Wanks of Grapeshot
 
 [Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends View]

Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

    [ << Previous 25 ]
    Saturday, November 21st, 2009
    unfunnybusiness
    [ cat_mcdougall ]
         		6:16a
    Sometimes, Karma does work
    Remember the 8yo in Arizona who was gang raped?

    Her parents have been arrested on Child abuse charges

    ( For the linkphobic )

    It won't help the little girl get over what was done to her, but I can't help but feel just a tiny bit glad that this happened.
    Friday, November 20th, 2009
    fandom_lounge
    [ jkefka ]
         		10:46p
    Desert Bus for Hope has returned! Charitable Schadenfreude a-go-go!
    I hope all of you know about Desert Bus for Hope. If you don't, it's a group of sorry bastards who play the most tedious game ever made (it was specifically designed to be tedious) to raise money for Penny Arcade's "Child's Play" charity. The live feed of the guys is hilarious and the live feed of the bus is delightfully mellow, and you can make special requests with your donation! (E.g. have the crew sing a particular song or put on a silly hat). The bus is rolling again, and as of the moment they started they were committed to drive that bus for 97 hours. That's from money raised before they started, over $10,000! Roll on you crazy fuckers.

    ETA: For those of you on Twitter, there is an effort to keep #desertbus up in the trending topics! Come on, let's beat out New Moon!
    fandom_lounge
    [ researchgrrrl ]
         		8:39p
    the grandest XO of ALL
    X-posted from [info]sparklefield since this is pure multi-fandom awesomeness:

    The Simpsons's 2010 Hallowe'en special will feature a segment in which Lisa falls madly in love with a vampire boy named Edmund. Cast as the voice of Edmund?

    Daniel Radcliffe. ♥!
    unfunnybusiness
    [ staroverthebay ]
         		2:18p
    Pedophile priests should get ..... wait, WHAT?!
    ( Cut for triggery WTFery )

    That headline is ridiculous. The article is not much better.

    *quiet rage*

    ETA: Forgot the link, had to hunt through my browser history for it.

    Also, I'm still trying to figure out that line about "alleged abuse victims" -- what, the priests are convicted as pedophiles, but that doesn't mean the victims are telling the truth?
    unfunnybusiness
    [ j_crew_guy ]
         		10:33a
    fandom_wank
    [ bobafeis ]
         		2:44a
    We don't actually know if this is plagiarism wank, unless someone out there is an internets lawyer
    Here's some Project Runway plagiarism wank to go with the lovely vanity pub and author wank. I hope it goes without saying that there might be a spoiler or two for the finale, but I'll say it anyway: There are spoilers for the finale in this post.

    Project Runway "villain" and finalist Irina had a shirt in her final Bryant Park collection that has all the reasons she loves New York written on it. Oh, wait. Those aren't the reasons she loves New York, those are the reasons that someone who wrote a famous New York Magazine article loves New York. And this is the same girl who was going to feature Coney Conney Island artwork in the collection until she was told that it would be copyright infringement? And NY Mag says that she didn't ask permission? And I don't even have to tell you that this isn't going to end well, do I?

    And then ( spoileriffic things happen! And so does wank. )
    Thursday, November 19th, 2009
    fandom_wank
    [ jkefka ]
         		7:54p
    Harlequin vanity bodice-ripping wank! (Even more awesome than it sounds)
    Hang on to your hats, kids, this one's a doozy in several parts. To start off, you might want to catch up on [info]agilebrit's clairvoyantwank writeup. Clairvoyant indeed! To sum up, romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises teamed up with a publisher called ASI solutions to form Harlequin Horizons, a vanity press. Romance Writers of America promptly revoked Harlequin's "recognized publisher" status.

