ZOMG SHOEZ Blogaround

One of the more common blogging traditions appears to be Friday cat blogging. Or dog blogging! Or on some other day. The point is to A) show the world your beloved beasty and maybe B) share something more from your life (this is particularly true of political blogs).  I’ve always enjoyed beasty blogging on socio-political blogs as it fleshes out the online persona of the blogger, giving us more of an idea of who they are. Even the political blogs will do this, eg Shakesville! *waves at Liss* I also like it because regular readers will often comment about their own beasties, thus aiding in the creation of a sense of community. And this is why so many of us are on these blogs, isn’t it? Not only to stretch our minds and join in various analyzes, but to create community while we do it. How I long to actually live in a radical (preferably mostly lesbian) feminist community! Hell, for many of us, just finding people who are reasonably lefty would be grand. So beastie blogging has its value, apart from being a cute tradition – it also brings us closer together.

In a similar vein to Beasty Blogging, I would like to follow in the esteemed Ms. McEwan’s footsteps *ahem* and blog about shoes. Not just any ol’ shoes, my kittens, no. I’m talking John Fluevog of Vancouver Canada. The star of many a goth’s shoe fantasies let me tell you. They are funky and whimsical and often very comfortable, and I think I could buy a couple of thousand dollars worth of his shoes – and if you check out the prices in the links you’ll see that that would mean about… 6 pairs. Yeah, being all Mr. Designer, his stuff is expensive.

However! Just look!

also gorgeous in red!

Apparently this is a humor blog now…

All the greatest scientific minds of the ages were hanging out in heaven. They decided to play hide and seek. Einstein agreed to seek first, so he covered his eyes and started counting to a hundred.

“One… two… three…”

All the scientists ran off to find hiding places, except Newton. Instead, he drew a big square and stood right in the middle of it. When Einstein reached 100, Newton was standing right in front of him.

“Newton is out!” he shouted to the other scientists.

“No, that’s not true,” said Newton. “I’m not Newton.”

By this time the other scientists had come out of their hiding places, and they informed him that he most certainly was Newton, and so it was his turn to seek.

“But the area of this square is exactly one meter,” he tells them. “At one Newton per square meter, I am actually Pascal. So Pascal is out!”

Pascal closed his eyes and started counting to a hundred.

Women’s Comedy: Elvira Kurt Edition

Sunday is a good time for the light-hearted, and following the developing tradition of comedy Sundays at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, I thought I would introduce you all to my favourite stand-up comedian, Elvira Kurt. As with my other posts introducing female artists, there’s a good chance that some or many of you have already heard of her – like my fellow Canadians for example! But as the mainstream media is saturated with men’s stories, men’s art and men’s viewpoints, I believe it’s important to keep highlighting as many brilliant women as we can. Think of it as a fun kind of activism

Every summer I attend Michfest to relax, to be on wimmin-only land healing from growing up female in a patriarchy, to be surrounded by several thousand lesbians (!), and to discover and celebrate female artists. Elvira Kurt has been there every year I’ve attended as well, making us all laugh and laugh and laugh. If she comes to your town you should go see her! She’s awesome

Here’s a taste:

Happy New Year!

 

I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve celebrations, either in the city with tons of people or at home with your family or wherever you may be found. May the new year be filled with more love, more peace and  more bounty than the last.

Myself, I’m having a nice evening at home with my family watching my mom’s new big screen tv (yes we’re spoiled . Outside it’s snowing again but we’re all cosy together inside, with our animal friends curled at our feet.

Take care everybody! and Happy New Year!

Introduce Yourself

Hey Lurkers

While Gender Goggles is a fairly quiet little blog, eloriane and I would very much like to see more people commenting. I can understand how hard it is, sometimes, to add to a discussion, or find something useful or insightful to say. I’m a big lurker myself! I’m usually lurking at the blogs I read daily, in fact. And it’s certainly not that I don’t want people to know I’m there, or what I think. More often than not it has to do with what I’ve just said: I’m generally disinclined to just pop in to say “yeah!” and that’s it. Sometimes, as writing usually takes me so long, I just don’t really have the time for a well-thought out response. And on larger blogs that generate dozens to hundreds of comments per post those little “me too” comments can slow discussions down. But on smaller blogs like this one, sometimes those “me too” comments are welcome because at least we know someone is reading! Of course, eloriane and I can tell from the blog stats that we do have people popping in to read all the time, however they largely remain faceless.

So I thought that this might be an easy-going way for our regulars (we have some, I’m sure, heh) and for those just surfing by to stop in and just say hello. Feel free to introduce yourself, or just say hi, whichever you prefer! And yes, I realize that lurkers may also be shy and that to some degree I’ve just asked shy people to speak up! But please try – go on, take the plunge. You may realize you like it! (hey Tycho! say something! I shall give you double-extra points for pants, today only :-p )

So say hello and introduce yourself! I promise we won’t bite

ATTENTION, INTERNET! Re: RICKROLLING.

