One more reason for my continuing (and not-at-all-creepy old guy) crush on internet music phenom Molly Lewis:
Amazing hand-painted Doctor Who themed Matryoshka dolls, given freely as a Christmas gift, humbly posted on twitter, and garnering thousands of admiring hits.
Assuming licensing issues could be worked out, she really ought to market these. Though mostly, I just love that someone came up with the idea, and that these exist at all.
Happy Boxing Day, everybody. Being that Christmas is behind us, and the last week of the year is beginning, it’s getting to be the time for reflection. So, I humbly present what you might call “a year in review”, of a sort, at least.
To start things off, I’ll deal with this little space you’re reading. In 2010, at least through today, right nowish, chuck dash parker dot net received 5295 page loads, which isn’t a speck of dust on say, one day of scalzi’s blog, but then, I don’t have several best-selling award-winning novels under my belt. My number is, however, within about ten percent of average for the last couple of years.
The day with the largest number of hits, for what it’s worth, was April 22, 2010, with 206, which, coincidentally, was the day the most popular post of the year went up, which was my little Doctor Who examination, from WHEN comes Amelia Pond?, which I can’t seem to coax out specific numbers for right now, but I’m still getting a handful of hits a day on. It is, one could say, my own personal bacon cat.
I could pull up more stats and stuff, but I don’t feel like it. I’d rather just put up a list of some of the posts I put up this year that I liked, so I shall:
a few good posts from the last year:
put up or (don’t) shut up
cause good ole days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems
politics, popularity, and game shows
time time time, see what’s become of me
embracing the awesome
stuff I like a lot – “Vincent and the Doctor”
responding to the “suck fairy”
that thing
I would like to register a complaint
Ask. Tell.
Just a couple of posts I thought were, if not particularly well written, at least enjoyable and maybe honest. Enjoy.
In the next couple of days, I’ll probably do some more things like this, if I get around to it. It’s cold and snowy outside, and I finally have a copy of Gran Turismo 5; I could be busy.
Not a bad day here, overall. Snow’s just started falling, though the meteorologist guys say that it’s not going to be the huge storm they were threatening last week.
I sit typing at my keyboard with the dulcet tones (or not) of the eldest’s rock tumbler rolling away polishing some semi-precious stones. At the other end of the house, the kids are beating each other up (mostly) virtually with the pretty new Playstation Move controllers while the wife sits knitting something with the new raw materials she received this morning.
Things have been otherwise peaceful overall, except for when the kitten took down the Christmas tree about an hour ago. Hopefully she won’t try that again.
Anyway, Happy Christmas, everybody within view of these words.
Later.
While I don’t have much to say on the explicit topic at hand in this post from slacktivist, I can say that every time I’ve ever found myself in a similar position than Fred describes, I felt at least, if not more (given the fact that I didn’t grow up in the Evangelical subculture) uncomfortable.
What I really want to point out from the piece is the paragraph quoted below, which really gets to the heart of the worldview of a lot of people my age and a little bit older:
And that’s when it hit me. Unlike everyone else in that room, I really was having the ultimate Gen-X worship experience. I had become a detached observer — standing apart from the others, from the music, even from myself. What could be more of a Gen-X experience than being self-conciously aware of your self-consciousness about your self-consciousness?
That’s really so much of the experience of being of a certain generation (though most of us aren’t comfortable with the labels so much anymore). Not everyone, of course, but a lot of us.
I could go into a deep, involved socio-historical explanation of where that cynical, introspective detachment comes from (and believe me, I really, really could), but really, it’s one of those things that if you’re going to get it, that statement is enough, and if you’re not going to understand, all the explanation in the world isn’t going to help.
Senate Passes “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal.
It’s long past time we got rid of the whole “gay people can’t serve” business, even if it is the “well, you can serve, as long as you never ever talk about it” variety. I, for one, am glad to see the United States take one step closer to catching up with the rest of the world in terms of equal rights for GLBT folks.
My personal argument against this kind of policy has always been tied solely to the most mundane of interactions. Here it is in a nutshell:
Lt. Heterosexual: “…had a great weekend, my wife and I had a great time out for dinner and a movie…” PERFECTLY OKAY AND ALLOWED.
Lt. Homosexual: “…had a great weekend, my partner and I had a great time out for dinner and a movie…” ILLEGAL, GROUNDS FOR DISCHARGE.
Really, it’s not about showers or lodging or combat morale or whatever excuses people have been making for the last however many years – the DoD survey pretty much proved that such things aren’t an issue, except for a handful of bigots who think about those things way more than is probably healthy, and for some reason figure that if nobody mentions anything, they can pretend that there aren’t thousands of gays and lesbians serving with honor and competence today, thus preserving their fragile, bigoted worldview.
In the end, it’s about a whole subset of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines being unable to talk about the totally banal bullshit we all talk about with our co-workers during down time without fear of losing their job.
That’s why the policy was wrong, and why I’m so glad this measure passed both houses of Congress. A lot of people got a really great Christmas present this year.
As I was clearing up the remnants of hotel taco night, I came to the realisation that tonight will be my last night in a hotel for the year, and will get to spend the rest of 2010 sleeping in my own bed.
I like that.
Sure, I’ll be living out of a suitcase again come January, but for now, I’m just going to pack my bag, settle down on the weird couch and watch one final bad movie on hotel cable, rejoicing a little bit in the fact that I won’t have to leave home for a while.
That, and not think about how much traffic’s going to suck tomorrow on the interstate, what with the snow coming and all.
I wish to take this moment in this space to add my voice to the teeming multitudes along the eastern seaboard, and say, with dramatic effect…
Damn, it’s cold outside. Seriously, bitterly windy and cold. Makes the bones ache and the skin sting. Yeah, it’s pretty much unpleasant all around.
But really, it’s December 14, it’s kind of supposed to be cold out, at least in the northern hemisphere. It’s not like this change in the climate is particularly unexpected.
Oh well. I’ve made my comment. From now on, I’m going to try to steer my little corner of the national conversation to other topics. It’s for the best, really.
It’s a Monday on the road, and as is my custom, I ventured out to the local Trader Joe’s for my bag of organic apples and bread-product-to-be-determined-by-price-and-impulse (since I head off to work before this hotel usually puts out it’s breakfast spread), and finally succumbed to temptation and bought a bottle of the infamous Two Buck Chuck, which in Virginia, sells for a slightly inflated $3.49, rather than the eponymous $1.99.
Getting in touch with my inner middle-aged housewife, I picked up the White Zinfandel. Go ahead, you may laugh. I was in the mood for something slightly sweet.
I can tell you, from experience, that the wine, known for it’s “extreme value,” is actually pretty good, especially for the money. I’ll probably stop again this week and take a couple of bottles (perhaps of other varieties) home for the holidays. If you have the means (and I’m guessing you probably do), it’s probably worth the effort to track down a bottle or three.
Also, I totally destroyed the cork on the bottle while opening it, and thus, am forced to drink the entire bottle this evening rather than let this tasty beverage go to waste. Oops.
