| Victory! |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|05:30 pm] |
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The pickled watermelon turned out to be a success! After I finished, I wasn't sure what to think of it... it wasn't what I expected. It reminded me of dried pineapple; more like candy than pickles. So I wasn't sure I had done it right. But then I gave some to some of Roz's Hebrew students, and one of them had had it before, and she said it was good! So I was happy. Roz liked it too. I don't plan to make much more of it, at least not until we run out of this. Maybe if we ever grow our own watermelons. Anyway, it's cool. |
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| Recounting |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|11:47 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Belle & Sebastian - Piazza, New York Catcher | ] |
Let's recount!
Driving to AnthroCon was normal: We left at 4am after not sleeping that night, too excited and restless to stay off the road. The sunrise over eastern Colorado stretched endlessly over the flat lip of horizon. Dawn leeched the night from the vast sky and gave way to morning gradients of greens, pinks and yellow. Great mountains of thunderheads let their shape slip away as the rays of a hot orange sun melted through their smokey bodies. Surreal, still and alone, we traveled down Colorado's forgotten I-76, burned though the length of Nebraska, and at last, a left turn in Iowa brought us to Minnesota. We stayed the night at Foxfeather and Mbala's home, stole some sleep and at the crack of noon set out east. Over the Mississippi River, down Wisconsin and through the tip of Illinois, we shot past the Chicago skyline in darkness. Indiana, toll-ways, tall trees and half hearted rain, we stopped at our mid-western oasis around midnight, just to wake at dawn and put more miles behind us. Ohio I barely remember, but yellowed fields with green tractors, hundreds of vultures and travel plazas laded with coffee. Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, wrong turns, rush-hour, criss-crossing over bridges and circling in on the convention center.
AnthroCon itself : The convention was a lot of fun this year. There were the usual old friends and familiar faces, lacking a few, but teeming with new acquaintances and long lost friends. There were fireworks and wine, perfect weather and no complaints. :]
The convention itself seemed to run smoother than previous years--the dealers room/artshow/artist alley were all moved to a closer hall in the Convention Center, which while slight in distance, made a huge difference as a dealer. Scheduling was better (not putting the fursuit parade during the artshow closing, for instance), sales in the live art auction were lively, staff were pleasant (never a problem at AC, I happily admit) only one escalator broke and the elevator line was well--er, long as usual. ;]
Sunday night we got some awesome news, but I will keep that under my hat for a while. >:]
After the convention: We drove back the way we came, back to Minnesota to collect our dogs and visit with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) foxfeather and mbala for a few days. The never-ending sleep-over continued and it was good. Fox kept cooking delicious food and Mbala kept producing beer and liquor he procured from his recent trip to Croatia. Saturday we all went up to Brer and Alopex's pad in the cities for the Sofawolf BBQ. We made a dent in the sangria and beer supply, gorged on sweet corn and brats and had an all around perfect summer shindig.
(and we had no stunt drinkers)
Ket took this photo of Wizard (whilst I was drinking my whiskola.) Somehow it symbolizes everything about the trip for me.
We stayed the night at brerandalopex 's and were off that afternoon, headed home. It was a long drive with an ever painful amount of Nebraska, but we're back and settled into the work we need to do.
The next few months will be black-tea mornings. There is much to do, much to put on paper... |
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| Long-winded rant. Might as well be stream of consciousness. Life. |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|07:12 am] |
It's one of those days where you take an audit of all your achievements and motivation and concerns in life and start weighing them against the possibilities, the opportunities rather, that may just lie ahead.
I've been told things like: You need to learn more than one *CAREER* to stay viable.
So there are a couple things I could do. One of the things suggested is that I could be a building inspector. Amongst other things, that makes me think of future irony since my entire family has been involved in some sort of construction. My uncle is an estimator, so there's the motivation and support. Anyway, I'm looking around myself and seeing a lot of financial difficulty.
At the same time, some of that burden can be alleviated if I follow the grocer's instructions and just be persistent. It seems clear to me that his hint to me is "I'm not hiring a god damned walk-in, kid. After you come back a certain number of times, I'm going to know you're interested in working for me. Also, look around. Look at how neatly-dressed my staff is. I'm glad you came in looking sharp. Persistence is key. The only thing you shouldn't shop for is a job around here. So keep coming back in." Some of the staff there already recognize my face, so that's good. It's a small world. Most of the people there live in Piru as well, I found out.
