Tourist Attractions

I've got an internet friend visiting from out of town at the moment. His plane got in yesterday, he came over, and we watched three episodes of Farscape. I find the thought that I'm now apparently getting people to travel thousands of miles to watch Farscape with me oddly pleasing. Yes, my Farscape crusade continues!

In a little bit, I'm gonna drive him out to the VLA. Should be interesting, actually, as I haven't been out there myself since they put the new gift shop in.

Coulda Sworn I'd Done This Quiz Before, But Apparently I Hadn't.

You're the United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of beating each other about the head and torso.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result.  But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Not an entirely inaccurate description, actually.

Friday Five

What was...

1. ...your first grade teacher's name? You know, I honestly don't remember.

2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon? I remember being deeply fond of the Superfriends. That is, until one day when I was about seven. I was watching as a giant wall of lava came surging forward to engulf Our Heroes and they all just stood there looking at it while Superman said, "Look, a giant wall of lava is coming right towards us!" and I thought, "this is stupid" and never watched another cartoon again until college.

3. ...the name of your very first best friend? I'm not sure I ever really had a best friend in the way I tend to define the term. I hung out with Samantha across the street a lot when I was very small, though. Her mother and my mother were good friends.

4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal? When I was a kid? I'm not sure. Possibly Lucky Charms. I still like Lucky Charms.

5. ...your favorite thing to do after school? Read.

The Triumphant Return of Search Request Thursday.

Yes, it's back by popular demand! Well, OK, it's back because two or three people told me they missed it, and I'm a complete sucker for flattery. Anyway, it's back, it's here, it's a list of the wackier search requests that have brought people to this blog of late, along with my own smart-assed commentary. Enjoy. Or don't. Whatever.

poem radio operators "there is something about them": "Oh, radio operators/There is something about them/The amateur one/ They call him a ham..." Hmm, no, maybe not.

"I, Robot" "visited" "set" "Vancouver": I have not visited the set of I, Robot in Vancouver. In fact, I'm still in denial about the existence of the movie at all.

land cater nude: I can't help but wonder if maybe they wanted "Linda Carter." If so, I think that may be a candidate for the Interesting Misspelling of the Century award.

snape sneezing fit: Yeah, I imagine some of those potion fumes can really do a number on your respiratory system.

Julius Ceasar - In which Act and Scene is Ceasar Killed: I don't know, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere near the end.

Extended Edition Billy Boyd and the Duct Tape: Yes, I know I'm going out and buying a copy of the extended edition of Billy Boyd and the Duct Tape as soon as it's out on DVD!

illness contellation model: Ah, this illness would seem to be a variant of the Misspelling Flu. Not that I haven't been a victim of that, myself. Obviously.

gigi edgely scan: Scanning... Scanning... Captain, this life form is reading as a Gigi Edgely!

archer janeway relationshippers: Because, on Star Trek, living centuries apart is no impediment to having a relationship.

rude futurama pics: Ah, so those would be pictures of Bender, then?

faramir and boromir slash pics: Because the family that... No, never mind.

"karen shaw" fetish: That seems like an awfully specific fetish.

gorilla teach talk Crichton: I'm sure this is a reference to Michael Crichton's Congo, but my brain wants to interpret it as a Farscape reference, and I'm getting some rather giggle-worthy images.

spoilers addicted t'pol: Yes, it is a little-known fact about T'Pol that she is addicted to spoilers for the Vulcan soaps.

"fun fun fun in the sun sun sun" storytelling: Once upon a time, there was a mining ship called the Red Dwarf... (But, hmm, Dave Lister ain't exactly Sleeping Beauty, is he?)

gorilla funnies buzzy jokes: I don't get it.

JIMMY BUFFET VANITY PLATE SUGGESTIONS: Hmm... I dunno. PARROTHEAD is way too many letters...

buffy and angels transcript when they are together: So, what, you want a transcript of the first two seasons?

neil gaiman's sandman cast johnny depp: Well, he can't possibly be worse than Keanu Reeves as John Constantine. *shudder*

More News from Mars!

This is just too damned cute.

Forcibly Ousted from Cyberspace

My broadband connection went down for a couple of hours earlier today. During the time I was disconnected I did the dishes, went grocery shopping, swept and vacuumed the floors, and paid the bills, thus accomplishing more than I'd managed to do in pretty much the entire previous week. I'm honestly not sure if I'm more pleased or depressed about this fact.

Keep Flying.

It looks like the Firefly movie is really going to happen! Whoo-hoo!

I Like Simon & Garfunkel




I'm Bridge Over Troubled Water!

Which Simon and Garfunkel album are you?

OK, It Ain't Quite a Canal, But It's Definitely Something!

NASA's Opportunity rover has found strong evidence that the area it's exploring was once home to liquid water. Not a terribly surprising finding, I don't think -- it's long been believed likely that Mars had a wet environment in the distant past -- but still pretty cool.

There's a nice analysis of the announcement and what it means here, on Oliver Morton's MainlyMartian blog, which I found via Jay Manifold's A Voyage to Arcturus. Looks like a pretty good blog for those interested in Martian geology; I'll have to read more of it later.

Elan Vital

I'm slowly making my way through Season 2 of Babylon 5. OK, very slowly; I just watched the second episode.

And there was one particular (very minor) element of said episode that got me thinking about a couple of things. Last season some time, Dr. Franklin came into possession of a nifty alien artifact that could steal the "life force" from one person and give it to another. (It was originally used as a rather clever sort of execution device.) Anyway, it got a mention in this episode, which really pleased me, because it's a great example of B5's attention to continuity. I think in most shows we probably would never have heard of that gadget again after it served its plot purposes in the episode it was introduced in. So, a big cheer to the writers of B5 for that.

However, it also got me to thinking about something else. What is it with this idea of "life force" in science fiction shows? You see it everywhere. Star Trek used the concept on a semi-regular basis. Farscape used it. B5 used it. Probably every SF TV show in existence has at least mentioned this idea at some point or another. And this, to me, is pretty weird, because the idea of "life force" as some sort of animating property, like a kind of invisible fluid that permeates living matter, hasn't been taken seriously (at least not by scientists) since, I think, the 19th century. And, OK, Trek uses a lot of silly ideas quite shamelessly, and Farscape really is more science fantasy than science fiction. But I find it interesting that even a show like B5, which pays very careful attention to accuracy in the physical sciences, is willing to play with an idea that, from a scientific perspective, makes just about as much sense as talking about luminiferous ether or phlogiston. It's strange.

It's Time Again for Unconscious Mutterings

1. Hollywood:: Bowl
   
2. Censor:: Network
   
3. Nascar:: Racer
   
4. Lube:: Oil
   
5. Mortgage:: House
   
6. Freedom:: Ring
   
7. Champion:: American Gladiators, for some reason
   
8. Reality TV:: Crap
   
9. New York:: "New York, New York"
   
10. Tease:: Erm... My immediate response was mildly obscene. And my dad reads this blog. So I think I'll pass. Heh.
    

Happy Leap Day!

