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Site updates and anything else related to the technology of blogging and my site(s).

On This Day: Nov 30

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 27 posts previously published on November 30th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 49/2021: The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture by Lester del Rey ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Blog This Shortcut for iOS or macOS A cross-platform iOS/macOS shortcut for blogging with MarsEdit or Ulysses ➡
  • 2020
    • This year’s series of Microblogvember posts is done! Once again, lots of SF/F microfiction. Find all of them — plus, if you scroll back far enough, all of last year’s — on the microblogvember tag page, and (hopefully) enjoy! ➡
    • She closed her eyes, reciting line after line of every poem, song, and book she could remember, desperately trying to reinforce her mental defenses against the earworm’s attack. Unfortunately, humanity had yet to find a working defense against “It’s A Small World, After All.” ➡
    • Washington state has enabled COVID-19 exposure notifications for iPhone and Android users. More information and installation instructions are available at WANotify.org. You should enable this! Also, stay at home when you can, mask and social distance when you can’t. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 30 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 30 ➡
    • 📚 forty-eight of 2020: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome by Joan D. Vinge ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Better than I expected for a novelization of an ‘80s action flick. Makes me want to re-watch the film again to see if it’s better than I remember, or if Vinge just did a particularly good job. ➡
  • 2019
    • Thirty days, thirty posts: I successfully completed Microblogvember! All my posts are tagged with ‘Microblogvember’ on my blog. All fiction (as far as I know, at least), all in the general SF/fantasy/horror spaces. This was a fun project! ➡
    • “I told you I had to integrate the all the systems before we could start!” “Yes, I know—I just didn’t realize you meant…all the systems,” they replied, looking in horror at the wires and tubes running from the console and snaking under their skin. Microblogvember: integrate ➡
    • 📚 fifty-six of 2019: Taking Wing, by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Captain Riker’s first assignment post-Nemesis. Also, quite coincidentally, in many ways a sequel to the last Trek novel I read, with several direct ties, and by the same authors. 🖖 ➡
  • 2017
    • Day one! #cardsagainsthumanity #cah ➡
  • 2016
    • Lit by the Christmas tree lights. (335/366) ➡
  • 2009
  • 2005
    • Wishlist time! Seeing how it's less than a month before Christmas and we've run full-bore into the shopping season, I figured I'd put up my wishlist. Of course, the one thing standing in the way is that for the most part, I really don't _have_ a wishlist...at least, not a serious one. ➡
    • Tweaking the ads I've done a bit of tweaking on the ads served up on the pages of my site. While I certainly have no intentions of becoming an adfarm, I finally decided that I didn't mind at least _slightly_ increasing the possibilities of having a few pennies slide my way from time to time. ➡
  • 2004
    • ADD, Hyperactivity, and Ritalin I have serious issues with the current obsession with ADD and the associated pharmaceutical treatments. My personal belief is that it's an incredibly overblown and overmedicated issue. ➡
    • iTMS: Kevin Spacey ‘Beyond the Sea’ Last night while bouncing randomly around the iTMS, I noticed an album by Kevin Spacey. Since I know Kevin as an actor, and not a singer, I was a little curious, and did some investigating. Turns out that there's an upcoming biopic of Bobby Darin called Beyond the Sea with Kevin in the lead role, and he actually does all of his own singing for the film. ➡
    • Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com An Australian phone company is offering customers the chance to blacklist numbers before heading out for a night on the town so they can reduce the risk of making any embarrassing, incoherent late-night calls. ➡
    • A Seattle-centric blonde joke A blonde was feeling so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into Puget Sound. She went down to the docks and was about to leap into the frigid water when a handsome young sailor saw her teetering on the edge of the pier crying. ➡
    • Blast from the Past Something I never realized before — apparently, the person in this iconic ad for Maxell audiocassettes…is none other than then-Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy. Nifty! ➡
    • LotR:TYEBEE (Lord of the Rings: Till Your Eyes Bleed Extended Edition) 7am: friends arrive, pancake breakfast. / 8am: Fellowship of the Ring (~4+ hrs) / 12:30pm: Lunch / 2:00pm: The Two Towers (~3 1/2 hrs) / 5:30pm: Dinner / 7:00pm: Return of the King (~ 4 1/2 hrs) / 11:30pm: Eyes ooze out of our sockets, bedsores open on our asses. ➡
    • Adoption Lately, I've been really enjoying reading The Sticking Point as Tommy and his wife travel to Seoul to finalize the adoption of a baby boy. Being able to experience the adoption through Tommy's eyes has been rather touching for me, as some time ago I was somewhat involved in an adoption from the other side of the process. ➡
  • 2003
    • First LotR:TRotK review…almost The Return of the King is ... sorry about this, but we're not allowed to tell you what we think of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King until next Tuesday. ➡
    • Bombardier Embrio The Embryo is a single-wheeled vehicle, balanced using internal gyroscopes and powered with a hydrogen fuel cell, emitting only water as its exhaust. ➡
    • The fitty-cen' project Of course, the real question is whether gangsta rappers are going to chip in… ➡
  • 2001
    • Upcoming reading material In the course of a LotR discussion quite a few books and series were mentioned, and I thought I'd jot some of them down so I can pull from this list next time I need to find a book to dive into. ➡

