Bela

Is that better or worse than

Who? I skimmed the user reviews of his books on Amazon (it was a very very light skim...), and they seemed decent. Maybe that's a good sign. But then I saw his interview posted at Dragonmount, where he said...

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

Back in my day, I chatted with people in group chat on a multi-line MBBS system...

Ahh, I thought it was the Curse of the Pacific Time Zone...

Hayden Panettiere Wanted in Japan

I've had Hemispheres stuck in my head all day, which is odd, as I haven't listened to it in ages.

This nice leopard wants to give me a high-five! Or possibly a pat on the back. A very...sharp and pointy...pat on the back...

The Witcher should've been rated Teen. Having the protagonist behave like a teenager is not "Mature".

Mr. Bela and I have each finished MotB once, and now we are trying it in multiplayer (we just got to act 2).

The prologue is also very long (lots of cut scenes) and, um, kinda boring IMO. It gets more interesting after you finally leave Kaer Morhen. I'd been having problems with the game locking up on area transitions (it'd hit the CD, the drive would make a little chirping noise and go into an infinite seek). This occurred about every 30-40 minutes. I'd have to eject the CD so it could CTD. I think it's the *$@# copy protection. I followed the instructions in this thread and it crashes less often now (merely every couple of hours).

...And now it's raining. Wish us luck with the upcoming landslides!

More like 47% Rep / 30% Dem. 47% isn't like 99.9...%? I was only off by 52.99999999999%.

Or that there is a god and he hates hippies. You are aware that San Diego is, like, 99.99999999999% Republican, right? Personally, I blame Utah. That's where the weather map showed the big ol' high-pressure "H". Blame Utah!

Berklee is also where a lot of the guys from Dream Theater went! My advice is to make sure your professors know your name (in a good way, of course ). Talk to them after class, attend office hours, etc. That'll make it easier to get letters of recommendation for things like jobs, high-profile projects, grad school applications, fellowships... Make your presence known even if you know the material.

The airport itself is not threatened, and according to our CBS affiliate, there are no reports of delayed or diverted flights. For those who are curious, our PBS station has been updating a map with the locations of the evacuation areas, burned areas, shelters, etc. Click here. (Speaking of the PBS station, one of their transmission towers burned down in the Harris fire...) Mr. Bela and I live in San Diego, and the fire that we are concerned about is the Witch fire. But we are west of 15 and south of 56, so we have not been evacuated, although you can probably imagine it doesn't smell very good here right now. We've got several friends who have been evacuated. We live near a canyon, so we've also been concerned about pieces of ash being blown into it and starting a new fire. Also, is apparently is already 94 degrees (F) right now! (It's about 1:40pm.) We've been avoiding running the AC to conserve power. Yay heat. For those who are curious, the weather pattern that is causing this problem is the Santa Ana winds. Other random tidbits... - I was pretty concerned about the animals at the Wild Animal Park, but the officials seem to think that the animals will be safe, as the plants are heavily irrigated and there are a lot of fire breaks around the enclosures. They did move some of the critically endangered species (such as the condors) to another area, however. - Palomar Mountain, home of the Palomar Observatory, is on fire, but I have not heard word about the observatory itself. Apparently it was designed with fire in mind, so perhaps the structure itself will be safe, although I can't imagine that the particulate matter is very good for the mirror. Fortunately I don't have any interesting pictures (we have not seen flames, and the air has been blowing most of the smoke/ash towards the ocean, so the skies are fairly clear where we are), but I took these on Monday. You can see how the palm fronds are almost horizontal (they are being blown west/southwest). At our place, the worst winds were on Monday (it was quite difficult to sleep with all the howling and rattling).

Maybe the next Sims 2 expansion pack will involve LARPing.

I just remembered that there are some humorous summaries at the Atari forums. (They were written by the user Isam, then re-posted by awheelgirl.) Some of my favorite bits: From book 2: And then from book 10:

That's not true. She also speaks to any number of people, some of whom may not be entirely trustworthy. And we're supposed to remember and care who all these people are. All of them! Don't forget about her chapter-long bath.

Graendal! Lanfear! Slayer! For me, it started to go downhill at book 6, athough the battle at Dumai's Wells redeemed it (Kneel or you will be knelt). The change in quality from book 6 to 7 was remarkable (and not in the good way). The tag is [ s ].

You could also come up the speed via the summaries at the Encyclopaedia WoT site. That's how I dealt with book 10. ('Cuz I've tried to finish it about 4 times... )

What a shame. The WoT PC game lured me to the books; I didn't start reading them until after book 8, A Path of Daggers came out, so I suppose that compared to long-time fans, I hadn't gotten as frustrated with the pace. I dearly hope we see the final book. Rand's horse was pretty cool.

Laozi has excellent typing skills.

Gah! And Daily Show is a repeat?! :sad: Until then ... Gonzales to Spend More Time Eavesdropping on His Family ... if only ...

Heh, I'm Amidala, too.