I am a leaf on the wind

Why do Tolkien-style fantasy dwarves always get Scottish* accents in television, movies, and games?

I know there are Jews in Scotland, but they aren't the dominant culture, so i don't see the connection to Tolkien's interpretation of dwarves, and if we're going on the culture of origin they should have Swedish or Germanic accents.






*Really, really, really bad Scottish accents, most of the time.

Better than caffiene
Better than sugar, theobromine
Meness, may I revel?
If I might run with you, Artemis
and dance with you, Diana
Cross roads crossroads
Under pale silver clouds (hail, Nephele!)
Hail Lunacy, howl moon
Howl Lunacy, hail moon

The Six Million Dollar Man may now be seen on television relaxing in a leather-upholstered chair, advertising a rechargeable hearing aid billed as "bionic".


I am pretty sure that they do not count for the strict definition of "bionic", but this is still kind of awesome.

I stopped in a Blockbuster Video with my girlfriend Kathy yesterday, hoping to find a copy of an anime or two I wanted her to watch for a class she'll be taking this semester. Unfortunately, they only had the sequel (this appeared to be the case for much of their selection... many sequels, few originals; very odd), but we were able to find a single Monty Python video...

...on VHS. I was overjoyed, since I had noted that the DVD player on Checkers, my Frankenstein experiment of a PC, most likely could not run a proper movie all that well. Why was i overjoyed? Because I'm one of the few people among my current group of friends who still keeps a working VHS player around.

Cassette box in hand, we headed to the check-out... and happened upon the previously-viewed movies bin, which contained many more VHS cassettes. Three Fawlty Towers (i've been meaning to watch it), the GI Joe movie (COOOOOOBRAAAA!), a Transformers cassette featuring the origin of Optimus Prime, a subtitled recording of Amelie, and some Saturday Night Live, among others. I became giddy as Kathy noted that the cassettes were marked as $00.99 each (two turned out to be fifty cents each); i realized that fewer and fewer people were going to be raiding this section.

I dashed over to the previously-viewed DVDs sction, and noted with a smug sense of anachronistic madness that these were marked at 25 dollars for three DVDs, or something along those lines. My suspicions felt validated, as the cassettes were apparently thought to be worth perhaps less than the original cost of materials- the store seemed to be saying to customers "nobody will buy these because nobody watches VHS anymore".

I felt-- as I told Kathy --as though I had become privy to an ancient secret, a dying technological art. I stacked cassettes in my arms and waddled with a lunatic grin on my face over to the counter, as Kathy chirped "cheap, cheap!" at me, while I reminded her that i am a Jew (and thus go "Kvetch, kvetch, kveeeetch!").

We returned to watch some of the best British comedy-- minus the Parrot sketch, which we found on YouTube --and ate cookie dough soy ice cream while playing with a newly purchased Nerf gun which i intended to modify (and succeeded in doing today) to remove safety restrictions which limited the range.

I feel as though my having a working VHS at my age and in my circle of friends makes me some sort of arcanist, a wizard of plastic boxes and magnetic tape. With the last North American commercial VHS release being two years past at this point, we're well on our way as a culture to these going the way of floppy disks and ambrotypes. Technology moves at a different speed from culture, but each affects the other in its way. What technology will become outmoded, hoarded, coveted in personal libraries or converted into new formats? What happened to all the shareware diskettes i was so fond of as a child? Sealed in a cardboard box, forgotten, current computers not even backwards compatible enough to run them?

Adorable plush internal organs!
http://iheartguts.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=8&zenid=200f0707b3e237edc7b3451a791ea577

Holy carp this is awesome.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/erika/dar/series.php?view=archive&chapter=31306&name=dar

I need, like... ten bushels of these, and a kitchen of foods to experiment with.

oh, and today's date is 08/08/08 :D

My job at the Library is over and done with, they don't have the openings or budget to retain me as regular staff now that I'm graduated, but I knew this was the case from the start.

