Can't think of a Good Title

2:58am: More like LOLlyses, amirite?
Thanks to ontd_political, I have discovered something hilarious and perverted. No, it isn't box_in_the_box. I already knew about him. No, this is better. This. Is. JAMES JOYCE!!!1 Beware, this is extremely NSFW.

3:31pm: Results of reflection
( Possible TMI, you have been warned )

tl;dr--I have baggage and my mortal sin is envy.

10:48pm: So, I am currently writing an essay for a class on Greek history, taught by a professor I had for a class on Greek drama a semester ago. This essay, which I am writing as an alternative to the final he is giving on Tuesday, focuses on something I could see writing a book about: women and the Oresteia.

I very nearly cited TVtropes for this paper. I love college.

9:53am: Resistance is Futile Meme
Step 1. Leave a comment saying, "Resistance is futile."
Step 2. I respond by asking 5 questions to satisfy my own curiosity.
Step 3. Update your journal with the answer to my questions.
Step 4. Include an explanation of this meme in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

As a note, the questions were asked over a month ago, and I've just gotten around to answering them.

From box_in_the_box:

1. Watchmen is obviously one of your fandoms. Explain its appeal to you.

I don’t usually put much thought into what I like about a given fandom, but here goes. I’ve always been interested in comics, but have always been intimidated by the amount of canon there is. Thus, I tend to restrict myself to limited series like Sandman or V for Vendetta that don’t have the weight of decades of canon, though I occasionally make exceptions for things like Red Son or Dark Knight Returns; comics that work as stand-alone pieces.

I’m incredibly fond of perversion and subversion. It actually explains a lot about me, from my sexuality to my taste in just about all forms of media. I like seeing tropes that are so ingrained in comics that even I know about them get twisted and warped. When I think of comics and superheroes, my mind tends to gravitate toward the Silver Age, so I like seeing characters that have serious personality flaws and don’t help little old ladies cross the street. I guess that’s kind of weird, given my dislike for grimdark.

I love detailed settings. World-building is my favorite part of writing and it goes pretty far in explaining my fondness for fantasy. I love the degree to which the world of Watchmen looks like a real world with superheroes influencing politics, pop culture, and society the way phenomena of similar magnitude do in the real world.

2. How would you sum up your personal politics?

In short, I am a technocrat. I think that any problem can be solved with sufficient ingenuity and resources. I think that the problem of governance is just another problem, and that those with the proper training, qualifications, and skills are the best to deal with these problems. I think that those with power are morally obligated to look after those without, and that it is the duty of authority figures to do their jobs to the best of their ability. I have no tolerance for corruption and little patience for politics. I think it is the government’s job to look after the needs of the citizens, and I have what might be considered a generous definition of what that entails. I am a liberal who briefly flirted with libertarianism, but now generally think the federal government is usually more qualified than state or local governments to deal with major issues because the federal government has greater resources and more talent at its disposal. Also, ever notice that the areas that are so gung-ho about local government tend to have incompetent local government that is more than happy to throw its citizens to the wolves, leaving the federal government to pick up the pieces? I honestly think America would be in a better place if the Confederacy had been allowed to secede. If the southern states were left to their own devices, they’d be a third world country. I think many aspects of conservatism are pure greed and corruption beneath a hardly-present veneer of respectability and virtue. On the other hand, I have little patience for the post-60’s form of needlessly iconoclastic liberalism that is so very prevalent at the university I attend. Authority is not inherently evil. The problem is that many of the people who have authority are corrupt. Corruption should be rooted out at the first sign, but it should not be presumed.

3. What draws you toward other LJ users (such as me) enough to friend them?

Well, that’s an interesting question, since you’re the only LJ-friend I have whom I don’t already know IRL. As such, I can’t really say in general what causes me to do this, but I can explain why I friended you.

I first discovered your LJ from ontd_p and from my girlfriend, who follows your LJ. I suspect people tend to react to you (assuming you are similar IRL as online) by either taking a shine to you or disliking you immediately. I went with the former, since I find your contributions to ontd_p and your LJ presence in general to be lulzy in the best sense of the word. I also see enough similarities between us and see enough traits that I could see emulating that I sort of unconsciously place you in the older brother category, which sounds really weird, I know. I swear I’m not a stalker.

