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My Policy On Commenting On Political Posts
My Naming & Friending Policy

Holy FUCK, this is so me. (And yes, I copied over the tooltip. The girl they're talking about, with the balls? Check out this one: http://xkcd.org/150/)



Am I the only one who has noticed that we ALL think that way, yet no one's talking about it? I mean some of us talk about it with our friends, but for a phenomenon that's as universal as that, you'd think that it would be all over mainstream media, right up there with the first kiss and losin' your sweetie. (Apparently somewhere it was decided that it's not acceptable to talk about, or at very least, no one wants to lose face. Fuck that noise, I say.)

It's raining right now, but it's soothing to me instead of depressing me. The sound of the water from the rain dripping out of the gutters and into the maintenance area outside my bedroom window, the occasional flash of lightning or the crash of not-too-close-but-not-too-distant thunder... it's quite nice, really. (BTW, note the mood on the post. Isn't that a nice mood to feel?)

I just watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager (The Disease, to be exact) that dealt with new love and loss as a co-plot. The way that Harry Kim and Derran Tal felt about each other... I see a lot of morningboon and I in that. The episode made me feel lovesick, but in a nice way. I have to admit, I put our last names with Starfleet ranks... they sound good that way. I gave him Lieutenant, I took Ensign for myself. I bet he'd look absolutely dashing in a jumpsuit. I haven't decided whether to give him red, yellow, or blue green. I suppose yellow would be fitting, but I think I'd be a blue green.

I leave for Toronto on Sunday. Still so much to do, but I'm more worried about spending so much time up there. I had my last DO Happy Hour before I go tonight. Luckily, T. and A. were there. I love those 2 so much and I hadn't gotten to see them since before I left for the last time. I'm going to miss my friends terribly. I hope I make some new friends up in the Great (Not So) White North soon.

I don't mind being Rickrolled. In fact, I rather like it.

So, in the comments, Rickroll me the best/funniest/whatever way possible. The winner gets a prize (TBD later).

Completely.

markwhi is giving me an 8 gig iPod Touch tomorrow. I'm naming it Ace.

And then I have a date with WickedWill. And I'll try to actually pay attention to him during it. And not just, you know, geek out hard over my new toy.

I make no promises. I hope he reads this so he has fair warning ahead of time.


...my only concern about getting an iPod is taht they don't play OGGs. What do I need to do to hack it to play OGGs? And is the Touch unlocked or is there all of that crappy locked shit on it?

And I have no idea if he was using it on a PC. If so, do I need to reformat it to work with the Mac? If so, how?

Even with all of those questions, and the fact that I'm not happy about iTunes + iPod's DRM, ZOMG, I'm getting my Ace tomorrow. :-D


Oh, and I went to BR tonight. I was just going to go to the TNG (which was fun in and of itself, and I gave a little impromptu mini-lesson on 'looners and macrophiles, which people seemed to enjoy), but a nice guy who's LJ name I don't know paid my way into the talk. Which seemed like it was about "how to play with monogamous people who are stupidly opening up their relationship and playing with others... and not owning their own shit". It was polyamateury at its finest. That being said, I can't really blame the presenter on that... because that kind of crap DOES happen in the scene. But I believe he scared a lot of single people off of playing with couples. I hope the other singles there realize that poly people won't have nearly the problems he was talking about. That being said, I still think the presenter was good at presenting. I know he was nervous about it ahead of time.

I saw D & M again. Which was awesome. M's looking to maybe have some kind of a girlfriend. And I was on her short list. So we're going to go on a date or 3, see what happens. At very least, it'll be cool to have someone to be girlie with.

RS was there with K. They've got this NRE glowy thing going on, and it's so sweet. Oh, yay for being happy that your friends are in love and happy. Yay for compersion! And yay for your friends dating cool people that you now become friends with.

nzlaur invited me to go with her and a bunch of others out to Freddie's for karaoke. Not being one to pass up an opportunity to sing, I readily agreed. And so she and I had a great talk on the way there. I really love her... she's so sweet and nice. (And DAMN can she sing!) And so I went to Freddie's near Crystal City for the first time. Great gay bar. I sang a number of things, and now a bunch of Crucible-goers are like "damn, we had no idea you had this talent! You need to get back into musical theater, girl!" Which makes me smile and blush.

And there was this cute fat chick there that I totally wanted to hit on, but didn't have the nerve to. I chatted her up a bit, got her name, looked at her photography (which I really DID enjoy) and found out she hangs out there often. I'll go back sometime.

And buz1 and BL took me home, old kinky leatherdyke friends of mine that I haven't seen in years. It was so good to see them again... they were always so nice to me when others wouldn't even talk to me.

I think I'm going to take another shot at being in the leatherdyke scene again. But this time, I'm going with friends.

So that was my night.

Remember the Domain Name Dollar Store commercial from a few days ago? Well, check out their site.

Deflowering a young man, getting a new corset-like thing, meeting someone who wants to do Doctor Who play with me and someone who resembles Sylar in looks and will dominate me from that standpoint, seeing old friends and getting free food to take home with me makes a WONDERFUL day and a great trip to the Crucible.

Oh, and lots of neck nibbles and licking strawberries and whipped cream off of pretty geeky girlies. And having more offers for play than I could do in one night. And refreshing my DM training. Yes, it all makes for a good day.

Moar later. And now off to masturbate and sleep. Tomorrow's Ren Fest!

(Just felt like using a Doctor Who icon and thought that one would be fitting.)

I suppose I should update.

( What I did )

( What I'm going to do )

( Costume Ideas? )

( Computer Problems )

So that's what's going on in my life.

It was late, and I was doped up on Benadryl (it was supposed to make me sleep! Instead, I blame it for this), and I got to wondering if the numbers in the X girls, Y cups XKCD were accurate.

I did a little research and found that they were made up.

So I did it, so you didn't have to.

