Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

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Sunday, June 3rd, 2012
austin_dern	12:47p	I'm looking through you and you're not there The new modem, according to tech support, might arrive as early as Tuesday, which of course it didn't. When it did arrive it had that nice new-consumer-electronics smell, of course, as well as some of those bells and whistles that you get with modems these days. By this I mean that little plastic stand so you can have it rest vertically instead of horizontally. I like the way it looks, set up vertically. Plus it means we don't have to handle a stray piece of curved plastic. I plugged in and went to the setup menu where I discovered that the form it offered wanted the order number for this modem. There was an order number on the invoice. The web page form proclaimed that my number was invalid. It didn't even have the right format, in number of characters or in placement of letters and digits. The page suggested that there was some enclosed piece of paper containing the number; it didn't. It also claimed the shipping label of the carton would have the number. Again, it didn't. So I called Verizon and this time got someone who explained that while the documentation said I needed the order number and had to enter things at this one page, in actual fact, I didn't need that at all and should go to a completely different page to set up the system. I would find all this ridiculous except of course the setup instructions they would send have nothing to do with what one must do to set it up. Really, I was the unreasonable one for thinking otherwise. Going through this other page I got the new modem set up, pretty quickly, with the old modem's identification and password and such so that we didn't have to do the really dreadful affair, resetting the network connections for stuff like the wireless printer and the Wii and all that. I know we'd never got all that done. And meanwhile, apparently coincidentally, the phone line died tonight. An angry call to Verizon established that the phone line is dead, and we are in the queue to have it looked at sometime before the end of time, with repair to follow if they decide on it. Trivia: Estimates of the number of people who converged on the German town of Constance in 1414, to address the problem of three simultaneous Popes, range between 40 and 150 thousand people over its three years. At least 700 high-ranking Church officials did attend. Source: The Fourth Part Of The World: THe Race To The Ends Of The Earth, And The Epic Story Of The Map That Gave America Its Name, Toby Lester. Currently Reading: Continuum 2, Editor Roger Elwood. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 1st, 2012
tarinfirepelt	11:54p	Do you have a Dirty Mind? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 2nd, 2012
austin_dern	12:10p	Johnny Thunder lives on water, feeds on lightning We have some evidence that the house was struck by lightning recently. Not directly, of course. If it had been we wouldn't need evidence. There was a house in the development struck by lightning last year and that's extremely striking, what with how four-fifths of it wasn't there anymore, and the sides of the houses beside it were either burned or melted. However, over the weekend and the start of this week we accumulated pieces of data that suggest something happened. The first was with my parents' television set. The set itself has been a little wonky for ages --- the picture flutters and distorts like an alien energy being on the original Star Trek, at least until it sufficiently warms up --- but now the cable box wasn't showing anything but an error code which their technical support people couldn't identify. Their guess was that the access card had shorted out, and they promised to send a replacement priority mail which should fix everything. Then, too, was the DSL. It's been prone to suddenly failing, yes, but over the weekend it went from blacking out on occasional Fridays to going through intermittent hours of service with intermittent hours of blackout. While working through the issue with their tech support --- and a surprisingly responsive person who actually listened to what I was saying --- we tried replacing the DSL filter thingy and found that there was just a steady source of static from something on the phone lines, with our modem the apparent cause. But it also sounded like something fried at least one DSL filter. The other piece of evidence was the other phone, from which we swiped a DSL filter in order to test the first filter. That phone unit's dead. No dial tone, no signal, no nothing. It was plugged in and the base station was fine, but, the phone itself wouldn't respond to any button anywhere. No great loss since the phone wasn't very good and the clock would lose its timekeeping every few days (and it was the answering machine, so we kinda wanted to know what time calls came in). But the phone needs replacing certainly. All this could be coincidence, certainly. Our DSL has never been very good and the modem being faulty is a good guess, as is the filter being faulty. Phones do die. And access cards can short out anytime. But all these did come to a head in short order after a severe thunderstorm, one producing over 82 inches of rain in two minutes before it got heavy. It's a possibility, at least. Trivia: The New York Mutuals baseball club of the late 1860s was packed with secretly professional players nominally employed by the city's coroners. Source: But Didn't We Have fun? An Informal History Of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843 - 1870, Peter Morris. Currently Reading: Undersea Quest, Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson. PS: One Way To Fall Over, as I start figuring out how to make a box fall over. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 1st, 2012
gafennec	2:47p	Mike news. Got a call from the DFACS worker working on Mike's case. Her last day is next Friday so she wants to have all the cases closed by then. So we should know something in a week. So cross your eyes, fingers, legs, toes for luck! EDIT: Since nothing ever goes to plan; I expect an appeal will have to be filled, but I can hope right? Current Mood: hopeful (8 Comments |Comment on this)
chefmongoose	10:59a	The last day to Pre-Register for Anthrocon is TODAY, June 1st! Today is the last day to pre-register for Anthrocon 2012!  Pre-Registration offers several advantages: * There are shorter and faster-moving lines for all pre-registered attendees. You'll be on your way in, on average, a third of the time. * It's $10 cheaper for Attending and Sponsor members- $50 versus $60, and $100 verus $110! *Only Pre-registered Supersponsors get an invitation to the Supersponsor luncheon, with our Guests of Honor! * One less purchase to worry about at the convention- you'll get to relax and know it's taken care of! http://www.anthrocon.org/registration is the direct URL, and it's definitely time to get your registration in. Read the standards of conduct, ready your Mastercard, Visa, or Discover card, and register today! Do tell your friends- especially those first-time attendees who may not know how long the lines will get. There are over 3500 people that have Pre-registered already- join them! Remember, that's http://www.anthrocon.org/registration ! --Chi Also follow @AnthroconReg on Twitter for Registration updates! (Comment on this)
austin_dern	12:10p	I see you here looking just the way you should The early 2000's: was there another time to be a game show producer? Yes, there was, and were. But it was an era in which speculation and experimentation in the field were given freedom to develop in all sorts of directions as long as the result was on a dark, polished-metallic set with way too heavy a bass soundtrack. Fox's Shine and Hands as well as ABC's Got Yer Nose ran for two months each before anyone noticed they were just subway security camera footage, and CBS's Sad New Year ran for thirteen episodes after that. Now we've reached a new equilibrium of attempting various ways to give people money or prizes for being able to correctly name James A Garfield (the closest so far has been ``James C Garfield'', by C Garfield James of Jamesburg, who won a no-expenses-paid-but-we'll-not-actually-kick-you-or-anything trip to Garfield) so we can look back at some of the more bizarre failed experiments. What, Or Why? appeared on NBC for six weeks in the spring of 2003, then snuck to CBS for a four-week run until it was caught and chased out by angry cameramen wielding brooms, after which it spent two and a half weeks going up and down Manhattan's Park Avenue disguised as an elevator, following which it returned to the ABC Family channel pretending to be a roommate from college, and then spent the rest of the summer as a screen saver on the back porch until the dog licked it on suspicion attempted meatballs. Despite a lack of mention, or ``buzz'' as it was known, due to bee colony collapse disorder the entire run of the show is now available by going to YouTube and banging on the office door until the employees give in to your demands. Go to the correct office as the other one on the floor there has very weak glass doors and they're very near fed up with cleaning up shards. What, or Why? attempted to break outside the genre boundaries of answering trivia questions and attempting physical challenges through novel hybrids, including one segment in which contestants were expected to answer physical challenges. Likely this sealed the show's as on the first episode several dozen residents of C street in Garfield were presented with a tire and none came up with the correct answer of ``yes''. Also acceptable would have been ``that is a tire'', ``that is not a box of police tape'', and, ``thanks, but I had a catalytic converter for lunch''. By the second episode as contestants were attempting to assemble a President while standing on only their feet and a pre-made floor many viewers at home naturally wondered what they were watching, as they were on another channel or taking the Interstate to their friends' new apartment (none of this latter group got away with it, for want of closet space). Viewing the episodes now I can't help being distracted by the pack of rather large ants crawling over the TV screen. They seem to be seasonal or something, and only spend a couple weeks prowling around until they finish their large ant chores, but they're startling while they're around. These aren't really giant ants, rarely more than twenty feet long and have those bulbous parts about the size of watermelons, so you'd think they were too heavy to climb up the TV screen but there you go. ``But Wally,'' you might object, ``having bugs in your home isn't the show's fault. It's probably yours for leaving your aphid butter out of the fridge.'' My name isn't Wally. I don't know whose is. Also I don't think we're really on nickname terms, except for you, Lenny. There's no need to be unprofessional. The final segment of the last episode shows what it might have achieved. Contestants were expected to match up men's socks, and some of them had the excellent idea to match them with chilly snakes. A few weeks further along these lines and we might have found which pairs of snakes weren't really the same color and got them all slithering into ice-cold puddles. Trivia: There are 361 regular days in the Baha'i calendar. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards. Currently Reading: Words That Make New Jersey History, Editor Howard L Green. PS: Tipping The Toy, starting a new line of inquiry based on a question my brother gave me. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
jayblanc	4:03a	So... Prometheus is worth seeing. Entry cross-posted from Dreamwidth. Post a comment there or here, there are currently posted on dreamwidth. (You can login with your LiveJournal OpenID account.) (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 31st, 2012
jayblanc	10:30p	I've just had an unfortunate incident with someone sending me email that unintentionally disclosed an email address and recipient that they really shouldn't have. So this is a public service message... The Blind Carbon Copy field (BCC:) in an email allows you to send a copy to a recipient that will not be disclosed to other recipients of the email. All recipients will still see all other emails in To: and CC: (Carbon Copy) fields. So if you wish to send an email to two people, and maintain one email address secret, you send it with the secret address in the BCC: field. If you wish to send an email where all recipients are kept secret from each other, you send it to an email address that is not a real recipient and put all the recipients in BCC: fields. This is usually done by putting your own email address in the To: field. It is important to note that only BCC: fields are kept secret. Never To: and CC: fields. Entry cross-posted from Dreamwidth. Post a comment there, there are currently posted on dreamwidth. (You can login with your LiveJournal OpenID account.)
austin_dern	12:10p	We could try some fancy cheese After that evening in Manhattan, I followed up the next day by ... going up to Manhattan. I didn't have any particular objective for this; it just struck me that while I'll certainly visit the city again, it'll be more likely for particular purposes. Going up just to go, while something I don't do much, is something that is a lot easier now than it's going to be after next month. I don't regret this change, but, I wanted to take advantage of the chance while I could. First thing I discovered was that a fast food place I'd figured on going --- Yoshinoya, which amused me to no end in Singapore with its offering of a big bowl of meat (or chicken, or meat and chicken, or even just plain veggies), has pulled out of the New York City market. The spot near the Port Authority where they had been is being converted to a Five Guys. A shame, really, too bad. But I've suffered worse in life, and it's not like bowls of rice with stuff on top is a particularly exotic recipe. However, in my wanderings around it did mean I ended up not actually eating anywhere, and instead just grabbing snacks where I might. Cliche as this might sound, what I ended up stopping in was book stores, including wandering around used book stores. I even got to be that minimal possible level of helpful person, by being there when a woman holding a bag of books asked if I knew the way to the Strand. It's where I had meant to go too. I was not precisely sure, except that I was certain I was on the right cross street and just had to find Broadway on it. I admitted what I was sure about and then was glad to see a few steps farther along that the bookstore came into view. That's the most anecdote-worthy piece of the day, really, and I admit it's not that thrilling to anyone but myself. It was about what I'd want to do, given the day, though. Trivia: After the murder of President James Garfield, department store magnate --- and transatlantic telegraph cable sponsor --- Cyrus Field organized the fund which raised $362,000 for Garfield's dependents. Source: How The World Was One: Beyond The Global Village, Arthur C Clarke. Currently Reading: Words That Make New Jersey History, Editor Howard L Green. PS: A Night In Wonderland ... nothing substantial from me, to be honest, just passing along a report of a night at the National Museum of Scotland which I enjoyed. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012
