Tablesaw!

Local Vampire Diaries Fans?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:36:28 GMT

There is a small chance that I'll have an extra ticket available for this tonight.

The Vampire Diaries
Saturday, March 6, 2010
7:00 pm PT
Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills

In Person
Kevin Williamson, Executive Producer
Julie Plec, Executive Producer
Bob Levy, Executive Producer
Nina Dobrev, "Elena Gilbert / Katherine Pierce"
Paul Wesley, "Stefan Salvatore"
Ian Somerhalder, "Damon Salvatore"
And additional members of the cast and creative team.

Anyone local to LA interested in being on the waiting list?

Will You Be My Friend?

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:38:33 GMT

I've finally got my Xbox connected to the internet, and thanks to my brother in law, I have a Gold account for a while, which I'm using to sample Netflix streaming.

But you've an Xbox too, I'd love to populate my friends list, with you. I don't know that I have anything for online play (yet?) but I'd still like to avoid the blank space.

Links from "Deciphering Maya Hieroglyphs"

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:40:06 GMT

I had my laptop throughout the workshop, so I was collecting the links as they came up. Most of them are from the speaker (Bruce Love), but others were from other people at the workshop or ones I located on my own while we were working. Here's my collection of links with descriptions of each.

Mesoamerican Society of CSULA: The hosts of the event, with announcements of future events.

Friends of the Maya: A group Love is associated with that teaches Maya hieroglyphs to modern Maya.

Mesoweb: A collection of Mesoamerican resources, including books.

Night Fire Films: Filmmakers of Breaking the Maya Code, a documentary about the history of Maya script decipherment.

Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI): Has various research including the Kerr photography collection of Maya ceramics

Maya Vase Database: A site run by FAMSI with the Kerr photographs.

K6997, K1837: Kerr photographs of ceramics shown in the workshop.

Peabody Museum Corpus of Hieroglyphic Inscriptions: Photographs and line drawings of stone inscriptions arranged by location.

Tonina Monument 69: One of the carvings that we worked on during the workshop.

Maya Decipherment: Mayanist David Stuart's blog on Maya script and updates to decipherment.

Online Dresden Codex: This link goes to a post on David Stuart's blog with a link to, and instructions for accessing, online photographs of the Dresden Codex on a German website. The Dresden Codex is the most significant and well-preserved Classical Maya codex.

Maya News Updates: Eric Boot's collection of news links related to the Maya.

Mesoamerica in Aztlan: Youtube channel of a student who made a minipresentation on Day 3, examining Mesoamerican cultures today.

Note from Maya Hieroglyph Class

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:57:34 GMT

So not a funerary urn. It's a hot chocolate mug. With the king's name on it. So nobody else gets his king germs.

An Awesome Day

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:05:21 GMT

Maya Hieroglyph workshop is shaping up to be awesome. Today's lecture was a survey of the history of decipherment, which was a pretty cool story. I may put up the notes I took.

I took the metro/bus to CSULA, which was fun. I sat in front of two women talking about the ~~tricks~~ teases they dealt with during the day. Less fun was the ride home. Due to construction, several buses weren't running, and none of the operational lines were stopping at the very nice covered bus stop. Oh, did I mention that it was raining now?

Still don't regret the public transport, but I'll be driving tomorrow.

Also, over at whedonland, I won second place in an icon contest. That's pretty surprising. I'd basically resigned myself to never winning anything ever for icons, because my own taste is pretty far out of step with the rest of the people playing. (It's not so much that I never win; it's that nothing I vote for ever seems to win.) But I still love doing them, and there've been some great things to work with.

The challenge this time was to make a monochrome (black-and-white) icon, with pretty much no other restrictions. Here's mine:

When I was thinking of black-and-white in the Whedonverse, this was the image I thought of. The second thing I thought of was this:

(And because my love of secondary and tertiary characters leaves me terminally out of step, I still think the Holtz one is far more awesome.)

What's more, Psych just did a mini pseudo crossover with ReGenesis!

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:27:15 GMT

My valentine to ojouchan, the love of my life, forever and always:

And for the rest of y'all:

(Images by Rio Yañez)

On the other hand, if you don't like Valentine's day, you might appreciate this post by fiction_theory. If you don't understand why anyone wouldn't like Valentine's Day or why anyone would get all worked up about how much it bugs them, then you should definitely read the post.

