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( Some more of those things )

I have more but I can't upload them on devArt or Photobucket due to TOS.

One of my characters in a fanfic I'm writing has a sense of touch - as well as all his other senses, but the one I'm focusing on is touch - that's been enhanced greatly from what would be normal for a human. Now, my question: if he were to strangle someone until they blacked out, with his finger pressed against their carotid artery, what would he feel?

Now, the victim's going to be putting up a struggle, but they're going to be bound and gagged, so it won't make much of a difference.

Setting: Japan, 1996
Searches: "Burns scars" "types of burns" "treatment of burns"

Okay, so, what I'm looking for is quite specific. The character in question just knelt on and pressed his forehead and hands to a blisteringly hot, smooth surface for 12 seconds before wrenching himself away from it. I have a couple of questions.

I'm assuming he'll have scars. What would they look like? Would it be the same as branding but on a larger scale? Would there be nerve damage and if so, how does this effect him? He'll have received the best treatment money can buy but the severity/appearance of the scars is making me stop and think.

So, I think I understand A levels enough to write about them in passing. But I can't make sense of a couple of, well, little details:

-do you take three "classes" each term (around 4-5 months) or is it for the full year?

-how many A levels does one normally take? I know three is typically required for university, but is it extremely exceptional for students to take more than three?

-what would be a doable but somewhat difficult amount for someone to take?

-when do most people actually start university? It says in a few places online most people stay in sixth form until they're 19; would starting a few days after one's 18th birthday be considered relatively early, or is that the norm?

character in question is a seventeen-year-old who is tired and stressed. I need her to show that she's somewhat gifted, and I'd like her to feel like she's starting school a year too early. Any thoughts on this? I'm completely overwhelmed!

I read five or six different wikipedia articles and googled around a little, but honestly I'm not sure how to google "how many A levels can I give my seventeen-year-old to make her cranky?" or "would this make my character feel like a freak?", lol. Seriously, any help is appreciated! The UK school system is so different from ours, and I really don't understand ours that well to start with, so... yikes! Thanks in advance.

Also, forgot to ask: Would a public school student (i.e. privately paying) wear a school uniform in sixth form? Thanks!

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Filter: scared

It's about an hour before sunrise. Nothing unusual for me, I'm usually awake before the sun comes up. Thing is, I'm usually going to BED about this time, not waking up. Tomorrow I start my new job with The Big M. Why they have training at 6AM I don't know, and in fact, I really resent having to be at work so early. It's not like we're actually TAKING calls that first week or anything.

The closer I've gotten to starting this new jub, the more I've really not wanted to do it. I've been in Customer Service since 1997. I'm very good at it, if Ido say so myself. When I left Wincor and DNP, they didn't want me to go. But each time, I've had to start at the VERY bottom and work my way up. After 12 years, at this new job, I'm an entry level temp employee phone monkey.

I'm also burned out on the whole customer support thing. Back in '97, I really enjoyed it. People were grateful for the help. Now, it's all tantrums and screaming till you get what you want. Totally should have stayed with Kinko's in 2000.

That said, I'm actually making an effort to jump my career track. I've had a script I worked on through most of my downtime this summer. Twisting, poking. It's a story we're all pretty familiar with ::coughwebcomiccough:: and on Monday, I plan to register it with the Writer's Guild. The idea? Try to get it done as a show, or an animation, or a webisode, or anything that'll get me out of tech support.

I know two producers. One is very busy with his own projects, so I actually don't plan to pitch it to him. unless he's insterested, which I'm assuming he's not (he's been a big help giving me pointers on how to pitch series and what not, though). I do know another producer, who has been a huge help in pointing me in the right directions and getting started. Once it's registered, I'll try pitching it to her, and we'll see where it goes.

At the very least, there are projects and workshops and classes that could get me started down that path, one I've wanted to do forever, and if anything will get me out of the Tech Support Reset of Hell, this is it. Taking something that's mildly popular, and trying to pitch it to a bigger audience.

Gods I hate mornings.

Today is my last day of "Freedom" before I start, and it's bright and early. I'm heading north on the old PAcific Coast Highway towards Canada. I doubt I'll make it before it's time to turn back, but if it's early enough, I'll bring my passport, just in case. But seeing as I need to be in bed by 8PM (oi!) it's prolly not going to be for very long, maybe just a stop at Peace Arch.

It's about time I need to leave (Sunrise is at 7:45 right now, Sundown at 4:15) so I need to be off. I'll write more of an update when I come back.

