User:	faerieboots
	Date:	2009-11-09 22:47
	Subject:	Oh! Right! Na No Wri Mo. :)
	Security:	Public

	User:	thisisfurious
	Date:	2009-11-09 20:08
	Subject:	A Softer World enumerates its regrets
	Security:	Public

a new comic

a new comic

A NEW COMIC

THE NEWEST COMIC

	User:	untoward
	Date:	2009-11-09 08:56
	Subject:	Dragon Age: Origins
	Security:	Public

Dragon Age: Origins is a game I've been excited about for more than a year. I loved Baldur's Gate II, and its expansion, and I lost more time to Neverwinter Nights than I ought to admit. So a new single player fantasy RPG by this company, billed as the "spiritual heir to baldur's gate" (spiritual because this new one is their own IP, and not a D&D game - though the mechanics are very similar) got me all giddy with anticipation!

And it's great. I've been having a really good time playing it. It isn't without it's flaws, but the overall experience is good enough that I've been all too happy to overlook the frustrating bugs. The onion AV Club gave it an A though, which I'm not sure I agree with entirely. I wrote a big comment on that AV Club review. And here it is!

The bugs in this game are frustrating.

The two big ones are:

- Quests that don't register their completion can leave you running around an area in frustration after fighting, say, the hordes of bad guys in the Redcliffe castle mission, wondering what small thing you haven't yet done. Only looking on the internet led me to the conclusion that something had gone wrong on their end. Reloaded a save game, fought the battle again, and CLICK - cut scene. Also, it didn't help that while I was trying to figure out what was going on, the aggravating fight scene music kept playing! It's great and cinematic when actually fighting, but while running around in empty areas trying to figure out what to do, it sure adds to the frustration!

- cut scenes sometimes screw up, and you'll go through a cut scene, make one of the games (actually pretty interesting) moral choices, and then suddenly be watching the cut scene again. I chose a different choice the second time, and was then moved forward in the game as though I'd only chosen the first. Later, other characters alternated between acting as though I'd chosen A or B. It sort of took the wind out of that choice. This happened to me in the Redcliffe section, as well.


That said, The game has some very good things in its favour, too:

- the moral choices themselves feel more satisfying. I really like the game's system of having the choices affect the world itself, rather than some arbitrary slider of how good or evil you are. You make a choice, and your companions approve or disapprove, sure, but also you'll find that your future options in the game world have changed, too. It really adds to a sense of immersion.

- The combat's good. Not too simple, but not ridiculously complex either, and the tactics reward the learning curve that comes with understanding how they're interpreted by the game. After playing with the tactic programming for a while, I found my party members acting just how I needed, which was useful for adapting to harder fights and made the combat feel genuinely tactical rather than like a mashfest.

- Some of the characterization is great - Morrigan and Shale are both fun and interesting, and I like the way they fit into the game world, and the major events of the game, rather than just having discreet stories of their own. Some of the characterization is sort of lame, too though. (The voice acting also runs from very very good to characters who seem to change voice actors mid-dialogue, again, in the Redcliffe quest, which led me to have most of my doubts about the game. Maybe the people in charge of the Redcliffe quest

- The skill trees feel well balanced, and it's fun to play as a warrior or mage or rogue (except for some rogue dex issues that they've acknowledged and which are being fixed in an upcoming patch) and for the most part the specializations really give a different feel to your class when you get to that stage. And a couple of the specializations are tied to the game world in a fun way. In a lot of these games, specializations just add a couple generic skills. Extra damage, and such. In this, they add skills that tie into the story sometimes. "Blood magic" being a big one, and that sort of detail really adds to the feel that you're a part of the game.

- The game gets its title from a system where you can choose your "origin" - each of which is a different way to start the game. The origins are a couple hours, before merging with the main storyline, but which will affect the game further down the line, too. Every character has to go to the dawrven city to seek aid, for instance, but that visit has a very different tone if you are a dwarf noble who was falsely accused of killing her brother the heir to the throne and then exiled.

