Packbat's Journal
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Below are the 50 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Robin Zimmermann" journal:[<< Previous 50 entries]
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11:59 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/48671080/6424329) [Link] |
Open Thread 2009
And, for the new year, an open thread! You know the rules, and so do I - anything that doesn't respond to a recent post can go here.
Tags: open thread
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09:22 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Little White Lies
Lies are always risky - gambling for a chance of the good outcome against a chance of a disaster. The odds are fairly favorable for little lies about small things, but it's usually better to be honest if there's a way to get a similar outcome without the lie. I can easily forgive failing to accomplish this under the time pressure of normal conversation, though.
Tags: read time: 10 seconds, thoughts, writer's block
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10:52 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Newsworthy
Most often would be the AP newswire in the form of the "AP Mobile" app on iPhone - for example, their coverage of the recent DC rail accident was excellent. I also use the NYTimes app frequently.
Other than that, I will occasionally pick up my parent's (paper) copy of the Washington Post, and I will read links in blogs or emails from my parents.
Tags: link time: a minute, news, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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10:44 pm
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Writer's Block: All-Nighter
The lock-in at X3O! Yep, that was a fun night of videogaming, indeedy! (And we rocked out in the Left 4 Dead tournament!)
Tags: journalling, read time: 10 seconds, video games, writer's block
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09:30 am
[Link] |
FiveThirtyEight: Worst. Damage Control. Ever.
I've generally tended to take the position that while the people running Iran are a bunch of reactionary thugs, they're at least a fairly intelligent bunch of reactionary thugs.
After this revelation on Iranian Press TV, however, I'm not so certain.
FiveThirtyEight: Worst. Damage Control. Ever.
(As I mentioned in the Google Reader repost, NY Times noted that Iranians are allowed to vote in districts they aren't registered in. This in no way suffices to explain what we're seeing here.)
Tags: iran, link time: a minute, links, politics, read time: 10 seconds
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10:02 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/64710590/6424329) [Link] |
"The Wire", Season One
I mentioned picking up the complete first season of The Wire - finished that today.
I'll say this much: I wasn't disappointed. Glad I paid for that one.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All", Air Supply
Tags: read time: 10 seconds, reviews, tv
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10:32 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/48671133/6424329) [Link] |
Not an update.
I haven't read my flist in ages - so many ages, in fact, that I actually lost entries.
But for the record: every personal journal on my friendslist I read.
(P.S. Excluding work-related material, the main news in my life is my new DVDs: the first ADV English-dub/sub DVD of Azumanga Daioh - only five episodes - watched, Volume One of Batman: The Animated Series, watched first two episodes, and The Wire: The Complete First Season, watched first three episodes. Oh, and I should probably write a review of the first Dresden Files book, but I need to reread it to do that. And I want to run a Truth & Justice campaign next month, so I really ought to prepare...)
Current Mood:  tired
Tags: journalling, read time: 10 seconds
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07:57 pm
[Link] |
Tank Man
On the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square, the New York Times "Lens" blog made two memorial posts regarding the photographs of the Tank Man: first, the classic four photos with comments from the photographers, and second, the fifth photo, unreleased until now.
I am sure I can say nothing to add to these. But I am wondering: what of the driver and other crew of that lead Type 59 tank? It seems to me an incredible thing, that these four PLA soldiers, presumably with orders to drive away the protesters from the square, saw this single man (incongruously carrying plastic bags, as if he was just out shopping) walk out in front of them ... and they stopped. Their guns were silent. Ashamedly, the driver turns the tank to go around the man - like you might turn your car to avoid a pothole - but the man puts his body in the way, seventy or so kilos of meat and bone against thirty six thousand of metal, and ... I don't know. Were they confused? Or did they, somehow, in the midst of the machinegunning of hundreds of people, look out through their periscopes and see a person, a fellow human being, before them?
I have been thinking for a while that nonviolent protest is the strangest sort of moral judo - if war is an extension of diplomacy, seeking victory by the destruction of your enemies personhood, then this is likewise an extension, an anti-war, seeking victory by the construction of your own personhood. The acts of passive resistance bewilder because it is impossibly to justify as war. It can only be understood as human.
We don't know who the Tank Man is. As far as I am aware, we don't even know who was in the tanks.
