stuffes (edited, but not importantly)

Okay, things going on in my life.
1. I owe less than 100 dollars directly to Oregon State. This is not student loans, this is money I owe the school. This is a big deal because last year at this time it was nearly 2000 dollars.

2. I currently have 27 dollars and some odd cents. This is dreadfully short of the hundred dollars I need. I'm working on bridging the gap.

3. I've been playing Master of Orion 2. There are a lot of things I like better about that game as compared to the third. On the other hand, the fact that it hates NT and likes to stop working at random blows, as does the relitively small size of the galaxy.

4. In the above mentioned game, the racial trate "telepathic" is awesome. I believe that it gives you +10 percent on your spy rolls which is cool, but it also lets you take over planets without troops and without having to worry about little things like converting them to your way of thinking with alien management centers and the like.

Here's my racial loadout currently (you subtract point values):

10 points to start
Trellarian Picture (They are the most annoying race in the game, so I use them to get rid of them.)
Feudal -4 (this govenrment has few perks, but your ships cost 2/3rds what they usually would and if you research the advanced form they now cost 1/3rd of the normal price.) It does hurt research, but that is really only a problem if the Psilons are in the game.)
Research+1 +3
-20% Ship Attack -2 Tech fixes this.
-20% Ship Defense -2 You will be getting tech to take care of that.
A space academy cancels this penalty.
-10 Ground Combat -2 Don't really need it, tech and telepathy take care of it.

Creative +8 This is expensive, but damn it is nice to get all of the tech for any research tree.

Telepath +6 It improves diplomacy and spying, allows immediate use of captured ships, and allows the instant troopless capture and assimilation of enemy colonies. Oh, the spying bonus is the same as the 3 point spying trait.

Lucky +3 this is not a great ability, but I like it. It cuts antaran attacks and makes good random events more likely for you.

Omniscent +3 This ability lets you see all of the ships and planets on the map. With omniscent you never have to scout, you know when the opponents are massing, and you can target your expansion at special sites early on (like splinter colonies and artifacts worlds.)

Oi, I was going to talk about other tings too, but that will have to be for later.

A little something by Spider Robinson

I was talking to a friend and he mentioned Callahan's Bar. Got me thinking. Any of you ever watched the shuttle launch? Or even just a rocket carrying a satalite? I've watched a couple. Robinson has the best description ever:

Okay, you've probably seen film or video footag on TV. But if you haven't been to a launch, at least as close as the thousands of cars stacked up back out on the highway, you just don't know anything about it.

At first the world is nothing but horizon, endless ocean and sky, all of it still, tranquil, serene. Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree Spielberg, rich and vivid. Lazy clouds overhead, a flight of birds just visible gliding low over marsh flats in the distance, a few boats out on the water. The stillness is not perfect - there is the countdown bellowing out of those superb speaker horns, and there is the internal thunder of elevated pulse - but basically the world is as it has always been: at rest, indifferent to anything any of the scurrying ants on its surface might come up with.

Then Hell breaks loose.

A dirty white explosion spreads in all directions. At its center, beneath the stacked array, a Beast is born. It is mighty. And angry. Its roar shatters the world, splits the sky, echoes up and down the Florida coast and miles out to sea. You thought you knew what to expect, but this is louder. The sound is tangible, hits you with physical force, vibrates up your legs from the ground beneath your feet, scares the living shit out of you. Your first thought is that you are witnessing a disaster even more awful than Challenger: an on-the-pad explosion.

Then the Beast's two big brothers wake up - the giant solid rocket boosters - and Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Limbo all break loose together and start to argue. The sound is indescribable, just short of unbearable. So insensate is the rage of this new Beast that the world itself will not have it. No matter that something the size and weight of an apartment building is sitting on its back: it lifts from the ground on a raving column of its own fury and rises impossibly into the air, becomes a thick growing tower of white smoke, the 128-ton Shuttle stack balanced on top like a Ping-Pong ball on the stream from a fire hose. The bonds of Earth can be as surly as they like: the Beast is surlier, shrugs its terrible shoulders, and slips them clean.

You realize that you are pounding your hands together and screaming 'Go, baby, go!' like an idiot at the top of your lungs, and you gather that everyone around you is doing the same, but you can't hear any of it. Part of you wishes you had control of your hands so that you could take photos like you planned to, and another part is amused at the audacity of the notion that this literally earthshaking event could possibly be squeezed through a pinhole and captured on a piece of celluloid smaller than a matchbook. Instead you watch in reverent terror as a utensil built by bald apes flings ninety-seven tons of metal and plastic two million miles.

With five live men aboard.

You can read about something like that, and see it on television, and spend a large portion of your leisure hours trying to imagine what it must be like and thinking about what it means, and you think you get it. You're a space buff: if anybody gets it, you do. And I suppose you do - as an intellectual concept. Then you go there and see it with your own eyes, feel it with your own bones . . . and are astonished to discover that only now, for the first time, do you really Get It. Until now space travel had been real to me in the same sense that World War II was real to me, or China: I'd been told about it and had no reason to doubt what I'd been told. Now I got it.

For two million years it had been only a fantasy, a monkey dream. For the first fifteen years of my own life it had still been only a fantasy, something a teacher or a scientist might laugh at you for believing in. For the next quarter century it had been a news story - one that seemed to bore most of my fellow citizens silly. But now it was reality - real reality; that is, the part experienced by me - and the two-million-year-old dream had really come true:

The species I belonged to had figured out how to climb the biggest tree there is. We were already becoming familiar with its lowest branches.

In that moment, I knew, as fact, with utter certainty, that one day we were going to climb all the way to the top. Nothing was going to prevent us. Not presidents, proxmires, press, public opinion, economic forces, or nuclear winter.

No, it could be delayed, but it could not be stopped. This was evolution in action, before my eyes. As surely as we had come down out of the trees, as surely as we had crawled up out of the tidal pools in the first place, we were going to do this thing.

Spider Robinson - Callahan's Key

Cookbook stuff

Hey, I just finished a little piece of the cookbook. It's just the equipment list, but anyone who wants to take a look and see if I left anything out, I'd appriciate some feedback.
I've selected the items below to provide maximum flexibility without taking up a lot of space or costing a lot of money:

Equipment List
The first thing that you are going to need is a set of cooking utensils. Since you are probably living in a dorm or an apartment with limited kitchen facilities and space, we’ve settled on a fairly small list of things that you should acquire. One of the main themes in this book is multiple use. The recipes in the first two sections can be prepared with no tools other than the ones listed below and all of the ingredients used are used in at least one other recipe. The final chapter includes a number of recipes that were too good to leave out, but which required tools that either were too big for easy storage in a dorm room or weren’t useful or cheap enough to include on this list, or the recipe needs ingredients that aren’t used in any of the other recipes.

Things to buy:
Pans and such:
Stainless Steel or No Stick Stir Fry Pan
1 or 2 Quart sauce pan, preferably one with a lid
Large glass or aluminum bread pan
Round Pizza Sheet, just a little larger than the stir fry pan.

Utensils:
Pairing Knife
Large wooden spoon
Plastic Spatula
Disposable bamboo chopsticks. You can use a metal fork too.
Measuring cup, either a wet measure one or a dry measure set.
Measuring spoon set.
Can Opener

Containers:
1 large plastic mixing bowl. This is also good for carrying things into the kitchen.
1 small plastic mixing bowl.

Miscellaneous:
Cutting board, either a flexible plastic one or a small one with a liquid groove.
Oven mitt or dish towel (I prefer the towel)
Sponge

Consumables (things you will run out of, not to eat)
Dish Soap
Zipper Seal Plastic Bags. I’d get sandwich and gallon sized ones.
Paper Plates
Aluminum Foil
Plastic Wrap (optional)
Wax Paper (optional)
Round Toothpicks (optional)

Things to borrow from mom or the dining hall:
Two soup bowls.
A couple of plates.
2 coffee cups.
Metal Forks.
Metal Teaspoons.

Things to save:
Brownie tins and pie pans from the store.
Glass Containers (like spaghetti sauce or pickle jars)
Butter and Margarine containers.

gah.

I've realized something. My brother thinks the prat fall is the height of humor. He spends countless hours watching bad comedic sitcoms, Fear Factor, and America's funniest video. Yeah, he's in like 8th grade. I was past that by then.

Majestic

Been playing Deus Ex again. I've been in the Majestic 12 facicility for a while now, and today I finally got out. I got through the first floor of the UNATCO headquarters only to be killed by the head of Unatco and three of their little wuss troopers. Argh. I took on Majestic super soldiers, cyborg badasses, and alien biologicals (I do admit that part of that was using an automated turret and a stolen pass code to gun down two big old badasses that took forever to die) Next time, when I am done talking to jerk face, I am going to shock rod him then kill him with a baton.

