Now 90% More Bitter

putting this here so that i don't lose it

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:51:55 GMT

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:05:45 GMT

post a pleasant and peaceful breakfast chez scarlettina, we have spent the rest of today doing domestic things with the LotR movies on in the background. (owning the Two Towers on DVD means never having to watch the Frodo and Sam parts, and pausing to sing taking the hobbits to Isengard.)

C volunteered to make dinner, and that's when i remembered that today is JRR Tolkien's birthday.

books read 2010

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:50:10 GMT

books i failed to complete don't count, rereads are noted

under siege

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:40:08 GMT

i've had a lot more headaches lately. nothing out of standard pattern for me, tension that rolls from my right shoulder, up my neck, and feels like a c-clamp with contacts behind my eye and at the back of my skull. i know the warning signs and how to effectively treat them. but they had been a monthly or less occurrence, and now they are weekly or more.

this doesn't really fit with the general sense of peace in my household, the books i've been devouring*, a new quilt underway, a good last session of D&D before the holidays, and lovely visits with friends (just passed and planned in the near future).

this does fit with 2009, though. i'm coiled and waiting for the next blow.** i was going to post this quote from warren_ellis earlier today, but i thought that i was just asking for trouble. with more lousy news coming from all quarters it seems more appropriate than ever:

"I’m starting to get the sense that 2009 wants to finish me off before it dies of old age. A calendrical unit yelling "I’m taking you with me, you bastard!" from its vanishing final paper bunker marked December, every spent day a room deleted from the structure until 2009 is finally huddled in one small box marked 31 and screaming obscenities in stark terror."

*i'm on a big Bujold kick. somehow i avoided reading any of her books previously, and now i have a steady flow coming in on library holds. they seem to be the grilled cheese and tomato soup of speculative fiction - i don't know that they're terribly good, but they are fatty and salty and filling and exude comfort. the only minus is that Baen has the worst art direction possible. i find myself wanting to hide the covers when i read on the bus because they are so embarrassingly ugly. i have an idea for an epic linkpost of bitching about this, but may never get around to it.

**and i'm pretty sure i'm grinding my teeth in my sleep. i should see a dentist about that. did i mention that my dentist seems to have retired with zero fanfare? i have several hearty recommendations to sort through. staying at the practice he joined before disappearing is not acceptable.

two tiresome things for today

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:53:08 GMT

my DM pinged me to let me know that the December D&D errata nerfed Rain of Blood. Replace “Area burst 2” with “Area burst 1.” Also, on the Hit line, replace “2d6” with “1d6.” . he's allowing me to retrain, and i am resenting WotC right now. *sigh*

i went to an eljay page link without logging in and there was a takeover flash ad. that's horrid. has that been happening to free users for a long time?

oh hey if i check my recent posts there are comments there

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:04:44 GMT

our user rep kylecassidy says:

For those of you who are not getting email alerts or are getting the wrong email alerts, I heard back from LJ -- they know about the issue, & an official update will be posted in support. Right now there's a large que of notification messages clogging things up, no doubt over the next couple days you'll get blasted with all your back notifications. Support is working on this.

Please feel free to repost this in your own LJ.

Amazing Grace

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:15:39 GMT

today is Grace Hopper's birthday.

wrote the manual for the Mark I? Grace Hopper.
first compiler? Grace Hopper.
COBOL spec? Grace Hopper.

i'm sorry to say that i was not aware of her before today.

closing tabs

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:02:12 GMT

"i guard the integrity of Dokken"

New Moon in Fifteen Minutes. yes, it is just like that.

Equivocation

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:11:47 GMT

Equivocation has the sharpest ensemble acting and the best direction i've ever seen at the Rep. the writing is sly and funny, especially if you know the Shakespeare canon as a theatre professional or an academic.

yup, it's the best 9/11 truther propaganda out there.

domestic chatlog

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:02:43 GMT

C: As soon as I moved it, I saw that the power cord was free. I wonder if it was loose enough to lose contact through the motion of the house.

me: the motion of the house?

