dedalvs

As most Californians know, Prop. 8 (the one that illegalized same sex marriage which had previously been legal) has been on trial the past few months. Specifically, the plaintiffs are challenging the constitutional validity of the proposition (after all, with propositions in California, we can pass any law, as long as x number of signatures get it on the ballot, and more than 50% of the voters think it's a good idea). More generally, the challenge seems to be getting at the question of whether the majority can vote away the rights of a minority.

One of the terms bandied about by opponents of marriage equality has been the term "traditional marriage". By "traditional marriage", opponents mean a marriage between exactly one man and one woman—and, sometimes, where both parties are of child-bearing age, are relatively close in age, and intend to procreate. One of the arguments of the anti-freedom folks is that if we allow homosexuals to marry, where, oh, where will it end?! Pretty soon men will start having multiple wives, or there will be group marriages, or people will start marrying animals! Each of these (and more) were offered as serious arguments at one time or another, and people bought into them because each of these were seen as non-traditional marriages (as defined by the deep-pocketed opposition of same sex marriage).

That's why I found this article I read today so amusing. South Africa, in a huge leap forward for the continent (despite South Africa being probably the most whitewashed country in Africa), is hosting the upcoming 2010 World Cup. For those that don't follow soccer, the World Cup is one of the largest sporting events in the world, on par with the Summer Olympics, and might actually be more popular—an odd fact, considering it's a soccer-centric event, and the Olympics has a soccer tournament in it. The World Cup has never been held in Africa, so to say this is big for the country and the continent is an understatement: It's a prominent event in the recent history of Africa, and will be remembered hereafter no matter what happens.

And then this happened. Apparently, South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, who has three wives and a fiancée, was discovered to have impregnated a fifth woman. This is precisely the type of media coverage South Africa does not need—or, at least, outside of Africa. Why would it matter? Here's where I tie the two themes of this post together (quote from the Yahoo! News article; my emphasis added):

While some South Africans see Zuma's polygamy as outdated, others applaud him for embracing what they see as traditional African values. South African law recognizes such traditional marriages, though fewer young people enter into them because they are seen as expensive and old-fashioned.

Traditional marriage?! You mean...the American Conservative definition of "traditional marriage" might not hold worldwide...? B-but...the Bible says...

Ha, ha! Ahh, I can't help it. Anyway, I'm sure this will just be a blip on the radar for South Africa (just like all the poor folks they evicted to "beautify" the city of Johannesburg), and that marriage equality opponents either won't read or readily dismiss this "aberrant" usage of the term "traditional marriage", but it's here recorded for all to see.

Forever and ever.

As long as the internet exists.

I just came across this logo from the American Hockey League and thought I'd share.

( The Laredo Bucks )

What a proud gentleman he is! And even though his team's from the state of Texas, I have to salute him—and his team. This logo is classic, stylish and exciting. Great work all around!

Geez... What a month. What I got done:

• Helped edit the latest NewCommAve (though still no word on when it will be finalized).


• Finally sent off the last section of my novel to sima_q for comments. After that, it's revision, and then the big you know what.


• Oh, that's right: I wrote a controversial children's story. That's something...


• Whole bunch of these.

Yeah. Not much. Very disappointing. Pretty much an awful month, honestly.

( For the masochistic. )

Okay; that's all out. Now I can back to wondering what the hell I'm doing...

By the time he was 29, F. Scott Fitzgerald had published three of his four completed novels (my three favorites). I've written three novels. That's close, right...?

In honor of my birthday, I thought I'd list the various names I've been calling my new cat by so far:

( There are many! )

Something just happened to me that happens quite a lot, but for which I have no name. I'm going to describe to see if, perhaps, this type of thing is recognizable to anyone reading. If it is, perhaps there may be a name for it that others will know, in which case I can use it to explain to others just what's going on. Here's what happened.

( An 8 Step Ordeal )

So, there you have it. This always happens to me: I sit down to do something, and realize I can't, because I haven't done something else, and I can't do that, because it depends crucially on something else, which, in turn, depends on something else, etc. Arggh! I think it might comfort to hear this happens to others, but I'm not sure...

A report came out recently that Majestic Realty Co. is targeting seven NFL franchises for possible relocation to Los Angeles.

