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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 | |
fafnar
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10:46p |
Top of the Pops
Finally ended up making a CD for June. This thing plays real nice in a loop. Was designed to just sit in a CD player.
Waltz, No. 2 (XO) -- Elliott Smith
Amnesia -- The Vines
Yer Stoned Italian Cowboy -- The Go
Me and Mia -- Pharmacists & Ted Leo
Take Your Mama -- Scissor Sisters
I Will Dare -- The Replacements
Train In Vain -- The Clash
Company Calls -- Office
Your English Is Good -- Tokyo Police Club
Eighty Eight -- Working for a Nuclear Free City
New Soul -- Yael Naïm
Lucky Today -- Cloud Cult
Great DJ -- The Ting Tings
Be Good -- Tokyo Police Club
Alex Chilton -- The Replacements
Drop It Doe Eyes -- Los Campesinos!
Shining Light -- Ash
Walking to Do -- Pharmacists & Ted Leo
I'll Be You -- The Replacements
You Don't Understand Me -- The Raconteurs
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joedecker
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10:28p |
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esmerel
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10:02p |
Things you never thought you'd hear yourself say... and then you became a parent: Hi honey. Are you sitting in daddy's underwear? (She'd run into the bathroom while he was using it and proceeded to attempt to use his pants as a place to sit) No, that's not a sandbox, that's the kitty's toilet. Pizza is for eating, not for sitting on. Current Mood:  amused |
james_nicoll
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11:40p |
Question for KW locals
There's a food place up on Lancaster near Victoria called (I think) Dave's Newfoundland Fries. It's in what used to be a Dairy Queen ages ago.
Has anyone eaten there? Any good? Any idea what their hours are? I've never managed to find them open, although once they had just closed (but the next day when we went by considerably earlier, they were closed). |
| Friday, July 4th, 2008 |
janne
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12:25a |
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| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 |
cyranocyrano
|
2:22p |
Smells like Teen Satyr
Satyr
Very dark smell. The website doesn't mention what's actually in it, but people in reviews mention civet and clove and nutmeg. I'm definitely getting a dark musk. It's very masculine, and it's getting positive reviews at the office. I can see ordering a full bottle of this. |
cyranocyrano
|
1:47p |
Smells like Teen Spirit
The BPAL order came in today--much quicker than expected.
There were the ones I ordered:
Mead Moon, Doc Constantine and Western Diamondback in the big containers and Black Forest, Antikythera Mechanism, Calico Jack, Casanova, Dee and Golden Priapus in the imps.
There were also a buttload of random gift imps:
Kumari Kandam, La Belle au Bois Dormant, Rakshasa, Black Lily, Satyr, Deep Ones and Severin.
They must think I'm really going to like Kumari Kandam because I got two of them. (: |
james_nicoll
|
3:32p |
Old Tea Leaf Reviews 17: 1997 Locus Poll Best First Novel Cut for length and to temporarily conceal how few of these I have read. ( Read more... ) |
james_nicoll
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11:01a |
A question for authors
I need a special "this may make Charles Stross sad" icon.
Last night at gaming, someone mentioned avoiding an author - not Charles - because their books have a blurb from Orson Scott Card on them. Now, the author probably didn't ask to have an OSC blurb. Someone at the publishing company just assumed that having a positive comment from a nutty homophobe would boost sales [1]. This turned into a discussion of what things involved in the production and sale of a book are within the control of the authors and what isn't. Is the following correct?
Assume a standard mid-list author:
Under the Author's Control For the Most Part
Most of the text within the book.
Not Under the Author's Control For the Most Part
The cover art.
The cover text, including blurbs.
The font used in the book.
The formal advertising campaign (if there is one), although the publisher won't stop the authors from promoting their own work.
Whther or not the entire text is in one volume or spread over several or if only a fraction of the entire text is published at all.
The physical quality of the book.
The choice of hard cover, trade or mass market paperback.
The release date of the book.
Any others?
1: They probably think of him as a "best selling author" rather than having a deliberate policy to try to sell as much SF as possible to people who think the more uppity queers should be put in jail. |
mizkit
|
12:54p |
gah. I just had one of those “Oh god, I’ve lost it all,” moments, when my writing computer sort of took a breath on start-up, and quietly shut down again.
