Hundreds of British schoolgirls are facing the terrifying prospect of female genital mutilation (FGM) over the Christmas holidays as experts warn the practice continues to flourish across the country. Parents typically take their daughters back to their country of origin for FGM during school holidays, but The Independent on Sunday has been told that "cutters" are being flown to the UK to carry out the mutilation at "parties" involving up to 20 girls to save money.

The police face growing criticism for failing to prosecute a single person for carrying out FGM in 25 years; new legislation from 2003 which prohibits taking a girl overseas for FGM has also failed to secure a conviction.

( Rest Of Article Under Cut )

SOURCE

I find this trend incredibly disturbing.

Stiff sentence for shooting last wild Indochinese cat

A Chinese villager has been jailed for 12 years for shooting and eating the country's last known wild Indochinese tiger, China Daily reports.

Kang Wannian and Gao Zuqiao, from Mengla, Yunnan Province, encountered the animal in February while gathering freshwater mussels in a nature reserve near China's border with Laos.

Kang claimed he shot the cat in self-defence, but the local court ruled he "did not need a gun" to gather mussels, and slapped him with ten years for the killing and two years for "illegal possession of firearms". He was also fined 100,000 yuan (£9,100) and "ordered to compensate the state for an economic loss of 480,000 yuan" (£43,800).

Gao, who helped Kang cut up the carcass, and four villagers who shared the feline meal were sentenced to between three and four years for "covering up and concealing criminal gains".

The endangered Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) is now represented by an estimated 1,000 individuals in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam. The slaughtered Chinese specimen was photographed back in 2007 in the same reserve where it met its fate. China Daily has the picture here. (and we have it up there - p)®

Source: The Register

This post makes me think the booj needs a fire.

Title: Candle In The Window
Author: orpheus_samhain
Beta: mysticheaven/totoffle
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Lily and Sirius
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,000
Disclaimer: Characters belong to JKR
Summary: Sirius was sent to woo Lily on behalf of his best friend.
Author's Notes: Inspired by hrymfaxe's picture Frozen, written as a part of hp_art_tales and 7spells. My prompt table

( Candle In The Window )

X-posted to beauty101 

I live in Sweden and I can't find virgin coconut oil from shops, and the only place I've found that sells it online has sky high prices. I turned to Ebay (which I've never used) and it took me ages of googling to find items that will ship to Sweden.
Since I've never bought this before, I don't really know what the "right" stuff should be like. Basically, I want at least a litre (32oz) so I can start using it for homemade deo, for my skin, maybe for my hair and I want to try it as lube, since I'm very yeast infection prone.

( I have a few questions. )

PS. I have about 13 more hours before the bidding ends, so I'm in a hurry! Thank you once again!

While I'm at it, I want to share something I've found working for my hair. I've always had hair that never felt soft and got greasy quite quickly. A couple of months ago I looked around for natural ways of washing hair and since then I've done the following after washing my hair with shampoo and conditioner: I mix a third of a decilitre with a tablespoon of honey with some warm water (so the honey melts) and even more cold water in a large cup. After washing my hair, I rinse my hair with this, then wash it out quickly with water (but leaving some of it in). I've noticed that my hair becomes so much softer right afterwards and also when it's dry. The other day I forgot to rinse my hair with this stuff and my hair felt like steel wool! Dunno what's making my hair soft out of these things, but it softens my hair! :D

I had the teeth extracted today. The Dentist looked at my mouth and rearranged his whole schedule because he thought I'd bee in real trouble if I waited any longer.
Fun time.

So I am watching Law and Order, being looked after by ellyr_in_ink , and I wrote this fic while she buy me soft foods ^_^


Title Last Christmas
Rating PG
Characters Bucky/Toro
Notes As lots of people have pointed out to Brubaker, Christmas for Bucky and Toro in 1944 likely did not involve a Dance Hall. I know his Winter Kills story (which is awesome) make it canon they were there on the 25h, and not at the Battle of the Bulge, but I wrote this anyway. ^^


Bullets slammed into the ground, driving Bucky from tree he'd been using as cover. Panicked, he looked around, then saw Toro motioning him toward the snow embankment. He ran thinking about the cold biting against his nose, not the bullets. As his back hit the snow, he felt the freezing wetness soak into the few dry spots he had left. Beside him, he could see Toro, pale skin and green shorts standing out against the white snow.

