|
This is not the greatest spoon in the world
|
May. 9th, 2008 @ 05:26 pm
|
|---|
|
First I want to show you something fugly. I mean, wow! It's so ugly it's almost beautiful.
Next I want to talk about cereal premuims.
( Loot what I got in my cereal. ) |
|
Stuff
|
May. 8th, 2008 @ 08:41 pm
|
|---|
|
So a bunch of people did this 35 questions thing and I don't want to pop over to each and every one of you with my answers because I fear missing someone. Also, I have to admit I've been the worst LJ friend in the world these last two weeks. I've barely glanced at what you guys have written if it was over 5 words long. Don't wanna talk about it, I'm still not back up to speed.
( It's all long and stuff. )What am I listening to?: Keith Jarrett - 'Round Midnight |
|
Star Trekin'
|
May. 8th, 2008 @ 10:52 am
|
|---|
|
I may have mentioned that I watched the third season of Star Trek this week and then having actually finished watching the show bought the movies. I noticed something about Star Trek while watching. Fully half the women in the federation are either doctors or have important jobs. The other half are relegated to the “Lieutenant Upskirt” position, but then NBC had executives and guys in suits can only understand things on so many levels. It was 1968 after all and if they didn’t get to look up girl’s skirts the guys in suits got terribly depressed and threatened to cancel the show, which they did anyway.
My point was though that there are a lot of women who were intelligent on that show. Not only were they smart, but they had short skirts to show of their simply smashing legs. Hot babes with brains! The Avengers was quite popular when Mrs. Peel was around too for some strange reason that I can’t manage to put my finger on at the moment. Something about brains and boots I think.
I also noticed that Star Trek had a boat load of women writers. This even included Sheri Lewis, yes that Sheri Lewis of Lamb Chop fame. As a side note the episode she wrote is where I actually coined “Lieutenant Upskirt” comment while trying to explain to Holly what had happened in the first 40 minutes and why the camera seemed to be aimed directly up her skirt (she was laying down on a sickbay bed). Phrases like “Well, Lieutenant Upskirt here is beset by the naughty photo element of the week” came all too easily. Despite the unfortunate camera angles, it’s actually a pretty good episode.
I don’t have enough TV shows from the sixties to compare, but it seems like there were a lot of women working on Star Trek. Since the rest of entertainment was pretty dominated by men I assume that writing generally was as well. It does make me wonder about how other shows, more modern shows to be precise, compare in terms of their writing staff. Highlander had a few women writing, but it’s really hard to get numbers down because of how credited writing works within a TV show.Feeling:  sleepy What am I listening to?: Firm - Star Trekkin' |
|
Horrifying admission
|
May. 8th, 2008 @ 05:22 am
|
|---|
|
I have something terrible to tell you, my sweet dear internets. It’s so bad, you might have to take me off your friend’s list, delete all the comments I ever made to your LJ, and then come over to my house and cave my skull in. It’s so bad, I have to put this horrifying admission under a cut.
( cut to protect you from teh horror )Feeling:  so ashamed What am I listening to?: Down to the Bone - 3 Days In Manhattan |
|
20 simple rules for writing my mystery.
|
May. 8th, 2008 @ 12:54 am
|
|---|
|
Every once in a while I go back and check on S.S. Van Dine’s 20 rules for writing detective stories, just to see if I can get away with breaking any. At the time he wrote these rules, they were good rules, and as I understand it stemmed from his frustration with many bad stories. Most of the rules are still useful, for the most part anyway. The problem is that some of them have become cliché and trying to hold to them can be damaging for a good story.
Let's see how I feel about them, shall we?
1. The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.
I sort of agree. I like the idea of the detective not really solving the case though. I like the idea of having the solution fall in his lap because he didn't really solve it. As a writer, I’m perverse in that way. I like things that work out while the main character doesn’t really understand why or how they worked out.
2. No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.
I’ll grant this one for the most part. You’ve got to give the reader at least the appearance of a chance.
