Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

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Sunday, May 20th, 2012
supergee	2:08p	And they dress cool, too. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
neadods	10:24a	Elementary again: The backlash against the backlash The backlash against the backlash against Elementary is beginning all over my flist, and I'm so incredibly conflicted. This post, before massive editing, was a long personal defense about "Look, I *know* there've been a lot of adaptations of Holmes, I like a lot of them, I need to defend myself against the accusation that I'm so canon-bound I can't lighten up." And because I've flipped from defending Elementary to freaking out about it, I have opened myself up to that accusation. I'm going to cut the long list of "but I've seen and read all these departures from canon" and get right to the meat of this post: Yeah, I'm suddenly hinky over Elementary for reasons I don't need to repeat. But what I think about it doesn't actually matter. What matters, what is The Most Important, are these facts: 1) It exists, and therefore is now part of the overall Holmesverse. 2) Some people are going to love it (I've already seen fic hitting). 3) This has no bearing on the existence of the rest of the Holmesverse, which stands or falls on its own merit. Nobody gets BSI brownie points for taking any position, pro or con, over Elementary. It would be incredibly cruel and pointless to be rude to anyone who shows up in a list on at a scion group because they came there via Elementary. And that if I don't like the show, I've still got the books, the other shows, the radio plays, the canon, the BSI and ASH journals, and yes, my primary fandom Sherlock. I think that the battle lines aren't actually being drawn as "if you're against Elementary, you can't handle pastiche." And my reaction is "Seriously? Because nobody gives me grief for being pissed off that Laurie R. King married off Holmes." But if the battle lines are being drawn as "If you're for Sherlock, you must be against Elementary" that's just plain BULLSHIT! FFS, CBS has gone out of their way to make sure that there is no conflict of modernized canon between Elementary and Sherlock -- arguably *further* than I personally wanted them to go. Maybe Elementary will exceed my expectations. Maybe people will snicker about it like they do "the one with the dinosaur." But y'know? The one with the dinosaur might have been conceived to ride the Ritchie coattails, but it didn't affect the Ritchie movies one bit, did it? Elementary's the same. It will stand or fall on its own merits, and it will be liked or disliked in the end for its own merits. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
supergee	5:33a	Nebulas Among Others won!!! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
tablesaw	2:20a	Not a Straight Line I mentioned Quora in my last post. It's a weird site, and I'm going to post about my experiences with it. It's not a site that I would have really gone to on my own, but a friend has been raving about it, so I've been trying it out. It has a "real names" policy (not clearly defined, but presumably on par with Google Plus, from which I am still banned). However they do allow one to make certain actions anonymously, so I am making anonymous actions, to which I sign my name Tablesaw. All this to say that if you are on, or go to Quora, you won't find me as a user (and please don't look for my "real name" profile, if you happen to know my government-ID name). Anyway. My friend Kat posted this in response to the question, "What are the most civilized things about civilization?" It reads in part: The worst thing about civilization, then is the blind drive to preserve the civilization regardless of the cost. We're currently facing the possibility of the collapse of the oceanic ecosystem, and meanwhile, time is wasted squabbling over profit and political gain. We argue about precepts set down during a long bygone age, and about insults in the manner of address and commerce and privilege between our subdivisions. I am as guilty of this as any other. It inspired this on chat: Kat: I think I just undermined myself: http://www.quora.com/Civilization/What-are-the-most-civilized-things-about-civilization/answer/Kat-Tanaka-Okopnik Tablesaw: Howso? Kat: I just declared that all Social Justice and discussion about food and anything else pales in importance compared to global ecological crisis. Tablesaw: The way you framed it, yes. But actually considering your opinion, no. Tablesaw: Your answer posits a thing that is most important for civilization, but your previous examples suggest pinnacles of civilization come from rigorously pursuing a single goal. Tablesaw: Your concern also stems from the assumption that reaching your posited end goal is a straight line that will not require steps like reducing the influence of racialized social structures. Kat: ahhh, nice. Kat: Pity you can't comment anonymously. :P Kat: (You'll have to post a separate answer and cross-reference mine if you want to remain anon) Tablesaw: I don't really care to for this, since I'm mostly responding to your private question about what you've said. Reframing for public consumption in Quora's framework is too tiresome. Kat: *nod* Tablesaw: If you'd like, I can link to the Quora answer, then share our brief chat transcript on DW. This journal has moved to Dreamwidth. Entry originally posted at http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/496757.html. Comment(s)
