First thing? She was so much cuter with the hair she had early on.
Second? I promise that my dark side isn't into obliterating the world. It is way to self centered to want to get rid of all of its toys.
So, give me a topic. Any topic. I'll make a post out of it. Well, at least the best several topics. We'll see how many I get and go from there.
On that note, I'd like to say that I'm not nearly as, well, twenty as I was even 8 years ago, and thus this awake at 2 am without something interesting to do thing? It isn't really working for me. So I think I shall (punctuate randomly) go to sleep. Good night Moon. Remember, all good boys and girls are SPs.
at the grave risk of turning this into a twitter account...
We are Anonymous. We are legion. Expect us.
So you would think that IM would be a perfect medium for all sorts of knock knock jokes. Including ones that are based on word similarities that aren't reflected in the sounds of the words.
Except it is apparently almost impossible to tell a knock knock joke online.
Seriously, I got one subject to the "whose there" section before they got confused and wandered off.
examples:
(11:16:24 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: knock knock
(11:17:28 PM) Subject 1: ?
(11:17:34 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: knock knock
(11:17:42 PM) Subject 1: what sort of monkey is at my door?
(11:17:54 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: knock. knock.
(11:18:32 PM) Subject 1: guess it's not a talking money...
(11:18:40 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: *sigh*
(11:19:37 PM) Subject 1: pats
(11:25:19 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: knock knock
(11:32:30 PM) Subject 2: hey man
(11:32:45 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: knock. knock.
(11:35:30 PM) Subject 2: yeah?
(11:36:34 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: nothing...
(11:36:35 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: hey
(11:36:41 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: how goes
(11:36:42 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: it
(11:36:43 PM) Subject 2: oh.
(11:36:45 PM) Subject 2: who's there?
(11:36:49 PM) roninkakuhito@gmail.com/Home: you know
followed by no responses.
"PH34R M1 L33T PS10N1C SK1LLZ!"
I was reading a bunch of RPG quotes that I'd grabbed from various websites and put in a word document to read later.
The above pretty much sums up 90+ percent of people who want to play psionic characters in d&d.
(I do admit, with the new book, I'm occasionally tempted to play a soul knife. Not that I have a group to play with...)
Oi. I just found out that I hadn't said anything about this.
Right after my Birthday (Nov 23) I gave up the vast majority of available chocolate for ethical reasons (I already don't drink coffee, so that one wasn't a biggy.) This comes up because it is almost girlscout cookie season and all of the GS cookies I like are not on the approved list.
Well, it looks like Summer Glau is going to be type cast for the rest of her career: Hot, emotionally off, occasionally naked, kicks butt. *shrugs* I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, mind you, just what seems to be happening.
*edit*
XKCD ran a comic a while ago saying that they want the film "River Tam Beats Up Everybody." Enter Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.
Heh, this is years overdue.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GAT/S/P d+(-) s:+>: a- C++(++++) U--- P L E? W++ N o? K- w+>++ O? M-() V? PS+>++ PE- Y+>++ PGP+(--)>++(--) t+() 5++ X R@++ tv-- b++++ DI(-) D++(---) G e++>+++>++++ h>+ r* y(!y+)
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
I might do an omnicode block later.
Heh.
The more I see of Rent, the less I like it (though some of the songs are catchy.)
I just watched a fanvid for La Vie Boheme set to scenes from Harry Potter.
Then I went and found a clip of the musical to put it in perspective. Seriously this is the Catcher in the Rye of the generation after mine (I'm the tail end of X front bit of Y. I'm talking about the last half of Y and the whole of the one after it.) Ugh. Only sympathetic character in the whole scene was the kid who sang the framing song that this is a mockery/response to.
Yeah. Oh that had me thinking of Harry Potter. You realize, that kid spent the first six books not learning one of the biggest lessons that Dumbledore was pounding into his head? Book seven, he tells Ginny that he won't let her put herself in danger. Yeah, not your choice mate (though it is treated as such, sort of... She does end up rallying the Riders of Rohan while the Fellowship goes and wanders across the plains and Gondor, but still... That was a huge message of the first six books. You don't get to keep people from doing the things they feel they need to do.
So, I occasionally get odd IMs. Not as often as I'd like, but occasionally.
Today I got an email. As background, a long long time ago I wanted to create an internet site that would let people write essays on various subjects (with a cadre of editors to make them readable.) The goal was to create a point and counter point system. I wanted to call it Voice of the People. (It would have been more skewed toward my positions than something I did today specifically to promote my beliefs, and I never would have realized it.)
It was going to be called Voice of the People.
Thus was born Voiceofthepeople@hotmail.com.
I keep that account active by checking it once or twice a month. Today I had an interesting e-mail:
Hi! I saw 2 representatives from voice of the people on WYOU. They said they were going to Texas. I sure hope they know spanish. My husband and I moved to PA recently and it sure is nice not to see so many illegals. We lived in Houston,TX for 10 years. It's so nice not to here Spanish here. People in PA for the time being should be glad they are not here ilke TX.
Thanks,
Suzanne Rodgers
Apparently there is a hate group called Voice of the People USA...
Well, here's my reply:
Ah, Mrs. Rodgers, I think you have me mistaken for someone else. This account was attached to an old web 1.0 project to create a memetic forum for people of diverse views. I was not, at the time, aware of usenet. I'm afraid that I am not, nor have I ever been, associated with hate groups like VOTPUSA or Alipac. I would suggest that you google their names instead if you with to contact them.
As always,
Michael Phillips
Well, I now own 3 times as many long sleeved shirts as I did this morning. I went to the good will and got two pull over fleeces and a pair of ring neck tees. :( I look better in these than in my usual clothes. :-/
Also I also own two times one more scarf than I have ever previously owned. I was looking for a scarf, and failed to find one in the goal price range at target. So I wandered the mall and popped into Old Navy (3 of the 4 pieces of clothing I got at the good will were from Old Navy too.) They had a bunch of winter gear on a major sale. Half off. Old navy stocks my favorite colors too. (Earth tones) Well, there were 7.50 scarves and 14.50 scarves. I was going to buy 2 of the 7.50s, but that worked out to more than one of the heavier 2 sided 14.50s. So I decided on one of the 14.50s (and gave up on the dove grey scarf... :( I need a job. I could get all clothes horsey, or at least all "have updated my wardrobe in the last decade"y) But then there was an off white 7.50 hiding in the back, and of course the double sided ones were 2 colors that were close to eachother. So I bought the off white fleece scarf and the blue on blue double sided scarf. After taxes and rebate? $11.60.
