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Friday, December 25th, 2009
funkyturtle
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4:03p
Ah Winterpeg. Blizzard on Christmas day? Sooooo predictable. It's because I shoveled last night, isn't it? Can't tell now.
I am away to be feasted at a friend's house. My man is working. Our tree is naked, but that's ok because it's only really important that it be decorated at New Year's, giving me more time to find golden apples, it's also ok because Bernice keeps chewing on it and maybe if it doesn't glitter with shiny objects he'll get board and leave it alone.
Today I was the willing victim of a drive-by latke-ing (latka-ing? latkemus? lactopi?) and then gifted with Martian Fluxx and a Carcassonne expansion that includes heretics and cultists! *happy dance*
Happy everything to everyone, whatever your flavour of winter joy may be, and please be careful, especially those here, because the roads are ass and tonight I'm driving about in the dinky little skateboard Cavalier and do not wish to be squished! :)
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(3 comments | comment on this) Thursday, December 24th, 2009
funkyturtle
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7:53p
Was it the same cat?
If you are out and about this evening and happen to find yourself bored, you should phone or visit the turtle.
I am participating in the inescapable inexorable unavoidable cyclical Christmas Eve tradition that stretches back before Christianity to the dawn of time... to cave people... to the primal "it's the middle of winter and we're about to light a fire and dance about, but first we must"...
...clean the house.
It's one of those mandatory things... to put up the tree you need to vacuum... to vacuum you need to move the table... to move the table you need to clear the table... to clear the table you need to do the dishes... to do the dishes you need to do the laundry (can't run both at the same time and if you're going to sit around in the morning in your underwear unwrapping presents you need to have clean underwear) to do the laundry you need to find the floor.. and once you find the floor you need to vacuum because who knows how long it's going to be before you find the floor again...
Of course, there's the smell of cookies baking while you clean, which is nice... but you can't make cookies until you do the dishes... you can't do the dishes until you do the laundry...
Eventually the exhaustion will kick in, but I have renewed energy from the drive-by-cookie-drop-off from my brother. :)
My big hope is that somewhere under all the mess I'll find the cd's my friends made for me of Lovecraftian Christmas carols... they're here somewhere.
Oh... and I shoveled both front and back sidewalks just before it started snowing again... yet another example of the cyclical nature of Christmas eve... it really is a loop... a mobius loop... like the mobius bagels... mmm bagels... maybe I should eat something other than cookies...
I need to write a story about a groundhog day-like situation with perpetual Christmas eve... not really hell... maybe purgatory though.. "purgatory lite" - amusing, ironic, with flustering and bustling and madness and anxiety, but nothing really "bad" just spazzy and filled with a continuous stream of half-done things that you keep pausing in the middle of to go simultaneously do something else.
Christmas Eve: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. :)
This sounds like I'm complaining... I'm not really... I am bemused.
My only true complaint is the total lack of golden apple tree ornaments this year. I went hunting yet again tonight (in Polo Park even, which was madness) as I have been for weeks now and I found only one, horribly ugly, excessively huge, and hideously expensive golden apple which was just a monstrous bigger-than-an-actual-apple form with a string at the top that someone had coated in glue and then rolled in tacky gold beads. We used to have a bunch of cheap little plastic golden apples but the paint fell off and I threw them out thinking "golden apples are such a normal ordinary ornament, I'll find more next year" and I never did. We need golden apples to have a discordian tree. I do still have a few but not many, so it's only a quasi-discordian tree, the diet coke of discord... not chaotic enough...
So if you see golden apple tree ornaments on your travels during boxing day/week/whatever time period they've upped it to this year, let me know! ...or even non-golden apple tree ornaments that I can paint with gold paint... that would work... If you're coming to our new year's party and have obtained a golden apple tree ornament, you could throw it into a room with 3 or more people and shout that the most beautiful one gets to hang it on the tree (although as we are nerds, "beauty" would likely be decided via either video game prowess or dice).
I did dig up the Christmas Cthulhu though... the one with bells on the ends of his tentacles... :)
I shall try to have my camera ready for new year's and post pictures... that reminds me... I need to buy bacon... can't buy bacon until the store opens... store won't open until the 26th... can't get to the 26th without going through the 25th and the 24th... can't get through the 24th without putting up the tree... can't put up the tree until I vacuum... can't vacuum until I move the table.... whee!
Happy everything to all! And to all a good night!
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(comment on this) Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
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funkyturtle
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6:40p
Air Your Grievances!!!
So, unlike apparently the rest of the universe, I never watched Seinfeld. Until this year I've been relatively ignorant of Festivus and the only reason I know anything about it is because it was greenlit on Fark with a tagline that intrigued me at the time enough to click on it.
However... thanks to the glory that is Wikipedia, I am now less ignorant of the holiday and I would like to participate, especially in the airing of grievances, which I think is rather cool.
