Thursday, 18 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
The Random Thread continues its celebration of the Australian fiscal year by presenting a pie chart of Australia’s national budget. Pie for everyone!
Continued from Part One.
Date: July 14, 2011
Categories: At the Top of the Blog, Random craziness
I gotta say, that graph looks a lot nicer than the one for the American budget.
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Re: drinking (Unintended Pun on the previous thread): I really do think that the 21-year-old drinking age is one of the sillier laws we have in this country. Almost everyone drinks anyway, and it’s all stigmatized because it’s ~~illegal~~ and ~~rebellious~~ when really it’s perfectly normal. I always get thrown out of the pub at 10 when I’m down there listening to the live music and drinking ginger ale, which is silly because usually I go home and have some wine with my parents anyway.
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That is one healthy budget. Take note, California.
More sailing, more windsurfing today. Sailing has become somewhat harrowing due to our instructor’s insistence that we “familiarize” ourselves with tipping sailboats. Windsurfing is still awesome. I can steer!
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JADESTONE
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS IS AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK IF YOU’RE WILLING TO PAY 15 DOLLARS TO GET IT EARLIER EVEN IF THAT MEANS LOTS OF TIME STARING AT A SCREEN
JUST GO TO GOOGLE EBOOKS
YOU WON’T EVEN NEED TO SEARCH FOR IT AS IT’S A “NEW ARRIVAL”
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OOOOOOH
THAT IS GOOD TO KNOW!!
THANK YOU FOR THIS INFORMATION! I WILL LET YOU KNOW HOW THINGS PROCEED FROM HERE
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GET BOOK
FINISH BOOK
DISCUSS BOOK
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also I don’t know how I feel about the fact that this got my attention very fast for being all in capitals. ON SCREEN SHOUTING DOES WORK MAYBE?
I CAN ONLY HOPE
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*is back from Egypt*
*is tired*
*will probably write a Muserology about it because it was awesome*
*but now BED*
*or FOOD*
Meh. I’ve been back less than 4 hours and I already miss the ocean.
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That’s okay, I’ll wait.
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I would definitely read that Muserology.
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*is sick at home and babysitting little brother*
I dropped this kindle on accident today. Interestingly it seems to function just fine. /random
I feel so random and bored and sleepy right now. I should either eat or take a nap. Sorry for this rather pointless post.
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I drop my DSi all the time and it’s never affected. Hasn’t even cracked.
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*hugs*
My friend’s dog scratched her Kindle and it still works minus some scratches on the screen.
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This is probably a fairly stupid question, but would the constellations look the same from, say, Mars, or is Mars too far away from Earth?
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That’s actually a very good question. I’d think that the constellations would look more or less the same, and here’s why I say that:
The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 1 Astronomical Unit (AU). The distance from Mars to the Sun is 1.38 AU. When the Earth revolves around the sun, the ellipse formed has a diameter that averages out to 2 AU. On, say, the Spring Equinox, the Earth is about 2 AU away from where it would be at the Autumn Equinox. But the constellations that we can see all year round look the same in the spring as in the autumn. Since Mars’ orbit is only .38 AU further from the Sun than ours, I’d think that the difference would be even less drastic. I could be mistaken, though. Robert, any thoughts?
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No, no, that’s a very intelligent question. Good for you for asking it!
As Piggy and Robert have said, Mars is close enough to the Earth that there wouldn’t be any noticeable difference.
You could, however, see the Earth as a bright point of light among the stars that moved from night to night, as the other planets appear to us from Earth.
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As Piggy surmises, the constellations would look the same. Distances within the solar system are negligible compared with the distances between stars.
For example, the stars in Orion’s belt are about 1,000 light-years from Earth. Even when Mars is farthest from Earth (when the orbits of Mars and Earth place them on opposite sides of the sun), it’s only about 1/25,000 of a light-year away. KaiYves can probably give exact numbers, but the main point is that such a relatively small shift in position won’t change the way the stars look relative to one another.
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Oh, okay. Thanks. 
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I am sitting on my bed on top of a massive heap of coats, skirts, and dresses that extends to the floor and across my room, staring blankly at a computer screen (well, typing now, not staring, because anything is better than having to keep packing. WHY IS IT SO HARDDDDDDDDD. You’d think–stuff–boxes–put the stuff into the boxes–put the boxes into the car–put the stuff into the dorm room–all good! But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo that is not the case.
My head hurts.
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*gives whatever medication it was that had to do with hurting heads*
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Ahahahaha PG Tips brewed extra-strong with a tablespoon of sugarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr it solves EVERY PROBLEM EVER including but not limited to Lyme disease sleep headaches boredom heart attacks typing inability low blood sugar no punctuation and toooooo manyyyyyyyyyyy clothessssssssssssssss
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Ahem.
I apologize for the brief lapse in sanity. I have now eaten some food and feel a safe distance from the brink of madness, though no closer to a productive and useful afternoon.
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Oh my god there is a reason I never unpacked over half the boxes from college I came home with. Including some of the clothes and my supposed everyday items. Packing is the worst and also I AM DENYING I AM GOING TO BE HERE FOR ANOTHER MONTH AND A HALF.
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This internship went by so quickly. I can’t believe my last day is tomorrow and I’m flying home on Saturday…
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While I was driving in driver’s ed today, the instructor started eating a peanut butter sandwich. I was jelly.
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Your puns make my day.
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MY HEART
I HAVE NO WORDS
IT IS THE END OF AN ERA
I NEED TO WAKE UP IN 3 HOURS
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I am very much not tired
I have to be up in 4.5 hours
life
why
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it was more like 3.75 or 4 hours of sleep x_x
At least we are up early to go to the aquarium, I can force myself awake forever for that.
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Measuring hours with decimals is funny.
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All this boredom and sickness argleargleargle
And all this frustration that I want to rant about but don’t want to rant about so this is why I am not going to post this in the Rants and Plaints thread although I technically could maybe
Any songs that could probably either express frustration and let it out or induce calmness and improve mood? Meanwhile I am off to take a nap
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I have been avoiding MuseBlog out of guilt because I still haven’t written about my gap year. Don’t worry, it’ll be coming later today. In the meantime I have been doing things like getting my first contact lenses, filling out health forms for college, and reading books. I read An Abundance of Katherines today. I spent a lot of time snickering over the Arabic in the book, though, which is entirely to perfect to be real. I mean, no one actually speaks fusha. Particularly not second generation Arab American kids, not without a lot of work. I should know.
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Have you read any other books by John Green? I much prefer Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns to An Abundance of Katherines..
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I am aliiiiiiiive
I have a case of lemonade, some coca-cola shirts, a copy of all of the people in the writing club’s books, and I survived the book signing! Although everyone was all “student authors yay” and it was very torturous.
BUT I SURVIVED
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You not only survived — you prevailed. Look at all the loot you got! Well done.
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You have wonderful priorities, Robert. When I become a famous writer, I will always judge every work have written based on the amount of loot I got. *nods*
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Then you will be a real writer.
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Yes.
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We should all send you stuffed squids or something!
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Yay! *huggles* You are awesome.
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Thank you. *huggles back*
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Student authors, yay!
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I submitted a short story to an anthology (Machine of Death 2)! A semi-professional one!
Now three months worth of worrying about wether they choose it.
*sigh*
I hope it works out.
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Whoa, that’s awesome! I really wish I had, I just didn’t have any good ideas and also procrastinated way to much. Good luck, and let us know if it gets in!
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If they choose it, you’re going to have to virtually sign my virtual copy. I loved the first one, and I bet number two’ll be great too.
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It’s five o’clock and I have yet to do anything today but eat, rip CDs into my computer, and read Child ballads and Wiki articles about 60s folk musicians. Go me.
I did my mom’s radio show with her last night! We did a folk/Celtic show with lots of murder ballads. And ended with Lamkin/Long Lankin (Child 93) at one in the morning. That is too late to play that particular song in a darkened empty radio station. Oh my god. And then we’re like “What else is gruesome…Sawney Beane!” So we read an article about Sawney Beane on the internet and oh my god. Caves and incest and cannibalism! Why is it so fascinating?
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Not only is Half-Price Books now calling itself HPB, it’s selling a book called Fluffy the Pink Bunny. Really.
AAAAAAAAAARGH!
Okay, so it’s really, really pale pink, but still! This is just the first step! I am seriously considering avoiding them now. Or better yet, maybe I’ll start a campaign to ban that book. It’s certainly more worth it than with, say, Harry Potter, and we all know how hard they tried with that.
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I cried so much at Harry Potter, my heart started palpitating ( lack of oxygen from crying ) and now my head hurts and my eyes are really dry. And while I was crying ( silently, I hope ) during the movie, the two little kids in the row in front of me kept turning around to look at me like I was super weird.
And then, I went to the bathroom when the movie ended, and this girl ( who turned out to be the niece of these friends of my parents ) walked in, and she was dressed in a Slytherin robe and had mascara tracks all down her face. We should be friends. Despite the Slytherin preference. ( jk Rowling. )
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SFTDP. Is “Semper glorificamus et venerantur puris tardigrada!” proper grammar? Probably not, as I relied heavily (not entirely) on Google translate, so what is? Please note that by “tardigrada” I am referring to the scientific name of tardigrades, not the Latin word for slow-moving, in which case even I would know it was incorrect–and I don’t speak Latin.
I know it’s not a very good motto, but I can’t think of a better one…
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“We always glorify and they venerate for the pure the tardigrade!”? Tell me in English what you want to say and I’ll translate it for you.
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Last day at work… but tomorrow, I’ll be sleeping in my own bed.
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Big fat post up ahead. I’m sorry this has been so late getting to you guys. I’ve been back from Jordan more than a week now, and still have not managed to work up enough will to sit down and type this out. But my parents are discussing how to eliminate all traces of my existencecleaning my room when I go off to college and I’m getting a bank account and I feel the doom of impending responsibility and I felt like I should probably go and write up what this past year has been like for me before I forget and move on with the rest of my life.
So. Where do I begin? Probably with why I took a gap year in Jordan to begin with. It was because I was essentially rejected from every college I applied to. Taking a gap year and reapplying when I had something to write about in my application essay seemed like my best bet. And it was, I think.
I did a lot of flying this past year. I first went in the summer, and stayed with my family. My aunt & cousins were also visiting, and we were all at my grandmother’s house together. Only one room had AC. Of course it was the one everyone wanted to sleep in.
Ramadan started. It was…different. First, there was the quality of the food. Delicious. Then there was the fact the entire country evidently decides that Ramadan is the time to sleep in. It makes sense, and it’s something I’d realized years ago. Stay up all night, eating and watching tv, sleep all day, and you really won’t notice the hunger. (Not that it’s the hunger that gets you, it’s always the dehydration.) So basically everyone slept in during Ramadan. I got up at 3 pm regularly. Except for hte time I woke up at five. We’d wait until the sun set, set the table, and eat as soon as the athan was called. This was when the tv went on. Arab television channels premiere their best shows during that month, one episode a night.
I went back to the US before Eid al Fitr, partially bc I wanted to have Eid with my family before going overseas and partially bc my parents hadn’t been sure I could take living in Jordan and wanted to make sure I could get back. I decided to return to Jordan to study Arabic anyway. I remember the date I went back, mostly because it was 9/11. And there I was headed to an Arab country. My mom said sorry, but that was the nearest date…I groaned.
So, just to define again what I was doing during my gap year. I was studying Arabic, and only Arabic, at the Center for Teaching Arabic to Non-native Speakers at the University of Jordan, in Amman. What a mouthful that name is. Mostly we just called the center the center , in Arabic, though.
I had a routine, that first semester. It was a very boirng routine, though at first when I was sitll trying to figure out where my classes where it was more exciting. I went to class in the morning, ate lunch, and then went back to my room. On weekends I went with the center on ‘field trips’ to practically every tourist site in Jordan, and to my relatives’ house, and did shopping. Weekends are Friday-Saturday. It trips you up a lot at first. You say, “Oh, on Sunday I did this,” and then you realize today is Sunday, despite the two days of weekend you just had.
I was worried about not maximizing my opportunities. I wasn’t volunteering or teaching or taking any other classes, and I didn’t really know anyone to talk too. That improved second semester, when I had a language partner, got to know some of the other students better, and figured out how to take the bus places, and therefore got out a bit more. I’d say it was a better semester, but it really wasn’t because I hated the teacher I had second semester.
Bleh. OK. That took a while to type out. Any questions? I have got more to say, and I have pictures, but it’s kinda hard to condense what, nine months of my life into a nice little ball. I ramble. And I haven’t gotten to the awkward taxi rides, the questions everybody asked me, the shopping (and price comparisons with America), how my Arabic improved, where it didn’t improve, how crazy Arabic grammar is, the fact that the grammatical rules for numerals are the same in both Arabic and Akkadian, and isn’t that the perfect motivation to actually learn them?
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Why did you chose to learn Arabic in the first place, and why Jordan instead of another country?
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I chose Arabic because…well, I am Arab, on my dad’s side. I chose Jordan because that’s where my grandmother, assorted aunts and uncles, and cousins live. I don’t know if I could have gone without my parents knowing that I’d have family there to support me.
And dad’s made me study the language since I was four or five. I resented that very much, and didn’t exactly try to learn it. Then at some point I realized that learning Arabic could actually be useful for more than just reading the Quran. (Teh army sent a request for translators to our house. I didn’t want to join the army, but I suddenly realized being bilingual was something people looked for.) Also, I realized that it owuld probably be a good idea to be able to understand what my relatives were talking about, particularly when I could tell they were talking about me but not about what.
I learned Arabic in a weird way, and it tells. I was a, whaddya callit, receptive bilingual when I went to Jordan. Could understand what people where saying, but not respond to them in any way that made sense or was not English. Sort of. I learned to read and write and pronounce Arabic when I was very, very small. I just had no clue what I was reading. That changed this past year. Also, I’d studied fusha–Modern Standard Arabic, and not the spoken dialect, but at the same time I had picked up the dialect from my relatives, and I end up mixing the two when I speak. But I still improved A LOT. My dad mentions that a lot. He’s pretty happy that I decided to learn Arabic, which is why he was willing to bankroll the gap year.
So that covers Maths Lover’s question, and also “how my Arabic improved, where it didn’t improve” I mentioned in the first post.
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I just got back from seeing a production of The Music Man. My sister was playing in pit. Since it was at an outdoor amphitheatre, we nearly got rained out–it was one of those storms where it’s just a bunch of cells popping up out of nowhere and then disappearing, so it was impossible to tell whether we’d get wet or not. Two and a half blocks north of the amphitheatre the ground was soaked, but we stayed dry. Cool lightning, though. The musical itself was great. I must say, the woman playing Marian was really quite spectacularly good. Fantastic voice. Harold had a bit of a hard time hitting the low notes, but that wasn’t too distracting. Zaneeta was aggravating.
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Zaneeta is always aggravating.
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She was aggravating in the wrong way. She both mumbled and rushed through her few lines while having her back to the audience most of the time.
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weird mood
got an accedental hour of sleep during the day to add to my 4 from last night
but want to stay up reading webcomics listening to trock
yeah
internet forever
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I am back from bandcamp! I got sleep last night! In a bed that was comfortable! I am safe from Mr. Fuzzy! Who is covered in spit! And loves me! Take that, stand partner! I learned a new fingering for D! It’s in tune! I think! I ate sugary cereal! It was a luxury! I lost a book from the library! It was hardcover! I will have to pay for it! Cake! I read a book on Flute’s Kindle! Stromboni scared me! I acted stupid! I survived without my legs getting cut off and put in pickle juice! I ate gelato! I played the saxophone! I played ninja at a dance! I invented a new word! I got angry at Tuba! I bought a Sharpie! And a woodless pencil! And a drawing dummy! I broke a watch! I’m not weird, I’m normally challenged! I’m going to put that on a T-shirt! I met a guy who claimed to have gone to elementary school with me! He said he didn’t go to my school! But I remembered him! I knitted! People gave me weird looks! I walked around! I had a dream about Paperclip!
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Hurrah! I have returned from magical camp in New York and now I am in musical camp in PA!
I learned psychology! Woo! (Cognitive, but we did talk about Abnormal.)
I was taped for love, dressed in drag, won the game and made other people win it too, watched awesomesauce movies, picked up the phrase awesomesauce, performed experiments on people, and… uh… everything.
♥
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We should revive the Museion. Or was it kind of a one-time thing? I had great fun with it, when I wasn’t making embarrassingly blatant anachronisms.
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Mmm, yeah. It was fun. And you can still post on it, but the G&PAs would need to moderate it along with the regular blog. I think we’d need more than just the two of us to really revive the thread.
I humbly beseech all inhabitants of the Museion to return posthaste.
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I’m there! I really, really want to revive it and check it semi-regularly. I’ve nothing to say, though.
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Happy Carmageddon! My sisters and I celebrated by watching the Doctor Who episode Gridlock. 
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29- Why is today more particularly Carmageddon-y than usual?
Eventually I will do something useful with my day, but in the meantime (While I wait for the mail!), I am going to re-read Kidnapped, with the thought that it may make more sense to me now that I have a slightly firmer grasp of history. I have read it and enjoyed it at least twice, but I can’t help feeling that some of it went right over my head for whatever reason.
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alice – a section of the 405 freeway in LA is closed which is a big deal since traffic is already notoriously bad in LA. i think it has been less disastrous than everyone expected though.
so i can’t take it, i’m going to go see DHP2 later today. i finished my furious reread of OotP a bit ago, IT DEFINITELY HURT WAY MORE THAN IT DID THE FIRST TIME……but anyway. on to HBP! my plan is still to finish the reread and then see the movie again after that.
posting this here because i don’t want to accidentally see comments in the actual HP thread. FSJKSGDN. bringing tissues to the theatre….
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I just finished rereading Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods about an hour ago, and have spent the time since thinking about a lot of different stuff while I cleaned my room (always a good task to go through half-distracted, makes it less bothersome).
Anyway I went through and re-realized a lot about the way I think about life in general. And in specifics. And I’m thinking sometime I should really write it all down, because it makes sense to me, and maybe it would make sense to other people to. And then they could say things like, “Yes, I get what you’re saying there, and I agree with some of it, but I don’t agree with this part and here is what I think…”. And then I could read that and consider it and try to see where they were coming from and if it influenced how I was thinking. Because maybe I didn’t consider everything, you know? There’s a lot of world out there and I’ve seen only a tiny bit of it, and even people who’ve seen the same tiny bit are seeing it from a different mind.
And I’d really like to be able to talk about these things with people without having to leave out all the bits where religion comes in and people feel like they have to go and defend the boxes they’ve been told they’re supposed to stand in which do not always match up with what they actually believe. Because then I just get sort of sad and most of the time I go and stand next to the box labeled “atheist” because that is technically what I am and I won’t try to hide it from anyone, but even just having that label makes people assume things about the way I think about other things. Which is often the last thing I want.
Anyway I have been thinking a lot and there are probably some of you who think about things too, and maybe we could have a thread for it if people wanted?
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*two hours ago not one in the first line, oops
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What would we call the thread? “Thinking About Things”?
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https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=8603
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Yes, that seems to fit the description. Thanks!
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That looks exactly like what I was asking about, of course Museblog already had one! I’ll head there later when I am not frantically packing x_x
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Museblog = the Room of Requirement.
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Ah, but we’re better, because we can create food! 
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We gave my dad a bow tie for his birthday yesterday.
Bow ties are cool.
