Frivolous Friday: Mark Reads Chuck

The following is a video recorded this year at CONvergence’s erotica reading. In it, Mark Oshiro reads a brand new Chuck Tingle story. If that doesn’t immediately have you pressing play, here’s what you need to know to appreciate the video:

  • The Rabid Puppies are a group of neoreactionaries dedicated to mucking up the Hugo Awards by nominating as a bloc because people who aren’t white men have received a substantial number of nominations in the past few years.
  • One of the stories they nominated this year was by gonzo erotica writer, Chuck Tingle.
  • Tingle has taken steps to make it unpalatable for the puppies to vote for him. He may win the Hugo because of it (though I hope my friend Naomi wins for her short story and Tingle gets a fan writer nom next year for the way he played this).
  • Tingle is currently very popular in parts of the F&SF fan community because of this.
  • Oshiro’s gig is reading cold and reacting as he reads. He was not prepared for this. No one was prepared for this.
  • Oshiro had originally been going to read a different Tingle story for this panel, but he received an email from Tingle shortly before the panel, offering him this exclusive.
  • The interruptions are a traditional part of this panel, even if they don’t really work well for this recording.
  • This entire thing was translated live into sign language. The interpreters who do CONvergence live for this sort of thing, and they are every bit as much part of the entertainment at this panel as the people reading.

So if you think you’re ready….

Continue reading “Frivolous Friday: Mark Reads Chuck”

Frivolous Friday: Mark Reads Chuck
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Frivolous Friday: Remembering the Beaver

Photo of a bowl of poutine. Brown gravy over cheese curds and french fries.
“poutine-rageous” by Paul Joseph, CC BY 2.0. Because even a Canadian flag felt too American.

Happy Canada Day! For the U.S. folks in the crowd, no, this is not the equivalent of our July 4. It’s the anniversary of Confederation, where the Canadian colonial provinces, including the province of Canada, came together to form Canada. It’s one of those weird little holidays you could only get from this weird bit of colonial history.

For my Canadian followers, I’d like to extend my sympathies. I just found out that Founders Hall in PEI has closed.

Anyone who knows me knows I love odd, local, and oddly local tourist museums. There’s the ball of twine, the Scotch Whisky Heritage Center, Woodleigh Miniatures, the Kensington Runestone Museum. (And I clearly need to write up some of these trips that I haven’t before.) If someone tells me PEI’s Potato Museum has closed, I’ll be heartbroken.

Founders Hall was very local, focusing much of its museum space on the role Charlottetown played in Confederation. It also focused outward, on the entrance of the other provinces, and forward in time to include particularly First Nations perspectives that weren’t well represented in all the decisions that built Canada.

However, Founders Hall wasn’t terribly odd, unless you find Canadian patriotism a bit odd in itself. You might. I’ve now written more posts about Canada’s founding than most Canadians. It displayed typical Canadian conservatism in talking about itself through most of museum. Mannequins in historical garb. Informational plaques. Video and audio available for depth.

Then, just about the time you thought you were done, along came the beaver. Continue reading “Frivolous Friday: Remembering the Beaver”

Frivolous Friday: Remembering the Beaver

Repost: Garbage Statistics

This may not be the post you’re looking for from the title. It’s an old, odd look at how my brain works, though. It amused me, so I’m reposting it.

Literally. We have a corner lot in the city, with plantings where a lot of people would have lawn, so lots of trash gets blown into our yard and stays for a while. One of the rites of spring is my own personal neighborhood cleanup. I started right after work, and here’s a little rundown of what I found.

  • Greatest decrease, prior year to current year: cigarette butts, down 30%
  • Greatest decrease in item size: cigarette butts, 97% smoked fully

Either the recession and increased taxes are making cigarettes less appealing, or the winter weather, coldest it’s been in several years, is keeping smokers inside.

  • Most frequent item: still cigarette butts (~30)
  • Greatest increase: Styrofoam cups, up 50%
  • Largest item, volume: FedEx envelope (1)

No clothes this year. That usually takes this category.

