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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
dez_chan's LiveJournal:
| Saturday, October 31st, 2009 | |
| 3:52 am | Less than social Is it wrong that all I want to do tomorrow is stay in and watch Bela Lugosi movies? Current Mood: Forlorn |
| Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | |
| 12:02 am | I quit the world I'm sorry, I can no longer be part of a race that can create this. CAN'T. Current Mood: Mystified |
| Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 | |
| 3:00 am | My willpower, she's weak sometimes Yeah, I broke down and got Audible. The way I figure it, the Kushiel audiobooks are anywhere from $35-120 and there's no way the library's gonna pony up that much for them, so $8 isn't a bad price to pay. That and I can't find them anywhere for the illegal. Same for many of the other ones I have on my wishlist. A note on audiobooks: A good audiobook can save a meh book and ruin a good one. For instance, I'm not actually a big Neil Gaiman fan. A lot of his works leave me cold or disinterested if I read them on my own. But if he's reading them, suddenly they become more...well, lively. A lot of Christopher Moore books are like that (one extreme is The Stupidest Angel, which I can't read in meatspace, because the audiobook just makes the damn thing). Conversely, let's look at Scalzi. I like his books. I think they're good, solid, sci-fi books. But the dude they have doing the reading for it is just fucking awful. He saps all the fun and energy out of every word. I just can't do it, can't listen to his droning on. Or Bill Bryson. He usually does his own audiobooks, and while personally he's a bit bland, the dude they have reading Mother Tongue is just all wrong. He's so posh British-y, it sounds wrong to hear him intone the word, "Ghetto." ETA: Sadly, if the first hour of Kushiel's Dart is anything to go by, it's of the latter. Again, too posh. She makes Hyacinthe sound like a cockney urchin; while he is an urchin, the cockney's both a bit much and completely inappropriate. It sounds like the audiobook of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but it was more apt for Jane Austen than it is for Jacqueline Carey. ETA II: UGH, she's got one fucking voice. The Dowayne and Anafiel Delaunay sound the same. Ma'am, an old woman and a young man should not sound the same. Also, when she pronounces joie the liquor, she says it ZWAH, but when someone says it aloud it's JOY. It's the same word, asshole. Current Mood: Bitter |
| Monday, August 10th, 2009 | |
| 11:32 pm | Help a sister out Okay, the guy who created Cockbibs? Is bitching 'cause Urban Dictionary defined it and Jezebels are voting it up. Go ahead and piss him off even more by giving it a thumbs up. And if any of you are in communities that would like to help out...well then... Current Mood: *sporfle!* |
| Saturday, July 11th, 2009 | |
| 1:49 pm | Some other thoughts on the newest Torchwood. Okay, now that I'm not groggy from no sleep, here's some things I was bothered by. ( Spoilers, obviously, for Children of Earth. ) Current Mood: Mystified |
| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 | |
| 10:14 pm | Into perspective Y'know what? Last week, at age 89, Hans Holzer died. I didn't spam the hell out of people's lists with this bit of trivia, 'cause it's not newsworthy*. Just sayin'. *That and who besides my dad is familiar with the guy by name? Current Mood: Catty |
| Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | |
| 12:59 am | Straw Man ho! From Jezebel. "What," asks producer and novelist Olivia Lichtensteinm, "is it like to live as a Fifties housewife whose life is dedicated to looking after her family?" We're glad she's taken on the brave challenge, because lord knows there's no one out there who actually lives the life of a stay-at-home mom, nor generations of parents and grandparents who actually lived the lifestyle and could talk about it. I am sick to death of these fluff articles where OH NOES, affluent privileged fucksticks have to do things that make then uncomfortable for a week or so and they learn a valuable lesson. Like the one last week about how hard it is to cook for under $50. Or any expose wherein a celebrity or some other skinny chick has to don a fat suit to prove that it's hard to be fat (you notice it's never men in a fat suit?). Here's a wild idea: Why not hire a poor person? Or a fat person? Or use any of them that are employed in your office right now? Why does it have more theoretical veracity if some airhead "suffers" for a week? Anyway. Putting that part of it aside for a second: ( Read more... ) Current Mood: Catty |
| Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 | |
| 3:00 pm | Real life fail, assholes. OMG it's SOOOOOOOO hard to cook a meal for under $50!!! What fucking planet do these fucks live on? I have never made a meal that cost MORE than $50, not including Thanksgiving/Christmas where I feed in excess of a dozen people (and I don't foot the bill, I just cook it) with leftovers. None of this nonsense, "paper cups of gazpacho" or shit. Food that makes you full. Servings that aren't a thimblefull. On a completely different note, I've decided that from now on, every time someone complains about male nudity or sex in a movie/video game/whatever, I'm going to complain about something else totally innocuous. "OH MY GOD, they had bread onscreen! Bread! Right out there in front of us! I mean, I eat bread in the privacy of my own home, but that's my bread." Who's with me? Current Mood: Bitter |
| Friday, March 20th, 2009 | |