On This Day: Nov 29

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 22 posts previously published on November 29th

  • 2023
    • ABBYY FineReader Amazement and Disappointment ABBYY FineReader PDF is a really impressive tool for converting scanned image-only PDFs into searchable, accessible PDFs. Unless you’re on a Mac, where one of the most powerful parts of the program is missing. ➡
    • Year 50 Day 211 Almost, but not quite, done with Thanksgiving leftovers. ➡
  • 2022
    • 📚 Sundiver by David Brin A fun SF concept that turns into an Agatha Christie-ish mystery, all against a wider background seemingly based off the silly “ancient anstronauts” idea. ➡
  • 2021
    • Updated my iOS “Blog This” shortcut (for sending selected text from Safari to Ulysses in Markdown format) to add two fixes: slightly adjusting the output if no text is selected, and expanding relative URLs (my thanks to Memory Alpha for inspiring this fix). ➡
    • I really wish they had done this in First Contact. ➡
  • 2020
    • When he was younger, the future was a bright, shiny goal that he couldn’t wait to get to. Now that he was here, though it all seemed so sadly pedestrian and banal. Even personal transporters and alien coworkers lost their fascination after a few years of everyday encounters. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 29 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 29 ➡
  • 2019
    • “A real ray gun? That’s fantastic!” Excited, he tossed the box aside and examined the weapon. “No,” his father disagreed, “it’s science fictional. That’s fantastic,” he said, and pointed out the window at the hippogriff seated in their front yard. Microblogvember: fantastic ➡
    • 📚 fifty-five of 2019: The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1963 Hugo Best Novel Fascinating partly for the primary alt history, but also for other alternatives and the ruminations on those, an author’s intent, and the characters’ realizations. ➡
    • Amazon Alternatives: “Welcome to the most lovingly curated selection of Amazon and Prime alternatives anywhere. We aim to make giving up Amazon easy and to encourage more people to spend their money with businesses that have higher ethical standards.” ➡
  • 2018
  • 2016
    • Fighting Authoritarianism Important lessons from history to keep in mind over the upcoming years. ➡
    • I do enjoy it when my fumbling ends up looking like some indie album cover. (334/366) ➡
    • Not my official photo of the day. Just saying hello to my Instagram followers. Some of you I know; some I don’t. If you want to take a peek at my world beyond Instagram, here’s where to look! ➡
    • Giving Tuesday For Giving Tuesday, I’m adding two more organizations to my monthly donations. ➡
  • 2015
    • One of my graduation presents for getting through grad school: the #Lego Creator Detective’s Office (10246). Three stories, with a pool hall and barbershop at street level, detective’s office and restroom on the second floor, and kitchenette and rooftop water tower on the third floor. Plus lots of fun little hidden “clues” and secret areas. ... Read more ➡
  • 2014
    • Apparently Popular Mechanics idea of what women wear to damp-proof their basement was inspired by Lara Croft. Seems legit. ➡
  • 2007
    • Wishlistr Flying full-bore into the Season of Greed, I'm playing around with Wishlistr, a clean and simple site for tracking all those little (and, me being me, not-so-little) 'I want' bits that pop up. ➡
  • 2006
    • Gaiman, Webley, and Toasty Tuckuses Nifty randomness of the day: seeing Neil Gaiman quote and promote Jason Webley (by way of someone posting the video to Eleven Saints). ➡
    • Snowy Days The local news is a hoot, from the perspective of an ex-Alaskan -- the first twenty minutes of each broadcast can be boiled down to, 'stay home, it's slippery and you don't know how to drive.' Then, maybe, if there isn't a new front moving in, they might fill us in on some of what's going on in the rest of the world. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2001
    • Home again, home again, jiggety jig Just got done talking with dad...we don't have the final details yet, but it looks like I'll be taking a cab straight from work to the airport on the 21st, be in Anchorage until Christmas day, and fly out of Anchorage to come back on the 25th. ➡

