sundries

[rm]

I'm having one of those periodic things I have where I want to knit. I'm a pretty lousy knitter. I can do a scarf, but that's about it. But in posting all those LJ small businesses yesterday, a bit of yarn jumped out at me.

Anyway, this led to the following horrific observation on Twitter: @racheline_m: Why hasn't someone made a 456 knitting pattern yet? Everyone wants a knit, vomiting, 3-headed turkey, don't they?

Which then led to the horrifying personal observation -- you guys know I live on the 4/5/6 train, yeah?

Okay, the White House gate crashers? met the President. I really, really, will be deeply, deeply annoyed if these people aren't in a world of trouble. Free passes on this sort of thing will just encourage more of it, and in our reality TV world, people will always rise to the challenge of self-promotional asshattery.

The houses of NYC.

Last night we went to see A Streetcar Named Desire. It was an exceptional and very funny production and the director tried to bring as much ambiguity to it as possible (maybe everyone is crazy, maybe everyone in a liar), but at the end of the day, it's still a weird play trapped in the moment of its creation and that moment's conception of sexuality and insanity. Still, it was a fine, fine thing, and it's interesting to me, the degree to which I can now recognize which performers came out of NIDA and which didn't, by very specific performance ticks. And, of course, being a mostly NIDA alum production, spectacular and intelligent sets.

I've just been linked to this: GDL (blond! and with Stephen Fry, and I think a chick that was in Spooks). It was good for a giggle early this morning, although it suffers more than a bit if you're lacking various England/Wales contexts.

I hope everyone is having fun at Chicago Tardis. Can I be right in that I'm not hearing eight billion pounds of squeeing out of it due to the lack of Torchwood boys as guests? People, squee anyway, some of us do still care.

bodlon points out the Frenzy of Fail that is this article about a transwoman over at the Boston Herald.

Oh my god our cruise is in five or so weeks and I still need to: find the right shoes for my tux (which will be here in a couple of weeks), buy a suit bag, double-check on my gluten-free food stuff for the trip, make sure Patty and I have all the wardrobe stuff we need (like post-swimming coverups), order various cruise extras (from our excursions to random luxury things for the room for our departure), and on and on and on. I can't believe we were originally booked on something department December 10th. Man, I am so glad this isn't happening until January.

OMG, tux! Also am excited to see the swatches that Seyta is sending me for the new shirts I'm ordering. I love my shirts from Duchess a ridiculous, ridiculous amount. I may have to go with a dark blue one too, since I lost my dark blue one from Uniqlo, and I do absolutely need one in that color for cosplay at Gallifrey One anyway.

Okay, I really need to stop being depressed about NaNo, and just go back to writing my book without the collective frenzy and get that damn werewolf story done. Just do it. Blah.

Plants vs. Zombies music video. I blame Patty.

Wanting to Want. A six page article in The New York Times about female sexual desire? This can't end well. Actually, I'm still only on the first page. With the raisins. WHUT? you ask. Yeah, just... have fun.

Yet another article claiming that Sarah Palin's biggest obstacle is gender, and that women don't like her because they're jealous ... or something. Maybe women don't like her because fewer women go for anti-choice, anti-gay politics AND because women can't believe this is the level of discourse they have to keep looking at this thing on. Aaaaargh. I'd argue women can't let Sarah Palin go, because men won't let them.

Anatomy of the Tauntaun sleeping bag.

Comments

[marchek.livejournal.com]

I still need to: find the right shoes for my tux

I've never order from them but are you familiar with these websites:
http://www.tuxedoshoes.net/
http://www.shoebuy.com/tuxedo-shoes.htm

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oooo, I will check out. Sadly, the second one won't even let me search for shoes in my side (tiny feet not useful for dressing like a man). The first one holds some promise, but I remain deeply frustrated by how chunky boy's shoes are as a rule. When I find the one pair that's appropriate, they rarely have my size. It's really the stupidest problem in the world.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

That clip from Daily Motion is fucking hysterical.

And OMG HE LOOKS SO YOUNG. HIS LITTLE FACE.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Right! I KNOW!

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, court records have revealed a more complete picture of the Salahis, who have left an extensive paper trail in federal bankruptcy and state court filings.

Call me silly, but if I had a lot of dirt under the rug, the last thing I'd want to do is draw attention to myself and do anything to get my name in the news - including become a reality TV star or crash a White House dinner.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

zombie. dolphin.
you know the way to a girl's heart :)

Raisins?

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

I love these descriptions of UMC women angsting-I grew yup in that country, though I don't live there anymore

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

OMG - how old is that clip of GDL - he looks about 12 in that clip...but sooo adorable.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I assume pre-Torchwood (so he's what? 22? 23?), but otherwise, no idea.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

RE gate crashers... I can't imagine the shitstorm the secret service is getting over this. I wonder if there will be a backlash of tightening up the ship , or possibly an " example " being made of someone down the line.

As I understand it, the crashers went through all security procedures , they simply were not invited. This should quell most of the OMGWTF about how anyone can walk in and get next to top officials.