3. There must be no love interest. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar.
Blah! I like a love story now and then. With some of my favorite mystery books, the use of a love interest as a distraction or a foil elevates the story greatly.
4. The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It's false pretenses.
I’m on the fence about this one. I’ve seen it done well, and I’ve seen it done VERY badly. Probably, on balance, I would say you should stick to this one. The only way you can manage is if none of the main investigators for your story are the culprit. A cop, or fellow detective can do it, but they should be more on the sidelines. Even then, a good portion of the story should really be dedicated to proving it and the unmasking should come early.
5. The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker.
It depends on how real you want to be. In real life, murderers are often caught by accident and happenstance. People do confess at odd times, when they think they’re more trapped than they really are or because they aren’t thinking about what they’re saying. You can do it, but you need skill.
6. The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter; and if the detective does not reach his conclusions through an analysis of those clues, he has no more solved his problem than the schoolboy who gets his answer out of the back of the arithmetic.
I’m going to give this one two thumbs and one big toe up. While I believe in accidents (see above) I also believe that a lot of work still needs to be done after that.
7. There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.
To be honest, murders are cliché. If one looks at Agatha Christie’s work, it’s amazing there are any occupants of country manor homes left for Bertie Wooster to go visit. The constant deaths get boring after a while and just every once in a while I like an investigation over a stolen necklace or something.
8. The problem of the crime must he solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading, spiritualistic se'ances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio.
I am in agreement! Unless you’re going to base the entire story around magic, which brings everyone back to a level playing field and still requires the reader to put information into a cogent collection or something. But then what you’ve got is more a fantasy than a full blow mystery story.
9. There must be but one detective — that is, but one protagonist of deduction — one deus ex machina. To bring the minds of three or four, or sometimes a gang of detectives to bear on a problem, is not only to disperse the interest and break the direct thread of logic, but to take an unfair advantage of the reader. If there is more than one detective the reader doesn't know who his codeductor is. It's like making the reader run a race with a relay team.
I like Nero Wolfe’s team of guys actually. While those stories are told first person by Archie, they still have a team feel and I like that. You should be careful, but you can do it.
10. The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story — that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in whom he takes an interest.
I agree here too. You need time to get to know the culprit, if only a little bit.
11. A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion.
Oh screw this! What is this – 1842? Let the butler do it once in a while! Stop claiming that just because someone works for their money that they aren’t a worth-while person.
12. There must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.
If you’re doing a simple story, maybe. Me? I like things to get a little more complex once in a while. It can lead to a more interesting story.
13. Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is irremediably spoiled by any such wholesale culpability. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.
While I don’t disagree 100%, I do disagree a little. I’ve seen the secret cabal things work a few times, and I’ve seen it fail a few times.
14. The method of murder, and the means of detecting it, must be be rational and scientific. That is to say, pseudo-science and purely imaginative and speculative devices are not to be tolerated in the roman policier. Once an author soars into the realm of fantasy, in the Jules Verne manner, he is outside the bounds of detective fiction, cavorting in the uncharted reaches of adventure.
I see no problem with a Fantasy mystery story, so long as everyone is more or less equally fantastic. See my answer for 8.
15. The truth of the problem must at all times be apparent — provided the reader is shrewd enough to see it. By this I mean that if the reader, after learning the explanation for the crime, should reread the book, he would see that the solution had, in a sense, been staring him in the face-that all the clues really pointed to the culprit — and that, if he had been as clever as the detective, he could have solved the mystery himself without going on to the final chapter. That the clever reader does often thus solve the problem goes without saying.
I’ll go with this one.
16. A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no "atmospheric" preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude.
Oh I don’t know, Raymond Chandler thinks he did quite well with all that flowery talk. Robert B. Parker seems to not be going broke with his descriptive passages.
17. A professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a detective story. Crimes by housebreakers and bandits are the province of the police departments — not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. A really fascinating crime is one committed by a pillar of a church, or a spinster noted for her charities.
Actually, by now it’s fairly interesting and may I say unexpected if the killer ISN’T a church pillar or something. That’s my problem, these rules have become the cliché in many ways.
