So, this comes from the "list meme" that was going around which works like this:

You post a comment asking me for a list of 7 things to write journal entries about. Then I give you that list. Then you post those entries, and can invite others to do same.

I responded to blindfury1, who gave me the following:

1. Gardening
2. The meaning of family.
3. What to do with leftovers.
4. Who is going to write the movie of your life and who will play you?
5. What is anime?
6. The best and worst of editing.
7. The English language.

What follows is my response to #1, gardening:

I love sinking my fingers intp the soil. I love putting things in the ground, and then seeing them spring up and get big and green and beautiful.

I remember in my childhood walking around the vegetable garden with my grandfather, trying to identify what all the different plants were. I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember his patient, gentle voice occasionally assenting, "Ayup," as I'd identify a plant correctly. I also remember he was always very happy when the green beans were ready to eat.

I really want a garden, and although in many ways apartment life suits me, one of its biggest flaws is no gardening (where I live I can't do much container gardening either). I have ping-ponging with massive bouts of indecision over the last two years about buying a house. One of the main incentives of this is so I can do my own landscaping and gardening. ( continues under the cut )

This entry was originally posted at http://deathquaker.dreamwidth.org/1941.html

If you've never heard of Wasteland, it was a video game produced in the 1980s and was THE seminal post-apocalyptic RPG which sired the Fallout series of games.

Veteran game developer Brian Fargo of inXile Entertainment has launched a Kickstarter project to fund a sequel. Rather than deal with the utterly abysmal way publishers treat developers, let alone the fact that few mainstream games get proper QA testing before release these days, he's gone straight to the fans to provide the backing needed to get the project rolling. The response has already garnered over $1.6 million, with 18 days left to get even more. The original goal was $1 million with any additional funds going to expanding the game further; it also is part of the Kicking It Forward program, which means some of the profits will go toward other indie projects.

(Fargo, for the record, wrote and produced the original Wasteland and was co-lead on the original Fallout, and has a generally impressive list of games in his design portfolio.)

People have some reservations about patronage projects like this, and I understand those reservations. Anyone should think carefully about whether they want to contribute. But the mainstream video game world is getting riddled with issues of publishers nickel-and-diming players for bits and pieces of the game as they go along, and laying on the hassle of stunts like requiring famously single player games to be online-only. This is exactly the kind of situation where I think it's incredibly valuable to be able to put your money where your mouth is and be part of helping realize what should be a great project. As opposed to, say, pre-ordering a product you can be guaranteed will be full of bugs and incomplete on release.

And yes, I've put money down to back this. For $50, I get not only a digital copy, but a boxed copy with disc and real live actual game manual and other "feelies" that have been long forgotten in contemporary video game distribution. And all of it DRM free. All that for $10 less than the average MSRP for a mainstream RPG these days, which are usually guaranteed to be buggy and incomplete on release. (You can donate as little as $1, and for $15 you get a digital copy of the game.) I know I'll have to wait to see the final result, but I am happy to wait to see a final, complete, well-designed product. I realize I can't be guaranteed of such a thing until the game comes out, but I'm willing to take the chance this once, as I feel under the circumstances it's a good chance to take.

This entry was originally posted at http://deathquaker.dreamwidth.org/1703.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Since Google's integrated their accounts more firmly with their services like Youtube, I decided to set up an associated Youtube Channel (so I can thumbs up stuff and the like).

Username DeathQuaker is already taken?!?!?

That is the first time that has ever actually happened to me. I feel ridiculously, irrationally, ashamedly put off and proprietary at the moment. But I've been going by that name since 1996, goddammit!

Impostors! Dopplegangers! Of course, I must seek out my evil twin and destroy them.

(I almost thought it WAS me and I'd forgotten I'd set up an account, but I don't remember "liking" the items the channel owner liked.)

Or, you know, just keep surfing the Net as usual.

(My YouTube channel is TheDeathQuaker for the record, but there's nothing on there.)

This entry was originally posted at http://deathquaker.dreamwidth.org/1429.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

So this news is a month or so old, so I apologize if you've heard it, but if you've not:

A Nielsen survey showed that

"70 percent of the survey's 5,336 respondents were already fans, with only 5 percent completely new to buying comics, and 93% were male. What's more, only an estimated 2 percent were younger than 18 years old."

Direct quote is from this summary article.

Imagine! Comic books designed nearly entirely by and for and marketed toward adult males who like to read comics continued to attract adult males who like to read comics.

Also this just in: a recent survey shows the sky frequently appears to be blue.

This entry was originally posted at http://deathquaker.dreamwidth.org/1086.html.

You know, I know that one scene in last night's Very Special Episode of Glee was to warn us about the dangers of texting while driving, but what I really want to know is...

Why the heck do other people text you when they HAVE to know you're driving?

