[15 Jul 2009|10:10am] fb [ mood | cynical ] [ music | The Overcasters: Hey Hope ] Well, that was me waking up an hour and a half after I'm actually supposed to be at work. On reflection, I'm actually a little surprised it took this many months of the morning shift for it to happen. post comment

[14 Jul 2009|09:47am] fb [ mood | cynical ] [ music | Low: Time Is the Diamond ] QotD: "I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, 'Senator Sessions, I think it’s ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he’s a huge racist.'" -Yglesias post comment

By the way [14 Jul 2009|12:36am] aris_tgd I'm home safe in Portland! 4 comments|post comment

Notes towards fanzine publishing. [13 Jul 2009|03:32pm] katster I think I’ve found a way to get this printed at something resembling reasonable, but yeah, postage costs are going to kill me in more ways than one. Ah well, this is why I made this a quarterly production. Anyway, the deadline for R&P 1 is this Friday, July 17th. I want to do pastework this weekend so I can get the printing achieved before Worldcon. This way, the fanzine lounge can have some of my contributions. The theme is ‘Beginnings’, but to be honest, the theme is really more for my edification than anything else. (That is, don’t let it straightjacket you.) The deadline for R&P 2 is tentatively set for October 9th, because I’d like to have the issue out before NaNoWriMo starts in earnest. Tentative theme is ‘Heroes’. I know that’s a bit ambiguous, but I don’t want to color the reading. That said, I’ve never seen the television show. ;) That theme could change between now and then, but I remind you that the theme is for my edification, and I’m not going to stick too closely to it. And of course, although R&P 3 is out on the horizon, I’m looking at early January for the deadline (probably January 9th), with a very tentative theme of ‘Dreams’. Anyway, yeah. If any of my dear readers is up for contributing, I would love anything you have, particularly if you’ve got some talent in the art department. For those of you tuning in late, R&P is Rhyme & Paradox, and it will be yet another fanzine from yet another science fiction fan. It’ll be hybrid, which means a pdf will go up on the wonderful efanzines site, and paper copies will be mailed to those who prefer paper. The first issue will be the August 2009 issue, and it will be produced ~quarterly, with August/November/February/May issues. (Of course, as the faned, I reserve the right to change the production schedule at my whim.) So yeah, that’s about it. I just wanted to write a few things down where I can see it. Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there. 1 comment|post comment

My commute this morning [13 Jul 2009|11:21am] katster Next time the sign at the I-80/Cap City exchange reads something like: ACCIDENT AT TRUXEL ROAD USE ALTERNATE ROUTES I will heed the warning and not go “Well, how bad could it be?” Well, crawling three miles in forty-five minutes is about how bad it could be. California Highway Patrol officials said the truck was carrying loads of dirt that ended up all over the freeway. All westbound lanes were closed for about an hour with two of the three lanes re-opening at 9:40 a.m. (News10 story) It was sometime very shortly after that when I cleared the jam. So yes, next time I am warned to pursue alternate routes, I will listen. Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there. 1 comment|post comment

On traveling [12 Jul 2009|02:39am] aris_tgd I believe that I can fit all of my possessions into my luggage with only minimal folding of spacetime. We'll check this hypothesis tomorrow morning. Crud, it is tomorrow morning. See ya from PDX, y'all. 2 comments|post comment

papernet is expensive! [08 Jul 2009|06:40pm] katster Yeesh, my new hobby is shaping up to be somewhat expensive. I wandered around Office Depot trying to get a bead on pricing, and yeesh. Mailing labels are about $10 for 250, manilla envelopes are about $10 for a hundred, and that’s not even counting the costs of printing and postage. I begin to see why johnnyeponymous does all his fanac electronically. ;) Anyway, I’m going to see if I can figure out cheaper ways of achieving the same goal. But for the moment, I may have to hold on my August deadline because I really don’t have the money to absorb startup costs at the moment. *** In semi-related news, my Westercon vote must have made it to Tempe for the Westercon as I appear to have an attending membership for the 2011 Westercon in San Jose. Woohoo. I haven’t seen the check clear yet, but I’m going to assume that will happen Any Day Now. And I mailed off my Worldcon and NASFiC ballots yesterday, so… It’s been a good few days. Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there. 1 comment|post comment

[08 Jul 2009|04:08pm] fb [ mood | cynical ] [ music | Hazel: Ringing In My Ears ] "The wind dry-shaved the cracked earth like a dull razor—the double edge kind from the plastic bag that you shouldn’t use more than twice, but you do; but Trevor Earp had to face it as he started the second morning of his hopeless search for Drover, the Irish Wolfhound he had found as a pup near death from a fight with a prairie dog and nursed back to health, stolen by a traveling circus so that the monkey would have something to ride." ...yes, kids, it's that time of year again. %) post comment

