Just saw this on celandineb‘s journal: apparently LJ is about to make the Gender field a mandatory setting on new account creation, and word has it that you’ll have to set it to Male or Female. “Unspecified” will no longer be allowed. Details on this can be found over here.
Since I have several transgendered and genderqueer friends, I find this generally displeasing, especially when coupled with the likelihood that this’ll lead to gender-targeted ads for non-paying users of the system. As per synecdochic‘s post, I’ll be sending in some feedback on this to (politely) express my displeasure. I recommend any of y’all who feel likewise do the same.
ETA 12/15/09 6:24am: As has been noted elsewhere, LJ’s support team has been replying to feedback that’s gone in saying that this was apparently beta code and a screw up. I’ve gotten this same support reply, so that seems to be that. Good.
If you happen to be like me and am crossposting these days over to LJ and LJ-related sites off of WordPress, you might want to give a look to the shiny new version of the JournalPress plugin. It just upgraded to version 0.3 and includes, finally, support for letting you choose what userpic you want when the post shows up on LJ!
This gives me a Happy, since it takes a few extra steps out of my crossposting efforts. And lets me specifically do something like oh, say, choose to show those of you who’re looking at this post on LJ or Dreamwidth the shiny new icon that spazzkat made me! It’s a new version of Great Amurkian Novel, featuring Scuzzbopper, who is arguably my personal muse. I <3 Scuzzie so.
But for those who’re looking at this post via WordPress, here’s the icon itself, behind the fold!
So we’re having us a lovely Turkey Day at the Murkworks tonight, and among other folks, we’ve got ypawtows, dpawtows, and epawtows as guests. They brought an extra friend this year, though. And Fred is NOT AMUSED!
Fred Vs. Robot
There’ll also be video of both cats reacting to the robot as soon as I can figure out how to post it!
For those of you who aren’t following me on Twitter or Facebook, y’all be advised that we have a Wind Advisory up for today and tomorrow and a High Wind Watch for Monday evening and Tuesday. Looks like we have the potential for some nasty gusts. Cross your fingers that this blows over (aheh) without coming to fruition, hey? Not only would a decent windstorm be guaranteed to knock out power at the Murk, it’d probably put a nasty crimp in our ability to get a very important project done at work!
You can read both the Advisory and Watch data over here.
ETA 6:25pm: And oh hey, the Seattle Times has an article up now. The money quote here being “If projections play out, it will be the strongest windstorm of the season”.
So keep a sharp eye on the weather forecasts, people. This could get crunchy.
I’m pretty sure that if I arrive at work only marginally less damp than I would have done without an umbrella, I might need to think about getting a new umbrella. My pants are wet from the knees down. Yay!
But at least I have on good warm socks and a cup of tea is steeping at my elbow.
Meanwhile I blew the weekend playing way more of our game Unwell Mel than I probably should have done, but hey, we make good games, what can I say? ;) And solarbird has been digitizing a lot of my old filk tapes, finally–which means I can at last get this stuff onto my iPhone. We’re focusing on stuff that has not to my knowledge been released on CD, like the Technical Difficulties tapes, the Where No Man… Trek tape, the general-folk Brandywine tape that’s got some good Julia Ecklar and Leslie Fish on it, and best of all, the original Elfquest tape, the one that isn’t remastered to within an inch of its life.
And this does of course mean I’ll have “Banned from Argo” on the iPhone too. <3
This'll be nice to listen to. I've missed a lot of this; when it comes to filk, I'm really more a fan of the older stuff than I am current, although I do of course like me some vixyish and tfabris and s00j and seanan_mcguire. The Technical Difficulties and Julia Ecklar were really the people who got me interested in filk in the first place!
Hey folks, the lovely and fantabulous mamishka has been asked to be the director of art programming for the next Norwescon! And she’s looking for swaths of feedback about what artists she should consider inviting to the convention as well as ideas for panel topics.
So if you’ve got particular SF/F artists you like for whatever reason, or if you’re itching to see a panel on a particular art-related topic, go visit Meems here and tell her all about it!
Most of this weekend I’ve spent catching up: with new movies, with balancing my checkbook, with getting my book review posts written, with getting my tallies of new books purchased tallied, and such.