What I want to know is, why isn't February 29th a holiday? As I understand it, historically, in most cultures when days had to be added to the calendar to make the length of the year come out right, they've usually been celebrated as holidays. Why don't we do that?

Me, I think I should have off work tonight.

My Big, Exciting Weekend

Yes, I know, there was no blogging yesterday. For once in my life, I wasn't sitting in front of my computer all day. Instead, I went up to Albuquerque with a bunch of friends and caught some cinema. (Since it was indie theaters we went to, you're supposed to say "cinema" instead of movies, right? Or is that only if what you're watching is "artsy"?)

Anyway, we went to see Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, which was about 25% really funny and clever, 25% reasonably entertaining, and 50% mediocre-to-completely-crappy. As advertised, though, it was plenty sick and twisted. And we got 3-D glasses.

Then we caught Bubba Ho-tep, because, as geeks, we are subculturally obligated to worship at the shrine of Bruce Campbell. In case you haven't heard of this movie -- and it's likely you haven't, given its nearly nonexistent distribution -- it stars Campbell as an elderly Elvis Presely (or maybe he's an Elvis impersonator, depending on whether you think he's delusional or not), who, along with a black guy who believes himself to be John F. Kennedy, battles to save the residents of a Texas nursing home from a soul-sucking mummy in cowboy duds. Bizarrely enough, the whole thing is not as ridiculous and campy as it sounds. It's a clever, quirky story that reminds me a tiny bit of the writing of people like Christopher Moore or Chuck Palahniuk. And, despite a lot of laughs and some quotable one-liners, it's actually, in part at least, a serious and rather melancholy meditation on aging and death. The pacing is far from perfect, I admit; it felt rather longer than its actual 90 minutes to me. But it's well worth seeing if you like a little bit of strange. And, hey, Bruce Campbell does a really good Elvis.

After the movies, we stopped by a local independent bookstore (which didn't have the book my friend went in to find), and a Hastings (which did). Having already bought up my book quota for February, I was very, very self-controlled and did not buy any books. I did, however, walk out of Hastings with a hundred dollars worth of DVDs to compensate. Sigh.

Oh, and then we bought Krispy Kremes. And then we came home.

For me, this is a really, really full day.

It's Hard to Be a Citizen of the World.

Blake's 7 is finally out on DVD... In Region 2. Grrr. I knew I should've bought a multi-region DVD player.

I really, really ought to look into seeing if I can hack the one I have, but I'm seriously afraid of messing it up somehow...

Somehow, This Result Fails to Thrill Me.


Which HP Kid Are You?

Honestly, I'm much more of a Hermione...

Politics

I'm not writing a political rant today. I kind of want to. But this isn't a political blog, and you guys really don't want to hear me going on about this stuff, so I won't.

But I think I deserve a cookie for my self-restraint. I also think I really ought to go out and, you know, register to vote this year. (I know, I know. Don't lecture me, OK?)

Now You Can Talk to Me Again!

Comments are back! Yay! And props to enetation for a really prompt response when I dropped them a line and whimpered.

Can We Just Declare This Week Over?

I was up way too late last night. (Note to self: stop hanging out on the internet so much with people who are in completely different time zones or have radically different sleep schedules.) Once I did go to bed, I had some trouble sleeping. And then my alarm clock didn't go off in the morning, apparently because I forgot to set it. D'oh!

I woke up at about 7:30 (rather amazingly, all things considered) to the sudden realization that the light was all wrong. Which was, of course, because I should have been awake half an hour before, being as I was supposed to be in to work at 7:45. I called the guy I was relieving and told him I'd be late, grabbed a quick shower, spent an annoying five minutes or so scraping ice off my car, and made it in by 8:05.

The temptation to call in sick instead of late was very, very great, as my allergies are acting up and, between that and the lack of sleep, I feel pretty crappy. But I was a good girl and came in anyway.

Stupid work ethic. I blame my parents.

Where the Frell Are My Comments?!

Just wonderin'.

If they're not back by tomorrow, I'll drop enetation a note and whimper for their return.

Yep, That's Me.


Heart of Stone


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yet Another, Um, Fascinating Glimpse into My Psyche with Unconscious Mutterings.

1. Angel:: Cancelled
   
2. Birth:: Death
   
3. Logic:: Spock
   
4. Stars:: Milky Way
   
5. Nursery:: Plant
   
6. View:: From a distance
   
7. Hart:: Wolfram & Hart
   
8. Creation:: Big Bang
   
9. End:: The last page of a book
   
10. Fortune:: Cookie
    

Yeah, that's pretty much the inside of my head in a nutshell, really.

Whee! More Quiz!


You're a Minbari. Your hobbies include praying,
killing things, or building stuff, depending on
what caste you're in. You have a big bone
sticking out of your head and your ears are
attached to your chin. Hooray!


What species of Babylon 5 alien are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Aww, I got a boring species! I thought there for a moment I might come out as a Shadow or something. Which would have been scary, but interesting.

By the way, I finally got around to watching the first episode of season 2 of B5 last night. Not a terribly good start to the season, I'm afraid, being basically 42 minutes of rather clunky exposition. But I'm anticipating much better things to come.

Y'all Think I'm from Dixie?

Via Still Life with Woodpecker (where else?), here's an interesting quiz that's supposed to tell you whether you're "Yankee or Dixie," based on your dialect. Being a New Jersey-to-New Mexico transplantee, I was interested and slightly amused to discover that my result was:

52% (Dixie). Barely into the Dixie category.

Actually, my dialect, such as it is, appears to be an odd mishmash of different US regionalisms, with a healthy dollop of British influence as a result of watching too much BBC programming in my youth, as well as spending large chunks of my time trading e-mails with people on the other side of the Atlantic.

More Quizzage


You are a claymore! Large sharp, double-edged,
your very name means great. If you have one
weakness it is that you're heavy and
cumbersome.


What kind of sword are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

"Heavy and cumbersome?" *pout* I've actually lost a little bit of weight recently, I'll have you know.

Automotive Update (Included Mainly Because I Know My Dad Reads This, and, Like a Bad Daughter, I Haven't Returned His Phone Call)

The car is back! And it now has four functional wheels and four shiny new tires. Yay!

Is This the Friday Five, or My Mother Nagging Me About Stuff?

When was the last time you...

1. ...went to the doctor? Last year sometime. I was having some minor abdominal pains that the doctor told me were probably an indication that I needed more fiber in my diet, plus I needed allergy pills.

2. ...went to the dentist? A few months ago, when I had the permanent crown put on, finally.

3. ...filled your gas tank? I think the day before I drove it into the curb.

4. ...got enough sleep? Last night, amazingly enough, given that I stayed up way later than I should have.

5. ...backed up your computer? Eep! Too long ago!

'Nother Quiz (With a Big Honkin' Graphic)


You're confuzed!
You poor poor confused little thing... Someone buy
you a map... cuz you're lost... It's not even
safe to say you like people of your own
species... (you freak.) Look deep within
yourself and here the little voice inside of
you... what does it say? Str8? Bi?
Necrophiliacal? Post-Modern-Industrialistic-
Pedastrial?!