I would give it a B, or a B- (with it moving to an A after a bug patch or two for sure.) A lot of care and love went into the game, and despite the couple frustrating bugs above, I've put in a couple dozen hours since it's release and haven't lost interest yet!

Penny Arcade had a pretty funny comic about how they do downloadable content. There are characters you come across IN-GAME, who describe the DLC for you, and the dialogue options say "downloadable content" right on them, which takes you out of the game a bit. ( I have, of course, downloaded them )

Have you played it? What do you think?

	User:	llrt (posted by londo)
	Date:	2009-11-08 23:46
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

I found my sigbooks tonight.

I'd lost them for eight years.

Wow.

	User:	notemily
	Date:	2009-11-08 03:30
	Subject:	a head less throbbinary
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	illin'

 You know, I just realized, in the RotK movie, Frodo hasn't seen Gandalf since Moria. So when he wakes up in the bed at the end, wouldn't he be pretty surprised? In fact, wouldn't he think he had died and gone to heaven, or the Hobbity equivalent? In fact, they even shot the scene with a golden sort of halo-y light. I bet Frodo is there thinking "aw man, ALL my friends died? Oh well, at least heaven has a comfortable bed."

I am sick sick sick. The kind of sick that won't let me sleep. Hence being awake at 3:32. I'm waiting for the Tylenol to work. I generally like to let fevers run their course, but in the case of middle-of-the-night racing thoughts/waking nightmares that won't let me get any rest, I make an exception.

I wish I had some cinnamon bread. And a hot water bottle. And a magic laundry-doing fairy.

Waaah.

	User:	dragonladyflame
	Date:	2009-11-07 22:28
	Subject:	He had given his heart this once in his life and counted himself blessed to have had the chance ...
	Security:	Public

"You haven't stopped being a child. ... You still think that home, at the end of a long journey, is a place where a man finds peace." (229)

"I knew you lived," she said. She did not mention his wounded arm.
"And you must live too," he said. "The crowd is growing larger." He said nothing of the aching of the wound in his right shoulder, or of the flame radiating outward through his body from it. He said nothing of the pounding of his heart when he looked at her. He felt short of breath after his long ride. He did not use the word "love". For the last time in his life he wondered if he had wasted his love on a woman who only gave her love until it was time to take it back. He set the thought aside. He had given his heart this once in his life and counted himself blessed to have had the chance to do so. The question of whether she was worthy of his love had no meaning. His heart had answered that question long ago. (298)

~ The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie

...

A friend of mine recently emailed to ask my opinion of psychotropic drugs (that is, Prozac and Paxil and Wellbutrin and all their ilk -- not mushrooms and acid and suchlike). I tried to compose a reply only to discover that it became long, too long, and remembered that anyway people ask me this question a lot. So it might as well be a LiveJournal post, to which I can direct people at will.

This is going to be rambly, but so many factors go into my feelings about these things ....

My Opinions On and Experience With Psychotropic Drugs
(a.k.a. a very limited memoir of my time up through my first year of college)

Firstly, let me say that I don't have much pity for my younger self; I say this because I'm afraid that my upcoming remarks could be somewhat interpreted as a request for sympathy. I did not fit in well at school, but there were a few people I could talk to, and I never lacked for books or art supplies or solitary amusements (including, when it came along, the Internet). And although my parents had a lot of difficulty with each other, they did their best to make it always entirely clear that they loved me and were proud of me. They are also both very intelligent and interesting people, who did their best to treat me as a likewise intelligent person; I can still recall one childhood neighbor returning home from visiting me and telling his parents in shock that, "Lydia's parents talk to her like she's a grown-up!"

More to the point .... My ex-housemate Laura sent me a letter after I came here to Swaziland containing a line that struck me: we'd had a number of conversations about our history, and she described me as a "precocious child who acquired an early disdain for conformity, which developed into an overwhelming fear of mediocrity". I've always vainly wanted to consider myself as a precocious child, but I'm wary of it, too, because I'm so aware that enormous swaths of my early development -- for instance, the fact that I went to CTY (nerd camp) to take college courses starting in middle school; the fact that I went to college when I was 16 -- these things are at least as based on my socioeconomic privilege as any native intelligence I could claim. And I've often thought that my inability to fit in at school was, in many ways, a refusal to fit in, a refusal to take the other kids' perspectives seriously: a facet of my own overwhelming fear of mediocrity. A superiority complex. Which is not admirable ... not something I should value.

