Let's Talk About Anything

I could interface you guys right under the table.

10.6 installed
misc: smoking guy
[info]hoshizora
best thing about Snow Leopard so far: It restores per-application persistence for input method settings, i. e. I can have a Japanese keyboard set for my dictionary app and an English one set in the document I'm typing my translation into, and when I cmd-tab between the two processes the input method changes accordingly. This functionality was removed in Leopard, and I am unutterably glad it is back.

the worst thing about Snow Leopard so far: it breaks my awesome Hal 9000 screensaver, which apparently will remain broken until Adobe produces a 64-bit version of Flash (which is to say, never ever ever.)
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nyc
Me : Pipe
[info]hoshizora
I have navigated a city populated entirely by jaywalkers. I have seen John Hodgman duck furtively into a secret backroom bar. I have shared a giant slice of cheesecake at night in Central Park. I have seen giant raccoons cruise through Brooklyn like they own the fucking place. I have descended from a giant glass cube into the most profitable retail establishment, per square foot, in the world. I have drunk twelve dollar cocktails that were worth every penny. I have turned 31. I have seen a sequined jam skater named "Flowness." I have profitably schmoozed with professionals in my industry. I have eaten a hot dog wrapped in bacon. I now understand why Times Square is a place best seen once, then avoided. I have brunched in Williamsburg. I have looked from one giant, aging suspension bridge to another and felt genuine awe. I have misplaced a MetroCard. I have lived in Spot Conlon territory. I have roller skated until my feet bled. I have tasted 18-year-old rum. I have looked out along the cape to see a steely Atlantic ocean shod in seagrass. I have eaten freshly steamed lobster. I have eaten freshly steamed steamers. I have drunk hot chocolate so rich it gave me a moderate erection. I have smoked a pipe on a rusty fire escape at 1 AM. What are steamers? Well they are steamed, obviously. I have driven a car worth more than I make in three years. (Disclaimer: I do not make a whole lot.) I have slept in a 200-year-old house. I have complained loudly and at length about bikes without brakes. I have seen the fall colors of the northeast. I have walked barefoot along tidepools and harassed hermit crabs. I have spent entire weeks feeling vaguely like my surroundings must be some kind of absurd theme park. I have eaten a bagel with lox. I now understand the caveat "weather permitting." I have wondered both aloud and to myself what "home" actually means.

I am back.

my NYAF commission
Avatar : Dork Love (Sokka/Suki)
[info]hoshizora
I got a nice watercolor done at NYAF, of Sokka and Suki being adorable. The very talented Holly Mongi was taking commissions, and [info]ali_wildgoose and I spent more time than I'm comfortable admitting discussing exactly what we would have her paint for us.

Anyway.

Here they are, being adorable )
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this icon has never been more appropriate
Text : I had to tell my Livejournal!
[info]hoshizora
I just saw a giant goddamn raccoon walk down the street here in Brooklyn like it was no big deal.

A fucking raccoon, you guys.

hey on the train this morning, la la la la la
Shena Ringo : Rock
[info]hoshizora
head fucked up from allergy medicine (which incidentally both did not help my allergies and also kept me up most of the night! WAY TO BE, MODERN PHARMACY) but this song is putting me back on track.

Good ol' Tamio Okuda.

Hey Hey Hey, Tamio Okuda
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who wants a postcard?
Vintage : Let's get Violent
[info]hoshizora
I am leaving for New York City on Wednesday. Anybody who wants a postcard, leave your address in the comments (which are screened) and I will send you at least one! PERHAPS MORE THAN ONE?!

...moon prom?
Planetes : Going Places
[info]hoshizora
Title: So You Think You Can Dance in Microgravity?
Series: Planetes
Word Count: 100 on the nose. Drabbling it up, drabble-style.
Spoilers: Only if you squint. Not really.

'Wait, what?' )

The big ol' Planetes post I never made
Planetes : Go baby Go!!
[info]hoshizora
Hey guys!

So I know from time to time I have exploded with glee when watching Planetes (I seem to watch it about twice a year), but have encountered MIXED RESULTS when trying to get other people to watch it!

DESPITE IT BEING ONE OF THE GREATEST TELEVISION SHOWS OF ALL TIME.

SO!

If I have talked this show up to you, but you're like "I dunno, that Paul guy is kind of a nerd," well, fair enough. But if you won't listen to me?

~*~LISTEN TO MEREDITH~*~



That is all.
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Infinite Jest
FLCL : Canti in Silhouette
[info]hoshizora
I first tried reading Infinite Jest when I was in Hawaii. I got about maybe halfway through before bogging down, although I bought some of David Foster Wallace's essay collections and despite not having finished his major work, the man's writing was very near and dear to my heart.

He committed suicide a year ago, which prompted me to begin rereading IJ. I was fortunate at the time to be graced with company willing to hear the book read aloud; some passages lent themselves to this much more readily than others, but it was on the whole a new way to enjoy the work; good writing is always such a pleasure to speak.

