Rampant geekery

Final LJ crosspost: where to find me; final on-LiveJournal linkspam

umadoshi — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 14:23:45 GMT

Literally as I was about to click "create entry", I got a notification that the import I started a couple of days ago just finished importing the comments from LJ. (I'll presumably run another one in a few days to catch any last few comments.)

Since I'm not currently planning to delete my existing content, my intention is to keep reading my LJ flist, but I make no promises about how often. :/

You can find me in several other places online: umadoshi, ysabet_m, MermaidLure (locked), ysabet, jinksyandthebrain (for pics of Claudia and Jinksy), and ysabet are the main ones.

Final on-LiveJournal linkspam:

siderea reports that the Greasemonkey script here lets you access LJ without agreeing to the new TOS, although you "still can't manipulate posts without agreeing to the ToS, and apparently you can't use the Edit Friends Groups page, but anything else that's read-access apparently works. (If you find something that doesn't work, please mention.)"

siderea also posted "FWD: LJ to Dreamwidth in a Hurry (5 minutes)", which I'm not gonna try to summarize, as it's basically a couple of other links + relevant info.

(Honestly, new DW folks, I'd recommend just subscribing to siderea. Interesting posts in general, and frequent timely info right now.)

"How can I claim my OpenID account with my Dreamwidth account?" [Dreamwidth FAQ] "If you've imported your journal or a community that you've posted in, and want to update the imported comments and community entries so that the comments and entries appear to come from your Dreamwidth account instead of your OpenID, you can claim your OpenID account with your Dreamwidth account."

rahirah posted "A work-around for spoiler cuts on Dreamwidth".

"Russian-Owned LiveJournal Bans Political Talk, Adds Risk of Spying". [io9]

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/1068581.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Mostly linkspam of the "what the fuck NOW, Livejournal???" variety

umadoshi — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 05:27:16 GMT

I haven't 100% decided what I'm doing with my LJ account. I'm not crushingly concerned about my actual data (t)here--realistically, I don't think they have any interest in/use for what I've posted over the years. Deleting the actual account is pretty much out of the question for me--too much history floating around in various comment threads and communities. (Although it's decaying, of course, as links die and people bail andandandand...)

But I'm angry, and I'm exhausted with being angry at LJ over and over again, angry in ways that hurt because of how formative the site was for me and how much I loved it once. Yeah, I know how melodramatic it is to say "that was my home, and I don't live there anymore, but it's been slowly and inexorably vandalized and trashed", but hey, that's how I feel.

My current theory, which has not quite solidified into a plan, is that I'm not going to delete my existing LJ content but will probably stop crossposting. I'll still have access to my LJ flist...although again, realistically? Only a handful of friends still have a presence there, and of those, I'd say fewer than half of them/you actually post regularly.

Before the linkspam, a question! I've seen more than one person who uses both DW and LJ mention preferring the LJ interface, and I'm curious. I'm taking that to mean the "new post" interface, and obviously tastes vary, but I massively prefer the DW version (which, admittedly, I see frequently, while I only see the LJ equivalent a couple times a year at this point, so I'm more comfortable with the DW version).

So what I'm wondering is, if you use both sites and prefer the LJ version, which DW interface are you using? I use the "new" version of the Create Entries page, which has been in beta for a long time, and can be turned on here. I keep wondering if, when people find the DW interface--I forget which word I've seen a few times; either "clunky" or "cluttered", something like that--they/you are literally seeing something different than I am, and if that's the reason we have such strongly different preferences.

Some links with info + some links with tips for dealing with the situation on the LJ side:

Over at Crime and the Blog of Evil: "i think this is finally it for livejournal".

snarp posted "If anyone was wondering what’s going on at LiveJournal since they moved their servers to Russia", which includes a succinct recap of some practical problems the new LJ TOS introduces, the severity of which varies wildly depending on how LJ enforces things. These are details I haven't seen much mention of elsewhere.

rosefox posted about how to comment on LJ without accepting the new TOS.

rahirah posted "How to redirect comments on a crosspost".

I've seen several references to BookBlogger as a resource for downloading/backing up your LJ.

For a while it was possible to access your LJ account status here and delete your account without accepting the new TOS, but word is that that loophole has since been closed.

Also, tree_and_leaf notes "if you want to delete your journal without agreeing to the TOS, turn off Javascript and you won't be prompted to do so. You can log in as normal." (But that may rely on the same loophole as above and therefore no longer be accurate.)

mdlbear posted about some of the critical points in the new TOS and the steps they're personally taking, and links to other people's translations/analysis.

Via mific, facetofcathy posted "Using an Open ID account at Livejournal". mific adds, "Glitches I found but eventually negotiated: you have to attach an email to your OpenID account and LJ send you a validation email, but you can't use an apple email (mac.com or me.com) as for some weird reason the validation email never arrives. Gmail worked fine. Then once that's sorted and you have the OpenID account running and you log in with it to LJ, it asks for your OpenID URL - this is the entire URL, not just mific.dreamwidth.org - i.e. it's http://www.mific.dreamwidth.org - the login failed repeatedly if I didn't write it fully on iPad, Samsung android or iPhone, although I think on my PC the shorter OpenID identity worked okay.

Then you just have to rejoin any comms you want to and get membership/posting rights etc. from the various mods under your OpenID. Not simple, but doable. There's a bug where when using OpenID you can see 'memories' for user accounts, but not for comms"

And this seems to be from January, but: "Russia’s server control: Beyond LiveJournal".

Finally, for those who are making a switch from LJ to DW now, sholio pointed out that 2017revival (a friending comm.) includes this post: "Want to find an old LJ friend? Linking DW and LJ identities".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/782766.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

I've lost track of the day & it's only Sunday night. [A day, fic bingo, SCII swag, and ice cream!]

umadoshi — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 04:20:14 GMT

In defense of my "what day is it?" state of mind, scruloose's job usually entails a very consistent M-F daytime workweek, but he agreed that today he'd do a 12-hour overtime shift. My internal schedule is now justifiably out of whack!

I accomplished very little with my day to myself. >.< I got a bit of work done, and I read most of a book, but otherwise it's all kinda blurry. Lots of snuggling with Jinksy!bear, which is always a plus, and Nico and her partner were over for a bit. ^_^ But while I didn't really expect to get a ton of practical stuff done, I was hoping to, I don't know, catch up on The 100 or something. (I'm now three episodes behind.)

The novel I finished reading was Paul Cornell's Chalk, which I didn't even waste time trying to rate on Goodreads. I think it's probably good? At least reasonably good? But it's so utterly not for me that I just can't say.

I see that genprompt_bingo is currently open for sign-ups, if that's of interest. (One of the prompt categories is Carrie Fisher quotes!)

