My Buddies

slg_news

Subject:	James Turner T-shirts
Time:	4:02 pm.

I know I said I'd be writing about T-shirts this week, but I got hit with an old complaint: my neck problem. Mmm. It makes it tough for me to hold up my head, so I'm sorry that I'm only giving you links here.

James Turner is best known to comics readers as the creator of Rex Libris, but he's also a great graphic designer and illustrator, and we have serveral shirts designed by him, many of them inspired by his oft-overlooked graphic novel Nil.

Optimists are the enemy of the Nihilists in Nil, and this T-shirt features a bit of Nihilist propaganda against them: Optimists Eat Babies.

The Nihilists are big on their coffee, too, to the point that they'll risk their life on a battlefield for a coffee run. Thus, the Death By Coffee T-shirt.

You have to imagine the working conditions are pretty bad in Hell, right? It's only a matter of time before there's a strike, and that's when the Hell: Unfair T-shirts will be useful.

And of course there are the Rex Libris T-shirts -- the Ordo Bibliotheca T-shirt, which carries the seal of the distingushed Order of Librarians and the "Have YOU Returned Your Library Books?" T-shirt, which is perhaps the iconic image of Rex.

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	oops, forgot to sleep
Time:	4:26 am.
Mood:	restless.

Got a late start today. I was going to go in for overtime tomorrow, but I don't think I will, because I hardly got to do any of my weekend stuff today. I spent the bulk of the day catching up on the sleep I didn't get this week. I did finally get around to mailing the package of Sahagun chocolates I purchased for the Flick Filosopher. Now I am going to be in total suspense until she gets them. I always get weirdly nervous when introducing people I like to food (or anything, really) that is special to me.

Speaking of chocolate, while I was looking for something to buy to get cash back with which to pay the post office, I found a little Moonstruck Chocolate display at the grocery store. I bought two polar bear toffee truffles that were pretty much the cutest chocolates I have ever seen. By the time I got back from running chocolate-related errands, it was already late in the afternoon. I debating going to see some movies, but it was raining harder than I wanted to deal with, so I spend the day relaxing at home. Cooked some pasta with the roommate. Poor guy is getting sick. He braved a shot of the cure-all potion that

blackberry74 made for me, and watching his face when he chugged it would have been hilarious if he hadn't seemed to be in so much pain.

In other news, I have finally escaped the "Just one more level!" syndrome of N+ by virtue of simply beating every single level in the damned game, including the three sets of 150 downloadable levels. Now I just need to find some people to actually play some multiplayer games with, and N+ may become the first Xbox 360 game in which I earn every single Achievement.

There was a Woot-Off today and yesterday, but the pickings were pretty slim. I was tempted by a few computers, and several monitors, but I think I should hold off on any big ticket items until Black Friday. Which reminds me, I should probably start keeping an eye on the CheapAssGamer forums again. Haven't really watched them since I moved, but they are usually good about tracking down advance notice for major sales.

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drave117

Subject:	no, but you are allowed to be thingy about the changes you cannot grump
Time:	2:47 am.
Mood:	tired.
Music:	Lamya - Learning From Falling.

This work day ended with the most mentally exhausting call I have ever had. The call lasted over an hour and a half, and the person I spoke to was literally one of the most clueless people I have ever encountered. If I hadn't been able to see the records of all her previous calls, I honestly would have thought today was her first day touching a computer. Between that, and a few other rough calls, I hardly had any time to watch the Woot-Off going on today. There have been some tempting TVs and flat screen monitors, but nothing I really need.

After work,

sailstosea and I went to the movies. We went to see Rocknrolla, which started within a minute of us arriving. We didn't even need to sit through any of that insufferable First Look garbage. The movie, Guy Ritchie's newest crime flick, is pretty freaking awesome. Full of truly bizarre and memorable characters, each stumbling blindly through their own subplots, culminating in a cataclysmic convergence of chaos. You know, par for the course with Guy Ritchie. The film juggles a couple dozen characters, most of whom are main characters. The violence is a weird mixture of stylized and realistic, and the whole thing is very funny. I don't know how else I can describe it. If you liked Snatch, or Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, definitely give it a look as soon as possible.

In other news, Microsoft just totally overhauled the Xbox Live component of the Xbox 360 service. The design is a lot flashier, and it also runs much more smoothly. Instead of being a few set of full-screen panes that you can tab between, it's more like something you'd see on an iPod. It runs super fast. They've added a few new features, including avatar creation, Mii-style. I say Mii-style, but in reality, they lifted the interface outright, gave it a slightly better resolution, and more available clothing options. There is also supposedly a method to delete games you have zero gamerscore on, but I haven't found out how to do that yet. Also, apparently Netflix is now allowing you to stream your digital copies right onto your Xbox 360. That's almost enough to convince me to reactivate it.

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	mmmm, codslop
Time:	11:53 pm.
Mood:	impressed.
Music:	Tom Waits - Blood Money.

I just downloaded and tried the demo of Left 4 Dead. Holy crap, that is an intense video game. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be inside 28 Days Later, this game gives a pretty accurate approximation, at least in my opinion. You control one of a group of four survivors in a zombie-overrun city. The other three people can be controlled by AI, or by other people via multiplayer on Xbox Live. The music is creepy as hell, the AIs are surprisingly good, and the action is pretty much non-stop. I made the roomie play it, and he was blown away as well. I guess it's time to add it to the ever-growing list of games to buy someday.