I secretly love being rickrolled. It’s funnier every time it happens! Maybe it would get annoying if it happened more often, but as it is, it’s like losing The Game– every time somebody reminds me that it exists, I am overjoyed at the ridiculousness of our darling interwebs.

Seriously, isn’t this one clever? And just poke around this site a bit and I guarantee that when you find it, it will make you smile. One April Fool’s Day, I was rickrolled by a webnovel I was reading– the chapter started out normally but then, sure enough, one character declared, “We’re no strangers to love!”

Honestly, it doesn’t take a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade to impress me. Just “check out this vid doodz” will make me laugh if I’m not expecting Rick. Which means, alas, that rickrolls in this particular comments thread are less likely to make me grin, just because I’ll be expecting them. It also means that the rickrolls I’m sending to you now probably will be less delightful, because you didn’t stumble upon them at random– you already know what they are. (Though the execution is probably still worth noting.)

I think it must be the surprise that makes it so fun for me, and the fact that it’s ultimately not a very unpleasant surprise probably helped it spread; if it actually made people angry, it would be too mean-spirited to be fun outside of 4chan.

And oh man, is there anything better than meta-rickrolls? Just read this! And this! And THIS!

Internet, today I love you. But don’t get used to it.

Hey, awesome friends, over here!

So, one awesome friend has already started a letter game with me (!!!) and given that success, I thought I ought to post about THIS awesome thing that would be awesome to do with awesome friends. Of awesomeness.

The short version: send and receive creative presents!

The long version: um, I already gave you a link to the long version. What, you’re too awesome to click my links? Then I guess you’re also too awesome to recieve presents from me!

I have some awesome friends.

Dudes! I’m friends with this guy!

No, not Brian Shrader– whoever he is– Greg!

I was googling him to try to find his blog, and this was the top hit. At first, I thought it was someone awesome who just happened to have the same name, but no! It’s actually my friend!

Clearly, I have the most awesome friends ever.

Time for a random YouTube video!

Ever wish songs just sang what happened in the music video? Well, now they do.

Scenes from a life: working at the library on three hour’s sleep.

• Why do people name their children things like Xixian? Don’t they know that library volunteers will need to call them someday? We need to inform them that an item they requested is available and we’ll be holding it for them until September 30th, but when faced with a name like Xixian, or Celteste, we don’t know how to begin speaking. It’s enough to make a girl resort to unauthorized postcards.

• Why ask the random shelving peon if something’s on the shelves when there are seven computers mere feet away? Peons alphabetize, grappling with problems on the level of “Do I put Barbara Streisand in S with all the Streisand, Barbara CDs or in B because that’s how the label was printed?” Peons do not have the entire inventory of the library memorized. If you ask this peon, “Do you have Grumpy Old Men?” she will simply ask you “Did you check the directory? If it’s not there, I’m afraid we don’t.” It’s a good thing peons are friendly, though, so if you are a tiny old woman they will probably walk those mere feet across the room for you, type in your 12-letter query, and say, “Yes! It’s under G.” If you look sufficiently baffled, she will also walk over to the G section and hand you one of the three copies on the shelves.

• If you do not have a working phone number, or do not expect your phone service to be reliable, do not instruct the library to call you to inform you when holds are available. Give them your street address to receive postcards, or, if you have one, an email address. Do not give them the number for your modem or fax machine. Do not give them the number for your friend across town. We cannot give your information to your friend across town. Or to your modem.

• People are seriously obsessed with the Twilight book series. Seriously. They might up a quarter of the holds I call in every day. They’re at least a third of the volume. I kind of want to read one to figure out what the fuss is all about, but like I said, they’re all on hold. Plus they’re enormous. Great cover art, though.

• There is nothing sadder than trying to call someone to tell them that we have their requested copy of Republican Hate-Mongering 101, only to find that both their phone numbers have since been disconnected.

• There is nothing happier than discovering that your cart of audio books to shelve has been pre-alphabetized, so that all you have to do is walk in a straight line and stick them in the right places.

• I become surprisingly easy-going when I pass over from “tired” into “exhausted,” but all too soon “exhausted” becomes “slightly faint” and then it’s time to go home. And attempt to blog.

EDIT: Just had to add that I’ve found a new “best” name: Chacheata. First name.

Also, I’ve been informed that Xixian is probably not an exciting new way to spell “Christian,” but rather, a Chinese name (shuh-shan). Now that I know to make “sh” noises instead of “cks” noises, it’s a very pretty name and I quite like it. I fail. Sorry