On This Day: Nov 28

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 21 posts previously published on November 28th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • Thoughts on The Hobbit Trilogy After re-watching The Hobbit trilogy (extended) for the first time in a good few years, I’m solidly of the opinion that, while good, there are some definite tonal issues throughout. ➡
  • 2020
    • The ball had progressed beautifully. As each reveler grew tired and departed, whether alone or with one or more partners for more private entertainments, they drew a mask from the bin by the door, placed it over their face, and returned to the safety of everyday life once more. ➡
    • 📚 forty-seven of 2020: Exiles by Howard Weinstein ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖 The best of the early TNG novels so far. The characters felt right, and there was a good mix of serious plot and humor throughout. An obvious final solution, but that’s forgivable. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 28 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 28 ➡
  • 2019
    • A surprise inheritance was strange enough, but that it included lakeside property had stunned her when she got the notice. Not as stunned, of course, as when she discovered it was actually a cemetery whose residents weren’t as quiet as she expected. Microblogvember: property ➡
  • 2017
    • Book forty-seven of 2017: The Dead Seekers, by Barb & J.C. Hendee. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • Wishlists For holiday considerations: my Amazon wish lists, or a few organizations that I think are worth donating to. ➡
    • Post-Thanksgiving Status A brief note on this year’s Thanksgiving break activities, and minor updates to this blog. ➡
    • The break is over, back to work we go! (333/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • This may not have been the best choice of display method for your holiday stuffies, Fred Meyer. #tw #triggerwarning #inappropriatehumor ➡
    • Getting started on putting Christmas up (after Thanksgiving, as is appropriate). ➡
  • 2014
  • 2007
    • Badass Bible Verses Cracked has a list of the top nine 'badass' bible verses. Just for fun, I'll list the verse citations here. Any guesses at what stories they're referring to (before looking at the linked article, of course)? ➡
  • 2006
    • No Snow Day for Us Grrrrr. It's not _just_ that I want my snow day -- and sure, I do -- but it's _dangerous_ out there. Demanding that students and teachers fight their way through this crud to get to school is stupid and irresponsible. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
  • 2001
    • Enterprise: Cold Front In original Trek, time travel was shown as a somewhat simple, if not trivial, concept. Now, however, we're being told that the Vulcans have 'studied time travel extensively' and determined that it's an impossibility. ➡
    • Privacy, shmivacy 'Magic Lantern,' a government developed 'trojan horse' style virus that appears as an e-mail attachment. Once on your machine, it can record keystrokes and transmit them back to the FBI for analasys. ➡
    • Aaaah! I wanna see it! I wanna see it now! Reviews of the first Lord of the Rings film, Fellowship of the Ring, are starting to hit the net...here's what I've found so far. ➡

