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Nov. 7th, 2018 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. The election results, such as they are, since not all the votes have been counted -- are a mixed bag. (Seriously not all the votes have been counted. What I saw yesterday at my polling station, scared me. Scared me enough to complain to Eric Adams, President of Brooklyn on FB, who is directly addressing the problem:
Inexcusable Polling Chaos in Brooklyn
Now that the ugly is out of the way.
*The Democrats took the House, for the first time in a VERY long time, and most of New York State turned Blue (with just a few hold-outs in those hard to reach rural areas...hardly surprising. Including some MAJOR upsets, such as Matt Rosen ousting Republican Rep Donovan in Staten Island. That's right -- all of NYC turned Blue.
*Kansas also had a few major upsets...in the Governor Race and the House.
My co-worker delivered a printed off tweet of Ann Coulter exclaiming that Kansas was dead to her now, and Keith Reid's response, "Hasn't it been dead to her since it dropped that house on her sister?"
*More women entered the House of Representatives -- apparently it set a record.
So less of a blue wave and more of a female wave or pink wave.
The Republicans still hold the Senate (Dammit. We'll never get rid of the rat-bastard at this rate. The House requests impeachment, but the trial is held in the Senate.)
And there were voting problems across the country.
In other news? Jeff Sessions was finally forced to resign by the Doofus. Who has fired more people at this stage then he has actually hired. The fear is that he will fire Mueller. I hope not. But at this stage...I watch the news between my fingers or not at all.
You know there's a problem when the news is scarier than the Haunting of Hill House.
2. What I'm reading?
I finished reading Artremis by Andy Weir and sorry to say, I agree with beergoodfoamy's take on it. ( The author makes the mistake of using Mark Watney's voice from the Martian for his female Saudia Arabian smuggler protagonist..and it just doesn't work. The character is supposed to be a tough-talking, street smart, smuggler, but she talks like a chatty 15 year old male science nerd. It's jarring.)
Barely finished. Started skimming halfway through -- and the plot did not work at all. I found the characters difficult to like or believe, and the female character's voice jarred.
There's a lot of focus on world-building or setting, and science, to the point that I was going to sleep reading it. Don't get me wrong, I tend to like this stuff and it worked very effectively in the Martian, but here -- it hurt the pacing of the book, which was a heist. I felt like the writer did a lot of research and felt the need to regale me with it -- but often at the expense of plot and characterization.
As others have pointed out above, part of the problem is the narrative voice is the same as Mark Watney from the Martian. And while the chatty, scientifically nerdy voice works very well for a guy stranded by himself on Mars, it does not work for a stoic, tough as nails, street smart female smuggler on the Moon planning a heist. It is jarring and in some places downright cringe-inducing.
While a nerdy fifteen year old female scientist might talk like this, a street smart twenty-something worldly smuggler wouldn't. (At least not in my experience, and yes I've run across a few street smart, fast talking Arabic female smugglers/engineers in New York, along with nerdy fourteen year olds.)
I get what the writer is trying to do -- pull off a gender switch, a dark punkish strong female character in a typically male role. And I usually eat that stuff up like candy, but this just did not work for me. The lead character, Jazz, is grating. As others have stated, she is at times cringe-inducing and sounds like a sexually awkward fifteen year old male punk.
Also the plot didn't work for me, lots of holes, and very convoluted. The problem? The writer would stop the action dead and droll on and on about the science. Then the action would start up again. We ended up with several paragraphs on how chloroform could kill you in huge quantities and how to shut it off and all the logistics involved. This was in the middle of a major action sequence... sort of lost the momentum and killed the pacing. In the Martian, it was easier to do info-dumps and maintain momentum, because the info-dump often lead to the tension -- how am I going to get to point A? How will I survive? There were far less balls in the air for the writer to juggle, he just had to focus on getting Mark home and tell us how he was surviving and how he'd get there. Here, we had multiple balls...and several got dropped.
I considered giving this one star, but I thought the writer did a good job of designing a world, and the science seemed to work, well for the most part.
Now, I'm reading a historical romance novel. Mainly because I find them comforting. And life has been mildly painful and frustrating. So I seek comfort where I can.
3. The Gifted S2 -- is better than S1. Better character development and much more interesting plot threads. The Inner Circle, aka the Hellfire Club as the main villains this season is far more interesting than the government was last season. Mainly because two of the team has "willingly" joined them, as opposed to being held prisoner by them. Changes the dynamic a bit. Instead of being chased by the government, getting caught, escaping, hiding, getting caught, mounting rescue attempts, escaping, getting caught -- rewind and repeat at will. We have -- fiendish plotting, hunting down team members who have joined the enemy, being beaten up by said enemy and team members, discovering hidden powers, making alliances with unknown entities in an attempt to route out enemy and reclaim former team members, trying to recruit and save new people...far more interesting.
