Cleolinda everywhere

As of yesterday, The Lovely Emily now has a Baby Em, yay! She has a very pretty, classic name with a very cute nickname that I am not going to tell you because I love y'all, but this is the internet.

So... it's been an interesting week.


@cleolinda: My aunt just found a girl wandering around my grandmother's yard. Called the cops. Turns out girl is a known scout for a burglary ring.

( Fringe Boots then offered to dogwalk for cash )

Yes, I have seen the Edward Cullen "man pillow" on Etsy (it's half-man, half-pillow, and entirely made of NO), so you can stop sending me the link now. Also, if you haven't sent me the link and you don't know what I'm talking about, you can google that shit yourself because NO. I would also like to say: people, if you're going to be a pillow-molesting deviant, don't PAY for that shit. Get yourself some pillowcases or potato sacks or whatever and some cotton batting from Hobby Lobby and bust out the Rubber Stamp filter on Photoshop because I'm telling you, that's all it is. Keep your crazy homemade. Or just buy a vibrator like normal people, because everyone has needs--that's not the weird part; I'm saying that taking those needs out on innocent, humanoid home furnishings is. For real, you can get a wide variety of sex toys on Amazon these days. You don't have to stoop to this.

@lilithsaintcrow: @cleolinda You know someone will marry that pillow. It will be a WalMart wedding. I will BET YOU MONEY.

@cleolinda: @lilithsaintcrow They'll have to marry the pillow, because you know it won't agree to premarital humping.

Lately, I have become obsessed with the Pallas's Cat (which--HEY LOOK, IT'S A SEGUE--I discovered in the Twilight in Lolcats posts. Geometrical eyebrows sold separately), in no small part because they make the best faces ever. (I can't tell you how many times I've made this face recently.) And I will no longer be able to have a bad day ever again as long as this picture exists on the internet. In fact, I hear there's one at the zoo here in Birmingham; I will have to go visit him. That said, I don't think it'll be very good for his dignity ("WHO IS A PRECIOUS FUZZY BABY? YOU ARE!"), but it'd be a good excuse to get out of the house. And the botanical gardens are right there, and I've been wanting to see them again, maybe do another photo safari. It's a thought.

Linkspam: The OH SHIT Edition, in which I suddenly realize there are a ton of things I was supposed to mention and, inexplicably, didn't.

made_of_fail_pc does, in fact, have a new episode up.

greyduck's new photo comic Quacked Panes (the secret life of rubber duckies, if you will).

The Sirens conference (sirenscon, October 1-4, 2009, Vail, Colorado):

Inspired by the daring adventures of women characters and compelled by the brilliant works of women authors, Sirens is a conference dedicated to women in fantasy literature. The conference, both scholarly examination and professional retreat, welcomes academics, authors, professionals, and readers to attend—and provide varying perspectives on fantasy books by women, female characters in fantasy works, the market for fantasy by and about women, and how to support women in fantasy literature.

Our Guests of Honor in 2009, our inaugural year, include authors Tamora Pierce, Sherwood Smith, and Kristin Cashore, each of whom has written of strong, smart women warriors. In addition, all attendees are encouraged to propose presentation topics related to women in fantasy: history, social studies, fan studies, business, specific books and series, fantasy generally, or even Sirens's 2009 focus on warrior characters and the women who write them.

The thing is, and I feel awful about this, the due date for proposals is tomorrow. Somehow I got "June 20" stuck in my head and thought I had plenty of time to mention it, because I suck. So if you do have something you think would work, do think about submitting that. I don't know that I'll be able to go, but I would love to and will if I can (depending on health and finances), so if nothing else, keep it in mind if you think you'd be interested in attending.

(Additional details: registration is currently $175 [all programming, events, keynotes and keynote food]; hotel is $109 for 1/2, $134 for 3-4. Adds praetorianguard, "Hotel is the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa. Think library, awesome bar, hot ski bum staff.")

From quizzicalsphinx: "Since you're an Alabama girl too, I wondered if you might link people to the Calhoun County Animal Shelter's Donation Page. Due to the economy, they've had steadily declining donations and two weeks ago, they lost their gas. I can't confirm this rumour, but word on the street has it that, as of this morning, they lost their electricity and water as well. If the utilities cannot be restored, up to 300 otherwise adoptable animals may have to be euthanised. Here's the local news report."

From sachielle: U.S. Manga Obscenity Conviction Roils Comics World; Neil Gaiman On The ‘Obscenity’ Of Manga Collector Christopher Handley’s Trial.