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Historical fiction is problematic, as it tends to skew my perception of historical characters and events. Here I am, willing to argue for the innocence of Alan Breck Stuart, based solely on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and completely disregarding any actual historical evidence which may or may not exist.
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Luckily, I don’t tend to read about any history that has any relevance to my life.
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My mom recently read The Paris Wife, about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, and she’s been going around the house talking about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald like the book is the first and last historical resource for information about them. I want to go, “Mom, I’m sorry, but you don’t know them”, but I can’t figure out how.
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That’s how I feel! But of course I’m wrong. But I keep forgetting.
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I know what you mean. When we were doing “The Crucible” and “In Cold Blood” in English class last year, quite a few times, I had to clarify “I don’t mean the REAL people, I mean in terms of them as CHARACTERS with those names in the play/novel.”
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Along those lines, guess what book is really annoying for museum docents at an exhibit about Leonardo da Vinci, particularly those who have to work near The Last Supper.
If you said The Da Vinci Code, you’re right!
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Ouch. I sympathize.
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Medieval Fantasy people, please go read my post. Pleasey pies.
Everyone else, hi!
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Is it just me, or is this the first recorded instance on MuseBlog where someone has asked for pies? I don’t frequent writing threads.
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I’m pretty sure Paul did it in his first few posts with the pieing option. It seemed to work, since all of those posts that I saw are pink.
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I see R101 tomorrow! And I think we’re going to the zoo! *excitement* /random
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THAT WAS AWESOME.
Yesterday I had a belated birthday get-together with my friends. I got, among other things, a Fullmetal Alchemist card, a How to Train Your Dragon card, and a GLaDOS card. Oh, and someone else also gave me exactly enough money to get Portal 2. *starts talking about how this was a triumph*
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Even old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can’t say
Guess folks just liked it better that way
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Are you in Istanbul or something?
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Yes!! They played that song at camp; it was the only one I actually liked. I still didn’t dance to it like everyne else did, but only because I hae dancing.
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NOOOOOOO
So so so close…
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To what?
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I’m home! Back in New York! And I have a ton of stuff to unpack and thank-you notes to write, but that’s for tomorrow.
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It always takes me such a long time to decide what music I want to listen to…
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It is time to pick raspberries! Our bushes are covered and I’m in love. Raspberries are amazing. I might bake a pie!
Speaking of berries, the blueberry bush by my house is doing quite well too. It’s a highbush blueberry plant, not of the Maine variety, and while I must say I prefer the Maine ones that you can find on mountains growing wild…*gazes off into distance* …what was I saying? So these blueberries are big and juicy and round. They’re really tart, but they’re big and gorgeous. I love this plant. Blueberries and cream for breakfast tomorrow!
…Does anyone want any berries?
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I love my raspberry patch, but that’s what I hate about it. The fact that it’s a patch. That makes it extremely difficult to systematically remove all the ripe berries and causes lots of scratches when venturing into the middle.
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Congratulations! It’s always satisfying to pick home-grown food, yes?
Pass out virtual berry pies, please?
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Me, please!
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Yes, please! I love all the kinds I know of. Except the poisonous ones.
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Today has been a good day, foodwise. I tried mixing an egg in with my ramen for lunch, which turned out marvelously. Then my grandma dropped off some stuff from her garden–some sweet peppers, some jalapeños, a bunch of sweet corn, and two big, round zucchini. I’ve never seen zucchini like this. They look like green pumpkins. We’ll have to cut them open tomorrow. The corn was an experimental variety they sent her for free. The kernels are small, and they’re yellow and white intermixed. It may be the best corn I’ve ever tasted. It’s sweet and savory and juicy and it comes right off the cob. Part of that’s probably due to the fact that not twelve hours ago they were still on the stalk, but I think it’s a good variety. (There wasn’t an overabundance of silk on ’em, either. Speaking as the one who husked them all, that’s an important distinction.) The peppers are good too. Somehow they’re even milder than bell peppers, and rather watery. We’re not sure what they’re called. They’re a light yellowish green, skinnier than bell peppers, about five inches long. Well, they were. They’re gone now. Anyway, I also had some ginger beer (an extra-strength brew) and some maple leaf cookies (SO GOOD) and some local cheddarwurst. Now I’m trying to resist them temptation to have another maple leaf cookie. I want them to last.
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i love putting egg in my ramen!
ALL THESE FOOD POSTS THOUGH
WHY
that corn sounds perfect, gakdjshgshjkgnadjkgnsfbsnkj
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Mm, speaking of food, I went over to my friend’s house for crepes today for lunch 
One of mine was nutella, creamcheese filling, and strawberries; and the other was cottage cheese/ricotta filling, strawberries, peaches, and blueberries. Mmmmmm. Then we watched torchwood
Now I feel like making something tasty for dessert but I don’t know what. Hmmm.
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Dessert success!
Cooked cinnamon graham cracker crusts in a cupcake pan, coated the inside of each with dark chocolate, after it hardened filled it with a sugar-vanilla-cream cheese filling and topped it off with fresh strawberries. Very tasty!
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OMG I CRIED AND MY TEARS WERE ALSO BLOOD
GIVE ME YOUR DESSERTS ;_________;
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So apparently, when I get my drivers license, I’ll be allowed to wear a pasta strainer on my head for the photo. Good to know.
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YES.
The world now feels a bit closer to the ideal version in my head.
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… New legislation?
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A court ruling. Three years ago an Austrian man sued to be allowed to wear a spaghetti strainer on his head for his driver’s license photograph, on the grounds that his religion required him to do it. The “religion” in question was Pastafarianism, a.k.a. the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The court has just ruled in his favor.
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^THIS IS MY RELIGION GUYS
IT’S PRETTY COOL
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So does he actually believe in Pastafarianism, or is he just trying to push the buttons of the government?
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Pushing buttons is what Pastafarians really believe in, as far as I can tell.
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Technically, to follow a more orthodox path of Pastafarianism, he would be dressed in pirate garb instead. But the pasta strainer was definitely in the holy spirit (ba-da-bum-pchhhh), and I am sure that the Flying Spaghetti Monster approves of his actions. Perhaps it will gain him a special place in Heaven, next to the beer volcano.
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That is epic. Perhaps I’ll convert.
PASTAAAAAA~
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So are you planning on converting?
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I’ve been considering it.
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Me too, actually. Kinda.
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I would do that, but for the fact it’s a different religion. If it were something just random to do, I would.
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Saw R101 ysterday. Went to SF Academy of Sciences. YESSSS
Except the food was very expensive and mostly not good. /random continuation of food posts
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ArgleifonlyIwasthere…
Yeah, the food there is pretty bad… but hey, San Fransisco has Ghirardelli Square!
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So, food aside, did you have fun?
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Ah, did I forget to mention how fun it was? *scolds self for absentmindedness*
And CO, we both wished we could meet you. If only… but hey, we have more chances, right?
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Off to visit my aunt today. Woohoo!
My dad left on Saturday. He’s coming back for a week in September.
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I went up to the lake cabin with Dad to open it up, make sure everything still works and put the boat in. Lots of work, but it was fun. we only had to put the mast up and down four times… >.<
Home now, procrastinating on changing my sheets and doing the billions of other things i need to do. Glarg.
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I FINISHED PORTAL
AND I’M STILL ALIVE
I’LL STOP MAKING THOSE JOKES NOW
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I figured out how to go on the interblag on my phone! But it costs $1.49 a day, so I still won’t be on much.
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I figured out how to use the interblag on my
phone!
I showed my family the Portal trailer, and
now I might get it for my birthday. *hope*
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It’s official, guys. I am now a desperate pie-seeker. Every post I make, everything I type, is always written with the consideration , “How many pies will it get me?” I’m not focusing on the content of my posts, but rather the result. I have become addicted to the sight of something written by me turning pink, of the acknowledgement it symbolizes.
I am telling you this not because I want this to be pied, but because I know I need help breaking free from this affliction. I knew I was vulnerable the moment I first saw the thumbs up and it’s only gotten worse since then. Please, if any one of you knows a cure, or at least has the same problem, tell me I’m not alone.
Desperate pie-seeking is not a Muserly behavior. We should know that our posts are awesome by default and not feel so dependent on our fellow Musers’ recognition. I need to stop this madness. And if I must do it alone, so be it.
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Maybe we should start a 12-step recovery program for pie addicts.
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YES. I’m sure there are so many others who need it. With anonymous confessions, and singalongs, and a snack table with food that is not pie…
On second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be such a great idea. Can you imagine surviving on cake?
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Yes, actually.
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IT’S A LIE
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That would be an epic thread.
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How would we reward good behavior?
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I agree totally. Every time I write a post, I’ll sometimes include little jokes just for the sake of it being pied. I have mixed feelings about the pies.
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I like getting pied, but I don’t write things just so I can get pied.
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Hm. Hard to know whether one should pie that comment.
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Whenever I post something meaningful to me, I obsessively check back to see how many pies and comments I’ve gotten. I should probably join the recovery program.
Must…not…visit…visual….arts…thread… *twitch*
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I don’t think I’m guilty of pie-seeking? I write for myself–that is, I post things that I appreciate and enjoy, and if other people enjoy it too, that’s fine. But that’s just a reflection on how my mind works in general. I make myself laugh out loud more than anyone else makes me laugh out loud. I dunno, it’s interesting.
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Maybe a ‘ Pie Hiatus’ on popular threads, minus Visual Arts and SSSS. And the Win thread.
( Not a Pie Girl Hiatus though.)
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Pie girl: Don’t leave your chess game on hiatus much longer, please.
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Sorry, Summer camp for 1 week just got back, cabin INVDADED WITH ANTS..
Long story.
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…A pie-atus!
*is shot*
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Honestly, the only reason I see for pieing posts is if it’s genuinely something that I’d like other people to call attention to. I don’t make posts for pies, though. At least not consciously.
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This is what I was worried about when the system first came about, and I admit that it’s plagued me as well. It’s nothing overt, but there’s definitely a little neurological reward when I see a post of mine covered in pink custard. That can be a powerful behavioral incentive. Despite their awesomeness, I’m not sure anymore that the pies are right for the blog. They make me feel funny.
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Meh, I like pies, but I know what you mean. I get kind of ticked when my posts don’t get pies. But it’s okay… meh.
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I am not really an obsesive pie seeker. I like pies, but I do not need them. I know what you mean, though. In RL I tend to know I think I’m awesome but want recognition that others think so too and am sometimes afraid they don’t.
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I’m in Rosebud’s situation, but in my case, I’m not sure it’s such a bad thing… I trust MBer’s judgment. IRL, my sense of humor is tiny, and I need some tangible indicator of what people find funny. I’m not usually brave enough to joke much in public because my sense of humor is different from theirs, and it sort of helps a little bit, I think; it’s slightly reassuring…
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Never mind, Fiddler’s idea is much better.
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Ugh, I had my window open when I was trying to sleep last night, but it was too noisy, so then I got up to close it, but then it got too hot, so I went down the hall to sleep in my parents’ bed…
… but really, I have no idea of knowing how much sleep I got last night, other than that it wasn’t enough.
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Watching ‘ Nova: Pluto files.”
” Screw you, science! We’re Illinois! ”
” I got a lot of hate mail from pissed off 3rd graders.”
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I’m still breaking in my new contact lenses, and realized today one very annoying thing about them. I can’t focus on my computer screen properly. Or books. If I move a bit closer it’s better, but at the distance I’m accustomed to it’s like I’m always straining my eyes a bit farther. I can still read, but it takes more out of me and gives me a slight headache.
There’s absolutely no problem like this outside, though. Farther distances are still perfectly clear. Maybe even clearer. Are my contacts making me farsighted? I’m going to ask the eye people this week when I have my next appointment…
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Oh dear. I hope your headache goes away.
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So I didn’t get a job as a bookstore clerk.
That’s okay, more time to spend READING, instead of getting books for other people to read.
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Admirable optimism. *cheers*
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Re: Pie addictions:
Yes. I don’t often write posts intended to reap pies, but I do like to see them pile up, and worry a bit if they don’t. On voldynet where one-liners and less in-depth posts are the norm, I do find myself posting things that I know (or think or hope) with get piled with public affirmation. It’s an ego boost, of course; who doesn’t like having people telling them “I like what you say, I like how you look, I like you and I think you’re a worthwhile person”? No matter how superficial “likes” on voldynet or pies here may be, they’re a quick and easy to see affirmation that are extremely appealing. It’s easy to get addicted.
Perhaps part of the 12-step program would be replies to comments telling each other what part stood out to them, instead of anonymous, instant and superficial pies?
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I like how your post articulated my own thoughts and how you offered a potential solution. Having to do it now, I even like needing to justify my pie – it makes me feel like we’re having a conversation here instead of merely exchanging pastries.
Speaking of addictions, one of my favorite teacher quotes from AP Biology this year: “Texting is a gateway drug.” It’s completely true!
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What’s a gateway drug?
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A type of medicine for people who think they’re fence openings.
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All right, that was funny, but the question wasn’t meant that way and you know it.
P_M, it’s a simple drug (or behavior) that leads to, or makes it easier to do, more risky things later on.
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That’s a good explanation. Let me follow up by clarifying that “completely true” means that I agree with my teacher that texting is addicting. It does not mean that my friends and I have actually descended into riskier behavior.
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Ah, thanks.
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As part of my own recovery, I will take this opportunity to tell you that I think that your psychology is spot on and your recovery plan is wonderful. It’s way too easy to just pie and lurk, rather than actually engage in real discussion.
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What about lurking and not pieing? *almost didn’t post but decided to ask*
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*almost didn’t reply but forced myself to anyways* Now that is something I also have trouble with, so I can’t really offer any solutions, except to force yourself to reply. MB is practically the only site I do anything more than lurk. (And play Farmville, on voldynet, but that really doesn’t count)
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I swear, I almost pied and left. Must..say…something… There! I said it!
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And now I must say something too! Uhh…something. Maybe we’d better stop before we end up trapped in an endless loop of replying…
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YES.
“I pied your post because…”
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I think your idea is a good one. With pieing it’s definitely a more impersonal way to say that you agree, or like the post, or whatever. Pieing is a lot easier to do than tell someone what you think about what you’re saying, but comments mean a lot more.
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Yeah, comments are nice because they mean that somebody took the time to think about your post. Pies are wonderful, but because they’re so easy, they’re cheaper to give.
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I pie a lot, but usually if I like the post in some trivial way. For instance, if I read a poem on the Poems & Songs thread I try to give a meaningful comment, but for other comments I find it better to pie than to say “3rd graders lol” or something of the sort.
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Quick and random question: What is this “VoldyNet” that I keep hearing about? I googled it but can’t find any results that seem like it.
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KA: It’s a code name for a popular website that we don’t allow to be mentioned here. In fact, we should zap all references to “VoldyNet” as well, because they’re still talking about it, but we have refrained so far because of our genial good nature.
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It’s short for “The Voldemort Network”, because, like the Harry Potter character, “It Shall Not Be Named”.
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Ohhhh that’s clever. I never understood why people were calling it that.
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VoldyNet’s an euphemism for a popular social networking site that many people think has serious privacy, etc issues. Also they just changed their chat system and it’s awful now.
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Facebook.
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SFTDP Wait, am I allowed to explain it like that?
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Never again.
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My apologies.
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If I say VoldyNet it isn’t always one site I’m refering to, just else-internet in general sometimes. I kind of like the phrase.
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OK, thanks, that’s really hilarious in my opinion.
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I like my comments to be pied. I like getting an obvious response, so I don’t feel like I’m typing to the air. But perhaps it’s discouraging actual conversation and interaction.
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i also feel this way
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Can’t say I’ve noticed any decline in conversation. Moreover, the number of pinked posts seems to be in reasonable balance. Sure we get the occasional flurry but those tend to be directed at specific conversations rather than the indiscriminate pink blizzard you might expect if pie addiction were widespread. Just one GAPA’s observation.
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And don’t forget that when we introduced the pies, a lot of MBers reading posts said it was nice to have a way of responding to one when they didn’t have anything in particular (or enough time to think of anything profound) to add to it.
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I do like pie-ing posts, but I also don’t really like the anonymity of it, so I feel like I have to say something, so that people know it’s me.
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Rebecca. the type of pie addiction I’m suffering from is not pieing other peoples’ posts, it’s constantly wanting other people to pie mine, to the degree that I often can’t think about anything else when posting. So there wouldn’t be any pink blizzards as a symptom.
(Having lots of discussion about something I brought up is as good as lots of pies. Maybe even better. On that note, I would like to mention the fact that my post is now pink kind of misses the point of it. Not that I’m not happy, mind you. Quite clearly I’m still not over the addiction.)
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I feel the same way. I like the pies, which allow me to let the person who posted know that I read their post and thought what they wrote was nice/funny/interesting or that I agree with it without having to reply with a nearly pointless post.
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I am staying up to unholy hours playing the zombie version of Oregon Trail!
Life: I am a fan.
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you have died of dysentery
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You have been mauled by a bear.
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You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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JUST CAME UP WITH THE BEST IF EVER.
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Zombie version?
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Organ Trail.
The best part is naming all my party members after Doctor Who characters. “Donna has been bitten by a zombie.” “Amy has cholera.” “Use medkit on Roes?”
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Odie and I are making Flute 14 birthday presents
because we like to
and when we were five years old we would get out the craft bucket and make stuff
so it’s bringing back memories.
And now instead of random puffballs we can make flower trees
and sock monsters
and clip art collages.
It is much fun.
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So I’m drawing a TRON-styled space shuttle retrospective poster. It’s hard, because you have to draw in enough details to make something recognizable, and then modify it to fit the TRON style.
I’m doing it on two pages in my sketchbook, and I’m going to make the backgrounds fit together so they make one big poster together.
Since the dates of the movies (1983, 2010) match up rather nicely with dates of the first and last missions (1981, 2011), I’m doing the early days in the old glowing-colors-on-gray look from the first movie and the present in the glowing-colors-on-black look from the second.
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GAPAs, if this post crosses lines feel free to zap. I don’t think it does, though – nothing identifiable (except Beethoven piano trio op. 1 no. 2)
So I wrote something in my music and I have no idea what it was. It’s probably not terribly important, but I’m kind of curious now. Any ideas?
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I think it says “I am Pwt!”
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Chipotle?
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Allegro picante!
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It looks like Same Pitch to me… But it’s not unless it’s in a really weird key.
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I figured it out. It’s “smooth” with a 1 fingering connecting to one of the Os.
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My sister and I went to see Circus Smirkus with some friends today…. it was fun, the kids are pretty talented. My sister can do about 95% of everything they can, but then, she’s talented too. XD
I kinda hate my life. I guess I won’t whine about it here, though, no matter how much I want to… I have to write an essay on homosexuality in Shakespeare’s plays before Friday, any thoughts or tips?
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Thoughts: good luck?
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Talk about the rampant gay love affair between Mercutio and Romeo.
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Not if you’re being graded on this essay.
It seems like an odd topic. But in some of the plays, women disguise themselves as young men and find themselves in rather muddled romantic entanglements for a while, although they all work out conventionally in the end. As You Like It and Twelfth Night (in which the sea captain, Antonio, seems to have an unrequited crush on Sebastian) should give you material to work with.
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The thought is to approach the topic from an impartial and scholarly perspective, not from a rampant slash-fangirl perspective. XD (Which is turning out to be a bit difficult for me — where do you draw the line between speculation and crack pairings? :?)
But yes, @ Robert, I’m looking at that a bit… Shakespeare likes his gay Antonios *coughcoughMerchantofVenicecoughcough*, and then there’s Iago about Cassio, possibly Henry V about Scroop, Rosalind and Celia, Leontes and Polixenes… it’s turning out to be a more fertile topic than I’d thought.
Of course, a director can pretty much add subtext between any two characters who share a scene together — jeez, the last production of As You Like It that I saw had Jacques as a 1920s transvestite lesbian somewhat interested in Celia, but I doubt you can argue that’s textual. >.< I suppose I could talk about what different directors do as well; after all, there's the modern-agenda-imposed angle as well as the textual-mentions angle.
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THIS IS AMAZING, SOMEONE HIT RUPERT MURDOCK IN THE FACE WITH A (shaving) CREAM PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Huzzah!
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Brilliant.
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What? Really?
OH YEAH!
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Who’s he?
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They Might Be Giants new album is GREAT!
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I have to memorize a timeline of “major historical events” for summer homework, and there is nothing space-related there at all. 
I mean, we went to SPACE! We landed on the MOON! Is that not as important as, say, Obama’s election?
Also, I accidentally posted twice before. Sorry, I was still figuring out how to post from my phone.
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I know, right? It always makes me so mad when they don’t put space travel on timelines.
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Spoken like a true RAT.
And it always annoys me, too. I posted in the Rants and Complaints thread about how my 10th grade AP World History textbook never mentioned the moon landings and how it got me steamed.
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It would be the last day of class when they finally get the coffee machine working.
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This just in: the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. It’s tiny, but it’s there. So now Pluto has four companions — Charon, Nix, Hydra, and P4 — in addition to its gazillions of frosty cousins in the Kuiper Belt.
Four moons — not bad for such a little guy.
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Wow! Cool!
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Wait, I swear that used to say “not bad for a dwarf planet.” Did you change it? Why? Or is my brain just malfunctioning *headdesk*
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I changed it right after posting the original message. I was afraid that the phrase “dwarf planet” might stir up too many unpleasant memories for those who took Pluto’s reclassification personally. Now it no doubt will.
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Ah, but because you predicted it, it probably won’t because people will see your post and think that the point has already been made. Pyschology is fun 
!
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When the little guy was a planet, he only had one. Really, in that department, things have only improved for him since the reclassification.
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Oh, I see. I used to dislike Pluto’s demotion, but I agree now that I’ve actually read about the reasoning behind it.
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Yess! But are they going to name it something other than P4? Maybe something underworld-related to go with Pluto and Charon … Minos?
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Apparently the smart money is on “Cerberus.”
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Happy Moon Landing Day, everybody! Are we getting our own thread for it like last year?
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GOING TO SEE DH2 TONIGHT
I still have my braces on, though. They were supposed to get taken off yesterday, but apparently I overcorrected with my rubberbands or something…
*headdesk* I am so miffed right now. Rant to follow.
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It got really hot in our kitchen, so I’m currently sitting in front of the computer with a bag of frozen blueberries hanging down my front in a plastic bag (my arms are through the handles) and a bag of frozen strawberries hanging down my back.
It’s working.
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69 (P_M)~ This is excellent. Reading your post made me feel slightly cooler as well. 
So ridiculously hot today. Thank heavens I’m going to the lake with friends tomorrow for the weekend! HUZZAH! Sailing and swimming and cooler weather and eating junk food, and sleeping in a pile of blankets and teenagers on the floor is pretty much the plan.
I got my housing and roommate information for collegeland today! I’m going to be in the largest dorm (130 students), that’s closest to everything in the central campus. It’s also co-ed, which I’m glad for. And given my room number I believe I’m on the 3rd floor, which, if what I’ve read is true, is substance free. I’m cool with not having drunk people stumbling through the halls in the middle of the night, and if I want that I can just go down a floor. Cool beans. it’s also the only air-conditioned dorm on campus. True, the school is in the mountains, but still. I’ve never had air conditioning. This is exciting.
I’m already in touch with my roommate (modern technology is a beautiful thing), and she seems pretty cool. I’m optimistic about our future living situation. She has a mini-fridge and she’s fine with us sharing it. Score!
And that’s pretty much all. I also gathered together all the forms and paperwork and stuff that I still need to fill out for school, and it’s not as terrifying of a heap as I’ve been imagining it to be. Almost, but not quite. I still need to figure out how to write a “please give me an exemption from immunizations?” letter, but that will come. Hopefully. Glarg. And I also need to find out exactly who I send in the various forms to. I guess my admission counselor? LIFE IS CONFUSING, COLLEGE DOUBLY SO AND I’M NOT EVEN THERE YET. THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL.
Also, this probably belongs on the college thread, my apologies.
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“Reading your post made me feel slightly cooler as well.”
How much cooler? Would you say…20% cooler?
((Oh jeez I am such a brony))
Good luck with college. I’m sort of denial about the fact that I’ll be living there in less than a month.
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*Tacks up the following poster to the Muse Academy student activities bulletin board*
SPACE (Students Promoting the Advancement of Cosmic Exploration) is an organization for Muse Academy students interested in space exploration. Our faculty co-sponsors are Robert and Rebecca.
Any student with even a passing interest in space travel can join SPACE and become a RAT (Really Astronomical Tellurian/Terran). It is definitely not a club for only the technically-minded. Artists are welcome, and nobody should ever be afraid to say “I don’t understand that, can you explain it?â€
Space is an informal organization. It is never supposed to be a club that gets in the way of your life, prior commitments, or responsibilities. Meetings will be held at the Hare and Hedgepig on a to-be-determined basis, but attendance is not mandatory.
The motto of SPACE is “MURES NON SIDERE MALO VIVUNTâ€, or “Rats Live On No Evil Starâ€. Our club does not have a logo yet, and anyone who wishes to submit a design should feel free to.
Like the Kokonspiracy and the Illumiminati, RATs are encouraged to do things in the Real World that promote knowledge and support of space exploration among the general public and to share these stories on MuseBlog. But no project is ever mandatory.
SPACE favors peaceful exploration above all else, but we do not engage in debates of human vs. robotic, government vs. private, or one company or country vs. another.
Most importantly, SPACE is supposed to be FUN. If it’s not fun, then we’re doing it wrong.
Our Current Members:
Oxlin
Cat’s Eye
Choklit Orange
Koko’s Apprentice
ZNZ
Bibliophile
Rainbow*Storm
Maths Lover
Mikazuki
Shadowfire
Piggy
Errata
Jadestone
KaiYves
Pie Girl
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I would love to join! I may submit a logo design at some point.
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I suppose I’ll join too. Space is a topic I could stand to learn more about.
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May I join, please?
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SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
I might join.
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Of course you all can. All you have to do is ask to join and you become a member.
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I’d like to join.
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I’m in SPACE!
</PORTAL reference that no one will notice
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I’d like to join!
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Getting ready to watch Triumph of the Will. WISH ME SANITY
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We watched part of that once. For no particular reason other than the fact that it was available for instant streaming on Netflix.
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A few hours ago I went downstairs to make myself a quesadilla. When I got to the kitchen, I discovered that most of the floor was covered in water, and I figured out that it was coming from the freezer. Lovely. So I ran to the basement to shut off the water supply to the fridge, and then came back up and mopped up all the water. I think it’s just a problem with the ice-maker (my dad was fiddling around with it earlier, he must’ve disconnected something). Oh well.
Anyway, the quesadilla. I started making it when my dad called from the next room asking if I knew about the moon landing anniversary. So we chatted about that for a while. Then we chatted about when he was flying planes–he used to do quite a bit of amateur piloting. Then we chatted about when he was in his late teens and early twenties, when he and a friend of his drove around basically the entire country–47 states in five years, taking a two or three week trip every summer. So we chatted about the possibility of me doing something like that, and about the big change that college is going to be, and how I should take opportunities and not focus solely on schoolwork, and all sorts of things. I talked with him (well, it was mostly listening on my end) for longer than I have in years. Maybe ever. I learned a lot about him. Most of the factual stuff I already knew, but I learned a lot about his personality, who he actually is. We’re actually pretty similar, deep down there somewhere. I’ve always known him as a very outgoing guy, really focused on social interaction, helping people, managing people. Apparently he was a lot like me when he was in high school. Not a ton of socialization, not many extracurriculars. I have a lot more respect for him now than I did a few hours ago. I’m actually getting choked up, which for me is exceptional. Do you know the last time I cried? Neither do I.
He’s done a lot of cool stuff in his life. He’s been to most of the national parks in the United States. Name a tourist attraction in the US, he’s probably been there. Niagara Falls, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Alamo, Mt. Rushmore, the Florida Keys, everywhere. He drove across Death Valley in the summertime twice. He watched the fourth space shuttle launch from the press box. He stole a sign from Edwards AFB. He built a car. He crashed a plane. Listening to him talk, I don’t think he’s changed since then as much as I thought he had. He works a white collar job as a manager at a financial corporation. He’s been bugging me for years to get a job. But now I think he wants me to actually live a life worth living, and I never realized that. I never thought I would’ve heard him say that if I ever want to just grab a friend and drive to California, he’d help me find a car that would be reliable. I don’t exactly know why this is affecting me so much, but it feels like my life is different now. And I’m legitimately crying.
The quesadilla was good. Not enough Tabasco, but oh well.
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You have an awesome dad.
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I think that parents do this weird thing when you get ready for college where they suddenly open up about life before you. They stop being just parents and start being other human beings, with their own lives and dreams. At the same time, they get ready for you to be your own human being too.
I haven’t had a great big connective experience, but I’ve felt a little bit of it talking with my parents. It made me moody too.
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This week’s guest judge on So You Think You Can Dance looks horribly familiar.
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I was nowhere near “So You Think You Can Dance.”
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Neil Patrick Harris! He was on Glee! (For an episode.) And Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog! And that other TV show I forget…Oh, right, How I Met Your Mother.
Robert – Why not?
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Touchdown. Welcome home, Atlantis.
It is completed.
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*salutes*
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Guys, for my MuseBlog themed trading card game (here), I need the names of some bloggers who are in Baker House.
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I was sorted into Baker house, though it’s been years since I took the test.
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Test? There’s a test? How do I take it?
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https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1026#comment-8
Uh, people in Baker House? This is all I could up with from a quick control-F:
Zinc
Selenium
Cello-Playing Mathematician (AKA Kyra)
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I’m kind of between Coontz and Baker.
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Then choose, or flip a coin. Quantum superposition doesn’t work at a macroscopic scale.
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Well, this is Muse Academy we’re talking about….
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*identity crisis* It looks like I’m a Coontz/Spector now. I used to be a Lasley!
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I used to be a Lasley, and now I see myself more Coontz-like
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I’m DDD.
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This post makes me feel like such a paleo…
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So I found the test.
First question: D
Second: I think I’m a mix of all except B.
Third: C. Or B. I think writing a detailed description would probably have to involve observation, so… both? Though I definitely wouldn’t take it apart. Unless it was a puzzle.
So I think this makes me a Lasley? Maybe? IDK. Lasley sounds good (and from reading stuff being said about it here it sounds most like me), so I think I’ll throw my lot in with you guys, if that’s okay?
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Hey! Are you still planning on doing IF?
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Oh, yes! Sorry; I didn’t see that you’d posted. *hurries over to IF thread*
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I got D-A-B. So … Coontz? Odd, I never thought of myself as particularly smart or science-y …
I agree, the test should be longer for more accurate results, but expanding it would be kind of disrespectful to ebeth …
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How so?
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just saw this! go ahead and expand, i made that in like five minutes and it is really short because i couldn’t think of questions. EXPAND AWAY
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GAPAs, if you took the test, would you be sorted into the ‘correct’ house?
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Not consistently.
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76 (Rosebud2)~ I’m a proud Baker House student. What are you using the names for?
LAKE TODAYYY WITH THE COOOOOOOL KIDS! Well, tonight. We’re leaving here around 5-ish and arriving around 8-ish. BUT STILL. PARTYIN’ PARTYIN’ YEAH!
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Fun, fun, fun, looking forward to the weekend!
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NOOOOOO
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YYYYYEEESSSSSSS…….
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NOOOOOOOO
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I think I got heatstroke today. Turns out it’s not a good idea to go hiking in the sun in 95 degree weather.
Moon landing… You know, I think it’s pretty darn amazing that we made it to the moon and back. Before we had color TV or cell phones or the Internet, we had enough resolve to put years of research and work and money into getting two men to step foot on what is practically another world.
My SPACE logo is nearly done. I’ll send in a picture later.
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Well put.
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WHO WANTS TO BE IN MUSE ACADEMY THE WEBCOMIC?!?!?!?
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ME!
Even though I never really participated in the threads…
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I do!
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I DO!!!!!
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Well…
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ME ME ME ME ME PICK ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Memememememe!
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Me!!!
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ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Working on individual portraits.
Robert, you almost had a mustache. FYI.
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Not a Dumbledore beard?
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I don’t really think there’s anyone who’d say no to this. (Count me too)
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Me!
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Uh me?
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Me, please!
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Yes please.
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Can I please be in the webcomic?
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Unopposed.
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Yes!
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ME!
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Me?
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MEMEMEMEME!!! Though I was only in it for one season/story!
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I DO!!! I would have replied immediately, but I was at camp. 
I’m in Coontz House, although I’m sure it’s too late for me to be used.
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Me!!!!!
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Random thought-
Where is the first ever post on MB? Who posted it?
I remember something about everyone going back there to pie it, but I either did not participate or forgot the location.
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Grant O. And I’m pretty sure it’s ?p=1. That’d make sense, anyway.
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Here.
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aw, everyone’s gone back and pie’d it!
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It’s already got thirty pies. Appropriate for such a historic moment.
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And now it’s at 42!
It’s not going to stay there, but it would be cool if it did.
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I’m second!
…yeah.
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I just took the MA sorting test, and I appear to be in Basley. Halp.
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That test should be longer. I’m in Spector/Coontz.
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I tried to take the test but couldn’t decide what answers to pick.
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Coontz for me.
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Choose, or flip a coin. I’d assign houses by a random-number generator, if it were up to me. You’re all so multifaceted that it’s almost arbitrary anyway.
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I’m still in Spector, which is good because I’m on record with Alice and IBCF singing the house song. (Oh god, that was awful.) I think I’d be in Coontz if I wasn’t in Spector.
Also: ICE CREAM TRUCK DRIVING PAST! That sound makes me happy and wistful at the same time.
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Wait, ice cream trucks still exist? I thought they were extinct.
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They are most definitely not extinct. There is one in my neighborhood that wakes me up about once a week.
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Rupert Grint has one!
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I’d buy ice cream from him.
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There’s one I hear in my neighborhood a lot, although I’ve never seen it.
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That makes sense. Well, which house do you think you belong in? I’m Coontz/Spector, but mostly Coontz–Coontzor rather than Cooectzor or Cectzor. I certainly think I’d be in Coontz, as most of the qualities ascribed to it fit me, except for the house song, which I really love but have to admit I am not brave enough to sing aloud, even to myself when I’m alone. I’m much more serious and formal in real life than online, I’m afraid. And then there’s the fact that I really don’t like singing things that aren’t true, even when it’s really trivial like “I’ve seen so-and-so…” Still, the only real reason I’m part Spector is that I am Pwtlike and would probably choose an answer choice with “animals” in it when the question is about what appeals to you even if I hated writing–which, in reality, I like but am not passionate about. But I think Pwt would be a Lasley, not a Spector, so it just goes to show…
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Bibliophile: Of course, I would be honored to have you in my namesake house. But I’m almost certain that you’re a Spector. Thinking it over, I pick up definite Rosannish vibes.
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I passed driver’s ed, if anyone was wondering. The written test was 100 questions. I finished in 14 minutes, perfect score. No mistakes on the driving test either, so as soon as I get my waiver in the mail I’ll go get my license. And I’m only 17!
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Congratulations!
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“Only” 17? …I thought you could get a license at 16…
But congrats!
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((Check for sarcasm.))
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Sarcasm was not implied; my bad. Also, age varies per state, so it was an understandable mistake… (just in my defense 
)
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I missed it, too. But congratulations!
I’ve accidentally let my permit expire, so I have to get it renewed sometime soon. *sigh*
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That reminds me of a T-shirt I saw on the Metro last week:
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I love that shirt.
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Congratsulations! *high-fives* I don’t think my test was nearly that long, probably only fifty…
Have fun! Don’t crash into anything that can’t take it!
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Who knows? Maybe I will finally get my license this summer too, and I’ll be only 18!
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@Webcomic
Any requests on appearance?
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I think I’d prefer if I looked at least kind of like I do irl; reddish-brown/auburn hair, hazel eyes, glasses, freckles, short.
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Same as I do; see the Let’s Get Physiognomical thread.
Also, don’t forget our chess game!
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Well, IRL I have short brown hair and I wear glasses. But I’m not at all picky.
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I don’t mind looking like my avatar. I’ve always liked Sirrus.
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I have brown hair and glasses. I’d like to be wearing a button down shirt and a vest if that works.
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A vest? It must be cooler where you are than it is where I am.
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Heh. Not wearing it now, but I wear similar outfits quite often in the winter/spring/fall. Now I’m in my pajamas, which consist of a t-shirt and shorts.
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The vest could’ve been made of ice.
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Or it could have ice packs in the pockets, like the ones they give you to wear at Space Camp under the “space suits”.
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Um… er… humanoid. Not a vegetable.
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Can I be a vegatabloid?
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Short brown hair, pale skin, wears glasses. Short.
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I don’t care, as long as I’m in it! (I’m super excited, can you tell?)
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Don’t forget my tardigrade brooches. Also, please have me wear a green hat with snakes coming out of it like Medusa’s hair except a shade of green that’s just not hairlike, because I would have bought one if my parents had let me. And have my hair be really messy because I really don’t think I’d brush it often if my mom didn’t make me. And a robe! I wish I could wear a robe in public! Or maybe sometimes old-fashioned skirts and gowns. And I really do wear glasses in Ravenclaw colors, so I want them shown.
By the way, if I get an accessory, I wear it everywhere because I don’t see why not and don’t want to bother learning when I should wear them and when it’s unnecessary. Keep that in mind. None of this is necessary except the tardigrade brooches, though–although I do really want the glasses and to always have a book in my hand (Did I mention that? Because I almost always do). And I understand if I can’t be in the webcomic, I just really want to.
If you want, you can have me covered in tardigrade decor rather than just the meager 4 brooches I could find. IRL, I’m not enough of a clothing person to have made my own tardigrade headdresses and things, but it is something I could see myself doing…
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YOU CAN DON’T WORRY I JUST TAKE A WHILE TO WORK!
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I’m tall and skinny, with brown hair a bit longer than shoulder length. I’d want to wear artsy, flowy sort of clothes.
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Pie Girl–Uh, I don’t really care what I look like if I’m in it? I do have brown hair though.
It is so insanely hot here. I swear, I will never move to the South.
I went to the beach and that was good, but now I’m hot again…sigh…
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My skimming eye read that as:
“Uh, I don’t really care what I look like…
I’m so insanely hot here.”
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Today I watched Doctor Who and learned all the words to Caramelldansen. Productive day, in my opinion.
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Just checking to make sure that no one in New York or New Jersey or Washington, D.C. died of heatstroke yesterday…
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I’m still here.
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I’m still here and alive, though they canceled all the sports yesterday.
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I’m still here.
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I’m here, and was in an air conditioned house almost alllll day… I didn’t want to step outside.
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I just heard my 8-year-old sister singing the following song:
Osama bin Laden is a great guy
He crashes into things and he does not die
She didn’t understand why I was telling her to stop.
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I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE WHAT THE TUNE TO THIS WOULD BE
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It was rather generic, melody-wise.
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Where could she have possibly gotten that song?…
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She made it up on the spot after I happened to mention Osama bin Laden in a sentence. I have a strange sister…
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You DO have a strange sister…
…well, at least she didn’t learn it somewhere. *relief*
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Bad news is prominent. It must be a conspiracy, because this is pretty bad and unlikely:
Initial report: One train in China was struck by lightning and stopped. Another train from the same direction collided with it. Then, both derailed and two carriages fell off the bridge they were on.
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Ouch…
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Skrillex.
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I Have An Important Announcement.
When I Am Being Very Silly I Will Type Very Precisely.
When I am not, I will be a normal person.
This Is To Counter Misinterpretations Of Silliness As Seriousness.
Thank You For Your Attention.
We Will Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming.
*Ahem* Anyway, I may stop at any time. It’s one of those things where this might be the only post I make like this, or I’ll become famous for it. I’m not really sure why, I just have sudden bouts of Silliness and I feel I need to be prepared for it. HERPDERP
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People siriusly make too many Harry Potter jokes. It’s getting ridikkulus.
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I know, right? It’s such a dumble-bore.
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I would take umbridge at that comment, but I’ll just dismiss it as you being mad and moody.
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Percynally, I try to make one Harry Potter joke per day.
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Well, I do lovegood Harry Potter jokes, but many of them are very much lestrange.
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I was just about to post that, ZNZ!
Oh well, great minds think alike!
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Great minds do think alike. And so do ours.
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If you all keep posting these, I think I may have to ron away. Some of the puns are pretty ginnyus, but arthur any that won’t make me facepalm? Fredculational purposes, though, I bill try to mollyfy myself and percyeve* the good in them. As long as they don’t take up the whole pageorgeust** get unbearably awful, I’ll charlieving*** a few puns myself! Well, I rose to the occasion. Hugo**** try it yourself!
(*perceive)
(**page or just)
(***try leaving)
(****You go)
(I’m not doing any extended family members or Weasleys by marriage. Get over it.)
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I’m trying not to be crabbey, and I certainly don’t want to snape at you, but these puns are making me billius.
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The moment you stop this, it’s going to feel like a pun-ishment not to be able to read any more jokes.
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Yes, I’ll regoyle when none of us tonks in Harry Potter puns anymore.
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Hey guys! I’m back from camp! It was really awesome, and I found lots of cool shells and seaglass.
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Jadestone- Hiii everybody! We are ALL TOGETHER having a MASSIVE KOKONVENTION OF AWESOME. It is great. We’re in Maryland and all hanging out in a cabin that Fiddler’s family owns. We’ve been swimming and sailing and are currently talking to Robert via skype in an internet café! It is flamablamablous.
Purple Panda- It’s so great! We went night swimming (and day swimming) in the lake, which was super fantastic, because it’s the PERFECT TEMPERATURE! And we also went sailing. There wasn’t very much wind, though, so we ended up getting stranded (well, just sailing /very slowly/) in the middle of the lake for three hours. But we sang sea shanties and had a wonderful time, too. Yay!
Dodecahedron- Hi all! We are having the most fun here, as you can tell. Also I brought my stuffed Giant Space Squid, which I named Jadestone after her real life counterpart. She is cuddly.
ebeth – heyyy i married everyone here except grant it’s been fantastic also i swam off exploring and apparently everyone thought i’d died also we are going to have a campfire and it will be the best you should all be super jealous
penguini- hey, long time no post… we found dinosaurs and got lost and played magic and whatnot. I’m having a lot of fun! *babble* We’re abusing Grant a lot…
Grant- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
No, seriously, I’m having a wonderful time here. Everyone here is exceptionally nice, even if I am the object of merciless teasing. Lovely people!
ebeth again – it is FLAMABLAMABLOUS
Shadowkat – Wow…this trip has really made me realize how desperately I need to post here more often. These people are SOOO cool!!! Or, as we Musers say (or maybe that’s just me), they are superfantablamablous. We are rockin’ the Deep Creek like we’re more legit than the Universe, the answer to which (and Life and Everything) is 42, which is accidentally the number of items we bought on our shopping trip to Walmart, further proving that this Kokonvention, having been in the works for over three years, was totally supposed to happen due to DESTINY!!!!!!
Fiddler – LIFE, SHE IS GOOD. SO IS CAPSLOCK.
Musers are the best people ever, and I would go all sentimental about it, but we haven’t the time before we need to leave the coffee shop with the internets. Suffice it to say that this is wonderful and I love everyone. LIFE, SHE IS GOOD.
Taiwan Hippo Fan – You all are fabulous, this trip is fabulous, and I wish you all were here. I don’t know what everyone has said but I can’t say much since our internet coffeeshop is closing yesterday.
Purple Panda again- I LOVE EVERYONE WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!
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I am filled with envy right now. Can I teleport over there and join you?
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You must send pictures. *envious*
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It was wonderful to talk with them all. Most of them I recognized because I had met them before or seen them in pictures, but others were a bit surprising. Penguini, for example: no beak, no stubby wings, nothing.
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AFHJKSDGHJK I JUST TALKED TO YALL ON THE PHONE BUT AHHHH
HELLOOOO
MY FACE HURTS FROM SMILING OMG :DDDDDDDDDD *SQUEE*
HAVE SO MUCH FUN! OMG
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They called me, too! I’m on the road without Skype available, but it was great fun to talk to everybody. I’m glad that they didn’t care that I probably didn’t make any sense.
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*envyenvyenvy*
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*ENVY*
Envy for all of you, for Robert, for Rebecca, axa, AH YOU GUYS ARE SO AWESOME
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THEY CALLED ME TOO AND I SAID I WOULD POST THIS IN ALL CAPS. WE SANG SEA SHANTIES AND TALKED AND IT WAS AWESOME. It was amazing how much I grinned when I was talking. There was also something else I said I’d mention in this post but now I forgot. Probably because of all the awesome.
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ALSO HIIIIIII
ALSO <3<3<3<3<3
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ENVYENVYENVYENVY
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*apparates to cabin in Maryland to join Kokonvention*
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AGH I AM COMING THERE OR DYING.
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Dinosaurs? Playing magic? Night swimming?
Jealous.
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I have just returned from my two weeks in Alaska! ‘Twas incredibly awesome and I’ll send in some pictures before I leave again because it was crazy beautiful there. As in properly summery, and this is Alaska.
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Watched the Happy Potter movie today. Maybe I should read the books so I can understand what was going on?
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Happy Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he wore a smile more than any other type of facial expression. For another, he really loved everything, but was forced to keep this quiet, because people thought he was strange. And he also happened to be extremely happy.
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NOT helpful.
( SO putting this in the webcomic though. )
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Silly kindle. Sorry, I meant Harry. 
*is ashamed* *hides under bed*
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YES. NOW.
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UM YEAH
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is this blog for homosexuals?
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W-what? That’s a really bizarre question to ask. This blog isn’t for anyone specific. Is there a problem?
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Um…as much as the Internet or the world is for homosexuals. A significant amount of us are, but I’m pretty sure the majority of us are straight (i.e., me). Why do you ask?
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Yes. And for everyone else as well.
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What?
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…what???
MuseBlog is for anyone. Why do you ask?…
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It’s for people. Why do you ask?
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Yes. Just like the whole world, there are only homosexuals on this blog. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on it.
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I believe it’s for everyone.
I am not homosexual and I do not plan on leaving ANYTIME SOON.
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Don’t ask me. I’m over here being all taciturn and stoic.
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This blog is for anyone
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…who made s’mores over twilight.
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What? So if you’ve never touched Twilight, you can’t post?! Because if Twilight is bad, it must be good to stay away from it and stay pure…
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My friend left in at my house. I moved it with a stick.
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Yes, but I’d never burn a book without reading it first. Twilight doesn’t sound like the sort of thing I’d like, so I don’t want to read it, but I don’t want to make s’mores without reading it first. So I’ll just do neither and not risk anything.
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There is an unusually high concentration of Twilight-dislikers on the ‘blog. This does not mean that anybody who likes it should feel unwelcome.
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Ashamed, maybe, but not unwelcome. 
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Actually, we’re all members of the same polygamous marriage. How could you not notice?
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Cake, I knew getting drunk in a Unitarian chapel was a bad idea.
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This is a very interesting thing to read in the RC bar.
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It was like The Hangover, but with more slurred wedding vows made up on the spot from Tolkien and Monty Python quotes. I’m pretty sure the FBI has us classified as a cult now, and I’m not legally permitted to cross the Nevada border. In or out.
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That shouldn’t be a problem, since you don’t live in Nevada.
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Yeah, but I can’t oversee the Carson City chapter of the Wung Appreciation Society. And we haven’t gotten any dispatches from them in a month, I think they might have gone rogue.
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You’ll have to get an inside man.
(For some reason, I kept typing “insane man.”)
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Who says it’s not both? Come to think of it, that’s probably the more likely option.
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There’s a man I know in Ramsey Station who’s living with at least five wungs, which means he must be doing something right — though I’m at a loss to say what it is. I’ll try to get in contact with him, but it might be tricky because he refuses to open any mail with a return address from California. He’s convinced that the West Coast is inhabited by lizard men.
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Email? The phone? Fax? Telegram?
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How did he find out?!?! *glances from side to side suspiciously*
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Bibliophile — I’m pretty sure telegrams have been phased out, he doesn’t own a computer or fax machine, and he broke the last cell phone he owned by dunking it in a bucket of bleach to “decontaminate” it. He’s what we call an outlier: he only got recruited through wung-to-wung contact.
I finally did get in touch with Jamie Lyons in the Tucson chapter and got her to send the letter. He’ll probably receive it in a couple days — less if the wungs deliver it.
Cat’s Eye — Shh! We don’t want everybody to know!
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Can you fly over Nevada en route to somewhere else?
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Yeah, as long as the plane is already at cruising altitude. They don’t want me surviving in the event of a crash.
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I vow that we are not the messiahs, we are simply very naughty boys and girls and everything else in between!
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That’s what I tried to tell Captain Gutierrez, but as I was what the Victorians called “indisposed” I don’t think I managed to pronounce more than one word in three. The State Police were not amused.
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Don’t worry. It happens to everyone- getting married to a bunch of people simultaneously whose names you can’t even remember. We call it Unitarian goggles.
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…
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Well, I think this is the first time that I’ve heard someone call MuseBlog gay.
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But we are! We’re quite jolly! And some of us are queer too!
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I’m gay, queer, and homosexual! Beat that!
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Yes, it’s for anyone and everyone.
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I wonder what BitterSound’s going to think when he comes back and sees 15+ replies to his post.
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I get the feeling en has fled our openness.
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To (reluctantly) borrow a line from the Brony fandom, “We will love and tolerate the [snip] out of you.”
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Here’s a screenshot from the Skype session mentioned in comment 93. I’m sorry about winding up in the middle of Midnight Fiddler’s face. That’s where the software put me.
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MORE ENVY
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I WONDER WHICH ONE IS GRANT.
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He’s the easy one to spot. As for the others, the bottom row with cut-off faces contains Shadowkat, Penguini, Midnight Fiddler, me in an inset, and Jadestone; the upper jumble, Ebeth, Grant, Taiwan Hippo Fan, Dodecahedron, and Purple Panda.
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I MUST SKYPE YOU
PLEASE EMAIL ME YOUR USERNAME
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Robert, why you on my face?! 0.o (protip: next time you want to move your little icon thingy click and drag it to wherever you want to go, like the open spot above Grant and Eboo or something.)
And also, poor Grant, locked in a cabin with 8 girls. BUT HE LIVED TO TELL THE TALE!
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You mean I could have dragged myself somewhere else?
Here’s a different screenshot with your features intact:
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Robert looks like somebody, but I can’t think of who. It was going through my head when I met him, and now it’s popped up again. WHO, DANGIT?
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*hopes it’s Alan Rickman*
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I think you’re more of a young Harrison Ford meets Bing Crosby. Ish.
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Very ish, I’d say. I’m as old as Harrison Ford was in 1997.
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I was thinking a slightly older Wesley Crusher, minus the unfortunate sweater.
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No, that’s Grant O.
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No no, Grant looks like my cousin.
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Actually to me Grant with glasses on looks remarkably like Steven Colbert.
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Yeah, but remember his Wash attire?
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Pan- I can’t reply to you directly, but SO TRUE. (he was wearing contacts though, wasn’t he)
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…I’m sure that was meant in a good way… (“Wesley Crusher has become a bit of an insult in my family)
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That guy who did the “Increasing the Awesome, Decreasing the Suck” video for NASA, maybe?
*Looks up*
Hank Green, then?
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Is who I think Robert looks like, I mean.
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Yes! He does! With Very Similar Sentiments!
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Fern, your dreads are to die for.
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ENVY
RAGE
MORE ENVY
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FOREVER SIDEWAYS
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JUST JADE HERE
THREE times man I am really unobservant, had to have Shadowkat point it out, SORRY FOR ALL THESE POINTLESS THINGS GUYS
Anyway yeah I seemed to fit best on the screen if I held my head sideways so I wouldn’t block anyone’s face. Also I just seem to lay/sit/stand in weird positions normally.
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LOOK AT ALL OF YOU, YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!
Fiddler, I’m digging the dreads! To be quite honest, I normally don’t like them at all, but they’re awesome on you! Beautiful! Gorgeous! I love them!
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I’m back! Two weeks of posts to catch up on now. I ended up having a great time at Duke, by the way. Awesome people, awesome class. Longer post later (and I WILL actually make myself write one)!
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Yay! Welcome back! Good to hear that you had fun!
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I hop you like them. WHY ARE PEOPLE SO CAKING HARD TO DRAW?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?
/startworkingagian
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Difficulty with drawing the human form? I AGREE
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*encouragement* You can do it, though I agree that people are really hard. Just keep trying.
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Kai turned out preety good but I messed oxlin up.
I’M SO SORRY OXLIN! YOU WERE DRAWN AT 11:30 PM BY A SLEEPY 10 YEAR OLD! IN THE DARK!
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That’s impressive to even try. In the dark? At 11:30? *applause*
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Awesome, I’m not the only one who was up late drawing. Though it ended up being a bit later than 11:30…
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Heh, I’m sure you won’t only draw me once if we’re reoccuring characters in this webcomic.
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I leave in less than three hours for the best summer camp in the world! (Future MuseBlog Mostly Harmless summer camp notwithstanding. Actually, if there was a MuseBlog summer camp, it would probably turn out a lot like this one.) Last year was amazing and it was only my first year. People tell me that it gets better after your first because you’re not completely overwhelmed by its awesomeness.
In past years, the camp has hosted a medieval costume ball on Wednesday night. This year, we’re having a Time Traveler’s Ball instead. I’m going as Amelia Earhart, and I’m hugely excited. Today’s her birthday, by the way.
Expect a monsterpost in about a week’s time! I won’t have any access to technology until then.
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Bon voyage, Meow! I guess we don’t have to tell you to have fun; that seems guaranteed.
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Sounds like great excitement! I’m sure you won’t forget to tell us about it later.
Happy birthday Amelia Earhart!
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A Time Traveler’s Ball sounds awesome. Could we have one at MA?
And yes, Happy Birthday Amelia Earhart!
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I think that’s a splendid idea.
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Didn’t we already have one in a few months?
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That long? Wow, it feels like yesterday.
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hmm so something I’ve been thinking about today sort of out of nowhere is how I don’t really know much about the companies i generally buy my clothes from. i started looking into it and just…wow. so many places have really really terrible policies or no real policies at all with regards to worker treatment, and there is an unbelievable amount of plagiarism going on (forever21 went to court 150 times in 5 years for it! are you kidding me!)
so i’m currently eliminating a lot of places from my uh lists of places to shop. forever21, urban outfitters, anthropolige…
Gap is apparently pretty darn ethical (though i’m hoping it’s not one of those ‘relative to other companies’ kind of ethical…more research required) so i’m glad i don’t have to take them off my list, but gosh!
why don’t we learn about this stuff? i think it’s ridiculous that we spend all this time on the study of historically unethical practices in school but there is NOTHING about how such practices continue today! (note: not saying i don’t think learning about factories/slaughterhouses as sites of injustice is unimportant, i mean we need to KEEP learning about that even when it is not taking place in america [and i know it still is] if we’re going to keep consuming these products)
i mean i feel like there are some places where it’s pretty well known fishy stuff is going on (looking at you, walmart) but…ugh
anyway, this has been a post
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You’re amazing. Thank you for thinking about things like this, and thank you for sharing.
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Axa! Yes!
When I was in elementary school, we learned about sweatshops at my dad’s Take Your Kid To Work day, and I researched this like crazy. My solution was just to buy clothes at thrift stores, but even so, that doesn’t do much to help these issues worldwide. Last year, I did an internship with the National Labor Committee (currently changing their name to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights), which does tons of work improving labor conditions all around the world. They to lots of research on one specific sweatshop (often, they’re working on multiple cases at a time)–finding what companies have clothing/electronics/etc. produced there, what the working conditions are, and what laws are being blatantly violated. Then, they publish all of the information–this usually gets picked up by the press, which puts pressure on the companies to fix up their practices. It’s a long, hard struggle, especially because it’s so difficult to pin specific factories and violations on specific companies. They work really hard to make this untrackable (one of my jobs was to look through shipping records and try to find errors or follow series of shipments from factories to store outlets, which gave the NLC places to begin looking for cases). Also, the companies often work really hard to prevent the workers from making their troubles known. On one of my first days working with the NLC, their website was hacked by what the believe was a group in Jordan paid to destroy the work being done by the organization. Serious business! (When the NLC was in New York, the director was stabbed in the chest when he was sleeping in his apartment, and his partner’s building in El Salvador, where she was doing research for a case, was bombed (both of these events happened on the same day)).
Anyway, I could talk about labor rights for days, but I’ll stop here for now. You should check out the National Labor Committee/Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, though, because they’re awesome! And they’re really making a difference.
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Could we possibly have a classic Disney movies thread? (Sorry if it’s too specific or anything, it was just an idea …)
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So this is just a quick post to say that Pseudonym and I are heading off to camp for a month. Bye, MuseBlog! We’ll miss you!
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Have fun! MuseBlog will miss you, too!
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See you! We will await monster post when you guys return, yes?
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I recently learned that I have officially finished the IB Programme with a score of 30. I almost got a 5 on every test; I got a 4 on the HL Math and another point from TOK/EE. So according to IB, I’m a bit above average in everything and have no strengths. Only a weakness in math. I already knew that I’m horrible at taking math tests, so that’s fine. I got a lower score in Chemistry than I was expecting probably because I neglected to study thoroughly for paper 3. Stupid.
In other news I love playing board games! TTFN!
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Congratulations! How did your score break down, did you take 4 or 3 HLs, 5 or 6 classes per year, that sort of thing?
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I did 4 HLs: History, English, Chemistry, and Math. My school isn’t a full IB school so we have a limited selection of classes; History and English are HL-only. I would have gladly taken SL English as HL was a pain.
I took Psychology SL last year so this year I had five tests. It was so much fun missing school to take them! The HL Math group (five of us) ate out every day since we were pretty much all taking the same tests.
Are you in IB?
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I’m starting this year, yes. I’ll have English, Math, French, and History HL with Environmental Systems & Societies SL. Senior year I’ll have Art SL.
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Nice! It sounds like you go to a school with full IB support! I think schools like mine are kind of an anomaly now.
