Eggs and Endorphins

At Concertino, I

• Got to sing a fair bit
  
• Played a lot of set (including with some very good opponents)
  
• Met some new (to me) people. Cool new people!
  
• Got to have good conversation with people (hi, fiddledragon and Kate, among others) I don't usually get to talk to
  
• Wrote a new song (see adjacent post)
  
• Gave/got many, many hugs
  
• Had fun
  

Thank you, everyone who was part of any of this, or part of making the con a reality!

I participated in cadhla's latest Iron Poet, giving Chocolate, Quarters, and Blood (as they were, well, what came to mind). And then forgot I'd done so -- as I'm wont to forget so many things sometimes.

And what did she write? What lovely, Catherynne Valente's Palimpsesty thing did she write?

See for yourself

Wow. Just wow. Thank you, Cadhla!

If you still need a DW invite (and know me), talk to me. I've got quite a few.

Balticon was fun, if odd. Friday night, I came in, saw people, ate dinner with peoples, changed, danced like a madman, went back to the room, and crashed. Saturday, I caught half of quadrivium's concert, did Patches' excellent Renn dance (where I ended up being her demo partner = fun), gamed most of the day (once I was awake), got a nice dinner with selki, drcpunk, and Pamela, gamed a bit more, stopped by some parties on the way to the filk room...and found that the filk had ended sometime before 2:30AM. So it goes. So I played a bit of Werewolf (annoyingly, a game soured because a player didn't realize they weren't a werewolf, the mod announced a werewolf innocent to the seer, and the mod didn't have the brains to -correct his mistake- before endgame was hit. So the seer looked at all three werewolves and lived to talk about it, yet the town "lost") and went to bed. Sunday, I gamed all day, had dinner with drcpunk, nancylebov, esrblog, and cathyr19355, and went directly to the filking -- so actually got a few good hours of filking in (even if I did torture Gwen's Like Their Feet Have Wings mercilessly; I'm not usually -that- bad on the words or even the chords; I think I brain was cramped [and I do try to sing songs with the words even when I know them, but my laptop was in for repair this weekend and I neglected to arrange a replacement for the con]). After filking broke up WAY TOO EARLY, I went over to the gaming room and got a few hours of Dominion and Race for the Galaxy in before bed.

Monday, I hung out in the gaming room for a bunch of hours. Where I was introduced to Colosseum. Which kicks ass.

Colosseum is a Wolfgang Kramer game -- and it shows. But while there are clear connections to Princes of Florence (eg, it's a art-themed financial game with the same style of auction, and a separate-but-related score track), I like it a lot better. For starters, it's a well-designed game with many of my favorite game elements -- development, trading, money management, auctions, as well as some other interesting ones (screw-the-leader, -aid- the leader (yes, both -- the leader gets a +3 on all further scores and has one of her pieces stolen from her in each of the four preparatory rounds), collections, and game win by best-score (which is why I refer to it as 4 preparatory rounds and one final round--as, unless you're playing badly, your score in the final round will dwarf your previous scores. For example, my round 4 score was 40 and my round 5 score was 85, and I won by 3 points).

I like it a lot, and have gone ahead and bought myself a copy (along with Le Havre, which is a bit long, but as the sequel to Agricola, I must own if nobody else in my friendship circle has it, and nobody does).

I've never been into "organized play" of a roleplaying game -- but by my lights, D&D is only -somewhat- a roleplaying game, (the other part being a character construction wargame), and I've been hankering for putting the 4e books I've been buying to some use, so I showed up to the RPGA meetup yesterday, packing a female 1st level Deva (eg, multiply reincarnated angel) Avenger named Isa Sunrise.

And you know what? It was fun!

Apparently, you can choose "easy" or "hard", so we picked "hard" as, Living Forgotten Realms tends to be (supposedly) a bit easy. Three encounters, two fights.

The first one was a big mess against a large, well-balanced enemy party, where the party's two clerics and the swordmage took the brunt of the damage and someone made two death checks before I took a break from knocking enemy rogues and made a heal check.

The second was glorious. A boss (elite, probably) that felt like 9th level or so and a giant pile of minions. I got targetted early (and before I got a chance to "oath" the boss so I could get a benefit from all the attacks--avengers do extra damage if they're attacked by other than their target), going from a really hefty 34 hp to low teens, and was the bunny throughout the fight, once only avoiding unconciousness because of 3 temporary hp I'd been granted. The minions were nicely handled by various bursts, blasts, etc from the multi-attacking ranger, the swordmage, and the wizard, the clerics mostly kept me upright and hit the boss with a few attacks (I used a reroll to let one hit the boss with an encounter power), and I? In three attacks, I managed to crit with my daily and my encounter for a total of 50 and 42 damage, respectively (avengers, if properly positioned, get to roll twice on every melee attack, so this is only slightly less likely than 1/100), then, with me back in "one hit from unconciousness" territory, I managed to hit once more (a 25 didn't do it, so I used the Deva encounter ability to add a d6 to the roll and hit with a 31) and finish the bastard off.

