VeronicaMoonlit's inevitable blog

I'm getting the hormone letter

2010-04-16T20:09:00.007-05:00

My Therapist is going to write the hormone letter, she told me that yesterday at our session. She's going to contact a colleague who knows the ins and outs of the how of it and do it. And contact me if she needs any more information.

I was...surprised...but yet not. I thought she might say that today...I hoped she might...I don't know why I thought she might already...maybe it was last session when she said she'd read the writings I gave her from this thread.

I basically told her that I was both surprised and not surprised and mentioned that I was worried that I thought she might not do it that she might not see me as "a woman", and that I sometimes felt "not worthy" of it.

She said we'd have to work on that self worth issue next session. Wonder what that will entail.

But I feel happy! Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. I'm getting the Hormone Letter! Me! Something I thought would never happen.

But....I feel changes coming on...yes...yes...the Pink Fog is

enveloping me....MUST...HAVE...Girl

Juice...tee hee.

I should make my blog title look like this:

And I need cute cartoony princessy avatars n such:

And I must have unicorns...

or better yet unicorns WITH rainbows

And animated butterfly gif's, that's a must have.

Tee hee.,

I am such a snarker. :-) I actually do like pink, sparkly, glittery and "girly" things....in moderation.

The Beauty Boomer

2010-04-02T14:57:00.002-05:00

The Beauty Boomer is a fashion and beauty blog for women "of a certain age" by Poppy Buxom, whom I know from AF (the USENET group alt.fashion and it's Yahoogroup successor. Poppy's manifesto states it well:

Here's the deal: age and hipness do not have to co-relate. Perceived age is the combination of the impression made by your size, silhouette, complexion, coloring, grooming, clothes, accessories, and makeup. Some of these things can be easily fixed. Others you have to live with. But hipness? Looking in the know? Can easily be tweaked. And that makes you come across as younger.

Linuxchix

2010-03-26T22:34:00.002-05:00

From the Linuxchix website:

LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux and Free Software, and for women and men who want to support women in computing. The membership ranges from novices to experienced users, and includes professional and amateur programmers, system administrators and technical writers.

In other words, it's a safe haven from the casual misogyny one can sometimes find in the Linux community. The IRC channel is much more active than the e-mail lists it seems.

Now I may not be a woman...yet, but I do sometimes hang in the Linuxchix IRC channel, but not the grrls only one, since I don't think I belong there right now since I'm not living as a woman yet.

I run Yellow Dog Linux 6.2 myself, on my PS3.

Heathers and Mean Girls

2010-03-26T21:54:00.002-05:00

Betty Finn was a true friend and I sold her out for a bunch of Swatch dogs and Diet Coke heads. Veronica Sawyer in Heathers

Me? I wanted to be kind of like a Heather. Pretty, popular, on the student council. An bookishly preppily femme Queen of the School. Yeah I was stupid, but don't worry, I got better. Not that would have let me in anyway, being a nerdy guy for all that they knew.

Veronica is the real hero, sort of, of the film. And yes, Veronica Sawyer did inspire my name.

There were "Heathers" at my school too, but unlike the Heathers or the Plastics in the Mean Girls film, they didn't wear skirts. What is with that, anyway. It seems in films the Meanie girls are always skirt wearing femmes. They weren't at my school. Well poo on that, I'm a femme, and I'm not Mean...usually.

And yes, the Meanie girls need to be taken down a notch....but that usually happens a few years after graduation. You may be "top girl" at Farmville High, but at Big State Uni, you're nobody. So wacking them with drain cleaner is not necessary.

As for why Mean Girls exist and what we should do about them...others smarter than me have written books about it. You're better off reading them. But most Meanies build up their power base over years so all you have to do is shut them down while they're young. Make sure the Proto-Mean Girl doesn't get to monopolize leadership positions, have an open policy towards sports/cheerleading (ie let everyone who tries out in), and clamp down on the subtle bullying the Meanies do. You also have to make certain the teachers themselves don't show favoritism to the future meanies, coz sometimes they do.

Heathers and Mean Girls are fun films to watch, and well worth owning.

Is the VeronicaMoonlit a Transsexual? Yes.

