Blogger has just added a crapload of new features, including comments. Their comments feature appears to be far more robust than the Blogkomm thingy I’ve been using; I can turn comments on and off individual posts, I can limit comment posting to a specific group of people… Wow.

Blogger will also let me archive individual posts on their own pages along with their comments, which is what I was trying to do by archiving by day (which obviously doesn’t work if I post more than once a day). Plus, all Blogger templates are standards-compliant and machine readable, written in CSS, so that means I can look at the code of their new templates to see what I can do to make my site compliant too.

Essentially they’ve gone through and added almost everything I could want. (One feature that I would like that isn’t present is a means to truncate posts on the front page and only show a certain amount of characters, so more posts could go on one page, and so the reader could immediately tell if he/she has already read the post and see how many comments there are without having to scroll past huge, robust diatribes filled with gargantuan paragraphs. I’d also like an easy way to post photos, but you know, I’m just amazed at what they’ve done already, and I don’t really have the webspace for a photoblog anyway.)

So yeah, this is pretty impressive. I had logged in to write a story about “my first date”, but the new Blogger look totally derailed me. I’ll probably come back to that post later after I mess around in here a little.

This has got to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Children are awesome.

This is a fascinating article on how the limits of our short-term visual memory. I think that the idea that “limits on visual memory are related to limits on the number of items we can attend to at once” holds a lot of water. I’ve noticed that when I’m being inundated with information–such as articles on my Bloglines–I tend to feel like I’m overloading, often to the point that I scroll past things without looking at them, or even unsubscribe to something that is giving me too much to take in. Likewise, while I’m focused on a writing task, I have a hard time paying attention to anything else, including the music I’m playing in the background. The song could be running over and over for hours, and I wouldn’t realize it. Sean has tried to talk to me while I was writing (or reading), only to have me bark, “I’m busy!”

Less cognitive-intensive things, like making printouts, mailing packages, and sorting items are easier on my brain, so I can usually do two or three of those at once while listening to my boss explain something else. However, even then I sometimes have to ask him to repeat himself.

This limit on our conscious attention actually seems to be a fundamental behind a book Robert loaned me, Getting Things Gone by David Allen. Allen posits that having no plans or routines for dealing with multiple tasks causes them to pester us via our subconscious mind. His organizational system hinges on setting up areas in which to file work items so that we don’t have to think about them until it’s time to…thus freeing our minds to think about what we need to at the moment.

I don’t know if this is something we can, or even necessarily should, evolve out of. It seems to me that noticing what is important and then acting on that knowledge is a necessary part of life. Perhaps this is our brains simply being efficient. If we don’t need to see or know something, our subconscious minds may simply be ignoring those things in favor of what our conscious minds are dealing with. Would it really be better for the subconscious to stop doing this, and to allow the conscious mind to process everything? I’m not sure that it would be as easy to focus if that were the case–this might even have something to do with people having short attention spans/ADD.

Pretty interesting stuff.

My butt was pretty damn sore, though. I always forget about bicycle seats. They are truly the tool of Satan.

Just watched Star Trek: Nemesis for the first time. It was pretty good. It was actually a movie, instead of a two hour episode. You’d think that I could quantify why, given that I took two whole film courses in college. But I’m not entirely sure what the difference is, although I do think that in general the following factors had an effect: there were more things going on than you’d usually have in a two hour episode, a lot of stuff happened very quickly, and a main character died. There was the typical beginning with the group assembled like family again, but it didn’t go on monotonously forever, and all of a sudden we were thrown into the action. I think that definitely changes the experience.

There were also several emotional things going on at once, including Deanna’s mental rape experience, that were not plunged into and explored laboriously as they might be in an episode. I suppose the following comparison can be made: episodes are like chapters in a book, while movies are like short stories.

I dreamed about adoption last night, I guess. There was an alcoholic man who was trying desperately to give away his son. The boy was a real cutie, with spiked blond hair, and I guess he was around Connor’s age. (Didn’t look a thing like Connor, though.) I took the boy and we got along famously. It was just weird. I explained it in the dream to some skeptics with a speech about how I understood why the alcoholic had to give up his child, and why that made me feel that I should take him. The rest of the dream was me carrying the boy around and talking with him. He was really sharp. We discussed all kinds of things, which of course I can’t remember now. Dreams are silly like that…I don’t even know what the boy’s name was.

