The Antisocial Socialist

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Spoiler party in the comments if anyone else feels the need to vent!

Among the exciting bits of having a Shiny! New! Phone! is that it's a phone that, unlike the old Infernal Device, people actually make cool crafty cases and such for. But being a pragmatist, I went for an Otterbox case because I am afraid of dropping the thing. It's a nice case (teal and grey, in case you were wondering) but it has two problems:

1) It's a little plain.
2) There's a hole in the back that shows the Apple logo. Which, aesthetically, is a bit dumb, but also basically says "steal me" to anyone who sees it out. Not that the case itself doesn't say "steal me," but it would be nice to have a bit of plausible deniability about it being a really great phone.

So, I thought, phone decals exist! At least, I have a decal for Mac the Knife (if you haven't seen it, it's Woody Guthrie's "This Machine Kills Fascists"), so I figured that such things existed on Etsy. Alas, they do not sell a "This Machine Kills Fascists" decal for the iPhone, probably on the basis that anyone who buys one is already not a very good leftist, so I spent some time searching up designs and found a whole bunch that I like.

Does anyone know if vinyl decals even stick to an Otterbox case? Furthermore, your advice is needed on the following options:

1. TARDIS #1. Plus: Cheap! Minus: No photo of the actual thing.

2. TARDIS #2. Plus: If the photo is to be believed, looks much better than the first. Minus: Will it stick to the case as opposed to the phone?

3. Girl on a tightrope with a crocodile. Plus: Cool picture, will match the case. Minus: Same as above.

4. Le Chat Noir. Plus: I still love this poster. Minus: Might not match the colour scheme, might make my phone look like a college dorm room.

5. Green lace. Plus: Will match, is definitely meant for a case as opposed to the phone. Minus: Has a hole for the Apple logo, kinda boring compared to the others so far.

6. House Greyjoy. Plus: Badass. Minus: I'd prefer it if it were just the sigil with no text, House Greyjoy kind of suck even though they have the best sigil.

7. Bathroom flamingos. Plus: The colour is perfect, awesomely retro. Minus: I may get sick of flamingos.

8. Alice in Wonderland. Plus: It's Alice in Wonderland. Minus: Same as everything else in this line.

9. 221B. Plus: Cool! Minus: Sherlock fans.

10. Anchor. Plus: Matches the colour scheme, meant for the case, implications of rum and sodomy. Minus: Shows the logo.

[Poll #1954882]

Under the cut: Horrendous working class stereotypes, altogether too much space hippie, probably too many Star Trek references, and a poll about how Byron should die.

( my thoughts on B5, let me show you them )

[Poll #1809946]

Situation #1:

Dear Miss Manners Internets,

Frequently, and especially at work, older gentlemen with whom I am not well acquainted inquire as to the natural colour of my hair. They do not do so in the context of a discussion about hair or fashion. This is very different than the kids asking me about my hair (kids ask all sorts of personal questions, because they're kids), or co-workers commenting that they like my new colour.

Internets, it is very obvious that I do dye my hair, as my colour will, several times a year, dramatically change to a different shade of red. Despite how obvious this is, I am often plagued with men asking me:

1) Do you dye your hair?
2) Is that your natural colour?
3) What is your natural colour?

Dear internets, am I alone in feeling that this is rude?

Sincerely,
Hotheaded Ginger

Situation #2:

I find myself often eating dinner, alone, reading a book, at the same restaurant, where I'm on a first-name basis with some of the staff, who are quite lovely. I typically order the same thing—a mushroom and tofu dish. No one else has, to my knowledge, ever ordered that, because other people are always commenting on it.

Yesterday, another woman was dining there with an older gentleman. She proceeded to comment on my food and asked if I was a vegetarian. When I said I was, she asked me a number of questions about my dietary preferences and confessed that she was trying to be a vegetarian, but it was, I quote, "SO HARD." Note that I was reaching the exciting climax of my Serious Literary Book and this was much more interesting than answering the same goddamned questions about vegetarianism that I have to answer every time it gets out that I'm a vegetarian.

Am I too sensitive, Internets?

Sincerely,
I'm a Vegetarian, But I'd Make an Exception For You

[Poll #1646252]

[Poll #1533424]

Here are the five stupidest stories to make the headlines in my five-minute scan of today's news.

5. A French parliamentary commission proposes banning niqabs and burqas
Presenting conclusions after six months of hearings, the panel also suggested barring foreign women from obtaining French visas or citizenship if they insisted on veiling their faces. I've already blogged before about why I think this is moronic, but to reiterate: Men deciding what women can and cannot wear is fucking sexist, regardless of whether the motivation is patronizing pseudo-feminism, post-911 paranoia, or a misguided interpretation of Muslim dress codes.

4. Nashville censors tell a Toronto theatre group to "tone down" Romeo and Juliet
"If Mercutio doesn't offend the Nurse with his line about the bawdy hand of the dial being upon the prick of noon and she doesn't try to exit in protest, then what happens to the rest of the play?" When I was in 9th grade, we had to study this play. Okay. I think it's not the greatest choice for high schoolers, but whatever. Our English teacher showed us the Zeffirelli film and censored the sex scene by holding a white piece of paper in front of it. This is probably the root of my Victorian porn fetish or something.

3. Children's TV show hosts detained by London police for terrorism.
"We were stopped, not arrested, but they had to say 'we are holding you under the Anti-Terrorism Act because you're running around in flak jackets and a utility belt', and I said 'and please put spangly blue hairdryer' and he was, like, 'all right'." Really, London? Really?

2. Tofu cream pies are terrorism.
A Liberal MP says he believes the federal government should investigate whether the pieing of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea by a woman opposed to the seal hunt constitutes an act of terrorism. Never mind that this story creates a weird mash-up in my head that involves Osama bin Laden starring in a Marx Brothers movie. This story gave me an intense craving for pie. Plz to be serving up more of this sort of terrorism and less of the blowing-stuff-up sort, kthnx.

And the stupidest story of the day...

Get ready...

Drum roll...

1. SoCal school district bans the dictionary.
A Southern California school board has pulled the Merriam-Webster dictionary off its shelves after a parent complained about the entry “oral sex.”

Okay, so you, like everyone else in the world, looked up dirty words in the dictionary and tittered. In fairness, we were all in fifth grade, when "poo-poo" stopped being the funniest thing ever*, to be replaced by "self-abuse" (what?). Maybe it even, well, made you a little hot. You can admit it, I won't judge.

But did you ever encounter a dictionary that defined "oral sex" in such detail that you would know how to do it? I'm pretty sure Merriam-Webster doesn't.

Poll-time!

[Poll #1516926]

Comment with your rants about descriptive versus prescriptive dictionaries.

* I jest, of course. "Poo-poo" is still funniest.

It seems as though Terry Gilliam set out to make a movie with as much awesome in it as possible, and then put an extra heap of awesomesauce on it just because he could. Either that, or he just wanted to cast Tom Waits as the Devil and then made a movie out of it. Regardless of the intent, it is completely fantastic.

( spoilers for the best part )

So basically I loved it and you should see it too so we can squee together.

[Poll #1493330]

[Poll #1472313]

(You can watch it here or read the transcript here.)