sapote

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 13:23:28 GMT

I would say having a bird is like a very very very very minor version of having a small child except that it's more like having a tiny version of myself, age 32, viz:

( Read more... )

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Sat, 18 Jun 2016 16:27:38 GMT

Does anyone want a grabbag of perfume/samples I accrued when a friend who's a collector pawned a lot of her stuff off on me? Some partial bottles, lots of stuff that's not BPAL, some stuff that is BPAL. If you're interested and want details get at me - I'd accept some money for shipping, especially if you're in a place that's weird to ship to from the US.

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Sens8 1x9

Fri, 03 Jul 2015 12:38:21 GMT

Sens8 1x9 ( Read more... )

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Mad Max: who's waiting for Nux?

Sun, 31 May 2015 11:52:11 GMT

This is just cut because it's a spoiler, it's one sentence instead of my usual postnuclear encyclopedia: ( Read more... )

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Mad Max: second viewing and demographics

Sat, 30 May 2015 13:59:42 GMT

I saw it again last night and I have LOGISTICAL THOUGHTS. Please note that the second cut includes some pretty detailed stuff about pregnancy hazards, so do not read that if you should not read that!

( The demographics of the Citadel and where warboys come from. )

( The Wives' Quarters and reproductive health in a radioactive wasteland )

( And then some agriculture. You know me and agriculture. )

( A stupid postapocalyptic reality show I watched forever ago, the Citadel, cultural and military survival. )

Anyway, this is longer than most actual fanfiction that I have ever written, so I hope someone wants to talk to me about it. I also have new thoughts about who's going to have what job in the new Citadel, but I should save something for tomorrow's Mad Max of the day.

... I need an icon, probably.

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Mad Max meta of the day

Thu, 28 May 2015 19:25:06 GMT

Is basically about people vs. things vs. masculinity and consent in this movie, but it's not a very well-articulated point (content warnings are spoilers, pm me?)( Read more... )

I wonder how many more days of Mad Max thoughts I have in me. I'm seeing it again, uh, Friday and Saturday, so I guess we'll find out.

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Daily Mad Max meta

Wed, 27 May 2015 20:13:13 GMT

( Strategy, mythos, and the new Citadel, basically. )

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Mad Max-related research topics

Tue, 26 May 2015 14:21:26 GMT

Chernobyl's birds adapting to ionizing radiation. "Laboratory experiments have shown that humans and other animals can adapt to radiation, and that prolonged exposure to low doses of radiation increases organisms' resistance to larger, subsequent doses. This adaptation, however, has never been seen outside the laboratory in wild populations."

Extinction Events That Almost Wiped Out Humans. "The really interesting thing about a population bottleneck is the effect it has on evolution. With a small population, mutations get passed through a very large percentage of the species' members. Detrimental mutations could be devastating and lead to outright extinction. Beneficial mutations, however, could cause fairly fast shifts in the population."

From Arid, Salty Desert to Permaculture Garden: Greening the Desert Revisited (note: not a lot of data; still dependent on intermittent rainfall) ( Some thoughts on desertification, briefly )

ETA 1: Salt-tolerant plants for the US Southwest - some of these plants are North America-specific, but, for instance, acacia is endemic to Australia and has edible seeds and shoots. (In fact, they're so salt-tolerant that they're an invasive plant in salinizing parts of the US). I just fell down a deep research rabbithole about bush tucker. The upshot: there are a lot of plants that will put up with a lot in their growing conditions, though they often get their revenge by being full of cyanide and requiring laborious leeching to eat.

ETA 2: Plants and animals of the Namib Desert (so closer to the actual filming location). Oh my god, fog beetles. What an interesting planet.

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Mad Max continued

Tue, 26 May 2015 13:12:43 GMT

( I'm going to mention Angharad, self-injury, and religion here. )

Apparently the next movie is already completely filmed (?) which is reassuring, and I imagine that we might get a better look at how to make the Citadel defensible. ( Read more... )

I'm going to post this unlocked in case anyone new wants to come talk Mad Max with me. Hello!

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Furiosaaaa

Mon, 25 May 2015 12:22:16 GMT

I have seen Mad Max. Come talk to me about it.

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Amazon dash dystopia! I HAVE THOUGHTS.

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 13:05:57 GMT

So The Worst Things for Sale, a historically grumpy and hilarious misser-of-points about household objects, alerted me to the impending Amazon Dash button dystopia, and then I went looking for other opinions and some dude (significant) bloviating about how we'll miss those moments of emotional openness and vulnerability and quiet reflection that we used to find while shopping for more trash bags. Ian Crouch seems like a historically grumpy fellow as well, and I don't want to deny him his fun. And of course I have my questions about the Internet of Things, namely that the parts involved in making a coffee maker semi-sentient, or littering your house with individual, disposable plastic buttons with wifi transmitters contain a lot of ecologically complex metals and have to be manufactured by somebody.

At the same time, it's appealing to rant about the idea that we need to be emotionally available to our trash bag purchasing, and I'm going to do so.( Read more... )

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The most violent makeover movie

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 12:18:53 GMT

So I really hated Kingsmen, which was mostly helpful in illustrating why Jupiter Ascending got a fandom immediately. It wasn't going to be For Me in about twelve ways, but then it piled on an additional four and I got cranky.

