Before there were cocktails, the cool tipple for the American colonial to throw back was flip, of which I have spoken before. But I hadn't tried it myself, didn't know first-hand anybody who had, and could only dredge up a scant handful of brief modern testimonies online. Notwithstanding that these universally held flip to be the foulest beverage they had ever consumed (a view also quite widely held by contemporary visitors to the colonies), I felt that the frontiers of historical research deserved my personal attentions.

( and to think they LAUGHED at me! LAUGHED! )

As the title suggests, "Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel" is about, well, searching for fathers and steeling your heart. What does it mean to be a man? Are you a man when you kill your father, or when you find him? Does a father hold you back or complete you? Does a father make his son a man by nurturing him or making him fight on his own? And, in a moment of truth, can a man act? Is that what it means to be a man? Can you steel your heart enough to act? And, where do our notions of manhood, or action, come from?

( Read more... )

Did I miss it when people were talking about this year being the 50th anniversary of The Twilight Zone? Maybe I heard it earlier this year? Regardless, I was working on the "Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" icon for tvpassiton when I noticed it was true. In thirteen days, it'll be fifty years since "Time Enough at Last" premiered.

(Of course, now that I see the icon on a different monitor, though, I can see that I screwed up the coloring a bit, so I'll redo it tomorrow.)

The first three seasons are available for streaming at CBS. I think I'm going to put it on my list of old shows to watch; I'm still working my way through The Mysterious Cities of Gold. It might even be appropriate for a Rewatch project, like the various Farscape rewatches.

This journal has moved to Dreamwidth. Entry originally posted at http://tablesaw.dreamwidth.org/429208.html.

Comment(s)

• 23:34 At a bar playing pool with @familyjules727 and friends for our second anniversary. This is the drunkest I've been all year. #fb #

Dear Yuletide Writer:

First of all, thank you!

( Read more... )

Also possibly helpful, but feel free to ignore if it doesn't suit you: cool bits (story tropes & elements I am particularly vulnerable to).

I did it I did it I did it! My script runs! Yay for nominations!

I hear my laptop's fan spinning up (something it usually reserves for Logic or FCE).

The age-old question: so, is it taking a long time to run because it's an infinite loop, or because the file is large? But it shouldn't be taking *that* long...maybe I should shuck in a debugging "print" statement here and there so I know where the program is.

(No, this is not the festivids matching script, which will be in Tcl. This is an alternate script for collating the nominations in Python.)

ETA: Infinite loop. *bonks self on head* I should have seen that!

ETA #2: And that's the second time I've forgotten to increment a counter variable. Geez, am I out of practice. But at least they're easy bugs to catch!

Need input from the family folks in my Friends list on a point of order considering guest etiquette.

I have a married couple I hang out with at least once a week- we get together, eat some dinner, watch some TV, and just do generally low-key stuff since they have twin two-year-old girls. Usually I go to their place 'cause its a lot less hassle for me to come visit than it is for THEM to come visit ME.

Last Thursday, however, they decided they wanted to come to MY place. I made some dinner, they came over, and we ate and watched TV for a few hours.

Now, these kids are pretty close to being toilet trained; they're in Pull-Ups these days, but they're pretty good about usin' the big-girl toilet. They DO have accidents from time to time, though, but the whole time they were at my place, they each used the bathroom a couple times, so I figured everything was fine.

Fast-forward to this afternoon; I was working in the office and suddenly, I hadda go. The guest bathroom's just outside the office, so I opened the door, and WHEW, SUCH A STENCH. Sitting right there in the trash can: a soiled Pull-Up.

I... I'm at a loss. At no point did the mother mention that she'd dumped a loaded diaper in my bathroom trash can. What's the protocol, here? Is it incumbent upon me as a host to check these things when they leave? Is this something I'm supposed to KNOW? I mean, I've lived on my own for goin' on six years now, and I'm pretty expert at Guess That Smell, and y'know- two-year-olds, usin' the bathroom, maybe certain things should be taken as given?