Stuffs

Hey, I just got a new Gmail invite. Anybody need/want one?

an interlude

I will not stand for this

Everyone Feels This Pain
Show your support

Thank's <lj user="seiryu_16">

You are 69% geek

You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Hee, a little unfairly balanced toward the girls. A guy taking the quiz can rightfully assume that there are two choices for the first question and just stay with that, which kills a fair number of geek points. I girl has to use the drop down menu so ends up seeing all five choices. Oh, and if you take the quiz, you may want to look at the HTML and get rid of the background color code. It made mine unreadable.

Merg

You know there is some really stupid shit to get nastalgic about. Last night I was having frozen pizza for dinner. My brother ended up eating six of the eight slices so I also had the remains of a bowl of popcorn I'd made for Brie earlier. Bad pizza and popcorn brought to mind being in the dorms. (Actually in the dorms I usually had Pepperoni Hotpockets and Popcorn, or more frequently, frozen egg rolls and popcorn.)
Been a while since I've posted. Not sure why, guess I've just not had anything to say.
Here's a line of "resoning" from the underside of my idiocy for you:
I'm unemployed and I'm trying to both get a job and become a published writer.
I've been holding off on starting any big projects (other than the cookbook, which is going slowly) until after I get a job.
Since I got back here, more than a year has passed.
Still no job, and more than enough time to write a book if I had done it then.
*Sighs* Me dumb.

(Screw the silly cliche about "you are a writer even if you are unpublished." Thanks mom, but there is nothing special about the ability to sit infront of a computer and bang out ten or a hundred thousand words. I'm not infavor of the whole don't ever write for free concept, I mean other professionals donate their work too, but if I am not being published, if I am not making at least a partial living off this, I might as well be writing ads or fan-fiction or political flyers. Actually, I could have some fun writing flyers I suspect. I always wanted to create viral memes. Well, at least I'm not doing fan-fic. Or Startrek novels, but then except for the three or four best of those I've ever read, they are just fan-fic that someone got paid for.)

Ooh, I beat Crescent Hawk's inception. The final area takes as much time as the rest of the game. Mapping it out and tracking the codes on paper makes it much easier though. No wandering randomly trying the same codes on the same door over and over and over again. Crescent Hawk's Revenge is a very different type of game (sort of RTS from way before Dune 2) and rather a bit harder. I'm about half way through it (I stopped to beat CHI) I want to play me some Battletech!

Been doing some design work on zero pressure organisims. (Critters what live in high vaccum that is.) Lots of fun. I'm sticking to basics, problems to be solved, not the chemical mechanisims of the solutions themselves, as I'm an indifferent chemist at best. Now I just have to come up with a use for them.

This is a recording...

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'll shout it to the rafters and in the streets:
The Roman Catholic Church is full of Shit

I swear I wonder how in good conscience can a person accept confirmation in an organization like that one? Might as well just be a scientologist.

Conservatives

While this is technically a pissy thing, it is so funny that I'll forgive their lame asses:
There's a liberal under my bed

I'm trying to figure out how to make a similar them child friendly for the opposition. I really can't find it though. The conservatives don't do G rated stuff.

*chuckles*

The AFP has picked up and ran a story out of the Pravada.
This story.

For those of you who don't know, the Pravada is a russian newspaper. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, it was the official mouth piece of the Party. It was a joke around the world because of the stories it printed that were obviously wrong, and usually also obviously outright lies. Well, with the fall of the USSR, it has become a tabloid newspaper. AFP running one of their stories is like the NYT running a story about the alien elvis bat boy clopne from the supermarket tabloids.

Ooh, if you haven't read it yet, get yourself a copy of "Just a Geek." It is an autobiographical work by Wil Wheaton (Autobiographical, not an autobiography.) A very good book, I cried when I read the material for the first time (the book is about his life and it uses entries from his blog to demonstrate what he's talking about.)

gods...

This is the reversed transcript of a game of 20 questions I played with computer at http://y.20q.net. I'm not sure I could have identified it on that question set. (that's 15 questions total by the way.)

I am guessing that it is a kudzu vine?
Yes , No , Close
14. Can you peel it? No.
13. Is it usually colorful? No.
12. Does it get shorter from using it? No.
11. Are there many different sorts of it? No.
10. Would you pay to use it? No.
9. Would you use it in a garden? No.
8. Do you use it in your home? No.
7. Can you lift it? Yes.
6. Do you know any songs about it? No.
5. Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? No.
4. Would you find it on a farm? Yes.
3. Does it have leaves? Yes.
2. Is it found in salad bars? No.
1. It is classified as Vegetable.

*cries*

I was reading an article today and I came across this paragraph:

“It allows Kerry to say with some justification that the recovery may be sputtering and that the job market is very soft,” said Greg Valliere, chief strategist of Schwab Washington Research Group. “A lot of people thought when he was saying that earlier in the summer that he was a Cassandra, that he was exaggerating things. But now he can make both those claims.”

A point to anyone who can tell me what is wrong with that statement.
Our education system has failed.

by way of <lj user="pope_guilty"> by way of <lj user="housepsinner"> byway of <lj user="tinman_661">

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joes employer pays these standards because Joes employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noon time, and Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joes money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work, and plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republicans would still be sitting in the dark!)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the hosts keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.) Joe agrees that we don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, he's a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like he has.

Gotta love the republicans.

So, the GOP's used the last four years to screw over the nation repeatedly, and they've done it to a chorus of "Well, he's not fucing an intern." Looks like they are getting what they deserve over in Tennessee. Their current Senatorial Candidate is sort of the distillation of all things Republican.
Well, okay, I admit, he's only part of it, he doesn't seem to be trying to start illegal wars or anythin. But then his idea of social reform is of the "special" sort.
Have I mentioned that republicans are scum?

the stillness of an empty world.

So, this is going to be a slow week. My local friends are all either gone or no longer local. My sibilings are going to visit their dad. Mom is heading up into the icy north (somewhere on Michigan's UP. Silly mom, she's taking the long route and adding at least two hours to the trip in a desperate attempt to avoid being in the same timezone as Chicago.) So I'm staying here and watching the dogs. I already talk to the dogs. I'm just afraid that by the end of the week they'll start talking back.
On the other hand, assuming that the printer works, hopefully I'll get at least one or two things finished and mailed off. I've got one piece that just needs some revision and one that I haven't actually started writing yet. Maybe I'll get a couple things ready by the end of the week.
It is alays nice not to have to deal with my brother nagging me to use my computer when I am using it though. "Can I get on soon?" Of course, he starts asking after I've been on the computer for about 30 minutes and gets angrier and angrier while he waits, then he's on the computer all friggin day. I've started answering randomly since he asks so much. Actually, his idea of soon and mine are in different orders of time so I can honestly answer either yes or no pretty much any time.

My favorite is when he tells me that I can't be on the computer all day when that's exactly what he's going to do. He tried to argue that since it is in mom's room I can't use it as much as I want. That is true, but it isn't bound by the restrictions he's thinking of. I can't use it when mom is trying to sleep. I explained to him that I bought this computer so I could use it. It is in mom's room currently as a convienience until her computer gets fixed, but that does nothing to change why I have the computer.

I so want to get back out to the Northwest. The midwest is about my second least favorite place. (I know people who actually want to live here. They are fools.)

*sighs*

So, just got my next great rejection letter on the eternal search for a job so that come November I can start paying back student loans. And I saw a great deal on some tee shirts that I very much wish to have. www.goats.com is having a sale on their Republicans for Voldemort and their Jesus Loves Dick shirts. One of each for 30 bucks. I have so many friends who I want to give these shirts to. Most of them would even appriciate it.
Gah, at least Voldemort only wants to enslave and rule the world. The current republican candidate takes his advice from Christians of the "let's try to bring about the apoclypse" sort. Have I mentioned that republicans are scum? (If you are offended by that then you are most likely a republican and thus part of the problem.)

I have found something that is rather disturbing for my prospects as a professional writer. Every once in a while I start worrying about things. Especially things like "how am I going to pay off my loans." This only ever happens late at night. At it's worst it has meant a series of days with two and three hours of sleep before waking up and going to class. Well, in the aftermath of recieving the rejection letter yesterday guess who ended up not sleeping (by the way, the whole insomnia thing isn't exclusively about what's worrying me. For instance last night between bouts of money worries I was also thinking about this computer game I've been playing (MTG: Duel of the Plainswalkers) If there is anything more annoying than not being able to sleep because you are worried about something it is not being able to sleep because you are thinking about the electronic version of a collectable card game you played in highschool. I mean at least the first source of sleeplesness is somewhat justified. What this has to do with writing: so it was getting later and later and I was staring at the ceiling. I eventually decided that if I wasn't going to sleep, I'd do some writing. I grabbed the clipboard of paper and turned on a light and started writing (and it ended up not being a story at all, more just notes on a setting. *le sigh*) Well after about 3 minutes of that I put the notepad down and turned off the light. I was asleep shortly thereafter. I'm not sure that I like the fact that writing puts me to sleep. (At least I don't get the same response from sitting in front of a computer writing, but since we are using my computer as the internet computer and because it is in mom's room, I can'd use that when I can't sleep because mom is already asleep by the time that becomes an issue.

