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( You Can't Stop the Signal! )
Anyway, I think I'm getting a pretty good feel of what to expect (though I'm expecting the actual event to blow these expectations out of the water). However I do have a few questions.
What I'm wondering here is what should we make it a point not to miss? We're all avid fandom people (multiple scifi shows and crime dramas are our base) and one's into space.
What should we plan on budgeting? Ok I mean amount wise in US currency (good lord I can just imagine the responses I might get if I didn't clarify that). ;)
Does anyone have a number of how many people actually attend Dragon*Con? The feel I'm getting is it's massive. But I'd like to get an idea of just how massive this is as the largest convention I've ever attended was in around 1,000 people give or take a 100.
- Mood:
excited
1. Babies.
Now, many of you have managed to work out that vampire=dead=infertile (the ones that haven't, well, that's a whole other rant, involving elemental biology, and I'm not up for that one right now), and so the baby arrives by adoption. Cool and fine, except you've clearly missed the bit where the Cullens are constantly fighting their own natures not to bite humans. Notice how they live out the back of beyond, where there are - you guessed it! - no people. See how Esme doesn't have a job and doesn't go out much. See how none of the younger ones are involved in any extracurriculars. They don't hang around people. Remember that canon states that of all seven vampires only Carlisle and Rosalie have never drunk human blood. Even if we discount Jasper and Alice as having hunted humans before joining the Cullens' kiss and ignore Edward's years as the boogeyman of New York, that means Esme and Emmett, both part of the Cullen vampire kiss since they became vampires and under Carlisle's supervision, have both lapsed and hunted humans. In short, what chance is this baby going to stand of lasting out its infancy and/or childhood?
Short answer: it isn't. The baby will be the main course at dinner one night. And everyone involved will be very sorry and very guilty but the kid will still be dead.
2. The Cullens rescuing and taking in an abused child.
We have clearly missed the memo about how the Cullens don't do practical philanthropy, seeing as they can't hang around people. If the kiss found an abused child while out hunting, they would probably pack said child up into the back seat of the car of whomever protests least (ie, definitely not Rosalie's), drive him/her to the hospital Carlisle's currently working at, commit him/her to the tender mercies of the hospital's Child Protection Officer, and then never think of the child again. They would not keep the child. Because, like the baby mentioned earlier, one day temptation will be too much, and CHOMP!
There are some things we keep away from small children, like sharp knives, blowtorches, vampires and guns. We do this for a very obvious reason. Please remember it as you fic.
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Law and religion are tag-teaming fearful gay Kenyans. But religion’s definitely on top. While colonial-era anti-gay attitudes have crept into the African nation’s legal policies, some could argue that multiple spiritual forces have an even larger role to play.
…Many say that gays shouldn’t have rights, are “un-African,” and not good Christians.Kenya is a country of faithful people and religion plays a defining role in homophobia in Kenya. Seventy percent of the country is Christian and there is a sizeable Muslim and Hindu population.
“This is an abomination that is totally unacceptable by God who formed us not to function in that way,” says Patrick Kuchio, a popular preacher at Parklands Pentecostal Church.
More traditional denominations in Africa are also conservative, leading the charge to stop gay pastors from being ordained. Though the Pentecostal church made major inroads to Kenya only in the 1950s, many of its supporters, and other faithful in the continent, consider homosexuality a Western concept.
“Amongst traditional Kenyan people, it was unheard of,” says Pastor Kuchio. He believes the practice must have been imported into Kenya.
Who brought the gay over, you ask? Butt pirates, of course!
Dallas’ Catholic Diocese will further investigate Father Arthur Mallinson’s involvement with a website for gay - yet still celebate - priests. Mallinson resigned earlier this week after parishioners raised questions about his queer past. Mallinson claims he left the now defunct site after things turned explicit and the Diocese insists he did nothing wrong, yet they still want to probe a bit. [DMN]
Virginian Representative Tom Davis, who previously fought against gay rights, had some choice - and rude - words about Barack Obama in a recent memo: “Hispanic voters are a swing group in this election and future elections. John McCain, being from a border state, may be out of sync with many Republicans but he has standing among Hispanics. Barrack [sic] Obama has not made the sale to Hispanic voters. Thus, this issue is a tar baby for anyone who touches it, with land mines everywhere.” Tar baby, of course, is an archaic racial epithet. [Politico]
ooooh! I’m scary baby panda oooooooooh
u nawt sew skarree compard 2 dis.
picture: dunno source, via our lolcat builder. lol caption: laurinemily
Originally published at Brad's Tiny World. Please leave any comments there.
