melannen | Autumn turning

Autumn turning

I started a Wordpress blog: verseanduniverse

This is not because I am tired of you guys here on DW, it's because I want to be able to put "familiar with most popular blogging and social media platforms, including Wordpress" on job applications a little bit more honestly. But since I was doing it I figured I might as well do it properly.

So now it is a log of every free-to-public-access academic paper I read, with silly summaries in limerick format. (I blame all of you who were at that meetup in Boston, you know who you are.) If that is the sort of thing you might find interesting, follow me? (There is a dw feed, because otherwise *I* would forget it exists: verse_and_universe_feed.) Although I am trying to keep this one at least vaguely resume-friendly, so if you for some strange reason want to link to it elsewhere, I'd prefer you pretend you have no idea that the writer has a DW/LJ id.

I dunno if I will be good at keeping it up, but I have already queued up twice-weekly until the end of October, so at least until then. (OMG you guys, scheduled posts.) Topics queued so far include Icelandic settlement, Colonial Boston trade, fighting lava flows, the 52-Hz whale, phallic artifacts, hidden shoes, mountain-building, mystery lightning, potlatch ecology, penis fencing, alpha-beta-omega dynamics and supervolcanoes. Some of you will recognize some of those because you linked me to the papers in the first place. :P

I have also made some posts to my poor tumblr (melannen). See above re: resume-building and not abandoning you guys! I've been reading tumblr a bit more because I have some RL people who only communicate through there and Facebook anymore, and I'm still not getting a facebook. I continue to find it annoying for socializing and interacting, though, and I'd rather get my image-blog fixes in big lumps, not mixed up all over a poorly-styled dashboard, so even though I've followed a few people I'm still way more likely to just go to their tumblr pages and read there.

As a one-to-many image blogging platform, though, it's nicely effortless, and since I had a bunch of comic-book scans that were building up and full of the craic, I went ahead and posted them. I've scheduled a few more posts there, too, so it will keep going every few days until at least the middle of next week, but I am even less likely to keep up with that than with the limerick-blogging.

So far there is a complete scan of Stephen Colbert's first appearance in the Marvel Comics universe, if anyone is still interested. (I'll post the proper Stephen/Spidey team-up sometime later when I feel up to scanning a whole story. Probably.)

Hey, did you know you can write your own alt tags on tumblr? I didn't know that. Apparently if you post as text rather than images, you can just upload your images to be regular html img elements. I am trying to figure out why anybody would use the photo option instead. There must be some things it does that the text option doesn't. Goodness knows where I would look to find out, though.

Oh tumblr, why you so incredibly poorly documented? (although I do approve of having a list of suicide hotlines in your FAQ. Oh tumblr, good tumblr. Now if only you also had 'how to use our service' in there.)

Scheduled posts!!!! OMG scheduled posts you guys. *swoons* I think I am in love. I want scheduled posts on DW so much more now, you don't even know.

(even if Tumblr's are weirdly implemented and very poorly documented. Oh Tumblr.)

Still not getting a facebook account. The resume will have to make do with "--and facebook-like sites."

Gave in and signed up for polybigbang. You people are hereby encouraged to poke me about that.

So apparently I have somehow ended up on a ludicrously short list of "registered Democrats under 30 in Maryland's (x)th Congressional District who have voted in every election for which they were eligible."

As a result, the Young Democrats keep sending me Special Invitations to do stuff.

Do I want to go to a wine-and-hors-d'oeuvres debate watching party with the Young Democrats? I am almost tempted, and yet.

Pro: Free food.
Con: Would have to actually watch the debate, or at minimum be in the same room with it on.
Pro: Gets me out of the house.
Con: Requires me to act like a functioning social animal.
Pro: Good networking opportunity!
Con: Would have to interact with the sort of people who go to events to network...

Anybody ever been involved with a Young Democrats/Young Republicans group want to weigh in? Anybody want to help me decide if it's worth it or not? ...anybody want to come with?

