content generator from ravensee

[the_siobhan]

Look at my LJ interests, and my user pics. Pick one (or one of each, if you like) that you find confusing or intriguing, and comment here. I’ll explain what it means and what makes it significant to me.

Then, if you want, please post this in your own LJ, if you’d be so kind, so that I can learn about your interests, too.

Comments

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

it's not a meme!
:P

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I have literalists on my f-list to take great exception to the fact that polls, quizzes and other content generators are refered to as "memes".

It's not a particular hot-button issue for me, but I have so many big red shiny buttons installed about other things that I think it's amusing. In a wry also-laughing-at-myself kind of way.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Interests: Where are your pants?
Userpics: Who is the person with the purple mohawk?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Where are my pants: You ever had one of those nights where you wake up the next day, stagger around for a while, and can't find your pants? It's usually caused by an outbreak of too much surreal the day before.

Or too much rock star. One or the other.

Who is the person with the purple mohawk? Me, about three years ago. I had to cut off the mohawk to get the bank job. But I don't see many pics of me that I like, so I kept it.

[ravensee.livejournal.com]

being on fire

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Back when I was suffering from depression really badly I wrote an essay called Fire In The Belly (http://www.virulent.org/siobhan/stuff/fire.html).

It was about deciding that I would not be defeated and making the concious choice to live. Being on fire is about reminding myself that every day is one I have through an act of sheer will at a time when I didn't believe I had any will left.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Now with fixed link. :-)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

However not without spelling errors.

[silentq.livejournal.com]

Wassup with cernunnos?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Certain dieties are closer to my heart than others. Cernunnos is the big bad daddy of celtic mythology, and the male spirit of nature.

[alchemuse.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll bite.

Dutch Chicken Benchmark.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Ha!

This is actually from a story that bcholmes told me when she was trying to explain what it was like to work in the Netherlands. She found their frankness and willingness to talk about sex a little - unusual. North Americans have very strict rules about what is considered appropriate topics for conversation in the workplace or around the dinner table. The Dutch, not so much.

So she was telling me about a conversation she had there once where she was trying to quiz a Dutch person about what would be considered TMI for dinnertime conversation. The person she was talking about couldn't really come up with anything. Gay sex? Fine. Kinky sex? Perfectly ok.

"What about sex with animals?"

The Dutch person thought about it. "Well, it would really depend. I imagine sex with some kinds of animals might be too graphic."

"What kinds of animals?" asked bcholmes

"Well... say anything smaller than a chicken."

This story has ever since been known as the Dutch Chicken Benchmark. And I put it in my interests because I think it's hilarious.

[alchemuse.livejournal.com]

OMG! That *is* hilarious. Thanks for telling me.

[boxofdelights]

Tell me about the church of joy.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

The Church of Joy is the invention of my good friend reverend_mark.

It's hard to sum up in a paragraph, but it's basically the philosphy of seeking Joy over Fear, even though Fear is easier, more familiar and a hell of a lot more comfortable. As envisioned by somebody who is usually cynical, often mad and occasionally drunk.

The good rev wrote an explanation of it here (http://reverend-mark.livejournal.com/2005/04/21/).

[kest]

That sounds very similar to my own 'Church of the Liveable Life' idea, which I contemplate occasional. Maybe I should join forces with reverend_mark

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

You may have met him at C8 - he also goes by markeris.

[jeliza]

psychobilly?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Like rockabilly but with zombies and werewolves!

The Cramps are probably the best known example of the genre.

[kest]

grippy
hating london
reluctant messiahs

The last two could be band names, but maybe not. Maybe you really hate london, although it would seem to me that there are many more worthwhile places to hate.

[kest]

and did you make that clay dinosaur, or did someone else?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I found it on the web. By doing a search for plastercine dinosaur.

[kest]

ok. so why a plastercine dinosaur

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I had a visual in my head of a stop-motion animation I had once seen involving dinosaurs. I was actually looking for stills from that, but when I saw the green guy with his tongue sticking out I thought he rendered the mood I was going for perfectly.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I think you're cheating. :-)

grippy At the opening credits of The Colbert Report (http://www.colbertnation.com/colbertnation/) a bunch of words go by that say things like "INSPIRED" "PATRIOTIC" etc. There's one that hangs out a little longer so you can get a good look at it, and for a long time that word was "grippy".

It has since been replaced by "megamerican" and then later by "lincolnish". But grippy is still my favourite.

hating london Because I really do hate London.

Everybody is astonished when I say that, but I just found the average person there to be really callous. It really put me off.

Mind you, I know some truly wonderful people who live there.

reluctant messiahs Originally the title of a book, but I just really took to the concept that certain people have an powerful impact on others through no volition of their own.

[kest]

I think you're cheating. :-)

Probably. :)

Everybody is astonished when I say that, but I just found the average person there to be really callous. It really put me off.

Yeah, but more callous than the average person in, say, New York? LA? Were there particular events that contributed to your opinion?

I think any true messiah is always reluctant.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but more callous than the average person in, say, New York? LA?

Yes. By a long shot.

Were there particular events that contributed to your opinion?

A bunch of people I was driving around got stranded overnight when our van got locked into a carpark. We called all the posted numbers, we called the cops, we called the head office of the company, we tried every hotel in the area to try and find space to sleep. We ended up sleeping on the sidewalk.

I found England to lack the care in efficiency that marks most of North America. Nothing is signed properly, numbers on the signs are incorrect, half the people who are supposed to be in a position to help you aren't there and they are completely indifferent to any suggestions that that might be a problem for anybody else. When Axel and I got off our plane at Pearson I pointed to the sign where the taxi stop is, and he started to argue with me. Then he stopped and said, "Oh wait, I forgot. We're back in Canada. Signs actually mean something here."

Before you think I'm bemoaning the fact that "it's not like home", I've been in lots of countries where they were inefficient and disorganized by our standards, but it never bothered me the way it did in England. Because they were so utterly indifferent on top of that. Everybody made it very clear that we were in their way. I was convinced by their attitude that if they found us frozen on the sidewalk the next morning they would bitch to their co-workers about the inconvenience of having to clean us up.

So now I hate London.

[medakse.livejournal.com]

I'm going to second hating london.
and, in userpix, is the shock and awe baby Siobhan?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I'm going to second hating london.

My first ever experience of London was kinda weird. I found the English capable of being really callous. But of course I also have friends there who I think are amazing. So of course I think they should all come and live here. :-p

and, in userpix, is the shock and awe baby Siobhan?

I found that image on a pamphlet in a club. It was obviously something somebody had dropped because it was for something completely unrelated. But I loved the pic, so I took it home and scanned it.

[ash-pixie.livejournal.com]

OK, how about "controlling fist. of. death."???

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Originally a line from a Dilbert cartoon. But appropriate for so many situations I find myself in.

[frogmistress.livejournal.com]

kerosene circus?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

A comic I used to draw a number of years ago. I've been tooling around with it trying to revive it but it's going slow. Mostly because it's taking a back seat to the writing, which is also going slow.