Entry tags:
spring things
1. Worked the election again. Am very, very glad this was just a boring primary and we had less than 20% turnout, if the general election goes the same way it's going to be a disaster. Vote early, vote often! Just like I did.
2. Did I mention Homestuck fandom is dangerous? At election day set-up I used the word "cull" to mean "kill for incompetence and the good of the gene pool" without even thinking about it twice and confused several people. (Of course the supervisor I was paraphrasing used the words "go to your house and beat you to death" instead, so really I was just trying to be more polite. And that should tell you all you need to know about my election judging experience)
3. I posted a thing tracking the plants that are blooming on my weekly walk to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
common_nature. Hopefully this will be an ongoing monthly update right through November! I have a spreadsheet and all.(In fact currently I have recreational spreadsheets going for books read, things bought at yard sales, wildflowers seen, records owned, and words written. It's like a festival of spreadsheets!) It's going to get harder as the months go on, though, because I know early spring weeds the best, and also, mosquitoes and poison ivy.
4.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
princessofgeeks made some posts about nuts and bolts of betaing and different sorts of betas because of my request for behind-the-scenes descriptions of the beta process! It was exactly what I was looking for, and I want more of this type of stuff. (Incidentally, I am slowly trickling my con.txt panel ideas onto the official con.txt website suggestions page, but I think I'm going to put only a few more in, so if there's another one you really want to see go up, speak up! Or submit it yourself, I'm not possessive. :D
3. I've been listening to the Pinkwater Podcast's audiobook of The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror lately. I hadn't re-read it in years (actually, I first encountered it in audiobook form, so maybe that's re-listened) because I had found the plot rather thin and boring, compared to most of the other Pinkwater books I'd read.
I still find the "plot", what there is of it, rather thin. On the other hand, it has hipsters - real hipsters, the kind who hang out at a coffee bar/bakery called the Dharma Buns, have deep thoughts about communism and read bad free verse poetry to each other, rather than being ironically racist on Tumblr. And it has a teenage boy who has conceived of a passion for a girl he barely knows who doesn't like him and insists on pressing his suit even after she repeatedly tells him she isn't interested in him or in boys in general, and this is presented as obviously creepy, possibly dangerous, and reasonably terrifying rather than an epic romance, which there needs to be more of in YA fiction in general. (Come to think of it, maybe we weren't supposed to immediately assume stalker-boy was also the overall villain, and that's why the plot always seemed thin to me? But it's pretty damn obvious.)
Also I had forgotten how very OT3 Rat, Winston and Walter are in this one, and how awesome and hilarious their OT3 dynamic is. When I was walking home today I dreamed up a futurefic story for them wherein they're all in their late twenties or so, and Walter and Winston are still renting the house near Blueberry park that they moved into after college and calling it a bachelor pad. And one day Rat breezes through the door and says, "Right, Dad won't shut up about grandchildren, which one of you wants to be the father of the Bullfrog heir?" Then she points at Winston, who is looking up from his Amiga with this crazy grin on his face, and says, "Not you, I'm not letting your genes get anywhere near my legacy, time to step up, Walter."
Walter says "What?"
And Winston says, "What's wrong with my genes?"
And Rat says, "C'mon, I haven't got all day, I've been tracking my cycle and I have the turkey baster, all I need is some fresh baby batter," and holds a plastic cup out to Walter.
And he looks at it, and looks at her, and says, "Wait, you're going to raise a kid?"
She shrugs. "Nah, Heinz can handle that part, I just have to squeeze one out."
Now they're both staring at her. "Didn't Heinz turn out to be a supervillain that one time?" Walter asks eventually.
"That was twenty Heinzes ago, keep up!"
"Don't you think a kid might need a little bit more stability than that?" Walter says, at the same time Winston says, "No child of ours is going to be brought up by a butler!"
"What do you mean, ours? I already said your genes are having no part in this."
"Not yours and mine, ours," Winston says, and slings an arm heavily over Walter's shoulders. "You don't think I'm going to abandon Walter to the travails of single fatherhood, do you?"
"How did this suddenly turn into me being a single father?" Walter protests, and Winston mutters loudly in his ear, "Just think of the child support payments, Walter, eyes on the prize," and Rat crosses her arms and says, "Since when are you his wife, Winston, and why wasn't I invited?"
Anyway, it all ends up being a little bit more complicated than Rat had proposed, and involves something that is definitely not killer tomatoes from outer space (that would have at least made sense) but twenty years later or so, when Baconburg finally gets civil unions, Bentley Saunders Harrison Matthews IV, universally known as Iv (gender optional), comes home from college one weekend to that same house near Blueberry Park and says, "Okay, dads, time for you get shackled! I mean I knew there was no chance of anyone ever getting a ring on Mom but you two are basically married anyway, might as well make it official and make it easier for me to stick you both in the same nursing home!"
(Captain Shep Nesterman and his chicken officiate. Winston wears white. Rat is invited after all. Afterward they take the Pugeot to see a James Dean movie marathon at the Snark, Rat finds a plastic toy ring at the bottom of her popcorn that has a note tied to it that says, "Marry Me, Rat, I adore you --James," and there is no making out at all.
The end.)
Also, Rat ⋄ Dirk "Bro" Strider. Somebody get on that.
