I just finished reading the novel Push by Sapphire. I have also seen the film. I enjoyed the movie, but I think the book is better; it goes into greater depth about the abuse the protagonist, Precious, suffers at the hands of her mother and father, and you get a better sense of who Precious is and where she is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the movie is wonderful too, and I highly recommend everyone go out and see it, but the book is very powerful and different characters are revealed in different lights. For instance, Sapphire's teacher Ms. Blue Rain isn't as white-washed as in the movie, and her original math teacher is revealed to be more of a coward than he is in the film. It also deals with the politics of Louis Farrakhan and addresses the inequity in the system more than the movie does. I wish I had read the book before seeing the film, but I am glad that the movie inspired me to read the book!

1.) My Yuletide story is off to the trusty beta. And again I am amused I ended up with the prompt for the fandom I only threw in as an afterthought. 'Twas very satisfying to write, though. No idea whether it's as easy to guess as my remix fic (which was easy if you know me; as skywaterblue put it, who else would go for a story based on one of the justly least popular DS9 episodes?). I also don't know the recipient at all, which I find in some ways easier than to write for a friend. (I'll never forget my nervoussnesss about whether or not astrogirl2 would hate Nowhere Man! The poor trusty beta who held my virtual hand won't forget, either.)

2.) Christopher Eccleston and Naoko Mori are going to play John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In a film covering the Beatles break-up years and the getting together of John and Yoko, no less. Mind you, the ages completely don't fit - I guesss Eccleston is older now than John Lennon ever got to be, let alone as he was in the late 1960s, and Naoko Mori while right for Yoko then looks younger than Eccleston when really Yoko was older. But who cares? They're both excellent actors, and I'm especially happy for Naoki Mori, who was mostly underused on Torchwood but when the show did allow her to shine really was magnificent. And hey, John Lennon plays right into Eccleston's type of roles.

3.) I already recced individual stories from this series before, but: halycon_shift has finished what amounts to a virtual season 3 of my much missed Sarah Connor Chronicles: Out on the Wire. Picks up right where s2 ended for both Sarah and John, uses the great supporting characters the show offers, and does justice to its complex themes. I'm still not over the cancellation and don't think I'll ever be, but great fanfiction like this helps somewhat.

Sincere though belated birthday wishes going out to the fabulous petzipellepingo! I hope you had a fabulous day.

Nicked from athena25 :


( Meme time! )

Right. Now everyone needs to sit down and take a big, deep breath. Because the Times (I blame Murdoch) has just made me want to go ballistic. It's a little article, calling for Men's Lib.

That's right. Men's Lib. Because men, you see, are second class citizens. Abused, under-rated, made fools of and generally in need of our help and support. Whilst, of course, earning more money and carrying around an invisible bag of privilige that is so big and so invisible that they appear to have forgotten about it.. The whole thing has left a massively bad taste in my mouth, reminding me of other such ridiculous comments such as how all "english" people are being pushed out by foreigners leaving the "indigenous population" as an underclass. Sure thing....

You see, as Penny Red aptly puts it. Just because bad stuff happens to privileged groups, doesn't stop them from being privileged. Additionally, the "man as second class citizen" whether as foolish foil in an advert or crumpet in a TV series is notable because of its exceptionalism. The vast majority of protrayals of men in the media is still as normative (i.e. the male is the norm, the female is the exception) sensible, fully clothed, serious and taken seriously. Just as a few court cases for sexism in the city will not overturn the lad's culture of the finance district, nor will a smattering of remarks in the office suddenly create an entire generation of men who work in typing pools and preen for the attention of dominant females. One male torso bared on a perfume ad does not suddenly make all the men in the world into consumables dedicated only for the delectation of women. Trust me on this..

But you cannot have your cake and eat it. And you certainly can't sit on top of a pile of hundreds of years of privilige and power, still alive and kicking in every aspect of society and also ask for my sympathy. Here's why. You cannot say that Page 3 is ok and an acceptable part of daily life and then complain that topless men on a poster are somehow unfair. You can't have the Pirelli calendar without Gucci underwear ads. You can't compliment a woman on her legs as you walk to work and then feel threatened when a woman says you have a nice bum. After all, she's only being "friendly"... The shoe is not so comfy on the other foot, is it? Especially with those high heels. But hey, they are meant to make you empowered! Yeah! That's it - see those boys on the billboard flashing their tight jeans - those jeans will make you empowered. Uh-huh.

Is turnabout fair play? No, because then we will be in a terrible eye-for-an-eye situation and we'll all be horribly messed up. But there is a balance to be struck. I am not saying that it's ok for men to be abused, to be made to feel powerless or unhappy because of thoughtless comments or actions. Of course it isn't. Neither am I saying that if a man feels he is subject to sexual harrassment he should have no legal (or social) recourse - of course he should. That's part of the programme. That no-one should feel hampered by their gender at all.