However, I've now got* a part-time job working with CTS at SUNY Purchase from the 18th till December. I don't think an official title came up at any point, but basically I'll be the MMO Bitch. See, a few of the Social Science classes are going to be using Second Life and WoW to explore socialization and communities in virtual environments. In other words, I'll still be at Purchase, but as Staff. My responsibilities it seems will include:

Second Life-
-Purchase College Island groundskeeper, getting rid of all the stray primitives and mis-placed objects using up server space
-Introducing new users to the Purchase College Island
-Something to do with a virtual open house on SL that the college will be hosting?
-Helping the several classes and Professors who will be using SL during the semester, acting as Tech Support to their students.
-Installing and creating new objects, media, and "buildings" on the Island.
-Anything else related to SL that they need someone to do

World of Warcraft-
-Um, I don't really know just yet. Jason Pine and Shaka McGlotten want me to help out with this, but I admitted I know almost nothing about it... I suppose I'll get some training? Access to the game will obviously be limited, they're not going to have students and staff tying up the servers to beef up their dwarven hunter.

So, i'll still be around here... at least part time. Hopefully this will bloom into something more long-term, or at least with more hours; the initial offer is of 16 hours max at $10.00/hour. This is really ideal work for me, since it means that I can actually do paid work where i show up as a gnome sorceress or something like that.

*Contingent on HR approving everything, knock wood.

I have a hypothesis based on both observations and my own feelings, that tall shrubberies or other dense and high vegetation planted to form a wall acts doubly as a physical and a psychological barrier, leading people to feel as though it is not worth passing through even though most such barriers are rather easily penetrated; as a result the plants deter entry as effectively as a more solid fence would by MESSING WITH YOUR MIND.

I'd like to see whether this is true, perhaps by presenting people with a situation where they either have to climb a short fence or wall, or pass through an adjacent shrubbery in order to reach the other side. The shrubbery would appear dense but actually require little exertion to move through, while the wall/fence would be just high enough that the subjects would need to put some effort into it.

I also hypothesize that places bordered by tall and dense shrubberies are more imposing on an unconcious level, or that this varies based on the type and appearance of the shrubbery. What effect does landscaping have on one's willingness to enter a space? If presented with identical spaces where one was claustrophobically bordered by shrubberies, and the other bordered by low fences or no boundaries at all, what is less appealing? Is there a difference at all?

I got my diploma. I am officially a graduate of SUNY Purchase College with a B.A. in Anthropology, although the diploma doesn't specify what i studied. As thelettuceman puts it, i could have a B.A. in "cutting people up" for all anyone knows, to look at this thing.


...shit, i have to go to the real world now, don't I?

Writer Alan Moore, on getting into magic:

"I was turning 40 and thinking, Oh dear, I'm probably going to have one of those midlife crisis things which always just bore the hell out of everybody. So it would probably be better if, rather than just having a midlife crisis, I just went completely screaming mad and declared myself to be a magician. That would, at least, be more colorful. So, I announced, on the night of my 40th birthday party — probably after more beers than I should have had — that, ''from this point on, I'm going to become a magician.'' And then the next morning you have to think, Oh, what have I said now? Are we going to have to go through with this? So I had to go about finding out what a magician was and what they did. "
From http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20213004_5,00.html

Also, he's apparently a big fan of South Park. Rather surprising, that.

To quote Wiki: "The phrase plastic shaman is a pejorative colloquialism used for individuals who try to pass themselves off as shamans, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who actually have no genuine connection to the traditions they claim to represent. Rather, plastic shamans use the mystique of these cultural traditions, and the legitimate curiosity of sincere seekers, for personal gain. This exploitation of students and traditional culture can involve the selling of fake "traditional" spiritual ceremonies, fake artifacts, fictional accounts in books, illegitimate tours of sacred sites, and often the chance to buy spiritual titles." (emphasis mine)

How do you think that makes plastic feel? One of the single most influential materials since carbon steel, and folks are still using it in adjective form to present things as being without worth.

Here's a salute to all the polymers we rely on, for all they've held together and all the things we use from which they are made, every day. As many problems as there may be with recycling and sustainability, we can't blame the material for our own mistakes in its use.

To the spiritual folks reading this: have you ever connected with an "artificial" material as you do with natural ones? What's different about the energy or spirit of it; would you ever deliberately engage spirits or entities related to artificial materials? Do you believe such things exist?

I
glanced in the glass at my
reflection
turned to you an' cried
I'm wearing prey animal colors

Do i smell like
rabbit
deer
woodchuck
since i started eating like them

Today is the first of the Dog Days of Summer; Sirius is rising with the sun. Stay indoors and use your best methods to beat the heat, the weather is going to suck for a while.

