8/2/2010

8/4/2010 — Well Sweet Josh it is about time!

8/4/2010 — It is, repeatedly, people like Got Medieval that make me rethink my despair in higher education.

8/3/2010

8/3/2010

8/4/2010 — We did “How to Succeed” in high school!

8/2/2010

8/4/2010 — Classy apology indeed.

8/3/2010

8/3/2010

8/3/2010

8/3/2010

8/4/2010 — Now that is a vacation spot!

8/4/2010 — Kanye tweets serve to prove Gabe’s hypothesis that New Yorker cartoons are the only ones whose art is superfluous to their captions.

8/4/2010 — Yay, LEAP! Why are they not doing programs in our schools?!

8/4/2010 — Smencils!

8/4/2010 — Hark! A Vagrant is a brilliant web comic. This first one is free. (So are the rest, but it wouldn’t carry the same addictive hook if I didn’t use that line…) ]]> http://www.justkristin.com/2010/08/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-862010/feed/ 0 http://www.justkristin.com/2010/08/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-842010/ http://www.justkristin.com/2010/08/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-842010/#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 05:00:20 +0000 justkristin http://www.justkristin.com/2010/08/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-842010/

8/2/2010

8/2/2010

8/1/2010 — Pass the popcorn.

8/1/2010 — Unbelievably gorgeous

7/30/2010

8/1/2010 — Sweet Joshua, if you can make it, go! I’d be there if I could.

7/30/2010

7/24/2010

7/14/2010

7/21/2010

7/22/2010

7/26/2010

7/28/2010

7/29/2010

7/29/2010

7/26/2010

7/29/2010

7/26/2010

7/30/2010 — It may take you a minute.

7/30/2010 — Happy bug is happy! (via http://reddit.com ) ]]> http://www.justkristin.com/2010/08/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-842010/feed/ 0 http://www.justkristin.com/2010/07/see-kristin-write-write-kristin-write/ http://www.justkristin.com/2010/07/see-kristin-write-write-kristin-write/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:48:29 +0000 justkristin http://www.justkristin.com/?p=2417

I write like
William Shakespeare

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

*pause*

More amusingly, however, if I may distract my mind with something I have noticed over the last month or so, I would like to posit that I, along with many others, have begun to pray in a new and different way. I don’t know if it grew out of celebrity worship or from an innate(?) belief in the healing power of well-wishes, but it seems that the various social media venues have become conduits for modern kurushii toki no kamidanomi. I have, and have seen others, tweet or FaceBook-comment celebrities in order to get them to acknowledge or address some charity event, catastrophe, or even sick friend, relative or pet. Obviously, when spreading the word has a direct correlation to the amount of assistance a cause will receive, this is an understandable petition. Those of us, however, who simply want to hear, say, Neil Gaiman wish our ill loved one well, must have some other motive. As I can only speak for myself, I can say that in my case, the use of my own despair and the pain of my pet to garner some new proximity to fame is not reason in the slightest. I cannot think that of most people, really, if their anguish is true. That, then, leaves the idea, amorphous though it may be, that obtaining this blessing from a person you hold as a role model or personal source of inspiration will somehow work a kind of magic… Are we really that in need of gods? Reading what I’ve written, I can tell you with certainty that my cerebral mind scoffs at the idea. My sad little raised-Catholic inner monkey, however, knows that anyone who can create stories or art or music or humor that moves me must be able to help somehow. A nod on twitter as the new papal wave or portent? A saved re-tweet as a modern relic, and backups as reliquaries?

I need a nap. I need a nap with all my peeps and furbabies around me. Thank you to everyone who puts up with my drivel.

somnipipilation: made from Latin roots for sleep — “somnus” and twitter — “pipilo”

I will see it soon in the OED, I’m sure. :D

Such defences relied on a sympathetic jury to be effective. Not all juries were willing to hear extenuating circumstances, as a printed text from London in 1673 illustrated. A midwife and surgeon judged a servant girl’s infant to be stillborn:

but the law doth pronounce in such cases, by a statute of the 21th of King James, That if any child be unlawfully begotten, and be born dead, without one witness at the least, and concealing the same to hide their shame (or words to that effect) it shall be accounted as murder, so this woman being delivered of a bastard child (by her own confession), and concealing the same, the Jury found her Guilty of Murder.

