#jt rambles

[maryellencarter]

okay, so i have a question.

i've never owned a tv, unless you count the crt with the built in vhs player that i couldn't be arsed lugging to college when i moved out. i am looking at buying a tv. nothing massive, just a 32" because that's the size of the dumpster tv that was busted but was a really good test fit for my table.

i have no fucking idea whether the extra $50 (after tax) is worth it to get a 1080p HD screen instead of a 720p screen, at that size. does anybody know if you notice the difference, or is this like some of that audiophile shit?

main uses would be nintendo switch games (outputs up to a 1080p when docked), watching lupin iii (not the most graphics-heavy anime out there, although The First might benefit from however much resolution a blu-ray natively outputs... i've definitely never owned a blu-ray player either but apparently i need one because features like english captions are blu-ray exclusives now), streaming the occasional hockey or soccer game (i definitely couldn't see the puck most of the time on my ipad mini when i watched the stanley cup final... is this the part of the process where i go stand in front of the racks of tvs at walmart and best buy trying to perceive differences?), and probably eventually playing mass effect legendary edition on a ps5 (yes, i bought a game i don't own a console for yet, shush, a gaming pc would be 3-4 times the price and i'm not dropping four figures on a setup i don't have space for to play one game).

honestly, legendary edition is the one i'm most considering the higher end tv for. breath of the wild is pretty but i'm used to the 720p graphics because that's what the switch outputs in handheld mode. mass effect, i only ever got to play on the lowest settings on a severely underclocked computer (have you ever had to turn off your print spooler to make a game run? i have), i really want to enjoy playing it on hardware that can actually run the graphics for the first time. and remastered at that!

on the other hand, the remaster is really designed for 4k (it says so on the box), and they just don't *make* 4k TVs in a 32". so am i gonna notice a difference between a 720p or a 1080p? god only knows.

which is why i'm (long windedly) trying to ask. is there a perceptible-by-humans difference other than the price tag? anybody know?

[jt-attempts-dolls]

Oh look, I got it down to roughly $500. And literally two-thirds of that is Aduke’s two big-ticket items, which *knock on wood* should hopefully stay available for a while. So all I need to worry about getting before it’s discontinued is the Rainbow Sprinkles jelly sandals outfit (which is on half-off sale, never a good sign :P), and Gabi and her tap shoes and her sequin outfit, which should all last till Decemberish anyway. Total on all those is about $193, most of which is of course Gabi herself, cos these are not cheap dolls.

(They’re frankly not cheap outfits either. Two outfits and a pair of tap shoes is running me a total of $78 here. You see why I’m trying to be very picky about what I buy! ;P Even though it holds its resale value pretty well, reselling AG stuff is a pain in the ass and requires many spoons.)

Okay, now I go bed. At 6am. Oops. :P

[jt-attempts-dolls]

So me and dolly disability is apparently a Thing, hence the diabetes care kit for Gabriela. Most of this other stuff is also planned for Gabriela, and I'm looking over Laser Eyes' old collection to pick out stuff for Gabbi as well. I've pretty much decided the purple Pop Star Karaoke dress and necklace are gonna be Gabi's when she gets here (at some point after I get a job and am able to pay the rent consistently, lol); I'm thinking I might pair those with the "Sparkle Sneakers", unless Gabbi just wears her tap shoes all the time, which is a thing that might happen. They're very cool tap shoes. :D I've also got an assortment of t-shirts and jeans for Gabi, as well as the outfit with the happy ghosties top and the candycorn tights, and the one gorgeous sparkly ice skating outfit, and the pink and neon green track outfit. And I'm pretty certain I'm gonna take the pants from the Pomeranian jammies -- they have an adorable allover pawprint pattern on them! -- and pair them with her "Imagine Dream Create" pajama top. I'm thinking very hard about the Ombré Ballet dress; I still hope to source the recently discontinued ballet and jazz outfits for Gabi at some point, but the Ombre Ballet outfit is pretty, and is not pale pink in that really obnoxious "look at me i am FLESH COLOURED" kind of way. ;P Then, too, the Rainbow Sprinkles outfit is not only adorable, it's got jelly sandals! ^_^ I always wanted those as a kid, but now my feet are too elderly and cantankerous to wear them, so I require dolly jelly sandals. XD Aduke doesn't generally ask for much, but when she does it's a doozy. She very definitely wants Kit's green daybed up there instead of the yellow bunk bed (which I am falling out of love with), and she also wants the Gourmet Kitchen, which has roughly 65 tiny little pieces and is as large in every direction as she is. Apparently her main interest aside from historical cosplay is cookery. Who knew? O_O

[jt-attempts-dolls]