Tags: history, link time: few minutes, read time: a minute, thoughts
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09:19 pm
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Mishle Packbat: The Proper Shape and Stiffness of Moral Strictures
Hi! I'm going to talk to you about morality, because I'm arrogant and you're imperfect.
No, these facts have no relation. Everyone is imperfect - myself more than you, I wager - and I'd be arrogant even if the lot of you were plaster saints. But the second has interesting consequences which the first permits me to address.
(And as long as I'm blathering, let me make a quick clarification: morality is not law, and law is not morality. If you find yourself interchanging the two, you need to recheck your math. Moving on.)
The thing about morality I want to address today is not the content, but the form. Morality acts on three grammatical persons - the first, the second, and the third - and among most people it tends to be different for all three. (This is why Mormons come to your door - it's harder to be rude to a face than a phone.) This makes sense except for one important factor: a lot of people (though probably fewer than it seems) get the proportions backwards, and need correction. So let me break it down for you.
In the first person - in your morality for you - you ought to be strict but fair. As some wit commonly cited as "Yahl, J." is quoted: "Perfection is our goal, excellence will be tolerated." Stick to the straight and narrow road, get it right the first time, and if you get it wrong, get it right the next time. Practice your morality with all the intensity, precision, and dedication that you were supposed to practice the piano when you were growing up.
In the second person, and still more in the third person - in your morality for your friends and for your strangers - be looser. If your personal code is the double-yellow line, give your friends the entire road and strangers two city blocks in both directions. If your personal code is the Geneva Conventions, let your friends have the Declaration of Independence and allow the rest the Golden Rule. Or, if you prefer: an it harm none, let everyone else do what they will.
Why this? Because you don't really know what's right and wrong, not to any sensible degree of accuracy. Oh, you're better off than the Hittite slave holder who, lacking our hard-won experience, never made the connection between the wretched condition of the slave and the moral repugnance of the institution, but "better off" is a long way from omniscient. And the hard part about morality is that it's chaotic - it depends on a tremendous array of details which you might (if you're lucky) know for your own situation but which you are more ignorant of the farther you look from your center of consciousness. While on the one side you want to do right, on the other you don't want to be - in fact, you shouldn't be - the one who beats people up when they haven't done anything wrong.
So how do you do this? You set an engineering margin of error - draw yourself a circumference small enough that you may be confident it (mostly) resides within the right and aim for that, while drawing for others a loop which (mostly) circumscribes the right and nudge what falls outside back in. In other words, you be the anti-hypocrite: you criticize in yourself what you let pass in others.
And that's the form to take, in the first, second, and third persons. Thank you for your patience.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: accomplished
Tags: ethics, take my advice, thoughts
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08:42 am
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Writer's Block: There Can Be Only One
I don't believe in enforced monogamy, no. That said, first, most people do better in closed monogamous relationships, and second, it's not a good idea to betray the trust of the people you're with.
Current Location: school\EGR\ASME_lounge
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Tags: monogamy, read time: 10 seconds, thoughts, writer's block
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08:33 am
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A brief moment of commercial lust
If I were not the most unprepossessing square I'd ever heard of and didn't already have a better bag, fellas, I would be all over the FreakAngels KK Field Bag like black on soot.
Ah, well.
Current Location: school\EGR\ASME_lounge
Current Mood: tired
Tags: link time: a minute, read time: 10 seconds, shopping, whinging
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12:32 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/74363938/6424329) [Link] |
Televicon!
Stolen from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) active_apathy, who swiped it from laurenmitchell:
- Choose an episode of anime or television series you have on your computer. Make sure you're certain you want that one, you cannot change your mind once you skip this step. DO NOT TELL YOUR FLIST WHAT YOU CHOSE.
- Make note of how long the episode is here: 59:59
- Ask your flist to choose a time between 00:00 and whatever the length of your episode is. Be specific - e.g. 21:09, 02:42, 36:50. (No guarantees that times more precisely than the second will be respected, but feel free to try!)
- Make them an icon using THAT FRAME ONLY no matter what it is. And remember, you can only use that ONE episode you chose previous, even if the person posting isn't familiar with it.
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood: amused
Tags: memes, silliness, tv, userpics
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08:35 pm
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Writer's Block: BFF
Almost certainly nanakikun - he's still on my list, though he hasn't updated in months.
