This is my front page. All comments here are screened; if you don't have my email address, you can drop me a line here. If I know your email address, I'll reply by email -- if not, I'll reply to your comment, and then rescreen both your comment and my reply.
It's also got every tag I have -- this is because my current LJ style doesn't include a tag index. (At least half of my participation on LJ is on my Treo. I chose this style because it loads quickly and it's still readable on a small screen.)
I'd tell you more about myself, but that's what my profile -- and the rest of my journal -- are for.
I haven't seen New Moon, nor read the book, but I'm going to comment on it anyway.
"Was it better or worse than Twilight?"
I like New Moon much better than the first movie. For one thing, it probably doesn't have James in it. As a result, I'm not likely to have Twilight fangirls coming up to me commenting on how much I look like him. It's not that I object to being told there's a resemblance, per se -- by all accounts, Cam Gigandet is a hunk, and if someone says I look like him, I'll certainly accept that as a compliment. The part I object to is that nearly all of the girls cooing at me and occasionally making very bold passes at me were HALF MY AGE!
I'm in my mid-thirties, for fuck's sake. You kids should be asking me what it was like to live in caves and hunt mammoths, not dropping unsubtle hints that you want... well, I'm not going there. It's bad enough you went there. Well, now you all can go after Taylor Lautner, who, like you, is also underage.
Ahem. Sorry. I've been biting my tongue on that rant for a while now.
With that out of the way... I can't comment much on the story, much as I loathe this series of books. Sorry, I still haven't read them, and I still don't plan to. Sometime, I really should make a new icon. "Everything I know about Twilight, I learned from stoney321."
(Seriously, why do they keep letting Twatlight fangirls come up with writer's block questions?)
The LJ community stupid_free has been dormant for two weeks, and suddenly two new posts come up -- and both of them involve childfree individuals talking about government handouts and generally making tits of themselves.
Well, no. For one thing, tits are both useful and lovely. And I suppose I can't accuse them of making asses of themselves, for the same reason.
Fine, fine, lemme start over. Two new posts are up about complete idiot freetards making sure that the rest of us childfree folks can't have nice things, with a heaping helping of "by your bootstraps" libertard bitching on the side, and a little "you're racist against wiccans" for dessert. (Those same new posts are also being mocked over at sf_drama.)
I know that the myth of the welfare queen with twenty social security numbers who's shit out ten kids, drives a cadillac, and has lobster and champagne for dinner every day is a colorful image, but in real life, I've only known one such welfare queen. And despite this welfare queen's tendencies to brag about gaming the system on conservative websites, he's actually a nice guy, and I'm sure he'll be a great parent if he ever decides to have children of his own in real life. I know he's a persuasive bastard, but why do so many people believe the hype?
Seriously, morons, could you educate yourself a little on how welfare programs work, and just how many luxuries most recipients can afford, before spouting off about them? I'm not saying the current system is perfect, but it's not the money pit you pretend it is, either. And it's certainly not a program designed to make lazy people rich off your tax dollars. If you want to bitch about people getting rich off your tax dollars, look up corporate welfare sometime.
Warning: Do not click these links before going to bed. I'd rather not be responsible for your loss of sleep.
You may have heard of ikizukuri. Even if you don't know it by name, you've probably heard of it -- it's kinda controversial. Well, ikizukuri is normally raw, for obvious reasons, but someone's somehow managed to apply the concept to fried food as well. Why they did it, I have no idea, though I'm sure some sort of infernal pact was involved.
The video is here. Do yourself a favor, and don't watch it. I'd have posted it on wtf_inc, which is where it belongs, but someone beat me to the punch by about two hours. (I've only made one post there, but it was a doozie, and I am still waiting for something to come along to outdo it.)
...and we've already got the store's Chri$tma$ decorations up. Naturally, I've started butchering tired old Chri$tma$ songs in self-defense, starting with a certain traditional German ditty...
Oh, Goatse man, oh, goatse man, You have a stretchy anus. Oh, Goatse man, oh, goatse man, We're squicked, but can you blame us? On Christmas Eve, we'll stare, aghast, at pictures of your scary ass. Oh, Goatse man, oh, goatse man, You have a stretchy anus.