Ooh I found a pair of really nice clerk's gloves that I can't quite convince myself to afford right now (I either need thin fleece gloves or thin fleece clerk's gloves. In the first case, they'll have an encounter with Mr. Scissors and become clerk's gloves.) Actually they didn't have a price, but they were at Eddie Bauer and among a bunch of 25 and 30 dollar gloves. Even at 30% off because the store is going out of business, that was too much.
I need either a hat that covers my ears, or a goofy hat and some behind the head ear muffs and I'll be able to wear my new leather jacket in the cold and miserable!
I woke up. It is5 degrees outside... the wind chill puts it at -12. The high is supposed to be about 22. Tomorrow the high is 30. By Sunday our high is supposed to be 60. But global warming is a myth. There is no disruption of local, regional, and global weather patterns. It is perfectly normal for the temperature to bounce around like a pachinko ball.
2007 new reads part 2
61 Toast Charles Stross A bunch of neat but outdated short stories by Stross.
62 Accidental Goddess Linnea Sinclair For a change of pace, a SF romance.
These next 15 books were read before #53
63. New Amsterdam Elizabeth Bear My second favorite alternate history, and my favorite vampire book. This one would have been the best thing I’d read up to November 2nd of this year if it wasn’t for:
64. Whiskey and Water Elizabeth Bear I loved this book. Better than the first. There is a scene with the Unicorn and one of the Devils near the end. Absolutely lovely. This crossed with some of E. Bear’s online discussion will probably get me to read The Last Unicorn someday.
65. Young Wizards 1. Diane Duane. The first book by her I ever read prolonged my fading interest in Star Trek fiction. Spock’s World was quite possibly the best ST novel out at the time. These books are very good. They even deal with the magic heroes power creep problem that happens in series so often. (Where the scope of the problem has to get bigger each time until you end up yawning at a threat to the planet. Some of the situations the protags deal with, even later in the set, aren’t earth shaking events. Some of them are, and there is power creep, but it isn’t only power creep. There are reasonable events, though some of them are as world shattering for the main characters as the destruction of the world would be. Lookin forward to the next book. I read these back to back to back, so I’m less sure of exactly where each one lets off.
66 Young Wizards 2. Diane Duane.
67 Young Wizards 3. Diane Duane.
68 Young Wizards 4. Diane Duane.
69 Young Wizards 5. Diane Duane.
70 Young Wizards 6. Diane Duane.
71 Young Wizards 7. Diane Duane.
72 Young Wizards 8. Diane Duane.
73. Red Seas Under Red Skies Scott Lynch Scott’s sophomore novel. There were some bits where I felt the pacing was off (too much time before the pretty ships). I missed the lengthy setting vignettes. I loved the Caper. I think I detect some Ffhrad and the Grey Mouser in these two’s attachments to women (not an exact match, but near the end of this book I was feeling it in my bones.) All taken together, I might have liked it as much as the first, but not as consistantly.
74. Jade Throne Naomi Novik Really quite splendid books.
75. Black Powder War Naomi Novik Looking forward to book 5.
76 First and Only Dan Abnett The first Gaunt’s Ghosts book. I’m a sucker for SF military company stories. These aren’t the Grey Death Legion, but they are still damned good.
77. Myth Alliances Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye. Not quite as good as the old stuff, but they are starting to get back on track. I really expect to like the next couple as much as the one with the cliff hanger and the dragon.
78 Luck in the Shadows Lynn Flewelling
79 Flight of the Dying Sun Rich Wulf Pulpy!
80 Path of Honor Diana Pharaoh Francis Not as much of a response to Mercedes Lackey as the first book was. Still a good book, which makes me happy. (It suggests that I liked the first book on its strengths instead of because it spoke to books I read and enjoyed when I was a teenager.)
81 Path of Blood Diana Pharaoh Francis
82 The Nimble Man Christopher Golden and Thomas Sniegoski
83 Stalking Darkness Lynn Flewellin
84 Traitor’s Moon Lynn Flewellin
85. Blood Price Tanya Huff I’m not really into detective fiction. That said, this vastly outshines the other female protagonist crime fiction I’ve read. I like competent characters, and no matter what else you say for her, Stephanie Plumb isn’t. (These were each good/fun reads too. This helps. Remember not reviews, just little comments to remind me what I’ve read.)
86. Blood Trail Tanya Huff
87 Blood Lines
88 The Boondocks: All the Rage Aaron McGruder
89 Voyage of the Morning Dawn Rich Wulf Not as pulpy as the previous book. Want to see if the first book introduced the framing tool that the last on ended with. While I liked it, I think the series hit the best feel one book back.
90. Pride of Chanur C.J. Cherryh She’s come a long way as a writer since she wrote this book, but a lot of the world building skill that has made her Foreigner universe books so neat was there back then. (I’ve come a long way as a functional person since she wrote this book. I was all of three when it was published. I figure that it is fair enough allowing an author considerable growth over that time span.) Even though her aliens are distinctly alien in thought processes here, it is less there than in her latest works. (Again, 20+ years of extra practice will advance your craft and artistry...) Having said that, I plan on finding the Chanur books and reading them. You should too.
91 Penny Arcade: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings
92 Damn, I’m short a book or two... I’ll post them when I remember them
2007 new reads
1 A Fistful of Data Stephen Dedman Hurm, well, it is a shadowrun novel that isn’t a direct riff on Gibson. Sadly, I liked the one that was a direct riff on Gibsion much better. The “party” was a little bit off, especially with their focus on non-lethals (the Mercs they were fighting would have cleaned up against the squatters.) Oh well, a fun bit of fluff.