( More )

Roland Burris Rewrites "Twas the Night Before Christmas"



Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) delivers a health-care inspired version of “Twas the night before Christmas” on the Senate floor this morning.

"Although our work keeps us away from our family and friends for much of this holiday season, I see no reason why we can't share good cheers with one another right here in Washington," he said in introducing the poem. "So in the spirit of the season, Mr. president, I would like to share my own version of a classic holiday story with my good friends on both sides of the aisle."

Watch Burris deliver the poem at left, and read his effort below. It includes this line, in reference to the GOP: "We'll clog up the Senate, they cried with a grin/and in the midterm elections, we'll get voted in."
( THE POEM )
UPDATE: Burris's spokeswoman, Audrey Till, told POLITICO that the senator's speechwriter, Riley Roberts, was the author of the holiday-inspired verse.

Can we keep him?

 

by Eric Ribellarsi

A debate has recently broken out about the new science fiction film "Avatar." A popular review appeared on io9 by Annalee Newitz titled When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar? I'd like to try to respond to some of the points in that review and give a different view that defends that movie. Source

Hi again. I just found this neat recipe for making homemade stick deodorant in case anyone is interested. Hope you like it!

http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2009/03/quick-stick-deodorant.html

Turkey says it wants the European Union to drop visa restrictions on its citizens seeking to travel to the bloc after restrictions for three other non-EU countries were lifted Saturday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says the country deserves to have visa restrictions against it dropped by the EU after Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian citizens were granted visa-free travel rights to the Schengen area.

Davutoglu said the visa waiver should be granted despite little progress being made with Brussels on Ankara's EU membership aspirations.

"It's unacceptable that certain Balkan countries that are in the initial stages of the membership process and have not begun negotiations have been given the Schengen privilege, while Turkey, considering the level that Turkish-EU relations have reached, has not," Davutoglu said at a news conference.

"We will follow this closely from now on," he said, according to the state-run Anatolian news agency.

Citizens of the 25 signatory countries to the Schengen Agreement are allowed to cross into other Schengen countries without a visa. Certain countries within the EU have not implemented the agreement in full, and travellers to those countries - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania, Liechtenstein, Ireland and the UK - must still present a passport at the border.

Davutoglu had previously criticized the EU plans to lift visa restrictions for Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, while keeping them for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania, two countries with Muslim majorities.

"The way it's being done by the EU is giving the wrong signals," a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said.

Predominantly Muslim Turkey, a country of 71 million, has hit several roadblocks in its EU accession bid. The EU has frozen several aspects of its talks with Ankara as a result. Among the difficult issues are Turkey's failure to open its port and airports to ships and planes from EU member Cyprus. Turkey's relations with Cyprus have long been strained, with Turkey having a military presence in the internationally unrecognised independent north of the island.

Source

A crowd of people have helped two convicts escape a public execution in Iran, officials there say.

The crowd overpowered security services and helped two men convicted of robbery to escape hanging in the province of Kerman, the Fars news agency reported.

The men were recaptured hours later, and justice department officials say they will be put to death on Wednesday.

Iran executes more people than anywhere else in the world except China, human rights groups say.

The members of the crowd who aided their escape will also be punished, officials said.

This year the Iranian government has increased the already high number of executions, possibly as a way of asserting its authority in the wake of the disputed presidential election result, BBC correspondents say.

Human rights groups accuse Iran of making excessive use of the death penalty but Tehran insists it is an effective deterrent that is used only after a lengthy judicial process.

Source.

Reposted from comments elsewhere, in which I was arguing that if I paired John with everybody he'd never be able to keep up, and tielan suggested there's probably an Ancient device that can fix that. (Gen, but rated at least PG, if only for language.)

( One More Mysterious Ancient Artifact )

Okay, I wasn't sure I wanted to see this film but now?
Red band trailer for Kick-ass featuring Hit Girl NSFW! Man!!!! This takes me back to MY fantasies as an eleven year old girl! Except, Hit Girl would have been one of my minions. I was stylin' Bond Villains at the time.

I haven't slept for longer than 24 hours. I don't really feel sleepy now, just highly uncomfortable. In a fit of rage, I decided to do clean install on my mac after messing around with it for 3 days with no luck. I have no bootcamp but at least I'll have a clean mac.

To my horror, I found that I can't export bookmarks from chrome mac, or maybe you can, but I was too tired to care. And I'm using firefox now, I guess Chrome wasn't ready for prime time yet.

