Daily life, thoughts on audiobooks, and brain ramblings

Looking forward to a pretty excellent Christmas Eve, all things considered. I'm working, but I'm in a good mood, and have discovered that one of my favorite "usually out of my price range" restaurants is one of the only places in the neighborhood that's open tonight. Whoops, looks like blackened diver scallops finish-poached in ancho-honey cream for me! I'll be here 'til at least 2am, and taking the bus home after that. It should be cold and quiet and peaceful. I think I'm in the mood to enjoy that. I really do like how my Audible books pass the time on the commute. I just wish there were some sort of way to integrate audiobooks with ebooks. When I make a purchase, I'd rather be able to switch formats at will, and I'd be willing to pay a few extra bucks a book for that. Especially if it allowed a bookmark in one to be located in the other version. I love the audiobooks for times when "having my nose in a book" isn't practical, but since I read faster than I listen, I'd love to be able to switch back over in other circumstances. It takes a damnably long time to finish a book entirely in audio format, and I seem to end up with more half-finished volumes as a result.

On random brain weirdnesses (mostly noting this for my own reference), I was pondering last night the distinction between thought and feeling. It's especially notable at the moment, because I'm only going in depressive thought-spirals intermittently, and am pretty happy otherwise. On the other hand, I'm having more substantial anxiety symptoms than usual, and those are remarkably pervasive, and feel mostly autonomic -- clenched stomach, twitchiness, increased breathing rate, all the crap that makes anxiety often feel like a stimulant overdose. And that just won't seem to go away, although I can self-soothe to some extent. I've double-checked my life to make sure I haven't recently upped my stimulant intake (in terms of caffeine, nicotine, provigil, etc), but I don't seem to have. And I haven't taken any provigil in at least a week or so, so that's not it. Blarg. Would like that to go away please. Do not enjoy feeling constantly balanced on the fight/flight edge. I wonder what's up with this month. It's rare for me to have the kind of migraine presentation I did last week. It's rare for me to have anxiety crap this notably. I distrust when my system becomes (more) unpredictable in its unreliability.

OK, movie and linkety time for me. Happy Holidays to whomever is celebrating!

Linketies

I've cleaned out my Giant Bag O' Crap, I've sorted my desk, I've organized my junk food drawer. Time for Linketies.

Going to post a few shorter posts today, in case you're desperately in need of distraction RIGHT NOW from family holiday weirdness.

Cute Zoo Critters Opening Presents

My top 12 longreads of 2011 (sciencey goodness)

The Christmas Jesus Song Brit TV Banned (Video)

6 Horrifying Implications of Classic Christmas Movies

IVAW Recognized on The Nation's 2011 Progressive Honor Roll
( Read more... )

Linketies the second

Doctor Who Christmas special: Bill Bailey interview

Helen Mirren Would Like to Play the Doctor, and We Would Be Extremely Okay With That
Helen Mirren Wants To Be The First Female Doctor in 'Doctor Who' -- Oh, good Maude, yes! Yes, yes, yes, PLEASE! (I know it's just pipedreams at this point, but leave me to them, ok?)

Apparently the CIA has taken the rare step of acknowledging the sovereign rights of another country, as well as the existence of public opinion and blowback, by suspending drone attacks in Pakistan, according to the LA Times. They claim that the hiatus is in its sixth week.

Neil Gaiman’s morbid 1989 Christmas card gets transformed into a pop-up book

Terry Gilliam's "The Christmas Card"

The 6 Most Secretly Racist Classic Children's Books -- This brings up an interesting and frustrating element of my current book list project; trying to decide "how egregious is too egregious" for racism/sexism/heterosexism/etc in classic children's books. In some cases, I think the story can still be shared with kids pretty easily with a bit of "we don't believe these things/use these words anymore" discussion, but in others I really have to say "I just can't", and leave them for later in life, when hopefully the kid in question will be better prepared to handle the imagery and issues. If you've struggled with this, how have you navigated it? What's left you really stumped, or struggling between personal nostalgic affection and modern social justice perspectives? I've noticed that it makes some difference to me if the material was originally progressive "for its time", and it makes a big difference whether it's a passing and coded reference or a major character. When the bias is in regards to a major enough character that kids may want to role-play them, it starts making me really uncomfortable -- Tiger Lily from Disney's Peter Pan is a good example of this.
Also, to clarify, I'm not talking about banning anything, I'm just talking about what I'm personally comfortable reinforcing via recommendation. Any kid will encounter a ton of crap in various forms of media. The best they can hope for is to have access to adults who are interested in what they're encountering, and can help contextualize it.
( Read more... )

My Alien Childhood

The Other World (Arco) -- I found it! I finally found it!!! This is an action figure set I had when I was young, and still have several figures (and the interior backing of one of the boxes, which I used as a poster for years). I've been wondering for ages what they were! I still have several of the little purple and orange dudes, and the big orange centaur/cat whatever-it-is (Yurus The Terrible, apparently).

And just the other day I tracked down another set from childhood: Outer Terrestrial Creatures. I had all six of these, too. I took them everywhere in sixth grade (which was a particularly miserable year for me) and pretended in my head that I was really an alien. I came up with elaborate backstories about which planet each was from, and how their physical traits were adaptations to the various environments. (for example, the one with the sort of bubbly skin was from Jupiter, and those skin sacs absorbed and released different gasses to allow him to float up and down through the atmosphere)

In other moments of nostalgia, I've confirmed that
Blackstar is the cartoon I'd been trying to identify for ages.
John Blackstar, astronaut, is swept through a black hole, into an ancient alien universe. Trapped on the planet Sagar, Blackstar is rescued by the tiny Trobbit people. In turn he joins their fight for freedom against the cruel Overlord, who rules by the might of the Powerstar. The Powerstar is split into the Powersword and the Starsword. And so with Starsword in hand, Blackstar, together with his allies, sets out to save the planet Sagar. This is his destiny. "I am John Blackstar." -- Oh yeah.
(I still have an action figure or two from that, as well)

Also, why does no one else remember The Mighty Orbots?

Linketies the Third

Good Samaritan pays 17 overdue water bills

Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand

Voter Fraud News: Indiana GOP Secretary of State “Ineligible to Serve”
( Read more... )