Posts by Lucy Stewart
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There are several inaccurate and/or dubious claims in that email which I wouldn't expect from a medical professional (bacteria in your bloodstream causing illness, keeping your gut healthy will stop you needing antibiotics later on, 75% of the immune system, etc.) What sort of doctor are they, exactly?
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As an aside, Cocaine's current legitimate medical use is for nasal surgery.
A friend of mine was prescribed it after having had a nasal feeding tube in for...not sure how long exactly, but at least several months. Presumably to numb the discomfort. God knows that if anyone deserved to be on the good stuff, he did.
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Vitamin tablets = expensive urine
A little worse than that; some vitamins, in large doses, are not at all good for you.
General rule of thumb for medical stuff: if it uses the words "boosts your immune system", it's at least 50% woo. Possibly more. It's an almost unconfirmable, difficult to measure, but impressive-sounding claim - which is why it's so often used.
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Heh, watching the new movie, there were a couple of times I went 'Spock on the left, Kirk on the right, nicely framed, all glowery, this is deliberately set up to be captioned'.
Approximately several thousand icon-makers on LJ agree with you.
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Possibly my biggest problem with Twilight being popular is that I happened across Robin McKinle'sy bite 'n bonk (thanks) book Sunshine and found it rather quirky and enjoyable. Now it's like the pitch has been queered by another vampire book named after light conditions.
Light conditions seem to be real popular for titles in this genre, for some reason - I can think of several other titles by various authors along this theme (Dead Until Dark, Black Dawn, etcetera.) But Twilight really doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as anything by McKinley, who is *excellent*.
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So just a quick note for Sean Plunket: sometimes governments massage financial numbers to make their ideas look better, and in this case, it seems the numbers haven't been so much massaged as given a full-service rogering. And a corresponding note for Sean's interview subject, David Shearer: sometimes it's easier to just say "creative accounting" or "raiding the piggy bank" than to explain the details.
I don't think I have ever wished to reach over the radio waves and strangle someone *quite* as much as I did this morning, listening to that. (Although possibly not as much as Shearer must have.)
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Charlaine Harris was somewhat shocked at how explicit True Blood was so she sits somewhere between Hamilton and Meyer in Bite to Bonk scale.
*Really*? Because given the amount and explicit nature of the sex in the books, she has no excuse being shocked. (True, they're not Hamilton, but Hamilton's heroine can barely walk three metres without shagging someone.)
OTOH, I much prefer that to Meyer, whose heroine wakes up with convenient sex-induced amnesia. And lots of bruises. Because, hey, the books *weren't creepy enough*.
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I second that. The love story of Sookie and Bill the Vampire are universes and generations distant from Twilight (which my 15 year old daughter despises). It is all blood, sex, mayhem, sex and, somewhere in there, truly fascinating ideas.
I've read the original books, though not found time for the show yet. Girl-meets-vampire is practically a subgenre in its own right; I think True Blood is good because it's *aware* of the genre and works with it to, as you say, ask some fascinating and intelligent questions. Twilight thinks it's entirely original. That's its really besetting sin.
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Millions of girls are in love with an undead, emo glitterball. We're doomed.
I knew there was a reason we kept you around, Craig. Just remember the whole thing is a repressed Mormon's metaphorical-sex fantasy, and you may come to terms with it. Or, you know. Not.
On-topic, my partner and I have been watching Coupling, which I find terribly difficult to watch because it's hilariously brilliant (and nerdy) but all too often makes me cringe in embarrassment. It's a very fine line to walk, but it's done splendidly - and I say this because most embarrassment-comedy (The Office, etcetera) I find deeply unwatchable.
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Also, with at-risk civilians in the area, how would you have had the police extract them? In their patrol cars? Trying to protect them with those ballistic shields as they crossed hundreds of metres of firing range? Get real.
It's worth remembering that this guy was shooting at anything that moved, including his neighbours - and, by all reports, shooting quite accurately with a high-powered rifle. If I was there, I'd have wanted a fucking tank, let alone a LAV, to do any moving around.