Deep freeze

Scientists have speculated that global warming might cause an ocean current called the Atlantic Conveyor to slow, bringing less life-giving warm surface water to Northern Europe.

According to the theory, rising air temperatures cause ice caps to melt, making the water less salty and therefore less dense so it can't sink and flow back south.

For the first time, there is possible evidence of this phenomenon.

While measurements in 1981 and 1992 had shown little change, those in 1998 and 2004 had shown a major shift, with less of the warming Gulf Stream getting up to Greenland and less of the cold, deep returning current coming back.

Scientists are of course stressing that this is not conclusive, and further observations need to be made.

What if this is happening, though? How much of Northern Europe will become uninhabitable? Will weather around the world be affected? Where will people go to flee the cold?

Anybody need a gmail account?

'Cause I have, like, 100 invitations. Drop me a line at my gmail account (cosleia) and I'll hook you up.

The anime industry in the US

Fortune has an interesting piece about the growth of the anime industry in the US. I found the depiction of fansubbers hilariously idealistic (there are quite a few who fit that description, but then there are quite a few who really really don't), but ultimately I think the article makes some good points. I hope the author's main message, that those who create/import entertainment should pay attention to their fans, will catch on in the industry.

(I previously discussed the US anime industry here.)

I'm compassionate, really!

I'm unhappy that I find this paragraph amusing:

Hurricane-stricken New Orleans is largely destroyed and abandoned, but city officials said on Tuesday it will soon have universal wireless Internet service.

It's written to sound ridiculous! Damn you, Reuters!

Augusta politics

As you may recall, I met former mayoral candidate Helen Blocker-Adams a few months ago and thought she was very cool. She came in third in the election; the two leaders, Deke Copenhaver and interim mayor Willie Mays, are having a runoff next week. Blocker-Adams ended up endorsing Copenhaver, which I thought made sense given that their campaigns and platforms were similar.

However, there seems to be quite a bit of backlash over her endorsement of the white candidate! From the Augusta Chronicle (reg. required):

There have been the people who look the other way when she walks into a room. Some roll their eyes when they encounter her. But being called a traitor to her race is what has caught the former mayoral candidate most by surprise.

[...]

But, she said, her campaign was never about race.

"I won't say that I'm surprised, probably disappointed that you got a group of people of color, people who look like me, who are not broad-minded enough to think that why does race have to be a factor in everything," she said. "That's not how I was brought up."

The recipient of her endorsement, Mr. Copenhaver, said he is aware of the flak Mrs. Blocker-Adams is catching, and he, too, is disappointed.

"I would tell you that I'm more disappointed than surprised," said Mr. Copenhaver, a political newcomer like Mrs. Blocker-Adams, who received 25 percent of the votes Nov. 8. "And I think Helen is a courageous woman for endorsing me, but the time I've spent out there throughout the community, I think the vast majority of people - that's not black people or white people, it's just the people of this community - are really ready to move past the racial politics that we've seen in the past."

Are they?

Another bit of criticism that stings Mrs. Blocker-Adams is the belief by some that The Augusta Chronicle endorsed her to split the black vote and ensure that Mr. Mays wouldn't win outright, thereby allowing one of the two white candidates, Mr. Copenhaver or former Augusta Commissioner Tommy Boyles, to be part of a runoff.

"Whether there's a conspiracy on why the endorsement was for me versus someone else, I really honestly, sincerely believe that The Chronicle was sincere in why they endorsed Helen Blocker-Adams," she said, pointing out that she announced her intentions to run for mayor May 19, a couple of months before Mr. Mays declared.

Michael Ryan, the newspaper's editorial page editor, said The Chronicle had no hidden agenda in endorsing Mrs. Blocker-Adams.

"It's a sad statement about race relations - and the grip that the race hustlers have on some people in Augusta - when The Chronicle can't endorse a black female for mayor without there being some perceived underlying motive," he said. "That's the height of both cynicism and racism. Not to mention the fact that it sells Mrs. Blocker-Adams short to suggest that we've got to have some motive other than her qualifications in order to endorse her. Plus, we felt strongly that she had the most potential among all the candidates to unite Augusta across racial lines."

I would have liked to have seen Blocker-Adams in office, but I think Copenhaver is a good choice, too. (Of course, right now I live in Columbia County, so I can't vote in that election anyway.)

(Side note: Isn't it cute that Blocker-Adams and Copenhaver both said they weren't surprised, but disappointed? Do you think they got together to plan their reactions beforehand? ;>)

Good gifts

Here's a site with some great gifts for those in need. Where else will you find products such as "PLANT A QUARTER ACRE SWAMP", "CLEAR 10 SQUARE METRES OF MINEFIELD" or "ESTABLISH A BEEKEEPING CO-OPERATIVE"? A lot of these are highly affordable.

I found this site via BoingBoing, which linked to Good Gifts' "Swords into Ploughshares" products:

Peace is paying dividends in Sierra Leone. The same civil war that depleted the country of tools and work is now providing ample raw material for recovery: weapons. Enterprising blacksmiths and metal workers convert them into farm implements so that a Kalashnikov becomes hoes and axe heads and a rocket launcher transforms into pickaxes, sickles and even school bells.

You can buy them a Kalashnikov, a rocket launcher, a small armored vehicle, or a tank. (The picture on that page is great!)

Here's what you get if you give a Good Gift:

As well as a warm glow, you will get a silver-coloured keepsake card (to send or keep) bearing a light-hearted description of the gift. If you are buying for a more sombre occasion let us know and we'll send a more appropriate card.

This organization sounds pretty neat.

And the tree was happy

I remembered today that I used to own The Giving Tree. It's another Shel Silverstein, but instead of a collection of poems, it's a story. I used to read it every time I went to Grandma's house. One year, shortly before I moved away from Kentucky, my uncle Steve gave me my very own copy.

Even when I was a child, I knew the book was about motherhood.

Totally random Naruto thought

Did you know that uzumaki means "vortex"?

And there are some famous whirlpools called Naruto.

So it seems pretty obvious that Uzumaki Naruto was meant for the rasengan, eh?

Good news for those of us on mush overload

I won't name names, but somebody's been pretty darn happy lately, and we curmudgeons simply won't stand for it!

Fortunately, an answer to this dilemma lies in science.

The powerful emotions that bowl over new lovers are triggered by a molecule known as nerve growth factor (NGF), according to Pavia University researchers.

The Italian scientists found far higher levels of NGF in the blood of 58 people who had recently fallen madly in love than in that of a group of singles and people in long-term relationships.

But after a year with the same lover, the quantity of the 'love molecule' in their blood had fallen to the same level as that of the other groups.

Thank goodness!

;)

Restless

I've noticed in my life that I'm the type to get irritated with situations. Rather than saying "Isn't this great?" or even "I'm comfortable," I seem to just get dissatisfied. On the one hand, not being content with the status quo implies that I might be successful at something someday, but a question I've been asking myself recently is: will I ever be happy if all I do is constantly think about how things could be better?

Geisha

The Sydney Morning Herald has a piece entitled "Behind the Masks", featuring two geisha from a geisha house in Tokyo and discussing the modern life of geisha. (Via Japundit.)

In practice, the arts of the geisha tradition - the dances, the music of the banjo-like shamisen, the shrill singing, the light-hearted games, the serving of food and drink, the way of the kimono and the complex manners - are done as a devotion to Japanese-ness that is nigh on a religious rite.

In Japan geisha are regarded as keepers of important cultural rituals, not as elaborately tricked-up bar girls.

"The practice is hard and very exhausting," says Noriye, smoothing her kimono as she lowers herself into kneeling position on the hard matting. As her guests succumb to numbness and rearrange their limbs into more comfortable positions, Noriye holds still.

I found this particularly interesting:

Noriye's hope is that Memoirs of a Geisha, the movie that is having its world premiere in Tokyo on Tuesday, will inspire international interest and respect. Foreigners, who she sees now about twice a month, might be more inclined to engage a geisha because of it, she thinks. "I've heard that the geisha of Kyoto are not happy at all with the movie," she says shaking her head at the lost opportunity to promote one of the most recognisably Japanese of icons.

