jedusor: (riverdancing)
Yes, "Gregor Samsa" was an eye-roller of a nickname to pin on a giant cockroach. But it was one hell of a lot easier for the humanoids working this campaign to pronounce than "H'kh Kl'kxak." At least he had a sense of humor about it. He often hung out in the various break rooms along the campaign trail with the lights off and made a big show out of scuttling under a table or something if someone came in and turned on the lights. Unfortunately, not everyone found it as funny as Greg did.

--Cheesecake and the Art of Political Warfare
jedusor: (go)
Even Game, by [livejournal.com profile] thehoyden

Arthur and Eames playing Go. I am so happy you guys have no freaking clue.

ETA: Oh dear God there's an AU with crosswords and TMBG. OKAY FINE, INCEPTION FANDOM, I'M IN. JEEZ.

'NOTHER ETA: Even Game fanart! Okay, I'm off to read everything The Hoyden has ever written now.
jedusor: (?!)
I really enjoyed this article. It's about the relationship between money and happiness, and how people are happier when they spend money on social interaction and experiences than on material things. I'd very much like to hear what others think of it.

Book rec

Oct. 13th, 2005 02:01 am
jedusor: (Default)
It probably wasn't a good idea to stay up past one last night finishing Dan Savage's new book, "The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family," when I have to get up early for faire, but it was totally, one hundred percent worth it. The book was hilarious, educational, thought-provoking, adorable, and made me cry. Everyone should read it.

(Although not you, [livejournal.com profile] ganondork. You should wait a couple of years.)
jedusor: (Default)
I'm rereading The God Eaters (and no, I will never stop pimping it), and I just came across this gem:

Morning hit him between the eyes like a hammer.

This, to me, is utter perfection, writing-wise. It's concise, well-worded, and an excellent use of simile. More importantly, though, I noticed it. I first read this maybe six months ago, and when I came to that part, I thought, "Oh yeah, that line!" It stuck in my mind. That, to me, is good writing. It's also why I love Chuck Palahniuk so dearly- his books are absolutely filled with lines like that, lines that stick in my memory and jump up when my thoughts wander.

BTW, I did start writing my HP6 review, and spent about half an hour on it, but my stepdad logged me out before I'd saved it and it was completely lost. That's what I get for writing in an update box instead of Word, I guess. Anyway, boo hiss, but he makes good pizza so I forgive him.

Saw a baby onesie at Hot Topic today of that Family Guy kid glaring at his mom and saying something like, "Woman, you've been foiling my plans since I escaped from your womb," but I forgot to mention it to Mom when she came back. Le sigh.
jedusor: (Default)
Drabble by [livejournal.com profile] furiosity: Why
do wizards celebrate Christmas?
Warning: possibly offensive
to Christians.

My trip so far )

The Book of Job, simplified version )

EDIT: ...if anyone can tell me why this entry appears to have no paragraphs, could they kindly share that information? *scratches head*
jedusor: (Default)
*climbs up on a conveniently placed rooftop*

HEY, WORLD! I DO NOT FIND BRAD PITT, MARILYN MANSON OR DOMINIC MONAGHAN ATTRACTIVE IN THE SLIGHTEST!

*climbs back down quickly to avoid flying shoes and rotten tomatoes*

(Note: this does not mean I don't like them. Dom's a great character to write, and Manson kicks ass. I just don't think they're sexy.)

Also:

He reached out with his mind, groping with his empathic sense at the frustrating divide between himself and Kieran, the distance which made them separate. It seemed impossible to breach at first -- then suddenly his mind relaxed into the right shape, and warmth came welling up, concern, love, weary joy at the simple fact of his presence. Feelings enough like his own that they might have been hard to distinguish, but he had learned the flavor of Kieran's emotions now, the particular cornered hopefulness of them. There was a haven of kindness in the world after all. Just a little one. Just Kieran-sized. Not enough light to find his way, perhaps, but enough that he knew he wasn't blind. Not enough to solve any problems, but enough to remind him why he couldn't give up trying.

"I'm done crying now," Ash promised. "I'll be stronger in the morning."


That's from The God Eaters, or Swallowing the Burn by Jesse Hajicek (I'm still not sure why it's called that, but the title doesn't matter). It's an online novel, pointed out to me by [livejournal.com profile] macabresinclair. I have no idea why it isn't published- it's definitely good enough and long enough to be- but I recommend it highly. I've spent the majority of today reading it (first on the laptop until Mom took the power cord, then the G5 until Cord took it, but I printed out the next two chapters and read them on my couch in my room with a quilt and a cup of cinnamon hot chocolate, and now I'm on the laptop again). It's set in an alternate universe, around a social/political/religious situation parallel to the Europeans' conquest of the Native Americans. Certain characters have mental abilities called Talents, including the two main characters, Kieran and Ash. It is centered around a homosexual relationship, but there's nothing explicit until chapter seventeen out of twenty-nine. In other words, it's not just smut; there is a plot, and an incredibly well-thought-out one, with fascinating characters that continue to develop throughout the story. I'm not going to try to summarize the plot, because I always either do a bad job or give away something by accident, but the fact that I'm praising it this highly without even having finished it should tell you something. Don't be put off by the prologue- it's rather disjointed, as Abby put it, but things start making sense in the first chapter. After spending at least, oh, six hours today reading it, I'm up to chapter twenty-one, and I'm not sure I'll be able to resist staying up to finish it tonight. It's like not being able to put down a book, only I'm pushing the down arrow frantically instead of turning pages frantically.

*goes back to reading*

EDIT: "Morning hit him between the eyes like a hammer." *dies laughing* Yes, that's from the same novel I'm raving about above.