On This Day: Nov 27

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on November 27th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 209 The joys of remote work: on the one hand, on the other hand, and on the gripping hand. ➡
  • 2021
    • Vinegar: YouTube5 was a Safari extension back when Flash was still a thing and hated by everyone. It replaced the YouTube player (written in Flash) with an HTML <video> tag. And now the YouTube player situation has gotten bad enough that we need another extension to fix it. That’s where Vinegar comes in. Vinegar also ... Read more ➡
    • Figured out how to create an iOS shortcut that grabs a webpage URL, title, and any selected text from Safari, formats it into a Markdown link and block quote, and then sends it to Ulysses as a new post to be published to my blog. Pretty happy with the result! ➡
    • With No Time To Die, or even wash his hands, James Bond’s travel hygiene fails: From his questionable sexual behavior to his unsafe eating habits to his risk-taking with regard to insect- and animal-borne diseases, it’s remarkable that the famous fictional secret agent has repeatedly lived another day. In a new paper, published in the ... Read more ➡
  • 2020
    • Once the initial breakthrough was made, time-travel was actually fairly simple…as long as you were going backwards. After all, that had all already happened. But going forwards was a much larger dilemma due to the difficulty in targeting any one of the infinite possible futures. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 27 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 27 ➡
  • 2019
    • Merely being rich wasn’t enough. Even being the richest person wasn’t enough. But finally, he had amassed all the wealth there was; all else was poverty. And as Bezos looked over the wastelands from atop the Amazon citadel, he still yearned for more. Microblogvember: rich ➡
    • Amazon’s Ring Considering Facial Recognition While the basic home security idea isn't bad, the implementation, especially when combined with the (existing or just discussed) partnerships with law enforcement, giving them unfettered access to the video captured by the cameras, is really, really disturbing. ➡
    • No Love for White Gloves, or: the Cotton Menace: “Rare books, unlike many museum objects, are still used today in the same way that they would have been when they were new centuries ago – they’re held and opened, and their pages are turned. It would make sense that these historical objects should be handled ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-two of 2016: Battlestations!, by Diane Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (332/366) ➡
  • 2007
    • Zoom Cosmic View, Cosmic Zoom, Powers of Ten, and the Simpsons. ➡
    • Schedule? What Schedule? Two more days without posting. It's official -- trying to enforce a daily posting routine just didn't work for me this year. ➡
  • 2006
    • Rainier and the Flood Looks like the scenery is going to be a little bit different next time Prairie and I are able to head down to Mt. Rainier for a weekend getaway. The heavy rains and flooding of the past weeks have hit Rainier National Park _hard_, including quite a few of the areas that we went through this summer. ➡
    • Best Bad Review of the Zune The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure...it almost becomes _important_ that you encourage people not to buy one. ➡
    • Snowy Evening A small selection of photos from an evening walk last night, after Seattle got an unusually heavy snowfall. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2003
  • 2002
  • 2001
    • Paying bills is such fun So that was about it...home by 10:30 or so, in bed about midnight. Not the most exciting stuff in the world, I suppose, but that's the way my life goes. ➡
  • 2000
    • Vacation time Vacation time! Off to Florida, Indiana, and Seattle -- back to Anchorage on Dec. 14th. ➡

On This Day: Nov 26

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging yesterday, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 27 posts previously published on November 26th