4. Since it's nearing Halloween, what movies scare you most?

God, it’s been forever since I saw a movie that genuinely scared me. The only ones I distinctly recall are Jurassic Park and The Rescuers (yes, the Disney movie).

I remember when I first saw Jurassic Park, I was fascinated yet terrified by the notion of science recreating extinct species, to the point where a child therapist misinterpreted this as paranoid delusions. I was primarily excited by this possibility. Then there’s the scene in the kitchen near the end, where the kids are being hunted by the DeinonychusesVelociraptors. They spend the entire movie, from the first scene at the paleontological dig onwards, talking about how Velociraptors are such terrifyingly intelligent and effective hunters, and then there are two kids, just like me, quarry to these ultimate hunters, who will do their damnedest to messily kill and devour them.

There’s just one scene from The Rescuers that scared me, when they throw the heroine down into the tidal cave and refuse to bring her back up until she retrieves a gem the size of her fist. Most viscerally frightening for me as a child was the part where she finds the gem… lodged inside a human skull. I had a major phobia of dead bodies, particularly skeletons, as a kid. My uncle had this candle that was a damn realistic looking skull that he got while in the Navy, and my cousins loved to torment me with it. Anyway, the gem is revealed when the heroine shines a light at the skull, and the gem lights up, dramatically outlining the skull. Scary as shit! But on a subtler level, there’s also the child-abuse angle that is played throughout the whole movie, but comes to a climax at this point. The cave the heroine is in is rapidly filling with water, and if she doesn’t find the gem in time, her “guardians” are more than content to let her drown. As someone who had more experience with domestic abuse as a kid than desirable, this profoundly shook me.

5. What types of characters do you wish there were more of in fiction?

An interesting question; one that is probably more interesting than my answer, since I am unaccustomed to pondering my fandoms in a meta sense. With the prelude out of the way, I’d like to see more characters that are of marginalized/minority groups without being defined solely by that one aspect of their identity. I’d like to see more superheroes of color who have a schtick that has nothing to do with their ethnicity. I’d like to see atheists who aren’t Straw Vulcans. I’d like to see more strong female characters in the mold of Clytemnestra and Medea (Greek mythology is one of my fandoms). I’d like to see writers relying less on stereotypes and actually coming up with complex, multidimensional characters.

4:50pm: Two-year anniversary with tigerdreams, squee! Now, if only we weren't both sick as dogs. Ah well, we can always celebrate when our bodies permit this.

8:35am: I discovered a band over the summer that I am highly entertained by. Take spaghetti westerns, metal, and gothabilly, mix 'em together, and what you get is Ghoultown. I thought I'd share.

4:38am: Gah, insomnia! I really need to get out of the habit of staying up until 3 AM on weekends, as I am incapable of returning to a sleep schedule that is conducive to waking up at 8 AM. This summer has been very strange, and I'm depressed by the notion that I'll be switching from full-time lab work to school with lab work mixed in. I may head in now, as I suspect sleep may be a poor idea now if I want to go into the lab at 9. Fortunately, things are winding down and in a week or two, all the other people who work in the lab will be back and I'll only be worrying about colony maintainence one day a week and my experiment, which could work once the weather cools down and dries up a bit, assuming the flies are still interested in laying eggs. I hate it when my sleep cycle gets this out of sync. I always debate just staying up all day, but that is rarely possible.

2:17am: A strange thing happened. I think I might have witnessed someone confronted with the fact that her beliefs and ideology is ultimately selfish and her attempts to justify are intellectually lacking. I'm not sure what, if anything will happen. I don't know her very well (I follow a community she moderates), but she seems okay. She reminds me a little of Mytheos. I hope she responds by realizing how selfish her beliefs are, but I suspect that she's probably gone into a sort of lockdown echo chamber in her head. Who knows... Either way, best of luck bluetooth16

8:28pm: I'm a bad, bad man
I'm amused to note that upon seeing a photograph of Sonia Sotomayor, my first thought was something that translates into English as "milftastic!" I suppose it was inevitable that I'd get sucked into political ships sooner or later.

