Food for thought

With thanks to griffen, who linked me to an opinion article on Barack Obama, which in turn led me to this really interesting take on the military-industrial complex by President Eisenhower. Powerful stuff.

I still haven't figured out how to embed videos, so here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Gt1bhKLhs

Icon meme

1) Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2) Make a post and talk about the icons I chose.
3) Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4) This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.


Asked by bodhifox:



The Overtime Fairy is the icon I've used the most recently. The term is one I invented by borrowing shamelessly from my friends, who had already coined the terms "Migraine Fairy," "Cookie Fairy" and any number of fairies that I'm probably forgetting. I've talked about the Overtime Fairy for about two years on and off, and mentioned only recently that I really ought to have an Overtime Fairy icon, which the lovely and talented curtana made for me. I agree with her that Eddie Izzard makes an awesome Overtime Fairy.



This one is also by curtana (I'd say about 70% of my icons are her creations) and based on a quote from Babylon 5 which I watched in its entirety for the first time a little over a year ago. I loved the show, and was especially impressed by the writing. The above quote is (I believe) from Delenn, an alien (for the purposes of simplicity: I understand that not everyone who reads this LJ has seen the show) who is in love with the human commander of the station. Their relationship is the cause of much controversy, and I particularly liked the way she phrased this. It's very much the way I feel about most of my friends: they are my chosen family, because we are of the same heart.



Ah, the Canadian Borg. I snagged this one from taxlady, and I believe several people on LJ have it. No idea who the creator is (if anyone knows, please tell me so I can credit!). This icon showcases two of my loves: my country (in all its quirky politeness) and Star Trek: TNG. I am a very quiet patriot. In fact, I am very Canadian in my patriotism, and very Canadian in general, a fact which my mother delights in pointing out all the time (not necessarily a good thing in her books, but I take it as a compliment). I try to be polite in my everyday dealings (I occasionally apologize to people who bump into me, and, more embarrassingly, to objects with which I've collided). I am also perfectly bilingual. Anyone who has listened to a Canadian phone recording understands just why "Pour l'assimilation en Français, faites le 2" is hilarious. As for the Borg aspect, well, let's just say that before Star Trek: Voyager ruined them, the Borg were the scariest villains on television. They were big, they were fast, they were powerful, and they were inexorable. They also acted on a collective imperative to increase their numbers, and not through any understandable motive like revenge or imperialism. I suppose I liked them for the same reasons that I like zombies: they are unfathomable, and unstoppable by normal means.



You are a (relative) latecomer to my LJ, so you might not know that I am, in fact, a superhero. Read the comments to find out how I acquired my superhero name: Rocking Thing. I believe that t! came up with the suggestion because, at the time, one of my favourite things to say was "I rock like a rocking thing." Invisible even wrote a song about me and the other girls in my band called "Rocking Thing." It blew my mind. I don't have a copy, sadly, or I'd have posted it already.

The icon itself is a closeup of my right arm (yes, I wear my watch on my right wrist), hand holding drumsticks and resting on my snare. I believe this was one of the originals taken by owldaughter during a rehearsal. It sums up my superhero alter-ego quite nicely.



This is the only icon I have which shows my face (I had more but got rid of them). It's a crop of an original taken by fearsclave from the first year were were snowshoeing together (so late 2004 or early 2005). We made a bivouack out in the swamp behind his father's and WOSM's house and built a fire over which we made Kraft Dinner, which we ate with SAS racing sporks. Much fun. The larger photo is one of me whacking away at a dead tree with a cheap Canadian Tire machete, and I use the icon for most of my outdoors-y-related stuff.

The cats, collectively

I'm not sure if you mean just the photo icons of my cats, or all my icons about cats in general. Please specify and I will post the icons and comment as needed. :)

:::ETA:::



These are my two "George" icons. George is my baby cat, although now that he's over six years old he's no longer really my baby, but a big grown-up boy. I use the "curious George" icon for any post that involves him, or to comment on people's posts about cats. I use the "yawning George" icon for silly cat-related posts, and occasionally for posts in which the cats have been too cute for words.



This is my Pan-Pan icon. I use it for posts and comments about him, specifically, or for posts about clueless things cats have done. Pan-Pan is very lovable, and very very stupid, and thus provides me with a lot of amusement as well as affection.



This is my Gretzky icon. I basically use it only for posts and comments about her.

I have no icon for Smudge, and I keep meaning to remedy that. All the above icons were made by the talented meallanmouse from a cat-photo-shoot at my old apartment, and of course I didn't have Smudge at the time.