  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ First re-watch in a few years. Some sequences really could have been dropped (the mountain giants add nothing except a few minutes of running time), others are just tonally weird (the goblin city sticks out as being goofy in the midst of serious sequences). But that said, it’s still ... Read more ➡
  • 2020
    • 🖖 Discovery S03E07: After last week’s action, really liked having a week of talky-thinky Trek that expanded both the season arc and the overall world building of the new era. Vulcans! Romulans! TNG throwbacks! Plus a nice tribute to NuTrek’s Chekov, the late Anton Yelchin. ➡
    • While spell development was superficially similar to most any other sort of creative process, the fine-tuning was killer. There were just so many variables to know what to adjust — ingredients, gestures, words, tone of voice — that those final touches could be quite dangerous. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 26 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 26 ➡
  • 2019
    • Baby Yoda Has Conquered the World: “‘I had a day with one of the weirdest moments I’ve ever had directing,’ [Director Deborah Chow] told Vanity Fair. ‘I was directing Werner with the puppet, and Werner had just fallen in love with the baby. Werner, I think, had forgotten it wasn’t actually a live creature, and ... Read more ➡
    • He watched the floor in satisfaction from the DJ booth as the crowd moved to the sounds of the music. Those recordings of readings from ancient texts he’d layered into the mix had definitely helped. Now nobody could stop dancing until he decided it was time. Microblogvember: mix ➡
    • Bruce Wayne warns wealth tax on billionaires could result in fewer crimes foiled via jet-powered cars: “When asked whether a wealth tax could help curb costumed murders by investing in public schools, job retraining, and community mental health initiatives, Wayne responded, ‘Sure, but do any of those programs involve a 7000 pound car that can ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-one of 2016: Dreadnought!, by Diane Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Book fifty of 2016: Ishmael, by Barbara Hambly. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (330/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Mmmm…that’s a good looking Thanksgiving spread! ➡
    • A little classic gaming with friends on Thanksgiving. ➡
  • 2014
    • Tear Gas: Banned in War, Used on the Streets The use of tear gas by the US police (and in other countries) is something I find seriously troubling. How can we justify using a chemical agent banned from use in warfare on our own citizens? ➡
    • Debate links regarding Ferguson and Darren Wilson Just found this excellent Tumblr post laying out the most common arguments defending Darren Wilson or condemning the Ferguson protests, and linking to a wealth of stories and resources addressing those points. ➡
    • Mike Brown’s shooting and Jim Crow lynchings have too much in common About twice a week, or every three or four days, an African American has been killed by a white police officer in the seven years ending in 2012, according to studies of the latest data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That number is incomplete and likely an undercount, as only a fraction of local police jurisdictions even report such deaths – and those reported are the ones deemed somehow 'justifiable'. ➡
  • 2006
    • So Long, Space Needle The Space Needle will once again become this city's tallest building in April 2009, when NASA launches the tower into Earth orbit. The rotating restaurant will provide simulated Earth gravity, not to mention fresh salmon and Dungeness crab from Washington and Alaska waters. ➡
  • 2003
    • The trickiest zen on the menu I wanted to take a moment to point out Pops' domain, 2 Hour Lunch. I discovered his site at some point during the TypePad beta testing process, and he's become one of my favorite reads. ➡
    • Bad Santa I first heard about Bad Santa thanks to Pops about a week ago, and it immediately sounded like something that would be right up my alley. Roger Ebert's review has just solidified that. ➡
    • Digital elocution So what do you do if you're trying to put together campaign commercials for a President who can't seem to string together more two multi-syllabic words without stumbling? Simple! ➡
    • Capt. Yee charged with…being a shmuck Two counts of failing to obey a lawful general order, adultery, conduct unbecoming an officer, making a false official statement and failure to obey an order or regulation (the latter two charges stem from allegations that Yee viewed and stored pornography on a government computer). ➡
    • Troy Another film I'm really looking forward to seeing — Troy. ➡
    • Just what I always wanted! Amuse your conservative friends and annoy your liberal neighbors with the brand new Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. ➡
  • 2000
    • Colophon djwudi.com gets a Colophon, with details on the construction and maintenance of the site. All sorts of nifty geek goodies in there. ➡

Twenty Years of Blogging

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Twenty years ago today, I became a blogger.

Admittedly, the date could be argued a bit, as I’d had my own website since 1996, and even back then had been in the habit of making short, dated updates that were usually site-related, but sometimes just personal ramblings. And I didn’t come across the term ‘blog’ until a few months later in February of 2001.

But on November 25, 2000, I moved from hand-coding updates into a static HTML page to using a script called NewsPro to manage and automate posting updates. So that’s what I’ve been using as my “official” blogging start date.

In the past 20 years, my posting frequency has waxed and waned (waning more often than waxing, admittedly) but has never disappeared altogether. I’ve moved platforms from self-hosted (first NewsPro, then MovableType) to hosted (TypePad) back to self-hosted (WordPress). Sometimes self-hosted meant on a server in my apartment; these days I use DreamHost as my hosting provider, but I still use a manual installation of WordPress rather than using the WordPress.com hosted service. I don’t tinker as much as I used to, but it’s still nice to get into the nuts and bolts from time to time.

Most of the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve just been another one of the many random voices on the ‘net, never one of the Big Names. The closest I ever came to breaking out of that…well, you can look back if you want, but I’m just glad that it’s in my past. Maybe I’ll have more to say in another three years on that twentieth anniversary, maybe not. Generally, I’m fine with just tossing my occasional thoughts on Apple, Star Trek, politics, and whatever else pops into my mind into the electronic void to see if anyone picks up on it.

If you’ve been stopping by and checking out my ramblings from time to time over the years — thanks! If you’re a new visitor, thanks to you too, especially if you’ve made it this far through this post. You might want to check out this somewhat random collection of notable posts, or just see what was posted on this day in the past (which will work for whatever day you read this).

And, of course, there’s my alter-ego DJ Wüdi side project to be promoted: A weekly (except when it isn’t) Twitch broadcast where I play an eclectic mix of music (mostly focused on alternative dance genres like goth, industrial, EBM, and various flavors of electronica, but with a fair amount of other stuff tossed in as I feel like it). Tune in to Difficult Listening Hour on Saturdays at 1 p.m. Pacific time, or cue up my past archives (plus more mix sessions) on my MixCloud page.

