User:	supergee
	Date:	2008-05-13 11:24
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

Oliver Willis notes an important demographic:

John McCain has a clear lead among the delusional. EVERYBODY PANIC. WHAT WILL BARACK OBAMA DO TO APPEAL TO THE DELUSIONAL?–Oliver Willis

	User:	splanky
	Date:	2008-05-13 22:48
	Subject:	Book Meme
	Security:	Public

From

lauredhel

	User:	costume_con (posted by ladycelia)
	Date:	2008-05-13 07:51
	Subject:	FYI
	Security:	Public

The young lady who did the drawings that were on the cover of the Future Fashion Folio for CC26 is from a middle school in Sichuan. As you know, there was a massive earthquake in that province. I would appreciate any thoughts/prayers that you can send that direction.
Thank you.

	User:	splanky
	Date:	2008-05-13 22:40
	Subject:	I did Stuff
	Security:	Public

I am getting quite a few things done these days.  I thought for a while I'd blog what I have achieved each day.  

Today I 

- Shelved books in my attic from A - G.  Only one box and the Diana Wynne Joneses to go.
- Bought and put together a shelf in my kitchen so I can put the bins in it and the water cooler can sit on top of it, thus freeing valuable bench space.
- Cleaned the sink and the bench where the water cooler is
- Swept and vaccumed the main traffic areas.
- Crocheted two and a half squares.
- Visited my sister.
- Ordered a replacement hook for my attic ladder pulling down stick.
- Blew bubbles.
- Bought vegetables.

	User:	gigica
	Date:	2008-05-13 07:03
	Subject:	Training week
	Security:	Public

I'm in a training class this week. I was actually looking forward to it, but then it actually started and now, well, notsomuch.

There's always a guy, right? That guy who won't STFU and who thinks he probably knows more about absolutely everything than the instructor does? The one who also tries to answer questions directed to the instructor? I bear a deep dislike for that guy. Yes, I may even hate that guy.

I'm crossing my fingers that I learn something worthwhile today, because yesterday was kind of a bust.

	User:	smofbabe
	Date:	2008-05-13 21:03
	Subject:	Att'n Mac Heads
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	disappointed

You might recall that I mentioned that my Mac Mini has been acting weird the last couple of days - lots of endlessly spinning beachballs and really slow response time, plus a couple of freezes. I backed up most of my data yesterday just in case. After two freezes tonight, I googled "Mac freezing" and took the advice to run Disk Utility. Turns out that my disk is failing.

Luckily, I just got a tax refund on my Australian taxes, I think I'm getting the economic stimulus check from the US (not sure about that, actually), and I'm getting a small bonus at work. So, I'm figuring that replacing the drive is probably not worth it and I'm in the market for a new Mac.

When I moved to Australia from the US, the Mac Mini was the perfect choice because it was small enough to take with me in my luggage and I could buy the peripherals here. Now, though, I don't have those constraints, although I obviously already have the peripherals. Not sure whether to get another Mini, or one of the sexy new iMacs.

Advice? Warnings?

	User:	stevegreen
	Date:	2008-05-13 11:20
	Subject:	Monster Magic
	Security:	Public

Fans of the legendary make-up artist Jack Pierce have launched an online petition calling for him to be honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nearly 2600 have already signed up - hope you feel likewise.

	User:	flyingsauce
	Date:	2008-05-13 11:15
	Subject:	2008 books
	Security:	Public

33) Jim Theis, The Eye of Argon, 1970
I have Dave Given to thank for this extraordinary pleasure – and yes it was a pleasure, quite possibly the worst (or at least the least good) book I will ever read, that is, in the "so bad it's good" post-modern sense. Written when Theis was just sixteen and originally published in a forgotten fanzine, this 7,000 word 'sword and sorcery' epic's rise above complete obscurity has come at the (possibly cruel) efforts of several prominent SF fans and has at last been enshrined in its own paperback edition, complete with the long-lost last few pages and a long introduction by Lee Weinstein. The Eye of Argon's charm is its teenage naïvity while at the same time Theis's writing, undaunted by lack of familiarity with his subject or fear of stereotype, bravely takes on adult themes with a barely adequate vocabulary: there are perhaps a dozen grammatically correct sentences in the whole story that are at least properly structured, or free of typos, or don't use an awkwardly heavy emphasis on the wrong components. It often reminds one of reading badly translated Cantonese (I particularly liked the use of "avantgarde" to mean "advanced guard"). Jim Theis died a few years ago but was generally sporting about his story's unwanted notoriety... does anyone still play "The Eye of Argon" game at conventions?

