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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 |
kdotdammit
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12:33p |
Three Coat Red
For the record, when painting walls a rich red, you need to do three coats to get a RICH red. That third coat was crucial. I don't know what I was thinking. You're looking at a 2.5 hour third coat of red. Now it's time to sort of put my house back together, then got out of this toxic place and see if my writing brain is still functioning . . . |
norda
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1:13p |
More sociology.
Reprinting the post linked in the previous post, because I'm told my use of indiscriminant italics is difficult to read with the font I use on my LJ. Some of the information in the post is slightly out-of-date, but it doesn't require retconning.
==========================================
Written in response to someone else's post, but certainly worth repeating, especially to those Gentle Readers who are new and new-ish to my blog.
This is a two-pronged question... what do we do to attract people to read, and what attracts us to the people that we read?
Response to Part One:
I've got three journals, remember, so the answers are going to be different for each. But for now I'll concentrate on the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) norda journal, unless you're really burning with curiosity about the reasoning behind the design for booksbynight and mikescomics.
I've worked on my design for the norda journal, with the help of caligatia, to customize the features I like into a layout design that normally doesn't have them. I like not having to go back to the Profile page to update or to edit, and I like having my tags running down the side so I can remember the ones I use most often.
I also am happy for a design that showcases my sister ziyda's fabulous photography, both in header and background.
Now that I'm starting to get a wider audience reading my personal journal, as spillover from the other two journals, I do start to wonder whether I should be writing FOR that audience. But my audience here, versus the audiences for booksbynight and mikescomics, is so varied... I have people who are of all ages, races, and creeds. Sooner or later, if I write "for" any one segment in my personal journal, I'm going to offend another segment. Therefore I'm just going to keep writing about my days, my business, my hopes, my dreams, my occasional forays into surreality, and hope that's enough to keep people around.
Response to Part Two:
My reading list [I don't call it a Friends-list, because I can't possibly delude myself that, for example, docbrite is my bestest ever pal] is made up of:
1] folks I know offline;
2] folks I know from other Internet communities, like the Prodigy Classic bulletin boards, the Delphi Forums, and offshoot forums on Beehive, like Sanity Assassinations, The VHive, and The Engine;
3] folks I've met or heard about from the science fiction and comics convention circuits;
4] writers, publishers, and artists whose work I want to keep up with;
5] folks I've run into right here on LiveJournal, either in comments or through "friending frenzies". There's often a lot of overlap among the groups.
What attracts me to the people I read depends on what category I end up putting their journals. I don't filter what I write other than Friends and Public, and now that I've discovered Technorati, I realize that Friends-locking isn't terribly safe from determined hackers. Therefore the only writing filter I apply is whether something actually GETS written, or whether it stays locked up in my pretty head.
I *do*, however, apply reading filters, a little trick I picked up from mabfan.
LJ provides automatic ones like "communities only" and "feeds only". I also have alphabetical ones, which seems to stop the problem of others' entries being missed. In addition, I have a filter for writers and publishers, and one for artists, because their entries are ones I don't want to just skim, so I gather them in one place to savor when I have the time to do so. To round it out, I do have one filter for the naughtier and more salacious of my Gentle Readers, to have them all in one place and keep them out of sight of unsuspecting people.
I'm adding fewer and fewer people these days, and have dropped some communities and nearly all my feeds, because my time is so limited. Nowadays, I'll add someone out of courtesy if they've added me first and their LJ interests me, but I don't really seek anyone new out to read unless there's some way I can network with them.
That last sentence makes me sound cold and aloof, which I really don't want to be, and I don't want you people second-guessing yourselves that I only keep you around for what I can get out of you.
Yes, right now my business takes precedence over everything else, because quite frankly my life without a paycheck is on the precarious side.
That does not mean that I'm not reading each and every one of your entries. I am not missing your rants because of being beguiled by others' quizzes.
I may not respond, for reasons ranging from my reticence to discuss politics, religion, and issues online, to sheer lack of time to treat your topics with the respect they deserve.
But I do read you all.
Current Mood:  figuring stuph out here |
warren_ellis
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11:23a |
Apple Files Patent On Evil
Apple has filed for patent on a technology they call an "enforcement routine," that’ll display ads on pretty much any device with a screen and demand that you view them — or else you don’t get your device back:
Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn’t simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad — it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.) |
norda
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12:41p |
Drama comes here to die, 2009 edition.
