sofiaviolet | Recent

Today I sprayed myself in the face trying to peel boiled crawfish. /o\ They were tasty, though.

I also bought some beads and some blank CDs. BRB, burninatin' musics for Mom.

On the whole, it's been a good few days of shopping. I got a couple of cheap blazers and some tops to wear to work, and some other clothes. Ellie got a pair of Docs, since her other pair is in pretty bad condition.

Your daily linkspam:

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takebackscifi is getting off the ground. Addressing portrayals of rape in science fiction and fantasy.

•

wook77 has contact info for advertisers on KRXQ, whose "shock jocks" advocated violence against gender-variant kids. Let's send some emails, folks! Several advertisers have already pulled out due to public outcry.

• Six bills in New York related to sex workers and victims of trafficking.

I find it hilarious that we're spending so much time debating self-checkouts because of Frank Iero's hatred for technology. For the record, I like the idea of self-checkouts, because sometimes I really don't want to deal with people. But the current technology is way too buggy to be very usable, and I have overcome my dislike of humanity to the extent that I can make nice with a cashier for a couple of minutes. I still use the self-checkout occasionally to see if it's improved. It usually hasn't.

More seriously, I appear to have broken Delicious Blog Posting/that php file that makes it work with LJ-based sites. Gah.

I had liked that because it made it easy for me to link things I found worthwhile. But it was lazy linkage - I didn't even do my own summarizing! I think I'm going to just have to suck it up and accept that there's effort involved.

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shadesong on why her work as a workshop leader for BARCC matters more, and more widely, than one might expect.
• Hate speech on the radio - we need more than apologies.

vixalicious gives us contact info for the VP/general manager and the station manager.

And the two links that made it into my del but didn't get posted:
• The National Network of Abortion Funds has created a George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund to help women with the costs of the late-term abortions which Dr. Tiller provided during his lifetime. I will be contributing when I get back to Boston and my checkbook.
• The failures of parental consent and notification laws and the judicial bypass system.

Still in New Orleans. Most of what we wanted to do has been done, which is awesome.

I'm getting back into the groove of writing my daily words - April was a busy month for me, and May was kind of a flop. I'm not doing anything crafty while I'm in New Orleans because I don't have my stuff, but I need to come up with some good metrics for evaluating my crafty output. That might be good to track in terms of time, because I can spend a lot longer on a painting than a pendant. Unless I want to track my handmade endeavors separately - jewelry by the piece, paintings by time, knitting by... idk, since I'm still smack in the middle of learning how to knit.

Whatever. Point is, I will eventually need a better spreadsheet.*

We're having crawfish etouffee (I hope that's right) tonight, but it'll be quite a while before it's ready. *sigh* I've already had two snacks and I'm getting hungry again already.

* I use a spreadsheet full of equations to help motivate myself, because it's very effective to watch the numbers change across the entire spreadsheet.

Feministe » Patients Remember Dr. Tiller

"A few blog posts and comments from Dr. Tiller’s former patients"

(tags: feminism abortion health)
liz_marcs: This is How You Lose Hearts and Minds: One Murder at a Time

"Because this, this right here, is how you turn people against you. You do it one murder, and one act of terrorism, at a time.

This is how people see you for what you really are."

(tags: abortion feminism religion on_livejournal)
shadesong: Support Interfictions 2!

"We live in a world of niche marketing. The Interstitial Arts Foundation brings artists together to tear those barriers down.

We are asking you now to join us in our next adventure in storming the barricades: Interfictions 2: a New Anthology of Interstitial Writing, edited by Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak. Interfictions 2 will be published in November 2009 in collaboration with Small Beer Press."

(tags: on_livejournal writing publishing)
On Media Reform and Hate Speech at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

"The National Hispanic Media Coalition is asking the FCC to open a docket to take comments on hate speech in order to determine what action, if any, needs to be taken. As an organization of writers and producers, the NHMC itself is very concerned about upholding freedom of speech; but NHMC and many of its partner organizations think that the FCC has a moral obligation to enforce current law, and find other ways to turn down the volume of hate speech that reinforces racist hatred and keeps many people from even participating online."

(tags: racialicious internet media race)
Who killed George Tiller? | Jill Filipovic | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"Pro-life organisations routinely refer to abortion as "murder", a "genocide" and a "holocaust". They post the full names abortion providers on their websites, along with their addresses, their license plate numbers, their photos, the names of children and the schools those children attend (sometimes with helpful Wild-West-style "Wanted" posters offering $5,000 rewards).