I did the research myself and threw together a little Google Spreadsheet with the results. I only wish I could say that I used a script to run the searches, grab the data and put it into the spreadsheet. But nope. All done by hand.

Note that I used the phrase in quotes and I used proper grammar. (E.g. "2 girls 1 cup" instead of "2 girls 1 cups" or "1 girl 2 cups" instead of "1 girls 1 cups".) If it had omitted results, I left them omitted.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pvn448atKdTy6RyQ9uC5HbA

Feel free to spread it around to your geeky friends. (I've always wanted to be the originator of a meme. :-) )

Stolen from rob_t_firefly:

You are on a generic city street.
There are pedestrians here.
There is a car here.

> STEAL CAR

You force open the door of the car, pull out the protesting owner,
and sit in his place. The victim gesticulates angrily at you from
outside the car.

You are in a car. There is a rap song playing on the stereo.
There are pedestrians here.
There is an angry car-theft victim here.

> DRIV CAR

I don't know how to DRIV.

> DRIVE CAR

You put your foot on the gas pedal, and the car moves forward.

You are in a moving car. There is rap music playing on the stereo.

There is traffic here.
There are pedestrians here.

> CHANGE STATION

You change the radio station.

You are in a moving car. There is country/western music playing on
the stereo.

There is traffic here.
There are pedestrians here.

> KILL PEDESTRIANS

What would you like to kill the pedestrians with?

> KILL PEDESTRIANS WITH CAR

You deliberately drive over some of the pedestrians. Their horrific
screams of panic and anguish drown out the radio. Their broken
bodies fly off in various amusing directions. Other pedestrians flee
in terror at the carnage-laden sight, while still others ignore the
situation entirely.

You are in a moving car. There is country/western music playing on
the stereo.

There is traffic here.
There are pedestrians here.

> CHANGE STATION

You change the radio station.

You are in a moving car. There is talk radio loaded with subtle
social commentary playing on the stereo.

There is traffic here.
There are pedestrians here.

> _

This is awesome:


But THIS is awesomer:


...any questions?

(And for the record, saying that she "recently" made the fetish map is an error. An original version of the map was published in her book Deviant Desires in 2000. ...what?! I'm just being accurate here!)

TRUFAX of life:


THIS is why I don't like to have sex with music on. That and some songs are so good I can't help singing along, even in the middle of fucking.

(Oh, and have I ever mentioned how much I love this song?)

Who wants to go out and do things in honor? (I know niyamas won't, cause he doesn't believe in pi. :-P)

ZOMG, this was just so dorktastic, I had to share it with you.

Thanks, nyghtowl!

http://eden.rutgers.edu/~avinator/starwars/imagesample1.jpg

So I'm reading this interview of a woman video game designer from Cerise, the online magazine for women and gaming, and I get to this Q & A:



AW: How do you feel about “casual” games being sometimes used as a codeword for “women’s” games? How legitimate do you consider casual games in the game industry at large?
HMR: I think that the term “casual” is a word that most women feel comfortable with. If you ask a room full of 100 women if they are gamers or not, most of them won’t raise their hand. However, most of these women have at some point played a casual game, whether it be solitaire or Bejeweled. It is true that most casual games are played by women, but I am hoping to see this as a starting point for women getting into other games as well.

As I'm reading, the term "casual games" isn't ringing a bell, but once they say "solitaire or Bejeweled", it did. And neurons start firing faster than I can keep track of them. And I thought how those games are considered "games lite" or "not real games" or somehow lesser than the more involved and detailed games like WoW or the GTAs or something. And then a quote from Yentl popped up in my head. It's the beginning of the movie and the bookseller is hauling his cart through the schtetle. He's advertising his wares, barking "Picture books for women! Holy books for men!" (Women at the time were forbidden from reading.) And the 2 collided, making me angry and upset. Feeling like they're "keeping" us women back by only "letting" us play "casual" games while the men play the "real" games.

Solitaire for women, Guitar Hero for men! Bejeweled for women, World of Warcraft for men! Card games for women, fighting games for men!

...fuck that shit.

I think I'm going to go play some GTA3. I'm gonna steal some cars, blow up some shit, and fuck some hos. Maybe I'll even put in one of the cheats so I can get the tank and see how long I can hold The Man off while going on a rampage of destruction.

I am woman. Watch me kill shit.

I got promoted in my WoW guild! (The Velvet Harlots) I can now invite new members! I'm a "Recruit Captain"! Yay! Lots of exclamation points!

Went to Capital Pride Interfaith Service tonight. Sang the Fire part of the 4 part corners/element round the Faeries do. "Sun's Heat! Flames Leap! Intense! Attention to Intention." (I thought it was fitting for the way my life's been going lately.)

So instead of it being an interfaith service meaning a number of different Christian religions, we literally had one of every major and quite a few minor religions. We had a number of types of Christianity, a number of types of paganism, Judaism (they blew the shofar! w00t!), UUism, Buddhism, Islam (which was actually the first time I've heard the Koran read and have prayed a Muslim prayer. I want to learn more about Islam, especially their idea of submission before God/Allah. I'm curious how that would tie in with powerplay and kink.), Native American spirituality, African ancestor worship... everything.

I said "This is like speed dating, only of religions. 5 minutes with each religion, and what you liked, you can always go to their services later." It worked out VERY well, for there's a number of different services I want to check out now.

There was an amazing chorus at the event called Mosaic Harmony. During the social afterwards, a number of their members came up and complimented me on my voice. When I mentioned interest in possibly joining Mosaic Harmony, they seemed overjoyed. Qira of the Faeries also praised my voice, which really flattered me.

Tomorrow is Be:Bi at Be Bar, the first Bi Pride celebration I can ever remember them having. I'm going to be there if it means... well, I'm just going to be there. Eldritch wants me to bring my bi pride flag to let the organizer (it was his idea) have the bar fly from their flagpole. As I've always wanted to see the bi pride flag fly over DC, I'm very excited about this. I've already packed the flag.