Yeah, I've got a Dreamwidth account. It's mneme (no, no x. The x is a disambiguator).

I've heard a lot of alarmist "why is everyone going away" bits, so I figured it was worth explaining what -I- like about Dreamwidth -- at least in concept.

First and foremost, I'm not planning on leaving LJ or the LJ community. But that's part of the point. Among the tools and improvements DW has promised are features (some implemented, like journal import [though...is that disabled atm?] and journal crossposting and better OpenID suport, some not, like the ability to embed your friends page on other lj-like sites in your friends page for DW if you want) that let the "community" spread beyond a single site -- and isn't that the point? Why -should- we lose access to our friends posts or have to follow them with Yet Another Login whenever they move sites? Why should our communities be owned by an external entity -- rather than merely hosted by them?

So, I don't want everyone leaving lj and going to dw instead. I want a world where people post wherever they want -- and I can be part of their community if they're "my people" anyway. But supporting DW is a step in that direction -- hopefully a very large part.

Second, they seem to have a good, sustainable plan not involving selling out their principles or assuming large bags of cash will fall from the sky.

Third, their attitudes are more or less a direct response to a lot of the ljfail we've seen over the last few years; not "everyone gets to see everything", but "we can handle adult/spam/financial issues without treating our users as criminals or children."

Fourth? LJ used to regularly come out with new features -- you know, ones I used. But over the last few years, that has slowed to a crawl or less -- instead, all their new features seem to be things that benefit someone else (like advertisers, or whatnot)...which might be fine except that features -I- want; ones that make it easier to communicate with people, seem to not happen. DW, in a small number of months, has implemented a huge set of my wantlist for LJ (not least: separating "access" and "readlist" and getting rid of the "friend" designation), plans to implement a lot more, and in general, has proven very response to suggestions.

So yeah, I have a DW account. But don't worry, I won't be going anywhere.

Less cryptically, why isn't there a perl-usable (pure perl or just something with perl wrappers; don't care) distributed locking system that's worth a damn? What's so hard to understand about "locks should only EVER be given out to one client, and clients need to know instantly if their locks become unreliable?" that causes everyone to get it wrong?

IPC::Lock::Memcache: memcache is a caching system, and may drop your locks on the floor without telling you; also, netsplit will hose you, also, dead clients don't auto-unlock=useless.

IPC::Locker: single-server (not ideal, but fine -- although it lets clients specify a group of machines that DON'T TALK TO ONE ANOTHER, which is worse than useless unless you -want- a high likelyhood of false locks), handles dead clients well via timeouts and checking for pid existence (though if pid server isn't working, probably can timeout longrunning locks while they're working = bad), but locks don't hold connections open. Which means if, say, your lock server reboots, instead of what -should- happen (all your processes holding open locks get signals and can decide this means they have to relock or dump all their work on the ground, as they no longer, well, have an exclusive lock), things go on happily having lost your lock. Checking for a lock before every atomic stage of a critical section? Not good.

Helped run Dragon at RPI (e.g. spent most of the weekeend in a room making moves on a map and running a Play By Mail war/trading game; pretty fun, particularly when the troops decided they were smarter than whoever was giving them orders; they were usually
right, too).

Still in NYC, still filking and gaming and reading and getting paid for programming.

NOT DED.

From maverick_wierdo.

( cards )

( Smile )

( Shoes )

( Quiet )

( Home )

You know the drill.


sweetmusic_27 asked about: 1. Filk 2. Waltzing 3. Garth Nix 4. Scotch 5. Gadgetry

( filk )


( Waltzing )


( nix )


( scotch )


( gadgetry )

So, you know the drill. Ask me more stuff if you like and I'll see if I can answer it -- or ask for words and I'll see what I can do!

Stands just fine on its own, really:

The weekend (and Conflikt) was fun, but filled with incidence of nearly epic-FAIL (some of which was FAIL, just not epic).

( FAIL here! )

This was written this morning, with an idea popping up as we set up for
working on our Band Scramble set. It almost certainly wouldn't have been
finished if it had not been for the enthusiastic help and encouragement from
my insta-band mate, Dawn Jackal.

Hold On
Lyrics: Joshua Kronengold, with help and encouragement from Dawn Jackal, to the tune of "Calm Down," by Kathy Mar

Musicians have invaded, they're everywhere you look
And they speak of each performance from a music theory book
They rant of broken measures, rave of substitution chords
I'd love to find some way say I don't know all those words

Hold on, it's only pitch and rhythm,
Hold on, it's only G and A
Hold on and speak to me in English
Please realize, I'm a filker, and that I just want to play

They sit around for hours as I'm sure you've seen and heard,
But though the music's nice, we cannot understand a word
With meter, modes, and intervals, time: broken, cut, and whole
You work each piece of music 'till it starts to sound like coal
The theory group is growing and the hour may not be long
Before you need doctorate before you sing a song
I'd rather be a maverick and just sing what sounds good
Than have to make my music sound like others think it should

Hold on, it's only pitch and rhythm,
Hold on, it's only G and A
Hold on and speak to me in English
Please realize, I'm a filker, and that I just want to play

One day I'll study theory -- get a doctorate or two,
And throw it all away to talk like normal people do,
I'll make a music language that is clear, concise, and clean,
With terms derived from English and that says just what I mean

Hold on, it's only pitch and rhythm,
Hold on, it's only G and A
Hold on and speak to me in English
Please realize, I'm a filker, and that I just want to play
Please realize, I'm a filker, and that I just want to play

Making a LEGO Turing machine: Kinda cool, kinda dorky.

