sundries

[rm]

Okay, I've have GOT to make our holiday cards this weekend. And I shall!

OM NOM NOM. Indian food awaits us tonight.

Cruise planning! Last night we narrowed down a lot of the short excursions and even made some final decisions, so I think Patty is booking those today. We still have other stuff to sort out, some of which we can just do on the damn boat. She's amazing at this stuff, I just get overwhelmed and confused. Things we're doing include a national park, seeing stingrays and boating to various secluded places. I think we're also going to see some big rocks and weird lizards, sail on a Siamese junk, and I'm crazy excited about just walking around Willemstad, which seems like a fascinating town and has the old synagogue in the Americas.

OMG, cruise clothing. I'm good with all the dressy stuff (white evening gown, black evening gown, red cocktail dress, tux, two suits & three dress shirts). And the semi dressy stuff (three Trashy Diva dresses and various slacks & dress shirts). And the bathing suits (two!). But you know what I fucking fail at? Casual clothes. Um.... like shorts. And a cover-up for the bathing suits. And sneakers. And I need to get on that. I feel really weird in shorts and I don't even know why. Patty's going to help, because mostly I'm like "I don't know how to do this!" I should also probably actually get an actual pair of jeans. And I really need to book the waxing appointment. I can't be bothered with hair removal most times these days, but if I'm going to wandering around in a bathing suit and heels on and off for ten days, I can damn well wax (not because it's my civic duty (because it's not), but because, hey, it really does make your legs look longer and more toned, who doesn't want that?)

Oh yeah, we have appropriately running water again in our place.

A tiny, tiny black kitty has joined the ranks of the garden kitties. He was being shown the food people leave for them by the grey garden kitty this morning. Really frigging cute.

These DARPA weather balloons could win you 40K USD.

Coming out in Hollywood. These articles appear every so often, and it's interesting to watch their evolution as they focus on just how disastrous it is or isn't for a given career. Contains the usual bullshit of "if everyone knows I"m gay, how will they believe me as straight" yadda yadda. But it's interesting, because the converse -- straight people playing gay characters, no one ever questions the believability of that. We just hear that it's all brave or heroic or whatever. And I think other than the obvious homophobia in that statement, there's a more interesting thing going on that points to the very nature of homophobia: as a culture we believe anyone could be gay! we are suspicious! and everyone is suspect! Interesting when we notice where the fear comes from.

Fun with Google Adsense: if you use the word "struggling" a lot in a post, you get ads for rehab centers. If you post porny fanfiction, you may get an ad for "EZLube" car maintenance chain. That's beautiful, is what that is.

Bristol said we would hopefully know "within the week" to folks who sent in abstracts on Monday. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I'm now guessing Sunday morning, since that's when I found out about something else academic in Britain that I submitted to once upon a time.

Speaking of Bristol, but unrelated to that issue or possible trip -- when Patty and I go to London in April, we're thinking of popping up to Ireland (probably Dublin, but not necessarily, but we have friends there and I've not been since 1995) for a few days. Anyone have any thoughts on the best/cheaptest/fastest way to do that as I know there are a number of options, none of which I know much about?

Remember that thing I posted the other day about Chase and NOM. Well keori remains on it, and Chase has already declared that NOM is inelligible for funds in their charity thing. The article also mentions the third party vendor that supplied the list. They may just be determining what's a charity based on 501(c)(3) designation, but if so, their system sort of blows. So the third party provider may be worth contacting. We really don't want NOM lurking on a widely distributed charity list.

Have we heard of the Bo-Tax? The idea is to help pay for healthcare reform through a 5% tax on cosmetic procedures. A lot of people think this sounds good. But some people think it penalizes women who are devalued by society if they look older than 30 (actually follow the link and discover that if you are over 25 and female, the fact that you want to fuck is yucky and weird in the heterosexual pop-culture landscape). Scarily, this may be one of those things where everyone's sort of right (except the people promulgating the puma, cheetah and cougar asshattery), even if we still can't get the difference between "need" and "want" through our heads as a nation.

Today I gave an old friends useful advice in email. Less useful advice was administered on LJ and contained the phrase "as long as we're avoiding marriages on the astral plane, we're probably good."

shadowravyn points us to Gives Me Hope which is random anonymous stories of people not sucking. Except: since anyone can post anything, it can have moments of being condescending/rage-inducing and as selasphorous points out in comments, can be particularly rife with ableism.

fabricdragon is keeping a list of Lj'ers who could use help from other LJ'ers. If you've got funds or resources to spare, please check there or the post I made earlier today.

Comments

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I can't believe we're still discussing sexual orientation when it comes to actors. Like...uh, Rock Hudson was a pretty convincing straight heartthrob. Of course, he was in the closet, but... so? John Barrowman is out and women who aren't slash-minded adore him and a fair amount of straight guys think he's awesome. My husband does.

For Ireland, Ryanair has cheap flights. They're the no-frills SW Airlines of the region. :)http://www.ryanair.com/en

If you rent a car there, get a stick... the automatics are bizarrely expensive to rent, or they were when we've gone.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ah, neither of us drive! Weird, right?

Isn't Ryanair the airline that wants to charge people to use the bathroom on their flights?

[luke-jaywalker.livejournal.com]

I think that that "charge people to use the bathroom" was just a joke on the CEO's part - "we've been making so many other services optional and for-a-fee..." They *are* damn cheap.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think so!

I've flown on Ryanair and enjoyed the nice, cheap feeling!

If you're going to Dublin, you don't need a car anyway... we went to a village where a friend lives and down to Kinsale and the Cliffs of Moher and islands. The car was a pain when it came to "who's going to drink?"

Well, actually, not a pain for me, since I can't drive manual transmission cars. HA HA HA.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when I went in 1995, the person I was traveling with drove and we went all over the SE after a few days in Dublin, but this would be a pure city-trip I think.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

It'll be nice!

The weather will probably not be good. But still, a great place. I love Ireland. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Last time I went it was November, so you know... April can only improve. It would only be a couple of days too, just something we're hoping to tack on but aren't sure we can.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

For Ireland, Ryanair has cheap flights.

This. I visit a friend in Dublin quite often (and she visits me) and Ryanair is our transport of choice. But I'd advise pre-booking as far in advance as you can, because otherwise they're significantly less cheap.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

Ryanair aren't always cheaper than Easyjet, particularly when you take into account the fact that Ryanair don't show you all the charges until you're well into the booking process, whereas Easyjet is more upfront about it.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Oh,, I forgot about Easyjet!

Don't think I'd used them personally. The connection spots didn't work for us or something.