Day 24 - Whatever Tickles My Fancy

Wobblers.

I'm really into dubstep lately. So are a lot of people, apparently. It's catching on in a major way after being a pretty niche sound in the UK for awhile.

A lot of people also really, really hate it. And they get mad when the DJs play it at shows - I guess Deadmau5 dropped some dubstep in Ibiza, to which a lot of his stans whined "HUURRR ur sellin out mau5," to which I reply "Huh, dubstep may be catching on, but Deadmau5 is still a whole heck of a lot more mainstream than dubstep is, HURR HURR."

Also, it seems like there's this nasty family rift among self-proclaimed dubstep lovers. For instance, the divide around wobblers. Like, okay... here is a pretty wobbly dubstep song:



And here's one that's not wobbly:



Right.

So for me, I go "damn, this is considered the same genre?" And for people that don't listen to electonic at all, they're probably going "Um, this all sounds exactly the same to me." Sorry about that! But then, you probably skip over most of the music posts on my blog. And that's cool.

All of this rambling, I'm not sure it's going anywhere. I'm really sleepy. But. I did want to just post about dubstep, because it really blows my mind live (and as a kind of depressing corollary to that, it never sounds quite as good at home since my speakers aren't, um, huge and professional grade, which makes all of this delicious dubstep listening kind of a love-hate thing when I can't have HUGE BASS at home. But ANYWAY! Sheesh, sorry about the huge parenthetical run-ons. Moving on) and like I mentioned before, it really can be akin to a religious experience when there are thousands of people pulsing like one uniform organism to a dirty massive beat.

END!

Next up - I get some sleep and write something that makes sense. Stay tuned!

Day 23 - A YouTube video

Ok, so part of me was conflicted about how cool to be with posting a video. Should I post something funny and new that's ahead of the curve, so that I get ultimate credit for "discovering" it? Well, that's hard. And also I'm not usually that ahead of the curve with stuff like that.

I also didn't want to post an obvious meme, as funny as they are wont to be, because that would be kind of obvious and overdone. And I didn't want to lean too far in that direction.

So I'm going to do a different kind of overdone, one that isn't quite as obvious, unless you know me and have seen my current bathroom decor.

I wanted to just post a video that I can rely on to make me laugh every time I watch it, so here's an old classic that I still love (and quote) pretty frequently. It's a series, but this is one of my favorite episodes (even though it's hard to pick a favorite.)



You could have guessed, right?

Day 22 - A website

Oh hello, passiveaggressivenotes.com.

This website has been around for awhile, but I'm proud to say that I've actually been a reader since it started up (and I've got an email from the founder, Kerry, to prove it!)

-- As an aside, I have received two personal "thank you for being awesome" emails and one t-shirt from the administrator/owners of various web communities I've been involved in. Talk about having so much goddamn time on my hands that they recognize for wasting my life on their websites. Pity me!

Anyway, the notes usually speak for themselves, but I also really enjoy Kerry's witty commentary that goes along with it. It's definitely in my top 5 sites to check up on every day (and when you're a computer hermit like me, that's saying something.)

Project Runway Fashion Week collections - now with judgements!

So the images from all of the remaining PR contestants' collections are up and about on the internet! There are ten contestants remaining, so that should mean three of these are finalists and seven are decoys. (I feel like the number of decoys gets greater every season... can't they coordinate a little better with fashion week? Or maybe these designers don't mind the exposure, even if they're not in the competition.)

All links are to Tom & Lorenzo, because they posted the pictures so I don't have to.

April Johnston's Collection
I really like a lot of these clothes and would totally wear them, but I don't think this has enough drama for a fashion week runway show.
Prediction: decoy

Andy South's Collection
This is coming from someone who loves shiny, so you must know this pains me: I HATE the metallic chartreuse. Also, the fit and proportions on so many of these are terrible. Someone, please kill satin pants.
Prediction: finalist

Michael Drummond's Collection
Bored. So so so bored. Also, depressed. As per my comment on the TLo blog, I think this is what would happen if Hot Topic tried to go haute couture.
Prediction: decoy

Ivy Higa's Collection
Ivy is, by all portrayals, a massive bitch, so I'm happy to see that her collection looks like it was shat out by J Crew after an overindulgence of chili.
Prediction: decoy

Valerie Mayen's Collection
This is so hit-and-miss for me. Some of the pieces are really interesting and great, and some of them are just plain wack. Kind of like Valerie's work so far on the show!
Prediction: decoy

Mondo Guerra's Collection
Now this is what I'm talking about. There's drama and it's totally weird, but in a perfectly tailored and executed sort of way that it totally works and you know this guy knows exactly what he's doing.
Prediction: winner

Christopher Collins' Collection
I love the gold metallics that are popping up, but overall I feel like the silhouettes here are very tired and uninspired. Not to mention that one of those looks came straight out of the recent team challenge fail that the judges hated, except in different colors.
Prediction: decoy

