Bestest STAR WARS Pastiche Evar

Had occasion to reread the Making Light thread with the timely fruitcake recipe. Why? Because there's fruitcake in the oven right now (but not that recipe). Found this. Aren't you glad I did?

Peacocks in North Boulder

Really.

Round about the corner of Vinca and Upland.

Peacocks. In North Boulder. Yesterday afternoon. Just... peacockin' around.

Huh.

Another Reason To Play YPP!PuzzlePirates

Because when it comes to the inherent problems of DRM and making money on software, Three Rings Design have a clue.

The cheddary 'Free to Play' is not just a cheesy marketing slogan, but a shift in assumptions; it costs approaching nothing to give away some bits, or let people play Puzzle Pirates for free. Every player, free or paid, adds value to the community and excitement for other players. Free players are the content, context and society that encourages a small fraction of the audience to willingly pay more than enough to subsidize the rest.

Game Designer and Three Rings CEO Daniel James. Emphasis mine. Read the full article at Penny Arcade, News for September 29 2008.

Penny Arcade are running a series of comics illustrating the history of Digital Rights Management and Piracy Prevention, and each comic is accompanied by an editorial on the subject by someone in the industry. Follow the link here and use the site navigation to enjoy the series.

How Not To Use Your "Fry Daddy Jr." (TM)

Remember: Before plugging in your Fry Daddy Jr., always remove the black plastic storage lid!



The stupid of it is, my first instinct was to write to the company. "I just plugged it in, like normal, and the black hard-plastic rim melted! It's not supposed to be able to do that! It's supposed to be heat-resistant!"

Then I remembered that the appliance doesn't have a black hard-plastic rim. And that I couldn't find the storage lid. Or a memory of having removed the lid.

Oops.



Tonight we fry tofu the old fashioned way: In an inch of shortening in the iron skillet. Tomorrow, we attempt to clean what used to be the storage lid off the Fry Daddy Jr. in hopes of returning the appliance to active use. Wish us luck.

It's Official: I'm Old (clue #456)

It's not that I was listening to the local Oldies station that was my clue. It was that the local Oldies station was playing songs by Blondie and Eddie Money.

I suppose the Eddie Money song gets a pass, since it directly references The Ronnettes' 1963 hit "Be My Baby" and in fact features Ronnie Spector her very own self. But there is no such mitigating factor for Blondie's 1978 track "Heart of Glass."

The point is, both songs came out in my lifetime. Isn't there a rule somewhere that says that pop/rock releases during your preschool or grade school years aren't officially Oldies until you're at least 50?

I'm too young to feel this old, I really am.

"But you're supposed to be polite to everyone!"

I am putting the work-a-day world on notice: Starting now, I am no longer going to answer the question, "Oooh, that smells good! What are you eating?" with anything more specific than "Food." Because what I decided to put in my body today is not a subject for public inspection, even if I did have the temerity to eat it in the office. Dammit.

Actually, I did that the other day. "What's that concoction there?" he asks. "My lunch," I tell him. And the interrogator would not stop. "No, really, I want to know. Really! Just tell me! It smells good!" I finally told him the restaurant it was from on the off-chance that he was looking for a dining recommendation.

Why am I the one considered rude when I refuse to yield personal details? (And why is my judgment as to what constitutes "private details" up for debate?) Why isn't he considered rude for prying past the first refusal?

*sigh* Reason #469 to be a writer: Your office has only one person in it at all times.

So, I'm going to get hard-assed about this. "What's that?" "Food." "No, really!" "Really food."

Because Changing Social Norms Regarding Privacy And Politeness Begins With Me!

Beware the Fringe Beast!

Because sometimes you just have to take photos of your cat. There are laws.

Luck Be A Playah Tonight

Shorter Frank Sinatra: "Ladylike behavior means acting like I own you."

Lady Luck's response: "Waiddaminit. You thought we were on a what? Excuse me while I laugh myself sick over there by that guy at the roulette wheel."

i *heart* making light

Exhibit A:

It is one thing to call a blog-comments-troll a fruitcake. It is a thing of an entirely other and more elegant order to give the troll a fruitcake recipe.

Exhibit B:

After two threads about Ron Paul devolved into abortion debates (this is vaguely legit given Ron Paul's pro-forced-pregnancy policies thinly disguised as a states-rights stance), Teresa made a brand new thread for those determined to pursue the subject beyond the bounds of civility. "If y wnt t tlk bt brtn, d t hr," she wrote. Whereupon people commenced to talk about everything but on the pretext of playfully misunderstanding her disemvowelled text.

