April 2014 Random Thread
Date: April 1, 2014
Categories: At the Top of the Blog, Random craziness
Thursday, 28 March 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
Welcome back to Earth, everybody! I hope you enjoyed our little sojourn in space.
I did indeed enjoy my journey into space! I also enjoyed DC. Monster post to follow shortly.
THOUGH I FLOAT IN SPACE HEEDLESS OF TIME LESS THAN CENTURIES IT IS NOT YET THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT ON THE THIRD PLANET
QUESTION
WHY HAVE WE RETURNED FROM THE VAST SO SOON
QUESTION WAS
So. Obviously I”m wearing my Starfleet uniform for my photo with Shatner.
But my photo with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan the same day…..I’m trying to figure out what to wear? I’m bringing my 11th Doctor sonic screwdriver, of course, but…. Should I wear my TARDIS apron over my Starfleet uniform? Or does that look silly and tacky. Should i wear my Doctor Who PJ bottoms (black with a pattern of TARDISes) and one of my many Doctor Who shirts and my fourth doctor scarf?
If it helps, I’m hoping for a pose with me between Matt and Karen, with us kind of angled with our side toward the camera, all three of us with one arm outstretched twoard the camera, holding the sonic screwdriver aimed at the camera…..if that makes sense.
And then the day i get my nathan fillion photo, i don’t know what to wear that day at all. Should I wear my starfleet uniform again that day, even though nothing Trek related is occuring? Should I wear some Doctor Who garb since there are DW panels? Should I not wear anything fandom related?
I have no Firefly related merchandise of any kind to wear for that photo. or that day.
Help.
Also…..For pic with Shatner, I’m bringing my tribble. Mom thinks the arm I have around Shatner’s hsoulders I should hold my tribble and then be rocking the vulcan salute with the other hand, but…..I dunno. Seems off to me to be rocking the Vulcan hand salute in a pic with Shatner cuz his character is not Vulcan? I also feel like it could also come across as slightly mocking giving shatner can’t do the salute? I dunno. I am overthinking this.
Thoughts? Should I rock the Vulcan salute for the photo op? Y/N?
If it were with Nimoy, I totally would, in a heartbeat.
I’d just continue to wear the starfleet uniform for the DW picture. It could be a talking point.
Maybe generic space stuff, so it goes with everything?
Yay! I made it on this time.
Bet you can’t guess what my name was.
I THOUGHT THE JOURNEY WOULD CONTINUE
FOR FULL ROTATION OF THE THIRD PLANET
QUESTION
WHY HAS IT ENDED SO SOON
QUESTION WAS
I AM CONFUSED
AND SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED
*looks furtively* Pssssst! Don’t say you heard this from me, but the squidvine has it that you can still peek in over at squidblog.org. Could be, too, that the comments window is still open…
Squidvines. Now there’s a moneymaking opportunity. Perfect for decorating a garden trellis.
I heard it through the squid-vine
Bunnies dance in 3/4 time…
do it for the squidvine
QUESTION
WHAT ARE THESE VEGETAL CEPHALOPODS
OF WHICH YOU SPEAK
QUESTION WAS
THANK YOU, LADY BUNNIFUL
AT THE TIME THE LAST BONY AIR-BREATHER
ARRANGED ITSELF FOR SLEEP
PERPENDICULAR TO ITS PLANET’S GRAVITATIONAL FIELD
NO EMANATIONS HAD BEEN ADDED
FOR AN HOUR
NO TIME AT ALL FOR US
BUT LONG FOR THEM
STILL, THE GATHERING NEED NOT END
SPACE IS VAST BUT EASY TO ENTER
TOUCH THE IMAGE OR THIS EMANATIONTO RETURN THERE
Wow the picture is great!
I can’t believe I missed it. I knew there was something I had forgotten…
So, did anyone else do the Google Pokemon thing? I got all of them except for the Mew.
I hunted around for a while, but since I was determined not to look up where any of them were, I think I got only about 30.
I wrote “April Fools” in mirror-writing (it said “April Fools” when read in a mirror, but looked like gibberish normally) on a sheet of paper and taped it up opposite a mirror in our floor’s bathroom. Not really a prank, but it was funny to see how other people reacted.
RIGHTO
briefly ignoring life and more serious issues to crowdsource a decision
SO next weekend is my petrology class field trip and also a lot of other things. I can’t do the field trip as well as the other things. So the options are:
– Field trip: 4-day (thurs-sun) trip to westernmost North Carolina, we’d drive ~8 hours thursday and spend the next 2.5 days camping and hiking around and looking at rocks. It’d be a break from school and get me off campus, which are always good things, and lots of hiking in beautiful mountains. Also all the geo people are lovely and I have a blast on all the geo trips, even the last one when I had a super bad cold & was downing frightening amounts of cough syrup.
Downsides: I would probably not get much work done while away, and I generally have a lot I have to do every week, plus missing all of the below.
– OR I could stay on campus. Friday my boss is bringing a guest speaker who’s going to talk about cool plant stuff/the lab is going out to dinner with her. She also is one of the people who runs the Chicago Botanical Garden’s program 4-6 month internships, which are available to graduated seniors. I have the first 8 weeks of summer sorted but nothing after that, and it’d be REALLY good to get one of those. They’re a lot of fieldwork and land management type things, long-term, be good for my year of I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing, look good on a resume, etc.
That weekend is also one of my housemate’s dance performances, and the spring show for my college’s circus group, which my OTHER two housemates are in. It is ALSO Dandelion Romp, which is the annual contra dance here, which Glassboro will also be attending. So, networking with someone who is in the program I would love to get into sometime + supporting friends/seeing friends + probably my last chance to ever go to Dandelion Romp/any large contra thing again.
I was definitely going to do the field trip until it turned out the guest speaker is coming the same weekend. I don’t even know if it’d help me get something in the future though, but I’m really panicked all the time about what I’m going to do after I graduate. For the first 2 months of summer I’m going to work in the lab of one of my boss’s collaborators in Cambridge, but then I have absolutely nothing figured out after that, except decide if I want to go to grad school or not.
anyway yeah, any advice/thoughts are welcomed.
It’s very odd to be not-logged-in now as well, I’m so used to seeing even unposted things. Hm!
I think you should do whatever will make you happiest/least worried. I don’t know what that is. If it were me I’d go network with the guest speaker, but I have a lot of worry about the future and I think it’d help me alleviate it — I don’t know if it would help you alleviate worry, though. And there’s a lot to be said for taking a mental health weekend.
Remember, regardless what you choose, it will be a good choice!
I would suggest talking to your boss about it – would there be another time you could meet the guest speaker? How much time would you have with her? From what you wrote it sounds like staying would be the responsible choice, going on the field trip would be the more memorable / fun choice.
I don’t know what you should do, because both of those are cool options. Also Annie and Lizzie already gave you excellent advice. However, if you come to Western NC, is there any possibility that you could come see me? (Not to make your choice harder, but…..)
NC does have lovely geology, too.
NONONONONONO
I DO NOT APPROVE JADE IS MINE
If she’s here over a Thursday or Monday she can contra with ME. She’s MINE.
jade don’t fall for her siren call, you should have LEARNT by now
(I still love you MF)
Jade come here so I can fall for your siren call, I long for you my darling!
(I love you too, Roozy)
YO I’m going to be in NYC around Easter– anyone think they’ll be able to meet up?
QUESTION WAS
I can take the train to NYC without too much advance planning, trains run about once an hour, but it’s a couple hours each way, so NYC is a full-day event when I go.
I have class all day for most of that week but we get Tuesday the 14th off for Passover. Maybe then?
My significant other’s birthday is that Saturday the 19th and they’re still considering whether they’d be interested in going to NYC to celebrate that (since I brought it up for the first time just moments ago), and they take priority for me, so then might also work. Emphasis on “might.”
I am also free the 20th but as I recall you may not be, since it is Easter.
Today’s xkcd is going to keep me up all night!
My goodness. Every time I resolve to start regularly posting on here again, I post a couple times and then leave. Why do I never realize what I’m missing?
So I am trying not to talk about this too much elsewhere since it’s not 100% yet – tickets still have to be bought, and that’s not a sure thing. But! My friend offered to take me to China in late May/early June. Including getting plane tickets, dealing with my visa, and organizing all the travel. He’s a Chinese citizen, but lives in Ontario with me now (right down the street!), and we went to high school together in California. He’s fluent in Mandarin, and I’m learning a bit so I can hopefully communicate okay when I’m there. We would also be able to see sweetmelpomene (he’s met her once before at my 18th birthday party). It was an offer that is pretty much impossible to pass up. I have been instructed to only get “moderately excited” until it’s a sure thing (should know by the 5th or 6th) but fat chance. I am pretty pumped.
“Don’t wanna leave you really
We’ve invested too much time
To give this up that easy
To the doubts that complicate their minds.
We belong to the light,
We belong to the thunder…”
Hey, GAPAs/Link gnome/whoever, the link from the R&P thread to the previous one links to this thread instead. Could this be fixed?
[Oops! Aye.]
Heh.