So after a long night, I woke up this morning at the urging of a chocolate lab at about 7am. He'd already been out once but my dogs go out twice in the morning. Well, I brought him out and stayed there because he's been slipping his chain (stupid labs have a bunch of extra skin so his neck is as big as his head) and running off recently. Usually he waits until the second time out to poop. Apparently he already pooped today because he just sat there. All he wanted to do was slip his chain and go meet interesting girl doggies. Yeah, I brought him back in. I am rather tired and now I probably won't go to sleep until tonight (I am really bad at napping. I don't nap. If I try to sleep during the day it usually becomes a real sleep time and I end up being up all night until I can reset my sleep schedule.)

oi

So, I got another confirmation of my suspicion today. Completely unprompted, my sister (who asked if she could read it a long time ago) asked me if I had done any more work on the book I was writing. I stopped ant tried to think of work I had done on my cookbook and then realized that that wasn't what she was asking about. *sighs* there goes my dreams of using this to fuel my financial well being for the moment. I was really hopeful too since I am having a hard time writing short stories. (I just can't seem to come up with decent story ideas of the shortish variety. Well, I guess there are a couple of fragments that may work out yet.) Funny that the only short story idea that has really worked out for me (with the exception of one that I'm stuck trying to figure out how to end it so it works with the beginning) barely even has characters and the characters who are there, except for the narrator, never actually speak.

I want to do some Samuel Prior stories, but I'm stuck on both of the ones that I am working on right now. The first one I started is in the middle of his story line, and I got stuck because I knew the basic shape of his history but couldn't get key pieces to work out while still progressing with the plot, so I started the second Samuel Prior story, the earliest one I intend to write. I guess this makes way more sense to me than it does to anyone else. A little history.

I've got a SF setting I am still working on, something that runs from the day after tomorrow until the end of time (well, my timeline only runs a few thousand years from now, but still...) One of the major themes is that while History is contingent and it can hinge on the actions of individuals, just being a superior person in the right place at the right time is not always enough. Through out the setting, I plan on using the Prior family. The Priors will have become influential through the actions of their founder, and I plan on having them figure in many of the key points of human history. Of course as humanity expands to the planets of our solar system and then to the stars, the best and most daring of the Priors will, in accordance with the blessing/curse of their name, expand as well. Many of the Prior children will take advantage of the family's emphasis on physical and intellectual training and be fairly highly skilled adults.
Samuel is fairly early in the family's history. Born before humanity has headed to the stars, Samuel is one of the youngest to take part in the war against an expansionistic theocracy that began in the Belt. The gruesome death of his fiancee at the hands of the mysogenic theocracy inspires a slight career change. Instead of becomming a Naval officer in the United Nations Space Forces, he switches tracks to their intelligence branch, specifically as an assasin. He carries out a private vendetta in his role as assaasin and kills several of the most important leaders of the Army of the Prophet. At the same time he loses a lot of his humanity. After the war, he continues working for the UN's intel division, though not as an assasin. Having avenged his love's death, he now has to deal with what he has become. The earliest story will begin a decade after the war while he is still sorting through the confict that killing so many people (including innocents in several occasions where he destroyed entire spacestations to kill one person.) Though I don't want it to be the actual focus of the plot, much of the conflict in the Samuel Prior stories should be him coming to grips and overcomming the monster that he had become. This entire series of stories within this setting will be about the redemption of Samuel Prior. The first story in the series contains some scenes that have been difficult for me to write, mostly because they are a little darker than I am usually comfortable with working in, and that has been a lot of why I haven't finished it yet. (Other stories in the setting will be more lighthearted than that. In fact, the only story I am actually done with is a fairly lighthearted story about hang gliding in the launch tube of an magnetic catapult, and focuses on the thrill of flight.)

humm...

Well, last night I had something that I had expected confirmed. One of the stories I'm working on isn't really suitable for the short story field. I had really hoped to sell the entire tale as a series of short stories and then make it into a book, but I guess I'll have to go the other way. oh well.

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Good things maybe

So, in case you've been living in a hole for the last 30 hours, yesterday the Separate and Unequal amendment (Hatch, Frist, "frothy mix" Santorum and some other senators) failed to even get to the level of a vote. Yesterday the senate had a roll call vote for Cloture on this amendment. The vote was 48 in favor, 50 opposed with two democrats abstaining (Kerry and Edwards both refused to vote so their "no" vote on an issue of procedure wouldn't be used against them in campaign) two democrats breaking ranks and voting yes, and four republicans breaking ranks and voting No. To win a vote for cloture, an issue must gain 60 votes in the Senate. Essentially it is a way to see if there is any way in hell that they can get the 68 votes needed to pass an amendment on to the state legislatures. Of course, even though the republicans technically lost this round in their eternal campaign to make government larger and more intrusive into the lives of the citizens (wait, isn't that supposed to be a democrat thing?), they were never trying to win. This was an entirely political maneuver. They brought this act up now both to deflect attention to Rumsfeld's war crimes, and Chaney's impending indictment on fraud and bribery charges as well as to make the repression of homosexuals an issue in the upcoming Senatorial election. Essentially, they were forcing Senate Democrats from conservative regions to either vote to discriminate against a traditionally liberal segment of the country or to face a much greater challenge this year when they come up for reelection. This is of course, what they are doing instead of tackling issues of import to our actual nation. Gods, Republicans are scum. But then we knew that already.

product acquired from <lj user="belismaker">

Whoo Hoo! The seperate and unequal ammendment for homosexuals was defeated, at least for now.

5 words that describe you
1.: friendly
2.: focused (just never on the right things)
3.: smart
4.: easily amused (see 2)
5.: enthusiastic

5 websites you visit daily
1.: www.livejournal.com
2.: www.fark.com
3.: www.gmail.com
4.: www.ucomics.com
5.: about 30 comics sites: www.fanns.com, www.blue-comic.com, www.sluggy.com, etc

5 CDs you couldn't live without
Most of my music is mp3s of stuff not avaliable in the states except as illegal chinese knock off disks but if I had to pick.
1.: Tori Amos' Little Earth Quakes
2.: Armitage III OST (the one with the two extra songs)
3.: the Xenogears Creid album.
4.: the Cowboy Bebop albums
5.: Escaflowne Albums (I really do own non-anime stuff, I swear.)

5 favorite books
1.: this interweb thing-a-ma-jigger
2.: The Chronicles of Amber - Zelazny
3.: Something by Heinlein. Either Stranger in a Strange Land or The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
4.: Neverwhere - Gaiman
5.: Something conversational by Asimov. Probably "I, Asimov"

5 favorite songs
1.: Summer Days-DAI
2.: Phantom World - Armitage III soundtrack
3.: One Week - Bare Naked Ladies
4.: Finest Worksong - REM (not really a favorite probably but it is tied to a memory set I like to dredge up.)
5.: 6 verse version of This land is Your land - Woodie Guthrie

5 random facts about you
1.: I chew on pens.
2.: I graduated in 4 years with a major, 3 minors and most of a fourth.
3.: My study skills suck very much
4.: I am a proponent of the "train dogs with praise and treats" school of dog training.
5.: I was one of the only people in the Technology and the Family class who said they would accept immortality.

5 countries you would like to visit
1.: Germany
2.: Japan
3.: England
4.: New Zealand
5.: PRC - Hong kong

5 words or phrases you always use
1.: "boo"
2.: hey la
3.: abunai!!!
4.: well enough
5.: how goes it

5 articles of clothing that are your favorite
Such a girl question. I only own 8 distinct articles of clothing
1.: my white socks
2.: my outside shoes
3.: shorts
4.: button down short sleeved shirts
5.: loose legged kakhi pants

5 favorite movies
1.: Jacob the Liar
2.: X-men
3.: Shrek
4.: Riddick Chronicals
5.: Big Fish

5 things you are obsessed with
1.: Space Flight
2.: Cooking
3.: Fishies
4.: This here interweb thingy
5.: Classic gaming

5 girls names you like (even if you never want children)
1.: Amber
2.: Athena
3.: Fiona
4.: Elizabeth
5.: Michiko

5 boys name you like (even if you never want children)
Yeah, this is why when I have kids, thoug I will reserve the right to veto suggestions, I'm letting their mother decide.
1.: Stephen
2.: Erick
3.: Alex/Alexander
4.: Nicholas
5.: Michael (not for my kids though. I always thought that naming your children after yourself was stupid.)

