| Car shopping: Success! |
[Aug. 9th, 2007|09:26 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  giddy | ] |
I have successfully purchased a car (featured in userpic). I found a great deal that was only slightly more than I wanted to spend...
Okay, it was a lot more, but not unattainably more.
It's so...pretty!
And it came with everything I wanted, and a couple things on my 'it would be nice' list.
*happy dance* |
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| Sunrise: a moment of peace in a busy two weeks. |
[Aug. 8th, 2007|11:01 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
There was a really lovely sunrise this morning. Probably due to all the rainclouds that are still infesting the sky. Still it was really nice. Amazingly, the humidity was not too bad riding my bike in this morning.
Other than that, I have to get a car today. I have a Hapkido Class on Thursday, a belt testing on Friday and bil is working over the weekend (no car to get to dealerships). I leave for GenCon on Weds of next week, and I have movie night on Monday and Hapkido on Tuesday (where, hopefully, I'll be getting my new Jr. Deputy belt...). And on the Monday after Gencon, I have my first day of school, for which, I need a car.
Long story short: Car has to be today. |
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| Myriad things |
[Aug. 2nd, 2007|03:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | groggy | ] |
One of my pet peeves is the misuse of the word 'myriad'. I don't understand what's so hard about this that it keeps getting mangled. For anyone who doesn't know, here's how it works:
You use 'myriad' like the word 'many'. That's how easy it is.
For most intents and purposes 'myriad' means 'many', so it's not even all that hard to remember.
You usually have 'myriad something' not 'a myriad of something.'
Good Example: 'I have myriad emotions upon gazing at the water.'
Bad Example: 'I have a myriad of emotions upon gazing at the water.'
The problem with the later one becomes readily apparent when we replace 'myriad' with 'many':
Good Example: 'I have many emotions upon gazing at the water.'
Bad Example: 'I have a many of emotions upon gazing at the water.'
What is so hard about this!?
Sorry for the rant. My boss consistently misuses the word and justifies it by saying it's that way in the dictionary. Upon looking it up, since I'm a know-it-all and have to be right, I found that while I am correct (Yay, good example!), there is one archaic usage of the other version in the dictionary. Unfortunately for my boss, it is only relevant if you are also using its archaic meaning of 'myriad' which is a noun meaning a group of ten thousand.
Just to be silly:
Good Example: 'I have group of ten thousand emotions upon gazing at the water.'
Bad Example: 'I have a group of ten thousand of emotions upon gazing at the water.'
Bah. |
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| Finally done... |
[Aug. 1st, 2007|02:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
I just finished 'The Cosmic Serpent'. The last two chapters irritated me more than any others in the book. Suffice it to say I disagree strongly with several of Dr. Narby's premises and feel that the basis for his perceived connection between hallucinations of snakes and DNA is not supported by biology in general or biochemistry in particular.
Narby distrusts and dismisses science as not capable of grasping the wisdom and truth of people who ingest psychedelic plant extracts for a living. I find this to be unimaginably absurd and ignorant. In addition, his 'hypothesis' that DNA is conscious at some level is supported by no evidence whatsoever and does not relate to any observations of the natural world other than those obtained by ingesting hallucinogens.
I'm not sure what to think about Biophotons (there is some question, according to a quick websearch, as to whether or not light contamination compromised the experiment), but I'm fairly confident that, if DNA does indeed emit the occasional photon, it is not for the purpose of communicating with us.
I don't think you have to tie biochemistry (or any science) in with mysticism to make it meaningful and relevant to our lives(c'mon! Biochemistry is pretty darn cool all by itself...), but it seems that this book is an attempt to do just that. It fails. In the end, the problems with fitting the square peg of science into the round hole of mysticism become apparent, and, rather than acknowledging the differences between the two, Narby blames his failure on science.
I really, really hated this book. |
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| Cosmic Serpent |
[Jul. 31st, 2007|07:54 am] |
My book is irritating. Really irritating.
