Look, people. Orbs are not ghosts. They're not anything. They're dust, or bugs, but they are not ghosts, and I insist you stop calling them "proof" of the paranormal.
I'm addicted to ghost shows. But of course, they have to be good ghost shows. I'm not going to spend an hour watching "psychics" run around with night-vision rigs on, running away from shit. No. I want some TAPS-style debunking, I want real investigation, or I want Celebrity Ghost Stories.
Bio has a new one, on just after CGS, titled My Ghost Story. It has the same confessional style as CGS, but it boasts that these stories come with "proof" of the paranormal. So far, all the "proof" has led me to rename it My Orb Story, because seriously. All three episodes so far have been orbtastic, orbalicious, orbsome. But since orbs are just dust, this is really only proof that these people are in buildings in the real world, and not some set built in a clean room.
I do believe in ghosts - or in some form of paranormal activity, at any rate. I think there are things we cannot yet scientifically explain. But the thing is, you have to at least try to scientifically explain them first! You can't just run around calling every bump in the night, every instance of bad wiring or fear cages or someone having the same ceiling fan remote a ghost!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tweet! Tweet!
I added Twitter updates over on the right, there. But they're not my tweets: they're Bacon's.
Bacon is six, an age which I am finding out is fucking hilarious. She pops out with all this random shit, and I didn't think it should be lost to time and my shoddy memory. So I tweet for her, and I try to avoid all context whenever possible.
I do occasionally retweet things from those I'm following - usually Libertarian or fat-friendly - but if you want a little slice of surreality, do check out the 6-year-old randomness.
Bacon is six, an age which I am finding out is fucking hilarious. She pops out with all this random shit, and I didn't think it should be lost to time and my shoddy memory. So I tweet for her, and I try to avoid all context whenever possible.
I do occasionally retweet things from those I'm following - usually Libertarian or fat-friendly - but if you want a little slice of surreality, do check out the 6-year-old randomness.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
In Which I Propose An Awesome Comeback
So. Obviously, I haven't blogged in a while. I'm not sure why - my life isn't busy, and really, I don't have anything else to do. Probably I felt that I had nothing to say, which isn't true at all. I have more to say than ever, on every topic.
But I've been doing much more writing lately, both on my other blog, What You Pay For, and fiction that doesn't currently have an audience. I hope it will - I'm gearing up for sending my darlings out into the world - but right now, it's just me and the decidedly non-sparkly vampires in my troll cave under the stairs. And occasionally on a laptop in the kitchen, or in front of the TV. You know how much I love TV.
I'm not promising daily posts, but I will be more attentive, and I hope that someday I can turn this blog into All Things Baconsmom The Famous Author, and you all can say you knew my blog when.
Here's to discipline, opinions, and random fatshion rants!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tasty Tome Tuesday's Triumphant reTurn!
See what I did there? Genius, I tells ya.
Sweet Surrender
Maya Banks
2 out of 5 Bacon Strips
I found Sweet Surrender on the bargain shelf at Borders; after having read it, I know exactly why.
Gray Montgomery is a cop whose partner's just been killed while on-duty. The details of the shooting are never disclosed, but the partner's father, Mick, an ex-cop, is investigating the shooting independent of the Dallas PD. He leans on Gray to help him, insinuating that the PD is trying to claim that his partner (Alex) was responsible for his own death, or that Gray might be.
Mick says he has a lead on the real shooter, Eric Samuels. Samuels has hooked up with a woman who routinely begs money from her daughter, Faith Malone. Faith was adopted as an adult by "Pop" Malone, who runs a security firm in Houston with his son and two other young men.
Mick arranges for Gray to take six months' leave from the Dallas PD and work for Pop in Houston in order to be close to Faith and through her track her mother and Eric Samuels.
Of course, Gray can't just get in and out and get the job done. He falls for Faith, and falls hard. She falls for him, too. Of course, he's lying to her and using her as bait , despite learning fairly early in his "investigation" that she hates her mother and wants nothing to do with her. He doesn't come clean, though, until the happy-ever-after.
The plot is ridiculous. I expect that of a romance novel: one of the unnecessary, but all-too-often observed, conventions of the genre seems to be glossing over anything that might require research or difficult writing. There's a wealth of plot that Maya Banks completely ignores for this novel. We're never told the details of the shooting which kills Alex, let alone shown them. Gray and Mick's relationship is likewise just handed to us on a bad-prose platter, as are the details of Faith's life.
Oh, and what a character Faith could have been. The book bills itself as "erotic romance", and I think I'm supposed to believe that it's more than just regular romance because of Faith's particular kink: she's a submissive. Only she can't find a "real" dominant, and she keeps dating guys who don't want to be in charge, who can't make decisions. Gray, being the typical romance Alpha male, trips all her triggers - but she can't be sure that he's really as dominant as she'd like, so she pursues other avenues.
