some things - personal and political

[rmd]

The personal:
So, the second and third floors of my house, which constitute my apartment, and the first floor common hallway have a problem on many of the walls. Basically, the previous owner was apparently going for some kind of 'mediterranean stucco' look or something, but instead the result is ridges that are, seriously, more than 1/4 and even 1/2 inch high off the wall and the whole thing looks like a frosted cake, but much bigger. It has ended up bothering me far more than I ever expected it to - partly because it's ugly, but also because it throws a wrench into any wall treatment plans I might have. Doing something that requires a patch? Well, my options are to have an odd-looking pathc of wall, or else have to actually intentionally do that 'frosted with drywall compound' effect to the patched area. Wallpaper? Right out. Hanging pictures? Problematic due to wall terrain. etc etc.

So I recently borrowed a rotary sander from i_leonardo and her duck, and got myself all kitted out in safety gear, hooked the shopvac up to the sander, and attacked some wall. OH MY GOD, IT'S SO MUCH FLATTER. I'm fine with it ending up looking like a crap drywall job when I'm done with it - I don't need perfect walls - but it's going to look like a *normal* level of crap drywall job.

This delights me far more than I expected.

The political:
Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency has posted her first episode of Tropes vs Women in Video Games: Damsel in Distress (part 1). I like it, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

This is the video series that was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that ended up being fairly notorious for the level of backlash that happened. It was sort of Fat, Ugly, or Slutty turned up to 11 with an extra bonus hatefest.

Comments

[solarbird]

Oh, that treatment.

Yeah, it was in style for a little while. A couple of times, actually, tho' the biggest semi-modern rage for it was ... early-to-mid 70s, I think? Post-hippie, pre-80s. But it made another brief appearance in the Changing Rooms/Trading Spaces era, because people get the idea that it's easy to do because it's not smooth.

To wit, yeah, no.

Anyway, good luck with it!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Yay for flat walls! A friend calls that stuff "fucco".

And thanks for the pointer. I don't care a lot about video games, but having this level of insight into something that's become a big and under-examined segment of our popular culture is very interesting to me. The fact that she did this despite death threats only makes it more impressive and important.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I sympathize about the walls. Previous owner of this house decided that Textured Ceilings were the Haught, and thusly the kitchen / dining room area has one. The Kitchen???!!! If anything spatters up (um, it's a kitchen!) you cannot clean the ceiling without little dustings of white powder sifting into everything. The thought of repainting the ceiling sends shivers down my spine.

What Were They Thinking when this horror was created/marketed??!!

[lara68.livejournal.com]

Power tools FTW!