Friday night, spazzkat, solarbird, jennygriffee, and I all went to see Zombieland, which was highly entertaining. It’s a different flavor of funny than Shaun of the Dead, but definitely a solid competitor in the realm of zombie comedies. Look for the clever integration of main character Columbus’ Rules for Surviving Zombieland into the action, in particular. Everybody in the cast is excellent, especially Woody Harrelson for my money, and there’s a great cameo in the middle of the movie that I will not identify. ;)
Yesterday went pretty much entirely to balancing the checkbook and discovering that we had six hundred more dollars than I thought we did, because I’d accidentally subtracted a previous deposit when I should have added it. This, my children, is why Mama Anna always balances the checkbook. It’s like finding free money! (Only, well, not, because I need to throw it at the VISA, but hey!)
And after I finished balancing the checkbook, I started writing a bunch of book review posts. I’m almost done getting caught up on those and have three more to go; I’ve scheduled a bunch of them to go live through the rest of this week, one per day, so as not to overwhelm y’all with the wave of reviews. I’m caught up through seanan_mcguire‘s Rosemary and Rue, and am now pondering exactly what I want to say about the Castle tie-in novel, Heat Wave! (I will be doing the review in-character; if ABC can make this joke, what the hell, I’ll play along.)
Today, it’s all about the books. I’ve done another round of ebook buying off of Fictionwise as well as via the ongoing Drollerie sale, and I’ve picked up three new paperbacks from Third Place and one from Barnes and Noble too. Here’s the tally:
Physical Books
Boneshaker, by cmpriest (purchased before seeing the movie on Friday, which seemed apt–buying a book involving zombies before seeing a movie involving them!)
And five, count ’em, five super-cheap Harlequin Suspense novels by Jessica Andersen, because I discovered that one of hers I was already reading was #6 in a series, so I was really kinda lost. But I like her writing anyway, so it’s all good!
Which brings me to a grand total of (drum roll)… 19 in this wave of purchasing, and the grand total for the year to 120. I’m currently at 87 books read for the year, with books 88 and 89 in progress. So it’s safe to say that the chances of my finishing the year with having purchased more books than I’ll have read are very, very high! But it’ll be fun to see if I make 120 books read by then.
… but I have now purchased the very first Beatles album I’ve ever bought in my life. I got the new remastered 2-disc edition of Past Masters, which looks like it’s the new version of two previously released CDs that came out in 1990.
Decided to pick this one because it’s got the German versions of “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand” on it, as well as the English versions of those songs, and I want to see how well I can understand the lyrics! I can already tell that “I Want To Hold Your Hand” doesn’t literally translate; the German title is “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand”, which is “Come, Give Me Your Hand”.
I totally blame this on Beatles Rock Band, which I finally got to seriously play last night when jennygriffee came over to join us for a session of gaming. This is the first time I’ve ever seriously actually done Rock Band or anything like it, and that’s pretty much because this is the first time there’s been a version with a bunch of music I actually like. I’m still very new to the game, though; I spent the whole time with the guitar controller playing either Guitar or Bass on Easy. I’m going to have to try the singing, though. I kept bursting into harmony lines anyway while I was playing, and Paul thought I should have one of the mike controllers. ;)
It’s pretty nifty though that this has kindled my first serious burst of interest in the Beatles. I’ve now listened to most of spazzkat‘s albums and have a new appreciation for the quality of the music; I’ve got Magical Mystery Tour and the White Album left to listen to. But now I’ve got the new Past Masters volume as well!
… but I have now purchased the very first Beatles album I’ve ever bought in my life. I got the new remastered 2-disc edition of Past Masters, which looks like it’s the new version of two previously released CDs that came out in 1990.
Decided to pick this one because it’s got the German versions of “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand” on it, as well as the English versions of those songs, and I want to see how well I can understand the lyrics! I can already tell that “I Want To Hold Your Hand” doesn’t literally translate; the German title is “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand”, which is “Come, Give Me Your Hand”.