A repost from 2007, seemingly necessary once again.
=============================
Drama comes here to die.
If any of youse are expecting fodder here to fuel dramas going on elsewhere, youse'll be sorely disappointed.
I'm coated in Teflon, I'm drama-blind, and I have worlds crashing and burning all around me, practically every minute of every everlasting day, that are NOT based on pixels on a screen, but are instead housed in cages of bone with dwindling flesh wrapped around them.
Two of those crashing and burning worlds live with me.
One of those crashing and burning worlds is me.
I don't expect every person on my reading list to love every other person on my reading list.
I *do* expect that you're reading me because you like what I have to say, not because of whom I know or don't know.
As a smart fellah once said, "The audience is open to all who wish to sit down".
'Nuff said.
Capice?
I'll leave you to digest this.
[Edited to add: Silence is not always complicity.]
Current Mood:  discontent |
kdotdammit
|
10:16a |
Final Push
 Here I go again. I’m on the final push of My Almodovar Makeover 2009. When I’m done with this last Red Project, I’m hanging up on My Makeover until January. I put two coats of red paint on this area yesterday. My exhausted body really wanted it to be done, and in a futile gesture of hope, I took off all the tape and said to myself that two coats of paint is enough EVEN THOUGH I KNEW DAMN WELL THAT IT NEEDED A THIRD COAT. So this morning, I got my aching body out of bed and re-taped the walls and ceiling to apply the third coat. Here I go. Punkabella absolutely loves My Almodovar Makeover. She dive bombs the drop cloths, gets tape stuck to her feet, and climbs the ladder at every opportunity. Speaking of the ladder, up I go even though every inch of my body is screaming at me to STOP ALREADY. I'm ready to be done with this project for a couple of months. When I’m done with the paint, I get to sew curtains. And it’s almost time to pull the heads out of the butts of the Automated Reindeer! The fun never stops. Speaking of My Almodovar Makeover, who wants to see a photo spread of what I’ve done so far this year in a single installment? Poll #1485810 My Almodovar Makeover Photo Spread Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9 Do you want to see a full photo spread of My Almodovar Makeover (the 2009 project)? |
crisper
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8:59a |
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joe_szilagyi
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2:24a |
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charliechu
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12:02a |
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act_i_vate
[ man_size ]
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1:19a |
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| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 |
nonsequiturlass
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8:32p |
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norda
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7:33p |
[LJ Idol] Topic 4 - Moments of Devastating Beauty
Subtitled: "It's a mess of moonlight, won't-cha share it with me?"
Mary Cecilia sat in her son-in-law's leather recliner in her daughter's and son-in-law's living room, a room which was seldom actully lived in. Usually the den was the nightly gathering place for her grandchildren, and she had a recliner of her own there which was always called "Nannie's chair".
But tonight was different, because her son-in-law and her daughter were out for the night, and she was babysitter and playmate to the youngest two, with the next oldest acting as her "babysitting assistant". The older children were upstairs, since they could generally be safely left to their own devices.
On nights like this, Mary Cecilia liked to be in the living room, rather than the den, for two reasons. The first reason was because it was easier for her to answer the doorbell or the telephone from the living room than from the den... even the three little steps up and down sometimes bothered her at night. The second reason was the more important of the two; the hi-fi was in the living room.
The 13-year-old babysitting assistant loved this time together too.. her Nannie always brought music with her, both literally and figuratively. On this night, the youngster carefully took the thick record album that Nannie told her to pick out and gently removed the first record from its paper sleeve. She placed it on the turntable and changed the setting as instructed, and then moved the record arm with its needle over to the first groove.
The littlest children, one a five-year-old boy, the other a three-year-old girl, looked up from their tower-building when the first notes of "In The Mood" came spilling from the stereo speakers. The little boy started to grin widely; he got to his feet and began to dance to the music. His little sister clapped as the boy's feet moved faster and faster.
Mary Cecelia put her arm around her assistant, who was now perched on the arm of the recliner. They both knew that this moment was one that would never come again, and they both wished, in their own minds and for their own reasons, that they could literally just abandon themselves to joy the way that a five-year-old could. Cares like arthritis and homework, medical bills and schoolyard cruelty, all faded away under the spell of Glenn Miller and his orchestra.
* * * * * * * * * *
The thirteen-year-old was never able to capture that moment again.