18. A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.
Oh go on! Just once, for a novelty. No one will EVER see it coming.
19. The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction — in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemütlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.
I see no reason why a person can’t kill for political reasons. Once could argue that the idea of person is different for each person.
20. And (to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the devices which no self-respecting detective story writer will now avail himself of. They have been employed too often, and are familiar to all true lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author's ineptitude and lack of originality. (a) Determining the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the scene of the crime with the brand smoked by a suspect. (b) The bogus spiritualistic se'ance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away. (c) Forged fingerprints. (d) The dummy-figure alibi. (e) The dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is familiar. (f)The final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like the suspected, but innocent, person. (g) The hypodermic syringe and the knockout drops. (h) The commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually broken in. (i) The word association test for guilt. (j) The cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unraveled by the sleuth.
Kind of hedging to make a list of 20 here aren’t we? I’ll grant most of these are cheats, but any of them could be suggested as a bit of business for the hero to work through. The red herring possibilities are great fun.What am I listening to?: Fourplay - Chant |
|
Pixar, the early years.
|
May. 7th, 2008 @ 08:23 pm
|
|---|
|
Cornhole an Ewok's Mullet (Can't wait to see what kind of search results I get for that one)
|
May. 7th, 2008 @ 05:05 am
|
|---|
|
While it’s not entirely true, I do like certain lists of “Oh we ALL did that, quit pretending.”
You might know what I mean, like how people who are in their early to mid 30s like to pretend that they always hated the Ewoks, despite the fact that everyone loved the Ewoks back when they were 6. I mean c’mon, I still love them. Consider how awesome they really are. “Yeah, that’s right Empire. You’ve got a big metal ball of death, we’ve got fighting midgets in teddy bear costumes. Where’s your Force now?” Only now, when they’ve grown up do they want to pretend they never liked them in the first place despite still having that stuffed plush Ewok in a place of honor on their bed.
The first time I ever heard it was when someone was talking shit about bell bottoms in some 80s show and the other character mentioned that everyone wore nothing but bell bottoms only a few years ago and the first character damn well knew it.
Also the mullet. People talk shit about the mullet now, but have you ever checked how many people used to have them? It only became a thing a few years ago, long after the mullet went out of fashion. Lots of people still have them actually, what with 70s hair being “in” again for the last few years it’ll likely come back any minute now. I mean if polo shirts are acceptable (in 2008! For fucks sake what the hell is wrong with us?) then can the mullet be far behind?
I know people who didn’t have a mullet, never wore bell bottoms and hated the Ewoks from the word go. It seems though, that too many people try to pretend that they always were against what looks like dumb fashions now. I can dig that people thought the mullet looked dumb in the 80s, but I have a problem believing it when I can look up old photos and prove that they had one. I also have trouble buying their foresight when I’ve watched them pick up every other stupid fashion that’s come and gone since then.
I always want to invent things, just to see if anyone will call me on how popular they used to be. This of course does lead to the looks I get for saying things like “Oh quit pretending. We were all into cornholing in the 90s, stop acting like you never did it!” but frankly, that’s just part of the fun.
Mostly this whole post was me trying to figure out a good reason to use cornholing, because I agree with George Carlin that it doesn’t get said enough anymore. |
|
It's a plothole as big as all outdoors.
|
May. 6th, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
|
|---|
|
Got Star Trek - The Original Crew Movie Collection cheap. Star Trek: TMP is just too darn slow and into the idea of being a big screen movie for it's own good.
But what I want to say is...
In Star Trek 2, the Wrath of Kahn Chekov recognizes Kahn, and Kahn recognizes Chekov.
Except Space Seed is a Season 1 episode and Chekov wsn't introduced until Season 2!
You know what I think is the cause?
Time to do the time plot again.
EDIT: Also, what the hell is with Chekov pronouncing all his V's as W's? I've heard real Russians speak, they never say wessel if they mean vessel. What the fuck? |
|
Bad writers
|
May. 6th, 2008 @ 06:12 pm
|
|---|
|
Recently, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) enderfem was talking about a conversation where her friend asked "Name the worst author you've read and kept reading."