When you convince your followers that abortion providers are the equivalent of SS officers slaughtering innocents by the millions, tell them that "it's all-out WAR" against pro-choicers and then provide the home addresses and personal information of the "monster" "late-term baby-killer" abortion providers you're supposedly at war against, you can't act surprised when those followers conclude that it's morally justified to use the information to kill doctors."

(tags: feminism)

Doctor who performed abortions shot to death - CNN.com

Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller shot and killed at his church. A suspect has been arrested.

(tags: health feminism)
sanguinity: Oyate Fund Drive

"Oyate.org -- the fabulous people who publish A Broken Flute and otherwise work hard to improve the quality of children's books about American Indians -- is trying to raise funds for a matching grant to improve their website."

(tags: race on_livejournal)

Boing Boing: USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind people's access to written material

"Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history, the body that creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to write a copyright treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of copyright users, not just copyright owners.

At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people and people with other disabilities that affect reading (people with dyslexia, people who are paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning pages), introduced by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. This should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized system of copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for disabled people to get access to the written word?"

(tags: copyright accessibility)

I'm in New Orleans. So far we've eaten at three of my favorite restaurants.

I also have contacts now, mostly for concert purposes. DNW broken glasses from failtastic crowds. Contacts suck so much less this time around. Last time they actually hurt my eyeballs.

The van just broke, of course, so Mom and Dad are out bringing it to the dealership for a new onboard computer. Dad doesn't want to rent a car for until we get it back, but if we don't, then we are stuck at home until the car is fixed - truck only seats two. And since lunch today is our last chance to go to Casamento's...

EDIT: We decided to walk/take the streetcar, and also decided to call in advance about their hours and policies and shit, and they're already closed for the summer. Leftover Chinese from yesterday's lunch it is.

I'm not going to be making the effort to crosspost the del links to my LJ any more. (Entries posted in that manner won't auto-crosspost and I can't remember to do it manually.) Not that most people probably care about that.

TransGriot: The Freezer Project

"Now entering its second year, the Freezer Project is an initiative that provides a portable freezer containing 30 homemade frozen meals —and the occasional ice cream bar or eclair — to individuals who have undergone sex reassignment surgery (SRS)."

(tags: transgriot gender)
So... Are You Two Together?

"Most likely, the Boston marriage was many things to many women: business partnership, artistic collaboration, lesbian romance. And sometimes it was a friendship nurtured with all the care that we usually squander on our mates — a friendship as it could be if we made it the center of our lives. "

(tags: relationships feminism)

Leonard Nimoy - The Full Body Project | R. Michelson Galleries

"Who are these women? Why are they in these pictures? What are their lives about? How do they feel about themselves? These are some of the questions I wanted to raise through the images in this collection."

(tags: art photography beauty)
In Defense of Love, Part I

"Occasionally, I find myself in a position of explaining my relationships to others who may not be familiar with alternative relationships. More often than not, when talking about poly, it’s no issue, and the conversation is a simple two sentences: “Yes, I have two partners. Yes, they know about one another and don’t mind.” Kink comes up less often, generally just because most people don’t pick up on anything unusual about how V and I interact. If there’s a conversation going on about it, I’ll nearly always out myself to give perspective."

(tags: cid sexuality relationships)

The Associated Press: Board advocates dumping UND nickname, logo

"North Dakota's Board of Higher Education has agreed to drop the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname and Indian head logo, a move intended to resolve a decades-long campus dispute about whether the name demeans American Indians."

My uncle teaches here.

(tags: race)

Memorial Day Instant Gratification at

wyrding_studios!

Gwyneira is making noises about wanting a shiny, but she won't tell me what. Might get her something to go with that gown she swears she's not going to buy because it's impractical (except that she will, because Salvatore was with her when she tried it on, and he told her she looked pretty).

I need to pack. Fuck.

Sibling needs to come home and tell me where the suitcases are, too. (Accidentally went into work even though it's Memorial Day. Oops.)

I also feel like I should burn my mom some new CDs - I'm really her best source of music. Maybe I should just bring a bunch of blank discs and play music for her, then burn what she likes. I've been listening to a lot of stuff she probably wouldn't like, lately. Too much screaming.

I keep my iTunes library on shuffle when I listen to music on my computer. It keeps things interesting. Today and last night, it's been providing me mostly with Thursday and Bouncing Souls. It's never been quite this good at guessing what I want to hear before. I'm torn between appreciating it and wondering if the laptop is getting a little too sentient.

hope: Nerdy PSA

"Most people know enough quick-and-dirty html to give their LJ posts a wee bit more formatting without having to work in the dreaded Rich Text Format.

