"Isadore" by Azione Sacra is the Sepiachord "song" of the Day.

Azione Sacra

Tonight - December 27 - Treat yourself to a delightful evening at Malediction Society's 4th annual White X-Mas, presented by LADEAD: Los Angeles Darkside at the darkly delectable Monte Cristo in Los Angeles: 10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.

As a very special "thank you" gift to patrons, LADEAD will be offering free entry all night long! Celebrate the season on the spacious and elegant dancefloor while DJ Xian and DJ Amanda Jones spin the very best in goth, industrial, darkwave, EBM, aggrotech, synthpop, and elektro, as well as neoclassical carols...See you there - in finery of snowy white, candy red, or vibrant green...

Malediction Society: White X-Mas at the Monte Cristo
3100 Wilshire Blvd. (at Westmoreland)
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(just east of the Metro Redline station at Wilshire Blvd. and Vermont Ave.)

WHITE X-MAS @ MALEDICTION TONIGHT (FREE ALL NIGHT!!!)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27TH (21+)



FREE ENTRY ALL NIGHT LONG!!!

(Must RSVP "Yes" by 7PM on Sunday, December 27th)

Every Sunday in Los Angeles
Darkwave Industrial EBM Synthpop Elektro
with DJ Amanda Jones and DJ Xian
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LADEAD: LOS ANGELES DARKSIDE
www.LADEAD.com

We had a good Christmas this year, all around it was nice, nothing bad happened every one got what they wanted and the house did not catch fire,( not that it was supposed to). We did a large Christmas gathering in Dallas with Bens family on the 19th before the holidays really started, with lots of food and family and babies underfoot. I cannot remember any of there names, but give it time I am sure I will meet them all again some time. Christmas with my family was some what smaller, no large gathering this year, which means we did not have to hang out with the side of the family that I am not so fond of. Always a good thing. So we ate lots of food and drank lots of wine and watched Christmas movies. On Christmas day proper we opened all our gifts, I made out like a bandit, two corsets(one being the final custom Luise Black), two signed Neil Gaimen books and awesome soon to be steam punk purse from my mum, mud boots, cook books and all manor of exciting things. Ben got his PS3, arkam asylum, and little big planet, as well as a signed top chef cook book, and other random goodness. by 10AM my mother and I were happily drinking mimosa's, lots of mimosa's as she decided we needed to drink the magnum of champagne that I had brought home for thanksgiving the previous month when there had been 5 other people to help us drink it. But we were successful in our venture and between the two of us, emerged victorious over the bottle before it was time for lunch. At this point we packed up the car and went and saw my grandmother, which was the lowest point of the day, but not all bad, she was in a good mood, but didn't recognize any one but my mother and father, which is to be expected as they see her every day and my brother and I do not. But other than that it was a relatively calm holiday. Christmas night we dressed up to go watch Sherlock Holmes which was much fun and then home again. Ben started playing Batman, and that was the end of the night. Yesterday was spent doing absolutely nothing, being loafs and only getting dressed to go out for lunch. Today is much the same, though I totally need to get dressed and go food shopping. I am tempted to go to the Outlet mall for post Christmas deals, I need to do Christmas shopping now for all the people I wont see for another month. yeah its sort of cheating, but what ever. It works and its cheaper, so they are more likely to get nicer gifts, heh.I will probably do that tomorrow. And today I am going to read and do lots of nothing other than a little sewing.

I have to admit that I giggle every time I consider how far the Dallas Observer has fallen from its perceived heights in 2000, when its parent company bought out competitors Fort Worth Weekly and The Met, and castrated one and shut down the other. The publication is a walking corpse these days, unable and unwilling to cut loose writer Robert "The James Lipton of Science Fiction" Wilonsky and try to become a readable paper again. The rest of the publication continues to follow in the "New York Post-meets-The Onion" blend of overwrought hysteria and unjustified and humorless snark that's served it since New Times Publications bought the paper and brought in editor Peter Elkind to drive it into the ground. These days, reading it reminds you of the joke about how many people continue to watch Saturday Night Live, no matter how painful or pointless it may be and no matter how badly the show's soul begs for a quick and final death, and the fact that it's still going a decade after its big revamp says a lot about the need for Dallas strip clubs to find advertising venues after Google put a blanket ban on "adult-oriented businesses".

Columnist Jim Schutze is symptomatic of the Absurder's pain: the last in a succession of former Dallas Times Herald staffers hired on solely to spite the Dallas Morning News, Schutze's riff was tired back when he was at the Times Herald in 1980, when I first started paying attention to the newspaper as something other than a support mechanism for the comics. Schutze does for Dallas city news what Wilonsky does for film reviews, by pretending to worry about the Teddible, Teddible State of Things when all he's really worried about is not enough people paying attention to him. Typical state of affairs for newspaper and magazine columnists (he said, with not more than a scoopful of self-loathing), and one that Schutze occasionally overcomes by proving that even a blind pig can find an acorn now and then. For instance, with his warning about how Dallas City Hall just won't rest until the various farmer's markets in the city are under its complete control.

