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We've been keeping a change jar since we got here. It's a pretty big jar, and we've filled up maybe 5 cm (2") of it. Extrapolating out, it's going to take us over a decade to get it most of the way full. Since Canada abolished the penny awhile back there's going to be a clearly demarcated stratum at the bottom with copper intrusions, and then the rest of it will be pure silver coinage. (Loonies and toonies aren't "change," they're oddly-sized bills.)

March seems to be music month: Tylan (formerly of Girlyman) in Seattle next Sunday, a UK band called Veronica Falls the Friday after, and then back to Seattle for Antje Duvekot the next day. Busy busy.

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After having it open in a browser tab for a week or more, I finally played Depression Quest yesterday. It's a choose-your-own-adventure type of thing from the point-of-view of someone who's depressed. As you get more depressed, some of the choices are struck out & not available to you. Highly effective, slightly terrifying. [Via Zarf, I'm pretty sure.]

(Also, Boggle the Owl. DW feed at boggletheowl_feed.)

Via thanate, Procrastination is Not Laziness, which explains a great deal about where my procrastination habit comes from. O brain, you are not as helpful as you think you are. From the comments on either that article or a related one, I'm experimenting with the Pomodoro technique, which consists mostly of doing things for 25 minutes and then not for 5 minutes. Initial results are promising but that could be the standard "any change in process will result in temporary improvements" thing. Will see.

And after a dull grey morning the sun is threatening to come out.

Tip Your Server and Save the World: "There are two types of people in America: those who have worked in the service industry, and those who have not.... Those who haven't are, virtually without exception, the reason stories like this exist." Yeah. Time to start tipping 20% and rounding up.

Leslie Fish on cats: "About breeding cats for intelligence: it started off as a college Psychology project, and just sort of grew from there." Scary smart cats, including one who invented the lever.

The Reply Given in Arkell v. Pressdram: "This case is well known among lawyers and journalists, especially the phrase 'I refer you to the reply given in Arkell and Pressdram'."

Obituary: John E. Karlin, inventor of the push-buttons on the push-button phone. People have been "calling from a touch-tone phone" for fifty years now.

An amazing photo of someone feeding birds in Krakow. No, really.

Thriving since 1960, my garden in a bottle: "In fact, on the last occasion he watered it Ted Heath was Prime Minister and Richard Nixon was in the White House." I want one. Will have to keep an eye out at thrift stores etc for an appropriate glass jar.

It Takes Planning, Caution to Avoid Being 'It': "Mr. Dennehy and nine of his friends have spent the past 23 years locked in a game of 'Tag.'"

Sharp Suits: "Ad creatives, designers, animators, directors, illustrators and more took time out to dress up their favourite worst feedback from clients, transforming quotes that would normally give you a twitch, into a diverse collection of posters."

If you lose your cellphone, don't blame Wayne Dobson: "An unexplained glitch with at least one cellphone company is directing people with missing phones to [Dobson's] North Las Vegas home." Oh dear.

Random House to Reissue Ruth Chew's Fantasy Oeuvre: "Random House Books for Young Readers has acquired the rights to Ruth Chew’s 29-book canon of middle-grade fantasy novels." Yay! I devoured these when I was in early elementary school, and they're as responsible as anything for my love of fantasy.

did you know how hilarious the patch notes to the sims are: "Sims who are on fire will no longer be forced to attend graduation before they can put themselves out."

On Not Believing In Canada: "As anyone can see, this isn't a country -- it’s far too perfect to be convincing. It's a fantasy roleplaying character invented by a kid who goes to mock United Nations camps instead of playing Dungeons & Dragons." (Also, Crooked Timber is one of the very few places on the internet where one should read the comments.)

How to Avoid Work: "In 1949, career counselor William J. Reilly penned How To Avoid Work -- a short guide to finding your purpose and doing what you love. Despite the occasional vintage self-helpism of the tone, the book is remarkable for many reasons -- written at the dawn of the American corporate era and the golden age of the housewife, it not only encouraged people of all ages to pursue their passions over conventional, safe occupations, but it also spoke to both men and women with equal regard."