    And now for a wank in several parts, involving a goodly number of awesome people in addition to a wanking Cast of Thousands (tm):

    ( Part 1: PubRants )

    ( Part deux: various forums )

    ( Part Three: SBTB, and Nora Fucking Roberts )

    ( Part the last: The NEW YORKER?! )

    And finally, THIS JUST IN from PubRants. Watch that post for further fappery developments! Notably, Harlequin has decided to dissociate the "Harlequin" name from their vanity publishing rig in response to the RWA slamming them, and the MWA has weighed in. ETA: And the wank has matured nicely! Here's a couple comments of note: Anon #1, Anon #2, "Harlequin, were not stupid" [sic].

    And here come the ETAS!
    #1: SFWA tweets a heads-up, and the glorious katamari of wank rolls on!

    #2: Coutesy of [info]magnolia_mama, Lee Goldberg drops his two cents from the MWA soapbox. In a shocking turn of events, he seems to be making a cogent, reasonable argument. My world is rocked.

    #3: [info]annathepiper links us to SFWA's statement, which is possibly the strongest yet! For a snippet:

    ...Further, SFWA believes that work published with Harlequin Horizons may injure writing careers by associating authors’ names with small sales levels reflected by the imprint’s lack of distribution, as well as its emphasis upon income received from writers and not readers....Until such time as Harlequin changes course, and returns to a model of legitimately working with authors instead of charging authors for publishing services, SFWA has no choice but to be absolutely clear that NO titles from ANY Harlequin imprint will be counted as qualifying for membership in SFWA. Further, Harlequin should be on notice that while the rules of our annual Nebula Award do not expressly prohibit self-published titles from winning, it is highly unlikely that our membership would ever nominate or vote for a work that was published in this manner....SFWA does not believe that changing the name of the imprint, or in some other way attempting to disguise the relationship to Harlequin, changes the intention, and calls on Harlequin to do the right thing by immediately discontinuing this imprint and returning to doing business as an advance and royalty paying publisher.

    Count on the pew-pew lasers genre to bring the burn!

    #4: Found by [info]pariforma, someone named Jackie Kessler has an excellent (and amusing) summary of the whole mess on their blog. The pricing breakdown (with reference links to the Harlequin price-sheets themselves) is particularly well-done.

    #5, which should be like #3 but I missed it the first time: via [info]lady_ganesh, Mr. Scalzi has spoken. Does anyone else smell something...burning?

    ( Too Hot (and big) For Your Flist )

    Mmm, PR barbecue. As a bonus, there's a lovely herd of teal deer in the comments, including some truly lovely wanking by one Diana Peterfreund and a few others. Scroll on through, it's a good time.

    Blooper reel: We, uh, may have played a part in crashing SBTB for a while there. please don't kill meeeee

    #6: Zoe Winters continues her wanking in the comments of an article at the Examiner. Thanks [info]dreamworld!
    unfunnybusiness
    [ felinephoenix ]
         		10:38a
    Anti-Violence PSA Game Stirs Controversy
    I was kind of surprised this hadn't hit Unfunnybusiness yet...

    ( Cut for triggers. )
    unfunnybusiness
    [ cygnia ]
         		10:26a
    unfunnybusiness
    [ dana ]
         		8:56a
    opinion piece on Twilight
    This is the first negative opinion piece on the Twilight series I've seen on a mainstream newspaper (well at least one that's local), possibly I've been living under a rock, but it made me very happy.

    You know how hard it is when your flist is going on and on about a series you can't stand? Well, OK, you can just scroll on by, but now it's society which is going on and on about it, the advertising is driving me a bit insane, I can't wait until people move onto the next big thing.

    Warning, spoilers in article.
    ----
    When I was growing up, my literary heroine was Josephine March from Little Women. Jo was a lanky tomboy with no interest in frocks or gentlemen. While her sisters flirted and fretted about their noses, Jo scribbled in the attic, dreaming of becoming a writer. She chopped off her hair, threw snowballs and lived with gusto at a time when gusto was extremely unladylike.