According to the article, the geisha business is slowing down. While the Kyoto geisha seem unhappy with the book/movie--due to the controversy? the revelation of their secrets?--the Tokyo geisha apparently believe they're good for business.

North vs. South

I just read an interesting piece in the Appalachian News-Express about Kentucky's identity.

From across the country they come, Civil War buffs drawn by a towering monument that marks the birthplace of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Many of the same people who ride the elevator up the 351-foot-tall spire at Fairview also will visit a quaint one-room log home about 100 miles away near Hodgenville, a replica of the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born.

Having supplied native sons as presidents and soldiers to both the Union and Confederacy, Kentucky remains very much a state divided, wrestling with its regional identity perhaps more than any other.

It all comes back to the Civil War, when Kentucky was a slave state that didn't secede and was officially neutral. The symbols of that straddling are all around, with 72 Confederate memorials in Kentucky and just two to Union soldiers. And to this day, whether people consider themselves Southerners or not depends on whom you ask.

I knew Lincoln was born in Kentucky, but I didn't realize Jefferson Davis was, too. Kinda funny.

Where are you from, and do you consider yourself Northerner or Southerner?

I always thought of myself as a mix. My dad seemed like a Southerner to me, and my mom a Northerner, so I just figured I got the good qualities of both. ;>

Yahoo! Avatars

I happened to see these on some random girl's MySpace profile (by the way, here's my MySpace), and I thought, hey, let me try that! So, I did:

They need more options for glasses.

The Charleston trip

I have to say that I didn't enjoy the trip to Charleston as much as I'd hoped.

On Wednesday we spent a few hours in the morning packing up the camper, and then about two and a half hours driving to Charleston. We got there, resolved the reservation issue, parked, and spent awhile unpacking. Then we watched Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, and Sean and I got online, and Cheryl made pork chops (I tried to help but that kitchen is tiny), and that was pretty much the extent of our first day.

On Thanksgiving we got up reasonably early, had some cereal, and headed to downtown Charleston. Once Reid decided where he wanted to park (quite a feat), we walked around looking at buildings and shops. The first real sight was the church of which Cheryl and Reid have a painting in their dining room.

After that, we had lunch at a cool Irish pub/grill called Tommy Condon's (and you know what I originally thought it said).

We saw some neat stuff in an open-air market, reminiscent of the one in Savannah. I tried some pralines at a candy shop. We walked down a long pier that extended into the bay.

And I got some decent architectural shots. This one's my favorite:

As evening approached, we headed back to the truck. I got a neat picture of a brick building; Sean said, "Why are you taking a picture of the garbage?" Because it looked neat I tell you! (I also got a shot of the other side of the building.)

Back at the camper, we set about fixing and eating Thanksgiving dinner, after which we watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Sean and I stayed up a little too late on the Internet after that.

Yesterday was pretty much a waste of a day. Cheryl and Reid let Sean and me sleep in for far too long. We finally got up at 11:45. Sluggishly, we took our showers, only to discover that Cheryl and Reid hadn't taken their showers yet either...so with all the preparation and waiting for the hot water tank to refill, we didn't actually leave the camper until 4:30 pm.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I'll admit to some fault for not setting an alarm, but they could have, you know, at least gone ahead and showered. And why didn't they ask us "Do you really want to sleep in this long?" instead of just assuming?

Bah.

Anyway, we left at 4:30, and this time we headed to Folly Beach.

It was really beautiful with the sunset and all, and I didn't mind the freezing cold (though Cheryl certainly did!). We walked out across the sand and looked around and took pictures. Sufficiently chilled, we piled back in the truck and drove around the island a little, looking at the houses. Then we headed back to the camper, where we ate hotdogs and watched Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones (and I noticed some story tie-ins with the third movie that I hadn't before).

And that was our whole day.

Only two days of exploring, one of which almost totally wasted.

Today we got up around 8 am, did not take showers (much to my chagrin; my hair always looks terrible when I don't wash it in the morning), packed everything up, and left. On the way home in the car (thank goodness we took our own vehicle), I ended up bitching quite a bit to Sean, and finally I just burst into tears. He told me it wasn't worth crying over, and I suppose it really wasn't, but I think I needed an emotional release after everything I've been through recently. It had been a long time since I'd felt comfortable enough to cry.

Yes, I was frustrated about going to a beautiful city and hardly seeing any of it, about not having enough time to do the things I wanted to do, about none of my suggestions being even considered, about sleeping in a very small and uncomfortable bed in an extraordinarily chilly camper, and about being guilt-tripped into quasi-agreeing to go on the same trip again in two years (Thanksgiving being with my family next year). But I think it was a "last straw" scenario. (I also think that living with the in-laws is starting to wear pretty thin.)

But I have the best husband in the world, and he listened to me complain and rubbed my leg and neck and held my hand while I cried in the car, and then got me a nice meatball sub for lunch. When we got home we took a shower together and napped together and made love and I started to feel human again.

I'm not sure what we'll do when Thanksgiving 2007 rolls around. Cheryl is pretty set on going to Charleston every year (perhaps for the rest of her life!). So if we end up going, we may get ourselves a hotel room to avoid some of the problems of this trip.

Regardless, I hope someday I get to take some real time and see more of Charleston.

The ___ [Area]

It seems like everywhere I go in the United States, people refer to the larger region in what are likely hyperbolic claims, such as "Lowest prices in the CSRA!" I find these region names fascinating.

Back home, it was "Central Kentucky" or "the Bluegrass", which is the central (and northern) part of Kentucky. (The other regions in Kentucky are Knobs, Pennyroyal, Jackson Purchase, Eastern Coal Fields, and Western Coal Fields. We learn all this stuff in fourth grade and then promptly forget it.)

In Augusta, it's "the CSRA", which stands for Central Savannah River Area (region 7 on the state government's map).

And here in Charleston, it's "the Lowcountry" (a name which has its roots in history).

What is it where you live?

Underestimated power

You are White Chocolate

You have a strong feminine side with a good bit of innocence thrown in. Whether your girlish ways are an act or not, men like to take care of you. You are an understated beauty, and your power is often underestimated!

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

Flat?

You are Flat Sandals

Casual yet flirty You look great in a simple top and jeans Your look is approchable and cute!

What Kind of Sandal Are You?

Those are kind of ugly :/ But I do have some nice black flat sandals someone gave me...

I just had a sad thought

I finally know what real friendship is.

(This will probably make no sense to anyone.)

Punishing the good and killing the innocent

Sunshine has a terrible story on her blog today.

My mom's cousin M , (she is a doctor) went to her job in Al-mahmoodeya hospital , then after few hours , she heard a very loud explosion , it was a bomb car exploded in the hospital , my grandma called her to see how is she doing , did she got hurt or not ? she said ...
"I was in the delivery room when one of my patient's just gave birth to a nice healthy baby , then I heard a very loud explosion , & things falling on me , I tried to go out to see what is going on in the hospital, I was covered with blood & I saw horrible views , dead bodies , even some of my friends died" ... she said "the national guards were like angels they helped me & saved my life"...
it was a miracle that she is a life , anyway , Dr. M said that our brave national guards helped her to go out from the hospital , because they had to close some of the hospital's loop-holes , they were expecting another bomb-car ..in her way-out she saw her patient dead (the new mother) ...
& that all because the Americans soldiers were in the hospital giving the children toys !!
50 Iraqis died & 4 Americans , that what I heard in the news ...

Thanksgiving

Today Ruth has the following thought on her blog:

I always liked this no frills festival. There is no canned music in shops whispering 'My product will absorb all your loneliness' to the tune of Jingle Bells, no guilt-laced tinsel at the edge of your vision starting two months beforehand, no fairy-lit high streets draining the earth's resources and beckoning you to spend, spend, spend.....

No, rather than steal from the Earth, there is a meal shared, a holiday taken, and a grand giving of thanks for Her bountiful gifts. Religious it may not be but spiritual it certainly is.

