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Monday, March 14th, 2022
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4:08 pm - eight years later
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This is an intro and apology to everyone I just added as a friend! I apparently haven't posted since 2014 (although since then there actually was a very long private post with links and pictures of Raul Gonzalez that I posted three times in February 2015 for reasons that I cannot fathom).
Anyway, the issue is that after years away from actively following Johnny's, I have been sucked back in by a friend who got me into Snow Man. Great timing in that it's a good distraction from all the Events happening all the time, but bad timing in that there's all these rumors flying around about LJ melting down and I need to figure out how to get subs again and catch up on everything I've missed DDDD:
So if I just friended you, that's why, and I do exist and am a real person and am way too lazy to ever post your subs anywhere as I barely have the energy to download stuff - not that I would repost anyway. But I don't know any of the LJ etiquette these days so idk if it's a thing where you might be like "hmm who is this person who friended me" and it's cool or if I need to reach out to people like applying to join a community or what. I figured either way it might be better to have a post more recent than 2014 tho.
Me as a Johnny's fan: started following when NEWS and KATTUN and Kanjani8 were the fresh new things, ultimately ended up getting very into TOKIO (unfortunate at this point but Mabo is still one of my faves and I just love DASH so much) and V6 and Arashi. Now I can't believe that Snow Man has a youtube presence that's just subtitled at least some of the time??? It's incredible?? But I still want to watch everything, hence pursuing more subs here. Don't want to commit to any Snow Man faves since it takes me a while to settle in and get to know everyone and figure out who I love and it's basically just been 2 weeks of fandom for me. But I did watch KieKoi and have eyes so I'm very happy to look at Meme, I'm delighted by Shoppi's entire deal, I think Abe-chan is adorable, and I love Date-sama's whole wild aristocrat thing. XDD
But that's me, if anyone wants to take pity on an old new fan and hook me up with Snow Man content, I am down.
Edited April 15: Welp since writing the above I watched a bunch of Janino Channel and ended up falling madly in love with Yamada Ryosuke and now I spend all my time watching Hey Say Jump videos and I love them all.
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| Tuesday, February 4th, 2014
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11:46 pm - creationism rant that's actually an "honesty/rigor in debate" rant
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Sup! Quick update: still painfully obsessed with the Islanders, still utterly heartbroken over the Matt Moulson trade that happened at the end of October, totally gearing up for the Olympics. Also my roommate is gone until mid-June and is going to pay me about $250 less per month and keep the room so I just get the place to myself for the next four and a half months and I'm so excited about it!! If we find a perfect tenant, then we'll sublet her room and I'll get paid the regular rent but at the very least, this is very unlikely to happen until after the Olympics, if at all. CNBC is going to have curling on every evening at 5!! So I'll be able to catch most of those. Of course, there's almost no Canada games, but I'll get to see the US women take on Team GB - aka Eve Muirhead and co!! :DDD And the US men playing Team Norway (my darlings) is another, so those will be good, and hopefully we'll be able to find some others online.
Also I'm dating a dude and it's going OK but I'm not head over heels for him or anything. He's super sweet and I've enjoyed hanging out with him, but I'm not sure if our senses of humor are sufficiently aligned... idk. Part of me still wants to get to know him better and keep giving him a try, but I also feel like maybe I'd be more excited about him now if I was going to be? And he's been sappy occasionally and I don't want to lead him on. He asked if I wanted to do something for Valentine's Day (which is really nice, as opposed to just making plans or something) and I was able to say I wasn't really ready for anything that romantic~ so... I don't know. This should at least buy me more time in which I can get together with him without him becoming convinced that I'm very serious. (But in the meantime, this is making me even WORSE about the physical stuff so we've barely kissed >_____< oh god i suck at other people)
( now i need to have feelings about the creationism 'debate' bullcrapCollapse )
The Islanders won while I was writing this!! Now I need to figure out if I take a shower tonight or just go to bed... I need to stock up on sleep because I'm going to see "A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder" on Broadway during the opening ceremonies this Friday (or rather, during NBC's broadcast thereof) and am considering just watching the rebroadcast at 1AM. >______> One of the rare times when I kind of need a DVR.
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| Wednesday, November 20th, 2013
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2:49 pm
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so a call was put out for internet hugs for  shana0809 and I was going to send her a couple pictures of cute athletic spaniards, but hahahahaha "a couple" and long story short here's a picspam.
( Read more...Collapse )
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| Friday, November 8th, 2013
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11:56 am - Matt Martin/Casey Cizikas picspam and mini-primer
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| Monday, September 30th, 2013
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8:25 pm - what the nut, livejournal?