Not much to report from work today, other than a really delicious lunch in the cafeteria. I can't remember the name of the dish, but it was basically a pile of fish and sauce over a bed of polenta. So delicious. Oh, and in other work news, my Da Vinci blue turtle shell shirt from Woot.com was a huge hit today. I feel like they should be paying me a commission for all the shirt sales I have referred to them. Or at least some kind of store credit.

In other news, I don't have much other news. Work was pretty quiet and uneventful today. I debated doing some shopping, but the roomie was not available for transportation, so I had to the train all the way home. I decided to splurge on dinner, so I stopped by Si Senor, the nearby Mexican restaurant, to look for vegetarian-friendly food. I settled on a seafood burrito with crab, shrimp, and scallops. The consistency was very un-burrito-like, but the taste was fantastic. On that note, I need to go to bed.

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drave117

Subject:	epic fog today
Time:	1:11 am.
Mood:	productive.
Music:	Eddie From Ohio - Quick.

The weather at dawn and dusk today was truly spectacular. The fog was so thick I could barely see the other side of the street. The effect was very ethereal, and I wish I had the skill to capture it on camera exactly how it looked to my eyes. In the evening, I did make an attempt to record a video of a short walk through the fog, but it didn't come out that well. I may upload it anyway at some point.

I didn't stay for any overtime today. I didn't want to take any chances, because I absolutely could not go another day without doing laundry. For the past two days, I have been trying to only stay until seven or so, to facilitate the laundry errand. I keep getting really long calls after 6:30, though. Anyway, today I left at five o'clock. The sad thing is, it made me feel vaguely guilty to leave so early. Actually, it felt like I was getting away with something, like I should have been looking over my shoulder as I snuck out the door.

Other random notes from today:
-My router has been really grumpy this week. I keep having to power cycle it to reactivate my internet connection. *grumble*
-Lunch at the cafeteria was really delicious today. It was tandoori chicken, curried cauliflower, and kale, but they ran out of kale, so I got some of the beer-batter-fried mushrooms from the other station.
-The guy who sits behind me managed to get the full bonus this quarter. I got less than half of what he did, and I think I am a better agent than he is.
-I'm trying to get back into taking pictures. After losing all the photos I took at Penny Arcade Expo, I was so discouraged that I've had a hard time motivating myself to take more pictures.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

slg_news

Subject:	T-Shirts, Part One: J.R. Goldberg
Time:	11:25 am.

It's understandable if you don't know about the new SLG T-shirts to be had; they get kind of buried in the extensive T-shirt section on our website, and we don't talk about them much. It's like T-shirts are pariahs, and I've been feeling bad about that lately. So I'm writing about T-shirts this week. That's right. This is hard-hitting blogging right here.

The first T-shirts up are designed by J.R. Goldberg, artist on the Jhonen Vasquez-written Jellyfist.

Ghosties

The T-shirt is actually a little lighter than this, as you can see at the other picture on our website. I wear this one pretty often, actually. I'm a big fan of gray (I'm very exciting that way), and the ghosties are very flattering. They whisper, "Hey, at least you're not dead" to you during trying times. Your experience wearing this shirt may differ.

Bear Shock

Once again, go to the website to see how this looks on the shirt. The image of the overwrought bear (from in a memorable strip in Jellyfist) is on the bottom left of the shirt. So you can just go around saying, "Yeah, I'm just wearing a gray T-shirt," then dramatically remove your jacket/cardigan/whatever and say, "With a disturbing hip-thrusting bear on it! In hot pink! Yeah!"

As an added bonus, I'm throwing a poster in this post, since it's also by Ms. J.R. Goldberg. That kid's head is full of bees, and if you get trapped in your room, you'll can while away the hours finding the alien bees (two kinds!), Abraham Lincoln bee, Jhonen bee, and a bunch of others.

Head Full of Bees

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	ramen rice risotto
Time:	1:11 am.
Mood:	exhausted.

When I think I am going to have trouble waking up, one of the things I like to do is to set all of my alarms to different ring tones. The idea is that if I am getting used to a particular alarm sound, switching them out will cause unfamiliar noises when they go off, thus making it more likely that I will be woken up by the cacophony. Anyway, it didn't work this morning. I guess the ring tones weren't nearly obnoxious enough. I will have to remedy that tonight.

Except for being late, today was pretty uneventful. I decided to stay after work to make up for the time I missed this morning. All was going well, right up until about ten minutes before I was supposed to punch out. At that point, I got a call from a lady who was absolutely 100% clueless about pretty much every aspect of making her store, and possibly about the internet in general. *sigh* I was supposed to be off at 6:30. That call came in at 6:25, and it didn't end until almost 7:30. Because of this, I didn't have time to do my laundry this evening, so I had to borrow a pair of socks from the roomie.

I finished Mirror's Edge tonight. It really is not a very long game, but still worth it in my opinion. Besides, there is plenty of other stuff to do in that game besides just beating the story mode. There are hidden objects to discover, Time Trials to master, and Achievements to complete, not to mention how much fun it is just wandering around. Lots of replay value in this title.

Comments: Add Your Own.

news

Subject:	LJ News Special Edition: Server Move, Permanent Account Sale Update, A La Carte Userpics
Posted by:	theljstaff.
Time:	11:35 pm.

Welcome to a Very Special Edition of LJ News.

Moving Day and What It Means for You

Moving What Where?

