Anyone Else Sick of this Story?

It's a regular on cop shows, and it goes like this:

A crime is committed in Chinatown.* The locals don't want to go to the police, but you can't really keep a death/explosion/kidnapping secret, so they find out anyway. The cop assigned to the case suspects the local Chinese organized crime group (LCOCG), but since no one who witnessed or knows about the crime will talk to him**, he's blocked at every turn and the LCOCG continues to threaten and harm and generally cause mayhem until finally, out of desperation, someone close to the original crime victim agrees to talk to the cop, whereupon she is rewarded for her wise trust in the police by seeing all the leaders of the LCOCG arrested and, if applicable, all kidnapped people returned unharmed. Unless, of course, she waited too long, in which case the mob bosses are still arrested and she is sternly reminded that if only she had come forward sooner poor Nathan Wu would still be alive and what has she learned from all this?

Does anyone else feel like they're being forced to vicariously act like a patronizing asshole when they're watching these sorts of things? Cuz I do.

You know, just once I'd like to see a story where a crime committed in Chinatown is not committed by the Chinese Mafia, the victims and/or families thereof cooperate with police as much as the details of the story allow, and cooperating with the police is not a deus ex machina for getting the damn crime solved. I feel like that's not really a lot to ask.

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*Extra points if Torontonians can identify the streets they're shooting on.

**Even more points if a woman on the police force makes some halfhearted comment about the Chinese people's fear of white cops being justified on account of a history of institutionalized racism, which comment is promptly forgotten by all.

I'm That Guy

When your math-studying, RPG-playing, comic book-reading, SF-reading and -watching, computer-programming, Buffy fan of an SO says you're too geeky, well, you know something ain't right. Here's a conversation Dave and I had last night:

Me, coming out of shower: So, I've discovered a major continuity error from seasons six and seven of Buffy.*
Dave: Oh?
Me: Okay, so, you know how there's that episode towards the end of season six where Spike tries to rape Buffy?
Dave: Yeah.
Me: And Buffy had already told Xander that she and Spike had been sleeping together, but that she'd broken it off, right?
Dave: Yeah.
Me: So anyway, in that episode, after Spike takes off, Xander shows up at Buffy's house, and he sees Spike's leather jacket on the railing, and he mutters to himself something about "oh yeah, it's over is it?" and grabs the jacket and heads upstairs, but when he sees Buffy in the bathroom he just dumps the jacket aside to help her.
Dave: Okay...
Me: And the next time any of the Scoobies see Spike, it's season seven and he's insane in the school basement. And later in season seven he goes back to the basement to get his jacket, so we know he had it there.
Dave: Okay...
Me: So, I wanna know how he got his jacket back.
Dave: ....
Me: In fact, I think, later in that same episode in season six, when he's taking off for Africa on his motorcycle**, he's wearing his jacket. So, how did he get it back?
Dave: looks at me like I'm a freak
Me: What?
Dave: keeps looking at me
Me: What!?
Dave: still looking at me
Me: Oh my god, I'm that guy!
Dave: Uh huh.
Me: I'm the comic book guy from The Simpsons! Oh shit.
Dave: Uh huh.
Me: Damn

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*To fully appreciate the geekitude here, you have to understand that it's not like I'd been watching Buffy really recently or anything.

**This motorcycle thing led to a tangent that I didn't want to allow to break up the flow above, but it was actually kind of funny:

Me: ...when he's taking off for Africa on his motorcycle -- which, wtf?
Dave: He must have gone via Bering.
Me: Or ocean liner.
Dave: I guess.
Me: Dude. Who the hell would go from *California* to Africa via Bering? By motorcycle? Do you know how long that would take?

Shit, I Missed Something Else!

I totally meant to blog it, but it slipped right by without a whisper, and now, nearly a month late, I have to announce that July 18th was my second bloggiversary. I r teh blogzorz!