HEY, LOOK, IT'S ANOTHER EDIT: Ooooooooooh, now there's gods as characters, like in The Iliad. *glued to screen*
jedusor: (Default)
He hates her. Not with the simple, childish loathing he has for Potter that is seamlessly absolute; neither with the subtle, vicious hatred for his father, who is as wonderful and terrible as God; no – his hatred of her burns hot, passionate, flickering and roaring, fed by nothing but disgust for her and all she is and consumed by the need to disobey and rebel from all he is by loving her.

[livejournal.com profile] macabresinclair wrote me some KICKASS Ginny/Draco love-hate! Go read!

So yeah, life has been okay. Yesterday I hung around downtown all day. In the hardware store, an old lady (like 80 years old, and about five feet tall) complimented my zipper pants. It was awesome. Then I think I made some Hispanic construction workers nervous by watching them cut open the street. I went to Bizarroworld, and Ground Zero (a skate store with way too much pink to be a skate store), and several bookstores, and a bunch of other places, and on the way back I stopped at the truffle shop. I got an apricot rum truffle, and the shop owner gave me an extra champagne one 'cause he's cool like that, and I stopped to watch this guy Brian teach his dad how to play chess. I played the dad after they were done, but Brian was hovering over his dad's shoulder telling him what to do and the shop owner Sonny was hovering over mine doing exactly the same thing, so really I wasn't the one who won.

Today I went to the old homeschool Park Day, and saw Catherine (along with the twins and Clara), Grace, Rain, and a bunch of other people I hadn't seen in forever. Rain dyed her hair blue-black and started wearing makeup, so I didn't recognize her at first. She's a lot cooler than I remember her being. We did bad things with Wite-Out, and talked about life. She might maybe possibly be moving to Kansas City, which is where her mom lived until age nine. I went with her to watch her ballet lesson (she looks awfully strange in ballet garb) then we hung around downtown again until eight-thirty, when the Davis Musical Theater Company's production of Evita started. We got in for free because there were reporters there and they wanted it to look like lots of people showed up. While we were waiting for the theater to open, this guy handed us flyers for a rock band performance at Cafe Roma. The bands were called The Cheese and Red Tape Apocalypse, so we decided to go check it out during the fifteen-minute intermission. We ran all the way to Cafe Roma, to find a guy with a harmonica singing about love. Clearly, this was not our destination, so we checked the other Roma (Espresso Roma) and found them messing with mikes and stuff. After about five minutes of sitting there, and random noises from the mikes, the band started playing. If you could call it "playing." It sounded like random VERY-high-decibel noise with whale-call imitations mixed in. We left pretty quickly, eardrums literally hurting and headaches forming in our brains, to find that we'd missed a crucial part of the musical. I didn't like the music much anyway, and I don't know the history behind it, but it was still a disappointment. I did get Rain's LJ name, though.

Also, my aunt just e-mailed me, offering to fly me out to New York for Blair's sixteenth birthday party in April. I'll call Mom tomorrow and check, but it should be cool- my class schedule is Tuesday-Thursday and the party's on a Saturday. Yay party!
jedusor: (riddle lightning)
Merry Christmas! I'm here to pimp a couple of Christmas books. One of our family traditions is reading books aloud on Christmas Eve night, and I wanted to tell you about two of my favorites. They're both technically children's books, but I still enjoy them, and so do Mom and Bill. They also both have absoluitely wonderful illustrations.

Red Ranger Came Calling, by Berkeley Breathed. As we turned to leave, an astonishingly squat little man no bigger than me rushed past us toward the old lighthouse. He carried an overnight carpetbag, which bumped along behind him. The tiny man smiled weakly and tipped his hat, revealing pointy ears. Something flowery needed to be said by the Red Ranger of Mars, but in my shock, all that came out was, "Mister, you look like a turnip." By the cartoonist of Bloom County and Opus, this book is by far one of the funniest children's books I've ever read. It's told from the point of view of a sour little boy, sent to his aunt's house for the holidays. All he wants for Christmas is an Official Buck Tweed Two-Speed Crime-Stopper Star-Hopper bicycle, elusive and beyond his aunt's budget. When he hears that old Saunder Clos in the rickety old mansion up the hill might actually be Santa Claus himself, he naturally investigates, dragging along an unwilling Amelia (his aunt's Dalmation-weiner dog mix) and gets himself into all kinds of trouble. It somehow manages to be both hilarious and touching, with a sweet twist at the end.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, by Susan Wojciechowski. I've tried writing several one-paragraph descriptions of this book, but it just doesn't work. Just trust me when I say it's a beautiful book. It makes my mom cry every single year, and sometimes I can't help tearing up a little too, but it's the good kind of crying. Definitely worth a read.

Link helped open some of his own Christmas presents, but he was far more interested in the paper and ribbons than the presents themselves. I got a SQ33K L33T t-shirt, "bondage pants", some cool jewelry, Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk (there's this one AWESOME story in it about when he went out dressed up as a Dalmation, with his friend dressed as a bear, and they just walked around shopping and being tourists with these costumes on- absolutely priceless), the Pushing Tin soundtrack, and a set of paint-your-own bobblehead dogs, among other things.

Here's a couple of versions of "The Night Before Christmas" that I found amusing:

The legal version: Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter “the House”) a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to a mouse.

The lexiconically diverse version: 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our domicile, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.

We're leaving for the airport to pick up Liz in about an hour, so I won't be online much this week. She's leaving on the 29th, which is when I'm going to CA, and I may be able to get online then. *hugs you all* I wish you a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a joyful Kwanzaa, etc.

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