| Today's nifty Win7 trick. |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|12:58 pm] |
Ever wanted to see all the options in all the control panels, all at once?
Create a folder on your desktop. Name it "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"
Check it out!
(It doesn't have to be "GodMode". It can be anything you want, as long as you've got the right code after it.)
via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) eididdy |
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| Once more blew the wind in the Windy City, Part I |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|12:57 pm] |
New Year's Eve DFS, Chicago, IL, Dec 30 2009-Jan 3 2010: A rocking success, overall.
Breno and I started one day early, on Dec 29, having decided to make the drive between DC and Chicago in two stages. We were planning to rent an "intermediate" size car, but we were informed that we could have a Mustang for a tiny amount more per day, which... when the woman made the suggestion, I think I saw actual rainbows in Breno's eyes, so I could not even consider declining. I was a bit worried about my own ability to handle that car, as it is larger than what I like, but I got used to it quickly. It's sort of powerful, and a very comfortable ride.
Tangentially, I had my pet peeves about driver behavior before, tailgaters and non-signalers heading the list; it took my first long-distance trip in the driver's seat to update the hatred of tailgaters to a red, burning passion. Also: People who park in the left lane at speed limit+2. Not only do they take a loooooooong time to pass you if you're in the middle lane doing the limit, but they also hem you in, cutting off escape routes should something go wrong with the truck you are following and they are halfheartedly trying to pass. Gah gah gah.
But anyway.
The entry to Toledo had surprisingly little traffic, and when we got to missysedai's place, it was to find lowbeyonder hanging out and Missy's youngest setting the table. Soon enough, Missy Sedai and the rest of her family returned from a Bordeaux class in the wildlands of Michigan, and soon after that, there were grilled steaks, steamed crab legs, incredible mashed potatoes in their jackets and wine. And sleep.
And next day, the drive to Chicago. We got in kind of early, played some phone tag, and went off to park on North Street and walk around, discover the location of the nearest El stop, and have coffee. Some hours later, figuring that enough people would have descended upon the Party Central, we went back. And so they had, and so it began.
Many people have posted in many places about how the Party Central experiment---rent a four-bedroom houes to, well, house fifteen people and serve as partying location to six more---was very successful. It was, and in spite of all the "hey, we can't have nice things!" panic attacks the initial looks induced in everybody, well... apparently we can have nice things. And mock the (somewhat pretentious, to be frank) artwork.
The next several days were filled with, in no particular order, food, drinks, more food, board gaming, art, walking, video gaming, chatting chatting chatting, some knitting, Sherlock Holmes, "I can't feel my face" cold, the Beatles, debates, catch-ups, snarking, more snarking, snarking to the max, poker, assassinations, leaps of faith, and oh, by the way, in there somewhere we rang 2009 out and 2010 in. Part II of this narrative will go a little into these things.
Sunday was the Sad Day of Partings. Once more proving that we can too have nice things, we managed to clean up as much as we needed to and pack up and get everyone out before 11. (Well, Breno and I hit the road at 10:30, by which time everyone was standing outside, so I assume that was that.) We got on to the Skyway and then embarrassingly managed to miss the split to the Indiana toll road, resulting in me looking up from my laptop (I was working) and wondering aloud "Why are all the ads about things in Michigan?" 50 miles into Michigan. We could thankfully turn south soon enough. There was snowing for part of the road, both until we left Lake Michigan behind and then as we went past Erie, and we changed drivers three times, but we made it safe and sound into the DC/Baltimore area by 1 am, having added "cross-winds enough to feel in a Mustang" to my list of driving peeves.
(Ironically, or perhaps jealously, Maryland was imitating Chicago at the hour we came in---17 F temperature, winds gusting to 35 mph.)
The next day, I was very scared and upset to learn that one of the DFS participants had had a health issue the day they returned home, but I am grateful that he seems fine now.
More commentary tomorrow. |
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| lord i need forgiveness for the methods i use |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|11:04 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, shadow unit, wtf | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Ben Harper and Relentless7 - Number With No Name | ] |
This is such a Stephen Reyes song.
I'm serenaded by a chorus of a thousand burning cigarettes
You've been taking chances, mama
While I've been placing bets
So tell it to the ashes, they know we served
It may be good for the soul but it's hard on the nerves
The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane
Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name
Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame
A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name
There's nowhere to run
I've got no one to tell
My face has become a mask and I'm not wearing it well
For five days straight
I've been breathing fire
Don't have room on my body
For another scar
The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane
Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name
Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame
A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name |
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| stuff it up the hole in your culture |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|10:26 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  relaxed | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Leonard Cohen - The Future | ] |
Aliete de Bodard (aliettedb), Campbell Award nominee and all-around hoopy frood, is doing a really interesting series of historical posts about the setting of her new fantasy series, Obsidian and Blood. (I have read the first book, Servant of the Underworld, and it was good. Bloody, but good.)
