I don't post here very much; and I admit when I do it's often stress venting or asking for help. Or advice, recommendations, etc.
My primary... place these days has become Twitter, and I'm not sure how that happened, with its 140 character limit and transient nature and the fact that everything I post there is 100% public because I am just not interested in... not.
I've been trying to go through periodically and add more people here who I come to trust through Twitter, or LARP, or SCA, or some face to face interaction. Especially people who specifically indicate that they have (or even use!) an LJ.
And adding people I've known for years and somehow just hadn't yet.
I'm often reading, even when I don't comment. Though sometimes I'm not reading.
I like to hope LJ will come into some kind of resurgence, though I don't hold my breath for it either.
ETA: And apparently skip=25 is now the furthest back you can go on your friends feed! When did that happen? Yayyy!!!!! (not yay)
Because I don't have enough to deal with today - I've learned my birth family has resumed their efforts to track me down. A gentle reminder to all who know me that they have been repeatedly asked not to contact me and that *anyone* with a legitimate reason to be looking for me already knows at least one way to contact me.
I'll be blunt here and not pull punches - if you find it immoral that I have cut off all ties or obligation to my birth family, we should not be friends.
30 years. I've been hiding from it a bit today. I've always thought I was in second grade, but realized yesterday that based on visual memory and my current age, I was actually in third grade. We were in music class; we were listening live on the radio because there weren't enough TVs to go around and the music room had its own dedicated stereo system. I still don't understand why we weren't all watching in a schoolwide assembly but I guess I should be glad we weren't. Space and NASA were a big part of my growing up, as was science in general, at least until my father left when I was 10. I had books, magazine articles, posters, a sticker of the mission patch. A telescope. I had a record of space mission communications, as in a big vinyl record-player record, that had somehow been pressed so the top layer was clear and had an image of a space shuttle taking off visible underneath. I had never remembered a life where American humans weren't going to space, never remembered a life without space shuttles, and would never have believed at that age that we'd ever stop going. I never knew a time when *women* weren't going to space. The thought that I or one of my classmates might go to space someday seemed eminently achievable, possibly even foregone. I remember sitting in the classroom listening up until the explosion, I remember the numb shock afterward, but I don't remember the actual moment of the explosion, how it was that we got back to our classroom, anything else that happened the rest of that day. I do remember that our teacher didn't turn off the radio right away - it was too big, too important, to just turn away from, to not listen to the aftermath. I think she talked about where she was when JFK was shot, to help us know that we'd never forget but also that it would get better.
Rant mode on for a minute. Particularly in this time of year, when gratitude is encouraged to be at a high, there's been a ton of posting of those "inspirational" word graphics to the effect of "There are people who would love to have your bad days", "There are people who would give anything to have your problems", etc. Yeah. I freaking hate them.
Before hitting Share, I ask you to think of the effects of those words on the people around you who are struggling. Who just lost a relationship or spouse or parent. Who couldn't afford to give, or know they won't receive, any holiday presents, or possibly even any companionship. Who lost their job. Who battle depression or chronic illness. Who are losing their home, their pet, a loved one, or anything else. Or everything else. Who can't afford groceries. Who are staring down the threat of an early death. Who fight just to get out of bed in the morning. Let me say it clearly: THOSE WORDS ARE HURTING US.
Maybe you're posting these graphics as a message to yourself, not considering the others you know. Maybe we're not refugees, or abused protesters, or stuck in a war zone, or fighting a police state. Maybe we're only fighting our own brains, our own bodies, our own loneliness. We're still fighting. You don't know what every person around you battles or yearns for or has lost or will never have.
And those inspographics, with their fancy fonts and admonishing messages, don't inspire us to magically be more grateful for the few things we do have left. They inspire guilt. They inspire shame. They steal away the hope and strength needed to process grief, trauma, stress, or loss by telling us that we should just be grateful, that we shouldn't complain or want because somewhere, someone out there has it worse than us.
A final thought. When you do run across those graphics, especially if they're hurting you, picture that this theoretical person who would give anything to have your problems, is not a refugee, a victim, a faceless imaginary person, but your own past or future self - whether in two decades, two years, two months, or even two minutes. Then take stock of what's around you - without comparing it to anyone else, whether better off or worse off. Life can change in a second. Take a minute and just be. That is the only positive takeaway I can possibly think of for these graphics - to be present in the moment, not to bootstrap up and deny your emotions just because another person may have different suffering.
