My internet access will be spotty to non-existent from this evening up through 14 January. We're leaving the old flat tonight with the last of our stuff, and BT can't hook up service at our new place in Leeds until the 14th. Therefore, my access will be catch-as-catch-can. If I can find a stray unprotected signal, I'll be set, but if not, I may have to find a place with free wireless that I can easily pop in on, say, once a day for purposes of checking in on my affairs.

In the meantime, I'm off to see Sherlock Holmes!

...have a very clear far-right slant. I just saw (and clicked on) a banner which said, "Do you want to have to wait 100 days to see a physician?"

(I'm not saying there are no reasons to dislike the healthcare bill - I'm saying that it's frustrating to see lying scare tactics from any side.)

On an unrelated note, you should head over to wickedfaire and check out my latest entry.

So I often tell people that I pretty much don't play any games which aren't at least 10 (now, it's about 15) years old - because, to be honest, being an insane workaholic is not really compatible to experiencing really immersive gaming. When I'm really curious about a more modern game, I force the_sea_lingers to play it.

All this being said, I do have a game I've been playing for 22 years. It's not exactly immersive in the modern sense, being all text and characters - and now that it's a much, much quieter place, I'm seldom drawn into chatting. Plus, I'm intentionally a member of a guild which needs long periods of rest between what are, conveniently, usually very brief kills. It's a really perfect way for me to both remind myself to take brief breaks once in a while--and then remind myself to get back to work.

It's Igormud. And just a few minutes ago, I passed a point which is meaningless to almost everyone who's reading this - but it means a lot to me:

Level: 50 Dexterity: 47 Hit points: 498 (498)
Score: 1,001,353,956 Charisma: 5 Spell points: 435 (544)
Experience: 6,057,727 Constitution: 57 (44)
Gold: 236,671 Intelligence: 51
Explored: 8.66% Strength: 21
Guild level: X Wisdom: 49
Tradeskills: Sword*: Average (75.3%)
Herbalism: 80
Combat spell: octo.

One. Billion. Experience points.

That took a reallllly long time.

I could almost cry.


....okay! Enough sentimentality! Time for me to pimp the Wicked Faire promotion post! Time for me to update the Wicked site! Time for me to go make World's Fair plans!


....a billion experience points. Good Gods. I started that when I was twelve. Wow.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it! Momfer and I have just stuffed ourselves silly with delicious salmon teriyaki (not the most "traditional" Christmas fare, I suppose, but it sure is tasty!), and I'm getting ready to settle down and watch the Star Trek movie that Mom bought for me as a present -- which I actually picked up myself, at her behest. Heh. ("Jen, I'm getting you the newest Star Trek for Christmas, but I haven't been able to find it anywhere and I don't understand the difference between the one-disc, two-disc, and three-disc editions. Could you go out and look for it? Here's some money.") And she got me an beautiful orchid, to boot, which was a complete surprise!

Apart from the tea and chocolate I got her, which were really stocking stuffer type gifts, my own present to Momfer was something we'd talked about some time ago, since she's always regretted the fact that she had no pictures of her late lamented boycat; all the photos of Ganymede were taken by me and existed only in digital form on my hard drive and Photobucket account. So I ordered prints of all the pictures I ever took of him (~200, by my count) and put together an photo album, which she opened just shortly after midnight, and she kept tearing up as we spent the following hour poring over all of the pics...and giggling over some of the more goofy shots of Ganymede, of which there were many. We got up late in the morning, piled onto the couch to go through the album once again, and spent a delightfully lazy day just reading and cooking our Christmas food at a leisurely pace. It's been lovely, and I hope everyone's Winter Holiday of Choice has been wonderful as well!

...and Boxing Day to all (who celebrate them, of course)!

I hope I'll be seeing Sherlock Holmes tomorrow, but, failing that, I will definitely be watching the RSC's Hamlet with David Tennant on BBC at 5:00 PM! I hope it's every bit as good as people say it was.

...Merry Christmas! To those who celebrate it in whatever way.

I have not managed to write cards and put them in the mail yet, so instead I'm going to send non-holiday cards with personal short letters by the end of January to everyone who was on my holiday card list.

Much love!

Dear Friend,

If you're receiving this letter, then you either are or have been a gifted student, a parent of a gifted student, or know or have known a gifted student at some point. No matter which of these categories you fall into, you probably know very well some of the trials and tribulations gifted students face, even in the best of schools. Many of you also probably know some of the extracurricular programs developed for gifted students within the schools, as well as some of the summer programs. Unfortunately, in this economy, many of these programs are drastically underfunded, many of the summer programs find themselves needing to cut corners wherever possible, and overall, the quality of education is not as high as we all might like it to be. While we cannot fix everything at once, we would urge you to consider making a tax-deductible donation to SPARC, the Summer Project for Academic Reach and Creativity. As a 501(c)3 organization, SPARC is aiming to create a summer enrichment program to serve gifted students not only academically, but also socially and emotionally. Our goal is to use charitable contributions to help us attain the best faculty and staff, as well as campus rental, all without having to be so expensive that it becomes difficult for most families that currently have gifted children, i.e, the ones who need it most, to afford it. Any and all contributions to add up, and will have the effect of improving not only the academics of the students, but helping to enrich the lives of all involved.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Rebecca Robare, President

Gil Cnaan, Vice President

SPARC INC 501 (C)3
111 N. 9th St #300
Philadelphia, PA 19107
http://www.SPARCSummer.org
becky@sparcsummer.org
gil@sparcsummer.org

From this.

