Society for Aesthetic Deletions

Inspired by Doyce's color change, I spent tonight redoing the CSS on my blog.

Have I ever said how much I love CSS?

And this is the logo I worked so hard on...doesn't seem like much, but it did take a while before I was somewhat satisfied with it.

I still, for some reason, can't get the comments-body to work right, but it's late and I'll deal with it this weekend.

I may not stay with these colors, but they're here for now. Please feel free to tell me how much you hate it in the comments.

No, this isn't the final redesign, but it's the colors. For now. The rest will have to wait until much later. Maybe Christmas, when I might have some free time again (ha).

[Edited: I found the comments-body problem. Had two entries in the CSS file. doh!]

Your home. Still Renting.

Your car. Has A/C.

Your job. Mostly fun.

Your S.O. The B'aeyr.

Your Family. Large. Loud.

Your Friends. Wildly varied.

The Internet. Life saver.

Television. Life support.

Books. Too. Many!

Today. Ahh, Friday!

Courtesy of Doyce.

1. If you could (a) prevent an earthquake in Peru that will kill 40,000, (b) a crash at an airport near you that will kill 200, or (c) an automobile accident that will kill an acquaintance of yours, which one would you choose to avert?
Just an acquaitance, as the question asks, I'd have to go with preventing the earthquake. But hey, I've got superpowers if I can stop the earthquake, right? So I could probably do all of it. Hee.

2. You're engaged to someone in a distant city, but find yourself physically attracted to someone who lives close by. Would you have an affair with this person, if you knew there was no chance it would ever be discovered?
An affair? No, because that would be cheating. Engaged or married, you've made a commitment to this one person, and it's not good to cheat. It will haunt you forever.

Now, if you're into open marriages, that changes things. I have a friend whom I once asked if he would ever get married. His reply was yes, as long as he could still sleep with other people. There you have it.

3. If someone were to give you a $100 gift certificate for your birthday, what store would you want it from?
Store huh? Not restaurant? If restaurant, I'd ask for that $100 toward dinner at Not Your Average Joe's. Appetizer, meal, and dessert. And wine. Yum.

But if for merchandise, I think I'd have to go with Amazon. Wow, that wishlist needs to be updated.

1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Well, on my mother's side, I have Austrian and Irish. We have Albers and Mayer along with Mulcahey and Killoran.

On my father's side, where the Frizzell comes from, we have English, with Faulkner. We always thought Frizzell was French, but I learned later it was a corruption of the French "fraises" or strawberries, and was more commonly related to Fraser/Frasier, which are Scottish. So I'm not sure on my dad's side what we all are. But I do know that we have Irish back in there somewhere too.

2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?
I want to go back to Ireland and England, but I've always had a desire to go to Scotland, which wasn't solved by a trip to I took to Great Britain that didn't have an extension to Scotland like I thought, but instead an extension in Ireland. Not that I minded visiting the Connemara region and Galway for those three days, but I did originally intend to go to Scotland.

I wouldn't mind visiting Austria, but it's not a burning desire.

3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?
Austria, I guess. The language would be part of it - I don't speak German, and unless I go with someone who can speak it, I'd feel terribly out of place.

4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
Nope. I wear green on St. Patrick's Day if I remember, but we're not big into our heritage that way.

5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
Hrm. I think that my mother's mother came over as a young child, fleeing Austria with her family. I don't know when my mother's father came over. I have very little data on my father's side of the family, but I know it wasn't that long ago. We are SO not Mayflower children. We're very recent immigrants.

In exhibiting more avoidance behavior (and this is the real reason why the redesign was done last night...not because of boredom, but because of avoidance, no matter what I said), I have added the expanded entry script to the blog. Want to see?

To save Paula's eyes, I've changed the body text color to grey instead of white.

Let me know if this is too dark for folks to read!

WISH 7: Maxims

List three or more maxims/proverbs/bits of conventional wisdom/etc. that you've learned in your gaming career, and explain what they mean and how you've seen them apply in your gaming experience.