C: You know, the way stepping on the wrong place in the floor can unplug the TV?* Just the way all the components of the house's construction are connected to each other, so motion in one area can be transmitted to another.

me: sigh.

C: And, well, the chicken legs, of course. I took it around briefly after you left this morning. Just for exercise, you understand.

*yes, that really happens.

Mothra vs the Sparklepires

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:39:11 GMT

think about it.

Pirate Radio

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:27:09 GMT

there's this episode of The Simpsons, where Homer goes to college and believes that the environment is defined by Animal House and Caddyshack - that The Man is trying to keep Homer & Co down because The Man is Against Fun. if The Man is Against Fun is a loose sub-genre of film, then that's where Pirate Radio falls.

it feels like an exuberant 1980s movie about the 1960s. (all you really need to know about the way The Man is handled is that one of them is named Mr. Twatt.) as such, it's very fun. while it's based on real events, it's in no way historically accurate.

this is a recut of a film released in the spring in the UK as The Boat That Rocked. Pirate Radio is twenty minutes shorter than the UK version, and supposedly the original cut of the film was three hours. what we have now is a breezy series of vignettes that doesn't demand much of us. sometimes it's really nice to watch a film that doesn't ask much of you.

i laughed a lot. the soundtrack is pretty great. you could do a lot worse on a rainy day.

i really should get around to watching Lilo and Stitch (and rewatch Atlantis)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:24:33 GMT

someone decided to draw cheesecake Disney princes. (NSFW if cartoon assless chaps are NSFW.)

still giggling about Prince Wossname from The Little Mermaid's "Fish Fetish" tattoo.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:40:04 GMT

the superhero project.

Keep Calm & Carry On

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:07:35 GMT

i've been trying to be constructive, and find outlets for complaint that don't bring me down further or give my friends and family compassion fatigue.

to that end, here is the Shit-talk Composter. type the bad stuff in the box with the compost pile, do the captcha, click "dump it in".

it brings you a picture.

(and posts the talk/picture combo on a blog - so don't be telling your secrets, yo).

day of the (un)dead

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:57:36 GMT

five questions from buhrger. if you didn't ask these of me, ask and you shall receive five from me, whereupon you post your answers with these instructions and perpetuate ad infinitem.

these are mostly off the top of my head:

if you were to pick one pro sports team to cheer for other than the obvious one, which would it be, and why?
what was the best thing about living in west seattle?
what was the best thing about not having the 360?
how many linuces have you played with now? what are the niftiest things about them?
have you gotten around to reading the city and the city yet? if so, what did you think of it? if not, why not?

if you were to pick one pro sports team to cheer for other than the obvious one, which would it be, and why?

what was the best thing about living in west seattle?

Easy Street Cafe

what was the best thing about not having the 360?

how many linuces have you played with now? what are the niftiest things about them?

conky

isn't too hard.

have you gotten around to reading the city and the city yet? if so, what did you think of it? if not, why not?

e_bourne

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:01:50 GMT

i have a five questions meme to answer. one of the questions has a link in it (without which the question makes less sense), so i used view source on the page to copy the html.

did you know that lj lists the variables for all possible userpic choices (by keyword) with your published comment? since i have 104 icons, there appear to be 70+ lines of code for a one-sentence comment.

i don't have enough skills to know for sure that there's a better way, but damn, there must be a better way.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:27:10 GMT

the unfortunate side effect of getting the 360 back is C watching bad (but not so-bad-they're-good) fantasy movies.

i would like to un-experience every glimpse i have had of The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior.

it's for netbooks, especially the acer aspire one

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:28:42 GMT

the Kuki Linux project is seeking designers and programmers based in the UK.

kitchen adventures

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:23:42 GMT

since e_bourne was successful, i decided to try the nytimes no-knead bread which apparently is something people have been doing for years (recipe is 2006) but between various diets and general hate of the fuss involved in yeast bread i haven't been paying attention.

works beautifully. while it requires pre-planning, the actual time involved in dealing with the bread is minor. it produced a nicely browned boule loaf with a firm crust that shattered nicely. C wants to do it again soon.

the only thing i want to change is to use a smaller pot; the recipe calls for a 6-8qt container and i used our 12qt dutch oven. i'm guessing the smaller container would make for a rounder loaf.

in looking up the link to the recipe i discovered a couple other versions.

also this soup mimerki suggested to use up a can of coconut milk is not really Thai, but it is quite tasty and filling when you add a couple handfuls of shrimp and much more chili paste. (i used dairy milk instead of rice milk, left out the salt -added to taste at table- and increased to 1.5t of chili paste. i'm guessing 2.5t or more would have made me happier. the 1.5 was savory but not spicy.)

