This Thursday, May 22, is 4M clean-Up Day! 

Anyone able and willing, please come and help out. We have alot of cardboard from Regatta still around, as well as alot of dusting, sweeping and mopping to do! 

And for those that might be interested in going, Indiana Jones is playing  at Lowes SB at 7pm and 10pm.

Hope to see you all there!!

My day in Tweets:

• 23:50 Only upside to No. 5 keeping the half-built Regatta boat in the common room-it's too crowded for him to have his idiot drunkard friends over #
• 23:53 Downside: campus will be only too happy to charge us for its removal if he doesn't do it himself. And he hasn't done the dishes in two w ... #
• 02:08 Opened a Washington Mutual checking account because there's no BoA near Echo Base. Been pretty pleased so far. Any horror stories? #
• 03:07 I feel like my brain is working at its full capacity for the first time in three months. Good thing I have to be in bed in an hour! Sigh. #

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Hey, wow. I just got to see a drunk beat the piss out of a ticket guy on the LIRR train going back home from the city. Looks like no real damage was done, but it sure did tick off the backup ticket guy, who let off a string of expletives when he found the two smokers permacamping between cars over on my end of the car. Lots of cursing during the transfer at Jamaica, too. I think that the guy responsible for all this got off the train in my home town (thankfully, the suspect in question was transferring out).

But I got to see Dina drunk. She flipped from "This is the greatest day EVER!" to "I'm going to die" amazingly quickly, almost comically so. And she almost ran into a passing train. Luckily, her drunk run is slower than my slow walk. But she did get to coo at some subway rats. They went EEP! EEP!

Good to see Emily again. Good to dance. Too tired to detail the fun, but the basic gist is that it was. :)



[Edit: My socks are damp]

May 1st was Blog Against Disablism Day. I do not, as you might have noticed, participate.
But the other day I saw this piece, "'Mad Pride' Fights a Stigma" in the New York Times and a post about it on Feministing.
So I've decided to write a bit about this.

A round-up of all the blog posts concerning BADD can be found here.
The post that most closely resembled my own feelings on the matter was this one at Quench Zine, "Somewhere between pride and prejudice".  maudite  writes: I do not have disability pride.  I realize this makes me something of a political anomaly, especially among the folks who are posting today, but I see nothing positive in the train-wreck that is my neurochemistry, and if the Cure we all like to hypothesize about were found, I'd be first in line to try it. I relate.

I never thought of myself as being disabled because of my mental health problems until I read this. This is a bit odd because in undergrad I went at one point to the campus' disability services center and discussed getting registered with them. I never actually followed through with this, for various reasons, but the point is that I went there. Was it hypocritical of me to go when I didn't think of myself as disabled? I'm not sure.

Writhe Safely posted about the NYT article and linked to a few other blogs that discussed it.
I juggle too many social identities (feminist, existentialist, liberal, punk) to over-identify with any of them, but I can think of nothing I want to define me less than the state of mental illness. And frankly, that’s where the message falls apart, when it’s patterned on the discourse of the civil rights movement.
Setting ourselves apart from a belief that we are the chosen few who are “mentally interesting” feeds a false dichotomy and endorses the fiction that we’re Other when crazy is more likely roiling under the surface of everyone you meet.

I'll probably get back to this later.

#177
There once was a girl named Lenore
And a bird and a bust and a door
And a guy with depression
And a whole lot of questions
And the bird always says "Nevermore."

#182 Famous poems rewritten as limericks: I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still.

#269
A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
She found a good way
To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the seashore.

#315
Your sesquipedalian antic;
confused by it, people grow frantic!
Your words (though capacious)
are somewhat rapacious
and often come off as pedantic.

#89
An architect fellow named Yoric
can, when he's feeling euphoric,
provide for selection
three types of erection:
Corinthian, Ionic, and Doric.

#93
On the chest of a barmaid at Yale
were tattooed the prices of ale,
and on her behind,
for the sake of the blind,
was the same information in Braille.

