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March 3rd, 2010
11:20 pm - Signs and portents
Most of you have probably heard me explain the rule that things Australians say about hazards are frequently untrue, but the signs are deadly serious.
Lying on the ground next to my path home from work is a sign that says 'Bike path subject to flooding'. This outstanding understatement reminds me where I live every time that the underpasses turn into foamy brown rivers that have been known to tear off metal railings (and uproot signs).
Further up the path, past the flooded parts, there is a much smaller geographical reminder - the perfectly flattened corpse of a cane toad. What I love about that, aside from it being a dead pest, is that it's on a bike path. You expect them on the roads, but on a bike path you just know that some jogger or cyclist did that deliberately and with a certain level of personal risk.
At least that was the thought that went though my mind when I spotted a non-flat toad tonight. I instinctively swerved towards it, then suddenly reconsidered how much traction I was prepared to give up in the dark and the wet. But I feel like I've been a bit derelict in my duty as a Queenslander. A good citizen would have hit that sucker, even on my little bike.
Posted via Journaler.
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January 24th, 2010
11:20 pm - Long time no post
So one of my new years resolutions was to get back online and start using this journal again. I don't actually have anything much to say at the moment, so this is more of a heads up. If you forgot that you had me friended and aren't interested, feel free to defriend. Otherwise, I'm probably going to rename this journal as soon as I'm sure what I want to change it to.
And it's my bedtime. Night all.
Current Mood:  hopeful
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October 2nd, 2006
10:34 pm
So, my fandom life seems to have come in something of a circle. I followed other people from comics to popslash when Marvel decided to kill and/or cancel all of my favourite characters in one month. In popslash I met many lovely people, including two current housemates, and when the source material for popslash dried up and what was left just brought massive fandom psychosis and side-taking (solo albums are so divisive) one of them introduced me to Supernatural.
Well. You've all known me for a while, so if you've seen the show you can probably guess how much I was all over that one. Like a rash. Winchesters. Summerses. It's like somewhere there's a factory devoted to making issue-ridden fantasy-plot-having families of attractive men just for me.
Anyway. The source material for Supernatural is as good as ever. But one of the other lovely popslashers of my acquaintance is Sin, the two of us and said housemate are going to a Supernatural con in the US this Friday. We were on AIM working out some details, since Sin lives in Sydney, comics came up and Sin uploaded the Madrox limited series and 1-10 of X-Factor.
I loved it to pieces. I stayed up until two in the morning reading the damn things and went to work the next day nearly crying and yet somehow not sorry. So, with Cable and Deadpool, that's two titles I like and want to read. I might have to make purchasing arrangements. As a non-committal baby step in that direction I went into the shop that used to be the highlight of my week and bought a couple of comics. (I never went cold turkey, I always picked up the odd one or two but usually back issues and never on any regular basis. I get a Fables trade whenever they feel like sending some out to this rugged frontier of non-Sydney.)
All the staff seem to have changed from my heyday, there's nobody there who recognises me anymore. Which fits, I guess, since there's a lot of stuff in the comics that I don't recognise anymore and I keep finding new horrible things that they've done to stuff I used to recognise. Still, it's a bit sad. When I was in high school I used to go in all the time, the counter was too tall for me then (I'm much the same size as I was but they've moved premises) and they used to recognise me and my uniform and not let poorly socialised males push me out of the way. I had an argument with a manager about whether I looked like my sister or not. When a storm that was pretty impressive even for Brisbane came up while I was in there, he offered to drive me home. I hope him and the nice redhead who found me Cable #25 went on to bigger and better things.
So there's the circle. And when I get back from my trip, I'll set up a box at the shop and start getting comics put away. My income's double now what it was at uni, so it's not like I can't afford it. Of course, it did occur to me that I could purchase a few things while I'm ON the trip. So I looked up the comic shop that I remember with the great action figure discount bin. And couldn't find it. And Sin couldn't find it.
And then I finally found an old entry in someone's blog that mentioned that it changed its name and burned down. Which, as Mel put it, is about as definitively gone as you can get.
So. If you've stuck with this entry from someone who's been absent for a very long time this far, thank you. And, if you know of a spiffy comic shop between LA and Nashville (inclusive, although we're planning on getting out of LA as quickly as possible) that I should visit so I can continue the tradition of action figure porn in the backseat, please leave a comment.
If I survive the con without permanent trauma or injury or being arrested for my unsavoury political history and sent to Guantanamo Bay, I'll think about DexCon. Yes, I have to make as many jokes about being arrested as I possibly can now, since I won't be able to make them later.
Current Location: not-Sydney
Current Mood:  thoughtful
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December 23rd, 2005
12:56 am - I think maybe I'm missing the fanatical point...
