I’ve been on IRC since 1998, there is no public forum I feel more comfortable on.

Over the years I’ve managed to get involved with tech groups that are female-oriented and very female-friendly. From time to time I even allow myself to forget that female geeks are rare. I’m not used to not running into assholes on IRC who freak about about a women being around.

But then it happened. In a software development channel that I’ve been for nearly a year.

< nick_one> yes, my girlfriend knows how to use irssi
< pleia2> my boyfriend knows how to use irssi
< nick_one> pleia2: lol :P
< pleia2> amazing, huh? %P!
< nick_two> Sure.
< nick_two> hehe
< nick_one> pleia2: you are a boy yourself too?
< pleia2> nick_one: no, definitely not a boy
< nick_three> crap
< nick_one> THEN we have a girl!
< nick_three> I thought my girly was the only one to annoy us in here ;P
< nick_three> nick_one: we have had my gf in here before :)
< nick_three> nick_one: she just annoyed $guy and left ;)
< nick_three> thats why I like her ;)

And they wonder why more women aren’t involved in Open Source Projects? As a seasoned IRCer and a user of and contributer to said software I found myself feeling offended and ostracized. I can’t imagine how a woman new to the project would feel. I know I wouldn’t have stayed if that was my first impression of the group.

Saturday was a beautiful day. I spent the morning cleaning the house, while Michael went to a few stores to run errands. When he returned I began mowing the lawn and he got to work on the concrete patching that needed to be done on the side of our porch.

By 1 we were close to being finished. I came inside and cleaned up little things that needed to be taken care of before our guests arrived and Michael cleaned the bathroom.

Luckily our friends were running late, so were we, everything was all together and friends were here by 4.

We had a nice evening, most of it just spent hanging out and talking. Around 7 I brought out the vodka and a few of us had some drinks. At 8:20 the bottle of Ketel One ran out and I went with (who hadn’t been drinking) to the liquor store down the street. I got my vodka with no problem, tried to speak as little as possible and act not-intoxicated, even if I did giggle once leaving the store “haha I bought liquor and I’m drunk!” I’m a bad person.

wanted to watch A New Hope, which I’d been wanting to watch as well since seeing Revenge of the Sith. Unfortunately I should know by now that watching a movie after having consumed a bunch of alcohol is just asking for me to sleep. I was asleep on the chair before Luke and Obi-Wan left Tatooine. I probably shouldn’t exhaust myself mowing the lawn on the day before a movie night either %) So I went to bed early. Friends left around 11:30, I felt bad, stupid sleeping! But at least we had a nice time while we were awake.

Sunday was another lovely day, so we decided to tackle a few yard projects.

In our front yard were a couple seemingly useless mounds. One had a decorative pole stuck in it, which we assumed had some sort of plant on it at one time. I removed the pole last year, and had intended to get rid of the mound of dirt it stood in since then. All I had to do with that was break up the dirt mound and haul the dirt to the back yard.

The other mound was covered with weeds and daisys (which I’m allergic to), we joked about it hiding a dead body because it was such an annoying to mow around useless thing. I started digging around it, pulling up the slate rock that were bordering it and yanking out all the weeds. Then I discovered what it was hiding. Not a dead body. A stupid tree stump! Damn them! I kicked it. It moved. I was able to yank the whole thing out of the ground, it was so old and rotted that it wasn’t too difficult. Yay! I rolled the stump into the garage to dry out, then went back to making piles for compost, slate rock (which Michael needed) and dirt from the mound. When I was finished I was hot and tired.

And we didn’t have a wheel barrel. We were pondering solutions to our wheel barrel-less problem, what else has wheels? Suitcases! Lawnmowers! The trash can! None of these were reasonable %) Neither of us wanted to drive all the way to the Home Depot, that always ruined a significant part of the day. That’s when I remembered a little garden store within walking distance of our house, it didn’t look like much, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if they had some. I hopped in the car (sweaty, insect repellent covered, and dirty as I was) and drove down to the store. I was helped by a couple guys who were more than happy to find me a wheel barrel, they had three outside, a small metal one, large metal one, and large plastic, I got the large metal one. They loaded it into the Rav4, I paid them and went home. Yay a wheel barrel!

The wheel barrel made everything so much easier. Michael helped me load the dirt, weeds and rocks into it and roll it out back, once that was done I put down grass seeds on my now flattend mounds. Success! I then joined Michael in the back yard to help him with his projects.

