Dude. Why do all of my favorite sci-fi writers have to be so batshit?

Quote:

Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.

And Ringworld is one of my favorite novels, too. Sigh.

A couple more half-assed recaps. Sorry it took so long to get more out, but, uh, I've been a little busy.

( The Visitor )

( The Encounter )

So I'm still alive. Everything went pretty well, I think, and I'm recovering quickly.

( Cutting for details. Lots of details. Possibly TMI. )

I really appreciate everyone's prayers and good thoughts! So far, this has been a (mostly) good experience.

Just typing this out kind of makes me want to shoot myself, but, um...I kinda sorta love Miley Cyrus. "See You Again" is such a cute song, and I've been playing it all day. But come on, these lyrics...

The last time I freaked out
I just kept looking down
I st-st-stuttered when you asked me what I'm thinking about
Felt like I couldn't breath
You asked what's wrong with me
My best friend Lesley said "Oh she's just being Miley"
The next time we hang out
I will redeem myself
My heart it can't rest till then
Whoa Whoa I
I can't wait to see you again

...are totally adorable.

My mental age is like 13, I guess.

This is probably the most narcissistic meme ever, but what the hell, everyone else is doing it. Stolen from mizzmarvel, but I've seen it everywhere.

If you would like, please quote a bit of my writing at me. Find that one story of mine that you really like, and find a sentence or a paragraph that presses your prose-buttons in the right way, and comment here with it. I don't care how long or short the excerpt is.

All my stuff is here.

What. The. Fuck.

Seriously, I don't get it. This isn't art, this is batshit insane, and disturbs me on a level I can't quite articulate.

::shudders::

ETA: Actually, it's all fake. (I still think it's massively gross, though.)

ETA 2: Or maybe it's real after all. WHAT.

I'm really not dead. Or even seriously injured. Just, between school, work, big bang fic, and getting ready for surgery (OMG MONDAY!!!), I'm not having a lot of time to be all posty. I probably won't have much time to update in the next couple weeks, but I will try to let you all know how the surgery goes (again, OMG MONDAY).

Although I do want to say, real quick, that I got the cutest damn haircut in the world. I might post pictures if I could ever find my digital camera. ;)

ETA: Um, really?

You know, if we're going pick a president based on how they eat (or don't eat) a cheesesteak or their bowling score, we really don't deserve democracy.

Sigh.

So last night I went to the My Chemical Romance show with ataniell93, who is as awesome in RL as she is on the internets. It's always fun to meet LJ friends in RL, and last night was no exception.

The concert itself...okay, so I'm probably going to be pelted with rocks for saying this, but if I was Supreme Ruler of All, My Chemical Romance would have opened for Billy Talent, instead of the other way around. Billy Talent kicked so much ass last night. I think the highlight of the entire show, for me, was when they did Fallen Leaves, although Red Flag was pretty fucking awesome, too. Benjamin Kowalewicz (lead singer) is so insanely talented, and it was pure joy to be able to watch him live. LOVE.

MCR was awesome. Of course. What else would you expect? Tragically, I was hoping for a little kissy groping (I've seen the pictures my bandom friends have thrust upon me), but not so much. But the music was great, Ray Toro was ridiculously good (I just adore him) and Gerard was fucking adorable, so yeah. Cute. I enjoyed it loads. Way worth the money.

After the concert, my mom was late picking me up (*insert epic sigh*), and ataniell93 didn't want me hanging out in front of the Warfield, so she brought me home with her, because she is made of win. Then I pulled up Google Maps and directed my poor mother through San Francisco, like a real live TomTom. That was fun.

All in all, SUPER AWESOME night!

I had a not-so-happy work experience, today.

While setting up the store, a group of us started talking. Somehow, the subject of diet came about, and I was surprised (and happy) to learn that one of the girls was also a vegan. I love meeting other vegan people, because we'll always end up exchanging recipes and commiserating about the realities of being vegan in a omnivore's world. The other girls were really curious about being vegan, so I shared some of my experience and gave them some advice.

A little while later, Vegan Girl cornered me, and she was angry. "You shouldn't say you're a vegan when you're not," she snapped.

"Um, I am a vegan?"

"You're so fat," she said. "You can't be a real vegan and be fat."

( The drama continues behind the cut... )

Torture is wrong. The End.

(ataniell93 has a much better post up on the subject. I'm so insanely angry that there's debate about torture, in 2008, in America, that I can't even articulate right now.)

So I keep hearing about the X-files movie that they're (finally, finally) making. And it is so weird, because five years ago, I would have been FREAKING OUT, gobbling up every bit of news and second guessing the casting and just basically hyperventilating ten times a day over the movie, but now...I don't care? It's almost sad, how little I care, when X-files was such a HUGE part of my adolescence. Sigh.