I was just futzing around with the Forum wiki (adding new officer succession tables and whatnot) and I've come to realise that some of the wiki code we use isn't exactly the same as the code used in Wikipedia (which is kind of a pain).

Does anyone know how to make a page redirect without using this code?: #REDIRECT [[Page Name]]

... as it turns out the # is used in our wiki to make an automatically numbered list, which is handy, but useless to me under the circumstances.

seek_abroad
Meet people from all over the world.

fotojournals
Post your photos for other photographers to see.

food_ish
Share successful, disastrous or otherwise amusing food stories, photos and recipes.

As I was leaving the Forum following this weekend's picnic to go to a ballroom dance, Tall Drew requests that I "serve" Victor, a club member who's been dancing for most of the time I've been living. I didn't expect to have any particular leverage over him, as dancing has been a large part of his social life for so long, but I did find out that I trump him in one particular respect:

I take notes.

After out bolero lesson, Victor came up to me and chatted a bit about how the learning went and such. He said something along the lines of "I don't even remember what was taught last time", to which I responded "Basic, promenade, promenade, separate, turn follow right, go under right arm, slide around back, go under left arm, turn follow twice". His eyebrows raised a bit, and I said, "Notes". So there you go, Drew. Ownage, of a sort.

You see, I have my crappy little cell phone, and it has a crappy little note taking utility. Whenever I'm taught a dance move, I furiously shorthand what I've done, often with words that aren't actually real (there's a move that they call "parallel" which involves the lead doing a crossover and the follow doing a backover -- I've gotten used to calling it a "combover", because it's a "combo" of the two "over"s). But it's also very useful in social situations. Whenever I meet a new person, I try to remember their name and a few notable details.

Then, when I'm out of the way of other people, and they're not looking my way, I jot down some details on the quick.

For example: "Erick cs/math/phil heavy caffeiner, c++"

Heck, even if I get discovered, it's no longer a social faux pas to be seen randomly stabbing at one's cell phone. Anyway, reading over the notes here and there brings up my chances of committing these people to memory by about a million percent.

So, this Monday, as we were all packing our skates away to go home, I got into a random conversation with some lady (a friendly bbw with the stereotypical tendency to make sounds not unlike "mmm-Hm!" -- that'd be Sonya, notable for a small white scar or birthmark just under her neck) in which this note taking tendency of mine came up. "I'll bet," said she, "I know the sort of thing you're writing." I couldn't lie, but I equally well could not let this summary judgement of myself and, in fact, of all malekind go without a challenge. So I countered. I bet that I knew the sort of things she'd write notes about. Men aren't the only ones who keep appraisal of the chests of the opposite sex. "I'm sure you don't hesitate to stare at a man with good pecs".

"Good what?", a friend who'd been snooping in inquired. "Pecs. Yeah", she explained, in a you got me there tone. "And," I vocally suspected, "big arms, too".

She started going off on a tangent on the awesomeness of tight abs. It was at this point that I left, confident that I had collapsed a barrier between the sexes and likely planted a seed which may, eventually, lead to the end of civilization as we know it.

And more people having sex. Hooray! :D

Summer Glau
    Angel-Prima Ballerina, "Waiting in the Wings"
    Firefly-River Tam, recurring

Adam Baldwin
    Angel-Marcus Hamilton, 5 episodes season 5
    Firefly-Jayne Cobb, recurring

Gina Torres
    Angel-Jasmine, 5 episodes season 4
    Firefly-Zoe Washburne, recurring

Nation Fillion
    Buffy-Cabel, 5 episodes season 7
    Firefly-Captain Malcom "Mal" Reynolds, recurring

Carlos Jacott
    Buffy-Ken, "Anne"
    Angel-Richard Straley, "The Bachelor Party"
    Firefly-Lawrence Dobson, "Serenity"

Christina Hendricks
    Angel-Bar Maid, "The Prodigal"
    Firefly-Saffron, "Trash" and "Our Mrs. Reynolds"

Jeff Ricketts
    Buffy-Weatherby, "Who Are You?" and "This Year's Girl"
    Angel-Spider Monster, "Sacrifice" and "Sanctuary"
    Firefly-Blue Glove Man #1, "Ariel and "The Train Job"

Jewel Staite
    Angel-was supposed to play Eve in season 7
    Firefly-Kaywinnit Lee "Kaylee" Frye

Joss Whedon
    Buffy-Newscaster, "I Robot, You Jane"
    Angel-Numfar, "Through the Looking Glass"
    Firefly-Man at Funeral in "The Message", The Interviewer in "R. Tam Sessions" (does this count?)