I'm also excited because this should help with my nervousness in hitting on people. I mean, part of my nervousness is 1.) I don't accidentally want to hit on a straight woman or a gay man and 2.) lesbians just seem to have a different vibe than bi gals. So yeah... hopefully this will be the beginning of the bi movement again in DC. It's about fucking time.

Don't really know what else to say.

Oh! A number of the DC Rad Feys are going in the parade as the Diversity Ninjas. fritterfae will be a drag ninja, dmlaenker will be a leather ninja, jcruisedirector is going to be a ninja in a wheelchair (because of his foot he can't walk the entire route), potpourrifae is going to be a tranny ninja, and I've decided I'm going to be a dyke ninja. Yeah. This is going to ROCK.

A bunch of faeries are going to be in the Dyke March with us. I'm trying to figure out what I want my sign to say. I'm tired of going with "Bisexuals are Everywhere!" I'm thinking "Genderfluid Bisexual Kinky Non-Monogamous... and PROUD" or something like that. I'm also going to write "These are manboobies!" on my chest when I take my shirt off. Yay for genderfluidity and genderfuck! Yay for being a man with a womb! Yay for being me! :-D

Oh, yeah, Dyke March. Same time, same place as usual.

Saturday. 1 pm. Dupont Circle.

ALL are invited... dykes and their allies and friends and family and significant others... basically YOU! So come on out, even if you feel like you "don't belong". Because the fact of the matter is, if you support dykes (and I don't think anyone reading this journal DOESN'T), then you belong in the Dyke March.

Because spunky_gizmo bugged me about posting, here's your god damned post.

Happy, bitches?!?

:-P

Naw, I'm just giving her a hard time. Which I shouldn't. 'Cause her grandma is dying, and she's in TN with her, and she can't be here with me and thepsion5, her husband and my housemate. So if you're the praying type, or the sending energy out in the universe type, you might wanna do those things.

We bought our tree on Sunday, and it's STILL not up yet. Tonight I put the lights on it though. And it's a crappy tree for lights. The bottom half is really full, and the top half is really empty of branches. And the back is kinda smooshed up. But I'm sure it'll be just fine in the end.

I've been playing DDR a bit lately. Did the Lesson Mode, where they make you learn various patterns. I finally have my feet moving in natural ways now, and I"m not tripping over myself nearly as much. I can see a significant improvement in my playing. And I mean significant. Which is good. I enjoy it and it is exercise. I'm using the Exercise Mode option to keep track of my exercise with it. Tonight I did the equivalent of running just over a mile. Yes, I know, not much, but I got my heart rate up a bit and it is a start. I'm just worried about hurting myself. It's high impact exercise... and I already have some joint problems. But it's so much FUN!

Let's see, I've also been playing GTA: Vice City and GTA 3 quite a bit. I'm really progressing with those games, and I've hardly needed any tip guides. (Speaking of which, there's an awesome tip guide for Vice City on Bella Online, a women's site. Yes, that's right, you heard me. A women's site. Right up there with recipes and balancing a career with motherhood is a comprehensive walkthrough and tip guide for Vice City, written by a woman. Pretty cool, eh?) What's even funnier is that the DDR we've been playing, well, it has quite a few songs from the 80s in it, and a number of them are in GTA: Vice City! (BTW, if anyone else has any DDR disks they're willing to part with, we'd love to have them. Or if you just want to bring them over for the party, that would be cool too... more about the party later.)

I still need to reinstall OS X on this comp. The CD that RS burned for me, well, the computer keeps spitting it out... it refuses to read it. Perhaps I'll borrow my install disks from my MacMini @ work.

We STILL don't have DSL at work yet. Tomorrow is day 8. It's really not funny anymore, and the boss won't let me telecommute from home. Which is fucking ridiculous, 'cause there's hardly anything I can do w/o the Internet. We were supposed to get the modem today, so hopefully it'll come in tomorrow.

Let's see, what else. OH! My holiday party is this weekend. If you want to come and you didn't get an evite, check one of your old email addresses... I might have sent it to the wrong one. If you STILL didn't get one, go to this website for the evite and to RSVP:

http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/c4bl3fl4m3@gmail.com/annualwinterholidayparty

Aaaaand I should be heading to bed. Good Night!

Remember my post about having a geek party? Well, I'm having it. This Sunday @ 3.

I tried to send evites to all my friends, but I don't think everyone got theirs. If you didn't get an evite and you want to come, go to the webpage for the evite below:

http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/c4bl3fl4m3@gmail.com/geekparty

So multiple things collided to make this entry.

Transit: Reading this blog post I find out about the new "Next Train Arrival Time" feature that's now on WMATA. Going to the press release about it on WMATA's site taught me how to use it. Basically you use Find a Stop/Station and you click on the name of the station (let's use Dupont Circle here) and it brings up the page and on the page is a link called Next Train Arrival Time and you click it and it pops up a little box with the next 3 trains.

Tech: Ok, shoot to a couple of weeks ago when I was reading the release notes for Firefox 2.0. It mentioned something about Live Titles and Microsummarys that you can use to keep updated information as the title of a bookmark.

Collision: So wouldn't it be cool to have microsummaries for each station that you could put as a Live Title bookmark? I'd put the one for Dupont Circle on my bookmark bar at work and the one for Takoma on my bookmark bar at home.

But here's the issue. The average user can't make their own microsummary. (Which, IMHO, is a shame. Too many of the cool features of Firefox aren't developed enough for the average user to create content themselves. (I'm thinking of the ability to make your own search engine (yes, I know about Rollyo but it doesn't work the way I thought it would and it doesn't do what I need it to do (in this case, make a search engine that searches the database that our website at work uses for books (we use Booksense.com which uses iPage) and come up with the content on our website)) and the ability to make your own microsummaries.)) It's some decent coding, shown here, which I'm sure I could learn if I take the time, but I shouldn't have to if I don't want to. There should be an easy way to do this, some kind of app/webapp perhaps, where you plug in the source URL that the information comes from and the specific figure you want and it figures the rest out.