She did, however, have similar moments come to pass over the course of time, and continues to find them here and there.
Especially when she hears those signature notes in fat brass.
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This is an entry for the Season 6 edition of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) therealljidol. Other entries and related topics can be found by clicking on the tag "lj idol". Thanks for reading! |
warren_ellis
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4:00p |
Links for 2009-11-14
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.) |
djmrswhite
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2:16p |
Morning walk garage sale purchase
For the kitchen cassette player...  track listing: glen campbell - gentle on my mind ferlin husky - wings of a dove sonny james - you're the only world i know willie nelson - touch me george jones - the race is on roy clark - the tip of my fingers faron young - hello walls tex ritter - i dreamed of a hillbilly heaven wanda jackson - right or wrong an excellent use of fifty cents |
kdotdammit
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10:04a |
Fuck You Levi's
I have two Movie Memoir pieces that I want to write this weekend:
- A piece in response to A.O. Scott’s article on exposing to children to more “difficult” cinema.
- A piece in response to 2012 (which I saw yesterday and loved for the pure fun of it) and my lifelong love of disaster movies.
But first I have to paint another red wall and two more doors. Then I’m calling it quits on painting until January. So my full KDD Writing will be back soon. In the meanwhile, I have to mention that while I was at the movies I saw this commercial for Levi's jeans: Beautiful and touching isn’t it? In case you didn’t recognize the voice, that voiceover is the actual voice of Walt Whitman singing the praises of America. Too bad this sentimental look at America doesn’t mention that Levi's has closed down all their American production and put thousands of people out of work. How dare they produce such an egregiously self-congratulatory and hypocritical advertisement exploiting the dead poet Walt Whitman and all the American workers the company put on the unemployment rolls. As a native San Franciscan, the original home of Levi's jeans, I grew up wearing nothing but Levis. Levis continued to be my only “jean of choice” throughout my adult life. I was devastated when they went global and closed down American production. And for the record, their jeans got shittier when they closed U.S. production. No longer could you buy a standard pair of 501 jeans (the same ones I’d been wearing for over thirty years). Now they constantly have to have new jeans with new numbers and new styles (all shitty) which produced in places like China. Yet, they want us to believe that they care about Americans. The only thing Levis cares about Americans for is our credit cards, our cash, our participation in the profits, our money which buys their products that are produced by cheap overseas labor. It’s no surprise that so many companies have gone global in their production. It’s one thing to put people out of work and outsource labor. It’s another to produce such egregious lies in advertising your product. Shame on you Levi's. Fuck you and your big lying exploitive ad. |
| Friday, November 13th, 2009 |
ms_octopus_lady
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11:48a |
Yesterday was unexpected. I spent most of it exploring different parts of San Francisco. I live in the Excelsior district. I hate it out here. There's nothing interesting around, and it takes forever to get somewhere cool. ( So sometimes I need to slake my wander lust... )I love San Francisco. It's such a diverse city. And I've never really spent any time connecting all the neighborhoods together. I've always thought each one was it's own sort of island, completely independent and disconnected from the city itself which...doesn't make a lot of sense. I know that San Francisco is "small" for a metropolitan area, but I never realized just HOW small. And yet, it's full of so many different things! Stores, restaurants, architecture, and cultures! I love San Francisco! Up next on my list of explorations: Chinatown, Alamo Square, the Presidio, the Marina and Cow Hollow, lower Haight, Ghirardelli Square, Telegraph Hill, the Golden Gate Bridge -- oh my god, the list goes on and on! |
| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 |
charliechu
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12:03a |
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| Friday, November 13th, 2009 |
joe_szilagyi
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11:45p |
American Sharia law threatens us
Amazing, that it’s been already one year since hatred and improper out-of-state financial carpetbagging by Mormon extremists conned California into rejecting equal civil rights via Proposition 8. The fact that civil rights, or any human rights, are something that can be voted on is a whole other filthy mess that needs to be legally challenged up to our Supreme Court level. At least in Washington state, when the hatred of Referendum 71 was presented–similar to California’s Proposition of hate–our state voters smartly and overwhelming rejected it despite more out-of-state financial carpetbagging by Christian extremists from Oregon and other areas.
The people of Maine were not so fortunate, where it was reported that some Catholic churches conducted secondary collections to help fund anti-gay voting.