tablesaw	1:45a	Increased Posting Looks the Same as No Posting. So this week didn't work out so well. After an initial flurry of activity filing for unemployment insurance and sending a few e-mails to staffing agencies, I fell into a funk of avoidance, leading to a mini freak out on Thursday. I talked with friends and family who reminded me that it's ok to be freaked out about being unemployed for the first time in over a decade, and that a few days of not doing anything productive is fine. I'm going to try to set myself onto a daily working schedule come Monday. While it's nice to sleep in until 11 or noon, I'm not actually productive when I stay up late. Once it nears sunset, I start feeling like my work day is over, and I stop doing other things. I think that forcing myself to at least be awake by nine every morning will add a few hours to my "working" day, at the very least. More measures will probably be forthcoming. I did manage to do a lot of nonproductive things, though. I entered a local crossword puzzle tournament and participated in a sudoku contest at Logic Masters India. boardgaming night (played Roll Through the Ages), role-playing-game night (beta-testing a game by Josh Robern), a party to read and mock Fifty Shades of Grey as a group, and an NPL party. And in addition to that, I saw a bunch of friends at different times. I joined the site Quora despite its "real names" policy, by hacking together a form of pseudonymity out of its nascent system. And I sauteed chicked without freaking out. Starting Monday, I'm going to add DW to my list of daily things to do. For reals. This journal has moved to Dreamwidth. Entry originally posted at http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/496440.html. Comment(s)
Saturday, May 19th, 2012
geekcrafts [ sarahtheboring ]	10:07p	The Sisko is of Bearjor. Hi... I make bears. ( Really silly ones. Like this. ) (10 Comments |Comment on this)
neadods	6:18p	Orange Line; Many Thanks An extremely quiet day today at the clinic. We ranged from 3 - 7 protesters and even the usually shouty ones like Fraulein and Father Corleone were quiet; the only thing I heard from any of them was a woman early on calling "Would you come and take something to read before you go in?" Late in a the day, a couple of folks showed up with huge crosses with "ABORTION" written on them, but that was as in-your-face as they got; even Kneeling Guy (mostly) stayed kneeling on the pavement, and when he did approach cars back in the lot, he stopped about 6 feet away. He also carefully wrote down all the details of every car that came into the lot and how long it stayed, but that's what he does and there's not much we can do about it. Things are so calm now that Eeyore doesn't come anymore! I haven't been told I'll burn in hellfire for months now. However, the day was notable for the sheer number of people who came up to thank us. One woman pulled her car into the lot, between us and the protesters, to roll down her window and tell us how much she appreciated us. Another one came and shook all of our hands. (I was rather sorry that I was sweaty and sticky with a combination of sunscreen and cupcake icing. Our second-shift lead had, once again, catered.) The doctor was also full of voluble thanks when I stuck my head in the clinic to see if they were done for the day. He also had plenty to say about the protesters; I let him dump it all on me because it's never a good thing when he goes out to fight directly with them. But the oddest one was the woman who pulled into the lot and asked directions to Home Depot. I knew where it was, so I told her - and at the end, she thanked the escorts for the work we do too. If you're interested, next WACDTF training is June 23 downtown DC, although you can email if you don't want to wait. They're starting to cover Annapolis as well as downtown DC, Silver Spring, Greenbelt, and Hagerstown. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
