| I never did finish up yesterday. But it was 4 and I needed to restart and go home. (Yes these tiny chicken scratchings effectively are done through an entire day of work with SEmagic running in the background.)
Saturday on the way home from our fish frenzy, we stopped at Roche Brothers, which is, for cape, about the best grocery store we have. I was able to pick up a few things the local doesn't carry like cajun coffee (I really miss being able to just buy those packets of roasted chicory) and real hot paprika instead of that horrid tasteless red dust. I also picked up some nice veal chops and I can't remember what else. (I love the meat there--they always have lamb, veal, and things like short ribs. I was disappointed that I didn't see any duck.) So Saturday night we decided to do Asian and I made some steamed wontons in spicy sesame sauce, some spicy pan fried pork balls in a vinegar reduction, and szechuan green beans. It was nice. And we seriously seriously gorged. I don't mean six wontons, I mean like three dozen.
Sunday we hid. Really that's probably the best way to put it. I played WoW. Janna did some cleaning and worked on crafts. I marinated the veal chops with wine, garlic, and rosemary then put them on the grill and served them with a little reduced marsala mixed with a dash of worcester sauce and the garlic. We had a nice salad with some incredibly good local greens (not bitter!) from the farmers market and some roasted purple and red potatoes. I don't find the purple potatoes all that exciting in flavor, but I have to say I'm a complete sucker for the kitsch value.
Sunday night I raided in a rather bad Ulduar raid. We just didn't have the DPS and didn't have the healing. Sadly, we did have the players. Nobody was an idiot. Nobody stood in the fire. Just not quite there on gear, which is one of the things I find frustrating about WoW I guess. In EQ2 if everyone does everything right, chances are that unless everyone is poorly geared or you're insanely over your head, you'll do ok. Really great gear lets you make a few mistakes, but not infinite ones. After singing its praises here, I have to admit that I can't really muster any enthusiasm for EQ2 at the moment. If Sovereign started raiding again, sure. But otherwise, not so much.
So I'm feeling a little bit of gaming ennui. I don't know where I'm going in WoW and more than anything, I don't feel like I'm part of something. I feel like I pick up raids because of a few friends, but that it's not going anywhere. I'm considering Aion. But I'm skeptical. I know it's a grind and all that. More I don't know anyone with a guild and without a guild you're pavement pizza. Last night I ended up playing poker online (for chips not money) being bored with everything else and intrigued by "really not a lesbian couple wink wink" Tiffany and Maria on The Amazing Race.
Today I'm feeling really rather ill. I have no fever, but feel feverish and out of it. Isn't this a common refrain for me? I was just thinking yesterday I was finally done with whatever I had. Apparently not. I might have stayed home, but I had a meeting and I'm not that interested in going home now that I'm out of the house. And now I'm nauseous and going home. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| The weekend was nice. We're still counting days, but unlike last time not really that obsessively.
Friday night we watched Runway, which honestly was very ho hum. Went to bed early and read. I'm reading a very good book called Spin State by Chris Moriarty. I didn't realy know much about the book other than that it was nominated for both a Lambda and a PK Dick award. I figured it had to be for me. It's almost post-cyberpunk. Cyberpunk meets genetics. I'm enjoying it and it's a significant book, not the kind of brain candy I've been reading.
Speaking of which someone remind me to rant about Darkover and how what was once progressive is now regressive.
Saturday we went looking at fish. Once upon a time I had a huge number of fishtanks. I had a 55 gallon with Malwai Cichlids, and 29 and 20 community tanks. With the odd here and there other thing. I tried marine for a little bit. But mostly my love is cichlids. I still have the 29, but it's absolutely filthy. I think I might be able to salvage the tank, but I'm honestly not sure it's worth my time to avoid paying $75 for another one--it's that filthy. Well, the news is that people here catch fish and eat them, but don't seem to keep them very much. only two stores had any cichlids and only a random smattering of juveniles of what I'd call pseudotropheus petshopus. Sort of generic mbuna cichlids. I know they'll outgrow the tank, probably quite quickly so they're out. What I'm thinking of now is a tank of Tanganyikan "shellies" which are supposed to be far smaller and more peaceable. I'm researching what I can do with them and how to keep them.
I've missed fish. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | I don't particularl like Politico as it's slanted a bit or more than a bit to the right and to the conventional wisdom (ie, they repeat verbatim whatever some idiot says). But this is a pretty good article that describes exactly how little so called health reform does. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| It's perhaps ironic that as I get more and more excited about the possibilities of HeroQuest's form of narrative gaming that I have no real ability to actually do anything like run or be in a game. I might actually have to resort to a gaming group somewhere off cape or start wandering to conventions. I think in some senses it's a reaction to my revulsion at the D&D 4 rules and at the mechanistic type of gaming I do online. Now, I love my online gaming, but it's not the same. And the fact that it kind of seems to be the same, but isn't is I think making me nostalgic.