For your delectation:
1) The Valley of Mexico
2) Tenochtitlan
3) The Sacred Precinct
She has, to all appearances, done her research. ;-)
I have eaten cottage cheese (how come I never remember how much I like cottage cheese until I buy it because it's on sale?) and am about to make tea. Then I will go watch TV and think about Grail (I am confident in my deadline, even though it's only three months off. This worries me a little. Can I possibly be becoming innured to the damned things?) and brush the dog for a while, before resuming my Editorial Functions for truepenny.
Poor dog, he doesn't know about this yet.
Climbing tonight. And guacamole tacos for lunch, about which I am already ridiculously excited. I really like guacamole tacos. |
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| Recruitment Drive |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|09:20 am] |
Apologies to non-locals while I take care of some important business...
The demon of busy scheduling has struck again, leaving me regretting the departure of a recent but much appreciated addition to my Thursday night gaming group. As a result I am putting out an open call for one new recruit. In the past I’ve kept a waiting list, but it’s been many years since I’ve done a call and want to start from scratch. Apologies if you’ve contacted me in the past; please bear with me by getting in touch again.
To join the group, you’ll need to be reliably free on Thursday nights and able to get to the Bloor-Bathurst area in downtown Toronto. We meet from 7 pm to 10 pm.
You will also need a saintly tolerance for my playtesting needs. I run games I’m either designing or need to familiarize myself in order to do freelance work for. Lately we’ve had an unusually long run with a single campaign, which happens to be D&D4. Soon we’ll be switching to the as-yet-unnamed GUMSHOE space game. Often I’ll have to suddenly abandon a successful series in midstream to go on to the next thing. We usually play RPGs but there’s always the chance you may be asked to test-drive a card or board game along the way.
In the past I’ve accepted players on a first-come, first-served basis. This time, I’m looking to cast the new candidate a little more, with an eye to keeping our group dynamic fresh.
If you’re interested, leave a comment or private LJ message with a way of contacting me back. Or if you’re seeing this on the Facebook, leave a message in my inbox. Give me a quick sense of your gaming tastes.
Whether you jump in for the last few weeks of the D&D game or wait till Space GUMSHOE will be up to you. |
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| GothCon2010 |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|01:41 pm] |
Who's interested of attending? I have created a Facebook group called Artist Corner, make sure you'll join.
For once I am looking forward to sit there and sell art, I have some new goodies :D |
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| Allergic reaction |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|11:53 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | health | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  calm | ] |
To make a very long story short.
2004-2005 I destroyed my back working as a mail man. I still suffer from that today and about once a year I need to visit a naprapath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naprapathy) to ease all tension and knots in my lower back. Those muscle knots have been the size of walnuts to eggs as worse.
However, today I spend my days sitting in front of a computer. My chair is one of those expensive ones that have all these neat settings. Some months ago I suspect that a co-worker of mine borrowed my chair and changed some settings. Not by purpose. My back got worse again to the point where I could barley walk due to the tensions and knots. I visited a naprapath clinic I use to visit and had a very evil (in a good way) naprapath taking care of me.
Yesterday I visited him, he took care of the most evil knot I had and applied some acupuncture needles and the knot gave up *wohoo* He used a heat rubb on my back, which I have used before, and everything felt great.
Past midnight I woke up, my back felt like it was on fire. I had a look in the mirror and it was flaming red in the area where he had rubbed it in. The skin felt swollen and irritated.
I had a cold shower, but as I had dried myself the burning pain started all over again. I were close to tears and had a second shower, applied soap in an attempt to wash it away. At this point Husband arrived from work and he helped me to smear cortisone all over my back. It helped some, but not entirely. After 30 min he had to apply it again and after that the pain eased and I could go back to sleep.
I have never felt anything like that before, and tomorrow I am going to call my naprapath and ask what that rub contained. (Bank holiday today) |
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| won't make trouble. don't need no fuss. but i'm wounded, old, and i'm treacherous. |
[Jan. 6th, 2010|12:24 am] |
A funny thing happened on the way to the--
no, wait, that's not how the story goes.
At some point in the past couple of years, I've lost control of my stories. I mean, not--not like I had no control over them when I started writing, and just did things in any way I could because I didn't have the toolkit to choose how I was going to try to accomplish any given task. It was all brute force and ignorance, and not a lot of technique.
No, I still remember how to write. I still have all the tools in my toolkit, and I know how to use them. It's not the writing I've lost control of.
