(no subject)

[cleolinda]

So, ice skating. I came out of the final night with an immense respect for both Emily Hughes and Sasha Cohen for continuing to fight and sell even after falling down (Cohen, particularly, because she biffed her first two jumps but it didn't kill her spirit; Hughes, particularly, for having so much spark and showmanship and recovering so quickly at such a young age). These two were particularly impressive after watching some of the early competitors skate limp programs, some of which were lifeless from the word go, but others you saw die on the vine right in front of you after a bad mistake. I feel bad saying it, but Miki Ando was just painful to watch. Meanwhile, Shizuka Arakawa was gorgeous and strong, and I think she fully deserved the gold, but at the same time, I drew more inspiration from Hughes and Cohen. I mean, I fuck up a lot. Not in the sense that I fall on my ass a lot, although it has been known to happen--it's more in the sense of missing a deadline, missing an opportunity, losing a contest, getting a rejection, and it's the guilt from one disappointment that keeps pulling me down to a second, and a third, and a fourth. Anyone who can go out there, fall down, and jump back up and immediately go into a flourish and grin--anyone who can START her program by falling on her ass TWICE but stay on that horse and ride it home to a silver medal--is okay by me.

(sunshine95: "Johnny Weir is also apparently obsessed with Russia...and Christina Aguilera. Yeah, I don't know either.")

(Tonight: Champions gala, whee!)

Dear Girl Scouts: Please come by my house and sell me cookies.

Dear Money Tree: Please spring up in the back yard. I have to pay my taxes and my COBRA. Oh, and the Girl Scouts are coming.

Arab Co., White House Had Secret Agreement. People, WTF?

I know there's a seeming issue of racism here on the part of those of us freaking out, particularly since the UAE has been "a solid friend" to us, but part of the problem is that the administration has spent a good five years now conditioning the American people to go into a killing froth at the mere sound of the word "Arab"--I mean, if you want people to overlook the non-sequitur quality of going after Saddam when we're actually trying to catch bin Laden, and the fact that the invasion of Iraq was made possible by the non-existent WMDs, you focus on making the American people as scared and punchy and outraged as possible. And now they're just like, "Yeah, we're gonna sell port operations to the United Arab Emirates. What?" And, as marcusisabadass points out, And, lest we forget Mr. Protect-America-At-All-Costs-Including-Civil-Liberties, the 9/11 attacks had more direct connections to the UAE than to Iraq. From the CNN article: "Two of the hijackers involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks came from the Persian Gulf country, and most of the money for the plot was funneled through the banking center of Dubai." Gawker kind of sums up what I want to say here: Except for All Those Times I Told You That You Need to Worry About Security. My concern has almost nothing to do with the UAE itself and everything to do with the mixed signals coming from the administration.

Also, I completely concur: "Just what in the hell is going on here? Why is Bush willing to ignore a federal law, piss off his own party, and put his "strong on security" reputation (well-deserved or not) at risk over this? It's come out that a couple guys in the administration have ties to the Dubai company, but that alone doesn't seem like enough. There's something even deeper going on here, and somebody needs to find out what it is."

The South Dakota senate passed a bill to criminalize abortions. Here's a scary hypothesis as to why it got passed now.

"Generation Debt: Why Now Is a Terrible Time to Be Young." Man, the linkspam is just cheerful today, ain't it?

Bono Among Nobel Peace Prize Nominees. I debated which linkspam section to put this in, honestly.

"Brokeback" rides into US popular culture. Honestly, I would have to say that the tidal wave of jokes and parodies indicates that we're accepting the movie, or trying to; I think it's a positive thing. You might get tired of homemade Fill-in-the-Blank Mountain movie parodies, but I'd rather see those than protests at theaters.

Diane Duane has decided how she wants to self-publish and distribute The Big Meow. Hit her blog if you're interested in reading it.

Question of the day: "Does it take a long time to get to be so shameless?"

Terrifying new celebrity couplings, including K-Fed's possible new mark. Meanwhile, Swank and Lowe patching things up?

Lawsuit reveals Netflix sends frequent renters to the back of line.

Pianist collapses, dies at performance.

Body snatchers plunder Alistair Cooke's corpse?

Aske Chaucere, parte the firste: fair Geoffrey has the answers to all your problems.

Illinois governor confused by 'Daily Show' bit.

PerezHilton.com Presents: Gwens! Possibly the best production values of any "Ring! Ring!" animation ever.

The Comment That Made Him/Her an Ex. Compiled from Salon Table Talkers.

Harassed NY pedestrians strike back with camera phones and blog.

dailydigestnews: The new Spider-Man 3 teaser poster; Supergirl?; Cary Elwes gets a TV pilot; Philip Seymour Hoffman obligated to bark Oscar speech? (Note: since I'm now doing 2-3 entries a day, friending that journal, if you're interested in it, may be a good idea.)

Comments

[elbales]

♥ ChaucerBlog ♥

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Was it just me or was Dick Button extra snark filled last night? He even got Scott Hamilton in on the action at points (granted, Miki Ando had it coming). He was just craaaaanky last night. I started laughing when he went off about the laces being untucked. Anyone playing the drinking game would have been hammered in 10 minutes.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

The Duane link is broken-- it appears to have two URLs mashed together.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

...and lest I lose my manners entirely, thank you!

[lostieborden.livejournal.com]

I can't believe my governor isn't hip enough to watch the Daily Show. I am ashamed!

(But thanks for the link anyway...)

[conejita-diabla.livejournal.com]

If you like the NYC bloggers, have you seen Dog Shit Girl (http://www.textually.org/picturephoning/archives/2005/07/009078.htm)?