( Cut for people who don't want to read about someone praising Obama )

I'm not saying that I agree with everything the Catholic Church does (and, yeah, that probably makes me a bad Catholic), but every once in a while they do something right.

The Vatican Says The Simpsons are Okely Dokely.

* Handing my Ph.D. thesis in on 14 February (or before).

* My youngest sister, Alyce, coming to visit in March. All by herself.

* My book launch on 18 March, as part of the York Literature Festival.

* My viva (a.k.a. defense), which will probably be in April.

* Giving my first Pseudo Soc paper at Kalamazoo 45th ICMS.

* Officially being able to add "Dr." to my name when I graduate in July.


I don't think I've had such an explosive docket in quite some time...

I had never heard of Tim Minchin previous to viewing the following video. This song made me cry as much as it made me laugh. I think it may be one of the loveliest Christmas songs I've ever heard.

Focus has been difficult of late. This is brni-norm for November and December, but perhaps worse this year.

Focus will continue to be wonky for a bit. Work is going to involve a lot of travel the next few weeks as we try to get as much of the heavy lifting done as possible while I can still do it. January focus will probably be for shit what with pain pills and physical restrictions.

But.

I think it is time to shift the focus from writing short stories to finishing a novel or two. So. Finish up a couple in-progress short stories, then launch into longer form fiction.

A new year's resolution, made on the darkest day of the year. We'll see how that works out.

The moon's lying on her back, legs raised in expectation of the Solstice as she glints off the snowcapped world. Should be an interesting night.

The annual Pizzelle Day festivities died a snowy death on Saturday, so Linda decided to make them today, without the gathering of family members to share the labour. So she finally allowed me to work a pizzelle iron. I was largely successful, and only burned a couple. We drank traditional anisette and listened to Christmas Music.

Christmas Music apparently consists of Crash Test Dummies God Shuffled His Feet, Jethro Tull Songs From the Wood and Cocteau Twins Heaven or Las Vegas, set on shuffle. A surprisingly good mix.

The Wicked Faire and Steampunk World's Fair teams will gather tonight to present Halloween in December: a benefit for Isaac Bonewits...and snow be damned! Tell your friends!

7 p.m., IHOP of Somerset, 900 Easton Avenue, Somerset, NJ, five dollars to get in, wear a costume if you'd like, bring candy for trick-or-treating if you want, but just come on out!! Pass it on!

(Let me go xpost this to wickedfaire..)

Here, in photographic form, is the progression of yesterday's storm.

( December 19, 2009 - 8am )

( December 19, 2009 - 12noon )

( December 19, 2009 - 4pm )

( December 20, 2009 - 8am )

Total amount of snow as measured on our back deck: 24 INCHES. TWO FEET!

Also, our street hasn't been plowed so we are kind of stuck here until they do.

Oh, so now we get proper fall foliage! Not that I'm complaining; it's lovely to get autumn colors no matter how late in the season, and the house behind ours has pear trees that hang over our fence which have turned the most gorgeous shades of yellow, gold and red. After a long stretch of dreary gray skies and nonstop rain, the perfect weather we've had these past two days has done wonders for my mood, and while I kinda envy the huge snowstorm you guys on the east coast are dealing with at the moment, I'm actually fairly satisfied with how everything looks outside my window right now.

Still, a little more snow down here would be nice, now that I'm done with the LSAT and no longer have to worry about driving into downtown!

Discovered to my alarm a week and a half ago that Mitzi was peeing blood on the carpet again, so I scheduled an appointment with the vet's office as soon as I could. Unfortunately, since Dr. Shepherd was out of town for a few days, this meant that I had to bring Mitzi in to see the other vet there, whom no one among the staff likes all that much. (I remember the time we called him in to perform emergency surgery on a mauled Yorkie when I was still working there, and he was practically having a panic attack over trying to patch her up. It really was not reassuring listening to him screech, "What do I doooooo?" at the vet techs, I can tell you that!) But I figured, hey, I don't need him to operate on my cat, and I really wanted to get her looked at as soon as possible. Since I couldn't get a urine sample out of the litter box, what with the whole peeing-on-carpet thing, I was hoping for a little help from Dr. Not-Shepherd, but he decided that obtaining a sample there was "not a productive use of time." Um, what? If we want to figure out what the actual root of the problem is, you...kind of need to get a sample. So sorry that you don't think it's a productive use of your time, Mr. Veterinarian!

In any event, he sent us home with a ten-day supply of Baytril for Mitzi, and so far the antibiotics seem to be helping a little. If this whole situation doesn't clear up before the meds run out, I'm taking her back to the vet's office -- to see Dr. Shepherd, this time.

ETA: Oh, and we finally got ourselves a Christmas tree today! It's a Norfolk pine that's a lot smaller than your average Christmas tree, for sure, but I don't really want a big tree to take care of anyway. I'm so relieved to finally be done with all of my holiday shopping, for the most part.

Okay. When I said I wanted to receive offers via email? I was thinking, say, a few times a month, possibly once a week. Not every other good-griefin' day.

Unsubscribe.

Poll #1501030
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

What is the level of snow in your area?