Tuesday Has No Phones

Thanks to JH's post I have updated to the latest version of semagic, and verily it is a pretty thing. I've also added insanejournal to the list so I am now thebratqueen at LJ, JournalFen, GreatestJournal, and InsaneJournal. Friend if you'd like. When possible I'll try to use this new Semagic thing to post to all journals at once. 'cause I'm lazy like that.

In a bit of randomness this vintage ad cracks me up.

I'm currently snuggled up on the couch and getting in some quiet time. This is part and parcel of me trying to recognize that downtime is important and should be valued and is nothing to feel guilty about. Not that I have necessarily succeeded at recognizing this, but I am trying. (sekrit msg to Zort: I'm still thinking about that thing we talked about. Don't have an answer yet, but at least I'm still pondering.)

Two days left of the family reunion. Not to jinx it or anything, but for a first go I'd say we did pretty good. Some things worked great, others were learning experiences, but at least we got it off the ground.

I'd say that the best part about it so far has been simply being a family together. Yes, various Things To Do were planned, but really those ended up being boredom-avoiding options that served as a vague framework around which we could gather. The real meat of it was the day to dayness of it. Esp since, with five kids ages 2-7, there was always plenty of chaos to deal with. So bonding thus far has come more from getting into a groove of everybody lending a hand somewhere than it has from Big Events. (Not that there wasn't overlap, such as during the hiking trip.)

M-Sis said that in many ways it's felt like living in a commune, and even made the Big Love comparison. Still, so far it's been a natural teamwork and that's been a great deal of fun.

Though I am more convinced than ever that me not having kids of my own would be a good thing 8)

As a note, you should head on over to liviapenn's collection of links on this topic as she's done a far better job than I ever could of recapping the current controversy.

For those under a rock not in the know, the short version is that the folks at daily_deviant put up a prompt of "miscegenation." If you're unaware of this word you can pat yourselves on the back and be glad this particular bit of disgusting human history managed to pass you by. However the idea behind it is that whites should not marry outside of their race because non-whites are subhuman. It's not a compliment in other words. A synonym for this word would not be "snugglepalooza."

Again hit the links in liviapenn's LJ for far better rundowns than I could give the offensiveness of this term justice to. The point that I'm focusing on leaps ahead to this post by the DD mods, which has disallowed comments. So instead of replying over there, I reply over here.

Specifically I reply to:

Second, your interpretation of the word 'miscegenation' as "implicitly calling people of color niggers" is simply not the prevalent interpretation around the world. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation. (applying the term, among other ways, to denote a mixing of classes, and setting out the various historical contexts in which the word has been used)
http://www.answers.com/topic/miscegenation. (applying the term generally, to connote mixing of races)
http://miscegenation.com/ (an interracial dating site)

Because ARE YOU KIDDING ME? As a friendly tip: read the links you're using as your fact-checking sources before posting them as documentation. In order, Wikipedia's entry takes all of two sentences before stating "Today, the term 'miscegenation' in English-speaking countries is often a loaded word and is by many considered offensive." of which the second sentence is the one I just quoted.

Answers.com doesn't hit it out of the gate as quickly but in the second paragraph we get to "The enactment of antimiscegenation laws can be attributed to a variety of factors, including economic considerations and a desire on the part of some for the maintenance of so-called 'racial purity.'" and then a more detailed history on how the concept and the laws therein were created to, amongst other things, "to force indentured white female servants to marry black male slaves to produce more slaves by birth from a slave father" Well that sure sounds like 100% fun with no room for possible unhappy interpretations! And I'm sure a Harry Potter community would have no reason to think that the concept of "racial purity" would be espoused by anybody but the good guys!

Finally, Miscengenation.com, the "interracial dating site." Because lord knows a title bar wouldn't lie. Click the link. It's a portal. A portal used to point to other dating sites (though really it's mostly to other portals but at some point one assumes a dating site of some kind will pop up). Of which "interracial" is only one category, and it's the one suggested as the more relevant link by the site in question. It's not as though there's anybody in Harlem right now saying "I'd like to explore my dating options in terms of the human color spectrum. Let me hie straightaway to miscegenation.com, for verily this is the site which I and all my brothers and sisters of color shall truly find our needs catered to." It's a domain name that got cybersquatted by somebody for whatever fuck unknown reason but it ain't match.com for the next generation of Mr. and Mrs. Willis.

Look, I'm not saying the DD mods are racist. I'm sure they, like many folks, did not know how bad miscegenation is. However it is eyerollingly laughable to try to say "Even assuming your narrow interpretation of the word 'miscegenation' was shared by everyone – which it certainly is not" when their own frakkin' links to defend themselves prove Zvi's point and not theirs.

Christ. Skim and hit your scrollbar once in a while. It won't kill you.

ETA: Just for shits and giggles I googled "micegenation." Here are the links I got:

Our pals at Wiki (and again)
The Miscegenation Hoax, which describes how the idea of mixing races was used to scare people.
The American Heritage Dictionary, which admittedly does not reference the offensiveness of the term
The American Melting Pot? which covers a good chunk of this fun and fluffy history.

And then dictionary, history, history, history, and an LJ post about the offspring of a horse and a zebra. insert your own "His wife?" joke here

Those are all the links on the first Google page that I got. I'm now vaguely curious as to what search terms the DD mods used to get their links, as apparently you've got to work for them and, as I mention above, it's not like the links worked out too well.

Idiot co-worker is still an idiot. Seriously, tips for how I should handle this situation would be welcome. My instinct is to privately talk to my boss and say words to the effect of how this guy cannot teach, and if my boss wants me to learn something it'd better come from someone else. But is that considered inappropriate? Should I talk to co-worker first? Other? Lemme know.