Olympics, Take Note

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:35:15 GMT

I'm not really a fan of Figure Skating/Ice Dancing. But I'd pay more attention if there was more of this:

It's an amateur competition set to Terra's theme from Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III in the U.S.), where the skater's outfit is also a cosplay of Terra.

C'mon, Olympics, step up!

Dear NBC

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:00:02 GMT

I live in the same time zone as the Winter Olympic Games.

WHY ARE YOU AIRING THEM TIME-DELAYED?

QUIERO

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:02:08 GMT

I've already asked for the days off.

Dear Authors: Sell Me a T-Shirt

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:15:50 GMT

Dear Authors:

I'd like to talk to you about making money now that traditional publishing is dead. First, here's John Scalzi on the subject:

Book publishing is a sinking ship. The former passengers on the ship have given in to their feral instincts and are dismantling the ship board by board. The remaining crew are being wedged further and further back into what little of the ship remains above the waterline. Eventually the whole ship will disappear beneath the waves and all the crew will drown. The thought of possibly jumping off the ship apparently doesn’t occur to the crew; rather, their ambition is simply to be the last person to drown.

Screw ‘em. Let them drown. . . . .

Listen to me now: Writers are not in the publishing industry. The publishing industry exists to handle the output of writers and distribute it in an effective and hopefully profitable way; however it does not necessarily follow that writer’s only option is the publishing industry, especially not now. Congruent to this: Books aren’t the only option. I write books, but you know what? I’m not a book writer, any more than a musician is an LP musician or an MP3 musician. The book is the container. It’s not destiny.

Wait a second. That's Scalzi writing five years ago about Writing in the Age of Piracy.

And, okay, I'll confess, that first paragraph is out of context. The article only supposes the total annihilation of traditional publishing (via piracy, not e-books) as a way to talk about alternate revenue steams. Specifically, he talks about how Penny Arcade has built a media empire by creating things that they gave away totally for free. The big takeaway is:

Multiple revenue streams are a writer’s friend.

That's what's getting to me about the whole Amazon/MacMillan/e-book/print/online/offline mishigoss. Print may not be dead, but there are a lot of other rings, and there's no reason to tie all your hopes onto just one.

Authors, let me tell you, when I buy a traditionally published book, I do not feel like I am supporting you as the author. I am supporting the publisher, and I am supporting the bookseller, but I am not supporting you. There's just too much in between. So when Scalzi calls for readers to support authors, I'm constantly surprised when he suggests that we find a book published and distributed elsewhere. I mean, if you want to support Macmillan, then, yeah buy Macmillan's books. But, I want to support you, not the corporation who licensed your work with a cash consideration and then rebranded it and distributed it nationally.

I think it's even worse when it's badness. When Bloomsbury whitewashed a cover again, there were very appropriate calls for a boycott. Bloomsbury thinks that they can portray non-white characters in their novels as white characters on their covers as a way to increase sales. A boycott will divorce them of this belief.

But authors balked because of the damage it would do to the author. To pull support from the publisher is to pull support from the author, and so we shouldn't boycott.

Authors, are you really that close to your publisher? Perhaps you are, or perhaps you aren't. But why can't I support you, the author, the one I'm a fan of, when I disagree with the company that paid to license your work?

What's more, I don't have a very large budget for buying stories anyway. My reading pace is slower, and I've got bookcases and second-hand shops and libraries all around me. So I've stopped myself from buying most books to keep my finances under control. So if I spring for a new book, it's probably only because I have a gift card. But I do still read. And I read stories online. I read author blogs online. And I listen to Escape Artists podcasts at work. I have a number of authors of whom I am fans.

Authors, I am your fan, but I am not buying books, print or otherwise. How do I give you money outside of using your Amazon link to buy the book that somebody else published?

The traditional publishing model is what it is, and it's clear from that it's still really, really good at taking a novel and sending out to a wide audience. And really, that an end of itself. Those novels get you fans. But you might not have gotten money from the person who read the novel and became a fan. You may never get that money by publishing novels (on your own, or through a corporate publisher). But we're still here, and we still want to support you. Whether we have the money or not, we feel that tug, and how able we are to resist that pull varies with what you're using to tempt us.

Honestly, I think I spend more money on T-shirts than new books now, because the LA library does not allow me to borrow T-shirts. And a number of those shirts refer to movies, TV shows, and videogames. And I don't have a lot of wiggle room in my budget for Paypal tipjars, but I still contribute more to them than to my out-of-pocket print fiction budget.

Authors, why can't I buy a shirt, a shirt with a jaunty quote of your devising?