It booted properly the second time–and, in fact, I’d have lost maybe two chapters of work at most anyway–but you can bet your sweet tush that I have made a backup of Nook and stored it in two, soon to be three, different locations. *heart palpitations*
Ted got up at 8. I thought I’d rolled over and he’d come back upstairs to take a shower, but it turned out an hour had passed between those two things happening. I didn’t get up until nearly 10, which is extremely unlike me these days, and which has sort of thrown me off. Dragged myself to write, and it became clear that the setup for my office wasn’t going to work; I was just getting too much brightness from outside, and couldn’t counter it with the lamps, so I was getting, if not headaches, at least consistent grumpies from the light differential. So I rearranged, after which came the computer scare. I clearly need to go have lunch and … I don’t know. That sentence should end with “write”, but right now I think just managing food will be an accomplishment.
Yoga class tonight. I think it’ll be good for me.
(x-posted from the essential kit) Current Mood:  anxious |
tahnan
|
1:35a |
Philadelphia Museum of Art On Sunday, my wife and I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For my birthday this year, we went to the Rodin Museum—I fell in love with Rodin as a senior in high school taking AP Art History 1—and, unsurprisingly, I loved it. I love art museums. I entered college with some intent to major in art history, thanks to that high school class. (Thanks, Mrs. Carnes!) So I was not expecting to be so sorely disappointed. ( Cut for length )Anyway, that was our Sunday. Perhaps the Franklin Institute'll be better, once we get there. 1A class that fit into the schedules of exactly three of us. I entered the school a year ahead in math, so I didn't have a math course to take senior year. The other two were juniors who'd just transferred and therefore had some similar free slot based on them having already taken something. My high school wasn't really big on "electives". 2Second favorite part: sitting on a bench not far from "Sunflowers" and having a man in his 60s with a midwestern accent walk past me, calling back to his wife, "Hey, I think this one's by Van Gogh!" |
| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 |
james_nicoll
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11:51p |
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james_nicoll
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11:41p |
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james_nicoll
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11:23p |
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esmerel
|
3:41p |
Dear housemate If we ever go to Pittsburg, PA, we should visit here.( ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tashabear's fault for that one) Current Mood: amused |
james_nicoll
|
5:04p |
Canada Post, How I Love Thee
An author very kindly sent me a copy of her book back in April or May. It never arrived. She sent another copy on June 16th, priority mail so it could be tracked. It just arrived.
Now it might seem unfair that I immediately assume the problem is on the Canadian side of the border but this is because experience tells me that every time someone posted a package that got delayed or went missing, it did it on the Canadian side of the border. This is because Canada Post sucks. |
james_nicoll
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4:09p |
Old Tea Leaf Reviews 16: 1996 Locus Poll Best First Novel Cut for length ( Read more... ) |
mizkit
|
6:48p |
a somewhat schizophrenic entry slovobooks/Pádraig rang this morning to let us know our friend xnamkrad/Frank Darcy died early today, which was not surprising news, but which was very sad to hear indeed. I’d spoken with his brother on Monday, after texting Frank, and had been told he’d slipped into a deep coma from which he was not expected to awaken, so … yeah. Not surprising, but very sad. We expect we’ll go into Dublin Friday morning for the funeral mass (I think probably it’s fairly traditional for the Irish to attend the removal, as well, but we wouldn’t be able to get back to Longford if we did), though the early trains might make it complicated. We’ll see.
In the schizophrenia promised in the subject line…aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, it’s really been a rather nice day. We have internets at home now, and I’ve spent the last couple hours trying frantically to catch up on some email and general arrangement of stuff. I’ve made a small dent, at least. We went to see “Hancock”, which turned out a whole lot darker than we expected, but in the end we liked it pretty well. I mean, c’mon, it’s Will Smith. What’s not to like? (really, if you don’t like Will Smith, you don’t have to answer that…)
I haven’t managed to reach 50K on the book yet. I’d decided I was taking today off, but then we heard about Frank, and I couldn’t afford to not write today if we’re going to Dublin on Friday, so I scraped through the last of chapter 14 and know where to start 15, but I didn’t quite make 50K on the book. OTOH, I have broken 250K for the year. Holy moly.
Wonder if I can show off the cover for issue #1 yet.
ytd wordcount: 250,600
miles to Isengard: 64.6
(x-posted from the essential kit) Current Mood:  depressed |
cyranocyrano
|
10:25a |
The Lootening 2: Electric Lootenoo
Yesterday a very battered little box arrived at our home from Wales. I don't know who sent it, but I also know that the number of people I know in Wales is rather small so I'm pretty certain I can guess. It contains three historical maps of Cardiff and NewGate. *squeak*
Somebody is getting a big hug when she gets here. |
amphipodgirl
|
10:03a |
geek craft  Original posting: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?t opic=254874.msg2843426#msg2843426 |
joedecker
|
9:45a |
Initiative Poltiics Part Deux Maybe I was overthinking this in the last post. How about this?