To which he replied Laurell K Hamilton.
Mine is Jack Higgins, specifically his Sean Dillon novels. Although I have to point out that I haven’t actually read one since Bad Company, which was so bad it soured me. I actually have the two books that come after that, and I should probably read them with the understanding that Bad Company was just a fluke. It was such a bad book though. It takes place (more or less) in 2003… and it’s about an old Nazi… with ties to Saddam Hussein… and I was reading if AFTER Hussein was caught which kind of killed the suspense. It had everything that made a Higgins novel bad with nothing that made it good.
So I'm wondering, who is your worst author that you just keep reading? And if you're feeling expansive, tell me why. |
|
A type of stereo
|
May. 6th, 2008 @ 02:29 pm
|
|---|
|
So I’m reading the f-list right? And I come across this bit written by eurisko97 in which he laments some of the stereotypes that the gay community has to put up with. The constant orgies, the drug use, so on. My impression is that he’s looking more in at the gay community than looking out at the rest of the wide world in his complaint.
While there is drug use and some orginess* among gays, there is drug use and orginess amongst straight people too. I suspect that humans just occasionally use drugs and have group gropes. In fact, I know that humans just have group sex sometimes. It’s a thing we do.
So why all the stereotypes? Well I have an idea that I’ve heard mentioned a few other places and I’m going to tell you about it here. The problem is that straight people hear sex and we stop thinking. We hear “Homosexual” and at the “sex” part of that word the straight brain just sort of shuts down. Now, the only thing a straight person can think of when thinking about a gay person is their sexuality, and thus the only activity they can picture them doing is sexual.
When the only activities someone can picture a person doing are sexual activities, they usually imagine that person must spend all day dedicated to that. It makes a bit of sense, they’ve all got to fill the same 24 hours and if they don’t go shopping or play squash, they must be having sex.
When you’ve already got people who have it in their heads that gay people are either having sex or on their way to have sex, you can see how the rest of it falls into line. In their tiny little minds they must see how people can get worn out rather quickly, so gays must be trying to get fresh recruits for their constant sex all the time. When a person of limited realistic thinking capabilities starts on that line, they sort of allow any hedonistic activities to the list. Drug use, sex bars, musical theater, all the little evils that the straight mind can produce come flowing out.
Now add to this dilemma the fact that the first experience most straight people have with gay people is when they’re all kids and you really have a problem. Since most straight people meet gay folk when they’re young and just learning about this whole sex thing. While many gay people report that they always knew something was different, I’ve talked to enough people who only really thought about sex when they hit puberty to think that a good number of gay folk must have run along the same track. The problem is that a gay person has society telling them to run one way and their feelings telling them to run the other. This regularly means a goodly amount of trying to run the proper way, getting tired, running the other way when no one is looking, and a metaphor that really doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
When you throw in the bisexuals who during those years sometimes aggressively run both ways and normal teenage/young adult experimentation into the mix, you can see how gay people get dismissed so much. Here is a little secret that no one else will tell you. Lots of people went through a “why don’t I touch a member of the same sex to see what it’s like” stage in their sexual development. While some of those people evolve into bisexuals and some of those people turn out to be homosexuals, for a lot of people it turns out to have been a phase they went through. People dismiss sexual deviance (as in a deviance from the heterosexual so-called norm) as a phase because lots and lots of people went through a similar period as a phase. As a result, any slightly straight behavior from a homosexual will be pointed to as signs that they are coming out of their phase, which is rather silly when someone points to an 87 year old queen kissing his sister on the cheek, but they do it anyway.