For those unfamiliar with the situation, the NFL has been without a team in Los Angeles for...goodness, about fifteen years now, ever since both the Raiders and Rams left for Oakland and St. Louis, respectively. The promise of an NFL franchise in LA has since prompted headlines in LA area newspapers, and even been a part of politicians' campaign promises (both Schwartzenegger and Villaraigosa talked about bringing an NFL team to Los Angeles in their campaigns). Years of talk, though, have resulted in nothing more than botched stadium deals and general malaise.

Nonetheless, it's fun to speculate. One of the hallmarks of sports in recent years has been divisions that "make sense". In the past, for examples, teams that played in New Orleans, San Francisco and Atlanta would all be playing in the same division, leading to burdensome travel schedules and bizarre associations (e.g. the Phoenix Cardinals being the NFC's Eastern division). The current alignment, though, finally fixed everything, with each team being in a division that makes regional sense (well, except for the Indianapolis Colts inexplicably residing in the AFC South), and division rivalries remaining mostly in tact. This would change if a team relocated to Los Angeles.

( So what would happen...? )

2009 was a wildly up-and-down year for LGBT civil rights. While several anti-marriage propositions were passed in places like Maine and Washington state, Washington D.C. voted overwhelmingly to recognize same-sex marriage. And while I'd say it's a gigantic step forward to see an openly gay mayor elected in Houston, Texas (Texas of all places!), there were laws enacted in Uganda that would sentence some homosexuals to death, while at the same time making it illegal to "harbor" or aid homosexuals (one Ugandan official claimed, definitively, that homosexuality was not native to Uganda; that it had been imported from the West). Sometimes it's hard to say with any certainty that progress is being made...

Ultimately, though, I think the solution lies in education. A hardcore conservative might find the previous sentence terrifying—proof that all their darkest fears (the ones that keep them up at night and drive them to the polls every election cycle) are founded. But I don't mean biased education (e.g. teachers saying, "Homosexuality is good! You should all be homosexual!", or whatever Fox News would have us believe), just simple, fact-based education. Let me tell you about my own experience to illustrate what I mean.

( Oh, boy, here he goes again... )

Okay. I think that's out of my system, for the time being. I'm not sure where that rambling, incoherent babbling got me, but apropos of nothing, I will say this. I added a "civil rights" tag to this post, and will do so in future when talking about LGBT rights. I think it's misleading and insulting to refer to something like the legalization of gay marriage as a political issue. That's not what it is. Whether or not to tax oil imports is a political issue; the right for same sex couples to marry is not: it's a matter of right and wrong. It's like suggesting that slavery was a political issue before the Civil War; something anyone could have an opinion on, and where people could agree to disagree. I'll agree to disagree with a conservative on the role that government should play in the private sector; I will not agree to disagree with anyone when it comes to denying others' inalienable rights.

I'm going to put the fact that one of our cars was stolen today (or yesterday; it was allegram's [Update: They found it! And it was pretty much unharmed! We lost our in-car cell phone charger, but that's it!]) out of my mind and instead, focus on something trivial: The NFL Playoffs.

For the third consecutive year, a team whose name is a type of cat is in the playoffs (this year, the Cincinnati Bengals), which is as good a reason as any to talk about my cat!

Okeo is making excellent progress! He now thinks of the upstairs as his domain, and is more eager to come out of hiding when we call for him. And the best part is that he's eating! He ate nothing yesterday at all, but was quite happy to get some wet food today. The only worrisome part is we haven't seen him drinking any water. He has to have drunk something in the past 48 hours, it's just a little troubling. He's a healthy, happy cat, but if he doesn't drink any water at all, he won't be for long...

Okay, now for actual football.

( 2010 NFL Playoff Predictions )

allegram and I now have a cat! A real, true, live and lively cat of our very own! As proof, I submit the picture below:

( Kittykins! )

I'm writing this post for two reasons: First, to share with you all the joy of our new cat, and second, to let allegram know about what happened after she went to sleep...

( Adventures of a cattish nature! )

And so, the adventure begins!

I did it! I beat employment! I went an entire year without a job, and without collecting unemployment!

Hooray?