The long-awaited server move takes place this Tuesday, November 18, at 8:00 a.m. PST. We're moving the site from servers based in San Francisco to the servers in our new data center in Montana. A massive data move like this takes a lot of heavy lifting, and to haul all that data from San Francisco to Montana, we have to take the site down, starting at 8:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday morning. We don't think the move will take more than four hours, but there's always the possibility that it could take longer (the best laid plans and all).

What Does This Mean for You?

During the downtime, nothing on LJ will be available—no posting, no Friends page, no LJ mail, nada. When we bring the site back up, we're going to ease into it rather than open up a floodgate of traffic. Posting might not be immediately available or the site could be slow to load for a while.

New servers mean new IP addresses, so it's possible that LJ mail might not reach your email inbox because your email provider or client doesn't recognize the new IP addresses. We're working with email providers to whitelist the new IPs. There are a few things you can do on your end:

Add these two IP addresses to your "allowed senders" list (or whitelist) and address book in your email client: 208.93.0.18 and 208.93.0.50. These are the new IPs for sending comments notifications and LJ mail to your email inbox.

Add lj_notify@livejournal.com and webmaster@livejournal.com to your email address book.

If you can't edit the spam or junk filters in your email client, you may need to disable them entirely. Make these changes just before 8:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday morning or shortly after the site comes back up to ensure that your LJ mail makes it to your inbox.

Those of you who use domain aliasing to forward your domain to your LiveJournal will need to create a CNAME record that maps to livejournal.com. Please note that we're no longer supporting the A record. For more information, check the domain forwarding FAQ.

Before the move, you can check

lj_maintenance for complete details about the planned downtime. During the move, you can check status.livejournal.org for updates about the site's status.

Permanent Account Sale Delayed

We regret to inform you that due to the server move, the Permanent Account sale has been pushed back to December 4, rather than November 20 as announced in the last news post. After the virtual dust has settled from the move, we'll be able to turn our attention to the Permanent Account sale. Except for the start date, the details remain the same: You have a limited opportunity to purchase LJ for life for only $175. It's a bummer to delay the sale, but on the bright side, you have more time to save up.

But What About A La Carte Userpics?

We know we promised more information about a la carte userpics, and we're sorry that details have not been forthcoming (blame it on the move). We're still planning on having a la carte userpics, but we don’t have any details yet. When the move is over, we'll have more information. We're sorry for the delay.

Comments: Read 784 or Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	vrooooooom
Time:	1:33 am.
Mood:	impressed.
Music:	Run Lola Run soundtrack.

As awesome as the soundtrack for Mirror's Edge is, I keep getting the urge to replace it with the soundtrack to Run, Lola, Run. I'm surprised nobody has paired this combination in a music video on YouTube. Only a matter of time, I suppose. Anyway, [Unknown LJ tag] beat the game today. Like I Said, it's not terribly long, but still worth every penny to me. This game is truly a work of art. Heck, it deserves a medal just for complete ignoring the standard "next gen color scheme" of dirty brown or sepia toned images.

Work was uneventful for the most part, except for a brief period when the power to all of our computers went out, and we had to notate all of our calls by hand for a bit, and reboot a bunch of stuff. Then it was pretty much business as usual. It was busy enough that I stayed for a couple of hours of overtime tonight, as usual. I was pretty hungry by the end of the shift, though. We really need to work out some kind of food solution for the weekends. There isn't really anywhere within walking distance that is actually open on Sundays.

The roommate was craving Taco Bell tonight, and I decided to go with him, forgetting that it has been over two months since I wen to Taco Bell. This means the statute of limitations on my stomach has already run out, and I will be paying for my reckless decision come the morning. Oof. It's started already.

I really need to get my sleep schedule back under control. It's definitely been getting out of whack the past few weeks, and it is making my mornings very difficult. *yawn*

Comments: Add Your Own.

aerothorn

Subject:	This is a seperate entry, which probably says something about my psychology
Time:	3:00 pm.

Other stuff:

1. Fallout 3 takes up a lot of my free time. On one hand, it's entertaining, and I'm interested in it from an academic perspective. On the one hand, it ended up being directly what I feared. Calling it Oblivion with Guns is a bit unfair - there are some real distinctions - but on the whole it is too much like Oblivion. Namely, Bethesda can't do dialog. In the original games, you had natural, well-written conversations. In this game, there are no conversations - you ask people a few quetions that are all seperate from eachother, with no real conversational flow. Dialog is short, and as such characters are generally undeveloped. Worst of all, the speech skill makes no sense. My character has a high speech skill - but instead of enabling conversation options that lead to persuasive dialogs, it's like an instant-win button; with a single sentence (that isn't even that well-written) I can completely change a characters mind on a serious issue. It's like walking up to an anti-abortion activist and, with one sentence, convincing them to support the "right to choose". This makes no sense, it doesn't happen, it's essentially impossible.

Fallout 3 has a lot of other issues. It also has a number of strengths (The Pip-Boy drawings are SPOT ON, and whatever artist did those should get a medal). But as usual, I don't feel a game this big really warrents an in-depth entry from me; that's more for things like Dreamfall. I will say two things. First, Games for Windows gives the game this description:

"Playing it, all complaints were wiped away. For all the charm of the isometric predecessors, Fallout 3 gives you a sense of realism unmatched in the earlier games. Now, the ruins of blasted freeways overshadow you as see the apocalypse through your own eyes.