Assorted thoughts:

A couple of mail-related things--Lelio? I couldn't figure out what your LJ username was (to contact you), but I did get what you sent me? Also, I brilliantly lost the message (comment? email? PM?) where someone mentioned Rement, but I did get that package as well. The one with The Littlest Shopping Basket?

God, I need an intern.

Lots of jaw/tension headaches. Not sure if it's the weather (air pressure) or not. Or possibly a buildup of massive amounts of fail.

Slept in today, then made necessary purchases at local shopping centers. May go see Up tomorrow.

Yelled at people on eBay who could not hear me for bidding against me on a bargain and thereby making it less of a bargain. Won the auction anyway (it ended at only $18, I am not nickel-and-diming myself to death, stop saying that). You will find out what it was several weeks from now, I think, although rest assured that it is merely a prop, not a character.

Making a doll-sized longbow? Not as easy as you might think.

Let's go ahead and get two days of linkspam out of the way, shall we? ( We need to cut a bitch on Roger Ebert's behalf )

Zoos ask, what to do with an aged lemur? Ohhhhhhhhh, what do you do with an aged lemur, what do you do with an aged lemur, what do you do with an aged lemur early in the morning?

[Poll #1208688]
... so early in the morrrrrrrrning!

( Linkspam )

I know a lot of y'all think that American Idol is a crock, but I feel like rambling on about it anyway. I'm not saying it isn't, actually--to me, once you get past the embarrassment-squick cattle call auditions, it's a group of reasonably talented people doing orchestra-backed karaoke for an audience of 15 million people, which is totes okay by me. ( Then there was a shriek from my general direction )

( Linkspam )

So the McJackass clan has passed two more checks--this time at Target and Home Depot--so they're up to something like $2400 now. But that's not $2400 coming from us--as raven_feathers succinctly pointed out, "It's not about your money in your bank. It's about the swag." They're actually stealing from the retailers, not us, since banks tend to back their customers up, it seems. Of course, if the McJackass clan starts applying for credit cards under our name, we're screwed, but there you are. And it's already hellaciously inconvenient to go around with certified bank letters explaining what happened to everyone my mother's written checks to in the last two weeks. Plus, any automatic payments made on that account will have to be updated to the new debit/credit card as well.

(Since people brought the issue up: my mother does drop checks off to be mailed at official USPS boxes, so they weren't poached from our mailbox.)

I'm starting to worry about my mother's health, actually--my grandmother's had shingles for nine weeks now, and while they're almost gone, this has necessitated my mother and my aunt taking turns to go by her house to fix each meal and help her with the ointments, and the strain of constant running-around is starting to get to both of them. So then we have the Great Check-Washing Scam of 2008 and all the crapfulness that's entailed, and today my mother had to stand in line on her lunch hour (after taking care of my grandmother) at the DMV to re-pay for the family car tags, since those checks had bounced. Since it's the first of the month (which was particularly galling, since she'd gone out of her way to pay for our tags early), there were about a hundred people in line. And then the presiding deputy told eight of the ten women working the counters to go on to lunch. All at once. 80% of them. With a hundred people in line. "You have another story to tell your people," she said grimly when she stopped by the house (she calls y'all "my people"). "I'm standing there with steam coming out of my ears afraid I'm going to sink down through the floor because it's melted underneath me." That's not really a story; it's more just "a thing that happened without any climax or comeuppance or dénouement," but I wasn't about to tell her that.

My point is, I'm really worried about her stress levels. I mean, she's always been a type A personality, but I think she's got an overload of fuckery on her plate at the moment. I'm really hoping that I can finish these annotations (which I originally thought, somewhat hilariously, would take me a weekend) a few days before Mother's Day, so that hopefully I can write her a check and wrap it up in a pretty box and give it to her as a surprise. Any little bit I can pull together would help at this point, I think.

Oh, and the police department here said they would need to go to Columbus, Georgia, to file a report. The bank's already dealing with it, obviously, but they'd suggested we go to the police as well. So my mother's going to talk to her people--the UAB police department, whose benefits she administers and firing squabbles she mediates, to get their advice. (See, she has people, too. Everyone should have people, I think.)