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:54:03 GMT

tonight's soccer match was satisfying; a closer as joyful and electric as the opener.* those tickets were the best present i ever bought.

now, on to the playoffs.

*yes we won, it was fan appreciation night with a lot of joyful appreciating by the team, and C finally snapped and shouted down the guy behind us who yells at the ref every time we get carded (even when we deserve it). the guy shut up for the rest of the match. aaaaah.

and G_d laughs

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:16:11 GMT

today, UPS left the standard passive-aggressive sticky note and no package.

but hey, if you contact them by seven, you can drive yourself to their warehouse in SODO between the railroad tracks, and then stand around and wait through most of the one-hour window they give you until the package is produced.

and lo, M$ gave us a new 360 with a warranty instead of repairing our busted old one, and a month of Live for our troubles.

they did not, however, send along a power block or a/v cord.

*headdesk*

if you call the service number on the website, you go through a series of recordings that never lead you to a human. if you exhaust the automated menu, it actually says "then i can't help you".

i used their email form. they make you choose a problem from a drop-down menu. "Console will not power on" it is.

i think they're saying something about blowing goats?

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:57:23 GMT

(Sounders FC clinched a playoff spot tonight, but that is not what i'm here for.)

i found out tonight that there is a cute pop song about Kasey Keller. i went looking for it and found it on youtube, playing over video of the victory it chronicles.

but i wanted a better recording. and that's how i stumbled upon a photo slideshow of him at his old Bundesliga side, Borussia Mönchengladbach, set to a catchy tune - Cologne, Cologne, die scheiße vom Dom. *snicker*

the coda to the video is a clip of him leading the stadium in singing it. (Cologne is a rival, and yes, Keller speaks fluent German.)

sometimes i love the internet so much.

there will have to be a Rock Band party when this is all over

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:35:20 GMT

Microsoft support tracking is very well-designed. they know that console gamers are needy. they have happy little icons and package up the UPS tracking info in a way that makes it look like progress is happening.

and it is.

our 360 is slowly crawling across the country. since there hasn't been another scan since Wednesday, i took the UPS tracking number off the M$ site and visited UPS where i confirmed the worst. the UPS delivery date is on their site. as you may know, UPS never brings you the thing early, even if it is sitting in the local warehouse.

now i know that it will arrive next week, on a day that both of us work. SIGNATURE REQUIRED.

i tell people to never send us UPS because they won't leave us packages, even if we sign the "we missed you" slip or otherwise beg and swear that we will bear the risk of the package being left on our porch-that-is-invisible-from-the-street. package delivery is not convenient if i have to stay home from work, drive to SODO, or add several days having them reroute to my office (which we are not supposed to do anyway).

i suspect one of us will stay home from work to sign for it. hate.

friday night lights

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:31:27 GMT

via a locked post, a cool brain science article combined with a comparison of football and dogfighting cultures: football, brain trauma, and being "game". (includes vivid description of dogfighting.)

key bit for the teal deer crowd: repeated knocks to the head cause the same kind of brain damage as second-stage Alzheimer's. the only way to see it is by dissecting the brain; the damage is already present at 18, and NFL vets have visible scar tissue. research is just starting, but this is also bad news for soldiers.

ugh. both of my brothers were linemen in high school and then went on to a couple decades of employment that involved getting knocked around. not in any way equivalent, but bad news when there's also family history of dementia.

what if the people who were such thugs in the land of my youth were suffering from brain damage, and had grown up with a brain-damaged parent (football/military/heavy machinery)? what extra frosting of awful does this add to physical abuse?