eruthros

1. Sometimes I cook all fancy! I'm home visiting my folks, and my dad wanted to grill because he's been watching this grilling cooking show. But I basically don't eat meat except for fish, so we settled on tuna, because it doesn't stick to the grill. So this was yesterday's dinner:

( grilled marinated tuna and mango salsa taco-ish things for the noms )

2. Speaking of California, I often find staying with my parents somewhat frustrating (and helping my mom out with her work can be exceptionally frustrating).

But! Here are some of the things that California has in addition to fruit: It's-Its. Blue Bottle Coffee (<3<3<3). Tacos. Breakfast pastries at the Ferry Building. Boogaloo's amazing grilled plantain cakes. Persimmons from the tree in the backyard. Some friends I haven't seen in a while. Fan peoples. Thrift stores. An ocean.

3. There is going to be another Avatar: The Last Airbender (and Avatar: Legend of Korra) fanwork exchange over at white_lotus! I plan to ask for Korra/Chief Bei Fong, among other things, so it is basically guaranteed to include great things.

Anyway, if you are interested, there's a draft signup post to poke at (to make sure all your favorite characters are on the list!) and tomorrow there will be a draft rules post that take people's suggests from last year into account. And signups will start later this week!

As part of making it work this year, we've also made an AO3 collection for the challenge, so that people who want to play in an anon-slow-reveal challenge but also want to be able to edit their fanworks can play that way. People will still be able to just send us their fanworks and have them posted straight to the comm, but the AO3 thing should make it easier for people who are already using the AO3. (Plus we belatedly made a collection for last year, so if you want to you can submit your fanworks to the collection.)

4. Remember that top one hundred specfic works thing? I haven't forgotten it, I promise, I just got cranky when I organized everything for Condorcet voting on a website that said it would do it ... and then couldn't deal with 250 things in a list, Grr. And then I tried a bunch of other places, and they all would only do ten items or allow 50 voters or blahblah. I might end up just doing it in comments and uploading the data flat to a Condorcet calculator. (The short version of condorcet: it's sometimes called ranked-choice or instant-runnoff voting [though a lot of different methods end up being called these things, since the terms are used confusingly in news stories], and it's usually done for single-winner issues. It can be done for a multiple-winner issue, though, and I thought it would be fun because it would let people rank as many things as they wanted. It's a kind of neat alternative since it lets you rank things you hate low, and not have to do careful vote manipulation to make your vote "count." But APPARENTLY the javascript version of the Condorcet page crashes liek whoah.)

5. ( some stuff about the OTW )

CALIFORNIA STATE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS SAME SEX MARRIAGE BAN

I do not have enough allcaps you guys. It's amazing, because it really was a lot about language -- civil unions in California had a lot of the same rights as marriage, and it's harder to make a legal case out of that, you know?

The ruling is available in pdf here.

There are celebrations all over the state; you can check them out here.

So I know none of you care, but: last nights' Warriors-Mavs game? Was a thing of beauty.

Andris Biedrins made a shot look so easy that you couldn't believe anyone could stop him. Richardson hit threes like nobody's business. Baron Davis made this incredible switch-handed layup that pulled a foul and turned into a three point play. J-Rich got caught with his back to the hoop and made this awesome around-the-back shot.

(If you want to see any of those omg fabulous shots, here're the game highlights. It's all of two minutes, and you can go "oh my god REALLY?" with me.)

The fan energy was incredible -- jumping! Standing ovations! Cheering! Signs! The We believe guy!

Here is the thing about Warriors fans: Thirteen years since the last playoff. High hopes time and time again, and hopes crushed. Warriors fans are Warriors fans regardless of the team's performance; they critique and moan, they root for the Suns in the playoffs 'cause the Warriors aren't in it (or at least I used to!), but they are some of the most dedicated fans in the league. They stuck it out through bad draft choices -- Todd Fuller, fergodsakes, drafted ahead of Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant that year, and Vonteego Cummings, the name no-one knows, and Steve Logan who never actually played in an NBA game. And they're still fans. As Nelson said: "If we give the crowds something to cheer for and we play well, they'll be with us. And if we don't play well, I know they'll still be with us. But we've got to give them a reason to be there."

I mention this, because I was scoping the Mavs blog last night -- it's updated faster than most of the Warriors blogs -- and half the comments said "I can't believe Avery Johnson's lost another game! He's the worst coach ever!" and "I'll never be a fan again!" and, dude. Two losses? Admittedly, first-seed team losing to eighth-seed, but: dude. Two losses. Two losses and you're bailing, talking about firing coaches and half the players, encouraging Mark Cuban to sell the team, saying you'll never ever watch a game again? Christ, what is that?

Warriors fans, like I said, critique a lot -- there's a lot of sofa-GMing -- but abandon a team after two losses? We didn't abandon a team after Latrell Sprewell strangled the coach and had to be traded away (to the Knicks, who actually liked him even after that. ugh.). We didn't abandon the team after Todd Fuller, the high hopes of the league, our way to get back in, managed to score an average of, like, five points a game. Warriors fans still call for Adonal Foyle -- a defensive player who scores maybe four points a game -- to come on at the end, because he's been our man for ten years, even though he's known more for his politics than his playing these days. We think he should get to play a minute or two in a playoff game; it's only fair.

So, yeah. I get the Mavs' fans disgust. But it's hard to take the "omg we can't be fans of a losing team I'm never watching them again!" Not when the team they're playing is playing their first playoff game at home in thirteen years, to the biggest crowd of fans to ever pack into a basketball arena in California.

I think I'm going to cry. MAN. Thirteen years, y'all.

That marks the end of what was the longest current playoff drought in the league. And it means J-Rich and Foyle finally, finally get to play in the playoffs.

And, you know, the sports commentators are muttering about it: they can't beat the Mavs, they say. I dunno; their season record is only 42-40, but they've beaten the Mavs every single time they've met this season -- in fact, all of the last five times they've met up, counting last year and last year's crappy Warriors team. Now, an eighth seed has only beaten the first seed once in NBA history, and the Warriors are tired and the Mavs aren't -- but still, I think the Warriors are gonna push the Mavs hard. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Yay, trip to California! Yay, not being in Philadelphia in August! I had to go dig out a jacket to pack and everything.

I'll be there tomorrow through August 16th, and at the moment I have little in the way of plans. I'm going to be hanging out with my folks this weekend and celebrating my mom's birthday, but other than that I am free as a bird. I plan to go to the SF bead store, to Solano Avenue and get my hair cut, to Berkeley to have tapioca tea, and to the Ferry Building, where there will be Frog Hollow Farms peaches, but I can do that any time. I'd love to hang out with y'all whenever (especially slyviolet and ryca and morgandawn, because I keep not quite managing to connect with you). The only problem is that I am car-free, so if you can't get there by BART or Caltrain or bus I can't go.

Drop me a line or a comment, folks! Let me know what's up and when you're free and where we should hang out!