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Oct. 19th, 2007 @ 09:57 am The Friday Rock Star song of the day
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It hits just the right note of creepiness.

Crimson and Clover

Also, hi. It's been a while.
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me
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Jun. 11th, 2007 @ 07:40 am Good to know...
Current Location: Overland Park, KS
Current Mood: amused
Tags: ,
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
LevelScore
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)High
Level 7 (Violent)Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
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me
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May. 1st, 2007 @ 04:35 pm Ethical Dilemma
Current Mood: excited
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Okay, so the strap on my husband's laptop bag broke, and the bag fell.  The next day, he realized that the computer was dead.  Not just mostly dead, but all dead.  He's about to start finals, so this was not a development that we could take casually.  We turned to my extraordinarily old, notoriously unreliable VAIO (which is not to imply that most Vaios are unreliable... just this one).  It lasted a few valiant days before pooping out.  He borrowed his father's laptop, but in the meantime I decided that, since we were going to have to buy a new laptop eventually anyway, I might as well make it sooner rather than later.  So I bought one.

And my ethical question is... am I allowed to be geeked out over having a new computer if it's an Acer that I bought at Best Buy?  I know that any true geek would have bought parts and assembled something himself, and any non-geeky computer afficionado would have bought a more prestigious model.  Is this the tech world equivalent of arriving for your first day of junior high proudly modeling your new jeans, only to have everyone mock you because they're Wranglers?  Oh, well.  Status and I never got along anyway.

It is a pretty cool computer, in comparison to what I've had in the past.  It's an Aspire 5610-4648 with an Intel Core Duo processor, a 15.4"  CrystalBrite LCD, a 160G HDD, it has a built in camera, and it runs Vista, for those for whom the specs mean anything.  Plus, and this is super-cool... it comes with Mah-Jong.  Nifty.
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morgan
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Apr. 26th, 2007 @ 05:23 pm A Documentary About Nothing
Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: "All We Wanna Do Is Eat Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton
Tags:
Sorta.

Jonathan Miller has created a documentary that will be aired soon on select public television stations.  Very select... as of right now, the list is Wichita, Roanoke, Muncie, and (according to the email they sent me) Kansas City.  It's called "A Brief History of Disbelief," and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it.  I watched the first part on YouTube already, but there's only so much fuzzy video I can handle in one sitting.

Anyway, the subject is one that interests me.  It's a history, not of any religion, but of the LACK of religion.  Basically, it's a history of not believing in something, which seems like it's sort of... about nothing.  I've been a nonbeliever for years... well over half my life, now that I think about it.  For me, it's tended to be a nonissue in a lot of settings.  If nobody tries to proselytize or force others around them to live in conjunction with any particular religious beliefs, then I don't really even think about it.  My husband is Catholic.  He goes to church every Sunday, and I encourage that.  He doesn't try to convince me to join him.  On occasion, I will anyway, but it's always my choice with no pressure from him.

Of course, after college, though, I moved to South Carolina.  And now I live in Kansas.  The idea of being able to live my life with religion being a nonissue is a fantasy when you live in this red of a red state.  And that's sort of what the creator of this documentary talks about in his introduction.  It seems silly to do a story about something that just doesn't seem like it should be that big of a deal, until you're confronted day in and day out with people who believe that you're evil because you don't think the way they do.  Then the "no big deal" becomes something worth documenting.  And I, for one, am anxious to see it.

If you're interested, it's on YouTube:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Or, call your local public television station and request it.  Apparently that actually works.
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waterfall
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Apr. 24th, 2007 @ 09:51 pm I hope I never have to be in a trial
Current Mood: embarrassed
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I am a TERRIBLE witness.

Adam had his trial law mock court case last night, and I was a witness... their biggest witness, as a matter of fact.  I studied my role, practiced on the questions I knew I'd be facing, tried to come up with answers for questions I thought I might face on cross examination, read what I had supposedly said in my deposition, and even dressed up like a grown up in a nice businessy suit.

And then I got on the stand.  I was tongue-tied, I was flustered, and though (thank goodness) there wasn't a mirror for me to see myself, I am positive I was at least five different shades of pink.  Gah.

I was okay through my direct examination -- of course, those were the questions being asked by Adam's partner, questions for which I was prepared and had studied my answers.  And then on cross examination, I didn't know WHAT to say half the time.   They were asking me questions that had no answer in the case materials... things I had to make up on the spur of the moment.  I was trying to be cool and collected and give short, concise answers.  Instead, I blathered.  I was a blathering fool.

So the moral of the story is, if you get in legal trouble, and I see what happened, try not to put me on the stand, even if I know you're innocent.  I'll just sink your case.

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Apr. 23rd, 2007 @ 12:15 pm I need to read more.
Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Moonshine by Macumba
Tags: ,
I recently found this list online of the 50 most significant science fiction novels of the last 50 years. I had, I was ashamed to discover, read only eight of them. As I scanned the list, I discovered that there were several of them that I had heard of but never gotten around to reading, and several others that I had heard of the author, but not the book listed (along with a few total wild cards, which could be fun). It seemed like a good reading list.

So I've decided to work my way through the list until I've read all 50. I finished Childhood's End and am now, at the urging of a coworker, reading the two Heinleins. Any recommendations on what I should start after that? Here's the full list, with the one's I've already read in italics:

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
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trodgor, halloween
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Apr. 22nd, 2007 @ 12:42 pm Ain't No Humor Like NPR Humor
Current Mood: contemplative
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When I was younger, NPR always gave me a headache.  I was happy to skip right past "All Things Considered."  I thought Garrison Keillor was an overblown humorist who couldn't sing.  (Okay, actually, I still think that).  But what happened to the little girl who listened to music and idiotic morning deejays on the way to school?  Must I now be one of those people who can't get through the day without saying, "I was listening to NPR this morning and there was this great story about...?"

And now, I read this, and I can't stop giggling.  My 12-year-old self would hate me.

"We've done it," said senior producer Julie Snyder, who was personally interviewed for a 2003 This American Life episode, "Going Eclectic," in which she described what it's like to be a bilingual member of the ACLU trained in kite-making by a Japanese stepfather. "There is not a single existential crisis or self-congratulatory epiphany that has been or could be experienced by a left-leaning agnostic that we have not exhaustively documented and grouped by theme."
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Apr. 21st, 2007 @ 01:18 pm I won a tree!
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: When the Saints Go Marching In, George Winston

Sprint had its Earth Day festivities yesterday.  It's an annual thing where all sorts of different agencies and companies set up booths to tell you more about their (at least somewhat environmentally friendly) products and services.  It's a kind of cool event.  You can get lots of free stuff (energy-efficient light bulbs, saplings, etc.), meet some wildlife (people had owls, hawks, and cougars there), and sign up for giveaways.  At the Rosehill Gardens table, I signed up for their contest to win a 6' tree.  And in my e-mail last night...

Carrie,

You are the big winner of our tree give away from the Sprint earth day
presentation.  If you would email me back with an address and a phone
number we can get the ball rolling.  Please tell everyone you know at
sprint that you won.  It helps to have a cool email address.  Talk to
you soon. 

Yay me.  And yay for my yahoo address. This is the first time I've gotten free stuff just on the basis of my email address.  How... goofy.

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me
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