Moving to Wordpress for real!

Okay, I'm getting the hang of this wordpress thing, so let's give it a shot. The new blog can be found on my domain - katsudon.net! I need a better template, but it'll do for now I think.

I'll be leaving these posts up for a little while, but I guess I should probably delete this mess eventually. (Should I? Should I not? I've never had to move blogs before.) But either way I won't be updating this one any more if all goes well so please grab the new rss at katsudon.net!

Assault weapons ban press conference

Today Senator Feinstein proposed her new assault weapons ban. A friend of mine went to the press conference for it and this is what she had to say afterward:

There were a lot of good speakers; both Conn. Senators, the CT Rep from the district that Sandy Hook is in, survivors of VTech, relatives of victims of VTech.
Officer Charles Ramsey from Philedelphia had one of the most powerful speeches; he was really passionate about it.
They also had some examples of the weapons that would be banned on display: all of them are military style and don't belong on the streets.
Also, notably, the bill includes clauses that explicitly protect guns designed for hunting or sport, or require manual operation.
Call your representatives, call your senators, demand that they vote for it.
Well, it was a press conference, not an actual Senate meeting.
Also the NRA is throwing a bitch fit about it. Even though 74% of their membership support an assault weapons ban.
I want to call the NRA and throw the whole 'guns don't kill people' thing in their face.
People kill people. They just are able to kill a lot more people with assault weapons.
These are not weapons designed for sport, or hunting. They are designed to kill as much as possible, in as short a time as possible, with minimal reloads.
True, in the military they are used more for suppressive fire in combat, but the shooters in the mass murders of recent years always aimed to kill with the weapons.
40% of all mass shootings in America's history have happened in the last nine years since the expiration of the 1994 assault weapons ban.
Oh, also: there's a march for assault weapon control on Saturday in DC.

Re: inevitable argument that guns are just tools, guns don't kill people, etc etc:

The Following (of Kevin Bacon)

Watched the pilot on Hulu because, well, Kevin Bacon. And obviously I needed a bloody, disturbing and gross serial killer show in my life, which has been empty for the last 14 years since Millenium was canceled. The show opens with the guitar from Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), which kind of tells you everything you need to know about the tone.


Kevin Bacon was appropriately Kevin Bacon throughout the entire first episode, so I guess I'll stick with him and see where it goes. James Purefoy (as Dr. Joe Carroll) was appropriately gross and creepy as the villain. And why is it that every single time in a cop show someone says, "You'll want to see this," I immediately know that no, no we will not. Ever.

The concept for the show has potential to be interesting, since it's basically Dr. Carroll the world's most evil and Poe-obsessed literature professor convincing his weird following of - serial killer fans, I guess? - nutty people to kill for him from prison. I'm expecting a lot of bad technobabble to explain how this will all work, though if they continue to give him access to the internet in the successive episodes they'd better have a damn good reason.

At this point, though, I'm really just expecting it to be a lot of hapless and good-looking young women (mostly blonde) getting messily killed every week by awful people while Kevin Bacon is deeply wounded yet sternly Kevin Bacon at them and there are occasional hat tips to Edgar Allen Poe to prove the script writers did pay attention in their English lit class.

Prove me wrong, The Following. I dare you. Be more interesting and give me a reason to keep watching other than the unutterable Kevin Bacon-ness of Kevin Bacon.

Don't you have something better to do with your time?

Look, this isn't hard. I saw something that bugged me. You don't have to agree with me that it's a problem. In fact, it's totally fine if you don't. We're all along the spectrum of human experience and I am comfortable with the fact that we're on different wavelengths.

That said, since I'm not you and you're not me, I'm entitled to my goddamn opinion.

This is the hardest part of discussions when it's about feelings and reactions instead of facts. Everyone is informed by their own life experience, and that life experience is likely wildly different from yours. Unless their reaction is downright inhumane, you don't get to tell someone that they're wrong to feel the way they do. Well, unless you want to come across as a dismissive asshole who has his or her fingers firmly planted in ears whilst chanting lalalala, and then sure. Go wild.

If you don't want to sound like a dismissive asshole, here's an example of what you can say: "I don't agree with you and I feel differently, but I see where you're coming from." It's really not hard. Cut and paste that if you like, until you can type it with feeling. You don't even have to give me credit. It's something every reasonable and empathetic human being should be able to say.

Also? "You shouldn't talk about this because children are starving in Africa" is also incredibly dismissive, for the record. And stupidly hypocritical, since apparently you don't have anything better to do with your time either. Those poor kids.

This is me. Every night.

End of the ban on women in combat

Surprise! Pentagon to end ban on women in front-line combat. I knew about the lawsuit back in November and got the sense that things were kind of moving on this front, but I didn't expect this one. Happy inauguration present, I guess?

Having never served in the military, I can only really speak to how it's looked from the outside. Like it's seemed really ridiculous to continue to keep women out of combat assignments when female soldiers have gotten wounded fairly often in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, considering the way combat in those wars hasn't stayed nice and neat on a battlefield. And I've heard over and over that combat assignments are the better path to promotion (is this true?) which would make keeping women out of those assignments beyond shitty.

That, and I think it's an intense pile of bullshit to keep women out of a job so long as we're physically capable of doing it. And what I mean by that is that I totally understand why in, say, firefighting you want someone to be able to drag at least a 150 lb person to safety when you might be depending on them to save your ass one of these days. And if a woman can do said dragging? There's no excuse to keep her out. 

Thoughts from actual military type people? I'd like to hear.

