| NSFW: Sunitha Krishnan's Fight Against Sex Slavery |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|10:45 pm] |
We think we know the horrors of the world. We think we understand them, and that we're doing the best we can, but that we've got our own problems to deal with...
Remind yourself.
You don't need to volunteer. You don't need to donate. Just stop thinking of victims as less than yourself, or than anyone else. Accept them as the same as yourself, and try to make sure that the people you know and the people you love do the same, and then you can say that in some small way, you're doing your part. |
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| Holiday Wishes |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|08:57 pm] |
I signed up for this community:
http://wwww.livejournal.com/holiday_wishes
and this is my wishlist:
Hi, my name is David and I am a first time poster to this community. I live in the UK, and am a friendly, happy chatty person :) I'm looking forward to being part of this community this year :)
Happy Holidays!!
My List:
1 - Anything Godzilla related. Godzilla rocks! Preferably the true Godzilla not that fish eating fake that we saw in a certain movie in the 90s :P :)
2 - Anything Studio Ghibli related
3 - Interesting stones from anywhere in the world, with a little note on where they came from and why you think they're interesting :)
4 - RPG books you don't want any more. I love them all, tho white wolf would be good right now. I'm looking for hard copies, as I have disk copies and they're not as readable.
5 - Headphones for my ipod nano - mine broke lately :(
6 - anything from Lush :)
Thankyou in advance for anything you do send me :) Contact me on chastisement @hotmail.com for my home address if you need it :) |
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| New Year's Eve |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|09:44 am] |
Stealing ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wererogue's post...
We're having a New Year's Party! And, so long as we know you, you're with someone we know, and/or you let us know you're coming, you're invited!
We reckon it's a great idea, because:
1. longpig's awesome sister elanya will be here
2. If anyone else is having one, we haven't heard about it yet
3. Our place has 3 decent-sized rooms, all connected, which can accommodate snack tables
So, set the date (that's December 31st, New Year's Eve,) bring some booze, and come and enjoy our snacks! We'll probably get something going on the projector, and maybe some music in the spare room.
Kids absolutely welcome! We have a kid-friendly dog, so that shouldn't be a problem at all. |
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| Rage for Christmas? |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|12:11 pm] |
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Bill Bailey has pointed out on twitter that the christmas number one is always whiny x-factor stuff and has directed his followers to this site, to see if enough people can be convinced to buy 'Killing in the Name' on the 13th of december to ensure that that becomes the christmas number one instead. Sounds a pretty good cause to me, at least! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|11:55 am] |
My first LJ post from my new Ubuntu install. After XP murdered 2 hard drives, to add to 6 cases of OS suicide in the past 4 years, I've decided it can sod off for my day to day usage.
So far it's been fun. The latest version seems to fail at finding unRAIDed SATA drives, I spent ages trying to circumvent that last night and finally managed it this morning. Everything else has Just Worked so far, including my printer, which Windows always choked on. Definitely much better than any Linux distro I've tried before.
The only downside to this is I can't run XNA on this 'un - Mono's fine and all, but we still can't run the xna assemblies on it. So I might end up dual booting anyway for work purposes, grumble mumble. |
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| New Years Party! |
[Dec. 6th, 2009|07:52 pm] |
We're having a New Year's Party! And, so long as we know you, you're with someone we know, and/or you let us know you're coming, you're invited!
We reckon it's a great idea, because:
1. longpig's awesome sister elanya will be here
2. If anyone else is having one, we haven't heard about it yet (aside from the awesome Crumpwrights! Alas, they are too far :( )
3. Our place has 3 decent-sized rooms, all connected, which can accommodate snack tables
So, set the date (that's December 31st, New Year's Eve,) bring some booze, and come and enjoy our snacks! We'll probably get something going on the projector, and maybe some music in the spare room.