Twenty years down — and hopefully, twenty (and more) yet to come!

On This Day: Nov 25

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging today, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 23 posts previously published on November 25th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 207 It's time for me to start practicing to prepare for DJing at Norwescon again in the spring! ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • 📚 48/2021: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1976 Hugo Best Novel ➡
  • 2020
    • Space, as we all know, is silent. Sound can’t travel through a vacuum, it’s simple science. But then the great bird of the galaxy appeared at the outer rim of the system, opened its vast beak, and uttered a call that used the very fabric of spacetime as a medium for its cry. ➡
    • Email a dumpster fire. Literally Email dumpsterfire@hey.com whatever you want to torch. Use plain text or an image attachment. PG-13 rules apply. Watch on the live feed as your message is created, conveyed, and then dropped into the rolling flames. Experience catharsis. ➡
    • Twenty Years of Blogging If you've been stopping by and checking out my ramblings from time to time over the years — thanks! ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 25 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 25 ➡
  • 2019
    • It’s one thing to know the regulation that everything has to be in secure storage before the jump to light speed. But the point is really driven home when you see the size of the hole that inertia and a loose pencil can punch through the hull. Microblogvember: secure ➡
    • That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It: “Professional trolls…are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.” ➡
  • 2016
    • Second day off, with two yet to go. Why aren’t four day weekends more common? (330/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Post-Ferguson Decision Links All originally posted to my Facebook account, but I need to post here more regularly (jeez, it's been over a _year_ now), and I feel strongly enough about the discussions I'm seeing in the aftermath of the Ferguson decision that this seemed a good way to get some movement here. ➡
  • 2010
  • 2009
    • Facebook ‘Dislike’ Button Suspicion I just got an invite to a Facebook group titled 'DISLIKE BUTTON is here - ADD it now!'. After looking this group over, I have _very_ strong suspicious about it, and my first impulse is to recommend that everyone ignore it. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2006
    • Black Friday Recap Ick. There were people lined up outside the store, waiting for us to open the gate at 6am. ➡
  • 2002
    • Now there’s an image for ya. You think you were surprised — I'm envisioning the world's most alarmed spider as you pull thread out of its ass as fast as it can produce it. Now there's an image for ya. ➡
    • Dreams are odd I had a dream last night that I was DJ'ing at a dance somewhere, with a lot of high-school age kids asking me for lots of bad rap. Unfortunately, all I had with me was bad techno, because I'd accidentally packed one of my music cases with boxes of cereal, instead of CD's. ➡
  • 2001
    • What a weekend Oh, and just to confirm any suspicions that may have arisen -- yes, it does appear that I'm no longer single. Candice and I talked about it Friday night, and after roughly three years of being (technically) single, I've re-entered the dating scene. ➡
  • 2000
    • Parallax1 Parallax1, then a 3-week vacation. ➡
    • NewsPro up and running NewsPro's first post. From here on out, all posts will be saved and archived for future reference. Uh-huh. Yup. ➡