Got most of apps I use back on, didn't install back almost two third of what I use to have because I rarely ever used them. I just like installing craps when I'm bored. Bad habit. I'm gonna try to keep this installation as clean as possible. Hope I can keep up

I haven't been this tired in a while, my whole body ached.

Woe! My pet dog, Holly, had to have an operation today- an aural haematoma. Aka, internal bleeding in her ear. Twas a huge lump, caused by her rubbing and scratching her ears a lot. (She has many many allergies, which she is on tablets for. Poor little sausage is home now. She has a lovely orange bandage wrapped around her head, with smilies on it. :) Photos later, when she has stopped the constant snoozing.

well im impressed.

After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S. soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler's home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a close.

Making his way through the Berghof, Hitler's home near Berchtesgaden, Germany, Pistone noticed a table with shelves underneath. Exhilarated by the certainty of victory over the Nazis, Pistone took an album filled with photographs of paintings as a souvenir.

"It was really a great feeling to be there and we knew, by that time, he was on his last leg," Pistone told The Associated Press.

Sixty-four years after Pistone brought the album home to Ohio, the 87-year-old has learned its full significance: It's part of a series compiled for Hitler featuring art he wanted for his "Fuhrermuseum," a planned museum in Linz, Austria, Hitler's hometown.

Pistone's album is expected to be formally returned to Germany in a ceremony at the U.S. State Department in January. Germany has 19 other albums discovered at the Berchtesgaden complex that are part of a 31-album collection of works either destined for or being considered for the Linz museum.

( Read more... )

This is my understanding of how Hot Topic works. They buy artwork from outside parties, so it's up to the artist/other company to submit original works which they own the rights to. If it's not original, they also need the permission of the copyright holder, so if you want to send in artwork of Zelda, you must get in touch with Nintendo. Inevitably, unscrupulous folk send in work that's not their own to make a quick buck. But Hot Topic tends to have a bad track record (click here for the case of the stolen tattoo), either not checking up on the works submitted or not prosecuting offenders, thus providing little discouragement for others to do the same. And the latest victim is a dA artist and Udon Crew member called LastScionz.

So yes I received a comment today that linked me a shirt being sold @ Hot Topic.
I thought, hmm. . . then clicked the [link]. To my surprise (SHOCK) I realize that it's of a BattleToads shirt . . . with MY FANART being used.

So here's my question, is a company legally allowed to use a person's work (eventhough it is fanart from years ago) on supposedly licensed merchandise without the artist's permission? Coz yeah, nobody contacted me to ask if they could use that image. Who could I contact to get this sh!t sorted out, coz this is quite annoying. Not effin' cool.

You Thought We Wouldn't Noticed caught wind of it as well.

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1380344.html

I apologize in advance, I've never done this before. so I don't know how to do the whole, below the cut thing.


( not safe for eyes )

Barack Obama Wants to Be at Work Today Just as Much as You Do, America

So he's prank-calling local news-talk radio shows as "Barry From D.C." Is it five yet? Anyone up for lunch?

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was a guest today on a WTOP radio show in Washington, D.C., so Obama called in to wish him a Merry Christmas. He's got plenty of time to kill—according to the latest White House pool report, Obama just announced in the Roosevelt Room that he's not leaving for his Hawaiian holiday until the Senate passes a healthcare bill on Christmas Eve. "My attitude is if they are making these sacrifices to provide health care to all Americans, the least I can do is be around." Which means plenty of time to kill til then. Also, contrary to our report yesterday, the White House press corps won't have it any better than their counterparts on the Hill after all.



Here is “Barry from DC” calling into some DC radio show to wish Tim Kaine a happy something and to congratulate him on being married to his wife, Tim Kaine’s Wife. Barry from DC turns out to be the President, Barack Obama. Tim Kaine is so smiley about it. Adorable. [YouTube]
source

Grumble, it's one of those days where everything seems out to piss me off >(

Title: ----
Gift for: cerine
Artist: ???
Rating: PG (no shirt??)
Fandom: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Warnings: none
Artist's Notes: -----
Summary: -----

( Art for Cerine! )

Anti-socialist Bachmann got $250K in federal farm subsidies

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) — so fond of accusing the Obama administration of foisting socialism on an unwilling America — has apparently been the recipient of about a quarter of million bucks in government handouts.

Liberal site Truthdig links to an Environmental Working Group analysis of federal agricultural subsidies and found that the Bachmann family farm, managed by her father-in-law until his recent death, received $251,000 in farm payments between 1995 and 2006.