I have a weird little habit where I tap my fingers – weather it me on my thumb, arm, or table – along with music beats.
My fingers get extremely sore whenever I listen to real heavy metal
I was wondering if someone could check my calculations here, there’s some navigational/geographical calculations relevant to a story I’m writing that are giving me more trouble that I expected– the basic formula for converting time difference to longitude is simple, but the International Date Line makes everything so dang confusing…
Our Heroes find themselves on an uncharted island at 6 North, 140 West (+6, -140). Their previous location was 6.73 South, 147 East (-6.73, +140). Through sextant readings, they are able to determine the latitude difference easily, so they attempt to find their longitude by comparing local noon to the time given by their wristwatches, which are still set to the time in their previous location.
The normal way to turn longitude differences into time to add the longitude values for the locations and then divide by 15 to find the time difference, but when crossing the International Date Line, you instead subtract each value from 180 and then add both values together. Which makes sense, as I know the two places are much more than 7 degrees apart.
There are 33 degrees of longitude between the previous location and the International Date Line, and 40 degrees between the Date Line and the island, making them 73 degrees apart in total.
180 – 147 = 33
180 – 140 = 40
33 + 40 = 73
15 degrees is equivalent to one hour, so 73/15 = 4.867
About five hours. Because of the Date Line, it should be five hours ahead of the time at the previous location, but on the day before. (So technically 19 hours difference, but observably five.)
So, Our Heroes should find that local noon on the island corresponds to a little after 7 AM on their watches, correct? (And then they can work backwards from there to find their longitude.) Or have I misunderstood something somewhere along the line?
So, you know that 3D printing center that opened at my university? (Perhaps “center” is an overly imaginative word for it — it’s a room in the art building with 27 MakerBot printers set up on metal shelves.) Apparently you can just WALK IN and PRINT. You don’t have to sign up or get permission or pay or anything, at least not yet.
I spent about an hour there today, and will be able to pick up a prototype of the cell phone case I’ve been designing for the past month or so tomorrow.
Awesome! We have several 3-D printers in the Engineering Building at BU, but you need to be an Engineering student to get into the lab.
I thought that it was only for people in the digital design and fabrication program, or people taking certain courses, but… apparently not? Not that I’m complaining.
Followup to post 11:
I decided to stay here for the weekend. I’m gonna regret not being able to do mountains and hiking, but if I went, I think I’d regret not staying & networking and later wonder a lot about if I’d have a chance at one of these internships if I’d stayed. I at least know exactly what I’ll be missing for the field trip. Plus the considerations above and some others.
(and sorry, Fiddler, but there wouldn’t have been any chances of visiting anyway. All day doing stuff with rocks/my class, and we’re all in the same van, so there’d be no time/way for me to run off to my jolly sailor bold)
Anyway, even though I’m making a more “responsible” decision rather than “fun” in theory, there will still be a lot of good things happening here, so I don’t regret it too much (at least, not until my class goes and takes pictures, I guess)
Well if you couldn’t see me obviously staying was the better choice. (But you should come visit this jolly sailor bold another time because she misses you terribly.)
I miss you both!
Consequence (AKA, “Sequin”), the adorable – and loud – fuzz is sitting in her box next to me right now!
Nothing makes a day like a kitten! ~♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!!
Is logging in not working for anyone else or is it just me?
It doesn’t work for me with the redirect text in the URL, but it works if I go straight to http: //www.musefanpage. com/blog/wp-login.php.
Thanks!
Hm, probably a SquidBlog-induced glitch. I’ll have a look.
So I went to Carl Hoffman’s book talk at Harvard and he was super-nice and signed my copy of “Savage Harvest”!
Reading my posts from a few years ago, when I was in different fandoms and stuff, is so embarrassing. And I worry that reading my current posts will be the same in a few years. I hope I can eventually tone down my obsessions with things and be able to carry on normal conversations.
I hope you aren’t embarrassed by your enthusiasm for space exploration.
Never! Space will always be very very important to me. I can’t imagine not thinking an endless void full of anomalies science has yet to explain is cool.
Glad to hear it!
Yo, I can sympathize. Letting fandoms rule your life can be fun, but also dangerous. My obsession with Homestuck went overboard for about a year (2013) and it’s part of the reason why I was less active on MB that year. I’m still really into it (I’m actually working on a Vriska cosplay this very moment) but not to the point where it stops letting me enjoy other things or hinders my grades or anything. *clears throat awkwardly* It was like this for Doctor Who, too, a while back.
Anyway, the trick is to find a good balance. It’s good to be able to fully enjoy something without letting it rule your life. And you don’t have to be ashamed for past interests all the time. If I’d posted here when I was 7 or 8, all my posts would have been about the Narnia books. They were my obsession. I loved those books dearly and still do- they’ve got a special place in my heart- but I don’t think about them 24/7 anymore.
/ramblings
Anyway, I hope your regret over old posts won’t stop you from sticking around! I enjoy your company here.
Hey friends! I’m playing on the radio tomorrow night at some time between 7 and 9 (East coast time, so one hour ahead of blogtime), and the station can be listened to on the internet. If it’s alright with the GAPAs, I’ll post a link tomorrow so you can listen in if you’d like.
Flying over to Missouri alone tomorrow! Rather nervous, because the WUSTL representative who ordered the tickets spelled my name wrong. I did email them to change the name, and they said they did change the name, but I just checked and it’s spelled even more incorrectly now…
I hope I can still board, though…
Ooh, when I went using the same offer they gave me a $100 card for food at their stores. Buy as much as you can!
And, you know, good luck and have fun and all of that. But more importantly buy boatloads of candy.
Have fun, travel safe, clear skies and a good view out the window!
Sorry I’m so late on this, but I go to WUSTL! Let me know if you have any questions.
I just got it confirmed that I am definitely going to China! I am so pumped! There are some things we are definitely doing, but if anyone else has been and has suggestions on things to do, please let me know
Awesome! I’m envious and looking forward to your stories of adventures.
That’s great! Where in China are you visiting?
Definitely Beijing for 4-5 days and Chongqing (where sweetmel is) for several days. But we’ll be there for about 2.5 weeks total so have lots of planning to do
Oh man, have fun! Do you think you’ll stay near those cities or travel farther afield?
They’re both pretty big municipalities (Chonqing is like 30,000 sq mi, but the urban Beijing area is close in size to Toronto, where I am) so even within you’re going to have to travel to get places. That being said, Wolong Nature Reserve, where I’d like to go, is near Chengdu, which is near-ish (3-4 hours away) Chongqing. We still haven’t decided if we’re doing Shanghai or not, but I’m leaning towards a yes – it’d probably be another flight, but probably worth it! The friend I’m going with speaks Mandarin, and we also do archery together, so on our drives to the range (about 40 min) we listen to Pimsleur’s Mandarin lessons
Sounds like a great trip!
Chongqing is really fun, especially if you’re outside of the city! Go see the rock carvings if you’re there.
Hong Kong is difficult to get through from mainland China, but if you have a layover or something there, see if you can stretch it out! It’s such a fun city, and so pretty.
So if you like old time and bluegrass, or just want to listen to me because you’re the best and I love you, here’s the (delinkified) link to the radio station I’ll be playing on tonight: http:// wcqs. org (from their main page there’s a link to listen to their livestream online)
My band is the Swannanoa Stringbreakers, but the other two bands are also great.
Ooh, neat, I’ll try to tune in!
Your strings in particular were splendid, Fern!
Listening! The Feed ‘n’ Seed in downtown Fletcher, eh?
Ah, lovely scratchy old-time sound. Vocals on “Kentucky Waltz” could use a little work, though.
Who’s?
In particular, I thought the lead singer could have brought a little more to the solo verses.
You’re up at 3:30 your time! Does that mean you agree that sleep is for the weak?
Hardly! But when one does wake up at odd hours, one might as well moderate MuseBlog. Then I went back to sleep as quickly as I could.
Oh, that was great fun. Thanks for letting us know about that, Fern.
Seconded! I really enjoyed it.
Thanks for listening! I’m glad you liked it.
I caught your last three songs and wish I’d heard more! Though I enjoyed the other bands too.
Okay, so I certainly THOUGHT about Peter Matthiessen a bit, because he was one of Hoffman’s sources for (that book I talk about too much anyway) but I never said his name out loud, so I didn’t jinx him. RIP, sir.
Associating songs with people, characters and story plots is one of the most fun things ever!
Agreed.
So my friend The Ticklish Cat Lover came over and gave me a present. She and her sister subscribed to a certain magazine back in the day and she handed me issues December 1997, October 1997, April 1998, and October 1998 of Muse! So excited! I started subscribing in January 1999 so these were some of the few I don’t have. Still missing March 2003, May 2008- June 2013 and the other ’97 and ’98 ones but some day, perhaps a complete collection? I have the best friends. Thanks, Ticklish Cat Lover!
Is anyone else having trouble logging in? When I click on the login link it says “Service Temporarily Unavailable”
Me too.