It's the stories. They've gotten... well, all the tidy has come out of them, and some of the calculation, and some of the rigid adherence to structure. They feel kind of wobbly and loose and ambiguous in my head. It's been scaring me, because I've been getting this sense that what I'm writing these days is not just not under control, but not controllable at all. Like there's bottom down there I can't see.
But based on the reactions I'm getting to them, that's working out okay somehow.
See, I used to know what the structures did, what they were there for, what work every piece did and how it affected the balance of the whole. I was a watchmaker. I had figured out how to build these machines and I could speed them up or slow them down. They didn't control time, but they were excellent devices for measuring it, quantifying it, making it observable and maybe even comprehensible.
And then suddenly I couldn't do that anymore, couldn't make those approximations that make something incredibly complex and contradictory more easily apprehensible.
I was panicky about it. I felt like they were all wrong. They were broken; they weren't working.
And then I started looking at some of the stuff other people are saying about my newer stories--"The Horrid Glory of Its Wings," "Sonny Liston takes the Fall," etc--and I realized something. They were working. They were working in ways I couldn't explain or quantify or set out on the dust cloth on the desk and move around with tweezers. They were working in messing, organic ways. These were not machines: these were organisms.
You don't own an organism. You negotiate with it.
These days the damned things are less like fine-geared pocketwatches and more like TARDISes--full of mysterious clankings and familiar spirits. Quite possibly possessed, a little bit random and out of control, never quite doing what I expect when I expect it. But actually in tune with something nexpressible about the nature of time, rather than just measuring each second ticking past.
And bigger on the inside than on the outside.
They seem to have taken on a life of their own.
That's really nifty.
I guess I have to start thinking of them as partners rather than tools now. That should be interesting. |
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| Well. Driving. |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|10:02 pm] |
Also various wakings-up. Got up (whimpering) at the alarm, to get the kid to school. Fretted on the way back that she had actually gotten on the bus (long paranoid story; she had, anyway, not missed the bus). Got back into bed. Tried to get back to sleep. Eventually succeeded. Phone rang. Special Ed office. Room ###. Right, will go in after lunch.
Dentist appointment at 10:10, tooth cleaning, and x-rays. Whee. No cavities spotted, and comments that my teeth-cleaning had improved. Exclamations over where I'd chomped it, and warning that there might be a scar-lump. Not surprised.
Deposited small royalty check from e23. Useful.
Back home. Boiled egg for kid for later. Ate food -- breakfast, as it happens. Went over to school. Had useful talk with M(r)s. S. (Poor folks; their email is all down, and won't be up till Thursday at the earliest.) Went to library, helped some kids get something printed (one computer wouldn't talk to the printer, and the one next to it would), stuck "fantasy" stickers to unlabeled or mislabeled books for a while. Got kid.
Was actually all set to do some work on Project V... But Ms. S had given me homework -- a book for parents and educators about kids with Asperger's. (Some bits, the kid is spot-on, some she's kind of on, and one or two she's totally atypical.) So. *sigh* But homework is nearly finished, so.
Ate at a Japanese/Chinese place on the way back. Good food. Nice tea.
INwatch: Core Rules: 448 (yay!), Lilith: 380, Eli: 360, Liber Umbrarum: 224, Litheroy: 218, Asmodeus: 192, Infernal Player's Guide: 124, GURPS In Nomine: 83, Zadkiel: 75 (yay!), Liber Canticorum: 31 (yay!), Game Master's Guide: 25 (yay!).
Adventures: City On Fire: 116, Strange Bedfellows: 93, Feast of Blades: 93, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4133, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2692.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 77, GURPS IOU: 62 (fell off the bottom), GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 61 (fell off the bottom). Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 231.
 
( Dragons under fold ) |
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| keep the blind down on the window. keep the pain on the inside. |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|08:46 pm] |
Can you find the cat in this picture?
Apparently, the Presumptuous Cat approves of the new addition to our nest. In other news, the Fearless Kitten met his first snow:
and the depredations of the smouse continue:
Now that's hubris. He also made a raid on my walnuts, the little bastard. Our cats are lazy layabout goldbricks.
I, on the other paw, am made of virtue. Today I went to the gym and the bakery, adhered to The Discipline, spent the entire remainder of the day working on a critique for stillsostrange (Why yes, I do have the draft of The Bone Palace, and why yes, it is made of awesome.), and then took the garbage out and came upstairs and made my bed and cleaned my bedroom. With my girly new pink-and-purple wool blanket.
The downstairs is a pile, the office is a pit, the Christmas tree needs to come down, the bathroom is all but invisible under the mildew, and the kitchen is an indistinguishable heap of winter coats and surface clutter... but my bedroom is clean!
And now I am going to finish reading Amanda's manuscript. I was going to watch Mythbusters and Hustle tonight, but this is better. |
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