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101 (Axa)~ It’s definitely a good thing to think about, and I completely agree that our education should be “this is what it was, this is what we still have to do”. It seems like a lot of times people look at history and forget that we’re still part of the process. Yes, we’ve made progress, but we have a lot more yet to do.
I don’t even know what the last brand-new clothing item I bought was. Wait, actually I do. I went underwear shopping the other day. Before that though….I think it very well might have been my vest which I got last summer. And before that I have no idea at all. The vast majority of my clothing is second-hand. I don’t know that it really cancels out the unethical behavior of the companies if you aquire it one or two people after the store, but it’s more environmentally friendly.
It’d be hard to effectively boycott clothing companies though. Hmm.
I feel like I should write about the kokonvention, and I will, but I need sleep desperately and I’m melting. I’m boiling so much it is so hot WHAT IS THIS.
Also dreadlocks crisis management. The water melted my dreads. GAH NOT GOOD. So many loose hairs, so much undreaded awfulness at the tips they’re literally unraveling. *sob* To add insult to injury the hair that’s coming out is all silky soft-y smooth. My hair is the worst for this sort of thing. *all the sobs*
Kokonvention love keysmash tomorrow.
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FRIENDSVILLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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what the [Persnickety-GAPA snippetysnap]
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well now the only part of my post that actually makes any sense is gone, may as well have zapped the whole thing and spared everyone the confusion :-/
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Technically, it should’ve said “eff” at the end, there. :b
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Er… If the GAPAs snip something, it’s not generally a good idea to say exactly what they snipped. It sort of defeats the point…
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I’m with my aunt now. So much fun. We went hiking up to Loch Leven Lakes, which I swear is the most beautiful place I’ve been. New Zealand excluded, of course. There’s still snow in the Sierras!
We made blackberry jam today, which was terrific. Who knew pulverizing berries could be so much fun?!
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I never understood why Coach bags are so popular. Any explanation?
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They’re expensive enough to be considered exclusive and “designer,” but they are affordable enough that middle-class people can buy them. Most of the old classic styles are actually quite elegant and could be used for a variety of occasions, but a lot of the newer styles (especially the fabric ones) are hideously tacky. Thank goodness they’re moving back to leather for this year, as the last two years’ collections have mostly been atrocious. /lecture Anyway, in short, a Coach bag says, “Hey I have some money and style!” while being of a high enough quality that they’re a good investment.
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So a lot of random people come to the U.S. from another country, buy like half a dozen Coach bags, and then go back to wherever they came from?
^ people my family knows…
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perception
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Actually, misperception. Perception is the act of sensing.
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i mean people buy status symbols so they can be perceived as affluent, cultured, etc
they pay for the perception that they are these things
i’m not saying it works that way but that’s why name brands have power, because they are perceived as meaning more than they do
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Right, sorry, I was just in a psychology course where we redefined perception.
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You must have redefined ‘redefinition’ as well.
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Working on a story right now. Just worked a traditional song into it. Am quite happy about this.
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can we just talk about how shadowkat made a reference to the firefly episode jaynestown and suddenly the entire car started singing Hero of Canton? or how jade and grant and i sang through pretty much all of doctor horrible? or how anna had her ukelele and we were having ukelele singalongs in the car?
BECAUSE THOSE CAR RIDES WERE AWESOME
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I wanna road trip with you guys! Road trip time!
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Here are a few quotes/highlights:
Useless Superpower: The ability to summon one indestructible goat for one hour, a maximum of five times a day.
‎”…And every morning, it smelled like chocolate. And every morning, we did not have chocolate chip pancakes.”
‎”You can just take your male-dominated society of goats and leave! Go summon them somewhere else!”
Me: “I just predicted your action, after you did it.”
Grant: “That’s called remembering.”
And this is just some of the awesomeness.
P.S. How do I put spaces in-between the lines?
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Oh. And now it worked. Feel free to edit, lol.
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For some reason the preview button doesn’t show them…
I want to come!
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Where can you summon the goat? Because if you can summon it inside someone else…
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What is your favorite sea shanty?
Mine is Mingulay Boat Song.
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Fiddler’s Green.
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No she’s not, she’s–oh, nevermind.
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Ohhh love that song.
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“What Do You Do With An Errant Muser”
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♪♫ Ear-lye in the morning!
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I just found a document describing in detail the pogrom that forced my Jewish ancestors out of their village. It goes on for 25 pages and it is seriously the most fascinating thing I’ve ever read! Apparently some Jews in my village, Proskurov, tried to have a Communist revolution and take over the local government, but they failed because they were pretty young and inexperienced. So an anti-Semitic official used this as an excuse to order the Cossacks to kill every Jew in the village (the example I always hear is my great-great-grandfather the rabbi, who was shot in the chest as he was walking home from schul), from the old men to the nursing babies.
Actually, my great-grandfather’s sister and her child were both killed, and her husband in America had been saving up to buy them tickets. So since they were dead, he gave the tickets to my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, and their daughter, instead. Isn’t that cool?
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Jeepers…
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Hey, can we have a “Muse Academy Class Discussion” thread? P*ease?
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Shadowkat: It sounds promising. Can you give more details about what you have in mind?
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Absolutely! On the car ride back from Pittsburgh, Grant, Jade, and I were discussing the fact that, although we’re all in college, none of us go to the same college. However, if we had a “MACD” thread, we could talk about our classes, and various goings-on at our respective schools, and pretend that we were all at the same place! =)
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I’m still not sure what it will be like, but why not? You could also talk about courses that you wish you could take or even teach. Request granted, as soon as I can boot up my desktop PC (which is being uncooperative today).
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Huzzah! Speaking of which, what would you say is Coontz House’s “Idea”? For example, Spector House’s is Open-Mindedness. =)
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Is that Spector House’s leitmotif? It seems to me that all of Muse Academy believes in being open-minded, though not so much so that your brains fall out.
There are many ways to categorize the houses. It you were feeling traditional, you could say that Lasley is for Arts, Baker for Humanities, Spector for Life Sciences, and Coontz for Physical Sciences — but that’s boringly academic and doesn’t come close to doing them justice. Or you could say, equally inaccurately, that Baker represents the past tense, Coontz the present, Spector the future, and Lasley the subjunctive. Or that Coontz is quiet, Baker noisy, Lasley cluttered, and Spector cozy. Basically, almost anything you say about them is likely to be true.
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Well, fine. :b Paul said he was attempting to think of a “composite word for ‘having fun and knowing stuff'” for his. Eh?
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Oh all right. If Spector is “open-mindedness” and Baker is “having fun and knowing stuff” (and Lasley, I suppose, must be something like “creativity”), then Coontz is “deliquescence.”
No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. Correction: Coontz is “serendipity.”
Come to think of it, maybe now I can finally write can official House Song to replace the provisional one we’ve been singing (the Uruk-hai song that upsets Bibliophile). It will be called “Serendipity” and sung to the tune of “Serenity,” the Firefly theme. Lyrics coming soon…
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I APPROVE OF THIS SO MUCH
ALSO WHAT HAPPENED TO MY GOING TO BED EARLY BECAUSE 4 HOURS OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT OOPS
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I thought about “creativity” but decided it wasn’t…creative enough. “Serendipity” crossed my mind as well, but it suits Coontz. Hm. Discovery? Ingenuity? Invention? Exuberance? Zest?
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Actually, I was about to say that I’m leaning back towards “deliquescence,” inspired by the range of definitions the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th edition) gives for “deliquesce”:
1.
a. To melt away.
b. To disappear as if by melting.
2. Chemistry To dissolve and become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.
3. Botany
a. To branch out into numerous subdivisions that lack a main axis, as the stem of an elm.
b. To become fluid or soft on maturing, as certain fungi.
Isn’t number 3 great? “To branch out into numerous subdivisions that lack a main axis” — just like the Kokonspiracy! “To become fluid or soft on maturing” — instead of hard and crusty and knotted, like so many people.
So, on further consideration, I’d be happy to keep “deliquescence” and give Lasley House “serendipity” (and the half-written song that goes with it), if you like.
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Of course, you might want to see that song first.
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I was looking for a word to convey that sizzle you get when you think “what happens if I do THIS?” and then you see that THIS accomplishes something much more wonderful than you could have dreamed possible…so it’s kind of related to serendipity, though more toward the end of nurturing conditions that encourage serendipity to happen in the first place and the excitement of seeing it materialize.
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It’s interesting that most of us seem to be groping for words that don’t exist. Maybe we should just manufacture some new words and declare that they mean what we say they do.
“Serendipity” may not be what you’re after. Still, it’s already in the Lasley House song I sketched out on the bus this morning (I write most of my songs on buses), which I will herewith post at the bottom of the page).
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Surprises!
Maybe that’s what’s happening at Lasley House.
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It doesn’t upset me; I actually think it’s a great song, just not one that I would be brave enough to sing, unfortunately. Then again, if Spector House is for Life Sciences, I’d be there… Oh, well!
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Weird. I’m not exactly a Life Sciences person. But you already decided that was boring indeed. I think I ended up in Spector because the writing answers led you there on the quiz. On the other hand, I think I like cozy as a descriptor indeed.
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That was boring meaning that form of categories not life sciences.
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Off to camp for a week!
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Have fun!
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Okay, so Xena, which is a TV show, has an episode where a rabbit sprouts fangs and attacks one of the characters (who is attempting to hunt the bunny) …after eating reddish, pinkish berries.
At a craft show that my mother recently sold stuff at, a nearby potter had vases with designs of squids on them displayed.
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BUNNIES
BUNNIES
IT MUST BE BUNNIES
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Last night my softball team got into the championship game of the tournament we were playing in! The game went into two hours of extra innings (until 10:30). We ended up losing by two runs though… But I still got a medal!
On Saturday we tied to the team we played on Sunday, and lost one, and won one.
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110.2- I am reminded of Aberforth.
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Okay, I don’t know if anybody saw this on the H&H, so I’m putting it here as well:
We still haven’t decided on how often we’re going to have SPACE meetings in the H&H, although monthly or bimonthly would probably be the best.
I was thinking that at each meeting, a few RATs could give “presentationsâ€.
Now, that doesn’t mean you would have to literally role-play a presentation or lecture (Although you can if you want to.) It just means that you would “present†something you’ve created related to space. A piece of artwork, a short story, a poem, a song parody, a few jokes or riddles, a manifesto or musing, a list, the results of a poll conducted in real life or The Polling Place, or just a post describing what you’ve learned or what you think about a topic. (If you can think of something else to “present†that doesn’t fall into any of these categories, go ahead!)
Ideally, these would have been created since the last meeting, but if you think something you did before was your best work or if you’ve had a busy month, you could feel free to “present†something old.
For those stuck without inspiration, one of the GAPAs could make a numbered list of space topics, events, people, or concepts, and a RAT in need of inspiration could pick a random number and receive a prompt (ex: “The Mercury 13″, “Cometsâ€, “The First Space-Related Event I Rememberâ€, etc.) to “interpretâ€.
With Rebecca’s help, we could even collect the “presentations†into a zine-style format.
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I’d encourage the RATS to start by looking ahead to what sort of space exploration we are likely to see between now and, say, 2050. Many of the programs for the next 5 to 15 years or so are already underway. Which space probes and telescopes now being built will be launched, and what will they study? How long will the space station stay up, and when and how will it come down? What are China and India working on? What about private companies and the military? If you’re interested in space, it’s worth knowing what lies in your future, even if it’s not “Firefly.”
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We’re definitely future-oriented, but that’s not to say that’s the ONLY thing presentations can be about. You have to know about where you’re going, the science that gets you there, and the work that came before.
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Yeah! A club magazine would be a great idea. What ought it be called?
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I’m not sure. “Beyond the Cradle”?
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NIMH!
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I don’t know if having “NASA” in the acronym is a good idea, since it’s not just NASA we’re interested in. We’re also interested in private companies and the programs of other countries.
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Top 100! (Who’s posted how much)
The song “Just the Way you Are” is WAY too easy to parody. A song that suceptible to parodies shouldn’t be allowed. Or, y’know, make the lyrics so ridiculous that nobody can parody them because they’re all parodies of themselves.
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Wheeeeeeee. Winter’s Tale #1 is over, let Winter’s Tale #2 begin. A.k.a. Intensive Week. A.k.a. Do The Whole Thing Over Again, But Faster This Time. As In, In Four And A Half Days.
Yesterday was kinda bittersweet — I gotta admit, I’m going to miss everyone… Skate gave me a lifted-off-the-ground hug at my petition, which was nice. *closure* He may drop by rehearsals sometime this week. Dorcas and Autolycus the Younger randomly invited him. 
But, current production: Our Leontes dropped out a week ago. As in, two weeks before this frickin’ production goes up. >.< Some other guy jumped in and is memorizing all his lines. I LOVE HIM HE IS SO AMAZING. He's a better Leontes than the other guy would have been — he gives me so much more to work with. *happy*
Backstage atmosphere is slightly disturbing. I have to say that I might actually prefer the last production in that way, innuendotastic though it was.
Our costuming is awesome. Doubletpunk rocks. I am pretty much thrilled, if a little sleep-deprived.
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Yay! That is great to hear. Good job and congratulations!
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I just got my braces off and now my teeth feel weird. Nyeh.
On a related note, showing the movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at the dentist is just cruel.
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They do that?
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I’m watching a program about the history of atomic physics. I just hollered, “Oh no he di-in’t!” Who says physics is boring? This stuff’s like a rap battle. I need to read more about Moseley, and I need to go back in time and talk him out of volunteering to fight in World War I. What would the world be like if he hadn’t died?
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Even as wars go, that one was unusually sad and stupid.
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Thinking of all the people who survived World War I, like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, just to name some writers, one really does wonder how much we lost. The sheer amount of artistic talent in that generation is astounding as it is. Who knows what we could have had if so many of them hadn’t been killed?
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And the fact that it ended up leading to an even bloodier one is also a big strike against it.
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If Germany had won the First World War, perhaps the second one wouldn’t have happened. The world might have been better off — although, of course, nobody would have known it. It’s interesting to think about.
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Where is the alternate history thread when you need it?
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Books and programs about the history of science can really be fantastic. I read one called “The Disappearing Spoon” about the stories behind the periodic table, and many were about the personalities, rivalries, and competitions that have brought the elements together. It hit home for me how science is a process and not discrete facts that magically appeared in books.
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I have discovered Pandora.
That is, I discovered it ages ago, but it doesn’t work outside the US. Here I am! Eighteen hours across the Pacific so I can listen to a station of nothing but LotR, Harry Potter, and Star Trek music…
My life is awesome.
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Thank you so much. I think this might be the best thing ever.
Except that I’m only in the US for like two more weeks.
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If you listen to Chameleon Circuit on Pandora, is it Pandorica online radio?
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Alas, they still aren’t available on Pandora.
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That’s what it is? Squee! I’ve never seen Star Trek, but it still sounds awesome!!
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(Posted this on the wrong thread, and since the jokes and riddles thread is dead…)
How many postmodernists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Firstly, how have to ask if you are going to use lightbulbs at all. Will a lightbulb be more symbolic of the oppression of the media, or can an alternate source of light such as a candle provide greater illumination in the matters of autonomic dissmissal? Secondly, how should the lightbulb be placed in the socket? Is putting it in backwards a symbol our culture’s obsession with introspective reversal, or would that be overstating it? If you break the lightbulb and fill the socket with the glass, does that provide a philosophical glimpse into object permanence in terms of whether the glass is a lightbulb, or will it be overstating the lightbulb. Perhaps the best way is to understate the position, to make a statement of society’s dependance yet utter ignorance of modern technology. There’s also the question of where the socket goes in the room. Should it go in it’s traditional spot on the ceiling, reminiscent of the bare rooms in an asylum; or a stranger place on the wall or floor give a greater insight into our inability to percieve form over function solutions? It is possible the best place for the socket is floating in the air, as a nod towards nonrepresentational sculpture? The most important question to ask, however, is whether the lightbulb should be purely conceptual. Is the idea of a lightbulb still a lightbulb? What about a broken lightbulb? A broken lightbulb floating in a room with no method of illumination? Which is more descriptive or conceptual- a drawing of a lightbulb or a description of such? Would a child’s drawing of a lightbulb be more or less representational? What if a very young child who had never seen a lightbulb before was asked to copy a drawing of a lightbulb? Would that be a drawing of a lightbulb? How would a blind person describe a lightbulb? What if we took all the descriptions of lightbulbs from every person on Earth and compiled them into a word picture of a lightbulb- or better yet- a candle? This could easily represent our natural ability to percieve when there is nothing. Perhaps a lightbulb without a filament would be a better choice, representing how much we can remove and still easily recognize something. Or better yet- a candle inside the lightbulb shell. It could represent our society’s adoration of a technologically advanced exterior while having a simplistic interior. Would a lightbulb painted black, completely unable to illuminate anything be too obviously a statement about the fundamental uselessness of technology. Or better yet, the lightbulb painted black, broken, hanging in the middle of the room surrounded by a blind woman’s description of what she believes the lightbulb to be, with the drawings of children who have never seen lightbulbs before pasted around the room, along with dictionary definitions or lightbulbs. The room could be illuminated only by candles, and the wax would slowly fill the room, representing technology’s inability to progress without destroying the environment. The fact that the lightbulb is broken and painted black could represent the collapse of our inherently fragile civil structure, and the way technology does not last during periods of social upheaval. The melting wax burning or destroying the children’s drawings represents the loss of innocence. If they were forced to watch their drawings being destroyed, it could become a coming of age moment for them, when the put aside childish things and begin searching for knowledge. Would this be too obvious? What about a video of men in blank masks turning a perfectly normal room with a lightbulb into the art exhibit? Would playing it backward create a greater philosophical implication of the return of sense and civiliation? Yes! I’ll need a blind woman to hire, 30 babies to raise in carefully controlled conditions, a hundred candles, black paint, 5 masks, 5 construction workers, a video camera, and a lightbulb. Who will fund me?
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Cookies if you read to the end.
(SFTDP)
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*nom*
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I confess that I didn’t read this until I saw the promise of cookies.
Then I realized that it was quite amusing,
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Did you come up with all of that yourself? It would be an interesting idea for an art exhibition…
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I ONLY GOT TWO FULL SCALES DONE! NOT COLORED YET! ARGH!
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I read that as “Not the colored Yeti”.
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So… the white yeti?
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OH MY GOSH GUYS I JUST REALISED THIS IS YETI RACISM
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I was imagining a Yeti with tie-died fur, presumably from having been squirted with paint, rather than one that was multicolored from birth.
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I AM BACK
FOR A BIT
Oh my goodness the Kokonvention was FLAMABLAMABLOUS in so many ways. I am so sad to be back now, I keep waiting for eight musers to be right here making jokes and talking and laughing!
I had so much fun. I’ll probably send in some of my pictures soon.
I leave thursday for california for ten days also, I will have been COAST STATE TO COAST STATE in 5 days yeeeaaaah
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YEAH SO
IT’S JUST ME HERE
HANGIN’ BY MY LONESOME
THE PART WHERE I FORGOT TO CHANGE MY NAME BACK WAS JUST WISHFUL THINKING, ALAS
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;________; COME TO MEEEEEEEEEE
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CO- You too? That’s exactly what I do.
Axa (101) I know, it’s so hard. It’s overwhelming, but nice to know that other people are aware of this.
I’m a really slow knitter! But it’s fun!
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What’re you knitting? I just finished a pair of stripey fingerless gloves.