2 The Jennifer Morgue Charles Stross. British intelligence meets lovecraft. This one had fewer laugh out loud bits than the first one (The Atrocity Archives) and the best turns of phrase were all near the end, but this did some really nice riffing on the James Bond themes, though I think that maybe the part where the characters discuss the riffs on the James Bond theme was questionable. (Oh I admit, I’m not familiar enough with JB to have picked out the variations that they talked about, and I suspect that most of the audience wouldn’t be either. That said, it strained the fourth wall to the breaking point.) Still a damned good book, with [DELETED FOR SPOILERIFICNESS]. Also, this wasn’t really the second book I read this year, just the second new book. I reread the Belgariad in-between. Still too few books for Early March of a new year, but better than 2.
3. Childe Morgan Katherine Kurtz. Good. I still wanted a new Kelson book, and the title character reached the venerable age of 4 by the last page, but I liked it better than the first in this set. I really hope that the next one covers his teen years and Brian’s young adulthood. (And the Priest whose name escapes me at the moment’s becoming a priest.) Also, I look greatly forward to watching Nigel grow up in the next book.
4. Time Travellers Pay Only Cash Spider Robinson This is supposed to be a Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon book, except that only half of the book is Callahan’s stories, and a fair chunk of what is left is not even non-Callahan’s stories, but essays. Including one of the pieces that establishes Robinson as Heinlein’s hagiographer, though to be fair, this particular essay was written for the book published as a remembrance of RAH. All in all, I thought this was fairly weak for a CCS book,
5. Gust Front John Ringo Military infatuation SF. Took me long enough to hunt down a copy (especially since it was published. For Free. On the Baen Free Library CDs.
5. When the Devil Dances John Ringo More military infatuation SF. I’m enjoying it, though I suspect that the series won’t end to my satisfaction.
6. Command Decision Elizabeth Moon
7. The Hero John Ringo and Michael Williamson Well, set a thousand years in the future of the setting of five, and I can now say that no, it didn’t though the setting is interesting. On the other hand, a thousand years of research and development ought to have brought them further than it did, especially with tame Postileen to add to the exchange of ideas (and the subjugation of the elf folks due to the fact that they directed the war to leave humanity broken at the end of the war.)
8, Deliverer C.J.Cherryh Well, more of what we expect from Bran and the horse people
9. Prodigal By the person who wrote hammerjack. Liked this one at least as much as the last. Seriously I do read non-military and or non-intelligence agency SF. I swear.
10. St. Patrick’s Gargoyle Katherine Kurtz. Um, I’d been saving this for when I got a strong urge to read more Kurtz. I haven’t read the adept books and really ought to someday, but I’ve been wanting to (do something) (Can’t remember what I was going to say
11. Off Armageddon Reef David Webber. Er, Mr Webber sure likes to rewrite the Hornblower books. This one has sailing ships.
12. Furies of Calderon Jim Butcher I grabbed this one because I wanted to read something by Butcher, but my library only has the 7th Dresden Files book (which I’ve already read.) Good. Very different from his detective novels. But different good, not different what the hell is wrong with you man, the old formula fits your style and this doesn’t!
13. The Android’s Dream John Scalzi. YANJSBTIWWTAL. Detectives, intrigue, shooty bits. Also, a nearly extinct breed of sheep and a would be alien overlord.
14. Storm Front (DF1) Jim Butcher
15. Fool Moon (DF2) Jim Butcher
16. Grave Peril (DF3) Jim Butcher
17. Summer Knight (DF4) Jim Butcher
18. Death Masks (DF5) Jim Butcher
19. Blood Rites (DF 6) Jim Butcher
20. Proven Guilty (DF8) Jim Butcher
21. White Night (DF9) Jim Butcher
22. Restoration of Faith and Something Borrowed (DF 0 and 7.5, short stories) Jim Butcher
So I read these straight through over about 4 days. Way better than the last series of mystery/detective/whatever books I read (Stephanie Plum.) Harry is more competent, way more faithful when he is in a sexual relationship with someone, and just a more interesting person than Stephanie. Also, he suffers real consequences for his actions. A few minor complaints. 1 The Fallen Storyline in book nine was resolved way too quickly for this series’ pace. The gun wasn’t fired in act 3, it was fired right after it was pointed out. Harry needs to hurry up and either give the sword to Murphy or start boinking her (his word) or ideally both. I mean sure Butcher is setting up the whole Arthurian line for her, but enough is enough. Hee book nine of approximately 20+3! Yay!
23 Academ’s Fury Jim Butcher
24 Cursor’s Fury Jim Butcher
I often forgot that I was reading something by the same author as the Dresden Files (I did the same with the Wolf books and A Brother’s Price by Wen Spencer.) I liked both sets muchly.
25 Blood Name Robert Thurston. I read the first book in this set years and years ago. It is battle tech, mostly set before and during the Clan Invasion from the view point of a member of Jade Falcon. Honestly? These books fall prey to the same weakness that a lot of game fiction (and a lot of non-game fiction) do. Books one and two spend way too much time paraphrasing the descriptions of various things from the setting books. (In the case of Battletech Fiction, that goes both ways. Sometimes descriptions from books are co-opted for manuals.) It wasn’t quite as bad as Faith and Fire where the characters were carefully stated to have exactly the load outs that were listed in the codex and much of the description came directly out of the codex’s fluff text.)
26. Falcon Guard Robert Thurston Some of the same problems as the first two, though with less “it came from the rulebook” stuff in it and tighter plotting and writing. Not as good as the later Grey Death Legion stuff or the best of the TSR books, but much better than the first two.
27. Mutineer’s Moon David Webber
28. The Armageddon Inheritance David Webber
29. Heirs of Empire David Webber
These three are a trilogy together. Fun reads... themes that Webber has explored in depth. Glad I read Off Armageddon Reef fist, or it would have felt like more of a rehash than it did. (Webber has no less than 3 distinct settings where characters uplift a society’s weapon making to something just before the Napoleonic Wars. Two of them make an attempt to produce smaller versions of Horatio Hornblower’s style of navy. (The third set? Patience. They are 30,31,32,and 33.) By the way, the black power warfare in this series is actually only book 3. Book two is a hidden invaders story and book 2 is an endless hordes of aliens that must be stopped, but act in particularly silly manners story. Book 3 is the shipwrecked in a world wide theocracy story, one that feels very much like Off Armageddon Reef.)