Things to do today [07 Jul 2009|12:16pm] katster I’ve put together my ballots for both the 2011 Worldcon and 2010 NASFiC, and am heading off to mail them, along with my mother’s job application. I also have to go to the library and straighten out a technological problem — the new self-checkout machines are awesome, but if they don’t record that I’ve paid my fines despite taking the money out of my bank account, then we have a big problem. Okay, well, it’s relatively minor amounts of money compared to some of the library fines I’ve racked up, but it’s still money. (I also have to go switch books around, but that’s less of a problem.) Then it’s over to the grocery store to get the ingredients for chicken soup. Yeah, it’s the middle of summer, but the temps are only in the eighties today, so it’s a good day for soup. Besides, for an improvised recipe, I make pretty darn good chicken soup. I also want to get some writing done, pay a few bills, clear a couple boxes out of my room (or at least make them more organized), do laundry, get my old car up on craigslist, and deal with some email backlog. So yeah, that’s my day. What are you all up to, my friends? Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there. post comment

Okay, have to make a note here. [06 Jul 2009|03:49pm] aris_tgd I'm interrupting my vacation to make a note that Pam Spaulding of the blog Pam's House Blend just maliciously outed a blogger, kynn (see her post on these events) and-- And I don't even know what to say about that, because seriously. Pam ought to know better. She ought to know that when you talk about outing, you're not talking about hurting someone's feelings, you're not talking about making someone feel threatened (like cisgendered people feel when transgendered people call them cisgendered, apparently), you are talking about ACTUAL DAMAGE--damage like loss of jobs, assault and battery, and possibly rape. As an advocate for women and queer people, Pam has just failed. As someone who talks about the invisibility of the intersectionality between queerness and color, Pam is a fucking hypocrite. So I guess I do know what to say about that. Fuck you, Pam's House Blend. Fuck you. ETA: Okay, I guess I have something else to say--a bit of history, if you will. kynn has been detailing what went down on her own blog, but in brief: Pam's House Blend got a comment from a gay man complaining about the word "cisgender" and the prefix "cis", which means "not trans"--or "your gender identity matches your physical presentation." The PHB blogger decided he was totally right, and that "cis" was a word that was no longer acceptable on the Blend. This is stupid, wrong, and makes trans people unwelcome--because if you're only pointing out that people are trans, you're setting up an implicit deviation in the language. If trans is trans and non-trans is unlabeled, normal--well, it's like having "gay" without "straight", or "female" without "male." There's, y'know, Real People, and then Those Other People Who We Have To Label. So several trans members of the PHB community attempted to point this out, and were silenced and banned. And kynn was banned, and was being vilified when she wasn't allowed to respond to accusations--so she created a new account to respond, and was not only banned, but her personal information published in a huge sticky top-level post on the Blend--which is an invitation for harassment. And the thing is, I read Pandagon--well, it's one of the few blogs that I can get to at work. And Amanda Marcotte has problems, and you can see it--she's had huge problems with RaceFail in the past, and she still doesn't seem to GET class. And I was happy that Pam was posting over there, because she focused on other things, like LGBT issues and intersectionality-- Except. Yeah. Fail. So yeah, I'm mad, and I'm disappointed. As a feminist, as someone who has read Pam's writing. And while it's "internet drama", this is yet another large LGB community deciding that T folks don't matter, that they don't belong. That they don't belong enough that they're going to blithely publish and promote personal information which could, possibly, be damaging. And there IS a difference between the information being out there so that people can find it and the information being front-paged on a blog with huge traffic numbers. Fail, PHB. Lots and lots of fail. 18 comments|post comment

New from SyFy: Warehouse 13 [06 Jul 2009|12:57pm] mrfnord [ music | Flogging Molly - Black Friday Rule (Live) ] http://www.scifi.com/warehouse13/ Premise: After saving the life of the President, two Secret Service agents find themselves abruptly transferred to Warehouse 13 --a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota that houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The Warehouse’s caretaker Artie (Saul Rubinek) charges Pete (EddieMcClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to cache at the Warehouse, as well as helping him to control the warehouse itself. My thoughts, in rough order: 1) This looks vaguely interesting, I might be compelled to check it out. 2) I wonder if Steve Jackson & Co. have heard about this yet, and how pissed they are? 3) Neat, one of my fictional personas is screaming at me. 3 comments|post comment

Everything old is new again [04 Jul 2009|09:37pm] mrfnord [ mood | content ] [ music | 65daysofstatic - 23kid ] It's that time of the decade, which means that Discordian Sky has had another makeover. Goodies include a cleaner layout (or at least I think so), some new artwork in the Art section including a raft of 2d stuff, since that's been my focus for a good while, and couple old/new projects in Discordian Sky Press. Things that need to change: At some point I need to figure out a way to reduce the footprint on MalWiki and (especially) FenWiki. Setting up a small wikifarm *might* be the answer, but I can't tell 'cause all the documentation on wikifarming goes right over my poor english-major head. :P Research continues, though. Oh, of some small note, I got paid for a web dev project! It was small and (too) cheap, but what the hell, money's money, yeah? Here's the site if you want to feast on the glory of my cheapass CSS skillz. 2 comments|post comment

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