An American in Britain

32

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:48:03 +0100

Such a nice age today!

gimmeyogamertag: What happened today will go down in history as...

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:57:55 +0100

What happened today will go down in history as one of Minnesota’s greatest victories.

I am so proud to live in this wonderful state!!!

Historic 75-59 House vote clears way for Minnesota same-sex marriage

Thu, 09 May 2013 22:55:08 +0100

Historic 75-59 House vote clears way for Minnesota same-sex marriage:

showthemwhat:

The Minnesota Senate is expected to approve it Monday, and the governor has pledged to sign it.

Delaware earlier this week, Minnesota, it appears, next week.

So. Awesome.

COME ON MINNESOTA!!

I kind of wish I was in MN this time but at least I was in MA when the very first gay marriage initiative came about in 2004.

Let me get this straight...

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:14:12 +0100

breathofmidnightair:

Kurt comes home and seems pretty uninterested in Blaine.

Kurt comes home (as far as we know) in a relationship of a few months with someone else.

Kurt comes home and has no interest in rekindling his relationship with Blaine even knowing that Blaine is coming to New York next year.

Blaine decides to propose.

Feels totally legit.

Man, I’d be pissed if I was a Klaine fan. They treat Finn/Rachel as their baby (they really care for their storyline) so they don’t really royally fuck up the storyline… Klaine, on the other hand, it feels like a bone being tossed to the fans.

benedictatorship: butty is a controversial one which means...

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:11:25 +0100

benedictatorship:

butty is a controversial one which means different things in different parts of the country (like for me a bacon butty would mean bacon in a burger bun, not a sandwich) - you can definitely use sandwich and I would stick to it for safety

you can still say cupcake, hungry and dessert and be perfectly British

cozzy is short for swimming costume, which is what I’d actually say

I’ve never heard a scarf being called a muffler

You can use all of the “American” insults here and still remain British-sounding apart from jerk because no one says jerk. Some of those “British” insults sound a bit silly to me (please don’t call someone a plonker dear lord).

Don’t ever say cheerio unless you want to sound like a twat

I’m an American living in Britain for 7 years this month (lived in Minnesota for 25 years (with some stints in Los Angeles/Chicago/Boston/Providence in those years) and I speak with a deaf American accent and use Americanisms ALL the time and my British friends understand me just fine (some are amused by my Americanisms though).

There are American television shows aired quite a bit and, let me tell you, American slang is becoming a lot more common here. Vice-versa for British slang in America and I’m finding it funny.

the phoenyx soars to her spark..: allcory: (…)To watch “Glee” is to risk whiplash.Despite plummeting...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:52:35 +0100

the phoenyx soars to her spark..: allcory: (…)To watch “Glee” is to risk whiplash.Despite plummeting...:

woodulike2no:

allcory:

(…)

To watch “Glee” is to risk whiplash.

Despite plummeting ratings, Fox rashly decided to renew the show for two more seasons. Murphy should calculate an exit strategy, to end the series at the close of year six, when the original cast’s contracts will be up.

One way to…

I could agree to a time jump for the 6th season to see where they all end up, but not the 5th. Turning Glee into “Smash-lite” would be horrible. There is a reason Smash is failing in the ratings, and as abysmal as Glee’s numbers are becoming, I don’t think anyone in their creative department wants the show to be banned to Saturday night non-viewing the way Smash has.

The only real way to ‘save’ Glee is to not save it at all in its current format. They need to simply create two shows: Glee in Lima, OH following the kids who rotate through, with Matt Morrison as the lead character / teacher (yes, actually LET him be the lead), and Glee: NY following some of the old cast (and no - not Mercedes. Her voice is sublime but watching that character is as interesting as watching grass grow). You already have Rachel, Kurt, Santana and it looks like Artie is heading that way too. Add Finn (definitely) and Blaine (if we must) and you have a five solid, individual characters to spin the show around with a better than average chance to develop Blaine into a solid character. If NBC could do a half-hour comedy based on six friends in NY and have it last for almost a decade, I see no reason why Fox can’t do same with a one hour musical having ths kind of talent at their disposal.

Provided one thing happens - DECENT WRITING! It all comes down to that funny little fact. Without a decent story to tell, nothing will help this show at all: that goes for old and new characters alike.

I agree with the bolded- I know some Blaine-stans will disagree with me but it felt like Blaine’s character was shoe-horned into numbers. Boy Meets World was a similar format to Glee- and they continued with the main characters after they graduated HS (even holding onto the Mr Feeney character).