While the Fallout series likes to put you in uncomfortable situations, looking someone in the eye and watching a bad choice unfold in Fallout 3 is something else. I’ve been coddled, I suppose, by games like Fable and Knights of the Old Republic, where you could easily infer the good or evil course of action. Here, in Fallout 3, Bethesda has turned morality on its ear."

I completely disagree with everything they say, and tire of how every big-name game somehow meets the hype every time and gets glowing reviews from all mainstream publications.

For a review that is roughly representative of my views, see http://computergames.ro/en/games/viewitem/id/1002/name/fallout-3/section/review.html. It took me FOREVER to find this review a second time, and it seems to be unique in its balance: the vast majority of reviews praise Fallout 3 as essentially perfect, with a few minor ones grumbling about how horrible it is. This gives it a 7/10, which I think is accurate - it's definitly a good game, just not a great one - and then provides 8 pages of well-written justification of that score.

2. Other media is going well. Bebop Night is great fun, and I'm really enjoying re-watching the series and seeing it from a fresh perspective. It's fair to say that I don't like it as much as I used to - my tastes have changed in such a way that pretty much all anime conventions annoy me, and as distinct as Bebop is it still maintains some - but every time I think that it's overrated, it has an awesome episode. Still a great show, though at this point I probably prefer Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

3. Social life: Not much to write about. Honestly, this is where the interesting stuff is, but I just don't feel comfortable writing about it in a public live-journal. Maybe I'll start making private entries for posterity, or something. But the interesting stuff generally falls into these categories:

1. New people I meet. Don't want to write about them, because I'll say something on the record that ends up being a totally incorrect first impression.
2. Drama. Try to avoid this because A. I don't like bad-mouthing people in my journal, and B. a lot of it is private.
3. Social ambitions. Don't write about them because I still don't know what they are.

Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.

aerothorn

Subject:	What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to write legal papers
Time:	2:38 pm.

So, here is what is really up with me!

As usual, I am obsessing over a paper. The good news is that, as far as I know, Modern Dance has no final project; thus I am left with only two projects, both papers, which is a record low for me. As a bonus, I finished my last pre-final paper this past Tuesday. So my only hard projects are a presention on my Freedom of Expression paper on December 1/2/8 (one of the three, depends on what I'm assigned), my final Cognitive Science Fiction paper due on the 11th, and then my final Freedom of Expression paper due on the 15th. Easy, right?

Not really. I recognize that on some objective level, I don't have anything to complain about (hence me not complaining about my workload to anyone). Yet circumstances conspire to make things more difficult than they might otherwise be.

The real difficulty is my Freedom of Expression paper. I have decided to write a paper focusing around California Assembly Bill 1179. This is a bill passed to restrict the sale of certain types of "ultraviolent" video games to minors. Many bills of this kind have been passed, and all have been struck down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment. What makes this bill unique is that the author is generally a champion of the First Amendment, and the bill has been narrowly written in an attempt to pass constitutional muster. It does this by, among other things, attempting to apply obscenity standards to violence. What is interesting about this is that, as far as I know, there is no precedent of the government - even a state government - restricting things on the basis of violence. Sex and "dirty speech" are frequently censored, but not violence. This is in sharp contrast to many other developed nations, like most of Europe, which censor on the basis of violence far more than sex.

The bill was challenged by the ESA and struck down as unconstitutional, though the judge was sympathetic to the bill. It was then appealed by the state of California, and the arguements of that appeal have just been heard. A ruling won't be released within the timeframe of this paper, but it's worth noting that the bill's author suspects that whoever wins, the other party will appeal it to the Supreme Court, which will agree to hear the case.

The problem is that, as interesting as this all is, I have no overriding thesis. What am I trying to say with this paper? Fuck if I know, and it's driving me crazy. I'd like to just analyze whether the law is legal and what the repercussions are if it is, but apparently that's too narrowly focused for the purposes of this class.

My Cognitive Science Fiction paper won't be easy, either, but it shouldn't be nearly as difficult. First, it's a revision or expansion of a previous paper, not a new one from scratch. Second, as boring as I can find it, I'm a bit better with science than I am with legalise. Third, that's a 100-level class, so the expectations for the paper are less (though my 200-level class is populated mostly by first years!).

On top of that, Council is absorbing a ludicrous amount of my time. I agreed to join the Bylaws Revision task force. What I didn't realize is that it would be meeting three times a week, which each meeting taking a long time. For instance, we met last night, and I was in that room for over three hours. I'm spending more time on these bylaws than on any one of my classes - and this is just a side-gig to normal council stuff. I also need to start making preparations to take over the reigns of SafeCom (full name: Public Health and Safety Committee) from Torpey. The hard part is that, ideally, there would be another co-chair next semester, but I don't know where I'll find this person.

So yeah, there's my academics. Next up: Social!

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	too-long-delayed sushi noms
Time:	12:50 am.
Mood:	tired.

I got a much later start than I wanted to today. I should have known better than to open Mirror's Edge on a day when I knew I had stuff I wanted to do. Anyway, the roomie and I played through a few levels before heading out to start our day. Man, that game is freaking amazing. It doesn't look like it's going to be very long. I think I am already about two thirds of the way through the game, but I am all about quality over quantity. Plus, I haven't factored in mastering all the Time Trials, which will probably take me more time than beating the game.

Later in the afternoon,

sailstosea and I want to Sansai for the first time in a few weeks. We were both going through cheap sushi withdrawal, I fear. Anyway, he invited another of his cycling buddies to join us, so that was interesting. I've always marveled at the speed with which he is able to acquire new friends. It's a talent I've never really had. I mean, I get along with almost everybody, but there's more to it than just that. I don't know. Anyway, the sushi was as delicious as ever, and his friend seemed like a cool guy.

