beyond the wide world's end

Woman of Steel: Female knight making her mark in competitive jousting. Look how happy she looks! (Click on the picture -- there are several of them you can scroll through.)

(Via Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor, and them via Fuck Yeah Women in Armor, which is another tumblr I didn't know about which now seems likely to make me happy all day, though the armor is less reasonable.)

Via rydra_wong, from Vegan About Town

"I am pleased to announce that I am hosting Potluck #2: Comfort Food. Submissions can cover anything you like, and you do not have to stick to the theme! but please remember that we are trying to talk about intersections. Potluck is, after all, intended to be a carnival for multicultural and intersectional discussions of food, including but not limited to food discussions intersecting with disability, gender, sexuality, fat, animal rights, and cultural and racial issues. How many times have you gone to eat your comfort food, only to be told it's gross and weird and disgusting? How many times has advertising told you that your comfort food is wrong and terrible?"

So this turned up on my dwircle this morning and I went, "Wow, that's really appropriate." Because I've been eating a lot of comfort food this year, though I didn't really articulate it as such until March 11, when I was running around and crying and trying to get in contact with my relatives and trying to get a phone, when I made my roommate go with me because I didn't want to be wandering around in hysterics and tears in a neighborhood I didn't know when it was coming on dark. And she said, "Let's go to Kyoto for dinner, since we're up here anyway." So we went to dinner, and I ended up getting tekkadon, miso soup, hot green tea, and green tea ice cream. And that was what I needed. That was exactly what I needed. If I'd been home, I probably would have been crying into a bowl of curry-and-rice with salt and vinegar potato chips stuck into it like grave markers, and that would have been comfort food too.

I grew up eating Japanese food, but it wasn't the only thing I ate, and sometimes I wasn't very fond of it. Miso, for example -- that we had a lot, and I would fish out the little cubes of tofu, eat them, and give the broth to my mother. It wasn't something I would eat by choice, but I realized that day at Kyoto, clutching the bowl of miso soup they'd given me, that this was the food of comfort, of home, of family. And I realized why I'd been making, and eating, a lot of food with Asian flavors this year -- the first time I'm living somewhere on my own with a kitchen. It's not the food I grew up eating, but it's comfort food. The flavors are what's there. The idea that, somehow, eating gyoza or white rice or miso is a tie back home, to my family, to the generations that came before me. I've had a really stressful school year. Food helps.

So, yeah, I think I'm going to try and write something for this potluck. I think there's a flip side to the Japanese flavors = instant comfort part two, embedded somewhere in me experimenting with Scandinavian flavors and recipes this year.

Coincidentally, as I write this I've been sipping miso soup out of coffee cup. (It's instant, organic, and non-Japanese; the flavor's not quite where I'd like it to be, but it's better than nothing.)

Have had this link open in my browser all day long, because lion cubs = adorable. Also spots!

Lion cubs are often spotted and can remain so for some time; some people believe that legends of the marozi came from people sighting juvenile lions and assuming they were fully-grown. And there is your trivia for the day.

If you are going, "Marozi, marozi, where have I heard that before?" it may be because they show up here. Keep an eye on the marozi; they're about to be very important. And there is your tantalizing hint for the day!

Dunwoody to become first female four-star general.

Central Washington offers the ultimate act of sportsmanship

This? Is my town, and Central's coach is my AP Gov teacher. He was telling us about this story today.

Go Ellensburg.

The Air Force Reaches For the Sky (from Yahoo! news)

Clearly the only reason the Air Force needs all those guns is because the SGC needs them to defend Earth. *wide eyes*

Playing around with the haiku generator.

was done and then i
started thinking about what
you did to stella

( more haiku )

Okay, one more:

is of course but the
code also said there is a
long time gone the old

Potter 6 casting complete. I know who none of these actors are, but hey, you never know. I gave up on the HP movies except as eye-candy a long time back.

Mulberry hearts NY. Nothing particularly interesting here; I just wanted to point out that Mulberry Street is where the original precinct/crime lab for CSI:NY was located.