30 March Upcountry John Ringo and David Webber
31 March to the Sea John Ringo and David Webber
32 March to the Stars John Ringo and David Webber
33 We Few John Ringo and David Webber
Shipwrecked. Endless Combat turns spoiled prince into bloodthirsty killing machine who gets the job done at any cost. 8 months of Endless Combat does the opposite to a number of his body guards. Stone age to early black powder natives and an endless succession of localized uplifting from a pike and shield unit from warriors to arbuquses to rifles and proper cannons as they walk across a continent. Political upheaval and space navies in the last book. Space combat that is remarkably similar to the Harrington books. (no surprise there.) These books probably sparked much of the research that lead to the ones above and Off Armageddon Reef.
34 Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall Bill Willingham et al. This is a prequel to the Fables comics with a framing story set several hundred years earlier and a bunch of sub stories set throughout the history of the fable worlds. It was enough to convince me to add it (the comics) to my “hunt down as soon as you have money again” list.
35 Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. Cory Doctorow See 36 for my hagiography of Cory. This book is an incredibly cool mixture of developing culture and mythmaking. (At least I think the son of the mountain and a washing machine are new bits of myth. It feels like Gaiman’s American Gods mythology but created from whole cloth.) GO check it out from his website (www.craphound.com,) then go buy your own copy.
36 Overclocked Cory Doctorow Hum. Award winning author. Postpost cyberpunk. Cory is an active member of the free as in speech movement, working against people who would prefer all expression to come at the sole control of major media cartels. Open internet, communications systems that aren’t controlled or owned by governments or cartels, a dozen other things. Cory is also a damned good writer from the generation that’s giving us Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, Sarah Monette, and John Scalzi (I know there is some time overlap, and I’m being research lazy). He’s a proponent of creative commons, and before I’d ever picked up any of his books, I’d been reading his work on boingboing. This collection of short stories is, as expected, excellent.
37 Breakfast With the Ones You Love Eliot Fintushel Urban Fantasy. Home made Talmudic space ships. Looks that kill. Teen Angst. Russian Mafia. Boxing. Bringing about the Eschaton. A talking cat. A good deal of fun within these pags.
38. Making Comics Scott McCloud. This is Scott at his best. Witty, excited, full of the promise of the media and new technologies, lucid and coherent, grounded. There are hundreds of how to draw comics books. There are many fewer on the craft and art of all of the other tasks. Only part of a book though. The rest is online, though I haven’t read it. Liked this one almost as much as Understanding Comics.
39. What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? Neilf Comins A double handful of what if scenarios about the formation of the earth and how small (and large) changes would influence the development of life on earth. Pretty good. A couple points here and there that could go either way, but then that is always the danger in speculating about things like changes propagating through deep time.
40. Mystic and Rider Sharon Shinn Fun read. Actually grabbed this one because the cover of the second or possibly third book grabbed my attention. Fantasy novel with a romance sub plot. Hope it stays that way. (I have read too many series like that where they spiraled into Romance Novels with fantasy trappings by the 3rd or 4th books. We’ll see.) The first one is worth a read at least. (The worldbuilding exposition/dialogue thingy at the beginning was a little clumsy, but I don’t think that there is any really good way to do an info dump, and false transparency is apparently in vogue at the present. Personally? I’d prefer narrator asides *coughcoughHeinleincoughcoughLynchcoughcough* Not that anything I’ve ever written with a “here’s how the world works dialogue worked as well as this one.
41. Gradisil Adam Roberts. Not bad, a story of the first three generations of the settlement of near earth space. The only thing that really annoyed me here were the changed spellings for “flavor” in the second two generations. Switching x for z seemed silly, and the k for ck was sometimes misapplied (in one word, can’t remember which, he switched a ck that didn’t make the k sound and left a c that did. The worst of all though was wat for what. At least k for ck replaces essentially the same sound, but wat and what don’t sound alike.
42. Fast Forward Lou Anders (ed) This one was the first of two books of short stories I read with very nice stories from (mostly) the latest two generations of fantasy and science fiction authors. Between them, there was exactly one story I’d read before. This is a novel experience. The SF is strongly tilted toward exploring the noosphere these days. (With Gibson’s next cyber punk being set in the near past, that makes sense) Oh has a story by Elizabeth Bear in it.
43. Fantasy The Best of the Year 2006 Rich Horton (ed) This would be the second, and the source of the story I’d read (by Neil Gaiman.) Another Elizabeth Bear (and one I liked a whole lot. Now I has to buys her New Amsterdam books)
44. The Last Colony John Scalzi The last of the John Perry/Jane Sagan books (or so he claims) Well written, enjoyable conclusion to the set. Wonderfully done, except for the werewolf problem. (They were literary tools first and almost only. Their egress was way too abrupt.) Buy it.
45. Starship: Pirate Mike Resnick Sequel to Starship: Mutany. A decent Caper Story though it is still no Return of Santiago. I’m looking forward to the next one.
46. Yellow Eyes John Ringo and Tom Kratman Not as good as the main line Posteleen books. Not as Bad as Cally’s War or Ghost.
47. The Thirteenth House Sharon Shinn Another novel of the Twelve Houses. The romance plots are still edging too far into the A plot, but this is still no Jean M Auel’s descent into darkness. Still looking forward to more of these. (By the way, apparently each book will have a different main character. Cool device, though we’ll see how it goes with the quieter people. A lot less barely hidden world building.
48. Dark Moon Defender Sharon Shinn More Twelve Houses. Romance plot worked much better as part of the story, didn’t seem to impinge upon the A plot at all. World Building was MUCH better this time. Still want more.
49 Cally’s War John Ringo Ugh, Just Ugh
50 Ghost John Ringo And I thought it couldn’t get any worse. At least this one didn’t steal the rape scene from Friday and use it twice. Of course, it came up with its own rape scenes
51 Spindrift Alan Steel I loved the first book. I didn’t even make it to page 10 of the second. Not probably the book’s fault. I was distracted. This one makes me think I should go back and read Coyote Rising.
