The Dreamwidth Journal of zdashamber

I'm creating a Deadlands character who is a guy whose family was associated with a Taoist temple in Guangzhou (Canton), who came to America during the Second Opium War. ( Research, I haz it )

Anyway. I'd like to come up with a harmonious Chinese name, and I'm curious if anyone has appropriate knowledge. For a family name, I'm thinking Yan, since it's one of the few that seems neither cliche (like Chang or Wong) nor liable to run into idiot cowboy punsters (like Chou or Wong). Does Yan fit for a Cantonese guy? (In searching, I find that "Guangzhou is the mandarin pronounciation for kwongchow." Huh! I hadn't thought that they wouldn't use the local pronunciation.)

Personal name is harder. My understanding is that the aesthetic in China is to come up with a name that means something good, and which is unlike everyone else's name. In English, I'm figuring on calling him China Jack. But that could easily be something someone stuck on him because they couldn't pronounce his Chinese name... Or perhaps it was something vaguely like his Chinese name. I like the sounds ng, j-, and ts-, in general... Jixu? There is at least one Chinese guy with that name, but I can't find what it means. Is the "xu" the same xu as in Lin Zexu, the opium-destroying badass bureaucrat who I figure Jack's family idolized? Ah Lung is cliche, but I still like it, but I hear both that it means "big dragon" and that the Ah is something added to names to make diminutives. Is "ah" = "big" a nickname thing like "Big Tony"?

Californians: today is the last day to register to vote for the special election to be held May 19th re: the budget. And the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, at least, isn't planning to stay open late, so probably all over the state, if you moved, or if you suddenly want to be civic, you probably have one hour to physically get to your county's Registrar of Voters office to fill out a form. Godspeed!

Racefail 09 has been in my head a lot, and I happened to start collecting actual words to post while reading Jim Hines's post which seems to have a cross-section of the whole debate in the comments. Oh, and by the way, in case you didn't know, there are two useful LJ tricks which may help you out as you go from journal to journal: to see the comments listed in order of time, so you can catch them all, at the end of a LJ URL type ?view=flat ; to switch a journal from some horrible viewscheme like teal text on purple background in a 3 inch wide column, at the end of a LJ URL type ?style=mine.

( Some words from defensive white people lead to my version of a history of Racefail09 )

I'm interested to see that the call for shunning has gone out. Six months or so ago, when I was still following the Nielsen Hayden's blog Making Light, PNH posted related to how a couple white SF/F guys got caught chortling about ragheads, and I commented about how screwed-up it was that the attitude was "oh those guys! la they are jerks"... It was like how Harlan Ellison's assholishness was tolerated for so many years, letting him hurt scores of people before Connie Willis. Why, I asked, weren't we shunning unapologetic bigots? You can see in that comment thread the result: a few people saying Wooo! and a few people saying OMG STAR CHAMBER and most people ignoring the issue entirely until they could divert it into another thread on how to apologize. So that! to the people who are like "well if we were just talking nicely among people of our own type in a controlled environment surely this would get solved".

Anyway, do I still feel like unapologetic fucks should not be invited to take part in cons, anthologies, all that professional-ish stuff? Yes. And I'm glad to see that author/bloggers like Jo Walton have come to the same conclusion.

Some other author-type people who have done well (many found from the list at sheafrotherdon's): Justine Larbalestier, Naomi Novik, Ann Leckie, Sherwood Smith, Kate Elliott, Liz Williams, Martha Wells, Claudia Gray, Alistair Reynolds, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Eleanor Arnason, Stacia Kane, Tim Pratt... I'm missing some, please fill in, I heard Pamela Dean but I don't have links? Editor-type people who have done well: Susan Marie Groppi, Debbie Notkin, Christopher Barzak, Niall Harrison, L. Timmel Duchamp. Oh! And of course there's the authors who have been great all along: K. Tempest Bradford, N.K. Jemisin, Moondancer Drake, Helen Keeble...

And here are some other brilliant posts about this whole schlmiel: ciderpress points out that it's not like POC feel all happy with these continual blowups even if white people learn stuff; bossymarmalade writes a lovely response to Bear's fail; asim peacefully fills in some historical MLK Jr perspective; thingswithwings notes how the antiracists are the ones with posts jampacked with links and attributions because they've learned about being blown off. rydra_wong links everything said by everybody if you want to know more. I rarely recommend videos, but this one on how to tell people they sound racist is awesome.

Yesterday the Fail Truck pulled up with a delivery, and I signed for it. Oy. You guys may be aware of RaceFail '09 (summary here, ongoing links to everything here), which began a week or two ago. Yesterday Teresa Nielsen Hayden (tnh), proprietor of a popular general blog where I've been hanging out since 2003 (she's also a SF editor and a Big Name Fan), posted a pretty screwed-up post out of pain and anger arising from the hurt of her husband Patrick on being called on racism. I left her a comment along the lines of "I know how it feels when you feel like people are stabbing you in the back--that really sucks". Sure, there were bits in the comment about how I got past it by taking responsibility and about how her friend annafdd (who pointed out that Patrick was wrong) was right, but I said myself that wasn't the main point. (Earlier this evening the entire 500-some comment thread went under a friendslock, so I'm spared the embarassment of linking the comment directly.)

