jazzfish: Barnaby from "Bone," text "Stupid, stupid rat meme!" (Rat Meme)
[personal profile] jazzfish
Also got long.

From [livejournal.com profile] kdsorceress:

1) So, you've probably explained this a couple dozen times, but why Jazzfish? Besides the fact that it leads to a just fantastic usericon.

I needed an email address other than @vt.edu, and tucker@juno.com was taken. And [livejournal.com profile] scathach had just (given me? loaned me? pointed out for sale?) a copy of Howie Green's Jazz Fish Zen, with which I immediately fell in love, and the rest, as they say, is history.

(The userpic's cropped from an image somewhere on his site. I keep meaning to write him and make sure he's okay with me using it, and just haven't gotten around to it yet.)

2) Do you read comics/graphic novels? Any recommendations?

I do! I happened to be standing by my bookshelf a couple of nights ago and reread Warren Ellis's exceedingly creepy and disturbing "Atmospherics" because it was there. (In retrospect, I suspect it was part of the unconscious inspiration for my most recent story.)

Recommendations... Sandman, of course, but everyone'll tell you to read Sandman. (They're not wrong.) Lucifer was pretty good too. The couple pages of Ōoku that I've read were good and I'm told that the rest of it is just as awesome (and gender-bending). Andy Runton's Owly, of course. I'm a fan of Hellblazer but it's highly dependent on the writer: I loved Ennis and Carey, couldn't stand Azzarello. Grant Morrison's We3 ("The Incredible Journey with killer cyber-animals") is almost the only Morrison I like; I like it an awful lot. I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting.

3) What is a thing to do in the DC area that you think everyone ought to at least try?

See a movie in Theatre 1 at the AFI Silver. Preferably an awesome one. I recommend The Muppet Movie; Lawrence of Arabia or Buckaroo Banzai will do in a pinch.

4) I found a LEGO unicorn at Toys'R'Us yesterday! Do you like LEGOS? Which are your favourites?!

That's kind of awesome. I had a lebküchen box full of legos (mostly space ones) when I was a kid; I think it's still in the attic. I don't think I really had any favorites as such. I liked the jet engines that attached to the bottom of other pieces, and the computer console pieces.

5) How do you describe the way you look?

... I had a really great dodging answer for this, but it's a question that wants honesty.

I don't. If I'm forced to do so I note the ponytail ("how his hair is growing thin!") that fuzzes out at the sides, and then I segue into shirts or (lack of) shoes. I know I've mentioned "round/pudgy face" more than once; in very select company I'll admit out loud to hating intensely how, once again, my belly and waist flab out over top of my jeans.

The way I look? Standard sub-standard geek, nobody you'd ever look at twice.



From [livejournal.com profile] absolutliz:

1. What were you doing at Pack Place apartments in Blacksburg - did you live there?

Pack Place, Pack Place... oh, that's the apartments right across the street from the 100 Acre Lot (the giant commuter lot behind the engineering buildings)? I worked there for about nine months. There was a small shitty software company called Synapticad that was being run (poorly) out of three apartments on the bottom floor. It was the second worst job I've had in my adult life (yes, worse than Sbarro).

2. What was the best thing about TJ for you?

The people. I came to Jefferson after five years in Fayetteville NC, the last two of which were unrelenting hell on me as a smart introverted kid. It was unutterably freeing to be around people my age that didn't judge me for either of those traits.

3. What was the worst thing about TJ for you?

It's actually pretty hard for me to come up with negatives. Not that there weren't any, just that it was so much of an improvement in practically every way that I have a hard time focusing on the negatives. My fights with my parents weren't really Jefferson-related, except in that Jefferson was what gave me the idea that I could have something worth fighting them for.

Ironically enough, I think it was the people. Or person, anyway. Sometime during junior year the guy who'd been my best friend for the past two years (Harding) decided he didn't want to be my friend anymore, which I didn't know how to handle at all. At the same time, he was rather close friends with my then-girlfriend (KT), leading to all manner of madness on my part. She (wisely) broke up with me shortly after Memorial Day; they started dating sometime that summer, I think. So, I was kind of a wreck for most of 1994. That pretty much sucked.

4. How do you feel about having kids (of your own, or adopting, theft, etc)?

Depending on the day it ranges from "oh hell no" to "not something that i rule out altogether." My standard response is that I wouldn't put someone I loved through the hell of junior high. This is what hackers refer to as "ha-ha-only-serious."

I have no problem being the crazy uncle, though.

5. What board game do you feel has the best dynamic in terms of social interaction?

... holy cow this is a difficult question. I'm not even sure where to start. Quo Vadis has what I think is a great dynamic for people that get it. It's all about "I'll help you out here if you help me out there." Barring that, I'd have to go with a cooperative game, like Pandemic, where all the players are fighting together against the game. If everyone's equally familiar with the game, and one person doesn't tend to start driving everyone else ("you do that, then you do that, then i'll do this"), it can be a really excellent experience.

Date: 2010-07-27 09:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pictsy.livejournal.com
I was outstandingly smart and high-achieving all through elementary and middle school, so my problem with Jefferson was that I was no longer the smart kid. I stopped caring about doing well in school because I no longer got any recognition for it.

Date: 2010-07-28 12:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] idoru.livejournal.com
Me, I wasn't smart in a TJ Kid Proper way. Hello, I went to music school. Being a naturally good student in a school full of creepily good students means, sure, you're just one of the guys, which can be nice. But it also means when your life goals don't include being an astrobiophysineericist hard math lawyer (or programming genius) -- or OTHERWISE SAVING THE WORLD -- you get the feeling you're falling seriously short.

Date: 2010-07-28 03:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pictsy.livejournal.com
Same here--I actually became kind of a technophobe for a while because I couldn't live up to the image.

Date: 2010-07-27 11:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] absolutliz.livejournal.com
So, I can't believe I haven't heard of pandemic. I need this game...any idea where to get a copy? Is it out of print?

Date: 2010-07-28 01:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zaph.livejournal.com
and one person doesn't tend to start driving everyone else ("you do that, then you do that, then i'll do this")

Isn't that kind of what the Dispatcher is for, though? :)

Date: 2010-07-28 02:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zaph.livejournal.com
From what I understand, Pandemic does become more complex with the expansion. I have it, but haven't yet played it. Perhaps I will host gaming of some kind at some point and play it (yeah, I know, I've been saying that for years, right?)

The original one also became a lot easier to win once I realised I'd misunderstood the rules and that cards can be passed in either direction on a person's turn.

Date: 2010-07-28 02:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shield-toad111.livejournal.com
Lebküchen box? Like, one of the big amazing tins that was initially filled with more tins and also some boxes that were filled with cookies?

Date: 2010-07-28 03:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shield-toad111.livejournal.com
The cookies alone are totally worth it. Though the big tins are quite amazing. Of course, you got to live in Germany - I just got awesome cookie tins and stuffed animals that my dad would bring back from business trips.

Date: 2010-07-28 05:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fishy1.livejournal.com
Y'all know you can totally get those from the German gourmet (http://www.germangourmet.com/shopcontent.asp?type=Contact%20us
) locally, right?

They only gave the big trunks around xmas,though.

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Adventures in Mamboland

"Jazz Fish, a saxophone playing wanderer, finds himself in Mamboland at a critical phase in his life." --Howie Green, on his book Jazz Fish Zen

Yeah. That sounds about right.

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