(no subject)

Good morning, Cafe! I think I have an ear infection. It's going to be one of those weeks.

NO TIME FOR THAT NOW. WE HAVE SOME RADIO FREE MONDAY TO BUST OUT.

Ways to Give:

fangirlyness let me know about Beck Myors, a grade school teacher who is running ACROSS AUSTRALIA to raise money for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. You can check her progress and support her here.

I've been following this story in the papers myself but it gets me so angry I hadn't even thought about RFMing it because it makes me irrational -- Ivory and Horn sent me some informational links to the story of Hillaire, a young woman who was raped when she was 16 and as part of the cheer team refused to cheer for the basketball player who raped her. She took her school to court over the matter and lost, and was ordered to pay $45k in legal fees to the school. (ETA: Some of these sites have questionable links to Hillaire and her family; xtricks provides more info including a link to her lawyer's fund in comments.) There's a central website accepting donations to help her, and the Comics Alliance is hosting an artist who is offering commissions to raise money to help.

bodlon, who is raising money for his top surgery, has put items up for auction on eBay, including clothing, knicknacks, and fannish stuff. Go ye and bid!

fairestcat linked to some info on gileonnen, who is facing huge medical bills for her cat, who required surgery after some inadvisable dietary choices. You can find links here.

mecurtin is raising money for another cat, thdancingferret's cat Dante, who is having dental surgery. You can find more info at this comment on last week's RFM.

Help for Free:

pillmayken linked to a petition to remove crossdressing from the DSM-5 list of mental disorders.

tealin has a friend coming into LA to work for a few months who needs a place to stay -- he's looking to rent a spare room or similar in Culver City. You can ask questions or offer space here.

News to Know:

THIS IS MY ALDERMAN. He's gettin' hitched under Illinois' new civil partner law. Felicitations, Alderman Cappleman!

Jean and Alix's fantastic new comic Ranunculus is now available for pre-order! Check it out here.

cluegirl has a great post up about a fantastic Body Shop ad that Mattel has chosen to frivolously contest. It's not really a call for aid so much as it is a chance to see some truly imaginative ad work. :D (ETA: Looks like this is either an old campaign or never happened, but still. Thanks Lorena!)

reebchan wants to spread the word about Shmoop, an educational company looking for freelance writers on a bunch of different projects including African American literature, mythology, and history, aimed at educating high school students with a smart and snappy style. You can see the full job list here. I can't vouch for Shmoop personally, but Reebchan is a longtime cafe member and has done work for them, and is offering to answer questions if you email reebchan at gmail.com.

Fun Stuff:

tealin linked me to this because she thought I personally would like it, but I think all of you will too: an animated short film called Dripped. It's about art and theft and collecting and expression, with a healthy dose of magical realism to make it truly exceptional.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help. Remember, non-embedded links are love.

(no subject)

This morning I checked my task list for Monday and found a note that read simply: "White Collar pig manip".

I took a lot of decongestant earlier today (pretty much all the decongestant) so my memory of how that note got there was very fuzzy, but it did seem important at some point to do a manip of Neal Caffrey stealing a pig. I decided I could figure out why I was doing it later.

The name of this image file is "nealstealsthebacon".

I have to tell you guys, when you're manipping a pig into a screencap from a TV show during work hours, it takes some circumspection.

I finally did go back and dig up the conversation we had which inspired this...whatever it is:

Sam: I just found an Italian website with the phrase "colletti bianchi: piedi di mantenere la calma e trasportare porco." Which translates via Google to "white collar: feet to keep calm and carry pig." I'm pretty sure it's a recc for "Keep Calm and Carry Crowbars".
Anya: It...doesn't make any sense in Italian either. It should be "Si prega di mantenere la calma" -- the feet are probably weird babelfishing -- but the "trasportare porco" is REALLY bizarre.
Sam: It's likely a spam site, so babelfishing is the prime suspect. Still, you can't deny the mental image of Neal stuffing a pig into his coat is pretty hilarious.
Claire: WHAT WAS THE PROVENANCE OF THE PIG?

And then Anya linked me to a photo of Bowie with a pig and it was all downhill from there.