Somewhere, in an alternate universe, the resident of 221 B Baker St, as imagined by Arthur Conan Doyle, is looking at his new roommate and wondering who the hell this is and why his parents were just as cruel as to name him Sherlock Holmes.

Michelle and I took her brother Kevin, father and stepmother to go see Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law tonight and I will say that it was a fun movie, if not exactly the smartest movie. However, I'm finding as I think about the movie more, the only thing that was necessarily off was the date; the villain makes mention of the American Civil War as a very recent thing, placing the movie in the mid-late 1860s or the early 1870s, and the books take place in the 1880s.

However, there are bits that do play true. The VR that he shoots in his wall while testing out his "gunshot silencing device" is a nice touch from the books. The drug use, the misogyny, apparently even the erratic behavior of Downey's performance, were all taken in some way from particular readings of the books. I think the only issue I have is that they made Irene Addler into a criminal; in the books she does pull a swindle on Sherlock Holmes, one of the few to ever outwit him, and earns his esteem (the picture in the movie is also a nice nod to the books as it was a payment for a job he did and one of his treasured possessions).

One of the things I liked about the movie is that it was very neat. Just as with the stories, by the end Sherlock is able to wrap up all of the details, all the way down to who did and why. The nod toward Moriarty is good as well and I hope this does well enough to get a sequel (which they very unsubtly hinted at).

Jude Law, as Watson, was actually surprisingly good and I liked that they placed the movie late in the duo's career, shortly before his marriage and partial retirement.

One aspect of the movie I thoroughly enjoyed was the supporting characters in Lestrade and Constable Clark. I think they added a very nice flavor to the story and I enjoyed the banter between the characters (and I was pleased that Lestrade was still the butt of all the jokes; "You know, in an alternate universe you'd be a criminal." "And in an alternate universe you would be a good police inspector.")

The things that I felt they got wrong was the clothing and the hygiene. Holmes was a very clean individual and particular in his dress, especially in his costumes. The entire movie he looks half put together and he has an exchange with Watson where the latter accuses him of stealing his clothing.

Overall, I think Downey did a good job of displaying the cold, machine-like side of Sherlock Holmes while being able to portray the emotions that did lurk behind his calculating exterior; his affection for Watson and his esteem for Addler were very apparent in the novels.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It seemed much more...actiony then a Holmes movie should've necessarily, but I think that's a necessary sacrifice to the feel of the stories in order to hold people's interests; a movie too cerebral would've been dull. I will be buying it and I would recommend seeing this film, even if you have to pay full price.

It was a low key Christmas this year and one of the best. I'm sitting in my best friend's living room borrowing a laptop to write this, sitting by a fire merrily burning in the fire place. We are back from a Boxing Day party that was full of good people and food. Christmas itself was so low key as to almost not be worth noting except that I spent time with my blood family and the family of my heart. The only part I missed was my boyfriend. Had he been here to share it with me, it would have been perfect.

A friend of mine noted that Christmas is better for adults than it is for kids. I always used to think that it was the other way around, but this year I know it's true. When I was a kid, I never felt this *content* at Christmas.

Tomorrow is another day away from work, then another three day week for me. I intend to dance my way through New Years.

To all of my friends, family, and friends who are family: All my love, always.

The china has been washed, dried, and put in the middle of the dining room table until we get back next week and can pack it back into the attic.

The left overs have been stored in the refrigerator and Jack and Maggie are happily noming away on their beef bones.

My dad, mom, and Michelle are watching Planet Earth in the living room.

And I'm going to go pass out I think. But first I must pack (we're flying to San Diego tomorrow at 8:10).

Merry Christmas.

I just carved the prime rib for Christmas dinner.

This is the first time I've carved the Christmas meal instead of my father.

It feels good...but weird.

Also, once again, I'm incredibly thankful that I married a woman who can cook. The prime rib is a nice medium with a hot pink center through the entire roast, with a beautiful, tasty rub.

And the lobster tails are about to come out (my parents and wissavix gave us some gift certificates to a local fish/meat market that let us splurge some this year) and also look amazing.

To all my single male friends: a woman who can cook is worth her weight in gold. I do not lie.

The house has been cleaned and cleaned by professionals.

All of the prep work we could do on food has been done.