Anyway, here's a look at what I have done compared to what I thought I would do. In the list below, I borrow liberally from my very first LiveJournal post:

( 2009 in Review )

Quick December review:

• One of my articles was published in SpecGram (and I believe it was well received).


• Want to say I finished up the fourth fifth of the novel, but that was November. Oops...


• Hey, take a look at that! I did a book review! Huzzah!


• Recorded a podcast for SpecGram.


• Oh, I started a new blog (of [possible] interest only to conlangers).


• I went to Shubert's more than seven times. It was glorious.


• I stopped putting two spaces after end-of-the-sentence punctuation. :(

I didn't get all that much done, but, well, I was gone for nine days (ironically that's when I did the book review), and there was the whole moving in thing. Man, oh, man...

A quiet month, but I'm preparing for a roarulous January!

I've come to a conclusion: Henceforth, I'm going to stop putting two spaces after a period when typing, starting with this very post. This might seem like nothing, I admit, but it really is a very, very big deal.

( Oh, you're going to want to read this... )

So. As the entire world is completely infreakingsane, I have tossed my marigold into the ocean, and I am going to make a conscious effort (I'm going to have to...) to start putting one and only one space after periods, question marks and exclamation points.

But one final word.

I hereby place a curse on the dictionary! Henceforth, the relevance of monolingual dictionaries will diminish daily. The dictionary companies one by one will crumble to dust until the one one left is the Oxford English Dictionary. And when that day comes, something phenomenal will happen: Something so incredible that Broadway will be forced to recognize the occurrence in song.

I have spoken!

Today I got a wonderful Christmas present from rsadelle. I forget when or where, but somewhere on LiveJournal (I thought it was a comment on a post by rsadelle, but a quick search yielded negative results...), I came with an idea for a cheap Christmas present. Specifically, the givee gets to specify something for the giver to read, listen to, or watch, and today, rsadelle game me just that!

I'm really excited, of course, but at the same time, if this person is your friend (and you wish them to remain your friend), you have a responsibility to not give them something horribly awful (e.g. something by him, him or him [oh, and I guess those links presuppose that I've chosen reading material, which is what I've done]). I can try to pick something I think rsadelle will like, but I'll likely choose wrong, so at the very least, what I've tried to do is choose something I love that I think will not be offensive.

And so, relying on one of my old standbys, I've chosen one of my absolute favorite authors of all time, and one of the greatest writers in the history of the universe: Virginia Woolf. And while To the Lighthouse may be her best, and Mrs. Dalloway may be her most famous, I've chosen the one I've read most recently, and whose status is, in my mind, the most controversial (in that I don't agree with what most people say about it): Orlando: A Biography.

So, rsadelle: Let me know, first, if you've read this one before (if you have, I'll choose something else), and also let me know if you'd like me to send it to you when I get back home, or if you just want to get it from the library. And thank you! This is just what I wanted. :) (Not saying necessarily from you, but I wanted someone to try it out, because I really think this idea has promise!)

In addition, if you will accept it as a gift, I would like to do the same for you. I'll read, watch or listen to anything you wish me to (provided it isn't horror, because horror movies scare me, but I figure I'm pretty safe there with you). You can include many of the series you watch or have watched, because most of my friends will have one or several on DVD, and I can borrow them.

Also, if anyone else reading this would like to spread this idea along, let me know! Just bear in mind with books that I'm a very, very slow reader. (I finished Dante's The Divine Comedy this past fall. I started reading it in the fall of 1997. That is no joke.)

I just came across Wordle.net, and I wanted to give it a shout out. You put random text into its Java applet, and you can produce wild word nets that look neat. I copied a good chunk of the first chapter of Kafka's Metamorphosis and did one. You can see the result below:

( My Metamorphosis wordle. )

Not bad! Anyway, it's yet another fun internet toy to play around with.

And the internet has returned! Hooray!

Aside from missing some of the best football games of the year, Allen Iverson's return to Philly, and several great threads on Conlang, I've come through my internet-less ordeal relatively unscathed. Not so with the move, though.

Among other accidents, I was shoving stuff into the "mom's attic" section of our U-Haul, and, incredibly, with my mouth open, I hit the bottom of my right front tooth on the metal wall and broke off a small piece of the bottom of it. If you look at the wall, you can see where my tooth hit (it made a dent), and you can also see tooth dust: the shattered remains of what was the bottom of Ol' Choppy (that's my name for my right front tooth). Luckily I have friends who are dentists, and they kind of shaved it down. Hopefully one day you won't be able to notice...

