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[May. 13th, 2011|03:09 pm] |
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Posting to keep the account active, no other reason. |
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[Jul. 13th, 2009|12:27 pm] |
Is anyone reading me here who's not on LiveJournal or Dreamwidth? I'm probably going to quit cross-posting here unless there's a reason to keep it up. I'm ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) darththalia on LJ and ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) thalia on Dreamwidth. |
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[Jul. 1st, 2009|11:50 am] |
I just saw the best icon ever, on ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) _good_kitty's LJ, and had to share:
You Canadians are just too polite.... |
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[Jun. 26th, 2009|10:50 am] |
We're in South Carolina for a nephew's wedding. Last night was the first time in years that his whole family was together---mother, brothers, their wives, all our nephews, and our oldest nephew's new baby. It was really nice. And I haven't yet strangled my mother-in-law, but I've thought about it.
I feel bad for her, though. She said last night that she feels like she's not an important part of her grandsons' lives. What's sad is, it's true, and it's her own fault--she's never made any effort. When she talks to them she talks about herself; she never shows any interest in what they're doing--and that's been true since they were kids. Even yesterday, she didn't try to talk to them about what they've been doing--she was too busy telling my s-i-l's mother about all her medical problems. (My s-i-l's mother, incidentally, is several years older than my m-i-l and ten times more active, which makes her possibly not the most appropriate person for m-i-l to be complaining to.) She'd be happier if she could learn to focus more on other people and less on her own problems, but so far we haven't been able to convince her of that.
But, anyway, we're here, and it's nice to see the rest of the family together. Tonight is the rehearsal dinner, tomorrow's the wedding, and right now I'm trying to get some work done. There may be shopping in my future--there's an outlet mall right next door to the hotel. And I should really get to the gym.
One good thing about the insanely hot weather in Chicago last week--South Carolina doesn't seem any different. I think last I heard they were saying a high of 74F in Chicago on Monday, and I *so* hope that's still true. Sounds like heaven right now. |
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| The TARDIS Big Bang is live! |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|02:03 pm] |
It has 45 stories of 20K words or more, and more art than you can shake a stick at! (Well, OK, you could probably shake a stick at the art if you really wanted to....) We're thrilled with all the submissions this year--best participants ever!
Go! Read!
(Yes, this is largely why I've been quiet lately--I've been coding like mad. It's worth it, though!) |
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[Jun. 15th, 2009|10:25 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  bereft | ] |
Still flabbergasted this morning, and wishing I lived closer to other people who knew minotaurs. I re-read some of my Escapade posts this morning and was reminded that I met him in 2003, when gloriana, treewishes and I met for breakfast to talk about our Harry Potter panel, and Stuart tagged along. I realized right away that he completely adored fandom--he was always happy to sit and talk about any fandom he was into, and there were a lot of them.
I posted a snippet from his "Gay Boy Tells All" panel that year--that might have been the last year for it, or maybe the next. It was always insanely entertaining.
He had a great smile and an infectious laugh--that's mostly what I'll remember about him. That, and his inexplicable affection for Dante's Cove ("Of course it's a horrible show! You should still watch it!"). And grudgingly providing tech support for treewishes' Merlin clips show at Escapade this year. And his snarky comments during the Escapade vid show. And sneaking beer into the ConStrict con space when the bar shut down early. And arguing Jack/Ianto at ConStrict 2007--he was on the "Ianto wants more of a relationship than Jack will give him" side, and I wasn't.
Stuart was the kind of person who brightened a room just by walking into it. Fandom won't be the same without him. |
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| fuck |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|09:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  completely stunned | ] |
I just refreshed my friends page to find that minotaurs passed away early this morning from a heart attack. I'm completely shocked. What a fucking waste.
{{hugs}} to all of you who were his friends. He was a wonderful person, and he'll be missed. Escapade won't be the same next year... and I'm sorry for all of you who will be at ConStrict, where I know his loss will be felt.
Fuck. |
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| html editor help help help!!! |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|01:33 pm] |
Is anyone using Komodo Edit? I'm looking for an alternative to Arachnophilia, and Komodo looks promising, but I'm having a horrible time figuring out how to do the simplest things. Like inserting an image. Shouldn't that be really obvious?
*bangs head on desk*
Or, can anyone recommend a good alternative? A text editor is fine; if it has wysiwyg as an alternative, that's fine, but I very much prefer to hand-code the html. Something that can handle CSS and PHP. Other than that, I'm not picky--I just want to be able to add an img tag without typing the image's filename. Is that too much to ask???