Here’s how I think the show should have turned into-

WILL- Will was given a chance to leave Lima in Season 2 and I find it entirely plausible to shift Will’s storyline to NYC (and there will be challenges for him and Emma as well). He could be a teacher again (Mr Feeney was made a teacher at a college, and it somehow worked) at a place similar to, but not necessarily, NYADA.

EMMA- Emma is still dealing with her OCD-ness, and it’d heighten the drama/comedy if Will makes the decision to move to NYC (dirty, dingy NYC compared to clean-ish Lima).

RACHEL- Continuing Rachel’s storyline in NYC, PLUS giving her more screen-time (I felt it was absolutely criminal the scant amount of screen-time Lea got this season).

KURT- Same as above. Chris and Lea have pretty good scenes together and I was really looking forward to seeing the two together in NYC and I was massively disappointed with that.

FINN- I know some of the Finchel fans are disappointed with how the Finn/Rachel storyline was this season but even though the storylines were a mish-mash this season, I can see how they’ll try to solve Finn/Rachel- We have Finn still finding his place, and Rachel still finding her heart.

ARTIE- Outside the Finn/Rachel/Will/Emma/Santana dynamic that I enjoy, I really like Artie’s character. I hope the writers will think of good storylines for him in NYC.

SANTANA- She was awesome in her few scenes in NYC. More of her please.

Finally…..

BLAINE- Let me tell you this, Darren Criss is talented. He’s a triple threat. He will go far in showbiz. However… there’s TOO much of Blaine in Glee. Darren’s acting skills aren’t on display as much as I would have liked and the episodes that supposedly showcase Blaine fall flat to me (Big Brother was THE Blaine centric episode and Blaine’s storyline makes me cringe). My husband said to me, “Oh god, he’s singing AGAIN?” a number of times throughout Season 3 and Season 4. Season 4 was all about Blaine in the Glee Club. No Rachel. No Finn (although he was a teacher, really). No Santana. No Kurt. No one to really compete with Blaine (The Blina fuss in “The New Rachel” was a complete joke, the Rachel/Kurt competitiveness worked (that’s why they revisited it in S4). No one to balance out Blaine at all, it just felt thrown together. I felt a number of times Blaine’s numbers could have been cut to give way to a NYC storyline. It wasn’t just Blaine, I felt that a lot of the glee club storylines were complete and utter shit.

The thing about Friends and Boy Meets World that worked was everyone pretty much got equal storylines and they often stuck with the strongest (read: original) characters (That’s where Glee completely fell flat on its face, almost getting rid of their original characters (who made Glee Glee) and having new (sort-of-versions-of-the-old-characters) people in. Boy Meets World had the exact same dilemma as Glee (their characters graduating HS) but they somehow made it work (and they’re returning!).

I really hope, for Glee’s sake, they scrap the McKinley storyline and focus on NYC (all signs point to that happening, Artie/Blaine heading to NYC, no Glee Project this year, the originals (aside from Lea and Cory for obvious reasons) are being used to market Glee, IE no Marley/Jake/Ryder/Kitty/Unique/etc).

Glee needs find itself again.

Sam Winchester cries his way through sex.: City of Bones won’t even be out in theaters until August and they...

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:15:59 +0100

Sam Winchester cries his way through sex.: City of Bones won’t even be out in theaters until August and they...:

mypatronusisyou:

City of Bones won’t even be out in theaters until August and they already greenlit the second book in the TMI series for a movie

what the fuck is the tactical money making strategy of producing a sequel for a movie that has not come out yet but is already destined to flop because the books…

I’ve also noticed there’s barely any publicity for the film and I do read a lot of gossip rags.

justinibiebers: stuff you ask your mom: mom where’s my towel mom what do we eat for dinner mom what...

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:28:01 +0100

justinibiebers:

stuff you ask your mom:

mom where’s my towel

mom what do we eat for dinner

mom what time is it

mom where’s my phone

mom when do you come back

mom what day is it

stuff you ask your dad

dad where is mom

I’m almost 32 and live on an entirely different continent from my parents and I do exactly that (on IM, when I visit, and when they visit me).

lol

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:18:48 +0100

lol

It's that time of the month again

Thu, 02 May 2013 23:11:33 +0100

If sign language was the natural language of deaf people why don’t ALL people sign? (deaf children have a propensity to speak as well as hearing children)

There are five people I went to school with who all made it big

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:38:26 +0100

1) Ginnifer Goodwin- I went to BU with her, I was at the College of General Studies while she was at the School of Fine Arts (now College of Fine Arts). You can see her in Walk the Line and Once Upon A Time. I didn’t know her but I feel a bit pleased that I went to school with her!