So far I've managed to resist asking for a card. As usual, the temptation is there; the whole "hey, maybe it'd kick-start something in my head!" is strong, especially since I'm continuing to write absolutely nothing. But OTOH, I don't write much gen fic to begin with (not opposed at all, but it's rarely what comes to mind), and I have plenty of WsIP lying dormant. :/

While buying the Nova missions expansion for StarCraft II a few nights ago, I made the dangerous (and not remotely surprising) discovery that Blizzard sells merchandise, to which I hadn't previously been exposed. The swag is not cheap...except that there's a massive spring clearance sale happening, and Ginny and I caved and each bought a few things. I think the undisputed highlight is a reversible Zergling plushie. It turns into a Baneling. (Banelings aren't even my or Ginny's favorite Zergling evolution, but LOOK AT IT.)

(Despite my preference for the Terran campaign in SCII over the Zerg campaign, I've had a fundamental allegiance to the Zerg throughout my almost twenty years [!!!] of being a sporadic-but-devout StarCraft player. I have never had Zerg swag before. So I'm unreasonably delighted by this.)

I don't remember if I've mentioned here that Ben and Jerry's recently announced that they're bringing Chocolate Therapy to Canada--and not even as a limited edition flavor! (Which was the tragic case with Phish Food.) Those are the two flavors that were directly responsible for the Ice Cream Sunday road trip to Maine a few years back, so this is quite exciting.

What we learned from Phish Food's brief time here was that "for sale in Canada" doesn't necessarily mean "easy to find". Kas undertook some epic searching for Phish Food during those months, which were soon enough after the road trip that the maintainer(s) at BenJerryCanada knew exactly who we both were for a while there. *g* So it's extra lovely that Kas located some Chocolate Therapy today, just under a month after the flavor was announced.

For any other Canadians who might want this intel, Kas tracked Chocolate Therapy down in one of the larger Shoppers Drug Mart locations.

(Ben and Jerry's has also released three dairy-free flavors in Canada this year, which is fantastic news. I know so many people who can't have dairy!)

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/782495.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, misc.

umadoshi — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 03:24:18 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

"StarCraft: The past, present and future". [November 2015]

In the lead-up to the summer (*fingers crossed*) release of StarCraft Remastered, "Blizzard is making the original StarCraft free".

"StarCraft: Remastered Graphics Comparison".

The American Gods title sequence is out!

"HP Lovecraft Comes to the World of Anime!"

"Studio Ghibli classics return to theaters later this year".

Via dine, "Welcome to the Fan Parade: A Guide for Fandom Newcomers". [The Mary Sue]

"New Studio Ghibli tea collection includes tea sourced from Totoro’s real-life forest in Japan!" [RocketNews24]

Miscellaneous

"How to set up a VPN in 10 minutes for free (and why you urgently need one)". (There are some VPN sales happening at the Boing Boing store that are on for a couple more days.)

"VPNs Won’t Save You from Congress’ Internet Privacy Giveaway".

"How to Protect Your Online Privacy Now That Congress Sold You Out".

"Escaping Is Not a Form of Understanding: In the internet age, travel essays are shared far and wide—and they aren’t always well received back home". "Hawaii is beautiful, yes, but it is not simply an “Eden of happy Americans.” Though many people in Hawaii are proud of its nearly 58 years of statehood, others don’t consider themselves to be American at all. The state’s economy is hugely dependent on both tourism and federal jobs, both of which can be viewed as complicit in a form of settler colonialism that shapes the way people perceive and experience life in Hawaii. This is heavy stuff, and worthy of consideration by all Americans, especially those who visit Hawaii."

"China’s hottest new boy band is actually made up of five androgynous girls".

"Gender-Neutral Pronoun “They” Adopted by Associated Press".

"These Aren’t Photographs. They’re Arinze Stanley’s Hyperrealist Drawings".

"X+living uses black mirror glass to reflect books in chinese library".

"The New Twitter @-Replies Are Giving Me an Ulcer".

"This Is Almost Certainly James Comey’s Twitter Account". One of the people whose RT of the link I saw introduced it with "This is a master class in piecing together online clues, challenging their accuracy & significance, & going no further than your evidence."

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/782280.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Mid-week media mishmash post! (TV, cast photos, book orders, and a musical post I've yet to write)

umadoshi — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 04:48:52 GMT

scruloose and I are halfway through season 1 of Legion, and I'm not emotionally engaged/invested at this point, but I'm finding it fascinating. I'm also largely trying to mentally detach it from what I remember of the character's place in comics canon, because four episodes in, it appears* that there's little, if any, connection beyond "a mentally ill young man with multi-faceted, tremendously strong psychic powers". If any of the characters other than David come from comics canon, I don't know/remember them.

*Bearing in mind that Legion's not a character I was ever super-familiar with; I feel as if he was fairly back-burnered during the years when I was actively engaged with the comics.

I know Keri Russell only for The Americans; I didn't even know until Julia mentioned it recently that she was the lead in Felicity, which I've never seen. Until tonight, I didn't realize quite how long ago Felicity was. Then I saw a picture of Russell from that period, and mentioned on Twitter that it had made me boggle...at which point Julia linked me to a picture of Russell's hair from earlier in the Felicity time frame. She was SO YOUNG! She had SO MUCH HAIR! Such curls! *boggles anew*

Speaking tangentially of The Americans: despite having watched all of seasons 1-4 last year ("recently", is what I'm getting at), I think every season, when Henry first appears on screen, I stare at him and wonder if they recast the role. But the IMDb says it's been Keidrich Sellati all along.

Has everyone seen the Buffy 20th anniversary reunion pics? (Which Anthony Stewart Head missed, but not for lack of trying to attend. ;_;) My favorite pics are the one of Amber Benson, Alyson Hannigan, and Seth Green (fic please? Yes?), the solo pic of Amber Benson, and the solo pic of Seth Green. Oh, and Emma Caulfield + bunny!

(Speaking of Tony Head, I am unreasonably charmed by this tweet.)

I'm used to Amazon blithely combining items from multiple orders when shipping, but according to my inbox and package tracker, tomorrow a box of items from four orders, weighing nearly 10 lbs, is going to arrive. O_O

Contents: two manga volumes (Fruits Basket [omnibus] vol. 11 and Twinkle Stars vol. 2) and eight novels (of which I'm most excited for Mishell Baker's Phantom Pains). One of the novels is Laini Taylor's Strange the Dreamer, which I ordered last July based on its original release date.

On the weekend a few of us watched the Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert (which I've owned for...a few years?...and had never seen). I started to draft a post about it, but what I've wound up with is a weird heap of notes that have very little to do with that specific concert performance (or at least, little to do with what was actually performed--my feelings about some cuts are very much in evidence in the mess of words). So, uh...hopefully that'll turn into an actual post of some sort, but this is not that.