Best cookie cutters EVER.

Corrections: "Additionally, we inaccurately wrote that the groom 'attended Cornell University and double-majored in English and Humping Other English Majors' Girlfriends.' Mr. Penview, in fact, only majored in English."

Proposal for a Hobbit AU: "So Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is a confirmed spoon thief, right? As in . . . confirmed burglar?" (Via james_davis_nicoll)

La trahison des imperials.

Screw Organic Chemistry, I'm Just Going to Write About Cats: "Some people might say this is simply a naked strategy to obtain more traction on social bookmarking sites and I am selling out my core mission in the interest of transient popularity. Don't bother looking below the surface of this, dear reader: this analysis is 100% correct."

The History League: because shaping the world is a team sport.

Tangentially related, chickens dressed as historical figures, in case your day wasn't weird enough yet.

A Pickpocket's Tale: The Spectacular Thefts of Apollo Robbins: "I specialize in future used goods-- goods that used to belong to you." (I recognise Robbins as a 'technical advisor' for Leverage, and also Parker's opposite in "The Two Live Crew Job.")

just shut up.: "[C]onsuming media critically is a skill, and in an age where media is more prevalent than ever before, it's a skill worth having. It's a skill worth having because you are going to continue to be exposed to media, and it is going to continue to attempt to manipulate you."

Although, oddly, no links about the flood. Mostly because I didn't experience it firsthand.

Career advice for cats and foxes: "If you’re struggling to pick just one big thing to do with your life, because too many things are pulling you in too many directions — think instead about what you’re going to do with your first life, knowing that you’ll have a second and a third and even a fifth if you want them." (Are we all aware that Karawynn is smart? Because Karawynn is smart, and you should be reading Pocketmint even if you think you have no interest in personal finance. Dreamwidth feed at pocketmint_feed.)

Glass Works: a brief yet fascinating history of Corning's experiments in glass. I love that Corningware was an accident, and that they've had Gorilla Glass on ice since 1971, "a solution that would have to wait for the right problem to arise."

Comedian Chris Gethard on depression and suicide. Long but worthwhile.

Best headline all month: Ancient statue discovered by Nazis is made from meteorite.

Unmasking Reddit's Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web: "Under Reddit logic, outing Violentacrez is worse than anonymously posting creepshots of innocent women, because doing so would undermine Reddit's role as a safe place for people to anonymously post creepshots of innocent women." Also a followup, and another.

Outlawed by Amazon DRM: "Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation." Per this followup she got her books back, but still. Those of us who remember the 1984 debacle in 2009 doubtless saw this coming; for anyone else, this is among the most succinct arguments against The Cloud that I've seen.

Third Draft Struggles: "The same characters, with the same in-world genders, taking the same in-world actions, read totally differently in terms of reader sympathy. ... Switch the pronouns on 'proud, rebellious teenage male' and you get 'mentally ill teenage girl'; switch the pronouns on 'manic pixie dreamgirl' and you get 'asshole'."

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For pre-Halloween gaming I recapitulated «Le fils de l'homme», because hey, this is a whole new set of people who've not seen that particular apple. I also acquired a pair of those blue boots which mostly fit. They feel fine around the toes, which is a nice change, but they're too big in the heel. Padding and thick socks seem to be solving this problem.

Since I have these boots I've been getting a little dressed up for no reason lately. I continue to hate ties with a passion generally reserved for "it can't be good, it's genre." On the other hand I am at a loss to explain the lack of French cuffs in standard semiformalwear. Because seriously, guys, you don't have all that many opportunities to spiff up or personalise your wardrobe, and cufflinks are awesome. If I could find more good shirts with French cuffs I would be happy.

Also, my distaste for long sleeves may come at least in part from too many instances of 1) "permanent press" (read: nonbreathing) shirts 2) in overly warm churches. Good-quality shirts in decent weather are actually not so bad, temperature-wise! Who knew.