At home, alone with my sister. My parents are nowhere, and it looks like they haven't been there for some time. I go downstairs, and I see food in the microwave and fridge, but it's been there a while. The house looks empty, like it hasn't been lived in in a long time.

I'm in the food court of a large mall, there are tons of people everywhere. For some reason, I'm standing up in the food court scraping my face with a card. I decided it's probably best that I do this in the bathroom. On my way there, I see someone heading into another bathroom, looking for me.

• 02:39 Photo: Maybe it’s skiing time in Vermont this week… tumblr.com/xy84gsu6r #
• 04:33 £17 left on the iTunes account... but I don't want to spend any of it. #fb #
• 05:16 @jephjacques where's a tasty diner in noho? #
• 06:06 @gregjames That video is like a much less crazy version of Simian Mobile Disco's "Audacity of Huge" #

And how do I know? Simple: I am rattling my windows to the dulcet tones of this.

universejuice and aviekokyre find those Christmas memes to be very strange

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• Bake cheese bread
• Make potato soup
• Continue decorating for the winter holidays
• Clean the landfill apartment

OH GOD SO FUKKEN CUTE

*DED from CUTE*

I'm doing research on celebrities. One of my characters is an A-list actor and the other is a popular mainstream singer, so I'm trying to find out as much as I can about the staff they'd have working for them. Google searches haven't led to many informative areas, but I've managed to stumble on a few job titles like "handler" and "publicist" and "agent." This is good! This is progress!

What I'm not so clear on is how much contact these folks actually have with their celebrity clientele. Is an agent always on the lookout for his or her client's next Big Role? If so, does the agent keep the celebrity up to date on the process of casting the next project? What does a handler do exactly? Does the publicist set up different things than the agent? I'm guessing interviews and the like (meaning the, em, publicity-related things) are done through the publicist? Etc.

Also, what do celebrities' schedules look like when they're not acting/singing? I know movies and albums can take anywhere between six months to several years, so that's a significant chunk of time taken care of there. But what else is in the pie chart? I know some celebs attend charity functions, others see personal trainers, and there are those who have side projects that have nothing to do with their careers. How long can celebrities enjoy down time before they're off and running for their next project? I'm guessing there's a constant pressure to be Seen and Not Forgotten.

Any information is welcome! Books, documentaries, articles, etc. My search has resulted in a lot of gossip and interviews, but not much about what happens behind the scenes.

(I'm starting to assume I should just mainline Entourage for my research.)

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( That's not a daily couple! )

I may add another one in a while.

ETA:
( Another one )

I have no idea how to even begin googling for this, so:


Are US Army bomb dogs usually/always spayed/neutered? Under what circumstances might such a dog not be altered, if the answer is "usually".

where: USA, Batman-fictionnal town of Blüdhaven (for sanity's sake, I choose to assume Blüdhaven's police (like Gotham's) works like the New York one.), nowadays

searched: Wikipedia (police, police procedure (which is about novels), nypd), google search (police procedure, ten-code, radio-code, police code, textbook police procedure), little_detail (*merge: police procedure,usa: government: law enforcement, gunshot wounds) and ask_a_cop (current page and the two previous ones the day I searched) - plus various tv shows (probably wrong) and crime novels


In an indoor shooting leading to a murder witnessed by police officers, then one of the officers being hit (shot in the arm) and needing medical treatment, what's the police procedure?

The person murdered turns out to be Navy, so NCIS is going to take the case, and the shooter escapes.

Who else gets there on the scene? Back-up first, then EMT, or not that order at all? The shooting takes place at 8 - 8.30am - when does the NCIS team arrive, and who/what do they find (the residential building where the shooting happened will be shut down, police there, who's in charge, who interact with the NCIS team?)?

Or you can all tell me to go lay down and stop be anal over those pesky details I probably won't use the half of for a fanfiction in a fandom that takes the rules of all things reality and make them weep.

Hello, all. I have a character in a roughly late-medieval setting, who I want to be scarred (generally "uglified") via having suffered a brutal beating earlier in life (say, teens to mid-20s). Trouble is...I'm not sure what the exact nature of his scars should be. I'm considering a scar from a scalp laceration, broken nose (pretty standard), and husky voice from larynx trauma. I'd like some injury to one eye (not missing or blinded, though). Hearing loss in one ear would be okay. I'm mainly aiming for stuff that would mess up his face, though. I also don't want any long-term mental impairment (no brain damage).