Publishing may be in trouble. It's not just that there are all those middlepeople, but those middlepeople may also be turn out to be idiots, and then your link to the Amazon page of your book isn't going to be a great option. You don't have to switch everything. You don't need too many Girl Who Navigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Makings, because you'll always have that one there, waiting for fans.

Authors, listen to time-delay Scalzi. You are not in the publishing industry. You can escape the not really sinking ship and also still probably leave all your stuff on the ship, 'cause it's not really sinking, and then you've got like a resort vacation on the island without having to move all your stuff and still getting access to the nice galley (which may now have fresher fruit from the shore anyway). There's no reason to only stay on the ship. There are other places to meet your fans (and get our money into your pocket). Use all of them.

Edited to Add: As often happens when I write a post from three different locations (go cloud computing), I deleted a chunk and forgot to compensate it. It's created some confusion, so let me just put back in the chunk I forgot to deal with, which is a portion of text from the Scalzi quote:

Because here’s the thing about that “sinking ship:” Even if we grant it is sinking (which we should not), and that the passengers are scurvy pirates (which we ought not), this ship is sinking in about five feet of water and the shore is fifty yards away. And if you haven’t the wit to make it to shore, then by God, you deserve to die.

To see how much I thought I'd addressed that, look at how I referenced it in the last paragraph.

Anyway, what's "dying" about the publishing industry isn't the industry itself, it's the author's ability to make money from it, which has generally been decreasing as the money for buying books has been diverted elsewhere. Hypothetically and hyperbolically, it could get to the point where an author might be able to get a novel prepared for print and distributed, but not be able to make any money from it (which is the point at which we join Scalzi's hypotehtical and hyperbolic essay).

What then? Do you take out the middlepeople and publsh the novel by yourself so that you can get the money that results from selling directly to a smaller audience? Or do you have the publisher prepare, print, and sell the novel; draw a wider audience; and earn money by encouraging the audience to do things other than buying the books?

Most likely, it'll be a combination. But you can still make money licensing novels to be printed traditionally, you can still make additional money right now.

So, again, sell me a T-shirt.

This Week

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:27:14 GMT

Some stuff from the past week.

Hitched a ride out to Mission Viejo (inorite?) to go to Farrell's for wjukknibs's birthday party. W's on a quest to have birthday parties at locations when Angelenos our age would have had birthdays as children. We've done Chuck E Cheese's, and he's contemplating a McDonald's party.
My role-playing group has been having a lot fun playtesting a new game. Of the games we've played, this is probably the one most up my alley, and I've been smiling because of it for the past two weeks.
Went out to eat at Little Dom's. I enjoyed it, but Ojou was a bit taken back by the too-much-porkness of the menu. My entree, linguine with New Orleans–style BBQ shrimp, sounded unlikely, but was very tasty.
Short hiking through Griffith Park. I wanted to take the Ferndell-Observatory trail, but I was stopped midway by a lonely coyote. My policy is to just leave coyotes alone when I'm hiking by myself. I repositioned, and walked up from the Greek Theatre to the Observatory and back down again. It's always fun hiking after winter rains. I'm walking along the side of the mountain, and instead of gold, everything's black and green. It was like I was in not!SoCal.
I've been playing Sam & Max: Season One. Adventure games in 3-D still feel a little clunky to me, but the dialogue is spot-on and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the used copy I bought is skipping a little bit. I'm goign to see if I still have time to find the recent and try for a different disc.
jedusor was in town for grad school interviews, and on Friday, I met up with her and cramerica and Artistry and Mr. Pizza on Fairfax. I got a really (really) big calzone, and two bottles of Dr. Brown's Black Cherry. 'Twas yummy.

Attention Gamers (Also Signal-Boost Worthy)

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:05:48 GMT

I'll admit that I'm not all that comfortable with sales gimmmicks of the "buy this and I'll donate the proceeds to charity" variety. But this is something else:

DriveThruRPG announced a major incentive to the roleplaying gamer community today to incite donations to aid in rescue and recovery in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Called the "Gamers Helping Haiti Bundle," the product includes over a hundred products totaling over $1000.00 in retail value. For a simple donation of $20 - all of which goes to Doctors Without Borders to support their post-earthquake Haiti relief efforts - RPG fans can have this once-in-a-lifetime collection of gaming products.

DriveThruRPG already had opportunities to donate up and running within a day of the disaster. When publishers began asking how they could support the cause, the bundle was created to be an all-inclusive shared effort.