2010-03-26T21:53:00.002-05:00

Yes, I am. And I'm finally doing something about that, which would make certain internet friends I have lost contact with, very happy.

So, I'm in the counseling stages to get the hormone letter, and pricing hair removal.

Is the VeronicaMoonlit a feminist? Yes.

2010-03-26T21:26:00.002-05:00

Yes, yes I am. I've identified as such for years. Lets see, I think it was before Anita Hill, somewhere between 1988 and 1990. I began identifying more strongly with feminism with the rise of Third Wave feminism. In fact, it was a series of articles and interviews in Glamour magazine about and by Naomi Wolf and Susan Faludi that did so.

I would describe myself as a pro-porn, pro-choice Third Wave feminist. Though the anti-abortion folks would have less to complain about if people were encouraged to use birth control...but some anti-abortion folks are against that too.

I'm a practical feminist, I don't go for that deconstruction and theorizing, it hurts my head. I like to keep it simple.

Funny thing is, I sometimes agree to a certain extent with the radfems and separatist feminists on the "Men are teh suckage in general" issue, but they think MTF transfolk are teh devil. Also, men suck because our society doesn't in general teach men how to NOT suck, and separating yourself from men means you aren't part of the solution.

So yes, I am a feminist.

Dear YouTube Makeup Mavens

2010-02-09T19:31:00.002-06:00

Been watching a lot of YouTube makeup videos lately. There's a fuckton of women doing them it seems and as you can imagine...I have a rant.

Dear YouTube makeup mavens;

Wow it sure is nice having all sorts of tutorials for all sorts of
looks, but.....

Are any of you over 30? If so I haven't found you yet. It would be
nice to find one of you who wasn't still in college. I'm 42 and I'd
like to see someone near my age try out neat looks.

Do any of you use drugstore makeup? If so, I'd like to know because
some of us use that.

What's with the MAC? Sure it's good stuff, but there's good makeup
in the drugstores too. and geez, do you own it ALL? And how do the
heck do you afford your hauls and stashes that you show off in your
videos? I know some of you get money from YouTube, and some of you
get freebies, and a lot of you are still in college so your parents
support your day-to-day expenses so you can blow all your part time
job as a Bebe/BR/VS/Limited SA money on Makeup. but there are so many
of you that can't be true for all of you. And I know that most of you
aren't licensed cosmetologists so you don't qualify for the
discounts. And how do you all get that big ass Pro 120 color
palette, people shouldn't be selling it on eBay.

Speaking of MAC, could you actually describe your brushed instead of
saying "I'm using a 224" Some of us don't own MAC brushes, that 224
costs $28! you know. The same goes for colors, you say "I'm using Brun
here and show it for only a split second.

It would help to see colors better if your lighting and camera
work didn't suck so much. Maybe you all need to get a friend
to do the camera work, rather than just holding your face close to
the camera (that gives a sort of fisheye effect) and maybe rig up
some sort of umbrella light.

You know, it's kind of funny when you say you're going to show a
"simple neutral look" and then you use a half a dozen eyeshadows on
it, liquid/gel liner and do fake eyelashes.

And about those lashes...almost all of you have a tutorial on putting
them on. How many of those do we need, and besides, the method the
majority of you use is not as easy as doing the "applying the glue on
top of your eyeliner" trick does.

What's with the Mac-centricity? Meaning the 480x360 and 480x320
resolutions of your videos. Not everyone uses the frakkin i-foo
portable devices.

I am not your bitch, I am a fan/viewer. If you say "love ya bitches"
during your videos, I lose some respect for you.

in hospital

2009-01-31T20:58:00.001-06:00

I'm in the hospital OSF st jo in bloomington, the catheter they put in at ST james didn't work from the moment I left there. Went back the next day. tehy found out there was some brick wall up in there that was blocking it and that it actually wasn't in the bladder in the first place. They sent me down here, where urologist tried to clear block but couldn't, my urethra is simply to diseased and in such bad shape. I have two choices, wear a pubical catheter for the rest of my life or have major surgery that few people do. I would have to go to a big city for that.

the hospital tv's have a kind of webtv thing that's letting me post to blogger but mHB is blocked. So if any mHBers see this, let everyone know, okay.