Or perhaps it's a middle age crisis :)
But HQ uses some really fascinating ways of dealing with things. You create a character by simply writing a paragraph about them. Everything gets converted to an ability. Not from a list, but just what it is. It relies on a mature freeform understanding of gaming and would be totally out of place with rules lawyers. You don't have a +2 sword that you got from killing shit. You instead, as part of your creation, say that you inherited a sword from your grandfather who was a great Priest of Orlanth and was blessed by the God. The abilities are free form. When you fight someone Orlanth opposes (like the stinking evil Lunars), you might bring it up and say it should help you to beat them. If you need guidance you might pray to it and drop it to the ground and beg the God to tell you what direction to go in. It's freeform. It's a magic sword blessed by your God, who knows what it might do or not. That's what magic is about, not a ability bonus. It's part of your character, you are the woman with Orlanth's Sword, as much as you are anything else. (And you take the sword instead of a skill.) The other thing about not having specific skills is that it allows you to apply things as they make sense. If you are a herder, your people tend whatever critter, then you probably have some veterinary skills and if someone ins injured, you probably can apply that to bandage them at an appropriate lowering of skill. You also may be able to observe that another tribe's critters are nervous or whatever, like maybe there's an ambush or something.
I don't know why that kind of thinking seems so brilliant or perhaps it's just the way it's codified. Though, I have to admit, the rules are not well written and more than a little unclear. Mainly, a good scenario with 4 or 5 pages of "dialog" of a game showing how it works out would help a huge amount. But the possibilities of this for something like Glorantha, with this huge lore of bronze age and earlier or Cthulhu are just blowing my mind. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's monday and I'm back in prison at work. Thursday and Friday we had our appointments at the Fenway, which are generally tiring (2 hours of driving and 45 minutes on the T), but this time really took it out of both of us.
I've also felt a little "off." It's definitely not the flu, but probably just some kind of minor cold or perhaps even just a lot of allergens. But it kind of left me feeling not quite all there, which was a shame. Gauge from Portland has been visiting and I feel like I didn't get a chance to do much. Janna did most of the entertaining and they went out to Bone Hill, the audubon sanctuary based on farmland. I felt bad for not going, but I was just completely fatigued.
I have been reading some of the new Heroquest stuff for the Glorantha/Sartar book. I used to be a huge huge fan of Glorantha and ran a long campaign in high school featuring Orlanthi terrorists freedom fighters in Prax. Wish I could find a group, Heroquest looks interesting. Narrative storytelling, not the combat simulation that other games seem to be heading more and more into. Thinking about Prax reminded me of the Morokanth, the herders of men, and led to me spending some time playing my cow in WoW. Yes, an odd way to end up there, but we'll see.
I'm generally looking at different guilds and I always have preferred the horde, but wow is it ever dead hordeside compared to the alliance. I found another guild that's raiding in my time window that seems ok. Not sure yet. I wish things were different than they are because the people from my old wow guild who are raiding are great, but the rest of the guild just feels wrong and actually I find it a bit creepy. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Dan Savage certainly nailed it on Olberman the other night. "Obama is a fierce advocate for gay rights the same way I'm a ladies man"
Apparently in addition to saying nothing about marriage in Maine, he also chose to remain silent on the Washington state ballot on civil unions. This is supposedly the separate but equal option that Obama prefers since "god is in the mix." But no. Nothing. Not even a mention in the email blast sent to Washington voters. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Well I don't have the swine flu, but I can't say I'm really feeling all that well. Just blah in general. I've felt generally off and a little queasy all weekend. I didn't let it stop me, but it makes me kind of worried, especially as I work in a public building with a lot of moms, two of which have kids who might have flu. I really don't want flu.
Other than that, it was a rather nice weekend. We went walking saturday afternoon at Wing Island, which was just incredible. Really, Saturday was probably the most wonderful weather we've had all fall. Just a perfect day. For Halloween, we made pizza and handed out candy while watching Poltergeist. We didn't get hit as bad as I thought for a warm saturday night. I'm not sure if that was fewer kids on cape or if they went to parties or something.
