You're...Kidding Me, Right?

This is ridiculous.

Namely, the last paragraph.

Sunburn can be prevented by following such sun-protection measures as wearing a hat; covering up while in the sun; avoiding the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.; and using sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 or higher.

Um...it's 2007.

Do you really need to be told how not to get sunburned?

I think my faith in humanity just took another hit.

(By the way, as a grammar nerd, I'm ashamed to admit that I can't be certain about this, but...aren't the semicolons used incorrectly?)

Stargate Atlantis Comments

(Sigh)

Hit the back button right now if you don't like spoilers and/or did not see "Sunday."





1. If I've learned one thing about fandom by now, it's that Rodney, while appropriately guilty and traumatized now, will be back to hunky dory normal next week.

Witness SG-1, which has mentioned Janet maybe 5 times, shown her once, and mentioned her daughter once in a cut scene and once when Sam was dying.

2. Oh my frelling God, if you're going to steal the plot wholesale from SG-1 and whack your chief medical officer, don't steal the stupid eulogy too.

I mean, really. The best part about "Heroes" was Sam's eulogy, courtesy of Teal'c, pointing out that every life Janet saved was, in a way, keeping Janet alive.

3. If I know anything about fandom, there will be a lot of Ghost Carson Rodney/Carson fics ('cause, even though I haven't seen 'em, I'm sure they exist) 'cause that ending? Totally cheesy and totally an invite for...well...fangirly Ghost Carson hot lovin.

Eesh.

I fell in and out of like with SG-1 over the years (I'm currently in deep like, mostly 'cause of the whole Ori thing -- though the fact that I enjoy Vala tremendously and Mitchell often helps), but I've been mostly out of like with Atlantis.

The whole idea here...not lovin it. Sorry.

And it has nothing to do with my definite feelings of "meh" when it comes to the character.

Maybe it'll be better next year with Amanda Tapping -- my favorite episode this year was "McKay and Mrs. Miller," and the scene where Sam (played by an actress born in England and raised in Canada) mocks the Canadian "sorry" and the scene where she learns Rodney's real name is Meredith...priceless.

How to Hate a Book

You'd think I'd have learned with Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

Or How to Eat Fried Worms.

But no.

I had to eschew the pre-summarized high-interest, low-readability stuff readily available on the Internet and share one of my childhood favorites, Little House on the Prairie, with my kiddos.

Now, I teach kids with moderate to severe disabilities (though we're skewing towards the "moderate" this year)...they need the text summarized, simplified, and picture-supported. Hence my love for the pre-summarized adapted classics mentioned above.

We have 3 more chapters of Little House and I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

And More...

Ahem.

This is awesome.

I write mostly sci-fi fan fiction.

I have never flown in space. I have never flown in a wormhole. I have never met my alternate-reality self. I have never saved someone's life (that I know of). I have never (thinking of my stories, here, pardon me) wrecked my knee. Twice. I have never been involved in a wacky love triangle involving my late fiancee's brother and a Cylon.

In college, I took a class called The Holocaust in Literature and Film. For that class, I had to do a project. For that project, I created a compilation of diary entries from fictional people all over Lithuania during World War II. These included the school work (propaganda) of a 6 year old Lithuanian boy in favor of the Germans, someone telling the story of a Lithuanian resistance fighter (praising her), and (get this), a German soldier in the Luftwaffe (I think) talking about how horrible she was.

I hope I don't have to actually say that I'm not a 6 year old indoctrinated Lithuanian boy, 20 some odd year old Lithuanian resistance fighter, or a German Luftwaffe soldier.

I could go on.

But I'll just say this.

I also wrote about a deaf character.

I am...

...get ready...

not Deaf (culturally).

Or deaf (biologically).

Apparently, one of the those statements must be false, if you believe the folks who started all this. Maybe I should brush up on my ASL....

Only a Year and a Half?

Okay, so, here's the thing.

I forget what TV show it was on, but someone went on a rant about how, when you don't return a message, and then you feel bad about not returning the message, so you REALLY don't return the message 'cause it's all awkward?

(Geesh, I don't even watch Gilmore Girls, and that sounded...well...Gilmore Girls-y.)

Anyhow, the longer it was that I didn't update, the more I thought, "Wow, I should blog about this, only...well...I haven't blogged in forever and a day, and...."

Ahem.

Anyhow, reading a fellow teacher's blog inspired me to try to post regularly again.

Some posts will probably be about teaching, some about the disability rights movement, some about photography, some about family, and some about fandom.

You know -- same old, same old, from an eclectic teacher geek.

My first topic, however, is the "wank" going on over on LiveJournal.

Here's the thing. I don't actively read much fanfic anymore -- mostly a few old favorites. While I'm an equal-opportunity 'shipper, I mostly read rated PG-13 stuff at most. Yeah, a few of those qualify as slash, but I'm as likely to like Sue/Jack (from Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye), Mulder/Scully (um...if you don't know, you don't care about the fandom stuff I'm talking about here anyway), Riker/Troi (ST:TNG, and darned little of it exists!), John/Aeryn (Farscape), or Sam/Cameron (SG-1) as I am Xena/Gabrielle or Sam/Janet.

Here's the other thing. I shouldn't be, but I'm still kinda shy about the last two, and don't have slash or anything related listed in my interests.

To be honest, I don't get a lot of the 'ships (apparently, they are now called kinks, if they're not canon) out there. Opinions about slash aside, I just don't get Harry/Draco. And I really, really don't get, say, "twincest," which is one of the things ranted about in the link above (that would be Fred/George).

But randomly deleting communities because they write adult content about twins? I have no desire to read comms where that stuff is involved...but saying that you read about adult wizarding twins...ahem...boffing each other and saying that it's related to an online search for real pedophiles bothers me.

Deleting the personal journal of an incest survivor because "incest" was listed as an interest of hers bothers me.

Why?

Because, like many things, it's a slippery slope, and our increasingly puritanical society is getting slipperier and slipperier.

Because I consider myself at least something of an expert on World War II, but if I listed it, or, say, "Hitler," or "genocide" as an interest -- I might have been the next to go.

Never mind that my interest in that time is a sort of morbid fascination coupled with, believe it or not, my interest in the disability rights movement. (90+% of people in Germany with disabilities -- physical and intellectual -- were killed during WWII.)

I'm not a prolific writer, and my stuff is decidedly PG. Everytime I try to write more (such as a short Farscape story called "The Second Time" I've been working on), I get stuck. And I don't 'ship troublesome 'ships.

But I had to say something.

Meanwhile, I'm flashing back to my very first days on the Internet, in college, when I went looking for Star Trek fan fiction (which I'd just learned existed, but although my dad was a sci-fi person, he was not a fandom person), and stumbled upon the debate about debating about the flame war about debating about the flame war about debating about slash.

Eeesh.