elfinblaze

Currently wearing: a perfume called Death and Decay (from Lush). Everything smells of lilies! I love it!

Currently loving: this video - 10 styles of metal.
I had to choke off a laugh so I wouldn't wake anyone. Those lyrics are so true!

Complete list of dead animals that have been pulled out of my backyard swimming pool so far:
- Innumerable insects (including spiders)
- A few lizards, mostly Fence Skinks and Eastern Water Skinks
- One frog (big, brown, and spotty)
- One rabbit
And today, one magpie!

- When I was in high school, Brian Greig was the only openly gay politician I knew of. Today he's writing in The Guardian, reflecting on those times, and how little has changed:
History teaches us that wishing gay rights issues would just go away always backfires, and suppressing this issue will only serve to make it a key focus in the election.

- I love this article: Superman and the Damage Done.
Grace is a word that I have used a number of times here, and I have meant that in multiple ways, both as a description of physical movement and as a way of behaving. Superman can be firm, but is always polite, and he does not hold his powers as a cudgel above others... unless it's Zack Snyder's Superman.

Now I'm thinking of the DC trinity in spiritual terms. If Superman is grace, Batman is sacrifice, and Wonder Woman is mercy. At least, that's how I think of them.

I'm pretending the current cinematic "Znyder-verse" doesn't exist, LA LA LA!

- Salted pistachios for breakfast. I win at being an adult!

- Also, I'm one of those people who eats the garnishes on restaurant plates, because I love parsley. Today, Magpie and I were tasting the mini herb garden we set up last week. The Oregano was fine. Magpie loved the Chives. The Rosemary was amazing, and the Parsley was just divine! We had to drag ourselves away.

- Australian artists release an album for marriage equality in Australia.
Including Jimmy Barnes, Australian Idol Wes Carr, John Butler Trio, The Cat Empire, The Black Sorrows, and Katie Noonan, among others.

- Films That Will Haunt You. Forever.
My personal entry would be Ring 0: Birthday (リング0 バースデイ). That last shot of the movie still haunts me.

- Jut found this blog post about my old university. It even includes my most hated building: the biology building. Most hated, because in order to get to the classroms you have to circle three sides of the entire bloody building (the fourth side is labs that you can't just wander through)!

- Mother is home from hospital. Not better, and she can't eat solid food anymore, but she reckons she'll hold on until September, when my sister gets married, cause she wants to be here for that. After that... we'll see.

- I just discovered the touch keyboard on my laptop. Ooooh. Now I can type with just my mouse.

- Open letter to the couple threatening to divorce if Australia passes marriage equality:
You are 'quitting' not because of anything having to do with your own marriage or family, but because another family might be given the opportunity for security, honor and growth. Your rationale is not sound, it is not compassionate, nor would anyone on any side of it grow better because of it. Your proposed actions are, in a word … childish.
I agree. Very much: "No, mine!" and "If we have to share our toys with the homos, we don't want them!!" With an added dash of: "ME! It's all about MEEE!!! Me! Me! Me! Your gay marriage is all about me! I'm the important one here! See what those nasty gay people are making me do?"

My suggestion still stands: Let's co-opt breathing so that the stupid people will stop doing it.

- Man, I'm in love with Matthew James Thomas' voice! He played Pippin in the 2013 Broadway revival of the musical.

- Ok, this Star Trek VS Star Wars video made me laugh. All so true. And I like them both.

- I just spent three hours digging a wood splinter out of my thumb. Three hours! I kept sweating with anxiety and nausea, because I knew I'd have to take a small chunk of skin out with it because of how deep it went, so I had to pause and wipe my palms constantly. (The first sign I'm going to faint? Getting hot.)

But now that it's done I'm freezing again, and I can't hold anything in my left hand, so I'm eating a spring roll by holding it like a cigarette (and typing with my right hand).

I think I might need gardening gloves just to bring in the firewood from now on. I'm just a disaster.

- The Supergirl trailer looks fantastic! I'm not a Super-family fan, but this show looks like it will be a lot of fun.

- The Legends of Tomorrow trailer is equally exciting.

I know what shows I'm watching next year.

- Six months and I haven't managed to kill my cactus yet! I haven't been trying, but normally I kill everything I put in the ground. Or it never comes up in the first place.

- Pictures I took of the Parramatta River today. Banks? What banks? If you walk past, you can still see that the water was much higher yesterday; the nearby roads are all dusted with sand and soil, in ripples like water currents, where the high water washed it on shore. It's a mess.

- I am caught up on Arrow and The Flash! Finally. Such fun shows.