Sunday I felt rather dreary and stayed in playing WoW. I got invited to an Ulduar10 raid, which went well. We're finishing it up tonight. Janna went out for an appetizer of oysters before we have another round of inseminations, but I stayed home and made dinner for us. So she got home to a nice roast pork loin. I felt bad, but I didn't feel like I could stomach seafood. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| There comes a time when my patience just runs out and aided and abetted with a wonderful steak dinner with more than a few martinis I read a message on my board from some deluded Stockholm Syndrome victim about how we need to do what the shrinks tell us to and we're weak and not really trans if we go to Thailand. Well the patience just ran out and i invoked "drunken moderator privilege" and told them to "fuck off and die."
Here's my real honest 2p. The SOC are illegitimate. They are in any way shape or form by definition a violation of basic therapeutic ethics. If you are a therapist and follow them, you are by definition violating basic ethical standards. Client/patient/HUMAN rights to self determination are a RIGHT.... not privilege. A RIGHT to self determination that outweighs any discomfort and gives clients a right to determine their bodily destiny.
Or in other words, if the client isn't batshit crazy back the fuck off and give them a scrip for hormones.
The SoC are by definition illegitimate any time and always and given the circumstances self-medication and evasion of the SOC are a revolutionary imperative.
And more than anything I'm tired of transsexuals who pull some "I'm more trans than thou" because they were stupid and compliant enough to do whatever some control fixated mental defective therapist decided they needed to do.
As i said, FOAD: FUCK OFF AND DIE. You're not more trans, you're not more legitimate, you're not more female. You're weak and pathetic. Go lick you masters boots and beg for your trans cookie. I'll be living my life as the woman I am and always was. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| I probably have come across as some kind of sourball recently. The whole health care debacle disgusts me. Not the least reason of which is most progressives seem to have bought into it. People probably have the vision of some discontented crank looking like Madelyn Murray O'Hare eyes glazed over angry at the world.
Not really. Actually things are going really well.
We had an implementation at work which so far has gone really well. And I have a couple of other projects that are finishing up. The response to the new website seems to be very very positive at least so far.
I've been playing World of Warcraft a lot. Got into a few instances and a fun if unsuccessful onyxia raid. I have a baby huntress I'm working on who's up to level 26. Hunters are still ezmode in a big way. But I can't deny it's fun.
I got my scooter back yesterday. Picked it up in the morning and left my car at the shop and Janna gave me a ride to collect it. The scoot is fantastic. A new tire makes a huge amount of difference. I must admit that I have frequently broken the speed limits in the past two days. Feels like a whole new scooter. The sad scooter news is that javaspeed, the fantastic scooter shop in Providence, is closing as of tomorrow. Very nice shop that did a lot of promotion.
Since we had to go out to collect my car after work, we decided to go out for dinner last night and got a nice Chinese meal. Baby Bok Choy with tofu and mushrooms and shredded pork in garlic sauce. And a nice bowl of their house wonton soup, which is full of vegetables and everything else as well as broth and wontons. It was a really nice relaxing time after the frenzy of other things.
Tonight I'm going to make up some nice local potatos and probably roast some brussel sprouts and we're going to have a nice steak. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Some wonderful tidbits here. The "public option" is limited in both the senate and house versions to the "level playing field" (ie, will have to pay the same for medical care as private insurance). It's expected that while private insurance won't be able to deny coverage to sick people, they'll do their best to discourage them. Making it as hard as possible to see specialists or having very limited numbers available "in network." They'll figure out ways to screw people. It's what they do. But those people can go to the public option, which is good. Except if you drive sick people to the public option and make it pay market rates to doctors? The CBO says rates for the public option are likely to end up more expensive than private insurance.
Of course that could be stopped by just having the public option pay medicare rates. But they can't get that passed because too many democrats and the entire Republican party feel that the ideology of the private market is more important than saving people's lives.
Not that it really matters much because only 10% of people will even have access to the public option or any of the other features of the "insurance exchanges." The rest of us will just be stuck with exactly the same broken system of employer provided insurance we have no. Another great tidbit from that article, depending on your family configuration, a family making $66k total -- a pretty lower middle class level since that's two people making 33k each -- could be expected to pay as much as 19% of their income, over $12,000 dollars, out of pocket and that would be considered "affordable." And of course, if someone disagrees, they still have to get insurance or be fined.
Or we could simply fix the entire system by striking the age limit from medicare and providing health care to everyone. | | comments: 16 comments or Leave a comment |
| This morning the news really hit me like a monogrammed invitation to just give up on the whole thing.
We had the state calling some kind of conference together with business to try to figure out ways to improve faith in the Massachusetts economy. Gee, Mass State Gov, why not start by not laying off 2000 people and cutting aid to cities and towns so they have to lay off another thousand or so. Would that be a start?