It May Just Work

It all started with this strip from Penny Arcade. I don't get about 75% of the gaming-related jokes on PA, so I just figured this was another one of those, laughed at the non-reference aspect of the joke and moved on. Until this past Sunday, that is, when my sweetie pointed out that Chore Wars is real! Dude! Anyway, we set up a team and created a bunch of adventures and it's already started. This morning I yelled "No! Don't touch! I'm gonna wash those dishes!"

I think we may have found the solution to our lazy-assedness problem.

Nature, The Artiste

It's raining. Over the course of the past few minutes the light level went from comfortable-for-reading-don't-need-any-lights-on to holy-shit-where'd-the-sun-go? as a huge grey cloud moved overhead. Then the rain started coming down so quietly that it took me a few seconds to notice. The air was thick with raindrops, none of this couple-drops-a-second bullshit, but the individual drops were so small it felt more like falling mist at first. I've never seen that before.

Now it's a more normal storm, with thick drops and lightning and thunder and nothing but grey in all directions.

I was sitting with my laptop on the well-sheltered balcony, enjoying the cool air, but the wind picked up, so now I'm going to leave y'all inside with Pixie and go watch the rain fall.

I Think This Pretty Much Sums It Up

At The Primate Diaries via Pharyngula.

*snrk*

In Which I Learn That Spending My Days Undressed May Not Be So Wise After All

While washing my mug at 3:15 this afternoon, I all of a sudden heard the most awful piercing scream. At first I thought it was the pipes, and when turning the water off didn't make it stop, I turned to glare accusingly at my laptop, don't ask me why. Finally it twigged that this sounded alarmingly like the smoke detector, which I of course immediately glared at, until I realized that a) there was nothing in the apartment that could possibly be setting it off and b) there was a second tone sounding, almost as loud but slightly lower pitched, and sounding like it came from elsewhere in the building. Shit. It's not real, I told myself. Just a damned drill or something. I fancied I smelled smoke, but I knew that could be psychosomatic. Either way, it seemed that going out was unavoidable. Let it never again be said that one shouldn't leave one's clothing lying around. I was already wearing a sarong and slippers, and it took me but a split second to grab and put on the first top at hand (quelling irrational thoughts of "but it doesn't match!") In the time it took me to do that, I considered and rejected bringing my laptop, and remembered that my keys weren't in my purse. Fortunately they were in the first place I looked, so I grabbed them and my purse and headed out, locking the door behind me. In the hall there was no longer any question about the smoke.

Entering the stairwell, I joined a woman from the floor above me, also leaving the building. As we descended in silence, the smoke was getting thicker, and I was trying to remember what I had learned in school about what you do if the fire is between you and your exit. The only clear thought I had was "walking into fire = bad idea."* This continued until we reached the third floor landing, where we saw a woman sitting on the step, crying. She saw us and said "It's in my apartment. All my stuff is in there." "Okay," I replied, sympathetic sweetheart that I'm not, "we have to get out of the building. Come on." The other woman and I each took one of this woman's arms and coaxed her up and moving. Another floor down and another person, this one all panic-faced, asking "Where's the fire?" "It's on the third floor," I told her, "let's just get out of the building." This seemed to baffle her a bit, but she moved, and finally we were outside.

Everything is fine (except probably for that poor woman whose apartment it was), there was no damage to me or my place, and the fire fighters let us back in the building after about 25 minutes of watching first smoke, then water, pour out of a couple of third-floor windows. And that was my little adventure for today.

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*While I know that fire alarms are designed to be rattling to get people moving, there's got to be some frequency/volume combination that has that effect without also seriously impeding cognitive function. Loud, high-pitched noises just make me stupid.

Racist Fuckheadery Alive and Well in Toronto

Warning to Toronto's Ward 7 residents. Your city councillor is a racist fuckhead. I heard on the CBC yesterday, I think on Here and Now, that Mammoliti wants to make bars' and clubs' liquor licenses contingent on a commitment from the owners/managers that they will not allow entrance to people wearing gang colours, or play gangster rap. Mammoliti's justification is that the music glorifies violence, specifically violence against women and cops*, and that it is therefore a legitimate question of safety.

