Speaking of Friday Cat Blogging as I just was, here's a Tumblr site via BoingBoing called Barely Feral, which is so, so wrong. And for those of you who like video memes, and who doesn't (don't answer that), there's this:
The music's kinda the best part. Schrödinger’s Nyan Cat is via I Can Has Cheezburger? and a bunch of other places.
Oh, and one more which is being posted everywhere, because it's a total scream:
Not only is Amy getting used to the fact that I'm here all day for the next three days (well, barring a nice autumn drive to the market or something), but she seems okay with it and is actually hanging out near me, acquiescing to be petted:
Vacation at last! Well, for four days, at least. We did our food shopping this evening (drove to the supermarket in a swift downpour, all passed by the time we got out) and made dinner with stuff we'd just bought, which I don't get to do that often. Speaking of which, here are some tasty food landscapes (via BoingBoing). Oh, and L'Shana Tova to my family and Jewish friends!
Doubtless the people who most need to understand this will never do so, but that's no reason to stop trying, and I'm glad so many feminist readers still have the energy::
Female characters are only insatiable, barely-dressed aliens and strippers because someone decided to make them that way. It isn't a fact. It isn't an inviolable reality, especially in a comic book universe that has just been rebooted. In the end, what matters is what you choose to show people and how you show them, not the reasons you make up to justify it. Because this is comics, everybody. You can make up anything.
Most of all, what I keep coming back to is that superhero comics are nothing if not aspirational. They are full of heroes that inspire us to be better, to think more things are possible, to imagine a world where we can become something amazing. But this is what comics like this tell me about myself, as a lady: They tell me that I can be beautiful and powerful, but only if I wear as few clothes as possible. They tell me that I can have exciting adventures, as long as I have enormous breasts that I constantly contort to display to the people around me. They tell me I can be sexually adventurous and pursue my physical desires, as long as I do it in ways that feel inauthentic and contrived to appeal to men and kind of creep me out.
Today's Google doodle is a lovely tribute to Jim Henson. Play with it awhile, it's fun! Particularly the monster character all the way on the right. If you read this after September 24, you can probably catch the doodle here.
I really need a vacation to recharge. I miss writing for fun (as opposed to work-related writing) and just posting stuff here when I feel like it. I'll try to gradually ease back in. How about we start with a cat photo?
Here are Datsa and Amy waiting to be fed this morning. And so they were. And again this evening. Although you wouldn't know it to listen to Datsa...
Happy official autumnal equinox! I can hardly wait to start taking my foliage photos. Come on, foliage, get here already! In the meantime, I'll make do with this series of 20 Cats Enjoying Fall Foliage (via I Can Has Cheezburger?).
Well, that was a lot of fun - the Yanks have clinched the AL East! Not that there was much doubt they'd be in the post-season, but I'm not a big wild card fan, so I'm glad they won the division. Now if only they and the Phillies can both advance to the World Series, Susie Madrak and I will have something to kid each other about. Speaking of which, thanks to Susie for linking to this series of unintentionally sexual church signs. It's all in the mind of the viewer, after all.
Yeah yeah, Gardens of Time seems to have taken over a huge part of my leisure time now. Sorry about that. I still care about you, you pretty little blog! Honest! Let me feed you some cute kittens:
Because I know you love cute kittens. Via BoingBoing.
Robin tells me that Lucasfilm's going all out to remind people that Star Wars exists in order to push the Blu Ray versions just out. Like people forgot about the movies or something? Anyway, he found this cute video:
Not being able to have kids, I haven't kept that much track of when school starts around these parts, but it's hard to miss once the local buses and subways get super-crowded after being fairly roomy all summer. Just in time, Matthew Inman presents a series of comic panels suggesting "What we SHOULD have been taught in our senior year of high school."
This takes me back to my college linguistics days - one of my favorite classes had to do with regional differences in What Stuff's Called. Of course, we didn't even have computers in those days, let alone the internets. Now folks can do stuff like The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy (via BoingBoing) so you can see instantly which regions call their fizzy drinks by which names. Anyone know of any other sites like this?
[F]rankly, after a decade of living in a nation governed by one party that is willing to use fear and terror to further its own agenda and another so terrified of that party that it refues to call the sky blue if the other one says it's yellow, I just don't want to relive the last decade. And while New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has taken a lot of crap for limiting the invited guests to Sunday's memorial to the families of those lost, Sunday really should be for them, not for those of us who only had to watch it on TV and then get on with our lives.
And now ten years have passed. It seems simultaneously like the blink of an eye and an entire lifetime. Aside from airport security and some economic setbacks and revivals, my own sphere has been little affected by the attacks. And for most Americans, if they really want to tell the truth, neither have theirs. This entire week has been an orgy of a weird self-congratulatory combination of picking open the wound again and enjoying the spectacle one more time. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to have lost someone ten years ago and once again be unable to open a newspaper without seeing a photograph of the Twin Towers burning with your brother, or son, or spouse, or sister, or father or mother inside.
We each have our own private memories of September 11, 2001. I certainly have mine... the bus ride home to the terrible images on the television. The comfortlessness of a candle in the window. The horror and anger of the people I was chatting with online.
