Good Golly, Miss Molly

three good things

2009-11-05T03:58:37Z

1) While Neil Gaiman was in China, the guy who maintained his blog experimented with several journal styles (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/10/i-have-chart-dragon-chart.html). Scroll down and check out "Journal as Academic Paper."

2) Slate has been running an ongoing parody of an Obama Facebook presence. It skewers both Facebook *and* politics, and I giggled so hard I made embarrassing noises in my cubicle when I discovered the October 30th entry: http://www.slate.com/id/2234008/

3) Though I watch SPN, CW/J2 RPF generally just doesn't grab me. But yesterday Crack Impala recced Neros' This Is the Ultimate (http://neros-violin.livejournal.com/4587.html), an AU set in the UFC, and I stayed up later than I should have to read it all in one go.

There is never enough time/sleep in my new life. However, BG continues to be AWESOME, brilliant and hilarious and OMG SO CUTE!!!

Happy Independence Day yesterday! plus rambling

2009-07-05T20:20:49Z

I had all these plans to take the BG to the fireworks in Takoma (=less crowded than the ones on the Mall and perhaps more like my childhood memories of the ones on the Mall, before they created an elaborate, celebrity-filled celebration and then created elaborate security protocols to deal with the resulting crowds).

Instead, we went to the neighborhood parade in the morning. It was led by a delegation from the Marine Band, and an excellent local high school marching band brought up the rear, and in between there were cars advertising real estate agents and a couple women dressed as the Statue of Liberty and lots of parents and kids marching on behalf of one school or another. (My favorites were the kids who tossed candy to the bystanders - and then ran to grab the pieces that fell short for themselves.) After that, I felt like we had celebrated pretty well

I keep thinking of Minotaur at the most random times -- editing an article about San Diego at work, or dabbing a bit of diaper cream on the BG's taint. Still, I don't know if it will really hit me that he's gone until CON.TXT. RM is *really* going to miss him -- he looked forward to hanging out with Stuart at slash cons.

Lately I've been watching TrueBlood and Burn Notice (though not slashing either). It's a fun exercise to watch TB and compare the plot structure to the books; the TV writers often take a wildly different path to get to a similar place.

I've also been watching a lot of this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Za-V_lhwGg. I thought it was awesome to begin with, but I made the mistake of watching it with BG, and she likes to replay it 5 or 10 times every morning.

Gah, it's been a while.

2009-06-23T03:08:38Z

memo to the washington post: The phrase A Tense Calm is something of an oxymoron. A "tense quiet" might be more apt.

memo to my left wrist: As it is unlikely I will be able to stop picking up a squirming 25+ pounds anytime in the foreseeable future, please to stop hurting now. Thank you.

memo to whoever created the heavens and the earth: perhaps You were a bit hasty in dismissing a 25-hour day. Heck, 26 wouldn't be so bad.

memo to my daddy: thank you for being an awesome father and an even better grandpapa.

memo to Alan Ball: I actually think it's cool that you are using the Sookie Stackhouse books as a starting point and moving forward in different directions. But I don't think I can sit through another episode about the ~~Jesus~~ Fellowship of the Sun camp. (I was raised an uptight Episcopalian, evangelical fervor makes me SQUIRM.)

memo to Charlaine Harris: Eric>Bill

memo to the BBC: I don't think you meant to say that grizzly bears live in "Canada and North America." I think you meant Canada and the northern United States. Don't be like those people who think "South America" refers to the former confederacy. You're the *Beeb*.

memo to myself: Get to bed already!

a series of nonsequiturs

2009-05-05T00:39:11Z

I am molly-o on dreamwidth now, but I'm not abandoning LJ anytime soon. I'll gradually be switching over to read people over there that are over there, but I'll keep on reading people here that are here. (That's barely intelligible, but y'all know what I mean.)

RM & I saw Wolverine, and already I can barely remember the details, except that I liked how Liev Schreiber *bounded*.

BG is doing really well, except that we can't convince her to sleep past 6 am. Yesterday I put stuff over her windows to make it darker in there, and this morning she was up at 5-freakin'-30.

I know there are other things that have happened in the past month or so that I contemplated posting here, but I have no idea what they might have been.

molly_o @ 2009-03-19T21:19:00

2009-03-20T01:22:06Z

oh, Dean!

huh

2009-03-08T01:26:16Z

-- I have fond memories of dyeing eggs and waking up to a basketful of candy. I would like BG to have similar memories.

-- I dislike it when religious holidays are divorced from their origins.