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate her stake in the Wisconsin farm is worth up to $250,000. Her income from the farm has grown from $2,000 a year a few years back to as much as $50,000 for 2008.

Truthdig calls her a "Welfare Queen":

Bachmann's family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann's recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized — or "socialized" — businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls.

Bachmann isn't alone in her selective socialism: EWG found that the top four districts receiving the largest ag payments are represented by conservative Republicans.

1. 3rd district of Nebraska (Rep. Adrian Smith - Republican) - $1,736,923,011 in subsidies go to 51,702 recipients.

2. 1st district of Kansas (Rep. Jerry Moran - Republican) - $1,315,979,151 in subsidies go to 75,802 recipients.

3. 4th district of Iowa (Rep. Tom Latham - Republican) - $1,288,622,912 in subsidies go to 35,696 recipients.

4. 9th district of Texas (Rep. Randy Neugebauer - Republican) - $1,227,192,312 in subsidies go to 21,290 recipients.

Boosting signal about Yuletide pinch-hitting again.

astolat says:

Hey guys, urgent! With the huge increase in membership this year, we have a corresponding increase in last-minute pinch hits left to go out, and thanks to a new exciting Yahoogroups snafu, the original list has been silenced at the worst possible time. D:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE if you are by any chance up for doing any pinch hitting, join the new pinch hitters list:

Send a blank email to yuletidepinchhitters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. To activate your subscription, just reply to the confirmation message you receive from the group.

Or if you have a Yahoo! account, you can join at the group website!

There are some pinch hits sent there already but we are holding off on more until we get more people on board.

Please pass this along on journals, twitter, etc! ♥

Sometimes I see people escorting, I assume, foreign exchange students around the city. Giving them a sort of tour. I'm studying Japanese and I've been thinking that this would be a great opportunity for me to practice and improve while helping some newbies get to know their new home. So, does anyone know where one goes to get hooked up with this kind of position, what kind of requirements there are, etc?

"You have both sides criticizing it, which means that we did what we had to do, we compromised in a fair way," says Senator Boxer - but can this fragile compromise on the Nelson abortion restrictions hold?

The details on how the amendment compromise will impact the bill are still hazy, but the Washington Post provides an outline of possible scenarios and complications:

The long-standing ban on federal funding for abortion has complicated congressional Democrats' health-care legislation. Medicaid bars federal funding for abortion, but 17 states and the District allow the procedure for female Medicaid enrollees paid out of their own funds. It is harder to reach middle ground in the bill before Congress, which would provide federal subsidies to millions of people to buy private health insurance plans on a new marketplace, or "exchange." The deal reached by Nelson and other Democrats over the weekend would allow those people to purchase insurance plans with abortion coverage. But they would have to write two separate premium checks — one to cover the bulk of their plan and the other to cover the sliver for abortion coverage, probably a dollar or so per month.

States could also decree that no plans including abortion coverage be provided on the exchange in their state. As it stands, five states already have some sort of ban on abortion coverage.

By contrast, an amendment that passed the House would prohibit insurers from selling plans with abortion coverage to anyone buying coverage with the help of subsidies — excluding 85 percent of customers on the exchange. The amendment, sponsored by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), would permit the sale of "riders" for abortion coverage, but abortion rights groups say it is offensive to expect women to buy separate coverage for a procedure that most do not plan on needing.

( Read more... )

Source.

ATLANTA – Ann Nixon Cooper, the Atlanta centenarian lauded by President Barack Obama in his election night speech last year, has died. She was 107.

Obama in his 2008 speech called Cooper an example of "the heartbreak and the hope" of the past century. He noted she'd been born at a time when women and blacks couldn't vote and lived to cast her ballot for the country's first black president.

Carl M. Williams Funeral Directors of Atlanta, which is handling funeral arrangements, confirmed that Cooper died on Monday.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that she died in the home she'd lived in since 1938. She was hospitalized recently for circulatory trouble.

Cooper would have turned 108 on Jan. 9.

