Category: general

Yes, sez MSN Money.

All I know is, money is tight everywhere.

I’ve had a few news stories marked as “new” in my Bloglines because I thought they were interesting and worth mentioning. They’ve been in there for ages, so I finally thought I should go ahead and blog them and get them out of there.

First up, an alternative to cremation. This is very interesting to me because I plan to be cremated. The process, called “promession“, involves freezing the body and shaking it to bits. This reduces the pollution caused by cremation. (Via BoingBoing)

Some UK scientists have permission to create an embryo using genetic material from two women. (via Slashdot)

The Guardian has an article about bad science in the press. (via Slashdot)

Auto-torrenting of enclosures in RSS is a reality! (via Slashdot)

Boston.com’s Top 50 Sci-Fi TV Shows of All Time was linked by Slashdot.

This actually really intrigued me. Central Park Media let fans pick the dub cast for a one-episode OVA called Outlanders. (Man, I would have loved to have had the opportunity to pick the voice actors for Kyou Kara Maou…) A oneshot may not seem like such a big deal, but I’m hoping that this is a sign of things to come! (via [surprise surprise] Slashdot)

NASA scrapped the Space Shuttle!

Aaaaaaaaaaand that about does it for Old News. Have a great day.

I told about half a billion people we were getting a house. I was so excited. For some reason, I assumed we could get a really nice house like Mari and Kelly’s.

Finding out that we can’t, and that it’s my fault, just makes me feel stupid. Like I was expecting to get something awesome without doing anything to earn it.

This is just another life lesson.

I’ll figure it out eventually.

I hope.

I just finished bingeing (I had cereal with whole milk, a chocolate bar, peanut butter crackers, and a soda, and now I feel terrible), and then I see this post on BoingBoing. Convenient!

As usual after sinking to the lowest possible point, I’m pulling myself together and moving on. I don’t have a plan, other than to just keep plugging away at life.

People have told me that I just need to get used to drudgery and disappointment. I should just stop having such high expectations.

I can’t have a house. I can’t live in Japan. I can’t travel.

Do you know why that is?

It’s because I am a loser.

All these grand dreams, and no actual effort to achieve them.

No job.

No working on something to publish.

Zero progress on that “business idea” I kept hinting around about last year.

(Nothing about that secondary blog I was going to start, either.)

And all I do is spend my days avoiding the work I do have and should be doing.

I am a fucktard.

It’s a miracle I managed to graduate from college.

We aren’t ready.

So, the West Wing had a presidential debate!

It kind of sounds like the “Republican candidate” said a lot of boring/trite stuff, but I don’t know for sure, since I didn’t watch it. Maybe he said cool stuff and the author of the article just chose to quote the lame parts.

In any case, the idea of a “gloves off” presidential debate is really appealing to me. It would be cool to see.

Meanwhile, you can buy all of Star Trek for a mere $2499.99. Go forth, nerds, and plunder!

I’ve been reading my own archives today (don’t ask), and I just came across all the posts I wrote back when I was figuring out how to import Blogger comments into WordPress.

I had it all worked out, perfectly.

But all that work was on my computer in the apartment.

The one that got destroyed in the fire.

GAH!

However, it looks like someone else figured out how to do it, so at least I don’t have to recreate all that work…

The other night (was it last night?) as I laid awake in bed, I thought of something I wanted to write. It would just be a short story, and I have no idea where it would go, but I liked the concept. A character with horribly bad luck, who taints everyone she touches. She stays upbeat for as long as she can, but ultimately the pain of those around her starts to have an effect on her psyche.

Yes, it is inspired by myself! I won’t be so arrogant as to assume I have any special sort of bad luck, but you have to admit that it’s funny: I had cancer, which hurt my family, and then my apartment burned down, which hurt my husband. Taken together, anecdotally, you can kind of pretend there’s a pattern.

Anyway, thinking of that made me wonder if I’m ever actually going to write anything on Plugged In (or whatever I end up calling it). I think that deciding to do NaNoWriMo this year was pretty stupid. I was hoping that having a lot to do would force me to organize my time better, but all it’s really done is cause me to stress out about all my obligations. So, once again, pretty damn early this time, I’m going to throw in the towel.

I’ll leave the book there though, so I can write on it when I feel like it.

Japan Today: Amateur becomes pro shogi player; 1st such case in 61 years

I can’t help but think of Tsubaki. Poor guy. (Okay fine, shogi isn’t go, but come on! And hey, Kaga plays shogi…)

Japan Today: 250 parents attend orientation for school modeled after Eton

Kaiyo Academy, which covers junior high and senior high school education, is scheduled to open in Gamagori, Aichi Prefecture, next April. The boys-only boarding school aimed at raising future leaders of Japan will recruit 120 students for the first year, school officials said.

The Kaiou school Touya went to wasn’t boys only, but it certainly was prestigious, and the names are quite similar :>

…Sai! *sigh*

We have a meeting with a realtor today. I set my alarm for 8:30, but was so excited that I woke up at 6:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep.

I got up and took my laptop in the other room and wrote an essay I’ve been stressing about all weekend. It really wasn’t all that hard. Part of the reason I didn’t get it done on Friday like I meant to was because I was overwhelmed by the idea of the essay–it could make or break my job application. But another reason is simply that I don’t have a quiet place of my own to work. This morning I went into the workout room and wrote my essay with the computer sitting on the treadmill; it’s the most privacy I can really find.

Once I reserved my quiet spot and got to work, though, the essay came flowing out of me. A few revisions, and I was ready to submit my application. (Here’s hoping!)

We’re about to leave for the realtor, and I’ve been writing out a few last-minute questions I have about purchasing a home. Hopefully this meeting will be very educational.

Sean and I just finished watching Smallville Season One.

Evil!

We’re sorely tempted to break our “let’s not spend any extra money until we get the house” deal and pick up Season Two…but then, there’s probably a cliffhanger for that season too, so we’d have to go ahead and get Season Three, and hell, while we’re at it, why not Season Four?

;P

Suffice it to say, this show is awesome. (Thank you to Hai and Mom for getting me into it!)

Check out what I just saw on CNN:

I think the writer must have been confused by Harry’s haircut in the movie…

So, in addition to the word verification feature, there is now a Comment Moderation feature on Blogger. (Was that what they were doing today from noon to 2 PST?) Basically, if I turn this on, it’ll hold all comments until I approve them to be posted.

I haven’t really had problems with spam or flames, but this feature appeals to me for a totally different reason:

Blogger is supposed to send me an email every time someone posts a comment. That way, if someone comments on a really old post, I’ll know about it, without having to scan through all my archives all the time.

This feature occasionally actually works! I’ll usually get an email when there’s a comment on a post that’s still on the front page, and every now and then I’ll even get an email for a comment on an older post. However, there are plenty of comments that I’ve discovered by accident while looking for posts…so I imagine there are others out there in my archives that I’ve never even seen. The email system is flawed.

Because of that, it’s tempting to me to turn on comment moderation. There, I would be able to see all comments; they’d sit on a special page in the Blogger admin waiting for me to approve them.

The bad thing about doing that is that people wouldn’t be able to see their comments posted immediately. Plus, it would give the impression that I’m censoring people, which wouldn’t be the case. I have never deleted a comment on this blog except when there was a double post, in which case I nuked one of the doubles. I’m really not interested in censoring what people say. If someone comes over here and decides to be a total asshat, I’m going to leave their comment for the world to see. I figure the long-term satisfaction of possible ruined reputations (and personal embarrassment) is well worth any short-term unhappiness I might experience. (Maybe I’m a little bit evil, I don’t know.)

So I’m still thinking about it. But if I do decide to enable moderation, I’ll put up some sort of notice somewhere about it, basically repeating what I said in the previous paragraph.