(no subject)

If you haven't seen them already, go check out the latest DH icons from potterpuffs. Not sure how long it'll be before I can use my new Snape one without someone on my F-list screaming, "SPOILER! SPOILER! Oh you've ruined the plot for me!" A couple more weeks, you think?

Now after you look at those I highly, highly recommend reading rexluscus's brilliant essay, META: Snape in Book 7. I can't say it fixes all of my problems with JKR's handling of the character in the book, but I will say it's given me a lot to ponder that I hadn't entirely considered before. It's a fantastic read with a lot of compelling evidence to back it up.

And I'm not sure if anybody's missed it by this point, but JKR answers more questions about what happens to all the surviving characters at the end of DH and I find myself thinking that it might've just been better for her to skip the epilogue entirely and let all of us figure it out for ourselves. The way I see it her part in this saga is done, now it's the fans' turn to pick her creation up and run with it.

Aside from that I've got a shitload of fanfic to plow through this weekend and I'm getting a new oven tomorrow at long last. I've also designated this weekend "Summer Cleaning" and intend to start with a major purge of stuff to be donated to Goodwill. Then I'm going to decide which dance stuff I want to get rid of and see if I can get it photographed and posted on eBay or maybe I'll just see if I can find a bellydance shop that'll do consignment for me. Regardless it needs to go.

Another thing that needs to go is the extra 10 pounds I've been carrying around for about a year now. Ye gods it's getting to the point that I can't even look at myself in the mirror these days. Yuck. I chucked calorie counting out the window while sick last week but I need to get back up on that horse I think.

UPDATE: Oops, forgot to mention that I just read Avatar is supposed to be back on the air starting September 21! Woo!

(no subject)

This is just heartbreaking:

Shortly before she died, my grandmother—one of the people, naturally, I loved the most in the world—broke my heart. Celia Perlstein, like most of our grandparents, didn't get out much in her final years; in fact, for the last few years of her life, I'm not sure she got out of her old folks home at all. I don't think she really wanted to. She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.

I'd look out of her eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?

One evening's visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O'Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.

Ready to do something about this bullshit? Join then campaign to hold FOX's sponsors accountable for the hate speech they're paying for. This is the kind of thing they're sponsoring, O'Reilly comparing the liberal commentors and diarists at Daily Kos as bad as the Klan and Nazis. Is this really what the advertisers want to be associated with? If so they're going to have to learn that the decision brings with it some serious consequences.