But DID YOU KNOW that there's a right way and a wrong way to use these wee bits of formatting and functionality?"

(tags: accessibility on_dreamwidth hope)
betweenthebliss: gay in the media, slash, and why trek fandom makes me wibble.

"i said in my comment to cimorene that it kind of boggles my mind to think that in fifty or a hundred years we could actually have a genre movie where the studly captain and his stalwart first officer would be each other's love interests-- that some day we could have movies about two guys or two girls falling in love while also being chased by zombies or flying through space or having duels with magic. that maybe some day we'll have books, movies, tv shows and comics where "omfg, i'm gay!" isn't the issue that takes over the entire story."

(tags: betweenthebliss fandom startrek on_livejournal queer)

Productive day. :)

Not writing-wise, unfortunately, but there's always tomorrow for that.

On the other hand... I figured I'd get a head start on packing for New Orleans, and realized that I couldn't find anything.

So I cleaned my room.

This becomes a lot more impressive when you realize that a) I had never finished unpacking from last August, b) I own way too much stuff, and c) the only thing Sibling and I fight about is housekeeping - Hannelore vs. Pigpen.

I'm not quite done - I need more hangers before I can put away all my skirts, and I need some more storage boxes for the other season's clothes, and I still have a little more stuff to pick up.

But I have a floor again. I vacuumed.

And we put in the air conditioners today. It would have been nice to be able to wait until we got back to Boston, but whatever.

Tomorrow, we're going to South Bay - definitely hitting Target, Home Depot, and Stop&Shop.

MacWorld: Adium 1.4 beta gains Twitter, IRC support

"Adium 1.4 beta, available from the Adium beta site, brings support for what are likely two of the most-requested features in the application’s history: Twitter and IRC. This new version also gains an updated core network engine, a new aggregate authorizations window, and a lot of changes to the way group chats work and can be customized. For instance, a group’s tab will change color when your name is mentioned in the room, and message styles can now be customized separately for groups and regular chat windows."

(tags: macworld apple adium)
sparkly_stuff: On A Ship

"On A Boat" goes Star Trek.

(tags: startrek humor sparkly_stuff on_livejournal fandom)

RaceFail: Author versus audience « Thunder and Lightning

"... In fact, if you accept the notion that books are written for the readers, and not for the author, then the readers’ opinions are actually more valid than the author’s. Some authors, as demonstrated by the RaceFail debates, act as though the mantle of Author confers a certain authority and eminence upon them, seating them at the top of Artist Mountain, from which they can peer down through their telescopes at all the little people buying their books. But in reality, those people only look little because the author is holding the telescope backwards, because it is in fact the readers who are studying the author. The author has not been elevated to a private balcony; the author has been placed on a stage. But authors and readers are just people. We’re all just people, sitting at our computers, reading and thinking and expressing ourselves."

(tags: race josephrobertlewis writing digest)

Racialicious: 'Harshin Ur Squeez': Visual Rhetorics of Anti-Racist Work in LiveJournal Fandoms [Conference Notes]

"These are the notes for " 'Harshin Ur Squeez': Visual Rhetorics of Anti-Racist Work in LiveJournal Fandoms." The notes are from a paper by Robin Anne Reid at the Texas A & M University Race and Ethnic Studies Institute’s Symposium exploring Race, Ethnicity and (New) Media."

(tags: digest race racialicious fandom)

Official Gmail Blog: 2 hidden ways to get more from your Gmail address

"I recently discovered some little-known ways to use your Gmail address that can give you greater control over your inbox and save you some time and headache. When you choose a Gmail address, you actually get more than just "yourusername@gmail.com." Here are two different ways you can modify your Gmail address and still get your mail:"

(tags: digest google howto)

forthwritten: The myth of Mars and Venus

"The main premise for the book is dismantling the concept that men and women speak completely different languages. This idea was given currency by Deborah Tannen, who took concepts from cross-cultural communication (where people are totally unfamiliar with each others' cultures and misinterpret based on their total unfamiliarity with what the other person's trying to do) and applied them to gender (where people are not completely unfamiliar with each others' cultures and erm...actually, no, there isn't really a parallel there)."

