asimplechord

Today I:

1. Missed the 7:30 bus by approximately 30 seconds. I watched it pull away from the stop as I parked.

2. Took the later bus, which sat in traffic for 1.5 hours, instead of the normal 40 minutes the commute should take. Late to work. Of course.

3. Spilled my ice bucket all over the place in my rush to get my experiment going in the time I'd signed up for the tissue culture hood (9-11am; great except for how the traffic delay meant I got to work at 9:30 :|)

4. Fixed cells for 10 minutes too long because a fire alarm went off, requiring building evacuation. It was nothing, in the end, just a waste of time.

5. Sat through an excruciatingly boring seminar. My boss sat next to me, so I couldn't even sneak out when the speaker went well over the scheduled time limit.

6. Rode a stationary bike for 40 minutes tonight instead of running or doing something else more strenuous, because DAMN my quads are sore. The trial gym membership included a session with a trainer, so on Saturday I lifted weights and used muscle groups that apparently don't see much use when I jog. But I didn't realize how hard they'd been worked until Sunday, when I ran three miles and then cooled down and stretched. Post-shower I sat down and could not get back up. Getting older sucks, I don't recommend it. Also, getting lazy about daily exercise makes it worse. Self, DON'T DO THAT AGAIN.

6. Ranted for a full 10 minutes after receiving an email from my congressional rep (a member of the GOP) about Obama forcing the fiscal cliff and being unrealistic and assuring me that "House Republicans will continue to ensure that the power remains with the people." I was under the impression that the American people had already spoken. My impression was that the majority doesn't want Medicare/Medicaid/SS cut and are perfectly cool with the idea of letting the Shrub-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire. THAT'S WHY OBAMA WON AND THE MITT-BOT DIDN'T. It made me RAGE.

*deep breaths*

Right.

Now I'm gonna go ponder the next fest fic to be written.

Or maybe I'll do a meme:

Pick a trope from this list and provide a fandom/pairing and I’ll tell you something about the story I’d write for that combination (i.e. write a snippet from the story or write not!fic or tell you the title and summary for the story I would write).

1. space!AU
2. pretending to be married
3. mistletoe kiss
4. game night
5. handcuffed together
6. snowed-in
7. next-door neighbors AU
8. fantasy AU
9. day at the beach
10. celebratory kiss
11. apocalypse fic
12. sharing a bed
13. road trip
14. genderswap
15. kissing to save the day

Corporations are not persons, at least in Big Sky country.

(Thanks to J for the heads-up!)

I have opinions about the news that's in the headlines, but all I'm going to say is that I hope that everyone who lost a loved one on 9/11/01 or when the USS Cole or the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed feels some closure. I'd like to believe that this means we'll extract ourselves from the untenable, unsustainable military conflicts in which we embroiled ourselves in the name of capturing OBL, but I have sincere doubts on that subject.

IN HAPPIER NEWS. pjvilar posted a picture that makes me FINALLY feel the urge to write, for the first time in months. If I can squeeze it in around my work hours, which have once again grown to encompass far more than the 40 for which I am paid.

AND. Seriously, did we magick Panic! At The Disco into being with our will, bandom? Because this video. SERIOUSLY. It's a half-dozen different musicals and Disney movies for a single 3-minute song, and I LOVE IT. I cannot wait for June. Or for the autumn tour with Black Cards and Neon Trees.

Deliberately not talking/thinking/posting about work. It'll make me too cranky. Instead, here. Have some random babbling and a few songs.

So, I've flailed all over the place (mostly twitter, but also here some, obvsly) about PStump and Discos, but I haven't really talked about Rise Against's new album, Endgame, even though it came out almost a month ago. Why oh why aren't they coming to Houston? The only TX dates on this tour - with BAD RELIGION! - are midweek dates in Austin and Corpus Christi. Which, you know, I'll go to at least one of. But anyway.

I love it. I love the music, and I love that every song hits on an issue near and dear to my heart. I was thinking about this earlier, b/c on one hand it's good that there was a compromise to keep the federal government running, but the cuts being made and the tax code that's been signed into law are just widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the US, not just in terms of income, but in terms of social benefits and opportunities. I feel like a lot of people of my generation and younger are disaffected: we keep trying and nothing changes. And nothing I see in mainstream media speaks to me on this issue.

But maybe other forms of media pick up the slack? IDK, I go back and forth on this, wondering if the US can have anything approaching the "facebook/twitter revolution"s of north Africa/the middle east. So many people were galvanized by the 2008 elections, but I wonder if the last couple of years have dulled their enthusiasm.