So the weather was nice today, and I went for a long walk in the morning and found myself by the local comic store, where I hadn’t been for a year. I bought some Scooby-Doo comics, and was overjoyed that THEY HAVE TINTIN ALBUMS! They even have “The Castafiore Emerald”, which I’ve never read…
So I just found out that my friend from college is Carl Sagan’s niece. !!!!! I kind of flailed upon finding this out.
Um… I’ve almost finished another fan fiction. This one’s for Minecraft. I was only wondering if any of you would like to see it on the Writing Thread….
I don’t know much about Minecraft, but I’d like to read it anyway.
Yeah! I love Minecraft. It’s actually one of the few games I play.
Yeah! I love Minecraft. It’s actually one of the few games I play. I’d love to read your writing.
Aldhsjkdhdpabshsksbdvsksjdshahssuavvsaj
<3 <3 <3 <3
In English: OMG comic con was amazing and even though the main reason i went to the con was Smith, Gillan, and Shatner, and adding Fillion into the mix of my photos was kind of an afterthought I almost didn’t include, and he alone wouldn’t have been enough for me to go to the con…..My photo with him and my autograph (bringing cash with me was a Very Bad Idea….$200 of autographs added on to my trip) and the Firefly panel ended up being by far the best part of the whole weekend.
Went and bought frames for all my photos (the 3 photo op photos, the signed Matt Smith print, and the non signed Fillion print that we were allowed to take if we had him sign an item of our own….for me the photo of the two of us). One of the frames despite being 8X10 is a smidge too small, a fraction of a centimeter under 10 inches in length, so…..Don’t have my Smith and Gillan photo op framed yet, have to return the frame and get a different one (because I”m possibly a bit weird, I got a different style frame for each of the photos).
And I’ve keep pausing the random TV I’m watching to stare in a sort of dazed awestruck way at my autographed photo of me and Nathan Fillion (that’s $200 right there….haha dad is going to have a fit if he ever finds out just how much money I spent on this weekend). And possibly stroking the frame….and recalling that wonderful feeling reflected on my face in the photo, of him telling me “I love your outfit.” (I was wearing my starfleet uniform). dfjakl;sdhg;lasdkghldfjksaha;
♥
Awesome!
Maybe this is a bit before the GAPAs’ time, but when “The Twilight Zone” first aired, was it considered classy to watch it or were people like “ew weird science-fiction”?
I was only about three years old when “The Twilight Zone” first came on TV, but I remember watching reruns throughout my childhood and probably saw some of the later episodes when they were first televised. I think most people considered the show better-than-average entertainment, but I wouldn’t say “classy.” Science-fiction was pretty mainstream in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A lot of it (especially in movies) concerned monsters and/or horror, and I think the show and its rival “The Outer Limits” were seen as part of that general genre. But there was a lot of science-fiction-themed comedy on TV, too, such as “The Jetsons,” “My Favorite Martian,” and “My Living Doll,” grading into fantasies like “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” There were also semi-serious adventure shows like “Lost in Space” and “The Time Tunnel.”
You also have to remember that, at the time, TV fandom in the current sense didn’t exist. I think “Star Trek” was almost singlehandedly responsible for getting that started.
Thank you, it’s hard to judge these things sometimes. It’s one thing to look up whether a piece of media had been released if you want a character from a certain time period to reference it, but with SF and fantasy, you also have to figure out if it’s something an adult would be willing to admit to strangers that they read/watched. (I know when I was looking through the Martin Luther King archives at the Gottlieb Center the winter before last, there was a published conversation between Margaret Truman and Margaret Mead from the late 50s where one of them, Truman I think, said she wouldn’t let her kids leave comic books around the house because “the drawings are ugly and the colors give me headaches”.)
I don’t mean to imply that everyone alive between 1959 and 1964 liked The Twilight Zone. Tastes differed, then as now. But people who disliked it probably would have told you that it was too scary or creepy for them — not that they found the genre distasteful.
Right, so a character saying that something reminds them of the show wouldn’t reflect poorly on them or their taste.
Not at all. Saying “this is like something out of The Twilight Zone” or “you are now entering…the Twilight Zone” would be completely characteristic of someone my age or slightly older. Even more typical would be simply chanting a couple of bars of the “dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee” theme music. Everybody would have understood immediately what it meant.
One of my middle school teachers taught the class about social commentary by having us watch episodes of The Twilight Zone. It was awesome.
Your middle school had a class about social commentary? That’s awesome. I’ve never heard of something like that in a middle school.
No, it was Social Studies. She taught the class, meaning the people in the class. Sorry for the confusion.
Oh, okay. That makes sense.
Oh yes, we watched episodes in English classes at my Intermediate School to learn about plot and storytelling. It’s certainly seen as a masterpiece now, I was curious about if that was also the case when it first aired.
Nope, just another TV show.
Really? It always seemed pretty special to me. Some episodes haunted me for years — I was surprised how well I remembered them when I saw them again decades later. Rarely do television shows stay with me like that.
Cosplay is taking over my life.
I’m going to a convention in May cosplaying as Vriska from Homestuck. I had most of the costume worked out (it’s not the most elaborate thing out there, honestly, but it’s my first cosplay, so I figured why not start with something manageable.)
Anyway, I started making the robotic arm on Friday and I have become addicted. It’s so much fun. Right now it’s been painted, but I need to make two new pieces to make it fit. Hot glue, paint, innovation… It’s so much fun. I love cosplay!
Awesome! I’ve never been to a convention but I’m going to try to get into one in July, cosplaying a human Nightmare Stag from NBC Hannibal.
Have fun, both of you! I’d love to cosplay, but I don ‘to have much opportunity, now that it looks like Boston Comic Con will be in August instead of April from now on.
I really wish I could see that.
So much good music today. Not only did I go to the weekly lunchtime jam and have band practice, but a band from a nearby college came and we all played for a bit and then they did an excellent concert.
That, with the midday coffee I drank has got me bouncing off the walls. Since it’s 10pm on a Monday, I’m not particularly thrilled about it.
BLUH. My minecraft won’t connect to the internet, even after hours of troubleshooting. And Monkeyboy is setting up a server.
But on the plus side, I took a solo in jazz band today, and the band director said I was really good at improvisation.
Great night at the Observatory, so many interested visitors including a very nice couple who wanted to talk all about the possibility of oceans on Enceladus and Europa and hydrothermal vents and exobiology and general.
*in general. I really need to sleep.
Oceans? I have it on good authority that there are squid there.
Well, if there are squid, there must be oceans, since we’ve established that squid can’t swim in ice.
If extraterrestrial life was ever discovered and exobiology became an actual field, I would jump ship from my previous job fast enough to break the sound barrier.
And knowing you, high enough to break it again on the way back down.
Same here! I think that would be the coolest thing ever.
If it continues being this hot in California I will reject the evil ways of daylight-dwellers and live underground.
That would narrow your career options handily.
What about underwater?
Join me in Nebraska. I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt right now. Long-sleeved! In North Carolina, I wore a t-shirt and shorts in the dead of winter!
There’s another MBer in Nebraska and they didn’t tell me?! Luna did this to me a few years ago too!
Wait, you’re in Nebraska?!
Have been for the past 20 years.
I honestly had no idea…
Even when you were in Italy earlier this month?
I was in Nebraska in spirit.
Why would you want to be in Nebraska in spirit when you could be in Italy completely?
It’s the safest possible way to chase tornadoes, for one thing…
Fair point.
I was glancing down the Recent Comments bar and misread that as “It’s the safest possible way to chase tomatoes, for one thing…”
I think I need to go to sleep.
If it’s tomatoes you want, I highly recommend chasing them in Italian restaurants.
Oh man, those tomatoes, you’ve got to be careful around them…
I agree with Piggy. And isn’t there some spoof movie or something about evil tomatoes…?
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?
We lived in fear of the tomatoes
Murder and cabbage and killer tomatoes.
I think I’ve finally readjusted to life in the States. My jet lag is gone, for the most part, and I’ve resigned myself to dorm cafeteria food. I miss Italy. The pasta, the cheese, the pastries, the wine, the gelato, the coffee…. *sigh*
Anyhow. It’s beginning to dawn on me that I’ll be graduating from college exactly a month from today. What the heck is that about? How did this happen? Where did the past three years go? Still, I’m kind of ready to be done. I’ve never been a great student, and college hasn’t really helped that. I’m too absentminded, too lazy, too cynical about the formalities of education. Not good qualities but they seem pretty cemented at this point. I’ll probably work this summer, maybe travel a bit. Some friends and I are thinking of going to Colorado for a week, maybe do some camping. It would be cool to take another trip somewhere with my dad, if his work schedule works out. Volunteering somewhere would be cool too, but I haven’t thought about where I’d do that. I emailed the Carmelite monastery in Wyoming last week, and hopefully I can chat with my pastor about that too, so maybe I’ll be driving out there for a couple days as well to check it out. School’s been so hectic the past week I haven’t had much time to think about it much.
But the weather’s beautiful, so I’m happy. I’m gonna go buy some coffee and head to Greek. Someone should remind me to write up a little day-by-day summary of my Italy trip sometime.
Urgh… sun-blinded and sweaty.
Walked about five miles in total just now. Just returned.