Right. So as an early Christmas present to me (and cos my laptop is going the way of the dinosaurs - slow, clunky and apt to freeze) I have bought one of these. Now, given that this isn't exactly the most powerful machine in the universe and because one of the reasons I got it was for speed + portability, I don't want to slow it down by installing photoshop. Also, I don't need photoshop (no, seriously, I don't). What I need is a programme that will crop, resize proportionally and do some basic level adjustments to photos I've taken with my iphone so I can upload them to the web from the notebook. Ideally I would like this programme to be free, but don't mind paying a little bit if it's easy, doesn't eat space on a computer or muck around endlessly updating when you are trying to do some work (Adobe, I'm looking at you here).

Thoughts?

Long weekend and only three more weeks of classes before Christmas! I can't believe that school is kicking my ass this hard. I've been in the working world, for pete's sake! I've been a department head! And yet I'm paddling hard to keep my head above water. Though it doesn't help that I'm also working on a large freelance project at the same time.

Last week, I had derry667 visiting, and that was very awesome. We swam outdoors at -30F (in a hot springs), went to the North Pole (... it's a town), and marathoned our favorite SGA eps from any and all seasons. She posted some pictures here.

Derry also brought the series to date of SGU -- or, as my husband and I have begun calling it, Bastards in Space. We watched the first episode with Derry and then mainlined the rest of it after she was gone. It's so hilariously awful that we can't seem to stop. ( This isn't really spoilery but just in case you really, really don't want to hear about SGU )

What else? I finished my sga_santa story, and it's even beta'd; now I just need to get it polished up and submit it. I haven't started my Yuletide story yet, but I have some ideas. I also want to try to get my SGA fic site updated this weekend; I haven't put anything new on there in over a year. In fact, perhaps after I'm done typing this, I'll go work on that ...

ETA: Oh, and the new challenge at sga_flashfic is a Gift Challenge, and you know what this fandom could really use right now? Warm, fuzzy, holiday team-exchanging-gifts stories. You know you want to. :)

I've got all my fic up on the AO3, yay. And so now I've been going back to clean up the tags -- both the story/character tags in the tag fields and the html. I don't know how many of you use screenreaders, but I rely on mine heavily. It makes the difference in my ability to do a decent beta, but it's a godsend if you have migraines or weak eyes. The trouble is, it doesn't read <i> with any different emphasis than the rest of the text, so there is no emphasis. For the voice to read with emphasis, the raw code has to have <em> instead. And since I appreciate it HUGELY when the reader reads it right when I'm listening to people's fic, I figure the least I can do is code my own stuff correctly.

Or maybe I'm just procrastinating. I am actually pretty nervous about the DSSS & Yuletide fics (that I haven't yet begun to write or even research, particularly. *hides*). I hadn't planned to go and recode old fics at all -- I made the recent ones screenreader-accessible from the get-go, and it's an enormous chore to go back and redo old stories. Do I have time for this? I don't know! However, rereading old fics to get the warnings and tags right has boosted my writing confidence a wee bit. I've never been a popular writer, but I might be slightly more competent than I've believed. (Which is almost enough to inspire me to find a pen, some paper plates, and a dry bathtub, as in the old days, and see if I can manage a few sentences. Almost. *ponders*)

I had a revelation about White Collar the other day while talking with China (she is GREAT for inspiring White Collar revelations, btw. I learn so much about these characters through the beta process). Anyway, here it is: the show makes no sense, and that's FINE because its plots make generally as much sense as any given Due South plot. The point is CHARM (and holy hotassery, omg). Obviously, I still want WC to be better, and I would be DELIGHTED if NYC became a character in itself. What this means to me mainly, though, is the show has so much potential for great fanfic. And I say that having just beta'd some. *g*

I wish I knew more about New York. And yes, this is my affection for City-as-Character speaking, I think, but it would be cool if TPTB were to take it and run with it.


Also, Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. FRTDNEATJ, I'm not celebrating this year, but I appreciate you all so very much. ♥

comment(s) on this post at Dreamwidth

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 1,074.

Thank you for squeeing.

Thank you for winning in LA.

Thank you for the many, many, fantastic stories, and vids, and artwork.

Thank you for our friendship.

Thank you for family--mine, and yours. (Thank you for sharing your families with me. Especially the kid stories.)

Thank you for a president I can believe in.

Thank you for winning on The Farm (we've got the Axe!).

Thank you for continuing the fight for human rights, even in the United States. Especially in the United States.

Thank you for picspam.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

[This has been the best November ever since the last best November ever: Jahvid Best is okay, we scored two upsets in a row, we still have the Axe, I had a great birthday, and my turkey gravy is awesome (the turkey itself had perfect dark meat and dry white meat; I'm still working on that. Next year).

Happy Thanksgiving, and Happy Thursday!]