On This Day: Nov 24

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging tomorrow, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 22 posts previously published on November 24th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 206 Wrapped a bunch of presents for a family for the annual giving tree program at work. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • Happy Anniversary, D.B. Cooper! From The Stranger: The 10 Weirdest Revelations from the FBI Files on D.B. Cooper for the 50th Anniversary of His Escape. Personally, I still subscribe to the Don Draper is D.B. Cooper theory, even if it was debunked by the Mad Men series creator. ➡
  • 2020
    • They’d finally managed to convince the supply chief to provision enough supplies to ensure they’d have a reasonable chance of making it across the wastelands. As long as the anti-grav units held out, at least, since replacement parts were more and more scarce every year. ➡
    • Star Trek Technobabble vs. Magic Too much of modern Trek seems to be resorting to prioritizing 'cool' over 'believable extrapolations' in the design aesthetic. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 24 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 24 ➡
  • 2019
    • “I’m sorry,” she said, blinking to hold back tears. “I’ll miss you, but…well, people judge us by the company we keep, and I can’t be seen with you anymore.” She backed slowly away, watching carefully for any tentacles trying to keep her from leaving. Microblogvember: company ➡
  • 2017
    • Cleaned up a bit for the big Thanksgiving dinner get together. ➡
  • 2016
    • Mmmm…Thanksgiving dinner! Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, rolls, cranberry sauce, and jello salad. Plus pumpkin pie for desert (in a bit, when we have room for it). Perfect! ➡
    • Book forty-nine of 2016: Uhura’s Song, by Janet Kagan. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (329/366) #startrek #tos ➡
    • A Thanksgiving Prayer Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams. ➡
  • 2015
    • Our first good snow of the season. Started overnight, still coming down quite nicely! ➡
  • 2014
    • Came home to find feminist inclusive smut in my mailbox! #smutpeddler @iron_spike ➡
    • In the low light at night, the seed pods from the trees look like giant alien slugs. Or maybe it’s the other way ’round? ;) ➡
  • 2007
    • Meme: The ’80’s Movie Scientist Test I'm Jordan Cochran, the adorable fast-talking GIRL scientist of all things. While she may not be up there with the other super-geniuses of the '80s, her awesome mechanical aptitude and geek-girl cuteness have made her the sweetheart of nerds for over 20 years. ➡
  • 2006
    • I sense a trend… Not at all a normal Seattle forecast, but this hasn't exactly been a normal Seattle November, either. Kinda fun to see what might happen as the week goes by! ➡
    • Black Friday Morn So now, here I am at five in the morning, trying to shake off a turkey coma so I can go deal with the craziest of the Black Friday shoppers. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2004
    • Four Years While I'd been keeping hand-updated websites since '95 or so, November 25th, 2000 marked my first foray into using a software engine to keep track of the random rambling I occasional put up on my website, starting me stumbling into the world of weblogging. ➡
    • Nomanisan Island I hadn't picked up on this before, but the name of island where Syndrome has his evil lair in The Incredibles is 'Nomanisan.' ➡
  • 2003
    • Three Years Today marks my three-year anniversary of weblogging. I've highlighted a few posts that I find notable or especially worth visiting for one reason or another. ➡
    • Fasten your seatbelts! If you live in the Seattle/Portland/Pacific Northwest -- or Japan -- you might want to think about moving. At least, think about it if you have plans to be in the area in about 200 years. ;) ➡

On This Day: Nov 23

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 28 posts previously published on November 23rd

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • I’ve been neglecting my blog for a while, and have just added a number of (backdated) posts, but there’s one particularly important item of note: I’m about to start a new job as Program Manager for Accessible Technology at Highline College. Looking forward to this new adventure! ➡
    • 📚 47/2021: Spartacus by Terry Mancour ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🖖🏻 ➡
  • 2020
    • The best part of being a bounty hunter was the chase, pursuing prey across planets and star systems, using every trick she could until she ran them to ground. The worst part was the time after the capture, when there was nothing to fill the days as she waited for a new contract. ➡
    • Of Goth Diversity Let’s bring back the 'creature' in Creature of Darkness. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 23 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 23 ➡
  • 2019
    • The aliens had studied us long enough to be able to use what we perceived as a woebegone appearance to their advantage, preying on our sympathies and our desire to help. It was far too late when we discovered how our better natures had doomed us all. Microblogvember: woebegone ➡
    • 📚 fifty-four of 2019: The Sundered, by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Captain Sulu and the crew of the Excelsior mix it up with Tholians and a mysterious new race with ties to Earth. A good, easy bit of fluff to spend a quiet day reading. 🖖 ➡
    • 📚 fifty-three of 2019: Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Not bad, and I enjoyed the sexual politics, but not my thing. This is definitely (mostly) in the “life in medieval Europe” style of fantasy, which I’m less enamored of than more fantastical fantasy. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-one of 2018: Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread, by Chuck Palahniuk. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
    • Book fifty of 2018: The Mask of Cthulhu, by August Derleth. ⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • I don’t have to go to work tomorrow! Or the day after! Or the day after that! Or the day after that! (328/366) ➡
    • We got a two-pack of “grow zombies” (the little toys you put in water so they get bigger) for Halloween, so one went in the water while one stayed dry. After about a month, here’s the end result! ➡
    • And…another Snapchat filter as penance. Good thing we’re approaching the end of the year, and the end of this project! (327/366) ➡
    • Being feminist is not a shield against criticism I’m far from perfect; I can, do, and will make mistakes; and when I do, I need to own up to them and try to avoid doing so in the future. ➡
  • 2007
    • EstroBlaster! Apparently, I'm a 50-something gun-toting impotent Republican. ➡
  • 2005
    • Lost s02e08: Collision Scribbled notes while watching tonight's episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
    • Buying a camera? Oh, by the way...on the off chance that any of my Seattle-area readers are considering or planning on buying a camera this holiday season, I'd love you forever if you came by the Kit's Cameras store in the Northgate Mall while I'm working. ➡
    • Top 20 Geek Novels The Guardian UK ran a survey voting for the top 20 geek novels written since 1932, and in 'net meme tradition, here's the list with those I've read in bold. 13 out of 20...65%. Not bad, but I could do better. Time to add to the ever-growing reading list! ➡
    • Bush targets Al-Jazeera for bombing President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a 'Top Secret' No 10 memo reveals. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • FBI monitoring antiwar protests The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum. ➡
    • CSS Hints and Tips Dave Shea at Mezzoblue is working on a CSS Crib Sheet/Best Practices/hints and tips post. Lots of good information and suggestions in those posts for writing good, clean CSS. ➡
    • Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Special Extended Edition) First off, and most simply, if you're a fan of the series, there's no question about it. This is a must-buy DVD (as is, incidentally, the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). Feel free to stop reading this and just go buy it. ➡
    • The biggest cause of failure is success What if Google set up an agreement with hosting sites in which, in order to offset the cost of bandwidth spikes, Google AdSense ads could be (semi-)automatically added to a site when they reached a certain bandwidth point? ➡
  • 2001
    • (Day after) Thanksgiving, Part 2 There are probably many other things and people that I should add to this list, but this will do for now. This Thanksgiving season, those are the things I value the most. It's a day late -- but Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. ➡
    • (Day after) Thanksgiving, Part 1 (I'd mentioned earlier that I had two posts planned for Thanksgiving. I didn't get around to putting them up Thanksgiving day, so they go up today, instead.) A Thanksgiving Prayer, by William S. Burroughs... ➡