When a person’s mind already has a few stereotyped images in their head, they will ignore anything that doesn’t fit the stereotype. Often, if they’ve got a really narrow mind, they will ignore things that don’t fit quite actively. Often screaming and shouting at a person and demanding that they do the stereotypical things in secret if they’re not seen doing it in public. They will rant and rave about how they must be doing Activity X because and I quote “They all do it! Look at them! You know they’re up to something!**” even when the person in question is quietly sitting in the corner trying to read a news paper. The need for someone to fit a rigidly defined set of characteristics is so strong for some people that their tiny little minds can’t handle anything outside of those characteristics. The problem is that there is a limited amount of things the people being stereotyped can do to change those perceptions, beyond getting to know as many people as possible so that more straight people will smack the one bigot and tell them not to be an asshole.
Sadly, that’s really how change comes. Not from presenting a better front as a community, but by getting to know people in the other community who will then deal with their own. When the two camps sit across from each other, it doesn’t matter how good they look across the field, because we’re all sure the nice business like demeanor is just a front and all the debauchery is in the back. Yeah, basically we all think society is just a mullet. Business in the front, party at the back, and a pretty nasty party it is too. So I guess I’m looking at a tangled mullet that hasn’t been washed in some time and probably has remnants of the time they tried to dye half their head red that one time still left over.
*Totally a real word, don’t care what spellcheck says. Spellcheck doesn’t even recognize itself as a word so who can trust it?
**Now I come to think of it, the person I’m quoting also said that about Blacks, Jews, Latinos and The Irish.What am I listening to?: Nightnoise - The Cricket's Wicket |
| » Current things not up for discussion. |
|---|
Things we don't talk about...
1. Fight Club
2. Fight Club
3. Canada (see Black Books Series 2 Ep 6)
4. What happened in Vegas.
5. The War
6. How Klingons got those head ridges.
May. 6th, 2008 @ 01:20 am
|
| » Trek Question |
|---|
In Wink of An Eye, why do Kirk and Spock not give the Scalosians the antidote? If the Scalosians are now doomed because the crew is going to warn everyone away from the planet, why not put the Scalosians right with everyone else? It seems odd to leave them to their doomed fate like that.
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 04:32 pm
|
| » feh |
|---|
meh
May. 1st, 2008 @ 08:33 pm
|
| » Disturbing |
|---|
I've been disturbed by some comments I've seen about the Miley Cyrus photo thing.
I've still not seen the actual photo, and I don't really care about that to be honest. It's not the picture itself that's been bugging me. What's been bugging me is the huge number of comments I've seen stating that we shouldn't be surprised at the Cyrus family allowing those shots to be taken because "They're not our kind of people you, donchaknow?"
I've not seen these coments on LJ, because my flist hasn't been talking about it, but whenever I've seen it discussed, the terms "hillbilly" and "trailer trash" get drawn out pretty quickly. The implication being that of course they would allow their daughter to be used like that, because they're low class or from the south, or from bad stock or whatever reasoning is behind it. It's kind of distasteful to see how quickly those sorts of comments came flying out.
Just not cricket gentelmen.
Apr. 30th, 2008 @ 03:00 pm
|
| » And further |
|---|
This article (opinion piece really) states perfectly the problem I had with Batman Begins, i.e. the third act destroyed all the good will the first two acts built up. Although I will say that I had many problems during the first two acts as well. Pretty much once Katie Holmes gets shown the factory in the bowels of Arkham, nothing goes right from that point on. Which was a shame really, because they'd come so close just to screw it up so badly at the end. I think many people forgave Begins huge faults because there were no nipples on the Batsuit.
Also, I agree with the author that I would love to see Batman get away from the mopey Goth routine for a while. He's been doing it off and on for 30 years now* in both comics and movies and it's getting kinda stale.
*There was that horrifying period where he was clearly into LSD and whip-its though. May the days of Joel Shumaker never return.
EDIT: If at some point during The Dark Knight some on asked "What are you?" and bats responds "Are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman!" then all will be forgiven.
Apr. 29th, 2008 @ 10:55 pm
|
| » stuff |
|---|
You may remember I got 10 Kitano Takeshi movies in the mail last week. They were a Korean set, that strangely doesn't include his first movie Violent Cop. It also doesn't have Takeshis' either, but that seems less odd. If the set came out before that movie, then it makes some sense. Actually, it's not totally bizarre, since as far as I know neither of those movies were released in Korea. It still feels wrong since the DVD of Hana-Bi has a big number 6 on it, while the movie clearly states that it's Kitanto Takeshi Vol. 7, meaning his seventh movie.