A Modicum Of Research Needed

Dear Heroes screenwriters:

Your touching montage of flooded-out homes superimposed over a melancholy facial expression fell a little flat after having the owner of that melancholy facial expression say, "Half the folks in this county are still living in FEMA trailers." This is because Louisiana does not have counties. It has parishes. This is important to know when writing dialogue for fictional Katrina survivors in New Orleans.

This kind of sloppiness makes you look very bad. It makes you look like you care about the Gulf Coast aftermath of August 29, 2005, only insofar as you can use it to boost your show's ratings. Like you said, "Oh hey! I know what makes viewers feel sorry for characters! Hurricane Katrina!" and then just went ahead and sprinkled the words "New Orleans" and "Katrina" and "FEMA trailers" indiscriminately throughout the script. It makes you look callously unconcerned with actual Katrina survivors and the realities of their lives over the past two years, seeing as how you couldn't be bothered to research those realities.

In short, it makes you look like an exploitative git.

Next time, fact-check. Read Metroblogging New Orleans or Poppy Z. Brite's blog. At the very least grab a map. Maps are useful and chock-full of details. I recommend them.

Signed,

A Jefferson Parish Native
(origin: 1.5 miles west of the 17th Street Canal)

Cake doing the Jim Carroll Band. Maybe.

Compare and contrast:

Cake's "Short Skirt/Long Jacket," 2001

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes
I want a girl with the right allocations
Who's fast and thorough and sharp as a tack
She's playing with her jewelry, she's putting up her hair
She's touring the facility and picking up slack

with

the Jim Carroll Band's "I Want The Angel," 1980

I want the angel that knows the sky
She got virtue, she got the parallel light in her eye
I want the angel that's partly lame
She filters clarity from her desperate shame
I want the angel that knows rejection
Who's like a whore in love with her own reflection
I want the angel whose touch don't miss
When the blood comes through the dropper like a thick red kiss

Tribute? Deliberate inversion? Total coincidence? Discuss.

(This classroom exercise brought to you by Flashback Radio!)

The Oceanmasters Tell It Like It Is

Overheard while workin' me pirate's hindquarters off at a distillin' joint:

Hephaestus broadcasts, "We are aware of the problem with lag on Viridian at the moment."

Hephaestus broadcasts, "It is under investigation."

Hephaestus broadcasts, "We are confident that it is *not* the server, but some problem elsewhere."

Hephaestus broadcasts, "So all the petitions suggestion we reboot aren't helping."

Hephaestus broadcasts, "kthxby."

While On The Subject Of Yummy

Boulder's got this restaurant called Antica Roma. Antica Roma's got this entrée called "Noce e Zucca." In English, that's "perfect creamy fattening divine goodness involving walnuts and butternut squash and various moaning noises." (Stick that in your phrase book and take it to Italy.)

Here's how I have something very much like it at home for exceedingly cheap.

• Roast* a couple handfuls of diced squashies. Which type? Eh. Your choice. I have some zuccini in the fridge and a bag of frozen butternut in the freezer.
  
• Cook the pasta from a box of Annie's Peace Parmesan. Alfredo Shells & Cheddar will do in a pinch.
  *If in a hurry, cook squashies by tossing them in with the pasta during the last couple minutes of boilage.
  
• While pasta drains, simmer together 1/4 C heavy whipping cream and 1 Tbl sherry or whatever else you have on hand and like to cook with.
  
• Toss in a handful of crushed walnuts.
  
• Dump in pasta and squashies. Mix thoroughly.
  
• Commence with the yummy.
  

Those Crabapples ARE Edible After All

These are my plans:

• Pick about 10 ripe crabapples. Ripe means red.
  
• Mince 'em with a vengeance and no mercy. Seeds? Meh. Seeds never hurt anybody.
  
• Stick 'em in a pot with a couple tablespoons honey. Simmer simmer simmer. Destination: mush.
  
• Put the mush in a PIE. (A small one. More like a tart, really.)

I'll let you know how it works out.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Something just went "clunk" in the air conditioner.

I performed a roll call and both cats answered "present." (Actually, they said "Go 'way, we're napping.") So it's not them. Also nothing fell off the air conditioner unit outside. Compost bucket, check! Orchid replanting materials, check!

What goes "clunk" inside an air conditioner wall unit?

