Bloopers

Matt Smith is the New Harvey Milk

Okay, not really.

I did, however, have something of an epiphany the other day when I was on Tumblr, and saw some pictures from a Doctor Who table read with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Davrill. I thought BOY THERE ARE SOME HIPSTERS. and then I realized that I didn't care that they were hipsters, mainly because I love them all so much.

This is, I grant you, a TERRIBLE comparison, but I thought Oh. Wow. Is this how some people feel when they realize someone they know or see every week on television is gay? Having grown up in the San Francisco bay area my initial reaction when I find out someone is gay is pretty much "Oh. Huh, didn't know that." or "Wow, good for you for coming out. That can't have been easy, I can't even imagine what you're going through." In other places, in other families, such revelations can be much more shocking and earth-shattering. That's not to say it's easy here, I'm sure it never is, but that's not my point in this post, so let's move on.

I've absolutely adored Matt and Karen from the moment they showed up on my screen. I think they're fantastic additions to the Who lineage, and from the interviews I've watched, they seem like genuinely likable people. They are, however, unabashedly hipsters.

I tend to have a knee-jerk eye-roll reaction when it usually comes to hipsters, and I think that should change. Obviously, you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, even if that cover is something someone can totally control and is a guise of their own making. So from here on out, I am going to try very hard to not dismiss hipsters out of hand merely because many of them look silly or act like holier-than-thou asshats. While many of them do, many more (or at least some) do not, and it is very wrong to paint those who do not with the same wide brush.

So here's to Doctor Who for once again changing my outlook on life. Well done, folks.

Moving In

After living here for nearly five months, I have finally tackled something that was really preventing this place from feeling like home: the kitchen. Sure, there's lots of issues with my current living arrangements (people up and noisy at all hours, weird food messes, too-small trash bins, no light in the living room, keep-to-myself-type house-mates) but the thing that bothered me the most was the kitchen.

For some reason the kitchen table was loaded with appliances, preventing it from being used as a proper table. Open shelf space next to the microwave was the resting place for about a dozen pots and pans, thrown about willy-nilly. There were paper and plastic bags piled in two or three cardboard boxes (ostensibly to save them for future uses) on the floor next to the refrigerator. There was a nearly permanent grime covering the top of the fridge, and the oven, not to mention the table.

Tonight, I finally conquered the kitchen!! Once I moved in, I felt I couldn't really change anything until I'd been around for awhile. There are 4-5 other people living here (one is a boyfriend who may or may not be an actual resident), and they've had things their way for Lord knows how long. As I was attempting to sit at the table to eat my dinner tonight, I realized that it was disgusting, and that I had to stay up for a few more hours to be on a conference call. So I buckled down and got to work. I chucked most of the bags that had been sitting there for ages. I scrubbed things. I rearranged appliances. When all was said and done, I was finally comfortable sitting in my kitchen.

It was a strangely liberating feeling a little while later when I walked into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and made a cup of tea. I've always said (okay, I probably have never said this, but I certainly believe it) that a house is not a home without a usable kitchen.

Next big task: attempting to make the living room a living room - a room one could actually sit and live in. I'm a big fan of organizing things and cleaning them up. Especially while I am unemployed and on break from school. It gives me something to do and makes me feel remarkably productive.

Can't wait for task #2 tomorrow!

Want to Help My Friend?

Hey my lovelies!

Want to help out my friend? She's working on her thesis college thing-y, and she needs submissions for her project.

Here's her message:

If you feel comfortable doing so, I would love if the next time you cry, you take a picture of yourself and send it to me.

Here are my requests for the photo:

1) You take it yourself (I want this to be completely self-motivated by you guys)

2) You're looking at the camera

3) It's mostly just your face in the frame (I don't care about a uniform background, though)

4) It's in color

Other than that, I don't care if you're great at photography or you barely use your camera. Just email me what you have. If you can send a high resolution, that's awesome, but if not, no worries. (Camera phones are iffy, but I don't have experience with iPhones...although their photos do look fairly legit.)

And by all means, don't make yourself cry for this project! Only do it if you find yourself crying in the next, oh, 1-6 weeks and your camera is nearby. Feel free to email/call me if you have any questions. I would really, really appreciate all of your help with this if you're willing. My promise to you: if you want to participate but feel weird about it, I'll take a photo of myself crying just for you!

Also, please tell your friends if you think they'd be up for it! (I kind of hope to get a few photos in my inbox of people that I don't know crying.)

Thank you all, and I love you! (And preemptively: feel better!)

Thanks from me, too!

Another Day, Another Daley

Today President Obama announced his permanent replacement for Chief of Staff, a post vacated by Rahm Emanuel when he left to run for mayor in Chicago. William Daley, of the Chicago Daleys, served as Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton from 97-2000, but mostly is known for his business relations. He's a more behind-the-scenes Daley, and was described as "double Rahm, double calm" by HuffPo's Howard Fineman.

Daley, not his protégé Rahm Emanuel, is the preeminent Chicago Democratic insider --

with twice the history and contacts, and twice the serenity, confidence and maturity in

wielding power....With his low-key demeanor, sense of personal decorum, and yen for

privacy and upright behavior in personal life, the 62-year-old Daley has accumulated a

lifetime of allies who now will help and respond to him in his new White House job.

What Daley brings to the table that some critics have argued for months now, is a businessman's point of view. As we approach the 2012 race, commentators like MSNBC's Joe Scarborough have argued that the President needs business on his side to prevent a troublesome run from someone like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The choice of Daley as the new CoS is bothering some on the left because of these very business credentials he brings with him. While not an idealistic liberal, Daley is more of the old-Democratic family style Democrats. For lack of a better description, he's a true-blue Chicago Democrat. He gets things done, he builds the right coalitions, and he (generally) in on the right (left) side. While he has criticized some policy pushes from the White House (spending a year on health care, parts of the Wall Street reform bill), he is a pragmatic Democrat who can really bring something to the White House that they've been missing lately.

Not too mention, he can keep people in line, pretty much the biggest part of the job.

111th Congress, I Think I Shall Miss You Most of All

Today the 112th Congress started up, with John Boehner becoming Speaker of the House. As we move into this (hopefully short) era of Republican rule of the House, I think it would be nice to look back on the accomplishments of the last congress. The Democrats website has a top-ten list, which has some of the greatest hits of the last few years.

It was an exciting time, filled with lots of great debates over important issues. Sure, there were some fairly dumb things. But hey, everybody says something dumb every once in awhile.

Eastern Elites

I was watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" today, and I realized that there's an opportunity to be had in this, the land of 5 trillion cable channels.

Our major news media outlets are insanely east-coast oriented.

I came across five different stories today about New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is not a candidate for president in 2012 (or IS he?). New Jersey is the eleventh most populous state in the union, with 8.7 million people, just over the entire population of New York City. Sure, Christie is doing some mildly noteworthy things, but California has more than four times as many people. Texas has 25 million people, and I haven't seen their governor show up in my sphere in awhile. Now, I live in California and Jerry Brown just got sworn in yesterday, so he's shown up in the news a little more than he normally would.

What there seems like there would be a fairly decent market for is a news network that doesn't focus on the handful of states in the northeast, but instead focuses on the entire rest of the country. Sure, New York City was covered in snow? Mention that. Detroit is now cheaper for corporations to home their call centers than India? Maybe spend a little more time on that. Michigan is home to nearly nine million people, and Detroit is just a hop skip and a jump from Ohio and Indiana. It's a big country, and there's plenty of news to be had outside the fact that the mayor of NYC gave an address partly in Spanish.