I've heard and/or seen some people complain about those folks in recent generations who say that they're not "religious", but are "spiritual". This seems like a silly thing to be upset about, as it's a perfectly reasonable statement; religion implies dogma and a set of explanations for or understandings of one's world. In the dominant world culture, many people accept science as their "religion", whether they view it as such or not: science explains the nature of the universe as best as it can, and determines what is natural and what is aberrant; many come to accept statements made by past scientists on faith, a very unscientific view that ignores the point of experimentation for one's own self (of course, not everyone can perform every experiment necessary in order to know that what they have been told is accurate or inaccurate, a certain amount of faith is needed in order to go about one's own business without getting bogged down in minutiae). Our dogma is state and federal law, which tells us at the most basic what we CAN NOT do, as well as rules of social ettiquette, which tells us how we should behave towards others. Although both have their origins in older religions, they are presented to us as being outside the frame of religion....

I'm increasingly finding that my own religious self-identification is Discordian, while I would say that my spiritual self-identification is Animist. As such, I'd say that i'm an adherent of Animistic Discordianism, and since I don't know anybody else who identifies this way, I'm the Episkopos. I'm also a Genuine Pope (but so are you).

Is a religion a religion iF its first rule is that there are no rules? I find that i am increasingly comfortable thiNking in paradoxes and contradictions, recOgnizing that everything and nothing is true depending on peRspective, and that there is no way one can know that one's entire experience is not simply a delusional state, or shaDows projected on a cave wall.

MAL-2: Everything is true.
GREATER POOP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know, man, I didn't do it.

Working in a library is at once wonderful and terribly frustrating. I have learned to hate the tiny music folios that number in the hundreds of volumes per set and must be checked to be sure that they are in call number order. Especially when they threaten to fall all over me like the wrath of a dozen dead German composers.

I discovered yesterday that the collection includes a beautifully illustrated graphic novel based on a 1931 Fritz Lang movie, M. M has a PN call number, which confused me briefly >.>

Sometimes, down in the stacks, I feel almost as though all libraries must be connected, that one need simply to be in the right frame of mind, and the physical boundaries of distance will disappear to reveal a beautiful infinity of bookshelves.

I'm really feeling like I'm on Mars today.

The problem with me and my father isn't emotional or physical abuse, distance, lack of love, any of those millions of issues that get brought up in the sympathetic backgrounds of TV and movie characters.

It's that our brains work differently. I can't ask a direct question of him about some vague instructions he's just given me without receiving a sarcastic response, because he can't comprehend that i am genuinely confused by his instructions and perceives my response as laziness or my own sarcasm. We get into arguments because i won't understand one word he says, and he feels that i'm focusing on minutiae and not paying attention to the whole: meanwhile, i can't comprehend the whole without understanding the parts. I didn't like something he cooked today, and when he spoke aloud saying that he liked it, i responded with the perfectly reasonable statement that he and i have different tastes, by way of agreement. He took offense to this, and he and my brother began questioning why i said that; it became apparent that he only intended to speak to my brother, and for some reason i wasn't allowed to be involved in the conversation. There was more nonsense to it, but i can't even make proper sense of it.

Or, you know... what passes for proper sense with my brain function.

It's not that he's a bad father, no matter what some folks who are probably reading this might think.

It's just that he's neurotypical, and refuses to believe that i have AS, because he thinks he knows what all autistic spectrum disorders look like.

and here i wondered why i was so fond of Data as a character, growing up.


In other not-so-news, people on the bus are jackasses. I'm the only person under fifty i've ever seen give up a seat for another passenger-- especially elderly or disabled passengers, about whom there are posted signs requesting you do specifically that --on the #5 or #6 bus in FIVE YEARS.


...and despite it all, there's the part of me that wants what's best for these people. I don't want to see them hurt, and would take a knife for them, even the bratty Catholic schoolgirls texting and whining from the foremost seats.

Not sure if i'm going to be updating again much at all, but...

I'm done with my B.A., finally. I'm torn between being terribly glad i don't have to pay Purchase any more money, and knowing I'll miss the heck out of the place. By the same token, I know i'll be over there all the time, anyway. I'm hoping- and being encouraged by my dad --that i'll be able to get some work there during the semester. At present, i'm working at the campus library in Circulation... which has gotten me thinking. I originally wanted to major in either Creative Writing or Library Science, and now that i actually have had some experience working in a library, i'm starting to consider doing my grad studies in LS instead of anthro, as I've been planning. I need to look into it more, of course, and find out what options there are, what's affordable. Of course, the week i decided this is the week when i start getting swamped with new tasks at work, so i don't have much time to inquire as of yet.

