| Just watched the first 4 episodes, initial reaction: meh.
Pilot: "look, we are playing dramatic music to let you know something scary will happen, plus we use camera angles so you know... wait for it... DRAMATIC MUSIC, BET YOU JUMPED!"
Wendigo: Seriously, it's really not fucking interesting when you make me jump from predictable shit
Dead in the Water: That didn't totally suck, there is hope
Phantom Traveler: I continue to hope
Dean has good taste in music. | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment   |
| On the train ride in this morning, I got a page to stop by someone's desk when I got it. I did, and received tollhouse cookies.
Later, I returned to my desk to find 2 mini-loaves of pumpkin bread sitting there.
I used the phrase from the subject, though, when one of my employees volunteered to bring in Gulab Jamun. It turns out her boss had been asking for her to bring in native food for a while, but once I mentioned I wanted some, in it came.
When her boss asked how come it was that my food requests were met but not his, I so replied.
That bread was VERY tasty, and I have no idea who brought it in.
nom nom nom. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| What I need, now, is a historical event.
In early December, I'll be in SW Wisconsin running a game based around the highlander. This will be an ongoing campaign type thing, so what I'm looking for is a reasonably obscure but still interesting historical event. This event must occur on or around the Dark Ages.
In the first game, for example, the group followed the trail of the Ark of the Covenant to South Africa, where is was allegedly stored, since it was an artifact of power which was, in some way, significant to them. This was based on a documentary I had seen recently.
Just to put in perspective, something like Roland or Charlemaigne being an immortal is much too obvious. Some weird (and interesting) piece of the Templars might be good.
So, what's a good historical event in the timeframe. Not limited to Europe, though most of the characters are from there.
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghlabid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam_in_southern_Italy | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| People who know me well, and not so well, often wonder why exactly it is that someone in IT who has been playing D&D since the late 70s and avidly watches science fiction movies and all that does not like Star Trek.
New evidence from the Internet suggests it's because I am not a pervert. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I'm debating video blogging the next jerky creation experience, because it's funny to watch Dean hopping around on his hind legs in front of me while I chop meat.
Actually, it went more like this:
Get home, throw meat in freezer, peel and core 6 apples and put them on dehydrator.
Take out partially frozen meat, cut, watch Dean hop.
Take slice of meat, microwave for 15 seconds (it was frozen), put on food plate. Watch Dean run off and realize he's batting the meat around the living room. Steal meat from Dean, get clawed, throw out (the batted meat, not Dean).
After cutting meat, marinade.
Bag apples, take out marinaded meat, dry meat.
Wake up in morning, notice texture is right, bag meat.
I got a comission ("hey, I'd pay you if you made me a bag of jerky") on the train this morning.
I think I mentioned zero tolerance policies, but when you look at it in the context of Detroit the following jumps out: "There’s not much chance a strong city government could really turn the place around, but it could stop the grass roots revival in its tracks."
Also, laissez faire security. Because it's a cool term.
Lastly, that's some old shit. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| It always amazes me when you discover that having the right tools (not language in this case) does, in fact, give you accees to unique thought patterns.
To me, making dried apples is easy. Zip them through the peeler/corer/slicer, cut the apple spiral in half, throw in dehydrator for 6 hours, eat.
To the people at work, it's amazingly cool that I can make 'fresh' dried apples and did I add any sugar? Am I sure, they taste very sweet. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Preliminary review indicates that the government saved 650k jobs via the stimulus package. At a cost of $150B in grants or loans.
Which is $230,769 per job saved. In case you were curious why I regard the public option with unmitigated horror. It's solving the wrong problem in a phenominally stupid way (by a body that doesn't solve those sort of problems well). | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I posted over a year ago a request to help me find new TV to watch. I now have the Roku device and Netflix I threatened to get back then, so I thought I'd summarize what I'm currently watching and what I like (listed from best to worst):
The Shield (starting season 2): Brilliant - also note, this is the only TV I'm currently watching on DVD (although I am starting the Sopranos)
Law and Order CI (year 4): starting to not be as much fun
30 Rock (Season 3): Hilarious, even if Jenna is annoying
Mythbusters (Collection 3): fun!
Dexter (Season 2): watched all of season 1 one weekend, Season 2 flirted with suck but did not.
Wire in the Blood (Season 3): Different... it's a British show about an autistic profiler... but good to watch.
Lost (Season 1): I want to like this but have too many characters I want to punch in the face
Heroes (Seaons 1): See above
Brotherhood (Season 1): I was actually offended by a show where a woman took a stray cat her daughters had adopted and drove it out and abandoned it in the woods for doing stuff like knocking over a coffee mug and climbing a screen door (Dean was obviously the stunt cat for this episode). Given the above listing, I find it amusing it's the first thing I've seen that offends me. Show is about a corrupt politician (well, no more corrupt than usual) with a mobster brother living in Rhode Island, so everyone speaks with a thick New England accent.
Red Dwarf (Season 2): not terrible
Sanctuary (Season 1): Too obviously a TV show... seriously, you need better kung fu.
The Hunger (Season 1): turns out to mild horror and mild soft porn. Meh.
The IT Crowd (Season 2): Can sometimes take a funny thing too far into unfunny territory.
MI-5 (Season 1): I laughed to see a british actor butchering a Southern American accent. Also, WTF is the british obesession with torturing people in TV shows?
You can also tell how much I like something by what season I'm on. It's nice to have 10 years of TV to catch up on. Unlike "excuses to not go on a date" the art and technology of TV has advanced since I last paid attention. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Recent survey reports that Americans feel, by a plurality, that the current reform doesn't give enough people healthcare and also does not control costs enough.
I, too, have not been given a pony.
Speaking of horses, I think this is the most unintentionally funny thing:
"If you're going to lose anyway, is it better to lose atop the horse you really want to ride?"
(the horse you want to ride being Palin) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I remember when I watched "Gangs of New York" I was very amused by the fact that there were "American" gangs that were opposed to the gangs of Irish immigrants.
At the time of the movie (Civil War), America was less than a hundred years old (4 score and seven if you believe Lincoln). Yet here they are, denigrating the "new immigrants".
That being said, listening to Pat Buchanan go off about something or other, I wondered how long his family had been here.
Since the Internet has everything, the answer is, "longer than there has been a country" as outlined here.
This, of course, begs the question of how you count how long someone has been "in country". I can trace my father's fathers to England, but my mother is a naturalized citizen.
There we are then. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| So, I was slicing up beef for Jerky.
The other cats, being domestic, knew I was doing kitchen things. Dean, being feral came up and asked if I was done with that yet.
I gave a bit of beef to the cats, who enjoyed it.
I just had to take the last piece from Dean, who was batting it around the living room. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Dehydrated (after crocking) a pound of strawberries and 6 gala apples. Ate (well, brought in for work crew to eat). Made another batch - once I started stacking up strawberries I realized I would only need a pound but had bought 2, went out for more apples later.
Will try jerky this week. I have a "asian chive" powder that's supposed to make a dip (with mayo and cream cheese) that I'll make a marinade with. Will be an experiment.
Schneier talks about what you can do with discretion and without.
The fundamental question is, of course, how do you decide how much discretion to give people. Assuming you are in a discretion granting role, of course.
Also, letters of note with some Revolutionary (as in American war) steganography. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
pentane's journal