q99

Amateurs

2008-07-06T13:12:45Z

This is a short mini-story I wrote based on a scene that popped into my head of the idea of the conquering of a world on credit coming up in casual conversation :)

----
"Bah, amateurs," she said dismissively, stepping over the unconscious body of one of the council of would-be world conquerors.

"What, professional? You don't mean to tell me you've taken over a world before? And been [i]paid[/i] for it," her companion asked.

"In fact, I'm on the job right now," she said confidently, arms folded.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Ok, it's on credit," she dropped her arms to her sides, "but I'm still being paid to hand this world over to certain parties."

"Color me skeptical. Even if you could do something like that on your own, and don't get me wrong, dealing with that group was pretty impressive, but doing it on credit? I just don- wait, what's that?" the companion raised his head at the sound of a growing roar in the distance.

"That's the best part," she said with a grin, and grabbed his hand, dragging him down the long hallway of the building, the roar growing louder as they approached.

When they reached the balcony she motioned with her hand at the huge throng of people representative of all the major populations of the planet, celebrating the removal of another obstacle on the road that would make their own world theirs again.

"Behold, my clients."

-ZeroiaSD

Jhegaala

2008-07-05T16:09:15Z

I called the bookstore to see if they had a copy of Steve Brust's latest novel, Jhegaala, but they told me it wasn't out yet.

Disappointed, I swung by the bookstore anyway and picked up a copy off the shelves.

Tokyopop axes a lot of English series

2008-07-02T22:30:39Z

Tokyopop's OEL series

Ok, for those who don't know, Tokyopop is going under a lot of reorginization and shrinking to about half it's size. There were warning signs and they finally did something about it, but they're losing a lot of titles.

Amoung those are their english-creator works, which I read a lot of, and looking at the list there of who made it and who didn't... I'm oddly not too disappointed. Most of the ones I really like are either continuing or are finishing with their planned 2 or 3 volume (probably a smart move, going for small first) runs. So while I'm disappointed, it's not as crushing as I thought it'd be.

The only two I really feel disappointed with are that they're not continuing Dark Moon Diary (which will get one more volume) or Steady Beat (which won't). I wouldn't feel bad if Pantheon High or some of the others continued, but those are the two on the cancelled list I really looked forward to.

Considering the company's cutting half of everything, that's not too bad.

So, cancer

2008-07-02T04:33:42Z

These people are against it and have a treatment that works 100% of the time on mice and within three months will know if it works on humans.

Also here's the Discovery channel's Boom De Yada video which I've been watching repeatedly for the last few days.

Photo of the turtle

2008-07-01T02:02:50Z

Unimaginatively titled Turtle power

You can't tell from the picture but that tail's pretty long, and she/he wasn't a small turtle :)

Turtle rescued!

2008-06-29T19:36:44Z

In the light of day I got the turtle out of the window-hole. She/he had buried himself a bit and needed that cleared off, then I picked her/him up and carried her/him far away where turtle could go off safely.

The turtle was about a foot long (not including tail) and quite big, and a snapping turtle. And did some healthy trashing while being carried so seemed to be in good shape. And I took some pictures after release :)

There's a turtle clawing at my window!

2008-06-29T05:30:49Z

Wow, there's a statement I don't get to use often.

There's a turtle outside the window scratching at the light.

Alternate Hulks with Lore

2008-06-28T05:40:16Z

I love Curious Hulk.

Art tradey thing

2008-06-27T03:06:18Z

I did a new coloration of an artist's characters and got a piccie of my Zero Consciences in return :D

Also I drew a guy with no clothes and an excessive censorship blob XD

Minor annoyance

2008-06-26T03:49:49Z

Minor annoyance: The comic store is getting in a whole bunch of comics I want (mostly Gold Digger, and the Gold Digger Tiffany and Charlette special).

But they tend to do comics late on Wednesday so there's no point in going in on that day. And tomorrow I'm going to the dentist in the morning to finish off all the crowns and work they did when they pulled the wisdom teeth last time I was there. And it's the 'stick a needle, give you some sleepy juice, work for a few hours' kind dentist visit so I'll be out of action all day.

So my opportunity to actually get those comics will be Friday at the earliest, possibly Saturday, and I won't be fully recovered until maybe Monday (mostly due to dehydration- no drinking for a day before plus that's one of the side effects).

Ugh, sick

2008-06-25T03:29:14Z

I'm on the tail end of a short, temporarily bad, but otherwise minor cold. The worst is over but the most notiable part is the vast quantities of mucus that collects in my sinus cavaties. It doesn't run too much, it's just every few hours I end up spending about a minute clearing them out at the sink. Which is a disturbing amount of mucus. Ok, now gross stuff over.