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Had a lovely weekend of autumnal good times with friend!Corey - went to crafternoon at the NYPL (I would be on board based purely on the name, tbh) and made little quilted coasters! I had to depend a lot on Corey for guidance - both because she was ahead of me and could pay better attention to the instructions and also because she was just following better. XD But I finished, eventually! Here is a picture, I think it's super cute: https://twitter.com/ambitiouspants/status/384128462979485696/photo/1 (Here is Corey's, with a view of what mine looked like after the alloted time ended: https://twitter.com/ambitiouspants/status/384075844068462593/photo/1 It took me 3 episodes of Sports Night to catch up.)
And Corey made us pumpkin risotto and I have finally seen Road to El Dorado (super duper fun, and as slashy as advertised), and for breakfast we had crepes with apple slices fried in butter and cinnamon and it was SO. GOOD. (Corey made the crepes and did all the frying, but I chopped an abundance of apples! This was also our technique for the apple crisp we made later. XDD) (Celebrating autumn properly involves a lot of eating. Also Corey jumped in with her Smith-acquired skills at using up loads of apples after excessively enthusiastic apple-picking expeditions.)
On Sunday we went to the medieval festival at Fort Tryon Park, which was fun but also incredibly overwhelming! It was way more crowded than the last time we went... which I'm assuming was last year but may have been a couple years ago. There were kind of too many people to really be able to experience much. On the other hand, just looking at the people and all the amazing costumes is probably the best part of the experience anyway, and it was pretty great! Corey's teeny pooch Millie did not really enjoy herself, and slept all afternoon, but that was for the best because we watched Radioland Murders, which is a George Lucas film that came out in 1994 and is TERRIBLE. Especially the lead actor. We were totally betrayed by the Netflix reviews and decided to give it a try - it had 3 1/2 stars there but I think that showed up as 4, but it has only 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Get it together, Netflix reviewers!! Oh well. So yeah, now I can warn you all - interesting concept, terribly executed.
All right, mostly I'm just making this entry as a test because my previous entry has disappeared? It's not showing up on friend's lists, or my journal when you actually go to guingel.livejournal.com, and my calendar says there's no entries that day. Even more annoying/weird/unsettling, when I click on the edit link it says no such entry exists!! But when you click the address, it loads. Anyone have any clue what might be going on with LJ there?
... if you can even see this entry? [edit: ok, it appears to exist... for the moment! At least it's not a chronic problem? Fingers crossed!]
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| Tuesday, September 24th, 2013
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6:04 pm - Individual Player Highlights
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| Sunday, September 22nd, 2013
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8:33 pm - Islanders Primer Part 2 - third and fourth liners in love
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| Friday, September 20th, 2013
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10:46 am - NHL13 John Tavares Cover Campaign - managed by Michael Grabner
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Tweets from Grabs' (and the rest of the team's) spring 2012 campaign to get Johnny on the cover of the NHL13 game, while he was at the Worlds in Finland. The Islanders also made this website for the whole thing, and roped in PK and Sharpy and Stammer? And then kept posting pictures from the game of them all gathering to discuss the campaign? I DON'T KNOW.
Anyway, there are pictures of people on the toilet behind the cut.
( Read more...Collapse )
Master Post
Islanders Primer
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9:53 am - Islanders tweets: Matt/Johnny edition
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Matt Moulson has spent enough time tweeting about how much he loves Johnny that I had to give these tweets their own post. (There's a couple from JT, but he's not as prolific or adept a tweeter!)
Matt. MATT.
( Read more...Collapse )
Master Post
Islanders Primer
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| Wednesday, September 18th, 2013
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2:58 pm - Islanders Twitter Highlights Masterpost
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2:06 pm - 2005 Matt Moulson article, reproduced for your reading pleasure
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So I couldn't get this to load in the internet archive or anything, even though I stg I did at one point, and I managed to open a cached version from google, but I know nothing about google caches and it didn't feel like something reliable enough to link to, so I figured I might as well make a post for it.
Also, Matt is precious and I love him. The interview is from 2005, when he was a senior at Cornell and much-beloved co-captain of their hockey team. I was going to bold highlights but it's just kind of a constant stream of him being earnestly adorable.
( perpetually cooing over the IslandersCollapse )
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| Tuesday, September 17th, 2013
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12:31 pm - Islanders Introduction: an unavoidably slashy primer
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 B'awwwww! (x)
[minimally updated November 21, 2014. but the Matt Moulson section is staying forever because he'll be an Islander at heart forever.]
An unavoidably slashy primer both because I tend to be most interested in friendships between the players... but also unavoidable because THESE GUYS ARE WEIRD ABOUT EACH OTHER. There are a lot of emotions flying around out there. So if that's not what you're interested in, don't expect an analysis of our stats or anything like that. (OK, there might be a little bit of that - but not much!)
The Islanders have to be one of the lovingest teams in hockey. They're always talking about how great the atmosphere in the room is, how close they are, and how much everyone enjoys each other's company. Their tweets are full of talk about going to movies together or getting meals at each other's houses.