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

Funny that the Netflix thing seems to have been kept a secret - the rental site I just joined is quite open about having a similar policy.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Thing is, the Daily Show is so politically important to people under, oh, 35 that it's astonishing he didn't know. Politicians can't afford to be ignorant of comedy shows. What kind of public relations advice is he getting?

[conejita-diabla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I've always gotten the impression of extreme cluelessness from good ol' Rod, so I'm not surprised. I thought the most shocking thing was how well he handled himself on camera, relatively speaking. He came off much better than I expected...

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Oh, and while I'm spamming your journal today, Cleo, I give you Johnny and the Russian girls:
http://tinyurl.com/h3j9g
(click to enlarge the picture accompanying the NYT article)

[punkiejeannien.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm just saying this because I'm not a huge Cohen fan (met her, she's a bitch, THAT girl from high school and all), but I think I do draw a lot of inspiration from Arakawa. She almost didn't compete at all in Turin, and decided to anyway. Along with Slutskaya, I also think it's amazing that she's stuck with the Olympics (particularly figure skating) to her age-- I feel silly saying that since she's only a couple of years older than I am, but that's sports I suppose. Biggest props for inspiration, though, of course go to Slutskaya. Man, what a kick ass girl.

On a somewhat related note... is it just me, or did it seem that just about everyone was off their game in the Olympics this year? Specifically skating? I mean, everyone's sick and fallng down... just seems odd to me.

[conejita-diabla.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm tempted to syndicate Chaucer Blog so I can have it on my flist. Anyone else interested?

[scotchwhisky.livejournal.com]

"And thus, take two pintes of hagen dasz dulce de leche, a ful seson of buffie the vampyre slayre, and calle me in the morninge."

<3.

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

Biggest props for inspiration, though, of course go to Slutskaya.

I just have to chime in and agree. When she got up after her fall and still smiled, and kept trying (even though she must have known she'd just blown her chances at gold), I cried a little out of sheer admiration for her courage. And when you consider what she went through to get there...man, there just aren't words.

[punkiejeannien.livejournal.com]

*sniffles*

I'm getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it. A friend of mine was rude enough to call with the results real-time, so I knew Slutskaya wasn't going to win the gold and I was on the verge of crying the ENTIRE program. I felt kind of ridiculous, but WOW. And then the commentators had to keep mentioning her mother... I was just like, "I LOVE YOU IRINA! YOU GET THE GOLD IN MY OLYMPICS!"

*sniffles again*

Ya lubloo Ruccya. (that's horrible transliteration, but we can pretend)

[jedilora.livejournal.com]

I guess it's the new scoring system-everyone had to do practically the same damn program in order to rack up the points.

As for me though, I'll be over here gleeing over Tanith and Ben in ice dancing. They nearly didn't even make it to the Olympics on a technicality of citizenship, and were talking at last year's Worlds that 'well, we'll just go in 2010, people in our sport have a pretty long career' and then there they were! On the medal stand! And the ice dancers were PRETTY.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Biggest props for inspiration, though, of course go to Slutskaya. Man, what a kick ass girl.

I'm not crazy about the whole Russian thing of power over artistry; like Plushenko, Slutskaya seemed to be trying to fill time between jumps. But she's cute, and she doesn't come off like an entitlement queen the way most of the U.S. women do, so I was rooting for her. My girl was Tugba Karademir, though, the Turkish girl. I was thrilled that she made it to the long program, and I hope we see more of her.

On a somewhat related note... is it just me, or did it seem that just about everyone was off their game in the Olympics this year? Specifically skating?

I think the skating is related to the new scoring system, which a) is more heavily weighted toward the technical, and b) rewards you for trying the more difficult jumps--even if you fall on your ass.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh, no. It is kind of unsettling, the article's right--

Online discussion groups crackled with chatter about every shred of the woman's life that could be found, and with debate over whether the Internet mob had gone too far.

I see this on Fandom Wank a lot, on various sides of a wank (and sometimes in the FW comments itself)--people become so incensed that they start looking up personal information and it becomes this Seek and Destroy mission way out of purportion to the original "crime," or even simple faux pas. It kind of reminds me of that adrenaline-rush madness that comes over you in the last five minutes of an eBay auction--you're willing to throw away hundreds of dollars BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO WIN!!

[maetang.livejournal.com]

I'd subscribe to that!

[conejita-diabla.livejournal.com]

Unsettling, definitely - but there's also something cool about it, in a way. It's almost...grassroots. Someone did something really unpleasant, was unpleasant about it, and got insta-comuppance. The people that were suffering from her rudeness were able to do something about it, themselves. While most potentially scary privacy issues are top-down, big-brother-type stuff, this one is actually quite empowering for the average person, in a way.

[neveth.livejournal.com]

Aye!

I love it. Gives me an excuse to excercise my old english muscles even though I'm not in college anymore!

[punkiejeannien.livejournal.com]

I am ALL OVER Ben and Tannith-- they just have so much fun when they go out there! We were talking about why they were different the other night and I realized all of the sudden that they're not boyfriend/girlfriend, fiancees, or husband/wife: they're best friends! I can't wait to see them again!

[punkiejeannien.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree the new scoring system has the figure skaters all in a tizzy, but it seems that even the speed skaters are a little off. I was reading something the other day about how the ice just doesn't seem quite right (not that I have ANY idea what that means, I don't skate I just fall). *shrig* Who knows.

[punkiejeannien.livejournal.com]

all. over. it.

[conejita-diabla.livejournal.com]

Weird...it didn't find it when I searched, but when I went to syndicate it, it looks like it already had been done. Regardless, I present to you:

chaucerhathblog