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I believe I’ve mentioned before here that my iPod has an acute sense of irony, right? Well anyway, it displayed it this morning, because my wake-up alarm song from random shuffle just happened to be “Older” by They Might Be Giants. In case you’re not familiar with this song, it goes a little something like this:
You’re older than you’ve ever been and now you’re even older, and now you’re even older, and now you’re even older,
You’re older than you’ve ever been and now you’re even older, and now you’re older still…
TIME! Is marching on…
And time…is still marching on…. (etc.)
This is ironic only because it is my birthday today. I swear, technology is getting smart.
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That… is scary
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I think I want your iPod.
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You’d think it would be cool but actually it’s much too creepy.
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Allosaur and I were singing that really loudly last summer and suddenly realized we were walking past a retirement home.
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I saw Winnie the Pooh a little while ago. It was a great movie. On numerous occasions everyone was roaring with laughter (all 14-ish people in the theatre). I’m glad Disney hasn’t entirely abandoned its old ways.
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I’ve been kind of wanting to see that, but also kind of too frightened. If you say it’s good I might have to see it.
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ZNZ- It is good. It’s classic Pooh.
Also, it’s totally not weird for three teenage boys smelling vaguely of cigarettes* to see Winnie the Pooh on a Tuesday afternoon, nope. Definitely nothing wrong with that, no odd glances or anything. Absolutely not creepy.
*They smoke, I don’t. Calm down.
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Hey, can people yell at me over the weekend to scan in my webcomic? Because I’m very tired right now (fencing camp aggg) and I will be this entire week.
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SCAN THE COMIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Just found a box of chocolates in our cupboard from two summers ago.
Curiosity is about to kill the orange.
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Chocolate is almost always worth it.
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Indeed.
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What do you mean, “almost”?
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If you know it’s got poison in it, it’s not worth it. Or if you’re allergic to it.
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I beg to differ.
(it still smelled okay, but had sprouted interesting orange growths.)
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So it was orange choklit?
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Nah, It was choklit orange.
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I threw it in at the last second upon remembering a teacher’s story about how her sister bought a chocolate bar that ended up having insects in it because the store had stocked it in an area where it got too much light or something. It is a very narrow “almost” though.
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That is interesting. Is it the chocolate that prefers to stay in a dark area, or is it only to keep the bugs away, because something about the light attracts them?
.
Wikipedia tells us that chocolate is very sensitive to temperature and humidity; “ideal storage temperatures are between 15 and 17 °C (59 and 63 °F), with a relative humidity of less than 50%.”
It is also stored away from other foods because it is in the habit of absorbing other aromas.
They also put it in a dark place, be it in a dark room or a more or less light-tight package, but that seems to be only to prevent blooming in chocolate.
.
Blooming, Ghirardelli says, comes in two types: fat bloom and sugar bloom. Fat bloom is caused by unspecified “poor storage conditions”; it is when cocoa butter comes to the surface in crystals, and it makes the chocolate all lightish and sort of bubbly. Although I hope you’ve never seen this effect, I’m afraid you probably know what they’re talking about.
Sugar bloom is caused by surface moisture (usually condensation from cold chocolate moving to a warmer place, so it is especially common in high humidity); the sugar in the chocolate dissolves, and when the moisture evaporates, the sugar becomes sugar crystals on the surface.
.
Although the texture is altered, it says bloomed chocolate is still fine to eat. However, if your chocolate is sprouting insects I think the experts would agree that it is spoiled.
.
I wonder if there are differences between bloomed chocolate and regular chocolate when you melt them…
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I had a sort of moment of realization this morning, and I just felt that I had to tell the GAPAs how much I appreciate them! You put soooooooooo much time and energy into MuseBlog, AND have regular lives and it’s really astounding. Really. Thanks so much. ♥
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Heartily seconded. You know, (since this is fresh in my mind) when that monk kissed me, the first thing I thought was, “The MuseBlog will have a riot with this.”
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That reminds me! I saw a female monk at Local College Campus the other day and I was like, “Hello, it’s Choklit Orange’s soulmate!”
You are the soulmate of all female monks now. *nods*
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I’m honored.
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What’s with the monk? I must have missed this story.
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https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=8270#comment-397141
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I went to go see Captain America today, mostly for Hugo Weaving and his eyebrows. The idea that Elrond is the Red Skull guy has not yet ceased to be funny, but despite that he was very good as the villain. Hayley Atwell played the love interest, for all you Masterpiece Theater buffs, and Toby Jones played the bad scientist, for all you Doctor Who fans. It was a fun movie in general, good for the summer.
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We’re going down to SoCal tomorrow; I’ll try to get on the internet when I can but I’ll probably be spending most of my time with Allosaur. Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes. And then violin camp and then school. Ackpbth.
Excuse my incoherence. It’s late and, as usual, sleep is for the weak. Actually, it’s only 10:24. Why am I tired? I’m constantly tired lately. Meh.
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Farewell yet again! I leave tomorrow for a month-long camp (with Clare, so she shan’t be here either). I shall send in pictures from Alaska when I return, along with hopefully some more art. See y’all at the end of August.
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Bye bye! I am sure you will have fun. So tell us about it when you come back and yes, yes, pictures!
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My science teacher played a They Might Be Giants song today.
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Old Old Spice Guy has challenged New Old Spice Guy to a Duel.
I think we all know who’s going to win.
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I ship Old Spice Guy/Sassy Gay Friend.
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There is an Old Spice Guy/Beowulf fanfic somewhere on the internet. Written in the style of Beowulf. It was the best thing ever. I won’t link to it, but Google “Gamol-leac” and you’ll find it soon enough.
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WAIT CAKE
Old Spice Guy & Beowulf, not Old Spice Guy/Beowulf. Forward slashes can so easily be misinterpreted.
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That’s what I thought…
(The innocuous meaning, not the other possible one.)
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I had to search this out, and then I had to rewatch the Old Spice Commercials. I am now grinning like a loon.
And yes, forward slashes can be very easily misinterpreted. My first reaction was a bit different.
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CURSES I REPLIED TO THIS THIS MORNING AND FORGOT TO POST OOPS
Anyway I am dissapointed now! I wasn’t going to look it up but I was cracking up that Beowulf/Old Spice Guy existed. ALAS. Except it probably does, somewhere. Hahaha.
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I just read that and that is hysterical.
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Other way around–New Old Spice Guy challenged Old Old Spice Guy. In my opinion, New Old Spice Guy Fabio has plenty of money already and doesn’t need to be New Old Spice Guy. Did you know he’s collecting 365 luxury motorcycles so he has one for each day of the year? Y’know, just in case he doesn’t feel like driving one of his Lamborghinis. (No, seriously.)
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BOOKSTORE!!
I have not ought books for pleasure reading in over a YEAR I am so excited
Wait no actually I did buy one admists my stacks of textbooks, a reeeaaaally old copy of Sir Launcelot and His Companions, but I’d read most of the stories in other forms before.
BUT YEAH MAN BOOKSTORE TIME I am about to go from little personal money to none WOOOO
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*is still adding books to cart in an online store even though there are already over 15 (mostly used, but still)*
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I finally got around to volunteering on a local organic farm! I didn’t have a ride there all summer because my mom has a full time job now, but I managed to convince my friend to drive me- she came too.
It was a lot of fun, but realllyyyy hot. We got there at 8 and picked tomatoes, then weeded a LOT. We had lunch with the rest of the volunteers, and then went to hoe. A lot. And before we knew it, it was two o’ clock, and her mom was there to pick us up.
I don’t think I’ve ever drank that much water in a day. I drank at least a gallon. And when I stepped in the shower, the water ran black because I was so dirty. Slightly disgusting, but very worth it. The place is the perfect example of the word “bucolic.” Birds chirping, chickens running around, blue skies, perfect vegetables. I think we’re going back next week, but I’m not sure.
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Thank you for teaching me the word “bucolic”.
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It is now time for me to create a post about the camp I went to for a week. It was disappointing. It was horrendously loud and chaotic, and I was terrified all the time because I never knew when the next sound would come. The activities were fine, and they actually played a They Might Be Giants song (Istanbul), but still. But I found baby birds and petrified wood and a piece of a wasp nest on the ground! I still wish I hadn’t gone, but it’s over now, so I’m just glad to be home.
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Well, welcome home! *huggle*
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Aw, that’s really too bad. Welcome home, we missed you! That’s really cool about the petrified wood/baby birds/wasp nest. How did you find them?
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I wandered off and paid attention to the ground (and the birds flying in and out of the roof; I wondered why, and…). And thanks!
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Members of Lasley House may now join in singing the new experimental House Song-in-progress. Most of you already know the tune:
Take my soul,
Take my mind,
Leave me not a scrap behind.
I don’t care,
I’ll still be
Loyal to my House, Lasleeee.
Take our knees,
Take our butts,
Take our bones and blood and guts.
Lock them up,
Lose the key —
You can’t take my House from me.
I’ll return
Home and free,
Led by serendipity.
You can’t take my House from me!
Brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it?
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♫ Lasleeeeeeeeeeee! ♩
“Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!”
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i’m putting myself in charge of the “doo doo doodoodoodoo DOOOO” at the end
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That’s the most important part of the song, of course.
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*Sings in funeral dirge with twin brother*
*Is last one to finish*
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Yay! *sings*
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APPROVAL
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ALSO, “TAKE OUR BUTTS,” I AM LAUGHING FOREVER
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Yes, I think I know my audience by now.
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It’s mostly the fact I was imagining YOU singing this, and then that line happened. It was glorious in any case.
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A faculty member? Singing a House Song? From a different House? Don’t be silly.
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Lol, whatever happened to “we’re all Musers here”, hmmm???? O.o
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Well, technically, if you removed the parts of the brain that gave you your Lasley qualities and also the part that gave you loyalty and the desire to sort things into neat categories…
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*sings off key and makes house looke bad*
*dodges pie*
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Ugh, my period kept me up tossing and turning the past three nights because I couldn’t get comfortable and kept having cramps. So now I have cramps and I’m tired.
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Ugh, I’m having the exact same problem as of last night. *sympathy pies*
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I think you can take up to 800 mg of Advil at once even though the directions say only take 400. In fact, I’m pretty sure sometimes doctors say this. Be warned that your body can adjust to ibuprofen though and make it so you need to take more each time for the same effect.
I also just read something on an IUD forum about someone who got cramps because of their IUD that went away when they took Vitamin E. I don’t know if this works for other period cramps but you could try it. I’ve also heard calcium or iron might help?
I haven’t tested any of these because I didn’t get cramps before and now that I do they get less bad every cycle and I want to see how much of that is naturally happening before I try to make it better. But you could try!
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Everybody’s body is different, but exercise helps for me and I was able to go running today so *fingers crossed*
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It worked!
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I thought you were a boy.
* If you were this would be awkward.*
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Yes, I am a girl.
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I’m not Pie Girl, but it looked like she was replying to Dodec. I know Dodec is a girl, though, because I heard her speak on a MuseCast. By the way, everyone who came too late to hear the MuseCasts when they were created should look them up now.
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Speaking of Musecasts… another is on it’s way
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SQUEEE!
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Right, You are.
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I think cramps can get worse if you’re dehydrated, so drink plenty of water. And yeah, exercise helps too. Um, I see that you have apparently fixed the problem, for the time being at least. So do whatever worked this time next time too.
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I don’t like clif bars.
In related news, I now have a half-eaten clif bar that I don’t know what to do with because throwing it out would be wasteful. Plus I’d have to walk over to the main building to throw it out because otherwise bears.
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Tear off the bit you ate from and give the rest to someone else?
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initial reaction: oh give it to me i’ll eat it
then i remembered this is the internet
also i am now hungry
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We need the Dream Eggernet.
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EGGERNET
THE SOUFFLÉ IS COLLAPSING
WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
BRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
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It’s pronounced BWOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
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Convince Dream Piggy to talk to Real Piggy?
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We’ll work on it.
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But is he Derse or Prospit?
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Ahaha I love you ♥
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What’s an octopus-squid with a fear of garlic?
…Vampyroteuthis infernalis!
Okay, that was really bad.
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You forgot “One of Kai’s nightmares.”
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*hugs* Don’t be scared, they’re mostly harmless actually nice creatures discriminated against because they look like vampires.
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I have no issues with the appearances of vampires, and while I have a distinct aversion to the appearance of cephalopods (aka teuthophobia, or the fear of such), I wish no harm upon them, merely that they remain in their oceanic habitat, peaceably go about their business, and never attempt to kill/eat me.
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Hey! I did a report on them last year for school! They are super super interesting. They actually don’t use jet propulsion to move like most squid/octopi, relying instead on fin movements! They are also one of the only cephalopods that lives entirely in the oxygen-minimum zone.
Kai- Aww don’t be afraid! They are really quite shy!
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Zing!
Inspired by Jade’s fascination, I looked into the sparkly cephalopod and it is so interesting. I could spew newly-learned facts, but really, I just wanted to draw more attention to it so you all look it up and it would make more sense. I tend to use many words and confuse everything. You should really do some serious Googling because it’s fascinating.
Also, Jade: I just read on xkcd that “octopi” is becoming more acceptable, and it seems dictionaries are giving in to the Latin pluralizer, but I think it’s still better to use “octopuses” (or “octopodes”) when referring to more than one octopus.
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Robert, (93.3), Axa (93.4), Rebecca (93.4.1), oxlin (93.7): It was great to talk with all of you, too! Yay!
Ebeth (110): That was magical! HERO OF CANTON. MuseBlog car rides. Flamablamablous.
oxlin (111): I don’t know many sea shanties, but I heard you singing Mingulay Boat Song with Fiddler! (That’s what you were singing, right?) I want to learn it now.
Rainbow*Storm (121): Ahh, I know the feeling. So smooth and slimy and strange.
Jadestone (138): OH MAN ALL CAPS. I need to stay away from bookstores. Also, that games store.
Robert (141): Beautiful!
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That is indeed what we were singing!
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145 (Pan)~ Yes, we were singing Mingulay Boat Song. It’s a beautiful shanty, and one of my favorites as well.
I just made a relatively successful duct tape wallet. I couldn’t figure out the “hidden pocket” directions, so I didn’t make one, nor does it have any sort of place for coins. But it was my first go, and it actually resembles a wallet, so I’m pleased. It also has the HPB sticker that’s been in my previous wallet for several years on the front of it. I like that it has a billfold. My previous one didn’t, and was rather difficult to use, not to mention impossible to carry in one’s pocket (it was too fat). Yay!
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Rosebud! IF?
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I caved and signed up for this ancient mediterranean class mostly because gilgamesh is on the reading list and i have a lot of gilgameshy feelings. my schedule is now perfect~* the only problem though is that it’s right after a class that is kind of two campuses over so..uh…i’m either going to have to walk really fast or get a bike but i feel like the bike would be more of a hindrance trying to find somewhere to lock it up etc ughhh
gilgamesh though
GILGAMESH
also did you know average human walking speed is 3-4 mph? the more you know~
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No, I did not! Thanks for telling me!
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I HAVE HAD AN EPIPHANY.
I WILL MAJOR IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES.
I AM NOW HAPPY AND EXCITED.
(Jade, I see what you mean about CAPSLOCK POSTS.)
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I am maybe doing that too! Environmental Studies for the win!
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That’s great! If you do any projects that can be done on one’s own without a class, please let us know. I love environmental studies!
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Wow, comments are getting moderated quickly. I posted one and about 20 seconds later it was moderated.
In other news, my C++ class ended today.
It’s a bittersweet feeling. I liked the class because it kept me busy during the slower summer days and it was fun to learn the language, but at the same time I’m glad I’m done because it got annoying to keep up with the coursework.
Is there a free books thread that the spambots revived? Whenever I click on it I’m sent to the file not found page. Is this someones way of telling us there are no free books?
I just took the MA house test again and I now feel more like a Coontz… I either have split personality or am just very indecisive.
This was a really random and disconnected post brought to you by Koko A.
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Official grades are in and I got a 4.0 GPA after a total of 1 class!
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Okay I kept finding more things to reply to so not gonna bother with individual ones because lazy and slow internets
145(Panda)- Oh man I wish I had a game store like that near my house. Especially the first half we went to, where it looked like you could have D&D games in the store. But at the same time I would probably buy ALL THE THINGS and that’d be bad. At least there’s one right near my college now! It opened like an hour after I left for summer break but I will probably spend too much time/money there next year, haha.
148 (Axa)- I did not know but am glad I now do!! Also, GILGAMESH. And the ancient Mediterranean! I am envious.
149 (Panda)- THAT SOUNDS GLORIOUS
AND I AM GLAD YOU UNDERSTAND ME
Also packing is hard so I am sitting on the floor of my bedroom surrounded by mess and eating candy instead.
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ALSO HEYYY. HAVE TO BE LEAVING THE HOUSE TO CATCH A PLANE IN 5 HOURS OOPS. Time to try to sleep I guess but oh god it’s not even midnight how do I do this
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Find a bed, get comfortable in it, and close your eyes?
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WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?!?!
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CALIFORNIA. I am there now! On google’s wifi yeaaaah
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I’M THERE ALSO. A different part though, probably.
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I read that as “Google’s wife…”
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What part? Are you in a big enough city to tell us?
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TODAY SAN FRAN ISH AREA. Not exactly in but a nearby town. ONly here till a bit of tomorrow though, and then it is off to just outside Yosemite!
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WEEPING!!!!!!
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CALIFORNIA I AM HERE NOW
AND I AM LOOKING SO SQUIDDY
AND ALSO
MY SQUID SQUIDDED?
ooh mister jadestone ooh
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SQUIIIIIID
MY SHIRT HAS JELLYFISH ON IT ALTHOUGH THOSE ARE NOTHING LIKE SQUID REALLY.
BUT HEHEHE
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Aren’t those much more closely related to coral than to squids? That’s awesome!! What kind? *hopes it’s a box jellyfish and not a true jellyfish because those things are REALLY awesome*
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How come there are so many MuseBloggers in California and we don’t MEET???
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Sheer laziness. Rosanne and I were in California at the same time, and we met. And we didn’t even know each other.
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I am guilty of that.
It might also be that I can’t drive a car and my parents are busy…
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We should plan a San Fran Kokon.
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Choklit Orange, is your name a play on the movie “Clockwork Orange”?
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Why the movie and not the book?
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In general, movies are better-known than the books that inspire them. Did you know Die Hard was inspired by a novel?
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I did know that, strangely enough.
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Yeah, but you know everything.
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True.
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false.
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True.
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Wait, are you saying that it’s true that you know everything, or it’s true that that’s false?
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True.
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You do? Even what a wongai ningauii is?!
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Is that arrogance I detect? Watch for your ego, it might not be able to fit in the same room as you.
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The world will make room for it.
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I won’t–*is overwhelmed*
*shakes fist at rapidly ballooning ego* I will deflate your ego somebody!
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Somebody?
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No, I just like chocolate oranges.
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Hopefully, I’ll get to see Erin next week, now that she’s home from camp.
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127.1 (CO)- I’m knitting two scarves at the moment, but i plan to start some charity hats and then marching/pepband garb for the coming up shool year.
Would wearing darke blue/black socks with gray shoes that are tennis shoes and neon mismatched laces oook too weird? Keeping that typo because it reminds me of the Librarian.
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Charity hats for whom? House elves?
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I read that as “House wives?”
Something must be up with my brain.
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S.P.E.W alert!
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OOK.
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Hey guys! I’m posting this from my dad’s new iPad we got him as an early birthday present. It’s really cool.
