gardnerhill's Journal
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
gardnerhill's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Thursday, January 14th, 2010 | | 11:13 pm |
How to make 171 hateful words do good.
25,000 to 50,000 believed dead already. No infrastructure, hospitals and palaces full of bodies. Bodies carted off with backhoes and stacked along streets. All of this exacerbated by unspeakable poverty wrought by centuries of slavery, racism, abuse, oppression, colonial rule and banana-republic politics in the poorest area in the Western Hemisphere. Most people around the world and around the U.S. are setting aside their beliefs and politics to help get Haiti what she needs most now. President Obama has mobilized former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to fundraise on both sides of the aisle. ...And yet, in the midst of this bipartisan joining of hands and resources, Pat Robertson was glad to tell us all the real reason Haiti was struck with this horrific disaster: "And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal.
"And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come."In 171 cruel words, Pat blames the victims for an earthquake. Others more eloquent than I have already rebutted Pat (and his soul-mate Rush Limbaugh) for their hateful speech during this time. I could rant for a page or three just about what this says about Pat's version of Christianity. But instead I'm going to do what pro-choice activists do with hate speech -- make lemonade out of lemons. Pro-choice workers and activists have come up with a brilliant money-maker that turns their opponents' vitriol back upon them. It's called the Lemonade Project. When a group like Westboro Baptist Church or Operation Rescue or their sympathizers show up to blockade clinics and scream at women and girls, pro-choice supporters pledge a certain amount of money per minute of their stay. The longer Fred or Randall hangs around the clinic or on campus, the more money they make for women's reproductive health. This not only makes money, but helps to drive off the offending group faster. The Lemonade Project seeped into my mind as I glared at the words of Pat Robertson. 171 words. 10 cents a word is over $17 for the Red Cross. A quarter a word is about $43. A buck a word -- you do the math. So who wants to join me in the Douche-athon? | | Saturday, January 9th, 2010 | | 10:29 pm |
If the neighbors don't find ya handsome, they should at least find ya handy!
I've become the unofficial go-to person in my condo association for installing motion-detector lights -- removing the ancient external electric light and putting in something for deterring raccoons / burglars / loiterers / squirrels. I work cheap, too -- I put out for pad Thai. (My normal fee for the job is lunch at our local Thai restaurant.) Did another one today -- searching for the right fuse switch for the outdoor electricity, wrestling off painted-on screws, unwinding thick stiff wires, looking for the ground wire, floppy electric parts, dropping screws, fiddling with the switches at the bottom of the device -- and being surprised and pleased all over again when the damn thing actually works. (I knew making that electromagnet for Show and Tell when I was 5 would pay off.) In less successful news, I was unable to replace the ancient piping under my bathroom sink today -- precisely because it WAS ancient. I think when these condos were built in 1971-2, there was a 6-month window in which they manufactured the specific sizes used for this stuff, because the "standard" replacement parts are all about 1/32" too wide to fit the condo's outlets. May have to pay a plumber to come out with the right stuff -- doesn't feel right to pay the fee for a simple pipe replacement, though. Back to the hardware store, and try talking to a real person this time. | | Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 | | 12:26 am |
Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkien!
The Professor! (raises virtual mug of vintage Fourteen-Twenty ale) And now, to honk off those who deserve it, and as a gift to the somewhat bummed-out ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lbilover, I will use two of his characters in a manner not mentioned in the instructions on the box. Title: Change These Shadows By An Altered LifeAuthor: Gardnerhill Fandom: LOTR Pairing: Frodo/Sam Word Count: 3900 Rating: G (unless the thought of two males kissing disgusts the bejeezus out of you, which is really sad) Author's Note: The title is a quote by Ebenezer Scrooge. ( Story below the cut. ) | | Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 | | 1:00 am |
Feliz Ano Nuevo!