	User:	danjite
	Date:	2008-05-13 21:34
	Subject:	A fairly typical Thai commercial... thanks to BoingBoing
	Security:	Public

This is the sort of thing that one, well, gets used to.

	User:	supergee
	Date:	2008-05-13 05:22
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

Happy birthday, cakmpls

	User:	sharan
	Date:	2008-05-13 01:11
	Subject:	Almost there
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	awake
	Music:	Music for Lockdown

I'm currently on campus pulling an all-nighter to get ready for this:

http://gamepipe.usc.edu/demo_day.html

I'm working on the audio engine for the serious games class/Lockdown. And spending a lot of time waiting around for svn or the game to load. Then one more big programming assignment due tomorrow night at 11:59pm and it's all over (and I'll be able to sleep again).

And maybe I'll even be able to read and post here. lot of stuff going on right now.

	User:	chimchim237
	Date:	2008-05-13 02:41
	Subject:	jota minuscula
	Security:	Public

• 21:54 calling all facebook addicts! I need examples of good facebook app design. Hm...has smashingmagazine done a post re: facebook?
• 23:14 folding and putting away women's and baby clothes is easily the most complex and confusing task I will do all week

	User:	supersniffles
	Date:	2008-05-13 00:40
	Subject:	Hey besspeacetime!
	Security:	Public

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!

	User:	bridget_coila
	Date:	2008-05-13 13:40
	Subject:	Bangkok and Beaches
	Security:	Public

:::A small aside before the real post... my thoughts go out to all the pandas and people in Chengdu, China right now, and I hope that none of my friends are traveling there right now, and if they are then I hope they are all safe.:::

So apparently the theme of this trip is Bangkok and Beaches.

Bangkok was amazing- I really like this city- a LOT. It is colorful, tropical, friendly, fascinating, a little bit crazy with yummy food on every corner and has a big muddy river running through its heart... sound like anywhere else we know...?

After a couple of days in Bangkok, my friend Jeanne arrived and we booked a long-distance overnight bus trip (and subsequent ferry) south to the island of Kho Phi Phi.

I was not so enamored of the 20-hour bus ride. We rode with other backpacker-adventurers down the coast into the peninsula. We stopped for food and snacks at a bus stop somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere Thailand and the rest of the ride was a blur of bumpy roads, half-sleep in reclining seats and a 3-AM stop to let off passengers who were headed to islands on the East side of the peninsula. The rest of us, bound for Phi Phi and Phuket and other west-coast places ended up changing buses in early morning and heading across the peninsula to a ferry landing.

We reached a ferry dock at about 10 AM and took the 2-hr ferry ride to Phi Phi. I loved the ferry ride. The front of the boat dipped and rocked so much that anyone up there would get soaking wet. I, of course, took this as my cue to leave my stuff inside with Jeanne and head up front.
After a while, most of us up front retreated to the back to dry off in the sun and we watched from there as we arrived at the islands (Phi Phi is actually two islands- one inhabited, one not- both gorgeous!)

There was some wandering around the island (it is all walkable- no roads) before finding cute cheap accomodations at one of the guesthouses in the tiny town of Ao Ton Sai, a strip of a village set between two gorgeous beaches at its north and south.

The island is beautiful, although there is still much destruction and rebuilding-in-progress, the result of the tsunami that destroyed most of the island's buildings in December 2004 (and killed something near 200,000 people along the Thai coast and other coastal areas facing the Andaman sea)

In some ways, I feel a kinship with the people here- a place so lovely and fun and special that had nearly everything wiped away. It is sad and heartbreaking... and familiar. Nonetheless, they are rebuilding and surviving and trying to bring back beauty and joy... and this is a good thing.

Meanwhile, the scenery is gorgeous- incredible rock islands rising jagged from the sea to tower over white-sand beaches and turquoise water of a bay filled with colorful boats.
Quite simply beautiful.

Today we head to Phuket island... photos to come when I have the available internet to upload them all.