After lunch, we went our separate ways. I stopped by Sahagun to purchase an assortment of chocolates for a package I am sending to my favorite movie critic. She mentioned being bummed out, and that chocolate tends to help when she is unhappy, so I decided that was a good excuse to send her some chocolate. The proprietor was very amused that I am sending yet another box of emergency chocolate to a friend. Apparently, I am a pretty good advertisement for her store ♥ I also took a bunch of pictures of the place, and she wants me to send those to her so that she can integrate the best ones into her website. Assuming any of them are any good, of course. I am too tired to deal with them right now.

Speaking of being tired, I was planning to go to the movies after getting the chocolate, but quickly realized I was too tired to stay out, so I came home to rest. The price of doing the midnight movie last night, I guess.

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	a modicum of consolation
Time:	3:05 am.
Mood:	enthralled.

I totally won that contest thing from yesterday! The prize wasn't anything terribly exciting, but it was pretty entertaining. The four best of us each got an envelope with five $2 bills in it. Crisp, new bills with consecutive serial numbers. ♥ I'm still deciding what to do with them. It was nice to win a prize today, though! Sometimes working on your day off can be somewhat disheartening, so it's nice to have something pleasant to liven it up. It's also nice not to have to check in for breaks.

After work, Bear and I went back to my place to initiate James Bond Night! As mentioned, I purchased Casino Royale a couple days ago. We ordered pizza and had just enough time to watch it before we had to go to the theater for Quantum of Solace. I'm actually really glad I watched the previous movie just before seeing this one, because it references a lot of stuff I wouldn't have remembered. As frequently happens at the midnight shows, there were promo people there giving away free stuff related to the movie. It was just a couple of t-shirts and a mouse pad, but hey. Beats a sharp kick in the eye, right? Seriously, though. Who uses mouse pads anymore?

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not talk about two particular trailers attached to this movie. The first is for the new Star Trek movie, and it looks freaking mind-blowing! Man, I can't wait for that movie. The second is the new Watchmen trailer, which, if possible, makes the movie look even more bad-ass than the previous one did. It looks incredibly faithful to the book, which doesn't surprise me, considering who the director is.

So, Quantum of Solace. Tremendously entertaining in my book, and watching the previous one beforehand is almost a requirement. This one doesn't even feel like a sequel. It feels like a continuation of an overall story that was started in the previous movie. Technically, I think that's what a sequel is supposed to do, but so few actually do. Anyway, aside from one minor complaint, I love this movie. (The minor complaint is that the early action scenes are a little to reliant on shaky-cam.) The story itself is fantastic, as we watch Bond's circumstances turn him piece by piece into the ruthless agent he is destined to become. On top of that, we have pretty much the best Bond girl ever. And, on top of that, we have some extremely interesting dynamics building within the working relationship between M and Bond. These are all things I want to talk about extensively, but, as is common with these midnight showings, I am barely coherent enough to string a sentence together, so I'd better get to bed.

Comments: Add Your Own.

slg_news

Subject:	Punk Rock and Trailer Parks Review
Time:	1:14 pm.

We're having an amazing time here at SLG headquarters -- we had some lighting installed in the Boutiki, and somehow turning the electricity off made our network lose the will to keep working. So the images on this blog were invisible until we got it back up. I just untangled the world's longest network cable in this effort.

But that's not the news I meant to bring you. What I want to tell you is that you are not truly rock and roll until you read Punk Rock and Trailer Parks by Derf, the new graphic novel that is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's reference library! Meredith Rutlidge, assistant curator, gave us the word this week.

And Punk Rock and Trailer Parks got a nice review in Booklist:

"Derf, whose iconoclastic strip THE CITY, has been appearing in alternative periodicals since the early 1990's, here gives us a mordantly funny, semi-autobiographical peek at his high-school years in an Akron, Ohio suburb. When he isn't looking out for his senile, tractor-driving uncle at his humble trailer-park abode, Otto "The Baron" Pizcok is haunting Akron's concert hall, the Bank (now defunct) where the latest '80's-era punk bands are usually playing. With an aplomb beyond his years, Otto manages to shrug off his nerdy image to become the local tour guide for punk legends such as Joe Strummer and the Ramones. As Otto counts down the days to his senior prom, his big dilemma is deciding whether he is leaving Ohio for college or staying to become Akron's newest punk-rock star. Derf's deftly drawn caricatures of teens and band members are amusing enough on their own, but his madcap scenarios and witty dialogue make this one of the stand-out graphic novels of the year."

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	oh, Yahoo!... you are so odd
Time:	1:03 am.
Mood:	dorky.
Music:	K.T. Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope.

I was fifteen minutes or so late to work today, but that mostly had to do with public transportation being stupid. In California, I was used to the rain suddenly turning people into idiots, but that was mainly the regular drivers. Today, the rain turned bus drivers into idiots, and that is significantly more dangerous. Anyway, it all worked out fine, since I stayed for a whole lot of overtime today.