(And yet being in Swaziland has reminded me what it feels like to be attempting conversation, constantly, with people with whom I have almost no cultural context or intellectual bond .... The feeling is familiar and demoralizing. I don't know if the heart of it, way back when, was that I haughtily rejected my schoolmates, or I just couldn't figure out how to have an extensive conversation with them. If I was just in culture shock against normal America. I don't know. I really don't know.)

At any rate. As far as I'm concerned, I turned out fine, and -- although I sometimes wonder what on Earth will become of such an idiosyncratic creature as myself -- I'm happy with where/who I am now.

Okay. Disclaimers done. Oh, wait, I'm required to write this one: The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the US Government or the Peace Corps.

Okay. Disclaimers done.

I must have been pretty unhappy when I was younger. I've got any number of fond memories from my hometown of Hastings-on-Hudson, which I sometimes find difficult to reconcile with memories that seem to indicate my own unhappiness. But then again none of these images, fond or un, are easy to grasp. I feel as though the minute I walked away from Hastings my life got so much more vivid, so much more present .... So much more real. I once spoke to a filmmaker who, fascinated by high school, longed to make movies set in high school because she said that "high school is such a universal experience": this quotation has stuck in my head ever since because it totally bewilders me. Universal for who? What do they find universal? I barely remember my two years of high school, and what I do seems to indicate that it was pretty different from most peoples' high school experience. Does not compute.

I first started seeing therapists in elementary school. I don't remember why; I was probably threatening suicide or something. I went through more than one, was never much engaged with any of them. The memory that sticks out the most is from -- Dr. Slater, I think his name was -- in fourth grade or so. I'd been reading some book I found lying around, Zhuangzi Speaks, a spectacular graphic novel adaptation of the philosophy of Zhuangzi (a Chinese contemporary of Confucius, really funny and warm and down-to-earth and worth reading). I was discovering relativism, how exciting! One parable in particular struck me; it was about a man who feared death, to whom Zhuangzi said: "Maybe death will be so great we'll end up regretting having ever lived."

Thrilled and awed, I read this line to Dr. Slater. He had piercing blue eyes and glasses, and his expression currently said: you-poor-troubled-child-don't-worry-your-little-head-I-understand-everything. "Is that what you think?" he asked gently. "That death will be so great, you'll regret having ever lived?" He was plainly all set to jot my latest suicidal ideations in his notebook. Disgusted, I changed the subject. Within the year I had evaded Slater's clutches, and he was my last therapist for a while.

( Read more... )

... and so. So. So, Lydia, what do you think about psychotropic drugs?

... How do I pull together my experience into a coherent opinion?

I don't know if they helped me. I don't know if they'll help you, either.

Maybe bullet points will assist this process.

* Cultural baggage: It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but there is still a ton of stigma surrounding the usage of psychotropic drugs (and psychotherapy in general). I think anyone who goes on them ought to examine their own assumptions about psychotropics. What stereotypes do you hold? What stereotypes do people you care about hold? Are you going to feel comfortable being "out" about your psychotropic usage? Are there any judgments that you fear?

* Side effects: Know them. I recommend a second opinion outside your doctor and maybe some independent research, too. Track the side effects as you start taking them. And remember that we have no longitudinal studies and no complete understanding of what these drugs "really" do. This is true of many drugs, of course.

* Outside pressures: How much of this decision is yours? If other people are influencing it, why and how are they doing so? What are their biases?

* Therapist / psychologist mesh: You'll need someone to prescribe the drugs. I definitely recommend shopping around until you have one whom you both like and trust. This might take a while but is worth the effort.

* Employability: Just keep it in mind. Most jobs won't be able to discriminate against you, but some -- e.g. Peace Corps -- are free to do so, and might very well do so. (Let me say this again: The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the US Government or the Peace Corps.)

