sundries

Signups have begun for therealljidol. I will not be competing. To be frank, I feel a little pissy that it's such a no-go situation for me. But, eh. I hope the people who play have fun.

The New York Times asserts that in the workplace women are doing better, because men are doing worse. The assertion is unsettling, especially if you read the article, which is more about the fact that women are more likely to be maintaining a financial status-quo in the downturn because they are less expensive hires (still earning $.77 on the dollar) and perceived as being non-assertive and "willing to settle." Those are the disturbing conclusions of the piece, so why they front-and-center this sinister idea of women capitalizing on the failures of men instead, I am not sure.

Donor's Choose has always been one of my favorite charities, and in mentioning it to Patty, she mentioned to me a fundraising initiative related to it sponsored by one of her favorite blogs.

So I'm going to do NaNo this year, just to try to bang out a draft of the chick-lit novel. It needs a title and a summary which I should sit down and come up with at some point. I'm terrible at titles, but the thing I call it in my head (since it's a chick-lit novel set in the world of SF/media conventions) is ConSweet. I know, awful! Apologies in advance to anyone I have ever spent time with at a con, the city of Chicago (where I am setting this thing), and the entire public relations profession (you can't write chick-lit without a character who works in PR. You just can't!). Anyway, I'm full of shame, but this should be a funny lark and a good exorcism, since it's been kicking around my head for over a year.

France is considering requiring warning labels on photoshopped images.

sundries, evening edition

Patty and I have booked our cruise-related flights. Sadly, we are flying out of Newark, but the times are tolerable and it's Continental (and not Spirit) and not the $600 PER FLIGHT that Delta wanted.

My father had another MRI for his kidney thing, so on Wednesday we find out if it's a cyst or something bad (by which we mean cancer).

I'm currently reading the Torchwood book Consequences. It's the one with the short stories. I like seeing this stuff from multiple Torchwood eras: I love having more Gaskell and I love seeing Owen and Tosh again. I'm not up to the James Moran story (that I suspect I have craft commentary on; craft commentary, of course, has been largely lost in some of the "this is Ianto!" "No it's not!" fannish wank I've seen about the story in question), I'm mostly just mentioning it now so I can state once again that I think Sarah Pinborough is doing the best work in the world of the TW tie-in novels.

( however, there's this moment in her story in this book about which I have a bit of brain-lock, even though it's kinda great )

I've been, for reasons unknown, watching crappy video of Otherworld thanks to the wonder of the Internet. I loved this briefly-lived show as a kid, and it's interesting trying to figure out why the hell this was the case now (random cracky mythology referencing ancient Egypt + uniform fetish?). Also? This wasn't on the air _that_ long ago, but it's really an insight into another world in terms of its value as a pop-culture artifact. We were so innocent and narratively weak!

New Yorkers, let's not forget The Players Club on Friday.