Professor Science is basically a diplodocus

chime @ 2017-05-18T09:22:00

2017-05-18T14:22:22Z

I'm attempting to do a character guessing meme on facebook, of all places. I'm chimerasame (by url) / Elaine Hamilton (by name). Come guess stuff if you would like!

Totally doing another character guessing thing again already!

2014-04-12T01:12:02Z

Here's this link, for those of you who like guessing on these things!

Character Guessing 2014

2014-03-11T00:12:23Z

For those of you who like to guess on these character-guessing meme things, I'm doing my requisite one-a-year on Reddit again, this time over on /r/whowouldwin. http://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/203eon/nonstandard_post_format_character_guessing/

Edit: All done! Man, /r/whowouldwin is fast!

character guessing meme, mk 5

2012-06-18T02:51:08Z

Doing this thing again. But, on Reddit this time, coz it seems to have more traffic. If anybody comes across this post who liked guessing on these before, I encourage you to hop over!

Scintillas

2011-06-05T23:11:58Z

Do scintillas ever measure anything other than evidence?

This meme again already?!

2011-04-06T00:09:20Z

Okay, usually I try to wait a year before I repeat this meme, but this time it's only a couple weeks- The reason: my company is sending me back to LA for a few days, and this was a fun thing to do whenever I was waiting on the plane in the airport, or waiting for a computer to respond to something at work, or waiting in my hotel room for the next day to arrive, or whatever.

Anyway without further ado, 12 fictional characters (since I happened to think of 12 for some reason) which you folks can guess!

1. Kryten, Red Dwarf, guessed by cmzero
2. Echo, Dollhouse, guessed by sukismeg
3. The Master, Doctor Who, guessed by cmzero
4. Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords, guessed by imaginari
5. Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan, Farscape, guessed by imaginari
6. The Patrician, Lord Havelock Vetinari, various Discworld novels - Terry Pratchett, guessed by cmzero
7. Ursula, The Little Mermaid, guessed by anneliese.
8. Benjamin Linus, Lost, guessed by anneliese.
9. Wednesday Addams, The Addams Family, guessed by imaginari
10. Gromit, Wallace and Gromit, guessed by sukismeg
11. Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory, guessed by sukismeg
12. The Island, Lost, guessed by anneliese

Hints in advance:
2 are from canons I also had in the previous one.
2 are from the same canon as each other.
2 are kind of weird and counterintuitive (in that I am sort of straining the definition of 'character') but shouldn't be too hard.
(No dick moves on my part like Epic Fail Guy from last time. Everything should I think be doable without using Google, by the people that generally participate in these things on my journal. Probably not everything by the same person, though. You guys are awesome!)

Also if you really like guessing these then imaginari's is still going on, and cmzero has a variant sort-of-twist version that can't terminate, so you can ask as many questions as you want!

Edit: Also anneliese has a new one!

Character guessing meme!

2011-03-24T03:08:57Z

I haven't done this meme in over a year again, which means it's about time I start it up. Again. I am thinking of ten fictional characters, and it's your job to guess who they are. You may ask any question about them you wish, as long as it's not too directly leading. (e.g. "What is 3's name," "What world is everyone from" are kinda bad form. But, "3, 6, and 9 are stranded on a desert island -- what wacky events ensue?" and "Out of all the characters, who would win a pie eating contest?" and "Who would have the lowest Erdos-Bacon number if they were all real?" and the like are great.)

1. Tiffany Aching - Discworld / Tiffany Aching books, Terry Pratchett, guessed by imaginari.
2. Odo, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, guessed by imaginari.
3. Dr. Horrible - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, guessed by westmarked.
4. Nancy Botwin - Weeds, guessed by anneliese.
5. Amy Pond - Doctor Who, guessed by westmarked.
6. Sterling Archer - Archer, guessed by imaginari.
7. Sam Westing - The Westing Game, guessed by imaginari.
8. Dr. Frank N. Furter - Rocky Horror Picture Show, guessed by imaginari.
9. Epic Fail Guy - 4chan, mostly, guessed by imaginari.
10. Olivia Dunham - Fringe, guessed by westmarked.

chime @ 2011-03-17T21:38:00

2011-03-18T04:39:26Z

I -- I don't know, guys. What's inappropriate for miners? A dead bird in a cage? Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?

Also -- lol i'm sure no one else has done the miners joke before, right?