Or am I right in thinking that I need some new damn friends? I'm a gracious host; sure, if you wanna take your nasty diapers home yourself, I'm not gonna stop you, but I don't EXPECT you to take your soiled diapers all the way to the curb. At least let me know it's IN there, right? Don't let me accidentally stumble upon it two days later, then have to make a special trip to pick up air freshener to try and get the smell outta my house!

But that's just the single-guy perspective; is there some unwritten rule I'm unaware of?

I've been running now for more than a month, so I want to round up all the useful tips and information I've learned about it, both for my own reference, and to help out others who might be interested in starting.

Gear
I got fitted for a pair of comfy running shoes at a place where they film you on a treadmill to see what your run looks like, for instance whether your ankles bend in or out, and then recommend a sole that will help with that. My foot rolls toward the inside (over-pronating) and so the saleslady brought me three pairs of shoes to try, and I picked the one that fit the best - the only one that was actually my foot size, 10.5 narrow. They are Saucony ProGrid Omni 8 sneakers that fit snug in the heel and arch and give plenty of toe room, and they are the comfiest shoes I own.

I bought two different kinds of socks to see which I liked more, and I ended up really liking Smartwool PhD minisocks. Snug, cushy, they wick sweat away and they don't make me blister. I found them for cheap on that link and stocked up.

I use an iPod Nano with a Nike+iPod receiver and sensor, held onto my shoelaces with this case, to listen to tunes and measure my runs. I use the Xtreme Mac Sportwrap for iPhone to hold it. It holds it nice and snug with plenty of room for the receiver, and it will also hold my iPhone if I ever want to use that instead. The band is comfy neoprene and fastens with velcro. The only thing I don't like about it is that the window's a bit too thick to operate the touch wheel, though, so if I need to adjust the volume or scroll through menus, I need to stick my finger inside it.

So I take my shoes and socks, some bike shorts, a sports bra and a t-shirt, my ipod (with receiver) and armband with me anywhere I travel, and I'm ready to go out the door and start running.

I go slow.
The main, number one reason I always hated running in the past and never thought I could do it was because I was trying to do it WAY too hard and fast. The first day I took it slow was the first day I ran a whole mile without stopping or feeling like I was going to die.

And we're talking slow here, I probably could have speedwalked faster. If I felt like I was getting winded or starting to gasp, I'd slow down even more. For longer runs I pace myself; I picture the beginning as the warmup and tell myself I have all the time in the world to get there. I have (very slowly) worked my way up to a thirteen-minute mile this way, without even trying to speed up.

I have a plan, and things to shoot for.
I do better with structure, and I'm more motivated when I'm shooting for something specific, so after my second day of running I signed up for a 5K. Now that that's coming up and it looks like I'll be able to do it, I have a 10K in Australia to shoot for next July. I follow this Hal Higden training program, which keeps me going out and running. I'm also curious about what I'm able to accomplish - I never expected I'd be a runner, and it continually amazes me when I add another quarter mile onto the distance I'm able to run.

Music helps.
I have a large playlist of songs that make me want to move, and play them on shuffle. I never know what's coming, which adds to the interest, and they're all songs I love, so I feel like I'm indulging myself when I run. The songs that most consistently make me feel like running are uptempo songs by the Wise Guys or Billy Joel, or 80's electronic pop.

Don't forget your second wind.
The first mile usually feels pretty good. Blood's pumping, you're tearing along. Somewhere between the first and second mile it starts to suck, to varying degrees. When this happens, I slow down and will myself to keep going through it. I focus on the music I'm listening to, and let it carry me along. I focus on moving my legs from my hips, I try to straighten up and have good posture, I try to breathe well. I hit mile 2 and suddenly all is right with the world again. Yay second wind!