We have a really solid, young core, many of them having played together the last few years, either at the Islanders or our AHL affiliate in Bridgeport. The guys have been through a lot together, having just made their first playoffs since 2007 in the spring of 2013. The Islanders have had a reputation as a pretty terrible team, and haven't been able to attract any big free agents - we're basically built from the draft and from claiming dudes off waivers. As a result, the guys really have each other's backs and have to look to each other for support, because the wider hockey world either ignores or mocks them most of the time.
You're probably already at least a little familiar with John Tavares. First overall pick at the 2009 draft, 2013 Hart Trophy nominee, loves lacrosse, loves winning, first player ever to enter the OHL draft a year early as an exceptional player. And also everything to the Islanders. Some might say I have an overabundance of feelings about young John, so don't expect any sort of dignified understatement here.
( an abundance of forwardsCollapse )
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| Monday, September 2nd, 2013
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10:57 pm - canada olympic hockey roster: fangirl version
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So much talking head babbling about which players from Team Canada's Olympics orientation camp will actually make the final squad, and none of them seem to be taking cuteness into account. Or how much Laura loves them. Shocking oversight, I am driven to make my own list. From this roster.
( 3 goalies, 8 defensemen, 14 forwards, right?Collapse )
The world of sports was friggin out of control today, by the way. Like, come on tennis, it's transfer deadline day. I need you to keep things under control. At least Ferru apparently became the fifth man to reach all four Grand Slam quarterfinals in back to back years - along with only Roger, Rafa, Novak, and Ivan Lendl. :))))) Once again, #proudmama.
I'm also super proud of my darling beloved hunky musketeer, Tommy Robredo... but I'm also quite sad for Roger? So. :/// Yeah I don't know. I became a tennis fan in 2010 so I missed the years when he was dominating and I just love him now. But I also love Tommy! Complex.
Annnnnnnnd Real Madrid. ;_________; Um. At least Kaka will be happy? I hope! Sheva's not up to anything, right? Someone get him a job at the club!!!! And I'm optimistic for Arsenal, whose lives I end up excessively invested in because my sister is so into them. But. :|||| Honestly either Perez is even worse at... everything... than we'd thought, or there's some type of sketchy background thing where the owners of Tottenham are going to give him preferential treatment in non-football business dealings or god knows what, because nothing that has happened makes sense for Real Madrid.
I've been at my parent's place for Labor Day and wasn't on the internet so much, and am left totally boggled by the entire day. But I had fun doing puzzles and stuff with my mom! I'm totally freaked out that Rosh Hashanah is on Wednesday, though - I have a serious hardcore deadline on Thursday, and I thought I'd be ok to only work one day of the long weekend, but I thought i'd be able to work late on both Tuesday AND Wednesday! And that is not the case. So tomorrow I have to get up early to go into work from Long Island, and then stay super late trying to get as much done as possible. Meeeeeep. Oh well. Hopefully I will be motivated and productive and my noggin will be firing nicely after the weekend and I'll get shitloads done and it'll be fine. >___> (Worst case scenario I skip Rosh Hashanah, which wouldn't kill me but would be a major bummer.)
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| Thursday, August 29th, 2013
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8:46 pm - ok yeah this wasn't even going to be an intro post and now it's my position on everyone in hockey
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Hellooooo livejournal! As is my annual tradition now, I'm posting right after I went to the US Open. XDD But I don't have pictures yet so I'll post ABOUT the US Open some other time.
I've recently made a bunch of new friends through the friending meme/prompt challenge post at  home_ice. I kind of got the impression that a lot of people like me came out of the woodwork - newish hockey fans (or new to fandom) who have been enjoying hockey fandom on tumblr but who haven't been able to make new friends and have been really missing the community aspect of livejournal fandom. Anyway, everyone seems totally delightful! It's really, really exciting to have people to gab constantly about hockey and hockey RPF and cute hockey players with! I haven't gotten my twin sister into hockey yet (although she's much more mildly interested in the fanfic side of things than I am anyway, plus we don't talk about smut that much - but we're usually very much on the same page about players and people who we like) and she's great for squeeing to normally, which takes some of the pressure off my internet life.
I kind of focused a little on friending people who were on twitter, because that's where I do most of my social networking these days. And then I proceeded to tweet like a maniac for about 12 hours straight. XDD I... got a little excited? Bored at work + suddenly know a bunch more people who care about the stuff I'm excited about + also lbr a willingness to share anything that pops into my head = word vomit. It doesn't hurt that I'm the world's least laconic human being - except when I'm trying to write fic, for some reason. So I'm sorry to anyone who suddenly found that their entire timeline was me. >__> I'm going to be much busier the next couple days, at least? (I might declare an unfollow grace period - I really feel like people don't necessarily know the volume of tweets they might be getting when they say "oh yeah, let's be friends!" and I want to give them an out before they loathe me, haha.)
