The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

After a lot of soul searching - isn't that what twentysomethings are known for? - I decided on my career path. I'll be 45 before I get it all done, but I will get it done. I've gone through a lot of choices in the past, latching onto something I think will help or give me a decent living...but nothing really made me go "Oh, THAT! Yes, THAT is what I want!" Well, except for being a vet, but seriously, me and math are enemies. Science is a bitch, too.

I was perusing college sites, trying to find something, and I stumbled across the best fit for me, ever. It's got all the elements I love, and it's something I've accidentally been internalizing forever without realizing it.

My choice? Classicist, focusing on Roman History, preferably the reign of Emperors. The crazy mothers like Caligulia and Nero. The ones that are so twisted (hey, that sounds vaguely familiar) that they are remembered for their atrocities. Now I don't like things like crazy people killing people for random fun, but how can you not find a man that makes his horse a Senator fascinating?

I've always excelled at history, at studying the past in order to understand the present and future. To know the roads that mankind's walked and how and why it died out. I love it, so much. I could read books on it for days. God knows the History Channel's in my top five, no doubt about it. Especially the ones on the looking into ancient times.

I plan on getting my PhD in the area. I'll have to find a good college for that. I'd go to Emory, but seriously, just emailing the head of the department, asking how I should begin, like what I'll need to know later on to succeed in that specific area, I got brushed off. Bitch, please. It costs an arm and a leg and ain't the only pony in the world. I'll figure the rest after I get my Masters. I figure I'll spend a couple years in Italy, so maybe I'll study past that. Either way, it's the perfect field for me. Until then, it might have to be something like Ga State University.

Either way, it'll be a long while until I get to that stage. But I'm finally focused. Everything just lined up. And god it feels good to finally start in a direction. Now, to work on my religious beliefs. That'll take just as long, I think. Because as hard to believe as it is, I'm quite opinionated and find fault with most of them. And combine different ones, too. Bit of a problem, that.

Zionks!

Scooby Sue, where are you?

ETA: I'm fine. The Atlanta tornadoes hit downtown, not the suburbs. Good thing we don't live there now, isn't it? It's insane, though. MLK Jr Blvd, Omni, Peachtree, Dome, Congress center. That whole area is fucked up. The Arena has sheet metal peeling off it.

Articles: AJC's take, Fox 5, ABC affiliate. (Note: I say tornado, because that's the best guess. No one actually has a clue yet.) 19k without power right now. Including traffic lights. Trust me when I say that here that's the equivalent of NYC not having any. The way the city's set up, there's no specific grid. All service personal (officers, EMTs, firemen) were called in to help with the damage. One person here compared it to the Olympic Bombing.

Photos
Centennial Park
Billboard
Atlanta
Downtown
During Mississippi-Alabama game
Omni Hotel
Don't fall
CNN Center
Water main break in Congress Center
Stack Lofts at Blvd
Lofts again. 5th floor is gone (being renovated). 100 year old walls blown out.

Confused

I don't just mean in a particular sense. More like a pretty much constant state of awareness. I don't know why, and I'm half afraid to find out. But the other half really, really wants to know what I'm so mixed up about. One of my LJ friends posted a meme about describing yourself in twelve words or less. I came up with some, but mostly, I tend to keep my better words close to the vest. I'm the most open secretive person ever. I've gotten to be quite good at it. Pretend you're a completely open book, and no one digs under the surface. Great plan for group domination if I do say so myself.

Still wish I knew more about what makes me a little turned left when the rest of the world is going right. Make one less thing on my to do list.

Damn that was sexy...

I don't know how many people have been keeping up with JK Rowlings' lawsuit against Steve Vander Ark and RDR books, but it's pretty important. In the wide scope of things, and the smaller. The basic fan entitlement in HP fandom has inspired me on more than one occasion to request that some spy come swipe the more egotistical fans (hello, Cassie Claire, Heidi Tandy, and Scribbles) off the internet. Not death. Just...off the internet. Where they'll no longer be allowed to try and pretend being popular online does fuck all in your offline life. Yeah. And HP has got a shit ton because of the size and different divisions. Of course, all fandoms have those divisions, but most don't have the same scope and size. So that's going on, all the time. God the wank and drama could have kept the Titanic floating into harbor.