5 hobbies you have
1.: The life sciences
2.: Reading
3.: computer games
4.: role playing
5.: world building

5 foods that are your favorite
1.: Artichokes
2.: sesame and soy sauce sauteed chicken breast
3.: big, thick skinned oranges
4.: Sesame Chicken (sweet and spicy not tofuy)
5.: BW3's wings (the mid heat levels with actual flavors)

5 favorite computer programs
1.: ArcView
2.: MS Office
3.: Master of Orion 2
4.: Mame/SNES9X/ePSXe
5.: Netscape 7

5 boardgames you like to play
1.: Colonial Civilization
2.: Stuff by Cheapass
3.: Dungeon
4.: Settlers of Catan / Shogun / Samurai / risk and other similar fairly simple strategy games.
5.: Chess / Go

spline reticulation

If you don't remember a soothing feminine voice telling you that she was reticulating splines, you probably don't have my taste in games.
I've played the windows version of that game recently. Very dissapointing. They seem to have modified the simulation to make it harder to grow the interesting sturctures in cities. Oh well.
So I finally figured out how to get getright to work with the-underdogs.org. It seems that if you type in the wrong address for the referer, it doesn't work at all. Let the large old game goodness begin (in several hours. I mean afterall, the whole reason I needed to make getright work was that I'm on dialup. I did download the old TSR fantasy empires game. It is pretty good but the arcade sequences are impossibleish on a modenr computer. I wish Ihad bought it back when I was first playing MoO and MoM (Ooh, incommng nastalgia.)

So somehow, trader joes has come up three times in less than a week. I wish I had a car and money. I so much want to go get some unusual ingredients and do some experimenting in the kitchen. Of course I'd also like a much better stove/oven. Ours blows a little.

Today's Nukees is great.

Been reading Terry Pratchett's Diskworld stuff. I managed to find the first six books and am thus reading them in order! I just started book three.

I was so looking forward to verbally abusing nate online today. I mean I sat down at the computer and there he was on AOL IM. And I was about to start typing and he logged back off. Le Sigh. Oh well, he's been online a lot more than usual recently so I guess no complaints.

Oh yeah. Check out www.cockeyed.com Especially awesome are the How Much is Inside part and the Pranks section. These are things I wish I had discovered in college. Kind of like wishing that I had discovered Ozy and Millie while I was still rooming with Nate. ( Millie is my hero. ) So much additional havoc.

So I was thinking of doing some fan-art for UC but there is a fairly major problem. Mom's ultra mega super scanner. Yeah It is a scsi device and I don't have a scsi card. Oh well. Maybe next time. Not that I actually posess drawing skills in any reliable form. I have many talents and skills, but representing people places and things in a visual medium is not one them. Well, actually I am a decent cartographer as long as I don't try to fancy it up and I keep things technical. This does make it a little difficult for me to design things on paper. I ran into some difficulties with that while I was last working on the concept stuff for the Sarthaki for one of the settings I'm working on creating. It would be so much easier to work out an evolutionary history for them if I could draw.

Photoshop

So there is this great photoshop contest over at www.fark.com.
The theme is books that should never be made into movies.

I've read over half of the books in the entries.

I agree in most cases.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1026143

Very amusing.

Nothing on IMDB about the rumored Ringworld movie (how would you catch the sheer scope of that book? It'd be like trying to do a Rama movie but worse.)

Beat System's Twilight.

Had a cold sore. Abbrevia (an expensive cold sore medicine) worked on it. It is essentially gone now, 4 days later. And one that hadn't progressed to a cold sore was gone within a day.

Whee Fun

So today I:
Woke Up at 8am to put the dogs outside. They usually wake mom up at six, but she doesn't remember putting them out, so they did pretty good.

Took a shower.

Put on some Off and went out and watered the plants. They needed it a lot. Ten I dragged a thing of topsoil into the back yard (well, I put it on my shoulder and carried it. They only weigh like 40 lbs) and planted the broccoflour. It may be a little late for that. Oh well. I restaked the tomatoes. One of them has flowers and green tomatoes. I also replanted the blue berries. I put themin bigger holes with more of the good top soil. Hopefully this will make them grow better.

I dragged the hose around front and watered the plants there.

Mom left.

I came in.

I got on the internet. After 50 minutes my brother called from his dad's house and made snide comments about me being on the internet to the internet answering machine. He then told me to get off the internet and hung up. (He wanted to ask mom (who wasn't here) a question.)

I started a new download.

He called back 7 minutes later and yelled at me to get off the internet.

My brother needs to work on his phone skills. A while ago, I wouldn't give him the key code to make an illegal copy of a multiplayer online game I own. Instead of trying to reson with me he started calling me a moron. We were on the phone. With the fourth repeat of that little bit of wit, I hung up.

I eventually got off the internet.

I went and took a shower.

He never called.

The brothers McClure showed up.

We went and played tennis for three hours.

When we got back here there were four new messages

None of them were from lloyd David.

I'm a little worried about my little dog. Yesterday, I gave him a doggy treat (an off brand milkbone) and he didn't eat it. He loves doggy treats, even more than padfoot does. I picked it up and held it way up high and he jumped up and grabbed it. And helf it in his mouth for a while and still didn't eat it. I think he has a sore tooth. I gave him another one today when I left, but I don't know if he ate it or not. He did eat some dogfood this morning that I had started to soak in milk (I know it is bad for doggies. Well, really it just makes them gassey, but still...) He ate the still crunchy dog food. Maybe he just wasn't hungry. (unlikely)

Well, not much more yet. but there are a lot more hours of today.

Oh, I did start working on the second story in the arc of the story I just finished last night. nothing on the computer.

And I am playing System's Twilight (a mac puzzle game) I had to look up one answer for one word puzzle. It was Lintle, and I should have gotten it right (even though I didn't know what the word meant till today.) I'm on the final puzzle now. Joy.

Take care folks.

Metaphysicsnet, the nomina are made up but the phenomina are real (maybe)

Don't actually have anything to go with that yet. check back later.

stuffes

So today I read The Parched Sea (The first of Troy Denning's Ruha novels) and downloaded stuff. Origionally I was just grabbing another copy of sim earth (I own the game, but I don't know where the disks or box or manual is) but then I decided to look at the-underdogs' hall of fame and I decided to grab some of those games. Most of them I just copied the webpage to grab them later, but I saw system's twilight (yet another of those games where the developer was on crack and decided to develop a game for the smaller part of the market share only) so I also had to get a Mac emulator and some other stuff (mission accomplished by the way) and now I am playing the puzzle game. We'll see how long it takes to beat it.

It has been a quiet day, with the kids at their dad's house and mom gone for most of it. I am glad that I can handle quiet days. I mean I do enjoy having people around, but it has never been a great need of mine. As much as I like being around my friends, I can wait until next time I see them. There is never that much of a hury.

All wet

Well, since I never change more than a quarter of the water in a fish tank at a time, I have allowed myself to run out of dechlor.
Which has never been a problem.
Until tonight.
My Brother.
Shattered.
My Tank.
with a chair
(not on pupose.)
But now I am very glad that my computer is in mom's room instead of on the floor under the table in my room.
Even though almost all of the water exited the tank, only one fish came out.
I put them in a bowl made of metal and filled with bottled (not deionized or distilled) water. Then in a kitty litter bucket. Now they are in my redundant fishtank.
And my carpet.
Is wet.
And my room is very.
very Humid.
But the faN is running
and the Air CoNdItIoNeR is conditioning
and I can deal with the cold.
and the fishies are all catfish.
cause I haven't been here to take care of them.
and only the survivors survived.
and the other hardy fish I had have a two year life span on average.
(I should buy more gambusia)
(If you want to buy me gambusia, they're avaliable from www.carolina.com and my mailing address is:
Michael Phillips
232 Glad St.
Hanover, IN 47243)
(Not that I'm asking.)
(and I bet I can find them locally cheaper.)
(And if you want to come play in a creek.
)Especially(if(the(creek(is)on)your)property)
I could see
to getting some new fishies.
of the more interesting kinds.
with my seining net.
and a bucket.
Darters mostly, but other non-chub/minnow species would be welcome as well, but I want to also avoid most catfish and the centrarchidae (bass and bluegill) since I have a little bitty catfish, and the only acceptiable cats are mad toms.

