Lissiel's Journal

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/Road_signs_warn_of_zombies

Today, some hackers in Texas have officially won at life.

Predictably, the city of Austin throws a hissy fit over it, citing public safety even though no problems whatsoever manifested from the hack. *sigh*

OBAMA WON!!!!!

I was linked to this from one of the election threads I'm following tonight and...I mean, it might be kind of late to say anything else about prop 8, I just. I got to about halfway through, when Rabbi Feinstein said, "My faith supports the right to marry, because as a Jew, I have the responsibility to fight for justice, to act towards righteousness, and to help bring goodness into the world," and I started crying like a little baby. I type this right now with a little white furry nose tucked firmly under my chin, because Finn hates it when I look upset.

You hear so much about people of faith fighting this, tooth and claw, about the depths they'll sink to in order to deny that LGTB people are people too...Hearing these ministers, priests, rabbis talking about a loving G-d, about faiths and communities that are welcoming and loving and supportive for ALL their members... it was powerful, ok?

It was powerful.

Today is mine and Michael's anniversary. We've been together for five years. O.O It...both seems entirely impossible that it's been that long and odd in that I keep thinking it's been longer. Oh, brain, you just keep on failin' ok? <3

He got me a pumpkin shaped, pumpkin pie scented candle about the size of two fists, and an adorable pumpkin shaped candy jar. My boy, he knows me so well. I'm taking him out to dinner at the fondue place he likes, and then we're going to go see quarantine tonight, which we've both been looking forward to for a while.

Five years. Damn.

It's been a good ride, so far. <3

Went to con this weekend. It was pretty fun. I got to hang out with L and Kiwi and Cadence, who are awesome and with whom I had a lot of fun. I think L telling me about discussing whether she'd published any novels with her grandfather was kind of hilarious and one of the highlights of the con for me. I also attended a couple of really interesting panels--the ones on internalized misogyny and classic plot structure stand out in particular as really entertaining. Probably would have been more fun if I'd gone with a friend, but T mentioned she might be interested in going next year, so... hmm. Pond put up her writeup already, with a pic of the four of us in P3 cosplay which--wow, I look really fat next to kiwi. I'm kind of weirded out by that. But we look awesome as a group, so. :D

Er. What else? It's kind of a blur for me, to be honest. There was a lot of sitting up in the video room/library until roughly four and then getting up at seven for early panels. (I finally saw a bit of the live-action Antique Bakery, which apparently aired in japan and then fell off the face of the internet, too, which was exciting.)

My puppy spent the whole time I was gone, according to mike, curled up in his little nook by the door, making the misery face. And then FLIPPED OUT when I got home, spinning in circles, knocked me down and sat on me until I'd pet him for like half an hour. It was pretty cute.

Now I'm home safe and have only the absurdly huge piles of homework I didn't do last friday. *grin* Laters, all.

/edit: There are moments when I love my generation. Truly.

I can't remember the source, but there's some sci-fi story I've read where the conclusion reads along the lines of "They could withstand the fiecest of our weapons, they could defeat us intellectually, but in the end, I think they died of sheer culture shock" - the looks on the faces of the scientologists when faced with a crowd in which a lone voice shouts:

"I HEAR TOM CRUISE HATES MUDKIPS!"

(all) "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

... how do you fight that?

How do you, ideologically speaking, defeat a crowd that is enthusiastically demanding that you "DO A BARREL ROLL! DO A BARREL ROLL!!" ?

Just in case anyone hasn't seen it yet? Mama Mia is a FANTASTIC movie. It makes my list of top five all-time favorites, easy. It's a musical cobbled together from ABBA music, about a little girl who's getting married and wants to meet her father before she does, full of buddy!hikinks and random dancing and gorgeous filmwork and just. I am completely a geek over it. <3

That said, there's one scene? Where the mom is helping the girl get ready, and thinking about her girl growing up, and sort of...how even the people you love, you don't ever really know, the way that people keep moving beyond you, beyond the self that you knew. And. And I cry like a baby every time I see it. So clearly I had to upload the song for people to listen to. Clearly.

Slipping Through My Fingers
Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what's in her mind
Each time I think I'm close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

I think there may need to be a "love" post soon, too. Because there are a lot of awesome people in my life. <3

Back over on LJ, some cool folks are running an auction to raise money to support the fight on Measure 8 (that would be the initiative to write discrimination into our state constitution that would ban same-sex partners from marrying and having the same rights as opposite-sexed partners again, for those of you who hadn't heard). Bidding opened last night at midnight, and will continue through the 15th; just today though, we've already raised over $2000.00. Everyone involved's being really amazing. <3

People are selling some really cool things; I've bought an original short story and a set of cute vegan sugar cookies personally, but there's also a lot of fannish stuff, quite a bit of sewing-skills-for-hire, some other crafts like hand-decorated notebooks or dolls or original paintings, and the like. Browse around; you might find fun stuffs, and it's a really good cause. My own post is here, if you want to commission something from me. There's already a bid up, but I've said I'd take the top two bids, so. :D

So, I've been all stressed out and pissy at the world in general lately, yeah? Like... 'oh man, why does everyone in the whole world have to suck so bad? >:( '? And then I was poking through darkeyedwolf's recommendation/review of the new j-drama Rookies, tonight? And I got as far as this line:

"Violence is the delinquent equivalent of flashing his panties."

H-how can you hate a world that gives you a reason to ever use that sentence? I don't even know what she's talking about! *kind of dying over here* Also that guy, shirota yuu, from HanaKimi is in it. I. I think I recognize as many japanese actors by sight as I do american ones now. W-whut?