  • Greatest overall volume: advertising newspapers (4), all sopping wet
  • Greatest single dimension: unspooled cassette tape (4 feet)
  • Most personally disgusting: cigar mouth pieces (2)
  • Most generally disgusting: chewed gum with teeth prints (2)
  • Most obsessive: bus transfer, torn into pieces 1 cm. by 1.5 cm.
  • Saddest item: beads from a piece of kids jewelry with the shiny half worn off (2)
  • Item most likely to make it into a story: broken 2008 Mickey Mouse Christmas ornament (1)
  • Most impossible to gather: pieces of windshield glass from the car that hit the tree two feet inside our fence (100s)
  • Nicest surprise: temperature (79F)
  • Most welcome sight: active earthworms (2)
  • Smallest ratio: energy to ambition (1 hour:infinite)
  • Total volume: 1 medium shopping bag
  • Percent complete: 33%

Back at it this weekend. Then I can trim the lilacs and dispose of the brush pile and pull grass and rearrange the ferns and the hardy geraniums and…whew! Yeah, I’ll be at this a while.

Repost: Garbage Statistics

Frivolous Friday: Manly Bratwurst

Frivolous Fridays are the Orbit bloggers’ excuse to post about fun things we care about that may not have serious implications for atheism or social justice. Any day is a good day to write about whatever the heck we’re interested in (hey, we put “culture” in our tagline for a reason), but we sometimes have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do that. This is our way of encouraging each other to take a break from serious topics and have some fun. Enjoy!

A while back, I tweeted:

Blue cheese is a potent force in the world, people. Don’t underestimate it.

After some discussion on social media, I determined to make up for my moment of weakness by posting a review of the bratwurst here. After all, no one else should be tempted past their endurance the way I was without knowing that giving in comes with a reward. So here we are.

Grand fluff aside, our grocer was having a special on Man Cave meats. I rolled my eyes at the portmanbro of their name, but I was curious what they had on offer. I saw this.

Photo of a package of bratwurst on a wooden counter.
Yes, that’s a package of buffalo bratwurst with blue cheese in it. Yes, it says it’s “craft meats”. Yes, I am sometimes susceptible to foodie marketing even when it comes wrapped in testosterone and has “No girlz” signs out front. Continue reading “Frivolous Friday: Manly Bratwurst”

Frivolous Friday: Manly Bratwurst

Frivolous Friday: Dark Roast Coffee

Frivolous Fridays are the Orbit bloggers’ excuse to post about fun things we care about that may not have serious implications for atheism or social justice. Any day is a good day to write about whatever the heck we’re interested in (hey, we put “culture” in our tagline for a reason), but we sometimes have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do that. This is our way of encouraging each other to take a break from serious topics and have some fun. Enjoy!

This is what happens when we only have dark roast coffee in the house and the espresso machine is acting up.


I have feelings about coffee roasting. Judging from the reactions to these tweets, so do other people. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

Top-down photo of a latte with fern-like steamed-milk art on top.
“Because Coffee” by Ben Zvan. Used with permission.
Frivolous Friday: Dark Roast Coffee

Showoff

Have a little video from the Mr. Paul Aints game a couple of weeks ago. The first minute or so is interview/discussion. Then we see some of our speakers for the next day’s conference. Then…

Anybody else catch themselves thinking that miffing it after that was going to be extra embarassing?

Now I wonder whether anyone took video of Dave Silverman the previous year. Hey, Amanda…?

Showoff

Credibility

It’s apparently now measured by the people you’ve interviewed. I don’t do a lot of the interviews on Atheists Talk per se. I host and throw in follow-up questions as I have them. But I’ve done a few.

I think that’s all of them, though all the hosting in between makes it difficult to be sure. How do I do for credibility?

Don’t worry. I won’t blow any of it on bad Photoshops or pointlessly insulting rants.

Credibility