When I bought 'The Cosmic Serpent' at a used bookstore in Madison, I thought I was buying a book about DNA. Indeed, the subheading 'DNA and the Origins of Knowledge' is rather hard to miss and definitely gives one the impression that the book is about DNA.
( But it isn't... )
I hate this book.
And yet, I want to finish it so that I might properly rant about it. |
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| Poor little fox |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|03:20 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
Saw a poor little fox today with a nasty case of mange. I don't think the little guy is going to last much longer, unfortunately.
Intellectually, I know that in the ongoing fight for survival between the parasite and host is one of the powerful driving forces behind evolution. The unfortunate fox has lost out on this particular race, but its genes exist on in the rest of the litter of foxes that were born last year (I'm not sure if it is one of the parents or one of the kits...). These balances of life and death are a part of our world and our existence, and to deny that this is the case is to deny reality.
But I wouldn't be human if I didn't feel at least a little sorry for him...
And at the moment, I'm feeling very, very human. |
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| Boredom and Fire : The perfect combination... |
[Jul. 11th, 2007|01:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bouncy | ] |
I'm feeling that vague feeling of ennui that usually leads to the initiation of a new project to obsess over. Lucky for me, I've made arrangements to run a very small Exalted Dragon-Blooded campaign once a month. That should keep me occupied nicely. :-D
On the fire side of things, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dmoonfire was nice enough to make me a kick-ass Fire Nation (from Avatar: The Last Airbender) wallpaper out of a very basic graphic I found out on the interweb. Thanks, D. ^_^ |
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| Rainy day... |
[Jul. 9th, 2007|04:32 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
I'm in a decent mood, although this will likely change by the time I get home as it seems to be rather moist out.
I guess I'll just look on the bright side. At least I won't be too hot on my ride home. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 5th, 2007|11:47 am] |
I'm really tired today for some reason. I had a good night sleep and had a relaxing day off yesterday(during which I finished watching season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender -- Damn that show is awesome...), so I'm a not sure why the exhaustion and splitting headache.
I suppose that's what Excedrin is for.
Yesterday, bil and I went over to Dylan and Susan's for 4th of July. Maybe I breathed too much in the way of smoke bomb smoke or something. Illinois has the lamest fireworks, but we managed to make them vaguely fun. We all made little sparkler trees and bundles in some empty planters and set them on fire with great effect. Susan's was especially nice, as she got multiple sticks to light in the middle and burn both directions. Also played board games and Mario Party 8.
Great fun. |
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| My puppy is sick... |
[Jul. 2nd, 2007|11:46 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | good | ] |
My 16 year old dog is having another bout of Canine vestibular disease (this'll be her third full on attack -- she might have had some more minor ones that weren't as bad). Canine vestibular disease is common in old dogs and means her inner ear is all wacky, she can't balance very well and is having experiencing something akin to motion sickness. It's uncomfortable for her, but not life-threatening so long as I keep her away from the stairs.
It also means she gets to be coddled with baby food mixed into her dog food, me coming home early from work to keep her company through the worst of it and general increase in attention/petting/treats. :-) With luck she'll bounce back pretty fast again. |
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| One of these days.... |
[Jun. 28th, 2007|11:29 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
One of these days I'm going to actually remember to write down my password when I change it.
It didn't help that I neglected to remember that I had routed it through another e-mail account so that it arrived in my yahoo. So I kept trying the yahoo address and going nuts because it wouldn't work!
You see, during the last three days that I've been trying to get in here, I neglected to notice the word 'optional' next to e-mail address bar on the password lookup. So I thought it was required. If you don't put an e-mail in, it sends it to the default address, which, in this case, pointed indirectly to my yahoo.
Yay.
This whole thing was sparked by some weird little spam message comments in my account. So of course it drove me absolutely bonkers not being able to delete them. |
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| casts suck |
[May. 21st, 2007|06:51 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | cranky | ] |
I broke my arm in Hapkido. Left radial head fracture according to the ER doc and the orthopedist.