The total retail value of the $20 charity bundle is $1481.31.

For a $20 donation.

$1481.31

The bundle has over a hundred products, which seems to include components, resources, adventures, self-contained systems, and other gaming-related stuff for download. Fred Hicks has the full list.

You can also make a donation to Doctors Without Borders that DTRPG will match.

If you know a gamer who is a humanitarian or if you know a gamer who is a cruel, greedy troll, they will want to hear about this. Spread the word.

Poison'd

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:27:30 GMT

Late Friday night, my stomach felt a bit upset, so I went to bed early. A few hours later, I woke up needing to use the bathroom. A little bit later, I got up, grabbed a garbage bag, and returned to the bathroom. Shortly thereafter, I was glad I had the bag because I was vomiting.

I was all set of a pretty standard night of food poisoning. I called ojouchan, who was staying with a friend), and left a voicemail (I could tell her phone was turned off); I called work to let them know I'd be late; I took my vomit bag out and got a new one. I was all set to ride it out. But things didn't go so well.

Three hours later, I'd still been unable to stop vomiting long enough to get rehydrated. I called my healthcare nurse line to make sure I shouldn't be going into the emergency room. After a short conversation, they said I should be fine, but to call back if things changed. About half an hour later, I was having abdominal pains, difficulty breathing, and dizziness; I called back and they told me to head to the ER. I couldn't drive myself, so I called my parents, and my dad headed over.

By the time we got to the hospital, I was so dehydrated I could barely think, my mouth was was completely parched, and I was making low keening noises because it made me feel slightly better. Thankfully, there weren't many people in the ER at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and I got seen to quickly. After taking some blood, and poking around my body to see what kind of pain I had, I got some medicine for the pain, something to suppress vomiting, and a big old bag of fluids.

My dad read Ender in Exile as I started to calm down. The nurse kept coming around asking for a urine sample, but she had to wait until halfway through my second liter of IV liquids before that was possible. I drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point I turned on Yu-Gi-Oh!. I probably said "Kaiba Boy" a few times.

Eventually, things calmed down. The doctor returned and checked for pain, but all that was left was uncomfortable gas. So we decided to finish off the fluids bag (the third) and then head out. The pharmacy took a while, but my dad bought me a gatorade, so it was okay.

When I go back into bed, I checked my e-mail, and Ojou had just woken up and gotten her messages. She arrived home just after my dad returned from buying some sickie supplies (crackers, 7-Up, chicken broth, etc.), she watched over me as I spent the rest of the day falling asleep for an hour then waking up to sip some of whatever was by my bed. She tried to get me to take food, but I didn't eat more than a few crackers, really.

This morning, when I woke up, I felt much better, and I've been eating more food. I still feel very weak, and I'm not going into work tomorrow, but, as Ojou said, I look like a person again.

What have I learned from all this? Clearly I should never ever ever ever ever miss a Hunt weekend again. Congrats to Metaphys plant. I'll be seeing you next year.

What's Been Happening?

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:11:38 GMT

It's been busy all over.

12/29: ojouchan and I watch The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with pbchris. It's fun, and is upfront about its refusal to have a story, as opposed to a series of things that happen and then eventually end. We all liked it. Before that, we went to Kabuki for happy hour, and we liked it quite a bit. But afterward, Ojou didn't feel well, so Chris and I went off to finish the evening, seeing some improv comedy at IO West. We were underwhelmed.

12/30: ojouchan and I sleep in and go shopping for 1920s-ish clothes for New Year's Eve. I also get a haircut. It's a bit shorter than we'd intended, but it's okay. I also get a meticulous shave trimming my beard short and trying out a new shape. (Beards weren't big in the American 20s, but I wasn't going to shave it all off.

12/31: We go out to New Year's Eve at Malediction with Chris, which turns out to be less 1920s than advertised. But that just means we look better than everyone else. Ojou's vintage furs and Josephine Baker curls were particularly amazing. Afterward, we eat a meal at Denny's between 2 and 4 a.m. That was an adventure too, but mostly an adventure in being hungry and tired and waiting for food at a slammed Denny's.

1/1: After waffling on what to do, we end up going over to our friend J's apartment, where we lay around, drink alcohol, and play boardgames. Monopoly was, inevitably, massively unbalanced by the Ojou and J's insistence on having a kitty on Free Parking. While playing Monopoly, we watched bad reality TV on the Playboy Channel. We then switched to playing Zombies, which I hadn't played for a while. The game started out very slow because we had an awkward tile draw, but the moment the Helipad came out, the endgame was awesome.