I try not to look.
Even though I've got my iPod keeping track of how far and how long I've been running, I try not to look at it at all if I can help it. I'll plot out how far I want to go on MapMyRun or WalkJogRun, and once I get out there I just try to run the course. When I get towards the end I have to bargain with myself to keep going. I'll find a landmark to shoot for ("just get to that tree, now just to that corner," etc.) I'll slow down. I'll focus on the music. But I'll listen to myself and do what it takes to keep running to the end of my course, no matter how long it takes.

If I'm constantly checking the time/distance and being discouraged, I'll be much more inclined to give up before the time's up.

Running in heat sucks.
Below 70 F is where it's at. Shade, breeze, and running at dusk or at night are good. Heat not only makes you sweat more, it makes it harder to run as far or fast as you can in cooler temperatures.

If you have any useful facts you'd like to share, please do!

Via Jezebel, a quote from David Edelstein's New York Magazine review of "Precious" (based on the book "Push" by Sapphire, which was one of the most upsetting, chilling things I have ever read.)

"I’m not judging girls who look like Sidibe (the actress who plays the lead in the movie) in life, but her image onscreen is jarring to the point of being transgressive, its only equivalent to be seen in John Waters’s pointedly outrageous carnivals. Her head is a balloon on the body of a zeppelin, her cheeks so inflated they squash her eyes into slits. Her expression is either surly or unreadable. Even with her voice-over narration, you’re meant to stare at her ebony face and see nothing. The movie is saying that she’s not an object, but the way that Sidibe is directed she becomes one."

Okay, first - "girls who look like Sidibe in life" include Sidibe herself. She actually is a 300-something pound woman. Doesn't it seem a bit excessive (not to mention out of context) to describe her quite so cruelly? A balloon on the body of a ZEPPELIN? Really? The author of the review defends himself in part by saying that in real life photographs, her eyes are bright and clear and lovely! So basically, she's a zeppelin with nice eyes then? How generous, Mr. Edelstein!

I haven't seen the movie, though I plan to. However, without having seen it, I still question his assumption that the direction made Precious an object, as if that was some kind of error. Based on the book, it would have to be very deliberate. It's likely very true that the movie communicates that Precious is not, in fact, just an object - but Precious herself would be living a life that defines her as such, and that makes her feel reduced to that level. Sibibe would be directed to act as someone who lived her life as an object, then, and rightly so.

This is such a complicated book, and a complicated movie. I'm interested in it because it is so complex. The book was both horrifying and fascinating, repulsive and hopeful. Some have said it was poverty/abuse porn, and I can see where they're coming from. Some people commented on what is lost in the translation from book to movie, and I imagine there has to be a loss - there often is, especially with something like this, where the narrative in the book is stream-of-conscious thought, written as if by someone who is illiterate and deeply, deeply suffering. That adds so much to the book that I wonder what the movie will be like without it. There's a lot of commentary on the race and class issues it raises, and how those differ from the novel...and that's more than I can thoroughly digest or comment on at this point. But I've been enjoying reading about it, and seeing the discussions that go deeper than OMG MARIAH CAREY WAS IN IT WITH NO MAKEUP.

Well, I used a lot of the suggestions that came my way from that post the other day! I was pretty pleased with the turnout of readers for that question, I must admit. I guess it's because you hear a lot that people don't give a darn about history in this country, if depressing yearly polls from the Dominion Institute mean anything, but it's clearly not the case among my livejournal followers. You guys are great!

I had to do a general sweep that involved a good range of places, professions, backgrounds and time periods, so you know, not everyone's favorite author is going to be in there but I sure did like the range in suggestions. Looking at it now I wish I had someone from the NWT (not one! for shame) and New Brunswick. Stompin Tom is from New Brunswick but he's also sort of from everywhere.  I could have put the Irvings in there, I think they control history in NB as well as anything else.

I was all crazed out with strep throat while I did this, but listening to Radiolab shows and a burning passion for Canada I guess(?) kept me going.  You can find the image in today's National Post, along with an article about the Historica/Dominion merger! Interesting stuff.