B

	User:	dragonstarr71
	Date:	2008-05-12 22:50
	Subject:	Guest looking for a room
	Security:	Public

Hey Everyone, I have a friend who is looking to share a room that she has for BayCon. She is trying to save costs. If you have any one in mind. Please email me and I will forward it. Kwoodyard71@yahoo.com

Thanks

	User:	dragonstarr71
	Date:	2008-05-12 21:50
	Subject:	My Weekend
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	content
	Music:	X playing Bass

Why do these two days fly by so fast? I know why, but isn't there a way to make them slow down so that we can enjoy them more? Saturday was the last meeting, at least for me before the Con. I got a lot accomplished and it felt good. Now the real work begins. After the meeting I went home picked up a few groceries and got ready for my visit with my Nephew. He has gotten so big! This is quality time with my boy, he plays video games while Auntie chatted on IMVU. Man I really love this chat program.  What I love about it, is that I can create my personalities in this 3D version of, well me. Last night I was dressed as a Pirate, I have other Gothic Vampire looks. You can have houses or just rooms to hang out in. It is really amazing. One of the first nights I was on, a friend of mine that I have known for many years, joined me in a chat and for the first time  we were able to hug. I got a little emotional, because our friendship began online and has grown, we have been friends now for gosh I think over 7 years.  I have the chance to go and see him and his beautiful wife soon, and I am really hoping it works out that I can go.  I want to give him and M an actual hug. :)

When Dinner arrived, we both logged off of our games and ate dinner and watched Back to the future 2. His choice. Then we laid down and went to sleep. I stayed with him until I knew he was asleep and then moved into my room. Where then the upstairs nieghbors decided at oh, 6:30 in the morning on Sunday to have a little nookie. "Ummm people are trying to sleep down here!!" Arghhh they are so disrespectful!  Bear told me that he was woken up a few times as well and he was in the living room. I think one of them is a tweaker, because I will here someone up at like 3am and there still up at 6am. Apartment living bites!  Anyway on Sunday  to finish out the weekend we watched BTTF 3 and then Shrek 3D, it was cool,  Bear played some more Naruto on PS2 and then we took him home.

Though it felt like it flew by, as I look back I had some precious time with my baby bear and that is all that matters.

	User:	i_ate_my_crusts
	Date:	2008-05-13 14:34
	Subject:	the plan
	Security:	Public

Leave Sydney 1:55pm 21 May
Arrive San Fran 10:15 am 21 May
(I love travel that takes me back in time)

Spend two days talking to NVIDIA and listening to them smack talk about Intel.

Spend the weekend, and as much of Friday as possible with the lovely applez.

Fly out of San Fran 10:40pm Sun 25 May
Land in Sydney 6:20am Tuesday 27 May

Fly to Japan 4th June?
Fly back 6th June?
Something like that...

	User:	zellandyne
	Date:	2008-05-12 20:06
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

Because several people requested it, here's the pavlova recipe I used.  I was quite happy with it.

	User:	benpeek
	Date:	2008-05-13 12:49
	Subject:	I Was Wrong
	Security:	Public

There are Artistic Licenses:

seanwilliams

	User:	benpeek
	Date:	2008-05-13 11:21
	Subject:	Sins, Sins, Sins.
	Security:	Public
	Music:	tex perkins

About last year, I decided I could write Across the Seven Continents of the Underworld in a year, but life, it has demands, and I like to do things like start working for myself and writing comics. Five months after that deadline, I'm looking at six months, but not too much longer, I don't think, for I've gotten it all down in my head.

I am at the stage now that I'm writing and cleaning up and rewriting as I go. It's not that surprising, since I rewrite a lot. I don't know what other writers are like when it comes to this, but I vomit words and ideas down, and then begin to shape it through a first draft, then a second, third, and so on until I'm happy with it. At times it strikes me as odd that I should spend so much time creating something that most people will spend a couple of days with at the most, but what can you do. Other times I wonder why my spelling doesn't improve, but I've grown immune to this, I think, to the point now that I can even ignore spelling in email. Still, an example of the changes I make is that, for the past hundred thousand words, I have been dutifully blacking out parts of a diary that forms the second narrative of the book. A fantastic idea, I thought: I'll black out all the parts that point to the villains, and have this be something that the main protagonist discovers on his path of killing people. I congratulated myself when I thought up this. Clearly, I was a genius. And what a self sacrificing genius I was, too, for I would be blacking out my own precious, precious words. Yes. Truly, an artist.