My grandmother's Christmas/birthday cake has been picked up.

Presents wrapped and unwrapped. Michelle got me a Kindle and a new camera among other things. I'm enjoying the Kindle and have downloaded Dan Simmons' Drood among others thus far; I'm thinking it'll be nice to take on trips.

I think this is the most bittersweet Christmas I've ever had.

To you all, however you celebrate, whether it's Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Yule, or Naked Present Day (pharmakopp's favorite), please have a good day today and hug some people you love.

And get fucked up on boozy egg nog.

Because that's the real reason for the season. Family, love, and nog.

-Ren

Happy Birthday Paco!

Love you!

Snoopy posted a great post, but I am unable to complete it tonight. Ah well sleepy time.

Live is good and more will be posted once I get some sleep!

Hugs LJ.

I'm ripping off this idea from shadowwolf13 based on her post here.

Here's the gist. In this post are several threads. Each thread starts with the name of a person on LJ (I'm starting with people I know, but feel free to add on). You reply to the thread with something nice to say about them.

I will send each person that's mentioned a note to let them know that something nice has been said about them.

Anonymous comments are certainly allowed, but I will be wielding the banhammer on any comments that are not in the spirit of this idea.

Please, have fun!

admiralorko - thread
adnate - thread
aetherknight - thread
ashtoreth - thread
auntiealex - thread
bettybaker - thread
bigvinne - thread
blaze613 - thread
booda - thread
bull - thread
capjbadger - thread
chelleann77 - thread
cjl101 - thread
cuddlycthulhu - thread
dawnorchid - thread
dbvixxen - thread
djehutysherit - thread
don_orsini - thread
durelle - thread
fishknifeseller - thread
flowerflautist - thread
gianni - thread
gwenrose - thread
juice_weasel - thread
jeebachu - thread
kailara - thread
kakizaki_b - thread
kalendargirl - thread
keshian - thread
ladyj77 - thread
ladyofdragons - thread
lairian - thread
leiland - thread
loneromeo - thread
mishfish78 - thread
needs_pins_les - thread
poseo - thread
redminx - thread
redredgroovy - thread
rosered32 - thread
sagebearz - thread
seaweasel - thread
shodoshan - thread
snoopyh42 - thread
starryshadows - thread
stride - thread
therealluthien - thread
va_peterson - thread
warriorfoo - thread
waywardbound - thread
zhaneel69 - thread
ziptie_bandit - thread

It took me too long to pen my response to a good and spicy argument that is going on elsewhere, so the argument passed me by. But I'd written my response! So I post it here.
I wasn't going to weigh in on this abortion/health care debate, mostly because I admit to this fundamental belief:
Abortion on Demand and Without Apology.
As I know that opinion may be a little extreme for some, I keep it to myself. But having read the discussion that is swirling around I think I have a different perspective to present here: a feminist one.
To get a little context here, women have been having abortions since, oh, since women started having sex with men. There were herbs and tinctures you could take. Strange and complicated and undoubtably painful procedures you, your midwife, and your best friend could figure out in the moonlight. It wasn't illegal. Sure there was societal nose wrinkling, fire and brimstone speeches and the like, but just as many people agreed that control of her reproduction was something a woman, even a Married woman, should have. It was her body, it was her child, it was her decision.

Now if pre-historic egyptians, biblical israelites, renaissance catholics, and fucking victorians could all agree that it was a woman's decision, why has modern America sudden decided that it isn't?

It is only in the last 20+ years that the PRE-CONSTITUTIONAL right to the determination of her own future on the part of a woman has come into question. And we could get into why that is. Hell, I could write a disseration on it. But that would be an aside.

Let's face a simple fact: unborn babies live inside of a woman. That is a trick of biology. It effects her body for the 9 months it is carried and for the rest of her life. It effects her psyche, her emotional state, and any other blah blah you want to throw in. It changes her life. Permanently. Even if she puts it up for adoption, she is never again the same person.

