Thank you to everyone who's left comments on my last several posts. I will try to reply to them all when I have the wherewithal, but if I don't get around to it please know that it's because I am made of fail, not because I don't appreciate and treasure every one of you.

Add to the tally of the lost: 1 digital camera.

I hate that it's taking me this long to realize this stuff. The camera is one of the first things I should have looked for, and yet I only just now realized that it isn't where it is supposed to be.

I need to call the cops again and add the camera to the list they have, but I can't seem to find any of the paperwork for it so I can give a model/serial number. I'll have to call my father first. He originally bought the camera as a Christmas present a couple years ago and he probably still has the receipts and such and so can get that info out of Best Buy.

Turns out the bastards didn't just take my (broken) palm pilot off the floor of my room. They also went all the way into and across my bedroom and stole my big jewelry box off of my dresser.

Not a lot of what was in there was valuable.

They got my godmother's, mother's diamond ring. They got the turquoise cross that was the only thing I had that had belonged to my grandmother. They got the gold cross Lou and Ilona gave me for being maid of honor in their wedding and the gorgeous labradorite one Marna gave me a couple years ago. They got a lot of cheap, mismatched earrings of mostly sentimental value, a couple nice-ish bracelets and a bunch of other assorted jewelry.

And they got my sense of security worse than any of the rest of this has.

I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight.

Thank you all for all your hugs, etc. on the last post.

The nice cop has gone.

Tequila shots and group hugs have been had.

Most importantly, The cats are safe and had not gone out the giant hole in the screen, even though Dreadful was sitting in the open window.

(Comedy gold: watching Nelle and I attempt to maneuver two cats into the bathroom and then get ourselves back out while keeping the cats inside.)

There's not much the cops can do. Whoever it was didn't stay long and didn't leave any prints. The cash is a wash, but we'll get the laptop serial numbers to the cops tomorrow and also call around to pawn stores with the info. Also, we kind of think the cash saved Izzy's stuff. The thief took the time to unplug Nelle's laptop and put it away in her computer bag and then seems to have started to unplug the dvd players but stopped. Then they must have seen the cash and decided to grab it and split, because they don't appear to have even gone into Izzy's room, where her laptop and guitars remain untouched.

Really, it could have been much, much worse.

lovelokest and I just got home to discover that we have been robbed.

Whoever it was came in by tearing a screen on one of the living room windows and left by the front door, which was unlocked when we got home.

They took Nelle's laptop (and bag) and the $360 in rent money she had sitting on her bedside table. It doesn't look like they took anything else.

We called the cops immediately, they should be here soon. Will post more when we know more.

I am writing this from my very own once again working computer!!! And it cost me nothing

ladybretagne left a comment on my last post to tell me that if I took my computer in to an Apple Store they would do a diagnostic for free, even on my ancient, so-far-out-of-warranty-it's-in-another-galaxy G4. And there is in fact an Apple Store here in Madison.

So, I made a 7:30 appointment at the genius bar and bipagan came over and drove to the mall with me and kept me company and listened to all my ridiculous flailing and kept me amused for the hour and a half that Kyle The Awesome Apple Store Guy was working on my computer.

And never once in that hour and a half did he even mention the suggestion that I should maybe buy a newer computer or upgrade in any way. And he didn't condescend to me either, or act like I was dumb. He just fixed my computer and sent me on my way.

Also, he couldn't get it to boot in safe mode or Unix single user mode or by any other method involving holding random keys down while starting up (all of which I tried multiple times) either, which made me feel rather a lot better about not being able to fix it on my own.

Yesterday at about 4:00 I restarted my computer.

Or at least I tried to.

It's not making it past the blue startup screen. It thinks and thinks and thinks, but it does not do. I attempted to reboot from an OSX install disk, but that too was unsuccessful.

I called the Mac Shop tonight (local Mac dealer/repair place). Got their voicemail even though they were still open. I didn't feel like calling over and over again, so I just left them a message. Hopefully I'll get a call back tomorrow.

I am very, very stressed right now and more than a little freaked out. I have no idea what it's going to cost me to get it fixed, or it's even fixable. I love my computer, but he's an older G4 and he's definitely showing his age.

Luckliy, most of my data is on my externals and I think I have a copy of my resume in one of my email accounts, I just have to track it down.