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/782019.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, social justice, cute, misc.

umadoshi — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 03:47:48 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

There's a trailer for the upcoming Ancient Magus' Bride anime! [YouTube, ~1 minute]

If you ever want the bat wing necklace Claudia wears on Warehouse 13, this is where you get it. [Via Allison Scagliotti's Instagram.]

"Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman to Host ‘The Handmade Project’ Weekly Series at NBC".

Via The Rec Center:

--"Full-body reading: Literary criticism taught me to scrub my feelings out of my reading, but a medieval mystic showed me how to put them back in".

--"Mary Sue: From self-inserts to imagines, how young women write themselves into the narrative". [Elizabeth Minkel]

Social Justice

"The List of Books Men Must Read Before Messaging Me About Feminism".

I may have linked this one before, but what the hell: "Men Just Don’t Trust Women. And This Is A Problem".

"A Conversation About Disability Rights in Education".

At The Establishment:

--"The Problem With Judging Other People’s Food Choices". [Sarah Kurchak]

--"‘It’s Because You’re Fat’ — And Other Lies My Doctors Told Me".

Cute Stuff

"You Haven’t Lived Until You’ve Heard Baby Sloths Having a Conversation".

"Watch: Corgi racing is more amazing than you would ever have imagined".

Miscellaneous

"The Folly of 'Purity Politics': A new book argues for the value of owning up to your imperfections".

A Twitter thread from Delafina777, starting with "Okay, so, some thoughts about how multiple women in meetings can help each other be heard". (And from within that thread, we have "Donald Trump-inspired app counts how often men interrupt women" [Mashable] and "5 Nice Things You Do Daily (That Secretly Ruin the World)". [Cracked, 2014])

"Cat Anxiety: How to Recognize & Treat It".

"Tattoo Artist Who Lost His Arm Gets World’s First Tattoo Machine Prosthesis".

"Cats Are Actually Nice, Scientists Find".

Mallory Ortberg, formerly of The Toast, just started a TinyLetter newsletter. The first letter is called "'I felt like Salieri, or a dog watching TV: furious and hostile and confused': Bellowing about trees with Sondheim", in which she spectacularly fails to bond with Into the Woods. I adore Into the Woods, but not bonding with it is fair, I suppose (no, no, it's fair), and Mallory Ortberg is hilarious. "By the end I no longer hated anyone, not even myself; I desired only to be reconciled with all of humanity. I could not imagine leaving the theater, nor in letting any of the actors leave the stage. They were all my children, which meant they were also my beans, and beans are wishes, and dreams don’t exist."

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/781713.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Random facts meme!

umadoshi — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 02:44:08 GMT

owlmoose tagged me for this a few weeks ago! I'm ignoring the "tag other people" bit, but I enjoy reading things like this, so if you need a nudge to do a random-facts post, consider yourself tagged.

(If I think too hard about "wait, does everyone already know this?" I'll freeze up, so...I'm not gonna think about it much.)

RULES // POST 10 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT YOURSELF ~~AND PASS IT ON 15 PEOPLE~~

1. On an average day I probably drink three or four mugs of tea, but I didn't start drinking tea at all until I was in my late 20s. (I think I was 27.) One more thing to pin on internet friends, because what got me started was Shadow (from the Furuba days) sending me a small array of flavored black teas to try. I have no recollection of how this came about.

2. Halifax and Toronto are the only places I've ever lived. When scruloose and I lived in Toronto, the things (other than people) I missed about Halifax were a) the cleaner air, b) the subliminal awareness of the ocean's presence, and c) pizza. (Halifax pizza, as a sweeping statement, has declined in quality since those days. Alas.)

3. I'm still friends with quite a few people I initially met online, and then in person, via the Sailor Moon fandom, which I haven't been active in since about 2000.

4. My gateway comic was Power Pack, which I read via the library sometime in Grade 2 or 3.

5. I love Siberian cats with all my heart, and may never have any other kind of cat again, but historically my favorite breeds (neither of which I've ever lived with) are Abyssinians and traditional Siamese (which Wikipedia recently told me are now called Thai cats, and it's nice that they have a separate name, I guess, but it bugs me a bit that they didn't get to keep the original name and have the new one assigned to modern Siamese).

6. I took ballet for about seven years, starting when I was 15, and jazz dance for about six (starting the year after ballet). I was never terribly good, but I really enjoyed barre. If I could take a class that was just barre, I'd be very tempted. (Yes, I know that many exercise studios offer a "barre" class these days. I've looked into several. They are not what I want.)

7. I can't drive, ride a bicycle, blow bubbles with gum, or whistle.

8. I had size 4.5 feet until I was about 20. Thankfully they're now a much-easier-to-shop-for size 6/6.5.

9. Drinking milk makes me unwell. I am not lactose intolerant or allergic to dairy; I can and do consume every other dairy product, including milkshakes or hot chocolate made almost entirely of milk poured straight from a carton, and I put milk in my tea. But I haven't had a glass of milk since my early 20s. I still kinda miss it sometimes. (Cereal hasn't ever been something I was into, so I don't have a data point for whether I can eat cold cereal in milk.)

10. I took my minor at a different university from my BA so I could take a few classes from an amazing professor scruloose had studied with. Fortunately, Halifax is so packed with post-secondary schools that I could literally walk between the two universities in fifteen minutes.

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/781493.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Two very different but heartfelt geeky things

umadoshi — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:25:32 GMT

1) The second-last round of the Unbound Worlds Cage Match is underway, and Georgia is facing off against Ragnar Volarus from Red Rising. So far things aren't looking good for her, but voting's open for three more days. Please vote for her! Get seanan_mcguire to write just one more of these little vignettes!

Pleasepleaseplease?

There was nowhere for me to run. Wolf girl had taken her forest with her when she left, and now I was alone in the nothing, looking at a mountain that seemed to have decided it wanted to be a man in its spare time.

I had never been murdered by a landscape before. What an educational day this was turning out to be.

2) And then there's this: "Blizzard is remastering StarCraft [including Brood War] in 4K resolution this summer". I don't have much to say about this, but there was such flailing when it crossed my Twitter feed. Remastered StarCraft, guys. *starry eyes*

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/781310.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Miscellaneous linkspam for a Sunday morning

umadoshi — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 13:03:57 GMT

"The New Autistic Muppet Could Save People Like Me A Lifetime Of Pain". [Sarah Kurchak at The Establishment]

"Are Straight Women Okay?" [Autostraddle] "But a stroll down the “his and hers” retail section will still have me on some Family Feud Steve Harvey levels of disbelief. [...] When you further investigate this phenomenon, as I did, things get real dark, real quick. The items themselves are worrying enough on their own as they reveal a prison of what women are allowed to be and should want, but then you dive deeper and the culture that lurks just behind these items reveals itself. I’ve seen the depths of this landscape and I need to ask a question: are straight woman okay? Like, not in a joking way — do they need assistance?"

"10+ Pics Proving That Cats Are Actually Demons".