( picture is under the cut because it's huge )


Here is the legend, the rows are sort of wonky but you'll figure it out:

Row One (bottom):
James Wolfe, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, David Suzuki, Louis-Joseph Papineau, John A. Macdonald, Terry Fox
Row Two
Emily Carr, Joseph Howe, Joey Smallwood, Robert Bartlett, Louis Riel, Joy Kogawa
Row Three
Marshall McLuhan, Samuel de Champlain, Marilyn Bell, Wayne Gretzky, Emily Murphy
Row Four
Rene Levesque, Sam Steele, Farley Mowat, L.M. Montgomery, Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Trail, John McCrae
Row Five
Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), Oscar Peterson, Rush, Pierre Berton
Row Six
Les Filles du Roi, Mary Pickford, Skookum Jim Mason
Row Seven
Charles Best, Frederick Banting, Pauline Johnson, Mordecai Richler, Tecumseh, Stompin’ Tom Connors
Row Eight
William Hall, Tommy Douglas, Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar, Rosemary Brown, John Diefenbaker
Row Nine
Shanawdithit, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, David Thompson, William Shatner

Dear Bookstore:

I like the fact that you're across the street. I like the fact that you have a zillion books. I want to give you money. So would it kill you to actually stock a few books I want to read?

I'm perfectly willing to understand that people aren't automatically going to have everything. But you didn't have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies when I wanted it. You didn't have the latest Laurell K. Hamilton the third day after it was officially released, leaving my wife bookless. And today, I actively wanted to purchase Crumb's version of the Book of Genesis, a book by a long-standing comics figure that's been written up in most major magazines (including Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly), and no. You were out. Again.

Yes, you can order it for me, I know. But I'm trying to do you guys a favor. I can get it at 10% off with your special order process and then come back and get it, or I can get this latest bestseller 43% off from Amazon and have it delivered to my door. (Admittedly, Amazon is out right now, but the principle still applies.) I mean, I'm actively taking a hit on my own price to try to prop up a local business - can you do your duty and have what I desire? I'm not asking for totally weird stuff.

Trust me. When you had China Mieville's latest book (shelved, strangely, in fiction and not science fiction), I did purchase it. Allow me to recompense you. Let us both profit. Just get the goddamned inventory in, okay?

Love,
T.F.

USA Today picked up Cat and Dmitri's tale of woe and triumph.

Good job, all you fellow outraged people who called and wrote and retweeted!

Current Mood: impressed

I hate this game and I'm through with it.

THE GLIDING LEAN TRICK
1000 YEARS OF PISSING
SADIE AND WHATS-HER-FACE
FORGETTING WHERE TO GO

The last chapter of The House At Pooh Corner begins, "Christopher Robin was going away." In it, the animals in the Hundred Acre Wood throw Christopher Robin a going-away party, and when it's over, he and Pooh find an enchanted place in the forest, a circle of trees where "they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky." The boy, who is going away to boarding school, discusses all the things he's learning, and the bear dimly tries to keep up. The boy, who loves to do Nothing, wistfully says that he won't be doing Nothing as much anymore. "They don't let you," he says. He asks Pooh never to forget him, and hopes that whatever happens, Pooh will understand. But Pooh, of course, doesn't understand what he's supposed to understand. It ends:

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

When I was young and at a party, sometimes I would be overcome by sadness. Then I would have to leave the party and sit outside.

Being stupid, I would sit out there until someone noticed I was gone and came and got me. If they did, then they loved me. If nobody did, then I was alone and unloved.

I was very, very stupid.

These days, I know: I just get overpeopled sometimes and need to retreat. That wave of sadness is my introvert circuits ticking over, and I need a bit of space. I thought back then that I was sad because I was lonely; quite the opposite.

Now, I just feel slightly foolish should anyone discover me, alone, in some back room. "I'm fine," I smile. "Just need some time.". And I realize that no matter how good life gets, I am the sort of person who'll have spikes of sadness from time to time, and no matter how beloved or wanted or desired I am, I will occasionally just need to withdraw and contemplate this strange isolation.

