(no subject)
* The G8 is now the G7, Russia being dumped for invading the Crimea.
* "GOP ties US hands on Ukraine with odd demands:"
* There was a deadly mudslide in a little town called Ossa South of here on Saturday. The numbers of missing aren't firm. They have confirmed fourteen dead.
* "Oil spill fouls coast on Valdez anniversary:"
* The Michigan Marriage Ban got struck down Saturday and approximately 400 people got married before the Appeals Court put the stay in place. This means the couples are in legal limbo.
* Chris Christie declares has completely cleared himself of any wrong doing in all the abuse of power/corruption/misappropriation of funds that his administration performed under his watch based on a report he paid for. The investigators were so through they didn't interview any of the key players in the multiple scandals. The New York Times claims that this completely exonerates Christie even though they haven't seen it yet. After all, Chris Christie paid a million dollars of tax payer money for an investigation to clear himself, so it must be complete true and accurate and totally unbiased. Riiiiiight.
* I see the gun rights extremists have food my Tumblr again. *Sigh* I should probably get the program that blacklists stuff as I don't particularly enjoy ableist insults in place of political debate, but I have no idea what it's called, where it lives, or how to use it, all of which means it's likely less work to wait it out like I did last time. I still don't see how wanting the assault weapon ban back, limited clips, and universal background checks means I want women to be raped and murdered, but they assure me that this is the case. Normally I'd engage with the ones who have valid points and arguments, but the field of strawmen means I'd have to dig through a lot of illogic and hate to get there, which quickly stops being worth it, especially on a post long enough ago, I forgot it existed.
* I got a few hours of sleep and then called the HOA to find out WTF on the latest threat to find us, this time because Squirrel left his blind down. Yes, they really were only giving us one business day to replace Squirrel's blind and we better do it before 5PM. No, we couldn't just open the blind even though they were fine with that same blind in the same condition last inspection. Luckily, Squirrel figured out how to get the mountings off and it wasn't that expensive. I am fascinated to see what bullshit thing they will threaten us over yet. As I also had a UPS to wait for and I estimated a minimum of five hours for the great stored document sort, I set to on that.
I did actually sort all the things, though two big stacks had to be rough sorted as I have neither time nor energy for reading what turned out to be a massive amount of correspondence. I found "Bjorn to be wild" Jason's love letters early in the storage clearance, but was expecting to find most of a school year's worth of daily letters from my Soldier. (He would write every day while we were parted and mail them in a lump every week. It's a lot of writing in his tiny, but very clear print). I did plan to go through them as I haven't looked at them since they went into storage when I came North. This wasn't the surprise.
No, the surprise was how much other stuff turned up. I could rough sort out things too water damaged to read or cards with no letter included and keepsakes and playbills from things that I don't much care about anymore, but the rest? OMG! There were all sorts of things from dead relatives I need to look over properly, and correspondence from my Father's next younger sister that she wrote me before I knew what sort of person she was. There were a whole bunch of things from friends, mostly from my first and second college, including a huge mass of things Karjack sent me when she was in Germany. I remembered corresponding with her, but the volume took me by surprise. I don't think I'd ever looked at them in aggregate before.
There were a surprising number of letters from guys I was with in my teens. I knew I'd had letters from Zeyr, Jeremiah, and the guy I deflowered behind the library after my first waltz party at my first college, but had assumed they'd been lost or culled in some long ago move. I had no memory at all of all the other letters from a host of of other guys I'd been with in High School and my first college. I had honestly blocked out the obsessive letter writing from that poor bastard I was with my first time at sixteen during the year after when he was semi-stalking me at Burger King in desperate hope that I'd change my mind and come back to him. I am surprised the letters were there, but then, my whole adult life, I've had a tendency to toss love letters into the keepsake correspondence box after the relationships ran their course, so there they were commingled with all the other stuff I hadn't the heart to lose and reread both. I suppose it's time to look through them, but not right now, when I'm feeling pulled ten directions and I need two or three times the hours in a day to get it all done. I am kind of curious what's in... I was going to say some of them, but it's more like most of them. I remember certain specific things, but not sufficient for the volume of letters, so there are likely to be all sorts of things I've forgotten in there. Seriously, there aren't that many things from the last nineteen years, as e-mail ate the letter as an art form, and while I printed things like my Dad's last couple years of email before he died when I left UofO on the grounds the account was going poof, after that, very little went into the box.
Looking at the mass of boxes I'd reserved during this process for reboxing, it amuses me that even the moving boxes have stories. These vodka boxes were grabbed off the back stairwell of Campbell at St. John's Annapolis, as we had a last few things to pack before going West for good. Here is a Curly Fries box from Dairy Queen, taken home from work as I was packing to go to college in Eugene. This box was mailed to a frenemy in Corvallis, likely during the Annapolis evacuation. That was mailed to the Pepto Bismo House on Hilyard. The Blackwell and Info Serves boxes I grabbed from the loading docks of the Knight Library, where I worked, during one or another move during my second college. My life in cardboard and addresses.