I have written about this publicly on Twitter and privately (ish) on Facebook, but have neglected so far to post about it here. This is the summary I wrote up on my college's unofficial/underground private Facebook group, to try to get a take on what people wholly disconnected from the situation would think about it.
Feedback welcome. I will post an entry that is a copy/paste of my Twitter and Facebook posts later on.
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I'm curious what other [name of alumni group redacted] think about a situation. (Warning: SUPER LONG RANT.) I'm involved with Intercon, a Boston area LARP convention, and just started in the last year or so to be involved with its parent organization, NEIL (New England Interactive Literature). If you don't know what LARP is, I can explain in comments. I first got involved in 2004 or 2005, took a few years' hiatus around 2011, returned in 2014 because it's an activity and community that's extremely important to my partner.
Something that's extremely important to me is safety and freedom from harassment at "geek" activities like conventions, SCA, etc. Particularly for women, LGBTQ people, people of color, people of size - but really, everyone.
Intercon is starting for the first time this year to have a dedicated security staff. I leapt at the chance to apply. My qualifications are excellent - among other things, I was the business manager and legal representative of the Greater Boston SCA group for three years, during which I did extensive interpersonal coordination and mediation, and dealt with a ton of crazy sensitive situations, in addition to the other responsibilities of office, for a population of 250+ paid members and 100+ unpaid, plus people attending our events from neighboring groups, so about 400+ people.
My application for security staff was denied because I have an ex who also attends Intercon, who emotionally abused me for years and then stalked and harassed me after I left him. I have ordered him multiple times not to contact me but do not have a legal restraining order. Intercon's population is roughly 400 people, so a comparable size population, albeit all together in one hotel for a weekend. I was explicitly told by the con chairperson (male, if that's relevant) that because of my conflict with my ex - *one* person out of 400 plus - I am not eligible. I had explained the situation in my application, as I felt it was only ethical to disclose the potential conflict of interest, and explicitly wrote that if I somehow had an issue with him, I would refer it to another staff member to avoid a perceived conflict of interest; furthermore, that I do not believe my ex to be a harassment risk for any other person at the convention (which I sincerely do not). When pressed, the con chair told me that my rejection was not due to my survivor status, but that he could not accept applications from anyone who had a "major conflict" with *any* other individual at the convention (good luck with that one). He also told me that because I might end up on a solo shift, he could not let me be in a situation where I might have to interact with my ex in an official capacity. In a convention of 400+, I find this an extremely statistically unlikely scenario. Lest there be any chance someone thinks I am misinterpreting - I was explicitly told two times that I am not eligible because my ex (who no one forced to abuse or harass me) will be present at the convention.
The kicker? My ex is also in the SCA and was one of my constituents for the above-mentioned 3 years that I was local business manager. The number of times our "conflict" came up for me in the official capacity of my job? Zero.
I feel that this is discrimination. The con chair disagrees, refuses to consider my point, and is behaving as if he cannot hear the words coming out of his own mouth (well, fingers).
I still detest the idea of "never forget", because that implies that anyone ever could, or would. And it has to be okay, healthy, to carry on in the memory of tragedy.
Liam Colhoun, you were loved. I wonder if your wife ever remarried; your daughter must be nearing college age. Remembering you every year today is a testament to the love of Callahan's Place as much as to any national tragedy.
So, a good discussion has been started already on how to address sexual harrassment in the SCA, and I really hope it grows. But I think one step has been left out and it's really the important one.
Step 1: Believe the person who tells you that they are being harrassed.
I am serious. In any group of people where harrassment is or may be occurring, the first step here is to consider the radical notion that the person making a claim is telling the truth.
What is the worst case scenario here? Perhaps someone who is claiming to be harrassed is either involved in a miscommunication/misunderstanding situation, OR someone who is claiming to be harrassed is making it up. OK. So, the miscommunication can only be improved by making there be more communication, right? In an instance where someone is making a false claim against another individual, it's still a good idea to be aware that there is a situation between the two of them that could cause a nasty blowup, and investigate what's really going on.
Many people don't know that one of the core reasons I stopped going to my Barony's weekly dance practice was that there was a creeper there who wouldn't stop bothering me. I lost count of the times I told him to leave me alone or that I didn't want to dance with him or talk to him. Unfortunately, no one I talked to about it would actively have my back, and many refused to believe it was even going on. I remember how fucking angry I was when one person kept telling me I was over-reacting, until the creeper dude started creeping on someone they were attracted to and interested in, and then suddenly they were able to see it. FUCK THAT SHIT.