What is my sexual orientation?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not even safe to say I like people of my own species huh? Actually, you know, it's true. I've always kind of had a thing for aliens. Heh.

Hey, I Got the Result I Was Hoping For!


McGonagall - Transfiguration


Harry Potter: Which Hogwarts professor would you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

But isn't "Animagi" plural?

Walk On

My recent automotive problems haven't been entirely without a silver lining, at least. I used to walk the two miles into work pretty much every chance I got, but, for various reasons, I'd almost entirely gotten out of that habit in the last couple of months. Having the car in the shop has pretty much forced me to get back into it, though. And, while having to get up half an hour earlier sucks, I've really been enjoying the exercise and the fresh air. Not to mention the extra reading time. Must make sure and not get back out of the habit again once the car returns.

Exposed!

Hey, Amazon.com just sent me a notification that the first season of Northern Exposure is out on DVD! Cool! Of course, I still haven't watched all the Buffy, Babylon 5, Forever Knight or Farscape discs I already bought...

Another Automotive Update

The wheel rim was bent. Like, really badly bent. New wheel is gonna be $99 and change, and I'm having all of the tires replaced, not just the one that got mangled, since it was high past time to do that anyway. Parts are supposed to be in by Friday.

Just an FYI for those who actually, you know, care.

You may now return to your lives.

A Moment of Silence

I've only seen the first couple of seasons of Angel, so the announcement of its cancellation didn't affect me all that badly, but, man, this cartoon really does say it all.

Automotive Update

OK. I called the insurance agent, the body shop, and the rental car place and let them all know I wasn't going to be getting the car in today. They all said no problem, just let them know when I wanted to reschedule. Called the local mechanic; they are open today and bringing the car in to them this afternoon should be no problem. Checked that my AAA membership is still valid and should be good for towing it over there. I think I'm gonna take off work a little early (since I'd already made arrangements to, anyway) and get it in, and we'll see how it goes from there. I'll worry about the body work later.

Am feeling rather better about things today, even if I am still kind of half-asleep due to the fact I had to get up extra early today and walk into work. Hey, what the hell. I needed the exercise anyway, right?

Day from Hell, Continued

The bottom reel on one of my tape drives just did something amazingly akin to what the tire on my car did this morning.

Did angular momentum declare war on me and I didn't get the memo?

Aaaaargh, Part 3

So, I went out this morning to get a look at my car in the daylight, and I could see that there was a big scratch on the wheel cover (or whatever you call that round plastic thing), and that it had pulled away from the rim a little bit in one spot. "Aha," I said to myself. "That's got to be the cause of the problem, all right. I did knock something out of alignment when I hit the curb. Oh, well, that actually seems like good news. At least I'm pretty sure it's not the transmission." And I proceeded to drive to work.

On the way to work, I found myself thinking, "Hmm, is that pulsing getting worse? Is there more vibration now than there was?" Even as I was sitting at a stop sign pondering this, I suddenly heard a "clunk!" A very not-good-sounding kind of "clunk." I rolled down my window. More "clunk." I started to pull forward from the stop sign, and, oh, yes, something was clearly very definitely wrong. I got the vehicle over onto the shoulder, got out, and looked.

The relevant tire was completely flat and had fallen off the rim and was dangling around the axle. I sincerely doubt this is any kind of coincidence.

Aaaargh! There's clearly no way I can drive this car up to Los Lunas tomorrow. I'm going to have to call my insurance agent, call the mechanic, call the car rental place... Then I'm gonna have to call the mechanic here in town, call a tow truck (because, yeah, maybe I could get a spare tire onto that rim or something, but that doesn't quite seem like the world's safest and sanest idea to me). Actually, I'm not even sure whether my insurance agent or my local mechanic will even be around tomorrow. And, of course, I'm working morning shift all this week, so taking time other than the couple of hours I'd arranged tomorrow to get the damned car in is going to be a tiny bit problematic.

Insult to injury? Now I'm going to have to walk home this evening. And, like an idiot, I didn't even bring a coat.

Oh, and, just for the record, things didn't get any better once I got to work. Apparently the air-conditioning system failed yesterday -- Yes, that's right, the air-conditioning. Ironic, isn't it? -- and the multi-million-dollar computer it's my job to babysit overheated and shut itself down. And all my magnetic tape drives with the tapes I'd left carefully pre-positioned on Friday had been shut off because they were putting out too much heat. Which meant I had to unload and reload 'em all, because the drives had forgotten all the tape footages when they were turned off. Which wouldn't have been a big deal, except that when I tried to reload one of 'em, the drive freaked out and snapped the tape in two. So I spliced it -- not my favorite thing in the world to do, largely because I suck at it -- and went to stick it back on the drive. At which point I realized something that should have been immediately obvious: this tape was really messed up. It wasn't even hanging off the reel the right way. Damned if I could figure out where the twist or the fold or whatever was, though. I thought about trying to fix it myself, decided, screw it, it'd take me forever and I'd probably mess it up anyway, and left it with a note for the guy whose job it actually is to fix stuff like that. Who, of course, won't be in until Tuesday. Oh, and that, of course, meant that I couldn't finish the project I was in the middle of, which meant that I had to take down all the tapes from it and hang new ones... And, meanwhile, I was running the standard self-diagnostic test that's supposed to be done every shift change to make sure the system is running right. Which, needless to say, it wasn't, and I had to spend several minutes applying my somewhat rusty diagnostic skills figuring out what was wrong with the damned thing so I could tell it not to use the bad components... I only hope I got it right, because my brain is so frazzled at the moment I'm lucky I can remember my own name.

Ever have days when you just wanted to scream?

Yeah, Sounds a Lot Like One of the Ways Public School Attempted to Crush My Spirit.

Just read this really good article by Philip Pullman (author of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy and other kids' books) about how the way schools teach reading and writing is "creating a generation of children who might be able to make the right noises when they see print, but who hate reading and feel nothing but hostility for literature." I have issues with some of what I've read of Pullman's fiction, but I swear, absolutely every word he says in this essay is true. This paragraph in particular struck me:

There are no rules. Anything that's any good has to be discovered in the process of writing it. Furthermore, there must be a willing suspension of certainty - Keats' negative capability, "the capability of remaining in doubts, hesitations and mysteries, without any irritable reaching after fact or reason". We cannot require everything to take place under the bright glare of discussion and checking and testing and consultation: some things require to be private and tentative.

I'm reminded of an afterschool conference I one had with a high school English teacher about a paper I'd written. She pointed out a flaw in my thesis sentence and asked me how I'd fix it. "I don't know," I said. "I'd have to think about it."

"Well," came the reply, "I'm telling you to think about it!"

That, of course, wasn't what I meant. What I meant was that what I really needed was to pace around the room for a few minutes, maybe talk to myself a little, sit down in front of the word processor and play around with the possibilities... Not sit there at a table staring at the sentence while she stared at me. Even at that age, I knew how this writing thing worked, if only I were permitted to do it properly.