Let's assume that the "Limit on Marriage Amendment", aka Proposition 8, passes. It does not by itself rewrite or specifically talk about CA's equal protection clause, so the text of equal protection remains, as would the presumption of strict scrutiny as per precedent. The California Supreme Court in its decision did in fact point out another possible remedy it could have taken to dealing with marriage inequality, and as near as I can tell, that option still remains within the realm of legal possibility should the Limit on Marriage amendment pass.
I quote from the decision:
We need not decide in this case whether the name marriage is invariably
a core element of the state constitutional right to marry so that the state would violate a couples constitutional right even if perhaps in order to emphasize and clarify that this civil institution is distinct from the religious institution of marriage the state were to assign a name other than marriage as the official designation of the formal family relationship for all couples.
Yes, in fact, the California Supreme Court, in the wake of the putative passage of Proposition 8, simply redefine all marriages in the state as civil unions. This result would be consistent with the text of Proposition 8 and consistent with the court's recent decision.
Let me be clear, I don't really think it would do that. The effects--ranging up to and including, perhaps, the removal of federal marriage rights from every married couple in the state--it's probably hard to imagine them actually going so far.
Probably.
But how sure can the people who might want to vote for Proposition 8 be?
Do you feel lucky, punks?
"Vote no on Proposition 8 or we'll take away YOUR marriage, too, assholes." |
james_nicoll
|
11:29a |
Bah
One of my old posts from July 2007 is getting hit with comment spam so I have disabled comments. Is there a way to just prevent more comments from being made? My current solution appears to have vanished all the old comments. |
james_nicoll
|
11:20a |
Old Tea Leaf Reviews 15: 1995 Locus Poll Best First Novel Cut for Length ( Read more... ) |
ross_teneyck
|
12:36a |
Let's make our own book list So clynne recently posted a book meme supposedly from The Big Read, but given that the list of 100 books is weirdly random and contains some duplicates as well as a few real dogs, we all have our doubts. But it made me think: surely we can compile a better book list than that. So I'm inviting suggestions: what, in your mind, are the great or at least truly significant books? They don't necessarily have to be books you like, or even have read; but they should be books that you feel a reasonably well-read person ought to have read. I'm going to break this down into categories, suggest a few starters, and open the floor to suggestions. If we come up with enough, I'll try to compose it into a 100 list; if not, well, at least we'll have amused ourselves a little. I reserve the right to be completely arbitrary about any aspect of this. AntiquityThe Iliad/The OdysseyThe Bible...? MedievalLe Morte d'Arthur...? Renaissance to VictorianThe Collected Works of Shakespeare...? 20th/21st Century MainstreamUlysses...? SF/FantasyThe Collected Works of H.P. LovecraftI, Robot...? Romance...? MysteryThe Cadfael Series...? Thriller...? Children/Young AdultThe Oz SeriesThe Narnia SeriesThe Swallows & Amazons Series...? Suggest away! |
| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 |
ross_teneyck
|
10:21p |
2008 Movie Checklist: Wanted • Iron Man [My review]
• Speed Racer [My review]
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian [My review]
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [My review]
• Kung Fu Panda [My review]
• The Incredible Hulk [My review]
• WALL-E [My review]
• Wanted
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• The Dark Knight
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
• Star Wars: The Clone WarsThere's a term Fridge Logic, which describes that moment, some hours after watching a movie, while staring vacantly into the fridge, when it suddenly occurs to you to wonder, "Wait a minute... why couldn't Qui-Gon Jinn just have mind-tricked some other schmuck into accepting Republic credits in exchange for local currency, which he could then use to buy the hyperdrive from Watto, thereby avoiding the pod-race and by extension the whole Anakin fiasco?" It's the delayed recognition of something that makes no sense. Well, when it comes to Wanted, I'm here to tell you that there is no fridge big enough. There are movies that require you to suspend your disbelief. This is not one of them. For this movie, you must hogtie your disbelief, lay it on an altar, and cut its heart out; and it's worth it, because it is the altar of Awesome. Remember, back when I first talked about it, I said that the bit from the trailer that convinced me was when our hero shot someone's bullet out of the air? That is probably the least ridiculous thing that he does in the entire movie. We're talking stunts that make The Matrix look like a lecture on physics, and a plot that is -- literally -- made out of whole cloth. If you're willing to take this movie on its own terms, then it is glorious. If you're going to nitpick, then it will make your head explode. |
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