If my Christmas is quiet and peaceful, New Year's Eve is positively comatose. (In the 2-year window of my life, nearly 30 years ago, when I dated another person, he said that very few things were worse than being all alone on New Year's Eve. To this day I don't get that. I've always cherished my solitude -- especially after my upbringing in a huge Catholic family.) My sister and I both got off work early on New Year's Eve, we collected her adult son, and we all had dinner at our local Thai restaurant (local as in a 5-minute walk from our condos -- we are spoiled rotten in the San Francisco area). I then took my nephew back to my house and we watched Duck Soup, much to his delight -- he'd never seen a Marx Bros film. I myself was stunned at just how many racy and suggestive lines those brilliant men whipped past the Hayes Code enforcers, who were looking for overt smuttiness. He went home, and I had a glass or two of Napa Valley bubbly at midnight before going back to watching Horse Feathers. Today? Spent the whole day in my pajamas, listening to music, tallying my financial records for the year and roughing out this coming year's monthly budget (big old numbers geek). Oh, and guzzling more of the Sattui Winery's champagne. Not many plans for the coming year. But one thing is off the playlist -- BayCon. After nearly 10 years of being a participating guest panelist, including one stint as Toastmistress, I had to pay full membership at the door last year (for me and my guest), and have recently been informed by the Programming head that my services will no longer be required. (Okay, the rogue "Shot Rang Out" panel we threw together last year -- and got chased out of every unused room for 20 minutes by Programming and her two big muscly aides, till we wound up using someone's hotel room -- probably pissed her off big-time.) Eh, I can now plan something else to do on Memorial Day weekend, and save a few C-notes. | | Thursday, December 24th, 2009 | | 10:32 am |
| | 12:37 am |
Holiday Fic: "The Season"
I wrote this story 11 years ago for Sentinel fandom. Sometimes you need to re-invent a celebration to truly feel it again. (One LOC thanked me for giving the reader back the joy of the season after all the stress and work of a "traditional" Christmas had bogged her down.) Oh, and ask me how freaking thrilled I was when Sheldon produced his bust of Sir Isaac Newton on the Christmas episode of "Big Bang Theory" this season. ( The branch that bears... ) | | Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | | 7:29 pm |
Good Yule, everyone.
My sister and I grocery-shopped in the morning, and then I dropped by my local taqueria to pick up the dozen tamales I'd ordered. Sister and her son came over; and we spent a cold wet afternoon eating tamales and ribs, listening to quiet instrumental carols, playing Scrabble, and napping. Halfway through the game and my first cup of peppermint tea, I murmured, "Wait. Shouldn't we be elbowing our way through a screaming department store right about now?" "You're thinking of five years ago," my sister replied, and we went back to watching my nephew glare at his tiles and thumb through the dictionary. *** After the family experiences we've both had, we both agree that the two best things about Christmas are the food and the peace; a long day of napping and nibbling trumps anything that might come with packages, boxes or bags. And we both agree that family togetherness is a wonderful thing -- when taken in extreme moderation, and definitely not connected to any sort of holiday. | | Sunday, November 29th, 2009 | | 4:48 pm |
...Huh.
...Looks like I won a MOME Award. For my Viggo/Elijah drabble I May Be Getting Older... Which I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been congratulated on someone else's LJ as one of "the other winners." So, thank you, mews1945, for the heads-up. Also mazel tov to you, and to the other winners. Kinda suspect that mine was the ONLY Viglijah entry, but an award's an award. Also rather amusing that the drabble was created as the first of 50 for the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) viggos_50 challenge. I was going to pair Viggo with a different person for each drabble...only to find out that all 50 had to be one pairing, and all had to add up to one 5000-word story. So I stopped at the one drabble. | | Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 2:29 pm |
Req: Tape of "Real Ghostbusters" SPN ep
I ask my nephew to tape ONE thing for me. ONE thing. ONE thing, while I'm gone for a weekend. ONE. Thing. And once again he forgets. (Last time the ONE thing I wanted him to tape while I was gone for 2 weeks, the Season 3 opener of SPN, he also forgot -- it was about a year till I saw "Magnificent 7.") If anyone has a copy of the SPN ep "Real Ghostbusters" I'd appreciate it. The Youtube version is backward, for some reason -- starts with "NEHT" goes to "WON," and Dean is driving British style. And I have a crawly, creepy feeling this one's embarrassment factor is right up there with the worst of an actor-con, so I don't want to watch it in the public library. Thanks. | | Sunday, October 11th, 2009 | | 9:37 pm |
Cool enough to cook again.