Not the point though.
The point is that now I've watched about half of them.
3-4 x Jûgatsu (or ３－４Ｘ１０月 or Boiling point… depending on who you ask) is about as bad as advertised. It’s a mess of a film, though you can see moments of brilliance in there. Not totally without merit, but not great by any standard.
A Scene at the Sea was too slow for me when I tried to watch it. I’ll go back to it later. Shouldn't have tried it right after 3-4x10
I’ve seen Sonatine before, so no comment necessary.
Hana-Bi would be like a slap in the face if I didn’t see it coming. Having seen most his other films I kind of knew what I was in for. I think that the talk about this movie is right though, probably his best movie.
I’ve seen Kikujiro, Brother and Zatoichi already. Brother bugged me though because the Korean version is an uncut version, but it has no English subtitles. I think someone decides that since three quarters of the movie is in English they didn’t need the subs. That last quarter though, that’s were a lot of the stuff that got cut is. Grumble.
The quality of these DVDs isn’t quite as good as the Region 1 stuff, but considering how hard it would be to try and find all of them and for a similar price so I'm not complaining.
Apr. 29th, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
|
| » The Politics of Awesome |
|---|
Proper politics
We now present Political messages from parties you’d probably prefer to vote for.
( Cut for length by request )
Apr. 29th, 2008 @ 11:12 am
|
| » OMG! Y so meen? I speshul snowflake! |
|---|
Boy, John McCain is whining like a little bitch! How dare people use his own words against him? How dare they quote him in context? How dare they see his comments that he wants to be in Iraq until the US has a mighty empire that will last 1000 years as anything but god's good work? People keep using the "We're still in Japan after all this time" line, which considering how Japan currently feels about that, isn't an advertisement. Not a great line to try and carry when there is yet another rape case going on, this time involving a child and a US service man.
The main difference is that the bases in Germany and Japan aren’t still fighting the people of the area. Those are places where the civilian government needed to be propped up for a couple of years and then was able to stand on its own. We're still fighting in Iraq though, April was the deadliest month since September of 2007. Iraq isn’t standing on its own, in fact it's barely standing at all. It hasn’t been standing on its own and while we keep our hand in as deeply as we have it might not be able to stand on its own.
And McCain’s criteria for when we’ll leave is just plain confusing. I have to go to a quote by Rick Hertzberg to define how he seems to feel.
"McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal--that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."
All in all, attacking a sovereign nation that never actually attacked us in any way hasn't proved to be the best idea anyone has ever had ever. And it seems that McCain stating he wants to stay there forever and ever isn’t the best political statement, which is why he’s backpedaling so damn hard.
While I might not be ready for a total and complete pull out to be completed by February 1st 2009, I sure as hell am not ready to still be hearing about the fighting going on forever.
McCain! I knew Jean-Luc Picard. Jean-Luc Picard was a friend of mine*, and you sir are no Jean-Luc Picard!
*Actually, I never liked Picard that much. Give me Kirk any day. Or even better, get me John Sheridan.
Apr. 29th, 2008 @ 09:12 am
|
| » A guide to LJ frustration (In 3 easy steps) |
|---|
Step 1: Write thoughtful, soul exposing post about something important to you. Take a lot of time and effort to craft your words to perfectly express your feelings.
Step 2: Post something along the line of "I like kitties"
Step 3: Watch as comments roll in agreeing about kitties while so called important post gets nothing.
Apr. 28th, 2008 @ 09:54 am
|
| » Awesome Griffin of Awesomeness |
|---|
strangelilkitty remembered that I like griffins and made me one out of clay. I loves it, it is cooler than your morning smoothie!
( two pics )
Apr. 28th, 2008 @ 09:36 am
|
| » I has a griffon! |
|---|
You can no has my giffon!
Is mine!
Is awesome griffon.