He was cleaning out some areas in the back that were overgrown with weeds (planning to put mulch down for now, maybe plant more things later), and building a firepit (see his entry). He set the stones around the firepit and began digging, by the time I got out there he was ready for a break. I took the shovel and picked up where he left off, started digging. After a few minutes I hit something hard. Started cleaning it off, and it turned out to be the edge of some big, flat, rectangular metal thing. When Michael came back out I showed him what I had discovered and together we worked to pry the whole thing out of the ground. It was about 3 feet by 4 feet! Who the hell is burying this crap in the ground? Yeesh.

Then comes the burning! The firepit looks great, and we had so many sticks and leaves out back to burn, so that got it going nicely. Must have spent about an hour burning stuff until it started to rain around 4pm and I went inside, exhausted, to take a shower. The rain didn’t last long, so Michael stayed outside with it while I got clean and started to relax. He came in later and I made tacos for dinner, watched the newest Doctor Who episode.

I was in bed by 9.

Today I ache all over. Michael’s back in the yard, but it’s my vacation day dammit! %) I might head out this afternoon and help him, but for now I’m letting my achey muscles relax. Will probably read a bit too.

It’s not raining. It’s just cloudy and sometimes drips fall from the sky.

I debated going for a walk during this lunch break, but figured it would start pouring as soon as I got halfway through my normal walk. I’m sure my new raincoat would have treated me good, but it’s not long enough to cover my pants and I’m not in the mood to spend the rest of the work day with soaked pants.

I’m not really in the mood for much, except sleeping. I’m not exactly depressed, just feeling lazy. Maybe I am depressed. I have no reason to be. Little things have been ticking me off all week. People just suck. I’m being all critical of everything everyone in my life is doing/saying, and taking it too far in my head. The other day I told Michael I wanted to take him and Caligula off to a cave in the middle of nowhere and live all alone with no other dumb people.

I have a big ole pile of invoices on my desk. I think I’m just going to listen to some NIN and dive into them this afternoon. 5 o’clock can’t come soon enough.

I hope this mood will pass soon. *puts head on desk*

When Michael and I got engaged we had to start thinking about what our wedding would be like. As most everyone reading this will know, I’m an atheist and Michael’s agnostic, a traditional church wedding is out of the question. But I’m all about tradition, I love my diamond engagement ring, I want a white dress at my wedding. I just don’t want God.

So in our quest to find some spiritual base, we started looking into pagan groups in our area. Why pagan? Pagan groups tend to encompass many beliefs, and I thought that starting there would be good, maybe we could meet someone we trust and respect enough to marry us.

The results so far? One group Michael has gone to (men’s only night) seems good, we’re following up with it and might join a course with them later this year. Another group in the Delaware Valley seems to have some interesting people in it, and if they hold any good meetings we might check them out. But those groups aren’t what this post is about.

This post is about a semi-local group that we’ve had a bad experience with.

First off, it’s not a purely pagan group. They are all pagans, but there is little discussion about it. Most of what is posted is stupid forwards and plans for trips that friends on the list are taking. I deleted most of what I received, it was fairly useless fluff. They were holding “study groups” every couple of weeks though, and I was interested in one, so I stayed subscribed.

Secondly, some of the members have such horrible grammar and spelling that attempting to read their posts makes me cringe. It’s really that bad. And there is plenty of caps abuse, I felt like I was reading something written by an angry 12 year old.

Now I tried not to hold this against them. There are very smart and enlightened people in the world that have terrible english skills.

I quickly realized they were not part of the smart and enlightened.

About a week ago a very offensively sexual and racist “joke” was forwarded to the list. I’m not easily offended, but this one hit a nerve. First off, I couldn’t believe I was associated with people who would drop that sort of thing in my inbox. Secondly, it’s from a pagan group! A group that is supposed to be inclusive of all people and cultures, accepting of all views (this isn’t just my assessment, they say this on their main page). The “joke” bothered me so much that I mentioned it to Michael, who is also subscribed but hadn’t seen it.

Michael was the one who followed up on it, emailing the poster directly, asking why such a racist joke was sent to a theoretically friendly, public list.

The mail was sent back to the list, and it turned into a flame fest. It turns out that the group is not as accepting as they claim to be. Not only did they defend the woman who posted the joke, they accused everyone who piped up and agreed that it was offensive of being “thin-skinned” and encouraged us to “just delete” things we found offensive.

Just delete it? Clearly these aren’t the kind of people I want to be associated with. I unsubscribed.

Sigh, religion. This is the sort of nonsense that made me a private practicer of spirituality in the first place. Hopefully these other groups we’ve found will prove to me more to my liking.

Michael set up SquirrelMail for me this weekend. Previously I was unable to check my princessleia.com email address at work, but now I can! It’s a pretty basic web mail service, looks and feels a lot like Yahoo! did way back in the day.

Michael mentioned a few days back that he wished google would release it’s gmail code so we could implement that. mutt is far superior to any web mail, but I must agree with him there, gmail is the best web mail I’ve ever used, SM could use some improvements.

