Stratovania

Today, bethje and I went shopping at the Jersey Gardens outlet mall, where most things aren't really any cheaper than at any other mall. I also got a new pair of sneakers at Kohl's, which is good because I must have had my current pair for a few years now. When I'm going somewhere that isn't work and doesn't require walking, I'll often just wear a pair of slip-on shoes, but the ones I have now are pretty worn out. I might have to get a new pair of those as well.


The latest Futurama episode, "Forty Percent Leadbelly," was based on the actual technology of 3D printing, although it obviously hasn't reached the point that we see in the show. According to the Wikipedia page, a three-dimensional model of an object is created by laying down "successive layers of liquid, powder, paper or sheet material to build the model from a series of cross sections." The material that the Make-O-Matic used in the episode was nano-plastic, an actual term used for plastic reinforced by nanotechnology. There's been some controversy over a successful prototype gun created through 3D printing, which already sounds pretty science-fiction-y to me, even if you can't produce bullets that way. I don't know if a 3D printer could make a functional guitar, but I'm sure live octopuses are still a long way away. The episode was similar to Bender's Game in that Bender was able to create physical objects and even living beings using his imagination, although the explanation made a little more sense this time.


Here's a survey on books and reading that I got from slfcllednowhere:
( Read more... )

And then there's this:



Obviously they didn't ask the right questions for the Dumb/Dork/Awkward category. And if it had been the Odyssey instead of the Iliad, I have a copy on the shelf to my left.

From poisonyoulove:

01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LJ.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

( It's under the cut. )

And now, to change the subject abruptly, I came across a link to this list of sci-fi movie conventions that need to die from SamuraiFrog's blog, and I thought it was worth commenting on. So here are my thoughts on each item:

6. I think this one is just a throwback to the cheap special effects of early Star Trek.

5. I don't mind this one so much, but it did always seem to me that Star Trek characters spent an awful lot of time talking about what, to them, would have been ancient history.

4. I think the part about logical holes is what particularly gets to me. And it's not just sci-fi that does this. I mean, look at how often magical devices in fantasy aren't used when it would make sense. (Magic Belt, anyone?) I guess I like consistency in what things can do. For the same reason, magic that grants wishes can be an irritating trope in many situations.

3. I have to agree whole-heartedly with this. I can recall even noticing as a kid how weird it was that entire planets would have one culture and a single ruler (if not a single ruler for an entire galaxy), when such obviously wasn't the case on our own planet. Mind you, I still used the trope in some of my own stories. I was in elementary school at the time, after all. But really, why bother using planets and aliens when their entire civilizations are less diverse than the local country club? And I know I've seen several people point out how Star Wars is full of desert planets, ice planets, swamp planets, and the like. They're all fit for human habitation, yet consist of only one environment. Does every part of each planet somehow receive the exact same amount of sunlight? Or ARE there other environments on these planets that we just never see?

2. This just makes me think of the part in the Futurama episode "The Birdbot of Ice-catraz" where Bender just flies the ship out from the middle of Old Man Waterfall's peace ring.

1. A society with advanced military technology relying on infantry? Well, that's basically what we had in Vietnam, wasn't it?


And finally, another quiz result:

Your Brain is 60% Female, 40% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

I went out with bethje and Dorothea last night. First, we went bowling, and I didn't do very well. I never do very well, but I think I scored somewhere in the nineties last time, and this time I never even broke seventy. Oh, well. After that, we had dinner at the Olive Garden, and then went out to Atlantic City. My two companions did some gambling on the roulette machines, but I just spent that time reading Battle of the Labyrinth. Using the machines is kind of fun, but I'm not big on gambling because I always think about how I could buy stuff with the money I put into the one-armed bandits (which are often more like buttoned bandits these days). Yeah, I know there's a chance of winning, but even people who win usually seem to put in more than they get out in the long run.