Explanation later.
With better grammar one hopes.
EDIT: Or is it griffIn? Or griphin? Or Or gryphon? Gryphin? Or Griffith JR?
Apr. 27th, 2008 @ 09:41 pm
|
| » More Mario |
|---|
If you liked spoonyone's Frank Miller's Super Mario Bros. first two episodes (Ep 1 Bowser and Ep 2 Peach)
Then you'll probably like the next two...
Ep 3 Luigi
Ep 4 Toad
Apr. 27th, 2008 @ 09:49 am
|
| » TRUTH! |
|---|
Even if you're such a badass that you can drown an alligator with your bare hands, if you're allergic to peanuts then a Snickers will kill you.
Pass it on man, pass it on!
Apr. 26th, 2008 @ 11:47 am
|
| » Further re-casting |
|---|
I want to re-cast The Importance of Being Earnest, and once again I want an entirely transgender cast.
John ("Jack") Worthing: In love with Gwendolen. Bachelor. Adopted when very young by Thomas Cardew.
felisdemens
Algernon ("Algy") Moncrieff: First cousin of Gwendolen. Bachelor. Nephew of Lady Bracknell.
istealboyswings
Lady (Augusta) Bracknell: The best part in the whole damn play.
Me (because I want the "A handbag?" line all to myself)
Gwendolen Fairfax: daughter of Lady Bracknell.
chirssly
Cecily Cardew: granddaughter of Thomas Cardew and ward of Jack Worthing. Lives at Jack's country house in Hertfordshire.
logan_rennt
Miss Prism: governess to Cecily.
xydexx
Rev Canon Frederick Chasuble, D.D.: a minister who lives near Jack’s country house.
i_am_pondering
Lane: butler to Algernon.
maegwin_of_hern
Merriman: butler to Jack.
loopy2
All I need now is a stage!
Apr. 26th, 2008 @ 05:18 am
|
| » Hillarious and Sad |
|---|
Frank Miller's Super Mario Bros.
Ep 1 Bowser
Ep 2 Peach
Apr. 26th, 2008 @ 03:24 am
|
| » AAAAHHH!!! |
|---|
They have arrived!
Watchin' minimalist Japanese cinema
BRB
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 11:59 am
|
| » Secrets |
|---|
I sort of was going to tell a story today.
That was the plan, but the plan is bunk. The plan is no good because telling the story would require partially airing a secret and I’m fairly good at keeping secrets.
Years of drug induced paranoia* made something of a secretive child. I don’t do a lot of telling people things that I don’t think they need to know. I’ll tell them random, useless and often pointless things, as any reader of this LJ can attest, but anything that I judge as a confidence or secret I tend to keep them to myself. I like hearing about other people though, because I am endlessly fascinated with the myriad of differences that exist amongst the people I know. I’m also a pretty good listener, and that in turn makes people more talkative. This means that I get to hear all about people’s lives and their adventures. If they know me well, they should know for the most part I’m not going to go repeating too much either. That’s either paranoia, or a good heaping helping of empathy for you. I either worry too much about everyone else’s secrets and they harm they might do or I treat them like they were my own.
*Let’s hear it for Ritalin! Yeeaaaa!
It’s more than that though, a lot more. Most the stories I’ve got would possibly embarrass someone who I don’t want to hurt. Sometimes things go bad, and people need someone to be there to help pull them out of the mire. Sometimes the mire is metaphorical, sometimes it’s literal. Even if all you really need is for someone to be there and tell you everything will be alright, or to listen to you pour your heart out, or just to stand there while you do what needs to be done yourself knowing you have some back up if you need it. I’ve shown up for most things, whenever I’m able really. If I think it would be bad to remind you about the situation, I try not to. I certainly don’t tell other people, because they don’t need to know about that shit. So even if a story involves me, it will often involve other people who might not want their information spread around lightly.
Like the story I was thinking about telling today, for example.