We had some really wacky activities going on today. We did an Escalation Team Appreciation Event today. Sort of like how we had the Customer Care Appreciation Week a ways back. Their area was bedecked in all kinds of balloons, and there were a number of sweet treats as well. Oh, and a little get-to-know-your-team activity was going on all day. There were several parts to it. The 20 members of that team all had scrambled photos or baby pictures up on a bulletin board, and we were supposed to guess which baby picture went with edge team member. We were also given a large word search puzzle, with the words being answers to work-based trivia questions. The last (and most amusing) part was a list of twenty hidden talents, twenty favorite bands, and twenty favorite foods, and we had to match them up with their respective agents. I didn't get very far on my own, but a few of us teamed up, mainly to try and prevent a specific coworker from winning the contest. They didn't tell us what the price is, but they insisted it is a very large and cool price.

The roommate and I made some totally kick-ass pasta tonight! We used some seven grain fusilli that I bought last week, along with another jar of Newman's Own sauce.

sailstosea cooked up some tofu cubes with minced garlic, and added them to the mix. A little parmesan cheese, and the results were delicious. One of our most successful pasta attempts to date. The only way it could have been better would have been if we had used tempeh instead of tofu. ♥

I'm definitely going in to work on my day off tomorrow, for a couple reasons. One, I need to turn in my answers to the activity, and see if I might have won. Two, this week has been really busy, and I'm sure they'll appreciate the help. Three, if I am at work at seven, I can ride back with Bear to my place for James Bond Night.

Comments: Add Your Own.

slg_news

Subject:	Reminder: The War at Ellsmere School Memories Contest
Time:	11:43 am.

Hey, intrepid memory-havers, I have yet to see any entries for The War at Ellsmere School Memories Contest, and I want to remind you to enter! After all, all you have to do is send in a depiction of a memory from your school days, and you could win original art and a signed copy of The War at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks! There are three prizes, one that does not take drawing ability into account, so if you have a poignant, funny, embarrassing, triumphant, or just strange school memory, we'd love to see it!

And I am participating, just as a show of good faith. (Also, I can use it for my column at Blog@Newsarama.)

The contest closes on December 8, five days after The War at Ellsmere is set to be in stores, so get to ruminating!

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	it's a photo of a scientific experiment in which Chuck Norris tried to punch himself
Time:	1:28 am.
Mood:	sleepy.
Music:	Skyclad The Silent Whales of Lunar Sea.

First off, exciting news for fans of George R. R. Martin! His Song of Ice and Fire books have finally officially been optioned by HBO, and they are starting work on a pilot. Martin has read the script for the pilot, and he says not to worry, and that it is very faithful. I've always wanted to see a film version of these books, but I've always thought that it could only work as an adult-rated HBO series. It just has too much sex and too much violence to be anything else. Anyway, if all goes well, the plan is for them to do one season for each book, which I think could work out very well. Twenty-four hours of television is a good amount of time to tell a story that size, I think. I hope all goes well.

While reading Martin's blog, I saw his post about the election, and it was one of the rare ones where he enabled comments, so I took the time to read through a bunch of them. The thing that really struck me was the amount of glowing comments coming from foreign readers. It's really kind of amazing to see just how much the rest of the world cares about the election. The basic gist of it is "Well done, yanks!" I've read so many heartfelt congratulations that I am still a little choked up. Lots of talk about us living up to our potential, and how we are forgiven for electing B*sh.

In other news, the roomie made some freaking delicious stir fry tonight. It had a pile of vegetables, shrimp, ramen, and a whole mess of scallops. It also made extensive use of curry powder and sriracha. It made a moderately spicy dish that went very well with the episode of Chuck we watched tonight. Man, that show is so good. Adam Baldwin's character is definitely one of my favorites, and he got to wear an epic wig tonight. He was in disguise as a waiter, and he had this gigantic bowl haircut and a soul patch. The makeup was so good it took me a minute to recognize him.

Bear and I made a quick detour to Best Buy after work so I could pick up Casino Royale. Now we are all set for Craig Bond Night this Thursday! I've been told to watch it again just before seeing the new Bond flick, so I will probably go in for overtime on Thursday, and then stay until eight, when Bear will give me a lift back, and then we can all begin the festivities, ending with a midnight show. ♥

Comments: Add Your Own.

aerothorn

Subject:	The stuff that dreams are made of?
Time:	6:27 pm.

So yesterday, I spent about 3 hours and 35 minutes in the council room in a series of two back-to-back meetings: one and a half hours revising the Operating Procedure, and 2+ hours on stipends.

Apparently this messed up my psyche more than I thought. That night, I had all the symptoms I get when I forget to take my pills, despite the fact that I took that day's pills from the pillbox: I may have accidentally left out a pill from that box, hence the withdrawal. Withdrawal is marked primarilly by two things:

1. Insane amounts of sweating
2. Vivid nightmares contributing to a restless sleep, where one is unable to distinguish the dream and reality while awake.

This dream? Bylaws. I don't remember the details, but I was obsessing about revising the bylaws in the dream and when awake, at one point becoming convinced that my roommate Zack was also involved in revising them - and I convinced myself that I wasn't allowed to sleep because I had to stop Zack from doing something to the bylaws. Crazy stuff.

Oh, yeah, and I promise a real journal entry in a bit - I need the cartharsis of video games right now (which is something that will be discussed in my next entry!) to unwind from another stressfull two and a half hours of Council meetings.

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	traded in the cough
Time:	10:46 pm.
Mood:	migraine.
Music:	Eddie From Ohio - Quick.