Buy One Book, Get Twenty-Two Free

The books to which the article is referring, if you don't click on the link, are the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.

Well, I can tell one Husband is going to be very happy. Not that we don't have all of these in paperback or hardcover already, but...

Me, I got about to the fourth book before the infodumps put me off entirely. Just can't stand books where the narrative breaks so that the author can spend paragraph after paragraph explaining some cool tech bit that he's written/discovered/created. Just tell me the damned story already!

Courtesy of Slashdot.

I treated myself on Saturday to a trip to my sister's salon, and got all dolled up for GenCon. I got a manicure, got my toenails painted (no pedicure), and got my hair highlighted for the third time this year.

So, wanna see the pics?

The Hand

The Toes

The Hair, sorta. This doesn't really give a good look at how much lighter it's gotten, but you'd only know if you saw an older picture of me, with the darker hair.

Andy Builds his Computer

Courtesy of The Daily Illuminator.

I will be heading off to GenCon tomorrow, and not returning until next Monday.

So don't expect any posts from me until late Monday night/Tuesday at the earliest. I'll catch up on all the memes and sharing and such then.

I do still have one post in me before I go away. I just have the time to write it. It'll be long and rambling but amusing. Even though my husband thinks I'm a freak.

It has become that time again.

It's vacation time, but not just any ordinary vacation time.

This is GenCon. This is masses of gamers, male and female alike (blessings to White Wolf for starting the increase in the female population), all descending upon Milwaukee for four days of gaming until we can't game no more.

It is the last time I will likely be in Milwaukee as far as I can see, for after this year, GenCon leaves the state of Wisconsin, where it has resided since it started, for the fair city (and more convention-friendly, I've been told) of Indianapolis, Indiana.

And when I got home today, after a brief journey out to weigh-in at WW, the most difficult task began.

It is not the packing of the suitcase. It is not even the decisions on what goes and what stays; what gamebooks are needed; what dice are given the honor of sliding into the backpack. Not even whether or not to take the black notebook with the gold and silver gel pens that got such comments two years ago.

It's in the t-shirt selection.

I am back, and will spend tomorrow catching up on blogs and such. We actually got back Monday afternoon, and then home actually later in the evening. Today was relaxing, moviewatching (XXX, which was fun), and game-playing (Aberrant). We may hit Spy Kids 2 tomorrow, or just spend the day at home being vegetables before going back to work on Thursday.

I'll do a GenCon wrap-up post tomorrow too, most likely.

Ultimate RPG Gaming Table

The name speaks for itself.

Catching up on my email tonight, I saw this link in my weekly issue of Roleplaying Tips Weekly, a great resource for all GMs of all games.

This table is just awesome. Too bad the guys don't have plans or drawings...they could sell them and make a decent amount, I'd bet. Frell, I'd buy the designs even if I didn't ever build the thing...it's just too cool.

I love the MDS system. And his cat Lumos is just the cutest thing.

1. You are a state legislator. An industry group offers you a sizable, but legal, political donation, "no strings attached," while you have a bill they favor up before you. Do you accept the donation, or reject it?
Nope, I do not accept the donation. I'll take it after the bill has passed or been rejected, though. But not while it's still being decided.

2. While reading a new book by a famous scholar, whose previous work you've very much admired, you come across multiple passages that seem familiar. You do some digging around and find where the scholar has lifted, almost verbatim and without credit, all those passages from an obscure work by another author. What, if anything, do you do?
I tell my husband and my friends, probably post it on my blog, but I don't do anything else. I'd probably not be the first one who noticed this, I'd imagine.

3. If you were to be forced to have the same thing for dinner every night for a month, what would you choose?
Oooh, tough call. My first pick would be steak or prime rib, but all that beef would kill me after a while. Literally!

I think I'd have to go with pasta. Can I pick different sauces? If not, then I'd go with marinara, very little meat. And a salad. And bread and butter. Mmmm....bread...

1. How do you react when people sing "Happy Birthday" to you in a restaurant?
Doesn't happen. Lou *hates* that, and told me flat out when we started going out that I was never to do that to him, because he'd get up and walk out of the restaurant.

