The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by J Austin:

Lila #34 "But has anyone considered the difficulty of reintegrating these bastards, in their thousands, back into our society?"

A lady I used to work with is an EMT who teaches first-aid classes at a military base. She said they're dealing with it by handing out anti-depressants like candy. They just passed their prescriptions around during class like bummed cigarettes, without any worry that she would see it.
"Man, I'm out."
"Here, have one of mine."

Nothing to do with anything, really, but I noticed the "Portrait of Dubai" in the Sidelights, and it coincided with a similar email from my mom earlier in the week.
Titled "Khalifa's doing WHAT!?" it had a link about the development of Saadiyat, a small island off Abu Dhabi. When I was small, that was where my father worked at an oil plant, and that was pretty much all that was there. All I can bring to mind is the thick, blackish sludgy sand that squished between our toes when we went wading in the sea, and the smell of it. Like...um...brimstone and fermenting despair.
They're turning it into a very clean-looking, very slickly presented resort.
The link is http://www.saadiyat.ae/
Amazing.

Open thread--I inflict my heebie jeebies on you all!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/jesuscamp/

Here's all I found for "dunsel," though it does sound derogatory in the few instances I saw of someone calling another "Captain Dunsail!" in a chatroom. Yes, it's a Star Trek reference.


"Dunsel is a term used by mid-shipmen in the 23rd century to describe a part which serves no useful purpose.

The term was used as an insult (albeit a playful one) to Captain James T. Kirk during the war games test of the M-5 Multitronic Unit created by Dr. Richard Daystrom. Commodore Robert Wesley called Kirk Captain Dunsel, to the confusion of Dr. Leonard McCoy. Kirk's First Officer Spock explained the term only after Kirk had left the bridge, stung by the insult. (TOS: "The Ultimate Computer")

McCoy's ignorance of the term suggests that unlike Kirk, McCoy did not graduate from Starfleet Academy but rather received a direct commissioning appointment to Starfleet. This is consistent with the way many staff officers (physicians, lawyers, chaplains) join the U.S armed services today."

There was a photograph of a ship in a bottle on another page, called "Four sails and a Dunsail," but I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be funny or serious.

I've always got a parasol in the car, or in my hand--people honk a lot when I'm walking to work. Right now, I'm decorating a tea-dyed paper one to look like it's been henna'd. With Sharpie, because I suck at applying henna.

"The man with many children is fortunate. The man with much grain is wealthy. But the man who has nothing can sleep."

I only saw it once, so it's not quite right, but I liked it.

Sorry if this is a double-post, but if it is, I can't see the first one.

A year or two ago, my parents-in-law offered to pay for us to go on cruise with them for Christmas, since our usual reason for not going to see them for the holidays is money. They paid for the cruise, we ran up our credit cards with the travel to the boat and such, and I worried about the money the whole damn time.
What really caught my attention (other than the food in Belize City)was the number of older couples who apparently lived--year-round--on the ship. At a cocktail reception (wearing my best pair of black trousers for the fourth time)one of the women said that she and her husband had discovered it was cheaper to buy an owner's suite, with meals, laundry, housekeeping, the whole bit, than it was for them to move into a retirement community or assisted living of their choice. So they did. Wow.
I'm really glad we went. My family traveled a lot when I was kid, but I don't remember any of it, and just having to get a passport was thrilling. We spent Christmas Day at sea in the Gulf of Mexico, giant swells rocking the ship, and the poor crew scrambling to clean up after all the nauseated passengers.
When we woke up in New Orleans, there was a light snow coating everything--so beautiful--but then we heard about that huge tsunami, which I guess somehow contributed to our rough seas.

Well, I thought it was lovely, and not the sort of subject matter I have any right to be offended by. Considering that he spends a good deal of it talking about how painfully green and clueless he was until Mr. Baen took the time for him, I don't see anything unlovely about his recollections of his younger self. But then, I sort of thought that part was funny.

Magenta:

Hamadryad's "Klatu Verata Nictu" is likely from "Army of Darkness," with the "Nictu" coughed into a fist or sleeve, since the hero wasn't really listening to the essential bits that would keep an army of the evil dead from rising up. Right up there with, "Gimme some Sugar, Baby."

