one thing about living in santa carla i never could stomach
(the lost boys is on. :D i love this movie. it's so ridiculous.)
i voted early today, because i could, and i have to say, it's a little anticlimactic to go in, cast your vote, go home, and not obsessively watch tv or refresh twitter to find out how the election's going. i think there was only one early-voting polling place - city hall - and all the voting booths were on the second floor. when i got there, the line started halfway up the stairs, and then went down the hall and doubled back. by the time i left it was out the front door. there were some babies in strollers, some little kids, one well-behaved small poodle. also a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "made in tibet" waiting in line with an older guy who was probably his dad. there were a couple of display cases in the hallway, and one of them had a goethe quote across the top - "boldness has genius, power, and magic in it" - which i thought was appropriate.
it took me a little over half an hour total, and then i went home and had breakfast. the first meal of the day is always breakfast, even if you eat it at 12:30. :D and then i got my hair cut! and was fifteen minutes late because the gps took me the stupidest way imaginable - instead of the short route to the turnpike, it wanted to take me in what was effectively a giant circle. sometimes the gps is so dumb. and then i got my comics, and then i came home. fun times.
is anyone else watching dirk gently's holistic detective agency? is it normal that i have approximately zero clue what's going on? the corgi's cute, tho.
thursday at work we had oktoberfest happy hour, with beer (natch), giant pretzels, and cookies. occasionally the job comes through with something fun. thursday night i had writing group, in which we discussed my story ( the anniversary, which i already posted here) and a nicely creepy one from one of the other women, which involved a slightly haunted bart station in san francisco, carnivorous escalators, and the idea that the land needs a regular blood sacrifice to continue to allow people to live on it. i was the only one who caught that, and i was the only one who knew what "elder gods" were. (there were no tentacles. i was expecting tentacles. you mention elder gods and don't bring in cthulhu, the least you can do is have a tentacle or two. said the author, "i can't believe i forgot the tentacles!") and that led to a brief discussion of how well a story works sometimes being dependent on what kind of experience the reader has with the genre. not that i read a lot of horror, because i don't - i've never actually read lovecraft and don't plan to - but i'm not entirely unfamiliar with the tropes. and i like the idea of a particular piece of land, or the old gods who were there first, needing some kind of exchange (or sacrifice) before it will let new settlers stay there. it was a short discussion but an interesting one.
the new york public library has a bunch of librarians acting as a kind of human google. they started the phone line in the 60s, so people could call in with their random research questions, and they kept it even in the age of google. they still get calls.
these american ladies were all born before women could vote. and they're all going to vote this year. how cool is that?
if you want some good news, the justice department is going to charge the cop who killed eric garner. at least someone is.
in super cute baby news, babies in the nicu st luke's hospital in kansas city got tiny felt halloween costumes courtesy of the march of dimes. the families got hand-crocheted pumpkins filled with candy. it's halloween in the nicu! i can totally get behind that, and not just because a brand-new baby sleeping under a felt version of captain america's shield - or wonder woman's uniform, or a superman cape - is the cutest fucking thing.
and in other baby news, i'm pretty sure i've mentioned the baby boxes that finland gives new mothers, with baby clothes and diapers and bath products and a picture book, with a tiny mattress in the bottom of the box so the baby can sleep in it. now canada is doing the same thing for new babies in nunavut, which has a high birth rate but also a high infant mortality rate. the baby books come in all four of the territory's official languages, which i think is the coolest thing.
and in more political news, the owner of yuengling brewery publicly came out for trump, and now people are boycotting his beer.
and in a final bit of nifty history, leica apparently saved thousands of jews in pre-ww2 germany. the company sent them out of the country as leica employees being reassigned to overseas leica offices (in britain, france, the us, hong kong) up until germany closed its borders in 1939. each refugee got a leica camera to symbolize their freedom. and because germany needed leica's optical systems, the company and the family that ran it all survived.