The interviewer at least seemed to recognize the racist fuckheadery and challenged the councillor by a) pointing out that violence in clubs is bad for business, so club owners already take steps to discourage it by installing metal detectors and often banning gang colours of their own volition and b) asking the councillor if there was any evidence that listening to the type of music in question actually increases the incidence of violence. Mammoliti succeeded in avoiding this question, among others about whether the club owners themselves supported the new rules, and whether he was worried that this might constitute an unacceptable level of censorship.

At one point during the interview, Mammoliti showed his true colours by admitting that part of the point of the rule was that if clubs weren't allowed to play "music that glorifies guns and violence," then "those sorts of people" would be less likely to go to the clubs and cause problems. I kind of thought that everyone knew what "those sorts of people" meant, to the point that it had stopped being a useable euphemism for racist fuckheads who don't want to appear racist. Using that phrase in a discussion about rap music is about equivalent to using the phrase "money and the ethnic vote" in a discussion of Quebec elections, isn't it?

I have a question for Mr. Mammoliti. Sir, if you're so fucking worried about violence against women that you're willing to ban a music style to help prevent it, may we assume that you'll soon be banning The Beatles as well? After all a little glorification of stalking was not exactly uncommon in their lyrics, and stalking victims are often in serious danger from their stalkers. Or if we're talking generally dangerous, how about banning most American country music? I mean surely, in the long run, nationalistic pride and American exceptionallism are more dangerous than a few individuals with guns or knives, aren't they? Because, after all, this is about increasing safety, and not about keeping Black people out of bars, right?

Mr. Mammoliti, you're a racist fuckhead.

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*Not usually a natural class

Ew.

Children are officially fucking gross. If you don't agree with me then you clearly didn't spend your day doing end-of-year locker-clean-out.

Just, ew.

OIC

Thoughout this third season of Doctor Who, although I enjoyed many of the episodes and Martha was starting to grow on me as a character, there was one thing that absolutely drove me crazy. That was the way Martha pined after the doctor from day one, long before he'd shown himself to be deserving of it. With Rose it was different. She initially signed on with the Doctor not because of who he was, but because of where he could take her and what he could show her, and as they spent time together, their friendship grew stronger until they became inseparable. Martha, on the other hand, although she enjoys and participates fully in the adventures, seemed to initially be signing on so that she could be near the Doctor, and I just didn't see what was motivating that. But now I think I do. I was rewatching the beginning of the season because I had missed what this year's Bad Wolf/Torchwood equivalent was and now that it seemed to be coming to a head, I wanted to go back and find it. So I was watching the first episode and in the beginning Martha is kind of unsure of the Doctor, but thought he might know what he was doing, which was a sensible position given the evidence. Then, in order to save the world and for entirely non-romantic reasons (which he stresses), the Doctor kisses her, whereupon she gets all melty. Now with most people this wouldn't make sense, but since, as we all know, the Doctor is made of magic, I can see how being kissed by him might cause a person to fall immediately and completely in love with him and want to follow him to the end of the universe. It's still a cheap plot device that they could have done without, but it's better than no motivation at all.

Perfect

Everyone knows that the Sex Geek is a genius, right?

Well if you don't, this should convince you:

So I told my aunt that I never really figured out I was queer. I just figured out, over a period of many years starting in early childhood, that everyone else wasn't.

Damn, I missed it!

Sitemeter was down for a couple days, and by the time I got around to looking at it again, the milestone was passed. But sometime during the week before last, I got my 10,000th visitor. Cool beans, dudes!

Oh Noes! Teh Intartubes Are Danjerus!

Via Pharyngula, I found this news report about the companies DefamationAction.com and ComplaintRemover.com, which promise to remove unsavoury things posted about you or your company on the internet, for a fee. When I first read about this I figured they used legitimate legal threats against people who were committing libel, or at worst sent nastygrams. I was not expecting this:

This letter is being sent to you in the name of more than 500 businesses. No matter where you go, we will cause you a problem. Your life is in danger until you comply with our demands. This is your last warning.