Eventually, I think, I managed to stammer out something acceptable. But it was a very long and uncomfortable few minutes, as witness the fact that I still remember it, some 14 or 15 years later.

And I'm not even going to comment on this bit, since if I do, it'll start me off on a rant I'll never finish, and I've got to go to work soon:

But this is what happens in schools now: a teacher wrote to me recently and complained that she'd been doing a book of mine called The Firework Maker's Daughter with her pupils, and she said she was finding the greatest difficulty preventing them from reading ahead to find out what was going to happen next. They had to stop, just when they got interested, and start predicting, or analysing, or evaluating, or something. They wanted to enjoy it, but she didn't feel she could let them.

I think she was paying me a compliment (see what exciting books you write), but her anxiety not to let a single verb in the literacy strategy go unticked, not a single box unfilled-in, was plain, and very dispiriting.

Grrrrr. Man, sometimes I am so glad I don't have kids so they don't have to be subjected to this stuff.

Mmmm, Chocolate Physics

I vote for this as Best News Headline Ever: "Chocolate Obsession Leads to Physics Discovery." Man, if only it worked that way more often, I'd have a Nobel Prize.

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Dragon:: Anne McCaffrey
   
2. Molecule:: Water
   
3. Tire:: The alignment on my car
   
4. Mighty:: Mouse
   
5. Octane:: High
   
6. Troll:: Internet
   
7. Atmosphere:: Stratosphere
   
8. Guide:: Book
   
9. Leash:: Dog
   
10. Dustmite:: Pillow
    

OK, I'm not really awake yet.

I Make a Political Statement

OK, I'm done being cynical. In the actual spirit of Valentine's Day:

Marriage is love.

Actually, I'm not thrilled with the slogan, but I strongly support the sentiment behind it.

Whoo-hoo! Look at me! I'm bein' controversial!

I Got Yer Valentine Right Here!

In honor of the holiday, I pass along this link to Unfortunate Valentine's Cards, a gallery of truly terrifying greetings, featuring some hysterically funny captions.

A sample:

Ladies, should a pretty young man wearing a bright pink cowboy hat ever tell you that he wants you to be his valentine, he's not only lying to you, he's also lying to himself.

It's this sort of thing that makes Valentine's Day tolerable to a cynical single like me, you know.

(Link via The Presurfer.)

The Friday (the Thirteenth) Five

1. Are you superstitious? No. I am a hard-headed rationalist who believes in the laws of probability and understands that those laws can often have surprising results that look unnatural but aren't.

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition? I'm sure I've heard all kinds of wacky stories on the subject, but I'm completely blanking on any of them now. Yeah, I know. I suck. (Well, actually, I could probably say something religiously offensive here, but I won't!)

3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition? Well, I've often thought that if I believed in lucky numbers (or, for that matter, in luck) at all, I'd regard 13 as a lucky number for me, and quite possibly Friday the 13th as a lucky day. I turned 13 on a Friday the 13th, a fact which I find quite perversely pleasing. Mind you, today's really kind of sucked, which just goes to show that that particular belief really is crap. Heh.

I do have to admit to a fondness for gamer superstitions, in which I shamefully indulge even though I don't really believe in any of them. There's this whole intricate series of beliefs RPGers have with respect to dice... If a die rolls badly too often, it's unlucky and you should change it for a new one. If an unlucky die touches another die, it'll transmit the bad luck. Dice know when a roll is important and actively plan to mess with your mind... That sort of thing. It's all part of the game, really.

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual? See answers above. Actually, whether or not I believe in luck depends a bit on what you mean by "luck." Do I believe that luck is some controllable entity, some actual force that can be influenced by talismans and rituals? Nah. Not even when my dice are messing with my mind. But there are runs of good fortune and bad fortune, and amazing coincidences do happen. The laws of probability dictate this, in fact. And, yes, some people, by sheer random chance are luckier than others. But past "luck" is absolutely no indication of future "luck." You rolls your dice and you takes your chances.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not? Emphatically not. There is neither a theoretical basis for it, nor any scientific evidence of it. In fact, some decent scientific studies have been done on the subject and turned up no support for astrological predictions whatsoever.

Aaaaaargh, Continued

Just retrieved my car from where I had to abandon it last night. And it's looking like maybe I didn't abandon it soon enough, because now it's doing this weird thing where the steering wheel keeps pulsing and twitching under my hand. I'm not sure what happened... I did hit a curb reasonably hard at one point while I was sliding around, but there didn't (and still doesn't) appear to be any visible damage. I really hope I didn't fuck up my transmission somehow trying to get traction on the ice. That'd seriously annoy me.

I've already made arrangements to take it into the shop on Monday for some body work related to that fender-bender I had a while ago. That's in Los Lunas, though, and now I'm a little worried about driving it that far. Well, aside from the steering wheel shaking, it seems to be doing OK. The vehicle's certainly controllable. With any luck it won't break down on me on the way to the mechanic's.

I wonder if this place I'm taking it do just does body work, or whether I can have them look at this at the same time? If not, I guess I'll have to take it in, get the body work done, bring it back, and take it into my regular mechanic here.

Oh, geez, this is gonna cost me a fortune. Especially as some of the work I'm already having done on it is old stuff my insurance isn't paying for.

Aaaargh.

OK, This Goes Beyond Weather.

Aaargh! There are times when I hate New Mexico!

So, OK, it snowed pretty much all day; not hard, but steady. Accumulation on the ground, circa two inches.

Two inches of snow in New Mexico, and civilization grinds to a halt.

I got off work at midnight and made the mistake of trying to drive home. Yeah, I knew the conditions were bad. Yeah, I knew the roads would be icy. I did not expect to be driving over a solid sheet of ice. They hadn't even salted the damn roads. Anywhere. I nearly burned out my transmission trying to get up a hill, slid uncontrollably into a curb twice, and finally, about halfway home, decided the only remotely safe thing to do would be to abandon the car and walk. In the snow.

Aaaaargh. I'm still cold.

Because It's Been Days Since We Had a Silly Tolkien-Related Link

It's Return of the King as performed by hand puppets! Or something like that. Fairly amusing parody with some great one-liners (e.g. Pippin: "Nice armor, but by service I sort of meant washing dishes").

(Link via Futurismic.)

Gratuitious Post About the Weather

Holy frell, it's snowing!

OK, Somebody Wanna Tell Me Just What the Heck This Is?


What Kind of Cookie Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Adventures in Personal Hygiene

OK, so, I went to the grocery store today to buy some underarm deodorant, that being one of those things you really need to go and buy pretty much as soon as it looks like you're about to be out of it. Now, I normally get the kind labeled "unscented," because, you know, the whole point of deodorant is that I don't want my armpits to smell. Apparently, however, my chosen brand of deodorant no longer comes in simple varieties like "unscented." Instead there are a bewildering array of new "scent" options, including "ambition," "optimism," and (clearly aimed at a slightly different demographic from the first two), "berry sparkle."

I feel frightened and bewildered.

(In case you're wondering, by the way, I opted for the "ambition." I figure I could use some ambition, even if it's only under my arms. And it didn't really smell like much of anything.)