Needless to say, I'm downloading the first episode as we speak. <3

Oh man, this is fucking epic. ♥

Scientology gets Rickroll'd

I lol'd.

http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/

Holy shit, guys. This is the cutest thing in the history of ever. BABY COYOTE + Pissy tomcat=

a)TOO MUCH AWESOME FOR WORDS
b)ded o'cute.
c)Some other answer (wrong)

Also, Montana looks really pretty. I know it'd probably actually be a hellhole and I'd hate it, but... so quiet and natural and gorgeous. :( Do want.

I can has puppy nao?

If you've ever:
Owned a Mac
Wanted to Own a Mac
Seriously Considered Jacking your Friend's Mac
Owned a PC
or
Uttered the Phrase "Goddamned Stupid-ass Piece of Crap."

You should go read this fic based on the Mac vs. PC commercials, from Yuletide. It's really smart, and funny, and makes hilarious jokes at Vista's expense.

So, I'm getting on a plane tomorrow and coming home!! YAAAAY!!! And those of you who've had the misfortune of trying to travel with me know how utterly neurotic I get right before I have to walk out the door for that kind of thing, because I'm convinced I've forgotten something and OMG YOU CANNOT BUY TOOTHBRUSHES IN CALIFORNIA IT WILL BE THE END OF THE WORLD OMGOMGOMG!!!1.

So, in the spirit of not going through my packing a fourth time and having to re-do it again, I bring you a brief intro to Arashi, with more reasons to love them (for those of you who weren't listening the first couple of times, omgseriously why don't you all love them as much as I do yet??? T^T?)

The thing about Arashi that makes them very very different from anything in the American market, as far as I'm concerned, is that they're happy. American musicians sing about smacking up their hos and shooting police, or their slutty girlfriends cheating on them, or how their women hate them and such? Arashi's song lyrics are all "It's definately going to be all right" or "In the next five years, who will be by my side? It'll be the five of us, again. <3" (Yes, matsujun wrote a song about how much he loves his bandmates. Seriously. They are all so wooby.)

American Stars go on drug binges and star in reality shows where they sleep their way through the household and scream inebriated obscenities at each other on the lawn? Arashi does shows about visiting cranky old people, and taking care of little kids so their parents can go on dates. But they're not all sweetness and light. They ARE twenty-something boys, who've been friends since they left home at about ten. Nothing delights them quite as much as making each other do COMPLETELY ABSURD, BIZARRE THINGS. Like the one time they made ohno go to an okama bar. :Db

The short answer is: THEY ARE HUGE DORKS AND YOU SHOULD LOVE THEM BECAUSE THEY'RE HILARIOUS.

( The long answer is under this cut, with picspam and youtube links. Seriously, you guys. )

*To be continued*

Excerpt from "On Beauty and Being Wrong," by Elaine Scarry, from a section detailing an episode in the Odyssey:

"The moment of coming upon something or someone beautiful might sound--if lifted away from Odysseus's own voice and arriving from a voice outside him--like this: 'You are about to be in the presence of something life-giving, lifesaving, something that deserves from you a posture of reverence or petition. It's not clear whether you should throw yourself on your knees before it or keep your distance from it, but you had better figure out the right answer because this isn't an occasion for carelessness, or for leaving your own postures wholly to chance. It's not that beauty is life-threatening (though this attribute has sometimes been assigned to it) but instead that it is life-affirming, life giving; and therefore if, through your careless approach, you become cut off from it, you will feel its removal as a retraction of life. You will fall back into the sea, which even now, as you stand there gazing, is only a few feet behind you."

"The beautiful, almost without any effort of our own, acquaints us with the mental event of conviction, and so pleasurable a mental state is this that ever afterwards one is willing to labor, struggle, wrestle with the world to locate enduring sources of conviction--to locate what is true."

We may suck a lot, as a species, and we'll probably kill ourselves entirely within the next hundred years; but our perception of, awareness of, and response to beauty is a pretty good reason for humanity to have existed.

The amazing women in my life, let me tell you about them:

Tia is incredibly resilient. No matter what gets thrown at her, she takes it in and then moves past it while still maintaining this...joy in living that very few people I know match. Also, she fights like a lioness for her family.

Meme takes no shit from anyone about anything. She sees things remarkably clearly, and she always has my back no matter what anyone else says or thinks. I rely on her more than I think she knows.

Mommy gets ten times the sheer amount of stuff done as anyone else I know. It's kind of O.O, her schedule. Also, her willingness to let herself be as happy and amazing and brilliant as she really is, which may not make a lot of sense but if you think about it, how many women do you know who go "Oh, I'm not smart enough/pretty enough/ high-class enough/ whatever enough to do____" ? My mom may say that, but she turns around and does whatever it is anyway, and that never stops impressing me to no end.

Zeana's persistence. The way she knows what she wants and isn't afraid to sit down and insist on it, and to do whatever it takes to make it happen where a lot of people would just give up is really inspiring to me.

Greta's bravery, leaving home and friends and comfort zone, and then leaving an abusive relationship even with all the havoc that threw her life into, and just... taking everything so so gracefully, and not being afraid to ask for help when she needs it, and just. <3 She can come off as very delicate, and then you get to know her and she has this inner reserve of not just strength, but really grace to her that's really amazing.

Sarah for managing to be girly and enjoy all that comes with that without being a crazy delusional bitch or a complete idiot. It's a rare combo somehow, and yet, really a treat to have someone I can talk to about make-up and bath stuff and not have to put up with suck. <3

http://www.break.com/index/bush-worried-about-new-threat.html

Lol. Bush is worried about the zombie threat.

/edit: There is now downloads for music in the comments, if anyone wants them. :D Happy Pirating.