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I never knew...
Sep. 20th, 2004 08:59 amJason wears his mom's dresses
Seriously. There's no way that dress fits Quincy, as some people have suggested.
Seriously. There's no way that dress fits Quincy, as some people have suggested.
Sep. 20th, 2004
Isn't there a name for this?
Sep. 20th, 2004 09:47 am
When government works, we are surprised. It has been ingrained in our psyche that public services are useless at best. But I've got a story that could make even an anarchist cheer. At the corner of 33rd and Broadway in Astoria, a smell developed. A rank mixture of fish heads and rotten fruit and used oil. The culprit was obvious: a sewer grate had backed up, and a cesspool of bubbling waste, emitting fumes, sat for days. I noticed the smell buildup on a Friday. By Tuesday, my roommate and I just couldn't take it anymore. We were sitting on our front stoop, waiting for a ride. We had time to kill.
So my roommate called 311 as a joke, to see how long it would take to talk to a human, let alone report the problem to someone in charge of rank sewage smells. Three minutes later he was off the phone. He looked at me and shrugged, saying, "I was the first one to call it in."
"After five days?" I asked, aghast. We couldn't believe the multitudes of people holding their nose wouldn't bother to call the city. But as I said, no one believes government works.
Well, even before our ride showed, there came a large truck, flashing lights, barreling down Broadway. It stopped at 33rd, and two men jumped out ready to send those nauseating fumes down the well. Unbelievable, to say the least.
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/20/nyregion/20diary.html
Where nobody takes action because they think somebody else will?
So my roommate called 311 as a joke, to see how long it would take to talk to a human, let alone report the problem to someone in charge of rank sewage smells. Three minutes later he was off the phone. He looked at me and shrugged, saying, "I was the first one to call it in."
"After five days?" I asked, aghast. We couldn't believe the multitudes of people holding their nose wouldn't bother to call the city. But as I said, no one believes government works.
Well, even before our ride showed, there came a large truck, flashing lights, barreling down Broadway. It stopped at 33rd, and two men jumped out ready to send those nauseating fumes down the well. Unbelievable, to say the least.
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/20/nyregion/20diary.html
Where nobody takes action because they think somebody else will?
Most of these, as always, are negative reviews. Those are funnier, especially when they insult books I like.
( So You Want to be a Wizard )
( Howl's Moving Castle )
Okay. It's out of my system.
( So You Want to be a Wizard )
( Howl's Moving Castle )
Okay. It's out of my system.
Please, please, please, please stop posting about it already! Take a minute to check the archives of any comm you're posting it in to MAKE SURE it hasn't been there already. Then you won't feel silly uninformed when the nature of the warning is pointed out to you.
Edit: I just realized that THIS version of the letter says that the draft will be imposed on "boys and girls" aged 18-26. Listen VERY CLOSELY. People that age are adults. They're not boys. They're not girls. They're men and women. You might, might say that an 18 or 19 or even 20-year-old person is still, in some way, like a child (a boy or a girl), but can you honestly say that about somebody who is 26? Stupid emotive techniques.
Edit: I just realized that THIS version of the letter says that the draft will be imposed on "boys and girls" aged 18-26. Listen VERY CLOSELY. People that age are adults. They're not boys. They're not girls. They're men and women. You might, might say that an 18 or 19 or even 20-year-old person is still, in some way, like a child (a boy or a girl), but can you honestly say that about somebody who is 26? Stupid emotive techniques.
I read the first book in this series today.
It's definitely got some plot holes (yes, okay, Timothy is a mechanical genius - but is an uneducated boy who had to invent everything he uses, right down to the fishing rods, really going to be able to invent androids as well? Why didn't his father ever tell him that he was more than just crippled? Surely he must have known!) and some very obvious plotlines (if you don't guess who the Evil Bad Nastyman is within five pages of meeting him, you're terribly slow - though, given the nature of this world that's been written, you can possibly be forgiven for thinking that EVERYbody is evil), and I'd be stunned if it wasn't written directly to capitalize on the success of Harry Potter (instead of an ostracized boy finding out he's got magic and becoming well-liked but still a target for assassination, we've got a lonely unmagical boy realizing that all the magical people want to kill him and, no, he's NOT well-liked) but it's actually quite good!
Especially when you compare it to Harry Potter.
I'm going to get spoilerish here, so it goes behind a cut: ( Read more... )
This is a remarkable world our friend has written. The story itself could've used some work - as I said, it was obvious from the beginning who the Big Bad was, and some aspects of Timothy's apparent genius are unbelievable - but I have to read the next to, just to involve myself in that world again. Brutal, cruel, prejudiced - but it's remarkable.
So. This week. Me in bookstore. Definitely.
It's definitely got some plot holes (yes, okay, Timothy is a mechanical genius - but is an uneducated boy who had to invent everything he uses, right down to the fishing rods, really going to be able to invent androids as well? Why didn't his father ever tell him that he was more than just crippled? Surely he must have known!) and some very obvious plotlines (if you don't guess who the Evil Bad Nastyman is within five pages of meeting him, you're terribly slow - though, given the nature of this world that's been written, you can possibly be forgiven for thinking that EVERYbody is evil), and I'd be stunned if it wasn't written directly to capitalize on the success of Harry Potter (instead of an ostracized boy finding out he's got magic and becoming well-liked but still a target for assassination, we've got a lonely unmagical boy realizing that all the magical people want to kill him and, no, he's NOT well-liked) but it's actually quite good!
Especially when you compare it to Harry Potter.
I'm going to get spoilerish here, so it goes behind a cut: ( Read more... )
This is a remarkable world our friend has written. The story itself could've used some work - as I said, it was obvious from the beginning who the Big Bad was, and some aspects of Timothy's apparent genius are unbelievable - but I have to read the next to, just to involve myself in that world again. Brutal, cruel, prejudiced - but it's remarkable.
So. This week. Me in bookstore. Definitely.