I'm feeling a little prickly due to a conversation we've been having here, so my first reaction was a little sour. I love Christmas, and it makes me happy to have special events and beautiful decorations all around.

But I can certainly appreciate Ruth's sentiment about Thanksgiving. It's a lovely holiday, a time for appreciation of family and food and the richness of life.

This year, Sean and I will enjoy rotisserie chicken, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and peach pie with Cheryl and Reid, sharing each other's company and experiencing the beauty of an Old South town.

I wish all of you similar Thanksgiving happiness :)

"Tonight you will dream of masterfully composed news posts and frighteningly natural dialogue. Tonight you will dream of Tycho."

XD

As if you could keep me offline

Well, there isn't much of interest to post today. We drove for a few hours, got to Charleston, straightened out a problem with our reservation, parked, set up the camper, made dinner, ate it, and watched Revenge of the Sith. Exciting!

I'm not actually sure what we're going to be doing this trip. Antique stores and "old town" have been mentioned. Pictures, of course, will follow.

Going to Charleston!

Hello my faithful readers!

Sean and I are going with his parents to Charleston, South Carolina for Thanksgiving. We're leaving today and will be returning home on Sunday. As we will be staying at a campsite, we probably won't have Internet access. (There's a slim chance of Wi-Fi, but we're not counting on that.)

So, if you don't hear from me until Sunday (or Monday!), that's why.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kyou Kara Maou 56

When I saw that a new episode was out, I thought, "I hope there's some good plot stuff in this one."

Sheeeeeeeeeesh, I need to be careful what I wish for! :D

So, like, does Wolfram carry the key to one of the boxes? Is it his ear, maybe? If not that, then what?

And it's Gwendal's left eye! So, all three brothers...!

What is this all building up to?

Who carries the fourth key?

Who are those guys who kidnapped Wolfram?

What is Wilma/Belma doing in the next episode?!

XD

Lost writing

I was using the Internet Archive to see if I could find some of my old websites, and I came across the first incarnation of pixelscribbles. Back then I called it Pixel Scribbles, and it was hosted on my QX.net homepage. Here's a screenshot:

I was ecstatic to see that huge list of my writing...but then I tried clicking on the links. Archive.org did not archive my writing!

Grr.

Fortunately, all the poetry listed there is still here, and AJ gave me his copy of The Vukin Project...but the rest of it is gone.

So, here's the list of writing on that page, and a brief description of each thing, as best as I can remember.

Short Stories

"Jack" - This was a vignette about a guy getting shot. I used the phrase "the bullet impending to his arm", which is grammatically incorrect, but I thought it was a revolutionary and perfectly acceptable use of the word at the time. Written while I was in high school.

"The Beginning" - This was a Star Wars story, about how Leia decided to join the Rebellion. Or maybe the next one was. I forget which was which; their titles suck. Written (I think) during or after my first year of college at UAH.

"The Decision" - Another Star Wars story. If this isn't the Leia one, then it's the one with Yoda and Obi-Wan carting the newborn twins away from Vader. Obviously this was written before the prequels came out. Written (I think) during or after my first year of college at UAH.

"The Definition of Love" - I was very proud of this story. It was pretty dark. I actually don't want to give a synopsis, because I might rewrite it someday. Originally written during my first year of college at UAH, and later formatted to look like a magazine article for my first Creative Writing class at UK.

"A Slip of the Tongue" - This was a vignette about how it feels to say something that hurts someone else's feelings. Written during high school, I'm guessing sophomore year.

"Double Date" - This was a true story, written for my Advanced Writing class at UK, about Sean and me going to Outback with our friends William and Michelle. Written in 1999.

"Replace the Carpet" - In one of my writing classes at UK, the professor said it was impossible to write a story in second person. So, I wrote a story in second person. (It was actually in first person, but you couldn't tell that until the very end.)

Novels

The Vukin Project - This is the story about that bald guy, and the REVOLUTION!, or something. ;> I started this when I was a teenager and continued it during my first year of college at UAH.

Warrior - This was the first of what was supposed to be a string of fantasy novels, although I didn't really have much of an idea of where the story was going to go. This first installment involved a young man growing into a hero. The second story was about his daughter (who of course didn't know her father was a hero). I started this when I was around 15.

Essays

All of these essays were written for classes at the University of Kentucky. I had some nice linguistics papers that I didn't put online because I didn't want to mess with the IPA fonts, and I had a huge set of essays written for my 2001 Japan trip that was also never put online. Oh well, it's not like I have any of them now, anyway :>

"And God Saw That It Was Good" - This was an essay I wrote for film class, about the movie Dark City. In it, I argued that the movie presented a call for atheism. It really didn't, but that was how I perceived it. In a nutshell, I was angry that John wasn't going to tell any of the survivors that they were on a spaceship. Instead, he just set himself up as God and remade the City the way he wanted it. I felt that this was a metaphor for the Christian god. Obviously I had some issues at the time. Written in 2000.

"Self-Reliance" - This was an essay for Advanced Writing about Thoreau and Emerson, I think. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything interesting. (This may be the essay where I basically lashed out at my professor's "go into the woods to find yourself" ideals.) Written in 1999.

"Shaw and Feminism" - This was my review of George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession, for English Lit. In it I basically said that Shaw was not preaching feminism with this play, as my professor would have had us believe. As I recall, I had some pretty compelling arguments, but I don't remember what they were. (Can you tell I enjoyed contradicting my teachers?) I think this was written in 2000.

"A Call for Equality" - I have no idea what this is, but it sounds boring, doesn't it? It's probably a literature review.

"Horrible Responsibility" - I'm gonna guess this was another literature review...but this may possibly have been written for Human Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 2000. Not sure. (Come to think of it, the previous essay might have been for that class, too. Who knows.)

Journal Entries

All of these journal entries were written while I was in college at UK.

"The Way It Is" - This might have been about infertility. I don't remember.

"On writing and fame" - You've seen me talk about this enough in this journal!

"Paranoia; or, an average day in the life" - This one was interesting. I was sitting on the floor in Whitehall Classroom Building on UK campus, writing in one of my notebooks, and I started to get this really paranoid feeling. I have an overactive imagination sometimes, so I started coming up with things that might happen to me, and how I might defend myself. Then I wrote about it.

"On being barren" - Now this was definitely about infertility. It'd be kind of nice to see what I had to say back then. I think I remember it, vaguely. It was what I wrote right after my first endocrinologist told me how high my FSH levels were. I wrote something like this:

"I didn't want to have a baby right now," I told Sean on the phone later that night. "But--"

"But you wanted to know that you could," he finished for me. I love him so much.

I wrote this poem in the same sitting as that journal entry.

"Life for Dummies" - This was just a short, cute little thing I wrote as a reaction to the Today show. An Asian woman was interviewing someone about economics and acting like a ditz, so I wrote about how next they'd be hawking a book called Life for Dummies. There was a guy I met doing night desk in the dorms...I forget his name, but I thought he was very cool. He wrote essays for the school paper arguing Palestine's side. Anyway, I showed him this essay one day at the Ho and he thought it was funny.

///

And that's not all I ever wrote, not by a long shot! There were plenty of short stories and college essays that I didn't put online, either because they weren't finished or because I thought they sucked. There were also the Ninja Turtle and Darkwing Duck stories I wrote in middle school, which only existed in hardcopy (they were originally on 5-1/4" Apple II floppies, but I have no idea what happened to those. There was also a story about a girl named Gwendolyn who got sucked into another world on those floppies; I don't think I even had a copy of that story at the apartment). I also remember writing a story about a mystery in Venice when I was in third grade--that may still exist, actually, at my parents' house.

So while I certainly haven't been as prolific as some people, I did lose quite a bit of writing in that stupid fire.

Some neat stuff

MSNBC: 75-year-old jewel thief looks back

Never did she grab the jewels and run. That wasn't her way. Instead, she glided in, engaged the clerk in one of her stories, confused them and easily slipped away with a diamond ring, usually to a waiting taxi cab.

She is, says retired Denver Police Detective Gail Riddell, like a character from a movie -- a female Cary Grant, smooth and confident.

"She is very good at what she does," said Riddell. "She has the style."

