Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Morning!

Or at least make sure that people go over to vote for their favorites at:
http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/267176.html

*thinks about it*

Nah. Tear this morning down.

***

What do you want to him to tear down today?

http://www.cartoonlabs.com/comics/index.php?date=2009-11-09&show=sinfest

Sinfest
Tatsuya Ishida

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1531

What is happening indeed!

I will be at the Topatoco Open House and Awkward Stare-Fest this weekend! You should come say hi! It will be a PARTY.

See you tomorrow.

I'm sorry USA, but Berlin claimed it first! ;-)

Today it has been exactly 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. I wish I could be in Berlin today! A temporary wall has been build all along the original wall path out of domino bricks, and it's going tumbling down today. The symbolism of that is strong enough to taste, and it would be amazing to see it.

New cartoon -

Haven't felt very posty the last few days, sorry. :)

Knight and I went to see Law Abiding Citizen on Friday. It was pretty good - not quite what I was expecting, but definitely worth seeing. I like that Colm Meaney is in it, since I've always had a bit of a soft spot for him!

Saturday we went up to a friend's house for a post-Halloween costume party. Well, most of us weren't in costume, but the kids were, as were a few adults. I wore my imp horns as an accent piece to an all black outfit; Knight wore his Roswell t-shirt, and we brought a pre-sliced loaf of bread that we'd toasted in our Cylon toaster, along with some flavored spreads as topping. It was a big hit, but considering that it was a mostly-Geek crowd that wasn't really a surprise, LOL.

I've gotten behind in reading therealljidol entries; I've only voted in two of the six tribes so far. Guess I should get cracking on that tomorrow, huh?

Knight and I went out for supper to a local Mexican restaurant with minikin and Flar, and had much yummy food. Afterwards, we came back to our house and watched New in Town on DVD. I think I've seen the movie at least four times now, but minikin and Flar hadn't seen it before, and it is fun every time!

Not much else going on right now; heading off to bed. G'night!

I meant to post this yesterday, on Carl Sagan Day, the 75th anniversary of his birth. But lots of stuff happened yesterday, and so I am posting it tonight. It makes me feel just a little better:

My husband may suck at trolling, but my son is making me wonder if it's in the genes.

We were at the grocery store and saw a man wearing one of those surgical masks. It's the first time Bug has seen one. Without any prodding or anything, he leaned closer to the man and started faking a coughing fit.

I, being the bad person that I am, took Bug's little hand and pulled him down another aisle while trying not to laugh. He was grinning at me the whole time.

http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/13372

RaceFail comes to horror as someone (a troll himself, most often) noted that a black person told him that horror seemed like a "white genre."

Some tidbits, as stuff there gets locked/deleted fairly often:

The Horror Drunx are female friendly because all HORROR DRUNX are created equal. I guess what I am trying to say is, things are changing for the better in horror nowadys compared to like ten years ago.


...

I say down with that anime genre too. It's just such an Asian game, an Asian genre.

Also, if that person exists and that conversation really took place, I think you should be ashamed regardless of posing such an ignorant question designed to once again get an argument going here (what was one of your last posts? Oh that's right pedophilia).

...


You claim to love this genre so much, why didn't you defend it when/if he said that? You posted here asking that question as if you yourself were unsure about it, so can you at least tell me if you think one country and one group should qualify to deem the entire genre racist were that true? Did YOU even think it over and how ignorant that statement is and to call him out on it?

That's like saying there aren't a lot of black chefs in Italian restaurants, then Italian food must be gay.

...

Know what's unrealistic about black people in horror?

Them being in horror.

They have the common sense to get the fuck out of there when shit gets weird.

True story: Our barracks was haunted. Badly haunted. One night, during the Christmas season, the shit started again. The noises, the fog in the hallways, condensation on the walls, lights buzzing and flickering, weird noses coming from the ventilation, shit like that.

...

Out of curiousity, what is the racial-equality genre?

...

To be honest, I think your friend is a racist.

I can't see an editor picking up a manuscript and by reading it say this was written by a non white author. As to stories, personally I have had as protagonists; African Bushmen, Wakamba bowmen, Masai, and a New York Zombie master - just to name a few. I think it is not a difficult thing to find other races in our fiction.

It does get a bit tiring to here people are still getting so nitpicky on the subject of our differences.

...

Well, first off, I don't think 10% of the population is gay. I'm gay, so I do have a horse in the race, so to speak. If you ask people to self-identify their sexual orientation, about 2% say they are homosexual. Of course, that is a bit underrepresented, so let's go with 5%. Now, I don't know the sexual orientation of most horror writers, but I do know the following are gay men:

...

With that in mind, I say the following: I find it very hard to believe that a white publisher would read a story from either A) a black writer or B) a story/novel featuring a predominately black cast of characters, and say to themselves, "This shit will never sell. PASS."

...