And I believe him. So since I don't do it to him, he doesn't do it to me.

Now, that said, it *has* happened in the past. And I do sing along (or whatever) if I'm at a restaurant and someone at another table gets put on the spot. I enjoy it, I smile, and hopefully eat whatever free dessert they have given me.

2. The cashier gives you change for a twenty, even though you paid with a five. Do you keep the extra money, or return it?
Did I notice it? If I know it, I would give it back. If I didn't notice it until we were out of the restaurant or much later, I wouldn't do anything about it. Most likely, I'd think that I was wrong in the bill I'd handed them, thinking it my memory, not theirs.

We're always pretty good at restaurants in making sure that we've got the right amount on the bill - our regular place for breakfast on weekends, Persy's Place, shortchanged themselves on the bill a few times in the early days when we went there, and we corrected it.

However, if I've had crappy service, then I keep it and walk out.

3. What do you think is the best conversation piece in your house?
Wow. I don't know. We don't do conversation pieces.

Though it'd probably be our book collection. We have about 8 bookshelves in various places around the house, and most of them are filled to jamming with books. Four of them are rpg books *only*, the others are our various flavors of fiction. We also have one bookshelf reserved for hardcovers.

1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it?
I have a 1999 Dodge Grand Caravan. Lou has a 1994 Dodge Shadow, but we're going to be getting rid of that next year and getting him some form of hybrid.

2. Do you drive very often?
Actually, no. I don't need my car for work, and Lou does, so he drops me off at work and takes the car for the day. And when we go anywhere at other times, he likes to drive. I've given up fighting him for it (for the most part). We do tend to take the van everywhere, especially in the summer, as it's our only car with air conditioning. And I can't drive the Shadow anymore -- the seat's broken and is way too far back from the petals for me to be comfortable. I can do it - I have long legs, but it's not how I like to drive.

3. What's your dream car?
I don't really have one anymore. I always wanted a baby blue Volkswagon Beetle, convertable, when I was growing up. The old style, not the new one. I wouldn't mind having a PT Cruiser, or a nice BWM convertible, but cars aren't my thing.

4. Have you ever received a ticket?
Umm...yes. I have an old radar detector in my car, but it's never used anymore. I bought it to help save me from speeding tickets, which it has done. But it really only works if you pay attention to the sounds it makes when it detects the radar. (embarrassed look)

5. Have you ever been in an accident?
Yes. Many times. Not all my fault, but many were. The last one, however, was totally not my fault and the guy got a citation! Whoo-hoo!

Stupid idiot. He crossed in front of me (though the light said "Yield on Green") and I plowed into the side of his minivan. That held his pregnant wife and his two kids. Idiot.

Pick three gaming maxims that other people wrote about and discuss how you think they have applied, or not, in your experience as a gamer. Do they make sense? Are they true or false? Maxims that simply never occurred to you are also eligible for discussion.

This is one of those things that most GMs should know and realize, and many never do.

I had one GM once who spent an entire session trying to get another player to think like him. He (the GM) had the solution, all the player had to do was say the exact phrase in the way the GM knew was right. The other players in the game knew what the GM was looking for. The player in question did not.

Finally, the GM gave up in disgust and told him the answer.

It was when I fully realized that said GM was a linear GM, and we had to follow his prepared path. The GM in question, I think, was trying to get the player to break out of his mode of thinking, to open himself up. But this wasn't the place to do it. And it wasn't the player with which to try it. The player in question just kept retreating, not letting himself think out of the box, out of his already prepared answer - that was the right answer from his point of view! - and it became a fight between player and GM.

That was the worst scenario I've experienced like this. Most of the other things are like, "Wow, you got that! And here I thought I was being subtle," or, "How could you miss that? It was right there in front of your face!" sort of disagreements, oftentimes after the PCs are dead or dying, or stuck somewhere they didn't want to be.

Claire said: Power is only power if you叝e prepared to use it.