Making abortion illegal/unobtainable (because that's what we're talking about here, abortion becoming unobtainable for women on a gov't funded health plan. Let's get down to brass financial tacks here: if I can't afford health care, where does that $$ for an abortion come from, exactly? Her rent?) forces a woman to have a life she may have chosen not to have. It removes from her her ability to make her own decisions about a basic building block of her identity: parenthood. It, in fact, privileges the life of this unborn child over any life the woman may have made herself. At the bottom that's what any "pro-life" argument does -- and I would charge that that is what this "want vs. need" argument is, in the end.
It says that a woman's life, not her living breathing life but her experiential future life, is secondary to the little beating heart in her belly.
That life living inside of her is MORE IMPORTANT than her decisions about her future.

Why?
So I make a mistake, I lay a guy who I'm not really that in to and I turn up preggers. Why does that one night's
experience become something I have to pay for FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Why do I have to sacrifice my future for the possible future of that baby? What makes that baby so sacred?

I'm not going to get into the unfairness of said guy walking out of the situation for that same "mistake."
I'm not even going to get into the mess that is child custody and child support and the long trail of drama and modern decay that leads to.

Let's just talk about the bizarre world we live in where a woman can't make a basic decision about her body, her future, and the life of her own child. Cause that's what is on the table here. This mythical much abused "tax payer" (who looks an awful lot like the religious right) is attempting, with the power of the pocketbook, to enforce upon this woman a "consequence" of her actions that they have no right or place to enforce. Period. The "tax payer" cannot decide for her what her consequences are any more than the "taxpayer" can decide that the military buys red planes instead of blue ones. Our decision making power under a republican gov't doesn't work that way. Her consequences are between her and her God and no one else -- and let's accept here that having an abortion is its own consequence. It isn't easy, it isn't fast, and it can leave a scar like you would not believe. But it is her consequence and she has the right to chose it.
Meanwhile you are accepting that you cannot and will not execute that exact same "consequence" on the sperm donor who was participant in that mistake.
Such legislation makes that woman a slave to a trick of biology whereby she has to carry an unfair and unbalanced burden THAT IS PERMANENT.
That is fundamentally anti-feminist.
You may be okay with that.
But maybe you should stop all this hemming and hawing about the "exceptions" and "need" and "want" and admit to what you're saying:
That baby's life is more important than the mother's.
And you'd best to get alright with all the trickle down that comes with that, because I promise you, it ain't pretty.

Dickens was weird this year.

From the stupid drama that started off the event (and continued with fits and spurts through the whole run) to the bad news we got the first week of December, this wasn't going to be the usual Extreme Christmas and put a definite negative cast on the entire thing. I sincerely hate it when other people bring their stupid shit to me and when that effects Dickens, which is usually something I look forward to, I get cranky.

I ended up spending a lot of time out of the bar. Usually half my day is in the bar with the first two and the last two hours out but I think I pulled only two or three hours a day this year. This was probably not as fair to my fellow bar staff as it could've been but I did try to make sure they got out and saw the things they needed/wanted to see and do.

We were also missing a lot of our usual people due to other obligations and health issues this year so that was a little strange. I have to wonder if we're seeing the flip from the old generation of the Green Man Inn to the new one. If so, I so declare "Not It" and will happily let snoopyh42 get hit with that.

I also didn't dance that much. I went on the first Saturday to see about dancing and I just...didn't want to until yesterday where I got some very lovely waltzes, a Congress, polka, and (Sir) Rogered my favorite partner for the last time of the year.

So, off year I think.

However, when it comes to my home at Dickens I have nothing but love for my fellow cast members. As I said yesterday, we're one of the best crew at the fair. I work with a great group and I look forward to next year (or I will in a few months when I'm through with being done over Dickens).

"We never close and we never quit."

I understand that Twitter is the very in thing now with people but if the medium that you're trying to use is going to make your message appear like it was written by a lazy, idiotic tween then perhaps you should go with something that doesn't limit your word count so much.

Thanks to flemco.

-Ren

I am so angry right now. I've been watching the debate on the inclusion of federal funds to cover abortions in the health care provisions with a distinctly personal eye.  So I'm going to lay out my ire at my party, and at my country now, and you can just skip it if you don't want politics this early in the morning. ( Read more... )

Political pragmatism aside, I'm just so angry and sad that things have come to this, an end run around the supreme court to continue to chip away at my constitutional right to choose if and when I have a child. 