Parenting baffles me (LJ): Signal-boosting myself from over the weekend, because I know a bunch of very smart people and y'all should read their comments.

Parking tickets by the truckload: "Eighteen companies have special accounts with the city to pay off parking tickets in bulk." Because it's cheaper to pay the fines than to comply with the law. This is arguably a benign instance of the phenomenon; now imagine it extended to, well, to anything. Workplace safety regulations, truth-in-advertising laws, what have you.

Ice Cubes recipe: "I am publishing this recipe, because I am sure that there are other families who have members who don't know how or have forgotten how to make ice when the ice tray is empty." Hilarity ensues in the recipe reviews.

Chutzpam: "In other words, the estimable businessmen and women at realinsurance.com.au have been paying SEO companies to spam the comment sections of sites around the globe. But now Google’s new search algorithms are making that legacy spam really damaging. So now they’re sending out cease and desist notices to the victims of their earlier spamming demanding that they search their archives and remove their spam."

The Phone Stack: "Whoever picks up their phone is footing the bill." I'm lucky enough (or wise enough) in my choice of acquaintances that this has never been a problem, but if it were I could endorse something like this.

Alignment Chart: Gary Oldman, because Gary Oldman is the single most versatile actor working today.

Two percent.

After Taking Beyond the Relational Paradox of Bringing It Back in Seriously, Revisited: "[W]e are not Taking anything Seriously." Because I enjoy Kieran's deadpan cliche snark, that's why. (Viz. The New Catechism of Cliche.)

Things In My Cabinet: This Land Is My Land: "I stopped being conscious of how I looked. Completely." I have no idea what to say about this, but it is insightful and important.

So dating sims are apparently a thing, wherein you do a sort of choose-your-own-adventure and try to end up dating one of a number of people in the story. Hatoful Boyfriend is sort of a parody of that, only with pigeons. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. And you say "okay, pigeons, that's kinda weird," and I say YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW WEIRD IT IS. The link goes to an Actual Play thread with screencaps and, I mean, it just... gah. Look, that thread has twenty-one pages worth of posts (three playthroughs? four?), and then there's another one with another thirty-nine pages, and THE CRAZY JUST KEEPS COMING and it's making me CAPSLOCK because I have no other way to express how utterly bonkers this game is. It starts with the poster trying to get her character to hook up with the school doctor, and goes... just... look, just take the hit to your productivity and read it, okay?

Tangentially related, pet parrots, such as cockatoos, that are let loose in the wild are teaching native birds to talk. There is no way this ends well.

Race & Gender in D&D Art: "[T]o the credit of a number of people--artists, art directors, designers and editors alike--our disdain for [the generic white-male-fighter] Regdar made its way into a lot of art."

Ashley Judd is awesome. A sample: "When I have gained weight, going from my usual size two/four to a six/eight after a lazy six months of not exercising, and that weight gain shows in my face and arms, I am a 'cow' and a 'pig' and I 'better watch out' because my husband 'is looking for his second wife.' (Did you catch how this one engenders competition and fear between women? How it also suggests that my husband values me based only on my physical appearance? Classic sexism. We won't even address how extraordinary it is that a size eight would be heckled as 'fat.')"

Megaman as Malware: "Megaman’s actions make him seem less like the savior of mankind and more like an assassin hell-bent on destroying Dr. Wily’s creations and sabotaging his work. It’s important to note that in every game, Megaman’s actions are always preemptive strikes."

Via Charlie Stross, the economics of owning a tank.

On cooking, unintended side effects of: rushthatspeaks makes a carrot souffle, heptadecagram makes disasater cookies.

And finally, from Karawynn a month or more ago, How to eat a pomegranate (no bowl of water): as advertised. Now I want a pomegranate.

Complaints of xpost failure have been coming through; let's see if this one makes it.

Wrote the Last Lousy Fifty Words of the bookwyrms story last night. (Give or take a couple hundred, what with actually writing transitions and making the ragged edges of scenes meet properly instead of [[[DOWNSTAIRS]]] or [[[CAN'T DO THAT]]] or just leaving a bunch of whitespace.) It got a first-read response of "adorable," which is good enough. I'll let it sit for awhile and revise it early next week, and then I guess I submit the thing to its designated anthology.

