twincityhacker

Happy Halloween!

My plans for the day has changed slightly. I'm still handing out candy ( now from noon to 4 ) but apparently the Halloween movie is not on Halloween this year. It was the 29th.

I'm a bit broken up about missing my favorite IU tradition. The film this year was Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail.

I did do CCC's Halloween Party, though. I dressed up as Lady Luck, and hung out and made a few new friends. Then I went over to one of their rooms, and we watched "New Frontier" and some episodes of Spectacular Spiderman.

deza has raised all the money needed for her moving expenses! Thanks to everyone that was able to help out.

Now, I have to go run errands. It's raining, but at least it's still warmish out.

First, the srs biz:

Real person. Real situation that came to a very ugly head tonight. Summary from her and how to help below:

I am a disabled military wife and mother of two elementary-aged kids. Due to a delay in processing transfer orders, my husband's move to his next base isn't lining up with the end of our lease. This means we are having to pay for our move out-of-pocket, with the military reimbursing it later. My husband is currently with his ship in another state, so all details of handling the move fall to me.

We had planned to borrow the money for this from my mother. She has always been slightly mentally disturbed; tonight, this hit new levels. In the past two days, she's attempted to kidnap my kids and threatened to kill my mobility dog. She deliberately chose the time when I would be sickest from my low-dose chemo treatments to do this. I severely doubt she plans to honor her promise to pay for the movers tomorrow.

The movers are going to cost roughly $1300. If you can help, please send money to my paypal account, marna.m(a)gmail.com. Please indicate if this is a gift or a loan; we will begin paying back loan amounts as soon as we can. Thank you.

More: http://deza.livejournal.com/1331013.html

Speaking of money woes, I've been having some of my own, recently. Luckily, it's the "can't get at money" kind, instead of the "no money" kind. It's been going on for about a month already, and I mentioned something about this earlier when I was locked out of my account and couldn't get into it because I needed to do it over the phone, and my phone wasn't charging.

Well, I transfered the money in, and thought that was it. Until I tried to use my debit card the other day and it was denied. What I think is happening is that the bank think my card has been stolen because I'm using it to make relativity small purchases around Bloomington. And, for some reason, even though I've been buying things in Bloomington for the last few years, it reads as stolen card activity. And my cell's borked, of course, and cooperating even less this time than last time.

So I'm heading to the bank tomorrow after class and hoping they can sort out the card stuff in person. It would be just my luck if they couldn't.

Ran the gambit on chat in KoL explaining that it's a good thing that the branches of government has gained power, as the "powers" that they have taken from individuals are one's that those individuals shouldn't have had in the first place. Like, the ability to destroy the ability of humans to own other humans, and the ability to enforce labor laws so you can't pay people pittance or working people to death that is created some kind of virtual slavery. And that unrestrained Captialsim isn't all that better than Soviet communism.

Okay, this is all IMHO, but the impressive part is arguing coherent when tipsy. Well, I had pretty much just chugged my first alcholic beverage in two months, so I was slightly more than tipsy.

I've been listening to various news and blogs today. Recently, I was listening to Linkara's "Atop the Fourth Wall" review, and noticed that the fly banging against the light had suddenly got a lot louder. And then I looked and noticed the light was covered with bugs!

I'm not the best housekeeper in the world, but surely I've been keeping things clean enough that I shouldn't be drowning in flies.

I took a closer look, and it's just ladybugs. So it's not me, it's just that my dorm has lots of little drafts.

...

I also still hate phonetics. I can't think of a project to do! My idea was due on Monday, and I did turn in some ideas, but none of them were right for the class.

I'm working on moving MST3K Slash to Fortune City. I've made some progress, and posted the majority of the artwork. Then I switch to fic, and realized maybe this is not such a fantastic idea: The text is full of "helpful" advertising links.

I'm still going though with it, as a crappy website is better than no website at all, but this means I'm STILL looking for a place to host MST3K Slash.

Just so you all know, Bill Nye the Science Guy was on The Rachel Maddow Show. Rachel wasn't hosting today so there where no "Dr. Maddow, Mr. Nye" exchanges, so it was slightly less awesome than last time he was on.

But Bill Nye the Science Guy was talking about sea mucus, which automatically makes it the best news show on American television tonight. I have already downloaded it for posterity. *fangirly flail*

It is national coming out day. You all know I am gay, y/y?

There is a march in Bloomington today, in solidarity with March for Equality in Washington that is also today. I am not going, because I feel like crap and it is really freaking cold out.

So, have a fun fact about coming out instead: The first person to come out in public was Karl Ulrichs, who outed himself in front of the Congress of German Jurists*, the day after his 42nd birthday, August 29th, 1867. His speech was about the need for homosexual rights, though he was not able to complete his speech as half the chamber wanted him to STFU and the other half was urging him to continue. The moderator asked him to complete his speech in Latin, which Ulrichs was fluent in, but he stopped anyway.

Karl Ulrichs is still considered the father of the GLBT rights movement. And, you know, actually worked hard to include women and transgendered people in his campaign.


*From my understanding, the Congress is/was convention for those in the legal professions. So in attendance would have been judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and law professors.

I have an hour of bible study every Wednesday, okay? Before we got started, Meridith mentioned how excited she was for the Richard Dawkins lecture next Monday. Then Sophie mentioned that she was sad she she couldn't go, because she wanted to hear his rationalization of the evolutionist view of universal health care.

I was the first one to speak. I stammered out, "But... but he's British!"

Cue pretty much the entire time for the three of us to try to persuade Sophie that universal health care and evolution are not incomparable. She had the impression that if you think evolution ( especially macro ) evolution exist, then you also must follow the philosophical school thought of egoism, as acting contrary to that fact would be against the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.

It basically summed up to two problems. The first is that evolutionary theory does not adequately explain explain the development of kindness. I talked about some examples about why it would be advantageous to your genes to be altruistic: such as while it's not directly your genes, looking after the well being of a niece or nephew would also continue your gene line.

The other problem is that Sophie needs to study the theory of evolution a bit more. She got tangled up in her mind evolutionary theory and social Darwinism. Which are not the same thing, as one is a conclusion based upon observations and one is an excuse to treat people like crap.

This all sums up why I like Sophie. We come to the same conclusions, even though our thought processes are very, very different.

I signed up for reel_torchwood, with the "Some Like it Hot" prompt. I also signed up to do art for apocabigbang. I'm going to need a lot of hand holding on this.

I had a problem with the "Some Like it Hot" prompt, but then I realized I can do non-cannon pairings. Now I just need a stand in for San Diego Miami for our daring duo to flee to, once the fear of the mob chases them out of Cardiff. It needs to be on the coast, and a place that a largish convention could be held. I'm thinking Brighton? Most of the places I'm familiar with to any degree fit either one or neither pieces of criteria...

It is 52 degrees out. I am wearing a scarf draped over my head then looped around my neck. What makes this noteworthy is that I am inside my dorm. I wish there was an option between frigid and blazing.

I just finished watching Twilight. I've peaked into the fandom, and it seems to be mostly AU stuff. Which is sad, because it could be completely awesome.