Counting down to the long weekend
Mom didn't go play darts last night after all, so pizza and The Borgias happened, and then I relinquished the TV to her and headed to my room to read on my computer and work on the Warlock Sock. (The shawl was on a purl row and I decided I didn't want to try doing that while reading -- especially since I'd worked on it during lunch and at the front desk and at Grandma's and during The Borgias already that day.) I'd been planning to watch House last night, too, but I mentioned it to Mom and she figured that since she'd seen parts of a handful of episodes and it was the series finale, she'd like to see it too, which means I'm stuck waiting till she's got a couple of hours free and isn't watching baseball or Dancing with the Stars. (And also, I'm going to be stuck explaining backstory to her instead of being able to just watch the damned show. This is why I refuse to watch certain programs with her -- she'll have too many questions for me and some shows I consider a waste of breath to explain.) Dozed off when I was about to head for bed, though at least I'd fed the bunnies first.
Have decided I need to swing by Petco on the way home tonight for Advantage and a pair of clippers, never mind waiting for my paycheck. The bunnies are miserable.
Also, the tawny tabby kitten that turned up in our yard yesterday morning and disappeared after a feeding showed up again last night -- stalking along the patio and then lurking at the edges of the yard. This morning it was yowling again, so I fed it again while our cats were having their breakfast. After filling its tummy it started complaining again, so I sent a couple of cats out to visit. (And also to clear away the remains of the kitten chow.) It doesn't want me to come close to it, but it's already less shy.
Links from Tumblr / Twitter / Facebook:
SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Soars on 2nd Try -- "Space Exploration Technologies, the first company aiming to reach the International Space Station, got off to a rocking start early Tuesday with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The 178-foot tall rocket, which carried a Dragon cargo capsule, lifted off at 3:44 a.m. EDT, arcing out over the Atlantic Ocean as it headed to a preliminary orbit about 200 miles above Earth. Eleven minutes later, Dragon passed its first key test, deploying solar panels needed to power the spacecraft."
A Message to Girls About Religious Men Who Fear You -- "If you were not powerful, they would not take you so seriously and they take you very, very seriously. You should, too. You can set the world on fire. It doesn't feel this way, I know. If that were true, you think, I would not have to sit out baseball games out of respect for religious beliefs that require my subservience and call it a gift. I would not be turned away from serving God with my brothers. I would not be taught that I'm an evil temptress or the virtue keeper of boys. I would not have virginity wielded as a weapon against me and my worth determined by my womb. I would not be spat on and called a whore by men when I am eight because my arms are bare. I would not be poisoned for going to school. I would not be forced, at the age of 9, to carry twins borne of child torture. I would not have to kill myself to avoid marrying my rapist. If this were true, they would pursue my rapists instead of stoning me for their crimes. I, and thousands others, would not be killed for 'honor.' Girls, these things happen because there are men with power who fear you and want to control you. I know that I have equated relatively benign baseball games with deadly, honor killings but, whereas one is a type of daily, seemingly harmless micro-aggression and the other is a lethal macro-aggression they share the same roots. The basis of both, and escalating actions in between, is the same: To teach you, and all girls subject to these men and their authority, a lesson: 'Know your place.' I also know that there are places where girls are marginalized and hurt that are not religious. But all over the world these hypocritical, pious men, in their shamefully obvious wrongness, represent the sharp-edged tip of an iceberg, the visible surface of a deep and vast harm. They employ the full range of their earthly and divine influence to make sure, as early as possible, that you and the boys around you understand what they want your relative roles to be. Where there are patriarchal religions girls, in dramatically varying and extreme degrees, disproportionately suffer. Understand these men for what they are: bullies. Do not internalize what they would have you believe."
Kickstarter's Sting In The Tail: Tax -- "If I have a worry about the runaway successes we’ve seen recently on Kickstarter, the latest of which is the $10.2 million raised by e-ink watch Pebble, it’s that project owners could end up suffering because of the sheer scale of their success. One particularly important issue, which has gone largely undiscussed in the crowdfunding community, is tax."
5 Celebrities Who Got Famous by Being Obsessed Fanboys -- I was directed to the article because of #2 on the list, David Tennant, who was the one story out of the five I'd actually heard before.
DEAR MARVEL: PLEASE STOP RUINING EVERYTHING -- "I have long proclaimed on this column, and everywhere else, that you don’t have to re-make the comics industry to get women to come along. You don’t have to drape it in pink and ponies and princesses (although ponies ARE cool) in order to bring in more women readers. You have to just stop being so goddamn offensive at every opportunity you’re given. You have to stop saying things that make you look uneducated and sexist whenever you get asked about female characters. You have to stop finding new ways to say 'no girls allowed.' Really, you need to stop THINKING things that mean 'no girls allowed.' I wrote a post just after Avengers released about some movies I’d like to see about superheroines on the heels of the success of Black Widow in Avengers. Three of the five films I picked were Marvel based. In fact, had I the time to do my original list of ten, seven of my ten were Marvel based. I even went so far in my post to cast the film and assign directors. I wrote that column over the weekend in my free time, but Quesada, who works for Marvel and is PAID to think about these kind of things, thought enough about this issue to know that there’s not only not a single female property in the Marvel Universe worthy of a franchise, but that there’s not a single actress in the actual universe capable of doing justice to these female properties. I don’t want to get into how that makes no sense…how can there not be an actress capable of carrying a female superhero franchise when there’s not a female superhero worthy of carrying a franchise. If that argument is not the fucking snake that eats itself I don’t know what is."