I wanted to like Faith so much. I wanted to read about a woman taking control of her sex life, owning her desires, and clearly asking for things - especially since those things were submissive, something we see a lot of in Romanceland, but rarely do we it expressed as a kink, or see our heroines asking for it. What I got was a woman who could have done all that, if she wasn't stuck in the middle of this horrible book. Banks seems to have had two different women in mind when she was writing Faith; it's unfortunate that the one we're stuck with most often is consistently referred to as "soft", "sweet", "feminine", and the like. She's small and blonde and pretty. No one takes her seriously, not even when they're fucking her. Gray is repeatedly told by all the other men around her that she's perfect, and he'd better keep his hands off. But they all come around at the end (for the HEA), when he tells them he'd like nothing better than to take care of her for the rest of her life. And yes, he means that as ickily as it sounds: he wants her to sit at home, being pampered and not worrying her pretty head, while he takes care of the big, bad world outside.
It was insulting and sexist, and that wasn't something I could take on top of a heaping helping of bad prose, thin characterizations, and convoluted, ill-executed plot. The only reason this book gets two bacon strips is that I've read worse.
Next week: I tackle the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Or at least a few of them.
Sweet Surrender
Maya Banks
2 out of 5 Bacon Strips
I found Sweet Surrender on the bargain shelf at Borders; after having read it, I know exactly why.
Gray Montgomery is a cop whose partner's just been killed while on-duty. The details of the shooting are never disclosed, but the partner's father, Mick, an ex-cop, is investigating the shooting independent of the Dallas PD. He leans on Gray to help him, insinuating that the PD is trying to claim that his partner (Alex) was responsible for his own death, or that Gray might be.
Mick says he has a lead on the real shooter, Eric Samuels. Samuels has hooked up with a woman who routinely begs money from her daughter, Faith Malone. Faith was adopted as an adult by "Pop" Malone, who runs a security firm in Houston with his son and two other young men.
Mick arranges for Gray to take six months' leave from the Dallas PD and work for Pop in Houston in order to be close to Faith and through her track her mother and Eric Samuels.
Of course, Gray can't just get in and out and get the job done. He falls for Faith, and falls hard. She falls for him, too. Of course, he's lying to her and using her as bait , despite learning fairly early in his "investigation" that she hates her mother and wants nothing to do with her. He doesn't come clean, though, until the happy-ever-after.
The plot is ridiculous. I expect that of a romance novel: one of the unnecessary, but all-too-often observed, conventions of the genre seems to be glossing over anything that might require research or difficult writing. There's a wealth of plot that Maya Banks completely ignores for this novel. We're never told the details of the shooting which kills Alex, let alone shown them. Gray and Mick's relationship is likewise just handed to us on a bad-prose platter, as are the details of Faith's life.
Oh, and what a character Faith could have been. The book bills itself as "erotic romance", and I think I'm supposed to believe that it's more than just regular romance because of Faith's particular kink: she's a submissive. Only she can't find a "real" dominant, and she keeps dating guys who don't want to be in charge, who can't make decisions. Gray, being the typical romance Alpha male, trips all her triggers - but she can't be sure that he's really as dominant as she'd like, so she pursues other avenues.
I wanted to like Faith so much. I wanted to read about a woman taking control of her sex life, owning her desires, and clearly asking for things - especially since those things were submissive, something we see a lot of in Romanceland, but rarely do we it expressed as a kink, or see our heroines asking for it. What I got was a woman who could have done all that, if she wasn't stuck in the middle of this horrible book. Banks seems to have had two different women in mind when she was writing Faith; it's unfortunate that the one we're stuck with most often is consistently referred to as "soft", "sweet", "feminine", and the like. She's small and blonde and pretty. No one takes her seriously, not even when they're fucking her. Gray is repeatedly told by all the other men around her that she's perfect, and he'd better keep his hands off. But they all come around at the end (for the HEA), when he tells them he'd like nothing better than to take care of her for the rest of her life. And yes, he means that as ickily as it sounds: he wants her to sit at home, being pampered and not worrying her pretty head, while he takes care of the big, bad world outside.
It was insulting and sexist, and that wasn't something I could take on top of a heaping helping of bad prose, thin characterizations, and convoluted, ill-executed plot. The only reason this book gets two bacon strips is that I've read worse.
Next week: I tackle the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Or at least a few of them.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Wait, What?
I never eat more than half of what is on my plate and throw the other half out. It's also the reason I don't have food issues and I'm not fat.