It was slow but steady going, and even when I lost the opportunity to read aloud, I'd become sufficiently enamored of the book to want to finish, this time. I didn't push it, I didn't ruin my own enjoyment trying to read more at a sitting than I wanted to. My progression through IJ happened in the background of many other books.

And last night I finished it, all 981 pages and 388 endnotes.

It was really good. I wish Wallace were still around.


'When he talked about this thing as a quote perfect entertainment, terminally compelling—it was always ironic—he was having a sly little jab at me. I used to go around saying the veil was to disguise lethal perfection, that I was too lethally beautiful for people to stand. It was a kind of joke I'd gotten from one of his entertainments, the Medusa-Odalisk thing. That even in U.H.I.D. [The Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed] I hid by hiddenness, in denial about the deformity itself. So Jim took a failed piece and told me it was too perfect to release—it'd paralyze people. It was entirely clear that it was an ironic joke. To me.'

Joelle van Dyne, Infinite Jest, p. 940
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good ol' buster
Bike : Record Crankset
[info]hoshizora
My front derailleur cable housing exploded a few days ago, so I bought the parts to make the repairs, and yesterday evening I did them.

I built that bike from individual parts1 precisely so I'd be able to do whatever repairs I would need to do, and it's turned out exactly how I hoped. I've put thousands of miles on Buster the Wonder bike and I've done all my own maintenance.



1Yes, even the wheels.
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That Avril Incandenza's a scary lady
Champloo : Books
[info]hoshizora

Joelle'd felt half-crazed. She could detect nothing fake about the lady's grace and cheer toward her, the goodwill. And at the same time she felt sure in her guts' pit that the woman could have sat there and cut out Joelle's pancreas and thymus and minced them and prepared sweetbreads and eaten them chilled and patted her mouth without batting an eye. And unremarked by all who leaned her way.

Infinite Jest, p. 747.
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You're a good man, Scott Lynch
Corazon: Solar
[info]hoshizora
My favorite fantasy books in recent memory are the Gentleman Bastard series, which currently stand at 2 books (The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas under Red Skes). Until recently the author, Scott Lynch, had taken a long hiatus from (evidently) any kind of online activity, and the tentative publication date for the third book had slipped and slipped again, and nobody knew what was going on.

Now! I do not begrudge the man his delay one iota—He doesn't owe me a damn thing. Mostly I was just concerned that he was himself physically okay, and secondarily I hoped his third novel would one day be finished so I could be a giant nerd about it. But I'm a patient man. I can wait.

My waiting has been rewarded! Recently he's revived his online presence, which includes his livejournal ([info]scott_lynch) and twitter account (scottlynch78), and hinted that revisions to the third book are coming along well. He seems to be back among the living, which comes as news of the most welcome kind.

BUT LAST NIGHT, the dude decides that as a favor to his readers who have stuck with him through the delays and so on, he's going to post, chapter-by-chapter, a FREE SERIAL NOVEL about A BADASS LADY PILOT ON MARS.

...IT DOES NOT GET MORE RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS THAN THAT.
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some music I've been listening to
Shena Ringo : Rock
[info]hoshizora
I'm on this inexplicable soul kick right now. This is just the tip of the soul iceberg, right now. Like the soul itself, my ability to absorb groove is infinite, irrational, unknowable.

Get Yo Shit, by Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

I'm Gonna Getcha, by Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves

And this is just some random J-hip-hop that [info]palais gave me and I can't stop skating to. It's good for going fast. Also it's got this really great scratchy sample in it where a guy says "There's a lotta people in this world, but ain't a one gives a damn about me" and I dunno. It's just cool.

Norainu, 刃頭 Featuring Ill-Bosstino
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Coney Island and Times Square / Rockefeller Center, wish I was there
Haruhi: Go!
[info]hoshizora
Soooooo!

I am going to New York City, Sep. 24-Oct. 14.

New York City.

I got a pro pass to the New York Anime Festival and [info]ali_wildgoose and [info]emsariel are (in a demonstration of I'm going to call it frankly ridiculous generosity and openheartedness) putting me up for a couple of weeks while I take in the city and like gawk at tall buildings and generally act like an annoying tourist.

My hope is that I will also be able to reserve some time with the Ninja Consultants, as I have a variety of matters that I could really use the Ninja perspective on, so I hope that their retainer is not too high.

Also I will be having my birthday, which will be my last prime birthday until I'm 37! [EDIT] And my last Mersenne Prime until I'm 127! EXCITING!

Finally, I am bringing my skates and am going to skate like a maniac. I am going to skate, like... here. Oh fuck yes.

scott lynch tell me moooore
Avatar : China Mieville the last Airbend
[info]hoshizora
Apparently Scott Lynch did a reading from from the upcoming (!!) Republic of Thieves at ArmadilloCon:

I had meant to read a relatively serious interlude from The Republic of Thieves, in which Locke Lamora is invested in the rituals of a mystery cult on the night of his thirteenth birthday, but I decided to go with something a little more adventurous, an interlude called "The Boy Who Chased Red Dresses," in which Young Locke goes toe-to-toe with Young Sabetha in a battle of wits (Hint: He gets schooled).

OH BOOK. I AM SO EXCITED TO READ YOU.

ha ha nobody even knows what I am talking about oh well

my sf nerd is showing
FLCL : Canti in Silhouette
[info]hoshizora
So Charlie Stross and Paul Krugman had a conversation about The Future.

And the whole thing is very interesting, but the part where Stross talks about robots cars (one of my favorite subjects, in case you've never seen me go off on the rant) is especially so, because he oh-by-the-way points out the obvious solution to one of the big problems I've been trying to get around w/r/t driverless cars.

Clearly robotic cars are going to be vastly safer for both the occupants and the surrounding traffic, and past a certain point of adoption a lot of people are going to wondering why we let humans drive at all. I assumed that there would be some kind of backlash when the first anti-driving legislation came around, but Stross makes the point that the lower insurance rates for people who choose not to drive are going to be what motivates the transition.

My concern is that the ratfucker insurance companies are going to want to avoid huge swaths of the population paying way less for car insurance because their odds of being at fault in an accident have dropped to nearly zero, and there will (I assume) be a whole class of lawyers just waiting for the first robotic car failure and its resultant lawsuits. My hope is that instead of anti-driving legislation, there will be laws against overcharging robotic car owners for insurance. I have no idea what kind of precedent there is for such legislation, only that it seems like insurance companies tend to have lawmakers in their pockets. We'll see.

Anyway. I still cannot wait to have a car that I can call for a ride. A medium-to-large life goal of mine is to be able to afford such a car when it becomes available, which assuming we don't fuck up monumentally as a species, I expect I will live to see.

(I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff. Don't judge me.)
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(no subject)
Avatar : Sokka Airborne
[info]hoshizora
Two really great dreams last night. One of them was about watching the unreleased Avatar OVAs.

If only, universe. If only.

Also, huh:

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a variety of feelings, succinctly expressed
Big O : Even androids get the bles
[info]hoshizora
I wish to express the fact that Carl Swangee and Detective Regal are ~*~friends~*~, and further to articulate how this does things to my sad little heart.
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Infinite Jest pp. 534-535
Misc : Ima wa mukashi
[info]hoshizora

"But Don you're still a human being, you still want to live, you crave connection and society, you know intellectually that you're no less worthy of connection and society than anyone else simply because of how you appear, you know that hiding yourself away out of fear of gazes is really giving in to a shame that is not required and that will keep you from the kind of life you deserve as much as the next girl, you know that you can't help how you look but that you are supposed to be able to help how much you care about how you look. You're supposed to be strong enough to exert some control over how much you want to hide, and you're so desperate to feel some kind of control that you settle for the appearance of control."

"Your voice gets different when you talk about this shit."

"What you do is you hide your deep need to hide, and you do this out of the need to appear to other people as if you have the strength not to care how you appear to others. You stick your hideous face right there into the wine-tasting crowd's visual meatgrinder, you smile so wide it hurts, and put out your hand and are extra gregarious and outgoing and exert yourself to appear totally unaware of the facial struggles of the people who are trying not to wince or stare or give away the fact that they can see that you're hideously, improbably deformed. You feign acceptance of your deformity. You take your desire to hide and conceal it under a mask of acceptance."

"Use less words."




"And then meantime you didn't say a straight-on Yes or Now to Can I ask what's up behind [your veil], are you cross-eyed or have like a beard, or do you have like really bad skin under there even though your skin everyplace else that isn't hidden looks—"

"Looks what? My unhidden skin is what?"

"See, this is you keep trying to sidetrack instead of just saying No to Can I ask. Just say No. Try it. It's OK. Nothing bad'll happen. Just try it straight out."

"Perfect. You were going to say every visible expanse of my skin is drop-dead creamy perfect."

"Jesus, why am I even here? Why don't you just interface with yourself if you think you know all my issues and shames and everything I'm going to say? Why not take the suggestion to say No? Why come in here? Did I come to you, to talk? Was I just sitting in here trying to keep awake and do the Log and getting ready to go mop shit with a shoe-freak and did or didn't you waltz on in and sit down and come to me?"

"Don, I'm perfect. I'm so beautiful I drive anybody with a nervous system out of their fucking mind. Once they've seen me they can't think of anything else and don't want to look at anything else and stop carrying out normal responsibilities and believe that if they can only have me right there with them at all times everything will be all right. Everything. Like I'm the solution to their deep slavering need to be jowl to cheek with perfection."

"Now with the sarcasm."

"I am so beautiful I am deformed."

"Now with the nonrespectful acting-out of treating me like I'm stupid for trying to get her to walk through her fear to give a straight-out No, which she isn't willing."

"I am deformed with beauty."

Moé update
Bike : Climbing equals pain
[info]hoshizora
All the Tour de France podium girls were lovely, but the King of the Mountain girls had the best outfits by far.

Adorable polka-dot dresses? Giant bows?!

Jesus. I have to work on my climbing.

もえ〜!

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