-- I don't want to teach her that the Jesus/Resurrection stuff is The Truth.

-- In general, I would like BG to know about a lot of different faith traditions and accept all of them as potentially valid so that as an adult she can find the faith (or rejection thereof) that works for her.

-- Basically, I want her to experience Easter as a fun ritual that also has a deeper meaning, but I don't want that deeper meaning to be exclusively Christian, but I do want to acknowledge the Christian take on Easter.

-- I also want to acknowledge the pre-Christian/early-Christian-era stuff that was coopted by the Christians.

-- I would kinda like to work Passover in as well, but off the top of my head I am really not sure how to do that.

-- It also would be nice if it tied in somehow to Tomb-Sweeping Day.

-- And, hey, if there are any other really cool springtime/rebirth rituals specific to this time of year celebrated in some other tradition, I'd consider working them in.

-- oh, and by the way, I'd like to do all this without misappropriating anyone's culture.

-- I don't really need to figure all this out now (she'll only be 16 months old by Easter), but it would be lovely to try something this year, as a dry run of sorts, that I can improve/build on in the years to come, when she's more aware.

-- In case you were wondering, there are not any picture books that cover this. (Not that I HAVE to have a book, but it makes a nice starting point, you know?)

I can cover the Christian part pretty competently, but what I know about Easter's pagan origins is basically American Gods and Wikipedia. What I know about Passover is what's written in the Old Testament, DeMille's Ten Commandments, and reading All of a Kind Family in 5th grade; what I know about tomb-sweeping day is what you can find on the Internet.

Where I am so far: Many people over time have celebrated the coming of spring, and eggs and rabbits and grass symbolize spring and new life and fertility and renewal; for people who are Christian, the renewal of spring after the death of winter symbolically corresponds with the resurrection. In re Passover ... lambs are springy new life, but I am not sure about the blood of the lamb part. Tomb-sweeping day is about celebrating springtime by honoring the dead, so the dual focus on death and life is there, but nothing about rebirth, AFAIK.

Y'all are smart and playful and celebrate a variety of traditions. Ideas (activities, verbiage, recipes)?

molly_o @ 2009-01-20T12:43:00

2009-01-20T18:01:33Z

At 11:55 or so I turned on the TV and corralled the Baby Girl in front of it. She would have preferred to roam, but I was having none of it: "You won't remember this, but I will tell you about it when you get older, that you were here and saw this happen, saw this man become president."

She quieted down during Simple Gifts -- which is good, because I was transfixed by the expressions that moved across Yo Yo Ma's face as he played -- and made it through the swearing in, but fell asleep as we listened to Obama's speech.

molly_o @ 2009-01-17T08:50:00

2009-01-17T13:57:12Z

So I'm googling this Sullenberger guy -- who did seven years in the Air Force -- and it turns out there's a Sullenberger stables, and for some reason that seemed like a bizarre coincidence, like we're in the AU where John's last name is Sullenberger and Dave is running the stables while John is a commercial pilot. Or maybe that's just because I read this yesterday.

Also, should I be concerned that the character on TV who always says just what I was saying a minute ago is Dean Winchester?

Thursday night, as the plot unfolds, Mark says, "Wait, this is like that guy in Austria!" And I say, "It's like they say on Law and Order, ripped from the headlines." And Dean says, "Ripped from Austrian headlines," and Mark and I both crack up.

Also, I am slightly embarrassed by how much I want to see My Bloody Valentine in 3D.

molly_o @ 2008-12-13T21:46:00

2008-12-14T03:07:00Z

In our edition of Goodnight Moon, you say goodnight to the clock and the socks -- but the clock and socks are never introduced. Is that really how the book goes? The lack of parallelism annoys me Every Single Time I read it (currently 8-10 times a week).

Also, watching SGA last night, I have to admit I winced when John referred to Ronon as Chewie. I mean, I've seen the holiday special, I know that under all that fur, wookies are sapient beings with a complex culture. But comparing one of the few COCs to an alien species always sets off alarms for me.

