I've been working on a blog about the darker side of Japanese popular culture (media, art, and folklore) lately. Please check it out!
www.notcliche.com/kowaijapan

My attempt at decadence!

My dad died a little over two weeks ago. It's awful. I loved him so much.

So, jenny_dreadful, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 0% unique and 5% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy the smiths). When it comes to friends you are a total whore. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.

Your overall weirdness is: 24

(The average level of weirdness is: 29.
You are weirder than 53% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

I think I'm a pretty odd duck, but whatever.

And now I'm a boy...

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 13.

This suggests that your writing style is conventional
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).Your blog has 11 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by complexity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 56% male and 44% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the past and lastly the future.
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Find out what your blogging style is like!

More interesting entry later. Mwah!

Why Voters Thought Obama Won
from fivethirtyeight.com (source)


TPM has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. It is no surprise that a small majority of pundits seemed to have thought that McCain won, even when the polls indicated otherwise; the pundits were his target audience.

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We're going to be in Seattle from July 31st to August 8th (for Ross to see his Lyme doctor). Does anyone have any suggestions for sightseeing and shopping? I'm curious about gothy stores they have there, vintage/antique stores, etc.

1950's lizard skin Koret box purse.

( Read more... )

My workfriend Jared, in his all-seeing, all-knowing gay wisdom, turned me on to sex columnist Dan Savage and his column Savage Love. We used to read his column together on our smoke breaks at Whole Foods, such fun! Since then, I've been reading the column archives and Ross and I listen to his wonderful, witty, and wise podcasts. I just love him! He also sometimes guests on Bill Maher.

I want to congratulate my Oklahoma best friend, kinkedriotfemme, on winning the title of South Central Leather Woman 2008!!!! Read the details and see more pictures on her journal!

Look at how lovely she is! I realy miss her a lot. I love you Lyndsey! Come compete in California so I can see you!!! ;D

Click for larger size--it's desktop worthy!

"New York circa 1901. Evelyn Nesbit, age 16, brought to the studio by Stanford White. A chorus girl turned artists' model, Evelyn Nesbit was at the center of a huge scandal in 1906 when her husband killed her former lover, the architect Stanford White."

There's a lot of sexual symbolism in the picture...the mouth and placement of the cup are suggestive, and she's wearing part of her hair up as a grown woman would, and part of it in the curls that a young girl of that time would wear. She's on the cusp of womanhood, much to the delight of Stanford White! ;D

I've read her two memiors, as well as a new biography called American Eve, all very interesting. Tragedy seemed to find her...she was very witty and intelligent, but made many poor choices that changed the course of her life. My boyfriend and theolive have often said that I resemble her. Particularly in this picture:



I really see it, so I'm very flattered!

Here is a site about Evelyn here: http://evelynnesbit.com/

Jennymonster sighting:



She was foraging in the Fluevog Shoe Bushes and emerged victorious with these:



They are so pretty and Edwardian/20's/30's-esque! Like everything good, they are pink inside! ;D Really comfortable, too!

My shoulder and arm ache like mad--I would like to claim that I injured it in whilst engaged in some derring do, but really it's that same old injury from last fall with the water buckets. Drat!

I've been working on my French a lot! It's much, much better. I want to practice with someone! Lately I've been looking at French blogs and reading magazines about France. Oooh, I want to go! I watched Diabolique, too. It was really creepy and reminded me of Hitchcock. I thought Vera Cluzot was sexy.

Even those I never post, and I rarely comment on journals, I'm sneaking around here all the time reading your journals. I miss Livejournal. I'm thinking about making my own journal layout like I used to. And in the spirit of the old LJ days, I want to ask for music recommendations! I haven't heard anything "new" in a while.

This isn't much of an entry but...



I actually never completed anything beyond 8th grade.

By Michael Kahn Tue Oct 16, 1:54 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - It was sensational stuff that riveted a nation: A mild-mannered American doctor poisons then dismembers his unfaithful wife, flees England in disguise with his mistress -- and is caught, tried and hanged.


