clauclauclaudia | Recent Entries

... that is, if a Harry Potter LiveJournal roleplaying game sounds at all appealing. I'm Severus Snape. :)

I haven't really gotten rolling in an online RPG before. It's somewhere between collaborative fanfic and improvisational acting, and I'm enjoying it even more than I thought I might.

The setting is, about 2.5 years after the end of book 6. The golden trio defeated Voldemort; everyone but him and Narcissa Malfoy who was alive at the end of book 6 is still alive and available as a player character (yeah, I know, unrealistic, isn't it? but it's to allow as much participation as people want, so I excuse it); Lucius Malfoy is setting himself up as the new Dark Lord; Snape was exonerated. It's 1999 and Harry and his cohort are 19-ish.

The game started just over a month ago, and we've just hit a point where the plot is about to seriously start.

We very much need Death Eaters. Come be villainous! Our Bellatrix has been kidnapped by so-called Real Life, so we very much want a new Bella. But any new player is a good thing.

( blah blah blah )

Trading standards officers have ordered the Black Mountains Smokery in Powys, Wales to change the name of its Welsh Dragon sausages on the grounds that they are made with pork, not dragon meat.

Courtesy of the Language Log, one of my favorite LJ feeds.

languagelog

Current Mood: crushed

... and other fanfic writers. And other pornographers. You know who you are, and you're probably not reading this. (Nobody take this personally. Every one of these I found in more than one place by more than one writer.)

I have conducted an... ahem... careful study of a broad swath of fanfic over the last several weeks, and here are some pairs of words I would like you to be sure you know the difference between.

discreet, discrete: You almost always mean "discreet". Secret? Discreet.
palate, palette: The first is the one in someone's mouth. Google doesn't actually back me up on this one, but I know it to be so. Is this a British/American English distinction I was previously unaware of? Please advise.
prone, supine: Just look it up. No more bizarre sexual positions because you flipped one of the characters over, thank you.
compliment, complement: I think this is perhaps the trickiest one on my list. Flattery? A compliment. But a shirt that flatters you may complement your eyes, meaning perfecting your look. Careful!
principle, principal: Morals are principles. The main something is the principal something.
illicit, elicit: Is it sekrit and naughty? Use the first one. Is it a verb? Use the second one.

Oh, just look it up:

taut, taunt
breath, breathe
loath, loathe
baring, barring
bound, bond

The phrase is just deserts, unless you're actively punning at the time. It does sound like "desserts", but that's because it's not the sandy "deserts", it's "deserts" derived from "deserve".
dominate, dominant: I don't even understand where this comes from, but it's really common. Dominate is a verb. Dominant is an adjective or noun. There is no such thing as "the dominate" in a scene or relationship. No really.

And please, for the love of all that is holy or unholy, learn the difference between
prostate, prostrate: The fun thing for men having anal sex? Only one "r".

Thank yew.

EDIT: tongue tongue tongue Accept no substitutes. (courtesy of

kjc007)
baited/bated: Breath is bated. Traps are baited.
rein/reign: Oh, where to begin. Horses are controlled with reins. Kings reign. The idiom is rein in your emotions. No really. (these two pairs courtesy of

calanthe_fics)

Current Mood: cranky

I was, well, out of the country when PotC 2 came out... but I still want to see it.

miss_chance,

rmd and I are going to see it tomorrow, 3:15 at the Boston Common theater. Want to come? Lemme know, or just see you there. :)

Yarrrr!

(To those on my friends list of a certain disposition, I apologize that my icon isn't inclusive of all Captains Jack. ;-)

Oh, all right already. This is, as rmd says, strangely compelling.

( Live Trumps card within )

Current Music: the whir of computer fans

So, as if I didn't spend enough time on LJ (no really! I spend infinitely more time reading than posting), I've gotten involved in a Battlestar Galactica roleplaying group here:

actionstations. I'm Six! Well, the Six in Baltar's head. ;-) But there's no Baltar yet, which means me and others NPC-ing Baltar until there is one.

So if you want to play Baltar, or Galactica's Boomer, or Tigh, or Kat, or Tyrol, or any of the other uncast characters, come on over. The more the merrier!

Note that things not yet out on DVD are considered spoilers in this little community. But hey, they're back near episode 1-2 (Water), so that shouldn't be too restricting just yet.

I can't believe there's only one Cylon so far!

Yo, you college types (but everyone can play!)

Turn your volume *low* so you don't kill me for killing your eardrums, then take

vvalkyri's poll.

I'd also be curious to know how well you can hear each of the three reference tones in

atrustheotaku's comment here.