I'd still like to be writing longer pieces (this one clocks in at 1500 words) but hell, two stories drafted is twice what I had for all of last year.

This evening I hop a train to Seattle, on which I shall Relax and also do the reading for the Commie Pinko Writing Contest. And tomorrow I'm off to the Rainforest Writers' Retreat in the company of Nicole and Klagor and what I presume are a variety of other cool people. I have no idea what I'm going to work on while I'm there. Maybe I ought to brainstorm/outline one of these ideas I've got lying around. Maybe that'll get me writing something more substantial.

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Unrelated to writing, it'll be good to get away for awhile. The main advantage of a long-distance relationship wasn't so much that it provided opportunities for random travel; rather, it provided opportunities for random travel without my partner. I love uilos dearly but we're both at home All The Time. After nine months with only a week and a half break for VP I'm starting to get twitchy for some sustained Me Time.

I could also do with some time when I'm not expected to be staring at work, I expect. Brain is slowly leaking out my ears.

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Linkspam, loosely media-related edition.

Liam Neeson versus, well, everything, from "Wolves" to "Outdated Ideas About Sexuality," with a stopover at "The Bastard English" ("aren't there actually two of those?").

Very tangentially related, A History of Ireland in 100 Excuses. Via Crooked Timber, where Maria notes, "It’s almost impossible to cherry-pick because half of the fun is the cumulative effect, and the other half is they’re so damn funny." (For linguistics geeks, an explanation of #10, and further amusement.)

TV Is Broken: "Did it break?" "No. It's just a commercial." "What's a commercial?"

Against Big Bird, the Gods Themselves Contend in Vain, in which scott_lynch re-encounters the best Sesame Street special ever, Don't Eat the Pictures. "[I]t's plain that we've had Big Bird figured all wrong. He's no kindergartener. He's a previously unknown aspect of the Eternal fucking Champion."

The Star Wars Saga: Suggested Viewing Order. Brilliant. (My preferred viewing order is "IV," but I'm in the minority that doesn't care much for Empire on account of how it's not a complete story.)

rbandrews notes that "someone at w00t harbors dreams of being a slipstream writer."

Jeez, it's been awhile since I did a linkdump. These range from 'hilarious' to 'thought-provoking.' The best of them are both, of course.

Jim Hines, again with the awesome: Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers): "I expected posing like Danielle to feel a little weird and unnatural. I did not expect immediate, physical pain from trying (rather unsuccessfully) to do the hip thing she’s got going on." Photos included. ETA from vvalkyri in comments, more relevant (and, sadly, often hilarious) links.

HTTP Status Cats. I'm particularly fond of 431 - Request Header Fields Too Large and 429 - Too Many Requests. (And for those on the other team, yes, there are HTTP Status Dogs too.)

Why Arabic is Terrific: "Arabic also treats the glottal stop (a soundless catch in the throat) as a regular consonant. Glottal stops are everywhere in English but we are not trained to hear them, so a long portion of one of your first Arabic classes will be devoted to blowing your mind with the fact that English words like 'apple' and 'elegant' do not start with a vowel."

FOUND: Identity of the female firefighters at Pearl Harbor. Neat.

xiphias tells us about Joe Greenstein: "Yes, there's a superhero connection here -- the original, Golden-Age version of "The Atom" is based on Joe Greenstein. But it gets better." And it does.

The Tough Guide to Fantasy Cities: "GOGGLES: They do nothing. However, they look cool. In a STEAM-DRIVEN CITY, you will find these indispensable if you wish to look like a native."

Texts from Cephalopods: "It is a well-established fact in marine biology that the octopus is the drunk texter of the cephalopod family."

The Curse of Cow Clicker and The Life-Changing $20 Rightward-Facing Cow: two fantastic articles on a horrible Facebook game. '"I didn’t set out to make it fun," Bogost says. "Players were supposed to recognize that clicking a cow is a ridiculous thing to want to do."'

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time: actually eleven, since the lede is "Time is the most used noun in the English language."

A Christmas Message From America's Rich: "Nobody hates them for being successful. And not that this needs repeating, but nobody even minds that they are rich. What makes people furious is that they have stopped being citizens. Most of us 99-percenters couldn’t even let our dogs leave a dump on the sidewalk without feeling ashamed before our neighbors. It's called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t take a million dollars to swindle the local school system, or put our next door neighbors out on the street with a robosigned foreclosure, or steal the life’s savings of some old pensioner down the block by selling him a bunch of worthless securities."

I have better friends than I deserve better friends than I ever expected some pretty good friends. I also have internet miscellanea. These things are mostly unrelated.

Excerpts from the Diary of a Henchminion: "Just like the good old days with Zyrdynyr at Ravenstalon Castle, and Z’ac’th’or at TalonRaven Keep before him. I hope this post lasts longer than those did."

Who Wrote Shakespeare?: "By Eric Idle (Most likely Michael Palin, really.)"

In tangentially related news, Ben Jonson, Private Eye is drafted, and Claim, the sequel to (or "second half of") Emma Bull's Matter-of-Tombstone fantasy Territory, is approaching done-ness. Also there is a crazy good auction going on to benefit Terri Windling, the editor most responsible for urban fantasy back when that meant "modern elves" and not "werewolves and vampires and kickass modern women with big swords," at magick4terri.

Snowblower: "Do you like shoveling snow? Then stop reading this and go back to your pushups and granola because you are not someone that I want to talk to." A crash course in how to sell something.

The Call of Cthulhu by Dr Seuss.

He Is Calling You... Tyler Durden: a music video for "Comfort Eagle" using clips from "Fight Club," linking because I keep getting "And the fluffy white line / That the airplane leaves behind / Is drifting right in front of the waning of the moon" stuck in my head.

In conclusion, it is never too early for The Muppets: Ringing of the Bells.

Oh, that's interesting (he said with distaste): if I set a userpic for a post on Dreamwidth, it shows up properly on DW, and on my individual journal page on LJ, but on "friends" pages on LJ it just shows up as the default fish. Grr. (ETA: and half an hour later, it's working fine. Database cache problem, maybe.)

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I take it back; I've missed autumn. The leaves scuffled delightfully yesterevening, and Cardero Park (a wide grassy tree-lined avenue) has come over all yellowgreen. Stanley Park looks about the same, being mostly cedars, except for the patches of color here and there. And I have fuzzy slippers and a gas fireplace, and a little cat that wants to curl up next to me while I'm writing on the couch. I'm good with this.

Meanwhile, have some random stuff I found on the internet:

I cannot tell whether these writer's dice are awesome or dippy. Good thing I have a week to decide.

The always delightful nineweaving and her amazing commenters [and now I sound like I'm advertising a circus act] take down what sounds like a very bad movie indeed: "Wouldn't it be cool if Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare?" (See also MGK: I come to bury Snooki, not praise her.)

In it for the money: $150 cash: "I'm gonna level with you: I'm writing this because I need $150 this month."

Thirteen observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a discreet distance. I'm partial to #11, myself.

Along similar lines, Duncan "Atrios" Black on Twitter last week: "'Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit' is a much better slogan than my generation's 'Where's The Beef?'" (Context, if required.)

Jim Hines writes an open letter to the BSA.

Game Design, New-School: "In short, it was amazing to see just how much game play, and sense of mechanics, is hard-coded into kids by (I assume) video games now. I kind of want to bottle my nephew and squeeze him out for some intro RPG rules."

And mariness watches (and masterfully snarks) The Three Musketeers (2011): "For reasons that DEFY PHYSICS and CHEMISTRY, I have decided to GO SCUBA DIVING in Venice WHILE WEARING STEEL ALL OVER MY HEAD and some of my body. Those of you hoping that this is an INTELLIGENT REFERENCE to The Man in the Iron Mask should probably quell those hopes."

Right. Work.