There Will Be Blood. Huh. The trailer is nicely cinematic and attention catching, if a little long -- some nice visuals, though. Not really sure how interesting the movie actually is.

Love in the Time of Cholera. Looks almost sickly sweet -- also, hi, looks like adultery too -- but has some really, really great visuals.

I Am Legend. This I want to see. Come on, Will Smith! Action-adventure! Post-apocalyptic New York! And a dog! What more do you really need, aliens?

Saawariya. Gorgeous, gorgeous visuals and music. Otherwise, completely pointless trailer. But god, those are pretty pictures.

The Mist. Stephen King, so. Looks pretty interesting, actually, although horror typically isn't my thing.

This Christmas. I think it looks cute. You know, family comedy about Christmas, those are always fun if they're done well, and this one doesn't look bad.

Purple Violets. Oh, god, another one. Love, second chances, miserable people, same old, same old.

Starting Out in the Evening. I sense that this is trying to connect writing to life in some way, but it's not quite working, at least for me.

Redacted. Hi, yeah, the entire trailer is pretty much all accolades. Oh, wait, it's a war movie. Gee, I couldn't tell.

P.S. I Love You. Oh my God, finally something that looks like an adorable story about love and living. Honestly, it's not like I ask for much.

Beowulf. Christ, it's like 300 all over again, except 300 didn't look so annoyingly animated.

GUYS GUYS I CAN JOIN THE AIR FORCE. My eyes, despite my fears to the contrary, are just within regulation badness. This is very cool.

This is also a nice addendum to the fact that the first of my friends, upon being told that I'm planning to do AFROTC in college, told me that this was really cool and she was going to tell her dad, who used to be a drill sergeant in the Army. He still drills down the marching band every year. All my other friends? "That's really weird. Why would you want to do that? Aren't you going to die? Are you going to be on active duty? That's really unexpected for you," which is...not really the most encouraging thing I've ever heard. In, you know, contrast to my parents, who are enthusiastic about the whole thing, but they've heard me rationalize the whole thing out. And y'all heard about my AP Gov teacher (who doesn't know I'm planning on doing AFROTC), but my AP U.S. History teacher, who I talked to at the end of last year, is all for it. Of course, he's the one that was career Army. I guess it is kind of weird for my friends, but, well. It would be nice to have a little more support from that end of the spectrum.

In other news, to celebrate, I feel I should and will keep a running tally of all the random crap I have to look up to write my Spaceforce novel for, at the very least, the month of November. Starting from a few days ago.

75th Ranger Regiment and battalions 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
Fort Benning, GA. Home of the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
Fort Stewart, GA. U.S. Army post attached to Hunter Army Airfield.
Hunter Army Airfield, GA. Home of the 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, also one of NASA's alternate landing strips for space shuttles. (Where Beau Lorne is stationed.)
Rock Hill, SC. Satellite city of Charlotte, NC. (The Lorne family clanstead.)
various South Carolinian cities in the vicinity of Charlotte in order to find the perfect one to be the Lorne family clanstead.
Distance and travel time from Rock Hill, SC, to Fort Benning, GA. (Important in determining where Beau is stationed; see below.)
Time and distance from Rock Hill, SC, to Hunter Army Airfield, GA. (Important for future plot point.)
Army Combat Uniform. Latest Army combat uniform; replacing phased-out BDUs.
Company Commander. Rank and duties of a company's commanding officer. (What does Beau Lorne do?)
First Sergeant.
Arabic Swearing. (Beau, again.)
Armored Personnel Carrier.
U.S. Military Aircraft.
UH-60 Black Hawk.
M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.
U.S. DoD Aerospace Vehicle Designations. (How do they decide to name an ASPC?)
U.S.A.F Aircraft.
U.S. Army Service Uniform. Latest Army service dress uniform.

And that's just the stuff that was useful. A lot of the stuff I looked at wasn't.

This is strangely awesome.

I mean. Come on. Flying robot insect spies. How is that not pretty fucking cool?