now i'm watching godzilla, the most recent remake with bryan cranston and aaron taylor-johnson. elizabeth olsen plays aaron's wife. this came out before aou, altho i don't know which was filmed first, and i'm highly entertained that they play spouses in one and potentially-incestuous siblings in the other. (you can't tell me the maximoff twins weren't at least mentally 'cesty. mentalcest. :D )
i voted early today, because i could, and i have to say, it's a little anticlimactic to go in, cast your vote, go home, and not obsessively watch tv or refresh twitter to find out how the election's going. i think there was only one early-voting polling place - city hall - and all the voting booths were on the second floor. when i got there, the line started halfway up the stairs, and then went down the hall and doubled back. by the time i left it was out the front door. there were some babies in strollers, some little kids, one well-behaved small poodle. also a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "made in tibet" waiting in line with an older guy who was probably his dad. there were a couple of display cases in the hallway, and one of them had a goethe quote across the top - "boldness has genius, power, and magic in it" - which i thought was appropriate.
it took me a little over half an hour total, and then i went home and had breakfast. the first meal of the day is always breakfast, even if you eat it at 12:30. :D and then i got my hair cut! and was fifteen minutes late because the gps took me the stupidest way imaginable - instead of the short route to the turnpike, it wanted to take me in what was effectively a giant circle. sometimes the gps is so dumb. and then i got my comics, and then i came home. fun times.
is anyone else watching dirk gently's holistic detective agency? is it normal that i have approximately zero clue what's going on? the corgi's cute, tho.
thursday at work we had oktoberfest happy hour, with beer (natch), giant pretzels, and cookies. occasionally the job comes through with something fun. thursday night i had writing group, in which we discussed my story ( the anniversary, which i already posted here) and a nicely creepy one from one of the other women, which involved a slightly haunted bart station in san francisco, carnivorous escalators, and the idea that the land needs a regular blood sacrifice to continue to allow people to live on it. i was the only one who caught that, and i was the only one who knew what "elder gods" were. (there were no tentacles. i was expecting tentacles. you mention elder gods and don't bring in cthulhu, the least you can do is have a tentacle or two. said the author, "i can't believe i forgot the tentacles!") and that led to a brief discussion of how well a story works sometimes being dependent on what kind of experience the reader has with the genre. not that i read a lot of horror, because i don't - i've never actually read lovecraft and don't plan to - but i'm not entirely unfamiliar with the tropes. and i like the idea of a particular piece of land, or the old gods who were there first, needing some kind of exchange (or sacrifice) before it will let new settlers stay there. it was a short discussion but an interesting one.
the new york public library has a bunch of librarians acting as a kind of human google. they started the phone line in the 60s, so people could call in with their random research questions, and they kept it even in the age of google. they still get calls.
these american ladies were all born before women could vote. and they're all going to vote this year. how cool is that?
if you want some good news, the justice department is going to charge the cop who killed eric garner. at least someone is.
in super cute baby news, babies in the nicu st luke's hospital in kansas city got tiny felt halloween costumes courtesy of the march of dimes. the families got hand-crocheted pumpkins filled with candy. it's halloween in the nicu! i can totally get behind that, and not just because a brand-new baby sleeping under a felt version of captain america's shield - or wonder woman's uniform, or a superman cape - is the cutest fucking thing.
and in other baby news, i'm pretty sure i've mentioned the baby boxes that finland gives new mothers, with baby clothes and diapers and bath products and a picture book, with a tiny mattress in the bottom of the box so the baby can sleep in it. now canada is doing the same thing for new babies in nunavut, which has a high birth rate but also a high infant mortality rate. the baby books come in all four of the territory's official languages, which i think is the coolest thing.
and in more political news, the owner of yuengling brewery publicly came out for trump, and now people are boycotting his beer.
and in a final bit of nifty history, leica apparently saved thousands of jews in pre-ww2 germany. the company sent them out of the country as leica employees being reassigned to overseas leica offices (in britain, france, the us, hong kong) up until germany closed its borders in 1939. each refugee got a leica camera to symbolize their freedom. and because germany needed leica's optical systems, the company and the family that ran it all survived.
now i'm watching godzilla, the most recent remake with bryan cranston and aaron taylor-johnson. elizabeth olsen plays aaron's wife. this came out before aou, altho i don't know which was filmed first, and i'm highly entertained that they play spouses in one and potentially-incestuous siblings in the other. (you can't tell me the maximoff twins weren't at least mentally 'cesty. mentalcest. :D )