Source

As 2009 winds down, the pundits are already beginning to tally what Barack Obama has achieved during his first year in office. Even his more well-intentioned detractors contend that, though he may have made a high-profile speech or two, the new U.S. president can boast of few concrete achievements in foreign policy. Obama himself accepted the Nobel Peace Prize as a "call to action," rather than a reward for his work, and gave himself only a "B+" grade during his recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
 


Yet in one sense, Obama achieved more in the first 11 months of his presidency than his predecessor managed to in eight years. My research clearly shows that he has begun to restore America's good name, an intangible asset with highly tangible (read: lucrative) consequences. As head of state, Obama has boosted the value of "Brand America" by just over $2 trillion, up from $9.7 trillion in 2008 to $11.8 trillion this year. That means U.S. goods, services, people, and even the country's landscape are about 20 percent more enticing to the global market than they were in 2008.



I know this because I track the value of countries' brand images closely from year to year. Since 2005, my Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index (NBI) has regularly measured the international perceptions of 50 countries by polling between 20,000 and 40,000 people in 20 to 40 countries. We have asked them to detail their perceptions of other countries' human rights records, education systems, cultural lives, products, sporting prowess, and even kindness to strangers. I originally launched the NBI because public perceptions of countries are critically important to their prosperity in a globalized world. What people believe about other places may be biased, utterly misconceived, weirdly distorted, unfairly negative, undeservedly positive, outdated, and ludicrously simplified. But it matters. Countries with a powerful, positive image find it easier to attract tourists, investors, donors, talent, respect, and the attention of international media and foreign governments. They are more successful in exporting their products, services, ideas, culture, and people to the world. Countries with weak or negative images, by contrast, find these transactions more difficult and expensive. None of this was captured by GDP, economic productivity, or any host of other economic measures -- a hole that the index was meant to fill. snip// So to those who say Obama has achieved little, my research suggests otherwise. His mere presence has begun to restore the United States to a position of respect and credibility -- and consequently, of influence -- that no amount of political, economic, or military might could muster. And it is an absolutely necessary achievement if Washington is to wield any moral authority in the world. In at least one of his responsibilities as head of state, the sacred responsibility of upholding the good name of his country, Obama has had a pretty good first year...




Full article: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/17/the_two_trillion_dollar_man?page=0,0

Chavez Wants To Rename Angel Falls, World's Tallest Waterfall


CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that the world's tallest waterfall has been called Angel Falls too long and should revert to its original indigenous name instead of commemorating the U.S. pilot who spotted it in 1933.

He called for renaming the Venezuelan falls Kerepakupai-Meru, saying during his weekly television program that Indians had a name for the majestic waterfall long before adventurer Jimmie Angel flew over it.

How can Venezuelans could accept the idea that "the highest waterfall in the world was discovered by a man who came from the United States in a plane?" Chavez asked.

"We should change that name, right? With all respect to that man who came, who saw it."

( Read more... )

SOURCE

Whatever they decide (I get where he's coming from), I just wanna visit it someday.

STEELE'S SWEET RACKET.... Michael Steele was able to parlay a series of failures and fiascoes into becoming the clownish chairman of the Republican National Committee. After securing the gig, Steele was able to parlay his chairmanship into becoming a surprisingly well paid personality on the speaking circuit.

Michael S. Steele, Republican National Committee chairman, is using his title to market himself for paid appearances nationwide, personally profiting from speeches with fees of up to $20,000 at colleges, trade associations and other groups - an unusual practice criticized by a string of past party chairmen.

Mr. Steele, elected in January to the $223,500-a-year RNC post, is working with at least four outside agencies in Washington, New York, Boston and Nashville that book the speaking engagements. He charges between $8,000 and $20,000 for an address, plus first-class travel and lodging expenses.

The Republican National Committee has been awfully tolerant of Steele's incompetence, mismanagement, and humiliating gaffes this year. But this is a revelation that may put Steele's job in jeopardy.

Several former RNC chairmen said on the record that Steele's lucrative little scheme is hard to defend. Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., RNC chairman under Reagan, said, "Holy mackerel, I never heard of a chairman of either party ever taking money for speeches.... The job of a national chairman is to give speeches. That's what the national party pays him for."

Jim Nicholson, RNC chairman under W. Bush, said the job "demands so much of your time that you can work 24/7 and not get everything done, so taking time out to speak for the benefit of one's own bank account is not appropriate."

Rich Bond, RNC chairman under Clinton, said, "It just doesn't look right using RNC resources and trading on the title of chairman to make outside money." Bond added that if he received honoraria after a public appearance, he donated it to charity.

For what it's worth, the Democratic National Committee said it knows of no DNC chairs who've ever made speeches for personal gain the way Steele is doing now.