Ironically I was the group seneschal at the time, so you'd think this would be a non-issue. As both a survivor and someone who needed to be constantly aware how they are presenting themselves to new people, it wasn't that easy. I'm much better at being a bitch on behalf of others than for myself, and while it's incredibly easy for me to say "Hey, I'm the seneschal of this group, and you need to stop sexually harrassing that person over there", let me tell you that it is INCREDIBLY HARD to say to someone "Hey, I'm the seneschal of this group, and you need to stop sexually harrassing ME".
I would like to get a conversation going about what we in the SCA can and should do about stalkers and abusers who come to events and harrass or intimidate others, whether premeditated (made a deliberate plan to show up and intimidate a given person) or spur of the moment (saw a given person at an event and decided on the spot to intimidate them). Both in terms of what Society and Kingdom laws say, what people can or should do in their official capacity as autocrats or officers or whatever, and what people can or should do in their role as fellow human beings.
I realize that there are limits to what can be done without opening up the SCA to lawsuits especially in cases where there isn't something legal on file, like a restraining order.
I've started this conversation before with a tiny handful of trusted peers, landed barons, and local seneschals, but I want to widen this up. Ideally I'd like to get everyone talking about it or at least acknowledging "hey, this happens, and it's not OK."
If we can talk about stalking, abusive behavior, intimidation of women, and such in fandom and other communities, it's well past time to talk about when it happens in the SCA.
A heads up to those with kids who might have lingering hurricane concerns, or just anyone who likes Sesame Street: Tomorrow (Friday) is a special episode in which a hurricane has swept through Sesame Street and everyone is working together to clean up the neighborhood.
From the PBS website - "After a hurricane sweeps through Sesame Street, Big Bird discovers that the storm has decimated his nest. His friends set out to rebuild his home, and give him places to stay until they're done. They also help him with his emotions."
For my area and cable provider (Berlin MA, Charter), the PBS website says the episode will air at 10AM on Channel 2. Unfortunately, the 6AM before-school episode appears to be just a normal episode. It should be possible to check timing for your zip code and cable provider at http://www.pbs.org/tv_schedules/
I am writing this as a note because there are simply too many links to repost individually even if I'd posted each one right as they came up.
It's a shame, as in a truly shameful practice, that people who feel threatened by groups of "others" or threatened by people who disagree with their ideas, would channel that feeling into trying to stop others from exercising their RIGHT to vote, instead of harnessing that energy for positive action. But, then, fear is often a reaction to change or perceived change, and I doubt many of these groups and individuals like change or have the skills to accept it.
I believe that intentionally depriving any citizen who is legally eligible to vote, of their ability to vote, is treason.
Some of these links are about predatory and misleading Voter ID and Fraud ads in predominantly non-Caucasian areas, some of them are about prevention and intimidation tactics, about "losing" or destroying voter registrations, about "accidentally" printing the wrong voting date or other crucial info on materials only going to non-English-speakers, about private citizens banding together to challenge the eligibility of other private citizens to vote, about high numbers of early votes already cast by poor people and African-Americans being lost to "glitches", about scams occurring in all parts of the country trying to convince the elderly and other populations that they do not need to go to the polls if they just vote by phone, some about electronic vote hacking in previous elections. As recently as just this Friday, we see Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted drastically changing requirements for submitting provisional ballots at the eleventh hour, forcing voters rather than poll workers to fill out confusing proof of ID forms that disqualify and trash otherwise legal votes if the form is filled out incorrectly.
I do not expect any person to read each one of these links, but if you at least scan the list of URLs you will get a sense of the stories most of them are covering. What I do expect is for every person to get out there Tuesday and VOTE.
I'm a little put out that no one has posted to LJ wishing me a happy birthday today.
More precisely, I am put out that thanks to FB and Twitter and the lot, hardly anyone in my circles posts wishes on LJ for anybody's birthday at all, mine or otherwise. Or much of anything else either.
I do greatly appreciate the 30-or-more-and-growing birthday wishes I have received on Facebook, but Grr! End of quality discourse!
I've lost a lot of interest in LJ despite meaning to contribute more posting material. The less there is to read here, the less I am motivated to come here, and the less I am motivated to post, which makes there be less for others to read... It's an ugly cycle.
Mainly, I posted because I want to share a link to get $30 worth of fabric for only $15 at Fabric Place Basement in Natick. You can buy 2 for yourself, more as gifts, and it doesn't expire until a week before Pennsic. However...
...It does tie nicely into some of the interests I've been working on lately instead of posting. Like embroidery, and planning some seriously nice Birka outfits, and a decision to open an Etsy shop (funky retro aprons) and see if I get anywhere with it.