Michael Costello's Collection
For me, this is actually not bad. It's pretty wearable. But, in perfect Michael C fashion there are some execution issues on interesting concepts, so if this isn't a decoy the sloppiness is unacceptable.
Prediction: decoy

Casanova's Collection
I kind of feel like this collection is an amalgamation of all of the others I've seen already. Maybe it's not his fault that I looked at his second-to-last, but the metallics are everywhere (ref: Andy, Christopher, Michael C) and the goofy shiny pants need to DIE (ref: Andy.) These are nice clothes, but they don't feel any different or any more amped-up from what he's already presented.
Prediction: decoy

Gretchen Jones' Collection
This collection is a shocker. The opposite of what I just said about Casanova - I would not have guessed this was Gretchen if I was not told so. Her elements are there - the nods toward homeless chic, the muted colors - but there are some shapes and silhouettes I would not have predicted from her. And some of the pieces (hot pants, patchwork pants) I would almost have expected her to pronounce "tasteless" had she not done them herself.
Prediction: finalist

Day 21 — A recipe

So, here's a "recipe" for something I make at least once a week. It changes a lot, depending on what's in the fridge. But the idea is the same. So this version is the one I made this week.

Eggs on Toast (this is going to be such a hard recipe, guys.)
1. Bread. I prefer whole wheat
2. Egg
3. Prosciutto, 1 thinly sliced
4. Tomato, sliced in rounds. About 2 rounds per toast.
5. Avocado, about 4 thin slices per toast.
6. Cheese (right now I'm using Havarti) for melting on the toast.
7. Salt and pepper.

K. So fry your egg, I usually do sunny-side-up or overeasy. While that's going, prepare your toast, then throw your sliced cheese on top and zap it in the microwave for about 10-20 seconds to get the cheese shmelty. Then put the tomatoes on the cheese. Then put the prosciutto slice on the tomatoes. Then, the avocado, and then lastly your fried egg. Add salt and pepper to taste. Yum! This has been my dinner several times since I moved into my place because a) I like it and b) it takes less than 10 minutes. But if you're not a breakfast-for-dinner person like I am, then, uh, try it for breakfast.

Day 20 - A hobby

All right. Let's have some real talk about my life.

I think my hermit tendencies may have first started to blossom senior year of college, when I would spend an embarrassing amount of my free time watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD in my room by myself. I still went out a lot and made sure to enjoy that last year of college, but certain things (I'm looking at you, Biochem 153L) reminded me that I have, in one way or another, resigned myself to a life that's gonna involve a lot of me spending quality time with me, myself, and a box of autoclaved filter-tips.

So, my hobbies? They're a lot less social than they used to be. I used to dance and play team sports. Now, I just tend to entertain myself when I'm not at school. Don't catch yourself thinking though that my hobbies are weak-sauce. In fact, one of them would run you over and award itself shiny gold stars the better it ruined your face.



I think what this game means when it says it's appropriate for seven-year-olds is that you're never too young to learn the value of wrecking shit. Basically, Excite Truck is a racing game. But the truth is, the winner isn't the person who crosses the finish line first. It's the person who has the most points. And how do you get points?

Well, for instance, you can crash into a bunch of stuff. You get points for that. If you totally annihilate another truck, "SUPER TRUCK SMASH" gives you maximum stars. Can't stay on the road? "SUPER TREE RUN." Take a turn too wide and then crash into something? "SUPER DRIFT!" followed by "NICE CRASH!"

Obviously, this is my kind of game. Check out the theme song.



This is like elevator music, if it just had its face rocked off at a heavy metal concert and then it was transplanted with awesome. Now, imagine yourself listening to this and driving a monster truck around some kind of terrain that doesn't always make sense (tornadoes in Canada?) and tell me that you can't imagine the glee infiltrating your body as the crescendo of this wicked awesome song propels you into the back end of another truck that is gonna spend the rest of its life crying over how you totally pwned its sorry ass.

So, your hobbies might get you some cool photos on facebook, but mine will run you over in a big ass truck.

Day 19 - A Talent

This isn't a "pity me" post, but I've been thinking off-and-on for the past few days about a talent I have, and I haven't been able to come up with one that actually seems interesting. I mean, I'm not saying I'm not talented in any way, but I think I'm pretty transparent in terms of people being pretty aware of what I'm good and not good at. I'd think that a post like this would be good for talking about a "hidden" talent, and I'm not sure that I have one of those.

So, I guess it is best to just throw up this post and stop delaying the rest of the challenge topics.

Day 18 - Whatever Tickles My Fancy

This is going to be a short one - I just wanted to show all of you a small bit of ridiculousness that graced me with its presence on the screen as I was watching last week's "Project Runway."

Apparently it was raining in New York?

Meme time! Plus societal speculation.

