sundries

[rm]

Yesterday, my father called me and told me not to get gout.

Hey, can we talk about John Stewart's facial hair? I think he looks hot (minus the marshmallow fluff); Patty hates it. But we both want to know, WHY this grooming change. Anyone?

No one told me, NO ONE TOLD ME, that the actor who plays Arthur in Inception is that kid from Third Rock from the Sun. I read Arthur/Eames porn yesterday and now I feel dirty, not in the good way.

You know what's awesome about Inception? You (read: me) can write something really long and smart about it and be totally wrong. Awesome interview with Dileep Rao here.

Gay tango festival in Argentina. Meanwhile, New York City will be having its own LGBT tango festival in October. One day I should like to be less incompetent at tango than I am, but I think it means Patty and I taking proper lessons as opposed to the quickies in crowded ballrooms wherein I get all frustrated and am no joy to anyone.

CNN has an odd article (it's the slightly breezy tone), about the mental health issues potentially involved in getting plastic surgery to look like a particular celebrity. The article, somewhat hilariously, also tells us that "not everyone can look like a Pitt or a Jolie, despite the advancements in plastic surgery."

Hey can anyone tell me if Chocomize is related to Chocri or which came first or whatever?

How to measure yourself for custom menswear. Note: specific instructions from specific retailers/designers, etc, may vary; listen to them first. Also note: if you are female bodied there's stuff obviously not included in here that you'd want to consider for both fit and presentation/illusion; if you have a question, ask me.

I have, because of its upcoming conference in New York and a series of awesome "Tourist, don't be a asshole" things people are writing for it, become aware of BlogHer. Would anyone care to shed some light on this thing? Since my main reaction is one of (inappropriately) blaming women for being timid about speaking or existing online mixed with (moderately more appropriate) generalized rage that it should be this way. What is BlogHer? Do you use it? It is a good thing? Why should I shut my face? Help, help, I'm being confused! (ETA: For some reason, several commenters have assumed that my theoretical discomfort with BlogHer comes from some issue related to SAHMs, despite the fact I, in no way, mention motherhood in this item; more on what I was trying to puzzle out in this comment).

Prepositions and the ongoing mess over the Islamic center that may be built near World Trade Center Site.

A bizarre story involving a military contractor, a memory erasing pill that doesn't exist, a $100,000 belt buckle and some hookers. And not, by the way, written by William Gibson.

xtricks has another installment in what I can't seem to stop calling Teh Buttsex Series! The concluding list of "what is not in the butt" made me laugh so hard I am ashamed.

Because of Gattaca news stories about one of Saturn's moons make me tear up: The lakes of Titan are shrinking.

Last night on Angel:

I take back everything I said about Torchwood being a soap opera. Angel is a fucking soap opera. Cordy is evil (which throws us back to just which Powers were up to what when they had her ascend back when, and was that the beginning of the planning for the current narrative apocalypse?); Angel is still Angelus; Wesley just had to chop off his dead ex-girlfriend's head; Gunn is blaming Fred for the kiss she never got around to consenting too; and, OH YEAH, Cordy is pregnant with another fucking demon baby (is this 3? 4?) and this time she says it's Connor's and she's been banging the Beast. WHAT THE FUCK, SHOW? WHAT THE FUCK?

On the other hand, since they put Angel/Angelus in a cage, I gotta say the acting and the directing has really tightened up and is pretty masterful.

It's Tuesday. Does you know what Tuesday means? White Collar and Covert Affairs. Still working on the Auggie/Jack fic, but it's working. Also thinking someone should write a Covert Affairs/Inception crossover. You know you want Auggie hunting Arthur down in dreamspace, right?

Meanwhile, much to Patty's relief, Project Runway starts Thursday.

I think we're going to try to see The Kids are All Right this week.

Comments

[sillermoon.livejournal.com]

I believe BlogHer sprang out of that meme/quote that was circling for a while: "there are no women bloggers/where are the women bloggers?"

And all the lady bloggers stood up and said: AHEM, we are RIGHT HERE. We've been here! Just like you! We're just as good as you dudes, and it's time we supported each other.

[rm.livejournal.com]

AHah! That is good! And seriously, haven't there sort of always been more women bloggers than men bloggers?

or is this another case of "it's only interesting/positive/rewarded when boys do it"? (this goes with, among other things, college educations, the modern pagan movement, writing of any and all types, and raising kids, it seems).

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Bingo.

[sillermoon.livejournal.com]

Quick google-fu reveals it originally was aimed at political bloggers.
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Where_are_the_women_bloggers%3F

Key quote from Matt Yglesias:
"I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of the overwhelmingly male (on the order of 80%) cast of political blog readership. At first glance, one might think of this as an internet issue, related to hardy perennials regarding women and technology in general, but I think it's a manifestation of the broader fact that women don't seem very interested in politics...."

And Kevin Drum:
"you will find exactly three women in the top 30... That's a grand total of 10% of the most popular political blogs...
which means either (a) there are fewer female political bloggers and thus fewer in the top 30, or (b) there are plenty of women who blog about politics but they don't get a lot of traffic or links from high-traffic male bloggers."

[rm.livejournal.com]

It also raises the question of what is a political blog -- does feminism count as politics these days or not? that would be my first question.

After that, I suspect we get into "why is this the case" and what you've linked to (thank you, btw) certainly leaves out the intense hatred and threats of sexual violence directed at high-profile female political bloggers (to the exclusion of all other types of harassment and trolling -- people are assholes to everyone on the Internet, but, as I'm sure you know, it's just the women who are threatened with rape over and over and are then told they have a problem because they don't think it's funny).

*sigh*

[sillermoon.livejournal.com]

I was an avid reader of Kathy Sierra's blog "Creating Passionate Users" (http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/) when she got all those death threats and canceled her speaking appearances, and eventually, the blog. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=14783).

So yes, I am well aware of the hatred and violence and sexual threats that are directed at women. (Also, as an avid WoW player, the favorite chestnut "there are no women on the internet!" which is erasing at it's...finest? worst?)

As for whether feminism counts, I'm sure the dudely political bloggers would not think so. They would be wrong.

As a side note, I'm quite impressed by the range of topics BlogHer now covers. I read several blogs with authors that attend the conferences but hadn't checked out their site in quite some time.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Cool, I'll check it out beyond the offputting-to-me homepage when I am not at work.

(and I'm sorry I didn't mean to be all "you know" and you, because of course you know, I was speaking to the hypothetical "only dudes on the Internet talking about ideas" people).

[sillermoon.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I got that. I also feel like everyone knows about Kathy Sierra but I often run across things that "everyone" knows about and I missed, so passing on the linkage for your other readers. It was the example that sprang to mind.

The homepage is very off-putting, I give you that. "Holy info overload, Batman" was my first response. The list of topics they have contributing editors for is what I meant: http://www.blogher.com/blogher-contributing-editors

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I only knew about Kathy Sierra (and the Geek Feminism site in general) b/c I added damned_colonial, who knows a thing or two on both topics, to my DWth circle.