Things I have now had since Thursday:

1.)  A job!  Interview at the local used bookstore went well and they called me back to offer me a position!  After five months of searching AT-FREAKIN'-LAST. I start Tuesday!  :D  Pay is solid for the area and the work and it looks to be something that I can continue on into the school year, and they're giving me a full-time schedule until then so there will be a little extra cash to pad things.  Yay!

2.)  A cat!  :DDDDD

The cat that I posted the other day turned out to be part of a pair that they were attempting to adopt together.  Being such good buddies I didn't want to seperate them, but in a back cage not getting much attention I found my little dude, an orange-on-orange DSH tabby with a long, crooked nose . 

Well, truth be told he's not exactly "little".  Closer to the tallest, longest domestic cat I have personally ever seen.

Meet Geryon:

So I set out this week to seriously delve into the new Star Trek fandom, but after yet another of my random but uber-realistic Rorschach dreams I decided to give Watchmen fandom a curious peek.

That was Wednesday.  OMG.  OMG SERIOUSLY, GUYS, I'VE DONE LITTLE SINCE THEN BUT READ WATCHMEN FIC AND RE-READ THE NOVEL ITSELF.

There's a surprisingly high concentration of quality fic, including a really active kinkmeme where seriousfic, crack, fluff, and porn are all blended together in a delicious mix. 

But my absolute favorite by far is Now, As Before by etherati , in which pre-Roche case Rorschach and Nite Owl face a zombie outbreak.  Not only is there solid characterization of the medical realities of such an outbreak but there's serious detective work, in-character friendship development, fantastic fanart, awesome examination of how the outbreak could possibly effect other major canon moments, and, oh yeah,  RORSCHACH IS A ZOMBIE FOR PRETTY MUCH THE ENTIRE THING.

SERIOUSLY.  ZOMBIE!SCHACH.  Second only to TAILOR!SCHACH in my newly-discovered favorite Watchmen kinks.   

Go and read it, I entreat you.  Not too much canon knowledge is needed, if you're only familiar with the film.  This is the fic that finally got me off of my butt and into town to buy my very own copy of the graphic novel.  Now I am in the midst of my second ever Watchmen fanart that I shall post later and have solid stars of three fics of my own.

Yay new fandoms!

As a feminist and a classicist this is one of the most painful things I have ever read:

How Women Will Be Hurt by Gay Marriage

YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF HISTORY AND WOMEN IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD TOO.

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT.

TONIGHT'S EPISODE OF MYTHBUSTERS FEATURES THE POPPING-POPCORN-WITH-LASERS SCENE FROM REAL GENIUS.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW.

Yesterday I went to the humane society and played with some of the kitties.  My parents are coming up sometime within the next month for a visit and on the last day my mom is going to accompany me to the shelter to adopt one so she can give me her opinion as a vet about each kitty's health.

SO EXCITED.  I've been kitty-nesting for the past week.  Made a scratch pad out of cardboard boxes I had been planning to recycle and have been going over the apartment with an eye towards cat-proofing. 

Did get a bit choked up yesterday as some of the cats reminded me so much of K.K., especially the females.  All the cat-stuff I have (or will have, Mom and Dad are bringing some stuff with them, like the cat carrier) had originally been used for her.  But it feels good knowing that all the care techniques I learned with her will be used to improve the life of another cat, especially as my plan is to take home a cat who might not have been adopted otherwise. 

One interesting thing to note:  there seems to be a high occurance of male calico cats locally.  They're rare because calico coloring is tied to the sex chromosomes; you need two Xs so almost all calicos are female, so any male calico has an extra sex chromosome and is XXY.  Either there's something in the water resulting in the handful of these cats I've seen within the past month of petfinder-stalking or there's been several mistakes at the sexing stage of putting these animals up for adoption. 

It amuses me to ponder adopting such a cat and naming it Xerxes (gotta highlight that double-X), but I don't know what health concerns might be linked to Klinefelter's in cats.

Have spent the day and change sifting through whatever video and text reports manages to make it past the attempt to blackout electronic media in Iran.  The revolution may not be televised, but as far as political unrest goes it's far from lite in tech.  In the clip of motorcycle cops trying to ride and beat their way through crowds protesters with cameras and cell phones are clearly visible. 

In contrast, a big tornado tore through my grandparent's neck of the woods Friday.  The town just south of them was destroyed and they didn't have power last I spoke with them.  It's weird how different the effect that each almost complete disconnect in communication chanels has.  Iran feels closer--more immediate and present--than it has before; yet the comparitavely much shorter distance to my grandparents' has never felt greater. 
 

OMG, Bill Nye the Science Guy is going to be on the Rachel Maddow show.

BE STILL MY BEATING OVARIES!

I just wish that MSNBC included the show's mid-commercial teasers into their online broadcasts.  The week of the Star Trek premier she did the Vulcan salute on one of those stingers and I want it as an icon like woah. 

