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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 |
james_nicoll
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12:02p |
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| Sunday, May 5th, 2013 |
katestine
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11:46a |
Shopping is hard; let's do math!
Originally written 5/23/13I'm interrupting the Venetian stories to complain about HOW HARD it is to find housewares. Spoiler alert: Jon and I went registry shopping on Sunday, which was a truly irritating experience overall. Particularly annoying is that we went to Bloomingdale's and couldn't find any sheets that had patterns. I like sheets that have patterns bc my current sheets don't have a pattern and so every spot where I didn't get a stain out in time is highlighted. Jon claims that most sheets don't have a pattern, bc you just cover it with the duvet, but what if you like to have messy sex? Or the natural outcome of messy sex, orclings? Augh. This is leaving aside the whole question of, are they soft? While walking around Bloomingdale's, I found deliciously soft sheets. Jon says I can't have them, bc they cost eleventy thousand dollars each. I bet it's because he made me go to Bloomingdales, rather than Macys or Bed Bath & Beyond, where my last two sets of sheets came from. anyhoo, is there some trend to comfy beds or something? I thought LBro was crazy when he bought himself a $3k mattress (not exaggerating), but (a) then he bought an almost as expensive one for our sister and (b) OperaBoss just told me she spent $2k on hers, and I bet it wasn't made by American elves in a factory in Connecticut. The sad part is, the sheets are one of the few parts of the registry where I have any say: setting up house with a son of Hestia, it's not like I'll be using anything else we buy. |
| Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 |
burger_eater
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8:29a |
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stevegreen
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3:45p |
Futureshock
David Montgomery's 'robot' journalism will terminate both jobs and local news
"We have to be truly digital, so that in three or four years from now, much of our human interface will have disappeared. We will have to harvest content and publish it without human interface, which will change the role of journalists. Journalists collecting stories one by one is hugely unproductive. They will have to have new skills, greater responsibility for self-publishing on different platforms." [Guardian]
A fairly horrifying prospect.
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missingvolume
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10:24a |
#40 Hearts in Darkness: Nikki and Michael Book 2 by Keri Arthur
The second book in this reprinted series has more of the I love you but I must keep my distance vibe throughout the entire book. We find out some of Michael's past as his and Nikki's cases once again overlap each other and they must work together for the case to succeed and live according to a prophecy. Light entertaining read but if you have read Keri Arthur's other books you know that this is the set pattern of relationships and if you are fine with that you will have an enjoyable few hours of light reading. Digital copy provided by Edelweiss  |
james_nicoll
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8:55a |
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odanu
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7:45a |
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| Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 |
james_nicoll
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11:46p |
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| Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 |
dewline
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6:04a |
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tychist
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10:16a |
Word Stuff
in The Book I have a man who becomes leader of his people into a new land. is there a word or title for this? in any language? I'm a bit braindead today. asthma. |
kengr
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2:04a |
Blood Oath
[inspired by a bit in the Saga of Tuck.] Yeah, OK, I freaked out back when it started. But it's actually surprising that that was all I did. Except, of course, I couldn't tell anybody why I'd freaked out. Which is why I've been seeing a therapist. She's not too bad, and it's not like I didn't have problems before. She could help with those. Alas, that still didn't explain my freak-out. And her guesses were getting a bit too close to stuff that could either get her in trouble or be really bad for me. Getting tossed in a nuthouse would be bad. Being effectively defenseless there could be fatal or worse. But today I accidentally said something under my breath. Well, I thought that's what I'd done. Apparently I said it a bit louder than I intended and Sheila caught it. "Did you just say something about a blood oath?" ( Read more...Collapse ) |
nwhyte