Making this ad for a LEGO Turing machine?




Oh, my. Do watch the video; it's -funny-.

Overall: good con!

Thursday: arrived, had a cider in the con suite fetal dog, crashed out. Completely failed to recognise Emma in the fetal dog.

Friday: ( hung out ), ( opening ceremonies ), ( Roper concert ), ( open filk ).

Saturday: ( Danced at Emma's Concert ), ( 2x10s ), ( fiddled ), ( danced at the banquet ), ( loved the GOH concert ), ( lost in the Interfilk Auction ), ( sang the night away ).

Sunday, ( Harold Feld's Interfilk Guest concert ), ( Ecumenafilk ), ( dinner ), ( dead dog ).

Monday, ( slept in ), ( Waffle House ), ( airport ), ( flight ), ( journaled ).

Thank you so much to the GAFilk concom and attendees who made this such a lovely party!

This has taken a long time to post, mostly due to technical difficulties. Actually, I had to pull it out of archival to find it.

At batyatoon's housefilk (where I still am, yay!) Will claimed
that with its many parodies Still Alive was the Banned from Argo of its
time. And 'proved' it with the first of two parodies.

It was a pretty good song, but I don't think the parallel is quite right;
in fact, there's another song that is even more well known for being
parodied. An hour later, ( I sang this. )

(I accidentally posted this to the gaming journal. So it goes, but might as well crosspost it here).

When planning for tonight's New Year's party (and what to bring) it occured
to me that I hadn't made chocolate truffles in a number of years, and I
somewhat supidly decided to do so. After all, I still had 7 pounds of
chocolate in my fridge.

An hour of work last night, and four hours of work for two people today
later (and why haven't I made truffles for a few years again?), I now have a
bag of truffles -- xtabentun, slightly spicy amaretto, and very spicy
amaretto. The first two are very subtle -- enough that I mostly can't tell
which is which without a label, though they're yummy anyway. The latter is,
um, not. We made teeny tiny truffles after I let Lisa taste one and she
realized exactly how strong they were (enough that a -small- one is quite,
er, pleasant).

The last time I made "truffles", I lazied out and just brought a tub of
ganache and let people take their fill. This is nicer, but dayim.

Still, I hope people enjoy them. (later: yes, people enjoyed them and I got a lot of good responses to them, though there was competition enough (between my truffles, mephistakitten's truffles, and other food at the party that I've still got a fair number left. The xtabentun batch I was carrying around (i.e. not the reserve I left at home) did go away when I brought them to gaming yesterday, though that's not hugely surprising; I expected the spicy truffles, even the "hint of spice" ones, to go slower.

There were a few blockers to my getting to my flight:

I decided at the last minute to not check luggage, and still had a 3.4 oz
bottle of liquid as well as my flask of hab am. (and no plastic baggie)
I didn't get around to picking up my boarding pass printout.
Work stretched, and I didn't leave the office until after 4 (for a 6pm
flight).

Nevertheless, due to the standards not actually being the advice, paperless
screening (yay, g1 phone with decent zooming), and good trains, I'm (and my
bag, liquids included) are sitting at my gate. At some point, they may even
let us onto the plane.

Is it me? Or are an unusual number of good comics (or rather, the ones I read) moving toward an apparent conclusion of some sort at a good clip?

Specifically:

Ozy & Millie
Chickweed Lane
8 Bit Theater

I should probably also mention To Save Her (a Unicorn Jelly story), (by Jennifer Reitz, who brought us Unicorn Jelly) which looks to be completing its 3 year run soonish, too.

So, I couldn't find my PlayStation keyboard.

jlighton was over, and we both looked a bit (in between, you know,
playing Rock Band), and couldn't find it. Twice.

And I couldn't find it the few times I played on the PS3 this week.

Today I finally took a good crack at looking for it. And bombed. It wasn't on the shelves (where it normally lives). Not on the bed. Ok, our place is a bit of a wreck, but there just aren't that many places for a full-sized keyboard to live.

I looked:

( (pics, so cut tagged) )

A certain final volume of a popular fantasy comic (reprinted and redone) finally just arrived.

I would have expected that -someone- would have done this -- but since they hadn't. Largish (at full size, anyway) pic below the cut.

( cut for your screen & sanity )