Knife scars would be easy, but I was aiming more for just blunt trauma (fists, clubs, maybe a bottle). Any idea what sort of injuries he could receive that would have long-lasting effects on his face?

I googled "blunt trauma scars", "disfiguring injuries", "disfiguring beating", and "scars from a beating", as well as general things like "scars". I also reviewed the medical sections from this site on "injuries", "injuries to order", and "head injuries" (found some useful stuff, but not sufficient/specific to my purpose).

Thank you for any thoughts or leads.

So, Winston is pawing at me for attention (and what else is new?), and he grabs at my shirt. To Winston, I say:

"And why are you trying to feel up my tit? I thought you were gay."

I suppose that you had to be there...

:o)

an advert for an event that i saw on facebook:

( Read more... )

+++

uhhm. disgusting. racist. bullshit.
i saw the event via my fb friends' feed because one of my "friends" is attending. i commented on this "activity" the following:
"ohhh! white privilege FTW!" and he sent me a chat message:
"i'm sure there will be black people there too."
i then proceeded to call him ignorant and his little white boy briefs got all bunched up and he started getting all huffy and defensive because i was "assuming that [he] is ignorant."

AGHHHHHHHHHHH.

+++

factors which make this even grosser:
- this event is occurring in ybor city, fl, which is a vastly gentrified neighborhood historically populated by POC. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ybor_City]
- during the weekends, ybor is generally overrun on the weekend by tourists and hipsters who are clubbing. as a result, the city of tampa hires tons of cops to patrol the "crime" in the neighborhood - and generally targets the folks who live there as opposed to the drunk yuppies who cause a ruckus.
- the event flyer features the artist list on a bottle of malt liquor in a brown paper bag. - the brown paper bag is meant to look like a holiday gift, with a tag wrapped around it. it's addressed to "your ghetto ass."

see?

( Read more... )

what should i do about this / if anything? seriously, this is not ok.
does anyone who has a fb account want to RSVP to attend the event so that they can post on the page about how this shit is NOT ok?

does anyone care to join me in emailing the event management for those who are putting this event together?

( contact info as follows )

ew.

We are extending the SGAC #3 submissions deadline to December 30.

We're accepting fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comix, and any combinations thereof! While we'd prefer submissions relating to the issue's theme (tourism), we're open to damn near anything.

More info, and full submission guidelines, here.

If you make a Facebook page for a comic book or comics series, what do you categorize it as? Apparently "book" and "publication" are not options.

Context: Unbeknownst to them, a group of students adopt a sniffer-dog trained to search out human remains and/or human blood. He's never allowed in the living room, but when he is permitted entry, he always pauses at a particular spot.

This is only a really thin thread of my plot, used to tie together some of the major themes/plot points, so I won't dedicate a huge chunk of my word-count to it... but I do need it to be plausible.

After giving up my search and texting AQA, I found labradors, collies and golden retrievers are the breeds commonly used to sniff out human remains/blood.

When police trained, what are these specific breeds like as pets? Affectionate? Is the above situation likely? Would the dog stop each time, or just once, or not at all without his trainer present?

Setting: Contemporary Cheshire, UK.

Research: I've posted to a few other communities, with no luck, text AQA for the basic info and have Googled various combinations of 'sniffer dog', 'police dog', 'dead bodies', 'blood', 'retired', 'ex-', 'collie', 'labrador' and 'golden retriever'.

I have a group of medieval European people who have been sent millions of years back in time by an astrologer-sorcerer. They have almost succeeded in putting together a counter-spell to return them to their present.

My questions:

I came across an incomplete list of auspicious days in the lunar cycle for various undertakings; does anyone have a complete list?

In astrological terms, what combination of visible planets, sun and moon would suggest homecoming to the medieval mind?

Searched:
Warren Kenton: Astrology: The Celestial Mirror
Margaret Wade Labarge: Medieval Travellers
Ian Mortimer: The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England (would have been cool if this had had anything helpful in it!)
Reader's Digest: Daily Life in the Age of Chivalry
Keith Thomas: Religion and the Decline of Magic

Google Scholar: combinations of: medieval astrology auspicious lunar homecoming return NOT zodiac NOT constellation

Many thanks!

ETA to clarify

I would like to bring you a slightly different query from the normal.

I've tried google, and indeed my local market but can't seem to find an octopus there.

I need to know what a dead octopus looks/feels/squishes like. Yes, really.

