The Story of My Life

Saw this fellow (gal?) in the backyard tonight. He wound up on the porch, where I snapped a couple of photos.



I wanted to share with y'all. :)

I'm considering installing TweetDeck. I haven't done much on Twitter for a while now, mostly because it doesn't occur to me to check the thing unless I leave its page open in Firefox all the time. I've been trying to keep the number of open tabs to a minimum, because my computer is happier when I do.

I understand Adobe AIR is needed to run TweetDeck, like the Microsoft .NET environment is required to run certain applications. Reportedly the issues with not being able to uninstall AIR have been taken care of. I hope so.

Anyone use TweetDeck? Is it something an aging machine can run, or should I stick to TwitterBar in my browser?

I stopped by Michael's today and managed to get some good advice (!) about ink portability. A woman suggested the little glass jars used for storing airbrush paints. I bought one of those for about $3.50, and a handful (they don't sell them singly) of glass eyedroppers, also for about $3.50. The eyedroppers were kept with the suncatcher crafts. I had no idea where to find them, so I asked. :) And a nice lady in line in front of me gave me a 40% off coupon that she couldn't use. Bonus!

I knew pouring the ink from the bottle into a little glass jar was not going to be pretty, but the eyedropper works well. I now have a jar filled about a quarter of the way with ink. It's supposed to be nice at the end of the week, so I should have an opportunity to test out the new system.

(autumnslight, I've been meaning to steal your icon, and this is the perfect opportunity. The check's in the mail. XD)

If you've seen it you'll know why I'm here. If you haven't, here 'tis:


Do I need spoiler space for something that happens thirty seconds into the show?

I like the edge. I like that they're not afraid to kill. But seeing my favourite character lying stone dead in the opening scene is not going to endear me to this show. The icon above describes what my brain did after I got over the initial shock. I think it's still doing it a little.

I noticed a few things: he's in civvies, not in uniform. Secondly, the dagger in his chest has a very obvious Cobra motif. I have a bunch of unanswered questions which I am holding out faint hope (because apparently I am one of a very few people who actually like this character) will be answered. Mostly I want to know who killed him and why. Suddenly it's a murder mystery for me. :)

Somehow I find myself trying not to be all angry. I'm not happy, that's for sure, but I try to keep an open mind. That and this isn't the only continuity out there. And it just might get me to write some more. I was already working up what happens next/happened before in my head last night (once I got over the shock).

Now I know how the Lady Jaye fans must've felt during the Devil's Due comic run.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Apparently it's not out of my system yet. Now where's my laptop? It's not too ugly a day out yet and I've got some straightening out to do. *cracks knuckles*

Let me say this up front: I love to draw with my Crow Quill and India ink. There's something about the Crow nib that no other writing implement can equal. Nothing else is the same. The trouble is, the Crow Quill is a dip pen. I have to dip the nib into ink in order to draw or write with it. Herein lies my problem.

Thursday I went up to the local church on my bike with pocket watercolour sketchbook et al in tow. No leakage problems on the ink bottle. At least not that I noticed until I unpacked the small bag Friday night and saw that the ink bottle had leaked a bit. Nothing was damaged, but it was a heads-up: be more careful with the India ink.

This afternoon, with the weather still being really really nice, I went up to the church again. This time I was carrying my stuff in a little bag slung over my shoulder. I did take the precaution of putting the ink bottle in a ziploc bag first. It's a good thing. I unpacked the ink and saw it had started leaking again. So I went back home to clean up the ink and consider a solution.

While testing the bottle for leakage in the sink, I managed to splash a few droplets of ink onto my white, irreplaceable Klingon Language Institute competency levels t-shirt. A strategic attack with bleach failed to deter the little black dots, so I rinsed it and left it to hang downstairs. Thankfully it's not all that noticeable.

I now make a plea to any other India ink artists out there: how do you transport your ink safely? I have heard good things about Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pens, but not only are they expensive, they do not have the same Crow nib that I have grown to love. I suppose I should start looking for a watertight container for transporting my ink. Anyone out there have a good solution for this dilemma? I love my Crow quill pen! I don't want to be reduced to drawing with it only when I'm at home!

Someone just friended me and two or three of my friends' journals and has no info but a lot of friends. Anybody know who emjualpo is?

I am: Olaf Stapledon Standing outside the science fiction "field", he wrote fictional explorations of the futures of whole species and galaxies.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Now I have to go find some stuff he wrote. I must admit I've not heard of him. *blush*

(I posted this to Yahoo! Answers, but I thought you knowledgeable people might be a better source of help.)
I had about 1.8 GB on my player, left it connected to my stereo overnight (which I often do with no ill effects), and today I went to check its contents and they were entirely empty. Even the weird songs they preloaded onto it are gone. It still has a directory structure and shows up in Windows Explorer, but Windows Media Player thinks there are two devices now: one with no contents and one that's not plugged in (even when it is) that has the 1.8 GB of files on it. I have all of my files backed up on the desktop computer but this is sure irritating. Anyone have any solutions to this, or a way to keep it from happening again?

I've started playing Starflight again. It's a little bit like saying I've started smoking or drinking again, except playing Starflight doesn't wreck my lungs or my liver. My eyes have some complaints, but they're just whiners anyway. In order to spread my geekitude across the web, I've started Starflight Adventures over on Blogspot. I'm warming up to Blogspot as a blog hosting site. I only wish the hit counter tool I found actually worked. Anyway. The you aliens should check out Starflight Adventures. if 80s computer games, EGA graphics, and beep music make you nostalgic. Or if you want to read me writing weird crap about my experiences with the game after twenty-plus years. Yes, I think this is best idea certainly. Nine out of ten Veloxi recommend it. After they're done blathering at you for six days about how awesome they are. Le sigh.

Apparently Facebook made an update to their Terms of Service a few weeks ago that nobody noticed until today:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

Now, I don't blog on my Facebook. I do, however, use it to promote my Associated Content work. If I have a link to my AC page or articles, does that grant Facebook any rights to that content? Does Facebook claim ownership of things I post in my Notes? I would think it wouldn't, but there are some pretty draconian legalites out there. I can use the publicity I get from Facebook, but I need to know if I should stop using them for that purpose.
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