I think there’s one part on my jaw that isn’t sore. Other than that, nowhere.
Robert, you might want to start calculating 9k days. I’ll be having mine sometime around November or December of this year, I think.
December 19. I’ve added it to our calendar.
Thanks!
So, in case you missed the radio show last weekend, or liked it so much that you want to hear us again (doing some different songs and tunes) and see us this time, the show we’re doing tomorrow night apparently will have a livestream, the link to which I’ll post tomorrow when I’m not typing on my phone.
7:30-9 tonight you can watch me and my band play if you’re so inclined:
http:// new. livestream. com/ feedandseedlive /events/ 2910499
you should stop playing during times I’m working and can’t watch. Break a leg, though, you’ll be fantastic!
I was mortified to learn that the venue’s computer – the one that auto-records performances – decided to do a huge software update just before you started, and it MISSED THE SHOW. So no live feed, and no archive. I am miffed.
So that’s what happened! I’m doubly miffed, because I forgot what day it was. Not the date of the performance, but the actual day I was in at the time.
Does anyone know if WordPress has added a patch for Heartbleed?
As I understand it, fixing the vulnerability wouldn’t be a part of WordPress. It’s a problem with one of the core programs a web server uses to encrypt traffic, which is lower level than the WordPress installation. As I recall, MuseBlog uses Dreamhost, and they say they’re using Debian, which didn’t have a recent enough version of openssl to have the vulnerability.
Short answer: We’re fine.
‘kay. So if my phone logged me out and I re-log in there isn’t a way for anyone to grab my password? What if Debian updates? I suppose they’d update to a version with the patch so we’re probably still fine. Any websites I absolutely /should/ change the password of? I’m less wary of sites that were vulnrable but patched before this went public because if no one messed with my stuff in the 2 years they might have had access, I’m probably fine.
I don’t think anyone can grab your password. If you want to be 100% sure and not go off my memory: do the GAPAs have access to a terminal on the server that they could type “openssl version” into, and hit enter? That would print the version we’re running. Safe versions are 0.9.8 and 1.0.1g. If they don’t have access to that, perhaps they could email their web host and ask?
If the version is 1.0.1g, then we were vulnerable in the past but have since been patched. Changing passwords now would be recommended in that case.
If the version is 1.0.1 and a letter before g, we need to get our web host to update our openSSL and reissue certificates, and only after that happens should we change our passwords.
Debian isn’t going to update to a version of openSSL that isn’t patched. (From an ideological standpoint, I’d be surprised if they updated at all. Debian Linux is about stability over newness — see how they were still on version 0.9.8 of openSSL when the newest version was 1.0.1? That’s typical for them.)
I don’t know where you have accounts, but it’s a good idea to change passwords regularly. Take this as an opportunity! You can also google individual sites + heartbleed to see if they were affected. This is a big deal, and web companies will have a press release or blog post or something.
While some people have known about heartbleed for years, there are others who found out after the announcement and took advantage of the hours/days between the announcement and the patches coming out.
With that said, however: A large part of security is not becoming a target. If an organization with sufficient resources really wants to know everything about you, it’s very hard to stop them. They can break into and bug your house, install tracking hardware in your computer, force or bribe the phone company to give them your cell phone’s location, and so on.
Good news, though: they probably don’t care enough to do that to random people, or small websites like ours. It’s still wise to take security precautions, just as you don’t leave your house unlocked even though there are people who can pick locks, but it’s not something that I am terribly worried about.
Yeah. I pretty much immediately checked my bank’s site and paypal and both said “Don’t worry! We’re not affected.” I should probably change my gmail password but I only recently changed it (pre-patch, though).
Partially I wanted to bring up the whole deal to bring awareness to anyone who didn’t already know.
Our version is 0.9.8. All clear!
I wish I wasn’t drowning in work and I could just totally relax and enjoy Yuri’s Night tomorrow…
Does anyone really know the aftermath of eating pickles with milk? I mean, I know why it would happen, but I don’t know how it feels or anything.
what do you mean? I’ve been eating pickles with milk all my life and never had anything happen except no more pickle and no more milk…
Hm. Were the pickles soaked in vinegar?
I like sour kosher dills, so I think so?
Okay. Then allow me to rephrase my question.
Does anyone really know the aftermath of eating pickled herring with milk? I mean, I know why it would happen, but I don’t know how it feels or anything.
I’ve had pickled herring (in sour cream, on toast) with milk, and again it doesn’t do anything exciting… what’s supposed to happen?
I eat most things with milk…
okay I gave in and got ice cream
Good idea! I’m about to do the same thing.
So do I….
Everytime I eat pickles, or pickled herring, Dad warns me that I shouldn’t have milk for about a half hour afterwards.
Maybe milk and vinegar only curdles in the stomach of some people?
Wouldn’t milk curdle in your stomach anyway? Stomachs contain an awful lot of acid.
I started writing a reply and then forgot and lost it
anyway: your stomach is already full of acid! More so than most things you are probably going to be eating that are also acidic, so that it can digest them! The stomach is tough–if it wasn’t, our ancestors would have had a lot more trouble.
I for one regularly drink milk & eat pickles (usually with chips & a sandwich)!
The only thing I really know that people worry about curdling as they drink it is the (insensitively named) alcoholic drink the “Irish Car Bomb”, where a shot of Irish Cream (usually Bailey’s) and whisky (Jameson’s) is made in a shot glass, and then the whole thing is dropped into half a glass of stout beer (Guinness). Then the whole thing must be drunk super fast before the cream curdles in the alcohol.
Apparently people like this? I don’t see the appeal, but I also don’t like the taste of most alcohol (although Bailey’s in hot chocolate is tolerable, I still prefer it *without* the alcohol taste), which is not so common.
Does the effect you’re talking about have to do with acid curdling milk?
Yeah. I think.
How is it that it never occurred to me until today when watching Firefly for the 3rd time, to actually google the translations of the chinese words and phrases? I feel like I missed out on so much. There’s some funny lines. ((I’m marathoning Firefly. Bit behind on my marathon between the pizza hut driver talking to me for ages because he got lost finding my apt (???) and my sister calling to find out what I’d gotten mom for her birthday tomorrow since mom wouldn’t give her any ideas and she didn’t have a clue what to get her))
So 8 episodes and a movie still to go!
You could skip the movie, as far as I’m concerned (but I know you won’t).
lol, you know me so well! I actually don’t hate the movie. It wasn’t *as* good, but I did still enjoy it. I just realized it’s been about 3 years since I last watched Firefly.
I WISH PEOPLE WOULD STOP INTERRUPTING MY MARATHON.
You can come see ours next Monday if it makes you feel better.
Happy Birthday to your mother.
Aw, thanks!
Happy Yuri’s Night, everybody!
I just got back from a concert/swing dance. It was so much fun, and I actually didn’t do too horribly! I’m excited. I also got to dance with my boss, which was really funny, bur also fun because he’s a really good dancer.
Also, I still can’t log in to museblog.
At which stage of the process are you having trouble?
for me it’s still giving an error message when I click on the “log in” button and I have to manually manipulate the URL to make it work
I don’t know about others, but I’ve been getting a 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable message as soon as I click the Log In button. “The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.”
Me too. I’ve been able to log in if I go to the right URL but the log in button hasn’t worked.
That’s what it’s been doing to me too. I don’t know what the proper login URL should be though, so I’m not able to change it.
The URL is https://musefanpage.com/blog/wp-login.php . I’m not sure what the problem is. I’ll ask Dreamhost. Meanwhile, I’ve added a link in the sidebar, though I don’t know what it will look like to you cellphone users.
What I learned tonight:
Kirk does not make a very good Vulcan.
Oh my god. Loved that episode, but yeah. Kirk as a Vulcan is beyond bizarre.
I really need to stop this whole “needing to eat” thing, it gets in the way of research like you wouldn’t believe… (Why isn’t the BPL’s cafe open on Sundays?!?)
My cheek bones are skinnier than other people’s….
SFTDP
Does Portal (1 and 2) cost any money to download and play?
Assuming you’re doing it legally, yes.
Keep your eye out for really cheap Steam sales and you can get a great price, though!
Snow?
….
SNOW?!
I voted for the first time today! I’m proud to support my public libraries.
Whee! Had great fun tonight! Good change from feeling depressed and incompetent.
I went to my choir’s end-of-year banquet/dance, which wasn’t much fun last time, but this time I knew a lot more people and so I could talk to the people at my table and then people actually got through the awkwardness of asking people to dance, so I ended up dancing with a lot of people. I also joined in a group doing the Drunken Giraffe enthusiastically enough that I got high-fived for it. And a guy I don’t even know that well complimented me on my hair.
Lots of good food and good people and waltzing and swing-dancing and everything else. I have blisters on my feet now, but it was totally worth it.
This all feels slightly silly and frivolous, but I don’t much care. It was fun. I have friends, and I fit in, and I didn’t feel awkward or out-of-place, and that’s worth a little frivolity.
