Of tweets and elbows...

I have to admit, I came to Twitter rather begrudgingly. Really, it was only to follow @cleolinda who posts most of her linkspam there since the Compocalypse.

Yet sometimes I get into these conversations with people that make the whole experience seem amazing. I have followers I do not know. In fact, I have no idea where I picked them up from. Either through this blog or through something I have tweeted about I would imagine. And sometimes, somehow, we start to @ at each other - the Twitter equivalent of an IM conversation.

Take the last few Tuesday nights. During and after V I am on Twitter, usually checking up on things during the commercial. In that time, either myself or @aaronswray will tweet something to cause the other to respond. We'll go back and forth for a few minutes, then go on with our lives.

And it's awesome.

Or how about this one:
@nerdheroine : V and Human, is that still bestiality? #vseries
@J3551C4 : its like a twisted version of furries
@nerdheroine : Scalies?
@J3551C4 : bahahha i couldnt help but think this would work for cylons as well ;)
@nerdheroine : Toasties of course.

See, outside of Twitter I would never have had a chance to have that conversation. I am sorely lacking in geek RL friends. It's sad. And if you're wondering why they need to be geek friends, I also have not started following anyone new on Twitter ever since I made a 6x6 square out of the people I do follow (36 following). I actually have a list around here somewhere of people like @NathanFillion and @ActuallyNPH who I want to follow, but I want to bask in my square for a while.

Also, I have 25 followers and thanks to @J3551C4 (wow, I'm totally pimping her Twitter aren't I?) I am on 4 lists. Those are square numbers all the way across beeyotches. 'Cause that's how we roll in the Shire.

Also also...
Squid with elbows - all other arguments are futile.

Data is my homie

Kind of a drive-by blog post for anyone who doesn't follow my Twitter.

Everyone needs a friend like Data.

Also, a Death Star wedding cake.

Daisy, daisy...

Today was a trying day. Today I said goodbye to HAL.

HAL was my first laptop, and the first computer that ever came new to me. Bought in 2003, HAL was meant to see me off to college. An HP Pavillion, he did me proud with his 20gig hard drive and Athlon XP processor, he weighed in at around 10 pounds. And except for spilling a glass of wine on him my first semester - he made it through with nary a scratch.

But the times they are a-changing, the years have taken their toll on my once faster than light piece of machinery. With an average boot to actually usable time of over five minutes and processing power than rivaled my toaster it was time to go for a younger model. So this last July I got a new laptop, Lovelace. After transferring all my documents, HAL sat in a box. Unused and unloved, waiting for a decision on his future.

Well the wait is over. With all the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral, we reformatted HAL's hard drive. I'll admit, a tear was shed. Soliloquies were read. In his final moments, HAL was heard to utter... "My mind is going, I can feel it," before drifting off. I'd like to think it was a painless death, a mercy killing if you please.

Rest in peace my friend, you served your mistress well.

The Care and Keeping of Your Sparklepire

Guess what arrived Friday? I got myself an Edward Sparklepants Cullen.

Man, I should not be so excited about the arrival of a character I don't even like. The thing is, I don't feel like I've received 'Edward of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight'; I feel as though I've received 'Edward from Cleolinda's Secret Life of Dolls'. So in this way, I didn't get a seventeen inch tall slightly gay sparklepire, instead I got a seventeen inch tall serial killer.

So. Much. Cooler.

Look! He even comes pre-Hannibal Lectered up! It seems my totally awesome rather expensive if totally free to me doll does not come with his shoes on, and what are these things... socks? I don't know, but with them on it is impossible to put his damn shoes on. I apparently received the IKEA of Edward Sparklepants Cullen.

"I really wish you'd quit calling me that."

"What the Hell? You talk?" I can be forgiven, can't I, if I let out a girly shriek a bit? "I thought only Cleo's dolls talked. This is so not what I meant when I said I felt I was getting 'Edward from Secret Life of Dolls'. Do all of y'all talk?"

"Of course we do, but we do try to ensure we're going to improve the silence."

I glared at him a bit. "You know what? I take it back, I don't want a Cleo Edward Dollen. Can I have a Littlest Edward instead?"

"A what?"

I thought about enlightening him. The internet was right there, but honestly I don't even want to go there, I really don't. "So, uh, you have a nice trip?"

"Nothing to eat."

He eats? I got a doll that needs to eat? What half-assed manufacturing flaw was this? Am I going to have to invest in BellaBarbies? Because that shit will get old fast. Also, how creepy would that be? "Uh, are you hungry now?" Please say no, please say no...

"Starving."

I gulped, that should not have been scary. But there is a reason that the 'dolls' I do have are all in their boxes full-time. I don't exactly have pediophobia, but the idea that these human likeness are watching me is one of those feeling that you just can't talk yourself out of. It didn't help that he flashed me a grin that would have gotten him a guest spot on Criminal Minds.

I looked at my seventeen inch tall sparklepire for a long while. My seventeen inch tall serial killer sparklepire that I had been okay with until he started talking, OMG. I may have to get the Rorschach I've had my eye on (at least they'd be about the same height) just to balance out some of the crazy. Not that that's really balance, when you bring total different crazy. I suppose it's like bringing balance to the force. He was wandering across the fireplace hearth, examining the fake plants. That is, until "my" (for certain values of "my") dog came to see what my earlier squeeing was about.