Now that we have the internet, we're almost moved. We still have to clean up the old place and move some stuff out of it and unpack, but other than that, we're set!

( Oh, well, almost... )

But by and large, we're good. It's been awfully cold (for Southern California), and there's stuff everywhere, but little by little, this place is coming to feel like home.

A busy, albeit not very productive month:

• I sent the fourth installment off to sima_q; haven't heard back yet. (The end is in sight!)


• Oh, something of mine is in this month's SpecGram (more on it later).


• Oh, hey, we also started up a podcast for SpecGram. You can subscribe (I think) here. Basically, we read articles. I did a few of them (you can probably tell which are me).


• I started work on a new language, which is just a total waste of time...

Other than that, I did less work for the TV show than I thought I would (but still a non-insignificant amount).

Of course, the biggest thing has been the new condo. I can't believe we went from looking for a place to moving in in just a month... Yet the time has come! (P.S.: If you live in Southern California, and you're not busy this Saturday, let me know!) Poor allegram... I got sick when we were doing work over at the place on Friday, and I haven't been any help at all. I'm almost better, though, so I'll pick it up; don't worry.

For those of you who haven't come across it yet, my article in this month's SpecGram is more or less a direct parody of the Time Cube website. The ol' Time Cube was kind of an internet sensation awhile back, and continues to shock and amaze (if you click on the link, you'll see why).

Essentially, this nut came up with a theory that there are actually four simultaneous days going on in any 24 hour day. He came to this conclusion by realizing that if it's noon somewhere, then it's midnight on the other side of the world, six p.m. on another side, and six a.m. on another. Thus, when rotation happens, it's not just advancing one day: it's advancing four separate days simultaneously!

Of course, the logical response to this is that, well, since the Earth is a sphere, aren't there not merely four simultaneous days going on, but an infinite number of simultaneous days going on—and at that point, isn't the fact rather insignificant?

Logic aside, Dr. Gene Ray (self-proclaimed "Wisest Human") is still going strong. It's really sad, of course, but he does seem to be healthy and living comfortably, so as long as his four corner day keeps him happy, I guess we don't have to feel bad about having a chuckle at his expense.

Okay, back to work! Things to do...

Well, me, allegram, my parents and my little sister spent about eight hours at the new place, and, man, it's really starting to come together! The faucet's been replaced, the grouting is finished, we replaced the linoleum in the pantry, the electrics are all in order, and we've got a doormat.

shellaby pointed out (quite rightly) that we, thus far, hadn't put up any pictures of the condo itself, so I thought I'd try to fix that a little bit (though more would be better).

( Some photos. )

But perhaps most interesting is what my little sister did during a break. I'm not sure when she did this, but it was some time today. All she had for entertainment (other than her DS) was a clipboard, a pencil, and a single sheet of paper. This is what she did with it.

( My little sister's handiwork (3rd Grade). )

Moving day is at hand!

So it's all sewn up now; the new place is all ours. We'll probably wait till the weekend after this upcoming one to move in. For the time being, though...

( Pictures? You bet! )

No, no. Let me get some Cup O' Noodles first. I'm'a need them for this...

Okay, the water's boiling. I'm ready.

I recently watched AMC's miniseries "remake" of the fantastic television show from the 60s The Prisoner, of which I'm a huge fan—as are many others (it's in Time Magazine's top 100 [unordered], it was voted the #7 cult television show of all time by TV Guide [huh. It's not in TV Guide's top 50, but Twin Peaks is... Wouldn't've called that one], the last episode was nominated for a Hugo award [it lost to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Don't know about that one...]). The entire series run was six hourlong episodes shown two a day for three days (this past Sunday, Monday and Tuesday). I watched all six, even though I knew after seeing the first minute of the first episode that the entire thing was garbage.

( But was it really garbage?! Read on, if you don't mind spoilers (for both series)! )

So, six mind-rotting hours later, I'm offended, but not defeated. I'm just glad Patrick McGoohan didn't live long enough to witness this soulless atrocity.