kali

via rm: I found this delightful piece of nausea inducing vitriol from the mouth of author, John C. Wright. It's one of the most offensive things I've ever read. More so even than Orson Scott Card, which is saying something.

It's also really charming to see names I recognize from various fandoms (Star Wars being a particular offender) agreeing with this crap. I knew these folk wrote het, but I didn't realize it was from hate as opposed to "I just happen to ship this."

faris_nallaneen: we were eying some of his books the other day in B&N. I think we can safely say avoid, yes?

If you too wish to express dismay with the power of your pocketbook, here's a list of all his works.

Theory: All these DDoS attacks are from, I dunno, Iran? This is revenge for the Social Network Triumph of 2009, i.e. TWEET AGAINST THE REGIME or something.

In conclusion: LET ME BACK ON LJ, YOU HACKING ASSHATS. I am going insane.

So... courtesy of faris_nallaneen, I see that Sarah Palin has resigned??? I can see four possibilities, all of which are bad.

Possibility 1: Lots (okay, two. But still) of top Alaskan health officials resigned recently. Is Alaska about to experience some form of plague that will eventually take over the planet? Is swine flu really polar bear flu? (Plague = bad. ETA: At least it's an island. SON OF ETA: Er...No. I am just terminally stupid. And I know no geography. Hey, I'm from New York! Cut me some slack.)

Possibility 2: Some horrible sex/drugs/embezzlement scandal about to surface, and Palin thinks she will preemptively kill the story by resigning now. (If this works = MIGHT BE REALLY BAD, because we'll never hear what happened! Inquiring minds want to know!)

Possibility 3: THERE IS NO PLAN and her dipshittery just finally escaped all bonds. (If this is true, we'll never find out if it was really 1 or 2 = definitely really bad.)

Possibility 4: This is the beginning of what Fox News seems to think will be an unfettered run at the presidency - in which case, world: watch out. Swine flu may be as nothing compared to this.

Okay, I'm going back to this &*%$%#@ chapter now. Once it is done, perhaps I can come back to TRULY IMPORTANT STUFF like fic writing/reading, these radio plays that everyone is so excited for and NEW TORCHWOOD. Also talking to real live people. I miss you guys! Yay! And a review of the spectacular Coraline: the Musical.

I was really hoping I could retire this icon. Alas.

Best name for a group ever? Or best, best name for a group ever?

A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women is planning a protest against some wingnut right wing group which has been assaulting young women for going to pubs, and is planning on using V-day as an excuse to attack some more in their attempt to compensate for their small dicks effort to be the morals police.

Man, V-day so not my thing, but these ladies seem pretty awesome:

It does not matter that many of us have not thought about Valentine’s Day since we were 13. If ever. This year, let us send the Sri Ram Sena some love. Let us send them some PINK CHADDIS*. Look in your closet or buy them cheap. Dirt-cheap. Make sure they are PINK. Send them off to the Sena.

[...]

What happens after Valentine’s Day?

After Valentine’s Day we should get some of our elected leaders to agree that beating up women is ummm… AGAINST INDIAN CULTURE.

I feel proud!

*chaddis: colloquialism for underwear.

The puritannical, barbaric, and unsophisticated nature of this country and its laws never cease to amaze me.

Arrested? For this? Really? Really?!

So. If you looked up procrastination in the dictionary, you would NOT therein find a picture of me, because I would've thought, eh, tomorrow's soon enough to send it in, no?

*headdesk*

I have vowed to not sleep before finishing this paper. It is on Doctor Who. WHY CAN I NOT CONCENTRATE FOR MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES AT A TIME? WHY???

In the last two days, I have a) not done anything fun, and b) also not done anything productive. I have, however, read the ridiculous lj comms about lifestyle master/slaves, read the NY Times, written some fanfic, read the Guardian, read post secret, refreshed LJ 14 squintillion times, drank a whole lot of red bull.

My life is so glamorous.

Comfort me with apples. Or you know, encouragement.

I beg of you.

...Maybe I should take a bath.

I forgot to mention that while in DC, we had a little adventure, which I thought I ought to document for y'all.

We were walking down the hill from Adams-Morgan (where my cousin lived before leaving for London to take on his new job at The Economist) to Dupont Circle.

The dramatis personae: me, my cousin, and hofnarr, who for those of you who don't know - is tall, has got light brown hair, green eyes, and if he'd lived in Germany at the appropriate time, could've been a poster boy for Aryan pride (He grew a moustache once, and I called him "Franz" until he shaved it off. I am not always the nicest person in the world, but that's another story entirely.) My cousin, like myself, might also be described as Aryan, I suppose - but of a different stripe entirely, since we're Indian. Short, dark-skinned, etc. etc.

On our way, we happened to pass by the First Church of Scientology.

Visitors Welcome, proclaimed the sign outside. We eyed each other curiously, and then decided this was an opportunity that should not be passed over lightly.

We went in. Pictures of Hubbard's house everywhere. Past the foyer, I could see something with curved computer banks; it looked utterly futuristic, all white and blue, and blinking.

There was a girl at the reception desk; she said, "Hello," and her voice cracked nervously. We said we were tourists, and had heard a lot about this place, and thought we'd stop by.

