So, I've been saving my pennies for several months now and doing everything I can to scrape together enough to FINALLY buy a decent computer of my very own. I did the math and it has officially been FIVE YEARS since I last had:

1. a decent computer
2. of my very own
3. which was connected to the internet
4. at my house
5. for more than three months.

Even those three months, I had a broke down computer with NO sound.

It's just not funny any more, guys. I'm a computer person. My JOB is all about computers. My life and social life are all about computers. I MISS you all.

So I called the local shop with the fabulous reputation for customer service and spent about twenty minutes getting a feel for their people, pricing, and payment plans. However I break it down, it's going to be at least 130 a month for a year. It's just not even possible.

In the past, I've relied on wonderful friends who would donate their old parts and a bit of love and labor to help me get going. I can do that again. I just wanted, for once, to be a bit more independent. I love my job. I knew, when I got good and comfortable doing what I do that there would be times when I would wish I'd picked a livelihood that was more ... living wagish. This is the closest I've ever come to thinking I should have gone with the soul-killing job at 30k a year.

I suppose if I find a great internet deal with no warranty, it won't be the worst thing that ever happened to me. I mean, push comes to shove, I do have plenty of computer people in my life. It just means saving more and paying cash.

Heard a cover of this recently, and it occurred to me that it is again very topical.

Also, it's still very funny.

Local scifi convention. Usually good for a couple of writing panels, but those I made time for this year were fairly uninspiring. I did enjoy the late filking very much. A couple of new songs and a chance to hang out with the California crowd I rarely get to see these days. And oh, so many of them.

I did buy one book that I'm very excited about reading. It is called I Am Not A Serial Killer and is written by Dan Wells. I'll give you a report as soon as I have finished it.

Recently finished books:

The Grand Tour Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermere. Traditional Print

A fun Regency Romance/Fantasy. Sequel to Celia and Sorcery. Mostly escapist fluff.

Under The Tuscan Sun: At Home In Italy Frances Mayes. Audio Book (cassette)

I really enjoyed this book. In particular, I think that Frances Mayes has a REAL gift for prose. Her metaphors, descriptions, confessions, and emotions are compelling and lively. Fascinating. I mentioned the chapter of recipes, but there are actually two. Cassettes were not the very best medium for these particular chapters.

Up next:
The Lovely Bones Traditional Pring
The Celestine Prophecy Audio
I Am Not A Serial Killer Traditional Print

"Tiny Spock is then beset by tiny Vulcan bullies. I am not making this up. Vulcan bullies. What is this? Prince of Tennis? Go, tiny Spock! Kick their Vulcan bully asses!"

( My summary of Star Trek with many many spoilers. )

and Una Mujer Named Maria

It's playing at The Grand, and Kime and I went last night. It's not going to be the next "Rent," but there are a lot of funny moments and the music is wonderful. There are three very strong voices in the cast and the trio they have on percussion, keyboard, and percussion is amazing. The message about diversity is effective and not too heavy handed, and the whole thing was great fun. Go if you can and support local live theater.

Their next season opener is "Schoolhouse Rock." I'm SO there.

Reading used to be the thing I did more than anything else. If I was awake, there was a novel within easy reaching distance. I only had one high school teacher who ever tried to get me to stop reading and pay attention in class. Even back then, I had the bad habit of wanting to read things that I'd already read rather than reading something new, but it's still much better than not reading at all.

Last year I might have read a total of twelve books. I feel like I'm confessing some horrible crime, here. Like all the other bookworms are going to laugh at me as I hang my head in shame. I'm making an effort to read more and I'll report here what's going on even if it's just to check my progress on this particular goal.

Sadly, I'm more likely to buy books than to read them. You can feel virtuous buying books. Particularly, I buy a lot of used books and they pile up in my living room or bedroom. Especially when books come from the library sale or at other deep discounts, I tell myself that I'm going to have their bindings cut off and then I am going to run them through the rapid scanner at work. PDF files take up a lot less room than hard copy, and there is the added advantage of being able to open them in Kurzweil and make them into mp3s in the soothing tones of "VoiceWorks Paul," a far cry from the monotone "Microsoft Sam" of the nineties. So far, though, only one book has actually been treated this way. I've made plenty of Kurzweil audio books, but most of them were already digital copies of one kind or another to begin with. (Gutenberg.org is your friend.) The thought of actually cutting the spine off a perfectly good book still causes a bit of alarm or guilt. Much of my reading time is on the bus, though, and it's hard to get absorbed in a good story when you're worrying about missing your stop. Audio books are definitely superior there.