So yeah, quick current fandom rundown, although this was touched upon in the meme - mostly doing the sports and sports RPF thing these days: hockey, soccer, tennis. Big into Avengers, have been an avid reader of the DC Universe for much of my adolescence but they're a steaming pile of crap lately. Was really into Sherlock and Teen Wolf fic, and reasonably into both canons, but not so much anymore. Various Joss stuff is always relevant. Terry Pratchett enthusiast. I'm leaving a bajillion things out - I need something to be excited about, something to throw myself into and learn new things about. When there's no new fandoms, I'll start reading loads about Antarctic exploration or WWII spy technology. [ETA: also was very much into Japanese boybands, especially as produced by Johnny's & Associates - TOKIO are my favorites, of course, also into V6 (old people yay) and Arashi and at various points Kanjani8 and NEWS. And I've watched a certain number of dramas, although none recently.]
I'm also a fervent feminist (but absolutely in no way a radfem) and am always attempting to be more and more anti-racist, and I do tend to post serious shit sometimes or launch into rants. Currently trying to address some of my transphobia & ableism problems so I'm a safer space than most places but not totally safe.
Soccer: Schalke and Real Madrid. Absolutely wildly in love with Raul. Used to be a Liverpool fan but I was already moving away from them and I was so disgusted by the way they handled the Suarez racism incident that I'm not more than a casual fan now. My aforementioned sister is a huuuuge Arsenal fan and since she cares a lot more than me, I'm fairly invested in them as a result of caring about her emotional state. XD Also hugely into women's soccer. I'm madly in love with Spanish superstar Vero Boquete, which she probably knows because someone LINKED HER TO THAT POST and also to these gifs, which were posted at a point when my entire tumblr was filled with Vero gifs I'd made. I am often in small fandoms and have a lot of fourth wall problems. DX
Tennis: David Ferrer! Samantha Stosur!! Andrea Petkovic, the entire Italian Fed Cup Team, most of the Spanish Davis Cup Team, Andy Murray, Tommy Robredo... probably loads of people I'm missing. There's a lot of room in my heart for tennis players. I've been pretty lazy about following it lately.
( I got a bit... a bit long-winded about my hockey feelingsCollapse )
Haha everyone else has been writing great little posts about something in fandom, and I'm like "HERE READ ABOUT ME FOR AN HOUR". But I like knowing that the people I'm dealing with know who I am, I guess? (haha I hope so, given how personal I got on tumblr this morning!) I like representing myself accurately - I hate when people put words in my mouth or make assumptions about me - it's probably why I go on so long, I want to really express every feeling. Idk. Anyway, I do have some more generic fandom-related thoughts that I was going to put into this post, I didn't actually set out to make an intro post!! But given my tendency towards long-windedness, I will have to just cut myself off here!
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| Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
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3:32 pm - look, it's been an entire year and this is just 3,500 words! (many of them about hockey.)
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(Bolding is for skimming clarity, not emphasis.)
Hellooooo, livejournal! If I waited five days, it will have been a full year since I posted! Which is annoying because I really should have done a US Open write-up like I did once before, because i'll want that. I'll just summarize: awesome time at the US Open last September! XDD I finally got to see David Ferrer play in person!! He was the last of my favorite players that I hadn't managed to see, and as expected, was utterly gorgeous in person. And I saw the beautiful Dustin Brown, and Petko playing mixed doubles with Eric Butorac, which was the most adorable thing ever and they were so precious and smiley! I friggin love mixed doubles. We also were able to get tickets for Arthur Ashe and I therefore saw a bit of Kim Clijster's final match, against Laura Robson. And then we were smart and watched Sara Errani beat up on someone late in the day because the next match on the court was Kim's mixed doubles match, her actual last match now that I think of it, and we were all very emotional and supportive and it was lovely. (Also I love Sara and the entire Italian Fed Cup team.)
So yeah that was super fun. And me, my sister, and my brother-in-law went to Newport to see the grass tournament there, and also the crazy mansions. It was fun and the visitors and inhabitants of Newport were all unknowing participants in a preppiness contest. The men's title was won by a 60-odd year old man wearing pink shorts with a cardigan around his shoulders. The women's title was won by a young woman that Katie and I still affectionately refer to as the princess of all preppiness, she was at the tennis wearing gold boat shoes, formal navy blue shorts, and a red blouse with an anchor pattern on it. With appropriate jewelery and long straight blonde hair of course. :') (This was last July, and yes I am a freakshow for remembering it.)
