More Harry Potter thoughts

At the end of CoS, Molly makes a big deal about how she had "always said" that you should "never trust anything that can think for itself unless you can see where it keeps its brain!"

That's odd advice, isn't it? Not "don't play with your brother's wand!", or "always wear a helmet when on a broom", or "love potions, they're not for fun", but... don't trust things that can think for themselves? Even accounting for some massive hyperbole here, she has to have said it at least once or twice to think that Ginny would know that! Geez, how often would this even come up?

Then I started thinking about it. People in that word trust thinking objects all the damn time. The Sorting Hat? Where does it keep *its* brain? Arthur's car? I suppose the brain could go under the hood/bonnet.... Hogwarts itself? Even if we don't accept the idea that the school is sentient, it's clearly got some kind of intelligence, or it couldn't keep updating itself! (That, or one of Slytherin's descendents was a plumber....) Heck, it's even got some minor telepathy, or appears to, by which it operates the Room of Requirement (notice that the "bathroom" room of that room has chamber pots - it hasn't been updated. Is this significant?) So what is it about not knowing where the brain is that makes the thinking object untrustworthy, exactly?

*yawns* I'm going back to sleep soon. Hi all.

Just cleared a lot of names off my friends list...

Plan to do so again in a few days, really trim it down. Basically, I'm doing this by looking at my friends list, and cutting out everyone whose name or icon I don't immediately recognize, along with some facts about them. It's better for me to have a smaller friends list, and be able to give their posts attention, than to have a huge friends list I can't pay attention to. So, uh, if you care, that's why you're not on the list at the moment. People are still welcome to friend me, but don't expect any reciprocity from that for a long time.

I'm still sick. I *feel* pretty much fine (yay!), but I can't speak, and I get tired every couple of hours, have to take a nap.

On "being too old" to trick-or-treat....

Many of you, I'm sure, know about my experience with early puberty. To recap: I look now very much like I did at 10. I had breasts before my father died, in the 4th grade. The next year I got my period. I had pubic hair when we were still on 18th avenue, so either in the 4th or 3rd grade. (The average observer is not to know this, of course, but I'm putting it in for the sake of completeness.)

It's bad enough to remember my Last Trick-or-Treating Experience Ever (honestly, I'm far less upset in the present about this than my mom is. She's *still* angry enough to spit when she thinks about that!) until I remember that I'm not the only person who went through early puberty. The kid I talk about in the link? Facial hair in the first grade? That's not an exaggeration. That's not a lie, or some friendly hyperbole to make a point. That's two kids, in the same school (but from different parts of the country, originally, and living in different parts of the city, which helps rule out environmental factors) going through life consistently looking older than they were. Much older, really - I *knew* this kid was two years younger than I was, and he looked older. I've seen pictures of myself at four or five, and I don't believe I'm that age - I look more like nine or ten.

It's one thing for me to talk about this and say "but I was a bit weird", except... I couldn't've been *that* weird, because I can remember at least one other kid like that! And I see it when I go out with Ana - somebody will complain that this kid is "very rough" with the other kids, that she "doesn't act right" - well, the kid doesn't act right because she's a year younger than she looks. You can't expect an 18 month old child to act like a 2.5 year old child, even if that's the age of her same-heighted friends. And it's clear to me, from watching this kid, that she's only 18 months old, but apparently many people who 1. have children that age and 2. hang around other children for several hours a week don't see it - they see the kid's size and assume she's a certain age. Or, on the other hand, there's people who think Ana is up to a year younger than she is. Even though she's clearly *not* from her behaviour, they see her height and assume she's not as old as she is.

You can't tell how old a given child is by looking at them. You *should* be able to guess, with some degree of accuracy, by how they act... but from my limited experience, that gets harder as they get older.

So, my halloween motto? Costumes. It's all about the costumes. I don't bother trying to figure out ages, because, dude, I've been there, and it is Not Pleasant.

(no subject)

Yellow, blank, red, blue, yellow, blue, yellow, yellow, red, red, blank, red, blank, blank, blue, blue.

Trident, bird, sun, eye, sun, ankh, cup, bird, bird, paw, cup, eye, cup, paw, cup, column.

Yellow Trident
Red Sun
Blue Eye
Yellow Sun
Blue Ankh
Yellow Cup
Yellow Bird
Red Bird
Red Paw
Red Eye
Blue Cup
Blue Column

Lost desert literature (poetry), the stacks (eastern), lost desert sculpture, pasta based artwork, Desert flora, anubis toxicology reports, lost d. historical archives, sakhmetian archives, finger painting, historical archives, geneologcal histories (lat - tep), desert fauna

Taken from ursamajor

On gay sports heroes...

I love Morford. Really, truly.

What the hell?

Secret CIA prisons?

( Read more... )

It's at the BBC, too, as well as many other news sources of varying reliability.

I don't even know enough to know if these articles (regardless of the prisons) are good news (yay for the media doing their jobs!) or bad (um, secret prisons?)

Y'know what?

I just don't have the stamina for NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words? In a month? That's a lot.

And I'm sick of not having anything to participate in. So, this month, I give you: NaHaWriMo. Yes, National Haiku Writing Month. Seventeen syllables. Thirty days. Can you handle the pressure? *makes dramatic music noises*

Except that's kinda wussy, so maybe it'll be one haiku a day for the... um... rest of the month? Hm. *gets to work*

NaNoWriMo's here.
But I don't wanna do it.
Hence: NaHaWriMo.

*sweatdrop*

That was hard! But fun! Tune in tomorrow for the next thrilling installation in: NaHaWriMo! (Assuming I can keep up the frenetic pace in this fast world of haiku!)

Edit: In all seriousness, I'm considering doing plain poetry every day at this time next year. Because I can. Doesn't have to be haiku.

Hi all!

Right when I clear my Friends List, too...

I'd like to invite all new readers, posters, lurkers to take a minute from their schedules to post and introduce themselves, lie, tell funny stories, whatever. So I can get to know you.

Oldbies can do that too, of course :)

Mostly 'cuz I'm bored.

*frowns a bit*

I wonder if I can change on my journal only and not my friends page current music to read "current interest", or "current activity". For example, right now I'm reading up on poetry forms. In a little bit, I'll be reading up on cable options (we're finally replacing our antique cable boxes, and my mom suggested it might be time to switch around our premium options. I wonder if we can get different premium channels on each box....), and then it's back to Harry Potter for a while before a segue back into NYC Playgrounds. And on and on it goes. Interests and activities are rarely related to the post at hand. Oh, and though all this, I'll be mad at the government. No particular reason.

*annoyed jawdrop*

Remember I said one cable box had broken? Yeah...

Well, I was looking into cable service, and, guess what? It looks like fancy-schmancy DTV service is cheaper than the "standard" package of regular cable we have now! (warning: PDF)

I have to be reading that wrong. Otherwise, this is me being *very* irritated (instead of overjoyed, which would be the logical response. Go figure).