And, right. Need to finish what I'm on and head on out.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
Have decided I need to swing by Petco on the way home tonight for Advantage and a pair of clippers, never mind waiting for my paycheck. The bunnies are miserable.
Also, the tawny tabby kitten that turned up in our yard yesterday morning and disappeared after a feeding showed up again last night -- stalking along the patio and then lurking at the edges of the yard. This morning it was yowling again, so I fed it again while our cats were having their breakfast. After filling its tummy it started complaining again, so I sent a couple of cats out to visit. (And also to clear away the remains of the kitten chow.) It doesn't want me to come close to it, but it's already less shy.
Links from Tumblr / Twitter / Facebook:
SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Soars on 2nd Try -- "Space Exploration Technologies, the first company aiming to reach the International Space Station, got off to a rocking start early Tuesday with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The 178-foot tall rocket, which carried a Dragon cargo capsule, lifted off at 3:44 a.m. EDT, arcing out over the Atlantic Ocean as it headed to a preliminary orbit about 200 miles above Earth. Eleven minutes later, Dragon passed its first key test, deploying solar panels needed to power the spacecraft."
A Message to Girls About Religious Men Who Fear You -- "If you were not powerful, they would not take you so seriously and they take you very, very seriously. You should, too. You can set the world on fire. It doesn't feel this way, I know. If that were true, you think, I would not have to sit out baseball games out of respect for religious beliefs that require my subservience and call it a gift. I would not be turned away from serving God with my brothers. I would not be taught that I'm an evil temptress or the virtue keeper of boys. I would not have virginity wielded as a weapon against me and my worth determined by my womb. I would not be spat on and called a whore by men when I am eight because my arms are bare. I would not be poisoned for going to school. I would not be forced, at the age of 9, to carry twins borne of child torture. I would not have to kill myself to avoid marrying my rapist. If this were true, they would pursue my rapists instead of stoning me for their crimes. I, and thousands others, would not be killed for 'honor.' Girls, these things happen because there are men with power who fear you and want to control you. I know that I have equated relatively benign baseball games with deadly, honor killings but, whereas one is a type of daily, seemingly harmless micro-aggression and the other is a lethal macro-aggression they share the same roots. The basis of both, and escalating actions in between, is the same: To teach you, and all girls subject to these men and their authority, a lesson: 'Know your place.' I also know that there are places where girls are marginalized and hurt that are not religious. But all over the world these hypocritical, pious men, in their shamefully obvious wrongness, represent the sharp-edged tip of an iceberg, the visible surface of a deep and vast harm. They employ the full range of their earthly and divine influence to make sure, as early as possible, that you and the boys around you understand what they want your relative roles to be. Where there are patriarchal religions girls, in dramatically varying and extreme degrees, disproportionately suffer. Understand these men for what they are: bullies. Do not internalize what they would have you believe."
Kickstarter's Sting In The Tail: Tax -- "If I have a worry about the runaway successes we’ve seen recently on Kickstarter, the latest of which is the $10.2 million raised by e-ink watch Pebble, it’s that project owners could end up suffering because of the sheer scale of their success. One particularly important issue, which has gone largely undiscussed in the crowdfunding community, is tax."
5 Celebrities Who Got Famous by Being Obsessed Fanboys -- I was directed to the article because of #2 on the list, David Tennant, who was the one story out of the five I'd actually heard before.
DEAR MARVEL: PLEASE STOP RUINING EVERYTHING -- "I have long proclaimed on this column, and everywhere else, that you don’t have to re-make the comics industry to get women to come along. You don’t have to drape it in pink and ponies and princesses (although ponies ARE cool) in order to bring in more women readers. You have to just stop being so goddamn offensive at every opportunity you’re given. You have to stop saying things that make you look uneducated and sexist whenever you get asked about female characters. You have to stop finding new ways to say 'no girls allowed.' Really, you need to stop THINKING things that mean 'no girls allowed.' I wrote a post just after Avengers released about some movies I’d like to see about superheroines on the heels of the success of Black Widow in Avengers. Three of the five films I picked were Marvel based. In fact, had I the time to do my original list of ten, seven of my ten were Marvel based. I even went so far in my post to cast the film and assign directors. I wrote that column over the weekend in my free time, but Quesada, who works for Marvel and is PAID to think about these kind of things, thought enough about this issue to know that there’s not only not a single female property in the Marvel Universe worthy of a franchise, but that there’s not a single actress in the actual universe capable of doing justice to these female properties. I don’t want to get into how that makes no sense…how can there not be an actress capable of carrying a female superhero franchise when there’s not a female superhero worthy of carrying a franchise. If that argument is not the fucking snake that eats itself I don’t know what is."
And, right. Need to finish what I'm on and head on out.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.