Oh, and I also got into cricket? Just a little bit. Can't remember when, but I watched Fire in Babylon, which is this amazing documentary about West Indies cricket in the late 70s-early 80s, when they were becoming a team that would absolutely dominate the cricket world for a decade. I don't particularly follow cricket much but I have watched that documentary about 80 times and now have a massive crush on Vivian Richards and an icon to match. :D
( actually a moderately quick summary of work and roommate situationCollapse )
So yeah, the newest thing in my life is hockey. XDDD I've always enjoyed it as a sport, especially since falling in love with the Mighty Ducks movies, and then with curling and my love of Canadiana, I'd hear about hockey goings on but nothing that sucked me in. But then I'd check this tumblr a bunch: http://waxjism.tumblr.com/ which I found because of Teen Wolf (briefly a fan) and just really liked, and she started posting a bunch of hockey stuff, so I was able to get sucked into the personalities in a slow, subtle way, and then I started reading fanfic and it was all over.
But then there was the "which team tho???" process, and it was kind of bumpy and weird. kikigirl is a Pens fan and my only close friend who loves hockey, so she was getting me to watch Penguins games and I wanted to embrace them but I had to create my own relationship with them and I was worried it wouldn't happen. But it did!! And now I adore them, and am especially excited that they traded for Jarome Iginla, which I know is sad in many ways but I just was madly in love with him from day one and love having him on my team and want all good things for him. And I adore Sid as well, and you know, all of them. :D And being a Pens fan has been super fun. I had it way too easy, of course - the first game of theirs that I watched was the last one in February, a loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. Then they didn't lose a single game through the entirety of March! So I felt like I brought some good vibes around. XD
Then I wanted to have an NY area team, and I thought it'd be the Devils because I love Martin Brodeur and Ken Daneyko, and I still am fond of them (I'm trying to be chill about the hockey thing and not feel the rivalries quite as much as in soccer - I still root against rival teams, but I don't feel as much vitriol towards them and their fans) buuuuuuuut things worked out differently than I expected. kikigirl and I were going to try to go to a Pens-Rangers game at MSG, but it didn't work out and I still really wanted to go to an NHL game, and my parents live really close to Nassau Coliseum, and tickets are really cheap there, so... I went to see the Islanders vs the Tampa Bay Lightning. XDDDDD
So random, but - IT WAS AMAZING. It was easily my best live sports experience, especially men's sports. A lot of the credit for that definitely is how easy the transportation was - even leaving, we live in the opposite direction as the highway so there was no traffic - and it helped that we had great seats. But it was also a really fantastic game and there genuinely was a great atmosphere. Lots of families, lots of women around, which was great (except there were only 5 stalls in the bathroom, cos the building is old as the hills). The team played well and played really hard - effort is something that I have an easier time seeing in person, how hard they go in for what would be called a 50/50 ball in soccer (I do a lot of comparing), that sort of thing. And the way the game played out was just amazing - we were up 1-0 after the first period, then they equalized! We went up again to be 2-1 after the second (so we got to spend both breaks winning) but then they equalized again! My dad apparently felt totally despairing at that point, but we scored again! And then they pulled their goalie (one of my fave things in hockey) and it was still super tense, and then with 15 seconds left there was a great empty-netter - he just cleared it out and it drifted gently into the goal. The commentators (we checked the highlights) compared it to a curling rock. :DDD
So that was just completely fun and delightful and now I'm an Islanders fan!! Against all my better judgement, hahaha. BUT!! Then they went on a points streak for most of April, and qualified for the friggin playoffs!! For the first time since 2007!! :DDDDDDD It was all so exciting and wonderful and I was delighted to have been tricked into loving them. I had to buy playoff tickets as soon as we clinched, even though we didn't know who we'd be playing or what the schedule was. They're moving to Brooklyn in a couple years and tickets will all be way more expensive, and I just had to do it.
Of course, then we stop winning the last couple games of the season and end up the 8th seed in the eastern conference and of course are facing the Penguins in the first round. Of course. XDDD In a way, it's good, because one of my teams will go through. But I wanted to be able to root for the Islanders without hesitation, whereas in this matchup I'm pulling a little harder for the Penguins - aforementioned Iginla factor, plus greater expectations, plus better chances of going farther. Plus it's just so much more difficult a matchup for the Islanders! They've been playing great and most of the other teams in the conference have shown a lot of weakness, but the Pens have been a different level. However!! It does mean that i'll get to see both teams I love, and it'll be amazing to see the Penguins in the playoffs, and even if things go badly whichever way, I can be consoled. So I'm definitely feeling fairly good about how things worked out.
