Now that the gout is finally under control, we had a much more productive weekend. We got a good start on the Christmas shopping and finished a bunch of other errands on Saturday. Then on Sunday, we spent a few hours prepping the house so there was room for the tree before unpacking enough of the basement storage to start.…
Oops! Fumble-click again. Come back in a bit and I’ll have the finished post up.
The Wonkette, which a snarky fun place to catch up on the news, has a recurring feature call the Derp Roundup where they cover several strange or stupid news items that were two small or unimportant to merit a full post of their own, but still too WTF-worthy to completely ignore.
Which isn’t what this post is.
Well, it’s partly what this post is, but oh, it’s so complicated! … Continue reading Weekend update and roundup
(In case you don’t know: I’m a taoist who loves Christmas music, decorating trees, and making everything bright and sparkly; my husband is a pagan who puts up with my yuletide mania and helps amp up the silly on my decorating themes.)
Anyway, here is a collection of news and other things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared:
Is This The Best Trans Character In The History Of Video Games?.
What If We’re Wrong About Depression?.
Why It’s Impossible to Indict a Cop.
The Pain of the Watermelon Joke. Thanks to @geojlc for the link!
Race ya: White people, we have to do better.
In Mississippi Marriage Ruling, Judge Gives History Lesson on Anti-Gay Discrimination. It really is a must-read.
How to Make Your Last Name Plural This Christmas Season.
Teacher Schools Class On Privilege…With A Recycling Bin And Some Paper.
And someone decided that wasn’t a comprehensive lesson: How to really understand white privilege.
VISIBLE GIRLS: LONDON’S LOST FEMALE SUBCULTURES. In the early 1980s, photographer Anita Corbin documented the “informal uniforms” of young women’s subcultures across London.
Speaking of stories that restore a bit of my faith in humanity: Andre Johnson Bought A Buttload Of Toys For Kids Again.
Turkeygate: In Defense of Sasha and Malia.
Stephen Colbert’s Defense Of The New Lightsaber Is Awesomely Nerdy. Thanks to @tdjohnsn for the link!
Arizona pastor predicts ‘AIDS-free Christmas’ if all gays are killed, as God commands. “Predicts” isn’t the right word. He advocates for killing us.
My Great-Great-Aunt Discovered Francium. And It Killed Her.
The typography (and iconography) of Ridley Scott’s Alien. This is awesome!
Cartoon by Steve Stack puts #BlackLivesMatter into clear perspective.
THE GLOWING MALE PHYSIQUES OF DUTCH ARTIST MAURICE HEERDINK. Click through all the pages, the art is worth it.
Eric Radford: Olympic figure skater, medal-winning family man. And gay.
One last gasp: Eric Garner and the failure of racial justice.
Electric Eels Can Remotely Control Their Prey’s Muscles.
Where Are The “Comeback” Columns About Obama? They Were A D.C. Media Staple For Bush.
I wrote about: NaNoWriMo achievement unlocked again!.
And Drop-kick me, Odin, through the goal posts of life*. Catching up on my goals, with a tiny digression about a cheesy country song.
Plus my thoughts On apologizing.
Bing Crosby & David Bowie – The Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth:
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American Masters: Bing Crosby Rediscovered | Bowie and Bing | PBS – the story of how Bowie saying he hated the song, led to the creation of a new Christmas classic:
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Star Wars Prank (Rémi Gaillard):
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Kate Pierson – “Mister Sister” (Official Music Video):
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[Official Video] Little Drummer Boy – Pentatonix:
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Queen + Adam Lambert – Somebody To Love (Live on X-Factor 2014):
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Carol of the Bells – David Hicken:
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For two days I worked from home because of the latest gout flare-up. The first day I could barely walk across the house with the assistance of the cane. The second day was much better, but I couldn’t actually get my foot into my good shoes, that’s how swollen it was. The third morning I was limping, but able to get around the house pretty quickly without the cane. So, I was determined to go into the office.…
There are so many situations that would be improved if only people knew how to apologize. A good apology isn’t really that hard to make. When the author known as Lemony Snicket recently made a strange comment at the National Book Awards after Jacqueline Woodson won in the young adult category for her memoir in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming, he apologized as if he meant it. He characterized his comment as “monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist.” He said he shouldn’t have said it, he realized he shouldn’t have said it, and he’s sorry he said it. And he recognized that his words didn’t just hurt Woodson.
Then, noting that he made this remark under a circumstance where what he was supposed to be doing was help shine a light on great books, he donated $10,000 to a campaign for diversity in publishing, and asked everyone else to donate, noting that for the next 24 hours he would match all donations received up to 100,000.
None of which makes is comment retroactively all right, but because he didn’t go with the typical, “if people were offended, I apologize,” or “my comments were misunderstood,” or “anyone who knows me in daily life knows this isn’t the kind of person I am.”
When people go one of those routes, they aren’t apologizing, they’re making excuses and trying to get out of trouble. They don’t really believe that what they said or did was wrong. And they don’t believe that anyone who is offended is “legitimately” hurt.
It isn’t fun to admit that you’re wrong. Most of us are not socialized to admit that we are wrong about something. We’re taught that being wrong is bad—not just a mistake, but that there must be something seriously wrong with us if we are wrong.