Now that the 100+ degree days are realio, trulio behind us here in Concord, California, my cooking muse has awakened from her estivation and whacked me with her Revereware saucepan. I can once again indulge my love for cooking without worrying about adding to the unpleasant heat. Today I: * Baked two loaves of Anadama bread * Chopped up my dying tomato plants for the compost heap -- and pickled the half-cup of tiny green cherry tomatoes salvaged from the debris. * Cooked a pot of "cowpoke beans" (pintos, bacon, tomatoes, onions, chile powder, YUM) * Boiled a dozen small eggs and did some brown rice in the small rice-cooker (In the Pacific Rim, you can get by with no blender or mixer, but you probably have at least two rice cookers). * Stuffed and baked a giant zucchini from my sister's garden (and shared it with my sister and nephew) * Made butterscotch pudding from scratch I'm set for the week ahead. Who's hungry? Current Mood:  full | | Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | | 12:07 am |
Feeling pleased and flattered that two of my LOTRPS ficlets have been nominated for a MOME Award: On Call, a story in lbilover's Woodjin 'verse, in the Sean Astin/Elijah Wood Ficlets category. I May Be Getting Older ..., an offering for the Viggo's 50th community, in the Viggo Mortensen/Elijah Wood Ficlets category. | | Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | | 2:09 pm |
| | Sunday, August 9th, 2009 | | 12:26 am |
| | Saturday, August 8th, 2009 | | 2:24 am |
The Inevitability of McShep Crack!Fic
The other week I was watching the extras from the film March of the Penguins. One of the extras is some kid-science type show about putting cameras on animals' backs (CritterCam). The emperor penguin the science team chose for the camera work? They named him Rodney. | | Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | | 1:42 pm |
Missing Comic-Con...Like I Care
I have zero interest in coming within 20 miles of San Diego this time of year. That's because I'm a comic book geek. I'd rather riffle my way through comics and talk to the artists and writers at leisure. They should rename San Diego Comic-Con to the more honest San Diego Movie Mega-Promo Blowout and quit pretending they're a comic convention. I have no wish to pay a ton of cash for the privilege of elbowing my way through 200,000 people, 99% of whom are there to gawp and goggle at Ac-Tors promo-ing films and TV shows that are kinda sorta vaguely attached to something in the comic genre, and wait in line for hours to get into 2 panels, or have 5 seconds to talk to someone scribbling on my program. (If I wanted that kind of crap, I'd go to a damn Creation-Con, and I'd rather go to a real convention.) I can go a whole summer without seeing a film. It's better for my blood pressure anyway -- I'm tired of paying $10 to sit in the same room with screaming toddlers, yelling kids, and their 17-year-old mothers cussing into their cell phones at top volume. And that's at a 10pm showing of a 3-hour zombie film. No way am I chancing a Pixar film in this town. So I'll see you at the next Alternate Press Expo. Or the DVD rental place. | | Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | | 8:49 am |
| | Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | | 5:52 pm |
Woodjin Drabble, "Taxonomy"
Re-reading "Woodjin" and remembered a vague promise to write this one -- well, in my own head anyway. Kind of a parallel-universe companion to my drouble, "Sign."Title: TAXONOMY Author: gardnerhill Word Count: 100 Pairing: None (one implied) Rating: G Fandom: LOTRPS, “Woodjin” AU ( Drabble under the cut. ) | | Monday, June 15th, 2009 | | 9:55 am |
On Holiday
I'm sitting in an overstuffed chair adorned with dog hair, I'm watching birds at a feeder, I'm drinking tea and reading a Terry Pratchett novel. This? Is the only way to spend a wet Monday morning. | | Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | | 9:20 am |
| | Monday, May 18th, 2009 | | 11:56 am |
|
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
