betsy's fair and balanced stuff

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:56:00 +0000

as usual, torn between the desire to catch you all up on what sorts of breakfast cereal i've been eating for the past nearly two months, or to apologize profusely. i think i will choose "no".

today, i have a cold. also, my connection to work is flakey, so while i am dialed into work, a lot of it today has involved swearing and reconnecting to the vpn. later, i may change out of my jammies and into actual clothes (or perhaps not) and i have vast hopes that i'll be able to breathe through my nose for an extended period of time. like, fifteen seconds.

i am upset about massachusetts, tempted to see if nasa is selling off anything i would have space for, listening to my dogs snore, and happy, in that drugged up and congested sort of way. that's me, at the moment.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:38:00 +0000

dear 57.5% of switzerland's population: you're morons. racist morons.

way to go. not only is this not going to do anything to get rid of the fundamentalists you're worried about, it's going to push them underground and help them recruit.

fortunately for you undeserving xenophobes, your federal council seems to have a clue, and hopefully will be working to get this out of your constitution.

no love,
me.

one confused alligator

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:01:00 +0000

my new icon for work im
Originally uploaded by kalmn

josie's halloween theme seems to be confused water creatures. two years ago, the world's saddest lobster. today, a confused alligator.

bat ears!

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:55:00 +0000

bat ears!
Originally uploaded by kalmn

happy halloween!

if you laughed at this, pirate wants you to know that she knows where you sleep.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:14:00 +0000

for my dad:

::::: Creado por perros-perritos.com

recombobulation

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:51:00 +0000

recombobulation
Originally uploaded by kalmn

this is the sign in the milwaukee airport right after you've gone through security.

i love someone in milwaukee. i do not know who, but whoever you are who put up this sign? i love you.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:22:00 +0000

well, that was a cheerful note to leave you all on.

i went to milwaukee over labor day for a family wedding. it was fun, and getting to see family was good. my one problem so far is that i appear to have left crucial undergarments in milwaukee. darnit.

i am spending a lot of saturdays out at renaissance festival, as that is the most reliable way to see my sweetie on the weekends between now and the first weekend in october. i still can't juggle, but am getting better.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:21:00 +0000

hate crime against women in pittsburgh.

In December, Sodini said the women at the gym were just some of the 30 million American women who rejected him.

further details available at his blog, which i will not link to, but the article above does.

3 women dead, 9 women wounded, so far.

"Probably 99% of the people who know me well don't even think I was this crazy. Told by at least 100 girls/women over the years I was a 'nice guy.' Not kidding."

(from his blog)

this didn't happen bcause women rejected him. this happened because he had a sense of entitlement, and when he didn't get what he thought he was entitled to, he thought it was okay to kill the women (not people) who rejected him.

"Many of the young girls here look so beautiful as to not be human, very edible.

(from his blog)

not human. not people.

the allegheny police superintendent is wondering what could have caused this. that's it; that's it right there in a nutshell.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:22:00 +0000

Let me tell you a thing you might not know: the inability to hear rape �jokes� without flashbacks, Hulk rage, and �air quotes� is one of the enduring parting gifts of a rapist.

wow-- that is an amazing post. it's about why rape jokes frequently aren't actually funny, or at least not as funny as you think they are.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:40:00 +0000

i am having one of those days where i am getting more in touch with my feelings about things. there have got to be ways to do this that don't include suddenly being whacked over the head with them. hell if i know what they are, though.

however, i am now going to have some protein, take a shower, and ponder some yardwork. i might clean the house instead. we'll see.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:17:00 +0000

In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama�s first address to Congress. Given the circumstances, it wasn�t an event anyone expected her to attend. She went, she said, because she wanted the country to see that there was a woman on the Supreme Court.

read more here.

(the country is about 50% women; i am looking forward to the supreme court being 16% women again. and, i hope, more than that in the future.)

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:37:00 +0000

a) post 1600! wooo! or something.

b) i just finished explaining to the juggler that this whole staying up late several times a week on a work night was not a sustainable habit. i am at my house, alone, staying up late for NO GOOD REASON, unlike the nights when i stay up late doing things with him. i think the problem may not lie with the trivia and gaming nights. hm.

c) convergence was good. i had a good time. i will go back next year. i will likely continue to disagree with several points about how it is run, but that pretty much just means it's better for my blood pressure if i don't volunteer for it. which is fine, too.

d) bought pretty pretty pretty corset at convergence. pretty. mmmm.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:09:00 +0000

i do not talk very hugely much when i am happy, i think. at least not online. but i am happy, it isn't that i've fallen off the planet or anything. fyi.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:11:00 +0000

i am having a very pleasing and very full life at the moment. it was wiscon over memorial day weekend, this week i am doing an upgrade at work (which is part of the full part but not so much of the pleasing part), and then on thursday i go up north for a few days for my grandmother's memorial service (she died in december and has been cremated and in my parents' living room ever since), where it will be nice to see family and not so nice to have it be at a funeral, and i am dating someone and it is going well. then there's the usual summer whirl of conventions, and i seem to be going to someone else's family reunion in july. i am a little terrified of that; dozens of people i don't know, and what if i say something that i think is funny and they all back away from me slowly? eep. but we'll see.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:53:00 +0000

it's spring here. spring spring spring. 50 degrees out when i went out for dinner.

