It has been a long time since I've lost it in a fanboy manner when I've met an author. Today, though...
I was in a Border's and noticed a stack of the new Jasper Fforde book on a counter. When I wandered over to get one, I noticed two men standing around and realized one was signing the books. Fforde had called the store about twenty minutes earlier and offered to sign their stock. We chatted for a little while and I'm not entirely sure I made a whole bunch of sense.
He's flying out to Seattle tomorrow (Friday), so if you're a Seattlite, you can figure out where he has an event and go hear him.
I was in a Border's and noticed a stack of the new Jasper Fforde book on a counter. When I wandered over to get one, I noticed two men standing around and realized one was signing the books. Fforde had called the store about twenty minutes earlier and offered to sign their stock. We chatted for a little while and I'm not entirely sure I made a whole bunch of sense.
He's flying out to Seattle tomorrow (Friday), so if you're a Seattlite, you can figure out where he has an event and go hear him.
I don't have the energy to work up what this post really needs, but I bow in the general direction of, um, I think the UK, and Martin Smith: Master of video and Disney fan. Just double checked the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween video as I swapped it to DVD format. Perfection. Near as we can tell, they swoop in on WDW with 10-12 people, shoot a few miles of video and then he turns it into a professional grade movie. Zero hiccups in the audio as it runs from shot to shot, and perfect lip sync. I'm in awe.
OK, maybe I had almost enough energy. Mickey-Bob says check it out. Seriously, if you're a Disney-phile, you need to see these.
OK, maybe I had almost enough energy. Mickey-Bob says check it out. Seriously, if you're a Disney-phile, you need to see these.
Poll #1508668
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14
Geeks, it had to be geeks
9 (64.3%)It's not so much that I need a 5TB drive system, it's that I need someone-else to index it and delete the cruft. For free, and not actually look at the contents.
The good news was that we had already decided not to try to drive down to GAFilk this year. That's because a massive snowstorm was moving in from the west and it was supposed to be snowing all the way down to Atlanta with reports of I-55 (which we wouldn't have been on) being a sheet of ice south of Joliet. If we had to pick a year not to drive there, this was an excellent choice.
So instead, I found that![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
daisy_knotwise and I had an appointment to see the optometrist today. Looking at the four or so inches of snow that had come down already, we decided to leave early. As a result, we got to the office about half an hour ahead of schedule. Katie and Julie had fun playing with the other customers and running up and down the stairs outside the office while Gretchen and I got our eyes checked. My prescription remains the same; Gretchen will get a slight upgrade due to advancing astigmatism.
The roads weren't terrible, but they weren't good by any estimation. They were actually better the closer we got to the lake, which surprised me.
After we got home and I finished up work for the day, I pulled out the snowblower and went after the driveway. We're expecting more snow tonight, but tomorrow is trash day and we didn't want to try to drag the bins through multiple inches of snow to get them out to the curb.
And tomorrow, I will blow the snow off the driveway again. But there was lots of room to stash the snowblower in, because my car is in the shop for brake work. Sadly, once again the Ford Five Hundred suffers from the lack of an aftermarket part to replace the brake hose that seems to have had a bubble in it. You'd press the brake, the bubble would fill up, and then the brakes would work properly.
Not so good. Not so cheap to fix either. *sigh*
So instead, I found that
daisy_knotwise and I had an appointment to see the optometrist today. Looking at the four or so inches of snow that had come down already, we decided to leave early. As a result, we got to the office about half an hour ahead of schedule. Katie and Julie had fun playing with the other customers and running up and down the stairs outside the office while Gretchen and I got our eyes checked. My prescription remains the same; Gretchen will get a slight upgrade due to advancing astigmatism.The roads weren't terrible, but they weren't good by any estimation. They were actually better the closer we got to the lake, which surprised me.
After we got home and I finished up work for the day, I pulled out the snowblower and went after the driveway. We're expecting more snow tonight, but tomorrow is trash day and we didn't want to try to drag the bins through multiple inches of snow to get them out to the curb.