1/2: Nothing, of note, I think.

1/3-1/8: I go back to work, and agree to work Thursday and Friday (covering for my manager) in exchange for Saturday and Sunday off (my birthday weekend). My experience working on Thursday and Friday causes me to seriously reconsider pushing for a Monday-Friday workweek.

1/8: I head over to cramerica's apartment after work (which I got out of late). We have a simple pasta meal and play a game of Agricola. The game is fun, but it ended up taking way too long.

1/9: Ojou and I started out thinking we'd go all over LA on the Metro, but I woke up really late due to Agricola. So we just went to Chinatown. We've been short on tea, so we bought a whole bunch. Ojou got a wide variety in small sizes, and I got a quarter pound of a few standards (an oolong, a white, genmaicha, and lapsang souchong). So work will go back to being tea central for me. Afterward, we went to a restaurant for what we thought was dim sum, but turned out not to be. It was very confusing, and we ordered too much food, but some of it was fantastic.

Later that evening, we met up with wjukknibs and K at Chili's. Unfortunately, Ojou and I were still full from not dim sum, so we just had some appetizers. From there, we went to see Sherlock Holmes at the Arclight. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed Downey's Holmes more than the trailers led me to think I would, but the movie as a whole didn't quite work for me.

1/10: My birthday! The parents, the sister, and the brother-in-law met Ojou and me for brunch at The Waffle. It's actually a nice little place, and is probably a better alternative than Denny's for late-night stuff. Also, soy bacon is not really any good.

Now, I'm chilling on the couch. Ojou's baking a massive birthday cake. After posting, I'm going to play Bioshock, which I got for my birthday from my sister and brother-in-law. Later on, we're meeting up with J and her boyfriend at The Hungry Cat.

Back to work tomorrow, but at least it's only for three days.

And now, you're caught up!

Happy New Year (Late)

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:30:32 GMT

Woo! It's been a busy new year. ojouchan and I did a bunch of stuff, and we slept a bunch, and then there was work, and Arkham Asylum and Rock Band 2 and yeah.

But anyway, I'm getting back to normal, and getting ready for my birthday this weekend. Still no idea what I'm going to be doing, but I've got the weekend off.

A little bit of time left for the Christmas Wits & Wagers, which, incidentally, has been declared "awesome" by the designer of the original game. That's a recommendation there.

And I should be getting to bed now.

Beat Tablesaw's Family Again!

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:29:57 GMT

Woo. It's been a busy few days, and it still is. Shopping and parties and work work work—I won't really get a chance to relax until Tuesday, when my New Year's break starts (five-day weekend!).

The executive summary of gifts received is: lots of nice clothes, two fantastick backpacks, and an Xbox 360 for ojouchan and I from my nuclear family.

As I mentioned earlier, I ran a trivia game based on Wits and Wagers. If you've never played it, I describe it as a combination of Balderdash, The Price Is Right, and Vegas betting. Everyone gets asked a trivia question with a number for an answer. Your goal is to be the closest without going over. Everybody turns in their answers, and they're lined up in order on the betting board. Odds are assigned according to the order of guesses, and you get to bet on which one was the closest without going over.

So, in the poll below, I've reproduced the questions, my family's guesses, and the odds that were assigned to them. Your job is to see if you can be better bettors than they were.

For each question you can pick either one or two guesses. If you check two boxes, you'll split your bet, placing one "chip" on each, and receiving the basic return if that bet is right (if the odds say 3:1, you'll get 3 points). If you check only one box, you double your bet on one option, and the rewards are doubled as well if you're right (if the odds say 3:1, you'll get 6 points).

View Poll: Christmas Wits and Wagers

Obviously, no internet research is allowed. Also, the poll is set to display everyone's guesses once you've entered yours, but try not to let it effect your responses.

When my family played, the best team got 28 points from betting. Can you do better?

Bestestestestestes

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:25:28 GMT

I've only got two more days to finish family trivia game. This year, I think I'm going to model it on Wits and Wagers, using differently colored post-it notes and a piece of posterboard. Luckily, this means I only need a few questions. But on the other hand, I'm getting really hard on the questions I've got, trying to have a nice variety. I may be posting some locked posts with polls about which questions are better.

But today's poll, I feel like doing some "best of 2009" or "best of the decade" things, but I don't really know what to do. So, suggest some things, and I will tell you the best of the year and the best of the decade for those things.