I've been having some bizarre dreams in the past few nights. I had meant to write about the ones I had the night before last, but now I can't remember it. I should probably start writing them down as soon as I wake up, if they're interesting enough. Last night, I had some dreams that were kind of related. The first one I can recall had Beth (or someone playing the role of my wife for the dream, anyway) and me picking up girls at some kind of amusement park and planning to take them back to our hotel room, but they left before we could get back there. I guess we don't have a future as pimps. {g} Later, it somehow changed to a story about some guy arriving at what might have been the same hotel after an adventure, accompanied by a woman he'd just recently met. The two of them had sex, which I knew because the owners of the hotel had monitored their behavior for the entire night. I think there was supposed to be some kind of conspiracy behind the whole thing, but my dreams often hint at grander things than I actually see in them. The story somehow became a book, which was sort of like Slaughterhouse-Five in that the main character mentally jumped around in time. I think there was a revelation that he became involved in time travel whenever he needed to, but he didn't realize this at first. Really, it seemed like it could have been a good story if it weren't for the fact that the dream itself provided so few details. I also remember something about being trapped in a military recruiting station, jumping through a closed window to escape, and waking up right then.

Finally, while I'm not looking for dates, I tend to find the results of these quizzes interesting. I'm not sure what was up with some of the questions, though. Even though I'm sure some people ARE still opposed to mixed-race couples, would they actually admit it in this day and age?

( Read more... )

Yeah, I've covered the topic of fundamentalist busybodies who oppose gay marriage before, and everyone has probably seen this video anyway, but I found it too crazy NOT to repost here. This group calls itself the National Organization for Marriage, although they make it clear they only like one sort of marriage, which makes it kind of a silly name. It would be like if I founded the National Association for Pizza, but I proposed destroying every kind of pizza except pepperoni.



And here's some more fun with NOM.

I personally like this one: “Who gets harmed? The people of this state who lose our right to define marriage as the union of husband and wife, that’s who. That is just not right.”

Wait, so we have a RIGHT to define words however we want to? Humpty Dumpty would be thrilled! I also have to admit being somewhat puzzled by the idea of someone responding to the accusation of being a bigot by saying, "I think that’s pretty offensive, don’t you?" Um, isn't calling someone a bigot SUPPOSED to be offensive?

You know, I'm married to someone of the opposite sex, but we don't have any kids and don't plan to do so. So does that mean our marriage is just as invalid as a homosexual one by NOM standards? I can live with that. Also, wouldn't it be logical for these people to support polygamy? After all, if one mom and one dad is better than two parents of the same gender, wouldn't multiple moms and dads be even better? And even if you do think a kid is better off being raised by people of both genders, why do they have to be a married couple? bethje was raised primarily by her mom and her uncle. What would NOM think of that?

And, while this has nothing to do with the rest of this post, I still thought it was kind of fun.



Yeah, I couldn't remember the symbol for antimony. In fact, I'm not even sure I can recall what antimony is. Sounds kind of like a Shakespearean character. {g}

Hey, it's our anniversary! Well, sort of. Since bethje and I got married on the twenty-ninth of February, I guess we won't technically have an anniversary until 2012. But it HAS been a year, and we were considering eating dinner at the same place we had our small reception in order to commemorate that. The only problem is that we found out they're cafeteria-style most of the time, and we didn't want to have to figure out the ordering system. So we ended up going to the Olive Garden instead, which I guess wasn't as special, but it was still good. I had the four-cheese mezzaluna with sausage (which, like most of the better dishes there, is only available for a limited time), and I enjoyed it, even if Beth didn't. (She didn't order it, but I gave her a bite of mine.)

After dinner, we went to Atlantic City and walked on the Boardwalk, which was cool, but we didn't see any cats. (For those of you who don't know, there are stray cats living under the Boardwalk, especially near the Trump Taj Mahal.) Beth was on the lookout for video roulette machines, but we didn't find any. So we didn't do any gambling, but that's fine with me. And when we got home, we watched Into the Wild Green Yonder, on which I've already commented. So I guess that brings us up to the present, at least as far as anything actually interesting goes. But since I took some personality tests, I'm going to include my results in this post as well.

I think I might have done this before, but a few people on my friends list just took this quiz, so I figured I might as well follow suit.

My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 6.94, Libertarian: 3.63

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -3.99

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Culture War Stance
Score: -6.99

Political Spectrum Quiz


One problem I've always found with quizzes like this is how many compound questions there are. I mean, "It makes sense and is fair that some people make much more money than others"? What if you think it makes sense, but isn't fair? And the race question was even worse, because it said something about race issues never ending because people identify more with their own race. I'd have to say that people identify more with others they see as part of their own kind, but race is merely one way to define this "kind," and a quite arbitrary one at that. Still, I think my result was pretty accurate.