Think good thoughts for me???

*frets*

I was going to make another long post on Bandom* and the fourth wall, but then I realized that actually, at this point, it's actually a fairly short post.

There is no fourth wall anymore in Bandom.

They know about us. We know they know about us. We frequent some of the same portions of the internet. Some of them have livejournals. Some of them (I'm looking at you, Pete Wentz) make fanfic references all the time on stage, in their own blogs, everywhere. The lack of separation is even more evident in the baby bands like The Cab and Empires, where the band members know many fans by name, recognize and talk to them at show after show.

The only barrier left is the general consensus that it's tacky to talk about fic with the objects thereof. And that has nothing to do with maintaining some illusion of a fourth wall, that's just basic courtesy and not bringing up topics of conversation that may be awkward for all parties involved. (That said, I keep waiting for Pete Wentz or somebody to show up in the comments of someone's bandom meta post, at which point I'd happily talk "why slash" with them for as long as they wanted to.)

There have always been gaps in the fourth wall in both FPF and RPF fandoms: fans or reporters who've shown slash to actors; actors, writers and show-runners who've specifically mentioned fanfic and slash when discussing fans of themselves or their work. Fans who've crossed over from writing fic to writing actual episodes or official tie-in novels. I know from discussions I see elsewhere on lj that there are other currently-active RPF fandoms where the fourth wall has become somewhat porous, but in the majority of fandom at least the illusion of separation still remains.

The wall has crumbled. The illusion is shattered. And yet, very little has changed. We haven't gone underground. A few people have locked their journals, fic included, but no more than is normal in any RPF fandom. Communities aren't locking down left and right. There's no mass exodus, if what I see on my friendslist and friendsfriends is any judge, we're still one of the fastest growing fandoms on lj right now.

We're living in a brave new world, isn't it interesting how much it looks just like the old one.


* big B, exclusive definition

I was woken up this morning by my mother calling me and saying "I have Hushies!"

It seems the Hush Sound are staying at my mother's hotel.

She says she had a lovely conversation with Darren when he checked them in and that he was very surprised that she recognized his band's name.

I am bemused and amused.

After two days in a row of mild, constant panic-attack, I was rather reassured this afternoon to discover that a lot of it was actually PMS. On the other hand, this means I'll probably have the worst cramps right in time for going to Warped on Saturday with olivia_circe. But on the bright side I know I won't have them at Vividcon \o/.

Speaking of which, the true purpose of this post: Vividcon rollcall!

If you're going to be there please leave me a comment letting me know and then please say hi at the con! I can be ridiculously shy about starting conversations. No really!

Not only will I be there, this year I'll have my GIRL with me too. Marna's in California right now, but she's swinging back thru Chicago on her way home and we're meeting up at the con. So yeah, if you see a couple of redheads constantly making googly eyes at each other? That's probably us. (see icon. And wow, that icon is over 4 years old now. That picture was taken the weekend we started dating. Huh.)

Also, this Vividcon will mark exactly two years since lovelokest and I met for the very first time, at Vividcon '06. It's funny. When we tell people we've only been friends for less than 2 years, they never believe us.

So, back in May, I carpooled with olivia_circe down to see the HCT in Chicago. And on the way down I told her all about the awesome plotbunny that had taken over my brain that I knew I'd never manage to write.

And then when, a little while ago, she asked for ficlet prompts in her lj, I said, "hey, you remember that bunny of mine..."

And she did. And she wrote it. And it's the most awesome, perfect thing EVER. Pretty much exactly what I had in my head, only better!

Every Man by olivia_circe - MCR fic, PG, Basically Gen. - Girl!Gerard and the making of the Ghost of You video.

damned_colonial has set up the Geek Feminism Wiki, as a resource and information center for women in all types of geek communities to come together and share and document our experiences.

From the announcement post in her lj:

I set this up in response to the Open Source Boob Project stuff a couple of months back, because I saw people talking about common experiences shared by women at SF cons which sounded a lot like some of the things I'd experienced on geeky IRC channels, and, well, I figure we all have a lot in common and might benefit from getting our experiences down in one place and having something we can refer to next time something comes up.