I don't know how long I'm going to be here, turns out the UTI that st james thought I had was wrong, it was a different one that needed a different antibiotic.. I also found out my potassium level is a little low, just like mom's. I feel like crappe, sore, because of what the urologist tried to do to my penis something leaked into my scrotum and it's swollen and hurts like heck to touch. sitting up is uncomfortable for long periods but I can do it though it tends to make the swelling worse. They were worried about my blood pressur at first because it was high, but it returned to what is normal for me, which is a little low once I got calmed down and more comfortable. They also were worried about my blood sugar but that's been normal except for the first time they tested.

Wishing mHB the best.

in hospital

2009-01-31T20:58:00.000-06:00

LOLelection

2008-11-05T11:25:00.003-06:00

I just had to do it. I used this ImageMagick based perl script to caption the images

YES!

2008-11-05T11:23:00.000-06:00

Yes We Can!

Obama wins, and I am very happy.

The Glade Lady

2008-10-25T00:24:00.003-05:00

Ahh the Glade Lady in those commercials. I know you've seen them.

Friends are coming over and she wants her house to smell nice, so she pulls out a Glade candle. But oh, her friends mustn't know she uses Glade candles rather than overpriced candles from Bath and Body Works, White Barn Candles, those Yankee Candles, or whatever overpriced Candles of the week those upper-middle class wannabe's crowds tell them to buy. So she pulls of the label and throws it away, but it sticks to her LBD without her knowing. It's a nice LBD by the way, she's wearing pearls with it, it appears to be before 5pm. Her friends ring the doorbell, she lets them in. Her very casually dressed sweaters n' dockers clad friends. They enjoy the smell and ask if she baked, (I remember the older version where she used the candle to disguise the fact that she was serving a pre-cooked purchased pie), this time she says no it's a candle...from france. But then one of her friends sees the sticker and says, "Haven't you ever heard of Glah-day".

Then there's the one where she's in her tub at home and a friend calls and she says she's at the spa with some wonderful spa fragrance blissing her out, and then her husband knocks on the door and her friend asks, who's that and she says, "my aromatherapist"

Don't forget the suburban Yoga one. What's suburban yoga? That's Yoga for women who aren't really interested in the spiritual aspects, just in bonding with their friends, wearing cute yoga wear, using it as excercise so they can still fit in their size 6's, and basically doing yoga as a status symbol.

Well at least Glade lady is doing the class at home. Her house smells nice and her friends ask what it is and she says it's a boutique fragrance that helps her plug in to her karma. and one of her friends says, "Yeah, Glade plug in"

The Glade lady symbolizes one of the things that's wrong with America. A heavy focus on appearing affluent even when you're not. Glade lady can't admit she uses glade, that would be declasse, just like people like her don't like admitting they shop at Target and would die before shopping at JC Penny or worse, Sears. (Which led to other people inventing the Tar-zhay thing to make fun of them). Ladies like her can't comparison shop for hair care and get a cheap blowout from some nice lady who's been doing hair for years, they always go to the overpriced pretentious "salon" that the other desperate housewife cougar wannabe's go to. Glade lady does yoga and pilates and says she goes to spas because she wants to appear more affluent than she is.

Bleah.

Glade lady should say, "Like my candle, it's glade, smells great doesn't it, only $2.99. Do you really want to spend money in those pretentious candle shops in the mall in these economic times?" "Like my dress? Got it at JC Penny on sale, $49 bucks. Pearls, K-Mart. pretty aren't they. Makeup? Walgreens. And that aint no miracle $20 mascara I'm wearing, I've got fake lashes, look great don't they. $2.99 Andrealash #33's. Where's the big SUV? We sold it, because it was stupid for us to buy it in the first place, we only got 1 kid and we never go off road. We're selling this big 2500 square foot MChouse in this subdivision and moving back to the city, no more wasting time and money on long commutes."

Like that will happen.

Oh, by the way, the name of the pretty redheaded glade lady actress is Dori Kelly

Trans blogs for Obama

2008-10-03T21:34:00.004-05:00

I know, it's been a looong time, but this is important. Trans people getting together and showing political enthusiasm as a community.

