diaskeuasis
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May. 8th, 2012
09:56 am - a hilarious vid for Mac fans
and if you know me, you know I practically never watch video on my computer. But -- this!
You probably remember the famous 1984 ad for the Macintosh, with the iconic image of the woman throwing a hammer through the enormous screen, that showed during the 1984 Super Bowl. That ad ended with the line "On January 24th, Apple Computer will release Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984" [i.e., George Orwell's dystopia].
That year, Apple Computer also made an in-house film to pump up its sales force, which has scarcely ever been seen again, but which has just hit the Net. It begins, "On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer introduced Macintosh. And we saw why 1984 was like ... 1944." Cue the newsreel! With the brave and determined soldiers, and dialogue like
Colonel: "We'll fight them in the office, and the classroom, and the desktop, with superior weapons - hardware - newly developed ammo - software, and lots of it. ... Remember, the enemy is big, but we are smart. They are the elephant, we are the mouse. One more thing: Let us never forget the glorious victories of the past: World War I, World War II, Two-Plus, Two-E, and Two-C."
One solider to another: "What about 3?"
Second soldier: "We don't talk about 3."
Plus Steve Jobs doing a turn as FDR!
The film (with a full transcript) is here. I cracked up more than once!
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)May. 5th, 2012
12:53 pm - fifty shades of OY
We had breakfast today with Geoff's mother, grandparents, and sisters, and the daughter of one of the sisters. One of the sisters said she was reading Fifty Shades of Grey, and asked if I had read it, and a small conversation began about it that was just -- oy. Sister told her mother, jokingly-but-seriously, that she should not read it, and if she ever did, sister did not want to know; sister had also said the same thing to her mother-in-law. There was much eyerolling and "can you believe"-ing, but nobody actually said anything concrete, just "it's, oh my god, can you believe," until I noted that it was hardly the first sexually explicit book to have been published. Sister reading it commented that when you're twenty you read for the porn, and when you're older you read it to figure out why he (the protagonist, I suppose) is acting the way he is; to which I couldn't stop myself from answering, "He's acting the way he is because he's Edward." Whereupon I had to explain its origin as Twilight fan fiction, and then explain what fan fiction is.
There were also some comments about the author's appearance, and "You'd never think that a woman like that would write something like that."
Also around then, the daughter (Geoff's niece, about ten) tuned in to some of what was being discussed around her and asked, "What's 'porn'?" To which, simultaneously, her mother and grandmother responded by laughing uncomfortably; her aunt told her jokingly, "It's popcorn; we just smush the word together, p--orn"; and I told her, "Sexually explicit fiction."
Geoff's mother commented that I wasn't laughing through all this, as the other women were hilariously doing, and asked me, "Don't you find that funny?" "Not really," I told her. "Shoshanna has the strangest sense of humor," she mused. "I just can't figure out what you find funny."
On the way home, I told Geoff, "Sometimes I actually feel a little bad that some of your family sometimes just have no idea what to make of me."
"I don't," he said.
[I do want to make clear that Geoff's family are generally really nice and lovely people, that they have welcomed me into the family -- and also welcomed other family members and members-in-law of various races, religions, and sexual orientations. But sometimes their gender politics make me wince.]
Also, drafting this post has prompted me to go read the first couple of pages of FSoG at Amazon, and wow, I'd backbutton out of that fic damn fast. I have no categorical objection to present tense, but it is hard to pull off well, and this is way too precious.
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)May. 4th, 2012
May. 2nd, 2012
06:33 pm - I had hoped to finish off my Japan chronicle today
but I'm pretty sure that the level of sleep deprivation I'm currently experiencing contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)May. 1st, 2012
Apr. 30th, 2012
Apr. 29th, 2012
Apr. 26th, 2012
08:01 pm - Posting out of sequence to say
that the sliding wall between the rooms in this guest house is very thin and transmits sound like a megaphone, and oh my god would the people next door talk more quietly? We can hear them like they're standing next to us. I'm glad you like the water pressure in the shower, dude, but I could do with hearing less about how tight boxers are not comfortable for you. Hell, I can hear you breathing.
(Also tomorrow is Geoff's and my wedding anniversary, and I gotta say that the lack of sound privacy is kind of putting me off...)