Simply stated, then: a woman who gave birth unaided to a bastard, and loses it, could have — at the whim of a jury or judge — been found guilty of murder and put to death. One poor woman was denied help and turned out of her lodgings, only to give birth in the street. When the child died, she was found guilty of murder and put to death. Her case was not an isolated one, with some less sympathetic juries convicting women whose stillbirths were simply under-attended of murder. Even more curious, however, was the loophole King James opened for some women who, upon being able to prove (or fabricate proof of) a husband, were acquitted of murder, even when there was a baby’s corpse to hand. Mary Naples, for example,

was Indicted for Murthering her Male Infant , but it being proved she had a Husband, it was not comprehended in the Statute of King James, provided for the preventing lude women from Murthering their Bastard Children, so she was found not Guilty .

The case of Ann Price could have been judged either way by a modern jury, but should her attempts to get help have been proven true, hers too is an abominable case, resulting in her execution. Of course, there were also simple cases of verifiable infanticide, but without the benefit of diagnoses like post-partum depression or other mental illnesses. Here is one chilling example:

A wench was Condemn’d for murthering her Bastard-child . Being suspected by her Mistriss, and examined, she freely confess’d that she had put it into the House of Office, and that it crying, she pusht it down with a stick.

I know my fascination with all this seems odd to many, but I can’t help it. What with Old Bailey records from 1674 to 1913 freely available, and now newly added Ordinary of Newgate’s Accounts for the period from 1676 to 1772, I will be able to hide in crime for a long while longer.

You aren’t looking for them, but I found your two dogs.
Date: 2010-02-18, 4:42PM EST

Sigh. No one is looking for these guys. And I see why. They hump everything in sight, try to dominate our old doggies, try to eat our cats and pee on everything and bark at everything. Neurotic, lick constantly. They know no commands, either in English or Spanish. They are aggressive and probably lived in a puppy mill. You dumped them, probably, and we picked them up before they were killed by traffic. Unneutered, no tags, under 1 year old small males. I hate you, person who dumped these dogs. There are no lost ads on phone poles, no lost ad on Craig’s list, no lost ad in the paper. We put signs up all over, put a found notice in at the local pounds and if you were looking for these filthy little ragamuffins, you would have found them. We are afraid to take them to the pound because under stress, your dogs were snappy and horribly afraid and dogs are judged by temperament for adoption placement. They would not have passed that test. However.….

They are, under their filth, mats and horrible habits, adorable. They have learned “Quiet,” “Come,” “Sit.” They have stopped being so neurotic and we have broken most of their bad habits in just a few days. They are smart and sweet and are looking for guidance and WANT to be good little dogs. One is a purebred little white and buff guy with an under bite, the other is a brown little dog that looks almost exactly like a miniature version of a larger breed dog. They know each other and were obviously (by the same bad habits) raised (poorly) together. We will get them neutered, train them and get them into a good, loving home with people who use the brains God gave them.

If these are your dogs, come on by, I’d like to kick your ass.

* Location: Atlanta
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1607058449