2) and 3) Kelly and Coco Miller- I went to high school with the Miller Twins (WNBA stars) and I have my yearbook with them in there (I was a freshman when they were seniors). I didn’t know them personally either.

4) Blake Hogue- He is hilarious and is getting bigger roles, it was great to see him in How I Met Your Mother and national commercials. His YouTube channel is hilarious. He was one grade higher than me in high school and we often interacted in speech and drama classes and he was SO funny in them. Made going to class worthwhile. He’s actually a high school legend as in he streaked naked across a football field in 1998 during a cheerleading routine in the midst of halftime (I was at the game, ha ha).

5) Johnny Pemberton- What can I say about Johnny? I grew up with him, played tennis with him, went to elementary school with him (he was class president in 1993 and ran on the motto, “Johnny P. in ‘93”). My parents still talk to his parents, and so on. I heard he was in a movie when I was having lunch with a friend of mine (who is also a good friend of the Pembertons). So I got this movie (In The Loop) and shrieked like a little girl when I recognized Johnny. I also spotted Johnny in “21 Jump Street”.

This is my nursery school class in 1985-1986 (I’m the girl sitting on the left of the girl with the green turtleneck, yeah half of my face is obscured by the boy’s head!). Johnny is the blonde boy, possibly practicing his showbiz smile, wearing a red turtleneck and cream Osh-Kosh B’Gosh overalls.

I love this picture (it’s the very first picture of a mainstreamed class in the state of Minnesota, as it was the first time a deaf person had classes with hearing people). This was also the class that was used to present in court to support the argument that deaf people have the right to have mainstream education (there were a ton of pictures taken in the class alongside this photo for the court case). I’m the only one that has a copy of this picture (as far as I know)

And I heard that Johnny appeared in New Girl opposite one of my new favorite actresses, Zooey Deschanel. This is Johnny’s character trying to take off Jess’ clothing. Please ignore the Play button, I screencapped it as I paused the video.

I squealed when I saw him! It’s so weird to see someone you know personally on a well-known tv show. I hope he becomes even more successful.

sandandglass: That’s John Howard, Australia’s Prime Minister at...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:57:26 +0100

sandandglass:

That’s John Howard, Australia’s Prime Minister at the time of the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996. After the massacre, he prompted the passing of gun control laws throughout Australia. Gun buy-back programs resulted in the destruction of 600,000 guns, private sales were prohibited, guns were required to be individually registered to their owners and assault weapons were banned or heavily restricted. The result? Gun homicides reduced 59%, gun suicides dropped 65% and there have been no mass shootings since (4 or more deaths at one time).

cory-monteith: Glee’s Cory Monteith Reunites With Lea...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:51:38 +0100

cory-monteith:

Glee’s Cory Monteith Reunites With Lea Michele

In these exclusive photos, the 32-year-old Glee star was seen on Friday out of rehab where he had checked in for substance addiction. A source tells E! News that he flew out of Antiqua and to New York City solo and later reunited with girlfriend Lea Michele in Los Angeles.

On Friday morning, the real-life loves were seen at LAX, checking in for a departing flight. Lea, 26, was spotted carrying her passport, so it looks like the duo might have been going on a vacation together.

A witness tells E! News both Lea and Cory seemed “very happy, smiling the entire time.” When security asked Cory how he was doing, he said “good.” Both Lea and Cory were “friendly” to those around them, says a witness, and appeared in great moods and excited to get out of town.

They certainly deserve a little R&R! We wish Cory and Lea both the very best.

[source]

(a post where I’m secretly glad someone mistook Cory as older than me)

-sincerely a soon to be 32-year-old gleek

I follow Glee Blogs that have changed their subjects but I still follow them...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:15:31 +0100

One is Doctor Who and the other is Merlin (with smattering of Glee).

I’m finding the Merlin one hilarious because I think crack-ships are funny (no offense). I live in the UK so… Merlin’s over for me :-(. (yeah it’s done, finished kaput, story ended people killed off etc)

what do you mean by do a read more?? I already reblogged it but if there's a way to edit it or something I'll try

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:58:25 +0100

You know how you do a blog and you don’t want to take up all the window space you do a “read more” line and then continue to write the blog (people would have to click on “read more” link to read more of the blog). I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear :-) I’ll try have a tummy of steel and hope it doesn’t look too gory.

I’m liking GoodReads again. I saw it mentioned and thought I might have another look. Maybe...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:19:00 +0100

I’m liking GoodReads again. I saw it mentioned and thought I might have another look.