austin_dern	12:10p	And we would count the evening stars as the day grew dark So despite the rain and the interruption for medical emergency the rest of the play went off quite nicely, and successfully, even if my father and my Connecticut uncle were confused by the second of the breaks in the play. There were two intermissions, you see, and somehow they missed the word about this and couldn't figure why there was no curtain call and why the masses weren't particularly leaving after the second act. (While the second act did end in a cliffhanger, it was also at a moment that could have plausibly been a conclusion, since all the major characters had set out what they intended to do and what results they expected to follow.) After, we all went to Junior's for cheesecake. I didn't really want to eat more --- the horrible truth is my weight's crept up since last year, not to horrible proportions but more than I want --- and I wanted to get back home so I could be with bunny_hugger online, but it also struck me that I had no idea when I'd be getting together with my parents and my aunts and uncle and all for an event. I mean other than the end of next month. So I took the experience, as who had enough of those, and supposed I could just exercise a little more the next day. (I gained over a pound from the day's activity.) Following that I walked back to the Port Authority, in order to get the bus back to the park and ride. My parents were driving to my Long Island aunt's place to spend the night and give my father the chance to fix some stuff in her kitchen. There'd be further benefits to the family from this too, since all the excess moving boxes from her relocation a few months ago were to come home with my parents. (They did.) I got to the bus queue just in time to catch the doors opening, and while I did have to sit in the back and share a seat with a guy who was overly enthusiastic about having someone to sit beside --- and also to egg on someone who'd snuck a Big Mac meal, ``my first one in like ten years'', to his seat (eating is prohibited on the buses, after all) --- I was able to get in ... late, but not too late to see bunny_hugger, which was still the best part of the night. Trivia: The Confederate Congress in 1861 confirmed Henry Ellett as postmaster general, before Ellett had the chance to decline his nomination to the post. Source: Look Away! A History Of The Confederate States Of America, William C Davis. Currently Reading: Beyond The Spectrum, Martin Thomas. This book is almost endearing in how slapdash it is; it's set in the year 3000 but the social attitudes of everything except the computer-arranged marriages is maybe about 1952 Proper Upstanding Littrachaw For Decent People. It has also got the endearing backstory that after a tiny bit of a hiccough towards the end of the planetary wars, England has resumed her natural place as the leader in science, technology, finance, and culture, though, one of those touches where it manages to be lazy enough to fall over the edge and become clever-like. (Oh, an invisible aliens from a planet hidden by a fault line in spacetime from us invade, blah blah blah, fortunately our psychics are better than theirs. There is a good bit of wit, though, that after the first attack the quiet ``phony war'' goes on long enough that people start to become inconsiderate to strangers again.) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
austin_dern	12:10p	Who's got the pain when they do the mambo? We finally got through the tunnel and managed to get into a traffic jam waiting for the parking space since we hadn't thought to check exactly where the theater was; we just knew, 45th street between 6th and 7th --- my father and I didn't even know what theater the show, The Best Man, was in --- and so we needlessly drove through Times Square and got stuck waiting for entry into a parking garage. Inexplicably my mother wasn't willing to park on the street. After my father sighed (at the traffic, she and I thought; ``just breathing'', he thought) she suggested we get out and walk, so we got to the show just in time, but my mother would be late. And then something I never would have expected happened. The play opened with John Larroquette and entourage entering from the back of the theater, so we the audience were primed for stuff not appearing on stage to be part of the story (about the struggle at a brokered convention for the 1960 Generic Political Party candidate for President, with Larroquette one of the three leads). But after a few minutes, in the middle of the audience, was some kind of fuss and confusion and someone stood up, calling, ``We need a doctor, is there a doctor or nurse here?'' Yes, it was a legitimate ``is there a doctor in the house?'' call. Nobody seemed quite