[BONUS LOL from the guy who wrote about Bushman and zombie masters!]:

Y'know I am reading all this and the question comes to mind, "Do we have to have equal statistics on Everything?" Think about it. There are cultural differences that may or may not affect the partisipation of a group in a particular activity. Because they don't, doesn't mean the activity is Racist; or that we should strive to artificially balance things.

Last night I attended a Belly Dancing event. Surprise! there were no male dancers. More than half the audience was female. Should we invite a troop of cross-dressers to every event to even things up?

PC can hit the point of ridiculous.

...


Regarding some of what Wrath was saying, I've had some publishers who don't want to publish my stuff with gay main characters because they feel it limits their ability to sell to audiences that are uncomfortable with this. I don't consider this homophobic, it is just business.

...

Does it really matter if characters are black white or whatever? You can't *see* them anyway, so they can be whatever friggin' color you want; just adjust the knobs in your head.


...

Go here. And tell me you're not glad that's a limited edition. I know I am.

1

At the other half of this blog I posted how the internet killed storytelling. except if maybe it didn't and I was reflecting again on how optimistic I am about all this stuff.

I think the Internet is awesome. I love the Internet.

And that it's forcing publishing to reinvent itself is a good thing.

Am I nuts?

2

And on a completely different note, I saw someone who looks exactly like Johnny Depp* (I am a fan, but then again, who isn't? what's not to love?) walking down Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica last night. The Promenade is an area of street closed off to cars and turned into a kind of outdoor strolling mall: at night it's also a place for street performers and musicians, and the stores stay open late. It's lively and fun.

I was there at the Apple Store buying my new iPhone (I gave up on my buggy Blackberry, plus I want the book apps) and a scarf (you can never have too many scarves) because it was freaking cold. As I walked back toward my car I passed this guy who initially caught my eye because of his brown hair and eyes (I'm a sucker for that kind of coloring) and exquisite bone structure (I'm a sucker for that too).

Then face-recognition kicked in and I literally stopped in my tracks and turned to watch the guy sauntering away in the opposite direction. The height was right, the build was right (slender but fit in the way that comes with a personal trainer -- the kind of body you only see on men over 30 who are actors or gay or personal trainers). He was wearing some kind of newsboy cap and had his hands in his pockets and was attracting no notice whatsoever despite the confident, jaunty walk. Somehow this also seemed very Depp-esque.


*I've sighted Matt Damon, whom I recognized, and Colin Farrill, whom I did not ("He's not cute enough to be Colin Farrill"), both of which were confirmed in the next few days by photographs in magazines (Damon was in the exact same outfit and red baseball cap I saw him in as he loitered by a newsstand and talked on his cell phone, and Farrill was long-haired and kind of soft and pudgy). And I also saw Fifty Cent, whom I did not recognize at the time but did note the massive quantity of women throwing themselves at him -- he was literally shoving them off his lap and looking tired and irritated -- and then recognized his picture in an issue of Rolling Stone the next day.

http://salmongutter.blogspot.com/2009/11/57-books-from-university-book-sale.html

A Mess of March ... I'm moving all the NGAIO MARSH titles to the front of the queue (literally, Roger Daltrey sang the word "queue" as I typed it just now ... freaky coincidence) because one of my readers seems to have a thing for her :)

Book 8: Singing in the Shrouds (Berkley, 1960)
Cover artist: photo?

• A book that takes on the collapsing telecommunications system, apparently
• Her miniskirt has its own miniarm.

• Finally, someone has tamed the wild, native, animalistic mystery novel and made it "civilized literature." Where's my houseboy with the tea!?

Book 9: Death of a Peer (Pocket 475, 1947)
Cover artist: Aargh, uncredited

• This lady's got Fear Hand (TM). In fact, she appears to have a double case of it.
• Ouch. Skeleton key to the eye. That's gotta hurt.

• Well if it's WEALTHY, of course we care...

Book 10: Death of a Fool (Avon T-254, late '50s)
Cover artist: Uncredited

• Fear Hand! (TM)
• Jenny recoils in horror as she sees that her gardener has failed to blow all the leaves off her front lawn. And squirrels on her bird-feeders!? Oh, the humanity.

• Inspector Alleyn arrives to cut through the heathen nonsense of the simple souls. Civilization! God save the Queen, wot!

Book 11: Swing, Brother, Swing (Pocket 762, 1951)
Cover artist: Lew Keller

• "Swing, Brother, Swing ... for Hepcats only, man!"
• Secret ingredient to all good mystery cover copy — just add "... with DEATH!"

• I'm sorry, I started laughing at "accordion" and haven't stopped yet

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

I need someone to calmly and rationally explain to me WTF is happening here, because I think my brain just broke.

The last few days have been spent sitting in a hospital room and talking to doctors. Mom seems to recognize I'm here but I don't know if she understands anything beyond that. The family, with the advice of the doctors, has decided to move Mom to pallative care once my Aunt Beth gets here from San Diego. This means that on Weds. She'll be removed from the ventilator. After that, it could be a few hours or a few days..but in all liklihood it won't be very long.