Well, good night.

from <lj user="Seiryu_16">

How to make a ronin_kakuhito

Ingredients: 1 part mercy 5 parts brilliance 5 parts empathy

Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Serve with a slice of lovability and a pinch of salt. Yum!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

If you were on a battlefield right now, versus everything...
Name
Gender	MaleFemaleAnimalUnsureRather Not Say
Age
Lover or a Fighter?
Fight for good or evil?	For GoodFor EvilFor Neither
Battle Cry
Weapon of Choice	Tactical Nuclear Weapons
Appearance	Leather Jacket, while riding your trusty steed
Your Battle Cry...	Could use some work
Foes slain upon first strike: - 69%
What you fight	Aliens
You fight....	Because you have nothing better to do
This quiz by Ferggs - Taken 14600 Times.

New - Kwiz.Biz Astrology and Horoscopes

Evil all around.

Wow, our dipshit in chief has something in common with the Catholics' dipshit in chief.
Bush


The Catholic Church

While I realize that shared evil comes as no supprise to some of my friends, I have others who believe that the Catholic Church under its current leadership is a good thing, regardless of how much John Paul 2 is undermining the results of the second Vatican Council and the church's ability to stand in a position of moral authority.
Funny how Bush is doing the same thing to the US, undermining key pieces of our guiding documents (eg the constitution) and removing our ability to claim the moral high ground.
And I'm giving those of you who wrong-mindedly support the church in its idiocy the benefit of the doubt on the Bush issue. If you still believe that Bush is a good person or president, I suspect that there really is no hope for you.

YAY!

I just made a backup/transfer of about half of my hotmail account! I will finish tomorrow, but for now, I have copied most of it to my HDD and have put about 1/5th of it in my gmail account. For those who are interested, I used a javascript program from source forge called mrpostman (which allows you to contact webmail accounts like Yahoo and hotmail with a pop3 client and thus can be used to back up your e-mail to a hard drive from hotmail or yahoo. You do need to change the port from 11110 to 110 unless your pop3 client lets you change it from 110 to 11110. (Being java, it is avaliable for essentially any platform, even for the technically challanged. Yay!!! You will need the Java Runtime environment though) I then used Eudora (if you aren't transfering to another account, any pop3 client will do, but Eudora is one of the only ones with a well functioning redirect system. Thunderbird's redirect is broken.) The first thing to do in eudora is set it up to grab hotmail. It is similar to setting up any other account in eudora. Your smtp server (or whatever) does have to allow redirection. Mine did. Yay again! Next create a filter (I called mine opopopopopopopopopoo and filtered for that line in the subject heading) to redirect incomming mail to your gmail account. Then check your mail. Oh in both MrPostman and Eudora remember to tell it to leave the email on the server. It only checks the first page of your inbox, so with hotmail, you can transfer 100 messages at a time.
If you need more detailed instructions, just ask.

oops

So in my last entry, I cut and pasted and completely forgot to change the first two lines
I am Michael and I was born in 1979.

acquired from <<lj user="pope_guilty">

LAYER ONE
-Name: Michael or whatever. I've been called a lot of things, and I've answered to most of them.
-Birthdate: November 23 1979
-Birthplace: Lompoc/Santabarbra CA
-Current Location: Hanover, IN
-Eye Colour: Bluish on the outside, a brown ring in the center, it averages out to hazel from more than a foot away.
-Hair Color: Brown. I must chop most of it off soon.
-Height: 5'10"
-Zodiac Sign: Er... Sagitarius I think. Not sure what that has to do with anything.


LAYER TWO
-Heritage: Every damned thing. Genetically, I am derrived from mostly Western Europe, though my mom's mom is something like 1/16th one of the midwestern tribes. In my near range extended family though, I have an uncle and a cousin who are black (not African American, their family had immegrated to Ireland (merchants from somewhere) and from Ireland to the US. My cousin has taken some shit for refusing to call herself African American., I have two half sibilings who get a good part of their genes from Scandinavia, I have another half sister who is 1/2 one of the midwestern tribes, and I have a cousin who is adopted from China (though I haven't seen her in person yet.)
-Today's shoes: Naked feet, probably my earthshoes when I wear them at all.
-Your weakness: Inability to finish a task. I'm not really unable to finish what I stat, but I do tend to get side tracked when I am working on my own initiative.
-Fears: Needles, to a large degree, things that sting in numbers greater than one (less than needles though.) Falling off of really tall things (I love heights, but I have this tendency to be a bit clumsy, so walking along the edge of a stone bridge with the trees in the valley below ending a hundred feet below me without anything to grab if I fall always makes me nervous. If I've got something to grab or hang on to, on the other hand, I love being out over hella big drops.)
-Perfect Pizza: Black olive and Peperoni from Pizza Hut, deep dish and fresh out of my refridgerator
-Goal I'd like to achieve: I want people to come to conventions to have me sign things I've written.

LAYER THREE
-Most overused AIM phrase: Anything in that mornonic AOL shortcut crap. I swear folks, learn to type and please don't display your ignorance like it is a banner.
-First thoughts on waking up: Often "Aw Dammit, I wanted to finish that dream." (I often wake up in the middle of lucid dreams) Otherwise "Go away dog, I'm trying to sleep here."
-Best physical feature: dunno
-Bedtime: between midnight and 4, depending on the day

LAYER FOUR
-Pepsi or Coke: Diet Coke.
-McDonald's or Burger King: Well, I like BK's burgers and dislike McDonald's burgers, but I like McDonald's Fries and BK's fries taste like oily ass. I usually pick McDonalds and get Chicken McNuggets with honey.
-Single or group dates: You know, I am not entirely sure what exactly a date is.
-Addidas or Nike: When I have the cash, Nike. they are one of the few big name shoes I can wear that really fit my feet (though i do need more arch support, I seldom actually get it.) And until I discovered Earth Shoes, I had never found a 20 dollar shoe that I could wear for more than 4 months before It became holey. (My Nikies usually lasted at least a year, so it was about the same cost per year, though the benefit of only having to break in one pair of shoes instead of three was considerable.)
-Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: I hate Tea. I can drink green tea for a tea ceremony without making funny faces, and the bottled green tea with all of the flavor additives to make it taste almost completely unlike green tea is okay, but I'd rather have a diet coke.
-Cappuccino or coffee: Neither. I have tried and tried and tried to drink coffee (it would be cheaper to get my caffine from a can of foldgers.)

LAYER FIVE
-Smoke: Nope
-Cuss: On occasion
-Sing: Very much.
-Take a shower everyday: Eww, you don't? Get away!
-Have a Crush: Not at the moment
-Think I've Been in Love: Heinlein's definition, yeah.
-Want to get Married: Possibly
-Believe in myself: Heh, I am one of the most overconfident arrogent people I know (I work hard to overcome that in recent years.)
-Get motion sickness: Once, in a boat, on 2 foot seas, the day before and after when we had 6 to 8 foot waves I was fine. Once in the whirly cups at a local fair (but I had just eaten too much fair food as well.)
-Think I'm a health Freak: Um right... No.
-Play an Instrument: I used to be pretty good with a Trumpet. Now I would need a year or so to get back to it.

LAYER SIX: In the last month...
-Smoked: Nope
-Done a drug: Nope
-Had sex: Nope
-Made out: Also nope.
-Gone on a date: Nope
-Gone to the mall: Actually, yes.
-Eaten an entire box of Oreos: Ick, no!
-Eaten sushi: Nope. I'm in the midwest man. Sashimi is nasty when you are a 2 hour flight from the nearest coast.
-Been on stage: Nope.
-Gone skating: Nope
-Made hommade cookies: Maybe, can't remember.
-Gone skinny dipping: Nope
-Dyed hair: Nope.
-Stolen anything: Nope

LAYER SEVEN Ever....
-Played a game that required the removal of clothing: Literally, yes, in the spirit of the question? No
-If so, was it mixed company: See Above
-Been caught "Doing something": Nope
-Been called a tease: Nope
-Gotten beaten up: Yeah in 4th grade.
-Changed who I was to fit in: Hum, not that I can think of. I may hae changed who I was as a result of being part of a group, but that is part of interacting with people, you change them and they change you.

LAYER EIGHT
-Hope to be married at age: Hee hee, marriage isn't high on my plans. Hinestly, except for some of the legal benefits, I don't see the point.
-Numbers and Names of Children: Hum, I do definately want children, but I'm not sure aboutnumbers and names. I just want little souls to corrupt.
-Describe your dream wedding: Fairly casual dress, outside, somewhere with a spectacular view. Maybe with me and the groom's men in Hawaian Shorts.
-How do you want to die: Er, really, that's okay. Death is so over rated. I like existing thank you. I guess if I have to die, I want it to be on my own terms at a time and place of my chosing, preferably some time a thousand thousand years or more from now (Yes, I will accept immortality if it becomes avaliable before I die.)
-What country would you most like to visit: Japan, Austrelia, Mainland Europe (on foot without a time restriction)

LAYER NINE In a guy/girl...
-Best eye colour: With smile crinkles on the edges.
-Best hair colour: Heh, no real preferences, natural black is cool.
short or long hair: That is very person dependant. I know girls who look great in a pixie cut. I also know girls who look great with their hair down to their butts, though for the life of me I don't understand why they would want their hair that long. Seems to me to be way too much trouble.
-Height: Not too important. Comforterable with their own height is all I ask)
-Best article of clothing: Anything useful and practical for a tomboy. I'm not looking for a delecate flower or a trophy who can't do things for fear of ruining her image. If clothing is easily torn, restrictive of movement, hard to clean, or made with enough cloth that it extends from the body, it seems silly to me.