I'd like to be at a party and always on. Sometimes I am. Lucky enough, I guess.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Follow Friday

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die". Just introduce us to some new things to read.

flourish

dedalus1947_flickr_feed

whedonland

tvpassiton

Comment(s)

More to come, later

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9008988

The Retronauts podcast has, in its 80 episodes over the past three years, delved into the history of a number of game developers. The common thread binding these excursions into the past is that we weren't there to experience said history and thus must rely on research, second-hand anecdotes, and a healthy dose of speculation. This episode is different. This episode features BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk (one of the famous Doctors), and he happily discusses the origins of his company as well as the processes, circumstances, and thinking behind its games. So everyone else on hand -- myself, at1UP's Travis Williams, and Bitmob editor (and former 1UP copy chief) Jason Wilson -- pretty much just sits back and lets him talk for 80 minutes. The result is a thoroughly interesting oral history of one of gaming's foremost RPG development studios, and possibly the best thing to come out of Canada since Rush. (No, really, Rush is great!)

BioWare has been around -- at least as a game developer -- for a little more than 15 years now, and in that time they've built a rather modest portfolio of works. What it lacks in scope it definitely makes up for in quality; the company's breakout title (and the second game they developed) was Baldur's Gate, which is widely credited with reinvigorating the PC RPG genre alongside Fallout. It's also credited with being pretty much the best game ever associated with the Dungeons & Dragons license; that's no small compliment when you look back at the SSI Gold Box games of the late '80s and early '90s. 

Jason and Travis are the old-timey BioWare fans on the show, where I'm more of a fanboy-come-lately. I picked up Baldur's Gate for Mac waaaaay back in the day, but the manual pretty much scared me off with its heavy reliance on D&D terminology (a bit much for someone like myself, whose only real experience with D&D came in the form of silly scare tactics intended to convince me that the game would cause me to forge a suicide pact with Satan or whatever). By the time I finally worked up the courage to try the game, the Mac platform had mutated to such a degree that the Baldur's Gate discs I had wouldn't work. So that was, you know, sort of lame.

Like a lot of people, especially console people, it was BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic that really caught my attention. Not because it was a Star Wars game, mind; by 2003, the prospect of playing a Star Wars game was about as appealing as running a cheese grater over my face. No, KOTOR was interesting because it was, by all accounts, a really phenomenal Star Wars game, by most accounts a whole lot better than the prequel trilogy. 

Mass Effect was what really got me hooked, though. That's probably because Mass Effect did a better job of hiding its D&D heritage; even KOTOR described things in terms of 1d4, which seems oddly archaic in a modern videogame with no other real ties to pen-and-paper. Well, OK, no; what really sold me on Mass Effect was that it was basically a big work of Star Trek fiction with the serial numbers filed off. Truth be told, I always kind of liked Trek a little more than Star Wars. 

"Wait," you say. "Why do you keep talking about your own stupid perspective on BioWare instead of writing up a proper entry on the episode?" Well, you see, I don't need to do that, because Dr. Zeschuk did such a fine job of relaying BioWare's history in the podcast that you should just listen to that rather than reading my nonsensical musings. Honestly now.

Since there are no segments in this episode -- just music spliced in during natural breaks on the conversation, which curiously enough happened every 20 minutes -- there's no need to list the episode timetable. The music is all from Mass Effect, by the way, in part because Jack Wall's score works nicely in a podcast, but mostly because it's the only BioWare soundtrack I own. 

Anyway, download it and give it a listen, if you haven't already. It's a smashing episode. And when you're done, check out Jason Wilson's interesting roundtable on the future of single-player RPGs. (Before you ask, Jason did attempt to get Square Enix people to contribute, but their developers didn't bother to respond. Determining whether or not that sort of insular mindset has something to do with slow, sad slide of Japanese RPGs into irrelevance is left to you, the reader, to determine.)

