LaLa miscategorizes much of my music in interesting ways, but by far the most amusing is that my contra dance music is apparently darkwave.

Even better, black tape for a blue girl, probably the only darkwave I own, is not.

Americans aren't the world's worst tourists? Weird. Especially that bit about "willing to try to speak the local language", given that stereotype of the Americans thinking anyone can understand English if they speak it loudly enough.

[WoW] 78. Whee!
I'm currently running Sholazar quests, having done a few Nesingwary to get to Frenzyheart/Oracles and then dropping the remainder like a just-opened soda can unexpectedly full of angry bees. I hear that at some point I'm going to have to choose between the two, at least for a while. Since neither has particularly good gear, this reduces my choice to one between Cute But Stupid and Ugly But Not As Stupid.

Bought flying, then discovered that I'd totally forgotten about needing Cold-Weather Flying, and that I didn't have enough gold to buy it. Argh. I guess it's time to sell off some of my stock of Moonshroud. Speaking of which, I should figure out where to get the 22-slot bag pattern. (Edit: Argh, it's the friggen sons of Hodir, and also requires another 10 points in Tailoring that I don't know how to get easily.)

Instances don't give nearly as good XP/time as quests do in the 70s, apparently. It definitely used to be the other way around (before the changes to hasten 1-70), so I'm not sure what happened. Perhaps my limiting myself to instances where I'm pretty sure I won't wipe the group from lack of healing throughput is the problem. Though that would be less of a problem if I were quicker about reacting;--perhaps I should redo my keymappings.

I finally get to show some work from Sony!



( more this way )

Like dice, the exterior appearance of, say, a music player, is also irrelevant to its function. That does not, of course, stop geeks from gushing over their toys.

The first thought that came to mind upon seen the Zune box was bewilderment, because I couldn't recall having mail ordered a very expensive box of chocolates - it was that kind of packaging. The product itself and all its accessories and manual occupied maybe 1/10ths of the total box volume, because as we all know, the more minimalistic and slick technology looks the better it performs. I expect to have crystalline toasters and personal environmental suits that look like ancient dressing gowns by 2050.

Also, let me be clear here, I like this sort of presentation. It's spiffy.

The Zune program also catalogues whatever music it finds in a certain directory, which surprised me with a number of songs I'd forgotten I had. I don't like keeping inflated directories around, and so will probably delete the stuff I don't really have an urge to listen to, but it did remind me of some older music I'd simply forgotten existed.

I'd also like to know what sort of ergonomic decision went into using the "roll your finger across the touch panel" instead of the traditional four-directional pad. It's not difficult to use, just rather strange, and I wonder why they decided to implement it this way. Possibly for faster scrolling through music lists?

Oh, yes, there was a preview of Dragon Age: Origins that included being able to recruit an old lady mage (or kill her, if your negotiations went awry). Games have some unspoken rule that any significant female characters are almost always between the ages of, say, 12 and 30, and I always approve of more cool old ladies in addition to Cool Old Guys.

Otherwise, total lack of interesting gaming news. /sigh.

PS. The title of this post comes from a techno mix that used the Starcraft unit sounds.

Should I plan to run LXHS at Brandeis this fall?

All right, ten days of a web fast is enough for me.

I will say I learned a lot. I learned that it is not the interwebz that is responsible for my idea/intention/information overload. My brain is more than capable of overloading itself without much input, as it turns out. During this time, I plotted out one novel, one short story (in the style of HPL), several web designs, and a business plan. This seems useful, except even after writing these ideas down, they haunt me because they cannot be immediately accomplished.

On the other hand, in the past, putting such ideas as the aforementioned ones "out there" via social networking "got them out of my system," such that I would then feel I had already accomplished something and had no urge to do more.

It's a balance between being haunted by ideas and being unmotivated, I see...

Typing on a mini laptop is a special kind of headache adventure, let me tell you. And no, keeping up with all that happens on lj is impossible. Give me a shout if something important goes down, yeah?

In other news it is raining and today I ate breakfast at a normal hour for a working day. Almost a bit nostalgic as it were.

It never fails to amaze me how much of Sweden is actually nothing but forest. Living on ye olde southern plains makes it easy to forget.

My family is coming to visit this weekend, and trying to reconcile several people's rather different interests into a schedule that fits into the time they're here has been interesting. It's going to be three days each with two or three things in it, which may get a little hectic but hopefully not too badly so. We're hitting up a bunch of places, a number of which are ones I've also been wanting to see, so it should be interesting. I think I've finally got everything nailed down, and all the necessary reservations have been made except for the ones for Maneki on Sunday, but those shouldn't be a problem.

