Thanksgiving 2008

Dear Trolls: Hating Me Doesn't Make Faggots Ungay, or a Black President White

There are a few readers of my blog who pop in occasionally to obsessively read me (though they seem to hate me) and/or leave vaguely-to-extremely negative or passive-aggressive comments which -- when are you going to figure this out? -- I'm never going to publish. (For those of my friends warning me not to publish this post, you should see some of these comments. They range from annoying to disturbing.)

Obviously, you don't like me. I don't know why, because you don't know me, you just read my blog. Maybe I've been making it easier on you lately because I openly admire our President-Elect. Yeah, what a horrible bitch I am, feeling energizing hope and love for my country, and more connected to my fellow citizens through the influence of my state's Senator, and now our President-Elect, Barack Obama. (Yeah, he's our PRESIDENT now, pretty great, huh? Say it with me: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA. He's your President, too. How about that?)

Or maybe you hate me because, though I'm a certified hetero myself, I love the faggots and the dykes, and I keep talking about how I'm marching for their rights and whatever. Yeah, I said it. HOMOSEXUALS. They are in my family (gasp!) and in my circle of friends (clutch the pearls!) and I CARE ABOUT THEIR RIGHTS. AND I LOVE THEM. DEAL.

Seriously. Why do you keep coming back? Why do you give a shit? Hating me doesn't make faggots ungay, or make a black President white, if that's what you're going for. Newsflash #1 - I'm nobody, in the grand scheme of things. And you, commenting anonymously and angrily on my blog...what does that make you?

News flash #2 - I know who you are. A) I have a Sitemeter, and B) I'm not an idiot. I know your ISP address, your country, your city, the business or university you are associated with, blah blah et cetera. You're not invisible.

News flash #3 - You can read my blog to your heart's content, but I will continue to delete your comments, and I just wanted to acknowledge that YOU ARE BEING OBSERVED AS WELL, and that you are kind of a pussy.

Wanna make it more fair? How about you send me a link to your blog, which features your real name, where you honestly share thoughts and ideas and talk about things that are really important to you, so you're not just some anonymous coward. No? Don't have the balls? Didn't think so.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Me in the Media, Frankenturkey

The show Bryan is in with Erica, Fuzzy, and Amanda, Soireé Dada: Schmück der Hallen, is being called "consistently amusing," as "the group turns its derisive, destructive glee to the task of dismantling Christmas" by Time Out Chicago.

There is a new interview with me here by my friend and fellow writer Lora Freeman. It's general stuff about the life of a freelance writer.

I stayed in Chicago for the Thanksgiving holiday because I'm still coughing. Bryan and I are going to do what we did last year and join the gang (Kristy, Roger, etc.) at the orphans Thanksgiving. It's going to be great, except that Ben is threatening to bring this (at left) for our main course. It's a turducken wrapped in bacon. I told him he's more than welcome, but that he should not be surprised when the result is me throwing up on his shoes.

The Pale Blue Dot

A little perspective from our friends at NASA.

Thanks to Voyager, now we know what we look like from 4 billion miles away. The photo at left is one of only two of Earth taken from deep space.

So where is Voyager now? Exploring the (theoretical) heliopause, where the boundary of our solar system ends and "the rest" begins, where solar winds meet stellar winds.

Yes, this is a nerd's way of conjuring up the vast and awe-inspiring, and saying Happy Thanksgiving. What, do you want a turkey? Okay, here.

$4.6165 Trillion Dollars = Or $24,000 Per Person

How much is the bailout going to cost us? More than the Louisiana Purchase, the Marshall Plan, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, NASA, and a few other things.

The only single American event in history that even comes close to matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost: $288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion.

(Via the Big Picture)

Michigan City Generating Station in the Backyard

Michigan City Generating Station in the Backyard
Originally uploaded by metroblossom

I don't know if I could relax at night, with this thing steaming away overhead.

Unfortunate Photo Juxtaposition With Dead Author Article

This was in my Google reader just now. Ew!

Today's Youth Have Too Much Self-Esteem? Other Links of Interest

Study: Today's youth think quite highly of themselves. "Many people who grew up in the '50s say, 'Nothing I did was ever good enough for my parents.' Now we're seeing the pendulum swing, and you hear from coaches and teachers who have been at it a while that kids have become more fragile. They don't take criticism well. Thinking you're God's gift to the world is nice for you. It's a little harder for everyone else."

Racial humor may never be the same -- we hope. "We're entering an era in which racial comedy will have to deal with creative thought rather than relying on the casual repeated use of the F word, the N word and the rest of the slackers' alphabet. In this changing frontier, how will we construct the new bases for racial humor?"

Al-Qaeda calls President-elect Obama a "house negro." Is it smart to insult the man who decides which caves to bomb? No.

The Economist has a hilarious article about George W. Bush's most defining physical feature - his nostrils. "More often, nothing exceptional was on the way to being said. But the nostrils ran ahead, twitching like a bull in a rodeo or a frisking wild horse, hinting at danger to come...Being bigger and better than most people’s, the presidential nostrils were also more acute. They could sniff out WMD in Iraq as snappily as hot dogs at a football game, though it took the UN many years to come up with nothing."