So, there was a large benefit of working the salesman job for SVK.
They sell Kirby vacuums and hire you as an independent contractor to get around having to pay you actual wages and rig you on conditions such as: If you do not work 6 days a week, you will not get the 1600$/mo guarantee. We cut you a 200 dollar float every week and pay you the difference on the final week. .. Welllll, if you somehow make 0 sales, or make low-ball sales, you're looking at 3 dollars an hour for your time at worst. It's actually 22 cents lower than that, but hey. Stay positive. Those sales will come. Most of the work days I expected to be over 12 hours long, so that was pretty bad. In the best case scenario, you'll be making 1000 dollars a week. That's 3-4 high-card sales a week out of doing 15 presentations. The near-century old statistics that Kirby records places you at a 1 in 3 chance of doing a sale, with experience you should expect better results. But, even at 1000 dollars a week for 72 hours of work, it comes out to around 13-14 dollars an hour.
The main problem here is the demand for time. If you don't put in 6 days a week, you agreed to not be paid the 1600 a month. So there's no way I would be able to consider picking up a second job on the side, no way I could consider school. When would I even sleep with those hours? I live about 30-40 minutes away from the office anyway. If I could afford it, I would spend the night in a motel there and write it off as a business expense for leaving a business card there..?
Anyway, the most important thing I drew from this was a better understanding of human nature. Running through all the pitches with people who've worked this thing for over a decade and have gleaned the true purpose of this hellish job, which is to find people who are willing to be obsessive and strong and truly devout, so that they can have people run the show through all levels of the chain. The real benefits of the career they've laid out for you begin in management. They've never intended for you to remain at the lowest level. So, back to the beginning, I've heard a lot of stories from guys who've met well over hundreds of thousands of Americans and foreigners rich and poor.
( Ranting on friends )
Also. This song is great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lio0YbTi87g |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|12:24 pm] |
I has a tia...and I cannot hear this tia.
I woke up today with TWO clogged ears...if only I had more than two ears...
But yeah, I made a doc appointment tommorrow as much as I'm all aaaaaugh about the doctor, I'm actually pretty okay with it if I'll be able to hear again. Its like hearing through a wall, not pleasant.
I'm always so afraid of the doctor being all "you have 2 days to live" or something equally ridiculous. This is why I'm serious afraid of the doctor.
I hope they don't tell me I'm deaf forever. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|02:38 am] |
i just got really excited about singas again:
now if i could get as excited about drawing again! so lazy :C |
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| ~Killin a person ain't no big deal |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|09:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  curious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Penn and Teller thing on violent videogames | ] |
How many of you guys have ever fired a real gun?
(For the record, Alix and I haven't.) |
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| Virga |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|11:52 pm] |
Well, I finished Sun of Suns, and I counted that it's my 29th book for the year. It was a pretty good book. I might want to read the sequel sometime.
( Sun of Suns review )
So I guess after I'm caught up with science podcasts, I'll listen to Pollyanna. |
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| Home |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|09:00 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Asleep at the Wheel - Red Wing | ] |
The wind has blown us home from the east and the northeast, respectively. There was much fun and mayhem in between points A and B, and more to that effect when the road dust settles and the routine returns.
Here's some red-wing black-bird zen. :]
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| Suitin! |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|09:10 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
There's this Japanese site that makes pretty awesome latex zentai style suits I'm looking at right now, but in order to inquire about bodysuits in my waterdragon pattern I need to show them some base human body shame in front and back with my patterns on it... Any of you suiters or peeps in general have a front and back general male shape kicking around? I wanna get jaxx to color it up like me so I can send it off to them to see what they can do.
I would like to be among one of the first dragons or suiters in general that isnt affraid to make a less cartoony suit and something more.. provocative and realistic. My first step is honestly just to get this body down pat. I can worry about my webbed hands, feet, etc much later on.
That and frankly there is a certain degree of glee I'd have in meeting you guys (my buddies, derp) while dressed up like that.. |
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| Root beer recipes... Not having much luck. |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|08:47 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
I'm having a tough time tracking down a recipe I can try and modify to make my drink.
MOST recipes have one or both of these problems: either it has "root beer extract" as a part of the recipe (basically, someone else made the root beer and boiled it into a concentrate, you just have to dilute and carbonate it, usually with yeast), or it contains sassafras bark, which is a forbidden ingredient in the US because it contains safrole, a proved cause of cancer in lab rats.