I haev been waiting a long time for someone with more knowledge of it all to do this: Calling out Michaela Ecks/Laura Hale/PurplePopple/Partly_Bouncy

The purpose of this post is to call out somebody who actively seeks to harm other fans. She lies. She outs fans by connecting their real life identities with their fannish identities. She is trying to make money from a site which is billed as "history" and which contains lies, damn lies, and misinformation as well as the public outing of fans which, despite her claims, she will not remove if asked, not if the person asking fits her definition of an "influential" fan although many influential fans are *not* outed in the journal.

OMG HUSHIES!!!

OK, who's going to the Chicago show??? lovelokest and olivia_circe and I will all be there.

I am SO fucking excited to be seeing them again. This was SUCH an amazing show.

( Things I learned tonight )

And finally:

- if you see someone around you at a concert who you think might be a bandomer, writing "LJ?" on the palm of your hand in black sharpie is a BRILLIANT way to test this hypothesis. Of course managing to exchange usernames in writing rather than just shouting them at each other would also have been useful. *facepalms* Still, am totally going to attempt that method myself in the future.

Thanks to meletor_et_al's trip to Warped in Orlando, and her giant picture heavy recap thereof, I now know that Adam Siska, like many an awesome bandom bass player before him*, has a cat.

A cat who is ON WARPED TOUR WITH HIS BAND this summer.

*dies* Oh, Sisky, how so awesome?

( photographic evidence behind the cut )

That's it, I clearly need an Adam Siska icon. *opens photoshop*

*see also: Mikey Way, Alex Suarez and Jon Walker. Also Joe Troh who, while not a bass player, is clearly taking up the slack where Pete has fallen down on the job.

Uncontained wildfire in the Spokane Valley.

My mother just called me to let me know what was burning and to give me the tally of fire zone/evacuated zone/next in line for evacuation. There are people I care about a lot in all three of those categories right now. Not my immediate family, none of us live on that side of town at the moment, but close friends and people I've known my entire life, the type that aren't family but might as well be.

It's too early for this kind of thing. It's going to be a long, nasty summer.

Because I totally chickened out on putting my name into the last one, but actually I could kind of use the reassurance this week: tell me you love me?

Chicago Bandom folks:

If I take a half-day on Friday, I can take the bus down for the Empires show for less than $60, which is totally doable and not actually all that much more than I'd end up spending in gas and tolls anyway. And yes, I totally recognize the irony in paying considerably more to get to the concert than it'll cost to get into the concert itself.

Anybody willing to give me crash space for the night? I'd be out of your hair relatively early Saturday, since there's no way I can stay for the Sunday show without making someone up here pick me up at 1am, which would just be cruel.

In other news, I managed somehow to reset m alarm clock an hour later this morning, which led to me leaving a message for my work that I'd be late because izzybeth wasn't home yet. Right after which I looked at the clock on my computer, finally noticed that it did not match up with the clock on my alarm and it was in fact 6:30, not 7:30. I then called back to leave a second message revealing my level of fail.

*facepalms*

Seeing as how I'm completely dressed and don't need to be out the door for another 40 minutes, I'm now totally going to take my shoes off and go back to bed for another half hour.

I usually watch Dr. Who with lovelokest, but she went out last night (I passed due to crazy brain issues), so ended up watching it by myself.

( spoilers for the Dr. Who season finale )

There's this meme going around my friendslist and I have no idea where it came from but it's rather fun so I thought I'd join in.

On this day in 2007 I was avoiding spoilers for the Dr. Who Season 3 finale and being frustrated by unhelpful spoiler cuts. Also, I see, being a complete failure at replying to comments, which is distressingly common for me.

On this day in 2006 I didn't post anything, but on July 1st I was flailing about the completely unexpected level of response to my post on the Slash Closet (hands down the most comments I've ever received on an lj post and I still get occasional comments on it) and when next I posted on June 5th I was still flailing about it. The 5th was a busy day. I also posted two posts worth of SGA kink recs and talked about how much I love commodorified in general and her fabulous post about het and slash and reading for subtext in particular.

On this day in 2005 I didn't post anything, but back on the 1st I was sharing music. Specifically, versions of Richard Shindell's "The Ballad of Mary Magdalen".

