Came across this rather depressing Tumblr today which accumulates tweets from people expressing their disappointment that several of the characters in the Hunger Games film are played by black/hispanic actors. The real kicker being these characters are all clearly described as being non-white in the book.  From glancing at the Tumblr the most commotion seems to be about the character Rue who is meant to be cute and innocent. Seems like most people skipped the part about her “dark brown skin” and took  her innocence to mean she was a little white-skinned, blonde-haired girl!  Aside from the fact that they assume good characters = white characters (despite actual descriptions to the contrary in the book) the thing that really gets me is that some of these people are offended  that there is a black actor playing a character who they thought should be white.

Also: good article from the New Yorker about the whole mess.

In other bigot news, there’s this collection of 100 tweets from people describing what they would do if they had a gay child. It’s what you would expect… kill them, put them up for adoption and have them raped (?!).

To make up for all this negativity, here is a link to a google image search of puppies.

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Clive Thompson on the Power of Introversion:

But overall the irony here is pretty gorgeous. It suggests we’ve been thinking about the social web the wrong way. We generally assume that it has unleashed an unruly explosion of disclosure, a constant high school of blather. But what it has really done is made our culture more introverted—and productively so.

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Here is a really cool continuous scroll Flash thingy showing the relative size of things to other things: The Scale of the Universe 2. From the Planck length all the way up to the estimated size of the whole universe. Warning, do not play with this if you are stoned because either you’ll spend 17 hours on it or your head will explode.

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I’ve been getting into Once Upon a Time. It’s kind of a cheesy TV drama version of Fables.  But the story is basically interesting and there are a few pieces of eye candy so I’m happy to watch.  In a show about fairytale characters being cursed to live in a small town in the modern world in Maine there is obviously going to be a lot of nonsense. But the latest episode really kicked it up a notch.

Emma (former bail bondsman / current town sheriff) and Mr. Glass (who is the town’s disgraced investigative reporter / drunk / Mirror Mirror on the Wall / Genie in the Bottle) team up to find some dirt on the Mayor / Evil Queen.  Considering that these two people are professional dirt diggers the amateur hour of snooping and scheming that follows is really unfuckingbelievable. They decide to start by doing things above board, which amounts to looking at public records for about 5 minutes. When, amazingly, it turns out that the Mayor has not left a paper trail leading back to her crimes they immediately throw in the towel on morals and start breaking some laws. They start by planting a bug in her office. I know that things have to be stylized for TV, especially on a show like this, but the “secret bu”g they plant is a microphone about the size of a Ferroro Rocher with a blinking green light attached to it.

Through this modern marvel of spycraft they discover the Mayor has a shady meeting planned so they follow her to it. Because Emma is a professional bail bondsman she knows that when you are trailing someone on an empty road at dusk it’s best to follow 20 feet behind and keep your lights on.  It doesn’t matter though because the brakes fail as they are making a turn and the car runs off the road. Not sure how they got that far without realizing the brakes didn’t work, but hey ho.

After this setback they decide to get even more subtle by smashing in a window at the Mayor’s office and walk right in so they can go through her files. Apparently Emma has the technological know-how to hack into her computer, find specific files about property deals, and send them to the printer in LITERALLY 15 seconds.  Because she’s a bail bondsman of course.  The Mayor shows up and they manage to talk themselves out of it.  If they were not so dumb they might have wondered why the Mayor seemed to buy their ridiculous story which they told by doing what amounted to a pantomime of “WE’RE GUILTY!”

At the next town council meeting they confront the Mayor with evidence that the she was embezzling town funds to build herself a lavish home in the woods.  The mayor responds with, “you got me, but it wasn’t for me, it was for the kids.” Basically she was just building a playground but had some phoney blueprints drawn up to trick Emma.  ”Gotcha again Emma, you really are unbelievably stupid and bad at this!” the Mayor seems to say via one of her evil smirks.

We then learn that Emma was set up and that Mr. Glass was working with the Mayor all along. And that he can make really creepy “I want to do you” faces.

The most interesting part of this episode to me was the Genie/Mirror’s back story with the Queen.  He starts off as the Genie in the Bottle but we know he’s going to eventually become Mirror Mirror, and by the end of the opening fairytale scene it’s pretty obvious how. The neat part is that it seemed to be a story that continued to develop the idea they’ve been hinting at in the series that the Evil Queen wasn’t always evil, she was just unlucky in love and needed a hug or a kitten or something. And then at the very end we find out that she was just manipulating the genie all along and apparently really is just an evil old bitch right down to the bone.

The Snow White / Prince Charming story wasn’t touched on much other than to remind us that Snow White has decided that she’s down with being an adulterous slut. I’m not completely judging her because I also find Josh Dallas to be way hotter than his looks actually justify.  OK, that may not be a fair judgement of his looks but I don’t typically go for blonde guys so the stirring in my loins that he gives me always leaves me feeling really confused and unsure about the world around me.  Anyway, I don’t like Prince Charming’s wife but if he really is Prince Charming he would split up with her before making out with Snow White and throwing her secret romantic champagne lunches in the woods. If that assclown Derek Shepherd on Grey’s Anatomy can manage that kind of decency then I think a fairytale prince can!  And yes, I do realize that last sentence is the literary equivalent of living alone with three cats named Bella, Edward, and Jacob.