Okay, back on topic. So, the basic idea is that the Harry Potter Lexicon, a very well-known and supported website, was edited to be written up as a published book. Now, in fandoms, one law is this: don't try to make money off copyrighted material or you'll be eating out of a tube for a couple years after the massive smackdown that will accompany it. When Buffy was still on the air, Fox sent out a lot of cease and desist orders. Though the Fox case was very unfair, since the internet community is what draws in more interest, and Joss Whedon was all for it and even posted on the official forum, but it still holds that talking and exploring the canon is what keeps people interested. Just check out any fandom on LiveJournal. People migrate and take their friendslists with them. How the hell else do you explain Fall Out Boy otherwise?

SVA, because it's shorter than the moron's name, has decided that after JKR said no to his own, or working on one in conjuction, to print it out. And he went to this no name publisher in Michigan. Which all you Michigan people might wanna hide your face in embarrassment. No, seriously. SVA, a middle-aged fanboy in epic portions of Star Wars standards, has been compared to Elvis. Oh, yes. And as one community I'm on says, it only works if it's drugged out, fat Elvis. It sure as hell isn't the cool one. And that's the more tame versions. He's been asked about it in the past and has publicly stated that if he had/did not obtain JKR's permission, one would never arrive. Except that was a total lie apparently.

I'm not a fan on lawyers, just not. Sorry. But I want buy JKR/WB's lawyers enough drinks to float all of JKR's money on a barge around the world. Because they are just that damn awesome. See, I have issues when authors start to get nervous because their fans turn out to be horrible people and try and take away well-earned profits. Can we say hell-to-the-naw on that? Good. We just did. RDR needs to just shut up, let it go, and admit defeat. You can not print an encyclopedia of work without citations, or almost exclusively all JKR's words (be it verbatim or paraphrased) and expect to get away with it. You can't. Sorry. So I'm all for SVA getting 500 lbs of Get-The-Fuck-Out-Of-My-Fandom shoved up his ass and make him walk funny for a long time. It doesn't work in college, and it's not going to work in professional life.

Fandom is my downtime. It's where I can squeal and giggle or rant up a storm about something I happening on a show or in a book series. It's where I can write up what I was missing from the source, or what I think was missed in an effort to condense. There' s also friendships. I've made many a friend through fandom, and several I would consider my best friends that I've met offline as well. It's more a society unto itself. And there are some very basic laws. If you go against them, you're gonna hear about it quite loudly. Self-policing is working wonders for the most part.

JKR is not Anne Rice, meaning she does not belong in the sanitarium with the Riddler from the 3rd Batman movie. She does not beat down anyone that disagrees. Nor does she forget those awesome things called paragraphs. She's given Lexicon an award for the dedication and work. Just like she has six or more others. It has nothing to do with giving them permission to print her copyrighted, non-public domain work as their own and profit. That's actually the number one of fandom behavior, I believe. And the sad part is that SVA has fans. I didn't see it, but remember when Jar Jar Binks came out? Yeah, the frothing people who hated him have more intelligence than these yahoos. Seriously.

I am just amazed at the stupidity of people taking SVA's side, when he's clearly in the wrong. Just because she's extremely rich does not give them permission to profit off of it. Hello, if you want to make money, write your own damn stories. There's a difference from critical analysis and copy/paste. One is fostering discussion, and the other is a reference material.

In case you're interested, here's the Justia link where you can find out all the documents we're allowed to see. I truly can not wait for this royal smackdown. When you're playing in someone else's sandbox, you don't pee in it. And I will positively have this lady's offspring. Because damn that was hot. Almost as hot as JKR saying SVA wasn't a fan. God I love intelligent smackdowns. Especially declarations that basically call SVA a pompous windbag. One should note that he went for quite a while not updating anything, and part of that was through RDR's orders. I know before the 6th book came out, most of the larger sections had barely any information past the fourth. (Poor Ginny had no information for her awesomeness in Book 5.)