Fact is, he's right on this. Dallas has a lovely track record of interfering to protect one interest and managing to drive them all into the ground. Just look at the track record for our nascent arts and music community. When the Deep Ellum area started popping up after the city paid millions for its West End yuppie playground, the original response was to regulate the clubs and harass the patrons of Deep Ellum into oblivion. Then it was a matter of city interference to "clean up the area" and incidentally make it desirable for outside investors wanting to cash in on its new prestige. Then, when the Victory Plaza area opened, both the now-withered West End and Deep Ellum were savaged with rumors of "gang-related activity" to move slummers into the new playground. Now, Deep Ellum is skeletal, the West End is a joke, Victory Plaza is a recession-scarred hulk, and the same greedheads who decided that they don't want to play with broken toys any more are looking at the Bishop Street area of Oak Cliff with plans for "improvement". Yeah, I can see that happening with farmer's markets, too.

• 17:12 Descartes is finally mostly back to normal... Still kinda finicky about starting up... #

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This is going to sound like blasphemy, but I have determined that my limit for chocolate-covered bacon is four bites. I think in Texas, I was only able to eat about four bites at a time.

Maybe I'm a bacon purist.  I know I'm a pancake purist. Pancakes are totally awesome, don't put chocolate chips or blueberries in them, it only masks the flavor of the fluffy little breakfast cake.

I guess there's some food that's just so awesome that people's attempts to improve them will just be novel.

Alex and I sold the coffeeshop to Jonathan, Katy and Stephanie.

We still have the roastery.

I have so many feelings mashing and swirling around, I can't really parse them yet.

This is a major milestone in my life and beneath the cacophony of emotion, I know it is the right thing to do. I have not one iota of remorse. Trepidation, sure. Regrets, not an ounce.

It has been a big part of my life for many years now. It was even a big part of my identity, which was something I fought against for the first few years but eventually came to understand that this was the nature of owning a business like that, in the town where we live. Years ago, by way of illustrating to me that my attitude and activity in every part of my life (and in particular what I did on the Internet) had become related to my job, Michael Duff told me: "Congratulations, now you're the Dixie Chicks." It was a hard lesson to learn.

I am looking forward to being an anonymous student.

...I haven't written in here since forever ago, I'm practically blowing the cobwebs off. Did I mention to you that I am in school? After many rejection letters, last quarter I won a free ride in financial aid grants, amazingly. What else could I do but take it and run! That means this past quarter has been a whirlwind - the first full-time quarter I've ever completed in my life, while facilitating the transfer of my biggest asset, working 20-30 hours per week, and doing the usual mom stuff.

I surprised myself with straight A's, despite being certain that I was going to flunk out of Astronomy, which was a humbling experience. I really struggled in that class, to the point that I read books about how to read books (science texts). I purchased additional materials to study from, that weren't even on the text list (thank you, Michael's Books!). Even with that, I was averaging 60% every week on the quizzes. I was so desperate not to flunk out and lose my aid, I did everything I possibly could not to fail. I attempted every extra credit, increased my study hours, declined multiple social invitations (sorry about that, Nups, Allie, and Arianne) and grovelled to my instructor to beg for study tips. I passed the final exam with only 60%, and waves of deflation and dejection washed over me. That is, until two weeks later when grades came out; I guess she graded on a curve or something.

I am thankful for the coffeeshop because without The Black Drop experience, I would not have developed the self discipline for college. I only attempted last quarter because I figured that if I could get an A and an A- while taking care of Mom at the cancer apartment, maybe I could pull this quarter off too - but even so I was terrified of fucking up. I was convinced that my instructors back then just felt sorry for me and gave me pity grades for the challenges my family had been facing at the time.

I'm a late bloomer. This ain't my first rodeo; I have tried to go to college many, many times over the years. My transcripts are practically a portfolio - papers from five different community colleges, peppered with W's and I's. It takes me a looooong time to master the skills that so many of you had as teenagers. I think it's also true to say that as I watched many of you grow up and become adults (and get degrees!) I learned these skills from you, too.

I am really looking forward to being present and focused on my family while Tristan goes through high school. He takes after me, in some ways he is a late bloomer, too. School is difficult for him. And I don't want him to be a latchkey kid anymore.

Things I would like to do in the future:

Get a tan
Swim with Tristan without feeling self conscious
Go fishing
Paint the interior of my house
Paint the exterior of my house
Really, really keep my house clean and organized
Plant a proper garden and invest the time it takes to maintain it
Pay off my debts
Buy new clothes in a size 10
Write a book
Earn a degree in Human Services
Find a job working with homeless, low income or agricultural housing
Afford a vacation
Teach Tristan how to drive
Rediscover Bellingham
Get my hair did

Hi, if i'm not allowed to pimp my community please delete.
buffyquestions is a new community for asking and answering questions about Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. Got a question? Know a lot about the Whedonverse? Then come on over.