See, this one, I actually own, and I'm pretty much chill about letting it go? I have the pattern, I know I can sew a copy -- being arsed to find the correct sizes of lace is the hardest part. I've gotten to fiddle with the interchangeable stomachers and the pinner cap and the little tiny necklace. This is a... just a super classic example of how I play with my dolls? Sometimes I buy things and I'm gonna keep them. More often, I just need to see the thing in person, maybe fiddle with it for a while, try it on all my dolls, photograph it, maybe figure out the construction, try to copy it, develop an informed opinion on it, and then I'm ready to let it go. So it's sort of hard to figure out whether a particular thing is "worth" the purchase price to me, cos it's... I don't know if I'm buying it for resale or to keep. I don't know. I'm weird about dolls, maybe. ;P Other people seem to have a "want" feeling that reliably sticks around after they have the thing? And often a wiring that can handle owning ten, twenty, thirty dolls at a time. A lot of things, I only want temporarily, and I can only focus on or enjoy so many things at a time. I know there are some other people who prefer limited collections, but the temporary revolving-door sort of thing seems a bit... it makes me feel un-normal, within the doll-collecting world. Hell, within the world at all, it's like -- you're supposed to, if you want a thing, and then you get it, you're supposed to keep wanting it, otherwise you never really wanted it at all? Am I making any sense? It's this... it's that same retroactive lack of fluidity you get in a lot of queer contexts. If I'm a girl *now*, I must never have been a boy, and vice versa, kind of thing. It's not... common to be like "yes, I did want this, and now I have had it, and I have satisfied my wanting of it, and now it can go away cos it lives in my heart". Is it? I can't think of anybody who is even remotely like that. But, like... I mean, it's objects. They don't grow and change. With people, you're not like "nope, you were my friend, but I have gotten all the enjoyment out of you, so bye". Sometimes friends do grow apart, the person they are now is not the person present-you wants to be around, irrelevant of whether past-you and past-them were good together. But with objects, it's like... I don't know, I'd just expect it to be a lot more common, for somebody to be like "yup, there was a set amount of enjoyment for me to get out of that possession, and I have gotten it, and now I will pass the object on to someone else for them to enjoy". Like, my present willingness to get rid of the object doesn't invalidate my past enjoyment of it. Does that not... happen to other people? :S

[jt-attempts-dolls]

Frankly, I've got a lot more AG purchases I regret making than ones I regret not making. I think that's the takeaway from this, at least for tonight.

[jt-attempts-dolls]

A lot of my feelings about Kirsten's clothes in particular are less about them as doll clothes, and more about my childhood feelings toward performative femininity and gender and also the Little House books. It's a complicated bunch of shit. This outfit represents what I wanted at one point -- it's female-coded by being a dress, but not frilly or froofy at all; it's blue, not pink or pastel; it's made of sturdy-looking materials you don't have to fuss about, a good practical farm-working day dress, but it's got little bits of embroidery to dress it up. It's not what you'd call explicitly butch, but it's also not at all what you'd call femme. Hell, give me a shawl with longer tails so I could tie them around my waist and leave my arms free, I would still wear this, eyelet pantalets and all. (I used to beg for pantalettes with ruffles as a kid. Never got 'em. Still don't know why.) I'd look weird enough that I probably couldn't wear it to work, but I *like* this look.

[johnqqtruant]

JOHNNY TURANT OUDL YNUT REVNKIG THIS HE WOUDL JTO REBLOG THSI THSIT JOHNYM TRUNG HE WOUKD JTO RBELOG IT NO HE WOULD MTO

Well, big brother, this one's on the house.

- Johnny Truant

October 31, 1998

Hollywood, CA

[largesunglasses]

JT n2 was also amazing...more lil eye locks and nods of approval from JT. The lady sitting next to me was not happy with my vibing but it's a concert and we are second row center I'm not just going to sit there with my hands folded in my lap. Last night was a little easier because we were front row so I had room to stick my legs out but she was also not thrilled that I had to shift every now and then even though I shifted towards my cousin and not her.... Her and her husband missed the opening act and I went to do my second chance Tiny Habits photo and I think she thought no one was going to sit next to her. Anyways not my problem because James was loving my vibes so that's all I care about.

Also Tiny Habits again are amazing and they had a better set up tonight for the pictures. They were so nice. I had them sign my Ted Williams 9 hat. James wears one sometimes so I had him sign one and it's in a clear box and I'll put this one next to it. They met in Boston at Berkeley so I felt like that plus seeing them tour with James made it make sense to me. I got Sophia a matching shirt to the one I got last night. She's going to be the coolest senior rocking her JT and Tiny Habits merch at school.

I'm going to def crop this picture but here's my redo picture.