And what kind of personal gain are we talking about here? According to the Washington Times reported, "it potentially adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Stepping back, I suspect RNC members may be reluctant to switch chairmen less than a year from the midterm elections. It would be disruptive and embarrassing. On the other hand, is the party really prepared to keep an incompetent chairman who's using his title to line his own pockets?

source

The funniest thing happened last weekend. We were out geocaching. We were in a small town at the Veteran's Memorial outside the Masons looking for a micro cache. Those are small caches typically hidden in 35mm containers, bison tubes or magnetic hide-a-key containers. So we are looking around the area which is in the center of town on the main street and Hannah looks up under the large corner mail box and says I found it. So I'm thinking it odd that it would be hidden on a mail box but we walk over to the truck. Hannah hands us a magnetic hide-a-key container.  Joe opens it and we see a key. *blink blink* So we are all standing there staring at this key wondering where the log is when the realization suddenly spreads across our faces and we go from confused to horrified. It is actually a hide-a-key. Not a cache and it is the key to the corner mailbox. Joe quickly closes the container and Hannah grabs it and runs and puts it back meanwhile I am trying not to fall over in my fit of panic and hysterical laughter. We get the key returned and we all look at each other and Joe says, "Well, that's never happened before." and then we all nearly fall over laughing. We did actually find the cache in a camoed pill bottle but I will never forget our faces when we opened that hide-a-key and saw... a key. Mom is convinced we will be arrested while geocaching one of these days.

I'm sure you all have heard about this by now:
ONTD_STARTREK has spawned the greatest audio manip ever! - ZQ reading slashfic. Well, not really. His voice has been sampled from the audio book he read and mixed so it sounds like he's reading a slashfic. I hope people view it as humorous.

----
Know what is keeping me motivated to slim down?
Sweaters like this hmmmm or this!

unf.

 We had a very pleasant Yule evening. When Joe got home, dinner was ready and he was really surprised by all the little extras we did that he didn't know about like the mulled cider and the fresh baked bread and honey butter. Except for missing some loved ones around our fire, it was a perfect evening and it meant so much to us. It is a blessing to have that little moment of festive calm and closeness tucked away in the heart and mind as things pick up speed toward Christmas. You never know how gatherings are going to go when you have so many different family members in different places in their lives coming together under one roof for Christmas Eve.

OMG OMG CLIENTELE & VETIVER BACK TO BACK MARCH 1 AT MOHAWK

ETA: So, Ristorante Paradiso anime. Is it good? It sounds like it is right up my alley (in the Only Yesterday direction) and the manga art is stylized in a way that I love.
Thoughts?

another bathtub for your dream castle.

Oops, there is a problem with the pinch hitters list! D: If you haven't already seen this on your flist (and you are a pinch hitter), check out the explanation on yuletide.

ETA: There is now a back up pinch hitter list, details here.

it's 1am and i need to sleep but i'm updating instead, so you will all just have to deal with my inability to uppercase for the moment, okay?

1) so i found this chick on thebeijinger.com who was offering chinese or japanese lessons, and met up with her today. she's my sister's age, just moved to beijing from the right-next-door province of dongbei, and has studied japanese in university. i'm not sure how good her japanese is, and it's a little embarrassing for her that i try not to lol at her chinese accent when she speaks japanese (oh man oh man i tried so hard not to think of sho sakulai but it was difficult). but mostly we spoke in chinese, which is also good for me. it's Y50/hour when we do four hours a week... i'm going to see what she comes up with for japanese teaching - she's never been asked to so she wasn't super prepared today. i'm wondering if it's worth it though, because i'm going to take an assessment for...

2) a japanese berlitz program. it works out to be twice as much as seeing the chick (and i'd have to pay upfront, not per-lesson), but it's professional and focused on japanese and all that. i'm not entirely sure what my objective is with learning japanese, though... to understand raws? to make stupid wapanese statements on the internet? i think that's kinda it, so i lean towards the fake learning with the tutor girl while helping my chinese, backed up with running her lessons by people who know better (ie my sister, heather, whoever will listen to me) so i don't end up speaking japanese with a ridiculous chinese accent lololololol how hilarious would that be. this is all tempered by the question of: am i self-disciplined enough to study outside of class hours? i lean towards: probably not, i suck.