- The only internet comment section worth reading is at Slacktivist, and especially this post, where people discuss whether a human/kryptonian hybrid is possible.
I'm not saying that interbreeding is tremendously likely, but anyone who says "Oh, I can accept that an alien would look and act recognizably human, but interbreeding is beyond the pale because of the astronomical odds involved" isn't on solid scientific ground. The odds of two species that are so similar not being able to interbreed might be high, but the odds of two species being so similar is many many times higher.
Ahh, nerds.

- No, that's not true. The comment section of Badass Digest is also a good place.

- If you'd like a dent in your forehead, try going through the "homosexual agenda" tag on tumblr. Guaranteed headdesking.
It's all: "Don't you see that intolerance of intolerance is intolerant? You should let me 'live and let live', the way I don't let you. So stop being such a hypocrite."
No, I'm not a train wreck enthusiast, really. :)

- I am so unfit. I started a simple daily 5-10 minute exercise routine last week and now I ache all over. Owwwww...

- On the other hand, books I have read so far this week:
Hero, by Perry Moore
Princesses #2: The Mermaid's Madness, by Jim C. Hines
Princesses #3: Red Hood's Revenge, by Jim C. Hines
And it's only Tuesday. What am I doing with my life?

- Where have all the lesbians gone in TV and film?
I was just thinking about this last week. Plenty of shows currently featuring queer men, but not so much women. It sucks that I don't like prison shows, so Orange is the New Black is right out for me. Glee is over, Lost Girl is ending this year, what does that leave? Maybe Orphan Black, but the lesbian on that show is dying, and clones don't really interest me (I'm making myself trudge through my sister's DVDs, hoping the show will hook me, but no luck so far). There's not a lot of options out there right now.

- I'm still trying to untangle all the historical threads of Christianity, so I love this quote:
"One of my Calvinist friends... describes the branches of the Reformation this way: If you picture the Church as a chest of drawers, the Lutherans went drawer by drawer and discarded items they felt were wrong. The Calvinists dumped out all the drawers, then methodically sorted through the stuff and returned only that which they thought was essential. The Anabaptists took an axe to the whole thing and resolved to start over with a new chest of drawers."

- Happy Mardi Gras! My (straight) brother is going. I'm not. I'm staying home to watch and blog Glee. I'll watch the parade on TV tomorrow. *lazy*

- I hear that the 90s are back. So where's my damn rock music?

- Earlier today, I dropped a whole jar of dried herbs all over the kitchen and pantry floor. Just now, I knocked my cactus off my windowsill, getting rocks and soil all over my bed. How did I catch my cactus? By grabbing it. I've just spent ten minutes picking spines out of my palm, because ow. I'm a disaster today.

- I've finally found a use for those Gideons bibles we were given in high school. I'm currently using mine to press flowers.

- Also, this week I worked out what that old building was that I used to walk past. It's the infamous old Parramatta Girls Home.

- I don't visit board game forums every day, but sometimes there's interesting discussions I get caught up reading. Like which games you'd pass on to the next generation. Generally I'd say "all of them" and let the kids decide on which ones to keep. But I also realised my family's into its second generation of playing Talisman (introduced by the parents of girls my sister and I grew up with), and goodness only knows how many generations of my family has played Chess (I don't even know where our old set comes from).

- It's nice to feel appreciated. Like when people appreciate one of my blogs. Feels good.

- Sci-fi/geek conventions around Australia, 2015.

- How to start an arguement among a bunch of Germans.
It's clearly das Nutella!

- More from FFA:
We have the Princes Highway in Australia. It goes right around the entire country, meaning that every single person living around the coast can argue about whether it should be Prince's, Princes' or Princes. Occasionally Princess, which is how most people pronounce it.

I always figured it was Princes' Highway but no one could ever be bothered remembering the apostrophe at the end. Huh.

- I am covered in glitter. Not because it's New Years, but because I went looking for art/beading/fishing tackle storage boxes, but the art storage boxes I found in the shop were covered in stray glitter. It refused to let go of me.

Anyway, happy new year, everybody!

- And no, the storage boxes were not for my craft supplies for once, but for my newest board game, Twilight Imperium. I couldn't unpack all the little bits and pieces in the game before I had somewhere to store them all.

- I also go my period today so I'm spending New Year's Eve snuggling in bed with my old friend, painkillers, and detaching 348 spaceships from their frames so I can eventually play the actual game. :p Honestly, I'm quite happy with this state of affairs.

- I'm less happy with the teenagers up the street setting off illegal fireworks, drag racing down the street on skateboards, and drinking and yelling in the street. Now I sound like an old grouch but... It's going to be a long night.

- Angelina Jolie and Miyavi, talking about his role in her film. I would not have recognised Miyavi without the crazy hair and make up. Wow.

- viciousdisorder, how much would you like these shoes?