Maybe I’ll add a book or two after I move. Grrrrrr…

An addendum to point #6

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:23:31 +0100

Because it was late and I forgot to add this point due to being tired.

I told my boyfriend about the group deletion (and told him who did it). What did my boyfriend do?

He e-mailed Neil (a HPFGU admin) about it (despite us having left the fandom). My boyfriend said it was best to let HPFGU (via Neil) know who was behind it (he felt bad after what he did in October 2001). We were closest to Neil before the fiasco happened and he was the one to gently tell me to leave (“I think it’s best that you left and didn’t return.” kind of way). I’m not sure if Neil is still part of HPFGU, or the fandom, to this day (it’s hard to find out without looking at HPFGU and not being a member). Neil thanked him for the info and said that they’d work with Yahoo! to get the group back (and they did). The person I outed to my boyfriend was so angry with me he basically smote me.

This was BEFORE shit went down. I don’t know whether it was the catalyst for them to try to go after me but what a stressful time it was for me.

More thoughts below-

I opened up to people after the hacking accusations and they helped me get through it. I didn’t touch the issue online for years because I was scared of them. I told people (and I still do, years after what happened) to be careful what you say online about yourself, because who knows what would happen to you?

Then I saw nastyclare and others talk about how horrible CC is- I initially anonymously told them all about what CC did in those heady days of 2000-2002 and then messaged them to tell them that it was me that sent those anonymous letters. I did write a tumblr post prior to the “Regarding Cassandra Claire” post about how mad I was about seeing CC’s books when she was a plagiarist and a huge cyberbully. I deleted it because I was scared (although a few people reblogged it), until I saw CC’s anti-bullying post, written AFTER she managed to get nastyclare/theclarewitchproject deleted (suspiciously around the time I started to give them info about her). It gave me the courage to write my own missive about her and my HP fandom experience. ONTD linked to it, it now has over 1,500 notes- over 2,000 people have seen my post and that’s not good news for CC so she’s running scared (witchisnotneutral really smells like a CC sockpuppet but I can’t say I’m certain it’s her). People have sent me messages of support and have backed me up on CC’s behavior in the past.

And also, I don’t know why Kelley, et al, keep saying I joined in 2001- I joined the fandom September 2000, talked to someone in IM and I said, “I wish there was a chatroom so I could talk to multiple people about HP!” She responded, “There is!” (links me to the chatroom) and I began chatting in the HPFGU chatroom in December 2000 (I met my husband for the first time, in chatroom form, on December 10, 2000). There’s proof of my join dates, unless otherwise noted (I do have posts there and I’m in the chatscripts on those dates).

Man, those were strange times.

I've decided to spend time rebutting that post

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:41:48 +0100

Yeah, I know all about the “don’t respond to trolls” kind of thing but I revel in responding to them-

1) First of all I didn’t save Kelley Scorpio’s chat myself, as I thought it wasn’t important at the time. They (HPFGU) produced the chat transcript at my hearing (it wasn’t a really a hearing, it was like an interview between me and the BUPD). The lawyer said that he talked to America Online about AIM (the medium I used to IM many people in 2002) and AIM told him, in a written statement that unless reported (Kelley didn’t report it) the chat transcripts can be doctored. He had doctored them to tell BU I did the hacking. And as for AngieJ, I never talked to her about the hacking at all that was a complete lie and I was actually sobbing when they produced that (and it was a short one-page chat, triple-spaced) because I considered her a friend of mine. Cassie told me in chat (when I was outed as Vivienne Stellaluna) that she had chat transcripts herself, even though those weren’t used as evidence at the hearing, that I outed myself as the hacker- unfortunately for her I saved that, as I saved the entire disgusting ordeal in that chatroom (I took photos of it along with keeping the transcript, to show it was absolutely not doctored, because Simon was known to save the chats and delete parts of it) their behavior alone in that chat saved my entire university career. Although they were complete cunts about me, I’m somewhat glad they outed themselves as people hell-bent on revenge. They actually saved my BU career by acting like complete idiots. BU was willing to believe them until they saw ALL my documentation and the guy who interviewed me was the one who broke the news to me, and was the one to walk me home because I became inconsolable. They were quite aghast at the behavior (they considered it serious and the investigation lasted two weeks (and I did my exams in those weeks, the pressure, man).