And she has been very, very successful. Every month or every other month -- no one knows how many times over more than 50 years -- she strolled into a jewelry store and strolled out with a ring worth thousands of dollars.

Occasionally, she was caught. Mostly, she was not.

Reuters: That's incredibly beautiful...give me a hammer...

"Great works of art, at a deep level, bring about a feeling of destruction, an urge to destroy which also many artists have. Michelangelo himself destroyed some of his own works or parts of them."

But the will to destroy is not just caused by a subconscious link between creating and destroying. The David syndrome is also caused by people's deepest fears and desires, by sex and death.

Magherini has interviewed gallery visitors who are fixated with and disturbed by the physical attributes of David, considered by art critics to be a vision of male perfection.

"There's a great force, an impulse of an erotic and sexual nature, not just in women, but even more so in men. Men of 35-40 year of age who are attracted by the extraordinary masculine beauty and at the same time are also agitated."

The David syndrome has links to the somewhat better known Stendhal syndrome, a term Magherini coined more than 20 years ago, which causes viewers of art to be physically overcome by their reaction to art, sometimes leading to hospitalization.

The Cynical Traveller goes to... A Cheerleading Competition

While the benefits of being able to wrap your own legs behind your head may not be immediately apparent, a little careful thought can bring up several situations where it might come in handy. Such as scratching an unwanted itch, or escaping from the deathtrap of a supervillian.

The pain of tagging

I think tagging is great. It's awesome to be able to categorize stuff so I can easily find it later. Adding tagging to its robust gallery featureset was one of the best thing smugmug's ever done.

But boy is it a pain to actually do the tagging.

I'm not psychic. I can't predict what is going to be interesting to me later when I tag my photos. Worse, back in the beginning I used as few tags as possible so I could hurry up and be done with it. This means that every time I think of a new tag set, I have to go back and edit pretty much all of my photos. (By "tag set", I mean stuff like what month the picture was taken in. Today I've spent a few hours tagging all my photos for month and season.)

It would just be easier if I was psychic.

Actually, a nice option would be if I could select groups of albums and give them all the same tag(s). That would be awfully convenient.

Another thing I would like is to be able to exclude tags when I'm browsing. For example, I'd love to be able to look at good pictures, or pictures of me, while eliminating anything tagged as wedding. There are a lot of wedding pictures, after all.

But that's beside the point. The point is this:

The idea of tagging = awesome.

The reality of tagging = a pain in the ass.

That is all :)

An interesting Harry Potter review

MSN has a review of Goblet of Fire up that poses an interesting question:

Will Fourth 'Harry Potter' Stop Series' Descent?

So far, most critics and fans would agree, every Harry Potter movie has been better than the last one. Statistics, however, suggest a disconnect.

The first one, "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone," released in 2001, grossed $317 million in the United States. No. 2, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," released in 2002, made $261 million. The third and most acclaimed entry, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," released in 2004, grossed "only" $249 million.

All were immensely successful, of course, and they collected many more millions overseas, where the studios now make most of their money on theatrical releases. Yet the pattern holds there as well: No. 1 is far and away the biggie, with a combined domestic/overseas gross approaching $1 billion, while No. 2 trails and No. 3 is nearly $200 million behind No. 1.

It does seem that the more inventive and interesting the adaptations are, the more audiences dwindle.

I personally sometimes find it difficult to watch a deeper movie again right away, and sometimes I'll only see it once before getting the DVD. (Please bear in mind that I hardly ever go see movies anyway.) When I saw Azkaban, I enjoyed it, but it put me through the wringer mentally, trying to follow the action and think about what had been changed from the book and just keep up with the frenzied pace. I felt like I was too tired after all that to go see it again, so I didn't.

Goblet of Fire's pacing wasn't slow by any means, but it was much easier for me to follow. Maybe that's because the story's better. Maybe the screenplay or the direction is better. I have no idea.

What I do know is that this movie seems to be infinitely rewatchable. I would watch it again right now if I could :)

Slashdot contributor: "So it looks like we might soon have near immortal, fearless mice."

:D

Here are the relevant stories:

The Guardian: Geneticists claim ageing breakthrough but immortality will have to wait

• Organisms live six times longer in laboratory tests
• Cells genetically 'tricked' into slow-ageing mode

New Scientist: Gene turn-off makes meek mice fearless

Via, of course, Slashdot.

Ugh

Feel...terrible.

Want...to pass out.

Or eat everything I can find.

I don't know if I'm getting a little sick, or if I'm just dissatisfied with life (that happens to me a lot, it seems ;P). I do wish I was doing something.

Bleh.

Goblet of Fire: The Movie

If you can't tell there are going to be spoilers in this post, you are a fool!

Goblet of Fire is my favorite of the Harry Potter books...I think because it's a huge turning point. Things happen that forever change the world. None of it, really, is unnecessary. It's a tight story that just happens to be jam-packed with information and character development, and is thus fairly long.

Which is why I wasn't sure how in the world it was going to be made into a movie.

I wondered if the Quidditch World Cup would simply be omitted. That turned out not to be the case. Instead, it was shortened to not much more than a prologue, and the whole House Elf subplot was lifted right out. This greatly simplified things and removed quite a few scenes. And to be honest...I didn't miss the House Elves one bit! (And I didn't miss SPEW, either.) Apparently people knew about this beforehand, but I managed (without really trying) to avoid "spoilers" before seeing the film, so it was a surprise to me.

Without Winky, there was no need for the main characters to be in the top box, so they weren't. This meant there was no Ludo Bagman...which meant that the twins did not bet with him that Ireland would win with Krum taking the Snitch. (Actually, the game isn't shown at all, and it's unclear afterwards who even won--there's only one line that indicates Ireland.) I think this is important to note because Harry didn't receive prize money at the end, and therefore he didn't give it to Fred and George to make up for their being cheated by Bagman. How they start their joke shop will have to be explained in some other way, I suppose.

There were a couple of other things that were shortened or explained differently or just done differently. Ron knew about the dragons. Hagrid and Madame Maxime didn't have their fight, and Rita Skeeter didn't out Hagrid as part giant. Cho didn't save Harry from Filch in the Owlery. Hermione's Yule Ball dress wasn't blue ;P The Goblet of Fire was tricked by a Confundus Charm, rather than simply by having Harry's name thrown in with the name of a different school. The Marauder's Map does not come into play. Our heroes do not meet up with Sirius in Hogsmeade; the fireplace is his only appearance. Karkaroff is shown to be a Death Eater, but it's not mentioned if/when he flees.

There was only one Pensieve memory, and Barty Crouch, Jr. acted maniacal in it rather than frightened. Junior was also in Harry's dream at the beginning of the movie; this simplified matters immensely (and was necessary in the absence of Winky). The Barty Crouch, Sr. Imperius Curse subplot was missing; it looked like it was going to be there when he was found fallen in the woods (not by Harry and Krum but by Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Hagrid), but then nothing else happened with it. Also, Beauxbatons was an all-girls school, and Durmstrang all boys. I don't remember them being that way in the book. It's a little annoying, actually, because Fleur is the most useless of all the Champions, and I at least liked to think that she'd beaten out some guys to earn her position.

One other, small thing I didn't like was Sirius' head in the fire. I thought that was kind of silly. I always imagined the face as appearing over the fire; since Floo Powder is used for this kind of conversation, it just made sense to me that the head would be semi-corporeal, if orange.

I was pleased, and I'm sure commenter K will be too, to discover that they fixed the gravestone discrepancy.

Voldemort's gloating scene with his Death Eaters is much shorter than I'd expected. I think they probably could have cut down the huge dragon fight to add to this, because it's the scariest part and there should probably have been more weight to it. (Plus, Harry's supposed to have beaten the dragon the fastest.) I would have liked some foreshadowing of Bellatrix Lestrange; she's probably the creepiest and most evil character in the books other than Voldemort. It also would have been nice to have the subtle references to Karkaroff and Snape.

