Put Down Your Champagne and Revolvers

Look you guys, about three weeks ago, some serious shit happened and now I'm seeing Republicans declaring that America is dead and Democrats kicking back like the grasshopper before winter coming and the worst part is that there's a part of my mind that wants to be the tiniest bit shocked everyone's acting like children about all this but I can't because I possess both a memory and the ability to look a the mythical realm that exists beyond the end of my own nose.

I like Barack Obama. He is a likeable guy, and if you say differently then you could get Slider-ed through a dozen different realities where he runs for President of the United States, and you will be equally shocked each time he gets elected.

I like that Maine, Washington, and Maryland voted to legalize gay marriage. It's great that Minnesota voted down a same-sex marriage ban. I think it's a fine thing that Maryland passed the legalization of medical marijuana. I support Montana working to responsibly legislate medical marijuana in their state. Oregon and Colorado legalized marijuana. Just marijuana.

10 Top Tips to End Rape

In the discussion about yesterday's post, this list came up. It's from a Tumblr .gif which credits a British campaign called This Is Not an Invitation to Rape Me with its creation.

1. Don’t put drugs in women’s drinks.
2. When you see a woman walking by herself, leave her alone.
3. If you pull over to help a woman whose car has broken down, remember not to rape her.
4. If you are in a lift and a woman gets in, don’t rape her.
5. Never creep into a woman’s home through an unlocked door or window, or spring out at her from between parked cars, or rape her.
6. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.
7. Don’t forget: it’s not sex with someone who’s asleep or unconscious — it’s RAPE!
8. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone ‘by accident’ you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can call for help.
9. Don’t forget: Honesty is the best policy. If you have every intention of having sex later on with the woman you’re dating regardless of how she feels about it, tell her directly that there is every chance you will rape her. If you don’t communicate your intention, she may take it as a sign that you do not plan to rape her and inadvertently feel safe.
10. Don’t rape.

Linkstorm: Gays and Science

Gay Stuff
God bless South Korea. If you have a hard time remembering which Korea is the "good Korea," South Korea has the bars where you can platonically rent attractive young men.

It's no surprise that in its waning days, the regime of Husni Mubarak used sexual harassment and rape in an attempt to silence female protestors. What's exceptionally shameful is the way that Egyptian citizens have continued this practice after his removal. Say some of the offenders, "It's the way girls dress that makes guys come on to them. The girls came wanting it - even women in niqab" before continuing to explain that a tight niqab indicates a woman wants their attention.

Things are going okay. Working on a few projects. Putting in a few applications. Admittedly behind on blogs, a fact I'm blaming on the loss of my wireless keyboard.

Thanksgiving was good, and I'm spending today hunkering down, drinking generous amounts of praline liquor in my coffee and just doing internet stuff.

How about you guys?

Here's NyanWaits for your entertainment.

Vampire: the Apocalypse

Or so the story goes, The Triumph of The Kindred happened in 2081. It wasn't any one event, though in the first years, everyone was eager to take credit for it. For us, then, the petty differences between Sabbat and Camarilla and Anarch had died away. The humans were as divided as ever, but civilization still progressed so that we, the self-styled lords of the Earth, could live ever-more comfortably. Our triumph was one of spirit; we could exist and feed freely (still not openly) but without the constant fear of another Inquisition. For a few years it was a paradise, but if the eldest of us needed any further proof we were the damned, when the world became ours, the world began to die.

It started with a chill in the air. It was against the science of the time and some of the last, best parts of humankind looked into it. As a whole, we were more worried about that curiosity leading back to us. With a few brief meetings about researching the matter ourselves, those curious few kine were given a satisfactory answer and trotted back to their virtual pens to keep researching the next phase in creature comforts and everyday convenience. The kine started wearing coats and our best minds never got past the entertaining foreplay of politicking to turn their full attention to it.

This Scene Had to Have Happened

The Discussion Continues

This debate about girls who cosplay and the men who claim to keep the gates to the geek mantle is apparently continuing on a few different websites. It surprising to me that it's taken off like it has, but reading over the discussions has given me some words I've been grasping for on the "real geek" argument, and about identity arguments in general.

That blog will come later though. Right now, I actually got some net downvotes for contributing to one of these discussions. As I'm not a troll, I didn't really expect that. I guess next time I'll either adjust my message to make it more effective, make sure I'm saying something that contributes more to the discussion at hand, or admit that somewhere along the line I was wrong and subsequently reevaluate my views.

...or I guess I could throw a giant hissy fit and claim everyone's too stupid and corrupt to understand my genius. It seems like that would cheat me out of personal growth without actually changing the results, but damn, it'll feel great until my next foray into a comments section.

Everybody is Free to Cosplay

So I guess yesterday was Cosplay Appreciation Day. That's good because I'm binning the post-election blog I was going to write about in favor of something I've been aching to hit up ever since I saw a Wonder Woman cosplayer a while back.

Image courtesy of nathaninsandiego at flickr.

I'm not posting all of these images. I know a lot of you are at work and can't click all the links, but because these pictures are of cosplayers, some of whom actually make a living by creating costumes and making appearances and some of these pictures are taken by professional photographers for their portfolio, I'm trying to be very careful about the permissions here.

So anyway, some D-bag on Tumblr mentions that Wonder Woman isn't Asian. Now, I can only conjecture about his thought process on this, but I imagine it went something like this:

I think it's obvious at this point that I can't be trusted with Mondays

I originally shifted longer blogs to Mondays so I could document my weekend Magic games, but now that's Magic isn't on the table--literally or figuratively--any more, it's kind of become another thing to forget over the weekends while I try to catch up.

Anyway, I'm sorry this hasn't come up 'til Tuesday. I just left my job on Sunday and I'm just putting in mad applications for work this week and trying to find some other sources of revenue 'til that comes in.

Long story short; political blog Wednesday, linkstorm Friday, probably a video on Monday. So sorry 'bout yesterday.

Long blog running late. Sorry guys.

One of my favorite video game intros of all time.

The Big Night

Hey, just wanted to remind you guys that I wrote a 1,200 word guide to the electoral college for the election tonight. It's old, but updated.

Now go vote! Enjoy this brief period of easily-believed relevance before everyone loses their perspective entirely for Christmas.

And no, you are not supposed to be asking about NaNoWriMo!

Disney/Star Wars

So between trying to shoot a short video for the RPG I'm running, NaNoWriMo, getting some important paperwork in order (for money), and paying lots of money so my car doesn't kill me, I haven't been the best on blogs lately (And also Minecraft, but that's not important). Anyway, the "Disney buys Star Wars (and Willow, I guess)" thing has been bafflingly contentious.

While I did enjoy The Phantom Menace and have never been fashionable enough to love Jar-Jar Binks, I'll be the first the queue up some Mr. Plinkett Star Wars Reviews to watch the detailed, no-stone-unturned documentary revealing the prequels as a visually pleasing creation with fly-by-night fundamentals created with no artistic vision as a means to further get money out of a popular franchise.

Rewatching Star Trek: Schisms

I don't have to add captions to this one.

There are 5,047 types of tables in The Star Trek Universe.