sure what to make of it, until Larroquette broke the scene and said, ``House lights. House lights, please, until the lights came on, the curtain came down, and emergency medical technicians were found. The affected woman seemed to have got out walking on her own --- I couldn't tell clearly, and didn't want to stand and peer for obvious reasons --- and after a few minutes came the announcement that it had all been handled. The play resumed from a few lines before the interruption. The play is promoted as an all-star revival on the Gore Vidal play and ``all-star'' really understates it. Besides John Larroquette (as the leading candidate for the Generic Party nomination), there's also James Earl Jones (as the previous president from the Generic Party), Candice Bergen (as Larroquette's wife), Angela Lansbury (as one of those grand dames of politics that seem to have been around back then), and would have had Michael McKean if he hadn't broken his leg (really), along with lesser but still recognizable names like Eric McCormack and Kerry Butler. Remarkably, Nathan Lane was not actually part of the show, but my mother and Long Island aunt were up for seeing the show anyway. Trivia: Rhode Island's colonial governor Samuel Cranston was reelected annually from 1697 until his death in 1727. Source: Rhode Island: A History, William G McLoughlin. Currently Reading: Postsingular, Rudy Rucker. In a plotting stretch for Rucker, some kinds and/or stoners puddle around with software until it threatens puncturing the wall between reality and another dimension. Always fun yet always somehow thin despite the expository bits that ought to be thought-engaging. PS: Quadratic Stuff In North Carolina, since we can put in some more polynomials. And I may be putting the topic on hold for a while since my (Massachusetts) brother phoned me with an urgent request for information, over something he and his significant other were debating, and I like the problem. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
jayblanc	3:42a	I'm confused by this TV show Continuum. It's filmed in Vancouver and set in... Vancouver? Is that even allowed? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 28th, 2012
murakozi	2:33p	Pony Tongue I finally got a picture of Sadie, the mare at the barn I posted about before who sticks her tongue out all the time. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
austin_dern	12:10p	They can't trick us with no hot dogmatic Despite the downpour I got home at about a half-hour before we planned to leave, which meant, we had to hurry and get in the car right away because my mother wanted to leave as soon as possible. I held things up a little because I had to do some stuff before setting out --- setting the Tivo to record the series finale of Awake, buying the release of Coda 2 because it was half-price the day-of-publication --- and besides I wanted to see if I could remember to get a replacement hoodie. (I figured I'd need something in case it got cold after dark; it didn't get very cold, but the likelihood was there.) My mother didn't think we'd have time to eat before the play --- we wouldn't --- so she figured we could go to Jersey Mike's and pick up sandwiches to eat on the way up. I figured she was joking a bit the first time she said we should do that, since I couldn't think of any time she'd ever been to Jersey Mike's. But she repeated the plan the day before and the morning of and finally I realized: she was really determined to get something at Jersey Mike's. I wonder if she's worrying about my incipient homesickness. Yet all the way up we had the news radio with its reports on traffic every ten minutes, and each report had the traffic jam at the Lincoln Tunnel just a little bit longer. We estimated the jam --- from the point where flow of traffic stopped until we got done with the helix --- at 75 minutes; the radio was saying an hour, but possibly they have different estimates for how long the trip normally takes. It did mean we were wise to save the sandwiches for that late, since an hour-plus of stop and stop traffic is marginally better if you're busy eating through it instead. Trivia: Though Admiral Nelson's HMS Victory is the oldest commissioned ship in the world, it has been in dry dock since 1922. The USS Constitution, launched 32 years later, is the oldest commissioned floating ship. Source: Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, And A Vast Ocean Of A Million Stories, Simon Winchester. (It makes me wonder what's the longest-in-drydock ship out there. Victory seems an obvious candidate but that doesn't mean it's so.) Currently Reading: The River Where America Began: A Journey Along The James, Bob Deansh. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 27th, 2012
gafennec	7:55p	Mile is home. Metro Ambulance had to call in the FD to help bring him in. He wanted Peace, Love and Pizza http://www.peaceloveandpizza.com/zgrid/themes/10433/intro/index.jsp for dinner. So single handily wiped out most of my (our) remaining money for the month. Oddly enough it's easier to get him IN than get him out of the house. Please Lord look kindly and moves DFACS to grant LTC. Current Mood: Wiped Out (14 Comments |Comment on this)