In the words of Inigo Montoya: I do not think that means what you think it means.
I can honestly say I've never looked at a half-full plate and thought, "Well, that's enough for me. Guess the rest of this tastiness can just go in the trash. Lord knows, I wouldn't want to just cram it all in there and get fat because I haven't tainted it with other refuse!"
I have no idea why this person thinks this isn't disordered eating, or if s/he really believes that the only difference between her/himself and a fatty is the fact that s/he wastes half of all food s/he encounters. I wonder what the reaction to such a statement would have been if s/he had posted on a forum with looser rules than the one where I read this: would anyone have said, flat-out, "That IS a food issue"? Would anyone have agreed with such a notion? Would it have devolved into a flame war against wastefulness?
What would you say to this person?
In the words of Inigo Montoya: I do not think that means what you think it means.
I can honestly say I've never looked at a half-full plate and thought, "Well, that's enough for me. Guess the rest of this tastiness can just go in the trash. Lord knows, I wouldn't want to just cram it all in there and get fat because I haven't tainted it with other refuse!"
I have no idea why this person thinks this isn't disordered eating, or if s/he really believes that the only difference between her/himself and a fatty is the fact that s/he wastes half of all food s/he encounters. I wonder what the reaction to such a statement would have been if s/he had posted on a forum with looser rules than the one where I read this: would anyone have said, flat-out, "That IS a food issue"? Would anyone have agreed with such a notion? Would it have devolved into a flame war against wastefulness?
What would you say to this person?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
I Can't Believe He's Not Married!
Dennis Prager is an assferret. An assferret in two parts, no less, the second of which I must confess I have not gone near. I don't think I have to, do you?
When A Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part 1 is Prager's loving paean to marital rape and the complete inability of anyone with dangling genitalia to act like a decent human being. I imagine his thinking goes something like this: Ah, the good old days, when men grunted and their possessions promptly opened their legs for them. Such halcyon days, those, when society rightly knew that women have no sex drive of their own, and are concerned only with pleasing their masters, who in turn are concerned with big, complicated Man Things, like working and not fucking every vaguely attractive woman who passes by.
Twice divorced, Prager asserts that women are property who don't ever want to have sex and that our delicate sensibilities would be irreparably offended if we ever could imagine just a fraction of what it's like to be horny all the time. Since our owners work so hard for us to have a pretty house to keep - and because their money is why we married them - we should just give up the cooch whenever it's demanded of us. How else will our husbands know we love them? They're just dumb rutting animals, after all, who should be entrusted with knowing what's best for us.
God, this shit is offensive on every level. And I say that as a housewife, a SAHM, and a woman who's almost never denied her husband sex.
I don't "give him my body" (to vomitously paraphrase) because he needs it and I want him to be happy. I have sex because he makes it worth my while. Because I know myself, and if he's asking? It's been too damn long, and I will be "in the mood" any minute. I have sex because I like sex, and really, when presented with the option of having good sex, I can't imagine rolling over and watching TV instead.
I have sex when I'm not "in the mood" because my husband returns the favor. Because - ZOMG! - he's not just some rutting beast with no self-control or thought to my pleasure. He knows I love him because I do these crazy things like telling him. Like keeping house, though it bores me. Like bearing his children. Like letting him get away with rolling over on me in bed even though we bought a king to prevent exactly that situation. Like marrying him.
I don't recommend that everyone give it up when they're not into it. For a lot of people, that just doesn't work. In fact, I don't advise people about their relationships very often, because their success depends entirely upon the dynamic between two individuals. What works between me and my husband probably won't work for anyone else, simply because we aren't anyone else.
But today, I feel compelled to advise Prager: When someone who, on the face of it, is living the advice you've given, and calls you a sexist assferret? You have bigger problems than how often your penis is in someone's vagina.
When A Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part 1 is Prager's loving paean to marital rape and the complete inability of anyone with dangling genitalia to act like a decent human being. I imagine his thinking goes something like this: Ah, the good old days, when men grunted and their possessions promptly opened their legs for them. Such halcyon days, those, when society rightly knew that women have no sex drive of their own, and are concerned only with pleasing their masters, who in turn are concerned with big, complicated Man Things, like working and not fucking every vaguely attractive woman who passes by.
Twice divorced, Prager asserts that women are property who don't ever want to have sex and that our delicate sensibilities would be irreparably offended if we ever could imagine just a fraction of what it's like to be horny all the time. Since our owners work so hard for us to have a pretty house to keep - and because their money is why we married them - we should just give up the cooch whenever it's demanded of us. How else will our husbands know we love them? They're just dumb rutting animals, after all, who should be entrusted with knowing what's best for us.