Oh, Goatse man, oh, goatse man, So gross and so defiant. Oh, Goatse man, oh, goatse man, Your ass could take a hydrant. We're quite amazed, how wide you're spread. We'd love to know, how you're not dead. Oh, Goatse man, oh, goatse man, So gross and so defiant.
(I'm sure it needs more verses, but hey, it's a start!)
In places like cf_hardcore those of us who have no kids and want no kids have a few fun pejoratives for bratty kids: "snotleigh," "bratleigh," "nose-miner," "crotch-dropping," "cunt-nugget," "twat-waffle," and many, many others. We also have words for stupid parents, like "moo" (mom) and "duh" (dad). The thing is, parents hear these terms, and don't grasp that we're not bashing parents or children, just lousy parents or bratty children. Fifteen percent of any group are assholes, and we like having terms to refer to them.
(It doesn't help that fifteen percent of us childfree types are assholes ourselves, and use these terms indiscriminately to refer to all children, or all parents. That's why parents have their own pejoratives terms for us, like "freetard.")
So, to educate people (but mostly as an excuse to post some things I found amusing), I'm going to illustrate one of these terms: "entitle-moo." Basically, an entitle-moo is a mother who thinks the world owes her a silver platter and everything that will fit on it, because she's doing the Most Important Job In The World.
So! An entitle-moo is a mother like this one. Or this one. Or these three:
So. My original plans were to see Saw VI with a friend, smuggling several single-serving bottles of good whisk(e)y into the theater. Sadly, the way my work schedule and other commitments have been, I had to jump to see it on relatively short notice, so there I was, alone, with four single-serving bottles of UV vodka in blue and pink.
I am not happy about this.
But on to the review -- I have never cheered so much for a horror movie villain as I have this time. First things first: a booby trap! This one involves two predatory lenders wearing mechanical headgear who find themselves contestants on an ultra-hardcore version of that weight-loss game show The Biggest Loser, except that instead of dieting, they have to use knives and cleavers. Oh, and instead of winning any prizes for losing all that weight, the winner gets to live, while the loser's headgear drills two large holes in his or her temples.
Then, having gotten a swipe in at the banks, Jigsaw decides to go after the Health Insurance industry. An executive for Umbrella Insurance (no relation to that other Umbrella Corporation) finds himself navigating a series of traps, deciding who lives and who dies along the way -- in other words, business as usual for him, except that many of his subordinates -- janitor, secretary, clerk, attorney, and six people who pore over insurance claims, looking for excuses to deny coverage -- are stuck in the traps. (One of the traps involved inflicting steam burns. Steam is nasty stuff -- it can actually set cloth on fire under the right conditions. I'm surprised that they didn't use this, since it would have been spectacular to watch.)
Finally, having faced ten of his subordinates (and sacrificed seven of them), this executive finds himself face to face with his sister (a reporter), and the son and widow of someone who died because he was denied coverage for bullshit reasons... and the son and widow have access to a switch that will shoot him full of hydrofluoric acid. The widow finds she doesn't have it in her to pull the switch. The son, on the other hand, turns all Luke Skywalker and shit. "You killed my father! Prepare to die!" Except with lots more swearing. And screaming, and hissing, and screaming, and oozing, and more screaming.
You rich executives want to bitch about "class warfare?" This is class warfare. Nothing you've seen yet even comes close, so quit griping.
Meanwhile, remember the FBI agent that got caught in the Death Star Trash Compactor in Saw V? Well, he's now giving Jigsaw 3.0 a hand. Literally. It turns out that R12 is useful for preserving body parts, and despite having not been produced for about fourteen years, it's not terribly difficult to obtain. (One of the investigators made it sound like R12 is a rare substance. Sorry, no. I know people who work in HVAC. It's still around, banned or not.) Jigsaw 3.0 ends up getting discovered, which he escapes by killing everyone in the room, thinking he's getting away scott free...
...only to get subdued by Jigsaw 1.0's ex-wife, who was apparently not the red herring I thought she was two movies ago. She puts him in the jaw trap that got used for Amanda in the first movie, and he gets half his face torn off. The end. Unless the ex-wife decides to continue "testing" people, but she's made it clear that she finds that really distasteful, so the writers are really going to have to stretch for a sequel.