I found this meme while browsing my LJ-friends' own friends pages, and thought it sounded fun.

RULES: Go to Google and type in your first name and the given phrase. Copy and paste the first sentence/phrase you get that makes sense.

( My answers )

With October here, it's time you learned the truth about Halloween! (The video is in four parts, all of which cut off abruptly for some reason. Maybe the Devil got into her webcam.) It's a time when Druids would sacrifice animals and virgin girls to Samhain, Lord of the Dead, and leave carved pumpkins outside people's houses! Now where have I heard that before? Oh, right. From our old pal Jack, and I don't mean O'Lantern. Come on, "Samhain, God of the Dead"? First of all, it isn't pronounced "Sam Hane." And it's a time of year, not a deity. You might as well say that Christians worship a god named Christmas. And speaking of Christmas, isn't that also based on an ancient pagan festival (several of them, actually)? And while the Bible does say that witches are bad news, doesn't it also have prophets of God performing magic tricks, Saul consulting a medium with no apparent condemnation, and Jacob benefiting from practicing sympathetic magic on Laban's goats? Not to mention that it includes all kinds of animal sacrifice, and even some human sacrifice (see Judges 11). And even if all the Druid-slandering were accurate, how would that make kids dressing up and begging for candy evil? Are we not allowed to do ANYTHING that can somehow be connected to something unpleasant, however tenuously?

Ah, but this woman MUST know what she's talking about, because she used to be a practicing witch, who worshipped Diana! Wait, Diana, the Roman equivalent of Artemis? What does she have to do with witchcraft? Well, actually, I believe she was sometimes considered to be the same as Hecate, who WAS associated with witches. Really, though, it kind of sounds like she just drew the name of a goddess out of a hat. But then, a lot of neo-paganism seems to be a hodge-podge of different belief systems. Not that mainstream religions don't also have elements of other religions thrown in. Besides, most of the self-identified witches I've known were vegetarians, and hardly the sort who would sacrifice animals. I believe that the Church of Satan is also against harming animals, but there's a difference between the Satanism of Anton LaVey and actual devil worship. I don't doubt that some dumbasses make sacrifices to Satan (or some other dark lord) on Halloween. But then, there are also people who bomb abortion clinics in the name of Jesus, or fly planes into buildings in the name of Allah. I don't think any belief system is free of psychopaths, although some have more than others.

And here's a quiz result, which has nothing to do with Halloween:
( Read more... )

Here's another meme, which zimbra1006 and slfcllednowhere both did:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.



Here are a few quiz results:
( Read more... )

And some more Captain N reviews:
( Simon the Ape-Man )
( In Search of the King )

I think I'll make a new mythology post tomorrow.

I finished reading Inkheart a few days ago. I think it was sort of like The Neverending Story in reverse, in that, instead of someone from our world getting sucked into that of a book, it has people from books being called into our world (although there is some of the other as well). They ARE both German books, and The Neverending Story is actually quoted in Inkheart, so I doubt the connection was entirely accidental. I liked the part where it mentioned that Meggie and Mortimer would read anywhere, and sometimes ended up being late for things because of it, because I could identify with it. The distaste for dog-eared pages is another thing I agreed with. I'll admit that I'm not always the most careful book-handler--I'm prone to some accidental smudging, and a lot of my older paperbacks ended up hopelessly crumpled due to spending so much time in my book bag--but I don't INTENTIONALLY damage books, and dog-earing seems to me to be doing just that.

The Inkheart movie is supposed to be coming out next year, and I guess I'll see it, although I have no idea whether it'll be any good. It's been some time since I last went to the movies. I think the only time this year was when bethje and I saw Prince Caspian. I do want to see The Dark Knight, but I don't know when I'll have the chance. And is that animated Clone Wars supposed to be any good?

Anyway, speaking of Batman, here's a quiz result:
( Read more... )

And continuing the theme of movies based on books, here's a survey that I got from bec_87rb:

Copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book. Italicize the ones that you've watched. Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme. Or don't. I didn't.
( Read more... )