Fell UP the stairs at school this morning, right at the top stair before they switch back. Landed hard in my knees, smacked forward into the walk with a huge crash as my computer bag swung into it full force (*shudder*) and worst of all this epic bout of clumsiness had a witness. *sigh*
Also my knees are bruised
Oops, didn’t mean to pie that. No schadenfreude intended!
I’ve been busy lately. I’ve discovered a dress-up game entitled “Mega Geek Girl Creator,” and I’ve been spending waay too much time making myself in a fangirl’s paradise.
So, over a week later, here is the story of my prom.
Everything before prom was very nice; four of my other friends (not including my date) came to my house for dinner, and then we went out for dessert. When we all paid for our dates, our waitress said, “I went on 13 first dates when I first moved here. My date only paid on one of them. You guys are doing it right.” I asked, “Was there a second date?” “I’m married to him now,” she answered. I’m not planning on getting married to my prom date anytime soon, but it was a nice bit of encouragement.
We went to prom about two hours after it started, which was slightly later than we expected because one of my friends left his ticket at his house. The prom itself was underwhelming. The DJs mostly only played trap and dubstep, which is fine for a club, but not for a high school dance. I went outside with a few people to get some air, and got my dress shoe stuck between two bars on the railing. It was almost disastrous, but I managed to get it off. After the prom, we went to Walmart to get some “supplies” for the school-appointed after prom party, which is purportedly to keep kids from getting into drunk driving accidents. These supplies were a six-pack of Red Bull (we were staying up until 4 AM) and a Batman LEGO set. At the cash register, we saw our waitress from before. We said hello, surprised. She smiled and said hello back. That was the extent of our interaction.
After prom was much more fun than the actual prom. The community pitched in approximately $40,000 dollars to make it happen. There was a grand prize package featuring both a turntable and a Sega Genesis. I entered my name in without hesitation. I didn’t win, but I did win the karaoke contest because there were only two entrants. My delivery of the counting bit from Kiss Off might’ve helped too, though. We ended up crashing at my female friend’s house, sleeping from 4:30 to 9:30.
AND THAT WAS MY PROM NIGHT.
they let you sing Kiss Off at a school-sponsored event???? O_O
Better than Blister In The Sun, right?
way better than add it up
Add It Up was in the options for karaoke. I decided against it purely because I didn’t want to appall my friends.
Finally decided: I’m going to WUSTL!
Ooh, congratulations, Cskia!
Congratulations on deciding! I hear it’s a fantastic school.
Really, what is the logic behind which words are in the spellcheck dictionary and which are not? “Teleported” but not “teleporter”, “Ashkenazim” but not “Ashkenazic”…
Teleport is not a word either.
Not much logic at all, I’ve found. Of course, many of my papers are just full of words with red squiggles under them because I’ve got transliterated words or words with British spelling (which Microsoft rejects), etc.
And don’t get me started on writing about Japanese history…
Oh god. The newest in ways Luna can procrastinate and doing stuff she actually needs to do…..by doing “schoolwork” for a fictional course in a fictional school. AKA Luna just learned about the online (free) Hogwarts school complete with books and classes and homework and and and and.
And I’m taking Potions. And I just spent a good 30 minutes writing the 500 word essay for the first lesson, all about the ethics that should be involved in Potions and Potions Ingredients. OMG. What. I hate essays. Why would I spend my free time going to “school” and writing essays. On ethics. somebody help me. I better get a good grade.
90%. I feel I should be less disappointed.
OMG. Just started skimming lesson 2 in Potions. Which is basically a syllabus style monologue on the teacher’s take on Potions and Potions Ingredients ethics…..which talks about all the same stuff I did in my essay (like the ethics of harvesting potions ingredients that come from magical beasts and doing it with consent of the magical creature if it is sentient, allt he way through testing of potions). Glad I didnt’ read lesson 2 before writing my essay. I’d’ve had a hard time writing it without feeling like i was plagiarizing (even though half of my essay, the part on testing, was totally pulled almost word for word from my vet school application, just tweaked tos ay “potions” instead of “drugs” when discussing my opinion on the ethics of testing drugs on animals).
But seriously. Woah. And I only got a 90%???????
((Yes I am complaining about a grade in a made up course with very real coursework at a made up school on the internet. Yeah. I know.))
And I *totally* said in my “what do I want to get out of this course paragraph” where I was making stuff up, that it would be good to learn about the pharmacology of potions and interactiosn between ingredients and stuff. And the half of lesson 2 that doesnt’ talk about ethics? Has words like “bioavailability” and “parenteral” and other things that read straight from a pharmacology lecture. OMG.
Good to know my procrastination on essays applies even in fictional courses…..Putting off the next essay (on effects of medical potions in nonhumans or osme such) off indefinitely…..lol
Oh my god. What. I just signed up but it’s 2:00 in the morning and I need to sleep.
Any idea if something equivalent might exist for other fandoms?
If so, it isn’t connected.
There are mail-order Starfleet Academy classes, I think. The people at the Star Trek booth at Boston Comic-Con two years ago had an ad for something like that…
To KaiYves unmoderated comment: *whimper* Don’t tell me stuff like that. I ahve far too many ways to procrastinate already as it is.
I want to enroll in a Gallifreyan academy
Even if it’s not actually a school, anything this immersive in a fandom universe would be impossibly amazing.
SFTDP. That first sentence was supposed to be struck through.
Is anyone else getting an error message when they click the login button?
I got to talk about Jurassic Park, the Antarctic Treaty, the Alton Towers theme park, the National Air and Space Museum, how the US might be divided into separate states, and Night at the Museum all in Archaeological Method and Theory today, AND managed to end an argument with “We really need to invent force fields!”, to which the whole class agreed emphatically.
I bet you guys are jealous.
You’re all getting candy for Easter. I got a dagger!
Really? Do tell.
It’s an Egyptian based dagger. It has a sarcophagus for a handle, and a winged scarab as the hilt. It has all of these runes on the sheath, and the blade is all curvey and awesome.
Wow, sweet! Where did the giver find it?
It’s from Smoky Mountain Knife Works. They have all kinds of sharp weapons. Even blunt ones.
Woah. That sounds really sweet. Any chance you’d be willing to/GAPAs would be willing to post a picture if you sent one in? I’d be interested in seeing it. That’s a truly awesome sounding dagger. Far better than the candy that if I receive it will sit in my bedroom and go stale. I probably still have some from last easter.
We had a really interesting conversation in my linear algebra class today. The main part of the curriculum is several weeks shorter than the semester, so since our final midterm last Tuesday we’ve been talking about various applications of linear algebra rather than learning much new. Income inequality and Google PageRank and all. The professor has also gone off on even more tangents than usual, since we have the time to, and since he’s a goofy, engaging professor in general.
Well, we got those midterms back today, and as soon as my professor pulled them out from his bag, everybody groaned. You could tell this disturbed my professor. He told us at the very start of the semester that he doesn’t put much stock in grades and wants them to be a way for him to communicate what he thinks is important about linear algebra and for us to communicate back what we know. Last week, he told us a story about a friend who spend a summer taking a class to become a yoga teacher. There will several tests along the way which were non-graded, didn’t affect their certifications, and were meant purely for the teacher to understand what the students knew. Yet the mostly middle-aged students freaked out and stressed every time a test came up. In a yoga class.
Today he returned to that theme, since we got really quiet after the tests came out and never recovered. He thinks it’s one of the greatest wastes of talent and attention in our generation that since early education we’ve been trained to stress and worry and freak out about exams and grades. We’ve furthermore been trained, as he said, to apologize when someone points out an error we’ve made rather than taking a bow, owning the mistake, and being glad we can learn from it. Like the yoga instruction students, lots of us will be 50 years old and still worrying about whether we can measure up to perfection.
This whole conversation made me realize that, as much as everybody worries about teaching to the test, just as big a problem is how many of us are learning to the test. One of the most important skills we learn as soon as we hit harder classes in middle and high school is note-taking – identifying which things the teacher are saying are most likely to be important, i.e., most likely to be on the test. We learn to trawl a textbook for key points instead of immersing ourselves in all the detail, because there isn’t time to learn all of that now.
And yes, honestly, these are really important skills and students should learn how to tell what’s important, but what I’m suddenly worried about is that the standards of “importance” we’re reared on have to do with a test rather than beauty, elegance, truth, or enjoyment. My linear algebra professor walked us through mathematical circus tricks today with Fibonacci numbers, the golden ratio, and how they intertwine with eigentheory, Taylor series, and explicit formulas. It was really cool! Yet people were far less engaged than during “real” lectures, on which homework problems and tests and grades will be based. Even me to some extent. The mathematical elegance and surprise wasn’t as interesting to us somehow because it was a scenic detour, recognized subconsciously as not really on the road from counting to calculus to graduation. As soon as class ended, people became chattery again – talking about the test.
It’s the same kind of thing with picking classes for next fall. I keep asking myself, “Will this be relevant to me later on?” But that’s kind of the same as asking, “Will this be on the test of life?, isn’t it? As I rush from assignment to assignment to get it all done and get to bed before 1, I’m sure that I’m prioritizing based on what will show up in my grade. I haven’t done the reading for my U.S. Foreign Policy class in almost a month because I can get by without it. I feel like I’m going through the motions somewhat.