I've read a few things about the controversy of the season and been thinking. There's the school debate, which according to the papers must be either a) a three-hour long Christian service and hellfire lecture that must be attended by every K-12 student or b) a total ban on the words 'Christmans' or 'Jesus' ever being spoken aloud in a state school. (I imagine that the history and social sciences teachers may be permitted to mime the naughty words when required.) I don't quite get it. It's a state school, yes, no enforced Christianity IS an assumption in that entirely secular and government funded institution. No, that doesn't mean that mentioning the existence of organised religion and religious holidays is forcing Jesus on kids. Like sex and drugs, they're gonna find out eventually and if you want them to find out your way you'll have to get in quick.
Mostly I'm confused by the level of outrage over whether retail employees should be saying merry christmas or happy holidays. Call me crazy, but I don't think the teenager selling me my shit cares whether it's my grandmother's Christmas present, my mother's solstice gift or something I'm giving my dad just to piss him off because he believes in none of these things and is very determined to avoid them as much as possible. Why do people think it's a huge deal that they get the well-wish of their choice by every underwhelmed and overtired cashier?
I shopped yesterday, bought some stuff. The nice young man taking my electronic money handed me my receipt, smiled at me and said 'have a great afternoon'. A sentiment I was happy to return and something I certainly did my best to actually do.
Why the drama? Why the sudden tizz over what on earth retailers can say to their customers that won't offend somebody to the point of physical violence? Did we just invent shopping yesterday or something? Because I thought we'd had it figured out for years. It's become almost annoying in its constant, generally insincere presence.
Have a nice day.
No religion, no de-Jesusification of a religious holiday, no sharp edges we might cut ourselves on.
Enjoy your meal/movie/evening. How complicated is it, really?
I haven't said 'merry christmas' to a single caller who didn't say it to me first, and I haven't had any of them complain. Most have seemed quite happy with a variation on 'thanks for calling', 'enjoy the rest of your afternoon' or 'good luck with getting that ticket sorted out'. The exact same things I say the rest of the year.
Current Mood:  jaded
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December 9th, 2005
08:41 pm
Dear Apple,
I knew I disliked you for a reason.
I am unable to watch the X-Men 3 trailer because I won't install iTunes. Ridiculous, you say? Not at all. Because the only links to the trailer I can find are with Apple, and they of course will only play with Quicktime. And more specific than that, Quicktime 7. Which I refuse to install, because it comes inextricably bundled with iTunes. I mean, I've got nothing against iTunes. I'm sure it's great. I know people who totally like it. It's just that I already have enough programs competing for mp3 dominance, thanks. Winamp thinks it's king and occasionally is, the iriver plus software that came bundled with my mp3 player thinks it's king and I don't want to piss it off because it's the only thing that can talk to the player, and Windows Media Player fondly imagines it's king but is actually only used when winamp or DivX fuck up.
I just have no patience left for media-player histrionics, you know?
So thanks for totally validating my prejudice by doing the bundling crap that you deride others for. It just gives me a fabulous excuse to get up on my beloved high horse over not installing your crappy product.
Love,
Me.
P.S. Bundling sucks. No matter how mind-shatteringly good your product is, if I don't want it then I don't want it and I won't bloody well install it. I'm looking at you Adobe, you adding-shit-to-an-acrobat-reader-update fucktards.
Current Mood:  birthday tiddly
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July 22nd, 2005
12:04 am
Neil Gaiman is the coolest cool that ever cooled, bar none. He not only tolerated drunken me with the slurring declarations of love, he signed all three peices of stuff with incoherent explanations and complimented drunken me on her attire.
Both drunken me and sober me reiterate their earlier slurred statement.
Neil, you delight me. Thank you for everything.
Pissed bitches in red coats of Brisbane, signing off. If I owe you an email, I probably haven't read it yet because I'm too busy preventing myself from sending 800 emails of apology to Neil for breathing red wine fumes on him and possibly insisting on touching him but I'm fuzzy on that. If I took your book to get signed, I'll curse you and tell you the whole story later.
P.S. Yep, Mel assures me I touched him with this hand. I'm oddly glad it was the relatively coordinated hand.
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June 1st, 2005
01:09 pm
I love firefox. I really do. I don't think I've ever been so emotionally attached to a browser before. It works so consistently, with almost no popups, it's secure and stable and lovely.
Except that I would quite like a bit of Java capability to view one particular page. Missing plugin? Not a worry! Click here to get it!
So I did. Twice. Didn't install, despite it assuring me it had. It didn't even show up on the plugin list. So I sigh and go to the 'missing pluging' page to download it the old-fashioned way. Ironically enough, the page to download missing plugins for firefox doesn't display properly in firefox. But nevermind, I found the right link after only one wrong guess, and installed away. The installer sunnily asked me which browsers I would like that Java enabled for, Microsoft Internet Explorer?
No, really. That was the only option presented.
Careful trials revealed that it did actually work for firefox too, but still. A page that doesn't display in firefox and a plugin that doesn't recognise it?
Firefox is a bloody wonderful browser. Too bad the people over at Mozilla don't seem to use it, I think they'd like it.
Current Mood:  cynical
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March 6th, 2005
08:53 pm
On the fandom front, I started buying comics again at Auscon. And have persisted. Cable and Deadpool, it almost has my name on it.