gafennec	11:22a	Mike is coming home today. Yay. Not. I have the feeling of a huge impending disaster. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
austin_dern	12:10p	What have you done to summertime I left work early Thursday. This was with their awareness --- well, the secretary's awareness, anyway. The boss hasn't been seen in a few weeks. If I understand the rumors correctly he had a little flap while flying to his out-of-state home because he had ``forgot'' that what he described to the secretary as a letter opener and that the security screeners described as an eight-inch blade was in his carry-on bag. You can see how that happens. I don't take him to be in any lingering trouble, apart from needing a new letter opener. The reason I was leaving early was that my parents were going to a Broadway play, and they'd invited me to go along with them. They'd also have my aunt from Long Island, and for that matter my aunt and uncle from Connecticut there. (Rhode Island was out originally due to other scheduling issues, but would've had to cancel this week as my aunt there had a fall and while she's fundamentally fine, she's not in shape for the many-hour drives and walking around town implied here.) We haven't gone to a Broadway play in a while --- pretty much since my Long Island aunt had to go through a round of cancer treatment coincident to losing her job, but, she's gotten a clean bill of health and has a new job that's exactly right for the semi-retired lifestyle she wants. And, of course, who knows when we'll have the chance to get together like this again? When I did leave the office, though, was also when a real Singapore-style cloudburst broke out. Thunder, heavy lightning, and extraordinarily heavy rain fell, the kind which justifies and then overflows monsoon ditches. I joked on Twitter that we got fourteen inches in three minutes, only I wasn't joking. It was heavy enough that not only was the asphalt flooded, but there were rivers formed on top of te water atop the asphalt, with currents atop currents. Just in the time it took me to get from the back door of the office to the car my hoodie --- which I use just as rain protection on these warmer days --- got so soaked that it was still saturated ten hours later. Trivia: Early versions of the Michigan Algorithmic Decoder programming language would, under many error conditions, print out a crude picture of Alfred E Neuman. Later versions removed this as students were deliberately making errors to get the printout. Source: A History Of Modern Computing, Paul E Ceruzzi. Currently Reading: The River Where America Began: A Journey Along The James, Bob Deansh. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 26th, 2012
gafennec	1:09p	Mike's Doctor . . . Was not pleased with Augusta either. She is going to talk to the person who does these things. Mike said he could be home tomorrow or Monday. Honestly, I'd hope it is longer than that. (Comment on this)
austin_dern	12:10p	Free of any made-to-order liabilities One little thing at the Popcorn Park Zoo. They've had a coati there, Cocoa. I came to know of him when skylerbunny bought me a sponsorship of him as a really creative, imaginative birthday present. I've stopped in several times --- not enough, really, but it's a small zoo and out of the way from anything else --- but, hey, a real live coati and just one zip code over. I'd have to stop in and see if I could get any decent pictures of him --- it's very hard because coatis are pretty much always moving, and all their enclosures are wire-fenced in --- while I had the chance. So I did walk down to the area where Cocoa's cage had been, and found ... nothing. Well, not nothing, since the enclosure had been turned into a chicken coop with a fair number of birds in it, but, no coatis of interest there. I wondered if I'd just misremembered where he was, but while I could get the exact spot wrong, I couldn't have confused the aisle his cage was on, and there wasn't anything there. It went from goats to deer without the coati interlude. I worried about the possibilities, naturally. Some were innocent: they had a new enclosure. Some were maybe positive: they'd placed him in a better facility, maybe with the zoo (which has several locations), maybe with another agency. Some were depressing: what if he'd died? Or was too sick to be on display? The happiest of explanations was the right one: he had a new enclosure, one of a triptych of larger enclosures which failed to register with me when I walked past them. Unfortunately this means in afternoon visits he'll have sunlight streaming in from behind, making photographs all the harder, but it is a larger enclosure with more stuff to play with. Although, most of this visit, what Cocoa was really interested in was the barrier leading to the adjacent cage, which held a rabbit. (Also a pair of discarded Christmas trees, the branches of which I suspect Cocoa was nibbling on.) I could