So now that I have a legitimate excuse to not update, I'm updating. :-P
Casts suck, as I stated in the subject, for many reasons. I can only wear drawstring or elastic waist pants because while I can button trousers (barely), I can't do so without this hideous twinge right near the broken bone in my elbow. I figured this was best avoided.
Also, I keep getting cramps in my wrist if I use my left hand too much. And my bicep is all twitchy. And I want to take a bath without a garbage bag affixed to my person.
*Sigh.* And this is only day 4 of 21.
Sorry for the whining. ;-) I'm not really doing that badly. It doesn't hurt all that much and I was surprised this weekend when my hubbie was able to find and purchase a Wii for me. *grin* You can play Wii sports baseball one handed. And win. |
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| Hey look... It's me! |
[Oct. 9th, 2006|03:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | silly | ] |
In a spiffy hat no less, though I'm sure you can't tell from the picture..
This here avatar is a picture of me from Gencon. And since I almost invariably manage to make some dopey face when someone attempts to photograph me is rare in that I look vaguely normal, if slightly concussed.
enjoy. |
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| *kicks dmoonfire for poking her* |
[Sep. 15th, 2006|03:34 pm] |
Still waiting on a certain game system to do further development... Hmmmm... Now what wholly poking sort of person was supposed to provide that for me...
The powers wielded by various factions within the Itrifore world will have some affect on the dynamics of the world. So I really need to move forward on that before I do to much more world development.
Need. Magic. System.
*sigh* |
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| Didn't get anything done... |
[Jan. 27th, 2006|09:54 am] |
I didn't manage to acheive my weekly goals last week, but I have high hopes for this week, as I have the afternoon off. Once I get home it's soooooo hard trying to convince myself to drag the computer out of my backpack. Bah.
I really need an intro though.
It's an entertaining world, just really damn hard to explain.
Goals for this week:
Write understandable Itrifore introduction (left over from last week)
Write up what the difference between Lords, Lieutenants, Vassals and Bassan.(left over from last week)
Location based notes on worldmap
Write up Lost Lords
Brief treatise on the political climate
Firm up Itrifore Specific Mechanics: Lords in general
Mechanics: Becoming a vassal
Lots to do... O_O |
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| Actually working on stuff... |
[Jan. 19th, 2006|10:18 am] |
I need to start updating this thing again. Itrifore is mostly on pause (although occasionally punctuated by bursts of activity) until D finishes the magic system. Since I am an utter dork, I created a project plan for writing blurbs of Itrifore information. I still need to work on writing up an intro (which is a goal for this week), so that people can figure out what the hell the world setting is all about.
Then I need to rework it so that it's interesting enough that people WANT to figure out what the hell the world setting is all about.
THEN I've got to make it marketable.
Daunting. Very Daunting. If I could come up with decent plots I'd write a book instead, as it would be easier to fill in only the bits that need to be fleshed out, rather than fleshing out the whole thing, because you never know where Role Players will go in a world. For Itrifore, it's very difficult for me to figure out what belongs in a main book, and what belongs in suplements. How much do you need in a basic world setting?
Bah, I'm overthinking it. I slept fairly poorly last night, which is never good. I woke up at midnight and something smelled bad. I don't know what it was or where it came from, but there is going to be a full investigation after work. The thing about bad smells, is they prevent me from sleeping. This was the case for about three hours before I got exhausted enough to fall into nightmare riddled sleep. I really hope there isn't a dead mouse somewhere again. EW!
Goals for this week:
Write understandable Itrifore introduction,
Write up what the difference between Lords, Lieutenants, Vassals and Bassan. |
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| NPC information! |
[Oct. 23rd, 2005|07:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  devious | ] |
I'm gonna leave the bassans alone for the time being, and work on character development of the Lords... They're my favorite to work on... My current project is to try to get together some of the NPC information... (physical charactaristics and stuff). I'm still at a loss how to organize it and whether that stuff should be located on the Stat page or the main page or what. Oi.