Another player in my game, a good friend for whom I won't GM anymore, is a power-monger. He loves for his character to gather information and power, but he never does a frelling thing with it. So what's the point? I don't know, but it's how he plays, and hence we're friends, but we don't play together.

That said, I now have two powerful characters in my husband's Sunday D&D 3E game. One is on hiatus from the group, but was an almost 16th level shaman (not from OE, but instead a druid with shapeshifting taken out and spirit summoning put in). Skyler has those high level spells and isn't afraid to use them. Lou has spent time trying to figure out how to work around what she can do to give us a challenge - Reverse Gravity and Creeping Doom are such fun!

And my replacement character is a 16th level fighter/wizard - four levels of fighter, 12 of wizard. Ennis may not have the big spells he'd have if he was all 16 levels of wizard, but he's got ones that are good enough! The biggest problem I have is in beating a monk, as in our last battle. None of the spells I could hit his AC (his touch AC being nearly as good as his full AC), and the ones that called for reflex saves he'd easily make.

So I did the support magics. Mass Haste in the first round of combat, for starters. And other support spells as needed.

One of the best compliments I've ever gotten was after our last session. Lou said to me, "Boy, am I going to be glad when Skyler comes back!" It means I'm using my wizard's power well. Especially since when Ennis leaves and Skyler returns, we will once again have no wizard at all. Eep.

Ginger said: When you stop trusting the GM, stop playing.

I actually haven't had this happen to me, but it is very true.

I have had experiences where I didn't care for the GM's way of playing - like our DC Heroes GM who'd laugh at the players (not the characters), chuckling over some part of the modules he'd always use (never one to create something on his own was this GM). I didn't care for a game where the GM liked making fun of the players or the characters, so I was glad when the game stopped, and then never expressed an interest in any of the other games he wanted to run. Though I did love my character. I just didn't trust the GM enough to not have things planned, even through the module, to mess with us, just because he thought it'd be fun.

I've been fortunate with most of my GMs, especially my Amber GMs, that trust was never an issue.

I've done the Blogtree thing.

Sad thing is, I don't have a parent blog (waah). So I wlll have no sibling blogs. At least not on this blog, maybe my others will have sibs.

Local traffic: Husband's Hassle.

Fingernails: Purple Gone.

Cleaning day: Never Happens.

Tongue kiss: Soft. Wet.

Muddy feet: Happy Splashing.

Wet clothes: Into Dryer.

Courtesy of Doyce.

07:30 am: To Work.

12:30 pm: Lunch Time.

05:30 pm: Post Dinner.

10:30 pm: Husband Asleep.

Fifteen minutes: Too Short.

Courtesy of, this time, ***Dave, though it's Doyce's meme.

Have you ever gotten a significant other into gaming? Those of you in "mixed marriages", where one spouse is a gamer and the other isn't, how did you work this out?

All the serious men in my life were gamers. Alex was the first GM I had (online even), Ken was my first Amber GM, and Lou, the Husband, is both GM and player in my games.

I can't imagine dating, nevermind marrying, a non-gamer. Gaming isn't all of my life (though if you saw how often I gamed, you might think it was), but it is a big part. No, my spouse/SO and I do not have to have the same interests in everything, but in this, they do.

That said, if for some reason I was involved with someone who didn't game, I would try to get them involved. If they didn't enjoy it, then as long as they let me have my fun, I'd be fine with it. But you can't force someone to like gaming.

Lou is watching Apollo 13.

This may not seem something to get all excited about, but it is.

He was all set to see this movie when it was coming out in theaters. Then he realized (don't know why he didn't know it before) that it was based on a true story. And suddenly, he lost total interest in seeing the movie.

I have tried, for years, to get him to watch it. My father worked for IBM, and worked on all the Apollo (and Mercury and Saturn, and some of Skylab) missions. He was part of the design team for one of the parts of the rockets - my mother tells me that what he worked on was that scene you always see in movies, the ring that flips off and spins around during one of the rocket separations. I was born where Space Camp is now because of that. My mother has the patches from all the missions framed...they were on the walls in our den when I was growing up.