My theory is hamsters. Because hamsters is what makes things run. I think my air conditioner running hamster fell off its wheel and hurt its little footsies. This is unfortunate. We've been having an upper-nineties summer and we need that A/C unit working.

Do you figure McGuckin's carries replacement A/C hamsters?

Bunny, Cute As A

Awww. It's baby Thumper in the woods!

Actually, it's just the view outside my office window. I have windows now. They're like walls, only you can see through them. Except when a co-worker's dog parks her butt there to stare droolingly at all the tasty wildlife.

The fruit scattered all over the ground are crabapples. Not the usefully edible kind. At least, not by me. Thumper seems to like them.

Now With 150% Less Gangsta

So when did Silver Ravenwolf's Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation get a new coffee-table-esque paperback edition release? In its current incarnation I might actually read it. The new cover photo looks all healthy and wholesome, reminiscent of the sort of book one's parents gives one when one turns eleven and the You're Becoming A Woman talk is just around the corner. It looks like the kind of activities parents desperately try to generate interest in, in hopes of distracting one from drugs and hormones.

In fact, that's where I saw it misshelved in Borders the other day. It was on an end cap with books entitled stuff like "My Changing Body" and "Help I'm A Teen What Do I Do Now?" Apparently what you should do now is convert to Wicca where you will find true friendship and moon magic and, like, lovely skin and glossy hair. And good information on feminine hygiene.

Remember the old cover?

Like, "Here I am with my posse coven, and if you look at me the wrong way we will cut hex you." No wonder the first place Google found the image was in the archives of Sharon Hughes' "Blogging Truth in the Midst of Changing Worldviews." Sharon blogs, among other things, about how Harry Potter and Silver Ravenwolf and Starhawk and, I dunno, Gandalf and Aslan maybe, are leading kids away from Christianity and into *gasp* WITCHCRAFT, and I swear, the original cover of Teen Witch was totally designed to scare her. I bet the direction given the artist was all "So, you know that frightened Christian lady, Ms. Hughes? With the changingworldviews.blogspot.com URL? I want you to completely futz with her head."

On the other hand, given that she seems to be still flogging the "Saddam had WMDs I swear!" talking point memo, maybe her head is permanently futzed, I dunno. Maybe it was shooting fish in a barrel.

But speaking as a Wiccan who doesn't want the Sharon Hugheses of the world to fear her religion (however futile my desires may be), I disapprove.

So, about this new cover: Well done, Llewellyn! A tasteful move on your part! Very nice. I am now about 86% less embarrassed of you.

So They're Not All Hairless Rats?

I've seen Chihuahuas, and I've seen long-haired Chihuahuas, but have I never before seen a long-haired cookies-n-cream-colored Chihuahua.

Sooooo cuuuuuuute!

The "ugliest dog breed in the world" prize is still up for grabs, y'all, 'cause this little puppy disqualified Chihuahuas from the running.

On Second Thought

It's actually a Leo Sun trine Jupiter with Cancer rising at this very moment. A waning gibbous Moon is in Pisces in the Ninth House. Saturn is opposite Neptune.

It would take someone who actually

1. believes in this stuff, and
2. knows this stuff

to decide what that means for this blog's future. Maybe this blog should avoid pickles, or eschew unagi. Maybe it should beware the Ides of September.

(As to why I have software that plots an entire astrological chart when I don't fit descriptions A and B above, the record remains strangely silent.)

Taurus Sun with Aries Rising

Once upon a time a wise witch told me, "Astrologically speaking, your sun sign isn't nearly as important as your ascendant. If your sun sign is a car, your ascendant is the driver."

Help! I've got an Aries driving my Ford Taurus!

It's a terrifically dependable car, from what I hear. It gets you there. You start a journey with that sucker, you're gonna finish on schedule. But what's that easily distracted lunatic doing at the wheel? I don't know, but whatever you do, don't invite it into that thought-box of yours. The one involving LEDs and tiny parachutes. Aries will make a shopping list and ask you where you want the troops deployed. Don't answer. It will happen. Because the Taurus is that dependable.

"Pinky! Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain, but how will we get a pair of Abe Vigoda's pants?"

Don't even say that around Taurus With Aries Rising. She will get you a pair of Abe Vigoda's pants. And then she will make you wear them, because you asked for them, didn't you, and she went out of her way to acquire them, totally inconveniencing Mr. Vigoda in the progress because you had this need, now don't you dare not put them on!

"Poit!"

In other words, whimsy followed by meticulous, unstoppable doings.

And blog posts that are much shorter than this.

Usually.