I'm still waiting on D's revamp of the magic system before I can start playing with powers. I might do more character development pieces. They aren't really good enough for me to show to anyone, except perhaps D, but they really do help me envision the characters.
I've got a new laptop, so the annoying problem I was dealing with before should be largely alleviated. (yay!)
Laptop...shiny...
The other NPC information connundrum I've come across is: How much should I publish, and how much should I keep secret? On the one hand I want to show off all the cool stuff I've come up with for each character, but on the other, I don't want to show all my cards at once...I'd like it to be a surprise when I get to the point of advancing the world where things go, but I'd also like people to have enough knowledge about the characters as I see them that it makes sense.
It's quite bothersome.
And of course, now that I got a new laptop...my desktop PC won't turn on.
This is just too much. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 12th, 2005|01:40 pm] |
Damn it! I need a new laptop. I was really close to having the hard bits of the Bassan stuff done and my computer crashes. AGAIN. This is the third time today I've had to go back and totally rewrite something. ARGH! Thats it. I'm going to have to ask my husband to buy me a new lappy top. I shall bribe him with teh s3xxors, and hit him up for laptopity-ness.
Bassan stuff is pretty much figured out, I just need to get it down on digital paper without the paper disolving into nothingness! |
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| Bassan |
[Oct. 6th, 2005|10:23 am] |
Ugh. It's time to knuckle down and work on the Bassan. They aren't as interesting as the Lords and Vassals and whatnot, but they need to get done. (Especially since once they are done, they'll be more interesting.)
D suggested a few questions to me that he suggested I answer. Today's plan is to do so. Look for updates in the Bassan section, a few new Bassan pages, and listings of Lords who provide services to Bassan.
If I finish with that I'm going to work on creating the Office pages for later population. I know it's annoying having a great deal of "to be updated", but I'm trying to make progress. I think I'm going to try to set a goal of one partial Lord description (just basic appearance and personality) per day until I have all of them, and then move to one expanded (full description with nifty stuff, kinda like what the Lord of Chaos and Destruction has. After that, I'll try to populate one Office page per day at least. If I can keep up with it, doing more when I can, I'll make better time on all this.
Lord of Chaos and Destruction's Word of the Day: Cask. Like the Oak casks which seem to be the preferred method of aging certain types of beverages...the kind that make you all...wobbly... |
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| Itrifore production journal! |
[Oct. 5th, 2005|03:28 pm] |
Rather than updating continually in a thread all by my lonesome on the mfgames forum, I figure I'll post news of my updates to the Itrifore campaign world here...not that anyone is paying the SLIGHTEST amount of attention to my campaign world, but I should probably record my early thought processes, on the off-chance that someday, someone, might be vaguely interested.
Should you come across this journal, and have some interest in knowing what the hell I'm talking about, Itrifore is a future/modern setting for a Role-Playing Game that is currently in production at MFGames. This game is, at the moment called "Balance", but this is a working title, and it may change before general release. Look here for more specific info on Itrifore, and here for more info on the Balance Roleplaying system. At the moment, the rules are available for free, and MFgames would dearly love playtesters.
Itrifore does not have hordes of monsters like a stereotypical fantasy world, nor does it have the rampant destruction and hopelessness of your average post-apocolyptic world, nor the tediously omnipotent technology of some Sci-fi worlds. I feel Itrifore's appeal lies in the humanity of the denizens, the rich layers of political strife, combined with the undercurrent of violent rebellion brewing just out of view. Itrifore is a world on edge, the Tiers of Wisdom have succeeded, to a point, in their goal of becoming supreme rulers of a peaceful humanity, but pride and avarice have set them at eachothers throats.
Damn that sounds overly serious. Go to the website. It explains in better detail.
The Lord of Chaos and Destructions word of the day is: "Albacore"
Discuss. |
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