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My Cago’s car goes Chicago every weekend to pick up some cargo.”

-Frankie’s Gun by The Felice Brothers

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My thoughts in italics…

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I wasn’t going to do New Year resolutions this year because I usually forget about them by January 2nd. But I’m entering 2012 with a net worth lower than the average hobo so I’ve got some time on my hands to accomplish some things. Among them are:

1. Stop treating something like “Finally finish watching the rest of West Wing/Supernatural/Breaking Bad” as a goal or priority – not that I’m going to stop watching TV, I just want to stop feeling like I’m obligated to watch a show because it’s meant to be really good or because I started the series and must finish it.

2. Stop wasting money on alcohol consumed after my brain stops forming memories. Sad but true. Aside from the money factor it would also be good for my body. And reputation.

3. Stop pretending that gym membership/attendance leads to motivation to workout and not the other way around (and hence, cancel my membership and save the £30/month)

4. Stop pissing so much money up the wall and start saving up for a vacation to the States cuz I miss my momma and poppa and friends over there.

5. Start exercising more – not to lose weight (because there’s little evidence it helps with that), but because it’s good for my overall health. A tough one since the benefits are not readily observable.  The positive feeling I get after working out is hard to focus on when I am trying to overcome the sense of dread and lethargy required to get the motivation to actually exercise.

6. Start being more conscientious about how my money is spent, which is not to say spend a lot less but just be aware on a more regular basis of where my money is going.  If I do this then maybe I can stop being shocked when I am into my overdraft 3 weeks before payday.

7. Start cooking more. It’s something I find to be really satisfying when I actually do it and also ties into some of the above points about saving money and treating my body better.  Also, I make a mean mac n cheese.

8. Start phoning home more. I miss my family and friends in the States but don’t make enough of an effort to keep in contact with them. Facebook and random emails with funny links don’t count.

9. Start doing me. Eww, not like self-abuse you pervert. I mean, doing my own thing creatively etc. Taking risks, making mistakes, failing – but doing it for me rather than just sitting back, going along with things I’m not interested in or just complaining about my lack of interest in work rather than doing something about it.

10. Start getting laid more. Seriously, it’s been awhile.

I know that the best way to achieve goals is to make them SMART but I prefer to think in broad strokes of what I am working towards rather than beating myself up when one day I skip exercise in favour of the pub.  Also, who needs all that pesky accountability?

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I’m in the middle of reading this amazing profile of Anna Nicole Smith and just got to this part:

And on August 4, 1995, John Howard Marshall II, sick with stomach cancer and unable to swallow, died. Anna Nicole was in New York when she got the call. She reacted with convulsions and was hospitalized.

A court-appointed intermediary brokered two funerals; Anna Nicole opposed Pierce’s plan to “burn his dad” (in keeping with J. Howard’s long-standing wish to be cremated), so hers took place first. Amid harp music, J. Howard’s body lay in a casket covered with white roses and lilies and a banner reading, “From Your Lady Love.” She wore her wedding dress and veil; Daniel, 9, also wore the white tuxedo from their wedding. The two of them rose at one point to offer the Bette Midler song “Wind Beneath My Wings,” in honor of all J. Howard had done for them.

And that’s the plans for my funeral sorted!

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Among my many bad, self-destructive habits the one I’m most interested in breaking is chewing the skin off my lips and inside of my cheeks. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember and it’s something that runs in my family. I became especially worried about it a few years ago when a particularly brusque Russian lady dentist was examining my mouth and told me that if I didn’t quit it I would get mouth cancer. And that alcohol in mouthwash doesn’t help. She didn’t mention booze or cigarettes but I connected the dots on my own.  As with every other habit I’ve tried to stop/start/change I’ve given it a go a few times but given up after a few times.  My latest attempt started yesterday.

I was working on something so boring and tedious at work that I was looking for any distraction I could so I googled “mouth chewing” or something like that. One of the suggestions I came across for quitting is the rubberband method, which is a technique for breaking any bad habit. You wear a rubberband on your wrist and any time you think about doing the action (or catch yourself already doing it since it’s often a subconscious thing) you give yourself a snap on the wrist. It’s a form of aversion therapy where you associate the action with the pain of the snap and eventually give up the naughtiness in order to avoid the pain.  It seems to be working so far but I feel weird doing it in public.  I hope it works because my wrists haven’t looked this abused since I was a sad 15 year old. And anyway, if I can’t kick the mouth chewing I’ve got no chance with the smoking.

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I was reading about the Ziiiro Celeste watch and had an idea. What if the gradient in the background was fixed for each day and represented daylight/nightime hours?  It could have similar colours, yellow/orange for day and dark blue for night time.  It would fade from blue to yellow at dawn and the reverse at dusk.

It would have GPS so that it could calculate sunrise and sunset times based on your location.  I’m not sure how much sunrise/sunset times vary from year to year for a given day but I suppose to be completely accurate it would need some kind of data connection. Eventually I imagine watches will have all of this plus local weather conditions/forecast.  And now I’ve just realized this all basically existed 15 years ago with those Microsoft SPOT watches. OK, but mine would be prettier and have cool graphics like the ones on my phone. And I would probably use them about as much as I do on my phone (i.e. never).

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