His eyes flashed red for a moment, do they even do that? I need to reread Twilight (Oh Cthulhu, please don't make me). And he licked his lips, before sighing, "Off the table I presume?"

"Yes, yes, by all that is holy yes." I grabbed the dog by her collar and shunted her back out of the room. I'm not sure who would win, dog has been known to catch and devour squirrels - and lord knows those are vicious - but she would only be curious. Edward would be... hungry.

Seriously, if I'd known I would have asked for the sunglasses or the Entertainment Earth gift certificate. I don't know. Not this. GeekGirlDiva should have given me a goram warning when she offered me a Tonner Edward.

I would love to say that this whole thing ended on some sort of high note with him capturing a frog or something and I don't even know what. Something. But I noticed something else... actually someone else.

"What are you doing out of your box?!"

"Dammit Heroine, are you out of your mind. Bringing one of these onto the ship?"

I buried my face in my hands, laughing in that way you do when you have, indeed, lost your mind. He had his phaser trained on the sparklepire. I'm not sure what nadion particles would even do to Edward Sparklepants Cullen's glistening marble skin. Hell, the thing might not even work at all, but having been appropriately briefed through my Secret Life of Dolls readings, I knew for sure that ESC could read McCoy's mind and would avoid any and all attacks coming his way.

I very gently took the good doctor's phaser away; honestly, he wasn't that good a shot even if he turned out to be better than his movie/TV counterpart. Disgruntled (is he ever any other way?) he settled for scanning Edward with his tricorder.

"I suppose I can't eat him either?"

McCoy's hand tightened on the tricorder, "Try it you pixie-skinned débutante."

"No, no. Both of you calm the hell down." I was keeping a careful eye on Mr. Sparklepants. McCoy was definitely more volatile, but Edward was by far the more dangerous. I should have known better, I read nine million pages of Edward waging psychological warfare on Bella, violence would not be his first port of call.

"You were never his first friend you know," he said to my Starfleeter, "always playing second fiddle."

Oh burn, man! That was a low blow, and one I could not let pass. I picked him up by the scruff of his... well, actually, it was the neck of his coat. "No sir, we do not go there." I thought for a moment about what to do with him. "Okay, you are obviously not fit for polite company just yet. You can go back in you nice black box and we'll work on your manners later."

He grumbled a bit as a settled him back in his box. I did seriously consider tying him back down with the twist-ties, but I wasn't entirely certain he'd be still for it. Also, if it turns out he can overpower me, I'd rather we find it out sometime other than his first day home.

"You know," McCoy said to me speculatively as I put the box up on the mantle, away from the inquisitive teeth of the dog, "the fireplace is right there. No reason we couldn't have a sparklepyre..."

For the love of all that is holy in this world, I do not need this in my life right now.

Thanks Cleolinda, for the use of you SLOD format! Yes I did ask her, on Twitter, it seemed appropriate.

Take that!

Attention Lunar Landing deniers!

You may not recognize this for what it is, so let me spell it out. That white splotch in the center is the Apollo 11 lunar module. Those vague dark gray lines are footprints.

On the moon.

For those that deny that we went there, you can see it for yourself. If I'm correct - and I usually am - you can actually see a lot of this stuff with a sufficiently high-powered telescope. How freakin' awesome is that? Oh, I know that if you're one of the morons who still persist in denying the moon landings these pictures aren't going to change your mind. But you're a total nutjob anyway so plbtt.

Look, I know that the LRO has been taking pictures of the moon for quite some time, I know that there were some amazing Apollo 17 landing site pictures recently (I know because I follow the Bad Astronomer's blog, and you should too).

But to see the Apollo 11 landing site. The first time a human being set foot on an alien surface...

Wowzers.

V

V was made to be loved by me. It has Juliet from Lost, Wash from firefly, and to make things even more awesome Inara from firefly. ABC is where firefly castmembers go to die. Or, you know, find new jobs...

The show opens by introducing the principal characters. Erica! the single mom. Tyler! her no-good V-loving son. Father Jack! the cool religious guy. Ryan! the token black guy. Dale! Erica's partner (also, Alan Tudyk so totally hot). Oh, and Anna! the scary as hell alien chick, but we don't meet her until the next paragraph.

As these people are going about their character defining activities, spaceships begin to Independence Day their way across the major cities of the world. Then scary as hell Anna appears to reassure everyone that despite the last 100 or so years of science fiction we have been reading, the aliens are, in fact, of peace. Always.

The thing is, it was pretty obvious how things were going to go here. When I saw the preview last week I tweeted...

Preview for 'V' giving me 'To Serve Man' flashbacks. http://abc.go.com/shows/v/

And I have to give the writers props here. They didn't try and drag it out. By the end of the first episode there is no guess work or hunches about it, the V are bad news. No Alan Tudyk! Why did you have to die? Also, just for the record, if you ever did time on firefly you will turn out to be an alien. Just throwing that out there.

Yes, yes, I know this is a remake of an 80s series. Yes, I know that I could go read about it and see how things go. In fact, I'd imagine the Television Without Pity forums are full of spoilers.

But I don't want to. I missed out on following FlashForward because I was in London, I believe V will be my Lost replacement.

Ain't I a Woman? - Sojourner Truth

This speech is so short I'm going to post it here in its entirety. While this series is titled 'Speeches that make me cry' I feel I should point out that this one doesn't so much make me cry as send a huge up-swell of emotion through me.

Ain't I a woman?

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

- Sojourner Truth, 1851