LAYER TEN
-Number of drugs taken illegally: None.
-Number of piercings/ tatooes: None. No real desire.
-Number of newspaper mentioned: A hand full, but I live in a small town. They put you in the paper for seezing on mainstreet.
-Number of scars: A double handful, most noticibly, my liip, my forehead, my right hand below the thumb, and a couple on my legs.
-Number of past regrets: Very few. I don't regret anything that is the result of my active choices. There are times when I have hurt people unintentionally, and I do regret that, but the rest of it, that was my own choice. Even if I would do things differently today, I don't regret what I did then. Oh, I guess I do regret not staying in shape, but damn, if I regretted it much, I'd be back on my way to in shape again.

back on the bandwagon

well, I got me a g-mail account! Whoot!. I've promised my first invite to a friend of mine, and my second invite goes to some farker in the forums (since I got my invite from a farker in the forums.) A gig of storage. That is more storage than my first 6 computers had all together. That plus the force field for tanks, the private spacecraft that launched this morning, the invisibility cloak from last week, and some other stuff tell me that the future didn't quite fail to make it even without the flying cars in everybody's garage.

well, done again. I think

So, last night, right after I posted that I was not quite done, I went ahead and finished the story. I was going to give my brother the computer, but he was already asleep. *chuckles* except for his most annoying habits, we have so little in common. Poor kid. (I wouldn't wish my annoying habits and personality quirks on anyone.) It is summer, he is just out of 8th grade. What is he doing asleep at midnight? So after getting grumbled at for waking him up, I went back in here and finished the story. Eva, Annie, don't read the things in the second e-mail I sent you until you get to the things that are marked:

* * *
Transit
* * *

I actually put them in the e-mail in order and labled!
I'm a little sleepy. (Unlike my brother I went to sleep at 2 or 3 and woke up fairly early. I checked my webcomics before he was out of bed, a process that takes an hour to an hour and a half to do with a modem. Though this being Sunday, it wasn't quite as bad.)

I tried to call dad, but either he isn't going to the shop on Father's day or he is still out west with Victoria.

I sent an e-mail to all of my current players and the two who missed the first game due to a wedding. I'v recieved one reply sayong he'd like to play this tuesday or wednsday during the day. no body else has written yet.

Went to the library, got a couple of interesting books.

Not too much else
Ooh! the dead rise from their grave. Fred just woke up. (I don't give her a hard time over that, her sleep patterns are cose to what mine were. Lloyd, who is bad at entertaining himself gets mad at her fro sleeping in. I've been tempted to start waking up at 6 just to wake him up on essentially the same arguement.

boo Yah

please disregard the last post title. I just finished the damned thing. Well, wrote the last sentance.
Oh shit. I forgot the transitions I decided to write when i was done with the rest. Well, I thought I was done. *sighs* Abstract and Absurdist give me almost as much trouble to write a villian. At least in this case it is a lack of words not a feeling of slimyness inside when I get inside a particularly nasty villian's head.
At least the story is finished, the rest is cosmetic.
Now I can repolish the piece I wrote before this one and send it off. (I told myself no working on the Catapult story until I finished this one. yeah, 4 months later...)
*sighs* my work is never done. After I finish these two, I've got at least two Samuel Prior, professional government psycopath stories to finish, as well as the colony at the end of the first terran empire story to finish. (and as Eva said (in nicer words) a bunch of historical crap to cut and show from the viewpoint of the colony instead of the empire. Sorry Eva, but I am not making the heroine in the early years any more realistic. She's a Prior. It's like being a Long but less god-like. And less inbred.)
But if I can sell all five, that is something like 1000-3000 dollars (and the right to join the Science Fiction Writers of America, since 4 of the five are SF. Oh I also need to work on something SF not in my History of the Terran Empire setting. Even the Catapult Rider story is very early in the setting)(one of the few stories I ever hope to write set soon enough that I can hope to live to see it not happen)

Poor Lloyd David. He wanted the computer, but I was on a roll and now he's asleep. I keep forgetting that he sleeps more than I did at his age (I wasn't sure about that initially, but then I remembered, at his age his dad still lived here, and I used to have to sneak to read into the wee wee hours of the night (like 3am)

yet another day with a minimal amount of writing.

Any of you folks have g-mail yet? if so, how is it?

I need other hobbies

So I spent about 1/10th of today manually encrypting a message for the D&D game I ran (That includes developing the cypher, writing the message, reworking the cypher so one of the pieces is actually useful, and then translating the final product. All of this is for something that the pcs are unlikely to even bother trying to translate. A quick warning to any of them who might read this: woking it out without knowing the algorithim is not worth the effort. I almost decided to make a bunch of nonsense into a handout, but I decided that I could go about it this way. (heh, I really like the system I came up with, though it doesn't really lend itself to automation very well as a lot of the difficulty in breaking it lies in the existance of two seperate methods of encryption, both of which are set up so that while there is no single unique way to represent a character, each codeblock represents a specific letter. This makes it much easier for someone who knows the algorithms to read the codeblocks than write them. I'll talk more about this after I run the adventure the paper is for.

As for the "but what? Cryptography in a fantasy setting?" complaints, before Newton entered the Royal Society there were books of code systems. The Chinese had an elaborate cryptography system at least centuries before the rennisance. I suspect that the romans had it, the greeks probably did, anybody with an alphabet will discover basic cryptography almost immediately. And the realms has more secret societies than you can shake a stick at. Mine is probably not the most complicated method in use on Faerun.

A question

Anybody remember a movie where the vice president was a woman and she was being dragged through the wringer in congress and the media because of some photographs of her in her sorority days having sex with two guys at once? I'm trying to remember whhat it was called.

Thanks. I need to get back on track with my cookbook (as well as other things, like finishing the story I promised to show Annie like 2 months ago and actually typing parts of my children's story book. I swear that I have one story from that dine to the rough draft level, even though it is on paper instead of my computer.)

How goes it?

the list-o-meat

Domestic Meat
Cattle (beef)
Chicken
Duck
Egg, Chicken
Goat/Kid
Goose
Lamb
Pig (pork)
Rabbit
Sheep (mutton)
Turkey
Veal


Unusual Domestic Meat
Bison/Buffalo
Camel
Cat
Dog
Horse
Kobe/Mishima Beef
Ostrich
Water Buffalo
Yak

Animal Products and Cuts
Blood
Blubber (any Sea Mammal)
Brains
Cheek
Cock's Comb
Dairy Product, Cattle
Diary Product, Bison, Water Buffalo, Sheep or Goat
Dairy Product, Other (Missed my chance at kumiss)
Eyes
Feet
Heart
Kidneys
Liver goose
Marrow
Reproductive Organs
Rocky Mt. Oysters
Squid Ink
Sweetbreads
Tongue
Tripe/Chitlins
Organs, other Pork Skins

Mammals
Antelope
Armadillo
Bear
Bighorn Sheep
Boar, Wild
Capybara
Caribou
Deer, Cervena
Deer, Other (venison)
Donkey
Elk
Guinea Pig
Kangaroo/Wallaby
Llama/Alpaca
Monkey
Moose
Opossum
Rabbit, Wild/Hare
Rat/Mouse
Reindeer/Caribou
Seal
Squirrel
Walrus
Warthog/Bush Pig
Whale
Wildebeest
Zebra

Reptiles and Amphibians
Alligator
Crocodile
Frog
Iguana
Snake, Other
Snake, Rattlesnake
Turtle, Other
Turtle, Sea
Turtle, Snapping

Birds
Cornish Game Hen Whenever I think of them and am in the store
Dove
Duck, Muscovy
Duck, Wild
Egg, Duck
Egg, Goose
Egg, Ostrich
Egg, Quail
Egg, Other
Emu
Guinea Fowl
Grouse
Owl
Partridge
Pheasant
Pigeon
Pigeon, Squab
Quail
Rooster
Turkey, Wild

