jetpack_monkey_ljarchive

liz_marcs has been tracking news stories, video, website FAQs, anything and everything related to how this is all being handled by our government. I recommend friending her journal if you want to hear about this situation from a former reporter who still has the knack in her blood. Hell, I recommend friending her journal anyway, since she's a brilliant writer of fic, fic rants, and political diatribes.

As for myself, I've landed safely in South Bend. I have 'net access, but I don't intend on using it extensively. We'll see how long that lasts. Night all!

Via crevette:
It's a single incident, but it's still disconcerting - Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefs. A judge in the Marion County (Indiana) Superior Court ruled that parents can't teach their child "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals" like Wicca. Outrageous.

Get out and vote. Not going to tell you who for, because by this time, you've probably already decided. And yes, though I may live to regret it, I encourage you to vote even if you are a Bush supporter. Because it's the thing to do.

That being said, GO KERRY!

ETA: In honor of today, I will have my one and only John Kerry icon as my default until a winner is selected. Because I could get tired if I decide to stay up.

Bullet points - very classy. Once again, the insurmountable, action-boy, danger-zone, madcap continuance that is my life gets reduced to a few sodding bullet points.

* Weekends Filled With Lack of Footwear
Many of my friends were off at a convention this weekend, and their absence was sorely felt. If I did not know how much I relied on them for companionship before, I surely do now. Although I was very entertained by the antics of janeway216, dramatic_spy, and of course the lovely missandrony, one couldn't help but miss my compadres in silliness and the wackiness they bring. I am looking forward to meeting a great deal of them come July.

* Writing
Got some done this weekend, not as much as I'd like, and none of it in the multiple projects I've got running simultaneously. I really need to get back on the horse with my novel, but I know what part I'm in and I fear it.

* Ficbunnies
These continue to plague me. I have two that I'm very fond of, one that I know I'm going to write myself soon once I get the pre-apocalyptic fic I'm doing finished with - it's a Caleb fic, detailing what happened before that brought him to service with the First, why he's a misogynistic pig, etc. Stuff like that fascinates me, and I don't think we got to see enough of what could have been a deeply interesting character.

The other ficbunny is one I will never be able to write given my overabundance of work, and so I'm leaving it up for grabs. Alternate S7, from Conversations with Dead People on. One thing changes - Xander's in the school building when Andrew and Jonathan are, catches Andrew trying to kill Jonathan, and accidentally stabs the effeminate one in the gut while trying to stop him. Thus, Xander has blood on his hands, and Jonathan's the trio member stuck with the Scoobs for the rest of the season. How does that affect events?

* Scheduling
Since I work eight hour days, I have very little time left to do the things I love, so I've had to schedule my fun. I have a very regimented schedule now for evening socking, writing, reading, film-watching, website work. Of course, most nights this will be blown to hell, but I'm trying to stay a course so I can get shit done and stop procrastinating.

* Samsaric-Lick.com
My enthusiasm for this is about the only thing that's powering it right now, but I simply do not have the time. I'm not ending the project, but I'm backburnering it. To launch something so hugely important at this juncture in my life would be folly. Maybe when I get to college again. *sigh* I hate to do this after so much work was put into it, but I had no idea how much of my life would get absorbed by this working thing.

* The Howling
Rented this from Netflix - have seen it twice before, but wanted to watch again for the underlying werewolf politics. It's not an idea given a lot of screentime, but the idea of a social order of lycanthropes with their own process of dealing with each other and the world is definitely apparent in the film. Somebody with a richer sociological background could probably write an article on it. Plus, hey, werewolf sex. Hawt.

I had forgotten, strangely enough, that Robert Picardo had a rather significant (if not particularly large) role as Eddie Quist, the deranged sicko who gets the events of the film kicked off. Of course, a lot of the conveniences of the plot bring him back later, where a bevy of pulsating air bladders turn him into a giant-ass werewolf.

The effects are often debated, especially given the film's closeness to An American Werewolf in London in release time. My take is pretty much that both have their strong and weak points regarding the makeup. AWiL's transformation scene is much, much better, very complicated, and I still don't see how they did half of the things they did. But the werewolf sucked. The Howling's mammoth bipedal beasties were much, much cooler, and win the award for end result, even if the process to getting there just was way more transparent.

* Kill Bill, V.1
I'm a big Tarantino fan, if for no other fact that he and I have much in common - we're deadly with film trivia, we know certain genres to nearly pixel detail, and we both like efforts that take the good stuff and subvert the bad. Kill Bill is Tarantino's homage/subversion of the Hong Kong action film. It's violent, over-the-top, crazy, and on occasion deeply funny. It's also very apparently a V.1, and even moreso than Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. It completely fails to stand up on its own merits.

Sure, the performances are good (surprisingly so for a film that's so drenched in plasma), the direction straight-on (although I think I'd appreciate it much better if I was better acquainted with both Chinese and Japanese action cinema), and the writing chock-full of zing. But the story completely collapses, without a real narrative cycle really completed. I understand that Tarantino found himself with a 3.5+ hour film and had to make a decision about its release, but surely some effort could have been made to make the film feel more substantial.

One thought I had during the film was that, given a single change to the approach of the material, it would have made a fantastic revenge horror film. See, what you do is, you barely show The Bride at all - you focus on her victims. Some feel remorse, some do not. All perish at the end of the blade of a woman who should be dead. It would make a great, classic scary movie. Especially given the extraordinary levels of unstoppable that Uma Thurman exhibits.

Also, I demand O-Ren/Sofie slash.

* The Draft
It's coming. I can feel it in the winds - well, that and some independent research. Certain forces are coalescing - Selective Service's budget went up by several million dollars, draft board positions are being quietly filled. The troops in Iraq have been stretched beyond their resources, and a new infusion will be needed so that Bush can maintain his crazy vigilante crusade. I am not a praying man. I have no God to speak of. So I have to beg cruel fate for some amount of release.

And it occurs to me that a change in regime may not necessarily prevent this - the fact is that we are knee-deep in the shit out there, and Kerry's pledged to help them rebuild. And unfortunately, the man's given me no confidence that his solution would not be the same, but given different dogmatic explanations.

I may be overreacting, yes. This may never come to pass, I know. But I cannot help but feel some small tinge of terror at the notion that my life could be forfeit to a conflict this nation should never have gotten into. It depends on a lot of factors - IF the draft goes through, and IF my number comes up, and IF I'm not deemed 4-H or its equivalent, and IF I end up going before the conflict ends, and IF I get into a combat scenario, and IF I die there. But I have no particular need or want to have any of those possibilites come to fruition, thank you. My peace is my own, and no-one shall take that from me.