And tomorrow, I will blow the snow off the driveway again. But there was lots of room to stash the snowblower in, because my car is in the shop for brake work. Sadly, once again the Ford Five Hundred suffers from the lack of an aftermarket part to replace the brake hose that seems to have had a bubble in it. You'd press the brake, the bubble would fill up, and then the brakes would work properly.
Not so good. Not so cheap to fix either. *sigh*
It's been a momentous 12 months here at LiveJournal. We crossed a capital T at Ten years young. And, like most precocious pubescents, we celebrated turning double digits by publishing our first book! Needless to say, we've experienced some major changes, both inside and out. Before we recap, we'd like to thank you for bearing with us as we've struggled through ungainly growth spurts, identity pangs, and, yes, the occasional blemish. We hope you'll continue to stand by us: We're gaining wisdom with maturity.
Stuff you liked
- Back in February, we placed a call for entries for our ten-year anniversary anthology in
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
lj_turns10. In December (less than a year later!), we officially announced the publication of Live Journal: The First Decade. Featuring an inspired collection of writing, photographs, and artwork from the pages of LiveJournal history, the book has been selected by Blurb.com as a top staff pick! We are proud to have played host to so much talent over the years, and we thank our contributors for sharing their extraordinary work. - We all love quirky surprises, but not when it comes to managing our account settings. This year we streamlined settings into one central account management area. No more pouring through FAQs to figure out how to control privacy settings, modify notifications, adjust mobile settings, or update contact information!
- Being users ourselves, we realize our own mothers couldn't find us on LiveJournal based on our usernames and userpics alone (*heaves heavy sigh of relief*). But since there are times when we actually want to be found, we created a search tool--Find Your Friends--to help locate people by email address (it's in the Friends drop-down menu).
- Spam counter-attack: The war against vicious malware and spambots reigns eternal, but we've been making serious inroads to ensure your online security. We've established new protocols, such as requiring email address validations. We've grown more savvy about ferreting out suspicious behavior. We've added features, like whitelisting, to help you protect your communities. Our valiant (i.e., overworked) spam avengers (a/k/a the LiveJournal ops team) are standing on red alert so you can sleep safely at night.
- After an intensive beta, we launched My Guests at the end of the year, which lets you see who's been hanging around your journal. A number of you have even discovered secret admirers (not all of whom are creepy)!
- Last, but by no means least, we want to thank our volunteers for providing invaluable support and feedback. Their Herculean efforts enable us to answer your questions more efficiently, identify spammers, reduce abuse, and deliver better features (through tireless testing). On behalf of the staff and the larger LiveJournal community, we are truly grateful for their diligence, intelligence, loyalty, and passion.
You got your fix
- We recently debugged a number of the oustanding issues with the rich text editor so your entries look great regardless of whether you know html. You can read more about text editors here.
- In response to user demand, we brought back international voice posting. For more info on voice posting, read here.
- At long last, we revived TxtLJ with Verizon. For more info on TxtLJ, check out the FAQ.
Paid features you enjoyed
- In December, we introduced My Stats, which provides detailed data on who's been viewing your entries as well as statistics on commenting, RSS requests, friending history, and more. Despite a few early glitches, the response has been extremely favorable.
- This year, we launched and improved Notes (i.e., the feature formerly known as Alias), which lets you add private comments on friends and commenters (it's in the Profile drop-down menu). This way you won't be caught red-faced when you strain to remember details about that wonderful LiveJournal friend who sent you a birthday vGift. For more info, read the FAQ.
- When we first announced View friends pages by date, we thought it would be a quiet, minor enhancement. The rave reaction floored us, which made us all very happy. We gave it a fine tuning in February of 2009, so it's even better!
- How embarrassing! It appears pingbacks have gone back to the shop for service. We’ll keep you posted.
We didn't know just much you liked pingbacks until it went in for service. It's back and, judging by your irritation when it wasn't available, this is good news. FYI, pingbacks send instant notifications (via screened comments) whenever someone links to one of your entries on LiveJournal. For more info, read this entry inpaidmembers or check out the FAQ.
Mixed reviews
- The search is still on. Some of you have reported getting more comprehensive results for keyword searches using the new Yandex search engine and like the ability to search within content categories (like entries or comments). Others have not been satisfied with the relevancy of search results. Please be patient. We're still tweaking this product.