I am including the Legend of the Octopus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Octopus) in my fic and the main character ends up getting be-octopused and covered in goo.

I need to know how realistically gooey an octopus would be, any sort of help or personal experience with cephalapods would be much appreciated.

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Filter: cold

Went to the OMG PWN!ES opening tonight, which was cool. So many awesome ponies! I think mine looked very small and plain by comparison, but that's okay, and it was really fun to see what everyone else had done.

Maybe people will post pictures on the internet, and then you can see them.

• 13:23 IT'S 70 DEGREES WTF AHHH #fb #

The iconic holiday tree in the Sterling-Lindner-Davis department store, downtown Cleveland



My mother's sister would take her kids, my sister, and me on the Santa rounds in downtown Cleveland. Breakfast With Santa at Higbee's (the Higbee's that appeared in A Christmas Story), Mr. Jingaling at Halle's, finished off with Sterling-Lindner. For some reason, I loved the lowest of the ornaments; they had to be 12"-14" in diameter.

LiveJournal: The First Decade

Just in time for holiday shopping, we're thrilled to announce the release of our ten-year anniversary anthology. Published by Blurb.com, the book showcases a decade of extraordinary talent drawn from LiveJournal users around the world. This must-read compilation features stories, memes, photos, comics, editorials, graphic content, and more, including:

1. Excerpts from Oh No They Didn't (a/k/a ohnotheydidnt), the largest community on LiveJournal, covering celebrity gossip, entertainment news, and pop culture
2. A look at post-Katrina New Orleans from the journal of Poppy Z. Brite
3. Gripping narratives, including a poignant reverie on a blind date
4. Photography that spans the globe, ranging from old-fashioned Polaroids to underwater photography
5. Mouthwatering dishes from food_porn

What began as a late-night inspiration back in Brad Fitzpatrick's college dorm in 1999 has grown to encompass nearly 25 million users worldwide, with journals and communities covering every conceivable hobby, passion, and topic. To get your copy, please visit the Blurb Bookstore. For updates and entries from book contributors, please join lj_turns10.

Tweaks and enhancements

• You can now ban a user from all of your communities and journals at once. To access this feature, hover over the person's userpic and choose Ban user everywhere from the drop-down menu.
• Follow LiveJournal on Twitter!

Give a little to help a lot!

In honor of National AIDS Awareness month, we've added a new charitable vgift. For each red ribbon you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine (we'll cover credit card fees). You can read more about IAVI at lj_cares. While we're on the subject, we raised $740 from our November fundraiser for Love Without Boundaries, which supports emergency healthcare and adoption of Chinese orphans. We thank you for helping us help others.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible pictures from our super-talented LiveJournal photographers. Congratulations to ilya_gorokhov, who is the winner of our very first lj_photophile poll.

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay safe and snug out there!

She thought that I might get a kick out of it:



I did.

:o)

Hello everybody!

First-time poster here, directed to you via the power of Twitter. So glad I found you.

To get right to the point: I am working on (or rather, working up to) a scene wherein one character shoots another with a pistol, and am having trouble getting details right, both in terms of the physical and mental impact of the shot and the kind of weapon the shooter is liable to have access to. This is super-detailed, so my apologies; I just want to make sure I don't get any details wrong and I am kind of intimidated by what I do not know. If you can either point me to good resources or outright explain some of these to me, I would greatly appreciate it:

Type of Firearm: The shooter is using a handgun which he procured in either California or Nevada; which is available for under a thousand dollars (including a couple boxes of ammo); and which can be concealed in a jacket without attracting any attention on the street. Said character is not experienced with firearms or concealing them, so that may be a factor in what he can be expected to hide.

Physical Impact: The actual plan for the shot is that the shooter is intending to kill his target (who is sitting down in front of him, immobilized, in case that matters), but gets jolted by intervention from another character into delivering a non-fatal shot. But I don't "non-fatal" to mean "a graze"; I actually want the character to have long-term physical effects from the gunshot to show how seriously close to death they came. Any suggested target area and resultant damage you can provide would be excellent: does it bruise, is the character liable to be thrown forward by the impact, etc.

Mental Impact: Also, how do people who are shot react? Are they really not in much pain at first? Will they be able to get themselves out of the area once the shooter is subdued, or will they need assistance? What stage of shock does that tend to put a person into? And is it true that doctors always call the police when someone is admitted with a gunshot wound?

I have plenty more, but I would go on forever if I let myself; so I'll end here and say, thank you!