On this day in 2004 I was complaining about work and getting ready to watch Stiff Upper Lips for the first time. Actually, that was June 3, apparently I couldn't read a calendar last night. On July 3 in 2004 I was posting pictures from the FolkLife Festival and wearing almost the exact same outfit I am right now.

On this day in 2003 I didn't post, but on the 7th I made three posts about work, which is probably what I would have done if I had posted on the 3rd.

And on this day in 2002 I was a little over 4 months away from creating this journal.

Dear Out Magazine,

Thank you for reminding me how awesome my fandom is twice in one week.

Please to remain the All Bandom All the Time Channel??

fannishly yours,

Cat


Dear Gabe Saporta,

OMG ILU and you should be all serious and thinky more often.

♥ x infinity.

flailingly yours,

Cat

In non-letter format (and what's up with that, I never do that??), thing I keep meaning to mention in case people don't know about it:

Out.com has an awesome blog, Popnography which is full of bandom-y goodness pretty much all the time. They're sort of in love with just about all the FBR bands and I totally recommend adding the syndicated feed to your friendslist.

I went to Best Buy on my lunch break and bought my very own shiny copy of The Black Parade is Dead CD/DVD set.

OMG SO AWESOME. So far I've listened to most of the CD in the car and watched one of the TWO live concerts.

I started with the Hoboken show because I would have just about KILLED to be able to get to that show and also because I will just about always choose the tiny venue performance over the giant festival one.

( no coherency, only flail )

Does anyone know if anyone's made an audio rip of the Hoboken show yet?? I'd love to have mp3s of these versions, and especially a good mp3 of the new song.

And finally a completely frivolous poll for everyone else who has the DVD already:

Poll #1215639 The Hard Decisions in Life
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which did/do you plan on watcing first?

And NOW I think I'm going to watch the Mexico show before bed!

The one kitchen appliance I can never live without is my blender. I love making mixed drinks, especially margaritas, but what I love making even more are milkshakes. When I was growing up we had a big patch of Raspberry bushes on the edge of our garden and I'd make myself Raspberry milkshakes all summer long, it was glorious.

Tonight I do believe I have just managed, entirely by accident, to make the world's most perfect Strawberry Milkshakes.

My normal milkshake recipe is Vanilla Ice Cream, and fresh berries of choice in about a 2/1 ratio, a splash of milk and just enough sugar to counteract the tartness.

Last time I made milkshakes the honey container happened to be sitting next to the blender, so I decided on a whim to use that instead of sugar as my sweetener. I was VERY happy with the results. Tonight, I used honey again and used a bit of Rose's Lime Juice for my liquid because our milk had just barely gone off.

OMG BEST IDEA EVER.

SO GOOD.

I have achieved milkshake perfection.

Friendslist still in flux. I've defriended some people and refriended some people and for once managed NOT to friend any shiny new people, which is what always seems to happen when I try to trim my friendslist down to an actual manageable level.

I did not put my name in the anonymous love meme for reasons that are too kind of embarrassingly emo. But I did leave a bunch of comments for people, because I adore you guys. And I even managed NOT to leave any comments along the lines of "OMG you're awesome, how do you put up with me??" Go me?

acari linked to LiveMocha, which is my new favorite shiny place to play. It's a free social networking site for learning languages. I am attempting to relearn French. I used to be... not fluent, but pretty decent at least, particularly at reading/writing it. I'm finding their set up and lesson plans really useful, and so far I'm re-picking up the vocab pretty quickly.

My car is spending its days parked on the street and I've only been ticketed once so far. I need to find the time this week to go get a street parking sticker for it, but I'm not sure when, it's end of month and we're understaffed this week, so taking the hour or so off is not ideal. In the meantime I'm driving izzybeth's car to and from work, because she is awesome and also she's home and asleep for most of the time I'm at work.

The lack of car of my own means that I once again am not sure I'll be able to make the upcoming Empires shows. I really want to make at least the show on the 11th. I'm pondering bus schedules, but taking a bus into Chicago on a Friday during rush our is really less than ideal. Anyway, if I do manage to get down there, anyone have a free couch/patch of floor I can crash on for the night. Friday night concert means I don't have to haul my ass back up to Madison right afterwards for once! \o/.

Pete Wentz is on the cover of the latest Out magazine and I am reminded of exactly why Pete was one of the first things I fell in love with about Bandom.