supergee	5:40p	Embracing the power of And Some (such as Frederik Pohl) say that the Postal Service is collapsing because of sly tricks by the Republicans to destroy any form of public service that works at all; they are correct. Some say the Postal Service, like newspapers, is being destroyed by the Computer Revolution and the sheer volume of tasks (such as bill paying) that used to have to be done by mail and now aren't; they are correct, too. But the Postal Service is doing its share. I saw someone online (I don't remember where) rejoicing that Gwendolyn Brooks is on a stamp, and vowing to buy hundreds of those stamps and mail letters with them. She can't do it, at least not without buying an equal number of the stamps honoring nine other poets. You can't buy just Gwendolyn Brooks stamps, or just Sylvia Plath stamps, or just Wallace Stevens stamps. You can't buy Ratatouille stamps without buying the stamps for four other Pixar flicks. The Postal Service has always wanted to sell lots of stamps, especially to people who will not bother to stick them on letters, but they're shooting themselves in the foot on this one. I can't say I'm surprised. (13 Comments |Comment on this)
supergee	7:35a	Money stars If we pretend to be vicariously rich in order to avoid the fact that so many of us are becoming unnecessarily poor, if the shift of the national wealth has within it elements that we're willing to root for as though they were the U.S. Olympic Plutocrats Team, we will get ourselves suckered again and again. Charles P. Pierce refrains from cheering for the Facebook billionaires (3 Comments |Comment on this)
supergee	6:38a	Ribbon clerks Jon Carroll reports on the problem of more good causes than colors. (Comment on this)
supergee	6:32a	Quotefile: Horrible Examples Division I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was. --Willard Romney Thanx to Shakesville (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 18th, 2012
neadods	8:48p	Refining my Reaction to Elementary This post is essentially top-posting some things I said to prof_pangaea and penguineggs in the previous one, so if you followed the comments there, this isn't news. If you've put that post plus comments in previous posts together, it's really not news. But I wanted to better refine my reaction to the full setup to Elementary. First, I wish the producers had taken one of two routes: 1) More Canon. Aside from the names, there is nothing recognizable there. There is *plenty* of canon out of copyright; more than Sherlock is going to be able to use on such short seasons in a sporadic series for years, and plenty of ways of reinterpreting what they have used - just *how often* has Irene Adler been reinterpreted all these years? Can anyone even count that high? Not to mention how often Holmes himself has been dusted off/unthawed/resurrected/recreated etc. Either that, or what they seem to have wanted to actually do, which is: 2) No canon. Create a new series that incorporates elements of Holmesiana but is entirely its own thing. Psych. House. Both based on Sherlock Holmes, especially the latter, but both intended from the start to incorporate certain dynamics without weighting the characters down with certain expectations. If the producers wanted to ride Sherlock's bespoke coattails that much, they could have gone for unique characters with a trope for mentioning/emulating/fanboying Sherlock Holmes. (See the books No Police Like Holmes or Holmes on the Range.) Tongue cannot tell how much I'm beginning to wish they'd done the latter. Especially as Elementary goes on to stomp straight on one of my biggest squicks in canon. Remember my disclaimer a couple of fic recs ago? About the one thing I never read and judged hard? Oh, Elementary isn't going directly into using slavery as a concept. But they've gone about as far as they can in unbalancing the power dynamic between Holmes and Watson. Watson doesn't find Holmes on her own, befriend him on her own terms, and become his companion, she's hired to become part of his life, paid to look after his health, and judged on her eligibility for same by a third party. She may become his partner, but she *cannot truly be his friend!* Not when her primary relationship to him is economic, not emotional. Not when she presumably couldn't leave because she needs the money. Oh, the original Watson may have met Holmes out of economics, but there is a world of power difference between wanting someone to help with the rent and being hired to look after him. And Holmes, on his part, hasn't serendipitously stumbled over the one person in the world who is (in the delightful phrase used in a fic) "cracked in compatible ways." He has been fiat presented with a jailor, one he might learn to trust and even like, but someone who is still there because of a paycheck and an ideal, not because he wants her there. Someone who stays presumably just as much for need of money than as for love of him. And even if he grows to love and depend on her, she's a pink slip away from being taken away from him anyway. Both characters have been stripped of basic freedom of association. And that squicks the everlivin' hell out of me, that one of the greatest friendships in literature has been turned into buy and hire. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