That said, OF COURSE John Sheppard is Han Solo in his own mind. OF COURSE! So then in the shower this morning I started thinking about how the SW team aligns with the SGA team, and at first I made the simplistic gender connection and thought Teyla would be Leia, but really Teyla is *Obi Wan*. And Luke -- Ford would have to be Luke, in the universe where Luke turned to the Dark Side in episode IV. So then who would be Leia? Who has the technical specs for the Death Star and a withering comeback at the ready? That would be *Rodney*. Heh. (Some guy at Gateworld says Rodney is C3P0, but I'm liking Woolsey for that.)

molly_o @ 2008-11-19T15:45:00

2008-11-19T21:08:56Z

I guess LJ was down? I didn't notice so much, seeing as how RM and I are halfway around the world with a small person who pretty much has to be touching one of us 24/7. (She is shaping up to be a Daddy's girl, and RM is all worried my feelings will be hurt, and I'm like, dude? I'm allowed to sleep without a 24-pound dead weight on my right shoulder all night long, I think I'll get over it.)

She is so fucking AWESOME. (I suppose I should say f-ing awesome, being a parent now.)

She will eat ANYTHING. She has eaten and apparently enjoyed every single thing we've tried out -- and mostly, we buy her adult food and give her little bits of it; it's one of the wonderful things about becoming parents to an 11-month old, all the food restrictions that apply to infants are pretty much done. The only thing she seems not to like is strawberry yogurt. (She's doing much better than Mark: he's eaten half a cheeseburger and one scrambled egg in the four days we've been here. OK, that's an exaggeration, but not much of one.)

Today at the national palace museum, she got bored with the cheerios I was feeding her one at a time and started feeding them back to me. It was so cute I almost died on the spot.

She hates baths, diapers changes, and clothing changes with a hatred that burns like a thousand fiery suns. During those events, she screams at a pitch I would think only dogs could hear, except that we can totally hear it. The whole block can hear it. Yesterday one of her socks fell off somewhere in the hotel corridor -- I have no idea when/where -- ad they brought it straight to our room, because there's no mistaking which room has a kid in it. But she doesn't hold grudges: As soon as the torment stops, she's fine.

She LOVES walking outside and looking at everything -- mopeds, fountains, flashing neon, you name it. When Mark and I are both in the room, she much prefers to be held by daddy (baba), but as soon as I step out in the hall with her in the carrier, she gets all quiet, and then we'll take a walk to the park together and I'll give her some milk and cheerios and bits of nori (I think it's nori -- they call it dried laver, it's the sheets of dried seaweed you use to make sushi rolls? that is one of her favorite snacks ever, her foster mom gave us a package with 50 individual packets of little strips of it, and it's been a godsend), and she hangs out on my lap and then dozes off and sleeps on me.

She doesn't say anything yet (in English or Mandarin, that we can tell), but she knows her nickname -- if you say Ai Ai, she'll turn and see what you want.

When baba is carrying her and she drinks from her sippy cup, she flings her head back and throws one arm out, and it's so sweet, and you can tell she *trusts* us, which is just amazing.

I will try to post some photos sometime, the internet is iffy here.

whoa

2008-11-03T01:36:53Z

I'm doing some ~~spring~~ fall cleaning, and I ran across a box with letters and cards and clippings from way back when -- mostly my freshman year of college, but some earlier.

Buried at the bottom of the box was a copy of a school newspaper from June 1981 announcing the student body leaders for the 1981-82 academic year: Susan Rice and Heather Langenkamp.

random observations

2008-11-01T01:08:32Z

1. If you go to the SGA page on the SciFi site (http://www.scifi.com/atlantis/), there's this image of the various cast members with one person big in front, and a couple people medium-sized and set slightly back, and the rest smaller at the back. And if you hit refresh the arrangement changes -- it's all the same pictures, but they rearrange them and resize them to put different people up front.

And if you hit refresh so that Woolsey is up front? John and Ronon are holding hands. No, really -- try it and see!

2. Jensen Ackles lip-synching "Eye of the Tiger" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOUdtEqymQ&feature=related) is one of the more hilarious things EVER. Gah, he's just so darn CUTE.

3. There was probably a 3 at some point, but I lost track of it daydreaming about Jensen Ackles.

Bitch PhD always brings the good stuff!

2008-09-19T14:24:32Z

A couple days ago, it was a tax chart comparing how Obama's and McCain's proposals would affect each bracket. There's an issue with math in the average, which may or may not have been corrected, but I find the bracket-by-bracket data more relevant than the average, anyway. (The average doesn't actually apply to anyone.):

http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2008/09/lies-and-taxes-ii-real-average.html

Then this morning she linked to this post from Margaret Cho that made me really happy:

http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/2008/09/17/im-a-christian-you-fuckers.html

Meanwhile, just so I can have some non-political, fannish content:

RM & I watched Supernatural last night, and it was classic, classic SPN, in all the ways that are good and bad. The opening credits alone were worth the price of admission: I love AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long," and OF COURSE Dean's Car is gonna be "she" during the lyrics about fast machine, motor clean. But then they get to the lyric about fighting for air, and all of a sudden the she of the song becomes all the unreliable-and-occasionally-outright-evil women of the show. And finally, when it gets to the you shook me all night long part, there's no she anymore, it's the brothers fighting together.