I have another even bigger project forthcoming which will be announced in the near future once I get more of the goals nailed down.
Just so no one is surprised, I am not drinking alcohol for a while. This is for a lot of reasons. One of the main ones is the serious and constant level to which my stomach issues are currently acting up.
I don't know how long this will last. It may overlap New Year's. Life will go on.
I may still bring my tasting cup to SCA events where people who have home-brewed will be. The cup in question holds about a spoonful at a time. If you have some really special alcohol you'd like me to taste, I might accept a swallow, but I will not accept a glass. If you want to buy me a drink, I still like Coke, smoothies, and fruit juices just fine.
I keep seeing this one and thinking "what is this, 1980?" A million dollars just doesn't go as far as it used to.
I would pay off my student loans, buy one of the remaining market rate units in Camelot, and buy a motorcycle. I would also consider buying a new car - but honestly, I probably wouldn't, at least not right away.
I might give some to the Camelot and/or Sawyer Hill LLCs as well. I might go on one fancy non-SCA-related vacation. I would put the rest in the bank to start a retirement fund. Yeah, I'm boring and selfish.
Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little NO attention in the mainstream media.
Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.
Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.
Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states.
What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.
The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute.
So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.
If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.
What to do?
- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it.
- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.
I think the furthest I've ever had to go back on my friends page after returning from Pennsic was skip=625. I know it was more than skip=500 and at least once LJ tried to break in letting me view it.
- Need to figure out what I did with my copy of Chrononauts - Need to make more use of my various copies of Fluxx - Need to get back into playing Set more - Need to learn to play Tichu! - Need to learn to play poker (well, OK, I do understand the basic concept) - Need to actually play the various games I picked up when Danger Planet closed - Need to actually play the Regency Romance game I got at Arisia for 3 dollars, preferably while spectacularly trashed - Want a copy of Munchkin Cthulhu - Want a copy of one of the [Insert Country Here] Rails variants. etherial has Russian Rails and Mosaic has British Rails, so probably neither of those. - Need to improve my skill at economic resource games rather than relying on blind luck - Need to get in the habit of having some sort of pocket size game on me as often as possible - Need to pick up more SCA-period games, particularly Game of the Goose - Is it time for the McMulti re-release yet? - Want some really ancient edition of Trivial Pursuit, just for the hell of it - Need to work on my Dominion strategy so that I can win a game of that ever - I have still seriously never played a tabletop RPG before!
I was musing about this topic in the van with friends on Saturday as we passed around a fairly old Batman comic on the way to the fabric store.
Around junior high, roughly speaking, I used to greatly enjoy hanging around the comic book store down the street from my mother's work. I'd had only a tiny handful of comics as a kid, plus a copy of that one Smithsonian omnibus, but I loved them. (One was this badass Ripley's Believe It Or Not horror comic that I had gotten at a flea market.)
I didn't try to interact with anyone there and I attempted to evade the notice of the staff as much as possible, because I was self-conscious about my lack of comics knowledge and because for some reason I believed that since I was a girl, I wasn't supposed to be in there.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino annouced that a victory parade for the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins will happen Saturday and run from the TD Garden to Copley Square.
Tomorrow I am walking in the Relay for Life in memory of my friend Jane and countless others lost to cancer. Please consider donating so that we can defeat this disease.
I'm doing the Relay for Life this weekend and I'm going insane trying to figure out what to wear so that I'll be warm enough overnight. I really have nothing appropriate that fits and it's way past sweatpants season in stores.
And the thought I keep coming back to is that it would be so much easier if I could just wear the wool dress that I made for outdoor tournaments, because then I know I'll be warm and comfortable (and dry).
Then it occurs to me, I haven't been on a camping trip that did not involve the SCA in, oh, the last decade? Maybe more? I have no context left for camping that doesn't involve garb.
The more I overthink the story in this link, the more angry I get.
This is probably one of the most romantic things that will happen in the young lives of this boy and girl, why does the school need to ruin it? Who is served, exactly, by discouraging creativity and romanticism?
The only argument I can see for the punishment is if the boy had done this and the girl had felt uncomfortable or stalked. But she said yes. Still the whole crew is banned, including the friends who helped.
I'm looking for that comic illustrating how it takes about 6 months to effectively change something about yourself. It was written for an audience of somewhat low social skills and might have something to do with 4Chan. It's meant to teach douchey people how not to be douches, but I want to check it out again and see if/how it applies to other stuff.