supergee	11:38a	Useful advice How to tell from a trailer that a movie is going to suck Thanx to twistedchick (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
nellorat	9:23p	Oh Poop! Went to the dentist's today because of pain around my lower jaw. On Monday I get to find out whether I find a root canal procedure to be as bad as its iconic status indicates. In the meantime, the weather is great and plants have arrived, but the pain makes me feel lazy and highly unmotivated. And three days of teaching at the academy start tomorrow. Status: At least I still have the best rats & husbands! (9 Comments |Comment on this)
neadods	7:26p	It's Elementary, My Dear Beast Promo clips are now available for the remake of Beauty and the Beast and Elementary, and I'm deeply ambivalent about them both. Beauty and the Beast was one of the major fandoms in my life, possibly the first one to go absolutely white-hot for me... emphasis on hot. First big fandom love. First time as a BNF. First and ugliest fandom war I've ever been in, and I was a front-line fighter. Elementary... I've been championing it mostly for the fun of tease-trolling the people freaking out about it. Ben Cumberbatch has been remarkably classy about it, pointing out that there's already room for two Holmeses right now, so why not three? Moffat is getting pricklier by moment; from complaining it was too close to his version, he's now complaining that it's too far from canon. As he specifically cites Watson as a woman as one of the changes, the conversation about this is probably going to take the overall tone of "Moffat is a sexist git, round #41792." Thing is, I think he's right. Oh, not about Lucy Liu; the only problem with her casting is she'd be a better Sherlock. The entire setup is unrecognizable, and not because it's been put in America. Elementary's Holmes is in forcible rehab, having been kicked off his consulting work with Scotland Yard. His father has hired Joan Watson to be his constant companion to make sure he stays straight. Watson was a surgeon "until she lost a patient and her license" which makes me wonder just how badly she fucked up, because it's not like people don't die in surgery all the time and *not* because of medical malpractice. They solve crime! With the exceptions of the names, it's as if the scriptwriters put Monk (constant monitoring), House (addiction, abrasive behavior), and CSI/NCIS/blah blah (crime solving) into a blender. Which makes me wonder why they even bothered with the names. The Ritchie movies owe more to canon than this! Will I watch them? Yeah, probably both, at least a couple of episodes. But I'm not excited about either one. (21 Comments |Comment on this)
agrumer	3:44p	SANity mechanics for WaRP Atlas Games has released an Open Games License version of WaRP, the mechanical part of Over the Edge. (For those who haven’t heard of it, Over the Edge was a tremendously influential role-playing game released 20 years ago. And yes, there’s an anniversary edition.) The PDF included in the download package is so horribly formatted that I had to slurp it into InDesign and rejigger it just to get something I could stand to look at, and while I was doing that, some half-formed rules popped into my head for handling Call of Cthulhu-style Sanity loss. (Odd, because I never really liked Call of Cthulhu as a game.) They look like this: Instead of having a Sanity rating that starts out high and gets eroded, we have a Madness rating that starts out low and builds. Each character starts with 0 Madness (though you can start higher if you want, as part of your Flaw). When your character runs into something horrible, the GM calls for a Madness roll. The GM rolls a number of dice based on the horribleness of the thing you ran into. You pick a Trait to use to oppose this roll, and take a number of penalty dice equal to your Madness. (I was originally gonna have the GM roll your Madness + horribleness dice, but realized that’d be a pain in the butt for testing multiple characters at once.) If you fail the roll, two things happen: (1) Your Madness goes up by 1 point, and (2) whatever Trait you used for the Madness roll gets cracked. What does cracked mean? In fictional terms, it means that your character now has a psychological association between the Trait and the horrible thing. In game-mechanical terms, it means you make a mark next to that Trait on your sheet, and from then on, every time you roll that Trait, one (or more, because your Trait can be cracked more than once) of your dice should be of a distinction color or size. If the distinctive dice roll highest (or among the highest, in the case of ties; and in the case of bonus/penalty dice, we’re only counting the dice you keep for your total), you have to narrate some sort of crazy behavior into your action. This doesn’t have to mean success becoming failure; just that your character is becoming unhinged in some way that comes out sometimes when you use this Trait. A Trait that has been cracked a number of times equal to its die rating is fully cracked. A character goes fully insane if their Central Trait becomes fully cracked, or if every one of their other, non-Central, Traits becomes fully cracked. Fringe powers should probably start out with one crack each. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
topmodel [ blusugie ]	11:52a	Next cycle's judges announced ( Cycle 19 will reportedly be a "College Edition" and viewers will be able to vote online for their favorites. The online results will be factored in by the judges come elimination time ) (46 Comments |Comment on this)
neadods	10:21a	Forward Into the Past I've known for years that the fanfic I've got on paper survives well after any tech I've got fanfic on crashes, and the same can be said for music/audio on CDs as opposed to simply downloaded. I discovered a couple of years ago that if I want cookbooks that cover "from scratch" cooking, I'm better off looking at ones publised before 1950. I realized a few months ago that although they aren't cheap, you can do just as much (if not more) in a single enamelled iron braiser as you can in a sauce pan, fry pan, crock pot, roasting pan, and cassarole dish. Combined. A couple of weeks ago, a friend came by with a sore knee. We gave her ice packs, but the only thing that really stayed cool and stayed put was one of those old-fashioned rubber-lined bags - the kind from the 50s and 60s with the plastic screw-on top that you fill with ice and cold water. Last weekend, I threw out my back (yeah, carrying my haul from The Book Thing. OMG, Saturday opening is the only time to be there.) The only day I managed to sit for a full day of work was the one I took in the heating pads. But they were the chemical kind: very heavy to carry (as much strain as relief), only worked for about an hour each, and need to be brought home and boiled before they can be reused. So today, the role of high-tech 21st century chemical heating pad is being played by an old cotton sock full of sushi rice and the office microwave. It didn't stress my back to carry it in, I can squish it around to fit whatever wants heating, and I can recharge it as often as I want. Sometimes, the old fashioned ways really are best. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
supergee	10:18a	The new top dog Rise of the coyote (1 Comment |Comment on this)
topmodel [ shakenbysound ]	7:59a	Laura walking in Schenectady fashion show Since it seems like there are some locals that might be interested in this, Laura LaFrate is walking in a fashion show in Schenectady,NY on Friday night! The show starts at 7:00, and is free. The text of the article is cut below, and the link includes a short video. ( Read more... ) http://capitalregion.ynn.com/content/your_news/capital_region/584378/reality-star-to-walk-in-show-at-proctor-s/ I'm going to try to go, and will try to post some pictures here. Current Mood: awake (3 Comments |Comment on this)
supergee	7:47a	"The worst 8th-grade math teacher in New York" Like a muscular person with a high Body-Mass Index, this woman got a bad score on an impressive-looking statistic with near-astrological predictive value. Thanx to andrewducker (Comment on this)
supergee	7:36a	And then everyone noticed that the emperor had no clothes Maybe Facebook advertsing doesn't work. Thanx to andrewducker (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
topmodel [ blue_balls ]	8:46p	Discussion Post: Cycle 18, Episode 11 "Jez Smith" The models attend go-sees in Hong Kong. At the photo shoot, the ladies pose for a new fragrance in front of the client. Photographer Jez Smith is a guest judge.  (84 Comments |Comment on this)
geekcrafts [ angelofafeather ]	8:41p	Ponies and lots of stuff! Hi guys!  I've been superbusy but kind of forgot about livejournal. A virus on my computer was one of those baddies. (deleting my internet bookmarks and stuff >.>) But enjoy the pictures!: ( Read more... ) (6 Comments |Comment on this)
geekcrafts [ halogin ]	11:36a	A Star Wars Birthday For my husband, anyway. :) I did two digital drawings of his level 50 SW:TOR characters (a Human Jedi Knight and a Chiss Bounty Hunter). They're printed out and framed now. I also crocheted him an amigurumi version of Thrawn, one of his favorite characters in the Star Wars universe. :D He was quite appreciative! (4 Comments |Comment on this)

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