I actually liked this movie. Quite possibly, I would have liked it even without several bottles of overly sweet vodka. It actually tied up most of the previous movies' loose ends. And as much as I'd never -- never, I tell you! -- advocate doing horrible things to the people who've helped to create massive problems in this country for their own financial success, I must admit there's something satisfying about seeing it happen on the big screen.
And this isn't all. Soon, I'll be seeing Saw VI, almost certainly drunk, and hopefully with storost, who started me writing my Series on Shit Sandwiches by loaning me copies of Saw and Saw II!
This bit of filk is dedicated to the most hardcore of the hardcore anime fans -- the ones who watch it for ten hours a day and think that watching it makes them an authority on Japanese culture. The ones whose devotion to Japanese cartoons overpowers all other concerns, like nutrition or basic hygiene. The ones who... ah, you know what I mean. The original song can be found here, but if you haven't heard it before, what rock have you been hiding under, really?
Turning Wapanese
I've got some manga! You'll like it too! I've got some manga! To share with you! I watch it every day, I've nothing else to do!
I buy my manga! Right here in town! I've got more manga! Can't put it down! I wank and read it when there's no one else around!
I've got some manga! I've got some manga! There's lots of manga here on all of my shelves! I've got some manga! I've got some manga! And lots of anime dvds as well!
I'm saying nan-deo and nan-des'ka and baka-baka-baka-baka...
Chorus: Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so!
I want to see the! Vending machines there! For the pocky and used undies they sell! I've got stale pretzels! I've got stale pretzels! But when you cover them with chocolate they're swell!
I'm saying nan-deo and nan-des'ka and baka-baka-baka-baka...
Chorus: Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so!
No sex, no job, no life, no sunlight, No fun, just me in mom's cellar, no wonder I'm dull. Everyone around me sees my chibi boner. Everyone avoids me and my body odor. Everyone. That's why I'm --
Chorus: Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so! Turning wapanese, I think I'm turning wapanese, I really think so!
(Links lead to the same movies. I only include them because embed tags are giving me grief lately.)
This is a scene from the straight porno This Ain't Star Trek, in which the Starship In-her-prize (or some other, no doubt, equally cheesy and entendre-riffic name) takes delivery of a cute female alien. Of course, this porno is a spoof of the classic Star Trek series, with Kirk, so we all know what's happening next, don't we?
This is a scene from the gay porno Whorrey Potter and the Sorcerer's Balls, in which Fag-Hag(rid) takes Whorrey Potter to Diaphragm Alley to purchase school supplies. This bad dialog is deliberate, and includes puns and other wordplay so horrible that even Spider "The Pun-nisher" Robinson would likely consider it beneath his dignity.
First, some fail. I'm sure you're all at least passingly familiar with Barbie, right? About a foot tall, with measurements on the unrealistic side that have inspired little girls into eating disorders for years? Well, guess what? Some idiot designer thinks she's too fat. She has cankles, don'tcha know?
Now, some funny. Ralph Lauren has this horribly photoshopped ad of a woman who looks even more skinny and undernourished than usual for fashion models. It got criticized in a few places, including Boing Boing and Photoshop Disasters... and then they got hit with frivolous DMCA claims. Boing Boing didn't cave. In fact, their response was wonderful.
Finally, some hot. The fashion industry considers these women (slightly NSFW) to be "plus size models." Personally, I consider each and every one of them not only stunningly beautiful, but a refreshing change from the industry's usual ideal female form, which looks suspiciously like an underfed fourteen-year-old boy.
(Nothing against skinny women, mind. Skinny women can be beautiful, too. I just object to the fashion industry's insistence that only skinny women can be beautiful.)
Thanks to a little program called LJArchive, I have an easily-searchable backup of all my posts on LJ. On a lark, I decided to look up the word "hummer" in my LJ, and I found that it appears in four of my posts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I also not-so-subtly hinted in all four posts that men who buy hummers are driven by an obsessive impulse to compensate for very tiny penises... which backfires, because the rest of us see him driving a hummer, and immediately assume the worst.