- This past December, we wanted to try out a new holiday promotion. Given the crap economy, we decided to offer our Paid/Permanent users a stack of $10 coupons to send to Basic/Plus users for paid account upgrades. We hoped you would like it. And some of you did, but many were disappointed that we didn't offer Give More as well. We want to thank you so much for letting us know. Your input will help us plan better in the future. Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users can continue to send out coupons through January 15th. Coupons can be redeemed through January 31, 2010.
- We were pretty excited about Your Journal Your Money, which allows Paid/Permanent users to earn extra cash by displaying Google ads to Basic/Plus and logged out users. A number of you tried it. Some of you really like it. Others, not so much. (Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users who do not participate in this program will not view ads on journals. Participants will see ads on their own journal, but won't see them on other journals unless they specifically opt in.) For additional details, visit here.
- We relaunched m.livejournal.com, our mobile app. While it offers a nicer UI and enhanced functionality, some of you think we can do better on load times. Like most of us, it's a work in progress. You can customize your mobile settings here. For more info, please read the FAQ.
Missing Inaction
- We shudder to bring up the neon purple elephant squatting on our heads, but, yes, we didn't give you those a la carte userpics. We've been making radical improvements to our backend in order to support them. But no excuses. We know you want them. We cringe every time you mention them. We're sorry we dropped the ball on this, and we promise to do our best to get them to you in 2010.
Stumbling points
- Back in early August, we experienced outages related to a series of DDoS attacks. We are proud to report that we were down a total of one hour over the course of a few days. We thank our heroic ops guys for getting us up sooner and more consistently than any of our less fortunate social networking friends. We apologize for leaving you temporarily stranded.
- A couple of months back, we offered a free, unrestricted vGift, which induced a snowflake cookie avalanche. This resulted in backed up/delayed notifications, which, in turn, led us to reboot systems, rendering scrapbooks unavailable. It took a while to shovel free. Apologies for the inconvenience. We learned a valuable lesson that should keep us calamity-free in the future (fingers crossed while knocking on wood).
- That darn Best Buy ad. First off, we're sorry about the audio auto-play (we got it turned off as quickly as possible). While it's true that we'll continue to show this type of ad to accounts that normally see them (never to Paid/Permanent accounts), we'll make sure the sound defaults to off moving forward. We promise to do our very best to keep ads to a minimum on LiveJournal, while keeping a roof over Frank's head.
Full steam ahead!
As we plunge headfirst into the next decade, we want to take a moment to look back and thank all of our employees, both past and present, who have worked so hard to create our unique and magical universe. We couldn't have made it this far without you: Your contributions brighten our path everyday. We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you. Whether you've been around for ten days or ten years, your humor, intelligence, talent, and creativity are what makes this the most vibrant global community on the Internet (the best place on the Web, in our humble opinion). Here's hoping that 2010 will be the greatest year yet! We thank you for joining us as we embark upon another glorious decade of LiveJournal history!
I showed up at the nose doctor. He spent ten minutes in the room, agreed that I do indeed have a nasty nasal-polyp issue (his exact words were, "Yep, you have polyps. Big ones. On both sides." and that the next step is an MRI and after that surgery to get the buggers removed. On the bright side after it's done and I've healed I'll regain my ability to smell again.
If that was it. Not too bad, but I've been having stomach cramps off and on today, chills, sinus pressure and a headache all day. I am not well today.
But wait it gets better. I had a technician come in to look at my furnace that has been shutting off at random times. The technician's prognosis; I need a new furnace. I need more bills like I need a hole in the head.
If that was it. Not too bad, but I've been having stomach cramps off and on today, chills, sinus pressure and a headache all day. I am not well today.
But wait it gets better. I had a technician come in to look at my furnace that has been shutting off at random times. The technician's prognosis; I need a new furnace. I need more bills like I need a hole in the head.
Greetings and salutations to all from a community lurker. I am relatively new to the wide world of steamy goodness, and have very little in the way of proper steampunk attire. In order to remedy that, I was hoping that I might be directed towards some nice sites online where I may begin to create a personal steampunk look for myself.
Thank you kindly and cheers to you all!