Part I -

I've already seen those algorithms that identify whether you 'write like a woman' or 'write like a man' based on a pasted sample of your writing. It always comes up that I write like a man, which I suppose explains why when I post under gender-neutral monikers and people decide to start shit with me, I get called "dude" or "asshole" as opposed to "bitch."

Anyway, I was never satisfied with those, even though my anecdotal experience seems to confirm it, because the ones I've seen seem to primarily function by counting certain words in the sample that men allegedly tend to use more than women and vice versa. I guess the claim that overall men and women write significantly differently is so tenuous that the only testable factor the algorithm designer could come up with was word counts.

I did find something in the "paste a sample of your writing" camp that I liked, even though I haven't been able to find where on the page it cites their methods for generating the result. This one scans your writing and tells you what famous author you write like. I like the idea of this a lot more because it has the potential to be a more interesting analysis: I'd like to believe that syntax and sentence structure could be analyzed, in addition to use of colloquialisms and the general sophistication of diction used.

I submitted a couple of different samples and received this result most often:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Now, this is a person who, admittedly, I had not heard of! But Wikipedia fixed that problem for me and now I have someone new whose work I'd like to check out. So yay for silly memes and quizzes that can teach me new things!

Part II -

A large part of feminism is understanding privilege - that is, "a special advantage or right possessed by an individual or group. A privilege is a right or advantage gained by birth, social position, effort, or concession" (thanks Dictionary.com!.) Socially, privilege amounts to a series of factors that are completely out of our control; yet, those factors automatically form the framework for a hierarchy of status. The accepted primer on understanding privilege is a paper by Peggy McIntosh called White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Feminists have used this basic idea to create similarly worded and themed Male Privilege Checklists that, using McIntosh's framework, associate 'white' with 'male' (as the privileged class.)

Privileges do not stop there. How can you tell if you have privilege? Well, you probably have it any time you're part of a hegemonic group that you (perhaps unconsciously) consider 'normal' compared to others. Think gay people are weird or gross? That's your straight privilege. Etc. Etc.

I read an interesting article about a month ago about geeks and hacking - If You Were Hacking Since Age 8, You Were Privileged. Summarily, it's about how geeks (usually male) often cite how young they were when they started hacking as validation of their geek credentials and bragging rights, but they don't exactly realize what a privilege it was for many of them to have access to a computer at the time; thus, treating hacking-while-young as a merit badge disadvantages current hackers who had enter the computer science/hacking field several years later out of necessity.

Reading that article led me down the internet rabbit-hole to find a shorter list of items, several of which few people probably think twice about, but that can collectively serve to indicate a measure of class privilege. As in, the more of these items apply to you, the more likely it is that you're in an economic/social class that confers advantages. The blog that posted it invited others to post the list on their blogs and indicate what items applied to us, as a way of examining our privilege. So - that is what I am going to do now! Bolded items apply to me.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

It's crazy. I've never thought as my family as 'rich,' and I've practically never felt like my family had more money than most of the people around me. But lists like this really force me to think about things that I took for granted, that so many people in this country and around the world don't have access to. It's good to have a kick in the face like that every so often to keep us grounded.

Life 2.0

So right smack in the middle of the 30-day blogging challenge, I went through a major life transition: I finally moved out of my parents' house! Yay! As I mentioned before, it was that major move where my old room at home was completely emptied and is now transitioning into a full-use office for my parents (my mom did buy a nice sleeper sofa for me to use if and when I need to stay over.)

So, outside of all of the financial preparations I have made - including setting up a very stringent budget and documenting all of the purchases I make on credit - there's a million other adjustments that I've been working on that have kept me away from the computer a bit, and particularly away from blogging because my energy to actually put out thoughts in plain English has been, well, stunted. That thing about preparing and cooking my own food? Sucks. I've kind of been living on eggs and salad, which hasn't been the worst so far, but I do miss chicken and lamb. I've never broiled anything myself before, and I'm scared to try, screw it up, and waste money because what I've made is too gross for me to want to eat it. So I eat things I know I can make, which is eggs and salad.

There's also the problem of getting used to the way things in the apartment work and how they're different from what I expect at home. For instance, the faucet in our kitchen sink sits at such an angle that thus far I've found it impossible to not get water all over the place (including myself) when I wash dishes. Therefore, washing dishes takes twice as long because I have to turn the water pressure way down, and clean up all of the spills afterward. It's annoying.

And then there are the things that, when we move in, we notice are already broken. My screen in my bedroom window was completely busted, so I am still unable to open my window and get fresh air in my room without letting in all manner of whatever wants to crawl through my window space (humans, bugs, stray cats - you are all NOT WELCOME, sorry.) We have a major ant problem. My roommate's toilet has been running constantly ever since we moved in three weeks ago (I think they are fixing it today?) And on. And on.

But! As evidenced by this post, I'm feeling blogging competent again. And I have some stuff to say, so expect me to pick up where I left off with the challenge, and hopefully get some other posts in here too.