So here is what I'd like you to do: Comment, anonymously or otherwise, and tell me how I have disappointed you (either this year or in years previous, since I have never done this before). Tell me what most needs improvement to avoid grieving you in future.
I make no promises that I will agree with you, but I will definitely read and think about what you write.
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(3 comments | comment on this) Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
teabeard
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10:54p
digression.
Okay.
So. Alpo just took this massive shit. I really think my nose hairs are curling up in agony.
So I had some stuff to say about my future wedding, the website thereabout, my grievances already in the early planning stages, some stuff about Christmas, the accident I was in (yes I'm okay), possibly work, maybe sex, blah blah appletinis..
But all I can seriously think about is my cat's insane fumes.
I will return. Hopefully before the new year.
Love and face masks,
t.
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bad_machination
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1:55a
A dark room, a dark porter, a night that seems like it will last forever and music from the early 90s. Not much better than this. <3
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funkyturtle
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12:41a
*sigh*
And the Shub-Niggurath Solstice Sacrifice once again failed to come up with an entire goat for the solstice. I posted the lolmetal "made you a goat but I eated it" image and left a message from the second-high-sub-priestess apologizing, (the former cult leader and high priestess, of course, attempted to apologize personally) and hoping that they will be able to come up with a whole goat next year.
In one way, I'm disappointed because I really did want to sacrifice a goat to Shub-Niggurath for the solstice. On the other hand, I'm exhausted from all the craziness of the past while and with the emotional mess of today, I'm kind of glad I don't have to come up with a goat effigy and then gather people to go outside and light things on fire tonight.
I really hope this week improves.
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(8 comments | comment on this) Monday, December 21st, 2009
funkyturtle
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9:35p
:(
For so long it seems like forever, Brian has been involved in the card game UFS (the letters stand for Universal Fighting System). As the loyal girlfriend, and occasional player, I have too. We have stayed up until sunrise deck testing. I have been sent searching through binders seeking deck-components from a list he's emailed me from work. I proof read the rules document he wrote for Fantasy Flight (the company that makes UFS). I've taken him to and from the airport when he's been asked to run major tournaments in other cities. I've attended I don't know how many tournaments and been either the only girl, or one of the small handful of females wandering around (usually less than three). I've had the enormous smug satisfaction of overhearing worthy opponents tell other worthy opponents "I traveled to a different country/state/big convention/insert-distance-here to play this game and got my ass handed to me by a girl."
I've lisped my glee as Lizardman. I've shown people why Taki is the awesome. I've built decks around one card and one card only: the Fruitfucker. And when they banned that card, I built decks that mimicked the Fruitfucker with other cards. I've playtested. I've den-mothered. I've hung around in card shops for hours while Brian ran tournaments (he was the UFS rep for our store). We've had van-fulls of gamers from other cities crash out on the living room floor. And when Brian was told he'd be losing his job in March, one of the things he was looking forward to was being able to couch surf and travel around Canada and the U.S. trading cards and playing in tournaments for UFS.
Today Fantasy Flight announced that UFS is no more. Poof! Gone!
For Brian, it's like someone just ran over his dog.
My grieving for this game is different. I've had some pretty strong issues with the artwork and depictions of women in the game. I've had pretty negative experiences with players who used sexual assault as a metaphor for losing or for attack combos they were using in games against me, opponents who continued when asked to stop because they thought upsetting their opponent might win them the game, and for whom winning the game was much more important than the wrongness of what they were doing.
The game contained, if not actual misogyny, then a pretty big lack of respect for women, especially in the art. Some people claimed this disrespect came from the fighting games UFS licensed, but that I still felt Fantasy Flight, and Sabertooth (who created the game before Fantasy Flight bought them) should have had a better leash on it. UFS, more than any other card game was both shiny, a source of fun, and a bitter point with me. I hadn't played at our local card shop in years due to the play environment. And several really good cards had artwork that ranged from borderline uncool to outright offensive - one of which Brian helped design (he had no input on the art).
At the same time, with all my issues, I never wished death on the game, only positive change. And the death of this game has hurt my man - something that bothers me a lot. I can't help but wonder if the sales would have been so problematic if they'd had more respect for female players and women in general. But, I suspect it wouldn't have mattered (female gamers just aren't that big of a play group, financially speaking).
I'm not sure I approve of how the death of the game was handled or why the decision was made to end the game rather than have it go on hiatus, slow production, or some other less-terminal decision. CCG's (acronym = Collectible Card Games) are a highly mercenary environment, and the only one I know of that doesn't have a very strong money-fueled drive behind it is V:tes (the card game I write for) and even then, every time White Wolf is purchased by a new company I wonder if it will the first thing to go.