So here's my challenge for you. Anyone out there familiar enough with this tech to either make me (or, better yet, teach me to make) a microgenerator for the Next Train Arrival Time on WMATA?

So I think I figured out what I'm calling my new Mac when I (finally) get it.

Eden.

As in, "The Garden of...". As in Paradise.

Eden. A sanctuary from the outside world. Paradise. The place I can go to that's perfect, the world inside of it is perfect. The perfect little world of The Internets inside of my Eden, my very own Paradise.

...Eden. Yeah.

Eden.

(I actually got the name from watching this week's episode of Heroes. When Mohinder Suresh, the son of the scientist that's dead, leaves the apartment and takes his ashes back home, he says thanks to the girl who lives down the hall for all her help. I watched it 2x, and both times I thought he said "Thank you, Eden, for everything you've done." or something like that. So I'm pretty sure her name is Eden. Which is an awesome name. It sounds and is spelled like a boy's name [I think I'm thinking of Aiden], but I suppose it's a unisex name. So yeah. Eden.)

Perhaps I could go and buy my new Mac on credit? Pay it back over the months?

So I DLed Firefox 2.0 today. The press release just went out for it yesterday, so it couldn't have been out that long.

Here's a bit of a review of it, my thoughts on using it now for, oh, 15 minutes, and checking out all the preferences and features (and reading the release notes).
( Decent Length Review Inside )
In short, I'm happy with it. However, it has only been 1 hour now. Ask me in a few days, ok?

So I managed to get tickets to this: http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=545

It's a special tour of the Air & Space Museum, with a lesson in Klingon 101 with Marc Okrand, the inventor of the Klingon language. It's on Thursday at 6 pm.

Here's the thing. I got 2 tickets. But I need someone else to take with me.

Who wants to come?

(BTW, if you want to try getting your own tickets, I just requested mine today and got them, so you'll probably be able to get them.)

I put away $100 towards my new computer yesterday. I was so excited.

And then I woke up this morning and was having serious router problems while using Ethernet. (My router problems are usually only when I'm using WiFi.) I've been having router issues for years, but this may be the end of the line for my current router.

It's not fair. I *finally* put aside money for something I want... the first time in my LIFE I've ever done that, I've ever thought about it and then followed through on it... and I'm probably going to have to spend it on a new WiFi router.

It's so not fucking fair.

That being said, I haven't kept up with WiFi router technology over the past couple of years. What are the good brands? What should I get? I want it to be 11b compatible, but the main computer we use on the WiFi is a G4 Mac laptop. Do they have 11g? Should I get an 11g compatible router too? Can you even buy routers that *aren't* 11g compatible? And what about 11a? How does that fit in?

And I need it to have port forwarding built into it, and the ability to use DHCP but also always assign certain MAC addresses the same address. (Yes, I could fuck around with static IPs, but I don't feel like it.) How hard will it be to find those features? Or are those standard now-a-days? (You can tell how long it's been since I've gone out and bought a router for my own usage.)

What would be really great is to have it be able to serve up a small webpage that people connect to the first time they connect to the WiFi (like happens to you when you use a pay wireless service somewhere). Except I'm not going to charge... I just want to put a little welcome page on it.

Something like: "Hi! Welcome to The-Network-Currently-Known-As-Penguin! This WiFi is left open INTENTIONALLY because I believe in sharing with my neighbors, not because I'm an idiot. I'd appreciate it if you didn't take advantage of that and hack me or DL kiddy porn or something stupid like that... I already had someone hack my main account on my Mac by using a password cracker and it made me sad and upset that someone would take advantage of my generosity. (BTW, if that person wants to come forward and fix my computer, I'd very much appreciate it. I won't turn you in... but I'd love to find out who else in my building is a hacker. We should hang out sometime.) If people continue to do such activities, I'll have to lock it down with an access key, but I really don't want to do that. As I already said, I believe information should be free, and Internet access should be free... and that especially WiFi should be free. So use feel free to use my WiFi 'till your heart's content, but don't do anything that'll have the cops knocking on my doorstep (I'll just send them to yours), and don't hack me or my network. I'm a techie geek, a technician by trade, and a hacker, and it's not cool to hack your own brothers and sisters. Don't crap where you sleep, you know. Oh, and if you use my WiFi and you'd like to get to know the person who shares it, go to building XXXX, and knock on door number XX. I'd love to meet you. Love, -C4bl3Fl4m3."

So... does anyone have recommendations for me on routers? Obviously, I'd like to spend as little as possible. (I wonder what Best Buy has on sale?) Also, my last router was a Netgear, and there's been numerous issues with the WiFi, so I'm thinking I don't want another Netgear.

(Copied from http://www.informit.com/guides/content.asp?g=photoshop&seqNum=35&rl=1)

When you have a layer selected, you'll notice that you have two sliders available for your use at the top of the Layers palette. One, which you're probably familiar with, is Opacity and the other, which you might not be familiar with, is Fill. While opacity adjusts how opaque a layer—and all of its contents—are, Fill adjusts just the opacity of filled shapes in the layer. The minor—but important—difference between the two is while layer effects are effected by layer opacity, fill doesn't effect them at all.

Dude. This makes such a big difference. Well, at least, with one of the 2 problems I've been having. I was running into this problem a lot in the ads that I've been making for work. It seems when stuff gets into print, everything is darker, and details get the opposite of "washed" out by all the black. So I was taking the book covers and the author photos and anything else with grayscale detail and I was lowering the opacity on it. But that was affecting the Stroke (outline) and the other layer effects I was using.

The other problem I was having is if I lower the opacity, obviously the layers beneath shine through. And if I'm stacking book images on top of each other, this is obviously a problem. So I'm having to make an extra separate layer for each book, take a layer with a book and do a Magic Select with the tolerance at 255 (highest) and select the space where the book is, and then fill that with white on the separate layer. That keeps the books from bleeding through each other.