I figure someone reading this knows exactly what comic I'm talking about and I think someone on this list even posted a link to it. Google searches have been ineffectual. But there's a way people just know what certain things on the Internet are, like that one picture of a fat lady sitting in an unsturdy chair over a tiny dog, or that other picture of a cat sitting on a toilet.
I'm posting this mainly as an interesting note on the matter of perspective. Many people responding to this article say that yes, of course they would. They would give up a year of their life for the perfect body. As in, they would make their life one year shorter, given up at the end, be on this planet for one less year. They would do that for the perfect body. Even the authors of the blurb seem to be coming from that view of the question.
The thing is, I personally know someone who's lost 100+ pounds. And for the vast majority of that loss - from an outside observance, at least, it did take about a year. I know altogether it was more than that and as far as I know, they may still be working on it. But from the observer's perspective, from overweight person to skinny person, it was about a year.
And going on the theory that approximately 2 lbs per week is about the healthiest maximum rate at which to consistently lose weight - 2 lbs, times 52 weeks, give or take. You could lose 100 lbs in that year.
So, for the perfect body, would you give up a year of your life? Because that's about what it'll take. Starting right now, give up a year.
Oh, but wait, that's not what I meant at all. No. I am not ready for that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still working on being ready to make that sacrifice and commitment myself. No one said it was easy to give up a year.
Since many people don't read SCA-East, I thought I'd put the word out that the site and the date for Estrella War are changing next year.
The site will be at Schnepf Farms and it looks like it's fairly close to the Phoenix airport and Phoenix itself, less than an hour if traffic isn't bad.
The dates, however, are March 27 - April 2, 2012. That was pretty interesting to me at first, because the end of that is 3 days before my birthday. Birthday at Estrella! However, I suspect it may be "interesting" in the Chinese curse sense for the royals at the time, since that's going to fall right in between Mudthaw and Coronation. And the Saturday following that, April 7, is the first night of Passover.
Of course, I still have no idea if I'll be able to go to Estrella next year or not, but I'll have an extra month and a half to save up for it if I do.
So I've been noticing in both my own journal and communities that I haven't been able to see some comments even thought it says there are more comments there than are actually showing up. Instead I'm getting a place holder that says (Spam comment) or (Suspicious comment).
Why are these showing up like this you may ask? In their rush to fight spam LJ has created a new filter that're AUTOMATICALLY TURNED ON in ALL journals and communities, which screens comments that are made with 'suspicious links' ie links that are not on their safe whitelist, so pretty much the majority of the internet. There is no noted way to add to the 'whitelist'.
What really gets me is that they didn't inform people that they were doing this until a week after it was done and that it was automatically turned on.
So how do I turn it off you might ask.
That's simple. Go to yourSettings, click on the Privacy tab, and half way down where it says Spam Protection uncheck the box next to "Comments containing a link to a non-whitelisted domain will be marked as spam and moved to a special section." This applies to both personal journal and communities and the opinion has to be manually changed in each one.
While I understand how this could be a good idea, I think they went about it in a very backhanded way, and have implemented it poorly. There was no message to anyone that the link has been screened. It's automatically done. This went on for over a week before they said anything about it. There is still nothing in the FAQs about it even. The only way I found out about this way going through the support pages where people were reporting similar issues.
The cats nestle close to their kittens now. The lambs have laid down with the sheep. You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear Please go the fuck to sleep.
I have a friend who's lost nearly everything due to repeatedly being screwed by dishonest realtors, incompetent lawyers, and life. They were given a deadline of today to pay off their storage unit before it went to auction - only to discover the company already went ahead and auctioned it last Thursday.
I can't do anything financially while I'm trying to buy a house. But I can do this.
They have been an internet radio DJ for as long as it's been possible to be an internet DJ, both as their main hobby and creative outlet, and for a time as a business. They considered their music collection - now gone - their life's work.
I know a lot of people periodically decide that life in the digital age means that they no longer need their physical CDs, and they're going to burn them all to iTunes or other digital formats and then throw the discs away, or donate them, or sell them, or whatever.
If you have CDs you no longer want anymore, I will take them. All of them. I don't care what they are. I will arrange to pick them up from you so that you don't have to deal with it. I don't care whether or not they still have jewel cases.
In particular I am looking for 80s, goth, dance, filk, Dr. Demento type stuff, and comedy. But I will take anything. Literally anything. Nothing is too weird.
"Yes I believe in the 4th ammendment [sic] but times have really changed since it was written and the problems we have now were not even dreamed of then."
I keep getting calls on my cell phone from unavailable numbers lately. Being unavailable, I have no idea who it is, obviously. But people-in-general should be aware that I don't answer Unavailable or caller-ID-blocked calls under any circumstances. Sorry. Leave a voicemail if you need to.
Right now my internet access at my house ranges from mediocre to none, depending on the day. I'm trying to reopen the point to my housemates that no, really, this is a serious problem that needs to be fixed one way or another now, but I think they use the internet so much less than me that they just don't understand. And I'm rarely home to even press the issue.
I can check some email on my phone and I try to catch up on other stuff at random moments and while I'm out and about. So far I'm muddling through but it's becoming enough of an issue that I wanted people to be aware. If I don't get back to you on something, or I didn't see your whatever that you posted, this is probably why.
To play along, make a post with the following statements in order of when they occurred in your life (feel free to add/remove/edit as appropriate). Just the first occurrences of each, and only ones you were old enough at the time that you remember it.
Have done:
Become gainfully employed. Graduate from high school. Start college. Join the SCA. First SF convention. First real relationship. Graduate from college. Get drunk for the first time. Drive cross-country. Get a cell phone. Move across the country for a job school. Move out of parents' house for good. First graduate-level degree. First Pennsic. Get laid off. First Real Job (tm).
Haven't done (yet):
Get married. Buy a car. (Both were gifts/inherited) Buy a house. (DON'T GET ME STARTED) Go to live in another country. Try to start a business. Have kids. Kid move out.
The one thing I can't find anywhere after my move is my cell phone charger. I specifically put it in a Safe Place so it wouldn't get lost, which means it has now disappeared completely. The phone ran out of juice and shut itself off a couple hours ago.
I'm hoping that it fell out of the container I thought it was in, and ended up in my car. I won't be able to search the car until I get it back from the shop. If nothing else, I at least have a (crappy and ineffective) car charger I can use temporarily.
Thanks to a timely fuck-up by Verizon, I don't have my landline burner phone yet and won't until I have time to go pick it up from FedEx HQ in Needham. Email is the best way to reach me for now.
I am being cautiously optimistic (with reason) and believe that I will need a bike for the spring and summer (April through August).
I am short, heavy, and not in great shape. I prefer sturdier mountain or street style bikes to racing style bikes. I like wide tires with a decent amount of tread. I prefer hand brakes to coaster brakes.
I believe the optimal wheel size for me is about 24 inches. Less than that tends to be a kids' bike, more than that and the bike exceeds the length of my inseam too much.
I am going to ride the bike one mile or less each way to work, except when I don't. It needs to be cheap, functional, and I don't particularly care what it looks like.
Does anyone have experience porting a phone number from Comcast to a burner phone? I believe we've decided in my house that I'm the one keeping the 781 number but I need to figure out how I take it with me. I really don't want to lose it. :(
My plan is to not have a landline anymore, probably ever, but the 781 number will be given to people I don't know well and places I don't necessarily want to give my "real" cell number to. In addition to the number of people who already have it because it's in Pikestaff and on my SCA business cards. The phone itself will stay in my house, I'm not carrying it on me except maybe to Pennsic, so it will functionally be a landline.
I had to use Internet Explorer to install the Flash update that Firefox was asking for, because Firefox kept trying to save the .exe somewhere instead of giving me any option to just run the damn thing. I probably could have figured it out some other way but I had neither the attention span nor the inclination.
This is mostly for my own reference, so that I won't forget - I don't make it to the movies often. After a while I will change the posting date so that this stays top-posted.
Several of these have not come out yet; I'm culling them from Teaser-Trailer.com.
Updated 3/1/11:
The King's Speech Season of the Witch Your Highness Sucker Punch (OMG MUST SEE) Gnomeo and Juliet I Am Number 4 (I heard this sucked, sadly, so I may wait for DVD) Adjustment Bureau (Also possibly a wait-for-DVD) Take Me Home Tonight (Yes, I like dumb movies) Jane Eyre (WHAT? Where did this come from?! Need to re-read the book! IT HAS JUDI DENCH) Red Riding Hood Love Source Code (Also possibly a wait-for-DVD) Thor Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (I shouldn't, but it will be a good summertime need-air-conditioning movie. This might be one for Chunky's.) One Day Anonymous
I think that's enough for now. There are WAY too many sequels this year of things that really don't need sequels, and WAY too many films starring that dude from Mall Cop.
Also, THEY ARE REMAKING FOOTLOOSE WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY???!?