"Earth’s newest cloud is terrifying".

Flaredown is "a free web and mobile app that helps patients track and visualize their illness, treatments, and symptom triggers so that they can understand how their choices affect their health". (I haven't used this. I'm passing along a rec of it being something that might be worth looking into.)

"Smurfette’s Roots: In her original incarnation, the only female Smurf reminds me of all the assumptions I’ve had to navigate about my sexuality and sense of self as a Jewish woman".

"Anorexia Survivor Posts Powerful Side by Side Photo to Instagram". [Teen Vogue] "Instagram user Megan Jayne Crabbe, a body-positive role model who beat anorexia and now uses the handle @BodyPosiPanda, posted a side-by-side image to the social media site to highlight the differences between posed photographs and reality. In both images, she's wearing the same purple lingerie, tie-dye hair, and infectious grin — but that's where the similarities stop." [Content notes: mention of past anorexia, but the photos are not from that time period.]

From last year: "The 'Gay Porn With a Different Ending' Comment, and the Problem With Homophobia in MMA". [Sarah Kurchak at the Fightland blog]

"How Can Jordan Peele Make a Movie Like Get Out & Have a White Wife? Pretty Easily Actually".

"Why do so many male journalists think female stars are flirting with them? A magazine’s profile with Selena Gomez is the latest to have an icky fixation on its subject’s looks. Perhaps it’s time for men to be banned from interviewing women".

"'Mischievous' Jane Austen 'made up' marriage records". [BBC]

"How a study about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was doctored, adding to pain and stigma".

"Pakistani Artist’s Concept Art Of A Sci-Fi Pakistan Will Blow You Away".

"A Journey Into the Merriam-Webster Word Factory". "This month, [Kory Stamper, lexicographer], the author of the new book “Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries,” was more than happy to offer a tour of some of the distinctly analog oddities in the basement."

"2016 didn’t just give us “fake news.” It likely gave us false memories". (This touches on Trump and current events a fair bit, but is mainly about the research into memory.)

"Canadian Literature, Settler Colonialism, and Sex With Vegetables? HeerJeet has some insights". (Storify. Also mentions CanLit that involves sex with animals, which...is apparently a thing?)

"THE POTATO APOCALYPSE: To set off a truly epic rant you have to bide your time and wait until someone you know with Serious Ranting Chops is just a wee bit tipsy. Your patience will be rewarded. As mine was tonight". A Storify of an UrsulaV rant about potatoes.

"Dystopian dreams: how feminist science fiction predicted the future".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/780849.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

A general update

umadoshi — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 04:20:03 GMT

--I keep meaning to post various things here, but then I'm either not at the computer, or if I am, I'm also in a "stare blankly at the screen rather than stringing words together" mode.

--Writing anything resembling fiction is happening even less. I just poked my writing tracker, and I wrote a whopping ~800 words last month, and so far, nothing at all this month. (I'm at under 3000 words for the year so far, which I needed to look up to check in at inkingitout.) My brain feels both empty and sludgy. It's very weird and I actively dislike it, but I haven't even been opening WIP files and staring at them, which is more my usual not-writing MO.

--Casual Job resumes for the spring session in about a month--which is to say, about a month later than usual. We suspect it'll only last for a month or so (presumably followed by our office keeping me and the other seasonal folks on for four additional weeks to clear the inevitable spring-session backlog), which is not wallet-cheering news.

--On the freelancing front, I just recently finished Maid-sama! and am finishing My Love Story!! for VIZ, and I also seem to have two Seven Seas series with only one volume remaining. That doesn't leave me with a worryingly-low number of titles, fortunately (I think I still have eight between the two publishers), but it's a lot wrapping up all at once.

--We're not at the point of booking plane tickets yet, but scruloose and I are starting to work out when we're probably going to be in Toronto next. It feels like it's been forever. (It hasn't. We were there last August.) So that's a thing I'm very much looking forward to.

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/780739.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, writing/SFF, misc.

umadoshi — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 04:15:46 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

"The Fansplaining Definitions Survey". "This project is a production of the Fansplaining podcast, which is run by Elizabeth Minkel and Flourish Klink. You can learn more about us at fansplaining.com. We're not academics and this is not an academic survey, but we do strive to discuss and learn more about fandom in general. (We're both, by the way, longtime fanfic readers and writers.)"

Fan-made "Deadpool Musical - Beauty and the Beast "Gaston" Parody". [YouTube, ~6 minutes (including credits)]

"Once More With Feeling: On the afterlife of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, what makes a show resonate for two decades, and why we re-watch television".

"Marvel’s Netflix Shows Need to Get More Comfortable with the MCU".

Writing/SFF

I liked Daniel José Older's NaNoWriMo pep talk.

"The SFF Equine: From Companions to Dragons". [Judith Tarr at Tor.com] "Both McCaffrey and Lackey based their magical beasts on a particular horse-human partnership: that of the riders and the (mostly) white stallions of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. The horses are called Lipizzaner or Lipizzans in tribute to the original stud farm at Lipica in what is now Slovenia, and have been bred to much the same standard since the sixteenth century. They’re short, stocky, sturdy, strong, and highly intelligent. And they’ve been bred to favor individuals that bond with a single rider for, in the best case, the life of the horse."

"V.E. Schwab Expanding A Darker Shade of Magic With New Stories, Fan Art". (This is a collector's edition of the novel, not a whole new book.)

"Tale as old as time? We explore spin-offs, reboots and racebending". [readingtheend guest-posting at OxfordWords blog]

"How Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' Became the Darkest Tale of All: Despite the musical numbers, the 1991 Disney film is actually the darkest retelling of the popular fairy tale". [Genevieve Valentine at Vice]

"The Savage Other as a Stereotype in Fiction". [Kate Elliott]

Miscellaneous

Julia sent me this YouTube link: "The Birthday Boys - Gotta Catch My Shows". It's so true. ;_; See also: today's Wondermark.

"How to download a GIF from Twitter?" [Ezgif.com] It's not perfect--I think maybe it's rejecting some file formats?--but so far it's the most reasonable way I've found to nab "gifs" from Twitter. (Scare quotes because Twitter's idea of what to do with a gif is convert it to a video.)

"53 Pictures Only Introverts Can Truly Appreciate". [Buzzfeed] An alarming number of these are accurate for me. O_o

"Chris Evans Is Ready To Fight: His success as Captain America has made Chris Evans one of Hollywood's sure things, which means he can do whatever he wants with his free time. So why jump out of airplanes and get into it with David Duke?" [Esquire]

"This Adorable Pup Named Biden Just Got To Meet Former VP Joe Biden". [Buzzfeed]

"ModCloth Has Been Sold to Walmart—and Their Customers are Pissed". [The Mary Sue]

Via cofax7, "A Book of Creatures" is a blog that posts about "entities of myth, legend, and folklore", and notes "WARNING: May contain sex, violence, and divine retribution."