I do think that Ralph Fiennes made a fantastic Voldemort, because you can tell he's pretty under all that makeup :> I thought the Voldemort special effects were really neat--the way his robe moved, making him seem to slither. The "Kill the spare" line wasn't issued the way I expected at all, but that's minor.

I did wonder if they would show Cedric fully spread-eagled. In retrospect, that might have been a bit ridiculous. The framing of his lifeless face, frozen forever in shock, was far more powerful.

I didn't cry until Harry made it back, and he was sobbing, and it was just like the book.

I've pointed out a lot of things that were done differently from the book and a few things that I didn't like, but really, I loved this film, and the only change I would make would be to extend the Harry vs. Voldemort scene.

The music was fantastic. It didn't interrupt the film at all. I loved the way the introductory music played on John Williams' original theme, perverting it, making it creepy. I was actually kind of surprised to see that Williams didn't do the score this time. This Patrick Doyle fellow is good...he probably did better, I'm sad to say, than Williams would have.

I sat through all the credits, partly because I was enjoying the music and reading the names, and partly because I was sorry it was over, and I was hoping there'd be some amazing sneak preview of Order of the Phoenix--never mind that filming hasn't even started for that :> Then, finally, when the film reel stopped and "Widescreen Radio" came on, I stumbled out of the theater and into the bathroom. (I'd been holding it for at least an hour. My two breaks before the movie didn't help!)

Goblet of Fire = good. Right now, all I really feel like doing is watching the movie again.

Ah well. Reality bites ;>

Harry Potter

I watched the first two films shortly after we moved into Cheryl and Reid's house. Last night I bought the third one at Target and watched it while the new Smallville was on (I was trying to avoid the temptation to spoil the story for myself). It was interesting to me, all three times, to note the differences between the movies and the books. Now that I have read the books so many times, they're easier to spot.

I've mentioned previously that I have no problem with remakes, and even with taking a new direction with established characters and storylines. The Harry Potter movies make an attempt to follow the books, and really only make changes for the sake of brevity and cinematography. I imagine that quite a bit of story will be left out of Goblet of Fire, which I will be watching in approximately one hour.

(Wh00t!)

Seeing Azkaban again was enjoyable. When I saw it in the theater, the people I was with didn't care for it much, and that always tempers my enjoyment of a movie. I really prefer to watch a movie with people who are going to enjoy it, because if I like it and they don't I'm always second-guessing my experience. Last night I watched it by myself and liked it very much.

I'm hoping that will be the case with Goblet of Fire, which is my favorite Harry Potter story to date. That's not why I'm going to the movie alone, though; Brooke doesn't like going to movies on opening day, and I'm pretty sure Mari and Kelly have their own plans to see it. (Plus, as far as I know none of them can see it at 10 am on a Friday ;>)

Now, off I go to wolf down some cereal before heading to the theater :)

Totally awesome Shortpacked! today

Read it, love it.

Can't get enough of that ol' Greeneway

Brooke and I walked from the golf course around along the river and back over the recently reopened older section tonight.

Some fish, frogs, or both were hopping up out of the water like crazy. I tried to get a picture of one, but luck wasn't with me. Here's a picture of some of the ripples they left behind.

On Saturday we're hopefully going to the Canal :)

Guess where I will be in roughly ten hours?

Watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Yes.

That's right.

Envy me!!!!

Gutsy Radish brutally decapitated

From Reuters:

The "daikon" radish, shaped like a giant carrot, first made the news months ago when it was noticed poking up through asphalt along a roadside in the town of Aioi, population 33,289.

This week local residents, who had nicknamed the vegetable "Gutsy Radish," were shocked -- and in some cases moved to tears -- when they found it had been decapitated.

TV talk shows seized on the attempted murder of the popular vegetable and a day later, the top half of the radish was found near the site where it had been growing.

[...]

Asked why the radish -- more often found on Japanese dinner tables as a garnish, pickle or in "oden" stew -- had so many fans, town spokesman Jiro Matsuo said: "People discouraged by tough times were cheered by its tenacity and strong will to live."

Searching

Today Magazine Man hits on a topic that is highly relevant to me.

For most of the time that I've known her (and I have it from reliable sources that it goes back even further) my wife wrestled with enormous uncertainty about her choices in life. In college she majored in business, but couldn't make up her mind about what type of business she wanted to focus on, and that led to her writing about different kinds of businesses and then wondering if business journalism might not be a good career choice. So she switched majors and got a job at a trade magazine and that's when I came along. And a favorite subject for her then was "Am I in the right field?" Eventually, she decided she wasn't and she made a switch to corporate communications, then became the manager of a communications office. Each time, though, she was more beset with uncertainty. If that's possible.

"I'm not good at anything!" is a statement she has uttered so often, it's eclipsed only by the number of times she has said, "Is this where I'm supposed to be?" which I have joked I would have carved on her tombstone, a joke she never found amusing.

She also never seemed to appreciate my efforts to show her all the other things in life she had to be grateful for. So what if she didn't know what her purpose in life was? "Look on the bright side," I'd say. "At least you have perfect 20/20 vision." And then I'd have to take off my glasses. Not to show her how thick the lenses were, but to keep her from breaking them.

I know exactly how she felt.

It's not that I'm not good at anything...it's just that I can't imagine focusing the rest of my life on any of the things I've had experience with. Everyone always says I'm a good writer. But will I do it every day for the rest of my life? Will I make a living at it? I'm really starting to think that the answer is no. I'm not interested in it. I keep saying I'm going to, and sometimes I even try a little, but then it just fizzles, like everything else.

Web design is what I "do" currently, freelance, but I already know for damn sure that I don't want to do it forever. It's boring and tedious. The best part of web design is when the project is done.

I can't even think of anything else that I've done long-term. There are a zillion things I've tried and didn't stick with, like piano and kung fu. I have been taking pictures for a few years now, and I am interested in learning more about photography (I think I've pretty much hit a plateau), so maybe that's something I can stick with, but it's really all I can think of. And I'm afraid that I'm not good enough at it to make it my profession, and I'm also afraid I don't know enough about it to know if I would want to make it my profession.

Bleh.

Why? Just...why?

You scored as Neo, the "One". Neo is the computer hacker-turned-Messiah of the Matrix. He leads a small group of human rebels against the technology that controls them. Neo doubts his ability to lead but doesn't want to disappoint his friends. His goal is for a world where all men know the Truth and are free from the bonds of the Matrix. Neo, the "One" 79% Batman, the Dark Knight 75% Indiana Jones 67% The Amazing Spider-Man 63% Lara Croft 63% El Zorro 58% James Bond, Agent 007 50% Maximus 50% William Wallace 50% Captain Jack Sparrow 42% The Terminator 33% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Via Mari.

Greeneway

The Greeneway was featured in the Augusta Chronicle recently. Coincidentally, Brooke and I went there last night to walk.

We parked at Martintown Road, just like we did last week when we biked. While I was waiting for Brooke to get there, I took some pictures.

It got dark pretty quickly. As night fell, the setting sun cast beautiful light over the fallen leaves. It was difficult to get a good picture because my camera's shutter tends to stay open awhile in low light, and since I'm not as stable as a tripod, this causes blurriness. This is the best shot I got:

It was a good walk. It was totally dark by the time we got back to our cars.

Jun-Jun-kun

President Bush gave Koizumi a Segway!

Bush was riding the vehicle when he met Koizumi outside the Kyoto State Guest House in the ancient Japanese capital, a Japanese pool report said.

Urged by Bush to give it a whirl, Koizumi took a brief 1 metre (3 ft) ride, and cried out, "Oh, very good."

Bush told the prime minister he'd given his father, former President George Bush, and mother, Barbara, Segways for their birthdays, adding he felt Koizumi was almost one of the family.

The close ties between the two allies were on public display later in the day when Bush told a news conference: "Prime Minister Koizumi is one of my best friends in the international community. I know the prime minister well.

"I trust his judgement. I admire his leadership."

The scooters can be tricky to ride. Bush fell off one two years ago but managed to land on his feet. It is also illegal to ride them on public byways in Japan.