I'm dating again, a really fantastic and adorable (and gorgeous when she wakes up in the morning) young woman I met through Purchase... yet another reason to hang around the school.

In other news, i went to a Romanian restaurant in the city with my dad, and it was freaking delicious. My (vegans especially) friends all need to find some fasole batuta and eat it all up, especially with added garlic. Before we ate, we shopped at a little Eastern European specialty grocery-- i guess we were in Little Romania or some such neighborhood --which had some delicious microwavable stuffed cabbage, all kinds of wonderful preserves (rose, walnut, berries i'd never even heard of), and turkish delight <3

They also had little images of Vlad Draculea on the walls... i suppose it was a nationalist thing more than playing to stereotypes held by non-Romanians, judging by the overall look of the store... speaking of stereotypes held by non-Romanians, Transylvania is still known as "Dracula Country": http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/13/transylvania-dinosaur.html

But, really, check out that article. Dinosaur island dwarfism!

Here's what I'm reading that isn't LJ (aside from school textbooks) :P

A list of the comics I read, based on when they update.
Feel free to recommend something!

DAILY (or unscheduled strips, once or more a week)
Achewood
AppleGeeks Lite
Arthur, King of Time and Space
Bunny
Dominic Deegan
Dumnestor's Heroes
Evil Inc.
Flaky Pastry
Gai-Gin
Kevin & Kell
Looking for Group
Narbonic: Director's Cut
Nothing Nice to Say
Order of the Stick
Questionable Content
Scary go Round
Schlock Mercenary
Shortpacked
Skin Horse
Something*Positive
Starslip Crisis
Toothpaste for Dinner
Ugly Hill
Wapsi Square
Water Tribe
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic

MONDAY
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Phil & Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius
Gunnerkrigg Court
Iceheart
Kaspall
Nukees
The Rack
To Save Her
Two Lumps
xkcd

TUESDAY
All Knowledge is Strange
Digger
El Goonish Shive
Galaxion
Johnny Saturn
Magellan
The Rack
Wondermark
The Wotch

WEDNESDAY
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Antique White House - The Kennedy Tales
Compass
Phil & Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius
Gothbunnies
Gunnerkrigg Court
Maxwell the Demon
Nukees
Obsolete
Realms of Ishikaze
The Rack
Two Lumps
xkcd

THURSDAY
All Knowledge is Strange
Digger
Johnny Saturn
Magellan

FRIDAY
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
El Goonish Shive
Phil & Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius
Gunnerkrigg Court
Nukees
The Rack
Shi Long Pang
To Save Her
Two Lumps
Wondermark
xkcd

SATURDAY
Compass
Ever After
Magellan
The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
Realms of Ishikaze

SUNDAY
Grim Tales From Down Below
Minus
Sugar Bits

INFREQUENT (wholly unscheduled/unknown schedule or less than once a week)
AppleGeeks
Breakfast of the Gods
CulturePulp
Dresden Codak
Family Man
Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy
Joe Loves Crappy Movies
Lackadaisy
Malfunction Junction
MNT Gaiden
Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
Transe-Generation
UNSPEAKABLE VAULT (of Doom)
Zebra Girl

I've heard poets and artists and philosophers
All bemoan the ways of science
That the beauty of a flower
Is reduced to pistils, stamens, petals, stigmas, antipodal cells
That the mystery of the moon and stars
Is explained as superheated plasma, gravitational forces, the reflective properties of a high albedo
They say it takes away from the wonder of it
That it becomes over-analyzed
That we try to take it apart
And see what makes it tick

And I have to ask
Isn't that beautiful?
Isn't the watch all the more wondrous
When you see
Wheels
Gears
Springs
Crystals
Hands guided
By energies kinetic, potential, chemical
Even if you never know
Who made the watch work
Isn't knowing how it works
So amazing?

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php
Your Aspie score: 165 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 32 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


My Intro to MSA professor has the cutest pit bull, but i have to wonder if constant licking (to the point that it's disruptive) of people is a sign of some kind of problem in a dog....