I just wanted to say quickly that the Winter candle being sold at Bath and Body Works is the nicest thing I've smelled in a long, long time.

It's a mix of pine, bay leaf, cinnamon and wood, and it smells, simply, subtly and without an ounce of cloying artificiality, like Christmas.

Mmm.

In that one Belle Starr post I screwed up the format of the coolest page in the set, so here it is again.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It's a well-kept secret of mine that I record LP videos every once in a while and they are slowly killing my laptop dead. Stuff that ran perfectly when I started is now starting to come up looking like shit when I'm done recording and it's driving me nuts. I don't want to make bad videos! (insert joke here)

Anyway, the main problem with this laptop is it works fine for the first few videos, but it gets worse and worse the longer I record and the underside keeps getting hotter, till it is basically burning to the touch. I wish that was exaggeration but it is not! My fingers have stung for a while after touching it sometimes.

So is this something that means my laptop is fucked? Do I need to get a new one or should I just reinstall my OS and that will magically fix it somehow. I figure Vista is at least partially to blame here, since it is a hungry fucking whore, but it's the OS I learnt how to get my setup working on, so I am kind of loathe to get rid of it. Upgrading to Windows 7 would be fine, since I understand that's the same as Vista but less retarded.

If I have to junk this thing, I want to get a computer that will give me smoother videos while I'm recording. A lot of my videos are really chuggy and unwatchable to the point where I only upload some of them (ho ho) so that needs to be addressed, especially now that I'm being asked to LP PS2 games. This is my laptop, although mine only has a 120 GB hard-drive. You can probably tell it is not very good. If I get a new laptop, it has to be able to not die when I try to record uncompressed video from the ps3, not chug when I run Spelunky and maybe even be able to do all this without me having to close my browser. I don't care if it can run TF2 or not, that is the last of my concerns right now.

I am trying to keep the price under $2000 AUD.

Please help or I may be prematurely retired from LPing. :(

We went out and walked in that wind last night. It is in nights like that, and in gazing up at the moon, and in the surge of storms, that I feel that sense of magic. Holding out my arms, eyes closed, that rush of wind feels like it runs through me and I am part of it.

And that, to me, is the wellspring of much of my belief. I believe that magic is our attuning with the world. My beliefs are as much related to quantum mechanics as they are to faith, because we keep learning, through science, things like observation changing the result of experimentation.

I believe that the forces of the universe that are beyond both macrocosmic and microcosmic can be accessed, and the way the human mind does so is by a sense of deity. Essentially, I think humans create godhood and, like the changes through observation, belief becomes a focus for the universal forces. I think of the forces in general as goddess/creator because it's an effective way for me to relate to them. I think the sheer power of belief can swirl some of that force into something more manifest, but it's like standing in Lake Erie and swirling your arm around to create a tiny whirlpool: you've affected the water right in front of you and made it do what you want, but the rest of the lake is too large for that effect to impact. And as soon as you stop concentrating that energy on the water before you it slips quickly back into common form of lake.

Some people go through life completely ignoring the force of the universe. Some people think of it as Capital G God and react to it passively in the form of praying to that force. It can impact the energy just like observation can impact an experiment, but the attitude is generally that the force is external.

Witches reach into the water and swirl those whirlpools up. Shaping deity from the force of the universe is creating a vortex in that water. Doing magic is reaching into that power.

Sometimes I can't focus the energy to manipulate it. But when I do, there is a moment when I can hear the pulse of the universe.

Sometimes, like last night, I don't have to manipulate it. I can just let it wash over me. That is blessing.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Watching Psycho on Netflix, I can see why Anthony Perkins had next to no career after it.

Thing is, everyone remembers Psycho for, well, the Psycho. The shower scene, the crazy killer, the OMG BLOOD. But watching it now, as someone would have in the 1950s, there's really no sense of menace about Norman Bates; we've already seen at least three people (the cop, the car salesman, the rowdy Texan who gives the money) who were crazier.