2) I really did have a lawyer for the ordeal as my parents thought it was too serious of an accusation for me to face by myself. He was wonderful and he did have advice that I followed until November last year (aside from the few select mutterings), don’t get involved with them again. I’m a geek, I read a lot, I blog, I game, etc. I write quite a bit and had things published (for free and in a local magazine/newsletters), if you know EXACTLY my real name, before marriage, you can find them. It’s not exactly hard to run into Cassandra Claire’s failures (and I read them for free and I tried to be non-partisan but the simmering dislike for her and the apparent inexperienced writing put me off her story (as if she couldn’t plagiarize anymore so she tried too hard). My lawyer was a lawyer that was recommended by a very longtime lawyer friend in Minnesota (I had longtime lawyer friends due to my parents work in getting mainstream education for deaf people) and he absolutely demolished HPFGU- he actually said it was one of the easiest jobs he had done since I did most of the legwork for him. HPFGU thought they had an advantage over me with Heidi but they didn’t realize I was well-connected to lawyers as well.

3) Kelley commented on one of the CC posts on Livejournal (I’m trying to remember which one at the moment because I’m too lazy to re-read through all of that). I tried to rebut a comment but at the time anon was turned off and I THINK I commented on whiteserpent’s personal livejournal to tell my side of the story (I’m actually trying to rack my brains as who I tried to rebut my story but I did, in her anon-friendly comments).

4) I have absolutely no clue why Kelley is apparently trying to keep Cassie out of it but I’m assuming that she didn’t want anything besmirching her name/future success. I had chat transcripts/live journal/photographs of my computer to match the chat transcripts because I was paranoid that they’d accuse me of doctoring the chat transcripts (not realizing THEY’D doctor MY chats with them). Cassie was very much involved and was more than willing to help HPFGU kick me out of University. I have photographs and documentation that are contrary to Kelley’s statements.

5) As for the IP address, my boyfriend was quite successful in hiding his IP (I only learned how to do that… 3 years ago! and I don’t use it for the most part) so there was no way his IP could be tracked (that’s why they couldn’t trace him when he gave John his account back). John (the guy my boyfriend hacked into) also bragged that I couldn’t find him on the internet because he changed his IP number so often. I e-mailed what I thought was an anonymous letter of apology, my boyfriend said NOOOO! in the IM, to Neil Ward in 2002 without knowing how to hide my IP, which showed that it was a BU IP (and also an IP that I used for my regular postings). That was my downfall. I’m kind of glad because you know they were horrible people in the end.

6) I remember the group deletion. Someone, who I won’t name because he has smote me (because I told him that I’d say who he was at the BU hearing), told me they accessed Penny Linsenmayer’s Yahoo! account because she was quite open about her family history (all of her questions were about her family history apparently) and once they got into it, deleted the entire group. I was like Shit, what have you done? I have to admit a part of me was glad though, for a teeny-tiny bit. Because of how they treated me. Nothing could replace the friendship I lost and I truly considered some of them friends of mine and I was completely hurt (and I had a hard time making friends at the time).

7) Lastly, the blog mockingly says I’m still mad at the BU situation. OF COURSE I’M STILL MAD. I’M A DEAF PERSON DOING A DEGREE AND HOW WOULD I HAVE REENROLLED WITH THAT ON MY RECORD OR OBTAINED A JOB WITH THAT ON MY RECORD! Jesus christ on a cracker. It’d have been twice as hard.

I think Cassie is trying her best to keep her record plagiarism-free and Sinead-free (and she has a history of doing that). People have come forward on both here and ONTD to say what I’m saying on my blog is absolutely true.

Either the blog is a sockpuppet or it’s really Cassie.

I’m so glad the truth is being told on my part. I remember being scared by them, I’m no longer.

Untitled: Hello, everyone.I used to be known as “Gossip Girl” on nastyclare and...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:55:34 +0100

Untitled: Hello, everyone.I used to be known as “Gossip Girl” on nastyclare and...:

nastyclare-theclarewitchproject:

Hello, everyone.

I used to be known as “Gossip Girl” on nastyclare and clarewitchproject, and after Cassie had us deleted for copyright infringement, I was considering not starting up another blog. I thought, you know, whatever. People will always be people. Let her do what she wants. It’s over.

Reblogging. I do wish they’d come back :-(.

so um that witchisnotneutral blog made a post about you and the CC thing. Looks like they're trolling for attention again

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:46:13 +0100

You and mypatronusisyou brought this to my attention and the post was so long that I got bored of reading it.

I think my post has made enough of an impact that it has CC worried. I wouldn’t have written it if she hadn’t written such a hypocritical essay on anti-bullying. People, who were part of that fandom at the time, have come forward to tell me that I’m telling the truth and have written about their own experiences in the fandom as a result.

And that’s making an impact.