group_x | Open Thread

This video of Just A Minute live at WorldCon, with Seanan McGuire. I woke my dad up I was laughing so hard. (I stopped watching when just a minute ended, so no idea what the second hour is like.)

And AUGH like five times now I have tried to make this baby blanket pattern work and I keep ending up with a stitch leftover or a stitch missing and I want to scream and break things and I am just going to make a goddamned rectangle. Just have to decide whether I want it to be every row knit for easy, or try to do some kind of ribbing. Leaning towards the I don't have to pay any goddamned attention or count anything option.

(Hi, I react rather violently to frustration. Today in Reasons Shi Should Not Have Children.)

I have been focusing on my ace scarf project for ages now for that specific reason--I was trying to do a DNA tank top with a fairly confusing pattern and I messed it up and had to unravel it and instead of starting again I'm mostly going "lalala going to work on my garter-stitch scarf now where I don't have to think" instead. Which is good, I wanted to work on it anyway, but. Agh knitting frustration.

Seanan McGuire is brilliant! Have you listened to Red Roses and Dead Things? I like some of those songs more than is reasonable.

I have all four of her CDs and and all six currently released books. And I have the Wicked Girls poster and a Chimera Fancies pendant from the Rosemary & Rue auction. And I follow her lj. >_> I might be a little bit of a fangirl. HOW DOES SHE DO EVERYTHING SHE DOES.

I think Dear Gina is my favourite on Red Roses And Dead Things, and I really want to read a short story based around it because SO INTERESTING.

QI. Lots and lots and lots of QI. Except that sometimes it hurts when you know that Stephen Fry is wrong ;_;

Dry humor, dark humor, sarcasm all tends to make me laugh.

I'm so used to dark humor that I've lost perspective about what is "too dark" for people who aren't usually into dark humor, lol.

The literal video of "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Every time. :D

I've seen that before and yet I still can't believe that was the actual music video for that song. It... has nothing to do with the lyrics and is really weird besides!

There are some bizarre music videos. Like the one for Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This. It has a cow. WHY IS THERE A COW.

And not just once, but it has lots of cows! Over and over again! Why??

Unless it's some sort of statement on animal abuse or... something? But I really don't think so.

That actually kinda gives me hope that in 20 years, all the misogynistic music videos out there right now will seem just as bizarre and... backward too.

You gave me much needed cackling time. :D

In other news, I have just produced AMAZING granola bars, even if they don't really hold together as bars they are SO DELICIOUS OMG. These: http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/02/thick-chewy-granola-bars/ and I left out all the granulated sugar and used all honey instead of corn syrup and used the peanut butter and used chopped dried apricots and dried cranberries for the fruit and added nutmeg and maple extract. THEY ARE SO GOOD Y'ALL. Om nom nom nom nom nom nom

Oooh, I need to try making my own granola. I was making oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies as emergency back ups for when I forget about food, but granola squares sound like an even better idea. Mmmmmm, rolled oats.

I posted the Carnival of Aces round-up and I am super nervous it's going to be trolled :( Most people posted on blogs where they could screen comments, but one person's post is on Tumblr and I'm worried for them, and then of course the link I posted on Tumblr to let people know the round-up is up and aaaagh.

Is it sad that a big part of me is saying, "Suck it up, you've never been trolled, and if it does happen it was going to happen eventually :/

Deep breaths, self. Deep breaths.

I was terrified of that same thing happening to me last month, but I got very little by the way of extra attention from it. Hopefully the trolls won't bother you.

Also I have reading comprehension fail and inserted a "to" into that sentence.

I think the round-up is awesome, personally.

Thank you! That does make me feel better. Fingers crossed.

I keep missing the post about the round starting. This month!

Chemistry Cat, the puns are terrible, yet hilarious.

eeeeeee, nerd puns!

I know right? The Batman one actually took me a bit to get until I started singing 'na na na na na na na na na BATMAN' in my head. Then I facepalmed while laughing.

Hah, I caught that one straight off--and then had to run down to show my Chemistry-geek roommate because of the AWESOME.

I like the one about not inhaling nitrous oxide the best, though.

I always laugh at that one, but I think my favorite is the neutron walking into the bar. Just because it's so very terrible. Before I started reading these I hadn't realized how much of the period table I knew.