The transition to that last sentence wasn't very good, was it? But the news story is cute nonetheless :)

In other news, Koizumi made an appearance in Yakitate!! Japan episode 44, which I watched last night. Cracked me up! "Oh, there's a lion 5km ahead, Kazuma!" XD

I have a very bad feeling about this

Okay, so, Kyou Kara Maou 54 and 55.

(Wish I could screencap, but ever since Sean nuked ffdshow I haven't even been able to watch avis in WMP or WinAmp, and the DivX Player isn't cooperating...)

Anyway, a mysterious guy rises out of the dust on the top of a mountain and says, "The time has come." He then turns a poor scavenging man into a monster, and the monster goes and terrorizes human villages (in a straight line along a highway) until Yuuri comes and stops him.

Well, actually, until Yuuri learns to overcome his fear and control Morgif.

At the end, the mysterious robed figure seems to be pleased, and Murata senses his presence.

Is it the Shinou, reborn (if only briefly)?

Was that carnage and death simply to train the Maou?

Why did Murata say, "Could that power possibly mean there is no more time left?"

What, exactly, is the horror that he's expecting?

The plot, once again, thickens.

(Side note: the Shinou and the Great Sage are hot. I really, really wish I could screencap...)

aaaaaaaaaand I'm back

It took me a lot longer to get home than usual.

I got up at around 9:30 yesterday. My aunts had already left; they hit the road at 6:30. I surfed the web to wake up a little, and my dad made me breakfast.

Then I hurried to take my shower so I could spend time with Connor before he went to school at 11:30.

When I rushed out of the shower, Dad told me that Connor would call me when I could come over, so I surfed the web a little more. Then Connor and AJ came over; apparently they had been waiting for me to call, and now there was hardly any time left. Connor and I spent the fifteen minutes before he had to leave playing putt putt golf (Connor has one of those SportsCenter things) and pool in the basement, and then he headed off to kindergarten.

I played with Logan while waiting for Faye to get back so she could decide which of a stack of pictures she wanted to keep (I was taking the rest).

Finally I packed up and headed out to see Grandma.

I found myself driving automatically up Nicholasville to Man-O-War to Tates Creek, even though it's really faster to go straight up Harrodsburg, so I decided to stop in at Hibari Market, the Japanese grocery store I used to visit all the time. I once spent over $100 there on food, dishes, and a cookbook. This time I spent a more reasonable $21, on two rice bowls, two sets of chopsticks, four chopstick rests, and two soup spoons. I thought very seriously about getting a tea set, but ultimately decided against it. When I do get a new tea set, it's going to be when I'm in Japan, and hopefully I'll be able to go back to Hirashimizu Pottery outside Yamagata. It would be perfect if I could find a set like the one I had before (which I apparently don't have a picture of--it was of course handmade, and a pink/purple color. You can barely see the creamer in this picture, and the box it all came in in this picture).

When I finished buying my new Japanese dishes (and waxing sentimental about my old pieces), I went over to Grandma's. Uncle Steve was raking the yard. The big tree out front was gorgeous, covered in bright yellow leaves.

Grandma fixed me a roast beef sandwich and cut me up a tomato, and we sat and talked for a long time. She gave me a set of four glass dessert bowls and a few dinner napkins. Ultimately, I didn't end up on the road until after 3.

The drive wasn't bad. I only fell asleep at the wheel once, and I didn't start hallucinating until I got to I-20.

You think I'm joking?

I was pretty tired. In Tennessee I was fighting to keep my eyes open, and I guess I lost that battle, because the next thing I knew, the wheel was slipping through the fingers of my left hand. This caused the weight of my other hand to turn the wheel and veer the car to the right.

That woke me right up, and I was quite alert as I pulled off onto Stinking Creek Road to find a place to park. I managed to nap for something like 20 minutes, and after that I was wide awake for the rest of the drive.

When I got on I-20 some four hours later, though, I started seeing weird stuff. The first thing I have no explanation for. I could swear something shadowy ran across the road right in front of me. Of course, I let up on the gas, prepared to swerve or brake, but there was nothing there, and no sign that there ever was anything. I still have no idea what I saw.

The second thing looked like something waiting at the side of the road, but when I focused on it I realized it was just the headlights of the car in front of me lighting the dead grass.

The third thing was real; it had to be. But it was eerily still. It was some kind of animal, tannish-brown--either a deer or a dog. It just sat there on the side of the road, staring, not moving. The lights from my headlamps didn't even make its eyes glow. But it was definitely there.

I was very happy to get home...at 1:16 am. Ugh. Starting out late = no fun. (Plus I added to the drive by obsessively searching for an open Japanese restaurant in Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Atlanta, only to come up dry and end up eating McDonald's.)

And that's that. I stumbled in, put my stuff in its approximate places, and crawled thankfully into bed, and now here I am, about to go run some errands and get back into the swing of my normal life.

It was a nice weekend away. I kind of wish I was still in Kentucky ;>

More on Mario Kart DS

From Penny Arcade:

Of course, there are some distinctions: there is a constrained but still ample track list for online play, as well as a four Kart limitation. Purists may be unhappy to find that items do not "drag" behind karts online. I hope they manage to survive.

NOES!!!

ZOMG! New Penny Arcade site design!

Still no permalinks on individual newsposts (curses!), but it's a nice looking design. I imagine it was styled by whoever put together the Child's Play site, as they look pretty much the same.

Note the white period in the upper left hand corner of the new PA design...immortalized here for all to see!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Ben and Manda had me over tonight, and as usual we watched a movie. This time it was Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Ben went all out, buying each of us a Wonka bar, plus several other Wonka candies to share (such as Sweet Tarts and a Nerds Rope).

I'd heard bad things about the movie, so I was interested to see how it was. And to be honest...

...I really liked it! It was totally different from the Gene Wilder classic (which I also love). I don't know if it was closer to or further from the book than the original movie, because I (gasp) haven't read the book (or if I have I don't remember it). Regardless, I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth retelling a story if you're going to just do it all exactly the same. If it's just a rehash, you may as well not bother and just let people watch/read the original.

This was definitely not a rehash.

Mike Teevee changed from a kid who stared at TV shows all day to a child hacker who played violent video games. (A little cliche and annoying, but realistic. If the kid hadn't been such a brat I would have liked him. Gamers, as always, can do their part to combat the violent videogames stereotypes by donating to Child's Play.) Towards the end of the movie, we see what happened to all the children; Mike comes out stretched very tall and very flat.

Veruca Salt was cast into the garbage chute not after an extended "I want it now" song and dance number in a room full of geese laying golden eggs, but instead after being judged a "bad nut" by a slew of trained squirrels (who then went on to knock her father in after her). This resulted in the most boring of the conclusions; they simply walked out of the factory covered with garbage and assailed by flies.

Violet Beauregarde turned into a driven competitor, egged on by her crazy mother. This change was a little scary, because there are plenty of children with mothers who actually act like that. Violet was still a gum smacker, refusing to stop her furious chewing even when ballooning to ridiculous proportions, but she ended up permanently purple and gifted(?) with rather remarkable flexibility.

Augustus Gloop's story was essentially the same. His ending, with his mother admonishing him not to eat his fingers, was kind of surreal (was he actually turned, at least partially, into fudge?) and funny.

The Oompa Loompas were, of course, different. I have to say that I like the old orange skinned, green haired style best, but Deep Roy is pretty impressive nonetheless, and the songs are entertaining, assuming you can understand the lyrics. (And how could you not love a man named Deep Roy?)

In this version, Charlie has a father, and Grandpa Joe gets up and dances a jig--twice--giving you the impression that he's been freeloading the whole time. The introductory factory sequence is CGI and ridiculous--but then, you know, candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy. (Or so I understand.) One nice thing was that Charlie and Grandpa Joe did not steal Fizzy Lifting Drink, and the whole Slugworth subplot was nonexistent.

