Winged Rivers

Today, two young women got dramatically offended because I suggested a book to them that wasn't Twilight.

It seems Twilight means very much to them; so much that it was untoward of me to suggest other reading material.


Dear bleached-blond bottle-tanned Barbie-wanna-be Twitards,

Why so serious?











We're gonna get flamed so hard. It took less than a half hour for us to get our first flame. :D

Me: I'm outside your houuu-seeee!
newageamazon: Okay!
Me: With my pants in my lap!
newageamazon: . . . What?

~~

Also, it appears the publisher Harlequin has shot themselves in the nuts. They added on a new vanity publishing wing--a wing towards which authors who are rejected from their commercial branches will be funneled. Reactions seem to vary from "But self-publishing isn't bad!" (which completely ignores how this isn't self-publishing, it's vanity publishing, and yes it fucking is) to the hardcore, as the RWA (Romance Writers of America) has (have?) revoked Harlequin's recognized publisher status.

I'll be the first person to mock the romance novel section, sure--but that's still one hell of a shitty thing to do to potential authors: lure them in with an established name, reject their novel, then flip them over and shake them for whatever money may come out while telling them that this is really the best way for their career to start.

(You go, RWA. Rock on with your bad, frequently badly written selves.)

~~

Also, Gunnerkrigg Court ate my brain. It's much fun.

Poll #4604 So . . .
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

If Random really wants to be healthy, what's the least healthy thing for her to keep doing?

Things to keep in mind:
Cloves are awfully hard to get in the states anymore, and make me hungry.
The Chinese buffet has all-you-can-eat sushi.
The doggies need exercise.
So do I.
I can't read the warnings on my clove package--these ones are from Indonesia--but I know what they say about all the awful things that can happen to smokers.
A typical buffet run involves two plates and me whining about a food coma for an hour afterward.
I am gimping ever closer to the day when I will be a cranky old lady hitting people with my cane.

The worst best WTF moment of the day is without a doubt Regretsy. It takes the spirit of failblog and applies it to all the shit over at etsy that makes us say, "Wait, you're charging how much for what?"


With this site in mind, I feel it is my civic duty to rescue this goat. Look at the poor thing's face. It obviously wants to eat that awful coat and die from intestinal blockage.

This is one of Fanhistory's pages on the fanartist Sockii, Sockii Press, and some of the 'zines produced by Sockii. Sockii in all their forms gave Fanhistory express permission to use these 'zine covers on Fanhistory.

This is Fanlore's page on the same work of Sockii's. As you can see, it was lifted directly from FH--art and all.

Clicking through Sockii Press's links shows that this isn't the only case--and that I am in no way linking to the only two examples. Wiki-lifting aside, keep in mind that OTW's people are lifting fanart they don't have the rights to or permissions for, and are claiming it for their site.

Sockii knows; Sockii is the one who found the stolen artwork. Sockii and FH aren't currently doing anything because of OTW's response to the Yuletide debacle--where if you don't want your fanworks moved to another hosting area or location outside of your control, they don't want anything to do with you and don't want you to be a part of their exchange--and how their response to fanzine creators who don't want their 'zines to be part of OTW's archive is pretty much "Sucks to be you!" with an added, especially unbelievable side of "We won't scan it or post it online without your permission!"


In short, Sockii doesn't expect a site with no DMCA takedown procedures (and with this sort of response to fannish concerns over artistic rights) to give two shits about their feelings and rights as an artist.


Yup. This is what OTW, parent of An Archive Of Our Own & the Fanlore wiki, absorbers of both the Yuletide fic exchange and previous Yuletide fanworks (no matter artists' wishes to control the locations of their own work), and self-proclaimed defender of fandom rights and the proverbial fannish little guy gal, is up to.


I . . . find myself not at all surprised.




Where is the outrage? Is it because these people are supposedly fans? Fanlib said they might copy parts of &/or a work to a different location and people flipped the fuck out. These people lift artwork without permission and run roughshod over the 'zinemakers, the people who helped really get this fannish boat sailing to begin with, and I only hear about it from a friend of Sockii's? How do any of us know that our fanworks, in any format, won't be lifted for their site/archive under the guise of some sort of historical importance?

We don't. Not anymore.

How the hell does this work?

I usually don't look at let alone click on banner ads, but this . . .

Lollyphile.com might just be the place I go for Christmas shopping this year. Absinthe lollypops? Wasabi-ginger and Chai Tea lollypops? Maple syrup bacon lollypops? If I thought they gave out samples I'd be on their stairs with a little alms bowl.

Update on life 'cause I haven't blogged in a while.