The remaining few recipes I've found tell you what ingredients can go into root beer, but doesn't give examples of working combinations or amounts. The closest I found had generalizations, like "I usually (emphasis mine) use 1/2 cup of this, 1/2 oz of that." Completely not helpful. But the search for a recipe to start from is on.
Another thing I have to be careful about is using yeast. It is a popular carbonizer in home made root beer, but it "can" result in "accidentally" making a drink that contains alcohol. Certainly not a family-friendly drink. (Edit: or maybe it is? Maybe your family starts party training at an early age...)
Going back to my frustration with recipes containing root beer extract: why are these listed as "from scratch" recipes? Someone had to make the extract, and it's not similar to vanilla extract where it's just boiled down vanilla and alcohol. Someone actually made working root beer from a recipe, and then sold that as a concentrate. That's no more "from scratch" than frozen orange juice concentrate. You may as well buy a 2-liter of Mug and pour it into smaller bottles and claim you made it from scratch. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|01:27 am] |
The guy behind me on the bus shit his pants on my way home. He wasnt even that old, either. LET THAT SET THE TONE FOR RECENT CENT DAYS.
I did get together with the awesome Lanakila yesterday to watch Anthrocon videos though, rawk. THANKS LANA. Totally motivates me to get into the whole fursuiting thing. YES I WILL TOTALLY FURSUIT. I don't really care that a lot of suiters get a bad rap, it looks awesome and I'd totally do it. I'm not really sure yet about the technicals, though. If I did get into suiting I'd like something SHINY AND WATERDRAGON AND AWESOME - possibly latex like.
Though I'm sure there is some sort of rule against people in suits like that.. If you were in some sort of tight ass latex waterdragon suit like I imagine I would be, you couldn't exactly take it anywhere BUT anhrocon haha... People would kinda be bothered by the.. uh.. Provocative nature of something like that, even though it's how my fucking character is anyway.
Why am I posting at 1:15 am? GO TO SLEEP WHAT THE HELL. Stupid damn furry. |
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| Stuff |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|12:59 am] |
I sorta feel like we got a lot done today. A lot other than garden stuff, cos for once the garden work didn't take up the whole day (though it probably could have). We've lost three tomato plants so far, but I think we might not lose more than a couple more, because the number of infected spots we're finding is decreasing daily, almost. We found maybe... four? today total, when at first there were maybe four per plant. So it's good. Roz isn't as optimistic though, but the lack of rain really helps. Our plants look really good, even though we've been chopping off leaves and branches indiscriminately sorta, especially compared to the plants in some of the plots around us, which have brown leaves and big brown spots on their branches and stuff :/
So other than gardening, we... went shopping, and even got Roz some new shoes and t-shirts. For food we decided to get a watermelon, because they're awesome, and then we got a couple heirloom tomatoes to see if we could get seeds from them and use them to grow some weird tomatoes of our own.
Two different kinds: one looked very much like a bell pepper, outside and inside: when cut open, there was a wall of flesh on the outside and clumps of seeds all bunched in the middle. The wall wasn't very tasty, but the seeds were quite flavorful. Apparently it is a kind that is designed for stuffing. Stuffed tomatoes! Cool!
The other was kinda crinkly and pink, and was really tasty.
In the bread section of the store, we found some strange contraption that turned out to be a rice cake-making robot thing. It put in whatever it is that rice cakes are made out of, incubated for a short time, and then *POP* out flew a rice cake XD I couldn't help snickering every time that happened. We bought a package of the cakes, and they were tastier than the normal kind.
After we got home, we started doing stuff: we cut up half the watermelon, half of that for eating and the other half I sentenced to dehydration! Dehydrating watermelon is such an interesting idea. I would recommend that one NOT do it in the oven on a summer day with no AC though. Fortunately it wasn't that hot outside. It does take a while on low heat though, and it's hard to get it to the proper dryness; I burned some of the slices, and I think the rest weren't dry enough. A dehydrator would probably be easier. But it's so tasty! Like candy!
The other quarter melon we just ate straight, and then I took the rinds for pickling :D Sounds intriguing! I have a recipe but I am not sure about all the details. I guess I will experiment.
Other than that, we made a tasty dinner of udon with broccoli and ginger peanut sauce. Mmm. We also made a couple of stir-fries: one with some tiny broccoli leaves and a bunch of swiss chard leaves, and the other with swiss chard stems, snow peas, green beans, and some red bell pepper. Most of it was from our garden :O Man our chard is good.
