(no subject)
1. Went to see Star Trek on Monday night, which I hadn't been so sure about, but ended up liking quite a bit. Jim Kirk is still an ass, but a more interesting and (sorry, William Shatner) cuter ass (and has a pretty nice one, too). Simon Pegg is brilliantly mad as Scotty. Zachary Quinto is almost too pretty to be Vulcan, but you forget that when Spock and Uhura kiss (and how long have we been waiting for that to happen?). Though all the reviewers seem to love her, I think that Winona Ryder was horribly miscast as Spock's mom, Amanda Grayson. I really wish that the producers had had the guts to go with an actress who's actually old enough to be Spock's mom; it would have been really extra nice for them to have gotten a former Star Trek actress to make this cameo appearance (maybe Marina Sirtis?). There's already fanfic about the film, of course. keladry_lupin gave some excellent recs on her round of the fangirl_tour.
2. Am reading Daniel Defoe's 1722 novel Moll Flanders, which I'm finding interesting from a historical point of view, but frustrating in many ways. This, despite the fact that I really want to like the main character a lot. Is it just me, or can one just tell that this book was written by a man? By just mid-way through the plot, Moll has given birth to nine children by three different men in 20 years and seems to have had no discomfort, let alone pain, in childbirth. Even despite the fact that neither she nor any of the characters have much interior life (not surprising, considering when Defoe wrote), neither their births nor the death of two nor her abandonment of at least eight of them (I'm reading about the 9th right now) to their fathers' families have any affect on her body or mind. This is not really a criticism of the character as of Defoe the writer who comes across, at least to me, as rather clueless on this score.
3. Why is it that even people who have important jobs with nationally significant non-profits can be careerist assholes? Why do these same people have no appreciation for the organization's history except as can be manipulated for a PR campaign? Why did we, at the archives, have a meeting two months ago about planning an exhibit that one department head was enthusiastic about, only to learn two months later that that this same department head has completely sidelined us and yet will probably still expect an historically rich exhibit? Why didn't they start planning this supposedly important anniversary celebration two years ago rather than in January? And then ignore the very people who could do the nitty gritty work for 6 months? And still want it done by January 2010? I love my department, I love the organization's work, I love my co-workers, but this stuff is just bullshit.
But... I love all you guys! I believe there are about 54 of us on the SSHG contact list for Azkatraz and more responses are coming in all the time. We did miss the deadline for getting an SSHG meet-up into the official program guide, but if everyone can spread the word, I think we can have many more meet-ups of the formal and informal kind. juniperus is working on arranging an evening when we can all get together for food, drink, and sex good conversation. dickgloucester is interested in putting together a group of those who do not have tickets for the official screening of HBP on the 16th to go together on a later night and then do an SSHG post-mortem. Several people have indicated that they'd like to do an SSHG reading, and they may get nominated to put one together. Plus we have tons of artists and cosplayers among us to ooh and aah over when we get to the con. Getting this all together is totally, completely fun.