Palin Oblivious To Turkey Slaughter

You can see turkeys being dipped headfirst into the head-choppy machine behind her as she talks, seemingly oblivious to the carnage behind her. She's spouting the usual "connected phrases that almost seem linear" verbiage. Also, that cameraman should be fired.

Fun With Random Links

Ah, the Dream Captcha. The perfect melding of nerdy internet references and cheap, exploitative trinkets. Also, because it's always fun, let's recite the phrase that CAPTCHA stands for: "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart."

7 out of 10 men say they please their female partner every time. However, 7 out of 10 women confessed to faking it, and 25% pretend frequently.

"How to write a pitch," from Complications Ensue: The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog. "do not tell me visual details. Do not tell me any details that aren't story elements. Don't tell me what the extras are doing. Just tell me the story...Simplify, simplify, simplify, and never be boring."

The kittycat dream house! I'm pretty sure I will live there by the time I'm 50. With little rafters for cats to walk on, and secret passageways and...okay, the litterbox in the human bathroom is a little weird.

The Chicagoan - The Bastion of Yesteryear ::wink::

This is amazing!! "He quickly realized that he had stumbled upon a Chicago counterpart to the New Yorker that mysteriously had slipped through the cracks of history and memory." The Chicagoan! Why did I have a weird deja vu when I read that? Oh, yeah.

NASA wants you to drink your own pee.

UK local governments are using anti-terror spying abilities to catch people who put out their trash too early and paperboys who ditch rather than deliver advertising circulars. What a great reason to rewrite the law and restrict people's freedoms and privacy!

God's Facebook wall. "Adam is FIRST! You and Adam are now friends."

Bunnies in ice cream cones earrings!

Transcription of My Prop 8 Protest Video

I posted my Prop 8 protest video on Gapers Block and also on Chicago Metblog. I did write unique copy for each post, though, so I hope my editors are cool with that. ::wink::

Also, here's the transcription of the verbal part of the video. I have not been able to track down the names of all the speakers.

Crowd:

Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can...

Reverend Sherry Lowly:

Marriage is not the sole right of the church, but marriage is a right for all people
and I want to be part of opening up the church's doors and saying that we will marry, and we will support, all persons, all children of God. God loves you, amen.

Allison Leber:

Reverend Sherry Lowly! We got some church up in here!

Daisy:

Talk about love!

Adoptive gay father:

Love is fabulous, I've been in love with my partner for 12 years, and we're adopting a little boy from the Philippines. A lot of love to go around, I don't know why they'd want to take that away from us.

Daisy:

What does it mean for you to be here today?

Adoptive gay father:

It means a whole lot, because people will keep taking our rights away unless we fight for them, so I'm going to be here fighting until I have them.

Daisy:

And now that you're having a baby, Prop 8 means a lot to you. How does it affect you?

Adoptive gay father:

Basically we have to do everything in long, complicated ways. If we really had rights, as couples to marry, as couples to adopt, we wouldn't have to go through the long complicated processes we go through to do everything. Just trying to do things the way I think they should be done - committed, faithful, loving.

Daisy:

You're just trying to be a loving partner and a loving parent.

Adoptive gay father:

Yes.

Daisy:

What do you have to say about love?

Go love! Don't take it away from us!

Speaker:

We are all Americans and we are all in this together.

Speaker:

For those who are against us, here and everywhere else, we will not stop. It's time to accept the differences in our nation's people and realize that different doesn't mean disgraceful.

Woman in crowd:

That's right!

Speaker:

Power does not cede things without a demand. And it's great that you are here today. But Monday, get on the phone to my colleagues in Springfield, the people who have to vote for marriage equality in Illinois...

Daisy:

So, Carrie, what does it mean for you to be here today?

Carrie:

I'm here today because the government doesn't get to tell people who to love, or how to love them. I'm here because everyone has the right to create their own family.

Daisy:

What do you want to tell people about love?

Carrie:

I want to tell people that love is a brave act, and all the people here fighting for the right to love are being very courageous and brave right now, so go marriage rights, go gay rights, go equal rights!

Daisy:

Go love!

Carrie:

Go love!

Daisy:

Go love!

Carrie:

Go love!

Speaker:

...tell them that you demand that they vote yes, tell them that if they do not vote yes, we will be out there on the streets, on the blocks, going door to door in their community, and we'll put in place the people who will vote for equal rights...

Marchers:

What do we want?
Equal rights!
When do we want them?
Now!

Barack Obama:

But tonight, because of what we did on this day, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

My Video of Chicago Gay Rights Rally Against Prop 8

Two weeks after Obama's election, Chicago's gay rights supporters took to the streets to celebrate hope. I went to the rally with several wonderful friends and I took my videocamera, which was mostly manned by Daisy Mertzel. People said it felt a lot like being in Grant Park on election night - a huge and very positive crowd. I'm pretty pleased with my little video impression of the day. I hope it captured the essence of being there. Yes, that's me seen from behind about midway through, holding a sign that says "My gay siblings deserve equal rights."