Be My Anti-Valentine

Ah, yes that special day is coming up, that lovey-wuvey day when you're supposed to show your special ookey-wookums just how much you wuv 'em by buying lots of schmaltzy, useless merchandise and doing stuff that's considered "romantic" mainly because it's expensive. That day designed to celebrate the human pair-bond, which, of course, is the only thing in life that's really worth having, right?

Yeah, I'm cynical. How could you tell? Fortunately, so are these people. Heh. I really oughtta send somebody one of these cards. Probably the "single is good" one. Because, you know, it is.

'Nother Quiz

Which Kevin Smith Movie Are You? by jennablue!

Hmm, well, my life does feature the occasional comic book. As for the rest of it, not so much...

Now There's an Accomplishment!


How Will Your World End?
brought to you by Quizilla

I destroyed an infinite number of universes once in an RPG, actually. I find that I am rather perversely proud of that fact.

My Life Is So Sad.

Damn it! I want to get Book 2 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and I can't because I already met my book-buying quota for this month ordering Lemony Snicket books. Grr. I should have read more books last month...

I hate self-control.

Still More Unconscious Mutterings

1. Identity:: Crisis
   
2. Reveal:: Conceal
   
3. Live:: Well
   
4. Attitude:: Adjustment
   
5. Night:: Day
   
6. Nevada:: Reno
   
7. Weekend:: No work! (Except often I do work weekends.)
   
8. Write:: Aargh! I have writing I should be doing!
   
9. Friend:: In need
   
10. Seventeen:: Magazine
    

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere.

What does it say, about me, I wonder, that this actually kinda made me feel good?

Let's Do This Again.

Current clothes: Light gray New Mexico Tech sweatshirt (which proudly proclaims NMT's centennial, ("1889-1989"), so you know it's an old shirt). Under that is a black t-shirt with a complicated oval Celtic-knot kind of pattern and the word "Ireland" over it in gold. I bought it in Ireland (duh). Dark gray sweats. White socks. White sneakers.

Current mood: Not too bad, considering that I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night.

Current music: Currently in the stereo are This Is Spinal Tap and the Lexx: The Series soundtrack.

Current hair: Desperately in need of a cut.

Current annoyance: My respiratory system. The inside of my nose is too dry, and the inside of my lungs is too damp. And I'm sure you were just dying to know that...

Current thing: Growing more certain every day that what I really want out of life is to be a brain in a jar hooked up to the internet.

Current desktop picture: This picture of the surface of Mars, as taken by NASA's Spirit Rover.

Current song in head: "Love" by John Lennon.

Current book: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

Current video in player: Nothing currently in the VCR. Currently in the DVD player is disc one of The Simpsons Season 3. Currently in the DVD drive on the computer is the Farscape disc with "Nerve" and "The Hidden Memory," because I keep going back and watching bits of those episodes for some reason.

Current refreshment: Licorice spice tea.

Current worry: The zillion and one things I'm supposed to be doing but have been repeatedly neglecting.

Current thought: Hey, I wonder if I have any new e-mail? Not that I've answered the old e-mail yet...

Fortune Favors the Friday Five.

1. What's the most daring thing you've ever done? The most daring thing I've ever done? Geez, I dunno. It's not like I've done all that many daring things in my life... Well, let's see, back when I was hiking regularly, I do remember a few rock-scrambles that had my heart racing a bit. And I ate a hamburger in Ireland at the height of the UK mad cow scare; I guess that's pretty daring! The most illegal thing I've ever done involved driving a minivan I wasn't technically legally allowed to drive for hundreds of miles... That felt pretty daring, actually, but I don't think I'm going to talk about it here. It's a long story. Plus, my family reads this blog, and I'd hate to disillusion them about my status as an upright, law-abiding citizen. Heh.

2. What one thing would you like to try that your mother/friend/significant other would never approve of? I remember idly discussing with my mother the idea that it might be fun to try skydiving sometime and her being utterly appalled.

3. On a scale of 1-10, what's your risk factor? (1=never take risks, 10=it's a lifestyle) I'd say a 2. Seriously, idle thoughts of skydiving notwithstanding, I'm generally a really risk-aversive person.

4. What's the best thing that's ever happened to you as a result of being bold/risky? Well, the fact that I don't make a habit of being bold/risky means that very little, good or bad, has happened to be because of it. Hmm. Well, I did get to the Grand Canyon in the illegal minivan. That was extremely cool.

5. ... and what's the worst? You know, I honestly can't think of anything. Unless it turns out I am infected with mad cow disease and just don't know it yet...

PenguinBall!

I've seen this silly game linked to from a zillion places, and finally couldn't resist checking it out. Took me forever to get the hang of it, but, man, once you manage to smack that bird, there's something really satisfying about the way it goes sailing! Personal best distance so far: 1194.3. Beat that!

An Angelic Quiz


You're most like Darla!


Which 'Angel' Character Are You Most Like?
brought to you by Quizilla

OK, y'know, I've only seen up through the end of season 2, but I really, really don't think this result could be more incredibly wrong.

I'm Bad! I'm Nationwide!

Everybody else on the net (or at least, everyone in the US) appears to be doing this US-states-visited map thing, so what the heck. Here's mine, the legacy of many a roadtrip:



create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

I think that's accurate, though there are a few states I'm a little unsure about. It's within the realm of possibility that I've actually been through Vermont, for instance, and just don't remember it. But I don't think so. And a great many of these states I just sorta passed through on a long car trip to somewhere else, and have blurred together rather fuzzily in my mind...

And for the record, no, I haven't been actively avoiding that chunk in the middle. I just haven't had any reason to go there.

What, You Mean I'm Not Invincible?


Which Evil Villain Bad Habit are you?

Ha-ha!

If you're in the mood for a chuckle, here's a list of what are supposed to be The 100 Funniest Jokes of All Time. Humor, of course, is a highly subjective thing, so I don't imagine anybody is going to find all of these funny... And some of them are so old that even if they were funny once, they've long since passed their sell-by date. But the list as a whole amused me, anyway.

Two of my favorites, just as a sample:

#5. A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence: he’s allowed to say two words every seven years. After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. "Cold floors," he says. They nod and send him away. Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two words. He clears his throats and says, "Bad food." They nod and send him away. Seven more years pass. They bring him in for his two words. "I quit," he says. "That’s not surprising," the elders say. "You've done nothing but complain since you got here."


# 84. A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later, there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says ‘What the hell was that all about?"

Actually, I heard #5 years ago, but it still makes me laugh, which I figure has to be a sign of quality!

Fair warning: quite a few of these are naughty (I especially like #12 on that score) and I suppose many of them may well be offensive to various religious groups. Read at own risk!

(Link via The Advice Goddess.)

Just Because I Haven't Had A Tolkien Link Here for a While

Here's an amusing article: The LotR Dating Manual. Because the entire trilogy is actually a metaphor for dating. Well worth reading just for the "mother of all dating wisdom" which appears at the end.

(Link via single smash.)