A dress that changes from a simpler ball gown to a butterfly dress. [Facebook video]

"A 130-Year-Old Fact About Dinosaurs Might Be Wrong: New research on the creatures’ family tree could “shake dinosaur paleontology to its core.”".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/780297.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

(US) Political linkspam

umadoshi — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 05:03:46 GMT

I have to admit I'm glad to not be posting nearly as much US-centric political stuff, although I'm still reading and RTing a fair bit (and more than is comfortable for my anxiety). But here are some of the best pieces I've read over the past couple of weeks.

"Inside Trump’s fury: The president rages at leaks, setbacks and accusations".

Via owlmoose, "The New York Times and The Washington Post are at war, and everyone’s winning".

"How American democracy could slowly fade away: If the world’s oldest democracy comes undone in the 21st century, it won’t be through revolution—it will be through neglect". [MacLean's, for a Canadian POV]

"Brianna Wu Wants to Change the Democrats’ Playbook". [interview]

"Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media: With links to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage, the rightwing US computer scientist is at the heart of a multimillion-dollar propaganda network". [late February]

"What the Fuck Just Happened Today? is also on Twitter: WTFJHT.

"At long last, a forum where Trump cannot escape the truth". [Sarah Kendzior for The Globe and Mail]

"HHS Hires Former Lawmaker Who Peddled Misinformation About Abortion". "In a 2012 post to his Facebook page, Fleming linked to an article from the satirical site the Onion, adding it was proof that Planned Parenthood was doing “abortion by the wholesale.” He later deleted his post."

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/780204.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, misc.

umadoshi — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 15:30:59 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

Most of you who'd be interested probably know that seanan_mcguire has a Patreon, but if you've at any point considered joining up and haven't for whatever reason (unless the reason is adequate funds, which this won't help with), you may be interested to know that her April Patreon story is going to be an Aeslin mice (InCryptid) POV piece.

Geeky catnip toys, anyone? [ETA: sabotabby reports that they don't ship to Canada. ;_; Not sure about the US.]

"Why Fan Fiction Shaming Is A Feminist Issue". (I like this in general, but a Twitter friend quite reasonably burst out laughing after reading it at the idea of fandom being "a place without judgment".)

"Here's the Important Stuff That Happens in Iron Fist So You Don't Have to Watch It". [io9]

"The Year of Living Publicly: Jenny Slate’s got two new films and a new home and, oh, by the way, she’s fresh off a breakup with Captain America".

Via telophase, there's this Indiegogo to fund new Moomin animation.

"Here It Is, the Victorian-Era Interracial Lesbian Murder Mystery Movie You’ve Always Wanted". [The Mary Sue]

Miscellaneous

"Ten Pinboard Features You Might Not Know About". [Pinboard blog] This post is from 2011, and I haven't poked at most of the things on the list, so if you happen to know that some of them are no longer accurate, drop a comment?

"Hearing words, writing sounds: examining the author's brain". [2015]

"Eating Toward Immortality: Diet culture is just another way of dealing with the fear of death". [Michelle Allison, February]

"Don’t Plant Those “Bee-Friendly” Wildflowers Cheerios Is Giving Away". [Lifehacker]

"Once the Place for a Paycheck, TV Is Now Where Playwrights Make Great Art".

"The Oxford Belles Present ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun(damental Rights)’". "For International Women’s Day, The Oxford Belles, an all-female a cappella group from Oxford University, released a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun, which they are calling Girls Just Want To Have Fun(damental Rights)."

On Atlas Obscura:

--"‘Da Kine,’ Hawaii’s Fantastically Flexible All-Purpose Noun".

--"The Child Eater of Bern: A nearly 500 year old sculpture depicts a man eating a sack of babies, and no one is sure why".

--"The Mystery of the World’s Least American Cactus".

--"See a 400-Year-Old Book Made Entirely from Feathers".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/779954.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Monday morning mishmash post

umadoshi — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 17:32:02 GMT

--Happy equinox! Nova Scotia is welcoming spring with a predicted few days (including yesterday and today) of snow and freezing rain. Whee! (scruloose's workplace opened a couple hours late today, so he got to start his first post-vacation day with a bit of extra sleep.)

--The third round of the Unbound Worlds Cage Match is happening! Georgia is up against Suri from Age of Myth. (I've yet to be familiar with any of her opponents.) Vote for my best beloved! If she wins she could be up against Kell Maresh next time. Eep. (Kell is currently in the lead against his third opponent, who I'm unfamiliar with.)

(I may have gotten teary. You can prove nothing. Nothing!)

--It doesn't take much for me to feel awfully behind on my/our current TV. We haven't seen last week's The Americans and I haven't seen last week's The 100, and last night Elementary aired...

--Being tired is so much more annoying after oversleeping. >.< But it wasn't a very restful night's sleep, and the night before last there wasn't enough sleep, so my current yearning to go sleep some more, preferably with kitty cuddles, does make sense. It's also not happening. (So far today I've turned in the second quarter of a rewrite, and now I'm going to start adapting the final volume of My Love Story!!)

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/779719.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Misc. linkspam

umadoshi — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 04:32:57 GMT

Want free "Fight Fascism" stickers?

Or do you need pronoun stickers for event badges? ctrlaltjustine's got you covered.

"I Buy Books Without Reading Them". [Book Riot]

"Operation London Bridge: the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death".

"From Seaspeak to Singlish: celebrating other kinds of English".

"How the Internet Is Saving Culture, Not Killing It".

"Towards a True Children’s Cinema: on 'My Neighbor Totoro'". "My Neighbor Totoro is a genuine children’s film, attuned to child psychology. Satsuki and Mei move and speak like children: they run and romp, giggle and yell. The sibling dynamic is sensitively rendered: Satsuki is eager to impress her parents but sometimes succumbs to silliness, while Mei is Satsuki’s shadow and echo (with an independent streak). But perhaps most uniquely, My Neighbor Totoro follows children’s goals and concerns. Its protagonists aren’t given a mission or a call to adventure—in the absence of a larger drama, they create their own, as children in stable environments do. They play."

"Giphy launches library of more than 2,000 GIFs to teach you sign language".

"I Have Traveled Here From the Present to Warn You About Global Warming". [McSweeney's]

"I Googled ‘Intersectionality,’ So Now I’m Totally Woke". [McSweeney's]

"Lists: Product Reviews for Cat Owners". [McSweeney's]

"Despair is Not a Strategy: 15 principles of hope".

"Rabbit hole in farmer's field leads to 'mystery caves'".

"Resistance 101: Basics of Community Organizing for SF/F Creators & Consumers, Volume One: Protest Tips and Tricks". [Sam J. Miller at Uncanny Magazine]

"Ignorant jerks abusing ‘the poor will always be with you’ will always be with you". [Fred Clark/Slacktivist]

"How to talk to your non-tech friends about Net Neutrality".