Tags: first friend, link time: many minutes, lj birthday, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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01:34 pm
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Truth & Justice
 A man in crazy pajamas atop a skyscraper rains laser death down on the streets. He's laughing as he does it.
Below, fires bloom for the news cameras. Reporters duck debris as they yammer on about demands and manifestoes and terror.
Meanwhile, in the background, the screams of scorched innocents melt into the wail of sirens.
It makes me angry. My cheeks burn with it -- or that just might be from the wind.
The madman grows closer and closer, impossibly fast. His eyes widen as he lifts his weapon in my direction. He won't make it in time.
My hands tighten into fists as I brace for impact.
I have a set of crazy pajamas of my own.
Truth & Justice is a superhero RPG Eric Burns-White (nee Burns) recommended ages ago.
I desperately want to play this thing.
Current Mood:  enthralled
Current Music: "Skeleton Man" - Evangelicals
Tags: games, geekery, link time: many minutes, links, psa, roleplaying
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09:56 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/28250317/6424329) [Link] |
Writer's Block: Meant to Be?
Assuming the author meant, "Do you believe fate exists?" - no, I don't.
Quick definition: fate is that which must happen regardless of any person's choices, regardless of any person's actions, regardless of any conceivable action by any conceivable person, ever. You know how Oedipus killed his dad and married his mom? Yeah - fated, had to happen.
Well, the universe doesn't work like that. If Oedipus had confronted his foster parents about the prophecy, none of it would have happened. Heck, if the weather had been a little different and he'd died of exposure on the road, none of it would have happened, and the weather is chaotic - anything you do can change it a month down the road.
Tags: fate, read time: 10 seconds, thoughts, writer's block
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06:11 pm
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Free Comic Book Day, part 2
Continuing yesterday's entry...
( Worlds of Aspen )
( Resurrection )
( Atomic Robo, Drone, We Kill Monsters )
( FCHS )
That's all the FCBD for this year, unless I drop in later this week and see something else - ta!
Tags: comics, read time: few minutes
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11:45 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/85897867/6424329) [Link] |
Repost!
Thanks to ![[info]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) bliumchik, I now have a Dreamwidth invite and corresponding account - unsurprisingly, called "packbat". With any luck, this ought to repost across to LJ just fine...
Tags: geekery, read time: 10 seconds
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11:40 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/38745304/6424329) [Link] |
Comics!
Today was a fun day! In between eating Greek with my dad and sis, playing tennis with my brother, and playing Left 4 Dead ... with my brother, I had a chance to drop by the comic shop near campus for Free Comic Book Day! Besides the first trade paperback of Transmetropolitan and the next in sequence of Powers, I got a half-dozen even sample comics, and read them all.
(I also go Book 1 of The Essential Starchild in the mail, but I haven't read it yet.)
Going down the list in order - first, the trades:
( Transmetropolitan 1 )
( Powers 5: Anarchy )
Then the free samples:
( Gold Digger #101 )
( Owly and Friends! )
[entry truncated for lateness of hour - remaining four tomorrow.]
Tags: comics, link time: substantial, read time: few minutes
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11:05 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/63882755/6424329) [Link] |
Give it a second! It's going to space!
Via my dad*: Louis CK on the Conan O'Brien Show, Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy.
* Technically, he posted a YouTube clip of the segment, but I figure NBC won't make copyright claims against itself.
Current Mood:  amused
Tags: glurge, link time: few minutes, links, multimedia, read time: 10 seconds
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07:52 am
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Writer's Block: End of the World as We Know It
"All" is the key word in that question. Nuclear weapons or meteorite. None of the others have the pure biosphere-warping powers of those two.
Tags: apocalypse, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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10:15 pm
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Writer's Block: Swine Times
The problem with the swine flu isn't that it's deadly, but that it might spread easily through the population. It probably kills something like one in two hundred who catch it, if previous outbreaks are any measure - but if very few people have resistance to the disease, that could become a two-hundredth of hundreds of millions of people, so it's worth taking precautions.
But nah, I'm not scared. I'm not even convinced it'll go pandemic.
Tags: read time: 10 seconds, swine flu, writer's block
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06:54 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/59302922/6424329) [Link] |
Evomeme!