* Life circumstances: Are there things about your life that are really hurting you, that you could change? Is whatever it is that's leading you to this decision an outside factor that can be adjusted?

That's the best I can do.

....

Management manual by gamers
Imagine the value if you could transfer the excitement and focus found in great games to the office. What if your employees could solve customer problems, design new software, or configure better shipping routes working inside a game environment at work?
This isn't just possible, say Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read; it's inevitable. As employee productivity and engagement become more critical, the user experience provided by game technology offers a tantalizing solution for business. This is far more than a quaint metaphor or a twist on e-learning. Game design elements can address a host of business problems with morale, communication, and alignment while honing skills like data analysis, teamwork, leadership, and more.

Middle East female sex activist!
Wedad Lootah does not look like a sexual activist. A Muslim and a native Emirati, she wears a full-length black niqab — with only her brown eyes showing through narrow slits — and sprinkles her conversation with quotes from the Koran.
Yet she is also the author of what for the Middle East is an amazingly frank new book of erotic advice in which she celebrates the female orgasm, confronts taboo topics like homosexuality and urges Arabs to transcend the backward traditions that limit their sexual happiness.
Does anyone else feel a bit uncomfortable with the tone here? I mean, I'm glad to read about this woman, but ... "backward"? In terms of sex-positivity, too, there's a lot of pot-and-kettle from America to the Middle East.

The Promoted Fanboy
"My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven."
~ Steven Moffat, upon being named lead writer/producer for Doctor Who
Some fans have all the luck. Somehow they've managed to be a part of the very industry—or even sometimes the exact show—that they're a fan of. This can range from the minor, such as a Contest Winner Cameo, to the point where the fan has creative control and is Running The Asylum.
With a long list of oddly fascinating examples! I found this page because someone linked to it while referring to me (I count as a Promoted Fan because I worked for White Wolf after writing considerable fan content). Hilarious.

	User:	faerieboots
	Date:	2009-11-05 22:27
	Subject:	Na No Wri Mo, ho!
	Security:	Public

Still a bit behind, but it's not terrible...

User:	modrnwrld_comic
Date:	2009-11-05 12:05
Subject:	Joe Lieberman, The Most Important Politician Ever
Security:	Public

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThisModernWorld/~3/QD9Su3RZ9IU/joe_lieberman_the_most_importa.html

http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2009/11/joe_lieberman_the_most_importa.html

User:	savagelove
Date:	2009-11-04 00:00
Subject:	Features: Savage Love:November 4, 2009
Security:	Public

http://www.avclub.com/articles/november-4-2009,34946/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=type_savage-love

	User:	faerieboots
	Date:	2009-11-03 22:45
	Subject:	8%, not perfect, not awful!
	Security:	Public

	User:	faerieboots
	Date:	2009-11-02 22:58
	Subject:	Ok 2563 is more than 741. :)
	Security:	Public

Is not 6,000, but given the crazy evening I have had, it is better than nothing! Also, I has finished Prologue. Yay, finished Prologue! :)

	User:	faerieboots
	Date:	2009-11-02 19:11
	Subject:	Na No Wri Mo!
	Security:	Public

Day 2 of Na No Wri Mo.[1] So far, I have about 740 words. This, notably, is not 6,000. =(

It does not help, sadly, that this week appears to be Return of the 11 Hour Work Day: Now With Less Lunch Break! If I suck it up and make it through this week, though, my workload should drop off drastically on the 9th. Oh how I want it to be the 9th.

But, I am writing, I am writing, I am writing a novel! I am weaving, I am weaving, conceiving a plot! [2]

I think it is a doable goal, but I have taken on so much research it may be very hard. I might want to consider simply abandoning research for now, writing stuff down based on what I know, and fact-checking as part of the editing process...

Anyway, yeah. Life! Stuff.


**Me**

[1] The good people at Na No Wri Mo assure me that I should "[t]ell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse."

[2] Yes, I really did need to quote Cake. It's Cake! Everybody loves Cake! Mostly because it is better than death.