Um. Yeah. I sense that this post is not as articulate as it could be, but whatever. I'm going to bed, anyway. Here is a picture of flowering milkweed. I can't wait for it to fruit so I can eat the stuff inside! Bwahahaha! Meanwhile, it's pretty. |
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| Are you a geek? |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|05:30 pm] |
So a friend sent me this link from Wired and well ya know I might as well turn it into a MeMe type thing.
So how geeky are you? Lets find out. Yes/No questions and give reasons too
- Properly secure a wireless router.
- Crack the WEP key on a wireless router.
- Leech Wifi from your neighbor.
- Screw with Wifi leeches.
- Setup and use a VPN.
- Work from home or a coffee shop as effectively as you do at the office.
- Wire your own home with Ethernet cable.
- Turn a web camera into security camera.
- Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point.
- Understand what “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” means.
- Identify key-loggers.
- Properly connect a TV, Tivo, XBox, Wii, and Apple TV so they all work together with the one remote.
- Program a universal remote.
- Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone.
- Benchmark Your Computer
- Identify all computer components on sight.
- Know which parts to order from NewEgg.com, and how to assemble them into a working PC.
- Troubleshoot any computer/gadget problem, over the phone.
- Use any piece of technology intuitively, without instruction or prior knowledge.
- How to irrecoverably protect data.
- Recover data from a dead hard drive.
- Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network.
- Install a Linux distribution. (Hint: Ubuntu 9.04 is easier than installing Windows)
- Remove a virus from a computer.
- Dual (or more) boot a computer.
- Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
- Boot a computer off a network drive.
- Replace or repair a laptop keyboard.
- Run more than two monitors on a single computer.
- Successfully disassemble and reassemble a laptop.
- Know at least 10 software easter eggs off the top of your head.
- Bypass a computer password on all major operating systems. Windows, Mac, Linux
- Carrying a computer cleaning arsenal on your USB drive.
- Bypass content filters on public computers.
- Protect your privacy when using a public computer.
- Surf the web anonymously from home.
- Buy a domain, configure bind, apache, MySQL, php, and Wordpress without Googling a how-to.
- Basic *nix command shell knowledge with the ability to edit and save a file with vi.
- Create a web site using vi.
- Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
- Hide a file in an image using steganography.
- Knowing the answer to life, the universe and everything.
- Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers without a KVM switch.
- Google obscure facts in under 3 searches. Bonus point if you can use I Feel Lucky.
- Build amazing structures with LEGO and invent a compelling back story for the creation.
- Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.
- Build a two story house out of LEGO, in monochrome, with a balcony.
- Construct a costume for you or your kid out of scraps, duct tape, paper mâché, and imagination.
- Be able to pick a lock.
- Determine the combination of a Master combination padlock in under 10 minutes.
- Assemble IKEA furniture without looking at the instructions. Bonus point if you don’t have to backtrack.
- Use a digital SLR in full manual mode.
- Do cool things to Altoids tins.
- Be able to construct paper craft versions of space ships.
- Origami! Bonus point for duct tape origami. (Ductigami)
- Fix anything with duct tape, chewing gum and wire.
- Knowing how to avoid being eaten by a grue.
- Know what a grue is.
- Understand where XYZZY came from, and have used it.
- Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator.
- Burn the rope.
- Know the Konami code, and where to use it.
- Whistle, hum, or play on an iPhone, the Cantina song.
- Learning to play the theme songs to the kids favorite TV shows.
- Solve a Rubik’s Cube.
- Calculate THAC0.
- Know the difference between skills and traits.
- Explain special relativity in terms an eight-year-old can grasp.
- Recite pi to 10 places or more.
- Be able to calculate tip and split the check, all in your head.
- Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.
- Understand the electromagnetic spectrum - xray, uv, visible, infrared, microwave, radio.
- Know the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.
- Understand basic electronics components like resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors.
- Solder a circuit while bottle feeding an infant. (lead free solder please.)
- The meaning of technical acronyms.
- The coffee dash, blindfolded (or blurry eyed). Coffee <brew> [cream] [sugar]. In under a minute.
- Build a fighting robot.
- Program a fighting robot.
- Build a failsafe into a fighting robot so it doesn’t kill you.
- Be able to trace the Fellowship’s journey on a map of Middle Earth.
- Know all the names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit.