| 2:15 pm | Make an effort, people. When Fangirls Attack is a linkblog I check every so often because sometimes they have something intelligent or interesting to say. Not so much lately, as the maintainers haven't been posting with anything like regularity. But they turned it over to different people this week, to mixed results. The regular comics pages were alright. Reasonably current topics and whatnot. Then there was the manga page. Now, the manga section has always been the weakest part of the linkblog. I chalked it up initially to the fact that Ragnell and Kalinara aren't manga readers. In fact, just about every week in the manga section there was always a post where a mainstream comics reader "discovered" manga (one presumes they've been walking around with a sock over their head or something up until this revelation), and how OMG it's targeted to GIRLS! Stories for GIRLS! That sell well! Why can't the big two do this?! Followed almost immediately by, "Oh, it's mostly romance stories and the female characters are weaksauce." *headdesk X infinity* But you know, new people. Surely someone knows where someone's talking about manga (and video games, apparently). I mean, it's a big internet, right? So I clicked and yeah. The last straw for me was this article. Notice anything odd? Like the fact that the most "current" manga she's referring to is Ranma in a page about gender in anime? Well then I saw the bottom of the page: Text copyright 1997, 2000 by Eri Izawa ... ... ... You mean to tell me the most relevant and current link you can find where someone discusses gender in manga and anime is a ten year old site? What next, a scathing breakdown of the hip "new" show Evangelion on a GeoCities page? Fuck, even a link to ANN would be better! In fact, they have a whole fucking section devoted to the female perspective on anime. I need to cheer myself up.  see more Lolcats and funny pictures Ahhhhhh. Current Mood: Catty |
| Monday, March 9th, 2009 | |
| 2:24 am | I don't think these are similar Netfilx's suggestions are a little odd in their rationale. I put Spaced as something I liked. It suggested an independent movie about a dead guy, and a foreign movie about someone taking a swan dive off a bridge. O_o I put I liked the Muppet Show: it suggested Tom Baker!Who (which I do like, but um?). Also, their definition of "musical" is a bit different than mine. I don't think of Step Up as a musical. Also also, they need to put more shit on instant! GIVE TO MEH! I demand instant gratification! And finally, this and all ratings-based suggestions things need to have filters. Like, "NO OWEN WILSON EVER!" and then you can stop suggesting his films to me. Or when I go on Amazon and it tries to get me to read Kim Harrison. -_- DO. NOT. WANT. ETA: Search Results: About 5551 results for 'Sex at 24 Frames Per Second' Related titles to watch instantly Enchanted Current Mood: Interested |
| Monday, March 2nd, 2009 | |
| 7:48 pm | Logical fallacy? In Texas? From the Bush admin? Surely you jest. In case you were curious about the harm abstinence only sex ed does. Some more bizarre claims, taken directly from abstinence-only curricula: Sexually active teens are more likely to commit suicide; women who lubricate during sex are more likely to get pregnant; people who have sex before marriage are less able to be "intimate" later; "the divorce rate for two virgins who get married is less than 3%." One abstinence-only video directly equates HPV with death, suggesting that if a woman marries a man with genital warts she'll "probably end up with a radical hysterectomy, cervical cancer, and possibly death." Whereas virgins live FOREVER. They never die or get cancer! EVER. If you know some dead or cancerous people, beware that they were dirty sinners. Gay kids, meanwhile, are invisible--relegated to warnings that class materials "shall not represent homosexuality as a normal or acceptable lifestyle" and that "students should be informed that homosexual acts are illegal in Texas and highly correlated with the transmission of AIDS." I'm just going to let that sit there by itself. School district officials contacted for the study responded with variations on "our kids learn about sex at home," with one school superintendent telling researchers, "Most of these kids live on a farm... They get a pretty good sex education from their animals." As the researchers note wryly, "We found it interesting that some officials seemed to interpret 'sexuality education' as mostly a 'how to' discussion. Given that Texas has one of the highest teen birthrates in the nation, clearly many of our young people already know 'how to.'" Attention people who are dense at fucking lead, I'll say this as simply as I possibly can, out of deference to your condition: SEX EDUCATION CLASSES DO NOT INSTRUCT PEOPLE HOW TO HAVE SEX. IT IS NOT A HOW-TO. IT HAS NEVER BEEN A HOW-TO. I had comprehensive sex ed; there was never a, "How to give a blowjob" class. There was never a, "This is the clitoris, touch it a lot." There was a whole fuckload about STDs. And your period. And wet dreams. And anatomical shit. NONE OF IT WAS INSTRUCTIVE FOR TECHNIQUE. Duh. Current Mood: Bitter |
| Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 | |