Right?…
When I set my goals for the year, I said I’d do regular check-ins. And for the first ten months I did. I wound up not posting an update on my goals in the first week of November because during November I was working on NaNoWriMo, determined to get 50,000 words into the next novel in that month. Since last year I had posted two or three updates on my NaNoWriMo progress during the month, I figured I would do the same this year, and maybe sneak in a little bit about the over all goals.
But I only did two updates about my NaNoWriMo progress, and neither of them talked about the rest of the goals.
I tried to set very concrete steps for achieving my goals. Inspired by a friend’s suggestion, I tried to identify a better habit to replace each bad habit. So, here’s the check-in for both October and Novemeber:
Continue reading Drop-kick me, Odin, through the goal posts of life*
Today is World AIDS Day. Each year, I spend part of the day remembering people I have known who left this world too soon because of that disease.
So: Frank, Mike, Tim, David, Todd, Chet, Jim, Steve, Brian, Rick, Stacy, Phil, Mark, Michael, Jerry, Walt, Charles, Thomas, Mike, Richard, Bob, Mikey, James, Lisa, Todd, Kerry, Glen, and Jack. Some of you I didn’t know for very long. One of you was a relative. One of you was one of my best friends in high school.
I miss you all. It was a privilege to know you.
Bruce Ward has written about one aspect of this long struggle: Longterm Survivors: A World AIDS Day Remembrance.
Mitchell Warren explains why We Can’t Wait Five Years to See if the AIDS Response Is on Track.
Finally, if you think this is something that only affects a limited number of people, maybe even people who have brought it on themselves: AIDS-related illnesses are the second leading cause of death among adolescents aged 10–19 years globally, and the leading cause of death among adolescents in Africa.
I’m not finished with the novel. In fact, I figured that 50,000 words would be about half of the total novel. But I have a good, solid start on it. I will need to shift much of my attention over to the final edits to the first novel so I can publish it, not to mention a Christmas Ghost story that must be ready to read in just three weeks (eeek!).
This is the first time I’ve used Scrivener’s Project Targets widget. It’s very cool. You set the word count target for the entire project, and Scrivener keeps track of it in the top bar. When you only have a few words written, the bar is red. As the bar grows, it changes to orange, then yellow, then yellow-green, turning a darker and darker green until you reach the goal. The lower bar is for shorter term goals you set. You can reset that bar any time you like, except that it always resets at midnight. Which works nicely with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), since writing every day and trying to average 1667 word a day is the goal.
I tweeted screenshots of my project targets over the course of the month, so here’s one of the earliest ones, when the upper bar representing the whole month was still in the red, and that particular day I was just getting into the orange.
November isn’t quite over, yet, and I haven’t reached the end of the novel, so I plan one continuing to work on this for a another day before I switch to the Christmas ghost story.
I also need to post an update on my yearly goals. I haven’t since early October, because everything was focused on NaNoWriMo this month. But I have not forgotten them!
Right now, I’m feeling very happy about the writing.
It’s Friday! The final Friday in November! Where did the year go? Seriously, where did it go!?
Because we’re traveling this week, and my schedule has been disrupted in ways in addition to the traveling, et cetera, this week’s links are a little shorter than usual.
Anyway, here is a collection of news and other things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared:
That Girl Who Dies: Fridging, Feminism, Writerly and Readerly Doublethink, and Spoilers for Unmade (and oddly.. Little Women and Narnia…). And it’t not what you think… well, it’s partly what you think but… oh, it’s so complicated!
First published a couple years ago, but worth a read: No, you’re not entitled to your opinion.
The Secret Life of Passwords: We despise them – yet we imbue them with our hopes and dreams, our dearest memories, our deepest meanings. It is a beautiful article, illustrated with beautiful animated graphics, and definitely worth your time.
Retina OSX on the Original Macintosh. Very cute!
Compassion is painful. That’s how you know it’s working.
Bob McCulloch Is A Lying, Slimy, Arrogant Tool Who Gave A Masterful PR Performance.
2,000-Year-Old Mosaics Uncovered In Turkey Before Being Lost To Flooding.
Philae: The bouncing baby space probe that gave itself another chance.
Good Police vs Bad Police. A friend said this much better than I could.
Readers Push Lucie’s Place Fundraiser Past Its Goal. So, because the Duggars donated $10,000 to the campaign to stop a gay rights bill in Arkansas, recorded a nasty robo-call about it, and have been drumming up hysteria at anti-gay rallies, one blogger begged his readers to make a small donation to a homeless youth center that tries to make a safe place for LGBT kids, and other bloggers amplified the signal. In less than 24 hours more than $20,000 was donated to Lucie’s Place. So let me take this moment to urge you, whereever you are, to donate some money to a local youth homeless shelter, such as Lucie’s Place (luciesplace.org), the Ali Forney Center (aliforneycenter.org) or YouthCare (youthcare.org).
How could they? How could we?.
Are you participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? Let’s be writing buddies!
Just Dance 2015 – Xmas Tree – Bollywood Santa – 5 Stars (Thanks{?} to Shockwave for the link):
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Pastor Manning Discusses Semen (parody… sort of):
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How to Talk To Your Kids About Gay Country Musicians:
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Frente! – Bizarre Love Triangle:
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Best Snow News Bloopers EVER:
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PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – GAGARIN (the grooviest music video of the year):
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Font Folly 