• I had not wanted to build a lumber mill. Recycled paper goods are far superior, more readily renewable building resources like bamboo, hay-bale and rammed earth are just as readily available, and the impact of both of these on the ecosystem is lower… I was given no option for a recycling plant, however, and I would not foist my paper and wood needs onto other towns to assuage my own ecological guilt, so I built one.
• I also had no desire for a butcher shop. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see the killing when it happened (such is the sterilized nature of the game). It was simply horrific enough to know that the happy little cows that roamed my screen were occasionally made into sausage! However, I am not the type to force my beliefs onto others. I prepare non-vegetarian food for my family, so I couldn’t keep my townsfolk from their kielbasa. I built a butcher shop as well.
• I never had any real need for the rulers of my town to be so well-housed. Even if it were a monarchy, no ruler rules for long if their subjects see too great a disparity between themselves and the powers that be. The game left no option, however, for increasing the land holdings of my town without also adding on to the castle at its center. Here, too, I grudgingly gave in, promising to set aside whole citadel wings for hospitals and other social services.
• “They” took my magic cauliflower away from me, even though I had been growing it since level 20, and announced that it would only be made available again once I’d reached level 40. This needs no explanation, really. Stealing a woman’s magic cauliflower. Really.
• New expansion options were regularly added, and all were welcome until the most recent additions. Two of the four were a prison and a chopping block for capital punishment. If a butcher shop made me queasy, imagine the effects of these two celebrations of human cruelty! At the same time, ruby colored castles and ruby-fruit trees were also made available. Shocking displays of the misuse of wealth, I say! No thanks!
• Finally, even if all the previous points are just me being silly, the last straw was my realization that, despite being able to enact commerce with other players, there was nothing at all truly social about this game-that-isn’t-really-a-game. I realized that I was playing solely to get more stuff, by myself, for myself: A noxious addiction to something that, while somewhat relaxing in its rudimentary attempts at fostering creativity, was a complete waste of my time. These are not values I want to nurture in myself in real life, so why do so online, when I could actually be chatting with friends or writing poetry or watching my daughter skate or walking outside or napping with my dogs?

I have, instead, pulled out an old notebook and some crayons. Anyone want to make maps with me?

]]> http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/i-no-longer-rule/feed/ 0 http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/join-the-diaspora-i-have/ http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/join-the-diaspora-i-have/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 16:36:37 +0000 justkristin http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/join-the-diaspora-i-have/
]]> http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/join-the-diaspora-i-have/feed/ 0 http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/clowning-aside/ http://www.justkristin.com/2010/05/clowning-aside/#comments Sun, 02 May 2010 01:18:42 +0000 justkristin http://www.justkristin.com/?p=2400 I know I am not alone in my fear of clowns, and I am also aware of this fear’s irrational nature, especially since I 1) have never seen Stephen King’s It (and love Tim Curry enough to negate that movie’s creep factor even if I had), and 2) had spent quite a bit of my childhood as a friend of lovely clowns, one of whom I hope takes no offense at this revelation of my fear. Personally, I chalk it up to a mix of uncanny valley taint and the clowns’ faces being painted with discomfiting levels of exaggerated emotion. Someday, when I have the time, this not-uncommon fear might make an interesting research topic.

This post, however, is about something else from childhood that didn’t begin to scare me until adulthood, but which disturbs me far worse than clowns, and, I believe, for more and better reasons: the ice cream truck. Am I alone in this, I wonder? Here are some of my reasons:

• The vans, innocuous to children but recognizable to adults, especially those of my age or older, as colorfully decked-out and refrigerated versions of the vans we girls were told to avoid, and that held (less often than imagined but more often than is societally healthy) all-surface shag carpeting and a large mattress in the back when driven by mustachioed, hairy-chested, medallion-wearing disco man-whores (or their progeny).
• The horrible music, so warped that it couldn’t have been long after it started life as a sprightly, music box rendition of “the Entertainer” or “Turkey in the Straw” before it was somehow melted in the fires of hell into a wilted, minor-key version of its former self, a tune that somehow suggests ice cream to children and everything bitter and evil and corrupt to adults.
• The pictures of all the treats on the sides of the van, none of which could ever taste as good as they look, even at their most faded. Perhaps, viewed in a charitable light, this is a lesson taught early about the disappointments inherent in an inescapable adult life of cubicles and roach-coaches, but isn’t that a bit cruel? I mean, that’s like sitting at the food court above the ice rink and yelling at the young Olympic hopefuls having lessons below, “I hope you like doing triple-lutzes while wearing a Minnie costume!” (Perhaps they shouldn’t serve beer at the food court…)
• The incredible pull the damn ice cream truck has on children! They come running from everywhere at the sound of the truck’s ghostly tune, and with such demented fervor that I can only imagine them following it into the ocean if it went there, all of them slowly going under in a parade of screams and warm, clutched quarters, and melting Rocket Pops and a final dirge of that awful music…
• And, if that all were not enough, now there is this:
  
  Can you see it? Oh, the horror!!!
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