Franc Ross
    Buffy-Razor, "Bargaining Part I" and "Bargaining Part II"
    Firefly-Monty Reynolds, "Trash"

Jonathan M. Woodward
    Buffy-Holden Webster, "Conversations with Dead People"
    Angel-Knox, 7 episodes season 5
    Firefly-Tracey, "The Message"

Not the Only One: Lesbian and Gay Fiction for Teens edited by Jane Summer

Mixed bag. Included "Honorary Shepards" by Gregory Maguire, which was also in Am I Blue?: Coming Out From the Silence edited by Marion Dane Bauer. The latter is a better young adult collection of queer-themed short stories. I was a bit disappointed that the stories involving queer females didn't seem to be as strong as the ones involving queer males. Made me want to read more Brent Hartinger.


The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk by Greg Pak et. al.

The first Hulk collection I've ever read. The premise seems a little silly at first (Hulk is shot into outer space and enslaved on war-torn planet) but it was really good, better than I expected.

Why is the standard phrase of obedience, "You say jump and I'll say, 'How high?'" If I say jump, do not question me. Jump, bitch.

i keep seeing previews and trailers for "The Strangers" its a movie where apparently a group of "strangers" put on creepy masks and assail a couple in their isolated farm house.
Here is a trailer
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/thestrangers/
Now from watching this trailer one thing keeps running through my mind. wow this movie would be rather short if the couple owned a firearm or two.
like okay creepy people. in my yard. at night. breaking things and wearing masks. and eventually breaking into the house. im pretty sure id have shot them in the yard

(I tried to come up with a clever title, but feh.)

So, my 20th birthday just ended. And I spent the majority of it studying for a physics final. And I'll spend most of tomorrow studying for a Biology final.

God, I can't believe I'm twenty years old. It's almost... surreal. I mean, I still look and act like I'm 16, 17 tops. I wanna get older, I just don't wanna grow up.

I always feel a little awkward on my birthday. I'm not used to getting showered with attention. It's nice, it's sweet; it's just alien. I never know how to respond when someone wishes me all the best. Somehow, "thank you very much," sincere though it may be, doesn't seem like enough.

So I got a sweet flippin' camera out of it, though. I love it. I will (at least for the foreseeable future) carry it around with me all the time and document everything. So if you're camera-shy... sucks.

I made my birthday wish a few hours ago. And it's one I really want to come true.

I'm really looking forward to getting a bunch of people together on Sunday for a barbecue. If my past parties are any indication, it should be fun.

Read and weep, folks: Link to article

I am saddened by this. Next season will have only 13 episodes and then that's it. Ending just barely over 100 episodes (a benchmark for syndication). :( They shouldn't cancel Boston Legal. It's an excellent show!!! And c'mon...where else would you see William Shatner, James Spader, Candice Bergen, and John Laroquette on the same program?! ::pouts::

Tis a sad day in television.

~*::Meow::*~

I don't think I can read non-horror manga.
I recently finished Ohikkoshi by Hiroaki Samura and I can't tell if it was good or not. I'm going to go with not really, though.
I kept thinking, when is someone going to die horribly? Where are the corpses writhing with maggots? This is a Dark Horse title, dammit, I paid to read about depraved and unnatural acts!
katiebignuts says I just haven't read good non-horror manga and has yaoi she wants me to read. I am dubious.

So I'm going back to my Eiji Otsuka, Housui Yamazaki, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, and Osamu Tezuka (NB: Not Astro Boy).

my nerd is nerdier than your nerd
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