Still, I would not want to be the head of that detail. I wonder how many peole will be back to writing parking tickets when the smoke clears.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the big problem was whoever with the list who bought their whole shock that they weren't on the list and waved them through because they didn't want to deal with angry rich people in the rain.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

BTW... did you get my final knitting tweet last night?

[rm.livejournal.com]

About the onesie? I caught it this morning. There was much cackling.

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

Re: the NYT article: I found the digression on the DSM a couple of pages in quite interesting, and mindfulness/body awareness is always an intriguing topic for me, but my eyes are bugging out a bit on page 5. 0.o

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh, you mean this part?

So a typical successful experience might proceed something like this: first a decision, rather than a drive, to have sex; next, as Basson puts it, a “willingness to be receptive”; then, say, the sensations of a partner’s touch; next, the awareness of being aroused; then the “responsive desire” along with increasingly intense arousal; and at last the range of physical and emotional payoffs that sex can provide and that offer positive reinforcement leading back to the top of the diagram, to the reasons for setting off on the circle to begin with.

In summary: "go ahead and start sex, and hey, maybe you'll get into it." Which...seems problematic to me for various reasons.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Do you play Plasnt vs Zombies? It is such a great great game!

And wow GDL looks like a baby!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Patty's been playing it, and I played it for the first time today. It's pretty hilarious.

re: GDL -- because of this Kali and I are now writing AU-Ianto!rentboy fic.

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

If you nixed Palin's weird glee over her pregnant teenage daughter(s), you could drop her brain into 1954 with nary a ripple in the space/time continuum. And people would think she was actually cool when she said "maverick", instead of head-desking their foreheads flat.

[humascot97.livejournal.com]

Thank you thank you thank you for the NYT article!! I can only hope that if this is classified in the DSM, there might be some chance for some real help for these type of disorders, beyond the passive 'just try to get through it' that I've gotten in the past. I want to know why I feel like this, and more importantly, I want it fixed, damn it!

[rm.livejournal.com]

And thank you for raising why the DSM really is a mixed bag -- a lot of queer, kinky people complain about it all the time, but it absolutely, positively has its positive uses!

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I haven't finished reading the article yet about womens' sex drives, but so far the one thing that's bugging me the most is the emphasis on treating the problem as if it's a problem with the individual woman, with no thought given on how gender relations and society play a role, which seems an obvious place to look as to the cause.

Meh. And I hate raisins. Therapy involving raisins would never work on me for that reason alone.

[sethg]

In a world where all treatments related to transsexuality were considered medically necessary and were covered by private insurance companies as a matter of course, then it would be totally un-newsworthy for a convicted murderer who also happened to be a trans woman to ask the prison system to pay for her electrolysis.

Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. And the Herald is not the sort of newspaper whose editorial staff has any interest in bringing us closer to that world.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

The Herald in general is full of fail. Then again, I apparently only feel that way because I am a bleeding-heart liberal.

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

I squeed about Chicago Tardis! It was quite fun :)

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

Just finished reading the NYT Mag article AND the comments on it in the Well blog on the Health page. I found the former to be shallow and the latter occasionally quite disturbing. So, yeah, about par.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

I had a Saturday pass to Chicago TARDIS -- it seemed kind of subdued, like the guest roster was more to the intellectual side of it than the out-and-out squee. Got the definite sense that TW was a "...Oh, and you lot" to the main focus, although haven't been before so I couldn't say whether that was something inherent to the premise or the big fat CoE hangover...

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've never been to CT, but I know it's a pretty subdued con in general. Last year at Gallifrey, the Torchwood fen and guests were very welcome and central (although some Old Who people were a bit eye-rolly). I'll be curious to see what it's like this year in the wake of the CoE hangover, as you say.

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the NYT articles, problematic as they are.

I don't know if you heard about the Belle de Jour 'outing', but this response made me want to tear my hair out on many levels.

I thought of your Swiss posts when I saw this, because without your previous mentions, I would have missed the story entirely:

Swiss voters back ban on minarets

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

- ...you guys know I live on the 4/5/6 train, yeah?

Between that and my realization that mouse takes a lot of the trains I spent hours blowing up supermutants in Fallout 3, my fantasy-to-reality transfer quota is pretty much set for the remainder of 2009.

- Okay, the White House gate crashers? met the President.

My theory? That the self-promotion element is already in play, and that's what said reality TV housewife and her family are up to. Which is irritating as hell, but not unexpected.

- GDL (blond! and with Stephen Fry, and I think a chick that was in Spooks)

Holy crap! You'd never seen the Absolute Power thing? Oh man. It's a hoot. (And Stephen Fry! Yay!)

- WRITE. WRITE, WRITE, WRITE.

- Joe's got Plants v. Zombies and was playing it like crazy for a while.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Patty and I keep singing the Plants vs. Zombies thing to each other over and over again.

am WRITING (including a AU Ianto rentboy thing (see comments for plot summary) with Kali).

You've seen the S4 Torchwood news yeah?