposite: that people who use Windows Vista are actually dumber and more technologically inept than people who used Windows XP. How does that make any sense? What are their marketing people telling them?

I'll tell you what would have been truly revolutionary and useful to me. They could have made it so there are three or four different overall settings. You know, like "Total Newbie: Needs Vista for Dummies," "General User: Vaguely Knows Way Around Own Computer But Warn Me If I'm Going to Accidentally Explode It," "Competent: Do Not Need Extra Help K Thanks Bye," and "SuperHacker: Proceed At Your Own Risk."

Then I could just click the box for #3, and all the pop-up boxes would go away and we'd all be happier with our computing experience.

Watching the America's Cup

So we got Versus so we could watch hockey. And, as a nifty bonus point, they're covering the America's Cup this year. I'm going to be watching the racing this afternoon. I figure, I'm a sailor and it's sort of like the Olympics in that it only comes around once every four years, so why not?

I am not ashamed to admit that racing like this is waaaaaay over my head. There's a huge difference between laying out a course on a lake and hopping in a Laser and sailing like this. The level of technology is amazing. It's sometimes hard to follow what's going on, and I've sailed a lot. I can see why the America's Cup probably isn't going to be the most popular sporting event on TV for the average viewer. The terminology and the strategy is going to be too much for most people. And I think it's exciting, but it's going to look like two boats going in a straight line for 3/4 of the race to someone who isn't into sailing.

Some things I can tell you:

We are out. The US team, BMW Oracle, lost in the semi-final of the Louis Vuitton Cup to Italy's Luna Rossa. The Louis Vuitton Cup is sort of like the conference finals in other sports. Except there's only one of it. Because whoever wins the race gets to face Alingi, which is the boat that won in 2003 and thus the challenger this year. Right now we're on Race 3 of the Louis Vuitton Cup, and you have to get to five in order to win. So far Luna Rossa is getting swept by New Zealand (not surprising-- I've sailed with many fine Kiwis in my day).

It really makes me wish I had a boat, though. Let's just say that's in my two-year plan.

No More Battlestars

It figures... just when I find a show I actually want to watch, it turns out it's almost over. Season 4 is officially going to be the last for Battlestar Galactica. I have mixed feelings. Of course I would love to watch the show for many more years. Because it is my crack cocaine. On the other hand, I respect the creative team for wanting to definitively wrap it up, without having to wait for ratings, the network, etc. to make the decision. This way there will definitely be an ending, and there's no chance it will be canceled and left up in the air. It's a journey to Earth... they'd logically have to find it eventually. It's a journey with a beginning and an end. So while this sucks, as a fan of the X-Files I know what happens when a show drags on and outlasts what appeared to be its original premise.

There's also a rumor that #3 may be unboxed and make an appearance in Season 4.