Your neighbors already know about your criminal dealings and how you are making many people loose (sic) their business. You will soon be beaten to a pulp and pounced into the ground six feet under with a baseball bat and sleg (sic) hammer. You will soon be sorry not just from what I am capable of doing to you, but what other members will do as soon as they know exactly where you are. Its (sic) just a matter of time until I get to you.

Here is what you can do to save your life. But you must act imidiatly (sic). Make what ever deal it takes, you must comply.

I mean, what? No, seriously. *This* is what companies pay, apparently, hundreds of dollars a year for? Badly spelled extortion? I have to say, if it weren't for the sheer hilarity, I'd be sorely disappointed. I mean, this is the online equivalent of a guy showing up at your door with a baseball bat. Except he's two feet tall and it's a Nerf bat.

Fucking dumsnuts

You People Are Assholes

I was at someone's house this evening watching So You Think You Can Dance (aside: yes that show is every bit as stupid as you expect it to be) and the girl half of a couple that was supposed to perform collapsed in rehearsal and had to be rushed to hospital, so in order for the boy to nonetheless get to perform they partnered him at the last minute with the choreographer's assistant. She was a woman of well over 200lbs and, knowing that the people outside of my lovely Montreal bubble can be ignorant jerks about size, I expected some awkward silence and nervous giggles. I was not remotely prepared for what did happen. Immediate hoots and hollers, cries of "ooh, that poor guy!" "Ew, he's going to have to touch her again!" "Oh, he's way to hot for this!" And of course when the choreography was remotely sexy the screams doubled. As if, because she's fat, her mere presence was somehow damaging to him. I mean the raw hatred and disgust emenating from my fellow guests was soul-shattering. How people get filled with that much hate and manage to go on with their lives just baffles me*.
I was inclined to just bitch about how much I hate it here outside my bubble, but the fact is that the worst, most discouraging part of the whole experience was me. Because I said nothing. I sat in silence as this fountain of hate erupted around me and did nothing. How could I? How could I have failed myself so utterly? Because I was worried about my relationship with my host. Because I didn't want them to see my tears. Because I knew that if I did speak up they would look at me and dismiss my words, forgetting that I felt the same way when I was 30lbs lighter and still worthy of respect.
There's still a lot of distance between me and the sort of woman I want to become. The terrifying sort of woman in front of whom people are afraid to speak, lest they say something stupid.
In the mean time, this is what I can do in my cowardice. Too scared to speak aloud when it mattered, I can now sit at my keyboard and type.
You can find the details and sources here and here, but this is what I have to say:
1) Being fat is not bad. Fat people live longer, have lower incidence of cardiovascular disease, and (among women) reach menopause later than thin people.
2) Being fat is not something people can help. Fat people have the same diet and excersize habits as thin people. The only reliable way to acheive and maintain weight loss is to go on a lifelong starvation diet.
3) Losing weight is bad for you. Losing and gaining weight repeatedly is really fucking bad for you.
Someday I will have the courage of my convictions. For now I have a blog.

Update: Thanks to parodie in the comments for pointing me to this video:

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*Just so's we're clear here, this woman was a trained dancer. She knew the steps and she moved well. She was strong and, in order to pull off some of those moves, in excellent shape. The ONLY thing people were laughing about was her size

A Crowded Institution

I like this post of Andrea's about polygamy, but I have to respectfully disagree with her on one point:

I firmly do not believe that multiple marriage has anything at all to do with same-sex marriage. The MacLean’s article says, “Marriage, already open to same-sex couples, could become a very crowded institution.” Oh, for Chrissakes. Did you really need to toss a sprinkling of homophobia into the mix? Because we queers are crowding the straights, is that it? Invading their personal space, perhaps? I didn’t realize that marriage was a room with a maximum capacity. Are we a frickin’ fire hazard now? Screw you. Get the fuck over it, people.

I agree that that was a homophobic and assholish comment on the part of the McLean's author, and that people do need to get the fuck over it, but I strongly disagree that same sex marriage has nothing to do with non-religious polygamy. Indeed, I think they are two aspects of the very same issue.

