Sturdy and Serviceable

Make reado happen!

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:37:13 GMT

I need there to be a thing, a "reado" the opposite of a typo, for when you read something too fast and mistake what it says.

Because I accidentally misread this Tor.com article on Dean Winchester where it says "hyper-masculine-fueled Fast and Furious rodeo" to say "Faust and Furious" which let's be honest, is the best definition of Supernatural I have ever accidentally produced.

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Things which are funnier when they happen to Charlie Chaplin:

Sat, 18 May 2013 04:29:38 GMT

I walked into a light standard today, and I have half-way to convinced myself that I have broken a toe.

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Wed, 15 May 2013 18:52:24 GMT

Question: Which is the more famous canadian moustache: Commander Hadfield's or Jack Layton's?

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Well, that was creepy

Mon, 13 May 2013 05:44:48 GMT

Stephen Harper sent me a Mother's day message.

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Reviews: Courtney Milan, Ben Aaronovitch, Holly Black

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:09:25 GMT

( Red Glove (Curse Workers, #2): ★★★☆☆ )

( Moon Over Soho (Peter Grant, #2): ★★★☆☆ )

( Midnight Riot (Peter Grant, #1): ★★★★☆ )

( The Governess Affair (Brothers Sinister, #0.5): ★★★☆☆ )

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Fri, 10 May 2013 02:21:24 GMT

A word, the appearance of which on packaging should strike fear in your heart:

"Chocolatey"

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Who cosplay overtaken Avengers, more as events unfold.

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:25:57 GMT

Not really a Con Report but...

I went to the "Are Media Tie-In Novel Dying?" panel at StarCon, last Saturday (the 20th)

Panelists: TImothy Zahn, Dayton Ward, Kevin Dillmore, Christie Golden and Peter Wacks.

Their conclusion was basically "no, or at least not more than the rest of publishing, although it may be less of a sure thing than it used to be."

There were basically two points of interest, for me (and the above is neither of them.)

First, I had a bet with myself on how long it would take for someone to mention fanfiction, and I lost. (Or rather WON!) because it took about fifteen minutes, rather than five. The entire panel pretty much agreed that the difference between their stuff and fanfic is that they get paid, and are accountable to the rights-holder, but also agreed that you probably shouldn't do media-tie-in stuff unless you are legitimately a fan of the property. Because the fans are definitely going to detect a half-hearted effort. The only thing that might have been a snide dig at fic was from the person who posed the original question.

Second, someone Not Timothy Zahn and Not Christie Golden told the story of the media-tie-in novel he declined to write: This personage was once in negotiation to write an Alias tie-in novel, and got so far as to travel to the set to talk with the producers, wanting to know where the Alias story was going so he could avoid Jossing himself while writing, or work in events they wre planning. "J. J. just makes it up every week when he gets on set," he was told. He declined to produce that book.

I find this story hilariously unsurprising.

(This is Not A Con Report because the only reason I even know who was there is because I have the program open in another tab, and my reporting basically consists of "And then this one guy said:" and I can really only narrow down the speakers to in as to whether or not they intersected with the categories of "being Timothy Zahn" and 'being the only lady on the panel.")

(and there was Timothy Zahn! I managed not to squeak at him, but it was a near thing. Also a woman in his entourage (or possibly just a woman sitting near him?) offered me half of her napkin when my moonpie started to get messy, so I have had a brush with greatness.)

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Meet-up

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:50:50 GMT

I'm going to be at Denver Starfest sometime this weekend. Anyone else in the area want to meet up?

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Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:27:02 GMT

Apparently capacitive touch manicures do not exist?

Someone get on that.

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Canadian non-problems

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:24:11 GMT

Accidentally reading a fic where (some people will recognize this fic from the description) where Person A likes to dirty talk in French, and may have said some things confident in the assumption that Person B does not speak French, and comes home to Person B googling French-English translations: drama!

Thing is, Person A is speaking Quebec French. I am honestly reasonably confident that no non-linguist anglophone could transcribe Quebecois in such a way that they could later usefully google it. T'sais?

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Reviews: Carrie Ryan, Bec McMaster, Sarah Rees Brennan, Holly Black, Elizabeth Wein

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:40:35 GMT

( White Cat (Curse Workers, #1): ★★★☆☆ )

( Code Name Verity: ★★★★☆ )

( Kiss of Steel (London Steampunk, #1): ★★★☆☆ )

( The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1): ★★★☆☆ )

( Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy, #1): ★★★★☆ )

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Fic titling

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:03:05 GMT

The way my brain works, and maybe other peoples' are not like this? Is that when I read or hear the first half of an aphorism, my brain supplies the other half, such that the impression given by reading the first half is actually supplied by the second half. The first half is the signifier, and the second half is the signified.

(IOW: $foo = "bar" and when I read "foo" I don't think "foo", I think "bar".)

(Also, when I come across the second half, I generally supply the first half, but the effect is not quite as strong.)