Kids absolutely welcome! We have a kid-friendly dog, so that shouldn't be a problem at all. |
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| Movember photos |
[Dec. 5th, 2009|09:08 am] |
I'm late sharing the awfulness that was my final Movember mustache with you. I tried to put together enough material for a time-lapse photo, but really all that changes is my hair, so I gave up halfway through the month. You can see those photos on my Movember page:
http://ca.movember.com/mospace/214677
and a couple that ( never made it that far. )
And now, ( the finished product! 1 month of growth! )
This'd be great if it meant I didn't have to shave, but unfortunately, there's basically a mustache there, but it's pale blond and invisible! |
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| Your Mind at Work |
[Dec. 5th, 2009|08:40 am] |
Occasionally throughout my life I've been wonderfully complemented by a question:
"How can you be so calm/nice/easygoing/patient/thoughtful..."
I call it a complement because all of those are things I strive to be, and it's great to know that I'm having some kind of success from the point of view of people who aren't me.
However, while I've tried my best to explain my methods, I've never had a scientific, brain-based reasoning behind them. Then I watched this video yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeJSXfXep4M
( Abstract )
The mental process and techniques he describes are a large part of how I shape my personality. When I hear bad news, I go right into problem-solving mode - how can I fix this, or even turn it into an opportunity? I'm far more likely to use this method of dealing with a problem than to suppress it.
The big part that I wasn't aware of was of how much of our (and my) lives are governed by the threat response. When someone asks you to do something hard, or criticizes your work, BAM! Threat. When think you ought to talk to someone you don't know? Threat. So I guess next I'll work on recontextualising that - I'm already able to handle that response, but I didn't realise how often it occurs.
This ties in pretty well to a long-term line of thinking for me - when I was in my teens, I noticed/decided that I didn't really fear death. I've got a good, logical set of reasons why it's not scary, but I always found it a bit weird that my brain was able to handle that - as my biochemist friend Chris argues, surely fear of death is a survival mechanism, and lacking it just makes it easier to die?
Working from the ideas in the video, it seems to me that accepting death will/has made it easier for me to deal with threatening scenarios, and thus has actually increased my survivability. |
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| More Bits |
[Dec. 4th, 2009|10:33 pm] |
As stated on Fookbook, I am now back into size 14 trousers, which is the size I was before I had Leo. Granted, it's a slightly squidgy-looking 14, and it's not the same shape 14 as I was before so none of my old trousers fit, but at least I know I'm healthy.
School is still going well. They sent off my paperwork for my first term today, stating that I was meeting all the standards and was 'an asset to the school', which was a nice boost. A lot of people seem to be forgetting that I'm only on a temporary contract too, which is really nice. Even if I don't get to stay there I'm consoled with the fact that I'll probably have a decent reference from them.
I'm tired. Really tired. I think it's because there are only 10 teaching days left of this term, and Christmas Term is the longest and hardest one, apparently, so if I get to the holidays without giving in to exhaustion then I can only hope the next two terms will be a breeze. It took me a long time to get over the Pig Sniffles and I'm still not 100%. I didn't finish the antibiotics - more fool me, but I was an even bigger fool for leaving it four weeks before I decided enough was enough. At least now I feel human and like I can cope with the world - I still feel sick occasionally and the coughing is undoing all my hard weightlifting work (yes, THAT weighlifting), but at least I don't feel rotten. And regarding the sickness: no, I'm not expecting. I checked when a few weeks of random nausea began to seem weird.
So yeah, the weekend looks inviting, even though I have exams to mark. The Christmas hols look even more inviting. Two weeks of chilling, the occasional lie-in and daytimes with Leo seems like pure indulgence. Sod baths and spas and wine - I want to kick leaves with my son while it's light! Maybe it'll snow... that would be amazing.
I think tomorrow is a good day for the Christmas tree to go up. I like Christmas, and now the great thing about working with kids is that none of them get grumpy about the season, and they're happy to enjoy something simple like coloured lights being put up without moaning that it's too early, or that Christmas is a rubbish time of year. Even the kids in care or from the disfunctional families suddenly get all happy and cheerful because even though they might not get presents or a decent festive day or their family might not be around, school is somewhere where games get played and films get shown and the place gets decorated, so it's a time worth looking forward to.
I still need to buy a few friend and family gifts, and I haven't sent Steve's off yet because I haven't got his address. I'm sure he won't mind getting it late.
Ugly Betty? Yes, maybe. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 4th, 2009|12:28 pm] |
I set up another LJ account a while back for use as a blog when John Pierson and I were making weapons and sundry other LRP-related gubbins, but we never got round to adding anything.
Until now...
madmen_at_work
It's not much, but it's a start. |
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| Happy birthday Ruminator |
[Dec. 3rd, 2009|12:39 pm] |
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Have a great day! I shall be spending your birthday afternoon learning to save lives, so that's good, right? |
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| Beautiful |
[Dec. 3rd, 2009|09:14 am] |
“When LEGO executives recently discovered that adult fans of the iconic plastic bricks had hacked one of the company’s new development tools for digital designers, they did a surprising thing: They cheered.
Unlike executives at so many corporations, who would be loath to let their customers anywhere near the inner workings of their software tools, the LEGO honchos saw an opportunity to lean on the collective thinking of an Internet community to improve their own product while bolstering relations with committed customers.
All it took was being open-minded enough to see that their biggest fans weren’t trying to rip them off; they were trying to improve LEGO’s products in a way that, just maybe, the company’s own designers hadn’t thought of.”
Here, via the awesome essay Finding the truth in systems: in praise of design-hacking by Scott Burnham. |
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| NaNoWriMo |
[Dec. 2nd, 2009|12:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thrilled! | ] |
I won! 50 000 words written in 30 days whilst working and studying. =D |
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| If you have any spare change... |
[Dec. 1st, 2009|09:46 am] |
...please consider helping these two folks out.
mgrasso posted on his blog and I trust him. britgeekgrrl 's husband is terminally ill, and while I don't know her at all, I can't sit by and not do something to help. You can read a little about what's happening here.
I know money is tight for most of us, and many of you simply don't have the funds to help out right now. If not, would you at least consider boosting the signal? To have to plan for a loved one's funeral at this time of year - it's just awful. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 1st, 2009|01:53 pm] |
To expand upon last night's update, Cleo made a surprising recovery yesterday, but is still not well. She can walk a bit further on her own and can now go back on her pain medicine (which we had to stop due to possible interference from new meds). This means she may recover some more in the next few days.
The vet we saw yesterday said Cleo has something called Vestibular Syndrome, which affects the inner ear and basically means her sense of balance is screwed. It also manifests some symptoms which resemble those of a Stroke, but is not as severe and recovery from VS is usually good, although often the recovery is never complete, and some symptoms will remain for the rest of the dog's life.
All things considered, while not being the best news, it could have been a lot worse.
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 30th, 2009|12:09 am] |
I would post a review of the player event I was just at, but all I can seem to remember is this line from Friday night:
"I find you FASCINATING."
... and the unrelenting urge to slip it into IC conversation all through Saturday.
Oh, and Chiara cooks damn fine cakes. And the stew the crew made was awesome. And I love Andy to bits.
Ta oxfordgirl , you continue to win at Maelstrom. |
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| Movember |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|11:24 am] |
It was pointed out to me that while I put some information on twitter and facebook, I have neglected to tell LiveJournal that I've been participating in Movember.
Movember is a yearly charity event in which participants grow a moustache to support prostate cancer research.
As many of my friends know, my ability to grow facial hair is... limited. We could use other terms to describe it, like "pathetic" or "child-like". So what better way to put that ability to use by amusing you all with the truly sorrowful results of a month of letting my upper lip do its thing?
My donation page is here: http://ca.movember.com/mospace/your-donation-page/
You can visit it to see the progress of the early days. I haven't updated it for the rest of the month, so that the final growth will have more... impact? (Disclaimer - it's really because I forgot :/)
So, if you're feeling flush, click the link and send a donation for a good, and bizarre, cause! |
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sleepy
sad
unsure