To me, the crux of the SSM debate was whether we wanted marriage to be a religiously defined institution, based on traditional ideas of relationships as necessary for social-group-mixing, transfer of property, etc., or an institution based on sense and legal expediency, providing humane and reasonable ways of dealing with such questions as health-benefit sharing and income tax on households that share expenses, child custody when households split up, etc. If we decide on the latter then the reasons for restricting the institution to groups of two evaporate along with the reasons for keeping it between opposite sex couples.

Like Andrea, I think that marriage is an out-moded, irrelevant, oppressive, and mysogynist institution (which is what I assume she means when she says "marriage kinda sucks"), and I think we need something new. If people want their religious institutions to bless their romantic/sexual relationships, that's their business, but I don't want to have to be involved in their fight to get the religious institutions to bless *this* particular pairing, or *that* particular set up. That is so resoundingly not my problem, and the best way to keep it that way is to make religious marriage an exclusively religious institution, carrying no legal weight whatsoever, and come up with something else on the legal side of things. I think what would work best (and Andrea touches on this as well) is a set of standard but tweakable contracts that have more to do with how a household is set up financially and in terms of child care, and don't worry about who's fucking whom. I agree that we need a system where two people in a romantic triad can sponsor the third for immigration based on their relationship, but I don't think that's enough. We need a system where a woman who stays home to care for her sister's or adult daughter's child will qualify for domestic partner benefits, and get consideration in terms of custody should the household split up. Households and families do not always consist of two (or more) adults who are sexual partners, plus kids. Adult siblings living together, groups of unrelated but not-sexually-involved women living together to share resources and raise their kids, grown children living with their parents or aunts/uncles, and all manner of other households are all completely normal, healthy and good ways to live, and the law needs to reflect that.


I think the conservatives who screamed that same-sex marriage was just a stepping stone towards allowing consenting adults to enter into whatever relationship they wanted, with full legal sanction, were absolutely right. I just don't see what the bad is.

It must be Pride

After all, that's the only time this happens to me. And it sucks because it means that tomorrow in the big parade I may have no choice but to wear a shirt. Stupid sunny dyke march.

The bra- and tank top-lines provide a nice contrast (although what you see in the picture is nothing compared to what it looks like in real life) but are also evidence of my not having gone completely topless. For the first time since my first Pride when I was 16, I covered my boobs (although I did lose the top and wear just a bra for most of the march). I must be getting old.

Torchwood

* * * * *SPOILER ALERT - If you haven't seen all of Torchwood yet and don't want to know, don't read this post* * * * *

For all its flaws (and they are legion), Torchwood will always hold a place in my heart as the first show I've seen to completely normalize same-sex relationships. Generally, when we think about shows that normalize queers we think of things like Queer as Folk or The L Word. But QAF and The L Word aren't really shows about anything. They're not mysteries, or medical shows, or sci fi, or cop shows, or anything. They're personal dramas, about relationships and sex and love and friendships and rivalries. They're shows about gay people being gay. And that's fine as far as it goes, but Torchwood takes it a step further. Torchwood is a science fiction show about a group of people who work for an alien-watching organization, and that is *really* what the show is about. They have adventures and fight aliens and screw around with advanced technologies they have no business touching and open tears in the fabric of space and time, and *that* is what drives the plot. But, like any remotely decent show, the primary characters have personal lives beyond the main focus of the show and we see depth and development in their interactions with each other. And not a single one of them is entirely monosexual.

The main character, Gwen, is primarily straight. She has a steady boyfriend and there are strong indications that this is not an exception for her, but there is one episode that has her making out with a girl under the influence of alien pheromones and, while this may not be something she does every day, there is nothing in her manner to suggest that she finds it shocking or disgusting after the fact.

Captain Jack, as many of us know from Doctor Who, is just a good old-fashioned slut. He'll sleep with anything pretty enough, it doesn't even have to be human, and he likes it that way. This fact seems totally fine with the rest of the Torchwood staff.

