Lindsay’s Six Step Plan for Evenings Out

Step One: Get lost on the U bahn/S bahn crazy.

Step Two: Get found by attractive boys who do not speak English, but manage to point me in the right direction.

Step Three: Arrive somewhere hoping it is the right place to meet up with people

Step Four: See people I recognize.. How did that work!? This city is huge.

Step Five: We troop towards some known destination to everyone but me. I proceed to not pay attention to where we are going, thus ensuring that I will get lost when I try to find my way back.

Step Six: Arrive. Everyone orders food and alcohol. I try to convince the waitstaff to give me free water… it usually does not work and I wind up with some crazy fruit juice. I order the cheapest thing on the menu. I have no idea what I order.

My conversation goes like this:
“I will have this…” (ok! I ordered in German, this is good.)

“Blah blah blah mit blah oder blah blah mit this other thing you dont know…?” (Oh man, they are speaking so fast I have no idea what’s going on.)

“I really don’t care, anything!”

“You have to care.”

“Ok then yes.”

And then it is always delicious.

art preview

Here’s a preview of the next big art project coming down the road. (Sorry for the quality of the image — my computer and photoshop are refusing to cooperate)

Students Strike in Chicago

I just want to call your attention to the strikes that are going on in Chicago. Students and parents, led by an elected official are protesting the funding disparities between urban and suburban schools. I’m really interested to see what will happen with this.

Specifically, I wish I could be there to watch the fallout from this (AP reporting):

Buses are lined up to take the students to the northern suburb of Winnetka where they’ll attempt to enroll in more affluent schools.

More coverage here.

This blog’s got Olympic Fever, and I think it’s catching!

Everybody has their irrational loves. Cats. Toast. Small elephant collectibles. Football. One-shot PARANIOA campaigns.

I. Love. The Olympics.

I mean, this is serious love. This is waiting-with-breath-baited love. This is printing-out-schedules-of-events-and-hanging-up-said-schedules-in-dormitory-lounges love. This is the kind of love that caused me to buy a cell phone dangley of this year’s Olympics mascots a year before the Olympics began.

You know what I love almost as much as the Olympics?

China.

So, you can imagine the kind of mood I’m in this week. I have been following this year’s pre-Olympics news extremely closely this year, from the politics to the problematic visa situation to the mascots, and all that’s in between. I’ve done a lot of listening and a lot of reading and a lot of thinking about this whole upcoming Olympics. But this Thursday, all of that stigma’s going to take a step back for me, and I’m going to sit back, relax, and enjoy these Olympic games. And I’m going to be happy for China, for the people of China, for my students in Hefei and Shanghai who were so excited about China having the Olympics this year, because I know how much this means to them. And I’m going to be happy and excited for all of the athletes, particularly those from smaller counties, who are about to experience the biggest honor I think a sportsperson can experience; walking into that Olympic stadium, carrying their country’s flag.

But enough sentiment. Due to this being a very special Olympic year, where not one, but two of my irrational loves are coming together for a fantastic two-week period of personal unemployment, I have decided that this blog needs to get into the spirit of games. I had originally intended to attend the Beijing Olympics (true story, actually; I was in China last summer, but planned to return this summer with my family to see the games, but due to money shortages, visa complications, employment confusion and illness, we were unable to get out act together in time and so are sadly restricted to watching the games from the distance of our living room) and to do some very basic on-site blogging with news from Life At The Games. However, since that’s no longer an option to me, I have decided to do the next best thing: become the Conventioneers’ official Olympics Correspondent! HOORAY!!!!!

This exciting announcement comes with a bit of a warning, though. As much as I passionately love the Olympics….I know jack shit about sports.

This is probably not entirely accurate. I have dabbled in the sports world. I rock climb. I’m a great swimmer. I do gymnastics. I have dabbled in soccer, have attended baseballs games, and watch the Superbowl religiously. I have ice skated, cross-country skiied, tried to run distance, and longed to be a pole vaulter. That said, though…well, I’m a geek. I majored in linguistics. I get excited at the prospect of drawing a sentence’s D-structure. I’ve spent hours researching Chinese chengyu and reading about metaphor. Tonight I had a conversation about the LOLcat programming language.