View Poll: Best Poll of 2009

Further Gifts

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:47:58 GMT

We're already in a countdown to Christmas. Various things like ojouchan's new job and some annoyingness with banks have meant we got a really late start. And it was only yesterday that I fully realized that I wasn't going to have any more free days before Christmas Eve. (Thursday and Friday are my days off, so my last pre-Christmas weekend just finished.)

But yesterday, Ojou and I cleared up some of the bank stuff, then we went with twilightsyren to Downtown Burbank. I got a lot of stuff done; I've pared down my budget this year, and I'm doing pretty good with it. I think I can get everything else done pretty quickly; my biggest regret is that I'm not likely to get to my regular used bookstore unless they've got expanded hours, or I make a rush to get there on the 23rd.

Still, since I've been thinking more about it, I thought I'd expand the Holiday/Birthday lists:

Puzzle Books.I mentioned Mutant Sudoku last time, but there's a lot of other good stuff out there.
- Nikoli Books. A few years ago, cramerica got me Penpa Mixes 1-3, which were loads of fun. They were especially useful once I dropped my nikoli.com membership. I still really love the puzzles, but having them in book form means I can forget about them easily. I'd love to see Penpa, Fillomino, Slitherlink, Masyu, Nurikabe, and Heyawake. (Obviously, they won't get here in time for Christmas, but whatever.
- Nikoli by Sterling. Sterling Publishing puts out some real quality stuff, and recently they've been publishing Nikoli puzzles in books mixed with Sudoku. I've already got Slitherlink (which I've finished), Masyu, and Nurikabe, but I'd still like to get my hands on the other varieties listed above.
- Crosswords. Also from Sterling, Frank Longo's Vowelless Crosswords looks good, as do Patrick Berry's Crossword masterpieces.
Tea. Specifically looseleaf tea, not bagged/packaged. Our tea reserves are dreadfully low, and we haven't had time to restock. I like most kinds, black, green, white, oolong, herbal infusions, etc. I'd avoid Teavana and Lupicia because they're overpriced. We usually shop at specialteas.com or dragonwater.com online, and when we want something in person, we go to Wing Hop Fung in Chinatown, which stocks birdpick.com. (It looks like they have a store in Pasadena too.)
One-Time Maid Service. Ojou and I are way behind on cleaning, and a burst of professional help would go a long way, especially now that we rarely have a full day off together.
New Year's Eve Plans. I'm working most of the Christmas weekend, and as a result, I've got a nice five-day weekend from December 29 to January 2. Ojou's got a sexy, sexy Foxy Brown outfit to wear . . . and a lot of our friends are going to be out of town. We need something to do, something big. Scrabble with Ellen isn't going to cut it this year.

And that's the end of my proactive gift list.

Wisdom That Cuts

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:04:30 GMT

It must be a nice privilege to tell someone to overlook the oppressive elements of a program, because it was helpful to you.

—Beverly Guy-Sheftall, quoted in "The F Word: On Feminism, Being an Ally & Social Justice" by Dumi Lewis.

It's from a larger interview about dealing with privilege. I've been trying to keep that line close to me.

It's essentially what I've been trying to say about PUA defenders (most recently in theferrett's journal). It also runs in nicely with thete1's "'I know it's racist, Te, but the special effects look awesome!'"

Because I Had Alcohol

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:00:49 GMT

Title Context

My firm has a thing. On Fridays, around closing time, they invite everyone up to the dining room and serve appetizers and drinks, including an open bar.

I've never really gone to one, because I've never been working at a time anywhere near Friday afternoons. While on the graveyard shift, it would have meant waking up god-awful early. And now, it means going in on my day off.

So, no office party.

Now, this used to be a weekly thing. But as the economy tanked, it shrank down to biweekly. It might even be every three or four weeks now. Like I said, I don't much pay attention because of the Friday thing.

But also along with the economy, the holiday party has shrunk. Two years ago, they hired Berlin to play at the House of Blues. Now, they've got new hires doing a skit before they fire up a karaoke machine in the dining room. Also, it's on a Wednesday.

Now, ojouchan and I were already planning to go out tonight (Princess and the Frog at the Arclight), and we weren't entirely inspired by the office party idea, so we were mostly going to skip it.

But today was a rough day. Really rough. I barely scraped out a lunch, and two horrible things happened during it that I then had to deal with.