For me to get the stroke and the other layer effects correct, I was doing it to the white book layer. However, now I'm going to be able to do it on the book layer itself.

I should find a better way to make the books lighter that isn't too much of a pain in the ass. I mean, the way I'm doing it, I'm having to fight against the very property of opacity itself. It's not that I want the books opaque, I just want them lighter.

BTW, does anyone know what tool/technique to use to tell photoshop to select all non-transparent pixels on a given layer (and only that layer)? I'm using my standard "crank the tolerance of Magic Select up to 255 and click the darkest part of the layer" and it's selecting a little too much. Or perhaps the problem isn't Photoshop's functioning, perhaps I really DON'T want ALL non-transparent pixels... perhaps I only want pixels of a certain opacity and above.

God, I really do need to take a graphic design class or 10.

So even though I'm quite a few hundred dollars away (read: all the money away) from the new Mac (probably a Mac Mini) I want that I'm saving for, I've already found myself trying to find names for it.

Here's some of the one's I've thought of so far.

1.) Geranium (don't ask me what I was on when I thought that it would be such a pretty name)
2.) Eidolon (sounds enigmatic and cool. If we have to work some appropriateness into it, then we could say that my comp is a representation of an ideal form for a computer, but, honestly? I just love the word. Eidolon.)

Also, does it make more sense to go for the HD upgrade, or does it make more sense to just by a buncha gigs external drive (like 200 gig)? It seems like they make you pay a buttload more for not much more HD space (I mean, if I want to upgrade from 60 GB to 160 GB, I have to pay $250 more. WTF? That sounds like they're ripping you off. I'm pretty sure that HD space is well under $2.50 a Gig.) And does adding $75 for upgrading from 512 MB of RAM to 1 GB of RAM sound right to you? If I don't get the upgrade, could I buy RAM on my own and put it in myself? Are there extra slots for it?

So, yeah, I'd like to get the lower end Mac mini, add RAM up to 1 Gig and get the biggest honkin' HD I can for it. HOW that will be accomplished (whether I'll get it to come with it, or I'll add the RAM myself and a bigger HD or an external HD), that's up in the air.

But I *WILL* get a computer I can play WoW on. I swear it.

So who wants to give me money to go towards said computer?

Hmm. What to talk about.

Well, I know what I want to talk about, but because of this country's arcane drug laws, I probably shouldn't.

( Game Day )

( Card Game )

( Geek Identity & Challenges to Said Identity )

( More HTML Code )

Morpheus, a.k.a. Lord of the Dreamworld, a.k.a. Dream (a.k.a. a gajillion names) from the Sandman series is the SEXIEST ANTHROMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION EVAR.

OMG SO HOT.

I'm officially fangirling now. You have no idea. (Death is also teh sexy.)

To change the color of hyperlinks, it goes in the body tag as link="whatevercolorhere". To change the color of clicked hyperlilnks, it goes as vlink="whatever color or hex value here".

To get text to wrap around an image, put align="left" or align="right inside the img src tag. Put a br clear="all" tag at the end of the text that you wanted to wrap to make the wrapping stop.

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Advanced.html has some pretty cool "advanced" (certainly not your standard beginner HTML) HTML tricks.

You know, I just had the idea of holding a geek party. Since most of my friends are geeks, this could be really popular.

I think we should probably hold it at the house of someone who has digital cable/on demand cable. Then we could definately get the shows we want. herodotusjr, your place has digicable, right? fritterfae, obviously yours does, but I'm wondering if there would be enough room.

We'd have geeky junk food and geek beverages (Mt. Dew, Jolt, Bawls, and whatever anyone else uses when they geek out). We'd play games, talk about/read comics, and watch stuff like ST:TNG and Futurama and stuff. Maybe even have people bring their laptops and/or boxes and do a LAN thing and play games and share files?

It would probably be a $5 donation to cover the costs of Jolt and Bawls (or you can always bring a case yourself and not have to pay)... maybe we'd assign something for everyone to bring so that we knew we'd have enough of what we needed.

Anyone up for this?

Poll #790714 Geek Party
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

If I had a geek party, would you come? (pretend that the date wouldn't conflict with anything)

http://www.botanna.nl/

You'll need your speakers turned on for it.

Thank RS for this one. :)

OMG, OMG, OMG. Now I DEFINATELY have to save the money to go. Apparently they raised the price of admission and it's now $60.

(orcinus_dorka [Everyone else? These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.], you need to decide if you're coming or not very soon so you can preregister. If you can't preregister because you're international, we'll see what we can do about me preregistering for you (but you'll pay me back). )

I'm thinking of putting together a GLBT/Queer BoF for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans hackers/phreakers/geeks to get together and socialize and make new friends. Should I submit it on the Wiki?

Also, is there a ride board up on the Wiki or a forum somewhere? I looked briefly on the Wiki and didn't see one. If not, I guess I should start one.

I'm looking for a ride up to HOPE on Thursday night or early Friday morning for 1 or 2 (not sure on the number yet) people from Washington DC or immediate vicinity to NYC and then back again on Sunday. If you can't provide a ride one way or the other, that's ok. We can take the bus 1 way if we have to. We can help with the gas money and I can drive part of the way (I have my driver's license. The other passenger is from Europe and can't legally drive here w/o special tests, etc). If this sounds good, contact me via my info page here on LJ.

So... yeah...

(parts of this X-posted on various hacker communities)

So I went to Games Night at UMD last night upon the suggestion of herodotusjr. Met a bunch of cool people (one of them is coming over for dinner tonight) and got a free copy of Chez Geek. I realize that I now need to get a D6 so that I can play it well. Also, what do most people use for counters? Do they just use whatever is at hand or do they have a set of little round stones or something?