*draws sparkly hearts around him* Pete Wentz is the very definition of a straight ally and a damn good one too.

The whole article is online at the above link and I totally recommend it to any non-bandom people who are curious about exactly why I (and so many others) have fallen so hard for this fandom.

I'm making my first effort in days to catch up on lj, comms and everything. I'm only just starting though, so for all I know this could be old news to everyone but me. But just in case it isn't and because finding it totally made MY night (and justified my decision to keep chemicalromance on my broadest comm filter)

A while ago Gerard Way did an alumni lecture at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. You can now download a podcast of the ENTIRE LECTURE for FREE from iTunes.

To get it direct from iTunes just search for "gerard way visual arts" in the iTunes store and it should be the only result.

Or, go the the iTunes U section, scroll down to "Find Education Program" and under "Universities and Colleges" choose "School of Visual Arts" and then it's in the "SVA Life" section under "Distinguished Alumni Lectures".

For those not in the US or who don't want to deal with iTunes, you can also download it here.

It's an hour and 8 minutes long.

\o/

*listens happily*

I took the day off work today so that I could take my ailing car into the shop and make some other phone calls. The phone calls never did happen and the news on the car is not good. The head gasket is leaking and it'll cost more than I paid for the car to fix it.

The mechanic advises parking it until I can either fix it or get rid of it. That's not actually a feasible solution for me at the moment, so it looks like I'll be buying a lot of antifreeze and only making short trips (like, say, to work and back every day). And saving money. Trying desperately to save money.

There's really nothing else I can do.

Livejournal has been causing me more stress than joy lately, in significant part due to the fact that my friendslist has ballooned completely out of control and I can never seem to keep up. I tried reading on filters, but that only works for me to a limited point. I just can't reconcile myself to having people friended, but then almost never reading any of their posts.

So, I cut about 50 people from my friendslist today. I'll probably cut even more in the near future. I cut people I know from five fandoms ago. I cut people who I'm sharing a fandom with right now. I cut people I've met in real life. I cut people I never got the chance to get to know. I'm trying really hard not to feel guilty about it, but I just had to take steps. The thing is, I like people. I like meeting new people and learning new things. I like knowing lots of different people and I like knowing that a lot of different people like me, but I'm spreading myself too thin and something has to give, and up to now the thing that has been giving is me taking care of myself. I need to get better at that.

I've been meaning and forgetting to make this post for WEEKS and now it's last minute and I suck.

So, As of MONDAY, we here at The House that Slash Built will have a shihadchick, all the way from new Zealand!!!

Next weekend we will have shihadchick AND the_antichris.

We think that makes a pretty damn good reason for a party !!

So,

Party at the House That Slash Built!!!

When: Friday, June 20th. Anytime after 6pm until whenever we all fall over.

Where: We live right in the heart of downtown Madison. Drop me a comment or an email at fairestcat(at)techemail(dot)com for the exact address and directions.

What to bring: We're declaring this a "Bring your Own Interesting Beverage" party. We have Honey Pepper Vodka as our "Interesting" contribution, think along those lines.

RSVP not required, but appreciated, just so we have a heads up of how many people to expect.

Hope to see lots and lots of you then!

Coming soon: a fandom-friendly social networking site that looks to be both a viable alternative and a genuine step up in quality and usability from livejournal.

synecdochic announces Dreamwidth Studios:

I believe. I believe in online community. I believe in giving voice to the voiceless, in giving a platform to the disenfranchised, in giving power to the powerless. I believe in making it easy for people to talk to each other. I believe in making it easy for people to learn from each other. I believe in the power of art, the power of creation, the power of words and of messages and of connections. I believe in the power of social networking and personal publishing. I believe that the blogger's revolution is changing the world.

There's a quote from bash.org that sums up what saddens me about the Web 2.0 world:

dsully: please describe web 2.0 to me in 2 sentences or less.
jwb: you make all the content. they keep all the revenue.


I believe it doesn't have to be like that. I believe there's a way to sustain an online community, a community made up of smart, intelligent, and creative people, that functions as a community, not as a cash cow. I believe that it's possible to build a site that serves its community, not its board of directors or its venture capitalists or its investors or its advertisers.

I believe it's possible for smart people, creative people, to build a service and understand the people using that service, because they're part of the userbase too. I believe it's possible for a small group of highly motivated, highly experienced people to build a service that accepts it's always going to be a niche market, and I believe it's possible to rock the everliving hell out of that niche.

We're going to give it our best damn shot.

I am proud, exhilarated, and more than a little terrified to announce to you the birth of Dreamwidth Studios. Dreamwidth is a technical and social fork of the LiveJournal codebase, brought to you by people who have been working in social networking for the best part of the last decade.

Dreamwidth was born not out of frustration or discontent, but out of idealism. We believe in Open Source, open expression, and open operations. We're here to build you a service that caters to the creative, the offbeat, the quirky, and the strange. We're here for people who make things and want to share them, and we're here for people who want to take joy in the things other people make.

I am really, really excited and hopeful about this venture. The people behind Dreamwidth know what they're doing. From what I've seen they have the technical knowledge, the business acumen and the passionate idealism that will be needed to pull this off. *crosses fingers and toes and waits impatiently for the site launch*

If you don't know what bandflesh is, this post is not for you. If you want to know, it's easy enough to find out, but I'd as soon not talk about it right now.


I have known that bandflesh existed for quite a while. I have known that people I like and care about hang out and are happy there and consider it a good place.

And I have expended a lot of energy in NOT KNOWING any of that.

Here's the thing, I have issues with paranoia. Rational paranoia, irrational paranoia, it all feels the same on the surface and it can be damn hard to sort out. I spend large portions of my life a) convinced that nobody likes me and everyone is talking about me behind my back and then b) convincing myself that that's all just irrational paranoia and I should stop being such a freak. I worry constantly about what other people think about me, about my every action being judged and found wanting. This is my damage, this is my fucked up brain and fucked up brain chemistry and fucked up life and I know it, I'm working on it, the mere fact that I've become progressively more active in fandom for a good four years now is a sign of how far I've come towards at least damping down the worst of it, but it's still there, it's still part of me. And bandflesh, while it may well be a very positive place for some people, might as well be tailor made to poke at my every insecurity and encourage all the paranoia I work so hard to fight.

I've worked really hard at pretending I didn't know about it, because that was the only way I could keep it from affecting my experience in this fandom. I love Bandom, I really, really do. It's an overwhelmingly positive and happy fandom for me and I work hard to control my fannish experience so as to keep it that way.

Right now discussion of Bandflesh is all over my friendslist. I can't not know about it. I can't not know who is and isn't over there. I can't effectively just "forget" about it and push it out of my mind. And it's affecting how I look at fandom and it's affecting how I look at some of you and I don't know how I'm going to deal with it, how it's all going to sort itself out inside my head, what choices I may have to make in order for bandom to stay someplace where I feel happy and safe.

I don't know what I'm going to do or not do, honestly. Right now I'm feeling very vulnerable and very fragile and I'm probably going to be a bit distant and a bit (more) quiet even then I've already been. I may adjust some posting and reading filters for a while, I may make some friending/defriending choices, I really don't know. Just please be patient with me for a bit, and know that any actions I take will ultimately be about what I need to do to own and manage my own issues, not with what I think of any of you as individuals.

It is POURING down rain outside. We're talking literal sheets of water. The accompanying thunder directly overhead was loud enough to wake me from a sound sleep, and I'm a pretty sound sleeper.

I of course then managed to wake both the roommates up going around the house to close open windows because the rain was coming in. Both of their bedroom windows are on the protected side of the house where there's a fairly narrow space between ours and the house next door, so normally I wouldn't have chanced waking them up, but it's coming down too hard for that to make much of a difference and I kind of thought "keeping your stuff from getting soaked" counted as a valid justification, even though I really did try to be quiet to as not to have to do it.

Dreadful, my poor boy, is freaking the fuck out, doing laps of the house with his tail fluffed out to about three times it's normal size. That's what really woke Nelle up. He followed me into her room and added "run across and leap off Nelle" to his route. He won't let me hold him, or stay still long enough to be petted, hopefully he'll calm down now that the worst of it is starting to pass overhead.

Me, I'm going to try to get back to sleep and not think about how lame it is that I thought it was absolutely reasonable to stay up long enough to make an lj post about this all first.