I totally blame this on Beatles Rock Band, which I finally got to seriously play last night when came over to join us for a session of gaming. This is the first time I’ve ever seriously actually done Rock Band or anything like it, and that’s pretty much because this is the first time there’s been a version with a bunch of music I actually like. I’m still very new to the game, though; I spent the whole time with the guitar controller playing either Guitar or Bass on Easy. I’m going to have to try the singing, though. I kept bursting into harmony lines anyway while I was playing, and Paul thought I should have one of the mike controllers. ;)
It’s pretty nifty though that this has kindled my first serious burst of interest in the Beatles. I’ve now listened to most of ‘s albums and have a new appreciation for the quality of the music; I’ve got Magical Mystery Tour and the White Album left to listen to. But now I’ve got the new Past Masters volume as well!
Friday night mamishka, jennygriffee, kathrynt, llachglin, and Q & Erik’s little girl Lillian all came over to the Murk to play Beatles Rock Band. This was great fun, and I can say this even despite the fact that I never actually participated–since Lillian kept me busy babywrangling. I had enough of a delightful time just periodically popping to see what everyone else was doing, and I gotta admit, the music was awesome. Meanwhile, as always, Lily was a delight. This time around the kid pulled every object in her mother’s backpack out and explained to me very earnestly what each thing was and what it was for. She made particular note of how the “special drink” had strawberries in it, and the juice boxes had apples. Good choices, kid. ;)
I am in fact thoroughly songvirused now by various Beatles songs, and expressed my interest in not only checking out the game but in giving Beatles albums a proper listen. This amused spazzkat, who pointed out that, as an Elvis fan, am I not contractually obligated to dislike the Beatles? I replied that he had invited them to be the second, third, fourth, and fifth Elvises, after they’d offered to make him the honorary fifth Beatle. ;> (And apparently they actually visited him at Graceland, back in the day, and they hung out and jammed for about an hour. God, if only recordings had been made of what they were doing. Those recordings could be worth the price of a small country!)
More seriously, though–I actually haven’t ever given a proper listen to any Beatles albums. I know of various songs of theirs, sure; you can’t have grown up in the Western hemisphere and not know of most Beatles songs. But I’ve got to rectify this deficit in my musical experience. Commentary on favorite albums is therefore welcome.
Saturday evening, solarbird and I ambled over to the Wayward to listen to vixyish, tfabris, and solcita perform for the Sereniversary, and that was fun. I actually had to sit at the front of the cafe and couldn’t see anything from back there, but it was all good; I could still hear plenty well, and I had the opportunity for some lovely conversation about phones and other portable devices, not to mention Patricia Briggs’ books. Bonus points as well for getting a chance to make Sunnie squeal at the picture of The Doyle With Beard on my iPhone.
Sunday by comparison was comparatively quiet, aside from the whole getting a sneak peek of the cover art for the forthcoming anthology I’m going to be in (and I did I mention, AWESOME?). And it’ll probably surprise none of you that I picked up quite a few more ebooks. It’s all Fictionwise’s fault! This is what happens when they offer me a big ol’ rebate on a book that pretty much means I get four books for the price of a hardcover. And then they go and extend a coupon I’d previously used. They keep this up, they’re definitely going to keep on getting my business.
And here’s what I’ve picked up from them now, bringing my total purchased books for the year up to 95:
Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris, pre-empting my need to read it as a library book
Staying Dead, by suricattus, replacing the paperback I’d re-sold to Third Place
First Truth, by Dawn Cook, ditto
Norse Code, by Greg Van Eekhout, since I’d heard a lot of good things about this
Folly, by Laurie King, since I’d wanted to read this for a while
Touchstone, by Laurie King, since I like her work in general
And last but not least, pre-ordered to be downloaded tomorrow, Heat Wave. By Richard Castle. Because I am still laughing and laughing and laughing that ABC is actually putting out a book with Castle’s name on it, and doubly so that whoever’s writing the Twitter feed has urged followers to help the book beat Dan Brown on the bestseller list.
For that cause alone, they could have written 400 pages of “badger badger badger badger mushroom”, and I’d have leapt right on it! I’m going to look forward to reviewing this one, entirely in-character. They’re going to pull this joke, I’m going to play along!
celandineb![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
synecdochic‘s post, I’ll be sending in some feedback on this to (politely) express my displeasure. I recommend any of y’all who feel likewise do the same.