Well, my cough was gone when I woke up today, but I arrived at work with the mother of all migraines, and it stayed with me all day. So, naturally I volunteered for overtime when the call went out, and I ended up working an eleven hour day. Go, me. At least work was very appreciative, and a couple of the bosses kept checking in with me to see how I was feeling, so that was nice. Oh, and one of my last callers was happy enough that he wanted to talk to a supervisor about me.

Today, I actually set a personal record for most calls handled. I managed to take a whopping fifty calls. Of course, more than half of those calls were misdirected, which is pretty rare. Misdirected calls only take a minute or two to handle, and I don't really think of them as actual support calls, even though they do get counted when our statistics are calculated. I am of two minds on these types of calls. On the one hand, it does make my stats look really good. On the other hand, these kinds of calls are sort of soul-deadening, and they make the day pass really slowly.

I was going to go to dinner with Bear tonight, but he hasn't been feeling so great either. We've got a tentative rain check scheduled for tomorrow, depending on how he feels. It's been a while since we've gone out to dinner, and at least as long since we've gone to a movie. I think I am going through withdrawal.

In other news, the annoying guy at work has been collecting Mountain Dew cans for the past month or two. He's been stacking them in a big wall on his desk. It falls over about once a week, with an office-shattering crash that puts everybody on edge. Today, his manager came over and told him to get rid of it because, in addition to it being an office annoyance, it's a potential attractor of ants. He then spent the rest of the day using a roll of tape to attach the cans together in one vaguely rocket-shaped stack. Needless to say, he got chewed out again.

Comments: Add Your Own.

slg_news

Subject:	New Life in Comics Column
Time:	4:30 pm.

This week's Publishers Weekly Comics Weekly newsletter (Have I told you that you should subscribe yet? You should!) has my new Life in Comics column, all about the submission drought we've been having lately. These days, I totally prowl around conventions, eying people's mini comics and tricking them into sending me proposals, using tricky methods like e-mailing them and saying, "I like your work! If you have a project you'd like to submit to us, I'd love to see it." I'm tricky, tricky, tricky.

In other news, Randal "Randal Savage" "The Amazing Rand-O" Jarrell at Oni tells me the New York Comic-Con would like us to take our show on the road and reprise our "How Not to Break into Comics" panel. SLG is not going to NYCC, but I'm thinking of going as a freelancing civilian. It costs lots of money, though. I leave it to your vote:

Poll #1294968 Jennifer and New York Comic-Con
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Should Jennifer attend New York Comic-Con in February?

View Answers

Yes. She will probably freeze to near-death, and that will be a LIfe Experience.
12 (31.6%)

Yes, because I will attend her and Randal's panel.
5 (13.2%)

No, she should save her money for books and video games.
5 (13.2%)

Who the heck is Jennifer?
3 (7.9%)

I think anyone who chooses the above answer is mean, and, yes, I think she should go to NYCC.
13 (34.2%)

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

slg_news

Subject:	Support Scott Saavedra!
Time:	11:21 am.

Scott Saavedra is SLG's Art Director, a great artist, cartoonist, and graphic designer -- and his kidneys are failing. At his blog, Scott writes about his Polycystic Kidney Disease, which will soon require him to have daily dialysis. He has health insurance, but it's not going to cover all of the expenses of treating his illness, so we're asking people to help him out by buying something from his Zazzle store or simply donating.

Meanwhile, Scott is going to continue his work, and he'll be giving his Comic Book Heaven Live! presentation at WonderCon next February/March. (My husband and I have been meaning to make a video using audio from the presentation he did at Comic-Con and his PowerPoint slides -- it's a fun panel to attend, and you should definitely do it, even if you don't realize that you love wacky old comics yet. You will.)

Want to read Scott's work? Well, there's the free online Java Town, but there's also Dr. Radium, which we collected in three swell graphic novels. You can see all of the stuff of his we have at the SLG site here.

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Time:	12:58 am.
Mood:	tired.
Music:	MC Frontalot - Final Boss.

Around the time I tried to go to bed last night, I developed a pretty spectacular cough that made it even tougher to fall asleep. I eventually did, and I even woke up on time, but I definitely didn't feel in any state to be going to work. *sigh* Fortunately, weekends haven't been too busy these days. Anyway, there goes November's entry in the Wii drawing. Oh well. I don't really need a Wii. I have enough trouble keeping up with the games I've already got.

In other news, I taught

sailstosea one of my top secret rice techniques, and I think it might have impressed him. I thought of it when I was living with What. He eats ramen all the time, but he never uses all of the flavor packets. I was always trying to think of something to do with leftover flavor packets. Then I had the idea of seasoning a pot of rice with the flavor packet. Basically, you just dissolve it in the boiling water just before you add the rice. I'd never tried it with an actual rice cooker, but it appears to work fine either way. I'm still trying to remember some of the other things I've used to season rice.

As a thank you for pre-ordering Mirror's Edge, Amazon sent me a code that I can use to unlock a couple of Time Trial levels in the demo. There are supposed to be a few other free things, including an MP3 of the title song, and a few other things I am forgetting right now, but so far they have only sent the code. It's a little surprising how much fun I have been able to have with just the demo of this game. I can only imagine what I'll find when the full game arrives later this week. I don't think I've ever actually pre-ordered a video game before.

I wish I had something more interesting to report for today, but I don't *yawn* Well, tomorrow evening should be more eventful, at any rate. I think Bear and I are supposed to use the contest coupons we got from Chevy's the other week, and we might see a movie after that.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	damn you, Viso
Time:	3:30 am.