My room is livable again, though it won't be right until I've completely sorted and cleared the storage unit, since I have stacks of half full boxes waiting to see what else turns up. I also need to start breaking down the cardboard wall I have built closet side. I then had all the stuff to clean up and put away in various rooms post sort. I did the important stuff, though it took some more hours. Apparently, I also inherited an antique silver tea service. It looks very familiar, but I can't remember which of my Mother's side relatives owned it. I have no idea where I'm putting it, so I left it wrapped. I need to reorganize the kitchen again to deal with all the china anyway. And then there's the stuff now stacked in the bathroom. And the bureaucracy stack, and getting stuff ready to mail, and, and, and...
* I found "You Kill Me" genuinely engaging. I do enjoy a dark sense of humor, the acting was excellent, and while they telescoped the process of trying to get sober, they treated addiction as a serious thing.
* I'm reading "The Princess Bride" for the first time as part of the BPAL group read. I love the move, but never read the book. My impressions so far:
I am reading the 25th anniversary of the movie edition, and I made the mistake of reading the introductions. As charming as the Andre the Giant bits were, I was uncomfortable with all the nasty fatphobic comments and the antigay comment. I don't approve of anyone talking to someone that way and having it aimed at a child, his son, really made me instantly hostile. I rather wish I'd skipped ahead to the story instead.
I get that the conceit is that this is the "Good Parts" of a longer text, but reading the book, I keep thinking the movie is the real "Good Parts" edition. The first chapter is so long and boring. While it does give a deeper understanding of Buttercup's character, she is so unlikeable that it's not helping. I honestly think the way the movie handles that in a couple of minutes is vastly superior to all that turgid dialog. I'm finding a lot of the book is that way. I do think it was interesting to get Inigo's back story, and there have been some nice bits like that that do work for me, but I mostly fidget while waiting to get to the Good Parts, like the Westley/Inigo conversation at the cliff. (Where I stopped today to deal stuff).
I wanted so much to love this book the way I love this movie, but so far that's not happening. It's a bad sign, when I want to put down the book so I can watch the movie.
* TW: Discussion of the use of Rape in the Anthology, also zombies. "Back to our roots: BOOK OF THE DEAD.:" http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/563012.html
* OMG! W. Kamau Bell, one of my favorite famous people was on At Midnight tonight! I missed him after his brilliant show got cancelled, okay?
This entry was originally posted at http://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/417102.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
* "GOP ties US hands on Ukraine with odd demands:"
* There was a deadly mudslide in a little town called Ossa South of here on Saturday. The numbers of missing aren't firm. They have confirmed fourteen dead.
* "Oil spill fouls coast on Valdez anniversary:"
* The Michigan Marriage Ban got struck down Saturday and approximately 400 people got married before the Appeals Court put the stay in place. This means the couples are in legal limbo.
* Chris Christie declares has completely cleared himself of any wrong doing in all the abuse of power/corruption/misappropriation of funds that his administration performed under his watch based on a report he paid for. The investigators were so through they didn't interview any of the key players in the multiple scandals. The New York Times claims that this completely exonerates Christie even though they haven't seen it yet. After all, Chris Christie paid a million dollars of tax payer money for an investigation to clear himself, so it must be complete true and accurate and totally unbiased. Riiiiiight.
* I see the gun rights extremists have food my Tumblr again. *Sigh* I should probably get the program that blacklists stuff as I don't particularly enjoy ableist insults in place of political debate, but I have no idea what it's called, where it lives, or how to use it, all of which means it's likely less work to wait it out like I did last time. I still don't see how wanting the assault weapon ban back, limited clips, and universal background checks means I want women to be raped and murdered, but they assure me that this is the case. Normally I'd engage with the ones who have valid points and arguments, but the field of strawmen means I'd have to dig through a lot of illogic and hate to get there, which quickly stops being worth it, especially on a post long enough ago, I forgot it existed.
* I got a few hours of sleep and then called the HOA to find out WTF on the latest threat to find us, this time because Squirrel left his blind down. Yes, they really were only giving us one business day to replace Squirrel's blind and we better do it before 5PM. No, we couldn't just open the blind even though they were fine with that same blind in the same condition last inspection. Luckily, Squirrel figured out how to get the mountings off and it wasn't that expensive. I am fascinated to see what bullshit thing they will threaten us over yet. As I also had a UPS to wait for and I estimated a minimum of five hours for the great stored document sort, I set to on that.
I did actually sort all the things, though two big stacks had to be rough sorted as I have neither time nor energy for reading what turned out to be a massive amount of correspondence. I found "Bjorn to be wild" Jason's love letters early in the storage clearance, but was expecting to find most of a school year's worth of daily letters from my Soldier. (He would write every day while we were parted and mail them in a lump every week. It's a lot of writing in his tiny, but very clear print). I did plan to go through them as I haven't looked at them since they went into storage when I came North. This wasn't the surprise.