And that, right there -- before the actual episode has even begun -- perfectly captures the fun and misogyny and slashiness of Supernatural. If it were edited a little better, it almost could've been a fan vid.

I found the metaphor I needed!

2008-09-15T16:57:59Z

It's a job interview: If you were applying for a position, and you knew who the other applicant was, would you spend your whole interview talking about how terrible the other applicant would be and pointing out the problems with his or her resume? Or would you spend your interview talking about how great you would be for the job?

In the endless interview that is the presidential race, Obama is doing a great job of focusing on what he would bring to the position. But all his friends are calling the HR department to point out how much the other candidate sucks. And the folks in HR (=the American public) are saying, "We like this guy, his resume is solid, he's a great interview -- but what's up with his friends? They're acting like jerks. If we hire him, will we have to work with them?"

i swear, if we lose another one, I think I'll go insane

2008-09-05T02:33:23Z

So, I finally figured out how to articulate what's been bugging me about Sarah Palin -- or really, what's been bugging me about the liberal reaction to Palin. (And by "liberal reaction," I pretty much mean the various blogs/journals I read. At this point, it's easier for me to keep track of which bloggers *haven't* posted something indignant.)

The last two elections, hanging chads and all, really came down to the culture wars. Twenty years ago, no one talked about red states and blue states; now it's practically an inescapable part of political analysis.

The promise of Obama is that he refuses to get into the culture wars. He doesn't say, "Pro-life people suck!" He says, "Hey, if you believe life begins at conception, we're never going to agree on that. But can't we agree to work together to reduce unintended pregnancies?"

*That's* the change that has so many people so motivated to elect him: Not a change from R to D, but a change away from partisan politics and toward a united nation.

So now Palin comes along, and she embodies all these things that send liberal folks (including me, definitely) off the rails -- she's pro-life! and she thinks schools should teach creationism! and she like to kill animals with guns! -- and all of a sudden, we're back in the culture wars.

So voters who are pro-life but aren't single-issue voters, and who like to hunt on crisp fall weekends, and who feel like the war in Iraq has just gone on too long, and who are sold on the need for universal health care? Those people, who were seriously considering voting for Obama because McCain isn't doing much for them, are now running across all these rants about how much people who think like they do are OUTRAGEOUS and IGNORANT and RUINING THIS COUNTRY.

Way to bridge the divide, people. Way to be the change you want to see.

V is for Variety ...

2008-09-02T23:15:02Z

V is for Van Halen, the Violent Femmes, Suzanne Vega, and Vixen.

Also, when Sherman Alexie and Dan Savage join forces, the results are genius. NSFW, but *genius*. (Keep reading to the end of the column.):

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-09-03/columns/where-can-i-find-native-american-porn

molly_o @ 2008-09-01T11:14:00

2008-09-01T15:43:53Z

I've been watching "80 Hours of the 80s" on VH-1 much of this weekend. When I think of the 80s, I think of *my* 80s, the New Wave-ish 80s: Duran Duran, A-Ha, New Order, Soft Cell. Madonna and Prince, of course, but also the Police and the Smiths and the Cure and Depeche Mode. I cherish some less well-known acts like Icicle Works and Romeo Void as art of "my" 80s.

I acknowledge hair bands (Ratt, Poison) as 80s bands -- they weren't *my* 80s bands, but they were definitely part of the era. And of course both Michael and Janet Jackson were part of the era for me.

I'd completely forgotten about .38 Special, and Toto, and the Pointer Sisters, and even Hall & Oates - all the bands that were there, and part of the landscape, but not part of the ... I don't know, signature musical movements of the decade? It's been really nice to realize how diverse the music of that decade was.

On an unrelated note, toft_froggy's Healing Station Argh is an SGA OT4 fic that is not only scorchingly hot but also will make you spew your beverage of choice in all directions.

I think my favorite line ever is: "I owe you an apology, John," Teyla said, apropos of nothing, wiping mayonnaise off her lip with a napkin. "I have spoken with Dr. Yuen, and I realize that I should have been more sensitive about your fear of anal penetration." But the ice farmers are pretty darn hilarious, too.