One of the things about CCG's that is different from other games is that the cards themselves have monetary value based usually upon their rarity. Brian has obtained a lot of nice things through trading his UFS cards over the years. Over night his cards have now become worthless. That's... um... a lot of cards.
In many ways, this is a far worse thing than the job he's worked at for over 10 years laying him off. This is his hobby that's just been dissolved. It's a sad thing to happen right before Christmas, in a long string of sad things.
You wouldn't think a card game would be so important, but it's the little things that often make or break people. And this was one of those "little things" that mattered. It's gone now, very suddenly, and my man is hurt by its going. I love my man. It bothers me to see him hurt. I feel really powerless because of this whole thing. Something has hurt my man and I can't hurt it back, or make it stop, or make it better. UFS died today and there's nothing I can do to bring it back. :(
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charisma
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6:02p
Look Sharp
We got 20 inches or so of snow that we're digging out from under.
My shoulder spent half a week hurting so bad I thought I might like to die - which turned out to be a reaction to my tetanus (TDAP vaccine) shot. It's still swollen at the injection site - next time I need to read the allergy warnings BEFORE agreeing to the shot, as one of them is for people with latex allergies, which I have. If you are allergic to latex, please talk to your doctor before having this shot because you don't want this to happen to you. It was quite painful and it's still in the rather annoying state of things. I reported my reaction to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System government site. Don't know if it does any good, but what the hey.
I'm currently reading Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, which they did not have on the Kindle so I am reading it in actual book form.
In the interest of trying to write in my journal more again, I am going to start posting some random lists. Perhaps I will also start doing those Writer's Block things. So I present to you - one random list of...
My Ten Favorite Lines from Joe Jackson Songs
This is to say, my ten favorite lyrical phrasings - not deliveries. Deliveries would be things like the 'Call me God' in Song of Daedalus, the Spanish lines in Happyland, and the lines spoken over the transistor radio in Tuzla, which would be getting into another category entirely. A well-delivered line does not necessarily have to be lyrically sharp (see 'call me God' which is on the surface a very simple phrase, if incredibly bold and and egotistical as befits the song). This is also not necessarily an indication of which are my favorite songs musically - the fugues and the nocturnes would certainly be included in such a list, rich layered pieces that they are. One more note: if you only know Joe Jackson as 'that guy who wrote 'Is She Really Going Out With Him' and 'Steppin' Out' way back when, you should correct this fact immediately because you are cheating yourself out of all the fine pieces of music he's written since then and about thirty years of growth he's done as a musician. Not that I don't enjoy the old songs, but there's been a lot of great ones since then.
In no particular order. Links link to the song so you can listen.
1. American girls, they put their tongue in your ear when they talk on the telephone...
Don't Wanna Be Like That (I'm The Man / 1979)
2. Maybe you'd like to know what I would say if I was still around.
Invisible Man (Rain / 2008)
3. Call me weird and laugh at me - I tell you it's true. I found a cure for Gravity.
Song of Daedalus (Heaven and Hell / )
4. It's the crack of noon and I sit here watching you sleeping. I only wish that I could remember your name.
Love at First Light ( Volume 4 / 2003 )
5. It's not the time to kill - not that he forgets. As he takes a crumpled bill and thinks this is better yet.
Tuzla ( Heaven and Hell / 1997)
6. I watch my pen as though my fingers could shatter like icicles and before my eyes lie glittering and useless on a field of snow.
Lullaby ( Night Music / 1994 )
7. Everything we said is there on a tape for the future to play. Let's put it in the ground- that's where it ought to stay.
Ever After ( Night Music / 1994)
8.He gave me a wink and he said it was funny how mortals would pour all their blood, sweat and tears onto tape, onto paper, or into the air to be lost and forgotten outside of his kind employ.
The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy ( Night Music / 1994 )
9. We're never married, never faithful - not to any town. But we never leave the past behind - we just accumulate.
Hometown ( Big World / 1986)
10. In all the universe I’m just a speck of dust, but all I can do is keep trying . . . .to give you the human touch.
The Human Touch (Blaze of Glory / 1989 )
current mood:  contemplative
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(comment on this) Sunday, December 20th, 2009
funkyturtle
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9:27p
All I want for Solstice is a Sacrificial Goat
The Shub-Niggurath Solstice Sacrifice has raised 7/12 of a goat.
The deadline is midnight, December 21, Central time.
Anyone pondering the idea of donating a share of a goat is encouraged to do so in the next 26.5 hours, and to post their contribution to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) goatsacrifice
Will we get a whole goat? I have no idea, but this year has more than doubled the donations to heifer.org from the last time I tried it. Even if we do not get a whole goat, I am happy. But if we do? Well, I'll have to do something awesome... something awesome involving fire.
*happy dance*
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funkyturtle
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7:26p
Not my snow. Not my cat. But still, very appropriate.
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