LadyCrimson

Someone recommended writer Alice Munro to me, because I like short story writers these days. I'm going through her Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage first. She's a fiction writer (not my usual sci-fi/horror/fantasy mixes) and it's well written w/interesting twists, but so far her stories are kind of melancholy in tone. It's like reading a very prosaic, artful story about how life sucks but sometimes it doesn't. Or something. Anyone read any of her other books? I wonder if all her collections are like this. I love his blog. Although mostly for his non-sports articles...like the ones where he lampoons late night infomercials. The Creepy King!

Outcast? The really old Infrogrames game where the player-character runs around in his orange jumpsuit and headset? I have that one somewhere. I remember liking it for about 10 hours, but then I stopped playing. Can't remember why. Or were you talking about Jedi Outcast or something else... Myself, I had a bee in the bonnet and started playing MM8. I couldn't get it to run at first, something about XP/sound acceleration, DX, and it not being able to cope w/the fact that I have 2GB memory on my XP machine while the game wants 32MB. Harhar. I had to find/download a fan-made XP patch and now it's all fine. It's been 6-7 years since I played this game but it all came back to me quickly...that and the help of my copious notes, which I still had. I miss games like this...the graphics are crap of course, but I still miss it. I'm having a blast. Funny how for me, the better the graphics, the less immersive the gaming experience has become. It's not that I don't love the pretty tho...I dunno, it's weird.

P.S. - I'd agree w/Schubert that an online game should have at least some content/ability for the solo player to progress through. There are a lot of us out there, and many of us are willing to shell out a little cash if we like the game, online or not. Also, it helps attract solo players who may play alone at first, but then gradually discover they actually like the group stuff and become even more long-term addicted. Personally, I think that's one of the reasons WoW has been so dominant for so long.

Fri. night I saw this Beatles tribute band in our local city square. They were ok...the square was crowded and we didn't stay long. But it was interesting to check out. Last night I went to bed early and woke up early. I tweeted a couple posts while drinking mt. dew, then came here. When I'm done here, I'm going to ride the exercycle then go for a walk on a fine late summer/early fall morning. The excitement never ends in my life! Oh and here's some quickie, grainy pictures from Fri. showing the area around/in the square.:

I built up 1 lvl 70 and several level 40+ chrs. in WoW playing all by my lonesome 98% of the time. I've never done ANY of the mid-high level raids/dungeons etc. It's why I liked WoW....I could play alone & there was plenty to do alone. My liking WoW had absolutely nothing to do with the MMORPG aspect...it was just this game I really liked, which happened to force me to play while connected to the internet. Although the Auction House (impersonal trade), which I treated sort of like a mini-game, did require other players to "play." Edit: All online games that I've liked enough to play for more than a few days were fairly playable solo...if they aren't, I stop playing. I even played Diablo2 on Closed bnet completely by myself, most of the time...doesn't apply just to "MMORPG's'.

All women are crazy, and all men are lust-induced-brain-freeze idiots. Nothing new. Next?

Mmm...not sure I have all-time favorites anymore. But I loved some of the books already mentioned, like Shogun, 1984, Killer Angels. I also love Sherlock Holmes, Clan of the Cave Bear, Stephen King's The Stand, Koontz's Watchers & Lightning, Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, Feist's (original trilogy) Magician series, Alan Dean Foster's Flinx series, and on and on. These days I typically prefer short story collections, any genre, ever since I rebelled away from the endless series syndrome. I love a good short story/short novella...and I love authors that focus on them more than on full length novels. Too bad they can be hard to find these days. In terms of sci-fi, I recently read Old Man's War by John Scalzi. I was surprised by it. Not my usual preferred writing style, but I loved it. I'd easily put it on the 'fave sci-fi novels' shelf. The sequel wasn't as good, but the 3rd book was closer.

IMO, Reeves was typecast in his current mold when he made Speed and Johnny Mnemonic. It's funny how after Bill & Ted, he floundered around trying to find his niche, from Dracula to Shakespeare to Buddha. I've come to appreciate him, within his comfort zone, more than I used to. At least you know what you're going to get, and it works well enough.

I don't know about unbeatable, but Boston sure has picked up their late season mojo, like they so often seem to do in recent years. V-Mart & Gonzo were major trade-wins (Gonzo wasn't even supposed to be able to hit well, but has been awesome lately) and the pitching is finally not sucking. Our catching is a low point, tho. All the passed balls, argh. I'm still not confident of their ability to beat NY...but if the team keeps up this mojo, maybe...The upcoming series with NY next weekend will be pretty interesting, imo.

I'm going to buy 7 when I get the new PC. Waiting to order the new PC until 7 comes out and can get it from the get go (rather than an "upgrade from Vista" option). Never wanted Vista but am willing to try 7 w/a new PC...if I hate it I can always wipe it and put XP on instead. I was wondering tho...I know one person who loathes the DRM stuff in Vista. I assume it's still present in 7? His complaint goes thusly: "the system monitors your activity on the off-chance that you might be pirating something, and if so it can lock down certain pieces of hardware." Is this accurate at all or is he under some kind of false impression? If it is at least somewhat accurate, I take it no one here sees it as an issue? Edit: My husband hates Vista and doesn't like 7 any better...but he views things from an entirely different perspective than must of us do/would, so I'm ignoring him.