Recovering From Prop 8 Protest

Thousands showed up last night November 15, 2008 at Federal Plaza in Chicago. The rally turned into a parade that snaked on for hours through the busiest downtown streets - Michigan Avenue was packed with traffic that honked and thumbs-up'd, and pedestrians who clapped and cheered. Even the cops were mellow. Nellie took these pictures with my camera. I'm reviewing video footage now, as well.

That amazing day was followed by a great Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of Bryan's Miami University friends, and then early to bed. Still sleepy zzzzzzz.

My Gay Civil Rights Protest Post on Chicago Metblog

Here.

"Really? People really believe that gay people choose to be gay? Choose to be part of an oppressed minority subject to violence and discrimination, when they could just take a couple of seminars and re-program their sexual orientation? This flies in the face of biology, neuroscience, and common decency to fellow human beings.

"As has been pointed out in recent media examples, so what if changing the law to include homosexuals in marriage rights is “redefining marriage in America?” If we hadn’t redefined marriage at other points in history, it would still be illegal for black people to marry each other. In 1967, it was illegal in 1/3 of states for President-elect Obama’s parents to have been married to each other, because marriage between a black person and a white person was illegal."

Science Roundup: Saturn's Heat Rash, Muskrat Poop, Whale Snot, Etc.

Saturn’s heat rash - The Cassini probe has been snapping pictures of a weird aurora hovering around Saturn's north pole. From Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog on Discover Magazine's site: "In general, aurorae change shape as the magnetic field of a planet fluctuates and interacts with the Sun’s solar wind. But this one doesn’t really do that. It also has been seen to fill the entire polar region of Saturn’s equivalent of the Arctic...So what’s causing this weirdness? We don’t know." Awesome!

Muskrat poop makes a good antibiotic.

Fear of Climate Change Has Maldives Seeking Backup Homeland - the entire country might be under water in a few years, so they're looking for a place to relocate. The entire country.

Whale snot is a useful diagnostic tool for vets looking to assess the health of our blowhole-spouting friends. And I love this part - sometimes they gather the whale snot by flying little remote-controlled helicopters through whale blows. "The whales definitely notice the helicopter," said a researcher,
"they turn on their sides to look at it. But they don't seem bothered."

The L.A. County Sheriff's office is admitting that DNA for almost 6000 rape cases remains untested. So much for the CSI Effect. "The bad news is we have 5,635 kits in a warehouse," said a supervisor."The good news is we now know what has to be done."

Wanna serve in Obama's cabinet? In the digital age, there's a lot of potentially embarrassing information about everyone floating around, and they'd like you to provide lots of deets about your online life. "please list...each book, article, column or publication (including but not limited to any posts or comments on blogs or other websites..." Every comment or post I've ever made? That would take forever! Guess I'll have to give up my dream of being Secretary of Transportation.

Frankenstein Part Two: Love For All

Sure, the Bride of Frankenstein was literally made for him, but what if her heart belonged to someone else? Like a sexy lady vampire? Lucky for her he's a pretty understanding, progressive guy. Lucky for Frank, his ex-wife still cares enough for him to introduce him to his new love, the Undead Bride.

This is for all the people who loved our first Frankenstein video, but felt sad for Frank, who was all alone and looking for love. I hurried up with unused footage and a smidgen of new stuff to facilitate the introduction of a new character so I could wrap up the tale with a second happy ending.

Starring Cameron Esposito, Bryan Bowden, Zee Hartmann, and Teresa Lemaire. Writing, video, editing, music and obnoxious voiceover by Elizabeth McQuern.

My Glamorama Video Project

This is a video that was never used for a project I was working on, but I'm kinda proud of it - I took stand-up comedian Robert Buscemi to Chicago's Glamorama fashion event to do some man on the street Q&A with some pretty ladies to find out why they think Chicago is the perfect host for the 2016 Olympics. I wrote the music, and did all the video and editing. Buscemi and I wrote the bits for the ladies to say, and wow, what a fun night we had. Everyone was dressed to the hilt and loving the attention of a camera. We had a grand adventure and got a nice little clip out of it.

Entertaining Links, Reflections on Spam Culture, and Yes, Obama

If you haven't checked out passiveaggressivenotes.com, you should. It's hilarious. Passive aggressive notes from roommates, ex-roommates, co-workers, cranky grandmas, and even God! I had no idea that office kitchens and fridges were such hot spots for interpersonal conflict!

From techradar.com: Spam gets 1 response per 12,500,000 emails. Out of 350 million spam emails, 28 result in sales. "Yet even with this apparently abysmal response rate of less than 0.00001 per cent, the researchers still estimate that the controllers of a network the size of Storm are still bringing in about $7,000 (£4,430) a day or $3.5m (£2.21m) over a year."

Live puppy cam is the most popular livestreaming webcam ever! Puppies for everyone!

My friend Daisy Mertzel, who is a producer and videographer, made a video of her excursion to Grant Park last week on Election Day. Daisy, who my parents would probably like to adopt into our family, is amazing with man on the street stuff. She didn't just take videos and pictures, she interviewed people, asking them what "hope" means to them, and why they think Obama's election is a turning point in American history: