Sporadic speculations, alliterative anecdotes, all updated under whim and whimsy.
Today's Reading:
The Fellowship of the Ring (Moria).
Now Playing:
Seven Nations and Oysterband.
On the Table:
Pan-blackened peppercorn steak with brandy-cream sauce.
Word of the Day:
Flyting.
Today in Medieval History:
January 30, 0435: Rome makes peace with the Vandals... in that "you whupped our asses so we'll stop pretending our legions are still the jam" sort of way. Contentiously defined as the beginning of the Middle Ages.
The Dragon Review:
Like the New York Times. Except Not.
The Musketeer - Kung Fu Rapiers!
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More Babble:
Keri's Brain Flotsam
Useless! Worthless! Insipid!
Two Cents Short
E's Den
The Demon's Realm
faeriedragon
American Gods
Neil Gaiman has a blog!!
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IT'S THE BIG DAY!
This is it, everyone! This is what should be my final post to my trusty Blogspot blog. I am moving on to better and brighter things, courtesy of Moveable Type and my own server space. I'm still putting finishing touches on the new site, but it's close enough that I'm ready to open for business.
Please redirect your browser and update your links to my new home at:
http://illuminatio.populli.net/daily/
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posted by Lisa at 3:24 PM
Notes to all: Big changes, including relocation, are coming soon to this blog. I will keep you posted.
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posted by Lisa at 8:25 PM
Yarn yarn yarn! I finally got myself to a yarn store, and came away poorer than I'd hoped but bearing 3 balls of chenille yarn (one each in deep purply blue, lighter purply blue, and burgundy) and a shiny new crochet hook. My crochet-craving will finally be appeased! At this point I'm planning to make a scarf for Tim - hence the uncharacteristic blue color scheme - but this may start a whole new round of yarn-blitzed madness in which I churn out scarfs and purses and hats by the kilo. I hear there's a good, and well-paying market for these things on ebay... I've missed the season now, but hey I can stockpile things for next October. In the meantime, it feels good to have yarn in my hands again - gives me something to fidget with when watching movies - and chenille is soooo cuddly.
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posted by Lisa at 8:24 PM
Owwwww I hurt! My body is reminding my why it's unwise to take too much time off fencing (or any other strenuous activity). I didn't pull any muscles thankfully, but everything feels slow and achy and my back is really unhappy with me. Ugghh. I'm better than I was last night, but still. Mobility not so much fun right now.
It turns out that Wednesday is Scrub Night at Metropolis. (Heh.) Which means not many of the better fencers are around, just the beginners who hack at each other blindly. Well, Rolando was there, and he fenced a couple of bouts - of all the people there I was the only one to give him any decent competition, which gives you an idea of how lowly the crowd was. My first bout was against Rolando, and would you know I fenced him 10-15. 10 touches is definitely not bad for being all forgetful and out of shape!
The reason I hurt is because when Rolando left, he left ME to rule the strip. None of the beginners had a chance, so I ended up fencing several bouts in a row, by the end of which my back and my wrist were seriously hurting. Ugg. That's why Scrub Night was possibly a bad night to come back on, because with the regular crowd there I'd never have had to fence so many bouts in a row.
(And yes, I'm an idiot for not stepping down sooner - unfortunately the ow didn't hit me till it was too late.)
So I was planning on going back tonight, but maybe I should let my back recover a bit. Siiigh!
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posted by Lisa at 1:09 PM
What a productive day! My main accomplishment was I actually got myself down to Pintchik and picked out some nice shiny red paint with which to paint my TV cabinet (which Tim and I sanded last night). So tomorrow I'll actually be able to prime the cabinet and, if the primer dries quickly, I should have my little "entertainment center" set up by the weekend! Woohoo!
Furthermore, I cleared up some payment issues with Parsons, gave dad various tax-type info he needed, found out the location of a nice nearby wool/knitting store (I've been itching to rebegin crocheting lately), I'll be heading out to fencing in a few minutes (for the first time in weeks), and even began redesigning the redesign of my blog. (Decided I'll definitely be going with Moveable Type in the near future, rather than Greymatter as previously anticipated.)
This design thing has been the niggling bane of my existence. Nothing QUITE seems to flow as I'd like, with all the elements jangling in a disappointing grating sort of way, and I'm completely stumped as to why nothing is coming together. Bah. So today I started fresh, this time using Fireworks instead of Photoshop. Which I should've tried sooner - Fireworks is utterly geared towards web layout, and all its tools for such are much closer to the front of your working space (plus its vector shape tools are way better than those in PS, which is handy when you're drawing lines all over everything). It utterly lacks Photoshop's arty fineness, so I'll still be working on all the images as psds, but layout is all about Fireworks. Maybe this change of environs will be just what I needed to kick my creativity in the right direction.
Now all I need is 512mb of RAM so that I can have Photoshop, Fireworks, HomeSite, and web stuff all open at once. Heh.
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posted by Lisa at 5:32 PM
These things are getting dirtier.....
Take the What
animal best portrays your sexual appetite?? Quiz
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posted by Lisa at 5:03 PM
Idyll time....
Walking from Chinatown to TriBeCa with Chris and Tim to catch the 1 train on Saturday, I began to experience a strange sense of my adult self overlaying childhood memories of walking this very same route home, to North Moore Street.
I get this every time I'm in TriBeCa, mostly because I never have any reason to be there, so I have no steady build of fresher memories. These streets remain cobbled through the eyes of a 5-year-old. It freaks me out to see luxury residences and rarefied antiques warehouses - I still remember the neighborhood clogged with trucks, sweating workmen on the loading docks, and the smell of industrial miasma filling the air. Of course it's nicer now, but what a strange metamorphosis. Kind of neat to explore the neighborhood again, on a frolicksome afternoon with not much better to do.
On White Street, I stopped to peer in the window of a fancy Asian furniture warehouse, and jumped up on the loading ledge to see better. Just as I might've jumped up to peer at toys in a SoHo window when I was little. It was a funny moment, that same childhood reaction but fueled by my adult interests. Chris and Tim hopped up alongside me, and then, grinning, we joined hands and all leaped down together. It was a beautiful moment.
And then we visited N.Moore Street itself, and I peered up at our old loft, unchanged on the outside (minus the aforementioned trucks etcetera), but doubtless very changed on the inside. The name on our bell was Miele. I took a picture of the building, just 'cause. And then I took a flying leap off the loading dock for old times' sake and got carried upside-down halfway up the block by Tim. Carried back to where my vision doesn't flicker in a 20-year retrogap.
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posted by Lisa at 1:46 PM
God I'd forgotten how much fun Star Wars can be...... and it's all Gizmo's fault for reminding me. Heh, figures: my interest isn't sparked by the upcoming Episode II, ohh no, it's all due to the RPG in which I get to play at being a Jedi.
Right now the story has us stuck in the middle of a Sith Temple - yes, we walked in voluntarily. Well not that we wanted (yeah, it'll be FUN!) but we have to rescue an NPC who became unexpectedly important all of a sudden (bloody NPCs.....), aaaand who thought it would be a good idea to succumb to the Dark Side for kicks. Whee.. Right. (The Dark Side mojo in the system has been bugging all us Force-sensitives, but I've mostly been making my willpower saves and thus been resisting, except for one really hairy moment but it's all better now......)
But it's cool because my character is finally actually getting to use abilities, instead of just being a target. ("Ooh she's a Jedi! Let's hit her! Ooh look! She can't do ANYTHING to stop us!") Although I had a bad moment getting knocked down by a big black slime-Sith (mmmmm slime-sabres....causing me to yell "I don't WANNA be Tasha Yar!!!"), I later had a great moment using the Force to pick up a baddie and then dropping him on his ass. Also had great moments of telepathy and other fun stuff, and the night ended with me going into this fabulous Jedi-trance where I got to see the ethereal plane...so pretty!
I've got more cool stuff ahead too, because soon I'll be able to develop some more fighting skills along with these sensory perception things. Gizmo is giving me the option to learn to fight with TWO lightsabres - lightsabres florentine! Only after picking up certain essential feats like ambidexterity, or else I'll have to take massive penalties, but I can be patient. It's just that COOL.
I realize I'm being silly about this, but it's so much fun! Gizmo (his real name is Danny, but Gizmo suits him so well...) is a wonderful fun GM, where all the scenarios are very character-driven - which makes even the niggling inbetweenclimaxes time very entertaining. Plus, we're all ridiculously silly, which makes the game soooooo much more fun.
For example, we have Tim playing an Ithorian (those weird hammerheaded guys) soldier named - I'm not kidding - Licki Tungeluv. (Someone kill him for that, please.) We also have a Jedi Wookiee called, because he couldn't think of anything better, Skybacca. Yeoww. Tim, upon hearing this, immediately burst out with, "Bacca-chuuuuuu! I choose youuuu!" (No, really SOMEONE has GOT to kill him.) We're more prone to call him Baccachu now.... James must hate us.
Now, Skybacca (James) has decided that one of his major goals in life is to kill him a Rancor, so that he can use a Rancor tooth to build his lightsabre. (Riiight.) He thought that he could bait it with something else and then kill it while it was busy chewing....
James: "What does a Rancor like to eat anyway?"
Us: "YOU!"
James: "Oh. What if I threw it a nice Hutt?"
Me: "Mmmmmm! GUMMI-Hutts!"
This gives you an idea of what our gameplay is like. Yes, ALL of it. I wouldn't be nearly so hooked if it wasn't this silly. Mmmmmm I can't wait till next session!
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posted by Lisa at 5:38 PM
What an odd, limbo-esque sort of day. I've got a whole afternoon to diddle around my apartment (I'm finally HOME after being in CT and at Tim's since last Sunday). Which feels wooooonderful, to stretch out into my own space, and to be at my own computer. I've got some vague notions of things to do, like I want to make some character sketches for the Star Wars RPG I'm in, I should work on my website and start constructing some business card designs, all fun things like that. I should feed myself soon (hmm I have beans, avocado, and tortillas...). But none of it feels all that pressing although I'm anxious to get those things done.
I'm in an odd mood - I was annoyed earlier by my digital camera, which seems to hate Win98 (as well it should, I suppose) and won't let itself be installed on my machine despite my and Tim's best efforts. I called my parents, and for once they didn't have a list of 20 chores and errands to remind me about, which was more eerie and disconcerting than it was happy (though believe me, it was VERY happy!). I'm also listening to ska, which I've loved for a long time, but which hasn't often suited my mood in recent years, so it feels sort of...strange. And more sobering, Keri's news has saddened me - I send a thousand hugs her way, and I'm thinking maybe I'll call my own grandparents just to check in and say hello.
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posted by Lisa at 2:36 PM
We won at Trivia!!!! We finally won!!!
Which was quite a shock to us, as none of us felt we'd done a particularly distinguished job last night. We had a number of beautiful memory-saves, though, which were enough to end us up winning with 93 points, 3 whole points ahead of the next runners-up. (It was a notably low-scoring night actually - often the winners score above 100.) It was a fabulous night, altogether though. We got the coveted table right under the Quizmaster's nose - the one which a) puts you close enough to get the questions for free drinks (Jaye got one, and Keri got another), and b) enables you to joke with the Quizmaster which is always fun.
We had some special guest appearances to our team, too. We had the reappearance of Keri, an especially happy and welcome surprise. We had MikeFromE'sGym with Girlfriend Abby, who were fun additions to our team (not well-learned additions, at least per the night's supply of questions, but definitely fun). And making SPECIAL uninvited cameos were E's parents, who bought us Guinnesses, gave us hugs, and a barrage of wrong answers that we got to tease them about. (Oh no, I tell a lie - they supplied us with Sea Biscuit, because none of the rest of us know from horses.)
It was a busy night at Rocky's, too, because they had someone taking photos of all the teams so as to update the pub's website. So the Samurai Squirrels are represented! I was taking photos too, with my new camera, and will post pictures here as soon as I get around to uploading them.
(And we must all mock Tim, who decided to skip Trivia and hang out with Sci-Fi people at NYU on EXACTLY the wrong week! Hahaha! Sucker!)
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posted by Lisa at 11:09 AM