Another massive linkspam--sorry about my spam management, you guys. : ( I've got some reader links, but I'm saving them for tomorrow so they're not completely lost in the tidal wave of awesome. ( Read more... )

Annotated "Dracula" on Wednesday; wrote as much on "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Hidalgo" as I could without the internet (which turned out to be surprisingly little, compared to the other parodies--only 50 notes or so each). Ended up taking Friday and Saturday off, because my eyes had started burning and a bit of the vertigo came back (congestion related to allergies, I think). Probably best not to get burnt out this early in the process. And then someone actually sent me the Webkinz black cat I was going to get for myself, which was a really nice surprise (hee!). So... basically, I'm going to pick another one to look forward to while I slog through, because I'm just that lame. Heh.

Also, I need to start drinking more often, because I had a glass of white merlot with dinner, and I'm a little woozy now. (Maybe I'm just not used to the feeling anymore, I don't know.) Maybe I will instate a quota of one (1) Woodchuck Amber per evening or something (I hate the taste of beer), because this is just sad. My favorite drink in college was Long Islands, y'all. And if nothing else, you'll have 100% more annotational entertainment as I attempt to work while toasted.

Oh, Jillian emailed me the other day--"The Extreme Makeover Home Edition show has announced email casting/nomination for Illinois and the more people to send in nominations for us the better." The entry with details at Christina's journal: "The TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition is casting for the state of Illinois. We have sent in the application but I need the help of my friends and your friends if possible. I only have until May 7 to get as many letters to the producers to try to get our family chosen." She also describes what they need--why they'd like to get on the show.

Another entry from Erin (see previous entry), and it's not good this time. ETA: She's deleted and reposted something else.

More linkspam--I apologize for the sheer massiveness of it, but various crapnesses got in the way of posting. You may want to at least give the headlines a cursory skim, because there's some really good stuff in there. ( Read more... )

When Sister Girl's best friend came over this afternoon, she saw that there was a police car outside the house across the street, where a girl I went to school with (both high school and grad school, actually, although the latter was a mixed grad/undergrad class) lives (or at least her family does; I don't know the exact arrangement) and was sobbing hysterically. Somehow this turned into "Their house has been broken into," although I don't know how Sister Girl and Best Friend came to this hypothesis, but my mother has just now been across the street to check up on things, and this is what happened: Lauren (the other girl) came home and found two of their five cats (including, rest in peace, the Shaggy Cat) mauled to death on their back deck. There's a third cat currently missing, though wounded or dead no one yet knows. She was able to describe two large, black, shaggy (I think? I'm not sure?) dogs who had broken into their yard and completely pulverized a bush, apparently, in their zeal to get at the cats; I'm assuming they were still on the scene when Lauren found the cats. Now, because I'm lazy, I'd rather walk our dogs out to the back yard to do their thing than drag them around on leashes, and they're old enough now to understand what Go Outside means, so I just shepherd everyone out back three or four times a day. (We have a very tall, very sturdy wooden privacy fence--in part to keep vagabond kids out of the pool--so I think we were safe.) So I had no idea that these two dogs had been terrorizing the street all day, according to other neighbors--at one point even charging a small toddler who lives next door to Lauren. At least two different families keep their dogs in open yards with those zappy perimeter collars, too, so if their dogs had been outside, they wouldn't even have been able to flee if attacked. Fortunately, I think the woman across the street was able to grab the toddler and get inside before anything happened, and no one else's pets were hurt. But Lauren's parents and the police officer started combing the bushes up and down the street, hoping to find the missing third cat, when my mother saw them and took the opportunity to ask what was going on. Apparently another neighbor had seen them as well and told Lauren's mother to get in her car and he'd follow the dogs one way and she could go around the other, and he was able to follow the dogs up [Street Near Me]. He had lost them by that point, but the neighbor asked a man standing outside if he'd seen them, and the man said, yes, actually, he had. A gray pickup truck with a ladder in the back had come forward and stopped; the driver had gotten out and hustled the dogs into the back, and then he had driven backwards to get out of the neighborhood, apparently rather than let anyone see his plates. Which says to me that he knew his dogs were dangerous, and very possibly had caused havoc before, and he knew that he was going to be in deep shit if anyone caught up with him. I mean, I'm sure they escaped--not like he purposely set them loose--but the police are looking for a truck of that description now, and if anyone sees the dogs out marauding again, they're to call 911 and someone will immediately be sent out to catch them.

(Jesus, those poor cats. I mean, I'm still sad that Lucky passed away a year ago today, but we discussed both his passing and Meko's at the respective times, and we were all glad that they went suddenly and peacefully and painlessly. Lauren's cats? ... Not so much.)

Let's clear out the linkspam before Lostnesday, shall we? ( Violent pizza, Menudo, Get Smart, Barbarella, omgwtftree )