So when I come across fic titled "The Wages of Sin" I am expecting it to be about death, and when I come across fic titled "Lie down with Wolves," I am mentally reading a fic titled 'Get up with fleas.'

And I'm not sure that this is what the authors intended, in most cases.

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I need it for reasons

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:57:27 GMT

Is there a story out there where Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers are dating post Steve's thaw, and Steve thinks Peggy at 90 is the most beautiful woman he knows, and Peggy knows that everyone thinks she should let Steve go gracefully, but screw it, she's lived and fought through more wars than you and if she wants a hot young boyfriend and glass of scotch, she will get it, dammit.

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Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:08:23 GMT

Metafilter's April Fool's page is pleasing to me.

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Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:11:24 GMT

I think my battle-cry is "While this has nothing to do with the subject at hand, I feel the need to point out:"

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Maybe this is depression-filter talking?

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:05:07 GMT

I begin to feel, more and more, like capitalism is a tool for efficiently selecting and rewarding people who are good at maximally exploiting their environment, and which has as its side-effect the generation of an unbounded quantity of plastic and silicon tchotchkes.

I mean, I also believe it is the worst system there is, except for all the other ones we've tried, so I have no alternative to propose, but man, look at the people capitalism rewards.

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Levels of Canadian french-language snobbery: a guide

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:23:32 GMT

Snobby Canadians Who Only Speak French: Tu parles comme une vache Espagnole.
Snobby Canadians Who Speak French: Will pretend to only speak French, unless they are in Alberta, and want to find a bathroom.
Snobby Canadians Who Do Not Speak French, But Learned How To Pronounce it in School: Will insist on using French pronunciation for words of French extraction, or words that look like they might be French, except for 'chandelier', and other words we will inform you of when you get them wrong.
Snobby Canadians Who Do Not Speak French: Proud of Canada's status as a bilingual country; will pronounce arbitrary words of French extraction with what they imagine to be a French accent, will correct you if you get them wrong.
Albertans: Will not pronounce any words according to French pronunciation, even if it is the name of a Francophone.

(This entire document is a joke and untrue? Mostly.)

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Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:56:01 GMT

I just had a horrible thought: do people who don't speak french pronounce Les Mis "Lez Miz"?

ETA: For anglos who do not think this sort of thing is pretentious: a good approximation can be achieved by saying "Lay-Me", emphasis equally on both words.
ETDOUBLEA: Neither do I wish to impugn Lay Miz, a perfectly fine pronunciation!
/snobby canadian who doesn't actually speak french

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Query for SPN fans, apropos of nothing

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:09:54 GMT

Question: Is there destiel where what's keeping them apart is not "God wouldn't approve" or "My angel nature is ungendered and without a sex-drive" or even "I have special angel-brand homophobia!" but rather "Jimmy lent me his body to fight ~~crime~~ the apocalypse, this would be an abuse of his trust"?

I mean, I understand, from fannish osmosis, that Jimmy eventually expires, or transubstantiates, or some shit, and that would no longer be an issue, but while it was, did that happen?

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Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:16:41 GMT

Is there a place where people are discussing the alternatives they are investigating now that google reader is kaput, and how they are finding them?

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Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:12:12 GMT

Promoting this to its own post, as it's probably the geekiest joke to ever happen in my comments:
marcelo In your brain's defense, XPath is probably what the Necronomicon's index is written in.

Also, you guys, I just realized what Tumblr is: it is 2010's answer to the compelling question: how can we bring back email forwards, with better video embedding? LITERALLY, YOU GUYS. You know those dodgy email forwards which warn you about how some political/social figure did something dodgy/heroic ("Ryan Goslling punched/saved a baby! Forward this to everyone you know!") It has the exact same property of "vague assertion, citation haphazardly attached, sent into the void with no means of retraction."

Behold: this email forward, spuriously attributed to Bill Cosby lives on at tumblr.

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Tue, 19 Mar 2013 03:13:59 GMT

That moment when, trying to make someone else's greasemonkey script do your will, you realize you've forgotten everything you ever knew about XPath.

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You're Welcome

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:20:44 GMT

As a service to my future biographer, I have compiled some suggestions for the title of this work:

- Writing Porn on Public Transit: A Voyage in Awkward
- Devoured by My Purse and Other Horror Stories
- Dogs! : I'm Sorry, Were You Saying Something?

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Thu, 14 Mar 2013 05:55:39 GMT

I like sounding like an expert, and therefore, prefer to talk about things where I know what I'm talking about, and I like to sound off about things I have opinions on, so I have probably made myself sound like some kind of genius dog handler.

The truth is, today, for the first time in about a year and a half of owning this dog, I felt I was making solid progress on his mastery of "Lie down."

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Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:26:46 GMT

Does anyone else have the problem that you're happily looking at pictures of ladies and then all of a suden WOAH TOO MUCH MALE GAZE and then you have to go look at pictures of puppies and you can't look at pictures of ladies for a week?

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