God, this shit is offensive on every level. And I say that as a housewife, a SAHM, and a woman who's almost never denied her husband sex.
I don't "give him my body" (to vomitously paraphrase) because he needs it and I want him to be happy. I have sex because he makes it worth my while. Because I know myself, and if he's asking? It's been too damn long, and I will be "in the mood" any minute. I have sex because I like sex, and really, when presented with the option of having good sex, I can't imagine rolling over and watching TV instead.
I have sex when I'm not "in the mood" because my husband returns the favor. Because - ZOMG! - he's not just some rutting beast with no self-control or thought to my pleasure. He knows I love him because I do these crazy things like telling him. Like keeping house, though it bores me. Like bearing his children. Like letting him get away with rolling over on me in bed even though we bought a king to prevent exactly that situation. Like marrying him.
I don't recommend that everyone give it up when they're not into it. For a lot of people, that just doesn't work. In fact, I don't advise people about their relationships very often, because their success depends entirely upon the dynamic between two individuals. What works between me and my husband probably won't work for anyone else, simply because we aren't anyone else.
But today, I feel compelled to advise Prager: When someone who, on the face of it, is living the advice you've given, and calls you a sexist assferret? You have bigger problems than how often your penis is in someone's vagina.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Deus incarnatus est!
Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a lovely day full of friends, family, and food. I had a wonderful time watching Bacon tear through all of Santa's careful wrappings and opening my very own Chicken Purse.
The Midnight Mass this year was wonderful. The cathedral was exquisitely decorated, and Archbishop Chaput had the standing-room-only crowd go and sit in the sanctuary, to be part of the community that we celebrate at every Mass, and of course at Christmas.
He also gave a sermon about the three things Christmas is about. He said it's about us: Jesus came to save us, because God loves us. It's about peace: the peace we find in God, in Christ, the peace that we hope the whole world will have.
And Christmas is about the body: God became flesh. God was incarnate.
Deus incarnatus est.
God did not become fleshly to hate the flesh. God did not take on a human form in order to force that form to do what it was not intended to do. God, who created us in all our varied forms, did not come among us to count His calories or restrict His food groups or talk about how fat He was and how horrible that made Him.
Deus incarnatus est.
God became flesh to be one of us. God took on a human form because He loved us so very, very passionately that He determined to save us from hell and all the power of sin.
Does a God who loves so fervently, so ardently, that He suffered and died as one of us, love us only if we're perfect? Does He love us only if we're pretty? Only if we're thin? Can we say we respect the body because we're pro-life even as we denigrate our own flesh by denying it should exist?
Of course not. Deus incarnatus est. God is in the body. God is in the flesh. God is with us - Emmanuel. Sent for all of us, not only for the thin, not only for the pretty, not only for those who are "worthy" - because not one of us is worthy of Him.
Be yourselves incarnate. Be of the flesh, because God loves us, because God loves our flesh. Respect your body as much as you respect any other's. Celebrate your own incarnation as you celebrate His, as I celebrate mine on the same day.
Deus incarnatus est!
The Midnight Mass this year was wonderful. The cathedral was exquisitely decorated, and Archbishop Chaput had the standing-room-only crowd go and sit in the sanctuary, to be part of the community that we celebrate at every Mass, and of course at Christmas.
He also gave a sermon about the three things Christmas is about. He said it's about us: Jesus came to save us, because God loves us. It's about peace: the peace we find in God, in Christ, the peace that we hope the whole world will have.
And Christmas is about the body: God became flesh. God was incarnate.
Deus incarnatus est.
God did not become fleshly to hate the flesh. God did not take on a human form in order to force that form to do what it was not intended to do. God, who created us in all our varied forms, did not come among us to count His calories or restrict His food groups or talk about how fat He was and how horrible that made Him.
Deus incarnatus est.
God became flesh to be one of us. God took on a human form because He loved us so very, very passionately that He determined to save us from hell and all the power of sin.
Does a God who loves so fervently, so ardently, that He suffered and died as one of us, love us only if we're perfect? Does He love us only if we're pretty? Only if we're thin? Can we say we respect the body because we're pro-life even as we denigrate our own flesh by denying it should exist?
Of course not. Deus incarnatus est. God is in the body. God is in the flesh. God is with us - Emmanuel. Sent for all of us, not only for the thin, not only for the pretty, not only for those who are "worthy" - because not one of us is worthy of Him.
Be yourselves incarnate. Be of the flesh, because God loves us, because God loves our flesh. Respect your body as much as you respect any other's. Celebrate your own incarnation as you celebrate His, as I celebrate mine on the same day.
Deus incarnatus est!
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