Thank you kindly and cheers to you all!
- Mood:
cheerful
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/psychecorp
I'm happy to announce that Psyche Corporation's third album, "Pretend" is now available on CD Baby. Psyche Corporation is a fairytale darkwave band on the Gilded Age Records steampunk label, and this newest album is an eclectic collection of spell-binding cyberpunk neomythology with guest world overlaps into Wonderland and Oz. You can hear some of the new songs in streaming form on myspace at http://myspace.com/psychecorp
More information on ordering options is available on the psychecorp wordpress blog here. You can also find a free download of the song "Wonderland" if you hunt around the Discography page of our main website at http://www.psychecorporation.com
Thank you and have a lovely day!
We're back! Between the game running long (TWO! overtimes), and the wait for the cheerleaders and athletic department staff to clear security (band? football team? coaching staff? done and through. cheerleaders? staff? not so much.) and deicing (yes, in Mobile), they didn't take off until nearly 3ayem est, and landed at 0515. (got a text from SR while I was on the road.) I got to campus about 0530, parked in the lot where they were going to debark, curled up under a blankie and went back to sleep. :) 90 minutes later, I get a call from an obviously just-woken up SR "we're here. my bus is in front of the building, getting band luggage that had been on the football bus, will be around the side shortly." So I went and held the door for the unloading crew, snagging her bag as it went by, and waited for her to show up.
We got home about 0930. She ate a bowl of cereal and went to bed. She's still sleeping.
I fed the birds and the fish, then took a nap myself -- I'm getting old and creaky, and 3.5 hours of sleep, 90 minutes of it in the car, just isn't enough anymore. I'm glad the snow held off until we got home -- a couple of patches of freezing mist, but not much effect on the roads. It's now snowing fairly hard, but there's no wind, and the birds are settling in close to the food-- the rose bush is full of sparrows and finches and juncos, blackbirds and doves in the boxelder, and jays and cardinals out in the woods' edge. And there's a pair of Northern Flickers around here somewhere -- they just flew off from the suet cake.
We got home about 0930. She ate a bowl of cereal and went to bed. She's still sleeping.
I fed the birds and the fish, then took a nap myself -- I'm getting old and creaky, and 3.5 hours of sleep, 90 minutes of it in the car, just isn't enough anymore. I'm glad the snow held off until we got home -- a couple of patches of freezing mist, but not much effect on the roads. It's now snowing fairly hard, but there's no wind, and the birds are settling in close to the food-- the rose bush is full of sparrows and finches and juncos, blackbirds and doves in the boxelder, and jays and cardinals out in the woods' edge. And there's a pair of Northern Flickers around here somewhere -- they just flew off from the suet cake.
- Mood:
busy
So last night I watched the VH1 documentary on Anvil. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Anvil is a metal band that influenced a lot of the larger acts that made it big but never got a break themselves and is now in their 50's, still doing the band and touring thing.
I watched it hoping it would cheer me up, but it kind of had the opposite effect. I really have had this shitty time lately with my art/films/etc.
I don't have a solid confirmation on this, but I think the main reason most great artists go mad is for very similar reasons to the reasons most unknown artists go mad too. When you want to make art, music, movies, literature, it's like this fucking curse. You wonder why you do it, especially if it's not going anywhere. It's also not something that you can walk away from either, the desire to create these things. I'd liken it to a sick sexual perversion that you wish you weren't aflicted with but are helpless to change. It can hurt you and make you miserable but you still find yourself indulging in it compulsively because it's a part of you. Part of you would die if you weren't doing it.
My biggest fear is this - I've been at these office jobs for a while now and every once in a while I will find someone who has some great talent but ended up doing customer service with their life since they never got a break. I wonder if that is going to be me. If I am going to be this person who people in my office go "Hey did you know that guy does films too? Wonder why he's working here..." which is a shotgun to mouth inspiring thought.
It's a mixture of everything.... I suck at going through proper channels. I am usually massively rejected by those means and I always have to find some backwards ass way to make everything work. Sometimes I have to be thankful that gravity is a planetary law because if not I just fucking know I'd have to find a way to install a sink upside down because it wouldn't work for me if it was given a choice. So yes, I am always having to re-engineer everytihng to accomplish thigns that others have little to no problems with.
