sundries

After a few brutal days of work today is slated to be normal. Even light. Which means Patty and I will see each other before dark, go out and do something nice, etc. And while I do need to work a bit this weekend, I will also have time for things like laundry and doing the cleaning necessary to put some new furniture in place.

Okay. I don't have to decide about this Cardiff business now. In fact, it can wait a few weeks, and, even more than that, if I flip out and decide to change my mind about it last minute, I can afford to do so, so for now, I'm just going to Let It Go. Is it wrong that I care more about getting gluten-free Fabulous Welsh Cakes than the Ianto-factor? Why, WHY is that a sentence in my life?

Best compliment on the paper yet? "It makes me want to watch Torchwood." For those of you asking, the conference is apparently going to make all the papers web-available. Now that I've done feeling not-ready-for-prime-time about it, I'll keep you posted.

I know some of you have been eying the Thomas Canty art on debsliverlovers. Prices have just been dropped on two of the original drawings. Everything by him there is still a steal. If you haven't visited the auction recently you should.

It is strange to think that big, faraway objects in the solar system actually look different now than when I was a kid. It's sort of like going to the Upper East Side and being all "hey, remember when this was such-and-such restaurant" but, you know, JUPITER.

We come from the stars: a newly discovered type of supernova explains why we have calcium in our bones.

China's most famous swinger sentenced to three years in jail. It the New York Times, be prepared for annoying tonal quality.

Meanwhile, a teacher who got in trouble for allowing her eighth grade students to use the sexual slang they understood in a lesson regarding HIV has won an initial court ruling on the subject. Absurdly, what she did conforms with state regulations on how to teach the unit and she was dismissed for "use of language that tends to cause fear, physical or mental distress." WHUT?

It seems that me, you, and the whole of the Internet has been super cantankerous over the last few days. Which isn't to say we all shouldn't be or that I'm apologizing. I've just noticed a personal sense, and I think I'm not alone in this, that the uncomfortable issues many of us wind up discussing here have led to more upset and difficulty than in the past. I'm not sure what it is, other than the more unpleasant cousin of Outrage Fatigue. I wish it didn't feel like that.

BP is behaving very badly. There's how they've treated the rig survivors, preventing journalists from doing their damn jobs, and their lies or total incompetence about how much oil is really spilling. Also would someone please ask racist Rand Paul to explain why he thinks Obama criticizing BP, a foreign company, is unAmerican? Wait, please don't. I'm sick of all this "any random bullshit anyone says is true" game.

Metafilter helps save two women from human trafficking. via shadesong.

Bill O'Reilly, trans people, Ewoks, WHUT?????

Deadline for Dragon*Con academic programming is May 30. I should totally submit something, but have no idea what. I should probably take on another piece of the Great Death Project, but I'm enjoying my brief break from it right now. Does anyone have any thoughts on anything they'd like me to have a go at at D*C?

I always feel bad because I don't tend to take on comics in any of my pop-culture work, and the D*C academic track is rightfully wanting comics content. There is a whole comics component to the Death Stuff (in large part thanks to Wendy Pini's awesomeness at Gallifrey, who gave me multiple places to start), so I could totally submit on that, but it's A Lot of Work, that I possibly don't want to be doing this summer before Patty's off traveling a lot.

Last night on Buffy: "Tabula Rasa." I really, really, love Spike/Buffy. And Giles/Anya wasn't so bad either. And hey, this is so where RTD got retcon. Also, Willow, you are a dumbass.

Cardiff question

So as we know Patty will be spending the fall semester in Cardiff. She has a lead on a place in Canton. Anyone with useful info? Is it convenient/safe/interesting/fun/etc?