Naomi

small Avatar rant, I guess.

2008-12-18T23:46:07Z

So, I guess the Avatar live-action movie is going to be cast with a bunch of photogenic pretty white kids.

Apparently (I've not been looking myself) this has caused a decent bit of drama because the presence of Asian-looking characters in the cartoon should automatically equal a cast of Asian characters in the movie.

What.

Now, I will be the first to roll up and say that the series was excellent throughout, best thing to come out of an American studio in a long time, etc etc. But that it was very, very good does not make it any less of an exercise in profiteering than any other series. And its key demographic remains the 8-13 bracket (plus geekish adults like myself, but we tend not to buy as much merchandise and hence are not as important).

So. You have the option of hiring a cast of unknown Asian actors who may well look and act the part beautifully, or a bunch of photogenic pretty white kids - who will not look the part and might not be great actors, but will be recognisable and non-threatening to your key demo. WHATCHA GONNA DO.

Yes, it sucks that people are this cynical. And yes, the movie will look a bit aesthetically bizarre unless they do some pretty hardcore reimagining. But I don't think that a kids' movie based on a cartoon - which I sincerely doubt is being produced as anything other than a cash cow, even if Mr. Shyamalan tries to inject some Serious Business into it - is the right battleground for a debate on racism in film casting. And I do not know why anyone is surprised.

Doctor Who series finale:

2008-07-05T21:44:46Z

Fuck you, Russell T Davies.

FUUUUCK YOOOUUUUUU

I post only for random comments and memes.

2008-06-05T21:35:45Z

Ganked from amanuensis1:

You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:
1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.

Weapon can be real or fictional, you may assume endless ammo if applicable. Person can be real or fictional.

1. Does this assume that I would have infinite ammo and knowledge of how to use the weapon in question? Because I suck with firearms. Also, I would need to know if these zombies are the type that turn you into one of their hideous flesh-eating brethren when they bite you, since that would influence my preference as to long range vs. short range weapons.

I am overthinking this.

Assuming my current level of expertise, probably a chainsaw. I've noticed a lot of people talking about flamethrowers but on reflection, I think they would cause as many problems as they solve. Malls are full of flammable stuff.

2. I am learning that nothing in my iTunes is particularly hardcore, and for slaying zombies what you kinda need is what my mother refers to as 'bangy bang' music. However, I would take 'Take Me Out' by Franz Ferdinand and/or the David Schommer cover of 'Eleanor Rigby'.

3. James Bond, for the sole reason that he never ever dies and assuming I'm not secretly in thrall to his archnemesis, I would survive at least long enough for him to fuck me after the danger is past.

asyndeta @ 2008-05-27T22:21:00

2008-05-27T21:25:19Z

Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice needs the occasional 'tell Klavier Gavin to stop being such a prick' option.

I feel much too strongly about these things.

asyndeta @ 2007-12-16T23:21:00

2007-12-16T23:25:18Z

This entry is intended exclusively for one person, but if you like Speed Grapher then you might want to look here I guess. >_>

Thoughts on OoTP: The Moovee

2007-07-12T18:07:06Z

+ Imelda Staunton (Umbridge) and Evanna Lynch (Luna) were perfect. Umbridge made my flesh crawl, she was so delightfully repressing some deep psychosis. I was worried about Luna because she's my favourite character and I was expecting to be disappointed, but she nailed the 'dreamy and a bit mad but ultimately logical and pragmatic' air that Luna has perfectly. Plus, she's cute as a button and her costumes were great.

+ I'm sad about the loss of the Quibbler/Rita Skeeter subplot, but it was an acceptable loss. Having Seamus abruptly go 'oh, sorry mate, me mam and I believe you now' was a bit weird, but not too bad.

+ They cut out basically the entire Harry/Cho subplot. This is A Good Thing. When I was reading the book, I started glossing over Cho's whiny crying stupidity very early and I'm glad that it's pretty much absent from the film.

+ Ditto the CAPSLOCK HARRY ANGST. He still spent pretty much the whole thing being pissed off but at least he did it fairly quietly.

+ Loved the aesthetics. I imagined Grimmauld Place (the street, not the house) to be older, but it meshed nicely with my mental image. So did the house itself. I especially liked the family tree room.

+ Snape's Worst Memory got veeerrry little screen time and that was disappointing, but I suppose it's not really important to the plot. Oh well.

+ Sirius punched Lucius in the face! *utmost glee*

+ Voldemort in a sharp suit on Platform 9 3/4 = oh god yes.

+ Thank God they fixed the daft KKK-style Death Eater uniforms from the last movie.

+ The Occlumency was handled wonderfully. Harry looking in the Mirror of Erised and having Snape pop up behind him with a snide remark was a thing of beauty.

+ Loved Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix too. 'Crazy sadist' is a pretty easy role to play, I imagine, but she's ever so much fun to watch. Also, it's nice to see her in a film not directed by Tim Burton. :v But speaking of Bellatrix...

+ Serious Enquiry Time: Why did they change the Veil scene? Why? In the book, Bellatrix zaps Sirius with a non-specific red light and he goes sailing through the Veil, fuelling Potter theorists everywhere. In the movie, she Avada Kedavra-s him and we're invited to believe that he's dead before he goes through the Veil. WHYYY. Is this just JKR using the medium of film to tell us 'no, he's really dead, he's not coming back, quit with your stupid theories already'. But then they go to great pains to have Luna point out that things we lose, we can often get back. I Am Confused.

So, apart from that oddity, you've probably gathered that I really loved it. Despite being the longest book, it felt like the most coherent movie - unlike the previous movies where I was constantly thinking 'they could have cut ABC scene from the movie and kept XYZ scene from the book'. All the editing was sensible and it didn't feel like we'd lost any meaningful chunks from the plot.

Will probably add to this or do some more ranting after Saturday.

P.S: Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman and Jason Isaacs are still SMOKIN' HOT.

Some noises on POTC: At World's End

2007-06-01T23:46:03Z

Finally, a post to which this icon is relevant.

I've just come back from my second viewing and have discovered that if you were just there for the buckling of swash and the hotness of Depp and so forth, like I was, you really have to re-watch it so you can keep tabs on who is betraying who and for what reason at any given time. It feels overly convoluted the first time, but the second time it feels justifiably complex.

Having said that, for the second time, I came out of the cinema thinking 'that was awesome, but I'm not exactly sure why'. It could have had a good 30-40 minutes cut and lost nothing, but I like long movies so it didn't bother me too much.

So, a ramble in no particular order.

I have no complaint about Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and I never will. It's a thing of beauty. While a friend and I were watching the multi-Jack scene in Davy Jones' Locker, my friend nudged me and said 'It's heaven!' And yes, it is.

The fact that I find Bill Nighy attractive even when buried under a seething mass of CGI tentacles is probably indicative of...nothing good. Moving swiftly on.

Orlando Bloom was unexpectedly convincing as a bit of a badass. When DJ swaggers in to where Will and Beckett are drinking tea and Will just sort of looks over his shoulder and nods casually, I have to admit there was some minor squeeing on my part. It's not as if Will Turner is a complex character but he finally made the role his own. For the first two movies it was as if he was understudying someone more talented.

Keira Knightley was flat and unbelievable as ever, but I wasn't expecting much of her. Her acting is pretty unremarkable but even if it wasn't, she just doesn't look the part. She's so...so blonde and skinny and delicate - fine as a Governor's sheltered daughter, but not as a pirate. I could suspend my disbelief through imprisoned sea goddesses, men with tentacles and a Keith Richards cameo, but show me Keira Knightley winning a fight or galvanising a mass of near-exclusively burly male pirates into action and I will laugh at you.

Character-wise, if I was Elizabeth Swann, I would have given up on Will. And Jack. I would have run off with Barbossa, or Ragetti, or Tia Dalma....anyone, really. I sure as hell wouldn't have hung around for ten years and raised some weirdly androgynous child while keeping myself chaste for the mostly-dead captain of a supernatural pirate vessel. Sod you, true love.

Which reminds me. Apparently (is there an actual source for this?), the 'ten years at sea, one day on land' deal is this: if the captain of The Flying Dutchman reappears after ten years and his lover has been faithful to him, then he has been freed. Great, except I call bullshit for two reasons:

1) 'The Flying Dutchman must have a captain'. So if Will is freed as the post-credits scene might suggest, what happens then? Do the rest of the crew draw straws to choose who has to cut their heart out? For that matter, how does Will get his own heart back? I imagine reconstructive surgery wasn't up to...well...anything back then.

2) What if the captain of TFD was single? Take Captain Jack, who is to put it politely a serial monogamist - 'salty wenches' et cetera. If he had become captain, he would be pretty much fucked.

Finally, the monkey and the parrot need their own spin-off series. So do Pintel and Ragetti. I wanted to hug Ragetti repeatedly throughout the movie: when it's revealed that his eye is a Piece Of Eight, when he frees Calypso, when he tells Pintel he'd have voted for him as captain....pretty much every time he talks. He's adorable.

Moving briefly away from the plot/characters to the 'ooh pretty', visually this movie was SO much better than the previous two. The scene where they're sailing to World's End in the dark and it looks like they're flying through a field of stars....it's beautiful. The music, although applied with a rather heavy hand (dramatic silence would have better served some of the scenes), was so much better. I have an untrained eye for these things but the CGI looked pretty damn seamless to me.

Beckett's death scene took my breath away both times I saw it. When he walks down the steps, untouched, with the ship exploding around him, and he eventually just ends up standing in a cloud of flying shrapnel...beautiful. Beautifully done. That he had so obviously lost all hope and was so resigned to his death was put across so well and was...almost redemptive. I'm kind of annoyed that they decided to undermine the drama of the moment with OMG HUGE EXPLOSION rather than just have the ship sink, but I guess exploding is what gunpowder does. Still annoyed.

Norrington, on the other hand...why was he even there? His presence in the movie was pointless except to provide a handy deus ex machina for Swann and her crew. Natch.

Might add more tomorrow, but I'm tired now.

Note: If you want to tell me I'm an idiot and the movie sucked, don't bother - my opinion is my own and I'm not fighting over it. It's interesting that opinions on POTC3 are so polarised - either it's awesome or it sucks. I have yet to see anyone whose reaction was 'meh, okay I guess' - although I'm sure they'll all come out of the woodwork now I've posted those words.

I ride the bus a lot.

2007-03-19T20:26:35Z

When the revolution comes, the following public transport users will be at least among the first against the wall:

People who listen to their iPod (or equivalent) so loudly that the lyrics can be easily discerned. Addendum: Those with the volume cranked up so high you can actually hear the vocalist breathe in between lines will be removed and shot in the head. No second chances.

Parents or carers who have not introduced their kids to the fact that a bus/train/plane/ferry/whatever is a place containing other people. People who deserve respect and will not appreciate them shrieking for a solid twenty minutes. I know you're supposed to ignore bad behaviour and reward good, but when your crotch droppings are screaming, spilling their drinks and distracting the driver, now is the time to do something about it. Addendum: People who react by making a single half-assed attempt and then giving up, by getting into a shouting match with their kids, by attempting to garner sympathy from other passengers ('I have no idea what gets into him, he doesn't act like this at home...') or by actively encouraging this sort of behaviour - shot.

Loud drunken people in the middle of a completely normal day. I know, better on the bus than driving, but you know where would be even better? At home, sober. And especially when there's six of you. For Christ's sake, the bus prices around here are prohibitive - it would have been cheaper for you to share a cab.

Bigoted motherfuckers. Yes, a whole bunch of bus drivers in my hometown are Polish. They are also unfailingly polite, excellent drivers and they will most likely understand English, which means that when you sit near the front and start with your 'coming into our country, taking our jobs' rant they will know what you're talking about. Note to bus drivers: as far as I know, you guys have the right to refuse carriage to anyone at any time. Leave some of these people out in the cold. It'll be fun.

People (usually girls in their mid-teens) who talk unnecessarily loudly; I'm not talking about speaking to be heard over traffic/engine noise/general hubbub. I'm talking about people who crank up the volume because: a) they're talking and listening to music at the same time, so can't regulate their speech volume, b) they're trying to be heard over someone else's iPod, c) they're trying to win an argument by dint of getting in the last word, d) they're just noisy fuckers, or - particularly - e) they're bragging or think their conversation is just as scintillating to everyone else on the bus as it is to them. Nobody cares, girls. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Pipe down already.

Creepy old men. You know who you are. I'm sitting opposite you because I have to, not because I want you to stare at my boobs. D:

Anyone else who can't just sit down, stay quiet and keep themselves to themselves for half a goddamn hour. What the Christ is wrong with you people?

An observation:

2007-02-03T16:59:28Z

Why is it that I can write rants whenever the mood takes me, but when I actually have to do a polemic for my Writers' Craft class, I can't think of anything that annoys me?

Let's see, what gets on my nerves? Global injustice...the increasing corporatisation of the world at large...war...racism...misogyny...Tesco...RyanAir...Microsoft...James Blunt...BT customer services...

My blood is not boiling. Hmm.

Some e/n correspondence.

2007-01-30T16:21:55Z

Dear Nickelodeon UK:

When you license the second season of one of the most highly-regarded cartoons that's come out of the USA in recent years for showing on Nick Toons, plz to be showing the whole damn season, not just the first eight episodes. Thx.

Also, take back the money you're going to pay M. Night Shyamalan and spend it on making a motion-length animation. Pull out all the stops; it'll be fun. Even an eight-year-old could tell you it will be better.

- A frustrated newly-converted Avatard

--

Dear M. Night Shyamalan,

Please don't make a live-action Avatar movie. Just don't. Please concentrate on recovering your own franchise (whose current condition is best displayed here) before you try fiddling with someone else's.

Admittedly your concepts tend to suck a lot more than your actual direction and thus it might be okay, but I'm not giving you the benefit of the doubt about Lady In The Water.

Some love because 'Unbreakable' wasn't bad at all,
Naomi

--

Dear Avatar fandom,

Kataraang? Tee hee. It sounds like a kind of weapon.

Also, is it bad that when I was ruminating on pairings like I always do now when encountering a new series, the first one I thought of was Iroh/Zuko? Methinks I've spent far too long in the Harry Potter fandom.

Hesitant love because I've heard your shipping wars are absolutely ferocious,
Naomi

P.S: If I wanted some good Avatar icons, where would I look? Hm...

One last thing...

2007-01-27T21:58:54Z

I have today taken delivery of a beautiful, shiny and enormous Mac Pro. After I've had a few days to play with it I will probably post something going into disgusting detail about how wonderful it is. If it isn't wonderful, then to be honest I'm probably going to keep that to myself.

However, an immediate concern: I also have a 22" widescreen monitor, and using AIM is going to make me go blind. I'm using Arial 10pt, which I know is respectable, but it looks tiny on my screen. I think that AIM for Windows has an option to make everything look bigger; does the Mac version have anything similar? Any answers to the affirmative will be rewarded with my firstborn child.

asyndeta @ 2007-01-07T01:03:00

2007-01-07T01:08:36Z

Okay, f-list. I plead a moment, and your wise counsel. Lay it on me.

At the moment, I can scrape together about £2000 - most of which I've had access to for almost two years and haven't touched. I've been a good girl. By a helpful coincidence, my once-trusty Dell PC has started stumbling around and coughing up blood. I've been treating this one like a queen - regular backups, virus checks, approx-monthly defrags, etc. etc. - but the fact remains that I've also been demanding more and more of it lately and by the time I've paid for all the upgrades I'd need to get back on track, I might as well just start again.

Also, I'm sick to death of XP. It's just...no. No. And I don't even care if Vista is (or will be) everything XP's not, because if your boyfriend has spent years stealing your money and destroying your work then you're not going to date his slightly hotter younger brother who promises to kiss all your tears away.

So I'm in the market for a new desktop, and I've been geek-perving all over the iMac. You can't blame me. After years with various hulking grey lumps on my desk, I wandered past the new Apple Store in Birmingham and they had the iMac with its 24" screen and its pretty smooth lines and its shiny whiteness...I'm already a garter-wearing whore for the iPod Nano so it's not a big leap to make, right?

(And although an incredibly aggressive move by their marketing department, the Mac vs PC ads are funny. Mac/PC slash, anyone? I'll go sit in a corner until I've repented for having that thought.)

Having briefly checked my hair in a mirror and ensured the bags I were carrying were cool enough for the Apple Store (yes, I actually did this, you may start mocking me...now. I was holding Office in one hand and Selfridges in the other, although the Selfridges bag was full of Krispy Kremes), I dared to go inside and speak to an employee or as I recall him, iGoatee. Naturally he told me that Macs are Christ incarnate, but when I asked for him to tell me what they had over PCs he just said that he'd never used a PC in his life (something I find hard to believe) and thus didn't know. Personally I think that's shoddy customer service and if he'd found me someone who had been infected by the Four-Coloured Flag Of Death, I'd have been much happier, but that's not what this is about. Maybe he'd have been shot if he confessed even an unsatisfactory defection to the other side.

What I'm asking for is the testimony of people who have a) regularly used a PC and a Mac, either at the same time or having upgraded from one to the other and b) are not employed by Apple Computer Inc. or Microsoft Corporation or any of their subsidiaries. Can somebody please clear up the following for me: are the following legends true or false?

1) Macs 'never' crash. (for 'never', read 'never so long as you're not a complete moron')
2) Macs never get viruses or anything suspiciously similar to viruses
3) Macs use their hardware resources more efficiently. (i.e. a 2ghz Mac with 1gig of RAM will be faster than a PC with the same specs. iGoatee explained this to me in a way that made sense right up until I left the store and got distracted by pretty lights and music)
4) Macs are as good as PCs for games. (This is more an issue of curiosity than anything else. I don't play any games other than The Sims 2, which runs like a river of congealed blood and jagged rocks on my PC)
5) It is reasonably easy to find all the software you'll need for a Mac.
6) Macs will run out of the box, are easy to get to grips with and do not require a never-ending stream of auto-downloaded updates.
7) Macs are better for designers and artists. (this is very important. Photoshop and Illustrator are the only programs I use which are particularly demanding hardware-wise)
8) Macs represent better value for money than PCs and are in fact not just for posers with disposable income.

If I could just get one or two of these questions answered by people I can trust, that would be great. x_x~ Links to an independent review site would be just as good. Thank you!

- Naomi

Happy Boxing Day?

2006-12-26T17:12:19Z

And now for something entirely un-Christmas-related....a snippet from My Older Brother Vs. The Internet.

Mother: *discussing a forum she visits* ...so yes, he was annoying. But eventually the mods banned him, they thought he was a troll.
Josh: What's a troll?
Naomi: Um...basically it's someone who hangs around online forums and Livejournal etc. and makes inflammatory comments just to start off fights.
Josh: *bewildered* Why do they bother?
Naomi: *shrug* They think it's fun.
Josh: ....so why do you call them trolls? We had a word for that before the Internet. It's 'dickhead'.
Naomi: But -
Josh: No, no buts. You're just validating their dickheadish behaviour by giving them a special word. 'The mods banned him because they thought he was a dickhead'. Isn't that easier for everyone to understand?
Naomi: ...you may have a point.

So I'm not calling them trolls any more. Happy holidays.

- Naomi

asyndeta @ 2006-09-21T00:03:00

2006-09-20T23:17:48Z

So after the absence of 'real' updates on my personal eljay for God-knows-how-long, I return with a bizarre vignette and a rant I've wanted to get off my chest for a long time. I originally wanted to be funny, but found I couldn't - if any of this makes you laugh then I swear it has nothing to do with me.

I am a stranger in a strange place. There's an unfamiliar, chemical scent in the air, something both flowery and at the same time jarringly ersatz. The back of my throat itches but I won't sneeze, I won't draw attention to myself, I can't - not here.

Nobody's really doing anything about their predicament. They're milling about, but there's nothing martialled or decisive about their movements; there's no attempt to escape, which personally I find obscene. We wandered into this place as docile as lambs, but now we are abductees, avoiding the gazes of the orange-tinted creatures lining the chamber lest we are fallen upon and mercilessly probed. Not all of us are successful in this endeavour, but those who find themselves at the mercy of the tormentors go to their fates with a strange sense of peacefulness, even gratitude in their eyes.

Experiencing a moment of claustrophobic light-headedness, I reach out to steady myself. My hand touches cold metal - that's all there is here, cold steel and plastic tubes and mirrors and hard, antiseptic whiteness. There's nothing organic here - if not for the cold rush from the overhead fans, even the air around us would feel dead.

Too late I realise that my sudden shift has attracted their attention. The closest one wears a long white robe, its face streaked with unnatural colours. It wears an unthreatening face but I know better, reading the tiny strained lines around its eyes and mouth; its expression has arisen from rehearsal, not from any genuine emotion.

"Did you know," it says, "that if you spend twenty pounds or more on No. 7 cosmetics today, we'll give you a free anti-ageing kit worth over thirty pounds?"

I hate wearing makeup.

~

Actually, that's not technically true. I don't mind the physical act of going around with makeup on; what gets on my tits is everything that leads up to wearing makeup. I hate buying it; I hate going to Boots (see above) and trying to make a well-informed, cost-conscious decision about purchasing something that I don't even want. I hate the process of application, the do-I-just-look-even-worse-now anxiety, and - more than anything else - the feeling of obligation. The feeling that, as a woman, I may be judged as lazy and feckless by opting not to wander around society under a thin layer of beige chemicals.

I can't quite remember the year, but I can pinpoint the day when I started to hate it. It was Christmas, and I had an obsession with Polly Pocket. Most other girls I knew had Barbies and My Little Ponies, but this was my girly accessory of choice. I think I was on the older side of six, but could have been older - although a quick eBay search has dated a lot of the compacts I owned to 1992, when I was five. As an aside, the Polly Pocket of today sets my teeth on edge - seeing the ads for the 'new' Polly for the first time was when I felt that some of my precious childhood memories had been assaulted by a faceless corporation.

But I digress. My parents bought me a Polly Pocket makeup centre for Christmas - I think it was purple, and it included palettes of blusher and eyeshadow, a tube of lipstick, and a little bottle of flowery perfume. Newly equipped with these accoutrements of womanhood, I did what any self-respecting 6-year-old girl would do - I took myself off to the nearest mirror and did some experimenting.

I have absolutely no objective memory of how I looked afterwards. I remember feeling both accomplished and goddamn stylish, which made it all the worse when my mother took one look at me and dragged me off to her room to remove whatever aesthetic horror I'd perpetrated against myself. Looking back, I don't recall whether or not she actually laughed. I do remember her applying a fresh layer of real (ie. her) makeup and being told to stop crying because it would spoil the mascara.

Needless to say I did not use the Polly Pocket makeup again, and may or may not have decided at a subconscious level that the act of smearing that sort of crap on my face was at best pointless and at worse humiliating. Throughout primary school, secondary school and sixth form, the closest I ever got to wearing makeup was dabbing some foundation on, during the few occasions when my spots started looking more like the Black Death than the average adolescent affliction.

Of course the reasoning I have given for this throughout my formative years had nothing to do with the aforementioned event in my early childhood - not unnaturally, I jumped on the feminist high horse. Boys don't have to wear eyeshadow, so why should I? And to my pride, everyone I have ever faced with this largely rhetorical question has spluttered a bit and then said that I should just because. Because there is no reason. And yet eventually I was forced around to accepting the fact that by not wearing at least minimal makeup, all I'm doing is cutting off my nose to spite my face.

If a woman goes out with a huge spot on her face, she looks awful. If a man goes out with the same huge spot, he also looks awful - but he's protected by the addendum that it's not as if he can put makeup on it. Yes, I realise that one or two of the men creatures (I'm referring here to those not in the public eye) will put on a tiny bit of slap as long as it's not noticeable - and I honestly can't wait for the point in our society's development where men start getting as insecure about their appearance as the rest of us. To quote Nicole Hollander, we can help...after all, we've been there before. But first we'll let them suffer a little.

In a way, though, that's also quite terrifying: on the way there we'll come to a point where if a man wears makeup, he should be lauded for making an unusual effort to be attractive - but a woman wearing makeup is still only doing the absolute minimum that this society expects of her in terms of self-presentation. Once men have joined us in our cosmetic hell, no doubt they'll introduce some fresh gender-specific torment to keep the ladyfolk at bay; I expect foot binding will be ready for a comeback by then.

I am perhaps being faintly melodramatic at this point.

I'm also wavering off my original point - every issue that boils down to 'senseless, unecessary discrimination' makes me froth at the mouth and I'm given to ranting about it. The fact of the matter is that I've surrendered. If I'm going any further than the local supermarket, I will now put my war paint on as a matter of course.

It's not as if I was doing okay on my own. I'm overweight and bespectacled, and my 'at rest' facial expression makes small children cry. It's a sad fact but it is a fact: historically, Mother Nature and I do not get along. If I want people to give me the time of day, I need all the help I can get from other sources. And makeup hides a number of sins, not least the physical evidence of long sleepless nights and a life spent almost entirely indoors. I will grudgingly accept that my little gold bag of cosmetics is the one thing that prevents me from looking like a whey-faced sociopath.

But I still hate it. And all I can really do now is congratulate my six-year-old self for sensing that there's something badly wrong with the whole affair.

Love,

Naomi

P.S: People who are actually interested in my life as it progresses should probably be told that I've gone back to university, taking Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan. Hooray. Also, I'm sorry about not having updated naomisketchpad for a month, but I've been busy with other things.

ETA: A little bit of fun with technology. BT Internet's security division phoned me today with the news that they've had some reports of copyright infringement from Warner Brothers. Naturally my internal response was 'oh shit'...and then the guy rattles off a long list of WB movies that I've never seen, legitimately or otherwise. Sensing that something is up, I finally got around to working out how to properly secure our wireless interweb...and how to check the traffic stats. Guess how many devices have been piggybacking on our connection? Seventeen. SEVENTEEN. We've been servicing half the bloody street. No wonder my internet's been so slow lately.

asyndeta @ 2006-06-28T18:33:00

2006-06-28T17:43:10Z

Not much to report. I'm taking driving lessons at the moment - the wonders of a) driving at 60mph and b) going backwards (at a slightly more sedate pace) are no longer a mystery to me. All good stuff.

I bought a Nintendo DS Lite the other day and, well, Animal Crossing: Wild Worlds is far, far more addictive than a game without any sort of recognisable plot or aim should be, even given that it rains constantly in my town and tthat I'm currently being held over a barrell by a stoned-looking raccoon. Which brings me to the point of this post: if anyone wants to visit me in my crap AC:WW town ~~and give me stuff~~, leave your Friend ID here (it's a 12-digit number you get off Copper the dog at the Main Gate) and I'll reply with mine - comments will be screened.

asyndeta @ 2006-02-18T01:08:00

2006-02-18T01:16:59Z

Some of you may remember that I had a small spot of trouble with a flight operator called Ryanair when I tried (that being the key word) to go on holiday last year. The upshot is that - due to circumstances mostly beyond our control - we missed our flight, missed the wedding we'd been trying to get to, and went uncompensated.

Well, they're bastards, but now I have my comeuppance. Sort of.

Last Monday, Channel 4 aired an episode of their series 'Dispatches', one of their methods being the use of undercover journalists to infiltrate a particular company or operation. Two women thus enrolled in the flight assistant program, and a few months the show was aired under the subtitle 'Ryanair: Caught Napping'.

I know that as with all things, when flying you get what you pay for, and Ryanair flights cost almost nothing. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect, y'know, the absolute minimum. Which, at least when the documentary was filmed, was not provided.

The full list of observed cockbasketry is here and includes:

+ During the journalists' training, their tutor informed them that in the event of a certain plane used by RA crashing, the passenger in seat 1A would have their head impaled on a protruding piece of metal directly in front of her. Although RA don't use this aircraft any more, the fact that they knew well enough of the danger to tell flight crew about it is enough.

+ They received no onboard training. Okay? New recruits never set foot on a real, actual plane that goes in the air until their first flight.

+ Temporary security passes are issued to trainees but can be renewed. They found a new employee who hadn't undergone a background check for 3 months, and had been told not to admit this to the authorities (obviously).

+ The crew captain had a huge go at one of the journalists for checking passengers' passports at the boarding gate, which delayed the flight by ten minutes. Wait, what? I know passports are already checked at least twice before this stage, and I hate to sound paranoid but nonetheless, the distance between security checks and the boarding gate is more than large enough to hand your boarding card to Bob P. Terrorist. And that's if Bob P. Terrorist isn't already working in the cabin crew. Later the same journalist was told that it was sufficient to check the the passengers had a passport, not necessarily that it was in their name or had their picture in it.

+ Another load of problems (including Fun With Passports) arises from RA aiming to have a plane ready for takeoff 25 minutes after it lands. There is absolutely no way that this is possible to do thoroughly. So it's done half-assedly:

+ Since the crew didn't have enough time to move out bags of rubbish, it was stowed in the toilets for the duration of the next flight (and maybe the one after that, for all I know) and stank. (in RA's response to the listed allegations - although not so much 'allegations' as 'things on film which actually happened' - its response to this one specifically was a terse 'Noted'.)

+ A baby had been sick on one of the flights. No time to scrub it off properly or with detergent, so it was scraped off as best as possible and one of the crew used aftershave to hide the smell. Eck.

+ One of the journalists was told by a colleague that since they lacked time, she only had to check for the presence of lifejackets unless she 'really wanted to'. WTF PEOPLE. I don't mind shitty customer service, absurdly overpriced food, a pathetic quantity of legroom, and I could even tolerate the concept of baby puke. But not quite knowing whether or not my lifejacket was stolen by some drunken retard on the previous flight? Hell no.

+ Cabin crew were (are?) treated like crap and paid a pittance. This pittance is paid per flight, not by the hour, so they're being paid precisely nothing during the 25-minute turnaround. This also means that if a flight is delayed and a plane has to spend two hours circling the airport beore it can land, then tough shit, you still get the flat rate. There were also reports of crew working a 50-60 hour week and being exhausted to the point of falling asleep during flights. Why they put up with this bullshit is beyond me; I can only conclude that airlines (British Airways et al) use budget airlines as a nursery of sorts for employees.

I really don't think that any of the above is acceptable for any airline, budget or not. Brilliantly, Ryanair has published 'some of' the letters of support it received after the programme was aired, and could only rustle up about 10. Come on, guys. At least 25 or I'm going to think that's all you got. And I can only wonder how many letters they got saying 'I was right all along; you guys are cockmongers'.

As for things in the programme which didn't bother me, there's one:

+ During a three-hour delay during which the full plane was kept on the ground, unable for whatever reason to take off, the passengers were offered water. Fair enough; you get what you pay for. An angry customer demanded that the passengers be offered other non-alcoholic beverages, however it was against the rules to open the on-board bar while the plane was on the ground. He persisted, and the pilot told him flat out: 'If I open the bar, then no question - I will lose my job. Would you like to come back to Ireland with me and tell my wife and children why I can no longer put food on the table?' I'm told the guy shut up and drank his water.

...so overall I'm pretty glad I missed my flight.

Love,

Naomi

asyndeta @ 2006-02-09T23:46:00

2006-02-09T23:48:47Z

So I never update my eljay. Wow, I suck.

Anyway. The last time I updated with something even approaching content was, like, last October (and I've now made that entry private, so don't even go look for it). In the meantime, our erstwhile heroine has (in no real chronological order):

+ Been cast as Andrea in 'They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy', a part of 'The Vagina Monologues' about transgendered women. The TVM girls are awesome, and our director Becky is the bounciest, most enthusiastic woman ever. And she uses the phrase 'that was fucking fabulous' so often that now I've adopted it.
+ Made a new comm for my fics and art and whatnot: naomisketchpad.
+ Decided to dump the whole Leeds University mess as a bad idea, entered into prematurely (which, incidentally, I knew in October, but my parents didn't agree with me until a couple weeks ago - how awesome is that?); I am now leaving next Wednesday and shall seek employment with a view to reapplying for 2007 entry. Which uni and what degree, I have no idea. If it comes to next winter and I still don't know, I shall not be so stupid as to apply for something just for the sake of it. Again.
+ Bought some awesome shoes. Yes, dammit, that's important. Corduroy Converse All-Stars are love.
+ Been tentatively planning to open an online store with my brother's girlfriend, Kat, to sell her jewellery and arts/crafts type stuff, maybe some of Josh's photos, and maybe some of my art. It's a bit up in the air at the moment, but it's neat.
+ Seen a whole bunch of movies. Brokeback Mountain I could happily (well, in floods of tears, but y'know) watch daily until I die. Memoirs of a Geisha was very pretty but that was about it. Munich was great up to the last twenty minutes, and it ended on a shot of the New York skyline and the Twin Towers were just right there. It was so appallingly heavy-handed. You could almost hear Spielberg behind the cameras going 'Symbolism/foreshadowing, aaand....we're done.'
+ Spent the whole week wearing a sweatshirt with 'Vagina Warrior' splashed across the left breast.

In slightly more contemporary terms, I've had a good day. This week has been dubbed by somebody as 'V-Week', that being a week of raising funds, awareness, etc. in and around the university. This runs up to V-Day on the 14th (V standing alternately for Valentine, Vagina, Violence and (ultimately) Victory), which is incidentally the date of the last of our three performances of TVM. Today I volunteered to help out with selling tickets and running two activities, 'These Hands Don't Hurt Women' and 'Victoria's Secrets'.

'Secrets' is almost self-explanatory; we harangued passing girls to write down a secret or a random fact about being a girl on some paper underwear. Our responses included (paraphrased):

I think I'm the only girl in the world who actually enjoys sucking off men!

If my vagina got dressed, it would wear a suit of armour...

I once had sex with a female prostitute and didn't realise she was a prostitute until she asked for the money. It was still worth it.

If my vagina could speak, it would say 'not him again'

And so forth. 'These Hands Don't Hurt Women' is an activity where we harangued (again) male students to dip their hands in paint and place a handprint on some paper mounted on the wall, thus sealing a vow to never harm a woman with those hands. It's a neat idea and it would've been much better if only all the men in Leeds hadn't had PMS that day and refused to let us paint their hands. Bastards. We got about forty handprints altogether which sucked, but hey.

Tonight was 'Read My Lips', an open-mic event at a local bar/cafe thing near the university. I was planning to write something, didn't, and felt fairly shitty about it when I showed up.

There was some frankly pretty depressing stuff. None of it was badly written, but there was some pretty dire depressed/angry/self-loathy business being read out. There was something about masturbation which was quite cheerful, but otherwise it was kind of blah. But, during the interval, fuelled by my two Black Russians, I randomly borrowed a pen and some paper off one of the girls, ran to the women's bathroom and wrote my monologue in ten minutes. The second half was slightly less humourless, with some quirky diary entries and a story called 'Boob Shame' which was hilarious to start with, but ended on a weaker note than it could have done. Mine ended up being the closing piece.

I got big laughs. I got applause. Twice. I've never performed anything of my own to an audience before, especially never an audience which was about half-full of complete strangers, and it was so fucking fabulous (see, there I go), to know that I can talk and entertain an audience, and close a fairly negative show on a positive note. I know it was a soft crowd and a minor achievement, but I've never felt more confident. I actually feel ready to get on stage for TVM now.

Oh, and I went to Burger King and had onion rings on the way home. Life is good.

Love,

Naomi

I have yet to find one person in the whole world who likes this guy.

2006-01-05T23:36:11Z

I've always been a peaceful man
Spread joy and harmony whenever I can
Wars of words are the only ones I've fought
Not used to having such violent thoughts

But I may just have to murder James Blunt
He's an evil that I must confront
I'm well aware that he was in the military
But dragon ninja training wouldn't save his scrawny ass from me

There's no court that would convict me of a crime
Because if I hear 'You're Beautiful' one more bloody time
Into the fiery pits of hell he will descend
I know his 'life is brilliant', but I may have to bring it to an end

Yes, I may just have to murder James Blunt
He might sound better with his head on back to front
Before he cuts another disc the git must hang
He's the only man in history who's his own rhyming slang

And for the sake of all I must act
Then I'll get Katie Melua as well and make it look like a suicide pact
If you think this is a joke - well, it isn't
Please God someone stop me
Before I murder James Blunt.

God bless you, Mitch Benn.

Icon meme

2005-12-27T18:17:44Z

Merry Christmas or whatever. I know it's a few days late.

Icon meme stolen from fallsintoplace

Default icon: I don't have one! Wahahahaha.

Oldest icon:
I hardly ever use this one, but I love it.

Newest icon:
Look at it. You KNOW it's adorable.

Saddest icon:
I don't know. I wouldn't ordinarily describe this as sad, but there's something a bit soulful about her expression, I think.

Happiest icon:
Lucius is having so much fun. Isn't he adorable?

Angriest icon:
Not so much angry as, well, OMGWTF, but I don't like 'angry' icons anyway.

Cutest icon:
:3 Yay.

Sexiest icon:
...I realise I'm being a bit literal here.

Most humourous icon:
Thanks to chibikat_wtf for the line that inspired the icon. ♥

Favourite ship icon:
I only have two and I've already posted one, give me a break. I don't even ship H/D, I just liked the picture. XD

Favourite fandom icon:
Yay. This was the first remotely 'arty' looking icon I made which didn't look like a complete suckfest, ergo it is my favourite.

Icon you use the most (beside default):
'Nuff said already.

Favourite overall:
I don't know. I just like this one.

How many icons do you have total? 30.
How many can you have? 100. *hugs permanent account*
If you could buy space for more, would you? No. Are you insane? I'll go mad trying to find 100.
Do your icons make a statement about you? Other than 'I am a big Harry Potter geek?' I don't think so, no.
What fandom do you have the most icons out of? Uh. See above?
The second most? Pirates of the Caribbean. I have two.
What ship do you have the most icons out of? I only have two ship icons. >_>
How do you categorize your icons? You can do that?
Are your icons mostly made by other users? Nope. All made by me.
Animated icons are... Okay when there's sublety involved.
In general, I think icons... ...are okay? A good excuse to work with graphics? Shyah.

Everybody's doing it.

2005-12-19T17:45:26Z

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

This year I've been busy!

Last Tuesday I pushed nialyind in the mud (-17 points). Last Friday I helped fallsintoplace see the light (8 points). Last Saturday I pulled amanuensis1's hair (-5 points). In November I got in line at the supermarket at the same time as someone else and I didn't yield (-8 points). In August I helped chibikat_wtf hide a body (-173 points).

Overall, I've been naughty (-195 points). For Christmas I deserve a spanking!

Sincerely,
naomi_noelle

British people:

2005-11-07T16:16:00Z

If and when the Incitement To Religious Hatred ban is brought into effect, will Guy Fawkes' Night (the shameless celebration of someone killed for what turned out to be little more than being Catholic) be banned?

Just a thought.

NaNo spam later.

asyndeta @ 2005-10-18T15:28:00

2005-10-18T14:33:54Z

Sorry, f-lists being spammed, this won't take a moment:

OW OUCH OW OW SHIT OW OWW.

I'm almost completely deaf. Because of that I sound like an idiot when I talk. The entire left-hand side of my face feels like it's been hit repeatedly with a brick. My inner left ear feels like it's on fire. You could set your watch by the regularity with which I've been popping pills all day but it makes no difference. It hurts to chew, it hurts to swallow, it hurts to blow my nose, it's agony when I sneeze and it hurts to walk at a pace even close to 'brisk'.

I hate ear infections, and I have to wait until 9.30 tomorrow until such a time as I might be able to see a doctor and get some proper drugs.

I quit being me. I'd like to be somebody else now, please.

*wanders away mumbling incoherently*

asyndeta @ 2005-09-07T23:43:00

2005-09-07T22:47:42Z

Apple are sadistic bastards. The second I buy an iPod Mini, they bring out the infinitely more desirable iPod Nano. They're mocking me, I tell you.

...oh well. I have an iPod mini, and it's PINK. ♥

In other news, I am going out of my mind just sitting around waiting for next weekend to roll around so I can get the hell out of here and move up to Leeds and my shiny, shiny university accomodation. Glargh.

- Naomi

P.S. EDIT: Bastards. Utter, utter bastards.

asyndeta @ 2005-08-31T01:11:00

2005-08-31T00:13:44Z

Since there's a million people on my flist suddenly (well, 58, that's...almost a million...?), I decided to swipe this meme from delightful artist-writer-type person ponderosa121 just in case there's any takers:

Ask me for "top five" lists of pretty much anything, and I will list for you my top five of that thing or things. Copy and give your own top fives.

Do your worst?

Love,

Naomi

Edit: ...oh my. o_o I don't know if I'll be able to get to all these.

asyndeta @ 2005-08-26T01:37:00

2005-08-26T00:47:40Z

When I rule the world, I am going to force everyone who uses a computer - either at school, work or home - to be assessed and graded from 1-10 on their technical competence. 1 would be '...oh, you mean it has to be plugged in?', whereas 10 would be...I want to say Bill Gates, but that would imply that Microsoft Windows is even remotely without fault. You see where I'm coming from. Personally, I'd like to think I'm a 6 or 6.5, depending on how tired I am and what I'm dealing with - a person who is slightly above average but is still baffled by the jargon given by the Blue Screen of Death.

When your computer breaks, no amount of restarting, reinstalling, wheedling or punching will fix it and you're forced to contact technical support, both you and the technical support wench will be required to give your grade. If you're 2 or below, then things like 'monitor' or 'keyboard' are thrown out and 'the square box with pictures' or 'the flat thing with letters on' come in. If you're 8 or above, you're promptly hung up on because really, you should be able to deal with it yourself. If your grade is higher than the wench's, you're automatically entitled to be passed on to someone who actually knows more than you do.

Moving on. Anyone who gives a damn about me might have noticed that I've been more or less AWOL for the last two weeks - since the 11th, to be precise - and now I've fought tooth and nail to get back, of course I'm going to have a jolly rant about it.

Thursday 11th

The Internet stopped working. Error 691: Incorrect Username Or Password. Fair enough; either BT was throwing a fit or one of my parents had changed the password in an attempt to wean me off the Internet. I disproved the latter theory fairly quickly, then called Tech Support.

The first guy acted like a 6 and treated me like a 2. Is the modem plugged in? It's an internal modem, it can't not be plugged in. It's screwed in. Is the light on? It's an INTERNAL MODEM, it doesn't have a light. Do you have Sky TV and/or any cordless phones? Both, but neither have presented a problem for the last THREE AND EIGHT YEARS respectively. Unplug them anyway and see if it helps.

It didn't. Good Lord, that surprise was a shock to the system. I called them back and got a laydee. Is the modem plugged in? Ooh, deja vu, it's almost like it would be too difficult to access my service history on the computer sitting in front of you. I'll do some line tests. This was a laborious process and took forever. Your line isn't working properly; I'll log a fault into the technicians' department and they should be able to fix it. Call back if you're not online within 24 hours.

Friday 12th a.k.a 24 Hours Later

No, I'm still getting the same error. Called back. Second guy looks me up and immediately tells me that our service has been suspended because apparently, a program on my computer is sending spam.

WHY COULD THE FIRST GUY NOT TELL ME THIS YESTERDAY? Seriously. I called these people several times and got a different story on every goddamn occasion. They all had access to the same information; why did it take 24 hours for Guy 2 to tell me what Guy 1 knew (or at least, could have found out very easily)? The mind, she boggles.

You'll have to contact the Abuse Department.

Incidentally, this is a great name for a department. I imagined calling them and being preremptorily told to 'FUCK OFF'.

I'd simply love to call them, could you put me through? Oh, sorry, they don't have a number. You'll have to email them. ...but you cut off my service... Mmm, yes. What you'll have to do is find an Internet cafe or use a friend's computer to email them.

What the bollocking fuck.

You know sometimes you just hit such an alarming peak of stupidity that your brain just stops working? This was like that.

Sigh. I didn't feel like arguing the toss, so I got the email address and used my dad's work computer to send an email to the Abuse Dept. In the slender period of four hours, I received an automated reply telling me that they would get back to me within three business days. As in, five days total. How bizarre, I could have sworn we paid for 24/7 Internet access; why are we only getting five days a week's worth of service?

Wednesday 17th

Three business days have passed. Have they replied? Have they bollocks.

Thursday 18th

Somewhat distracted by getting my A-Level results. In case anyone's interested:

Psychology: 79% - B
Modern History: 88% - A
Sociology: 83% - A

For those not au fait with the British education system, this roughly translates to 'Naomi is a fucking genius'. Now if only Leeds Uni would get back to me with my residence application, natch.

Anyway. Phoned Tech Support again, somehow bullied a guy working a phone desk in Delhi to surrender a new phone number which may or may not have been for the Abuse Department. Called it, found it to be engaged, called it repeatedly over the space of almost an hour and finally got in touch with Friendly Helpful Paul.

This is where it gets alarmingly, mind-bogglingly stupid.

LAST YEAR, ten months-ish ago in November, I was suspended for less than two days because of the previously mentioned charge - ie. I had some spyware or something which was using my Internet connection to send out spam. It's a fair cop, and they were very helpful, recommending a number of programs I could use to kill the spyware and protect my computer. I emailed them back to say that I'd fixed it and it was all hunky-dory.

They apparently did not register this email as having arrived, and put an order into their system for my account to be re-suspended.

When did that order come into operation? You guessed it. Last fucking Thursday.

Friendly Helpful Paul, this is bullshit. Unban me immediately. Certainly, Mrs Potter. I am not Mrs Potter, I am Miss Potter, and suggesting that I'm my mother (as they all did) is not ingratiating me to you.

Friday 19th

Am I back online? Don't be silly. I think this time I talked to a guy called Steve, or as I shall call him, Emo Steve, because he really did sound like he was going to go on his lunch break and play a friendly game of Russian roulette with himself.

Your un-suspension didn't come through. Well, evidently not, Emo Steve. Can you try again? I'll put you back on the waiting list, but it's too late tonight for the technicians to take any new cases, and the department which deals with suspending long-term users' accounts for absolutely no fucking reason is closed at weekends. Well, that's dandy. Can I have a different username or something in the meantime so I can do something constructive like check my email? No, sorry. If you have a 56k modem, I can arrange a pay-as-you-go dial-up connection for you.

If I was wearing a monocle, it would have fallen out. You cannot possibly imagine the depth of my loathing for this company at this point.

Monday 22nd

I was distracted by it being Josh's birthday. Happy Birthday, Josh. I bought him shoes and he was happy.

...I'm worried about that boy sometimes.

Tuesday 23rd

Still no Internet. Hiss. Phoned again, got another laydee who I think was called Harriet.

Hi, Harriet. It's been over a week, my Internet was taken away for no reason and I'd like it back, please. Of course; I'll put through another request to have the suspension lifted; it'll take 24 hours. Well, actually, I've been told that a couple times before, it's never actually been true and I'd really rather like my Internet back now, please. I have been waiting 12 days, could you possibly not bump me up the queue a little tiny bit?

I'm sorry, nobody here can do any bumping, everything is dealt with by a complex and yet completely useless computer system against which we puny mortals are powerless. You can't change the order at all?

Since my dad was around, I got him to have a go for me. He's always entertaining:

You can't get any priority for us after twelve days? Is this how you treat your business customers? I'd love to hear you talking to MI5: 'oh, sorry, since your problem is new, it'll have to go on the back of the list and GCHQ will be offline for the next 24 hours. I'm sure Britain can deal without national security until then.' Uh...could I talk to your daughter again, sir?

But we were on the back of the list nonetheless.

Wednesday 24th

Still Internet-less. Suffering minor withdrawal symptoms. Phoned Friendly Helpful Paul's number; was immediately bounced back to Tech Support for no good reason. Completely forgot this guy's name.

Internet not working. Suspended due to technical error. Been waiting nearly two weeks. Need fix of SomethingAwful and hardcore Harry/Snape porn ASAP or will require medical assistance. (note: I briefly considered browsing pornish_pixies on my dad's work computer, but I didn't really want him fired for misuse of National Health Service resources) Well, the suspension's been lifted, are you getting the same error? No, I just like to call to hear the sweet tones of the BT Technical Support advisors. Of course I'm getting the same damn error. How odd. Let me do a line test. Another time-consuming and horrible experience. I think it's a line problem - didn't I hear this two weeks ago? - I'll book it in as a fault and it should be fixed within 24 hours. I swear if I ever have cause to hear that phrase again, I will hunt down and kill whoever says it. (that includes you, chocolate_limes. I know how your twisted mind works, and I know where you live)

Was so intellectually exhausted by this point that I couldn't be bothered to argue that 24 hours was too long. Hung up.

Thursday 25th

Entirely unexpectedly, the INTERNET WORKS AGAIN. Am now using my restored service to research alternative providers.

Love,

Naomi

P.S: Disclaimers No, I didn't swear at any techies, and they certainly didn't swear at me. The transcribed conversations had more to do with how I interpreted them as opposed to what was actually said. No offense is meant to any Tech Support wenches who might be reading; I know you're only doing your jobs. If Emo Steve is reading, then for God's sake, cheer up.

P.P.S: To my ~~stalkers~~ friends from PotterPuffs, I will update as soon as possible, but I have quite a bit to catch up with and Real Life - ie. pre-University paperwork - is taking quite a high priority over much of anything online. My apologies.