I still need to figure out a place to have lunch in Bremerton and a place to have lunch somewhere between Fremont and Woodinville. Suggestions welcome. :)

Oh, and my manager has decided that he wants to get as much as possible out of me before I take two days off next week. Argh.

I called to schedule our vet to come to our home on Monday, July 13th in the afternoon to put Thumper to sleep.  It's the day after my birthday.  I had a conversation with the ladies this morning, and there were lots of tears all around.  Maya said she didn't know grown ups could cry.

Thumper is a crotchety son-of-a-bitch, and has thrown up a few times a month since we got him back in 1997.  He pees on carpet, clothes, luggage and other things we would rather not have smelling of cat urine when he gets really pissed off, which happens a few times a year.  He was grotesquely obese when we got him, and needed constant attention, though he often tried to bite people that pet him.  In the early days, if he felt like he wasn't getting enough love, like say, when we were sleeping, he would stand in the doorway and yowl and yowl all night long until he went hoarse.  And then he would do it again the next night.  He's never been an easy cat to own - he only puts up with pets and snuggles intermittently, and only for a maximum of about ten seconds; he will often eat until he throws up; he needs to be on Rx cat food, which is expensive.  And he is a bane to all vetrinarians that he meets.  I took him to get a shot once, and fully muzzled and declawed (he came declawed, I would never declaw a cat), he scared the vet so much that she pressed herself up against a wall to get away from him.  He is, if nothing else, a force to be reckoned with.

Thumper has lived in (in order) Rochester, NY, Boston, MA, London, UK, Berlin, Germany, Ames, Iowa, Princeton, NJ, East Lansing, MI, and finally New York City.  He has a passport, and a German identity microchip imbedded in his shoulder.  He does not like to travel.  The sticker on his travel cage warns (in two languages) that though he has no claws, he is a nervous traveler and might bite.

From the time we first got him, he has enjoyed sleeping in boxes.  He used to have a particular box that he slept in, and we moved it to three different countries before the box finally broke.  He never really played like other cats, but when the Christmas tree went up every year, he would live underneath it for most of the time, and smell like pine for months afterwards.  When I was pregnant, almost from before I knew I was pregnant, he would curl up on my stomach when I was lying down and purr these bone-rattling purrs.  It is the only time in all the time that we had him that he chose to be on someone's lap, and it is also the only time he would purr in durations lasting longer than 30 seconds.  He would purr for hours, fall asleep purring, purr while he slept, and be purring when he woke up.  When my stomach was too huge and weirdly shaped for him to be on top of, he would wrap his whole body around my stomach and purr.  His purring was one of the very first sounds the ladies ever heard, and they heard it nearly every day for seven months.

This sucks.

Today in "my name in Google Alerts": I am a laundress in 19th-century Texas, a bailout protester, a resident of a town with sister cities in France and Italy, the founder of a baby equipment company, the usual tattoo expert and acclaimed dead writer, and engaged to some guy named Marc.

The latest news about the Uighur conflicts in Xinjiang don't really come as a surprise - while they're less popularized in global media, than, say, the Tibetans, many of the ethnic minorities in China retain their own unique cultural identities and the further away from central power (Beijing) the more they resent interference from the government.

Despite whatever popular media might want you to believe, ethnic groups in China aren't comprised exclusively of Han Chinese, Mongols, and Tibetans when people remember they exist. There are over 50 minority groups officially recognized by the Chinese government and quite a number of others that aren't.

Historically, the Han-dominated coastal cultures are the "Chinese" culture that's most popularized, and to them a lot of the minorities are thought of as "those people who wear funny hats and live out in the middle of nowhere in tents"... or Xiongnu, the group of northern raiders that frequently appeared as antagonists in the older Chinese historical accounts and eventually inspired the creation of the Great Wall (historians are conflicted over just what sort of people Xiongnu actually were). As you might expect from any civilization conceited enough to name its ruler the Son of Heaven (the Central Kingdom stuff came a little later), Han Chinese attitude towards the "barbarian tribes" was somewhat less than sterling, and the raiding barbarian tribes gave as good as they got.

Which is kind of ironic considering that the Qing Dynasty (the last one before the republic) was a dynasty set up by Manchurians who invaded the Han cities, took over, set up shop, and were promptly assimilated into Han culture.

Great green heavens above, in Latvia you can actually pledge your soul as collateral for a loan.

Due to unforeseen events and family time I'm loosing regular access to the Internet and my own computer for a few days. Work and all correspondence (email, comments etc) will be delayed. Will BRB/BBL!