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I’m listening to the 3 hour nyan cat!
Warning! Beyond This Point, Enc’s Mental Facilities May Not Be Functioning At Normal Standards. That Said, He May Be Hilarious.
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My mom is talking about her budget with my cousin on the phone.
Basically, once the divorce is final, we have no money. My mom is going to move out of the house once I go to college. Time to get a scholarship…
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Erk.
*hug*
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*bear hug*. You’re definitely smart enough for a scholarship- you’ll be okay.
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*endless hug*
i agree with choklit orange, you will definitely get all the scholarships. also, i think you will almost certainly be eligible for a significant amount of financial aid, so keep that in mind too. we love you!!!!
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Agh. *hugs* There are definitely options for financial aid and scholarships, so keep your eyes sharp and your head up. Good luck!
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Thank you, guys. I guess… I’m actually scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know I can get a scholarship, I just don’t know how to go about getting one. I’m totally lost when it comes to college-y stuff. I just want everything to be okay. Not even good. All I’m asking for is okay.
Axa, do I get all the awards too?
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I’m not an expert at fafsa (i will freely admit……..my mom handles most of it orz) but the way financial aid works is that you send in your taxes and income information and whatnot and they determine how much they can reasonably ask you to pay. it doesn’t always work out perfect but it can pay for a goodly amount. my financial aid pays for over half the cost of my tuition.
i go to a ~private liberal arts~ school though and i think generally they have more in the way of aid money, although the tuition is already higher than a public school so it’s really a case to case basis. (HOWEVER….that really varies imo because california public schools have been hiking up tuition so right now i think i’m getting the better deal cost wise). but anyway. many colleges also have specific scholarships you can apply for during the rest of the college application process that are helpful as well.
when you get acceptances back, each college will include a financial aid package in their acceptance, so that makes it easy to see who has the better deal and whatnot
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Hugggggggggggggg (that is how long it is. Is a long hug.)
Scholarships usually work in that the school looks at your money, looks at your grades, thinks, then gives you money based on usually both. Check to see if schools you’re applying for are need-blind. THat means they take anyone, no matter how much money they do or don’t have. Your school should cover most of your scholarships but finding ones outside it is always good. There are some strange ones out there. Your school’s financial aid office will help too.
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*hugs hugs hugs*
You’re really smart, you’ll be sure to get scholarships. Also, a lot of private schools offer really good financial aid, so that’ll help too!
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*huggles and sympathy choklit*
Best of luck, Beedle. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay, alright? *more hugs*
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*hugs*
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*hug* Try not to freak out.
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So yesterday was the best day ever. Went with my mum and grandmum and aunt and cousin and cousin-who-is-a-baby to a bookstore where we ate lunch (bookstore has a restaurant) and I got to buy SHIIIIIIINY new books (Melting Stones, by Tamora Pierce; The City of Dreaming Books, by Walter Moers; the third, fourth, and fifth Temeraire books, by Naomi Novik; Pegasus, by Robin McKinley; an anthology of dragon stories, which contains a story by DWJ, among other excellent authors; and Dreadnought, by Cherie Priest). We’ve done this every year since I was about six; it’s for my birthday. (Which is in June, but we always wait to celebrate it.)
Also I got a gorgeous present from my aunt and cousins: A fountain pen, and a bottle of purple ink. I’ve always wanted to try writing with a fountain pen, and I’ve never gotten to. My aunt showed me how to fill it and it is awesome.
That evening we got to go to a nearby theater where they were showing my most favouritest movie of all time ever – The Princess Bride. <3 So funny, so awesome. Laughed the whole time. The whole theater applauded when Inigo killed Rugen (Can you say Crowning Moment of Awesome? I knew you could.), and everyone applauded again when it was over.
Yeah. Perfect day, like I said.
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In SD! Having the time of my life! Going to see The Tempest with Allosaur on Wednesday!
… life is so, so good.
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At the Old Globe Theatre? That’s where I saw my first Shakespeare play: Two Gentlemen of Verona. I think it was on my tenth birthday.
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No, at the La Jolla Playhouse, I think.
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I’m sorry, this has very little place in the world of sense and reasonably meanungful posts but I’m gonna say it anyway.
Someday, I am going be marry Matt Smith. He is too adorably, all-consumingly awesome for words.
That will be all.
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In fact, he’s had such an adverse effect on my brain that I can’t even spell or type in complete grammatical sentences at 11:30 at night anymore.
Carry on.
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I found a bookstore within walking distance of the place we’re staying that is wonderful and has all sorts of books (not enough Terry Pratchett, there’s never enough Pratchett at used bookstores, but almost everything else).
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Jade (151): Yes! I think I’m going there tomorrow, against my better judgment. Dice time!
(149): YES YES YES.
(152.2.1.3.1): YOSEMITE IS THE BEST PLACE EVER.
Axa (152.2.1.4): AXA WE’RE GOING TO COME TO CALIFORNIA DID WE TELL YOU? WE WILL ROAD TRIP ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO SEE YOU WE PLANNED IT ALL OUT LAST WEEKEND.
/capslock
Beedle (158): What everyone else said! Colleges try really hard to make themselves financially available to everyone, so worry not! Definitely apply for scholarships, but I’m sure whatever schools you are interested in/go to will have scads of money to throw your way. Well, maybe not that much. But it’ll work out!
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ALSO GUYS
TODAY I SAW MARIA SHERAPOVA PLAYING TENNIS. Well, warming up.
BUT OH MAANNNNN SHE IS GOOD
There was also Serena Williams although I did not see her! And lots of other people! It was so cool.
Also ROSANNE ARE YOU OUT THERE WILL YOU BE AT WORK TOMORROW I MIGHT BE ABLE TO STOP BY OR SOMETHING AND THAT WOULD BE COOL
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I am! And I’ll be at work tomorrow. Sooo stop by!
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I just went to see the first amateur production of Spring Awakening. Has anyone seen it on Broadway or elsewhere? Beautiful musical, that show.
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Well… Hi. It’s been a long, long time since I was on here last. I’ll be surprised if anyone still remembers me, but I think I’m back. For good? I think so, but I can’t be sure. Am I still allowed on here if I don’t read Muse any more? I hope so!
Anyway, I have a lot to catch up on. Lots of new faces and lots of new threads! It’s exciting to see you all again! I’d forgotten how awesome MuseBlog is.
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As if I could forget you! Welcome home! How are you? What’ve you been up to lately?
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Hello, ‘Moon! Good to “see” you again. I remember you, and I’m sure all of the old-timers here do, too. How is lunar life?
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Hey! I see I haven’t been entirely forgotten. (How do you do that pie smiley? I must know!) Lunar life, and life in general, is good. I’m still in the grand ol’ US of A, although I’m not sure if I’m thrilled about that or not. I’ve settled in well, and I’m preparing to begin my Senior year, which scares me a little bit. I’ve been immersing myself in debate, school work, and work. I’m glad to “see” all of you again as well.
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The thrown pie ( ) is :arrow: and the stationary and/or head-on pie ( ) is :!:
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I remember you! Welcome back! And yes, pleasepleaseplease stay.
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Hi! I think I’ve read some of your posts! I’m new(ish), though so you don’t remember me.
Anyway, welcome back.
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Hi! Welcome back! You won’t remember me because I’m new. Of course you’re allowed on here if you don’t read Muse anymore.
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Any exposure to Muse lasts a lifetime. The damage has been done. (We even have a few “second-hand Musers” on the blog.)
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Hiya! I don’t get Muse anymore either; you’re fine.
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I remember you! Good to have you back!
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Welcome back! I never met you, but I look forward to getting to know you. Do you know what a tardigrade is? If not, please look it up or you won’t ever understand a word I say.
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I didn’t. But now I do.
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As a fellow left-and-came-back returnee, I am extremely pleased to welcome you back.
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Cinnamoooooooooonnnnnnnnn long time no, er, blog?
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Hi, welcome back! I definitely remember you. How have you been? Do you still live where you used to? I only ask because we haven’t gotten around to Kokonvening yet!
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155.1- Bibliophile- Charity hats for India or somewhere (I’m not excatly sure because India is pretty hot and it’s through my friend’s church…) but it’s an orphanage somewhere.
One time I mentioned vampire squids to Tuba. He told me there were no such thing, and when I persisted, told me to get mental help.
I’m going to the lake tomorrow! With my family! I made a pi-symbol pi! I like to roll pi crust!
We’re going to the lake tomorrow! In a “cottage” which we rented which is actually a mansion!! I shall wreak havoc on a jetski!! With somebody else driving!!! Because even though I’m old enough to take a class, we’re only going for a week and the class is two weeks! Hopefully once I get my driver’s liscence (waaaaaaaaaaayyy off in the distant future) then I can take the two hour class and drive a jetski!!!
Sorry, I just really like jetskis.
141- *loyally sings House song loudly and out of tune*
Anyway, I’m going and I still have to pack. And the pi is almost done. Peaches!
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Northern India, near Nepal, is pretty cold.
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Re: D&D things. You people should try Changeling! It is awesome. nWOD Changeling (nWOD= new world of darkness, the new version of this group of games) is all about how you get taken to faerie, escape, and how that changes you and what happens after that. Ooh, also 7th Sea! 7th Seaaaaaaaa. You should play that one too. It is all the swashbuckling.
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I think role-playing sounds like fun, but I would need to do it with a group of people who were experienced, so they could explain all of the rules to me. It looks like a lot of fun, but it also looks really complicated.
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it’s really not. the mechanics are the least important part of the game, and you can follow the rules as loosely or strictly as you want. i’ve seen some groups that follow every rule ever and i’ve seen some that play with only the most basic rules, which ends up being pretty simple. don’t be intimidated by the length of the rulebooks, a lot of that is stuff you don’t technically need
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You don’t know how much I agree with that. After reading over the D&D books to learn as much of the rules as I could, I realized when I started DMing that games where you’re a stickler about the rules are a lot worse than when you make things up a change things as you see fit. That’s one of the reasons I’ve gotten into pathfinder, it’s changed a lot the rules, and a lot of them I agree with. Most of the kids I DM for haven’t even looked at a book before they come in, and 3 hours later they’ve made a character with a little help and are playing fine with a few reminders.
What I’m trying to say here, is that over half the book is things you use for reference purposes, and not memorize. Only a small part is things you really need to know.
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Yeah, my gaming friends came from college. It isn’t all that complicated, though, the books mostly explain it.
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When I played with people who followed all the rules, it was realllllllyyyyyyyy borrrrrrrinnnngggggggggg. But I still think that the have the potential to be fun or people wouldn’t play them.
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I’ve read about Changeling (skimmed the TVtropes page. TVtropes tells you all you need to know about everything) and it looks like a lot of fun. But I do not have the books or any way of acquiring them.
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pan, jade: now imagine having two gaming stores and three or so comic book/mtg stores in your area and having to somehow save money for rent and tuition
oh and that’s not to mention having to somehow not spend all your money ever at the annual gaming convention that happens 10-15 minutes from your parents’ house and your campus (seriously the convention center is directly between the two)
LIFE IS HARD
(SECRET SUBPLOT ARE Y’ALL JEALOUS YET JEALOUS ENOUGH TO VISIT ME, EH, EH? I AM ALREADY IN MUSER-WIFE WITHDRAWAL)
and in greater kokonventiony terms anyone who goes to origins (gaming con) or ohayocon (anime, mostly) should let me know because then we could KOKON IT UP (don’t worry GAPAs they are both decently large and also take place in a decently large city)
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I drew a comic today.
There’s a mad scientist standing next to a list that says “Death Ray: 1) Steal components, 2) Check seal, 3) Insert nuclear fuel.”, and he asks the other scientist “Did you check the seal?”
The second mad scientist is holding a paintbrush and a can of red paint and standing next to a tank where a seal with a red check mark painted on its stomach is swimming.
“No, you IDIOT!”
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I’m really bored. I spent most of today lurking on MB, playing Minecraft, and otherwise doing non-productive things… Although I consider MB productive.
1 more week until BSA summer camp! I will get enought merit badges to earn Life! Then on to Eagle!
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Good luck!
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I’m not sure I heard you correctly. Did you say “productive” or “corruptive”?
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One or the other. These things tend to slip my mind
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Rats… Starr’s post reminded me summer camp I am leaving for tomorrow will conflict with Pottermore… Gahh!!!!
Keyboard mash…
dfa;hfeuhjfa;sdklouty 9w4rsw498 ty0pt y
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You have a diabolical plan to enter Pottermore early as well? High five!
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*Returns high-five*
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Leaving for the weekend. Bye!
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Course catalogs create much strife agony in my life.
The sheets we got at Big Lots for cheapsies are, according to their measurements, twin extra-long instead of just twin (as they claimed), and therefore suitable for collegeland. Yay! This is good because 1.) they are jersey sheets and jersey sheets are awesome and 2.) because in the unlikely event that I will want my bed to look like an adult sleeps in it (as opposed to a polka-dot-obsessed 5 year old), I have two options. Or one and a half. (Polka dots are awesome, don’t judge.)
Also, Mom got the foot locker out for me and has said I can use it but to TREAT IT WELL and I’m kind of worried, because I’m sure that it will get scratches and stuff on it and then she will KILL ME. But oh well. I’m also going ASDUHBJFSDCHUBJKQWFACKOS PACKING WHAT IS THIS?!?!?!?!
I’m wondering if combining packing and cleaning my room will be an effective strategy as well; consolidate all the stuff I’m packing to take with me in one area of the room, then clean the rest. I think I may be onto something here. Except then when I come back. Unless I go sailing instead of come back for any amount of time that would necessitate unpacking. Hmm.
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Yay, I just bought 17 new books!!
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I’m about to buy a bunch of books too! And it’s going to cost me hundreds and hundreds of dollars. *sobs at the price of textbooks* *especially stupid macroeconomics and anthropology textbooks*
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…Sorry. All my book shopping was voluntary and cost me under $100, not counting the 18th book my mom gave me, so it was a positive experience for me. I found a great textbook website that gave me a used but decent copy of an entymology book I wanted (for fun, not school) for $8; I wish I could contact you privately and send you a link, because if you bought anything from that website afterward, not only would you save, they’d give me $5 out of the goodness of their hearts. Oh, well…
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There’s an ebay affiliate called half dot com. You can get much better prices on textbooks there than in your college bookstore.
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No, I have a textbook scholarship that’ll cover a good chunk of it.
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Don’t buy books in any official school bookstore. You can get them so much cheaper on sites like Amazon. For some of my (high school) textbooks, the price of a new copy on Amazon was half the price of the used copy at the bookstore. Also, look and see if your school has some sort of book exchange, where you can buy used textbooks from older students.
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You might be able to find a local bookstore that specializes in selling used textbooks. But if you’re buying discounts, be sure that you have the right edition. That may not matter for some classes, but it will for others. When in doubt, ask your professor.
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Most of the books I’m renting, which is quite a bit cheaper than even buying a used one and selling it back. And I have a textbook scholarship that obviously wouldn’t apply to any books I buy from a third party.
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Last night I stayed up until midnight having a singalong to Mulan with a bunch of people from the Internet. I regret NOTHING *skips away*
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Mulan is the best to sing along to. Especially with a bunch of other people.
Not that I would know, or anything…
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WE MUST BE SWIFT AS A COURSING RIVER
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AS MYSTERIOUS AAAASS THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOOOOON
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WITH ALL THE FORCE OF A GREAT TYPHOON!
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AND ALL THE STRENGTH OF A RAGING FIRE!
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MYSTERIOUS AS THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOOOOOOOOOOOON!!! BE A MAN…
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BE AS SWIFT AS THE COURSING RIVER!
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WITH ALL THE FORCE OF A GREAT TYPHOON!
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WITH ALL THE STRENGTH OF A RAGING DALEK
MYSTERIOUS AS THE DARK SIDE OF AN OOOOOOD
wait what
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NOW THAT IS A SONG THAT I CAN ENJOY.
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I’LL- MAKE A MAN- OUT OF YOOOOUUUU.
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Robert: I was wrong, it was the Old Globe theater. Sorry.
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Pottermore day after tomorrow!
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Not necessarily; only 1 million of the people who succeed the challenge will get early access. Everyone else will have to wait until October. But I’m so excited!!! I’m staying up tomorrow night until I finish the challenge; what if they choose who gets in by who finishes first?!
What do you think the challenge will be?! She won’t say, and neither will the people on Pottermore’s blog. I suspect it has to do with following owls.
Off to go see what time British midnight will be for me.
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…6:00 for me. She lives in Edinburgh, right? *checks* Yes, and midnight Edinburgh time is 6:00 my time. She didn’t say what time it would come out, but I doubt it’ll be before that… Dilemmas!! Do you think I should get up early instead of staying up late? It’s what I did the day she released her announcement, but then, of course, I knew what time it would be released.
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4:00 where I live!
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AM or PM? I live on the east coast and I think that means midnight for her is 7 PM for me, but I’m not sure.
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yeah pm
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I could have sworn it was 6:00 AM, but no, “registration for the day is now closed.” Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow! Also, I noticed that now, when you go away from the Pottermore homepage, you see Privet Drive!
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I am back, but this probably won’t make too much of a splash. I doubt many noticed I’d left Anyway, what’s up in Museland? It’s nice to see a large slew of familiar faces, mixed with new ones. I’m going to attempt to skweezle every scrap of stuff I have to say in this one post.
Firstly, the mobile site looks great and I think you should all be aware how damned hard it is to type this on an iPod. Respect me, for that if nothing else.
Second – I attended an independent learning school last year, which was amazing. I may not be continuing this year due to financial issues and my father being diagnosed with MS. It was, while it lasted, one of the best experiences evar. All the people there reminded me so much of all of you. I ended up in a relationship that lasted about a month before I got dumped via iPad note. Aside from that, it was great and I’m still in touch with many people from the school.
Thirdly, I’m happy to say that I have a developing addiction to both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Minecraft. I started out only liking some of the Pepper’s mellower stuff (Scar Tissue, Snow, Californication) but I’ve recently gotten into their older funk stuff, like Blood Sugar (Cake?) Magik and those albums. Minecraft I had the single player version of and only bought tonight. I was up until…..now…..learning how to manage a server. More on that later.
….Fourthly? Fourthly, I began my foray into the gargantuan book series called The Eye of the World. I believe I have an unhealthy fixation on them, as within three months I was more than halfway through the 11 book series. During that time I forced myself to slow down and savor it. I am now, whether for good or bad, looking at certain aspects of life as if I was in the book. Perhaps a short hiatus of reading is in order.
On to Minecraft.
Ah, Admins. It has been far too long since I’ve communicated with you all. I’d have sent psychic thoughts of well-being, happiness and strawberries in your general direction if I’d known where you were. Hope you’ve all been well If I ever wind up in your area I’ll drop by and say hi.
The major question on my mind is this: I recently set up a Minecraft server for my friend and I. I thought perhaps I could share it with some people here. I routed my IP through a DNS server, so my server can be connected to via a URL instead of my IP address. I am Admin on the server and have control over banning, whitelisting and all that stuff.
I am, more or less, asking your permission to distribute my DNS URL to people here (through email if you don’t want it spread about) so I can play Minecraft with them. I respect your decision, whatever you choose.
Good to talk to you all again!
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Welcome back! As for the server: whether your IP is routed or not, I don’t think the GAPAs can condone offblog communications like that. Too many “what if”s.
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Aha, I love how in this post and mine (Which I typed before I saw your post) we both spoke of the horribleness that is typing on an iPod.