this is not the weather that makes me so very glad that i live in this state (you have to wait for october for that), but it is, as we say here, not bad.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:42:00 +0000

my fine fine parents lent me a set of dog steps that i have now put in the nursery aka computer room aka guest room (i have a small house and believe in multitasking), so now pirate can get up on the guest bed which is right next to my computer desk. now, she comes and licks my hands while i am typing. at the moment i have most of the spare desk space taken up with the laptop that i am trying to install fedora on (currently i am cursing video drivers as well as wireless drivers; 800x600 less than ten feet away from my hub is less fun than it sounds...) otherwise she gingerly hops up on the slippery desk and walks over and hops down into my lap. this would work better if there was room for a dog on my lap while i was typing. due to the construction of the betsy and the desk setup, there is not much dog room there. ah, well. she is still a fine pirate dog.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:44:00 +0000

here in fair minnesota, it's the middle of winter. we've been having a completely ridiculous warm spell-- i mean, nice, but ridiculous-- but that doesn't make it not winter. there's still ice on all the roads and snow on even the lawns that get sun.

this means most people are a little flat, myself included.

i did throw a party this last weekend; it was a bunch of fun. i still crash relatively early, but it's better than it was before the new knee. and some friends decided they were going to host a pi day party. i am all excited about that. and i think i may have more cider leftover than i can drink between now and then, so if i still have some, i will likely bring it over there. mwhahaha.

Medical News: Body Weight Makes No Difference in Ovarian Cancer Survival - in Hematology/Oncology, Other Cancers from MedPage Today

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:49:00 +0000

i am so angry about this that i almost can't talk about it.

Medical News: Body Weight Makes No Difference in Ovarian Cancer Survival - in Hematology/Oncology, Other Cancers from MedPage Today

All patients received chemotherapy administered according to their actual body weight. Often, chemotherapy is administered based on ideal weight, which may lead to insufficient doses for obese patients, according to the researchers.

in plain english, when they gave the patients doses of medicine calculated as to what they actually *did* weigh, rather than what the medical profession thought they *ought* to weigh, fat women with ovarian cancer live just as long as skinny women with ovarian cancer.

chemotherapy is nearly always systemically administered rather than directly administered to the tumor. this means you take pills or they inject the medicine into you.

that means that in order to be effective, you have to adjust the size of the dose to reflect the size of the system aka patient.

that means that when they weigh you when you go in to see your oncologist? they may or may not be using that information for anything useful, like, making sure your treatment is effective.

goddamnit.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:23:00 +0000

a good review of the day the earth stood still at gendergoggles. i liked the movie and i liked the review, and the review points out that the movie does, in fact, pass the bechdel test. i was pretty sure it did, but it's good to have my thoughts confirmed.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:33:00 +0000

Free Will Astrology : Libra Horoscope: "Libra Horoscope for week of December 25, 2008

Libra (September 23-October 22)
'I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.' That was Michelangelo talking about how he approached his work as a sculptor. He didn't build the statue, in other words, but got rid of the unnecessary stuff that was surrounding it. I suggest that you try this approach in 2009. You have the potential to create a great thing -- maybe even two great things -- by chiseling away the extraneous material that's obscuring their unique beauty."

this isn't one of rob brezny's horoscopes that whacks me over the head and informs me of how true it is. but it's interesting, and i wanted to keep it to think about it.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:50:00 +0000

i am watching the first episode of leverage on tv. it has christian kane in it. you may remember him from angel, as lindsay. he is still totally hot. even in a striped tie and a plaid shirt pretending that he likes to dress up as a klingon. i wonder who the writers are on this show, that they know about sf conventions. hm.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:32:00 +0000

most of the stuff that is exciting in my life at the moment is related to the adoption. which i am talking about somewhere else. email me if you want the url.

it's not like the rest of my life is not worth talking about at the moment, i am just not doing it. am trying to be talkier, though. because hello, did i mention valuing connection with people. so, hi. what's up with you?

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:11:00 +0000

things i am being thankful for this year, a day late.

the whole adoption process being underway.

living in minnesota, which i love, as much as i'm going to bitch about the cold and snow for the next four months.

being bionic.

having a job and being able to pay my bills and keep a roof over my head.

being able to do that and still buy ice cream and give other people help that they need every once in a while.

my dogs, who guard the house against the oncoming squirrel zombie invasion.

science fiction fandom just in general. so glad i found it when i was a teenager.

my family-- my dad and mom and m. socks and her boyfriend are all good people. in minnesotan, they're pretty okay. i am blessed to have family members who i also consider friends. there is also my grandmother, who i love dearly, and who is ninety four and a little fragile, and she is here for another thanksgiving.

my friends, all y'all. you listen to me talk and let me listen to you, and connections with other people are one of the most important things in the world to me. thank you for connecting with me.

now, off to throw the ice cream in the car and head for dinner.

if you are american, i hope you had a good thanksgiving. if you are not american, i hope you had a nice thursday.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:29:00 +0000

just finished watching _inside man_ off the tivo.

whoa. that is a seriously good movie.

i was hoping to watch half an hour of it, maybe forty five minutes, see some stuff blow up, go to bed.

i watched the whole thing and am still puzzling through parts of it. like, the title. and which set of boobs was which. (seriously, it's a plot point.) and they did *what*? and ... i could say more but then there's spoilers. wow. i am very pleased to have watched this, even though i was really hoping for an 8pm bedtime.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:42:00 +0000

today is the transgender day of remembrance.

here is a list of trans people that were killed for being trans this year.

go read their names.
they deserve to be remembered.

they deserve to have not been killed for being who they are.