I also worked with magnetic poetry on my fridge last night, wrote some pieces off of inspiration on the fridge. (Very rarely can I write a whole piece via the magnets. I usually start writing it with the magnets and then turn to paper where I have less restrictions as per the words I use.) I posted them on dA.

Still kinda depressed, need to get off my ass and get stuff done. I don't exactly miss Groupie per se, but I do miss how I wasn't depressed and how we got out and about and did stuff when she was here. I felt much better then.

Oh, and I really need to get off my ass and make a "geek" icon for myself. Not sure if I want to make it girl geek themed or just geek in general.

You know what pisses me off? When I ask a tech question and I get told to RTFM.

It seems in the hacker world people value self-learning the best, probably because so many hackers spents so many lonely nights doing this stuff that it's now held up as a value.

Here's my rantage. When I ask a question, I want an answer. Yes, I could RTFM, but 1.) many manuals are convoluted and would take 2 hours to get an answer that would take 5 minutes to tell me and 2.) I learn the best (and it's most rewarding for me) when other people teach me.

SO STOP PUTTING ME FUCKING DOWN BECAUSE I LEARN BEST FROM OTHERS! The next time I get an RTFM, I'm giving a GLFYFM (Go Learn From Your Fucking Mentor) in return!

...

You know what ELSE pisses me off? When I'm respected less because I find social sciences more interesting than hard sciences. (see some of the replies to my post about my panel in the lj2600 comm)

Why don't I just give an awesome tech panel? Maybe because I don't want to do another BORING tech panel? Maybe because that's not what floats my boat? Maybe because I don't think there's anything wrong with stepping back and analyzing us as a culture? Maybe because there's already a million and one other tech panels that talk about something so specialized that noone but someone who was REALLY REALLY REALLY specialized and into it would get into it?

God! Why is it that if you're not into something seriously hardcore techie you get no respect and are told to quit your psych whining and get back to coding brainfuck and the making of mobos?

asciilifeform, you know what I'm talking about... we were just talking about this tonight. And now it comes up again.

Perhaps I should just go ahead and do it again anyway and the people who aren't interested in social sciences and how they intersect with the tech community should just not come. You don't see me dissing their panels on "hyperproperties of 802.11g in a SQL environment"! (yes, I know, that's utter hogwash. I made it up. Buzzwords are fun.)

3 more things on that while I'm ranting: 1.) didn't PLA give a panel where they just BSed around? I didn't see anyone else dissing THEM! and 2.) for gods sake, I threw together that panel in 3 days! give me some credit! so it wasn't the most polished thing. I went crazy trying to make it all work. and somehow... IT DID. and 3.) Yeah, the "live hacker girls girls girls" thing? It was tongue in cheek. I didn't mean any disrespect by it. It was supposed to catch people's eye and get a chuckle out of people. Give me a break!

...

And now back to your regularly scheduled meme blog. (BTW, I'll probably put a less angry and ranty version of the above as a reply. I think I'm starting to realize that you can't please everyone, so ignore the naysayers and please yourself.)

So HOPE Number 6 is coming upon us again. I'm wondering if we want to do the "Women in 2600" panel again... only this time as a scheduled talk.

Is there any interest?
Would you be on the panel?
Do you have any ideas for questions to ask the panelists? (I'll eventually get a list of the ones we used at The Fifth HOPE up in ch1x0rz.)

If there's interest and I can schedule panelists ahead of time, then I'll submit it as a talk and we'll do this thing. If not, well, perhaps it'll get stuck back on the "C" track again (if they *have* the C track again this year).


...I've also thought of doing a panel of Queers in 2600, dealing with sexual orientation in the hacking world. Do you think we should do this also? Or perhaps instead of Women in 2600?

I just thought I'd throw these ideas out there and get feedback.

Oh, and if you know of a place that this should be crossposted to help recruit panelists, feel free to do some crossposting yourself... just make sure that when you post it, you put a link back to the post in this post so that I can keep track of all the threads and ideas.

(x-posted to my personal journal, anarchotech, ch1x0rz, lj2600, md2600)

So my new Apple is up and running, thanks to RS's bailing me out. I've named it Vetis, after the demon that specializes in tempting and corrupting the holy. I thought that a demon or Dark Angel's name would be fitting with my track record with Macs. I picked this particular name because I found it quite fitting. OS X has a way of making Born Again Apple Believers out of the staunchest proponents of Free/Open Source software.

I simply can not believe the elegance and ease of use of this operating system. It works easily, no hassles. The interface is standard throughout all programs... something that's actually foreign to Windows and Linux users. It's so amazing when you realize, after learning iTunes, that you can use a Mac, because everything else works the same way. Widgets are amazing (if not a bit slow). F9 - F12 showing all your windows, showing the ones on top, showing the desktop and bringing up the widgets (respectively) is incredible. It's all so FLUID and NATURAL and ORGANIC. It makes me think like a human when using it, not like a computer (which is a bit sad, actually. I like thinking like a computer).

I'm simply completely blown away by the interface. Its ease of use and simplicity make me feel like I know it inside and out already in the course of an evening. I know that I'm able to do stuff that it took me months to learn how to do in other OSen.

Ok, enough Apple ranting.

While looking for a name for Vetis, I stumbled upon a name that I'd like to name my PC. It's actually very similar to the name that I had given my old PC, the one that asciilifeform gave me. I had named it Persephone. Well, the new one is being named Proserpine. Why? I like it. :)

So I now own 3 computers. Proserpine (the GNU/Linux, hopefully soon to be dualbooted with the beta of Vista that I was lucky enough to get in on the "Friends and Family" plan via miscreeds @ Microsoft), Lattitude (my laptop, sans working HD, which I run a Live!Linux CD on), and Vetis (my G3 running OS X Tiger).

BTW, I'm currently inputting this via a Desktop Widget. Unfortunately, it doesn't let me pick the icon I want. I'm also trying a program called XJournal. We'll have to see which one wins.