In better news I got a really good haul at a used bookstore. 4 online comic collections- two of Ctrl-Alt-Del and two of Theater Hoppers (which I've never read but seems like fun) and Simpsons season 4 (but they don't let you use book credit for DVDs so I had to pay for it unlike the others ;p Still have $27 left in free books for later).

I've also started picking up the D&D 4ed core books. I only have the PHB left to go.

Thoughts on thoughts

2008-06-23T23:42:55Z

It is very hard to tell what another person thinks like and there's little written on the form and flow of normal thoughts flitting through people's heads.

This despite the fact that it should be information anyone can provide just by talking or thinking exactly (or as close as they can) what they're thinking.

Just an idle musing.

This messed with me so bad

2008-06-20T19:07:22Z

The first thing I did on reading this was hit Google but I can't find anywhere else that says if it's true or not ;_;

Alpha Centauri 2 would be so awesome (or heck, 1 with updated graphics)

Tree

2008-06-18T13:06:37Z

I got a cool picture of the tree that fell over tree climin'.

P.S. I haven't gotten a lot of comments recently. Is everyone out or something?

Tim-ber!

2008-06-17T08:55:09Z

A tree fell into my backyard from my neighbor's due to yesterday's storm!

It was surprisingly quiet falling but when I went out to check some of the branches supporting it were still creeking and cracking under the weight. It might've causes some damage to other trees but it's hard to tell.

Death Cult dream

2008-06-16T20:13:57Z

In the dream I have feathered wings, and I'm infiltrating a huge building/series of buildings with odd architecture that are run by a powerful group that is really a death cult of some sort.

I see some other people with wings, butterfly-ish ones, near an entrance at the bottom of a tower/shaft that rose as a cylander with green walls and strips on the floor and leading up on the inside. They were talking about being selected for some project, and I joined up with them. I talked with them and made some flubs but managed to fast talk cover for them since they were pretty eager to be there and apparently didn't know anything sinister was going on.

We flew up the shaft and into an area with a more hotel-ish setup at the top, where we parted ways, they followed some of the lines on the floor and I followed another, intent on snooping deeper.

There was a big meeting/ceremony of some sort going on, and I wandered around checking stuff. I ran into a scientist-type, a black guy, at a table. He seemed to know what was going on. We talked and he dropped some hints on where I should go. He also gave a quote about everyone having a time limit, then after the quote added that not everyone has it internal. Apparently the proceedure to grow wings gave everyone who had it a time bomb of sorts, past which they'd drop over dead, which wasn't common knowledge even with those who knew of the death orginization but we were both aware. I apparently knew this and nodded, and he wished me luck as we parted ways.

A bit later a big ceremony started with all the cult members, and a precession going down a wide hallway. Everyone on the sidelines like me kneeled and lowered their heads as they passed so I did too. During certain parts of the performance they would say chants and certain phrases to which everyone responded with certain ritual gestures. I tried to copy them as other people did them to blend in, only slightly behind the others. Someone else in front of me made a motion to stop with his hand but I didn't realize what he was motioning for so I tried to copy the next series that came up too. It turned out that as I was a winged one I was assumed to be of a special chosen class and I was *only* supposed to lower my head, the various hand-signs and replies were just for normal members of the cult and the other winged people, including him, weren't doing them, which I hadn't noticed. He motioned again, he was trying to cover for me, but it was too late and someone loyal to the cult noticed.

Pointed out, a big commotion erupted and I made a break for it, luckily gaining a head start since they weren't expecting me, but still I was really outnumbered and basically doomed until another group attacked and caused confusion with a few well-placed explosions. An animal-like guy lept down and grabbed me, and started to take me to safty, saying how I'd be safe with them and he'd hope I'd join up with their cause. He was a genetic experiment of the cult that was part of a resistance movement. Unfortunately I remembered it was one of two resistance movements, the decidedly less good one, who both cared little about colateral damage to innocents and wanted to steal tech from the cult. Fortunately amoung the group that attacked the precession were also some women and men from the other group and I resolved to join up with them.

That's around where the dream ended.

Future crime: Short term vs long term

2008-06-14T19:57:21Z

"In the future we find crime to be little problem due to our focus on the long run. The shorter term plans are easily dealt with by our long-term anti crime strategies. The more they try to force us to make gambles based on the short term to try and put us at a disadvantage use up more resources to do so and burn out after all the fewer attempts when they are thwarted, causing criminals to focus on longer and longer term planning before finally springing their plots until they finally get to a point where predicted success mathmatically ends up occuring after the end of the universe and they throw their hands up and give up on crime entirely.