The debate should be *awesome.* Everyone should watch it with someone, because Romney's almost certain to flub some answers *horrifically*, and those are more fun to see in a group. Even if it's not in a group of like-minded snark-prone people.

I'd offer to go with you, 'cept for the little problem of a 3000-mile transit requirement.

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I am also continuing to avoid Facebook. And LinkedIn, for pretty much the same reasons, although LI is less skeevy about its privacy-and-data grabbing policies. (LI just says "if you put it here, we can use it forever, for any reason we want. The end.")

I joined LI because I've been told that if people job-search you and can't find *anything* under your legal name, they get suspicious. And I've been careful enough that all there was was, like, an article in my old college newspaper. All I did was pop some basic information up to match with my resume info if Googled, and it hasn't been too terrible, but it still makes me feel slimy. :/

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I am not yet in the state where I can laugh at Romney's terribleness! I am still in the "if forced to listen for more than ten seconds, start contemplating committing bodily harm." Hopefully Obama will have wrapped up the election solidly enough by then that I can stop caring and just enjoy the pageantry? I dunno.

If it's all snarking I can probably handle it though. Do young Democrats snark? Or will they just feedback-loop my poorly suppressed rage at the sheer incompetence and ignorance-by-choice on display? Hmmm.

I've been told that if people job-search you and can't find *anything* under your legal name, they get suspicious.

Gaah, probably true, eep. I should go throw a profile on LI. (There are already 4 other people with my legal name.)

I have no idea if Democrats snark. I don't hang out with Democrats. Or Republicans. I hang out with people from the Guns and Dope Party and occasionally Greens or Peace-and-Freedom people, but mostly my friends have a deep distrust of anything "respectable" enough to get feature news spots on NBC.

Obama has the election wrapped up *now.* Romney is losing swing voters every day, just by being himself... he refuses to give detailed plans to the people who want them, and regularly pisses off new crowds by reminding them that he doesn't give a damn about any topic not on his short list of "Things Rich White Guys Want ~~For Christmas~~ From Their Gov't."

Even if I'm wrong about that... relax and enjoy the pageantry. It's not like you win any bonus points by staying upset at it. And if Romney wins, the pageantry of political drama is one of the few things you'll have left to enjoy; get all the mileage you can out of it.

There's enough other people with my name that any embarrassing stuff can blamed on them, but all of them are very clearly not the me who is applying for jobs in this area.

And yeah I know rationally that Romney has ... a poor person's chance in his America of winning (that the people down the street finally replaced their "PALIN 2012" sign with "BEND OVER OBAMA IS COMING" is a pretty good bit of evidence) but in my heart I am afraid of jinxing it. Also I am still having FEELINGS about the Senate.

I mean at no point was there any chance my area would go Republican anyway, but I seem to only have the ability to lean back and relax if I don't have to listen to the guy talk. <_< (and we do have some epic ballot measures in my state, for which turnout is going to be massively important.)

I prefer to hang out with fannish types if possible and snark is fun! But I am mixed up with a RL social-justice group, and they tend toward the terrifyingly sincere, and I don't think I could handle that at a debate-watch.

I've never been to a Young Democrats kind of event, because I live in the Mill City Time Forgot, where we don't so much have Young Democrats events as we have people your sister went to high school with calling you out of the blue to say, "Hey, want to have a meet-and-greet for Your Congressman at your house next month? Yeah, he's fundraising, but there's no minimum donation or anything skeevy like that." So you do, and that's when you meet the other Young Democrats, and the next you hear from them is when your contact wants you to talk to your City Council rep to check out rumors that he's making or about to make an injudicious endorsement, and warn him behind the scenes not to do it.

But I think you should go to this thing, because I want to hear your stories afterward. I'd come with, but I'm hundreds of miles away (and furthermore, will probably wind up having a redevelopment committee meeting or something that night, because it always, always seems to work that way).