My plan, then, was to make a quick stop into the party on my way out. I would say hi to the one person that I really like, then head home. And since I'm going home on the subway, I can get a drink too.

Dear reader, my overlords have many flaws, but they are generous with the booze.

I didn't do anything at the party except go to the bar (where my friend already was, which tells you something) and get a drink. I ordered a rum and coke and said something that I'd only ever heard said: "Make it a double."

This seemed appropriate. Normally, I prefer strong mixers, but I'd be leaving forthwith; no time for a second glass.

The bartender looked at the bottle of Bacardi and decided that the best thing to do was just dump everything into a plastic cup. The result was something of a triple and a half.

Hooray for not driving to work.

On the ride home, because I am a true geek, I took out a large easy crossword and recklessly speedsolved it.

But now I really see why the firm does it; why they probably wish they could still do it weekly. I had a really crappy day. Normally, I'd be home fuming. But instead, they paid for an artificial state of happiness. And lord help me, I am feeling really good about the place I work because of it. My instinct now is to think, "Well, it all balanced out."

It doesn't balance out. It was still a crappy day; I had to deal with impossible requests with impossible deadlines. The stress left me angry and unable to focus during my lunch break. And an employer shouldn't rely on mood-altering substances to make its employees feel better.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't goddamn work to some degree. I can imagine what it would be like if this happened after the end of every hard week of work. It'd probably work most of the time.

But now I'm off to eat Peruvian food and watch a movie with the woman that I love. A large glass of decent alcohol can do nothing but blanch at the thought of being compared to that.

That Can't Be Good

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:32:39 GMT

I'm still grappling with gender issues that do not conform to a male/female or masculine/feminine binary. I have a lot of cisgender privilege. No, that's an understatement. For all the reading and thinking I've done on ths subject, when dealing with transgender people in non-virtual situations, I am actively fighting transphobic thoughts. It's easier for me online, but knowing how little practice I have usually makes me doubt my critical thinking when it comes to these issues.

Still, in the wake of transphobia in a fandom-related dustup (link addresses the transphobia issues; if you don't know what the underlying wank is, it's not worth it to find out), I had these things in my mind today when I started watching the new episode of The Closer.

The plot features a retired detective who returns to give testimony after an old case is overturned on an unrelated issue. But upon his return to Los Angeles, it is revealed that although the detective had been known to collegues as a man, she is now living as a woman, to the naked disgust of her former partner.

Now, I know that a lot of people can't watch cringe television, like Arrested Development or The Office, but I can, and I often enjoy it. But even still, the casual abuse heaped onto Georgette from all corners, often ostensibly for humor, really sickened me. I had to turn it off before the end of act 2. There's probably a very valuable lesson at the end, but I doubt it will be worth it.

And then I come back to find some disturbing things about LiveJournal. synecdochic has been reading the upcoming changes to LiveJournal's code. The result of these changes (which, as of writing, are committed to go live the next time LiveJournal updates) is:

Gender will be a mandatory field at account creation, ~~and it will be able to appear public on one's profile. (I can't tell if people with existing gender specification will be defaulted to "nobody can see it" or "everybody can see it".)~~ (Subsequent changelog reading indicates that the public specificity has since been removed. It is unknown whether this is to require public specificity in the future or if it will remain private.)
>LiveJournal is removing the Unspecified option for the gender field. That's right: you get to be male or female. Period. That's it. (Source.)

(Full post.) If this is something that matters to you, you may want to set your gender to unspecified now. It appears that LJ will preserve current settings as unspecified, but it's not clear whether it'll ever be possible to unselect a gender if you don't do it now. (Source). synecdochic also suggests, "go to http://www.livejournal.com/contact/?dept=feedback and politely register your displeasure."

Update: LJ has rolled back the code, and will not be making the change. Synecdochic's entry has details and a response from LiveJournal's general manager in the United States. The response that the LJ Response Team has sent out int response to inquiries is reproduced in the comments here.

Short TV Notes.

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:25:58 GMT

Dollhouse: Blame it on FOX, blame it on Joss, but for whatever reason, this show has always been a season behind. Last night's episode brought the show to more or less where I thought it would need to be at the end of season 1.

White Collar: WHUT!? I mean . . . WHUT!?

House: The writing's been a bit uneven with Clean!House, but Laurie's acting hasn't been. It's always there and always enlightening. It's actually giving me insight into his performances in previous seasons by contrast. And with House letting go of his own egocentrism, there's finally a space for episodes like "Wilson."

