HSU IT Department

Early voting started at ten am. We were there at 10:05 -- and so were about a hundred other people :)

A friend pointed me to this stunningly powerful and beautiful photography project, by Mikael Owunna. The name of the project comes from Chinua Achebe, but it also makes me think of Carl Sagan's famous quote, "We are made of star stuff."

'Every Black Person Deserves To See Themselves This Way'

It brought me to tears...

"4.7 million fanfics are now Hugo winners, thanks to AO3 and the transformative culture that built it..."

You guys, THIS IS SO AMAZING!!!!! Best part: Every fanfic writer in the audience was asked to stand and jointly accept the award :)

More here and here, and there is also an NPR piece. I am as happy as a very happy thing, also I may have cried just a tiny bit :D

And I'm excited!!

I love making words on paper with a pen. I love the glide of the ink, the feel of the pen in my hand, the curves and lines, the way letters build words, words build sentences, sentences build messages. I love the way a letter in an envelope looks and feels when it's all addressed and stamped and waiting to be sent: the perfect size, the neat square corners, the heft and firmness of cardstock, the fun of choosing a stamp from among the many designs and images. I am agog at the fact that a bunch of total strangers will pass this small fragile thing along for me, hand to hand, all the way across the country or even around the world -- it's like magic!! I love thinking about my letter arriving in a mailbox, sitting there like a friendly little long-distance wave, and someone opening it, and having a nicer day because they got something in the mail that wasn't a bill. A letter touches another person in a way an email can't. As the Smithsonian Postal Museum says on their blog, letters are "physical manifestations of the senders. The loved ones’ hands wrote the words, folded the letter and sealed it into an envelope. Each letter still brings with it that gift, a physical connection that can’t be replicated through phones or tablets."

I have a huge stash of cards, notecards, stationery, etc. which I am always adding to, and I enjoy sorting through it looking for just the right one for a particular person or situation. I also have a stash of all kinds of different stamps; every time I go to the post office I ask the clerk to show me what new designs they have. At the moment I have stamps featuring Scooby Doo, Hot Wheels cars, the art of magic, ice cream sundaes, Disney villains, sharks, cactus flowers, and our National Parks. Alas, I missed out on the Mr. Rogers stamps -- they sold out in just a few days.

The challenge of National Letter-Writing Month is (duh) to see how many letters you can write. And I'd like to write to YOU. No, seriously, I really would :)

If you'd like to get a letter from me, just comment here and say so.* In order to make my letter of interest to you, and so I don't end up writing ten different versions of "what I did this week," please also tell me something you're interested in (horror movies, biodiversity, fantasy novels, politics, writing, cake decorating, collecting stuffed wombats) or ask me a question (what's the best bodice-ripper I ever read? do I think college should be free? what happens when we die? is Queen Elizabeth actually a shape-shifting reptile alien?). Anything goes!

Here's the catch, though: When you get my letter, you must write me back. Nothing fancy is required -- literally anything will suffice, even two lines on a postcard. Are you game? Of course you are!!

* No need to provide your address in the comment; if I don't already have it, I'll send you a PM asking for it. Also I am more than happy to write to people overseas, so if you're not in the U.S., don't let that stop you!

Made this last night. It is a marbled chocolate peanut butter cake, and yes, it is DELISH. A bit drier than I like -- I made it with gluten-free flour, which in cookies requires a few minutes more baking, so I did the same thing with the cake but I think it was unnecessary. Also, the chocolate glaze called for corn syrup, which I didn't have and would prefer not to use anyway, so I used a mild-flavored honey instead. Very tasty. Sorry I can't shove slices of cake through the screen for you!

Also, I have been replaying Portal. Hence the subject line.

I might have bought this. Because Galaga and Amidar and Make Trax and Qix and Dig Dug and Burger Time. And Ms. Pac Man.

( side view )

( front view )

I just got the best comment ever on my Modern Major Death Eater (parody of Modern Major General) and I had to share:

"I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY I LOVE THIS IT IS PERFECTION THIS IS WHY THE INTERNET EXISTS"

lol

This is how I feel when I read a really good piece of fanfic, so I'm especially tickled :)

Good Thing the First: I am caught up on reading mini_fest, yay! So many wonderful little stocking stuffers, and one or two more substantial offerings. My favorite so far is a Minerva/Severus piece entitled Dark and Deep. Doesn't that title make you want to go there right now and read it?

Good Thing the Second: Real life is FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY slowing down, and I am so looking forward to getting back on LJ more. Since October when we moved house, it's just been one thing after another and woah, am I ready to slow down a little. I can also take on more of the mod-ly burdens for sshg_giftfest, which to date have been shouldered almost entirely by the valiant amorette, whom I owe big time for doing SO much more than her fair share. She is a true rock!

Good Thing the Third: Mr Psmith graduates tomorrow!!!! I am so proud of him I can hardly stand it :)

Good Thing the Fourth: This, shared with me by a fellow nerdgeek at work today. There are no words for how very much I love this:

No, this isn't photoshopped. It's real. And I could not be happier for the many people for whom today's Supreme Court decision means so much :)



(Click for story)


And there's even a live feed, with the fountain playing and flag waving above. Yay!!

Apparently the 60th anniversary edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which I don't own but clearly need to possess, includes a new coda by the author. It is a masterpiece of literate laceration, in which he excoriates the obsession with political correctness which, taken to its extreme, leads to everything sounding just like everything else.

For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conservationist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons like not my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall...

Read the full text here, and tell me what you think.