No, the surprise was how much other stuff turned up. I could rough sort out things too water damaged to read or cards with no letter included and keepsakes and playbills from things that I don't much care about anymore, but the rest? OMG! There were all sorts of things from dead relatives I need to look over properly, and correspondence from my Father's next younger sister that she wrote me before I knew what sort of person she was. There were a whole bunch of things from friends, mostly from my first and second college, including a huge mass of things Karjack sent me when she was in Germany. I remembered corresponding with her, but the volume took me by surprise. I don't think I'd ever looked at them in aggregate before.
There were a surprising number of letters from guys I was with in my teens. I knew I'd had letters from Zeyr, Jeremiah, and the guy I deflowered behind the library after my first waltz party at my first college, but had assumed they'd been lost or culled in some long ago move. I had no memory at all of all the other letters from a host of of other guys I'd been with in High School and my first college. I had honestly blocked out the obsessive letter writing from that poor bastard I was with my first time at sixteen during the year after when he was semi-stalking me at Burger King in desperate hope that I'd change my mind and come back to him. I am surprised the letters were there, but then, my whole adult life, I've had a tendency to toss love letters into the keepsake correspondence box after the relationships ran their course, so there they were commingled with all the other stuff I hadn't the heart to lose and reread both. I suppose it's time to look through them, but not right now, when I'm feeling pulled ten directions and I need two or three times the hours in a day to get it all done. I am kind of curious what's in... I was going to say some of them, but it's more like most of them. I remember certain specific things, but not sufficient for the volume of letters, so there are likely to be all sorts of things I've forgotten in there. Seriously, there aren't that many things from the last nineteen years, as e-mail ate the letter as an art form, and while I printed things like my Dad's last couple years of email before he died when I left UofO on the grounds the account was going poof, after that, very little went into the box.
Looking at the mass of boxes I'd reserved during this process for reboxing, it amuses me that even the moving boxes have stories. These vodka boxes were grabbed off the back stairwell of Campbell at St. John's Annapolis, as we had a last few things to pack before going West for good. Here is a Curly Fries box from Dairy Queen, taken home from work as I was packing to go to college in Eugene. This box was mailed to a frenemy in Corvallis, likely during the Annapolis evacuation. That was mailed to the Pepto Bismo House on Hilyard. The Blackwell and Info Serves boxes I grabbed from the loading docks of the Knight Library, where I worked, during one or another move during my second college. My life in cardboard and addresses.
My room is livable again, though it won't be right until I've completely sorted and cleared the storage unit, since I have stacks of half full boxes waiting to see what else turns up. I also need to start breaking down the cardboard wall I have built closet side. I then had all the stuff to clean up and put away in various rooms post sort. I did the important stuff, though it took some more hours. Apparently, I also inherited an antique silver tea service. It looks very familiar, but I can't remember which of my Mother's side relatives owned it. I have no idea where I'm putting it, so I left it wrapped. I need to reorganize the kitchen again to deal with all the china anyway. And then there's the stuff now stacked in the bathroom. And the bureaucracy stack, and getting stuff ready to mail, and, and, and...
* I found "You Kill Me" genuinely engaging. I do enjoy a dark sense of humor, the acting was excellent, and while they telescoped the process of trying to get sober, they treated addiction as a serious thing.
* I'm reading "The Princess Bride" for the first time as part of the BPAL group read. I love the move, but never read the book. My impressions so far:
I am reading the 25th anniversary of the movie edition, and I made the mistake of reading the introductions. As charming as the Andre the Giant bits were, I was uncomfortable with all the nasty fatphobic comments and the antigay comment. I don't approve of anyone talking to someone that way and having it aimed at a child, his son, really made me instantly hostile. I rather wish I'd skipped ahead to the story instead.
I get that the conceit is that this is the "Good Parts" of a longer text, but reading the book, I keep thinking the movie is the real "Good Parts" edition. The first chapter is so long and boring. While it does give a deeper understanding of Buttercup's character, she is so unlikeable that it's not helping. I honestly think the way the movie handles that in a couple of minutes is vastly superior to all that turgid dialog. I'm finding a lot of the book is that way. I do think it was interesting to get Inigo's back story, and there have been some nice bits like that that do work for me, but I mostly fidget while waiting to get to the Good Parts, like the Westley/Inigo conversation at the cliff. (Where I stopped today to deal stuff).
I wanted so much to love this book the way I love this movie, but so far that's not happening. It's a bad sign, when I want to put down the book so I can watch the movie.
* TW: Discussion of the use of Rape in the Anthology, also zombies. "Back to our roots: BOOK OF THE DEAD.:" http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/563012.html
* OMG! W. Kamau Bell, one of my favorite famous people was on At Midnight tonight! I missed him after his brilliant show got cancelled, okay?
This entry was originally posted at http://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/417102.html. Please comment there using OpenID.