*more banging of head*
On a more serious note, good thoughts to those who were injured at the Holocaust Museum, except possibly the shooter, at whom I hope the book is thrown. |
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| yo, Aussies! |
[May. 21st, 2009|03:11 pm] |
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sneezer222 is trying to help her son work on his handwriting by encouraging him to write postcards--she'd like him to write people, and for them to send him a postcard back. Here's her post. She says she hasn't got anyone from Australia yet, and he'd really love to hear from someone there. If you'd like to help out, feel free to comment there, and tell her I sent you if you want. |
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| modern art FTW |
[May. 20th, 2009|11:36 am] |
Monday evening Matt and I went downtown to an open house at the Art Institute's new Modern Wing. It was fabulous--the modern and contemporary art used to be crammed into a few corners, but now it has a fabulous space.
First, though, I had an errand to run north of the river, and on the way back to the loop, I saw this:
Yes, it's American Gothic Tourists. It's hard to see, but those are suitcases at their feet. I'm not sure whose idea this was, but I'd rather have the cows back.
Anyway.
The Modern Wing is huge and spacious, and the third floor has stunning views looking out north over Millennium Park. Here's a sample:
I'm dying to get back there on a nice, sunny day and just hang out. Anyone who'll be in Chicago this summer, if you want to go see some art, I'll gladly take you--I've got a membership and get in for free. It's a gorgeous space. And there's still the whole old building, too--lots of other stuff.
And, of course, I tracked down a bunch of my favorite paintings in the modern section ( behind the cut )
Everything was arranged so much better than before, since there's more space to get things organized. One thing I don't get, though, is that the Picassos were scattered all over--I'm sure there's a reason, but I wouldn't mind being able to see more of them at once. They need to do a Picasso exhibit.
Contemporary art generally isn't my thing--I just don't know enough about it to get it--but I enjoyed it more than usual this time, because they did a great job of putting the works in context. It wasn't just one abstract painting against a wall; there were groupings showing what was going at the time, or the development of a particular artist. It made a lot of the odder stuff make a lot more sense. Still not my favorite, though.
It was a long evening, but I'm glad we made it down there--it was nice to be able to look around without having to deal with hordes of people. And now I need to get back to the main building to see what they've done with the old modern space. Yay, art! |
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| anyone still need a Dreamwidth code? |
[May. 20th, 2009|10:03 am] |
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Leave me an e-mail address if you want one. |
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| theater a go-go |
[May. 16th, 2009|11:57 pm] |
Back from the theater. The painting in my last post is by Ed Paschke. The detail didn't come through too well, unfortunately; this is a much better rendition.
It's been another busy month of theater. At the end of April we saw "The Tempest" at Steppenwolf, and I've been meaning to post about it for ages. It's the first Shakespeare that Steppenwolf has done as part of its main series, and it was a really good production. They pared it down quite a bit, but the story held together really well. Interestingly, their version of Prospero was very sympathetic; I've always had a mixed reaction to him, but this time I found him very likable. That had to be intentional.
The staging was incredible--very acrobatic. Lots of ropes and poles and swinging around. Jon Michael Hill did an amazing job as Ariel--they had him directing all the effects throughout the play, even sitting on the side with an iBook making things happen. It was a really interesting treatment.
( racial issues: skeevy or not skeevy? )
In New York, we saw a matinee production of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center. It was very traditionally done, but the cast was great and pulled it off really well. Of course, this is a play with its own racial issues. ( Read more... )
Today we went downtown to see "Twelfth Night" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It was the first time I'd been downtown since we got back from New York, and, wow, did it look tiny! It was a gorgeous day, though, and it seemed like half of Chicago was at Navy Pier.
This production was notable mostly because it was set in Elizabethan England--a rarity! It was also notable because half the stage was turned into a swimming pool, and just about all the cast ended up plunging in at some point or another. ( Read more... )
I think our next theater tickets are in July. Yay. |
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| SQL Question |
[May. 11th, 2009|10:47 pm] |
Let's say, hypothetically, I have a table with these columns:
| Record ID | Last Name | First Name | Priority |
Each name has more than one row, but Record ID is unique (i.e. a name can have more than one Record ID). For each name, I want to delete the row with the lowest priority. Any ideas how I can do that using SQL? Even if I have do it in more than one step and create some kind of temporary table?
I know there's a way to do it, but it's just not coming to me--it could be that between Star Trek and the Blackhawks (go Hawks!), my brain is totally fried.
Thanks! |
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[May. 2nd, 2009|11:14 am] |
As you may have gathered from my last post, we're in New York City. Yay! Remember a few months ago I was talking about Dublin? We decided not to go to Ireland until we could spend enough time there to see the whole country, and we decided on a long weekend in NYC instead. We made the reservations, and then I put it completely out of my mind until Thursday, when I realized that I'd be getting on a plane in 24 hours and still had a ton of stuff to do. Always fun.
Getting here was an adventure--we checked a bag and got our boarding passes, and 10 minutes later I looked at the board and saw they'd canceled our flight. Whee. Apparently LaGuardia was a disaster yesterday. I immediately called American's reservations number--it was about 2:45--and she said there was a 2:00 flight that was delayed until 3:05 that she could get us on. So we jogged down to the gate and stood in line and literally got the last two seats on the plane; it's been ages since I've sat in the back row. By the time we boarded they were saying the departure time would be 3:45. We did push away from the gate then, but then we parked on the tarmac for a while and took off around 4:20--20 minutes after our original flight time. We landed around 7:50 EDT, after a bunch of circling, so that really wasn't all that bad. If we hadn't got on that flight, I don't know when we would have got in.
And, miraculously, our bag was on the same plane we were--I think they just sent all the luggage from our flight on that one and let it wait for its owners to arrive.
We're staying on E. 34th St., which is turning out to be a decent area. It's not right in the middle of everything, but it's not all that far from 5th Ave. and Broadway, and Central Park is maybe 1.5 miles from here. We haven't done much today because Matt has some *work* he's been doing. I'm trying to pry him away from the computer. Meanwhile, I did a bit of shopping this morning--THERE'S NO SALES TAX ON CLOTHING!!!! If I'd known that, I would have made sure there was room in the suitcase. I could use a few things for summer, and they'd be about 9% cheaper here.
Tomorrow we're seeing South Pacific at Lincoln Center, and we're going to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on Monday. Other than that, no plans at all. I'm just hoping the weather is OK--right now it's gloomy but not actually raining, which I think is about as good as it's going to get. |
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[Apr. 30th, 2009|09:21 pm] |
I have five Dreamwidth account codes, and I'll give them to the first five people who comment. Please leave the e-mail address you want to use. Comments are screened. If you're planning on paying for a Dreamwidth account, you won't need one of these--and they say payment should be working at this point. |
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[Apr. 28th, 2009|08:27 pm] |
tardis_bigbang is taking sign-ups for art through this Sunday, May 3. Assignments will go out about a week after that, and art and vids are due on June 14. If you're interested in doing some art or a vid in Classic Who, New Who, Sarah Jane Adventures and/or Torchwood, we'd love to have you! Sign up here! |
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| laptop question |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|07:16 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | computer | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
My laptop seems to be running really hot lately--the fan is running, but the temperature on the bottom is still ridiculous. How do I know whether it's a problem? And what do I do about it?
Thanks!
Oh, also... can anyone (mrshamill, I'm looking at you) recommend a good, free anti-virus program?
Thanks again! |
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| yo, ConStrict people! |
[Apr. 22nd, 2009|06:58 pm] |
I'm discussing Buca di Beppo's pope room on another LJ, which reminds me: splix, if you'll be at ConStrict this year, you *must* get a group together and make reservations at the Vegas Buca, and get the pope room. I'm serious. You won't know what hit you.
I won't be there, unfortunately--we're going to South Carolina for a wedding at the end of June, and with everything that's been going on, I just can't do another trip that soon. I'll miss you all! |
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| iPhone yay! |
[Apr. 18th, 2009|09:26 pm] |
Best iPhone app ever: Shazam. On the way home, some song came on the radio, and Matt and I got to arguing about how long it had been out. Shazam will listen to the song and identify it. I swear. Insanely cool. It turned out to be Seven Nation Army, by the White Stripes, and it's from 2002, which means Matt was right, darn it.
Someone (Elayna? Gloriana? Barb? I don't remember. Sorry!) asked me recently if I've had any luck figuring out the best way to read slash on the iPhone--that was one of my main topics of conversation at Escapade. I downloaded an app that works--File Aid, I think--but the problem is that if I'm reading something in it and have to go do something else, it bops me back to the main app page; it doesn't save where I am in the story. So that kind of bites.
I did download eReader, though, and I think that's the best way to go. I've figured out how to convert HTML to eReader files reasonably painlessly. eReader uses .pdb files, but apparently they have to be specially made for eReader; not all .pdb files will do.
So, questions:
Are a lot of people reading slash as .pdb files? Is there an LJ comm or a website where one can download already converted stories?
Is there some kind of comm for mobile files in general?
Would it be rude for me to make .pdb files publicly available without checking with the authors? If I'm going to all this trouble, I'd love to be able to share them, but not if it would cause problems.
In other news, Chicago is having an unusually successful sports day--the Bulls, Cubs and White Sox have all won. If the Blackhawks can come back, it'll be a sweep. Hell might freeze over, too. |
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| back up |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|02:46 pm] |
Destinysgarden.net is back up, yay. Normal service has been resumed.
Apparently someone hacked into my account and uploaded a spam-generating script. I'm currently changing my password everywhere I can think of. Whee. At least they're letting me back in, and they've blocked the IP address that uploaded the script. Does anyone more technical than I know if there's some way I could report whoever did this? I've got their IP address, but that's all I know. |
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| domain issues |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|12:59 pm] |
I'm having some problems with my web hosting company, so right now destinysgarden.net is down. This means:
(a) My usual e-mail address isn't working. I can be reached at darththalia@gmail.com, but please don't change that permanently; I hope to be back up at thalia@destinysgarden.net soon.
(b) The Tardis Big Bang website is down. It should be back up by tomorrow--if I can't get this resolved I'll just take it to a different web host.\
Speaking of, anyone have good web hosts to recommend? I'm paying $7 a month now, but I'd go up to $10 for a decent amount of space.
Grrrrr. |
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| and on the dreamwidth front.... |
[Apr. 13th, 2009|10:44 pm] |
The latest Dreamwidth status report says they're continuing to give out invites, but at a fairly slow pace, so they can make sure the servers aren't being overloaded. Apparently they're randomly sending them to people with validated OpenID accounts, so if you register over there with an OpenID userid, you've at least got a chance. And, yes, I'm keeping track of all y'all who have said you're interested, but I haven't got any codes yet, and I don't know if I will.
I'm feeling kind of guilty about using a code when I'm less enthusiastic about it than a lot of people, except I'm so incredibly happy to have snagged just plain thalia without the darth!!!! Yay!!! |
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| running 101 |
[Apr. 13th, 2009|10:17 pm] |
gnomad mentioned that she's thinking about running a 5K, and, being me, I can't help giving advice. So, here's ( Thalia's guide to running )
All you other runners--any suggestions? Disagree with any of this? Did I leave out something important? Feel free to chime in! |
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| dreamwidth yay! |
[Apr. 11th, 2009|10:24 am] |
Thanks to the lovely isiscolo, I have a Dreamwidth account! And the best thing is, it's just plain thalia--I got there early enough that no one else grabbed it first. I suspect isis understood how I felt about getting the right name. [g]
That said, I'm not planning on doing much with it. I'll be cross-posting my LJ entries over there--I think I've got Semagic set up--but that's it. I suspect LJ will remain my primary journal for a long time, unless there's a surprisingly large fannish migration early on.
I'm going to be fascinated by how the whole subscribes to/grants access to thing plays out--I understand the reasoning behind separating those functions, but it looks like it could be a huge source of wank when people find out they're on one list but not the other. It should be an interesting next few months. |
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[Apr. 6th, 2009|11:42 pm] |
It's poetry month, apparently. And since it's Holy Week, this one seems appropriate.
The Shield of Achilles
W. H. Auden
She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.
A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.
Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.
She looked over his shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice,
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been,
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.
Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.
She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.
A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long. |
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[Apr. 6th, 2009|09:28 pm] |
I seem to be in a fannish phase.
treewishes pimped me into Merlin at Escapade--I saw the first ep there, and I watched eps 2-5 today. I don't know if I'm going to be reading the slash, but I'm liking it, so far. And I'm sorry, gloriana, but Gaius/Merlin just isn't doing anything for me.
Guinevere rocks, though.
Also, I got the first Due South season 1 disc from Netflix this week--I'd forgotten it was in my queue. So I might finally be watching dS, years after everyone else. Typical. (*waves to gloriana again*)
Leverage is also on my list, thanks to beck_liz. You people are troublemakers!
And there's a new Doctor Who this weekend! Yay!!! Now we just need Torchwood to start, and my life will be complete. |
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[Apr. 2nd, 2009|04:54 pm] |
From jedirita, it's the Exodus story, told through Facebook.
I'm having an insanely unproductive day, and I don't want to go exercise, although I should. On the good side, we're going to see Coraline 3-D tonight. And Slumdog Millionaire is coming to the local theater tomorrow; I need to get to that one too.
Have fun at Muskrat Jamboree, all you who are going! It seems like half my flist is on their way to Boston. |
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artistic