Anne, Jane -- whatever

2008-06-29T15:49:57Z

So RM and I were at the movies a while back, and we saw a trailer for Get Smart. And I asked, "Would you want to see that?" And he said, "Not unless it has Jane Hathaway naked."

And then I had this mental image of RM's face if Miss Jane Hathaway appeared naked before him.

And then I giggled for, like, five minutes.

More Things I Learned at CON.TXT ...

2008-06-16T16:57:09Z

Day 2:

+ The dorkiness of John Sheppard is beyond contestation

+ If it’s good writing, it’s fanon; if it’s bad, it’s crap.

+ If you watch SE’s John/Ronon vid “Red Moon” before you watch Shalott’s John/Rodney vid “Bohemian Like You,” the line about the “who’s that guy” is EVEN FUNNIER.

Day 3:

+ The lovely and talented Shoshanna is a fantastic auctioneer. (To be fair, I knew that already.)

+ CON.TXT is the friendliest, least wanky slash con ever -- but we need to schedule panels sooner.

+ Everyone feels sorry for the VHS tapes, but no one wants to take them home.

Three Things I learned on the first day of CON.TXT

2008-06-14T13:25:27Z

1) Relax, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, is not a particularly good accompaniment to a photo of Brokeback Mountain's Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. It just does not work AT ALL.

2) Soft Cell's Tainted Love, on the other hand, works a lots better than you might expect.

3) A slash fandom wiki that helped orient newbies would be a useful thing. My first panel of the day (Fannish Lore and Terminology) and my last panel of the day (Creating a Safe Space for Fans of Color) were in agreement on this.

drive-by post ...

2008-06-07T17:50:59Z

I am swamped this weekend, but this meme has been everywhere, and I could not resist:

You are in a mall when zombies attack. You have:

-- one weapon

-- one song blasting on the speakers

-- one famous person to fight alongside you.

Choose.

I chose:

-- an AK-47 (b/c they're well-constructed, and I've actually fired one before)

-- AC/DC's "Back in Black"

-- I almost went for Jason Statham, but then I realized he'd be a liability against zombies: He's great at hand-to-hand, sure, but hand-to-hand is more likely to get him bitten, and once he turned he'd be a stronger adversary. So I picked Geena Davis: She's an Olympic-level archer.

RM chose:

-- a German-made MG-42: The "world's best defensive machine gun," he says, it has the highest rate of fire (1,200-1,500 rounds-per-minute).

-- theme song from Conan the Barbarian, by Basil Poledouris (because it's "good music to die to").

-- He can't decide between Audie Murphy (he'd have calm, cool resolve during combat) and Ted Nugent (a bowhunter who has that psychotic mania one needs when fighting zombies).

two things

2008-05-09T01:29:43Z

First, the very last comment to my May 5th post actually had me going for a minute -- long enough to do a whois search on the IP address and look up a certain comedian's tour schedule and confirm that he could not have been in Illinois when that comment was posted. Also, gullible is not in the dictionary.

Second, I've probably posted about this before, but Charlton Heston is really the ur-shatner. He does these crazy soliloquies in "Planet of the Apes" that are SO TOTALLY Shatner -- except that if Shatner did them, it would have that smarmy Shatner cheesiness (that individually wrapped pasteurized processed slices cheesiness).

When Heston does it, there's a whiff of cheese, but it's a whiff of mozzarella di bufula or a fine Stilton.

I know he got wacky there toward the end, but I miss Charlton Heston.

molly_o @ 2008-05-07T22:18:00

2008-05-08T02:19:56Z

I have seen Iron Man, and it was *good*.

most excellent casting

2008-05-05T17:53:08Z

It's possible I'm the last person in fandom to learn that Eddie Izzard is voicing Reepicheep in Prince Caspian, but I bet I'm also the most excited. [hearts Reepicheep]

so close ...

2008-04-29T02:04:07Z

I received a press release today promoting the new Stargate movie. My first thought was, "Why am I getting something about Stargate at my work e-mail address?" But then I actually opened it and realized that -- for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture -- they believe I might be in a position to assist their promotional efforts.

Eh, it's not a great fit, but maybe I could ... holy fuck! "If you are interested in talent interviews, please let me know." !!!1!11!!!!1!!!!

Eep!! Talent interviews!!

Except the thing is ... I've never really cared for SG-1.

Still, I'll probably try to give it plug somewhere, just so I can stay on their mailing list. Because if they ever do an SGA movie, you better believe I'd interview *their* talent.