Still, some keep trying. There's one impressive group with a fantastic plan to conquer all existance that seems to have a high chance of success when it's finally launched in approximately 17 times the entire length of the universe, counting on the GC's simultanious universe-extension project to be successful. We'd be worried, but we're predicting we'll be able to come up with a counter in six to eight times the length of the universe." -Quote from noted participant in the Galactic Concord Anti-Crime force, year 128,003 of the standard calander.

Bees and a Snake

2008-06-12T04:50:58Z

Pics of Bees

and a Snake

Some random encounters in Georgetown I photographed. The bees on one of the streets, the snake was next to the canal- snakey also disappeared into a snake hole right near where his/her head is now in that photo.

On Dating

2008-06-07T04:29:48Z

I love Kung Fu

2008-06-07T00:31:59Z

One thing I haven't talked a lot about here is martial arts, which is odd because it's something I really like.

When I was young, I did Tae Kwon Do for a little, but didn't do it for all that long. I think I remember a few techniques from it.

Much later, a few years ago, I studied Kung Fu at an interesting school. Was was unusual about this school (as far as I can tell) is that each level involved learned from an entirely different style. They were all set up so you'd be ready for each by the next one, and there were two per sash level, generally one armed and one not. Plus some stuff before you got to white, 4 at brown, stuff on the side including Hap Ki Do grappling (the Grand Master didn't like Kung Fu Chi'na grappling so he borrowed) and short forms from other styles, etc.. End result? 8 belts, something like 20+ styles in 3 years. Around 1/3rd of them some variety of weapons form in six different weapons.

Now I'm a walking encyclopedia of martial arts moves. Am I a great fighter? Not really. I can definitely fight but knowning all sorts of moves doesn't actually help per say. In a sparing match I'd pretty much stick to moves from two or three of the more direct ones that I'm best at, like Mantis which is very effective. Mixing it up in styles is for fun, not for effectiveness, and throwing moves from all over the place isn't really different from just using one style.

Do I care? Nah, that way was great. Now I can watch almost any martial art and either recognize it or be able to figure it out really fast, and from just three years of training. As the teacher said, you didn't learn Kung Fu there to fight, you learned it because you loved Kung Fu, and I did.

Eventually I quit because my tendons in both knees got damaged, but it was a really fun thing that I really enjoyed doing.

Storm

2008-06-05T01:28:02Z

A storm's hit this area really hard. While driving out on the GW parkway with my dad for a food shop, the traffic was horrible due to downed tree branches, pools of water, etc.. Inching forward. We heard a large crack behind us which I thought was another branch. We had been planning on turning back and going to a closer spot but what had happened was an entire tree had falled across the road and hit a truck, blocking things completely, so we went forward instead. 3-4 more small roads we passed along the way also had trees down, and more than a few cars we saw in parking lots and one other in a street were hit by fallen branches and trees.

We've also temporarily lost power a few times, but it should be fine now.

Teeth sore

2008-06-04T05:28:58Z

One unforeseen bit from the removal: Now with more space in my mouth, my teeth are thus shifting a bit and thus many of them are sore. Not too painful but really distracting sometimes.

In book/manga news, Hollow Field vol 2 came out. It's a really fun comic about a girl at an evil mad science boarding school. I recommend it.

Finished Matter

2008-06-01T00:00:54Z

I finished the Culture book Matter and I'm both pleased and disappointed.

Pleased because it was very very good. Disappointed because although Iain M. Banks said it'd flesh out some more of the major Involved races of the Cultureverse, and indeed it did, they didn't play as large of a role as I'd have liked from that teaser. I'd loved to have seen more of the political side and fallout.

One of my minor peaves with a lot of SF novels is they focus on the POV of a more primitive group looking at the main group. I can totally understand why they do this, but I'm still in it for the Culture and others of their ilk, as otherwise cool as the primitives may be. I'm ok if it's presented like that from the get-go, Inversions I liked because it was presented as a story of a primitive world that if you squint you can see the Culture behind it, but it's hard to throw a rock without hitting a 50/50% primitive/advanced mix when looking for a story about an advanced culture it seems.

Status of teeth remove

2008-05-30T01:07:25Z

Yea, I'm good. That wasn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, partially due to being out the entire time (I also had some other work done at the same time btw, get it all in one go).

The worst part was probably leading up to it when I have a brief seizure due to low blood pressure, but after that actually getting an IV wasn't as bad.

Things to do tomorrow

2008-05-28T19:13:35Z

1) Get wisdom teeth removed
2) ????
3) Profit!