Fish
Amberjack
Anchovy
Bass, Freshwater
Bass, Sea
Blackfish/Tautog
Blackmouth
Blenny
Blowfish (Fugu)
Bluefish
Boston Blue
Boxfish
Buffalo Fish
Butterfish
Carp
Catfish
Char
Cod
Croaker
Cusk
Dab
Dogfish
Drum
Eel, Freshwater
Eel, Saltwater
Flounder
Flying Fish
Goatfish/Red Mullet
Greenling/Lingcod
Grouper
Grunion
Grunt
Gunard
Haddock
Hake/Whiting
Halibut
Herring/Alewife
Hoki/Nz Cod
Jack
John Dory
Kingfish
Mackerel
Mahi-Mahi/Dolphin
Marlin
Monkfish/Anglerfish
Mullet
Opah
Opakapaka
Orange roughy
Perch, Freshwater
Perch, Ocean
Pike
Pilchard
Pollack
Pompano
Porgy/Scup/Breem
Pout
Red snapper
Rockfish
Sable
Salmon
Sardine
Saury
Shad
Shark, Cape
Shark, Mako
Shark, Other
Smelt
Snapper
Sole
Spearfish
Spot
Sprat
Sturgeon
Sunfish/Panfish
Swordfish
Tilapia
Tilefish
Trout, Freshwater
Trout, Sea
Tuna
Turbot/Brill
Wahoo (Ono)
Walleye
Whitefish
Wolf Fish
Yellowtail

Shellfish and Other
Abalone
Barnacles
Caviar/Roe
Clams, Hard Shell
Clams, Soft Shell
Crab, King
Crab, Softshell
Crab, Other
Crayfish
Jellyfish
Lamprey
Lobster
Mussels
Octopus
Oysters
Prawns
Ray/Skate
Scallops
Sea Cucumber
Sea Snail (Conch/Whelk)
Sea Urchin (Uni)
Shrimp
Snail
Squid/Cuttlefish

Insects
Ant
Beetle
Cicada
Cricket
Grasshopper
Larvae/Grub
Scorpion
Spider
Termites
Worm

59 that I am sure of.

We live in the world of tomorrow

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/19/boffins_invent_grenade_vaporising_electric/
It is a forcefield for a tank!

*sighs*

Well, I am four rooms from almost done with the adventure. I got an e-mail from one of the players saying that since he and another of the players are going to a wedding, he can't play this week. Oh well. No biggy. Well, except that I don't know if the other player has the same constraint. Oh, and yeah, while I was talking with him scheduling a time and date, he didn't mention a wedding at all. And he's bad at checking much less replying to his e-mail, and I don't have a phone number for asking him. I'd reschedual, but the odds of me getting a hold of all of the players between now and then are slim to zero (seeing as I don't have anything other than an IM username for one of them.) I'm trying to decide if I want to run this adventure with a seriously weakened party or try to throw together something else. Problem: this particular adventure is fairly difficult, combat-wise, and the chat medium for playing doesn't really lend itself to people playing more than one character, not to mention that I have several events here that will work best with more players for input.I'm tempted to just run a one off Amber game in the shape of a real campaign (I know, that is cheating)

Oh, it looks like in the future Saturdays wont work for at least one player. After the game, if anyone is still interested in playing, let's select a better time for everyone.

Product acquisition from www.80scartoons.com

I know that a lot of my friends are too young for this but:

* You wanted to be on Star Search. (Didn't we all?)
* You can remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off. Or even when he had those freaky eyes in "Thriller" at the end of the video.
* You wore a banana clip or one of those slap on wrist bands at some point during your youth.
* You wore French rolls on the bottom of your splatter painted jeans.
* You had slouch socks, and puff painted your own shirt at least once.
* You owned a doll with 'Xavier Roberts' signed on it's butt.
* You knew what Willis was "talkin' 'bout."
* You know the profound meaning of "Wax on, Wax off."
* You can name at least half of the members of the elite "Brat Pack."
* You can remember watching Full House and Saved by the Bell for endless hours.
* You have seen at least 10 episodes of Fraggle Rock.
* You know that another name for a keyboard is a "Synthesizer."
* You'll always hold a special place in your heart for "Back to the Future."
* You know where to go if you "wanna go where everybody knows your name."
* You thought Molly Ringwald was REALLY cool. (Was there an 80's movie she WASN'T in?)
* You know what "psych" means.
* You fell victim to 80's fashion: big hair, crimped, combed over to the side, and you wore spandex pants.
* You wanted to be a Goonie ("Goonies never say die.")
* You knew "The Artist" when he was humbly called "Prince."
* You ever wore fluorescent -neon if you will- clothing.... Hee hee, I had flourescent pink and green ninjaturtles shirts
* You could breakdance, or wished you could.
* You know who Max Headroom is.
* You know, by heart, the words to any "Weird" Al Yankovic song.
* You remember when ATARI was a state-of-the-art video gaming system.
* You own any cassettes or albums.
* You were led to believe that in the year 2000 we'd all be living on the moon.
* You remember and/or own any of the Care Bear glass collection from Pizza Hut.
* "Poltergeist" totally freaked you out.
* You carried your lunch to school in a Gremlins or an ET lunchbox. We were Poor
* You have ever pondered why Smurfette was the ONLY female smurf.
* You wanted to communicate with Synergy, or you wanted green hair like that lead singer of the Misfits.
* You inserted the word "like" into, like, every sentence.
* You know what a Doozer is. See Fraggle Rock.
* You wore biker shorts underneath a short skirt and felt stylish.
* You ever had a Swatch Watch.
* You actually spent countless hours trying to perfect the care-bear stare.
* You had a crush on one of the Coreys (Haim or Feldman).
* You remember when Saturday Night Live was funny.
* You had Wonder Woman or Superman Underoos.
* You have worn a Banana Clip, or knew someone who did.
* You actually thought "Dirty Dancing" was a REALLY good movie.
* You have heard of "Garbage Pail Kids" (and perhaps still have a collection of them).
* ***Extra point*** You have seen the Garbage Pail Kids TV show. (Only one episode was aired.)
* You had a crush on Bo Derek.
* Punks actually "shocked" people.
* You wanted to be The Hulk or Rainbow Brite for Halloween.
* You believed that "By the power of Greyskull, you HAD the power!"
* You thought that Transformers were more than meets the eye.
* You know what a "Whammy" is. ("No Whammy, no whammy, stop!")
* Partying "like it's 1999" seemed SO far away.
* Songs by Debbie Gibson still haunt you to this day.
* 3 words: "Atari" "IntelliVision" and "Coleco". Sound familiar?
* You remember the days that hooking your computer into your TV wasn't an expensive option that required gadgets - it was the ONLY WAY to use your computer!
* You remember "Friday Night Videos" before the days of MTV.
* You ever owned a pair of "Pop-Wheels" - that handy little combination of shoe and roller skate that lasted about a year on the open market.
* You're PO'd that you couldn't really participate in the 60's, pissed that you were a part of the 70's, think you wasted too much time doing stupid, meaningless things in the 80's, and still have no clue what the 90's are all about.
* While in high school, you and all your friends discussed elaborate plans to get together again at the end of the century and play "1999" by Prince over and over again.
* You remember when music that was labeled "alternative" really was.
* You were shocked and horrified at the Challenger explosion (which you were probably watching in school at the time).
* You watched HR Puffenstuff as a child, but now that you're older, you really understand that it would have been much better had you known about drugs at the time.
* You've recently horrified yourself by using any one of the following phrases:
* "When I was younger"
* "When I was your age"
* "You know, back when..."
* "Because I SAID so, that's why"
* "What the HECK is this noise on the radio?"
* "Just can't (fill in the blank) like I used to"
* You can't remember a time when "going out for coffee" DIDN'T involve 49,000 selections to choose from.
* Schoolhouse Rock played a HUGE part in how you actually learned the English language.
* You ever dressed to emulate a person you saw in either a Duran Duran, Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper video.
* At one point during your teenage years, you walked with a noticeable tilt to one side due to the number of plastic rings on that arm.
* "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang was one of the hot new songs when you first heard it at a school dance.
* The first time you ever kissed someone at a dance fell during "Crazy for You" by Madonna.
* There were at least three people in your school that voluntarily went by the names of "Skip" "Buffy" "Muffy" or "Dexter."
* You ever owned one of those embarrassing crimping irons.
* You used to hold in your head the thought that all those gold chains on Mr. T actually looked kinda cool and the thought that Mr. T made millions seemed rational to you at the time.
* You remember with pain the sad day when the Green Machine hit the streets and made your old big wheel quite obsolete.
* You've gotten this far on the list and aren't totally confused.
* The phrase "Where's the beef?" still doubles you over with laughter.
* You read the "Hot Video Games Player's Secrets" guide for Mortal Kombat just so you could find the hidden screen, and play Pong again for old time's sake
* You're starting to believe that maybe 30 isn't so old after all, and it's those people over 40 you have to look out for.
* Your hair, at some point in time in the 80's, became something which can only be described by the phrase "I was experimenting."
* You've ever shopped at a Banana Republic or Benetton, but not in the last five years, okay?
* You're starting to get that "why aren't you married yet" spiel, not just from parents, but now from friends that are married.
* You ever wanted to be gagged with a spoon.
* When someone mentions two consecutive days of the week, the Happy Days theme is stuck in your head for hours on end.
* You remember "Hey, let's be careful out there."
* You're parents wanted you to attend medical school, but you decided it was pointless since Quincy got all the babes, anyway.
* You had a crush on Jon Bon Jovi, or knew someone who did.
* You thought eating Reese's Pieces would attract your own Alien.
* Your name is Jennifer or Jason.
* You have ever called 867-5309.
* You had a poster of Rob Lowe, Kirk Cameron, or Michael J. Fox on your wall.
* You held the top score on Pac-Man.
* You owned a t-shirt that said, "I shot J.R." or know someone who did.
* This rings a bell: "and my name, is Charlie. They work for me."
* You HAD to have your MTV
* You know what a "burnout" is.
* You owned a Jordache anything, or you remember when Jordache jeans were cool.
* You remember when Madonna was just hitting the scene.
* You remember the original version of Windows: Macintosh. Still sucked even then.
* You thought "Weird Science" was a masterpiece.
* You remember any or all of the following: Echo & the Bunnymen, Cutting Crew, Scritti Politti, or Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark.
* Chevy Chase was really funny in those vacation movies.
* You actually know who Rick Springfield is
* You remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.
* You jammed to the Miami Vice theme and thought Jan Hammer was cool.
* Guys: You remember when a guy piercing his ear was radical to the max, but did it anyhow.