    ( Bella has become a poster girl for the gender roles Jo and Anne rejected more than 100 years ago )

    Source
    Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
    unfunnybusiness
    [ issendai ]
         		11:02a
    10-year-old tased by Arkansas police
    Mother calls the police to her home to help her control her 10-year-old... again. Mother repeatedly tells the cop he can tase her daughter. After a brief struggle, the cop does. According to the police chief, tasing the girl was preferable to picking her up because "They can slip from you and fall on the ground."

    Link

    ( Text for the linkphobic. )


    ETA: The officer's report on The Smoking Gun, link courtesy of [info]heuradys.
    fandom_wank
    [ damien ]
         		2:18p
    Get your Satanic wank out of my distro!
    Background: Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux. Think of it as a version of Linux like you have Windows XP, Vista, Me, 95, etc. Some people created Ubuntun Christian Edition, which annoyed some members of the Ubuntu community who didn't see why a special religious-based distribution was needed but it was mostly a polite argument. Then, in retaliation, Ubuntu Satanic Edition was created.

    Cue wank.

    Not from the Christians, though! The wank was all provided by a Satanist called HHS and another Satanist who called himself 'friend of HHS', both of whom popped up in the comments box and kept a running argument going with several different people until he randomly disppeared.

    Most of it is under the cut, because it's long and takes place over years, but here are a few highlights to whet your appetite, both from him and people who were arguing with him.

    HHS starts off with saying "This is very insulting to my religion. I really don’t think you should misuse the Lord’s name like that.

    Richard M. Stallman, who is responsible for GNU and Linux, is a jewish psychopath who does not deserve to come near Hell. We do not want to be associated with him or anything made by this communist who never bathes and eats his own hair."

    People get confused and think he's a Christian who's objecting to Linux SE. Cue HHS exploding and warning them "It’s very unclever to go against the Lord and dishonour Him and His people. When you die and meet Satan, just try calling Him “jesus boy” too and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I assume that you two are Jews because they call everyone Christian who aren’t Jews or Muslims."

    ( All hail LINUX -- I mean, Satan/Cthulhu/Flying Spaghetti Monster/God/Allah/[insert deity or pantheon of choice here!] )

    Current Mood: Mystified
    undomielregina
         		2:52a
    *g*
    So the Onion AV Club has a thread discussing Twilight, the movie. I'm in the comments cheerfully breaking brains with Breaking Dawn spoilers. I'm also giggling maniacally because this is so much fun, you have no idea. There are few things I love as much as the BSOD expressions and incoherent comments people get after you start explaining the crazier bits of Twilight.

    This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. There are comment count unavailable comments on that post. Feel free to comment here or there.

    Current Mood: manic
    Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
    fandom_wank
    [ tetradecimal ]
         		9:01p
    Back off, man, I'm a scientist!
    From wank_report:
    Genevieve Koski, writing for the A.V. Club, offers her opinion on a recent screening of Ghostbusters for Better Late Than Never, the feature in which authors who never experienced some element of the pop culture of the past go back and review it with the jaded eyes of the present. Her opinion, of course, is negative.

    ( Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. )
    ...I don't have to warn for Ghostbusters spoilers, do I?
    fandom_lounge
    [ hypno_jango ]
         		10:21a
    Airing on Saturday on the CW, they are going to be airing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Oldschool/Newschool crossover.
    undomielregina
         		6:05a
    'Tis the Season
    Well, not quite yet, thank God. But I did just cave and buy three new Christmas albums, so that they'll be waiting for me on the 27th when I can break out the music again. I've got the Colbert album which, having heard all the tracks on last year's special, I can safely say will probably become one of the standards in my repertoire. It's funny, the music is pretty good, it's surprisingly true to the season, what's not to like. Besides, if Weird Al's album makes the cut (okay, it doesn't anymore, so I need something goofy to replace it) this should.