If you'd like to laugh yourself sick or potentially cause brain trauma from too much headdesking, read some of the comments on the CNN article. Apparently this is a bad decision because women have periods (if this is even potentially a problem, there is birth control that actually prevents this by the way), it's a scientific fact that men use logic and women use emotion (my emotions say LOL), and women are meant only to create and nurture life and we are disrupting the order of the universe (if that's the order of the universe it could use some more disruption thanks). 

I cannot even make this shit up. 

Good Boy

Yesterday my mom had her second dog, Willis, put to sleep. On January 8th, she had to let the first dog, Maxine go. They were both 14 years old. Maxine and Willis were littermates.

Anyone who has ever lost a pet knows how tough this is. They give us so much love and don't really ask for much in return.

I'm feeling pretty rough about this, myself. I haven't lived with my parents for over ten years, but I was there when Maxine and Willis were puppies. Hell, I was there for the first trip Mom took to see them after they were born. She and Maxine were basically best friends from the moment Maxine opened her eyes. Willis, my brother and I helped pick out. He was the most adorable, clumsy, doofy puppy out of the bunch.

Willis was the most adorable, clumsy, doofy dog when he grew up, too. He and Maxine were always there when I visited my parents. I'm going to miss them. They were both good dogs. In the end, that's the best thing you can say about a dog, isn't it? Simple, wonderful words for simple, wonderful little beings.

Good dogs.

Also, Jim C. Hines is awesome in case you didn't know

The BBC did a cool article about Jim C. Hines and his ongoing series where he tries to pose like ladies on fantasy/scifi covers. Kind of like live action Hawkeye Initiative, except instead of Hawkeye we have a real life SF author, which is infinitely cooler in my opinion.

This coming out in the same week as the sigh-worthy SFWA Bulletin cover is just a lovely juxtaposition, though, isn't it.

I buy stuff

I bought two things today that I'm very excited about, one for my head and one for my butt. Whee! I've been wanting a new saddle for my bike pretty much since I started regularly riding more than 20 miles at a time, and finally just did it because I was tired of my sit bones being in blazing agony by mile 23. I went for something more curved than the standard Bontrager saddler that came with my Lexa, and boy could I tell the difference. I did a 25 mile ride and it was like riding on a cushion of... uh... fake leather filled with gel, really.

Never underestimate the power and worth of a good saddle.

And the other exciting thing is I finally got a good pair of sunglasses, since I realized I'd need something to protect my eyes and block out the wind better now that I have contacts. These ones are pretty awesome - shatter proof, which is important, and they also come with three sets of lenses that are easy to change out. So I'll have a set of clear lenses for night rides and such.

Expensive, but very worth it. I'm not planning to use these babies for driving. I'm figuring a pair of cheap grocery store sunglasses ought to be good enough for that. But man, I look about a thousand times more badass now too. Bonus.

Contacts!

No, not this kind:

This kind:

I went to the eye doctor yesterday to get my glasses prescription updated and get measured for contact lenses. I left wearing a pair of contact lenses and feeling utterly euphoric.

I used to wear contacts, years ago when I still worked for AT&T - I had to stop after getting laid off because they would have been too expensive. The reason for that was because I'd developed an astigmatism, and I'd begun to get some blood vessel growth into my corneas; the way the optometrist at the time talked about it, you'd think I would be on the brink of death if I didn't switch to gas permeable lenses.

It's kind of crazy how technology has advanced in the last eight years. First off, my eyes are fine for normal lenses, which now routinely are made so you can sleep with them in (holy shit what). And the optometrist said he thought they'd correct enough for the little astigmatism I have without having to go fancy. So far, he seems to be right.

Oh yeah. And I wore the pair he gave me for something like twelve hours on the first day, and almost forgot they were in. Technology indeed. I can't begin to say how excited I am.

Even cooler, my glasses prescription has not changed at all, even though it's been three years since I last got a new pair of glasses. (I actually only went in because my lenses were getting scratched up enough to annoy me. And what I considered "scratched up" is nothing compared or other people, so I got some well-deserved teasing for being insanely anal retentive.) So - and this is the most exciting thing of all - the optometrist said I should be good to go for Lasik when I can afford it. 

I just. I am so full of happiness I can't begin to describe it. I've had glasses since I was in grade school, and my uncorrected vision is somewhere down in the 20/500 range. The idea of being able to just... wake up and see is mind-blowing. 

Not yet, of course. I haven't even started my real job, and I still have student loans to pay. But as soon as the loans are paid off, I'm going to start saving. And until then, I'm going to love the shit out of my contacts. (Which are also cheaper now than when I used to wear them. I live in the future.)

So, so very happy.

Sigh.

Rescued my SFWA Bulletin from the mail today. And... sigh. We're apparently celebrating the 200th issue with a muscular barbarian babe in a chainmail bikini with red poofy 80s hair.

I know we should celebrate our pulpy genre roots and take glee in them, and I try people, I really try. And the cover is always a fantasy/scifi thing, which I've always liked. But this? It doesn't even bug me so much as... sigh. Yeah, that.

Can I not even escape getting punched in the face by the unattainable "idealized" female body in my nerdy writer space? It's not like female writers are exotic specimens you only see on safaris or feminists (of any gender) in the organization have been shy about making their presence known. But it feels as if 'Bonus: we remind you of the pervasiveness of the male gaze!' should be in yellow under Bud Sparhawk's name in the lineup.

Sigh.

Double bonus - the Resnick and Malzberg dialog at the back is to sing the praises of lady editors and publishers. With, "She was competent, unpretentious, and beauty pageant gorgeous... as photographs make quite clear. Tell succeeding generations all about her [Dorothy McIlwraith], please." at the start.

Just... sigh.