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)Apr. 25th, 2012
07:37 pm - scamming free wifi in the lobby of a fancy hotel we are certainly not staying in
We went in to ask about breakfast in their restaurant (verdict: way too pricy) and well, if they're going ot just post the network password in plain view of anyone who,er, comes into the building, goes up to the second-floor reception, and approaches the front desk... I have no shame.
( A day in the Japan Alps )
And now it's time for dinner.
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)Apr. 22nd, 2012
Apr. 20th, 2012
10:14 am - JAPAN!
We were about to leave the bun shop we had breakfast in, when I saw the "free wifi" sticker on the wall and yelped! Hi, everyone, I'm in Japan! ( Much stream-of-consciousness blathering follows. )
I typed most of this last night, and the rest this morning, but I have barely proofread and have no idea what bizarre autocorrections the iPad may have slipped in on me, so please forgive any incoherence. More when I can!
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)Apr. 15th, 2012
04:51 pm - Leeeeeevin' on a jet plaaaaaaane...
Tomorrow morning, Geoff and I get on a plane for Japan. He's always wanted to go, and then he turned fifty, so -- whee! (Technically I have been to Japan before, but I was sixteen and it was three days in Tokyo at the end of a three-week trip, so I don't think it really counts. I rode the subway and bought souvenirs and ate in noodle shops; it was a fantastic three days, and I still remember seeing Mt. Fuji out the window of the plane as we left.)
We're being met at the airport by a work colleague of Geoff's, whom he's been doing contract editing for for fifteen years or more but has never met, and we'll spent the first night and morning with him; then we head off on our own, for two weeks of touristing: Matsumoto and Kyoto, the Alpine Route and a drum festival (also called a Naked Festival, but the young men are actually in loincloths), lots of food and doubtless some sake, hot-spring baths and a temple guesthouse, and our wedding anniversary in there as well.
I'll be blogging and otherwise checking the Interwebs as I'm able, but Godstiel is wifi only, and wifi is actually very hard to find in Japan, I'm told, probably because everybody has cellphones. So I may be off the air for the rest of the month. Catch you on the flip side!
My bags are packed, I'm ready to go...but first I need to go make dinner. We have a ridiculous number of eggs in the house, so I'm making waffles for dinner. Mmmmm. (Some of ours will have onions and sausage in them; my vegetarian stepdaughter's will have berries.) TTFN! Nah, I decided waffles are too much of a big thing tonight, and I have bean soup that split its plastic tub when I froze it, so I'm just going to thaw that out and make some biscuits to go with. Waffles upon our return.
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)Apr. 14th, 2012
05:14 pm - safewording in fic
In a conversation in the con suite at the end of Escapade this past February, I noted that I had read plenty of slash stories in which characters appropriately establish safewords before a BDSM or similar scene, but I didn't think I'd ever read a story in which someone actually safeworded and it didn't disrupt the larger dynamic, it wasn't a crisis or a failure or anything, it was just, well, yeah: that's what a safeword is for. In all the stories I could think of, the sex always ended up being just what both (or "all") partners wanted, in the end, and nobody's boundaries ever got pushed too far -- or if they did, it was catastrophic or a dystopic sort of story, not an appropriate safewording with appropriate aftercare. I asked if anyone could recommend such a story to me. And although a few titles and authors were offered, the people I was talking to generally agreed that such stories were few and far between. I took notes and checked out all the recommended stories that I could find, but none were quite what I had meant, or what I was looking for.
Then yesterday I was reading one of the, wow, almost seven hundred stories I have downloaded at one time or another to read whenever I get around to them, and it turned out to have exactly the kind of thing I'd been wanting! It's ( identified behind the cut, just in case someone doesn't want one scene in an 80,000+-word story spoiled ). The author calls it "sheer porn," but it's the-porn-is-the-plot porn, not PWP porn, if you see what I mean; it's a true story, with a true narrative arc. And if you're willing to buy that the characters would do this sort of thing at all, which I totally was, then I'd say it's beautifully in character, with great dialogue. Also it's scorching hot.
And there's one scene which gave me exactly the safewording scenario I'd been craving. Yum. Yay!
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How to use OpenID (optional unless you are commenting on a locked post)Apr. 9th, 2012
09:42 am - poor Geoff. It's so difficult being partnered with me.
Geoff: You have scarred me.
me: . . . what?
Geoff: This paper I'm editing has a variable "K-subscript-S." And every time I look at it, I start giggling.
me: Um. Sorry?
Geoff: Also note that the S is the sub. So you know who the top is.
me [thinks]: I am so posting this.
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