    I'm testing Tori Amos's album. I'm really, really not sold by the clips on iTunes, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, which is part of a longstanding tradition of buying Christmas albums that turn out to suck. (Not my tradition, my mother's.) These are then sold to a local record store for a pittance at the end of the season. In this case with digital downloads, I guess I'll just have to delete it and eat the loss entirely.

    And then there's Gold and Green, by a country duo called Sugarland. I have a not-so-secret addiction to country music, they NY Times liked it, and if there's any music well suited to country style, it's Christmas songs. I have high hopes.

    I did stay away from the Dylan album, though. Some things are too weird even for me.

    Before I can listen to these, though, I have to finish a week of classes and survive (*shudder*) my first Thanskgiving with a family other than the one I was born into. I like D's family, but I'm frankly terrified. Also, I have to bake cookies, since D and I agree that there's no way in hell I'm showing up without a dish prepared. I'll make my great-grandmother's molasses ginger cookies, and if those fail I guess I'll have to turn to the chocolate bourbon bundt cake, which is awesome stuff.

    The truth is, I love the holiday season, and I can't wait for Thanksgiving to kick it off, even if I'll be missing a lot of it this year. My parents decided that Christmas in Peru is a good idea, so we'll be there starting December 20th. Oh well, that'll be awesome anyway :D And I'll still get in plenty of baking, I hope. I want to make bourbon balls this year. Those are the best and they keep like gangbusters. Also, that bundt cake. I have a slight addiction to chocolate+bourbon. And snowflakes (basic Christmas cookies with a little flavoring in the dough and a light sugar glaze with lots more flavor in that. I like them in lemon and almond.) And maybe Linzer cookies again. Those were fantastic the year I did them. *sigh* All of these are happy thoughts.

    This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. There are comment count unavailable comments on that post. Feel free to comment here or there.

    Current Mood: bouncy
    Monday, November 16th, 2009
    unfunnybusiness
    [ vorpal_blade ]
         		7:45p
    Universal: It's the international movie-viewer who's racist, not us!
    I'm surprised this hasn't made it over here yet:

    Universal's UK 'Couples Retreat' Poster Brings Cries of Racism by Removing Black Actors

    The excuse?

    In response to outrage over the move, a Universal spokesman said the altered poster aimed "to simplify the poster to actors who are most [recognizable] in international markets."

    Universal "issued a statement regretting any offense it caused, and the studio has scrapped all plans to use the modified poster in other overseas markets" but this makes it sound like the problem is with the people who took offense.

    Current Mood: grumpy
    unfunnybusiness
    [ tehrin ]
         		12:57p
    unfunnybusiness
    [ aloysius ]
         		5:33p
    Breaking news: White men are being oppressed in Hollywood.
    Thinks crew members of NBC's Heroes. It all started when Jim Martin (assistant to show creator Tim Kring and himself a writer on the show) engaged in conversation with (former, now disgruntled) fans about the show, and in the process uttered such gems as "Anyone who thinks they can do better... I dare you. Go ahead. :) I'd love to see it." and "If you think that Racism and Sexism are thematically integrated in HEROES then you may want to check your intelligence before worrying about it being insulted." That post has since been deleted, but a kind mouse saved it and shared it with us in wank_report. In his follow-up post about the whole mess, he whined about how he liked the internet better when it wasn't so self-righteous, and left us with even more gems as "Look up the diversity programs for writers in tv. Ask anyone in the tv world. There is a distinct disadvantage to be a white male when trying to be a staff writer." and "I'm fully aware of what you are referencing, but I don't think its a problem on Heroes and I don't think white privilege is an issue in Hollywood at this point."

    Sounds bad enough, right?

    But no! Turns out that was just the start of a downwards spiral of fail, and it turns out that the fail reached new startling depths when Foz McDermott, a coordinating producer and writer of the show and perpetual bringer of anti-PC and misogyny fail, decided to use his own blog to reply to a particular comment that was left on Jim Martin's blog. He starts charmingly:

    “The idea that white privilege isn’t a problem in Hollywood at this point is an idea coming from a privileged standpoint.”