At the library sale last week, I bought about twelve books on tape. They're bulky, of course, and tapes have a tendency to degrade over time. I plan to change those into mp3s as soon as I can scrape together the right cords. I find it very ironic that for me it's easier to make an mp3 out of information printed on a page than from a cassette tape.

The audio book I'm currently reading on bus trips and before I sleep at night is Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes. I found myself irritated by the chapter consisting of nothing but recipes. They went on for nearly all of side two on tape four. In a traditional printed book, I would have glanced through them, read the names of the different dishes, perhaps paid attention to some of the instructions and been impressed by the author's talent for descriptions. I would have been pleased that there was a reservoir of practical knowledge in the middle of the comfortable and rambling prose about the beauty of the land and the difficulties of making a home as an American couple abroad. I would, perhaps, have pulled the book out and referred to it the next time I baked chicken or seasoned my Greek salad. On tape, it's much harder to pick and choose what you will read, or to stop and think about any piece of new information or clever use of English. Still, audio books are far superior to no books at all, and for a year now, they're all I've managed with any consistency.


Things I've read (From cover to cover only. Starting doesn't count.) in the last couple of weeks:


Strands of Sunlight, Gael Baudino (rereading). Traditional print. An old favorite.

Sorcery and Cecelia, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermere. Traditional print.



More to come, hopefully with some informal reviews.

Woo! New signature generator at Kingdom of Loathing.



This. It is who I am.

Lays has an ad for their "Classic" potato chips which tells us they only have three ingredients. One of the ingredients is "sunflower and corn oil." Do I misunderstand the definition of ingredient, or do they?

Okay, this ended up buried in comments a week later and I think it may be best if I actually do clarify what I said earlier about religion and the Twilight books. My sister asked me what the author being Mormon had to do with it. A very fair question. This was my answer:

Normally I would agree that being a Mormon should not have anything to do with it. Other Mormon authors write all kinds of fiction and no one expects them to keep it G rated or only show things they believe in.

It becomes an issue when the books are so clearly preachy. The characters talk about their opinions of the afterlife and what will or will not keep you out of heaven. The idea that any act you had no control over can't keep you out of heaven is VERY Mormon and not part of any other Christian religion that I know of. What Glen Beck calls "The Gandhi question." It becomes relevant when so much of the book is about the idea that the proper way for a couple in love to behave is to be celibate outside of marriage and promiscuous within that marriage. Very Mormon. It becomes relevant because, fair or not, Mormons are watched and studied by the rest of the world more than any other Christian religion I know of, and a book like this, fair or not, is going to be taken as a barometer of our values BECAUSE it is preachy. BECAUSE there are icons of Edward and Emmet photoshopped into missionary uniforms.

This is an author that takes her own work very seriously and seems to be blind to its flaws. If it were less popular, this would not be a problem, but the whole world is reading Twilight and the whole world is seeing a very dysfunctional relationship and the whole world can also probably see that the author treats it like a wonderful and beautiful and ideal relationship. The whole world is wondering how Mormon women view themselves and wish to be treated by the men in their lives.

My answer? "Not like this, please."

Sita Sings the Blues

This is a wonderful movie recommended to me by a dear friend and based on the Ramayana, the moral of which is that men are stupid. It's funny and interesting and full of heart and very pretty. You can watch it free online and if you are able to make a donation, please do.

That's all.

Dear America:

Please do not hug blind corners on your left in hallways.

Thank you,

-Me

For those who requested them (you sick, SICK children):

Cleolinda
Pay special attention here to the summary of Midnight Sun
"WHY WEREN'T YOU IN SCHOOL, HUH? I CAN'T STALK MYSELF, YOU KNOW,"

Growing Up Cullen
"EMMETT CAN YOU KEEP IT DOWN I AM READING PROUST!!!!"

mspaint_lolz
"THIS HERE APPLE IS WHAT WE CALL A SYMOBOLOGY"

When people ask me if they should read these books, I say "Yes. They're hilarious." I suppose that after so many months of being weirdly fascinated by these books, I should try to quantify my reaction. Mainly it is "This is a seriously fucked up relationship, ya'll." Seriously. It's not because he's a vampire and she's a teen. No. It's because the fact that neither of them have been in a relationship before does not excuse the horrid way they treat each other and everyone else around them because of each other. (And there's no excuse for your behavior either, Jacob.) She's by turns passive aggressive and harmfully naive. He's obsessed and controlling in a REALLY not okay way. On an emotional level, reading these book reminds me of reading Lolita (though, obviously, the wordcraft is not on the same planet, let alone the same level).