Money is another issue. I am usually broke. There have been 3 events in my life where I had the option to change that, but it would have required me to do something I considered to be immoral. I could have very easily sold someone or some ideal out and made a more productive life, but I also would have had to live with a lie that most people would be ok with, but I was not. So for moral reasons I turned these opportunities down so I could sleep at night and not feel like an asshole. Luckily I don't feel ike an asshole, I just sort of feel like a chump.
Getting older and feeling like you're running out of time sucks. You hear about all the people who are mega famous and are like 20-fucking-3 and you think "Shit, that's not me, what if I just missed my time?" it seems like everyone is youth obsessed and after a certain point you aren't really marketable.
Everyone is always telling me that they think I am destined for great things but I almost think that can't possibly be right. I believed that for a long time and contrary to my sense of humor and writings, I am generally optimistic. I am willing to take risks and I have an innate talent for saving the situation literally seconds from disaster or failure. Generally I look at situations that no one else will have faith in and making it work for me, but recently I have started to lose that faith. Lately I have had the hardest time even getting motivated to do simple projects and I end up just wanting to call it quits. Sometimes I wish everyone would have told me my work sucked and I'd never amount to anything because then I would have been more hell bent on proving them wrong and maybe I'd be farther ahead right now.
I'm not writing this for pity, sympathy or to be a whiny bitch, I am posting this mostly becasue I need to dump these thoughts out somewhere. I generally hate bullshit like this, but it's either vent somewhere or stab someone in the jugular with a pair of scissors, and I can't find my good throat stabbing scissors right now.
I watched it hoping it would cheer me up, but it kind of had the opposite effect. I really have had this shitty time lately with my art/films/etc.
I don't have a solid confirmation on this, but I think the main reason most great artists go mad is for very similar reasons to the reasons most unknown artists go mad too. When you want to make art, music, movies, literature, it's like this fucking curse. You wonder why you do it, especially if it's not going anywhere. It's also not something that you can walk away from either, the desire to create these things. I'd liken it to a sick sexual perversion that you wish you weren't aflicted with but are helpless to change. It can hurt you and make you miserable but you still find yourself indulging in it compulsively because it's a part of you. Part of you would die if you weren't doing it.
My biggest fear is this - I've been at these office jobs for a while now and every once in a while I will find someone who has some great talent but ended up doing customer service with their life since they never got a break. I wonder if that is going to be me. If I am going to be this person who people in my office go "Hey did you know that guy does films too? Wonder why he's working here..." which is a shotgun to mouth inspiring thought.
It's a mixture of everything.... I suck at going through proper channels. I am usually massively rejected by those means and I always have to find some backwards ass way to make everything work. Sometimes I have to be thankful that gravity is a planetary law because if not I just fucking know I'd have to find a way to install a sink upside down because it wouldn't work for me if it was given a choice. So yes, I am always having to re-engineer everytihng to accomplish thigns that others have little to no problems with.
Money is another issue. I am usually broke. There have been 3 events in my life where I had the option to change that, but it would have required me to do something I considered to be immoral. I could have very easily sold someone or some ideal out and made a more productive life, but I also would have had to live with a lie that most people would be ok with, but I was not. So for moral reasons I turned these opportunities down so I could sleep at night and not feel like an asshole. Luckily I don't feel ike an asshole, I just sort of feel like a chump.
Getting older and feeling like you're running out of time sucks. You hear about all the people who are mega famous and are like 20-fucking-3 and you think "Shit, that's not me, what if I just missed my time?" it seems like everyone is youth obsessed and after a certain point you aren't really marketable.
Everyone is always telling me that they think I am destined for great things but I almost think that can't possibly be right. I believed that for a long time and contrary to my sense of humor and writings, I am generally optimistic. I am willing to take risks and I have an innate talent for saving the situation literally seconds from disaster or failure. Generally I look at situations that no one else will have faith in and making it work for me, but recently I have started to lose that faith. Lately I have had the hardest time even getting motivated to do simple projects and I end up just wanting to call it quits. Sometimes I wish everyone would have told me my work sucked and I'd never amount to anything because then I would have been more hell bent on proving them wrong and maybe I'd be farther ahead right now.