It's kind of boring in the evenings in LA. I could go do stuff, but there isn't much I want to do after work. I get a bit stressed driving in unfamiliar territory, and that's magnified by the insanity I've seen on the roads here. (Look, LA drivers, if you're sticking your nose out into traffic because you want to get out of a parking lot, it is not acceptable to stick your nose out so far that the other drivers -- who are too close to slow down -- have to swerve into another lane to avoid crashing into you. Also: Other drivers, just friggin slow down and let him in, please don't swerve into my lane if you have any choice about it.)

After I get home from work, I mostly just want to unwind... for a few hours... but then I'm left with this window from like 9:00 til whenever I go to bed when I've unwound and everywhere nearby that's not a fast food place or another hotel is closed!

I think I might hit up Little Tokyo on the weekend or something. I remember there being a kaiten-sushi place there, I miss those.

chime @ 2011-02-20T12:19:00

2011-02-20T18:19:22Z

I have a new phone! It is a google phone and it is pretty cool.

Anyway more pertinently, I also finally switched to an Austin number -- about time after living here again for over 3 years. So, my old number will soon not reach me. I'm trying to think of anyone who might have had the old number and would need to be updated -- if you are such a person (or if you'd just like to have the new number for some other reason), please let me know.

Pastry

2011-01-01T23:47:01Z

I want to take some of the new plague and inject it into a Valentine's Day cookie, then give it to some kind of alliance official, thus causing him or her to turn into a Forsaken upon eating it and give valuable alliance tactical information to the Horde.

It will be an affection confection infection defection.

Green Box

2010-10-06T14:34:51Z

Major pizza chain CEOs:

I realize it's eminently unlikely that any of you are reading this, but on the off chance that you are, check this out:

http://www.wimp.com/pizzabox/

You all need to start doing that ASAP.

Thanks!

chime @ 2010-09-10T00:44:00

2010-09-10T05:44:45Z

When Ironic first came out I thought it was, you know, not terrible, but generally overhyped. This issue was compounded by the fact that, not long after, we were "learning" about irony in English class in high school or something and the point was made that that song doesn't have any irony.

Except, it does. I mean, a good chunk of it is arguable as situational irony at the very least, but the guy on the plane crashing who says "well, isn't that great" is using sarcasm, which is pretty clearly a form of irony no matter which way you slice it.

I think Alanis Morrissette is a genius, for the meta-irony of getting a bunch of English teachers to denounce her comprehension of the notion of irony.

*******

The above was half-finished and apparently saved as a draft because I wrote part of it like months ago, and maybe the browser crashed before I finished or something. Neat feature.

I am kind of sad tonight. Not like, personally sad, but sort of nothing-is-going-on-and-I-just-watched-a-bunch-of-sad-stuff-on-Youtube.

The final sketch of That Mitchell and Webb Look -- a british comedy variety show

Vienna Teng's Recessional

CDs posts

2010-02-24T16:06:52Z

Assuming you're going to be momentarily (or perennially) too lazy to actually put your CD into a folder or something and you're just going to set it down on the table:

Label down or label up?

Label up cons:
- I guess there is some concern that the surface you put it on will scratch it

Label down cons:
- Dust falls on the data-storing part
- If you stack them, the 'surface' on most of them is the same as in label up anyway

Personally I go with label up, and I have never observed a CD to have a scratch/other deformity that wasn't a result of 1. simple age (edges in particular, the 'end' of the cd, loses its color and i guess its data too? only seems to affect home-burned discs that were burned out to the very edge), or 2. something that was wrong with the player in my old Mitsubishi Eclipse from several years ago. Or 3. someone else doing something to the CD before I even had it. How about you folks?

(I should probably just give up and get an MP3 player like everyone else, but I like my CD player for two reasons: one, I've already bought one MP3 player that failed to work after a few years, while my CD player that I bought like four years before that is still chugging along even after being unused for about 2 straight years and also being dropped on the floor several times, and two, I have a bunch of CDs that I'd have to convert into MP3 format which would be annoying and time consuming. (Even so, somehow part of me secretly hopes the CD player finally breaks, which will force the rest of me to buy something new...))

Take that, mind-body dualism!

2010-02-14T17:38:43Z

I want to spell out the entire text of that one book, Chicken Soup for the Soul, in alphabet soup letters. And then add chicken.