Then the latest details of the health care debacle. This just irritates me from beyond. We are going to have the public option. The public option will be available only to uncovered individuals and employers with fewer than 50 employees. It will be forced to compete with market rate reimbursements. And states will be allowed to opt out. I wish I could be more optomistic, but I felt the same thing when Mass had our reform. That it wasn't going to do jack. And I was right. It's just a program to give away the treasury to prop up the current system. But there's no security. No cost saving. Nothing like my friends have elsewhere. I just see this as more of the same and I don't think this tiny little anemic public plan is going to do much of anything. And I suspect as soon as the GOP gains any amount of power, it will be "drowned in a bathtub." | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Another weekend closer to the great void of death... Ok, it was actually a nice one.
The bad part was dropping off Lemon Squeezy. It was also the good part, I'm getting a new tire and the fluids changed. Saturday not having Lemon Squeezy was fine because it was miserable and rainy. But sunday turned into one of the most wonderful days I can remember since probably late August. And no scooter. Oh the sadness.
We didn't let that stop us and we went out to Nauset beach and sat and absorbed nature and watched the surfers. After saturday's storm, surf was really pounding in.
Overall it was a nice relaxing weekend. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Shout all you want, but when you are the raid leader who recruited me and you don't know if the raid has vent (at which point I realized *feigns shock* I had made a tragic mistake and simply did not have the time for a raid *cough* *cough*) then I know epic fail is on the horizon.
But good luck. By all means.
If you ever find anyone.
And may God have mercy on their soul. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | So both CNN and Salon redesigned their sites this week and the results are absolutely dismal. Far too busy, graphically distracting. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | I rode Lemon Squeezy to work 3 days this week and dropped her after work tonight at the shop for a new rear tire and an oil change. I can pick her up Tuesday. I miss her already! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Well it's fall. It's really fall. There was no lingering summer or anything. It started to get cool in late August and we're due for a frost tonight or so the weathermen tell me. Riding into work this morning was pretty chilly. Still, while it was quite beautiful in western mass, we don't have any real leaf changes here quite yet. But overall, this was a very short summer with a brief period of hot days and a cold long spring and what appears to be a cold long fall.
I'm feeling more or less dreary as I have for the last month or so. Just without any energy. I have an appointment in a few weeks for a physical so I will bring it up then if I still feel the same way. But I am gradually feeling a bit more energetic. Whatever it is seems to be slowly disappearing and I think a certain portion is boredom and emotional distress. The end of a short summer punctuated with what was technically a miscarriage and then my guild evaporating has left me feeling pretty blah. Add in a minor cold and some allergies. And I'm stressing a lot about where we're going. Whether to try to build a house at Janna's parents or stay where we are and renovate or look at emigrating. And yes, I'm very concerned about where the US is going and I'm finding it harder and harder to imagine someplace other than where Russia went in the 1990s. And I don't see any recovery from this recession. Our economy may recover on one level, but the wealth will go only to the select few even more than it has in the past. And on that subject, we're expecting drastic cuts from the state and there will almost certainly be layoffs, furloughs, or both.
My guild. I suppose something like a game shouldn't affect me that way and be up there with the other things, but it does, and that's that. There was a wonderfully regular rhythm to things and I miss my friends. I have been playing WoW, got into a VOA 10 last night and a VOA 25 over the weekend, plus a lot of heroics. And I'm enjoying my time in game. But I'm not sure where I'm going for a guild. There's something almost gothic southern about the guild I was part of and while I have a friend in it and a couple of good game friends, one of whom is a class a raid leader. I just have a vague creepy feeling about it. Something never felt that home there. I guess it's that other than those people, I don't feel at all close to anyone else and I always got a vague sense they're just not that into me. I have found myself regularly grouping with people from another guild, tho I don't really know that much about them.
Janna ovulated last month on time, so for next month we'll be back on the insemination wagon. I'm not really looking forward to that. I hope it works, but the process is irritating and only likely to get more so. Hopefully Mr. 3966 of the sperm bank of CA will still be available with his sarcastic semen.
Other than this, things are good enough. We're having a guest monday who we're looking forward to seeing again. Work is going pretty ok. I'm reading more Darkover on my kindle. In video, we got addicted to First Blood and have ground through the first season. We ended up watching 4 straight hours on sunday, and the last bluray in the first season should be here tomorrow. I nabbed the books for my kindle as well. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | obama | | Time: | 12:31 am |
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| oh, btw, Obama?
"For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed, and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult."
FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| So how about an opera set on a WII bomber with the tenor being the pilot, the chorus being the enlisted crewmen, the soprano being the plane itself as represented by the nose art?
Surely Adams can make something of that? | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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