Those are painful memories. I grieve again, writing this.
But what I resent, what makes me upset and angry in a helpless and unhelpful way, is [what] pundits and politicians are trying to do to our memories of that day... It feels to me that the media wants to overwrite our own recollection, our own reactions and considerations, with their carefully packaged interpretations: clash of cultures, fanatics rather than faithful, they hate our freedom, they're just like us, they're nothing like us, they're a 'them' rather than part of 'us'...
Furthermore, this is not being done in the pursuit of art, or even of entertainment. Indeed, it is not being done for our benefit at all. We are being farmed for our anger, fertilized with the same images over and over again, that we may come ripe on election days and when the pollsters call.
I'm not interested in being part of that. I've lost enough already.
I'm sure I'll have other citations throughout the day, as I push to get through my blog reading again. In the meantime I'll just say that, for myself, I'm actively going to stay away from any and all televised anniversary "festivities" (yes, Michael Kaye actually used that word) today; I scarcely need constant commercialized reminders of a day that's seared into my New York soul on such a deep, visceral level that a huge part of me wishes, almost blasphemously, that it would Just Go Away.
(Speaking of commercialization, the incomparable April Winchell shares some commentary here, here and here on that most American of tendencies, the desire to make a profit from tragedy.)
And I'll put up my usual remembrance, Robin's piece "Hope Takes Wing":
Lastly, today would have been Leah Adezio's birthday, and not a day goes by that I don't miss her too.
I've opted out of watching "Doctor Who: The Monsters" on BBC America (did I mention we finally, FINALLY have BBC America on our cable system?) but I'm feeling a little guilty, so here's a Dalek petting a kitty:
So, like I said in my previous post, today marks the ninth blogiversary of Pen-Elayne on the Web. I've long since given up trying to boost traffic or increase my posting rate - every time I try to make plans, life happens. But I'm sure some of you are still out there, even if "you" are mostly close friends and relatives.
I think I'm in a slightly better place than I was when Pen-Elayne began. I love my job, for one, even though it (combined with my commute) takes up so much time that I don't often have the wherewithal to blog. Robin and I are still blissful as newlyweds almost 13 years into our marriage, and the kitties are still pretty healthy (Amy's almost 13½, and Datsa's going on 19 next month!). We love where we live, except for a bit of icy madness in the winters, and our landlord is attentive and friendly. I've been through a couple of health scares and am much more conscientious of what happens with my body than I've ever been, with a very positive check-up the last time my doctor ran the usual tests.
Since this blog started I've lost my Dad, my uncle and a couple best friends; I've met then lost touch with a number of local political bloggers; I've gone from strictly PC desktop to Mac laptop, from feature phone to smartphone, and I still feel like technology is passing me by, at least financially. Robin's seen a few highs and lows in his career, but his talent and industry reputation remain justifiably high and we're always optimistic.
I could wish for more mental energy to be more creative. I write a lot for work now, which is nice, but I miss writing for fun, just for me. This blog has been instrumental in at least getting me to sit down and type out new content every day, albeit only a photo or a Silly Site. I'd like to promise I'll redouble my efforts and try to do mini-blogarounds, or even just a focused post here and there on the cultural and political events of the day, but I know myself better than that. Nowadays when given a choice, I often gravitate towards reading and game-playing, consuming rather than producing. I've also seen interest in blogs fade as social networks come to the fore. But hey, I'm still interested. I hope you are too, as I plan on this blog being around for however long the software lasts. Thank you again for reading.
Happy blogiversary to me! I started Pen-Elayne on the Web nine years ago today. More thoughts to come later on when I get home from work. Today I post something just for me:
Problematic and stalker-ish in spots, but then so's Google! Via The Mary Sue, which seems to excel at finding silly things just for me.
Blogiversary tomorrow! And speaking of 'versaries, apparently yesterday would have been a milestone birthday for Freddie Mercury had he lived, so Google UK decided to celebrate his life:
Weird that it shows worshipful mostly-female fans and a woman on the other end of the phone when the lyric is "give me a call" but those were the times, I suppose.
The Regretsy Twitter force (aka April's Army) have done it again, creating old wives' tales from whole cloth. Did you know if you create an old wives' tale from whole cloth, you can weave it into a flying carpet? Yes, some uncomplicated peoples still believe this myth.
With Pen-Elayne's nine-year blogiversary coming up on Wednesday, I think it appropriate to increase my posting level just a bit in the run-up. So here are three photos of cats instead of the one:
Datsa looking for a handout, as usual.
Amy looking to get in another undisturbed cat-nap.
Datsa and Amy looking at me like I'm nuts to be taking their photo.
As it's September already (happy birthday again, Dad Riggs!), here at the Riggs Residence we've started gearing up for next month's New York Comic Con. We've got a table, and Robin's considering what to display on it. I'm busy kibbitzing that he shouldn't forget to dress any female characters he draws. Case in point, this terrific Tumblr site featuring women fighters in reasonable armor (via BoingBoing and everywhere else).
