Truth That Goes Crunch

I've been very lucky lately - things have been going incredibly well, all considered, and all emotional conundrums have been largely circumvented or avoided. So there will be photos and nerd stuff.

(To be fair, my mood was considerably brightened today after being told by a professor I really admire the first draft of a thesis-chunk is near-publishable for a peer-reviewed journal - an opinion strengthened by her being a journal editor herself.)

( Under cut: Cat! Bar! )

( Things I Have Been Watching: Gokaiger, Tiger & Bunny, Archer, MLP:FiM. )

Honestly, I play a lot more video games than watch video media lately. Because I can listen to podcasts in the background while I play, combining edification and relaxation.

( Things I Have Played: The Witcher 2, Dragon Age II, Fable 3, Far Cry 2. )

Shameless self-promotion: Trial run on mapping the "network" of trans vloggers on YouTube. I'm probably going to get as much use out of this data as I can - definitely going to present at least once on it as filtered through location and declared race/ethnicity/nationality - and what that says about the changing state of trans visibility online.

So, I'm alive. Kinda. I'm in slow-boil mode, trying not to (and of course failing) freak out about moving and grad school. The apartment is getting packed up around me, but it's just...hard.

I had hoped to get caught up on W and finish Shinkenger, but I've pretty much put off toku for...no apparent reason. Instead, I've mostly been reading a lot of essay collections (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Me of Little Faith, A Small Place), memoir (The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, What Would Barbra Do?), and journalistic nonfiction (Pitch Perfect, Rapture Ready, Shaken and Stirred), hanging out with folks before I move, and playing way too many Bioware Games. Huge timesinks that they are, I've marathoned Mass Effect 1/2 and am still fiddling around with my third Dragon Age character. I'm probably going to have Assassin's Creed II finished before I move, if only because it feeds my perfectionist leanings.

( Political Nerdery )

Links I like:
- In Which I Crash a Tea Party
- The Ultimate Box Set, sadly illegal to sell in Alabama
- Teaching science in facepaint for awesome
- For the Uninformed: Why I will Never Buy an Apple Product
- "Everybody Loves a Lesbian" is good enough that I actually want to see at least an episode of BBC3's "Mongrels"
- King Cockfight - Covering Alabama politics at its finest

Depressing Fact: a large chunk of film criticism on trans men in film focuses on Boys Don't Cry. More Depressing Fact: I'm not sure which is worse for my mood, the film or the criticism.

Having finally read the ending of American Virgin for this paper, I am...not sure how I feel about it. It's definitely rushed, for one thing. I still like Mel, but I like Seagle a lot less for playing Mel's transness as a joke after the boob reveal. And a virgin birth? Really?

But there is now a file entitled AmerVirginBoob.doc on my laptop. Clearly, I need to ensure that all of my research papers look like covert porn.

Going to a party tonight, the same day I had The Pronoun Conversation with folks. This is either going to be deeply scarring or pleasantly surprising.