And while I'm talking about Cowbirds in Love

2010-02-12T22:33:41Z

This one reminds me of a thing I wrote in 6th grade, where the assignment was to write a compare/contrast paper, and most people chose things that were fairly similar but a little different (like apples and oranges, or dogs and cats, or English class and Reading class), but I decided to write about the two most different things I could come up with on the spot in 6th grade, which were: a newspaper and a dinosaur. I actually got plenty of mileage out of "compare;" too, as much as any other kid did. They are both made of atoms, they are both smaller than the sun... I think I had a few other similarities too. Anyway, Mr. Kulkarni has tapped into this reservoir of newspaper-dinosaur similarities to create the aforementioned comic! I wonder if he read my 6th grade paper. (no.)

sporcle

2010-01-21T07:48:56Z

I have created a quiz on sporcle for no reason!

Can you name the D&D 4e races?

chime @ 2010-01-13T09:57:00

2010-01-13T15:57:59Z

I need a new icon, I haven't even logged into WoW since like October, and before that, since like July. Poor Sevrea. She will be missed. I kind of feel bad about it since when I left the game I'd say I'd be hanging around "on the bench" so to speak, to fill in spots when needed and such, but I never really ended up doing much hanging around.

Maybe I should use a pic of the Chimera D&D mini I got a couple weeks ago. hmm. I'll be DMing for our group in two or three months, when our current DM wraps up his game. It's been a long time, and I have no idea how good I'll be at it. It's a space-fantasy setting--weird for D&D--but pretty standard in most other respects. A couple days ago I sent out a mail detailing a couple minor house rules and asking the players if they were interested in any other house rules--no responses yet. I guess I'll assume, until I hear otherwise, that they want to play by the books.

One of the guys wants to play a Drow. I'm not sure how I feel about Drow. I don't want to bar him from playing it by any means--it is essentially a core race now, after all--but I haven't figured out at all how to work the Drow into my setting. I dislike how, as printed, they are basically almost entirely defined by their stance toward Lolth. The normal ones worship her, the "redeemed" ones hate her. What would Drow society be like in the absence of Lolth? What would Drow society be like in space, rather than on a planet which has a nice little Underdark? Are they still, as a race, "evil"? It's tempting to say that they've lost their "evil" connotation, but the further I stray from standard D&D, the more I worry about the players feel like they're "not really playing D&D" anymore. And, maybe the guy specifically wants to play a 'good' member of a 'mostly evil' society, so rendering the society good would ruin his premise. I'll have to talk to him about it.

chime @ 2009-12-05T22:38:00

2009-12-06T04:39:36Z

My hobby:

When watching roles played by Kurtwood Smith other than Red Forman, adding "Dumbass." onto at least one of his lines.

More slant

2009-10-29T06:24:43Z

I posted this poem (without the extra pipe characters) a long time ago, and no one said anything, so I thought I would explain it.

Slant

Our perception | serves to distract.
This sentence | is influenced by expectation.

The pipe characters signify where the reader is supposed to switch lines while reading. I guess it was pretty subtle. My thinking at the time was that I sort of wanted to call into question the basic assumptions in reading--in our language, anyway--about simple things like what direction words flow, and the fact that sentences don't jump around in lines, and such.

I.. don't do poems, much. Someone said, and I am too lazy to look up who it was, that while prose was "words in the right order," poetry was somehow greater, being "the right words in the right order." I don't know about that. I think that poetry has a place, especially as part of music, but that prose is perhaps more effective for most of the things I value, because of its concentration on communicating the message, rather than making the message more 'artful.' If the rhythm and rhyme, or whatever one decided makes a poem a poem, distracts the reader from the actual meaning of the words themselves, then I'm not sure they are the "right words."

Guineas

2009-10-29T05:40:12Z

I'm playing Freerice for country-identification, and I have discovered that there are, like, twice as many Guineas as I thought.

- Guinea
- French Guinea
- Papua New Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Equatorial Guinea
- Guyana (not technically guinea but pretty close in spelling so I am arbitrarily counting it, too)

I think I knew about 3 of those--Guyana, French Guinea, and Papua New Guinea. I remember learning countries in elementary school and deliberately looking for plain ol' Guinea and not being able to find it at the time, at which point I assumed it must be something that's not a real country, like a remnant territory of one of those European empires or something. I guess either I didn't look hard enough, or the elementary school maps didn't go into enough detail in West Africa. Or, maybe it wasn't a country at the time. Africa does change what its countries from time to time, after all. No more Zaire now, for example.