Like women’s rights and interracial marriage, delegating the question of equality to the whims of the state level are fundamentally flawed and unethical. Like what happened with abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and the rights of blacks to marry whites in Loving V. Virginia in 1966, I’m thinking this won’t end until someone can challenge it to the Supreme Court. You simply don’t vote on “rights”. The biases of any religion cannot be allowed to affect the lives of all your other citizens who don’t follow that religion, full stop.
It’s gotten so bad now one year later with dangerous religious extremism trying to sway American legal destiny that the Catholic Church announced it would terminate all charity work in our nation’s capital if Washington D.C. legalized gay marriage locally, in revenge.
We’re now getting closer daily to the desires of the far Right for concepts like dominionism and Christian doctrine to be our version of an American Sharia law. Both ideals are patently dangerous, wrong for a secular multi-cultural nation like ours, and frankly evil if imposed on everyone who doesn’t subscribe to those limited precepts. If it happens, our nation is pretty much doomed to become the next Iran.
There were nationwide protests a year ago this weekend, where millions of people opposed the religious hatred and civil rights violations last year in California. These were my photos from the Seattle protests:
Originally published at Joe Szilagyi .com. You can comment here or there. |
daveroguesf
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9:56p |
and good evening
It's Friday the 13th. I've felt slightly woozy all week, like I could get sick if I put a little effort in, and work was a mite difficult. On top of that, someone appears to have sodomized San Francisco's mass transit system, and I got home late. On the plus side, I got a fat paycheck and I'm back among the insured as of Sunday (my COBRA ran out on Halloween, so I applied to continue thru Kaiser directly, which will cost me less than half what the COBRA did). Beyond that, a marvelous/dangerous idea for a play has been shat into my head (no word back from the valued and essential collaborator on it, though), some fine films await this weekend (and I don't mean 2012. Seriously, fuck that movie), and I'm seeing Isaac, a good friend from grade school, for the first time in nine years tomorrow night. In December 2000 I did a performance of GHOST NIGHT, my millennial spoken word/theatre piece, in New York City. In the audience were friends from grade school, high school, college, and beyond, as well as an ex-girlfriend and a future girlfriend. The dinner after was marvelous. The guests included Isaac, then sporting a thickish Russian accent. Wonder how he'll sound tomorrow. Does anyone drive this kind of bicycle  for any other reason than to declare oneself scientifically-minded and lovably eccentric? Current Music: Pop Will Eat Itself, Ich Bin Ein Auslander |
djmrswhite
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8:10p |
I would probably touch you even if you were covered with spiders.
We just got back from Target. We bought: *A folding card table so that when a lot of people come over there's a table just for drinks and cups and ice and it can go on the patio and push folks out of the apartment instead of into the kitchen where there's no room anyway. *A PUR water pitcher because it said it got rid of more water-born poisons and micro-creatures. Said it on the box. The Brita box, on the other hand, said, "This thing gets filters 4 types of shit. No more and no less." All y'all with Britas are gonna die from less-than-adequately filtered water. Time to panic. *light bulbs *large mailing envelopes *Q-Tips *Method counter spray that has the grapefruit odor *little price stickers because the Kim sisters--careful readers of my book, "Exile in Guyville," that you should have already bought by now (fresh new copies are still on Amazon.com and make excellent holiday gifts), will remember the Kim sisters as the people who took us in when the horrible miscreants who lived in this apartment before us refused to vacate when they said they would--are having a garage sale next Saturday and we're throwing a bunch of junk in with it *lining paper for the bathroom cabinets *razors *Boo-Berry *a candle that smells line pine trees or Rudolph or something. moroccomole insisted we get it. *Metamucil Normally we go to Target at the crack of 8 AM on a Saturday morning because there are no cars in the parking lot and no people in the store. You glide down the aisles like it's "Career Opportunities" and avoid the 22-year-olds who already have four kids getting in your way with two carts and trying to manage their brats while talking on a cell phone. (That's not me busting on anyone out there, by the way, that's what my mom did. in fact, she had four sons before she was 21; try THAT without becoming one of those killed-her-whole-family ladies.) So tonight we went right after dinner, when everyone else goes, which was dumb. It was crowded. And what being in a crowded Target on Friday night wants to teach you is how to breathe and slow down, even though that's always the last thing you're thinking when some goon is blocking the whole aisle. You have no choice, though, unless you want to get into a fist fight right there with some gay dad and his adopted toddler. You could take them both in a fight but it wouldn't be nice. After that kind of trip you still need a drink. I just had a big glass of wine because it's good for my arteries. Now I'm trying to resist a bowl of Boo-Berry until morning. |