hardly be expected to resist the thematic appeal of a coati and a bunny being in adjacent cages and the coati acting as if the most interesting thing in the world was getting into the bunny's cage. (Actually there were at least three bunnies in the cage.) Unfortunately given the angles and Cocoa's determination I couldn't get any really good pictures of him. I did have hopes when feeding time came around --- I knew it was about 4:00, and Cocoa knew too, since he hopped over to the door in anticipation --- but they fed him with a dish that was put into one of the shelters, so he had a meal beyond the reach of photography. Trivia: In 1863, under the direction of John C Frémont, the moribund Leavenworth, Pawnee & Western railroad renamed itself the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, providing confusion for investors looking for Union Pacific stock. Strangely, no infringement lawsuit was ever filed. Source: Empire Express: Building The First Transcontinental Railroad, David Haward Bain. Currently Reading: Chrysalis 9, Editor Roy Torgeson. PS: Where Interpolations Go Wrong ... and where they're pretty good still, actually. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 25th, 2012
chefmongoose	11:40p	Anthrocon Pre-reg closing June 1st! AC! Last week of registration AC! Last week of registration Registration time, come on! (Get Registered) Registration time, come on! (Get Registered) Anthrocon is getting oh so near A convention, that's only once a year so bring your sketchbooks, and a fursuit too And please Pre-register by the first of June Come on now Registration Let's Pre-register and have a short line Registration We'll Pre-register and have a short line It's time to join the furries You know the page, so please hurry Everyone Pre-reg for Anthrocon! AC! Last week of registration AC! Registration time, come on! Join the furry nation Registration time, come on! Pre-register All these furries coming to Pittsburgh And Supersponsors, will get great swag I heard So bring your badges, and some glowsticks too But please Pre-register by the first of June Registration Let's Pre-register and have a short line Registration We'll Pre-register and have a short line On-site lines last forever You can avoid them if you're clever Everyone Pre-reg for Anthrocon! Yahoo! Last week of registration Yahoo! Registration time, come on! Join the furry nation , come on now Registration time, come on! Pre-register Mastercard or Visa tonight Pre-register, it's all right Check or Money Order tonight Pre-register, it's all right Furries... Attending or Sponsor tonight Pre-Register, it's all right Even Supersponsor tonight Pre-register, it's all right Registration time, come on! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
gafennec	4:45p	GOD DAMN IT TO HELL. Mike is coming home. There was only ONE care place in the ENTIRE FUCKING STATE OF GEORGIA willing to take him while waiting to see if he can get Medicaid approval for Long Term Care. And that was in Augusta, Georgia. And they wanted Mike to resubmit a NEW application to Medicaid while he was there. Now it is a question of 1) when will he come home? 2) How well will he be at home? 3) Will it kill one or both of us while he is home? 4) Will he be approved for LTC by Medicaid? I was fucking sick as dog before the call and now I am sick, angry, depressed all rolled into one. Just more of my luck; I wish I . . . well never mind. Just Casa Fennec's normal luck. No plan; no matter how big or little ever works EVER. Why can't anything ever be simple for us? Current Mood: indescribable (12 Comments |Comment on this)
jayblanc	9:19a	Wow, my credit in Kurtz just took a nose dive for ranting at people for donating to the Hero Initiative. The Hero Initiative is a nonprofit health insurance for Cartoon and Comic creators, created to protect artists and writers who lost their income because of being screwed out of their ownership and moral rights by the distributors. Particularly at the part where he says "It's all fixed now because they changed the copyright laws to have better protections for creators". The didn't. Copyright laws have been changed almost exclusively in the benefit of distributors. "Work for Hire" still exist in the US. It is still standard practice in many industries to screw the writer. And even if you do the dance, get an agent, try to protect your creative interest as best as you can, "screw the writer, take the profits" is still leading US Showbiz. Ask Dan Harmon. Entry cross-posted from Dreamwidth. Post a comment there or here, there are currently posted on dreamwidth. (You can login with your LiveJournal OpenID account.) (Comment on this)