In other, real life news, I am loving my job. Bath and Body Works is the coolest place to work, ever. It's impossible to be sad when I'm there. Everything smells good, and everyone who comes in is happy, and there's bouncy music playing, and it's almost not like work at all (except for the ENDLESS BOXES I have to go through, but whatever). Also, employee discount! My boss is super awesome and my coworkers are great. Okay, so it's only been three weeks and this might just be the honeymoon period, but for right now, I am loving it. :)

I hope everyone had a good Easter! Or a good Purim. Or, you know, a good weekend, for those of you who weren't observing any holiday. :)

My Easter was incredibly normal. We had an Easter brunch at church, like always. I sang "I Know My Redeemer Lives." Like always. As a congregation, like always, we sang, "He Arose," "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and "The Easter Song" then put those songs away for another year. (Question: Why does every traditional Easter song go so incredibly high?) Then we had a big Easter dinner at home with tons of people, like always.

My mom made Resurrection Buns and they were, like always, completely delicious. (Resurrection Buns, for those not in the know, are made with sweet roll dough wrapped around a marshmallow. When you cook the rolls, the marshmallow melts, leaving the roll hollow inside. Like an empty tomb, get it? Resurrection Bun? Silly, I know, but very yummy.)


So yay, Easter was awesome, and now I'm on Spring Break, which is double awesome. :)

I wrote a SGA fic this week. Not to brag, but the beginning is great, and the end is solid, and I even managed to write decently hot sex, for once. So I was feeling pretty good, until I read the whole thing over again, and realized that without even trying, I can pick out like 10 plot holes. Sigh.

Yeah, I could gut the thing and rework it, but...I'm incredibly lazy. And I just plain don't care that much. I think I'll keep it, though, and cannibalize it later. (I've got a whole folder called "The Chop Shop" where I keep fics that suck ass but have some redeeming qualities, and borrow when I need spare parts for other fics.)

And this is why I'm an Obama Girl.

It so refreshing to have someone so articulate and intelligent running for president, instead of a rush to the lowest common denominator. Obama isn't trying to convince us that we want to have a beer with him, he's trying to convince us that he has the intelligence and conviction to help solve the deep problems of our country -- problems beyond "oooh, brown people are going to hurt us! -- problems that don't get addressed in a serious way by politicians, like racism and homophobia and religious bigotry.

I don't agree with Obama on every issue -- his position on gay marriage, for one, infuriates me -- but I do believe that his stance on issues is thoughtfully considered, rational, and open to change with new information.

I do think it's sad, though, that I'm looking at this video going, "Oh my God! We could have a president who can speak intelligently," and that's, like, not a given. Sigh.

So in a fit of nostalgia, I've begun re-reading my Animorphs collection. For the last couple years, I've mostly cracked them open for scene-specific fic research, but I haven't gone through the whole series in ages. (As a wee thing, I used to re-read the entire series, in order, once every few months. Because I am a huge nerd.)

Inspired by poisonivory's BSC reviews, I've decided to comment the books as I read them. These won't be super in-depth, and, disclaimer, I'm not even going to attempt to make this a regular thing. My goal is to have a new entry every week or so, but I'm pretty busy right now, so it'll happen when it happens. :)

Oh, PS, my commentary is going to include spoilers through the whole series. I'd apologize, but the series has been complete for seven years, now.

( And it all begins with The Invasion... )

Valarie just loves shitty teen dramas. You know--misfit kids, high school hell, usually a suicide attempt or some cutting. Her favorite movie is Odd Girl Out, which she watches at least once a week and usually cries over. Gag me with a spoon.

In desperation, I decided to get the ultimate angsty outsider teen movie, and rented Rebel Without a Cause, which she had never even heard of. She was willing to give it a try, though I was a little worried that she'd get bored, because it's a very different style of movie than what she usually likes. While the movie was playing, I couldn't see or hear her--she was on the top bunk, I was on the bottom--so I wasn't sure what she was thinking, until the end, when from above me I heard great gulping sobs, and a choked-up, "Wow."

So, uh, the movie was a hit. Also, she has a huge crush on James Dean, now. Go me. :)

Just finished my Western Civ. midterm. Whoosh. It was an essay question that was so broad--"Trace the rise of the British, French, German, Russian, and Japanese Empires and their impact on the rest of the world"--it could have been re-worded "Please write down every word that has come out of my mouth since the beginning of the semester" and would have achieved the same result. We had an hour and half, and after forty-five minutes, I finished up Great Britain and freaked when I realized I still had four countries left. I squeezed everything in with a minute-thirty left to spare, and while it's far from the best thing I've ever written, I do hope it'll be acceptable. I got a 94% on the objective part of the midterm (taken two days ago, she splits the midterm over two sessions...100 pt. objective, 100 pt. essay), so I have a little wiggle room. Not a lot, but enough that I'm not stressing out too bad.

My American history midterm in an hour and a half, however...*silently screams*

Oh well, by this time next week I'll be all done with midterms. Yay.

But this little bit of Supernatural (gen) fanart just made my day.

ETA: All done for today! Other than confusing the various conquistadors, I think I did alright.

Stolen from lordhellebore...

List 10 fictional characters you'd have sex with.

( Huh. I guess I'm fictionally bisexual. )

I want everyone on my flist to do this one! It's fun. :)