Yeah.

Well, it's helpful no one gives out artist licences, since I'd like have mine taken away from me now. The final quarter of the book, where the protagonist's brother dies--his is the diary in the novel, so it's not a spoiler, or any shit like that; the whole novel is about killing the men who killed your brother, after all--anyhow, at this stage, where all the plot strands are being tied together doesn't work at all if all the valuable plot points in the book are fucking blacked out, does it now? Heh. Bloody genius I am. "Yes, hi, I'd like to visibly hide all the plot strands from the reader, and let them figure it out for themselves. Could I include a map written in invisible ink?" Still, it's on par with the stuff I've written before, where I've gotten to the last quarter and I'm tying up everything and I realise that my moment of brilliance needs to be scrapped out. Oddly, I've done the blacked out text bit a couple of times now, and I guess I've got an urge to do the whole thing where you hide important information from the reader, but imply it through another means.

At any rate, I decided this morning that for a blog post I'd drop a section of the book in to give people a look. I've shown bits from the start of the book before, but I figured this time I'd pull something from the middle, just for kicks:

It was with no surprise, then, when the blurred, orange lights of a gazebo appeared in the dark and it became clear that Sara Mae was leading them towards it.

Closer, and Brady could see that the large gazebo sat on the edge of a ravine, but also that, on second glance, that it, in fact, went into the large divide of the land, the copper and brass and wooden walls attached to the rocky wall. He suspect that it went all the way to the bottom of the ravine, but he could not make it out properly due to the darkness; the light from his bike was no help at his distance, either. The lights from the house, tiny burning eyes, likewise, did not reach the bottom of the ravine, but rather stopped, half way down, as if the rest of the structure went to a place that light could exist in. Of the gazebo itself that clung, much like a hunched figure, to the ledge, it was as if it were light like the remains of a destroyed building, so did the lights within it seem to smolder. Yet, there was nothing to hint at a damaged frame, or to say that it had suffered from any kind of destruction, self inflicted or otherwise, and it to gave the impression of being nothing short of occupied.

Closer still, and Brady was able to make out the silhouette of a man, emerging from the door.

His presence did not surprise Sara Mae, who continued without pause; but for Brady, and for Cowan, who was ahead of him, it did, and both their bikes dropped a gear as they came upon the path leading up to the gazebo. Indeed, they paused, Cowan first, then Brady, and watched on idling bikes as Sara Mae stepped off her bike, and walked up to the man and hugged him. In response, Brady heard Cowan grunt, the sound a mirror for the one he did not voice, the sense of unknown he did not like about what was before him, but then he rode up the path, the shrinking distance stripping away the shadows of the man, to reveal him to be ten to fifteen years older than Brady. He was of about medium height, average in build but for a slight layer of fat to his entire body; upon that fat, however, and of most interest to Brady as he killed the engine, and kicked out his stand, was the neat and very traditional marks across his skin: the marks, in short, of a mortician. He even wore, the other man noted still, the traditional mortician's black pants, and with a dirty, grease stained white shirt wrinkled and untucked around him. Yet, there was something about him, and perhaps it was in the unshaven, messy haired face that he had, or in the way his faded blue eyes flicked from him to Cowan, casually, and without first glancing at their own marks, that spoke not of the latter mess, but of a calm, controlled quality that Brady first associated with morticians.

“Matt,” Sara Mae said, as he drew closer. “Robert. This is Jonathan Daniels.”

The man held out his unmarked hand, which Cowan took first, then Brady. “Bit of a surprise,” he said, his voice easy, casual, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I wasn't expecting visitors.”

“I came to see my brother.”

Daniels—the name so close, Brady noted, to Daniel—nodded.