Trans for Obama page on ActBlue

As Caprice Bellefleur says

a number of trans and allied bloggers are renewing our plea to help the campaign of Barack Obama for president. Back in June a group of us sent out a request for donations to the Obama campaign through a specific page on Act Blue, the online clearinghouse for Democratic action, which was set up with the help of the Stonewall Democrats. The purpose of this effort was to demonstrate to the Obama campaign that we trans people and our allies are a significant group supporting him.

I"m from Illinois and when I saw his speach at the 2004 DNC I said out loud, "He's going to be president someday."

New pspvc version out. Cool!

2006-06-28T00:14:00.000-05:00

There's a new version of pspvc, the PSP video encoding tool for Linux out.

http://pspvc.sourceforge.net

It now supports compiling with more versions of GCC
It now has a display of Elapsed time and estimated time to completion.
It now supports choosing the thumbnail image and you can see the thumbnail, and choose another via a new gui tool.

Here is what it looks like when you start it up. Note that the default encoding is H.264/AVC.

margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7662/1428/320/pspvc_main.1.jpg" border="0" alt="" />

The GUI is simple but very effective and not annoying like PSP Video 9 for Windows UI is.

Gere I've selected the video to convert (an older episode of GeekBrief that I hadn't converted yet), format (MP4 SP) and bitrates.

Here is the conversion status window, with status bars and the new elapsed and estimaed time remaining indicators. Notice how long it thinks it's going to take. It seems to over estimate, but the box pspvc is running on only has a 294 MHz CPU. And it probably is better to be conservative in estimates.

Ahh, it's finally done, and here is the choose a thumbnail feature. There's Cali Lewis of GeekBrief in the thumbnail that's visible. You select a point in the video using that seconds widget and choose create and then you see the thumbnail. If you don't like it you can choose a different time point and hit the button again until you get the one you want. Very handy. I don't think any of the other PSP video encoding tools on any platforms has this feature.

Thanks to the developers of pspvc for a well designed and useful application that does what it's supposed to do and does it well. If you want a pspvc video encoding tool on Linux, look no further than pspvc.

I wonder if it's possible to port it to Windows, because PSP Video 9's UI is majorly annoying. I'd rather have a more pspvc like UI that doesn't get in my way. The OSX FFMPEGX is similar (but they're having problems with H.264 AVC created with it on 2.70+ firmware right now)

Keepvid

2006-05-18T20:10:00.000-05:00

http://keepvid.com

Thanks to geekbrief.tv vodcast #18 for clueing me on this.
Know all those flash videos on youtube, myspace, grouper, etc,
(Like say this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCv_wGcSURw :-) ) and how you
can't save them for later? Or if you're running a non x86 Linux
without a flash plugin that you can't see them at all?

Keepvid is an online tool that works in a similarly to sites
like tinyurl. But instead of shortening a URL it gives you a
link to the real flv video, that you can actually save and play,
watch, or convert at ones leisure.

Geekbrief.tv

2006-05-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

http://geekbrief.podshow.com

Geekbrief.tv is a geeky and informative vodcast hosted by Cali
Lewis aka Luria Petrucci, who rivals Paige Davis of the classic
Trading Spaces on the Adorably Cute and Perky scale.

You can subscribe to the cast via iTunes, it's free. It's in
iPod format, watch it via Quicktime or in iTunes itself.
Mplayer, ffplay, etc should do the trick in Linux.

PSPVC, a graphical PSP video conversion tool for Linux

2006-05-18T19:42:00.000-05:00

http://pspvc.sourceforge.net

I've been envying Mac OSX users their FFMPEGX software for a
long time. Although standard command line ffmpeg works, it can
be difficult to get it working properly, sometimes it required
patching with not-ready-for-primetime patches, or required
finding somebody's altered version of the code. It was also
very difficult to get H.264/AVC encoding to work. And then you
had command line options to deal with which have changeds with
various releases of the source. Sometimes a ffmpeg binary that
did create working videos wouldn't do so when you upgraded the
PSP's firmware. Or if they did work, perhaps titles weren't
displayed correctly in the PSP file browser.

PSPVC changes that. It's basically ffmpeg sources with specific
patches, and x264 code, plus a GTK 2 graphical interface. To
get it compiled and installed you just run the install script.