Then today when I was leaving Publix I saw a woman and a cute little toddler, and I almost started crying. I winced and grimaced and told myself to stop letting it affect me. Because that’s really what it is. I’m allowing myself to be in pain.

Lately I’ve been thinking that I would really like to buy a house in North Augusta, to be near my friends and to start a more “mature” part of my life, but today I started wondering if getting a house would be too painful without children in it, or if I’m thinking of a house as a substitute for a child. I don’t know. I feel like I want to do things that pretty much require a house, like garden, and have a guest bedroom, and have cookouts, but at the same time I wonder if I’ll feel weird about it knowing that there won’t be any little ones to fill the larger space. Maybe I’m just leading myself towards more pain.

I don’t even feel like I’m expressing this coherently. There’s so much in my head that refuses to come out. I guess…I just want to know. For sure. And once I do know…I want to make some sort of plan.

I always try to tie things up tidily and explain them away. So there you go, emotions; get over yourselves. I am so incoherent right now it’s not even funny, and the more I write, the less sense I make. I need to just stop writing now.

I dreamed last night that I saw blood on my underwear when I went to the bathroom. I had already cleaned up and left the bathroom before I realized that I might be having my period–for the first time in five years. Terrified that I was raising false hopes yet again, I was about to check…but then I started seeing blood everywhere. It was spraying all over everything in a fine mist. Even though I realized that this new blood was coming from somewhere else, I still felt that maybe I was having my period too. I never got a true confirmation.

Stupid dreams.

Check out this email I just got:

INFOEUREKO INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY AND PROMOTIONS.

EGASTRAAT 254,

AMSTERDAM,

THE NETHERLANDS.

FROM: THE DESK OF THE MANAGING DIRECTOR

INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD DEPT,

SCFN: GWK/5333/025648/03UAD.

BATCH: 241/2002/BLL.

ATTN: CEO,

We are pleased to inform you of the release today the 3th of APRIL, 2004 of the INFOEUREKO INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY/PROMOTIONS, NETHERLANDS held on the 19th of APRIL, 2004. Your e-mail address attached to the ticket numbers 1001-58255563-2285 with serial number 8888/03 drew from the lucky numbers 02-22-00-66-99-85-52-12-36-50, which consequently won the lottery in the FIRST category. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND EURO ?120,000.00)in cash credited to security file number GWK/5333/025648/03UAD.This is from a total cash prize of ?3 million share among four individuals and Six international companies lucky winners in this category. CONGRATULATIONS.

Your funds is now deposited with our Payment/Finance Department in the security company to your name ,Due to the mixed up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep this winning a top secret from the public notice until your claims has been processed and remitted to your account as this is apart of the security protocol, to avoid double claiming or unwarranted taking advantage of this program by participants. All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from the 100,000 company/individual email addresses from all over the world as part of our international promotions program, which we conduct every decade. We hope with a part of winnings ,you will take part in our end of year stake ?20million international lottery. To file for your claim and your winning certificate to enable our fiduciary agent to transfer your winning sum in to your bank account, please contact our fiduciary agent. be sure you call or by email.

——————————————————

ADENT

—–

SECURITY COMPANY SERVICES

TEL: +31-642-680-688

E-mail:scs@starspath.com

E-mail:euscs@netscape.net

MR.D.ADAM.

( Director of payment )

——————————————————

For processing and remittance of your cash to a designated account of your choice. remember,all

winnings must be claim not later than MAY 14th 2004, After this date,All unclamps funds will be returned to the promotion company. NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please remember to quote your security credited file number and batch numbers respectively in every correspondence with our fiduciary agent. Furthermore, should there be any change of your address, do inform our fiduciary agent as soon as possible. Congratulations once again from all members of our staff and thank you for being part of our promotions program and publication.

Yours sincerely,

MRS.ROSEWISA KATS,

FOR MR. CLIFF BROWN.

(promotion manager).

I’m about to die laughing. If people actually fall for this…well, I don’t want to say they deserve to have all their money taken away, but they pretty much do, don’t they?