"Sorry Snowflakes, Fighting Is Political". [Sarah Kurchak at the Fightland blog]

"Unbuilt Los Angeles: the city that might have been – in pictures".

"Experience: I accidentally bought a giant pig: I was told she was six months old, had come from a breeder and wouldn’t grow any bigger than a very large cat".

"Fireproof human skulls for your gas fireplace, barbeque or fire-pit". [Boing Boing]

Has anyone tried the Lucky Iron Fish for supplementing dietary iron? It looks neat. "One Lucky Iron Fish can provide you with up to 90% of your recommended daily intake of iron. It's safe for the whole family to use, and is reusable for up to 5 years. Simply boil the Fish in any liquid or broth based meals to enrich your food and drinking water with iron."

Convert Case does what it sounds like: "Simply enter your text and choose the case you want to convert it to."

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/779463.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, writing/SFF, social justice (all from The Establishment), cute

umadoshi — Sat, 18 Mar 2017 14:03:43 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

"Atomic Blonde Is the Next Best Thing to a Female Bond".

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a feminist parable for everyone – including me". [Anthony Stewart Head at The Guardian]

"Ms. Marvel: 15 Reasons Why Kamala Khan Needs A Movie". [CBR]

Here's a spoilery-for-season 1 interview with The Good Place's creator, talking about the season finale.

"In Get Out, the Eyes Have It: Jordan Peele’s fantastic film relies heavily on the sense of sight to amplify its racial horror".

"This Is Why 'Get Out' Is Freaking Out White People".

"Two Of The Greatest Comic Book Writers Have Been In An Occult War For 25 Years".

Writing/SFF

"Romance Without Feminism is No Longer an Option". [Book Riot]

"They Love Me Not: How Fictional Villains Saved My Life". [Alyssa Wong at Uncanny Magazine]

Katie Locke (Bibliogato) just posted a series of blog posts called Intersections of Creativity and Productivity:

--"The Productivity Loop".

--"Routine".

--"YMMV".

--"Bullet Journaling".

Social Justice (all from The Establishment)

"Hating Comic Sans Is Ableist".

"I’m Not Going To Be Nice About Ableism".

"As A Trans Woman, I’ve Seen Nerd Culture’s Misogyny From Both Sides".

"Social Justice Must Be Complicated, Because Oppression Is Never Simple".

"I’ll Never Be ‘Low Maintenance’ — And That’s Okay". "I still struggle with minimizing the full implications of the various ways in which my body or my brain doesn’t work because I worry about scaring people off. Most of the people I’ve dated don’t know the full extent of my ulcerative colitis, and even fewer know about the severity of my panic attacks or the trauma that gave rise to them. I’ve tried to be better about disclosing my illnesses early on, but I still feel like I have to parcel out the details slowly."

"The Truth About Sensitivity Readers And ‘Free Speech’".

"Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed". "If you are just now feeling the urgency of the need to fight systemic racism, chances are, you are white. I know, I know — I’m starting off with blanket assumptions about you and that doesn’t feel good; you literally don’t have to tell me about it, I’m quite familiar! But seriously, you are probably white or white passing (yes, I’m aware that Ben Carson and Lil Wayne exist and some people of color are capable of holding on to baffling amounts of denial, but I do not have whatever power it would take to break through that level of delusion so let’s just stick with new white folk). I’ve written down this handy list of things that you’ve missed so far that you’re going to need to catch up on, on your own time. This knowledge and preparation will not only make your fight against racism more effective, it will allow us to continue our progress as you catch up."

"White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves".

Cute Stuff

"Farmer Found 4 Orphaned Kittens in His Barn Only to Find Out They Aren't Ordinary House Cats...".

"Literally Just A Bunch Of Photos Of Cats Sitting In Tiny Chairs". [Buzzfeed]

Via jimhines, "15+ Puppies On Their First Days Of Work That Will Make Your Day" and "17 Dogs Who Deserve To Be Pet All They Want, Dammit".

"Fish and Chips, Two Adventurous Cats Who Love Exploring the Great Outdoors With Their Humans".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/778866.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, writing/SFF, misc.

umadoshi — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 03:00:02 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

Signups are open for SSR Confidential, the Agent Carter fanworks exchange.

"Take an emotional, 17-year journey through Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine hairstyles".

Writing/SFF

Humble Bundle is currently offering a women of sci-fi and fantasy ebook bundle.

"My Alien Family: Writing Across Cultures in Science Fiction". [Becky Chambers at Tor.com]

This poem by Cassandra Khaw is amazing: "Protestations Against the Idea of Anglicization".

Marie Brennan recently started a new Patreon-funded series on worldbuilding at Book View Cafe. The introduction post is here, and the first "real" post is also up: "New Worlds: The Shape of the World".

Miscellaneous

"This Lego tape turns anything into a Lego-friendly surface". [The Daily Dot]

"Your old CD-ROMs are probably rotting". [Boing Boing]

"21 Things For People Who Love Black Cats". [Buzzfeed]

Via browngirl, "15 Lesser-Known Berries You Should Try". [Serious Eats, 2014]

"EFF presents: a guide to protecting your data privacy when crossing the US border". [Boing Boing] "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just updated its 2011 guide to Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border with an all new edition that covers the law, administrative rules, technological options and potential repercussions of crossing the US border while not undergoing the warrantless seizure and indefinite retention of all of your sensitive data -- in a guide that breaks out the different risks for US citizens, US permanent residents, and visitors to the USA."

"Lack of Oxford comma costs Maine company millions in overtime".

"Act Up, Rise Up". [Elsa Sjunneson-Henry at Uncanny Magazine] "Resistance is not about where you are shouting at the sky, but it is about putting yourself body and soul into the space of asking the world not to ignore you. Demanding from your government the right to be heard, to be seen. This is the core of resistance to me, and it is why the term slacktivism—a term often applied to the kind of resistance people with disabilities have access to—feels so wrong."

Via dine, "Artist Paints Realistically Detailed Animals on Smooth Stones".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/778640.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Home again

umadoshi — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 02:49:33 GMT

We were away for a few days. Now we're home. It was a good time with good friends, but I'm very glad to be home to our own bed and our own shower and our cats. (Especially the cats. I think I may have missed them more than usual for some reason.)

Vacation mode didn't survive much past getting in the door. scruloose and I have a meeting with an accountant tomorrow to finally deal with *mumblenumberofyearsof* un-filed taxes. I won't get into why we're behind on filing, but we are, and it's probably going to bite us hard in the wallet. >.< And it turned out that our relevant paperwork wasn't nearly as organized as I'd thought it was. (I have no idea why I had such a vivid impression of things being in tidy folders someplace we simply couldn't locate, but...no. Not so much.) We dealt with as much as we could before going away last weekend, but after getting home we spent a lot of the afternoon/evening digging out everything else we could to take with us tomorrow. UGH.