The most interesting change, though, was that of Willy Wonka's personality and backstory. In this movie, he has an estranged father, and this lack of a relationship tempers Wonka's reactions to everything. He's also been alone (with his Oompa Loompas) in the factory for 15 years, and that has obviously seriously affected his social skills. I was virtually in solitary confinement for just nine months once, and let me tell you, a lack of contact with varied human beings will make you a little nutty and a lot timid. Wonka's fumbling for what to say, his note cards, his refusal to listen to Mike Teevee ("Mutterer!"), his clumsiness, and his snide comments all fit. He hasn't had to deal with people for fifteen years, and now all of a sudden he has to deal with ten.

The movie seemed to be coming to a close rather quickly, and that was because it went on well after the original movie ended. And the ending was totally different. I won't spoil it, but suffice it to say that things ended up getting resolved in a rather unique way.

It was a cute, weird, sweet movie. At times it was slightly surreal, especially the bright blue of Veruca's eyes against the general pasty tones of the film and the twisted look on her face as she tried to win someone over. The kids did not leave the factory restored exactly as they had been. And Willy Wonka was not perfect.

It was not better or worse than Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It was something else entirely.

And it was good.

I live!

I got here at around 8:30. There is a huge Lowe's on the corner opposite the turn to my parents' street. It lights up the night like a giant, brilliant castle. I was rather shocked.

I got settled in and then came over to AJ's to spend time with Connor, and now I'm in AJ's basement on AJ's computer making this post. I didn't even ask permission! But he very nicely let me disable cookies so I could log into Blogger.

Aunt Carol, Aunt Bev and Carl should be arriving soon, I assume...they are driving down from Illinois.

Important tip: if you're going to be driving all day, do not have Burger King's Angus burger, fries, and a chocolate shake right before you leave. Just trust me on this one.

Going out of town once again

I'm heading to Kentucky this weekend, to see not only Mom, Dad, AJ, Faye, Connor, Logan, Ben, Manda, and Grandma, but also to see Aunt Carol and Aunt Bev, two of Mom's sisters who happen to be visiting this weekend. Should be cool!

I'll be heading back on Monday. Short trip, I know, but worth it :)

Pick your favorite Neo-Narutard

The Neo-Narutards are out in force! They're still commenting on that January post.

Pick your favorite of the hilarious comments and post it here! My favorite is this one:

Dude Stop taking/eating shits and focus on what might happen to Naruto u fuck heads!!!!!!!!!

Yes, because if we don't focus on what might happen (side note: I already know what happened in that particular episode, but it's understandable that the Neo-Narutards don't, since they're still way back on the Zabuza story ;P), he might die. Or like, lose a fight or something, and he can't do that because HE IZ BADAZZ!!!!!11

Quick, everybody, let's save Naruto! All together now: WE CARE. WE CARE. WE CARE!!!

Japanese government to translate 34 novels into other languages

This is good news, cultural exchange-wise. I'd like to know the full list of novels being translated. Is anything by Wataya Risa on the list? How about Kanehara Hitomi?

Great headline

CNN: Amtrak president Gunn fired

Another, less descriptive possibility: The smoking Gunn

(I'm sure he is a little pissed off at being railroaded and then dismissed for standing his ground.

(Railroaded. Hah!)

Female disorders

Snopes has republished "Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employes", a piece that was originally published in the July 1943 edition of Mass Transportation magazine.

There are some interesting and mostly innocuous items on the list of guidelines, but then there are some freakishly sexist and scary things too, like the following:

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination -- one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit but also reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job. Transit companies that follow this practice report a surprising number of women turned down for nervous disorders.

Hysteria, perhaps? o_o

(Interesting how they used to spell "employee" as "employe", isn't it? I wonder if it was pronounced differently as well?)

I love this dork

Me: We lost our first and second year Christmas ornaments.
Sean: We did.
Me: I know you don't care, but I do!
Sean: What makes you think I don't care?
Me: So you do care?
Sean: No.

Bellydancing

I went to bellydance tonight. That'll make, what, the second time I've gone? Added to the handful of times I practiced with Mari and Brooke privately, that isn't a whole lot, total.

I've gone back and forth on the bellydance issue many times. I always thought that I didn't really want to do it, that I was trying to force myself to go out of some bizarre sense of obligation, but today I finally figured out what it is.

I was trying to do a "jewel", which is two and a half side-stepping hip circles followed by a pose. I was having a hell of a time going to the right. Candy, one of the Alchemy dancers, was there for a workout and was doing the moves right ahead of me. She looked back and watched me for a minute, then said, "You don't have to step out so far."

I kind of spluttered, "Okay," because I have trouble taking criticism, even when it's helpful, but she was right. I was stepping out a lot. Why was I doing that?

Then I realized that I had a natural tendency to step as far as comfortably possible with a stable center of gravity. This tendency came from one of the ways I learned to move in kung fu: covering a lot of ground swiftly while maintaining balance. Not making large steps was extraordinarily difficult because of the muscle memory.

I did kung fu for two and a half years when I was in high school. I didn't just go to a class. I (sort of) made being a kung fu student my life. It changed the way I thought about things, and it changed the way I comported myself. Kung fu stances are second nature to me now (even if I'm not as flexible as I used to be).

This means that when I'm trying to do some other kind of stylized movement, I constantly have to fight my tendency to fall into a fighting stance. When I'm in bellydance, raising my arms for a pose, I have to think about not putting guards in front of my face and body.

Combine all this with learning new, often difficult movements, and you can see that I might have a bit of a struggle on my hands.

The reason, therefore, that I have avoided bellydance is because it is hard for me.

It is extremely liberating to make this sort of realization. It means that I don't dislike it, I've just been wussy. It means I have a challenge to face.

I have an enemy, and that enemy is myself!

But what it really means is that I can go spend time with my friends and not obsess over whether or not I like what we're doing :)

I seem to want quite a few things that can be attained in exchange for money.

Funny, that.

I want this.

It's just so cute! (Via BoingBoing.)

Mario Kart DS

I do not read gaming news, except for what shows up on Penny Arcade, and even then I often kind of skim over it, making note of what's funny or interesting or stupid and then forgetting it not long afterwards.

But today...today there is news of Mario Kart!

Mario Kart DS is also ridiculously comprehensive, with thirty two maps that span the entire life of the series. It also lets you hop or powerslide, and brings back traditional battle mode with an odd twist. Instead of three balloons, you have five, only three of which are available at a time: you manually inflate your stock, whether by holding select or by, ahem, blowing into the microphone. You may feel ridiculous, but it's faster, and such is the price of victory. There's also Shine Runners, where the coveted shines appear throughout the level, you grab them, you lose some when hit, and the people with the lowest scores are dropped at interval. It's a stupid amount of value for thirty-five bucks, especially when you think of eight players racing off a single cartridge.

Hopping or powersliding!!!!!!!

As my friends all should know well by now, I am a Mario Kart fiend. This is not to say that I always win, but I do always trash talk :> And it's hella fun!

So now I just need to get one of those DS thingies.

Something for me to remember

Andy Gray writes,

I'm the type who would love to live in multiple places at once; keep up dozens of relationships; eat food from a different culture every day; become excellent at a variety of artistic and physical pursuits; win a gold medal and climb Mount Everest (why not). But life is lived in the now, and most effectively when a few important things are in focus at a time.

Trolls

Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing links today to a forum discussion about why people troll. Like Doctorow, I was interested by Etruscan's comments. They provide fascinating insight into my husband's personality! ;>

Trolling is fun.
As someone who has avidly trolled in the past (I grew out of it, mostly) I can clear the mystery up for all y'all.

First off, getting a rise out of people is priceless. There is a distinct exhilirating rush knowing that you've really twisted the knife, gotten the goat. There is probably some amount of sadism to this. Hurting other people for fun.

Analyzing someone for buttons, then carefully pressing them, can also be challenging as fuck. While people tend to fall into certain categories -- with broad, generalized buttons -- everyone is different, and it can take a gentle touch and canny wits to unearth that little something that will really set someone off. We're talking about seriously honing mental muscles that don't otherwise get much use.

I mean... don't any of you enjoy arguing with people, like, IRL? I /love/ it. Coming out on top in a contest of wits is fucking awesome. Notably, most internet trolling is pretty crude, but not everyone's *good* at it, right?