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Hi, Castle! Welcome back!
Also, Wheel of TIme! I’m reading them too! Except I’m only about halfway thorugh the third book. They’re great!
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I would love to play, ‘cept I get limited internet so can’t do online servers and stuff. I usually can only go online at the library or a friends house to play minecraft. Thank goodness MB doesn’t take much internet to use.
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MuseBlog, I’ve been lurking all day and now I can’t go to sleep even though it’s 1am… *yawn*
Also, typing on iPods suck.
You know what sucks more then typing on iPods? When the one day you go to sleepaway camp is July 31st. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about camp, but with no Internet there’s no chance of me getting into beda for Pottermore unless my sister somehow manages to do it for her and then for me, which I really just don’t want to have to make her do. I might as well just accept it and wait until October, even though I know it’ll be painful to have to hear about it for the next two months from everybody else…
There are no coherent words right now, hopefully I’ll check back in the morning… G’night.
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You won’t be hearing about it from everybody else. Only 1 million people will get in early, and while it’s highly likely that at least one MBer will get in, I dobut many will.
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I guess I forgot to mention that my last organ lesson was Thursday. I didn’t realize it was going to be my last one (or even that I was going to have one Thursday, since my teacher had been touring Europe for three weeks). It didn’t hit me as hard as piano, since I haven’t been playing organ as long. And it wasn’t saying goodbye to the teacher that was toughest–it was saying goodbye to the organ. We had this last lesson on the good organ. The multi-million dollar organ, one of four of its kind in the world. It was the first organ I ever played. I know that instrument forwards and back–every quirk, every cipher that acts up when it gets humid, exactly how the 8′ Trumpet and the 8′ Trompette on the Hauptwerk differ (and which mixtures to use with them). Which notes were always slipping out of tune on the mean-tone stops. Which stop knobs were always falling off. Which pedals on the manual bellows fell quickest. How to make the Oberwerk work nicely with the Unterwerk. It’s an incredible instrument and I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to be able to spend so much time with it. I hope I’ll be able to play it again someday.
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Wow.
I think that’s one of those memories you’ll never forget.
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Hi, Piggy!
I’m changing my server software from Mojang to Bravo, I don’t know if I can run it constantly anyway. It would be too hard to plan times to play. Oh well.
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AGHDYVFEFVDULVCTFLGVHASGDFCLV college is expensivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
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I knooooowwwwww
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As for Pottermore, I am wondering, where does it say that there will be a challenge to see who will get in first? Is it inferred from her video, because as far as I can tell, it may just be a first come first serve.
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It isn’t inferred. I don’t remember exactly where I read it, and I’m afraid I can’t check because the official website has so much traffic it won’t let me in as it’s the 31st somewhere (Oh, no–how hard will it be when it’s really time?!), but I know I didn’t infer it. I’ll specify when the website will let me.
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GAPAs? ON the “Currently Popular” Sidebar, there’s a link saying “Free Books!” and when you click it, it leads to a 404 page. It claims it links to /?p=9894, but…
Spam?
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It’s not spam, just something we’re working on.
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SQUEE!!!
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Bloggermore?
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It’s entertaining seeing random Mulan lyrics strafing the recent comments bar.
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Yes. Especially a song I love.
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Where did E2MB go? He commented once a few weeks ago and then disappeared. I hope he comes back.
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Listening to “99 Red Balloons” and realizing that a lot of my favorite music is older than I am.
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Mine too! Darn 60s.
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Aargh Pottermore is crashing… Everyone get off so I can enter early
Pbbth. At least it automatically reloads every fifteen seconds. I was wondering if I’d have to sit there doing that for ages.
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I’m stuck in the bog of people too… Unfortunately I started trying to get in at 4:05 instead of before… If only I had tried before waiting to get my drink at Starbucks!
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It might be the 31st in your time zone, but not JK Rowling’s. I checked. It’s extremely unlikely that it started this early.
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It’s the 31rst now, right (in her time zone)? Mine does the same thing.
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Yeah it’s too busy and reloads every 15 seconds but still not getting in
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…Hold on! I got in! But nothing’s changed. So now there’s no telling exactly when it will start. I’m hopeful about midnight Eastern time, though.
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It’s loaded but it looks exactly like it always has.
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WAIT IT”S DIFFERENT NOW
FOLLOW THE QUILL
If you are having trouble loading it there are now also screencaps online to read it all!
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QUILL YAYAY
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>.>
<.<
it will go up sometime on or after midnight pacific time and may have something to do with diagon alley
but shhh.
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It appears some information from LeakyCon has been…
*puts on glasses*
leaked.
YEAHHHHHHHHH!
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…Well, seeing as it’s 12:15 I am going to give up. I suppose I can wait until October… Or at least until August 1!
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Oh wait I finished watching SNL and it was up!!! Now I’m awaiting my registration email! Thank you SNL!
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Expect a long wait….Mine took probably 20 minutes, and I registered pretty much the second it was up (I refreshed the page at 4 minutes until 3 central time, not up, 2 minutes later, I refreshed it was up). Alan registered maybe as long as 10 minutes after that, it took his email 1 hour and 20 minutes to show up….
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Mine actually only took about five minutes!
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Mine took over an hour to show up. I guess it all depends…
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I wrote a post on (an external blogging site) saying that I was by no means a fan of a certain show, but that I disliked how so much fan-fiction set in the future had the grown-up main character as an astronaut but never made anything out of that fact, and an idea for a story I might write if I had more knowledge of the show, but that I had no idea if it was plausible or not, as I hadn’t seen every episode…
… and somebody reblogged it and wrote “This is brilliant and must happen now.”
I’m not sure how to respond.
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* “a BIG fan of a certain show”
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Is this…Danny Phantom? If it is, I might have some ideas. I managed to watch it all online, though since I have been bitten by the legal bug lately I’m not going to recommend that to you.
If it’s not what I thought it was, ignore it. My slight affection for one of the first cartoons I ever saw and read fanfiction about must be tainting my judgement. I just remember that the main character did want to be an astronaut, and therefore several fics had him achieve his dream.
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Yes, it’s Danny Phantom.
What I wrote was that if I knew enough about the show to write a fic, it would be about Danny as an astronaut candidate in his first year of training, working to hide his powers while still saving the day. One day, a bad guy attacks the space center and Danny sneaks away to fight them, only to find that another ghost is helping him. It turns out that the ghost is an astronaut who died in an accident decades ago but chose to stay in our plane of existence long enough to see the first landing on Mars.
That guy would then become Danny’s mentor-figure, both with his powers and with training for space, and, after many adventures, Danny would be the first man on Mars and his mentor would pass on to the Ghost Zone, in pride.
Now, I haven’t seen this show in years, and I don’t think I saw anything more than the first season or so, so I don’t know how plausible any of this is.
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I wish I knew more about your situation. I’m intrigued, especially since apparently your idea is brilliant.
I tend to take television-watching a bit too lightly (“I mean, how long could it take to watch all the seasons? If I start now, I’ll probably be done by Wednesday, and I’ll be better for it!”), but I say if it’s something you want to write, you should watch more of the show and then write it. I mean, obviously somebody wants to see it happen.
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Hi guys! I’m back from Florida! What’d I miss?
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Welcome back! I’m not sure what you missed (my brain is somewhat dead right now and I can’t remember) but well, glad you’re back!
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My youth group hosted an English Country Dance tonight. Originally I was going to be in charge of childcare, but I managed to get out of doing that. There was one girl I wanted to dance with, but every single time someone beat me to her. During the last dance (the Spanish Waltz, I believe), she was my last neighbor. She said, “So you play the organ?” and I responded in the affirmative, and that was the longest conversation the dance allowed us. Alas. But I must say, for my amount of experience at dancing (i.e., absolutely none in any genre) I wasn’t too shabby. I’ll have to try it again sometime.
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Even though I’m in Asia (or probably because of it), I’m on Pottermore!
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ENVY! I don’t think I’ll go to sleep tonight.
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Um, so today kind of sucked. I’m really into music and poetry and stuff but my parents seem to think that those are both a complete waste of time so today, I was forced to endure three lectures on how I’m wasting my time when I should be doing math and preparing for college. And while I understand why those things are important, especially since my family can’t afford college which means I need a scholarship, it really hurts being told how useless you are by your own parents.
On a happier note, I am now officially a member of Pottermore! *squeals and happy dances*
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191 (Piggy)~ English Country Dancing is the best. At the F&I encampment at Old Fort Niagara they had a dance one evening. Everyone dressed in their 18th century best dancing to a live band in a gorgeous stone fort in front of a beautiful stone “castle” building.
ZOMG, basically.
I was on the Pottermore website at midnight (EST) but there wasn’t a clue up. I refreshed hopefully for awhile then gave up, now it says the first day registration is closed.
What timezone does the clue appear? Does it appear all at once, or is it staggered for each timezone? WHY DON’T THEY ADDRESS THESE QUESTIONS ON THEIR INFORMATION PAGE?!?!
*dies*
Sitting in a hammock while wearing 18th century women’s clothing isn’t fantastic. Mostly because of the stays and the petticoats. And also the fact that I’m wearing my gown, so I have a limited range of movement with my arms.
[/incoherent post]
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Fiddler–no, I don’t believe it’s staggered. Clue 1 went up 4am (actually about 3 minutes to) eastern time. But they aren’t telling anyone the times clues will be released, although they did say they plan on varying the times each clue is released
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I’m going canoeing for a few days. I should be back Tuesday. Ta!
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Enjoy!
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Bye Piggy! See you later and have fun!
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Have fun, Piggy!
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Wow, getting into Pottermore is easier than I expected.
I didn’t, at least not today. I’ll try again tomorrow, though. Clearly being non-obsessed enough to sleep in on the first day was a poor choice.
*wanders away while whistling ‘Tomorrow’*
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I’m angry because of what an awkward time they put EST-ers. I believe it would’ve been four o’clock! But anyway, I stayed up until 3:30 and woke up to a closed registration. I tested myself with the question (it took a surprisingly long time to find it) to see how quickly i could do it. I was angr,y because I’d found where Hagrid bought Harry the owl (oddly not a sentimental scene at all), but not where it listed the types of owl a couple of pages earlier. I started panicking, “Fish, how will you get into Pottermore tomorrow like this!?”
Does everyone think that the clue will be put up at the same time?
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Ugh, it is awkward. Actually, midnight England time (too lazy to look up the actual time zone) is 6:00 PM EST, but I don’t think they’re going to put up the clues at midnight. On the Pottermore blog they said that they would release them at different times. “We will also be varying the time each clue is revealed – as well as the difficulty of the clues – to give as many people as possible a chance to register for early access.” I was up at midnight but I couldn’t find the clue so either it wasn’t up then or I get extremely stupid when I’m sleep deprived; I’m not sure. (Probably the latter, honestly, even though midnight isn’t that late.) When did you find it?
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The clue was up at 1:00 Pacific time. I don’t know when it initially went up, but it was between 12:30 and 1:00.
And the clue wasn’t hidden or anything–it was right in the middle of the page.
Hopefully some of the clues get released during the day for Americans so people don’t have to stay up all night!
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Okay, that’s good to know. Argh, that’s 4 AM for me. It would be extremely nice if they put them up during the day for Americans!
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It went up about 3-4 minutes before 3am central, so 3-4 minutes before 1am pacific. I was refreshing the page every few minutes from 11:30pm onwards, even though I’d heard it wouldn’t go up until at least 2am central
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My uncle passed away last night. 
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Oh, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help. *hugs and sympathy pies*
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May he rest in peace. *huggles you*
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*hug* I’m sorry. One comment probably seems like nothing in all this, but I hope it can help anyway.
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*hugs* I’m so sorry.
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I’m sorry, Rosebud. *hugs* Were you close to him?
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I’m so sorry, Rosebud. *hugs*
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Sympathy.
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I’m so sorry, Rosebud. *hugs*
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I’m so sorry to hear that. **sympathy pies and hugs**
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I’m so sorry.
*hug*
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What time does the second question start for us Eastern standard time people?
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I got into Pottermore! *flails* And I saw Captain America (and I am SO EXCITED for the Avengers) and I drew a picture of Captain America punching Hitler in the face, which was lots of fun, especially since it was a great exercise in perspective and drawing something coming towards the viewer (in this case, Captain America’s fist/Hitler’s tooth, which he knocked out).
I really, really wish I could be a comic book writer for some superhero. But unfortunately it’s really hard for a woman to make it in the comic book industry unless she’s writing for Archie or something “girly”, so I’ll probably end up writing for TV instead. Which is AWESOME too. But still…
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There are women writers in comics. It’s not common, but there definitely are, and if that’s what you want, go for it.
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Well, of course there are women writers. But they’re far less common than make writers, and it is more difficult for a woman to make it in the industry. DC just fired 14 of its 16 female writers, you should’ve heard the chaos at Comic-Con. It’s definitely not impossible for a woman to make it, but it’s harder than it would be for a man, and I don’t think I have the necessary talent.
TV is also a bit male-dominated, but not nearly to the same extent, and it’ll be difficult enough to get work there. I don’t know, I just don’t feel like comic book writing is a really viable option for me.
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You can always start in TV and move to comics when you get really famous, like Joss Whedon.
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A good option for this is the Creator-owned publishers (like Image) who act more like a book publishing company (You own copyright, they distribute, and you choose them (or, more correctly, submit to them)) rather than a TV company (They own the copyright and distribute, as well as choosing you directly).
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Why is everything in bold? Has the HTML gnome decided to have fun with us all?
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It’s very odd. Clearly some errant GAPA (i.e., yours truly) has failed to close a “bold” command, but I haven’t been able to locate it. Still looking…
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I guess I’m not the only one experiencing this.
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And the HTML gnome strikes again…
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Oh, so it’s not just me?
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So here’s the story: I checked Pottermore at 4 PM my time, just for fun, and BAM there was a clue in the middle of the page.
‘Herp derp let’s follow the clue’, I thought, taking my time, so I Googled the answer (it was 245 and I don’t have a book handy here), went to the page, and BAM there was a magic quill.
At this point I still hadn’t realized that I had gotten very very lucky, so I thought “CLICK ALL THE THINGS!!!!!!1111!!!!” and it was like “That is not the Magical Quill”.
So then I thought “this might actually be serious” and found the Magical Quill and was sent off to register. I did so and it was like “you should be receiving an email soon”.
Ten minutes passed and when I didn’t get one, I made an account for my friend just so that it wasn’t a typing error on my part.
Welp, he, my sister, and I all have accounts now and I’m still going “lolwut”.
I just got really lucky, because I didn’t take it seriously and I was dawdling. Registration was open for roughly an hour and a half, from 4-5:30 AM EDT, and the time they release it changes every day.
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The Pottermore site said it might take up to a few weeks to get the email.
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Herp! derp! let us follow the clue!
*needed to do that*
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Ooh, look, it’s kookaburra. No, wait, it’s Cerulean. My, doesn’t she look tall.
So, I have an anecdote some of you might find interesting, since it involves books and art and Monty Python.
I recently got a copy of Diana Wynne Jones’s book Cart and Cwidder through the internet. When it came, I flipped through it, thought it was fine, and closed the transaction. Friday afternoon, I started to read it–and found four pages had been torn out.
Out loud, I said “Oh, no.” Internally, I shrieked, draped myself with green slime, and glared fiercely in the general direction of book-damaging people.
I then looked at the book and pondered. (Q: What do you do with something beautiful and broken? A: Give it love and polish its soul.) So I declared it an Art Project. I’ve used the map as a coloring page, doodled, found a haiku, and pasted a collage into it. I also cut a hollow through some pages so that it can hold a red wooden heart I have. I’ll do more to it, as I think of things. I’ll do something with a cart. And something with a cwidder.
I also went to my favorite bookstore (an independent, locally owned place, in case you wondered), and found another, readable copy. I told a woman who works there what had happened–and why I don’t think it is as bad as it seems on face value–and she quoted Monty Python. Yup. “Always look on the bright side of life.”
Some replies, now….
191–Piggy: “So you play the organ?” is a very Muserly pick-up line.
197–Rosebud2: I’m sorry to hear that. I hope your pain will ease soon.
200.1–Robert Coontz: In the meantime, the blog looks marvelously flamboyant!
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I am annoyed that I didn’t even see the question on Pottermore, even though I was on (accidentally) at midnight. Poo.
Oh well, better luck next time.
Anyway, I am SUPER HAPPY EXCITED because I got an email from the head of the theatre department at my school basically saying GET INVOLVED IN OUR THEATRE STUFF BECAUSE IT’S COOL EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT TECHNICALLY STUDYING IT.
AND THIS MAKES ME SUPER HAPPY.
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Congratulations! (on the theatre department part, not the Pottermore part.)
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GAPAs, the blog is all bolded, and it’s driving me crazier than I already am.
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We’ll fix it eventually. Right now, though, I have only the vaguest idea why it looks like that, and my bedtime is fast approaching.
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Aha! It’s in the calendar, as I suspected. We’ll just have to live without the calendar until I have time to track the problem down more precisely. I’d been thinking about replacing that plug-in anyway, although it would be annoying to have to re-enter all that information.
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Oh no! How will I ever remember when my 6k day is?!
(I learned at camp that “?!” is actually called an interrobang, which is a great word if I’ve ever heard one.”)
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Hmmm, wasn’t there a Muse article mentioning that? (if I remember correctly, sometime within the last one or two years…)
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I agree about the interrobang. It was mentioned in the June 2010 Muse issue. The article was excerpted from an absolutely BRILLIANT book called The Whatchamacallit that everyone needs to read.
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I believe that there is also a way to combine the two and make a unique interrobang symbol. Ah, here it is ‽
I quite like it considering I’m always disputed on the different emotions “?!” portrays versus “!?” And sometimes both seem rather harsh, and wow, have I become a troubled writer.
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Never mind the calendar for now, I suppose. Thank you for allowing things to…go back to normal mostly…for now.
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EVERYTHING IS SO LOUD
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I must not be thinking very rationally right now. I was lying in the grass at a local park and suddenly an airplane flew overhead and I scrambled away thinking “oh no it is an airplane” then realized that airplanes do not poop on people like seagulls tend to do.
uenciushrjsndbyeuwijmdfbryeusiw and I cannot write very proper sentences so how did I ever manage to write those long critiques for those random pictures I saw on deviantArt
The boldness is not especially noticeable from a kindle but this kindle IS pretty annoying sometimes although I mean no offense to it
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I wonder what happens if I double-bold it?
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I already tried that. I just didn’t mention it. If you see the word ‘and’ randomly bolded in one of my posts, that’s why.
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The bold is gone!
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I had no idea Johnny Cash was dead.
Pottermore is driving me bananas at the moment. I’m considering writing a song called “Midnight in Edinburgh” in it’s honor.
Piggy, your youth group is now the standard for all other youth groups.
And there is a cat trying to maul my shoes. Adieu.
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Can we have a Pottermore disscusion thread?
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Yes, please! I know it’s a website, but it’s Harry Potter, and child safety is one of their top priorities, and who hasn’t heard of it by now anyway, andit’s Harry Potter!
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Ramadan Mubarak.
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Happy shark week everyone!
In other news, I am quietly but steadily going more and more insane because of the sticky keys on my keyboard. My little brother spilled cherry juice, and sadly I now know that typing will probably never be quite the same. They’re all functioning properly, not really messing my typing up to much (other than this silly “y” key I can’t seem to hit). It’s thoroughly annoying though, and I will travel to the ends of the earth to find a solution. I’ve started with google.
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