Norman's a strange little guy, but strangely charming. He wouldn't be out of place in a modern Indie film - the quirky habits of his taxidermy, his nervous stammer, his misplaced kindness, his lonely hotel. Actually, with a slight twist, he could be a likeable character in The Office. He's not a crazy guy for a lot of his performance, which is why the twist works - he's a nice guy, a hint of crazy, and then STABBITY STAB.

Which left poor Anthony Perkins in a horrible casting place. The studios wanted to cast him as an evil villain, but really he has little innate menace. Even when he's angry, he's strangely meek - which works for this film, but no other. And of course, after he became Hollywood's most famous killer, he couldn't be a leading man. So there he was, caught between extremes.

I feel bad for him. He was a good actor. He deserved a better career. But his breakout role placed him straight in the Kobayashi Maru.

( snip )

I finally finished R's baby quilt, in time for her second winter at least! Here's a photo:

yuki_onna

justbeast

bec76

If you've ever attended a party at La Casa McJuddmetz, you'll know that people tend to congregate in the kitchen. So we're thinking of renovating. Specifically, we wish to tear down this wall:



We wouldn't remove it entirely, of course - what we want to do is take down the wall and create a counter at roughly waist height, wherein we could a) have a place for people to rest drinks on, b) open up this central area, and c) install some cabinets under the counter and get some more chopping/storage space for the kitchen.

What Gini is worried about is affecting the flow of our parties. When we play Rock Band - which is, admittedly, often - people go to the kitchen, which she thinks might be to get away from the noise. I think people go to the kitchen because it's the only other comfortable place to stand in our house - when we're rockin', the living room is full up on people, and unless you want to sit down at the dining room table or wedge yourself into the hallway by the door, your only other choice is the kitchen. Which, may I remind you, the wall facing the living room looks summat like this:



I think if we open up that area, we make a larger talking-to area - you could stand in the dining room and lean to talk to people in the kitchen, and I don't think the noise would be much of an issue. But if you've gotten this far, you've evidently been to one of our gatherings. What do you think of the idea?

On Sunday, November 22nd, I will be DMing for charity. That's right; I'll be running a roleplaying game down in Akron, and for a mere $20 ($25 at the door) you can not only give to children, but be a part of a mini-con that involves LAN parties, gaming, and Guitar Hero.

What will I be running? A Planescape game, of course! Here's a description:

Couched In Mystery: A Planescape Game
Morty the Dustman has a serious problem: he cannot die. He's tried everything from leaping off of the spires to mouthing off to tanar'ri, and nothing hurts him. The problem is that he's a member of Sigil's Dustmen faction - a sect that idolizes and fetishizes death. And in helping Morty solve his horrible un-murder, you will wander through the stranger nooks and crannies of Sigil, the city at the heart of the multiverse.... (D&D 3rd Edition, roughly) (5 players)

If you can't make it to the charity, you can help me in another way: on Saturday, November 21st, I'll be holding a Mystery Module runthrough of the game to make sure all runs smoothly. So if you're a local who wants to play some Planescape (and who doesn't?), let me know which you'll be attending. Either will help me, but I hope you all can come to Akron (or just give to Child's Play in their name).

As a secondary bit, I have not forgotten my commitment to the Monthy Magazine Review, but the wedding has sapped my ability to read short stories now. I will have it up later in the month, hopefully just before their Black Friday sale - for the magazine I shall be reviewing is GUD Magazine! W00t!

Well, my crappy mood wasn't a long-term thing.
Not that my life is really any better...?

ojouchan is holding a sale tomorrow on her Etsy website.

Tomorrow ViolentBelle is having a MASSIVE sale. Most things will be between 20- 50% off. But only for one day. Yeah. I know. One day sale. I'll be posting new things too. Necklaces made of bone and found objects. More hats. Clothes. That's right. Vintage wear. But all the remaining stuff? Super Duper cheap.

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Or at the least, less opera.