proud to be an american... sort of.

I am the first to admit that I didn't research this story at all. It has many points that are easily confirmable so before I use this as anything but anticdotal, I'll have to look into it a little more, but the Guardian is a far more reliable news source than Fox News, or any of Murdock's papers, or a Whitehouse Press Release, or any Clear Channel outlet, or Catholic World News.
With that disclaimer I give you this. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1231089,00.html I read it and turned cold. I couldn't help but cry for this woman who was so mistreated by our nation. We need to get the bastards out of office and get some new bastards installed who will change this sort of thing. I don't give a flying fuck if their actions were legal or not. As a nation, we have lost the moral high ground. Vote against Bush this year folks, if you are at all a decent human being.

more about the campaign

I am currently looking at using AIM for the game. they have a dice bot already and Eva is working on a better one, or was last night. I'm on AIM as Eliz Thann (if you don't remember, don't ask.)

I have three campaign files avaliable so far:

House Rules
http://www.geocities.com/voxpopuli42/HouseRules.html

Character Creation
http://www.geocities.com/voxpopuli42/mikefr2.html

Region Map
http://www.geocities.com/voxpopuli42/frmap.html

The campaign starts in Cormyr in the ruined city of Arabel, I plan on focusing on the heartlands of the Realms (The Western heartlands, The North, Waterdeep, Cormyr, Sembia, the Dales, and parts of the Moonsea)
I'm looking at 7:30 PM right now. I may move it a little earlier if Nick decides not to play.

Go ahead and build a character, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to IM or e-mail me. I'll adjucate any boons for you whenever you ask.

Gaming goodness

Still looking to play AD&D online.
I think I'll end up running it over Aol Instant Messenger.
I still haven't found a dice bot, so I hope anybody who wants to play has dice (I'll trust you to roll. I do when I play face to face I guess.)
So far, I've pinned it doen to Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of next week. Definately not Friday night or Sunday Afternoon. I like lateish Saturday Afternoon if that's good with everyone else. (Heh, there is always scheduling games so that they don't quite overlap with the churched among my friends' church services. ("And It's 7:30 AM, I think it is time to wrap up. Good night folks, feel free to crash on the floor, you two have fun making it to church... *snicker*"

Harry Potter 3 rocked. The cinimatography looked more real and less like something out of a Spielburg computer lab. Not that the magic looked fake, it just looked like it was happening in the real world. The sets were amazing. Unlike the first two, there was a real sense of size for the grounds of Hogworts. Mom and the sibilings were picking nits about things that got left out, but hey, it was a 2.75 hour movie. Give me a break. (Only thing that got left out that I disliked was some stuff right at the end, and the way it cut at the very end was an iffy shot. The map and the credits were way cool effects.
(Things like floating candles looked more like floating candles than like special effects of floating candles in this movie.)

Oh, I just got an e-mail from one of the jobs I applied for. They want me to get my letters of reccomendation sent to them, which I didn't include with the application because I wasn't sure they would even want to look at me. I have absolutely no experience with the field, my degree does nothing to prepare me to be an RA for bright highschool students, but apparently I've got something going for me. Guess I should actually ask my references to send them letters.

Er acquired from one of <lj user ="seiryu_16"> 's friends

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

hey, I was just wondering

Anyone out there know how to add a watermark to an image that only shows up when you print it?

A survey from <lj user="seiryu_16">

Well, this is sort of like a journal entry I guess. I've been bad about this sort of thing.

1. What is your full name? Michael Guthrie Phillips

2. What color pants are you wearing? Beige Kaki Shorts

3. What are you listening to right now? Winamp, Kanno's Stella By Moor

4. Are your legs crossed? At the ankles, right over left.

5. What was the last thing you ate for lunch? Cheese Sandwich with some fritos. (No idea why we had fritos, but hey, 's all good)

6. If you were a crayon what color would you be? Turquoise

7. How is the weather right now? Er, I haven't really been outside today except to bring the dogs out. It was cool and clear, but the sun has been out longer now.

8. Last person you talked to on the phone? Jessica Hodges

9. First thing you notice about the opposite sex? the face around the eyes, or hair.

10. Do you like the person who posted this? Hai

11. How are you today? Not bad, a little tired from staying up reading then waking up to bring out the dogs.

12. Favorite Drink? Cold Diet coke, or Ice Water just this side of slush.

13. Favorite sports? To play or watch? I enjoy playing tennis and ultimate frisbee, even though I am less than sure of the rules of the second. (I also like swimming even if I am not actually any good at it.) Well, for watching, I usually don't have the TV on, but I will occasionally watch a tennis match in real life, or soccer and figureskating on tv. When I am around ESPN2, I sometimes catch pool and magic tournaments.

14. Hair color? Mid brown

15. Eye Color? Hazel with rings of other things.

16. Do you wear contacts? Nada

17. Siblings? Older Half Sister Lee Rae, Younger Half Sister Fred... I mean Brienne, Younger Half Brother Lloyd David

18. Favorite month? Ooh, depends where I am. In the midwest September or possibly October or November. In the PNW it is late winter/early spring.

19. Favorite food? Cusine would be East Asian probably, specific food is a toss up between steamed artichokes, steamed brocciflower, and a couple different seafoods.

20. Last movie you watched? Shrek 2.

21. Favorite day of the year? Er... New Years.

22. Saturday or Sunday? Saturday.

23. Are you too shy to ask someone out? More often than not.

24. Do you like marmite? Er, wouldn't really know.

25. Winter or Summer? Winter

26. Kisses or hugs? Hugs for the most part

27. Chocolate or vanilla? In icecream Vanillia, in candies, Chocolate.

28. Living arrangements? Living at mom's house *sighs*

29. What books are you reading? Er, I'm between books and I returned my books to the library via mom and she only grabbed me one new one and I read it last night. I'm working on a RPG adventure so the 3rd edition core books a little I guess.

30. What did you do last night? Worked on settign the security on my w2k box (that has been offline for more than a year) working on NPCs for an adventure, made shrimp and cauliflour and french fires, read the new M.y.t.h. inc book..

31. Did you wake up before your alarm went off this morning? No alarm, but if I had one this morning wouldn't have ben one where I did. Actually I didn't wake up before the doggy alarm.

32. Do you miss Big Brother yet? I didn't ever see Big Brother, so no.

33. Favorite smell? I like many smells. the forests out west in the mountians after a rain, the honney suckle on my back fence, the vanillia in cookies in the oven.

34. What inspires you? Hum, not really sure.

35. Buttered, plain, or salted popcorn? buttered AND salted.

36. Favorite chips? Pretzles.

37. Favorite car? Er, I'd like a Prius I guess.

38. Favorite flower? honeysuckle in huge numbers.

39. How many keys on your key ring? None anymore.

40. Can you juggle? No.

41. Favorite day of the week? none really

42. Red, or white wine? er, haven't found one I like yet.

43. What did you do for your last birthday? Don't really remember.

44. Do you own a donor card? nope. Intend to fix that sooner or later.

45. What is the first thing you think of in the morning? Huh? No idea. I usually take a good 10 minutes to wake up.

46. What are you doing once this is finished? Finishing the install of my w2k security updates.