Tomorrow I get to clean my room before my mom comes on Sat and brings my bed and we go and get the bed frame. I also have to make a few job calls and maybe I'll go to 2600 (I have to not spend money there if I do go).

I guess I should post something today.

Talked to orcinus_dorka a bit today on the phone, after that, spent the entire day with herodotusjr. And I mean the ENTIRE. God, I'm tired. We did SO MUCH. And I TOTALLY fangirled out. Hung out with Matt (my old coworker) some. That was nice.

Just so tired on the inside. And I believe I'm falling into post-doing-alot-of-shit depression.

Got some kick ass new pants (2 pair!) from Hot Topic for like 75% off (I think they charged me wrong). I spent WAY too much money today. And I mean WAY.

I'm going to try to go to Williamsburg, VA on Monday with herodotusjr (he's a giant history geek and my grandparents live there). I have Shmoocon at the end of the week next week. Also, Mid Atlantic Leather (their ENTIRE WEBSITE is in fucking Flash. There is NO GOOD REASON for their ENTIRE WEBSITE to be in fucking Flash. GRR. Makes c4bl3fl4m3 want to KILL LIKE THE DAMNED!). And a women's play party at the Crucible on the 13th that I'm going to try to get to (I like to go to the events that Glenda does. She's nice. Maybe sometime I'll get her to beat me.) Somewhere in here I need to get some short term employment.

Tomorrow is 2600. I'll be there. Will YOU?

Last night, my nose was UBER itchy. So I itched it. Now it's all stuffed up. I think I'm coming down with something. And I just took all those meds to get me from OVER something. God damn it.

Ok... I better post this before it isn't the 5th anymore.

Got up before dawn and went with my dad ice fishing. I actually had a good time. A haiku spontaneously came to me out there. I don't remember it exactly, but I came up with something that's close enough (the first word of the 2nd line was 2 different 1 syllable words originally).

A cold winter's day
spending time in solitude
fishing on the ice

Did some Christmas shopping.

Came home, took a nap.

And then I had a dream where I helped a young Richard Feinman cheat on the girl he was steady with by falling for me and making out with him. In my dream, he was known for not being able to be sexually monogamous (this part of the dream came from my thinking earlier about how hot Molina was playing Diego Rivera in Frida [Rivera was INFAMOUS for not being able to stay monogamous]). And there was something about a painting where he was kissing the girl he loved and was devoted to. In the painting, his face was painted with a black and white pattern, like a cross between a mime and a stained glass window or mosaic. The girl's face was painted with a bright burgundy and black pattern, like she was painted as a clown for Mardi Gras, but also with the abstract look. I remember that the painting was intensely loving and beautiful and passionate. And on each other faces there was a smudge spot of the color from the other person's face. She had a spot of white on hers, and I explicitly remember the spot of burgundy on his, like a part of a fingerprint.

And then I remember falling for him intensely, the chemistry just being insane, and we kissed in the same position as in the painting. It was very hot and romantic and sweet and exactly what I've been looking for and missing in my own sexual life. And then the girl came in, kinda frowned at him, and we all went outside and piled into the car to go to the mall (for Christmas presents).

There were other parts involved, but I don't remember them.


Freaky weird dream, huh? I think I dreamed about Feinman because I thought/think he's a famous mathematician (but Wikipedia just says he's a particle physicist... any help asciilifeform?) and someone wrote something on their dA journal about a friend of theirs writing 1800's famous scientist/mathematician slash.

Yeah. I have weird dreams. But I'm finally starting to have sexual ones now that my sex life has been sucking monkey balls for a few months now. It seems the only time I have sexual dreams is when I'm seriously seriously lacking (and I know it and can feel it and I'm thinking about it all the time) in my romantic AND my sex life.

So I'm back from AnimeUSA. I didn't sleep last night... got about 30 mins of sleep today around 10 am and then about 2 1/2 hours between 4 and 6:30.

I met a bunch of great people. Got to sing Trekkie Monster's part in "The Internet is for Porn" with some random people. Played Chrononauts and Fluxx with people (oh, and played Apples to Apples on Friday!), played alot of DDR from about 3 to 6 am this morning. I suck at it, but I enjoy myself.

Oh, and I splurged and got the blackout contact lenses. They black out my irises so I just like I have giant pupils. Yes, I got it for my Ramos!Ock costume. I couldn't not get it. Although I've been having serious problems getting them in. All I could manage yesterday was the right one in. I think it'll just take practice. But now I'm going to need to get a case and cleaning supplies for them. I don't think I'd ever want to use contacts for eyesight correction.

Everyone I met (except for one lesbian bitch who insisted that bisexuals were NOT queer... heh... try telling that to some of the bis *I* know!... but she might have been drunk) was really nice and friendly. I felt like I fit in with the group very well, I just didn't have the common cultural knowledge that they all have... but I'm learning it... and I know I'm not the only n00b to the scene. It's acceptible in this group to squee and be hyper. And noone thinks any less of you. I like that. I like that alot.

Oh! And I ran into someone I met at The Fifth HOPE! It was weird. I though I knew him from it because of the Mailinator shirt he was wearing. But he recognized me and damn near remembered my name (well, my handle). It was weird seeing him again. But quite cool.

Saw some more amazing cosplay. Yesterday brought us 3 guys in full Ghostbusters outfits, including very detailed backpacks. Today was an AMAZING Rei Ayanami (from Neon Genesis Evangelion) cosplayer that I had to stop myself from molesting right there. My GOD was she hot. Once again, emails will get you pics access.

I will DEFINATELY go to more cons. I hope to meet more wonderful people... and shoutz out to anyone who's reading my journal now because of meeting me at the con.

I hope to see you at Katsucon. Heh... perhaps I should say Gendo Ikari's hoping he'll see you at Katsucon. ;-)

(and I need a Gendo or a NERV icon...)

In other notes, this song makes me pensive...