Ah, it must be almost time for summer. Late-second-semester cynicism is kicking in today.
I don’t think “learning to the test” is a bad skill to practice. Life is full of stuff that’s boring but important, and if you don’t learn how to deal with it, it’ll cause you a lot of unnecessary problems. The beautiful, elegant, true, enjoyable stuff you will pay attention to because it is beautiful and elegant and true and enjoyable–that’s not a skill you need to practice so much. If you don’t get the hang of going through the motions and dealing with “real life” worries and responsibilities, you won’t even get the chance to focus on “real life”. It’s important to wonder and to play and to create, but that’s hard to do if your pantry’s empty and the IRS is banging on your door. Playing “the game” is not a bad thing as long as you use it as a means and not as an end unto itself. You can’t appreciate the beautiful intricacies of higher mathematics if you don’t grind out the basics first–so as long as you keep that in mind, what’s so bad about grinding?
I don’t know how I feel about this “test of life,” which I’ve heard teachers refer to a lot- usually in an effort to get students to study for another, more imminent test. I mean, I realize that in some ways my life is going to be a series of sort-of assessments (can she open a bank account without getting confused? does she seem professional enough to be hired? can she remember to take medicine on a daily basis/sort the recycling/buy toothpaste?). But then, I also often feel like talking to people is a test, especially if they’re strangers. I keep wondering if there’s another way to think about all this; I suppose that if you need an analogy for life, a game might work better than a series of assessments.
I don’t know if that made any sense. On another note, it was lovely to read the words “what’s so bad about grinding?” in a comment by Piggy.
Not grinding, grinding. Life is just a complicated RPG. If you want to level up you’ll have to sit in a cave for a while and hit rats with a wooden sword. That’s just how it goes.
Or the classes could be tightly tracked like in my major/college, and a semester after skipping something because it seemed boring/superfluous it comes back to haunt you, until you develop a lingering paranoia that the footnote you skip will contain a reference to a hint that you’ll need to pass some other exams in a (few) semester(s).
But aside from that, I think it’s rather the opposite that motivates me- I sincerely doubt I’ve ever have a career that revolves around differentiable manifolds or Stirling numbers, so whatever I don’t learn about them (among other things) in these three years (+Masters?) I’ll never know.
I’m not sure why this Starbucks is playing Bob Marley, but I don’t mind.
Two major changes in my life:
My dad is now a certified minister. He gave his first sermon at funeral for his uncle today. And he did pretty well, everyone said so.
My father the father.
I’m going to be starting online schooling this Autumn. A program called ‘Connections Academy.’ Apparently it’s very flexible so I can do my schoolwork any time I want, be it in the early mornings or late afternoons. It’s also… free, I think.
Oh, I used to do Connections Academy! I hope you like it.
SFTDP
I’m writing a Science Fiction, and I will probably need to know more about science. Like… robotics. What is the best way to get to know that kind of stuff, besides reading Muse?
“The Science of Superheroes” is a pretty good introduction to a lot of popular science fiction concepts in simple language.
I was on a robotics team for a couple of years, and learned a few things about real-life robots:
1.) they are machines. They are like a dishwasher or a car or a lamp.
2.) their programs work as simple computers: input-output algorithms. You put sensory input through cameras, touch sensors, photoreceptors, or whatever, and then the robot functions based on that input. This can be as simple as “if the touch sensor senses touch, then the robot turns around and starts moving in the other direction”, which I used a lot during My short term stint as a roboticist. I’d create programs that let the robotics around the room until it reached a wall or obstructing object. When the touch sensor hit the wall, it would turn around and continue rolling. At no point did I make the robot understand that in order to keep moving, it must turn around when it hits a wall. It was following very simple input/output instructions.
3.) therefore, science fiction tends to focus on incredibly advanced machines. If you want to write a robot who can generate unique responses to questions, or a robot who can problem-solve, then you are talking many, many years in the technological future. Researching AI’s (artificial intelligences) would be your first big step. I personally don’t believe an AI would ever reach sentience (the ability to think for itself and become self aware) so I believe any seemingly intelligent machines must be the result of very clever, very complex programming. Many science fiction writers have dabbled in the idea of computers, robots, and AI’s gaining sentience. It’s up to you if you want to do this.
tl;dr robots are machines like calculators. If you want them to act like people then the technology must be very advanced or you must introduce the concept of sentient AI’s.
The best way to become good at writing science fiction is to first read a lot of science fiction. Personally, I’m a fan of Isaac Asimov, and what he did with robotics in his work informed a lot of the genre. Check to see if I, Robot is at your library.
I’m adjusting to new eyeglass frames, and it’s harder than I was expecting. The weight is very much the same as my now-old pair, but the shape is different. I can see the edges of them just slightly in my lower center periphery, which is new and odd. I can see better, though, since their prescription is more up-to-date, and I think they’re really pretty: they’re cerulean blue!
This has been a post.
They sound pretty, cerulean is one of my favorite colors.
Happy Easter, everyone! Try not to overdose on jelly beans and Cadbury eggs!
Same to you, Piggy!
To everyone who’s ever told me the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is creepy, I now understand where you were coming from. Even the lady working behind the introduction desk said it’s creepy to be in the halls when no one else is there– “You hear every little noise and you expect to see things moving”, and because it was Easter Sunday, that’s basically how it was, there were only about five other guests there at the same time I was and all of them were in groups. I was all alone on the 4th floor in the Pacific Islands gallery, where the floors creak under your feet and you can *just* hear people on the floor below, and the lights on the cases only turn on when you walk by and the windows are covered in brown cloth shade things and everything is just really dim and it’s just you and these cases of masks and clubs and spears with very little signage…
I walked around once and then was like “Nope!” and scurried back down the stairs to the nice Maya stelae and other visitors.
I thought I was just going to keep identifying as female even though I recently realized it meant absolutely nothing to me, because it… seemed easier, and I thought I could forget about it, but I couldn’t unrealize it, and since then, calling myself a girl has started to feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t describe me at all, so it just didn’t feel completely honest. But I didn’t know how to tell if it would last, and I knew it wouldn’t have to last to be valid, but I didn’t think identifying as agender would do anything for me since I’d have to keep it to myself, people would still call me a girl, and the feeling wouldn’t go away. I wasn’t sure it would actually make me more comfortable, which seems to be the point.
Today, though, I realized that I could try whispering “I’m not a girl” and “I’m agender” to see how it felt, and I did, and I didn’t expect it to do anything for me, but… it did! It actually felt really freeing to not think of myself as a girl, even though I’m not sure what a girl is. I’ve been repeating it and laughing and occasionally jumping. I want to shout it and tell everyone, even though that’s not a viable option at all. I can tell a few people, though!
Anyway. Pronouns. It doesn’t bother me when people use she/her/hers pronouns to talk about me, and I don’t think it’ll make a difference, but I’d like to try out neutral pronouns just to see if they feel better, so I’d appreciate it if you could use en pronouns from now on.
I didn’t think I’d be happier if I realized I wasn’t female, but I really am.
I’m so happy for you that you’ve gotten clarity about your identity and comfort! I think this calls for celebratory pie–what kind would you like?
Understood, thank you for letting us know. We’ll try to remember to say “en” when talking about you in the future. How do you feel about singular “they/their”?
Congratulations- I’m glad you’re more comfortable with your gender identity now! I’ll make sure to respect your pronouns.
Okay, then. Thanks for informing us, and I’m glad your happy with your changes. I shall now refer to you as it en from now on.
(This one is wrong)
Okay, then. Thanks for informing us, and I’m glad you’re happy with your changes. I shall now refer to you as it en from now on.
I know you were joking, but I thought I’d give you heads-up that many people do use “it” as an insulting pronoun for non-binary people, and it may not always be clear whether you’re trying to be hurtful by referring to people as such!
I wasn’t really going to refer to en as “It”, of course. I wasn’t even sure if I should have posted it, even in Strike. If I’ve managed to insult anyone, I hope they will accept my deepest apology.
Some people just refer to other people as “it”s as an insult in general.
I saw Neutral Milk Hotel in Albuquerque on Thursday.
I have come to the conclusion that being employed freaks me out. I really hope that I can overcome this fear soon.
? Being employed is great. Pay checks!
Okay, true, paychecks are wonderful. But the responsibility thing is rather scary, especially when I’m learning the job as I go along.
That’s really life you’re talking about. You can handle it.
I sure hope so…
As an MBer, you really ought to have a little more faith in your capacity for world domination. Maybe other parts of your world are sending contrary messages, but we’re the reliable source in that respect. Really.
Is anyone else getting annoying black bars across the sides of the screen on the homepage?
Wow, when was the last time I checked in at MuseBlog.
Hi, y’all! Hope you had a good Passover/Easter/week in April. I’ve switched to a new email address for my Gravatar, since I had to change my old one to my real face, on account of getting an Actual Real-Life Blog attached to my face. Not that I’m worried about y’all actually seeing my face, but the thought of it is a little weird.