With everything those crazy Floridans have been pulling I am not sure one message here is a bad thing. Melting Glaciers = What’s The Big Deal - Florida actually sounds pretty good, Of course Floridans being who they are always wanting government intervention to save them from the evils of the world will no doubt demand flood walls built across the entire state. When that is not enough I can see the religious nut jobs finally turning back to prayer rather than the little Dutch boy putting his finger over the leak. I actually can’t wait until they have Christian thinking they can fight the tide of change by sticking their fingers into the dripping holes of dykes.
The next laughable message is for Hillary Clinton. Denial = What I Think - The Facts. Enough said!
As The World Turns‘ gay gamble sure paid off.
Despite all the conservative outcry over gay teen couple Luke and Noah, the long-running soap’s storyline has bucked the trend and garnered new viewers, reports the hilariously disinterested Gina Bellafante:
Soaps have been shedding audiences for years now. The young, especially, have found their absurdities elsewhere; there is almost nothing put forth by the writers of All My Children that could, in a stupidity contest, outrank a single moment of The Hills.
…
Since its introduction of a gay-theme story line last summer As the World Turns has actually gained viewers, specifically younger viewers, some of whom turned to the show, unpredictably enough, after following the romance of the college-age characters Luke (Van Hansis) and Noah (Jake Silbermann) via YouTube clips posted by fans — new media reviving fossil media.
While the show broke new ground with this storyline, says Bellafante, the writers have not strayed too far from the “preposterous” twists and turns endemic to soaps. Nor does As The World Turns deserve as many lauds as it’s received:
As the World Turns hasn’t done anything revolutionary with its gay kiss — gay characters on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, on Sunday nights, display their affection for each other constantly — it has merely discovered the currency of the culture wars.
Well, we all know war’s great for business.
Bellafante’s definitely got a point, but it seems to us that this kiss (this kiss!) does deserve some praise. Imagine a little homo soap fan in Kansas seeing his - or, less likely, her - first happy gay couple. Most people can’t imagine the happiness of cultural affirmation, an affirmation that’s necessary to the development of a new generation of self-confident gays. And, besides, the “preposterous” storylines are why people love soaps.
Phillip Bloch did not have a gay old time at Kanye West’s concert this week.
On the contrary - the celebrity stylist found himself yanked out after security guards “mistakenly” thought he had been puffing the pot.
Bloch, who had earlier lit a cigarette but quickly stubbed it out unnoticed, had been talking to a group of pot-smoking teenagers in the row behind him who were passing a pipe among themselves.“The whole stadium smelled like pot, and the kids behind us were smoking. I’m sitting there having fun, laughing,” said Bloch. “Then I get an order to go with this man.
“They say, ‘You’re leaving, give us your ticket.’ I held it up, they took it. At that point they grabbed me by my arms to take me out, so I threw my hands up and said, ‘You’ve got to keep off me. I’m no threat.’ ”
Page Six witnessed three security guards then spin Bloch around and pin him against the corridor wall. One, who refused to give us his name and flipped his identity pass around so we couldn’t see it, gave Bloch a sharp jab in the left rib.
Bloch described his treatment as “complete brutality” and lamented, “I still can’t wrap my head around this.” Well, we think it’s pretty straight forward - except for the “brutality.” That’s just tacky.
Poor Jim McGreevey. Or so he says.
The former New Jersey governor, who came out in 2004 and subsequently resigned, told a court yesterday that he can’t comply with wife Dina’s alimony requests because he’s got no dough:
[McGreevey] tried to convince the judge in his divorce case Wednesday that he’s too poor to pay alimony, saying he’s been financially crippled by his resignation and marital troubles.Former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey said he has limited income and few assets, and is all but unemployable these days.
“I got my furnishings at a Huffman Koos going-out-of-business sale,” McGreevey said when asked to describe his belongings.
…
“Because of this case, I have been financially crippled,” he said.He was expected to return to the stand Thursday morning.
Now an Episcopal seminary student, McGreevey, 50, said he owes a prior divorce lawyer at least $116,000 and has not paid his first ex-wife any child support this year. He said he relies on his boyfriend to pay legal bills and lifestyle expenses.
The former Governor also claims that he hasn’t made money his life mission and even turned down one million dollars for his memoir, The Confession. He allegedly signed a contract for much less.