I need a knee or ankle injury that makes it impossible for my character to put any weight on his leg three days after he sustained it. At the same time, he will have to run for his life just after getting it (he is being chased and jumps down from a high wall and over some obstacles when he hurts his knee), but he doesn't have to run far (the car is waiting fifty meters down the road).

( extra details under here )

Bonus questions:
How much will it hurt?
Will the knee/ankle be discoloured or bruised by this injury?
Will support bandages help at all?

Setting: modern time England

Searched: "knee injury getting worse" "injured knee from jumping" "injured knee from dancing", the same strings with ankles. Honestly I have no clue how to find what I'm looking for, and my slightly relevant search strings didn't give me what I needed.

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• 07:42 Photo: The probability of a White Christmas for the northeast US. (The rest of the country is available too.)... tumblr.com/xy84ei9e3 #

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Filter: bitchy

( tl;dr )

So, dear readers, what's good these days for gamepads? I know a couple people that use Xbox 360 controllers on PCs, which might be a good investment for when/if I get a 360. (Though PS3 is picking up so I'm probably going to get one of those first. You know, when I can actually afford stuff like that.) But maybe something cheaper is better?

I prefer something with enough buttons and generally decent shape - generally something like the Playstation lineage of controllers (which I'd include the 360 controller in). Analog and digital controls are pretty much required. Vibration is a plus. Wireless is pointless. And I'd prefer something from a name brand - Microsoft, Logitech...something I can trust not to be a piece of shit that falls apart when I barely have touched it.

So anyone have any input?

I'm sitting in the basement livingroom when I begin noticing more and more people sitting around me, playing with the toys and reading the comics. The doorbell rings, and I see more and more people coming in. When I ask them why they're here, they just smile and push their way through. After more people show up, I overhear that this is all a flashmob thing, me picked to be messed with. I get angry and force them all out, but they keep knocking. I go to my printer and print out a giant "WE'RE CLOSED" banner, and when I go downstairs, there are a ton of maids cleaning up the house, and I apologize to them, that I was pranked. One of them asks me what I should do with all the money in the cash register, that the other owner never leaves it in the till. Suddenly I realize I'm in a restaurant, and I've thrown out all the customers.

I'm being driven to school by my mother, because I'm being told that I was one credit short of gradulating and therefore must take a whole year of school again. I dont' want to go, since I'm already established and thirty-five. However, I'm told if I do not graduate, I must repeat until I do, by law. The school has changed since then, and I find my locker, which has been electronically locked. I'm told I need to go to the office to get it unlocked, and when I go, I see all the folks who made fun of me running the office. I wait a bit, but they begin laughing at me for being back as a student, when I decide I've had enough and walk out. As I walk out, my mother yells at me, telling me I'll be arrested and brought back. I tell her, I no longer care, I'm done with school, and have been for years.

**EDIT Thu Dec 3 23:24:15 UTC 2009 **

Hey Everyone, we are about to run the last alter job that we need to on our database servers. This will effect userpics / scrapbook / vgift images for the next few hours. Have no fear, your images aren't lost, there is just a really intensive process running on the servers which store the information for mogilefs. Thank you for your understanding and all the LJ love...

Hey LJers,

I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to be performing some mogilefs maintenance over the next few days. We will be upgrading our current version to latest stable as well as changing some db config information to better handle the amount of files we are currently hosting. This shouldn't cause a big impact on site stability, but you may see some minor delays with userpic / scrapbook images appearing or other requests associated with our mogilefs. We would love to not have that happen, but unfortunately with some of the steps we need to take we have to cause a delay with images. I figured this was a better solution than taking down all of LiveJournal because well lets face it, we all need our daily LJ fix ;)

Thanks,

Filter: dirty

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Filter: amused

One good thing about this time of year is that THERE ARE POMEGRANATES IN THE STORE.

Consequently, THERE ARE POMEGRANATES AT MY HOUSE

FOR ME TO EAT.

(There is also a pomegranate on my desk now that I am eating. They are one of my favorite snacks.)

Years are 1915-1923, location is probably near New York. No idea how to search this, though--it's more of a social feel thing.

Sorry about all the posts lately, Phillipa is *insisting* on being figured out.

( Cut for being long and rambly and such. )

Trufax I secretly fear that I am Mike in this comic.

Granted, I think like 90% of people do. Or at least, people I am friends with.

Here is a good story about high school friends staging an intervention for a girl who is dating a vampire.