Also, the characters are growing on me. The Starks have gotten less whiny and more interesting. As have Thunderbird, Blink, and the Fire Guy. We also have a few interesting new additions here and there.
So, sticking with it for the time being. (I know, I need to get rid of a few television shows. Considering kicking Poldark to the curb again. Along with the Rookie, Legacies and Charmed.)
Inexcusable Polling Chaos in Brooklyn
Now that the ugly is out of the way.
*The Democrats took the House, for the first time in a VERY long time, and most of New York State turned Blue (with just a few hold-outs in those hard to reach rural areas...hardly surprising. Including some MAJOR upsets, such as Matt Rosen ousting Republican Rep Donovan in Staten Island. That's right -- all of NYC turned Blue.
*Kansas also had a few major upsets...in the Governor Race and the House.
My co-worker delivered a printed off tweet of Ann Coulter exclaiming that Kansas was dead to her now, and Keith Reid's response, "Hasn't it been dead to her since it dropped that house on her sister?"
*More women entered the House of Representatives -- apparently it set a record.
As of early Wednesday morning, CNN projected 98 women would win House races, with 33 women newly elected to the House and 65 female incumbents. That bests the previous record of 85 representatives, according to the Congressional Research Service. There are still two outstanding races that have two women competing against each other, which means that at least 100 women will be serving in the House next year.
So less of a blue wave and more of a female wave or pink wave.
The Republicans still hold the Senate (Dammit. We'll never get rid of the rat-bastard at this rate. The House requests impeachment, but the trial is held in the Senate.)
And there were voting problems across the country.
In other news? Jeff Sessions was finally forced to resign by the Doofus. Who has fired more people at this stage then he has actually hired. The fear is that he will fire Mueller. I hope not. But at this stage...I watch the news between my fingers or not at all.
You know there's a problem when the news is scarier than the Haunting of Hill House.
2. What I'm reading?
I finished reading Artremis by Andy Weir and sorry to say, I agree with beergoodfoamy's take on it. ( The author makes the mistake of using Mark Watney's voice from the Martian for his female Saudia Arabian smuggler protagonist..and it just doesn't work. The character is supposed to be a tough-talking, street smart, smuggler, but she talks like a chatty 15 year old male science nerd. It's jarring.)
Barely finished. Started skimming halfway through -- and the plot did not work at all. I found the characters difficult to like or believe, and the female character's voice jarred.
There's a lot of focus on world-building or setting, and science, to the point that I was going to sleep reading it. Don't get me wrong, I tend to like this stuff and it worked very effectively in the Martian, but here -- it hurt the pacing of the book, which was a heist. I felt like the writer did a lot of research and felt the need to regale me with it -- but often at the expense of plot and characterization.
As others have pointed out above, part of the problem is the narrative voice is the same as Mark Watney from the Martian. And while the chatty, scientifically nerdy voice works very well for a guy stranded by himself on Mars, it does not work for a stoic, tough as nails, street smart female smuggler on the Moon planning a heist. It is jarring and in some places downright cringe-inducing.
While a nerdy fifteen year old female scientist might talk like this, a street smart twenty-something worldly smuggler wouldn't. (At least not in my experience, and yes I've run across a few street smart, fast talking Arabic female smugglers/engineers in New York, along with nerdy fourteen year olds.)
I get what the writer is trying to do -- pull off a gender switch, a dark punkish strong female character in a typically male role. And I usually eat that stuff up like candy, but this just did not work for me. The lead character, Jazz, is grating. As others have stated, she is at times cringe-inducing and sounds like a sexually awkward fifteen year old male punk.
Also the plot didn't work for me, lots of holes, and very convoluted. The problem? The writer would stop the action dead and droll on and on about the science. Then the action would start up again. We ended up with several paragraphs on how chloroform could kill you in huge quantities and how to shut it off and all the logistics involved. This was in the middle of a major action sequence... sort of lost the momentum and killed the pacing. In the Martian, it was easier to do info-dumps and maintain momentum, because the info-dump often lead to the tension -- how am I going to get to point A? How will I survive? There were far less balls in the air for the writer to juggle, he just had to focus on getting Mark home and tell us how he was surviving and how he'd get there. Here, we had multiple balls...and several got dropped.
I considered giving this one star, but I thought the writer did a good job of designing a world, and the science seemed to work, well for the most part.
Now, I'm reading a historical romance novel. Mainly because I find them comforting. And life has been mildly painful and frustrating. So I seek comfort where I can.