    Holy crap lady… if you are indeed a lady… that is hilarious. In a business that is scared of and run by pussy organizations that are so scared of being sued about everything, being OVERLY PC is the actual problem. Being a white male in the business of Hollywood is NOT easy. There are programs and incentives to help everyone except white males.

    ( no, it doesn't get better from there )

    I've personally been fuming about Heroes for months, but when it sinks so low, I'm not sure I can do much else than laugh.
    unfunnybusiness
    [ dana ]
         		11:17a
    victime blaming, it must be monday
    What makes me really sad, and well, thinky about this is all the times I've been groped on the train, probably a dozen or so times. I usually moved away really quickly, or on one memorable occasion I elbowed a guy in the stomach. But it nevered occured to me, at the time, or any time since, to take it to the authorities, or even talk to the rail staff.

    And the reason being? I don't know, I just accept that these things happen, I just accept it would be useless to make a fuss about it. In my mind, being groped on peak-hour commuting time is like spilling coke all over your dress, it happens, it sucks, you move on. Every woman knows when they are being groped. So I call bullshit on the Judges.
    ----
    Last April, the Supreme Court reversed a Tokyo High Court decision that found Masahiro Nakura, a professor of medicine at the Self-Defense Forces University, guilty of being a chikan (groper) after he was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old high school girl on the Odakyu train line in 2006. A majority of the judges said they thought the girl's statement was "unreliable."

    ( article behind cut )
    Source
    Sunday, November 15th, 2009
    unfunnybusiness
    [ darksumomo ]
         		2:30a
    Philadelphia swim club to declare bankruptcy

    Remember the swim club in Philadelphia that wouldn't allow African-American and Hispanic children to use their pool? They're back in the news.

    PhillyBurbs.com: Embattled swim club headed to bankruptcy
    By: CHRISTOPHER RUVO
    Burlington County Times

    A Lower Moreland, Pa., swim club that made national headlines after being accused of racism for turning away minority day campers plans to file for bankruptcy, according to an e-mail from the club's president to members.

    The announcement comes as the Valley Club struggles to cope with mounting debt and the cost of legal proceedings and lawsuits filed by families of children from Creative Steps Day Camp, a summer camp in Northeast Philadelphia whose members are minorities.

    "The truth is that the club has struggled to stay out of the red for the last decade," Valley Club President John Duesler Jr. wrote in an e-mail that was posted on a Daily News blog at philly.com. "Our current debt from this year's operation and legal fees exceeds $100,000."

    Oops! Looks like they got what was coming to them
    Friday, November 13th, 2009
    unfunnybusiness
    [ ardath_rekha ]
         		11:53p
    unfunnybusiness
    [ esclaramonde ]
         		8:55a
    Horrifying display on XKCDSucks
    Generally, when I check on my comics-mockery blogs, I don't expect to see unfunny misogynist diatribes. But it was not to be.

    ( :/ )
    Thursday, November 12th, 2009
    unfunnybusiness
    [ j_crew_guy ]
         		8:06p
    otf_wank
    [ jkefka ]
         		6:43p
    Go Google Go!
    Be ye warned: This is an incredibly nerdy wank and will involve a lot of programming jokes. That said, it's also pretty damn awesome. Picked up originally by [info]platelizard in random_lounge.

    Google, as we all know, is staffed by computer geniuses of the highest order, who program constantly. It seems that they found all the programming languages out there insufficient and clunky for their needs, so in a typically Google solution, they went and made their own. It even has its own mascot (the "Go Gopher"). Computer programmers everywhere jizz their britches, no wanking required. Google puts up an "Issue" form to report problems with the young language, and all is fine and dandy...

    Until issue 9, titled "I have already used the name for *MY* programming language."

    ( 'Go,' 'Go!' and bad jokes no one will get )
    [ << Previous 25 ]
About JournalFen