So you can see why I would be a bit of an interesting choice to be our blog’s Official Olympics Correspondent.

But here’s what I promise: what I lack in sports knowledge, I will make up for in entertaining writing. I’ll report accurately and amusingly. I’ll include snippets of Fun Facts About China and smatterings of pictures and Chinese phrases that would be useful to you if you happened to be at the Beijing Olympics (for example, “我要休息一下” means “I want to nap”). Basically, I’ll make the Olympics fun. I’d like to take this opportunity to share my irrational loves of the Olympics and China with those who read this blog. I love sharing things that I like with people that I like, and I’m excited to do so in the coming fortnight.

So get excited everyone! 8/8/08! China LOVES the number 8! It’s good luck! Be ready for the games! 北京欢迎你!

Unintentional Satire Award

The Unintentional Satire Award (USA… oops) is given to someone who says or writes something so absurd that it’s satirical, but they don’t realize it. They declaw critics who would use satire as a weapon, because they shoot themselves in the foot with such ridiculously false statements that the only thing we can do is stand by and facepalm, headdesk, or laugh and watch as they smoothly create the best mockery of their own position that could ever exist.

This week’s USA goes to Orson Scott Card, brilliant SF writer and disgusting Mormon. I almost met him once, at a convention — I think it was Boskone in 2005. He was invited as a guest of honor, a rather controversial choice. Recently, he wrote an anti-gay marriage article.

Let’s look at some of his winning logic:

Remember how rapidly gay marriage has become a requirement. When gay rights were being enforced by the courts back in the ’70s and ’80s, we were repeatedly told by all the proponents of gay rights that they would never attempt to legalize gay marriage.

It took about 15 minutes for that promise to be broken.

In the 21st century, gay marriage is a requirement! Henceforth all marriages shall be gay. Did you not get the bulletin? Of course, this defies the carefully observed and scientifically proven laws of nature, which are not subject to court oversight:

If the government passed a law declaring that grey was now green, and asphalt was specifically designated as a botanical organism, would that make all our streets into “greenery” and all our parking lots into “parks”?

If a court declared that from now on, “blind” and “sighted” would be synonyms, would that mean that it would be safe for blind people to drive cars?

I mean, gay marriage is like dogs and cats living together! Geeks and jocks enjoying a PBR and playing D&D! Up is the new down, in is the new out! What if scientists said there was no god, and that evolution was the new religion! It just can’t happen, because the universe was not created that way. Besides,

The laws concerning marriage did not create marriage, they merely attempted to solve problems in such areas as inheritance, property, paternity, divorce, adoption and so on.

And clearly, gay people should not have access to these solutions.

Fuck you too, Orson Scott Card. I don’t care how good your books are, I’m not ever giving you another cent. Oh, and congratulations on the award.

Still the best unintentional satire I’ve ever seen is Bush Was Right by the Right Brothers:

Catchy, but… ouch. You just couldn’t write something more mocking if you tried.

Kick Its Ass!

My money’s on the cat.

A Top-Secret Project

Dearest readers, I apologize profusely for not updating these last few days. I’ve been up to my elbows in job searches, with no luck thus far. Do any of you know someone looking to hire a plucky talented-yet-untested writer and all around creative genius? You should send them my way.

Also, I went to Readercon and heard Laird Barron read. He’s an up-and-coming horror writer originally from Alaska who is totally awesome. I wish I could recommend one of his stories, but the one he read is not in print yet and he could not say who bought it. I haven’t had time to read anything else by him. However, you can find some of his stories at Free Speculative Fiction Online.

Finally, I am working on a Project. It’s one of those all-consuming projects that once all the pieces are together, I will set in motion. I hope to have enough of it together by the end of the week to reveal it. I’ll give you a sneak preview: It requires audience participation.

Oooh… Ahhh…

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

If you haven’t seen Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog yet, you haven’t seen the internet. This is possibly the single best piece of media I’ve seen… since Firefly (excluding Wall-E). You’d better go watch it today, because it disappears on Sunday the 20th.