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/07/are-you-comix-experienced.html

The next blog was meant to be about reading aloud, but I wanted to blog this rather than Twitter it to make sure that everyone had an equal chance:

Go and read http://savagecritic.com/ (and you need to read both http://savagecritic.com/2009/07/neil-gaiman-at-comix-experience-719.html which is the story behind the signing (and has some photos of me in 1989 with the most remarkable mullet) and http://savagecritic.com/2009/07/neil-gaiman-at-comix-experience-719_08.html which is the facts.

Short version, I'm doing a signing at Comix Experience on on Sunday, July 19th from 11 AM to 12:30 PM. And because time is limited, it's limited to 100 people. Brian Hibbs decided that the easiest way to pick the 100 people was to presell them copies of the WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER hardback, which will be out then.

Preorders for the book can be taken immediately by visiting Comix Experience at 305 Divisadero St. (at Page) in San Francisco, or by calling 415-863-9258 from 11-7 Monday-to-Saturday, Sundays 12-5, PST.

And my Metamorpho Page with the brilliant Mike Allred is out in Wednesday Comics -- details of what this thing is at: http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=21941

in honor of the pixiv holiday known as 8/7の日 it's time for Homoerotic Dissidia Screenshots Round 2 [Round 1 was here if you missed it]



DEM ASSES. squall with that much stuff holding your pants on you just come off paranoid.

( Collect them all, Squall, Cloud, including the rare and elusive Limited Edition Crystal Imitation Cloud and let's be honest, more Sephiroth )

ok god thats enough of this horrible post

Dice don't have to look like anything as long as they fulfill their function (to frustrate you by never coming up greater than 5 on your saves vs poison, for example), but pretty dice are a geektoy thing, so:

1) My favorite set of dice are a teal/green transluscent set. The color blends between the two and it looks incredibly good under sunlight.

2) I will not buy dice that are illegible at a distance, no matter how they look, or how funny it becomes when I keep telling the DM I always crit. This includes both dice with funky script (Steak Legion!) and those that are entirely translucent.

3) Dice in foreign languages, on the other hand, are fair game. Unless they are abominations unto nature and/or also include random squiggles to make them hard to read.

4) The standard color for decorative dice seem to be two-tone swirly designs.

5) And if you have a set of dice where the die itself is pretty but the pips are, say, vomit yellow, you can always color over them with metallic pens.

6) "Roll damage." "Cat plus 9."

7) Now kicking self for having thoughtlessly thrown away the original dice boxes, since it occurs to me that they are the right size to store, say, 28mm miniatures in.

8) Need to make D&D-themed icon of some sort...

Happy approximately 12:34:56 07/08/09 from the central time zone!

besides being the guy who hit the go-ahead 2-run homer off Darvish tonight that eventually won the Lions the game 4-3.

Seriously, you know I'm a walking player meikan and even I was like "I've never heard of this guy" when he came up to bat. It seems that he's been with the Lions organization for like 7 years, but he hit his first pro home run on Sunday against Rakuten... and his second today against us. WTF.

Anyway, I sat in the front row of the outfield at the Seibu Dome because I knew some people sitting up there and when I arrived I just ran up like "hi! let me sit with you!" and they were like "...sure?"

I was so grumpy about the Fighters losing that I basically went to Lawson's around 11:30pm tonight and I bought baseball tickets for 7/31 and 8/1 in Sapporo. So, I think this means I am going to Hokkaido. I have to go get plane tickets next. They will be slightly more expensive than the baseball tickets.

Hmm... I should seriously consider getting the Seishun 18 pass and use that to go to Koshien and whatnot. The only question is whether I can somehow make it work out with Oren and Carl visiting here. It'd be pretty funny to travel with them where they can take a 3-hour shinkansen and I take 10-hour local trains :)

I performed a thought experiment recently. In it I realized that old people wear mainly more comfortable versions of what they always wore: that's why you see old guys still wearing undershirts and belted slacks, old women in housedresses and pantsuits and sweatshirts. Then I thought about what my generation usually wears and how that will evolve into our wardrobe in forty or fifty years. I envision nursing-home residents in sports jerseys and enormous t-shirts, with jeans that sag (but no longer on purpose). Shirts with babydoll sleeves but not a babydoll waist. Low-rise khakis with bootcut legs. Long-sleeved shirts layered under ironic tees. Livestrong bracelets. Toe rings.

Anyway, I can't answer one of these Writer's Block things without getting cranky at it, so: good heavens, Intel, what do you want us to answer? "Silver space suits"? "Self-drying jackets"? "Nothing"? It's twenty years for crying out loud. My father has a shirt he's been wearing since the sixties. Whatever we're wearing in twenty years, it's gonna look a lot like what we wear now.

Poison ivy has spread. All over palms and inner wrists. Un-awesome.