So you can see that this movie would be kinda neat for me to see, and take my SO along as well.

I saw it in the theater, possibly with friends, I don't recall specifically.

But now, tonight, bored out of his mind, nothing much on TV, I suggest watching Apollo 13, as it's showing on Encore. And he puts it on.

Whee!

I will go and finish watching it with him, turning off the computer so we can enjoy it together. Yay!

Cat Boxing!

My favorite has to be the Draper vs. Gracie bout that's in.mpg format. Damn, that Drapes is tough!

The backs of my thumbs down to my wrists, and my inner forearms, hurt.

You know what sort of pain I'm talking about.

Those of you who play volleyball, that is.

You cry: when upset

You shout: when talking

You laugh: while smiling

You sigh: husband notices

You smile: at him

You grin: evil, innocent

You frown: no biscuit!

Courtesy of Doyce, who is struggling for a name for this thing.

[Edited to add Lou's responses]

You cry: hot tears

You shout: giant words

You laugh: golden tones

You sigh: heavy breath

You smile: happy light

You grin: clever mirth

You frown: grey faced

Nimoy Does Bilbo.

I...I...don't think there ARE words to describe this.

[Edited to add: I knew that he'd done the song...I'd heard it. But I'd never seen the video before.]

Courtesy of MT Fierce.

1. If you were to discover that your closest friend is a heroin dealer, what would you do?
Frelling dren, start with the easy ones next time! You scared the dren out of me! It's too early in the morning for this...

Okay, okay. I'd talk to her about it first, telling her that I know, and that she needs to stop. I know it's a good source of income and it's (sort-of) keeping my husband employed, but it is wrong.

Then I'd tell the police.

By the way, I can't answer this for my main closest friend, Lou, because he deals with addicts in the OTHER end of this. There's no way in HELL that he'd deal. So, sorry Anne! :)

2. Having learned to a moral certainty that the world is going to end in six months, what one thing would you do for the first time?
Skydive. I've always wanted to jump from a plane.

3. If you could create a memorial to yourself in a city park, what would it be?
A stand of birch trees, maybe in a nice circle. A plaque could be in the middle of it, saying my name my birth and death dates. Maybe a quote or a bit from Robert Frost's Birches poem.

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

Trackback is now working here! Woo-hoo!

I don't know if I'll use it for every post, but it is working. It took some serious futzing for me to get it working right, but it also helped me fix a problem I'd had with my archive template at the same time, so that's good.

And I've pinged ***Dave with my Thursday Thumb-Twiddler answer, so I don't have to comment anymore. And that means I can ping Game WISH too.

Do you actually have to have TB installed and running on your site before you can start pinging other people's installations?

Or do you only really need to put the Trackback ping URL into the ping entry field?

Inquiring minds and all...

1. What is your current occupation? Is this what you chose to be doing at this point in your life? Why or why not?
I'm a Systems Administrator/Help Desk Manager (but I'm the only person in the help desk. I manage myself!) for a non-teaching department at Brown University.

I chose it in as much as I moved away from the secretarial/administrative assistant positions I'd had prior to this because I really like working with computers, and I'm apparently very good at helping people solve their problems with them. At my current workplace, my job evolved to what it is now for a variety of reasons, but you could say that I chose this. As far as whether it's where I thought I'd be as a kid - no. But it's where I saw myself wanting to be over the past few years.

2. If time/talent/money were no object, what would your dream occupation be?
Working hard at doing nothing, aka living the life of leisure, baby! Writing would be the second choice. Acting the third.

3. What did/do your parents do for a living? Has this had any influence on your career choices?
My mom stayed home and raised the kids. My dad was an engineer for IBM. What they did has had very little influence on my career choices. My mother, in fact, pushed me toward getting a computer degree. I thank the $diety every day that I didn't listen to her.

4. Have you ever had to choose between having a career and having a family?
Nope. Though my "career" isn't really so much that as a job.