3. The Gifted S2 -- is better than S1. Better character development and much more interesting plot threads. The Inner Circle, aka the Hellfire Club as the main villains this season is far more interesting than the government was last season. Mainly because two of the team has "willingly" joined them, as opposed to being held prisoner by them. Changes the dynamic a bit. Instead of being chased by the government, getting caught, escaping, hiding, getting caught, mounting rescue attempts, escaping, getting caught -- rewind and repeat at will. We have -- fiendish plotting, hunting down team members who have joined the enemy, being beaten up by said enemy and team members, discovering hidden powers, making alliances with unknown entities in an attempt to route out enemy and reclaim former team members, trying to recruit and save new people...far more interesting.
Also, the characters are growing on me. The Starks have gotten less whiny and more interesting. As have Thunderbird, Blink, and the Fire Guy. We also have a few interesting new additions here and there.
So, sticking with it for the time being. (I know, I need to get rid of a few television shows. Considering kicking Poldark to the curb again. Along with the Rookie, Legacies and Charmed.)
no subject
Date: 2018-11-08 03:40 am (UTC)Not this time!
And: Democrat Andrew Gounardes beat out 4-time state senator Marty Golden, giving Democrats a lock on NY legislature!
I was part of that! I voted! See? It works!
Well, sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-08 05:52 pm (UTC)LOL!
I'm still not sure if my votes were counted or not. But outside of the three referendums (which I voted against, although ambivalent on that really), everyone I voted for one.
Yay! on the two long-term Republican Seats that got flipped. South Brooklyn can lean conservative as well. The fact that Staten Island flipped though is major. Nothing we can do about Long Island. There's a reason people don't consider Brooklyn and Queens part of the Island.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-08 08:20 pm (UTC)The power. THE POWER! Mwhahaha.....
You get lucky sometimes, when demographic factors shift and your area becomes a national focal point. Can't do anything about the Senate. (More Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and Trump judges? Oh joy.) Gillum and Abrams lost. But maybe that's how America is structured right now. (Maybe Michael Che is right: red states stay red because conservative parents send their liberal kids to coastal states to do improv...)
But: Democrats took back the House. Governships flipped all over (Scott Walker was sent packing!), and maybe all Americans--liberal and conservative--got sick of watching old white guys deciding "what's best for women."
Even in Florida, there was good news: One million ex-felons got their right to vote back. (With local and national elections so close, think about what a million extra votes could mean!)
P.S.: I should have said my district is a fusion of SI and SouthWEST Brooklyn (Dyker Heights, et al.) South Brooklyn is more Park Slope and Carroll Gardens.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-09 01:39 am (UTC)Eh, no. Tell that to the Kensington, Brooklyn residents and they may kick you. Rowdy bunch of Russian Jews, Carribeans, Bengali, Pakistani, Polish, Italian, Hipsters...I'm sure I left out a few.
The dividing line according to the real estate agents and the maps is Greenwood Cemetary and Prospect Park. Everything below Prospect Park and Greenwood Cememtary is South Brooklyn, everything above is North Brooklyn. East of the Park is East Brooklyn, West of the Park is West Brooklyn.
No, West Brooklyn is BOCCA (Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens,Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Clinton Hill and the Gowanus) along with Fort Green, Park Slope. (The Gentrified area, where the insane rents are and no one can afford -- because all the crazy Manhattanites invaded.) This is PRIME real estate and costs close to a million and above. Rents? Above $2000 for one bedroom, 1800 for studio.
Then you have Windsor Terrace, South Park Slope, and below that Kesington, Flatbush, Ditmas, Sunset Park, which all fits South Brooklyn.
Then there's the area that is near and around Coney Island.
I'm of course not mentioning Hipsterville = Greenpoint, Bushwick and Williamsburg Or Crown Heights, Nostrand Avenue, and Bed Stye - North Brooklyn.
East New York is still dangerous, but then so is Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens and East Park Slope.
When I last looked for an apartment, I think I wandered literally everywhere, did the same while hunting places to buy. (Well everywhere that did not require a car. Anything south of Kings Highway and West of the Slope, sort of requires a car.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-09 01:57 am (UTC)I'm grateful that yours was different. That gives me hope. At least it wasn't like that across the board.
Also, there were quite a few major upsets. Kansas got its first lesbian Native American Congresswoman. Colorado ended up with it's first LGBTQA Governor.
There are now more women in Congress than ever before. And they represent both parties.
I'm also very relieved that crazy Farley woman didn't take Kristen Gillbrandt's seat and we kept KG. Because every time the Farely woman's political ads hit my television set, I wanted to smack her.
It was a mixed bag. But we did get rid of a lot of ass holes. So, agree, overall, better than 2016.