52 Harry Potter 7 JK Rowling. Read it a bit before it came out. I did wait for a transcribed copy of the photographed copy. Some good some bad, Snape’s denouement was handled poorly.
53 The Game Inventor’s Guidebook Brian Tinsman Very nice book, if a little short and sparse on details. I want to get a copy.
54 Empire of Ivory Naomi Novik I’ve now read the whole set in print to date. I like. Very tasty
55Ghostmaker Dan Abnett More Gaunt’s Ghosts. This one is a set of vignettes featuring the name characters of the Ghosts. I loved the inquisitor and the eldar chapter.
56 Necropolis Dan Abnett The Ghosts face Chaos while defending one of the hive cities.
57 Alanna: The First Adventure Tamora Pierce This set was nice, but it got stronger as it went. Imagine that? An author hitting her stride as she gets further into a series? Never. There is a 15 years after book I want to read too.
58 In the Hand of the Goddess Tamora Pierce
59 The Woman Who Rides Like a Man Tamora Pierce
60 Lioness Rampant Tamora Pierce
So yeah. Apple Loses AGAIN. (Still?)
Various family members received itunes gift cards for Christmas.
First, there is now browseable web store. You have to download their bloatware in order to buy things from them. Someone should explain why this is wrong to them with a very heavy club. And very small words.
Second, I went and downloaded their bloatware last night. I clicked the link, it downloaded. I tried to install it this morning and received an error message stating that I have to have windows XP or Vista in order to install this software. I'm running 2000. They have a windows 2000 machine here. I'm not used to xp software not working on 2k. Strikes me that the sort of person who purposefully used an apple product is the sort of person who would be using Windows ME, but there is no ME support at all.
There is a 2k version of the software. It is marginally less bloated than the xp software and reasonably hidden from the download screen. Fucking bloatware. You should not need 50 meg of compressed software to play music and video and *%$# the customer up the @$$ DRM.
All of this hadssel is just so that I can look at the list of things these people are trying to get me to pay them money for... Yeah... Bastards.
Well, after playing around with the Firefox documentation for a while (It could definitely be clearer and more accurate... the settings for Firefox need a more transparent interface. I should be able to extract all of the paths the software uses from within the UI.) I have a portable copy if Firefox. I do wish that the mid level configuration options for Firefox were a little more ignorant user friendly. Someone should slap together a program to clone your Firefox installation to removable media and manage configuration file updates between the original and the clone. (I wrote a triad of batch files to manage the upkeep. One to run Firefox from the thumb drive and then two to update my configuration files. I know I know. Open source, saying "someone should do x" can be answered with "well, why don't you do x?" My answer? I'm not a programmer. I know just enough basic to use qbasic to solve simple math problems. Beyond that I'm still lost. (And as evidenced by my last posted qbasic solution to a problem, I'm not 100 percent on that either. Thanks again silvrayn
But yes, I can now bring my thumb drive with me and have my copy of Firefox to use. This makes me happy. Having a USB 2.0 card for my computer would make me happier than I am now of course... Of course, I don't think that would make the front USB ports 2.0, so it isn't a flawless victory. I'd need a 2.0 compatible hub too.
11:57 PM me so, you should have mom read this and then discuss the issue with you...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/19/spears.pregnant.feedback/index.html
this is cnn.com here ladies and gentlemen...
11:58 PM I weep for the republic
12:02 AM My Brother: agh, stupid dial-up
12:04 AM me: heh
buy yeah, you should really do that
My Brother: just did
12:05 AM me: jeez
really?
My Brother: yeah
we're in the process
me: quick disclaimer, I didn't actually read the article
12:06 AM My Brother: yeah you did, you just didn't know it
the rest of the article says exactly what you got from the title, it's just a tad more surreal
me: oh the url says it all?
My Brother: yeah
" How do you talk to kids about Britney's sister?"
that really sums it up
12:07 AM me: I will get back to you when I'm done trying not to wake matt up with my laughter
12:09 AM My Brother: good luck, you'll need it
though I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry, really
CNN? Really?
12:10 AM me: cnn
My Brother: America's most respectable network is covering the difficulties of talking to your children about the Spears' family lives
me: oh you can do both but the laughter needs to be bitter
their website is
My Brother: and giving tips
12:12 AM me: our national infrastructure's upkeep is done by people who would mostly feel that they benefited from this information, assuming that they ran across it and read it
12:16 AM "This is one of those things that should just not happen. These days, by the age of 16, kids probably know more about sex than their grandparents. ... "
12:17 AM what?
My Brother: lol
12:18 AM me: The average 16 year old's grandparents quite likely grew up in the America that the Kinsey study is about
12:19 AM My Brother: lol
12:21 AM me: mom grew up in an era when mainstreet movie theaters ran x rated films
12:22 AM My Brother: yeah, they might've gotten that bit wrong
me: but apparently somewhere between generation x and generation y, sex outside of marriage was invented
My Brother: indeed
I hung some lights today, put up all of my ornaments ((all 6 of them) then gout out the floral wire and my action figures/minis collection and hung a selection of them from hooks. The minis would have been cooler on a tree though. I set up encounter groupings of minis, and a 2/3d arrangement would have been neat.
Heh, I need a Michaelangelo, a Raphael, and a Casey Jones. Also some more mechs. And maybe a squad of Eldar Harlequins or Tyranids. With a tree, I'd field some iggy foot soldiers and a Leman Russ. Ooh, I also have the new years statue from Reaper and some BGC figures that I could put up if I get them painted before the holiday.
So this day gets better and better...
First I woke up with a deflated bed. Turns out that the plastic has a little bitty hole. I repaired the hole.
Then it was too rainy to make it to the library.
Then I helped some new friends/local game store pack for a move that is going to put them just far enough away that I can't really ever get there this winter.
Then, this evening, the sealant had dried, so I started reinflating my mattress. Split the original hole wide open. My bed had been losing structural integrity anyway, but now it is a plastic choking hazard. Thank goodness for the couches.