:)

Saw this while I was poking through a recipe site looking for ideas on repurposing five thousand pounds of holiday cookies.

http://www.chow.com/stories/11925

It is adorably simple advice.

Hello,

For the past couple of days, I have been grappling with the blue screen of death (BSoD) to the tune of Driver_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

After much fretting, AVG 9.0 purchasing, researching, advice getting from friends, I have pretty much ruled out virus and think it is a hardware issue. Thing is, I know nothing about hardware.

So, my question to you is: If you lived in the Capitol Hill area and traveled by Metro, where would you take your computer to be repaired (that didn't charge two arms and three legs and didn't keep your computer for three months or more?)?

Thank you in advance!

Having just finished reading Ariel Levy's book on "Female Chauvinist Pigs", I thought I'd write down my impressions on how the book critiques modern feminist culture where young women now strive to be the sexiest rather than the most accomplished.  To quote Levy, "if Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of women and of ourselves" and how this is far from empowerment as we are still objectified.

Everywhere around us, there is sex.  Implants, thongs, vaginoplasty. a Playboy Bunny necklace being worn by Carrie in Sex and the City.  Pole dancing as a hobby, women visiting strip clubs, and Barbie-doll expectations of a women's body: big lips, fake breasts and blonde hair.  Popular culture has embraced a model of female sexuality that comes straight from pornography in which the women's job is to excite and titillate.  Levy argues that women either want to be "one of the men" or they want to be like the "siliconised" women they think appeal to men, and that wanting male approval is propping up male culture and undermining ourselves.  We have confused sexual power with power so that this raunch culture is perceived as feminism.  For Levy, this is a betrayal of feminism.

It's a good book but made me uneasy.  It's hard to know what to think because some women are empowered by their embrace of raunch.  There are sexually aggressive women out there who are happy.  But then I find it uncomfortable that sex is everywhere, that you see children dressing seedily, or women who undergo painful operations to alter their body so they appear more attractive to men.  The book is a provocative call to arms and should be read.

Hi, if i'm not allowed to pimp my community please delete.
buffyquestions is a new community for asking and answering questions about Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. Got a question? Know a lot about the Whedonverse? Then come on over.

:)

Gentle persons:

I write to you as your hostess of the 5th annual TempleCon Retro-Futurist gaming convention, a weekend that embodies the spirit of temporal creation, featuring a plethora of games, performances, stories, and diversions that explore Retro-Futurist genres such as Steampunk, Neo-Victorianism, Weird West, Dieselpunk, Decopunk, Raygun Gothic, and Cyberpunk - all past visions of the future that are being re-examined in modern times and re-envisioned in modern terms. These are anachronisms with attitude, independence and idealism versus monolithic conformity and control, girded with the true grit and superior fashion sense required to go adventuring in the wasteland of civilization's decay. Mix in a healthy helping of elder gods, piracy, and revolutionary mayhem (this is Rhode Island, after all!), and you have a time-bending Retro-Futurist experience the likes of which no other convention dares to offer.

You are cordially invited to join us on the weekend of February 5th, 6th, and 7th, in the glorious Crowne Plaza Hotel in the city of Warwick, in the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  We offer a rare array of Retro-Futurist amusements, including the premiere of the Unhallowed Metropolis theatre game led by the game's developers plus multiple other Unhallowed Metropolis events; appearances, lectures, classes, and panels by G.D. Falksen, The Penny Dreadfuls, George Higham, Jason Soles, Nicole Vega, Leanna Renee Hieber, Kelley Hensing, C.J. Henderson, Simon Berman, Robert Tritthardt, The Rhode Island Pirate Players, and more; a weekend-long Retro-Futurist costume contest as well as a Makers' Masquerade for Retro-Futurist costumers to show their creations on stage and a Retro-Futurist Fashion Show featuring work by multiple designers; steampunk seances by mentalist Rory Raven; a Neo-Victorian High Tea; retro-futurist dance performances by Ela Rogers, Ameena, Troupe Moirae, Neylan, Tempest, La Paloma, Samara, Happy Hour Burlesque, and more; musical performances in our Diesel, Deco, and Dance event by the Dirge Carolers, Sasquatch and the Sick-a-billys, and more; plus numerous vendors in our Clockwork Bazaar, and a stunning assortment of games in various genres.

Please be so kind as to peruse our pages on the Aethernet:  http://www.templecon.org/ and be sure to pre-register soon for this Retro-Futurist extravaganza!

I look forward to hearing from you and meeting you in person at the grand event!

Most Sincerely,

Madame Ximon
TempleCon Creative Director
http://www.templecon.org/

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank everyone who came out to today's Chrononauts' Winter Stroll. I had a wonderful time, and I hope that you all did as well. I know there were a number of pictures taken and I look forward to seeing each and every one of them!

In addition, I'd like to set you all on the very lovely site http://www.fashion-era.com, which has numerous wonderful references for vintage clothing. I hope you all find it useful.

Regards,
-G. D. Falksen

• 19:12 @alyankovic Good news is with all the security they catch every single ter......ewwww wait...... never mind. #

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