Grey's Anatomy: I'm watching Grey's new shows and old shows, as ABC is rerunning first season episodes on Saturday nights. It's pretty interesting comparing the two. When the show started, it was mostly comedic. Now it's almost completely dramatic. (The soap-operacity in between is best left unremarked on.)

Mercy: I'm still really loving this show, which seems committed to remaining comedic, and is far funnier than Grey's ever was.

MST3K: ... is on Hulu. Joel episodes! I'm watching The Giant Gila Monster right now.

Tuner Classic Movies: Is now available on HD in LA, so I've been keeping an eye on movies. Yesterday, I watched D.O.A., which is a movie about how you will die if you leave the suburbs to go to a jive club in the city.

SatNYTX: 15.

Fine, I'll Tell Them

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:09:08 GMT

Hey guys, I don't know when ojouchan will get around to posting it, but she's been hired as a preschool teacher.

Tell her woo, and also hoo.

SatNYTX: 30. MonNYTX: 4. TueNYTX: 10:30. I deliberately slowed down when I noticed the theme, and I tried to solve the puzzle using as few down clues as possible.

Holiday Things

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:04:17 GMT

Some things wanted this gifting season:

A new backpack. I love my trusty Jansport, but at some point, the stuff that's supposed to keep the weight off my shoulders melted on the left side. And recently, It's been leaking out red goo if I try to wear it other than one-shouldered.
Tablesaw. ojouchan wants some new furniture. We've been talking about getting a new coffee table from IKEA for ages, and she'd like to replace our big dining room table with something more functional. We're probably goign to swing by St. Vincent de Paul, but I guess IKEA gift cards would make us pretty happy.
Untables. Speaking of new tables, we'd like to get rid of our old ones. The coffee table is nice. We'll entertain all offers, and I'll drop it off pretty much anywher in the LA area you'd like. The dining-room table is nice too, but I'm not sure if it fits in the car. Pictures soon, I think.
XBox 360 Ojou's been eying it seriously, and now that we have the HD TV, we're ready for it. The system's about five years old, which means we've got a backlog of things we can get used (though Ojou's got her eye on Dragon Age). This may wait until birthday, though.
Mutant Sudoku. I've been looking forward to motris and onigame's book of sudoku variations for a while. I usually find sudoku boring, but these two are able to bring out some amazing things out of the structure. It came out a little while ago, but I thought I'd leave it for giftability.
Clothes I hate buying clothes, so come December I always need new ones. I had some bad luck with pants recently, and I could do with some new shirts too.

And that's really it. Once again, we're going to try to get rid of stuffs and clean house, as well as trying to sock away some money for the wedding. And as usual, I prefer most gifts to be used whenever possible, especially when it comes to things like music, books, games, and DVDs.

More Food Trucking

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:32:10 GMT

Ever since I first mentioned the gentrified food trucks around my work, there's been at least one outside the office every weekday I happen to venture out. Bool and Fuxion, which I mentioned before, are regular enough that I suspect they must be doing some catering for offices nearby. And there's often one or two others. Today, there were three (in addition to Bool).

It says something about the market, I think, that the Kogi BBQ looked empty, a far cry from the crazed crowds of hipster foodies that were reported to follow its twitter posts like a siren song. Also unlined was Marked5, which notes that "When we first opened [in May], we were 1 of 6 catering trucks (BarbiesQ, kogi, green truck, Coolhaus, Don Chow’s and Marked5) running around LA." (Note that "catering trucks" does not include the many lunch trucks and taco trucks that were already in LA, an oversight that permeates the post.)

But the truck that had the line was a newcomer, Mattie's Southern Kitchen, and I ended up there too. I considered doing Kogi simply to say that I had, but then I reminded myself that was a stupid reason. Marked5's burgers with rice buns looked really appetizing for a decent price, and I may return tomorrow, if they're in the same spot. But I had a bit of a craving.

Spending Thanksgiving with ojouchan's family in North Carolina was wonderful, and the food was great. But we didn't get to take any of it home with us. No turkey sandwiches, no yams, and no collard greens; and the past few days, I've been missing all of those. The turkey sandwich I had last night using store-packaged sliced turkey didn't cut it, but here I had a chance to buy collard greens right outside the office.

The food was . . . okay, but it certainly hit a craving. The hot item seemed to be the vegeterian gumbo, and it was so hot that the truck sold out just as I got there. If they're around again, and I'm in the mood, I might go back and give it a try.