5. In your opinion, what is the easiest job in the world? What is the hardest? Why?
Easiest? That's tougher than I thought it'd be. The flagger on a construction site, usually on the highway. You know, the person who directs you to move the car away from where they're working. Why? Because it doesn't require a lot of mental, or really, physical, energy. Though that would make it boring, it'd be easy.

Hardest job is simple - my husband had it. Working as a counselor at an opiate clinic. You deal with addicts who don't want to get better daily; they just want their dose and they're gone. You deal with those who are still using, though they lie to you, or try to cheat the mandatory urine test. And maybe one day, you find out they overdosed and have died, and all your work was for naught. You deal with those who want to get clean, and make it; but they are few and far, far apart.

I watched him go from loving his job to hating it, very, very quickly. Burnout factor was hella high.

He's still doing counseling for drug addicts, but not just those - the homeless and the mentally ill, too. Not just opiate addicts anymore. And many of these people want to get better.

I'm wearing one of my GenCon-purchased t-shirts at work today. More specifically, this shirt.

I pulled it out of the freshly-laundered pile this morning (as I was putting away all the other stuff), and looked at it.

I could wear this on Sunday. Then Betsy'd get the joke, I thought to myself, no one at work is going to understand it.

But no, the desire to wear it beat down the annoyance of people asking me what the t-shirt means.

[I mean, not even ***Dave would get it, because he got stuck at THE WARRIOR'S APPRENTICE, and it doesn't look like he's going to get that far past it. Definitely not far enough to know when Miles becomes an Imperial Auditor. But I digress.]

I had one comment this morning, and then one later this afternoon. It's too much to try to explain what this t-shirt means to those not in the know. It's much easier to explain something like my new Freedom t-shirt from Lunch Money. I can say "It's a card game, this is one of the cards from it," and they'll nod, and be fine with that.

Then, this afternoon, someone asked to read my shirt. She just nodded when done. I told her she wouldn't get it, no one here at work would. She said she was going to try to fake it, pretend like she knew what was on my shirt.

Ah ha! "But then," I said, "I'd know you were lying. Because if you read my shirt, and you knew the meaning behind it, you'd be saying, 'Cool!' and 'Neat!' and 'Where can I get one!' I could easily tell if someone was pretending." She agreed, and wandered off.

[What I really want to get for my next t-shirt is a few of the ones here. Then there's always the Butterbug puppets...]

So, I really am expecting That Confused Look when I wear this shirt, and some of my other shirts, to my workplace.

But I long for the day, that one day, when I wear one of these shirts, and pass a co-worker in the hall, and they stop me and go "Hey!" and there is that moment of communion, that time where we realize that we're more than just co-workers, more than just employees.

That we have a connection. That we are on the same wavelength. That we can talk about something other than how the computer isn't working, or the printer's on the fritz, or what we're having for lunch as we stand in the little kitchen, waiting for the microwave to nuke our lunches.

We can talk about books. My kind of books.

Then, my friends, heaven shall truly smile upon me.

So, WhaleCon was Saturday. WhaleCon is when a varying number of people drive up to Concord, NH, visiting The Ghoul, aka Jack Gulick, and then a trip to Rye Harbor for the whale watch itself, followed by dinner at a family-style seafood place, Newicks.

This is Lou and my third year, I believe, and we got to see a mother and calf Finback, which is most unusual for this time of year.

We were closer at various points, but it was raining and windy and the boat was rocking back and forth rather a lot, so I didn't have much of an opportunity to take pictures. I was also borrowing the digital camera from work, so I had to be extra careful.

While watching the mother and calf take their breaths and dive down for feeding, a woman on the boat near us said, "It shouldn't be called whale watching, but whale chasing," considering how much the boats had to move about to get us into position. Rather amusing, and quite true.

I am hoping to go earlier next year, in addition to WhaleCon, so that I can try and see some Humpbacks again. They are usually gone by late August - late June/early July is a much better time to try to watch them.

Oops, that should be chase.

What's the most fun you ever had creating something in a game that changed the game-world?

So this has to be as a player.

And that makes it even tougher. I don't tend to do big things that change gameworlds. Or even small things. There are tiny things I do that are because I want to explore a particular kind of character. Like making a psionic elf in Lou's Forgotten Realms campaign. Or a half-demon paladin (the good kind) for a later character in the same game.

There is my Amber character I designed (again, for a Lou game) where she had been married and widowed three times before, and wasn't going to go through all that again. She was old but "well preserved," and then in game play, I realized she had fallen in love with Benedict. Which of course, turned out to be perfect, as she was from Avalon and had lost her three husbands to Avalon's wars. Wasn't likely she'd lose HIM this way...

I did convince my husband, when we were creating our game world, that to go by the FR for the number of gods we needed was unnecessary. So we have 6 good/light, 7 neutral/grey, and 6 evil/dark gods in our pantheon (there were two more light/dark gods, one each, but they died long ago), and it was fun to create them. We got stuck on names, so I came up with Names Being Important, so our gods go by titles - The High Lord, the Lady, The Archivist, The Storm King, The Unraveller, the Deceiver. If you know a god's name, you have power over it. So many gods hope that no mortals ever learn their name...

All because we didn't want to have Elhonna, Garl Glittergold, or that poncy Elven god, Corellon Larethian, or to come up with similar names.

If I come up with something else, I'll be sure to add it in.

Well, I made the first steps in the move last night.

I have started the process of moving The Black Road's website from HostSave to Hosting Matters.

Damn, but that control panel is easy to use!

I will likely be moving sfad there later this year, when I can afford the package I want to get. SFAD is now hosted by DigitalSpace, and while they've been a great host, I'd like to move to a provider that can give me some things that it can't/doesn't. Like *real* mailing lists. Or real subdomains, not just redirects.

They were great for starting out - a $3/month package is a great way to try out your own domain. I graduated up to their next level plan not long after when they had a special, and it's been doing just fine.

But I'm heading toward needing that change. Not quite yet, but I would imagine before the end of this year, I'll make that move to join the crew at Hosting Matters.

One of thes strangest things I've ever experienced in a workplace happened today.

We ate a pineapple.

This doesn't sound so strange, you say. Ah-ha! But this was no ordinary pineapple! This was a Rhode Island-grown pineapple!

One of my co-workers has bought pineapples in the past, and has taken to planting the tops. She puts them in water to grow roots, and then into a pot when it's ready.

She had heard it was impossible to actually get a pineapple top to grow more pineapples. It had never been done.

Don't tell that to this one, nor her one at home!

The pineapple top had grown to dangerous proportions...it had long "leaves" and made working on her G4 Cube a little difficult at times. But some time ago, she was surprised when she came into work and sure enough, there was a little pineapple bud growing on her pineapple plant.

It was quickly named "Abacaxi" (it means pineapple in Portuguese) and the entire Southside (a portion of my office that is not adjacent to the rest of our office, due to spacing issues) helped keep it alive when the co-worker was away.

She was away for three days, and came in to find it had changed color. Another co-worker, originally from Hawaii, indicated it was time to cut it and eat it!

So, that's what we did today. And of course, we couldn't have something like this without pictures! I ended up behind the camera (of course).

Now, Abacaxi was actually rather tasty for a home-grown pineapple. Not too sweet, not too sour. Very tasty.

She's going to be putting the top of Abacaxi into water, to see if she can grow a son/daughter of Abacaxi. I can't wait to see if it works.

Abacaxi!

Abacaxi in Full Glory

Cut Free

Slicing off the sides

Bite-sized Pieces

You're thirsty: Watermelon Gatorade

You're hungry: Potato Chips

You're lonely: Missing Husband

You're pissed off: Rant Loudly

You're restless: Itchy Feet

1. You're helping raise money for a charity, and someone pledges a very large contribution if you'll perform, on stage, at the upcoming fund-raising show. There will be about 1,100 people in the audience. Would you be willing to perform? If so, what sort of act would you prefer to do?
Sure! I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I'd act. Take some scene from something, and do it. I've not done any acting since college, and that very little. But I also did a lot in high school, and had a blast.