That all took longer than expected, so I didn't wind up getting any work done tonight, despite good intentions. >.< At least we caught up on Elementary with supper?

So the shape of tomorrow is the appointment, work, and nailing down my Hugo nominations. (I am so very thoroughly out of time on that last.)

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/778421.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

One quick link: Unbound Worlds' 2017 Cage Match

umadoshi — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 22:09:49 GMT

Georgia won her bout in round 1 of Unbound Worlds' 2017 Cage Match, and the second round has started, with Seanan writing this entry as well: "Cage Match 2017: Sci-Fi vs Fantasy Round 2: Kitty Katt vs Georgia Mason".

“Well?” I demanded, looking up at the so-called “sky.” It was like standing in the middle of one of Buffy’s simulations, the ones where things had always looked ever-so-slightly off. “Did I win or did I lose? If this is some sort of loser’s bracket, I think you should consider the fact that Shaun is going to notice my absence any time now, and when he does, the English language will not contain the proper words to describe his reaction.”

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/778189.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Unrelated book and music announcements that made me happy yesterday

umadoshi — Sat, 11 Mar 2017 03:22:54 GMT

There's a Mira Grant mermaid novel, Into the Drowning Deep, coming out in November!

It's from Orbit, like all of Seanan's Mira Grant novels have been, but it follows Rolling in the Deep, her mermaid novella from Subterranean. (I have no idea how/why that works, but whatever--Mira Grant mermaid novel.)

Tom McRae announced a new album and tour!

I doubt the latter will come to North America, both because the short post only mentions touring in September and October and because a change to US laws about non-Americans working there apparently screws over a lot of musicians from elsewhere who want to do US shows. I have no recollection of how or why, only that when the law came in, Tom basically said someplace that that was probably it for his North American performances. ;_;

(He only came to Canada twice, AFAIK, and IIRC both times he only did one show each in Toronto and Montreal--we drove to Montreal for both of those shows!--to feel it out. I hope he enjoyed coming here despite the hassle he got from our border guards in 2007 [my copy of his 2007 live CD is a burned disc with the title scrawled on it, because all his actual CDs got held at the border], but that's not exactly a money-making proposition.)

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/777482.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky, social justice, misc.

umadoshi — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 17:43:19 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things

"6 Reasons Sarah Kuhn Loves Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid Novels". [The B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog]

"Kore Yamazaki's The Ancient Magus' Bride Manga Gets TV Anime in October". [ANN] Eeeee! Magus is one of my very favorite series that I'm working on these days. *^^*

"With Logan, Superhero Films Prove Their Humanity All Over Again". [Tor.com]

"Storytelling Through Costume: The Badass Black Tank Top Walks the Line". [Tor.com]

"This Makeup Artist Transformed Herself Into Every Sailor Moon Scout & The Looks Are So Magical".

"How Buffy the Vampire Slayer transformed TV as we know it".

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer's feminism is still subversive, 20 years later".

Social Justice

"The Establishment Means The World To Me, And It Needs Your Help". [The Establishment]

"Sometimes, it actually IS hormones: a story of feminism and medicine". [UntoNuggan]

"There’s such a thing as “autism camouflaging” and it might explain why some people are diagnosed so late".

"How Do You Raise A Feminist Daughter? Chimamanda Adichie Has 15 Suggestions". [NPR]

"Resistance 101 Reading List: A Crash-Course for Aspiring Revolutionaries". [Autostraddle]

Miscellaneous

"Death is the Curator: An Interview with Guillermo del Toro". [Bright Wall/Dark Room]

"Reading A WRINKLE IN TIME for the First Time in Trump’s America". [Book Riot]

"The Religious Origins of Fake News and “Alternative Facts”".

"The Factious, High-Drama World of Bird Taxonomy".

"These women have made legal history as the first best friends to be co-parents".

You can download the 2016 award season screenplays here.

A review of Kedi, a documentary about cats in Istanbul, and via adafrog, here's the trailer. (I haven't seen it, but these make me want to.)

"A Planner Addict Subscription Box for Every Style".

"More people are adopting old, sick dogs to keep them from dying alone and afraid".

"This Crazy Gorgeous Font Evolves As You Type With It".

"Breaking the Glass Slipper: Where Are the Female Choreographers?" [June 2016]

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/777440.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

In which I am freshly vaccinated and mentally trying to organize my TBR

umadoshi — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 16:21:19 GMT

When I went for my B12 shot yesterday, I checked in with Dr. Awesome about my vaccination/booster status(es), because Twitter has told me things like "A lot of people don’t realize you need to boost your TDaP every 10 years or so" and "if you were born 1969-1980, there's a decent chance your childhood vaccine didn't work. They only gave us one dose, and it was at 10 months, & that didn't work as well it should" and "[Toronto] Public urged to update vaccines after mumps, measles cases reported". Upshot: I got a measles/mumps/rubella booster; am planning to get a tetanus booster at my next appointment; and verified that I'm immune to chicken pox (I got tested in 2012 and couldn't remember the verdict, but it seems like I had such a minor childhood case that no one noticed), so Dr. Awesome and I will discuss the shingles vaccine.

It's a gray, rainy day--perfect for cuddling cats and finishing Magic For Nothing. (I was about two-thirds through when I reluctantly set it aside last night.) But work has to happen first. *eyes deadlines* Lots of work. And it's going to be a busy evening, too, but I'm still holding out hope of reading the rest of the book before whenever-I-go-to-bed.

Sometime after I started consolidating my various media-to-consume lists into a spreadsheet, I realized I should be labeling a lot of things as maybes, and I belatedly began doing that--late enough in the game that there are tons of books etc. in the lists that should have the "maybe" note and don't, and it's not as if I'm ever going to manage to reconstruct which that applies to. >.< It's a bit embarrassing, then, that I only very recently thought that I should likewise mark the high-priority things too. (Although in my defense, a lot of those I hear about before they come out, and in the case of books, then put them on my to-buy list, landing them on my TBR bookcase, which means it's something of a high-priority list in its own right, especially as I'm now in my third year of reading almost exclusively from those shelves, not the library. [Graphic novels notwithstanding.])

It also only just occurred to me a couple days ago that I ought to start yet another Amazon wishlist for "books that sound awesome but aren't going to jump the queue to the front of the line, so if they're initially getting a hardcover release, I may as well hold off until the paperback comes out". (Since I actively prefer paperbacks.)