Inspired by active_apathy:
This is the evolving Internet meme. Copy this text, change it in any way you like, and then repost it on your blog. Then come back here - http://packbat.livejournal.com/250271.html - and post a link to your new version so we can see how it's changing!
Current Mood: amused
Tags: geekery, link time: variable, memes, read time: 10 seconds, silliness
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05:19 pm
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Writer's Block: Community-Minded
As blatantly ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) community_promo as it may seem, it's nomicide - the Livejournal Nomic community I manage with active_apathy. It's one of my favorite games, and I'm thrilled to be playing it, still.
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood:  happy
Current Music: "Apply Some Pressure (Original Demo Version)
Tags: favorite community, link time: variable, lj birthday, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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11:53 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/64384071/6424329) [Link] |
Writtins!
Coming from the maggiebloomes and the active_apathys, with appropriate edits/redactions1:
The first ten respondents to this post making the request shall get probably-crappy sketches from me, word- or pencil-. However, they have to make a similar offer on their own blog, or be forever2 dubbed a freeloader.
1. I suppose I could leave the whole "of a pairing" language in, but (a) I have no fanficcing experience and (b) my fandoms pretty much comprise, first, the original Dragnet series with Jack Webb, second, most of the Hal Clement canon, and third, Castle.
OhgodImentionedaNathanFillionshowIshouldleavenowbye.
2. Length of forever may vary. Offer not valid in parts of Alaska south of 51° 15' 43" north latitude. Limit one per customer.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "Jezebel" - 10,000 Maniacs
Tags: memes, read time: 10 seconds, writing
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03:30 pm
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Video: Noteboek
Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.
h/t to kirabug (who credits Jared Spool).
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood:  awake
Tags: animation, link time: 10 seconds, read time: few minutes, videos, vimeo
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10:45 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/62817941/6424329) [Link] |
Writer's Block: Philanthropy
I donate a lot of blood to the American Red Cross. Mostly because of Hal Clement.
No, I'm serious. I was reading Hal Clement books all the time as I grew up, and the biography always mentioned that he donated a lot of blood.
Tags: read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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06:45 pm
[Link] |
AnZac Day
pecunium reminds us: April 25th is AnZac Day.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "Hey World (Don't Give Up Version)" - Michael Franti
Tags: link time: 10 seconds, links, read time: 10 seconds, thoughts
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09:15 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: LiveJournal Book Club
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Picked it for two reasons:
- It's well-written.
- It's funny.
Seriously. If you can read in English, I think you will enjoy this book. J. is one of the greatest raconteurs of all time.
P.S. It's out of copyright - 1889 - so it's available everywhere online.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: "Look Up" - Oppenheimer
Tags: books, read time: 10 seconds, recommendations, writer's block
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05:19 pm
[Link] |
Last.fm Music Map
Via jfs: http://sixdegrees.hu/last.fm/
It's a map of many (all but ~17000) of the artists indexed on last.fm, spread out in two dimensions* according to the similarity data that site has between each pair of artists. One of the cooler features here is the Interactive Map - you can look up any indexed artists and they mark them with flags. I generated the following map shown by entering a comma-delineated list** of my favorite artists and taking a screenshot.
* What would happen if it were three dimensions or more? I guess it's inconvenient to render...
** Names separated by commas. Example: Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, XTC. If you enter the list of your favorite artists this way, it works - even if the names have commas, like Peter, Paul and Mary.
I assume some interpretation could be put to why my flags all fall on a line between Avril Lavinge and Muse, but I'm not going to.
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood:  geeky
Current Music: "I Don't Always Know What You're Saying" - Ladyhawk
Tags: geekery, link time: many minutes, links, music, read time: a minute
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06:01 pm
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Shhhh
Assuming no emergencies arose, assuming textual writing was prohibited ... the first day and the first week would be the hardest, but I could do it. It would be an interesting experience, I am sure.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood:  calm
Current Music: "Wet & Rustling" - Menomena
Tags: read time: 10 seconds, thoughts, writer's block
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11:19 pm
[Link] |
Interval Training
Warning: I went running with a stopwatch today. The following is almost certainly only interesting to zhurnaly!
( I mean it! It's just a bunch of splits! )
Only other interesting thing - I weighed myself on their scales, got 73.1 kg, which is a little higher than usual for me.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\southeast_desk
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "Lightness" - Death Cab for Cutie
Tags: journalling, read time: a minute, running, sports
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11:44 pm
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Taxmen and Poetry
But I, being poor, have only my dreams ...