Well, I decided that those four posts were a bit lonely, so I'm adding a fifth. The following cartoon is stolen from matrexius, with signposts from ms_daisy_cutter.
(Obviously, I'm not speaking of people in the Armed Forces here. They don't always get a choice in what they drive, and even if they did, the original hummer is actually useful. The H2 and H3 are the ones that we see on the roads here in the states, driven by civies with compensation issues.)
Way back when I was a senior in High School, Madonna released a book called SEX. It was the most controversial thing evar™, it was a collector's item, it was specially made, and all the media was going batshit over it. Well, one of my classmates got his (or her -- I don't remember) hands on a copy, and I got to see it.
I was disappointed. To quote from Tom Hanks in the movie Bachelor Party, "I don't normally like my filth this clean." And I was disgusted -- disgusted, I tell you! -- by all the things that Madonna was almost-doing in that book. (In my defense, this was during one of my celibate periods in between manslut periods, so I had a bit of a stick up my ass at the time. Also, in my defense, she did include a photo that was intended to be easily mistaken for her straddling a dog, probably in a bid to piss off a few recording executives.)
But seriously, the book was terrible. It should tell you something that I remember the faux stamped-metal cover of the book more than I remember any of the contents, and this was back before I'd ever seen a pornographic website, let alone had a hand in creating one, so I was not as jaded back then as I am now.
Well, someone at weepingcock found a copy online, and it's just as awful as I remember. Well, the few pages I looked at. I felt no need to look through the whole thing.
A few of you here may be familiar with a pair of evil filksters named Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff. For those of you who aren't, the two of them are responsible for some really hilarious songs, like a song about Iron Chef called "The Night Kaga Brought the Lutefisk Down" to the tune of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," a song about a crossdresser in the King's service called "Knights in White Satin," and a song that started out as "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears but was all about Pinky and the Brain by the time they were done with it.
(Their two filk CDs are Retro Rocket Science and Aliens Ate My Homework. They have other CDs that, while very good, aren't filk.)
At a guess, only a few of you have heard them... and of those few, even less are going to start randomly entertaining questions like "what if the Bohnhoffs had gone into progressive rock instead of filk?" If you are one of those two or three, a prog-rock Bohnhoff duo would sound a lot like Illumion.
And if you're not, Illumion is still good. A little tame for my usual listening habits, but still, quite good.
Roman Polanski is clearly a great director. There. I've said it.
Having gotten that token acknowledgment of his artistic merit out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks. He plied a thirteen-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol, and raped her. He admitted it, in court. Well, he admitted the statutory rape in court, mostly to avoid all the more serious charges he was facing.
I realize that many news services are saying he "had sex with her." Bull, fucking, and shit. He was in his forties, she was thirteen. The term sex should not even be used in the same sentence as Polanski's name, with respect to this incident. The correct terms are "rape," "child molestation," and "pedophilia." Harsh terms? Hell yes. He could have avoided having these terms applied to him by, I don't know, perhaps not being a dirty old man who drugged and raped a child?
I also realize that his victim wants to put this all behind her, to the extent of not wanting him to be further prosecuted, and all of Polanski's apologists are saying things like "let's respect her wishes and not lock him up." Let's ignore, for the moment, the likelihood that they probably wouldn't be so eager to "respect her wishes" if she wanted to castrate the sick fucker with rusty garden shears -- this isn't just about her anymore. Child molestation is one of the most reviled crimes there is. We, as a society, are rightly sickened by it. By encoding our disgust for child molestation into criminal law, we've taken on the obligation of dealing with people who perpetrate it. We aren't magically let off the hook because it happened thirty years ago¹, or because he's such a gifted artist, or because the victim has moved on.
Further, perpetrators don't just stop. Certain criminals, like pedophiles and other rapists, tend to keep doing it until they're forcibly stopped.
I hope he gets his ass nailed to a wall. And sadly, it appears I'm in the minority -- a wide variety of film industry movers and shakers, actors, actresses, and even political figures are defending him. What the fuck is wrong with all you people?
(By the way, I doubt that I really have to say this, but just in case? Please don't defend him here. Judging from prior controversies in my LJ, I feel safe in saying that you'll get torn to pieces for it -- and not only will I do nothing to stop it, I'll probably join in. If you absolutely must defend that scumbag, do it in your own LJ.)