So, another day, another scene. I'm kind of enjoying doing these little bursts of updates instead of mega-ones.

Today we get relationship foo and yet more transitional notes on how things have shifted in two years time. Plus, a return appearance by two mysterious characters, and an explanation for a plot hook I deliberately left unresolved. Enjoy. Feedback welcome.

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I blame Disney for marketing A Christmas Carol during the Halloween season. Sam (8) has gotten interested in scary movies, but he's gotten them all mixed up in his head, which is easy enough, I guess, since he hasn't seen any of them.

It all began with a commercial for Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights, which featured a 20-something guy walking into a deserted, decrepit theater lobby. He's menaced by the doll from Saw, then Chucky from Child's Play, then finally a guy in a pig mask, also from Saw. The pig-mask guy has a blade that shoots out from his sleeve and the commercial ends with the pig-mask guy (presumably) slashing the throat of the 20-something guy.

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Sorry so late, armandae!

Totally work-safe photos behind cut. ( Read more... )

I have a shot of the lizard cuddling up to Scarred!Puppet!Angel (she's running a temperature and she looked like she needed a comfort object) but that will have to wait till next lizardphotospampost.

I spent a lot of the day in bed. Just relaxing, reading the internet, snuggling with ojouchan.

Is anyone interested in seeing this with me next week?

Get ready boys and girls for a thrilling episode of El Verde! Meet mild mannered Arturo Sanchez, born as an alien from the not so far away world of Mexico and raised in the good old U.S. of A. All Arturo ever wanted was to live an ordinary life, but after a freak elote accident, Arturo became . . . El Verde!!!

Join us as we go back, way back, to see how it all began. This November, TeAda Productions will present THE ORIGINS OF EL VERDE. Watch as Arturo becomes the superhero who fights for truth, justice, and the Mexican-American way! Then watch him as he battles the evil La Quinceañera with her ultimate plot to destroy the world.

Yes, EL VERDE is the live superhero show that’s fun for the whole family. If you’ve never been to an EL VERDE show before, be sure not to miss this one.

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Theatre: What Once We Felt Off-Broadway at the Duke Theater on 42nd Street

Sunday morning: I can't even begin to describe the post-bachelor/ette party condition of my house. After 50 guests in the house, it looked like there'd been a frat party. We made some headway in picking up the recyclables and trash (thank you so much, tithenai, for all your help!) before we had to get ready and head out for the wedding site.

Monday morning: Ooooh, no, please don't ask me to clean!! Fortunately, we still had guests so we couldn't *possibly* clean when we still had to entertain.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Stabs at cleaning.

So here we are now:

Dining room: Baba Yaga and her house of chicken legs are snuggled up by a stuffed pony, all leaning crazily against a pile of 300 paper plates. The canvas bag of emergency supplies - sewing kit, band-aids, safety pins, etc. - is still waiting to be unpacked. Oh, and a gray bag with a camera lens. Anyone want to claim it?

Master Bedroom: Improbably, a fake mustache rests on the dresser. I can't quite explain that....

Guest Bedroom: We will daintily close the door upon the detritus of the Bride and her Beast.

Office: My dress and stuff, still in a trash bag on the floor. Oh, and a stray black shoe. Anyone want to claim it?

Family room: Other than the shifting of furniture, remarkably clean. s00j and company are very good at being vagabonds and respecting their space.

Sewing Room: Piles of taffeta are scattered everywhere. Scraps and threads all over the floor. A complete mess. But, Janice the seamstress did make up for her mess by leaving behind scissors, thread, needles, pins, and other stray bits.

Bathroom: Rumors that we now own a large black dog are completely untrue. Instead, it was a black Cat, who sheds. The number of hair products, face products, razors? Rather overwhelming. I assume they all belong to Cat and D, but if you left them behind? Not worth claiming.

The wedding I will write about soon. But I had to take a moment to memorialize the backstage parts of the experience. It will soon be cleaned up and forgotten if I don't, and it's dear to me.

Current Mood: amused