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jonsung
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3:18p |
THE BAY AREA PASSWORD
http://www.automatedredemption.com/flavorcountry/2009/11/bay-area-password.html I was playing a videogame recently where two characters have to identify each other as friendly forces by each repeating half of a code phrase; I'd remember what this is called, but this cold I've got has put a serious dampener on my ability to think quickly. In any case, it got me thinking about what would happen if the Bay Area were ever invaded, and what we could use to quickly identify ourselves to each other verbally as friendly forces and not invaders. Then it hit me: you could just shout out "I'm at the Pizza Hut." If they don't respond with " I'm at the Taco Bell," you are clear to open fire. I know this would only work for a subset of the local population, but those people are definitely the subset I want to make sure I don't shoot. |
djmrswhite
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3:32p |
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go_fug_yourself
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10:49p |
Fugs and Pieces: Friday, November 13
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/celebuzz/RfKn/~3/kxOoZK7D9-4/fugs_and_pieces_111309.html Happy Friday, guys! Here's hoping your Friday the 13th is refreshingly free of Jason Voorhees and his hockey mask. Without further ado, here's this week's round-up of interesting bits and pieces designed to help you while away the last few hours at the office: -- This week, Sesame Street turned 40. I can't imagine growing up in a world without Oscar the Grouch, my personal hero. Or the Count, obviously. Or Bert and Ernie, duh. I love Bert and Ernie. Well, and Big Bird. Who doesn't love Big Bird? People who are evil. And Grover. I LOVE Grover. And obviously Cookie Monster! And... well, we could be here all week, honestly, if I don't stop this now. (LA Times) -- Speaking of Sesame Street, the National Post created this amazing piece featuring 101 of the show's characters, and their mini-bios. It's awesome. (National Post) --- And of course, if you've never seen this video, in which Bert and Ernie try gangsta rap, you have not fully lived. It's some impressive-ass editing. (YouTube) -- We're not sure we agree with every pick listed in " 15 Literary Characters We'd Sleep With," particularly Holden Caulfield (yawn), Ned Nickerson (neutered), Carlisle Cullen (vampire; reason Edward exists to torment people with his stalkerdouchery), Gilbert Blythe (I know the Anne of Green Gables movies and books by heart, and while I cherish him, I just can't tap that, I'm sorry) -- but it's totally entertaining to discuss it. And think about it. And then discuss it some more. Seriously, NED NICKERSON? He's no better than a Ken doll. (Lemondrop.com) -- SWEET. Turns out chocolate milk is good for you. I TOLD YOU, MOM! (The New York Times) -- Speaking of chocolate milk, Lucky Magazine's gift guide devoted to presents that also benefit worthy causes features chocolate chip cookies. Cookies for charity? We're in. (Lucky Magazine) -- We TOLD YOU Lady Gaga would wear those wacky McQueen hooves -- which she does, in her Bad Romance video. We love being right. Also, this video is batshit crazy. You should probably watch it. (Buzzfeed) -- You might want one of these Man Men t-shirts. (Don't look at those if you haven't seen this season's finale yet. Also, go watch the finale now. Seriously.) (Spread Shirt) -- Unsurprisingly, the blog Chris March is writing about Project Runway for Lifetime is hilarious. (Lifetime) -- WHY IS CARINE ROITFELD PANTSLESS? STOP THE MADNESS. (Refinery 29) -- New York magazine has a great piece on why NBC is such a sinking ship right now. In a particularly good zinger, Mark Harris notes that if Jay Leno didn't kill the network, he's at least participating in an assisted suicide. A juicy read indeed. (NYMag.com) -- I pray to the gods that you have viewed the full promo for James Franco's General Hospital debut, but if you haven't: DO IT. And even if you have, you might need to see it again. I may have clapped with glee when I saw it. (SoapNet)
-- And finally, an oldie but a goodie: What if When Harry Met Sally were...A STALKER HORROR MOVIE? Behold the trailer after the jump:
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_getyourwaron
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9:39p |
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go_fug_yourself
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10:00p |
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go_fug_yourself
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9:29p |
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