The GUI is simple and I wish there were a few more options in it
(you still pretty much have to create the .THM thumbnails from
the command line and perhaps output choices for iPod video too
would be good), but it works

VNC

2006-05-18T19:31:00.000-05:00

http://www.tightvnc.com/

VNC lets one control their computer remotely as if they were
sitting in front of it. You see what's on the screen and can
operate the computer the same way. Sure WinXP has remote
assistance but it's not the same thing. In WinXP home Ican
request assistance but cannot control another machine with it.

VNC is also cross platform, meaning you can run the server on a
windows machine and control it from a Linux box, or vice versa.

Everyone should have VNC installed on their computer, that way
if you're having computer problems, instead of trying to tell
your friendly computer geek friend what you see on your screen,
she can actually see the screen and directly help you fix your
problem.

--
Makeup, it takes believing in. Like a magic carpet, it's belief
that makes it fly. Otherwise, it's just a rug.
If you believe in it, makeup has a magic all it's own.
Of course, makeup is only dime-store magic. But it works well
enough, when it's used properly.", the makeup artist, from the
book Sooner or Later, based on the 1978 TV movie of the same
name.

Immigration

2006-05-18T19:24:00.000-05:00

Well gee, instead of complaining about Mexicans sneaking across
our border and building a wall and militarizing it, why not work
on making living conditions inside Mexico more like that of the
U.S. Then they wouldn't want to sneak

But with Mexico overpopulated as it is, and with corrupt
police/government (when the tourist books tell you how bad it is,
it's bad), and your typical Latin American socio economic system
where you have a few European descended folks who own and
control virtually everything and a whole bunch of dirt poor
folks of mostly Native American descent, who wouldn't want to
leave.

Another part of the problem is that US business and government
wants Mexico to stay that way so we can take advantage of their
natural resources and labor for our own benefit.

Friday Cat Blog: Kittoi Bites Vettoi

2006-04-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

I told you she was evil.

My sister took the kittoi to the V E T today (Yes, we say it like that, just in case), to check her over and to give us results of some tests. Apparently her kidneys are doing good, thanks to the special food, but there may be something going on with her liver. :-( She's had ear problems now and then and the vet worked on her ears. This vet does not have owners back in the examination/treatment rooms. With Ki Ki the Evil One, that is not a good idea. He must have did something to really tick her off because she bit him. Bit him good my sister says, she saw some gauze on his hand. He wants to see her back in 10 days. :-(

In a strange way, I'm proud of the kittoi for showing her fierce prowess even at her advanced age.. I bet the vet won't underestimate the power of The Evil One again. She may not be as ummm fat, I mean pleasantly fluffy, as she used to be but she still is a good sized cat with large paws and mouth.

I've given her another nickname: Vetbiter, in honor of Bettoi's kittoi, Ms. Aurora Crankpants Thunderfist Quickbiter.

All Hail the Mighty, "Three Socks and a Slipper Ki Ki Kitty McGruff the Magnificent Vetbiter"!

It puts the kittoi in the basket.

2006-04-14T00:22:00.000-05:00

My cute and cuddly kittoi in the laundry basket. The fresh laundry basket. I told you she was Evil.

Send in the Gimp

2006-03-06T11:43:00.000-06:00

I use the free and open source image creation and editing tool called Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program)for my image editing needs. Though it may not have the same interface or the CMYK/Pantone support of Photoshop it is fully capable of handing the majority of users needs. It also runs on anything, by anything, I really do mean anything. Old machines, gaming consoles with Linux installed, Sun Solaris boxes, machines running BSD, you name it. Try it yourself.

Website for The Gimp

Kittoi!

2006-03-06T11:26:00.000-06:00

All blogs need cat pics, and here is my cat, in all her fluffly glory

And here she is in aotion. Leap Kitty, Attack!

She is the cutest, fluffiest, most wuvvable and evil cat in the wholeums world! My kittoi rules!

Props to Bettoi Bettoi's Blog for creating another meme. (kittoi)

Sorry Felicity

2006-03-06T10:46:00.000-06:00

I was surprised that Felicity Huffman didn't get the best actress nod last night. My sister commented that the "actor/actress who plays a dead singer and actually sings the songs that singer sung in the movie and does a good job gets the nod" rule trumps the "actress who deglamourizes herself for a meaty role gets the nod" rule.

Liberal Blogosphere for Hurricane Relief

2005-09-02T17:17:00.000-05:00

Liberal Blogosphere for Hurricane Relief

(Add to your site)

Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives.

Together, the liberal blogosphere is raising money for the Red Cross fund for food, water, shelter, and transportation out of the Hurricane Zone.

Please donate now.

Blame Frickin Dr. Evil

2005-09-02T16:53:00.000-05:00

I sure do use "frickin' a lot. Thank you, Dr. Evil.

Too bad there isn't a real Dr. Evil style villain around we could lock
up to end some the world's madness. No, the Shrub doesn't qualify.

Thanks to Molly Ivins too!

Waiving fuel economy standards?

2005-09-02T16:47:00.000-05:00

I just heard some frickin congressman talk about waiving fuel economy
standards during these times.

That's crazy talk, that's the last thing one should do when there's a
frickin fuel supply problem. They ought to be raising those standards,

It sure is obvious the oil industry owns the government.

A shame in New Orleans: Poverty

2005-09-02T16:36:00.000-05:00

N"awlins is a city of just under a half million according to
census.gov. Also according to the census, the poverty rate for the
city is 27.9 percent. 27.9%! That is a national shame of the first
degree and no one in government seemed to be concerned about that. And
we all know why. This government seems to have gone out of its way to
make the lives of poor people (in both urban and rural) areas harder
(especially if they're a minority) in order to reward the wealthy and
those in mostly white upper class regions.

Yes, that's class war talk, but who the heck started the war
constantly harping on "welfare fraud" while Kenny boy Lay was
comitting corporate fraud of the sort not much seen since Neil Bush
days at the Silverado Savings and Loan

A quote from the first president Bush: "We will not rest until the
cheats and the chiselers and the charlatans spend a large chunk of
their lives behind the bars of a federal prison" And no, Neil didn't
go to prison.

Condoleeza on disaster relief?

2005-09-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

What the hell? She's the Secretary of State, her job is diplomacy,
foreign affairs. She should be talking about the hellhole that is Iraq.

But I figure the Shrub thinks he needs to show a black face on TV
representing the government so he can't be accused of being racist or
classist in his domestic policy judgement.

The Battle for New Orleans

2005-09-02T16:33:00.000-05:00

I am PISSED. This is the US, things should not be going the way
they're going.

What kind of idjit reduces funding for flood control in a flood prone
region that contains a large city. Yes, I blame "Shrub"

Where the heck is the Guard/Army, there are hordes of military bases
down south (which is another rant) Why the heck didn't one of those
big Chinook helicopters drop a frickin generator and emergency medical
personnel at the Superdome. The army has all sorts of "equipment and
facilities in a box" that are designed to be carried to places at a
moments notice.

What the heck is the Department of Homeland Security doing?
FEMA is part of the DHS now, those levees and whatnot could have been
targeted with bombs so why wasn't there more preparation.

And don't tell me that race/class issues didn't play a part in the
governments plans. They have money to buy all sorts of equipment for
Wyoming and Idaho but can't fix the levees near a mostly black, very
poor, rather Democratic city?

My father just said, "Good thing this is his last term." And you know
what, I think the Republicans just lost the 2006 2008 elections.

My Husband Betty

2005-08-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

I'm transgendered and one of the best books ever written about transgendered folks is one written one written by Helen Boyd, wife of TG person Betty Crow. I can't say enough good things about the book. It's written from a spouse/partner persective and we need more books like that. The book has a related website and message boards which I frequent. The boards are easily among the best TG oriented boards around with a very high quality of communication, dialog, smart people and good posts.

Casual Homophobia in online games

2005-08-14T22:00:00.000-05:00

I play games online and I have seen way too much casual homophobia for my tastes. You see comments like "oh that weapon is so gay" or "that character class is so gay". If they don't like somethng, its "gay". I'm getting a little tired of it and I WILL call people on it. It's juvenile, stupid and just plain wrong. So please stop doing it.

VM in blogspace

2005-08-14T21:58:00.000-05:00

An internet acquaintance suggested that I try blogging instead of trying to maintain a traditional website and it's taken me a couple of years to get around to doing it. So here we go.