Don't get me wrong, it was wish-fulfillment nonsense and there's nothing wrong with that, but it feels like how Twilight is identified as a sparkly Mary Sue parade and The Wise Man's Fear is not. I mean, look at this glowing review, and compare it to the reception that Jupiter Ascending got. In both cases in this comparison, you can point to other things besides the genders of the protagonists - the writing for the Girl One is clunky to the point of exasperation, the heroine has way less agency and gets plucked from midair by the action man a lot. But also, idk, it would be nice to be so thoroughly pandered to that movies have to do winky hip deconstructions of all the pandering while still actively pandering to my fantasies of sex, power, and makeovers the way Kingsmen does. Once I've been even slightly pandered to, it makes it harder to just nope out of all the movies that Aren't For Me unless I imagine a different gender for myself. IDK. It's interesting, but also depressing.

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Jupiter Ascending

Sat, 07 Feb 2015 03:44:26 GMT

was delightful. Delightfully bad. SO STUPID. So stupid I'm actually going to need a cut, because if it had been edited down by about two thirds - any two thirds, at random - I would be trying to convince people to make it a fandom.

( Read more... )

The end.

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I want to talk about food today, for some reason

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 14:27:05 GMT

I'm stuck at home with a migraine (presently hemming a tea towel into a rice bag to drape over my aching face, actually - don't ask if I should be on the computer, the answer is no, but I'm stubborn) and for some reason I'm reading cooking backlash articles linked by the often-excellent Jennifer Reese, whose book "Bake the Bread, Buy the Butter" has one of the most honest tales of home-chicken tragedy I've ever read. ( I wanted to practice my essaying, and I'm going to talk about food and cooking and the virtues attached to it, and this gets long. )

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Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:00:49 GMT

I GOT SPOILED FOR FAKING IT
I AM SO MAD
IT WASN'T ANYONE'S FAULT IT JUST HAPPENED.

Also, I am really excited that Faking It is back. It is cute, and honestly, there's nothing that makes my day go faster like a terrible MTV drama soundtrack at work. I've been living on peoples' Teen Wolf Youtube playlists for months now, I need something new.

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Smells: Aftelier Shiso + Aftelier Oud

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:54:27 GMT

So remember how I was in love with Shiso and thought Oud Luban was a little much?

I recently tried layering them and ( oh dear god )

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Saw Guardians of the Galaxy!

Sun, 03 Aug 2014 13:52:35 GMT

Overall, I loved it, though ( the bad ) ( Other stuff! )

( Unabashed enjoyment )

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Smells: Bvlgari Omnia + Armani Privé Bois d'Encens

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 14:36:22 GMT

( Holy crap does that combo have personality )

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A sprightly romcom with an attempted honor killing in the middle

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 15:55:02 GMT

Just once I'd like to see a rendition of Much Ado About Nothing where Leonato looks at his daughter at the wedding, looks around at all his neighbors, and realizes he has to say that shit right to her face whether he wants to or not. Or a rendition where he's more sad than angry. Or a rendition where Hero is as frustrated as she is heartbroken, because she's been SO CAREFUL her whole life, so FREAKING careful, and some random dude can run his mouth and undo the work of one hundred thousand days of never being around a boy unsupervised.

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Perfume: Oud

Tue, 15 Jul 2014 19:57:18 GMT

1) Oud makes a LOT OF SMELL

2) I enjoy that smell on a piece of paper! I think I would probably enjoy being around an alive oud.

3) On me it will always, at best, smell like really expensive rubber and I don't know why.

This post brought to you by Aftelier Oud Luban, which smells like a beautiful far-away exotic forest made of pencil erasers and old-school galoshes. And cinnamon. But also galoshes.

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perfume: L'Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 19:46:03 GMT

( Read more... )

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Smells: Le Labo

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 19:27:02 GMT

I feel bad for not writing up every single thing I smell on paper, because thanks to generosity of Work Friend I'm smelling about ten things a week, but I'm now two full sets behind on my notes.

However:

Does every single Le Labo scent smell like a fire? Specifically, a green wood fire? Because that is what I am getting from Santal and Patchouli and even Vetyver. I like it, but it seems like going the long way around to smell like woodsmoke.

ETA: Okay, I'm going to expound: ( Read more... )

The only other real find of the group was Jo Malone Vanilla and Anise. ( Read more... )

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Perfume: Aftelier Shiso

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:56:33 GMT

( Love at first smell )

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Perfume: Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir

Thu, 03 Jul 2014 19:33:56 GMT

( CLOVE ATTAAAAACK )

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Smells: citrus/colognes!

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:42:38 GMT

Wow, talk about perfume nerdery and suddenly you realize everyone around you has just wanted to discuss the chypres this whole time. A coworker took me to lunch and brought a very well-curated sample set of citrusy summer colognes! I liked some of them, though I tried almost all of them on paper. My notes are not complex, though.

( Annick Goutal Neroli )

( Le Labo Bergamote 22 )

( Tom Ford Neroli Portofino )

( Atelier Cologne Trefle Pur )

( Jo Malone Lime Basil Mandarin )

( Jo Malone Grapefruit )

( Malle Bigarade Concentree )

And a grab-bag of other stuff:

( Jo Malone Dark Amber and Ginger Lily )

( Prada Infusion d'Iris )

( Puredistance Opardu )

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