It’s so great to be able to check my mail from work. Maybe I’ll even be able to start reading lists in a timely manner again.

Last night I went to see Star Wars again. I couldn’t help it, Michael was at work all day and I spent the day hanging out with a friend who brought over the Clone Wars cartoon dvds (which I hadn’t seen). When Michael called to say he’d be home very late said friend mentioned that it was ashame we didn’t know earlier, because we could have gone out to see Star Wars in the IMAX.

“Well, we still can!”

So we called up a couple other friends. Unfortunately the IMAX showings were sold out (probably have been for days, there are no Sunday ones either). But the normal theater ones were not sold out. We all headed out to Bennigans for dinner, then got to the theater for an 11pm showing.

The theater wasn’t *too* packed, we were about 25 minutes early and got good seats.

It was fun to see on the big screen again, and the sound was better in KOP than it was at Warrington Crossing. You can’t beat the midnight showing crowd though, not much cheering during this one %)

We got out of the theater around 1:30, got home around 2, Michael came home shortly after I did (yay!).

Today I think we’re just going to hang out here at home together. I want to do some reading. *yawns and wanders off*

My batch number stamp was getting dry, so I asked the woman in the cubicle next to mine if she knew how to refill it. She showed me were to turn the screw on the side of it and gave me the tiny bottle of black ink that is used to refill it. She warned me that it might drip, so I should have some paper towels ready.

I started filling it up, kept putting drops in, how many drops fill up this thing anyway? More drops.

Oh no! It’s leaking out the other side.

It was a mess. I’m glad I had that pile of paper towels.

By the end of it I had three people in my cube all making useless comments “that’s not supposed to happen” “I think it’s broken” “Mine’s never done that.” Gah!

I washed my hands for 10 minutes, but I still have a purple shadow of ink on most of my fingertips, arg.

I’m so glad it’s friday.

And I’m glad I took the whole day off yesterday. I was able to get some cleaning done, finally paint a spackled patch in the TV room, read for a bit, catch up on emails, chat a bit. It was all very relaxing.

I don’t have plans for the weekend, Michael has to go into work to run some wires on Saturday and/or Sunday %\ I don’t even have plans for this evening, we usually have movie night but AFAIK no one has piped up and said anything about it this week. Maybe I’ll hunt down someone with a copy of episode 1 and hang out on my couch all day Saturday watching all the Star Wars %)

The midnight showing was fun, I brought my stuffed animal ewok. There were people dressed up, people with lightsabers, and as always at midnight showings, cheering and clapping at appropriate times in the film, and that really adds to the excitement. You’re in a theater packed with 300 other people who are just as pumped as you are.

And now my ticket collection for all three midnight showings is complete!

But of the movie itself? It’s difficult to explain without giving away some things, read further at your own risk!

R2D2 rocks, but I was annoyed with him flying in the first place, some of the things he did in this film were amusing, but absurd.

Jar Jar Binks walked through a few scenes, but wasn’t a player in the film, yay!

C3PO didn’t have nearly enough camera time.

The way Darth Sidious gets his scarring is lame.

General Grievous was cool.

The way Anakin gets hurt and must take on the familiar Darth Vader suit was cool.

Still no chemistry between Anakin and Padme, which made their split all too predictable and dull.

Yay Chewbacca!

What about Leia’s memories of her mother? Grr.

They concentrated too hard on linking 3 with 4, there were lots of “ooh so that’s how/why!” moments, but I’m not sure how good the movie will feel on subsequent viewings, I think it’ll get old.

I’m so sick of mediocre CG fighting/action scenes.

Ewan McGregor still makes an awsome Obi-Wan.

They touched a nerve with the killing of the Jedi, some of those scenes were pretty hard to take.

As a whole it was better than the other two prequels, but still can’t touch the original trilogy.

Holy crap.

PrincessLeia.com is getting tons of traffic. Over 12,000 hits yesterday, usual is half that, or less.

For once my Star Wars sections rival my mplayer how-to for popularity.

I guess I should have anticipated this %)

On my way to work there was a report on NPR about Star Wars. *glee* They were interviewing people who were camping out for it. They had some quotes from critics saying it’s better than the first two prequels, and that fans would be happy with this “final” installment. Then they had a full review, which we silenced the radio for, I don’t want to know anything about it!

Do I dare to hope it’ll actually be good?

After work we’re going home to chill for a while, perhaps take a nap ;) We’ll be meeting Bob at Houlihans for dinner around 9. After dinner we’ll be heading over to the theater. Then waiting in line for a while. It should be quite an event, maybe I’ll bring my camera.

This work day is going by too slowly!