...it sounds like your problem there is that you're competent and reliable. You do that, and they'll always keep asking you for stuff.

The last local democratic party event I went to was "The state senator who lives down the street is having a free barbecue for party members, want to walk and get dinner?" It was okay but on the block-long walk back we found the dessicated remains of our cat (gone missing and mourned three months ago) in a ditch, so I have bad memories attached. :P

"Go for the stories" is always a good reason though, hmm. I mean, even the dead cat is a story.

I dunno. The cat story is a good story in the aesthetic sense, but if it had happened to me, I'd be wary of things advertised as opportunities to acquire good stories. (Also, God, I'm sorry. That must have been awful. I get weepy just thinking about it.)

Fortunately for me, I'm not so competent and reliable as all that. If I were, they'd make me do fundraising. Which, I secretly suspect, is one of the things they make the damned souls do in Hell. Or at least in Purgatory, for the first million years or so of your stay.

*subscribes to the DW feed*

I am

idhren Tumblr-wise, though much more low-key/low-volume & fannish then I tend to be on DW.

*sideeyes tumblr*

I know there are a lot of DW people on there too, and yet...

Edited (apparently my mind goes people=DW users, um.) 2012-09-23 01:01 (UTC)

Do I want to go to a wine-and-hors-d'oeuvres debate watching party with the Young Democrats? I am almost tempted, and yet.

Oh, man. See, if this is what I WANT that to be, which is Rocky Horror with people who know Rocky Horror inside and out, where Rocky Horror = politics, that would be the most epic thing of win. I talk back to the screen all the time, but you'd be doing it with people who would talk back, too! Who would make awesome jokes! And who would understand the awesome jokes! That would be amazing.

But I suspect it's probably not like that. It's probably more staid and such.

Or maybe not. What's the point of a geek get-togther if you can't geek out over new source material?

Um. Probably to network.

Yeah, I don't know. But I think it would be worth going, just to find the one other person in the room making snarky comments under their breath. It's like a real life watch-along! With real life alcohol!

That's pretty much where I am: It'll be like a fannish watch-along! It'll be fun! At the very least we won't just be standing around awkwardly making small talk!

On the other hand, it's going to be a watch-along that requires me to watch Mitt "Smugface" Romney at length (while Obama is all sweet moderation and thus fails to give him the smackdowns he deserves) and I don't know if I can manage that. I was planning to avoid the debates altogether this election season.

Maybe the alcohol is the answer! I can always just plan to take refuge in the alcohol if the debate is unbearable. I don't drink much, it only takes about two glasses of wine. (Of course then I'd need a designated driver to get me home...)

On the other hand, it's going to be a watch-along that requires me to watch Mitt "Smugface" Romney at length

But you'll be watching with young Democrats! Who are probably as annoyed with him as you are! You can heckle like woah and blow off a lot of anger. Or at least tell him where to shove his personal responsibility in graphic detail. ;)

And, I dunno, but I think Obama might smack him down pretty well. The only debates we've seen this season are the Republican ones. I think Obama will want to show America how it's done. OTOH, he could just stand there and watch Romney stab himself with his own lance. It worked for the Biden/Palin debate last time around.

I am too old to be a Young Democrat but our Old Democrats (seriously; the typical local Dem is a 60+ extremely fit vegan woman with long gray hair who has ridden her bike to the event) have a lot of fun at debate parties. There is a lot of heckling and joking and drinking games.

Yes, that's another concern - I am not sure where the age cut-off for a young democrat is! I am rapidly approaching my third decade and it would be a bit silly to join up just in time to age out...

(in my experience, among liberals at least, politically active young people tend to take it far more seriously than older people.)

omfg, that is the BEST IDEA for a journal article read-log. I am SO adding it to my rss feed, and the one post that you already have up on it is GLORIOUS.

(also I have followed you on tumblr)

It was suggested as a joke but once I started actually thinking about it, I really wanted to do it. :D

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Autumn turning

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