Despite the news coverage graphic showing the ring tone as being around 17 KHz, it appears to actually be 15,011 Hz. Which is why I ask about the three reference tones. I can hear the 15, but not the others, but I'd love to try the others on equipment where somebody has been able to hear them so I know whether it's my ears or my headphones (hey, my earbuds wouldn't even reproduce the lowest tone properly).

Yes, I hear the tone of a silent TV too.

Note that, as atrustheotaku comments, it's not an all or nothing "I can/can't hear this tone". Rather it's a decibel falloff, where the average person in their 30s can hear the 16KHz tone only when it's 22 decibels louder than the point at which the average person in their 20s can hear it. So. Take the poll. :)

Current Mood: curious

This evening,

rmd and I babysat for a 6-year-old, M, so that her parents could have a date night for their anniversary. She claimed to be very good at math, so after we Sudoku-ed for a bit, she asked our ages. Regis set her age as a subtraction problem which she simplified a bit for M. M then guessed that my age was somewhere between 20 and Regis's age (correct!) I told her that my age was also a perfect square, so she figured out the two possibilities and which one was correct.

Then I told her *her* age was a perfect number, and we defined that for her (perfect numbers). She asked me whether there were any odd perfect numbers, and I said if you didn't consider 1 one, then I didn't know. I'm glad to know I wasn't missing any obvious deductions there. ;-) She said that 1 and 0 are special numbers and often exceptions. She asked if primes could be perfect numbers and we thought aloud about that until she agreed that they couldn't.

I said I could think of one other perfect number that was fairly small, that she could count to within a minute. She said that meant a number up to 20, so I had to revise my statement slightly. She pounced on that with glee. "That's a clue!" and I had to admit that the number I was thinking of was higher than 20. We then played an arithmetic 20 questions as she narrowed in on what number it might be. (Is it over 30? Is it prime? (No, we'd already figured out it wouldn't be prime. Oh, right.) Is it odd?) Once she'd essentially figured out what number it must be, she wouldn't say it out loud; first she had to confirm it for herself by finding and adding up the factors, so she went around muttering numbers while she worked that out.

She needed help with division at several points, but she'd never outright ask the answer to the question she was working on, but would simplify it as best she could and then ask. So it wasn't "is 28 divisible by 4?" Instead she clearly found 28-(2*4) first and then asked "is 20 'even in 4s'?" Which is how the six-year-olds say it these days, I guess.

There was a rough spot where she thought 13 was a multiple of 3 and 5, and I had to keep track of all the factors and prompt her to add them up when she'd found enough of them to be interesting, but it was really an impressive bit of work. I wish I'd had someone to play numbers aloud with like that when I was a kid.

And then it was a couple minutes past her bedtime, so I read her a chapter of a Charlie Bone book while she used

rmd for a jungle gym, and then it was time for lights out. Hee.

Yay, proto-geek.

Link from

heavenscalyx...

Monty Python meets Utena: Dispuestos a revolucionar la comedia! , second graphic down.

Aeeeiiii!

rmd and I were talking, and I wonder: how many people could one put "on tilt" at once by breastfeeding at the average poker table?

[Poll #745773]

Full credit to

rmd for option 3.

At this point I suppose my main hope is fresh LJ-friends pay attention to the meme, as it's mostly the songs known by fewer people that are left. ;-) I'll just edit this version from now on.

Italicized ones are answered, but the answers are hidden under the cut.

Titles and artists/albums sought:

3. You think you're denying me of something
well, i've got plenty
you're the one who's missing out
but you won't notice

4. Roy rode into Houston on the 15th of July
they brought him in to help clean up the town
He worked the Exxon building down at 21st and Main
from the 42nd floor down to the ground

5. Shall I shy down? that's boring. snoring
I'd like to teach me to sing in perfect harmony
And I'd like to change the world.
It's easier than changing me

(I recognize this song by the sound, not the lyrics, myself, but it's also obscure)

6. People pointing, finger-painting the world
Leaving me their silouette on my life
And I'm filling in the negative space with
positively everything

8. Thursday afternoon you cast a shadow 'round my room. The breeze moved the curtains and lifted my perfume into the air and danced with lazy curls in your hair. The sun was in the sky like pink champagne and it glistened in your eyes all day.

(I googled this and apparently it doesn't have line breaks.)