"You will be controlled. You will be subjugated. You will be marginalized. And when subjugation walks in, freedom walks out. Now what do I mean? That means gone will be equal opportunity in the work force. Gone will be equal education. Gone will be equal pay for equal work. Gone will be health care benefits. Gone will be retirement benefits. Your freedoms will be gone. Because this is not about babies, again. It's about subjugation of women by male dominated societies. It's no more; it's no less."

---George Tiller, 2004

Posting this so that I have it handy whenever Huckabee starts making serious noise about 2012 in case people don't believe me when I say that I've experienced the Huckster first hand as governor and that that isn't an experience I'd want to repeat.  I'd bold extra-fucking crazy bits, but that'd be the whole article.  What.  The.  Hell. 


Huckabee, Gingrich urge political engagement in Va. Beach
http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2009/06/huckabee-gingrich-urge-political-engagement-va-beach

VIRGINIA BEACH

Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing visited Rock Church on Friday for a forum aimed at recapturing some of the movement's political momentum.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Christians to get involved in politics to preserve the presence of religion in American life.

"I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history," Gingrich said. "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism."

They and other speakers warned about the continuing availability of abortion, the spread of gay rights, and attempts to remove religion from American public life and school history books.

Gingrich and Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, argued the rights of Americans stem from God and to ignore that connection is perilous. The two were among several speakers, including former U.S. Senate candidate Oliver North, at the three-hour "Rediscovering God in America" event. The event was closed to reporters but was broadcast live on God.TV, an evangelical Web site.

Huckabee told the audience he was disturbed to hear President Barack Obama say during his speech in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday that one nation shouldn't be exalted over another.

"The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense," Huckabee said. The United States is a "blessed" nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries' defeat of the British empire "a miracle from God's hand."

The same kind of miracle, he said, led California voters to approve Proposition 8, which overturned a state law legalizing same-sex marriages.

Voters "did it because some things are right and some things are wrong and they had to make a stand," said Huckabee, who enjoyed some early grassroots support in Hampton Roads during his unsuccessful run for the GOP nomination last year. He may run again in 2012.

Gingrich, now a consultant and author, said the ties to religion in American government date to the Declaration of Independence, when Thomas Jefferson wrote that men are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights.

"I am not a citizen of the world," said Gingrich, who was first elected to the U.S. House from Georgia in 1978 and served as speaker from 1995 to 1999. "I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator."

Huckabee urged his listeners to get engaged in public life or their views won't matter.

"Politicians aren't interested in pleasing the public," he said. "They're interested in pleasing voters."

Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com

Wonder if the talking heads and out-of-office politicians trying to justify torture will shut up about "X many years without terrorism on American soil" now.  Probably not, given that they were content to leave acts of domestic terrorism out of their statistics before, and an assasination apparently doesn't count as a terrorist act if the assasination is meant to instill terror in women seeking life-saving medical procedures. 

Even more horrifying to imagine this happening under an administration that puts the concerns of half of the country in "airquotes".
 

So I've found myself avoiding Wal-Mart more and more when it comes to my shopping, even though I once again have one of their super stores within driving distance, but I may have reason now to start dropping by again. 

It's officially summer, and summer means orange push-pops.  It's in the rules.  I've absolutely loved them since I was a little kid, and they bring back memories of driving around with my dad, stopping for gas, and me getting to pick something out of the cooler.  The orange ones are the only flavor for decent, civilized people, but when I tried to buy them outsid of gas stations I could only ever find them boxed with the dreaded red and purple flavors, and that just wouldn't do.  But lo, I was browsing the ice cream section at the local Wal-Dog in search of Bryer's Dulce de Leche ice cream (I've not yet been able to find it since first having it in Atlanta) and lo!  I did stumble upon a box of push-pops--all of them orange!  Generic brand instead of the hallowed Flintstones, but at 8 for 1.98 and extremely tasty it was a joyous discovery indeed.  Had my first one on the drive home and thus summer was officially begun.

I'm also in love with their tank tops.  Not had much luck with the rest of their clothing selection, but No Boundaries and Faded Glory have become my turn-to brand when it comes to finding my beloved tanks.  I was a Gap girl for many a year but all of the tank tops save one that I bought from there last summer have completely stretched out through normal wear and tear.  The Wal-Mart tanks, however, have retained their shape and softness fantastically and, even though they are basic ribbed tanks, ahve enough support in the fabric itself that I can get by with wearing the smaller ones without a bra (though they do ride up a bit so I generally wear a size larger, which is then the perfect size).  At four bucks a pop they are kind on the wallet, as well.

So, that's two summer staples accounted for.  Thank you, Sam Walton!

Holy crap, transitioning from the tiny Ivy model that was my undergrad to the big state school, big city, living off of campus model that will be my grad experience is proving more intimidating than I thought. 

It's like being a freshmen times ten because I don't have the excuse of actually being a 'schmen this time. 

Hold me!  O.O!