The Venn Spectrum of Geekdom

Interesting take on the groups but I've never known two people to have the same definition of 'geek'. It's one of those things you just recognise without being able to properly define it. There's also no scale for levels of geekdom.

Geek Cookies!

I so want to make cookies like this. Maybe Lego-Batman though.

Guaranteed to Work, Sexual assault prevention tips that really work!

I loathe these lists but this? Is one I can totally and utterly support. It's actually exactly what it claims to be.

Lastly Accidental Historian's Dream Bigger

( Cut for ramblingCollapse )

Lastly, could someone pretty, pretty please tell me why the Ice Road Truckers and Extreme Logging programs are on the History Channel? I know the channel has the reputation of being short-term and fixated on WWII but seriously? A reality show is history? (I wish, I wish).

Just once, I'd like to see a "women's" magazine that isn't about making you feel a) old, b) fat, c)ugly, d) unfashionable and/or e) voyeuristic in the worst possible way.

I do admit to being a curious person. I want to know how people are feeling, what they're planning and how life's treating them. (It occurs to me a little too late that these are also symptoms of paranoia. Oops?) However, I honestly don't care about a overpaid, overexposed celebrity who lives practically on the other side of the planet.

It used to be something that bugged me in the vague sense; it was like sitting beside the classmate in school who dissected their sandwich every lunchtime, despite the fact that their Mammy gave them exactly the same thing every day, without fail. Not my preference but hey, if it does it for you, go ahead.

But as I get old and cranky, the magazines loom larger in my world view. I don't like them and I think I've finally figured out why. They're all the same. They all peddle the same narrow world view.

Nothing too earth-shattering about that, but I've been in and out of newsagents all weekend (usually looking for an ATM) and the magazines on display are practically identical. There is the bottom shelf - newspapers. There's the shelf above that - Ireland's Own, Reader's Digest and the Housewife Magazines (the ones that include helpful tips for dealing with children, marriage and the daily routine of housework) Woman's Own, Bella etc. The third shelf is the woman's shelf - Cosmopolitan and clones. Then there's the top shelf, helpfully situated at eye level - Porn and a scattering of 'sports' magazines.

There aren't any options on offer; not real options. The message is unanimous and it scares me. "Be skinny, be blonde, be sexy, be fashionable, be popular." Fit the mold, be the girlfriend of the manly, manly man.

Shouldn't there be another option in there somewhere?

Moving o- PADDINGTON BEAR SELLING MARMITE?! The Hells? I thought he was a marmalade-ivore? Why must advertising brutalise my childhood?

Also, phone-sex lines have to be one of Ireland's biggest growth industries. I'm counting at least three different ads in two four-minute breaks. Mind you, the 'to text a guy, text to XXXXX, to text a girl, text to XXXX' makes me wonder if the caller's gender is a factor?

The NutriGrain horse ads baffle me.

So, going to give up on trying to make AIM work, walk the fuzzbutt and tidy up so I can get to the gallery before meeting up with deannawol and everyone else.

So, I consider myself a feminist.

Feminism, as the saying goes, is the shocking notion that women are people.

Feminism isn't easy. Our society has some fairly nasty inequalities and discriminations, most a holdover from the pre-World War society (in my own humble opinion). Feminism isn't straight-forward. Different people react differently to stereotypes. What is one person's 'strong, empathic female lead' is another's 'weakened female stereotype' and it's very tempting to dive into an argument and say 'But here's [Example A]! This proves that there are strong women in [area]!"

It very rarely works like that. There is a preponderance of women who are defined not by what they do but who they're doing in just about every fictional media.

That's not feminist.

No matter how many kilos she can benchpress, no matter how many villains she's apprended/beaten up, a woman who's aims and aspirations are defined primarily by the needs of her partner is not a strong woman. (Addendum: A person who's partner/family have special needs that require a high level of attention is not rendered weak if they choose to support that partner/their family at the cost of certain liberties.)

I would not presume to tell a woman that she can't be a mother but that doesn't mean that I want to be a mother. I would not presume to tell another woman that she shouldn't wear pink but that doesn't mean I want to wear frills myself.

Feminism says that every person is an individual; every person is unique and you do everyone a disservice by generalizing. It's not comfortable, it's not easy and it's most certainly not neat but it's equality.

All that said, I'm human. I make mistakes. I get annoyed. I make snap judgments. I make generalizations and that will take a long time to change (if it ever does). I can be biased, bigoted and generally a cow.

All I can do, is try to do better.

I can't find the stack of unposted Christmas Cards. This is starting to get annoying.

I am not allowed to respond to sneering teenagers' cries of "You don't understand me!" with a philosophical debate on how, due to the egocentric nature of human perception, I not only don't; I never will.

Reading horrificially bad porn is a reminder that even asexuality doesn't off-set the ability to do better than "Gallant suitor trusting[sic] lightly in and out".

Also, pretension is not a replacement for literacy or the ability to weave a good story.

If you take away personal consicousness, all that remains of a person is really the impressions they left on other people. I need to start contributing more to friendships.

I am still not employed and starting to get desperate.

Hiding under the covers until the future goes away is not the solution I think it is.