She said we could have a tour; she pressed a button under her desk, and asked for a guide to report to the desk. We heard voices upstairs, but no one arrived. She kept jabbing at the button like it was a panic button or something.

We waited. Then finally, a gentleman appeared. He did not address me, or my cousin directly. He did however shake hofnarr's hand, and pressed upon him a business card. He did not give us the tour, but gently indicated that we might prefer to leave - and perhaps visit the Hubbard Museum instead.

If we had wanted to drink the koolaid, we couldn't have. Except for hofnarr.

These are the facts. Conclusions? I leave that for you.

First, let me say, in the spirit of counting one's blessings before getting on to cataloguing the curses: I really do like my apartment. It's got a study for me (although I never use it, really - somewhere along the way, I've turned into a work-on-the-couch kinda girl, but my beautiful, jam packed bookshelves are there), and it's got a balcony where D. smokes his cigarettes and stares off into the distance - great for summer storm watching, and also to hang up the party twinkly lights, and I, magnetgirl + boyfriend and faris_nallaneen all painted the walls a gorgeous pale green and dark brown and a sort of goldy-cream & we hung fawn/silver striped curtains. It's a very nice flat, especially for NYC.

BUT THE NEIGHBORS. Oh my god.

Not all of them, I hasten to add. Not the lovely Greek family who lives on the left. They are awesome, and also, the lady of the house is the VP of the co-op board, and her very charming, old, grandfatherly husband is so great; always waits till I get my door unlocked in the hallway, as if wanting to be there to help me if I need it - not sure what he could do in an emergency, since he looks to have the approximate tensile strength of a dry, thin twig, but it's very thoughtful and sweet. There's also a young sorta Rastafarian couple down the hall, who seem cool but keep themselves to themselves. The Asian family down the hall, also perfectly respectable.

BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER - everyone else. Let me see.

First: Stalker Dave, who used to make a habit of ringing our buzzer @ 3am, asking to be let in. Now I am often up at that hour, but really. Also, kept leaving me excessively odd notes, and the odd plant, and coming out into the hallway whenever I opened my door, making small talk while I waited for the elevator, and then going back into his apartment. Maybe if you had a Southern accent, buddy, I could've bought that, but you don't. Told me I "saved his life" because he "was making pasta when [he] shouldn't have been" and had to take the pot outside, and forgot his keys. ???? At 4 am. Yeah. It was weird. D.'s still pretty adamant on getting a baseball bat (since I put my foot down on the gun issue).

Second. Dude down the hall is convinced that the phantom smell of cigarette smoke that lingers in the hallway is us, smoking in our apartment that, for the record, we own, and keeps putting "Quit smoking" propaganda under our door, so that sometimes we can't actually get the door open because of the wedge. Also hanging up HUGE posterboard signs in the hallway, with our apartment # on them, with gigantic notes requesting us to quit smoking. Today I came home to this gem:

Apt. # [redacted],
Please stop smoking inside the apt. It can be smelt from the 2nd floor stairwell + and is most strong in front of your apt,.. If Apt. [redacted] can quit smoking, you can too. It is best for all concerned, including most of all, you. OR request door jamb smoke excluders from the mgmt.

NATURALLY no signature, because if you're going to do something like that, why not be a fucking anonymous coward about it, eh? I've complained to the mgmt about this guy, and they were very nice, and say that he's done this to other folk, and I actually thought he'd *ahem* quit doing it after the last time, but apparently not. I don't know what the hell they can do to stop it, but it is incredibly infuriating, ESPECIALLY since, as you may recall, D. (who is the smoker, I have maybe 4 cigarettes a year) always smokes either on the balcony (as aforesaid) or sometimes in inclement weather, by a window with the fan blowing out. Not that it matters, because not even if we stood in our foyer and blew smoke out the door crack into the hallway on purpose, would this guy have a leg to stand on. Also, remember the nice Greek family I mentioned before? The nice grandfatherly gentleman had a heart bypass just before we moved here, and according to his wife [the co-op VP], no longer smokes. We learned this when she was very kindly expressing her sympathies for the harassment. Of course, it came as something of a surprise to us to hear this, because we see him in the stairwell in front of our apartment all the time, smoking on the sly. Now of course we're not going to blow up this nice old man's spot; it's his heart, after all, and he can do what he likes. BUT IT IS SO AGGRAVATING. Just the sight of one of these notes now has the effect of sending me into a fucking tizzy of pissed offness.

ARGH.

So Julia Child was a spy? For a minute, I actually thought it must be April 1st.

The department apparently takes this all Very Seriously. They have called, are reporting the incident, are concerned about suicide, etc. etc.

They have also discovered that said student's contact number is in fact, her boyfriend's (the alleged kidnapper).

Student is still MIA and has not responded.

Possibility 1: I am a cynical, horrible excuse for a compassionate human being, and this person is actually in phenomenal amounts of trouble and/or dead.

Possibility 2: I am a cynical, horrible excuse for a compassionate human being, and this person has seriously unleashed a can of worms upon themselves that I don't think they were intending to.

I feel kind of bad over the whole thing.