10. Swaz hie gat umbe
daz sint allez megede
die wellent an man
alle disen sumer gan

(and all of a sudden I'm one of the top google hits for some forms of these lyrics)

12. Well you like what you're given
a lot of us are standing in line
and you find that you're missing
what others thought you had all the time

13. I don't care what shirt you wear
And I don't want you to know my show
You make me feel so nice
Get off your horse and kiss me... twice

16. Little children did I tell you how the mockingbird
Called the animals together tried to say a few words
But the squirrels began to chatter and the bees began to buzz
Just the way it is just the way it was

24. Jerry's got a squeeze box
Johnny got a big drum
Tonight we'll play some music and have fun!

26. It's a crime to fall in love
Heart and mind, and soul in love
It's a crime to fall in love
So hard, so hard

28. Lumina, come and wrap around me
Lumina, take me through the snow

Eve took a train, Eve took a train
Went to see her man
Melting inside, melting away
Like butter in the pan

29. 4:15 Friday afternoon (Friday afternoon)
I took a trip on a train (Took a trip on a train)
On a train to you (Took a trip on a train)

30. I guess I'm fortunate
For you to be on my mind

I guess I'm fortunate
For you to be so kind

33. Open mine eyes that I may see
Glimpses of truth thou hast for me
Open mine eyes, illumine me
Spirit divine

What do you do for your living?
Are you forgiving, giving shelter?

37. When we wore a heart of stone
we wandered to the sea
Hoping to find some comfort there
yearning to feel free

38. In a forest pitch dark
glowed the tiniest spark
It burst into flame
like me, like me

previous meme post

( answers )

Plucked from my friends list:

The drama, it unfolds before our eyes. How not to steal a Sidekick

Find your Dead Celebrity Soulmate. My favorite result so far is Mata Hari, but I haven't tried men yet.

Words of linguistic expertise: Geeks are only truly perverted when they avoid coitus and other sex acts. Okay!

And two Rock-Paper-Scissors items: Judge tells stubborn lawyers to settle dispute via rock paper scissors. It's not just for LARP gods anymore!
RPS 25: rock crushes woman; woman steps on cockroach; cockroach stows away with alien; alien destroys sun; sun melts scissors; scissors stab monkey; monkey rips up paper; paper outlaws gun; gun shoots snake; snake drinks water; water rusts axe; axe reflects moon; moon terrifies devil; devil casts lightning; lightning strikes man; man slays dragon...

(also, I updated my lyrics meme post with more lyrics from songs as yet unidentified)

(cuz all the HRSFen are doing it, and I don't think I've ever done a lyrics meme)

1. Put your playlist on shuffle.
2. Post the first lines to the first 30 songs to come up (along with these instructions).
3. Have people guess the songs and artists in comments to the post.
4. Post the answers to the ones people guessed correctly. A couple of days later, post the first two lines of the ones no one got and get people to guess again.
5. Repeat, adding the next line to the unguessed songs each time, until they're all guessed/you've posted the whole song/you've gotten bored/no-one's going to get the damn thing if you don't tell them.

Unlike

occultatio I'm not excluding non-English. But then the Japanese isn't on this playlist. ;-)

Adding second lines/more context to unguessed songs
1. You dug a well
2. Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd (hey, that's what shuffled up,

rmd)
3. You think you're denying me of something / well, i've got plenty
4. Roy rode into Houston on the 15th of July / they brought him in to help clean up the town
5. Shall I shy down? / that's boring. snoring.
6. People pointing / Finger-painting the world
7. As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains
8. Thursday afternoon you cast a shadow 'round my room. / The breeze moved the curtains and lifted my perfume into the air
9. One song
10. Swaz hie gat umbe / daz sint allez megede
11. Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
12. Well you like what you're given /
13. I don't care what shirt you wear / And I don't want you to know my show
14. Rik-kik-kik-kik!
15. Dear Prudence
16. Little children, did I tell you how the mockingbird / Called the animals together, tried to say a few words
17. I took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty
18. The journey home is never too long / Your heart arrives before the train
19. I'm John, Hinkley (remind me to post lyrics for you who haven't heard it who need to)
20. Sweet dreams are made of this
21. Well I tried to make it Sunday
22. Doors locked (doors locked) / blinds pulled (blinds pulled)
23. Look at all your faces
24. Jerry's got a squeeze box / Johnny got a big drum
25. Hats off, here they come
26. It's a crime to fall in love / Heart and mind, and soul in love
27. You're sweet (you're sweet) as a honey bee / but like a honey bee stings, you've gone and left my heart in pain
28. Lumina, come and wrap around me / Lumina, take me through the snow
29. 4:15 Friday afternoon (Friday afternoon) / I took a trip on a train (Took a trip on a train)
30. I guess I'm fortunate / For you to be on my mind

I'm doing an extra one for every lyric that *was* or contained the song title, because that's just lame.