3) in non-japanese news, today is the winter solstice. this means that up until now has been fake winter; now we're really getting started. also, in china today, the winter solstice (冬至) is the day where everyone eats dumplings or else - as the folklore goes - you'll get an earache. so garth and i had dumplings this evening after my chinese/japanese "lesson", while watching a nightmare before christmas. i have to say that the passing of the winter solstice frightens me. it means the weather i have been complaining about is only just getting started being cold. and what's worse is that i know that, come the spring equinox, it's still not going to be warm again for ages. sadfaces.

4) the good part about this time of year in china, though, is the hilarious amount of christmas decorations everywhere. the local barber shops have decked themselves out, including making the door attendants wear santa hats (personally, i don't think that speaks well to their abilities as hair stylists, but whatever). i came home from work yesterday to find that christmas had officially thrown up on our apartment complex, which is gorgeous. there were flashing lights on the bushes and wreaths on the gate guards' station and one of the large trees in the courtyard has been trussed up, though the lights are a little too spare for it to have a very good effect. i took so-so pictures and will, at some point, do something with them.

5) i had some fun visa hiccups this week. first of all, i thought i needed my visa renewed. i didn't. but in attempting to renew the visa, i found that i have been living and working in china on a tourist visa for the last six months. generally, this is frowned upon, but seeing as i have been working for a hong kong company... i'm sure that's a loophole somewhere. my current visa lasts until february 6, which should give my new job time to get together all the appropriate documentation for my working resident's card/visa. it might not be possible to go from a tourist to a working visa without leaving the country, but that won't be too much trouble.

6) i have not started working for new job, and i don't have a very official start date, because there might be some travel involved in mid-january (back to australia~ hells yes flying south for the winter!). in any case, i'm going to their office tomorrow afternoon after my current boss goes home to america, where i will be starting to set up my computer/email/importing contacts/etc. hopefully then my new boss will actually tell me what he is going to pay me. i also hope that i am not a pansy and speak my mind. i will keep the talisman that is my mental image of sakurai sho (my personal idol for career success) in the front of my mind.

7) i am getting back into the swing of the gig guide, which suffered a hefty blow from my trip to japan. my arashi detour derailed my interest in chinese indie bands, but i feel a little more on track now. i've updated the guide for january and written a few entries despite not actually getting to any real gigs lately, and it feels good. while occasionally i look at pho50 and think "how does she do that?", i feel like i can carve a nook out of the internet for myself even while my mind is in a bunch of different places.

8) and finally, in terms of arashi fandom: je_holiday is eating my face. i haven't read more than what i've already recced, and for those of you on my flist who have not been subjected to my wibbling about the story i wrote, it's been posted already. see if you can guess~ (hint: it's the terribly lame arashi one) other than that, i've been trying to write my indie arashi au but coming up against some really shitty writing from myself, and a complete inability to organize my ideas. so instead i've been working on some more 25-word challenges. there are a couple in the one i've nearly finished that i just love - hurt/comfort nino & aiba, and darkfic koki & kame. mmm angst.

so that was some stuff! and a couple of things! and now it's 1:30 - just time for t!sd daigo & pen-pen part 6 (come on you guys, how can you not find this completely adorably contrived? ♥) before sleep time. mmm sleep.

Just woke up and feeling vaguely sluggish so have an NSFW video about a sex toy that I find perplexing. I get the idea, but the execution seems like so many things can go wrong in ways that will land a hapless user on one of those ER shows on TLC.

Aw, crap.

Christmas cards from my dad and maternal grandma addressed to
"Marshall".

Dad's card isn't perfect; it has my old name on it in a few places, and it's also a "For Daughter" card, but the fact that he addressed the longest part of the message to me by the right name was enough to make me tear up.

Grandma's card, on the other hand, out and out made me cry when I read it: she said she's thinking of me every day and that she misses me terribly, and then she wrote, "This is still pr very hard on me. You will always be my [old name]."

"Please don't be angry with me," she added on a separate line.

And, like, I cried so hard at her reaction when I came out to her a few months ago, because it was so unexpectedly amazing, and I just wish I could, like, throw my arms around her in the most gigantic hug ever and tell her that there's no way I'm mad at her, because I love so much that she's a) acknowledging how hard it is on her while b) continuing to respect me and c) not placing the burden of the adjustment on me.

I don't know if that's more than I could ask for, because there's a lot of things trans* people can ask for that we don't necessarily get, but it's certainly more than I expected, and oh god, I miss her. I miss both of them. All the time, really, but this week it's especially hard.