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Ignore:: Avoid
   
2. Death:: Life
   
3. Missy:: John Crichton saying "You don't scare me, missy!" to Aeryn
   
4. Ballet:: Dance
   
5. Guest:: When will they leave?!
   
6. Campus:: Comedy (the old Reader's Digest feature, and I have no idea why)
   
7. Lonely:: Alone
   
8. Company:: "company's coming!"
   
9. Helicopter:: Those little seedy things that fall off trees and whirl like helicopters
   
10. Sterile:: Certain alien fictional characters whose personal lives I've been pondering lately, and the question of whether they can or can't reproduce
    

My brain is in a weird, complicated place today.

How Can Anything Be Simultaneously This Frustrating and This Reassuring?

Farscape creator Rocke S. O'Bannon stopped by the Save Farscape website to offer up the following, er, announcement:

Hi WatchFarscapers,

A quick shout out from the fringes of the Uncharteds -- just to say a loud and sustained Thank You for your continuing passion for and efforts on behalf of The Little SF Show That Could. As I mentioned at the Farscape Con in Burbank, David Kemper and I spent last Fall working on a secret project -- well, the most unsecret of secret projects. And though I cannot confirm or deny anything, let's just say that your undying efforts to keep awareness of a certain television series alive within the entertainment community is the singular reason why a particular unnamed project is now halfway through production. On behalf of everyone currently working on -- oops, almost said it! -- well, on behalf of everybody working on SOMETHING down in Sydney, Australia, a resounding Thank You. Here's hoping you'll all be pleased with the fruits of your efforts.

Cheers,
Rockne

God damn, but I wish I knew why all the secrecy. And, oh, yeah, and: WHOO-FRELLING-HOO!

The Friday Five Makes Me Rich!

You have just won one million dollars:

Whoo-hoo! Where is it?

1. Who do you call first? Probably my mother. If nothing else, because I owe her money.

2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself? A shitload of DVDs.

3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else? Whaddaya mean, "someone else"? It's my mine, all mine! (Cure the Daffy Duck impression.) OK, no, seriously, I'd probably buy my mother a new computer. And send my sister a plane ticket so she could come out and visit me whenever she can actually get some time off work.

4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom? I'd probably donate some small amount of it to some worthy cause. Maybe public television. I believe it is my civic duty to support public television, even if I don't actually watch it any more.

5. Do you invest any? If so, how? Well, yeah, it'd be stupid not to. But I know zip about investments, so I'd consult a professional.

And Still More Quizzage (Because I Have to Keep Swapping Quizzes with Still Life With Woopecker)





what decade does your personality live in?


quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd


Well, I wasn't expecting that result. I think it was my internet addiction that did it.

Like The Old Joke Says, I Guess This Means I Can't Be Overdrawn.

I have checks! Yay! Now I can go on a spending spree pay my rent!

I've Never Been So Insulted in My Life!


'Normal' PLEASE VOTE!!!


What Type of Lunatic are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Interesting Result for a Person Who Can't Carry a Tune in a Bucket.


You are Music.
Fundamentally mathematical, you are the most
abstract art form. You get along well with
Poetry and Dance.


What form of art are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Annoying Things That Have Happened to Me Lately

To start with, I ran out of checks. I thought I had two boxes of checks, but, no, the second box was actually full of old check ledgers and not new checks at all, and I did not realize this until after I'd used the last check from the first box. So now I have no checks until the new ones come, which makes it kind of hard to pay my bills. I fear I'm gonna have to go down to the real estate agent's office and pay my rent in cash this month.

Then this morning I got into a fender-bender on the way home from work. Actually, there weren't even any bent fenders, really. Just a nice scrape of red paint left on my car. I was driving down the street, minding my own business, when this red pickup in front of me pulled over onto the shoulder. So I started going around it, you know... And then it turned right into me. Turns out the driver was looking to make a left, and for some reason thought her medium-sized pickup must have the turning radius of the Titanic or something. And then the guy who owned the truck spent 15 minutes pulling out all his papers from the glovebox, peering at them, and deciding they were the wrong papers, while I stood there in the bitter cold. Eventually he gave me some completely inadequate insurance information which I just took and left because I wanted to get the hell home and get to bed.

The driver insisted the whole thing was my fault. She might or might not be right. I'll leave that up to the insurance folks to determine. I don't think it's a huge big deal one way or another, since there was very little damage, but it'll be really annoying if my rates go up. And, damn it, why does stuff like this always happen when I'm on night shift? It makes it really difficult to deal with insurance agents and people, because they always want to get in touch with me during my sleep hours.

And, oh, yeah, when I finally got home, most of my pipes were frozen. Although they seem to have thawed out OK while I was asleep, so at least that's something. After all, it's not like I could write a check to pay a plumber...

Yes, I Know.

My blogging has been pathetic recently. I have absolutely no excuse for this.

*hangs head in shame*

*Whimper*

My wireless internet connection is down. I don't know how or why. I suspect the problem is on my ISPs end rather than on mine, but I'm far from sure about that. Anyway, I'm back on dialup for the moment, and it's horrible. There's a noticeable pause while a page is loading! It takes seconds for the pictures to show up! If I think I'm done whatever I'm doing online, get up and walk away, then suddenly remember something else I wanted to do, I've got to wait for the phone to dial! All over again!

If I don't get my broadband back soon, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go into withdrawals! I'm going to go crazy! I am!

*wail* It's been two whole hours!

Seizing the Opportunity

The first pictures from the Opportunity Rover are up on NASA's Mars Rover website!

My Unconscious Keeps Muttering

1. Political:: Party
   
2. Concentration:: The game
   
3. Fish:: Go Fish
   
4. Lunacy:: Nuts
   
5. Red:: Blue
   
6. Imply:: Infer
   
7. Recognize:: That weird neural disease where you can't recognize people's faces
   
8. Sexist:: Pig
   
9. Commercial:: Break
   
10. Stricken:: White-faced
    

Stupidest Stupid Quiz Ever!


YOU ARE MARRIED TO A WoODCHUCK!!!


what's YOUR deepest secret?
brought to you by Quizilla

Apparently it's a gay woodchuck, even. But don't I look cute in that hat?

More Quizzage

My life has been rated:
See what your rating is!

Suitable for 12 years or older. Starting to get interesting now, with more adult-themed storylines, but we're still talking in mild doses. You may find more colourful language, some human flesh, and maybe even some violence. Nothing creepy though.

So, that'd be roughly equivalent to a US PG rating? Yeah, that probably sounds about right. Sigh. How very unexciting. Not that I want any creepy violence, but there's definitely a lot of unexploited potential for rating-increase in the "human flesh" department.

I have to say, I do rather like the idea that if my life were a movie, it'd have a British rating...

It's Great Literature! It's a Text Adventure! It's Both!

It's Hamlet, the text adventure. And there are not words for how cool it is.

The Friday Five Has Defeated Me.

This week's Friday Five asks you for your current favorite this, that, and the other thing. (Well, OK, those plus two more things, to make five. Obviously.)