McGreevey’s lawyer also claimed that Dina Matos-McGreevey, who’s suing her hubby for fraud because of his “secret” gay ways, doesn’t deserve more alimony because of her “emotional vendetta” against Jim. We were unaware any of these players had emotions.
Twenty-year old Brazilian Vinícius Borges recently subjected himself to Terra The Boy’s photographers - and our collective objectification. Enjoy!
TOKYO (Reuters) - Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow's feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.
The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country's 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.
By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co's system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000 people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.
AHAHAHAHA!!! I so need to try this to see if I still look young.
Tar sauce
- Mood:
impressed - Music:Brooke Fraser -- Love Is Waiting
*considers how to scrape icky black bubbly mass off of nonstick pan*
On the other hand, this may be convertible to some kind of biofuel... *grin*
- Mood:
embarrassed
John-and-Teyla: RST, UST, friendship, team-mates, colleagues, allies... This thing-a-thon goes much further than merely a romantic relationship between the two characters - if you see them as friends, then sign up to write them as such!
Thing-A-Thon: fic, icons, banners, wallpapers, drawings, music videos, original compositions - a variety of options.
Comments on the post have been unscreened so you can get a feel for who's already participating, and sign-ups close at midnight, Thursday 15th May, US Pacific time.
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pentapus!Dear certain Inuyasha writers,
Kouga, despite his arrogant personality and tendency to hate Inuyasha's guts, will not suddenly transform into a maniacal rapist killer and start stalking Kagome. Keep in mind, in the actual series, he's risked his life for her, helped her friends out and generally showered her with affection. He's a pretty good guy. And can also be paired off with Ayame. Please, show some love.
And (certain) Buffyverse writers, you do the same thing with Riley and Groo. Please oh please, they're not violent wife-beaters. The OOCness hurts.
- Mood:
annoyed - Music:Greenday - Holiday
Originally published at Brad's Tiny World. Please leave any comments there.
While some of you might recognize the lyrics of Rockwell’s super hit of the 80’s and laugh, you should probably think twice about before clicking your next hyperlink. It has recently been reported that for some time now the FBI has been using fake hyperlinks to trap suspected downloaders of illegal porn. While I can appreciate the vigilance of our government and them taking the subject seriously, mass emailing it along with spamming the internet with it is a little too Big Brother for me.
First, I see this as blatant entrapment. Federal law makes it is illegal to attempt to access child pornography, whether you get your hands on it or not.
synchronized sleeping inter-species division
babbee lukee dat u didnt eated her.
picture: dunno source, via our lolcat builder. lol caption: Jennifer
Originally published at Brad's Tiny World. Please leave any comments there.
Yahoo today is reporting that Twitter users got the news of the China earthquake out before the big media giants did. Well goody for them. This is any surprise to those of us using Twitter.
This isn’t the first time I have heard of news breaking on Twitter. Just yesterday I heard there would be an announcement concerning the fate of Ohio AG Mark Dann hours before it was official. It was also going around Twitter every time they thought he was ready to come out and speak and when it going and, and when it was over. Word travels fast there.
On the same notion of word traveling fast despite the 140 character limit for news it isn’t hard to go into information overload. With hundreds of tiny messages saying the same damned thing it is hard to keep track of the news, the gossip, or checking your regular updates. While Twitter succeeds in getting the word out the lack of filters can drive you insane.
First WTF. Youtube did that flop thing where it throws a random vid in the embed slot of another (I'm pretty sure most of you know what I'm talking about) and this one ended up in
blpaintchart's op-illusion post while the actual op-illusion vid ended up in the Zoobeedoobahwhateverthefuck vid slot. Naturally, because I'm an impulsive little monkey, I clicked it. Maybe they were wrestling. Not so.Second WTF was... Why did dude feel the need to interfere with other dude's drinking only to make it look like he was wetting himself? Is that a less subtle version of, "Oh, man, I spilled wine on my pants. Let me ahemTAKETHEMOFFahem."??
Also, I am totally prepared for oversensitive wank on this one. Seems bloody rampant these days.