The time stamps on many of my chat conversations look like this:
5:20 PM me: hee hee hee
5:21 PM talking about the philosophical positions of strong Cartesian skepticism and there being no free will: "Actually, I take back the statement that nothing useful comes from either position. They can act as specialized plumage in student-philosopher mating rituals, sort of a short hand way of indicating to other young philosophy students which seemingly profound sorts of things you espouse, thus identifying yourself as a potentially suitable mate for like-minded philosophy students."
6:23 PM Eva: snikers
10:01 PM me: I liked it
10:02 PM I imagine a series of articles about the mating habits of the North American Collegiate Philosophers
10:04 PM Eva: heh
that's not research I would want to do
me: rituals
not habits
10:05 PM 'cause yeah
seriously
10:06 PM Eva: still not research I'd want to do :P
me: most coffee shops are non-smoking now
the research is much less dangerous than it used to be
10:07 PM little bit of vics vapor rub on your upper lip...
10:10 PM Eva: snerk
Faith is he belief in something in the absence of evidence.
It is not the belief in something in the face of evidence.
Some people maintain their faith in the face of evidence, but as soon as you have evidence for a proposition, you have moved from the realm of faith to the realm of knowledge.
In the Jeudeo-Christian mythos, Humans have faith in God. Angels have knowledge of God. Angels do not have faith, because they have direct experience of the existence of God.
Ignoring for the moment the Cartesian Skeptic (and really, they suck at parties and complain when you strike them with solid objects, so by all means continue ignoring them after the moment is past), I have faith in any number of things that I have accepted provisionally as true. Should someone demonstrate them to be untrue, I'll probably kick a bit, but I'll eventually switch from having faith that x to having knowledge that not x.
linguistics nerd fight is still going on!
r maybe metaphysics nerd fight
We've got the pair of rabid atheists
the theist scientist
the linguistic prescriptivist
the linguistic descriptivist
the agnostic fact corrector times at least two
three flavors of logician, none of which seem to have studied logic
oh and then there's the guy taking snide rhetorical flourishes at face value to annoy who make snide rhetorical flourishes.
Good times.
So Cold. My own fault, but still...
On the up side I got the hash browns I wanted today, broke down and went to burger king. On the down side? I forgot they used croissants, so I got the wrong sandwich to go with them. And I had some diet coke. This is, by the way, why I am cold. I pretty much don't drink anything without ice any more (except soda from a can.) I had 3 32 oz diet cokes, so I had about 32 oz of ice and 64 oz of cold liquid. Assuming that the Diet Coke is pretty close to plain water.
By the way, the numbers below are approximations and estimates, not the real thing. In other words this is just a back of the envelope calculation based on poor input data.
Let's say that the ice is held at 5 degrees below freezing. No idea if that is correct, but it seems reasonable.
Also, since it was hard ice, the coke wasn't a coke/ice slurry, so we'll say it was 5 degrees above freezing.
Also assume that my body self regulates to 37 degrees.
Specific heat of ice in cal/g is .5, water is 1.0
Latent heat of water is approximately 80 cal/g going from solid to liquid.
32 oz is about 946 ml so I had approximately 1892 grams of diet coke and 851 g of ice (ice is .9 g/ml)
Heating the water to 37 degrees will run about 32 cal per gram or 60,544 cal. Heating the Ice to 0 degrees costs 2.5 cal per gram or 2127.5 cal. melting it at zero costs 80 cal/g or 68080 cal (notice it takes more heat to melt ice without changing the ice's temperature than it does to heat more than twice as much water 32 degrees.) then we have to heat that ice 37 degrees at a cost of 37 cal/gram or 31487 cal. Grand total? about 162,000 calories. (little c)
That is enough to drop a blob of water the mass of an average adult human male 2.3 degrees. Of course I weigh a great deal more than the average adult human male, but it is still quite a hit on my core temperature (and it isn't applied evenly across my body, having originally hit the center bits of my body, thus convincing my body to reduce blood flow to the extremities until the big old chunk of cold is passed. (Notice that unless the ice was extremely cold, the ice's starting temperature was not particularly important. With my assumptions, it comes out to 1.3 percent of the total heat needed to warm it back up. This is way less than the margin of error on my assumptions.)
Long number story short? I'm cold and it is my own damned fool fault.
DDR Remix
Oh jesus, there is a DDR for the WII that involves upper body movement. When will the madness stop?
so today was mostly good bits. not really great bits, but pretty good. Except the fucking hash browns.
I got up this morning and said to myself "Hey self, you want hash browns, specifically little round cakes of fried potato pieces. Go to the store and buy some of them so that you don't go to burger king and buy breakfast there."
Trip to the store was good. I bought several things I needed, and a couple of things that would have been nice a while ago. And the store brand seasoned potato rounds.
All of them were seasoned potato (insert shape) but these? Extra special. Apparently in the the store brand "seasoned" means onion powder. Bastards. I should have spent the 50 cents on the Orieda ones. Bet they didn't have onion powder. Seriously, if we are going to season Michael's breakfast foods with pungent dirt orbs, couldn't we at least use garlic? It tastes better and doesn't make me hate the scent of the inside of my mouth. They tasted, well not all the way to good, but alright. I now have freezer food for the day when I should have gone shopping three days ago.
Should have gone to burger king.
Anywhere But Here
It had dug its way into a dead end, so the author has recently restarted it. About being trapped where you don't want to be. We'll see which of the zany bits get reintroduced. So far death and the demon are back.
Ctrl Alt Delete Possibly the second most popular gaming comic. It has branched out from joke a day, though often still brings the funny.
Home on the Strange A neat geek culture/relationship comic, sadly ending soon.
College Roomies from Hell!!!" One of the first comics I ever read. College Humor, Were Coyotes, Laser Eyes, Violent Girl with Guns, Everything Falls apart. I'm hoping that the current story line resolves soon. </a>
BetaPwned Semi-autobiographical comic. If you like somewhat snarky journal comics...
Afterstrife This is a promising little life adter death comic. I really hope it picks back up soon though.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Joke a day geek/surreal humor. Think XKCD without quite as much geek and not quite as much humor. A lot more of the humor of despair in this one.
PVP Used to be a gaming comic. Did a Dilbert (though it kept more of the funny than Dilbert did.) Now it is a workplace humor comic.