Why? Joss Whedon answers:

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Towns Win Capitalism; Telecoms Sore Losers

I heard a funny story today. Telecommunications companies are suing cities that want to install municipal fiber optics for communities outside major metropolitan areas. These cases are happening all around the country.

According to an article in the national law journal:

Attorneys for cities say the telecommunications suits, whether brought under state law, the Federal Telecommunications Act or other laws, are veiled attempts to stop construction of competing public systems providing an essential utility in the digital age.

“It’s a national playbook. The longer they [telecom companies] delay things, the better for them,” said Patrick Ottinger, general counsel for Lafayette, La.

…

Attorneys for telecommunications companies say the litigation is needed because municipalities with the ability to borrow money cheaply — and not hobbled by the need to return a profit — have unfair competitive advantages.

These court cases should be thrown out for frivolity and sheer ridiculosity, and the telecoms should be required to pay the legal fees for wasting the public’s time and money. These multi-billion dollar companies are doing everything they can to make sure they can control and profit heavily from the internet, while not providing adequate services.

They’re arguing that you can do to much for the good of the public. Horrors, right? I mean, one of the outcomes of publicly accessible internet would be that more poor people and minorities would have better internet access.

Of course, various right wingers think this is far too socialist for the likes of US:

So the solution, in the eyes of the folks from the New America Foundation, is increasing the level of socialism in America and undermining the free market. After all, if cities offer for free (or at cut rates) what private businesses have spend billions developing and building, we will quickly see the vast improvements in internet connectivity come to a screeching halt. After all, why invest in improving the ability to access the internet when the government is going to strip you of your market?

This is clearly not about the free market. In most of these places, there is no real competition. Consumers are often forced to choose between one of two providers who offer little variation in service. In some places they either have to choose one provider or… nothing. I can think of other public services that killed the private sector — buses, schools… It’s funny how when cities started offering buses, taxis and limos just disappeared! And the public university killed the private college right dead. Shame on them, right?

By offering faster, better, more reliable service and higher bandwidth, telecoms could easily turn a profit, even when faced with the socialist horror that is a public service.

These companies could stand to shave off a couple billions anyway. Some of them have enough money pay random people to stack FCC hearings — so they can encourage the FCC to allow schemes that will make them even more money, and allow them to shut out whoever they want.

Those shenanigans, apparently known as the free market our right wing friends seem to like gone horribly wrong. They’re using money to do away with this silly ‘democracy’ business. Speaking of making more money, Time Warner is apparently exploring a metered bandwidth system. Use too much bandwidth, and they slap a higher rate on you.

Says the Save the Internet blog:

“Why Internet for all? I think Internet access is required for full participation in society today. Maybe it’s not as basic as water, but it’s definitely as basic as hot water,” Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, said.

According to Chase, Internet access is fundamental to maintaining a high quality of life and for addressing such pressing social problems as America’s energy dependency.

“When you add the amount of money the average American spends on Internet bandwidth and their cell phones, it’s almost as much as Americans spend on energy, their cars and heating oil,” Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu said.

The oil problem has similarities to our bandwidth problem, Wu added. “Production is controlled by a tiny cartel that sets prices high and keeps them there. And so we have a similar economic and structural problem … and something needs to be done about it.”

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Thanks to apophenia for the link to that piece of black humor.

Evil Convention Running

I’ve always been interested in running conventions, because I’ve attended them since I was born. Over the years, I’ve gotten the idea that con runners were part of some exclusive über-cult, and I finally have the proof!

From the Con Runner’s Wiki*

There is actually One True Way to organize your convention committee. Often times a convention will run completely wrong until someone figures this out. Don’t bother to tell anyone if you figure it out because probably you’ll just confuse them. Also, you’ll get asked annoying questions about silly details. You may want to think about splitting your convention committee into something called ‘departments.’ Departments are a crafty way to make suckers think they have a hand in things without actually allowing them to screw anything up.

A common way to split a science fiction convention into departments is like so:

People who have the answers
People who don’t

*Actual wiki may differ from what you see on this cereal box.