The problem is that the poisoned corpse that sent Dr Hawley Crippen to the gallows in London in 1910 was not that of his wife, according to new evidence found by U.S. researchers.
A team led by John Trestrail, head of the regional poison centre in Grand Rapids, Michigan, took mitochondrial DNA -- genetic material passed on through the mother -- from a tissue sample from the corpse kept in a London museum.
They then compared it with samples from three of Cora Crippen's female descendants, found after a 7-year search.
"That body was not Cora Crippen's," said David Foran, a forensic biologist at Michigan State University. "We don't know who that body was or how it got there."
Crippen, a struggling doctor who moved to England with his showgirl wife, was convicted of poisoning her with an obscure toxin and then burying her dismembered body under their North London home.
Police nabbed Crippen and his mistress on a transatlantic ship as it entered Canadian waters. The captain had recognized the doctor from newspapers and become suspicious of his companion, disguised as a man, and famously used the newly invented wireless telegraph to alert the British police.
"POISONERS DON'T MUTILATE"
"The thing about the Crippen case is the mutilation, which is contradictory to what poisoners do," said Trestrail, whose books on poisons are used by detectives across the world. "They want a 'natural death' certificate, and to walk away."
Police found the remains with no head, no bones and no genitals. The grisly revelation shocked the public, spurring newspapers to describe Crippen as "one of the most dangerous and remarkable men who have lived this century."
Throughout the trial and all the way to the gallows, he insisted that he was innocent and the body not that of his wife.
But his flight, and the contradictory accounts he gave of his wife's disappearance, did him no favors.
The final nail in his coffin was evidence of a scar on the body, which convinced the jury that it was Cora's, an inference that the researchers now say was almost certainly wrong.
But they concede that other evidence clearly shows that the body could only have made its way to Crippen's house when he and his wife were living there.
Trestrail speculates that Crippen might have been performing illegal abortions and that the body could have resulted from a procedure that went horribly wrong.
There are also clues suggesting that Cora Crippen slipped out of England with a new man and settled in the United States.
"The two questions are 'Where did she go?' and 'Whose remains are they?'," Trestrail said. "But that is another investigation and trial."

I think my favorite word is priapic.

I've been answering phones upstairs at work since I hurt myself. I work in a floral department and do a lot of heavy lifting (buckets of water), and I guess I sprained my shoulder. I have to go to their worker's comp doctors every Monday, and they seem to be rather lacking. It's been almost a month now, and my physical therapy hasn't been approved by their insurance yet! It's such an uncomfortable situation to be in...the skepticism over whether you're really hurt. And then it's also a drag to sit around staring into space, waiting for the phones to ring. A new boss who doesn't pay any attention to what I do was there tonight, so I played a game on my DS (the new Phoenix Wright! God, I love those games!).

I hear partying students in the hall.

I also read the new Fortean Times today. Sadly, Weekly World News is folding. I liked to read it when I was a kid, not because I believed the stories, but because I thought it was so funny. I haven't bought it in years, however. So I didn't know that the infamous Bat Boy was now assisting in the hunt for bin Laden, chosen by the government because of his special cave-dwelling skills.

I'm going to the Fluevog shop tomorrow to buy these!



( but I wish I had these, too... )

Of late, I mostly work and read. Right now, it's The Last Man by Mary Shelley. I'd just read Frankenstein and heard it this; it's set in the late 21st century, and is about the extermination of mankind through plague. I ordered it, curious about an 1820's imagining of the future, but the only technological advance is travel by hot air balloon. However, the changes of English government are interesting, and of course the plague. Also, Lord Raymond is based on Lord Byron, so there is much swooning to be done. Maybe will read Uncle Silas next.

I still like my job, though management has grown more tyrannical of late. It's a source of entertainment and drama, however...and mostly I can turn away from it and tend to my plants, a fairly peaceful and introspective task. I briefly had an octogenarian stalker whose attentions were so frightening that I had to ask for help to have him banished from the store. He wanted to keep me as his mistress, saying that a fortuneteller had predicted our meeting, and threatened to shoot himself when I turned him down. After my boss came and forced my point home, the man told me that he had not foreseen this problem in our love! Fortunately, after he shuffled off to his hatchback and sat there for a while, he drove away, never to return. My other stalker, a manic hypochondriac of about my age and gender, was also banned from the store for stealing food from the deli. Hurrah!

Tonight I might go to the movies.

I haven't posted in sooo long. Very busy, and not sure anything is worth posting about. I just worked for a bunch of days--it was okay--and just had a couple of days off. Ross's PICC line cracked, and we had to go to the hospital to have it replaced. The nurse told us it could have been sucked into his heart if it had broken. It was scary. I read Birthday by Koji Suzuki while we were there. Last nigth we were going to see Morrissey at the Hollywood Bowl, but Ross was feeling too sick. He said I could go with Melanie (from work), but since they were e-tickets that he had to present ID for, I wasn't sure if I could use them. It's okay though; we saw him play in Pasadena a few months ago, and he'll play here again anyway. Poor Ross :/

Yesterday the Direct TV guys came and installed new stuff. We have like 50 HD channels now. Also we can watch it on the bedroom tv now, so I considered taking to my bed full-time and only watching tv. Ross, however, said that it wasn't a good idea. Dang.

I'm getting ready to go to work now. Crazy Saturday floral department. I can identify a lot of weird flowers and plants now. Mwa ha ha. Who knows the evil ways in which I may use this knowledge. Mwa ha ha!

I'm getting a 30GB Ipod v. 5.5, and boy, it's going to have a lot more room on it than my 5GB one that just died. So I need your help! It doesn't matter if the songs are new or old, just tell me some of the most fantastic songs you've ever loved!

The inimitable dj_vu took this portrait of me at the Virgo Zodiac Ball at Maledicition. Yes, those are 1903 Model A driving goggles on my head ;)



Starting a new job at Whole Foods tomorrow (taking orders for gift baskets and making them. $10 and hour, yay!), so wish me luck.

Does anyone in Los Angeles know of any open jobs where you work or whatever? I realllllly need a job!