Another icon meme

1) Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2) Make a post and talk about the icons I chose.
3) Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4) This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

Asked by fearsclave:



This is my default icon. In winter of 2004 I discovered that one of the best remedies against seasonal depression was for me to wear brightly-coloured clothing, specifically knee-high rainbow-striped socks. I bought myself two pairs, and enjoyed wearing them tremendously. Since then I have made a point of buying brightly-coloured socks, most of which are rainbow-striped, although I haven't been able to find knee-high ones that aren't also toe socks.

Anyway, it's a bright, happy icon that reflects a significant chunk of my personality and preferences. I am quite fond of it. I use it occasionally for posts and for comments which don't require anything but a generally happy icon.



This is my former default icon. I used it for a few years while I was working my way out of mental illness and depression. I liked the idea of a candle lighting up the darkness. Now I use it for posts about funerals and the death of people I know and/or admired.



Heh. This one amuses me a whole lot. It's from the webcomic Two Lumps. I forget the actual joke, but Eben (the smart cat) orders Snooch to bring him something, and instead of the something Snooch brings him a dead baby possum. I find the image amusing, and I use it when I'm so tired that all I want to do is collapse and go to bed.



This icon was created to serve a dual purpose: one, for posts about baking. The other was for comments to t!'s serial, "Baker's Twelve." Unfortunately, the brilliant serial has since been discontinued (alas, alack!), so now it's only for posts about baking. I've always liked the expression "Baker's Dozen," and so I grabbed an image off Getty Images and went to town.



This is a Babylon 5 quote, made by the lovely and talented curtana. I use it for posts about politics, or posts in which I am being pessimistic and tongue-in-cheek at the same time. The image of all the rocks voting on whether or not there should be an avalanche amuses me greatly.




Another Babylon 5 quote by the lovely and talented curtana. I use it to remind myself that individuals rarely change the course of history, and that sometimes the best thing I can do is just hang on for dear life and wait for the tidal wave of change to wash over me.

Third icon meme in a row!

1) Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2) Make a post and talk about the icons I chose.
3) Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4) This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

Asked by curtana:



This is from my Two Lumps craze. I still love the strip, but it no longer dominates my icon list. This gif was made by the lovely and talented joane. I use it for posting drunkenly and for silly posts. :)



I am not especially pleased by the way this icon turned out. It's a Mal quote from Firefly, which I stuck onto an image from a different episode, because it amused me. In the scene, Inara reproves him for barging in unannounced, and he responds along the lines of "I was under the impression that you found it manly and impulsive."

It makes me wish my icon-making skills were better. It would probably help if I had proper image-editing software.



Heh. This is an icon that I made based on an in-joke with a family friend. He told us an anecdote about a business retreat he went on, where the group he was with were each asked who they would be, if they could be anyone (it was one of those team-building exercises). Everyone had fairly typical answers of some sort of sports, political or cultural hero, until our friend. When his turn came he said: "I would be Darth Vader. I'd like to have the power to destroy a planet on a bad day."

Bearing this in mind, about six months after the "my fandom [blah]" icons started to go out of fashion, I decided to make this icon. I rather like it, even if it's kind of simplistic in its execution. I use it for some science fiction posts, and for posts in which I manifest a desire to extinguish small planets due to a bad mood.



I have no motivation for picking out this icon from the ones you made, other than that I really like the first season of Battlestar Galactica, and it's a pretty icon. I was also looking for some "happy" icons for myself, since I rarely post anything but good things these days, and this one caught my eye.



This is one of the very first icons I ever used in this LJ (along with some Resident Evil ones, believe it or not). I found it online, at this point I completely forget where, and it amused me no end. Then I replaced it with other icons (this was back in the day when even a paid account netted you ten icons; uphill barefoot in the snow both ways!) which caught my eye because they were shiny, and at one point I had a "theme" for my LJ (first it was books and then it was "Lilo & Stitch"), so it didn't have its place among my icons. Then George killed my computer, and I lost the image. I found it again recently and with my new and improved icon space, I resurrected it.

I think it's fun, and I use it for happy bouncy posts.



This is my most recent acquisition, which was made by palmir and which he generously allowed me to snag for my own nefarious purposes. I have recently begun running, and since I was doing a lot of running in the snow, this seemed like a very appropriate icon. I also used to read Boondocks regularly, back when the Gazette carried it and I read the Gazette, and found it clever and incisive. So, it works out well all around.