Also amazed at how the scheduling worked out - I knew that the higher ranked team had "home ice advantage" but I had no idea how that actually worked or how the games would be scheduled, especially in the shortened season, but I went for Islanders home game 2 ($65 each after fees, in the corner on the upper level, which is still pretty dang close). Which I kind of thought would be the third game of the series. The playoffs start today so I thought that'd be maybe on the weekend and it'd be nice. Well, what I forgot was that I'm doing an awesome house tour of fancy Greenwich Village townhouses on Sunday - it's a fundraiser, but I'm volunteering and get to go on the tour for free. I did it last year and it's the greatest, I friggin love seeing inside rich people's homes! Very beautiful and luxurious and kind of fantasy-ish. So I realized that game 3 might conflict with this, and then spent the whole weekend fretting at various levels, while I came to terms with the possibility of having to sell off my tickets. I also didn't know who we'd be playing at that point, so there was just so much freaking out, watching scores, waiting for schedules.
And of course it turns out that game 3 of Pens-Isles is indeed on Sunday afternoon, and I would have had to miss it. Except Islanders home game 2 is actually GAME FOUR of the series!! Which I didn't realize until quite a bit after the schedule was released, because I think they just said "game 1" and the date and time rather than "Islanders at Penguins" and the date and time. So then I kind of saw an offhand comment about the first two games being in Pittsburgh and I was like "WAIT WHAT" and spent the next hour in adrenaline-fueled confusion - a terrible state in which to be. XDDD
But YES. It turns out the game I got tickets for is a week from today at 7 PM and I will absolutely be able to go, and will also be able to go to the house tour! And I'd completely forgotten when the tour was when buying the tickets and totally preferred game 3 (cos game 4 could be elimination if the Pens sweep, and regardless of my feelings about the ultimate result, I'm going to the Coliseum to make noise for the Islanders) and totally thought weekend tickets would be great, so if I'd actually understood the scheduling, I almost definitely would have gotten home game 1 tickets and then I wouldn't have been able to go!! All morning yesterday I was kind of still in shock from both relief that it worked out and from how narrowly my ignorance saved me!! WACKY. TIMES.
So now, a little over 2 months from really embracing hockey fandom, I am going to go see my two favorite teams face each other in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. To quote a meme - that escalated quickly.
( a little more about hockey... and feminismCollapse )
Oh and you can find me as ambitiouspants on twitter and tumblr now - especially twitter, where I am far too prolific.
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| Monday, December 19th, 2011
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9:35 am - my heart belongs to a "brick wrapped in reinforced concrete"
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Why am I at work and not at a meeting of the Kyriakos Papadopoulos fanclub??? (which I assume has a New York branch.)
So far just since Saturday, Kiri has -
Scored his first goal in the Bundesliga:
(It was the fourth goal in Schalke's 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen, coming after Raul's third Bundesliga hat trick - I've been giddy all weekend.)
( so, so many other thingsCollapse )
And within the past couple weeks, Kiri has also -
Been featured in one of the most amazing photoshoots ever:
 
CUTEST. CENTER BACKS. EVER.
Recorded a question in truly epic German for Schalke's advent calendar contest, while holding an extremely embarrassed Ucchi in a headlock:
(video here and it's the greatest thing ever.)
I FUCKING LOVE THAT KID. XDDD He's so extroverted and ridiculous and I'm really happy knowing he's on the team because i'm sure he helps bring everyone together - it's actually nice that he's not one of the native German speakers, I think - he's probably comfortable babbling away to everyone regardless of what language they speak. Plus he's built like a tank and I'm just glad to have him playing for us. XDD
He's actually the only Schalke player that I've seen live!! The Greek NT played the Ecuador NT at Citi Field, the Mets stadium, and my sister lives pretty close so we went to see Kiri. (or, as everyone else calls him, Papa.) It was a super duper fun experience! Kiri played well and there was a fantastic atmosphere, we had great seats and we left just early enough that the train was nice and empty. At the time I didn't know Kiri as well but I loved him for being a big, funny-looking mouth-breather (he has a tendency to just run around with his mouth gaping open XD) and for playing for Schalke. And he was so cute, they put down this weird turf on top of the baseball diamond and when they came out after halftime Kiri was all poking at the point where you could see the baseball part starting under the turf. idk, it was adorable!
And since then he's become one of Schalke's starting center backs and we've seen more and more of him, not least of which was this amazing video of him reading Hans Sarpei facts - Hans Sarpei being a Schalke player who, it seems, is kind of the Chuck Norris internet legend of Germany with a massive facebook following. Ahhh, Kiri's terrible German. XDDD I have almost no clue what he's saying but it's the best video anyway.
P.S. Still wildly, madly in love with Raul - so utterly thrilled about his hat trick and all the lovely attention he's been getting this weekend and how much German he's been speaking lately and how insanely adorable and precious and perfect he is. :DDDDDDD Ahhh, Schalke! They may break your heart but they will be ludicrously adorable and delightful and lovable while they do so!