8:48pm: Stolen from aslanscountry
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby-Dick
Ulysses
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels*
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune*
The Prince*
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit*
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

6:01pm: Spent yesterday moving in. Actually, that's only partially true. I spent roughly 1-2 hours moving into Purgatorio. However, the rest of the day was spent helping eluminous move her stuff from the top floor of Hewitt (she worked over Commencement) to Beta. She had so much shit. Little of it was packed. I honestly am not sure how she would've gotten all of her belongings out of her room by the reslife deadline without me and tigerdreams to help schlep. Beta is terrifying. I saw her room after she spent 2 hours cleaning it. It was a mess. The room across from her's was worse. Beta manages to live up to all the horrible frat house stereotypes. After finishing around 9, eluminous treated us to dinner. She slept over, as her room was a mess and she was letting someone sleep on her futon until he finds a more permanent residence.

Today was spent in the Singer lab, getting into the swing of things as a research assistant. Mike himself spent most of the day in the field with his two Hughes Fellowship students, though he did talk me through some of the things I'd be doing over the summer. The rest of the time, I was helping Angela (Mike's post-doc) with aspects of her experiments. Currently, she's testing how the amount of plant toxins a specific kind of caterpillar eats varies with how recently the caterpillar was infected with parasitic fly larvae (think Alien, except it's real). I was a little worried, since I was always exhausted from my last summer job, but this one seems promising. I also managed to get useful information from Financial Aid. Remaining missions for tonight are to get groceries, fill out forms for financial aid, and read a couple papers for work.

11:09pm: Tonight Tristan Taormino, class of '93, gave a talk about her career in the adult industry and feminist pornography. My interest in working in some aspect of the adult industry has been rekindled. Even though I realize that Tristan is exceptional as a director in that she treats her cast really well, I sort of see her as changing the way people look at sex and porn for the better. It resonates with the reformer inside my head who wants to change malfunctioning systems from within and lead by example. I'm a silly idealist exhibitionist.

7:17pm: Caused by eluminious
Since it was her list of potential courses that got me thinking/obsessing on WesMaps, it's only fitting that I also post my list of possible courses for next semester. I'm not even thinking about paring it down until later.

( Courses behind this elegantly crafted cut )

8:04pm: Strong together, united forever, they're the best of friends...
So I saw Watchmen this weekend. I was mildly disappointed in a number of things.
( Spoilers Ahead )

tl;dr--The Watchmen movie was good, though a few things bothered me, mainly because I made a point of re-reading the novel before seeing the movie and because I felt certain actors were poor choices for their roles.

4:22am: WTF?!
A really bizarre, moderately disturbing thing happened tonight that kind of makes me wonder if I should just eschew all things of the internet. I was wasting time on /b/ (famous last words…) when I saw a picture of myself with a post asking for advice on advertising oneself as a sex worker on craigslist. The only place where the picture in question exists on the internet is in a facebook album. The picture in question was only briefly, if ever, used as an avatar for my profile. This means that someone took the time to look through the picture that I’m tagged in, which, considering how photo-happy some of my friends are, is a Herculean endeavor. Unsurprisingly, I’m feeling a bit violated and debating deleting my facebook, lj, and pretty much anything else of that ilk. Please talk me out of this.

12:31am: I never thought this would be so difficult. Actually, no, I did. I'm just fully grasping now. My icon is all too appropriate. Oh God, please make me a stone! What I wouldn't give for that, and yet my problems, or at least one of them, is the result of my desire to be free of emotions. As that is impossible, repression is what I end up with. I'm like a vulcan, only I add the extra layer of normalcy over the attempt at repressing emotion. Unlike vulcans, we humans consider repressing our emotions to be extremely unhealthy. I keep trying to drown it out with distractions; work, socializing, chemical aid. I need to talk to someone about this, but I need to process things into a metabolically inactive form. Aiai, not so simple. I really ought to get to sleep... I need sleep, but it is the last thing I want. I can never sleep if I have something on my mind. Just lying, trying to empty one's thought is extremely difficult when one's mind adamantly refuses to be still. So here I am, fucking about on the internet and watching Andromeda until I get sleepy enough that my mind is no longer an issue.