I come from a teeny town in Texas, and went south to college in the middle of sheep country, an hour and a half drive from Del Rio/Ciudad Acuna. My roommate's parents were both illegal at one time, and absolutely the hardest working people I've ever known personally. Her dad *built* their house, works for both the county and the city, and runs a repair business out of his garage. All three of their children have served in the armed forces. So there.
Mmmm, barbacoa....
Sorry. I miss Tex-mex cooking so much. And I miss seeing signs for Mexican/Lao food out in the middle of freakin' nowhere. There's a lot of Nowhere in Texas.

For all those ladies, and maybe gents, who're visibly cold at the cons, Bliss Spas has "nipple concealers" called Low Beams. A lot chic-er than round band-aids, I suppose. Maybe they work better.
Paula Lieberman--I'm with you on bra shopping, and shopping in general, actually. I got kicked out of Lane Bryant for being too skinny, but nothing in regular wear fits, either. I cried.

On to comic books. I read the hell out of them as a kid, along with SF and Fantasy. I had two older brothers, and as soon as they dropped the comic, I was all over it. That makes me very picky where movie adaptations are concerned, though I try to keep the limitations of movies in mind while I bitch silently in my seat. I never really noticed the way women were depicted, because the men were always my favorite characters, and they weren't very realistic, either. Now, the teta-to-everything-else ratio totally cracks me up.

Converted?

Not a dream.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1788845.stm

The fashion was always there, but was the fear? Of course they're sexy, but so are a lot of things.
Did I dream this, or did Ashcroft once order an obscenely overpriced giant blue velvet curtain made to cover Blind Justice's terrifying bronze juggy?

Mark DF, that is an excellent question.
Instead of anyone going "oh, poor thing" when Janet's breast popped out, there was this huge tantrum. It's only getting worse--I went on an hour-long rant the other day, because I was flipping through the channels, and one of those plastic surgery shows was on. Obviously a breast reduction, augmentation, or reconstruction, with some of the interior tissue and a little blood showing. And they blurred the *nipple* out. TLC is now blurring the nipples on *depictions* of women--like tattoos, sculptures, Ukiyo-e.
WTF, over?

Molded bra cups;

The proportions are okay, and no visible seams or that weird leprous look that lace sometimes gives under thin fabrics. But that said, they're hotter than hell because they don't breathe, and once the fabric pulls away from the cup, it goes..uh.. downhill from there. Molded bras are in the "bras with their own boobs" category, which is very unforgiving of the otherwise unnoticeably lopsided.
I'm still snorting over "sounds like mice wrestling..."

Owlmirror,
I was thinking Hairy Fishnuts all day yesterday, but couldn't remember the source. Two stuffed Opus--er, Opera, I guess--are sitting right in front of me.

Marilee,
No brain injuries of which I'm aware. The thing with the Cubic Zirconium is just him not really paying attention, as far as we can discover. He gets the cadence, and a fair number of the defining letters, but the actual pronunciation isn't particularly important to him. If I get pissy, and make him say something right, then he has it, and just says it wrong to irritate me.
It's the same first-letter-measure-the-word thing with books. He's an avid reader, but can read the same book over and over. I do that too, with my favorites, but with him, it truly is different each time, because the first time, he doesn't actually read all the words.
With my first manuscript--
"Hey, you should mention this earlier."
"I mentioned it three times in the first chapter. You're fired."

Adam S:
Yeah, me too. The first time I ever heard "debacle" said, my brain tripped over the ungainly emphasis. I still say it my way in my head.
I actually got accused of cheating in a Renaissance and Reformation history class because I sounded like such a damn hick when I opened my mouth, that my professer was certain I'd either written my essay before the test period, or had an upperclassman do it.

Things like "cord" and "chord" can be sneaky. After all, "discordant."

The husband is of the group that measures words without reading them first. With street signs, especially. When he can make out the first letter, he then guesses what street we're approaching by the length of the word. Drives me as crazy as I do him with driving by landmark instead of proper directions.
He does the same with hearing, though. The syllables are right, the number of words is right, but it comes out, "Hey, is this a Zubic Micronium?"

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