I'm not writing this for pity, sympathy or to be a whiny bitch, I am posting this mostly becasue I need to dump these thoughts out somewhere. I generally hate bullshit like this, but it's either vent somewhere or stab someone in the jugular with a pair of scissors, and I can't find my good throat stabbing scissors right now.
I went out to gas up the car this morning, and -- thanks to the light layer of freezing drizzle -- it was already a bit of a hockey rink.
Weather forecasts say there will be unseasonable cold, snow that won't melt off the roads, and ice all the way down to frickin' Miami.
I can drive for two days, pay for hotels, and be a nervous wreck... or I can stay home and have exactly the same weather.
So, please forgive me, those of you who were hoping to see me at GAFilk. I'd love to be there, I'd planned to be there... but I'm a nervous nelly driving in this kinda stuff. Hugs to all, I hope you have a blast, and I'll see you at other cons.
Who is going to GAFilk this year?
Weather forecasts say there will be unseasonable cold, snow that won't melt off the roads, and ice all the way down to frickin' Miami.
I can drive for two days, pay for hotels, and be a nervous wreck... or I can stay home and have exactly the same weather.
So, please forgive me, those of you who were hoping to see me at GAFilk. I'd love to be there, I'd planned to be there... but I'm a nervous nelly driving in this kinda stuff. Hugs to all, I hope you have a blast, and I'll see you at other cons.
Who is going to GAFilk this year?
Hello all. :-) My boyfriend's been making clothes for himself for a while now and has been having a fine time of it! He's now branching out into making things for other people, and has put his first design on ebay here:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Black-Moleskin-Sl
He's just taken a commission for one with sleeves (an extra £10 I believe) and may also be making a full length one in the near future. He'll have some other designs up soon too, so even if you don't necessarily like this particular model it's probably worth bookmarking him for future reference. :-)
I'm sure if you ask nicely he'd be able to make this in all sorts of different fabrics too!
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Black-Moleskin-Sl
He's just taken a commission for one with sleeves (an extra £10 I believe) and may also be making a full length one in the near future. He'll have some other designs up soon too, so even if you don't necessarily like this particular model it's probably worth bookmarking him for future reference. :-)
I'm sure if you ask nicely he'd be able to make this in all sorts of different fabrics too!
- Mood:
hopeful
A long while ago I believe that someone in this community posted information about a Steampunk convention in Michigan, I want to say it would be in May. Silly me, I didn't bookmark the website. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, or is part of planning said con could you let me know what the website is?
I promised pictures of our tree this year and I've finally gotten around to posting them. Normally, we'd like to still have the tree up for Twelfth Night, but the city recycling wanted it on Monday, so we took it down on Sunday night. *sigh*
But it was a good tree as you'll see.
( Tree and little girls inside... )
But it was a good tree as you'll see.
( Tree and little girls inside... )
Page Summary
- shsilver : I Squeeed [+0]
- kevinnickerson : Talent [+0]
- ericcoleman : Just wondering what you think [+3]
- kevinnickerson : Where is the 2002 comic CD? [+0]
- billroper : Here Comes the Snow Again [+0]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif)
news :: theljstaff : State of the Goat 2009 [+221]
- zifferent : State of the Zifferent Address [+1]
- steamfashion :: lasselenta : (no subject) [+2]
- steamfashion :: parallel_rose : Pretend now available on CD Baby! [+0]
- jennlk : and after a nap.... [+0]
- utterlyjaded : Drowning Pool [+0]
- pyrotech_c3h8 : (no subject) [+23]
- filkertom : No GAFilk This Year [+53]
- rmjwell : Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2010-01-07 [+0]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif)
sinfestfeed : 2010-01-07: Sinfest [+9] - steamfashion :: alixandrea : Steamy waistcoat/jacket [+9]
- steamfashion :: violetsonfire : Conventions [+3]
- also_huey : Return Of The Heating Oil Guy [+0]
- apod : The Spotty Surface of Betelgeuse [+14]
- billroper : The 2009 Christmas Tree [+2]