| 2:04 am | Is It Worth It? It's another one of these! I figured I should do this again, since yeah, spare time. This edition? BROWNIES. I've never been a big fan of brownies (I know, blasphemy, right?). Mom's "recipe" was the boxed brownie, which always turned out dried up and bricklike. Now, mom's not a bad cook, but she does have a tendency to stick things in the oven and forget about them. I thought it was her...until I bought a mix. I've never gotten brownie mix to turn out right. I follow the instructions. I improvise. Doesn't matter; choco-bricks ahoy! And then I found the magic recipe. ( Under the cut, with my addtions. ) I got that from my go-to cookbook, The All-New Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Tasty but involved. The end product is dense and chewy, but not dry. But then I found a different recipe from the Eagle Brand Classic Recipes book called "No-Bake Fudgy Brownies." No bake? Must try. ( Again, slightly altered recipe under here. ) And these were pretty good. Closer to fudge than brownie. Reminded me strongly of the Little Debbie ones in the cellophane. But tasty and low on the "lotta work" side of things. So is it worth making brownies from scratch? I think so. But if you've got better batter karma than me, perhaps you'll disagree. Current Mood: Navel-Gazing |
| Friday, February 13th, 2009 | |
| 3:20 pm | Civic duty. I haz it. I would be horridly remiss if I didn't mention the Prevention First act up on the House and Senate floor. For the love of all that's holy, write your state Representatives and your Senators and urge them to support these measures (H.R. 463 and S.21 respectively. Even if it's just an, "I urge you to lend your support to the Prevention First act," it's something! Current Mood: Dangerous |
| Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 | |
| 3:33 pm | a dilemna Pui's poll is trying; if I vote for British comics, that's a vote for Eddie Izzard:    But if I vote for celebrity chefs, that's a vote for Nigella.     ... ... ... I MUST HAVE THEM BOTH! I may or may not make this a comment on the poll page, but the server, she is robust right now. ( ETA some more chefs. I'ma have to change my vote. ) Current Mood: Forlorn |
| Saturday, January 10th, 2009 | |
| 1:27 am | Combining a couple other posts So here's something: There's this douchenozzle yammering on this week about how women don't like superhero films, hence why action movies starring women don't need to be made (apparently, we all need to get our nails done or something instead). One of the points he made (poorly) was that the reason The Dark Knight made such GREAT numbers was because there wasn't a "chick flick" happening at the same time and all us ladies just indulged our men ('cause apparently lesbians or single women don't exist anymore either...sorry half my friends [the other half, of course, being male]!) by going and seeing it. (P.S. I didn't. In fact, I still haven't seen it, 'cause I don't give a flying shit about Batman. Yes, yes, I know, it's the bestest Batman evar. I just don't care. I still haven't seen any of the Spiderman movies for the same reason.) Um. The box office disagrees with you there. Just as an example of this incredible sockfuckery: Men are interested in action movies with heroes blowing things up and saving the girl. Men are interested in imagining themselves as ass-kicking heroes. Women are interested in movies about relationships and romance and love. Women are interested in imagining themselves finding the right guy and dancing till dawn. Little boys play with guns, little girls play with dolls. No. Thanks for playing though! Hmm, if I weren't interested in kicking ass, how does he explain my (and my friends') incredibly violent natures? How does he explain how when I'm pissed off at someone, I have remarkably elaborate death scenarios worked out for them. How I nearly punched some obnoxious dude at the bookstore last July for trying to make fun of a (male) friend of mine? No, no, I'm just a dainty wee flower without a thought of garroting people in my mind... Anyone looking for more ammo need go no further. Many of these links make the same points, and I for one saw the story on Jezebel (which is linked on there). ( Things I dreamed about when I was a little girl ) Current Mood: Fixin' for a fight |
| Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 | |
| 11:44 pm | An update My house smells like mint. Yeah, I got out early and finally started beta testing my recipes for Christmas. So far I have some chocolate peanut butter fudge* hanging out in the fridge, and some peppermint bark cooling on the counter. I notice most of the recipes I want to try to work with are peanut-butter/chocolate. I guess, peanut butter/chocolate OTP? I also have some chocolate-covered-cherry cookies I wanna try out...Hmm. *Yes, Alton Brown would say it's not fudge, but rather a confection similar to fudge. Alton Brown also uses 2 goddamn skillets to make a grilled cheese goddamn sandwich, so he can fuck right off. Current Mood: Candy-Coated |
| Saturday, October 25th, 2008 | |
| 6:27 am | Magic villagers. ( SPOILERS FOR FABLE 2 ) So, anybody know what happened to MightyGodKing's blog again? Current Mood: Gruesome |
| Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | |
| 1:54 pm | So I've got a couple hours playtime in, and here's what I think so far: ( Spoilers for Fable 2 ) I should have a more definite opinion on Monday. Current Mood: Amped |
| Saturday, September 20th, 2008 | |
| 11:17 pm | Because no one asked. The answers to last week's book meme. ( For the morbidly curious. ) Current Mood: Musing |
| Saturday, September 13th, 2008 | |
| 1:45 pm | Crossposted meme This meme appealed to me 'cause I'm currently trying to get started on boxing up my books (with so many qualifying words, you know it's not going well), so I just happen to have a box of books next to me.( These are the first sentences from 20 books I own. Guess which books they're from. ) Current Mood: Forlorn |