Called the local Borders and talked to possibly the dumbest girl on the planet re: how they're handling the HP thing tomorrow. All I wanted to know was when to show up to get my number/bracelet/ticket/whatever. She apparently wasn't even aware they were doing that. She didn't even know the store was staying open until midnight. I remain amazed she somehow was able to answer the phone and speak into the correct end.

Ah well. The pre-sale party starts at 9:30, according to the website. I'll swing by sometime around 8 and see if they're taking names/giving tickets. That was about the time they started last time.

LJ is made of fail and unable to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Others have spoken about this so you probably get the jist already. But you may not know about whatisobscene, where they are attempting to get a baseline for what the LJ community considers to be too hot for LJ. So to speak.

* It is hot

* I am tired

* For someone who needs to take meds on a daily basis or else Bad Things Will Happen [tm] you'd think I'd keep better track of where I put my prescriptions. Though this does go to show that, as always

* I am blonde

* I need new icons

* This has nothing to do with being blonde, I just feel like doing some icon housecleaning. Iconcleaning? That.

* Recs on where to find awesome SPN and Big Love icons would be fabulous

* Especially naughty SPN ones

* YOU KNOW THE KIND I MEAN

* Can someone tell me if I should have Chinese for dinner tonight?

* Thank you

Six Apart comments to news, not so much to paying customers.

The key quote?

"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not." -Barak Berkowitz, chairman and CEO, Six Apart

Also:

Berkowitz said the company would "obviously apologize" to anyone whose journal was deleted in error but added: "That's going to be a very small minority of the sites. I would be shocked if it's more than a dozen."

KISS MY ASS YOU FUCKING FUCK.

ETA: More info about the Warriors for Kissing My Ass Woman. Read it to find out whose opinion LJ likes more than ours.

Also I'm thebratqueen at Greatestjournal. Ditto Journalfen. I'm not leaving yet, but I want my options.

Okay, so I've been working on creating a new layout for myself. By which I mean "taking a layout somebody else has already shed blood and tears over and tweaking it to my own preferneces (while giving credit when it's used, of course)."

I think I've got it more or less settled to where I like it, but when I uploaded it to a random LJ of mine I notice that the coding on the friends page is not showing the "Previous 20, Next 20" thing at the bottom as it does on the main journal page. They're not showing in my sidebar either, though that I don't care about. I'm very much a bottom of the page kind of girl. I need my "previous 20/next 20" links at the bottom of the page like I need AIR, people. Without them I shall DIE!

My guess is that somehow the customized CSS got screwed up? Probably by me?

In which case, might someone out there be so kind as to look over my coding as it stands now and let me know what needs tweaking?

Thank you kindly. =)

*points to icon*

Do I need to say more? I don't think so!

This icon makes me happy in ways that are like unto pie.

Okay, it is officially so far the best birthday ever!

To begin with, last night I got birthday kisses from kita0610, who has also promised to kidnap me, dress me in a schoolgirl uniform, gift me with a mace and... well, you draw your own conclusions from there.

The ats_nolimits team has gifted me with two amazing final episodes that are awesome, done, ready for coding, ready for people to read and love on them. Much, much thanks to everybody who helped pull that off in spite of RL insanity and the utter albatross of having me for a showrunner.

versailles_rose sent me a card that made me snicker.

mpoetess sent me the best T-shit EVAH. It also arrived this morning so I opened my door to go to work and poof! There was a package!

airawyn gifted me with absolutely, positively, bar none the bestest fic that I could ever possibly imagine. Except I don't have to because she imagined it and wrote it already and it is awesome and I love it and I want to scuttle off in a corner and read it again and again and again only I can't because I'm at work and people keep expecting me to do things for money. But fic! Awesome! Perfect in every way except the "to be continued" part because what is up with that? Okay, yes, more fic is always of the good but it's been hours and I've had no updates. So any year now, pumpkin. *taps foot impatiently*

ladybug218 gifted me with a nifty thing that I shan't specify in case she doesn't want me crossing the LJ streams. But she knows what it is and I thank her.

And there are far, far too many of you who are wonderful and silly and fannish and enable me in my own silly fannishness which is wonderful and... [happy sigh] Thank you. =) Also thanks to those who send bday wishes who may not get a thanks otherwise. Work is busier today than I that it would be so I don't know how much flist reading I'll be able to do. If there's anything in particular (*cough*likeficorgraphics*cough*) that you'd like me to see, drop a link in the comments. =)

Speaking of link dropping, a few of you asked for the link to my wishlist for Xmas/Winter holiday pressies and such. I've got one with Amazon and Knitpicks but I need to make sure they're both current and not listing anything I already own. So once I do that I'll post the both of them.

In the meanwhile it is my birthday so I have no qualms about shamelessly begging for this:

I need Angel things! Icons, mood sets, icons, icons, and did I mention icons? notstakedyet is hurting for the pretty (*cough* and if nothing else could use higher-quality versions of some of the screencaps I had to use for some of the icons currently there). So whatever you can hook me up with I shall be happy to paw through and see if I can make use out of. Anything, everything, just has to be Angel (or David looking close enough to Angel for government work)

Oh - and the hotter, sexier, and holy mother of guh type ones are definitely welcome. Not that I'm engaging in an icon war with somebody. Oh no. that would be wrong. (But if I was I'd ask for those icons to be emailed to thebratqueen at livejournal dot com so that said somebody wouldn't see them until I uploaded them.) (Not that I am.) (Ahem.)

*squishes everybody*

*bounces off*

GIP, because if I'm going to do posts about work then by God I need Office icons. (courtesy of lvlwing_icons)