Edit:
damanique has informed me this was posted yesterday and I might've noticed this were I to browse down the page all the way... but in all fairness... my post is better than phoenixothon's anyway.So fuck it, here's this as consolation:
- Music:"Your Touch" by Doe Deere
If I ever came across this on the street, I think I would simply jump in front of a car and get the pain over once and for all. I don’t think there is a whole lot more to say about the the Hello Kitty nun costume:
If anyone can logically explain this (in non Hello Kitty fanatic terms so that a normal person can understand), I’m all ears…until then, I’ll take it as a sign that Sanrio has even managed to bribe god onto their sales team which ensures much more Hello Kitty Hell…
Sent in by Lindsay (via allaboutmadonna) and far too many others afterwards who should all have to spend time with the Hello Kitty nun on a daily basis as punishment for ever thinking it could be a good idea to send this too me…
Title: Moving On, by Astolat
Pairing: Superman/Lex Luthor
Author on LJ:
astolatAuthor Website: http://www.intimations.org/
Size: 19,100 words
Why this must be read:
Well, if you want to know that, then you'll enjoy reading this wry excerpt:
Lex heard the impact from his office: the windows of the penthouse shattering on the other side of the building. "I'll have to call you back, Jensen," he said, and hung up on his call.
He poured Scotch for himself, a glass of fresh orange juice for Clark, and leaned back against the desk to wait, trying not to look too hard at his feelings. LexCorp had smashed past Wal-Mart and become the biggest corporation in the world five months ago when the new regenerative drugs cleared FDA approval and the stealth fighter contract came through the same week, setting off a stock-buying frenzy that had made his assistant's assistant a millionaire and the executives all billionaires. He'd smiled and drunk champagne with the board, shook his father's hand and looked at the baffled spite in his eyes, and gone to bed with the amazingly uninhibited activist from Greenpeace who'd crashed the party to throw oil into the punch. Afterwards he'd lain on his back staring at the ceiling and felt nothing: no excitement, no thrill.
He'd given away two and a half billion dollars in the last week alone, and the month was going to end up in the black anyway. One of his think tank people had come up with the idea of building an artificial archipelago in the South Pacific and declaring it a new nation under LexCorp governance, inviting people to become citizens, just to have something to do with the money. They'd bought a couple of islands to get started and already had a waiting list.
He owned five governors, twelve senators, thirty congressmen, and some ridiculous number of local politicians, not to mention most of the greatest city in the world. He had no children and five divorces and one alien enemy, and only the last one of those stirred any emotion in him at all anymore.
He didn't even know what had provoked Clark this time; there wasn't much going on. Nowadays he didn't break the law so much as he told his people what he wanted and they had the laws subtly changed to allow him to do it. He hadn't had anyone killed in years; people didn't stand up to him anymore. He'd been debating whether to run for president or throw it all away and turn costumed supervillain; or possibly both in that order. For all he knew, Clark was high on red kryptonite and coming here to kill him, and all Lex could feel was a glittering, sparkling thirst for something to happen.
The doors peeled themselves back and away, the haze of smoke and debris in the hallway cleared and a woman stepped into the office: six feet tall, red hair rioting over her shoulders, with the inhuman beauty of a supermodel after image manipulation except for the thin clinging film of grey dust on her skin and a trickle of blood down her arm.
"You're not who I was expecting," Lex said, contemplating her. He felt alert, alive. He thought he could taste Clark in this, two steps removed or less; and if not, at least a challenge, something worth caring about.
"I am Maxima of Almerac," she said, "and your defenses are pathetic. They could never have kept out Kal-El."
Lex smiled. He knew who she was. "They're not meant to," he said. "Can I offer you a drink?"
_______________________
This is simply a magnificent example of Crack Fic: you can't wait to see what happens; Luthor's a suave sucker who gratifyingly gets his way, no matter that he peeves the Justice League by *ahem* getting his man - any time he wants; a-a-a-a-and, Astolat's manner of bedtime description in this fic? - it's merely framed by a context and an intro to the ambience, and you thereupon begin to imagine your own lush love scenes.
Fine cracktastic yum.
{and, face it - you can't turn away from
mutecornett's printable lex luthor paper dolls featuring Lex's Galactic Get-ups.}Moving On, by Astolat
- Location:living room lazy-boy
- Mood:excited
- Music:the soft hum of the fan on low
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: web archived or Gossamer listing
Why this must be read:
This fantastic crossover follows Mulder and Scully after their first case together in 1992. They are assigned to a murder case in Twin Peaks, WA, that may relate to the 1989 Laura Palmer case. Even Dale Cooper is a suspect.
In tone, this is more "Twin Peaks" than "The X-Files" - or it's "The X-Files" on one of Darin Morgan's really good days. Hilarious and even sexy, this is definitely worth your time, even if you're only familiar with one show or the other.
Full of Secrets (or alternative Gossamer links, part one and two)