On This Day: Nov 22

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 18 posts previously published on November 22nd

  • 2023
  • 2020
    • 📚 forty-six of 2020: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖 Nice to see an encounter with something so alien so to be literally incomprehensible. A bit heavy on references to TNG episodes to prove that the author watched the show; otherwise good. ➡
    • After weeks of trudging through the monotony of desolate wilderness, it was startlingly obvious when their journey was nearing its end. Not just a line on a map, the border was actually a glimmering line in the air, beyond which flowering plants and tall trees grew once more. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 22 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 22 ➡
  • 2019
    • Her favorite place on the ship was at the end of a little-traveled corridor one deck above Engineering. There was a notch in the corridor wall she just fit into, where she could close her eyes and feel the hum of the ship’s engines vibrating through her. Microblogvember: hum ➡
  • 2018
    • Thanksgiving 2018 First off, and most importantly: Happy Thanksgiving to you if you celebrate; if you don't, I hope you have a pleasant day doing whatever you do. ➡
    • Book forty-nine of 2018: IKS Gorkon: Honor Bound, by Keith R. A. DeCandido. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
  • 2011
    • Essentially Commentary on reactions to the UC Davis pepper-spray incident, in four parts. ➡
  • 2007
  • 2005
    • Feeds are tagged too It's a good thing I subscribe to my own RSS feeds -- the 'full content' feed and the 'full content with comments' feed have both been updated to include the new tag support. Sorry about the mass-refresh in your RSS readers if you get hit with it. ➡
    • Cookies like Novocaine The _only_ Martha Stewart you'll ever need to watch is the one where her guest star...is Cookie Monster. ➡
  • 2004
    • 23rd Psalm (2004 version) Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want. ➡
    • Versus It seems that we're living in a world where differences are all anybody sees anymore. Nobody's actually listening to what anyone else has to say -- we're all so sure that we're _right_ and everyone else is _wrong_, too busy banging our shoes on the table to really listen to anyone else. ➡
    • Genefilter Fun toy time: Genefilter. Choose a MeFi user and Genefilter will use that user's posts and comments to randomly generate a comment. Amusing results soon follow… ➡
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • NyQuil yay! NyQuil — the sneezing, sniffling, coughing, aching, 'How the hell did I wake up on the kitchen floor?' medicine! ➡