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10:00a |
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jeriendhal
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12:01a |
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jeriendhal
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12:01a |
365 Days of Drabbles, Day One Hundred Forty-Three
For  rix_scaedu: “Here comes the bride” * * * “You’re being intolerably smug about this,” Melanie said, tapping her stylus against a fang as she looked over the marriage contract. “What? Groom prices are traditional,” Rolas said, not even trying to suppress his smile. “Well, up until about four weeks ago I was richer than your family.” “That was before Mum was granted the countess-ship.” “I know. I’d say that was most unfair, but you all damned well deserved it.” “Thank you,” he said. “I still think it’s a barbaric practice, selling one’s son off.” “You’re not buying? She caught his wrist in her paw. “I’m buying. And keeping.” |
nwhyte
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7:59a |
Georgian restaurant in London
Having reached London too late to get to last night's BSFA meeting, I persuaded djm4 - who I had not seen in over two decades - to try Georgian food. There are in fact several Georgian restaurants in London, but the handiest by far, which also seemed to have a decent write-up in Time Out, was Iberia at 294 Caledonian Road, just north of King's Cross. It was really yummy; all the proper recipes, served with Georgian wine, though there were a couple of gaps on the menu (sadly they were out of tarragon-flavoured lemonade). Strongly recommended, especially the khinkali. |
james_nicoll
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12:20a |
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austin_dern
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12:10p |
And nouns and nouns but I'm not sore
This brought us of course to the closing ceremonies and the normal sorts of things for the close, like, the first time bunny_hugger and I were perfectly sure we knew who the guests of honor were. Well, that happens when you just go for the con and don't worry about who's in the lineup. And there's the celebratory moments like reports of con statistics and of the money raised for the charity and all that.
Unfortunately Morphicon doesn't have much to do the Sunday night --- the only real event is the Atomic Battle of Doom, some massive LARP-type action at which we just peek from the door because we're not interested in signing the liability waivers that it requires. But bunny_hugger produced some entertainment of her own, strolling around with guitar and singing and delighting Ebony Leopard with her rendition of Sparks's ``Everybody's Stupid (That's For Sure)'', which he thought was her original composition until she dismissed credit. It's a fair question why Sparks hasn't joined the ranks of standard geek music references; I have theories, but they can wait.
As we had two years ago, bunny_hugger and I met up with xolo and Kattywumpus to go to dinner at the Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant down along US 23 from the con. (We went in my car, which needed to be cleaned out a little bit before we could go. I took the excuse to clean out the [ folded-down ] rear seats by going in through the hatchback trunk, because I really like excuses to leap into my car's hatchback trunk.) It seemed to take a long while to get there, but we remembered, it seemed like an awfully long time getting there last time, and we went back to the hotel to get directions and found we just hadn't gone far enough. This time we went farther and that was about far enough.
The Blue Nile revealed a catastrophe to us, though: it had a sign out front warning that it was changing its name, and it was shifting the cuisine to do both Ethiopian and Thai, I think it was. Certainly something from another continent. The waiter warned us about this, but that the old menu was still going to be served and we could have that if we wanted. We did, and it was just fine, but it's hard to not see this as a warning sign of the restaurant's total collapse.
Also over the course of the night I may have agreed to host a con version of The Price Is Right, which I'm simultaneously very well qualified and hopelessly unqualified to do. I can kind of see how it might be done, picking stuff like commissions and con merchandise for the small prizes, but, (a) what would big prizes be, (b) what kind of pricing games could be done since the best games depend on big props that move and those are just the worst for a semi-amateur group to put together (I suppose we could do Rat Race, if we can find some wind-up rats), and (c) how to actually test the idea out. Also there's my inability to actually speak on purpose in public, but there's a year; maybe something can be worked out.
Trivia: Michigan's first Grange chapter was founded 10 June 1872; by the end of the year there were seven. By October 1875 it had 605 chapters and 33,196 members, the ninth largest Grange membership in the nation. Source: Michigan: A History of the Great Lakes State, Bruce A Rubenstein, Lawrence E Ziewacz.