Also, I keep getting Nicaragua and Honduras confused. I second-guess myself too much. I look at one, and think it's Nicaragua, then I think, "wait, I know I get these confused so it is probably Honduras" but it turns out it's really Nicaragua. I seem to do ok with the rest of North and South America. I had a bit of trouble with some of the new-ish European countries (i.e. post-Yugoslavia and post-USSR), but now I've got those pretty well. Croatia is a "C"! And it is eating Bosnia and Herzegovina! Which incidentally, in my opinion, should just make a cool composite name like Czechoslovakia used to have, because countries with "and" in them are kind of silly. Bosnegovina! See, there, you've got it sorted! Also: Trinibago.

Africa is definitely the hardest overall, though. I hope whoever delivers the rice does better than me at this.

Edit, 5 minutes later: I just googled "Also, I keep getting Nicaragua and Honduras confused." to see if anyone else may have had this problem and my journal was the second result. What?

numbers

2009-10-21T01:50:06Z

I am no longer a cube. But now, apparently, I'm perfect.

Wendy's wraps

2009-09-30T22:49:29Z

Wendy's used to do simple chicken wraps. They had, uh, Spicy Chicken Go-Wrap, Grilled Chicken Go-Wrap, and one other. Homestyle, maybe? "Go-wrap" was kind of a dumb name but as cheap as they were, they were pretty good. My favorite was the Spicy. They started out at like $1.39, then at some point they were $1.49, and then $1.59 each, which was still perfectly reasonable.

They don't do them anymore. Instead they are doing new wraps with slightly more contents but like almost 3 times the price. Seriously, $4.29 for a wrap-without-meal? What is the deal, Wendy's. I am disappoint.

Which?

2009-09-30T04:57:20Z

View Poll: #1464350

chime @ 2009-08-22T03:00:00

2009-08-22T08:30:17Z

I more or less quit my WoW raid about a month ago. I actually only relegated myself to alternate status, but given how little I've logged in since then and the grand total of zero times I've been asked as an alt to sub in for missing mains, it's pretty much tantamount to quitting at this point. I don't miss it that much. I guess I miss the vent banter sometimes, but I certainly don't miss the certain feeling of obligation to spend 3-4 hours 3-4 weekday evenings per week doing fights I've already done to see the occasional gear upgrade that's barely even an upgrade. (Woo, I have 1650 in some random stat instead of 1643!)

They've announced the next expansion, Cataclysm. They say it'll shake up the core world, changing a lot of the levelling zones--and adding in two new races. Maybe I'll pick it up and play one of the new races, or a new race/class combo with an existing race. I doubt I'll go back to full-time raiding again, though.

I like the extra free time I've had, but I don't feel like I'm doing much with it. Mostly, Sara and I are just watching a bunch of old TV shows. We're making our way through Voyager for some reason, among other things. I've thought about doing some volunteering, but I'm not sure what group I'd like to volunteer for. The Texas Advocacy Project is certainly worthy of my time, but unfortunately, their time largely overlaps when I have to go to work.

Heheh, "worthy of my time"--as if my time is such a great thing, which organizations must be worthy of. It's a bit self-centered, but then on the other hand, if I'm gonna be giving away time and stuff, I think I'm allowed a bit of self-centeredness in choosing who to give it to!

Margaret Cho's book, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, has a bit on how anyone who isn't a feminist should just die. I'd quote it more directly, but the form I have it in is audiobook, and I left the CDs at work. I'm taking it for granted that Cho doesn't wish death on all men (it'd be unlikely she'd marry one if she did), so I'd say it's clear she falls on the "yes" side of this question. I agree.

Wizards of the Coast Forums

2009-08-18T17:51:39Z

Wizards Community website is down for a platform migration.

Wizards of the Coast is pleased to announce that we're upgrading to a new community platform. We are in the process of migrating our forums to a system that includes a host of new features like friends lists, groups, an invite system and calendar, blogs and wiki.

The forums will be down until at least August 26, and possibly through the end of the month. We apologize for the inconvenience.

"Hi, guys. We know you like to talk about our game when you're not playing it. But we've gotten tired of being able to moderate the discussions to avoid trolling, baiting, and edition wars, so we'd like you to go to third-party forums where you can experience the full brunt of internet inhumanity--maybe targeted at you, probably just targeted at our system. Also you'll be getting a lot of cool information about our competitors' products. See you in a couple weeks; hope you'll be back!"