A lot of people unfamiliar with the details of this case or US legal procedure might wonder about things like a statute of limitations. That doesn't apply here. It could conceivably apply if he'd managed to evade arrest and criminal charges for thirty years -- or not; I don't know what statute of limitations exists, if any, for this particular crime. He didn't evade justice, though. He pleaded guilty, clearly hoping for a token punishment, and ran like hell when it became clear he could actually get prison time.
So, a friend of mine (who shall remain unnamed, unless she cares to comment here) found herself the owner of two tickets to an opera, and didn't want to go by herself. As a result of this, I recently got my first taste: Il trittico, by Giacomo Puccini.
(Unless you've lived under a rock, you've heard Puccini. Trust me.)
It was amazing. The hall itself was a marvel of engineering -- everything you've ever heard about the acoustics in great theaters is absolutely true. Despite being over a hundred feet away from the stage (and the orchestra pit below it), I could hear every note clearly, and there wasn't a microphone or a speaker to be seen. In the second of the three acts, there were several ailing children onstage; the sounds of their crutches making contact with the floor, and the wheels of their IV stands clattering on the floor, were all clearly audible. In the third act, in which several people are rummaging through papers to find a will, I could hear paper rustling.
The lyrics were all in Italian, but for the benefit of those of us who don't speak Italian, there was a screen above the stage, about ten feet tall and sixty feet wide at a guess. As the actors sang, the translated lyrics were projected on this screen. A nice touch, that. I don't know if all opera houses do this, but I can hope, right?
Anyway, the opera itself was three separate plays, each told in a single act, and all of them were wonderful. The first, "The Cloak," is about a married woman who takes a lover, and it ends in a murder. The second, "Sister Angelica," is about a nun who discovers that the child she birthed before going to the nunnery (and hasn't seen since) died at the age of five, and it ends with her suicide. The third, "Johnny Skeevy," is about a bunch of people who engage a swindler to forge a will, and it's hilarious.
(These three plays are frequently performed separately. Puccini never liked this -- he felt that they all belonged together, despite having nothing in common thematically. I'm inclined to agree with him. They all just seem to fit.)
Anyway, I has half-worried that I'd be bored to tears at the opera, despite the fact that seeing an opera was on my list of things I want to do at least once before I die. I was also half-expecting to be completely confused, like Spike Jones going into Pagliacci expecting a western, and then being surprised to see a fat guy in a clown suit onstage. (You can hear that tale here. It's amusing.) Anyway, it turned out these fears were needless.
If I'd tried to go to an opera at the age of twenty, I'm sure I would have hated it. As it is, I was not only well-entertained, but enchanted. At the end of each play, the performers all came onstage and took their bows -- I suspect that they do this partly to get some well-earned applause, but also to gently bring their audience back down to Earth.
Opera is not a cheap habit to get into, and I don't expect to be able to go very often... but I am very glad I got to go this one time.
This is the last two songs from Carmina Burana. (Actually, it's the last four songs, but it's the last two I want to inflict on you.) The very last one you've heard -- the one before it, probably not unless you own a copy of the opera.
A while back, Sam and Dean Winchester (from the TV series Supernatural) discovered that there are quite a few girls out there who would love to see them fuck. Someday, they may discover this (NSFW!!!!1111), but I'm sure it will never make it on the show. Someday, Jared Padalecki (the actor as opposed to the character) may discover this LJ, in which case he'll probably have a bunch of discussions with a lawyer, followed by a bunch of stiff drinks.
(That link is to the LJ of a photoshopper. Behind that link, you'll find lots of shopped images of Sam, with head pasted on yay, cock pasted on yay, ginormous rectal prolapse pastede on yay, and plenty more worse things. Do not click that link. You have been warned.)
For those of you unfamiliar, Magic: the Gathering is a collectible trading card game. It's designed to give you some hope of winning if you bother to develop any skill in it, but really, most of the people who win with any consistency in it are the people who spend thousands of dollars on cards. Still, it can be amusing.
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weepingcock found a copy online, and it's just as awful as I remember. Well, the few pages I looked at. I felt no need to look through the whole thing.
annoyed