( So let me make it clear how that was full of fail )

Someday I'm going to squee about Ecclesiastes at length (I love that book of the Bible SO MUCH), but anyway, I tend to judge Bibles by their translation of it. (RSV FTW!) So, unpacking a box tonight I come across the Tanakh, "the new Jewish Publication Society translation according to the traditional Hebrew text", which I got for a basic writing course in college that used the Bible as the base text, taught by this very enthusiastic grad student who was so delighted to tell us all about how cherubim were crazy six-eyed winged snakes, where I wrote a couple-page weekly paper once about how it does us no good to not be introduced to the earthy juicy stuff in the Bible like (I believe it was) Sennacherib's ambassador yelling up at the Judeans that they should damn well surrender Jerusalem because they were surrounded and their situation was hopeless and they'd soon be eating dung and drinking their own piss...

Right, so, anyway, I flip over to Ecclesiastes and start reading. They name the Preacher Koheleth... Interesting! And then I get to Ecc 2:1. "I said to myself, 'Come, I will treat you to merriment. Taste mirth!'"

Bwa! You know where that construction leads! It leads to a guy with a prayer shawl and a chain gun full of dildoes and mini boozes. He kicks down the door, busting it open to reveal that its hollow core is filled with candy! "Taste mirth!" he cries, spraying the room Splut Splut Splut Splut Splut!!

"That too, I found, was futile."

Hee hee hee hee.

Wow. At least I don't own a house.

Looked at my first water bill this week, and found that it was for $677, at which point I was like Wow, water's going to be pretty expensive... and then I looked some more and found that they said I was using 3,200 gallons a day which um no. Phoned EBMUD and they sent someone to check the meter in case they'd read it wrong; he left a doorhanger yesterday that said "No, the meter was spinning as I watched it, and also now it's up to 5,100 gallons a day. Oh, and here's a nifty booklet and some dye tabs for toilet leak checking."

( Big money )

Bit of a thought: is there anyone who will be in Portland on Thursday afternoon 2:15ish with a car, who is interested in bicycle shopping? It'll be a bit of a pain in the tuchus to get to Clever Cycles, home of Dutch upright-riding-position street bicycles and wool knickers, on public transit... But on the other hand, since I'd actually be hopefully test-riding bikes etc it wouldn't do much good to help me out just because of my inherent lovability. I carefully maintain my lovability by not making people wait around for me while I ponder the 43% blue versus the 46% teal. Thus, just throwing this out there in case someone is an actual bike-interested person...

Um... Oh, did you all know that I moved? Yeah, last week. I'm in a place of my own. Nice little house behind another house, with its own fenced-in area all around; big concrete patio for parking, big shed I can put my car in with space to spare...

( More about it )

But anyway, I've been pretty goddamned stressed, what with volunteering for the election, packing, moving, unpacking, and ACNW coming up. And it's party season. I could name what I've done every single night for these three weeks. And that's where I've been. Looking up and forward.

Bah! I've been meaning to write up a "what other game* should I run at ACNW" post for more than a month, now. So get your answers in soon!

( The options )

(*"Other game"? Why, yes! Mike S, John 9, and I are going to be taking another stab at "Guns of Abalaa", so keep your slot 1 free!)

O my Bay Area peeps, I draw your attention to Southwest's program "Ding!" which today is offering a wide range of tickets from Oakland to Portland at the time of Ambercon Northwest for $93.50 each way, which is a savings of $60 total from what you could get otherwise. You don't get that price option unless you click through from the Ding program, and the time limit to buy tickets is 6 PM tonight. If you'd prefer to fly out of SFO or SJC, I'd still recommend getting Ding for the next few weeks, as this is the time when the ACNW ticket options may come.

O my Portland peeps, lured by the thought of seeing you (and testdriving Dutch bicycles) I will be in your fair city from the morning of Saturday the 13th of September to the evening of Monday the 15th of September... Anyone have crash space? ;) While I am happy to entertain myself and find my own lodgings and shuttle myself about on your inestimable TriMet, it would be even more entertaining if any of you have time to hang out.

I'll be gone from the 1st to the 12th, mostly in Colorado, except for this weekend when I'll be "awake" at 6 in the morning driving my sister's stuff to the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, where she has a teaching job on an Indian reservation. It's her first teaching job, 1st grade. I'm looking forward to seeing her bunker in the Pueblo chemical weapons depot: apparently the government made far more chemical weapons storage bunkers than they needed, so they rent the rest out for tiny sums. Bunkers! On a working military base with cameras and checkpoints and everything! The sister has multiple cars stored there and there's still room; I picture it as looking something like Dirk Pitt's house.

( The above paragraph is old news: here is what actually happened (Imagine that you're a really good precog) )

Anyway, the important bit here is, I'll be going to Worldcon in Denver, arriving at the convention Wednesday morning. I'll be rooming with elisem in the hotel numbered 2, the Crowne Plaza, and I'll be at the Making Light party on Friday evening. Aside from that, no schedule yet, though I may be at the Hugo announcing thing to see how my votes went. Who else is going to be at the con? (If you're not going, want me to pick anything up for you?) I want to see you! Call me!