Mourned the passing of Mary Travers. Peter, Paul & Mary were HUGE influences in my life growing up (thx, mom&dad) Watched Boston beat the Angels in an epic, crazy game. Watched Glee. Josh Groban had a bit role. Kinda funny. And Victor Garber was in it! Yessss! Then mourned the passing of Mary Travers some more by listening to their music. Now off to bed.

You'd dare steal from Alton Brown? The man is a genius. Who's Alton Brown? Sorry, never heard of him. I was thinking of very old cartoons where the restaurants would often seem to be be generically named Good Eats...at least, that's what my memory is recalling. I can't actually remember specific cartoons...maybe it was Popeye? Hm...

Hmm, you have a point, that they may not have to face NY at all. Still...Boston's pitching & batting inconsistency the past couple months doesn't make me terribly optimistic about taking any single series from quality teams. Ah...baseball...no matter how great (or poor) a team is overall, when it comes down to one or two games, you never know which way things are going to fly.

Is this a coffee shop cafe or the kind of cafe that's more of a restaurant? Why not just use your name, or a favored daughter/niece/uncle name, like so many others do? Or...um... Rambling Cafe Wanton Javabean Kickin' Kafe And of course there's always... Good Eats

Re: interleague games -- I don't know enough about the history/stats to have any opinion based on such. Purely from a spectator point of view, tho, I'd say I'm in the camp of not seeing much point to it them in regards to season gameplay itself. It seems simply much more sensible/logical for each league to play within their own league until the World Series. Re: the SF Giants -- yeah, it doesn't look too good for them at this point. And while Boston has a good chance at the WC, I'm not very confident of them being able to beat NY to get to the WS...so my dream of a Boston/SF WS will have to wait until... ? ...

Today I noticed Google's new, longer text input fieldbox. It's so vital and helpful, I love this new "feature!" I can now type in supercalifragilisticexpialidocious+cultural+impact+hollywood+duet and look back to check my spelling without having to scroll back! Google is always thinking about the comfort of the user. I am impressed.

Technically, if it's drawn, it's all animation. I know there's some VERY bizarre anime, but when I use the term I'm speaking more about the actual drawing style - those huge eyes & shouting mouths & certain ways of drawing/indicating action, for example. The rest tends to be, for me, just cultural mythos differences.

An opportunity to take over a small established tech business has come our way, and we're going to take it. Hubby can keep his current clients as well and there's no investment beyond time...so this should be very lucrative, relatively speaking. Could even mean early 'retirement'. Assuming, of course, it all goes as well as it seem like it should. It pays to keep in touch with people...you never know what will come out of it years later.

Watched Spirited Away. It was interesting and complex, but had more of the anime weirdness I tend to not enjoy...a little more cultural divide, for me, or something. But also, it was just weird, plain and simple. I liked the No Face (I think it was) chr. but the main girl got on my nerves a lot. Princess Mononoke is next...those two were the only ones Best Buy had besides Howls castle... And since I don't follow anime at all, I'd never heard of Miyazaki before either...or if I did, I'd forgotten.

Howl's Moving Castle. (Eng. dubbed version) ....I don't usually like anime style animation, but it wasn't bizarrely pronounced in this film, if that makes sense. And the movie itself? I liked it a lot. Charming fantasy. A little weird, but still awesome.

@Rosbjerg Well, I for one don't consider that to be fascist sounding...it's more a pragmatic rationalization. However I'm not sure I'd entirely agree we're shifting toward stupid. I see it more as a possibility rather than already occurring in any "real" sense....yet. I'd have to know more data, percentages vs population ratios and all of that. And of course, what we're measuring as intellect. (edit: since high intellect potential doesn't mean one ends up actually using it in any noticeable/measurable (to society) way)

The Mean Kitty Song, SMPfilms.

There are oodles of these common orb weaver spiders in our backyard. Seriously...just oodles of them. It's like Kingdom of the Spiders.

Used "crimson:" * Blonde Alcoholic * Broad Crimson * Crimson Prostate And The Cord * Crimson Hand Of The Disturbed Switchblade * Kind Crimson * Crimson Hunk Of The Seldom Airhead * Crimson Under Galore * Crimson Of Peace * Crimson Without Resort * Sultry Crimson I can't help but wonder how "Blonde Alcoholic" came up...a reference to something I'm unaware of, I'm sure. Then I tried 'LadyCrimson:' * Ladycrimson Of The Intelligent Stadium * Broken-hearted Ladycrimson Of The Ripped Pest * Ladycrimson Spider * Cosmic Ladycrimson * Ladycrimson Eclipse * Tasty Bipolar * Electro Ladycrimson * Pushy Ladycrimson * Ladycrimson Site Of The Crucial Flannel * Ladycrimson Crow Tasty Bipolar...lol, I like that one.

The original Doom --mostly for nostalgia reasons I suppose, but also because of its easy simplicity & player freedom in FPS co-op. Newer FPS multi-player that we've tried (admittedly not a lot), haven't liked much. Too much emphasis on either non-campaign, single 'maps' that you play on over and over and over or on non-co-op play. Diablo2 -- utter monster-bashing random chaos at it's best, or a few friends and you at it's best WoW --if you liked it enough to play it obsessively for months, it's likely going to be on your list. PS...Dungeon Keeper1 isn't the best multiplayer by any means, but when my husband and I played it that way, it was a hilarious blast. I always wanted to play it w/the max of ...four or five, can't remember...but never had the opportunity.