I'm posting this from inside Microsoft. The computer I'm typing this up on is currently running a build of Vista (the Beta). I promised I wouldn't leak any details, but let me leave it at this. It certainly is a Beta.

MS is... interesting. And, omg, the free beverages rock. And... dude... chix0rz out there? Free tampons in the ladies room. Rock on. They also recycle like madd. Like... the major waste that comes out of the kitchens (aluminum cans and polystyrene cups) is all recycleable. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but go Microsoft! Really.

Saw downtown touristy things today in Seattle. Figured out the bus system. But that's for a different post, later on.

HAPPY PI DAY!!!

Don't know what to say about this, except this exceeds all previous barriers of dorkdom and lame ass fangirldom.

It's like I took what I really want in my heart, the stuff I shouldn't be admitting to people, and I put up a personal ad for it. Oh, wait, that's EXACTLY what I did.

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/w4w/60698446.html

It's just... I read this in Freak Like Me, and I was like, OMG. That's exactly what I had with Her. That's exactly what I'm looking for again. YES! YES, YES, YES, YES, *YES*!

After reading that part, I copied it into Notepad and read it again. And I found myself jokingly composing a personal ad, starting with "lonely, messed up fangirl seeks same for folie a deux". And I kept composing it. And then I decided to post it.

Who knows what may come of it? Who knows?

I just hope She's not insulted by how fast I put this out there. I want her to know that I wasn't just cruising for fangirls when I met her on dA. In fact, I wasn't looking for anything but fandom. Falling in love was the biggest surprise of my life. But now that I've had that, she's awoken a need in me, one that I didn't realize I had until we had our folie a deux, one that apparently was buried deep inside (or not so deep). It's because of Her that I go look again, for another Soulmate.

I miss our silly fangirl giggling most of all. God, did she make me laugh. God, did she, does she bring me joy.

So, yeah. Folie a deux... http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/w4w/60698446.html

I forgot to turn XMMS off again last night.

It locked up again.

I spent 15 minutes fsck-ing, telling it "yes, fix it" to errors I could only dream of what it meant, until I could actually get it to boot all the way successfully.

Now my theme and extensions don't work in Firefox.

Now I'm sure there's multiple other problems with my system that I'll only figure out through use.

I feel... betrayed. Betrayed by my computer. The one environment *I* could control. And it betrayed me.


Why is it everything I love is broken? Why is it everything that means so much to me is falling down around my ankles in shambles? First the Greer thing, now my computer? (or, rather, it's vice versa, but still.)

Will my music up and leave my harddrive? Will my music run away?

Will Dan/Daddy never speak to me again? Will something happen to Matt, my mentor?


Please, Source, Energy, That which people refer to by many Names, that which may or may not Exist, if You do Exist, grant me Strength.

So I see that there's spaces for sign up BoFs @ ShmooCon.

I'm going to try to get a space for the Women in Hacking/Computing thing we did @ The Fifth Hope.

I figure, because it's an hour, we'll do a bit of a panel at first (if not just opening it up to a free for all for just women at first), and then take half an hour and make it a free for all for anyone.

If you wish to be on the panel/speak, please get in touch with me ASAP. If you wish to help with logistics (making and posting flyers, etc.), even better! TXTing me would be great (there's a free TXT interface in my info page), but however works.

(x-posted to my journal, lj2600, ch1x0rz, md2600, anarchotech)

Comment if you're going to Shmoocon!

(01:01:38) C4bl3Fl4m3: but as of recently, I've been hanging out with various incarnations of Marvel's Otto Octavius/Doc Ock
(01:01:50) leigh :: voxkitten: yay evil nrrd powarr

2 people know have posted that little "my nerd score" meme, saying "Hey, my score's higher than c4bl3fl4m3". WTF's up with THAT? Am I like the base that they judge geekyness off of? And why? I'll admit, I'm a huge dork, but I'm not complete uberdork.

FYI, I judge my geekyness off of asciilifeform. He's one of the most all-around hardcore geeky guys I know.

BTW, made some Doc Ock icons. I'm posting them in my deviantArt account a little later. The one I want to clean up a bit (even though overlord_mordax is already using it. Hopefully when I post it, she'll exchange the current messy one for a cleaned up version.).

You scored as Drama nerd. </td> Drama nerd 81% Geek 75% Loner 75% Goth 69% Punk/Rebel 50% Ghetto gangsta 38% Stoner 25% Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 0% What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com

Interesting. Drama geek by just a little (81%), w/ Nerd and Loner tied for a close 2nd (75%)

I had no idea my drama geekdom was that high in HS.

Through the encouragement of overlord_mordax, I've decided to finally buy all of the clothes that I always wanted to own and be the freaky badass guygirl I've always had inside. So today I went out in search of a few special items I want/need for going to see her, and in search of a black or dark brown australian duster. Instead I found the trenchcoat I've always wanted to own. I bought it... $15 at the thrift store.

It's that dark khaki that trenchcoats are often in. Its sleeves are too long, but that's the story of my life. Does anyone out there know how to hem sleeves on a lined coat?

Perhaps I'll take pics sometime.

Now all I need is a fedora (make mine bright red, please!), a duster, a mantailored suit, and guy's shoes.

Heh... and a LiveJournal icon with me expressing myself as a guy. Yeah.

Because bipride just isn't cutting it. This is genderqueer.

I'm looking for a good, easy to use and install, with lots of hits, P2P file sharing client for GNU/Linux. Something that could reliably hit the OpenNap servers would rock my world. However, I'll settle for something that hits up the DirectConnect networks (reliably). I tried installing DC++, and when I install the RPM, it says it's installed, but I can't figure out where it's put the program for me to run it. RPMs have been doing this the last 2 days...

Great, I just installed the damn computer, and I already have RPM management problems.

No, this is NOT an invitation to do distro prosletizing. If you do, I will KILL YOU! (as herodotusjr says)

***

Oh, I remember what #2 was in the last post. I miss my files. Esp. my music. I want them back. :-(