(I especially like how the scammer says I should keep my lottery winning a secret. Clever.)

Today’s Captain Obvious, from this article:

A spokeswoman for the Royal College of Surgeons of England told BBC News Online: ‘Operations should be carried out so that does not happen.’

There’s one brilliant lady.

On the funny side, I came across the article through Metafilter…and the title of their entry on the subject was “Tetsuo!!!” :D

…so if anyone’s interested in buying me stuff, I’ve updated my Amazon Wish List.

I’m so terrible ;P But really, this is the most efficient way of letting people know what I want. If you’re going to buy me something, please buy from the “would love to have” or “must have” categories (just sort the list by priority).

Yes, my highest priorities are: 1) Japanese language; 2) the Friends television series! ;P

I really want those Pimsleur CDs. From what I can tell, they are the best on the market. It’s possible to find them used…

…aaaaaaand it’s time to go to work. Buhbye!

I’ve been working on the Macross 2051 website this weekend, adding and updating content. When I got to planet Tir-Na-nOg, I decided to revisit some old posts: specifically, my first-ever GM position, running the D.I.R.E. Wolves for the Arcadia Task Force.

There’s a lot of great stuff there, IC and OOC. So I thought I’d share a bit:

By Q-GM Illusion on Wednesday, June 28, 2000 – 02:27 am:

OOC: Sero, you are onboard the Falcon, the stealth ship the DIRE use for subtle little infiltration operations like this one. Everyone posting on the thread is also in the Falcon. You are in the back section with the rest of the team, and Rollins, Cormann, Jade, and Ikaru are up front. Jade and Ikaru are piloting. I wish you would read the thread more carefully before asking questions, because I’m pretty sure all your questions are answered in the roleplay.

By Nexx on Wednesday, June 28, 2000 – 09:54 am:

OOC: Come on Illusion. Dont let it get to you or your heart will expload like a baked potato.

By Q-GM Illusion on Wednesday, June 28, 2000 – 05:54 pm:

OOC: My heart exploded years ago, leaving nothing but a hard, crusty shell in its place…devoid of feeling, of caring, of emotion…perfect for being an EVIL GM!!!!!!!

Err, sorry…I think I was channelling someone else just then. ^^

The problem of people not reading what was on the board was not limited to Private Hirimoto. I learned that soon enough.

I also learned that people tend to disappear for long periods, only to either 1) reappear later; 2) never come back and never tell you they’re not coming back. One such case was Aricelle Santos. He hadn’t been posting for awhile, so I decided to do this:

The forest floor had so far seemed quite firm, so it was quite surprising when Santos took his next step and his foot suddenly sunk into the ground. There had been no indication of any sinkholes or underground burrowings, he mused, even as he lost his balance and fell face-first.

Unfortunately the spot he had chosen to fall on had previously served as a rest area for some passing forest creature. A large forest creature.

With a sickening squish, Santos’ upper body landed right in a huge pile of putrid dung. The feces smeared itself across the front of his power armor and some of it squeezed into Santos’ open helmet. He’d be smelling this lovely aroma for quite some time.

As an added bonus, the fall had twisted his ankle.

Santos never posted again.

I had to wrap that scenario up too quickly at the end, with one of those annoying fast-forward posts that take the actions away from the players. I’m actually not sure if I’ve ever completed a scenario without having to do that.

My NPC, Captain Roger Cormann, was a fun character. Rereading the thread made me want to play him again. I suppose, if I ever go back to playing on the AMRN, I could pull an Alias and say that he was given a drug to feign death so that the Guild could steal him away for their own evil purposes. And then brainwash him. Or something. I don’t know. You can get away with a lot in science fiction!

As a final note, I’d like to include this snippet, without context (because it’s more fun that way) from my favorite character in that scenario, Anthony Patrick Jameson:

Anthony got himself to his knees and started undoing what was left of the lower part of his fatigues. “No, I’m not tha’ shy sar. Jus’ don’t go around telling the rest o’ tha Wolves about me underwears.”

Some people mentioned to me that they forget to check my site because it’s not on a huge portal for blogs and they don’t get my posts in their email. Well, now those people can sign up to my Yahoo! Group and receive each and every post, complete with horribly huge and annoying banner ad!

I took the opportunity with this update to shift my About and Links sections into separate .js files. Now when I want to add a link or change some information, I can just edit those files instead of republishing the entire freaking blog. Why I didn’t do this to begin with is still beyond me. I have teh best hindsight evar.

Yeah, made-up languages are neat and all (and totally artificial, but hey!), but Jesus H. Christ, what possessed a linguist to do this?

Dr. d’Armond Speers, a Denver-based linguist who spoke only Klingon to his son until age three-and-a-half

Obviously, Dr. Speers ignored the anthropological and sociological aspects of stunting a child’s development in real language. As much as I hate how litigious the US is these days, I really hope that kid grows up and sues his old man.

Seriously, I can’t believe how egotistical people are. We throw 2500 words together and decide that it’s a viable language, and that we understand how language works and therefore it’s okay to learn this fake language, and teach it to our children. Did I mention that this language is fake? Klingons aren’t real, people. The Klingon “language” has never grown or evolved. It has no ancestor or offshoot languages. It has never pidgined. And no, if someone somewhere has written a “history” of the Klingon language and made up previous versions, that doesn’t count. More artificial data doesn’t validate existing artificial data!

It is not a language, it is a code. And we are really no closer to understanding how language works, fundamentally, than we were in the sixties. I can’t believe the arrogance of this so-called linguist.

I guess it just goes to show that “educated” people can just as easily be stupid parents as anyone else. ;P

Stupid parents are one of my biggest pet peeves. As an idealist, I have an ingrained sense of justice and fairness that is completely decimated every time I encounter a person who has children and yet, somehow, doesn’t understand that these children are people. It is a parent’s job to ensure that the child learns how to learn, is protected, and grows into a capable adult. But what do we have instead? Negligent, self-absorbed pricks who see their children as pets or commodities or annoyances or science projects. What. The. FUCK?!

All the stupid people just go around having babies whenever they want, or when they don’t want, or whatever, because they’re too stupid to think that maybe they should use birth control, or a condom, or wait to have sex. Some of these stupid people then go on to kill the baby, also known as “terminating” or “aborting” the “unwanted pregnancy”. Nice clinical words there. Also nice that the baby doesn’t get a say. That the baby, who has been conceived and is alive and would have grown into a person–was already a person–has his or her life snuffed out without ever even getting a chance to live. All because the stupid parents found it “inconvenient”. “Yeah, gee, sorry, you being alive really cramps my style, so I’m gonna have to kill you. No hard feelings?”

Then there are the stupid parents who decide “Gee, having a baby is neat! It’s just like having a doggie!” But after the reality sets in, instead of doing the responsible thing and letting someone else take the children, they keep them. “They’re my children! Just like my TV and my stereo! You can’t take my stuff!” And so these stupid parents just “try to live with those annoying brats,” neglecting, abusing, and toying with their children as though they were pets or playthings. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Good job, assholes.

Meanwhile, there’s me, a person who, as many of you know, has been thinking about the best way to be a parent since I was a child. “When I have kids…” is a phrase that comes naturally, even now. I have read, and continue to read, articles on parenting and early childhood development and learning processes and anything that could help me help a child learn how to get along in the world. I would have given my life to my children, do you understand this? But I can’t have any; oh, no. No, all the children have already been allotted to the goddamn fucking stupid parents.

I don’t write about this much. I don’t like whining and I’d rather you all not have to hear it. I’m writing now because I’m so angry I’m about to cry. I think about it every day. Every day someone mentions babies, or pregnancies, or children. It is impossible to avoid it. I try to be strong, I try to ignore it, I try to be happy for the other people who have babies, but then I read stupid shit about stupid parents who ought to be fucking castrated, and I can’t hold it in anymore.

ATTENTION STUPID PEOPLE: A CHILD IS NOT A TOY. A CHILD IS A PERSON. IF YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH THAT, THEN DON’T HAVE ONE. IF YOU ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO GET PREGNANT, DON’T TRY TO AVOID YOUR RESPONSIBILITY BY KILLING THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR STUPIDITY. GIVE THE CHILD TO SOMEONE WHO ISN’T STUPID. K? K.

And will we like it, if we have? I for one will be disappointed if there aren’t flying machines.

This has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.