Now, I fully admit that I've done some really stupid shit in my life, things that weren't bad in the moral sense but just idiotic. No, I won't go into them (these posts are about other people's crazy) but, suffice to say, I probably wouldn't do them again if I could go back and have another go (although Tim lighting his hand on fire with a blowtorch was pretty funny).

However, I know there's one thing that a certain young woman won't ever do again when a New Zealand teen was hit by a car after flashing her breasts at passing motorists from a traffic island. I'd think that if getting hit by a car was at all embarrassing, it'd be more so with your bits hanging out for the world to see. Thankfully, girl is fine if a little banged up.

Besides, everyone knows that if you're going to flash or moon a motorist, you do it from the side of the road so you don't have to cross traffic.

Not that I'd know...no...not at all...

GOOD MORNING!

It's been a while since I've posted, I haven't had much to talk about, but there's been some things on my mind and now I'm getting them out.

( Government )

One of the things that any person who wishes to be a published writer must get used to (or at least learn to tolerate) is criticism. Many are the ways of handling it, whether it's wall-papering your bathroom in rejection letters like Stephen King so that you can look at them while you pee or going out and getting blotto. Some people get crushed by criticism, even when it is positively meant, and others use it as an encouragement and learning tool. Still, some people, so afraid of criticism, never show their writing to anyone.

And then there are some authors who positively lose what little shit they ever had and engage in idiotic Internet arguing.

*shakes head*

Thanks pharmakopp

Looks like we'll be voting on whether or not to legalize and tax pot. Here's what I anticipate if this passes:

Days 1-5, AP (after pot) - Massive numbers of people across the state call out from work. Dominos Pizza, Frito-Lay, and Hostess see their stocks surge to record heights on the wave of product demand.

Day 6 AP - People wake up, take showers, go back to work, and start bitching about how high the tax on green is.

More seriously though it'll be interesting to see if this passes. I fully expect that counties like Humboldt and Mendocino will more vigorously go after pot growers, not for their possession necessarily but for their tax money.

I know a number of my flist don't believe in global warming, climate change, or anything else along those lines.

So, here's my question: even if it doesn't exist, why not take steps to limit pollution and environmental impact which has been proven to have, at least, severe and negative local impacts on the environment? What is the harm in living in a healthier, less polluted place?

We went for the amneo today and...well, things appear better.

Dr. Crite was right up front with us and told us that after last time she expected us to come and the baby to be dead, which is something Michelle and I were both afraid of but was a little shocking to hear the doctor say so plainly, but the kid was very much alive and active. Heart rate is good (doctor said "strong" multiple times which to my lack of medical training sounds positive considering the possible issues), bone structure is good, and they did some weird scan to show the kidney function and the blood circulation and that looks good.

The other good news was that the cyst has gone down by .2cm (it had been at 1cm) around the head and neck and has not progressed any further down the body. The visual scans of the child were to look for the secondary characteristics of Downs and she didn't see any but did advise us that they only appear in 50% of cases at this point of pregnancy so that might not mean anything. I'm too much a gamer and I keep trying to work the numbers in my head but, unfortunately, I can't min max my child.

But the doctor offered us hope and said that she was encouraged by today.

The reason why my kid is a PitA was that while the doctor was doing the amneo, the kid moved over, reached up, and put it's finger over the tip of the needle, effectively blocking it like putting your thumb over the end of a straw which meant that the procedure took twice as long because the kid wanted to be difficult. Yes, I might be attributing motives to a child that aren't there but, come on, this is mine and Michelle's kid we're talking about.

The doctor also used a lot of female pronouns. Michelle and I forgot to ask if she saw something and didn't tell us or she's just using female proper pronouns, so I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that we might be having a female product of Michelle and I.

If that's the case, I'm fucking doomed.

So, good news today. We have two weeks until the results of the amneo are back and we know if it is a chromosomal issue or if we rolled really poorly and then really well. After that we wait until January 19th at 3pm to do a 20 week ultrasound where we will learn the child's gender and get a good look at the heart. We aren't out of the woods yet, so please keep the good vibes coming.

Michelle is choosing to live with hope, I'm going to try and do the same.

Last night Michelle and I stayed in to take care of ourselves.

Today, I have very little care, grace, or sympathy that isn't going to be going towards her and I. My Give-a-Fuck is pretty much at an all time low so, please, just give me a little space.