I enjoy making fun of my job. See, I work in an evolutionary biology lab on sexual selection and specifically my current project is about courtship behavior in fruit flies, so my job is an endless source of a) mad scientist jokes and b) asexual jokes.

In particular, the level of time I spend sexing virgins will never fail to amuse me.

ALSO: Singing "Still Alive" in the lab while asexual is the best thing ever. Both mad scientist jokes AND cake jokes! What's not to like?

Aperture Science lab coat y/n? And your job sounds like all kinds of awesome.

asljfl YES. Only I don't actually wear lab coats unless I'm really really cold most of the time. >> Still, I wanted to buy a lab coat just for fun anyway...

My job is all kinds of awesome, seriously.

Incongruity amuses me - I have quite a strong sense of the ridiculous!

Favourite TV comedies at the moment are The Big Bang Theory and The IT Crowd. They're very similar in many ways - the main difference, I'd say, being that one is American and the other British.

Unrelated to the topic:

I posted the call for submissions for this month's Carnival of Aces over at my Dreamwidth.

I just need to vent. Maybe there should be a rant post for this kind of stuff?

Background; I wrote my university personal statement on asexuality and what it means to me. It's actually a trimmed and changed version of the love letter I wrote, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I sent it to a few friends I trusted for proofreading and grammar nitpicks and so on, and eventually I worked up the courage to send it to my mother. One reason was because she just... would not stop asking (fair enough), number two was because she knows former admissions officers and she promised to send it to them to look at, and numero tres was because I'd tried to explain my asexuality to her in various flavours of subtle five times by that point and frankly I just wanted to get it over with. (Why coming out to my family is so important to me is another topic entirely... I might write it for the Carnival.)

In any case, my mother sent it to my family (my dad and my older sister), and no one else. She then had Words with me; in a ten-minute conversation, most of which was taken up with other topics, I ticked off "you're too young to know", "all women are like this, it's not anything special" and "maybe your hormones are out of whack". After saying that she understood that nothing 'caused' asexuality. Now the entire family's in on the whole "oh, don't you think it's too shocking? [for a personal statement]" act.

To be fair, maybe it is, but if a school rejects me because I am proud of my sexual orientation... Well, I hope the schools I've picked are open-minded enough not to.*

Okay. So: "You're too young to know" makes NO SENSE. How can I be too young to know what I feel, right now? Whether or not I change my mind doesn't and shouldn't matter; I am asexual, right now and for the foreseeable future. If I realise I'm not ace, great; if I really am ace and stay that way, also great! WHAT PART OF THIS IS HARD. Second: "All women are like this": oh no they're not. This is actually the most common response I've got: attempts 2, 3 and 5** plus any time I've ever said that I'm hesitant about getting married and/or starting a family generally gets a "just you wait, all women want a family eventually!". The hormones argument is just so inane I can't even be bothered to think of something suitably raegy and ranty... And they haven't actually said anything concrete about whether or not they're okay with my asexuality, they just keep sidestepping it. They won't even say the word... I mean, rationally I know they're probably just a bit bewildered and scared about offending me, but not-rationally I am panicking.

tl;dr: Family is being kind of derpy. I don't know whether to curl up sobbing or just kick things.

*For reference, my top top top top choice is Swarthmore. My family disapproves on the grounds that it's a liberal arts college and therefore a "waste of your talent" but that is another rant for a different audience.
** Fifth time was actually sort of funny-ish in that somehow they thought I was trying to come out as transgender.

I'm sorry you're having a really frustrating time coming out to your family! Hugs or other comforting gestures if you want them.

thanks <3 *hugs*

Tomorrow I hand in The Dissertation. Which doesn't make me laugh, except possibly in a "oh god I can't believe its over" way, but.

(If anyone would like to read it, they're welcome to (it's a short sci-fi story) on the condition that if they spot an error, typo, flaw, etc. they NEVER TELL ME. IT'S TOO LATE TO CHANGE IT NOW.)

Oooh, congratulations!

Seconding the congrats! :)

Demetri Martin makes me chuckle. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaGa3kjRS7o

Also also also, Growing Up Cullen makes me wee myself every time. Link: http://balcarin.livejournal.com/462027.html

Open Thread

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Off topic rant

Re: Off topic rant

Re: Off topic rant

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject