Sidetrackedery

(From August 25, 2009)

Sidetrackedery, n.: the weird, interesting, and/or fun stuff I find via my ever-behindness in my LJ flist, from Twitter, emails, going back through friends' LJs, and elsewhere.

---

:: The comments on olberfanns leading up to Keith's anticlimactic "big announcment" are fucking great.
:: Yeah, so I've linked to or copied just about every poem that exceptindreams has posted that I've seen in keeping up with my flist. Well, they deserve to be linked/copied. Here's another, Listen! by Vladimir Mayakovsky.
:: From a comment thread in atheist, 10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism by Sam Harris. A really, really excellent article. Go read it! (from latimes.com)
:: This from metaquotes:

My debit cards are, evidently, made in Outer Mongolia, on a machine that only works on days when it can be powered by the divine light of the full moon. It is then shipped by camel to Uttar Pradesh, where it's lost for six days. When, finally, one of the child workers in that factory amputates a finger on a diamond drill, it turns out, in quest for the first-aid kit (which is actually just a gun to shoot the kid with) that my debit card was being used to hold a door open. Acting promptly, the factory foreman grabs my card, uses it to slit the kid's throat, and then drops the bloodstained card into an envelope, which is probably addressed to Maine. The UPPS drops the envelope into the hold of a tramp steamer going the wrong direction, and eventually the card winds up in Africa, where I see it being used as a ping-pong paddle in the slums of Nairobi on Another Touching Discovery Documentary About Somewhere You Never Want To Live. The producer of the show is only available via carrier pigeon during the day, but can be reached by a pillar of fire at night, so eventually he takes the card from the kids playing ping-pong and sends it off to me, where it will be, for NO EVIDENT REASON, rerouted to Des Moines, IA, because Des Moines, WA is close enough, despite the zip code being wildly different. Eventually, the card will be hand-carried to me by a convicted serial killer named Opus, who is pretty sure I gots a purdy mouf.

On the plus side, I never, ever notice the bloodstains from the kid in Uttar Pradesh, because by the time I have time to examine the card, I've had to use it to kill Opus, so I assume it's his blood.

(And for all of you who laughed, there's plenty of room for the lot of you in Heather's Happy Hellbound Handbasket.)
:: This, this, and this, from a_tergo_lupi. (from photoninthedarkness.com and sciencebasedmedicine.org)
:: From change.org, Students vs. the Defense of Marriage Act I wanted to stay umarried for just this reason, but with Chris going back into the military...I still feel guilty about it, like I'm flashing my heteronormative privilege around, even though I'm not heterosexual.
:: From change.org, A Global Look At Women's Attitudes Toward Domestic Abuse :(
:: From a link from change.org, Why I need a Public Option For Health Care Reform, by Danine Spencer (from danine.net)
:: Most of these are spot-on. From Fizzy via Gtalk, Uncomfortable Plot Summaries
:: From this metaquotes context, How do you explain a missing hand to a child? Excellent article, and excellent comments. (from bbc.co.uk)
:: And then I looked up Kids Like Me So. Freaking. Cute.
:: Also from that context, Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs And they are neato. :)
:: So a comment in that context mentioned BoingBoing, though I didn't see the nephew's project mentioned there, but I did findthis awesomeness from naominovik: her book His Majesty's Dragon, the full text!, and others. :D
:: And this deserves extra pimpage: The Suvudu Free Book Library! I don't think I'll be in a "book funk" for quite some time. XD Lots of series to get into here!
:: Two more links from that context's comments: Student Activism and A Fabulous Child's Story. Is super-neato. :)

---