(No appropriateness intended.)
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood:  okay
Tags: poems, read time: 10 seconds, taxes, writer's block
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08:52 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/86466098/6424329) [Link] |
#amazonfail
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Issue may be a simple case of poor systems security, rather than evil - see (1) http://gawker.com/5210142/why-it-makes-sense-that-a-hackers-behind-amazons-big-gay-outrage (2) http://pastebin.ca/1390576 (3) http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html
xposted from my Twitter feed: Amazon.com is censoring LGBT literature. See http://jesurgislac.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/lesbian-and-gay-books-disappear/ and http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-possibly-using-category-metadata-to-filter-rankings/ for more info.
I've heard people saying "don't use Amazon" before, but this is rather egregious. Another person who has been all over this is ironychan, including in both of her webcomics - here's a list of other online booksellers if you're interested.
Current Location: school\EGR\ASME_lounge
Current Mood:  sleepy
Tags: link time: few minutes, links, politics, read time: 10 seconds
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08:40 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Gamer's Choice
Mega Man 9!
Okay, okay, I'll choose a real one: Mega Man 2. Or, if I have to choose something Older Than The NES (warning: TVTropes), Moria.
Current Location: school\EGR\ASME_lounge
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "You Oughta Know" - Alanis Morissette
Tags: games, link time: substantial, read time: 10 seconds, video games, writer's block
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11:06 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/64766749/6424329) [Link] | Blame luve on DeviantArt for this, the Weirdest Music Video I've Seen This Year:
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Big Car" - Severed Heads
Tags: link time: a minute, multimedia, music, read time: few minutes, youtube
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10:08 pm
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Confidences
Strangers. Why do you think I have a Livejournal?
But in all seriousness, many of my problems are things I have shame over - but if I embarrass myself in front of someone three states away, that doesn't really bother me. I'm more open about being an atheist here for the very same reason.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood:  accomplished (did my taxes!)
Current Music: Shotgun Down the Avalanche
Tags: confidences, friendship, read time: 10 seconds, relationships, writer's block
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08:52 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Grab and Go
I'd find the full list of secret detainees around the world and send it to all the papers.
Tags: conspiracies, cover-ups, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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01:07 pm
[Link] |
Baseball!
For those of you not following the Twitter filter (does that link work?) - went to an exhibition game yesterday at the Washington Nationals stadium downtown - they beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-5, with (amusingly) all five Nats RBIs credited to one ballplayer, Josh Willingham. Grand slam in the first, fielder's choice single in the seventh. It was fun - I got the Grande Nachos at the Bullpen Burrito, which were delicious.
Now to go to school and write computer programs! ...after lunch!
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood: amused
Tags: baseball, journalling, link time: few minutes, read time: 10 seconds, sports
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09:51 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: How Does This Apply to Real Life?
As a homeschooled kid, "elementary or primary school" is a bit ill-defined, but at a guess ... mathematics, probably geometry and algebra.
Engineering is pretty math-heavy, I must admit.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\south_bed
Current Mood:  bored
Current Music: "September Grass" - James Taylor
Tags: favorite subjects, journalling, read time: 10 seconds, school, writer's block
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10:45 am
[Link] |
Because I wanted to check out "Stainless"
Bookmarks!
(The aforementioned Stainless is the last bookmark added.)
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Forgot my headphones today. :(
Tags: bookmarks, link time: substantial, read time: 10 seconds
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08:47 pm
[Link] |
Open Tweets
Unlocked the tweets from the week ending two weeks ago. (It's my rule of thumb for how behind my flist might be on their flists.) Some highlights:
Now, to correct all the busted 365tomorrows bookmarks that I'm sure populate my bookmarks file!
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\southwest_bed
Current Mood:  cheerful
Current Music: "Mykonos" - Fleet Foxes
Tags: link time: many minutes, meta, twitter
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04:34 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/82086086/6424329) [Link] |
Writer's Block: GIP (Gratuitous Icon Post)
Well, it's not that awesome, but I hardly ever use my X-Box-Live-avatar icon.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\southeast_desk
Current Music: "Everyday (Album)" - Vetiver
Tags: read time: 10 seconds, userpics, writer's block
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11:47 am
[Link] | Have you noticed the 419 scammers are getting smarter?