Actually, this is not a bad comparison. When I read Lolita, my reaction was "Yes, this is the kind of twisted way that a pedophile's mind works. This is the way they excuse their behavior to themselves." My reaction to page after page was horrified fascination at the sheer plausibility of the situation and admiration of Nabokov's insight into the mind of a predator. Apparently, though, there are people in this world -- otherwise average and relatively well-adjusted people -- who read Lolita and think to themselves "That poor man! How eloquent he is! How sensitive and sympathetic!"

So, here's the thing. Read the Twilight books. Fine. Even be weirdly fascinated by their emotional impact and general kinkiness. But don't read the Twilight books and then go "Oh, it's so romantic! So lovely! So perfect a book for young girls who want to have their identities absorbed by a man and possibly commit suicide over him as long as they don't have premarital sex." Just ... yeah.

These books make me ashamed to be a Mormon like even Proposition Eight did not.

This weekend world_of_blade and I went to see some of the sites in Salt Lake with an emphasis on 'the weirder the better.' It was one of her goals for her new goals community. My favorite is the "SLC Pepper" mural. It's about two stories tall. There's a picture of some random girl standing next to it to give you an idea of the scale. More information is on her lj and we took some pictures.

Yay, I'm so good at this blogging thing.

Icon just for you, world_of_blade

Safe travels, time with loved ones, and finest of season's blessings to all my friends. Be well, be happy. I love you all and hope to see you very soon.

Today my hero Simon Pegg has announced that he is going to follow his dream and leave acting and writing in favor of a career in music. I want to wish him success and the best of everything. It can be difficult to start a band and earn a solid reputation. Smooth sailing to Simon and to his bandmates.

Simon's blog entry about his retirement including video of performance

:p

Just for world_of_blade I present my first ever Highlander fanfic which is based on "Highlander: The Source." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ...

METHOS: KING OF THE INEPT CANNIBALS!

"This meat is dry," said Methos, King of the Inept Cannibals.

"But sire! You insisted we cook the meat! Normally we eat our foes still warm and squirming as god intended."

"Yes, yes, but you can cook foes without letting them get all dry like this. You slow roast them over a fire turning occasionally. And even if they really irritated you, don't poke them with your sharpened sticks! It lets all the foe juices out! I mean, really, man, it's not like I asked you to pop over to the mainland and find me a nice red wine to go with foe. Is it really so impossible?"

"It shall be as you command, sire!"

"It had better be, or I shall recite Queen lyrics at you again."

"But sire-"

"I'll do it! Don't think I won't!"

-the end

It's been too long since I've done LJ tags! I fail at them!

I'm the sort of person who could easily fall into a game like World of Warcraft and never ever come out again. You hear about people who die because they are too busy playing to eat or sleep or take their medication? This would be me. Because I know this about myself, I play Kingdom of Loathing instead. When you're out of turns, you're done for the day.

The "Clan" I belong to is called Seven Lances (after something from Diablo II, apparently) and it's full of really wonderful people. They asked me what I wanted for that one day, and I was coy enough to give them a list which included "Terrible Poetry," a game item I've recently started collecting, (the plural of which is 'terrible poetries.' I am not making this up.) and the home-made kind if they were so inclined. The results were even better than I'd hoped. One friend actually wrote six poems, each more terrible than the last.



( Some of the world's greatest terrible poetries: )

I got lots of other nice in-game items and well wishings. I don't know who all contributed to the fund, but I love and appreciate all of them very much! Actually, it was one of the best THAT days I've ever had.

Yes, I am still playing Kingdom of Loathing. If you haven't seen it, you should really check it out.

SO! Sunday, our clan finally managed a successful raid of the new clan team dungeon (Hobopolis) for "Hodgman's Imaginary Hamster." It's my second attempt at getting one, and the first time we actually pulled it off as a clan. There are exactly thirty in adventurers' display cases which means that there are probably about a hundred or a hundred and twenty in the entire kingdom, I'd guess. Six of the seven players that participated were entered for a dice roll and I WON! It was like some kind of Crimbo miracle! It's the most broken item I've ever seen. It regenerates an obscene amount of mp and hp and seriously boosts item and currency drops.

I've been buzzed about it for days. Why? Because it's both imaginary AND virtual.