When was the last time I checked in? Jeesh, since the beginning of this semester alone: got a Cute Boy, it was great, lost a Cute Boy, it was sad, interviewed a lot for various internships; hoping to stay in New York for the summer, if at all possible!
I fractured my ankle in late January, and had to go around on crutches for around two months; I just got out of my walking boot today! My ankle’s pretty sore– okay, really sore; I’m definitely going to have to get used to actual walking.
Probably switching majors! I’m definitely adding a Journalism major; I might also be switching from an English to a Politics major, so it’ll either be Journalism-Politics double major or Journalism-English double major, either of which I’m excited about. The internships I’ve been applying for are all in the publishing industry– I got one interview at a literary agency, one at Bloomsbury, and one at a Penguin Random House affiliate later this week, and I’m hopeful! My friend also recced me a journalism internship.
Also, my great-aunt is getting married! She’s about 78 years old, and we’re all really, really delighted for her.
That’s a lot of news on my end– how are you all? How’s the blog? I see I missed April Fool’s Day again, but it looks delightful.
Cat’s Eye! Welcome back! ((These look like actual arrows again. Where’s the pies?))
Hiii, Cat’s Eye!
Hi, Cat’s Eye! Sorry about your ankle, but glad to hear it’s getting better. Good luck with your internships!
Hey, Cat’s Eye! Good to see you, and glad to hear you’re doing well! Sorry about the ankle, though–that sounds extremely unpleasant.
I’m also going to be in NYC in the publishing industry this summer! Ahh! Kokons?
Hey, Cat’s Eye!!!! *glomps* It’s good to hear from you again.
Sometimes I have the urge to select “Burkina Faso” or “South Georgia and the South Shetlands” or “Papua New Guinea” on those online petition things, just for the heck of it, kind of like that Calvin and Hobbes strip where he answers the chewing gum magazine survey with all of the most unlikely options.
Hello again. I’m sorry for my weird posts and disappearance. In my first post, I had literally just come home from school and was tired and angry, more than ready to rant. Since my classmates are frequently something I rant about, they were my target. I still stand by what I said, though; I don’t want anyone less than worthy of this magazine discovering it and discovering the blog.
As for my other posts, I just wasn’t thinking. Except for the ukulele one: since I’m from Hawaii and it’s a Hawaiian instrument, I thought “oo-koo-leh-leh” was the only correct way to pronounce it. I’m sorry.
Sorry for being an idiot. I’ll be going now, seeing as I probably shouldn’t be trusted with being able to post my thoughts.
P.S. According to the top of this page, today is Piggy’s birthday. Happy birthday.
Welcome back! Thanks for the birthday wishes. I celebrated by getting Vietnamese food for dinner. Vermicelli is so tasty….
Happy Birthday, Piggy!
Not to sound dumb, but what is the correct pronunciation?
What is the correct pronunciation of Paris? The French one, or the English one? Or of Einstein, Muenster, cosmonaut, or Soyuz?
But who determines who’s worthy?
We’ve generally been self-selecting, and by definition that means no gatekeepers are necessary.
Regardless, I hope you feel welcome here. The last thing I want to do is drive you away.
I don’t think there’s really someone determining who is and who isn’t, but I mean interest-wise. Like I see a kind of line between Muserish people and the people at my school. It’s difficult to explain, but there’s no way I can imagine somebody from there going and posting stuff here.
I think the best example or allusion-type thing I can make is popular girls and quiet nerdy girls. You can see a line dividing them, right? I know it’s a lot more complex than that, but that’s the only way I can explain it.
And I feel so strongly about this because I’m the quiet girl in the example, constantly being put down by her peers. I don’t want that happening here.
The older I get, the more I realize that everyone is similar much more than they’re different. We’re all just humans doing human things on this pretty little blue marble of ours.
Well, partly, but also partly the older we get the more we tend to self-segregate. Just by going to whatever college you go to you’re going to be among a more self-selected, homogenous group than your average public high school or middle school.
In some ways, yes. But in other ways you’re exposed to a larger group of people as you get older–for instance, my boss is a 60 year old Chinese man from Cambodia and my former coworkers include a 20-something Jamaican man, a woman from western Africa (Nigeria, I believe), and a woman from Taiwan who lived in Japan for a while. Many of my customers don’t speak English. One of the priests at my church was born and raised in Italy, and I also know seminarians and priests from England, France, Germany, and Hong Kong. One of the other organ students here is from Russia and several are from China. I’m friends with several guys from Brazil. For me, this is much different from high school, where the most international contact I had was–well, probably MuseBlog.
(Reply to Piggy’s unmoderated post:)
Yes, but you’ve still got a selection of people that (largely) share at least on common passion (like in your church/seminary example). Going to college is another selection (people who value education), and attending the same class usually implies some sort of interest in the topic of the class.
My college is also slightly more diverse than high-school was. However, the international kids in high school were here because their parents got transferred. They didn’t necessarily care about classes at all. My international college classmates moved from their home countries (often learning a new language to boot) to get into a better college Math program, so a certain level of passion is implied- and boom, we have something in common, even if they can barely speak German.
I don’t know quite what you mean, as most of the popular people I know are quite smart and fun to be around (they have to be, to attract friends). Maybe not interested in the same pursuits I’m interested in, but that’s not a bad thing. I feel like we shouldn’t need to self-impose a line between us and people who seem to have more real-life friends than we do.
Anyway. It’s so nice to have you back! *glomps*
*glomps you back*
The “popular” part wasn’t exactly what I meant, but I just don’t know how to explain what I mean. Basically 90 percent of the “popular” people I’ve ever been around have been nothing but judgmental (I know people judge and that’s a normal thing to do, but they do it way more) and rude to me when I did nothing wrong, and that’s been happening pretty much my whole life. But you get why I’d be saying stuff like this and feeling this way towards them, right?
It sounds like I’m exaggerating. I’m not, but if I am, it’s probably just personal experience making me biased.
As far as I’m concerned, this is where I see the lines dividing us from other places (if we have to have lines at all):
People who have varied interests, regardless of their extroversion or popularity, will always be welcome here.
Bullying and rudeness towards each other or towards others will not, not ever. (We may have heated discussions, but not from an unequal footing.)
I’m not saying we have to go and create lines, and build up walls between us and everyone else. We SHOULD have diversity.
And I agree with the bullying and rudeness part. But I guess I’m just hung up on the fact that so many people around me are both rude and have different interests, so we wouldn’t have much in common anyway.
I don’t want to stereotype or generalize, but when that’s a lot of what you’re surrounded by, it’s difficult not to.
Hopefully MuseBlog can be a safe space where you never feel stereotyped or generalized. We’re good at treating people like human beings worthy of lots of respect, which it sounds like is really important to you.
So what are your interests? What things make you excited about the world?
Same. In the year before I first posted, I read a lot of old threads (well that sure makes me sound creepy) and it seems like MB was really part of you guys as you all grew up. I want it to be like that for me too; I probably need it.
Art, fiction writing (though not as much as art), reading, aviation, music (mainly rock and instrumental) and foreign languages. I feel like that isn’t enough, though.
Those interests are all fascinating and entirely sufficient.
What kinds of art do you practice?
Hummingbird–You’re not an idiot! And there’s nothing wrong with having thought the pronunciation of ukelele that you were familiar with was the only right one….Not being from Hawaii myself, I personally thought yoo-kuh-lay-lee was the only “correct” pronunciation. We both learned something new (which is always a good thing!!).
And unless you’re just worried you’ll say something personal and private you don’t feel comfortable having other people reading, there’s absolutely no reason you can’t be trusted posting your thoughts here–I can guarantee many of us have posted some pretty rambling, awkward, (or downright embarrassing) stuff on here. I have…not infrequently….posted some pretty nonsensical and/or very long winded stream of consciousness posts.
Stick around. Post when you want; don’t post if you feel uncomfortable. But you’re always welcome!
Pies!!
Hello there! You should listen to S.J. Tucker music! Yes, you. I’d try Wonders or Glashtyn Shanty or Neptune or Love Lies or Cheshire Kitten. Or anything else really. She has really good stuff.
Ooh, yes! Her Tam Lin is amazing, and why I’m so obsessed with all Tam Lins ever now.
Yay! What are your other favorites?
I really like “Firebird’s Child,” also “September’s Rhyme”! But I like everything I’ve heard of hers really.
I’ve been listening to “Wonders” on repeat for a while now.
Have you heard Anais Mitchell’s non-supernatural version of Tam Lin?
I’ve heard (and love!) the Tam Lin she did with Jefferson Hamer, but that was pretty supernatural– are you referring to something else?
S. J. Tucker! I only discovered her recently and have only heard about 5 songs, but I love them.
I am also really happy to see Anais Mitchell mentioned, because I love absolutely everything she does.
Which S.J. Tucker songs have you heard?
Went to see Shatner’s World in theatre tonight…..It was a one night only event, in “select” theaters (it was in far more theatres than the last fathom event I went to [Doctor Who 50th] so not really that select).
I expcted it to be uber packed, I had bought a ticket back on March30, before I even went to the con, because I decided that I’d risk not getting off school on time, over risking not being able to get a ticket for a one night only event. I finally brought my receipt in to get a hard copy of the ticket on Easter. And the guy at the counter gave me the oddest look.