2. Did I mention Homestuck fandom is dangerous? At election day set-up I used the word "cull" to mean "kill for incompetence and the good of the gene pool" without even thinking about it twice and confused several people. (Of course the supervisor I was paraphrasing used the words "go to your house and beat you to death" instead, so really I was just trying to be more polite. And that should tell you all you need to know about my election judging experience)
3. I posted a thing tracking the plants that are blooming on my weekly walk to
common_nature. Hopefully this will be an ongoing monthly update right through November! I have a spreadsheet and all.(In fact currently I have recreational spreadsheets going for books read, things bought at yard sales, wildflowers seen, records owned, and words written. It's like a festival of spreadsheets!) It's going to get harder as the months go on, though, because I know early spring weeds the best, and also, mosquitoes and poison ivy. 4.
princessofgeeks made some posts about nuts and bolts of betaing and different sorts of betas because of my request for behind-the-scenes descriptions of the beta process! It was exactly what I was looking for, and I want more of this type of stuff. (Incidentally, I am slowly trickling my con.txt panel ideas onto the official con.txt website suggestions page, but I think I'm going to put only a few more in, so if there's another one you really want to see go up, speak up! Or submit it yourself, I'm not possessive. :D3. I've been listening to the Pinkwater Podcast's audiobook of The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror lately. I hadn't re-read it in years (actually, I first encountered it in audiobook form, so maybe that's re-listened) because I had found the plot rather thin and boring, compared to most of the other Pinkwater books I'd read.
I still find the "plot", what there is of it, rather thin. On the other hand, it has hipsters - real hipsters, the kind who hang out at a coffee bar/bakery called the Dharma Buns, have deep thoughts about communism and read bad free verse poetry to each other, rather than being ironically racist on Tumblr. And it has a teenage boy who has conceived of a passion for a girl he barely knows who doesn't like him and insists on pressing his suit even after she repeatedly tells him she isn't interested in him or in boys in general, and this is presented as obviously creepy, possibly dangerous, and reasonably terrifying rather than an epic romance, which there needs to be more of in YA fiction in general. (Come to think of it, maybe we weren't supposed to immediately assume stalker-boy was also the overall villain, and that's why the plot always seemed thin to me? But it's pretty damn obvious.)
Also I had forgotten how very OT3 Rat, Winston and Walter are in this one, and how awesome and hilarious their OT3 dynamic is. When I was walking home today I dreamed up a futurefic story for them wherein they're all in their late twenties or so, and Walter and Winston are still renting the house near Blueberry park that they moved into after college and calling it a bachelor pad. And one day Rat breezes through the door and says, "Right, Dad won't shut up about grandchildren, which one of you wants to be the father of the Bullfrog heir?" Then she points at Winston, who is looking up from his Amiga with this crazy grin on his face, and says, "Not you, I'm not letting your genes get anywhere near my legacy, time to step up, Walter."
Walter says "What?"
And Winston says, "What's wrong with my genes?"
And Rat says, "C'mon, I haven't got all day, I've been tracking my cycle and I have the turkey baster, all I need is some fresh baby batter," and holds a plastic cup out to Walter.
And he looks at it, and looks at her, and says, "Wait, you're going to raise a kid?"
She shrugs. "Nah, Heinz can handle that part, I just have to squeeze one out."
Now they're both staring at her. "Didn't Heinz turn out to be a supervillain that one time?" Walter asks eventually.
"That was twenty Heinzes ago, keep up!"
"Don't you think a kid might need a little bit more stability than that?" Walter says, at the same time Winston says, "No child of ours is going to be brought up by a butler!"
"What do you mean, ours? I already said your genes are having no part in this."
"Not yours and mine, ours," Winston says, and slings an arm heavily over Walter's shoulders. "You don't think I'm going to abandon Walter to the travails of single fatherhood, do you?"
"How did this suddenly turn into me being a single father?" Walter protests, and Winston mutters loudly in his ear, "Just think of the child support payments, Walter, eyes on the prize," and Rat crosses her arms and says, "Since when are you his wife, Winston, and why wasn't I invited?"
Anyway, it all ends up being a little bit more complicated than Rat had proposed, and involves something that is definitely not killer tomatoes from outer space (that would have at least made sense) but twenty years later or so, when Baconburg finally gets civil unions, Bentley Saunders Harrison Matthews IV, universally known as Iv (gender optional), comes home from college one weekend to that same house near Blueberry Park and says, "Okay, dads, time for you get shackled! I mean I knew there was no chance of anyone ever getting a ring on Mom but you two are basically married anyway, might as well make it official and make it easier for me to stick you both in the same nursing home!"
(Captain Shep Nesterman and his chicken officiate. Winston wears white. Rat is invited after all. Afterward they take the Pugeot to see a James Dean movie marathon at the Snark, Rat finds a plastic toy ring at the bottom of her popcorn that has a note tied to it that says, "Marry Me, Rat, I adore you --James," and there is no making out at all.
The end.)
Also, Rat ⋄ Dirk "Bro" Strider. Somebody get on that.
no subject
For you, fluffy dinosaurs:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/science/dinosaur-dig-in-china-turns-up-largest-known-feathered-animal.html?_r=2&nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20120404
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And I saw that! I was tempted to put an "I told you so" link to it in this post, but I decided to be magnanimous. :D I am holding out hope for the day they discover that T. Rex's tiny arms really were covered with huge showy display feathers like a peacock's tail.
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