Need to say something to me? Post it here. All comments are screened.

Hi all. Just wanted to post that I'm not dead, just very busy. And currently recovering form the flu, so I'm actually not working at the moment, and vegging out on some fannish things. Ahh fandom, how I've missed you. I wish we had more time to spend together.

Did anyone else see that Hulu has every episode of Highlander online? All free and legal? This rocks!

http://www.hulu.com/search?query=Highlander&st=1

Boy, I sure haven't posted in a while. Well, I'm still here. I won't promise to post more, but who knows?

PS. Haiti needs help. Here is a site:

www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm

So I saw the new X-men movie. Now, while I did enjoy the film, I understand why it got the reviews it did. The movie's biggest problem is that, basically, it's fanfic. The entire point of the movie (as indicated by the title) it to explore Wolverine's back story. If you care about Wolverine, you'll have a good time. You get an interesting back-story, the acting it great, and there are a lot of cool explosions.

But, and it's a big but, if you do not already care about Wolverine this movie will not make you care about him. And, as is generally the case, if you don't care about the main character the movie will be boring for you. It will just be a series of explosions. And no matter how good the explosions are, they can't make up for a total lack of emotional investment in the characters.

In short, the movie cannot stand on its own two feet. You have to come into the theater already invested in the characters in order to make it work for you. So, for all those out there who like Wolverine a want to see a movie about him, you'll have a great time. For everyone else, rent the first 2 X-men movies.

PS: I have dreamwidth codes if anyone wants.

Thanks totzigane  I now have a dreamwidth account! This makes me very happy. She is a wonderful person. :)
 
Now: Lets see if I can figure out how to use it before my computer crashed again. So, did this crosspost?

(And I really do think it was a coincidence that it bluescreened right when I hit the create button.)

Must not claw at eyes Must not claw at eyes Must not claw at eyes...

Sarah Monette has recently completed her four book series, Doctrine of the Labyrinth. The books are, in order:
Melusine
The Virtu
The Mirador
Corambis

They are amazingly good. Please go buy them! Now, I'll admit my reasons for telling you to buy the books is largely selfish. I want more books from this author, and I think I'm more likely to get more books if she is making more money. As opposed to say, her not making enough money and having to keep a day job rather than write.

( Want details? )

BUY THESE BOOKS!! I've got them all in hardback; you can spring for the first three in paper. :)

Okay, so we know it was stupidity any way you cut it, but they are claiming unintended stupidity:


The unofficial "we didn't want anyone to see just how stupid we were" story as per http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/2009/04/idosyncratic-code-amazonfail/

From: Mike Daisey *email redacted*
Date: April 13, 2009 2:00:34 PM EDT
To: Anthony Hecht anthony @thestranger.com
Subject: Re: In case it gets lost in the comments…

Well, this is the real story: a guy from Amazon France got confused on how he was editing the site, and mixed up “adult”, which is the term they use for porn, with stuff like “erotic” and “sexuality”. That browse node editor is universal, so by doing that there he affected ALL of Amazon. The CS rep thought the porn question as a standard porn question about how searches work.

The livejournaler is full of shit.

md

On Apr 13, 2009, at 1:41 PM, Anthony Hecht wrote:

> Ah, very interesting.. I would actually love to know a little more detail if you have it.. would be great to get the real story out there on Slog, especially as this livejournaler’s claim that he “bantown”‘d it for kicks is making the rounds:
> http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html
>
> a.

(from email)
 

Actually, I buy this. "Never attribute to malice that which can be as easily explained by idiocy."

To sum up, it looks like Amazon is deliberately making it harder to find LGBT Lit. For more details, go here: 

http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/100114.html

This truly ticks me off on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it disturbs my happy candy-land fantasy that we're getting past this as a culture.

Now, I acknowledge that Amazon has the right to do anything they want with their own business. We, in turn, have a right not to buy things from Amazon ever again. Now, I somehow doubt that they did this specifically to hurt the LGBT community. Rather, I think some twit convinced the higher-ups that having OMGTEHGAY!!! pop up on searches was hurting their sales. Thus, to prevent such idiocy from being perpetrated in the future, we just have to demonstrate that this sort of behavior will hurt their sales a whole lot more.


(PS: tehdely  suggests here  http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html that this may be a result of values-trolls abusing the the "mark as adult" button. I'd love to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, if I could actually FIND a "mark as adult" button.)