I can't do it. I can't pick favorites. I don't understand how other people pick favorites. I suspect they don't, actually. I suspect that when they say "X is my current favorite Y," what they really mean is that, when they started making a mental list of good Ys, X is the first one that came to mind. Which maybe isn't a bad criterion for "favorite," but my own brain tends to throw up three or four Xs to start with, and then insist on listing half a dozen more before I've even finished typing the first one. And it's pretty much guaranteed that, even if I listed a hundred and ninety-three Ys, five minutes after I completed the list, I'd come up with seven more examples that I liked better than any of them.

So, uh, I'm boycotting this week. Yeah. Out of, uh, protest. Or something.

This Is CNN! Well, OK, Not Really.

Just in case you ever wondered (as I'm sure you all have at one time or another) what Maximum Verbosity would look like in the format of CNN's webpage, now you know! (You can do the same for your own webpage by substituting its URL for mine in the URL of the results.)

I don't know if this will look the same for everybody who clicks on it as it did for me, but I kind of hope it does, because the really amusing thing about it is that the headline over the picture actually fits just perfectly.

Here, Rover!

Apparently NASA got a ping out of the Spirit rover this morning, after a disturbing period of quiet, but still aren't getting any data back from it.

I know that I've mentioned to some of you that we've been running some tests at NRAO, where I work, to see if we can track both Mars spacecraft (part of a long-term plan to use the VLBA for tracking NASA stuff somewhere down the road). So, I just want to be perfectly clear: this was not my fault. I didn't lose the thing.

Proof That I Am the Most Boring Person on the Face of the Planet

I am currently reading a book about the history of bookshelves. And I'm enjoying it.

Still More Pointless Quizzage


Which Rock Chick Are You?

OK, I've never even heard of this woman. Or her band. And I find her cleavage highly disturbing. But apparently she's Welsh, which I guess counts for something...

Random Thought #1,092

Is it cold in here, or is it just me?

Well, Some of My Readers Will Find This Result Appropriate.


You are a PHOENIX in your soul and your
wings make a statement. Huge and born of flame,
they burn with light and power and rebirth.
Ashes fall from your wingtips. You are an
amazingly strong person. You survive, even
flourish in adversity and hardship. A firm
believer in the phrase, 'Whatever doesn't kill
you only makes you stronger,' you rarely fear
failure. You know that any mistake you make
will teach you more about yourself and allow
you to 'rise from the ashes' as a still greater
being. Because of this, you rarely make the
same mistake twice, and are not among the most
forgiving people. You're extremely powerful and
wise, and are capable of fierce pride, passion,
and anger. Perhaps you're this way because you
were forced to survive a rough childhood. Or
maybe you just have a strong grasp on reality
and know that life is tough and the world is
cruel, and it takes strength and independence
to survive it. And independence is your
strongest point - you may care for others, and
even depend on them...but when it comes right
down to it, the only one you need is yourself.
Thus you trust your own intuition, and rely on
a mind almost as brilliant as the fire of your
wings to guide you.You are eternal and because
you have a strong sense of who and what you
are, no one can control your heart or mind, or
even really influence your thinking. A symbol
of rebirth and renewal, you tend to be a very
spiritual person with a serious mind - never
acting immature and harboring a superior
disgust of those who do. Likewise, humanity's
stupidity and tendency to want others to solve
their problems for them frustrates you
endlessly. Though you can be stubborn,
outspoken, and haughty, I admire you greatly.


*~*~*Claim Your Wings - Pics and Long Answers*~*~*
brought to you by Quizilla

You Know, This Unconscious Mutterings Thing Is More Interesting If I Do It When I'm Half-Asleep.

1. Berry:: Boo Berry
   
2. Fiendish:: Plot
   
3. Bar:: Mitzvah
   
4. Frank:: N'Furter
   
5. Bend:: Break
   
6. Fanatic:: Act
   
7. Belch:: Burp
   
8. Flagrant:: Abuse
   
9. Burden:: Beast of
   
10. Flimsy:: Excuse
    

A Quotable Friday Five

Yeah, I know it's a day late. Sue me.

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails? "'I'm not making sense, but that's because David Byrne told me to stop.' -- SnakeHairedGirl." SnakeHairedGirl is a blog I read very, very occasionally, but there was something about that line that really tickled me when I came across it, possibly just because I really like the Talking Heads. I think I've had it in my sig far too long now, though. I'm getting tired of it. I usually change sig lines once a month or so, but I haven't come up with anything good to replace it with yet.

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven't graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be? I did. It was "Ad Astra."

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say? Don't have any, and could probably never really justify the expense to myself. But, OK, if I was going to... "TARDIS" would be extremely cool, but there's enough Who fans out there that it's almost certainly taken. Back before I ever even got my first car, I used to think "FTL" (for "Faster Than Light," of course) would make a good vanity plate. It would have been particularly amusing back when I was driving an old clunker that was lucky it could make 75 on the highway, but, of course, I most certainly couldn't have justified the expense then. Currently I'm driving a Dodge Neon, and it has crossed my mind that it would be cute (in a deeply geeky sort of way) to have a plate that said something like "ATOMIC 10," (because Neon is element number 10 in the periodic table, you see). But I think that's too many letters. It'd have to be "ATOM 10" or "AT NO 10" or something, and those are rather less appealing.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say? Umm... I think I've gotten a couple of books with the date and who they were from written on the flyleaf. Does that count?

5. What would you like your epitaph to be? I don't want an epitaph. I'd rather be cremated and scattered around, thank you. But if I had to have one, I've often thought it ought to be "So Many Books, So Little Time."

Comment Problems?

OK, I know several people have complained that the commenting system here isn't remembering their name and other info, and I've seen that problem, myself. I mentioned the problem on enetation's user forum, and got the following response:

Hmm, interesting

We've got some cases where the 'logged in' redirection isn't happening possibly due to cookie problems and lost cookies.

None of the server side code has changed in the last 2 weeks and none of the web software has been altered. Very odd bug and given no changes, I'd have to say that it was browser based.

I'm not saying that the users have deleted their own cookies but it's possible that say an adaware package has deleted the cookies or possibly one of the recent automatic Microsoft IE upgrades that been the cause.

Now, I don't know if that's right or wrong. I do know that I'm using Netscape and not seeing the problem at the moment, and I can't now remember whether I ever saw the problem in Netscape at all, or just with IE (which I use at work). So, for people who happen to be leaving comments here, I wonder if you could tell me whether or not it seems to be remembering your info now (or does once you give it again, anyway), and, if not, which browser you're using. 'Cause I'm sort of mystified.

Not Exactly Search Request Thursday

For the past couple of days, I've been getting huge numbers of hits from various search engines, all for the same (rather bizarre) phrase.... Enough so that it's almost doubled my hits-per-day average. I think Fred Coppersmith over at Occasional Fish had the same thing happen to him a while back... Did you eventually come to the conclusion that it was some kind of weird spam technique, Fred?

Anyway, it's made my search logs a bit difficult to pick through, and it seems like a reasonably good excuse to discontinue the "Search Request Thursday" thing for a while, because, frankly, it was starting to feel more like work than fun, anyway, even if the results did usually give me a chuckle.