So I open the PDF/liner for the download of Endgame, & see that Rise Against suggest that their fans read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine (I have some issues with Klein, but not with this book), and watch Capitalism: A Love Story and Collapse. They used to suggest Zinn's Peoples' History.

They close with Steinbeck's When property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away.[...]

This band could not resonate any more in my ears and brain and soul if they were aiming directly, deliberately AT ME.

Here. Their Architects, along with I Was A Teenage Anarchist by Against Me! (no, really, one is a response to the other) and RATM's cover of Ghost of Tom Joad.

1. I thought more than once about extending my visit to NYC when I got the NDP notice and then the pre-sale code for the Discos' show at the Bowery, but I seriously cannot spend that time off without consequences - the day and a half I'm taking are being made up by working MLK Jr Day and the thirteen hours I spent in lab on Tuesday. (As an aside, J is going to be in town that weekend too. Cling-time! :D :D :D)

2. New post-doc arrived. SO TIRED OF ANSWERING QUESTIONS. It would be okay if it were just her, but I have literally spent hours the last three days showing other people how to do things. It's not like I have, you know, shit of my own to do.

3. I keep thinking about writing something, anything, but by the time I get home from work, I can't be bothered to think straight.

4. Almost through S2 of The West Wing. It's funny in a sad way how a decade after these episodes aired, NONE of the issues they confront have altered significantly. (And I still love CJ like burning.) [ETA: The more I watch, the less I care for Bartlet. To me he comes off as a predictable, pompous ass who relies on a bottomless well of useless trivia, his own opinion, and the bible more than anything else.]

5. Rise Against's new album comes out the same week as GD's Awesome As Fuck? Good music week. Actually, I think that's the week of SXSW, so it'll be a FABULOUS music week. :D :D :D (Also, did I ever flail here about Another Station; Another Mile? My heart eyes over them, I can't even explain.)

6. I was earwormed today by Wisdom, Justice, and Love. First when Tavis Smiley & Amy Goodman got into it on Democracy Now this morning (and wasn't that a total lovefest?) and then when my iPod kept cycling through A Thousand Suns. [There was a thought somewhere about violent political rhetoric and the long war and the political assassinations of the 60s, but I'm too tired to connect the dots now.]

7. A reminder from J had me all excited: the new Mercy Gunderson novel is out! And Amazon said that my copy had been delivered. But there is no package on my doorstep, in my mailbox, or in my neighbor's house. The USPS is not being particularly helpful at the moment, but I suppose that's because it's after hours. *sigh* I guess I'll keep slogging through Aftermath and Learning To Eat Soup With A Knife in the meantime.

8. Fuck yes! (PLEASE, BILL WHITE, RUN FOR HER SEAT.)

9. 30Jan shows of American Idiot are/will be sold out b/c it's BJA as St. Jimmy and it's most likely Michael Esper's last show, y/n?

10. Fanta orange soda + Dripping Springs vodka = A+ supper choice

+ penguin-decorated red knee-socks

+ Professor Joe brought in rum balls to share with friends and colleagues. mmmmm

+ two cool results this week (cross your fingers for the samples I just sent to Harvard for analysis)

+ there's a Stafford/Christeson fic open in a tab at home, waiting to be read when I have time tonight after work

+ the reimbursement check for the CPRIT fees arrived \o/

+ the stand-alone bill repealing DADT has enough votes to avoid Republican filibuster; now the Senate just has to schedule the vote before Congress adjourns


(I am trying very hard not to be all >:/ over the Wikileaks/Espionage Act hearing that's happening right now.)

:( Dropped J at the airport on my way to work. We were unable to cling as desired b/c a stern member of the security force was directing people to parking spots and ordering them on as fast as possible.

:( Also said goodbye to Aaron for the week, as he's got meetings in Austin until Friday. I am tempted to see if there's anyone playing Emo's or Stubb's that I'd like to see this week, and drive out to stay with him. I can work on figures and writing the experimental section of the paper from anywhere, right? Why, labwork?

:/ It is supposed to hit 79F today? With 95% humidity. UGH. This is November. It is Not Right.

:) Butch Walker and Brendon Urie quoting Leslie Nielsen jokes at each other on twitter? A+ distraction while sitting stuck in traffic.

:) PSA: Restrepo is going to air on the National Geographic Channel tonight at 9pm Eastern time.

( WikiLeaks )



*sigh*

Got coffee.

Science to do. I'm on it.