Note to self: Do not drink Viso energy drinks in the evening, no matter how much time you have left before bed, or how much cleaning you intend to do. There is such a thing as being too effective. Witness me, still awake at 3:30 in the morning, when I have to be awake in three hours. I'm seriously considering calling in sick tomorrow. Sadly, the main reason I will try not to is because there is a raffle for a Wii next month, and you get one entry in the drawing for every month in which you have perfect attendance. So far, November is looking pretty good, but we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Work wasn't too eventful today. My most memorable call was only memorable because the woman's store sold really cute merchandise. My annoying coworker was annoying as usual. Everyone's least favorite manager was on duty today. He did order pizza for the office, which was pretty cool. Then again, when any other manager orders pizza for the office, they order it from Garlic Jim's. He ordered his from CostCo. Still, free food is free food.

Speaking of food,

sailstosea made some super delicious stir fry for diner tonight. Full of broccoli and green beans and scallops and even some ramen noodles. After dinner, I was going to play some more of Assassin's Creed, but the roomie was shredding on his electric guitar, and, while this is very entertaining to me, it is not conducive to playing a game with a story. Anyway, I played some of my downloaded levels of N+ while I waited. Then he saw me playing N+, so of course we had to play some multiplayer co-op levels. And now it's 3:30 in the morning. N+ mixed with energy drink equals bad combination.

In other news, Quantum of Solace opens this week. I have tentative plans to go to Best Buy and get Casino Royale, watch it Thursday night after work, and then go see the Quantum of Solace at midnight. ♥

Comments: Add Your Own.

drave117

Subject:	the return of the roommate
Time:	12:48 am.
Mood:	dorky.
Music:	all of my Skyclad CDs on random.

I didn't get around to seeing any movies this weekend, much to my sadness. On the bright side, I found a small pile of movie stubs that I hadn't assimilated into the main collection for this year. It turns out I've actually seen 82 movies already, and not the 75 I had previously thought. Because of this discovery, I feel I can take a more leisurely pace through the rest of this year's movie offerings. Of course, there are still a ton of things I want to see, but I am allowing myself to shift my priority toward getting this place cleaned up.

I didn't finish today, but I did get a whole lot accomplished. In addition to taking care of all the movies yesterday, I unpacked all of my books, as well as my rather disturbing assortment of stuffed animals. As usual, I don't quite have enough room on top of my bookshelves for all of them, so the Cthulhu pile is living on top of the movie shelf in the living room until I find a better place to put them. ♥ All I really have left to do now is sort the books a little better, and then stick all of my crafty things on shelves.

When I took a break for lunch, I had a pretty spectacular run of lottery scratch-it luck. Last night, I had purchased a couple of tickets, and won a few bucks on each one. I cashed them in for more tickets today, and I kept winning just a little bit more than the value of the tickets, and then buying additional tickets with the extra amount. I ended up walking home with lunch and some groceries, and I still had $40 in my wallet compared to the $5 I started with. It was an impressive streak.

sailstosea came back from being an uncle today. He arrived at around 8:30 this evening, and I welcomed him back by cooking a delicious pasta dinner. I found a shape of pasta that vaguely resembles bicycle wheels, so naturally I used that. The sauce was a Newman's Own fire-roasted tomato and garlic sauce. I sautéed some thinly sliced mushrooms in butter, garlic, and lemon pepper. I was very pleased with the results, and the pasta was ready exactly when the roommate arrived home.

Comments: Add Your Own.

murrayandcully

Subject:	wow.....
Time:	11:20 pm.
Mood:	tired.
Music:	Poem ~ Taproot.

So I am a little bit unhappy with Walgreens..

Given that it's not all there fault, but still I am a bit unhappy.

I found out just a day or two ago that apparently the Walgreens Holiday Bonus (once referred to as the Christmas bonus prior to political correctness) has been cut this year... and it's being cut company wide, everybody from the truck drivers to the corporate big wigs, lose out on this years holiday bonus.

More than anything I am going to miss that little bit of money into my pocket, although what walgeens does has changed since I started, it used to be ages ago based on your average number of hours per week and then how long you had been with the company would determine how much you got on you holiday bonus check, for me when I first started with Walgeens this was a check for about 7 bucks, which pretty much paid for lunch with enough money for a bottle of soda later on. As of about 2 years ago they traded up for a newer system that took into account how long you had been with the company (1,5,10, 15, 20, 25+ years, or something of that nature) and Full Time status (30+ hours a week) or Part Time status, and then there were set amounts of money that was given to you onto a Walgreens Holiday Bonus gift card.

Last year I was still trying to get my hours up so I was listed at Part Time status so my gift card was 25 dollars, this year I was scheduled to get a 50 dollar gift card from Walgreens, which again isn't all that much but 50 dollars can be traded for some spiffy gift cards that I can then use "outside" Walgreens which is what a part of what Walgreens employees have learned to do with gift cards from the company.

Needless to say my coworkers and I are a little miffed on this, but it doesn't come without a reason for this, the largest part of the reason why we have lost our holiday bonus this year is because the economy is bad and Walgreens is apparently hurting, they blame a lot of this on how our stock price looks (this time last year it was about double what it currently is) but not all of that is our fault, everybody else is hurting just as much as we are if not worse, its like saying we should be continuously getting better numbers in the pharmacy (prescriptions filled and sold wise) but eventually we are going to have a bad day, week, month, quarter, year, etc.

Holiday bonus I will miss you, well maybe next year will be better...

Comments: Add Your Own.

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