2. Have you ever cheated in a game (like a card game) for money?
I don't play games for money, so, no. But if I had, I probably would be tempted and would if I thought I could get away with it. However, it's not likely I would be able to get away with it - I have a terrible fear of being caught. So I don't do a lot of things I might. It's the Catholic guilt upbringing.

3. If you could go back in time and relive any moment in your life exactly as it happened, what event would you choose to experience again?
Oh dear. No, wait, I've got it.

The morning that I asked Lou to marry me. Oh, yeah. I'd experience that again.

Take the "What kind of cone are you?" Test

created by sami

Courtesy of ***Dave.

I've caved into the blogrolling trend. I was resisting, but I realized that I check my "Blogs I have Known and Read" multiple times daily, only to find there's nothing new.

So I'll be hitting the sites less often, which will show up in your hit counters, no doubt (hee). This won't help with those who don't ping weblogs.com, but I will try to check those less per day, to keep things even.

1. What's your favorite piece of clothing that you currently own?
Did you see my t-shirt post? You want me to pick just one? That's like saying which child do I like best. Not that I have any, of course, but the point's still there.

Favorite? I can't pick one. The minute I come up with one, another leaps into my head, and pleads its case. Frell.

Okay, okay. Let's go with my Thank You for Calling Technical Support t-shirt, just to put something down. ::beats down other t-shirts clamoring for their turn:: Be quiet, you!

2. What piece of clothing do you most want to acquire?
I'm not a big clotheshorse. That said, I'd love to have a nice long leather duster. Oh, yeah.

3. What piece of clothing can you not bring yourself to get rid of? Why?
Many of my t-shirts, of course. But if I had to pick one specific shirt that has made it through the pickings, it's been my Near Dark by Tim Bradstreet tee. It's getting worn and threadbare, but still mine. I'm not giving it up.

4. What piece of clothing do you look your best in?
My stretchpants, especially with my weight loss. People comment on my weight loss more often when I'm wearing my stretchpants and a t-shirt.

5. What has been your biggest fashion accident?
Umm..the 70s? Hand-me-downs from elder siblings that didn't fit because I was too tall. I'll have to try to find a picture someday.

Of course, nowadays putting colorful hems at the bottom of jeans is all the rage. Or maybe it was, I don't keep up with trends. But all I know is that in my day, it was to enable me to wear the jeans that otherwise would have been, well, way too short.

Have you ever seen or met someone -- in person, on TV, in a movie, or whatever -- who made you think "Oh my goodness, that's my character!" Who was it (if you know), and what were the similarities?

I have been able to, in the past, look for actors/actresses who I think might look like my character. Usually in part of a "cast list." And sometimes, I'll see someone and say, "Ooh, yeah, I'll have to use him/her as a character someday/as my new character." I did that with an Amber character for a game I never played in, pulling images of Claudia Black for Ekaterine, and ended up giving all the images I found to Kris Fazzari last year at ACN, for her use for Juliana in TRiH.

I'm right now trying to find someone for a new character in a game Lou's starting up. I haven't quite decided, but I think she's going to be dark-haired. So I'm thinking of dark-haired actresses. I like Sela Ward, but she's getting old and I want someone young. I'm also thinking slightly Asian, so Kristin Kreuk, as she's the right age. But it's not a "Oh, that is so my character!" moment.

Google Images is a great thing.

There have been characters on TV that have ACTED like my characters, but they didn't look at all alike. I'd have to think about that for a bit, but I'm sure they'd come to me eventually.

Don't want to visit a graveyard when your loved one dies? Don't want to worry about Grandpa's ashes being knocked off the mantelpiece?

Well now, with costs of $4,000 to $22,000, you can turn your departed loved one into a diamond to keep with you forever. The company, LifeGem, is responsible for this new way of keeping the memory of your loved one alive forever.

Taking the carbon from the cremated remains of the departed, they turn it into the precious gem.

And they're also considering expanding into your departed pets, too.

Courtesy of The Daily Illuminator.