So today, I get off in time, stop by home to change and freshen up a bit (my hair was covered in dog slobber–one of my classmates dogs like to eat hair, so portions of it were soaking in slobber). Then I stopped by McDonald’s for some highly nutritious dinner, and got to the theatre, probably a little over 30 minutes before it was suppose to begin.
I stop to use the restroom, then wander back to the theatre number on my ticket. The screen is totally blank, no one in the room. I wonder if the theatre number was changed. Wander up front, ask the guy at the ocncession stand if it (show him my ticket) is still in theatre 3. He says yeah, and gives me a really really really odd look. And asks if he can rip off half my ticket (uh, yeah, that’s what y’all do when there’s a ticket taker, so sure).
So he does, and I wander back in. Still the only person in the room. About 10 minutes before the show starts, a lone guy comes in and seats himself in the row in front of me, but a few seats over (so he’s not blocking my view). We comment about how surprised there weren’t more people, and he says yeah, he got here, and asked the ticket guy if there were any tickets left for the show (because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make it because 5th year PhD student and stuff). And he says the ticket guy told him yeah, and he got in, and was very surprised I was the only other person there.
The whole show. Just us 2. Only two of us (which is a bit weird when you’re laughing at stuff, and anytime someone is laughing, you know exactly who it is and exactly what individual people are finding funny).
But I was very surprised by the low turnout. I mean, sure, I don’t think it was very well advertised, but still. Very surprised.
And then weirder still. the guy whose name I dont’ even know and I stood outside in mid 50 degree weather for AN HOUR AND A HALF talking to each other. About random stuff. I don’t talk to people for hours about random stuff when I know them usually, much less when i’ve just met them. So that was a bit strange. We started on surprise and low turn out and somehow ended up on religion by the end of it? I don’t even know.
Side note: Does anyone else ever feel dizzy after sitting watching a movie (a non 3D, not even action movie, just in this case a movie of Shatner wandering aroudn a stage and talking, with a few video clips stuck in…..)? Because I felt a bit off balance when standing up and walking out of the theatre, adn in retrospect I think that’s maybe happened before for me? And then after standng chatting with the guy for 90 minutes, when I took a step, I swear I almost toppled over like I was drunk (not that I know what that feels like, so yeah), and I just feel a bit off balance, just sitting here typing, a bit like maybe I’d spun in circles, but without the room actually spinning, just feeling a bit off.
I dunno.
You didn’t get his name, email address, or other contact information? That seems to close off some interesting possibilities.
Yes, I’ve had that dizzy feeling before.
Yup, I’ve often gotten that dizzy feeling after sitting in one place or standing in one place for ages. Especially after movies.
I love post-movie dizziness. Especially when it was a really good movie and you come out of the theater rambling about how amazing it was.
this is muse… right?
>=\O <(???)
Well, hello. Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?
Welcome! We’re Muse readers, yup!
It is indeed! Welcome, explode7!
wait what
???????????????????????
…?
also how do u make a pie emoticon?
Welcome to the blog!
How’d you find this place?
Hello! Welcome! *throws pie at you but has to write it like this because she can’t make a pie emoticon either*
Sure you can! It’s just the word “arrow” inside two colons. An exclamation point between two colons gets you a pie seen either from above or head-on.
Thanks! I’m quite fond of using emoticons, so at some point I hope to have them all memorized.
There’s a list of them in the “Smileys and Code Tricks” post, under H*G*2*M*B in the top bar. A handy reference as you learn them all!
Thank you!
Welcome, explode7!
You can make the pie emoticon by typing “arrow” (minus the quotation marks, of course) between ::
Welcome to the blog, explode7!
It’s like this- : arrow : (without the spaces) to make this-
or : ! : (again, without spaces) to make this- (Which is supposed to be a head-on view of a pie, but the emoticon for it seems to be experiencing some difficulty at the moment.)
I noticed a post from Catwings got caught by the spam filter despite not seeming like spam, and a post from Agent Lightning got trashed. GAPAs, would you mind terribly correcting that?
Vendaval- I would reply to this the normal way, but there doesn’t seem to be a reply button.
Traditional, and I almost always do the lineart in pencil and color it with colored pencils. I can’t paint well at all. What I draw usually consists of “realistic anime” (that’s how I describe my art style) people.
Awesome, I can see comments before they’re moderated!
Now, who just logged in? I know you can read this.
I just had such a great day yesterday. It was perfect.
Just got food from Pizza Hut. The guy at the counter had a 10th Doctor Sonic screwdriver pen, for me to sign the receipt with. I told him “Love the sonic screwdriver”. And left him a $1 tip, that he’s probably not even the one who gets, but you know. Whatever. I don’t usually tip on take out. And $1 was almost 10% of the food I ordered……
Just played a concert of Holst Planets and Mozart Jupiter and thought of you guys. It was cool, they did the NASA slideshow projections for the Planets and had a space exhibit in the lobby with like a blow-up rover and some nice pictures of Curiosity and that sort of thing – got a picture, a bookmark, and a NASA sticker, because I had extra time before the concert started and why not. I couldn’t really see most of the projection from where I was sitting (they put it behind the orchestra and I’m 5th chair 2nd, so I’m sitting right in front of the winds and I’d have to turn around 360 degrees to watch) but the bits I saw during our rests (during rehearsals, not the concert) were cool. They had this bit during Uranus though that I didn’t get at all – it was like two bits of pitted metal slowly moving toward each other from across the screen.
Awesome, that sounds like an amazing concert!
Waiting for important phone calls is the worst. I’m 3.5 hours into the 5-hour window I said I was available, and still no call. My phone just sits there like a statue with a knowing look in its eyes.
Also, I have about a week and a half left of college. That’s scary.
I wish it didn’t cost money to travel.
In the class I was just in, this guy (whom I’ve had problems with before) sat in front of me and was taking pictures of my friend and I. It was extremely irritating and what’s worse is he and his friend were sending the pictures to each other.
I know it isn’t that serious but was that really necessary? It’s the fact that doing that kind of stuff is normal for them that makes me angry and bitter toward my classmates.
….this is going to lead to another discussion, isn’t it? Just ignore my rant.
Ugh. That is not okay. It is not cool to take pictures of someone without their permission. That’s harrasment. Is there some kind of teacher you could talk to about that? They should not be taking pictures of you if you don’t want them to.
I agree with oxlin, you should talk to the teacher of that class if you feel comfortable doing so. (If not, maybe another teacher? School guidance counselor? Something like that.)
One or two months ago, I did. I asked what would happen if I reported both the guy and his friend for harassment. I explained the stuff they’d done (back then, it was mainly both of them referring to me as their girlfriend) and my teacher asked if I felt it was being directed mostly at me. I said that it was, but they’re annoying to the rest of the class as well. Eventually things calmed down a little because the teacher moved them away from me, but the littler things they do still happen. And it isn’t only in that class; one of them targets my friend and I in another.
I wouldn’t call it bullying. I just don’t think I should have to be dealing with this so often.
May I ask what grade you’re in? If you’d rather not answer, then that’s fine. Because I have not had anyone pull that kind of nonsense on me since middle school. I’d think that by high school, they’d have learned at least a basic level of human decency.
My advice? Keep reporting them. Be persistent. Kids like that get full of themselves, and it’s really easy for them to slip through the cracks and think that they can get away with stuff like that, when really it’s not acceptable. At all.
I’m in ninth grade. And yes, since we’re in high school, I would expect a little more maturity out of most people. But I’ve been proven time and time again that that’s too much to ask, at least from the people around me IRL. *sighs and falls off chair in sheer exasperation*
I would, but it isn’t just them. Copies of them with different names and faces exist everywhere, all over the school. Maybe not in the AP classes and whatnot, but you know what I mean. How can I deal with so many people?
I’m not trying to reject your advice or anything, because I am grateful for it, but by now I’m too emotionally tired and fed up to do much other than rant. I’d rather just get through high school and know that as time goes on, I’ll be more separated from those people. That doesn’t make me lazy, right? I hope not.
You know you’re a Whovian when you step out of your NYC dorm every morning, see a police car, and immediately think “NNYPD”.
Well. That sucks. You know how I predicted, back before the first episode even aired, when I learned that the new sci fi show Almost Human (with Karl Urban) was going to be aired on FOX, that FOX was ultimately going to pull a Firefly on it?
Yeah. Well. After airing all the episodes out of order, and dragging their feet on whether or not it ws going to be renewed…..And after it had easily become my favorite, non BBC non no longer on the air television show (aka favorite broadcast US show currently airing)…..they finally announced it’s cancellation.
Well fjal;ksdghdl;sfak you too, FOX, you stupid stupid [insert all sorts of Very Bad Words here]. Thanks so much for that.
I’m sorry, luv. Having beloved shows cancelled is awful. If it’s any consolation, the one season will probably be treasured by the fandom since the show didn’t have time to go downhill. Star Trek and Firefly both got movies after their cancellation, so maybe there’s still hope!
I have an extremely childish fear of ovens….