Contract talk: Schalke has a lot of big negotiations to do this January, I'm quite concerned about Farfan and Raul and I know there's quite a lot of financial considerations going on, but... hopefully something will be worked out. Fingers crossed! It seems like Raul and Schalke both want him to stay and it should be a matter of seeing if Raul will accept what Schalke is willing to pay, which will apparently be a paycut for him even if he signs the same contract because he used to be getting some type of massive stipend from Real Madrid (idek) and that's expired. So it'll depend on what Schalke can afford and what Raul will find reasonable. Farfan has more market value and is more able to uproot himself so I hear he's currently asking for more than Schalke are willing to pay... I think he's a fantastic player and very important to us so I hope something can be worked out there. Having a strong second half of the season and being back in the CL next year would be ridiculously delightful so fingers crossed... but you never know what Schalke will do! XD
current mood:  giggly
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| Saturday, December 17th, 2011
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10:12 am - historical nerdery - celebrating discovery of south pole, reading about WWII spies
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If I end up making this entry public, it will start a trend of my public entries being about Sir Ernest Shackleton - although in this case somewhat indirectly. Wednesday the 14th was the 100th Anniversary of Roald Amundsen reaching the South Pole! To me, anything about Antarctica is immediately about Shackleton, his character and achievements tower over all else.
I wanted to do something to commemorate the day, and I'd made plans with my work friend Alison to go to a bar we like called that's Antarctica. They weren't doing anything special to celebrate but at least it would feel thematically appropriate. However, when I got in that day I had an email from her that she didn't think she'd be able to get out of work until 9PM (things are very crazy for her and she's working a lot of overtime. I, on the other hand, get out between 4:30 and 5). Luckily I was able to make a contingency plan to get dinner with friend!Corey.
Corey an I have been making plans to go to a Polish restaurant to get pierogis for months now, I think - I started craving them and suggested we go back to Poland (we went on a whirlwind two-day trip to Bedzin and Krakow last spring and ate lots of delicious pierogis) so that was the original plan but then I was thinking we could do something more thematically appropriate if we went to a Scandinavian restaurant, since Amundsen was Norwegian. Apparently Scandinavian cuisine isn't particularly popular in NYC, one of the top results was the restaurant at IKEA. XD But luckily of the 4 non-IKEA options (3 of which were different locations of the same chain and one of which was ridiculously expensive), one was perfect!! A little bit fancier than my usually dinners out but not prohibitively so, and since it was a special occasion I was ok with going a bit upscale. AND it was super close to Antarctica Bar, which was perfect because Alison realized that she might be able to get out closer to 7:30 (the 9PM estimate was based on a fit of exhaustion and despair the night before).
( wooo party timeeeee yeah south pole discoveryCollapse )
Although Antarctic Exploration is no longer my most recent nerdy historical subject of interest! A wikipedia research excursion into the British perspective on WWII (starting with the Battle of Britain) lead to a more intense immersion into technological aspects of WWII which lead to an overwhelming interest in tactical deception operations and double agents, eventually leading to me taking several books on the subject out of the library (unfortunately, one of them is 800 pages long and impractical for reading on the subway). SO. AWESOME. I've always avoided WWII before, because to me it's so overwhelmingly overshadowed by the Holocaust.
And indeed, there were some difficult moments - I was generally looking into aspects that I'd never really studied before, and overwhelmingly from a British perspective, particularly focusing on areas of Allied success, so generally it was fascinating and as positive as this sort of thing can be, certainly not depressing. But since I have quite a number of unresolved psychological issues about the Holocaust (of which my grandparents are survivors) there were times when I was unable to avoid following a link to something I knew would be disturbing or upsetting, trying to confront this stuff little by little. Since I was coming at things from a British perspective (much of which we never learn about in American schools) there were certain stories from POWs who were in the concentration camps, and hearing about how horrible their conditions are, and then how horrified they were at how much incredibly worse all the Jewish prisoners were being treated is really lingering.
However, for the most part what I was reading about what just absolutely fascinating and cool. The whole period was so technologically fascinating. Nothing was digital but the war was motivating everyone to push all the existing technology to its absolute limit. I've never been someone interested in military history or certainly weapons development but I actually got quite fascinated. The Battle of the Beams was one of my favorite parts - the progression of Luftwaffe radio navigation and British methods of thwarting this, lead by awesome science dude R V Jones.
( cryptography, the enigma machine, double agents, sneaky sneaky smart peopleCollapse )
But the greatest double agent - and one of the coolest people OF ALL TIME - is Joan Pujol Garcia, aka GARBO. Absolute genius, fascinating dude, wrote some truly epically entertaining bullshit spy letters to the Nazis. Vital part of the D-Day deceptions that caused the Germans to keep numerous divisions at Pas-de-Calais, thinking the Normandy invasion was just a diversion.