(tags: on_livejournal review digest gender language feminism forthwritten)

Racialicious: What goes around…

"The resulting economic pressures (tight housing markets and such) along with robust federal subsidization of roads and suburban housing developments, pushed many white families to the suburbs. What’s more, is that there was a tremendous sense among white Americans that their new black neighbors would negatively impact the value of their homes and neighborhoods. And so, suburban townships and communities around the country adopted measures like exclusionary covenants (restricting landownership to a particular race) or redlining to prevent African-American migration to the suburbs. Indeed, some communities even went as far as using roads to isolate black neighborhoods (where automobile ownership was far less likely) from goods and services. The older suburban/exurban model of isolated neighborhoods connected by roads and strip malls owes its existence – in part – to a desire to keep African-Americans out of the suburbs."

(tags: digest race racialicious)

Racialicious: Write What You Know: Limiting or Authentic?

"... So maybe that is the key: questioning our privileged locations within the social and economic framework within which we all live, write, and create, and then allowing that new consciousness or awareness to shape our work before we set it free to impact and help culturally define our world. ..."

(tags: digest race writing racialicious)

wistfuljane | How to make delicious' Blog Posting work for Dreamwidth using the original Delicious Glue

How I made this post happen. Good, easy-to-follow directions for getting the Delicious blog-posting feature to work on Dreamwidth.

(tags: digest delicious dreamwidth wistfuljane on_dreamwidth)

In really fucking ridiculous news - started listening to Blink-182 again. That band, especially Take Off Your Pants and Jacket*, is always going to remind me of Meghan, my Catholic school bff and probably my first crush-on-a-girl** and maybe even my first crush-on-a-real-person-not-a-fictional character.

I kind of want to see that tour when it comes to MA, but I would want a ride from somebody.

* She had a copy of that CD. I borrowed it, failed to return it, and still actually have it somewhere in my room.

** My first crush-on-a-girl ever. I didn't realize that was an element of the friendship until years after I lost touch with her.*** The first crush-on-a-girl where I actually realized it at the time was on a girl I went to middle/high school with, whose name I hesitate to mention because we're facebook friends and this thing syndicates to my profile.

*** Somebody tell me not to look her up on facebook. Seriously.

In conclusion: ask me things you have always wanted to know, things you thing you should know, and things you're surprised you don't know! I am working on a ten-things-you-should-know-about-me post and only have 7 points, some of which suck.

Current Mood: fluttery

~~I have one Dreamwidth invite available. If you want it, send an email to sofiaviolet@sofiaviolet.com.~~ All gone.

The Sibling just bought a car to get to and from work, but it's already proving useful. Yesterday, we went to the South Bay Center and bought an ironing board and $100 of very heavy groceries, neither of which would have been fun to take on the T.

But Boston is not exactly easy to navigate. We accidentally wound up in the left turn lane at one point and got on the interstate - fortunately the next exit was essentially the driveway for the shopping center. And coming home we took several small wrong turns. I thought we should have brought the GPS with us, but no.

Also it's got a manual transmission. That's fun, for values of fun that include shuddering to a stop and occasionally stalling.

Next on the agenda of "omg car!" is probably a trip to Ikea. I get a table just for my crafty shenanigans!!

Notes: This will require creating/editing a layer (theme or layout). The directions below are intended for use on Dreamwidth, but this kind of thing does also work on LiveJournal, and possibly on clones.

To see random text in action, view my journal in my style. The text appears in the left sidebar, beneath the pink rose. Refresh the page a couple of times to see the text change. If you'd like to view the code for my layout, here's the raw code and with syntax highlighted.

I am willing to help people troubleshoot their implementations of this code, but my time is not infinite and my skills are limited. But feel free to ask, and I'll do what I can.

( Text! )

The concepts used for this code can also be used to randomize header graphics and background images.

Current Mood: geeky

That said...

I will be in New Orleans soon. Flying in May 27th and flying back to Boston on June 12th. I'm putting together a list of things to do while I'm home in my spare time at work (Big Boss needs to sign off on the next step of my project but she won't be back for another hour), so if you want to claim a chunk of my time for shenanigans, now would be the time.

April 2014

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txtbx

Not nice, but friendly.

picked a handful of violets in my name

right between the scapulae, back of the heart

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Dangers of having one's brain inhabited by fictional characters, and other topics.

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Daily Delicious Digest for 5-25-2009

zomg

Daily Delicious Digest for 5-22-2009

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Someone take away the hyphen key.

Ohgod, why can't Bostonians drive? :(

tutorial: random text in your layout

Well, there went my ill-defined plan of posting every day this month.

April 2014

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