It may or may not make a reappearance. Stay tuned, I guess.

More Space Stuff (or, Passing the Blogging Buck)

My brief comments about Bush's proposed space initiative yesterday prompted a fair bit of, shall we say, rather impassioned response. I personally don't have much of anything cogent to say on the issue, but I thought that, for those who may be interested in the subject, I'd throw out some links to bloggers who do have cogent things to say. So..

Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings always has intelligent things to say about space policy. His initial reaction to Bush's speech can be found here, but he's done a number of posts on the subject.

Jay Manifold of A Voyage to Arcturus offers his own initial reactions here, and talks about the media reactions here.

Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles has some really good posts on the subject, here, here, and here.

And that's all I have to say on the subject for the moment...

Not Quite Exterminated

Hey, they found a missing Dalek episode! Cool!

Going Over Like a Lead Balloon

OK, I have to say it: I am getting sick and tired of Led Zeppelin. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against Zeppelin. I'm not a huge fan, by any stretch, but, hey, I'll happily sing along with "Stairway to Heaven" when it comes on the radio, just like every other red-blooded rock fan. At some point, though, enough is enough. It seems like every single time I've gotten into the car in the last couple of weeks, no matter which of the various classic rock stations I listen to (well, I like classic rock!), they're playing Zep. Every damned time. Usually it's "Ramble On." I am getting so very, very sick of that song, not least of all because it's now taken up residence in my head, so that I can listen to it even when the radio's off, lucky me. What is it with that song? Is it suddenly considered "topical" now because of the Tolkien references? I could get behind that, actually, were it not for the fact that the Tolkien references in that song are, quite frankly, stupid. Aaargh!

Listen, DJ-type people, can we quit it with the Zep and play some Rush or something, already? I'm beggin' you here. Don't make me take a machete to my radio. Please?

Have I Really Grown This Cynical?

Ten years ago, Bush's announcement of a renewed government commitment to space (which includes a proposed human presence on the moon and the eventual possibility of manned exploration of Mars) would have had me shouting "Hallelujah!"s and "It's about time!"s and practically wetting my pants with joy as I gave in to the ecstatic fervor of a True Space Believer. But I look at this now, and, I have to admit, the first thought in my head is basically, "Great, something else to mismanage horribly in space."

Quick, somebody say something to help me get my True Believer fervor back. I miss it.

Another Stupid Quiz, Because I Dream About This Sort of Thing.


You're taffy!! You're a clever and kind person,
but you tend to hold grudges. You are not big
on dishing out forgiveness.


Which kind of candy are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nah, I don't hold grudges. But I do like taffy.

World Not to End, After All.

Just got word from my asteroid-huntin' friend. It appears civilization is safe (or at least as safe as it ever is). The thing they found turns out to be tiny enough that it'll probably burn up in the atmosphere, or, at worst, put a hole in someone's car.

But, uh, if an asteroid plunges through your roof tomorrow, remember, you heard it here first!

Because I Cannot Resist the Chance, However Sick and Twisted, to Possibly Be First with a Major News Scoop.

I just got an e-mail from a friend whose wife's job is watching out for killer asteroids.

If the world ends tomorrow, you heard it here first.

Just sayin'.

Hmm.

I had a dream last night that I was taking a stupid internet quiz.

What do you think that means?

You Are Not A Beautiful And Unique Snowflake! But Go Ahead and Make One, Anyway.


Via Pop Culture Junk Mail, here's a site where you can make your own paper-and-scissors snowflake online. I dunno, when I was a kid, we had real paper and scissors, and that was good enough for us, dagnabbit! But there's something weirdly addictive about this little toy, anyway...

And Yet Another Quiz


"The Pilot"


Which Firefly character are you?
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Hmm, this was one of those quizzes where it's painfully obvious which answer went with which character, and I still managed to end up with a completely inappropriate result. Not that I have more in common with any of the rest of them, I guess...

By the way, I did finish watching the Firefly DVDs a little while ago, and am now mourning that show all over again. Sigh. Quality SF TV, we hardly knew ye...

You'd Think Most of This Stuff Would Be Obvious...

Inspired by the mediocre Buffy novel I'm reading, as well as the many, many other mediocre TV-tie in novels I've read in my life, I'd like to present:

MY GET-A-CLUE LIST FOR MEDIA-TIE-IN WRITERS:

I do not need long, boring chunks of exposition telling me who all these characters are and what their relationships and backstories and etc. are. I already know these things, because I am a fan of the show. If I were not a fan of the show, I would not be reading a book based on it.

Even if I weren't familiar with the show, it should not be necessary to explicitly tell me, e.g., that Xander is zany and Willow is perky. If you are doing your job as a writer, these things should be clear from their actions and dialog. "Show, don't tell" is a piece of writing advice that's garnered a lot of criticism from people who misinterpret what it actually means. But it's still good advice.

If you're going to create original characters, make them interesting people in their own right, not just plot devices. And that means actually making them interesting, not just, you know, saying that they're interesting.

Do not spell an established character's name wrong. Ever. There is no excuse for it, and if you do it you deserved to be soundly thwacked and to have your keyboard taken away from you for a period of not less than a year.

Also, do not use a minor character from the show and turn him into someone completely unrecognizable. This also merits thwacking and keyboard-deprivation. (Doing it to a major character merits disembowling.)

Don't get cute and meta unless you're really, really sure you can pull it off. If you have a character think something like, "Well, at least Event X provides amusing comic relief from the exciting drama of Event Y" (and they're not being ironic), you'd better be damned sure that X is funny and Y is exciting and dramatic, otherwise readers will roll their eyes and laugh at you.

If you need a character to do something for plot reasons and are having trouble justifying it as being in-character, for gods' sakes, either come up with a good reason to force the character's hand or change the plot. Do not invent an incredibly lame reason and then state it repeatedly over the course of a hundred pages, as if sheer repetition will make us accept it.

There are some plot ideas which have been used so often that there should now be a moratorium placed on them for the indefinite future. Identify these, and avoid them. For instance, "There has been no vampire activity around Sunnydale for weeks, making everyone nervous because it's Too Quiet(tm)" might have been an interesting idea the first time it was used. Maybe. It has, however, long since gotten annoying.

I'm sure I could come up with many, many other suggestions, but I think those will do to start with. Consider this a public service posting...

This Was Kind of a Fun One.


What Snack Food are You? (With Cool Pics!!)
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Unconscious Mutterings

1. Mitchell:: Murray *blink* That's weird. I don't know anyone named Mitchell Murray. Who's Mitchell Murray?
   
2. Mercury:: Venus, Earth, Mars...
   
3. Cycle:: Year
   
4. Engagement:: Ring
   
5. Alternative:: Music
   
6. Gang:: Rules
   
7. Emotional:: Scene
   
8. Skinny:: Dipping
   
9. Hypochondriac:: I'm not gonna say the first thing that came to my mind, because it was an unflattering reference to a particular person, and I'm not in the mood to be mean.
   
10. Insecure:: Uncertain