Look, I don't text while I drive. I usually don't text while I'm sitting on a sofa in a safe and secure, non-mobile environment. I generally in fact avoid texting like the plague whenever possible, but that's just me, I'm a weird little grognard.

But I will be sitting in my car and I'll hear my notif noise go off. And of course, I don't pick up my phone, you know, because I'm driving, and I enjoy continuing to breathe and not having windshield wipers in my eye socket and that sort of thing. And I figure it's probably someone who's just randomly emailing me or sending me a message or my phone carrier notifying me of my bill or whatever.

But then I get to my destination, look at my phone, and see that it's the person to whom I was driving to meet. And I'm like, okay, they have to know or at least make a pretty good guess that I was likely at the wheel, why the HELL would they TEXT me with an urgent message that they know there's likely no way I could look at it? (Not to mention, I just got charged 10 cents for their inability to think that through.)

Especially when these people don't try to call first. (Sometimes they do, but if I am unable to answer, they text after I don't answer, because it's apparently logical to think, "Oh, she must not be able to get to her phone, so I'll send her a message which will also show up on her phone." Brilliant!) Which, mind, it's also not safe to talk on the phone while driving, but it's reasonable to assume someone's got an earpiece, and it is at least slightly safer to pick up your phone and hit the speaker button than try to read and then type a message back on a touch screen. Why does, "Oh, I bet she's driving, better call," not come to mind first?

(Not to mention if I don't answer--maybe I'm not answering because I'm trying not to die on the Interstate. Our state IS listed in the top ten for worst drivers.)

Guh. It just kind of boggles me.

TL;DR: don't text while you drive, but don't text other people while they're driving either.

Anyway, if I wind up dead on the local highway, it's probably because I heard my text notif noise and I careened off the highway in a spasm of general frustration with the human race.

BTW, I should probably tell you... I have set up a dreamwidth account:

deathquaker.dreamwidth.org

Because of all the LJ shenanigans.

I am much too lazy to import things right now and I don't know if/when I will switch over fully, but I wanted to set it up while they've got open account setup (it is still happening btw, though I set this up a few weeks ago). If/when I start using the dw journal fully, I'll probably see if I can crosspost to both journals. (How do you do that?)

Anyway, if you have dw accounts over there please friend me (if you want!) and/or let me know who you are over there so I can friend you.

Sims fans are planning a boycott of the Sims 3. It's to start February 18. Information has been somewhat inconsistent--some sources seem to suggest boycotters are participating that day, others that they are planning for it to go at least through the release of The Sims 3: Showtime in March.

But the idea is that boycotters are to avoid purchasing any Sims products, retail and store. I've seen a suggestion not even to play the game, at least not while connected to the Internet, so EA logs low numbers of people playing the Sims (If you play the Sims while connected to the Net, it phones home to EA to let them know what you're up to.)

Why?

Lots of reasons (this is all to the best of my knowledge):
( Read more... )

First, Merry Christmas Eve!

Today, because I have about 20 minutes to kill, I feel like talking about Glee. I apologize in advance.

First: The best Glee Christmas Specials of 2011:
1. The Community Christmas special
2. The SIMGM Glee Christmas Spoof (in which the fake bad editing is better than the editing of the actual Glee Christmas special)

( I will spare you the rest with this cut )

I like to play in the LJRP I do, but I am totally half-assing developing CR with two characters, and if I dropped back to one, I'd have a better chance to develop a whole ass.

You know what I mean.

But I can't decide which one to drop. And Maggie's paid time is expiring in a week or so, so I really should decide before it expires... I mean, I don't want to renew her paid time and then decide to drop her (Veronica doesn't have paid time so it doesn't matter). Maggie will always be my one true love (for example, her account is the only one I've ever actually put money into--I've never even bought paid time for this account), but she's very hard to build CR with. It's not only hard to get people to tag her, it's hard to get people to ask her the questions or create the situations that will make the more interesting parts of her personality to come out, so I know she comes off as extremely bland. Veronica's a LOT easier to deal with in that regard, but I don't know how long the muse will stick with me, and she fits less easily in the superhero universe of C&C.

To those of you for whom this post makes absolutely no sense, I apologize.

ETA: OTOH, given all the shenanigans with livejournal, I may let my paid account expire regardless, and just suck up lack of edit button and using fewer icons if I stick with Maggie. I'm not sure why I should give them money after all this nonsense.

It's meme times:

Leave a ship here that I know, any ship (canon or AU, rp, realized or unrealized), and I will tell you my opinion on:

who is the big spoon/little spoon
what is their favorite non-sexual activity
who uses all the hot water in the morning
what they order from take out
what is the most trivial thing they fight over
who does most of the cleaning
what has a season pass in their DVR
who controls the netflix queue
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working
who steals the blankets
who leaves their stuff around
who remembers to buy the milk
who remembers anniversaries