Sara Mae pushed through the door first, the others following behind. Inside, the smoldering light of the gazebo continued, casting the room in a soft, coppery light. Brady had been expecting to find a morticians chair, a tattoo gun, and rows of ink, but instead, he found a large, long work bench, in which mechanical devices lay across in neat, organised lines, their wiring and wires and sprockets laid out next to each other, the internal laid naked. On the bench was a clock, a fan, the engine of a bike—or a generator—and, lastly, a brass boned, very still body of a cat. Behind the bench was a long library of books, the titles of which, Brady noted in his glances, related to anatomy, to diseases, to mechanics, to philosophy, and to botany. A glance to the ceiling told him that even the space up there was used, with large baskets hanging from hooks—and containing what, he wondered—interspaced by copper bladed fans that, even now, spun slowly. It was there, while staring at them, that he realised that the gazebo, unlike so many others in Ailartsua, had electricity in it, and that the smoldering effect of the light was caused by this, and that, yes, on second glance, the object that he took to be an engine or a generator, was in fact the latter, but the putrid odour he associated with them was not there, just a faint chemical smell.

“You're not a mortician, are you?”

“Once,” Daniels replied. “Before I was transported.”

“You were transported?” There was disbelief in Cowan's voice when he spoke. “I never heard of a mortician being transported.”

In response, the older man merely smiled, and shrugged.

Ahead of him, Sara Mae had reached the end of the room, where, behind a set of copper gates, sat an elevator. However, while she pushed the gates back, Daniels turned, faced the two ex-convicts, and directed them down a short hallway, where, in the faint light, a pair of couches could be made out, a glass table between them. As he made his way to it, Brady glanced back, once, to see the girl step into the elevator: as she did, she offered him a tiny smile, a hesitant thing that, he thought, was the kind you gave before you did something you knew would be emotionally difficult.

“I doubt she'll be long,” Daniels said.

As the elevator began to descend in a rattle, Brady said, “She can be as long as she wants.”

In the room, the older man offered them drink, which they took, and he passed Brady an ashtray as he pulled out a cigarette. In response, Brady offered him a stick, which the man took, the ritual of ex-convicts.

“You been here a while, yeah?” Cowan's voice had a touch of jealousy in it which, Brady thought, he tried to mask by pulling out his own, cheap grey cigarettes. “Place like this just doesn't appear.”

“Takes some time,” the older man agreed, “and some money. I was transported ten years ago.”

“How long you get?”

He offered that easy, casual smile of his. “I was told not to come back.”

“You get a sentence?”

“Two years—I served about six months, before I was employed on the settlements around here.”

Brady blew out smoke. “You're a surgeon, aren't you?”

“I know the trade, yes.” Daniels saluted with his own cigarette. “But I'm trained as a mortician—the marks probably tell you that. The Morticians Council doesn't approve, however, when you start trying to combine the two. You record a life, they say, you don't make one.”

Back down the hallway, he heard the elevator shudder to a stop, returning. Quick. Much quicker than he thought it would be. The footsteps that he heard were not just a single pair, but two and, he realised, he wasn't surprised by that. Cowan, Brady could see, was; but for himself, he had begun to piece it together quickly, to realise that as he saw and heard more from Daniels, that Sara Mae had not traveled to a grave. She was not going to sit and talk to a little marker. There was no emotional bond to be had with a site. No. She had come to find her brother, her actual brother, who had died, who had killed himself, if her story was to be believed, and who this man had Returned. Had made a Return. Out here, in the heat, in the red dirt, beneath the red sky, and with the electricity he had made himself... and as the sound of gears, the growl of mechanics came close, as it drew behind him, then in front of him, Brady felt a faint smile cross his face. But. But as the smile began, as the thought of what this meant to him crossed his mind with it, it stopped, halted by the sight of the two figures before him, and off the tattered, exposed nature of the second, the Returned.

He was not much taller than Sara Mae, but after that, there was no similarity between the two, for in Daniel Oktober, there was a body clothed in tatters: in ripped pants and shirt, and in ripped, decaying skin, so far gone that it revealed the copper and bronze bones of his arms and chest, the silver veins that crossed dirtily from each to each, the pumps and the gears that lurked in his chest in a massive display of complexity, a jigsaw he would never be able to decipher. And of his face—his face, with the original skin that he had once had—was a ruin, with decay having set in there to such an extent that it was all but an old child's tattered mask, with bright, artificial eyes staring out of his face.

“Though as you can see,” Daniels said, still casual though his voice was diminished beneath the machine growl of the boy, “I've never been interested in that rule.”