Sean adores getting a rise out of people. He plays Lineage II mainly so he can socialize, and I think he spends more time on the messageboards than he does actually playing the game. Every so often he'll say to me, grinning, "I think I made some enemies today."

(You should have seen how he used to be; compared to his vitriol of five years ago, nowadays he's pretty tame. Or more sophisticated. Take your pick.)

Later posters surmise that trolls act out to get attention and to hide the fact that they have no substance. In Sean's case, the first might be true, but the second definitely isn't. He is very opinionated and articulate.

I think maybe Sean falls into the "argumentative" category that Smoothly Weaving mentions.

In any case, the discussion starts to get boring by the end of the first page, so I stopped reading there :D

Maybe it's for the best? ;P

MSN Money has an article entitled "The 3 worst reasons to buy a house". They make some interesting points.

The three reasons they list are:

1. 'Better than the stock market'
2. 'I'm tired of throwing away money on rent'
3. 'I need the tax deduction'

Of those, the only one we were thinking was #2, the rent issue. While we were thinking of the house as being an investment, I don't think we'd thought about whether or not it would be "better than the stock market". The main reason I wanted a home was so I could design everything about it--for example, landscape the yard, or put in a Japanese-style bath. To be honest, I didn't like the idea of owning a house in some ways, because home ownership means you're tied to the area. Even if you decide to move out and keep the property for rentals, you pretty much have to stay close by to supervise it. (And if you simply move out, it's a huge hassle, and you've lost money.)

And speaking of real estate speculation and investment, it seems to me that the only way to be successful at that is if you start out with a nice chunk of investment capital and are able to pay the property off early, so you can start making money from it right away. That is simply not our situation--thanks, yes, to my not having a job, but also to our being relatively young and not having any savings or investments.

The last paragraph in the "throwing away money on rent" section says:

In other words, homeownership is more like marriage; renting is more like living together. Make sure you're ready to be wedded to a house before you propose to leave behind life as a renter.

I'm really starting to think Sean's right. We're not ready for the responsibility and expense of owning a home. And I don't think I'm ready emotionally. After all, if we're renting, it's much easier for us to move. And there is a large part of me that is dissatisfied with living in Augusta. I like the idea that I can get out quickly if I want or need to.

Now, the only sticking point is that I'm kind of afraid of apartments, after having ours burn down. We may end up renting a house. Who knows.

Are we heading for recession?

Yes, sez MSN Money.

All I know is, money is tight everywhere.

Old news

I've had a few news stories marked as "new" in my Bloglines because I thought they were interesting and worth mentioning. They've been in there for ages, so I finally thought I should go ahead and blog them and get them out of there.

First up, an alternative to cremation. This is very interesting to me because I plan to be cremated. The process, called "promession", involves freezing the body and shaking it to bits. This reduces the pollution caused by cremation. (Via BoingBoing)

Some UK scientists have permission to create an embryo using genetic material from two women. (via Slashdot)

The Guardian has an article about bad science in the press. (via Slashdot)

Auto-torrenting of enclosures in RSS is a reality! (via Slashdot)

Boston.com's Top 50 Sci-Fi TV Shows of All Time was linked by Slashdot.

This actually really intrigued me. Central Park Media let fans pick the dub cast for a one-episode OVA called Outlanders. (Man, I would have loved to have had the opportunity to pick the voice actors for Kyou Kara Maou...) A oneshot may not seem like such a big deal, but I'm hoping that this is a sign of things to come! (via [surprise surprise] Slashdot)

NASA scrapped the Space Shuttle!

Aaaaaaaaaaand that about does it for Old News. Have a great day.

It's just embarrassing, is all

I told about half a billion people we were getting a house. I was so excited. For some reason, I assumed we could get a really nice house like Mari and Kelly's.

Finding out that we can't, and that it's my fault, just makes me feel stupid. Like I was expecting to get something awesome without doing anything to earn it.

This is just another life lesson.

I'll figure it out eventually.

I hope.

A timely article

I just finished bingeing (I had cereal with whole milk, a chocolate bar, peanut butter crackers, and a soda, and now I feel terrible), and then I see this post on BoingBoing. Convenient!

Getting over it

As usual after sinking to the lowest possible point, I'm pulling myself together and moving on. I don't have a plan, other than to just keep plugging away at life.

People have told me that I just need to get used to drudgery and disappointment. I should just stop having such high expectations.

I can't have anything I want.

I can't have a house. I can't live in Japan. I can't travel.

Do you know why that is?

It's because I am a loser.

All these grand dreams, and no actual effort to achieve them.

No job.

No working on something to publish.

Zero progress on that "business idea" I kept hinting around about last year.

(Nothing about that secondary blog I was going to start, either.)

And all I do is spend my days avoiding the work I do have and should be doing.

I am a fucktard.

It's a miracle I managed to graduate from college.

No house for us

We aren't ready.

Newsish

So, the West Wing had a presidential debate!

It kind of sounds like the "Republican candidate" said a lot of boring/trite stuff, but I don't know for sure, since I didn't watch it. Maybe he said cool stuff and the author of the article just chose to quote the lame parts.

In any case, the idea of a "gloves off" presidential debate is really appealing to me. It would be cool to see.

Meanwhile, you can buy all of Star Trek for a mere $2499.99. Go forth, nerds, and plunder!

Damn it!

I've been reading my own archives today (don't ask), and I just came across all the posts I wrote back when I was figuring out how to import Blogger comments into WordPress.

I had it all worked out, perfectly.

But all that work was on my computer in the apartment.

The one that got destroyed in the fire.

GAH!

However, it looks like someone else figured out how to do it, so at least I don't have to recreate all that work...

Writing (or a lack thereof)

The other night (was it last night?) as I laid awake in bed, I thought of something I wanted to write. It would just be a short story, and I have no idea where it would go, but I liked the concept. A character with horribly bad luck, who taints everyone she touches. She stays upbeat for as long as she can, but ultimately the pain of those around her starts to have an effect on her psyche.

Yes, it is inspired by myself! I won't be so arrogant as to assume I have any special sort of bad luck, but you have to admit that it's funny: I had cancer, which hurt my family, and then my apartment burned down, which hurt my husband. Taken together, anecdotally, you can kind of pretend there's a pattern.

Anyway, thinking of that made me wonder if I'm ever actually going to write anything on Plugged In (or whatever I end up calling it). I think that deciding to do NaNoWriMo this year was pretty stupid. I was hoping that having a lot to do would force me to organize my time better, but all it's really done is cause me to stress out about all my obligations. So, once again, pretty damn early this time, I'm going to throw in the towel.

I'll leave the book there though, so I can write on it when I feel like it.

Two stories that reminded me of Hikaru no Go

Japan Today: Amateur becomes pro shogi player; 1st such case in 61 years

I can't help but think of Tsubaki. Poor guy. (Okay fine, shogi isn't go, but come on! And hey, Kaga plays shogi...)

Japan Today: 250 parents attend orientation for school modeled after Eton

Kaiyo Academy, which covers junior high and senior high school education, is scheduled to open in Gamagori, Aichi Prefecture, next April. The boys-only boarding school aimed at raising future leaders of Japan will recruit 120 students for the first year, school officials said.

The Kaiou school Touya went to wasn't boys only, but it certainly was prestigious, and the names are quite similar :>

...Sai! *sigh*

Awake in the morning! How...unique.

We have a meeting with a realtor today. I set my alarm for 8:30, but was so excited that I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.

I got up and took my laptop in the other room and wrote an essay I've been stressing about all weekend. It really wasn't all that hard. Part of the reason I didn't get it done on Friday like I meant to was because I was overwhelmed by the idea of the essay--it could make or break my job application. But another reason is simply that I don't have a quiet place of my own to work. This morning I went into the workout room and wrote my essay with the computer sitting on the treadmill; it's the most privacy I can really find.

Once I reserved my quiet spot and got to work, though, the essay came flowing out of me. A few revisions, and I was ready to submit my application. (Here's hoping!)

We're about to leave for the realtor, and I've been writing out a few last-minute questions I have about purchasing a home. Hopefully this meeting will be very educational.