31. The water is wide
32. Some folks like to get away
33. Open mine eyes that I may see / Glimpses of truth thou hast for me
34. Mademoiselles!
35. Paradise / is exactly like
36. Got a call from an old friend
37. When we wore a heart of stone / we wandered to the sea
38. In a forest pitch dark / Glowed the tiniest spark

I predict the hardest/most obscure ones are 5, 6, 12, 13, 16, 24, 29, 30, 33. If I had to guess, 12, 16, 30, and 33 will be unguessed longest. But perhaps my readers will surprise me!

( answers thus far lurk beneath )

kestrell linked to an interview of Henry Jenkins and danah boyd about MySpace and the "Deleting Online Predators Act".

On the one hand, I can see the argument that children on the internet should be closely supervised by an adult. On the other hand, I don't like internet filters in general and it sounds like these in particular are being very broadly drafted.

I think the most intriguing question is one brought up by danah: "Understanding why moral panics emerge when youth socialize is central to my research."

Any of you familiar with http://www.longwoodgalleriaapartments.com/ , preferably from the inside? A friend might rent a studio there sight unseen--because the location is perfect--and would like the scoop. (Yes, said friend knows it's much better to see the place if you can.)

I hate the "no split infinitives" rule. It's no part of my internalized grammar, but every so often I encounter someone, usually a British someone, who abides by it, and it confuses me. I think they're tweaking the word order to topicalize or emphasize some part of the sentence, and I'm halfway to analyzing what that might be before I realize, oh, they're just doing things differently to avoid splitting infinitives.

I was very very sad when I realized that what I thought were some quirky turns of phrase by Douglas Adams were nothing more than him hewing to the "no split infinitives" rule. A little bit of imagined cleverness, gone.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: The Reith Lectures - The Triumph of Technology

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

A podcast (Slice of Sci-Fi or one of its brethren) introduced me to Xombie, a continuing flash-animated story set in a world with sentient zombies.

Tom Smith forwards the important question, "How would the Mighty Thor re-interpret contemporary pop hits?" Smite Me, Infant, One More Time

dictionary_wotd entries that I haven't known this year so far: daedal, rebarbative, brummagem, edacious, aubade, titivate, eleemosynary, epigone

A new dinosaur: the Dracorex Hogwartsia. (beware popup ads) Hee!

In the "they did a study to demonstrate that?" department, Verbal abuse triggers adult anxiety, depression. The deuce you say.

And here's someone who doesn't understand "comfort re-reading", never rereads books. To each her own and all... re-reading is a huge thing for me. Fantasy series and children's/YA books especially, but also Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, mysteries (yes!)*, golden age SF, Jeffrey Archer novels, science/math fact books, you name it. I adore the ritual of re-reading a series before the latest book comes out. I've done that with Mercedes Lackey, Laurell K. Hamilton (not anymore, though), Orson Scott Card (ditto), and J.K. Rowling. Heck, my whole library is things I might theoretically re-read. Otherwise, why own 'em?

I love the idea of secular relics. Hee.

Scenes from Minoan life staged with Barbies. May take a while to load; be sure you see the last image on the page. Not worksafe if your work frowns on naked doll breasts.

A hilarious billboard juxtaposition.

A recent scam alert: fraudsters calling to say there's a warrant out because you missed jury duty and flustering you into giving out personal info.

Naked doll breasts!

* I notice that my phrasing implies that Sherlock Holmes and mysteries are separate things. Well, in my mind they are. I have to have a fair shot at figuring it out for it to be a mystery.

Current Mood: amused

It's time to send these for another go round my part of the blog-o-verse. How (many) geeks communicate: Tact filters and fanspeak.

Edit:

ozarque's journal also came up in the discussion last night. Check it out in general (along with her books). One relevant entry: http://ozarque.livejournal.com/176349.html (the discussion far more than the original post).

And I had totally forgotten Jeff (the "Tact filter" author) was now on my f-list. *waves* Hi, Jeff! He points me to another discussion of the Tact filters essay: http://dawnd.livejournal.com/213255.html?thread=1482503

Current Mood: mellow

Only because the content of the haiku is so damn funny. Check out that syllable-counting algorithm!

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clauclauclaudia

'Ere I am, J.H.

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Recent Entries

come play with me!

What a let-down

dear Harry Potter pornographers

Finally, Pirates

meme-ity

Gaius, is that you?

hearing test

proto-geek yay!

"uno de los momentos mas WTF"

apropos of recent LJ controversy...

lyrics meme update

linkies

lyrics meme

MySpace and legislation

Boston-boids and other locals...

... and be prepared patiently to debate...

poker spam!

mostly from my friends list

because they came up tonight...

haiku meme