Currently Reading: The Non-Statistical Man, Raymond F Jones. |
james_nicoll
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12:07a |
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| Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 |
james_nicoll
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11:46p |
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othercat
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7:11p |
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lyda222
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7:35p |
Killed by Senbonzakura
So, we went to kuk sool finally after many days absence to discover that all the cherry blossoms had bloomed, so OF COURSE we had to take some petals home and have a little shikai battle. You'll have to imagine (a lot), but also that I have Zabimaru. I kind of like how the blossoms look like magic spikes. (Mason makes a good Byakuya, neh?)  My sad death. Luckily, I'm headed to the Soul Society!  No, I will rise again, like Renji! |
shanejayell
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2:53p |
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dsgood
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4:14p |
Tuesday May 21, 2013 From Twitter: Peace Corps @PeaceCorps Proud to announce we'll begin accepting Volunteer apps from same-sex domestic partners who want to serve together http://1.usa.gov/16McG2M Retweeted by rivenhomewood ***From Twitter: Media Matters @mmfa NRA lists the 'coolest gun movies': http://bit.ly/10SdID9 Flashback: NRA blames mass shootings on movies http://mm4a.org/UkYROn Retweeted by Dan Savage ***Shopping: The Wedge Coop. Steeple People Thrift Store, where I found a couple of things I needed. On to the Dollar Store on Franklin Avenue, and the nearby Aldi grocery. ***"DARE [Dictionary of American Regional English] has received a grant from NEH to do a pilot study in Wisconsin to test a new Questionnaire and a new methodology for a second round of nationwide fieldwork. "This time we won't be using Word Wagons--instead, the survey will be conducted online. We are working with the University of Wisconsin Survey Center to develop the method, and we will include a recorded telephone interview to collect phonological data for comparison with the original DARE recordings. "We plan to omit questions for practices that are now obsolete (farming with oxen, kinds of sleigh, etc) and add questions that reflect changes in our society over the last 50 years." And what questions will they be asking 50 years from now? Current Mood: damp |
vulpine137
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2:56p |
Wednesday 2, Tentacle Boogaloo
Busy day of non work. Talked to both siblioids, one about who gets what
stuff, and the other about yeah...we're dividing up Mom's stuff, and she's
still alive. It's not like she's going to magically get better and move
out of assisted living. You don't like how I'm handling Mom's stuff,
come on down, move it to storage yourself, pay for it yourself, and then
you can deal with this again when Mom passes. Otherwise STFU, and deal.
Shockingly, the one I'm annoyed with isn't the usual one who drives me
up a wall and makes me want to kick heads. I'm almost paranoid enough
to believe this is a grand conspiracy. Almost.
Went and visited Mom, and verified the Verizon yabbos fixed her phone.
Mom was in a better mood. We talked, took a walk around her building.
Well I walked, she sat in her chair and made commentary. Tried to talk
her into joining the Bingo crowd after my visit...no dice. Oh well.
Still was a pretty good visit.
Mood is better than this morning. No big change, just less...care I
guess. Less things to deal with. Coming to the end of the having to
take care of things. I'm actually thinking ahead to things besides
Mom foo, which is a change. Of course it's turning into the season of
'Hot' here in Texas, which means mostly thinking ahead to October...and
the season of 'Not so Hot'. Oh well, at least I have A/C. And books.
So many books. Maybe I'll take a bookcation, lock down the internet
and spend days in my room reading my booky friends. (not that I have
much PTO, but I could always take unpaid time off).
That's about it for now, all things considered it's better. Lets hope
it stays that way *crosses tentacles*
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james_nicoll
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2:40p |
Venus Probe Success/Fail
Just for my own curiosity Is this right?
Total Fail Success Success Rate
1960s 19 14 5 26%
1970s 11 3* 8 73%
1980s 8 .33 7.67 96%
1990s -- -- -- --
2000s 3 3 100%
2010s 1 1** 0%
* Counting partial failures as 1/2 ** Second try coming up in 2016. Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are  comment(s); comment here or there. |
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