The syllabus for Stanley McChrystal's graduate seminar at Yale has been released.

It includes:

12th October 2010: “Navigating Politics”
2nd November 2010: “Loyalty, Trust and Relationships”
16th November 2010: “Communicating the Story – the Media Environment”

Note that *nowhere* in the reading material is the Hastings article. Which, IDK, could be a PRIME EXAMPLE for tying together those three lectures, don't you think?

In fact, I'm pretty amused that one of the primary references is an article that was a pretty fucking shiny piece of PR for him.

1. I posted fic last night, and then forgot to pimp it here!

Steal (the rhythm) while you can
irisgirl12000 and why_me_why_not
Brad/Nate (Generation Kill) || adult || ~2200
Based on the performances of actors associated with the HBO series, meaning nothing about real people.

Follows Out of sync at the beginning. Porn without much plot, but the little dialogue that is present will make more sense if you've read the previous fic. Title from Soundgarden.

Brad's snoring softly when Nate wakes up. He lies there a while, enjoying the way Brad's body heat keeps the breeze from the ceiling fan from creating a chill.


2. >:/ libraries in NJ

3. :D Books! Chalmers Johnson's new book should arrive on my doorstep tomorrow! It's a follow up to the trilogy about blowback and American empire. Along with it, I'm expecting The Fourth Star. I suppose I should hop to, and finish reading Washington Rules instead of messing about with Inception fanfic, right?

4. The thing that bothers me most about the uproar over Cordoba House is that the people who object most strenuously to a mosque at Ground Zero are the same people who will wave a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights in defense of the right to bear arms; somehow they forget that the First Amendment of that very same document guarantees the right to religious freedom. Or, IDK, they stop being strict constructionists and say that the founders didn't mean it the way we're interpreting it. (I sincerely doubt that, since James Madison was part of Jefferson's cohort, and as has been quoted pretty much everywhere lately, TJ's the one who wrote that "it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.") The First Amendment also guarantees that if a mosque is built there, haters can protest it to their hearts' content. But still. Muslims have EVERY RIGHT to build a mosque there. Beyond that, I don't see why someone who is not a resident of the area thinks they should have any say in the matter. Who gives a shit what Sarah Palin thinks? Why is Newt Gingrich's opinion important? Do they live there? Are they family members of those who died? Did they suffer when the towers fell? How is their objection relevant in any way?

ETA: ♥ Jon Stewart & John Oliver on this topic. /ETA


5. Also on the political level: hmmm, Stan McChrystal. I can't help but compare a possible political future for him to Petraeus, who vowed once again that he would not go into politics in his interview with David Gregory this weekend. (I was tickled by Gregory's use of Grant and Grant's quotes re: going into politics to broach the subject, esp. since Petraeus has spent a great deal of time reading/studying Grant.)

6. My mom forwarded the address of a cousin who is deployed in Iraq, with the suggestion that he might like to receive some mail. I honestly have NO IDEA what to write. This is a cousin I haven't seen in at least five years, and saw infrequently for the decade before that. I can babble about random stuff, I suppose, but is a guy who's been deployed for over a year really going to give a shit about daily life and family events in the 'burbs, especially for the cousin that he probably only vaguely remembers as being a babysitter and homework-aid when he was a kid?

1. A ton of photos from the other night's Broadway Impact fundraiser appeared in the FYAI tumblr overnight, filling my googlereader inbox, making me happy. :D But I have to ask... why was Christina Sajous wearing what looks like a wedding gown? No, really: the pearls, the beading, the bodice's fit. What's up with that?

2. It is really hard to focus on science when I want to be writing out the porn that's on repeat in my head. Just sayin'.

3. Appropriate timing: I just read the exchange between Abizaid and Mattis to which Ricks refers here in No True Glory.

4. BRB, laughing at the little coincidences in life. I read one of the tabs I have open, a combat_jack GKbattle fic for the "fog of war" prompt, last night before going to bed, and then I checked my googlefeed first thing this morning and found an op-ed piece by Andrew Exum in the NYT, Getting Lost In Afghanistan's Fog Of War. Fandom and news media converge once again. (Exum is inevitably tied to Fick in my brain, even though he has absolutely nothing to do with Generation Kill. It's just one of those leaps that, once made, my brain cannot un-make.)

5. DNW to go spend a few hours in the cold room. *sigh* But I suppose Mick Jagger has the right of it.

6. why_me_why_not just posted some skating!RPS threesome fic. If I told you I was drunk. Johnny/Stephane/AdamR. You should check it out, if you're into the skating thing.