- Understand the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.
- Know where your towel is and why it is important.
- Re-enact the parrot sketch.
- Know the words to The Lumberjack Song.
- Reciting key scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Be able to recite at least one Geek Movie word for word.
- Know what the 8th Chevron does on a Stargate and how much power is required to get a lock.
- Be able to explain why it’s important that Han shot first.
- Know why it is just wrong for Luke and Leia to kiss.
- Stop talking Star Wars long enough to get laid.
- The ability to name actors, characters and plotlines from the majority of sci-fi movies produced since 1968.
- Cite Mythbusters when debunking a myth or urban legend.
- Sleep with a Cricket bat next to your bed.
- Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
- Identify evil alternate universe versions of friends, family, co-workers or self.
- Be able to convince TSA that the electronic parts you are carrying are really not a threat to passengers.
- Talk about things that aren’t tech related.
- Get something on the front page of Digg.
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| Auto Tune the News (#6) |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|03:11 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
Palin quits. Jackson dies. And what will you vote? |
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| ~Before he knew it he had told her how much he'd been hurting, how he was hoping she was not th same |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|10:29 pm] |
Haha if I've been distant the past couple days it's cause Funkmeister was here and we were doing important things. Namely, marathoning Silent Hill for no real reason. God I love that series.
It's weird, I've played SH1 and 2 so many times that nothing in them scares me anymore. Well apart from Maria who continually manages to pop up in dark corners in the hospital with her DEAD EYES and startling me into shooting at her. SCREW YOU MARIA
I managed to get through SH1 in like... two hours or something I think with the Good+ ending. I can't remember, at one point we paused to go shopping and then I came back and I forgot that the clock still runs when you do that. It doesn't surprise me that I can zip through that since I've got that whole game and its maps practically memorized (although the tinyness of the maps in SH1 also probably helps). SH2 took me about... three hours I think to get the Rebirth ending, and SH3 about the same, three or so hours with the normal ending. For some reason all my games with the unlocked stuff seem to be missing, but I don't care, I'll play through them all again.
So we were going pretty good, and then who should come throw a wrench into the gears?
SILENT HILL 4
GOD I FORGOT HOW LONG THAT GAME IS
Ended up clocking some 5-6 hours and just got to the second trip to the Water Prison and aaaaaagh. I love SH4 but I forgot how annoying it could be. The inventory system is a pain in the butt. God why did they do that. WHY DON'T HEALING ITEMS OR AMMO STACK, HOW HARD WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN TO DO
AAAAARGH
That and I also forgot that SH4 got weirdly picky about the order you do things, so I ended up screwing around in the subway the first time through for a while all like WHERE IS CYNTHIA STATUE WITH THE BLOODY HANDS AJRGSAHRHGH before I found the shifted dresser in the apartment and picked up the gun. THEN it decided to let me progress. arrrgh.
DARN IT SH4 I LOVE YOU BUT YOU ARE NOT REALLY MADE FOR SPEEDRUNS
Although it probably didn't help that I haven't played SH4 in like a few years or something and I can't remember a lot of it. I ended up getting killed in the baby ambush at the bottom of the water prison since I ran out of ammo and healing items and just had a chainsaw and HENRY CAN'T AIM FOR SOME REASON and ffffff whatever i'll finish it later
Silent Hill is a very adventure game-y series when you think about it, in terms of random nonsensical inventory puzzles and pointless backtracking. Just throw some combat in there and you're set.
SH3 breaks my heart everytime. Oh Harry. :< You try so hard. We also played SH1 on the huge HD tv which means you could see every single pixel, haha. HIGH QUALITY GRAPHICS
God the baby monsters from 4 are still creepy. That first time you see one and it's just pointing at you, brrr.
The Rompers in SH1 make some really strange noises. On that note, the nurses in SH3 I think are the most human sounding, interestingly enough.
Apparently I at one point killed the splithead worm in SH3 in three seconds. WOOO
IMPORTANT NEWS, THANK YOU I should probably update the MGS fanart dump at some point, I've been coloring a lot of LET comics lately. HEY DO YOU WANT TO SEE
( here you go )
Man I dunno what it is, there are just certain games that lead to tons of stupid little comics from me, and there are others where I just can't come up with anything, no matter how much I love the game in question. I WONDER WHAT THE MYSTERIOUS COMIC FACTOR IS |
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stressed
contemplative
calm
quixotic
thirsty