Part of being there for people goes beyond being there for them today though and not mentioning their name when you tell their story. If you have a horrific situation that you need help out of, it’s not going to be less horrific tomorrow. It basically means I’ve got to be there for you tomorrow and forever remembering the situation, but not mentioning it to anyone if they don’t need to know about it. It also means not reminding you about it, because while dealing with it has some merit, so does leaving it the hell alone once you have. Considering all those things that I’ve been willing to do, even talking about it in veiled terms, would rake people over the coals again. They’d know what I was talking about, and that would be enough.
I’m often quite good at giving details that sound interesting or would perk up a person’s ears, but omit details to such and extent that there really isn’t any private information left. The thing is, even when you strip a story of identifying marks, the person who the story is about can still recognize it. So, when in doubt, I normally opt to not tell the story. I do still have an occasional pang when I look at something I posted while tired or keyed up and find myself saying “Ooh, that probably didn’t need to get said” when I talk about a specific situation. I always find myself wondering if I said too much, or was I so guarded that I was incoherent? This is the worst of both worlds because it confuses you and leaves just enough that the person I’m talking about gets reminded about it.
As a result, there are a lot of stories you’ll never get to read. And really, how am I going to tell you and believe that it’ll be safe? How can I tell you anything without inadvertently hurting someone by reminding them of worse times? I suppose that I can’t, which is fine I guess because there are already so many situations that I don’t talk about that it wasn’t funny, then became funny, then became not funny again and now has become absolutely hilarious.
I can form the subtleties better in person, and of course those stories aren’t set down in semi permanence on the internet like they are here. If you get to sit down with me in person, and catch me while I’m in a mood, maybe I’ll tell you an interesting story or two sometime while giving you no idea who I’m talking about. Though really, probably not. I usually talk about other things besides personal histories, because blabbing just doesn’t pay.
Considering all the harmless (or mostly harmless) things I don’t tell you about myself, I can’t really see me telling you too much about other people. That’s what makes a secret different than just a fact or story about a person.
So that’s why you don’t get a story today. Still though, it’s not like I’m cheating you out of content or anything. I’ve got another 26 posts lined up where I talk about movies you’ve probably never heard of and drop in references to all sorts of disparate things next to each other because I like the juxtaposition of putting Torquemada next to t.A.T.u. and then throwing in Elisha Cook Jr. for the hell of it.
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 11:47 am
|
| » I ACEPPT THE CHALLANGE!!!! (but you'll wish I didn't) |
|---|
A communica from the one and only popfiend read as thus....
I'm gonna pick a TV show.
Your mission should you decide to accept it is to cast the show with people from your f-list.
The show: Gilligan's Island
The cast:
In the roll of Willy Gilligan: sparkfrost!
Playing the part of Jonas "Skipper" Grumby: prdct!
Doing an interpretive dance to express Thurston Howell, the Third will be: badkittyface!
In an interesting bit of casting we've asked farmishtphoenix to portray Mrs. Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell.
With wuglet as Roy "The Professor" Hinkley
eurisko97 as Ginger "The Movie Star" Grant
And of course popfiend will be playing everyone's sweetheart Mary Ann Summers.
You must admit, if nothing else, my transgender version does make the Ginger or Mary Ann question much more interesting.
Later, we'll have either silveradept or darkpattern as Daisy in my reboot of The Dukes of Hazard.
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 09:38 am
|
| » Rovin |
|---|
I've had the chorus of Maid Of Amsterdam for like two days now.
It's a very short chorus, it goes
I'll go no more a rovin, with you fair maid.
A roving, A roving, since roving's been my ru-i-in,
I'll go no more a roving, with you fair maid.
FOR TWO DAMN DAYS!
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 08:17 am
|
| » Hobbit Moive |
|---|
Evidently, Guillermo Del Toro is going to direct The Hobbit.
I guess we'll see if he's really as good as some people say or if the people who claim he's over rated are right.
I don't know, from what I've seen of his work I haven't been that impressed. However, all I've seen was Blade 2 and part of Hellboy, maybe his fantasy work is better.
I'm not that interested in seeing the book drawn out into 2 movies though.
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 03:32 am
|
|
|