School's school... I've been getting kinda lazy though because I hate my core classes. I've had a cough since Halloween and it sucks but it's been slowly getting better recently. My mom is sick and the doctors are treating it as swine flu. I don't think it is because I've been near her all the time and I got my flu shot and I haven't caught anything yet. *knocks on wood* But lately doctors have been treating everything as swine flu because 95% of people who've come into their offices have been diagnosed with it, or so they say... Jimmy's been really busy with a school production that I'm watching tomorrow. I really miss him. We're planning on getting some Baklava whenever he has free time, but I'm not sure when that will be. I'm just looking forward to Thanksgiving because we're planning on *trying* to make a pumpkin pie, lol. It might be disastrous but being in the kitchen with him has always been fun. That, and I think some of my family members are gonna make it here from Canada for my grandfather's birthday. Jimmy probably won't be able to meet them 'cause he always goes to Hackettstown to visit his family on Thanksgiving, but it's alright. That just gives us more time to do things (like meet family) if we even last that long. =P

Speaking of Jimmy, his mother has been talking to me a lot more now. I'm not sure if it's because I hardly know her but she seems nice even though Jimmy considers her a nightmare lol. She is a pretty intimidating (and commanding!) Italian lady, though. She always calls me a good girl in her emails and tells me to look after her "baby boy" because he needs it, and give her updates on him because he hardly talks to her... Oh boy hahaha I really don't want to be the messenger between them.

I'm planning on visiting the school psychotherapist because I kinda miss going to sessions... But my schedule is always full and clashes with my old psychotherapist so I haven't gone to her in months. My first session is tomorrow at 1. Kind of nervous to start over again, but my friend goes to her for her own personal issues and she said she's really nice, so that makes me feel tons better.

I really can't wait for this semester to be over because I'm excited about the classes I'll be taking next semester. Eighteen credits, fuuuck... But it should be fun.

Ugggh, really craving that Baklava, though!

I decided to exercise more to prepare for the upcoming Weekend Of Pain where The Indigo shall summarily kick my ass. I did a billion curlups and ran for miles on the elliptical and changed none of my eating habits and gained five pounds.

I decided to decorate my sorta-kinda exercise regimen with a return to the GI diet variation thing, where I eat lots of beany things and less processed sugars and breads and which, if I stick to it, results in my dropping about a solid pound a day.

. . . I want a donut. Instead I'm gonna try to get through Rachel Brice's yoga warmup without calling her an evil skinny little woman. I think.




Chances of my writing fic instead of doing Nano, or yoga, or listing more etsy things, or going out and finding an elliptical . . . growing.



Also, I finally gave up and got a twitter account. Now to see if I can use it to do businessy things and not to argue on the internets.

My to-do:

Put in supplies orders

Paperwork. I've got a pile that needs beaten back into shape, sorted, and filed.

Clean house

Start thawing a turkey. Did you know they're $0.40 a pound at Wal-mart? I got two good-sized birds for a laughable amount. I don't think either'll fit in the crock pot, but I'm gonna try.

Not buy the glass fuser kit from Pat Catan's. I don't need it. It will in no way help me make fabulous shiny things. I did it--I looked the beast dead in the eye and realized that it won't make the kind of pieces I really want. (Even attempting to make them with this particular method would involve me putting metal in the microwave, which would be a somewhat bad idea.) Maybe next year.

Sand ring bases for a sturdier epoxy attachment, then start making more steampunky rings

Etsy listings--necklaces, steampunk rings

Work on Nano

Food shopping!

Dremel bits, brass keys, screw eyes, and possibly more resin molds, since the glass thing won't work out

Start playing with Windows Movie Maker to cobble the Dramatic Fight Scene together, and trim what scenes need trimmed into easily-pasted segments.

Friday & Saturday--start to finish up filming for NMOMWH



Does anyone with bunnies know why bunnies will suddenly and randomly start to stampede? The two housebunnies have taken to freaking out and chasing each other every few minutes. I wouldn't care, except they keep waking me up and throwing their litter all over the place.

Nekocon was a fairly laid-back con, all things considered. It didn't feel like there were too many people there, and I heard a few people say that sales weren't as good as last year's . . . but that being said, when they hit at the artists' alley, they hit hard. My sales there beat ACen's and are just dollars away from ANext's. This means I am a very happy Random.

Weird con was weird, though. Standard heavy sellers like the metal flower kanzashi and hair sticks didn't move like usual, though the new steampunk cuff prototypes couldn't be kept on the table and I sold more single earrings than I have during my entire crafting career. The co-conspirator had the same problem--she wasn't really moving her magnetic katamari balls, which are usually gone by Saturday, but sold scarves instead.

Otherwise: The weekend was strangely relaxing. Our (cheap!) hotel had a pool and a hot tub, not to mention real sausage for breakfast (not spiced veggie stuff like our Otakon hotel gave us) and real sausage gravy to go with it. Voldemart had cheap wine, and IHOP was made of awesome and win and pecans. Then there was Buckroe Beach--not a show-stopper, but a nice, pretty clean, community-feeling place with a couple neat photo op spots--just five miles away. And best of all, I think I walked away without con plague. I intend to go back again next year. :D


(Also, I got a big plush Appa. He's so snuggly. I still haven't seen Avatar but I love this thingy anyway. *snugson*)