sundries

[rm]

Patty has her first day of school in Cardiff today!

Yesterday, Kali fixed our novel by basing the magical system on the sub-prime induced economic collapse and the European credit crisis. I am not even kidding. Unrelatedly, we're also writing a pitch for a miniseries, because she had and idea and I went "but update it and set it now, right?" So hey, we get to come up with a snazzy name for our collective efforts too. We're going to have one more meeting before I go to CH so we can map and then get to work while I'm away.

Meanwhile D&J is has a full outline, an ACT II opener tentatively titled "It's a Cop!" and a plot-critical reference to Australia that's so wrong it's right. No, no really. Poetic too.

Meanwhile, our fundraising video also has an outline, and that will be shot over the weekend. Also getting my hands, finally, on the disc of D&J that I forgot existed to edit into it. I'm hoping we'll be able to have our Kickstarter fundraising page up by the middle of next week.

Treble Entendre is getting closer to having logos and website. Yay.

My singing for Inception: The Musical is getting better. Next time: a bigger drink first. 90% of the problems are all in my head right now.

It may suck, but it's still progress, part 1: "Gay-cure" group Exodus International no longer sponsoring Day of Truth event.

It may suck, but it's still progress, part 2: While more Americans oppose marriage equality than support it, the percentage in opposition has, for the first time, dropped below 50%.

The student targeted for harassment because he's gay by the Michigan ADA speaks out.

Race and the empty seat.

Are any of my fellow New Yorkers going to Click + Drag this weekend? I'm thinking of stopping in after my class reunion.

For all y'all that missed it in comments yesterday, ladyofthelog remarked, brilliantly, that all White Collar fans should mentally replace the individuals in the photo I posted yesterday with Neil Caffrey and Peter Burke. She is entirely correct.

Comments

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

The Empty Seat article is interesting, but I think he's only describing part of the phenomenon. I've spent a tremendous amount of time on Amtrak and on Southwest flights, which both expose you to people choosing their own seats. This is the order that I've seen people select seats based on:

1) Is the other person going to affect my experience in some way? This is usually around body size, unfortunately, but odor or loud music from the other person's headphones can also play into this. If not, then:
2) Is the person attractive, do they appear pleasant? If so, then:
3) Does the person appear to be the same race/gender/religion/socio-economic class as I am? This usually just manages to segregate business travelers from the rest of the population, but can go much further.

I think 2 and 3 are pretty entangled, since I think perceptions of pleasantness have a lot to do with an ability to opt-out of dealing with people who are different than we are.

The sad thing here is that when I try to find a seat companion on Southwest, I'm usually trying to find someone who will make it less likely that anyone will take our middle seat. So I end up looking for the largest, least attractive person I can find. If I can't find someone who meets those criteria, I try to find someone as different as possible from the majority of the passengers, like the punk skater boy I flew next to on this trip. I hate myself for it, but I usually end up with more elbow and leg room as a result.

[tdanaher.livejournal.com]

The Empty Seat article is interesting, but I think he's only describing part of the phenomenon.

Also, 4) Where in the car is the seat located? I usually find that people will not tend to gravitate toward an empty seat if the car is crowded and the seat is also in the middle of the car, no matter who is sitting there. Seats near the doors, at least in my experience, tend to be more prized because the people in them get to bolt out when they arrive at their destinations, but if you're in the middle, you're pretty much resigned to being among the last people out, so that could also be a major consideration when the riders are choosing their Empty Seat priorities.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I scan for where to sit by filtering against (1) and then choosing someone with as few variables from (3) in common as possible.

I'd thought of the size thing as a courtesy, though I know my intent is not distinguishable from phobic people. If there are lots of seats, why crowd the person who needs more room? Difficult to sort that out from shunning, though.