Rabbits, Blinkity

This is an important thing to note:

I also am concerned about the 99 percent slogan, which lumps together people in households that take in $593,000 a year or less. Perhaps the guy earning $500,000 a year isn't doing as well as before, but I question how much he has in common with a woman who has spent her adult life among the working poor. A college graduate who can't find a job is in a different position than a convicted felon battling a drug addiction who can't find steady employment. Someone losing his $300,000 home is not the same as someone losing her $50,000 home.
-- Suzie @ Echide of the Snakes

I (sort of) fall into the 'college graduate' group - I have no idea if I would have much trouble finding a job (probably not, my field is pretty safe), but even if I did, I'd still have the option of doing what I'm doing now. Thanks to the obscene amount of knowledge, experience and education (much of it centered around working the upper-class system) that goes in to graduating from college, you just can't compare groups that easily. Sorry.

So here's something to think about for potential supporters (Via autostraddle). If Occupy Wall Street accomplishes absolute nothing besides shaking up the worldviews of a bunch of privileged-to-various-degrees people, it will still accomplish something very, very worthwhile.
Read More...

This is the most thought-provoking thing I've read in a month:

Tiger beatdown takes on blogging as performance and callouts.

Bloggers are expected to exhibit the personal and the political for your amusement. We flail ourselves open. We bleed for your entertainment. We tell the stories of our struggles, we write about our daily lives, about our encounters with oppression, we harangue you to take our side. And the reader, the audience receives this as a performance.

I believe in equal rights, and that people currently don't have them. I believe in that engaging with intersectionality* is the only solution to this. I'm particularly cognizant of gender-based inequalities. I'm a feminist because it covers all these things. I call myself an egalitarian as well.

I want to solve systemic societal problems, problems that arise not because a few people break the social contract, but because the contract itself is flawed.

Now, you'd think that masculism would fit in as well. Equal rights for everybody equals equal rights for men, right? But I'm not a masculist, because of, well, this.

* If you've not heard of intersectionality, stop reading my nonsense and go read this right now. You can come back afterwards.
Read More...

As we reach the halfway point in group play, things are starting to work themselves out. Except when they don't. Gyori and Hypo didn't play this week due to some scheduling issues (involving the Brazilian NT) but the rest have now completed 3 games.

Viborg HK VS HC Podravka Vegeta (27:27)

This was an insanely rough game, complete with three red flags and 2 additional yellows. I have no idea whether this was a conscious strategy on the part of Vegeta (they have yet to win a match) or simply happened out of desperation. Whichever it was, it worked until near the end, when Viborg finally put enough together to tie it up for the final seconds.
Read More...

Okay, this isn't that impressive, so just a tiny quick note: if you need a keyboard for an android device, one with all the letters, numbers, and symbols on the same screen, I've made one. At $0.99 cents, it's appropriately priced.

All my android apps are always listed on the apps page.

Györi vs Metz

Györi was much improved this game, especially on the attack. There does seem to still be a certain amount of individual play, but that is expected with this kind of individual talent. Metz is a slower, more deliberate team than Randers, and it worked the Hungarian's advantage.

Györi led from the beginning and never really let up. Metz got within two points near the end of the first half, courtesy of two consecutive suspensions (both a bit egregious: I'm looking at you, Hornyak), but never got over the top. They got within two again at around 25:00 in the second half, but a couple of clutch points from Görbicz and Lekic, combined with a suspension for Metz stopped their momentum. The game was largely won on the goalkeeping front, where things just didn't come together for Metz in any way, cumulating in a nasty-looking shot to the face at one stage.

Metz seemed terrified of Heidi Loke, playing two and sometimes three defenders very tightly to her. An understandable decision, I suppose, but it left Görbicz and Amorim free to attack at will. Loke played a more vintage style game as well; with several of her signature catch-ball-at-pivot, fight-though-defenders, shoot-extremely-hard, fall-flat-on-floor-face-first moves.
Read More...

The fascinating thing about having A-Rad and Petko in a final is that both players are 'half' players, as it were. Radwanska is half of a counter-puncher, half aspiring all-courter, but not really succeeding at either until recently, when her trademark sneakiness came into full effect. She'd like to be a real shot-maker, but settles for being occasionally weird. Petkovic, on the other hand, wants to be a brainless ball basher extraordinaire, but lacks the instinctive skill to play in the Azarenka-Sharapova school. She tries to make up for it by working twice as hard as any other player, as a quick look at that picture of her abdominal muscles floating around the internet will tell you. It works some of the time, but hasn't made her into anything like an incredible player just yet.

All that's to say, skill-wise, they're just about equal.

Of course, Petkovic is arguably the most consistent player this year besides Wozniacki (about whom the less said the better, of course), and Radwanska has collected an impressive collection of titles. And they're both about equal in the pure mental focus department, especially in later stages of tournaments. Petko is prone to playing garbage-ball in first round matches, but that's neither here nor there. Petkovic did stomp Niculescu yesterday, ending the match with an uncharacteristic bagel, so she'll likely come out firing.

In the end, then, there's really no way of predicting anything about this match. Either one could implode, but it's more likely that they'll take …
Read More...

Today, our webseries is "Verbal Vogueing", the vocabularic masterpiece by Louis Virtel. Judging by his name and general attitude, one would almost expect him to be writing for the high-class publication mentioned in the title, or at least plying the aforementioned name as some sort of "agent" or "image manager." But as we all should, he firmly believes that when life gives one a lemon the best option is to make a wildly inappropriate, sarcastic remark about it: (Livelihood alert: totally NSFW, get outta here wage slaves!)

You can find the rest on the author's channel, of course. Still not convinced? Listening to music and don't want to stop just yet? Read on!

Why you should watch this, and you should

For starters, he makes up words, and does it well, which is enough in my book. He also makes a fine joke, most of which you won't have heard before. Seriously. I mean, I'm usually satisfied with comedians and other funny folk who recycle the same old joke in a brand new context, but comparing Picasso (sorry, Pica$$o) to Ke$ha? That's pleasantly unexpected. He's one of the few to recognize that computers are excellent singers. Moreover, words can definitely describe the quality of his opinions about the mall; I know this because he uses them to do just that.
Read More...