Order of the Stick Best RPG comic I've ever seen. Uses extended stick figures to tell a story set in a D20 fantasy setting. Lots of Rules Humor, Lots of characterization, read one comic off my list and this would be a good choice.
Unshelved Library Workplace Humor. Consistently good, almost always funny.
Something Positive Brutal Transggressive Snarky, hilarious. Read.
Nukees Geek humor set in an Engineering Department at a university. One of the grand old statesmen of the webcomics scene. Still Funny.
Evil Inc. A spin off of one of my favorite dead comics, this one is about a company for and by super villains. Not as good as Greystone Inn, but it is still above average for my list.
Alpha Shade Most excellent artwork. A lot slow to update. Slowly telling a story in two time frames.
Real Life Comics A slice of life autobiographical geek comic. It has been running for a long while and is thus fairly different than it was in the beginning. There was a phase where it diverged completely from the author's life, but it is getting back on track. I likes it alot.
Least I could Do This comic brings the funny a great deal. Which is good, since a lot of it is fairly crude sex humor.
The Whiteboard" Paintball comic. About paintball geeks. Go team.
I'm Blue Hum, this one hasn't updated since September 4th (currently December 2nd). Pretty consistently funny though.
Narbonic This one ended a while ago. Currently the artist is rerunning it with author's comments. The comments do have some spoilers, but you can read the whole archive without comments still. (And it isn't behind a pay wall any more. Major bonus points for that. Pay walls are like micropayments, not useful tools. Either one will generally convince me not to bother with a comic. It is why I don't read Digger.
Schlock Mercenary Best epic SF comic out there. Howard Taylor is making a living of his comic, supporting a fairly large family while doing it (and no pay wall, imagine that.) The artwork improves greatly as time passes. Go read this.
Wapsi Square Supernatural something or another. Worth a read.
Megatokyo It has shifted from the tone of the old days, but I find that it is reliably good, even if the updates are sporadic. This is one of the first 3-4 webcomics I read (CRFH, MT, Exploitation Now, Roomies, half of them are dead comics now. *sigh*)
Questionable Content Near Future Indy Music/Culture Comic with Snarky Barristas and sentient tiny robots.
Malfunction Junction Snarky Funny Autobiographical Comic.
Buck Godot This is my first entry in the Foglio series. If the author's last name doesn't sell it to you, I'm not sure I can either. Read it.
Sluggy Freelance I keep thinking that this one will recapture the magic of the early story lines, but after the "Eternal Stay win the places that nothing happens part one and two" I'm pretty sure I sould just give it up. Read the archive and stop at Timeless Space.
Candi Not as good as Sluggy Freelance was at its height, but better than it is now.
Antihero For Hire Superhero Comic of the toys sort. I started reading this because the author's earlier comic was ending. I think this is a much stronger entry.
Gene Catlow I liked the early bits better than the later bits, but fairly good anthropomorphic comic.
Three Panel Soul The occasionally updated comic from the Mac Hall guys now that Mac Hall is no more.
Friendly Hostility I really liked it better when it was about the parents of the current cast.
Devil's Panties Hee Hee Hee
UC Highschool Relationship Comic gone Supernatural. Better than my recap sounds. Pretty Artwork.
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic From the view point of the monsters. Frequently NSFW in the way that Disney would do NSFW if Disney did NSFW. Good, though the original viewpoint characters are currently MIA.
A Softer World This is the gentle despair side of the XKCD SMBC ASW scale.
Short Packed Workplace Humor, toy store stuff. A spinoff of It's Walky, which was itself a spinoff of Roomies. Momentum is most of what keeps me reading this one. It is okay, but I want great from the author.
What's New With Phil and Dixie More stuff from the Foglios. That should sell you.
Ozy and Millie A neat kids in school comic. The comic is great, the creator is somewhat of a jerk. (He has a public journal, but has a hissy fit whenever anyone disagrees with him. I mean that's his right (and I wasn't the one disagreeing with him, I just found his attitude offensive) and all, but jeez sounding like the blackhats there.
Erf World This does with the tropes of minis wargames what OOTS does with Fantasy RPGs. Updates are extremely sporadic.
Zortic Funny SF, FTL society with a culture that is based largely on old media broadcasts.
VG Cats Gamer Comic. Very Sporadic Updates.
Apple Geeks Geek comic along the lines of Life of Riley and Exploitation Now (the scope shifts drastically several times.) Updates random.
Goblins A fantasy gamer comic based on an obvious in the setting version of D20 rules. The heroes are a band of Goblins. Very nice comic.
DnDorks Gamer comic mostly from this side of the table. Pretty good, a few hilarious strips.
Cectic Snarky observational comic, sympathetic to the liberal and Atheist side of the debate. I find it funny much more often than not.
Planet Karen A most excellent Journal comic. It does exactly what reading through a person's journal does if the journal is well written. It makes/lets you come to care about the person's successes and failures. Read this. Also? She's British, so for those of us out there who are American, there are the occasional bits of delightful cognitive dissonance.
Fantasy Realms Neat fantasy comic, almost as pretty as Alpha Shade.
Girl Genius This is the Foglios current work. Full of awesome, it was originally a print comic that was slowly sinking due to expenses. They've turned it into a webcomic, their readership has increased, their sales have increased, and there is (as in all good webcomics) no pay wall.
General Protection Fault Was geek office humor, has transformed several times, is currently coming out of one of the slow times.
Girls With Slingshots Two borderline lushes, a fair amount of the funny. A talking Cactus or two.
Penny Arcade The gamer comic. Unafraid to make the joke hang on a 3000 word post, this comic has fun for everyone, assuming you aren't afraid of a little profanity.
Angels 2000 SF Military comic in an all female navy (Plague of some sort wiped out all of the males (sort of silly there, there is always someone immune in a population of 3 + billion.)
XKCD Stickfigure Nerd Comic, references are occasionally a little obscure. Otherwise they are very obscure. Sometimes poignant, usually funny, always full of awesome.
So what comics am I missing these days?
Anyone have essays they like about writing believable female characters, especially for video games, but in any medium would be good?
I was initially asking for a friend, but I'd like a solid list for my own uses too.
