all our lonely kicks are getting harder to find

First off, in case you missed it, my last RL update is here in case you're curious as to how I'm doing. ^_^;

Also, one of my cousins recently opened up a jewelry shop on Etsy! I think some of you on my f-list would be interested, so if you'd like to support her (which would be awesome! :D) or just see the kind of work she's doing, feel free to check out her store. ;-)

Because I haven't done a linkdump in a while, it's another REALLY REALLY long one, so it's under a cut. Obviously I don't expect you to read all of it -- or any of it, for that matter -- but I've bolded the ones I recommend the most for your convenience. Enjoy!

( Read more... )

I know most of the links this week are from The Atlantic; this is only because I follow the magazine on Twitter, and every day they have a ton of articles that catch my interest, and I end up clicking on them all, and pretty soon my browser is crammed with tabs from this one website. Which I find kinda embarrassing, even though it's not a big deal at all. I should go on a bigger variety of sites regardless. :P

--Yes, Money Does Buy Happiness: 6 Lessons From the Newest Research on Income and Well-Being
--The "Most Significant" Photo Recently Taken From Space
--Why We Get Prune Fingers
--Hollywood's Real Bias Is Conservative (But Not in the Way Liberals Often Say)
--The Fact-Free Political Alarmism of Naomi Wolf  (this does a good job of pinpointing what bothers me about left-wing activist writers like Wolf, Glenn Greenwald, Michael Moore, etc. -- they're too extreme and addicted to attention for most people to believe anything they have to say, and whatever good points they make are undermined by their poor research and lack of nuance)
--There's More to Life Than Being Happy
--A GIF Guide to the Most Bannable Semi-Automatic Weapons
--Russian test uncovers strain of space travel  (with all the buzz surrounding the Mars One project, this is important to keep in mind)
--Actually, Don't Write Like You're Dead  (on bad writing advice, and how it's impossible not to be a product of your times)
--Sympathy For the Nice Guys of OKCupid  (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -- not because Nice Guys deserve that much pity [they don't], but it's an interesting perspective that's worth thinking about)
--Censoring Pirate Sites Doesn't Work, Researchers Find
--Astronomers Discover a Planet Almost Identical to Earth
--New battery converts physical motion to chemical energy in a single step
--Galaxy's center tastes of raspberries and smells of rum, say astronomers
--What If NASA Could Figure Out the Math of a Workable Warp Drive?  (I'm pretty sure I shared this on Twitter before, but it's worth sharing again)
--Winners of the National Geographic Photo Contest 2012
--A Stunning, Sparkling Beehive Caught By Accident  (on globular clusters and distant galaxies)
--Tongue and Tech: The Many Emotions For Which English Has No Words
--Pondering Our Cyborg Future in a Documentary About the Singularity
--Climate Change Doesn't Have to Mean the End of the World  (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -- this partly explains why I've become so burned out on even thinking about environmentalism and climate change activism; at this point, adaptation is the only thing we can do about global warming)
--Short animated film: "R'ha" by Kaleb Lechowski  (I'm only sharing this because a.) the animation and CGI is AMAZING, and b.) the guy who made this is a year younger than me, and I feel woefully inadequate because of it D: )

So we have yet another huge storm bearing down on us. *sigh* The next two days are going to suck, for sure, but the only thing we can do is wait it out. Connecticut is under a state of emergency right now, my parents have already prepared for everything they could think of, and I can already hear the winds picking up outside. We're in a pretty safe area, but we're still anticipating a power outage -- or if the power doesn't go out, it just might be the TV and Internet that go out. We've been very lucky when Irene and the Halloween snowstorm last year hit (we lost TV and Internet for a few days with Irene, and we really lucked out with the snowstorm because we didn't lose anything at all), but I'm anticipating the worst. I can handle no TV and Internet, but no power....yeah, I admit I'm nervous about that. D: So if something does happen, you can still get in touch with me (I'll have my phone), but it might take me a little longer to get around to it.

(At least my sister is happy she got the next two days of school off. And that she's getting her braces off in January. But I guess that's neither here nor there. ^_^;)

In other news: I'm definitely doing NaNoWriMo this year! Feel free to add me over there if you like. :D I don't plan on getting too obsessed over it; the only goal for me is just to get back into the habit of writing because I haven't done it in so long, to see if it's something I still want to do. It seems to me the important thing about the challenge is getting the words down, and then editing and working with them later; if so, then that makes things a lot easier for me, because the main thing for me to do right now is getting over the hump and just doing it. The weird thing about depression is that sometimes, you can't wait until you're motivated and/or ready to do something; you have to start doing it so that the motivation and willpower follows. If that makes any sense. :P

This, of course, means I'm finally getting around to taking a much-needed hiatus from Tumblr. I've been planning on doing it for a while, and for other reasons than NaNo, but still...one less distraction, right?

And just today, another big website started following me on Twitter. I guess it's because I linked to one of their articles? Either way, it's still pretty cool, I guess. :3

I'm saving the best news for last: I'm going to see The Twilight Sad play in Hamden on Nov. 6th! I don't go to concerts nearly as often as I should (though it's mostly because I only have so much money, and I can't travel very far because the bands I really want to see generally don't stop by the area), and because it's one of my favorite bands I'm really looking forward to this. When I found out about it yesterday, I texted K because she's a fan as well; she bought tickets for the both of us, so it's definitely happening. It'll be the first time we meet up in the past couple of months too, so that's good. In any case, I'm excited. ^_^;

That's about it for me for now; for all of you out there waiting out the storm like I am, please stay safe! ;-)

I just finished reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and I really enjoyed it! So while I'm letting it sink in, here's a multi-day music meme I got from hairspray -- hope you enjoy it!

DAY 01: A song from your childhood.



There's not much I can really say about this song, just that I remember loving it when I was really young and it was playing on VH1 a lot (I used to watch a lot of VH1 when I was little, back when it still played music videos). My 5-year-old self really liked the lead singer in the video with his whole don't-give-a-fuck aura, so I always danced with him whenever it came on. XD

( Upcoming days under the cut... )

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So because this month is National Poetry Month, some people on my f-list (like dreams_of_all and eska_rina) have been posting one poem a day for the month. While I don't plan on doing that, I'll try to post some poems I like and have enjoyed every so often, when I remember. For now, here's some Pablo Neruda and Khalil Gibran:

( Pablo Neruda -- A Dog Has Died )


( Pablo Neruda -- Un perro ha muerto (original Spanish version of A Dog Has Died) )


( Khalil Gibran -- On Children )


( Khalil Gibran -- Tears and Laughter )

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I have a lot of other things I'd like to post, but for now I'll leave you with this: oneword.com. I was recently reminded of the existence of this site recently, since I used to use it a lot back in high school; basically you're given a one-word prompt, and you have 60 seconds to write about it (though I'm sure you could get away with writing for longer than a minute if you got really into it). It might be a good way to get you writers out there out of a writing slump, so feel free to try it out! Hope you like it. ;-)