9:43pm: A Quiz, Courtesy of wingnutsftw

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Unsurprised cat is unsurprised.

11:57am: Happy but Frazzled
Today is my 1st anniversary with Jackie. In a way, I'm surprised this managed to last this long, considering my history, but I'm happy in a sort of quiet, contented way. I finally have replaced my broken glasses, which means I no longer need Erik's spare pair, which is close to my prescription, but are still problematic for me to wear. On the other hand, I have a 5-10 page paper due on Thursday, a lab presentation due on Tuesday, a 4-6 page paper due on Friday, and a Quest game to run on Saturday. Assuming I don't implode or fail to meet any of these deadlines, I am going to be exceptionally relieved come Saturday night post-Athenian, and by "relieved," I probably mean "grottoing."

4:42pm: This Weekend
( Read more... )

tl;dr--Glasses broken, car broken, weekend broken.

12:12am: I guess I'll be writing a thesis after all
I'm sure I'm bitched to all of you at one point or another that majoring in biology is equivalent to double-majoring. Apparently, I was mistaken. I was browsing wesmaps and obsessing and checked the bio major requirements and realized that instead of requiring 6 electives, and then 4 more, only 6 electives are required, and I can take 4 more in addition if I'm feeling ambitious. So, in light of my taking 4 bio courses this semester, all that is left for in the bio major is to take 2 more non-department classes, one of which will be some form of statistics. So, yeah, it looks like I'll definitely be able to write a thesis next year. The question is do I really want to?

4:44pm: Adventures in the Inferno
This morning, I awoke to realize my glasses had come off in my sleep. After a half hour of frantically searching and attempting to put in my contacts,--which I haven't worn in years--I discovered that they had fallen between the bed and the wall. However, I also discovered much more--Lovecraftian horrors I would have preferred to leave untouched by the light of day. One of the room's previous tenants had left a couple pairs of panties, two vibrators(one of which was in between the mattresses of my bed), a bottle of lube, and a pile of empty condom wrappers and used condoms underneath the bed. My reaction was one of germophobic revulsion coated with a lacquer of intense amusement. Fortunately, I'd woken up a couple hours before I needed to meet with the professor of the class I was trying to get into via drop/add, so I moved the bed and some adjacent furniture and channeled my inner Mark Summers.

After classes, I got ahold of the previous tenant who I suspected was the owner/significant other of the owner of the items in question. Everything except a couple of the panties belonged to his girlfriend (now in graduate school in a different state).

3:39am: Random

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test...

NFDS - The Guide

Nature, Foreground, Detail, and Shape

Take The Perception Personality Image Test at HelloQuizzy

8:19pm: Interesting Find
As a fan of both Lovecraft and card games a la Magic and (sighs) Pokemon, I thought I'd share this game I found on Newgrounds; The Necronomicon.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/453509

11:59am: Privileges Meme
Privileges Meme

As an attendee of Wesleyan University, I hear the word "privilege" tossed about in manners reminiscent of Godwin's Law. So, I figured, let's see if it actually applies to me, or if it's a case of reductio ad beneficium. This is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, PLEASE acknowledge their copyright. BOLD WHICH APPLY TO YOU:

( Read more... )

12:29am: When Boredom Meets the Intertubes
I Am A: Neutral Evil Human Wizard (2nd Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-15

Constitution-13

Intelligence-14

Wisdom-11

Charisma-13


Alignment:
Neutral Evil A neutral evil villain does whatever he can get away with. He is out for himself, pure and simple. He sheds no tears for those he kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. He has no love of order and holds no illusion that following laws, traditions, or codes would make him any better or more noble. On the other hand, he doesn�t have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has. Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies. Neutral evil is the best alignment you can be because you can advance yourself without regard for others. However, neutral evil can be a dangerous alignment because it represents pure evil without honor and without variation.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)