austin_dern	1:24p	Should have been somebody else ``Anything good in the newspaper?'' - [ Grunts. ] ``Growls and exclamations are not an answer. Try in a more civilized manner. Anything good in the newspaper?'' - ``A growl is a perfectly good answer when it's the most fitting response to the question.'' ``And what state does the newspaper have to be in for a grunt to answer my question?'' - ``I did not grunt; I growled.'' ``It's to the same effect.'' - ``It does not. A growl indicates a general dissatisfaction with the material being discussed. A grunt indicates that one cannot even work up the enthusiasm to be dissatisfied.'' ``I heard a grunt.'' - ``I'm not accountable for what you hear.'' ( Sorry to be late. I was in the mood to write a Vic-and-Sade piece, too.  ) ``Unbelievable. That's worth cancelling the paper for.'' - ``Thank you.'' Trivia: The parasol and shades for the Skylab repair mission were not loaded into the Skylab 2/1 command module until about 2 am the day of scheduled launch, 25 May 1973. Source: Deke!, Donald K Slayton, Michael Cassutt. Currently Reading: A Geography Of New Jersey: The City In The Garden, Charles A Stansfield Jr. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 24th, 2012
gafennec	3:21p	Surprise visitor. State of Georgia Adult Protection Services. Hiya! I was as surprised to see her as she was to find out Mike is in the hospital. Got the stuff to lawyer dude to fax to DFACS. Mike said the doctor told him they were working to get him into LTC. Mike also admitted to me he was worried about what would happen to me. I told him that if I didn't run the air or heat to much; it'd be tight, but I should be okay. I didn't tell him that the two things that worried ME was house taxes and tag. But I'll burn those bridges when I come too them. Anyways prayers, hugs, good vibes and thoughts going out to those who need them. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
austin_dern	12:10p	Gonna spread our wings and reach right up to the stars Since I had some time after the dentist's appointment I thought of things I might do, and realized, this might be a good chance to visit the Popcorn Park Zoo. It would be, too, since I wasn't too far away and my supply of free afternoons in New Jersey are pretty sharly limited. It had been an overcast morning, threatening to rain and never managing more than a drizzle, but over lunch the skies cleared up, which is about the best way for this sort of thing to work out. Something I had forgotten about the zoo was that, like many zoos, they've got peacocks. Lots of peacocks, roaming free, more or less, and prowling around. Also, apparently, it's the big season for peacocks since not just one had his tail spread out to its full extent --- and kept it out --- but most of the peacocks did. They were even doing that drumming-the-tailfeathers thing so they rattled. Some of the peacocks were apparently just working the crowd; almost the first thing through the gate was a man and woman admiring and photographing them and talking about how extraordinary it was that he was keeping his feathers spread wide out. Some were clearly working to specific productive purposes: there were peahens around, looking skeptically at the peacocks and generally acting like, ``oh, please, must you really?'' None of the hens seemed all that interested, but I imagine a certain amount of this showboating goes a long way. (Also, you know, bunny_hugger is right; peahens would be regarded as quite attractive birds with startling colors if peacocks weren't there grabbing all the attention.) Other peacocks were busy showing off and closing in on any kind of bird without much respect for species. The zoo keeps a fair number of free-ranging chickens and roosters, and it gets a larger number of geese and ducks that hang around becuase, I suppose, it's a pretty safe and secluded area. The peacocks prowled around going full-Argus on any kinds of birds they could find, to the point that I had to suspect they were just in it to show off, and not for any specific productive purpose. I should mention that once again on my way out of the zoo --- at the closing hour, which means I missed the gift shop's operating hours yet again --- I saw the flyer where they mention having wallabies. I've never seen a wallaby at it, and I can't figure out if I'm just overlooking it (which is possible; the zoo has a number of odd little maze-like paths, and since it is in part a rescued animals shelter the exact species collection varies and they don't bother putting up signs to anything), or if the wallabies are at a different campus, or if they did have a wallaby ages ago and haven't anymore and never got around to updating the publicity materials. Trivia: When the American Pencil Company rented space in the under-construction RCA Building, Webster Todd, of contractors Todd, Robertson, & Todd, requested that all Rockefeller Center departments ``give preference to their products when buying pencils''. Source: Great Fortune: The Epic Of Rockefeller Center, Daniel Okrent. Currently Reading: A Geography Of New Jersey: The City In The Garden, Charles A Stansfield Jr. By the way, I'd like to recommend the video of NBC's 1979-80 ``Proud As A Peacock'' jingle since it is so wonderfully 1979-80 considering it's not actually produced by the Buggles. And in other news don't think I missed the info graphic on ``New Life in The Amazon'' with this Onion article. (Comment on this)

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