I am Mr. J Eric Daniels, Group Chief Executive Officer LLOYD BANK. I understand that through Internet is not the best way to link up with you because of the confidentiality which my proposal demands.
However, I have already sent you this same letter by post one month ago, but I am not sure if it did get to you since I have not heard from you,hence I am constrain to reach you through the internet.
I discovered a dormant account in my capacity as an external auditor with Barclays Bank,It will be in my interest to transfer this fund worth Thirty Million pounds to your offshore account [...]
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "How You've Grown" - 10,000 Maniacs
Tags: email, fraud, geekery, read time: 10 seconds
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10:54 am
[Link] |
Only a year and a half away from Clyde!
Dead At Your Age (hat tip to shatterstripes):
You are 23 years and 266 days old today.
That’s exactly half the life of somebody famous. In another 23 years and 266 days, you will have lived exactly as long as Fernando Pessoa. He was an innovative poet and creator of heteronyms, imaginary characters who write in different styles [sic] who died at the age of 47 years, 170 days of cirrhosis of the liver.
Fernando Pessoa lived twice as long as you have, but other notable people have died at about this age.
- You've outlived Booker Little Jr. by more than 2 months. He was a trumpeter-composer who co-led a quintet with Eric Dolphy. He died on October 5, 1961, 24 years before you were born.
- Bonnie Parker was about 3 months younger than you when she died by homicide on March 23, 1934. She was a Depression-era outlaw who joined Clyde Barrow in a bank-robbing spree across the West. She died 52 years before you were born.
- You've outlived Jacques Herbrand by more than 3 months. He was a mathematician who introduced various theories of mathematical logic. He died in a mountaineering accident on July 27, 1931, 54 years before you were born.
- Ernie Davis was more than 3 months younger than you when he died of leukemia on May 18, 1963. He was a football halfback for Syracuse University and the first African American to win the Heisman trophy. He died 23 years before you were born.
Tags: life, link time: a minute, memes, mortality, read time: a minute, trivia
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10:29 am
[Link] |
Writer's Block: Multimedia
Do you have to ask?
(I am so setting myself up for disappointment...)
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood:  energetic
Current Music: "October Road" - James Taylor
Tags: geekery, link time: few minutes, politics, read time: 10 seconds, writer's block
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09:50 am
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Writer's Block: Things You Don't Want to Know
I would confront the S.O. before anything else (not the least because some people are in open relationships). Then I would talk to someone I trust, to make sure that I'm not being utterly stupid. But if I did that and still knew, I would tell my friend - it's what I'd want.
(See, that's the thing with lies - it's much easier to think lying is okay if you don't put yourself in the shoes of the lied-to. I know - I read it in a book!)
(But seriously - it's true, and it's a good book: Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok. I recommend it.)
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood: awake
Tags: books, ethics, etiquette, friendship, life, link time: few minutes, read time: 10 seconds, take my advice, writer's block
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09:13 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/86923007/6424329) [Link] | Note to self: keep track of the USB cord and charger for the iPhone. Guess I better stick them in my pack tomorrow. For now: phone = off.
Current Location: home\west_bedroom\southeast_desk
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Love Is A Good Thing" - Sheryl Crow
Tags: geekery, read time: 10 seconds
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04:41 pm
[Link] | Ooookay, this is as flaky as a delicious, delicious croissant. LiveJournal.app works, yes, but not well. So much for that! Posted via LiveJournal.app.
Tags: cell phones, read time: 10 seconds, technology, via ljapp
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03:16 pm
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iPhone!
Guess what I just dropped US$428.33 on?*
(Does anyone have a favorite Livejournal app, by the way?)
* Note: included case, Bluetooth headset, and extended warranty.
Current Location: school\EGL\office
Current Mood: cheerful
Tags: geekery, journalling, read time: 10 seconds
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11:49 am
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Writer's Block: Take Your Chances
Yes. Sometimes right away, sometimes not for a long time, but should they live long enough to learn how they erred and learn better, I would give as many chances as are in the world.
Current Location: home\living_room_stairs\lower_landing
Current Mood: calm
Tags: do-overs, link time: substantial, read time: 10 seconds, second chances, writer's block
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