	User:	simonsrock (posted by zwab)
	Date:	2009-11-02 16:41
	Subject:	Stranded in Harriman, NY -- a ride?
	Security:	Public

Hey everyone,

I hit a deer on the way back from NY last night with my girlfriend. We're fine, but the car's totalled, and we're stranded at a mechanic's office in Harriman, NY. It would be completely amazing if someone would be willing to give us a ride back to campus, and I'll gladly pay for your gas, dinner, and trouble if you want to be that someone. We are fun company--intensely into music, kind, and given to strange claims and exciting tales, or austere silence if that's what you prefer--and we would cherish your kindness forever. Please call me at (512) 913-6281 if you're interested.

Yours always,
Zack A.

	User:	untoward
	Date:	2009-11-02 16:45
	Subject:	Something to hold your ammo. Or what's left of your loved ones.
	Security:	Public

	User:	untoward
	Date:	2009-11-02 13:18
	Subject:	A Softer World: oh no full moon
	Security:	Public

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=495

If you're in Toronto, you should check out Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the theatre centre! I love Hedwig, and seeing it live is interesting and fun. It's different! The guy playing Hedwig is great.

Also, I have recently become re-obsessed with Nethack. I have been dividing my time equally between the xbox 360, and a text based dungeon crawler from 1989. It is such a frustrating and fun game.

	User:	notemily
	Date:	2009-10-29 22:26
	Subject:	the howling so loud that it alone drowned out the inside of me
	Security:	Public

 not the best week. a ton of tension making me feel like my shoulder has been yanked around and there's a snake constricting itself around my right arm. good thing that happened today: got up and took a shower right away, so didn't have to rush to get to work.

don't know what I'm going to tell Dr. G tomorrow. last week he was so enthusiastic about my progress and now I feel like I don't have much to show for it. it's the homework thing is what it is. I had a plan that I thought was manageable, small steps, and yet I haven't managed to do much of it. sometimes I think school is like a really bad boyfriend that's always making me feel bad about myself and trying to change me. I wouldn't let a person do this to me so why do I willingly take it on? maybe this time I'll be better.

just want to curl up tight in my own personal blanket fort and read every book on my shelf. spindle's end and jacob have i loved and ash and leviathan and shiver and the tea rose and prodigal summer. I need days that don't present so many opportunities to feel like a failure.

	User:	untoward
	Date:	2009-10-29 22:50
	Subject:	A Softer World treads all over you.
	Security:	Public

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=494

Here is today's comic! We hope that you like it.

	User:	faerieboots
	Date:	2009-10-29 20:58
	Subject:	Nygah hectic but life update.
	Security:	Public

I passed the MA bar, too! Now I have a complete set.[1] Yay me.

Also, I will be down in MA this weekend but this weekend is looking super-busy like whoa. So, um, I would love to see you, O Cambridgeans, and hopefully will see a lot of you, but please do not be offended if I am not able to do so.

I will next be in town probably the weekend of the 14th. Just sayin'. :)

Oh, also, I went to this really interesting talk tonight which gave me a lot to think about regarding the way society views politeness and race but sadly I have to finish my Halloween costume and shower and dry my hair and also go to bed early so I can drop off a voting card at City Hall at 7 a.m. tomorrow so another time.

**Me**



[1]As long as you define "a complete set" as "all the bar exams I actually took" and not "all the bars to which it would be possible to apply in America." Because I don't have the latter set. And honestly, hope I never do. :)

User:	modrnwrld_comic
Date:	2009-10-29 09:00
Subject:	A Terrifying Halloween Costume
Security:	Public

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThisModernWorld/~3/hJoPYyjDXZI/a_terrifying_halloween_costume.html

http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2009/10/a_terrifying_halloween_costume.html

	User:	thisisfurious
	Date:	2009-10-28 16:04
	Subject:	A Softer World: 493
	Security:	Public

it's a day for a new comic!

asofterworld.com

i have also found a couple of old photos, so two of the previously-unavailable comics are now buyable as prints! they are: 326 and 189 (which is the comic this shirt is based on)

in other news, the LJ feeds have been down for almost a week...no doubt once it gets fixed there will be a flood of old entries. courage!