*edit*
Let's expand that to writing for people who are "other" to yourself. (Though if you'd mark the female specific ones, that would also be good.)
From 
001. Real name → Michael
002. Nick name → Nothing that my friends use that isn't a diminuitive of the above... wait, Nate calls me "Pig Fucker" from time to time... He's kind of abusive like that.
003. Status → Single
004. Zodiac sign → Sheep
005. Male or female → Male
006. Elementary → Garth Elementary, Georgetown Kentucky; Capshaw Elementary Cookville Tennesee; OCEMS, Rising Sun Indiana; Pope John Elementary Madison Indiana.
007. Middle School → Shawe Memorial Middle School/High School Madison Indiana
008. High School → Shawe Memorial Middle School/High School Madison Indiana
009. Smart → I like to think so
010. Hair color → Brunette
011. Long or short → Short to Medium.
012. Loud or Quiet → It goes in phases.
013. Sweats or Jeans → Khakis all the time.
014. Phone or Camera → Neither has a great appeal to me, but I own a phone.
015. Health freak → Nope.
016. Drink or Smoke? → Nope. Can't stand smoke, can't taste anything but the alcohol when I drink.
017. Do you have a crush on somebody right now? → Not really. I could without too much effort though.
018. Eat or Drink → Eat.
019. Piercings → None.
020. Tattoos → None
021. Righty or lefty → Left Handed.
FIRSTS :
023. First piercing → None
024. First best friend → Jasmine.
025. First award → Second Place in the 3rd Grade Science Fair.
026. First crush → See above.
027. First pet → Bandit the dog.
028. First big vacation → Florida Every Summer with dad.
030. First big birthday → 5th grade sticks out. The year I bought my first D&D stuff.
CURRENTLY:
049. Eating → 8 hours ago I had some pomegranate seeds. Just got up so no food yet.
050. Drinking → Ice Water again not recently.
052. I'm about to → Start my day.
053. Listening to → My computer fan and my heater's fan.
054. Plans for today → Conquer the world. Or get a job. Either way.
055. Waiting for → What comes.
YOUR FUTURE
058. Want kids? → Yeah.
059. Want to get married? → Some day. Kids seem to be way easier with a spouse, among other things.
060. Careers in mind → Writer/Game Designer/World Saver.
WHICH IS BETTER WITH GIRL/BOY?
068. Lips or eyes → Eyes.
070. Shorter or taller → Both have their attractions.
072. Romantic or spontaneous → Yes.
073. Nice stomach or nice arms → Arms
074. Sensitive or loud → sensitive. though I do like a girl who can make some noise.
075. Hook-up or relationship → Of the two? Relationship
077. Trouble maker or hesitant → troublemaker.
HAVE YOU EVER
079. Drank bubbles → Seriously? Like Bubble Soap? My mommy taught me not to drink soap. Freak.
080. Lost glasses/contacts → Nope.
081. Ran away from home → Nope
084. Broken someone's heart → Nah
085. Been arrested → No.
087. Cried when someone died → yeah
DO YOU BELIEVE IN
089. Yourself → Yeah
090. Miracles → Nah, stocastic events all the way.
091. Love at first sight → Nah, that funny feeling isn't quite love.
092. Heaven → I'd be thrilled if heaven and or hell existed. Though if it is as some folks paint it, I'd have some issues with their creator.
093. Santa Claus → Not currently.
094. Sex on the first date → If that's what you are dating for...
095. Kiss on the first date → *shrugs* sure.
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY
097. Is there one person you want to be with right now → Yeah
098. Are you seriously happy with where you are in life → I could see things being much much better.
099. Do you believe in God → See 92.
There are many ways to summarize a long article. In this case? I think we are well served by 3 words: "Women are crazy."
*Edit 11:39am*
Okay. To clarify, there are women who aren't crazy. That article isn't talking to them. Also, some men are crazy in the same manner as the women outlined above. Remember X are A is not saying Y are not A. (or in the revised case, "there exists a class of X that has property A" does not imply "there does not exist a class of Y that has property A")
So just about everyone knows the half plus seven rule. (Well not everyone, but many people. In short: "Don't date someone less than half your age plus seven years." If you are in the age range where this breaks down mathematically, then you can wait a few years to start dating.)
Well inherent in that rule is this set of equations:
o = older person's age
y = younger person's age
n = number of years until a given match is acceptable
The rule itself*:
.5*o+7=y
The rule from the younger person's view point:
2y-14=o
and how many years it will be before an (o,y) grouping won't be a little creepy anymore:
o-2y+14=n
(for values of y where y<.5o+7) This is what happens when I get bored and I have an equation that models a situation. So any other interesting things you can do with this set of equations that I'm missing? * By rule, of course, I mean guideline *edit* There was an error in equation 2, pointed out to me by Adrienne I fixed it now, the + 14 should have been a - 14.
So, bike troubles. All expected. I am probably 75-100 lbs over my preferred weight and more than that over my by the charts goal weight. With that in mind, the bike I bought was as cheap as I could make it. I expect it to last until I am in much better shape, at which time I will buy a better bike. (Of course, I tend to gain muscle for a long time before I start losing weight, so we'll see.) Well, cheap bike plus lots and lots of me means that the cheap plastic pedals are going to crack and break. I could have just bought replacement metal ones when I bought the bike, but I decided to hold off. The right pedal is now half the device it used to be. Unfortunately it is less than half as functional as it used to be. I'll be replacing it before the plastic falls all the way off. Problem two, the breaks are shot. This was also expected. I tend to do silly things that other Bloomington bikers don't do, like stop at stop signs. Since a fairly large portion of the stop signs hereabouts are at the bottom of hills, this means lots and lots of break wear. Good news? Breaks cost a hair more than intertubes. Bad news? While Target carries bike tubes, it does not carry bike breaks. I'll have to go out to Wal Mart for that one (actually replacement pedals are also not available at Target.)
Know what is almost as annoying as people referring and linking to a locked post in a comment thread? People referring and linking to a locked post in a public post. Urgh. (Yeah, I caught that, I said a link in a comment is more annoying than a link in the primary post. That's because the comment is part of a discussion, and supporting evidence in a discussion should be accessible.)
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