HOWEVER. I think I should actually just end this entry here and write about GARBO another time. I just got his autobiography and I'm so friggin pumped! (half the chapters of which are written by the historian who tracked him down - and unfortunately the historian has a slightly questionable reputation, but on the other hand there's no doubt that the man he found is indeed GARBO so I think it's safe to assume the text is overall as accurate as a book written 40 years later about very secret things can be.) It was quite the struggle just to get it, though! It was supposed to come out in February so I pre-ordered it (it was published 1985 but reprinted 2011) and then I kept getting emails moving the release date forward and back. Then finally I was told it was shipped but I got a little "we couldn't deliver this" note from the post office, and I requested redelivery but they totally ignored me, and the USPS site didn't recognize the serial number on the delivery slip. So I had to go to the post office this morning to get it and the whole thing felt faintly ominous, but the pick up actually went really smoothly so I was happy. :) And now I think I will just read it and not write about it anymore!
Or I'll keep re-watching Ouran High School Host Club... either way. XD (Well, I can't take Ouran on the train when I go home for early Hanukkah later!)
Speaking of re-watching, thanks to ohmiya_sg linking to the JE Index a little while ago, I've totally been re-immersing myself in Johnny's stuff. XDD This is still a highlight though!! (God, there's so many arashi sub communities though! And I've been gone for so long, I have to go through a whole bunch of membership processes and I keep forgetting where I've applied and yeeeesh.)
Oh god and speaking of Schalke, there has been so much unbearably cute Raul stuff lately! Or a quote from our sporting director about rumors that Raul might go to Qatar - "We will speak [with Raul] in January. I do not think Raul will move to Qatar. Raul has not played football so long just to earn money. He will not go anywhere without his family; they will decide his future with him." <33333 THAT'S HOW I FEEL, HORST HELDT! Ahhh I can't wait til I get an improved photoshop for Christmas so I can make gifs of all these new videos.
Haha, I like how long ago I said "i'll just end this entry here." Really for me this isn't a long one, though! Basically almost nothing is behind the cuts. XD I wanted to shorten it for your friends lists but obviously everything i'm saying is way too fascinating to be cut... clearly...
current mood:  pleased
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| Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
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7:55 pm - Mississippi Personhood Amendment
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Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood AmendmentOkay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little no attention in the mainstream media. Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status. Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing. Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states. What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it. The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute. So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it. If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it. What to do? - Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it. - If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link. - You can contact the Democratic National Committee to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this. - Like this Facebook page to help spread awareness. |
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| Friday, September 2nd, 2011
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10:05 am - US Open 2010 Memories Post of Doom! Yes, 2010.
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AHAHAHAAA THIS ENTRY. I went to the US Open on September 4th 2010 or something, started writing the friggin entry on the 27th, got back to it on like... February 2011 and variously after that. I AM GOING TO FINISH IT TODAY. I've already been to the US Open again in the meantime but tomorrow is my approximately one-year anniversary because once again I will be back at the US Open for the first Saturday of the tournament. Having this entry in between my 2011 write-ups won't be confusing, right?
I knew... so much less about tennis. And sadly, we only have a couple camera-phone pictures this time. And I didn't know very many players and I was much more into Rafa than I am now and it's all quite strange. This is why you should write stuff within 2 months of what you're writing about, ha. I'm sorry because it's probably really hard to follow what was written when and how I felt about tennis/tennis players at whatever time I was writing. XD
As I said at some point in the writing process:
OK so my trip to the US Open was 23 days ago... from when I started writing this dang thing. Now it's been months and months and another Grand Slam and it's a totally different season and I've learned an incredibly lot more about tennis. BUT I still want to write it up and I'd written about bits of it before and I think I'll remember all the highlights. The vast majority of it was written within two months of the event, I promise! XD
It was, in a word, AWESOME. We got day tickets for the Saturday session - so that means that we had all day and could run around going anywhere we wanted except Arthur Ashe. This was perfect. As was the weather! I was with my twin sister Katie, her fiance David, and his sister Steph. We were meeting up with Brian, a friend of David's, whose family goes every year. One of his brothers was a competitive junior tennis player and is now playing for Stanford or something, so they're a big tennis family.
Generally we were watching the third round of the singles matches, I believe. Definitely for the singles matches.
( in nifty expanded summary formatCollapse )
current mood:  SO LATE
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| Thursday, September 1st, 2011
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11:59 pm - US Open 2011 - Wednesday, Part 2
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So we eventually wandered over to Gilles, who was in the fourth set of his match against Ricardo Mello. And it was very crowded (packed with French people!!). And we were almost the last people let in our changeover and there were basically no seats left and we ended up Right. Behind. His. Chair.
SO CLOSE. SO AWKWARD. Hahaha every time he came back for a changeover I didn't even know where to look. I was like "ajdidsofds Gilles is right in front of me I should soak it in... but what if he looks at me? And we make eye contact from like 2 feet away??" It was the closest we got to anyone and we spent the whole day on small courts.
( SO MANY PICTURESCollapse )
current mood: pleased
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