Also, I've been watching Lost. And by 'watching', I mean downloading and watching over and over compulsively and getting other people to watch it too so I can vicariously watch it for the first time again. Even the episodes that don't have Naveen Andrews featuring prominently. (Although those are my favourite.)
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08:25 pm
It's been a long time, but the urge to make a livejournal post for absolutely no good reason other than to hear myself talk has appeared again. It may not have seemed like it, but I missed it while it was away. I do love to hear myself talk, and whatever bizarre phase took all the fun out of doing it here was quite unpleasant. For one thing, I had to talk to other real people a lot, which isn't always for the best. Like, at work, sometimes it's important to shut up about shoes and whether the real reason why Lynn Flewelling and Kate Elliot aren't cranking out more books like they're supposed to is because they're off having kinky sex somewhere.
Like if you like orgasms, but masturbating's no fun anymore. Eventually people are going to get sick of you pestering them for sex. Or, in my case, hearing about my unhappiness with my current bank and whether or not any of the disciples were gay. (Me and Mel and Dana did have that discussion. "What about those fishermen?" "Brothers. But Jesus and the other Simon..." "Brothers." "Really?" "Yep." "Bugger. But there were three fishermen, so maybe one of the brothers and the other one...")
Other new gems of something I have to impart:
Harvey Norman are not bad at everything, they're in on an entirely new level of appalling service that sulky teenagers working the graveyard shift can only dream of one day attaining. And no matter what, there is ALWAYS somewhere else you can go. JB HiFi are nice, and their name always gives me a giggle. Tandy are dumb as toast, but at least it's relatively attentive toast. I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir with the Australians, but in case any of the people from other nations on my friendslist find themselves in Australia and in need of a keyboard or an iPod - seriously, just stab yourself in the eye with a fork. It'll feel about the same and be cheaper. I've now dealt with them as a customer and as a call centre operator for GE Consumer Finance and both ways I've wanted to beat them unconscious with their own merchandise.
On a related note, the hold music for GE will be godawful for the forseeable future. And as everyone in the call centre gets to hear it several times a day as they talk to each other and try to get things sorted, GE Money employees are now probably overtaking postal workers in the Will Just Go Fucking Nuts And Kill You All olympics. The Beatles-raping propaganda was only on for my last week there and thought I was going to die.
People say 'never live with your friends'. This is not necessarily good advice. For someone as lazy as me, living with your friends is a remarkably pleasant way of socialising without any effort or, necessarily, wearing pants.
Also, I have a new computer. It's new, black, has a 19" monitor and was custom-built just for me. I love it so much it's obscene. Also, the monitor says 'DiamondDigital' with a little red diamond next to it. It's got my NAME on it. My joy is great.
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November 12th, 2004
03:22 am
I like Remembrance Day. I like ANZAC day too. Not in a 'yay!' way, but I like that we have them and I do like the reminder to think back. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of the poem about Flanders Field, except the line about crosses row on row. Because I remember that a few times a year when I lived on the Tablelands we'd be on the way to Yungaburra and go past the cemetary with the war dead. It took a minute to go past, and the flashes of white going by so fast made my eyes go funny. It certainly wasn't the biggest ever, probably really only in the hundreds. But for me as a child in a very sparsely populated area? There were probably more dead local boys in that graveyard than people I knew by a fair margin, it was hard to imagine.
I don't really find anything much in those days to glorify war, and I get uncomfortable around people who do. I don't believe the rhetoric about them dying to keep us free. I know that most Australian soldiers died a long way from home, and often for stupid reasons. And too many of them weren't given a choice. I can believe that WWII people were fighting for something good, although I wish it hadn't been necessary and know it shouldn't have been. But even in that war, I can't really believe in passing on the glorious torch of righteous battle against a completely evil foe to defend freedom. I don't consider European colonial interests to be freedom. You can't defend colonial interests in Africa and fight against them in New Guinea and have both be defending liberty.
But we did both and people died in both, and I think both should be remembered. Because I think the worst thing that we can possibly do is forget or just ignore that all the casualties on all sides of our long and bloody history were people. If we turn them into numbers or an embarrassing incident that nobody likes to talk about, we only compound the injustice done to them. And if we lose track of the knowledge of what happened, of what really happened rather than numbers and maps and dates (although I like those too), we will repeat our mistakes. I do think there are things we can be proud of in our military history and many, many more we should be ashamed of. But they should be remembered, because it's a part of who we are, and maybe a vital part of learning who we want to be.
I don't support John Howard's attacks on befefits for veterans. Whether the cause was unjust or conquering heroes shouldn't need namby-pamby health care, that's not the point. As a society, globally and nationally, we know what war does to people and we should do everything we can to help them recover, because they are people. While I don't support the war in Iraq or the governments that started it (who are also people and should be ashamed of themselves), I regret the people who were sent to fight it and were traumatised, wounded or killed in the course such a morally corrupt invasion. Even though I wish that more of them would decline to participate, and that some in particular end up at the wrong end of a war crimes court.
( My rememberances, images from Iraq that I'll probably never forgetCollapse )
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