Owen is, for the most part, a womanizing jackass, but if the boyfriend of the woman he is currently, um, izing, kicks a fuss, Owen is more than happy to arrange to bring them both home with him in order to keep the peace.

We see many indications throughout the show that Toshiko is pining after Owen, but when the right woman comes along, Tosh falls head over heels. Although things don't work out for them (the woman ends up being a murdering alien in disguise, in love with Tosh but also using her to get inside Torchwood) and Tosh's colleagues suggest that maybe falling for a murdering alien isn't the best course of action, the fact that the murdering alien was also a woman doesn't enter into it. And in fact, Gwen specifically tells Tosh that she shouldn't let this put her off relationships, because "love suited [her]".

And finally, Ianto, who we know is Jack's at-least-occasional lover, we find out also has/had a girlfriend who he is madly in love with.

In addition to having all these wonderfully queer characters, another thing that the writers, etc. on Torchwood do right is how they write their same-sex relationships. It's done respectfully and realistically, with the relationships varying, depending on the situations and the personalities of the participants. There are no archetypal gay or lesbian couplings to be found. We are not banged over the head with any "look, this character is gay, GAY!!!" stereotyping, nor are we subjected to idiotic are-they-aren't-they? ambiguities a la early Willow and Tara or late Xena and Gabrielle. The same-sex sex scenes are shown every bit as explicitly as the opposite sex ones (which is to say not very) and the characters' interactions are as complex or superficial as one would expect from a straight couple in a similar situation.

I know that British television is a lot more willing to push the envelope with this sort of thing, but for those of us exposed mostly to North American media, this is downright revolutionary and, crappy writing and acting be damned, I want the show to continue and, if it hasn't already, air here.

Dix Ans.

I honestly never thought I'd make it this long. When I started I had planned for it to be temporary. I would never have been able to start if I'd thought I was committing myself for life, so I didn't. I just did it "for now". But how many "now"s are there in a decade?

At this point it's become automatic. In the moment, I don't even consider the alternative. In my more philosophical moods, I do sometimes wonder why I do it. Ask myself if it's still worth it. I always come back with 'yes'. Sometimes for strong environmental reasons, sometimes just so that I can say that I did it, so that I can have moments like this one, right now, where I can say it's been ten years, and good for me, even if no one else seems to think it's an accomplishment.

My first official meal as a vegetarian was at a Victoria Day barbeque (I brought veggie dogs, everyone else ate meat). Anyone want to barbeque some soy-and-liquid-smoke product with me tomorrow to celebrate? Does anyone I know in this city even have a barbeque? Let me know in the comments.

Hoppy

Hope everyone had a fun Dead Jew on a Stick Weekend. We had a moveable seder with my dad's family yesterday, and then a with-all-the-trimmings turkey dinner with my mom's family today (not traditional, I know, but I think my cousins would eat turkey 365 days a year if their parents would let them). I am pleased to report that, while I did do my share of dishes, I once more managed to get myself replaced at the sink before the turkey-cooking/serving dishes were to be washed. One of the very few personal practical advantages to being vegetarian is never having to clean dishes with congealed animal fat, and I refuse to give that up just because other people insist on their ritual sacrifices (thank you, Anya).

I so familied out. I think if I see another relative I will start pulling hair, and not likely my own. Fortunately, my sweetie wasn't able to come to turkey dinner today, so I can still stand the sight of him. Isn't he lucky?

Also, I am pleased to report that since changing jobs, I've been immeasureably happier.

Also, I want to be a good Net community member and plug Natives of the New Dawn, because their song "Good Day" rocks and they're being kind enough to provide it for free.

No Café for Me

Other than still being hoarse and coughing, I was finally feeling back to 100% yesterday, and the apartment basically hadn't seen a lick of cleaning since before I got sick, so I decided I was better off staying home and washing dishes (while feeding my latest addiction). I'm glad I did. Although the laundry still isn't done, and I haven't done this week's cooking yet, the place looks fantastic. There's hardly a dirty dish in the house.

For those who are interested, Dave has a post up about the Café Scientifique.