It's been maybe a year (roughly) since I started preordering the books I'm absolutely sure I want to buy, and the main side-effect is that they're no longer sitting on my wishlist with their release dates right there, so...they kind of slip out of my mind if they're not by my three or four insta-read authors. ^^;

So for the record, since I got curious the other day and poked through the relevant email folder, the books--not counting manga--that I currently have on preorder are:

Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Seanan McGuire)
Strange the Dreamer (Laini Taylor)
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life (Benjamin Alire Sáenz)
Phantom Pains (Mishell Baker)
The Upside of Unrequited (Becky Albertalli)
Given to the Sea (Mindy McGinnis)
A Tyranny of Queens (Foz Meadows)
City of Miracles (Robert Jackson Bennett)
Thick as Thieves (Megan Whalen Turner)

Books I haven't preordered yet but plan to within the next few months (a presumably-incomplete list):

All the Crooked Saints (Maggie Stiefvater)
The Girl with the Red Balloon (Katherine Locke)
Wild Beauty (Anna-Marie McLemore)
The Memory Trees (Kali Wallace)
The Brightest Fell (Seanan McGuire)
Feedback [paperback edition] (Mira Grant)
27 Hours (Tristina Wright)
The Stone Sky (N. K. Jemisin) (no, I haven't read the first two books yet)
Our Dark Duet (Victoria Schwab)
Buried Heart (Kate Elliott)

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/776865.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky/SFF, misc.

umadoshi — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 05:25:25 GMT

Fannish/Geeky Things/SFF

"Russia Scandals May Make The Americans “Relevant,” but That’s Not What Makes It Great". [Slate]

"The Uncomfortable Legacy of Buffy's Xander Harris".

"Star Trek: Discovery casts Jason Isaacs as captain".

"Announcing “Nevertheless, She Persisted”, a Short Fiction Event Taking Place on March 8th". [Tor.com]

"Cage Match 2017: Sci-Fi vs Fantasy: Round 1 - Mata Zyndu vs Georgia Mason" by seanan_mcguire. (As I post this, there are 22 voting hours left for round 1.)

(I cannot reiterate clearly enough that Seanan wrote Georgia for this. *dances a little* [And now I'm kind of wondering about it not being under the Mira Grant pseud. Huh.])

My story begins where so many—

No. Scratch that, fuck that, rip that up and set it on fire so it can think about what it’s done. My story, which has been ongoing for quite some time, and usually involves running from the living dead while waiting for my asshole brother to find something to jab at with a stick, entered a bizarre new chapter when I either walked through a rift in the space-time continuum—unlikely—or gave myself the mother of all concussions.

Miscellaneous

"Christian, Conservative And Parenting A Transgender Child In Texas". [Huffington Post]

"Conscious consumerism is a lie. Here’s a better way to help save the world".

"Editor Picks: The 10 Best Types of Cat". [Britannica]

"NASA just released a ton of free software for space nerds". [The Daily Dot]

"Make the Most of the British Museum". [New York Times]

"How to Keep Messages Secure". [Teen Vogue] (This has been widely shared and recced on Twitter.)

"Why Do the Big Stories Keep Breaking at Night? Even in the internet age, the rhythms of print publications drive the news cycle".

"What kind of scratching post do cats prefer?" [Companion Animal Psychology]

"Oscar Winner Mahershala Ali and the Men of ‘Moonlight’ Are Calvin Klein’s Newest Underwear Models".

"Give smart: 4 tips to avoid charity scams".

"Why You Should Brush Your Cat’s Teeth". [Front Page Mews]

Erika Moen from Oh Joy Sex Toy has made her cross stitch "Nevertheless, she persisted" pattern available. If you want to use it, she asks that you first donate at least $5 to International Women’s Health Coalition.

sage recently posted a free pussyhat-inspired headband pattern on Ravelry for warm-weather protests.

"15 Hilarious Kitchen Fails That’ll Make Even The Worst Cook Feel Better".

"Why I Fuck Up My Cars". [Maggie Stiefvater at Jalopnik]

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/776586.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

Linkspam: fannish/geeky/SFF, misc.

umadoshi — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 03:41:30 GMT

Every time I make a linkspam post these days I get an extra reminder that I've still barely touched the posting-meme topics--one of them is to talk about putting linkspam posts together. ^^;

Fannish/Geeky Things/SFF

Via kaytaylorrea, "How Logan Found Its Extraordinary Child Star, the Uncanny Dafne Keen: Casting director Priscilla John had to rustle up a bilingual preteen girl with excellent martial-arts skills to play Laura, a.k.a. X-23. Simple, right?"

"'Logan' Director James Mangold on Pushing for R-Rating, Hugh Jackman's Last Day on Set and His Comic Book Movie Future".

"Review: Violent, intense, and political, ‘Logan’ is the definitive Wolverine movie". [Gavia Baker-Whitelaw at The Daily Dot]

Lightspeed Magazine has a free three-month trial subscription offer right now.

The survey for what to name a prospective World Science Fiction Society YA award is open until March 15th.

"First Trailer for Disney XD’s DuckTales Is Exactly as Awesome as You’d Hope". [The Mary Sue]

"Marvel's Inhumans casts a 2,000-pound teleporting dog".

"You Haven’t Seen Everything John Cho Can Do: The Star Trek Beyond actor on race, Mr. Sulu’s sexuality, and his magical weed-conjuring abilities". An interview from 2016 in which John Cho speaks very candidly on, among other things, race and Hollywood--which is, unsurprisingly, depressing as hell. But it's well worth reading.

"Why ‘The 100’ is the best political show on television".

"Why Kodansha Comics Finally Licensed Chihayafuru".

"The World Of Cosplay Is Filled With Black Joy". [The Establishment]

"An Heiress Hunts for a Wife in the new Queer Period Drama from HBO and BBC One". [The Mary Sue]

Miscellaneous

"Cyndi Lauper’s Official Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights Shirt", benefiting Planned Parenthood and the True Colors Fund.

"20 Percent of Readers Still ‘Hear’ the Characters When the Book Is Over". [Science of Us]

"'I Made That Bitch Famous': A brief history of men getting credit for women's accomplishments".

"Cognitive bias cheat sheet, simplified".

"Lego's Next Fan-Designed Set Celebrates the Women of NASA".

"Away with the fairies: Irish folklore is alive and weird".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/776293.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:

A few (US) political links

umadoshi — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 02:15:13 GMT

I've still been reading a fair bit of US political stuff, but as you can see, I've been collecting way fewer links lately. Here's a handful from the last few weeks, though.

"The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins".

This op-ed dates back to February 14, but it's delightful, and how often does one get to say that in this political climate? "Michael Flynn is gone and everything is fine, just fine, great". "To call this past weekend in the Trump administration a garbage fire would be a disservice to garbage fires, which at least shed light and get rid of garbage.

The Trump administration is doing exactly what I do when I try to assemble Ikea furniture, in the sense that it has clearly not consulted any instructions and now before it has finished its cabinet a big piece has fallen off. Also in the sense that there are dangerous screws loose everywhere."

"The State of Trump's State Department".

"Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking".

"Trump has set the US up to botch a global health crisis".

Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/776020.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW: