We had a warning of storms likely this evening, and as I write this, the storm clouds are rolling in. Normally, watching a storm roll in is a pleasant exercise. There’s an inborn thrill to feeling the storm front break. I wish I could say it’s pleasant safely watching it happen from behind the library’s […]
Our weekly RPG session suffered an enormous cluster-fuck this week. In game, events are coming to a head. We’ve collected almost all the magical macguffins and must soon decide to remake or destroy them, with tragic consequences either way. A woman powered by the spirit of Lilith, mother of demons, is on a murderous rampage, […]
News has it that a compromise has been reached to allow the US debt ceiling to be raised. I use the term “compromise†loosely. Apparently, Democrats have compromised by agreeing to a trillion or so dollars in spending cuts, agreeing to take the heat from the Republican base for raising the debt ceiling, obligingly preparing […]
We watched saw Captain America in the theaters last weekend, and it was pretty good, a solid three stars. In one scene, the Red Skull confronts Cap and explains that they have more in common than one might think. They are superior men, a cut above the ordinary lot, and why did Dr. Erskine give […]
This morning I learned of a Twitter hashtag called “#FuckYouWashington†and went to check it out. To my delight, it demonstrates that the teabaggers aren’t the only source of political anger in the country. As anywhere on Twitter, many tweets are content-free, but among those with something specific to say, the complaints in #FuckYouWashington are […]
Eileene and I periodically argue politics. I’m a good liberal, though I hope a reasonable one; she’s got a conservative bent. (Although in the current political climate, she comes off as a moderate with strong liberal views on social issues, and I come across as a knee-jerk leftie. It’s our country’s politics that are extreme.) […]
Eileene drew my attention to khanacademy.org this morning. She first learned of the site through a news article describing it in the most glowing terms. I’m always suspicious of wondrous new teaching systems, because the reportage on such successes typically suffers from a systemic error: failing to observe that spectacularly successful new (or, more often, […]
This week’s “Extra Credits†is a particularly good one, insightful at a level that an amateur observer of the electronic games industry, like me, can digest. It treats the free-to-play business model for games, which allows players to play a game for free but gets them to cough up their dough for microtransactions: small purchases […]
Last night, I was growing bored again with World of Warcraft. I’d signed up for one of their new free-to-play accounts to keep myself entertained on nights when Eileene is out of the house, and enjoyed the nostalgia. But I’ve reached the level 20 cap imposed on free accounts with a warrior, priest, and mage […]
The real birthday present was dinner at a very fancy restaurant, but Eileene bought me something to unwrap, too. Well, no, not to unwrap, exactly—she didn’t wrap it. But physical objects. Two framed posters, which I liked, and a wild stab-in-the-dark CD of jazz musician Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra, which I didn’t […]